The Imperishable Inheritance

This transcript has been automatically generated

Thank you, Helen. Please keep that open in front of you. There is a printout of the text in your booklet on page 28, but you’ll need a Bible as well because we’re going to look elsewhere than just chapter 1 in this first session. Let me pray as we come to God’s word.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this word of God that is breathed out by your Holy Spirit. And we pray, Lord, this evening that you would work by that same Spirit through the word that he inspired, wielding it as his sword, that you would do us good. And in particular this evening, Lord, that you would cause us to rejoice in the Lord Jesus. For his sake. Amen.

Well, I wonder whether you would count yourself an optimist or a pessimist. Where do you put yourself on that spectrum? You may have heard the storey of a man who had 2 sons, and one of them was an incurable optimist, whereas the other one was the very embodiment of the phrase that every silver lining must have a cloud. And so different were these children that one Christmas he decided to do an experiment. And so for the optimist— sorry, for the pessimist son, he filled the room downstairs with toys, from top to bottom, packages of toys, all addressed on the wrapping to him.

And for the optimist son, he filled the garage with horse manure, and there’s a little note saying, your presents in the garage. Well, the boys woke up and came down on Christmas morning and quickly discovered their relative piles of presents, and the parents were bemused at first with weeping and wailing from the pessimist’s room. They walked in, they saw him there with unwrapping paper everywhere, toys all around. All these lovely toys, he said, weeping. I’ll never have time to play with all of them.

But then at that point they were interrupted by whoops of joy and laughter, and they went down to the garage. There they saw the optimist’s son covered in manure from head to toe, digging around in it. All this manure, he said, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere. Well, I don’t know whether you are an optimist or pessimist when it comes to Christmas, But what about when it comes to life? What about when it comes to the Christian life?

Because in some ways these Christians that Peter is writing to have every reason to be pessimists. They are suffering, we’re told. They have been grieved by various trials.

And Peter’s writing to them saying that although things are pretty tough to be a Christian, actually there is cause to be optimistic. There is cause for great joy. And we see that right at the very start of the letter, it’s just in the opening paragraph where he addresses them in this little phrase that captures both sides of their experience just in one go. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. That little phrase, elect exiles, that captures both sides of their experience.

The reason to be pessimists, And the reason actually to have great joy. They are called exiles. Now the exile, you’ll know, in biblical terms is a bad word. It’s the place where God sent them as punishment for their sin in the Old Testament. It referred to being scattered amongst enemy nations, the Assyrians first and then the Babylonians, where they were harshly treated, where their religious worship was not respected.

Where they were beaten, maybe where they would die. So exile is a bad word. He’s not using it here to mean that they’re being punished by God, but their experience is pretty similar to how it was in Assyria or Babylon, living amongst people who didn’t understand their ways, who didn’t respect their religious customs, who thought perhaps, as Amnon did, that they were losers.

Exiles of the dispersion, that word refers to them being scattered around. So, not in a kind of nice community like this where we have lots of friends every year, but just a couple of Christians over here and a household of Christians over there, in the midst of a vast society of ancient Turkey where people did not share their beliefs. They were being persecuted. They were having a tough time. They were exiles.

The exact nature of their persecution has been much debated. It partly depends on exactly when the the letter was dated. But it probably wasn’t the we’ll execute you because you’re a Christian persecution. Peter was alive too early for that, although it did come later. Things did get pretty bad, even in this very region.

We know Bithynia was the place that Pliny the Younger wrote his letter, his famous letter, to the Emperor Trajan from. You may know it, it’s quite a sobering document. This is what he says in his letter to the emperor. He’s basically asking advice on how to deal with these Christians that he’s come across. He says this: Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I’ve observed the following procedure.

I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians. Those who confessed, I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment. Those who persisted, I ordered executed. So he asks them, are you a Christian? They say yes.

He asks them a second, third time. If they continue to say yes, he executes them. If they say no, I’m not a Christian, he says, well, I had this test. I ordered them to make a sacrifice to your image, which it is said that no one who is truly a Christian can be made to do. So just a few years later, it really was a life-or-death persecution.

But I think the trouble with those kind of storeys, they are very inspiring and the Christians who stood up to them, but they’re almost otherworldly, aren’t they, for our lives? You know, we’re not yet at the point where someone is holding a gun to our head saying, will you recant or we’ll pull the trigger? We’re not in that kind of situation. That’s the trouble I find with sometimes with Christian biographies. Almost the experiences are too sensational that they’re just too far away from the ordinary struggles of my own life.

But actually the Christians that Peter was writing to, They probably weren’t under threat of execution. It was just a much more subtle, much more insidious kind of marginalisation.

He refers later in the letter to people insulting them for the name of Christ. Losers, whatever it was. He talks about them, people heaping abuse at them because they won’t go along with the crowd. The way that they have to stick out, the way that they can’t go, I guess, to the lap dancing. Chapter 4, he says that the time that has passed suffices for what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, lawless idolatry.

With respect to this, they are surprised you don’t join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you. It’s much more the persecution of just being talked about, muttered about. Discussed behind your back, the persecution of not being able to join in with the crowd and being thought odd because you weren’t. In other words, much more the kind of persecution that is normal for us. And Peter summarises it in the word exiles, strangers, people you don’t fit in.

But at the same time as being weirdos, they’re also elect, they’re also chosen. And just in this little description, his dear Christians, dear elect exiles, he’s saying about them, in the world’s eyes you’re weirdos, but in God’s eyes you are highly esteemed. The world thinks very little of you, but God your Father thinks very much of you. He’s chosen you. You are elect.

And then he piles on phrases in verse 2, saying that the whole of the Holy Trinity is involved in your work. And verse 2, the foreknowledge of God the Father, the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling by his blood. Dear Christians, they’re having a hard time in the world, but that God thinks very highly of. Dear Christians, it’s time to be optimists. Dear Christians, it’s time to rejoice.

Even in the midst of your trials. And he says in these first verses that we should rejoice because of the future. Because even though things might be hard now, for what he calls a little while, verse 6, in these various trials, for a little while things are hard, but then in the future things are going to be brilliant. Rejoice because of the future. Look at verse 3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Praise God because of your future. Here is a future won for you through Jesus’ resurrection. It is a future that exists even beyond these persecutions, even beyond these struggles. In fact, even beyond your death. Because Jesus died, but it wasn’t the end for him.

He was raised from the dead to a glorious new body as the beginning of a glorious new creation. And if you’re a Christian, then through Jesus’ resurrection, you have the hope of the same thing. You have a hope of resurrection life. That’s why he calls it a living hope, a hope of life, a hope of resurrection life, a hope of glorious life. That is your future.

Now, the trouble is with this kind of strategy of encouraging someone about the present by saying that the future will be better, the trouble is that it just seems a bit risky, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s all very well to live for that future day when everything’s going to be great, but what if that future day when everything’s supposed to be great doesn’t materialise? I mean, that was the mistake of the rich fool, wasn’t it? He was working all his days and storing up all his wealth in barns, and he got to his retirement saying the future is going to be great, and that same night he died. And Jesus says, what an idiot.

So, what’s the guarantee that if I live my life storing stuff up for the future, and that’s the source of my optimism, what’s the guarantee it’s not going to let me down? Well, Peter says, you’ve got to rejoice because your inheritance, it’s safe. In fact, the word he uses that he’s going to keep using through these chapters, that your inheritance is imperishable. Nothing is going to go wrong with your inheritance. It doesn’t matter if there’s a long time in coming.

It doesn’t matter if the struggle lasts a long time. Nothing can happen to your hope of life. It’s safe. It won’t perish. In fact, he piles up the phrases here in verse 4.

It is imperishable, It won’t be defiled, it won’t fade. And of course that is like almost nothing else in our experience. Almost everything that we know either perishes, becomes defiled, or fades. And even just as I was preparing for these talks, I had this experience myself. So you’re probably thinking this looks like quite a nice jumper, and indeed it is.

This is my merino wool jumper. I very much like this jumper. One of my favourites, but if I kind of stretch it a bit, you can see that the moths have got to this jumper. It is perishing. I bought the other day— I got down to kind of 2 wine glasses.

I had about 6 originally, and then very stressful washing-up experiences, smash, smash, smash, smash. So I was at my mum’s the other day, and we went to Marks Spencer’s, and they had wine glasses for £1 each. I thought, brilliant, I’ll buy a set of 10. And that’s one of them. That was just this week.

I decided to take a picture rather than bringing the shards of glass with me. Smashed. In fact, I’m into photography. I was going to do a whole series of photographs of perishing things, and so I’d left some food of various ages on my windowsill, and it was beginning to perish nicely, but then just before I got to take the pictures for you, a well-meaning friend helped me clean the kitchen and swept them all into the bin. But almost everything that we know in our experience, perishes.

Now, you know, that fruit didn’t cost much. This jumper did cost quite a lot, but it’s okay. But actually, even the things that are most precious to us don’t last very long. Even our health will fade. Maybe even the people that we love most will die before we do.

Everything we know in our experience perishes.

But this won’t perish. This inheritance, this life that we’re waiting for in the future is imperishable. It won’t defile, it won’t fade, and the reason for that is at the end of verse 4, it is kept in heaven for you. It is reserved, it’s stored somewhere really safe, ready for the day that you need it. Of course, that’s what people do, isn’t it?

When they have something that’s so precious that they don’t want to perish, they store it somewhere safe. So if you own a really valuable painting, you don’t put it up on your wall, you put it in a bank vault, which is a shame because you never get to see it, but you hope the bank will look after it. If you really like your jumper, then you stick it in a wardrobe with a mothball in it, which is what I’m about to do with my other jumper. But you don’t get to wear it, but it’s safe from the moths. But this is safe because it’s being stored in heaven.

That doesn’t mean it’s not real, you know, in heaven sounds far away and make-believe, isn’t it? Because Jesus is in heaven. Having resurrected from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and that is the place from which he will come back in his resurrection body, which has been witnessed by the apostles. We know it’s real. He’ll come back, and with him, he will bring our inheritance, our life, with him forever in the new creation.

Rejoice, because your inheritance is safe. You may know the Charles Dickens book Bleak House. It’s my favourite Charles Dickens book, not because I’ve read it, because it is really quite monstrously long, but because I watched the BBC adaptation, which I highly recommend. It’s absolutely brilliant. It lasts much, much longer than you would imagine possible.

It’s about kind of 12 hours or something like that. It’s lots and lots of DVDs, and I started watching it in a Christmas holiday without realising how long it was going to be, became utterly gripped, and And then before we left, and it was my mum’s DVD, so me and my friend were up till kind of late into the night for the last 3 days of the holiday just trying to get episodes in. It’s really, really gripping, but it’s a storey about a law case, kind of Charles Dickens is making fun of the legal system of his day. There is a contested will, John Dice and John Dice, and various characters in the storey possible beneficiaries of this will. And the legal case goes on for ages and ages and ages, and then by the end, finally, they’ve established that these 2 key characters are the sole heirs.

But then when they look at the inheritance, it turns out that it’s all been swallowed up in legal fees, and that’s his laugh. So that’s one risk, isn’t it? What if something happens to my inheritance? And it’s not going to, because our inheritance is safe. But actually another character, Lady Deadlock— they all have great names, don’t they, in Dickens— Lady Deadlock is also a beneficiary under the will, but she doesn’t get any of it because tragically she dies.

That’s the thing about inheritances, isn’t it? You lose out on them either if they’re invested badly in Icelandic stocks or something, or if something happens to you before you inherit. It’s the same with this one. It’s all very well for our inheritance to be safe in heaven, But what if something happens to us before that? In particular, what if I lose my faith in the Lord Jesus, which is the very thing that means that I have a share in his resurrection life at all?

Have you ever worried about that? What if something happens to my Christian life? It doesn’t actually matter if I die as a Christian. I’m safe if I die. But if I fall away, if I stop trusting, then I’ve lost everything.

Because it’s my faith in Jesus that gives me a share in my inheritance. So, and you can well imagine that they’re worried about that as their persecution hots up, as they become more and more marginalised, they think, what about if I give up? What if I can’t stand it anymore? And Peter wants to reassure them. He says, not only is your inheritance safe, imperishable, but your faith is also safe.

Your faith is imperishable too. Look at verse 5. It’s kept in heaven for you who, by God’s power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you’ve been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it’s tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. He says, don’t worry about your faith in these trials because, firstly, God is shielding you by his power.

There is very great power to keep you Christian through the struggles you face. If you will keep close to the Lord, you will turn to him, there is great power to keep you. You are being shielded. And actually, for the true Christian, the trials have the effect not of destroying their faith, but they have the same effect that fire has on gold. So if you get, you know, impure gold, something like 18-karat or something, and you, you heat it really, really hot in a fire, all the impurities float to the surface, you cut them off, you’ve got 24-karat gold.

A bit less gold, but you’ve got more pure gold. And fire doesn’t destroy gold, it refines it. And so Peter says, you don’t need to worry, if you’re a real Christian, about the trials that come, because with God’s power working in you, the effect will be to make your faith more pure, so that on the day of your inheritance, on the day that Jesus Christ is revealed, there will be praise and glory and honour. And the thing I love about this, I don’t know if you noticed it, but slightly oddly, He says, well, gold gets purer when it’s refined, but he puts gold in the perishable category. Now we normally think of gold as one of the most imperishable things you can get.

I can’t do it. If you imagine if you had a spectrum and I got you to line things up in order of how quickly they would perish. So I had a banana. I was going to do this with my photos. You know, I had various things, they perished at various speeds.

Have a banana, that perishes pretty quickly, a couple of weeks I give it, that’s about all. And then you have a merino wool jumper, But that takes a bit longer unless you live in a house infested by moths, as I do. Various things on a kind of spectrum. How long will your car last? Which depends who made it, etc.

But what about your gold ring? Well, that’ll be around a lot longer than you will. It’s the kind of thing you could pass on to your grandson and his great-grandson. But actually, of all the things in the world, even gold for Peter goes in the category of things that perish. Gold, which perishes, contrasted with your faith, which is imperishable.

I think the reason for that is that for Peter, everything about this world is in the perishable category. Bananas, glasses, jumpers, everything that we value, gold, But in this heavenly category, in the category begun by Jesus’ resurrection, are things that will still be around long after this world has been destroyed and renewed. So far in that category, you’ll be listening out for other things as Peter goes on, but so far in that category, our inheritance, imperishable. Our faith in Jesus, imperishable. And so, he says, they are safe.

So rejoice because of the future. Be an optimist, even when, as Anand shared with us, we get surprised by that reality, that people hate us sometimes for being Christians. In fact, Peter says, over the couple of pages in chapter 4, you won’t get to it this week, beloved, don’t be surprised at the painful trial that’s coming upon you, as if something strange were happening to you. It’s normal as a Christian to suffer. It shouldn’t be surprising.

But in the midst of your trials, rejoice, because you’ve got a great future and it’s safe, and because you trust in Jesus and your faith is safe. The trials will only refine it. But then in this last section, he goes to say that it isn’t only the future that should make Christians rejoice. Because actually, those blessings of the future are in some way anticipated even in the present. Rejoice because of the present.

You already have the privilege of knowing Jesus. Look at verse 8.

He talks about the revelation of Jesus Christ in the future, verse 7, but then verse 8, though you have not seen him yet, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining, present tense, the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. See, in some ways salvation is a future day thing, the day when judgement comes, when God’s wrath is revealed, when people are separated one from another like the sheep from the goats. When God divides all of humanity into those who are destined for his new creation and those who will be excluded from it in hell, on that day, that will be a day of salvation, a day when Christians will experience rescue from judgement because of their Saviour, the Lord Jesus. But in another sense, salvation for Peter is something that is already starting.

We are already obtaining it. Because part of salvation, in fact the heart of salvation, is to know God. That is what is going to make the inheritance glorious. We will see him face to face, we’ll be with him, we’ll have his life. But that knowledge of God, that knowledge of Jesus, starts now.

Though you do not see him now, that will be a difference, we’ll see Jesus with our eyes face to face. We don’t see him now, but already we love him. Already we believe in him. Already we rejoice. Why is that?

Well, because we are those who know the gospel. We know the good news of his life and death and resurrection. A message which many people in the past longed to know and glimpsed only far off. But now we know, we have heard. Verses 10 to 12.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them they were not serving themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. I don’t know if you’re a fan of those Back to the Future films. I was. As a child, I always used to be fascinated with inventions.

I used to try and make, build various things, and the idea of, you know, having a flux capacitor with which you could do time travel was certainly something that my stepbrother and I were up for trying in our garage laboratory. I used to love those films, and I used to love dreaming about time travel. I want you to imagine for a moment that time travel were possible. I’m not suggesting it is, but imagine it were and you were in a time machine and you could set the dial anywhere you wanted in history. Where would you choose?

Where would you choose to live in all the times you could have lived? Well, maybe staying here this week you might have chosen 1066, which would slightly spice up our visit to battle tomorrow, I guess. Or maybe you just picked some great times in the Bible. Wouldn’t it be great to have been there? At the parting of the Red Sea.

That would have been one of my favourite things to participate in. I was just born at the wrong time, but imagine being one of the people who was born at the right time to walk through the middle of the water as God parted them. That would have been amazing. I’d love to have been there then. Or wouldn’t it have been amazing to have been there at the time when Christianity was the supreme religion, the supreme kind of culture, the the widely acknowledged overarching kingdom of the world, back in the time of King Solomon, when everyone would come, rather than marginalising Christians or resenting Christians, people would come in wonder to see the kingdom of God and Christians.

That would have been a great time to live. But Peter says, no, no, I wouldn’t go for that. I’d go for the time you’re living in.

Really? Because Peter, the time we’re living in is pretty tough. We don’t see massive miracles like the parting of the Red Sea. We don’t even see Jesus. We were born even too late for him.

We didn’t see his resurrection. We’ve heard about it. Now’s the time when we’re marginalised, when some of our bosses give us a hard time, when we’re unfairly treated. There’s no great glory. There’s no great acknowledgement of our God.

There’s just struggle. Peter says, do you know that you are living in the time in history that was the envy of all of God’s people? Moses, Isaiah, King Solomon, they’d have loved to live the time you live in. Why? Well, because you now know the good news.

They glimpsed it from afar, this inkling of a Messiah who would die for our sins and rise again. But you know it. The good news has been preached to you. And because of that message, you know the Lord Jesus. He loves you and you love him.

You don’t see him, but you love him. You don’t see him now, but you believe in him. And you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. Christian, be an optimist. Chin up and rejoice because of your future.

It’s not a wishful thinking, vague hope. It’s a certain hope. Jesus has already risen from the dead and your inheritance is safe. God is keeping it safe for you in heaven. And your faith is safe.

The trials will only refine you and result in glory at the end. And in fact, your salvation has already begun, because the Lord Jesus that you will spend eternity with is one that you already have heard about in the gospel, and believe in, and love. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we’re sorry when trials make us gloomy and pessimistic, and even fearful, Father, of how things will turn out in the end. We praise you, Father, for giving us a great inheritance, for keeping it safe, for keeping us safe. And even now, Lord, that we live in the age where we know the gospel, the envy of Christians of all time. Father, help us to rejoice in you. Help us to rejoice amongst each other this week, to be full of joy that is inexpressible and full of glory.

As we enjoy our salvation now, and as we await for that great day when our inheritance will be revealed, when the Lord Jesus will be revealed. We praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen.