Family Inheritance

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"and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you"

1 Peter 1:4

Main Readings: John 17 & 1 Peter 1

Supporting Readings: Psalm 103 & Romans 8

If you’ve been at all affected this week by the greatness of the revelation that came our way last Sunday, from the greeting Peter wrote, and you were compelled to worship God for what it is that he has done for you, then you’re in good company.

Because, right after Peter wrote that introduction he was moved to worship too.

The very next words he wrote, after the introduction, were these: ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!’ (verse 3).

You don’t write that kind of greeting in your letter unless you believe it. And you don’t finish your greeting and simply move on, when you believe the kind of thing Peter just wrote.

Peter has to pause to praise, before he can go on writing.

All the identity-making work that went on in last week’s verses isworthy of praise.

And you’ll notice, the praise goes to the Father who started the whole thing – even though the Spirit and Son were integral in bringing about our new identities. Even though they are worthy of praise also.

The praise, though, goes to the Father here. And that’s because, the Father is the first cause.

The Son serves the Father and that’s why Peter calls the Father the ‘God’ of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Don’t allow that to create in your mind some kind of counterfeit category for Jesus whereby, in his Sonship, he’s less than God. He’s not!

But in so far as the operations of the Godhead function, there is an order to things.

And the Father is always the source. Therefore, the praise is directed, by Peter, to the Father here.

And notice the Son – Jesus Christ belongs to us! He’s ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’ according to Peter.

That’s because the Father sent him into the world for our sakes. If it weren’t for Jesus’ coming and his dying, the anger and the wrath of God would still rest on us.

But we belong to God. The Father loved us, the Spirit called us, and the Son sprinkled us – that is he died for us, making us clean.

This work of Jesus is by substitution – our punishment on his shoulder, his righteousness on our accounts. And it therefore connects us to him in a profound and mysterious way.

That’s why the bible can say, that when he died, we died with him. When he rose, we rose with him.

He died in the body and rose in the body. When we came to faith in Jesus, we died to our old selves and were raised to our new selves.

I really want us to get this union with Jesus now, at the beginning, so that we can get all the added benefit from the rest of the passage.

Peter says in chapter 2, verse 24, about Jesus, ‘he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness’.

So, his death and resurrection bodily, connects us to him. And so, we undergo a death and resurrection experience too – not bodily but spiritually.

Not just at the end of our lives and then when he returns, but right now - at the moment we believe!

So, that connection between us and Jesus – we might call it the ‘union’ between us – causes Peter to refer to Jesus as ‘ours’ here in verse 3.

And so, if you are a Christian, you should regard yourself as united to Jesus.

And you should be comfortable calling him ‘yours’ because that’s what he really is - yours!

If someone says to you ‘are you a Christian?’ One way to cut through the confusion of nominal, general, Christianity versus living faith is to say,

‘Yes, Jesus in mine and I am his’.

That leaves no doubt in their minds about who you are! You’re saying you belong to Jesus.

Now, as much as I’ve been connecting Peter’s praise with what went before, there’s no doubt that he also has in mind what he’s about to say as the basis for his praise too. Because what he’s about to say is no less wonderous!

The main point of what he’s about to say is: connected with your identity, there is naturally also, an inheritance.

God made your identity and he’s created an inheritance for you also. So, the news is getting even better as we move on from verses 1 & 2.

We just had a birthday in our house and we’ll be having another one shortly too. Birthdays remind us that we were born of course. But also, that we were born into a particular family.

In our house we set a budget for birthday presents. But I have to admit it’s Deb who makes sure that all the bases are covered. She’s the one who makes sure the presents are the right presents. She’s the one who makes sure the wrapping is the right wrapping. And so on.

And, well, this year it’s evident that the kids are growing up because the presents are getting smaller.

And what that means is, it looks like they got less than previous years, even though the value is the same. And, suffices to say, the fact that it looks that way has bothered Deb a little this year.

Why does it bother her? Because she wants them to know that we want to give to them abundantly.

God is a Father who wants to give to his children. And he is abundant!

So, he has designed an inheritance for us!

That’s what this passage is all about!

Peter is going to tell us how the inheritance comes about, and how it will come to us in the end.

Why does he do that? Why doesn’t he just tell us ‘we have an inheritance because we belong to God’ and move on?

Well, because, just like identity is meant to carry us through the rest of what Peter says in his letter – which is, itself, a testimony about the rest of our lives as Christians – then also he means for inheritance to carry us through too.

These two realities - identity and inheritance - are meant to carry us through the letter and through life – because this letter is about life.

Like I said on Tuesday evening, Peter wants us to bank, in our souls, these two immense God-given gifts.

And for us to get the immensity of them, Peter needs to do with inheritance what he did with identity.

He needs to show us what out-of-this-world kind of miracles have taken place to give us this gift.

If we are knocked sideways by what it took to give us these gifts, then we’ll regard them with something akin to the value that they really possess.

And that, in turn, will have lifelong impact on us, and benefits for us, as we walk through this life.

Inheritance, in our culture, means: that which you receive when a family member dies and leaves you something in their will, right?

That’s not how it was it Peter’s day and culture though.

Inheritance for Peter is something reserved for a child in the family, which, in the fulness of time, they grow up into and receive in adulthood.

So, the picture that Peter has in mind is a progression from family identity, to birth, to life, to maturity, to inheritance.

And so, it’s that progression that we need to see in Peter’s words here too.

He has in mind for the Christian: family identity in God, new birth (distinct from the one we had at the outset of our lives on earth), life and growth, and then inheritance.

And that’s exactly what we find him saying.

He starts in verse 3 by grounding the whole flow in God’s mercy.

Just like in verse 2, last week, we didn’t get any of these things started. He did!

All of this is underserved favour from God – foreknowledge last time, mercy this time – undeserved favour is what gets it started.

It’s not something deserving in us. Not something lovely in us. Just his good pleasure and his amazing love – fixed on us!

And then Peter says, in that mercy, God gave us new birth. A Christian is someone who has been born again.

What does that mean? Nicodemus asked the same question. He said, ‘how can I enter into my mother’s womb a second time’.

But, when he asked that, he’d missed Jesus’ meaning. Jesus meant, and Peter means the same thing here, that all people are born with a corrupt nature – rebellious against God.

But, that God gives Christians a new nature – inclined towards God.

And that’s such a radical shift God produces in a person, that he callsit something radical – he calls it a whole ‘new birth’!

We’re not talking a bit of character reformation like you get with a new year’s resolution. We’re talking a total overhaul of our affections, so that they are changed to be for God.

Peter, himself, tells us how that comes about – in verse 23 of this chapter. ‘For you have been born again’, he says, ‘not of perishable seed’ - he means not from natural human parents who die.

‘But of imperishable’ – he means of God the Father who lives forever. ‘Through the living and enduring word of God’. And he goes on to say in verse 25, ‘this is the word that was preached to you’.

Right, so, new birth happens when someone hears the gospel – that’s the good news about Jesus – and they believe it. Such that they put all their hope in Jesus and cry out to him to save them from their sins.

Because that’s what the gospel tells us to do. And what it promises will happen when we do it.

We can’t leave this divorced from what Peter said last week though.

Unless the Holy Spirit set you apart for God; called you effectively, you would not have believed the good news about Jesus. And so, you would not have been born again.

Do you see how nothing can happen without the effective sovereign work of God?

And do you see that the Word of God is powerful to save – Peter calls the word of God ‘living’ and ‘enduring’.

But do you also see that God uses human means to bring the word to the hearing of the people who he’s prepared in advance to receive it. They had it preached to them, Peter says!

They had it proclaimed to them; heralded to them; announced to them.

This is what we are called to do with the unbelievers around us. Herald the gospel. Let them know what Jesus has come to do for them!

And you don’t know who God has prepared in advance – you’re not meant to know. But you’re not meant to imagine that the one in front of you might not have been prepared either.

You’re meant to faithfully tell them the good news and let God do the sovereign work, which only he can do.

So, when someone hears the gospel and believes it, they are born again.

What does it mean though – born again? Is it just a declaration – like: ‘he’s been born again’; ‘she’s received the new birth’.

It’s more than that.

It’s a supernatural event – never to be repeated; never to be undone. It is by the Holy Spirit because Jesus said to Nicodemus ‘the Spirit gives birth to spirit’. So, it’s by the Spirit of God who does it.

And it is this: that God comes and lives in the soul of that person. God, by his Spirit enters that person and never departs them again.

That’s what being born again is.

Paul said it like this in Romans 8: ‘You however are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.

And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ’.

So new birth means a new kind of birth. A spiritual one, whereby God comes and lives in you.

Amazing works that God is doing here, at the beginning of 1 Peter!

And this new birth happens by faith in Jesus, in response to the message about Jesus, from the word of God, and shared by people like us.

This has to happen. If it doesn’t happen, then there’s no realChristianity. ‘If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ they do not belong to Christ’. So, this new birth really has to happen.

Now Peter goes on. Remember, he’s on his way to inheritance here.

We have to have a birth for there to be inheritance and so he’s shown us how our birth came about.

But now he says this birth is into something – into ‘living hope’ he calls it. See that in verse 3?

It’s true to say that there are times in life where you’re so desirous for something, and so expectant that this thing will happen, that you can almost taste it.

Ever been like that?

I get it sometimes with football. I want the result so badly that I can almost taste it.

And it’s remarkable because, even though the odds might be stacked against the result I want - I want it so badly that it’s like I can’t stopmyself hoping for it.

And you might just think that’s a bit tragic – and I think you’d be right. That is not where my hopes should rest!

I might call that kind of hope ‘a living hope’ because, even though you dowse it with the water of realism, it doesn’t seem to die.

That’s not what Peter means by ‘living hope’. He means something so much better than that!

‘Living hope’ does carry the sense of intensity like I’ve just been describing.

But the living nature of this hope is much more about the foundationof the hope itself. See if you agree.

If you look backward from this living hope (in verse 3), you’re going to encounter a new birth in which the living God came to live in your heart.

And if you look forward from it (in verse 3), you’re going to encounter the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Which is, itself, the very definition of life!

The grave could not contain the Son of God, Jesus Christ. ‘Up from the grave he arose’ – the hymn writer says. And so, he did. He’s alive not dead. Death could not hold Jesus, because abundant life resides in him.

And so now you see how absolutely vital it was, earlier on, to think about our union with Jesus.

Peter says, ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’.

Because he lives, we also will live!

Therefore, the hope we have been born into is a living hope. It’s a hope that outdoes the grave. It’s a hope that moves past even deathitself!

As Jesus lives, so we shall live again. Why? Because we’re united to him.

All other hopes are limited by death. But not this one! Thanks be to God – not this one!

The Spirit of God living in us, by which we have the new birth, meansthat since Jesus died for us, he was also raised for our resurrection.

And Peter says, that’s where our inheritance resides. It resides in the resurrection.

We were born again; we are living in the hope of the resurrection; we will be mature when we die. And therefore, when we die and are resurrected unto full maturity, we will enter into our inheritance.

So, what’s this inheritance? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but, for all this radical newness that God has worked in our lives – new identity, new birth, new hope – life still looks pretty messy.

Hope rises and falls. The old nature still steers me – often!

My identity looks more like my colleague’s than my Christ’s - regularly. It doesn’t look as consistently different as I’d expect it to. Why is that?

It’s because, what we’re experiencing of the newness is the reality of the future – which is full, and free and perfect - piercing into our space and time and creating a foretaste if you like of those perfections in us now.

And those realities are so full, and so vibrant, and so rich that even though they break in only fractionally in comparison to the fullness that they really are in heaven -

yet they make radical impacts on our lives here and now. They change us forever!

They influence our minds, our thinking, our attitudes, our behaviours. They transform us, so that we are distinct from the world around us.

That’s why the New Testament speaks of the Holy Spirit in us as deposit; and of us being transformed into ever-increasing glory; and how we groan inwardly waiting for our adoption.

The new creation has come, and yet it is waiting for us. It’s reached forward and broken into our time, but it awaits a time of fullconsummation.

So, what’s the inheritance?

Well, it’s all the fulness, then, of everything that has only just taken hold in the here and now.

It’s the fulness of the salvation of our souls (verse 9). It’s the fulness of being with Jesus (chapter 3, verse 22). It’s the fulness of a crown of glory (chapter 5, verse 4). It’s the fulness of sharing in the glory to be revealed (chapter 5, verse 1).

In short, it’s the prospect of spending eternal days enjoying the presence of Jesus and all the infinite riches he possesses with sinless and ever-increasing capacities for appreciation.

That’s our inheritance!

He will make much of us and we will enjoy him, for ever.

It's the fulness of what every soul on the planet is aching for but doesn’t know it wants.

And it is promised to us right here!

Earthly inheritances are prone to failure, aren’t they? They get squandered, spent, lost, tarnished and ultimately left behind. They slip through our fingers from the moment we receive them. Sometimes they are spent before we even get to have them.

Not so with this inheritance. Peter says, ours is an inheritance that can never ‘perish, spoil, or fade’.

Nothing can take it out of our hands.

When we get it, it won’t disappoint, disappear or be left behind. It’s as sure as the mountains on earth or the stars in the sky. It's fixed.

And it's guaranteed by the power of the resurrection of Jesus – we will one day rise from the dead to receive it!

But hope has a habit of rising and falling, right? Sometimes our confidence is Jesus is strong and sometimes it’s weak.

This inheritance doesn’t depend on our hope though. It’s not like if our hope flounders it disappears! No way!

It is an inheritance ‘kept’ for us Peter says. Our wavering hope cannot change the steadfastness of this inheritance because God who is in heaven keeps it for us in heaven.

And not only does God keep it, but he also keeps us, for it. Do you see that?

In verse 5, Peter says that God’s power ‘shields us, through faith, for the coming of the final salvation’.

What is it that he is shielding us from?

This is important because we might think that he would shield us from things like suffering, or trials, or temptations, or opposition, or even death.

But Peter is going to go on in his letter and talk about all those things coming directly into the lives of these believers – and by extension ours too. So, he can’t mean that.

What he means is that he won’t let any of those ‘fiery ordeals’, as he calls them, decisively wreck our faith so that we walk away from him, or stop believing in him, or finally apostatise.

In other words, he’ll bring us through those fires by faith - not allowing our faith to fail so that we are overcome by those fires.

No one will snatch us out of his hands. He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. He is the one who is able to keep us from stumbling.

Peter says in verse 7, ‘these trials have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed’.

You see, there’s going to be results!

And faith is the tool of this keeping, isn’t it? God’s power sustains our faith which, as it is exercised by us – and it must be exercised - protects us from the overcoming potential of trials in this life.

So, when a trial comes our way – you might be going through one now. The way all this works is: by the power of God at work in you through his Spirit – which is always true – you lift up your eyes from the trial and you see Jesus, resurrected, ascended, in glory, with your inheritance.

And you believe, in the midst of that trial, that whatever it is you’re going through cannot prevent you from receiving that inheritance which is waiting for you in heaven.

Even death, cannot prevent it!

And you, with eyes of faith on the risen Jesus, fix your thoughts on that inheritance to come in the future.

And that faith in future-grace kindles in your heart hope. And do you know what hope does? Paul said it! Hope does not put us to shame.

In other words, hope brings us through the trial - one step closer to the goal - which is our inheritance stored up for us in heaven. And hope will bring us all the way to it in the end.

It does not put us to shame by leaving us short of the inheritance that is ours.

The promise of inheritance really is meant to sustain us in this world that we’re passing through. It really is!

It’s why Peter introduces it at the beginning of his letter. And it’s why we need to carry it forward with us into the rest of the letter.

It's interesting that the word ‘salvation’ has almost become inseparable, in our Christian vocabulary, from the moment we believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins by his death for us on the cross.

And that’s a good connection of course. There’s good biblical warrant for using the word ‘salvation’ in that way.

If you haven’t been ‘saved’ yet, you need to be! And that comes through believing that Jesus went to the cross to take the penalty for your sins personally. You need to be ‘saved’ by believing that.

But here Peter uses the word ‘salvation’ in conjunction with the end of the age. When Jesus returns. Do you see that?

It’s a unique event that will be revealed, he says, ‘in the last time’. He’s talking about Jesus’ return from heaven to earth. Bringing with him all his people who have died. And raising them from the dead with resurrected bodies.

That’s the event Peter has in mind. And he calls it ‘salvation’.

That’s because the salvation we think of now is a reaching forward of the final salvation that Jesus in bringing in the future, into the here and now.

And so, it’s with resurrected bodies, when Jesus returns in blazing glory, that we will enter into our final and full inheritance.

And until then, God will keep us. He will keep us through all the trials of this life. He will keep the inheritance for us until we’re ready to receive it.

And until then, the promise of it is designed to give is steel in our spines for the trials and tribulations this life is going to throw at us, until the day we die and go to be with him forever.

So, let the truth about what God has made us; and what God has stored up for us, galvanise us in the week ahead.

Galvanise us to resolve to hope in our resurrection from the dead and the fulness of our salvation - and not succumb to the fiery trials that are here now, or which are coming shortly.

‘Praise God’, like Peter says, those trials cannot steal away our inheritance!