Pastor Skip Heitzig guides us through First and Second Peter in the series Rock Solid.

Would you please turn in your Bibles this morning to First Peter, chapter 1? It's my delight now to go through the epistle of First and Second Peter with you. We covered one verse the first week, one verse the second week, and we're going to speed up our pace this morning and cover three verses in First Peter, chapter 1.

Father, before we begin, we always feel the need that we should check in with you since you are the Author, ultimately, of the Scriptures. You inspired Peter to write what he wrote. He was "carried along," his own words, "by the Holy Spirit."

This letter was written to real people who lived under real persecution in real cities scattered throughout the Roman Empire, but they transcend time and location, and they are words that are meaningful to us. There are truths that have the potential to unlock something in our lives. I pray, Father, merely that we would allow you that opportunity, in Jesus' name, amen.

One of the most exciting things to be a part of is a birth. Now, I say that as a man, I know it's sort of not fair because we have all the joy and not the labor. But even Jesus spoke about labor, and he said a woman has pain and anguish when she is about to deliver a child. Then after the child is born she doesn't even remember the anguish because of the joy that eclipses that.

The best part of birth is the birth of a grandchild. It's great being a grandpa. I get all the joy and not the responsibility. Responsibility of grandparents, as my friend says, is to "fill them full of sugar and hand them back to their parents." I can do that. [laughter]

But second to a birth are the first steps of a child. Those first steps are pretty significant, because now that little, independent will is mobile. And those first steps will lead to other steps: a walk to school, a walk to a friend's house, a walk down the aisle for a wedding. The bottom-line truth is that birth leads to a walk.

That's true physically, it's also true spiritually, and it's the point that Peter has in mind when he writes this. We are born spiritually, born again, and we take certain steps. There are stepping-stones we walk on: hope, inheritance, and power. Let's look at First Peter, chapter 1, today in verse 3.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

You notice the wording in verse 3, "begotten again" or "born again," as some more modern translations will render it? "We have been born again." Those are words that Jesus spoke to a Pharisee named Nicodemus in John, chapter 3.

"Nicodemus, unless a man is born again, he will never enter the kingdom of heaven." The term "born again" has become a cliché, hasn't it? Have you ever had a conversation with somebody who says, "Oh, you're one of those born-again Christians," as if there's any other kind of Christian. Or they'll say, "Well, you know, I'm a Christian, but I'm not one of those born-again types."

I remember when I first came to Jesus Christ, I had not heard the term "born again" ever. I came to faith by watching a Billy Graham Crusade, I've told you on many occasions. But I don't remember him ever using those terms. He may have, but they just don't ring a bell. But I remember how I felt when I gave my life to Christ and I was trying to describe to friends and family what it was like.

I was searching for some description of what had gone on inside of me. And I couldn't think of one, until the day my buddy Dino Webster said, "Hey, Heitzig, have you been born again?" And I said, "Now, stop right there. Where did you get that?" He said, "Get what, the term born again? Jesus said that in John, chapter 3." And I had never read John, chapter 3, or First Peter, chapter 1.

I said, "Jesus said that?" I said, "That's the best description of what happened to me that I've ever found. That's exactly what happened to me; I've been born again. It's like a burden has been lifted and I have a whole new lease on life." The joy of discovering that apt description for an experience that I had undergone.

So, I then took that term and went back to my parents to try to describe to them my salvation experience. "Mom, Dad, I've been born again." It didn't really go over too well with them. In their minds all they could think is, "Oh, great, you've become a protestant." [laughter]

What does it means to be born again? Does it mean to have a religious bent or a spiritual side of your personality? A better translation would be: to be born from above; to be born a second time, but having a spiritual birth; a transformation that occurs on the inside and works its way out. And so Peter uses that term here, begotten again, transformed from the inside out.

Why a new birth? Why is it called that? Because a new birth is the entrance to new life. And when a person has new life, saved, born again---when a person has new life there are certain steps that person will take. And what Peter would say here is that the new birth is a step towards hope, the new birth is a step toward inheritance, and the new birth is a step toward power. That occupies verse 3, 4, and 5; let's look at that one verse at a time.

Verse 3 and the first step, hope. "Blessed be the God and Father," he writes, "of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Now this is called a benediction or a doxology, where the author says, "Praise God," or "Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus."

Peter, after giving a couple of verses of introduction, is simply saying, "I praise God for his plan in saving people." And his plan includes a changed life on earth, an inheritance in heaven, and security until we get there. That's essentially what he's saying. And all of that is summed up by the phrase, "living hope." That's a living hope.

There's one thing that Christians have in abundance, is hope. We have hope, and unbelievers, they don't. They are without hope. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 12, "In those days you were living apart from Jesus Christ. You lived in this world without God and without hope." And I gotta tell you something: there's one thing the world desperately needs, and that is hope, and they ought to be able to see hope in us.

And I'll tell you where you really see the difference---a funeral. There's a lot of places that you can sort of put masks on and go through and everything's cool, and you're as cool as the next person, but at a funeral that does not happen. And when it's a funeral of a believer, somebody who trusted in Christ, and that funeral is filled with those who knew that that person trusted in Christ, there's sorrow, but there's also hope.

And so even Paul says, "When we sorrow, we don't sorrow like those who have no hope." It's sorrowful, but it's hopeful. But, on the other hand, the funeral of an unbeliever, that person did not know Christ, and those people know that he didn't know Christ, or they don't know Christ, there is an abject sense of hopelessness that fills that room.

One research group from New York made a statement in an article I read: "Most Americans are unhappy with their lives." Can you imagine, Americans? All of the creature comforts that we have, and yet to make the statement that most Americans are unhappy with their lives. And the article went on to describe: "Especially their job, their work. They don't have the sense of purpose in what they do."

I think it was Henry David Thoreau who once wrote, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." That might even describe some of you. It starts when we're young, and you start asking questions like: "So what is the purpose of life? Where is this all going?"

Listen to a letter from a seventeen-year-old girl to a magazine. Here's just a snippet of it: "I'm seventeen years old and I'm pessimistic about my future. The whole world is so messed up; just look at the news. Our whole generation needs help. We have nothing to grasp, no one to believe in, no one to trust in but ourselves." Now that girl is desperately looking for hope; she can't find it. She does not know why she's living on this earth. Without Christ---without hope.

I want you to see this through the lens of Peter for a moment. Peter was a fisherman. He had a pretty routine life in Capernaum. He'd get up early in the morning, go fishing on the lake. Come back midday, hang out, go back in the afternoon. The evening when it was dusk, go fishing, come back home. Have a meal probably with his family. Go to bed. Get up the next day, go fishing.

I know, some of you guys are thinking, "Come on, that's, like, heaven!" Not when it's your job it's not. Anything can be monotonous and can become routine. And life is filled with that kind of monotony, is it not? Just routine. If you're a business person, you get up early, go to work, come home tired, have a meal with your family, go to bed, get up, go to work---and that just happens. You have two days off a week, maybe; two weeks off a year for vacation, maybe. And that's just a whole life.

Or if you're a housewife and you put the dirty clothes in the laundry and wash it and fold it and cook and change diapers and do it every single day. And, perhaps, Peter living as a fisherman on the shores of Galilee fishing every day, having his little life day in and day out, was thinking, "Is this all there is to life?" It was sort of boring. It was sort of monotonous. It was sort of hopeless . . . until one day when a man named Jesus walked into his life.

And he said, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men." And something was birthed inside of Peter called hope. Now he had a cause. Now he had a purpose greater than himself that elevated his life, elevated his thinking. Life wasn't monotonous anymore; it was exciting. It was filled with hope. By the way, it's not just the people who work day in and day out that feel that monotony. Did you know that the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world also feel that sense of boredom?

Solomon is the best example I know; he wrote a whole book on it. He opens up the book, this is how he starts it: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." It means futility. It means emptiness. He writes, "What profit has a man from all of his labor which he toils under the sun?"

Did you know that America has the greatest number of artificial amusements of any country on earth? And, yet, our per capita boredom rate is the highest in the world. We are a bored culture. How many times, parents, have you heard teenagers go, "I'm bored. It's boring here." So they think if they move there, it won't be boring. I grew up around Los Angeles, they said it there; it's life.

But Jesus walked into Peter's life one day and hope was born. It was awesome. But then something happened in Peter's life that caused Peter's hope to die. What you think that would be? When Jesus died. When Jesus died, hope died, in Peter's mind. Because Jesus made a whole bunch of promises, now he's dead.

Remember the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? They were talking---they didn't know it---to Jesus who was alive. They didn't know it, and they're talking to one another. And this stranger [Jesus] says, "What are you guys talking about?" "Oh, we're talking about this guy named Jesus." And this is what they said, "We had hoped that he would be the one." What are they saying? "Our hope is dead. Whatever hope we had died when he died. When he died, the cord of our hope was cut."

So Peter had hope, his hope died. But then something happened to revive Peter's hope and keep it alive forever. What was that? The resurrection. That's what he says in verse 3. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through"---what?---"the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

Boy, that would do it, right? When the guy you hoped in died and he got back up, your hope would go ballistic. Hope would make its debut, because that means that all those promises he ever made were true. And, boy, did he make a lot of promises. Here's a few of them: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live." That's a big promise.

Here's another one: "I'm the way, the truth, and the life." Big promise. Another one: "He who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life." Another promise: "Because I live, you also will live." Huge promises! But when the guy who makes those promises dies, what do you say? You go, "Whatever." Right? But when he gets back up again, when he resurrects from the dead, when he's alive again, it means every single promise he every made about eternal life now makes sense.

Now that makes sense, and that's what I think Peter meant when he says, "We have been born again, and the step that we take is a step of hope, and it's living hope because Jesus is a living Savior." And somebody will then say, "Well, how do we know he actually rose from the dead? That's just what his disciples say. They wanted to keep the story alive." Every year at Easter time on National Geographic Channel they have some little lame documentary that says something like that. And there have been books written about the research and the proofs of the resurrection.

Let me just give you three quick lines of evidence. First of all, Jesus predicted his own death and his own resurrection before it ever happened. He told his disciples over and over again before it ever happened, "I'm going to Jerusalem; they're going to kill me. Three days after that I'm going to get back up." They didn't get it. They went, "Oh, that's very nice," [laughter] until it actually happened, and then they went, "Wow! He literally meant that."

Line of evidence number two: eyewitness accounts, individuals as well as groups. People saw him one-on-one. His disciples all saw him at one time. And the Bible records a group of---get this---five hundred people saw him alive at one time. And so if you ever say, "Well, it was just a hallucination." Did you know that hallucinations don't happen to groups? The same thing that they saw.

Josephus the Jewish historian even writes that his own followers saw him alive after his death because of a resurrection. A British lawyer by the name of Sir Edward Clark said, and I quote, "As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study on the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. For me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Courts I have secured a verdict on evidence not nearly as compelling as that for the resurrection."

Frank Morison was another atheist who decided to write a book showing that Jesus was a farce, and then he studied the resurrection, and he got converted. And he did write a book, but the first chapter of the book he wrote was called, "The Book That Refused to Be Written." It was about his conversion and the evidence for the resurrection.

An atheist Lee Strobel who has spoken from this pulpit, now a strong believer, at one time was a legal reporter for the Chicago Tribune said, and I quote, "The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the best-attested to event of the ancient world."

The third line of evidence is alluded to here in verse 3---the changed lives of the followers of Christ. Okay, before Jesus died on the cross, what was Peter doing? Denying Jesus, denying him right before that whole crucifixion. He was, "I don't know who he is." He was a coward. You open up to the book of Acts and Peter is, like, suddenly courageous. He's bold. He's walking around Jerusalem preaching about Jesus in front of lots more people, and at the point of his own persecution and possible death.

What is it that could turn a coward like Peter into a courageous preacher? The resurrection. That's called a living hope. So, the new birth is a step toward hope, and our hope is a living hope. But keep reading, verse 4, our hope is not just a living hope, it's a lasting hope. The second step is that the new birth is a step toward inheritance.

Verse 4, "To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you." Now we know what an inheritance is; an inheritance is property or money or title that you own upon the death of the previous holder who has made you an heir. And once that person dies it's passed onto you, if you were named an heir. Usually this is done by parents for children.

We are children of God. Jesus came from heaven to earth and died bequeathing heaven to you. It's your inheritance. Then he rose from the dead and he became a joint heir with us. Listen to the language of Paul, Romans chapter 8 verse 17, "Now if we are children, then we are heirs---heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. For I consider that the present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

So we're born. Step number one, hope, living hope. Step number two, lasting hope, what he calls here an eternal inheritance. Let me just say that only a hope that is a lasting hope is really hope. I mean, if our hope is only, like, for right now, but not for later on, it's pretty hopeless.

I remember when I first came to Christ, I heard a lot of these kinds of things: "Oh, I'm so happy for you." "What do you mean you're happy for me?" "Well, whatever floats your boat, and whatever gets you through the life that you live. Whatever gets you through today. If that works for you, that's really good."

No, no, no, no. It's not just about hope now. I mean, it really begins after I die in eternity. I have something that's an inheritance that's incorruptible, undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for me. That's what I have to look forward to. That's real hope. Paul wrote this to Corinth, First Corinthians 15, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable."

Contrary to a popular book that's been out for the last five years, Your Best Life Is Not Now. It's a title of a very popular Christian book, Your Best Life Now. Really? Your best life is now? Okay, here's Paul writing to persecuted Christians who lost their jobs, got kicked out of their families, and kept hiding, being scattered in different parts of the Roman Empire because they were Christians. He's going to say, "Your best life is now"? No, he's going to say, "Your best life isn't now, unless you're an unbeliever. If you're a believer, this inheritance, this earth, which is defiled and fading away and corruptible---this is nothing. You've got hope of an inheritance, and you're best life is then, not now."

In Second Peter, chapter 3, which we'll get to probably in twenty years at our rate, [laughter] Peter says, "Therefore, therefore, since all of these things," these earthly things, "will be dissolved"---h'm, think about that for a moment. That new car you got, enjoy it because one day it's going to be dissolved. That cool, new home that you're redecorating for whatever you're decorating it for, enjoy it, but it's going to go. It's going to burn. It's going to be dissolved.

"Now, therefore, since all these things are going to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?" Have you ever answered that question? Since everything here is going to be dissolved, what kind of people should we be? Well, certainly not materialistic people, because everything materialistic is going to dissolve.

Hopefully, spiritually-minded people who think beyond this life to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that doesn't fade away, reserved in heaven for me. Don't you see that heaven was more than a destination for Peter? It was a motivation. See, when I die, I don't know die. I know it looks like I'm dead. "He's mostly dead." [laughter] And when I die, I graduate. That's coronation day. That's where life really begins.

It's interesting, as I read the words of Jesus as he describes the future, eternity, he's speaking about real life. I know, a lot of people like to say, "Well, this is the real world, man, get real. This is the real world." Okay, this might be the real world, but then that is the really real world.

Listen to Jesus' words, "Do not store up for yourself treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven," it's a real place, "where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." If your best days are behind you, you are not saved. If your best days are yet ahead of you, you are. Your best life is then, it's then.

There's a guy who opened a brand-new business and his buddy wanted to celebrate. So, he sent him a congratulatory gift and a bouquet of flowers. The problem is the bouquet of flowers had a card attached that said, "Rest in peace." So, you can imagine the shock of this new business owner looking at this bouquet of flowers. "Rest in peace? I just started this new business; what's the deal?"

Well, the owner then called the flower shop and said, "I think there's a mix-up here. I think I got the wrong bouquet." And the florist apologized profusely and said, "Indeed, you got the wrong flowers. But just to brighten your day, just think, right now somewhere in town there's a funeral and a bouquet of flowers---the card on those flowers says, "Congratulations on your new location." [laughter]

Now I can't think of a better card to write for Christians who go to heaven. That's what we ought to put an all the flowers for the funerals of believers. "Congratulations on your new location," because if you're truly a believer, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." Not a bad gig! So, we get born, and the first step we have is a step of hope. Second, is a step of inheritance. The third is a step toward power.

Verse 5, "Who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." This is power to keep you secure. The word kept means to be kept safe or safeguarded, and it's a strong word used of soldiers who at the point of death would keep something safe. You are safeguarded by God. God will keep you from earth to heaven. He has the power to do that. He'll keep you safe.

We live in a world that is increasingly unsafe, and people are sensing that, and there's an anxiety. I just sense a growing anxiety around a lot of people with our economy, with what's going on in the Middle East. Just these kind of problems that rise to the surface cause a greater sense of unease, perhaps, than I've ever noticed before. I know every generation says it's worse than the previous one, but I do sense this.

There's a woman who sensed this, and she was worried about the growing crime rate and her own safety. So, she went and took a course, one of those concealed carry courses, and got a permit, and bought a handgun. Carried it around in her purse, loaded, and nothing happened for five months but one night, five months after she got her permit, she walked out to a parking lot after going shopping. It was dark.

She went to her car and there were four men inside of it. She said, "Get out of the car." They wouldn't budge. She pulled out her gun, "Get out of the car!" Those doors flew open faster than you can imagine. Those guys ran into the night. Then she found her car. [laughter] Same make, same model, three parking spaces away. Easy mistake. Oops! She was guarding the wrong car. [laughter]

Aren't you glad that God, who makes no mistakes, is the one guarding your life, and keeping you safe, safeguarding you? You are kept by the power of God. And I want to add to that and say, God will keep you, but you have to want to be kept. Jude, verse 24, "Now unto him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and present you faultless before the throne of his glory with exceeding joy." But you have to want to be kept.

What does he keep you for? He keeps you for this: verse 5, "You are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." Now, don't misunderstand that. That does not mean that you can't know if you're saved until you get to the very end, and God says, "No" or "Yeah." It doesn't mean that. It talks about the ultimate salvation.

Now let me explain something. The New Testament speaks of your salvation in three different ways: past, present, and future. You have been saved by the faith, it's done. It's done. You placed your faith in Christ. "If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved."

So, you have been saved, past tense, from the penalty of sin, number one. Number two, you are being saved right now, in the present tense, from the power of sin. The grip that sin has had on your life, you're in the process of sanctification. We talked about that last week---that breaking free of sin. But number three, you will be saved ultimately from the very presence of sin in the future.

That's the day when you have a new body, a resurrected body. The old nature is gone. You don't even have the capacity to cooperate with sin. You can't even get tempted. That's when salvation reaches its climax. It's ultimate. So, God has the power to save you, God has the power to secure you, and God has the power to send you to heaven---and all comes through the new birth.

One final thing, as we close, about this new birth: it's your only hope for new life. Back to that conversation: "Well, I'm a Christian, but I'm not a born-again kind." Then you ain't one, because Jesus said, "Unless a man is born again, he will not see the kingdom of God." He said to Nicodemus the Pharisee, the religious guy, "Nicodemus, marvel not that I say to you, 'You must be born again.' "

There's very few things in life that you must do. You must breathe to survive. You must have fluids to sustain life. You must have food to continue living. But if you ever want to see heaven, you must be born again or you never will, and you are deceiving yourself the whole way through. Simple formula: If you're born once, you'll die twice; if you're born twice, you'll die once.

I know you've been born once, I'm looking at you. That's physical birth. That grants you entrance into physical life. But Jesus said a man must be born a second time from above, again, begotten again. That's spiritual birth. If you're born once---physically---you'll die twice: physically and spiritually, eternally separated from God. But if you're born twice---physically, spiritually born again---you'll only die once.

You'll only die physically, but never spiritually, so that when you die, we can truly say, "Congratulations on your new location." That's the formula. Verse 3 underscores really how it all is possible. We close on this note: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," here it is, "who according to his abundant"---what?---"mercy has begotten us again." Mercy . . . mercy is God not giving you what you deserve.

Never ask God to give you what you deserve. Can you see what a bad prayer that would be? "God, I want you to give me what I deserve." Whosh! You're gone. God's mercy is abundant. I love the verse that says, "God's mercies are new every morning," because I use them all up. I need a whole new batch every day. By God's mercy you can have life. Do you need that mercy? Some of you need a second chance or maybe a third chance or a fourth chance?

After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was asked how he would treat the rebellious Southerners who returned. He answered, "I will treat them as if they've never been away." You come to Jesus Christ, he will treat you like you never were away from him. He'll give you the full privileges of sonship, son or daughter, and make you an heir and a joint heir with his Son. He'll treat you like his Son, Jesus Christ.

That's mercy and it's abundant.

Well, Father, we close on that note, and we pray, Father, for---pray for every one of us. We who have been born into a hope that is alive as Jesus who rose from the dead, a hope that is as lasting as the inheritance that you have given to us. And the power that you exert for us to keep us until we enjoy that inheritance in the future. Lord, thank you, it is such a package deal, and it can really only be described as new birth, new life, real life, the really real world.

Lord, I pray for those who may not know you today, or need to come back to you today. I want to pray for them as we close this service. Father, I pray you'd do a work of salvation, of renewal, of recommitment, or a first-time commitment. As we close, and we're about to close in a song, you're about to be dismissed, it could be that you're here today and you've never ever given your life to Christ.

You may be a church person, you may come and attend faithfully every week, but you have never surrendered your life personally to Christ. You're not born again yet. Or maybe you've wandered away from him and you need to come back to him, either way I'd love to pray for you. I need to know who I'm praying for.

If you willing to give your life to Christ and to enter into new life, I want you to raise your hand up in the air. Raise it up so I can see it. Keep it up for just a moment; I'll acknowledge you. Yup, God bless you. In the middle; in the back; way in the back, to my right. Anyone else? Anyone else? Just raise your hand up. Right up in front, God bless you. Family room? Balcony? I see your hands in the balcony.

Father, we pray---and in the back. We pray for all those hands, all these lives, Lord. They're so meaningful and wonderful to you. To think that, Jesus, you came to die for them, to give them life, and that your plan extends to them. I pray you would reveal to them, Lord, this hope, in Jesus' name, amen.

For more resources from Calvary Albuquerque and Skip Heitzig visit calvaryabq.org.