Latest / Reformed Thinking / Born Again to a Living Hope: The Mercy of God and the Resurrection of Christ (1 Peter 1:3)

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Born Again to a Living Hope: The Mercy of God and the Resurrection of Christ (1 Peter 1:3) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. You know, usually when we talk
• 0:03
  about a medical diagnosis, there is this expectation of
• 0:07
  precision. It feels like engineering
• 0:09
  almost. You break your arm, the X-ray
• 0:12
  shows that jagged white line, and the doctor just points at
• 0:15
  the screen and says, well, there it is.
• 0:16
  There is the fraction. It is binary.
• 0:18
  Broken or not broken, it is clean and quite frankly it is
• 0:22
  comforting. I mean, human beings like things
• 0:26
  to be visible, to be categorized, and to have a
• 0:28
  clear, immediate solution that we can verify with our own.
• 0:31
  Eyes. Oh, absolutely.
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  We want to cast six weeks of rest and a guaranteed outcome.
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  But then you step into the world of human despair, cultural decay
• 0:40
  and spiritual exhaustion, and suddenly that X-ray machine is
• 0:43
  just, well, it is broken completely.
• 0:46
  We are looking at a diagnostic landscape that is entirely
• 0:49
  murky. I mean, you look around at the
• 0:50
  year 2026 and you see people suffocating under this heavy
• 0:54
  blanket of hopelessness. Yeah, they really are.
• 0:56
  The secular promises of a man made utopia have completely
• 0:59
  fractured, we were told. You know, technology, politics,
• 1:02
  or financial optimization would fix the human condition.
• 1:05
  Right. The whole tech will save us
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  thing, yeah. But people are parched for
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  genuine meaning. They are searching for an anchor
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  that actually holds against a massive tide of disappointment.
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  Spot on. So today for this deep dive we
• 1:18
  are looking at one single sentence written by the Apostle
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  Peter, specifically first Peter chapter one, verse 3.
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  It is a massive sentence too. Oh, it really is.
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  And it was written to people who were being hunted, losing their
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  homes and facing execution. And Peter's answer to their
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  absolute terror was not some cheap platitude.
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  It was an objective historical anchor.
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  Yeah, and that historical context is absolutely vital if
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  we want to understand the sheer weight of what Peter's doing
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  here. Because if we miss the
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  background first, Peter just reads like a nice collection of
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  greeting card slogans. Right, like something you see on
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  a coffee mug. Yeah, but the reality is
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  entirely different. The setting is roughly between
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  AD 62 and 64. The letter is written to a very
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  specific group. These elect exiles scattered
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  across Roman provinces like Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
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  Asia and Bithynia. That is basically modern day
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  Turkey, right? Yes, regions in Asia Minor
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  characterized by intense political, social and religious
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  pressure. The occasion of this letter is
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  one of a burgeoning, terrifying crisis.
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  The shadow of the psychopathic Emperor Nero is looming large
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  over the empire. And Nero was notoriously brutal.
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  Oh, beyond brutal. Christians are beginning to be
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  scapegoated in ways that are hard for modern Westerners to
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  really comprehend. They are being classified as
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  enemies of the human race. I want to pause on that phrase
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  Enemies of the human race because, well, that sounds like
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  hyperbole to modern years. But it was a literal Roman
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  designation, wasn't? It it was a very real
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  designation. I mean, the Roman historian
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  Tacitus uses that specific phrasing when describing how
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  Nero blamed Christians for the great fire of Rome.
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  Unbelievable. But even before the physical
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  fires were lit, the social fires were already burning in these
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  provinces. How so?
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  Well, Roman society was held together by the glue of the
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  imperial cult and the Pagan pantheon.
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  Every aspect of public life, the market, the government, the
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  trade guilds, it was all tied to idol worship.
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  So if you were a Christian blacksmith in Bithynia, for
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  example, you were expected to attend the Guild feast, and that
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  invariably involved pouring out of libation to a God like
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  Minerva or Jupiter. And you just could not opt out
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  quietly. No, not at all.
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  When you refused, you were not just seen as a religious
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  eccentric, You were seen as a subversive, A traitor, an
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  atheist who is angering the gods and jeopardizing the prosperity
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  of the entire city. Wow.
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  So the Christians Peter is writing to, they are facing the
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  loss of property, the loss of social standing, and they're
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  looking down the barrel of state sponsored persecution.
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  That brings us to this concept of the elect exiles.
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  And you know when we put this into a reformed covenantal
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  framework, we are completely rejecting any idea of
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  replacement theology here. Peter is not suggesting the
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  church has somehow replaced Israel.
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  He is using covenantal language to designate the Church as a
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  Pilgrim community living in the last days.
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  Their heavenly citizenship is actively clashing with a Greco
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  Roman world that demands total allegiance to Caesar.
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  Yeah, total allegiance. To put this into perspective for
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  you listening, think about working in a foreign country
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  where you do not speak the language.
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  The cultural norms are completely alien to you, and on
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  top of that, the laws are actively stacked against you.
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  That is a great analogy. You have no safety net.
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  You have no legal recourse if someone accuses you of a crime.
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  The presumption of guilt is automatic simply because you are
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  an outsider. Yeah, you are guilty until
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  proven innocent, and you probably cannot prove you are
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  innocent. Exactly.
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  I mean, start on every single day you wake up, you are acutely
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  aware that you do not belong and the dominant culture is actively
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  looking for a reason to expel you or worse, execute you.
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  That captures the psychological tension perfectly.
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  This social and religious ostracization is an
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  institutional reality that defines their daily existence.
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  It is a constant grinding pressure.
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  It really is, and this is precisely why superficial
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  encouragement is completely useless for the original
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  audience. Superficial encouragement relies
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  on the assumption that circumstances will eventually
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  improve. It relies on a shifting temporal
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  foundation like. Oh, just hang in there.
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  People say hold on the economy will bounce back or hold on the
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  next emperor will be more tolerant.
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  But for them, that wasn't happening.
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  No, for these believers, the temporal foundation was actively
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  crumbling. If a Roman official can
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  confiscate your business tomorrow simply because you
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  refuse to offer a pinch of incense to the genius of the
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  emperor, then any hope tied to financial stability is just
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  dead. If you could be thrown into the
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  arena for being an atheist because you reject the Roman
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  gods, then any hope tied to physical safety or political
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  reform is bankrupt. So if that Roman boot is on your
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  neck and your house is literally about to be set on fire, Peter's
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  first piece of advice is incredibly jarring.
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  It really is. He does not give them an escape
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  route. He does not provide a list of
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  moral duties or a strategy for evading Roman guards.
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  He tells them to sing. Yeah, we look at the actual
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  grammar of the text, and verses 3 through 12 form one massive,
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  complex Greek sentence. One single sentence.
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  Right. It is an absolute explosion of
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  praise. He starts with a verbalist
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  exclamation. Blessed be the God and Father.
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  He places praise over panic. In Reformed theology we talk
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  about placing the indicative, what God has done before the
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  imperative, what man must do. Grace precedes duty.
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  It is crucial. But wait, hold on.
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  I get the theology here, but practically speaking?
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  Right in the real world. Yeah, if I am an early Christian
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  and Nero is literally lighting my friends on fire to illuminate
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  his garden, stopping to sing a hymn of praise sounds almost
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  delusional. It sounds crazy.
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  Why is theology the best first responder when you need a fire
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  extinguisher? Well, it seems counterintuitive
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  because our natural human instinct dictates that when the
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  house is on fire, our entire field of vision narrows down to
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  the flames, the smoke, and the nearest exit.
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  Fight or flight? Yes, panic consumes our
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  cognitive bandwidth. We become obsessed with our
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  immediate physical preservation. Sure, that makes sense.
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  But Peter is writing as a shepherd of afflicted Saints,
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  and his aim is to move them from fear to praise.
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  By starting with a massive doxology, he is deliberately
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  forcing their field of vision to expand.
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  Oh. Wow.
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  OK, he. Teaches believers that the
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  proper response to divine grace is praise, even in the middle of
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  severe adversity. Worship itself acts as a form of
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  spiritual resistance against despair.
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  Spiritual resistance. I like that.
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  Peter is training the Saints not to deny their troubles, but to
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  place those troubles under the greater reality of God's
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  sovereignty. That completely flips the script
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  on how we naturally we process trauma.
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  I mean, we want the practical steps first.
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  Tell me what to do. Absolutely.
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  If Peter started with the imperative, like here is what
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  you must do to survive, you would be placing the burden of
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  their hope entirely on their own performance under pressure.
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  And we all know how that goes. Right.
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  Human performance and the threat of torture is notoriously
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  fragile. You might be brave on Monday and
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  completely breakdown on Tuesday. Oh, for sure.
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  By placing the indicative first, here's what God has already
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  done. He removes the burden from their
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  shoulders. Theology is the best first
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  responder because it dictates reality.
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  It sets the baseline. Yes, it tells the believer that
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  the fire, while terrifying, is not the ultimate reality.
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  The ultimate reality is the sovereign God who reigns over
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  the fire. This single massive Greek
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  sentence is an outpouring of a soul that is recognized that the
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  worst Rome can do is still subject to the decree of heaven.
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  That sets up the specific attributes of God that trigger
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  this worship. Peter does not just throw out a
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  generic term for a deity. No, he is very precise.
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  He uses a very specific Trinitarian focus.
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  He says blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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  Yes, he establishes that God is known exclusively through the
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  mediatorial work of the Son. This completely rebukes abstract
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  theism. Right, it is not just the man
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  upstairs. Exactly.
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  It is not just some vague higher power out there in the cosmos.
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  He is anchoring their minds to the covenant God who has
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  revealed himself in history, and then he moves to the motive
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  behind everything that happens next.
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  He says according to his great mercy.
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  Oh yes. This ties directly into the
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  Westminster Confession, specifically Chapter 5 on
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  Providence and Chapter 11 on justification.
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  The text insists that mercy is seems guilt, ruin, and total
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  inability. God acts because humanity is
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  spiritually dead. You know, the word mercy is
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  often cheapened in modern vocabulary to mean something
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  like general kindness or a polite pardon.
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  Like letting someone off the hook for a parking ticket.
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  Yeah, exactly that. But biblically, and particularly
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  in a Reformed framework, mercy implies a state of absolute
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  wretchedness on the part of the recipient.
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  Total depravity. Yes, it implies total depravity.
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  The Westminster Confession of Faith in Chapter 11 on
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  justification makes it abundantly clear that God freely
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  justifies sinners, not by infusing righteousness into
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  them, but by pardoning their sins and by accounting and
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  accepting their persons as righteous for Christ's sake
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  alone. Christ's sake.
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  Alone. This flows directly from chapter
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  5 on Providence, which shows that God, the Great Creator of
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  all things, upholds, directs, disposes, and governs all
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  creatures, actions and things, from the greatest even to the
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  least. So it is all connected.
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  It is therefore the great mercy Peter describes is the sovereign
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  decree of God stepping into human history to save those who
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  are entirely incapable of saving themselves.
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  Let's put a modern lens on that, because, you know, the classic
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  analogy people often use is a drowning man.
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  Oh, I've heard that one a million times, right.
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  They say salvation is like throwing a life preserver to a
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  drowning man, but even that falls short of what Peter is
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  saying. It really does.
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  If you throw a life preserver to someone treading water, there is
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  still a cooperative effort they have to reach out, grab the
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  ring, and hold on while you pull.
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  Yeah, they have to do something. A better way to understand this
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  kind of mercy, this total depravity, is to think of a
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  patient who has completely flatlined on an operating table.
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  That is much better. The monitor is emitting a solid
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  tone. There is no heartbeat.
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  There is no brain activity when the surgeon performs a
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  successful heart transplant. The patient does not cooperate
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  with the surgeon. They cannot right.
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  The patient does not assist in making the first incision or
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  stitching the new organ into place.
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  The surgeon does all the work, and the patient simply wakes up
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  breathing. Salvation originates entirely in
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  divine pity, not human merit. That heart transplant analogy is
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  incredibly precise when dealing with a Reformed doctrine of
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  monogism, and Peter introduces this right after mentioning
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  God's great mercy. OK.
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  Let's break that down. When salvation depends on your
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  own moral fortitude or your ability to cooperate with grace,
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  a Roman persecution will shatter your confidence immediately.
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  Because you would just fail, right?
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  You will constantly wonder if your faith is strong enough to
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  withstand the lions, but because it depends entirely on God's
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  immense pity, the skill of the surgeon, to use your analogy,
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  their standing is completely secure.
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  And Peter explains the actual mechanism of this surgical
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  operation in the very next phrase.
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  He says he has caused us to be born again.
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  I want to look at the phrasing there because it is incredibly
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  definitive. He has caused us.
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  Yes. If you look at the original
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  Greek Peter wrote this in, he uses a specific verb tense.
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  That means this is not an ongoing process, it is a done
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  deal. Yes, the aorist participle.
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  Right. God did it.
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  He finished it and it cannot be undone.
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  This is the doctrine of monarchism, the teaching that
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  God acts completely alone in regeneration.
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  He is the sole actor. We contrast this with the
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  synergistic errors of Arminianism, which assigns the
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  human will a deciding role in the new birth.
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  And it also refutes Roman Catholic baptismal regeneration.
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  Spot on. God is the sole agent.
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  This new birth is not a cosmetic fix.
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  It is not a self help routine where you just learn to be a
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  slightly better version of yourself.
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  No, it is not a life. Right.
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  It is the impartation of an entirely new nature and lineage.
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  And the Greek participle Peter uses makes it undeniably clear
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  that the action belongs to God alone.
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  Synergism teaches that God extends grace, but the ultimate
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  deciding factor is the human will.
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  Like God votes for you, Satan votes against you, and you cast
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  the tie breaking vote. Yeah, that terrible old saying.
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  It suggests that the dead patient on the operating table
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  somehow gives the surgeon permission to start the
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  transplant. Which makes no sense.
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  No, it does not. But monogism teaches that the
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  new birth precedes faith. You must be given a new heart
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  before you can pump blood. Right.
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  The Westminster Confession, chapter 10 on effectual calling
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  states that God enlightens the minds of the elect spiritually
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  and savingly to understand the things of God, takes away their
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  heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh, renewing their
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  wills. A.
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  Completely new heart. Yes, the impartation of this new
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  nature is the definitive act that alters a person's eternal
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  trajectory. I have to ask the classic
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  question that always comes up regarding modernism, though.
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  Go for it. If God causes the new birth
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  entirely on his own, without any cooperation from us, does that
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  make humans into mirror, unthinking machines?
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  The robot objection. If we are the flat lined patient
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  on the table and God does all the work to revive us, where
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  does our will come into play? It sounds to some people like
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  God is just programming robots to love him.
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  That is a very common objection, but it relies on a flawed
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  understanding of what the human will is prior to regeneration.
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  OK, so, well, the objection assumes that the unregenerate
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  human will is free and neutral. You know, standing at a
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  crossroads, perfectly capable of choosing God or rejecting God.
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  Just a blank slate. Right, but Reformed theology,
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  drawing from text like Romans 8 and Ephesians 2, teaches that
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  the natural human will is in bondage to sin.
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  It is enslaved. Exactly.
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  It is hostile to God. The flatline patient is not a
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  machine, they are a corpse. A corpse cannot choose to start
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  breathing. Wow.
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  Yeah, when God causes us to be born again, he is not overriding
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  a free will, He is resurrecting a dead will.
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  So the will is changed, not bypassed.
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  Precisely. Notice the sequence in the
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  Westminster Confession. The heart of stone is removed,
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  the heart of flesh is given, and the will is renewed.
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  OK, I see. Monarchism does not bypass the
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  human will, it liberates it. Once the new nature is imparted,
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  the believer willingly, eagerly, and joyfully responds in faith
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  and repentance. Because they actually want to
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  now, right? The action of God in
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  regeneration is the solitary cause, but the necessary effect
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  is a human being who now possesses the spiritual vitality
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  to believe. So it is natural to them now.
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  Yes, The believer is not a robot acting out programming.
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  They are a newly resurrected child of God, acting entirely in
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  accordance with their new living nature.
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  That is a great distinction. A bird flies because it has the
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  nature of a bird. A Christian believes because
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  they've been given the nature of Christ.
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  With the new birth secured by God alone, the conversation
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  naturally moves to the direct outcome of that sovereign act.
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  Peter says we are born again to a living hope living up.
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  We have to contrast this living hope with the dead hoax of the
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  secular world. People place their confidence in
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  financial stability, political utopias or personal health.
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  Things that fade. Yeah, but ordinary hope in the
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  secular sense is just wishful thinking.
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  You hope the stock market goes up.
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  You hope the biopsy comes. Is that clear?
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  You hope your political candidate wins the next
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  election. It is just crossing your
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  fingers. Exactly.
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  Biblical hope is entirely different.
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  It is a certain expectation of a future reality.
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  Peter uses the present continuous tense for the word
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  living. This hope breathes, it endures.
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  It possesses a spiritual vitality that cannot be killed
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  by Roman persecution in the 1st century or by modern cultural
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  decay in 2026. The contrast between secular
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  hope and biblical hope is the difference between an emotion
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  and an anchor. That is good.
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  Earthly hopes are constantly subject to decay because the
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  objects of those hopes are subject to decay.
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  Health deteriorates. Wealth fluctuates due to
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  inflation or theft. We see that all the time, right?
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  Political empires, even ones as mighty as Rome, eventually
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  collapse. If your hope is tethered to
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  something that can die, your hope will eventually die with
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  it. It has an expiration date.
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  Yes, but Peter is telling these elect exiles that their new
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  birth has tethered their future to something possessing
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  indestructible life. Think about secular hope as a
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  fragile paper umbrella. OK, when the weather is nice, it
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  looks great. It provides a little bit of
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  shade. You can walk down the street and
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  feel protected from a slight drizzle.
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  But the moment a Category 5 hurricane hits, that paper
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  umbrella is shredded instantly. It offers zero protection
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  against a real storm. Not at all.
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  Living hope, on the other hand, is like a bunker.
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  It does not matter what the weather is doing above ground.
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  The hurricane can be raging, tossing cars and ripping roofs
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  off houses. But inside that bunker, you are
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  completely secure. The storm simply cannot touch
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  the foundation. That bunker analogy works
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  perfectly because the grammar Peter uses reinforces the idea
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  of an impenetrable shelter. Really.
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  How so? Well, this living hope is not a
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  state of naive optimism. It does not require the believer
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  to plaster on a fake smile while they were being dragged into a
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  Roman. Prison like toxic positivity.
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  Exactly. No toxic positivity here.
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  It is a sober, clear eyed recognition that present
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  suffering is intensely real. But it's not the final verdict.
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  The new birth fundamentally alters the believers horizon.
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  They are no longer enclosed within the narrow, suffocating
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  boundaries of this present world.
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  Their life is now oriented toward a future secured by God.
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  That changes everything. It does.
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  This is why the early Christians could face the arena with such
• 19:25
  confounding peace. Their hope was not that the
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  lions would suddenly become tame.
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  Their hope was that the lions could only destroy the physical
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  body, while their actual inheritance remained completely
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  untouchable. It was a locked away.
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  Yes, reserved in a vault that Nero did not have the keys to
• 19:39
  open. That subterranean bunker of hope
• 19:41
  has to be built on something objective, though.
• 19:44
  It cannot just be an abstract theological concept or a
• 19:47
  positive mental attitude. No, it needs grounding.
• 19:49
  The next segment of the text reveals the concrete foundation.
• 19:55
  Peter zeroes in on the phrase through the resurrection of
• 19:58
  Jesus Christ from the dead. There it is.
• 20:00
  Hope is not based on subjective feelings.
• 20:03
  It is not based on mysticism. It is not based on a seeker
• 20:07
  sensitive emotional high where the worship band plays the right
• 20:10
  chords to make you feel good, right?
• 20:12
  It rests on a verifiable historical event.
• 20:15
  The resurrection is the vindicated sacrifice.
• 20:18
  It is the public declaration by the Father that the sons atoning
• 20:21
  sacrifice on the cross was fully accepted.
• 20:24
  Amen. Furthermore, the resurrection is
• 20:26
  the actual instrument of salvation.
• 20:28
  Christ is the representative head of His people.
• 20:31
  Because he conquered death. His people share in that
• 20:34
  indestructible life. The phrase through the
• 20:37
  resurrection uses a preposition that indicates instrumentality.
• 20:40
  Instrumental meaning it is the tool used.
• 20:43
  Right. The resurrection is not just an
• 20:44
  inspiring historical footnote, it is the active channel through
• 20:47
  which life is granted. This goes back to the concept of
• 20:50
  federal headship and Reformed covenant theology.
• 20:52
  Jesus Christ did not live, die and rise as a private
• 20:55
  individual. He was representing us, yes.
• 20:58
  He acted as the federal head of his people, just as Adam acted
• 21:01
  as the federal head of humanity in the garden.
• 21:03
  Romans 5. Exactly.
• 21:05
  Therefore, what happened to the head guarantees what will happen
• 21:09
  to the members of the body. God's acceptance of Christ's
• 21:12
  sacrifice, proven by the empty tomb, means that the
• 21:15
  justification of the elect is an accomplished historical fact.
• 21:19
  I have to ask the practical question here, because this is
• 21:22
  where the rubber meets the road for you listening.
• 21:24
  Let's hear it. How does tying our daily mental
• 21:27
  state to an event that happened 2000 years ago in the Middle
• 21:30
  East provide actual tangible comfort when someone is sitting
• 21:35
  in an oncologist's office facing a sudden, terrifying health
• 21:39
  diagnosis? Or, you know, when they just
• 21:42
  received notice of a massive job loss today.
• 21:44
  Well, the gap of 2000 years is entirely irrelevant because of
• 21:48
  the nature of our union with Christ.
• 21:50
  OK, unpack that. When a person is sitting in a
• 21:52
  doctor's office receiving a terrifying diagnosis, the
• 21:56
  natural human reaction is absolute terror because death
• 21:59
  appears to be the ultimate undefeated conqueror.
• 22:02
  It looks like the end. Right.
• 22:03
  Death looks like the final word, but the resurrection is God's
• 22:08
  objective historical proof that death has been defeated.
• 22:11
  It has been defanged. Defanged.
• 22:13
  I like that word. It is a conquered enemy.
• 22:16
  The comfort comes from the realization that the worst
• 22:19
  possible outcome in this life, death itself, is no longer a
• 22:23
  Cliff that you fall off into nothingness.
• 22:26
  It is merely A threshold into the imperishable inheritance
• 22:30
  secured by Christ. The event happened 2000 years
• 22:32
  ago, but the person of Jesus Christ is alive today.
• 22:36
  He is still active, yes. He is currently interceding for
• 22:39
  that believer in the doctor's office, right?
• 22:41
  The hope is living because the Savior is living.
• 22:43
  Wow. It anchors the believer's mind,
• 22:45
  not in their fluctuating emotional state or in the
• 22:48
  changing numbers on a blood test, but in the unchangeable
• 22:51
  fact of an empty tomb. We are talking about massive
• 22:54
  theological truths here. Total depravity, Monarchism.
• 22:56
  Historical resurrection the. Heavy hitters.
• 22:58
  Yeah. How does this shape the daily
• 23:00
  life of the listener? We bring in the Reformed concept
• 23:03
  of the third use of the law, the eusisitu normativis, according
• 23:07
  to the Westminster Confession, Chapter 19.
• 23:10
  Because believers have been given a new nature and a living
• 23:12
  hope, they are guided into holy living out of gratitude.
• 23:16
  Gratitude, not fear. Right.
• 23:18
  They are not obeying out of a desperate need to earn
• 23:21
  salvation. They are resting in a finished
• 23:24
  work. The liberation from performance
• 23:26
  anxiety is the exact pastoral effect Peter intended.
• 23:30
  That makes total sense. Historically, Reformed theology
• 23:33
  recognizes 3 uses of the moral law.
• 23:36
  The first is the civil use to restrain outward sin in society.
• 23:40
  Like laws against stealing. Exactly.
• 23:43
  The second is the pedagogical use to act as a mirror, showing
• 23:46
  us our sin and driving us to Christ.
• 23:48
  OK, but the third use, the normative use, is for the
• 23:51
  believer. We are talking about the lot
• 23:53
  acting as a guide for the regenerate believer, showing
• 23:56
  them what pleases the Father, not as a condition for their
• 23:58
  justification. So it is a map, not a test.
• 24:01
  That is a brilliant way to put it.
• 24:03
  If salvation is according to His great mercy and accomplished
• 24:06
  through the sovereign act of the new birth, then the pressure to
• 24:09
  earn God's favor is entirely obliterated.
• 24:12
  It is gone. Obedience becomes the natural
• 24:14
  fruit of a new nature rather than the frantic labor of a
• 24:18
  slave trying to avoid punishment.
• 24:20
  It completely removes the crushing anxiety of performance
• 24:23
  based religion. I mean, you do not have to wake
• 24:26
  up every morning wondering if you have done enough to keep God
• 24:28
  happy. It is exhausting to live like
• 24:30
  that. It really is.
• 24:32
  Now, this text also speaks to different people in different
• 24:34
  ways. For the careless or the nominal
• 24:37
  Christian who is trusting in dead religion or outward church
• 24:41
  attendance, this verse is a stern warning of the absolute
• 24:45
  necessity of the new birth. Yes, a wake up call.
• 24:48
  You must be born again by a sovereign act of God.
• 24:51
  But for the afflicted, it offers massive assurance that their
• 24:55
  inheritance is untouchable. This changes the entire tone of
• 24:58
  the Christian life, both individually and corporately.
• 25:01
  When the early Christians refused to worship Caesar, they
• 25:04
  were not doing it to earn a place in heaven.
• 25:06
  Right, they already had. That they were doing it because
• 25:08
  their new nature, born of God, made it impossible for them to
• 25:12
  bow to a false God. Their obedience was fueled by
• 25:15
  gratitude for the resurrection. That is beautiful.
• 25:19
  This is why the corporate gathering of the Church must be
• 25:22
  centered on doxology and the declaration of these objective
• 25:25
  truths. Not just a self help seminar.
• 25:28
  Right. If a church gathers on a Sunday
• 25:30
  morning and merely offers therapeutic advice on how to
• 25:33
  have a better marriage, how to manage finances or how to reduce
• 25:37
  stress, they are offering the equivalent of the paper
• 25:40
  umbrella. And a hurricane is coming, yes.
• 25:43
  They're addressing the temporal while ignoring the eternal.
• 25:47
  The Church is a covenant community of elect exiles.
• 25:51
  Our primary duty when we gather is to .1 another to the living
• 25:54
  hope secured by the Risen King. Let's briefly recap the
• 25:58
  progression we have covered today.
• 25:59
  Sounds good. We started with God's great
• 26:01
  mercy, looking at the absolute necessity of divine pity
• 26:04
  reaching down to humanity in its state of total inability.
• 26:07
  Right then we moved to the sovereign act of the new birth,
• 26:10
  where God acting entirely alone, like a surgeon performing a
• 26:13
  heart transplant, imparts a new nature.
• 26:15
  The sole actor, yes. This monarchistic act results in
• 26:19
  a living hope, a hope that breeds and endures like a
• 26:22
  subterranean bunker against the storms of life.
• 26:25
  And all of this is entirely secured by the historical
• 26:29
  objective reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• 26:33
  We have moved from the eternal decree of God through the
• 26:35
  historical action of the sun, resulting in the internal
• 26:39
  regeneration of the believer. It is a phenomenal text.
• 26:41
  It really is. I want to leave you with a
• 26:44
  challenging idea to ponder long after this audio ends.
• 26:48
  We've talked about the broken X-ray machine of modern despair,
• 26:51
  the paper umbrellas of secular optimism, the subterranean
• 26:54
  bunkers of biblical hope, and the historical reality of the
• 26:57
  empty tomb. But here's the question you have
• 27:00
  to answer for yourself. If your truest identity is an
• 27:03
  elect exile whose future is completely secured by an empty
• 27:06
  tomb, how does that alter the way you react to the very next
• 27:10
  piece of bad news you receive? That is the real test.
• 27:12
  When the world tries to threaten you with loss, whether it is a
• 27:15
  medical diagnosis, financial ruin, or cultural hostility,
• 27:19
  what happens when you realize you possess an inheritance that
• 27:21
  cannot be confiscated? Thank you for joining us on this
• 27:24
  deep dive into the text. Keep your eyes fixed on the
• 27:27
  Risen King.