New Sermon Series: 1 Peter: God's Letter of Hope

Dear Redeemer Family and Friends,

Back to school. Off to college. Cheering on our favorite football (and soccer) teams. Looking for a break in the weather. (Maybe? Maybe soon? Maybe later?)

Welcome to the season of fall at Redeemer San Antonio! We will spend our fall in worship, opening up the Apostle Peter’s first letter to Christians scattered around Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). They were chosen and called by God to believe in and follow Jesus, yet lived as aliens and strangers in cultures that continued to live in rebellion against God and rejection of Christ as king. They were citizens of another kingdom, exiles in this present world, waiting for the return of the King to make all things new. They often faced alienation, hardship, and even persecution for their faith in Christ and for how their lives were oriented around Christ.

Two thousand years later, we are these same kinds of people: foreigners, as it were, often under pressure and hardship for our faith in Christ and our commitments to follow his way. Or, at least we should be. Rather than trying to ignore these realities or finesse around them so that we can fit in and avoid all conflict with the unbelieving world, we should learn to embrace our identity as God’s people. Jesus warns us that the world
really will often hate us as his people, even as it hated him first. (John 15:18-20) We, too, are aliens and strangers, exiles awaiting the return of our King and the renewal of all things.      

What Peter’s first readers needed then and what we, as elect exiles (1 Peter 1:1), need now is hope: hope from God and in God, confidence that God has us, that he is working for our good now, and that he has secured a certain, preferred future for us in Christ Jesus, through his resurrection from the dead. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you… (1 Peter 1:3-4)

The three great Christian responses to the gospel of Jesus Christ are faith, hope, and love. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three. (1 Corinthians 13:13) John is traditionally recognized as the apostle of love; Paul as the apostle of faith; and Peter as the apostle of hope. So, let’s come and drink deeply from the wells of salvation in 1 Peter: “God’s Letter of Hope” for us and for a world without any real and lasting hope apart from Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 2:12) We begin this journey on Sunday, August 30th, in our English-speaking services. We look forward to worshiping with you then! 

In Christ,

Pastors Paul Hahn and Matt Beham