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Hope always has roots. Regardless of why we're hopeful, our hope is always rooted in something or someone. Where is your hope rooted? Better yet, when is your hope rooted?

Think about many of the common reasons we have hope. We have hope for our country if our presidential candidate gets elected, if the right person gets confirmed to the Supreme Court, if the right laws get changed, if a vaccine is discovered, if the economy recovers. We have hope for our marriages if our spouse will change, if he/she will agree to counseling, if we can have kids, if we can pay off our debt. We have hope for our kids if they do well in school, if they get that scholarship, if they’re a part of a vibrant youth group or children’s ministry, if they meet “the one.” We have hope for ourselves if we meet “the one,” if we lose weight, if we get that raise, if we graduate, if the biopsy comes back negative. We have hope for our church if we meet our budget, if our attendance improves, if we can return to normal.

Did you notice the common thread? Each of those reasons for hope are rooted in the future. The exile’s hope is different. Christian hope is set apart from nearly every other type of hope because it is rooted in the past. Notice 1 Peter 1:3—Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Peter begins by overflowing with praise! After his opening remarks on how Father, Spirit, and Son work together in the mystery of our election, he can’t help himself! But here he focuses not on the doctrine of election, but the doctrine of regeneration. That’s what he’s talking about when he says we have been “born again to a living hope.”

But what does it mean to be “born again”? To answer that, we need to understand what the Bible says we were like before we were born again. Ephesians 2:1-2 says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins (2) in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

Unless you’ve been born again, you are dead even as you’re walking. Today we might call that a zombie. In case you’re not familiar with zombie lore, one author explains it this way:

“a zombie is a corpse that’s active and moving. Zombies aren’t resurrected or even resuscitated bodies. Even though their limbs are lurching and their jaws are snapping, these fictional creatures are dead–but zombies are far more morbid than mere moving corpses. Zombies feed on living flesh. They consume the living, and their appetites control them. You’ll never see a zombie slow down to soak in the beauty of a baseball game or stand in awe at the white cliffs of Dover. Zombies are death seeking life, but succeeding only in spreading death. They have neither the capacity nor the desire to trade their death for life. Worst of all, zombies are rotting away even as they are walking around.”[i]

That is the condition of every single person unless or until they’ve been born again. But you don’t have to stay that way! Paul continues in Ephesians 2:4-5—But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, (5) even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. Peter puts it this way: “[God the Father] has caused us to be born again to a living hope.” In John 3:3 Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

If you’ve not been born again, allow Jesus’ words to serve as a warning. There is no other way to see God’s kingdom. Try as you might, your hard work will earn you nothing towards being born again: not your good works, not your church attendance, not your peaceful protests, not your political engagement, not your kindness, not your military service, not your tolerance of people who disagree with you. You must be born again.

But why are some people born again? Verse 3 is clear: “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again.” Some of you may have already begun making plans for that annual fall tradition, the family photo. And as you and your family position yourselves for that portrait, you just might tell the photographer, “make sure this picture does me justice!” And if your photographer is particularly bold he or she may respond, “Sir . . .  ma’am . . . justice is not what you require . . . what you need . . .  is mercy. Great mercy.” That’s what we need isn’t it? If justice is what we require of God, we’ll never be saved. But because of His great mercy we can be born again!

But how are we born again? God is a God of justice, isn’t He? How can He show us mercy without violating His justice? Look again at verse 3—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.”

Peter is summarizing what Christians call the Gospel. It’s the Good News that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, lived a sinless life and died a sinner’s death on a cross. Three days later He rose from the dead, so that whoever turns from their sin and trusts in Him can be born again. God has mercy for His people because His justice was satisfied when Jesus was punished in our place.

If you’re not a Christian, you can be born again today. Not by working for it, just like you couldn’t work to be born the first time. You can be born again by turning from the sin you’ve been chasing after and turning to Jesus in faith.

If you’re a Christian, notice that your hope for the future is inextricably linked to what God has done in the past. If you’re struggling to have hope in the present, it could be because you’re starting to root your hope in the wrong place. The exile's hope, the only hope that lasts, is rooted in what God has done through Christ. It is rooted not in what we hope He'll do today or tomorrow, but in what He did two thousand years ago on a bloody cross and at an empty tomb. Hope that lasts is rooted in the past.

 

[i] Daniel Montgomery and Timothy Paul Jones, PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 47.