Well, good afternoon. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. We’re going to be in First Peter—that’s where we’re headed. We’ll look at verses 3 through 12. Before we dive into this text, I want to set it up and then we will dive into the text. I just want to publicly acknowledge how well JT English has preached the last two weeks. Specifically, he’s not here today; he ran the marathon this morning. To tell you what kind of freak he is—it’s not just intellectually—he didn’t train or anything; he simply thought, «I think I’m going to go run a marathon.» I thought he was joking, but he was not. He just went down and ran it. So, yeah, pray for his wife, because I don’t care who you are—there are going to be some residual effects from that if you didn’t train for it.
But here’s what I would say: to be able to do a flyover of redemptive history within the framework of exile, plugged into Advent in a compelling way, was just brilliant. I thought he did an incredible job. What he’s been able to do with the Institute, our classes, and forums is fantastic. The Institute is about to roll out three core classes for our church on the Christian story, or the biblical narrative arc, biblical theology, and ultimately, biblical living. So we have these three significant core classes coming for our members, and he has done an incredible job. He’s not here, but I wanted to publicly affirm that once again, God has been gracious to our church by sending us a brother like JT English—who is joyful in the Lord and serious about the Bible. That should be more normal than it is.
You see, you have a lot of people who are serious about the Bible but have a furrowed brow, and you get many people who are silly and not serious about the Bible. God has given us a man who is both joyful and serious about the Bible. So praise God for that! Now, the beginning of the Christian calendar is Advent, not Christmas. The reason Advent precedes the Christmas season is that the early church fathers wanted to root us in a hope that would not disappoint us. Are you tracking with me? They wanted us, at the beginning of the Christian year—which is not New Year’s—to be rooted in a hope that would not disappoint us. You see, Christmas makes promises it can’t keep. Are you tracking with me? It just makes promises it can’t keep.
I am NOT anti-Christmas; if you came to my house, it would look like Hobby Lobby threw up in my living room. There is tinsel and lights, and my wife is buying new decorations. Our house hasn’t changed since last year; it’s not any bigger. Why? Because there’s no place to put the wreaths! We’ve got wreaths on wreaths—just different ones. So I’m not anti-Christmas. There are lights on the outside of my house, and there are stockings hung up. We will go look at Christmas lights. I’ve already drank wassail, and I had to be all in to drink six ounces with 780 grams of sugar—I nearly blacked out! Can you imagine me hopped up on wassail?
So, I don’t want to disparage the season in any way; I want to highlight the fact that this season is a shadow of something greater and therefore cannot deliver on its promises. Christmas is a shadow, not the substance, and therefore will be unable to deliver on its promises. What I want to do is talk to you about what you’ve been given that doesn’t have to be put up in a couple of weeks. Here’s the thing: maybe we just think differently, but I’ve been in my attic more in the last two weeks than I was since I put everything in the attic last year. I’m not far from having to put all of that back in boxes and realizing I need to buy more boxes because we have more stuff. Then back up into the attic I go.
What I want to discuss is that thing that’s not going anywhere—that you and I have been gifted in the coming of Jesus Christ. As we will read in the text, it won’t fade, can’t be defiled, and will be ours forever. So with that said, let’s take a look at what we’ve been given in the coming of Jesus Christ and why that’s better than Christmas. I then want us to look a bit at our privileged position in history; there’s this great line about angels that I wish I had more time for.
First Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 3: by the way, some of the sentences in this text are really, really long, which creates quite the challenge. There are many more commas than there are periods! Let’s look at this: «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, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.»
