Last night, as we talked about how the Israelites rejected God as their king, and as Jesus came, he looked to re-establish this relationship, a man in the group looked at me a couple of times and said simply: I lay my head down on my pillow and sleep well at night.
This has a certain irony because this is the same man who, just the night before, had come to speak with us because he was raging about a scenario at work and felt like world was against him because of his employment situation.
This morning, we read 1 Peter and I noticed a simple, yet profound, statement that Peter makes in verse 3:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…
1 Peter 1:3
To believe in Christ is to believe that we are helpless, that we are lost, and yet God has come, in the midst of re-establishing his kingship relationship with his people, to save us from certain punishment and eternal loss. It is for this reason that we can and must praise God! If we truly understand our spiritual condition without him and his saving work in our lives, we realize that we have no hope whatsoever, except for the living hope that God has provided us through Jesus Christ. Without God moving to act on our behalf, we have no hope. We cannot save ourselves. Only he can save us – and he has come to do that in Christ. Praise be to God!