Rejoicing While You Suffer Grief:
A Funeral Sermon from 1 Peter 1:3-9

By George Lyons

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, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
—1 Peter 1:3-9

Our text begins with an invitation to praise God. Actually, the word used for praise in the original is the source of our word eulogize. Praising God in this sense calls for some good words in God’s behalf. What good things can we say about God and the good things he has done lately?

Praising God seems to come quite naturally at the birth of a long-awaited, healthy child. To most people, celebration seems more at home at a christening than at a funeral. How can we speak well of God at such a time as this? How can we proclaim God’s power when he has failed to answer our prayers for a miraculous healing? How can we speak well of a God who doesn’t seem to show up as we wish when we need him most?

Let us not forget that this is precisely the situation under which Peter’s eulogy of God was first spoken. Our passage called Christians to praise God in the midst of their suffering and distress, testing and trial, grief and sorrow. Peter’s original audience could not see God through their pain and tears. He admits, “You have not seen him,” and “You do not see him now” (1:8). And yet Peter invites people such as these to join him in eulogizing God. What’s more, he suggests that praising God while suffering grief may be the occasion of great rejoicing (1:6), even of being “filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1:8). How is this possible?

Peter reminds us, first, of who God is—the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3). Of course, this God remains the trustworthy God of Abraham, the powerful God of Moses, and the exalted God of Isaiah. But we know God best and definitively as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. His is the name we have learned to highly treasure. No longer do we define God by reference to heroes of the remote past or by his distant deliverance of Israel. We know God as he is revealed in the person and work of his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

God the Father knows us intimately. Nothing about us is unknown to him—he has numbered the very hairs of our head. God cares intensely about all his creation—he notices when one sparrow falls; how much more does he note the passing of one of his saints! God knows us at our best, and worst! He knows about our successes, and failures. And he still loves us!

“Through [Jesus Christ we] have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that [our] faith and hope are set on God” (1 Peter 1:21). Jesus revealed our heavenly Father to be a God of “great mercy”—of unconditional love that defies our ability to grasp it fully and fills us with joy we cannot adequately express. What a wonder that the eternal Creator should notice us at all!

I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how he could love me,
A sinner, condemned, unclean.
How marvelous, How wonderful!

God has not dealt with us according to our deserving—every saint was once a sinner. Let us speak well of God!

Although God is our heavenly Father, the mercy for which Peter eulogizes God compels us to see God in the image of a mother. Elsewhere in the Bible the verb “has given . . . birth” (1:3) always has a female as its subject. Of course, God is beyond gender—God is neither male nor female. But the imagery of God as both a merciful Father and a mother giving birth to children reminds us that we owe our entire existence to God. We are both his creation and his re-creation.

In the new birth, God has given us three remarkable gifts that sustain us, regardless of what happens to us and those we love. God has birthed us to a living hope, an imperishable inheritance, and a ready salvation (1:3, 4, 5). Let us consider each of these gifts more closely.

“Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1:3), God has inspired within us “a living hope” (1:3). Christian hope is not just wishful thinking. It is not wild-eyed optimism about the future, despite reasons for pessimism. Our hope is living precisely because Jesus Christ is alive. Although Jesus died an agonizing death, God raised him from the dead. If God did not spare his own Son from suffering, our suffering should not surprise us. But we can rest assured that as we share in the sufferings of the cross, so too we will share in the wonder of the empty tomb. We do not face the future with fear and dread, for we know that the future holds the prospects of life. Comparatively speaking, our grief and trials are “for a little while” (1:6).

There are many reasons why we find the death of a loved one so difficult to face. Of course, there is the sense of separation and loss. But one reason we seldom mention is this: Death is an unpleasant reminder of our own mortality. None of us leaves this world alive. We all have a terminal diagnosis. For some the time of the end is just sooner rather than later. That’s the bad news! The good news is that in times of dying despair, there is a second opinion. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we have a living hope.

The second gift that is ours, thanks to the new birth, is an imperishable inheritance (1:4). Unlike everything we know in this world, this inheritance will never decay, be defiled, or deteriorate, although it is surrounded by death on every side.

This inheritance is ours only because Jesus died and it becomes fully ours only when we die. “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring [us] to God” (1 Peter 3:18). “And the God of all grace, who called [us] to his eternal glory in Christ, after [we] have suffered a little while, will himself restore [us] and make [us] strong, firm and steadfast” (1 Peter 5:10).

Our inheritance is so out-of-this world that it is “kept in heaven” (1:4). It is held in trust until we need it. This inheritance is not in our possession yet. But we are protected in the meantime by God’s power so that it will be ours in due time. God’s power does not preserve believers from death. Though faith in God, those of us who are born anew are preserved in spite of our inevitable appointment with death.

Death does not threaten this inheritance; it guarantees it. This is good news to those who, like Peter’s first readers, face the threat of persecution for their faith. And it is good news to those who have witnessed the effects of an aggressive cancer—decaying, defiling, and deteriorating—the earthly body, but unable to touch the real person. For the Christian who dies, this imperishable inheritance is no longer merely protected and preserved—it is possessed!

The third gift of the new birth is a ready salvation (1:5). It is true that in a sense we are saved when we are born anew—this salvation is ready. But in the fullest sense, salvation is never realized until we hear the pearly gates click closed behind us. The measure of salvation we have experienced already is nothing compared with the salvation that will “be revealed in the last time” (1:5)

Our lives as Christians are lived out on this earth, and in perishable bodies. Every day we live, from the moment we are born, we are dying. We may not choose whether or not we will suffer grief or whether and which trials we will experience. We may not choose whether or not we will die. But thanks to the new birth we enjoy in Christ, we may choose for what and for whom we will live.

This explains why believers can rejoice at a funeral: The One we have loved without seeing has inspired within us a living hope by his resurrection from the dead. The One we have trusted, though we do not see him now, has entrusted us with an imperishable inheritance. The power of God that raised Christ from the dead is able to preserve our eternal heritage in heaven and to protect us during our temporary sojourn on earth until it becomes fully and finally ours. The One who has birthed us to new life has prepared salvation as the end of our faith. Death is not the end; it’s only the door to eternal life. In this assurance, we “greatly rejoice, though now for a little while [we] have had to suffer grief” (1:6).

Let us eulogize the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our wonderful Lord!

George Lyons is Professor of New Testament at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho.