A (6:15)

Imagine.

B (6:16)

Just wouldn't work. Imagine a Buddhist talking about the great all soul and calling it my all Soul. It just wouldn't work. And here's one of the reasons why there's an intimacy. There's a sense in which God is ours and we are his. Because we both have wounds in that place in Henry V where he's saying, we few, we happy few, getting all the guys ready to go out there and, you know, kick butt in Agincourt, so, you know, get out there and do it. But there's a great line, here's the king, and he's looking at all these people around him, and they're all common men. You see, this is back in the 14th century. So he's a king and they're commoner. And he says, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he who sheds his blood with me this day will be my brother. Be he ne' er so vile this day shall gentle his condition. You know, you're the king and you're just a comma king. You're the commoner. But we're going to shed our blood together, you see, to our wounds. Only God's wounds can speak, and he's the only God. No God has wounds but thou and thou alone. Now, that's the point of First Peter. We have a God who through suffering came to glory. And we have therefore our own path that through suffering, and only through suffering do we come to glory as well. Now let's take a look and see. Now let's pull the verse apart and see what it teaches us. There's no one passage in the Bible that gives us everything we need to know about this wonderful and profound theme, but we learn an awful lot right here. First of all, let's take a look. Verse 6. In this, you greatly rejoice. In what? Here's a quick one. The first thing we learn here is that you will never be able to. To get through suffering. Unless you know a lot of biblical doctrine. This is awfully easy. I'm going to go through this kind of quickly, but I want you to see how important this is. Look. In this, you greatly rejoice. What is he talking about? Though you are suffering in grief. You're in grief, but you're rejoicing. What? In this. In what? Well, if you go back through the first five verses, which we looked at the last two weeks, you'll see that they are crammed with doctrine to God's elect who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit. For obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood in his great mercy has given us a 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 five verses, Peter gives you the entire ordo salutis. Do you know what the ordo salutis is? A little technical jargon. It's obviously a Latin term, and in theology it means the order of salvation. It's also called the golden chain. It starts up here, and it's all in verses one to five. One thing, the first thing is your foreknown. And we talked about this two weeks ago. Maybe two years ago. We talked about two weeks ago. To be foreknown by God doesn't mean to be foreseen, but to be foreloved. God sets his love on us in eternity. Then he chooses us. Then he sends His Spirit to sanctify us, to set us apart. All of our lives, preparing us. Finally, we believe and we're born again. How are we born again? Because Jesus died and rose from the dead. And then when we believe, we're born again and his blood is sprinkled on our soul, which is a spiritual way of saying all of our sins are forgiven. But that's not all. Then we grow in grace and we grow in sanctification. We become more and more holy. And all during this process, God is holding onto us. He's shielding us, keeping us by his power until the moment, the last moment of history, in which suddenly God shows up and wipes all of reality clean. And the glory of God comes down into our lives and we receive the final end of it all, which is, you know, we're perfect. We're made perfect. There it is. Foreknowledge leads to election. Election leads to calling. Calling leads to the rebirth and regeneration. That leads to repentance and faith and the sprinkling of the blood. That leads to sanctification, that leads to obedience, that leads finally to glorification on the last day. All in verses one to five. It's amazing. It's all in there. The entirety of systematic theology, the entirety of the order of salutis in verses 1 to 5. And then notice there is nothing in the Bible that's just there to be known. Not a thing. There's nothing there to be written in your notebook. And you put it up on the shelf and you say, now I know that I'm a mature Christian. I know all these great terms. No, in these you greatly rejoice in your grief. What he's saying is the reason that you're able to keep any joy up in your grief is because you know all this theology, you know all this doctrine. There's people who just turn their nose up at all this stuff they say, obscurantism, scholasticism, doctrine divides, Jesus unites. Who needs doctrine? I just want to know, Jesus, what are you going to do in grief? You look at all these things, you say, I don't know what all these things mean, and that's not important. And yet Peter says, this is what's going to get you through. Can you think about that? How well do you know and understand these things? These are the things, these great truths in which you rejoice. So don't forget, as you can see, verse 6 shows you that Christianity is far more than doctrine. You don't just put it on a shelf, you use it. But it's not less than doctrine. You'll never deal with suffering, you'll never get through it unless you can rejoice, unless you can relish, unless you can look at these wonderful things and say, look at all that God is doing for me. Look at how he's moving heaven and earth for me. And you savor these things, and that's the way you handle the furnaces of life. So that's the first thing we learn. Second thing we learn, however that was, that's the good news. The second we learn. Thing we learn is that Christians are subjected to grief. Now, this word grief. Well, I sure hope I don't look like I'm being real negative about the translations we use, because there's no perfect translations. But there's probably not a real good word for it. It's a good English word. It says, in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you have had to suffer grief. Now, this. In the Old Authorized Version, the word. This word here is called heaviness. And that's not a terribly great word either. But what it really, really refers to, it refers to be deeply troubled. It's a word that is related to a word that means to have a stormy sea. You know, when the water is. When a river, for example, is stirred up by tremendous water, rain Water. And it's stirred up. It's not beautiful and blue and clear. Oh, no, it's mucky and gucky and it's dirty and muddy. Because the turmoil and the tumult of the water pulls up all this gunk out of the bottom. See, it's turmoil. It's troubled. The waters are troubled. That's the word that's used here. And it says in these things, you greatly rejoice that right now you are experiencing distress. You're troubled, you're deeply disturbed. You're in grief and pain now. So the second point is that Christians should not be surprised, should realize that this is something that will happen to them. Now, I need to back off here for a moment. This is a paradox, but it's not a contradiction. It says in these, you greatly rejoice, though for a while you have had to suffer trouble. So you are rejoicing, but you're troubled. And they are both present. Rejoicing is a present indicative, and suffering is present perfect. But it's the same thing. They're both happening now. It doesn't say you are rejoicing, though you're rejoicing now, though you were troubled. And it doesn't say you're not rejoicing now because you are troubled. It says you are rejoicing now and you are deeply troubled. And we better look at this. Give me a minute or two. Because if you don't understand this, you're going to miss the genius of the Christian faith, and you're going to miss. It's so very important for us to understand this, because no matter what you were raised in, no matter what philosophy has come from, no matter what tradition, no matter what ethnic background, this was not part of what you were learned. You learned or you were raised with. This is unique. I'm afraid I must go so far as to say that in the Christian church, if you were raised in a conservative Christian church, if you were raised in an evangelical church, you're most likely to be screwed up about this. When. When I. My church in Virginia, we used to sing a lot of the old 19th century revivalist hymns, the Bumpty Bump hymns, okay? And they use a lot of, you know, 8th notes and 16th notes. And there was one that we used to sing called at the Cross. Maybe some of you ever heard it. And the chorus goes, at the Cross, at the cross where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away okay? So far it was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day yeah, we used to sing that. And you know, as a pastor, I used to look out there and I used to see people who were undergoing tremendous struggles and who had great pressure on them and they were bearing great burdens and they were tremendously troubled. And somehow, somehow when they were singing that hymn, I used to wince and I used to say, I wonder whether they feel guilty. And I found out as a pastor that they did because there was a message that came through in many, many evangelical churches, and that is once you receive Jesus as Savior, you might experience suffering, but you don't really feel it. You praise God, you keep the victory, you just trust that somehow it's all working out for the good and you just don't let it get to you. Now, this is not this verse does not indicate that that is accurate. As a matter of fact, I want to go so far as to say that that kind of attitude misses the very genius of the Christian life. First of all, the Bible again and again and again shows that Christians don't just accept experience, pain and suffering and grief, that they actually are affected by it. They are grieved by it. They are troubled by it. One of my favorite passages in regard to this is the place in the book of Job, you know, Job has gotten this news that his all of his children are dead, that all of his money is gone. And what does he do? The text says, and I quote, job arose, ripped his garments, shaved his head, fell to the ground and screamed. And in all this, Job sinned not.

A (17:23)

Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world and how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us but could actually make us stronger, wiser, and more hopefully all month long on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller is teaching from the book of First Peter and looking at how Peter encouraged early believers who were facing intense suffering and pain. In his book, Walking with God through pain and suffering, Dr. Keller takes a deeper look at how, with God's help, we can face life's most intense challenges and confront the hard questions on suffering. Through deep pastoral insight and real life stories, Dr. Keller explores how we can face pain and suffering in our own lives. This month, Walking with God through pain and Suffering is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the message of Christ's love and compassion with people all over the world. So request your copy today@gospelandlife.com give. That's gospelandlife.com give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

B (18:24)

Now those of you Who've got any kind of Christian? If you've been in other Christian churches, you've been raised up in Christian churches. What would you think that the folks in your church would think if somebody in the middle of the evening service did that, ripped his mantle, shaves his head, throws to the ground, screams out in agony and grief, what would they say? He's lost the victory. He's not praising the Lord. But you know what it says? It says, he ripped, he screamed, he fell, and in all these things, Job sinned. Not Paul says in Second Corinthians 4, we're persecuted but not forsaken. We're cast down, but not destroyed. We're perplexed, but we're not in despair. That's exactly what Peter's talking about. What the Bible actually teaches us. What the Bible actually teaches us, that Christians are both sadder and happier because of the gospel. That there actually are. The extremity of our emotions is a normal characteristic of somebody who's affected by the Gospel. First of all, I'll go so far as to say that Christians actually, because of the gospel, are sadder than other people. Well, somebody says, wait a minute, what are you talking about? Yeah, you look at Jesus, who had a perfect relationship with his father and had uninterrupted peace in his life, but he was always weeping all the time. Why? Because he was perfect. But you see, the more perfect you are, the more holy you are, the more you see the brokenness around you. And even, let me put it this way, I'll go so far as to say that when the gospel gets into your heart and you see that you are utterly and completely accepted and that you are totally loved, that gives you the emotional freedom to finally admit a lot of sin in your life. Until you understand that you are perfectly loved. Until you understand that God is going to eventually put the world straight, until that really sinks in and you have that kind of hope, you live in denial. It's impossible for people to really, really admit how wicked they are because they have no solution for it. They make excuses for their own sin. They look at it, they say, well, yes, but they can't. They repress the nature of it because they have no. They have no mental furniture. They have no hope. They have no way of actually dealing with it. If they were to admit just how bad it was with the worldview that they have, they would have to kill themselves. The same thing with the world. They look out there and they see everything around. They say, oh, legislation will do it. If we just get the right people into office. If we could just get that stupid party out of power, we could just do this and just do that. In other words, they're minimizing how bad things are. When you finally let the gospel sink deep into your heart, you now have got. Your conscience is strong enough and your heart is strong enough. You've got enough hope to finally admit how bad things are. You feel the hurt of other people. You see how unhappy people are. When the Bible says, this is what it means to become a Christian, God says, I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. What does that mean? It's got to mean this. If the gospel doesn't make you more tender hearted, if the gospel doesn't make you weep more easily, especially men, I would tell you this to guys, by the way, when you become a Christian, men in our culture, we're not supposed to weep. We're taught long ago. It's not even something we try not to do. It's so deeply ingrained. We don't cry. I mean, it's not something you try. You don't, as an adult male, you don't sit around and try not to weep. You can't. You don't just say, I'm a grown man. I don't want anybody to see me cry. I mean, you can't do it. And if you don't find yourself more able to weep because you're a Christian, the gospel hasn't sunk in. I tell you, Christians don't just experience suffering, they are affected by it. They experience grief. They experience being troubled. They are troubled, they see it around. Why would you be different than Jesus? But on the other hand, Christians, of course, got a hope. And they've got a sublime hope. Look at it. You see, 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. You know, in the old King James, it says, though ye do not see him, ye love him and rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And that is something that is always operating in you even when you're in the grief. And therefore, what a real Christian life is like. It's an adventurous life, it's an exciting life. But I'll tell you one thing, it's not a placid life. Oh, no. What this is telling us is that Christians have always got this balance. You're always experiencing grief, more grief than before. You cry more Easily. You sense the troubles of the world more than before. You care more, you know you have to. And you also sense your own evil, your own sin. You're able to see it, so you see your own. You know it humbles you. But on the other hand, you've got this joy unspeakable. Let me just tell you the problems that come up in the Christian life is when the balance is lost and when the, the grief overwhelms your hope. And the solution and the power of the Christian life is that you get back into that balance. Because a person who, a Christian who's really dealing with life is not somebody who rejoices and is not in grief. Oh, no. The glory of the Christian life is that we have a hope that overwhelms the grief. It doesn't eradicate, sweetens it. It overwhelms, balances it. I'll never forget the first time this happened to me. I had had a pretty easy life for a long time. When I was a brand new pastor, a guy I had become very close friends with, who was a young man in my church died. I watched him die. And his wife turned to me and said she had two little boys. And his wife turned to me and said, I'm not going to be able to tell them their daddy's dead. Could you do it? So I had to get in the car and run home to do it. And I remember thinking on the way, I don't see how I'm going to do this. How am I going to do this? The kids have no idea. I forget what they were, 10 and 8 or something like that. They have no idea what am I going to do. And I just felt this tremendous heaviness of heart. And yet as I sat and thought about that, the suffering that this family was going through, they were all Christians, you know, and the suffering that even I was going through, which was certainly less than what they were going through, was nothing compared to the suffering that Jesus went through because his cup was the cup of the wrath of God. In his case, he had to give up everything. In our case, what he's just saying is, I'll walk with you alongside of you. You know, as I got there, I said, lord, you got to help me. And what happens actually is the joy and spirit sometimes just comes through. It's a hard thing to describe. In a lot of ways, being a Christian is like being, you know, a furnace in a house. The colder the air outside for a while, it gets real cool in the house. And all of a sudden it's the coldness that makes the heat furnace kick on. And it's the grief that makes you go to your resources. It makes you go to your roots as a Christian. It makes you go to the gospel. It makes you look at what Jesus has done for you. That's what it does. The grief pushes you toward the joy and it enhances the joy. And the joy kicks on like a heat furnace and overwhelms the grief, but it's there. I'll go so far as to say that if you get into grief, if you get into time of trouble and, and you have no tears and you have no problem, and you say, no, I'm just praising God. That's thought control. That's brainwashing. That's the way the cults operate. That's some kind of psychological control. It's not supernatural. It's not the way the gospel works. Don't you see? So the second principle, second principle is that a Christian is both happier and sadder at the same time. That the gospel makes you a far more sensitive person, a far more feeling person, but at the same time a person who is feeling because you're more hopeful than anybody else. A person who is able to sense and see the grief because you have got a joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now, the third and last thing to point out here, the first teaching, of course, is that you're not going to be able to face suffering without doctrine. And I tried to show you why. The second teaching goes along with that. Actually, the second teaching is that Christians experience both the troubledness of life along with the joy of their salvation. And the troubles actually are enhanced in some ways by the feeling of your troubles, are enhanced by the gospel. But on the other hand, it's that grief that makes us understand and kicks in, the joy unspeakable. And that's how the Christian life works. Now lastly, and this is something that's a little bit frightening, the last thing is the trials happen not simply because the world is a bad place. I might have up to now given you that impression. That's not really what he says here. Peter's not saying in the world you will have trials and troubles, and that's because you can't avoid it. That's just the way the world is. So you're, you know, you're just going to have to face up to it. That's not what he says. He says in this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you may have. You may have had suffer Grief. And what he's got here is this. If grief does come into your life, if things happen, troubles come upon you. This statement, and there's many other places that say the same thing, so I'm not basing it on one verse, but this statement is that if you have troubles today, you need them. What? It's saying. John Newton, the guy who wrote Amazing Grace, put it so perfectly. You got to memorize this. I try to say it every year or so. That's probably not enough. Memorize this. Get the tape and memorize it. You know, you don't all have to buy the tape. Maybe eight of you buy it and then pass it around so you can memorize it. Everything is necessary that he sends. Nothing can be necessary that he withholds. See, that. That's the implication of this. That's. That's definitely what you have to see is the teaching. If it's in your life, you need it. Even if it's bad. If it's not in your life, you don't need it, even though you think you do. Why? Because there's an order to your life. Because your father. Your father hates to see the brokenness out there. Your father doesn't like to see the tragedy, but he is monitoring it. He's letting it into your life instead. Stages in ways that actually will teach you the things he wants you to learn. There's an order about your life, you say? That doesn't seem to me to be the case. It looks chaotic to me. Of course, because it's not your order, it's not your agenda, it's not your schedule. Of course it looks chaotic. You didn't expect it. But there's an order. In the book of Hebrews, Hebrews, Chapter 12, Trials of Our life are called a gymnasium, a gymnasto, a discipline. There's an order, there's a regimen, there's a plan. It's just not your plan. That's the reason why it seems so awful, but it's there. Samuel Rutherford said, his wise love feeds us with hunger and fattens us with famine. Well, what do you mean? Well, there's a hundred ways, first of all. Just run through them real briefly. Don't forget. We'll keep getting back to this subject, because First Peter is all about the subject. First of all, you will never learn who you are without suffering. Suffering shows you your faults. It shows you your flaws. If you're in a bad marriage, God hates that. He hates to see you suffering. If you're in a bad. If you're in A bad relationship. God hates that. If you're in a bad job, God hates that. I'm not saying you need to stay in a bad job. I'm not saying you need to stay and say, well, if this is part of God's will for me, I guess I better stay here. And, you know, gee, God, keep hitting me, I'm still breathing. That's not the idea. That's not the idea. It says when you find yourself stuck and there's no way out and you are hurting, God is not actually bringing you into conflict with that boss. He's not really bringing you into conflict with your spouse. He's actually bringing you into conflict with yourself. You're being confronted with yourself, your lack of patience, your lack of foresight, your addictions, your foolishness, your ego. And there is no greater gift that he can give you than self discovery. And there's no more painful gifts that he can give you than self discovery. And if there was any other way to give it to you, he would give it to you. He's trying to teach you now, how do you handle it? We got to finish it this way. If he gives you things that you need, just remember these things. Number one, look, it's only for a little while. You say, what do you mean? Define little. It's a little while. It's temporary. Suffering is temporary. There'll be an end to it. He says, okay. Number two, the second thing you have to do is make sure you go back to the doctrine and rejoice if you forget that he's your Father. If you forget the salvation, you forget all the things in verses 1 to 5. You will not be able to handle verses 6, 7, and 8. You have to go back to 1 to 5 to handle verses 6, 7, AND 8. You have to remember his timing. You have to remember it's not my schedule, it's his schedule. Secondly, you have to remember that he's a father, that he's appointed these things, that they're there for you to grow under. And the only way you're ever going to become a glorious person is if you see who you are. And the only way you're going to know who you are is very often if you go through times of grief. So remember this. Let's read it again. The other gods were strong, but thou wast weak. They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne to our wounds, only God's wounds can speak. And not a God has wounds, but thou alone. And Elizabeth Elliott ends with these. We bow in gratitude for his willingness to take the cup the Father gave him, a cup so immensely more bitter than the one he gives us ever. Shall we refuse the cup he gives us, or shall we grasp it with both hands, as it were, realizing it holds just what is most needful for our spiritual wholeness? Ours has really been sweetened at the lip of sweet Jesus. We drink it by trustful acceptance, and God will transform us for his glory. Thus our very suffering may become the substance of sacrifice, a love offering to God and a sacrifice of praise. And our ambition may be changed as radically as was Paul's, who said, all I care for is to know Christ, to experience the power of his resurrection, and to share his sufferings in growing conformity with his death. This isn't bad news. You're not going to avoid the suffering. Don't say, oh, this is bad news. What do you mean, this is bad news? Whether you believe what I said to me or not, you're going to have hard times in your life. I'm a member of a family of five people. That means one somebody is going to have to bury four others. And that's even if everything else pretty much goes okay. You're telling me, wow, this is bad news. It's not bad news. You've got a hard life in front of you. You know that? Because you live in this world now, you can either accept what he says. Jesus says, I had a harder life than you. I took the real cup and drank it. Now, these little cups that you have in front of you are for your good. Drink it with me. I will be with you. There's a purpose and there's a meaning behind it all. It will only be for a while. It'll only be temporary. That's bad news. Trust him. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that you would grant that we could now learn to trust you. Some of us are facing very hard times and we don't want to believe that you're behind us. You're not behind the suffering. The suffering is here because the world is full of sin. But you have promised that if we trust in you, you will monitor, you will control, you will walk with us in that suffering in such a way that we can become like your son. Help us to follow him in his path so that through his sufferings, through the sufferings, we might achieve your glory. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

A (35:44)

Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Tim Keller here at Gospel and life for the 40 days from ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel and Life would like to email you a daily Lent devotional. You can sign up to receive these daily emails@gospelandlife.com lent that's gospelandlife.com lent Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

B (36:19)

Sa.