A (19:38)

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 hopeful? All month long on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller is teaching from the book of 1 Peter and looking at how Peter encouraged early believers who were facing intense suffering in 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 and 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 (20:39)

The mercy of God and the sheer mercy of God as the ground of why you are a Christian is all the doctrine of election really teaches. That's the heart of it. But secondly, the mercy of God also answers another question. When people hear the doctrine of election, right away they say, oh, I've got this terrible problem. What about all the people that God doesn't elect? I can't stand it. That really bothers me. But this actually is the right response. Listen, the Bible tells us that God wants everybody to be redeemed. He weeps over the one sheep that is lost out of the hundred and he goes after the 1 and he, you know, leaves the 99. The Bible says everywhere. He wants no one to be lost, he wants no one to perish, he wants everyone to be redeemed. So the question that comes up is, why then doesn't he go get everybody? And you know what the answer is? The answer is that when we get to his throne and we ask him that question and we get the answer, we're going to realize that his mercy is greater than anything we could have imagined. You know what your problems are? Those of you who have problems with the doctrine of election? You think you can imagine a more merciful scheme of salvation than he did. That's impossible. That is impossible. When we find out the reason, and I don't know what the reason is, why doesn't he go get everybody if he wants everybody, huh? Somebody says, ah, because he doesn't want to violate our free will. Boy, that's really sweet of him. You know, violate, Don't. I wouldn't want to violate my free will. I'll send all those people to hell just so they keep their free will. Forget my free will, you know, insult me, overwhelm my free will, you know, insult me for a second and save me for eternity. That's no answer. There is no answer. We don't know why he doesn't go get everybody. We have no idea. Except we know that when we find out what the answer is, we're going to find out it's mercy. He's not. There's no way that you can imagine a more merciful scheme of salvation than he. In the end, we're going to see he's more merciful than anything we could have imagined, that his plan of salvation and the reasons for why he does everything he does is more merciful than anything we can imagine. Just remember that the source of everything, the reason you're a Christian, in his great mercy, everything comes from that. Secondly, the motive for salvation is his mercy. Then secondly, the mode of his salvation is, look, the new birth. Now, fortunately, I can be brief Here, because at the end of the chapter of 1 Peter, at the end of 1 Peter, there's a whole section on the new birth. And in fact, if you, those of you who have actually looked at the schedule to see what subject we're touching on every week, you'll see that somewhere in November or something like that, we get to it. So we don't have to go into it now. But the one thing of note here, and it's very important, is just to point out that this is how a person, this is how salvation comes in. Maybe this is obvious, but I better say it because some of you might not have heard this. Being born again is not a kind of Christianity. When people talk about, well, there's the born again Christians, you know how stupid that is. I mean, there was a man I knew once named Paul Little. The word Paul means small. And he used to always say his name was an exercise in needless repetition because you know, his name Paul meant little. And his last name was Little, which meant little. And so his name was really Little. Little. You know, he said, that's an exercise in redundancy. To say born again Christian is just as stupid. You're not a Christian if you're not born again. This is the way it happens. Another way to put it is the difference between a Christian and a non Christian is not a difference between of degree, it's a difference of quality. The difference between a Christian and a person who's not a Christian is in the nature. A Christian is someone with a new nature. In fact, the word for new birth here is a hapax logomenon, which means it's a Greek word that's used nowhere else anywhere in the New Testament. And it's actually the word. When you see the word new birth, you're thinking of actually in your mind. The picture you have is of the baby coming out of the mother. But this word actually has to do with the act of the father in the conception of the baby. In the old King James version, it actually says he has begotten us. Because what this is referring to is the implantation of new life into your soul. And that's what makes you a Christian. A lot of people think, all right, the difference between a Christian and a non Christian is addition. Here's the Reader's Digest version of the article and here's the full article. They're basically the same article. It's just the full article has a lot more statistics and it has footnotes and has longer sentences and so on, but basically the same article. A lot of people look at that as the difference between a Christian and a non Christian. You're both basically decent human beings. It's just that Christians have additional customs and additional. Maybe they're a little more conscientious and they have additional beliefs. The Bible says no, that was Nicodemus problem. Nicodemus came by night. He was a rabbi and he came to Jesus in John chapter three and he said, rabbi, we're both teachers in Israel, but you seem to be a lot better teacher than me. There's a lot of things you seem to be able to do that I can't do. You seem to have a power that I don't have. What is it? What is that, you know, extra added ingredient that you have? What is it? And Jesus says, you've made a great mistake. It's not like you just need a. An extra amount of truth. It's not like you have just missed a particular principle. It's not like you need anything added Nicodemus. You have to be born again. You have to be reconceived. You have to be regenerated. You have to be completely made new. You have to be rebuilt on a new frame. You need to have a new reality come into your own heart and soul, God's own substance, and explode in there and change you. The difference between a Christian and somebody who's not a Christian is the most radical difference possible. It's a difference of nature. Here's Esau and here's Jacob. You know, you read about them. Esau is a far more likable guy than Jacob. Esau, they were brothers, they were twin brothers. And Esau was a much nicer person, a more affable person, all that sort of thing. Jacob in many ways was a. Was more deceitful, he was more deceptive. All kinds of things that were wrong about him. But God loved Jacob. Why a difference in nature? It's a difference in nature. Eventually, Jacob becomes a far better person than Esau, a far stronger person, a far wiser person. But you see, initially the difference is not who's more decent. It's not a matter, you see, of addition. It's a matter of nature. Don't forget that. Never forget that born again Christian is needless redundancy. Then last of all, we're shown here that everything that happens to us as Christians is through his mercy. And that the way in which he brings all of his salvation into our life is through the new birth. But then there's two signs. How do you know you've Been born again. How do you know that? How do you know if you actually have this new life growing in you? How do you know if the seed's been planted? And there's two answers here. The first is, we can only look at them briefly, but they're just lovely and wonderful. First of all, he has given us a new birth into a living hope. And then secondly, verse four, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven, who, through faith, are shielded by God's power until the coming of that salvation. I can only summarize that. I can't pull apart all the sentences and everything. But here's what we have. First of all, the way you know that you're a Christian is that you develop a living hope. Now, the word hope in the Bible does not mean general optimism. It's not a. Mr. McCawber. Oh, something will turn up. It's not just looking on the bright side of things. It's not always looking for the best in people. Not necessarily at all. Oh, my, no. As a matter of fact, you get steeped in the Bible and the biblical doctrine of original sin and what the Bible says about human beings and. No, I'm sorry, it doesn't turn you into an optimist by any means when it comes to things like that. Don't be surprised at the fiery trial, says Peter. Don't be shocked at all when everything falls down around your head. Now, is that. Does that sound optimistic? You know, Peter says, never be shocked, never be surprised. Never, never be surprised when horrible things happen to you. Oh, see, Christians are wonderful optimists, right? No, not at all. That's not what hope is. Hope, a living hope in particular, is an assured conviction of the triumph of God. An assured conviction of the triumph of God. Have I ever told you my Archie story about that? I had a friend of mine named Archie who was a great Cowboys, A Dallas Cowboys fan back in the days when Roger Staubach was playing for them. And see, those were hard days to be a Cowboys fan. They almost always won, except when they played the Steelers, but they almost always won. You know, they'd be 11 and, you know, 11 and 3 and 4 and that sort of thing. They almost always won. But Roger Staubach was a comeback kid type. So they were always trailing going to the last two minutes, and he'd bring them back from 10 points down, from 14 points down. It was exciting, but it was an awful. If you were a Cowboys fan, to watch because he was always behind, and then he would finally Win. And Archie was one of these guys that loved the Cowboys so much that he literally could not handle, Couldn't stand watching the games, and yet he wanted to watch them, but he couldn't stand. And then all of his troubles were solved. He went into the service and he was sent. And he was stationed, I think in Japan. I know he was stationed in Asia. And he used to watch the Cowboys games on the Armed Service Network. And he had no more problem. He would watch. He would, you know, he'd watch Roger being thrown for a loss. It would be 4th and 30, 4th and long all the time. He saw them going in the last two minutes and they were down by 10 points. No problem, no sweat, no sweating, happy watching. And sure enough, they would win. You know why? Because. Because, you know, the Armed Service Network would show the game the day after it was played. And he knew the score. He knew the final score. He had no idea how they'd get to it. He only knew the final score. And now he would see him thrown for fourth and long. He would see him down. Oh, my gosh. Doesn't look like he's going to get up. Is he injured? Will he be after the season? No sweat. Archie had a living hope. He knew only the final triumph of Roger the Dodger. But he didn't really know what was going to happen in the middle. He had no idea. At one point, Roger was knocked out. Will he ever come back? Will he be out for the season? Will he only be out for one play? Who knew? No sweat with Archie. Now that's what it means to have hope. You realize Christianity is really the only religion that even gives you an intellectual basis for hope. If you go to Eastern religions like Buddhism or Hinduism, I'm not saying that those aren't rich religions, that they aren't articulate, that they aren't deep, that there isn't a lot of wisdom in them not saying that. But they are fatalistic and they are absolutely unhopeful. They do not believe that there will be a moment in which God will come down and all wrongs will be righted and all oppression will be gone and we will move into a personal, eternal state in which we will know and love one another. None of that stuff. We'll just flip back into the great all soul, you know, like a little dewdrop going back into the sea, losing our individuality. Absolutely fatalistic. No religion has even the intellectual basis of hope of Christianity. And then, of course, modern religion, modern secularism. You know what's really interesting? Modern secularism, a Hundred years ago, had tremendous hope because it believed in, it had an inviction of the assured triumph not of God, but of humankind. Before World War II, H.G. wells, remember H.G. wells, the guy that wrote War of the Worlds and all that? He said this. No kidding. And this is the way people felt. Can we doubt that our race will presently realize our boldest imaginations? Unity, peace in a world more splendid and lovely than any palace or garden ever known. Going from strength to strength in an ever widening circle of achievement. Isn't it incredible? Now we can't. Even when we get rid of God, we now not only realize that science won't take us into justice and compassion, but science doesn't even allow us to define it. Didn't you see recently at that great human rights convention and you know, the representatives of the United States said, you know, to the countries, you guys that are doing ethnic cleansing and genocide and you're rounding up prisoners and you're torturing them, we're not going to give you any more aid if you don't stop violating human rights. And what did they say to them? Do you remember what they said? It was amazing. They said, wait a minute, you're imposing your values on us. We like to torture people without trial. Who do you think you are to impose your values? Who's to say that you're right? Who's to say that Western democracy is more right than us? How dare you. See, we're at an absolute impasse. We can't even define compassion, we can't even define justice. Unless you say, but there's a God. Oh, no, we can't say that. So what are we going to say? Well, I feel that torturing and doing genocide is a bad idea. And they said, fine, go ahead. You can feel that way over in your country. We're going to do it here. No, I'm sorry. After World War II, the same H.G. wells who wrote all that wonderful stuff said this. He said, homo sapiens, as he is pleased to call himself, is played out. His depravity has come near to breaking my spirit. There's no hope in modern secularism. There's no hope in the Eastern religions. And let me tell you what it means to be a Christian. You will find as you grow, you will find as you live, that the hope, the intellectual coherence of Christianity becomes more and more clear to you. And the emotional impact of that hope grows. You find yourself more buoyant, you find yourself more able to handle life. You find yourself more able to handle Suffering. You see, even here, Peter is trying to say, do you want to know how to deal with the furnace? If you're born again, there'll be a living hope. You will see these great things that the Bible talks about. An inheritance, a future inheritance, imperishable, undefiled, unfading. That's the way the Authorized Version puts it. See, in heaven, you are going to be permanent, imperishable. Secondly, you're going to be sinless, undefiled. And thirdly, you're going to be beautiful, beyond bearing, unfading. The more you understand that, the more you realize that the intellectual coherence of Christianity, the rationality of it, actually, the more you see the truth of it, the more that grows in you, the more you're able to handle the furnace. That is a sign that you've been born again. That's a sign that's come into you, that the new life has come into you. And then lastly, it says, who through faith, are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation is ready to be revealed in the last time. The word shielded is really inadequate. The Greek word, there is a word that actually means locked up in a garrison, so that not only are you safe from an attack, but you are also safe from escaping yourself. You are safe from your own cowardly retreat. The word shielded is only half of that. What it tells us here is there is a love, a love for God, a love for his salvation, a hope of glory that grows in a real Christian. And though you might slide around and you might even slide back, and you might even temporarily say, I don't want anything to do with Christianity, but it's an eternal flame in you that cannot be put out. God actually has you in a garrison. He is keeping you safe not only from outside attacks on your faith, but he's even keeping you safe from your own stupidity, which is our greatest enemy. And therefore we know that the way you know you're really a Christian is that there's is this passionate, enduring love and passion for the glory that is to be revealed that just can't be put out. So we find ourselves coming back even when life seems so hard, even when Christianity seems so hard, even when we don't understand why God's doing what he's doing, there's something that draws us back, something that draws us back. We're on a giant rubber band. Even when we try to run away from him, we're locked up in a garrison. Have you experienced this living hope? Do you understand what I mean by that kind of relentless passion for the glory of God that we just can't get rid of. Even sometimes when you try. These are the signs of the new birth. Well, as we go to the table, just remember something that's great. The bread and the cup. On the one hand, they look back to what Jesus has done. They look back to what Jesus has done. Why are you born again? Because he was broken for you. But on the other hand, they look ahead to what Jesus is going to do. It represents the banquet, it represents the feast, it represents sitting down at the table of your Father. And the more you think about both what it represents in the past and what it looks forward to in the future, because it's a sacrament, because God has said, do this and I will meet with you in a special way. Your living hope can be stirred up so strong right now. I tell you, go and ask him for that. As you take the bread, as you take the cup, say, lord, stir up that living hope. Stir up that passion for my inheritance so that I will be as buoyant as I should be and I'll be able to face Monday morning and I'll have no problem with fourth and long situations anymore. Let's pray. Our Father, give all of us now a realization that if you take us into the furnace, you'll walk there beside us. And if we seek to meet you right now, you will stir up in us a living hope that will never, ever, ever die and will take us through the hottest fires and the hottest colds. Some of us right now need that very desperately and therefore we ask that you would meet with us and surprise us with your reality. As we confess our sins and partake of the elements of your table. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

A (39:55)

Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the Gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com There you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals and other great gospel centered resources. Again, it's all@gospelandlife.com you can also stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram, YouTube and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life Podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.