Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Love Beyond Degree

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Rightly so, at Christmas, people who are suffering want to know, “Why should I be merry? What basis do I really have for joy?” The answer is that if Christmas really happened, if God really did open a cleft in the pitiless walls of this world, if he broke into our broken reality with his healing power, if he became a human being, then there are three solid bases for joy in any circumstance.  If Christmas happened, then even in the deepest grief, you can feel these three things holding you up: 1) our bad things will turn out for good, 2) our most truly good things can never be taken away from us, and 3) our best things are yet to come. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 17, 2006. Series: In Christ Jesus: How the Spirit Transforms Us. Scripture: Romans 8:28-39. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Are you longing to see real change in your life, in your habits, your relationships, your heart? Today, Tim Keller explores how lasting change actually happens in the life of a Christian and why the gospel offers a radically different process of transformation than anything else. scripture passage for tonight is Romans 8, verses 28 through 39. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called. Those he called, he also justified.

and those he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies, who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died more than that who was raised to life

is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword as it is written for your sake we face death all day long we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered know in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us for i am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor demons neither the present nor the future nor any powers

neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of god that is in christ jesus our lord this is the word of the lord joy. We sing about joy of the world. Ever notice at Christmas we sing about these merry gentlemen, and nothing dismayes them? It's amazing. And

what we said last week, too, is we're going through Romans 6, 7, and 8, and in this series we come here to the very end of the passage or the section we're looking at, which is the end of Romans 8. And as we said last week, one of the problems with Christmas

is that if you're bearing burdens if you are actually struggling with the life issues, real troubles than an awful lot of people are. Christmas is a tough time because the message is you should have fun. This is Christmas and of course that just makes it worse. And rightly so, I think suffering people at Christmas want to know what basis does Christmas really give me for joy? Why should I be Mary. What basis do I really have for joy that Christmas gives me? And the answer is, if Christmas really happened, if God really did at Christmas open a cleft in the pitiless walls of this world, if he broke into our broken reality with his healing power, if he became a human being, if

Christmas happened, I'd like to show us that there's three things, three solid bases for joy that Christmas gives us, that we can have in any circumstances, even in the deepest grief, these three things you can feel holding you up. If Christmas happen, I've been reading, getting into a book that used to be required reading. It's actually called one of the most influential books in the history of Western civilization. It's a book called The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Boetheus was a philosopher and a statesman, but he was a, is thrown into prison, and he wrote this book when he was actually in prison on trumped-up charges waiting to be executed. And the question he poses is, if the world takes everything

away from you, practically, there is to rejoice in the world? Is there any way to maintain your equilibrium, your hope, and your joy in the face of that? And his answer in the end is yes, and is a Christian, he comes up with these same three things I'd like to share with you. And by the way, this passage is a marvelous passage it's a huge passage and it also raises what a lot of people would consider kind of thorny issues about free will and predestination all that sort of stuff i'll come back to that after uh after christmas but you know i'd like to give you a gift hey listen I'm going to give you a gift tonight you don't have to sit around saying well how did you get that gift and where did it come from and where did you buy it

just enjoy it tonight there's three things that Christmas if it's true and if you believe it's true because you know you don't have access to this if you don't believe it if you believe that what happened to Christmas really happened there's three things three solid bases for joy

and here's what they are our bad things will turn out for good our most truly good things can never be taken away from us and our best things are yet to come that's what it tells us our bad things will turn out for good our most truly good things can never be taken away from us and our best things are yet to come

and if you know those if you got those you can face things first our bad things will turn out for good think of Christmas Jesus is born into poverty he's born into danger you know his family has to flee to Egypt to escape slaughter. There's no room for him at the inn.

But out of Jesus' poverty comes the greatest spiritual riches. Out of Jesus' weakness comes the most incredible power and strength. Out of Jesus' isolation and rejection comes a people brought together, united in the deepest love, unity. In other words, out of terrible things, through terrible things, because of the those terrible things that happen comes great good. And Paul says, Romans 828, all things work together for good in the lives of those who love God. All things, bad and good, small and little and big and momentous, all things work together for good to them who love God. Now right away, let me just quickly tell you what this is not saying. This is not a superficial saccharine view of life that

says, oh, behind every cloud there's a silver lining. Here are these bad things, but they're not really bad. if you learn how to look at him with a certain perspective, no. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus' friend Lazarus is dead. He goes to the tomb. People all around him are weeping. Jesus is about to do exactly what Paul is talking about in Romans 828. He's going to, out of all this bad, he's going to bring something good. He's going to bring glory and joy into the world that wouldn't have been there if Lazarus hadn't died.

So he's going to bring good out of the bad. He's going to make it work. out for good. But he's not chuckling at the tomb. Jesus doesn't come up to the tomb going, ha ha ha. Way do you guys see what I'm about to do? He's not chuckling. He's not saying, oh, I'm going to raise him from the dead. He's weeping with those who weep. We're told he's angry at the tomb. He's bellows and anger when he comes to the tomb. You know, Jesus at the tomb in John 11 almost forces you. The view of Jesus there almost forces you to think of Dylan Thomas, the great Welsh poet's line, famous line, he says,

do not go silent into that night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And that's what Jesus is doing there. He's raging against the dying. Death, which separates soul from body. Injustice that separates race from race or person from person. All things that God has joined together,

all things that put things asunder, that God has brought together, are bad, they're bad, they're evil in themselves. They're not just, oh, they have a silver lining, or if you just look at them in another way, they're not really bad, they're bad. They're terrible. Jesus hates them. He's weeping, he's angry at them. But Romans 828 says the way God defeats those really, truly bad things is sum total, all together, God is overruling, shaping, mastering everything. So in the end, he defeats bad because somehow he's going to make all the bad. everything working together to bring about good results in your life. And the question you might say is

how. And of course, I think there's a, there's a, there's one way in which God does this, which is relatively easy to grasp. And there's another way in which God does this, which is impossible to understand. The one way that's fairly easy to grasp is actually right here. Verse 28 says he works all things for good. And in verse 29, he says that his, that his whole plan for us is to conform us to the likeness of his son. Now that's the part that we can grasp and that's this. You may think your biggest problem are your circumstances. You may think my biggest problem is I, you know, if I could just make the money, if I could just get the job, if this door would open, you think your problems are the circumstances. But circumstances cannot destroy your life the way character flaws can. It's your

character that is your real problem. That's what will destroy you really. It's foolishness and pride and selfishness and denial about your sins and your flaws and hardness of heart. And most of all, the false illusion that you really can make, you can handle life without God. All those things, those mistakes, those flaws in character. Those are the things which almost always it takes bad stuff to knock out of us. I mean, almost all of us that have been alive more than two or three decades, no offense. to anybody. Those of us who have been alive two or three decades, or more, more than two or three decades, there's things that have happened to us and we have scars and they're bad and they still hurt. And yet the insight or the character or the strength that we've gotten from it, we wouldn't trade for anything. And that's just a hint of what we're being told here. All kinds of bad things are going to happen to you through which God is going to conform you to the likeness of his son. And there's no joy without that conformity. So you say, okay, does that

exhausted is that it i mean all the bad things are just going to make me a better person no it can't because there's another sense of which god is obviously working all things together for good that will always escape us and you have to know it if you're going to be able to handle the troubles of life you have to know god is working all things together for good and you couldn't possibly grasp how to me still the primary premier place where you can see this and i'll speak for myself i won't confess your sins i'll confess mine if i was at the foot of the cross that dark afternoon like a lot of people

and I knew what everybody else knew and only what everybody else knew here was a really good man here was a powerful man here's a man who had a tremendous power to do good he was healing people

he was feeding people he had enormous potential and yet he's cut off in the middle of his life 33 years old tragic death and it's clear that God had abandoned him In fact, he says God has forsaken him. So with all the facts that everybody else had,

if I was there, I would have looked up and I would have said, I don't see what good God could possibly be bringing out of this. And I would have gone home losing my faith, perhaps, at least shaken, maybe losing it. Because I couldn't fit how God was bringing enormous good. That was the greatest thing that God would ever do for the human race because it didn't fit into my little brain patterns and my little categories, I would have said, I don't see what God could possibly be doing.

In other words, if you've got an infinite God, of course he could have reasons for why he's allowing something that you can't consider, that you can't understand. It's the height of arrogance not to think about that. So if that's what I would have done at the foot of the cross, and my guess is that's probably what you would have done at the foot of the cross, when you feel abandoned, when everything seems like it's happening to you, you can't see any good reason why in the world it would happen, don't you dare make the same mistake. Don't make the same mistake. Our bad things will turn out for good. That's one very important thing to grasp.

And Christmas shows us that. Secondly, though, our most truly good things can never be taken away from us. Now, that's the second thing Christmas shows us. Why? Well, if anything, Christmas shows us the radical graciousness of God's salvation. The trajectory of human religion is, I go to God. I have to ascend through moral effort and through transformations of consciousness or whatever. I must ascend toward God, then he will bless me. If I live the life I ought to live, then he will bless me and save me. But the trajectory of the gospel is from God to us.

See, at Christmas, God is basically saying, you're never going to get up to me. I've got to come down to you. You're just never going to make it. and therefore he traverses the entire chasm between humanity and God. He comes all the way. He comes all the way right to us. And when Jesus comes, he comes poor and weak. William Billings, that great hymn,

there's that great line where William Billings says, seek not in courts nor palaces, nor royal curtains draw, but search the stable, see your God, extended on the straw. God extended on the straw. See, why does God come not as a general at the head of an army, not as a king on a throne? Why does he come poor and weak? I'll tell you why. He does not come as a strong one for the strong. He's not a God who helps those who helps themselves. No way. He comes for people who are weak and who can't do what we need to do. So he comes. He comes. He comes to suffer. He comes to die. He comes to pay the penalty for our sins. He comes, therefore, to give us love, salvation benefits that are unconditional. Because they're not based in us, any condition in us. It's love beyond condition. It's love beyond degree. And that's what this passage is all about.

The Psalms can profoundly shape the way you approach God. Even Jesus relied on the Psalms to face every situation, including death. In Tim and Kathy Keller's 360, 65-day devotional, The Songs of Jesus, you'll find daily readings through the Psalms with fresh biblical insight. If you don't have a regular devotional practice, this book is a wonderful way to start. And if you already spend time and study and prayer, then reading and praying through the Psalms can help you bring your deepest emotions and questions before God and discover a new level of intimacy with him. We'll send you Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional as our thanks for your gift to help gospel and life share the love of Jesus with more people. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give.

That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. So, for example, look at that place where it says, he forenows us. What do you think that means? You might say, oh, forenose means he foresees us. No. Just keep this in mind. Knowing in the Bible is a very relational word.

to know about something is a cognitive thing to know something is an experiential thing you can know about someone but not know them and therefore when it says god forenows us what it's really saying is not that he foresees us but he forloves us he puts his love on us before we do anything in his direction that's how unconditional and aggressive his love is if you want a perfect example of it the prodigal son. You know, here comes the prodigal son. Does the father sit there and say, does he stay on the porch tapping his foot

saying this better be good? Does the father say, if he repents, then I'll shower him with love? No. He runs to him and he kisses him and pounces on him and showers him with love, enabling him,

making it far easier to repent. Our love does not evoke God's love. God's love evokes ours. That's how radicals. and that's how unconditional it is. And if you say, well, what about free will? I told you, I'd come back. Why don't you just accept the gift right now?

And here's what the gift is. Here's what the gift is. God's not just the boss. He's a father. A boss can like an employee. But if that employee screws up over and over and over again, even the nicest boss starts to say, how do I get rid of her?

How do I get rid of him? Even the nicest boss, if he screws up over and over and over again, you start to say, how am I going to get rid of? But when a child screws up over and over again, all that does is make the parent more intensely concerned about the child. It intensifies the love of the parent. It focuses the love of the parent. The more you screw up, the more your parental love explodes in the direction of the child. And that means what? The really great things that you have, your justification, we've talked about this being made right with him your adoption into the family your relationship with him these

things can't be taken away from you see nothing it says at the very end in all creation inside you or outside you can separate you from the love of god that means that the absolute sovereign of the universe to whom the galaxies are like dust on the scales loves you with the unconditional intensity of a parent that's the second thing. And Christmas shows us this. Your bad things will turn out for good, your most truly good things can never be taken away from you, and the best things are yet to come. Now, the third thing, actually, we see is in verse 30. If you go through 28, 29 and 30, we see, as we already saw, he foreloves us, he puts his love on us, he calls us, he justifies us,

gives us the right relationship with us, and then he glorifies us. No, actually, that's not what it says, is it? It's all past tense. That's not how we would talk. See, do you see what Paul is saying? Commentators have been noticing this for centuries, actually. It's actually very striking. What you and I would say is, talking to Christians, he put his love on you, he called you, he justified you, he pardoned you, and someday he will glorify you. That's not what Paul says. He says he's already glorified you. Past tense. Past tense? Past tense? here's what he's saying first of all

our future glory because of what Jesus Christ has done has been made so certain he can talk about it this way it is so certain you say how could it be that certain we've got a hymn you know that goes like this it's where God is speaking

it's it's a how from a foundation and the last lines go that soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I will not desert to its foes. That soul, though, all hell should endeavor to shake. I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake. That word, there is the key.

How is it possible that God could never forsake us? Because Jesus on the cross said, you've forsaken me. Jesus was forsaken in our place so that we will never be forsaken. Or another way to put it is Jesus lost the glory. Philippians too, he emptied himself of his glory. Isaiah 53, he had no. beauty by which we should desire him. He absolutely lost his glory. He became pitiful. He became small, shriveled. He became inconsequential. He became, he lost all of his glory so that we

could have it so certainly, so assuredly, that Paul can talk about it in the past tense. Now, if that's the case, that, I believe Paul is saying, as I read this entire chapter, and we talked about this somewhat last week as well. Here's what I think Paul is saying. Paul is saying, I believe so much in the brutality of life. I do not have rose-colored glasses. I don't have a kind of mind-over-matter idea about this. I would never say, oh, you know, things aren't so bad if you just learn to look at it this way. I so believe in the brutality of life, the inevitable brutality of life, that unless I knew there was glory coming to me, I would not be able to lead a meaningful life. in the midst of all the suffering.

Paul is saying only glory makes it possible to realistically face how bad life is and live a meaningful life in the midst of it, even a triumphant life in the midst of it, only knowing what he says here, and up in verse 18, and over in 2nd Corinthians 4, where he says, I consider that the suffering in this present time

is not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us. I believe he says in 2nd Corinthians for the suffering in this present time is preparing a weight of glory for us for as our outward nature was away our inward is being renewed every day what is he talking about there's two things is how we're going to close the first of all he's saying if you understand what paul is saying here he's saying that when we suffer in christ holding on to christ it makes us more real

what do you mean makes us more real it makes us more real it makes us more real it makes us more real. Because the word glory, entomologically, means weighty or solid. And actually, if you think about this, we've been talking about this all through this series. If everybody loves their your career is important to everybody.

And so if you have problems in your career, it's going to shake you. But if you've completely built your life on your career, if your whole identity is in your career, then when something goes wrong with your career, you're going to be shattered. Just shattered. Devers devastated. No you left, no self left. And that's the reason that instead of putting our weight

on things that are always shifting around and always shaking, when you put your weight on the rock, when you root yourself more firmly in the love of God and what he says about you and what he's done for you, you become more solid, you become more stable, you become actually more real. That is to say, you actually become something, someone who's going to last, no matter what. Suffering, when it gets you more deeply into God, when it drives you more deeply into God, and into what he's done for you, it makes you more real. Now, the reason I know that Paul's right is because the velveteen rabbit agrees with him. So, for example, the skin horse says to the velveteen rabbit,

when a child loves you for a long, long time, then you become real. Does it hurt? asked the velveteen rabbit. Oh, yes, said the skin horse. That's why it doesn't happen to those who break easily or who have to be very carefully handled. By the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get really loose in the joints, and you look awfully shabby.

But once you are real, you can't be ugly. except to the people who don't understand. And you know that John Newton hymn that goes where God is speaking to us basically, and the John Newton hymn where God says, these inward trials, these inward trials I employ from pride and self to set thee free and break thy schemes of earthly joy that thou mayst find thine all in me. See, first of all, suffering is actually making you more glorious now. your inward person is being renewed day by day.

Glory is, it's preparing a weight of glory now, but not only that, the future glory overwhelms, overwhelms. As we think about it, Paul says, I reckon that the suffering in this present time is not worthy to be compared with the glory that should be revealed to us. The future glory overwhelms and puts perspective and enables us to face what we've got in front of us. That's the reason why St. Teresa of Avila was able to say, the first kiss from Jesus, the first second of glory, is going to make all the suffering you've ever experienced seem like one night in a bad hotel. That's the reason why Dostoevsky is going to be, is able to say, I believe that suffering will be healed and made up for it, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they've shed, that it will make it not just possible to forgive,

but to justify everything that's happened. That's awfully radical. But something like that is what Paul's talking about. Now, let me draw it all together. Do you understand that this glory is already making you, pardon me, the suffering can already be making you glorious and someday will be overshadowed by the glory that is to be revealed? There's a metaphor that, kind of a story that C.S. Lewis gives us that draws all of this

together and I'm just going to read it to you and not going to comment on it. You know, there's a place where Flannery O'Connor once asked, could you tell us the meaning of your story? Could you just put it in one line, one sentence? And she said, if I could put it in one line or sentence, I wouldn't have had to write the story. And I have to say the same thing about this. Don't ask me what it means. It means more than I can tell you. It's about a ghost from hell, not very real, you know. who comes to the outskirts of heaven, this is a fiction, by the way, and is looking longingly toward heaven,

and an angel comes down to try to meet him, but he's got a little red lizard on his shoulder, and the lizard doesn't want to go, so the ghost turns around, very sadly, to leave. And the angel calls and says, hey, why are you leaving so soon? And the ghost says, well, this little fella here doesn't really want to go in that direction,

so I can't. And the angel says, would you like me to make it quiet and they go says well it would be a relief then i will kill him said the angel oh you didn't say anything about killing it it's the only way said the angel may i kill it well let's discuss that there is no time may i kill it oh look it's gone to sleep i'm sure it won't be any trouble anymore yes it will may i kill it well i think the gradual process is always better than no the gradual process is of no use at all may i kill it get back you're hurting me you didn't tell me would hurt me i never said it wouldn't hurt you i said it wouldn't

kill you can i kill it look let me run back by tonight's bus and get an opinion from my own doctor and then i'll come to you the first moment i can this moment contains all moments may i kill it and then the lizard began chattering to the ghost so loud that everyone could hear what it was saying he can do it he can kill me and then what would you do without me oh i admit i've sometimes gone too far in the past but i promise i won't do it again i'll be very good may i kill it said the angel oh do it do it get it over with cried the ghost but god help me god help me then the angel hold of the lizard and broke its neck and threw it down and the ghost screams and two amazing things happen first of all the ghost stops being ghostly and becomes radiant and gorgeous

and bright and real and a human being a man but but the body of the red lizard instead of disappearing it grows into a beautiful powerful white horse and the text goes on when the new made man arose. I thought his face shone with tears, but it may have been only the liquid love and brightness which flowed from him. In joyous haste, the man leaped upon the horse's back. They were off like a shooting star on the green plain and were soon to the mountains. Still like a star, I saw them winding up, scaling what seemed impossible steeps, quicker every moment, till the brow of the landscape, so high that I strained my neck to see them, they vanished. Bright, themselves into the rose brightness of that everlasting morning.

Our slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor anything nor anything in all creation is able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Let's pray. father our bad things will turn out for good our most truly good things can never be taken from us and our best things are yet to come the realities that christmas points to become become effective in our lives through these truths let these truths have their way with us

make us real give us the ability to live meaning meaningful lives, even joyous lives, in the midst of our grief and suffering. We thank you that it's possible through Jesus. It's in his name that we ask it. Amen. 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 to share it with others.

For more biblical resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelinlife.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 at gospelonlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 2006. 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.