Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Love, Patience and Suffering

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

When the Greeks and Romans met the early Christians, one of the first things that surprised them was how Christians handled suffering.  Christianity brought into the world a view and a way of handling suffering that the world had never seen. It was one of the evidences of a supernaturally changed heart. And in Romans 8, a passage that looks at all the benefits of salvation, we learn a lot about suffering. Romans 8 shows us 1) the unique Christian view of suffering, 2) the unique resources we get to face suffering, and 3) how we can make those resources our own. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 15, 2016. Series: What We Are Becoming: Transforming Love. Scripture: Romans 8:16-28. 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. What makes the Christian lifestyle truly distinct? Many belief systems emphasize moral behavior, but Christianity offers something deeper, a radical transformation from the inside out. This month, Tim Keller is teaching on how the Gospel doesn't just modify our behavior, but completely reshapes our hearts. The scripture reading is taken from Romans chapter eight, verses 16 through 28. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit

that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings an order that we may also share in His glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in the eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it and hope that the creation

itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. 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. This is the word of the Lord. A couple of weeks ago we started a new series and that series began with looking at 1 Corinthians

13, which is the famous love chapter. It's usually read at weddings and we said, sure, you can go ahead, we'll still let you read it at weddings. But God, when he inspired Paul to write it, Paul certainly wasn't thinking of weddings. He was thinking about a church, the Corinthian church, that was filled with gifted people, talented people, people that were very busy. Churches seemed to be growing. People were very moral, very committed. But they didn't show much evidence of supernaturally changed hearts. They were busy, they were moral, but they didn't show evidence of the Holy Spirit coming in with regenerating power and changing the basic operating principle of the human heart

which is, without the spirit's intervention, power and self-assertion. There was no evidence the Corinthians were changed into the new operating system of love and self-sacrifice. The way our hearts normally operate is on the basis of power and self-assertion. Paul says when the spirit has regenerated us, we operate on a whole new system, you might say a new operating system of love and self-sacrifice but the Corinthians they were moral and committed and busy in the church, were grumpy and impatient and irritable and resentful and turf conscious and jealous, showed none of those evidences of a supernaturally changed heart. What we're doing each week now is not staying in 1 Corinthians 13 but going to other passages

in Paul's letters to look at what those marks of a changed heart are. And today we're going to look at one of the most important ones in the early stages of the Christian church. When the Greeks and the Romans looked at this new religion that was growing and they met these Christians for the first time, one of the first things that surprised them, that characterized Christians and made them look different from the people around them was how they handled suffering. How they understood it and how they handled it. And as I'm going to show you, what they

realized was that in the East and in the West, people's different views of suffering were very different than the way the Christians were handling. In other words, Christianity brought into the world a view and a way to handle suffering that the world never seen before. So let's us take a look at this. This passage, Romans 8, is a very famous passage and it actually is looking at all the benefits of salvation. But one of the things I think is usually overlooked when Romans 8 is studied is the prominence of suffering in Romans 8. And I would just like to draw out

what this text tells us about suffering. And it's gonna show us, first of all, the unique Christian view of suffering. Then secondly, the unique resources we get to face suffering, and finally how we can make those resources our own. So you start with the unique Christian way of understanding and viewing suffering and then the practical resources for facing it and finally how we can make it our own. The view, let's just take a look at verses 22 and 21 in that order. 22 says we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in

the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Now the word groaning is a real strong word. It's a Greek word that usually means the cry of someone facing death. I know the word is often used in Greek literature to talk about the groans of the men who are on the battlefield dying. I've talked to people who have been in war and say one of the most awful things about war is actually when the battle is over and you come off the field and you can hear the groans of the soldiers that are still out there on the ground dying.

And they're dying in agony. And that's the word groan. The cry of someone facing death. It's a little bit masked in a way because we tend to read everything through our own cultural and historical filter. And when it says we know the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth, you look at that and you say oh, well, childbirth, yeah, obviously there's pain, but then there's the baby. That's positive, right? Well, we're forgetting in those days any woman in labor was facing death. You forget that.

Not only was labor arguably more painful then, but that any woman who was going into labor was facing death. And so here's Paul saying, not just that we are groaning, not just that human beings groan, but it says we know that the whole creation has been groaning. Obviously we're part of creation so we're groaning too, but it's intriguing what Paul is saying. He's saying nature, the world, is groaning because, verse 21, it's been subjected to decay. But, verse 21 also says that someday creation will be liberated

from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. Someday God is going to renew the world. Now what Paul is recapitulating in many ways, the view of the world in the book of Genesis, and that's this, that God originally did not create the world to have death in it, or suffering, or pain or agony. That wasn't God's original design, but the world is filled with those things

because we have turned away from God. And yet, someday God is going to renew the world and put it the way it was supposed to be. Now, that immediately shows us right there, the uniqueness of the Christian understanding of suffering. To show you, let's just take three viewpoints that in one degree or another, Paul knew about. For example, the Eastern view.

Now today we know Buddhism. There's an Eastern view of suffering that goes like this. It says suffering is really an illusion. The Buddhist approach would be to say, look, when someone dies, we feel the agony of loss, but actually you haven't lost anything, because Buddhism says if you were enlightened enough, you'd see that everything is one. Everything is one.

When someone dies, you just become part of the universe and everyone else in a different way, and so if you were enlightened, you saw there were really, there was no loss. No one can ever lose anything. They were all one. If you were enlightened, suffering would go away. Suffering is an illusion. That's one view.

You also have in the world karmic religions, religions that believe in karma. And I have to tell you, I've always admired the neatness of karma. Because what karma says is, you know, you've had a number of lives, so if you're suffering right now in this life, don't tell me that this is unfair, what about… It was because you did something in a past life and you're suffering for it now. I mean, that's neat. Think about it. It means there's no unjust suffering.

Everything is working out exactly the way it's supposed to be. It's perfectly natural. There's no injustice. There's no disproportion. Nothing at all. Okay? And in Paul's time, of course, the Greeks and the Romans, especially the philosophers, their view is suffering, which Paul would have known quite a bit about. And, you know, our word stoicism comes down from one of the Greek, one of the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophic schools, the stoics. And their understanding of suffering was this,

when suffering came along, you did not groan. You did not cry, you did not scream. You controlled yourself. Because the Greeks said, look, if you want to show that you have nobility and elevated thought, nobility of character and elevated thought, then you contemplate philosophically life. And you see this is just life. Stuff happens.

This is just life. And if you know that, then when bad things happen, you control yourself because you have you've thought it out and you have complete control. Self control, emotional selfcontrol was the highest. The Shaman honor culture, the Stoic culture basically said this, suffering is an opportunity for you to show that you will not let it get to you. You don't cry, you don't groan. Now Christianity was radically different than all these views.

Radically different. First of all, against Buddhism, Christianity says suffering is real. It is real. Secondly, against karma, Christianity says it's often unjust. Often unjust, because the world's broken. It's not working the way it should work. Job's friends, in a way, had a kind of

karmic approach to it. Remember Job's friends in the book of Job, they come and say, look, if you live a good life, you'll have a good life. If you live a bad life, you'll have a bad life. And the whole book of Job is to say that's just not true because the world's broken now. Things do not work the way they're supposed to work. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Anarchy is loosed upon the world. World's not the way it ought to be, and suffering is often just tragic and unjust. But then thirdly, Christianity says no.

Against the Stoics, Christianity says no, no, no, no, no. The human thing to do when you suffer is you groan. You cry. Look at the Psalms. You lament. Christianity gave, by the way, when the Greek or Roman world met Christianity, historians say that the Stoics and the Greek philosophers gave the populace a view of suffering and Buddhism or you may say at that time Eastern religion gave them

a view of suffering that was actually pretty tough to do. It was pretty tough to say, don't cry, don't be upset, don't complain. Everything's happening the way it ought to happen. Don't worry about it. And that's it. Christianity came along and said, and gave people relief. And said, no, no, suffering is real. And it's tragic and it's wrong and it's something we ought to cry out about and the realism of that was pretty remarkable to people. Actually Christian's view of suffering was very, very important part of how it recommended itself to many of the people who did not believe in it at that time. But up to now, let's say this, we've actually been abstract. It's nice to

Let's say this. We've actually been abstract. It's nice to have a philosophically layout of different philosophies and here's the Christian view of suffering. But what we really want to know is how do you actually handle it? And so there's three unique resources. I don't think these are the only ones that Christianity gives, but there's three unique resources that Christianity gives people who are in suffering. And they're right in this passage and I'll put it like this. They are praying to the Father, resting in the King, calculating the glory. First, praying to the Father. Now, verse 16, famous verse, the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. And if we're children, we're heirs. So verse 16 and 17, and actually verse 14 and 15 right

before it, talk about the fact that when you become a Christian, God becomes your father. And you have a relationship with him as a father. It is a very famous place, just a verse or two earlier, where Paul says that the Spirit of God gives us a new relationship when we believe in Christ, God becomes our Father, and we cry out to him, Abba, and it's Abba was a diminutive, you know, affectionate term between a child and a parent. And so that when you become a Christian, God becomes your Father. Now, usually when you're moving through a passage and teaching this, you just look at that all by itself. I don't think we often see that

Paul brings the fact that God is our father into such close connection with the fact that we suffer. And here's the reason why it's so important. In fact, let's put it like this. Most people don't have a real good grasp on the idea of God being a father. For most people, and most people probably who go to church, God is really your boss, not your father. I mean, we all pray our father who art in heaven, but people pray it, they say, oh yeah, I believe that. But the working relationship most people who believe in God have to God is one of being

a boss. Well, what's a boss? You do things for the boss. You do your job. And the boss gives you wages and benefits. And you may have a cordial relationship with the boss. And that's good. You might be friendly. But basically the relationship is a mercenary relationship, as it were. and it's a relationship between a boss, I'm doing something for you, you're doing something for me. Now, if that's the real operating principle of your relationship with God, then when suffering

comes, not only will your relationship with God be of no consolation to you, but it will actually be a detriment. It will pull you down. Why? Because if God is your boss and not your father, and you suffer, this is how you're gonna say, you're gonna talk like this, you're gonna say, I'm leading a good life.

You know, I'm being a good family member. You know, I'm being a pretty moral person, I'm being a pretty decent person, and where's my benefits? You know, where's my wages? Why isn't God treating me the way I should be treated? You know, where's my wages? Why isn't God treating me the way I should be treated? And if the knowledge that God exists actually infuriates you when you suffer, if when you suffer the fact there is a God who's letting this happen just infuriates you, it's probably

because your understanding of God is he's a boss and you're living a good life and he owes you. But if you believe God is your father, it's exactly the opposite. And here's the reason why. Think about it. How does a father respond to a child in the middle of the night who starts to groan in pain? Grown, scream, cry. It doesn't matter where that child has been obedient or disobedient that day. A good father runs. And the idea that when you suffer, God is your father,

it's both comforting, enormously comforting, but it's also quite humbling and even chastening. Here's what I mean by that. Children can't always comprehend what the father is doing. Especially little children. Fathers are constantly saying to little children, don't put that in your mouth. No, you can't do that. You can't play with that. What does the child do? Scream.

But we all know, by the way, in the end the child, little children still trust the father. They kind of instinctively know they need to trust the father. They don't understand the father. And of course, if it's really true that God is not our boss but our father, then it's not surprising that very often things are happening in our life that we can't comprehend. That's just the way it works.

But here's what we do know. If he's our father, he loves us no matter what, no matter how you feel at the moment. There's this great, I love this quote by an old British author, Octavius Winslow. They don't make names like they used to. Octavius Winslow says this about your relationship with God, no ebb in the tide of your love, nor trembling of the needle of your faith can create or has created the slightest variation in his sympathy and love for you. Your waywardness has not chilled his love, but only stirred it up. Your fickleness has not harmed it,

nor can your sinfulness forfeit it it for he is ever the same. Though we are faithless, he is faithful for he cannot deny himself. He is sworn." That only works if God's your father. And so that's an enormous, listen, I'll tell you something, that is if you're able to frame your experience of difficulty with God being a father. It humbles and it helps you to trust. So praying to God as father is one of the resources. Secondly, however, resting in God as king is another resource. Now, we have a deep well to look at right now

and it's verse 28. 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. Now it's a famous verse and it's a deep well and I will take a little more time on it than some of the other places even though I can't go as far as I'd like to. But for the moment let me give you the literal translation and I mean this is almost a word for word translation. I mean, this is almost a word for word translation. For those loving him, God works together all things into good. For those loving him, God works all things, pardon me, works together all things into good. Let me show you the implications of this. Knowing what is in this verse, by the way, most people misquote it,

most people say, well if I'm a Christian all things are working together for good, that's not what it says. If you really understand this, my goodness, what rest it can bring. Let me show you. First of all, look at the implications for a second. For those loving him, God works together all things for good. First of all, it's saying all things can happen to Christians. And all things will happen to Christians. Now, the reason I'm pointing this out is because I think most Christians

work with us, have a working assumption that not all things could happen to me now that I'm a Christian. Some things can happen to me, but there's a lot of things that God would never let happen to me as a Christian. Some things, but other things he would never let. No, by the way, the next, a few verses later, Paul says, but neither trouble, nor hardship, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor danger, nor sword will be able to keep us from the love of Christ.

You know what the implication is, all that stuff's gonna happen to you. You know, it sounds really stirring, doesn't it? Neither, right, trouble or danger or peril or sword or suffering or horrible torture, none of those things will keep, that's supposed to be good news. Exactly, wait a minute. You mean what?

Here's the fact, most Christians, when suffering happens, half of their agony is surprised that it's happening to them. Well, we can do a kind of provenient strike here right now. Let's just get rid of that surprise. Everything happened to Jesus, and a servant is not above his or her master. All that stuff happened to Jesus. The worst happened to Jesus and a servant is not above his or her master. All that stuff happened to Jesus. The worst happened to Jesus. Why in the world do you think it wouldn't happen to you? Are you holding onto a grudge or struggling to forgive someone in your life?

Would you like to experience the freedom and healing that forgiveness brings? In his book, Forgive, Why Should I and How Can I, Tim Keller shows how forgiveness is not just a personal act, but a transformative power that embodies Christ's grace to a world fractured by conflict. Far from being a barrier to justice, forgiveness is the foundation for pursuing it. In this book, you'll uncover how forgiveness and justice are deeply intertwined expressions of love and how embracing Christ's forgiveness equips us to extend grace to others.

We'd love to send you Dr. Keller's book, Forgive, as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the hope and forgiveness of Christ with more people. Visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. So first of all, get rid of your surprise. Anything can happen to you, okay?

So don't say no to only something. No, all things are happening to Christians, number one. Number two, but when things work good, it's God doing it. See, I've had many people say to me, well, the Bible says all things work together for good. It doesn't say that. It says God, that's why I gave you the literal translation.

It says God is working together, together working all things into good. Now, we'll get to that in a minute, but here's the main point. If anything is working together for good, God's doing that. See, New Yorkers, if something goes wrong, what do we do? We sue. Why? Because we believe it's normal for things to go right, and if things are going right, that's normal, and if things

are going wrong, you've got to find somebody to blame. Christians, if you understand what the Bible says, it's exactly the opposite. Christians say it's normal for things to fall apart. That's what the whole, that's what Roman Zate's about. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Everything is in decay. Everything's falling apart. Look at yourselves. Even those of you who are actually pretty good looking, you know, you're kind of in your 20s. You're wearing cosmetics You know why you're wearing cosmetics? Because you've already lost the sheen and natural color you had when you were an infant

Babies don't need cosmetics. They're already their eyelids their cheeks. It's all there With you you're already falling apart and the cosmetics can hide it, but they can't stop it Here's stop it. Modern New Yorkers think it's normal for things to go well. If something's going wrong, I got to find somebody to blame. Modern Christians ought to think it's normal for things to fall apart. If something's going well, I've got to go find God to praise. If at the end of today your health is intact, instead of saying, oh, that's normal, it's not normal, you're falling apart, God is working, you're keeping your body together for good. God's doing that. If things are working together for good, God's doing

it. If today somebody hugs you and says, I love you, or it just implies it. When every somebody hugs you and says I love you. It just implies it. When every single person has such selfishness and pride in our hearts we should all be just getting away from each other and actually the natural order of things is for relationships to fall apart. They do all the time. And if you're in a relationship that hasn't fallen apart it's God doing it. So instead of sitting around when things go bad, why is God letting this happen? When anything goes good, why in the world aren't you just praising him every second of the day? If that would be your attitude,

my goodness, how different your life would go. But there's another implication, and that is, that it's only at the end of things that, when it says, let me write it again, for those loving him, God works together all things into good, it really doesn't say that he makes bad things good. It means he brings good things out of the bad. And it's really important to understand this. There's a saccharine, it's out there in the world, it's a saccharine view, it's also in the Christian

church that basically says, well, every cloud has a silver lining or this blessing was ‑‑ this thing was really a blessing in disguise. It's sort of a way of saying, well, this looks bad, but if you just look at it a little differently, you can see it's really good. None of that is in the Bible and none of that is here. See, the only way to explain Jesus' attitude toward the tomb of Lazarus, he's walking to the tomb of Lazarus, Lazarus is dead in the tomb and he's walking to the tomb of Lazarus and the Bible says he was filled with, he was weeping and he was angry. And you want to say, oh right, wait a minute, why isn't he basically smiling? Because he knows he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Why isn't he saying, you know, this looks bad, but it's really not so bad? Because I'm going to use it to show the world who I am. And everybody here is going to be so excited and Mary and Martha are going to be so excited. So this looks bad, but it's really good. He doesn't say that. You know why? Because it's not really good. It's death. It's death.

Jesus hates death. It's so bad that even though he's gonna bring good out of it, he will not smile. He'll weep and be angry. I mean, this is a realism. There's no illusion. It's not an illusion to say, oh, you know, if you just were enlightened,

you'd see that everything is okay. No, gee. Jesus came into this world and experienced death himself, and experienced suffering himself. So at the end of time, he could end evil and suffering without ending us, because he came in here to die on the cross for a sin so we could be pardoned. But he hates the place.

He hates the evil. He hates the place of death. He hates evil. He hates suffering. He hates these things. And there's no sentimental approach to it at all. That's what I love about it. I'm gonna bring good out of it,

but here's the last implication of this verse. All things together for good. In other words, the total final effect of all bad things will be for good. But it's the total final, you know, it's all things together for good. It doesn't see, here's how many of us go with this. We say, okay, something bad happened to me, but I know it will turn out for good, so I'll give God a week. We love the stories where the guy says, well, you know, I broke my leg so I didn't make the interview and I didn't get the job, but in the hospital I met this nurse and we're married now. And she thought, oh, that's Romans 828, I get it, yeah. I need more of those stories. Well, that's, you know, look, I'm glad for you too.

You know, I am. But I really wish you wouldn't point to Romans 8 28 when you tell that story, because that's not what it's saying. What it's really saying at the end of time, when we look at everything, but only then, I believe, all things, when all things are done and all things are seen together, we're going to see that God is bringing about a greatness, we'll

get here in a second, a glory, a wonder, and everything that happened actually in the end has made things greater and more glorious than they would have been otherwise and God was infinitely wise, but it's at the end. Don't give God a week, don't give God a year, don't give God a decade, and actually don't expect to even understand plenty of those things by the time you die. And if you are willing to start to rest in God and not in your agenda, or even your understanding of God's agenda, you will finally be able to rest. Like, you know, Kathy and I remember talking. Elizabeth Elliott once gave this talk to a group of college students.

And Elizabeth Elliott was a missionary and her first husband, Jim Elliott, had been killed in the Amazon jungle where he had gone with five other missionaries in order to reach a particular tribe and they killed them, killed the missionaries. And Elizabeth Elliott one time was speaking to a group of students, I remember. And she explained how the night before they went, they sang a hymn. And the hymn was,

"'We rest on thee, our shield and our defender.'" And then this is what she said. She said, so that night they sang, "'We rest on thee, our shield and our defender, and the next day they went out and were speared to death in the course of their obedience to God. What does that do to your faith? A faith that disintegrates is a faith

that was not resting in God himself. You were believing in your own program of how things should work. God is God, and if he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service, and I will find rest nowhere but in his will. And that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably, beyond my largest notion of what he is up to.

If God were small enough to be understood, he wouldn't be big enough to be worshipped. Can you handle that medicine? If God is that big, he is big enough to have plans you can't understand, and now you can finally relax. Can you? So you're praying to the father, you're resting in the King, and then lastly, calculating the glory. Verse, there's no good way to translate verse 18 probably, where Paul says, I consider that

our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be real to us. Now, the old King James Bible said, I reckon that our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared. The reason why the modern translations don't put in the word reckon is that most people thought that that meant Paul was from Texas. And the real problem is that even today when you say I reckon, it doesn't mean, listen, the old sense

of the English word reckon was to count, right? To count, to calculate. And of course it doesn't mean that anymore. The Greek word does. And here's what Paul's saying. I'm adding it up. And the more I add up the glory that my suffering is going to lead to,

and that the suffering of this world is going to lead to, and even the suffering of Jesus is going to lead to, the easier it is for me to face everything that life sends at me. Here's where we talked about the Buddhist approach and we talked about the karmic approach and we talked about the shame and honor culture approach. What about our secular culture today? Some years ago, a couple years ago, I read a fascinating article by an anthropologist, Richard Schwetter. And Schwetter said, by the way, he's no believer as far as I know, who said as an anthropologist he can confidently say that of all the cultures

in history and all the cultures in the world today, the one culture that gives its members the least resources to face suffering is our modern Western secular culture. And he says the reason is very simple. He says Christianity, Buddhism, karma, reincarnation, the Greeks and the Romans, everybody else believes there's something beyond this life. Everybody else believes there's something beyond this life. But the secular culture says no, there's really nothing beyond this life. All your happiness has to be rooted in something right here. Which means if suffering comes along and takes away your happiness right here, there is not only no remedy, there's no remedy or consolation for you at all. That's one of the reasons why Dr. Paul Brand, who

was a British doctor who was an expert in treating leprosy and those kinds of diseases, spent half of his life practicing in India, half of it practicing in the United States. And in India, of course, he was dealing with Buddhists and Hindus and people who believed there was something beyond this life. And then he came back to America and he was mainly treating secular people. This is what he said. He says, in the United States I encountered a society that seeks to avoid pain at all costs. Patients lived in a greater comfort level than anyone I had previously treated

yet they seemed far less equipped to handle suffering and way more traumatized by it. Now, and here's why. Secularism says, enjoy life right now, but in the end, everything you enjoy is going to be stripped from you. Everyone you love is going to be taken from you, and eventually you're going to be taken away from them. And so in the future, everything you're enjoying right now will be stripped away from you.

So enjoy it now. Don't think too much about the sorrows to come. In fact, that's basically how a secular person has to, I think, deal with suffering. Find something to enjoy right now. Have a drink. Go shopping. Try real hard not to think about the fact that all the things I'm enjoying are going to be taken away. So let me ‑‑ I think it's, on the other hand, here's Paul saying, think, think. See, the secular approach to peace is, don't think too much about the future,

and the Christian approach to peace is, think as much as you possibly can about the future. The secular approach is, don't think too much about life, and the Christian approach is, if you're lacking peace right now, you're not thinking enough. If Jesus Christ is really raised from the dead and you believe in him, then the Lord of the universe

is your father. And that means your bad things will turn out for good, the good things you have can never be taken away from you, and the best things are yet to come. And you just think about that until the glory overwhelms you. So I would say our secular culture says, sit in the middle of these joys and don't think too much about the coming sorrows.

But Christianity equips you and empowers you to sit even in the midst of sorrow, thinking about the coming joys. And that enables you to face anything. They say, Teresa of Avila at one point said, the first hug and kiss from God in heaven will make all of your miserable life look like one night in a bad hotel.

It'll outweigh it. Do the calculating now. Okay, now, everything I've given you so far still is something of a technique. Thinking about God as Father, remembering that you're just a child, realizing, I can relax if I don't know what's happening. I mean, all this, think about the coming glory.

It's all techniques unless you remember this. Don't, first of all, look at the glory and don't look at all these things the glory and don't look at all these things. Here's what you look at. It's what Paul says in verse 17. If indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory, none of this is activated unless you understand that we share, Jesus Christ and us, we share sufferings and glory. Or another way to put it is, Jesus Christ plunged himself into our sufferings.

He brought himself into our sufferings so that he can bring us into his glory. In fact, it's interesting, I was saying this to Abe just a minute ago, you know this place down here in verse 26, 27, it says, when we suffer, it says the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless

groans. Now, you know, if you go look up ten commentaries, they're going to give you almost ten different explanations of this, and nobody seems to understand what it means. And I'm not going to tell you either, okay? Just want you to know that but but here's what's interesting a lot of people say it looks like the Spirit of God is groaning So a lot of commentators say well it must mean the Spirit of God helps us in our groan So you just sort of that the Spirit of God is sort of you know supporting us and helping us and encouraging us Maybe so that could be But the reason why a lot of them don't want to go and say and supporting us and helping us and encouraging us. Maybe so, that could be. But the reason why a lot of them don't want to go

and say the Spirit of God is groaning, even though literally that's what it says, it actually says the Spirit of God is groaning, is because, don't forget, a groan is the cry of someone facing death. It doesn't seem real appropriate that the Spirit of God would know how to groan like that. Except, oh yeah, wait a minute.

You know, when Jesus Christ cried on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Quoting Psalm 22 verse 1, you know how the rest of that verse goes? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, why are you so far from the words of my groaning? When in Mark chapter 7 Jesus is healing the deaf mute, it says when he puts his hands on the deaf mute and looks to heaven and says he sighs, it's actually this word groan. Jesus Christ became vulnerable, plunged himself into our groaning, into our suffering. And honestly, let me just speak personally. It's only when I remember that I'm saved because of his suffering that I caused that I can really, really activate all these other resources. See, in other words, if I'm feeling like somebody let me down, I'm suffering

because somebody let me down and I'm suffering because somebody let me down, and I'm getting ready to get angry, but then I look at him on the cross realizing, he's on the cross because I let him down. He's suffering because of my sin, and he's taking it patiently. And suddenly, oh, okay, if you can suffer patiently for me, I guess I can suffer patiently for you.

Or maybe you say, what I'm going through right now is unjust, it's unfair. Well, you know what, frankly, yes and no. Yeah, maybe you didn't deserve to suffer for what you did, but maybe you actually did something else over here, you deserved to suffer for it, you never suffered. The only truly innocent sufferer was Jesus. The only person who didn't deserve any suffering was Jesus.

And here he is taking it patiently for you. Don't look at him just as an example. He's your savior, for you. How in the world can you fret under the suffering that is infinitely smaller than what he is suffering for you? How can you not say, well Lord, the least I can do is suffer patiently? Or by the way, lastly, some people are saying, I don't care what you have said, you're actually pretty good in some ways, but in the end, I'm suffering right now and I don't see

how anybody can bring anything good out of this. I'm suffering now and I don't see how anybody could be bringing anything good out of this. Well don't forget, that's what they said at the foot of the cross. They were looking up at Jesus and they're saying, wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. Here was a great man, here was a man who was healing people, saving people, helping people, and not only, God's abandoning him, in fact, I can hear Jesus saying God's abandoning him.

This doesn't make any sense. I don't see how in the world God could be bringing anything good out of this. And for all I know, people walked away from the cross that day, losing their faith, because they couldn't figure out how this terrible piece of suffering fit into their little minds about what should have happened and what couldn't happen,

except they were actually looking at the greatest act of love and redemption and wisdom that the universe had ever seen, but you couldn't fit it into your little thimble of a brain. And so I lost my faith. Now look, there's a plan. We have a Bible, the whole Bible tells us why Jesus suffered. There's a plan for you too, I don't know what it is,

but I can tell you this, I don't know why. I don't know what the reason for your suffering is. But I do know what the reason for your suffering isn't. It isn't because he doesn't love you. He plunged himself into your groans and the end will be glory. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that you would help us to believe in Jesus Christ, to see that we were saved through his patient suffering for us. Let that take away all of our anger, our inability to trust. Let it make us a people that know how to suffer. And also, make us a church where sufferers can come because they're treated so well, so lovingly, with such support.

Make us a community where it's a great place to suffer and make us a community of people who show the world through our suffering. Who your son Jesus Christ is, and it's His name we pray. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life podcast. It's our hope that today's teaching encourages you to go deeper in your prayer life. We invite you to help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great Gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit GospelInLife.com.

Today's sermon was recorded in 2016. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you