Union With Christ

What if life's hardest moments are the places where God makes you more like Him? In Peter's first letter to early believers, he says that's exactly what can happen. Because Jesus endured the ultimate suffering on our behalf, we now have the power and the hope to face anything life throws at us. In today's message, Tim Keller takes a closer look at how God shapes us through troubles so that we can reflect His glory. We're going through the book of 1 Peter in our evening services this year, and read with me, and we'll base our remarks and our teaching tonight on this and prepare our own hearts for meeting God at his table. 1 Peter 1, 3, 4, and 5. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. in his great mercy. He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. this is God's Word. This is actually a kind of bridge section, and what I'd like to do tonight, because we don't have as much time as ordinarily we would, is I'd like to just stand back for a minute and give you something of an overview of what 1 Peter is all about, and then look at this very little summary of what it means to be saved. So what you actually have here in chapter 1, verse 3, 4, and 5, and this is so typical of all of the great letters, the letters from Peter, the letters from Paul, letters from who else, John? I don't know, I'm the minister, right? Who else? But if you take a look, if you take a look at these letters, you very often find that in the prayers, in the addresses, when they address the readers, You'll have the entire history of salvation, or you'll have the entire gospel, or the entire message of the Bible all summed up in one pregnant sentence or one paragraph. That's how theologically deep these writers were. That's how immersed in the Word of God they were. But before we take a look at that, let me just stand back for a moment and remind you of something I hinted at or mentioned last week, but it's very important if we go through a book the way we're going. We're going to go through the book of 1 Peter. We're going to take about a year. Now, one of the big difficulties with looking at a text like that, sort of verse by verse, is sometimes you miss the forest for the trees unless every so often you stand back and look at the forest and see what is the shape of the forest, what is the book all about? And the book is all about how to handle the tragedies and the sufferings and the trials of life. That's what the book's about. Now, when you go on in and take a look at a particular verse or two, it may not be directly on that subject. Next week, it actually gets there right away. By the time we get to verse 6, 7, 8, and 9, we're immediately talking about how to handle the trials and tragedies of life. And we get into chapter 4. It gets back into that. But you've got to keep in mind that Peter is writing to a group of people who are going through enormous pain. In chapter 1, verse 6, we're told, and verse 7, Peter says, your faith, which is of greater worth than gold is being refined by fire, so it may prove genuine and result in praise, glory, and honor. In chapter 4, verse 12, Peter says, don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal that's come upon you. Two times, Peter makes reference to suffering and tragedy. He sees life as being full of pain, full of tragedy, full of suffering, and both times he refers to it as fire. Your faith, which is of greater worth than gold, is refined by fire, will prove genuine. Don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal. So he's thinking about life as a furnace. And we all know, we all know, that a furnace can either burn something to a crisp, or it can refine something into pure gold. You see it all the time, haven't you? Can you think of two people who have essentially, two different people, who've essentially been through the same kind of ordeal, the same kind of tragedy, the same kind of suffering. Two people, same circumstances. Yet one comes out bitter, cynical, guilty, perpetually and permanently sour. And their lives are sour. They're spoiled. And their lives are spoiled forever. And yet here's the other person, goes to the same situation, the same tragedy, and comes out softer, more tender, more humble, more willing and wanting to help other people. And sometimes they even come out of tragedies with more purpose in their life and more direction than ever. The same furnace, yet one's burnt to a cinder and one comes out pure gold. Now, all of you know, those of you who are good cooks, I don't know much about this, not much at all about this. And so as soon as I get into this kind of imagery, I might really go wrong. But the fact is, you know, here's two different cooks. Here's Tim Keller and here's anybody else. Same oven, 350 degrees, right? A good cook can put some stuff in there and bring it out and it's delicious. And I can put something in there and bring it out and it's burned to a crisp. See, same situation, the same furnace, two different results. Same thing with a goldsmith, same thing with a metalsmith. And Peter is coming out with this idea of all of life is full of these ordeals. We're all going to go through the furnace at some point. How will you fare? And everything about the book is there to show you how to deal with the furnace. Every part of the book. There is not one thing in the book, including, say, these three little verses that we're looking at here tonight, that's there just to be known. It's all there to be used. There's nothing in the Bible. nothing in the Bible just to be known, just to be memorized, just to be spit back on tests. There's nothing in the Bible to be known. Deuteronomy 29.29 says, the hidden things, the things that are hidden from us belong to God, but the things that have been revealed have been revealed so that we may do all the words of the law. Now, what does that mean? There's nothing that God tells us that he doesn't want us to use. It's there to do, not there to be known. And there's nothing about this book that isn't geared to equipping you to come out of the furnace more splendid than when you went in. Now, one more thing about this before we move on. There's almost no way in which Peter is not thinking when he uses this imagery of the great story, the great account in Daniel chapter 3. In Daniel 3, back in the Old Testament, there's this fascinating story of an egotistical king named King Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar makes this huge image of gold, this tremendous image basically of himself, and he asks everybody to bow down and worship it. But there are three young Jewish men who absolutely refuse. Nebuchadnezzar calls them, demands in his presence that they bow down and worship the image. And they say, basically, you can do what you want to us, but we're not bending the knee. In a fury, he takes them to his furnace, and he says to everybody, heat the furnace seven times hotter than it's ever been heated. And so they heat it seven times hotter. And then he says to the soldiers, any of you remember the story? He says to the soldiers, grab those three young men and throw them into the furnace. The furnace is so hot that the soldiers, as they're throwing the three men in, they're killed by the heat. Nebuchadnezzar happily runs to a place where he can look down into the furnace, comes up into a high place and he can look down into the furnace, and he runs on up and he looks down in there, and to his absolute amazement, he sees the three young men walking around in the furnace. But most amazed of all, he doesn't see three, he sees four. and the king crawls down to all of his nobles. He said, didn't we put three men in the furnace? And what are they going to say? They said, yes, O king, we put three men in the furnace, only three. He says, then one of, I see four walking around and one of them looks like unto a son of God. Yeah, Nebuchadnezzar didn't know anything about the Bible, about the Trinity, didn't know anything about Jesus. All he knew, there was some other figure in there and he could tell just by looking that it was a figure of enormous power, of supernatural power. And he says, there's one in there like unto the Son of God. Get them out! They run on down, fling open the door, and out the three come. The fourth one never comes out. And, of course, it's a miracle. God has preserved them to show his honor to them and to bring the king to his knees, and that's how the thing goes on. But the fourth one never comes out. Who was the fourth figure? Who was it? Well, we've got Isaiah 43, don't we? in which God says, fear not, I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Neither shall the flame kindle upon you, for I am the Lord your God. What does God promise to everybody Everybody who belongs to him If he called you by your name If you are his he says when you go through the deep waters and when you walk through the furnace I be there I be with you. Now, you know, very, very important. Peter says, do not be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes upon you. Isaiah says, you will go through the furnace. How many Christians think that what the Bible is teaching is that once you become a Christian, you won't be going through any more furnaces. Maybe God will maybe just let the air conditioner break down, but he won't be putting you through furnaces. It might get 100 degrees, you know, in there, but he wouldn't put me through a furnace. That's not what he says at all. He says, of course we're going to put you through furnaces. Why should you be different than anybody else? Everybody else is going through furnaces, but the difference is other people will be burned to a crisp in those furnaces, and I will turn you into something beautiful. Do you believe that? Or, you see, on the basis of 1 Peter, on the basis of the book of Isaiah, on the basis of the book of Daniel 3, preachers for centuries have been asking people the question I'm about to ask you. Can you, do you, know of a certainty that when you go into the furnace, which inevitably you will, that one like unto the Son of God will be walking there with you? Do you know that? Do you know the certainty that he'll be walking with you? Here's the point of the gospel. If you acknowledge and rest and base your life on the fact that Jesus Christ went into the furnace for you, he then can be in the furnace with you. See, if you realize that what Jesus Christ actually did when he went to the cross, He went into the furnace of God's wrath. In fact, let's go one step further. The Bible says that Jesus drank the fiery cup of God's wrath that we deserve. Jesus swallowed the furnace, took it into himself, the furnace of what we deserved. Do you understand that? Do you base your life on that? Do you realize that he went into the furnace for you? And do you realize what that experience was actually like? God the Father says, when you go into the furnace, the flame will not kindle upon you. What does that mean? He's saying to you and me that as bad as the furnace can be, as painful as it can be, I will be there with you. If you turn to me and if you depend on me, as painful as it will be, it will not destroy you. I'll stay with you. I'll never let it get to be more than you can bear. I'll set it up in such a way that it teaches you the things that you need to be taught. I will make sure as long as you depend on me that that furnace will not actually destroy you as hard as it may seem, but will be turning you into a great heart, because I'll be there. But do you know when Jesus went into the furnace for you and me, God didn't go with him. That's the teaching of the Bible. Jesus Christ, all of his life, Jesus had the greatest relationship with the Father that anybody can possibly imagine. Jesus prayed every morning. Jesus had a perfect relationship with God. And when he was nailed to the cross and he was about to go into the raging furnace, he turned to God and there was no one there. He said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? You know what that means? Jesus went into the furnace without us. The flame did kindle upon him, the greatest flame of all. He did that for you. Do you believe it? Do you understand that? Do you base your life on that? If he went into the furnace for you, he certainly can go into the furnace with you. And if he went through that to save you, you certainly can go through what he's about to take you through. You see, the Father let Jesus go into the furnace of his wrath to punish you, to punish him for you. Now, God lets you go into a furnace only to refine you, never to destroy you, only to make you something beautiful. and he always goes with you, provided you're willing to acknowledge him as you go in. Do you know that the Son of God will be walking with you in the furnace? That's the question. And every single part of the book of 1 Peter is there to equip you so that when you go in, you're really going there holding his hand, so that when you go in, you go in there knowing he's there, so that when you go in there, you go in there prepared to be turned into something splendid. That's the theme. Overall, everything in the book of 1 Peter is about that. And there's got to be a time in which you say that, and this is the time. This isn't directly related to 1 Peter 1, verse 3, 4, and 5. It's the context for everything. Now, let's just take a few moments to at least look at this wonderful little summary of everything that the Bible says is our salvation. See, the word salvation is really a very general word that means deliverance. It means to be rescued from a peril. And here's what's beautiful. Sometimes the word salvation is used as something in the future. See here in verse 5, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. Somebody says, well, I thought Christians are already, already have received salvation. What's this talking about our salvations in the future? Well, the point is salvation is a multidimensional thing. We have received some of our salvation when we were pardoned from our sin. We will receive some other parts of our salvation which doesn't belong to us yet. It hasn't come to us yet. And that is when we are saved completely from the very presence of sin. And right now, in a sense, we're being saved from the power of sin. Some of you may have heard that. That's a very, very helpful little memnotic device to understand the multidimensionality of salvation. We have been saved from the penalty of sin. We are being saved from the power of sin. We will be saved from the very presence of sin. So salvation is a wonderful multidimensional thing. Here, it tells us three things about it. It tells us the motive, why God saves us, and then secondly, the mode, how God saves us, and then thirdly, two signs, the results, are two ways to know that you've been saved. Look, first of all, the motive. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, in his great mercy. Can I say a word to a small segment of you? I try to make sure that when I speak, I speak to a broad range of people. What I love about Redeemer is that there's no way to know when you look at the person next to you in the next chair, there's no way to know where that person is spiritually. That person could be a long-time, ardent, solid Christian. That person can be an utterly hostile skeptic. That person can be a person who really doesn't know what he or she believes. On the way, somebody just over the line into faith, who knows? Let me just say something for a very small, narrow segment. Last week, we talked about the doctrine of election. A lot of you don't understand it and don't care about it. A lot of you understand it, love it, are solid with it. There's a lot of you, though, you know, a certain segment of you are always confused whenever you see any place where the Bible says God chooses some people and opens their eyes as a way of bringing them to salvation. Just remember this. To me, this is one of the little keys. The mercy of God is the fountain of everything. In his great mercy, he gave us new birth into a living hope. The mercy of God is the key. First of all, it tells you, the mercy of God basically tells you what the doctrine of election is. The doctrine of election is only this. Stop. Don't think of the word predestination for a minute. Don't think of all those things. The doctrine of election is that you are saved sheerly by the mercy of God, sheerly by the mercy of God. If you don't believe in the doctrine of election, then I ask you a question. Why are you a Christian and your neighbor is not? And you say, well, because I believed and my neighbor didn't. Why did you believe and your neighbor didn't? Because I repented. Why did you repent and your neighbor didn't? Because I was open to the truth. Why were you open to the truth and your neighbor didn't? Because I was willing to listen. Why were you willing to listen and your neighbor didn't? And you see, ultimately, if you reject the doctrine of election, you have to say, the difference between me and my neighbor was the mercy of God plus something in me. I was more open. I was more willing. I was less resistant. Something. People who believe in the doctrine of election, there's a lot of things you don't understand about it. A lot. The one thing you understand is it teaches that the reason you're a Christian and your neighbor is not is sheerly because of the mercy of God, completely because of the mercy of God. No other reason but the mercy of God. Nothing in you gave you one little tiny inch above, one little leg up, one little advantage over anybody else. It's the mercy of God only. You have no cause for pride of any sort. 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 and pain. In his book, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, Dr. Keller takes a deeper look at how, with God's help, we can face life's most intense challenges and confront the hard questions on suffering. Through deep pastoral insight and real-life stories, Dr. Keller explores how we can face pain and suffering in our own lives. This month Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the message of Christ love and compassion with people all over the world So request your copy today at gospelandlife slash give That gospelandlife slash give Now here Dr Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. 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 one, and he 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? If somebody says, ah, because he doesn't want to violate our free will. Boy, that's really sweet of him. You know, violate, 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. Insult me. Overwhelm my free will. 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. 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. And secondly, the motive of his salvation is, look, the new birth. Now, fortunately, I can be brief here because at the end of the chapter, 1 Peter, at the end of 1 Peter, there's a whole section on the new birth. In fact, 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 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 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 3 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 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 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 the difference of nature. Here's Esau and here's Jacob. You know, you read about them. Esau's 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 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 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 this 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 4, 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 it. 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. Macabre, 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, 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 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 3, 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 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 stand watching the games And yet he wanted to watch them but he couldn 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 Roger being thrown for a loss. He would be fourth and 30, fourth 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 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, it doesn't look like he's going to get up. Is he injured? Will he be out for 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 be out for one play? Who knew? No sweat with Archie. Now, that's what it means to have hope. You realize that 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 I'm 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 slip 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, it's really interesting. Modern secularism, 100 years ago, had tremendous hope because it had a conviction 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 that 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 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 say, fine, go ahead. You can feel that way over in your country. We're going to do it here. No, I'm sorry. But 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, has 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 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 that's 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 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, Father, give all of us now a realization that if you take us into the furnace, you'll walk there by side 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 coals. 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. 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 at gospelinlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. We'll see you next time.