Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Tim Keller on Romans 8:28-30



Tim Keller on Romans 8:28-30
“Happiness and Weeping” Series

Christianity is supposed to be about a joy that is not subject to circumstances.  There is a joy that the deepest trouble, grief cannot be put out.
Jesus prayed that we would have the full measure of his joy.  In sixteen he told His disciples He was giving a joy nothing could take away from them. (and He knew what would happen to them)
What is that (impervious, relentless) joy made of?
Romans 8 (17-18) is talking about trouble. Romans eight is about living in a world of suffering.  How do we live in a world like that?

In these three verses (28-30), you have three principles that bring, cause, need to be understood
·        v. 28  Bad things turn out for Good
·        v. 29 Our good things can never be lost.
·        v. 30 Your best things are yet to come.
This is the basis for your joy that you need to grasp and implant.
I. Bad things turn for good. 
A literal the translation says “For (to )those loving Him, God works together all things for good
A. All things will happen to you.
This text and experience tells us that all the same stuff that happens to other people will happen to the people of God.  See examples in the following verses.
B. When things work together for God, it is because of God.  They never work together on their own.
Previously in Chapter 8 (18-20) All things fall apart, are subject to decay.  It is the nature of things.
Christians get rid of the idea that things ought to go right.  If my health is intact, people love me in spite of my flaws, it’s God doing it.  It is a miracle of grace.
C. It doesn’t mean that bad things are really good things.
“They are not blessings in disguise. (ie There is a silver lining behind every dark cloud.)  No bad things happen even if God is working good through them.” 
The promise is not that if you love God you will have more good things happen, not that bad things won’t happen, or that bad things are really good.  The promise is that taken in the totality they will work them for good.  The promise is that taken in the totality of your life and the whole of everything that if you love God He will make sure it works for good.
“Everything is necessary that He sends.  Nothing can be necessary that He withholds.” -- John Newton:
The premise is the things that really hurt you that kill you are foolishness, selfishness, pride, hardness of heart, denial of your weakness and the denial that there is a god.  Those are the only things that can hurt you in the long run and the totality of your life.
Good things, if God has withheld them, they would not be good in the macro.  God will only bring in the bad things to kill the things that will destroy you.
Bad things will happen to you.  You should not be surprised, shocked when they happen.  The promise is not that I live God so more good things are going to happen.
APPLICATION:
Routine praise.  If bad things happen, you won’t be shocked. 
“The lower you (bad things) lay me the higher you will raise me.

All things work together for good (all by itself) does I not mean if I don’t get what I want, there is a better something waiting for me.  There  is a little word “for” that means verse 29 explains verse 28.
II.  Our good things can never be lost.
God does not promise you better life circumstances, but a better life.
Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer but so that when you suffer, you will become more like Him.  Verse 29 is explaining what the good is.
Paul is not using this verse to explain the word predestined and all the theological difficulties that go with it.  He is using this word as an encouragement, a statement of certainty.  Something that is predestined is fixed.  The word conformed does not refer to outward conformity, but to change (like metamorphoses) by and to the character of Jesus.  Everything is molding and shaping you into the image of God’s son.  He is giving you that incredible…
It is predestined, guaranteed. 

Glorified is in the past tense.  It is so absolutely certain that He is going to make you like Jesus that He states it in the past tense, like it already happened, make you as holy and happy as Jesus.
The two good things that we have as Christians and we will never lose.  1. We are on a collision course with greatness. When we suffer, we will become like him.  2.  That we will be in this family. “the firstborn of many brethren.”  Most people adopted in the Roman world were adopted as adults by a wealthy man who had no heir.  Firstborn among many brothers is something that happens now.  Everything Jesus accomplished is yours.
All “sons” seems to not be inclusive.  In many cultures, the son would get more provisions and inheritance.  St Paul lived in a culture where women were second class.  Paul is saying there is no second class in God’s family.  You are all sons.  None are excluded.  There is no second class.  Every one of us is a son.
Paul is not promising us better life circumstances: He is promising you a far better life.  He is promising you a life of joy, of humility, of nobility that goes on forever.
Why can you be happy?
III.  The best is yet to come.  Glory.
Do you understand glory?  If you understand what is to come, you can handle anything here.
“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, 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, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.” -- ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Where does this leave someone who is not a Christian?  Don’t come to Christianity because it is comforting, because it is encouraging, because it is relevant, because it is exciting.  Come to Christianity because it is true, because if it is not true, how can it be all those other things. 
It would be stupid to think you have all these intellectual doubts, but I want to come for the joy.  The joy is based on these convictions about Christ and the Gospel.  Paul says, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.”  That is where the joy comes from… thinking.  Christianity is not the absence of thinking.  Christianity helps you get by adding this perspective.  Paul reckons, he thinks, he works this out. 
This talk about glory and heaven does not trivialize your suffering.  It is the only world view that takes your suffering seriously.  Your souls are so great, and your suffering is so deep that nothing but this will overwhelm it.