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• If you're a Christian, you know that Christianity is supposed to be about joy.
• You probably also know that you're supposed to experience joy in spite of circumstances
• In John 17, Jesus prays for his followers: "I pray that they may have the full measure of my joy within them."
• One chapter before, he says to his disciples, "You will rejoice and no one will take away your joy."
• He's talking to the twelve disciples, men who are going to be persecuted, robbed of everything they own, tortured, and put to death.
• Yet Jesus promises to give them a joy that will withstand all that.
• Nothing—not disease or persecution or alienation or loneliness or torture or even death—will be able to take it away.
• Do we have that kind of impervious joy?
• Romans 8 is all about living in a suffering world marked by brokenness.
• In Romans 8:28–30, Paul offers three principles for finding joy in suffering: If we follow Christ, our bad things turn out for good, our good things cannot be lost, and our best things are yet to come.

• Verse 28 says: "For those loving him, God works together all things for good." There are three implications of this first principle.
• First, this verse says that all things happen to Christians. That is, the Christian's circumstances are no better than anybody else's.
  • Many Christians explicitly teach—and most Christians implicitly believe—that if we love and serve God, then we will not have as many bad things happen to us.
  • Horrible things can happen to us, and believing in and loving and serving God will not keep them from happening.
  • "All things" in this text means all the same things that happen to everybody else will happen to people who love God.
  • In verse 35, Paul says, "What can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, poverty, danger, or sword?"
  • Those are terrible things.
• The second implication of this point is that when things work together in your life, it's because of God.
  • Things never work together for good on their own. Rather, if anything good happens, it is because God is working it together.
  • Earlier in Romans 8, Paul discusses how things fall apart because the world is burdened with evil and sin.
  • Things are subject to decay; that's the nature of things. Everything falls apart; things do not come together.
  • This verse tells Christians to get rid of the saccharine, sentimental idea that things ought to go right, that things do go right, and that it's normal for things to go right.
  • Modern, Western people believe that if things go wrong, we should sue, because things ought to go right.
  • But Christians have to discard that idea completely. Everything that goes well is a miracle of grace.
• The third implication of this principle is the most basic: although bad things happen, God works them for good.
  • This verse does not promise that those who love God will have better circumstances. Nor does this verse say that bad things are actually good things.
  • Rather, it acknowledges that these are bad things, but it promises that God will work them to good effect in your life.
  - Illustration: Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He wasn't thinking, They think that this is a tragedy, but no harm done! The bad thing he was about to work for good was bad.
  • The story of Lazarus does not give us a saccharine view of suffering.
  • Jesus hates death, loneliness, alienation, pain, and suffering. He hates it so much that he came to this world so that eventually he could destroy it without destroying us.
  • There's no saccharine view in the Christian faith.
  • The promise is that God will take the bad things, and he'll work them for good in the totality.
  • All things work together for good. The promise is not that we will see immediately how every bad event works out for our good. The promise is that all the bad will work together for your life in its totality.
  • If God has withheld things that you think are good, they would only be good in the short run. In the long run, they would be terrible.
  - Illustration: John Newton said, "Everything is necessary that he [God] sends; nothing can be necessary that he withholds."
  • God will only bring bad things into your life to cure you of things that can destroy you in the long run—things like foolishness, pride, selfishness, hardness of heart, and the belief that you don't need God
  • In the short run selfishness and self-deception feel great, but in the long run they will destroy you.
  • Christians can be overthrown not simply because bad things happen to them.
  • Fifty percent of the reason we get so discouraged and despondent is we're shocked that a bad thing has happened. We say this isn't how it's supposed to be.
  • But that's not what the promise is.
  • Until you understand what the promise is, you're going to be continually shocked and even overthrown.

• The second principle in this passage is that the good things we have cannot be lost.
• Romans 8:28 is a very famous verse.
• It's a "blessing box" verse. A blessing box is a collection of verses you rip out of context and recite without concern for what came before and after the verse. It feels good, so you use it.
• People use Romans 8:28 to assure themselves that when bad things happen, then surely good things will happen.
• You might think, I didn't get into the grad school I wanted to get into, but that's because there's a better grad school for me somewhere. Or, I didn't marry the girl or guy I wanted to marry, but that means there's a better one for me somewhere.
• That's not the promise.
• There's a little word between verses 28 and 29 that indicates the verses go together.
• The little word is for. "All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose, for those he foreknew he predestined to be conformed into the likeness of his Son."
• God does not promise you better life circumstances if you love him. He promises you a better life.
• Grad school and marriage are circumstances. We're talking about a joy that goes beyond circumstances.
• Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you'll become like him.
• Romans 8:29 tells us the goal toward which all our circumstances are moving us. Paul uses the word predestined.
• Something that is predestined is fixed. What Paul means is that if you love God, you can count on a promise that is absolutely fixed, no matter what.
• What is it that is predestined? That we will be conformed.
• The Greek word here is morpha, from which we get the word metamorphosis. Paul is saying that God promises to "metamorphosize" us.
• God promises to change our very inner essence into the very inner essence of Jesus Christ.
• To be a Christian is to become passionately in love with the character of Jesus.
• The good that God is moving you toward through everything that happens in your life—whether externally good or bad—is your transformation into Christ's nature.
• If you love God, everything that happens in your life will mold you, sculpt you, polish you, and shape you into the image of his Son.
• God is working everything that happens in your life toward that magnificent goal. It's predestined. It's guaranteed.
• One of the most astounding things in Romans 8:30 is this: "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified."
• "Glorified" is in the past tense. Because the apostle is so absolutely certain God is going to make you as beautiful as Jesus, he writes of the glorification as an accomplished fact.
• He talks about it in the past tense because it's as good as done. You are predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son.
• In Romans 8:29, Paul calls Christ the firstborn among many brothers. That means we are all sons of God. We are all adopted into the family.
  - Illustration: When Paul alludes to adoption, he's talking about a Roman practice that usually involved adults rather than children. When a wealthy man had no heir, he would adopt an adult male to whom he would pass on his estate. The man’s debts were wiped out, and he suddenly became rich.
• Adoption changes a relationship from formal to intimate, from temporary and conditional to permanent and unconditional.
• We look forward to being completely conformed to the likeness of God's Son in the future, although the transformation is happening now gradually.
• Being adopted among many brothers is something we have now.
• The minute you become a Christian, you have an intimate relationship, and everything Jesus Christ has accomplished is transferred to you.
• Some people are put off by Paul's language of adoption because it's gender insensitive. They argue, "Wouldn't it be better to say that we become sons and daughters of God?"
  - Illustration: Keller knew a woman who was raised in a non-Western family from a traditional culture where only the sons receive the family's provisions and honor. She understood Paul’s revolutionary claim that there are no second-class citizens in God’s family. Everyone receives the highest honor of being God’s heir.
• Our adoption means we are loved like Christ is loved—no matter our circumstances.
• Paul is not promising you better life circumstances; he is promising you a far better life.
• He's promising you a life of greatness, joy, and nobility, forever.

• The third point is that the best is yet to come. If you understand what is to come, you can handle anything here.
  - Illustration: Even Ivan Karamazov, the atheist character in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, understood how knowing what is to come helps a person endure present circumstances.
• This talk about glory and heaven does not trivialize suffering. In fact, Ivan Karamazov said this hope is the only worldview that takes our brokenness seriously.
• Our souls are so great and our suffering is so deep that nothing but this promise can overwhelm it.
• Glory does not trivialize human brokenness. It's the only thing that takes it seriously. What else could possibly deal with the hurts of our hearts?
• Your soul is too great for anything but this. Don't you know a compliment when you hear it?