Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - God With Us: In Our Suffering

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Hebrews is written to people who had suffered a great deal of persecution and difficulty. They were getting discouraged. Some of them were saying, “What good is this Christianity? We’re good people. Why are such bad things happening to us?” The writer is showing them that they have resources as Christians such that they can face life, no matter what it throws at them, with greatness and power and stamina. And in Hebrews 12, we come to the final case study that shows this. We come to Jesus himself. By looking at what Jesus suffered, why Jesus suffered, and how he suffered, we learn how we can face anything and triumph. This passage shows us three basic principles: 1) you will handle life’s difficulties depending on your focus, 2) you will deal with your troubles as long as you understand Jesus’ work, and 3) you should discern his model. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 4, 1994. Series: The Nature of Faith. Scripture: Hebrews 12:1-13. 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. How do you live a life of stability in a world full of uncertainty? This month, Tim Keller is exploring the Book of Hebrews and looking at how genuine faith rooted in the work of Christ empowers us to live with courage, hope, and poise, even in difficult circumstances. Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood,

and you have forgotten that word of the point of shedding your blood, and you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons. My son did not make light of the Lord's discipline nor lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Endure hardship is discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined, and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children

and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful later on. However, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees, make level

paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed." This is God's word. You know, all of the fall we've been looking at Hebrews, and the setting is this. The writer of this letter was writing a group of Jewish people who had become Christians and as a result of that they had suffered a great deal of persecution and difficulty and he refers to that. But even though they had been standing up under suffering an awful lot of things had been going on and on and on, and now they were very discouraged, all of them. And some of them were saying,

what good is this Christianity? We're good people? Why are such bad things happening to us? And the writer to the Hebrews is showing them that as Christians, they have resources such that they should be able and they can face life no matter what it throws at them with greatness and power and stamina. And in Hebrews 11, we've been looking at a number of cases, of all we've been looking at, a number of cases that he gives of men and women.

We've only looked at just a handful because in chapter 11, he shows lots of cases from the Old Testament of how various great people from the olden days had taken the resources they had in God and faced incredible odds. But now in Hebrews 12, we come to the final case. We come to Jesus himself. And here, he shows us tremendous principles. By looking at what Jesus suffered, why Jesus suffered, and how he suffered, we learn how we can face anything and triumph. Now, what are those principles? There's three basic ones and here they are. If you look at the text you'll see the three. Number one, you will handle life's difficulties depending

on your focus. There has to be a focus of mind. That's the first one. And without even looking too beyond that, let's just take a moment to see that. He says, let us fix our eyes on Jesus who endured. Now this is what he's saying at this point. And it's something very fundamental, very easy to miss, but tremendously fundamental. He is saying in this little phrase, let us fix our eyes on Jesus.

He is saying how you handle your sufferings and how you handle your difficulties, whether you're sinking or whether you're keeping up, depends on what you are fixing your mind on. In fact, the Greek word that's used here is a kind of negative word and many people say it should be translated look away to Jesus. What the writer is saying is you are sinking because of what you're looking at. Stop looking at that and look at this. you are sinking because of what you're looking at. Stop looking at that and look at this. You are sinking because of what you fixed your mind on.

In other words, what has captured your imagination? Now listen, we can get very literal about this. Your imagination is what fills your mind with pictures. When you are going through an experience, what are you thinking about? What are you imagining? What are you looking at? Yeah, you may say,

well, I know that Jesus is God, and I know that he suffered for me. You know that in an abstract, but what if you are, what in your mind, what if you're just looking at all these awful, tragic, horrible scenarios that you're spinning out in your imagination

about what's going to happen? What we say, what I tend to say is, at all these awful, tragic, horrible scenarios that you're spinning out in your imagination about what's going to happen. What we say, what I tend to say is, you've got Jesus Christ on audio, but you've got your future on video. In other words, you fixed your mind, you're dwelling on these things. The Hebrews writer is saying very categorically, if you are sinking, if you are going under, it's always a function. How you deal with troubles is a function of what you fixed your mind on. And he makes a very categorical statement. If you contemplate Jesus Christ enduring, you will be able to endure. If you're not enduring, you're not contemplating his endurance. There it is. That's the first principle. I mean, it's in your face.

Let us fix. Look away to Jesus. What are you looking at? Look at him. Look at this. If you're sinking, it's because you're not doing this. That's the first principle. Now, the second principle.

The second principle is, the first principle is, you will deal with your troubles as long as you have this proper focus of mind. But then secondly, you will deal with your troubles as long as you understand Jesus' work. Because it doesn't just say look away to Jesus in general, does it? See, many people will say, ah yes, I'm facing tremendous disaster in my life. I'm facing tremendous tragedy and I'm sinking and I'm falling apart. And nothing seems to happen. I go to church, I pray, I pray every day. But he doesn't say, look away to Jesus any old way. He doesn't say, look to Jesus in any particular way.

He says, look to Jesus and he says, the author and perfecter of our faith. What he's saying is, you must look at Jesus as this. You must understand him as this. And if you don't understand him as this, you will sink. That's why you will sink. You can't just think of Jesus any old way. He says you have to understand what it means that he's the author and the perfecter. And now, this is pretty important, don't you not see?

The Hebrew's writer is not simply saying you're sinking because you're not looking at Jesus. He's saying you're sinking because you're not understanding what it means that he's the author and perfecter of our faith. That he suffered to be that. You have to understand what he did. You have to understand his work. Now, this incredible phrase is incredible. Every translation you get to, you know, go get five translations and they'll all be different. In the old authorized King James version, they used to say, look away to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. And there's some other translations that say, the author and perfecter of our faith. And there's some other translations that say the author and finisher of our faith. The reason it's so hard is because these are unbelievably deep and unusual words.

And so you have to spend a little bit of time thinking about them if you're going to understand them. And here's what they mean. First of all, the first word and the key word is the Greek word archegos. And maybe the best word translation of this word is look away to Jesus, our champion. Now, but it's a particular kind of champion. We're not just talking about champion boxer. We're not just talking about champion football player because this word archegos, think about it, that's how you pronounce it in Greek,

but it actually is the word archegos, think about it, that's how you pronounce it in Greek, but it actually is the word arch-ego. Look to Jesus, your arch-ego. Now you see, in the old Greek Roman myths, a champion was a very specific person. He was your arch-ego. He was a man of great power who would stand in and fight for you. And a person would stand forth as a champion in two kinds of ways. Imagine some great villain, some great giant, some great warrior has taken a group of people hostage. And these people are too, they're powerless before this great villain. So Hercules or someone like that stands forth as champion.

And there's two ways that that man could be the arch ego in those old myths. One is he could stand in and take the arrows and take the darts and take the poison, you might say, of the great dragon or whoever the villain was, enabling the hostages to escape. In other words, he would be the arch-ego. He would stand in their place. He would stand as the substitute. And all of the fiery darts and all of the poison and all of the fury of the great villain would come down on him

instead of on them, and they would free. Or the other way that a champion could stand forth is that champion could stand forth and challenge the villain to mortal combat. And in that sense, you see, the champion would be in the place of the hostages because the champion had this great power, had the great muscles, had the great courage and if he lost, they lost. But if he triumphed over the great villain, they triumphed. Yes, they triumphed over the great dragon, over the great villain, over the great behemoth or whatever. If you were a hostage and you were a 90-pound weakling, you triumph over the great dragon. Why? Because your champion has. He's your arch-ego. He stands in for you. You're victorious, not in yourself, in your champion.

And the Bible says that's what Jesus is to you. And you know what? The Bible says, you say, okay, which way was Jesus this to us? Both. Because on the cross, he stood in and he took the punishment we deserved and all of the poison and all of the wrath and all of the anger and all of the punishment and all the death and all the hell that should have fallen into our hearts because we're sinners fell into his. So there's none left for us. And you see, he's our arch-ego, he's our substitute, he's our champion in that if you are united with him by faith, you are as free from the guilt of your sins

as if you had suffered that yourself. There's no greater hope for you today than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, his resurrection is the key to understanding the whole Bible and the greatest resource we have for facing the challenges of life. Discover how to anchor your life in the meaning of the resurrection

by reading Tim Keller's book, Hope in Times of Fear, The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter. Hope in Times of Fear is our thank you for your gift to help gospel in Life share Christ's redemptive love with people all over the world. Just 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.

But not only that, he also came and he lived a perfect life. In other words, he stood forth against all the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And he did everything that we were supposed to do. He loved God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind. And he loved his neighbor as himself against all that is before us. You see, we go out and saying, yes, I should love God. I should love my neighbor.

But we go under because we can't face the temptations. We can't face the pressures, the world, the flesh, and the devil, they always defeat us, but not our champion. And when you believe in Jesus Christ, his righteousness becomes yours. When God looks at you, he sees Jesus' perfect righteousness, which means God gives you, you're a Christian, all the love and honor that he would give his son. He loves you as much as if you had done all those wonderful deeds of love and courage here, as if you were the one who said, not my will but thine be done, as if you had done those, had lived that incredible record of faithfulness that Jesus did. In other words, if Jesus Christ is your archegos,

you're perfect in him. There's no condemnation for you. And here's why Jesus Christ relates to the Christian in an utterly different way than Muhammad relates to a Muslim or Buddha relates to a Buddhist or Confucius to a Confucian or Krishna to a Hindu. Why? Because all of those other founders of religions, great as they are, are only the authors of the faith. They author. They start you out. They say, this is the way to get to God. Do these things. This is the way to go. Do these things. But you have to finish it. They put you, as it were,. They say we can get you started but you have to finish it. But Jesus Christ does not just say here's how to get to God. He

accomplishes it for you because he's not just your author, he's your finisher. He doesn't just put you on probation, he's done the probation for you. He's fulfilled the probation to you and if you believe in him, he's put you beyond probation forever. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus now. Why would the Hebrews writer say, unless you look to him as this, you will never be able to handle suffering. Unless you look to Jesus as this.

If you just look to Jesus as an example, if you look to Jesus just as a help, that's the reason why you say, well, here I'm suffering and I'm looking to Jesus, I'm asking him to change things, I'm asking him to come in and do things, I'm asking him to move things around, but I'm asking him to do these things and it's not helping

because you're not looking to Jesus as the archegos, as the pioneer and perfecter, as the champion and achiever of your faith. Why do you have to? Here's why. It is inevitable. All of us, to some degree or another, have experienced suffering, in the micro or the macro, in the small or the large, and it is inevitable when suffering comes that at some level of consciousness, you ask yourself this question, do I deserve this? Is this fair? What did I do to deserve this?

If at some level you're doing that and it's inevitable that that calculation goes on, it's going to go on. Do I deserve this? It will goes on. It's gonna go on. Do I deserve this? It will go on. Unless you believe in Jesus as your author and your finisher, there's only two other alternative ways to answer that question.

You will either have to say, I do deserve it, and you'll be crushed. You'll be broken into despair. Or you will say, I don't deserve it, and you'll be bitter and cynical and hard. You see that? You will either be hard or you'll be crushed. You know, in verse five, it talks about this. It says, my son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline nor faint when you are disciplined by him. Did you see that? Those are the two

opposite things that will happen to you if you don't see Jesus as the author and pioneer and perfecter of your faith. You will either make light of it, you will say, this is unfair. This is ridiculous. I'm not going to let it get to me. This is awful. And you become hard and cynical or else you're in despair. You see, oh my word, I am a mess. I am wrong. I don't deserve to live. Look at these terrible things that are happening to me. My life is a ruin. You will either be hard or you'll be broken. But a Christian says, on the one hand, I do deserve this suffering, but this can't be punishment. Oh, I deserve the suffering, but this isn't punishment

because Jesus Christ was my arch-ego. He stood in my place, and as a result, every bit of punishment that God would ever want to give me for my sins has come to him. The reason that there's suffering in my life is because there's suffering in the world. This is a broken world. God has said he's going to deal with it someday, but meanwhile he's going to bring good out of it somehow. But I know this, it's not punishment.

It's a lesson. And it's also something that all human beings endure, and he's going to be with me through it. It's not punishment. Do you see that? On the one hand, I don't deserve it, and it's not punishment. On the other hand, I do deserve it and it is punishment. But a Christian says, I do deserve it, but it's not punishment. On the other hand, I do deserve it and it is punishment, but a Christian says, I do deserve it,

but it's not punishment. Those are the only three ways to go. And suffering will either make you hard, it will destroy you, or you can look to Jesus. Look away to Jesus. He has taken it all for you. This is not punishment. God would never take two payments for the same debts.

You see that? He's not going to, having exacted it from your arch-ego, he's not going to exact it from you now. Well then, somebody says, fine. Then what am I supposed to do? Why is it here? And then that's the last principle. You have to look to Jesus. You have to look, okay?

The first principle is you deal with your problems on the basis of what you're focused on. Secondly, you have to focus on Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter, as the author and finisher, as the arch-ego and achiever of your faith. But then lastly, you should discern his model. See what he actually did. And you know what he did? I can only mention three things real, real fast. In fact, I shouldn't have said that. I only have time for two. I'm going to mention them real fast. If somebody wants to work through more of this afterwards, we have our classes downstairs. They resume this week. I have a question and answer time.

And is anybody here really dealing with some issues and want me to spin out more of the practicalities, come downstairs and we have a 45-minute class afterwards. But here's what Jesus did. First of all, it said, for the joy that was set before him. What do you mean for the joy that was set before him? He ran the race. See, he endured the cross. What joy? Where was the joy? What this means is Jesus looked at the big picture He knew that ultimately The ultimate outcome of his suffering would be joy for us and even joy for him But that's way down at the end of the race in the in the meantime

It was going to be tremendously difficult. So what he was doing was he was refusing to look narrow He was refusing to be tremendously difficult. So what he was doing was he was refusing to look narrow. He was refusing to look right here and now. He stood back far enough and says, I know that ultimately what God is out for is my good and the good of his people. What if I took you in a time machine back to the foot of the cross and you were standing there along with all of his followers and they were in despair?

And you would say, don't weep. And they would say, but don't you understand? His redemptive work is over. He was doing so many miracles. He was practically wiping out disease in Palestine. And he was doing such wonderful teaching, he was wiping out cruelty and inhumanity in Palestine. And now it's all over.

His redemptive work is all over. And what would you have to say to them? Well, there's this book I've got here. You don't have it, but it's a Bible. And it's lots and lots and lots and lots of pages in it. It explains that you're focused too narrowly. You're only looking at the here and now. I want you to know that this is his redemptive work. That this incredible suffering that you think is...you say, how could God bring anything good out of this incredible suffering that you think is, you say, how could God bring anything good out of this? But that's how wonderfully wise God is. The thing that you think is over is just a small thing compared to the overall

picture of what God is doing here. Can you do that for yourself? It would be very hard to explain that to them. You have an entire book to explain how God could bring good things and joy out of that. You don an entire book to explain how God could bring good things and joy out of that. You don't have a book explaining how God can bring good things and joy out of what you're going through, but he can. Do you dare to not take your own advice? If I took you back to the cross, you'd be giving him advice. Can't you see that you should give it to yourself? There's joy out there at the end in the macro in the whole picture all things work together for good the Bible says to those who love you to those who love God

you have to see the big picture but then lastly you've got to obey Jesus endured the cross he stood pat in a gymnas, you notice in verse 11 it says all discipline looks hard at first, feels hard, but eventually it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. And what that means is when a gym coach puts you through the paces, at first he puts pressure on you, you push back. And as you push back against the pressure, you feel like you're getting weaker, but eventually you're actually getting stronger. If on the other hand you just give up and collapse, you won't grow at all. Jesus endured the cross. If you are in trouble right now, the best thing you

can do is obey. Don't you know that an ounce of sin can kill you, but three tons of suffering can't hurt you at all? It can just make you better? You obey. What does that mean? You keep praying. You keep reading the Bible. You keep coming to church. You keep being kind to people. You keep serving. You keep repenting of your sins. You don't give up. You push back against the pressure, and it will turn you into someone of greatness, compassion, courage, faith, in ways you can't even imagine yet. He saw the big picture and he endured, he stayed there, he stood back, he pushed back against the pressure, he didn't let go of his position.

Fix your eyes on Jesus as the archegos, the archego and achiever of your face. Then look at the big picture, then obey where you are. And you will not faint or grow weary, but you will come through. Fix your eyes on Jesus, let's pray. Father, give us the ability to first understand and then secondly carry out the wise, wise, wise principles that we see as we read this matchless passage on how to deal with suffering. Help us right now as we pick up the Lord's Supper and take up the elements. Help us right now to fix our eyes on Jesus,

the author and finisher of our faith. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel In Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the Gospel-centered teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner. Your partnership allows us to reach people all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit Gospelinlife.com slash partner. That website again is Gospelinlife.com slash partner.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1994. 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.