"Chapter 16: Hoping" and Epilogue

Walking with God through Pain & Suffering
by Tim Keller

Chapter 16: Hoping

Revelation 21:1–4 (NIV)
¹ Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ² I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

⦁    There is nothing more practical for sufferers than to have hope.
⦁    At the end of the Bible, we have the ultimate hope promised to the people of God—a material world in which all suffering is gone— “every tear wiped from our eyes.”
⦁    Revelation was written to people who were experiencing great suffering in the form of Roman persecution.

⦁    What did John offer his readers in the midst of suffering and persecution?
⦁    John gave them the ultimate hope—a new heavens and new earth that was coming.
⦁    This future hope motivated the early believers to maintain their faith and even forgive their tormentors.
⦁    The Christian faith grew and spread through persecution, because their hope was anchored to their future salvation.

⦁    Human beings are hope-shaped creatures.
⦁    The way you live now is controlled by what you believe about your future.
⦁    If you believe in a judgment day and a new heavens/new earth, it will radically shape how you live in the present, including how you deal with suffering.
⦁    Hope in our own efforts will fail us, but God’s future program—his eternal kingdom—will not fail us.

⦁    Future hope must be anchored in faith to the literal promises of God, trusting that the future will unfold as God has said it will.
⦁    If the early persecuted Christians could find hope in these future promises, then how much more should we, whose suffering is much less intense than theirs?
⦁    Jesus endured the cross and its suffering so that we might have the hope of eternal life with God.

Epilogue: 10 action steps
1)    We must recognize the varieties of suffering.
        a)    Brought on by wrong behavior: bring guilt and shame
        b)    Betrayals and attacks by others: bring anger and resentment
        c)    Universal forms of loss that occur to all: bring grief and fear
        d)    Large scale natural disasters
        e)    Horrendous evil: bring confusion and/or anger at God
2)    We must recognize differences in temperament between ourselves and other sufferers.
3)    We need to make room for weeping and true lament. Be honest with God and yourself about your sorrow.
4)    We need to be trusting God’s wisdom and his love in the midst of our grief.
5)    We need to be praying, bringing our complaints, struggles, and requests.
6)    We must be disciplined in our thinking, meditating on God’s truth.
7)    We should be willing to do some self-examining.
8)    We must be reordering our loves. Suffering reveals that there are things we love too much, or we love God too little in proportion to them.
9)    We should not neglect community. Suffering is isolating. The church is a community of support and encouragement.
10)    Some forms of suffering—particularly those due to our own failures or the mistreatment of others—require skill at receiving grace and forgiveness from God, and giving grace and forgiveness to others.

Romans 8:18–25 (NIV)

¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.