There is a divine design in your distresses, and so we must ask,

what is it, because to understand what it is will be the root and foundation for our joy in a life of pain.

If God has a design for the distresses we endure in our lives,

and if understanding that design is vital for experiencing joy amidst our suffering,

then certainly we should want to know what it is.

God's design in our distress is what John Piper considers in this episode of light and truth

from 1 Peter 1, 6 and 7.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on October 24, 1993.

Christianity is a life of painful joy.

Peter, verse 6, picks up the steam now.

He picks up the steam of great joy, and he gives two reasons for why we as a people are people who rejoice.

And in the process he shows us why it's painful joy.

Let me mention the first reason in passing, because we've spent two weeks on it already,

and then focus in on the second reason.

The first reason is in verses 3 to 5, because at the beginning of verse 6 it says,

in this you greatly rejoice, and the this, the word this, refers backwards to verse 3.

He has caused you to be born again to a living hope in this you rejoice.

And verse 4, he is guarding or keeping an inheritance for us out there that's unfading and

imperishable and undefiled. It's kept. It will not rot or rust. It's out there. It's going to be

there when we get there. And so in that we rejoice. And verse 5, he's keeping us for it.

It for us and us for it. And in that we rejoice that God is at work on us so that we don't make

shipwreck of faith and fail to get the inheritance. So we've been born again. There's an inheritance

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