What if life's hardest moments are the places where God makes you more like him?

In Peter's first letter to early believers, he says that's exactly what can happen.

Because Jesus endured the ultimate suffering on our behalf, we now have the power and the hope

to face anything life throws at us.

In today's message, Tim Keller takes a closer look at how God shapes us through troubles

so that we can reflect his glory.

We're going through the book of First Peter in our evening services this year, and read with me,

and we'll base our remarks and our teaching tonight on this and prepare our own hearts for meeting God at his table.

1. Peter 1, 3, 4 and 5.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In His great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade,

kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. This is God's

word. This is actually a kind of bridge section, and what I'd like to do tonight, because we don't have as much time as ordinarily we would,

is I'd like to just stand back for a minute and give you something of an overview of what First Peter is all about,

and then look at this very little summary of what it means to be saved.

So what you actually have here in chapter 1, verse 3, 4, and 5, and this is so typical of all of

the great letters, the letters from Peter, or the letters from Paul, letters from...

Who else? John? I know, I'm the minister, right? Who else?

But if you take a look, if you take a look at these letters, you very often find that in the prayers,

in the addresses, when they address the readers, you'll have the entire history of salvation, or you have the

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