Gospel in Life

Guest (Female): Welcome to Gospel in Life.

Guest (Female): We live in a culture that encourages us to focus on ourselves, our needs, our goals, our fulfillment. But what if our lives only made sense when we see them as part of a much bigger story?

Guest (Female): This summer, we're featuring one of Tim Keller's longer sermon series in which he teaches about the core truths of the Christian faith and the big picture of God's ultimate plan of salvation for humanity.

Guest (Female): Revealing how we can find real meaning, growth, and change in Christ.

Tim Keller: Sometimes when we look at them.

Tim Keller: And yet, you know, all of history in the West, at least, is a before and after picture.

Tim Keller: We've got BC, before Christ, and we have AD, after the year of our Lord.

Tim Keller: If you're a Christian, you can divide your life into before and after as well.

Tim Keller: You got before pictures, you got after pictures.

Tim Keller: Being a Christian is a monumental change.

Tim Keller: What you have here in Ephesians 2:1-5 is you've got a BC and an AD. You've got a before and an after picture.

Tim Keller: We've been looking at the before, and starting last week, and continuing this week, we're looking at the after picture.

Tim Keller: As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live.

Tim Keller: When you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air and the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

Tim Keller: All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.

Tim Keller: Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

Tim Keller: But because of the great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions.

Tim Keller: It is by grace you have been saved.

Tim Keller: Let's look at this, before and after.

Tim Keller: We've been looking at the before.

Tim Keller: And we saw that before were under the influence of the flesh.

Tim Keller: See verse 3.

Tim Keller: It says, all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires.

Tim Keller: Now we've been looking at that for a while, and what we did see there is the flesh is not the body. Remember?

Tim Keller: But rather it's the bent of the whole nature to be your own God, to be your own savior.

Tim Keller: To save yourself, to keep control of your life, and to develop strategies for living that will not necessitate you depending on God.

Tim Keller: And so, before Christ, you're in the flesh.

Tim Keller: You may be a violent person.

Tim Keller: You may be a criminal.

Tim Keller: You may be a licentious person, or you may be moral, generous, upright, compassionate.

Tim Keller: But in either case, you're in the flesh.

Tim Keller: Now if that surprises you or that confuses you, it's because you still don't understand the basic message of the gospel.

Tim Keller: To be in the flesh does not necessarily mean that you're constantly breaking God's law.

Tim Keller: To be in the flesh means that you're using good things to avoid having to rely on Christ as savior and to avoid having to make God your king.

Tim Keller: In other words, in your indecency, or your decency, you're doing everything you can to be your own savior.

Tim Keller: Sure, over here's one person who builds his or her life and gets his or her meaning in life out of drink or out of drugs or out of eating, and they're addicted, and everybody sees, yes, they're in the lust of the flesh.

Tim Keller: But over here's a person who gets his or her meaning in life out of being moral and decent, out of feeling like I'm better than most. I'm religious.

Tim Keller: And though it's very subtle, that person is just as much in the grips of the flesh because they're using religion as a strategy for avoiding making Jesus both Lord and savior.

Tim Keller: Now we were looking at that, we spent plenty of time on that, there's no reason to go back to that, but we've got to remind you of that because you can't, unless you understand and have a good, clear picture of the before, you won't understand the after.

Tim Keller: In some translations it goes this way, in verse 4, but God, because of his great love for us, who is rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ, even when we were dead.

Tim Keller: Now all I want to do, and all we have time to do tonight, since we're getting ready for the Lord's Supper, is just to look at this term, but God made us alive.

Tim Keller: In the Bible, there are many, many, many ways of talking about this.

Tim Keller: In the book of Titus, I think I referred to this last week. In the book of Titus, Paul says almost the same thing in a passage that's unbelievably parallel to the passage we just read.

Tim Keller: In Titus he says, at one time we too were deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions.

Tim Keller: We lived alone and in anger and envy, being hated and hating one another.

Tim Keller: But when the kindness and love of God our savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy.

Tim Keller: He saved us through the washing of rebirth and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us through Christ.

Tim Keller: Now here in Ephesians 2, he made us alive. Here it talks about the rebirth and the regeneration by the spirit.

Tim Keller: In John chapter 3, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about the same thing when he says, marvel not that I say, you must be born again.

Tim Keller: You must be born again, born from above to enter the kingdom of God, to see the kingdom of God.

Tim Keller: Born again, born of the spirit, born of above, made alive, rebirth, regeneration by the spirit. They're all talking about the same thing.

Tim Keller: This is this is the sine qua non of what it means to be a Christian.

Tim Keller: This is the essence of what it means to be a Christian.

Tim Keller: I know that there are plenty of people, especially in a town like ours, who like to make distinctions between Christians. They say, well, are you a born again Christian?

Tim Keller: And you see that's an exercise in redundancy.

Tim Keller: Because according to this, what is a Christian but somebody who's been made alive?

Tim Keller: Who has been given the rebirth and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, who has been born from above. That's what a Christian is.

Tim Keller: Now, when Paul and when Jesus uses this term, they could have used other terms for what it means to become a Christian, but they continually said, made alive, born again.

Tim Keller: When they chose a metaphor like that, as dramatic as that, and as drastic as that, they must have been trying to get across certain truths about what it means to be a Christian.

Tim Keller: So let's try to draw some of the implications out.

Tim Keller: If being a Christian means to be made alive, if it means to be born again, what do we learn about being a Christian? These things.

Tim Keller: First of all, the first thing we learn about being a Christian is Christianity is not something you simply, it's not something that just gets added to your life.

Tim Keller: Christianity is not a supplement.

Tim Keller: Christianity is not something that some new information that you add. It's a complete reorientation.

Tim Keller: It's a complete change. Look.

Tim Keller: When a person becomes a Christian, they don't just get some new information that they add to things. They don't just put a new file in the drawer. They don't just put a new a new book on the shelf.

Tim Keller: Instead, when the Holy Spirit opens your eyes to the truth, when you're born again, religious people, to their shock, realize that all of their lives their religion was really a way.

Tim Keller: Of keeping Jesus away.

Tim Keller: Religious people when they're born again realize that all of their lives, their religion was, their religion and their morality and their religious activities were just strategies to keep from having to really trust Jesus as savior, but it was a strategy to be their own savior.

Tim Keller: Successful people realize that all of their life success was actually a way of keeping Jesus away, keeping control of my life.

Tim Keller: Loving people find that their love was a way for them to actually keep Jesus away and keep control of their life.

Tim Keller: Codependent people realize that their codependency was a form of worship, was another way of saying I can be saved as long as people need me.

Tim Keller: Everybody, religious people, violent people, addicted people, loving, indecent people, every one of them, instead of just getting a little addition, Christianity means a violent almost reorientation of their life.

Tim Keller: And they suddenly see for the first time that though all of them admitted that they were sinners, or they they had flaws, or they had errors, or they had faults in their life, they finally realize that they are so lost that it'll take the death of the Son of God to save them.

Tim Keller: Something they never understood.

Tim Keller: They may have sat in church for years, or they may have never wanted to come anywhere near church for years, yet they're in the same boat. They were in the lust of the flesh. Their flesh had taken hold and through indecency or decency, they rebelled against God.

Tim Keller: And when they're born again, they're shocked to have this radical new view of themselves.

Tim Keller: Has that happened to you?

Tim Keller: Christianity, because it's the new birth, is not an addition, it's not a supplement.

Tim Keller: Secondly, this term being born again doesn't just teach us that Christianity is not just an addition, but it even means Christianity is not just simply getting in touch with your own inner resources.

Tim Keller: You see, in this city, you've got a just a myriad, just a multitude of books and tapes and seminars and religions.

Tim Keller: And various sorts, is that me off? I'm still there, pardon me.

Tim Keller: And various sorts of, well, various forms of philosophies that basically come down to this.

Tim Keller: You have what it takes. You just have to get in touch with it.

Tim Keller: You have to dig down deep, you have to get in touch, but you've got the inner resources, you've got what it takes.

Tim Keller: When the Bible says you must be born again, you must be made alive, what is the Bible saying? It's coming from a radically different perspective. It's saying, you do not have what it takes.

Tim Keller: And the sooner you admit that and realize that, the better.

Tim Keller: Another way to put it is, in verse 4 starts, but God. And that right there is the essence of the way Christians look at things.

Tim Keller: But God, you don't have what it takes. There needs to be an intervention from the outside. What you need has to come from the outside.

Tim Keller: Have you begun to understand Christianity that way? Or do you, is there anybody here that still thinks of Christianity in terms of your own efforts and what you're doing?

Tim Keller: Or do you see it's got to come from the outside? It's not a matter of getting in touch with what's on the inside. Not at all. You don't have what it takes.

Tim Keller: If you think that sounds awful, if you think that sounds demeaning, if you think that sounds pessimistic, you still don't understand, but the one thing you do are beginning to understand is Christianity is a very different thing than probably what you have thought it is.

Tim Keller: But God, the new birth means it's something, a life has to come from the outside.

Tim Keller: So, the new birth means that it's not just an addition. Secondly, the new birth means it's not just getting in touch with something inside you. There's nothing inside you but deadness, and life comes from the outside.

Tim Keller: Thirdly, the new birth means it's not something that you can direct. It's not something that you take up.

Tim Keller: Christianity is not a program that you just decide and take up and go into.

Tim Keller: Who decides to be born?

Tim Keller: Who decides, I think it's time?

Tim Keller: Birth is something that happens to you.

Tim Keller: Something comes and rocks you.

Tim Keller: If you get any, if you have any idea what Christianity is when you read the New Testament, you'll see that.

Tim Keller: Here's Paul, he used to be Saul of Tarsus.

Tim Keller: And there's a place where Paul says, in Galatians 2:20, he says, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me.

Tim Keller: I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Now, that's a perfect example of what it means to be a Christian.

Tim Keller: There's a confusion there, but it's a wonderful confusion. It's a delirious confusion. It's a joyful confusion.

Tim Keller: He says, it's I that live and yet it's not I. See, that's what every Christian feels like.

Tim Keller: It's me, but it's not me.

Tim Keller: Well, it has to be me. Of course it's me. I am Paul of Tarsus. I'm not Paul of Tarsus, but it is a new Paul of Tarsus.

Tim Keller: A Christian becomes a beautifully complex person. Stupendous what Christianity is.

Tim Keller: Something has come from the outside. A new life has been brought to me. A new perspective has been brought to me. I see things differently. I have a new power within me, a new strength. I've been made partaker of the divine nature, and now there's a sense in which I still am me, but I'm not me.

Tim Keller: There's a joy about it, and yet there's there's always, I would call it a holy and joyful confusion about it.

Tim Keller: It is I, it is not I. It's me, it is not me.

Tim Keller: You can see it in that hymn, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood?

Tim Keller: Died he for me, who caused his pain?

Tim Keller: Now, if you think of Christianity as something that's an addition, or something that comes from the inside, then you believe Christianity is something that you direct, something that you pick up like a program.

Tim Keller: You decided to go to grad school, you decided on a career, you decided to lose weight, you decided to learn a language, you decided these things and you're moving through them, and you're being disciplined about it, and you're making progress. That's not at all what Christianity is about.

Tim Keller: Christianity comes from the outside, and something that happens to you. Oh yes, you cooperate.

Tim Keller: Oh yes, you discipline yourself to grow.

Tim Keller: But you always know that you're being rocked from the outside, and now from the inside.

Tim Keller: That it's you, yet it's not you. That there's two yous.

Tim Keller: And the new one is growing stronger and stronger all the time. There's an inner conflict.

Tim Keller: There's almost a sense in which sometimes I've talked to Christians who say, especially new Christians who say, I don't think I was here a while ago. What am I? What happened?

Tim Keller: It is I, yet it's not I.

Tim Keller: Being born again is something absolutely amazing and absolutely remarkable.

Tim Keller: It's miraculous, it creates a complex psychological state.

Tim Keller: It comes from the outside, not from the inside. It's a completely new orientation. It's not just an addition.

Tim Keller: All of that is seen in this term, being born again.

Tim Keller: Now, the last thing I want to ask you for tonight, before we go to the Lord's table, is this: do you know that this has happened to you or not?

Tim Keller: How can you tell?

Tim Keller: And I think I, at the very end of last week's sermon in the evening, I started to get into three marks of the difference between a nice person and a new person.

Tim Keller: Three marks of the difference between a morally reformed person and a spiritually reborn person.

Tim Keller: Those are two different things.

Tim Keller: How do you know you're spiritually reborn and not just morally reformed?

Tim Keller: And I'll tell you what those three, I just give you three indicators, three marks that might help.

Guest (Female): Why does God allow suffering in the world?

Guest (Female): How can one religion be right and the others wrong?

Guest (Female): Hasn't science basically disproved Christianity?

Guest (Female): Tim Keller addresses these questions and many more in his book, The Reason for God.

Guest (Female): Drawing on literature, philosophy, real life conversations and potent reasoning, this book will challenge you to gain a deeper understanding of the Christian faith.

Guest (Female): Whether you're a believer seeking to understand your faith better, whether you're exploring Christianity yourself, or whether you're reading it with a friend who's searching for answers.

Guest (Female): When you give to Gospel in Life during the month of August, we'll send you two copies of The Reason for God, one for you and one to give to a friend.

Guest (Female): It's our hope that through reading the book with a friend, you can have conversations about the claims of the Christian faith.

Guest (Female): To receive your two copies of The Reason for God as our thanks for your support, simply make a gift at gospelinlife.com/give. That's gospelinlife.com/give.

Guest (Female): Thank you for partnering with us. Your gift helps the message of Christ's love go out all over the world because the gospel truly changes everything.

Tim Keller: First of all, number one.

Tim Keller: A moral person and a Christian have two different views of the truth.

Tim Keller: If you lay a piece of food on a rock, it just sort of lays there, you know?

Tim Keller: The rock can't absorb it, it can't take it in, it's just there.

Tim Keller: If you put some food into a stomach, the stomach has got a certain quality about it that can absorb it and get the nutrients out and take that and turn it into energy.

Tim Keller: A moral person might believe the truth, might applaud the truth, might obey the truth, might admire the truth, might pat him or herself on the back that they believe the truth.

Tim Keller: But a Christian feeds on the truth.

Tim Keller: It's a tremendous difference.

Tim Keller: Before you were Christian, when you were just a moral person, you knew you had to believe the Bible, and you knew you should read the Bible, but after you become a Christian, the Bible becomes food.

Tim Keller: You find yourself panting after it. You want to understand it.

Tim Keller: Before you were Christian, you couldn't imagine yourself reading the Bible for pleasure.

Tim Keller: Maybe for inspiration in real hard times, but not just to want to know it just for its own sake, but that's the change that happens.

Tim Keller: The great theologian Jonathan Edwards says what you develop is a taste for the truth, a relish for the truth that you didn't have before.

Tim Keller: It was not that hard to see.

Tim Keller: You know, when a minister preaches, sometimes, especially you've got people who've been going to church for years, and some of their attitude is, but I already know that.

Tim Keller: I've heard that before. I've known that for years. I've known that for years. Right?

Tim Keller: A real Christian, even if you've heard it 100 times before, takes it and says, boy, I need to know this better.

Tim Keller: Boy, it's a thrilling thing, it's a disturbing thing, it's a comforting thing.

Tim Keller: Don't you see the difference? One of them looks at it as food, the other one looks at it as something else.

Tim Keller: I mean, there's nobody that sits down Sunday morning and you get up to eat and you sit down and somebody wants to serve you breakfast and you say, I had breakfast yesterday. I had breakfast the day before that. Why in the world would I want breakfast now?

Tim Keller: Eggs, I know what eggs are all about. Toast, I know what toast is all about.

Tim Keller: You would have to say this person is obviously an Android from Star Trek or something like that. This person doesn't need to know.

Tim Keller: But if you're a human being, if you don't have a heart of stone, but you have a heart of flesh.

Tim Keller: It says in Colossians 3:16, the word of God dwells in you richly.

Tim Keller: Only a Christian understands that, only a Christian wants that, only a Christian can do that.

Tim Keller: Huge difference. Your attitude toward truth.

Tim Keller: A morally reformed person applauds the truth. A spiritually reborn person applies the truth, eats the truth, feeds on the truth, gets the sweetness out of it. Do you know that?

Tim Keller: Second.

Tim Keller: If you want to know whether you're morally reformed versus spiritually reborn, those two kinds of folks also differ not only in their attitude toward truth, but in their attitude toward failures.

Tim Keller: Failures, yes. Listen.

Tim Keller: All other philosophies and all other religions basically say this, pull yourself together.

Tim Keller: Get a grip. Summon up all of your and focus all of your strength and do this. You can do it.

Tim Keller: And that's really what salvation is to a Muslim, that's what salvation is to a Jew, that's what salvation is to a Hindu, that's what salvation is to a humanist, that's what salvation is to anybody.

Tim Keller: Get it together. Summons up all of your focus strength and do it.

Tim Keller: So then what does a person like that say to a failure?

Tim Keller: Gee, I'm sorry. I mean, what does that person say to someone who says, I summoned it all up, I pulled it all together, I did everything I possibly could, and I couldn't do it. I failed. Now what?

Tim Keller: And every other religion except Christianity says,

Tim Keller: I don't know. You tried hard, I don't know. You failed, your life's a failure, you're all broken. Whoops. I don't know what we're going to do now.

Tim Keller: When John the Baptist was not sure who Jesus was, wasn't sure he was the Messiah, he sent a messenger, he was in prison and he said, how do we know you're the one or should we look for another?

Tim Keller: And what did Jesus say?

Tim Keller: He says, go back and tell John the Baptist what you see.

Tim Keller: And what did he see?

Tim Keller: Tell him that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, and the poor have good news preached to them. Now, what was Jesus saying?

Tim Keller: He says, John, you want to know whether I'm the real McCoy? You want to know whether the gospel of the kingdom has really come in me? I'll tell you how you can know, look at the hard cases, look at the failures, look at the look at the lame, look at the halt, look at the lepers, look at the poor, look at the marginalized, look at them. Their lives are transformed through me.

Tim Keller: That's how you know the difference between spiritual power and moral reformation.

Tim Keller: The morally reformed have nothing to say to a failure, but Christians know that they are failures. Christians have seen God's power work through failures. Christians never stay away from failures. They never give up on anybody. They hope for anyone.

Tim Keller: That's how you know whether you're a morally reformed person who pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, whether you've been transformed by the grace of God.

Tim Keller: See, John Newton sang about it in that hymn, hear him, you deaf, his praise you dumb, your loosened tongues employ. You blind, behold your savior come and leap, you lame for joy.

Tim Keller: I've never gotten over that verse of that hymn.

Tim Keller: You can just hear John Newton, the author, just exulting in the contradictions. Hear him, you deaf, his praise, you dumb, your loosened tongues employ. You blind, behold your savior come and leap, you lame for joy.

Tim Keller: I said it this morning, I'll remind you of it, some of you heard it before.

Tim Keller: Everybody in this room knows they ought to be perfect.

Tim Keller: Some of you have gone to counselors to try to deal with it, but the best you could ever do is just put it to sleep. It's still sleeping, it's still there.

Tim Keller: Every other philosophy basically says, the way to deal with that is to lighten up, loosen up, make yourself less sensitive to righteousness and morality.

Tim Keller: Just realize that everybody does it, everybody fails. Don't worry about it.

Tim Keller: No other faith, no other religion really comes to grips with the emotional reality of the fact that we know we should be perfect.

Tim Keller: And therefore everybody in this room knows that you're a failure. You all know it.

Tim Keller: However, we do all sorts of, we have all sorts of strategies to make ourselves feel like successes.

Tim Keller: But in the gospel you come back to grips with the fact that you're a failure, you have not ever lived up to your own standards, you have never done your best, you have not lived up to the standards you set for other people, and that you're failures.

Tim Keller: Except that Jesus Christ has come and he's put himself in your shoes, and he's put himself under the law, and he's obeyed the law fully, and now if you trust in him, he is the fulfillment. He was perfect for you. He fulfills that law that you know in your deepest of deeps you have to fulfill.

Tim Keller: George Whitfield, the great preacher, once decided he was going to go preach to the Kingswood Colliers. Who were the Kingswood Colliers?

Tim Keller: Kingswood Colliers were, this is in the 1740s now, they were miners and they were considered the most violent people, they were considered they were very poor people, they were marginalized, they were an ethnic group that was put aside, and they were seen as little more than animals.

Tim Keller: They were made to live in certain communities apart from everybody else where there was lots of violence and crime and poverty and ignorance.

Tim Keller: And they had to live in mines and work under the most abysmal conditions, and they died halfway through their, you know, they they had terribly small lifespans because of what they were living in, and they were always black and full of grime because they were covered with coal dust.

Tim Keller: And today you can go to a spot at Kingswood, there's a a cross of stone in the ground where George Whitfield went into a field in front of the mines and began to preach outdoors.

Tim Keller: And everybody who, everybody had said to George Whitfield, don't you dare go there. Don't you dare preach to them. They'll probably they'll probably mug you, they'll probably take anything you've got. They might kill you.

Tim Keller: But he went to begin to preach. And what did he preach?

Tim Keller: He preached on the Lord our righteousness.

Tim Keller: And he said what the gospel says. The essence of sin is you and me substituting yourself for God and taking on what only he deserves to have, prerogatives that only he has deserves.

Tim Keller: The essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us and taking upon himself what only we deserve.

Tim Keller: Jesus Christ standing in our place and taking what we deserve because we put ourselves in his place being our own God and our own savior and taking upon ourselves prerogatives only he deserved.

Tim Keller: And because Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law because Jesus Christ has been perfect for you, because Jesus Christ has been a success where you were a failure, if you trust in him, you're righteous in him. Your failures are over.

Tim Keller: And as he began to preach, people started coming out of the mines, and instead of attacking him, or laughing at him, or walking away, they listened to him.

Tim Keller: And at a certain point, Whitfield was very puzzled to see that their faces seemed to be changing. Instead of being very black, there were little tiny white gutters forming down their cheeks where their tears were beginning to wipe away their coal dust.

Tim Keller: And so many of them, who had all their lives been told you're marginalized, you're failures, when they finally heard for once a religion for failures, a religion who acknowledged that their failure was really actually no different than the moral failure of the people who thought they were successes down in the in the respectable parts of London. When they heard a gospel that really showed them that Jesus Christ could be their righteousness, and their wisdom, and their sanctification, and their redemption.

Tim Keller: Their lives were changed. So many of them got converted that they set up a church there, and the first thing Whitfield did was set up a school to educate the kids so they could get out of the poverty and out of the economic conditions they were in.

Tim Keller: The world has nothing to say. Lee Atwater, remember him? Before he dies, he says, I'm sorry, and all the, I'm sorry for the dirty tricks I did in the last Republican campaign, and all of the media said, huh, now he thinks he can come on back and ask forgiveness, who does he think he is? Ted Bundy, just before he's electrocuted, says, I sinned, I was sorry. I've turned to Jesus Christ. And all of the media said, huh, who does he think he is? He thinks we can forgive him now? The world has nothing to say to axe murderers, nothing to say to sleazeballs, nothing to say to Kingswood Colliers, nothing to say to failures.

Tim Keller: And as a result, how will it ever deal with its own failure? It won't.

Tim Keller: Because in the end, every person is going to know on the day of judgment that they have not loved as they should love. They have not succeeded as they should have succeeded. What are they going to say?

Tim Keller: But the Christian knows that God loves to work in the hearts of failures.

Tim Keller: In fact, he chooses the failures, the foolish things to shame the wise, the weak things to shame the strong. Remember, the weak and despised things.

Tim Keller: Hear him, you deaf. His praise, you dumb. Your loosened tongues employ. You blind, behold your savior come and leap, you lame for joy.

Tim Keller: Now last thing, a morally reformed person and a spiritually reborn person differ in their attitude toward truth. They differ in their attitude toward failures. Christians will, and and this just follows.

Tim Keller: Thirdly, they differ in their attitude toward themselves.

Tim Keller: Morally reformed people think pretty well of themselves.

Tim Keller: Spiritually reborn people have a unique attitude toward themselves.

Tim Keller: They're not always standing on their own dignity, spiritually reborn people. They're not always looking at themselves at all. They're not proud of themselves, but at the same time, they're not concerned or self-conscious at all.

Tim Keller: When you get near one of them, you sense you're in the in the presence of somebody who knows that he or she is what they are by God's grace, and they make you feel like you can be too. CS Lewis put it this way, when you meet a really mature Christian, when you meet them, you'll find that they will love you more than other people, and they'll need you less.

Tim Keller: They'll love you more and they'll need you less.

Tim Keller: Because they know who they are in Christ. Their attitude is not one of superiority or inferiority. They don't think more of themselves, they don't think less of themselves, they think of themselves less.

Tim Keller: They don't have a superiority complex, they don't have an inferiority complex because on the one hand they know their wickedness and they know their security in the love of God.

Tim Keller: If you put those things together, here's what you've got.

Tim Keller: Are you, which of these are you? Are you morally reformed, or are you spiritually reborn, are you neither?

Tim Keller: Are you nice people, are you new people, or are you neither?

Tim Keller: If you're just nice, if you're just moral, I ask you to please let your heart be broken tonight by the knowledge of the fact that you are a failure and you know you're a failure.

Tim Keller: You might have it together, you might look really good on the outside, you might be keeping your weight down.

Tim Keller: You don't you don't look your age.

Tim Keller: You own your own apartment. You've made it.

Tim Keller: You see, you know you're a failure. You may not know it today, but you will never be able to deal with that emotional reality except through the gospel.

Tim Keller: Your heart is hard if you think that what we've been saying here tonight sounds fanatical.

Tim Keller: But I'm afraid it could get harder because like the trolls, if they're caught by the sun, so if you're caught by the light of the second coming, and you haven't yet received Christ as savior, you'll be turned to stone too.

Tim Keller: If you're new, then what do I say to you? The new life that's come into you, you've got to grow it.

Tim Keller: You grow it through Bible study, through prayer, through fellowship with other Christians, through repentance and through the sacraments.

Tim Keller: You can take this new life, and you can spread it out and work it out through and into your life, if you come before him now and appreciate him for what he's done.

Tim Keller: So, I'm going to pray, and then realize the newness of what's come into your life, and stir it up tonight as we receive the bread and the cup. Let's pray.

Tim Keller: Now, Father, we ask that as we come to you, and as we receive by faith, your strength and your mercy in the bread and the cup. We ask that those people here tonight who might not have your new life would not receive the bread and the cup, but would receive you.

Tim Keller: And we pray those of us who have received you might receive you a fresh and a new, and have our life stirred up because we've met you at your table. Oh Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Guest (Female): Today's sermon was recorded in 1992.

Guest (Female): The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.