Gospel in Life

Guest (Female): Welcome to the Gospel in Life podcast. John's Gospel recounts several of Jesus's miracles, from turning water into wine to healing a blind man. John says these miracles are signs pointing us to something greater. But what is it that we should see?

In today's sermon, Tim Keller looks at one of these signs and what it reveals about who Jesus is and what he came to accomplish during his life on Earth.

Guest (Female): Tonight's scripture is from the book of John, chapter 4, verses 46 through 54.

Once more, he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

Unless you people see signs and wonders, Jesus told him, you will never believe. The royal official said, Sir, come down before my child dies. Go, Jesus replied. Your son will live. The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, Yesterday at 1:00 in the afternoon, the fever left him.

Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, Your son will live. So he and his whole household believed. This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee. This is the word of the Lord.

Tim Keller: Now these, each week we are taking a look at another one of these accounts from the book of John, on what John calls the miraculous signs of Jesus. John calls the miracles of Jesus signs. And it is because John pulls these miracle accounts out and says not only do they show Jesus' power, but they also teach us things. A sign is a symbol, it is a pointer to something.

It is very easy to understand what the Gospel of John is about because he actually gives you the theme of the whole book near the end, in chapter 20, verse 30, 31, where John says this: Jesus performed many miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Now right there, he lays out two themes. He says the miraculous signs are there to provoke belief, faith, that by your faith, you might have life in his name. So the two themes are faith and eternal life. The two themes of the book of John are the miraculous signs are there in order to give you, provoke faith, and that faith brings eternal life.

Now tonight, we are not going to talk about eternal life. That is one of the big themes. That will come up later as we go through these passages. But tonight I think that this particular account, this miracle story about the healing of the royal official's son, is designed to tell us about the nature of faith.

See, faith is a very general word. Have faith. Faith to some degree is a temperament. Like, for example, some people are skeptical and some people are very trusting and receptive. Some people are more skeptical and cynical. I am actually more skeptical. I think it is actually helped me as a preacher. The fact is I basically I, I don't, I had to come to New York because I was, I didn't want to live in parts of the country where it was obvious to everybody that Christianity was true.

It is, it has never seemed obvious to me. And I believe Christianity is true, but it was a hard one thing and I think it is good. But my temperament is not to believe. But, I don't think when the Bible talks about faith it is talking about that. There are people who just are trusting and there are people who are not trusting.

But the faith that brings eternal life, saving faith, life-giving, eternal life-giving faith, is for everybody. It is not just for certain kinds of people. I have had people say, oh, I wish I had his faith, I wish I had her faith, I don't have that faith. As if faith is a talent. Like some people can sing and some people can't and you know who you are, by the way. And faith is like that. Some people have faith, some people don't.

Well, I do think there is a kind of faith that is a temperament or maybe a talent, but that is not saving faith. There is no Christian type. There is no type of person that becomes a Christian. Saving faith, which is the faith that brings you eternal life, is for everyone. And in this passage, we learn five things about it and it is extremely important that we know all of them.

Here are the five things. First of all, life-giving faith starts with reason. It involves your thinking, it involves your rationality. You must not pit faith completely against reason. You don't just say, well, there is reason and then there is faith. No, faith starts with reason. What do I mean? Well, verse 47. When this man heard Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son who was close to death.

Now, why would he do that? Because he had heard reports. In fact, even though we probably should have started maybe with verse 45, in verse 45 we are told that Jesus had come back to Galilee after having been in Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem he had done many mighty deeds. He had done many public miracles. And we are told in verse 45 that people who had been in Jerusalem came back to Galilee and were telling everybody about it, and now Jesus was getting very famous for all these miracles.

This man would not have come to Jesus for a miracle unless he had heard the reports and weighed the reports and believed them. Maybe a couple of his best friends who he trusted implicitly came back and said, I saw with my own eyes. But the point is that this man starts with thinking. See, most of the things you believe, you didn't really have first hand account of them, right? Most of the things you believe you took on the authority of the report.

So historians tell you things have happened, scientists tell you things have happened, you have read books, you have had teachers, and you have trusted them. Some you have, some you haven't. See, most of our views of things come to us through reports and we sift the reports with our reason and we decide which ones to believe and which ones not to. This man must have heard reports, not secondhand, thirdhand, fourthhand, but probably maybe first-hand. And so he comes because he has got reason to believe that Jesus Christ has power to do miracles.

Now, however, as we are going to see, though faith starts with reason, it has to go beyond reason to real trust. Because reason can't take you all the way home. Reason is a beginning, but eventually you have to have faith, you have to have trust, you have to exercise faith. And I can hear somebody out there saying, aha, I knew it. You can't prove it, can you? You can't prove Christianity, you can't even prove there is a God, can you? Aha.

Well, I am not going to believe in God or Christianity unless you can give me some watertight arguments and prove it. I have three things to say to you, okay? Three responses. Number one, just remember, ultimately you can't prove anything at all, at all. Haven't you seen The Matrix? And even though I knew you would laugh, that is sermon preparation. When I was writing my sermon, I said, I'll say The Matrix and everybody will laugh, and you did. Every single, every single service you did.

But, the, actually Matrix makes a point that the great philosophers will tell you about and that is that in the end you really can't prove anything. You have to take on faith that your senses are telling you what is really out there and your memory is valid. Now, if there really is somebody who stuck you in a vat and has programmed your memory to have all kinds of memories that never really happened, I mean, why that could happen. I mean, you could, there is no way to prove that your memory really works. You know that? Without relying on your memory, that is called circular reasoning. You can't rely, put it this way, you can't prove your memory is reliable without relying on the memory you are trying to prove is reliable.

Same thing with your cognitive senses. In other words, philosophers say, ultimately you can't prove anything. Everything you believe, you have to take on faith. Well, somebody says, okay, I remember, I had philosophy 101. All right. All right, ultimately you can't prove anything. But, having said that, all that does is sort of inject a certain amount of uncertainty into our life. But inside that uncertainty, that mild uncertainty, surely there are things that can be proven.

And my second thing to say to you is, yes, of course. But nothing important can really be proven. So for example, can you prove that there are 212 species of fish in Lake Erie? Yeah, probably you could prove it or you could disprove, you know, a thesis like that. But none of the important things in your life can you prove. So let me give you two classifications of things you can't prove. First, you can never prove that this is the right person to marry.

You can, you know, you can check his references or her references, and you can check the references, references, references. You can do all, you can use your reason, but in the end if you want, if you are going to have to have faith. You can start with reason, but in the end it is a leap of faith, isn't it not? To marry anybody. And, but let me give you another category. Every single one of your moral convictions.

Anything you are sure is right and anything you are sure is wrong. You can't prove. You can't prove any moral convictions. You have reasons for them, but in the end it is a matter of faith. See, to say, I won't believe in God or Christianity unless you can prove it, is really a little disingenuous because in no other area of life do you operate like that. You base your life on all kinds of things you can't prove. So why should you, why single out Christianity and God?

And here is one last thing. When people say, well, you can't prove there is a God, so I am not going to believe in God unless you can prove it. Blaze Pascal, the great philosopher, said, yeah, it is probably true that you can't prove there is a God. But it is also true that you can't prove there is no God, which means you can only live in one of two ways. You can either live as if there is no God when there might be.

Or you are going to have to live as if there is a God when there might not be. In either case, you are risking your whole life. You are betting your whole life on something you can't prove, which means you are living by faith, no matter who you are. Except that Christians usually admit they are living by faith and very often skeptics won't and it is not fairly honest. It is not honest. You need to realize that in no other area of your life do you demand proof, not in the big areas.

And therefore, faith starts with rationality. Look, it is so important for you to see this because I have talked to people over the years that have never used their brain. They, I say, are you a Christian? Sure, I'm a Christian. Why are you a Christian? Well, I was raised a Christian. Okay. But why do you believe? Well, no, this is my family is a Christian and I am, I am a Christian.

So you have never engaged your mind? You have never thought it out? You have never decided whether it was true or not? You know, at some point in your life, Christianity is going to not seem true. A lot of bad things are going to happen. And at that point, if your mind has not been engaged, you could just blow, your faith will just blow away. So to think Christianity is not to some degree, faith is not partly rational is a mistake, but it is also a mistake to say, unless you can prove it to me, I am not going to believe.

So faith involves reason, engages the rationality. That is point one. But secondly, as I already said, here is point two. Life-giving faith has to move beyond reason to trust. And that is the heart of this passage. That is what Jesus is doing. Let's look at what Jesus does to this poor guy. This man is desperate. He comes up and he begs him to come and heal his son who is close to death.

Now, you know, this man is really desperate. Later on when he says, sir, come down before my little, my child dies. That word child is a Greek word that means, it is a diminutive word. It is a word that means, you know, it would be like this, it would be like him saying, please come before my little one, my dear little one dies. He is, he is in agony. So here is this father and he is in agony. He says, come and heal my son. What does Jesus say the first time?

You people. You people seem to want all these miracles or you won't believe. Wow, that is kind of nasty, isn't it? Pretty harsh? Do you realize how often when people ask Jesus for something, he gives a response that seems inappropriate or is enigmatic? So for example, if you were in church last week here at Redeemer, you know we went to John chapter 2. And in John chapter 2, Jesus is at a wedding feast and they run out of wine.

And you might remember Mary, the mother of Jesus comes to Jesus and says, hey, they are out of wine. Remember what Jesus says? Woman, why do you involve me? It is not my hour to die. Come again? What? What, Jesus? What? I just said. In Mark chapter 7, there is this Syrophoenician woman, a Gentile woman, who comes to Jesus and begs him for help. And you know what he says?

He says, well, I was sent to Israel. Why should I help you? You are a Gentile. In fact, actually that is not what he says. Any of you remember what he actually says? He says, he does say he is going to Israel and he is not going to help her, a Gentile. But the way he puts it is, the food that was meant for the children should not be thrown to the dogs. That is what Jesus says. Sometimes people come to Jesus with perfectly natural requests and he kind of puts them off.

Why? The answer is always love. He is always doing it for a loving reason. He is always doing it because it is necessary. Now let me show you here. This man has no idea who Jesus is. If you go to Matthew chapter 8, there is a similar kind of story where there is a centurion, who is a great, you know, man. And the centurion is also asking for Jesus to come and heal, but he says, I am not even worthy to have you under my roof.

The centurion knows who Jesus is. He is kind of like has some idea of who Jesus is, but there is no indication here of any kind of deference or any kind of trust really. Why? Well, the man has just heard the stories about Jesus being a miracle worker. And all this man knows is this is that he is going, this is Gandalf. Or Miracle Max. Remember Miracle Max from Princess Bride? You don't remember Miracle Max. So anyway, it was Billy Crystal. But anyway, in other words, all he knows is that that this guy can do miracles. But he has no sense of who he is.

And if if Jesus is just a conduit of magic, magical power, then this man has got no actual faith in Jesus himself. And here is the point. Jesus doesn't just want to heal the son's physical problem. He doesn't just want to heal the son physically. He wants to heal the whole family spiritually. And the only way that the father and the whole family will be healed spiritually, have their souls healed, as well as the boy's body, is if they can, as if this man can see beyond the magic to who Jesus really is.

And so he is trying to draw the man out. That is why he is being so kind of caustic actually. And and look at how he challenges the man twice. He is actually twice. I mean, it is not that easy to see the for the first time, he is sort of putting him off. Unless you people see signs and wonders. You know, you are after the supernatural and not after me. Fortunately, this man does not respond the way the typical New Yorker would respond.

And the typical New Yorker would respond like this, I don't need this. But instead, very, very courteously and you might say doggedly, persistently, he says, Sir, would you please come down before my child dies? He is not put off. He is a lot like Jacob, wrestling with God in Genesis 32, not really understanding what is going on and saying, I will not let you go till you bless me. So to some degree he is a little bit, he reminds me of Jacob.

So he is not put off the first time and he says, Sir, I am not going. He prays again. He is sort of like, he has prayed to Jesus and Jesus gives him a kind of strange answer, so he prays again. And this time Jesus says, go, your son will live. Now I know when you first see that, you and I, because you know a lot more than this man knows, say, well, that sounds like a great response. It is not. It is a terrible test. It is a worse test than the first response. You know why?

This man is saying, please go with me. Why? Because all we knew of magicians, all we knew about prophets, all we knew about the way these miracles were ever done, was the person who who who could do it, had to go. The greatest miracle worker in the Old Testament, in the in the Bible, up to now, is Elijah or Elisha, those two prophets in the Old Testament. But even though they did amazing miracles, they had they had to be there.

They had to be there. They had to say things, they had to do things, they had to put their staff on the man's face, or they had to stretch out. In other words, they had to be there. Jesus at this point is making a claim that must have been absolutely astounding. He was saying, I am not going to go with you. I can heal with a word.

Guest (Female): Jesus was the most influential man to ever walk the Earth and his story has been told through books, movies and articles in hundreds of different ways. Can anything more be said about him? In his book, Jesus the King, Tim Keller journeys through the Gospel of Mark to reveal how the life of Jesus helps us make sense of our lives. Dr. Keller shows us how the story of Jesus is at once cosmic, historical, and personal, calling each of us to take a fresh look at our relationship with God.

During the month of March, we will send you a copy of Jesus the King as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the transforming love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelinlife.com/give. That is gospelinlife.com/give. Now, here is Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

Tim Keller: Now no one in the history, in redemptive history, nobody up to now, nobody that this man would have ever heard of, had the ability to do that, to heal from a distance, to heal with a word. Do you realize how God-like that is? See, here is how you and I work. We say, let there be a house and then we have to go actually and build the house or pay somebody to do it.

But God could say in the beginning, let there be light and there was light. His word and his deed is the same thing. His word is a word of power. And for Jesus to claim this kind of massive power, this God-like power, to say, I want you to trust me. I am not going with you. I can heal with a word, would have been a sore test. Because this guy was really thinking, if this Jesus Christ can't do this astounding thing that he says he can do.

Unless this Jesus Christ really has this power that no one has ever had before, my son is a goner. Am I going to trust my son's life to this man's incredible claim? And the answer is, yes, he does. Because what he says, what it says here and this is the key probably verse. The man took Jesus at his word and departed. Now, this is just the beginning. He doesn't believe yet, and yet he is on his way. And here is what Jesus has done.

Jesus is moving this man from a mere intellectual, rational belief in his power to a personal trust. He is not just seeing Jesus as a miracle worker, but as a Messiah. He is not just believing about Jesus, he is believing Jesus. And he is moving to life-giving faith. Because the difference between life-giving faith and just mere intellectual assent is actually trusting your life.

This is a story that uh, pastors have been, preachers have been using for 100 years and I am going to use it too. But uh, in uh, in the late 19th century there was a very, very famous French tightrope walker, acrobat, named Charles Blondin. And Charles Blondin was a tightrope walker, especially famous for walking on it across a tightrope over Niagara Falls. In this like the late 19th century.

He really became very famous because he did amazing things. Here are five things at least he did. He, he walked across it a number, he, you know, he had several times he did it. But one time he walked across blindfolded, okay. One time he walked across pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with, you know, quite a lot of weight. One time he walked across with his manager on his back. Okay, I don't know how that happened, but he did.

One time he walked across and he sat down midway on the, on the uh, uh, the tightrope and cooked an omelet and then ate it. My favorite is one time he went out with a chair in order to stand on the chair. And you and I can say, okay, I mean maybe you have seen acrobats do it, but what he did was he didn't put two legs of the chair on the tightrope and then get up on the chair. He put one leg of the tightrope of the, of the chair on the tightrope and he got up on the chair.

I can't imagine, how can he do that? So people saw him and they said, here is nobody like this guy. This guy is incredible, he is amazing. So they saw it empirically. Own eyes. They saw it and they cheered and all that. Now, here is how the story goes. It is probably apocryphal, but it might have happened. One time during this, his great feats, he walked over to the crowd and he had a wheelbarrow and he said, you just saw me go across with 200 pounds in the wheelbarrow, right? Yes.

Do you believe I could take a human being across safely, successfully, in this wheelbarrow? Everybody said, yes, of course. Are you really sure? Absolutely. Anybody want to get in the wheelbarrow? And see, no, no, no, no, no. Nobody, nobody wanted to get in the wheelbarrow. Why? It is one thing to believe and and and to be rationally, completely convinced that the man could go across.

I mean, who knows? Maybe they were saying, I think it is 99% sure that you can make it, you know. Nobody is. However, it was another thing to entrust their life to him. And that is the difference between being a nominal Christian, a person who believes intellectually, in fact, maybe very convinced in Christianity, but you are not acting in your life as if it is as if it is real. You are not trusting your life to him.

How many, how many people do I know who say, oh, I believe in Christianity, I am completely convinced of it. You are living as if money is the only thing. Money drives you. Money, money. It is what worries you all the time. Which means you believe in Christianity and you trust in money. Your life has been trusted to money. I remember one time talking to a man who had blown up his life because he had done things in secret that he thought would never come out, but they did come out and blew up his life.

And he says, I am a Christian. I said, okay, you are a Christian. Didn't you know that God could see you? I mean, how, no matter how secret you are, if you believe in a God, God, God could see you. See, the point is there was no connection. I believe in a God who sees me, but I don't connect that to the way in which I actually live. I believe that Jesus is this and that, but I live as if money is the main thing.

Which means you do not have eternal life. Because eternal life comes when you don't just believe with your mind, but that you actually entrust your life to what you believe he is. You actually rest your life in him. You actually get in the wheelbarrow. Martin Luther said, faith has three parts. It is actually got two if you think about it. Notitia, assensus and fiducia. Notitia means the knowledge. Notitia means knowledge. Assensus means belief in the knowledge.

In other words, that is the rationality. The first part of faith is you see certain things about Jesus and you believe them. You believe he did this, you believe he is this. But fiducia means you entrust your life to him. You act as if it is true. You, you, you commit to him so that the way in which you are living depends on that being true. Depends on it. Do you? See, that is life-giving faith.

When Jesus Christ said, I want you to trust your whole life really to my claim. I am claiming to have this kind of power. I am claiming to be to have this kind of this kind of love for you. I am claiming to have this kind of concern and power. And now I want you to act on it. And when he did, his son was healed. And of course, you know, there are stages here, right? Because when he finds out that the son actually was healed, then he finds out the son was healed the moment Jesus had spoken.

That pushed him all the way. So Jesus Christ is pushing him beyond just rational assent and even, you might say, firm rational belief in Christ to actual life-giving, saving, life-changing and life-transforming personal trust. Now there are three other things I am going to say briefly about what we are told about faith here, but it is very important because I don't think I can, I mean, there is a couple of other insights. Let me just go through them quickly.

Thirdly, life-giving faith grows beautiful and pure where gold grows beautiful and pure. The furnace. Jesus is deliberately making this hard. The man wanted an immediate response. Jesus puts off the response. Then the man wanted Jesus to go with him and he says, I am not going with you. Now, you know Jesus could have gone with him. It would have been so reassuring. All he had to do was say, sure, I'll come with you. And that is wonderful.

But instead, by the way, you know the uh, Capernaum to Galilee was at least 20 miles away. You know, that is a long way. I mean, everything, everybody walks. Just imagine. That must have been the longest walk that man ever, ever, ever took. And Jesus could have lightened his heart. He could have gone along with him. Forgive me for lapsing into Narnian dialect. There is a place in the Narnia Chronicles, which is an allegory of Christianity, where these children find out that the King of Narnia is an a lion and they say, a lion, oh my goodness, that is frightening.

Is he safe? And the answer is safe? Who said anything about him being safe? Of course, he is not safe, but he is good. He is the king, I tell you. Now, that is Jesus Christ. He is, he is unpredictable. He is uncontrollable. He is not a tame lion. He is incredibly good, but he is no way safe. Because he is a wonderful counselor. He knows when you need a slap in the face and he knows when you need a hug.

He knows when you need smelling salts and he knows when you need a kiss. He knows when you when you, when you need reassurance, which he could have easily done here. And he knows when you have to take an incredibly long walk feeling absolutely sick in your stomach. And Jesus knew it was the only way for him and so he did it. Don't think you know best what you need. See, life-giving faith grows pure and strong and beautiful in the same place that the that gold does, which is in a furnace.

Fourth, life-giving faith saves by its object, not its quality. Now, I want you what did I just say? Let me explain that. I want you to see how incredibly, incredibly comforting this is. When this man turned away to go home, do you think he was filled with with high spirits? Do you think when Jesus said, I want you to go back, he said, he took Jesus at his word and he left. But do you think he went back like this? Do you think he said, I know my son will live. I have no doubts. I am claiming my healing. Do you think he talked like that? I doubt it.

He probably went back just so scared. And yet, this is the faith that led to eternal life. And here is the reason why. It is the object of your faith, not the quality of your faith or the strength of your faith that saves you. So if I have a chair here, and it is a lousy chair, it is a weak chair. By the way, for a chair to collapse under me wouldn't necessarily make it an incredibly weak chair. Keeping in mind my great bulk.

But if I, if I have a weak chair here and I have lots of faith in it. I know it can hold me up. And I sit on it, falls apart, you all laugh at me. Terrible. And the other possibility is, I have this incredibly strong chair and I put it here and I say, I don't know, I am not sure it is going to hold me up. I don't know if it is going to hold me up. And I sit on it, it is fine. See, whether I sit or fall does not depend on the strength of my faith. It depends on the strength of the object of my faith.

In other words, I might be filled with fears. I might be filled with doubts. But how much faith do I need in the chair for it to hold me up? The answer is just enough to sit in it. And how much faith did this guy need in order for him to get eternal life? Just enough to go home. Just enough to do what Jesus said. He didn't he could have all kinds of doubts, all kinds of fears. Don't you see how comforting this is? You are not saved by the strength of your faith and the quality of your faith?

You don't have to have this perfectly wonderful faith. It is your faith that connects you to him. It wasn't the man's faith that saved his son. It was Jesus' power that saved his son and his faith connected to that power. And how much faith did he have to have? Just enough to do what Jesus said. You know that great place where a man comes and he is trying to get Jesus to heal his son and he says, please heal my son. And Jesus says, this is in Mark chapter 9, all things are possible to those who believe.

And you know what the man says? He says, I am trying to believe. Help my unbelief. And what does Jesus do? He heals his son. You know what that means? To say to Jesus, I don't have any faith. Help me is faith. To say to Jesus, oh, I am filled with doubts, I don't believe is belief. If you take them to Jesus, if you just cling to him, if you just hold on to him, that is all you have to do. You don't have to have perfect faith?

I don't want to go all Aristotelian on you. But there is a difference between causes. If I if I turn on a light switch and the lights go on, is it the power of the light switch that put on the lights? No. The the light switch has no power in itself. The light switch is the instrumental cause, but the efficient cause is the electricity. And therefore your faith doesn't have any power. Don't be crushed under the idea that you have got to have incredible faith for God to save you or to hear you.

All you have to do is cling to him. Here is the last point. Jesus' whole point is, I want you to love me for myself and not just for the benefits you are getting out of me. See, that is the whole point of verse 48. Unless you people see signs and wonders, you want to see signs and wonders, but you are after things I can give you, but not after me. And here is the last point. Real life-giving faith comes to love Jesus for who he is in himself, not for the benefits you get.

When you first fall in love with somebody, you have to admit, do you not, that you love the person for the things the person gives you? You know, if a person in other words, you say, oh, I am so I, I like how you look. Well, what that means is, I like the self-esteem I get when a person who looks like you likes me. And oh, I love how what a hardworking person you are. But actually you are thinking, it would be great to marry somebody with such a successful career. In other words, in the very beginning, what makes a person attractive are things that are benefits to you.

But in the end, if you go on, if you really love that person, you have got to get past that to the place where you love them just for who they are. If you are in love with somebody you think and you have a financial reversal and they drop you, don't you feel used? Don't you feel like exploited? Don't you feel like my goodness, they didn't love me, they just loved my money. And you are right. Don't you think Jesus would feel the same way?

And so in the end, what you have got to do and what is not only what is right for Jesus, but what is right for you. You need to get to the place where instead of being up and down because of whether your prayers are being answered, but just loving him for who he is, just resting in him and finding him satisfying, which gives you such poise and balance and ballast in life. You know how you get there? Like this. When that man got home, he believed. You know why? He knew Jesus had loved him.

When he got home and he saw his son alive, here is what he said, Jesus did not blow me off. He did love us enough to help us. He loved us and he saved us. I was afraid, but he didn't blow us off. He loved us and he saved us. He believed because he believed Jesus loved him. But you and I have a way, way, way, way better evidence for Jesus' love, do we not? It is the cross.

Because when that man was going home, as that man walked away, Jesus might have said in his heart, you are not going to lose your son. I am going to save your son. Even though you don't you don't deserve it, but you are not going to lose your son because my father is going to lose his son. See, none of us deserve. I don't deserve it, you don't deserve it. None of us are living the lives we ought to live.

Nobody is, we are not even living up to our own standards, let alone God's standards. We don't deserve this. Why is it that that man didn't lose his son? Because Jesus saved him. Why did Jesus save him? Why did Jesus save an undeserving family? That man did not lose his son because the Father on the cross did lose his son. And you see this, you see this man's agony. Father is losing a child, that is agony. But somehow the great mystery is that on the cross, God deliberately, the Father and the Son lost each other and they did that in order for the Son to bear the punishment we deserve so that God can answer prayer, Jesus can answer prayer, Jesus can save us.

Jesus can save us because the Father didn't save his son on the cross. And when you see him doing that for you, that will enable you to start loving him just for who he is. Charles Simeon, the great 19th century British preacher in Cambridge, was a great Bible expositor and I looked up his sermon on this passage. And at the very end he told his people, I want you to realize three practical things. Three practical lessons from this text.

Number one, when you have got a problem, a real suffering, a real problem in your life, do what this man did. Go to Jesus. Are you guys suffering right now? You got problems? Go to Jesus. Number one. Number two, let Jesus answer you on his own terms. This man wanted this, this man wanted that, Jesus didn't do it. He knew best. You got suffering, go to Jesus. But let him answer you on your own terms. And when he answers you eventually, when he comes through, when he helps you and he will.

Maybe not in your terms, not in your way, but he will. When you sense and his power and love, tell your family about it. Tell your friends about it. Notice it didn't just say he believed, his whole household believed. Why? Because he told them about it. Tell your friends, tell your family what Jesus has done for you. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Let's pray.

Our Father, thank you so much for the gift of faith. It is a gift. Oh, yes, it is a gift. Uh, but we we ask that you would not only give us the gift of saving faith, but you would strengthen the faith. Even though we know that it probably means times in which we take long journeys where we feel like you are not with us or times in which we seem to get answers from you that we don't understand. Look, we know that, Lord, but we still ask, increase our faith.

Give us faith. Because that is the way we will not only glorify you, but we will live happy lives, lives in which we can navigate the troubles of this world. So we pray, Lord, that in all the ways that we have been seeing tonight, you would make us more into the image of your son, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Guest (Female): Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It is our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the Gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelinlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life and the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great Gospel-centered resources.

Again, it is all at gospelinlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 2014. 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.