Gospel in Life

Tim Keller: 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. Many of you know that we had been traveling through a book of the Bible, the book of Ephesians. And starting tonight and going through the rest of the year, we're going to look at a new book by even a new author, except his name starts with a P. We're going to look at the Epistle, First Epistle of Peter. And uh, we're going to start slow. And some of you say, "Oh my gosh, another 10-year series on a book of the Bible." But we must start slow. Peter was an apostle, uh, of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he wrote this letter. And even, just to show what a great pastor Peter was, in the very address, he puts the entire message of the Bible and the gospel.

See, if I was this kind of pastor, when I sent you a memo, I say to, you know, Jack and Jim and Jerry and Susan. From Tim. Regarding something like that. Usually date. That's all I have. Take a look at Peter. Here's a pastor. In the heading of the memo, to he puts the whole gospel, the whole message of the Bible. And what Peter is writing to a group of people who are going through tremendous suffering and are about to go through more. In Chapter 1, Verse 6, it says, which we're not going to get to tonight.

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you are suffering grief in all kinds of trials." In Chapter 4:13, he talks about the fact that don't be surprised by the trials that you are in now, present tense, which means, though we don't exactly know what the nature of the trials were, Peter is speaking to people who are suffering tremendously. Some of their family members may have been persecuted or have been executed. Many of them may have been plundered by hostile forces, so that they're losing their possessions. Almost without exception, I'd say in this room, Peter's writing to people who are experiencing troubles and trials 10 times worse than yours, though right now some of you feel like you're absolutely crushed.

And therefore, what Peter is doing all the way through here, in every part of this book, is he is saying, "When you go into the furnace," which is what suffering is, "when you go into the furnace, you can come out either as cinder or pure gold. I want to show you," says Peter, "I want to show you how when you go through the furnace, and it's inevitable to one degree or another that you will, when you go through the furnace, I want to show you how that furnace can make you not something, not burn you to a crisp, but make you something splendid. I want to show you how you can experience splendor in the furnace. I want to show you how you can come out pure gold."

Now, every part of the book has to be read that way, every part of the book has to be understood that way. I believe even here in the introduction, Peter is showing them how they can gear their understanding so that they can experience splendor in the furnace instead of death, splendor in the furnace instead of just becoming a charred cinder. So let's take a look just at these first two verses. And let's open and see what Peter has to tell us. First, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and sprinkling by his blood. Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Let's stop. Memo from Peter to God's elect, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God and the Father, the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood. Let's look at that. It's an amazing address. You have the whole Trinity in there. The Father, chosen by the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, sprinkled by the blood of the Son. It's all in there. And actually we have a sum total, a sum total, and not only a sum total, but even a carefully devised expression of how the various parts of what the Triune God does for us interrelate and cause one another and, and it's just really remarkable. Let me show you, there's a, there's a chain here.

First of all, it says, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of the Father." The word "according to" means "because of," I mean, roughly. It's the best way to translate it right here for you. And so actually it's saying the foreknowledge of the Father results in election through the sanctifying work of the Spirit. And then election through the sanctifying work of the Spirit results in obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling with his blood. Three things. The foreknowledge of the Father leads to the election, and through the sanctifying of the Spirit. That's what the word is. And the sanctifying of the Spirit leads to sprinkled blood and obedience to Jesus Christ. Now these are big words. And these are, these are deep phrases and, and concepts, and yet I'm going to try my very best tonight to lay them out in the most practical and the most understandable way.

I'd like to show you what the purpose of it is. Let's take a look first of all, in some ways it's at the easiest to understand, which is the end of the chain. All of this is happening so that you can experience the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus on you and obedience to him. Now, what's that mean? What's it mean? The reference to Jesus' blood being sprinkled immediately pulls us back into the Old Testament. And it immediately takes us into a realm that many people find distasteful and uncomfortable. If you go to the Old Testament, you will see that when a human being felt that they were not right with God, they had to bring a sacrifice. They would bring an animal to the temple or the Tabernacle. The animal would be slain and the blood sprinkled on the altar. And then that person, that man or woman could be reconciled to God. And over the years, many, many people have said, "What an awful thing, a bloodthirsty God."

Yes, we know that in the primitive religions of, of the primitive times and ancient times, there were these bloodthirsty gods. Here's Agamemnon, you see, and he wants to have, uh, he wants to go to Troy and he wants to do his, um, he wants to have safe journey. Well, you see, the gods, the Greek gods in the Iliad, they're jealous gods. They're egomaniacs. They want to be flattered. They want to be bowed to. They want to be scraped to. They make a wonderful story, admittedly. It's a great story, you know, divine soap opera. So it's fun to read. But these are unworthy deities. Nobody's attracted to them. People don't read about them and say, "Boy, I wish I had Zeus for my God father." Nobody does, at least not anymore. Because you see, these egomaniacs, they want Agamemnon to show them obeisance, you see. So he sacrifices one of his children on the altar. Blood sacrifice. So that then they give him, you know, free winds. Well, it's a great story, but it's primitive. It's unworthy. I mean, who wants to believe in a God like that? And here we have in the Old Testament, a God like that, a bloodthirsty God. How awful. Not so. Not so.

When Peter here talks about the Jesus Christ's blood being a sprinkled sacrifice, what he's actually saying is that Jesus Christ, when he died, didn't just die. He died as a sacrificial atonement. In the Old Testament, when the blood was sprinkled, the blood was atoning blood. That's a big word. But actually, it's a great English word for understanding it, because the word means, as you can see, it's spelled, atonement means at-one-ment. And when it says that Jesus' blood is sprinkled for us, it means that we're reconciled to God through an atoning sacrifice. We're separated from God, but Jesus' blood makes us at one. "Well," somebody says, as I've been mentioning, "for years people have said that's primitive and obscene. I hate that idea and I can't believe in a God like that. I believe," they say, "in a loving God."

Well, think about this for a minute. There's a dynamic in all relationships that has to be honored. There's an atonement dynamic in all relationships. Let me put it to you this way. If I differ, let me put it this way. If you differ from your wife, let's say, guys, if you're married and you have a difference of opinion and you're starting to have an argument and there's a temptation, when you get to know somebody very well, it's dangerous. You're dangerous, you're a dangerous person because after a while, being married to people, you know what hurts them. Oh, you know what hurts them. And so there's always a temptation when you're having an argument to drop a bomb. And, and of course, the longer you live with somebody, the longer you're married to people, the more bombs you have in the arsenal. You know how to get them.

And so the temptation comes and you can't resist and you say something very cruel, uncalled for, unfair. Immediately, if your wife, if your wife is wise, she will immediately put emotional distance between you. I mean, wise, and it's appropriate for emotional distance when you violate it because you've violated a boundary that's always there when people love one another. They have to respect each other in certain ways. When you violate the boundary, emotional distance, distance is right. It's appropriate. What is necessary, after a few moments, you know, she goes somewhere else and you're sitting around, you're stewing. But after a while, you begin to realize what you've done was wrong and you realize that the distance is your fault.

What is there to be done? I'll tell you what there is to be done. And you can't have a marriage and you can't have any personal relationship unless you understand this. What you need is atonement. You have to make an atoning payment. You have to make an at-one-ing payment. And let me define atonement here for a second and work it in this illustration, and then we'll see how it applies in the bigger on the bigger scene. Atonement is to pay an appropriate price. An appropriate price to make two one. A commensurates price, a price that matches the nature of the breach, that matches the nature of the violation. Okay? Atonement is to make an a commensurate and appropriate payment.

Now, if you, and this is very typical for men, by the way, in marriage. If you have done a verbal violation, a verbal sin, the only way that you are going to get rid of the distance between you and your wife is if you go in and make a verbal payment. You've got to apologize. You've got to open your mouth. "I was wrong. No excuses. Do what you want with me." That's, by the way, the way you repent. Go to Judges Chapter 10 sometime. And they go to, you know, the people go to God and they say, "Lord, God, we're in misery." And God says, "Well, yeah, for the last five or 10 years, you've been worshiping idols. Go ahead. Go to your idols. Go to your gods. Cry to them, see if they will help you." And the people turn back to God and they say, "Do with us as you wish, but we will put away our idols. We're going to, we're going to get rid of our idols. You're right. Do with us as you wish. Hear us or don't hear us. Save us or don't save us, but we're going to do the right thing."

And then the next verse is, "And the Lord could not bear their misery any longer." See, that's the right way. You come in and you say, "I was wrong. No excuses. Do with, do to me as you want. You're right." Now, here's how most men want to do it. They don't want the verbal payment. They just want to start to act like nothing ever happened. You know, they might want to come in, they might say, "Oh, by the way, the ice cream truck's outside. Would you like some ice cream?" You know, you're breezy, you're cheerful, and it's your way of, it's your way of, of saying, uh, you know, "I'm ready to bury the hatchet." This is a very typical male way to handle this. If your wife is smart, she will have none of it. Why not? Because she knows instinctively, and you should know instinctively, that a verbal sin demands a verbal payment. You sinned with the tongue, you've got to pay with the tongue. It's not enough just to, you know, suddenly act as if nothing happened. And there will be a distance. That reconciliation will not happen unless there's appropriate payment. Otherwise there won't be atonement.

But, you see, if you actually come in and say, "Save me or don't save me, but I will put away my idols." If you go in and you say, "Do what you want. I deserve it. I'm sorry. I never should have done it." You'll find sooner, usually, or later, down will come the barrier. You've made atonement. You've made the payment. Now, it's got to be appropriate. There are times in which, I know in my own life, when I've tried to reconcile with my wife and make atonement just with a verbal apology, the barrier hasn't come down right away. Because, hasn't come down right away because many times she'll say, "You know, this was a little more serious and I'm going to have to see a change of behavior before I can really trust you." That's perfectly valid again. Because you see, the more serious the sin, there must be a commensurate payment.

Many people seem to think that if God was a loving God, the fact that he created me. The fact therefore that I owe him everything. The fact that I haven't been living for him and instead, I have actually rebelled against his rightful authority, and I have sinned and trampled upon him every single day of my life, because I have sought to be my own God, my own master and make my own decisions, that it's enough to someday sit down verbally and look to the heavens and say, "You know, I was listening to a sermon, I was reading the Bible, I'm sorry." Verbal apology. Barrier should come down now. That should all be, that's all it should take if God's a loving God.

But I tell you, it doesn't work that way. You know, there are sins and then there are sins. You know, there's, there's, there's verbal sins that need a verbal payment. And then there are sins that take, you know, a longer kind of payment time in which you've actually got to rebuild the trust through real changed behavior. And then it gets worse and worse. You know, everywhere in the, in the, in the world, throughout history, if you're a soldier for your country and you're at war with another country and you betray your own country, let's say, your own battalion, your own troop, and thousands of your own people, your own brothers or sisters are killed because of your espionage, and you're caught. Verbal apology isn't appropriate. Not for treason. Oh no, not for treason.

Maybe life imprisonment. Maybe exile forever from your country. Wouldn't that be? You know, those of you who don't like the death penalty. That's usually what happens in treason. Eternal exile from the country that you betrayed. Would that be commensurate? Yeah. You know, we can argue about it, but I'll tell you one thing, it wouldn't be a verbal apology. Now, let me ask you a question. What is the atonement for cosmic treason? What's the atonement for rebelling not just against the rightful authority of your country, but the rightful authority of your master, the Lord of the universe? What is the appropriate atonement? And the Bible has said clearly that the only way to atone for cosmic sin is through a cosmic payment. Cosmic atonement.

Who can pay that price? Jesus Christ did. And you will never understand the love of God if you get rid of the idea of Jesus Christ as a sacrificial atonement. You will never get rid, you'll never understand the love of God. Here's one the ironies of it. Throughout this town, most of the great Protestant churches in the town of New York City abandoned the idea that Jesus' death on the cross was a sacrificial atonement, paying for our sins, turning aside the justice of God and satisfying it. They got rid of that. You know why? They said, "Well, we believe in a loving God now." Not a, not a wrathful God who demands payment. "We believe in a loving God." The irony of it is in the name of the doctrine of the love of God, you have completely made the death of Christ on the cross senseless, stupid, illogical. Why would Jesus come and die on the cross if it wasn't absolutely necessary?

What does it mean? You've evacuated it of its endless, eternal profundities. Or put it this way, the love of God, the doctrine of the love of God is not that he needs no atonement, but that he provides it himself. God is not like the primitive gods. He's not like the gods that Agamemnon had to deal with. Agamemnon has to, you know, appeal to these, these egomaniac, these wrathful, these capricious gods. The whole point of the doctrine of the cross of Jesus Christ is not that God's like those kinds of gods, but he's utterly unlike those kinds of gods. He's different. He offers the atonement. He doesn't ask for Agamemnon's child, he gives his own. That's a difference. It's a huge difference. And you're never going to have any idea about the love of God if you say, "I believe in a loving God, a God who listens to my verbal apology and that's all it takes. It doesn't need to be a sacrifice. It doesn't need to be a payment."

"No, I believe in a loving God." You go to him and you say, "Yes, I've been trampling on your authority for years now. I've wronged people left and right. I've ruined a few people's lives through my selfishness and dishonesty and manipulation. Would you please forgive me? Wipe away my sins." Will that be atonement? Is that a commensurate payment? Will God look down and say, "Is this your idea of a loving God?" He says, "Well, of course. All of us are a little hostile now and then. Some of us are able to sublimate. Others can't adjust." You know how it is. Sure. That your idea of a loving God? God who makes light of these things? The love of God is not that he needs no atonement, but that he provides it himself. He sends his only begotten Son. Let me tell you something, until you understand, until you admit you need Jesus Christ to die for you.

Until you rest in the fact that Jesus Christ died for you. Until you're so full of joyful gratitude for the fact that he died for you that you'll obey. That's the reason why obedience and the sprinkled blood of Christ always go together in the Bible. You're obeying because you've been forgiven. Unless you see that he's done this for you and you have rested in that. I tell you, in your heart of hearts, you know verbal apologies aren't enough. Some of you are so driven, some of you are so addicted, some of you are so anxious because at some very fundamental level, you know that a verbal apology isn't enough. There must be payment. There must be payment.

And until you admit that you're bad enough for Jesus to have needed to die for you. And until you admit that you're valuable enough to God that he wanted to. You're never going to have the peace that comes from knowing that your sins are forgiven and that you are right with God and the barrier's down and you are at one. No matter who you are, you tend to go one way or the other. You self-haters, the people that are beating yourself up, you need to see that Jesus loved you enough to die for you. On the other hand, you self-magnifiers, you're the ones who say, "Oh no, I'm a pretty good, I'm better than most people." You need to see that you're so bad that Jesus needed to die for you.

Either way, unless you see that you need the sprinkled blood of Jesus Christ, you're psychologically out of touch with reality. You're living on borrowed time because eventually that unconscious knowledge that you are not right with your creator, with the Father of your soul, is going to get you. A lot of you think your problem is that you're, your problem is that you have a bad relationship with the father of your body. No. That's probably not the most profound problem. In fact, you might be just reading the problem you've got with the father of your soul into your relationship with your earthly father. I tell you, you need the sprinkled blood of Jesus.

Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us, but could actually make us stronger, wiser, and more hopeful? All month long on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller is teaching from the Book of First Peter, and looking at how Peter encouraged early believers who were facing intense suffering and pain. In his book, "Walking with God through Pain and Suffering," Dr. Keller takes a deeper look at how, with God's help, we can face life's most intense challenges and confront the hard questions on suffering. Through deep pastoral insight and real-life stories, Dr. Keller explores how we can face pain and suffering in our own lives. This month, "Walking with God through Pain and Suffering" is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the message of Christ's love and compassion with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelinlife.com/give. That's gospelinlife.com/give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

Tim Keller: You need to truly understand his love. Now, the first half of this sermon, I hope you enjoyed it. However, the question that comes up is if this is so great, why don't more people, why don't more people see it? Why don't more people understand it? Why don't more people have it? And the answer is the first part of this verse. I said there's really three things that we're told here. The foreknowledge of the Father leads to us being chosen through the sanctifying of the Spirit. And that leads to our coming to the Lord Jesus Christ and receiving his sprinkled blood and obeying him. So the real question is why is it that more people don't see this? Why is it that you, why is it that more people don't understand it? What is it that leads a person to receive this?

And the answer, and it's an answer that a lot of people don't like, but I'm just going to try to expound it a little bit for you and try to show you the vast, radical and practical implications of it. The answer is, the Father knew you and set his love upon you before time began, and sent his Spirit to shape your entire life so that eventually you would finally have the scales fall from your eyes and you would see the truth. That's what it says. Look, three stages. The first stage is the foreknowledge of the Father. Now, a lot of people come up to this, this doctrine. It's called the doctrine of God's choosing us, or the doctrine of God's election. You see, in the very beginning, it says, "Memo from Peter the Apostle to God's elect."

This is the doctrine of election. That the reason that you, Peter is trying to say is the reason that today you know the sprinkled blood of Christ in your life, and you have experienced it, and you're rejoicing in it. The reason that you are grateful for it is because of the election of God. There's a number of places in the Bible that talk about this. In fact, it's everywhere. And a lot of people find it very, very, very uncomfortable. So, but it comes up all over the place. And what I most find interesting is how many times the Bible teaches the doctrine of election, not directly, but it just shows that it's, it's assumed by all of the biblical writers. Like, for example, here, First Thessalonians 4. Pardon me, First Thessalonians 1. Quote, "For we know that he chose you, because our Gospel, this is Paul talking, because our Gospel came to you, not with words simply, but with power and with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction." Very clear. It doesn't say, it doesn't say, "You were chosen because you were receptive to the Gospel." It says, "You were receptive to the Gospel because you were chosen."

"Here's how we know he chose you. Because when we preached to you, it hit you." Doesn't say, "He chose you because it hit you." He says, "It hit you because he chose you." First Thessalonians 4. Give me another one. Acts 13:48, quote, "When the Gentiles heard the word of God, they were glad and glorified God, and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Doesn't say, "You're ordained because you believed." It says, "You believed because you were ordained." Doesn't say, "As many as believed, it doesn't say not as many as believed eternal life were ordained to it, but as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Give you another one. Matthew 11:27, where Jesus says, "No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Does not say, "You're chosen by the Son because you know the Father." It says, "You know the Father because you're chosen by the Son."

It gets worse. Let me show you one more. Well, it depends on your perspective. Maybe it's getting better. I don't know. John 3, John 6. First 36 and 37. Jesus says to the religious leaders who are not believing him, he says to the Pharisees, "You have seen me and still do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. I will lose none of all that he has given me, but I will raise them up on the last day." He says, "You have heard me and you don't believe me because you weren't given to me." It doesn't say, not "You were given to me because you don't believe, you were not given to me because you don't believe," but "You do not believe because you're not given to me." On and on and on. What's crazy about these passages is none of them are trying to teach the doctrine of election. None of them are. But it just shows that it's so assumed by every biblical writer, including Jesus himself. You don't believe because, you're not chosen by God because you believe. You believe in God because you're chosen.

Now, notice that the chosenness is caused by the foreknowledge of the Father and it's expressed in the sanctifying of the Spirit. Now I'll do this fairly quickly because I want to get to the practical implications of it all, and deal with the fears and the anxieties and the beads of sweat that are appearing on some of your brows, even as I speak. I talk about this every year and a half or so. Last time I preached on this was a year and a half or so. I don't look for it, it just keeps coming up as you go through the Bible. The foreknowledge of the Father. Many people who really get concerned and uncomfortable around the doctrine of election say, "Oh, okay, the foreknowledge. There we go. Now I got it. God foreknows who's going to receive him and who is not, and so he chooses." And so you're defining foreknowledge as foreseeing.

God sees what's going to happen. He foreknows what's going to happen, and then he chooses you on the basis of what he foreknows. Does that fit in with what the Bible says? And, you know, some of you are saying, "Probably not." That's what you're going to say, and that's right. If you go to a place, for example, like Romans 8, it says, "Those he foreknew, he justified. Those he foreknew, he called. Those he called, he justified. Those he justified, he glorified." It doesn't, it doesn't say, "Some of those he foreknew." You see, if foreknowledge is foreseeing, then he foreknows everybody, right? So he foreknows everybody. He knows what you're all going to do. But he should only choose some of you. But it doesn't say, "Some that he foreknew he called and some that he called he justified." It says, "Those," or put it another way.

In the Jeremiah Chapter 1:5, God says to Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you." What's that mean? See, "I knew you before you were born." Isn't that foreknowledge? Yeah. What does that mean? Does it mean, "Before you were in your mother's womb, I knew you were going to be born"? I don't think that's what God would be saying. It's kind of obvious. Obviously God knows everything. What would be the big deal, you know? Why does he come and say, "Before you were in your mother's womb, I knew you"? Because in the Bible, the word "know" doesn't simply mean to know about. When it says, for example, in Genesis Chapter 4:1, "Adam went into Eve and knew her and she bore a son." Does that mean Adam knew she was in there and suddenly she got pregnant? No. Because you see, in the Bible, in the Semitic language, in the Hebrew word, "know" means something very, very different. Or not very different, but something much more than our English word.

What it tells us when it says, "I knew you, Jeremiah," not that I knew about you. Of course, he knew about. He knows about everybody. What was different is, "I set my love on you." When Adam went in and knew Eve, it meant he set his love on her in the most literal and complete way possible. He slept with her. He loved her. He loved her in totality. They were completely one. And she bore a son. And you see, when God says to, to Jeremiah, "I knew you when you were in your mother's womb," what he means is, "Before you were even born, and before you were, way, way back then, I put my love on you." My forna, therefore, in the Bible, foreknowledge does not mean foreseen. It means foreloved. It's not talking about the recognition of an existence that already is there. It's talking about the shaping of an existence through love.

Listen, Peter is telling people who are about to face death, about to face economic disaster. The reason that you know that Jesus died for you right now is because from all eternity, I've had a plan for you, and the entire plan is completely shaped by a love that I put on you way back then. You know, our love poetry always loves hyperbole. And only when it comes to God is the hyperbole literally true. Longer than there've been stars up in the heavens, I've been in love with you. A drippy love song, but absolute literal doctrinal truth when it comes to God. Longer than there've been stars up in the heavens, I've been in love with you. And everything about your life is being shaped by that love. Because you see, the foreknowledge of the Father means that you're chosen through, through the sanctification of the Spirit.

Now, those of you who've been around Christians, those of you who've been around Bible study for a long time, when you hear the word "sanctification of the Spirit," you immediately think of the process by which after you're saved, after you become a Christian, the Spirit of God comes into your heart, and slowly through supernatural influences, bit by bit, incrementally, progressively, conforms you more and more into the character of Christ. So where there's hatred, there's more love. Where there's impatience, there's patience. Where there's doubt, there's faith and so on. But I'm almost sure that in this context, the word "sanctification" is, is being used in its most broad and original and generic sense. The word "sanctification" in the Bible means to be taken from one kind of use and set apart for another use. In the Old Testament, when a pot was taken out of your house and put into the temple so it was only used for the, for the work of God, it was called a sanctified pot.

And you know what this is saying? Yes, of course, friends, the Spirit sanctifies you by entering into you when you receive Christ and when you're born again. That's right. But I think it's talking about something even broader than this. Because it's saying you're chosen through the sanctification of the Spirit. And it means Christian friends, it means if today you believe in Jesus, it's because from the very beginning, the Spirit of God's been on your life. You know how in Genesis 1, it says, "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved across the face of the chaos." What's it doing? It's getting ready for action. It's going to bring out of the chaos order. The Spirit of God broods over you all of your life.

Why do you think? I mean, before it ever enters you in the sense of regenerating your heart, it's brooding over your life. He's brooding over your life. It's there. Why do you think it was? Remember, remember that one teacher in high school that had big impact in your life and kept you from some terrible mistakes? Oh, the teacher wasn't maybe a Christian. You weren't either. It had nothing to do with religion. You were saved by the chance that you happened to be in that person's class. Remember those strong religious impressions, the desire for God you had when you were 17, then it vanished for the last 20 years, and it's just come back last year. Where was it from originally? What's kept it alive all these years? Don't you see the Spirit of God has moved across and brooded over the face of the chaos of the waters of your life, getting ready for action, slowly shaping and changing and, you know, putting ideas in your mind when, when, when at different times, and when the times were fulfilled, when, when the time was right, the Spirit of God began to open your eyes to see the truth.

If today you don't know what you believe about Jesus, if today you don't know what you believe about Jesus, you're not sure you believe any of this stuff, and yet you find yourself intrigued and interested in it. Sometimes people come to me and they say, "I'd like to believe. I really want to believe. In fact, I'm upset that I can't believe. I'm really afraid. How do I do it?" And I say, "The first thing you can do is relax. If you're that upset about not believing, you're already having the Spirit of God work in your heart." "Well," they say, "how do you know that?" And I say, "Well, you couldn't be upset. You couldn't even know you don't believe unless the Spirit of God was working in you, sanctifying you, getting you out of the things that you used to live for and setting you apart for the work of God."

"Oh, I don't know where you are right now. I don't know whether, maybe you do need to receive Christ as Savior, maybe you don't. Maybe you need to repent, maybe you don't." We'll sit down and talk about that. But don't give yourself too much credit. If you're upset about the fact that you're far from God, if you're worried about it, if you're all, if you're all in a nicker's and a twist about it and you're afraid that God won't receive you. Well, if you're afraid God wouldn't receive you, just keep this in mind. You wouldn't be afraid unless God was trying to deal with you through his Holy Spirit. He was opening your eyes and he was drawing you to receive him. The doctrine of election is a tremendously comforting thing. Your whole life is shaped by love that was set upon you from the beginning of time. Everything going on your life is shaped by that love, which eventually will be bringing you to the place of being sprinkled with the blood of Christ and obedience to the Spirit. Now I've got to, you know, conclude here with a couple of issues.

Couple of practical things I have to say about it. A lot of people, there's, there's going to be people out there who are going to say, "Well, I thought I didn't like Christianity. Now I know I don't. What about the people who aren't chosen?" Well, first of all, we have no idea who they are. Okay? We have no idea who they are. In other words, you can't look around and say, "Well, that person wasn't chosen. That's not fair." How do you know that person wasn't chosen? How do you know what the Spirit of God is doing in that person's life? Do you see that? People say, "Well, it's not fair. I'm afraid that maybe I'm not chosen." Well, if you're really afraid that you're not chosen, it's very unlikely, I suppose. If you're really afraid you're not chosen, and that fear is because you really want to believe, then that shows the Spirit of God's already working in your life. You need to cooperate with it. You can't assume that just, well, if I'm chosen, I'm going to go to heaven. And if I'm not chosen, I'm going to go to hell. Uh, that's not the way things work. You're thinking of Greek fatalism, you know.

Greek fatalism says that your destiny is determined in spite of your behavior. The Christian doctrine of election here is that your destiny is determined through your behavior. And a perfect illustration of that that I would love to use is, Spurgeon's illustration. I, so every other month, now the 4:00 service in the question and answer, you have to use this when people say, "I don't understand the doctrine of predestination." And Spurgeon was a Baptist minister who believed in predestination, went to see a man who was sick and laying in his bed. And, uh, he, Spurgeon said to him, "How are you doing?" He says, "Well, I'm, I don't know if I should take my medicine." "Why not?" says Spurgeon. "Well, because I don't know if I'm predestined to live or die." And he says, "It doesn't really matter, I suppose, uh, you know, if I'm predestined to live, it doesn't matter what I do. If I'm predestined to die, it doesn't matter what I do." And I, Spurgeon says, "Well, I can answer the question right now. I can tell you exactly what's going to happen. If you do take your medicine, you're predestined to live. If you don't take your medicine, the doctor tells me, you're predestined to die."

The Christian Gospel is, "Come to him." It's your responsibility. Remember what I said from Judges 10? You go to God, and you say to God, "Come rescue me." And God says, "You've been, you've been worshiping idols." You've been worshiping idols. And they say, "You're right. You're right." They put away their idols and they say, "Save us or don't save us, but I'm, we're going to do the right thing. We're going to put away our idols and serve you. Do with us what you want." And then the Bible says, and it's always true, God says, "I can't bear their misery any longer." In other words, if you come to him, he will always work through that coming. In fact, he's working in that coming. Of course, it's a mystery. I don't, I don't understand how my elevator works. I push a button and I know that creates some kind of chain reaction that brings me to the fifth floor. I do not understand how it works. I don't need to know. I do know that it does. I do know that the doctrine of election is that we are responsible for our behavior. That God works through our choices. That when we've done our choices, you know, like you have a place, a great place in the Old Testament where God says, in Isaiah, I was just reading it not long ago, where God says to the Israelites, "I'm going to bring Assyria against you to punish you for your sins. I'm going to use Assyria as a rod of my anger." And then as soon as Assyria smites Israel, God says to Assyria, "You did this in the pride of your heart. I'm punishing you for it."

That's perfectly consistent. Because you see, you're responsible for your behavior. And yet God works through that behavior. And in that behavior, it's a mystery. I don't know how it works. It's like my elevator. But it's extreme, it works. The fact is that I have a God who is so behind everything I do, I can't mess my life up. On the other hand, I know that if I'm irresponsible, consequences happen. And I can't blame him for it. It works. If I take one of those sides away, it doesn't work. I either become a passive person or become an anxious person. But if you understand the doctrine of election, you are neither, and ever either. One more thing. If there's anybody out here who's really upset with this whole idea, be careful. One of the things we hate about our ancestors was they couldn't rise above their, their time.

You know, it's awful to to read for example, uh about this or that wonderful, uh leader in in American history and you love him and you think he's great, and you think he's noble and he owns slaves. And you go, "Wait a minute." Well, that's what you hated, that person as great as he was, could not rise above his time. He was a man of his time. You see, he was blinded by the prejudice of his era. Look out. We live in a time in which the most important thing is to be able to choose for ourselves. The idea that someone has chosen you, and that, you know, where Jesus says, "You did not choose me, I chose you. You chose me because I chose you." That, why do we hate that? Be careful. We hate it because we're modern people with the prejudices of our time. 100 years from now, we're going to be laughing, I've said this a couple of times. We're going to be laughing at everything on the op-ed page of the New York Times today, 100 years from now, just like you'll laugh at what you see on the page of the op-ed page, 100 years from you from today. 100 years ago. You'll laugh at it.

How silly. The Bible, and the teachings of the Bible remain. It undergirds people. Christians believe those things that they've believed for hundreds of years. And yet, you see the trends of the modern world change all the time. Beware, you don't have a prejudice against this because we don't like the idea of kings. We believe in democracy. We believe in electing our presidents, and we hate the idea. Here's a president that elects us. But I tell you, we need a king. Deep in our deepest, deepest gut, our deepest soul. We want a king that's perfect. We want a king that we can adore. We want a king who is like the sun, the sun shining in and all of its strength. We want a king, and this is what you have. I personally don't like to usually press doctrines that divide Christians. A lot of Christians don't believe this. A lot of Christians don't believe this. But I'll tell you, until I got, personally got a handle on this doctrine, I was an anxious person.

This does everything. For example, on the one hand, the doctrine of election takes humble people and lifts them up. It shows you that the reason that you, that God loves you is not because of anything better in you at all. It's purely the grace of God. What makes me different from anybody else? Not because I was humbler, not because I was wiser, not because I was more obedient, not because I was more repentant. Even my repentance was a gift. You know, it takes those of us who tend to be proud and humbles us into the dust. But on the other hand, it takes those of us who are humble and feel like we're no good and lifts you up. And says there's no distinction. Dear friends, it changed my life. It could change yours as well. Think, longer than there've been stars up in the heavens, I've been in love with you. Not slurpy, not hyperbole. Reality. Let's pray.

Our Father, I thank you that you have granted to us the insights of this deep and marvelous truth. Oh, Lord, it leaves an awful lot of unanswered questions. And we know that those questions can't all be answered in a time like this. We thank you for what you have shown us. We also know that you are a more righteous and more fair and more just God than we are. You love us more than we love ourselves, and you're more fair-minded than we are. And we dare not presume, though, a world that we can imagine would be more fair and wise than a world that you have created. So we ask that you would enable us to not be troubled by all of the unanswered questions which you've left unanswered when you show us this, but to instead be comforted by the knowledge that our entire life has always been and always will be shaped by your love. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Tim Keller: Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's 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 in the Gospel quarterly journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospelinlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on The Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, when Dr. Keller was Senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.