Gospel in Life

Guest (Female): Welcome to Gospel in Life. How do you find your true self? In our culture today, self-definition and self-expression are prized above all, but Jesus lays out a very different way to establish our identity. Today, Tim Keller explores how the gospel addresses our most profound questions about identity and purpose.

Tim Keller: What we're doing for three or four weeks is we're looking at the places where Jesus talks about spiritual finding. I just simply looked in a concordance last spring and I looked up a number of places where Jesus talks about how to find spiritual reality, how to find God, and we're going to look at one of those right now.

Matthew 16:21-27: "From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 'Never, Lord!' he said. 'This shall never happen to you!'

Jesus turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.' Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.'" And this is God’s word.

Now, Jesus, as we just mentioned, right here in the middle of this passage, says, "If you do this, this, this, and this, you will find it." Find what? Well, in verse 25 and 26, over and over again, a Greek word is used, and it’s the Greek word *psuche*, from which we get our word psychology, of course.

The translators translate it differently so in a sense it masks the fact that the word is being used so prominently. You see, in verse 25, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? What can you give in exchange for your soul?" Every time, it’s the same Greek word. Sometimes they translate it "life," sometimes they translate it "soul." It’s the word *psuche*.

What does that word mean? Well, whenever you see this kind of switching back and forth, it shows that it’s a very rich concept and it’s hard to translate with one word. But Eugene Peterson, who has a very respected translation of the Bible called *The Message*, translates this "your true self." And that’s fair, because when you use this term, when the Greek word *psuche* is used in distinction from the body, then it can mean a soul.

But when it’s used like this, I think Peterson is absolutely right. And if that’s true, Jesus is giving us something that is a major modern issue. Here he says is how you can find your true self, your truest self. Here’s how you can get into connection with who you really are. Now there is no more urgent modern issue than that.

Ernest Becker, who was a Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator and writer, by his own continual proclamation, he was a secular man. And yet, he's almost a forerunner to all the searching going on today because he continually talked about the fact that there was a tremendous spiritual vacuum in our lives and in our culture.

In his book *Birth and Death of Meaning*, Becker says this: "Most of our life is in large part a rationalization of our failure to find out who we really are, what our basic strength is, and what thing it is we were meant to work upon the world." Now, what a sweeping statement, and yet, boy, does it have the ring of truth.

First of all, he says that almost everything in our life, the majority of things we do, most of what drives us, most of what upsets us, most of what moves us, is a disorientation. We don’t know who we are. And then he goes further, and he's perfectly fair, but this is a secular man speaking.

He says the issue of identity cannot possibly be dealt with strictly in terms of scientific psychology. He says identity has to do with: "What are we here for? What is the work we were meant to work upon the world?" That’s a spiritual issue. So Jesus comes and says, "I've got the answer. I have the answer. I want to show you how you can find your truest identity. I want to show you the way to strong and deep, rooted true identity, spiritual reality." But how?

And his answer here could not be more provocative. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, famous German theologian and martyr, died under Nazism. He wrote a book in 1937 called *Nachfolge*, which literally means to follow after. In English, the translation is *The Cost of Discipleship*. But in some ways, the word discipleship doesn’t get it across. He was coming to grips with this passage and the passages like it.

What does it mean to follow after? Jesus says if you want to find spiritual reality, want to find your truest identity, he says "this." And Bonhoeffer came to grips with this passage that we have in front of you because it’s one of the few teachings in all of the accounts of Jesus' life that are in all of the four Gospels. John has things that are not in Matthew and so on, but this is one of the few teachings that is in every one of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

So Bonhoeffer came to grips with this because he said this must be something that Jesus said all the time, over and over. This is the very essence of his message. When Bonhoeffer summed up this passage, when Bonhoeffer summed up how Jesus Christ said you could find your truest self and spiritual reality, he put it this way: "When Jesus Christ calls us, he bids us come and die."

When Jesus Christ calls us, he bids you come and die. Because when Jesus says if you want to find spiritual reality, if you want to find your truest identity, take up your cross. The word unfortunately for us here, the word "cross" means spiritual stuff, but the original hearers, all they heard was a cross, which was the worst possible kind of execution. Jesus Christ says you want to find yourself? Climb the steps to the gallows.

You want to find yourself? Walk out before the firing squad. You want to find yourself? Become a dead man walking. And that’s how you do it. "When Jesus Christ calls us, he bids us come and die." Now, what does that mean? That’s what we’re going to find out. And the way to find out what it means is to notice, like all the great parts of the accounts of Jesus' life, there’s teaching, but the teaching has a setting, an incident, something happened.

Out of that historical event comes the teaching. Now here’s what that historical event is. It’s the story of Peter’s mistake. In verses 21 to 23, we see the story of Peter’s mistake, and verses 24 to 27, we see the teaching that came from that. So let’s look at first what the mistake was, the story of his mistake, and then what the teaching is that came out of that, and then we’ll close with some application to our particular situations.

First of all, let’s look at the story of Peter’s mistake. And the way to do that is to look at the force of the rebuke, Peter’s rebuke, and the basis for his mistake and the reason for the rebuke. First of all, let’s open this back to front. Let’s start by asking this question: why would Jesus say what he says to Peter? Can you give me two minutes just to let together consider how forceful this rebuke is?

It’s interesting to see that when Jesus talks to marginal people, when he talks to morally marginal or socially marginal people, when he talks to women of the streets, when he talks to the tax collector traitors, when he talks to the poor, he’s very gentle and he calls them friend or daughter or something like that.

And when he talks to the religious leaders, when he talks to the moral leaders, when he talks to the people who are in the social and moral mainstream, he’s much more strict and he’s much more harsh, actually. He’s more prone to call them hypocrites. But nowhere, anywhere, in all of the accounts of Jesus' life, does he ever give as vehement a denunciation, almost a curse.

There is no other place where he says anything this terrible to anybody. He calls him Satan. That’s never been said. And then secondly, it’s not only remarkable for the forcefulness of it, this rebuke is remarkable for the timing of it. Look at verse 21. It says, "From this time Jesus began." Now, what’s this time? Well, what had just happened is the famous moment of Peter’s confession.

And what Peter has just done is this. Jesus has asked this is just a few verses earlier. Jesus says to Peter, or he actually says to all the disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" And the disciples say, basically, they say you’re one of the prophets. And Jesus says, "Well, who do you say I am?" And Peter steps up and says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

And that was a tremendous moment. Here’s what Peter’s saying. Peter says, "Wait a minute. You’re not a prophet, or you’re not just a prophet." He says, "Lord, all the prophets are always pointing forward to salvation, but you’re always pointing to yourself. There’s never been a prophet like that. And all the other prophets have always said, 'Thus saith the Lord.' But you’re always saying, 'I say unto you.' There’s never been a prophet like that."

Oh my word, he suddenly realizes you’re not just a prophet. All the other prophets point to the way of salvation, but you have said, "I am the way." All other prophets say here’s how to get saved, and you’re the only one who says, "I have come to save you." And at that moment, Jesus Christ looks at him and says, "Simon bar Jonah, blessed art thou. Flesh and blood hath not shown this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, and I say to you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church."

Now, it’s so unfortunate, in fact, because Catholics and Protestants have differed over what the implications of that statement are for church authority and the Pope and so on, we almost always overlook the fact that all Christians agree, frankly, on the main thing that Jesus is saying. You know what he’s saying?

He’s saying, if you don’t understand what Peter just said, you’re not in the church. You’re not a Christian. In other words, he says every other religion has a founder who is a prophet and who says, "Salvation is through striving. Go do it." And I am the only founder of any religion who has come and said, "Not salvation through striving, but salvation through receiving. Not there, go and strive for your salvation, but no, I have come to strive and I have come to accomplish your salvation."

And until you understand that, you’re not in the church. You’re not a Christian. That is the article on which the Christian stands or falls. Or put it this way, that is the article on which every human being stands or falls. That is the article on which the church stands or falls. And when Jesus says, "Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah. Upon this rock I will build my church," even though a lot of people have disagreed exactly what that means, nobody disagrees about the fact this is one of the greatest things that anyone has ever been told by Jesus.

Jesus has never said anything higher to anybody. And now, two seconds later, Jesus says something that’s worse than he’s said to anyone ever in history. And not only that, if you look carefully at verse 24, we see that after he says this to Peter, he turned to the disciples and he was doing this in front of everybody.

If you have any compassion in your heart, if you have any sensitivity of spirit, if you have to dress somebody down, if you have to rebuke them, if you have to call them on the carpet, you take them in private. And the only time that anyone who is really compassionate would ever do this kind of public thing would be only if the error was incredibly serious for that man and incredibly serious for everybody else. In other words, this rebuke is unbelievable.

Secondly, what’s the reason for the mistake? The rebuke is there because the mistake is so serious. Well, what’s the reason for the mistake? Well, here’s what the mistake is. Let me just give you some idea. In fact, after I’ve told you this, I think you’re going to feel a little better toward Peter. I hope you do. Because you see, when Jesus said, "Who do you think I am?" and Peter says, "You’re the Son." And Jesus says, "Yes."

Wow! Because Peter, from the time he was raised from his mother’s knee, and every Jew probably in the Mediterranean world knew who that is. The Old Testament is filled with the prophecies of someone who will come that’s called "The Son." In Daniel chapter 7, verse 13, Daniel has a vision of someone who’s coming in great glory in the clouds of heaven with millions of angels. And it says there, "It was one like unto the Son of Man," which means it’s a divine figure, but clearly in the human form.

And this figure is going to come to earth and is going to save us by putting down all evil and destroying all sickness and death and evil and suffering. And of course, the Son is this great figure of power. And when Jesus says, "Yes, Simon bar Jonah, that’s exactly who I am." Peter’s very excited. In fact, look at the very end of the passage, verse 27. Jesus actually reaffirms that there.

"I am the one that Daniel 7:13 talks about. I'm the Son of Man. I'm the one who will come with the angels. I'm this being of great power." Peter knew all the texts. Go to Psalm 2. It talks about the divine Son, this divine figure who will come and break the evil and break injustice with a rod of iron and so on. And as soon as Jesus Christ says, "Yes, I’m that one," verse 21 says the minute he agreed that he was this great figure, he turns and says to Peter, "Now I want you all to know I'm going to have to suffer, I'm going to have to be rejected, I'm going to have to die, I'm going to be killed."

In other words, he says, "Here is how I'm going to overcome evil. Here is how I'm going to save everybody. Here is how I'm going to put an end to the evil of the world. I'm going to be defeated, I'm going to be weak, I'm going to be humbled, I'm going to be tortured, I'm going to be killed. I'm going to be utterly defeated. That will be my triumph."

Are you starting to feel a little more sympathy for Peter here? Because what Jesus Christ has done is he’s put together another strain of the Old Testament that nobody had ever thought of putting together. Because in Isaiah 53 and 42, in fact, through all the book of Isaiah, you have what’s called "The Servant Songs," the Suffering Servant.

And Isaiah predicts the coming of another figure. But this figure is a figure of weakness, a figure of suffering. And that’s why we read in Isaiah 53, "He was oppressed and afflicted. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. He was cut off from the land of the living. For the sin of my people he was stricken." Now, nobody had ever put those two together.

Nobody could imagine how they could both be the same person. How could the divine Son, this figure of incredible power and majesty, be the Suffering Servant, this figure of complete abject poverty and weakness? How could the divine Son who is unbelievably beautiful be the figure in Isaiah 53 that says "He had no beauty with which we would desire him"? How could that be?

For you Bible students out there, we should have known. Because at the baptism of Jesus, when the Spirit of God came down and out of heaven, do you remember what was said? A voice said, "This is my beloved Son." That’s from Psalm 2. "In whom I am well pleased." That’s from Isaiah 42. God put the two together. But nobody else can. God put the two together. Jesus put the two together. But nobody else could.

And here’s what Jesus is saying. He is saying this is how the kingdom of God will come in me and through me: through weakness and through suffering and difficulty and death. And now we understand why the rebuke. Because when he turns to Peter and says, "Get thee behind me, Satan," he says you are a what? A stumbling block. But the Greek word there is the word *skandalon*, which means you are a temptation.

And here’s what he’s saying. You are saying exactly what Satan said to me in the desert when he tempted me. Satan said, "Would you like the kingdom of this earth? Bow down and worship me." What was he saying? Satan says, "The Father’s way is the kingdom of God comes through suffering and tribulation and weakness and defeat. But I’ll give you the kingdom through achievement, through accomplishment, through victory, through strength."

And that was the temptation. And when Jesus turns to Peter and says, "You know what you’ve done? What you’ve done is exactly what Satan has done. You’ve bought into it. You cannot incorporate the cross, you cannot incorporate humility, you can’t incorporate humbling, you can’t incorporate trouble, you can’t incorporate suffering into your ideas of greatness and happiness. And you’re just like Satan."

He says, "You’re not thinking about God; you’re just thinking like men." That’s one of the few places where people are not upset about the fact there’s no gender-neutral language there. You see, Jesus is saying there is a way they cannot understand the Gospel: that the way up is down, that the way to triumph is through defeat, that the way to power is through sacrifice and emptying.

And what’s really weird about this is verse 20, which is not printed there. After he says, "Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah. This is very important. You finally understand that salvation is not by what you do but by what I do. You finally understood that I have not come to point to how you can save yourself but to save you."

But then in verse 20, it says he charged them not to tell anybody who he was. And then in verse 21, he starts to say this: "I am going to suffer and die because the kingdom of God advances in and through me by suffering and defeat. And if you want to follow me, it will be the same. The kingdom of God advances in my life and through me through suffering and humiliation and defeat and death. And it will advance through you in the same way."

He says, "Until you understand this, I don’t want you talking about me. Until you understand that I did not go to the cross so that you wouldn’t have a cross, until you understand that I went to the cross so that your crosses will be discipleship, until you understand the kingdom of God comes this way through me and it will go this way through you, until you understand that, I don’t want you talking on my behalf."

This is pretty scary. Aren’t you getting a little scared yet? What he’s really saying is you are of no use to me. I heard a speaker on this verse say that Peter is giving us the essence of Christian immaturity. And the essence of Christian immaturity is, "Jesus Christ suffered so that I wouldn’t." The essence of Christian immaturity is, "Jesus Christ went to the cross so I’ll never have to."

The essence of Christian immaturity is to say, "Jesus Christ died so, A, really bad things will never happen to me, and B, not only will I not experience really bad things, but B, I won’t ever do any really bad things. Jesus Christ died so that I won’t experience real brokenness in my life, and secondly, Jesus Christ died so it’ll keep me from really doing bad things." And Jesus says, "Until you realize that that’s not true, you are of no use to me. Don’t open your mouth. Don’t witness for me. You’re going to be terrible."

He says shut up until you understand this. Do you understand this? Okay, now this is the story of Peter’s mistake and out of that he turns around and says, "Now let me tell you the way to maturity." Or put it this way, he says, "Let me tell you the way to get a strong identity." Now here’s what’s so weird about this. He is saying the way you get this strong identity, find yourself, is by denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following me.

Guest (Female): Jonah is one of the most widely known stories in the Bible, but it's so much more than a simple account of a prophet who runs from God and gets swallowed by a great fish. In his book *Rediscovering Jonah*, Tim Keller uncovers the deeper message of this familiar story, revealing how Jonah’s resistance to God exposes our own reluctance to trust and obey him, and how Jonah’s experience ultimately points us to Jesus and his saving work on the cross.

During the month of May, we’ll send you a copy of *Rediscovering Jonah* as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the transforming love of Christ with more people. So request your copy today at gospelinlife.com/give. That website again is gospelinlife.com/give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching.

Tim Keller: Now, a word before I break out what he actually says is the way to this strong identity through weakness. He says the strength comes through weakness. The strength doesn’t come through strength, the strength doesn’t come through accomplishment; the strength comes through weakness, the strength comes through defeats, the strength comes through brokenness. That’s how you get a strong identity.

Now before I actually show how that works, let me just remind you that this is totally unique. Kathy and I went to see the movie *Antz*. Did you see the movie *Antz*? And in the very beginning, there’s an ant with the voice of Woody Allen. And he’s talking to his psychiatrist and says, "You know the thing is, I just feel so insignificant." And the psychiatrist's voice says, "Well, we’re making progress here because you are insignificant."

Then of course the camera pans and goes out into the ant colony and there you see these just millions of ants and they’re all doing their little thing. And the whole movie is about a battle between traditionally in this world the only two ways outside of Jesus' way to get an identity. You see, on the one hand you’ve got the traditional way, which is also the Eastern way. On the other hand you have the modern way and the Western way.

And the traditional and the Eastern way has always said basically: lose yourself. Period. If you went up and said, "Who am I?" to your parents hundreds of years ago, your parents would say, "What a stupid question. You’re part of the family, you’re part of the society, you’re part of the tribe. You have an assigned role. Go do it."

Buddhism, which is what I mean when I mention Eastern, Buddhism has much to say to Western materialism, but Buddhism formally says the whole idea that you have a self is the problem. You don’t have an individual self, you’re part of the whole, we have to get rid of this idea of the individual self. That’s what leads to selfishness and grasping and all that.

The traditional and the Eastern view way that they handle identity has always been to say: just lose yourself. Stop thinking about your needs and your desires. Do your duty. Lose yourself. But Jesus doesn’t say that. Now on the other hand you have the Western and modern stuff, which of course is depicted by Woody Allen in the little ant, who says, "I've got to be me, I've got to be me."

W.H. Auden in his very famous work called *The Age of Anxiety* has a great line of poetry: "O miserable, wicked me, how interesting I am." In the traditional approach to the question of identity, you just do your duty, lose yourself. But the Western and modern approach to identity is: go find yourself. Period. Make that the direct thing you do. That’s the meaning of life. Find out what you most want to do and do it.

The Eastern and traditional way is: lose yourself, which is your identity is your duty. But the Western and modern approach is: find yourself, your identity are your desires. Find out what you really want to feel, find your feelings and do them. Well, there are some problems with that.

Dick Keyes has written a really good book called *Beyond Identity*, and in it he talks about a woman he counseled once who 10 years before basically took the Woody Allen approach, you know, the heart wants what it wants. She said, "I'm tired of doing what my parents have told me I have to be, I'm tired of being what society tells me I have to be. I need to have strong feelings. I'm going to go follow my feelings because that’s the only way I'm going to become a real person. I'm going to have an identity."

But 10 years later she says, "I feel like a non-person now" for two reasons. A, feelings wear out. She found that when the only thing that made her what she was were these strong feelings, anything you get started with that gives you a strong feeling wears off slowly. Every time you do it, a little less charge. Her feelings were over. There wasn’t anything she could do that gave her the same charge anymore.

So feelings wear out, but secondly feelings conflict. I sit down in front of a great steak, and the best parts of that steak to taste are the worst parts of it for my body. So there’s part of me that wants to eat the whole steak, and there’s part of me who would like to live past the age of 50. And they’re both very strong desires. To follow your desires is to follow a path filled with conflicts.

Jesus does not say lose yourself because when he says "find yourself," he means I want you to have a self. But on the other hand he refuses to say you can do it directly. He refuses to say, "Oh go ahead and do it." Oh no. What he says you have to do is you have to lose yourself *for me*. You see those two little words?

To lose yourself, not for me, just to lose yourself. Some of you have been doing that. Some of you have been doing your duty. Or some of you have said, "I'm going to help people," and you have been what they used to call years and years ago co-dependent enablers and people like that. You can lose yourself in the sense of, "I get a self because I help you, because I'm doing all these great things. I lose myself in the cause. I lose myself in the needs of people. I've just given and given and given and I’ve just lost myself." And in the end there is ashes.

Jesus doesn’t just say lose yourself. He says lose yourself for me. And what that means is, he says, look at my cross and let that shape everything else. He doesn’t say die, because that would be lose yourself. But he doesn’t say I died so that you wouldn’t have to have a cross. Here’s what he said: "I didn’t suffer so that you would not suffer. I suffered so that when you suffer you can become like me. I suffered so that when you suffer the kingdom of God will advance in you and in others."

And only when you experience your crosses and your troubles and your difficulties in light of my cross, only when you realize that I have taken the big monkey off your back, I’ve dealt with the real thing, the real guilt, the real condemnation, only then. Unless you do that, unless you look at that, unless you see my cross and then you go to your crosses in light of my cross, you will either lose yourself and find ashes, or you’ll try to find yourself and you’ll come up with ashes.

But if you lose yourself for me, you will find yourself. Now, exactly how that happens, let me just show you four quick ways. Four ways in which you get strong identity by following Jesus. In a way that you don’t get by losing yourself or finding yourself, but losing yourself for him, you find yourself.

Number one. The first thing is, most people agree you don’t have good identity unless you know who you are. Self-knowledge. You don’t have strong identity if you’re in denial about who you are. But notice he says here, one of the things that you’ve got to stop doing and you can if you are in him, is you have to stop saving yourself.

Notice he doesn’t say those who lose find, those who find lose. He says you have to stop saving yourself. That’s the one thing that doesn’t get repeated on the other side. He does not say if you save yourself you’ll lose, but if you lose yourself you’ll save. He doesn’t do that. That’s pretty significant.

What he’s really trying to say is the first thing you have to understand is you’ve got to stop thinking of your strength and seeing yourself as being able to save yourself. And this is why I would say the first way in which Jesus shows that weakness in him leads to strength and why you don’t move on feeling like you’re getting stronger and stronger.

Peter thought to be a Christian means I'm going to go on from strength to strength. And Jesus says, "No, you’re going to go on from weakness to weakness." And here’s the first way. If you want to have a decent identity, you have to know who you are. It’s not until you understand that he died for you and he loves you and you’re accepted in him that you will have the strength to see just how screwed up you are.

Your heart will not be capable of seeing how screwed up you are unless it knows in the macro that his arms are around you. Until you really believe that he died for you and he loves you and he saved you, and you didn't save yourself, until you’ve gotten rid of that idea that you’re saving yourself, you will never be able to look at yourself honestly. Never.

Every time there’s a problem between you and somebody at the office, and the fact is everybody else can see it’s at least 50% you, you cannot admit it’s your problem. You cannot admit the depth of your sin, your weakness, your selfishness. Why? Because if you did then you’d be lost because you’re saving yourself by being a good person.

Until you know you can’t save yourself you will never have the strength that comes from seeing your real brokenness, the real extent of your flaws. You just won’t be able to see that. And everybody knows that unless you have deep self-knowledge you don’t have a strong identity. If you’re living in denial you don’t have a strong identity.

This is the reason, Christian friends, that it’s the mark of immaturity to think that the first few years after you become a Christian you will feel stronger and stronger. That’s ridiculous because if you’re getting the strength of a strong identity in which you really see who you are, you will be feeling weaker and weaker. Not that you’ll actually be getting worse and worse, but you’ll be seeing more of your sin. You’ll be seeing more of your flaws.

So you will be feeling quite weak. But you see that’s how you get a strong identity. That’s how you get to the place where you don’t have the strength of never having to justify yourself anymore. Never having to hide, never having to blame shift. Oh, the strength of that! But it only comes through the weakness of seeing more and more that you can’t save yourself.

So the first thing you get by following Christ and seeing his death on the cross is you get the emotional ability to admit who you are. That’s the first way you get a strong identity that you’ll never get the other two ways.

Secondly, you don’t just get self-knowledge. Secondly, you get freedom from outside influence. Now everybody agrees that if you’re controlled by what other people think, if you’re controlled by what men think of you if you’re a woman, or what women think of you if you’re a man, if you’re controlled by what your parents think or what the society thinks, you don’t have a strong identity. And that’s true.

But I want to ask you: what is your alternative? If it doesn’t matter what your parents think, you say the way to get an identity is all I matter is what I think. Give me a break. What you mean is you’ve found another circle of people who are more savvy and cool and they think it’s cool to be like this. And therefore I don’t care what my parents think I just care what I think. You’ve moved downtown, you’re all dressed in black, you’re in a uniform again.

I mean you’re still "got to be me." There isn’t anybody like that. You are continually and you are still under the control. You're controlled. And Jesus says what? Again, I don’t have the time to show you the fascinating ways in which you can understand what every single one of these words means by looking at the parallels. This is Semitic Hebraism parallelism.

When he says deny yourself and take up your cross, and then he says, "For what does it gain to gain the whole world and lose your identity?" Now what he’s trying to say is very simple. The way most of us apart from Jesus Christ get an identity is by gaining the world. In other words, we look at the world, my career. We look at love, this person loves me. These people think I'm cool, I footnote someone, somebody footnoted me over here.

You see, now what’s going on is I’m gaining the world but you’re losing your soul and everybody agrees with that. You’re losing your identity. If what everybody else thinks matters most, you don’t have any freedom. You’re weak. You’re weak because you are under control. You can’t look at your friends all dressed in black downtown and say, "You’re not my life."

But they are your life, they are your identity. You can’t look at your career and the amount of money you’re making and realize it’s not just gee, I’m poor, gee, that that’s bad. You’ve lost yourself. You’ve lost your identity. You tried to gain the world but you lost yourself. You don’t have a self. Well, how in the world can you be free from the world?

The answer is only when what Jesus Christ thinks of you is more important. Apart from that you’re just going to go from one part of the world that controls you to another. But the only way to become strong Wouldn’t it be great to be that strong? Wouldn’t it be great to be so strong that you could look at other people, your peers, your group, your checkbook, and say, "You’re not my life. You’re a good thing but you’re not my life. You’re not my identity. You’re not my soul."

Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of strength? You would be unbelievably strong. You know how the only way to get there? Only when God pulls them out from under you. Every time somebody says they’re going to marry you and then they don’t, or some great career falls through, you know what’s going on? A cross.

We call those crosses. Terrible things have happened to my life. But until you see their vacuity, until you see their meaninglessness, until you see how much they’ve controlled you, until they’re essentially pulled out from under you through suffering and trouble, you will never get the strength of being able to look at everything in the world and say, "You’re not my life. I’ve lost the world to gain my soul. Because before I had gained the world and I lost myself."

And the only way that happens is through suffering. The only way that you move on from strength to strength is through the weakness of losing things in the troubles of life. Elizabeth Elliot wrote a novel that was really based on a true story that she had been a missionary in. The novel’s called *No Graven Image*, and in it a missionary woman goes off and basically risks her whole life just to serve this poor tribe and to teach them to read and write and to put their language into reading and writing and to also share the Christian faith with them.

At the very end she accidentally kills the one man that is her bridge into all the different parts of that little tribe's society and in the end they throw her out. And her whole life is in ruins. You get to the last page and you say, "Isn’t this a Christian novel? Where’s the hope? What’s going on?"

And you get to the end and here’s what she says. The missionary, the character, her name is Margaret Sparhawk in the book. She looks up and she stands at the grave of the man she killed, sees his wife and children that she has now accidentally turned into a widow and an orphan, they walk off and they won’t speak to her. And she looks up and she says, "God, if he was merely my assistant, my accomplice, he had betrayed me. But if on the other hand he was God, he had freed me."

You see through the brokenness of that experience she suddenly realized I had been using God as my assistant to get the things that were my life. But when God took those things away, I realized he’d freed me. Freed me? Yes! See, the kingdom of God will move forward in your life and give you this enormous identity when you see who you really are, which means through the weakness of seeing your sin.

It gives you the strength of no longer needing self-justification because I know who I am. And the kingdom of God moves forward through your life and gives you the strength of no longer caring about the world. But only happens through the weakness of having pieces of the world pulled out from under you.

Lastly, follow me. If you want identity you have to know who you are, if you want identity you have to have freedom from outside influences, and if you want identity you’ve got to have purpose. You’ve got to have mission. And I’ll tell you something. There’s nothing that gives you more strength than to know that you are changing people’s lives because you are laying yourself out the way Jesus did.

But I’ll tell you something that always brings weakness. Let me just give you quick four examples. If you decide to live where the social fabric needs you instead of live in comfortable places, that’s following Jesus. But it’s going to lead to suffering. If you get involved in the lives of very needy people who then are going to impose on you and who are going to ask you to do things that you don’t even have the wisdom to do and sometimes you’re going to step on them, it’s going to lead to suffering.

If you take a job that doesn’t pay as much but it makes you more productive for the people around you, that leads to suffering. If you start to give your money away in radical ways that leads to suffering. But it leads to strength. You know why it all comes down to this?

When Jesus asks, "What would you give in exchange for your soul? What could you do? Think of the value of the soul. Think of the value of a self. What would you give in exchange?" You know what? He’s actually asking a pretty cagey question. Because if he turns to the Father and says, "What would you pay for their souls?" The Father says, "I know what I’d pay. I’d give anything. I’d give my own Son."

Now let me close up this way. Christian friends, some of you right now are going through some terrible times. Bad things happening in your life. Troubles, crosses. What are you doing about it? You are to look at your cross in light of his cross and I suggest two ways.

First of all, his cross challenges your wisdom. Your heart right now is saying, "God has let me down." But the cross says to your heart you’re being you’re being stupid. God would not let you down. Besides that, Jesus Christ went through all these same things. Jesus Christ lost his job. Jesus Christ lost all his money; he was stripped.

Jesus Christ lost all his friends. Jesus Christ was abandoned. Jesus Christ suffered and died and the kingdom of God went forward. So when you look and say, "God couldn’t be doing anything good in my life right now," the cross of Jesus Christ challenges your wisdom and comes at you and says why not?

But the cross of Jesus Christ also challenges your fears. Besides God let you down, you know what else your heart is saying when things go wrong? Your heart is saying, "Ah, you’re a fool. You’re a jerk. You’re a failure." But the cross of Jesus Christ comes and says no, God the Father emptied heaven of its most prized possession.

God the Father spent the family fortune. God the Father gave his Son. Now you think he’s going to abandon you? Of course not! He gave his Son in exchange for your soul. He’s not going to give up on you now. Christian friends, look at what your crosses now in the light of the big cross. That’s how the kingdom of God goes forward. Don’t be immature anymore.

Those of you who may be seeking, here’s what I suggest to you. Don’t you dare say, "I guess I'm going to decide whether I should get involved in Christian faith. I want to see whether it’ll give me protection, if it’ll help me find my fondest dreams." Jesus Christ looks at you and says, "Your fondest dreams? I’ll give you something far more far better than that. I'm going to give you myself. I'm going to take you way beyond."

Don’t try to assess Christianity on the basis of whether or not it’s going to give you a comfortable life. It just won’t. It’ll give you something far better than that. Way beyond that. Lose your life to find it. Lose your life for me, you will find it.

Guest (Female): Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you’d like to see more people encouraged by the gospel-centered teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps connect people all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ’s love.

To learn more, just visit gospelinlife.com/partner. That website again is gospelinlife.com/partner. Today’s sermon was recorded in 1998. 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.