Gospel in Life

Tim Keller: Welcome to the Gospel in Life podcast. Many of us often focus on the big moments in Jesus's life: his birth, death, and resurrection. But how would your understanding of Jesus change if you took a closer look at what he did and said throughout his life on earth? Today, Tim Keller explores why Jesus's everyday experiences are essential for understanding who he is and how they invite us to have a deeper trust in him.

Tim Keller: The scripture reading this morning is from John chapter one, verses one through 14.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word of the Lord.

Tim Keller: Now, Christmas is the time of the year in which we, as a church, observe and think about the birth of Jesus. Lent is the time in which we think about the meaning of the death of Jesus. And traditionally, in the church year, the season between Christmas and Lent, not as well-known a season, but has got a name; it's called Epiphany. And Epiphany means looking not at the birth of Jesus or the death of Jesus, but at the life of Jesus. What he said, what he did. And you can't really understand the real Jesus if you only look at his birth and his death, you must also look at his words and his deeds during his life. And that's what we're going to do for the next two months.

And we're going to take one particular gospel, the Gospel of John, and we're going to look at the words and deeds of Jesus in his life between his birth and his death. Now, we start today with John chapter 1, the prologue, one of the most rich and famous parts of the Bible. And in some ways, it takes pressure off a preacher because preachers always feel like, "I've got to give the people, I've got to, I've got to pull out all the great stuff that's in this text." But this is one of those times in which there's too much great stuff to pull out; I couldn't possibly get it all. And so, I would just like to give you a top-level view of it by just outlining it and looking at the three main parts and therefore the three main points.

Look at the verses 1 to 4 is about a claim, a radical, amazing claim. Verses 5 to 11 is about the rejection of that claim. But then verses 12 to 14 is the answer to the objections to the claim. So, you have the claim, you have the rejection of the claim, and we have the answers to the objections to and the rejection of the claim. And let's just walk through it like that.

First of all, the first four verses, very famous, constitute a claim. And it's a claim about the Word. There's five things we're told about the Word. First of all, the Word is a person, he's personal. Notice, he. The word, he. Secondly, the Word was divine. The Word was God. Thirdly, we're not just talking about a divine-ish kind of person, but this is a person who was never created. He's not got a beginning because it says, "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made," which means everything that has a beginning found a beginning in him, which means he's without beginning.

So we have a person. It's a divine person. It's an uncreated divine person, the source of all life. "In him was life." Not just he got life or has life, "in him was life." All life comes from him. And last thing we learn is all the way at the bottom, actually, in verse 14, it becomes very clear that this is Jesus Christ. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Now, we could obviously spend five hours, five days, five weeks, maybe five years taking each of those five claims and pulling them out.

But what's really significant is the word "Word." is the fact that John uses this very interesting and unusual way of describing Jesus Christ because he says, "In the beginning was the Word." Jesus is the Word. And because he wrote in Greek, the Greek word that he used here was *Logos*. In the beginning was the *Logos*. Jesus Christ was the *Logos*. The *Logos* became flesh. Now, John deliberately used a word here that had an enormous amount of freight, enormous amount of cultural, linguistic, and philosophical freight. He deliberately used it, and the only way we're going to understand what it means and why he used it and what a radical claim this is, is if we get some background.

Now you have to start with the Greek philosophers because the Greek philosophers came up with this idea of a *Logos*. They looked at nature, and you know what they saw? They saw balance, they saw harmony, they saw an order in nature. And they posited that there was a spiritual, cosmic principle of order behind it. So here's one philosophy book. It says, "The *Logos* for the Greeks," this is the philosophy book, "was the impersonal, harmonious, divine structure of the cosmos as a whole." So behind the order and the balance of nature was this, was the *Logos*. And the word *Logos*, of course, didn't just mean word; it has a, it has a broader semantic range than our word "word."

*Logos* means purpose or reason, logic, reason for life. In other words, when they said, "We believe the universe has a, has a *Logos*," that means that there's an absolute truth, there's a reason for its existence, there's a meaning to things, a purpose to things. Now, to get the gist of this, this is pretty high. Are you getting kind of philosophical nosebleed? I know I've got you up there. Okay, to get to the gist of this, we got to, I got to talk about our space heaters in our, in our apartment. You know, a local law 11? Every so often, they've got to do brickwork on the front of our building. So our building is going through local law 11. You've got these guys going up and down and knocking the bricks out and all that. And during the day, we are not allowed to turn our heaters on because it blows out on the guys. So, I don't know if any of you have looked at the thermometer recently. That can be a problem. So the, the, the building gives us space heaters.

Now, the space heaters always come with a set of directions. And it's very important to read the directions because you know what's in the directions? The *Logos* of the space heater. The design of the space heater means that there's certain ways in which you need to, uh, uh, use the space heater. It was built in such a way, you must plug it into these sources, not these sources. You must put it over here, not over here. In other words, you have to use it, your use must be aligned with its design, with its reason for existence. It has to be aligned, your use has to be aligned with the things that it was designed to do, its reason for existence.

And if you do not use it in alignment with its *Logos*, at best, you will not get the value out of it. At worst, you will burn down your place. It will be a disaster. Now, here's what the Greeks said: What if the universe is a *Logos*? What if life has a *Logos*? What if there is a, a, a divine kind of order or structure, a kind of spiritual cosmic structure behind the universe? And that would mean that if we got our lives in alignment to it, if we aligned with that, our lives would go well. And if we didn't align with the way things really are, if we didn't align with the the *Logos*, the reason for life of the universe, we would experience, at the least, at, I mean, at best, would be a lack of contentment. At worst, we might burn our lives down.

And so that's what they did. What they said is, "That's what you have to do. You figure out what that *Logos* is, and then you align with it." Now, of course, the problem was, yes, it makes sense to say, "I want my life to be aligned with ultimate reality. I want my life to be aligned with the fabric of the universe, so I'm living along the grain of the universe," as it were. Makes perfect sense, except nobody could, you know, completely agree on what it was. Stoics, now, by the word, you right away know what I'm going to say. The Greek Stoics believed that what it meant to align your life with the *Logos* was to just accept everything that happened.

You know, you see, "Here's nature, whatever happens in nature is all right." And therefore you align with it. And the Stoics meant, "You accept everything. Stiff upper lip. Suffering, death? Don't let it get to you." See, that's one way to have a happy life is you get absolutely aligned with the universe. And what they meant by that was everything. Now you had the Epicureans, you had a lot of other different approaches that said, "No, no, no, no, no. What it means to align with the universe is you just live to make this world a better place for the people who are coming later." I mean, you live unselfishly. The Epicureans said, "No, no, no, you live selfishly." They said, "The meaning of life is to find what makes you happy and do it."

So people had these different approaches. You have to align with it. And then the earthquake. It was an earthquake in history. Because along comes John. And John says, "Oh, there is a *Logos*, but it's not like anything you ever thought. You're looking for principles. You're looking for abstractions. You're looking for books of rules." He says, "There is a *Logos*. And it is the thing we are to live for. And the *Logos* is our source of our design, but it's a person, not a principle." This history book I was reading, a history of philosophy book, says this, this is written by a French philosophy professor, not a Christian. He says this, I'll start with the quote I already gave you. "The *Logos* for the Greeks was the impersonal, harmonious, divine structure of the cosmos as a whole. But to the horror of the Greeks, Christians maintained that the *Logos*, in other words, the cosmic principle, was not the harmonious order of the world, but was a single unique personality, one outstanding individual, namely Christ. Not a principle, but an actual person."

If the heart of the universe was not impersonal, as the Greeks and Eastern religions believed, but a person, it meant that there was now an unprecedented emphasis on the idea and importance of love in human life. But there's more. By resting its case upon a definition of the human person and an unprecedented idea of love, Christianity was to have an incalculable effect upon the history of ideas. To give one example, it's quite clear that without this Christian re-evaluation of the human person, the philosophy of human rights, to which we subscribe today, would never have established itself. It's absolutely right. This philosophy professor is not a Christian, by the way, goes on and many others have said the same thing. If you believe that the, the universe is essentially impersonal, then people don't really matter. But if you say the meaning of the universe is essentially personal, it comes from a person, a creator, then persons matter and everyone has rights and dignity.

But here's the point. Here's the point. If you believe that the, that the meaning of life, the reason for life, the *Logos* is basically an abstract principle, then how do you, how do you align with that? Only through, you have to be smart because you have to do philosophical contemplation to figure out what it is. Or you have to be scientific and you have to, you know, check out the order of nature. And you got to be strong because you've got to align with it, and you've got to be brilliant, you've got to be self-controlled. How elitist is that? What about the rest of us? But along comes Christianity and says, "No, no. There is a *Logos*. Life is not a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There is a meaning to life, but do you want to align with ultimate reality? You have to have a relationship with a person, your author, your creator, the progenitor of us all."

And by having a personal relationship of love with him, you are aligned with the universe. That's revolutionary. It not only changed human thought, but of course it swept the old Roman Empire. And that was the claim. Do you see how revolutionary it was? Now, having said that, as great as that claim is, as amazing as that claim is, and as much as it has actually left a permanent imprint on history, Western civilization, because of Christianity, will always have a higher regard for persons than all other kinds of worldviews or backgrounds, civilizations. But the second part of this passage says that in spite of all that, there has been widespread rejection of this claim.

In spite of all that, verses 5 to 11 says there's been widespread rejection of the idea that Jesus Christ is the *Logos*, that he's the meaning of life, that he's the, he's the heart of reality that we have to know. And of course, this pa- this section right here talks about that. It says, "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." So, this middle section is about the fact that, by and large, there has been rejection. A widespread rejection of the claim that Jesus is the *Logos*.

But to understand the rejection, we need to take a look at one really interesting verse that some of you, if you're familiar with this passage, realize often gets translated in different ways depending on the translation. It says, the verses 5. "The light shines in the darkness," and what does it say here? "And the darkness has not overcome it." But you know there are other translations that say, "The darkness has not understood it." The old King James Bible says, "The light shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not."

And actually, one of you, you might be here, when we read this during Lessons and Carols, and one of you in the choir actually came up to me afterwards and said, "Wait a minute, this morning it was read and it said the darkness has not overcome it, but I thought it was the darkness has not understood it." Now, the reason is because the word that John uses here, again, very deliberately, is a, is a word that is ambiguous. In fact, Don Carson, a friend of mine, who's written a commentary on the Book of John, says about this verse and this word, he says, "This is a masterpiece of planned ambiguity." It's a masterpiece of planned ambiguity. Because the same word can mean overcome and understand. So you can either fail to overcome something or fail to understand something.

You say, "Well, that doesn't, they don't seem to be related." Well, think of the word "master" for a minute. What does it mean to master something? To master something might mean to overpower it, but it also can mean to what, to master something? To get it, to figure it out. And I would like you to think for a minute with me, what this means is, it's, it's, the reason it's planned ambiguity is it means there's two different ways at least of rejecting Jesus Christ. One is to be overtly hostile to him, and the other is just to not understand him. Either way, you've rejected him. It's to be overtly hostile or just to not comprehend or get him. You think maybe you do, but you don't. Let's take a look at those two.

Tim Keller: 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'll 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's GospelInLife.com/give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

Tim Keller: Let's see how that's playing out now. I mean, John had what he was thinking about is his time, but it's going to have it's planned out, it's played out over the years. How does it play out today? First of all, of course, those of us who live in a place like New York City, there's lots of people who just simply don't like, or just, they're just hostile to the idea that Christianity is the truth or that Jesus Christ is the absolute truth behind the universe. And even to the idea that there is an absolute truth. Even to the idea that there is a *Logos*. So some people are trying to overcome that, that is to say, they really, they, they're hostile to the idea that there even is absolute truth.

Christian Smith is a sociologist who has studied the religious, moral, and spiritual lives of young adults who live in America, very interesting books. One of the books is called *Souls in Transition*, and one is called *Lost in Transition*. There's another book on teenagers called *Souls Soul Searching*. Now, what he says is, by talking to thousands and thousands of young adults about their moral views, he comes to the conclusion that they, they, that they, their moral views have three characteristics, ready? Three characteristics. Now, listen to this. First of all, they have very strong moral feelings. Young adults have very strong moral feelings, very much against injustice, against violation of rights, against ever treating anyone without fairness, against, uh, you know, exploitation of the poor, not caring for the poor.

So first of all, they have strong moral feelings. Number two, secondly, they're moral relativists. Okay? They will say, over and over again, that no one has the right to tell somebody else what's right or wrong for them. There's two aspects to that moral relativism. They would say that, uh, morality is personal, person-specific, and culturally relative. Not that they would use those terms, those are the sociologists' terms. But to say person-specific is to say everyone has the right to determine what is right or wrong for them, and you don't have the right to tell somebody else what's right or wrong for them. Culturally relative is that every culture has its own set of mores and ethics, right? Every culture. And you, your culture should not be telling their culture that your culture is superior to theirs, that their cultural values are superior to your cultural values.

So, first of all, they have strong moral feelings. Secondly, they're, they're morally relativists. And thirdly, they believe that morality is self-evident. Because if you ask a younger American, "Why is that wrong? You feel that that's wrong. Why is that wrong?" They'll say, "Well, everybody knows it." "Well, what are the reasons you believe that's wrong?" "Well, it's just, people know that. Everybody knows, you just recognize it." Now, the sociologists took away these three things. And here's what they conclude. First of all, they conclude that this is incredibly incoherent.

And you know how it comes out? They usually, they'll give a young, young, listen, some of you, some of you are, and some of you aren't in this category of younger adults who live in America, but, uh, one of the questions they'll say is this: "Hey, do you know about this country, this culture over here, where the husbands won't even let the wives drive? Women aren't even allowed to have a driver's license. And do you know about this other country over here where husbands make women can't do this and they can't do that? Do you think that's right or wrong?" "It's wrong!" "Why is it wrong?" "That's their culture. Are you saying your culture is better than their culture?" Totals, crickets.

And here's why it's incoherent. They have strong moral feelings. They have absolutely no basis for a program of justice. They have no basis on which they can say to somebody, "You're doing wrong." They have strong moral feelings but have no way of carrying out any kind of program. It's totally incoherent. And secondly, they point out, the sociologists say, uh, that these three views, strong moral feelings, moral relativism, and the idea that morality is self-evident, which it isn't, by the way. Everybody disagrees. How can it be self-evident?

Thirdly, they say it's not only incoherent, it's inconsistent. And they point out that younger Americans, even though they feel very strongly we shouldn't hurt the poor, we should care for the poor, are unbelievably consumeristic and selfish with the way they spend money on themselves. Well, that's a problem. Isn't that a problem? There's no absolute truth. That leads to being inconsistent and incoherent. So what do we do? Oh, we decide there is a *Logos*. There is absolute truth. And what do we do? We, we say, "We're going to, we're going to believe in absolute truth." Oh, yes. "There are moral absolutes, and we're going to accept that, and we're going to embrace that, and we're going to bring our lives in alignment with that, and we're going to try to be really good persons." How's that work?

And let me tell you how that works. Just to say those are moral absolutes, there's a *Logos*, and I'm going to live up to it, is oppressive. It's oppressive in two ways. It leads to oppression in two ways. Number one, it can either oppress you, it can crush you because you're trying so hard to live up according to it, and you're never going to get there. And you're always hating yourself, you're always beating yourself up, "I'm just not the person I should be." See, that's one way of aligning with the universe, but it doesn't work. So one way it can be oppressive is that you can live up to it and not live up to it. And so you're, you know, you're oppressed on the inside. The other bad thing that can happen is you can live up to it. You might be one of those elite people who actually can set your standards and live up to them. In which case, you're not oppressed on the inside, you become an oppressor.

In other words, you become a bigot, you become self-righteous, you become a Pharisee, you become someone who says, "Look, I'm good. Why can't you be? Suck it up. I've pulled myself together. I've kept myself out of jail. I've made a lot of money. You're poor, you're in jail, you're in this, that. What's wrong with you?" So you see, if you say, "Well, there's no, there is no *Logos*, there's no moral absolutes," what have you got? Incoherence and inconsistency. So, "All right, I'm going to align myself with the *Logos*. There is a *Logos*. I'm going to align with it." You have oppression. Either oppression on the inside or oppression through you on the outside.

But that's not what Jesus is about. See, it's one thing to say there is no *Logos*. It's another thing to say, "Well, there is a *Logos*." But was Jesus about moralism? See, to say there is no *Logos* is relativism. But to say there is a *Logos* and I'm going to live up to it is moralism. Is Jesus about that? No. And here's where you see it. Verse 11, "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." "He came to his own, but his own received him not." Why? Well, he was Jewish, right? He went to the Jews, and they rejected him. Why? Because they didn't comprehend him. They didn't get him. Why? Because he did these strange things. He hung out with prostitutes and with sinners.

And then he said to the Pharisees, and they were very good people. They were aligned with the, with the absolute truth. In one place, Jesus looks at the Pharisees and said, "The, the prostitutes and the horemongers get into heaven before you." They didn't get him. Because, you see, he's not about, obviously, relativism. Jesus is not. If you're a relativist, you've rejected Jesus, but moralism is also to reject Jesus. It's not to comprehend him, not to understand what he's about. And before moving on to the last point, to show how we get out of this conundrum, may I say something very daring, kind of daring? It's not like some of you said you haven't ever said this before, but it still feels daring.

Who are his own today? I mean, if we're talking about Jesus' own, who are the own? Who's his own today? It's us. It's the church. It's the people who say we're Christians. To what degree do we not get Jesus? To what degree do we not comprehend him? To what degree do we fall into moralism as opposed to understand the gospel? To what degree are we places that, well, we believe in absolute truth, but we are vehicles for oppression, that is oppression inside, people always feeling guilty and like I can never live up, or outside.

Okay, now you see the problem? Here's the solution. But let me just draw one, just for 90 seconds what the problem is. On the one hand, you have one way of rejecting this claim, relativism, but the other way of rejecting is moralism, and we are stuck, and I'll tell you why. Our culture has rejected moralism. We don't like it. We don't like people saying they have the absolute truth. We've rejected that. And to put it in a little cultural context, let me just, those of you who are my age, those of you who, you know, your hair's not the same color as it used to be. We grew up, who are the bad people? If you, if you grew up in America, who are the bad people? Who are the people trying to blow us up? Communists, right? And who are the communists? They didn't believe in God.

All right, so religious people were the good people, and the people who didn't believe in God were the bad people, and that's what we grew up with. Okay? But a lot of you, whose lives looks like your hair is what it was when you were born, you grew up with a very, very different situation. Who are the people trying to blow us up now? Religious fanatics. People who think they have the truth. And see, if you're, if you grew up with that shadow, you don't like religion, or you're scared of it or anybody who believes too much. But we've just said, if you are, if you, if you say there is no *Logos*, everybody has to decide what is right or wrong for you. Do you realize where that is? Incoherence and inconsistency and no basis for a program of justice. It's a problem.

But what's the other problem? Of course, is moralism. So what, what, is there a way through? Is there a way forward? Is there a way to solve this problem? Yes, there has been for 2,000 years. It's called the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is beautifully, beautifully put in these last three verses. Memorably, famously, as good a three verses as you'd ever want to explain the gospel. To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or of a husband's will, but born of God. For the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory, glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Okay, first of all, let's just unpack this briefly, but carefully. First of all, it says, "Not everybody's a child of God. It has to be received." See, this pushes against the popular idea that all human beings are God's children. Now, the Bible says in one sense that's true. Paul says in Acts 17, "We are his offspring." In fact, he's talking to Greek philosophers, interestingly enough. Paul talks to the Greek philosophers, to the Stoics, the Epicureans, the people who were looking for the *Logos* and all. He says, "We are his offspring." And in a sense, because God created us, yes, just like, you know, Henry Ford is the father of the Model T, and God is our Father in the sense that he's, he's, he's our creator and he's produced us. But the Bible in general does not say that God is your Father just because you've been born. Because the idea of having a relationship of child to Father, son or daughter to Father is so special in the Bible, it's a gift.

How so? Well, if you are an employee and you have a boss and you misbehave, what happens? The more you misbehave, the more your boss's, boss's regard for you goes down. And eventually you lose your job. You know why? Because your job, your relationship with your boss is based on your performance and a cost-benefit analysis. Right? I mean, not, not that your boss might not be sympathetic, but if you keep misbehaving, his regard goes down, her regard goes down for you, and eventually you lose your job because you're, your relationship is based on your performance and cost-benefit. But if you're a good father and you got some children and one of them really starts to misbehave, what happens? Your father's heart is more engaged.

Your father's love is more intensified. You know why? Because the relationship between a child and a father is not based on performance. It's not a consumer relationship. It's not cost-benefit. It is a covenant relationship. It is based on unconditional faithfulness and commitment. And what does that mean? If you don't have an appointment with the President of the United States and you try to get in to see him, you'll be stopped. If you don't have an ap- a pointment with the President of the United States and you start running toward him, you'll be shot. In fact, even if you do have an appointment with the President of the United States and you start running toward him, you'll probably be shot. But if he's your daddy, because you're his little boy or his little girl, you go right in. You don't have to have credentials. You don't have to be worth the President's time.

Is it possible to have a relationship like that with God, the author of the universe? Yes. A relationship that's on grace. Why? How could that be? Here's how. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And again, it's amazing. John, when he's writing in Greek, he's being so careful because the word that's there is it says, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us." Tabernacled. What was the tabernacle? What was the temple? Do you know what it was? All around the world, there's always been temples. Do you know why? Because all human beings instinctively sense that if there is a God, there's a gap. If there is a God, God is great, and we're small. God is perfect, and we're flawed. If there is a God, there's a gap, and temples are places to bridge the gap.

You had offerings, and you had sacrifices, and you atone for sin, and you, you sought to do everything you could to bridge the gap. You had priests who did it full-time for you. But now we're told, Jesus becomes the tabernacle. Jesus becomes the temple. He's the, he is the ultimate priest because he laid down the ultimate sacrifice. When he went to the cross, he died for our sins. And that means he's the temple. He gets rid of the need for temples. And we can become children by grace. Now, that is exactly what you need. You know what that is? We can't live without absolutes, but we can't have an oppressive absolute. We need a non-oppressive absolute. Okay, everybody?

Write this down, memorize this. We need a non-oppressive absolute, and here it is: A man dying on the cross for your sins. A God of strength becoming weak and flesh. A man with life going to the cross and losing his life, being the ultimate sacrifice, tabernacling. Becoming our temple. And if you see a man dying for his enemies, sacrificing his life, forgiving his enemies, that can't make you into an oppressor. On the one hand, that means I'm saved by grace. That won't crush me on the inside. On the other hand, if I am saved by grace, it's only because I don't deserve it. And I can't feel superior to anybody else, so that doesn't make me oppressor to anyone else. You say, "But haven't Christians been oppressors in the past?" Yes, only if they didn't comprehend it. See? Only if they didn't understand it.

Only if they didn't get it. And the ones who did, the early Christians invented orphanages, invented hospitals. They didn't exist before. They stopped the infanticide of girls. They changed history. Now you, you, comprehend it. Get a relationship with the heart of reality, a love relationship based on grace. And then go out and take your part in continuing to change history until he comes again. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you have given us a, a wonderful glimpse of who Jesus Christ is. And we ask that you would help us to apply this to our lives. We want to be agents out there in the world. The world needs people who not only can help them find God and connect to you through Jesus Christ, but even if they don't believe the gospel, they need people around who've been changed by the gospel. People who are not oppressors, who pour themselves out even for their enemies and opponents the way your son Jesus did. Oh Father, please change us with the gospel so the people can see that you sent your Son. Help us to apply this to our lives through the Holy Spirit. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Tim Keller: 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 connects 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 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.