Gospel in Life

Guest (Female): Many people say that what matters most is simply living a good and loving life. But the Bible says something very different: that the way we live flows directly from our beliefs about God.

This summer and through the end of September, we're going through one of Tim Keller's most extensive sermon series, in which he teaches from the first three chapters of Ephesians, looking at how the Bible's central truths about salvation and grace will shape even the most practical parts of our everyday lives.

Tim Keller: The Bible passage that we're looking at tonight in our teaching is printed in the bulletin. It's Ephesians 1, and I'm just going to read and make remarks tonight on these two verses, Ephesians 1:13 and 14.

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

Now, we've been looking at this chapter. We've been looking at Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 to 14. And we've said that it's all about the gospel of your salvation. That's a term that's found in verse 13. See, it says when you were included in Christ, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you heard that and you believed it, you were marked with a seal and the promised Holy Spirit.

So the point is, the gospel of salvation, the word gospel means good news. This chapter is a kind of inventory of all of the great things that when you become a Christian, you have. It's a little bit like buying a house and going through it to see what you bought, buying a car and driving it to see what you really have there—you bought something, what's really under the hood?

And therefore, we've been looking at this chapter, and we saw in the first four verses, verses 4 to 8, the first thing God tells us that we have in Christ is adoption. We're brought into the family of God, and he becomes no longer our boss or our supervisor or a taskmaster, but our father.

And then secondly, we looked at verses 9 to 12, and we see we not only get adoption, but we get a kingdom. We get a God who's in charge of our lives and all of history. He's sovereign, and we looked at that.

Now thirdly, this is what we're looking at now for a few weeks. Starting at verse 12 or 13, we see that we thirdly get not just adoption and a kingdom, but we get an inheritance. It says, when you believe, you get, it says, the Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.

In modern times, in the last say 20 years, a term has come to be used which has never been used before, and that is that a healthy person is in touch—if you're a healthy person, you're in touch with your feelings. You know who you are. You're in touch with your feelings. There's nothing wrong with that, but being a Christian is a step further.

A Christian is not only in touch with who you are; a Christian is also in touch with who you are in Christ and who you will be inevitably in Christ. This passage is telling us that a Christian always lives in light of the inheritance. I think we've maybe used parallel illustrations before.

I had a couple of friends who, though they did not have a lot of money now, knew that at sometime, they weren't sure when, they were going to come into zillions of dollars. As a result, they didn't worry too much about paying for their children's education, their little teeny children. As a result, they didn't worry too much about a lot of things. They knew that they were going into an incredible inheritance, and that affected the way they live now.

Now, let me use a theological word, but it's a good word. A Christian lives eschatologically. The word eschaton, a Greek word for the last things, the final state. A Christian lives eschatologically. A Christian lives in the future tense. Another way to put it is the center of gravity of a Christian is in the future.

Just like that family that I knew, that knew because of their great inheritance they had to live their life today in light of that, they basically had a worry-free life. They did a lot of planning. They knew that this was going to happen someday; they were sure of it. Because of that, they made arrangements for it now. They did things that I would not be able to do, that you, most of you, would not be able to do either.

They were living on the basis of the future. I and most of you can't do that economically. You have to live for now. You have to say, I've got my income now, and I hope to have it next year and so forth. But you can't live in light of the future the way they did.

Now, for a moment, move away from that and you'll see that is exactly what Paul's telling us that we have to do. You have been given an inheritance, and it's up to you now to live your whole life in light of it. Later on, it tells us the inheritance is an inheritance of glory. The word glory means solid, it means weighty, it means that which lasts.

This shows us the assumption of the whole Bible, and that is that history is not cyclical, but it's linear. Many, many, many people, many cultures, many philosophies, Western pagan philosophies, Eastern religions and philosophies, believe that history is cyclical. That means it's not going anywhere. It's going around and around and around and around, and it's not going to anything.

There's no purpose to history. There's no climax that it's moving to. It's just going to go on and on and on. Eventually, for example, the earth is going to burn up and die, and then time will still go on and on and on. History is going nowhere. If you believe that, then there is no glory, because the word glory means that which lasts.

That which matters. The word matter, of course, means that which is solid, right? Matter, weight. OK, now do you realize that if history is cyclical, if everything is relative, if nothing will last, if ultimately the way you live today will make no difference in the end—everything will burn up, everything will go—that means there's nothing matters.

You know, if I come up to you and I say I love you and I care for you, or if I come up to you and shoot you through the head, if you have a cyclical view of history, you have to realize that those two actions ultimately are not different because nothing matters. In the end, one will not make any difference. Isn't that right?

Nothing lasts, nothing will make any difference. The Christian understanding of history is very different. The Christian understanding of history is linear. History's moving towards something, and eventually there will be a final state. And in that final state, some things will last forever: love. Hate will not.

Friendship. Enmity will not. Beauty. Ugliness will not. Wisdom. Foolishness will not. You see, beauty and love and wisdom, these things, biblically, according to the Christian view of things, are glorious. What's that mean? These are things that are going to last forever. That's real reality. That's what life is going to be like in the end.

And that's the reason why when you taste hate and foolishness and selfishness and ugliness, your life feels like it doesn't matter. Your life feels meaningless. And yet, when you taste friendship and wisdom and beauty and love, your life seems to have meaning. Well, you see, with the cyclical view of nature, there's no way to explain that.

The cyclical view of history says there is no glory, there is no future, we're not moving toward any kind of climax. In the end, nothing will matter. The biblical understanding of history explains why you know instinctively, in spite of your intellectual objections, that some things do matter.

See, anybody that rejects the idea of history being linear—and by the way, almost only Judaism and Christianity and Islam are about the only religions that—they all grew out of the Bible. The Bible alone gives you a view of history that says history is moving to a climax.

And at that climax, God will triumph. And his character and his being will triumph. Good will triumph over evil, wisdom over foolishness, beauty over ugliness, love over hatred, and so on. And that's the reason you know right now, some things are glorious and some things are straw and stubble.

Some things are weighty and last; they're worth living for, they matter. And other things do not. What does it mean to live eschatologically? It means to know, see, if you're a Christian, you know this: that all those things inevitably will triumph, and therefore you give yourself to those things.

You might see—if, let's be real practical—truth is going to triumph over falsehood in the end. But today, if you tell the truth, you might get fired, and a falsehood might keep your job. What are you going to do? Are you going to live in the present? Are you going to live in the future?

Are you going to live eschatologically, or are you going to live temporarily? Are you going to vote for glory, or are you going to vote for the ephemeral? What are you going to do? A Christian works eschatologically. And the reason for that, the reason the Christian thinks like that, of course, is because when you become a Christian, you get a down payment on that glory that changes your life.

And we're going to look at that now for a couple of moments. We're entering this section, we're going to spend some weeks on it, so we don't have to cover it all now. A Christian is somebody who has tasted of the inheritance. As one of my teachers used to say, yes, Christianity does promise pie in the sky by and by.

But it's a pie you can take a slice of right now. God always gives you one slice of the pie in the sky by and by to eat today. Christians understand that, Christians know that, and as a result, they orient their whole life toward the future and toward the coming glory.

And they realize ultimately that when you give in to temptation, to lie, to hold grudges, which is hatred, you see, to act toward people in an ugly way, when you give into dishonesty, when you give into impurity, when you give into disobedience and any of those things, what you're actually doing is you are putting yourself squarely into the realm that's going to perish.

Those things have no glory, they're not going to last, they're going to be wiped away on the final day. Everything that's opposed to the knowledge of God and to the character and being of God will be wiped away. That's our hope, that's our only hope. Do you believe that or not? I'm trying to push you and polarize you.

You either believe what Christianity says about a linear view of history, or else you have to admit that nothing matters at all. In the end, nothing matters. Everything is going to burn up, everything is relative. You have no basis to make any distinction between beauty and ugliness. Who's to say what's beauty and what's ugly?

Who's to say what's right and what's wrong? Who's to say? Nobody can say unless there's an inheritance at the end of history of glory, of God. Now, that is what Paul's saying. See that? He says you were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth and believed. And he sealed you then with the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory.

Let me just show you two things because I don't have that much time tonight. First of all, let me show you how you get this down payment on glory, this slice out of the pie from the sky, how you get this down payment, this firstfruits of glory. And then secondly, we'll start to look tonight a little bit at what the nature of that glory is.

First of all, look: how do you receive this? I've just told you that there's something waiting at the end of history which Christians know about because they get a slice of it now. How do you get that slice? First of all, look here. It says when you were included in Christ, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and having believed, you were marked.

Now, let's see. Let me take five minutes on that. First of all, it tells us that you have to do two things: you have to hear the word of truth, and then you have to believe it. You notice he makes a distinction? You're not included in Christ—I hope you look in here at the words carefully—you're not included in Christ unless you've heard the word of truth and you've believed it.

This is something I think we said a couple of weeks ago that modern people, especially modern Americans, don't like. I don't know how many times I go into some of these places in the Upper East Side, they have all sorts of cute little sayings on the walls in these clubs. And the little sayings are usually, "It doesn't matter what you believe, it's how you live. It doesn't matter what your views of this or that, your religion or philosophy; what really matters is whether you're a good person."

And that's completely opposed to what Paul says right here. What he's trying to say is truth matters. Truth is something of weight. It matters. It's going to last. And he says there is an irreducible minimum of truth that you have to understand if you're ever going to receive this pie from the sky, if you're ever going to receive this down payment, this inheritance.

What is that word of truth? He doesn't say it here, but that's what the whole chapter's about. When I baptized Donna, I read a verse out of 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 9. And that's a perfect example of how Paul loves to put the gospel, the word of truth, in a single sentence. He does it all the time.

He said you turned from idols to serve the living and true God and wait for his son Jesus Christ, who has rescued us from the coming wrath. There it is. Do you believe that there's one true God? Secondly, do you believe that Jesus is his son? Thirdly, do you believe that he died to rescue you from wrath, that you deserved God's wrath because of your sins?

And then fourthly, have you then seen that your real problem in life is that you were worshiping the wrong things? That's the real reason you're miserable, that everybody has to worship something, and so we were all worshiping some kind of idols.

And did you turn and say, I see that you're the true God, I see that Jesus died for my sins to rescue me from the wrath that I deserve, and I turn from worshiping anything else and I commit myself to you. Have you ever done that? See, that's the word of truth. One verse. I know you got the whole Bible; I know there's tons of theological books written.

But Paul can always put the truth, the word of truth, in a single verse, the gospel of salvation just like that. That's the basics. There's a lot of ways of saying it. You have to hear it. Then secondly, you've got to believe it. Hearing it is one thing, and really believing it is another.

To believe it, this word believe in the Bible means to rest and trust. In fact, if you're not looking at the bulletin, but you have a Bible open, you'll see up in verse 12 it says, "In order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might live for the praise of his glory." See, for Paul, to put your hope in something and to believe in something's the same thing.

Belief is not simply an intellectual assent. Belief is putting your hope. Remember what a hope chest is? Belief is putting—you know the word hope is a great word. It means you put all of your hopes and dreams on somebody. That's what a hope chest was. All of your hopes and dreams.

Well, what it means to be a Christian is to say my only hope for the past, present, and the future is Jesus. My only hope for my past is Jesus; he's covered my sins. My only hope for the present is Jesus; he guides me. My only hope for the future is Jesus; he's going to bring me home, and so forth.

So it's not enough just to hear the word of truth; you have to believe it. You have to rest in it. And when you do that, it says, then you're included in Christ. Now, that word included is great. That shows me something, and I want to lay it on you.

What does it mean to be a Christian? It means to be included in Christ. Once you believe, you're included. You're brought in. You know, if you adopt a child, you put your name on that child, and that child has been brought in. That child gets a new status. That child is now been brought into your social and emotional and economic being.

If you have adopted a child and you have a party, and there's three kids at the party—your child and the other two—and all of them break all the rules and just do everything wrong and disobey you in a flagrant way, and you say, "The party's over!" what do you do? You don't send all three of them away, do you? Oh, you only send two of them away. Why? Because one of them is yours. In spite of the behavior, that child has a new status; that child is in you.

Guest (Female): Do you struggle to find the words to share your faith effectively with others? Most Christians, pastors included, have moments where we have trouble articulating what we believe and why our faith matters.

In his book "Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism," Tim Keller shows how to communicate the Christian message in a way that's clear, compassionate, and accessible, whether you're speaking to a group or having a casual conversation with a friend.

Drawing from his decades of experience connecting the gospel to real life circumstances, Dr. Keller shows how the gospel message can speak even to the most skeptical or spiritually curious people. During the month of July, we'll send you a copy of "Preaching" 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's gospelinlife.com/give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching.

Tim Keller: Now, don't you see why I like to say and I'll keep on saying it until everybody who ever comes to this church knows how to use this phrase—it's not mine, I got it from somebody else—do you see why I always like to say, when I ask somebody, "Are you a Christian?" and they say, "I'm trying to be," that I know immediately they don't understand what it means to be a Christian.

To be a Christian is not an effort, it's a status. It's not a process; it's a standing. It's a position. You don't, you know, a child is either adopted or he's not into the family. A child doesn't try to get adopted. You know, there's little infants out there, and here's an infant that needs to be adopted. Either the child's been adopted because the father and mother have adopted him, or else he's not.

It's a status, it's a legal standing. Either you have believed in Christ and your sins are forgiven, or you're not. And that's why it's so important to see this. Look: what it means to be a Christian is to realize who you are in Christ, is to tell yourself who you are in Christ, is to remind yourself every day.

If you know that you're anxious, if you know that you're fearful, if you know that you're bitter, how does a Christian deal with that? A Christian says, I shouldn't be angry, I shouldn't be bitter, I shouldn't be worried, and I don't have to be if I remember who I am, if I remember what's coming to me, if I remember what God has said to me, if I realize who he is to me and who I am to him.

If I realize all these things, I won't have to be. And that's very different than a religious person who is struggling all the time saying, I shouldn't be worried, I shouldn't be bitter, I shouldn't do this or that wrong, or God may reject me. See, one kind of person is struggling to try to be what he is.

The other person is struggling and wrestling to try to be what he isn't. A moralist is someone saying, I'm trying to be a Christian, I'm trying very hard. A real Christian is somebody who says, I know who I am in Christ. I've been included.

Being a Christian is a standing. Being a Christian is passing over the line, passing from death to life in a moment when you believe. It's not a process of moral reformation. It's not a process of that, alright? Big difference.

I've seen it sometimes in the same pew. Two people, both seeking so hard to be moral and to be godly and to be decent. But one of them thinks that their efforts, you see, will bring them in. The other one knows that they're in through faith in Christ and is simply seeking to realize who he is in Christ.

So one is struggling to be what he isn't; the other one is struggling to be what he is. And that's what that latter is the way a Christian's supposed to live. If you read the book of Romans, you'll see Paul is always saying, since you died with Christ to sin, so count yourself dead to sin.

Since you rose with Christ in his resurrection, so live raised in Christ. What is he saying? Paul always reasons this way. If you've got a problem in your life, you're not being what you are. If you've got trouble in your life, you're not realizing who you are. Be what you are, he says.

That's a struggle, but it's a very different psychological dynamic than struggling to be what you're not. Some of you think that's what it means to be a Christian, trying to be better, trying to be more moral. You're struggling to be what you're not. A Christian is somebody who's always struggling to be what he or she is. Included in Christ, once you hoped, once you believed in the word of truth.

But then, now when you become a Christian, we're told this: having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory.

Let's see what we have here. I fell, didn't I? Yes. Notice there's two things that the Holy Spirit is. First of all, it's a seal. The Holy Spirit, he is a seal. And then secondly, it says, he is the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. Let me talk about the first one, and then begin to tell you about the second one, we'll continue that next week.

First of all, he's a seal. What's a seal? Now, if I was a king and I lived a thousand years ago, I'd have a seal on my ring. When a king would write a letter and then decide to send it, how could he be sure that the person who received the letter would know it was authentic?

You know, anybody could walk around, if I'm King Malcolm the First, and I'd be very afraid that anybody could write letters, forge my handwriting, and say King Malcolm the First decrees this, and nail up a decree in any old town and people feel like they have to obey it. How's Malcolm the First going to make sure that when he sends a letter, the people know that this is authentic?

This is the real thing? How's he going to know that he, how's he going to give people assurance that this is really him speaking? Well, he would have a seal on his ring. It would be some kind of insignia. So that what he would do when he would close up a letter, he'd stick some soft wax, he'd melt some wax on the letter, and he'd put his ring's insignia on it.

And the insignia would always be something that was hard to counterfeit, almost virtually impossible to counterfeit. The insignia would always be something that when the person received the letter and saw the seal, that person could immediately have assurance that this is really from the king.

Now, how do you know you're a Christian? How do you know that the feelings you have, that the beliefs you have, that what's going on in your life, how do you know it's from God? How do you know it's from the king? You know, a lot of us, you look around and you see lots of people are empty.

All reflective people, all honest people admit that in the center of their soul there's a howling emptiness. All sensitive and, I think, insightful, reflective, and honest people admit their inner emptiness. And therefore, everybody has to go find something to live for, everybody's got to get into something.

Okay, so what happens? You get into the Bible, you get into the classic Christian faith. You find all kinds of great things happening. You get wonderful feelings when you pray. You believe the things that you read in the scripture. So your life is being changed.

Well, but over here, somebody else is going and getting his ozones cleared through this particular cult, and somebody else is over here chanting and they say that through chanting and getting a mantra, they are also getting meaning in life. So the real question is, how do you know if what you're feeling and what you believe is really authentic?

How do you know it's from the king? Paul says, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. Well, what's the Holy Spirit do? A number of things, but first of all, let me just mention three. First of all, the Holy Spirit renovates your character.

The Holy Spirit is a seal; it assures you that you're really a Christian, assures you that the king is dealing with you because it renovates your character. Now, that doesn't happen overnight. But one of the most important parts of assurance of salvation, one of the most important ways you can know that this is not just something you're imagining, is hard and fast and permanent progress in character.

You really do get less nervous. You really do become less selfish. You really do find more joy. You really find yourself able to love people that you couldn't love before. You really find the power to forgive. You really find yourself being able to be patient with people. You know why?

You're turning into Jesus. Not literally, but in a way, you are included in Christ, which means the Spirit of God has grafted into your heart the very nature of Jesus. Look at him. Look at the courage that he has when he's throwing the moneychangers out of the temple. Look at the tenderness he has when he's dealing with broken people and with the prostitutes and with the children.

Wouldn't you like to be like that? If you're a Christian, you will be. And you'll begin to see pieces of it growing in your life. Friends, if you don't see over a long period of time, over the long haul, if you don't see yourself changing—I mean, you've heard me say this before, for some of you it puts you into despair, partly it's because I'm saying you have to see this over time.

If you stand and watch the clock to see it move, you'll never see it move. Have you ever noticed that? When I was a little kid, I used to try to, I said, it's amazing, every time I go into the room, the clock has moved. So it must be moving, but I can't see it move. It just amazed me as a little kid that anything would really be moving but moving so slowly that I couldn't see it move.

And yet I could know it was moving inferentially. I could infer it would move because I could take pictures of it or I could walk out and come back; it was obvious that it was moving. But when I actually looked at it, I couldn't see it move. That amazed me. Well, frankly, your own heart's like that.

You will be changing. If you sit and stare and say, why am I not better than I was last week, you can be a little bit disappointed. But the fact is that the Spirit of God is renovating your character. And unless you actually see the changes in your life, unless through your disciplines of Bible study and prayer, through good fellowship with other Christians, through seeking his help, through trusting him, through all the things that we talk about the Christians have to do, if you don't see yourself actually making renovations, you won't know that you're a Christian, you won't have that assurance. Why? Because that's really what the Spirit does.

The Spirit gives you assurance inferentially by changing your character. But then secondly, the Spirit also is a seal; he also gives you assurance, he also gives you inferential assurance by changing your character, but he gives you intuitive assurance by letting you sense the presence of God.

When you sit down and begin to read about the fact that God loves you as father, and that truth really dawns on you, and it really rejoices you, and it really changes you, and it really pierces you like a hot iron, like a needle, that's the Spirit of God doing that. I call that intuitive assurance because you see intuitive assurance is something you experience right now.

Character renovation is inferential assurance. You see the changes and you infer from it like you, you know, you can't actually see the clock move, but you know it's moving. So the changes of character are gradual, but they're there and your friends see them and you see them, and that is one of the ways in which the Spirit is a seal through which the king is saying, authentically, you are mine.

But then there's intuitive assurance. The Spirit of God also works in our heart to make us able to sense his presence. Remember it says in Romans 8, it says the Spirit bears witness with our spirit. The Spirit helps us cry "Abba, Father." Do you remember that?

That means when you say the Lord is my father, he loves me, he accepts me in spite of all of my faults and all of my childishness, if that truth melts your heart, if it gives you a joy, that's the Spirit of God giving you assurance. Do you see that? But now look, intuitive assurance and inferential assurance go together.

I mean, listen, let's be honest, those of you who are married, how do you know you're married? Sometimes you can only go on the inference, isn't that true? Sometimes you know you're married because you've got a marriage certificate there, you know, and you've got the pictures. But your relationship isn't very great.

You know you're married, but you don't feel married. Other times you have intuitive assurance. You're enjoying the marriage relationship. You're touching each other, you're connecting. And so your assurance that you're married is both intuitive and inferential. You need both. Your assurance that you're a Christian is both internal and external; it's both intuitive and inferential.

In a sense, you have to look up, and you have to look in. And so the point is that the Spirit of God's job, one of his many jobs, is to put a seal on you. It's absolutely critical that you grow, and it's absolutely critical that you pray. If you don't sense his presence sometimes through prayer, and if you don't see yourself growing, you're not going to know that you're a Christian because that is how God gives you that assurance.

I talk to people often who don't realize the importance of this, and let me just close with this whole idea. There is no other religion that gives you assurance. In fact, there's no other branch of Christianity that gives you assurance. Even the Orthodox Roman Catholic Church is not big on assurance.

Why? Because you see other religions will say, here's what it means to be, to know God: you have to be good, you have to make sacrifices, you have to live by these rules, you have to go to the temple so often, you have to observe these festivals. And so you try and you try, but you never know.

You never can be sure you're being good enough, right? Christianity alone says the Holy Spirit is here so that you can be certain. And do you realize what an engine that is? To know that he loves you, to know that this inheritance is guaranteed. Well, how are you going to know? It grows.

Assurance is subject to degrees. If you want that assurance, if you're a Christian and if you want to keep your assurance burning bright in the center of your life, you've got to both spend the time in prayer, you've got to discipline yourself so the Spirit of God can give you that intuitive assurance, and you've also got to obey and work to change your life in accordance with his will, and so that you can see the Spirit of God change you, and that just builds you up and says, I know that I belong to the king.

The king looks at you and he says, I want you to know that you're mine. I want you to know that you're authentic. I want you to know that you're the real thing. Do you? Well, listen friends, it all comes down to this. You are God's possession. It says here—and this is what we'll get into next week—it says "until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his own glory."

Next week I'll explain that that word possession means just this: the word possession means wealth. When God looks at you, he feels wealthy. Occasionally I have known what it's like to look at your children sleeping in bed and feeling very wealthy. I can't believe that God's given me this. You know, parents can do that sometimes.

Well, listen: when God looks at you, he feels wealthy. And God wants you to know his love for you. That's astonishing. You know, years before there was anything like talk about self-esteem, this was part of the Christian faith. You are his cherished possession, you are his special treasure.

When he looks at you, he gets joy in his heart, he feels wealthy. How could he value you like that? How could he love you like that? It's a great mystery, but that's what the Christian faith is all about. And because of the joy he gets when he looks at you, he wants you to have the joy of knowing that you belong to him.

The Spirit will give you that. If you don't have it, either you've never believed the word of truth or you're not seeking to grow and giving the Spirit the chance to stir up that assurance, both intuitively and inferentially. Go to the Spirit and say, if that's your job, I need to cooperate with you so that you can do it the way you need to do it in my life. I need that engine, I need that dynamic. The Spirit can't wait for you to turn to him like that. Let's do it now.

Father, we pray that you'd help us learn to live in the future, learn to see that we've got glory coming, learn to live with the hope that you have given us here in this passage of the Scripture. Would you, oh Lord, help everybody here to know through the word of truth that your Spirit's been given to them and that they are your cherished possession, your special treasure. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Guest (Female): 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 1992. 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.