Tim Keller (20:04)

From everyone here at Gospel and Life, we want to thank you for the ways you've partnered with us in 2024. We're so grateful for your faithful prayers, for your generous gifts, and for how you've shared our resources to live out the gospel missionally. And we rejoice in the stories we've heard this year from people who have been renewed by the gospel teaching they've received through our podcast, YouTube videos, rad broadcast and other resources. God is using your gifts to bring the transformative story of the gospel to people around the world. Looking ahead to 2025, we believe God is opening up new opportunities for us to spread the message of Christ's love. As we approach the end of December, we invite you to prayerfully consider making a year end gift to gospel and life. Your support helps us to move into the new year with the Resources we need to share the story of the Gospel all over the world, making it possible for more to discover the life changing reality of Christ's redeeming love. To make a year end gift today, go to gospelandlife.com give that's gospelinlife.com give because the gospel truly changes everything. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's message.

Unknown Speaker (21:19)

Are you weeping? Is there more sorrow? Okay, now that's the second principle. But the third principle is the weirdest of all and it's here. And in fact, in some ways it may be the only place in the Old Testament that it is here. It points to the new. The first principle we said was that the life of faith is a life of both rejoicing and weeping. And secondly, we said the life of faith is a life of greater rejoicing and greater weeping. But the third principle is the life of faith is a life of interdependent rejoicing and weeping. In other words, the joy produces the tears and the tears produce the joy. Now the reason this is so important, Derek Kidner wrote a commentary on Psalms that I have used in my personal life for 20 years. I bought it 20 years ago. It's two little commentaries, two volumes, the Tyndale Commentaries. And I whatever else I'm studying, I'm always reading the Psalms as part of my personal Bible reading and devotional life. And I always read what Kidner says, and I've been doing it for 20 years. He's a tremendous scholar and a godly man. And one of the things that always impressed me was his understanding of 1:26, verse 5. He says this. I first came up with this, with this insight when I was studying Psalm 30. And in Psalm 30, verse 5, you have this very famous Psalm phrase. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. And Kidner says that you see that many times in the Old Testament, many times in the Bible. He says, if you're a believer, what this is saying is that sorrow gives way to joy. You may have sorrow, but if you believe in him in the end you'll have joy. Sorrow is temporary. Joy is permanent. Sorrow gives way to joy. And he says, boy, you're going to find that in many places. Weeping may carry for the night, but joy comes for the morning. You'll find that in many, many places. But he says the New Testament gives us something more amazing, more profound, more shocking. And he says the New Testament goes beyond the Old Testament. Because the New Testament does not just say for believers that sorrow gives way to joy. The New Testament goes so far as to say the most odd and radical thing, and that is that sorrow produces joy. For the Christian in the Gospel, through the Gospel, through Jesus Christ, sorrow produces joy. Now, the classic place where that's mentioned, though it's many places, is 2nd Corinthians 4:17, where Paul says, for our slight momentary affliction is achieving an eternal weight of glory which far outweighs them all. These slight momentary afflictions are achieving an eternal weight of glory which outweighs them all. That's the New International Version, the Old Authorized Version said produces. It doesn't. You know, it's the same thing. It doesn't just say sorrows will give way to joy. The sorrows are producing the joy. They're creating the joy. They're achieving the joy. This is amazing. How could it be? And of course, Kidner says there'd be no way that anybody, in any philosophy, in any religion in the Old Testament, nobody would know that until you see Jesus. Because when you look at Jesus Christ, he was the man of incredible sorrows. He was in pain, he was rejected, he was tortured, he was killed. He sorrowed like no one has ever sorrowed. But his sorrows didn't just give way to joy. His sorrows produced the joy, his sorrows produced the glory. His sorrows were the redeeming way in which then opened the door for the joy and the glory. You see, his not slight and momentary, but his eternal afflictions produced an eternal weight of glory for us. And if that's true, then there must be some way in which the pattern remains with us, that if you know and understand these things, and if you're careful with your sorrow, your sorrow doesn't just give way to joy, it will produce joy. It will achieve it. Now, Kidner says the only place in the Old Testament he knows where this is brought out is here. The only place in the Old Testament that points to the New Testament is here. Because it doesn't just say, don't worry, weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. What does it say? It says, those who sow in tears will reap with joy. The tears are watering something. The tears are producing something. You see, the tears are not just giving way to joy. The tears are producing joy. And what's so incredible is the two little words, Will. Now, for a second, I'm going to get into how this works. But for a second, there's almost no way for me to address all the ways in which it works. What I really want you to understand is that it does. Twice. He says, those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return. There is no doubt, even though the psalmist grants, that there are variations in how God works this out. Because you see, in verse four, it says, restore our fortunes, O Lord. Like streams in the Negev. Now, you know what streams in the Negev are. The Negev was a terrible, terrible desert, and there are all sorts of riverbeds. If you're a newcomer to the Negev desert, you go through and you say, what a terrible place, how barren, how fruitless this place is. And you see all these riverbeds, and you think that these must be ancient riverbeds. Once they were great rivers. No, no. Once in a very, very, very long while, there will be storms in the mountains. Now, this actually happened to me once when I was in New Mexico years ago on a camping trip. Many years ago. I was in the Boy Scouts. I was probably 15 or 16 years old, something like that. One of the most amazing experiences I ever had was I, you know, there was. It was all sun and we were down in a desert area, but I heard thunder and lightning far in the distance up over the mountains. And the guide that was with us says, wait till you see what happens. Well, there was this riverbed and it was very, very dry. And next thing you know, we heard thunder. And the thunder, I thought meant it was going to rain, but actually for about 10 minutes, the thunder. Next thing you know, I saw what looked like a hill coming. There was trees, there was dirt, there was trunks of trees and all that. But what it was was a flood of water about 7ft high coming down from the mountains, just whooshing right down that riverbed. And next thing you know, there was a seven or eight foot deep river. And it continued on over the night. And when you read the commentaries, what the commentators will tell you is that's how the Negev can be. The Negev is a terrible desert, but once in a very rare, but it does happen. There can be a sudden flash flood, an incredible water come down, and next thing you know, the desert has turned into a garden. There's greenery and flowers can spring up overnight. And the Psalmist is saying, this is how we want you to work. With all due respect, we ask that our grief will go away, that our problems will go away, that our difficulties Will go away. We pray that you will come down in some great way the way you did once, and everybody will see the salvation of God. We ask you would wipe everything away. But in verse five and six, it says, however, this is what we do know, that if you keep us in times of weeping, there will be joy. It may be the fast kind, it may be the slow kind. It may be a sudden, you know, watercourse in the desert. Or it may be that all we're going to do is painstakingly and slowly we're going to be irrigating. You see the land with our tears, but we will have sheaves. There will be a harvest. This is a remarkable thing. See, I know some of you have had very hard lives for a very long time, and you say, what's going on? I've seen other people who've been real messed up and they've come to God and there's been water courses in the Negev for them. I mean, things have just happened and. And they found this, and they found that, and just their lives have turned around. What's going on with me? Well, you see, the psalm. The Bible is so realistic. The Bible says you will rejoice, There will be sheaves. It may be fast, it may be slow. Don't waste your sorrows. If you sow your tears, you will reap. It will happen. Joy will be the final note in your life. It will be the final word in your life. Well, the question is how? How could that be? How is it possible? How is it possible that joy, as I tried to say, these joy and sorrow are interdependent. Gospel joy produces deeper sorrow. But gospel sorrow produces deeper joy. Let me just give you a few ideas. First of all, how does gospel joy produce sorrow? Now, I already said that before. I said the gospel produces sorrow. Let me show you what I mean, but pretty briefly. First of all, gospel joy means that you will be repenting more often. There'll be more tears of repentance. And here's why. Before you're a Christian, you must believe. You will believe that basically, the reason that my friends love me, the reason that my family loves me and the reason that God will love me is that I'm a good person. And therefore there's a limit. You have a psychological limit to what you can admit about your own flaws. There is a very, very, very quickly. You screen out. You deny. You completely become uncon. You completely screen out. You just cannot admit just how selfish you are, how cowardly you are, how angry you are. You can't admit it. It's psychological death to admit it, because you just don't have the framework for it. You don't have the ability for it. You couldn't possibly admit that you would just as soon throw yourself off a bridge if you were really as bad as that. But if you're a Christian, if you understand the gospel, and the gospel is not that Jesus Christ came to show us how to live and die for God, though he did, but that's not the primary thing. He came to live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died as our substitute, as our mediator, as our head, as our Savior. See? So that when we believe in him, all that is transferred to us and we are completely loved. And therefore Christians are people. After you become a Christian, no discovery of your flaws now can undermine your self worth. You have got such assurance of love in the gospel that you can admit many things that before you never could have admitted. And as a result, gospel joy enables you to repent in ways you didn't repent. And if you understand the gospel, you will be repenting much more quickly than you were before. And it won't be. It won't. It won't be bitter, it won't be horrible, it won't be. Before repentance is like. Is like failing to breathe. And after Christianity comes, and the Gospel comes, Christian repentance is like breathing deeply. If you have enough joy, you'll be repenting all the time. When you get into a fight, you'll be the first thing you'll do is say, what's wrong with me? Where is my self centeredness? Where is my selfishness? Where is my flaws? What am I doing here? When there's a problem, instead of blaming other people and pushing out everywhere else, if you have that deep assurance, you will be weeping in repentance much, much more than you were before. Joy produces sorrow. But then think about this. It's the sorrow of repentance that produces a joy you've never had before. Every time you repent, you get free. The gospel, if you come to redeemer, one thing you're hearing all the time is this. You're hearing that Christianity frees you from idols, isn't that right? If you've been coming to redeemer, you've heard me say that in various forms. The gospel is that before you really rest in Christ as Savior, you look to other things to save you. You look to relationships, or you look to achievement, or you look to independence in relationships, or you look to dependence in relationships, or you look to status, or you look to approval, or you look to power, you look to control, or you look to comfort. You look to something. Ah, but when you make Christ your salvation, you're free from those things. His approval frees you from needing other approval. His wealth frees you from needing to work too much and make money. His, you know what he is frees you. Yeah, theoretically. I mean, you know, we can walk around redeemer saying, I understand myself and I understand you too. I understand this stuff. You know, I understand the idols of the heart. I understand why you're driven, I understand why I'm driven, but I have freedom in Christ. It's pretty much theoretical till you weep. When you're weeping, and only when you're weeping because something's gone wrong in your life and you can say, why am I weeping? And you say, you know, one of the reasons I'm weeping is because I value Jesus so little. Jesus, love is not that much of a consolation to me. Jesus honor is not that much of a consolation to me. And when you start to repent for loving Jesus too little, what happens is his love comes in and there's a new joy, a new joy of freedom. The more dependent you are on him, the more independent you will be of everything else in the world. You'll be independent of what other people think. You'll be independent of what other people say. You'll be independent of circumstances. The more completely dependent you are on him, the more independent and free you will be. And the only way that comes is through the tears of repentance and the tears of when you suffer, turning and repenting of lack of love for him. Every time you're disappointed, every time you're upset, every time it's the joy that produces the sorrow that produces the joy. It's your sowing and up will come fruit. You see, or one more, one more. When you get out, if you have, in the gospel, you have this tremendous assurance of God's love, you're going to stick your neck out and you're going to talk to people about things they don't want to hear. This is another reason why joy produces the sorrow. But then the sorrow produces the joy. Joy produces sorrow in that. In that the gospel assurance will for the first time make you willing to stick your neck out and get involved in people's lives, even though it's messy. Do you know how many times Paul says, I admonish you with tears. I warn you with tears. I speak to you with tears. Why is Paul crying? I'll tell you why he's crying. Because it's very hard to go to people you love and tell them things that they're not going to like. And it's extremely hard to see them growl at you, extremely hard to have them argue with you. And it's extremely hard to see that they're not happy with what you're saying. So of course that's the reason he's crying. But the question is, why is he doing it? And the answer is, because he no longer is a slave to what they think. The gospel pushes him out so that he's always crying because he's in the ministry. Look, the joy of the gospel produces repentance that you didn't have before. Yet the repentance produces greater joy. See, the joy of the gospel produces ministry involvement, which produces all sorts of tears. But the tears will bring incredible joy. There is nothing better than seeing God work in somebody else's life through you. Don't you see? The one who sows in tears will reap with songs of joy. These people are weeping more than they would have. They're weeping because of the joy. Verses one to three. But there's going to be incredible joy because of the weeping. Therefore, the third principle is the life of faith is a life not just both of rejoicing and weeping, and of greater rejoicing and weeping, but interdependent rejoicing and weeping. The joy. You see, it's gospel joy that produces gospel tears. And then gospel tears produces deeper gospel joy. And that's. That's what it means to live a Christian life. Because of the Lord. When you suffer and when you're in trouble, we tend to say, why me? Why me, Lord? Now, after you've become a Christian, you spent some time looking at Jesus on the cross. And you realize that when Jesus was on the cross, he asked, why me? But you know, when you ask, why me? Why did I break my leg? Why did I lose that job? Why did this bad thing happen to me? Why have I lost my friend? Why did my dear loved person die? You ask, why me? And there's no answer. But Jesus Christ one day called out into the heaven, why me? Why have you forsaken me? We know the answer for you. He suffered an unjust death so that you could be redeemed. And when you've seen the answer to Jesus, why me? You'll never ask, why me? Quite the same way. Because you'll say, I have no idea why I'm going through this. But if the person who runs the universe is willing to die for me, then I know there's some way in which my tears, if I weep them looking at him repenting, if I weep looking at him on the cross, knowing what he did for me, then my tears will be sowing their seed, in a sense, in my tears. You know, like in the little acorns, there's whole trees in my tears if I do them faithfully. And if I weep looking at him and repenting and loving him and grabbing hold of him, greatness, joy will come. I will come back with those sheaves. Come on. What more can he say than to you? He has said to you who for refuge to Jesus, has fled. This is a warning. This is comforting. This is it. You notice I never hardly raise my voice. This isn't the kind of psalm that makes you raise your voice. Voice. It's the kind of psalm that makes you think, makes you reflect, makes you say, teach me to weep like you have wept so that I can rejoice like you've rejoiced. Let's pray. We ask now, Father, that you would help me help that you would. I ask, Lord, tonight that you would help me convey these truths. Now I ask that every one of us might know how to use these truths in our own lives. Some of us have been weeping a lot. In fact, it's a very, very good possibility that scores of people in this room have wept today. Literally wept today. Show them that you love them more than they love themselves. Show them that you entered into the suffering and the tears of this world. Show them that their tears cannot just will not just give way to joy if they trust you, but will work and produce and achieve an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Teach us how to sow our tears. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Tim Keller (40:43)

Thanks for listening to today's message from Tim Keller. If you have a story of how the Gospel has changed your life, or how Gospel and Life's resources have encouraged or challenged you, we'd love to hear from you. You can share your story with us by visiting gospelandlife.com stories. That's gospelandlife.com stories. Today's sermon was preached in 1997. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.