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Each year, Gospel and Life offers a daily devotional during the season of Lent, the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday. You can sign up to receive these daily devotionals by email@gospelandlife.com lent. That's gospelandlife.com lent. Now here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching.
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First Peter 1:10. Concerning this salvation. The prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and the circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing. When he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. When they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you, by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven into which things even angels long to look. This is God's word. We're looking this year at this first epistle, this first letter of Peter. And we see, and we've seen that the theme of the book is on suffering and how to handle troubles and suffering. The book was written, as we saw, to people who were experiencing troubles and persecution. And the theme of the book is just as Jesus Christ's sufferings led to glory. See, we read it right here in this passage already. Just as Jesus Christ's suffering led to glories that followed. Your suffering and your troubles and your deepest distresses can become ways in which you become something great. Not crushed, not small, not split, not broken, but something great. The. The sufferings that you go through can be like a furnace that turns your character and your heart into pure gold. That's the. That's what the text is about. You know, we. We often sing that hymn that goes, I will always be with thee thy troubles to bless and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. Sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. That's what the book's about. Now, last week, in verse 6, 7, 8, 9, we actually looked at his first frontal treatment of this subject. And in that time, in that verse 6, 7 and 8 and 9, he actually showed how Christians have got something in their life that enables them to rejoice in the midst of the worst troubles. We saw that many people think that becoming a Christian means that now God protects us and keeps us from going through furnaces and going through troubles. But that's misguided, rather, actually something much more brilliant and beautiful and poignant. Being a Christian does not mean you're exempt from sufferings. Being a Christian means that now you've got something in your life that enables you to rise above those things. Yea, indeed, you've got something in your life that uses the sufferings and uses the troubles to actually make you something new. You know, back in the Middle Ages, there were the alchemists. What were the alchemists trying to do? They were trying to find that secret ingredient that would turn base metal into lead. Well, spiritually speaking. Peter says Christians have found that no matter what you are, this will turn you to gold when you go through sufferings, if you have it in your life. I once was told by a friend of mine that if you put two gems into a gem tumbler, unless you put in the grinding compound, the gems would might split each other. They might at least shatter each other or crack each other. So shivers would come off. But if you put in the grinding compound that the contact between the gems would polish them. Huh. So does the conflict polish you or does the conflict you're thrown into shatter you? It depends on whether that compound is in there. And Peter says there's something in a Christian's life that enables them uses, actually uses the suffering to turn them into something gold. Now, what is that? We haven't really talked much about it. Too much. And this week, suddenly, Peter moves into a new section and he says, concerning this salvation. Now, what's his line of argument? What is he saying? How does this fit in with what we've seen so far? I think Peter is actually responding, like all good pastors, to an anticipated question. A good sermon, as you probably know. And because you hear both kind, you know, both good and bad ones here, when they're good, there's a dialogue going on. You listen to something and then you start to say, but wait a minute, what? In your heart you say, but wait a minute, what about this? And doggone, the sermon anticipates that. And it starts to answer that question. And then, you know, you think, but wait, what about this? And then, doggone it, the sermon anticipates the question again, and you feel like you've had a dialogue. Every real good sermon is a dialogue. There's not a lot of them, and I don't give you a lot of them, but when I do, that's what happens. Now, Peter is an inspiration, inspired, you know, authoritative pastor. And so what he does when he is writing is he anticipates the questions. And I think he's anticipating this one. He is thinking, here's somebody saying, well, look, you know, I think I'm a Christian. I don't know, I guess I'm a Christian, I believe in Christianity, but I've been going through these deep distresses and I'm going through these troubled waters and I'm not rejoicing. So Peter says, well, concerning this salvation and what he does in these three verses and we're going to look at them for two weeks. What he does in these three verses is he says, I want you to know that it is important to continually get back to these basics of what it means to be saved, what it means to be a Christian, what the gospel is the good news, the essential message of Christianity. He says it's extremely important to know where to find and how to continually rehearse this, the salvation, this basic essential message. He makes this remarkable statement which we'll look at more next week. But at the very end of the passage he says into which things even angels long to look. He says the basic essential, the basics of what it means to be a Christian is not something that you ever leave. You don't learn it once and then say, okay, now I understand that. I understand what it means to be a Christian. Now let me go on to more advanced things. Oh no. He says the basics of the Gospel are things into which angels long to look. What do you mean angels long? Oh, angels. It's a picturesque but profound statement. He says, if you ever think that you understand the gospel adequately, you are a small minded person. I said, look at the angels, the perfect angels. They never tire of re looking, longing to look, gazing into, meditating on, penetrating more into this basic essential message of what is salvation? What does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to be a Christian? What is the gospel? What is the good news in the essential message? Angels never stop looking into that. Do you know that? They never get bored with it. They can't get bored with it because they know this is it, this is the ultimate truth, this is the most wonderful truth of all. And so what he actually does in verses 10, 11 and 12, he tells you what it is we're supposed to continually look into and how to do it or where to do it. In other words, he gives us the basics of the salvation message, what it means to be a Christian. And then he tells us that you have to find it in the scripture, in the Old Testament prophets and in the New Testament apostles teachings. So what we really have is two things we're going to look at and one this week and one next week. This week we're going to look at what Peter says is the basic message of salvation. Because looking into that, like the angels do, thinking about it and understanding it, is the only way that you get through deep distresses. It's the only way. Holding onto this is the only way that you actually find going through deep distresses sanctifies you. The only way that going through furnaces purifies you. Hold on to this. And then the second thing he shows us is how you can look into it. You have to read the Bible. Now. Next week we'll look at what the Bible is. What does Peter say to us in this passage about the Bible? But this week we're really looking at the basics. I know that if you, you smart people who are looking at the way, at the schedule of sermons realize that I've just reversed the order. Well, my prerogative, I guess. I reversed the order. This week, the basics. Next week, what is the scripture? And you know why? We all need to know. If you don't believe Christianity, you need to know the basics. Because an awful lot of people who think they understand Christianity reject Christianity because they don't know what it really means. They don't really know what it is. But those of us who say, oh, I'm a believer, we need to understand the basics. Because if we don't long to look into it and learn to look into it like the angels do, we're never going to have lives of joy and power and depth. We're, you know, here in verse eight, this is, this is something we read last week in verse eight. You know, Paul says, Peter says, though you do not see him, you love him and you can handle all your sufferings. Why? Because though you do not see him, you believe in him and are filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Could you truly and honestly describe yesterday's quiet time, your devotional, with those words? Yes. I had a. I sat down, I read the Bible and I prayed and I spent some time with God and I experienced joy unspeakable and full of glory. I mean, is that a fair way to, to sum up your week? Is it a fair way to do it? Why not? You know, how can Peter say to a group of people, he's writing a church, he's writing a church, and he assumes that they're experiencing joy unspeakable and full of glory. He doesn't say, you might be. Some of you might be you most mature people, you elders, you know, you know, the pastors, I'm sure some of you more advanced Christians are probably experiencing joy unspeakable and full of Glory. No, he says you, all of you. How could that be? Because they're looking. They're looking. They're looking at the basic gospel. They're longing to look into it. Now here's what it is. Let's take a look. One of the things that's so interesting, what is the gospel? This week, next week? How do you find it? How do you read it? And look into it by reading the scripture. Typical views of what it means to be a Christian. The intellectual view says basically being a Christian is someone who subscribes to a certain set of views. If you sign on, you're a Christian. When people tell me I've always believed, I've. I've. I've always been a Christian, I've always believed. Usually not always, but usually that means that there's been a certain set of beliefs that I was raised with and I've never given them up. That's the intellectual view of Christianity. It's basically a cognitive thing. You sign the statements of beliefs and you're Christian. A second view, of course, is not the intellectual view, it's the behavioral view. I'll be real quick on this because we often rehearse these. The behavioral view is, ah, doctrine doesn't matter. What a Christian really is is a good person, a person who loves his or her neighbor, a person who works for the good of humankind, a person who, who lives after the example of Christ. What he or she believes isn't as important. Doctrine, the cognitive isn't important, it's the behavioral. And then there's a third way to look at it. And some people talk about Christianity as a kind of mystical experience. Ah, they say to be a Christian means you actually have to have an encounter with God. You have to have an encounter with the infinite. And you must have felt something. You must have felt that there's been some encounter and that your life has been changed in some way. It's not something you can define and you certainly can't push it on other people, but there it is. It's a mystical experience, a personal, deep, profound experience. If what Peter says here, the gospel is. If what Peter says here is true, none of those views is really big enough. Peter summarizes this salvation with a single phrase that all I want to do is pull it apart for the next few minutes. It's a beautiful, beautiful summary of what it means to become a Christian. What the Gospel is. One of the great things about the Bible is that there is no one canned, no one canned description of the Gospel. There's Just hundreds of them. Dozens and scores and hundreds of summaries, each one of which shows you something new. Here's what he says concerning this salvation. Look at verse 10. The Prophet spoke to you of the grace that was to come to you. And then he goes on, this is a synonym here. What is the salvation? How does he describe the salvation? This basic gospel, what does it mean to be a Christian? These are all the same questions. Here it is. The grace has come to you. What does it mean to be a Christian? To have the grace of God come to you? Has that happened to you? Do you understand what that means? Here, let me break it down. First of all. To be a Christian means to have God come to you. To be a Christian, obviously at this point shows that the initiative. Let's break this down. Even to be a Christian means that you understand that the initiative is with God. It's not talking about. It never starts. The gospel never starts with what you do. It always starts with what God has done. God has broken in. God has done something momentous. God is on the way. God has broken through. Now, what I'm about to say is not a criticism of other religions. It's a simple. It's a simple distinction, a simple fact. And nobody would disagree with this. Right here we see when it says that, you know, what is salvation, that God has come to you shows how different Christian salvation is from the concept of salvation in any other religion. Every other religion is basically a philosophy. It's basically a teaching. But Christianity is the report of an event, something God has done. Very different. See, Buddhism is a philosophy, a way of looking at life. There's a whole. If you read the Buddhist scriptures, there's a lot of discussion about who Buddha was and what he did and the stories he told and where he went and where he was born and where he lived. But here's what's interesting. If we have no idea whether or not the things that the Buddhist scriptures tell about Buddha are true, we don't know if he really was born in this time. We don't really know if he lived at this time. We don't know if that was his mother's or father's name. And it makes no difference to Buddhism whether it's true or not. No difference at all. Because Buddhism is a philosophy, a teaching that you pick up. It's a teaching that you pick up and you decide, I'm going to do it. So it starts with you receiving this teaching and doing something about it. Same thing with Mohammed. There's a lot of Things that the Quran says about Muhammad's life. And I'm not trying to insult anybody here who might be a, a Muslim by saying, and it's fair, perfectly fair to say your Islamic faith does not depend on whether Muhammad did this or this or this or this. Oh yes, of course, one of the reasons why we go to Mecca is because that's where he was from. And one of the reasons why this and that has been observed in the Muslim faith is because we're remembering what the Prophet did. But the point is there is nothing actually in the way in which the Islamic faith is, is carried out in a day to day basis. That actually depends on whether or not Muhammad really lived or died or did any of those things. Because every other religion says it starts with you. It's a teaching, it's a philosophy. Christianity, the Christian gospel is not that. If you want the gospel, you don't go to the Ten Commandments, you don't go to the Sermon on the Mount. Christianity has teaching, but it is not a teaching. In essence, it's a report of something God has done. God is on the way, God has broken through, God has done something. Therefore Christianity never starts with you, starts with God and never starts with what you must do, but starts with what God has done. It never starts by saying do this or experience this or even believe this. You know, Christianity does not start saying we have to believe because frankly, if God hadn't done what the Gospel says he's done, all the believing in the world won't help you a bit. All the faith you work up won't make a bit of difference. The gospel is God has come, he's broken in, he has done something. Jesus Christ, who was God, breaks into history and he is born and he lives and he dies and he's risen again, all for you. If you believe in him. That's a report of something God has done. Now here's what it means. Let me put it this way. This is what it means to be a Christian. This is what it means to understand the gospel. And this is what it means to have your life controlled by the gospel. It means this, it means that the controlling factor, if you're a Christian, the controlling factor in your relationship to God, your relationship to the world, your relationship to yourself. The controlling factor in your relationship to God, the world and the self is not what you have done or what you are doing, but what Jesus Christ has done. The controlling factor in everything is not what you have done, but what he has done. Because the gospel is, it starts with what God has done. God has done something momentous. God has done something universe splitting. God has done something world shattering. He sent his son and he lived, he died, he paid the penalty verse. And Jesus has done something. God has done something. This means at every point, what does it mean to be controlled by this gospel? This, this essential, basic. It means how do you know God will answer your prayer? How do you deal with criticism? How do you think about yourself? How do you decide who you are at every juncture? You can either look first to your performance or first to Jesus performance. It's up to you. Are you going to go the way of the gospel? Are you going to go the way of every other religion, every other philosophy that says you start by picking up the teaching, you start by believing, you start by obeying, you start by doing. That's how you are saved? No, the gospel says, the Christian gospel says, it starts by saying God has done something. So you can be controlled, you can decide, the controlling factor in my relationship with God is my performance, what I've done, or what Jesus has done. Some of you really need to know that. Tonight in particular, you say, I don't, I'd like to pray. But why should God listen to me after what's happened? What is the controlling factor in your relationship with God now? What you have done or what he has done? See, grace of God comes to you, it's come through, it's broken through, it's what he's done that's the thing that should control everything. When you think about how do you react, how people are treating you, how do you face the future? How do you face the future? You can either look at your record, you can look at what you've done, you can look at what Jesus has done, one or the other, which are you going to do? It's up to you now. And so, see, the first thing we understand when it comes to what does it mean to be a Christian? A Christian means to be a Christian means to see that everything starts with God, something that he's done. The gospel is actually a report that God has done something momentous and world shattering. Don't you see? Christianity is not just intellectual, it's not just volitional. Here's the test. Until you recognize the magnitude, the overwhelming character of the report of the gospel that will fill you up volitionally, intellectually, emotionally, mystically and in every other way. Being a Christian is multi dimensional, it's comprehensive, it affects everything. So when we say a Christian is someone who's had God come To you, first of all, we mean a Christian is someone who understands that your relationship to God rests totally on his initiative, his coming.
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Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world and how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us but could actually make us stronger, wiser and more hopeful? All month long on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller is teaching from the book of First Peter and looking at how Peter encouraged early believers who were facing intense suffering and pain. In his book, Walking with God through pain and suffering, Dr. Keller takes a deeper look at how, with God's help, we can face life's most intense challenges and confront the hard questions. On Suffering. Through deep pastoral insight and real life stories, Dr. Keller explores how we can face pain and suffering in our own lives. This month, Walking with God through pain and Suffering is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the message of Christ's love and compassion with people all over the world. So request your copy today@gospelandlife.com give. That's gospelandlife.com give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.
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But not only that, look another way to understand this. A Christian is somebody who's had God come in. You see this salvation is the grace of God comes to you. Now what I mean by that is if you're a Christian, sooner or later you will be aware that there is a foreign power that has invaded you. This is very, very important. Again, here's the difference between Christianity and what you might call mere religion. You know, in the last couple of weeks I've talked about this and so people might get a wrong impression. I've said that people, human beings are inveterately, they're incorrigibly religious. And there's more and more, there's more and more articles you're going to see and there's more and more people coming out and saying that we thought this 20th century was going to be a century in which human beings and civilization got less and less religious. And now we found out we were wrong. Religion is more of a factor, as much of a factor in human history and in human affairs as it has ever been. And therefore now everybody's saying, look how religious we are. Everyone, everyone is got a sense of God. Everyone has all cultures and all races and all societies. They're just so religious. Yes, of course I've said that. Of course that's true. But the Bible is careful to say, especially in the book of Romans, that whereas every human being needs God and in that sense, every human being desires God. The Bible insists that every human being refuses to seek the true God. In Romans 1, it says, because we do not want to lose our sovereignty and we don't want to lose control of our lives. The way in which we respond to this need for God on the inside is we create gods of our own choosing. We fashion gods, we create religions. The Bible says that all of the natural religious impulse of human beings is oriented and is intended to get away from the real God. And if you look at all, all the different religions that rise out of your heart, they always move toward a God of some sort. But the Bible says never toward the real God. No. And therefore you must never think that Christianity really is the natural searching, the natural searching of your heart for God and you're going out looking for him, and you're going out seeking him, and, and that Christianity means people who are seeking God find him. That's not the gospel at all. It doesn't say that a Christian is somebody who realizes that it's, you know, you may have been religious, you may have not have been religious, you may have been wildly religious. But a Christian is somebody who finds that at some point in your life, a foreign power God, something from the outside has come in and begun to deal with you. It's begun to shake you up. It's begun to change your life. And that is the big difference between someone who is a Christian who understands the gospel and someone who's just simply seeking, seeking in a general way for God. The Bible says no one seeks the true God. You might seek something. You might seek spirituality, you might seek spiritual fulfillment, you might seek religious experience. But the Bible says you won't seek the real God unless He himself comes to you. And when that happens, you feel disturbed. The way, you know you're a Christian is something is bringing you up short. See, this is whenever I talk to people who seem to be very, very upset, very angry sometimes struggling and trying to understand Christianity and the Gospel, sometimes I get a lot of hope when I see that I have more hope for them than I do very often. The smug person who says, well, of course I'm a Christian, I've always gone to church. You know why? The person who says, of course I'm a Christian, I've always gone to church, doesn't really. It worries me because that person doesn't seem to give me the indication that there was ever a time in which God invaded. The grace of God comes to you, comes from outside. There's an invasion Invasions are always traumatic. You know what the poet says? There was an old poet that put it this way. I have been disturbed with the joys of elevated thought. You heard that a Christian is somebody who's deeply disturbed. A Christian is somebody. Things are not going the way you expected. Things are not going the way you wanted them to go. There's a sense in which God is coming to you and dealing with you. And you might be upset about it for a long time even before you ever even admit that you believe. You might be aggravated. You might wish that you could go back to the time in which you hadn't even heard about God. You might wish that you weren't bothered by these ideas and these thoughts and these wrestlings. That's a good sign. What it means to be a Christian is to have the grace of God come from the outside. It comes in and it deals with you. You feel that something has got a hold of you, something is grabbing you. What is it? It's your Creator, the one who made you, making you again. And that's a very traumatic experience. Has that happened to you? Okay, and we're all, now we're moving on through. What does it mean to be a Christian? Number one, to see that something God has done is the controlling factor in your life. Now, Jesus performance, something that he has done. Christianity starts not with what you do, but what he's done. It's a report of an event. Secondly, a Christian is somebody who's been invaded from the outside. God has come on in and begun to shake you up and started to move you around in that way. Has that happened to you? It's. You might get hostile, that's a good sign. You might. You feel disturbed, that's a good sign. But I'll tell you something. If you are smug, if you're placid, if nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, if your Christianity has always been kind of like a smooth flowing river, yes, I've always been Christian. I've always come to church. I've always believed these things. I've always tried my best. And, and there's never been a time in which you can say the grace of God came, it invaded. Invasions are never sweet, they're never placid, they're never a joy. They tend to be traumatic. And that's what it means to be a Christian. Now, not only that, the third and last thing, to be a Christian means to see these other two things. But now to be a Christian is to receive and understand the grace of God. See what amazes Me. And also what excites me is that Peter is able to take salvation and boil it down into one word. You know, in the first few verses of First Peter, there was an awful lot of wonderful words that he talked about. He said, we're going to have a salvation in the future. We're going to have. We have pardoned of our sins and we have God's keeping power. And, and we have. We. We have the sprinkled blood of Jesus on us, and we have the. The sanctifying the Spirit. There's this whole array of wonderful powers and privileges that all come in under the heading of salvation. Here Peter is able to boil it all down into one word. He's able to say, everything comes down to one thing. Grace. Everything comes down to one thing, Grace. And a Christian is somebody who understands grace, who receives grace, who sees that everything God has done toward you is all of grace. Now, let me put it in the. In the worst possible way. There's always a negative and a positive here. If it's really true that Peter can say everything God has done, and he can. He can sum it all up and say it's all grace, that means that there is nothing that God has done that he owes you. You don't deserve any of it. See, there's a negative side to everything. When Peter says, everything God does to you is grace, before you say, oh, everything God does. What that means is you don't deserve a thing. Because in the Bible, the word grace means unmerited favor. You may have heard that before, but let me push it to you a little further. Let me push it down a little further. Grace does not mean giving something, giving favor to somebody to whom you simply owe nothing. Grace always means showing favor to someone to whom you owe the opposite. Do not think grace means like you're walking on by and here's a homeless person who says, could I have some money? And you put some money in the cup. You don't owe that person anything. You put money in the cup. Is that grace? Not this. Not according to the scripture, at least. Not this kind of deep grace. Let me tell you what grace is more like. Someone who has been kicking you, someone who has been ripping you off, someone who's been dishonest to you, someone who has been mean to you. And that person suddenly is in need, and you come in with not only enough money and enough help to meet the need, but more than that person really needs. That's grace. And you say, how could that. What? What the grace. Real grace is always Therefore, counterintuitive. Why do you think John Newton wrote the hymn the way he did it? Real grace is always amazing. Always. It's always shocking. It's not shocking to see somebody put money in the. In the cup of a homeless person. It's free, in a sense. It's unobligated. Yes, we're not talking about that. When the Bible talks about grace, it's talking about something always that is absolutely shocking. In fact, we'll put it this way. Real grace. And here's how you can tell whether you've experienced the grace of God or not. Real grace is shocking, counterintuitive, amazing, shocking and threatening. It's shocking and threatening. Let me give you an example that I've used before. But actually, I have new insight and I had to share it with you. Most of us who have lived in New York for a long time find out that you end up going to certain Broadway plays a lot because it all depends on. On who's coming to see you, right? And so, you know, at least once a year you go to see, you know, the same. At least once a year I go to see Les Mis. He was like, somebody comes to town. And, you know, I've used this illustration before, but there was always an imperfection about it, I thought. Until the last time I went. If you want a wonderful illustration of grace, I always thought you go to the beginning of the play or the beginning of the book. And here you have Jean Valjean, who's a criminal. He's an ex convict now, and he's taken into the bishop's house. And when the bishop is gone, he steals a lot of his valuables and he runs away. And the police catch him and they bring him back and they throw him down in front of the bishop and says, we caught this criminal with your goods. And the bishop looks at him and says, oh, that's not true. I gave him all those things. And by the way, my dear friend, you forgot something. And he grabs the candlesticks and he puts them in his hands and say, don't forget I gave you the candlesticks, too. Now, you know, that's a great. I used to think a great illustration of grace, but maybe not so great because I said the trouble was he lied. You know, he lied to the police. You know, last time I used the illustration, you know, in a service, I probably didn't mention that because it kind of hurts it, doesn't it? A little bit. Yeah, you lied. You know how good an illustration is of that? Then I began to Realize, see, the last time I went and I watched it, I realized, oh my gosh, it's even a better illustration than I thought of what Jesus did for us. I realized that it wasn't a lie at all. You know why? Because the bishop, when he took this ex convict in, he knew what this man was capable of. He knew it was in the man's heart. And when you, even when he took the guy in, he put everything at risk. And so, in a sense, he gave it all away. Because you see, real grace is shocking. The bishop, by bringing the man in, opened himself, made himself vulnerable, made himself weak, and allowed himself to be plundered. And so the fact is that he had all. It wasn't a lie. By even the act of taking in the ex convict, the bishop had actually been saying, I know what you're capable of and it's all right, I'm going to serve you even if you do that. It really was. He'd given it all away. And in the same way, if you want to understand Jesus grace, to you it's just as shocking. Jesus Christ made himself weak. Jesus Christ made himself vulnerable. He came to earth. He put himself in the hands of people who hate the idea of somebody telling them how to live. So he came to the very people he was going to save. He let himself be plundered. Grace is shocking. But. And here's the way you can tell that you've really experienced the grace of God. It's threatening. In the novel Les Mis, Victor Hugo has this wonderful, wonderful line. As soon as the bishop showed Jean Valjean this grace, incredible grace, shocking grace, real grace, a grace that really was modeled on Christ's grace. Because he didn't just give favor to someone to whom he owed nothing. He gave grace. He gave favor to someone to whom he owed the opposite. He gave softness to someone who deserved toughness. He gave openness to someone who deserved closeness. And the great line when it happened, Victor Hugo says about Jean Valjean, he says, Jean Valjean could not say if he had been touched or humiliated. Now let me tell you, if you ever start to experience the grace of God, you feel the same way. When God starts to open your heart, when he starts to tell you how much he loves you. Here's how you know you're experiencing, understanding the grace of God. You will always feel the same way. You have no idea whether you should feel good or bad. You feel both. You feel touched and absolutely humiliated. Listen, he goes on, he says he didn't know if he was touched or humiliated in Opposition to this celestial kindness, he summoned up his pride. The priest's pardon was the most formidable attack he had ever sustained. He felt his hardness of heart would be complete if he could resist this kindness. That if he yielded to it, he would have to renounce the hatred with which his mistreatment by others had filled his soul and in which he'd found satisfaction. In the face of this assault, he knew he had to conquer or be conquered. See, it's one thing to get grace from somebody who owes you nothing. But when you get grace from somebody who owes you the opposite, you realize your debt to that person is so deep that you will never be able to pay it back. You realize it goes beyond the accounting. You realize the numbers are too big now. I'll never pay it off. It goes beyond reckoning. And that means that when you receive grace from somebody who owes you the opposite, who owes you opposition, hostility, litigation. And you know this person is going to give me grace and favor. It threatens you because you realize you will lose your sovereignty. You will lose control. You will never pay that person back. You will have, you will owe that person your life for the rest of your life. And therefore grace always scares you because. And the grace of God when it comes in will either turn you into a more hard person than ever or break your heart into eternal softness. Now, do you want to know whether or not you've experienced the grace of God? It's as simple as this. Listen. Do you believe that God created you and therefore he keeps you alive every minute? You owe him everything. You owe to live for Him. You owe to put him first in your life, but you don't. And therefore he deserves to withdraw from you, you know what that means? It means you dead. If God withdraws from you, which is perfectly logical, if you've been good to somebody and that person ignores you and is not grateful to you and doesn't trust you and doesn't give you, you know, your due, you just withdraw from Him. But since God holds us together, it says he holds all the universe together with the word of his power. He holds your molecules together. For him to simply do what is what is perfectly logical and right, in a sense, what he, what we deserve. Just to withdraw means that we would fall into nothing. Do you believe that he has a right to do that? Do you believe that he owes you death? Do you believe that? Ah, you say that's too harsh. Well, then the idea of God's grace will never, ever turn you into a new person. It will never amaze you. It will never shock you. You probably were never even threatened with it. And it will never break your heart into eternal softness. And let me ask you one other question. So do you believe that God owes you nothing? Do you believe that you have sinned against him and therefore he does he, that he owes you condemnation and death? Do you believe that? No, it's too harsh. You've ruined the whole possibility of having your life absolutely changed the way Jean Valjean's was changed by grace. Unless you see what he really owes you, you'll never have your heart broken by what he's given you. And then secondly, do you believe that Jesus Christ has done the incomprehensible, just like the bishop? That he let you plunder him? That he came to earth and died for you? That he opened his life and poured it out? Do you believe that? Or put it this way, do you believe that you are so lost and your sins were so great that only the death of the Son of God could save you? Ah, you say, well, that's just too harsh. In that case, fine. You might. You have a right to your opinion. You will never have your heart broken into eternal softness by the grace of God. And that is what happened to Jean Valjean. As he sang later on in the. In the musical My soul belongs to God. I know. I made that bargain long ago. It was broken and now he wasn't his own. And that's what it means. What does it mean to be a Christian? To have the grace of God come to you? To understand the grace of God? To receive the grace of God and have it change you forever. And that's what it means. By the way, let's just. Let me close up here. Dear friends, Christians, you know what it means to live a life. Do you know what it means to live a Christian life on the basis of the gospel? Titus 2:11 says, for the grace of God that brings salvation teaches us to say no to all ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright lives. That's what it means to take this basics and put it in the middle of your life. The grace of God teaches you self control. Do you hear that? Let me ask you this. How do you say no to a temptation? How do you say no? How do you argue with yourself? Do you say God will get me? People will find out. I'll hate myself in the morning. It won't help my self esteem. I want to be a person of principle. It's against the law. I might get caught. It hurts other people. It would really look bad. All of those things are true. Not one of them will give you self control. I know the grace of God teaches you to say no. Just. Just like you go back and say look what he's done for me. You let the grace of God argue with you. It's a rational principle. It teaches you to say no to all ungodliness and worldly passions and teaches you how to live self control lives. Do you know how to let the grace of God come to you again and again and again and again? It's the only way you'll overcome those things. It's the only way. Let him argue into courage. Let him argue you. Let the grace of God argue you into it. Let the grace of God come to you again and again and again. It will teach you. It will give you self control. It'll give you everything. Let's pray. Our Father, this is what it means we see now to be a Christian. To let the grace of God come. It starts with you. You come on in and you show us your grace. And when we receive your grace, everything is different. Everything has changed. I pray Father, there might be some people here tonight who for the first time realize what it means to let the grace of God come to them. Help. I pray Lord, that you will help them to see that being a Christian is not just taking up a set of teachings, but it's understanding your grace, seeing what you've done, letting the grace of God conquer us. Would you help Father? By your Holy Spirit. Some people to say tonight, Lord, I see that even though I have lived a life of independence from you, I ask that you would forgive me and receive me as your child. Not on the basis of my performance, but on the basis of what Jesus has done. And I ask that you'd come into my life to make me your child. And I want to make you my Lord and Savior. I don't know Father, what it will take, how long it will take. But I pray that you would have your spirit hunt down everybody in the hearing of these words with your grace until they are taught how to say no to all ungodliness and worldly passions. Father, that will be perfect freedom. We ask for it in your son's name. Amen.
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Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Tim Keller here at Gospel and life for the 40 days from ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel and Life would like to email you a daily Lent devotional. You can sign up to receive these daily emails@gospelandlife.com lent. That's gospelandlife.com lent Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel on Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.