Transcript
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Welcome to Gospel and Life. Are you longing to see real change in your life, in your habits, your relationships, your heart? Today, Tim Keller explores how lasting change actually happens in the life of a Christian and why the Gospel offers a radically different process of transformation than anything else. Tonight's scripture reading is found. Anna. Romans, chapter 8, verse 28, and then.
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Verses 38 and 39.
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And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is God's word.
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We've been looking for a few weeks at Romans 6, 7, and 8. And we said that this is especially about how Jesus concretely changes your life when he comes into it. And what I wanted to do was just one last time. I wanted to look at this ending of Romans chapter 8. It's a magnificent ending, and yet its point is very simple. And these last several verses. In these last several verses, Paul says, here's the thing I'm giving you that will absolutely change your life through Christ. And the thing that he's giving us is an assurance. He says, this is the thing you can get out every day and use. This is the thing that'll change your life. But as he expresses the assurance for us in our modern Western culture, a question comes up. So it's very hard for us in our modern Western culture just to receive this thing and to enjoy it and to use it unimpeded. So what we're gonna do tonight is look at this assurance. Actually, first let me read it to you. Let me read you the whole last 12 verses. Listen to what he's saying. He's really saying one thing. I'll read it in a slightly different translation. And we know that all things are working together for good. For those who love God and who are called according to his purpose, for those who he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. And those he predestined, he called. And those he called, he justified. And those he justified, he glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, together with him freely give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect. It is God who justifies, who is to condemn. It is Christ who died more than that, was raised and is ever at the right hand of God interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all things. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am absolutely certain that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor anything to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There's an assurance there, and I'd like to look at it under three headings, that we can be assured. Why we can be assured and how we can be assured. How we can make this assurance not just an abstraction, but an operative thing in our lives, that we can be assured. Why we can be assured and how we can be assured. First, briefly, that we can be assured. What is his point? Here's his point. There's a joy to be had. There's a joy to be had that if you have it, will enable you to face anything in life without sinking or crumbling. And this joy is a certitude. It's a certainty, an absolute certainty that God doesn't just love you now, it's a certainty that he does love you now in Christ, but He always will. And nothing can shake that. And nothing can separate you from that, no matter what. The Lord of the universe loves you. Not just now, but always will. That's the assurance. And this assurance is two forks, okay? It says once you've accepted, you know, once you've connected with God through Jesus Christ, this assurance is two forks. The first is. Well, I'll tell you what the two forks are right off. It means that God loves you. No matter what bad stuff is happening inside you. And no matter how much bad stuff is happening outside you, no matter how bad the stuff is happening inside you, no matter how bad the stuff is that's happening outside you, you can be sure he still loves you. See, first of all, no matter how bad stuff is going on inside you, sometimes we do some awful stuff. I want you to know that there is stuff in your heart that you don't know about yet. And that when it pops up, you're gonna say, I can't believe I'm capable of that. And you're gonna be so disillusioned with yourself and you're gonna be so mad at yourself. And when those times happen, what do you say? You say, ah, I can't believe that God could love me after I've done that. And yet here's what. What does Paul say? He says, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies who is to condemn. It is Christ Jesus, who died more than that, was raised and is ever at the right hand of God interceding for us. Not one thing that you can possibly do today can bring you back into condemnation. It's all covered. It's all paid for. See, God loves you no matter how much bad stuff happens inside you. But secondly, we're told the other fork of the assurance is that God loves you no matter how much bad stuff is happening outside you. You see this list. Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword. See, when bad stuff happens, when everything's going wrong, you feel like God doesn't love me or he wouldn't let all this stuff happen. See, really bad stuff happens inside, you say, oh, look what a mess I am. God couldn't love me. But when really bad stuff happens outside, you say, oh, look what a mess life is. Obviously God has abandoned me. There can't be a loving God. And yet Paul says, oh, yes, there can be. No matter how bad the mess is on the outside, you still can be assured. He says that God loves you. Cause he says in verse 28 what he says, all things are working together for good to those that love God. Now, what does that mean, taken together as a whole? Look at from the long term, everything that happens, every single thing, God is working together into a plan for our good and for his glory. That's what it says. And my favorite biblical example of that are two incidents that happen in a place called Dothan. In Genesis, the first thing that happens at Dothan is that Joseph is thrown into a pit by his brothers and he's gonna be sold into slavery. So he's got a life of absolute misery ahead of him. And he prays to God, oh, God, you know, get me out of this. Don't let me be sold into slavery. And guess what? Silence. Silence. And he is sold into slavery. And he has a horrible, miserable life for years and years and years, years. And then many centuries later, a second thing that happens in Dothan, Elisha is in Dothan. And by now it's a city, and it's besieged by an enemy, and he's afraid that they're gonna be overrun and destroyed. And Elisha cries out to God and says, oh Lord, please save us. Please save us from this peril. And this time God sends chariots of fire and wipes out the invading army and everybody's saved. But if you know the story of Joseph, you know that if he hadn't been sold into slavery and if he hadn't gone through all those years of misery, not only would have hundreds of thousands of people died of famine, but his own family would have been destroyed by their own sin. And what that means, if you know the story, you know how it works out, and what that means is that God was just as actively working everything together for good in Joseph's life as in Elisha's life. He was just as actively working in the seeming slowness and non answer to Joseph as he was in the swift, noisy answer to Elisha. And so Paul says, that's always the case. And so no matter how much bad stuff's happening inside you, no matter how much bad stuff's happening outside you, you can be assured God absolutely, infallibly, unchangeably loves you. And then when he gets to the very end, he has this sweeping statement in verse 38 and 39, which is printed out there. And at this point Paul says, I am absolutely certain he uses a word that means absolute, intense certainty and persuasion. And then he just bursts, he pushes, he stretches out to the limits of language to try to say neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor heaven, nor hell, nor height, nor depth. Nothing, nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing, nothing can dislodge you from his love, and nothing can dislodge his love from you. And there are people who have looked at this passage and said, oh, well, yes, but nothing can separate you from God. But you could separate yourself. Because if you start out to follow Jesus and you turn back, you can lose your salvation, you can lose his love. So maybe nothing can separate you from God's love, but you can separate yourself. And that is not right. That is not the right way to read that text. And I'll tell you why. Look, what does it say? If you could turn back, if you could separate yourself from the love of God, aren't you part of creation? He says, nothing in all of creation can separate you from the love of God. Aren't you part of creation? Last time I looked, you were. What Paul is trying to say is every possible situation that might turn you away from God, every possible situation that might turn you away from God, persecution, torture, none of those Things will. God's love is so powerful that he will keep you facing him, keep you loving him, keep you in his arms no matter what. So see, here's your assurance. No matter how much all the powers of evil inside you and all the powers of evil outside you cannot separate you from the love of God. Can't dislodge you from it, can't dislodge the love of God from you. Once you give yourself to God through Christ and he is yours, you are his. Nothing ever, ever can change that. That's the assurance. Now, it would be great if we could just move on and say, so now. How does that work in your life? But we can't, because as I said, in our Western culture, this sort of, this promise immediately raises an issue. Now the reason I say Western culture is pretty important because we have an objection that really bothers us. All this talk about predestination, right, and calling and election and God working everything out according to his plan. Now this bothers us. But don't forget who us is. It's us. There's other centuries and there's other cultures that this doesn't bother. This is, this is a problem for modern Western enlightenment drenched individualistic people. And it's always good to remember that this great objection we have, we must not absolutize any of our objections. They always arise out of our culture and we should take it seriously because here's where we live. But it's not, you know, we're not the only culture in the world and we shouldn't therefore say this is an insuperable obstacle to faith in Christ. However, here's the thing that modern Western people say when they hear that Jesus Christ will keep you in his love so that no matter what we do, we'll never stop loving him and he'll never stop loving us. And he's totally in control of everything. So everything is working out according to his plan. The first thing that comes to our mind is, well, hey, what about free will then? See, that's our problem. What about human responsibility? Because it sounds like God is doing all this stuff despite our choices, that everything that's gonna happen is gonna happen in spite of our choices. And if that's the case, well, then who cares how you live? Who cares what you do? It's all gonna happen. See, you know, I'm a Christian. So now, you know, it doesn't really matter. I don't have to do anything because he's going to keep me loving him and, and everything's working out according to his plan, well, then it doesn't really matter. So what happens to free will and what happens to personal responsibility? That's a good question. And in modern. When I said this is a Western issue in particular, we're reminded of that this last week in the Science Times, New York Times on Tuesday, there was a big article, and the name of it was the Power of Free Will. Now you have it, now you don't. And it was a kind of survey of the current debate right now about whether we have free will or not. And the consensus of most of the scientists and the people in the. In the article was we don't. Now, what's intriguing for a person of my age is it's interesting that now the real question is, do we have free will or are we determined by our evolutionary biology? That's the issue. Now. See, the argument is that natural selection is what determines everything about us. So we think we're choosing to love someone or fall in love with someone. We think we're choosing that. But actually we're hardwired to do that to pass on our, you know, our genetic material. And that's just so we're not. We don't really have free will, you know. And so that's the debate. Do we have free will or not? Or are we hardwired by our biology? It's funny, because 30 years ago, when I was in college, the argument was. Was a psychological one, not a biological one. The argument was a free Freudian one, as it were. That is, do we have free will? Or are we completely controlled by our unconscious urges or our past or things like that? But the thing you always see in all these debates in the west is it's either or, either or. Either we have free will or everything is determined. Or put it this way, we believe either we have free will and we're responsible for our choices, and our choices matter. And that means the future is open and undetermined. Either we have free will and the future is open, undetermined, or something has set and fixed the future, and then our choices don't matter. See, it's either or. But in the Bible, it's never either or, never, from the beginning to the end, in principle and in practice, it's always this. You are free and you're responsible, and your choices matter, and you're responsible for your choices, and no one's forcing you to make those choices. And yet every single thing that happens as a result of those choices is working out exactly according to the plan of God. And it's not just that God foresees what you're going to do, but rather what you do fits in with the plan that he wants and the course that he wants history to take. I mean, there's so many examples I could give you. I'll just start with. I'll give you two. First of all, principle. Listen to these proverbs. This is from Proverbs 16, verse 1. To man belongs the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue. And verse nine, the heart of man plans his way, but it is the Lord who establishes his steps. Hear that? To you belong the plans of your heart, but what you do as a result of the plan comes from God. To you belongs your plans. But when you actually speak or act, that always fits in with God's plan. Always. Now that's astounding. See, on the one hand it says, your plans, your choices belong to you. They're yours, they're not coerced. God is not doing it for you. And you can't say, I couldn't help it, they're yours. You are free, you are responsible, and yet the result is always exactly what God wants. You say, how can that be? Well, that's because you're a Westerner. And it's always either or. Why does it have to be either or? Can't God? Isn't it possible that God could actually fix things and work things out and at the same time not violate your free will? Why couldn't God do that? I can't imagine how I could do it. No, of course you can't. But you're under qualified for this job of God. J.I. packer puts it fascinatingly in his book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. He says the relationship of our free will and responsibility and God's sovereignty and control of all things is an antinomy. An antinomy he defines as not a contradiction, but an apparent contradiction. And the example he uses is light. We know that light sometimes acts and behaves as waves and sometimes as particles. Sometimes it acts as if it does not have. It does not consist of matter. And sometimes it acts as if it does. Now, we don't know how that could be. It shouldn't be, but it is. We don't know how that works, but we know it does work that way, and so we work with it. Otherwise you're not gonna know how to handle light. And J.I. packer says, See, it's obviously not a real contradiction. It's just an apparent contradiction. We don't have the Knowledge to figure it out. Same thing here. And if you wanna see that, we are absolutely. That on the one hand, God is setting and fixing absolutely everything the way he wants it to be. But he doesn't do that despite our choices, but through them, our choices are part of his plan. And you say, oh, so he just knows what we're going to choose. Yeah, but it's more than that. See, there you go. You wanted to do the either or thing. No, it's both. And both and. And here's a perfect example of it in Acts chapter 27. This is my favorite example in the Bible of this. Paul is on a boat with sailors and soldiers in a terrible storm. Terrible storm. And in the midst of the storm, when everybody's scared, the sailors and soldiers are really afraid that they're gonna die. God sends an angel to Paul and says, the ship will be wrecked, but not one life will be lost. So Paul comes out onto deck and says, God has spoken to me. And he has said that even though the ship will be wrecked, not one life will be lost. And now Paul believed that you knew why in the Old Testament, if you're a prophet and you make a prophecy and that prophecy doesn't come true, the prophet's put to death. You know why? Because the word of God is always sure. And if he actually gave you the word of God, then it has to come true. And so Paul was absolutely sure that it was God's plan. And it was absolutely certain that no life would be lost. But in verse 31 of Acts 27, it turns out that the sailors decide they were going to. You know, the storm is continuing on, and the sailors decide they were going to sneak off the boat. So they start to get into the lifeboat. And when Paul sees the sailors trying to get off the boat, he tells the soldiers to stop them. And he says, if they leave the boat, we're all going to die. Now, I believe this is the beginning of the great Army Navy rivalry, actually. But beyond that, this doesn't make sense to us, does it? Wait a minute. We would say to Paul, look, if you really believe that no one's life is going to be lost, if that's the way it is, if that's the plan of God, then who cares whether they get off the boat or not? Who cares whether they get into the lifeboat, you know, go snorkel, it's all right. Because, you see, we believe if it's fixed, it's fixed despite our choices. So choices don't matter. But see, here's what Paul is. Paul has a biblical understanding of this. Our choices matter. Absolutely they matter. But they don't determine the future because they matter. He's not passive. So he says, let's do things the way we ought to do them. But because they don't determine the future, he's not paralyzed. He's neither passive nor paralyzed.