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- [00:04]
Tim Keller
Welcome to Gospel and Life. How comfortable are you when it comes to being open about your faith? This month on the podcast, Tim Keller looks at what the Bible says about having a public faith. He shows us what it looks like to be open about our faith in a pluralistic society in a way that creates civility and peace and meaningful dialogue with our neighbors.
- [00:31]
Reader
The scripture reading is From. From Psalm 73, verses 1 through 3 and 12 26. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped. I had nearly lost my foothold, for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. This is what the wicked are like. Always free of care, they go on amassing wealth. Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted and every morning brings new punishments. If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply. Till I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their final destiny. Surely you placed them on slippery ground. You cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors? They are like a dream when one awakes. When you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you. You hold me by my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you and earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. This is God's word.
- [02:05]
Unknown Speaker
So we're in a series called Public Sharing the hope that's Within. And we live in a society, Western society, that does not encourage people to be public about their faith, their religious beliefs. We're told basically it's a private thing, we shouldn't be talking about them. But it's ironic because our culture actually encourages us to be absolutely open and public about everything else. Everything else, including sexuality, because it's who we are. But there's nothing more fundamental to who you are than your religious beliefs, than your. Than your deepest faith beliefs. And therefore, the challenge before us as a society is how can we be honest about who we are? Which means how can we be public about our faith beliefs and yet do so in such a way that, you know, is respectful and supports the peace so we all have to learn that. And one of the things we're doing in this series is talking about that. Now, if we're going to become a mature society in which we're able to talk about faith, we also have to be able to know how to talk about doubt. And we don't get much help here from either religious people or secular people. Religious people tend to see doubt as a very bad thing, a terrible thing. And around many religious people, it doesn't feel safe to express doubts. But on the other hand, many secular people, certainly in a place like New York City, many people believe that perennial doubt, constant doubt, deep skepticism, is the only sophisticated and intellectually mature position. The Bible, however, doesn't look at doubt anywhere nearly as positive or as negative as that. The Bible doesn't see it as positive as secular people do, or as negative as. As religious people do. Because actually, doubt is not so simplistic. It's not at all a good, it's not all a bad. And only when you begin to see it in a nuanced way can doubt actually be something through which we make progress. Now, in order to understand what the Bible says about doubt, we're going to look at this very famous psalm, this very famous passage we've read. The beginning and the end of it we left, just for economy's sake, we left out a certain part of the middle, which I'll refer to, and it's very, very rich. And it's the case study of one man's. His name was Asaph, the psalmist. One man's experience of doubt and how he moved through that doubt to actually a higher level of faith. And even though it may not exactly be the same, his circumstances may not exactly be the same as yours. Nevertheless, the basic principles of what the Bible says about that, and I actually think what the Bible says about that is almost unique. I don't know of anywhere else to look in which doubt is not so good and not so bad. But this nuanced, multidimensional thing, there's no better place to find that biblical view than here. So let's look in this passage at doubt under three headings. What is it? What causes it? What transforms it? What is it? What causes it? What transforms it? So what is it? The metaphor for doubt that's used is in verse 2. As for me, my feet had almost slipped. I nearly lost my foothold. Now that's a great image. When you're losing your foothold, you're on you for a moment, you've lost your balance. And when you've lost your balance, you're experiencing a certain kind of a vertigo, a kind of disorientation, you know, a certain dizziness. There's a. One of the Greek words in the New Testament for doubt, dipsychos, which means dipsychos, which means two psyches, which basically means spiritual double vision. If you have double vision, it means your eye is not giving your brain sufficient information to know where to put your foot. And when you're not quite sure where to put the foot, there's an uncertainty, and that's what doubt is spiritually. It's this uncertainty. You lose the certainty you might have had before, and that's doubtless. Now, what do we learn right off the bat about doubt? From the very introduction here in the beginning, and here's the answer. First of all, we learn that anybody can have doubts because even though we don't know much about Asaph, we don't know much about who this guy is, the author of the psalm, still he was an author of the Scripture. That's a rather high level of spiritual attainment, don't you think? Here's somebody who wrote Scripture, divinely inspired, and yet here's a man who, in spite of his level of spiritual attainment was filled with doubts. He said, I almost lost my foothold, which means I almost lost my faith. Hold. So anybody can have doubts. But the other thing we learn almost immediately, just by the quick read through, is that doubt can be a positive thing. And here you have doubts that are. That have will, by the end of the book, excuse me, by the end of the psalm, will have led to a higher level of faith and some of the most famous affirmations. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. In other words, there's been progress here. Now, the idea of faith leading, pardon me, of doubt and questioning leading to progress, shouldn't be all that strange. Francis Bacon, who was one of the first modern scientists, you know, a couple hundred years ago, he was a. One of the early modern scientists, has a place where he says. And he's kind of overstating it a bit, but he's right. If you begin with certainties, you will end in doubts. If you begin with doubts, you end in certainty. And what he's really saying is, as a scientist, he says, if you look at what right now is accepted by people, if you don't question that, if you just accept everything that is told you, you'll never grow. You'll never grow to New realms of understanding. If you just accept things. No, no. The scientific method is based on doubt. Ask questions, be skeptical, don't accept things. And what he's saying is, if you start with certainties, you actually will find that you actually don't learn as much. And if you start with doubt, you learn more. So that's obviously even in any area of inquiry, but spiritually it is true too. And the most famous place in the Bible that talks about doubt is doubting Thomas. Thomas was one of the 12 disciples. And after the death of Jesus Christ, he went with. There was a meeting of the disciples and Jesus appears. The resurrected Jesus appears and shows that he is alive. The problem is that Thomas missed the meeting. You know, remember some years ago, I heard a preacher say in Isaiah, chapter six, Isaiah went up to the temple and he saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple and there was angels saying, holy, holy, holy. And Isaiah fell on the ground as dead. And I remember the preacher said, of course he went to church and the last person he expected to actually see there was God. And in the same way, Thomas is a warning to you, never miss church. You never know, Jesus might show up. Jesus might show up and you missed. So I admit it doesn't usually happen, but sometimes it does. Now, when Thomas hears that Jesus has been risen from the dead and all the disciples said, we saw him, Thomas says, I will not believe unless he appears to me. And I not only see him, but I see the nail prints still in his hands, and I can put my fingers in the nail prints. And what does Jesus do? Jesus appears to Thomas and remarkably does not say, thomas, why did you question me? No, the first thing he says is, okay, you wanted to see my hands, you wanted the nail prints, Here they are. Put your fingers in. And of course, Thomas responds with the great confession and affirmation, which in a way is the climax of the Book of John. He says, my Lord and my God, there is no place in the Book of John where anybody looks right at Jesus Christ and says, you're God. In other words, this doubt, this expression of doubt brings Jesus into Thomas life and leads Thomas to a higher affirmation of faith than he would have had if he hadn't asked for the doubt. And if he hadn't asked the question, if he hadn't doubted. And yet Jesus doesn't just simply see. On the one hand, Jesus doesn't say, how dare you question me? He gives Thomas what he asked for. See, on the other hand, he ends by saying, so Thomas Stop doubting and start believing. And see, this is where Jesus shows us. The Bible shows us an attitude toward doubt that neither religious people nor secular people have. It's not nearly as bad as religious people say it is, and it's not nearly as good as secular people say. He says, look, don't acquiesce in your doubt. Let the doubt drive you to something else. But at the same time, Jesus doesn't squelch the doubts at all. So there's some important understanding about doubt and the vertigo and the disequilibrium that it brings, but also the positive it can be. Secondly, what causes this man's doubt? Now, there's two things he points out. First of all, he says, I saw something. Secondly, he says, I experienced something. What did he see? Verse 1, 2 and 3 puts it in a nutshell. God is good. God is good to those who are impure in heart. Now that's the doctrine of God. That's a traditional biblical doctrine of God. God is a good God and he is. He cares for the pure in heart. That doesn't mean sinless. It means people who are committed to God. So he starts off with good theology. God is a good God and he cares for the pure in heart. But down in verse three it says, I saw the prosperity of the wicked. And then verses 4 to 11, which we didn't read for the sake of economy, says things like this. He's looking at the wicked. What does he mean by that? He says, they have no struggles. Their bodies are healthy and strong. This is verses 4 to 11. They are free from common human burdens. They are not plagued by human ills. They clothe themselves with violence, with arrogance. They threaten oppression. And they say, how can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge? Now what Asaph the psalmist is saying is under God, in this universe, in this world, supposedly under a good God, people who promote themselves, people who manipulate others, people who exploit others, are having a great life. And by the way, this is not just happened then. The fact is this world is such that proud, self promoting, ruthless, manipulative, egocentric, exploitative behavior can make you a lot of money, can make you pretty successful, can help you up the power ladder. So what he's saying isn't anything that we haven't seen forever. And he's bothered by it. He says, why would a good God, a supposedly good God who's in charge of this world, allow that kind of injustice, allow the powerful to oppress the poor and the marginalized? So that's the first thing but he's not just. It's not just an intellectual problem, because then he also. It's not just. He sees something, he experiences something firsthand. Verses 13, 14, 16, he says, surely in vain I have kept my heart pure. I have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments. Now tell me if this doesn't sound familiar. Basically he's saying, look, I tried to be pure. My understanding was that God cares for the pure in heart. So I've tried to keep my heart pure. I have washed my hands in innocence, but it seems to be in vain, because all day long I'm afflicted. And every morning brings new punishments. We don't know what they were. But the point was his life was so filled with bad things that almost every day he felt like woke up and learned something new is wrong. And finally he says in verse 16, when I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply. In other words, he's not just having an intellectual problem, he's having a personal experience. And that personal experience means things that he believed with his mind are now not very real to his heart, like the love and goodness of God. Now, here's what we learned. Let's pull out of this because you might say, well, that's not my problems exactly. Okay, be careful. Don't get lost in the weeds. Here we step outside of it a little bit and go a little bit higher up. And here's what we see. Doubts come from a combination of reason and rationality and personal experience. Or let me put it like this. All faith, as well as all doubt, all our doubts as well as all our faith beliefs always are the product not just of thinking and of reasoning, but a combination of thinking and reasoning and logic and intellectual thought as well as social and personal experience. How so? Well, let's talk about this. What do I mean by that? First of all, social and personal experience. Social experience. There's a whole field of sociology, you know, called the sociology of knowledge. And the sociology of knowledge essentially says this. If that we are. To a great degree, we think that we're arriving at our beliefs by thinking and working these things out. But to a great degree, we find most plausible the beliefs of people who we want to like us. Can I say that again? I'm boiling down an entire course in sociology of knowledge. Some of you which paid thousands of dollars for. And if you had only been here first, you would have been able to save that and said, oh, I got that. Okay, here it is. You tend to find most plausible the beliefs of people who you want to like you. We have certain circles that we want to be part of. We have certain social situations that we want to be included in. We've got people that we identify. These are our people. These are the kind of people I want to be identified with. And for some strange reason, those people's beliefs just seem more plausible to us than other people's. Why? Because we are not just brains in vats. We are social creatures. We're not just rational creatures, and therefore who we hang out with and what they say has an enormous impact on what seems credible and plausible to us. And so your social experience has a lot to do with not only forming your beliefs, but also forming your doubts. But there's also the personal experience. And see, our beliefs are not simply a product of reasoning, they're also the product of personal experience. You may read a book and you may get a class in which people are saying, the founding documents of the American Republic are absolutely right. All people are created equal. The races are created equal, individuals are created equal. Everybody has equal dignity. But if you. What if you meet two or three members of a particular race or nationality and you've never met anybody else from that race or nationality, and those are nasty people to you, they're nasty to you, they're cruel to you, they're cruel to you. The only three people that you've ever met, I want you to know that no matter what the book says, you're going to have a visceral, negative, personal feeling that there's something wrong with those people. See, in other words, your racial attitudes and your beliefs to a great degree are determined by the personal experience. And look, that's unavoidable because we're not just rational creatures, we're not just robots, we're not just computers. We're social beings, personal beings, as well as rational beings. And therefore, your beliefs as well as your doubts come from a combination of thinking and experiencing, which means that if you're in doubt, if you're doubting things that you used to be certain of, it's because a combination of reason and personal experiences have now made those beliefs unreal to your heart. Now, what does that matter? You say, well, here's what it matters, here's why it matters. I think a lot. On the one hand, I want you to avoid falling into one of two opposite mistakes. The one mistake is to think that if you have fallen into doubt about Christianity, it's strictly an intellectual thing. Look, it's not very flattering Is it to admit the degree to which we are socially shaped, the degree to which our experiences shape us? Let's just say you're raised in a church, raised in a Christian belief, and then you go off to some really great elite academic institution and everybody around you, all your friends, all the people you want to be included with, all of your professors are all laughing at traditional religious belief. And then you pick up a book and you read Sigmund Freud, the Future of an Illusion, and say, ah, that convinced me that Christianity isn't true. Are you? Come on. It's not just that. You know that. It doesn't work just that way. Nobody works that way. You were set up by your social environment to find what Sigmund Freud said to be pretty plausible. So I'm not. Look, I'm not saying he didn't have good arguments. I'm just trying to say recognize the fact that you are not simply. Your doubts are not simply intellectual. They're also personal. Okay? But on the other hand, do not think that you can't reason and you can't think. Don't fall into the other extreme, which is to say, well, all our beliefs are just the product of our culture. You know, you're from Madagascar, you're from Canada, you're from here, you're from there, you're this race. Of course you're going to believe that, because you are. All of our beliefs are socially constructed, and therefore, you know, there's no. That's just the way it is. Peter Berger, who was a pioneer in sociology of knowledge, wrote a little book some years ago called A Rumor of Angels. And in that book he's got a great, great little chapter called Relativizing the Relativizers. And in it he says this, he says, in my field, which has empirically proven that people are very, very shaped in their beliefs by their culture and by their social location. He says, but in my field, it's sometimes common to have people say all belief is socially constructed and therefore you can't trust it. And everybody's just the product of their culture. Everybody's just the product of their social setting. So you can't trust their beliefs. All beliefs are socially constructed. He says, the only problem with that statement is that statement is a belief. And if all beliefs are socially constructed and can't be trusted, then that belief is the product of your social situation and it can't be true. And if it can't be true, then all belief isn't socially constructed. Relativism always eats itself and so what are we left with? Oh, he says we're fine. We're left with we should have chastened, humbled views of ourselves. We should realize to a great degree we're not objective. To a great degree. We don't like to think outside the box and of our social setting. And yet we have to, because Peter Berger says in the end you've got all these competing truth claims and we can't say we're just socially constructed and therefore there's no way. We can't weigh our beliefs because that belief would be socially constructed. And therefore in the end we still have to say which of these beliefs is true. We still have to think. Don't just say, well, I'm just prejudiced. Why? Well, the three people I met from that race were all mean and cruel to me. Well, think. Do you think that maybe in your race there might be three cruel people? Don't you think it's possible that maybe that there's somebody could run into three cruel people from your race and think all of you are that way? Think.
- [23:16]
Tim Keller
We always say the gospel changes everything, and we believe it really does. That's why here at Gospel and Life I August is Go and Share Month. Throughout August, we're inviting thousands of our listeners to take a small step in sharing the gospel with someone God has placed in your life. For those of you who make a gift to Gospel and Life this month we'll send you two copies of Making Sense of God by Tim Keller. It's a powerful resource that explores how Christianity makes emotional, cultural and rational sense in today's world. It's our thanks for your gift and provides a way you can do a small act to share the gospel by reading the book with a friend, giving one to a co worker, or passing on both copies to people who are exploring the Christian faith. It's a simple way to start a gospel conversation or continue it. To request your two copies of Making Sense of God, simply go to gospelinlife.com give again. That's gospelinlife.com give now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.
- [24:17]
Unknown Speaker
So on the one hand, your doubts are not just from thinking, but on the other hand, you still have to think if you're going to process the doubts. All right, so how does he process the doubts? How does the doubting become something he doesn't get stuck in, but that essentially he uses to move himself up to a whole new level? What transforms doubt? Three things. And this shouldn't completely surprise you since we just talked about it? Experience, thinking and an enlarged view of God. Experience, thinking and an enlarged view of God. Okay, first of all, experience. This is going to be kind of counterintuitive, but where does the turn happen? You know, versus one to 16? He's oppressed. I tried to understand all this. It troubled me deeply. And then verse 17, until. Until there's the turn. Things started to turn around right there. And what happens? What's the first thing that he does? Until I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their final destiny. Now, don't make this mistake. Don't think. He was saying, well, he was walking along the road and he saw one of these big, beautiful cathedrals, which we have, you know, in New York. And you notice the doors open. It looks beautiful in there. So you go on in. This is a beautiful sanctuary. And you sit down and you just sort of think, that's not what he's talking about. You know why? Because the only sanctuary would have been the temple. And what happens in the temple is what worship? He went to a worship service. He heard the word of God sung. He heard the word of God preached. He heard people singing. He, he, he. He was surrounded by believers. You say, well, that's a strange thing to do. No, that's not a strange thing. Here's why it's fair. If you acknowledge, and I don't know how you fail to do this, if you acknowledge that your doubts did not come strictly through thinking, well, then you're not going to get through your doubts strictly through thinking. If your doubts to some degree came because you were in social and personal locations where God seemed less real, then it's only fair to level the playing field and go to someplace where God seems more real. Go to a place where people believe in him. Go to a place where people are talking about him. Go to a place where there's art. Go to a place where there's teaching. In other words, at the very least, pray. You say, my goodness. Well, I don't understand that. I mean, if you have doubts about God, how can you pray to him? I don't know. I've had a lot of people who've had doubts about me, and they came and talked to me about it, and it helped the relationship. You know, I'd rather you not sit around and think about, well, what do I think Tim is like? I mean, I don't know. Maybe he's like this, maybe he's like that. Well, come ask me, you know, let's talk about this thing. And the same way, why? Why? If you got out of if. Why? If you drifted away from belief through not a combination of thinking and experience. You shouldn't come back to belief or through belief through a combination of not just thinking, but experience. He didn't just go off and think. He went into the sanctuary. So that's the first thing. He's willing to put himself in an experiential location where God seemed real to him so he could. It cleared his mind. Because he says, till I entered the sanctuary of God, then I understood their destiny. That moves into the second thing. What is he. The second thing that he does is he does do some thinking. And he does some profound thinking here. And there's more in here than I can. You know, I've even thought about. Every, every, every time I preach this, I keep thinking, maybe I'll go a little longer and give you a few more. No, I can't really. But I still want to show you two things he does. Two profound ways he thinks through this. One is he is willing to admit his bad motives. Notice in the very beginning he talks about how he sees all this injustice. You know, why are the powerful oppressing the marginalized. But notice what he says. Even in the beginning, he's willing to be dishonest. He says, as for me, my feet almost slipped. I nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant. Isn't that interesting? He doesn't. What he's saying here. This is not just an intellectual problem. I was resentful because I feel I'd like to have that kind of power. I like to have that kind of wealth. He's very, very involved emotionally in this. That's why he says, wait a minute. I kept my heart pure. I washed my hands in innocence. I deserve what they have. And what he's willing to admit here is again, he's not just simply having an intellectual issue. It's not completely objective. But that his motives, his motives are involved. Or put it like this, you will never admit. Well, until you admit that you find it hard to believe that X is true. Partly because you don't want X to be true. See, until you admit that part of the reason you find it hard to believe X is true is because you don't want it to be true. You're never really going to come to grips with the pros and cons of the belief. You're never really going to be actually intellectually honest. Thomas Nagel, who's a professor of philosophy, very prominent philosopher at nyu. I have the greatest respect for the man for a Lot of reasons. But some years ago, he wrote in a book called the Last Word, though he's an atheist and he's a convinced atheist, and he argues very eloquently for it. Nevertheless, in this book, he writes this, he says, I want to talk about the fear of religion. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself. I want atheism to be true. Oh, it isn't just that I don't believe in God, and naturally I hope I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God. I don't want there to be God. I don't want the universe to be like that. And then he adds in a little footnote, I am curious, however, whether there is anyone who is genuinely indifferent as to whether there is a God. Now, what he means is, and this is what I mean by saying, it's such intellectual honesty. He says he talks to atheists who say, the only reason why I'm an atheist is I looked at all the. All the evidence very objectively, and I decided the evidence was there was no God. He says, listen, nobody's objective about this. Sure, you can say, well, Christians are people who want to believe in an afterlife. They want to believe. They believe in God. They're going to live forever with their loved ones, right? But here he's saying, but atheists know that if there is a God, they can't live the way they want to live. He says, I don't want the universe to be like that. I don't want to have that limitation of my freedom. And therefore he says, there's nobody who's objective, like nobody's objective. You've got a lot of reasons for not wanting God to exist, and you may have some reasons for wanting him to exist. So admit it. See that intellectual honesty is crucial. Admit your motives. Admit that you're not really that objective. Admit it. Doesn't mean. Doesn't mean that you might not still come down where you were, but you should recognize that. So first of all, he looks at his own motives, but here's the second thing he comes to recognize. The deep faith that is hidden in all doubt, the deep faith that's embedded in hiding itself in all doubt. See, I think this is the most profound thing he sees. And it's not that easy to see right off the bat until you put the stuff together. Notice how in the very beginning, he says, in the very beginning of the turn, not in the very beginning, but he says, till I entered the sanctuary of God, then I understood their final Destiny. And here's the money quote. Here's the main thing he saw. You place them on slippery ground. Now, remember the metaphor here. This is a metaphor. Your foot sliding, your foot slipping. He's already used it. What is it a metaphor for? Where your foot is, is where you have your faith, the thing you have your faith in. And therefore, when your foot slips, it means you're having trouble keeping your faith. Now he turns around and says, now wait a minute, wait a minute. Their foot is something somewhere too. They have faith in something. And where their faith is, is even more precarious than what my faith is. And what does that mean? Okay, well, don't forget. Remember, I've already read this to you once. It's verse 11. It wasn't read. It's not printed out. But in verse 11, when describing these people, these oppressive people, they say, how can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge? See, these people who are living very selfishly, they're being cruel, they're exploiting people. They are doing it on the basis of a view of God. They say, how can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge? And what that means is they're assuming there either is no God or there's a God who doesn't isn't going to judge me. In other words, they're assuming that either God is not there or that God does not care. Either there's no God or he's some kind of pantheistic force field kind of God that isn't going to judge me for how I live. They are living, then, on the basis of a view of God which they can't prove. And if you are living your life on the. If you're assuming in the way in which you live a view of God that you can't prove, what is that? That's faith. That is faith. See, you cannot prove God maybe, but you can't prove there is no God. You can't prove that there isn't a God who's going to judge you. And therefore, when you live as if that God's not there, that is an act of faith. You are betting your eternal destiny that there is either no God is not there or is not a God that cares. Blaise Pascal, his famous Pascal's Wager, talks about that. If you've ever heard Pascal's Wager, if you've heard about it, or if you've heard it presented, you probably have heard it presented in the worst possible light. It's always, I've never heard it presented in a way that's really as powerful as it really is, if you read it and think about it. Well, here's what Pascal is trying to say. Sure, if you believe in God, it's a step of faith. But if you don't believe in God or if you live as if God's not there, that is also a step of faith. That's a huge step of faith. You're basing your life, no matter how you live, on a view of God that you can't prove. And therefore everybody's living by faith. Not only that, but why at the end here is he saying, who have I in heaven but you and earth has nothing I desire beside you? My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Why is he saying that? What he's saying is, a portion is your inheritance, a portion is the thing that you. Well, it's your wealth, it's your security. And for him to say God is my portion, he's comparing his portion to theirs. See, if God is your portion, if God is the thing that you're living for, if God in his love is what you're living for, nobody can take that away from you. But if wealth is what you're living for, if power is what you're living for, like these people that he was envying so much that can be taken away in a second. They're the ones who have put their faith in power, in money, in an accomplishment, in a claim, whatever. They put their faith, they put their foot, they've rested their soul in something that can be taken away from them forever, just like that, quickly. And therefore he's saying, wait a minute, wait a minute here I'm getting filled with doubts, and yet I realize that the alternative. Remember, he envies them, which means he actually was thinking about what would it be like to live like them. He suddenly realizes, for me to live like them would mean that I would have to put my faith in there not being a God, which I can't prove, and I would have to rest my soul in these things which would be taken away forever. Wait a minute. They're in a more slippery place than me. Their faith is less well grounded, and they are living by faith. And so he saw in the heart of his doubt, in the heart of his doubt was he was beginning to say, maybe I'll live like these people instead of the way I've been living. But that would take faith. It would take enormous amount of faith. And he says, no, no, no, no. The faith I've got is Better you see what he's doing. This is the reason why Sheldon Vanocken, in his Book of Severe Mercy, when he's talking about how he became a Christian, first of all, he talks about the fact that he realized to become a Christian, I had to believe in Jesus Christ. And he didn't like that because he wanted to be certain. And he wasn't getting. This is what he says. He says, I saw a gap between the possible and the proved. How was I to cross it if I was to stake my whole life on the risen Christ? I wanted proof, I wanted certainty. I wanted letters of fire across the sky. Okay, so he was shrinking back. But then he said, here's what he said. But then I realized, oh my God, there was a gap behind me. Yes, I would have to leap it. You know, there would have to be a leap of faith to accepting Jesus Christ, because I couldn't prove that Christ was God, but by God, I had no proof that he was not. This was not to be borne. I could not reject Jesus without great faith. And once I realized that, once I realized it would take faith for me to jump over the gap behind me, I flung myself over the gap in front of me toward Jesus. Now, here's the last thing, and this is extremely interesting and important. The man expands his view. He doesn't just experience, he doesn't just think. He expands his view of God. Now, Thomas Kuhn wrote a book called the Structure, Scientific Revolutions, Very, very famous book. And what he tried to say was that all of us have paradigms. We have ways of thinking about life. And when we have doubts, when the paradigm receives some data it can't account for. And when it can't account for it, then there's a paradigm shift, which means you experience doubt, but then you expand the paradigm dime so it can explain the data that you couldn't understand. For example, ever seen this with little children? Little teeny children? Generally as they grow up, they trust adults because the only adults in their lives are their parents or some female people, you know, and maybe aunts and uncles and their babysitter and all that. And they expect all adults to be, you know, self controlled and do this and that. At some point the little child will see an adult doing something that she never thought in a million years adults would do. And then mommy has to sit down and say, now honey, I have to understand something. Your theory of life, your paradigm of human nature is small. I mean, you're four and you didn't think that adults could act like this. But honey, Adults really can act like this. So what's happening is she's going through a paradigm shift. Her theory of life was too small to handle the reality. And I want you to consider this, that when doubts come into your life, it's because your understanding of God was too small to handle it. And the, the way to get through it is not just simply to go back to the way which you believed before. You have to have a broader view of God, a bigger view of God. And that's exactly what he does here. And you know where the heart of it is? It's here in verse 21 and 22 and 23. Excuse me. When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you. Yet I'm always with you. You hold me by my right hand. Look here. He's changed his view of God when he talks about himself as a beast. I was a brute beast. Let me give you two little stories. Elizabeth Elliot, missionary and writer, once told a story, a true story, about how she was visiting with some farmers, some sheep shepherds, basically, sheep farmers in the Highlands of Northern Wales. And she found out that once a year they have to take their sheep and they have to dip them in a vat of insecticide. Otherwise the insects would literally eat the sheep. But it's very hard on the sheep because you have to grab the sheep by the fore, you know, the feet up here and the hind legs, and dip them in like this, you know, just immerse them so that they're submerged for something like 15 seconds or something like that. And I want you to know that even though it's exactly what the sheep, sheep need, none of them like it. Just want you to know that. And as Elizabeth Elliot looked at that and she was thinking about herself as a sheep, and the Lord is my shepherd, she says, you know what? God does that to us a lot. He gives us what we really needed, even though we may not know it for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, or maybe not until after death. And see, what this man is suddenly realizing is, wait a minute. If I really believe in God, a God who created the world, of course he's going to be able to let things happen that I can't understand. How dare I think that somehow everything's got to happen just the way I think. And then he realizes, I'm the sheep. I'm like the animal, and I'm not trusting my master. Another story is years ago, I was at a picnic. I Remember this? And there's a little kitten that had fallen into a stream, a very cold stream, and certainly would have drowned. And a boy went in and pulled. Pulled the kitten out and rescued it. But as he was pulling the kitten out, the kitten, of course, was very scared and was just biting and scratching his hand, the hand of his Savior until it bled. And what this man is saying is, my heart was grieved, my spirit embittered. I was senseless and ignorant. I was like a brute beast before you, and yet I am always with you. And you hold me by my right hand. He's getting a bigger view of God. He's letting God be big enough to do things that he can't understand. He said, well, my goodness, why wouldn't I have a God that's bigger than I can, who can do things that I can't understand? So his view of God is getting bigger and at the same time more tender. Because he says, you've never given up on me. You're always with me. You're still holding me by my right hand. In spite of how stupid I've been, in spite of how I've bitten and scratched you, you have continued to love me and be faithful to me. So his view of God has gotten bigger and tenderer, and as a result, he can handle the life he sees around him. Now, here's what I want to ask you, though. How did that happen? How can he be sure that in spite of the fact that he has been beastly to God, in spite of the fact that he has been doing all this and he's been questioning him, and he's been treating God like this, how can he be sure that God is still with him? How can he be sure that God has forgiven him? How can he be sure that God has never let him go? Now, I don't think he can be sure, except that he's inspired by the Holy Spirit to write a part of the Bible. It's divine revelation. He just knows it. But how can you and I know it? Why wouldn't God, when we act like this, and we do act like this, why wouldn't God just say, hey, natural consequences, just go your way? How do we know that God has not let us go? He won't let us go. I'll tell you how. We don't have divine revelation. We've got, well, not direct, but we have the New Testament. And here's what we see. When Jesus Christ was on the cross, he cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me? Do you know what he was saying? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What he was saying is, father, I can't feel your hand. See, all of Jesus life, he was utterly different than the rest of us. He was never beastly toward his father. He was always faithful to his father. He never questioned his father. He always loved his father. He was the one person who deserved to have God hold him by the hand. But at the end of his life, God let him go. He says, so, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why? Because on the cross, Jesus Christ was getting what you and I deserve. He was losing the Father's hand. So you and I can know that if we believe in Jesus and we are accepted by God because of what Jesus has done, he will never let you go. He will never forsake you. In other words, we have a bigger view of God even than this man did. He had no idea that God would be so great as to come to earth as to come to earth and become a human being and go to the cross and do this for us. We have a bigger view of God and a more loving view of God than he ever had. And therefore, how much more should we be able to inhabit a large view of God that handles life, and how much more than he should we be able to say what he says at the end? Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing I desire on earth more than you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Let's pray. Our Father, we pray that you make us great through our doubts. We pray that you would move us to new levels through our doubts. But we pray that you would help us to know what to do with our doubts. And we have gotten some pretty good instruction from this passage of the Scripture. But most of all, O Lord, help us to see that in light of the cross we can trust that you do not give up on us, that you do not let go of us, even when we're pretty bitter, even when we're crying out, even when we're. Even when we're yelling, even when we're filled with doubts. We thank you that we're saved by grace. Not through our good works, not through the level of our certainty. We thank you that we're saved by grace through Jesus. And we pray that you would help us to grow in grace because of what he did. Make all this true and realized in our lives. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
- [47:08]
Tim Keller
Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. We hope that today's teaching encourages you to share the gospel with someone you know. This August is Go and Share Month at Gospel and Life, and we've curated a wide range of free resources to help you take simple steps to share the gospel. You can Access them at gospelinlife.com Share we believe God uses small acts to do great things, and we're inviting you to do simple small acts to go and share the gospel this month. Because the gospel changes everything. Today's sermon was recorded in 2013. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Light podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
- [47:54]
Unknown Speaker
Sam.