A (19:44)

The Psalms can profoundly shape the way you approach God. Even Jesus relied on the Psalms to face every situation, including death. In Tim and Kathy Keller's 365 Day devotional, the Songs of Jesus, you'll find daily readings through the Psalms with fresh biblical insight. If you don't have a regular devotional practice, this book is a wonderful way to start. And if you already spend time in study and prayer, then reading and praying through the Psalms can help you bring your deepest emotions and questions before God and discover a new level of intimacy with Him. We'll send you Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional as our thanks for your gift to help gospel and life share the love of Jesus with more people. Request your copy today@gospelandlife.com give that's gospelinlife.com give now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching.

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Because you see, when he says, yea, she may forget, what is he saying? What he's saying is, yeah, mothers do forget. I mean, nature only goes so far. There are women who buck nature. There are women who don't do it. But what he's trying to say is simply this. He says, my love for you is not only exactly like a mother's natural love, but it's infinitely greater. But don't you see the real point? He's not just saying, you see a mother's love, mine's more powerful. You see a mother's love, mine's more free and unconditional. You see a mother's love, my love is more detailed, don't I say in Psalm 56, I know how many tears have gone down your cheek. Even a mother doesn't know that. But he's going beyond that. And he's trying to say, I am as driven by my nature to love you as a mother is to love her child. It is utterly natural. And when he says that, now listen, there's a number of commentators that have that have helped me on this and have said this is astounding. Because if you think about it, especially since. And this is one of the reasons why this sermon came after last week's sermon. Last week's sermon tells us something about the nature of God. He is holy. He's a judge. He's a God. We talked about this last. He's an angry God. He's angry about evil. He's a God of tremendous justice. And in light of that, what would you say? If God loves us, surely he's bucking his nature. If God loves us, surely it's wonderful. But surely he's bucking it. And God says no. Everything. If I would cease to love you, I'd cease to be me. Everything about me, everything about my nature leads me to be absolutely, powerfully, unconditionally, tenderly, emotionally, regularly. I hurt. It's hard to believe that he would say I hurt if I don't meet your needs. How could that be? Well, it's the second. The first thing he says, this is who I am. But you don't understand how that could be unless you look secondly at. Look what I've done. And what has he done? Verse 16. The first. First clause is what he's saying. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Now, this is the answer to what we just asked. How could. How I know some of you are going to the bends. I mean, last week, the whole point was this is an angry God. And God says he's an angry God. He says, I am a pure eyes than can behold iniquity. And yet here he says, my very purity, my very, my very nature has turned me into someone far more powerfully, far more driven to love you than a mother for an infant. How could that be? Here's the answer. Look what he's done. I've engraved you on the palms of my hands. Now, what in the world does that mean? Let's. Let's break it into two pieces. Engraved, palm of the hands. What is this image getting across? Everything. First of all, engraved. Listen, there are some perfectly decent words they could have used or Isaiah could have used, or God could have used. However they worked this out, which I don't completely understand, but perfectly good words for. For tattoo. They didn't use them. This is. That's not what it's saying. Nothing. Tattooed. It's not saying written. Engraved. And the word engraved, you say, what does the word. It means exactly what it means in English. It means to get out a hammer and get out a chisel. And to actually cut into stump something hard. That's weird. Why? Well, first of all, engraved means two things. First of all, it means permanent. He's put his name, our names, on his hands permanently. They'll never wash off. They'll never wear off. There's two ways, you know, you put something on your hands, sometimes it washes off. Sometimes it just wears off with a lot of heavy use. Sometimes nothing will take our name off his hands. But it's not just permanent. The word engraved also means artistry. He doesn't say he chipped it. Engraved is a work of art. And it gets at this. What it's getting at is the other place in the Bible that talks about our names being engraved is back in Exodus 28. In Exodus 28, we're told that the high priest, when he goes before God into the tabernacle, is wearing an ephod, which is a breastplate. And on the breastplate there are two precious stones. They are in a gold. They're encased in gold. So they're absolutely gorgeous. And on those stones is engraved the names of the children of Israel. And why? Well, see, this is. This is the connection between the 2. In chapter 28, it says, why is the high priest doing that? It's very simple. It says, in order to be a perpetual memorial before the Lord. Memorial. In other words, whenever God minds us. This is what Exodus 28 saying. Whenever God remembers us, whenever God thinks of us, he looks at our names and he sees. He sees a beauty, he says, an unbelievable beauty. Now listen just for a second. This is something that no other religion, not only no other religion gives you. This is even something that most of us who were raised in Christian churches have never really come to grips with. This is an astonishing statement. Engraved means a work of art. And this is what God is saying. It is possible to be in a relationship with me. So you are not just tolerated by me. So you don't just have access to me so that you don't just every so often you're able to come and get things from me. You don't have just a relationship in which when you die, you'll be able to, you know, have blessings in paradise. He is saying, it's possible to be in a relationship with me so that you know that when I look at you, I'm having an aesthetic experience.

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Experience.

B (26:21)

And you see the link. When a mother looks at a child because of her very nature, she just drools over the child, literally. And God says, it's possible to be in a relationship with me. So that when I see you, I am ravished with your beauty. I can't get over you. I can hardly express the delight. I can hardly unders. I can hardly believe. I'm just. I'm drawn to you. That's the link. We're engraved. It means we have. We are an aesthetic experience. Here's what it. Here's another way to put it. When God. What do you look like? Who are you? When it's possible to be in a relationship with God. So that you know this, that when God looks at you, he sees an absolute beauty. And of course, if God sees you that way, then that's the definitive view. It doesn't matter what. It doesn't matter what your friends say. It doesn't matter what your parents say. It doesn't matter what the mirror says. It doesn't matter if you put on £5, it doesn't matter. None of those things could pot. This is the ultimate mind. This is the ultimate view. This is the ultimate you. And God says, yes, it's possible to be in a relationship to me. So that you're a work of art. Well, you say, how could that be? And here's the answer. It's not. You see, if you go back to Exodus 28, it's almost completely inexplicable. How in the world could we possibly be something that beautiful? Yeah, I see we're engraved on these beautiful stones on the high priest effort. That's beautiful. That's wonderful. How. How could that possibly be? This is ridiculous. Maybe you'd say, but here we see something else. Here we see our names are engraved on his hands, on the palms. Now, first of all, the palms of the hands means this is the most visible place. If I. If I would engrave something anywhere else in my body, I might not see it, but my palms, my hands, I can't help but see it. Secondly, what this means is, it means that absolutely everything he does, the palm, is the way you do everything. This is how I move my mic. Here's how I look at my watch. Here's how I turn off the light. I have to use my palms. And when God says, I put your name on the palms of my hand, what he's saying is, everything I do, I'm doing for you. Just like a mother. Everything I do, I'm doing for you. No matter what happens, I'm doing for you, you know? So here's Joseph and his brothers, grab him and throw him into a pit, remember? And they sell him into slavery to Egypt. And he's down the pit, we're told back in the passage in Genesis. And he's crying out to them and he's crying out to God. And God seems like he doesn't remember him, doesn't hear him. But you see, later on, Joseph was able to realize if God had actually answered my prayer as I made it, I'd be dead now. I never would have become prime minister of Egypt. I never would have run the famine relief program. I never would have saved all those thousands of people. I wouldn't even have saved my own family's physical life. And I never would have led my own brothers to repentance. And therefore they would have been spiritually dead. They would have been physically dead. In other words, God, when he seemed to not answer my prayer, was remembering me. Everything that happens, everything he does is being done for me. It's amazing. But you say, well, but that's not all. It's not just it's on the palm of the hands, meaning it's the most visible place. Not palms of the hands means your most active place, but it's the most vulnerable place. You see, when somebody says, listen, see my outstretched palms? This is the trans cultural sign of vulnerability. If someone says, hands up. Come out with your hands up. You don't come out like this, they'll shoot you. Hands. Palms means I have no weapon. A palm means I have to open my palm to shake, to shake your hand. A palm means appeal. A palm means welcome. A palm means receive. When my palms are open, I am vulnerable. Now here's the question. How in the world, why in the world would someone engrave the palm? That would be if you're going to put a chisel there, that's just terrible. That must have hurt terribly. It did. Many centuries later, somebody came to another doubter, another despondent person. His name was Thomas. And he said to Thomas, look at the palms of my hands. And when you look at Jesus Christ, look at the palms of his hands to see where your name is and you will see nail prints. Why this is the reason why we're a beauty to him. The reason we're such a beauty to God is because our names have been engraved in something more precious than stones, more precious than diamonds. The sufferings of Jesus. The nails of Jesus are the tools with which our names are engraved on the palms of the hands. And what that means. Finally, we have an answer to how 15 can be true. 16 tells us how 15 can be true. If Jesus Christ is our high priest, if he stands before the Father's throne. And he says, look at what I have done. Look at my suffering. Look at how I paid for everything. Look at how I've made a sacrifice. Do you know what that means? Over the years, when I first heard that Jesus Christ was our high priest, and this is in Hebrews chapter seven, in fact, the whole book of Hebrews. And it's in First John, chapter two, where it says that Jesus Christ. It's just an image, but it's getting a point across. Jesus Christ stands before the throne of God and he shows the wounds and he pleads for us. Now, when I first heard about that, I said, well, that's good, but it's not completely comforting because how many times will God finally listen to Jesus about me? I mean, you know, I keep failing and I keep failing and I keep failing. And I guess every day, you know, Monday morning, Jesus will come on up there and say, look, Tim did it again. But for my sake, would you please continue to love him? And I see God up there on the throne saying, well, all right, but that's to miss the whole thrust of everything. This whole passage is about when Jesus Christ stand before, stands before the Father's throne. Now, we know this. He is not. When he says, love my brothers and sisters, when he pleads for us, he's not demanding. He's not asking for mercy. You know that. He's not asking for mercy. He's demanding justice. Okay, give me 60 seconds, will you? Jesus Christ is saying this. Thy law, O God, demands death for sin. I have paid all their debts. They've trusted in me. Their debts are paid. And therefore, for you to get any punishment from them would be to be getting two payments. Therefore, O God, all thy holiness, all thy justice, not just thy mercy, not just thy mercy, not just thy love, all thy holiness, all thy justice, all of your nature demands that you see them as a beauty. Every other religion, and probably most of you who went to churches, Christian churches, believe the same thing. Every other religion thinks that when it comes to my relationship with God, it's sort of like a set of scales. You've seen a set of scales, right? You know, in old courtrooms, they always have some blind lady or something like that. You know, the blindfold on, with, with, with. With the blindfolds, on with, with the scales. And there's. And what does everybody think? Well, I have good deeds and bad deeds. And if I have more good deeds than bad deeds, and my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, then God will deal with me. And Christianity says the very Holiness of God, the very righteousness of God, compared to which all the mountains of the world and all the planets of the world are like a piece of dust, are on your side now, that's the reason why, First John, if you think I'm exaggerating. First John 1, verse 8 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. It doesn't say he's faithful and merciful, though of course he is. But it doesn't say that if he would not forgive, if he would not continually accept us, those of us who believed in Jesus Christ, he would be unjust. And that means his whole nature is now for us. Let me put it to you in a nutshell. What power could turn the holiness, the righteousness, the vengeance and the wrath of God against evil? What power could turn all that into mother's milk? What power in the whole universe could. Could change things so that every bit of God's holiness now demands that he loves you like a mother? It's the cross. That's the reason. There's a hymn that goes, what wondrousness, what mysteries in this appointment shine. My breaches of the law are his and all his obedience mine. That's the gospel. Lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus feet. Stand in him and him alone, gloriously complete, and see if you see what he is and then see what he's done, you can start to live as you really are. Because the last part of verse 16 says something very simple. What does it say? He says, thy walls are ever before me. Wait. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute. The walls are broken. No, they're not. Not in God's mind. God says, I treat you the way you're going to be. I practice toward you. Not the way you look right now, but the way you're going to be. And that's what we're supposed to be doing. Another way to put it, it's simply this. We are supposed to also take what he has done for us and say, look, if this is how he sees me, then that's how I have to see myself. You have to apply this, and it will do anything when you suffer. What are you supposed to say? Why have you forsaken me? Wait a minute, wait a minute. That word forsaken, that's used in verse 14, is also used in Psalm 21, verse 1. It's the very same word Jesus cried on the cross. Jesus Christ is saying, you are not forsaken. I was forsaken. I was forsaken. So that even when you're thrown into pits and you cry out and say, please don't sell me into slavery, God will never and ever forget you. He'll never forget you because he forgot me. And you must never act as if he has. And what that means is, no matter what you're suffering, you say, this can't be punishment. It can't be punishment. It's all fallen into the heart of Jesus. It can't be. When you feel guilty, you have to say, this can't bring me into condemnation. And when you feel disappointment, when you feel discouraged. Ultimately, discouragement and forsakenness always comes from this. Discouragement and forsakeness means, I'm sorry, I know this is going to be vivid, but this is the text, all right? When God says, you're going to mothers for something only I can give you, there is a milk that your soul needs. It's everlasting love. Mother's love can't be everlasting. Even the mothers who are great die. And most mothers aren't great. And whatever you're. If you're discouraged and you say I'm forsaken, I'm forsaken. It's because there's something that you've made your mother instead of me. There's something that you say, if I have this, then I'm. Then I'm beautiful. You're only beautiful in me. And that's the reason why he says, if you apply, see, in a sense, this. No matter what your situation is, whether it's guilt, whether it's lack of self control, whether it's suffering, no matter what it is, you apply this. Apply this. This is the health of my soul. Can I just be honest? This is the health of my soul. Not just that in general. I'm living for Jesus. Not just in general. He forgives me when I fall down, but that every fiber of God's attributes are for me. Therefore the stars will fall from heaven, but his love for me cannot change. On the basis of that, I have something to stand on. Any other ground is sinking sand. It's a marsh. And it can be the healthier soul, too. Here's one last thing I did used to have a house in which we had babies. And I just remember this. The only time, whenever it was quiet. Oh my gosh, it's quiet. I suddenly realized why. It's because they were nursing. I mean, it was the only time they ever were. Because they can't cry when they're nursing. How quiet is your soul? This is what God is saying, if your soul's not quiet, if it's restless, if it's a mess, you don't know what it's like to know who he is, to see what he's done, and to practice who you are now in him. Because when you get a handle on that, you finally got the milk. Finally your soul's quieted. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that you would show us how this, how Jesus was destroyed by justice so that now justice is on our side and your love for us is indestructible. Would you please show us how that works out? Would you please show us how we can apply that? Father, this is strong medicine. It's the most difficult thing for many of us to grab hold on. We try to hold onto it and we find that we have to beat it into our heads over and over again and we lose our orientation to it so quickly. Would you, Lord, tonight, by your grace, engrave these truths into our hearts deeper than they've ever been engraved so that we can start to practice who we are and really see what you've done. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

A (40:21)

Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. We hope that today's teaching encouraged you to go deeper into God's word. You can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com Today's sermon was recorded in 1999. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life Podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.