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- [00:04]
Podcast Host
Welcome to Gospel and Life. The Bible tells us there's a difference between outward self control and the deep lasting change only the Holy Spirit can bring. In Galatians, Chapter 5, Paul calls these inner transformations the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience and more. Join us today as Tim Keller explores one of the fruit of the Spirit.
- [00:33]
Reader
The reading for today is taken from the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 14 and 15, 20, 25 and verse 29. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head that is Christ. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him according with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitudes of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor. For we are all members of one body. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others upon according to their needs, that it may benefit those who will listen. This is the word of the Lord.
- [02:05]
Tim Keller
Galatians 5, 22:23 lists what's called the fruit of the Spirit. These are characteristics descriptors of a supernaturally changed heart, love, joy, peace, patience. And we're looking at one each week so that perhaps we can have more of the supernatural change in our own lives. And today we come to faithfulness. And the word faithfulness is honesty, integrity, truthfulness. And this is a great text that we're going to be looking at so we can take a deeper look at what that means. And there couldn't be a more relevant topic because of the economic crisis, the recession and the revelations that have come out since then. Our trust, Americans trust of their institutions, business, government, church is at an all time low. All the studies show that because there is a sense that there's been a failure of integrity in our society at all levels. And what does the Bible have to say about this? Therefore very relevant and all important sub this particular text is going to show us that there are two problems with regard to truth. There's a problem of practicing truthfulness. But then there's also a problem of abusing people with the truth. So there's a problem of practicing truth, and then there's a problem of abusing people with the truth. And then we're going to see what the solution is, how we solve both problems. Okay, first. First there's the problem of practicing truth. It's a very demanding thing according to the Bible. And what's great about this passage is there's three very important aspects to being truthful people that are all mentioned. What does it mean to be truthful? First, it means to refuse to deceive people, to not deceive people. Notice verse 14 and 15. Verse 15 says, instead, Speak the truth instead of what? And right. In verse 14, it says, cunning, craftiness, and deceit. Now, this is extremely important because if you and I, you and I tend to think of lying strictly as conveying inaccurate statements. But the bible long ago understood what today is called speech act theory. Do you know what speech act theory is? Speech act theory is the insight that every word is actually also a deed. We tend to say, you know, word, deed are two different things. But every word is really a deed. That is, every word is not only designed to convey information, it's also designed to get something done. It's got an intention, it's got a purpose. And in order to evaluate a word or a phrase, you need to not only evaluate whether it's conveying accurate information, but also evaluate what its purpose is. So, for example, there's been a theft at the office, your office. And you know Mr. A did it, but you want to protect and cover for Mr. A. So the investigators come, and you don't want to lie to them, see, and they say, who did it? What did you see? And you say, I saw Mr. B there that very night. Is that a lie? Technically, you're telling the. You're saying what actually happened. It's factually true. Mr. B was there that night. You did see Mr. B there that night. But what's the purpose of the statement? It's misdirection. It's to hide. It's to deceive. You're trying to get them to run down a. You know, you're throwing them a red herring. And therefore, what is, according to the Bible, an untruthful word. An untruthful word is any word that deliberately tries to hide reality from the listener. Every listener that asks you a question. If you lie to them, that means you are deliberately withholding reality as you know it to be from them. And therefore, if you're deceiving whether or not what you said is technically true or not, that's a lie and it's wrong. And as a result, by the way, what that does mean is once you realize what the Bible's saying here, it does expand your understanding, does it not, of untruthful speech. So somebody once made this little polite lies, euphemisms, exaggerations, word inflation and so called benevolent lies. But they're all lies. So here's a polite lie. I would love to go, but I'll be out of town. But you won't be out of town. Here's a euphemism. I think your writing is too sophisticated for our readers. When you mean it's too terrible for our readers, but you don't want to say it's terrible. You upset them. It's a euphemism, but it's a lie. See, exaggeration. This works inside marriage. You always, you never. Well now, of course that's not true because the person you are berating sometimes doesn't or sometimes does. But when you say you always, you never what you're actually with speech act theory here. You know, even if it's pretty much true, you're bludgeoning the person. Besides that, you're exaggerating. So the person's going to find the part of what you're saying that's wrong and it's just going to inflame things and you're going to be up very late tonight. Or word inflation. And here's something. Now think about this, everybody. This is something that Christians do particularly, but it can be done everywhere. Whenever public discourse in a church is, it's such a blessing. The Lord was there, it was just incredible. Now what happens is sometimes the Lord is there and sometimes it is a blessing, and sometimes it's incredible. When it's always a blessing, it's always incredible. You're just creating cynicism, especially amongst your kids, just creating cynicism. It's word inflation. And so what you're actually doing is. It's not, it's deceptive. It's just a way of always. It's hype. Hype is deceptive. Hype isn't reality. And then you've got a whole pile of little, what you call benevolent lies. There's, there's enabling lies, like when you continually lie for an incompetent friend when you actually ought to be confronting him or her about how they're living. Or then you have Watergate lies. You know what Watergate lies are. Watergate lies are. Well, the little people wouldn't understand. It's just too complicated for them. So this is what I'm going to say. This is all deception. To live a life of truthfulness means to refuse to deceive, number one. Number two, secondly, to live a life of truthfulness according to the Bible is to make and keep promises. That actually comes out, though you might not see it immediately. In verse 25 we should. If you're a Christian, you should tell the truth to everybody, of course. But in verse 25 it actually says speak truthfully to your neighbor. Now that might sound in that case like anybody, but then it says, for we are members of one body. And here he's talking about Christian to Christian and that members of one body is a covenant image. A covenant is an agreement. A covenant is a commitment. A covenant is a public commitment you enter into by signing a contract or making a promise. And here we're told that Christians are people who are not afraid of, they make and they keep promises. We live in a culture in which there is so much emphasis on personal freedom, personal freedom, keeping your options open, that people no longer make promises at places that they used to. And if they do make them, they feel very, very free to break them as soon as it means any, it entails any self denial at all. Let me just give you two examples and I'll immediately backpedal. Okay, two examples of places where people used to make promises but now they don't make promises. One is living together without being married, secondly, being very involved in the church without joining. In both cases you're not making the promise that you used to. Now right away somebody's going to say, are you equating those two things? I am not equating them. I'm not saying they're equally wrong or bad. What I'm saying is 40 years ago neither of them happened very much. And the reason they didn't happen very much was because the idea of making a promise and nailing it down and committing yourself, in a sense committing yourself and shutting down your options wasn't considered the horrible thing that it is today. But it is. And so it permeates us all. And one of the problems is that we actually think one of the reasons is we're so big on our freedom that we feel like if I make promises and I make commitments and I stick with them, that somehow I'll lose my freedom. And that is not true at all. Lewis Meads in his great book Mere Morality, which is an exposition of the Ten Commandments talks about this at one place. He's talking about making promises and keeping commitments and taking vows. And he's thinking. You can hear when he talks about it. He's thinking somewhat about the marriage vow, but he's actually. What he's. What he's saying in this quote is true of all promises and all commitments. He says this. When we make a promise, we take it on ourselves to create a future with someone else. No matter what fate or destiny may have in store. This is almost ultimate freedom. When I make a promise, I bear witness that my future with you is not determined by the hand I was dealt out of my family's genetic deck. When I make a promise, I testify that I was not routed along some unalterable itinerary by the psychic conditioning visited on me by my slightly wacky parents. I am not fated. I am not determined. I am not a lump of human dough whipped into shape by the contingent reinforcement and aversive conditioning of my past. Now, I know as well as the next person that much of what I am and what I do is a gift or a curse from my past. But when I make a promise to anyone, I rise above all the conditioning that limits me. No German shepherd ever promised to be there with me. No computer ever promised to be loyal for life. Only a person can make a promise. And when he does, he is most free. You see, when you say, but if I make that promise, if I make that commitment, if I promise to be there, then I won't have my freedom. And what he's saying is the opposite. Don't you realize that if you don't make a promise, then you are a slave to circumstances. You're a slave to feelings, slave to fears. You're a slave to impulses. Make a promise, and that's your way of saying, this is the way I'm going to be. And I don't care about whatever else happens. And that makes you more free. And to be people of integrity. We should be people who are not afraid of making promises and keeping promises. So refusing to deceive, making and keeping promises. And the third aspect of what it means to practice truth and be truthful is integrity of selves. Plural integrity of selves. Look at verse 25, where it says, therefore each of you must put off falsehood. But do you know what it says in the original Greek is you must put off the pseudo. That's the Greek word, the pseudo. And this is what he is talking about. Think of the word integrity in English. It's the same as the word integer. What is an integer? It's a whole number, not a fraction, something that can't be divided. It's a whole number. What is integrity? A person of integrity has the same self in every place. You don't have a pseudo self and a real self. So, for example, a person who lacks integrity is one way in private and another way in public. This is the reason why politicians should be really careful about those live microphones. You're one way in private, another way in public, without integrity. You are one way with this group and a total another way with this group. You talk a completely different line than this. What you say, what you say, you believe. It's totally different. Okay? A person of integrity, however, is the same in private as in public. The same with this group, as with that group, the same in what you think, with what you say, and the same with what you say, with what you do. You don't have multiple selves, a real self and a bunch of pseudo selves. You got one self, one real self, and boy, is this lacking. If I had time, I would talk about all the cultural reasons why we're actually encouraged by the culture to create totally different cells. What do you think? What do you think all those Internet names are? You create totally different cells. We're encouraged by it. But let me just give you one example of how devastating it is in just one area, which I mentioned at the top, which is business. A man who was some years ago just writing a book on how to have integrity as a business leader just wrote these things down. I just pulled them off because they're routine, but they also are very revealing. He says, don't say publicly we're for quality, but privately you have unreasonable deadlines and all your employees know it. Don't take friends to company box seats when everybody knows you should only be bringing clients there. Don't say publicly everything is fine when all your employees know everything is not fine. Don't give huge perks to management and not to others. Don't put in a big number of orders right before the end of the quarter, because even though you know they will all be canceled, it will look so good in the figures for the quarter. When you hear that kind of thing, you suddenly realize, oh, my word, we just swim in that. I'm back to my. The illustration. Don't ask a fish to tell you about water, because then the fish will say, well, what's water? Because the fish is so in the water, the fish doesn't even see there was water and Maybe we're getting to the place where we can't even say to people in business, in government, in the church, in real life, just life, be people of integrity, because they don't even know what that is because they are so used to the kind of behavior that this man said, don't do, don't do. But we just swim in it. It's just everywhere. All through this passage. The reason why we should be truthful comes back to God, does it not? We should be righteous and truthful and holy because God is truthful and righteous and holy. And the implication of that, if you're a Christian believer, there's a place in the Sermon on the Mount. When you're reading through the Sermon on the Mount, a lot of this stuff makes sense. When you get to this place, it doesn't seem to make sense. It's about oaths. And there's a place where Jesus says, don't swear by the city of Jerusalem and don't swear by your head, but let your yes be yes and let your no be no. And you say, what? And here's what he meant by that. In those days, it was understood or believed that if you swore by God, the name of God, then you couldn't ever break your oath. That probably goes to their understanding of the Ten Commandments. It says, you must not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Which means you must never take the name of God on and then not follow through. If you invoke God's name, then you better follow through. But they said if you. If you. If you swear on something else, if you swear on your father's grave, or if you swear on the city of Jerusalem, or if you swear on your own head, that's different. If you make a promise like that, it's not so bad if you break it. And you know what Jesus is saying? Don't you dare believe that. He says, don't you understand? Jerusalem is God's city. Your head is God's. God made your head. Your father's grave is God's. He says, don't you realize that every yes and every no, everything you say, every day, every idle word is under oath, as much under oath as if you were because you are standing before the throne of the great king. Absolutely. There's no levels of truthfulness. Absolutely everything you say is actually under oath. If I told you that tomorrow somebody's going to follow you around and is going to video every single thing you do and every single thing you say, would you speak with more integrity? Would you be more careful how you spoke to your spouse or to your friends or to the person that you're pitching a deal to, you know, prospective client? Would you be at all more careful if you knew it was being, it was being recorded and then tomorrow it was going to be put up on the Internet? Would you be more careful? I would. And you would. And if we're Christians, we're fools because it's true that we would be more careful. And yet Jesus Christ says, don't you realize you're under way more scrutiny than that? Every single one of your words is being held to far greater accountability than a few thousand people watching it on the Internet. God, the God of truth, the God of righteousness, the God of holiness, you're standing right before Him.
- [20:12]
Podcast Host
The Psalms can profoundly, profoundly shaped 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 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 gospelandlife.com give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching.
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Tim Keller
So you see the problem and the difficulty of practicing the truth. But that's not the only problem that Paul brings out here. It's not the only problem with regard to the truth. There's a second problem, and it's fascinating to me. He hints at it in verse 15 when he doesn't just say, instead, speak the truth in love. He doesn't just say, speak the truth, he says, speak the truth in love. Doesn't just say speak the truth, he says, in love. Okay, well that's nice. When you look at that, you kind of think, okay, so be truthful, but add love. So truth is one thing and love is another thing. But when you get down to verse 29, the last verse, then you see how remarkable, what a remarkable point Paul is making because he says, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth. That word unwholesome Literally means rotten. It's a word that means putrefying. It's a word that means leading to decay and disintegration. Okay? And then he so what is an unwholesome word? An unwholesome word is anything that is not supposed, Is not designed to build up, not designed to benefit. And you say, what does that mean? That true words that are not designed to build up and benefit the person, even true words are rotten. And the answer is yes, that's what Paul's saying, rotten. So what are unwholesome words? What does this mean? Well, on the one hand, you know, I still always, I'm always amazed by the one place in Henry V, in the, in the play, the Shakespeare play Henry V, when he's just hung a man for, you know, he's, they're invading France and the English are invading France, and he hangs a man for pillaging, I think. And at one point he turns around and he actually says to all of his soldiers, he said, I will not have the French upbraided nor abused in disdainful language. Okay, yeah, we're here to conquer them, but we are not going to speak. We're not going to speak disdainfully, we're not going to upbraid them. Now that clearly is what it means. But I believe Paul is not just talking about abusive, you know, angry, harsh tones, though. He certainly is saying that if you say the truth in abusive, harsh, angry ways, that's rotten, that stinks, that's wrong, that's sinful. But I'm telling the truth. It doesn't matter. And here's the reason why. When you tell the truth in abusive ways, when you beat people up with the truth, are you really caring about the truth? Are you really valiant for the truth? No, you're valiant for yourself. But Paul's not only talking about, I think, overtly abusive words, he is saying anything that's not actually designed to benefit and build up. That's amazing. When you tell the truth to somebody is your goal. Here we are back to speech act theory. Okay, maybe what you're saying is true, technically true, doctrinally true, you know, accurate. But are you trying to marginalize the person in the eyes of others? Are you trying to beat the person up? Are you trying to pull, punish them? Are you trying to put them in their place? Are you trying to get applause from other people because you're being so hard on them? Paul says none of those are right. Anyone who uses the truth basically to beat the person up in order to get more power and Status for yourself is abusing the truth. And you're not valuing for the truth. You're valiant for yourself. You're using the truth for your own power and status. And at this point, by the way, you realize that we're coming to a place where we're coming to one of the main objections that the world out there today, especially in our culture, has about the church. Foucault, Nietzsche, those kinds of people have said now for years that when Christians claim to have the truth, they're really basically just using the truth to get on top of. So Foucault is a famous place where the French philosopher Foucault says, truth is a thing of this world. It is produced by virtue of multiple forms of constraint, and it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth. He says, basically, truth claims are power plays. Now, what should Christians do when they hear that? I'll tell you what they should do. According to the Bible, the first thing they should do is, is not get their backup and say, wait a minute, there really is absolute truth. They should repent. And here's why. Long before Foucault, long before Nietzsche, long before Marx, Jesus said this. He says, woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you because you load people down with burdens they can hardly bear but do not lift a finger to help them. What's he talking about? He's talking about people who use the law of God, the truth, the Bible, to get the place, the right places in society, the high status, and to keep people down. That's exactly what Foucault and exactly what Nietzsche. Yes, See, Jesus Christ years ago used the Gospel to dismantle what Paul is talking about and what so many people in the world who don't like Christianity complain about. If you get your sense of worth and value out of the free grace of God, if the reason why you know you're worth anything is just the free love and grace of God, then the truth of God just becomes a way of delighting him. It's something you love. So if you get your sense of value from the grace of God, you love the truth. But if you get your sense of value from being right, if you get your sense of value and worth from having the truth and being accurate and being valiant for the truth instead of God, you see, you're looking to the truth to give you what only God can give you. A sense that you must be A valuable, important person because you know the truth so well and so forth. See, Jesus years ago called that moralism, Phariseeism and dismantled it. And therefore Christians are in some ways standing on a very narrow piece of ground. In fact, to most of the world, it's invisible. Because over here you have people who basically say, who's to say what truth is? What is truth? You know, everybody has to decide what truth is for him or herself. They either deny the fact that there is truth or they play fast and loose with the truth. And on the other side, you've got people who say, yes, there is truth and here's absolute truth, and they beat people up with it. And Jesus says, Paul says, both of those are rotten. And if you're a person of integrity, you don't do either. And a person who uses the truth to beat people up is not really valiant for the truth, you're valiant for yourself. And you know, the non Christian thinkers out there see it and know it. So there are the two problems. You know, on the one hand, we're afraid. We're afraid to be truthful. You know, what's, you know, what's hard about telling truth all the time? You know, what's hard about keeping promises and making promises? You know, what's hard about integrity? It's scary. And it's scary. I mean, if I tell the truth all the time, if I just let everybody out, but then, you know, we're afraid. And that's why we lie. That's why I have always lied. When I lie, I lie because I'm afraid. But on the other hand, you have pride. You know, Martin Luther said that Christians are like a drunk man who, having fallen off of the horse on the one side, promptly gets up onto the horse and falls off on the other. And so we are now stuck between, I would have to say, two cultures. Listen to me. On the one hand, we really do have a problem. We have a culture that is relativistic. It really is. They do say, who's to say what is truth? Nobody can say what is right or wrong. All truth and morality is culturally relative. Now one of the bad problems we have there, and it's almost a joke, is then we get real upset. We tell kids there is no right or wrong. You have to decide yourself there is no such thing as truth. And then we get all upset when they get out into society and they lie and they cheat. CS Lewis in his Abolition of Man puts it like this. We clamor for the very qualities we are rendering impossible. We laugh at honor. You know, we laugh at the idea of honor and truth. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful is what he's saying there. He says we tell kids all truth and morality is culturally relative. You know, who's to say what is truth? And then, you know, it says, we clamor for the very qualities we're rendering impossible. Look at all this corruption. Look at all these people cheating. Look at all these people not being honest. Okay, truth is relative, but why aren't you honest? We clamor for the very qualities we are rendering impossible. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate them and then we build them, bid the geldings be fruitful and develop virtue and honesty and integrity, and they can't. And so on the one hand, we are living in a society like that. But therefore, the danger is to react and become people who use unwholesome words, people who use the truth not to build up and not to benefit. And we attack not the problem, but the person when we use the truth. So we have the truth party. We have the truth and nobody else. And we have the love party. Ah, let's just accept everybody. But here's the problem. Truth without love is not really truth. It is a power grab. And love without truth is not really love. It's cowardice or intellectual laziness. Truth and love have to be together or they're not themselves. Got that? That's what Paul's saying here. Love without truth isn't truth, and truth without love. Pardon me. Truth without love isn't truth, and love without truth isn't love. Unless they're together, they're not themselves. So what are we going to do? Here's what we're going to do. In John, chapter 18, I just noticed this. This week, there's really two trials. Jesus first is dragged before the high priest before they, you know, before his crucifixion, he's dragged before the high priest and the religious leaders. And then the same chapter, he's dragged before Pilate. Now, when he's dragged before the high priest, you know what he says? I testify to the truth. And they smack him. But then when he gets in front of Pilate, he uses almost exactly the same words. I testify to the truth. And you know what Pilate says? What is truth? And then they kill him. I want you to behold the wonder of this. First of all, I want you to behold the wonder of the integrity of Jesus. Jesus Christ. What a man of integrity. Why, he's the same both places. There's no pseudo about Jesus. He's the same in one place as another. Here's the moralists, right? The people that he has, the religious leaders that he's been denouncing as moralists. Here's the moralists, he says the same thing. Here's the relativist. What is truth? Says Pilate. And he's exactly the same. He's not two different kinds of people. And notice this. He's not only the same in both places, but they both hate him. They both smack him, they both kill him. Why? Because here's what's so weird. The relativist and the moralist, both are about power. The reason the relativist says, who's to say what truth is? Is to get power. The reason why the moralist says, I have the truth is about power. But Jesus Christ is the exact opposite. He is standing on his integrity, absolute integrity. I testify the truth. He says the same and it gets him killed. Why? Because he's using the truth to serve us. They're using the truth to get power over us. His integrity took him to the cross. But why did he want to go to the cross? And here is the solution. May I ask you a question? Did Jesus Christ go to the truth, go to the cross for truth? Was that why he went? To show that God's law cannot be broken? To show that God's holiness and his righteousness has to be satisfied. Did Jesus Christ go to the cross for the sake of the truth? Or did Jesus Christ go to the cross for the sake of the love, so that we can be pardoned, so we can be forgiven in spite of our sins, so we can be embraced, so we can be accepted? Okay, everybody. Did Jesus Christ go to the cross for truth? Or did Jesus Christ go to the cross for love? And the answer is yes. The minute he died, the truth of God was infinitely satisfied because he fulfilled all the requirements of the law of God. But the minute Jesus died, the love of God was infinitely satisfied. Because now he can embrace us and pardon us and forgive us and receive us in spite of our sins. The cross brought truth and love together. I know in the world and sometimes in our lives, it seems like they're at loggerheads. But if I tell the truth, I don't know if that's loving or if I really. In other words, they seem at loggerheads, but on the cross they were not at loggerheads. And when the cross comes into the center of your life. They won't be either. You know why? It keeps you from the fear that makes you a person who plays fast and loose with the truth. Because Jesus Christ loved you so much that he died for you. But it also keeps you from the pride that makes you a person who might abuse with the truth. Because Jesus Christ had to die for you. You're that sinful. So it. The pride that leads you to abuse people with the truth is taken away by the cross. The fear that leads us to. To duck and dive and play with the truth is taken away. Our hearts are so filled with love that here's what we can do. Verse 29. I know the translation says you should only do what will benefit those who listen. But literally, the Greek says, you should only say that which will give grace to those who listen. When you get the grace from the cross of Jesus Christ, then you can speak the truth graciously and only then. Or you could put it one other way. Yeah. As Mr. Incredible once said. I got time. We can do one. Let me tell you one more thing. In the beginning, don't think about that too much. In the beginning of history, it was a disaster. Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden. What happens? Sin, serpent. You know the story. Everything's horrible. Death, destruction, evil. Everything's horrible. Except there's a glimmer of hope. And you know what it is? It's a promise. Genesis 3:15, God says, I promise that one descendant of Eve is someday going to bruise the head of the serpent. Destroy evil. I promise. Scroll forward. Centuries later, God starts talking to Abram. Says, I'm going to save the world through your descendants. And one night, Abraham says, but how can I be sure? And in Genesis 15, God shocks Abraham, and he shocks anybody who understands what he's doing. In Genesis 15, when he appears and he passes between the pieces of a dead animal, and he says, I will save the world through one of your descendants, even if it means I have to die. A second promise. And then, years and years later, Jesus Christ comes into the world. And he's a man of complete integrity. Complete integrity always means what he says, always says what he means. Absolute integrity. But at the very end, in the ultimate act of integrity, he sets his face like a flint to go to Jerusalem. And he goes to the cross. Why? He's fulfilling his promise. He's fulfilling the promise of God. And everything's before him. Everything comes down. Everything opposes him. Hell itself comes down. And he says, no. I've made a promise. And he goes to the cross and he dies for us. You've been saved by the integrity of Jesus. You've been saved by the promise keeping of Jesus Christ. That should humble us away from ever using truth against people. But on the other hand it convinces us there is a truth. We can't be relativist at all and it destroys our fear of telling the truth. And therefore, oh friends, look at the integrity of Jesus. Look at what he did for you on the cross and become people of integrity. Let's pray. Thank you Father for giving us this vision of Jesus Christ who kept all his promises. He was a man of integrity. He used the truth to save us, not to exploit us. Our Father, when we deny the truth or fail to speak the truth to save our necks, or when we abuse people with the truth to get the power and status we want, we are just turning our eyes away from your son who was the way, the truth and the life, but who on the cross gave us forever a vision of how truth and love are joined together. They're one flesh, never to be parted. And we pray that the vision of what Jesus did on the cross would enable the truth and love to grow in our own lives go hand in hand. We pray that you make us a community of integrity. We pray that you'd help us to know how to speak the truth in our culture right now that doesn't want to hear it. We pray Lord that you would help us to know what it is to be people of integrity. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
- [39:38]
Podcast Host
Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the Gospel to your life and to share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com There you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals and other great gospel centered resources. Again, it's all@gospelandlife.com you can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 2010. 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.