← Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life
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Welcome to Gospel and life. Christianity isn't just a spiritual practice or set of moral teachings. At its heart, it's the person of Jesus actively pursuing us. In today's teaching, Tim Keller unpacks how Jesus actively seeks us, reveals truth to us, and calls us to Himself.
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Let me read from Luke, chapter 24. It's printed in your bulletin. It's the very end of the Gospel of Luke, verses 44 to 53. Okay? And he said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, this is what is written. That Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. And when he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethlehem, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And while he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. And then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually in the temple, praising God. This is God's word. Now, many people today think of Christianity as a set of beliefs that you take up, something you decide upon. Here's a set of beliefs, here's a set of ethical guidelines. And you take them up, you pick them up after you've decided, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to be. The Bible, however, describes Christianity in. In very different terms, almost opposite terms. The Bible says that Christianity is not something that you choose so much. Oh, there's a choice involved. It's something that comes upon you. It's not something that picks you up. It's not something that you pick up. It's something that picks you up. It's not something that you take up. It's something that takes you up. It's not something that you just decide to do, but rather it's always something that comes at you. It's a force. And you do make a choice. You do make a choice, but it's always in response to something that you feel is arguing with you, something you feel is coming after you, something that you feel is seeking you out, always. What is it? It sounds mysterious, doesn't it? I tell you that you don't know real Christianity Boy, it sounds so arrogant, but it is true, I tell you. You don't understand real Christianity unless you've had that same sense. The sense of something having come after you, something arguing with you, something grabbing you by the neck, something making you think about things that you don't really want to think, helping you see things that you've never really seen before. Unless you sense that something is coming upon you and picking you up and taking you up. And in response to that you have to make a decision in respons to that unless that's happening, you haven't really experienced real Christianity. Sounds so exotic, doesn't it? Thrilling, mysterious. What is it? What is it that comes after you? I'll tell you what it is. It's Jesus Christ, the Revealer. What we're looking at today and what we see depicted here is that Jesus Christ is not a passive savior. Jesus is not depicted by the Bible as somebody who's died on the cross to deal with guilt and to deal with evil. And then he sort of sits back and he waits for you to figure it out. Doesn't do that at all. Instead he comes after us. He is not just a priest, he's a prophet. He's not just a redeemer, he's a revealer. He's not just someone who makes a provision for us, but he comes and he tells us about it. He comes after us. It's him. This passage tells us that after the resurrection he comes to his disciples and opens their mind up. And the Bible tells us that that continues to happen today, that through the Holy Spirit he comes after us. What am I talking about? It's what Jesus says in the Book of John when he says, you have not chosen me, I have chosen you. Or it's what Jesus says in Matthew 11 where he says, no one knows the Father but the Son and the One to whomever the Son chooses to reveal him. Let me say that again. No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. See, Jesus says, I'm the revealer, I come to you, I let you in, I show you the Father. It's very natural. And yet I'll try to show you here in the next 60 seconds. It's illogical, but it's very natural to say in our modern day. That's not fair. That's so narrow minded. Why would you say that Jesus? Why would Jesus say he's the only way to the Father, he's the only one who can reveal. That's not fair. That's not just. That's not. That's too narrow. Let me ask you a question. What did people say when Jonas Salk, remember Jonas Salk who came up with the polio vaccine? When Jonas Salk came up and said, I have discovered the only cure for polio or the vaccine for polio. I have discovered it, what did everybody say? Did they say that couldn't be. How unfair that one scientist would find the cure for polio and nobody else would? Is that what happened? Did everybody say, well, that can't be. I mean, why would one scientist know it? Not all scientists. No. Everybody knew that if you wanted to get the vaccine for polio, you had to go to Jonas Salk. If you wanted deliverance, you had to go to him because he alone knew it and he alone could reveal the way out. Why there was nobody upset about it. They're upset about Jesus saying, I show you the way to the Father. They're not upset about Jonas Salk. Why? The reason they weren't upset about the polio issue was they knew it wasn't a matter of if it's fair, just if it's true. It doesn't matter if his claims are just if they're true. If he really knew what he said he knew, then he was the way. That's just the way it is. And Jesus says that's the way it is. And we're going to try to show you in a minute why he's able to say that. But just to start. Introduction. This is an aspect of the message of the Christian faith which is very important to know. It's very practical. It's very mysterious. In fact, it's almost romantic, to be honest. There's a romance to it. Christianity is something that comes and gets you because Jesus is not simply a king and a redeemer. He's also a revealer of the hidden. He comes after us and he shows us the truth. Now let's take a look at this. Traditionally and theologically and historically, this is called the prophetic ministry of Christ. The Bible says Jesus is prophet, priest and king. He's a prophet, he's a priest and a king. And today we're looking at his prophetic ministry. And let me just talk to you about it by looking at this passage where we see him engaged in it. And let's just look at it under three headings. What he does, why he does it and how he does it. What? Why? How? What? Why and how. I'm saying that so I remember it, not so I don't Think you hear it. What, why and how? What does he do? He gives us eyes. He gives us eyes. Historically, the churches understood that Jesus prophetic ministry had two parts, an earthly and a heavenly, or an external and an internal. Traditionally, the church understands that Jesus Christ came to earth to be a prophet, which means he comes down to earth and he becomes a human being. And he teaches us and he gives us verbal revelation. He tells us things about the word and the will of God. But that's not all he does. The Bible says that's what he did as an earthly prophet in the past. But now he has a heavenly prophetic ministry in the present when through the Holy Spirit he comes and he opens our minds to the truth. So there's a past ministry and a present prophetic ministry, an earthly ministry and a heavenly ministry. Or let me put it another way. The other way to put it is that there's an external. He gives us the external word and the internal word. The external word. When he came to earth and he taught us, and we have his teaching. Here it is. It's verbal, it's propositional. It's in principles. It's on a piece of paper. You know, it's wonderful what you have in the Scripture. You know this great set of verses by George Herbert that is on the title page about the Scripture, what I like so much. It says, he's talking about the Scripture. He says, this is such great poetry. This is the thankful glass that mends the looker's eye. This is the well that washes what it shows. Who can endear its praise too much? But here's my favorite part. He's talking about the Scripture. He says, heaven lies flat in thee, Subject to every mountain's bended knee. Heaven lies flat. Jesus has put what you need for heaven, the glories of heaven, the glories of the heavenly realms, into propositions, into words. It's there. There it is, the truth, you might say the external word, heaven lies flat in thee. It's. What an interesting way to put it. But Jesus doesn't just do that. He also comes to us spiritually and he gives us the internal word. He illumines us to help us understand what's in the external word. You see these two things right here in the passage we just read in verse 44 and 45. There it is. There's another example of it in verse 44. This is after the resurrection, after he's been raised from the dead, he comes to his disciples and he says, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. Now, when he was with them on earth, he had already taught them the things that we're talking that he's mentioning here. He says from the Psalms and from the Law and from the prophets, he had taught them a number of things, see as he refers to it. But then verse 45, then he opened their mind so that they could understand. It wasn't enough for him just to come the first time, he had to come the second time. It wasn't enough for him to give us the external word. He'd already done that. But now in verse 45, he gives them the internal word just to complete the analogy. Here there's two ways in which illumination fails to happen physically. Either my eye might work, but there be no light, or the light may be on, but my eye doesn't work. Light but no eye, I, but no light. Light is necessary for me to see, even if my eye works. Why? Because you see what I see out there and what you see up here, you don't really see me. Obviously you see the light reflected off of me, it's bouncing off of me and it's hitting your retina. So without light your eye may work fine, but you won't see what's up here. On the other hand, all the light in the world won't help if your eye is dark, as the Bible says. If there's something wrong with your eye, if it's not sensitive to stimuli. Now you have to have both or you don't have illumination. Now secondly, let's put it another way, at the non physical level, you have to have both things in order to have illumination. Let me give you an example. Here's a man and his family life's a mess. In particular, let's say here's a father and he can't control his daughter, his young teenage daughter. She's indulged in self destructive behavior. She's always antagonistic to him, she's dependent on him and yet she hates him. She's petulant, yet self destructive and so on. And so he goes to counseling and the counselor talks to the daughter, he talks to the father, he talks to the family, and so on. Finally, the counselor sits down with the father and he says, the main reason why your daughter is in the condition she's in is you. The main reason is the way in which you've treated her, the way in which you have let her completely depend on her. You're always bailing her out. You're never making her. Allowing her to experience the consequences of her behavior. You know, a lot of you know what I'm talking about here. So the counselor lays this out to the father, and it's a new idea. He's never really heard it before. A whole new concept. Never thought of it. It's light. It's a new concept because the counselor is standing in the shoes of the prophet and the counselor is bringing the external word. But the counselor is a human being, and human beings can only bring the external word to another human being. Because if the counseling is going to be a success, illumination won't happen unless, besides the new concept, the father has the eyes in the heart to grasp the concept. And you know, that may not happen. In fact, it probably won't happen. From what I know about fathers and what I know about situations like that, the Father's either going to say, you know, here comes the light. Here comes the concept, enabling behavior, or whatever you want to call it. And the father says, nonsense, I only do what any father would do. I love my daughter. Or even he might even say, oh, yes, I agree, but just not get it. Just not sink in. It doesn't change his behavior. He still is not able to draw the line. He's still not able to put his foot down. He's still not able to give her what she really needs. And it may not be till years later that with tears, illumination finally happens. Sometimes when it's too late, sometimes after a terrible tragedy. And the Father says, you know, the counselor years ago told me this, and I agreed with him. But now I really see. I didn't get it. I didn't see it. You see, there has to both be light and eyes. And this is the glory of Jesus. That counselor is a human counselor and one human counselor, a human prophet can never do anything else but give the external word to another human being. But don't you see, for us to get illumination, you've got to have the internal word too. You have to not only have light, but eyes. And this is one of the great glories. This is a promise. Now you know. Let me tell you something. This may be true, it may not be true. Now I think it's true. I would die for it. But I'm saying to you, you know, the listener, this may be true, this may not be true. But there's no other religion, other faith that even offers this. Just. You want to know that? Don't you see? This Bible is full of human prophets, and they're Great men and women who brought the word of God. They were great. We're glad we have them. And all the other religions have prophets, too. Men and women who bring the word of God and bring the truth. Bring the truth. Talk about reality. That's great. But all they can possibly do if they're human beings, if they're only prophets, if they're only human, all they can do is bring the external word. You know what we need? We don't just need a counselor. We need a wonderful counselor. Mighty God, Prince of Peace. See, the great thing about Jesus is that he's not only a human prophet, He's a divine prophet. He's not only human, he's also God. He not only brings us the external word, but he then brings us the internal word. He not only gives us the light, but he gives us the eyes. And that's. No other prophet can do that. No other prophet can even offer it. He opened their minds so that they could understand the things that he had told them. Isn't that great? The greatest thing that Paul could ask for his friends. In Ephesians, he prays to the Lord for what he says, I'm praying to the Lord. He says in Ephesians 1:18 that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened so that you can know the things that I've told you so you can grasp them. Paul knew his limitations. He was a human prophet only. And everybody in this room, we desperately need not just a human prophet. That's enough. Let me tell you something. Every other philosophy, anybody who sells you a philosophy or sells you a religion that doesn't have both the external and the internal word, both the light and the eyes is passing you bad money. That's what's the glory of this faith here. You see, you've got plenty of religions and philosophies that simply give you the rules. They say, there it is, the external word. Now try your best. Do it. Do it. And then you've got other kinds of faith and religions that are all internal word. It's all mystical. You look into yourself, you look at your navel. We can't tell you what to do. You have to look inside yourself and get in touch with your own self and your own feelings. You see, you've got religions that have the internal word only, and they're just a morass of subjective mysticism. And you've got religions that have the external word only, but not this. This is Christianity. This may be true, this may not be true. I'm telling you. But nobody Else offers this. A redeemer who's a prophet. A prophet who's a redeemer. See, a man who's a God, a God who's a man. And therefore he comes and he opens our minds as well as teaches us both. Now, why does he do it? So that's what he does. He gives his eyes. And secondly, why does he do it? And the reason he does it is because we're spiritually blind. Let's take a moment to define that. The reason we need this is because we're spiritually blind. In verse 45, it says, when he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. The word opened is significant. As you know, this was originally written in Greek. And the word opened is a translation of a particular Greek word. There were two different Greek words that could be used here. One is anoygo, one is dianoigo. The little word dia is the word for through. Now, anoigo means to open something, like a door, something that's already got a latch, something that's already got a provision for opening. So you use the Greek word anoygo with a door. But the word de inoygo doesn't just simply mean to open. It means to break open. It means to bust open. It means to break in. You wouldn't use the word dianoigo with a door unless it was a locked door. You use the word deinoigo with something like a mountain. I open the mountain with my tunnel. You see? It means to break through. Two different Greek words. Which one do you think Luke uses? You just take a guess. He will not talk about the human mind or the human soul like a door. He talks about the human mind or the human soul like a mountain. Layers and layers of obstacles to the truth. Impenetrable. So what Luke is saying is that the natural human mind, until Jesus gets to it, is spiritually blind. It's blind. Now, what does that mean? I would. You know, one illustration you can use is you think of the eye itself. Very often, as a person gets older, something develops on the eye called a cataract. And a cataract is a clouding up or a misting up, an opaqueness that develops where there should be transparency. That's a perfect analogy. A much better analogy than other kinds of analogies to explain the human soul. God made the human soul with a transparency. We are different than the animals. We are different than the plants. We honor the animals and we honor the plants as part of God's creation, but they're not in the image of God. What does that mean? They don't have a spiritual faculty. They don't have a capacity for truth. They don't have a capacity for reason, but they don't have a capacity for a real personal connection with Jesus, with God. And yet the Bible says naturally, because of sin, there is an opaqueness over top of our soul, so that it has to be broken through. Another way to put it is we have cataracts on our soul. And you know what? You can rub your eye all you want. That will not get rid of cataracts. You can rub it and rub it and rub it. You can wash it and wash it and wash it. That will not get rid of cataracts. There needs to be an intervention. There needs to be a medical intervention. Somebody that has skills that you don't have. There needs to be a surgeon. That's exactly what Jesus is, The reason he's a prophet, not just a human prophet. See, the idea, if you think all you need is the truth, you say, well, I just need somebody to inform me. That's all I need. You don't realize the depth of your blindness. You don't just need the light, you need eyes, but you need someone to take the opaqueness off. That's what the surgeon does. That's what the medical intervention does, and that's what you need more than anything else. Now you say, well, what do you mean by opaqueness? What is it? And this is very, very important. Listen carefully. The spiritual blindness is not an incentive. It's not a lack of reason. It's very possible for a person who is totally spiritually blind to read the Bible and accept it, to say, yes, I see that Jesus died for my sins. I think that's great. I like that. That's important. I believe it. To be spiritually blind doesn't mean that you can't intellectually comprehend something from the Bible. In fact, it's natural and normal for people, when they become Christians, to say, last year I became a Christian. But there was never a time in my life where I didn't actually believe in the basic propositions of the Christian faith. It's very typical for a person to say, I became a Christian last year. But, you know, there was never a time in which I didn't believe in the resurrection. I didn't believe in the crucifixion, I didn't believe in the basic, you know, propositions of the Christian faith. But what do they mean when they say they became a Christian? Here's what they mean. The opaqueness is not an Inability to comprehend. It's not an inability to reason. It's not a rational inability. It's not some kind of operation of the mind. You know, Jean Piaget talks about the various operations that develop as a kid gets older. And you have the. You have. You have sensory motor development, you have six stages of it, and you have concrete operations and abstract operations. And he's talking about the various sorts of mental abilities and operations, logical operations and transactions that you do mentally. When we talk about spiritual blindness, we're not saying it, talking about any of that. Spiritual blindness is not the inability to see the truth, but it's the inability to value it, to appreciate it. Now, the problem with that word is, you know, in English, appreciate is a fairly wimpy word. We appreciate you. And there's a song, you know, where it says, lord, we appreciate you. And it sounds. Have you ever sung it? It sounds so wimpy. We appreciate you. But it's not. It's a good word, and here's why. And I'm going to keep with it. And this is the heart of what this opaqueness is and what spiritual blindness is. The word depreciate means something loses its value. Therefore it loses its economic power. It loses its clout, it loses how much it can influence. You get a diamond, it's valuable. What does that mean? You can do things with that. You can get things done with it. There's value to it. You have a diamond and you can go places, you can do things, you can get things for it. That's valuable. When something depreciates, it loses value. When something appreciates, it gains value. But the word appreciate in the English language can also mean that what increases is your realization of the value of something, your realization of the power of something, your realization of the influence of something. And when a person says, I became a Christian last year, though, I always believed intellectually in the Bible and intellectually in the Christian faith. But last year I saw. What does he mean? What does she mean when she talks like that? Here's what she means. I always knew Jesus died for me, says a new Christian. But I never realized that. I need to know that Jesus loves me more than anything else in the world. I needed to know that deep down underneath it. I didn't believe that I'm loved. But when I. One day last year, I realized that what Jesus did for me is the thing that I need most of all. It revolutionized me. When I realized it, when I saw the value of what he's done for me, I suddenly realized I don't have to be like this. I don't have to be like this. This is the root of all my problems. Now that kind of language means that the cataracts have come off. She saw, but she didn't see.
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You may know the story of the Prodigal son, but it's not just about a wayward younger brother. In fact, Jesus tells this story to speak both to those who run from God and to those who try to earn his love by being good. In his book, the Prodigal God, Tim Keller shows how this well known story reveals the heart of the gospel, a message of hope for both the rebellious younger brother and the judgmental older brother, and an invitation for all to experience God's prodigal extravagant grace. Whether you're a Christian or you're still exploring faith, the prodigal God will help you see your relationship with Christ in a whole new way. The Prodigal God is our thank you for your gift this month to help Gospel and Life share the hope and joy of Christ's gracious and relentless love with people all over the world. 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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If some of you stock analyst types suppose I could send you back in a time machine, but there's nothing that a stock analyst would rather have than a trip back about five years, isn't that right? Just go back five years, 10 years, whatever. Send you back and you sit down, you're back in time now, and you sit down with the Wall Street Journal and you start to read the stock stuff and you're sitting alongside of your stock analyst friends. And of course, they're there from their own time and they don't know what you know. They don't know anything about the future. And you're going down the list and all of a sudden you come to Microsoft and you say, oh my gosh, it's selling for that. Hmm. If I buy a thousand shares of that, I'll be a quadrillion zillionaire in seven years. I will do everything I can. See, I'm gonna borrow, I'm gonna beg, I'm gonna do anything I can to buy everything I put. How do you know? You know what they don't know? They go down all these little lines and one of them jumps out at you. He says, Microsoft, why? You can appreciate it. You know the value of it. You know the influence of that information. There's information on that line. Nobody else can see what it means. Nobody else can see the significance of the information. Nobody can see that knowing that will make all the difference. They can't appreciate it. They're blind. They don't have eyes. You see, but you do. What does it mean to become a Christian? It means to look at stuff that you've looked at for years, and suddenly it jumps out at you, and you say, what's the matter with me? How could I have never seen the power of this? How could I have never seen the meaning of this? How could I have never seen the value of this? That's what the spiritual blindness is. I know there's people in this room who say, well, of course I'm a Christian. I've always believed. And yet that's never happened to you. You have no idea what that experience is like. Then you're blind. You're spiritually blind. You need to have someone break through, see. Break through. De Inoigo Open Some years ago, there were two women that I was counseling back in my first church in a little town. And I didn't know much about counseling. And they both came to me within a week of each other. And they had the same problem. They were facing a very devastating loss in their lives. And they came to a pastor. Actually, there was no counselors in town. So people came to pastors back then because there was nobody else to talk to about their problems. And they came on in at various times. And in both cases, I laid out a passage of scripture. And then I gave them a book. Same passage, same book, same basic theme. And a couple, maybe a month later, I saw both of them. And the one woman came back and said, you know what? She says? When I began to see what God has given me and what I have in Jesus, I began to realize, if I have that, then I can bear the loss of this. And I could see she was healing. And the other woman, same age, same situation, same Bible passage, same book. She came back and she says, yeah, well, that's very nice, and I guess I believe it, but what good is that if I have lost the thing that I've lost? She was inconsolable, and she was broken, from what I can tell, permanently. What was the difference between them? Illumination. The same truth. But the one woman was able to appreciate the truth. She was able to see the value of the truth. She was able to sense the power of the truth, and the other woman did not. Let me tell you what illumination means. You say, I want peace, friends, until the Goodness of God is more real to you than all of the threats around you. You will never have peace. You'll be worried sick. You say, I wish I could forgive the person who's hurt me. Until the forgiveness of God is more real to you than all of the injustice that's been done to you, you will never be able to overcome your bitterness. It's a matter of illumination. It's a matter of appreciation of the truth. Because we're blind. And only as we break through. You want to overcome guilt, the truth has got to break through of what he's done for you. You want to overcome worry, the truth has got to break through of how good he is. You want to deal with boredom, the truth has got to break through, and so on and so on. You're blind, we're blind, okay? That's what he's done. He gives us eyes. Why he's done it because we're blind. Lastly, how he's done it. And I guess I have to be brief about this, though I've already, in a sense, answered your question that issue. How does he do it? How does he deal with the opaqueness? How does he break through the blindness? And the answer is, it's pretty mysterious. But there's one word here that gives us a bit of a clue. It says, then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. And the word understand is a Greek word which literally means to assemble a puzzle. And that's the best clue I can give you. Look, If I lay 20 pieces of a puzzle out at random on a table, and you look at it, but then I assemble it, put it into places, and then you look at it, what's the difference? Well, you know, it's the same 20 pieces. You're actually not looking at one bit of different content. It's the same content, the same 20 things. But once I put them together, you see the connection. And see, to me, I think that's probably the key principle. As to what. As to how Jesus does this. This is all very mysterious. Listen, if you were raised in a Muslim country and you've never heard anything about Christianity, and you come here and you start to listen and you learn about Christianity, and as you learn about it, you love it, and you say, I want to become a Christian, that's where you're getting light and sight at the same time. But for most of us, it's different. We have the pieces of the puzzle. We have had the light for a long time. But becoming a Christian means, though you've always had the light. You're finally getting the sight. Though you've always had the pieces, you've never seen the connection of the pieces to each other. And especially to you. There's a connection. You know, when I put the 20 pieces of the puzzle together, it's hard to even think of it as 20 pieces anymore, even though it is, because the connection makes you see it as a whole. Or if you're looking at one of these books of ink, blotches, splotches, and somebody says, do you see anything in there? And you say, no, I don't see anything. Then somebody says, ah, there's an elephant there. Look, here's the trunk, you know, here's the tail, here's the body. And you say, oh. And once you see that, you can't not see it. Once you see the connection, you can't see the pieces anymore. Same, no different content. No different content. The connections. That's the closest eye can come. And that's what the text is telling us, what it means to say, I understand something. You know, the word. Even the word understand means to stand under something. These disciples had seen the truth, but they'd never stood under it. They had seen the pieces, but they'd never seen the connections. And that's what it means. I don't know if I can go any further than that. You see the connections. You see the pieces, you see how it all fits. So let me ask you this. Let's use this as a test. If that's how he does it, if that's how he breaks through the blindness. He makes you connected. He shows you the connections. Jack Miller puts it this way. He says the gospel, real Christianity consists mainly in personal pronouns. And then he says, always says it this way. He says, you know, a formal nominal Christian says, jesus died for sins. A Christian says, jesus died for my sins. Jesus died for me. He suffered for me. In other words, a Christian. See, a formal nominal Christian looks up on the cross and sees the blood of Jesus running down. And a Christian sees the blood of Jesus running after you, coming after you. You know, a formal nominal Christian sees Jesus up on the cross, sort of moaning. And a Christian sees Jesus looking at you and saying, it's for you I'm doing this. You must sit down and taste my meat. You must let me serve you. You must let me die for you. You must let me love you. You know, that's. You hear it, you sense it. Connection, personal pronouns. Now, so I've already, in a sense, answered my questions. How do you know that he's doing this for you. What are the tests to see whether or not the illuminating ministry of Jesus Christ is operating in your life? The prophetic ministry of Jesus from heaven. How do you know it's happening? Let me just give you three tests. Number one, newness. There's always a newness about what you're learning that just figures. See, dianoigo means a breakthrough. And that means. If you say. And I talk very often to people like this, they say, I've always been a Christian. And I say, fine, that's possible in a sense of meaning. You've been a Christian from the very, very earliest years and so on. But what I want to. I have to say, let me ask you. Has there ever been a time in which you looked and said, aha? I've never seen that before. I've been totally surprised. This truth revolutionizes me. Anybody who's a real Christian knows what I'm talking about. There's a newness. William Cooper puts in one of his hymns. He says, sometimes a light surprises the Christian as he sings this morning. Don't ask me why, but when I was singing the second hymn, I heard the voice of Jesus say, it just started to surprise me. Do you know what that means? See, that's what the illuminating work of Jesus is. I've sung that hymn a lot. That's why I chose this stupid thing. I mean, you know, generally, I choose the hymns that I like. One of the few advantages to my job. I choose the hymns I like. I like that hymn. I like how it goes from minor to major, you know, it's kind of cute, maybe a little. Some people would consider it sort of a cutesy hymn instead of minor key, you know? And then we see the resolution. Here's the problem. Here's the resolution. But in the middle of the time, it started to dawn on me, you know, I started to hear Jesus saying these things to me. What do you mean? You're a Presbyterian minister. You heard a voice. No, Presbyterian ministers don't hear voices. We start hearing voices. We join the assemblies of God, but, you know, we don't hear voices. We belong to this Presbyterian church. But. But I did. Because what happened was, as William Cooper says, sometimes a light surprises the Christian as he sings. It is the sun who rises with healing in his wings. There's a surprise. There's a newness. Sometimes you feel like it's being broken through. Does that happen to you? Has it happened to you? If not, you're still spiritually blind. Okay, another mark. See? Connection. Another mark. Of course, Illumination always is characterized by an engagement of the whole person, mind, will and emotions. You notice that as he opened their minds to the Scriptures, you see what happens. It says, then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Why did they return to Jerusalem with great joy? Because he told them to. He says in verse 49, go back. Don't come out here. Go back and wait there, and I'm going to do something for you. And so you see, you have the mind, the will and the emotions. You don't just have the mind. It's not just that they open. They understood the Scriptures better in an intellectual way. They didn't grow simply in information, the way you kind of grow in knowledge of your computer program. Every week you read a little more in the book and you try another couple of operations. Nothing like that. We're talking about spiritual understanding. And you're moved to the bottom of your being. Some people cry when they're moved. Some people don't cry when they're moved. It's not a matter of crying or not. It's a matter of being moved. They're told to do something, and now they obey, return and they return, but they return with joy. There's the mind, there's the emotions, the joy and the will. Now I'm doing what I'm told. They say, go. He says, go. They go. He says, return. They return, but they return with joy. The whole being. It's one thing to have wonderful Bible study and to find that you cannot amend your life according to his will. Then you haven't really had this illumination. The mind, the will and the emotions are together. There's the engagement of the whole person. But newness, the engagement of the whole person. And then last mark of this illuminating work of Jesus in your life is it's always gradual. It's always unfolding. You know, there's a place in Second Peter where Peter says, we have the word of the prophets made more certain. And you will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. We have no idea exactly what that means, but what it means is it's gradual. The light that God gives you when you have your eyes first open to the truth and you appreciate it and you see the connection and all the stuff we've been talking about, it's gradual. It doesn't start right away. I mean, it doesn't go right away into fullness. It more and more, you see, you pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day you see the morning rises and the star rises in your heart, and so on. And that's the reason why, you see, in verse 52. Pardon me. In verse 45, he opens the mind to understand the Scripture. But in verse 49, he says, I've got to. I'm going to do more things for you. I'm going to visit power on you. I'm going to give you even more. So go back to Jerusalem and wait for it. It's always a gradualness to it. There's always an increase. A person who's truly illuminated sees it as a gradual thing. You see, you're getting more and more and you're breaking through more and more. Now, that's what he does. He gives his eyes. That's why he does it, because we're spiritually blind. And that's how he does it, by making connections and some ways of telling whether it's happening to you. Now, now, let me just conclude by applying this a little bit. Some of you. Let me just take this. If this is true, let me apply it to some of you first of all, and I'll be real brief on this. And afterwards, we go downstairs and we have questions and answers. And some of you might want to. If you feel like I'm going too quickly here at the end and you would wish I would explain more, come on down to the end, East Lounge afterwards, and we'll have questions and answers and talk about it. Some of you don't realize the holistic nature of Christianity. You say, I know what to do, but I don't have the power to do it. You say, I know I shouldn't blow up, but I don't have the. I can't control my temper. I can't control my sexual appetites. I can't control my obsessive attitude toward work. I can't control my emotions. You say, I know what's right. I know it. I really do, but I just don't seem to have the power to do it. So you're praying to God for power in the abstract. God doesn't work that way. Look at the beauty of it. You say you think you know, but you don't have the power. If you don't have the power, you don't know. Let me just show you the organic. See, the organic way that Christian power works. I know something about my wife and insects. And now you will, too. If I see my wife reading the paper and crawling down the side of her hair is a big spider. And I say to Kathy, I said, kathy, there is a big spider crawling down the left side of your head on your hair. And she says, yes, I know, yes, honey. And she doesn't do anything. I say, well, dear, I don't know that you hear me. There is a spider crawling down the left side of your head. It's getting near your face, near your skin. And she says, yes, honey, I hear you. There's a spider crawling down the side of my head. I know she hasn't heard me. Why? Because if she heard me, she'd be getting animated, you see, she'd be, oh, ah, you know, pushing it away. She may have sort of heard me and sort of said it. So what do I do? I push away. You know, this is typical. She's distracted. And by the way, when she's reading the paper, she gets very distracted as I push the paper down and I say, there's a spider on your head. And when it sinks in, she's illuminated because her entire being, mind, will and emotion is engaged. Now. That's the way God gives power. Look, a lot of people, people will say to me, I need self control when it comes to sex. I can't control my sexual appetites. Okay, how does the Bible help? The Bible never says, control your sexual appetites or God will get you. It doesn't do that. Let me show you how the Bible does it. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says, you are not your own. You're bought with a price. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, therefore flee sexual immorality? Let me say that again. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, therefore flee sexual immorality? Look at that. What's the secret? It's not coercion, it's not, you better control yourself sexually or God will get you. That wouldn't give you any power. You know, people are always saying, I know what to do. I don't have the power to do it. What does Paul say? He says, know ye not. There it is. He says, look at what Jesus has done for you. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. Look at what Jesus has put in you. You're a temple of the Holy Spirit. He says, you know why you don't have any, why you have problem with controlling your sexual appetite. You don't know these things. Know ye not. Power comes with the knowledge. You're a whole being. God doesn't separate you out. You can't say, well, I know what to do. I just don't have enough willpower. That's an abstract, that's a stoic, that's a pagan, that's a Greek. That's a modern. That's a secular way of thinking. What you've got to know is that Jesus Christ has given me truth. And if I let it affect me, if I look at it, if I say, teach me, set my heart on fire with it. If you look at it, don't you know? Don't you know? Don't you know? And the more you know, the more you will be able. The more you know, the more you'll be able. That's what's so beautiful about this. You say you don't have the power. I say you need Jesus to teach your heart, and he can and he will. And he wants to talk to people, study. Pray over what you study. Reflect on it. Don't give up. Don't just look at this stuff and say, oh, I know it. Say, I don't know it like I should, and I'm gonna know it better. And I'm gonna use every means possible. I'm gonna worship in it. I'm gonna pray it in. I'm gonna sing it in. I'm gonna talk to people in. I'm gonna. But in it all, I'm gonna say, lord Jesus, open the scripture, open my mind to the scripture. Can you do that? Will you do that? If you'll do that, there's the key. Okay, one more thing. Some of you are absolutely and totally spiritually blind. He says the ones who are sure that there's nothing wrong are the ones who are totally blind. The ones who have begun to have their blindness, their spiritual blindness healed are the ones who know that they don't see. Right? Who are you? Which one are you? The same Jesus Christ who raised Lazarus from the dead, however, can also raise your soul from the dead. And somebody says, well, I'm spiritually blind. What the heck am I supposed to do about it? It's very simple. Jesus already told you. I'll just reiterate it. As soon as you say, I don't see, at that very second, you've begun to see. As soon as you know that you don't see, Jesus Christ is helping you to actually say that. And you're finally responding to what he's doing. So the moment you say, I don't see, that moment you begin to see the moment you say I'm blind. That moment your blindness begins to be healed. That's the beauty of the gospel. That's grace. Are you willing to admit that? Or is there anybody here who says this is primitive and obscene? I'm a good person. I'm a moral person. I don't need all this hokey stuff. I don't need all this dramatic stuff. I'm as good a person as possible. I'm as decent a person as possible. You're blind. I stake my life on it. I'm more sure about that than you could, than any. I'm sure about that as anything. But say I don't see and you do. And say I do see and you don't. Gospel Christianity. That's the way it works. Hey, one more thing. Christian friends. Oh, well, Christian friends, on a very cold day like today, if you leave a pail of water out, you can't just break the ice on it once. You have to keep breaking the ice. And even if Jesus gets rid of your cataracts when you first become a Christian, it's still possible, you know, for your eye to cloud up. It's possible for it to come back and you have to go back to the doctor. And that's true spiritually as well. Can you remember when the word of God seems so radiant to you and when the truth of God seems so overwhelming to you? Let me ask you, does it feel that way this week, this last week? You see, unless you're continually breaking the ice and continually going back to Him. Illumination is growing. It's a growing thing. The truth of God is like a great ocean. And we're all like little children paddling around on the outskirts of this incredible ocean. No further in than 3 inches in the surface. We haven't even begun. Have you? Do you sense God continually giving you greater and greater spiritual understanding? Do you feel that you're being led through a kind of mansion and every room is greater and greater and more ornate and more beautiful and grand and high vaulted? Do you sense that you're growing in your understanding of truth and you're grasping your understanding of truth and that you have hardly even begun? There is nothing more inappropriate than a smug Christian who thinks. Thinks he or she knows it. There is nothing more inappropriate than a bored Christian who thinks he or she knows it. Smugness or boredom simply means that your eyes have started clouding up again. Jesus is the light. Rejoice in his light. He is not just a counselor. He's the wonderful counselor. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would help us first of all to see that we don't. We pray for that. First. We pray for the humility and the candor that leads us to say to your son, I don't see a right. Touch me again. I also pray that you would help us to be a church and a community where we lay out your son's teaching, where we study his external word, but always with the understanding that not our smarts and not our great teaching ability, but only the illumination of your son's spiritual work will ever open our minds. So give us that desire for anointing, that desire for the spiritual work, and yet also a kind of hard nosed and rock ribbed desire to master the truth. We pray that we'd be a community like that and we be a place where people are constantly having their minds open and that there'd be constant breakthroughs of the truth. We thank you that this is a place where that can happen. We ask that it would become a place that could happen with your help. We ask it in Jesus name, Amen.
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Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the Gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com There you can subscribe to the Gospel and Life 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 1994. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.