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- [00:04]
Host/Announcer
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/Scripture Reader
The Scripture this morning is from Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 4, verses 4 through 12. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice. Let the gentleness of your be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything. By prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you. I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. This is the word of the Lord.
- [02:39]
Tim Keller
The premise of the Bible is that there's a difference between a morally restrained heart and and a supernaturally changed heart. There's a difference between controlling, suppressing the natural self centeredness and insecurity of the heart through willpower and seeing it permanently change through the power of the Holy Spirit. And in the book of Galatians, Chapter 5, there's a list of the traits, characteristics of a supernaturally changed heart. They're called the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience. It's a classic list. And each week we're taking one of those traits and taking a passage, the scripture, that describes it, and trying to come to understand how we can have more of that supernaturally changed heart in our own, our own lives. Today we look at peace, peace. And we're going to learn three things from this classic passage. The character of peace, the disciplines, the three disciplines of getting peace, and the secret. Paul uses that word, the secret of peace. Okay, the character of peace the disciplines of peace and the secret of peace. Now, the opposite of joy is sadness or despair, grief. But the opposite of peace is anxiety, fear and debilitating worry. So you see here in verse 6, it says, don't be anxious about anything. And the antidote is the peace of God. By the way, this word anxious is not the normal. It's not normal care and concern. If you love somebody, if you love something, if you love anything, you have the burden of love and concern that comes with that automatically. But this is a word that actually means to be torn up, to be torn into pieces by debilitating worry and fear. So what is this peace of God? Two things just to start, two things that Paul tells us about it. First, it's an inner calm and equilibrium. Because here, down at the bottom, verse 11:12, he says, I've learned how to be content in whatever circumstance. I've learned the secret of being content in every situation, which is to say I'm the same in one situation as the other. That's poise, equilibrium, an inner calm. And for a second, let's think about his circumstances. See, you and I here in New York, we spend money in order to get poise. You spend money on pills, spend money on therapy. You spend money on. And these things, you know, are things that maybe we need. But we're trying to get up the poise, the equipoise to face what, you know, our bills, competition, the boss, our date, our lack of dates. One of what you're doing is these are the things that we're. That we're nervous about and we're anxious about, and we're. And we're really working at it. And Paul is facing torture and death. He's in prison. And he's saying, I've learned the secret of being able to smile at that and look carefully. Does Paul say, you know why I can smile on the face of torture and death? Because I'm just that kind of guy. I'm a tough cookie. No, see, that's talent. See, talent is something that you were born with, or you've got it. I'm just one of those guys. He doesn't say that I've learned this. He said, I've learned it. What does that mean? It's not natural to me. In fact, it's not natural to you either. I've learned it this calm, so that I've got this equilibrium in any situation. But that's not the only thing. The second thing Paul tells us about the character of this piece, it's not just an absence of fear. It's the presence of something in particular. It's a sense of being protected, because that doesn't come out as well in English as it should. It says in verse seven, the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds. The word guard is a military word. It's a very vivid word. It means to take a bunch of soldiers, to take an army and surround a city with the army to protect it from invasion. So if you have an army out there, you sleep really well. You know, there's a whole army out there. I don't have to worry about marauders or anybody. You know, I go to sleep at night, and this is getting at something very important. And we'll see this in a minute. Both in the ancient times and in modern times, when people try to give advice on how to be calm, they almost always talk about removing certain thoughts. Don't think about that. Don't think that. Don't think those negative thoughts. Stop thinking about that. Stop thinking about that. Control your thoughts. You know, expel the negative thoughts. That's how you get calm. But here we see the peace of God is not the absence of some thoughts. It's the presence of God himself. The God of peace will be with you. Christian peace is not expelling negative thoughts. The problem with expelling negative thoughts is what you're really doing there is. You're just refusing to face how bad things are. You're not being realistic. Okay, I'm gonna get calm by not facing the facts. Essentially, Christian peace is not that you stop facing the facts, but you get something in your life, a living power that comes into your life that enables you to triumph over those facts, lifts you up over and through them. And it's a sense of being protected. And, you know, I. You. Lots of us have experienced. I think lots of believers have experienced this peace of God. But in the situations that I have been present as a pastor, usually where I've seen people experience this peace of God that passes, that transcends understanding, that goes beyond anything we can really account for. I've seen some people in horrible situations, tragic situations, in some cases, having faced some violent death of a loved one, unlooked for, that's just the worst kind of situation to be in. And ordinarily, when you're cruising along in life and suddenly somebody who you love, dear is just ripped out of your life, violent at that time, you feel unprotected, you feel vulnerable, you feel, like, exposed. You feel, like. You feel, you know, ravaged. And yet sometimes I've seen Christians experience exactly the opposite. They feel during times like that, protected, like everything. Somehow they have a sense that God is with them and everything is going to be okay. They feel protected. They know exactly how bad things are. But they've got something that enables them to triumph over it. If you've ever been on a coast and seen in a storm and seen the waves come in and hit the rocks, sometimes the waves are so huge that it covers some rock. You might be watching and you say, that's the end of that rock. No way that rock's gonna be there. And when the waves recede, there it is. Hasn't budged an inch. And Paul is like that. If you read his life. Wave after wave. You know, he's beaten, he's stoned, he's flogged, he's shipwrecked. They're after him, they're trying to kill him. He's betrayed. Wave after wave after wave. And it's a plain historical fact he's right when he said, I have found a way to be completely poised under any circumstances. He's the rock. All the ways of life could not break him. And he says, this isn't a natural talent. You can learn this. So that's the character of Christian peace. It's an inner calm and an equilibrium that comes from that. But also a sense of God's presence and almost a reason transcending sense of his protection, number one. Number two, what then are the disciplines by which you can develop this peace? Because actually Paul's giving lots of advice in here, lots of advice on how you can develop this peace and have this peace of God too. And there's three disciplines and I'll name them thinking, thanking and loving. I know the third one should be a th but I couldn't figure it out. Thinking, thanking and loving. Thinking. Notice verse eight. He says, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, think on these things and the God of peace will be with you. So the first thing is thinking. And this is really important, really important. Let's take a look at the first three of this long list. Think about whatever is true, noble. Right? Now that sounds pretty general, generic, doesn't it? Whatever is true. Noble. Right? But when Paul. This is Paul. And when Paul uses these words, these particular Greek words in the Pauline corpus, in his writings, he's talking about doctrine, he's talking about the teaching of the Bible, about God and about sin and about Christ and about salvation, about the world and human nature and God's Plans for the world and the plan of salvation. That's what he's talking about. And this is amazing. He's saying, if you want peace, think about doctrine. Think about what you know about life and about God and about. And this is so completely different than what you're going to find if you walk into a Barnes and Noble or Borders bookstore and you go to the place on anxiety, worry, stress, dealing with stress, how to relax. And you get out a book. And here's what they will never do. Never. None of these books will ever say so. You're stressed, you're unhappy. You know, you're anxious. Let's start by asking the big questions. What is the meaning of life? What are you really here for? What's your life all about? Where have you come from and where are you going? You know, I mean, what should human beings spend their time doing? Never. You think that's going to relieve stress to a modern New Yorker? Of course not. Why? Here's why. They go right to technique. They never ask you to think. They never say, let's think about the big questions. You know, what's life all about? Let's put things in perspective.
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Host/Announcer
Never.
- [13:20]
Tim Keller
They go to techniques. They go to relaxation techniques. They go to work, rest, balance. For example, they'll say, look a couple times, you know, every quarter, go somewhere, sit on a beach, look at the surf and just bracket out and stop worrying about thinking about everything else. Just. Or they'll give you thought control techniques about dealing with negative thoughts, the negative emotions, guilt thoughts and so forth. They will never tell you to think. They'll tell you to actually. They go right to technique. Here's why. Let me read you two. You're going to wonder where I'm going for a second, but let me read you two interesting quotes. Here's Charles Darwin. And Charles Darwin said, quote a person who has no assured belief in the existence of a personal God and no belief in a future existence with retribution or reward such a person can have for his rule of life, as far as I see, only to follow whatever impulses and instincts are the strongest, or whatever seems to him to be the best ones. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. You know, great Supreme Court justice, quite a formidable intellectual in the mid early 20th century. In his personal correspondence, he once wrote this to a friend. He says, there is no reason for attributing to a man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand. The world has produced me and the rattlesnake, but I will kill it. If I get the chance. And the only reason is because it is incongruous to the world. I want the world everyone is trying to make according to, to one's own power. Now, by the way, Oliver Wendell Holmes got a lot of heat for this because he's a Supreme Court justice, you know, and he says, you know, there is no rational reason to say that human being, and a human being is really more valuable, more significant than an animal or a rock. Oh, my gosh, people have gone. But you know what his, his biographers have said, you know, he's just working out the implications. If you don't believe in God, this is what Darwin is saying, is that you don't believe in God and you believe you're here by accident and when you die, you rot. That's it. And when the sun dies, everything goes away. I mean, and therefore nothing that human beings have ever tried to accomplish will amount to anything. Okay, what are the implications of that? One of them is, there is no right and wrong. You may feel there's right and wrong. Darwin says, you may have a feeling, but your feelings shouldn't trump anybody else's you can think of. Feel it. But there is no right and wrong. There's really no way to tell people how they ought to live. Holmes is right. Ultimately, what a human being is, is just. We're the product of these forces and we're going to go away someday. And what's to say that, you know, it may feel more significant than an animal or a rock, but you're not. And what the biographer said was Holmes was simply thinking out the implications of not believing there's a God or there's a purpose in life. Well, I know plenty of New Yorkers that have the same beliefs. Lots of the same people have the same beliefs. That is, they have the same beliefs. They don't think there's a God. They think things are here by accident. But they would say, to think about it like that, to work out the implications is morbid. Okay, look, fine. That's fine to say, let's not think out the implications. It's morbid. But I want you to see what you're doing. You're getting your peace by not thinking out the implications of your beliefs. Whereas Paul is saying Christian peace is exactly the opposite. Christian peace comes from thinking out the implications, thinking, see, what are the true and the right. What's the Christian doctrine? God. There's a God and he made us for fellowship with him and he created a perfect world, you know, a perfect world in which there's no sorrow or disease or death originally, and he wanted to live with us in it. And of course, it's gone all wrong and we've turned from him and the world is broken. But he's sent his son into the world to rescue us, and he's preparing a new heavens and new earth. We're going to live with him forever. Look at your value. Look at the fact that the future is secure. Now, what does that mean? If you're a Christian today and you believe all that doctrine and you are not at peace, you're not thinking. Isn't that something you're not thinking? See, there's a stupid piece and then there's a smart piece. Let me tell you, the stupid piece. Stupid piece is ho, ho, ho to the bottle I go to heal my heart and drown my woe. Now what's that? A couple. I'm going to pop a cork. I'm going to sit under a tree, I'm going to look at the surf, and I'm not going to think. I'm going to bracket out. See, if I think about all the things that are going wrong in life and in the world, I'm just going to bracket it out. I'm not going to think as much. But Paul is saying, if you're a Christian, you don't bracket out. You bracket in. You think big, big picture, everything's going to be okay. You know, if you really believe just the basic Christian truth and you think it and think it and think about it, you're going to get peace. And if you don't have peace, you're not thinking. There's stupid peace and there's smart peace. And Christian's peace is not by making yourself stupid. It's by making yourself as intense, as aware of your beliefs, as thoughtful as possible. That's only number one. Because if you first learn the discipline of thinking, then secondly, there's the discipline of thanking, because see how very important that is? In verse six, Paul says, don't be anxious. Okay, don't be anxious. Fine. Well, then what should we be doing but make requests to God with Thanksgiving? So Thanksgiving is put against anxiety. But look carefully here. It's a little counterintuitive, isn't it? See, what we would say is you make your request to God and then you get your requests. And if you get your requests, you thank. That's not what it says. It says you thank him as you make the request. Well, why should I thank him as I'm making the request? Don't I want to wait until I see what he's going to do? No, Paul says you're never going to be content unless you make your request. That means you acknowledge that life is in his hands and you thank him for whatever he's going to do.
- [19:46]
Host/Announcer
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 us that's gospelandlife.com give now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching.
- [20:38]
Tim Keller
You're never going to get contentment unless you see this. Now this is a heading, you might say a subheading under thinking. That's why I put it thinking then thinking. But now listen, we already talked about this. God has not, did not make the world to be a world filled with sorrow and death and violence and suffering. But he's got a plan. He's got a plan to renew it. He's got a plan to get it back. And the plan is put in the abstract in Romans 8:28, where it says, if you love God, God is working everything together for good in your life. Absolutely everything. Even the bad things, even the things that he hates, the things that he didn't put into this world. He is going to weave into a plan a tapestry. He's gonna put everything together and he's gonna weave it all together for your good and his glory. That's an abstraction. Here's the concrete on the day that Jesus Christ was crucified, all of his friends would have looked up at him and said, I can't believe this. The good he was doing, the people he was healing, the people's lives. He was changing. I can't believe this happened. I can't believe that these charges were trumped up. I can't believe they're doing this. And you would have said, I can't believe that God could bring any out of this. You would have gone Home saying, there's absolutely no way God could bring anything good out of this. And you were looking straight at the greatest thing God has ever done toward the redemption of the world. But you couldn't get it into your little brain at the moment as to how that could possibly be. And God is saying, that is just the prime example of what I'm doing in everybody's life. Even the terrible things that are happening to you, I'm working out for good, you know. Now the. You know, I'm only saying this because I'm like a little dog, a little rat. When I push down a bar and I get food, I push it again. So I'll tell you this story again because you always like it. You know, the most vivid example of this for me was when, you know, in my early 20s, I prayed for a year. Oh, there's a girl that I wanted to date and she was breaking up with me. I was a girl I was thinking of marrying and she wanted to break up with me. I was all week, all year. I said, lord, don't let her break up with me. Of course it was the wrong girl. Wasn't the one sitting out here looking at me with a grin on her face right now. But I actually helped God. I mean, I actually put. I did what I could to help God with the prayer. Because she was. That one summer near the very end of the relationship, she was working at a, you know, a resort for the summer in a Poconos. And I got a job as a short order cook at the same resort. I was saying, lord, I'm making this as easy as possible for you. You know, I've asked for this prayer and I'm just, you know, I'm taking the distance down everything. But I look back at it, God was saying, my son, when a child of mine makes a request, I always give that person what he or she would have asked for if they knew everything I know. Do you believe that? To the degree you believe that you're going to have peace, and if you don't believe it, you don't have peace? And whose fault is that? Is it God's? See, make your request known with thanksgiving. So there's thinking. That's the first discipline. And if you do that, then thanking is the second discipline. But loving, loving is the last one. And where do we get that? Well, notice Paul doesn't just say, think on what is true, what is noble, what is right. And by the way, you know where it says think about such things, that that is the Greek word there means to drill down. It means to ponder. It means to gnaw over, chew over, meditate. It doesn't just mean think about. It just. It means. It just means, you know, just continually pound these things into your head. But see, the first three have more to do with the mind. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right. But then, look, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, whatever is excellent, this is attraction, this is love. He says it's not enough just to think on the right things. It's also important to love the right things. And here we have to go to St. Augustine. St. Augustine, great Christian thinker, lived in the third and fourth century. He was completely aware, profoundly aware of the problem in Greek philosophy, and it had been for years. In fact, Paul's referring to it. The great problem is, how can you live a life of contentment? And the Greek word for that was atarachia. And that's the very word Paul uses twice in 11 and 12. He says, I've learned. I've got the atarachia. It means to be independent of circumstances. It means to have this poise. It means to have this power and not to be upset, devastated, you know, melted down, freaking out over anything, always poised. And of course, as you might guess, the philosophers that really worked that out were the Stoics. And what the Stoics taught was the reason why most people are not able to live contented, you know, lies of equilibrium, is that they love the wrong things. You should never love success. If you set your heart on success, even if you get successful, you'll always be anxious. You'll never have peace because you'll be afraid of losing it. And of course, if you don't get it, you'll even be worse. And you shouldn't set your heart primarily on family, because even if you get a good family, you'll always be worried about it. You always be anxious, you see, for something to go wrong with the family. And if something does go wrong with the family, you. You know, you'll be devastated. So the philosophers were saying, here's the problem. You're loving things that you're not in control of. And therefore they said, don't you dare give your heart to anything but your own virtue. That's what the philosophers said. That's certainly what the Stoics said, most of them, because the virtue is something you can control. You can't control success. It has so much to do with circumstances. You can't control your family. Things can go wrong with your family. You can't control this you can't control that. So don't set your heart on anything you can't control. That's what they said. And then you will know tranquility. Set your heart only on your own virtue. You can be courageous, you can have integrity. You can be honest. Set your heart only on. The only thing that should really, truly make you content is to know that you are being the person you want to be. That's under your control. Nothing else is. And St. Augustine said, you guys have completely missed the boat if you think that your virtue is under your control. It is not. Listen, if you say, the thing I'm going to live for is success, and you set off, yeah, it's not certain you're going to have success. But if you say, the thing that matters to me is that I be the person I want to be, to live according to my principles, you know, living according to my virtues, he says, that's every bit is uncertain. You don't have control over that. You're a human being. You're frail. And if you fail, then you got nothing. Augustine says, you got it all wrong. You shouldn't be loving things out there, and you shouldn't be loving anything in here. And then he said, only love of the immutable can bring tranquility. Only love of the immutable. What's the immutable? That which cannot change your virtue can change. Don't give me this stuff about control. He says, your problem is that our problem, the reason we don't have peace, is we're loving mutable things, things that circumstances, including our virtue, can take away from us. But there's one thing that's immutable that not only can circumstances not take it away from you, but even the worst circumstances in this life only give you more of it. Have you thought about that? What's the worst circumstances? Violent death. And there's one thing that if you love it supremely, even violent death gives you more of it. What is it? The presence of God, the beauty of God, the face of God. And that's the reason why Augustine could say this. And it was just amazing. In his Confessions, he lays it out. First of all, he says this in Confessions. This is book, Book four. He says, God alone is the place of peace that cannot be disturbed. And God will not withhold himself from your love unless you withhold your love from him. See, there it is. If you love the immutable, you'll have tranquility. So how can you. How can you not love the immutable? Only if you if you withhold your love from him. But if you don't withhold your love from him, he will not his. Withhold his love from you. And you might say, and there, at some point, I think Augustine, being a great writer, was hearing an objection. And the objection goes like this. The objection says, well, now, wait a minute. You're saying I have to love God. But I, you know, I love a lot of things. I love. I love material comforts, I love people. I love romance. I love. You know, there's lots of things I have to love God, not these things. Then he says, no, no, no, no. But you have to see that if you love God supremely, you not only get God the immutable, but you will find that in that all. That what you have been loving in these things was actually in God. He puts it like this. He's praying. Augustine writes, quote, what do I love when I love thee? Not the beauty of bodies, nor the fair harmony of time, nor the brightness of the light so gladsome to our eyes, nor sweet melodies of varied songs, nor the fragrance of smell, of flowers not limbs acceptable to the embracements of the flesh. None of these things I love when I love my God, but. And yet I love a kind of light, melody, fragrance, meet an embracement when I love my God. But they are those which space cannot contain, which time cannot bear away. They are smells that breathing cannot disperse. They are tastes that eating cannot diminish. This is what I love when I love my God. And that's the final way to get the calm, to get the tranquility, get the peace, is to love him supremely. Now, finally, I told you, character of peace, the three disciplines of peace. But the secret. Paul talks about the secret. And this is why we're not done yet. And here's why we're not done yet. Try to go home and love the immutable. Just go ahead and then tell me, you know, write a paper and tell me how it went. I mean, just go home, sit down, find a nice quiet place, sit down, and then try. Go. Just try to love the immutable. And then, you know, I'm not feeling anything yet. See, God is just a term. God is just. He's an abstraction. Frankly, the word God is just an abstraction. But notice what it says. The secret of the peace of heart of God. Or maybe I should say, the peace of God keeps your hearts and your minds not just in God, but in Christ Jesus. And by the way, hearts and minds are separated there grammatically, because Paul's trying to say it's one thing to keep your thoughts in Christ Jesus. We already talked about this. It's another thing to put your heart in Him.
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Host/Announcer
Him.
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Tim Keller
To have your heart in Christ Jesus. How does it work to find him attractive? To find him lovely? To find him unbelievably lovely. See, it's not enough. That's it. Says, Paul says, I want you to find Jesus Christ lovely. That's the only way you're ever going to love the immutable and find that tranquility. Well, how do you do that? Think like this. There's a place. Actually, we read this. It was in a passage we looked at earlier this year, but we didn't look at the verse. It's in Isaiah 57. Remember when we were going through Isaiah. Isaiah 57, near the. @ the end of the chapter says this. The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose ways cast up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. Now, at first sight, this just looks like another one of these Old Testament statements. God will smite the evildoers. But no, look, this is talking about natural consequences. And the Stoics had it right and Augustine had it right. If you love anything more than God, I don't just mean it's important to believe in God. Of course you have to believe in God. But if you love anything more than God, if you live for anything more than God, your life is going to be like a tossing sea, restless constantly. What, casting up mire and mud. Because your life is like a house built on sand instead of on the rock. And you're always going to be having cave ins. We've been through it. If you love anything, you're going to always be in anxiety about it. Anything more than God. And so God is saying, the natural consequence of turning away from me, the natural consequence of not building your whole life, centering your whole life on me. His restlessness, deep restlessness, who took those consequences. You know, in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, that we always. That I always quote, God made Jesus sin. Who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And how I always try to point out, that doesn't mean that God made Jesus sinful. It means on the cross he treated him as the sinners deserve. And what does this mean? On the cross he got all the consequences of what we have done. And this is one of them. And can't you see it? Do you see Jesus Christ just walking through the crucifixion saying, I'm just keeping my mind centered on God. I'm okay. I'm content in whatever circumstance I'm in? Jesus didn't say that. No, because he wasn't. Why? Because he lost all of his peace. He cries, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? In fact, we're told that he died with a cry. He died screaming. Bill Lane, commentator on the Book of Mark, says. He says the cry of dereliction. That screaming says, crucified criminals ordinarily suffered complex, complete exhaustion and for long periods were unconscious before they died. The stark realism of Mark's account describes a sudden, violent death. The cry of dereliction expresses unfathomable pain. Jesus lost all of his peace.
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Reader/Scripture Reader
All.
- [35:51]
Tim Keller
Of his peace so you could have eternal peace. And looking at that, that is what will get you through. That's what will make him lovely. And let me prove it to you. We got a case right in front of you. Horatio Spafford was an American lawyer who lost everything he had in the Chicago Fire of 1871. Only two years later, he sent his wife Anna and their four daughters on a ship across the Atlantic Ocean to England for a trip. The ship hit another ship on the way and began to sink as was sinking. Anna got the four little girls together and they prayed. And then the ship went under the water and they all were scattered into the waves. And all four good little girls drowned. Anna was found unconscious by a rescue ship, floating. They rescued her. They took her to England. And she cabled Horatio Spafford. Just two words, saved alone. And when Horatio Spafford was on the ship over to England to bring his wife home, he began to write a hymn that we're going to sing at the end. It is well with my soul. Peace like a river. He wrote that. And here's what I want you to think. Why would a man dealing with his grief, seeking the peace of God, the peace, like a river, spent the entire thing on Jesus. My sin. Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross. And I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. O my soul. What has that got to do with his four little girls that are dead? Everything. You know why. Look, when things go wrong, one of the ways you lose your pieces. You say, maybe I'm being punished. But no, no. Look at the cross. All the punishment fell on him. Another thing you say is, well, maybe God doesn't care. Maybe doesn't care. No, look what he did for us. Look what he bore for us. The Bible gives you a God that says, I've lost a child too, but not involuntarily, voluntarily, for your sake. You sing that hymn and you watch a man thinking, thanking and loving himself into the peace of God. It worked for him under those circumstances. It worked for Paul under his circumstances. It will work for you. Let's pray. Thank you Father, for giving us this offer peace like a river. Peace infallible. We see, Lord, that peace is not something that really does just come. It's not a talent. And it's really not even just a simple gift. It's a discipline. We have a number of beliefs that we're not thinking into. We have a wonderful God that we're not loving and therefore we don't have the peace we ought to have. Give us this peace. We know the secret how we can be thankful for even the bad things in our lives. It's the cross. How we can know that God is with us no matter what. It's the cross. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us, knowing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, think and thank and love you into the peace of God. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
- [39:19]
Host/Announcer
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 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 in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.