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- [00:04]
Narrator
Welcome to Gospel in Life. Where do you turn for reassurance in a crisis when life feels out of control? We can quickly discover that the things we turn to for our deepest security don't actually have the power to help us. Today, Tim Keller looks at the story of Jonah to explore how life's storms reveal what we're really trusting in and how our fears are calmed when we look to Jesus, who faced the ultimate stories storm on our behalf.
- [00:37]
Scripture Reader
Our scripture reading this evening is from the Book of Jonah, chapter 1, verses 4 through 17. Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, how can you sleep? Get up and call on your God. Maybe he will take notice of us and we will not perish. Then the sailors said to each other, come, let us cast lots to find out who was responsible for this calamity. They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, tell us who was responsible for making all this trouble for us. What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you? He answered, I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven, who made the sea and the land. This terrified them, and they asked, what have you done? They knew he was running away from the Lord because he had already told them so. The sea was getting rougher and rougher, so they asked him, what should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us? Pick me up and throw me into the sea, he replied, and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you. Instead, the men did their best to row back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried to the Lord, o Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man. For you, O Lord, have done as you pleased. Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him. But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.
- [02:51]
Tim Keller
Well, we're going on with Jonah. Not just because, well, we have to do Everything, normally, because, you know, things aren't normal. But Jonah, which is what we started on a couple of weeks ago, is rather unbelievably relevant to our situation. I mean, let me review the situation. The first few verses of Jonah, which we looked at two weeks ago, and you'll immediately see Jonah is a prophet. I always have this problem. Pull up the right thing. Jonah's a prophet, and God has come to him and told him to go to Nineveh, capital of Assyria, the implacable foe, the implacable enemy of his country, and go to that city and preach against it, warn them about God's anger. And what Jonah does, of course, is he runs away. He refuses to do it. He goes in another direction. That's what we see here. He's on the run. Why? Because Jonah has in his heart two deep currents. I hate to call them feelings, because they're so strong that the word feelings almost sounds trivial. Feelings. No, he's not talking about. I don't know. But here's what the two things. The two reasons he runs are. Fear and hate, fear and anger. He's afraid to go to Nineveh because why go? Why put himself in the very midst of his enemies? But he's also filled with hate toward them. He says, I don't want to warn them. I don't want to give them a chance. Now you see how relevant that is. In the face of a violent, implacable foe, Jonah feels fear and anger, tremendous fear and anger. Have anybody noticed that as the sorrow and the grief starts to kind of go down slowly, our fear and our anger is going up. And what I hear every day, I've heard all day today, is that everybody's saying, what do I do about my fear? And. Or what do I do about my anger? I mean, so, you know, let me. You know, it's kind of weird, but there we are. Jonah, hardly. You could hardly find a more relevant book. Now, unfortunately, and I tell you why, it's unfortunate, and at the end, I'll give it be a little more personal about this, but unfortunately, because I've been having so much trouble with my own fears, that's why it's unfortunate. We have to talk tonight about what the Bible says about fear. That's what this text is about. People who know something about Hebrew narrative, people who do know something about literary analysis, call this section an inclusio because it begins with the idea of fear and it ends with the idea of fear. And it actually moved along in the middle with the idea of Fear. Notice in verse 5, the storm comes up and it says and they were afraid. Verse 10 and 11 it says, the storm gets higher and they're terrified. And then finally you get down to the very end, the storm gets calm. Verse 16. And they were filled with great fear. And what you actually have is very clearly a literary unit that's all about fear. So we have to look at it and here's how we're going to do it. We're going to unfold it by noticing three factors or three features in the story. The stormy sea, the religious sailors, and the willing substitute. The stormy sea shows us who we are. The religious sailors show us the wrong thing to do about it. And the willing substitute shows us the right thing. All right, the stormy sea, who we are, the religious sailors, what not to do about it, or what's an inadequate way to deal with it. And the willing substitute, what to do about it. Now, first, the stormy sea. I'll give you brief about this, but it's interesting. Verse 5, all the sailors cried out to their own God. What do you know about sailors? As a class, they're not terribly devout, but a storm comes up and now what's going on? Each crying out, they're praying. And the first thing we learn here, which is important is storms tend to reveal who we really are. In spite of what you say to people, in spite of what you say to yourself, storms, suffering, troubles, death, storms reveal to us that deep in our hearts we're all God knowers and God needers. That no matter what you tell yourself, no matter what you say, deep down inside you know there's a God and you know that you need him. And storms bring that out. Mark Twain is a terrible. I always hate. This is a terrible place where Mark Twain in his sort of something that he wrote autobiographical about. Near the end of his life, one of his family members was sick. And I can't remember who was. It was his wife or a daughter, I thought. But anyway, I can't remember. But at one point, one of his family members were sick. And to his as it and to his distress, he found himself praying. He said, and I quote, I prayed. I prayed like a coward. I prayed like a dog. And now the reason he was so distressed was because Mark Twain was a skeptic. And Mark Twain had very, very skeptical, strong beliefs against Christianity. He had very, very strong, well worked out doubts about God. But in the storm he cried out. It's like he couldn't help it. It was his involuntary muscle or something. There was an Involuntary reflex in him toward God. Now, you know, skeptics are constantly saying, so what? So what? People get in trouble, people get into terrible danger, and they pray. What does that prove? Doesn't prove there's a God. That's not what I'm saying. Listen. This involuntary reflex that people find in their heart in times of darkness and trouble and storms, this almost. This almost involuntary reflex to pray and cry out, that involuntary reflex is not evidence for skeptics for the existence of God. It's actually evidence from God against the existence of skeptics. See the. See Romans, chapter one. Paul says, nobody's a real skeptic. You may tell yourself, you may tell the people in Religion 101. You've got doubts. You don't believe, but deep down inside, your heart knows there's a God and cries out to God. And you see this in the times, like in times of storm. In times of storm, you see that you're a dependent, fragile, contingent being. You know, I mean, C.S. lewis puts it like this. If you want to know what your basement is like, you've got to surprise your basement. In other words, if you want to know if there's rats and cockroaches and crawly things down in the basement, you don't go down there deliberately. You don't sort of. You don't. You don't come to the top of the steps and you say, I guess I'll go down and check the basement. And then you rattle the doorknob and open it up, and you turn on the light and you sort of clear your throat, and you walk down and you get down there. Everything's fine down here. There's no problem. No, no, no. If you want to know what your basement's really like, you have to surprise your basement. In other words, you have to run to the door, open it, turn on the light, leap to the bottom of the steps, and then you'll see all these awful little things scurrying away. Then you'll know, here's how you know what your heart really is. Here's how you know who you really are. Not when you can deliberately act in a way that you think you want to think of yourself as or you want other people to think of. But when your instincts, reflexes are engaged in the storm, you know there's a God. That's the real you. I mean, if, for example, in the last couple of weeks, you find yourself praying or seeking God or coming to church in ways you haven't a long time, maybe some of your friends Saying, oh, well, that's all right. You know, you'll come to your senses eventually. You're just scared right now. This is your real senses. This is your real self. It's when you're in, when you're off balance, that you see that you can see who you really are. Storms reveal us to be people who need God. God knowers. God needers. Storms reveal us to be people that are contingent and dependent, and we need God. So that's the first thing. Now what are we going to do about it? What happens during times of storms is we get scared. Great fear comes upon us. We realize we can't face life. We realize we really can't handle it. We realize that we're not adequate. And so almost always what happens is people get religious. In fact, you know, it's amazing. The public figures are telling us to get religious. The mayor's telling us, the president's telling us, the governor's telling us not. They don't use the term, but what they're really saying is, go to places of worship, pray, get religious. And, you know. Well, all I can tell you is this text shows us that that's not good enough. What this text shows us is that these sailors are being pushed into actually a kind of process of religious development by the storm and their fear. They are terrified by the storm. And so the first Stage in verses 5 to 10, you notice that though they were nominal idolaters and polytheists, now they're becoming devout polytheists, and they're all crying to their own God. But that's not enough. Then they start to actually move over in the second half. They start to cry out to the Yahweh, the true God. You know, in verse six, by the way, it's almost comical. I mean, this narrator is an interesting guy. It's almost comical. You see, verse six. In verse six, it says they, you know, they find Jonah downstairs and he's sleeping. They say, how can you sleep? Get up and call on your God? Maybe he will take notice of us and we'll not perish. You know what? It's very simple. The narrator is just trying to show us that as religious as they're getting, they're trying their own gods, and they're trying, you know, the true God. And they just. They're just panicking. It doesn't help. In other words, they come down, they say, oh, they say to Jonah, have you got a God? Ours aren't working. Give me him. Because, you see, they would have expected the God to be there. In the. You know, you brought your gods with you on trips. You know, you know, you had your house gods. They were statues, they were images, of course, and everybody had their own God. And. But the whole point of this, this part of the narration is the terror comes and they begin to get religious, and it doesn't help them. First they're polytheistic, then they get orthodox, and it still doesn't help them. They're terrified. They get more and more terrified. Why? Why doesn't religion work? Well, let's take a look at their two stages. The first stage is less religious people who rely on material things are absolutely defenseless against fear. Less religious people who rely on material things are absolutely defenseless against fear. You see, the first thing they do is they all cry out to their own gods. They were polytheists. And let me tell you a little bit about what you probably know. Anyway, I don't know why I'm doing it, but polytheistic religion, ancient religion, they did not believe in a monotheistic, overarching God. They didn't have that concept. What they did have, though, was every created thing, every finite thing that they didn't have this idea of a beginningless, transcendent, eternal God. They didn't have that concept. Instead, what they had was every created thing, the sea, business, farm, sexuality, the sun, every created thing could be worshiped. And it was up to you to decide what you were going to worship. You couldn't do them all. So, you know, some people worship the business God and some people worship the sexuality God, and some people worship the. Their family's gods or their cities gods or their nation's gods. In other words, polytheistic religion was not devoutly religious in a certain sense. It didn't believe in a kind of overarching monotheistic God. Rather, it said, you choose some created material thing that you make your God, you make it your hope, you make it the thing that is really the center of your life, and you worship that. Now, that's not too far from what Manhattan's like. And a lot of people have pointed this out that whereas people in Manhattan, they say we're very, very secular. And of course, a lot of people think we're way beyond those primitive times, but not really. We've come full circle because most people in Manhattan, they don't believe in a sort of overarching God. They don't go to synagogue or church and that sort of thing. And yet every human being has got to put their meaning in life. Every human being's got to have something that they invest in. Now, we talked about this two weeks ago. We talk about this fairly often at Redeemer. So in other words, even when a person says, I'm not religious, the fact is that you have to find some material thing, whether it's your career or it's romance or it's your family, it's your children, or it's your art or whatever you say. That's the thing that really gives my life meaning. And that's my God, in a sense. Well, the first thing we see in this narrative is the real problem with any finite God. Any material thing, finite thing, anything besides God, or more than God, that you turn into a God is of no help in a storm. You know why? Because they sink with you. They're in the boat with you. You cry out to them, they can't help you. You know, an example, maybe. I hope the musicians don't kill me for this one, but it's a perfectly good example. Let's just say you're a musician, and of course music is important to you. And if you love music, then let's say a storm comes, maybe bad career problems, or maybe you're injured, for example, and you can't play like you used to be able to play. Now, if you love music, you're in a storm, and storms always beat you up and blow you off course, and you'll be soaked to the skin and you'll be scared all the time. And I mean, a storm is a storm. Nobody just walks through storms. Nobody just sails through storms. Storms are terrible. But if music isn't just something you love, but if it's something you call on as your God, if it's your ultimate thing, if it's the main thing in your life, it's the real thing that makes you feel good about yourself in a storm, it can't help you because it'll sync with you. In other words, any finite thing is susceptible to storms, just like you are susceptible. Circumstances can take them away. Disease and enemies and things can take them away. And they're in the boat with you, as it were, and you cry out to your gods, but how can they help you? They're in the boat with you. They're going to sink with you. So if you, you know, if you love something, if I love music, if I love my children, if I love my career, storms come, and of course I'm going to be blown all about, it's going to be terrible. But if I. But if they're my main thing in life, the Storms come and I will utterly sink. I will, I will be devastated. I have nothing left. So see less religious people who have, you know, who live for material things. They are, they are defenseless against fears and storms. But somebody says, oh, okay, so what you really want then is you want us to come to your church. Not live for career and sex and money and things like that. Come to church, obey the ten Commandments, you know, just say no to whole lots of things that you used to say yes to. You know, become ethical, become Christian, you know, read the Bible, pray, go to Bible studies and all that sort of thing. Then I'll be safe, right? Because if I do all that, then I know God will protect me. I won't live for material things. I live for God. Be careful. Of course that's the answer. Of course that's the answer. And yet here's what I want you to see. Almost always when people first say, I'm not going to live for material things, I'm going to live for God, they don't know what that means. And what you see interestingly here is that when these guys begin to call out to Yahweh, not to their idols, but to Yahweh, they're just as scared because they're bargaining with God just like they did with the idols. What do they say? They say, look, your prophet says we're supposed to throw them in. Okay? We want to obey the prophet. I mean, you know, I'm scared of you now. I am scared of you. I don't want you to kill us. So we want to obey. So your prophet says throw them in. But wait a minute, isn't that murder? We don't want to disobey. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? They're scared. They're not opening their heart to their loving heavenly father, knowing that he loves them. They have entered into a fear based bargaining relationship with God. And what I'm trying to show you here and what the narrative is trying to show you and something that's very important is you may not deal with your fear very well by just getting religious in general. Just saying, I'm going to come to church now, I'm going to start to pray and I'm going to. Because I just see a lot of people say, I haven't been going to church, I haven't had much God in my life and now these terrible things have happened and I feel vulnerable and I feel unsafe. I'm going to go to God, I'm going to start praying and then I'll feel safe because now God's with me. I'm being a good person. Listen, that is not going to save you from fear.
- [20:34]
Narrator
Jonah is one of the most widely known stories in the Bible, but it's so much more than a simple account of a prophet who runs from God and gets swallowed by a great fish. In his book Rediscovering Jonah, Tim Keller uncovers the deeper message of this familiar story, revealing how Jonah's resistance to God exposes our own reluctance to trust and obey him, and how Jonah's experience ultimately points us to Jesus and his saving work on the cross. During the month of May, we'll send you a copy of Rediscovering Jonah as our thanks for your gift to help gospel and life share the transforming love of Christ with more people. So request your copy today@gospelandlife.com give. That's gospelandlife.com give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching.
- [21:25]
Tim Keller
Richard Lovelace, my old professor in seminary, said something years ago I've never forgotten. In fact, if you've been around Redeemer, you know, I haven't forgotten it because it's really one of the things that shaped my whole ministry. Lovelace says there's three kinds of people in the world. There's irreligious people, there's religious people, and then there's Christians. He says Christians are people who know they're saved by grace. That in spite of who they are, in spite of what they've done, in spite of the fact that they merit nothing and can earn nothing by sheer grace of God because of what Jesus Christ has done, I'm accepted and I live a life of gratitude. It's a grace based, gratitude based relationship. But he says, you know, most people haven't understood the difference. They just still think of Christianity as just being religious and moral. And what they do is they say, I'm going to read the Bible, I'm going to pray, I'm going to be a good person. I'm going to give my life to Christ. What they mean is I'm going to try to do everything he says and I'm going to try to live for him. But what they really mean is I'm going to make God protect me. I'm going to be so good that he'll have to protect me now. So what you're doing is with your goodness, you're trying to control him. But Dr. Lovelace used to say, you know what of the three kinds of people to Be religious, irreligious, or Christian. The worst is to be religious. He says it's the most scary kind of existence to have. And by and large in the world, religious people are the biggest nuisances of the three, too. And I won't go into that one, but I'll go into that first one. Why would it be the most scary? Lovelace used to say, if you don't understand the difference between religion and Christianity, and he says there's lots of people in the church every week, and there's people here who don't believe, don't understand the difference. That's why I'm telling you, I don't know who you are, but I just know there's always people. Okay, I'm not looking at anybody. But Dr. Lovelace used to put it this way. He says, if you don't understand that if you start to come to church after some great disaster, you start to feel better at first, but you really don't understand the difference between grace and fear, between giving yourself to God and basically using God and trying to kind of manipulate him into giving you the things that you think will really make your life happy and safe. You're just going to get more and more scared as time goes on. He says the worst thing possible for you is to go and listen to a sermon every week. The minister is going to tell you something else you're supposed to do to be a good person. This week, generous with your money, you say, oh, my gosh, I've really been spending too much myself. Next week, care for the poor. Next week, forgive your enemies. Really forgive your enemies, no matter what they've done every week, oh, my gosh, you're getting worse and worse. How am I ever going to do all this? If God's going to bless me, I've got to be good. And every week, I see how much more there is to it. And the fact of the matter is, all kinds of people have approached the true God. They're into orthodoxy, like these guys. They're into ethics. They're trying to find out, Just tell us the rules. Just tell us the rules. Can we kill the prophet or not? I mean, what is the rules? I don't want to, you know, give us the rules will do anything if you'll just keep us from drowning. Frankly, that is what an awful lot of people's religion is. Nice people, good people, sincere people, people in the church. But don't you see what we're being told here is that general religion is not the way to deal with Fear, it just opens you to more fear in general. It doesn't help. What are we going to do? And before we move on, let me just say one thing that's ironic. The essence of the fear based religion, or the essential pride cry, the essential prayer of the fear based religion is what I just said is to say, God, I will do anything, anything you want if only you'll help me in this way. You know, help me get married, you know, help me with my children, help me, keep me safe, help me in my career. I'll do anything, anything, anything. If only this. And you know what's so ironic and paradoxical about to say I'll do anything if. And yet the very statement proves that you won't do the one thing God wants. What do you mean? Because the one thing God wants is to love him without ifs. When you say I'll do anything if, the one thing you won't do is to love him without ifs. Because. And you will never be free from fear unless you love him without ifs. Because when you say, God, I'll do this, I'll do anything if. You know what's on the other side of the if? Your real God, the real thing that you're looking to for your significance and security, which means that whatever that real God is, is a finite thing and it's subject to storms and it can sink within you. And you're always going to be scared. You use your religion as a way of trying to help yourself think that, well, the big God in heaven is going to keep me in this. He's going to, he's not going to let this hurt me or happen. But you still got your emotional eggs in the basket of that finite thing. And you're going to go down. You're going to go down because it'll go, it sinks with you. So the storm shows us who we really are. Weak, dependent, contingent, non self sufficient creatures. Secondly, religion in general doesn't help. Doesn't help deal with the fear. Well, what will? In verse 12, Jonah says, Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Now, you know, I'll tell you, one of the most comic things that I did this week was try to figure out, I mean, I have all my commentaries. Learned people, learned men and women, they just, they know Hebrew and they know ancient texts and they know ancient literary structure and they know entomology. No, they know etymology. Entomology is insects, right? And they know, you know, they know it all and they know grammar and they know all that stuff and they could not agree on the question, why is he doing this? Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Some people said he is coming to his senses. And he sees that he's disobeyed God and he knows he deserves death. And what he's saying is, I have sinned against God. I deserve death. Throw me out. So he's clearly obeying God. He's finally submitting to God. But other commentators say that what he's really saying is, I do not want you to save my life. I don't want to go to those dirty Ninevites. And I'd rather die than go to those dirty Ninevites. I would rather die than obey God. So kill me. Isn't that interesting? You know, that's about as opposite as possible. I mean, it's two totally different ways of reading this verse. When he says, pick me up and throw me into the sea, is he submitting to God or is he rebelling against God? And the answer is somewhere in the middle. Because if you look at the rest of it, the rest of what he says, he starts to come to his senses. Not because he's looking at God, I really don't think, but because he's looking at them. Look what he says. He doesn't say, pick me up and throw me into the sea because I deserve it or because I'm trying to get away. What does he say? Because I know it's my fault that this great storm has come to you. Now. It probably was only pity at this point, but this is remarkable to me. He's finally starting to come to his senses spiritually, because he's thinking of somebody besides himself. He's starting to. He's looking at them in love. And here's what he's saying. He's saying, your lives are in jeopardy because of me. This is not right. You should not be dying for me. I should be dying for you. It's my fault that your lives are in jeopardy. This is not right. This is not fair. I am sorry. I don't want you to die for me. I'll die for you. Throw me in now. They don't want to do it at first, do they? They're scared to death. But when they finally do it, look what happens. Calm. See? Verse 15. Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard. And the raging sea grew calm. And at this. At what? See, that's question. At. At this the men greatly feared. Now, this doesn't make sense. Verse 4 and 5, storm, fear. Verse 10 and 11. Bigger storm, bigger fear. Verse 15. No, storm, what would you expect? No fear. That's not what it says. Great fear. Wow. Wait a minute. Holy smoke. What's going on here? And here's what's going on. They could not just be. They couldn't be afraid anymore. The storm's over. And they couldn't just be. They couldn't be afraid because it was so amazing. They would say, wow, did you see that? What's the sun doing out? That's unbelievable. That's not what it means when it says, they greatly feared the Lord and sacrificed to him. In Psalm 131st 4, it says this. The psalmist says, there is forgiveness with you. You have forgiven me, and therefore I fear you. I read that 10 years ago and I just. I did a double take. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You know, when you think of the fear of the Lord, what are you thinking of? Being scared of Him. Right. And they have been scared of him, haven't they? They've been very scared of Him. They're scared to death. A minute ago they were saying, don't kill us, don't kill us. But now something new has happened. Psalm 130 says, you forgave me, and therefore I fear you. And what that has to mean is fear of God means awe and wonder and amazement, an existential grasping of who he is, the greatness of who he is. And you see, they could not just be saying, wow, wasn't that an amazing thing? Oh, no. What's going on is they saw a sacrifice of love. They were trying to save him. And what Jonah was trying to say is, I don't want you to lose your life saving me. I would rather lose my life saving you. Throw me in the willing substitute, the one who says, I will die rather than you. And they were amazed at the sacrifice of love. And they were amazed at the wrath of God that was coming so furiously and at the God who accepted that sacrifice of love. And as a result, they began to experience the real fear of God, which is not being cower, is not cowering and being frightened, but awe and wonder. It's the fear that casts out all other fear, because it's amazement at his love, at the substitutionary sacrifice of one for them. Now, let me suggest to you that if they can handle their fear that way, how much more resources do you and I have? Because in Mark at Matthew chapter 12, when they come to Jesus and they say, do us a miracle to prove that you are who you say you are, Jesus says, the only sign I'm going to give you is the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so the son of man will be in the belly of the earth three days and three nights. And behold, a greater than Jonah is here. What is he saying? He is saying there's only one storm that can really take you out. Only one. There's only one stone that can really sink you. There's only one bomb that can really take you out. There's only one fire that can really burn you up. There's only one disaster that can really take you out, and that is at the end of your life. When you look at all the things you've done, how are you going to stand before God knowing what every person knows down deep is that we're guilty. He says, I took the ultimate storm. I'm the ultimate Jonah. I went under not an ocean of water. I went under an ocean of punishment and justice. I went under the only storm that could ever, ever take you out. And as a result, you will have calm eventually. When St. Augustine wrote the City of God, I'm going to get back to this probably in about three weeks. He wrote the City of God just a few years after Rome fell. Rome did not fall the way you might think. I used to think it meant that, you know, some horde came in and occupied it and. And that's not what happened in 410. Alaric the Barbarian, he was European by the way. The barbarian Alaric came and just came up over the wall and just went through Rome for about three days and plundered and killed a bunch of people and plundered and robbed it and then went home. Didn't occupy it, didn't invade it in that sense, just went home. But Rome, everybody in the whole empire of Rome was utterly shattered. Because if Rome wasn't safe, what would be safe? Rome had never had happened before. It was unthinkable. And every, including the Christians. The Christians said, if Rome isn't safe, where is safety? And St. Augustine wrote a book called the City of God in which he said, you have for forgotten something. There is only one city that's safe. And by the grace of God and the shed blood of Christ, you're a citizen of that. But there is no other city that's safe. There is no other city that's safe. Every other city can be bombed. And the only way to really be safe is to be a citizen of that city by grace. You know, we sing about it in Glorious Things of the Earth Spoken, which is one of the psalms on which the city of God is based on. You know, it talks about the fact that the last verse says, you know, if by grace, you know, if I'm a member of Zion City by grace, let the world deride her pity. I will glory in thy name. If I'm. If I'm a citizen of that city, see if I'm safe in if. If Jesus Christ, the ultimate Jonah, has taken out the only star that can really, really, really clobber me, then and only that I'm safe. Because first John 4:18, perfect love casts out fear. If I know I'm loved because he did that for me, then and only then can I get rid of my fear. I cannot get fear by higher walls. I cannot get rid of fear by insurance policies. I cannot get rid of fear like that. I've got to know that the one who made the universe and the one who's all powerful loves me. And the only way I know that is if I know that Jesus is the ultimate Jonah, the willing sacrifice who said, I'll die for you. Now, therefore, let me finish like this. There are two practical things I've just told you about how to deal with fear. One reason we're afraid is that we're too emotionally invested in other things besides God. Finite things. And those things are always subject to the vicissitudes of life and soul circumstances. And therefore when things go wrong, we just fall apart. So the first thing is fear comes from over investing in things besides God. And the second problem, the reason for fear is that we don't have. We don't actually existentially inhabit the promises of God that He loves us. What do I mean? Existentially inhabit means I know in general that God loves me, but do I have fear of him in this sense? Am I in awe of Him? Do I existentially know it? Do I experience his love? Am I amazed at it? It's not enough just to be intellectually comforted. I believe in God. I have to experience it in prayer, in the Lord's table, in worship. I have to inhabit my doctrine. Now, I want you to know the reason I hated to have to do this sermon is because it would be very easy for people to say, oh, okay, I got it. In fact, I know this stuff. I come to Redeemer fairly often, and Tim's a little repetitious. So I've heard this before and I realize that that's probably what you have to do. You have to, first of all, you need to stop living for material things. You need to live for Christ. But you got to be careful not to do it in a religious works righteousness way. You have to understand what the gospel is. That's how I deal with fear. It's not that easy. And here's why. I had a terrible week. Had a terrible week with fear. And I remember thinking, this is awful. I'm gonna have to preach to people on how to deal with their fear. What if I get struck with lightning in the very middle of the sermon? I mean, that'll be terrible. You know, take the first three or four rows out and everybody will be upset. But here's what I found, is you can know it all. Obviously, I am the ultimate know it all. You can know all the right. It's one thing to know, it's another thing to inhabit it. For example, 18 months ago, my retirement felt, puns look pretty good. They don't look very good anymore. And I realized to some degree, to a greater degree than I thought, to a humiliating degree, I had begun to actually kind of live and inhabit and existentially rest in the fact that even though I was only a minister, I was probably going to be able to retire and be able to live okay. I like the way those things were growing about 18 months ago. And, you know, that's sure gone south and who knows if it'll ever come back. And I also did, like Augustine chided the Christians about Rome. I have. I was amazed at just to what degree I have been getting a lot of my sense of safety and security out of the fact that I live in what I thought was a kind of impregnable military and economic power of the whole world. I mean, you know, I thought I wasn't terribly invested emotionally and all these other things, but there's a lot of idolatry in my faith, as my wife says. You know, they say, build on the rock. Jesus says, build your house on the rock, not on the sand. Because when the sand comes, I mean, when the storms come, the sand, the house built on the sand will fall. And she says, I always think my house is over on the rock, maybe a little bit on the sand. And whenever a storm comes, I find out it's mainly on the sand, only a little on the rock. Well, what are you supposed to do about it? I'll tell you what I have to do. When you're in the gymnasium pumping, you don't feel like you're getting stronger, do you? No, no. After you've been pumping iron for 10 minutes, you say, I feel stronger. Absolutely not. You feel like piece of spaghetti as you're getting stronger physically, you feel like you're getting weaker. But after it's all over, you are. Right now, if you cling to the psalms, if you pray day and night, if you show, if you go to your heart and you say you know what, you thought you trusted in God and you don't, if you exhort yourself, if you read the scripture and you pray until the love of Jesus gets sort of real to you, if you do all these things as you're doing them right now in the darkness of this time, you don't feel like you're getting stronger, but you are. You are. You're moving your house a little bit more over on the rock, a little bit less on the sand. That little piece of dog roll. That is terrible poetry my wife and I really love. It's an old John Newton hymn. It goes like this. His love in time past forbids me to think he'll leave me at last in troubles to sink by prayer let me wrestle. Then he will perform with Christ in the vessel I smile at the storm. Let's pray. Our Father, what the Lord's Supper is all about is trying to take things that we know in our head and make them real. The bread, the cup, all this stuff is here to take things that are not terribly real to us and make them real to us. And that's what we have to do right now. We thank you for giving us in the story of the cross the ultimate answer to fear. There's perfect love that casts out our fear. But of course we imperfectly hold on to that perfect love. And so we still have a lot of fears. Help us to be better because we spent this time at the table together at knowing the love that casts out fear. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
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Narrator
Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life Podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the gospel centered teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life Monthly partner. Your partnership helps connect people all over the world with the life giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelandlife.com partnership. That website again is gospelandlife.com partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 2001. 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.