Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - A Preacher’s Disobedience

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

When we hear the word “sin,” we think we know what it means. But we don’t—not really.  If we don’t understand sin, then Christianity makes no sense. But even more so, if we don’t understand sin, then the knowledge of God’s love and grace won’t really transform or heal us. So how do we find out what the Bible means by sin? By looking at Jonah, who’s said to be very religious, and seeing how he falls into terrible sin, we can then get a good idea of what sin is.  In the story of Jonah, we see him doing four things. And each one of them tells us something about the real nature of sin. We see Jonah 1) running, 2) sleeping, 3) sinking, and 4) rising. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 26, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: Jonah 1:1-5, 2:1-10. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Throughout the Bible, there are signs that point us to the Gospel. Today Tim Keller is looking at how we can discover them and what they teach us. Some years ago, I, in my first, my only other church in a small southern town, a man came to me who was in my church and he shook my hand and he said, I really want to thank you because up until I met you, I thought preachers hardly ever sinned. And I've cherished that fairly clumsy compliment because it doesn't sound very good, but well, here's what he meant. His understanding of sin had been totally revolutionized by the ministry there, basically.

He had understood, like most people, I think, I've understood, that basically sin was a matter of the good people and the bad people, the good guys and the bad guys. And his understanding of sin, which was kind of come from a small southern town, was first you have the bad people. They used dirty words, they beat people up, they drink too much, they sleep all around town, they don't go to church, and then there's the good people, then there's the preachers, and there's the people who don't break the rules and who come and they're very good. And what, now you know, we have backed away from that. I mean, that's the old conservative culture and there's a lot of people who have reacted

from that and they've created a liberal culture. And what they've done is they've taken the line between the good guys and the bad guys and they've just done it like this. They've moved at 90 degrees. So some of the things that used to be bad are good and some of the things that used to be good are bad. So now of course I can cuss be bad are good and some of the things that used to be good or bad. So now, of course, I can cuss and I can sleep all around town, but I work for the environment and I work for tolerance

and I make the world a better place. But the good guys and the bad guys, they're still there. The line's still there. Sin is still seeing pretty much as following the rules. What this man was trying to say was that till he understood the biblical concept of sin, Christianity made no sense, and it had no power. And I've increasingly come to believe that that really is a problem both inside and outside the church.

Outside the church, when people hear the word sin, they think they know what they mean, but what it means, but because they don't know really what the word sin means, they don't understand what the Bible means when we use the word sin, the Christianity doesn't make sense to them from the outside. And on the inside, I believe Christians also, Christians, when they read in the Bible, I say the word sin, they think they know what the Bible means by the word sin, and they don't either. You see, if you don't understand sin, intellectually Christianity will make no sense. A number of you I'm sure

have come to church today with a friend who comes here regularly, and maybe this first time maybe you've been coming, and this very often sort of happens between friends like this. If you're a visitor, you may afterward say, or at some point you might say, there's many good things about this. Many good things about this religion, this church, and this kind of Christianity and all that, but I don't completely agree. I differ with you on the love of God.

So your Christian friend will say, what do you mean? And you'll say something like this. You say, well, I think Christianity is great, but I believe in a more loving God. I believe that all people, everywhere, even people who don't believe in Christ, or even the people who don't believe in God, all good people everywhere can find God. And if your Christian friend understands the gospel, your Christian friend will kind of sigh a little bit and say, you know, you just left me out, you just cut me out of

the herd, you just left me out, you just cut me out of the herd, you just left me without hope when you said that. And you'll say, what do you mean? And your friend here, she will say, well, but I'm not good. I mean, there's no hope for me then. If you say that all good people can find God, what about me? I'm not good. And you'll be irritated because A, you will think this person is just exaggerating.

Or B, you just hyperbole C, or B, you'll think this person is joking. Or C, you'll think the person is just exaggerating. Or B, is he just hyperbolecy? Or B, you'll think this person is joking. Or C, you'll think the person just being difficult. But no, the problem is you don't understand what the Bible has to say about sin and the real difference between you and your friend is not on the love of God, not at all. It's on the nature of sin. When you hear the word sin, you think,

you know what the Bible means and you don't. But it's not only true that without understanding sin, Christianity makes no intellectual sense, but also has no spiritual power. I also believe that Christians on the inside who pretty much have the same view of the good guys' bad guys that my friend used to have. If you still have that view of sin,

you're gonna find out that you say, I believe in the love of God, but you have not experienced much in the way of power. Your life has not been that changed. You have not been lifted up. You have not been turned inside out. You have not found prayer and worship stuff that is so transforming. You have to pull yourself away at times.

You have not found all your memories healed. You have not found that you can face things in the past that you were so scared of and you can face them with joy. It hasn't happened. And you know it hasn't happened. Why not? You've been here, you've been doing it, you've been kind of running through, you know why? I would suggest I propose you don't understand really what sin is either. And as a result, the knowledge of God's love and grace doesn't really empower you. Now, how do you find out what the Bible means by sin? And the answer is find somebody

who does obey all the rules and look at that that person's life And that's the recent life my friend said it was great to see a preacher Who obeys all the rules of very goody to choose who gave me definition of sin such that I could see his sin Now I'm gonna suggest that we do that today, but not me There's two ways to go I get Kathy up here and she could tell you all about this And that would be one way to figure out what the Christian doctor to sin the other way is to look at me. There's two ways to go. I get Kathy up here and she could tell you all about this and that would be one way to figure out what the Christian doctor does in. The other way is to look at someone in the Bible who is a preacher and who was lifted up by the Bible

to show us a very religious person, a very righteous person, a person who was a preacher, a person who was a prophet, a person who was called by God, but who falls into terrible sin, and by looking at that, we get a good idea of what sin is. It's Jonah. Now we see Jonah doing four things. Each one of them tells us something about the real nature of sin. We see Jonah running, sleeping, sinking, and rising. Number one, first of all we see him running.

What do we see? The word of the Lord came to the Son of Jonah, son of Amatai, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah ran away from the Lord, it literally says, from the face of the Lord, from the presence of the Lord, and headed for Tarshish. Now, why? for Tarshish. Now why?

Get right to this. God said, go and preached to Nineveh. What was Nineveh? Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. And Assyria was up to this time in history, the biggest, baddest, most violent, imperialistic power, the biggest baddest, most violent, terrible, imperialistic power, the biggest baddest most violent, terrible, imperialistic power that had ever risen in world history.

And they were already eating countries around them. They'd already wiped some out through genocide, and they subjugated others, and Israel was threatened. And Jonah knows the message, what's the message? That a serious violence has come up. It has gotten to the place, it's gotten full. This is a typical way that God talks in the Old Testament. They talk about the, and Nick would hear the Amrites being full,

that their violence had gotten to the place where God was about to destroy them. And he was supposed to send, and Jonah was supposed to go, and the message was, he was supposed to preach to Nineveh, God has seen, God will judge 40 days, and you'll be destroyed. But now Jonah doesn't go, why not? He tells very clearly in chapter 4 verse 2, why? In chapter 4 verse 2, which we didn't read, he says very, very clearly, exactly the reason why. He says, this is why I flood the Tarshish. I knew you were a compassionate God who relents from sending calamity. Now, here's what. Jota knows that God is a holy God and a

just God, but he also knows that God is compassionate and merciful God. Jota knows that if God wants to smash Nineveh, he doesn't need a prophet, he doesn't need a preacher. If God wants to smash Nineveh, he doesn't need a messenger, but if God wants to save Nineveh, he does. And therefore, Jonah knows that the only possible reason that God would have to send a messenger to Nineveh is he wants to give Nineveh a chance. He wants to save Nineveh. He wants to have mercy on Nineveh. He wants to help Nineveh, his he wants to give Nineveh a chance. He wants to save Nineveh, he wants to have mercy on Nineveh,

he wants to help Nineveh, he wants to turn them from their violence. And John says, I don't want that because then Israel will be threatened, then Israel will be at risk, and so he runs. There's a great irony here in his running, because if you look carefully, you'll see there are two words in a sense in the word.

There's two messages. The first message, God characterizes as a message against. God says, go and preach against. Doesn't just say preach too, because God is saying the message you're going to give to Nineveh is a message against. One of the reason he uses the word against is because it's a hard word. It's the word that goes against their desires. It of the reasons he uses the word against is because it's a hard word. It's the word that goes against their desires. It's the word that goes against their hearts. It goes against their lives, the direction. It's a word that's very abrasive, you see. Go, preach against. But Jonah knows that even though the form of the message was against, the purpose of the message, it was a message for. It looks like a message against

the Nineveh, but God was absolutely being for Nineveh. And so Jonah knows, and this is why some upset, and the reason he's running away, is because in spite of all the Hellfire sermon, that the Hellfire message, he knows that God is for the Ninevehs. And Jonah's not, so off he goes. But here's the great irony, the other message is, Jonah, I want you to go. Now this is exactly against Jonah's heart. It was the last thing in the world he wanted to hear. Just like the Ninevites, it was the last thing in the world they want to hear.

But even though Jonah knew that God's so-called abrasive messages, a message is against a really message is against a really messages for, he knew that with Nineveh, but he refused to apply it to himself. Here's what he said. He says, if I do what God has asked me to do, if I obey God, it'll be bad for me, it'll be bad for my family, it'll be bad for my people, I'm as disobey God. Now here's what we have. We have here a recap of the history of the human race and a recap of your own life history. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve were

told, don't eat the tree. They were told, don't eat the tree. A voice came to them and tempted them and that voice sank into their heart, and it had to have sunk into their heart. The voice went like this. The voice said, God has told you to obey. But God, if you obey, you'll miss out. If you disobey, you'll learn new things, you'll become something new, you'll rise, there's great things out there

that obedience will hold you back from. You cannot trust God. You cannot trust Him to have your best interests in mind. You cannot trust that obeying Him is going to really make you happy and fulfilling. You can't trust God. God is against you. His word is against you and therefore his heart is against you. Now see, Jonah knew that the word was against Nineveh, but the heart was not against Nineveh, but Jonah refuses to believe it for himself. And back in the garden, a voice came to Adam and even said, take the fruit because you can't trust God. That voice assaulted the character of God. It impunes the love of God.

It stuck a dagger in the concept of his goodness. Yes, God is a God of power, and you're going to have to deal with a God of power. You're not going to be able to live your life just the way you want, but you can't trust God. You can always have to be wary of God. You have to always watch your back with God around. And I tell you this, Adam and Eve would have had to believe that before they took the fruit. There's no other way reason they would have taken the fruit. And therefore, this is the sin beneath the sin. This is the heart sin beneath all hand sins.

And to really throw this under relief, to show you really here now what before I summarize I say, what is this? What does this mean sin is? Pretty simple in a way, but very profound. I read a book by Harold Kushner, who wrote some years ago, when bad things happened to good people, was a best seller. He's written a new book called, How Good Do We Have To Be? And in that, he has a whole chapter on why he doesn't believe Genesis 3. He doesn't believe the story.

He doesn't believe in the story. He doesn't think that that was fair. And here's the reason why. He says, I don't believe the garden story. Adam and Eve and the serpent and the fruit. And here's why. He says, this is incredible. God gives them a command and doesn't give them any reason to do it. He says, now something like this, he says, now look, God is setting these people up for failure. He says, all God would have to do is say, now listen, Adam and Eve, I don't want you to eat this fruit. But before I leave you, I'd like to show you a five minute video of the rest of human

history. If you eat this fruit, so you know, you know, they put, stick it in the VCR, they're watching it. He was, thank you very much, and he walks away. I mean, he would have never eaten that fruit because they would have seen, oh my goodness, it would have happened to this and this and this. In other words, how dare God gives them a command without a reason. God gives them a command without a reason. If a command without a reason is totally arbitrary and as a result of course they ate it. I mean they did you know why not and then why would God punish them for that? What's so bad about that? It's to miss the whole point. You know I keep going back to this. If you

ever if you're married or if you ever get married and your spouse says to you, do you love me? And you say yes. And then your spouse says, what are the reasons you love me? Why do you love me? Be very careful. Now, I'll give you some of the reasons that you might give. Well, the reason I love you, the reason I'm faithful to you

is you have a great body and we're having wonderful sex. Another possibility is two incomes. I have a much better lifestyle than I have with one. Another possibility is I've always wanted to have a family, and I need somebody to opposite sex and we're going to have a family. Another is that you know what, you're in good shape, I'm in good shape, we love to hike, and we love to climb mountains. Now here's the problem. You're spouse, of course, and of course, if you hear this, you're in good shape, I'm in good shape, we love to hike and we love to climb mountains. Now here's the problem.

You're spouse, of course, and of course, if you hear this, you're heart sinks. Because you know what, these aren't reasons why you love him or her. These are reasons why your spouse loves you. These are reasons that your spouse loves sex. That your spouse loves money. That your spouse loves lifestyle. Love hiking.

Love's every children, loves family. But why do you love me? Now listen, if you say, why love you? Because I love you. You see, there can't be a reason for love except who the person is. You have to say, I love you not because of what you give me, in which case you don't love me, but because of who you are. And God in the garden said, there's really only one command.

This is not an arbitrary command. This is not a ridiculous command. This is the command. In fact, if God had given them a reason, it would have been an invitation to sin. He would have been asking him for it. God says, I would like you to do something simply because you love me.

I would like you to do something not because it benefits you in which case you're basically not loving me at all. You're only loving what I'm giving you. I want you to love me. Now dear friends, everybody in this room wants that more than anything else. You know why we're built in his image. We need it. We want it. We've got to have it. We demand it. We can't live without it. When we find out that somebody is not loving us, but loving us for reasons. Those reasons always being benefits. We just go through it.

We can't live like that. And yet, yet hell cushioner, thanks. This was a harbiteric command. The essential substratum in our heart was, God says, love, do something because you love me. And we said, no, I won't. No, I don't trust you. I will only from now on for the rest of my life and for the rest of human history.

I will obey you if and only if it benefits me. Only if there's reasons. Only if things look like they're gonna try, but and therefore I have to pick and choose. I have to decide. I'll decide whether my obedience to this particular thing seems to get me where I're going to try. But, and therefore, I have to pick and choose. I have to decide. I'll decide whether my obedience to this particular thing seems to get me where I want it to go. And that's sin.

That's the sin underneath the sins. That's a sin at the very heart. And that is, I don't trust God. God is against me. I don't trust God. God is not for me. I will use God. I will do things only if it looks like it's getting me where I want to go,

but I'll never do anything out of love for him because I don't love him. And that's the beginning. That's the heart. That's the first. Do you understand? Do you see that? You see one of the things, you test yourselves, test yourselves. One of the things that's so interesting about the narrative is that Jonah just despises these dirty pagan worshipers. You see, they all call out to their God in the middle of the storm. Ah, these Gentile dogs, these pagan worshipers. I'm a monotheist, he says.

I don't have this primitive religion. I'm a monotheist. That's not true. Jonah, just like they, does not really have a love base, but has nothing but a fear-based, a terror-based, an absolutely self-centered-based religion. If you want to know what the yours is, take a look. Are you like the sailors? They get religious when things go bad. They cry out to their God.

You know, there are no atheists and foxholes or little boats and storms. They cry out for their God. In other words, do you find yourself getting religious when things go wrong? But somehow all the resolves never stick. That's just, that's a, that's a, that's a religion of using God. that's a religion of using God.

That's a religion of terror. That's a religion of, that's all it is. But are you like Jonah? And that is, look at what Jonah does. Jonah is with God. Jonah's obedient. Jonah's religion is very religious as long as things are going well. He's the opposite.

He dumps God when things go bad. The only way you will know, whether you love God, and the only way you will know that you're giving God what every person in the face of the earth demands from everyone else, you refuse to give God what you demand for yourself, which is love for who the person is. And the way you know whether you refuse in that of God,

the way you know whether you are aggregating to yourself and saying, I know better than God who I should be. I know better than God what I should do. I have more love for myself than God has for me. The way you can know that is you are this way in that way depending on circumstances. Simple as that. You might be the sailor kind.

You see, of God user, you only go to God when things are bad or you may be the the Jonah kind of God user you only go when things are good But one of the things we can see is The big if if you say I will obey if there's a good reason. The good reason is the real thing. Not God. That is non-negotiable. God is negotiable. If you don't get it, he's out.

Doesn't matter if you're religious, doesn't matter if you go to church, doesn't matter if you're a preacher, or on the other hand, a person who's running all around, doing all the, you know, cussing and drinking and beating people up. Don't you say underneath, what Jonah doesn't say yet, but he will soon, is you're the same.

The essence of sin, God is against me. I don't trust him. I don't trust him further I can throw him. And therefore, my obedience isn't really obedience. It's conditional. The second thing we see is Jonas sleeping. Not running but sleeping. And this is extremely interesting too.

I used to think that John was sleeping in the storm because he was so tired. But you know what, when you're anxious and you're guilty and you're so absorbed in your problems, that's not why. I don't know about you, but I find that I sleep more poorly when I'm upset and anxious and all that. Now, if you look carefully, you'll see the storm came up and the sailors did one thing and that is they called on

their gods and they started throwing things over board. But Jonah's response to the storm was to go sleep. And here's the reason why. This is very interesting to me. Jonah was absolutely at peace in his conscience because Jonah was ready to die for his people. And as a result, he was in absolute peace of conscience. Rest of soul, he was able to sleep. You see, he has run. Why? He knows that he has given his life for his people. At first, probably, he thought, look, I sacrificed my career. God is going to deal with me. I'll probably be fired, but I'm being noble, I'm being virtuous, I'm saving my people. And when he saw the storm

camp, he started to realize, well, that's even better. See, his whole point is, how do I stay away from Nine of a for 40 days? Well, it's even better. It looks like when they'd be killed. Fine. You see, how virtuous, how noble of me I'm willing to die for my people. And then at a certain point, he actually comes up and the sailors say, what must we do? How can we be saved? And John says, well, I got an idea. I got an idea. Throw me overboard. I would have been able to wait for the storm to kill me. You drown me. And all the way along when you read it, there is absolute calm.

Just calm. I think I could take an app. Ho-hum. Ready to throw me overboard? That's okay. Why? Because he is so, he is so absolutely sure that he's doing the virtuous and noble thing.

Now what's this mean? One of the biggest obstacles for people to believe in Christianity is that they think they already know all about it. But if we look at Jesus' encounters with various people during his life, we'll find some of our assumptions challenged. We see him meeting people at the point of their big unspoken questions. The Gospels are full of encounters that made a profound impact on those who spoke with Jesus. And in his book Encounters with Jesus, Tim Keller explores how these encounters can still

address our questions and doubts today. Encounters with Jesus is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in life reach more people with the amazing love of Christ. Request your copy of Encounters with Jesus today when you give at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. What it means is the number one sin is not trusting God, obeying God only conditionally. Okay? See, sin doesn't start with disobedience.

Sin starts with resentful obedience, impersonal obedience, remote obedience. Don't you see? Conditional obedience. But then, because you haven't given your heart to God, you're going to give your heart to something. And the second thing that sin is, which we'll just mention briefly because we mentioned it here fairly often, is that Jonah thinks that he's not like these pagans. He doesn't have an idol, but he does.

If you don't really trust God, and the way you can tell you don't trust God is that you're not with them in thick and thin and you're conditional in your obedience and you pull back at certain times. If you don't trust God, then you're going to have to trust something. If you don't trust God, then you're gonna have to trust something. If you don't love God, you're gonna have to love something. If you don't find God a beauty just for who he is, you're gonna have to rest your heart in something because that's what we're built to do.

There's something you're gonna give yourself to aesthetically. Do you know what I mean by that? Aesthetic. When something just makes you say, this is the most beautiful thing. You don't care what it costs, and you don't care what it gives you it's it itself Just seeing it just being near it just listening to it just looking at it just fills you up That's worship

That's love And you see if you don't give it to God and nobody does, because it's sunk deep into our hearts that we don't do that, you're going to give it to something else. And that something else is the non-negotiable. That is the if. Look at your life and say, well, I can do this religion thing, I can obey God, but I couldn't obey God if he didn't do this or if he didn't do this or if he let that happen or if this began to fail or if he wouldn't answer that prayer.

Everybody, everybody I know who's honest, has got a butt. Everybody has an if. Everybody's got a condition. On the other side of the condition is your real God. See, Jonah says, I'm a monotheist, but look, Jonah had two things he was serving. He was serving God, and he was serving the national interests of his people.

And as long as serving God, served the national interests of his people. And as long as serving God served the national interest of his people, he looked like a monotheist. I'm not a dirty polytheist, I'm not an animist, I don't believe in multiple gods, but the minute he had a choose, in a snap, he had no problem, off he went. And you see, anything but God that you make your ultimate love and joy, it will not only show itself in disobedience, but it will also show itself in this. It will become demonic and destructive. Is there anything wrong with wanting the good of your people? Of course not.

Did anybody see the movie peacemaker? There's a man who loved his family and loved his people. And because of that, he decided to put a atomic bomb on the back of his nap sack and go to the United Nations and blow himself up and take out most of New York City with him. And what he had done was he took a good thing, love a family, patriotism. That's a good thing.

But when it becomes the ultimate thing, it becomes demonic. And you can see that, because in this case, Jonah is asleep without the slightest problem knowing that what he is doing is dropping a nuclear bomb on Nineveh. At least that's what he thinks he's doing. He's no different. He's taken something that is natural, and that is to love his people and to care about his people, but as a result, he's doing what he thinks he's doing. God doesn't let him do it.

But he's sleeping in the boat, knowing that,000 people and then we're going to get nuked. Fine with him. And I tell you that with anything, any good thing that you turn into the ultimate thing in your life, the same thing will happen. Is it family? See, is it career? Is it romance? Is it true love? Is it independence? Is it romance? Is it true love?

Is it independence? Is it music? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And how can you tell if something has become an idol or what it is? It's fairly simple. There's two things that you can see in here. When Jonah thinks that he is getting it, he's at peace, even though he's running away from the presence of God.

That's pretty interesting. If your life is moving right along, everything's going pretty well, and you don't have a hunger for the presence of God, but you're at peace, you're sleeping in a sense, you're everything is just fine with you. That shows that what you've really got, you've got your real God. On the other hand, when he doesn't get it, when Nineveh isn't going to get destroyed, in chapter three and

four, we see Jonah saying, I'm angry enough to die. Angry enough to die. And you know what? Look at yourself. If you are a Christian with your heart set on God, you're never that happy that you're sleeping in storms, that you're sleeping knowing that people are going to be suffering. Because you're never that happy on the other hand, you're never that upset. I listen, careful. You see, if God is your reward, if God is the thing, you know, when people cry out and they say, I will do anything.

You say to God, I will do anything if I can have that. Don't you realize that you're actually not doing the one thing God's asking, which is to not say such a thing? You're giving him anything but your heart. To give him your heart because he loves you means that I will make you the one thing. I'll make you the one thing. And if you make God the one thing, you're never really that happy in life because you're always feeling like

I need more of His presence. And you're never that unhappy in life because no matter what goes on, you've got Him. You never have Him as much as you should. You never have Him as much as you want. He's never as real as you want. He's never as close as you want. But on the other hand, you're never able to say,

I'm angry enough to die because no matter what else you lose, your real joy and your real reward is him. Jonah swings from absolute elation, that's brainwashing, that's, there's something wrong. Absolute peace, no problem to irrespaired, and that's the way for you to know whether you're heart is stuck to an idol. You're up and down all the time, back and forth all the time. This is subtle.

You know, young families, young couples who have no interest in religion when their first children come along, start to go to church. Research shows that happens all the time. Is that good or bad? Aha, it depends. Because if, on the one hand, parenthood makes you feel like, gosh, I really need something that I don't have. Responsibility, I'm scared.

I don't feel self-sufficient. I need God, that's fine. But if you say, well, I want to design your life. I want my children. I want them to be happy. I want my little home. I want my everything. And moral, you know, it's good to go to church.

I need to do some moral upbringing as my children will listen to me and that they'll be nice and they'll be decent people. Do you realize if you're like that, then as long as your family is growing and everything is fine, you're absolutely placid, you're absolutely at peace. There's no, you're not crying out like the psalmist, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. There's no hunger for God. You're away from the presence of God, doesn't bother you. And if anything goes wrong with your children, you'll be angry enough to die.

You'll be throwing yourself off the bridge. You see? So the first thing, sin is not trusting God. Further you can throw them, and being conditioned on your obedience. Secondly, it's attaching your heart to something besides God, and saying, I will do anything to get that. And you completely latch your heart to that. And it turns demonic and it turns destructive. And it makes you look at other people and

feel superior to them. It creates all the problems of the world. You know, one of the things that's pretty upsetting about this book for Christians should be this. One of the things that Jonah is being shown up to us in the story is a man who cares about his own people and not the great city. Look, I believe God is committed to the church in general, but he has not committed to any particular church. And if we spend all our time on maintenance, if we spend all our time on having our services and making and feathering our nest and keeping,

you know, keeping our house in order, and we don't care about the city, and we don't let ourselves out for the city. And if we're able to know that people are dying everywhere and we're sleeping through that, it doesn't disturb our sleep. See what God is saying here? You know what they did do? You know the ten tribes of Israel and Northern tribes were demolished by God because they were called to be elected to the nations and they didn't. And Jonah is a perfect example of them. Are you asleep? Are you laying yourself out? Which is it? Okay. And then lastly, and

I told you there were four, but I must do these together. He's running and he's sleeping. That shows us what sin is. Sin isn't, you know, we don't smoke and we don't chew and we don't go with girls that do. That's not sin. What is sin? It's not the taking of the fruit. What is it? We've seen what it is. It's using God instead of loving God. It's conditional obedience instead of just giving and giving and things instead of giving him your heart. Have you yet looked at all the some of you have been incredibly moral of your lives. You have never had sex with anybody. You're a virgin and you're pretty proud of it. First of all, you're proud of it, looking down your nose at people who aren't. And secondly, you've been buying God with that. You say, now God

should answer my prayers. Do you? Listen, I'm not saying that you shouldn't stay a virgin. I believe the biblical sex ethic, which is that you shouldn't do something with your body and not only do with your whole life, that you shouldn't give your body to somebody without giving your whole life, that you should have sex as that of a marriage. I don't believe you should have sex as that marriage. I believe that, but here's what I want you to see. Do you see that you may very, very often have, be very religious and very moral and be doing it. Why? I don't have love for God to control him, to get leverage over him, to look down, you know

that other people, and the signs that you are not really serving God but religiosity and moral superiority and religion, you've turned religion into an idol. What are the signs? A placidity. You see, I just, I kind of numbness and not crying out to God. You will find out that there's a conditionality in your obedience, it'll show up sometime. You'll find that there's no real hunger for prayer and for worship and for communion with God. And someday, in the sense of superiority, and someday you will find you'll be angry enough to die.

Angry enough to die because something you have set your heart on, you'll finally see. Your real God will have you by the throat. I don't know what it is. It's not sex. You see, if you're sexual attraction, your sexual attractive is that's the thing that you set your heart on as your idol. Of course you're going to be having sex all over the place. You're going to have to. Even when you know it's not safe. You're going to be like, you're going to hear, even when you know it's not safe, you have to have hot spontaneous sex. Why? Even when you know it's not safe, you have to have hot spontaneous sex. Why? Because without it, you have no meaning in life. Why? Because it's your real God to know that you can turn somebody on like that. And you will be just like Jonah. Oh, doesn't even bother that he's doing something that's incredibly dangerous to him.

Because the important thing is, I'm getting my God. You have to start to think, not, here's the good guy, here's the bad guy, here's the people who are having sex all over the place, here's the bad people, the bad people who are having sex all over the place, here's the good people who aren't. That's not the way the Bible looks at it at all. That's the reason why in the genealogy of Jesus, you've got Ray have a prostitute, you've got Bathsheba, an adulteress, you've got Tamar and incest, Victon, why? Because that's, and then of course you've got all the so-called good people, because it's not the good people who are got all the so-called good people.

Because not the good people who are in and the bad people who are out, it's the humble people who are in and the proud who are out. The reason that Jonah is willing to nuke Nineveh, the reason that Jonah does not care about the city, and the reason what, in the average Christian, professing Christian, it doesn't care about the city, is that he didn't know he was a sinner. He didn't really understand sin. He didn't understand he was a sinner. He didn't really understand sin.

He didn't understand the depths of sin. He didn't understand the nature of sin. He thought he was a good person. And because he was thought he was a good person, the idea that God loved him did not change him, did not humble him, did not transform him a bit. And that's the reason why the average person who sits in pews and churches, they're not changed either. And the reason that they can just assume certain parts of the world just fell off with all

their inhabitants in them. And that is that you see it all in Jonah. Now how does God cure him? Sinking and rising. How does God cure him? Same way he cures all of us. First of all, he lets Jonah sink. He doesn't wait for your conscience.

The sleeping in this dorm proves that the conscience doesn't work. We find all sorts of ways of deluding ourselves. His conscience is fine, even though he's doing something horrible, terrible. Jiminy Cricket was wrong. Do not always let your conscience be your guide. You see, there's all kinds of tyrants, all kinds of serial killers have always done that. They let their conscience be their guide. If God waited for our conscience to be our God, we'd be lost. The whole world would be lost.

What does he do? Repentance is not God waiting for us to cry out to him. But rather, repentance is always God reaching out and sending storms and having a sink so that we finally see who we really are. He sends a storm. Now, here's the one thing I like about this. I was reading the other day about how terrible and horrible storms are to beach communities. They kill people and they destroy property and they're horrible. And then some scientists sat down and said, well, there's nothing wrong with storms.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with storms. There's nothing inherently evil or sinful about storms. The reason these storms do so much damage is because the beaches aren't supposed to stay put. When you build on a beach, you're going against the natural design of things. You're going to get killed there, maybe. You're certainly going to get hurt there, if you stay there. But there's nothing wrong with the storm. You're going against the grain of the universe. You're going

against the grain of nature. You're not Lord of the beach. The beach will move. It has to move. It can't stay there. Now, the storms of life come to you and you say, why does God allow these things to happen? I'll tell you why. God does not send fire from heaven. It does not send angels, you know, saying, mess with the Lord of the universe, will you? No, he sends a storm. Absolutely natural. Because the natural problems of life show that you have built your house on things that are going to change. If you build your life on your family, families, they break up and die. If you build your life on your career, if you build your life on your physical prowess,

if you build whatever you build your life on, these things are gonna go. And the reason why you're so miserable usually is because something that you think you have to have that you built your life on that is not built to stay. It's not there, it's not designed to stay. And the storm comes. And actually, it's the best thing for you.

Because what God is trying to show you is you're not Lord of the beach, you're not Lord of the storm, you're not the God, you're not the one who knows, you're not supposed to be competent enough to decide what's right or wrong for you. And the storm comes to wake you up and to bring you to repentance. But in the heart of the storm is a fish. And people over the years have said, how can you believe in a fish? And I read a commentary that says, oh, we can't believe in a big fish eating Jesus, eating Jonah, we can't believe in that. Well, here's what we have to believe in. One guy actually said, I believe that after his terrible ordeal, he swam to shore, and he went for three days and three nights and spent it at an inn called the fish. and they're in the fish. He wrote this wonderful prayer.

You know what, the story falls apart because the point is storms are natural, the fish is a miracle. Judgment is natural, grace is a miracle. That's the point of the story. But in the heart of the normal, in the heart of judgment, in the heart of troubles, there's breathing room for repentance.

In the heart of every storm that God sends into your life to try to show you, you've built on things that you shouldn't have built on. God will find you a place where you have enough breathing room, literally breathing room, to think it out. There's love beneath the waves. Inside that storm, there's a fish. Inside that natural thing, there is a miracle. And it's always a miracle of grace.

It's an absolute miracle. It's the point. And when he's down in there, he finally sees. And what does he see? Well, let's give Jonah credit. His big problem all along was how in the world could. God be both just and yet merciful. The thing that most upset him was a Syria deserves to be killed.

At place in Henry V, right before the assault on... And dashing their revered heads against the wall. Your naked infants spit it upon pikes while the mad mothers with their house confused do break the clouds. That's what was going on all the time. The insurions were taking and probably John had seen it. Some of his friends probably. Some of his friends had their heads spattered against the wall. Some of the most wonderful mothers that had their infants spit it upon pikes. He says, how in the world can a god who's really holy and who's really just have mercy? How can you just have, how can you be both just and merciful? It's not fair. It's not right. He said, if you're not going to be just.

I'm going to be just for you. But then in the belly of the fish, he came to realize that yes, if God isn't just, there's no hope for the world. But if he is just, there's no hope for us because we're all sinners. We're all idolaters. We're all guilty of these things. So what does he do? He sees the temple.

He sees the temple and he realizes something, because in the temple you have a law. In the Ark of the Covenant, you have the Ten Commandments, but over the law was sprinkled the blood of a sacrifice, a substitute, and he began to understand something that we can see better, so because here's why. Do you know why God can forgive the Assyrians and still be just because his son was spitted upon a pike? His naked infant spitted upon a pike. And how could Jonah be forgiven? Because as Jesus Christ says in Matthew chapter 12, very carefully, he says, for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish,

so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at judgment with his generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, but now one greater than Jonah is here. The reason Jonah was just thrown into the water and not into the wrath of God was because Jesus Christ was thrown into the wrath of God. There was a storm of God's wrath, not just a storm of water. And Jesus did, was truly banished from God's sight.

And he didn't just go to the bottom of the earth, he went to the bottom of the universe. And it wasn't just waves and billows of water that went over him. It was the eternal justice of God that went over him. And because he was thrown into the storm, we are saved. We're like the sailors. Do you understand this? Jonah finally did. And only when you see that you deserve to be thrown into the water, like Jonah, but the reason why we don't get thrown into the water, when we get thrown into storms, it's always to get us breathing space to wake up. And the reason why there's love in the heart of our storms is because there was no love in the heart of the storm that God sent to his own son. He forsook him.

He laid him out. He destroyed him. If you come to God through Jesus Christ, there will still be physical storms, there will still be hurricanes, there will still be problems, but the real storms will be all calm because Jesus was thrown in what? The storms of guilt, the storms of emptiness, the storms of all the inadequacy and anger and anxiety that comes because you built your house on something else besides him.

Come to him. Listen. See yourself as Jonah. See that you are Jonah. Understand sin. And finally, you'll be changed person. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us this moment. Thank you for giving us this time.

Help us to see what you finally show Jonah, that the storms of life are here to show us who we are and who you are. Help us to understand these things and apply them to our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life Podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people discover the transformative power of Christ's love

through this ministry. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 1997 and 2017. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life Podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.