Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - A Vision for Culture-Making

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

How does the gospel affect your work?  We’re in a series where we’re asking, “What happens when you take the gospel, the basic message of Jesus Christ, out of the church and into the world?” One of the things that happens is it affects the way in which you do your work. And there’s no way to see the Christian understanding of work without going to Genesis 1, 2, and 3. I’d like to show you three things Genesis tells us about your work: 1) it gives you a vision for work, 2) it gives you guardrails for your work, and 3) it gives you a power to do your work. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 10, 2010. Series: The Gospel and the World. Scripture: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:2-17. 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 the Gospel in Life podcast. What if the gospel didn't just shape your private life but transformed the way you show up in the world? One of the most visible places that would play out is in your work. Join us as Tim Keller teaches on how the gospel reshapes the way we approach our jobs. After you listen to today's teaching, we invite you to go online to GospelInLife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal and other valuable Gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today

at GospelInLife.com. This week's reading is from Genesis 1 and 2. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the

ground." By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing, so on the seventh day he rested from all his work and God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his

nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden. From there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishan. It winds through the entire land of Havilah where there is gold. The gold of that land is good. Aromatic resin and onyx are also there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third

river is the Tigris. It runs along the east side of Asher. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die. This is the word of the Lord. Now sermons are taking a text of the Bible, digging down into it, see all it means and then bringing it forward and saying how does that apply to us today? Now the trouble with Genesis 1, 2, and 3 is there's too much there to ever

dig into and pull out in a sermon. And yet what I want to do is I want to look at a very particular subject because we're in a series and in that series we're saying what happens when you take the gospel, the basic message of Jesus Christ, out of the church into the world? What happens when you take that basic message out into the world? That's what our series of sermons is about. And one of the things that happens when you take it out from the church out into the world

is it affects your work. It affects your job. it affects the way in which you do your vocation. Because if you keep the gospel in here and seal it off from the way in which you do your work, that's not right, that's not good. If you take the gospel out into the world, it's going to affect your work. There's no way to understand the Christian understanding of work without going to Genesis 1, 2, and 3. And yet Genesis 1, 2, and 3 is so huge and rich. And so here's what I'm going to do. Here's the good news. I've preached on Genesis 1, and 2, and 3 in the last 21 years, three or four times. The last time was like two years ago. There's also a set of Bible

studies on Genesis that I wrote that are available on the website right now. And so I'm not going to do all the digging. I'm going to go right to the applying. And so I'd like to show you three things that Genesis, the Bible, the Christian faith, tells us the gospel does for your work, how it affects your work. It gives you a vision for work. It gives you guardrails for your work and it gives you a power to do your work. Vision for it, a new kind of vision for it, guardrails for it and a power for it. And as you see I'm going to base it on the things that Genesis says but I just cannot here dig down into all these words and the phrases that mean so much actually.

Let's just apply it to work. That's not usual way I do it. I like to do all the digging. You know I like to get really dirty and make you all dirty with the text. But I'm just trying to be a good steward of our time. First, how does the gospel, the Christian faith, give us a new vision for what work is. It does it in two ways. The Christian faith, if you're a believer in Christ, believe the gospel, give the Christian faith, it gives you both a new vision for work in general and your particular vocation in particular, for work in general and your work in particular. First, work in general. The sweep of Genesis 1, 2 and 3 is to tell us that the work we do in the world is actually a continuation and part of God's work in the world. So at the very beginning of Genesis we know

that it says the earth was without form and void. It was formless, it was void, it was chaotic. And the Spirit of God moved across the face of the formless void chaotic world and rearranged things so out of it came order and beauty. Now one chapter later, God puts Adam and Eve, puts the first human beings, into a garden and gives them the first job. They're gardeners. You say, oh wow, that's quite a bit different than God's work. No, it isn't. Look at it. What is gardening? It's taking raw material, it's taking the earth, and it's taking that raw material and rearranging it so that out of it comes things that weren't coming before like food or maybe flowers, things that human beings need to thrive, to flourish, and to grow.

And that's exactly what's going on. Work, the essence of God's work, is to rearrange and reorder raw material so that it brings out new products for human flourishing and for human welfare and for human well-being. And if you actually think about it, all work is like that. You say, well, that's just think about it, all work is like that. You say, well, that's just gardening. Well, all work is gardening. It's the archetypal job. So now some of this isn't that hard to understand

if you think about it. For example, what is farming? What is construction? What is architecture? What is medicine? What is technology? It's taking material things, soil, you know, stone, the body,

and you're rearranging it to bring about health, to bring about growth, to bring about food, to bring about shelter, to bring about community. You build a bridge and now the people on that side of the river and that side of the river are in community. In every case you're rearranging natural raw material to bring about human well-being. Or, let's get a little further, you say well I can understand the physical stuff, what's music? Music is taking the raw material of sound and rearranging it into sounds that for some mysterious reason, this is another sermon, we need to have a meaningful life. Can you imagine life without music?

Music brings meaning. Music brings lots of things. What is storytelling? Theater? What is film? What is just writing? Writing stories. What is it? You're taking the raw material of human experience and shaping them into narratives, shaping them into stories. And stories is the way in which we understand our life and the way in which we make sense out of life. It's a lot like music. Every single... Let's go further. How is investment banking like Every single, oh, let's go further. How is investment banking like gardening? So, oh well, that's, I'm sorry, that's an exception. Right?

That's very different. Oh, is it? Look it. You see a void. Okay? If it's done rightly, investing, you see a void, and you bring talent together with capital, and you get new products, you get new jobs, you get new wealth, it's the same thing, just like gardening.

And therefore, from this come two far reaching implications. Two far reaching implications. One is that all work is participating with God in his world. is that all work is participating with God in his world. All work is participating, it's farming, in other words, it's gardening in God's world. All work. And if you look at what the Bible says about the work of the Spirit, see in John chapter 16 the Spirit convicts people of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It converts people. That's what I do. Okay? But here in Genesis 1, 1, we see the Spirit bringing order in the material world. In Psalm 104 verse 30, it says the Spirit renews the

face of the earth. In Psalm 65 and Psalm 145 it says, God feeds all living creatures. God waters the face of the earth. In other words, the spirit of God doesn't just bring order out of chaos spiritually in the soul. It also does that in the material world because you know what all of Genesis 1 and 2 is about? God is always looking at things and saying, he makes this and it's good, it's good, it's good. He's enjoying the world. He loves the material creation. And therefore, we really can't say that if you are investment banking or you are farming or you are raising children or you are practicing law or you are advancing science or you are making law, or you are advancing science,

or you are making clothes, that that's not God's work. What Tim Keller's doing, that's God's way of preaching, but not what, this is just secular work. No, it's all God's work. So that's the first implication. All work is God's work. But here's the second implication. It also means that there is no such thing really as menial work in God's eyes. All work has dignity. All work.

Now think about cleaning your apartment. Maybe you do it. Maybe you pay somebody to do it. You know. But if it's not done, if somebody's spirit does not move across the face of the chaos of your apartment and bring order out of chaos, you will die. You will die. No, I'm not kidding. It's hygiene. If you don't clean, you're going to die. It's just plain hygiene.

And therefore, cooking and cleaning is what? It's God's work. It's got dignity, it's gardening. It's necessary for your flourishing and for your well-being. And all right, it doesn't pay very well, but in God's eyes, that's not the way you judge. That's the way you and I judge. It's the way the world judges, but not the way God judges.

All work has dignity. All work is God's work. See what I mean by a new vision for work? We're not quite done. I ought to say something else. There's also in the Bible, the Bible gives you, if you have a Christian faith, a particular vision for your work, for your field. That gets us to the first chapter, chapter 1 verses 26 to 28, that extremely deep and rich section where it says God made human beings in his image, and then he says go out into the world and rule the earth in my image. And you can go

find some other sermons, I'm not going to show you all how this works, you can go find some other Bible studies, you can go find a commentary, but this is what this is saying. The kind of work that God wants us to do, the kind of civilization he wants us to build, is one that reflects his glory. We're in his image and therefore we're supposed to be doing all things for his glory. Now, in the Bible we see the difference between work that is done for your glory and work that is done to serve God and your neighbor. So in Genesis 11 we see the Tower of Babel being built, which is the first skyscraper. And everybody got together and they were doing new technology and they were making bricks in a new way, et cetera. You could see, work,

work, everybody is working and it seems to be advancing technology and it seems to be advancing. But it says in Genesis 11, they did it to make a name for themselves. They did their work to make a name for themselves. As a result, it resulted in division, and again, we can't go into that either, but here's the point, that there is a way of doing work that really is just there to get a name for yourself. You're doing it for your own glory,

and that work does not serve other people, it tends to distort, it tends to degrade. There's all sorts of ways, we all know, there's all sorts of ways to make a living. There's all sorts of ways of doing work. There's all sorts of ways of making money that only help you. They're not helping the community,

they're not helping your customers, they're not helping the human welfare. Oh no, they're not building up the community, they're just helping your customers, they're not helping the human welfare. Oh no, they're not building up the community. They're just helping you. And that degrades and that distorts. And the Christian faith and the theology I'm giving you right now enables every person to go out into your field of work and to recognize the difference between people who are there seeking to love God and

love others with their work and people who are actually just trying to make a name for themselves. And if you have a Christian faith and you come out into your work, it's going to affect the way you do your work. You're not just going to feel better about it, oh I'm doing God's work and all work has dignity. It's going to affect it. Now because all human beings are in the image of God, not just Christians, there's going to be a lot of commonality. And very often you won't be doing something that's all that different than what a person who doesn't believe in Christianity is doing. But think about this. If you're a Christian artist and you move out into your field,

you're gonna see an awful lot of art that expresses total hopelessness. And as a result, doesn't really build up the people who are imbibing the art at all. Doesn't build them up, doesn't give them meaning, doesn't help them a bit. And yet, of course, if you're a Christian artist, you have hope, and it's gonna make a difference.

Or if you're in business, you know there's a kind of business that makes profit the only, bottom line, the only non-negotiable. Everything else is negotiable. The health of our workers, the good of our customers, the good of the community around us, the environment. Everything else is negotiable. What's not negotiable is the profit. But if you're a Christian, you're going to realize that whereas profit is absolutely crucial, it can't be secondary. There are other primary things too. You need to make a profit and you do need to care about the environment and you do need to care about your employees and you do need to care about your customers, and you do need to care about your customers.

And what that means is you're gonna be more creative. Whenever you have three or four bottom lines, none of which can be negotiated, none of which can be set aside in favor of the other. They all have to be worked together. So it's gotta be win, win, win, win, win. Makes you much more creative. And if you're a Christian and you go out into business, if you go out into art, if you go out into medicine,

if you go out into anything, what if you're getting into medicine, you're a Christian and you see more and more it's cost benefit analysis, which is the bottom line on patient benefit analysis. And you're going to say, I'm going to do it differently. And so see, your Christian faith gives you a new vision for your work. It's astounding, not only for work in general, but for your particular field specifically.

Now secondly, the second thing we see here is the Christian faith gives you guardrails. What do I mean by that? Well, the most famous guardrail that's ever been is right here at the very end of the passage in Genesis 2, 17. You see, well, start in 15. The Lord God took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. There's your job.

But the Lord says, wait, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it, or the old, you know, literally says, on the day that you eat it, you shall surely die. Now, it's hard, listen, you have to understand, I'm exercising self-control. I would love to dive into that. What is that all about? That was the original, now we're talking about the original sin, alright. But I'm here to talk to you about work.

And what this shows us is that there are moral absolutes. There are in your work some things God says you may do and some things you may not do. In the Bible, for example, you may not break your promise. You may not take or give a bribe. You may not do false weights and measures. You know what false weights and measures are? Of course, in the agrarian society it meant, well, what it means today, false weights and measures means you're not giving your customers, you're not giving your shareholders an honest look

at what's really going on. Both the way you do what you do marketing, the way in which you do your counting, is all designed to mislead. So bribery and dishonesty and misleading and all those things the Bible forbids. And those create huge guardrails. And we've never needed them more than now. And I'll tell you what Christianity gives you that this society needs desperately. Recently I read a book by Hugh Hecklow who's a professor of policy studies at George Mason University which is a kind of combination of law and sociology and things like that. And he wrote a book called Thinking Institutionally.

And one of his chapters talks about the fact that in Western society, we're at a crisis point. There's never been a time in the Western societies in which there's been lower trust in the public institutions and the vocations. It's estimated that most of us spend half of our waking hours at work. How does the wisdom of the Bible apply to our careers? In other words, how can our work connect with God's work? And how can our vocations be more missional? In his book, Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller draws from decades of teaching on vocation and calling to show you how to find true joy in your work

as you serve God and others. The book offers surprising insights into how a Christian perspective on work can serve as the foundation for a thriving career and a balanced personal life. Every Good Endeavor is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share Christ's love with more people around the world. Just visit GospelinLife.com

slash give. That's GospelinLife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Everybody believes you can't trust anybody. It's always been to some degree the case, but never like now. He goes through and explains some of the reasons why. He says there's really two basic reasons why nobody trusts anybody now. That's certainly what's driving our election right now is that nobody trusts anybody. Why?

He says one of the reasons is because we've earned it. We've earned the lack of trust. And he goes on through. He says, let's look at the business world. And he just names three things, four things. Enron, Bernie Madoff, Halliburton, subprime mortgage. Oh, OK. And then there's about 3,000 others just in the last 10

years. Oh, let's look at government. And this is going to prove to some of you that you're very young. But he went through. he says, let's just look at some presidents. He says, Eisenhower, U-2 spy plane. And then he goes to, he says, Kennedy, Bay of Pigs. Johnson, Gulf of Tonkin. Nixon, Watergate. Reagan, Iran-Contra. Clinton, impeachment. Reagan, Iran-Contra, Clinton, impeachment, Bush, Abu Ghraib. And it just goes on down. And that's nothing compared to all the scandals and all the senators and governors and congressmen

have had to resign because of ethics. Oh, let's go to the NGOs, let's go to the nonprofit area. If you know what happened in the early part early part after 9-11 to Red Cross or the United Way, you know, or you have the Catholic Church's sex scandals or you have the evangelical evangelist sex scandals which happen like every three months. He says nobody trusts anybody. But he says the other reason is not the reason why there's such a lack of trust is because of this ethical breakdown. Why the ethical breakdown?

And Heclo, he quotes a man named Daniel Yankovitch who wrote a bunch of really, really important sociological studies about what was happening to American culture back in the 1980s. In 1981, Yankovitch says this, throughout most of this century, Americans believed that self-denial made sense, obeying the rules made sense, subordinating the self to bigger institutions made sense. But Americans now believe that the old giving and getting compact needlessly restricts the individual. Yanklovich, Robert Bellah, individual. Yankelovich, Robert Bella, who wrote Habits of the Heart around the same time, said something happened in the 60s, 70s and 80s where Americans for a long time said there's a moral order above me and what I feel doesn't matter, I have to bow to

it. There are public institutions bigger than me and what I feel and what I want doesn't matter, I have to bow to it. And somewhere in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and if you can get really philosophical and say this is the fruit of the enlightenment of the 18th century, the philosophical revolution, Americans more and more came to say I decide what is right or wrong for me and therefore therefore, as long as I don't really hurt anybody, or at least as long as I don't get caught, I can do what I want. And recently, Christian Smith, a sociologist, just was doing a survey, a deep dive survey

into what 20-somethings believe. It's a very new book, it's a really fascinating book called Souls in Transition. And in the book, it's a really fascinating book called Souls in Transition. And in the book he says, he says in general when he asked people under the age of 30, and they often had very strong feelings about certain things were right and certain things were wrong, he says now your feelings about right and wrong, are they based just on your subjective feelings or do you believe that there's a kind of moral reality outside that's subjective that is the basis for your moral feelings? And he says 90% of the people that he asked that question to couldn't understand the

question. It wasn't just they said, oh, it's this or it's that. They couldn't understand the question. Richard Mao, Fuller Seminary, gave a lecture I heard a couple of years ago where he said this. He said he took a look at the ethics of almost every business school he knew. They always have an ethics course, you know, MBA programs, usually it's elective. But what the ethics course always said was, this is the bottom line, the reason why you shouldn't cheat, the reason why you shouldn't lie, the reason why you shouldn't do these things

is because it's bad business. Now Richard Mao says what they're doing is cost benefit analysis. Don't do it because it will cost you money. But he says think about it, there are plenty of places in which the chances of being caught in the lie are small and the payoff, in other words, if you do this, if you tell this lie, the chances of being caught are small, and the possible payoff is enormous. And when your chances of being caught are small

and your payoff possibilities are enormous, cost-benefit analysis says lie. And Mao says the only way we're going to be a culture in which we ever begin to get trust back again is if you have a cadre of people out there who believe that some things have to be done just because they're right. And it doesn't matter. And a couple years ago or not too long ago I told you an example of a Christian who runs a bunch of car dealerships, I told you, do you remember that? And they did some studies to find out that like most car dealerships

their salesmen on the floor were allowed to negotiate a price fairly, they had a pretty big bracket of negotiation. And the studies found that women and especially non-white women were the worst negotiators with the ordinarily with the white older salesmen and therefore it was women and non-white women were getting terrible deals. And so what the president of the car dealership says, that's unfair, that's unjust and so he basically stopped negotiation. He says you're going to have a very fixed price with just hardly any wiggle room and that way we are not treating women unfairly and non-white women unfairly. And I remember asking him, I said, did that cut into your profits? He says, oh, yes. And

then I said, ah, but do you make it up with higher employee satisfaction? With better public relations? People saying what a great group and employees say, wow, I'm really proud to be part of a company that does this. Are you making it up in the long run through public relations and better employee morale and that sort of thing? He says, I don't care. He says, it don't care.

He says, it might be. Who knows? I'm not going to try to find out. We did it because it was right. And unless we have a cadre of people out in the world conducting their business like that, I don't know what hope there is for a society that really says what really is, I have to decide what is right or wrong for me. Christians get two guardrails actually, and they're kind of almost paradoxical. The ethical guardrail on the one end is truth, right, honesty, no bribery, keep your contracts, no false weights and measures.

On the other side though, Christians go out into the workplace with more compassion because of the model of Jesus. And I think I've told you, I won't go into the details twice, I remember talking to people who came to Redeemer who were not Christian believers but who were attending. And when I asked them why, they said, well, it was my boss. I asked my boss, where did you go to church? And so why did you ask your boss that? And both times the people said this. I've often had bosses who took credit for the good things I did.

That happens all the time. I never had a boss who took the blame for the bad things I did to shelter me. And that really made me say, hmm, what makes you tick? And of course, why would you do that? That's not good business, to take the blame for something. My goodness, if you're here and you've got an employee and your employee messes up, let him or her just stew. Why should you waste your capital on that person? And the answer is a Christian goes out knowing that Jesus bore

the blame for you. He actually gives you credit for what he did, and he takes the blame for what you did. And you can't not be affected by that. So these are the guardrails. Christianity, Christian faith, sends you out into the marketplace with a new vision for work, with a particular vision for your own work, and also with guardrails of both truth

and love that keep you in here. So see what God is saying, I want you to do your work, but don't do that, and don't do that, do that. There's guardrails, there's moral absolutes, there's ethical guidelines, and that's no small thing. Number three, the power. The power to do your work. What's amazing to me about Genesis 1, 2, and 3 with regard to work is its realism. On the one hand, and I'll never forget the day 20, 30 years ago that I figured this out and I couldn't believe it, work is put into paradise. Think about that.

There's work in paradise. I remember the first time I read that I said, no, that's not paradise. What do you mean work isn't paradise? You and I, when we think of paradise, we say, not working until those of you who right now know what it's like not to be able to get a job. Or maybe because you just can't find work, or maybe because you've been sick. And when you have to go long periods of time as an adult without work? It's terrible. Why? The Bible tells you, you were made for work. Work is the one thing that human beings can take in more than small doses without

being harmed. We are made for work and you don't have a meaningful life without work. And yet on the other hand, this is very realistic and we didn't, it was a long passage so we didn't read it. When you get to chapter three of Genesis, when Adam and Eve sin, God says, curse it is the ground because of you. Curse it is the ground because of you. Cursed is the ground because of you. Now when you go out there and you toil in the dust of the earth, thorns will come up. Thorns and thistles will come up.

And what's that mean? They didn't even know we were made for work. We now live in a world in which work is horribly frustrating. Incredibly frustrating. Terrible. You know, there are two myths that I like that get across the fact that work is always frustrating. Even your best jobs are frustrating. Why? Everything. Because of you. Because of the people you work with. Because of the environment. Because of a million things. You never get even close to what you really want to accomplish. The one myth that gets that across is the myth of Sisyphus, the old Greek myth about

the man who is down in hell and he is for all eternity he is doomed to push a rock up to the top of a hill and he pushes and pushes and just before he gets to the top it always falls back down and he has to go down and keep pushing it up. Work. Or a modern myth is Tolkien's Leaf by Niggle. And it's about an artist named Niggle who is commissioned to paint a tree on the side of a public building. And he spends years trying to do it and years trying to do it and he's always niggling over it, he never quite getting it right and after years of work all all that he actually has to show for it is one leaf that's it that's as far as he ever got and then he died so here we are stuck between a need for work a need to do work and the inability to do work very well.

But the Bible gives you a resource and it gives you a resource right even here in this earliest section of the Bible. In chapter two, verse two, where it says, but the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing and on the seventh day he rested from all his work. That is the introduction of one of the main

themes of the whole rest of the Bible and the secret for how you get the power to do work in this world. And here's what it is. Notice that God did not work constantly. He rested. And right away, at the very least, at the most rudimentary, exegetical level of understanding what the Bible is saying here, it's saying work is not everything. In other words, you need to work in order to have a meaningful life. But if you make your work your meaning, if you say, I know that I am significant, I know that I'm secure in the world because I have this job or I have this good job or I'm making this money or I'm really good. When you make it your very identity you can't rest. You can never walk away from it even when you're sitting on a beach because inside you're always churning, you're always churning. And the worst thorn

churning, you're always churning. And the worst thorn of all, the worst thorn, the thing that is always jabbing you in your work because you can't, therefore you can't rest, you can't walk away from it, you can never relax, is because you feel like I've got to prove myself, I've got to perform. And so you're always, it means you're frustrated with poor work, you kill yourself over poor work, you're drowning in too much work because you take it all on because you're so driven, or you're even perhaps down on yourself, just beating yourself up because you don't have the work you want, because you're not able to get work, and so you hate yourself because I don't have work. Who am I if I don't have a job? Men are particularly bad at that, but men and women too. In other words, the main thorn, the thing that makes work so horrible, that

crushes us, it's a crushing burden, it's not just the work. It's the fact that we're trying to prove ourselves through the work. I love this place where Michael Musto in the Village Voice some years ago was talking about Fashion Week, which we just had. This is years ago, though. He was writing about Fashion Week and he says this. He says, Fashion Week is that period of ritualized yearning in which people in the fashion industry jockey for visibility, hoping that nearness to a runway will purge them of that nagging feeling of soullessness.

Here's what he's saying. He's saying, now he's picking on one industry, but let's be fair, it applies to everything. He says people in the fashion industry are working really hard, you know, the models are working really hard to stay thin and the people are working really hard to make this stuff. But it's really not about the clothes, it's about them. It's about them. They're trying to prove themselves. The work is crushing because they're not doing the work for the work's sake, they're doing the work for their sake, and that crushes you. So how can, in other words, even if you take a day off, even if you take a week off,

even if you take a month off, even if you take a week off, even if you take a month off, you take a year off, unless you have that deep rest inside your soul about who you are, you're not really gonna get a rest. But then in the book of Hebrews, chapter four, we have this wonderful spot where it says, therefore, see, the promise of entering his rest still stands. Now we who have believed in Christ enter that rest. There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God for anyone who believes and rests

for him his own work in the gospel then as God did from his. Now what that is saying is this, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the ultimate Sabbath. There's a spiritual rest that Jesus can give you down deep in your soul that makes it possible for you to handle no work, poor work, and overwork. Enables you to walk away from it, enables you not to be destroyed by it, not to be driven by it.

You know what it is? On the cross, Jesus Christ said what? It is finished. What was finished? The only important work there was. What is that? The work of paying for sin. The work of fulfilling God's law.

In other words, he went on to the cross and he got the thorns. And he was crushed. Why? He was paying for your sin. Why? So that when you believe in him and you rest in him, a Christian isn't just somebody who believes in Jesus in general, a Christian is somebody who rests

in what Jesus Christ has done and says, Father, forgive me and Father, accept me because of what Jesus has done. And when you've done that, when you've rested in him, now and only now can you rest from your work. Now and only now do you have that ultimate REM sleep of the soul, that ultimate rapid eye movement sleep deep in the soul.

Only then can you say this, if I die tonight, everything I really have to accomplish in life, I have. Because I've rested in Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ Christ God is satisfied with me. He loves me. He accepts me. I don't have to be earning my self-worth through my work. And when you take that thorn out, when you take that burden off, it won't crush you. Jesus Christ was crushed. Jesus Christ took the thorns so that you don't have to try to earn your salvation through your work.

And that especially, by the way, I'm not sure I would preach this sermon like this anywhere in the world, but in New York? Yeah, in New York, yeah. By the way, there's one more thing. What if anybody here is saying, yeah, well, okay, I'm a Christian, and when I look back, I see what Jesus Christ did for me, and that helps me deal with the fact that my work is frustrating for me. I see that. But what about the fact that I still really want to accomplish some things in life? I really want to accomplish some things, and I don't feel like I am. Is it wrong? No. But the Christian faith even has some answer to that. In Tolkien's story, leaf by niggle,

after all those years of trying to paint that tree, he knew it in his head, but he was trying to see it, but he couldn't see it. He only got one leaf, how he dies. Essentially, he goes to heaven, and when he gets to heaven, he looks up and it says, "'Before him stood the tree, his tree finished. If you could say that of a tree that it was alive, it was. Its leaves opening, its branches growing

and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt and guessed, as an artist, and had so often failed to catch. He gazed at the tree and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide. It's a gift, he said. And I think that's just Tolkien's way. Tolkien was never happy with Lord of the Rings. He was an artist. Okay? He said, gosh, if I wrote a book that was going to live for 200 years, but he was never happy. But he knew that in the new heavens and new earth, in the future, in God, at God's bosom, all the things you've ever wanted to accomplish will be. Look back and take the burden of self-proving away from your work. Look at the cross. Look ahead at the new heavens and new earth and know that in the end all the things that God has put in my heart to do will be done. Vision for your work, guardrails for your work and

power. Let's pray. Our Father, what a big subject, what a big text. Thank you for giving us a chance to sort of fly over it with a helicopter and I pray that everybody here would be encouraged, would be challenged and would recognize just what a great gift work is, and what a great burden it can be, and what great resources you've given us in order to do it. Thank you Lord that we can rest from our work just like you have rested from yours because Jesus Christ on the cross finished the work of salvation. Help us to understand these deep things and teach us how by your Holy Spirit to encourage our own hearts with them, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the wisdom of God's Word to your life. For more resources from Tim Keller, visit GospelInLife.com. There, you can also subscribe to the Gospel In Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other helpful resources. Again, it's all at GospelInLife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. 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.