Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Before Him

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 7, 1992. Series: Salvation From the Outside In. Scripture: Ephesians 1:4-8. 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 and Life. Modern culture often says that our beliefs are secondary as long as we live like decent people. But the Bible insists that what we believe shapes our day-to-day lives. All summer long, we are sharing a series from Tim Keller which unpacks the core beliefs of the Christian faith. Dr. Keller looks at how the truths that shape our understanding of God, ourselves, and our salvation can transform us and free us in every part of our lives. Chapter 1, verse 3 to 14 is one long sentence in Paul's original writing. He wrote in Greek, and it's one long sentence. And actually, we have to spend a number of weeks on it because this sentence is a lot like a telephone cord.

You know how telephone cords always get wrapped up on themselves? You don't really know how long it is. Sometimes you have to pull the whole thing out just to keep it from doubling back on itself, to really see how long it is to really see. its shape. And so what I want to do is I want to focus in on this particular section and show you in this magnificent sentence all of the various things that Paul is teaching us. I'd go so far as to say this sentence is so magnificent that you might be able to completely live your life off of it if you had nothing else in the Bible but this sentence, verse 3 to 14. In fact, to go too quickly over it, to not suck the sweetness and the wisdom out of every phrase might be a sin. I don't know.

Let's take a look at chapter one, and I'm going to read simply verses four through eight. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. Now, let's remember what this is about.

The word saved. This is all about what it means to be saved. Kathy and I remember when we first became Christians back in our 20s, we were so afraid of how we might look. We often would say, I'm a Christian. But, you know, not one of those kinds that goes around saying everybody's saved. Kathy used to introduce herself, say, I'm a Christian, but not like Billy Graham, you know, that kind of Christian. And then, you know, as time went on, it started to dawn on us.

We really are like that kind of Christian. It took us a while to see that the word saved, are you saved? Though many people find that offensive, and many people identify that word with shallow and narrow-minded religion, we've said every week the word saved is actually not a shallow and narrow thing, but instead the Bible shows us it's the richest and the most broad and deep concept possible. and all we're trying to do is unpack the word saved. What does it mean to be saved? That's what this whole paragraph is about.

And we've already seen the, you might say, the reason that we're saved. We looked at that a few weeks ago. And the reason we're saved is because he chose us, he loved us. He put his love on us. And then secondly, we saw the how we're saved, the why and the how. is because of his grace and free love. We'll talk about that in a minute again. He chose us.

Then secondly, the how is he redeemed us by his blood. And we spent, I don't know, what, how many, three or four weeks on that. And we saw that that means that Jesus actually made a purchase. The word redeemed is the word for ransom. He paid a ransom to get us out from under the guilt and from under the curse and from under our obligation. So that why? He freely loved us from the foundation of the world.

The how? We were redeemed by his blood. But now the question is, for what? Not past now, not present even, so much as future. For what? He chose us and he redeemed us for what? And if you notice, verse 4 and verse 5, actually say it twice

and therefore give us a rich idea of what we have been saved for. In verse four it says, He chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless before him. And then in verse five it says, In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his children. Now those two things are magnificent things. To be holy, he chose us to be holy, and blameless before him, and then secondly, to be adopted into his family.

And I just want to spend this week, this Sunday night, and next Sunday night looking at those two things. These are the things that you're saved for. It's silly to sit there and say, I'm saved, and what does that mean? Well, I'm not sure, but I know I'm saved. I'm forgiven, fine. I'm redeemed, fine, but for what? And the answer is to be holy and blameless before him and to be adopted. So let's look at these.

first I'd like to look just at this one, to be holy and blameless before him, what that means. What we learn from that is, first of all, that there is an absolutely necessary connection between faith and growth. You were chosen to be holy. Now, listen really carefully, if you understand this teaching, chosen to be holy, chosen to be holy, it'll lay bare the foundations of your thinking and your view of yourself and your real religion, what your real religion is. This tells us that the grace of God being chosen always leads to character change in holiness. Always.

There's a necessary connection. Anybody who sits there in the pew clutching their born-again certificate and says, you know, in 1963, I know I was saved. I was saved. I haven't grown, I haven't changed, but I know I'm saved. You have to begin to ask yourself, are you? Because there's an absolutely necessary connection between grace and growth. Things that are alive grow. You were chosen to be holy.

Now, this is a marvelous statement because it proves, first of all, that the gospel is a gospel of grace. you're not holy because you're chosen. Pardon me, you're holy because you're chosen, you're not chosen because you're holy. Or put it another way. You're not loved because you're good. You're good because you're loved. Now, I suggest to you that there's only two ways to build a religion.

You can either say, I'm loved because I'm good, or I'm good because I'm loved. I'm sorry to put you over here in the false religion category. Okay? Either I'm loved because I'm good or I'm good because I'm loved. I'm chosen because I'm holy or I'm holy because I'm chosen. Which is it? It's got to be one or the other. And clearly the answer is you're holy because you're chosen. You're chosen in order to be holy. You're not chosen because you're holy. We said, I don't know how many times, but I'll say it again. tells us that salvation is a free grace. Look at Romans 5. It says, while we were enemies,

Christ died. You see, a lot of us like to think of ourselves as a drowning person, pleading for someone to come get us. Some of us think of religion like this. We're drowning and we're pleading for Jesus to come save us and rescue us, you know, to dive in like the divine lifeguard. What's actually happening is Jesus is there, and we are blaming him for our drowning, and we're trying to scratch his eyes out, and we're saying, you're the reason I'm drowning. The Bible says that in our natural hearts, we are self-centered, we are rebellious, and we're not actually asking God to save us. We're demanding.

In our natural hearts, we demand a better life. because most other people are not as decent as we are. Most of us in our natural heart feel like God owes us a much better life than we have. Most of us don't ask God to save us. Most of us demand that God should give us what we deserve. We feel like we've tried very hard. We feel like other people seem to get a better lot in life. In other words, the real picture the Bible gives us of our heart

is not that we're asking God to save us. Instead, we're hostile to God. And Romans 5 says, while we were enemies, while we're sitting there demanding, while we're sitting there trying to revolve all things around ourselves, Christ died for us while we were enemies. There's an even more amazing statement in Romans 4. Go look at it sometimes in the fourth chapter of Romans,

where it says, God justifies the ungodly. When he pardons me, when he comes to me and makes me right with him, I'm still in an ungodly state. There's no indication that you clean your life up, then he pardons you. There's no indication that you become his friend, and then he dies for you. He dies for you while you're an enemy.

He justifies you while you're ungodly. He comes to you, and he opens your heart, and he brings you to your senses. He chooses you. He comes to you. He opens your heart. He brings you to his senses. It's all of free grace. You're not chosen because you're holy. You're holy because you're chosen. Right? But it also says, even though our salvation is completely of grace and totally free, and it's not through your good works at all. And it's not because you're a good person, but strictly because of his forgiveness and his mercy and his grace.

And yet, the Bible says, when you experience the grace of God, that automatically leads to holiness. Everyone who is chosen will be holy. Everyone who understands the grace of God begins to change and grow into the moral paradigm of Christ's character. His integrity, his love, his nobility. his nobility, his wisdom. If you understand that you're saved not by good works at all,

you will start to do good works. If you understand you're saved not because you're good at all, you will start becoming like Christ. Now, a lot of people can't figure that out a bit. Over the years, the doctrine of Christ's grace, the idea that you're saved by grace, not your works, has always been accused of leading to moral laxitude. People have said, and maybe some of you are sitting there saying, if it's really true that you're not saved, you're not chosen because you're holy, you're holy because you're chosen. If it's really true that God comes to you freely,

even when you're an enemy and opens your heart and so on, if it's really true that you're saved not by your good works but by His grace, why lead a good life and a holy life at all? and Paul in Romans 6, after he's gone through the gospel, says, what does he ask? He says, what? Shall we sin then? That grace may abound? When Paul is done preaching the gospel, he turns around and says, okay, then, should we just go on sinning so God can keep on giving us his grace? Why does Paul ask that? I'll tell you why. The charge that the gospel leads to moral laxitude is a false charge, but it is an absolutely natural one.

It's false, but it's absolutely natural. If you have ever really heard the gospel, you will naturally ask that question. In fact, if there's anybody here tonight who just heard me go through the grace bit, you heard me say, you're not saved because you're good, nobody can be good enough. God comes to you freely in his grace,

and he opens your heart, and he pours his love in, and he cleanses you and so on. If there's anybody here who for the first time said, that's crazy. That's crazy. Why would anybody who believes that even want to live a good life then? If you've never asked that before,

it's because you've never heard the gospel before. Because wherever the gospel is presented, its radical character always leads to that question. It's a false charge, but it's a natural charge. if you've ever been in a church where that issue never came up, if you've ever been in a church that made you feel so guilty that you never, ever, ever asked, well, then why, if God is this wonderful and this loving and this gracious,

why should I even live a good life? If it's never occurred to you to ask that question, you've been in a church that has not given you the Christian message. Now, here's what I want to explore with you. One of the great paradoxes from the outside is that when you finally get grip, a grip on the gospel, when you finally see that you're saved not through any good works, and when you finally see that you're accepted by God

through faith and repentance, and you can't lose his acceptance and love of you, for the very first time you begin to be enabled to change, it's not so you see that you're not good and you're not saved through your goodness that you can become good there's a paradox in fact for many of you a lot of you it's happening to you and you still don't really understand how it can be one of the great joys i have of being here is how many of you have tried other things before you really tried Christianity I mean it seems like a typical profile of somebody at redeemers is you were raised in some kind of church.

But you gave it up because all it did was make you feel worse about yourself. And no matter how hard you tried to change through trying to be good and praying and going to church, it seemed to make things worse. The more you try to change, that way it made things worse. So you abandon it and you tried a number of other things. In some cases, you tried what you might call

the humanistic self-esteem system, which says, get in touch with yourself, find out what you really want in life, set your goals, and go to it. And of course, if your standards are low enough, you know, you might get halfway there, but very often you find the same thing happens. Some people have gotten into what I must call authoritarian semi-cults, and the same thing has happened. In every situation, you get to a place that says, if you really dig down deep and come to grips with yourself, dig down deep, summons up your strength,

and live up to the standards. And in every case, you have found that the harder you tried to be good, the harder it was to be good. You had a few successes, but by and large, overall, you found that the more you tried to be good, the less good you felt. The more you tried to be good, the less good you found yourself to be. The harder you worked on your standards, the harder it was to live up to standards. And the irony in the paradox in many of your cases is that you found that when you came into Christianity,

you found that the gospel said that to be a Christian is to see that you're really more sinful than you ever thought. you're a worse failure than you thought. You don't just break a few laws, but in your heart of hearts, you want to be your own God. That's what the Bible says. And you want to be your own master. And you see, sin is not the same thing as sins. It's not just breaking this and this law and this law, but sin, not sins. Sin is a desire to be your own master, to be your own king, to be your,

be your own God, so your sin is very bad. However, you see, you heard the gospel that said, Jesus is someone who has come and he's been your representative, he's your mediator, he stands in, your place, and he's lived the life for you. And therefore, if you receive him, his righteousness comes to you. And you begin to realize that in all other situations, all other religions, the religion was basically, you give a righteousness to God and he saves you. But in Christianity, God gives a righteousness to you, and He saves you. Paradoxically, as soon as you realized you couldn't be good and that God loved you, when you turned over your life to him and received his pardon and realized you weren't good,

for the first time you found yourself being able to break some of those habits that always enslaved you. And you began to move in directions that you've always wanted to move. And you found a freedom you've never known before. And you say, this is odd. because in a sense it seems like for the first time I see I don't have to be good to get God's love and now for the first time I actually want to be and I am becoming more and more of a good person

my character is growing my self-control is growing my integrity is growing my purity is growing my ability to forgive is growing and so on how can it be I'll tell you why do you realize that you actually can't do a good deed for God as long as you want to.

Listen, one of the great things that Alcoholics Anonymous has given us is the concept of the enabler. Let me remind you what it is, and I'll get back to it in a minute, because the Bible's talked about this for years. Alcoholics Anonymous discovered years ago that when a person in a family unit got his or her life together, went sober, and stopped becoming a basket case,

instead of everyone else in the family immediately being overjoyed and the family life being healed, in many cases, families fell apart. And research proved that there's a certain kind of person in the family structure that needed the alcoholic to be sick. This is New York. You all know this one, right? You've heard this. And that is that here's this person this enabler, who always looked like he or she, was really trying to save the messed up person.

But because the enabler needed to save the person, the enabler was really saving himself or herself. Do you see that? In other words, just imagine, here's a woman, and she's the alcoholic, and here's the husband, and he's the one who's always a woman. strong one. He's the one who's always pulling her out. He's the one who's always covering for her. He's the one who's always dealing with her. So patient, never leaves her. He never will. And now she gets her life

straight. He can't handle it. He's upset. He doesn't feel she loves him anymore. What's the problem? Well, the codependency theory, which is good as far as it goes, says that he needed to be needed. and therefore now he doesn't feel that she needs him and therefore the relationship which was a sick relationship has to be reconstructed. That's good as far as it goes. The way the Bible would put it is he was actually trying to save himself as he was trying to save her.

Even though it looked like he was trying to help her, he was helping himself. Even though it looked like he was trying to save her, he was saving himself. Now, leave that for a moment. look at people who are extremely decent and moral. And yet underneath there's an anxiety because they say, I don't know that I'm good enough. I'm feeding the hungry. I'm clothing the naked.

I'm visiting the sick. I'm working with the poor because the Bible says I should. And this is my way of making absolutely sure that when I die, go to heaven. I think God wants this. for me. And so you're working very hard and you're living tremendously good lives. You know, it's easy to see around a city like New York people who are philanthropists, people who seem to put themselves out tremendously for others. And they're very, they go to church regularly, and yet underneath it all, there's an anxiety. If you ask them, are you a Christian, they'll say,

I'm trying, I'm trying my best. I hope I am. Now here is what the Bible tells us. Until you see that you can't save yourself, when you feed the hungry, in order to feel like a good person, in order to feel acceptable to God, when you feed the hungry, you're actually feeding yourself. When you clothe the naked, you're actually clothing yourself. When you visit the sick, you're visiting yourself. Because ultimately, your religion is made of fear and self-interest. And that's the reason why, when you first hear the gospel, you say, if I'm saved without, through grace, if I'm saved, not through any my good works, what's my incentive

for living a good life? Do you struggle to find the words to share your faith effectively with others? Most Christians, pastors included, have moments where we have trouble articulating what we believe and why our faith matters. In his book preaching, communicating faith in an age of skepticism, Tim Keller shows how to communicate the Christian message in a way that's clear, compassionate, and accessible, whether you're speaking to a group or having a casual conversation with a friend. Drawing from his decades of experience connecting the gospel to real-life circumstances,

Dr. Keller shows how the gospel message can speak even to the most skeptical or spiritually curious people. During the month of July, we'll send you a copy of preaching 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 at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. Let me ask you this. Imagine a woman who's teaching in college and she's an appointee.

She's a lecturer at her university. And as long as she's a lecturer, she's a great teacher and she spends tremendous time with her students and she prepares diligently, and everybody thinks she's one of the best teachers in the university. And everything that every student who wants to see her, she sees, and she takes lots of time, and then she gets tenure. And what would happen if once you got tenure, what would you think, if once you got tenure, everything would change radically? What would you think if suddenly you found that she didn't prepare very well,

that she was very lackadaisical about seeing students, that she's obviously no longer was working very hard at being a good teacher now that she got tenure. What would you assume about her former diligence? What you'd have to assume is that there was no real love for her subject, there was no real love for her students, there was no real love for the mission of education, because when security destroys industry, it shows that the industry was actually self-interest. she was working to get her status. The scripture says if you really wonder

whether or not the gospel of grace is going to destroy your incentive to be good, that shows that the only incentive you ever had was the incentive of enabling. The only incentive you really have to be good is fear that God will get you. And what happens when you become a Christian and you understand the gospel of grace

is you have the only motivation that really, really can create great character, and that's the motivation of gratitude. Try a marriage in which the marriage covenant means nothing. Of course, many of you do that, because there is no marriage covenant. Plenty of people in this culture are married without a marriage covenant. Now, let me show you what happens. But what happens is if you know that any time the other person can walk, you have no security, what does that fear do to your relationship?

If you feel that unless I keep myself up, unless I control my temper, unless I keep myself just right, this other person is going to leave, what that does is the relationship is dominated by fear, and you will find that there's no freedom, there's no joy, and ultimately it's a cancer in a relationship. gratitude comes and it becomes the engine and the motor for a real relationship of grace and of love in a marriage and it's the real gratitude is the only real engine that creates a relationship of freedom. In the same way, a person who understands they're not chosen because they're holy, they're holy because they're chosen, finds that their understanding of their chosenness and their understanding of grace leads to holiness automatically, naturally, out of gratitude. That's the reason why you've

got verses like Titus. It's one that, it's one of Jeff White's favorite verses, the Titus one that says, for the grace of God has appeared and it teaches us to say no to ungodliness. Did you hear that? Why do you say no to ungodliness? Why do you live the moral life? Because of grace, not because of fear. Now, here's what I want to apply this and then move on to the last point. If there's any Christian here who says, well, I heard all this about forgiveness, and I know God will forgive me, and I know Jesus died on the cross for me, and as a result, it makes it hard for me to resist temptation. There's things that I'm doing right now that I know I shouldn't do, but I keep saying, well, God's going to forgive me. If you're a Christian, if you say you understand that you're chosen, if you say you understand grace,

but you know you're not growing. You're not making progress toward the character of Christ. I tell you this, you're thinking of your salvation in an abstract way. You're thinking of your salvation kind of like a computer, the clear button on a computer. When you've got to realize the reason that you were chosen and the reason you were redeemed were to become holy. The reason. Look, every time you see. sin, you are assaulting your own nature. The Bible tells us you were designed to live a life

in accordance with the Ten Commandments. Every time you lie, every time you indulge in sexuality apart from an exclusive permanent covenant, every time you hold on to your anger and you don't forgive, every time you live and use your possessions and your money and your life and your time in a selfish way. Every time you break one of God's commandments, you're assaulting your own being. Just like a fish out of water will die because it's built for the water, just like running a train off of the tracks onto the highway will destroy it because it's built for the tracks. In the same way, sin is not just an assault on God's law, it's always an assault on yourself. Always. And Jesus looks down and says it's because you're assaulting yourself, thinking that you're free, when actually

you're going deeper and deeper and deeper into bondage, I want to remove you from that. So what does he do? He gives you his grace. He dies and says, because I've paid your penalty, you no longer have to be afraid that God will reject you. Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And because you know that you can now have a dynamic, an engine of gratitude, in your heart that for the first time will enable you to finally do things for God instead of for yourself. The whole idea of my dying is to give you that engine of gratitude and you've got to turn the key. And if you're not turning the key, you're forgetting what I've done. In 2nd Peter, for example, there's this interesting place that says, Second Peter says, add to your goodness,

knowledge, add to your knowledge self-control, add to your self-control, add to your godliness love. He's saying you have to grow. you have to change. You have to develop greater and greater Christian character. And then he says, Peter says, for if you do not have them in increasing measure, you are near-sighted and blind and you've forgotten that you were cleansed from your sins. Listen, if you're not growing, if you can't tell me that you're more pure than you were last year, that you know more than you did last year, that you know more than you did last year, that you've got more self-control than you did last year,

that you're kinder than you were last year. If you can't tell me that, what does Peter say the reason is, huh? That you somebody needs to crack the whip over you? You've got to kick yourself, that you've got to say, God's going to get me if I don't get on the stick? What does Peter say your problem is? You've forgotten that you were cleansed. In fact, he says you're near-sighted.

You're not looking at the grace. The engine for holiness is chosenness, a knowledge of your chosenness, an appreciation of the grace of God. And if there's anybody here who says, I know I'm a Christian, I know I'm saved, but since God's going to forgive me, it's difficult for me to kind of get going and get out of the things that I'm doing that are wrong. You are near-sighted. You are blind. And you've forgotten about His grace. Or maybe, just maybe, you've never really known.

own his grace. You see, a person who inveterately does not grow, a person who relentlessly does not change, who comes to church and gets emotional highs but doesn't actually change bit by bit incrementally so that other people see that there is a reconstruction happening of your character and your behavior. It's a good possibility that you're not really a Christian. Because everyone who's experienced the grace of God, it leads to holiness, chosen to be. holy. You see that? Now listen, I want you to be encouraged. Because see, if you're a Christian, if you're given yourself to him, no matter how messed up you are, no matter how many problems you've got, you are bound to be holy because he's going to do it. He has staked his life on it.

He has committed his omnipotent name to it. So you mustn't give up on yourself. there was a Samuel Rutherford, the Presbyterian minister when he was in prison, somebody wrote him and said, I'm so unworthy, I'm not growing, I'm about to give up on myself, and he wrote him in this letter. Rutherford said, you owe it to be charitable to all people,

but most of all, to the lovely and loving Jesus, and especially to the new self that he is making in you. Your new self is not yours. so you must not slander his work, for to slander his work in you is to slander him. The great advocate, Jesus Christ, is praying for you. He's on your side. So be on the advocate's side and do not oppose him. You see what he's saying? To lose hope for yourself is to slander your advocate. To look at yourself and to give up on yourself, to give up and say there's no way I'll ever change that. if you're a Christian, is to slam to your advocate, he's on your side, be on his side.

He has made this promise that everyone that he chooses, he will make holy. So don't give up on yourself. On the other hand, just realize something. If you are forgetting his grace, if you are being stubborn about growth and change, if there's an area of your life that you know that you are not giving to him, let me give you a warning. He loves you too much. He's not an enabler.

He doesn't want to keep you sick. Do you understand that? He's not like a lot of your friends who would just as soon see you continue to be sick. And because he is committed to making you holy and well, if you get off on the side road, if you refuse to make progress, if you keep yourself caught in disobedience,

he's going to get you. He's got to get you. He's got to intervene. He's got to make you healthy again. He won't give up on you. He's chosen to make you holy. He says in Rome, in Hebrews 12, it says those he loves, he disciplines. Don't make him do it. Don't make him confront you. Don't make him get out the heavenly smelling salts.

You know what they're like? Because he's committed to making you, healthy because he does not want you to keep you sick, he will not let you stay there. And therefore, don't make him do something drastic. So don't give up on yourself. On the other hand, if you have given up on yourself, the posse is on its way. And you have to be ready for what might happen. He loves you too much to leave you where you are. First point, there's an absolutely necessary connection between the grace of God and holiness. But the second point and the last point, in the new international version that I just read, it says you were chosen to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Now that's all right as a translation. But literally what Paul says is he chose you to be holy and blameless before him. And you notice the new international version also takes the word in love, which comes after that, and connects it to the next clause, which is predestination. So the new international version that I read said, In love, he predestined. You have to remember that when Paul wrote in Greek, and Greek had no punctuation, no periods, no commas,

and therefore sometimes it's difficult to know which clause these words modify. Did he say, he chose you to be holy and blameless, before him in love, or did he say, he chose you to be holy and blameless before him, and then in love he predestined? Say, where do you stick in love? It probably doesn't matter, but I think the translation is wrong because of what the word before him means. He chose you to be holy and blameless before him. The word before him means in his presence, in his personal presence. Okay? The word before him means that God shows you to make you holy, but there's even a goal beyond character change.

Christian, if you really are a Christian, you'll know this. You won't know this because somebody taught you. You'll know this intuitively. You weren't redeemed simply so you could say, my sins are forgiven. We've already said you're forgiven in order to make you holy. But you also know intuitively. that you have not been saved simply to become a better person, to become holy, to become better.

You know that too. The ultimate purpose of being forgiven, number one, and being made holy in character, number two, is that you can be before him. Number three. The essence of Christianity is a personal relationship. What makes Christianity, Christianity, is not simply that you get forgiveness

and not from God, and not simply that he brings you power and you become this great person. And ultimately, if that's all that Christianity was, it would be something else to stick in the shelves of all the self-help books stores around New York. They're all about saying how you can reach your potential, how you can become the person you've always wanted to be. Christianity doesn't stop there, though. It says you were forgiven so you could be holy,

but you remained holy so that you could be. before him. And this is what Christianity is all about. In the Old Testament, God comes to Abraham, and he circumcises them and he makes him agree to the covenant and all that stuff. We won't go into that now, of course, but what's the purpose of it? God says, Abraham, I am Almighty God, walk before me. What does it mean to walk before him? Walk in my presence. What does it mean to take a walk with someone. It means to talk with them. It means to know them. It means to have exchanges. It means to work on a relationship or to express a relationship. Now, the reason that it's so astonishing that Paul says the whole purpose of Christianity is to get you to be before God in love is because everyone

knows, I hope, from the Old Testament and the New Testament, that anyone who ordinarily gets in front of God, doesn't feel love at all. Habakkuk, Job, Moses, Abraham, Isaiah, Peter, anyone who ever got near God, instead of feeling love, felt they had to get away. They felt traumatized. You know why? How do you feel when a person of the same gender as you walks into the room who's at least a hundred times better looking than you? Drop dead, good looks. 100 times better. What's your first reaction? In your field of endeavor, in your field of work, in your career field, if it really means a lot to you, how do you react when someone comes into your department or into your field or into your workplace who's 10 times more talented than you

at what you most want to do in the world? How do you react? How do you react in the presence of something that is infinitely transcendent above you? And that makes you look at the world, and that makes you look small and dirty and flawed. How do you respond? Are you attracted? Do you say, oh, this is great. I just feel myself attracted like a moth of the flame. I love, you know, I've always wanted to look like that, and now here I'm able to be with somebody who looks like that. I've always wanted to be that talented, and now I'm able to be around somebody who's that talented. I really enjoy even being in this person's presence. No. You know why? Because sin, sin is what makes a lot of you want to be in the center.

And to get into the presence of someone that that great makes you see that you're peripheral. And you hate the sense of peripheralness. And you hate the sense of being flawed. Now, I hear people say to me, oh, I like getting out on the lake. It makes me feel close to God, and it calms me. There's nothing further from the truth, according to the Bible. That's a God of your own making, a Santa Claus God, a senile old benevolence who just kind of nods.

at everybody, but the real God, the God of the Bible, who is perfectly holy, when you get near him and you begin to see and sense who he is and what he is, you begin to sense your own sin, you want to get away from him. Something radical has got to happen in order to enable you to be before him in love. And that radical thing happens when you humble yourself and repent of your sins and see that Jesus Christ has satisfied all the requirements. He, He lived the life you should have lived. He died to death you should have died. And that when you put your faith in him, there's an engine of gratitude inside that begins to grow.

And it moves you toward him. And you want, of course, to grow into your potential. But mainly you yearn to be with him. The mark of a real Christian is that there's a personal dealing going on between you and Jesus. You don't just say your prayers. You pray. You don't just believe in the cross. the cross becomes a living reality to you.

Think of a personal relationship. There's a personal dealing that goes on. Your whole person is involved. There's an exchange in a relationship. You open up your heart, and yet you also sense that God is speaking to you. You open up your heart, and you also sense the love of God. You make promises to him, and you begin to grow, and he makes promises to you, and you live off of them. Now, has that happened to you?

I make no apologies for asking. I don't care what you believe so much tonight or what church you go to or how nice a life you're living. I want to know is, do you sense that you know him personally? Is there a personal dealing going on? Are you before him in love? When you pray, do you sense that he's listening?

When you read the scripture, does the Holy Spirit actually help you so that the truths that you read become realities to you, and they burn you and they thrill you and they support you and you live off of them. You see? Or is your Christian life just a round of duties and regulations? I tell you, you've got an absolute acid test of whether or not you're a Christian.

Right here. The first test, do you understand that you're a sinner saved by grace or do you think Christianity is just trying to be good? The second test, are you actually seeing real character change in your life? Are you able to say that there's been true growth? I'm incrementally being renovated. In the way I behave, in the way I deal with people, in the way I think about myself,

and the way I relate to the world, in my courage, in my peace. But now thirdly, is your Christianity a matter of nominal belief and a round of regulations, or is there a personal dealing going on? Let me put it to you this way. almost all of you think your problems are this or this, but you've got the wrong end of the stick. The Bible always says your worst problem is you don't know God like you ought.

You don't know them as personally as you ought. That's your fundamental problem, and the other problems are ultimately more superficial. Hear this. Some of you, when Christian friends, you're in this. position. You know this stuff is true, but you admit, I hope right now, that the personal nature of your relationship with God is very stagnant. Consider, I was the same guy I was just quoting a minute ago, Samuel Rutherford. There's one of the places he wrote a friend from prison and he says, last night I was praying and the Lord became so real to me and he bid me, put my head

on his shoulder, and he bid me worry no more. What was he talking about? I know what he's talking about, and if you're a Christian, you know what he's talking about, and you also know there's been a long time since that happened. Why? Well, any relationship dies if you're not continually keeping it up. You've got to hang out together. You've got to spend time with the same crowd that spends time with him. You've got to make the time. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, you can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it.

And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller anytime, visit gospelonlife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, will Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.