Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Better Than Miracles

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

1 Corinthians 13 is a very famous passage, but in the context of the entire book of 1 Corinthians, we see that it is a sober warning against straying from the Gospel. If a person is gifted, as many of the Corinthians were, then it is frighteningly easy for that person to mistake their spiritual gifts for spiritual fruit. When we serve others in the church, are we serving Jesus or are we serving ourselves? To understand this passage fully, you have to understand 1) The story behind it; 2) The bombshell Paul is dropping on the Corinthians; and 3) How it applies to people today. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 14, 1996. Series: Love: The Way to Grow Up. Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. 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.

What are the signs that you've truly understood what it means to be saved by grace? In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul says, is possible to have impressive spiritual gifts or live by high moral standards and still not know what it means to have salvation in Christ? Today, on the Gospel and Life podcast, Tim Keller takes a closer look at this well-known passage about love and shows us why living a good life isn't the same as living a life transformed by the gospel. Every year after Easter, from Easter, the week after Easter till the onset of summer, we choose a series of sermons that really talk about what it means to practically live a Christian life. And we're going to be looking at the very famous passage of 1 Corinthians 13, the entire chapter, and we're going to look at that for six weeks.

And therefore, though I'm only going to be looking at verses 1 to 3 today, and that's all that's printed there, I'm going to read you the whole passage. and it's extremely, extremely familiar, very famous, probably next to the Lord's Prayer in the 23rd Psalm, maybe the third most famous passage in the Bible. It's St. Paul writing in the 13th chapter of the first epistle, his first letter to the Corinthians, and he writes this, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all my mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not

love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will cease. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, and when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now we see, but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully even as I am fully known. And now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

This is God's word. Now, all during the winter, we were looking at what's wrong with the human race, and we said what's wrong with the human race is sin. So now the question that we have to face is, how do we lead an anti-sin life? How do we lead a life that is increasingly free from the ruinous power of sin? Now somebody says, an anti-sin life,

you mean a good life. Well, the problem with that word is we've been seeing that sin is much more than breaking rules and therefore, to live a Christian life would mean much more than keeping rules. I mean, I hope that if any of you were here for any of that series, you'll know that one thing you see is that you can keep rules, you can keep rules even very moralistically,

and still be in the grip of sin, the self-righteousness of sin, the self-centeredness of sin. And therefore, the Christian life, the anti-sin life, the life free from the ruinous power of sin, is much more than just a good life, It's a love life. It's a life of love. It's a life transformed, psychologically, spiritually, sociologically every way.

And this passage is perhaps the very best passage in the Bible to tell us what it means to live that life, what that life is, what it's characterized by, how it can be cultivated. And the problem is that when you read 1st Corinthians 13, because 1st Corinthians 13 is so famous, surely you've heard it read at weddings, you've heard it read at funerals, you've heard it read at special occasions, you've seen it in collections, it's almost always a stand-alone passage, which is fine because it's a brilliant passage, it's a beautiful passage, it's a wonderful passage, but you don't know really its impact and what it's really saying, unless you understand that it's chapter 13 and there were 12 chapters before and there's three chapters after, and that it's, This is part of a letter, and therefore this is part of a story. This is part of a conversation Paul's having with the young Church of Corinth, a church very much like Redeemer, about five or six years old, planted in a city very much like New York. And this is part of a conversation he's having with them, and it's part of a story. And you're not going to understand what an unbelievable rebuke this chapter is to the people who got the letter.

I want you to know that there's a tremendous rebuke here. Paul actually deliberately says something in the most provocative, stunning, challenging way. And it's right there. It's printed in your bulletin, verses one to three. I know you've heard this read many times and it just sort of soothes you. You know, he's, ah, you know, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love. I am just a clanging gong, you see. And he say, ah, but the people who got there.

this if you understand the story, and if you don't understand the story, you don't know what it's really saying, and if you don't understand what it's saying, you haven't heard God's voice in it. You will not, unless you understand all that, you don't realize that this is an unbelievable rebuke. This is a rocket. This is a bombshell. Paul is saying something almost as outrageously as he possibly can to get their attention. So if you're going to understand it, you have to understand, first of all the story behind it, and then secondly, if you understand the story, you can understand the bombshell that Paul is drawing. dropping on them, the essential point.

And then we'll apply it to three kinds of people. And then we'll leave. We'll get back to it next week. The story, the bombshell, and how it applies to three kinds of people here today. So, first of all, the story. And here's the story. Corinth, if you, Corinth was a city in a very tiny little four-mile-wide itthmus in the middle of Greece, below the city.

Greece was all the southern provinces, and above Greece was all the northern provinces, and there was one little tiny spit of land, only four miles across, keep binding the north to the south. And so Corinth was the ideal place to make money. Corinth was a commercial center because anybody who wanted to go north to south had to go through Corinth. Every interstate highway went through Corinth. Imagine that. But not only that, if anybody wanted to with a boat go from east to west, they could either go, or west to east, they could go to Corinth and they could transport their cargo just four miles and put it on another boat,

or they could go hundreds of miles to the south around the bottom. You see, in other words, Corinth was in a sense a kind of ancient Panama Canal. It was a place where people had to go for any kind of trade route, whether it was by sea or by land. But in 146 BC, Corinth was destroyed by the Romans because it rebelled against the Roman Empire that was rising at the time. For 100 years, Corinth was leveled. It was waste. Nobody lived there for 100 years from 146 BC until about the middle of the century before Christ. And Julius Caesar knew a good thing when he saw it.

And he put a little Roman garrison there and decided to turn it into a Roman colony because anybody who was there was going to make a lot of money. in the next 200 years, well actually in the next 100 years, from the time that Julius Caesar restarted it to the time that we have this letter coming to us, Corinth exploded from nothing into one of the biggest cities in the world. But it was a unique city because, first of all, it had no aristocracy, it had no tradition, it didn't even have a native population. And as a result, it was one of the largest cities. it was incredibly densely populated and it was totally diverse, utterly multi-ethnic.

Because the only people who came to Corinth were people that came for one thing. The only thing that bound them together was one thing. They came to make it. They came to have success. They came to make money. And as a result, one ancient commentator says, one historian says, that it was the most densely populated because it was all packed, you know, hundreds of thousands of people, one of the biggest cities in the world at the time,

pop, you know, just sort of stuck into that four-mile piece. One of the most densely populated cities, one of the most dog-e-dog, success-oriented, and sex-obsessed cities in the world. There was no reason to be there except to be successful. And they had to coin a word. In that culture, in that society, there was a word that had been coined in the Roman Empire

called to Corinthianize. It was a verb. And the verb Corinthianized means to live in utter moral depravity without any rules at all. Over top of Corinth was a mountain, and on the top of the mountain was the Temple of Aphrodite. And every single night, 1,000 temple prostitutes came on down into the city to ply their wares. It was the most success-oriented, sex-obsessed city. These were Corinthiansisers. No rules.

Nobody came to Corinth to live. nobody came there to have a life they came to make it they came to do now if you don't see any parallels between Corinth in new york city you're a tourist all right and i'm glad you're here but now you know oh this is absolutely true you go to other cities of this country you go to boston you go to philadelphia there's a tradition there's an aristocracy there's there people go there to live people don't come to new york to live people come here to make it they come here to do when paul came to corinth he was beaten i had had a bad time in athens and he'd been beaten up actually almost within an inch of his life in philippi and he was so low that god had to come to him in acts chapter 18 verse nine and particularly appear to him and say i am going to show

you that i'm still with you and i'm going to do a major work i'm going to plant a church in the biggest baddest wooliest city in the world. I'm going to show you the gospel can change anybody. I am going to give you a bunch of converts. I'm going to give you a church in this place. The last place in the world you think people would turn to the Lord, Corinth. I'm going to take the Corinthianizers. And you know, in the early part of this book, 1 Corinthians, Paul writes something that's pretty interesting. Paul was extremely amazed, I think. I think the church at Corinth was a unique church in his ministry because it was a sign to him that the gospel can change anybody. And at one point he writes in chapter six, and he's making a list. He says, adulterers, idol worshippers, homosexual prostitutes,

greedy, thieves, drunkards. And then he says, such were many of you. But you were sanctified, you were justified by the name, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of our God. What Paul is saying is, the Corinthian Christians are not, were not, bourgeois, straight arrow, moral people. These were people who had done everything. They had been everywhere. And when they became Christians, the Corinthian Church was unique in Paul's ministry. because when Corinthianizers become Christians, when this kind of person becomes a Christian, you get one of the oddest things, and that is churches that are more brilliant than the other churches

and more troubled. And that's exactly what you have in Corinth. And if you want to understand that, all you have to do is look at chapter 13. In verses 1 to 3, which you have printed there, you've got a picture of the Corinthian Church. These are people, for example, see, these are people who, they didn't come to car and to live, they came to do. They were gifted people. There were people with aspirations. There were people that, they came to make a difference. And when they became Christians, so many of these people were brilliant people, they were gifted. Many of them had tremendous gifts of articulation. They could speak. Many of them had tremendous gifts of insight. They knew so much. They were brilliant people. Many of them had faith to move a mountain,

which means when they became Christians, they were visionaries. They got ministry started that changed people's lives. I mean, these other churches weren't like this. This was the most gifted church at all. And many of the people here, in Corinth, had miraculous gifts. If you want to learn more about that, you have to go to chapter 12 and chapter 14. They had revelations from God. They could heal people who were sick.

Perhaps some people were raised from the dead. they could do miracles and healing and revelation. So they had miraculous gifts, as well as you might call your un-miraculous gifts. They were gifted, brilliant people. And you can see that in verses one to three. But when you go to verses four to seven, love is patient, love is kind, love is not puffed up and arrogant, love is not rude. You have another picture of the Corinthians. Where did that list come from?

Where Paul says, love is patient. Love is kind. You've heard this for years, a lot of you. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not boast. Love is not rude. Where did Paul come up with that list? Was Paul just sitting around? Is somebody say, Paul, what is love? And he says, well, no. And if you read Corinthians, first Corinthians closely, you will see the same words in this list have been used already. In Chapter 8, he calls them puffed up. And that's the word that's translated, proud. In Chapter 10, he says they're self-seeking. And that's the word that's there saying, love seeketh not her own. In chapter seven, he calls them rude, and that's the word that's in there.

You know what's going on? Paul was in a quandary because his most brilliant church was his most troubled church. The church where people were doing the most, had the most vision, and seemed to have the most gifts, and the church probably in all of the provinces where the most miracles were happening, healings and prophecies and things like that, was also the church in which it was the most jealousy, the most divisions, the most fighting, the most pride, the most moral lapses, kind of legalism on this side and people falling into temptation on this side. And so Paul writes the letter, and he drops a bombshell. Now, before I tell you what the bombshell is, let me just say one thing. There's never been a city that I've seen anywhere, more like Corinth, and there's never been a church

that I've seen anywhere, more like this church. There's more brilliance in a church like Redeemer, and there's also more problems than I've ever seen anywhere. I want you to know not as many problems as current, then I'll tell you why, because we haven't been as spiritually successful. If our prayers are answered in New York, and lots and lots and lots of Corinthianizers, more and more, more and more

become Christians, we're going to have more of these problems in our church. We're going to have more moral lapses, more discipline problems, more disputes, more controversies about how we can relate to the pagan culture. The problems of the Corinthian Church, as serious as they are, are the problems that come from a revival. In an urban setting, the more I read the first Corinthians,

the more I realize these are issues that suburban churches will never meet, but urban churches do all the time. And so let's not look down our nose at the Corinthians. Let's realize this is what happens. These Corinthianizers were the most brilliant and the most troubled of any church. And so Paul, in order to get their attention and to see the seriousness and to wake them up and to help them, he drops a bomb. And here's the bomb. Let me summarize it for you. He says that you can have spiritual gifts in general

and miraculous gifts, even in particular, and not be a Christian at all. He says you can speak in tongues. He says you can have revelations. You can have incredible insights. You can have tremendous spiritual excitement, ready to move mountains. You can be so flat out committed that you're ready to die for your faith. You can be radically in favor of helping the poor and giving all of your money away and not just be immature, but be spiritually nothing. Nothing of God can operate in your life through spiritual gifts and you not be a Christian at all. He says, I just want you to get your priorities straight. He says, spiritual gifts are wonderful. I'm so glad. Later on, he says, I speak in tongues as much as you always. Not down on tongues.

He says, prophecy is a great thing. He's not down on prophets. He's not down on any of these things. But he says, I want you to realize that your theology is really in bad shape, and as a result, your hearts are in bad shape. Do you know that all these things can happen in a non-Christian? Do you realize that you can have these spiritual gifts in general? All spiritual gifts in general, and miraculous gifts in particular can happen in somebody who's nothing, not a Christian at all, never given the heart to God, no saving grace in the heart at all? Do you know that? Now, somebody's going to say, gee, all those times I listened at the weddings, you know, him saying, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, and it sounds so nice, this is alarming.

Yes, now you're starting to get it. Now, I want you to know, there's a lot of biblical evidence for what Paul is saying. Lots of it. In Matthew chapter 7, 21, 22, and 23, Jesus says, on the last day, people will come to me and they will say, didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't we cast out demons? And didn't we do wonderful works in your name? Which is the Greek, it was just a typical way of saying miracles.

That's the word. Did we not prophesy? Did we not cast out demons? And didn't we do wonderful works in thy name? And Jesus says, I will say to them, I never knew you. In other words, you are spiritual nothings. Nothing. marriage is one of the most significant human relationships there is, but is also one of the most

difficult and misunderstood. In the meaning of marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller offer biblical wisdom and insight that will help you understand God's vision for marriage. Whether you're single, considering marriage, or have been married for a long time, the meaning of marriage will help you face the complexities of commitment with the wisdom of God. The meaning of marriage is our thank you for your gift this month to help gospel and life share the love of Christ with people all over the world. 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. Now we have examples in the Bible. In the Old Testament, we got Balaam. Balam was somebody who was trying his best to do the wrong

thing. Go back to numbers and read about it. And we're told in the New Testament three places that he was a wicked man. And yet God came to him and gave him spiritual revelations and used him as a prophet. In the Old Testament, we have Saul. At one point, the Spirit of God came upon him and used him, and he became prophetic. He was a prophet, and he never gave his heart to the Lord. In the New Testament, you've got the most clear example, you've got several, but the most clear is Judas. In Judas, we're told in Matthew 10, verse 1, God gave them, who's them? The apostles. He gave them the power to cure all sorts of diseases, and they went out prophesying, and they went out casting out demons and they went out healing the sick, Judas among them, and Judas never gave

his heart to the Lord. Now, therefore, now listen, what do we know about that? Here's what we know. I've heard people over the years say to me, well, only Christians could do miracles, and of course, people who aren't Christians could do false miracles, Satan could help them do miracles, but that's not what we're saying here. That's not what Paul's saying, and that's not what Paul's saying, That's not what happened to Judas. Judas did not do miracles through Satan. He did it through Jesus, and he wasn't a Christian. So what does this mean?

Jonathan Edwards, who wrote a tremendous book on this whole chapter, has this very extremely important and interesting little quote. He says, A spiritual gift of miracles or of speaking does not change a person's inherent nature. A gift ability does not require a change of heart as love or holiness does. Gifts are like precious jewels with which a body may be adorned,

but which does not alter the body's form. But the grace of God and its fruit turns, as it were, the very soul into a precious jewel. And so what Edwards is saying is, since the Spirit of God can operate and use gifts in a person

who is not given his heart to the Lord, but he cannot, the Lord's Spirit, cannot do spiritual fruit in a person whose heart hasn't been given to the Lord. In other words, since the Spirit of God can come in to a life and give you abilities, speaking abilities, and counseling abilities, and leading ability, he can give you all sorts of abilities,

even miraculous abilities, without your heart necessarily having saving grace, but he cannot give you spiritual fruit. He can't give you love and holiness and joy and self-control and humility without your heart being changed by the gospel. In other words, since spiritual gifts boot off of the gospel and the grace of God, but they do not boot off, excuse me,

they do not boot off of it. They do not need it. But spiritual fruit do need it. Therefore, love is more miraculous than miracles. Christian love, humility, warmth, cheerful joy, forgiving. That is supernatural. That is a miracle. The Spirit of God cannot do that in your heart unless you give your heart to Him unless there's

the grace of God. But the Spirit of God can give you all sorts of gifts and use you in all sorts of ways and help all sorts of people without you giving your heart to Christ at all, without there being any grace at all or being grace in very low amounts. Now, if somebody says, how in the world is that possible? How in the world could Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God, use people, save people, counsel people, help people do miracles when they haven't, we're not even Christians? Listen, I think the answer is actually pretty easy when you think about it. Do you realize what a miserable world this would be?

If God only worked good things through people who were Christians? Just imagine if the only counselors and therapists that could help anybody were Christians. just imagine if the only counselors or therapists that really could do good and wonderful works were Christians what a miserable life this would be let me go a little further what if the only people who could be good fathers and mothers were Christians what a miserable world this would be the Bible says every good and perfect gift comes down from above the Bible says all wisdom all goodness all kindness everything

All musical talent, all light. Everything is the work of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is continually doing good things through people who haven't given their heart. Can you imagine what a crummy world this would be otherwise? Why does God do that? So the world is a tolerable place. And a person who's inside the church,

very religious, knows the Bible, and yet holds their heart back, tries to keep control of their lives by trying to be a good person and thinking that they can earn their salvation, get God to look at them and favor them because they're good and because they're doing so many good things. A person like that who's never really experienced the grace, never really understood the gospel, essentially a Pharisee, if they're in the church and they're active in the church, God's still going to do good things through them. Why not? Why should everybody around them suffer any more than they're going to suffer? Edward says,

says, the spiritual gifts, including miraculous gifts, though usually given to Christians, are not necessarily. Because it doesn't take a supernatural work of grace in the heart to do miracles, but it does take a supernatural operation of grace in the heart to become a person with a Christ-like character. And that is the bombshell. How do we apply it? I'm going to talk to three kinds of people. Now, you want to know who the main persons are? Who this? This is four? You know, a lot of those of you who are in ministry in this church, and there's hundreds of you, leading Bible studies, leading ministries, officers, my elders, deacons, and deaconesses,

my staff, other ministers, other people who are involved in other churches, people that, people who are doing things in the church, people who are gifted, people who help other people. This is mainly for you. I know a lot of you sat through a number of sermons that are mainly for other people, and you sat there and said, well, I'm glad they're hearing this. Well, this is for you. there is an enormous danger. It is so easy.

Why do you think Paul says you can have all these things and do all these things and be nothing? Because the subtle danger is for those of us who are in ministry to say, look at the people I'm helping, look at the things that I'm doing,

look at what I'm accomplishing, I must be something. Because of what I'm doing. I must really be something. Listen, let me let me give you a personal testimony in reverse. I've got a gift of speaking. When I speak, people learn, and people are helped.

But I learned a long time ago that my spiritual gift does not boot off the amount of grace in my heart at all. Because I have found out, and I know this for a fact, that if I am cold toward God and full of self-pity, and may be bitter and angry at other people and filled with selfishness, if I get up in front of a crowd, there's something about the situation that draws my gift out. And I wax. And people are helped. And this is the danger. This is what happens. This is what will happen. This is the danger for all of us. That if any kind of gifts, I wax. And you know what I start to say? I say, hey, I guess God is with me. I guess I'm really something. I must be something. They think I'm something. Look at my success. Look at the people who think they say, you've helped me.

Look at my gifts. And Paul comes and says, if you think that your gifts, your success in the church, if you think those things are dials on the dashboard to tell you what's really happening in the engine, you're wrong. Your engine might be overheating. My engine might be ready to blow up. And yet you're doing very well in ministry. Paul comes and says, do you realize how easy it is, oh, Christian leaders, Christian ministers,

to get your identity from your ministry instead of from Jesus, to get your identity, from Christianity instead of Christ? To say, I must be something because of the things I'm doing. And here's what Paul is saying. To do that is acid against the grace of God. It's the opposite of the gospel. In the gospel, God comes and says, I love you, not because you're good,

not because of your activities, but because of my grace. When your spouse says, honey, why do you love me? If you say, I love you because it doesn't matter. It's over. The interchange is over. I love you because you're a great tennis partner.

Well, what happens if I'm not a good tennis partner? I love you because you always do this and always do that. Well, what happens if I don't feel like that? You see, grace says, I love you because I love you. But what happens is so easy. If you have gifts, you start to say, God loves me because I'm good. I don't mean I'm morally good.

Look at what I'm doing for him. I'm laying myself out. I'm giving my body to be burned. I'm burned out for Jesus. I must be something. And Paul says that that is smothering the grace in your heart. As a matter of fact, if you look at that, you say, I must be something. You know what that's going to lead to?

And it does lead in churches? It leads to peevishness. It leads to irritability. It leads to self-pity. It leads to jealousy. It leads to hurt feelings. over the place because your pride is in what you're doing and people don't recognize that. They don't recognize your gifts. They don't see that or somebody criticizes you and you're all

devastated. Why? Because love and joy and peace boots off of the gospel what Jesus has said of you. I love you because I love you. But it's so easy to start to try to get your identity and everything and your peace and your joy out of your gifts. And the more you get it out of your your gifts, the more it smothers grace, the more it smothers grace, the more you look to your gifts. Gifted people, Paul goes so far as to say, if you are living like that, if you are neglecting your prayer life, are you very busy in the Lord's work and your prayer life's dead? Are you extremely happy about your gifts? And yet the fact is that you are not a warm person.

People don't say, what a loving person. You're always getting your feelings hurt. you're always cast down underneath, but you're, you know, put a smile on out here. There's not a joy. There's not a delight in what God means to you. You're not drawing off of his love. You're working off your gifts. Paul says you're a noisy gong or a clashing symbol. And that's not an accident.

That's pagan worship. In Corinth, in the pagan temples, it was normal when the worshippers came in. They clashed a symbol and they hit a gong. Why? It got the attention of the gods, and it was very awe-inspiring for the worshippers. And Paul says, do you not know that if you are not cultivating love in your heart, if you are not continually finding that the joy of your life is your salvation, not your gifts, you're essentially worshipping like a pagan. God finds your religion there be nothing more than the noise of the pagans.

You're trying to get God's attention, you're trying to impress everybody. Secondly, I said, I have to tell you some other people. There's some of you, now here's the irony, there's some of you who are not very gifted and you know it. You're not very articulate. Nobody's asking you to be a leader. And you know what? You get cast down and you say, oh, you know, I'll never be able to lead a Bible study

or I'll never be able to do this. I'll never, you know, be elected to this or that. I'm not very gifted. In some strange but very important way, you are falling prey to the very same mistake that Paul talks about here. If you use gifts as the yardstick of Christianity, here's what I want to say to you. Do you not realize that gifts are always limited? Okay?

Some of you have speaking gifts, but you're only going to be so good a speaker. Some of you have leadership. You're always going to be so much of a leader. You might be a great leader in Redeemer. You're probably not going to be John Wesley. You're probably not going to change the world with a new denomination. Why? Because some people are gifted more than other people.

Gifts have a limit. But do you know, listen, the grace in your heart has unlimited potential. Anybody in this room could not be a good speaker or a good leader or whatever, but anybody who's a Christian in this room could be the most godly saint of the century. You could be the most loving person, the most humble person, the most gracious person. You could become a person that everybody around you, all the people who work with you, are astonished at your courage, at your sweetness, at your wisdom, at your love, anybody in this room. and don't you realize that's what changes the world?

Yes, miracles did attest that God was present. But Jesus says in John 17, if you love one another, then the world will know. What is going to change the world? If you cultivate in your heart the love of Jesus Christ so that you become famous, whether people believe what you believe or not, famous at work, famous in your family,

famous in your neighborhood, famous in your apartment building, for being the most loving, passionate, humble, gracious person that anybody knows. Anyone who's a Christian here could go through the roof on that. There's no limit. You can get all the way to Jesus. Don't you realize you could be actually an ungifted speaker, but if you are godly and holy, you'll always be interesting.

You might be an ungifted therapist, but if you're godly and holy, you will change lives. You might be a lousy delegator and a terrible organizer, and you don't have leadership gifts, but if you are godly and loving, everyone will follow you. That's what changes things. And for you to say, well, I don't know what I am. I'm never going to be like.

You're doing the very same thing Paul says. You can have all these abilities and be nothing. Love is the only miracle. Love is the miracle above all the miracles. There's one last group to say something to. There's some of you who are here who are saying, wait a minute, I'm trying to live a pretty good life. You're telling me what?

See, there's some of you who really don't understand the gospel at all. And what Paul is saying to you is, you could give your body to be burned, and you could give all your money away for the poor. But what you've really got to do is give your heart to the Lord in response to the gospel. What's the gospel? Very simple. Why did Jesus Christ come to earth? Because he loved us.

His power and his holiness is not what drove him down here. Just as the essence of Christianity is not power but love, not gifts, but grace. So the essence of God is not his power, but his love. His power didn't drive him down here. It was his love. And what did he do? How did he save us on the cross? Well, you say he died.

You mean just his physical death? Well, you say he was punished, but how was he punished? Don't you know what happened? He lost the love of his father. He was forsaken. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Anybody in this room who's ever lost the love of somebody who's, maybe if your whole life orbited around somebody and that person rejected you,

You know, you never get over that. But the pain in your life, compared to what Jesus went through on the cross, is like a peace shooter compared to a nuclear warhead. For the love of us, Jesus lost that love on the cross. That pain was poured into his heart, and he was devastated on the cross for us. Now, if you look at the love of Christ, only his love can explain him. If you look at the love, the send him down here, and the love that he lost because of the love that he had.

As you get melted with that, you give your heart. You don't say, okay, what do I have to do to get to heaven? You don't say that. You say, I don't love my Lord, my Savior. I don't love my God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mine. I don't love my neighbors myself. I don't have a love, so I'm convicted by that. I see the love that drove him down here, and I see the love that he lost.

In other words, love is the essence of the faith. Love is the essence of him. And the more you see the love that he showed, the more you find that love growing in your life, don't be a noisy gong. All the doing without love is noise to God. Instead, say, come thou, found of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask now that you would help us to see, as we give you ourselves, that

it is your love which drove your son, and now it's your love that should drive us. Help us to see that. Bring us to your feet. Help us to repent and do what we need to do so we can live the lives that your servant Paul is calling us to. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast.

If you were encouraged by today's teaching, you can help others discuss. 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 1996. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.