Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Blessed Self-Forgetfulness

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

To talk about humility means we’re getting into a very culturally interesting subject, which is self-esteem. Traditional cultures have believed that having too high a view of yourself is the real root cause for most of the evil in the world. But in modern Western culture, particularly in the United States, we have an utterly opposite consensus: that people misbehave for lack of self-esteem, because of too low a view of themselves. What’s intriguing about 1 Corinthians 3 is that it gives us an approach to self-regard, an approach to the self, that is absolutely, utterly different than both traditional cultures and postmodern contemporary cultures. The three things Paul teaches here are 1) the natural condition of the human ego, 2) the supernatural condition, the transformed sense of self and identity, that can be brought about through the gospel, and 3) how to get it.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 24, 2002. Series: Practical Grace; How the Gospel Transforms Character. Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7. 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. What does true Christian character look like and how is it formed? We often assume that becoming more disciplined, generous, or patient is simply a matter of trying harder. But even our best efforts can be driven by pride or a desire for approval. Today, Tim Keller explains how true Christian character only grows out of our acceptance of God's grace and how we live differently when the truth of the gospel transforms us from within. So then, no more both. about men. All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Seifis or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours and you are of Christ and Christ is of God.

So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any. human court. Indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore, judge nothing before the appointed time. Wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time, each will receive his praise from God. Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying

do not go beyond what is written then you will not take pride in one man over against another for who makes you different from anyone else what do you have that you did not receive and if you did receive it why do you boast as though you did not love does not boast it is not proud this is God's word we're doing a series in which we're looking at the marks of a supernaturally changed heart. And that means we're not looking so much at morally virtuous behavior. You can do all kinds of morally virtuous things

out of a heart filled with fear, pride, and desire for power, or out of a heart that's been actually changed at the root by the grace of God. And so what we're doing is we're looking at the traits of a heart that's really been radically changed by the grace of God. And this particular letter, this passage of God, was just read to you. It's obviously a letter from Paul to the Corinthians. The

Corinthian Church was filled with division. The reason for all the references to Paul and Apollus and Seifis was because this church had originally been planted by Paul, but then later on, other ministers came through, other speakers, other evangelists came through, and there's different people that had connections to these different prominent ministers. So one person was mentored and discipleed by Paul. Another one was mentored and appointed in the leadership by Apollos, another great teacher and so forth.

And instead of everybody just being very happy that they had this relationship with Paul or Apollos, these relationships are now the basis for a power play. Parties have arisen. Divisions are tearing the church up. People are saying, I should be the leader

because Paul, the Saint Paul, is the one who who have disciples me and others said, so what? I have a relationship and so on. And Paul in this passage shows that the root cause for why we cannot get along, the root cause for why there's no peace in the world, while we can't live at peace with each other, is pride and boasting. See, verse 21 starts off. No more boasting. The last verse, chapter four, verse seven, let's stop the boasting and especially let's not have pride see verse six of one man over another so we're at the trait of humility we're here to talk about humility and that means we get into a very very culturally

interesting subject which is self-esteem i'll tell you how interesting it is up until the 20th century every traditional culture and this is still true in most cultures the world. The traditional cultures have always believed that too high a view of yourself is the real root cause for most of the evil in the world. Most of the crime, the violence, the war-likeness. Why do people abuse? Why are people cruel? Why do people do the bad things they do? Traditionally, the answer was hubris. That's Aristotle's term, of course, Greek. Pride, too high a view of yourself is the reason why we misbehave. But in the modern Western country, culture, and particularly in the United States, we have an utterly opposite cultural consensus.

The basis of our education, of the way in which we treat incarcerated prisoners, the basis of our legislation, certainly the basis of our counseling, in our culture is exactly the opposite of the consensus of all the other societies that have ever lived, and that is our belief today, and it's deeply rooted in everything, it's a cultural consensus, is that people misbehave for lack of self-esteem because they have too low a view of themselves. The reason husbands beat their wives, the reason why people aren't criminals is because they have too low view of themselves. So traditional cultures just said the problem is you have too high view, pride and too much self-esteem. And then of course now we say it's too little

self-esteem. Probably the simplistic approaches are going to be jumbled up pretty badly in the next few decades. But did any of you notice February 3rd, New York Times Magazine, had an article by Lawrence Slater, a psychologist called The Trouble with Self-esteem. And it was not a groundbreaking article. It wasn't some new bolt out of the blue. All she was doing was beginning to report what the experts have known for years. And what's significant about the article, is that there's enough accumulated evidence now that it's starting to come down into popular consciousness, but has a long way to go.

But what she says is that there's no evidence, for the last 15, 20 years, there's no evidence that low self-esteem is a big problem in society. She says, for example, in the article, she says last year there were three withering studies of self-esteem released in the United States, all of which had the same central message. People with high self-esteem pose a greater threat

to those around them than people with low self-esteem. And feeling bad about yourself is not the source of any of our country's biggest problems. Now, it would be fun to go and explain why that works and how that works and so on, but suffice as to say, she's right when she says,

it will be years and years for modern Americans especially to accept this. It is so deeply rooted in us that lack of self-esteem is the reason why there's drug addiction. That's the reason why there's drug addiction. why there's abuse and why there's crime and why there's, you know, wife beating and so forth. And she says it's going to take forever. And here's the reason why. Because what's so wonderful

about the low self-esteem theory of misbehavior is you have to make no moral judgments in order to deal with these problems. All you have to do is support people and just build them up. In traditional cultures, the way you dealt with these problems was you clamp down on people and you convicted people and you called them bad. We don't want to go back to that, do we? What's intriguing about this passage is it gives us an approach to self-regard, an approach of the self, a way of seeing yourself that is absolutely different than traditional cultures or modern, post-modern contemporary culture. Utterly different.

The three things we learn here is Paul shows us the natural condition of the human ego, and then the supernatural condition that can be brought about. through the gospel, and lastly, how to get it. The natural condition of the human ego, the transformed sense of self and identity that Paul had discovered and how to get it. Ready? First.

First thing we learn is, number one, the natural state of the human self. And he uses a word in verse 6 that you say, okay, well, sure I know about that. He says, let's have no more pride. But you have to understand, that Paul is using a word pride here that's unusual. And what's really significant about it is it's not the hubris word, it's not the normal word for pride,

but it's a word that Paul uses in this particular book six times. It's used by no one else in the Bible. It's even used only by Paul, one other place in Colossians. It's used six times. It shows up every couple of chapters, and many commentators now realize it's a special theme of Paul. He is trying to help these Corinthians by teaching them something about the human ego by using this particular word. And this word for pride is a word that literally means to be overinflated, swollen, distended beyond its proper size. It's a word that actually is a, it comes, well, it's related to the word for bellows, and it's, it's very evocative and kind of painful.

it evokes the image of some organ of the human body that is distended by because so much air has been pumped into it that it's ready to burst. It's overinflated, it's distended, it's swollen, it's inflamed because it's been extended past its proper size, and that, he says, is the condition of the natural human ego. Now, I think because it's so evocative in such an interesting metaphor, we're supposed to reflect on, you know, what does the metaphor mean?

What is he trying to say? And here are some things we learn. We learned, first of all, well, I'll put it this way. The natural condition of the human ego is to be empty, obviously. If it's empty, painful, busy, and fragile. Empty, painful, busy, and fragile. First, empty. The image, first of all, gives us obviously that the heart,

at the center of the human ego, no matter how big it is, is an emptiness. Saurin Kierkegaard in his book, Sickness Under Death, says it is the normal state of the human heart to try to build its identity around something besides God. Spiritual pride is the illusion that you are competent to run your own life, achieve your own sense of self-worth, and find a purpose big enough to give you meaning in life without God. And what Sarn Kierkegaard says is the natural, in other words, the normal human ego is built on something besides God.

Something that will give you worse, something that will give you a sense of specialness, something that will give you a sense of purpose. And of course, this is a very well-known metaphor in the history of Christian communication, if you try to put anything in the middle of a place that was originally made for God, it's going to be too small and it's going to rattle around in there. And therefore, the human ego in the beginning, the first thing we learn is is empty. it's empty and because it's empty secondly it's painful now the idea of being distended the idea of being overinflated means that it's painful what do i mean by that well have you ever noticed now actually that's the wrong word have you ever noticed that you don't notice your body unless there's something wrong with it for example i didn't come to church today saying you know my toes are just just feel great tonight and my elbow you know it's

It just works like a charm. You only would talk like that or think like that if something had been wrong with it. Because parts of your body do not call attention to themselves unless there's something wrong with them. The ego has got something incredibly wrong with it. Your self, your identity has something unbelievably wrong with it because it's always drawing attention to itself every single day.

how you look, how you were treated. You know, people are always saying my feelings were hurt. How can feelings be hurt? What do feelings taste like? Touch, try to, it's your ego that's hurt. Your feelings are fine. You're having bad, bad, bad feelings about your ego. And you see, you know, just walking around doesn't hurt my toes unless there's something

already wrong with them. And yet you can't get through the day without feeling snubbed or feeling ignored or feeling stupid or getting down on yourself or there's something wrong with your identity there's something wrong with your ego there's something wrong with your sense of self because it's always it's never happy it's always drawing attention to itself okay so first of all it's empty but it's like a bloated stomach that hurts like crazy because it's distended in its emptiness so secondly it's painful Thirdly, because it's empty and painful, the ego is incredibly busy, and this explains what we mean when we say it's always drawing attention to itself, is incredibly busy trying to fill the emptiness. And it's incredibly busy doing two things in particular. And those two things are comparing and boasting. You see them in here? First of all, notice he doesn't say in verse six, then you will not take pride. He says, then you will not take pride in one another over a

against another, in one man over against another. That's the very essence, the very, very essence of what it means to have a normal human ego. The normal human ego is not only empty, but the way it tries to fill its emptiness and tries to deal with its discomfort, which it is, got an incredible discomfort, is by comparing yourself to other people all the time. And C.S. Lewis points out in his famous chapter on pride in Mary Christianity that pride is by nature, compared. competitive, that the very, very essence of pride is that you're competitive. And here's the way he puts it. He says, pride is something that's essentially competitive. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only having more of it than the next person. You may think you're proud of

being successful or intelligent or good-looking, but you really aren't. You're only proud of being more successful, more intelligent, and more good-looking than other people, and when you are in the presence of people who are much more successful, intelligent, and good-looking than you, you lose all pleasure in what you had. Because you really had no pleasure in it. You were proud of it. Pride is the pleasure of having more than the next person. Pride is the pleasure of being more than the next person. Lust may drive a man to sleep with a beautiful woman, but at least lust makes him want her. Pride drives a man. to sleep with a beautiful woman just to prove he can do it and to prove that he can do it over the

others pride destroys the ability to have any real pleasure from her when i was a junior in high school maybe this happened to you my parents kept coming to me my mother kept coming to me and saying you know honey go out for the chess club i said mom i hate chess yeah i know she says but it would look so good on your college application she says why don't you volunteer to do some of that don't they do some Don't they feed the homeless and the hungry downtown every Saturday morning? Yeah, Mom, I don't want to go there. I hate that. She says, I know, but it would look so good on your college application.

So that my junior year in high school, I just did on all kinds of stuff that I had absolutely no interest in doing for themselves, for itself, but I was putting together a resume. And that is what your ego is doing all the time. You're in jobs that you take no pleasure in. You're doing diets that you take no pleasure in. You're doing all kinds of things that you are not doing for themselves, but you are, by comparing yourself to other people, you're boasting. The word boasting here means to recommend yourself. It means you are creating a self-esteem resume desperate to fill the sense of inadequacy and emptiness.

So busy all the time. And lastly, it's not only empty and painful and busy, it's fragile. because anything that is overinflated is imminently about to be deflated. To be overinflated means you're constantly in danger of being deflated and you are. People who seem to have no pride because they hate themselves and they tell you they hate themselves and they tell themselves they hate themselves are deflated. To be deflated means you were inflated. You see, if you're puffed up and not filled up, if you're puffed up by air and not filled up with something solid,

then to be inflated, to be deflated is all the same thing. To have a superiority complex or an inferiority complex is just the same thing. They're both results of being overinflated, distended, empty, painful, busy,

and of course, therefore fragile. And, you know, I'm going to, I'll just read you a perfect example of this, even though I'm not trying to lift her up as being worse than other people at all. As a matter of fact, she actually shows a tremendous amount of awareness, and I have a lot of admiration for her.

But if you want a perfect example of exactly what we're talking about, this is something I lifted years ago out of a Vogue magazine interview with Madonna in which she was talking about her career. And here's what she says. She says, my drive in life comes from the fear of being mediocre. That's always pushing me. I push past one spell of it

and discover myself as a special human being, but then I feel that I'm still mediocre and uninteresting unless I do something else. Because even though I've become somebody, I still have to prove that I'm somebody. My struggle has never ended, and I guess it never will. Now, you know, I'll tell you one thing,

is she knows herself better than most of us know ourselves. Because look, see, what she's saying is, every time I accomplish something, I say, now I've got the verdict that I'm somebody, and the next day I realize unless I keep going, I'm not. My ego cannot be satisfied. My sense, my desire for self-worth, and to be sure I'm somebody, I need a verdict, and it's not coming. And I keep thinking I've won it from what people have said and from what the magazines have said, next day I've got to go somewhere else. Why? Because my ego is insatiable.

It's a black hole. It doesn't matter how much I throw into it. It's, the cupboard is bare. I put all kinds of stuff in it every morning, and the next night it's bare. I still need to, no matter, she says, I've become somebody, and I still realize I've still got to become somebody. He said, well, how neurotic?

No, she knows herself. She's ahead of most of us. Now, that's the normal ego state. That's the normal state of the human self. But Paul comes around, and then in the middle of this passage, for their sake, all these people who are fighting over him and saying, I know Paul, and they're just showing all this pride,

they can't enjoy the fact they know Paul. They have to use the fact that they know Paul for one-upsmanship on the other people in the church. And so what he does is he says, well, let me show you how I do it. Many of us spend more time thinking about ourselves than we'd like to admit. Whether we're comparing ourselves to others or just trying to live up to our own expectations, it's easy to become preoccupied with what we've done or accomplished.

In his short book, The Freedom of Self-Forgatfulness, Tim Keller shows how embracing the truth of the gospel makes it possible for us to let go of the constant need to evaluate ourselves and points us to an identity that's secure because of Christ's work on the cross. This month, as thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life spread the good news of the gospel with more people, will send you two English copies of the freedom of self-forgetfulness and one Spanish copy that you can share with a Spanish speaker in your life. Sharing this Spanish copy is part of our focus this month

on Gospel and Life's Translation Initiative as we launched the Global Reach Project, where with God's help and in partnership with the Keller family, we are translating 500 of Dr. Keller's sermons into 30 of the world's most spoken languages. Through the Global Reach Project, millions more people around the world will be able to access the hope of the gospel shared through Dr. Keller's teaching in their native language. To learn more,

go to the global reachproject.com. And to request your copies of the freedom of self-forgetfulness, visit gospelandlife.com slash give. Again, that's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. In verses three and four, we have Paul giving us an example of how, now that he understands the gospel, how his own sense of self-works, how his own self-regard operates, how his own identity works, and his own ego, in a sense, works. And here's what he does. First of all, he says in verse three, now, yes, I'm a minister, and I have a job to do. He says in verse one and two, but with regard to it, he says, I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court. Huh. In other words,

do you see what he's saying? I don't care if I'm judged by you or by any human court. Now, the word judge is verdict. It's a word for verdict. It's a thing, by the way, you know, that Madonna's looking for. And what he does is he looks out and he says, one thing I want you to know is I don't care what you think. I don't care what you think about me. I don't care what anybody thinks about me. See, he doesn't just say, I care little if I'm judged by you or by any human body.

He says, I have come to the place where my identity owes nothing to what people say. I don't care what you think. I don't care what anybody thinks. My identity, my self-regard is not tied in any way to your verdict and your evaluation of me. Well, now a lot of us say, okay, that sounds great. He doesn't seem to be suffering from low self-esteem. No, he isn't. How do you get there?

How do you get to the place where people think about you don't control you anymore? How do you get there? Now, almost everybody would say it's very obvious. Every counselor I know practically would go like this. if they met somebody who was to control by what other people thought and so on, here's what they would say. They would say, oh, it shouldn't matter what other people think of you. It shouldn't, you shouldn't be living according to what they say. You shouldn't be living according to their standards.

It shouldn't matter what they think about you. What should only matter is what? What you think about you. It shouldn't matter what their standards are. It should only matter what your standards are. Choose your own standards. Decide who you want to be and then be it. decide you know you it only it all just matters what you think about yourself is that what paul does

no in other words all we know we in our modern world do not know how to deal with low self-esteem without what basically remedying it with high self-esteem was saying you need to see that you're a great person you need to see how wonderful you are look at all the great things you've accomplished look at all the wonderful things and you just have to not worry about what other people think about you you set your own standards and you accomplish them and then you you know, evaluate yourself. And Paul says, look, he says, I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court. Then what does he say? Indeed, I do not judge myself. Let me paraphrase this. Paul says, I don't care what you think, but I don't care what I think. I have a very low opinion

of your opinion of me, but I have a very low opinion of me. Look carefully. Look what he says here. He says, I care very little if I'm judged by you or any human court. Indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear by that. Does not make me innocent. He will not fall into the trap of high self-esteem. He will not. He says, just because my conscience is clear, maybe my conscience is clear.

That doesn't mean I'm innocent. Hitler might have had a clear conscience. That didn't mean he was innocent. It's a trap to say, it doesn't matter what other people think. Don't worry about their standards. You just set your own standards. That's an answer. That's an answer.

Listen, I feel terrible when I cannot live up to my parents' standards. I feel terrible when I can't live up to your standards. I feel terrible when I can't live up to culture standards. I feel terrible when I can't live up to other standards. So now the solution is, I set my own standards? I feel terrible when I don't live up to my standards. Unless I have incredibly low standards. Is that a solution?

Then I feel horrible because I said, I'm the kind of person that has low standards. Paul is not biting. And yet, when he says, I not only don't care what you think. I am not looking to you for my identity, and I'm not looking to you from verdicts, the verdict that Madonna's

looking for, that I'm somebody. I don't get it from you, but I don't get it from me. And here's what he's doing. He is moving off of our map, friends. He's moving into territory that we don't know anything about. Because here's what he's doing. Some people think, well, oh, he's got high self-esteem.

Look, he says his conscience doesn't bother him. He says he doesn't judge. himself. Good, you shouldn't condemn yourself, but that's not what the word judge means. The word judge here means a verdict, whether positive or negative. And here's what he's saying. We know this. Paul is off our maps because Paul, we know, was a man with incredible ballast. He was one of the, I don't think it's so horrible, it'd be hard to argue against this, one of the five, six, seven most influential leaders in the history of the human race. One of the most influential people in the history. He had enormous ballast. He had an enormous ballast. He had

incredible confidence. He moved ahead. Nothing phased him. And yet he says in First Timothy, there's a place where he says, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Not I was chief, I am chief. And that is off of our maps. How can somebody have incredible confidence and say I'm one of the worst people? How can somebody be absolutely honest and aware of all kinds of moral flaws, you have incredible poison confidence. We can't do that. You know why? Because we're judging ourselves. And when Paul says, I don't let you judge me, I don't even judge me. Here's what he means. He says, I know about my sins, but I don't connect them to me and my identity. They're not connected. I don't play that game. I don't see a sin and then say, bad job, so I'm bad.

Oh no, over here. Good job. So I'm good. He says, I get rid of the So am. There's no connection. I don't play that game. I see all kinds of sins. I see all kinds of accomplishments, and they do not connect. That's the reason why, yeah, I'm one of the chief of sinners. That's not going to stop me from doing the things that I'm called to do. And we do not know anything about that. All we know is if I thought I was a bad person and I thought I was a sinner,

if I thought I was filled with pride, and if I thought I was filled with lust, and I thought I was filled with anger and greed and all the things that Paul says he's filled with. I wouldn't have any confidence. No, because you're judging yourself. You set your standards. Congratulations. And now you're condemning yourself. Because the ego will never be satisfied that way. Never. What Paul says is something astounding. I don't care what you think and I don't care what I think. And Paul is bringing us into new territory that we don't know anything about because Paul's ego is not puffed up. it's filled up. And here's what he's saying. He is saying, and this is why I almost hate to use the word

humility, because it's not like anything that you think of as humility or we think of in the world as humility. He is saying, I have come to the place where my ego does not draw any more attention to itself than any other part of my body. I have come to the place where I'm not thinking about myself anymore. When I do something wrong, when I do something right, I don't connect it anymore. I'm not thinking. about myself. That's why C.S. Lewis says, in a fascinating little spot at the very end of his chapter on pride, he says, do not imagine if you meet a truly humble person. Now, he's talking about gospel humility. He's talking about the kind of Christian humility we're talking about here. He says, don't imagine if you met a really humble person, you would ever come away from him

thinking he was humble. He will not be somebody who's always telling you he's a nobody, because, see, that's actually a self-obsessed person. That's a person who's judging himself, either up or down doesn't matter. He says, all you will remember from coming away from a truly humble person is how much he seemed to be totally interested in you. Because the essence of gospel humility is not thinking more of yourself or thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. It's not needing to think about yourself.

It's not needing to connect things. Every conversation. I'm in this room with these people. Does that make me look good? Do I want to be here? I stopped thinking about myself the blessed rest of self-forgetfulness, an ego that's not puffed up but filled up. You know how unique this is? Let me show you. I'll give a couple of examples of this. This is not, in a way, is this high self-esteem? No. Is this low self-esteem? No, certainly not.

But it's not high self-esteem. You stop the game. He just stops it. He doesn't think, he says, I don't care what you i don't care about your opinion but i don't care that much about my opinion and that's the secret so let me give you an example one of the ways you could tell a really truly gospel humble person i know when i start to describe this person you're going to say i've never met anybody like that including you and all right to chay but let me look look at this one mark of a truly humble person in this sense a self-forgetful person not a self-hating person not a self-loving person not a self-loving person person so much, but a self-forgetful person. A person whose ego is like his toes or her toes. It just works, and it doesn't draw attention to itself. Here's one little test. On the one hand,

it would never be hurt that badly by criticism. It would not be devastating. It would not bother you. Would not keep you up late. Why? Because a person who's devastated by criticism, you're putting too much stock in what other people think, right? Other people's opinion. But how does the world heal criticism devastating, you know, thin skinness. How does it heal being thin skin and being devastated by criticism? What you say to yourself is, who cares what those people think? I know what I think. Who cares what the rabble thinks? I know what I think about. And the mark of a, see, you either have people who are devastated by criticism or they're not devastated by criticism, but they don't take it. They don't listen to it. They don't actually listen to it. They don't learn from it because

they say, I don't care about it. The reason it doesn't devastate me is, I know who that I am. I know what I think. I know who I am. In other words, we do not know how to heal low self-esteem except with pride, and they are both horrible nuisances to your own future and to everybody around you. But a person who's self-forgetful, a person whose ego is not puffed up but filled up, when you get criticism, it wouldn't devastate you, but you'd listen to you, say, oh, criticism, an opportunity to change. I mean, I don't know anybody who does that. that. But at least the closer you get to understanding the gospel, as I'll show you here in a second, the more you'd be like that. Friends, wouldn't you want to be somebody who doesn't need honor and

isn't afraid of it? Doesn't lust for recognition or on the other hand be just frightened to death of it? Don't you want to be a kind of person who when you go by a window or a mirror or something, you don't look in, you don't admire what you see and you don't cringe either? Wouldn't you want to have some, wouldn't you want to be the kind of person who in your imaginary life, you don't sit around fantasizing about hitting self-esteem home runs. Oh, if I could do that. Oh, if I could do that. Nor do you ever beat yourself up. Do you ever sit around saying, boy, I was stupid. I was wrong. How could I have done something like that? Wouldn't you like to be free? Wouldn't you like, wouldn't you like to be the skater who wins the silver and yet just be as excited about those three triple jumps?

that the gold medal winner did. You just love it just the way you love a sunrise. You just love the fact that it was done. You don't care that she did it. You don't care if you did it. You're just as happy that she did it as if you did it. Because you're just so happy to see it. He said, I don't know anybody like that.

That's the possibility. If you keep on going where Paul's going, you could actually start to enjoy things. They're not about you. Your work's not about you. Your skating's not about you. Your romance is not about you. Your dating's not about you.

you can actually enjoy things for what they are. They're not just for your resume. They're not just to look good on your application. They're not just a way of filling up the emptiness. Wouldn't you want that? This is off the map. This is gospel humility. Blessed self-forgetfulness.

Not thinking more of yourself like in modern cultures or thinking less of yourself like in traditional, you know, regimented cultures. It's thinking of yourself less. Now, how do you get it? How did Paul get it? Well, he actually tells you, though you have to read kind of closely, yet he does. He says, number one, I don't care what you think.

Number two, I don't care what I think. I don't look to you for the verdict and I don't look to me for the verdict. And then, instead of jumping too quickly, you've got to read more carefully. He says, my conscience is clear. In other words, he's saying, you know, even if my conscience is clear, that does not make me innocent. That's what the translation says. but the word is that does not justify me. And the word he uses is the word justified. The same word he uses all through Romans, the same word he uses all through Galatians. And here's what he's saying.

He says, what Madonna's looking for, what we're all looking for, is an ultimate verdict that we're important and that we're valuable. And every time we think we've done it, it doesn't seem to be there. And what that means is the world, Every single day, we go to trial. We're in a courtroom every day.

You notice how Paul says, I don't care what you think about me or what any human court thinks. Now, that is odd. They're not a court. The people he's writing to aren't a court. Why would he say, I don't care about what you think or any human court? He's talking, I think, metaphorically. And what he's trying to say is the problem with self-esteem, high or low, the problem with the way almost everybody's normal identity works. is that every single day you're in the courtroom, you're on trial, and there's prosecution,

and there's defense. And everything you do, you're stamping evidence for the prosecution, evidence for the defense. And some days, you feel like you're winning the trial, and some days you feel like you're losing a trial. And Paul says, I have found the secret, the trial's over for me. I'm out of the courtroom. It's gone. It's over. Because the ultimate verdict is in. Now, how could that be? He says it very simple. You cannot justify me. I cannot justify me. I cannot myself. What does he say? It is the Lord who judges me. His opinion only counts. And in Jesus Christ, and only in the gospel of Jesus Christ, do you get the verdict before the performance? Do you see this? The reason, it doesn't, whether you're an atheist, you say, well, I get myself image from just being a

very good person, fine. What you mean is, if I'm a good person, if I'm a good person, if I'm a good person, eventually I hope for some kind of verdict that I'm a good person. In other words, performance. leads to the verdict. If you're a Buddhist, performance leads to the verdict. If you're a Muslim, performance leads to the verdict, which means every day you're in the courtroom, every day you're on trial. That's the problem. But Paul says, in Christianity, the verdict leads to performance. The performance does not lead to the verdict. Christianity, when the minute I believe, God says, you are my beloved in whom I'm well pleased. The verdict is in. Now, Romans 8, chapter 1, chapter 8 verse 1 now there is no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus the verdict is in

and now i perform on the basis of the verdict he loves me he accepts me now i don't have to do things just to build my resume i don't have to do things to make me look good i can do things to do things i can help people to help people not so i can feel better about myself not so i can fill up the emptiness every other form of identity which you say what's going to make me have a sense of worth is I'm, you know, I'm liberal or I'm a conservative. I'm a good person. I'm a free person. Whatever. I'm religious. I'm moral. Whatever. It's always the performance leads to the verdict. But the verdict is never there. It never comes. Madonna said so, and she ought to know. Madonna has done things that you're never going to do, and it's still not enough.

Madonna is more talented than anybody in this room. Madonna is, guts here than anybody in this room. She's done all kinds of stuff, and she says, guess what? I've gone way beyond anything that you've ever done. Guess what? The ultimate verdict that I'm looking for is not come yet. But Christianity, instead of the performance leading to the verdict, which it never does, the verdict can lead to the performance. How could that be?

And here's the answer. Paul's out of the courtroom. Paul's out of the trial because Jesus went to trial. Because Jesus went into the courtroom. Because Jesus Christ became a lamb that was sheared. It was like dumb before it's shearers. and he was struck in his trial, and it was a kangaroo trial, and it was an unjust trial, and he was put to death.

Why? As our substitute, he took the condemnation we deserved. He took the trial we deserve, so we don't have to have any more trial. So the minute I say, Lord God, accept me because of what Jesus has done, then the only person's opinion who counts looks at me and finds me more valuable than all the jewels that are under the earth. How can you worry about being snubbed now? How can you worry about being ignored now? How can you care that much about what it looks like in the mirror?

You say, I wish I believed this, and here's the only thing I can say at the end. There's some people here who hopefully have never understood the difference between Christian identity and any other kind. They say, well, you're a Christian. That means you're very good. to church and you hope that someday God will take you in. Don't, don't, don't, uh-huh. The Christian identity operates totally different than any other kind of identity. That's the reason why it leads to this blessed self-forgetfulness.

It takes you out of the courtroom. It takes you the trials over. The verdict is in. Some of you have never seen that. Go find out what that means. Figure out the parts. I mean, I went fast. You said, well, why does Jesus have to die?

There's a lot more to it. If you're new, stay and keep coming until you understand the whole picture. There's a whole lot of others of you that. say, you know, I believe everything you said, of course, I've been coming for years, and every day I find myself being sucked back into the courtroom. And I'm not living like Paul says, and not living the way Paul is, I'm getting sucked back in. All I can tell you is, you have to relive the gospel every time you pray, every time you come to church, and you have to relive the gospel on the spot. You have to say, what am I doing in this courtroom? Court is adjourned. I don't care what you think.

I don't even care what I think. I only care what the Lord thinks. And he has said, you are my beloved child in whom I'm well pleased. Live out of that. Let us pray. Give us what we need, Father, to develop this blessed self-forgetfulness. This is not really pride, of course, but it's not even the kind of, it's not low self-esteem, it's not high self-esteem. It's so hard to even describe.

we just ask that you would help us to pull it into our own lives and begin to practice it. Think of how different we would be. Think of how free we would be. Show us how we can make this more central. Show us how we can live out of it. Help us to be everything that we can be in Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and 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, visit gospelonlife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2002. 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.