Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Building Up the Body

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

In Ephesians 4, we find a pretty remarkable argument. The argument has three parts. The flow of the argument is that even though we have the life of the trinity in us, we live in spiritual immaturity until we’re willing to do the hard work of developing and creating unity in the church. Let’s take a look at each part: 1) the life of the trinity, 2) we live in spiritual immaturity, and 3) do the hard work of developing and creating unity in the church. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 4, 2011. Series: A Study of Ephesians: Who is the Church? Scripture: Ephesians 4:1–16. 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.

Thanks for listening to Gospel in Life. Today, Tim Keller is taking us through a series on the book of Ephesians, a book that is all about what it means to be Christian and what it means to live in unity with other believers. After you listen, we invite you to go online to Gospelinlife.com and sign up for our email updates. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. Tonight's scripture comes from the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 1 through 16. As a prisoner for the Lord then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body, one

Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. That is why it says, when he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men. What does he ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions. He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. It was he who gave some to, excuse me, it was he who gave some to be apostles, some

to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then, we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into

him who is the head, that is Christ. From him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work." This is the word of the Lord. Now we're in the book of Ephesians and one of the advantages of looking at a large passage like this is the flow of the argument hangs together and is pretty amazing in this case. The argument of this passage has three parts to it. The first paragraph or so says one thing, the second paragraph says another thing, and the third paragraph builds on the other two.

And here's the flow. The flow of the argument is even though we have the life of the Trinity in us, even though we have the life of the Trinity, we live in spiritual immaturity Even though we have the life of the Trinity, we live in spiritual immaturity until we do the hard work of creating unity in the church. Though we have the life of the Trinity, we live in spiritual maturity until we're willing to do the hard work of developing and creating unity in the church. It's a pretty remarkable argument,

and let's take a look at each of the passage, each part of it. Each one we're gonna take a little bit more time on. First of all, the life of the Trinity. What is a Christian? Paul actually told us that in chapter two, when he said, God who is rich in mercy made us alive together with Christ

and raised us up and seated us in the heavenly places. Here we're told even more about that. Down in verse 15 it says, Christ, when you become a Christian, Christ is your head and you're the body. And you know, a head is not just stapled onto the rest of the body, unless you're Frankenstein. The head and the body share the same life.

They share the same circulation system, nervous system, the same life. And up in verse four, five, and six, it actually tells us what brings us together is we share the same spirit, we share the same Lord, that's Jesus Christ, and we share the same God and Father of all. And because the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

are in us through the Spirit, that means we have the life of the Trinity, the life of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, comes into us. What makes you a Christian is not just that you're a nice person or a moral person or that you believe the Bible, though that's all true. What makes you a Christian is you have the life of God in you. And this

means, boy, never think of Christianity as mainly just a way of life. It's not just a way of being good and nice and kind and caring for the poor and being a person of integrity. Of course it's all that, but that's not the essence of it. Don't insult the gospel and don't insult yourself by thinking of Christianity mainly as nice people. You're not nice. Becoming a Christian means you become new.

You're not just nice, you're new. You're alive and you have the life of the Trinity in you. There's this great power that's come into your life and you're awake. You're seated in the heavenly places. You're raised up. It's a huge thing. So this great life of the Trinity has come into you. That's the first point. But here's the second point. And it's in this middle part of the passage. And I'm not going gonna talk about all the stuff about spiritual gifts, because in verses seven, eight, nine, and 10, because in the early part of this year,

in the early part of the fall, I mean, we actually spent a couple of weeks on the idea that God gives every Christian a spiritual gift or spiritual gifts, these are abilities to minister to one another. And verse 11 tells us that there are certain, the leaders in a church are equipers, pastors and teachers and evangelists are people who have equipping gifts who know how to equip the rest of the church for works of service which is ministry. In other words, every Christian

has a gift of ministry. And the leaders of the church are people who equip the Christians to do ministry to each other. We spend a lot of time on that. That's all you're going to get right now from that middle section. But what is the purpose of all this ministry? All the ministry is going on in the church. All the ministry is going on in Redeemer. What's the purpose of it? Paul says, it's all to prepare God's people for works of service, verse 12, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we reach what? Until we become, verse 13, mature. All those phrases and all those prepositional phrases and modifiers and clauses, it's all about becoming mature, spiritually mature,

attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Everything that happens in the church is about preparing spiritual maturity. But if that's the case, then it means we're all immature, or we wouldn't need the church, or that wouldn't be the job of the church. And so Paul doesn't just put this in a positive way, he puts it in a negative way in verse 14,

and he says, then we will no longer be infants. We are spiritual babies, and the reason we need to be part of the church is because otherwise we stay infants. And I want you to notice how radical this statement is. Paul is saying we will no longer be infants. We need the ministry of the church. We need to be ministering to each other.

We need prophets and apostles and evangelists and pastors and teachers to equip the saints so all the Christians are doing ministry. But all this is going on so that we may no longer be children. That's Paul talking. He's an apostle. And what that means is Paul is saying even he, an apostle, is spiritually immature. It falls short of being mature, being like Christ. And if that means that everyone, even the greatest of Christians, are immature, and that means that most of us are really immature. I mean, if Paul's able to say, we infants,

then what about the rest of us? If Paul's a toddler, we're all about three hours old. Now let's stop here for a second, let's see what he's saying. Isn't this amazing, an amazing contrast? You have the life of the Trinity in you. You have the life of God in you. And that has made you into a spiritual baby.

A spiritual baby. First Peter two and one, if you go to the end of First Peter one, it says we're born again, and then the beginning of First Peter two, it says therefore're born again, and then the beginning of First Peter two, it says therefore we're like newborn babies. And what that means is this enormous thing that comes into our lives, the divine nature, the nature of the Trinity, when it comes in

does not create a full-blown spiritual adult, it creates a spiritual baby. Now what does it mean to be a spiritual baby, an infant? It's not good to stay an infant, of course. Infants are alive, and that's really important. In fact, infants are as alive as they ever will be. Infants grow. You know, infants, and you, in fact,

infants grow faster and better than we do, the rest that you do later on. So it's not like, I mean, the point is that when you become a Christian, you get this new life, and you're an infant, and that this new life and you're an infant and that's good. But to stay an infant is horrible and very, very wrong. And therefore, Paul says, we don't wanna be to stay infants.

Now what does it mean to be a spiritual baby? Well, Paul alludes to some things here that would be helpful. Let me give you three marks of being a spiritual infant or a spiritually immature. The first one, you can see right on the top, then we will no longer be inference and then he describes it, blown here and there by every wind of teaching. Now that means the first mark of spiritual maturity is that

like real babies you're not discerning. Real babies say here's good food, here's bad food, you're not discerning. Real babies say, here's good food, here's bad food, here's poison. Ow! You know, babies can't discern. Doesn't matter, just give it to me. They can't discern. Say, no, no, mustn't eat poison or you'll be dead,

so you just keep it away from them. They have no discernment. Paul says that's how spiritual babies are too. Because when it comes to teaching, you can't tell good teaching from kind of dumb teaching to poisonous teaching. And therefore, unless you know your way around the Bible, unless you're theologically astute,

you're a spiritual infant. Let me give you another mark of spiritual babyness. Secondly, we all know that physical babies, real babies, are incredibly self-centered. This is probably the reason why Paul says up in verse two, be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. So he's concerned about their spiritual maturity,

and so he says, be humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Real babies are utterly self-centered. They want what they want, when they want it, now, it doesn't matter. And of course, as they get a little bit older, you have to teach them, share your toys, and don't just grab somebody else's food.

You have to train them that there are other human beings in the world. That their desires are not the only desires there are. So physical babies are very self-centered and spiritual babies are too. Spiritual babies are always thinking about themselves. You're always getting your feelings hurt. You're always feeling slighted.

You're always conscious of how are people looking at me or thinking about me or treating me or am I being treated rightly or not? It's not fair. I'm not being treated fairly. You're always absorbed with yourself. You're always thinking about yourself. You're not thinking about other people.

You can't take criticism. You can't admit where you've done wrong. You're concerned about your image or how you look. You're a spiritual baby. So spiritual babies are undiscerning. Spiritual babies are self-centered. Also, spiritual babies are undiscerning. Spiritual babies are self-centered. Also spiritual babies are last of all they are they're not steady. They're back and forth. Notice

then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth. Boy that's by the way one of the reasons why I'm kind of up on babies right now is my wife and I've had a refresher course in babies because we have a granddaughter. And so one of the other things I noticed about infants or babies are that they have a short attention span. The only way you can get them to sort of pay attention for about 10 seconds is if the object is lights,

sparks, music, action. And for 10 seconds the child go, ooh, like that, and then suddenly, okay, give me something else. I mean, you know, it's like, and they go from being, they laugh and then they're suddenly so upset and then they're bored. I mean, they just, they cannot keep their attention on things, all right?

They can't. Of course, they're babies and everybody's okay with that. But spiritually, what does that mean? If you come to church services and you get really convicted, I'm really gonna change that, and you don't follow through, you're a spiritual baby. Or if you're not able just to give, just do your duty to God,

whether or not things are going well in your life, whether or not you're having good feelings, but you just do it because you're steady, because you're enduring, because you're patient. You know, if you can't do that, if you don't know anything about a long obedience in the same direction, if you constantly need God to intervene and come up with great new answers to prayers, you're a spiritual baby. You know the place where Jesus sent out his disciples and he gave them power to cast out demons and heal people. Remember that?

This is in Luke chapter 10. And it worked. And they came back and they were excited. It was really funny. They came back and they said, oh Lord, even the demons are subject to our name. I can knock out demons, okay. Even the demons are subject to our name.

And you know what Jesus says? He kind of pushes back. And he says, rejoice not that the demons are subject to you, but that your names are written in heaven. You know what he's saying? He's saying, grow up. What he's saying is, don't get all excited that today God's answering your prayers and you're seeing great things. He says, rejoice that your names are

written in heaven. What does that mean? You're saved. You're pardoned. You're accepted. Your names are already written in heaven. He says you should every day get infinite joy out of what God's already done for you. Whether he does anything else good for you or not, that you should always be happy. Don't be looking for the spectacular. Don't be saying to God, what have you done for me lately? What have you done for me lately? You're a spiritual baby. Or put positively, if you are a person of spiritual maturity, you are very astute in the scripture, you're theologically very wise and discerning. Secondly, you're not self-centered, you're not always thinking about yourself, you're

serving other people, you're quick to admit where you're wrong, you're not self-conscious, you're not always worried about, you're not always getting your feelings hurt. And if you're mature, you're a person of steadiness, a person who's not up and down. When you make a decision, you follow through, you know how to handle suffering, you know how to continue to be faithful and enduring and obedient even when things don't go well. And you see, Paul rightly says, even he's not, Scott, to all that. He's not as mature as he ought to be. And if Paul's not, if even Paul says, we are infants, then where's the rest of us?

It's easy to assume that if we understand the gospel and preach it faithfully, we will be shaped by it. But this is not always true. How can we make sure that our lives, churches, and ministries are being shaped by, centered on, and empowered with the gospel? Tim Keller's book, Shaped by the Gospel, is meant to help congregants, lay leaders, and pastors understand how to make the gospel the center of all ministry. In Shaped by the Gospel, Dr. Keller shows how gospel-centered ministry is more theologically driven than program driven. As you read, you'll discover how reflecting on the essence, the truths, and the patterns

of the gospel lead to renewal in your churches and ministries. This month when you give to Gospel in Life, we'll send you Dr. Keller's book, Shaped by the Gospel, as our thanks for your gift. Just visit Gospelinlife.com slash give. That's Gospelinlife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity, which helps us reach more people with Christ's love. Now, if this is all true,

we have to move on to say what we're supposed to do about it. Let me just say, if this is true, that this great life of God comes down into our hearts, but creates only spiritual babies who then have to grow, then there's two opposite things that we're gonna have to keep in tension, two truths. The first is you should not be shocked at the immaturity of other believers. I mean, I know plenty of Christians that come into churches

and they're just shocked by how immature people are. Well, I want you to consider this. Spiritually speaking, every church will be filled with babies. In fact, when Paul even himself says, relatively speaking, he's a baby, that means every church is filled with, spiritually speaking, poopy diapers. Okay, now some services, usually not the 715, but some services are filled with literal poopy diapers, but that's not what I'm talking about. Do you know what I'm saying? Think about it. I don't want to have to. Why do you get surprised when Christians around you, you know, act immature? You're not saved

by being mature. You're not saved by having it all together. You're saved by grace. And when the divine life comes down into people, it turns people into babies who have a long way to go. The difference between a one day old and a 30 year old is enormous. And the difference between an immature Christian, which is where most of us are,

and what we ought to be, mature in Christ, is absolutely enormous. So why are you surprised? Why are you surprised by immature behavior? Why are you surprised by the poopy diapers around you? Don't get all bent out of shape about it. People aren't saved by being mature. They're saved by grace. But on the other hand, here's the other truth. Don't you dare put up with spiritual immaturity in yourself. Be very unsurprised when you see it in other people. But don't you dare just acquiesce in it. Of course we all start as babies.

But the whole point is we don't want to stay there. And so if you've got things in your life that haven't changed, you just haven't grown. You haven't changed. You've got bad attitudes, life that haven't changed, you just haven't grown. You haven't changed. You've got bad attitudes, you've got bad habits, you've got flaws, and you say, well, I know I shouldn't be, but that's just the way I am. Don't you know what's in you? It's the life of God, it's the power of God.

You think whatever's wrong with you is any match for that? Of course it's not. So you don't just acquiesce in it, you don't just put up with it, because you gotta grow. Somebody once said, being a Christian is like riding a bicycle, you gotta move forward or you fall off. Being a Christian is like being an egg, you gotta hatch or you go bad.

And therefore I would suggest every few months you get out these two questions and you ask these questions and here's what they are. Number one, are you humbler, happier, more self controlled and do you have more inner peace than you did last year at this time? See if you're growing out of your immaturity, are you humbler, happier, more self controlled and do you have more inner peace than you had last year at this time? That's the first question. The second question is,

do you have the courage to ask somebody who knows you whether this is the case or not? Do you have the courage to go to somebody who really knows you well and say, hey, would you say that I'm actually getting humbler, happier, more self-controlled, and characterized by more inner peace? And they're gonna look at you and say, are you kidding?

And it won't be easy, but that's the start for you saying, I don't want to stay an infant. I don't want to stay an infant. Now, how can we, in spite of having the life of the Trinity, we are all characterized by spiritual maturity. So how do we get out of it? And the answer is, and I think even though I always, We are all characterized by spiritual maturity. So how do we get out of it? And the answer is, and I think, even though I always,

I mean, I can't tell you how many times over the 35 years or whatever I've been doing this, I've been teaching and preaching on Ephesians four, I've never seen it until this week, how strongly this message comes through. Paul says, there is no growing into spiritual maturity just by you working on yourself as an individual. It's through deep involvement in a church community

and through the increasing of the unity and the closeness of the relationships inside the Christian community that you will grow into maturity. I mean, I don't know how much stronger it could be. Let me just show you. First of all, look how he defines maturity in verse 13. Until we reach what?

He runs these together. Unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature. How do you become mature? By growing in unity. That is, the other people in the church, as you become more and more one in your faith and in your experience, that's what knowledge

of the Son of God, the more one you become more and more one in your faith and in your experience, that's what, knowledge of the Son of God, the more one you become, the more unified you are, the closer and deeper your relationships get, the more you grow in maturity. Not only that, and this is a little bit esoteric, but in the Greek, Paul does a very strange locution, because in verse 13, it doesn't actually say till we become mature.

It says as we grow in unity in the faith and in the experience of the Son of God, we become one mature man. We become the mature man. It's a singular. It's very strange and that's why no translation translates it literally because it's almost like Paul's, he's making a point, why?

Because if you're immature, you that's plural but if you're mature you're a you're a person that's singular in other words the more you become one the more you become one you become like him it's really powerful and then of course the whole rest of the paragraph says it says we will in all things grow up into him when the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. Now, let me just press you on this.

Because it's not just the life of God in you, but the life of the triune God in you, it makes sense that this life will only grow in its influence but the life of the triune God in you, it makes sense that this life will only grow in its influence in your life if you are reflecting the pattern of the triune God. This isn't just God. This is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The biblical God is a community of persons inside one being, and in that community there's perfect harmony, perfect love, perfect communication, perfect oneness. They absolutely serve one another, love one another, absolute oneness. And what that means of course is it's very simple. If you want to become like God, if you want to have this divine life grow

and you grow into maturity, it only happens when that life of the Trinity is reflected in this life in the community. And that means, by the way, you cannot just drop in on church and expect that you're going to grow. That means, of course, you also can't be on the outs with people. That is, if you've got people, do you realize how absolutely outrageous and inappropriate it is for you to have a life of the Trinity in you and yet there's some people around that you avoid because you're kind of on the outs with them, how dare we do that?

So the basic principle is you have to have this tight and close community, but the specific practice and the key to growing maturity through community is right there in verse 15. And I want everybody here to remember it. I want the rest of your life for you to realize this is what you need more than anything else. It says in verse 15, speaking the truth and love,

we will in all things grow up into him who is our head, the Christ. Speaking the truth and love, that's it. There's the practice. You will not grow, I will not grow, unless I'm plunged into a community of people that have this perfect balance of truth and love in their speaking. Speaking the truth and love means absolute honesty, but an honesty saturated with the sweetness and tenderness and goodwill of love. Absolute honesty, but saturated with sweetness, just overflowing with tenderness.

And you realize that is what you need more than anything else. You need this mixture, this incredible perfect balance of truth and love together. Because without it, we spiritually die. What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, think of this. Love without truth is deadly.

When you say, well, I love people, but I don't wanna tell them the truth because I don't wanna hurt, and we'll get to that in a second. If you say I'm loving them, but you're not telling the truth, it's deadly. You know why? Nobody, you can't, people can't,

we can't know ourselves unless somebody from the truth, it's deadly. You know why? Nobody, you can't, people can't, we can't know ourselves unless somebody from the outside, a person with another eye, tells us. I'll show you how old I am, but you know, years ago, it was fairly unusual to hear yourself on a tape recorder or hear yourself, you know, in some other kind of recording. But I remember when I was a teenager hearing myself on a tape recorder. I remember even in the early days of our ministry hearing myself on a tape recorder of a sermon, turning to my wife, we were pretty newlywed. And I remember turning to my parents, I remember turning to my wife and I was saying, gee, Wiz, what was wrong? Did I have a sore

throat? Was I sick? Why does my voice sound so high and tinny and whiny? And everybody said, that's how you always sound. And the reason why when you see yourself or hear yourself on a recording, it always makes you want to gag, is because you actually don't hear yourself. I hear myself right now through the bones in my neck. I do not hear myself the way I really am.

Nobody can see themselves or hear themselves except through the vantage point of an outside eye, set of eyes or ears. And if you say, if you live in a place where people love you and will not tell you the truth about yourself, you will not have self-knowledge, you will not grow, you will not become the person you need to be. But if you get truth without love,

see, love without truth is deadly, but truth without love is deadly, you know why? Because when you tell people the truth, but you're abrasive, you're not loving, or you're just cold, just cold as a fish, and you're not loving. That other person is actually not only not gonna listen to the truth, that person's gonna harden their heart, they're gonna make up, they're just not gonna listen at all.

You're actually gonna drive them further from the truth. Truth without love does not accomplish truth. Love without truth does not accomplish love. But, so that's the first point. Unless you have love and truth together, we can't grow. In fact, we're gonna spiritually die without love and truth together. We need to be plunged into a community

filled with speaking the truth and love. That's point one. Point two, though, is that nobody in this room, including me, is capable of keeping that together. Some of us are nice people who tend to love without truth, temperamentally. Some people are direct people, and we tend to to love without truth, temperamentally. Some people are direct people and we tend to tell the truth without love, temperamentally, but you know why?

None of us can keep truth and love together because of our selfishness and our sin. Why do those of us who tend to be more loving fail to tell the truth? Because we're afraid the person will be mad at us and hurt us, or we'll be be crushed and then will feel guilty. And the reason we are not telling the truth is pride, selfishness, self-centeredness.

And that's the reason why we're withholding the truth from people, okay? What about those of us who tell the truth well, but we're not very loving? You know why? It's your motivation. We tell the truth but we want to put them down. We tell the truth but we want to put them down. We tell the truth but we want to show them who's right.

We tell the truth but we like winning arguments. We tell the truth but we have motivations that are basically selfish. We like to show off how much we know. We like to show that we're right. We like to put the person down. If you tell the truth without love, it's because you're not really concerned with the truth,

you're concerned with yourself. If you give love without telling the truth, it's because you're not really loving them, it's because you're concerned with yourself. And because of our self-centeredness, because of our sin, nobody is capable of mixing truth and love in the balance that we need.

Isn't that awful? You see, this is a huge dilemma. We can't spiritually grow or live without truth and love, and we're not capable of giving it to each other. What's the solution? What do you think? Do you know what the gospel of Jesus Christ is? First of all, on the cross, why did Jesus die?

First of all, because of the truth. And the truth is, we are sinners, because of the truth. And the truth is we are sinners and we are lost. And unless someone pays for that sin, we are lost eternally. But on the other hand, there's also love. Jesus went to the cross because he loved us. Now I want you to consider that that is the most amazing and strongest truth anybody could possibly give you and the most amazing message of love anybody could give you at the same time. Why? When Jesus Christ went to the cross,

it was the most insulting thing that anyone's ever said to you. When Jesus went to the cross, he was saying, you are so lost, you are so messed up, you are so condemned, nothing less than the death of the Son of God can save you. But when he went to the cross, he was also saying, I love you so condemned, nothing less than the death of the Son of God can save you. But when he went to the cross, he was also saying, I love you so much, you are a person of such worth and value that I'm willing to die for you.

Now, you know what that means? Unless you see the magnitude of this truth, how lost you are, it's really hard to accept. But unless you see the magnitude of that truth, you will not see the amazing love, the magnitude of the love. Some years ago, a woman went into a business. Two women were friends and one woman went into business for herself.

And after a while, she really screwed up, she made some really bad moves, and next thing you know, her income was this big, and her expenses every month were this big. And so she unburdened her heart to her friend, and her friend said, part of your problem is, you're a lousy bookkeeper, and I'll come in, and I'll do the books each month.

But I want you to know, I also will Supply the difference between your income and your expenses. I'll make good your debts each month Well, the first woman was so incredibly happy about that, but you know what she was somewhat in denial She didn't realize how big a debt she was in She didn't realize how bad things were and she didn't really want to to see, so she just let her friend come in, do the books, and start paying every month, and she was grateful, but then one day, she went in, and she opened the books, and she looked up, and she saw exactly how much of a mess she had made of her business.

She saw how big the discrepancy was. She saw how much her friend was doing, and in tears, she went to her, and she said to her friend, because I didn't realize what an incredible mess I am because I didn't realize how big my mistakes and my flaws were because I didn't realize how much I'd messed up I had no idea how much you were loving me until you see that you're lost and on your way to hell which is the message of the cross, that you're that condemned.

You will not understand the magnitude of his love, but until you understand the magnitude of his love, you won't be able to accept that truth, that you're that lost. Unless you know you're that loved, you won't accept that you're that lost. Until you know you're that lost, you won't understand the magnitude of his love.

The gospel is the ultimate message of truth and love, but if you explain understand it and you take it in and you realize he did this for you on the cross, that humbles you out of ever telling the truth abrasively and it affirms you out of your need to always please people and therefore you'll speak the truth in love exactly the way you need to and we'll become a community of people in which speaking the truth in love, we are no longer infants. We've got to make that community happen here and you've got

to be part of making it happen and you've got to also be the recipient of the blessing of being in a community like that. Let's pray. Our Father, we're so grateful to you that you have given us so much. And one of the things you've given us is your life, and yet that life only turns us into babies. We need to do something about that, and that means we need to be part of a great community in which we speak the truth and love to each other. Help us to be a community like that. Help us to be part of a great community in which we speak the truth and love to each other. Help us to be a community like that.

Help us to be like that. Because we know it'll turn us into people more like your son. And it's in his name that we pray, amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. We trust you were encouraged by it and that it gives you a deeper appreciation for God's grace and helps you apply it to your life. You can find more resources from Tim Keller by subscribing to our quarterly journal at GospelandLife.com. When you subscribe,

you'll receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other valuable resources. We also invite you to stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was recorded in 2011. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.