Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Can a Mother Forget?

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Isaiah 49 gives a sweeping, panoramic view of God’s salvation. But immediately following that promise, there’s a fascinating skeptical response. This is the second of the Servant songs, a prophecy about the Servant of the Lord, who the New Testament writers identify as Jesus. In it, it shows that there’s a salvation soon… and then eventually… and then ultimately. But to this view, Israel skeptically says, “There are all these promises of loving action, but I don’t feel loved.” And God responds. Let’s look at these verses to see 1) a painful question, 2) an answer to the question, 3) a cure for the pain. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 7, 2010. Series: The Songs of the Servant (from Isaiah). Scripture: Isaiah 49:1-16. 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.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. If someone asked you what Jesus' mission on earth was, what would you say? Today Tim Keller is preaching from the book of Isaiah to help us understand the mission and purpose of Christ while he was on earth, and how it can transform our lives today. Thank you for joining us. This morning's Scripture reading is from Isaiah chapter 49 verses 1 through 16. Listen to me you islands, hear this you distant nations. Before I was born the Lord called me. From my birth he has made mention of my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword. In the hollow of his hand he hid me. He made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, You are my servant Israel in whom I will display my splendor.

But I said, I have labored to no purpose. I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing. Yet what is do me is in the Lord's hand, and my reward is with my God." And now the Lord says, He who formed me in the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to Himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has been my strength. He says, It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. This is what the Lord says, the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation to the servant of rulers, kings will see you and rise up, princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you. This is what the Lord says, in the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you.

I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land, and to reassign its desolate inheritances. To say to the captives, Come out, and to those in darkness, Be free. They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill. They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water. I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up. See they will come from afar, some from the north, some from the west, some from the region

of Aswan. Shout for joy, O heavens, rejoice, O earth, burst into song, O mountains, for the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me. Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are ever before me." This is the word of the Lord.

In the weeks up to Easter as a church, we're going to be focusing on this question, why did Jesus come into the world? What was his mission? What did he come to do? And what we're going to be doing during these weeks is looking at the final chapters or the last chapters, late chapters of Isaiah, because in the prophecy of Isaiah a mysterious figure called the servant of the Lord is prophesied, predicted, and he's going to bring salvation into the world, and the New Testament writers repeatedly identify this servant of the Lord as Jesus. And this is the second of the servant songs. Last week we looked at Isaiah 42. This is 49. And verses 1 to 13 is a sweeping, panoramic, comprehensive statement of the salvation that God is going to bring into the world through the servant.

Now look carefully. You'll see there's a salvation soon and then eventually and then ultimately because in verse 5 and verse 8 it says to the Jews who at that point were in exile in Babylon, the guy's going to bring the Jews back. He's going to bring Israel back and the desolate inheritances of the land will be restored. But he goes beyond that. In verse 6, which is so striking, he says, it is too small a thing for you to be my servant and restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you will bring my salvation to the ends

of the earth. And he says, I have greater ideas of salvation than just return of the Jews from exile. As great as that's going to be, I'm going to bring salvation to all the nations of the earth. And in verse 12, you see that vividly described, because in verse 12 it says that when through the servant God begins to gather his people together, notice they don't just come from the east, from Babylon, which is where they would have come from, to go back to Jerusalem. They come from the north, and they come from the west, and they come from Aswan in the south, which means eventually, God says, I'm going to bring my salvation to all peoples. I'm going to draw believers

from every nation. I'm going to create an international, multi-ethnic people of God. But when you get down to verse 13, and we talked about this last week, when the mountains are actually rejoicing, we have a vision of the new heavens and new earth in which everything, all suffering, all decay, all disease, and even death is put away. So there's my salvation coming soon, and here's the salvation coming later, and here's the salvation coming ultimately. It's panoramic and sweeping.

But I don't want to look at verses 1 to 13. I want, just for the rest of our time, to look at verses 14, 15, and 16, because there we have a fascinating skeptical response. It says, but Zion has said, now Zion was a little hill in Jerusalem, within Jerusalem, where the temple was built, but the temple had been destroyed, you know, and when the Babylonians had come in and knocked, and sacked the city. the Zion, the hill had become a way of speaking about not only Jerusalem, but all of Israel. So to say, Zion said it means Israel says. And in spite of this panoramic promise of salvation, in verse 14 we see Israel saying,

skeptically, but I don't feel loved. All these promises of loving action, but I don't feel loved. And in verse 15 and 16, we see God responding. And I would like to look at this, because I think verse 14 is a very, very typical condition that we find ourselves in. And therefore, looking to see how God deals with it is incredibly practical. So let's look at verse 14, which is a painful question. Verse 15, which is an answer to the question, and verse 16, which is a cure for the pain. Verse 14, a painful question. Verse 15, an answer to the question, and verse 16, a cure for the pain. First, let's take a look at the painful question. But Zion says, the Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.

Look at all these promises. Look at verse 1 to 13. It's amazing. But here's what the people are saying. Yes, salvation soon, salvation eventually, salvation ultimately. But what about now? See? It says, I feel forsaken. You've forsaken, forgot me. I'm surrounded by needs now. I've got needs now.

I'm surrounded by tragedy now. Look at Zion. Zion is in ruins now. And the temple was our assurance that you love us, and therefore we have no assurance that you love us. You don't love us. You just don't. This skeptical question represents a very important condition of the human heart that we need to look at. You know what? What is that condition? It's this. Do you notice that they don't actually, in verse 14, say, we don't believe all these predictions? You know, verse 14 says, well, I don't even believe in God, nor do they say,

these things aren't ever going to happen. No, I think they believe it. There's no indication they don't believe it, but it doesn't affect them. It doesn't affect them now. It is possible for the human heart to live in the presence of truth that you believe and it not affect the way in which you feel or live at all. It's possible to say, and I see this all the time, in fact, I think this is true of many, many, many of us, and in fact it's true of all of us sometimes. That we say with our head, oh, I believe in a God of love. I even believe in the biblical God of love, but it doesn't affect the way in which we live at all. It doesn't affect how we are.

It doesn't affect how we feel about ourselves or our life. It doesn't shape us. Richard Lovelace, my old teacher in one of his books, said, it is an item of faith that we are children of God, but there is plenty of experience in us against that. So the faith that surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God's love instead of stealing love and self-acceptance from other sources is actually the very root of holiness. It's an item of faith that we're children of God.

There's evidence against it. The faith that surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God's love instead of stealing love and self-acceptance from other resources is the root of holiness. What is he saying? He's talking about this very condition we see here in verse 14. He says, we may say, oh, I believe I'm a child of God.

I believe God loves me. But he says, there's all kinds of evidence against that. There's evidence inside you that's against that. Sometimes you see stuff in there. You say, I don't know how God would love me considering what I feel or am or have done. There's also a lot of evidence outside, which is unanswered prayers and terrible disappointments. And so he says, yeah, we believe we're children of God.

We may believe with our head. We subscribe to the belief that the God, even maybe the God of the Bible, is a God of love. I believe in that. He says, but I see all the unanswered prayers around me. I see all the failings inside me and therefore, I said, I don't feel in any way. This love of God is not a reality to my heart. It doesn't transform my affections in the way in which my heart operates. And therefore, Richard Lovelace says, you can't just live with that.

Because if you don't surmount that evidence, if you don't find a way to get over that, if you don't find a way to move beyond just mental subscription to doctrine, to heart-affecting, life-changing transformation of your life by that doctrine, you're going to steal self-acceptance and love from other sources. So you're going to say, oh, I believe God loves me. Your heart doesn't believe that. And as a result, what does He mean by stealing? You're going to choose careers poorly.

You're going to stay in relationships you shouldn't be in. You're going to overwork. You're going to do all kinds of stuff because at bottom you really have to steal love and steal a sense of your acceptability from all these other sources because you're getting none from the thing you say you believe and one way you do and another way you don't. That is that God loves you. That's why this has to be addressed. And of course this sense, you know, when things are kind of going well, the fact that our mental belief in God's

love is not affecting us doesn't necessarily create a problem. But the minute things go poorly, then suddenly this painful question, I feel forsaken. I feel forgotten. No matter what the Bible says. And even though I actually kind of believe it, I don't sense it. So there's the painful question. So how does God deal with this? How does God deal with this despondency, the sense of forsakenness and of being forgotten? Well, as I said, there's two things He does. He gives an answer to the question and a cure for the pain. First, the answer to the question in verse 15. Can a mother forget the baby at her breast? Can a nursing mother forget the baby at her breast? Can a nursing mother forget the baby at her breast? Though she may forget, I will not forget you.

Now this wonderful verse, I want to stand back for a minute before I actually look at what he says, and I want you to see the principles about, that this embodies about how God deals with a despondent, despairing person. First of all, I want you to see something God doesn't do. God doesn't say, well just suck it up. In fact, verse 15 and 16 represents God turning aside and letting himself be interrupted. He realized this is a great theological discourse. This is Isaiah. This is prophecy, and he's going along and suddenly incomes verse 14. Yeah, it doesn't feel I don't believe it.

I It's like here's the great professor and he is lecturing in class and somebody raises hands. I Just can't buy that. And what does the professor do? You know, ignore it, say, excuse me, I don't know. That's not what God does. What God turns aside and he takes the outburst seriously. He doesn't just say, suck it up. He lets himself be interrupted. He attends to it. He deals with it. But the other thing I want you to see is he doesn't just give emotional support, but

he gives a very, very, very challenging kind of truth. He appeals to the mind. What we actually have here, again, just for one second before getting into it itself, I want you to see what he gives him is a theological metaphor. On the one hand, to say, I want you to see how I am like a nursing mother, and on the other hand, how I'm not like a nursing mother. And that's a metaphor. It's a simile. If you've ever taken a class on poetry or literature,

there are an infinite number of possible relationships between when you bring this together with this and say, this is like this. The God of the universe is like a nursing mother. How is the God of the universe like? How is the God of the universe unlike? On the one hand, that leads to enormous, that requires, to answer that question, it requires an enormous amount of thought. Hard thinking. See, God at this point, he's saying, I want you to think. I want you to think.

On the other hand, in this case, this idea of I'm like a nursing mother, it's thinking, yes, it's doctrine, it's theology, but it's theology designed to get to your affections. This verse 15 is God saying, I want you to bring my truth and my theological truth into the closest possible connection with the affections of your heart until it begins to change them. And John White, who was a psychiatrist, a Christian psychiatrist many years ago wrote a book called The Masks of Melancholy on Depression, and he says this, he says, years ago when I was seriously depressed,

the thing that saved my sanity was a dry as dust grappling with Hosea's prophecy. The thing that saved my sanity was a dry as dust grappling with Hosea's prophecy. I spent weeks morning by morning making meticulous notes, checking historical illusions in the text, and slowly I began to sense the ground under my feet growing steadily firmer. I knew without any doubt that healing was springing from my struggle to grasp the meaning of the passage. If sufferers have any ability to concentrate, they should do solid inductive Bible study rather than devotional reading because in most depressed people devotional reading is stopped altogether or degenerated into something unhealthy and unhelpful. See, for example, what is devotional reading? Devotional reading means you read

something that gives you a sense of inspiration. But he says, when you're despondent, in some cases for physical, chemical reasons, you can't feel anything. So what are you supposed to do? He says, not devotional reading, get the truth. Get the truth of who God is. Get the truth that you know, and just drill it, drill it, drill it, but drill it down toward your heart. Or put it another way. There's thinking, cognition, there's feeling, emotion, there's willing, volition, so there's cognition, emotion, and volition. You can see here that God does not go directly to the volition. He doesn't say suck it up, but he actually also doesn't go

directly to the emotion and just give emotional support there, there, there, poor baby. He goes after the thinking, but he drives the thinking toward the emotion, toward the affections. And he says, I want you to think, I'm going to give you a very serious theological challenging idea, but it's going to be an image of the most intimacy and vividness that's, I want you to think and think and think until you feel something. I want you to just do, I don't want you to just feel. I want you to think and think and think until the thinking begins to affect the feelings and direct the feelings.

Jesus was the most influential man to ever walk the earth and his story has been told in hundreds of different ways. Can anything more be said about him? In his book, Jesus the King, Tim Keller journeys through the Gospel of Mark to reveal how the life of Jesus helps us make sense of our lives. Dr. Keller shows us how the story of Jesus is at once cosmic, historical, and personal,

calling each of us to look anew at our relationship with God. Jesus the King is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the transforming love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. You see, that's what you have here in verse 15. But now let's actually see what he does in this case. Let's take a look, not just at how he, you know,

let's not look just at the principles of how God deals with despondency, but how he actually does in this case. Can a mother forget the baby at her breast? She may forget, but I will not forget you. As we already said, first of all, if we're going to be helped by this, God wants us to meditate and to reflect on the nature of the bond between a nursing mother and her suckling her infant.

And I'll give you at least three, even though you could go on forever. That's the reason why these metaphors, these similes, as those of you know who, you know, read literature, read poetry, that kind of thing, that there's...your mind can go on endlessly. In fact, Kathy and I have worked on this particular metaphor for 30 years, many, many, many years. There's three things, three reasons why a mother can't forget her infant and why the bond between a mother, a nursing mother infant is so strong and maybe as strong as any human bond at all. The first is a mother cannot forget physically her infant. Right? Nursing mothers or former nursing mothers? You don't need an alarm to say, oops, time to nurse the baby

because you feel uncomfortable if you don't nurse the baby because the milk comes in. Because of your prolactins. Impressed? That a man knows about prolactin? The more you nurse, the more you have to nurse. Right? The more you nurse, the more the milk comes in,

you feel uncomfortable. In other words, the more you have to nurse. The more you nurse, the more the milk comes in and you feel uncomfortable. In other words, the mother can't forget the child because physically the mother's physical nature starts to move, moves the mother toward the child. But it's not just that. It's not just that the mother can't forget physically, she can't forget emotionally. Because nursing doesn't just release prolactins which make for more milk. They also release oxytocins which is a chemical that in your body makes you feel delight and incredible contentment, especially as you see the child. So not only can't the mother forget the child physically, we can't forget the child emotionally, there's enormous forces inside her being, move her toward the child.

And as a result, a mother's love for a child is not just physical and emotional, it's unconditional. You know, think about every other kind of relationship, friendship. Let's think about marriage. In marriage, you make vows, right? You get up and you make vows. I am going to be faithful. But let's face it, even to marriage, there's got to be give and take. If there's not give and take, if it's not mutual, there's not give and take, eventually the marriage just falls apart. But look at the relationship between a mother and infant. Is there a give and take? Yeah. Oh yeah, lots of give and take. The infant, all take. And the mothers all give. The mother, listen, what do you get, oh mothers, from the infant? Nothing. Nothing. And even though the infant's giving you nothing, there's no give. Take it, just take, take, take.

The infant gives you nothing. The infant is doing nothing at all in order to merit or to your, you know, your love. And yet, if you're a nursing mother, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, your entire life revolves around that infant. Absolutely revolves. You can never forget the infant. You can never be away away all the time, all the time, all the time. How unconditional, how sacrificial, how indestructible is a mother's love for her child. And now God says, I want you to compare that to me. And here's the punchline. It says, I know that in fact almost all modern translations say this, yea, she may forget, but I will not forget you. But it doesn't actually, by the way, Hebrew doesn't say she may forget. It says she will forget. What does that mean? And you say, what do you mean a mother will forget? Well, here's what God is saying, I am both like and unlike a mother. Here's how I'm unlike a mother.

Human mothers forget. You say, what do you mean? Well, some human mothers are bad in spite of the prolactin, in spite of the oxytocin, in spite of everything. Some human mothers abandon their children. But you'll, oh, I had a good mother. Yeah, but eventually what if she keeps on, you know, if she's old enough, eventually she will forget. You should go senile and then she'll die. Because you see, eventually you lose your mother You lose all mothers There is no mother love seems unconditional. It seems indestructible, but it's not because human beings aren't indestructible. They're

eminently destructible and they will be destruct destroyed This is but my love Will not be destroyed my love is unconditional. It is indestructible. But let's go on. God is saying, do you know what He's saying here? He says, you see mother love, it's nothing compared to my love for you. You see her physical love? Do you see her very being, moves her toward you? Do you know that everything about my glory, everything about my faithfulness, everything about my very nature drives me powerfully towards you. I'm a God of love, I'm a God of faithfulness. I love all that I have created. But then beyond that, emotional,

for God to compare and then say, I'm infinitely greater than a nursing mother. When you know a nursing mother just dotes on the child. Sometimes if you were watching a nursing mother you can just see it in a way that the mother herself can't see it. You see the radiance in her face. God has the audacity to say I, that that's just a dim hint of my delight in you. You know when he says your walls are ever before me, he's talking about Jerusalem. He's talking to Jerusalem who had walls. But you know what he's saying to you? He's saying your life is ever before me. Everything about your life is ever before me. I never forget you. Can a mother forget a child?

A mother is fixed on the child. I am more fixed on you than a mother on her nursing, mother on her child. And then of course, unconditional. It's a horrible insult to say, I love you like a nursing mother loves her infant. This is what God's way of saying, you give me nothing. It's nothing but take, take, take, take. You're completely, completely selfish. You add no value to my life at all.

And I absolutely love you unconditionally, forever and ever. Amen. If let me ask you a question. If you knew that a love of this magnitude, by a person of this magnitude, was really, really yours. If the reality of this kind of love was an abiding reality to your heart, moment by moment, existentially, consciously, what kind of person would you be? And the answer is way different than the one that's sitting right here now. At the very least, I can tell you this, there would be a fountain of joy at the foundation of your life that no circumstance and no tragedy could put a cork in, not at all. But guess what? God's not done, because

ultimately this is still talk. So here is a painful question and there's a good answer to the question. A brilliant answer to the question. An argument. And yet it's still just talk. And we have to get to verse 16 if we're going to see a cure for the pain and not just an answer to the question. And here's why. Because in the end what really convinces you that somebody loves you is not talk but action. I mean, even the Bible says in 1 John, it says, beloved, let us not love in word only, but indeed and in truth. And isn't that right? And you know, when you're trying to find out that somebody loved me, words are very important, very important.

You know, when a person says, oh, of course I love you, words of affection are really important, but what you really want to see is action. And if you only have words and not action, in the end, you don't believe the person loves you. And that is a problem here. Because words, words, words, words, and they said, but I don't feel, love, why? Because forsaken means you're not doing anything for me.

I want to see action. Ah, but this creates a problem. And let's stick with the metaphor that the Bible is giving us here about parent and child. One of the most frustrating things about being a parent is in some ways the infant is absolutely draining as an infant is, and how you completely orient your entire life around the infant, you get nothing. That's not quite as frustrating as when the child gets old enough to actually talk. Because by the time your child is like five, six, seven, eight years old, you've already been, you know, you've already completely oriented your life around them. You've utterly made sacrifices. I mean, your whole life has changed, but all your sacrifices are completely invisible

to the child. You know, a child doesn't understand what you have done at your sacrifices any more than a fish could understand what water is because a fish knows nothing but water. And as far as a child's concern is adults are there to meet my every need. That's what adults are for. That's why God made adults. And there are moments, there are times in which you cross the will of the child. You don't give the child something the child wants. You say, no, you can't eat that. No you can't go there. No you can't do that.

No you can't visit him or her. And the child screams out, sometimes explicitly, sometimes just implies, you can't visit him or her. And the child screams out, sometimes explicitly, sometimes just implies, you don't love me. And when he does that or she does that, this is what you want to say. You little twerp. The sacrifices I have made for you are invisible to you. And the most crucial sacrifices, the most crucial deeds of love I've done for you are not these things you're asking for now. But don't you see that we do that with God. Don't just see that we read the Bible, we say words, words, words, words, words, and we say, well, why aren't

you doing something for me right now? You don't love me because you're not answering my prayers now. And through this text, God is saying, because He's asking you to think along through this metaphor. It takes a long time He's asking you to think, you know, through this metaphor. It takes a long time. It takes thinking. But if you do, it will change your life because God says to us, He usually leaves out the part about twerp, but not always in the Bible, you have not seen the magnitude of my sacrifice for you and the most crucial deed of love that

really matters is not the one that you're worried about right now. Well what is it? Well it's in verse 16 and what is it? In verse 16 the metaphor changes and says, see I have engraved you on the palm of my hands. Now at first that looks like just another lovely metaphor about his devotion. And now here's the reason why. It was sometimes true in ancient times that the name of a master might be tattooed on the servant. The name of the master might be tattooed on the servant,

but never ever ever ever is the name of the servant tattooed on a master That would mean a master that was was devoted to the servant and of course well That's what we have here isn't that beautiful another metaphor of God's love, but no it's not a beautiful metaphor It's a horrible metaphor. You know why it doesn't say tattooed It says I have engraved you in the palm of my hands. And that word engraved is a very specific Hebrew word that means engrave with a hammer and a chisel or a spike. And now suddenly the metaphor is terrible, horrible.

Why in the world would you have a, you know, conjure up the image of someone out of love letting people take a hammer and drive a spike right into the palm of their hands? Isn't that horrible? Yes, it is horrible. Isn't that make you cringe? Yes, it makes you cringe. Isn't that crazy?

No, it's not crazy. Centuries later, there was a man named Thomas, and Thomas was like this guy here, I mean, verse 14. He was filled with doubts. Filled with doubts. I can't be sure, I can't be sure. And all of his friends were saying, he has risen, he has risen. Everything's going to be okay, Thomas. And Thomas was filled with anxiety and doubts. He couldn't be sure, he couldn't be sure. And what happens? Jesus Christ appears to him. Everything's gonna be okay, Thomas. Hey, Thomas was filled with anxiety and doubts. He couldn't be sure, he couldn't be sure.

And what happens? Jesus Christ appears to him and he says, look at the palms of my hands. See, my love for you. Look at what's on the palms of my hands. See, that's your final argument because it's more than an argument. It's a deed. This is not just talk. This is action. You know why it's a final argument? What if

you say, oh, I can't believe God loves me because look at all the awful stuff in me, the things that I have done. You know what Jesus says? You're afraid that God's going to forsake you? On the cross, I was forsaken. My God, my God, why I still have to forsake me? I was forsaken. I got the forsakenness that you sense that you deserve so that now, no matter what you do, God will never forsake you. He loves you as unconditionally as a mother loves her nursing infant. Well, you say, well, what about all these other things out here? But don't you see I've done the thing that you really need. If you see I've done that, will you please trust me? I mean, this is what parents want to say to a seven-year-old. When you see everything else I've done, will you please trust me?

You don't need that. You think you need that, you don't need that. Oh, please go to your room. I love you. You'll figure it out later. This is the final argument. And you know what? If right now your soul's restless, if right now your soul is

like Thomas' soul, filled with doubts, if right now you feel forsaken and forgotten and abandoned, you're like a restless infant. It's whining and crying and you know just restless until it gets a hold of the milk. And this is the milk. This is your choice now friends. I don't care whether your parents really have forsaken you. You know Psalm 2710 says, my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will bear me up. Maybe your mother did forget you.

Maybe your father did forget me, forget you. It doesn't matter what's happened to you. None of this has to darken your life. It's your choice now. You can, through meditation, through contemplation, through taking the raw material of the Word of God and working it toward your heart, drilling it down toward your affections, you can be melted by spiritual understandings into blazing joy about what God, about God's love for you.

You have to live in holy consciousness of this, or if you don't, you'll have to take your identity from what people say to you. You'll be crushed when you're insulted, and you'll toss and turn in bed at night when you've been slighted, and you'll be elated when something goes right, and you'll be destroyed when you put on weight. Because you're taking your identity from how you look and how people say you can be free from all of that. None of that has to darken your life. God is like a good mother, and you know how those good mothers are. They're always after you. But they will move heaven and earth, They will do anything that you flourish.

Well, this great mother can move heaven and earth, has moved heaven and earth, and you will flourish. Comfort yourself with these words. Comfort your hearts with these words. Comfort one another with these words, let us pray. Thank you Father for the, again, from these passage in Isaiah, an astonishing demonstration of your saving grace. Lord, we know that we don't know the gospel. We know the gospel well enough to know that we don't know it. We don't understand it. We don't understand it. Its power hasn't been released in our lives. But we see here today more ways for us to do that. And in some ways it has been released even as we've been listening to your word,

even as we've been putting ourselves under it. And we ask now Lord that you would just drive down deep into our hearts What you have said to us that in Jesus Christ you love us That you will never forget us you will never forsake us because Jesus himself was forsaken took what we deserve on the cross so now We belong to you Our lives are ever before you We're engraved on the palm of your hands. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to know that

and be shaped by that. In Jesus' name we ask, amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people discover the truth of God's word today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life Monthly Partner.

Your partnership helps more people discover the truth of God's Word and the hope of the Gospel. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 1990, 2003, and 2010. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.