Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Choose Life

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

At the end of the end of the last of Moses’ sermons, he says something so simple that it’s difficult. Moses starts saying, “I’m offering you this personal relationship with God.” He’s saying, “It’s not too difficult. It’s near you. You don’t have to go up to heaven. You don’t have to go over the sea.” And actually, people miss this personal relationship with God because it’s so simple; the simplicity is its difficulty. We’re going to see here, when it comes to this personal, covenant relationship with God, 1) its deceptive ordinariness, 2) its threatening graciousness, and yet 3) its unimaginable promise. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 23, 2007. Series: The New Heart God Gives. Scripture: Deuteronomy 30:11-20. 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. How comfortable are you when it comes to being open about your faith? This month on the podcast, Tim Keller looks at what the Bible says about having a public faith. He shows us what it looks like to be open about our faith in a pluralistic society in a way that creates civility and peace and meaningful dialogue with our neighbors. Good morning. The scripture this morning is taken from the book of Deuteronomy chapter 30 versus 11 through 20. Now, what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven so that you have to ask, who will ascend to heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?

nor is it beyond the sea so that you have to ask who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it no the word is very near you it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it see i have set before you today life and prosperity death and destruction for I command you today to love the Lord your God to walk in its ways and to keep its commands, decrees, and laws, then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away, to bow down to other gods and worship them, then I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed.

You will not live long in the land you are crossing to Jordan to enter and possess. This day, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life So that you and your children may live And that you may love the Lord your God Listen to his voice And hold fast to him

For the Lord is your life And he will give you many years In the land he swore to give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob This is the word of the Lord We've been looking at the book of Deuteronomy and we've said that this is a series of sermons that Moses preached to his people

right at the very end of his life and now we really truly are at the end of the series and we're at the end of the last of his sermons and in verse 16 we see that at the very very end he says he's commanding that word command means he's calling or charging his people

to enter into a covenant relationship with God. Love the Lord, your God, and walk in his ways. And we've, for the last couple of weeks, been looking at this. A covenant relationship with God is very personal, yet binding and whole life transforming. And here at the very end, Moses is simply saying,

enter that covenant relationship with God. Now, one of the most interesting things about this passage is its simplicity and its basicness. So basic. So straightforward. Choose. Here's the one thing you can do. Here's the other thing you do. Do this. Don't do this. This will bring this. This will bring this. So simple. In fact, it's so simple. I actually struggled a little bit with this. I still struggled with this passage. You know why? A preacher loves to take a hard passage and make it simple. And everybody say, oh, it's simpler than I thought. He's wonderful. He's just a wonderful teacher. Okay. I actually believe that my job is to take an extremely simple passage today and actually show you its difficulty. And I believe that's what Moses is trying to show us. Moses starts saying, look, I'm offering you this personal relationship with God.

And he's actually saying it's not too difficult. It's near you. You don't have to go up to heaven. You don't have to go over the sea. He's actually trying to say the simplicity of what I'm telling you is its difficulty. People miss this covenant relationship with God because it's so simple. The simplicity is this difficulty. And if you're ever going to get it, you need to come to grips with a difficult simplicity.

I'm having a personal relationship with God. Now let's look at this difficult simplicity under three headings. We're going to see here, when it comes to with this personal covenant relationship with God, it's deceptive ordinariness, its threatening graciousness, and its unimaginable promise. is deceptiveness, it's deceptive, pardon me, ordinariness, it's threatening graciousness, and yet it's unimaginable promise. So first let's look at its ordinariness,

which I said is deceptive. Verse 14 says, this word, this charge, to enter into a personal relationship with God, is near you. And then he says, well, what does that mean? Well, one of the ways to understand that is verse 12. He says, it is not up in heaven so that you have to say, who will ascend into heaven and get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it? Now, ancient cultures, all ancient peoples, believe that divine wisdom, divine knowledge, secrets of the universe, secrets of the meaning of life, secrets for how to live, secrets of what happens after death.

The secrets of the universe are hard to find things because God or the gods are remote and they hold their cards to their chests. and the ancient legends are filled with particularly gifted pure people who in body or spirit ascend to the heavens and they have visions or they have visitors from other dimensions and they get cryptic oracular utterances and they piece together the truth that only they have and Moses will have none of it when he says you don't have to go up to heaven to get this

what is he saying he says because the god the whole book of Deuteronomy says is the god whom heaven and highest heaven cannot even contain has come down he's come on down into mount sinai over and over again moses says god himself came down and told you these things and spoke to you out of the fire remember that so what is moses saying if you want the secrets of the universe you don't have to be an expert elite scientist nor do you have to be incredibly sophisticated artistic artist poet. You don't only get it at an exclusive retreat in Aspen. You don't have to climb a mountain to get it. You know why? It's in virtually every hotel

room drawer. It's revealed in the Bible. And the Bible's everywhere. It's the most accessible book. It's the most easy to get a hold of text, written thing, and print in the whole world. It's all over the place. And not only. I mean, not only don't you have to climb up to heaven, not only has it just been coming, it's come right down here, and it's available everywhere, and it's literally right under your noses.

The secret of the universe is under your noses. You know, you take a motel room, you take a hotel room, and the secrets of the universe are in that hotel room, and you didn't even know it. It's so ordinary. But not only, I think, as Moses, when he says, it's near you, means it's physically accessible.

Here it is, in my words, here it is, and the book, here it is. But it's also intellectually. accessible. Because of course there's many things in the Bible that are difficult to understand and we love to sit and figure out what they are. But the things the Bible says over and over and over again, the core teachings of the Bible are unbelievably accessible. In fact, let me give you a summary of the book of Deuteronomy, which is all about how God wants you to live and relate to him. Here's a summary. Number one, love God and put his will ahead of your own.

two, love your neighbors unselfishly and put their needs ahead of your own. In other words, don't look out for number one, but put God and your neighbors first. And number three, you will find, as a result, you will have so much of a richer life and a heart so, so much more full than it would have been if you had held onto your heart and held on to your life and tried to fill it yourself. it's simple it's accessible it's right there moses says you don't have to go up to heaven it's right there it's ordinary everybody knows it's all around you you know it's in your hotel room the secrets of the universe

now what's the problem it's deceptive and it's deceptive in two ways there are two ways in fact and and well for the only two kinds of people in the world it's deceptive first of all there's people who don't believe or has trouble believing biblical faith they don't like it or they don't like they they have trouble with it they've got difficulties and one of the reasons is the deceptive simplicity see people who don't believe it very often are deceived by simplicity why well guess what modern people have every bit the same problem that the ancients had we think if something's really really important some insight's really important it's got to be brilliant and sophisticated and cutting edge and new

and sexy and let me tell you uh the bible's not any of those things and but you know there's always something but boy i'll tell a cautionary tale for me has been uh in september 9th new york times city section just two weeks ago there was an article about uh the last institute in manhattan that trains psychiatrists in psychoanalysis Freudian psychoanalysis the last institute that trains therapists and Freudian psychoanalysis they were talking about it. And they've mentioned that even just, say, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, there were dozens and dozens in Manhattan. One of the reasons I was so intrigued by that was because I know when I got here like 20 years ago, and I would talk to New Yorkers who at the time were saying

their 50s or 60s, what they told me was that, you know, in the middle of the century, every New Yorker who was anybody, anyone who was savvy, anyone who was with it at all, went to a now, and analysis two or three times a week for years and years and years. And everybody knew this is it. This is how we're going to get into our hearts. This is the whole issue. This is it. And if you don't understand this, you're just out of it. And now it's dead. It's an eclipse. It is so unsexy. And yet, guess what? The gospel's on every street corner. There's something else coming, right? Beware the deceptive simplicity.

of biblical faith. It really throws people who are having trouble believing it. But guess what? The simplicity of our faith throws just as much those of us who do believe it. You look at it. Well, what is the heart of it? Well, you know, the Bible, the heart of it is, you know, Carl Bart actually said it this way. Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. There it is. Or put it another way is you're saved by God's grace. And the New Testament adds, through the sacrifice of Christ. And you look at that and you say, okay, I've heard that, I've heard that, I know it.

I got it, I got it. And it's so simple, almost nobody grasped the radical implications of it. Walter Bruggemann wrote a commentary on Deuteronomy that I use. I've been using during this series of sermons. And on this passage where he sees the place where Moses says, this word is not beyond you, it's near you. You know, it's simple, it's accessible.

And Brueggemann, and that place in his commentary, tells this fascinating story, true story. And here's what he says. Another illustration of how plain and simple God's word is is the account of the evangelical Christian community of Le Chambon in France during World War II that hid Jews during Nazi efforts at extermination. The people of the mountain village

under the direction of its evangelical church, and pastor save the lives of an estimated three to five thousand Jews under circumstances extremely dangerous. The state of Israel in 1990 recognized the entire village as righteous among the nations for their remarkable compassion and bravery. So they must have been unusually courageous and noble and insightful. No? After the war, a Jewish adult who was kept alive there as a child returned and interviewed his protectors about their reasons for taking such risky actions on his behalf. He was trying to figure out, you know, what was the secret?

To his surprise, one after the other, all merely shrugged their shoulders, literally, and said it seemed to be an obvious implication of their faith in Jesus. They had no dramatic explanations. Their actions stem from the very center of their embrace of the gospel of the sacrificial love of Jesus,

and it was enough. Now, what Bruehman is saying, and this is a powerful point, this account begs a question. The center of the core of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ gave his life, sacrificed his life, to save love and forgive people who didn't believe in him, who were rejecting him, right? okay so this little group of french evangelicals in this little mountain village said well if jesus did that for us surely we should at least risk our lives to save these people whether they believe like we do or not it's just a logical implication of what of the basic christian faith the basic christian message right didn't everybody in europe know the basic christian message hadn't hasn't everybody in europe seen a

crucifix? Hasn't everybody in Europe, you know, known the basic story? Then why didn't they all do that? And the answer is, it's too simple for us. So you think it's so simple, and it is so simple. But the implications are so vast. And because we look and say, oh, it's simple, we don't think out the implications. My dear friends, do not be deceived by the ordinariness. of what the Bible says about, about this subject, how to have a personal relationship with God. If you're exploring Christianity, please don't be offended by its simplicity

and its ordinariness. And if you're a Christian and you say, oh, I understand the gospel. I get the gospel. That just proves you don't. Its difficulty is its simplicity. Its simplicity is its difficulty. And you really don't understand it

until you really grasp that. Secondly, though, That's not all that's part of this difficult simplicity. Secondly, there's a threatening graciousness to this. Now, you see, we said when Moses says this is near you in the sense of you don't have to go to heaven to get it because it's revealed in the Bible. But now here's another thought. He says, what I am commanding you today in verse 11 is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. Why?

It is not beyond the sea so that you have to ask, who shall cross the sea to get it? Now, the sea is a little different metaphor in the ancient world. The sea was the symbol of chaos and destruction. In fact, Paul, we're going to get back to this, Paul quotes this whole passage in Romans 10,

but when he quotes the passage in Romans 10, he calls the sea the abyss. And of course, you know, there's a couple of good movies, by the way, it was a good movie about the sea called the abyss because in ancient times the sea was represented death destruction seafarers were at the were far more vulnerable than people who were out on land and so the sea represented the abyss and death now what is moses talking about here he says ancient people and the ancient legends are filled with heroic noble figures on a quest

and they go out on the sea and the quest can be a number of things you know one of the great ones is Jason and the Argonauts it's made in many bad, great movies you know just a great story about a Jason goes off of the Argonauts

and he's looking for a golden fleece that's guarded by a dragon and he gets the golden fleece but there's many perils, there's many riddles that he has to solve and many perils and he comes back and he gains the kingdom and there are just an enormous number of these

It's almost all the cultures, all the ancient cultures, no matter where, they have these strong figures who go on these quests over the sea to gain a kingdom or eternal life. You know, my favorite Hollywood-eyes version of all those ancient legends, and it's a really good Hollywood-eyes version, is the third of the Indiana Jones movies. Do you remember? Where Indiana Jones and his archaeologist father are after the Holy Grail,

and they believe that if they get the Holy Grail and you drink from it, you'll get eternal life. And they have perils, and there are clues, just like all the other ancient, you know, the movie makers just understood all the other ancient prehist, you know, pre-mythic histories. You remember what the clues were? First, the breath of God, only the penitent man will pass. See, every one of these reminds you of another special effect. Second, the word of God, only in the footsteps of God will he proceed. third the path of God only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth and that's what all

these stories are about you want salvation see you want eternal life you want the kingdom clues greatness quest over the sea the leap prove your worth and moses will have none of it absolutely none of it everything, and we believe it really does. That's why here at Gospel and Life, August is Go and Share Month. Throughout August, we're inviting thousands of our listeners to take a small step in sharing the gospel with someone God has placed in your life. For those of you who make a gift to Gospel in Life this month, we'll send you two copies of Making Sense of God by Tim Keller. It's a powerful resource that explores how Christianity makes emotional, cultural, and rational sense in today's world. It's our thanks for your gift and provides a way you can do a small act to share the

gospel by reading the book with a friend, giving one to a co-worker, or passing on both copies to people who are exploring the Christian faith. It's a simple way to start a gospel conversation or continue it. To request your two copies of making sense of God, simply go to gospelandlife.com slash give. Again, that's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Instead, he says, and this is what's so interesting, he says, it's not over the sea. You don't go over the sea to get it.

What? Then what is it? He says, it's in your mouth and in your heart. See, your heart is where you believe. Your mouth is what you confess. And what is he saying? He says, this relationship with God is not something you achieve, it's something you receive. It's not something that you prove your worth.

get it. And therefore, he's talking, he's saying that this relationship with God is not something that you go to heaven to get, you go over the sea to get, you don't go on some kind of quest, you don't have to be some heroic warrior, you receive it by grace. Now, this is threatening, and this is our second problem we have with it. If you want a perfect example of this, and it's a great example, is the biblical story of Naiman in 2nd Kings chapter 5. in second kings chapter five we're told about naman who was a syrian general and he was stricken with leprosy and he knew he was going to die if he wasn't healed and he heard about the god of israel and his power so he decided to go to israel and find the prophet elisha and seek his healing and salvation

and the text tells us the way he sallied forth to do so and what he brought with him showed that he understood himself being on a quest. He went with gold and treasure, you know, to buy whatever and purchase whatever he had to. He went with a sword, ready to do a great deed because he was a man of prowess and valor. He went with letters of recommendation from his king and so on. And he gets to the prophet's house,

and Elisha doesn't even come out. Instead, he's told by the valet of Elisha, go washing the Jordan River. And a Naaman is furious, and he runs away in fury, and his servants go after them, and they say, master, master. If you were told by the prophet to do some great deed, wouldn't you have done it? And that's the point. He's like all people, all ancient people, all modern people. If there's salvation, we're going to achieve it. We have to prove our worth.

We have to leap from the lion's head. We have to bring out our sword. We have to do some great deed. He was expecting Elisha to come out and say, bring me the broomstick of the wicked witch of the West. And he would have been, he says, you see, here's what he's saying. He says, I'm a man of valor. I'm a man of wealth and means hard one.

And it wouldn't be insulting to say, go get the broomstick of the wicked witch of the West. Get the golden fleece from the dragon, you know. It wouldn't be wrong if you ask me to purchase with my great wealth, my healing and my salvation, or to win it by slaying a dragon. But any idiot can wash in the Jordan River. Any child can wash in the Jordan River. What kind of God has a bar of salvation so low? You know, Kathy and I remember, almost the first person I ever shared the gospel faith with in our little town in Hopewell, Virginia, where I first went as a 24-year-old, you know, pastor. And it was a young, a

really hurting young mother on welfare, single mother, and I shared the gospel, and she said, it can't be that easy. You know, same thing. What kind of God would have the bar of salvation so low? Oh, but it's, the answer is, on the one hand, we have a God so incredibly inclusive that you've got grace, and that's a bar that anyone can step over,

any murderer, any broken person. Anyone can step over the bar because it's a bar of grace, but it's actually not low. It demands and it requires that you lose your pride. Come on, Neiman. You say this is too low for me. No, you're not stepping over it, are you? Why not?

It's too high for you. Because there's two things that the offer of free grace, the graciousness of this offer, there's two things that it demands you give up. one is you're right to look down on anybody else the rest of your life you have to give up your pride you have to give up forever your right to look at anyone else and say you don't understand you rabble you unclean you fools you're the reason that things are they are in this country he takes away forever the idea you know the pride because you

have to say i'm just a sinner i need to be saved by grace the other thing you have to give up his control of your life because you see if you had sallied forth and if you had won your salvation with the kingdom or eternal life on a great quest then God couldn't just ask anything of you you know you have your rights you know you've done what you should be doing

but if you out everything everything everything to his mercy you owe him everything you can't call the shots in your life anymore don't you see the incredible inclusiveness at the same time the threatening costliness

of the free grace of God it is so simple it is so easy that we can't take it we're threatened by it you see how this here's another aspect of this incredibly difficult simplicity

it's threatening graciousness our pride because of our pride because of our pride, the absolute graciousness of the gospel throws us. Don't let it throw you. But we're not done. First aspect of this difficult simplicity is the deceptive ordinariness.

The second aspect is the threatening graciousness. But the third aspect is the unimaginable promise. What do I mean by that? Well, look, if you're smart people, this is New York. So if you're really reading that passage, you realize that I've been concentrating on the first part of the passage, which seems to be all about grace. You don't have to go to heaven, you don't have to go over the sea. It's right there in your mouth and your heart.

You have to believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, and it's there, it's right there. But then you get to that last part. And it seems like the second part totally contradicts what was just said. Because it says, you see, if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,

I declare to you this day you will certainly be destroyed. he will not live long in the land this day i call heaven and earth is witnesses against you that i have set before you life and death blessings and curses choose life or else all these curses will come upon you and wait a minute we say wait a minute that seems like we're back to the quest thing we're back to going over the sea again because we've been through this all the book of deuteronomy we see what we're supposed to do we see how we're supposed to live we see how we're supposed to cheat we see how we're supposed to treat everyone else and we'll never live up to that all the time

we'll never live up to that all the time so it almost seems like the second part of this text posed a huge problem it seems to contradict the first part but it doesn't because of the note that there is hope and you know what the hope is it's in the very final verse it's in the very almost the final word of moses where he says for the lord is your life Let me tell you what's going on there. Let me tell you what an incredible promise that is. It's the first time in the Bible that that statement is made, and I think it's the last time in the whole Old Testament.

See, up to now, life, and we're not talking about biological life, right? Choose life. They already have biological life, so what are they saying? It's spiritual life, it's eternal life. It's a new heart and all that. I talked about that last week. So choose life. up until this point, life is connected with obedience

and death is connected with disobedience. If you obey, you'll get life. In other words, your obedience is your life. And if you disobey, you'll get death. In other words, your disobedience is your death. So choose life, so obey. And all the way through the book up to now, that's what it's been telling you.

Your obedience is your life. Every time this word life, this spiritual life thing comes up, it says, if you obey, you'll get life. your obedience is your life your obedience is your life but verse 20 suddenly suddenly

Moses basically says here your obedience would be your life and it could be your life but because it can't be your life because you're not going to keep it up the Lord will be your life what does that mean

not that the Lord will give you life if you obey that's not what it's saying it says the Lord will be your life the Lord himself will be your life. What does that mean? Paul explains it in Romans 10. In Romans chapter 10, Paul comes to this very passage when he's proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ

to the readers of the book of Romans, to the Romans, he goes to this very passage and he interprets the passage in the most unbelievable way. Here's what he says. This is Romans 10. Christ is the end of the law, says Paul. as a means of righteousness for everyone who believes. Now, about this righteousness that comes through faith,

Moses has said, quote, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, for that would bring Christ down. And he says, do not say who will descend into the deep. For that would be to bring Christ up from the abyss. But what does it say? What does Moses say? He says, the word is near you.

It is in your mouth and in your mouth. heart. That is the word of faith we are proclaiming, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Did you hear that? Look, first of all, he says, Christ is the end of the law. Not period. He says, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. It's still there to please God, to change your life. But it's no longer a means to stand before God, righteous and accepted. I said, don't, no, no. Why not? Jesus went into the abyss. Jesus went on the quest for eternal life.

Moses says, Paul says, you don't have to go to heaven. No, because Jesus has come down from heaven. Paul says, Moses says, you don't have to go over to the sea because Jesus went into the depths of the sea and he took the destructive forces and he received the destruction that we deserve. He took the curses in himself. He was destroyed. he went on a great quest he went on the quest he won eternal life and now he gives it to us as a gift but i want you to know one thing the quest of jesus christ was different than any other quest that's ever happened i read a scholarly article some years ago that really blew my socks off it was amazing first of all it was a scholarly article um it was it was by a scholar who was actually trying to look and and speak broadly about almost all the ancient mythic prehistories of all the different cultures,

whether Northern European or Mediterranean, Greek and Roman, or Asian. And they were looking at all these stories and all these legends. And there was a certain pattern to all of them. And that was you had these strong heroic figures who went on quests to win something. They were all about that. All the legends were like that. strong heroic figures who went on quests to win something. And then the article amazingly said this.

The scholar of the last generation who knew the most in the entire world about these ancient myths and legends, knew them in the originals and all that. The scholar of the last generation who knew more about them than anybody else alive was J.R.R. Tolkien, who was an Oxford professor. And this article said, secondly, he loved them so much that he wanted to, write his own. He wanted to write his own mythic story about a quest, and he did. But point

three, he was so saturated with Christianity and so saturated with the Christian gospel that his story is almost the antithesis of every other mythic prehistory that ever happened. Because every single other ancient legend has a strong figure going off to save the world by winning something. But in Tolkien and in the gospel, The world is saved by a weak figure who triumphs through losing and goes off the quest not to gain something, but to lose something. Because you see, at the heart of his story and at the heart of ours, is a suffering servant who triumphed through losing,

who fell into the dark so we could live in the light. And that's the reason why Jesus' quest is different than all these other self-saving, self-justifying quests in all the other cultures. and that's the reason why there's one Christian poet, Edward Shilito, who addressing Jesus, spoke to him this way. The other gods were strong, but thou wast weak. They rode, but thou just stumble to your throne. But to our wounds, only God's wounds can speak. And not a God has wounds, but thou alone.

the other gods were strong but thou wast weak they rode but you did stumble to your throne to our wounds only god's wounds can speak and there's no god in any other religion that has wounds but thou alone the simplicity is the difficulties let me close like this are exploring Christianity or if you are have maybe come to you know you maybe are raised in a church and now you're trying to think well what's my relationship to Christianity oh my word please realize that in some ways understanding the difficulty of the simplicity and grasping the simplicity in all of its difficulty is how you become a Christian you want to know how to become a Christian you want to know how to get a covenant relationship with God that's it you say well that's paradoxical what do you

mean. Give you a perfect case study. In 1740s, there were a group of young men who were actually all part of the church. In fact, I think some of them were ordained ministers. They were in the Church of England and they were in London, but they knew there was something missing. They knew they didn't have a personal relationship with God. They didn't have a covenant relationship with God. They didn't have a new heart. And they began a set of evening meetings in which they read to each other Luther's preface to the Galatians. Martin Luther's preface. to the book of the Galatians. And on successive nights over a period of a week or so,

John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, Charles Wesley, a great hymn writer and his brother, and a whole lot of their friends got converted. When the penny dropped of the simplicity of the grace of God. Here's one of them, a man named William Holland that you wouldn't have heard of, but it's a perfect example of what happened. This is his diary. Mr. Charles Wesley read aloud

And at the place where Luther said, What? Have we then nothing to do? No, nothing. But only to accept him, who of God is made unto us, who becomes for us, our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. And at hearing those words, there came such a power over me as I cannot well imagine my,

and describe, my heart was so filled with peace and love that I burst into tears and when afterwards I went into the street, I could scarcely feel the ground I trod upon. Now, what happened was the simplicity of grace hit him. And the moment that happened, and the moment he was willing to pay those two costs, to get rid of your pride, and to say, from now on I'll never be able to look down at anybody,

and to get rid of any control of your life, because now you know you owe him everything, everything to his mercy. If you're willing to pay those prices, and the simplicity of grace happens, at that moment you are becoming a Christian, And at that moment you are entering into that personal relationship with God. And you say, well, what if I already believe?

Do you have a final word for me? Sure. The life, the life that's in you. God is your life. Because of Jesus, he's your life now. It's guaranteed. It's in you. That's why Colossians 3.

Paul says we, and 1 John 3, that talks about our life is hid with God. Our life is in God, and we really don't even know what we're going to be. But when Jesus Christ is revealed on the last day, we know we'll be like him. I mean, it's over the top. The life that started in you is just a seed. You're just a shadow of what you're going to be. C.S. Lewis describes, though, what you are going to be.

Live in hope of this. He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating through with an energy, joy, wisdom, and love as we cannot now imagine. He can make us all bright, stainless mirrors which reflect back to God perfectly, though on a smaller scale, his own boundless power, delight, and goodness. That is what we are in for. Nothing less. Let's pray. Thank you, Father.

Thank you, Father. That through Jesus Christ, you can be our life. We thank you for the life that you've planted in so many of us. We thank you for the hope that that gives us as we think about our future. And we thank you for the difficult simplicity of the gospel. And we pray that you would keep us from letting our pride throw us, letting our snobbishness overlook it, letting our self-satisfaction keep us from working out the radical implications

of the gospel for every area of our life. So we ask that you would help us now to really receive your life. life through Jesus Christ, we choose it. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. We hope that today's teaching encourages you to share the gospel with someone you know. This August is Go and Share Month at Gospel in Life, and we've curated a wide range of free resources to help you take simple steps to share the gospel. You can access them at gospel and life.com slash share. We believe God uses small acts to do great things, and we're

inviting you to do simple small acts to go and share the gospel this month, because the gospel changes everything. Today's sermon was recorded in 2007. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. You know,