Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Christ’s Confession

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

We’re looking at the final days of Jesus’ life on earth. And in Mark 14, Jesus is on trial. There’s nothing more dramatic than to be on trial for your life. And there’s no more dramatic moment in a trial than when the defendant is called to testify on the witness stand. And there perhaps has never been a more dramatic and shocking testimony given on a witness stand than the one Jesus Christ gives. In this passage, we see 1) that Jesus is the judge, 2) that Jesus is the judge who was judged, and 3) if we understand those two things together, it’ll change our lives. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 25, 2007. Series: King's Cross: The Gospel of Mark, Part 2: The Journey to the Cross. Scripture: Mark 14:53-65. 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. Many religious teachers sought to live as good examples. Only Jesus explicitly stated that his purpose was to die. Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller is teaching through Mark's account of Jesus' final days and ultimate death on the cross and how that can change us from the inside out. The scriptures found in Mark 14 verses 53 through 65. They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, elders, and teachers of the law

came together. Peter followed him in a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. There, he sat with the guards and warmed himself at the fire. The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so they could put him to death, but they did not find any. Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.

Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him. We heard him say, I will destroy this man-made temple, and in three days we'll build another, not made by man. Yet even then, their testimony did not agree. Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you? But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again, the high priest asked him,

are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? I am, said Jesus, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven. The high priest tore his clothes. Why do we need any more witnesses, he asked? You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?

They all condemned him as worthy of death. And some began to spit at him. They blindfolded him, struck him with their fist, and said, prophesy. And the guards took him and beat him. This is the word of the Lord. We're looking at the end of the Gospel of Mark, which of course are the final days of Jesus' life on earth. And there's nothing more dramatic than to be on trial for your life.

And there's no more dramatic moment in a trial than when the defendant is called to testify on the witness stand. And there's never been perhaps a more dramatic and shocking testimony given on that witness stand that what Jesus Christ gives in this passage. What we're going to see here are three things in the passage. That Jesus is judge. Secondly, that Jesus is judged. And thirdly, if we understand those two things together and hold them together in our mind, it'll change our lives.

Jesus is the judge. Jesus is the judge who was judged. And if we understand that, it'll change our lives. Jesus is the judge. Jesus is the judge who was judged there. And if we understand that, it'll change our lives. Okay, let's go. First, the trial. The prosecution is trying to make a particular charge stick, and that particular charge is that Jesus had called for the destruction of the temple.

If Jesus had threatened to destroy the temple, or called others to destroy the temple, of course that would have been an act of sacrilege, of blasphemy, of vandalism, of terrorism, really. But Jesus never did that. Jesus only predicted that the temple would be destroyed, which it was later. He never called for it to be destroyed, and since he never actually said the things they charged him to say, when the witnesses came in order to give false testimony, those witnesses having never really heard Jesus say that because he never had said that, those

witnesses testimony didn't agree. And if testimony didn't agree of witnesses in a court by the rules of that time, it was very frustrating to the prosecutors because supposedly the trial should be thrown out. The case should be dismissed. That was the rules of the time, but there's nothing about this trial, which is legal. There's nothing about it, which is just, it's a miscarriage of justice from the beginning to the end. And so they don't call it off, they don't dismiss the case. Instead, the high priest in his frustration puts Jesus on the witness stand as it were and says, are you the Christos, the Messiah, the son of the blessed one? Now let's understand quickly what he's saying.

In the expectation of the times, a Messiah would come who would be like a Davidic king, like a king in the line of David, or maybe a king from the line of David, and he would rise up and help the Israel throw off the oak of the Roman oppressors. But this person that was expected to this Messiah was a very human person. And even though David had been called son of the blessed one, and other kings had been called son of the blessed one, and the Messiah was being called the son of the blessed one, that doesn't can note divinity. When David is called the Son of God, it denotes closeness to God and the favor of God, not divinity. So the high priest when he asks,

Jesus, are you the Christ? He's not saying, are you God? Are you the Son of God in the sense of real Son of God? He just said, are you the Messiah that we're expecting? And Jesus' response is astonishing because, first, he says, what? He says, yeah, but it doesn't stop there. He says, I am. And I am a Messiah, infinitely bigger than you bargain for. Because then he says, I am the Son of Man, too. The Son of Man was a figure presented in Daniel chapter 7 and all of the ruling counsel, all of the Sanhedrin knows about this, knows what the Son of Man is. Jesus says, I am the Son of Man.

And the Son of Man in Daniel 7 comes from the throne of God to earth in the clouds of heaven to judge the world. And you have to remember the clouds of heaven are not the same as the clouds of the earth, the clouds of the atmosphere. That's just water vapor, as you all know. But the clouds of heaven is a chicana glory. It's the very glory and being of God. And Jesus says, I will come to earth in the very glory of God at the end of time and judge the entire world and put all evil down.

That's the Messiah that I am. It's a astounding statement. It's a claim to deity. It's way beyond what he's actually being asked to confess to. And of course, it is an unbelievably high challenge because you know what he's saying? He's saying, you guys think you're the judges, but I'm the judge. I am the judge, so take heed to yourselves because regardless of what you do to me here, regardless of what happens, says Jesus.

I'll be back. It's an amazing statement. And as soon as Jesus claims deity, as soon as Jesus claims to be divine, the judge of all the earth immediately, the response is explosive. Do you see the explosion? It's an explosion.

First of all, the high priest rips his garment apart, which was a sign of the greatest possible outrage, horror, and grief. And not only that, the whole, how do you say, the situation to tear rates, it's no longer a trial. These are jurors. These are judges. and they go nuts, they begin to spit on him, and they begin to beat him in the middle of the trial. They go absolutely berserk. There's an explosion when he claims to be, God the judge coming to earth to put down all injustice. Now, I would like to...that's the first point. Jesus is claiming here in verse 62, to be the judge of all the earth. And I want you to see just how explosive literally,

how explosive it is. When Jesus claims not just to be a great human being, a great teacher, a great leader, but the divine judge of all the earth, it's explosive. Let me give you two categories of what I mean. First of all, it is intellectually explosive. Explosive. Look at the history of philosophy. All these great debates, Plato versus Aristotle, rationalism versus empiricism.

Positiveism versus existentialism. You know, a modernity versus post-modernity, and you know what it always comes down to, basically, there's a theme, which is more real, the universal or the particular, the ideals or the real, the absolute values and principles or the contextual specifics, the one or the many. The ideal or the real. And if you were up here with Plato or with rationalism or with, if you were up here, then you were more conservative and you were more, I mean, other is the differences always are, is it the universal or the particular? Is it the ideal or the real? Which is more important? Which is more... You know what Jesus is saying?

He's exploding all those categories. He's making all the debates obsolete. He says, he's claiming the ideal has become real. The general has become specific. The absolute has become personal. The universal has become a particular. The infinite, unapproachable has become someone you can literally hug and embrace. And therefore, the impossible has become possible.

The metaphysical has become physical. This explodes. It makes all of the human categories obsolete. It makes all the debates obsolete. You see that? It's intellectually explosive, but it's also personally explosive. Oh, it's personally explosive. Look.

We're New Yorkers, right? And New Yorkers like to keep their options open. Let me give you an illustration. We want to stay on balance. You know, we always want to be balanced so we can move any direction quickly, depending on the situation. Now, let me use an illustration from American football.

I use one every 10 years. Or so, just basically to keep my manliness intact. So now, here's a question. Why does a quarterback fake a handoff to the running back class? I'm glad you asked me that question. You say, because he's trying to get the linebackers and the other backs to commit to the run. Isn't that an interesting thing? You know, we hear the commentator say, oh, they're, you know, he got them to commit to the run. What does that mean? Well, what he wants them to do is he wants them to start to go off balance. He wants them to take a step forward.

He wants them to start to come toward the running back so that when he actually passes, they're off balance and they can't get back fast enough to cover for the pass. Because to be committed is to be off balance. To be committed means you're moving in a certain direction. You're trusting that certain something's gonna happen. What the linebackers oughta be doing is they should be, you know, they should be a balance, see, not going in any one direction,

so they're ready to go in any direction. Now that's how we are spiritually. We don't wanna be committed. We wanna keep our options open. We wanna see if this works so that we can kinda get out. We don't wanna be absolutely committed. We don't wanna be absolutely flat out. But boy, Jesus claim is explosive. It will knock you off your feet, it will get you off dead center.

You see these people spitting at him and hitting him and screaming at him and going berserk? Oh, that's terrible, you say. Well, guess what? They may be responding to him in more integrity than you and me. SCS Lewis puts it in his classic spot. He says, there's no half way house here. The things Jesus said are different from what any other teacher has ever said. Other teachers say, this is the truth about the universe, this is the way you want to

go. But Jesus says, I am the truth the way and the life. Now, a man who is merely a man and says that is not a great moral teacher or a great man. He would either be a lunatic on the level of a man who says he's a poached egg, or he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. But we should note in passing that Jesus Christ was never regarded as a mayor, moral teacher, or a good man. He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met him.

He produced three effects, hatred, terror, adoration. But there's no evidence that anyone ever expressed approval. Nobody ever approved of Jesus. Nobody ever said, oh, that's good. That's good. I'll try that. No one ever said that because he said, I'm God. I am the judge.

He said, I have all power on heaven and earth. And when a man says that, a human being says that, there's only three possibilities. You either hate him or you're scared of death of him and you run away or you fall down at his feet and say, command me and make your whole life revolve around him. Those are the only possible, responsive integrity.

Anything else means you're just not thinking. But I'll tell you one thing. This claim is explosive. It will knock you off your feet. The one thing you can't with any integrity do is to say, oh, I believe in Jesus Christ and to drop into church every so often. Every single thing in your life has to revolve around him or you ought to be headed toward

him, throwing yourself at his feet, or rushing away from him, you see, but you shouldn't be just sort of balanced. No. Jesus Christ says, I am the judge of all the earth. That's the first thing we learn. The second thing we learn now is that Jesus creases the judge who was judged. Of all the things Jesus could have said, there's so many.

Who are you, they say? And there's all kinds of texts. There's all kinds of themes. There's all kinds of images and metaphors and passages of the Hebrew Bible that he could have used to tell who he was. But he specifically says, I'm the judge. He uses the image, he uses the passage, it says, I am the judge.

Why? Because he's in a courtroom. He's on trial. And therefore Jesus, by his choice of text, is deliberately forcing us to see the paradox. He is the judge of all the earth who is not judging all the earth who is being judged. He is God in the dock. There's been an enormous reversal here. He should be in the judgment seat and we should be in the dock in chains.

We should be the ones on trial. He should be the judge. We should be the ones on trial. But we human beings are the judge, and he's on trial. And he says, this is the meaning of the universe. Do you understand? Hi, I'm Tim Keller. You know, there is no greater joy in how possible than that which comes from the belief that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.

The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 4, Although Christ was crucified in weakness, he now lives by the power of God. If you grasp this life altering fact of history, then even if you find things going dark in your life, this hope becomes a light for you when all other lights go out. With Easter approaching, I want you to know the hope that stays with you no matter

the circumstance, the hope that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In my book, which is entitled Hope in Times of Fear, the resurrection and the meaning of Easter, you'll find why the true meaning of Easter is transformative and how it gives us unquenchable hope and joy even when we face the trials and difficulties of this life which can be considerable. Hope in times of fear is our thank you for your gift this month to help gospel in life reach more people with the hope and joy of Christ's love. You can request your copy today by going to gospelandlife.com slash give. That is gospelandlife.com slash give. Thank you so much for your generosity.

And as we prepare to reflect on the amazing love of Christ, demonstrated when he went to the cross to save us, I pray you will find renewed hope and comfort in the historical fact of his resurrection. Well, if we're going to understand, I think we need to go to the one other place in the Bible where God was on trial. Did you know there's another place? It's in Exodus chapter 17. And in Exodus 17, we were told this, that they were in the wilderness,

and the children of God are murmuring because against Moses and against God, because everything is, they can't find any water. And they come to Moses and they complain, and they charge God with criminal negligence. And they say, God is not in charge of our lives properly. He's not managing our lives. It was his idea to do this Exodus thing.

And now we're going to die in the wilderness. There's no water here. And they complain and remember against God. And God comes to Moses and says, have the people assemble at the rock and bring your rod. The rod, wow. Have the people assemble at the rock and bring the rod.

You know what that meant? There was going to be a trial. Because the rod was the symbol of great justice. The rod is what judges held during trials and the rod of Moses was the rod by which God had smitten the Egyptian with plagues because of their injustice and therefore the rod of Moses is a symbol of divine justice. And so when God says, I want the people to assemble before the rock and I want you most to bring the rod, there was going to be a trial and Moses was probably looking

at them and saying, aha, now you guys are going to get it. Because you put God on trial. You charged him. How dare you charge him? How dare you put God on trial? Now, you're going to go on trial. You're going to get what you deserve.

But when they get to the rock, when they get to the rock, amazingly, God says, I will stand on the rock before the people. Now that language is unprecedented. Up to that point, in the Bible, there's no place where God has ever said to stand before the people. The people always stand before Him, because He's the King. But He says, I will stand before the people on the rock. And then He says to Moses, and take the rod and strike the rock.

Strike the place where I am standing. And Moses in his verplexity does so. The people assemble, God stands before them on the rock, and Moses strikes the rock and out comes water, life giving water, life giving water and they're saved. And Moses had must have been sitting there saying, what? Why? Wait a minute. They put you on trial. You deserve to smite them. Now, you know, you can look at them and say, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, how awful. They put God on trial, how terrible.

But you know, we all do this. Don't you know what sin is according to the Bible? Sin is putting yourself in the place of God. Sin is substituting yourself for God. And listen, when you call the shots in your own life, when you say, oh, it's up to me how I'm going to live, I will decide what is right, right or wrong for me, even though you didn't create yourself and you don't have, you can't see the end from the beginning, what have you done?

You've put yourself in God's judgment seat. You put yourself on the throne of your own life. We're only God deserves to be. And when you say, I don't like the way things are going in the world, you know, I don't think this is very good. You can't see the end from the beginning, but you get so angry with the way circumstances are you put yourself in the position of judge and you've got God in the doc. So we're just doing what they do. They're just doing what we all do. And Moses thought

that we deserve to be smitten by God. Instead God is smitten and outcomes water. And Moses is trying to say, why should people who deserve punishment get blessing? Why should people who deserve punishment get blessing? Edmund Clownia, an old teacher of mine, who's now passed away, has a sermon on this Exodus 17 passage, and in it he mentions a book, a play that was written right after World War II, is written in Germany, called the Sign of Jonah. And right after World War II was over, and the German people began to realize the magnitude of the Holocaust,

it created a crisis in their society. Because the question was, who should be going on trial for this? Somebody needs to go on trial for this. Now you know what happens? In the book, in the play, when they go to the common people and they say, you should be on trial for what happened. The common people say, no, no, it's the soldiers. They knew. So then we go to the soldiers and we say you should be on trial.

And the soldiers, oh no, no, no, no, we just took orders. It's the people above us. And then we go to the people above, oh no, no, no, we shouldn't go on trial. It's the people above them. So everybody gets out of what they deserve by pointing and saying, no, those other people go on trial at the near the end of the play. Suddenly everybody realizes, we know how we can get out of this. Let's blame God for the Holocaust.

He could have stopped it. He let this happen. He created a world in which this happened. And they sentence him. They find him guilty. They put him on trial and sentenced him. And this is what they say. Let him become a human being. Let him become a wander on the earth.

Let him become homeless and hungry and thirsty. And let him die. And when he dies, let him be disgraced and ridiculed. See they did the atrocities. We'll blame God. And yet Ed Clowney in his sermon suddenly says, do you realize when they've passed a sentence what they're doing? They're demanding God pay for their sins. How unjust. And yet Ed says in his sermon, but God in his perfect righteousness and grace has done even more than the arrogance of our cursing dares demand.

See, in our arrogance, we demand that God come and be judged for the sins that we did. And he has, beyond anything we even imagined, instead of coming and smiting us, he has come and born the judgment for our sins in our place so that we can be adopted by grace. You say, why? Where? Well, you see, Moses, pardon me, didn't understand, but Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, the rock in the wilderness was Christ. Oh, the rock was just a symbol and the rod was just a symbol and Moses couldn't hurt God standing on the rock or anything like that. But here in

this in this courtroom, in this passage in Mark 14, you have the reality. Jesus Christ says, oh my Jesus Christ says, I who deserve to be the judge and you deserve to be in a dock, I have substituted myself for you. Sin is substituting yourself for God, salvation is God substituting himself for us. Sin is taking upon ourselves, parodgatives only God deserves, but salvation is God being willing to come down and take upon Himself penalties that we deserve. Jesus says, I am the judge who's going to deal with evil, but here's how I'm going to deal with evil.

Here's how I'm going to do it. I am coming not to bring judgment, but to bear judgment. I'm coming not to smite you with a rod, but to receive the stroke that you deserve. I, who deserve to go free, will be condemned by justice so you who deserve to be condemned by justice can go free. Oh, my word. Don't you see? If there's no divine judge, what hope is there for the world? You know, if there's no divine judge, then evil's just going to go on and nobody's going

to be held accountable, right? the world. If there's no divine judge, then evil's just going to go on and nobody's going to be held accountable, right? So there's no divine judge. What hope is there for the world? But if there is a divine judge, what hope is there for us? Because if there's a divine judge that we have to all stand before in the last day and he knows everything about what we've ever done, all about our motives, knows our hearts to the bottom, knows every one of our thoughts has seen every second of our lives. who in the world could pass that test? But see, if we don't have a judge, no hope in the world to put things right. If we do have a judge, no hope for us, we'll never pass the test. But Jesus Christ is on the only judge that you can take.

You got a judge. You got to have to have a judge. You have to. But you can't just take any judge. You have to have me. I'm the judge who is judged, and therefore there's hope for you. Now, if you believe this, isn't that amazing? This is the fourth time I've told, you know, I've told 5,000 people today about this.

And it's just as astounding as it was with the first one. But it's not enough just to be astounded. I would like to give you briefly four ways that if you really pull this into your life, it'll change you. Do you really believe that Jesus Christ was the judge who was judged for you? Do you realize that means there are absolute values? You can't just live any way you want. Any at the absolute has become personal and receive the judgment that we deserve. Now if you bring these two together, if you understand these two things, here's four things, four changes. Number one, it means you will not sit in judgment on other groups of people. Jesus' greatness is not just that He has infinite power, but that He gave up His power,

and He sacrificed and died it to forgive His enemies. Now, if you are a Christian, and you look at people who don't believe the way you do, and you feel superior to them, then you're not listening. You're not listening. At the very heart of the gospel, is a man who has infinite power, who gives it up in

sacrificial service for others. And loves and forgives the people who disagree with him and so much that they're posing him, so much that they're after him, so much that they're destroying him. We desperately need in this world people who can look at others, who disagree with you deeply, and you can look at them and respect them and love them as equals. As moral equals, Christianity says, you're saved not by your performance, not by being smart or good because Jesus Christ died in your place. And therefore, if you're saved, it's not because you're better than

other people, it's just because of grace. That gives you enormous intellectual and spiritual and psychological resources to look at other people who are not Christians and to say, neighbor, to love them and respect them, no matter what they do, no matter how they live, and also no matter what they believe. If you understand that Jesus was judged for you, that should destroy self-righteousness.

You should stop being judgemental toward other groups. Secondly, if you see that Jesus Christ was judged in your place, it means you should forgive people who have wronged you. Individuals now I'm talking about. Is there anybody in your life that's wronged you? And you say, oh, I'm not bitter. I've forgiven him. But you really would love to see something bad happen to them. That is the definition of bitterness.

That's a whole other sermon. We'll get there someday. If you would just love to see something bad happen to them, you've still got your grudge. And you know what you are? You're in the judgment seat. You think you know what they deserve. Do you really know the end from the beginning? Do you really know everything they've been through? Do you really know what they deserve? Of course you don't. Only God is qualified to sit in the seat that you're in. But if you continue to resent and be bitter and pull for bad things to happen to certain

people that have wronged you, you're hardening. It's making you hard, it's making you tough, it's making you bad, it's hurting you in so many ways, forgive. We say, how can I forgive? Here's Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ had every right to hold a grudge against you and me, but he didn't. He had every right to judge us.

You know, you and I don't have the right to sit in judgment others, but he had the right, and he for, it was for gone. He went away from it. He said, no, I'll give it up. I refuse to sit in judgment. I bear your judgment.

If Jesus Christ could do that for you, surely you can absorb the debt that other people owe you. So don't judge other groups. Secondly, don't judge individuals. Forgive them. Thirdly, stop judging yourself all the time. Listen, some of you walk around always beating yourself up. I was saying, I didn't do a good job or I'm not as pretty or I'm not as handsome or as not as smart or I'm not as good or I'm not doing what I ought to be doing and look at myself and it's awful. What is that?

You're in the judgment seat of your life and you're looking down at yourself and you're every single day. If your performance is okay, well, that's all right. If your performance isn't very good then you beat yourself up. How dare you? The only person who has the right to sit in judgment over you and smack you around is Jesus Christ and He didn't do it. At infinite cost to Himself, He got out of that chair and took your sins upon Himself.

And there's a great place in 1 Corinthians 4 where Paul says, literally, he says to his readers, I care not, I care very little whether I'm judged by you or any human court. Indeed, I don't judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It's the Lord who judges me. Did you hear that? See, I've memorized that.

This thing has changed my life for the last 30 years. First of all, he says, I don't care what you think. I don't get myself image from your verdict. I don't care what you think. Okay, you say, well, that's all right, good. I guess Paul doesn't care what other people think. He only cares what he thinks. No, he says, I don't care what you think,

but guess what? I don't care what I think. He says, I don't judge myself. What? He says, my conscience is clear myself. What? He says, my conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. That's an amazing statement. What he's saying is, I feel pretty good about myself today, but so what? That doesn't mean anything. Hitler had a clear conscience. Didn't work for him. He says, only God has the right

work for him. He says, only God has the right to judge you, me. He says, I don't care what you think, I don't even care what I think. All I care is what God thinks. And in Jesus Christ, my judgment day is in the past. All the bad things I deserve are gone, they're passed. And now the verdict is in, the trial is over. The suffer crimination should be over. The trial is over. So stop acting like you're still on trial all the time. The verdict is in. He loves you. He accepts you.

What do you think of that? Get out of the judgment seat toward other groups. Get out of the judgment seat toward individuals. Get out of the judgment seat to yourself. And lastly, lastly. This connects to their hope for New York Fair this today. Jesus Christ does not just suffer for us. He suffers with us.

And in this trial, he identifies with the poor in the oppressed. He identifies with the powerless. He identifies with people who have been the victims of injustice. He identifies with people who have been the crushed by the economic and social and political powers of the world with crushed people, for their own benefit.

Joe Antirell, an African-American writer some years ago, wrote something in New York, it was quoted in the New York, you know, in the Time Magazine. She had been raised in Christianity, but she had gone through so much poverty and suffering. She had pretty much abandoned her faith in Christianity, but one day, she was thinking about the cross, and she suddenly realized, and she wrote this, this was in the Time Magazine. Jesus, I realize, suddenly not only suffered for us, but he suffered with us.

I suddenly realized he knows literally what it's like to be under the lash. He knows what it's like to stand up to those in power and pay for it with his life. He knows what it's like to be a victim of a corrupt judicial system. Jesus was lynched. judicial system. Jesus was lynched.

And the people of the world who have experienced that kind of oppression realize that Jesus Christ is one of their own. He didn't just suffer for you. He suffered with you. He came right into our powerlessness, right into the injustice, right into the oppression, and he experienced it. And John's thought, at one point says this, I could never believe in God if it wasn't for the cross, because in a world filled with injustice, how could it be possible to worship

a God who was immune from it? And Christianity is the only faith that says that God experienced injustice. And therefore he understands it and he cares about it. Now here's the last thing. If you know that Jesus Christ did this for you, you will look out in that world and there's so many people that are victims of injustice and people who are powerless and they're literally being slaughtered or they're being kept in poverty because they don't have the power. And if you are a Christian and you've got any power,

any ability to be advocate for the poor and the oppressed, you need to do it. Therefore, see that Jesus Christ is the judge who was judged for you. Let it sink in. So you stop judging others, so you just stop judging groups, so you stop judging yourself,

and you start becoming an advocate for the poor and the oppressed and the power of this world. Let us pray. Thank you, Father, that Jesus Christ, your Son, was willing to do this for us. Let what He did so transform us that we walk in His footsteps, and we come not to be served,

but to serve and to give our lives just like he did for many. We pray this in Jesus' name. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. If you're encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people access this resource. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were

recorded in 2006 and 2007. 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 Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.