Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Contemplation

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Adoration is a practical skill, one we need to engage in if we’re going to grow into the people God designed us to be. Psalm 27 teaches us about individual, personal, contemplative adoration. And in the center of Psalm 27, it says, “one thing I ask, one thing I seek.” What is that one thing?  We learn three things from this psalm about this one thing: 1) why it’s so important, 2) what it is, and 3) how to do it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 2, 2002. Series: Psalms: Disciples of Grace. Scripture: Psalm 27:1-14. 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.

If you're a Christian, what does it look like for you to grow into the person God designed you to be? Over the centuries, Christians have looked to the Psalms to learn how to grow as believers. Join us today as Tim Keller preaches from the book of Psalms. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my appetite adversaries and foes, it is they

who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war rise against me, yet I will be confident. One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple, for he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble. He will conceal me under the cover of his tent.

He will lift me high upon a rock, and now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me. And I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy. I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me. You have said, Seek my face. My heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek. Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who

have been my help. Cast me not off. Forsake me not, O God of my salvation. For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen up against me, and they breathe out violence.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. We've been looking at spiritual disciplines in the book of Psalms, and these are practical

skills that we have to engage if we're going to grow into the people that God wants us to be and designed us to be. Tonight we come to a discipline that in a way we have to treat twice, this week and in a couple of weeks. We're looking at the discipline, I guess, of what you'd call adoration. But here in Psalm 27, it's clearly talking about the adoration by an individual,

personal individual adoration. And we're gonna call it, that's why I call it as a contemplative adoration. Psalm 95, which we're going to look at in a couple of weeks, talks about corporate praise, corporate adoration. And in spite of the fact that, by the way, those two things obviously have an awful lot in common, they do not substitute for one another. You cannot grow without both of them. They have to both be there.

They're both absolutely necessary. But tonight, Psalm 27, and the very center of Psalm 27 is verse 4 that talks about one thing, one thing I ask, one thing I seek. You sang about it already. What is that one thing? We learn three things from the Psalm about it. We learn why it's important, what it is, and how to do it. Why it's so important, what it is, and how to do it. Okay, first, why it's so important. And there's a claim for this one thing that's astounding in the Psalm. David talks about two cataclysmic disastrous possibilities. Verse 3 he says, though an army camp against me. Verse 10 he says, though my father and mother forsake me. Now, what's he doing?

He's running the gamut of human nightmares. So, on the one hand, there is no greater external devastation to your physical and material well-being than to literally have an army come after you to destroy you, to torture you, to kill you, to put your head on a pike, which is something that David did face, you know. On the other hand, my father and mother forsake me,

David here is talking about the foundational relationships of your life, your spouse, your children, your parents. They're foundational. Your love, your joy, your self-regard is so bound up in them. And David is saying, should the greatest possible exterior devastation or attack, possible exterior devastation or attack, or should the greatest possible interior, internal pain and loss and grief and devastation? Should either of these things happen to me? Should both of them happen to me? In other words, should the worst things that a human being

can possibly imagine happen to me, but if I have this one thing, I'll be all right. That's the message of the Psalm. More than all right. You notice in verse six, he says, when I'm in... Look at verse six, which is fascinating, says, and now my head shall be lifted up, above all my enemies around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy. He's in a tent.

A tent is not an incredibly safe place surrounded by enemies. And he's saying, oh, I would love it if my enemies would go away. I would love it if somehow they would be dispersed. But even if I was utterly surrounded by the worst possible devastations and disasters, if I had this one thing, my head would be lifted up. I would not fear. I will still be confident if I have this one thing. So he's making a claim for this one thing by saying, this is the most important thing in the world. This is the only thing you actually

have to have. You can face absolutely anything if you have this. Everything else is essentially optional. Even the things you most think. He says, you have to have this. You don't have to live. Army, an army may encamp against me. They might be about to kill me. They may absolutely, definitely be about to successfully kill me. I will still be confident. My head will still be up. So you see how important this is? This

is the only thing you absolutely have to have. And just quickly, an observation or two about this, before we move on. A lot of people think spirituality is a good thing. You know, it's typical in New York to say spirituality, stillness, prayer, meditation, it's a good thing for people. But David is saying here that it's not just a good thing. There's a true spirituality which is the supreme thing. And you neglect or ignore it at your peril no matter who you are. And the other thing I love about this particular text is how incredibly unfony and unsentimental it is.

There's a place where Ernest Becker in his book, The Nile of Death, says something that has always helped me, I've always liked. Ernest Becker says, I think taking life seriously means that whatever you do must be done in the lived truth of the evil and terror of life, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise it's phony. He says whatever you do, you must do it in the lived truth, in the light of the evil and terror of life, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise it is phony. And you see, just about every other worldview I know, other than the one that David's giving us here,

tends to minimize or sentimentalize the terror, the evil, the rumble of panic that Becker talks about. There's a general sentiment that says, well, you know, in every cloud there's a silver lining. There's a Christianized version of this sentimentality that says, well, if I really live for Jesus, my life will go fine. Things will go smoothly. David looks you square in the eyes and said,

I do not assume parents who love me. I do not assume a good family life. I do not assume success. I do not assume protection and safety. I don't assume any of those things. And yet I still can live with my head up if I have this. That is the most unfony, unsentimental, realistic, naive, down to earth view of life possible

and strategy for life possible. So first of all, why it's so important. It's incredibly important. It's the ultimate thing. Secondly, what is it? Now, it's verse four. And Miles Coverdale, the old translator of the Psalms, the Miles Coverdale version of the Psalms

was used in the Book of Common Prayer, the Anglican book for years, 16th century man. So it's archaic, but this is the way Miles Coverdale translates verse 4. He says, one thing have I desired of the Lord, one thing I will require that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the fair beauty of the Lord. That's the one thing. That's the one thing that if you have, you'll be able to face anything. If you, in a sustained way, behold the beauty of the Lord.

He is not, the psalmist, David, is not going into the temple in repentance, asking for God's forgiveness. He's not going into the temple in petition, asking for God's forgiveness. He's not going into the temple in petition asking for God's help or power or action or change of circumstances and so on. He is going to the temple not asking for God's forgiveness or for God's help or for God's power. He's going into the temple asking for God, God Himself. He's looking for the beauty of God, which means He's looking

for satisfaction in God for who he is in himself. And he says, if I have that, if I know that, I'll be able to face anything. That's the one thing. Now, what is this? We need to back up a minute and look at our cultural context for a second because David is talking about beauty. And beauty as a category in our culture has been completely out of fashion in elite circles for at least 30 years. The very category of beauty is in question. Todd Gitlin who teaches, he's a scholar

at NYU and a very well respected scholar, recently I read an article that he wrote a couple of years ago in which he said, he says since the 60s and 70s, amongst the intelligentsia, amongst elite opinion, the arts, the science, academics and so on, the very category of beauty has been absolutely eschewed, it's out of fashion. Why? And in the article he points this out,

he says in the 60s and 70s, socially active people noticed, social activists noticed that emphasis on beauty tended to lead to elitism, oppression, obsession, exclusion. Now two of the famous examples, number one, they noticed that in a society in which female physical beauty is really emphasized, there is all that, those things, all those distortions.

Women in a society like that are obsessed and insecure about the way they look. I mean, the eating disorders is just one side of things, one side of this oppression, obsession. Men in a society that puts all that emphasis on female beauty, this is what Todd Gitlin said, tend to look at women as things to possess, something that I jealously come and take control of. And they marginalize women who don't live up to the ideal, and they try to possess the women who do. And think about it, what is pornography?

Pictures of ugly things? The addiction of pornography has to do with beauty. The addictions of eating disorders have to do with beauty. And here's another example, quickly, is another example Todd Gitlin mentions, is the fact that the Nazis were extremely, extremely well-known, famous, for being connoisseurs of beauty and art, beauty and music, but it was their cultural high art

that they loved and as a result, it seemed to them that they denigrated and they oppressed other cultures because they said, oh, no one produces the beauty and art that our culture does. Other cultures are inferior to us. And so Todd Gitlin says, in general, emphasis on beauty seemed to socially conscious people to be constantly creating distortions and elitism and oppression and obsession and exclusion.

And so we banished it. And then suddenly, two years ago, Elaine Scarry, a professor at Harvard, which of course is the very, very center of elite opinion, published a little book called On Beauty and Being Just. And it was a little bombshell, because in it she says, we cannot do without beauty. She quotes Immanuel Kant, the famous German philosopher, who says that our capacity for beauty, our hunger and our appetite for beauty

is infinite and bottomless. Kant says, she quotes him, Kant says that you can get tired of food. I mean, you can eat so much food that the very sight of food turns you off. You can have so much sex that the very sight of sex bores you. But you cannot get enough beauty. You may, in the name of intellectual fashion, avoid the word beauty, but you cannot avoid your own pursuit of it. You're after it.

You need it. You want it. And Elaine Scarry in her book points out that a true experience of beauty is transforming in three ways. A true experience of beauty is transforming in three ways. Think with me. First of all, she says, beauty creates community through the joy of praise. It creates community through the joy of praise.

When you experience something as beautiful, automatically, involuntarily, you feel the need to run to somebody, grab them by the hand, pull them and say, listen to this, look at this. You need to do it. Why? It's not because you simply want them to enjoy the beauty like you have enjoyed the beauty.

Beauty produces a joy that is only completed as you praise it to someone who enjoys it with you. Your beauty is completed only when you bring others together and say, look at how great this is. I want you to see it too. Beauty creates community through the joy of praise. At the most mundane level. I mean, if you don't believe, you believe this,

you know this. At the most mundane level, you see this in fan clubs. People with whom you have absolutely nothing in common, as soon as you sit down with them or meet them, you say, what am I doing here? Until suddenly you realize they all have the same thing and we almost thrown together because of the need to praise something in common. You know what friendships are? Why are you friends with some people and other people?

Because the people that you're friends with are people who tend to find the same things beautiful. They have the same array, the same beauty bracket. And therefore, first of all, beauty creates community through the joy of praise. Secondly, beauty infuses hope through the conviction of meaning. Beauty infuses hope through the conviction of meaning. When you're in the presence of something beautiful,

no matter what you intellectually believe, no matter what you're emotionally feeling before you came before the beautiful object, you suddenly sense that there's hope. Arthur Danto, who used to teach art at Columbia University, very respected, says that the way you know you're in the presence of great art is you sense indefinable but inevitable meaning. Indefinable but inevitable meaning.

And what he means is that even though you may not believe there's meaning, you may not believe there's hope, when you're in the presence of great art, you can't define it, you can't put your, but you know somehow. When you're in the presence of beauty, you say somehow there's hope. That's the reason why I love that quote by Leonard Bernstein, which I often quote, in which he said, Leonard Bernstein, you know, intellectually was a nihilist. He believed that human life was a chemical accident and he believed therefore there was really no meaning. But he says, but when I listen to Beethoven's fifth I

Can't help but believe and feel there's something right in the universe that will never let me down What does he mean? You know what he means in the presence of beauty no matter how you were feeling before the you come to the beautiful object No matter how you were feeling no matter what you believed believed, you know there just has to be meaning, there just has to be hope. So, first of all, beauty creates community through the joy of praise. Secondly, beauty infuses hope through the conviction of meaning. And thirdly, beauty gets you out of your self-absorption. Beauty undermines selfishness.

Beauty makes you stop thinking only about yourself and your own little needs. Elaine Scarry in her book says this, the moment we see something beautiful, we undergo a radical decentering. The beautiful object turns us toward justice because the nature of beauty is to find something satisfying for what it is in itself.

When you see something beautiful, you don't say, how can I use this? You say, just seeing it, just experiencing it is satisfying in and of itself. And so you look at it and you say, this wonderful thing is not something I can use for my own means, my own little ends, my own little goals. And therefore, what Elaine Scarry says is, the experience of beauty kind of shuts up your ego. It decenters you from egocentricity. It knocks you, it shocks you out of selfishness

and self-centeredness. It radically decenters you. It pulls you away from self-absorption. Now, when reviewers looked at these three things, when reviewers looked at these three things, when reviewers looked at the book, that beauty creates community through the joy of praise, beauty gives you community producing joy,

hope producing conviction of meaning, it produces a lack of self-absorption, a blessed self-forgetfulness. When reviewers read the book, they struggled with it. Because on the one hand, you know that's true. You know that's true. I mean, when I was reading the book and I was preparing a sermon, I was just thinking about my relationship,

my wife and my relationship to about six to eight pieces of music. There are six to eight pieces of music. There are six to eight pieces of music that just send us through the roof. Just like there's probably six to eight pieces of music in your life that send you through the roof. Now our bracket, our beauty brackets are rather different because different things send us. Different things create those three transforming marks

in your life. But you know, I mean, even when we were dating, we discovered that there were several pieces of music that when we listened to, we just, we loved them together. And when I saw her loving it and she saw me loving it, it created community, as it were. And even to today, even to today, if one of us is in a snit, filled with self-pity, feeling despondent, maybe kind of alienated from the other person, kind of tense, if one of us is in a snit filled with self-pity, feeling despondent, maybe kind of alienated from the other person, kind of tense. If one of us takes one of those six to eight pieces

of music and turns it on full blast, you are forced out of your snit. You just can't help but worship. You say, gosh, I was trying to be mad at you, I was trying to be mad at life, I was trying to be despondent, and I can't help but worship. I can't help but know there's hope. I can't help but realize things are going to be all right.

I mean, in other words, those experiences of beauty that Elaine Scarry talks about, they resonate. And the reviewers, I've been reading reviews of the book, the reviewers struggle because of course those things are true, but what about the fact that beauty does seem to lead to obsession and to oppression and to exclusion and to elitism? What about the Nazis? What about pornography?

What about eating disorders? What about all that? And the answer is this. The answer is the psalm. If you want all of the benefits of beauty without any of the distortions. You have to make the supreme beauty of your heart the beauty of God. This month, we're excited to let you know about a brand new resource

based on Tim Keller's best love books. Go Forward in Love, a year of daily readings from Timothy Keller, features a short passage each day from one of Dr. Keller's books to use for daily reflection. Each day's reading offers deep insight, biblical wisdom, and spiritual encouragement. The passages are meant to lead you into worship, help you reflect on God's attributes, and encourage you to live more missionally.

Go Forward in Love is our thanks when you give to Gospel in Life in November. To receive your copy, just visit www.gospelinlife.com slash give. That copy, just visit gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity, which helps us share the love of Christ with more people. See, that's what David's saying. Of course, if any finite created beauty was your one thing,

the one thing in your life that you were using to fulfill that bottomless pit that Kant talked about, if there's any finite created beauty you've turned into the one thing, of course it's going to create obsession and oppression and elitism and exclusion. Of course it is. But the beauty of the Lord's different. And this is the reason why David said, don't you see, if I could see the beauty of the Lord,

if I could relocate my heart's source of ultimate beauty in the Lord, then there wouldn't be a power on the face of the earth, not a military power, not a political power, not a psychological, not a social power, there wouldn't be a power on the face of the earth that could knock me off of my meaning, off of my joy, off of my self-regard and self-image. Nothing.

Wow. If you want all of the advantages and benefits, if you want the joy, you want the community, you want the hope, you want this, you know, if you want your ego to finally be so satisfied, it's shut up from all of its complaining and grumbling all the time. If you want those benefits without any of the distortions, it's the beauty of the Lord. You have to gaze and behold the beauty of the Lord. Now somebody says, well how do you do that? And that's our last point.

But it's a multiple last point because the text gives us five ways, I think, that you can actually seek this. David says, one thing I ask, one thing I seek, to behold the beauty of the Lord. Now, how do you seek that? Five ways. Existentially, deliberately, intelligently, patiently, Jesus-centricly. Hmm? Okay. Existentially. First of all, let's just be honest, and I know this is going to shock some of you to hear a Presbyterian minister say such a thing, but the first thing that David, we learned from this text, is that David is seeking an experience.

David is seeking an experience. That's what the beauty of God is. How do we know that? Look at verse 8. It says, You have said, seek my face, my heart says to you, your face, Lord, do I seek. David senses an invitation from God to his heart to seek his face, to gaze on his beauty. Now, what does it mean to seek the face of God and gaze on the beauty of God?

What does it mean? It can't just mean a literal vision. I know some people would say, well I guess he was looking for a literal vision. No, that's missing the point of the psalm. I mean maybe, I mean certainly David certainly could have gone to the temple and had a vision, it happened. But what he's after here of course as you see

is he wants this to be a sustained thing in his life. He says I want to dwell in the house of the Lord. Now he's not a Levite, he's after here, of course, as you see, is he wants this to be a sustained thing in his life. He says, I want to dwell in the house of the Lord. Now, he's not a Levite, he's not a priest. They're the ones who literally dwelled in the house of the Lord. He's a king and he can't dwell in the house of the Lord. So what is he asking for? Is he saying, I don't want to be a king,

I want to be a Levite or a priest? No, what he's saying is, I want this to be the sustained experience of my life. So he's not looking for just vision. So what's he looking for? What is he talking about? He is talking to seek the face, to gaze on the beauty of God, is an existential awareness of what he has cognition of.

He's talking about the difference between knowing that God is great and having a sense on the heart of his greatness and glory. Now, the person that put this best is Jonathan Edwards and I often quote this, but what I did for today is I tried to modernize the language so it's a little easier to understand as I read it. Jonathan Edwards in his famous sermon on this, he says this, human beings are capable of knowing the good in two ways.

The first is the opinion of the soul. The second is the disposition of the soul. So there's a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet and having an actual sense of its sweetness. So there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious and having a sense on the heart of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace.

In other words, you have a pleasure and delight in the presence of the very idea of it. You hear that? He says, do you know what it's like, not just to say, well, I know God is great and glorious, but to have a pleasure and a delight, a sense on the heart at the very idea of the greatness of God.

You read about it, you hear about it, you think about it, and you have a sense on the heart of it. That is what David's talking about. Listen carefully. David already believes that God is beautiful and glorious, but he doesn't use the term, he uses the term gaze. He says, I want to gaze on your beauty. Why does he use that term? If he's not talking literally about his naked eye, as we just said, he's using sensory language because he's saying, look, I do believe in the glory of God, but

I don't actually have a sense on the heart of that glory with any regularity. I don't sense the sweetness of it. I don't sense the power of it. I don't sense the reality of it in my heart. It's one thing to know that honey is sweet. It's another thing to be sensing the sweetness of the honey, tasting it. It's one thing to know that God is glorious. It's another thing to gaze on the beauty. And this is what David is saying. David is saying, I can't handle life only with knowing about God's glory and even obeying God. I've got right doctrine, I've got right practice, but I need this or my head will not be lifted up.

I am not handling life without this. So I know this is scary to hear a Presbyterian minister say, but David is saying as important as it, obviously you have to have belief and you have to have obedience. You can't have, before you have experience, but you can't just stop there. You need an existential awareness of the beauty of God on the heart,

a sense of it, a taste of it, a sight of it. So first of all, you have to seek it existentially. But secondly, you have to seek it deliberately. Now what I mean by that is that people at this point, many people just say, oh my word, you're starting to overwhelm me. Am I supposed to just wait for this mystical experience so I just walk down the street

and one day it just sort of comes down on me? Well actually, unfortunately, occasionally that happens, but those are bad examples. Because this is not what David is saying. David's talking about seeking and asking and inquiring and going in. And David is talking about setting aside the time to do this and make this a priority in his life.

And so there are things you deliberately do. And I think they're all wrapped up in this word gaze. And in order to be practical as I can possibly be for you tonight, let me say there are three sub-disciplines, three deliberate sub-disciplines under the basic discipline we're talking about tonight, which is contemplative adoration.

There are three sub-disciplines, three things that you can do if you want a sense on the heart of the beauty of God. The one thing. Here's what those three things are. Just think about this idea of gazing on the beauty. First of all, the word gaze implies praise. The discipline of praise.

Gazing is not just looking. Looking is something you get for information. Gazing implies admiration, of course. And so the first thing is that praise has got to be, if you're gonna get this one thing, praise has got to be a major part of your prayer life, is it? Praise is the expression of, expressing the delight to God of what you admire of Him.

Is it? I tell you this, especially when you're feeling guilty, it's not too hard for us to spend 30 minutes of repentance. It's not too hard if we're needy, which we always are, to spend 30 minutes in petition and asking God for things. When's the last time you spent 30 minutes, even 30 minutes, in praise? So the first thing that gaze implies is the discipline of praise. The second thing though that gaze implies is it's gazing on the beauty. Now let's remind ourselves of

what beauty is. A beautiful thing is something that we find satisfying in itself. Now the best illustration I have on this, which I every so often use is, when I was in college, I listened to Mozart in order to get a good grade in music appreciation so I could get a, you know, I could graduate so I could get a good job. In other words, I listened to Mozart in order to someday make money. But now I spend all kinds of money just to listen to Mozart. Why? Because it's beautiful.

I don't listen to Mozart so people will think I'm cool because nobody knows I listen to Mozart till now, okay? In other words, it's an end in itself. It's an end in itself. It's satisfying in itself now. What does it mean not just to gaze on God but to gaze on his beauty? It means the discipline of finding him satisfying. And you say, well how can you make that into a discipline? Here's how I do it. Never petition God for something

without seeing how the very thing you're after is there in God already. Never petition God for something without seeing that the thing you're asking for is there in God already. Now what I mean is this, are you sick? Ask God to heal you. Are you out of a job?

Are you poor? Ask God for finances. Are you lonely? Ask God for friends, ask God for love, ask God for these things. But discipline yourself as you petition to say always, always, every time, say, Lord, however, the real disease, the only disease that can really knock me out, sin and evil, in you is healed.

The only disease, or the only poverty, the only debt that can really take me out in you is paid. The only loneliness and alienation that can really destroy me in you is satisfied. If I have you, ultimately, I have what I need. Never petition without reminding yourself, it's a discipline, that the thing you're asking for you already have in an ultimate sense in God So first of all gaze implies the discipline of praise secondly gazing at the beauty implies the discipline of finding satisfaction in him reminding yourself of his beauty for who he is in himself

But then thirdly if you do those first two think Gaze also implies a wordless kind of love. There is a kind of prayer that if you do the other things well enough, often enough, and the Holy Spirit helps you, sometimes he just sort of appears and you just look at him. When you're in love with somebody, you just look at him. When you're, listen, is there a mountain over a lake that is just one of the most beautiful sights you know? When you look at it, what are you telling yourself about it?

What are you saying to yourself about it? You're not saying anything. You're just drinking it in. And this is the reason why one old writer, Jacques Bousset, puts it like this. He says, sometimes prayer consists in a simple looking or loving attention to God himself. The soul quits all reasoning.

It uses sweet contemplation which keeps it peaceful, attentive and receptive to anything the Holy Spirit may communicate. Sometimes you literally gaze because he appears. You say, what do you mean? You mean a vision? You'll know it when you get it. So first of all, you seek it existentially. Secondly, you seek it deliberately.

Thirdly, you seek it intelligently. Now, why do I say that? Because a lot of people say, well, now where do I look when I'm contemplating? Or just stare at a wall, will that be it? No, you look at the scripture. In verse four, it says the thing that he wants, it's one thing, interestingly enough, it's not two or three.

He says I want to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to inquire. Now the word inquire, there's no way the English word is going to get this across. The word inquire means to seek a prophecy from a prophet or a priest, to hear God's truth. And the simple fact is you must meditate on the scripture until the truth begins to shine. That's how it works. You take things in the scripture that you already know maybe, things that you have in your cognition but not in your sensation.

You have in your mind but not in your heart. And you meditate on them and you reflect on them and you ponder on them with this hope, with these disciplines. Not just simply to get information, say, okay, I studied this verse, now I know what's in it, but to find him through the truth and the teaching of the verse. So in other words, you seek him existentially, you seek him deliberately, you seek him intelligently, you seek him patiently. Notice verse 14.

Wait. In fact, if you stand back and look at the whole Psalm, you'll notice something pretty interesting. Verses 1 to 6 is so confident. The Lord is my, you know, whom shall I fear? I will this, I will, and then suddenly verse 7, things change. You notice that? Hear, O Lord, when I cry. And look at verse 9. Don't hide your face from me. Don't turn me away. Don't cast me off. Don't forsake me. What's going on?

And the answer is this. If you look carefully, you'll see that this wonderful one thing that David's saying, if I have that, I'll have everything. He doesn't have it yet. It's all in the future tense. He says, if this is what I want and if I have that, then I will be safe. Then I will be confident, then I will be confident, then I will have my head lifted up, though surrounded by enemies, but he doesn't

have it yet. And what that means is, he knows that this is a process, this is not going to happen overnight. It's not saying, well, Sunday night I made up my mind and by Tuesday I hope I know I've got it. He says, wait for this, this is not gonna take, this is not gonna be overnight. This is gonna be, it's a discipline. It's a journey.

So you have to do it patiently. But lastly, you have to do it Jesus-centricly. See, this is the missing piece. There's gotta be some of you out there saying, A, some of you are saying, you're scaring me. You're really scaring me. I believe in God, I thought. You know, but I don't know what you're talking about.

This is way too beyond me. This is just way beyond me. So some of you are saying, you're scaring me. Some of you are saying, you're losing me. But I'm not even sure what you're talking about. It sounds all right. I don't even know what you're talking about. It sounds all right. I don't even know what you're talking about. And I would say it could be because you're that you have the same,

you're missing the same piece that even David was missing. What? David, as I pointed out a second ago, after verse six is over, David starts to backtrack. In fact, as somebody has said, David starts to freak out. He says, I'm going to go in, I'm going to see the beauty of God, I'm going to get this thing. And now look at verse 9 again. He starts to cry out. He says, I'm crying out. He says, don't hide your face, don't turn me out, and don't forsake me, oh my Father."

Now why is he suddenly freaking out? And the answer is, this always happens actually. When Moses said, I want to see your glory, your face, your beauty, God says it would kill you. If you start to get near me, you will experience threat. You will start to see what's wrong with your life. You don't know what you're asking for. When Isaiah sought the face of God,

he went into the temple and he began to get, you know, a sight of the holiness of God, he immediately experienced his unworthiness. He said, woe is me, I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And the same thing is happening to David. See, verses 1-6, I'm going to go in and almost immediately he starts to say,

but how dare I go in considering the life I've led and considering the way I have been. I deserve, verse 9, to have his face hidden from me. I deserve, verse 9, is to be turned away. I deserve, verse nine, to have my father forsake me. But weirdly enough, in verse 10, he suddenly says, verse 10, he says, though my mother and father forsake me, even if my mother and father have forsaken me, the Lord will take me in.

So he intuits through the Holy Spirit that somehow in spite of that unworthiness, he's going to be brought in. But how does he know that? Well, he just know it spiritually, but vaguely, but we know it wonderfully and clearly because we know that there was one person who was a perfect servant and who was a perfect son of the Father in heaven, but who experienced every one of the things that David in verse 9 feels that he deserved. And all of us down deep know we deserve. David says, you know, I deserve to have his face hidden. I deserve to be turned out. I deserve to be forsaken.

But David's greater son, Jesus Christ, though a perfect servant, though a perfect son, on the cross said, my father, my father, you have forsaken me. You have forsaken me. Now, why did Jesus do that? And the answer is astounding Now why did Jesus do that? And the answer is astounding. Why did Jesus do that?

Why would Jesus do that? He obviously took the punishment that David understood that he deserved and that we, I think, all deep down understand that we deserve. But Jesus Christ was forsaken so we could be taken in. Jesus Christ lost the face so we could have the face of God. Jesus Christ was turned out so that we could be taken in. Jesus Christ lost the face so we could have the face of God. Jesus Christ was turned out so that we could be brought in. Jesus Christ was forsaken so we would not be. But why did he do that?

Think about it, what does he get out of it? Just us. Why would Jesus go through all that? What does he get out of it? Just us. Well, what does he get out of us? Nothing. What does that mean? He gets nothing out of us. What does he get out of it? Just us. Well, what does he get out of us? Nothing. What does that mean? He gets nothing out of us.

What does that mean? It means that he must have been motivated in his death on the cross, by looking at us and just finding us beautiful. We must have been a beauty to him. We were his creation and he saw us as beautiful for who we were in ourselves because he's getting nothing out of it. So he dies on the cross strictly for love of our beauty. And only when we see that

does he truly become beautiful to us. And this is the reason why John chapter one, there's this fascinating place where the gospel writer says, and Jesus became flesh, the word became flesh, and tented among us. He uses the Greek word tented. The word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory.

Glory is of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. What is he saying? John is saying that Jesus is the tent. Jesus is the dwelling place of the Lord now. Jesus is the place where you'll see his beauty. What does that mean? It means only when you see the life of Jesus,

the words of Jesus, the character of Jesus, but most of all, his death on the cross, only when you see him dying out of love for our beauty, just out of delight and desire for who we are in ourselves, will you finally actually truly see the beauty of God? That's the sanctuary now, the life and death of Jesus Christ. That's the dwelling place you have to go. And if you go there, you'll get the one thing.

If you gaze at that, if you gaze at Him, if you gaze at Him doing that, He'll truly become a beauty for you. And all the one, and that'll be the one thing. And all the great things that David says will accrue from that will. You'll live life with your head up. Christian friends, listen.

Maybe tonight you're hearing God say, seek my face. Through this passage, answer him and wait. Don't give up. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you have given us this promise. Then secondly, you've opened the way for it through the life and death of Jesus Christ. We ask that you would show us what it means to adore you, what it means to find you in our inner being. We thought, Father, this is the way that we will be melted, happy, soft hearted, tough minded people who can face anything

and who treat each other with love because of our joy, because of our hope, because of our, the loss of self absorption that comes from seeing your beauty, especially in the face of Jesus Christ, in the death of Jesus Christ, in the life of Jesus Christ, in the heart of Jesus Christ. Father, we ask for this. And Lord, I know there's people here who not only have been Christians for years but know

very little of this and now they need it. There's also people here, I'm sure, who know now that they've been moral and religious, but they've never seen this, they've never had this because moral people find God useful. But the gospel shows us, makes you beautiful to our hearts. And we ask that you would show us your beauty, help us to find it. Give us the one thing we need. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's message from Tim Keller. If you have a story of how the gospel has changed your life or how Gospel in Life's resources have encouraged or challenged you,

we'd love to hear from you. You can share your story with us by visiting GospelinLife.com slash stories. That's GospelinLife.com slash stories. Today's sermon was preached in 2002. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.