Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Discipline of Desire

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

We have a tremendous hunger for spiritual experience. But how do we experience God? And how do we know we’re experiencing God? The Psalms are an amazing resource, because in the Psalms you have someone describing their experience of God from the inside. Psalm 63 shows us features of authentic Christian experience—and each feature is both a test and a discipline.  Let’s look at the first feature: 1) the way you know you’ve found God is that you develop a spiritual appetite. In other words, the way you know you’re really moving toward God is you feel you’re too far from him. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 19, 1997. Series: Lessons in Drawing Near. Scripture: Psalm 63. 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.

What does it mean to move from following a set of doctrines or ethics to actually having God be a living presence in your life? Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller is teaching on how we can experience God authentically in a life-transforming way. After you listen, we'd appreciate it if you would take time to rate and review the podcast. Your rating and review will encourage others to listen so they can experience the joy and beauty of the gospel because the gospel really does change everything. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller.

Tonight whenever we have the Lord's Supper, the music, everything, the climax is not the sermon on a night like this. The climax is the table. So let's get ready for the table. climax is the table. So let's get ready for the table. And when the way we're going to do it is we're going to look at Psalm 63. Let me read it to you. And then I'll explain why what we're doing. We'll be looking at this weekend next week. How many of you will be here next week? I don't know. But we do know that this psalm is a great psalm on drawing near to God. Psalm 63. O God, you are my God. Earnestly, I seek you.

My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and glory, because your love is better than life. My lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods, with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

On my bed I remember you, I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you. You right hand upholds me. They who seek my life will be destroyed. They will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. But the King will rejoice in God. And all who swear by God's name will praise Him. While the mouths of liars will be silenced. This is God's word.

I don't know about you, but when I try to put together something, whether it's a model or an appliance or something, I really need two different things. Usually, what I do is I open the box, get all the pieces out, stick it in front of me, and I start to read the directions. The directions, always are very step by step. The directions are always, they show you a picture of a slot and a tab and a screw. It all shows you just one one little part and it says do this and then the next step says do this and it gives you a piece and every so often I

get totally lost unless and maybe you do too. Unless every so often I grab the box and I look at the cover because on the cover it shows me the big picture, it shows me the hole, it shows me where I'm going, it shows me the, it inspires me. I said, oh, it want to be wonderful. If, if five or six years from now, when I'm done, putting this appliance together, but I really have something that looks just like this and functions the way the box depicts. And it encourages you. And not only it doesn't just encourage you, it also actually, to some degree, actually instructs you because you can actually see sometimes better when you see the whole what you should be doing

in the parts. On the other hand, if all you had was the cover, if all you had was the picture, and then you open it up and there's all these pieces you would say, ah, you really need both. Now, right now, spiritual experience, experience of God is a hot topic. I was just read an article that said, when of God is a hot topic.

I was just read an article that said, when you walk into a bookstore now and you go to the bestseller list, we just count how many of the books have the word soul in it. And I read an article in Wall Street Journal saying that people are realizing now if you can somehow get soul, S-O-U-L, into into the name it sells 15% better. Everybody's into spiritual experience. Everybody wants to...everybody is thinking about this.

And this is something that people haven't expected. Even 25 years ago, nobody would ever have thought that the more ethical and the more behavioristic religions and churches are sinking in attendance and the experiential churches, the churches that talk about God, the supernatural in that sense, the more experiential churches, the new age movement which 20 years ago was just, you know, laughed at as the lunatic fringe is a big deal, everything's Buddhism's growing, Islam's growing, everything's growing. Nobody would have understood that or believed that 25 years ago, Islam's growing, everything's growing. Nobody would have understood that, or believed that 25 years ago. There's a tremendous hunger for spiritual experience.

And because of that, there is a great deal of questions that arise about how do I know that I am experiencing God? How do I experience God? And how do I know if I'm having authentic experience? Partly because of the hoopla, I think a lot of people who go to churches are pretty confused because some of you have gone to churches for years, often on, and you have never had anything in the way of deep spiritual experience. Your whole religion has been largely a matter of beliefs and code, and codes of conduct,

and there have been times in your life in which you were a little bit more fervent and you followed the codes better. And there are other times when you were more relaxed, but when it comes right down, so you haven't had anything that you could be sure would be an experience of God. You haven't even had it. But that's on the one hand. On the other hand, if you go into Christian bookstores, you'll get an awful lot of books off the shelf that'll talk people.

There's Christians writing books talking like they have these incredible experiences every day, that they're always being blessed, they're always feeling anointed. These words like that thrown around a lot, that they're always having astounding experiences and revelations and ideas that suddenly come to them in the middle of the, as they're walking along and it turns out to be exactly what they want and you read that. And you say, is that what I was supposed to have? There's a great deal of confusion.

And you know, another thing about, one of the reasons we have to look at this is, is because of redeemer itself, is a lot of people that are starting in their Christian life. And you get nervous. When you're a new parent, I remember my mother-in-law said to us when we had our first child and she had had five.

She says, I'm going to write a book, how to raise the first child like the fifth. And she says, you see the first child, you're always worried in the fifth child, you just relax. She's crying, he's crying, so what? Fifth child. But you see, the first child, you know what you're doing? You're calling up other people with children saying, is this normal? You know, my child only has five vocabulary words

at 14 months, is that all right? Is that above average? Is that low? I mean, it's just natural. And when you're starting off in your Christian walk and in round redeemer, we always have a lot of people like that, he wanna know what's normal. Now, this is all an introduction to not just tonight

because I'm just really in a sense giving an introduction, but to a series because in the fall we looked at in a sense the box cover of experience with God. We looked at Moses and the burning bush and Abraham and the torch and Jacob and the wrestler and Mary and the angel. And see, these are great accounts of encounters with the living God, experiences of God himself. He's a great encounters. And when you need to see those pictures, it's like looking at the box cover, it's very inspiring, it shows you where you want to go. It gives you some idea of what it means to really meet God. But when it comes right down to it, how do you do it?

We also need instructions. We also need a place where someone says, here's the prerequisites, here are the obstacles, here are the disciplines, you see, here are the features. Here's how you can judge whether you're feeling and experiences authentically Christian, or whether you're it's a counter-fitter, whether you miss lead. We have to have the instructions as well as the box cover,

and the Psalms are the instruction. The Psalms are an absolutely amazing resource because what you have here is a journal. What you have in the Psalms is someone describing experience of God from the inside. Not just a story about what Abraham or what Sarah or what Mary or what Joshua experienced, but someone actually sitting down and writing

out in a sense of journal from the inside of experience with God. And therefore, what we want to do for several weeks here in the coldest part of the year is to try to get warm. I don't know about you, but I have a tendency. My spiritual walk with God, my experience with God is warm when it's warm and it's cold when it's cold. I tend to have more time or maybe more ability or maybe even more passion to really get close to God in the warm weather.

And then what happens is during the fall being a minister and the church gathers up. I find myself right after Christmas saying, looking at Jesus and saying, hi, stranger. I find myself right after Christmas saying, looking at Jesus and saying, hi stranger, you know, I think my prayer life has just gotten shorter and shorter every day, every week and so on. And when it gets cold, it's a great time to try to get warm.

And what I'd like to do over the next few weeks is I'd like to go to several Psalms, probably not too many, not a different one every week. This is one of the great Psalms. In fact, I can even tell you, if we get more time at some point, the history of this Psalm is an very important Psalm in the history of the church.

And this Psalm is just, it's just brimming with principles of how you can actually experience God, not just know about Him, but know Him. What I'd like to do tonight, I can only do one. What I wanna do is I wanna, I can only do one. What I want to do is I want to show you features of authentic Christian experience, features, because every feature is not only a test

by which we can understand experience with God and test ourselves to see whether we're going in the right direction. Every feature is not only a test, but it's also a discipline. It's a way to actually enhance your experience of God. You see that? So every feature, every feature is both a test on the one hand. It shows what real experience of God is, as opposed to what it's not, and it's also a discipline. Tonight, I'd like just to bring one out. And here's the one. When you read Psalm 63, it hits you right away.

The Psalmist, this is David in this case, says, oh God, you are my God. Ernestly, I will seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I've seen you in the sanctuary and but held your power in glory because your love is better than life.

My lips will glorify you. Now here's the first principle, the only principle we do tonight. But I'm going to show you how you can make it as a test for yourself and also as a discipline. And this is, the first feature is, the way you know you've found God is that you develop a spiritual appetite. The way you know you are really moving toward God is that you feel you're too far from him. Look carefully with me for a second. He doesn't say, God's that be, I am searching for you. He doesn't say, if you're up there, if you're out there, I'm searching for you, because the Bible never says that finding God is a result of seeking for him.

The Bible always says that seeking God is a result of having found him. You don't start seeking God until he has actually met you. The Bible says that though people have a spiritual hunger in general, people are actually trying in our natural heart, people in our natural habit of our heart are trying to escape the true God in particular. Did you hear that? The Psalms can profoundly shape the way you approach God. Even Jesus relied on the Psalms to face every situation,

including death. In Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional book, The Psalms of Jesus, you'll find daily readings through the Psalms with fresh biblical insight. If you have no devotional life yet, this book is a wonderful way to start. And if you already spend time in study and prayer, reading and praying through every verse of the Psalms can help you discover a new level of intimacy with God. We'll send you Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional as our thanks for your gift to help gospel and life share the love of Jesus

with more people. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. The Bible says, of course, people are religious in Acts 17. Paul goes to Athens and he stands up in the Iriapicus. Great moment in the biblical history.

And he says, men of Athens, I see that you are very religious. And he says, I even saw this, a monument to the unknown God. I would like to tell you who this unknown God is, who you seek. Now you see, at that point, is saying, people in general want God. And the Bible says, of course, in general, we need God, we're contingent beings, and there is a spiritual hunger. And it's going to show itself in your life

somewhere someplace. So the Bible says everybody's spiritually hungry, but what the Bible is saying also is because of sin, though we want God in general, we want spirituality in general, we want experience in general, we want experience in general, in particular, we don't want the real God. To seek the real God, as he reveals himself in the Bible, is not something we're capable of.

And notice, therefore, look, the first phrase is, oh God, you are my God. Now this means David is in a covenant relationship with God. To call God my God, how many people in your life can you call my? You may not know me at all, but if you hear me, if you hear me, if you hear me talking with somebody else and you hear me refer to my Cathy, my David, my Michael, my Jonathan, your figure, these have got to be this person's wife or sister or son or daughter or something like that. You don't use the word my unless you have a relationship that is very, very close and

you have tremendous confidence in that relationship. And so you see, David is starting off by saying, I'm in a personal relationship with you. Oh, God, you are my God. And it's understood, it's implied. Ernestly, what I seek you, what's the cause, what's the effect? It doesn't say, because I've sought you, you are my God. He says, no, because you're my God, I seek you. The way you know that you have met the real God is that you are hungry and thirsty, and

the way you know, you've really met the real God is that you are hungry and thirsty. And the way you know, you've really met the real God is you're really hungry and thirsty. And the way you know, you sort of met the real God is that you're sort of hungry and thirsty. They stand and fall together. There's a passion, there's a hunger. I'll put it another way. And it's very important't know. The sense of His absence, the dissatisfaction with His absence is unevidence that He has touched you.

In other words, a sense of His absence, a longing that that absence be gone, a sense of His absence is a sense of His presence. If He's not present, if he's not working in your life, you might know intellectually that he's absent, but you don't long for him. How do you know that you've met the real God? Even to talk like this, a sermon like this is going to start to make you say, oh yeah, boy, I want him. I would like to feel him, I would like to see him, I would like to experience him, you would like to see him, I would like to experience him, you know? And you know what's interesting, the deeper that sense of absence is, the greater

his presence in your life. That's the feature. Now let me break it down a little bit, let me break it down just a little bit more. I'm just looking at my time here tonight because I'm just giving you a basic idea here so we can go to the table with it. I'm trying to arouse that hunger. Somebody says, okay, you just said that just general spiritual searching is not necessarily a sign of authentic Christian experience. You said everybody is spiritually searching, but that it takes a work of God in my heart to make me to actually bring me to the place where I'm really seeking the real God Well, how do I know if I'm seeking the real God? Well, the answer is here too Jonathan Edwards in the religious affections which of course has in his book religious affections in which he lays out what he considers the authentic Marxist spiritual experience

And which of course have influenced me as I read something like this. Makes reference really to this song. Because look at what David shows, as evidence that he has really, really, passionately after the real God. He says, he says, my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, fine. So how do we know he's after the real God? I've seen you in a sanctuary and be held your power and your glory because your love is better than life. My lips will glorify you because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you, because your love is better than life.

Now listen, whenever we begin to go after God in the very beginning, when we first begin to say, oh, I don't know, maybe I want to be a Christian or maybe I want to go to church, when you first start your first steps toward God, almost always, virtually always, I guess I should say always, but I haven't thought enough about it, so I'm hedging my bets, but virtually always. We go to Him because we want something in life, and we're hoping He'll be loving enough to give it to us. It's almost always how we start.

We, some of us want intellectual certainty, so we say I'd like to find God, so I know I have meaning in life. Some of us want intellectual certainty. So we say I'd like to find God. So I know I have meaning in life. Some of us want, some of us have a problem. Some of us say, you know, I'm lonely. Some of us say I need peace. And so I'm searching for God. That's perfectly all right.

But that is not yet a sign that you found Him. Because that is not yet the Mark of authentic Christian experience. That is not yet the seeking that David's talking about here. That's not yet the thirst. In the very beginning, we go after him in order to get the things we think will complete us. We say, you know, I'm so lonely. And so if I get to know God, maybe I'll have peace.

Maybe he'll bring people into my life. Maybe he'll answer my prayers. You know, maybe he'll give me the things I want. I'm hoping that he's loving enough to give me the life I want. And that's why almost always, virtually always, we go after God. But when you find him, a change happens to one degree or another, what David had found was when he got in there.

Maybe when he was first the beginning saying, Lord, if you love me, don't let my enemies defeat me. If you love me, don't let my little boy die. If you love me, help me to win this battle in campaign. If you love me, protect me from Saul who is after me. If you, I mean, surely in the beginning, he was saying, if you love me, give me a good life. But when he actually experienced God,

he began to realize your love is better than life. When he experienced God, he says, if I have your love, I don't need anything else in life. If I have your love, that is life. How do I put this? Jonathan Edwards said, and he put it this way, the Mark of Authentic Spiritual Experience, if I can find the quote,

the Mark of Authentic, where is he? I know he's here somewhere. The Mark of Authentic Spiritual Experience is that you become satisfied with God for who he is and not just for the benefits that he gives you. That's exactly what David's saying. David's saying, I came to find for who he is and not just for the benefits that he gives you. That's exactly what David's saying. David's saying, I came to find that if I had an experience of God, I didn't want anything else.

If I had God's love, if I had God's honor, if I had God's glory, if I had God's wisdom, if I had God's favor, I don't need anybody else's favor. If I had God's love, I don't need anybody else's favor. If I had God's love, I don't need anything else. What a heads up happening is he begins to experience God and rest in God for who he is, not for what he can give me. Now to one degree or another, anybody who's found God knows that. Some of you, as I'm talking about this, you say, you know, I know that. Why do you know that?

Because God's shown that to you. One of the ways in which it shows up is this. You start to get interested, like the psalmist here, in seeing His power and glory. You get interested in just reflecting on Him, studying Him, thinking about Him, just for who He is. Instead of sitting down and praying and saying, give me this, give me this, give me this, give me this. That's the mark of somebody that's seeking spiritual experience, but you're not seeking God yet,

because your prayers are filled with petition. Your prayers are filled with, with gimmies, all the things that you need. But when you find yourself sitting down and enjoying studying, let's say, a passage of Scripture on his holiness, and on his sovereignty, and on his glory, and on his greatness. And you find that just reflecting on that, as you and impresses you, and the magnificence of it gives you some kind of rest.

That a God like that is my God. Now, if you cannot relate to that at all, if you say, well, that's nice, but why don't I get any dates? You're still in the general spiritual searching mode, but you're not seeking God yet. The Mark of spiritual experience, authentic spiritual experience is a new appetite for God, an appetite for God, for His love for itself.

And what is the discipline then as we go to the table? What is the discipline? How does this turn into discipline? Very simple, I've been looking at myself and I've been saying, what does this mean? That spiritual appetite is the first mark of authentic spiritual experience. How do I discipline myself?

What do you do with your appetite? Here's what I have to do. Number one, I have to make sure that I don't ruin my appetite. When I was growing up, one of the things my mother always said to me is, I know you're hungry and you're ready to eat, but if just, if 15 minutes before, or half an hour before you're supposed to eat, you get into the cookie jar.

It'll ruin your upper appetite. And of course it did. If I had two cookies, they were very sweet. When I had sit down to eat, you get into the cookie jar, it'll ruin your upper appetite. And of course, it did. If I had two cookies, they were very sweet. When I'd sit down to eat, I wasn't hungry. But the stuff that was on the table was what I needed. Mothers hate it when that happens. Now, sin ruins your appetite. There's a lot of things that you and I do.

And actually, frankly, the three areas, sex, sex power and money are God's substitutes. They're adoration substitutes. They're experienced substitutes. They give you a high what they ruin your appetite. And for some of you, the reason that you're not hungry for God enough is because you're ruining your appetite. You're doing things that are in a certain sense, giving you a kind of high, temporarily. If you would obey him, if you would clear up your conscience,

you would find yourself starting to say, I need God instead of going to these substitutes. Some of you are using an individual as a substitute, maybe somebody you're in love with, as person's ruining your appetite for God. Because whenever you have a problem, you sit down and if that person says you're okay, then you feel okay. You're running your appetite. If you want to develop your appetite for God, make sure that you don't put any substitutes there.

Secondly, if you want to develop your appetite for God, sit down and read about him in the Word, all of his attributes, the full range of his attributes. Don't just look at his power and his grace because that benefits you. Look at his hope, his holiness, look at his sovereignty, look at his splendor. See, that's what got this psalmist so exciting, excited. I see your power and your glory. So what you need to do is you need to make sure

you don't ruin your appetite, make sure you look at the entire range, but most of all comfort yourself with this. This helps me. Whenever I remember that the only reason that I am hungry for God is because God is after me, that the very absence of God is a sign of His presence. Sometimes when I think about that and I rejoice in that, that immediately becomes a bridge into an experience of God. Have you ever seen that happen?

Try it. When you sit down and say, I'm going to have a time with God and you start reading the Bible. And after you're done reading the Bible, I suggest that you take things instead of asking for things, you take things from the text

and start to pray to God about Himself. Say, thank you for being this and thank you for being that. And when I forget that you're this, and when I forget that you're that, it introduces distortions into my life. If you do that, my guess is you'll start to experience God because that's what's going on here.

But if you don't and you start to feel like you so far away and you start to, and you start to feel the absence of God, tell yourself, my hatred of the absence of God is a sign of His presence. I wouldn't even be upset about this unless He was right here with me. I wouldn't feel far away from Him unless He was near me. And so often when I think about that, that becomes a bridge right into his nearness so quickly. The disciplines of appetite, don't ruin your appetite. Go and spread out before him your attributes.

His attributes. Don't just read about them, but pray about them. Talk to him about them. Think about who he is, not about what he should be doing for you. And remember that his absence is your presence, is his presence, and you will begin to experience God. Thy steadfast love is better than life. Fellowship with him, experience with him is what you need.

I don't know what you came here to think and you needed, but that's what you need. And that's what we get at the table. So let's go to it, bound with me in prayer. We hope you enjoyed today's teaching on experiencing God, and we hope you'll continue to join us throughout this series. Before you go, if you were encouraged by today's podcast, please rate and review it so more people can discover the hope and joy of Christ's love. Thanks again for listening.

This month's sermons were recorded in 1997 and 2013. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor, Everdeemer Presbyterian Church. you