Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Faith and Grace

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 6, 1992. Series: Salvation From the Outside In. Scripture: Ephesians 2:4-10. 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. We live in a culture that encourages us to focus on ourselves, our needs, our goals, our fulfillment. But what if our lives only made sense when we see them as part of a much bigger story? This summer, we're featuring one of Tim Keller's longer sermon series in which he teaches about the core truths of the Christian faith and the big picture of God's ultimate plan of salvation for humanity, revealing how we can find real meaning, growth, and change in Christ. Let's take a look at the passage we've been looking at, and we actually, tonight and next week,

we will be looking at the last part of Chapter 2 of Ephesians, which is the chapter we've been looking at for a while. And I'm going to read to you the latter section of this section of chapter 2. Ephesians 2, verse 4 to 10, it's printed in your bullet. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ, Jesus,

in order that in the coming ages he might be saved. show that incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this not of yourselves. It is the gift of God not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance, for us to do. This is God's word. We've said that chapter two is actually a before and after picture

of the Christian. It shows us what our lives are like before we encounter the living Christ and after. Versus one to three tells what we're like before, verses four in following what we're like after. And we said, and we've been saying that it's clear that becoming a Christian or meeting Christ, the difference between before we meet Christ and after we meet Christ is not a difference. It's not one of degree. It's a qualitative difference. We're not just improved. We're not just making progress.

We're changed. We're moved from one realm into another realm. So in verses 1 to 3, in verse 1. verses 4 to 7, we see the great contrast, and we actually spent a good amount of time last week recapping those to make sure we saw them, that we're dead in sin, we're made alive in Christ. We're before we are having to gratify the cravings of the sinful nature. So we're in bondage. Afterwards, we're in freedom. We're raised and seated. Before we're condemned, we're children of wrath. Afterward, we're already past tense, seated in the heavenly places. If you're a Christian, you're already seated in the

heavenly places, see, past tense, which has got to mean, since you're not there actually, it must mean that you're there virtually. It's a great English word, virtually from the word virtue. It means that because of what Jesus has done for you, or you're already as accepted and as loved by God as as if you were Jesus himself with his perfect record. So we're looking at all this, that what a huge change. from death to new life. We've moved from bondage to new freedom. We've moved from condemnation and guilt to a new position or status. And, oh, if you're a first time visitor tonight, or if you haven't heard the recaps over these last three weeks, I wish, I cannot go back in and explain all that. I just want to move and show you that this week, Paul doesn't just show us what we were

and what we are, but now in verses 8, 9,000. and 10, he tells us how to get from what we were to what we can be. He tells us how to get there. He's talking about before and he's talking about after. But now in verse 8, 9 and 10, he tells us how to get from one to the other. Eight, nine, and 10 is the bridge. This is a perfect compendium of the Christian life. See, as we mentioned last week, verse 7 tells us the reason that God has done all of these great things. Why did he give us new freedom? Why did he give us new life? Why did he give us a new record and a new position. And the answer is in verse 7, so that in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace. I continue to think about this.

It's an amazing statement. We're told that in the future, all of us who believe in Christ will be like laser light shows of God's grace for all eternity. We're going to be looked at with amazement, we're going to have all the other people of the universe. Now, somebody says, who are the other people? And I don't know. All we know is, for example, there might be lots and lots and lots. And I said, who knows? I said, who knows? People after me asked me, where is that in the Bible? It's not. I said, there might be lots. If there are other planets full of beings that have never fallen into sin, it means there's all sorts of other races besides the human race. We know of at least one other race made in the image of God.

We know of at least one other order of being who are called sons and daughters of the king, and that is the angels. The angels are called his sons. So we know there's at least the possibility of other orders of being who are also God's children, also in God's family, besides humans. And who knows what all there's going to be. All we know is those of us who are redeemed are being redeemed and being given all these gifts because we're going to be taking away.

way the breath of other sons and daughters of the king throughout all eternity. When we walk on by, there's going to be something about us that's going to be just showing God's grace to anyone who looks. We're going to be display cases. We're going to be fireworks displays. We're going to be laser light shows. Oh, I don't exactly understand this either, you know, but that's what it says. You know, if you want to get at this, and I'm not trying to defend it or even explain it or understand it as fiction,

but Tolkien, J.R. Tolkien, who wrote Lord of the Rings, wrote a very difficult, I think, but strange and kind of beautiful compendium of his own myths. He wrote his own mythology called the Silmarillion. And in the Silmarillion, there's an account of creation. And it's just his own account of, how God created the universe. And it's not, it's, you know, well, never mind. I don't want to get into literary criticism. It's, it's, it's, it's actually, uh, his own alternate mythology. And in it,

God speaks to these angelic creatures. And he says, here's the plan for creating the world. Go to it. And of all the angelic creatures, one of them, Melkor, decides that he wants to be his own boss. He's the Satan figure in the mythology. And as he goes down with the other angels to try to create the world, he decides he's going to do his own will. He decides he's going to do his own thing. He's going to ruin what God wants to be done. And he's going to try to take the universe for himself. It's a very fascinating story because what happens is as the other angels go down to try to create the world the right way. They create light, but Melkor brings in darkness. And they create warmth, and Melkor brings in biting cold. But in the end, the great God pulls them all back in,

and he overcomes Melchor, and he says, you are no match for me. I have now overcome you, but I want you to know that you have not blemished or detracted one, bit for my will. I am too great for you, Malkur. You thought you were ruining by bringing evil and sin into the world. And even though much pain and much suffering is coming into the world, I will overcome it. And when it's over, I want you to see that all you have done is enriched the final product. Yes, Melchor, you brought in cold instead of the warmth, but now instead of just rain, there's snowflakes. Yes, Melchor, you brought in darkness instead of just the light, but now we've got something called stars. All you can do is enrich my creation. I will overwhelm your evil.

I will dispense your evil. And when it's all done, all you will do have done is brought out more glory in what I originally had put there than you thought was there. And in the same way, it's just a very interesting way of trying to get at what Paul is saying here. He's trying to say, in spite of the sin, in spite of the wickedness, in spite of our rebellion, God will bring glory out of it because we will show to the universe something that otherwise would not have been seen in God some other glory called His grace. People will be amazed. See, why is God doing all these great things? Why did He send his son?

Why was his son born in a manger? Why did his son have to die? Why then, through the death of his son, do you have these incomparable gifts? New life, the new birth, new freedom. new record, new position. Why? It says in order that in the coming ages, you might show forth, you might be trophies, you might be display cases of his incomparable grace. Now, having said that, Paul almost seems to be adding an afterthought, but if we look carefully, we'll see that what he says in verses 8, 9, and 10 is not just an after thought, because he goes on and says, for after all,

now he doesn't say after all, I'm trying to give you the sense, for after all, it's by grace you've been saved. You weren't just saved for grace. You were saved by grace and through grace, through faith. And this not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast. For we of God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. What Paul is saying is, you were this way in sin, you are now this way, see you were this way before you're this way now and even the way we get from one to the other is by grace and paul gives us a compendium of how to become a christian paul gives us a compendium of what it means to become a christian see verses one to three

what it's like not to be a christian versus four to seven what's like to be a christian then verses eight nine and ten what it's like to become how to get from one to the other and in it you've got three basic concepts and the order of them and the relationship of each one to one another is critical for you to understand what it means to be a Christian. Look carefully. Grace leads to faith, leads to God's workmanship. Grace is the cause of faith, which is the cause of good works, a life of greatness, a life of grandeur, a life of God's works being done through us. Your life will be a complete, loss and a complete wreck, you will have psychological problems, you might completely miss all that God

intends for a human being to have if you get these three things out of order. I just want you to know what we're playing with fire here. This is, you know, this is like going into that part of the nuclear reactor where you've got to really dress right. Because just one little slip and everything could go up. Grace, faith, works. Not works, grace, faith, not grace works faith, not faith, and so on. I don't know. I'm not a mathematician. How many different mistakes could there be? Isn't there, is there nine possibilities? No, is that it? Is there nine? No, how many possibilities are there? There's just nine? See, that's the reason I'm a minister. I was a liberal arts major, but the point is,

how many different possible constellations are there of those three things? One and only one of them will bring all these incredible and comparable riches into your life. And every other form or order of those three things will inject distortions into your life and pathologies. Let me show you what they are. There's a couple ways of putting it. One is you could say grace leads to faith leads to works. The other way to outline this, and I'm going to look at it this way,

the cause of faith is grace. The nature of faith is resting in Christ. And the effects are the results of faith is a life of grandeur and good works. The cause of faith, the nature of faith, and the effects of faith, and we're only going to look at the first two tonight.

That's all the time we've got. First of all, this passage teaches us that the cause of faith is grace. Getting the relationship of grace and faith is really critical. Look, first of all, Let's look at every preposition is important here. It is by grace you're saved through faith. By grace through faith. Now, the logicians will tell you and the theologians will tell you that Paul is saying here that if you're a Christian tonight, grace is the material cause and faith is the

instrumental cause of your Christianity. Grace is the material cause and faith is the material cause and faith is the instrumental cause. And just, and not, not to tease you with it, let me give you an illustration that will make it clear. Let's just say you're on a skateboard. And along by comes a car only going 10 miles an hour, so that's really not, that's not really dangerous. So what do you do? What you do is you've got a, you know, you've got a lands end bag around you, so what you do is you unhook it and you hook the bag, you hook the strap around the bumper and around you, and once you buckle your strap in, it's pulling you along. Now, you're going 10 miles an hour on a skateboard.

What's the cause of your speed? Why? Why are you going? What's the cause? And the answer is, well, one of the things you could say is the strap is causing me to go. Well, it's not exactly. The strap is no power of its own. The strap is actually only the instrumental cause of your speed.

The strap is that which is transferring the power of the car to you. But the actual cause is the car. That's the material, that's the real ultimate reason that you're going 10 miles an hour, not the strap. In the same way, it's tremendously dangerous for you to mistake these prepositions. When it says it's by grace, but through faith, the grace of God, the power of God, that's what makes you a Christian. The faith is just a way of receiving it. It's just a channel for it. If you mess this up, let me tell you what happens. I must tell you, everybody messes this up in the beginning. You might sit here and say, no, no, no, I took Foundations class with Scott Sherman. I know the difference here. But let me just tell you how,

let me tell you what almost always seems to happen to new believers. At a certain point, they go through something I call post-conversion letdown, and here's what I mean. Here's why. What happens is in the beginning, you see, you get to the gospel, and the gospel says, you're not saved by being a good person. You're not saved by your good deeds. You're not saved because you always obey the Ten Commandments. No one does. God saves you.

He accepts you. He loves you and welcomes you and embraces you you because of what Jesus has done. You're not saved by works. Your good works, you're saved through faith in him. So you're a little mind. Here's that. And you say, great, I'm not saved by my good deeds.

I'm saved by my faith. But you see, you have to be very careful because how easy it is for you to think, therefore, it's the quality of my faith, it's my trust in him, it's my love for him, it's my sense of his presence, my faith. That's why God loves me, not because of my good deeds or my bad deeds, because I go out during the week and I make mistakes and I fall down, but now I see as long as I believe. And so what in a very subtle way happens is you think that your belief, your faith, is the material cause of your salvation. Now, you may even get a good course and somebody tells you, no, no, no, you're safe strictly through the grace and power of God. Totally.

Faith is just a way to receive that. Faith is just an instrumental cause. It's just a strap that attaches, you know, to, but it's not, it doesn't have any power in itself. And yet, you know what almost inevitably happens when you first become a Christian and you first sense the part of it. of God and the presence of God. Very often, he's very real to you in prayer. Your feelings are full. Your feelings are sort of hot, warm, vivid, but like anything, like marriage, like a great job, wears off. Your feelings, you know, come and go at a certain point. And when the feelings start to wane, and when you come to the evening service and you find, oh, it was just a, you know, I just passed a time,

Where's the tears? Why didn't it seem to come right through? Where's the faith I used to have? Where's the love? Where's the warmth? Where's the passion? And you begin to doubt whether you're really a Christian, which just goes to show you didn't get it, did you?

You begin to doubt you were a Christian. And when people tell me that, I say, why? Well, I just don't have the faith. And what that means is, I thought that it was the quality of this feeling, this love, this trust, this sense of God's presence was the reason he was saving me. I'm looking at the quality of my soul. You know, there's a hymn that we sometimes sing called On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.

And there's a great line in there which most people don't, unfortunately a lot of modern translators have taken away because it's old English. There's a great place where it says, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. Any of you ever heard that? And see, you know, what does that mean? See, that's an older, it's a British archaism.

that really meant a frame or an emotional state of heart, a frame of heart. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name, on Christ's solid rock and I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. And it's inevitable that Christians in the beginning, I don't know why, but you see there's still a lot of legalism in us. We spent all of our life getting it out. And one of the first places that the legalism of your heart, the natural self-righteousness of your heart, you know, attached itself to, is this idea that it's the quality of my feelings of faith toward God, which is the reason that God accepts me. And when they go, you start to wonder, will God even accept me? Well, yeah. Because you see,

what's pulling you along at 10 miles an hour is the car, not the strap. The strap might be threadbare, the strap might be ugly, the strap might be beautiful, but the important thing is it is attached. Is it attached to the car? That's all that matters. and let's go a little one step further. If this is true that the real cause that you're a Christian is grace and the faith is just a channel, that means that the cause of your faith is God's grace. Not that the cause of God's grace is your faith.

Now, you know, you do not, do you not, that I try very, very hard not to unnecessarily criticize other Christian traditions. You know, I love to talk about mere Christianity. I love to say the Apostles' Creed, you know, 80% of everything I believe is believed by every other kind of church, whether Catholic or Orthodox or any other kind of Protestant. But there's a couple places we've got to bring some things out. There are plenty of churches that teach that's the other way around. Faith comes before grace. There's plenty of churches that teach you believe, you give yourself, you produce the faith, and as a result, God gives you the grace. you just have to believe. You just have to give yourself to him, and then God will give you his grace, and then God will pour out his favor and love on you. Then God will come in with his power and his gracious energy. That's not what it says here. Logically, that's false, and biblically that's false. See, we get right back to what, let me tell you about why it's logically false. We get back to what I just said before. if you believe that faith comes before grace, you have to believe and then God comes in with his grace and his power and his energy and all that,

you've gone back and you have turned your faith into a work. And you're going to have all of the anxiety that every other religion puts on people. You're going to essentially be the author of your own salvation. Essentially, you're going to have the pressure of knowing that I've got to keep up the quality of my faith. I've got to keep it up. I've got to keep up my surrender. I've got to keep up my obedience. I've got to keep this up because you see my faith is the thing that brought grace. And what, whoa, look at that. There we go. That was, thank you, Lord. I mean, we just had a little laugh instead of a huge laugh, right? Because it fell up. If grace comes after faith and faith comes before grace, you're, how will you ever know it's enough? That's what I want to know. I've been told by people and say, listen, listen, God, you have to take that first step. You are the one that has to believe and then God comes in with his grace.

You have to give yourself and surrender, and then God comes in with his grace. And I want to know, how do you know you've surrendered enough? And then, of course, the logic is, the logic is that if you stop believing, if you stop surrendering, then God's grace leaves. I want to know how will you ever know that you're keeping it up? How will you know you've gone far enough? How do you know your surrender is deep enough? How will you never know that?

Why does God allow suffering in the world? How can one religion be right and the others wrong? Hasn't science basically disproved Christianity? Tim Keller addresses these questions and many more in his book The Reason for God. Drawing on literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and potent reasoning, this book will challenge you to gain a deeper understanding of the Christian faith, whether you're a believer seeking to understand your faith better, whether you're exploring Christianity yourself or whether you're reading it with a friend who's searching for answers.

When you give to Gospel and Life during the month of August, we'll send you two copies of the reason for God, one for you and one to give to a friend. It's our hope that through reading the book with a friend, you can have conversations about the claims of the Christian faith. To receive your two copies of the reason for God, as our thanks for your support, simply make a gift at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Thank you for partnering with us. Your gift helps the message of Christ's love go out all over the world because the gospel truly changes everything. And see, what ends up happening is you become horribly self-conscious.

What ends up happening is that you end up having to boast, if you believe this. Paul says here it's the opposite. It's by grace you've been saved through faith. faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. The faith comes from God's grace, that no one can boast. See, if I believe that's faith then comes grace, then I could boast. It would be very hard for me not to boast. I would look at somebody who doesn't believe, and I would say, you know, you've got to do what I do. You know why you're down in the depths? You know why you're in the dumps? You know why you're in the problem you're, and you have an exercise faith like I did.

That may not be bragging, but that's boasting. But if you understand it's grace and faith, what can you say to somebody who doesn't believe? You can say, you know what? I know exactly how you feel. There's no fundamental difference between you and me. I also didn't want Christ. I also was far from him. But he opened my heart and he can open your heart too if you turn because the Bible says, Him who cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. If you turn and say, I don't have any faith, that's all it takes. He'll give you faith. faith is not something that you have to pull out of your heart, it's a gift of God. There's no fundamental difference in you and me. Just turn. You see? It takes away the idea of boasting. And what this is taught throughout the Bible. Romans 3 says no one seeks for God.

John 6 says no one, Jesus says no one can come to me except the father draw him. A great case study of it is Acts 1614 where Lydia says the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. Do you see that? Lydia was the first convert. Any Lydia's here? You were the first convert in Europe. And it says that when Paul was preaching, quote, Acts 1614, the Lord opened Lydia's heart to respond to Paul's message. Who responded, Lydia? Faith is not a passive thing. Faith is an active thing. You have to exert yourself to have faith. You don't, wait for something to happen to you, you'd do it. But after you've done it, you realize you were enabled. The Lord opened her heart. Now, here's the reason why grace has to come before faith.

The reason why faith has to be a gift is this, because unbelief in Christ is not simply a vacuum. Unbelief is not the absence, merely the absence of faith. It's the presence of another kind of faith. This is critical to understanding the Bible's critique of the human condition. Many people think, whoa, you have belief. I wish I could believe. I wish I could believe. I mean, this is third or fourth hand, but supposedly several years ago, some young Christian woman witnessed to Woody Allen walking down Park Avenue and talked about the gospel. And at one point, he's turned to her and said, I wish I could believe that myself. You believe, I wish I could believe, but you know, some people can have that faith.

I'm just not one of those people. Now, I'm not quitting what he out anymore. I don't know what he said. But you see, that's the gist of it. You don't have faith. You have faith, I just don't have faith. People think of unbelief, disbelief in Christ as simply the absence of faith. No way.

Disbelief in Christ is the presence of another kind of faith. In Matthew, Matthew 11, I think it is, Jesus makes this very interesting quote. He says, to what should I compare this generation? They're like children in the marketplaces calling out, we played the flute for you, and you did not dance. Then we sang a dirge, and you would not mourn. Now, if you don't have children, you're absolutely befuddled by that, but I'll tell you, why does he liken, disbelief,

generation, us. Why does he liken people who disbelieve in him to peevish children? Here's why. When you get a kid in a snit, you know, you go to the kid, you know, we play the flute for you and you would not dance, then we sang a dirge for you and you would not mourn. You go to a kid, you get the kid in the snit and you go and say, let's go to the circus. And what's the kid say? I don't want to go to the circus. I don't want to do anything. All right. Okay. We'll just stay home. I don't want to stay home and do nothing. you see no matter what you do when you get a kid in a snit the kid wants to go to the circus desperately the kid will just simply refuse to you know give you your way here's why the child

will give up his heart's desire as long as he keeps intact a primordial fundamental faith in his own ability to rule see what's fundamental to the human heart is the idea that i know what's best for me. There is a tremendous faith in one's own competence to run your life. That is so thick, and it's so deep, and it's so primordial, and it's a faith. Nobody can prove this. And as a matter of fact, there's lots of evidence to the contrary. It is an article of faith. And when somebody says, gee, I wish I could believe, I just can't. You know, I wish I was a person of faith like you, are. Everybody's a person of faith. Everybody. And this is what's there if you don't believe in Christ. You see, let me go to this. St. Augustine, put it this way.

Kathy was showing me this in the confessions a few months ago. There's a place where Augustine actually says, the only reason people believe that infants are cute is because they're helpless. The only reason that people believe that infants are innocent is because they're helpless. If a six-month-old child could do what she wanted to do to you, when you take that toy away from her that she wants, she would decapitate you without blinking. No question about it,

without any mercy, without any tears, because she knows what's best for her. It's foundational. She has faith in herself, six months old, and she's already got it. Let me go this far, and I'm going to say this very carefully, and after I'm done,

somebody may go back and tell me that I say, I said it wrong, and I might. A flood of words is never without fault. Suicide proves that people have tremendous faith in themselves. You don't commit suicide unless you have an incredible faith in yourself. Well, wait a minute, somebody says, and some of you might be out there saying, hey, I've thought of suicide, but, you know, the reason I thought of suicide is I don't believe in myself at all. Oh, no, wait a minute. You don't believe in your ability to do certain things that you want to do, to get somebody to love you, to keep a job, to make it in your field. That's not the same thing. You have enormous faith in yourself or you would never even think about suicide.

It is absolute self-mastery to think about such a thing. You are saying my judgment, my ability to dispose of myself as I see fit is absolute. Don't you see? Nobody, but nobody except by an absolutely miraculous intervention from the grace of God can stop, can be loosened from this fundamental faith that I know what's best for me always. I know what will make me happy. I must be in charge. I must have control. That's the reason why faith in Christ is impossible unless, as he did with Lydia, your heart is opened. Grace has to come before faith. It's just got to be. Christ will be squeezed out because of your irrational faith in yourself. Only God and his power can break that. If you believe today, you believe in Christ strictly because of God's grace, and you know it.

If you're a Christian, you know that your faith is a miracle. If you're a Christian, you know the fact that you are here singing from the heart believing the songs that you've sung tonight is an act of God's grace. And you know that. Grace. Grace, grace. Grace, is the cause of faith. And secondly, faith, we just said the cause of faith is grace. The second thing we learn here is that the nature of faith is resting in Christ. Resting in Christ. Now,

here's what I mean by that. Look. It says it's by grace you've been saved through faith in this not of yourselves. The gift of God not by works, not of works. Lassani May I should boast. What does it mean to believe? Saving faith, the faith that saves you, that makes you become a Christian is not faith in general. The faith that saves you is resting in Christ. It means it knows that your salvation is not of works. Saving faith is not faith in general. It's resting in

Christ. It's knowing that your worthiness and your strength and your salvation is not of works, not of your own effort, not of your own record, not of those things. You mustn't think of faith as essentially a psychological condition of certainty. You must, if you want to have this biblical understanding, you must make a distinction between faith and assurance of faith. You can have faith, you can exercise faith without having assurance of faith. There are two different things that they go together. People get stripped up here all the time. Same thing with love. Think about it this for a minute. In love, in marriage, for example, you can love as an activity even though there's not a whole lot of feelings of warmth and affection.

As a matter of fact, you can love even better sometimes on a day in which there's not those feelings of affection. Love is an activity in which you serve somebody and you put their needs ahead of yours. If you do the action of love, the feelings of love that arise out of love come. The action of love is much more important to the feelings of love than the feelings of love are to the action of love. It's true that the feelings of love breed the action of love and the action of love breeds the feelings of love. But the key breeding ground in that cycle is the action. The action of love breeds the feelings of love. You can love even without feelings.

Same with faith. It's possible to exercise faith without having faith. assurance and certainty. Now, an example, which is just too good to miss, and I've used it before and I use it again, consider you're about to fall off a cliff and you see a branch sticking out of the side of the cliff, and as you're falling, how much faith do you need in the branch to be saved? The answer is, just enough to grab it. You might have no assurance of faith at all, and you'll still be saved. You might have lots of doubts, lots of fears, and you'll still be saved.

You don't have to have great certainty for it to save you as long as you grab it. So you see right there, faith and assurance of faith are not identical. In the same way, what does it mean to grab Jesus? It means to rest in him to see that your salvation is not of works. Let me explain that to both Christians and people who aren't sure what they believe. Christian friends, this is not only the way you become a Christian, this is the way you grow in Christ. Right here, this week, I made some mistakes, did some things that I think were stupid. So what do I have to do?

There's a couple ways that I can deal with it. One is I can forget that my salvation is not of works. And I can be defensive. and I can avoid people and I can sort of beat myself up for two days, or else I can decide my salvation is not of works. It never has been of works. My salvation is not a matter of a righteousness of my own doing, but rather it's a righteousness of my reception from God.

And so what I can do is I can, you see, if I spend two days, as we say around Redeemer, I hope you've heard this before, If I spend two days acting like an orphan, acting like because I've blown it, because I've done something wrong, I don't really feel like praying, I don't feel like seeing those people, I'm really going to kind of lick my wounds in silence, I'm going to beat myself up. If I spend two days like that, what have I done? I've forgotten. I'm not grabbing Jesus. I'm not resting in him. I'm not seeing that my salvation and my worthiness is not of works.

faith is always resting in something. Resting in something. And let me show you that everybody has to have faith in order to know anything. The real problem is I already try to show you that we have faith in ourselves already. There is no such thing as knowledge without faith. To know anything you have to believe. Our problem is not with faith. Our problems with faith in Christ.

If you're one of these people that says, well, you know, some Christians, to have faith, but I'm not the kind of person that likes that has faith. It's not, you know, I don't, I have trouble with belief. Some people are able to believe, but I'm not a person who can believe. Nonsense. I mean nonsense. You must believe in something to know anything. How do you make a decision like this? Let's just say somebody has told you you have to hire someone to work in your department with you. How do you know this is the right person? First of all, you gather all the data and all the facts, psychological tests,

references, you talk to people, and your reason can bring you to the place where you think this is the right person, but reason can only bring you probability. Then what you have to do is you have to step out and trust. You have to hire the person. You've got to invest.

You've got to make yourself vulnerable. And only after you've trusted will you find out for sure if this is the right person. You can reason into tentativity, but then you have to trust into vulnerability, and only then will you ever know into certainty. Reason only takes you to tentativity. Trust and vulnerability brings you to certainty. That's the way it is in every area of life. That's why a lot of, see, a lot of us perfectionists hate the way in which knowledge works. Because you can't know anything until you've had faith. See, we want to know and then we'll commit. But that's not the way it works. You have to commit in order to know. We want to know before we commit. that's the reason why a lot of you have a lot of the troubles that you have. There is no knowledge without making yourself vulnerable,

and that's the reason why we can't believe in Christ without God's help. Because you see, you have to have faith to know anything. When I come running in, trying to get the Q train real fast, I run in, and I'm real upset if I see my six turnstiles here, and I don't know, I can't see anybody who's just gone through one. I hate to put a $1.25 token into a turnstile unless I'm sure that it works. You know, I want to see somebody have just gone through. But even so, you can't know, can you, until you actually stick it in there?

I can't tell you how angry I was one time seeing three people go through and say, well, there's one that works. And I get in there, I stuck it in there, and it's stuck. That's it. That's it. $1.25 down the drain. You can't know that this is a good turnstile without risking. But don't you see, to know a turnstile for sure, to know a spouse for sure, to know a God for sure, the higher the order of being, the deeper the vulnerability if you're going to know that thing.

There is no knowledge without faith. There is no knowledge without vulnerability. We want to, we want to know before we commit, but you have to commit before you know. And the problem is to know that that's a good turnstile, you have to commit $1.25. To know that that that's a that's a good person to marry. You're going to have to commit more. But to know that there's an absolute being God, the only way to know an absolute being is to become absolutely vulnerable. And we so deeply want control that only God can open our hearts to do that. Lastly, we learn here one more thing. We've seen that grace is the cause of faith, not faith the cause of grace, or how screwed up we get. We have also seen that the nature of faith is not some kind of

psychological certainty, but resting in Christ not of works, knowing that Christ has done it. But don't forget, it's not in general. The faith that saves us is in Christ. The incomparable riches are in Christ. This faith that moves you from verses 1, 2, and 3 into verse 4, 5, and 6, and 7 is not a general faith in principles, but a faith that there really is a baby born in manger who is God, who really died on the cross. You see, one thing you're going to hear a lot about, I'm going to have to close up here, but one of the things you're going to hear a lot about this Christmas season,

in so many churches, there's churches who say, we no longer can believe in the virgin birth. We no longer can believe that the baby born in the manger was the incarnate second person in the Trinity. We no longer can believe in a physical resurrection. We no longer can believe in the blood atonement to change, to turn aside the wrath of the Lord of the Lord. God, but we still believe in the principles. We can't believe in the virgin birth and baby born

and manger God, but we do believe in truth and love and hope. The Bible is so sensible about these things. We don't believe in the physical resurrection, but we do believe in hope, even in the darkest time. Paul says, if Jesus Christ is not raised from the dead, let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. How sensible. Faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus. God. We're not raised from the dead. Let us eat and drink and general is nothing. Yes, you know, we don't believe in the virgin birth, we don't believe in the resurrection, we can't really believe, we don't know about these things. Probably when we die, we rot, but we believe in love and truth. You know, here's a group of people. Here's a group of students in a room. And you sit down and you say, now listen, don't cheat, be very, very neat,

you know, fill out, this is a standardized test, so make sure that you color between the lines. Don't look at anybody else. Make sure you're done at every section on time. Follow all the rules. And by the way, as soon as we're done with the test, we're going to tear it everything up that you've done in the whole four hours and throw it in the waist can. But we want you to really, really have integrity and, you know, and work with diligence. You know, Paul is smart enough to say, if Jesus isn't who he said he is, if he's not the son of God become flesh, if he did not really die on a tree to take our curse, if he's not really physically raised of death if he's not actually pastor of the heavens and seated at the right hand of the God of the Father.

Let's stop playing church. Let's go home. Let's eat and drink and be married for tomorrow we rot. None of the principles make any sense. Faith in faith, faith in general, faith in truth, faith in love and justice will never change you. We'll never give you this new life and freedom. It's faith in Jesus himself. He's done it all.

Therefore you're saved, not of works. That's the reason why. if you see that your faith is in Christ and you rest in him because you've turned to God and said, please give me the faith. He will give it to you. And when you rest in him, then the life of greatness is possible. We'll talk about that next week. But it's not faith in general. It's faith in Christ. And when you meet him, you know, it's not principles that change your lives. You know that. It's relationships, right? It's relationships. And so what you want, if there's anybody here who doesn't know what you believe about Christ, then read the Bible.

Bible and look for Jesus as a person. Don't look for principles. Find out what he says he is and find out what he says he does and talk to him as you're reading the Bible. Say, Lord, if you're real, talk to me. Now, if that's beneath you, then God's beneath you. It's a, what you need is faith in a person. What you need is faith in a person. And you will find him. Him who comes to me, I will no wise cast out. He'll give you the faith. He'll give it to you. It's a gift of God. And you'll say, oh, so it was you I was looking for in all the romantic relationships. So it's you I was looking for in all the stories. And I was you I was looking for in all the music.

As Annie Dillard once said, I'd been all my life a bell, and I didn't know it until I was pick up and rung. And you won't know what your heart is built for until he rings it. And you'll never know that you're a work of art. You'll never know your musical instrument. You'll never know what you can produce until you believe in. him. Let's pray. Our Father, now we just ask that as we receive the offering, we would offer our hearts to you. Father, there's some people here who are having trouble believing. Give them the faith as they turn to you for it. Show them that they don't have to produce it, that you will enable them. Father, there's many of us here who really are acting like orphans.

There's many here who really are not resting in you. That's the reason we're having such great trouble. show us what it means to continually enjoy your finished work and see that our salvation is not of works. Oh, Father, help us to have all joy and peace and believing. Give us all that, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the gospel-centered teaching

and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a gospel. Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps connect people all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner. That website again is gospelandlife.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 will Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.