Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Faith Rising

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

If it’s true that Jonah, a person who got direct revelation from God, can be blind to grace to the point where it distorts his very life, it’s even more likely that all of us, to one degree or another, are also blind to it.    Here is the thesis: our most severe problems are caused by our lack of understanding of the true depths of the meaning of God’s grace. Grace. The deepest secrets you ever need to learn in your life are locked up in there.    So let’s ask this passage questions: 1) what is the grace of God? 2) how do you receive the grace of God? and 3) how do you know you have received the grace of God? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 12, 1990. Series: Jonah. Scripture: Jonah 2:1-10. 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 in Life. The book of Jonah tells the story of a man running away from God and about God pursuing Jonah despite his rebellion. This highlights what Tim Keller will be teaching this month, that Jonah is one of the best places to go in the Bible if you want to understand the depth of our sin and the extravagance of God's grace. Jonah chapter 2 verses 1 through 10. From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said, In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me,

From the depths of the distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me, From the depths of the grave I called for help. And you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me. Had all your waves and breakers swept over me? I said, I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple. The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head.

To the roots of the mountains I sank down, the earth beneath barred me in forever, but you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord. And the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land." Here ends the reading of God's Word. We're looking at the story of Jonah, a well-known story. The plot line goes like this.

Number one, chapter one, God says to Jonah, go and preach to none of the greatest city in the world. Chapter two, Jonah refuses and flees on a boat. Chapter three, God sends a great storm on the ocean to reclaim Jonah. Chapter 4, Jonah is thrown into the sea and swallowed by a fish. Now, what do you think? Do you think this script would ever get bought by a producer?

A director? You know, a lot of you are working with scripts all the time. You know, just imagine. Do you think it would work? You think somebody would say, oh, I could really see this. I could see, you know, who in the part? I could see a fish called Wanda in the one part. I could see several important personages. I don't think so. I think the average director or producer or actor or actress would say, what's the point? What a strange story. What's the point? The point is right here in this chapter, almost

exactly in the very center of the book. The point is about God's grace. Grace. And this book says that a religious professional, a preacher, even more than that, a prophet that received direct revelation from God, can be deeply and profoundly in the dark about God's grace. Jonah's deepest fears, we're going to see, and we actually have been alluding to it all

summer, his deepest fears, his racial prejudice, his lack of endurance is all tied to his blindness to the reality of grace. Now what happens at this point, right here in the center, suddenly Jonah gets it. He figures out what grace is about because the climax of this prayer in the belly of the deep is here at the end, verse 8 and 9. This is the climax of the prayer. This therefore is the point that he's supposed to be getting. He says, those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs, salvation is of the Lord. And at that

point, the fish releases him, which is to show that all of this has been sent by God to get him to this spot. To see those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be their salvation is of the Lord. And at that point he's released because at that point now, now he can be released. Now he can be a burning and shining light. Now he's ready for anything.

Now let's apply this to ourselves right away. Let's think about this very personally. If it's true that Jonah, a person who talked face to face with God, who got revelation from God, a great prophet of the Old Testament, if Jonah can be blind to grace to the point where it distorts his very life, it's even more likely that all of us in this room, to one degree or another, are also blind to it. And to one degree or another, here's the thesis of the sermon, alright? That our most severe problems are caused by an ignorance of the true depths of the meaning of God's grace. That's the thesis. That's the book. That's what I'm trying to get across.

Your most severe problems, whatever they are, they may have a lot of secondary causes, but a primary cause is our ignorance, our lack of understanding of the true depths of the meaning of God's grace. And until we get it the way Jonah had to get it, we'll be like him, virtually locked up, a shadow of what we can be and what we should be. Grace is like a huge mansion, like one of those mansions that you go into and you think you've seen it all, and then lo and behold you turn a corner and there's another entire hallway full of unexplored rooms. And every time you find a new wing in the house of God's grace, you're lifted, you're brought up into a higher level of life and greatness.

Now listen, even though that's the way we grow our entire lives by finding more and more wings and unexplored rooms in God's grace. The big change happens at the beginning. The first time we really grasp God's grace is the moment that we have the big change. Because what makes Christianity different from every other religion is this, the teaching of God's grace. God's grace is the essence of the Gospel. There's a great verse in the book of Galatians. And in the book of Galatians, Paul writes this to the Galatians.

He says, The gospel has borne fruit in you since the first day you understood the grace of God. Do you hear that? A synonym for being born again is the day you understood the grace of God. Until you understand the grace of God, you do not belong to Him and you haven't really believed. Or put it another way, the day that you understand the grace of God. Isn't that an amazing verse? The day you understand the grace of God is the day you've crossed over the line and the day you've become a Christian as opposed to simply being a religious or moral or nice person. That's a synonym for being born again. It's a synonym for conversion. It's a synonym for finally becoming a Christian.

The day you understand the grace of God. See? The gospel has borne fruit in you since the first day you understood the grace of God. And when you grasp this truth, it electrifies you and you never get over it. Martin Luther was a sedate professor until the day in his mid-thirties, he was thirty-something, give some of you hope, the day that he understood the grace of God. He'd been a professor of Bible. The day he understood the grace of God, he was turned from a sedate professor into a lion. He was still a professor, but into a lion

that was willing to take on the world single-handed. He was totally changed. Why? Because you see his career, his reputation, his safety became specks of lint on the horizon that he now had because of his vision. Who can sit still when you have the grace of God? Who can worry when you have the grace of God? That's what happened to Luther. And history is full of people who have been affected in the same way. And the question this morning is, are you in their train? Are you part of that number? If Jonah missed it, it's more likely that we're missing it as well. Grace, the deepest secrets that you ever need to learn in your life are locked up in there.

Now, therefore, since this prayer is about grace, since the book is about grace, since the chapter is about grace, let's book is about grace, since the chapter is about grace, let's just look at the chapter this way. Let's ask the chapter three questions. Now if we ask the chapter five questions, we get five points here this morning. If we ask the two questions, it would be two points. Today we're going to ask it three and try to get three answers. What is grace?

Number two, how do you receive grace? And number three, how do you know you have grace in your life? What is the grace of God? How do you receive the grace of God? And how do you know you have received the grace of God in your life? Number one, what's grace? Well, the word, at least in the Old Testament, the word that is used, grace, which is ken, is a word that means favor. Now, it goes beyond the way we use that word in English, which usually is thinking about a particular action only. It goes beyond just doing a favor, though that's

gracious as well. To find favor means to be let in to a place that you don't have the right to be. To find favor is to be let into a place that you don't have the right to be. Now for example in Genesis 33 we see Jacob coming back to confront his brother Esau. Years before Jacob had done a mean thing to Esau. He had duped his father and we won't go into that but he had betrayed his family. His brother Esau. He had duped his father, and we won't go into that, but he had betrayed his family. His brother Esau was angry at him for years. When Jacob returns, he says,

let me find kin, grace, let me find favor in your sight. And what Jacob's saying is, Esau, let me back in, even though I have no right to be back in, and you have no obligation to let me back in do it anyway So you see favor is the opposite of what is your right and favor is the opposite of being outside So let's give it a definition and this let's pull it apart for a moment grace is favor granted to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.

Grace is being led into a place that you don't deserve to be led into by a person who is not obligated to let you be in there either. Favor given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver. Now let's break that into two parts. Let's look at the idea of being let in and let's look at the idea of being let in and let's look at the part of it being undeserved.

First, being let in. You can see it right here in the passage. Look, in verse 6, Jonah says, To the roots of the mountains I have sank down. The earth barred my way, and yet you brought my life up from the pit. See, I was far away from you. The earth was in my path. I was barred my way, and yet you brought my life up from the pit. See, I was far away from you.

The earth was in my path. I was barred, but you let me in. You let me near. Now what we got here is cosmic hospitality. Cosmic hospitality. In New York, you don't just let everybody or anybody into your place, but when you let that person in, hospitality means more than just letting them in the door, it means to really receive them. When somebody's in your place, they're thirsty, you get them

a drink. They're hot, you turn up the heat. They're cold, you open a window. You meet their needs. They're unhappy, you listen to them. Of course not. They're hot, you open a window. They're cold, you put up the heat. They're thirsty, you don't give them pretzels. You give them something to drink, right?

And in the same way, cosmic hospitality, which is grace, means God lets you in, all the way in to himself, all the way into his family, all the way in to himself, all the way into his family, all the way into his heart, all the way into his home, you might say, all the way into his dwelling. And there he meets your needs, he answers your prayers, he guides you, he gives you, he controls the events of your life for your own good. That's cosmic hospitality. Now the reason that the doctrine of grace

strikes so deeply in us and meets needs at such a fundamental level, and until you understand the gospel of grace, the reason those needs go unmet is because at a very deep level we want to be let in. We need to be received. It's amazing how many people over the years have confided in me a recurrent dream, and it really is astonishing how similar that dream is from person to person. It goes like this. You've been invited to a function, a major function, and at that function is the inner ring.

Now, what's the inner ring? Well, everybody's dream is a little bit different, but the inner ring is that group of significant persons, the people who really count in your life. You're trying to break into music, they're the critics or the directors, you see. You're trying to break into business, they're the partners of a particular firm. You're trying to break into relationships and they're the friends of that person that you want so much to notice you. It might be a social circle, it might be a professional group of colleagues, it might be a bunch of gatekeepers who, if they like you, will open all the doors of interest to you.

And so you walk on in and they look at you and you look down and you find out you're in your underwear. That's how the dream goes. in and they look at you and you look down and you find out you're in your underwear. That's how the dream goes. And you're an outcast. And you've been looked at and been found wanting and you run out. We want that inner ring, significant people, that we know if they just would let us in, if they would respect us and accept us, then everything would be alright. When Sally Fields won the Oscar, I think it was for Norma Rae, I can't remember what year it was, does anybody remember seeing that?

She went to the microphone, everybody was applauding, and she looked and in a moment of real candor, she just suddenly started to go, you like me, you really like me. Like after years and years, it suddenly dawned on her that she was in. And when she said that, you know, with all the radiance, it just went right through me

because I began to realize that I, like her, and like maybe all of us, like a child, so desperately need to be let in. And we spend most of our lives feeling we're out. To be welcomed by the inner circle, to be welcomed and totally accepted by the ones who really count. Now, the Gospel comes to you like this,

and it says, to those of us who have never been allowed into our inner ring, and who think our lives are ruined because of it, and even to those of us who have been accepted by the inner ring and who think our lives are ruined because of it, and even to those of us who have been accepted by the inner ring and find to our surprise that our lives are still empty. The gospel comes and says the reason that you're still restless is because you don't understand that those ones that you want to be received by actually represent the one, the only one

who counts. You know who that one is. It's your creator. The Lord is his name. Those ones that you think are so successful and so important to you, even if you get into them you find out that it hasn't really, really satisfied you, because the one that your heart really yearns for, the Lord is His name, He's the only one that you really need to be let into.

And contrary to your deepest beliefs, you can't get in there by your efforts. In accord with your deepest fears, the Gospel says, you cannot possibly earn that reception. But contrary to your beliefs and contrary to what your society has told you, you can be received all the way in by the one who counts, not because of your payment, not because he's obligated, because of the free grace of God that comes to you because Jesus Christ lived a perfect life and died a perfect death in your place for the punishment of your sins.

And you can come all the way in. See the gospel is, I have found favor in the sight of the only inner ring that counts. The only one who really counts, I've been let in. You like me. You really like me. You really like me. When grace dawns on you, you have an experience much more profound than what Sally Fields has. Because when Sally Fields had that, it was very clear that that was an apex of her life. She was getting, on a human level, as close to the idea of grace as possible.

She realized she was finally in. I don't know where she is spiritually, but it's nothing, nothing like what it means to finally realize in the depth of your soul that it's God who has let you in, the only one that really counts. But he's let you in because of what Jesus did, and that brings us to our second part. Grace is favor being let in, but it's being let in without you deserving it and without the person who's letting you in being obligated.

Grace is favor given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver. And just to make sure you see the purity of the doctrine of grace, let me give you three little cases, okay? Case one, case two, case three. Case one, you're an case three. Case one. You're an employer, and a group of people have worked for you for two weeks, and you pay them their salary.

Is that grace? No, because not only do they deserve it, but you're obligated to give it. Case two. You're part of a Sunday school class, and the Sunday school teacher decides that he or she is going to step down and retire for the time being. You all get together to take him out or take her out for lunch and buy her a present. Now, is that grace? Yes and no, because on the one hand you are not obligated to do that. That wasn't, when you went to the class, that

wasn't an understanding, it wasn't a responsibility or requirement. So, it's unobligated on your part, but she's deserving of it. And so, it's not pure grace. Case three. You've got a neighbor who is a louse. Whenever his music is on too loud and you ask him to turn it down, he turns it up. And whenever you turn your music on at all, he calls the police. And when he gets sick, you run errands for him. You bring meals into him. He doesn't deserve it. You're under no obligation morally or legally. That's grace. And here's the doctrine of grace. No

human being is so good they don't need grace grace. No human being is so good they don't need grace and no human being is so bad they can't find grace. In our confession of faith that our church believes is a summary of what the Bible teaches is a great line and it goes like this. Just as there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation, so there is no sin so great that it can bring damnation on those who truly repent. It's a leveler. The doctrine of grace absolutely destroys spiritual manic depressiveness. Because those who feel like, look what I've achieved, you need

grace. You haven't achieved what you need to. And those who have failed, you've got grace. Chances are you've heard some version of the story of Jonah, the rebellious prophet who defied God and was swallowed by a great fish. In his book, Rediscovering Jonah, Tim Keller reveals hidden depths within the story, making the case that Jonah's rebellion also provides one of the most insightful explorations into the secret of God's mercy. As you learn what the book of Jonah teaches about prejudice, justice, mercy, self-righteousness,

and much more, you'll gain fresh insight into how to become a bridge builder in today's culture, how to foster reconciliation across lines of division, and with God's help bring peace where there is conflict. This month when you give to Gospel in Life, we'll send you Dr. Keller's book, Rediscovering Jonah, as our thanks for your gift. Just visit GospelinLife.com slash give. That's GospelinLife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity, which helps us reach more people with Christ's love.

That's why we have to say what Jonah says in not just in verse 6, which we already mentioned, but what Jonah says in verse 4. He says, I have been banished from your sight and yet I will look to the temple. And I was banished from your sight and in verse 7 he says, my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. There's an and yet in the heart of anybody who understands grace. I was in this condition and yet you heard me. Now the word and yet gives you the heart of the gospel of grace. The word and yet means there is no connection logically or causally between what came before and what comes after.

Did you see that? I was in this condition. I was banished from your sight. I lived a life like this. And yet you received me. You loved me. You took me in. There's no causal connection.

Rather, the doctrine of God's grace is this. That even though you're in this condition, God receives you not because of what's in your heart, but because of what's in His heart. If there's an end yet about your prayer life, it's like you're on a rocket ship, and you can break the pull of gravity. You see, you're looking realistically.

If you understand grace, you don't have to be afraid of what you see in the mirror. You don't have to say, oh, I couldn't really have done that. If I have done that, I'm an outcast. No, a person whose conscience is framed by grace has got a psychological strength to look at yourself realistically.

You have that kind of psychological strength that no one else has got because everyone else bases their self-image on their performance. And so if they can't admit what they've done, if they admit the failure, their spiritual failure, if they admit the failure in performance, their self-image is gone. Their identity is destroyed. They've got no reason to live. But a person who says, I am like this, and yet God has received me and I'm completely valued and accepted and welcomed into his family. You have got the ability to look realistically at who you are and then you get on the rocket ship. It's called and yet. Here's what I really am. And yet he has received me. My father gives me everything that I need. The and yet is like, puts you on a rocket

ship and helps you break the group's pull of the gravity of your sins and weaknesses. It says in spite of that, I've got a father who loves me. That's the doctrine of grace. What is grace? It's being led into a place that you don't have the right to be. Cosmic hospitality. Now secondly, how do you receive grace? Now, you see, we've just said grace is not something you can earn, it's something you receive. Well, how do you know you've received? Well, pardon me, I want to get ahead. How do you receive it? The way you receive it is like this.

Take a look at the two parts. We said, sin, pardon me, on the one hand, grace is not something you deserve, and it's not something that God is obligated to give. So grace is received when you understand it. Remember when Paul said, on the day that you understood the gospel of grace, on the day you understood grace, that was the day that the gospel began to bear fruit in you. The day you understand grace is the day you both understand how little you deserve and

the day you understand the heights of God's mercy. The length that is mercy and grace is gone. There's three kinds of people in the world. All right? I love it. Don't you love my illustrations when I say there's three kinds of people in the world? Now everybody has to sit down. Okay, let me hear this one. Okay? And don't look at anybody around you. Would you please just look at your navel? Look at your navel. There's three kinds of people in the world. Number one, there's people who have so low a view of their sin that they can't grasp grace. They have too low a view of their sin. That means they don't

really think that they're that bad. They don't like people saying that they're spiritual failures. They don't like people talking about punishment. They think that the...they think a lot of this sermon is too harsh. They believe it's unfair and maybe a little bit hellfireish and brimstone-ish, you see, to talk about the need to be punished. They say, hey, I've done pretty well. And what they mean by that is I really don't think, frankly, that I am going to ask God for anything that I don't have coming to me.

They're like a poor person who thinks they're rich, so when somebody comes along and offers them a gift, they say, I don't need it. They stay poor because they think they're rich. There's a second category, and that's people not who have too low a view of their sin. They know that they're failures. They have too low a view of God's mercy. They don't believe God's mercy is powerful enough and sufficient enough to deal with the mess that they are.

And so they haven't received God's grace either. Generally these are people who know they failed and they know they need charity, but they wish they hadn't been in this condition. They say, I ought not to be in this condition. I should have succeeded. And because they want to hold on to a religion of self effort, they stay in their condition, saying, I don't want the grace of God, I shouldn't need the grace of God, it's too, it's not powerful enough to deal with the mess that I am, and because they have too low a view of God's mercy, they haven't received God's grace. And then there's the people who not only see their evil and their sin and their need, and they are spiritual failures, and at the same time, they see the heights of God's grace.

They see the power of His mercy. And it's like looking at the world through two eyes. You know, if you look with one eye, you have no depth perception, and if you look with two eyes, you suddenly have depth perception. And through those two things, the height of God's mercy and the depth of your sin, you see an absolute beauty, and you're changed by it. Now, Jonah was doing that. It's the way you become a Christian, to see those two things.

The moment you finally see those two things. I mean, generally, when I see a person crossing over the line into faith, it's usually because they had some idea of their sin, but they had no idea about God's free grace. They thought they had to earn it. Or they had some idea about Jesus' great grace and love, but they hadn't seen their sinfulness. They didn't see that they really needed a Savior.

But when the two come together, it's like two chemicals. When they come together, there's a reaction. It's called regeneration. It's called rebirth. It's like two chemicals. When they come together, there's a reaction. It's called regeneration. It's called rebirth. It's understanding the grace of God. Now that's also the way you grow. Once you come into the faith that way, that's the way you grow.

That's how Jonah grew. He was reminding himself of both things. And the more deeply he experienced his own sin, and the more deeply he experienced the grace of God, the more deeply he experienced his own sin, and the more deeply he experienced the grace of God, the more he grew. And that's how you can grow, friends, right here. Look, number one. Look what Jonah did to help himself remember

and grow in his knowledge of his own sin. He says, those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. Oh, that is an incredible principle. Listen to it. If you want to see the depth of your sin, don't just say, oh, I know I'm bad. I mean, the preacher told me I was bad.

I got it, I know I'm bad, but that's, that's too general. Nobody, nobody feels sinful in general. Instead, when you see particular idols, things that are in your life that are more important than God, that are blocking the grace of God in your life, that's when you have an opportunity to smash that idol, because that idol is forfeiting a certain amount of grace. It's keeping the grace of God from moving in your life. Let me give you a couple examples.

The best idol, the most important idol to smash, the one that we have to continually smash, because it tends to grow back, is self-righteousness. You know what self-righteousness is? It's feeling God is obligated to you. The doctrine of grace, you do not understand grace as long as you think God is obligated to you. And there's plenty of subtle ways for us to feel that way.

Some of us feel like, well, some of us in very obvious ways, say, my record and my performance and the good deeds that I've done and the fine upstanding citizen that I've been, I deserve something from God, at least to hear my prayers and probably to have me into heaven. That's an idol. Or, if you believe that when I look around most people, you know, if God is fair and grades on a curve like the, like the, you know, any fair teacher,

hey, I'm better than a whole lot of people. That's an idol. Or, if you believe you've had such a rough life, and a far rougher life, than a lot of people who are more immoral than you, and yet seem to have had a much easier road of it. And underneath that makes you feel like God owes you something. That's an idol. You cannot experience the grace of God. It can't thrill you. It can't electrify you.

It can't comfort you unless you see that He doesn't owe you. And as long as you feel He owes me, that an idol that that blocks the grace of God in your life And you wonder why there is no sense of his power You might think that self-righteous people are braggarts and snobs and of course yeah, that's true They are but I'll tell you this you can be a sad self-doubting broken person and

Be eaten up with self-righteousness. Smash the idol, or you'll forfeit the grace that could be yours. Another idol is religion. You know you can worship Christianity if you come to church and you're very busy with Christian activities and you're constantly doing all kinds of things and you hold onto them like life rafts. You say, they make you feel clean,

they make you feel like God surely has got to do something for me. Look at how hard I'm working at all these things. Smash the idol or you'll forfeit the grace that could be yours. Or in some cases, another idol is what the old writers used to call darling sins. You know what a darling sin is? A darling sin is a particular practice that you know violates one of the Ten Commandments. You know it violates one of the Ten Commandments,

but it gives meaning to you when your life looks dull and gray. It picks you up. It makes you feel better. It gives your life meaning. It's a God, you see. It's an idol. And you know it's wrong. And yet, my friends, smash it,

because every false God will let you down. And no false God can ever guarantee tomorrow. You can never satisfy it. It can never give you that guarantee. So though it gives you meaning today, eventually, it can't give you what the Heavenly Father can give you and that is absolute certainty about tomorrow. Listen, smash the idols or you forfeit the grace that could be yours.

Will you look at your life? Will you see what's there? In Judges 10 it says, when they destroy their idols, God could bear their misery no longer. Did you hear that one? When they smashed their idols, God could bear their misery no longer. When you smash your idols, His love and grace explodes with power in your life. And so the first thing that Jonah was doing was he was looking at idolatry and he was thinking about the depth of the sin. And when you look at your idols and you smash them and see the things that you use there to bring, that are more important than God, that will enable you to experience, when you

confess that, it will enable you to experience His grace. But there's the other side. It's not just enough to look at the depth of your sin, because if that's all you do, that's not going to help you be invigorated by grace. You also have to see the lengths to which God's grace is gone. The heights. Notice this. Jonah, in order to be invigorated by God's grace, continually looks to the temple.

What's the temple? Why? He says, I am banished, but I look to your temple. I am down the roots of the mountains, but I look to your temple. I am down the roots of the mountains, but I look to your temple. Jonah knew something, and I want you to listen carefully to this. Jonah knew something, that God's grace was not cheap grace. In other words, God's grace doesn't come like this. God does not look down from heaven and say, well, boys will be boys, prophets will be

prophets, prostitutes will be prostitutes. I am not rigid about these things! Come on in. If you think that's what grace is, if you think grace is basically laxity, you will never be transformed by it. It won't thrill you, it won't amaze you. The reason that Jonah looks at the temple is because in the temple there was the mercy seat. And the mercy seat was the place where the blood was sprinkled on a slab, it was called

a golden slab called the mercy seat, and underneath it was the law. The law, the Ten Commandments, the law that demands that you be compassionate and it demands a life of greatness, compassion and integrity and courage and purity and generosity and self-sacrifice and we all know we fall short but over top the blood is sprinkled and Jonah knew though he didn't totally understand from the temple that God will give us grace in spite of our failings because he receives the payment of a substitute Jonah didn't just look at the depth of a substitute.

Jonah didn't just look at the depth of the sin. He began to put his hope in the substitute. He says, up to now I've been thinking that I've been a good person and now I know my only hope is the substitute. He didn't know what we know and that is that Jonah himself was a picture of the one who can pay our punishment. You see, when Jonah was thrown into the ocean, an ocean of God's anger,

it says the sea stopped its raging and the sailors were saved. Jesus Christ was thrown into the storm of God's anger and we were saved. The sea stopped its raging. Oh, now somebody says, somebody says, I hate that idea of an angry God. I read the Iliad and in the Iliad there's Agamemnon, and he's in the middle of a storm.

And what he decides to do, because the gods who are hostile to him have sent this storm, he kills his daughter. And immediately the storm is gone and the west winds blow. And here you've got this same primitive bloodthirsty idea in the middle of the book of Jonah. I hate it. And you're encouraging it, you say to me. Will you listen?

The opposite of love, as we said here before, is not anger, but indifference. If you love somebody and you see them being destroyed by evil, you get angry at the evil and you get angry at them. Remember the quote that we used some months ago? The man that said, the more a man loves his son, the more he hates in his son the drunkard, the liar, and the traitor. And if we find ourselves getting angry because of our love, when we see evil destroying someone that we love, how much more a holy God cannot overlook sin, but it has to be destroyed and it has to be punished. And listen, God is not like those Greek gods that Agamemnon had to suck up to, because they were hostile gods and he turned their wrath aside, but this God is a God who himself voluntarily sacrifices his son. You think God is up in heaven, he's hostile, and he says,

take one of your children and kill them, oh no. Instead, here's a God of such grace that he is the one who provides the son. He is the one who empties heaven of its greatest treasure so that justice can be paid for and he can receive you in. Do you know how to receive grace? You have to admit the depths of your sin and you have to trust the substitute Jesus Christ. Those two things together, unless you see the depth of your sin, what Jesus did for you will not thrill you. Unless you see what Jesus Christ did for you, you will not have the strength to admit the depths of your sin. When you put the two together, there's a chemical reaction, there's an explosion

of grace in your life, it's called regeneration. It's called being born again. Well lastly, and I only have can say a word, how do you know the grace of God's in your life? Just look at this in Jonah. Two things happen to Jonah. When the grace of God's in your life, externally you lose all of your bigotry and your cynicism about messed up people. And internally you become a person of joy and freedom. Look, look, on the one hand Jonah says in verse 8, those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. That word grace there is the word kseph, which is God's saving love that he gave to Israel on Mount Sinai and yet

Jonah is saying, worthless idols, he's saying idol worshipers, filthy pagans, the people that he was loath to go to in Nineveh. Filthy pagans. the people that he was loath to go to in Nineveh, filthy pagans, grace is as much theirs as it is ours. For the first time, this snobbish person with all of his pride in his racial pedigree says, you know what, when it comes to the grace of God, God's grace is as much theirs as it is ours. When it comes to the grace of God, a decorated hero needs God's grace as much as the head of a drug cartel. And the way you can tell that you've really grasped the grace of God is you believe that. Some of you struggle with it. Some of you say, I can't believe, I cannot believe that in God's eyes That there's virtually no difference that I a respectful person need his grace

Just as much as a as a vicious criminal the answer is you still haven't gotten a grip on the doctrine of God's grace Because when it happens listen if you believe in basically a religion of self-effort If you believe you pulled yourself up spiritually, then you look at a failure and you say If you believe you pulled yourself up spiritually, then you look at a failure and you say, Pull yourself up, get yourself together man, what's wrong with you? But a Christian who looks at a wretched person, a distressed person, a broken person, you look and you say this, Hey, I must look worse to God than he looks to me. And look what God did in my life. So God can help this person too.

Your cynicism is gone. You are not cynical about people's ability to change if you know anything about yourself being a sinner saved by grace. Your cynicism is gone. Your superiority is gone. Your attitude toward other people around you, your heart goes out to them in hope. And if it doesn't, you're either not a Christian or like Jonah, you're a person to whom grace is just an intellectual entity and it's never captured the entrails of your soul. And secondly, you see, now Jonah is a man of tremendous joy and thanksgiving. He says,

with thanksgiving I'll make my vows. His guilt is gone. Some of you say, you don't know how big my sin is. The Bible says God's grace is an infinite grace. Listen, He's an infinite God. If all the stars in the universe were multiplied by their own number, it wouldn't take any more power for God to light them because He's a God of infinite power. And if all of your sins, if all of your sins were multiplied by their own number, it wouldn't take any more effort on God's part

to cover them because His grace is an infinite grace. My friends, don't you also see that there's joy that when you understand grace, because no longer are you worried about your performance, you're not always looking at yourself. You're not always feeling self-conscious about where you are. You become a fearless person now because the only thing that matters, the only inner ring that you really need to be into, you're in.

And every other inner ring becomes negotiable. And you become fearless people without being defiant people. And you become the most approachable people of all. Listen. Salvation is of the Lord. It's not partly of Him and partly of you. It's all of Him. Does somebody here say, I'm not worthy of Him? You still don't get it. He is your worthiness. Somebody say here, I wish He was in my life, I wish He was in my life, but I don't see Him working in my life. You still don't get it. He is your worthiness. Somebody say here, I wish he was in my life, I wish he was in my life, but I don't see him working in my life. You still don't get it, do you?

If you want him, he's already working in your life, friends. Don't give yourselves too much credit. Your desire for him, even your sense of your own sin, is grace. He's working in your life. Smash your idols. Smash your idols. Trust the substitute. Put him first. Salvation is of the Lord.

Let's pray. Our Father, now we ask this, that you would in the next couple of minutes as we meditate on what these words mean to us, you would show us what we have to do in order to let the grace of God flow in our lives. 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 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 recorded in 1990. 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.