Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - God Our Father

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 17, 2000. Series: Four Ways to Live, Four Ways to Love. Scripture: Psalm 103:1-2, 8-18. 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.

You're listening to the Gospel and Life podcast. What kind of relationship does God actually want to have with us? The Bible uses many images to describe how God relates to us as a father, a friend, a spouse, and a king. Today, Tim Keller takes a closer look at one of these dimensions of God and how it helps us see the depths of his grace and love more clearly. Let me read you, Psalm 103. Just the middle part, really, the introduction, which is verses 1 to 2, and that middle section 8 to 18. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all my inmost being, praise His Holy Name. Praise the Lord, oh, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor it. his anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass.

He flourishes like a flower of the field, the wind blows over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children, with those who keep his covenant, and remember to obey his precepts. This is God's word. back in March, we looked at this passage, we looked at the whole Psalm, but we looked at the beginning of it, and it just killed me not to be able to go to the meat of it, and today we are. Last week, we laid down a thesis, and that thesis is going to serve us for a series of studies on the nature of God, who God is. And the thesis goes like this. In action movies, especially with the kind of movies we see in the

In action movies, all the players are cartoon characters. They are one-dimensional. They're either heroes or villains or they're stereotypes of some kind. They're not nuanced. They're simple and they're one-dimensional. And as a result, there's no personal engagement with them. I mean, we're not supposed to have personal engagement with them. So when they're blown away, we just applaud it to special effects.

It doesn't bother us. See? There's no personal engagement with them. They're one-dimensional, cartoons. Now, most people still, even in Western society, most people still believe in God. But the God they believe in is a cartoon God, is a one-dimensional God. Oh, there are all kinds of varieties that might believe in God as a kind of great force of energy. Or they might believe in a God who is a kind of benevolent grandfather, or God is a stern judge,

or a wonderful loving friend or a God who is the unmoved mover, the cause of all that is and so on. But almost every case, as we were talking about this last week, people's views of gods are flat. They choose from the many metaphors. That's my God. And, you know, after all, this is a culture of choice. But when you do that, when you choose the metaphor, and there's so many metaphors come out of the Bible for God, you choose the one. If you choose one or two over another one or two,

you come up with a one-dimensional God, you come up with a cartoon God, and as a result, there's, again, no personal engagement. And we said that what the Bible teaches us is that God, because he's a real God, is complex. He's a father, and he's a friend,

and he's a king, and he's a judge, and he's all these various things. And if you choose, one or a couple in favor of another, if he refuse to hold them together as he reveals himself to be in the Bible. If you have a loving God who never judges or punishes anybody, I don't believe in that. Or if you have a holy God who you have to just really, really try very hard to be very good to please him or else he'll smite you, if you have any one of these kinds of gods, there will be no personal engagement, and it's not the biblical God. The biblical God is a complex

God. The biblical God is, as we looked at, we're going to look at these for four weeks, is a father and a friend, and a lover, and a king. And frankly, that's how you become a Christian. The day the penny drops, that he's all these things. He's a real God. And that's also how he grows as a Christian. Because it's always one of these kinds of love, or some of these kinds of love that aren't vivid to us that has to be rekindled in our life or rekindle in our heart, rekindle in our mind. And it's always one of these kinds of love, I submit to you, that is what will heal you or get you unstuck. Because we get stuck or we get stagnant. It's because of some aspect of God that we don't see or know. Therefore, we're looking for these four weeks at these various sorts of love, these various

images of God, each one of which is absolutely critical. You can't just choose one of the other. What makes you a Christian, what helps you grow as a Christian. is to be able to hold them together, to understand them, receive them, all these to various kinds of love, and respond to them appropriately. Now, today what we're looking at is the fact that God, in the Bible, is a father. That God's love, among other things, he's other things, but we're going to look at this today, is father love. So let's just ask two questions of this text, classic text on what that means. let's ask first the question, what does it mean that God's a father, and then secondly, how should we respond? That's all. What does it mean that he's a father? What is that getting across to us about God? And then secondly, how should we respond? Now first, what does it mean? Obviously, all these metaphors go like this. What we're being told in the Bible is if you reflect on the very best possible kings, the very best possible lovers, the very best possible friends, and the very best possible parents.

You will learn something critical, something absolutely crucial, something irreplaceable about God that you have to take into consideration if you're going to relate to him. And so what does it mean that God's a father? Let's look at three things that are in the text. It means absolute safety, compassionate anger, and ultimate home. Absolute safety, compassionate anger, and ultimate home. That's the three things it means. take a look. First of all, absolute safety, verses 13 and 14, as a father has compassion on

his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. Absolute safety. Notice, first of all, the deep emotion of God for us. Now, you say, I didn't see any, and that's right. One of the problems is there's almost no way to get this across right. You know, the new international version, which we have printed for you, a modern translation of the Bible, translates this particular word, compassion. The old King James Bible says pity, as the father pities.

Both those words don't work very well. The Hebrew experts will tell you that the word is being used here of God is a surprisingly, remarkably, I'm going to try to flesh out here for you, an unbelievably deep emotional word. and by the way it means to be viscerally, overwhelmingly in love with something viscerally, overwhelmingly

and it tends to be usually used I get back to this in a second for mothers with regard to mothers there's two particularly memorable places where the words used one is in Isaiah 49 verse 15 where it's talking about a nursing mother

and God speaks to his people and says can a woman forget the baby nursing at her breast, can she fail to have compassion on the child that's sucking at her breast? Yes, she may forget, but I will not forget you. Now, what's going on here? First of all, the word compassion, as I said, it's hard to really get across, but I'm beginning to. It's talking about an incredibly visceral love. There's a kind of love. There's a kind of compassion. It's overwhelming. It's visceral. And here, God has the audacity to identify this word. rightly, actually, with this word, which has to do with the biologically rooted, overwhelming

love that a mother has for an infant as her milk's coming in. And there's another place where this very same word is used with regard to mother love. It's very vivid. Another place that this word is used is in 1st Kings 3.26. And it's a very famous story about a woman whose infant baby boy dies at night. And in her despair and in her anger she goes, and finds another mother who's asleep with her infant baby boy and steals the child while the mother's sleeping. The next day, the true mother, the mother of the child, realizes what has happened, and drags the mother who has stolen the child to the king Solomon, and King Solomon hears the dispute. And after listening to the dispute and how in the world is he going to know?

Who's telling the truth? He finally says, I got an idea, let's do this, cut the child in half and give one to her and one one half to her. And we're told in 1st King's 326 that the true mother, we're told, was moved with compassion, was viscerally moved, and said, I'm the liar. She's the mother. Give her the child. Now, you know, to say to the king, I have lied before you, I have committed perjuries, practically, possibly a capital offense. And what it meant was, here's the mother love, Here's the love that comes in when the milk comes in. Here's this unbelievably overwhelmingly emotional, visceral love.

She's realized what's going to happen and is willing to sacrifice her life and give her child to the liar, to the thief to save the child. And God has the audacity. Say, that's the kind of love I feel for you, for my children. Now, by the way, this is a small tangent. It's going to take about 30 seconds, but it's worth saying. the reason why there's always, you know, people say, why is the Bible so often talking about God as Father? Does that mean God is a male deity in the Bible? And this kind of mixing and matching shows that no. The Bible is not saying that fathers are in the image of God, but mothers are not. This is showing us that both Father Love and Mother Love, all parent love, is rooted in the heart and in the image of God himself. See, and the point here is, first, God is using an unbelievably emotional word and says, I feel that love for you, but now look, we're not quite done with

this. Look at verse 14. Why does he love us like this? Why? Well, verse 14, four, which means because. See, verse 13 is this incredible emotional involvement with us. Verse 14 tells us why, and it says he knows we are dust. You know, at first sight, and I'm sure if people are going to say this. At first sight, if I asked you, look at verse 13, 14, why does God love us? Why does God love his children? And right away, you'd say, well, it's because we fear him. God loves those who fear him. But if you look carefully, and Hebrew always loves parallelism, notice fearing him and being children are the same thing. In verse 13, it says, as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him for. In other words, those who fear him, and we're

to get back to this near the end, to live in fear, which means awe and wonder. And to be children is the same thing. So it's, he's not saying he loves you because. No, the word because is there. The word for is there. Why? Because you're a wreck. Because you're flawed. See, dust is a metaphor for falling apart. Dust is a metaphor for being broken. Dust is a metaphor really for being almost, you know, falling apart, broken, flawed, sinful. And here's something weird. We know from the Bible says, and you know from common sense. You know from the Bible says is that when you're good, that when you're right, when you're doing what God wants you to do, he loves you more. And yet we're also told that when you're doing bad, when his children are doing poorly, when his children are falling apart, he loves you more.

I mean, does this sound like a non-sequitory to you? God is emotionally, deeply involved with his children because they're such idiots, because they're so stupid, because they're such dust. Is that a non sequitur to you? Listen, you don't understand parents. One of the things is faux interesting, and this is the point here, God is emotionally involved and doesn't matter what his children do. Whatever you do, good or bad, whatever you do, he just loves and loves you. You are absolutely and completely safe in his indissolvable emotional commitment.

Now, the reason we have to bring us out under Father, and not under friend, lover, and king, think for a minute. You know what? Friends can be patient, but at a certain point, if you're a friend continues and continues to divulge your secrets, continues and continues to divulge your confidences, you just can't keep doing the friend thing, right?

I mean, at a certain point, you've got to stop doing the friend thing if your friend thing acts like that. Your friend acts like that. Or love. you know, you can reach out to hug and kiss and, you know, your lover can push you away and you're having a bad day, all right. But, you know, over and over and over and over again, if your hugs and your kisses are again and again and again, you're going to stop doing the lover thing. You know, at a certain point, the friend has to stop doing the friend thing if the other person is not being a friend. And the lover has to stop doing the lover thing if the other person is not being a lover.

And even kings, at a certain point, if their citizens are trampling on their laws, has to, you know, you can't be in a friend. a good relationship here, but even us below average parents, and there's many, many of us, you know, at least 49 percent. Even us below average parents know something, that when you have three or four or five children and one of them is the most stupid and one is being the most, the worst son or daughter, and one is being the most messed up, if anything, you feel more parent love. Your heart goes out more to them. parents know that almost as soon as they're born, your heart locks on and you realize that no matter how this child acts for the rest of his or her life, you're never going to be happy unless they're happy. And God has the audacity to say the reason for that is because parents, even you bad parents, even you below average parents, are made in my image.

That's how I am. I'm father. You are absolutely safe in my love. That's the first thing. His children are absolutely safe in his love. That's what you need. You need family love. You need counter-conditional love. You need love no matter who you are, no matter what you do. In fact, you need love just because you're a child. Not because of anything you're giving to the father or mother, just because you're the child.

We all need love like that. And God says, it's with me. That's where it is. That's where the thing that you most need. in the world is. You need that absolute safety. You're not going to get it from anybody else. You're not only not going to get it from friends and lovers and kings. By definition, you're not even going to be able to get it from fathers and mothers here on earth because they are broken to some degree. They're dust too. But I'm not.

Absolute safety, number one. The second thing it means, compassionate anger. This is the next thing we need. I know some of you're saying, what? Well, look. Verse 8 to 10. The Lord is compassionate and gracious. slow to anger abounding in love, he will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our inequities. Now, what do we see here? On the one hand and on the other hand, on the one hand, we see a God, a father, because that's who we're talking about here, whose anger is not a payback anger. It says right off the bat in verse 10, the anger is not paying us for.

our sins. The anger is not tit-for-tat anger. The anger is not requiting us for our sins. The anger is not retributative. Now, by the way, if, and this happens all the time, and because I'm a below-average parent, it happened a lot to me, if when your children inconvenience you or humiliate you or cause you pain in some ways, a very, very natural thing is to let the child experience payback anger. Now in payback anger, you're trying to frighten the child. You're trying to scare the child. You're trying to just, you're trying to maybe emotionally sort of beat up the child. And what you're doing is you're trying to basically pay the child back. It's payback anger. You humiliated me? I'm going to humiliate you. You hurt my feelings? I'm going to hurt your feelings.

You created unpleasantness for me. I'm going to create incredible unpleasantness for you. And I want you to know that payback anger in a family never, ever works. It always poisons. Payback anger is not like the anger that passes over us. It's not like the rain that passes over us and leaves everything lush and green for it. It's more like the rain that parks over us and just swamps and floods and destroys everything. And the reason why payback anger never is ever works, ever works in a family, family. It's because our families are just images of God. Our parenthood is just an image of God's

parenthood, and God never, to his children, gets paid back anger. But on the other hand, this is a God who gets angry. You know, one of the things that it struck me, I'm trying to meditate on this, you know, in order to bring it to you and to teach it to you. First, I suddenly realized one of the implications of verse 9. It says he will not harbor his anger forever. Okay. But what does that mean? It means he will harbor anger. He won't harbor it forever, but that means God harbors anger. This is not a humanistic God. This is not a God who never gets angry.

This is a God who gets angry, but who does not give us payback anger. What are we talking about here? I'll tell you what. Verse 8, this is compassion-driven anger. It's slow. It's utterly under his control. The compassionate is permanent. See, verse 8 says?

And 9, compassion is permanent. and the anger is temporary. Why? Because compassion is driving the anger. It's deliberate. It's intentional. It's purposeive. What are we talking about?

Just this. There's two kinds of parents that will destroy your life. Two kinds of parents that will make you feel like orphans because you are. One is the completely permissive kind of parent so detached that he or she just never gets angry.

Never lays down standards. Never engages, never confronts, detached, permissive, do what you want. We call that neglecting parents. And then on the other hand, you have abusive parents, payback anger, lots of anger, lots of confrontation. And I want you to know that either a neglecting parent or an abusive parent destroys that child. Either an neglectful parent or an abusive parent makes the child say, I don't know who I am, I don't know if I'm loved. And that's because payback anger or no anger means the child's not loved.

You say, what do you mean, no anger? If you love, you get angry. You know, my favorite quote on this, I haven't used it in a number of years, but it's great. It's from Becky Pippert's book, Hope Has Its Reasons. And Becky Pippert quotes a man named E.H. Gifford. I've never been able to find this quote. She doesn't footnote it. But he says, the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in his son, the drunk, the liar,

and the traitor. And then she goes on and says, if God were not angry over how we are destroying ourselves, he wouldn't be good, and he certainly wouldn't be loving. For anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and hate is the ultimate form, pardon me, and the ultimate form of hate is indifference. I screwed that up, didn't I? Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the ultimate form of hate is indifference. On the way, one hand, if you don't have a parent that gets angry at you, you're not loved. If on the other hand, you have a parent who is ever paying you back, you're not loved. Either way, you're going to feel like an orphan. Either way, you're going to not know who you are. And here's what's interesting.

He said, well, then what kind of anger are we talking about? Anger that looks at your flaws, anger that looks at your dustness, anger that looks at what's wrong with you, and very deliberately and very purposeively is concerned, is upset. The anger is emotional, and yet it's under control because it's unselfish. And says, I'm going to bring into your life a disciplinary action. You can't go to the party. You can't do this. You can't do that.

I'm bringing pain into your life only so that it'll wake you up so it'll change you so you can avoid the destructive pain that will surely come into your life later on if I don't do this now. You and I need compassionate anger desperately. I need someone emotionally involved enough with us to get angry, but unselfishly so, with no acts to grind, with no desire to make you to wreak vengeance or retribution on you. We need that more than anything. And God says, I got it. The thing that you need that you look for, which you get only partially elsewhere, I got it.

I'm father. I'm the father. Marriage is one of the most significant human relationships there is, but is also one of the most difficult and misunderstood. In the meaning of marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller offer biblical wisdom and insight that will help you understand God's vision for marriage. Whether you're single, considering marriage,

or have been married for a long time, the meaning of marriage will help you face the complexities of commitment with the wisdom of God. The meaning of marriage is our thank you for your gift this month to help Gospel in Life share the love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. We also want to highlight another great marriage-related resource from Gospel and Life,

a podcast called Cultivating a Healthy Marriage. It features one of Dr. Keller's most popular sermon series during his time at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. No matter your relationship status, this series will give you new ways to apply God's wisdom about marriage to your life. You can listen to this series wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching.

And lastly, it means ultimate home. For God to say, I'm father, I'm the father, is to say, in me and in me alone is absolute safety.

Secondly, in me and me alone, you have the wise guide, the compassionate anger, you know, in a context of absolute safety, the unconditional love that you need. But then thirdly, I am ultimate home. Why? Let's look at the third place. Verse 15. As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field.

The wind blows over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more. Why does that last line get me? Why does that last line get you? Or at least it will as I let you lose. think about it for a minute. Its place remembers it no more. The place you grew up, the place you grew up remembers you no more. There is nothing worse, no worse nightmare than that place in, it's a wonderful life, the Frank Kappa film, where Jimmy Stewart, remember George Bailey? He sent back to, oh, what's the place? Bedford Falls, New York, right? And his place remembers him no more. remember that he sent back and it's as if he'd never been born he goes to see his mother mother has no idea who are you get out before i call the police he goes to see his brother

while his brother's dead because remember that he's in the cemetery because george wasn't around to save him he goes to see his wife his wife mary doesn't know who he is goes to his house his house his home now what is home home is a place you know every other place you know every other place you fit in, but home is the place that fits you. Home is the place where the chair is where you want. This is the right home. A real home is a place where the colors, the architecture, the furniture, everything is where it ought to be. The smells, the fire, the chair by the window, the ultimate home fits you. Ultimate home is everything you want. And he goes to his ultimate home, the perfect home, and it's a ruin. And it's a nightmare. And he says it's a nightmare. Of course it's a nightmare.

he goes back to the place where he grew up, first 16, and his place remembers him no more. He's a man without a place. He's a man without a home. What a nightmare, right? Why? Why is it that foreign-born Americans spend $10 billion a year

going back to where they're from to see it? Why is it that so many of you always sit in the same spot every week? Why? You know, why is it, Why is it that adopted children, many of them feel this unbelievable need to find their birth parent? Why does so many of us want to go and find we can't really enjoy going back to the place we grew up and seeing all the changes? Why is that so awful?

Why is it so terrible to realize your place remembers you no more? Why is so terrible not to have a place, not to be from anywhere? Why? You know, what's intriguing is there was the Utney Reader, which is we call the Liberal Reader's Digest. The August edition had a whole

it was a theme, a whole lot of articles on the new mobility, the fact that nobody lives where they're from anymore. Everybody has to migrate around to do business. Everybody's got to travel. There's one place where Eva Hoffman wrote a really incredibly great article, I can't give it all to you here. But she says at one

point, she says, we feel people people today tend to feel ejected from our first homes and our landscapes, from our first romance, from our authentic self. An ideal sense of belonging of tuning in with others eludes us. I wonder if in this world of easy come, easy go, sliding so easily among different places and meanings without alighting on any of them for very long, if we don't risk being overwhelmed by what Milan Kundero calls the unbearable lightness of being, it's the illness that comes to unenkinsed. people, those who travel perpetually to new moments and sensations and to whom no internal feeling is more important than another. Why do we need home? Why do we need a place? I don't know. We do.

It's incredibly important. We need to know there's a place where our chair is where we want it, right by the fire, right by the window, looking over the water or something like that. And it's another reason why some people are working so unbelievably hard materially to make enough money so they can buy that ideal place. Because, see, the place they were from is no more. or they don't even remember it. And they're going to find a place. They're going to make a place. Why is place so important?

I don't know. But the one thing we do know is this is the human condition. That's what Eva Hoffman is trying to say. Over and over and over again, we go back and we find our place remembers us no more. No matter how hard we try, houses crumble. We can't make the mortgage. People break up. People get divorced.

Children won't speak to you. That beautiful field you always remember has a shopping mall in it now. Why? What is this getting at? What it's getting at is we all need a place. We all need a sense of home. And until we're being told, you realize what your heart is really after, you're going to spend all of your life chasing Will of the Whips. You're going to spend all of your life working too hard.

You're going to spend all of your life searching for something, and where can you find it? Where's the only place you can find it? Take a look at the contrast. It's amazing. It's place, verse 16, remembers it no more, but verse 17, well, what's the replacement for that? From everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear him. The Lord's love is the home. The Lord's love is

the place. The Lord's love is the only place that when you go there, they have to take you in. The Lord's love is the only place where the fire never goes out in the fireplace. The Lord's love. God, Jesus Christ says to his disciples, I go to prepare a place for you. Where? In my father's house, there are many rooms. The ultimate home your heart's looking for is in there. The ultimate absolute safety you need is in there. The ultimate compassionate anger that you need is in there.

That's what it means to say God is the father. That's what it means when it says, as a father, so the Lord. Now, what do we do about this? What do we do? How do we get that into our lives? And I'm going to tell you four things. You've got to do four things. Four steps, if you want.

You know? We like steps. All right. Four steps. And they're all here. If you want that absolute safety in your life, if you want that compassionate anger in your life, how can you know your unconditionally loved by God?

In other words, how can you know you're a child of his? Secondly, how can you have in your life his compassionate anger, not a sense of indifference from God, nor a sense of being constantly punished and chastised? How can you have that ultimate sense of home so deep in him that it doesn't bother you so much that in so many other ways you're not able to go home? That family that's broken up, that shopping mall, next to that beautiful pasture, you know, that house that you've, that great house that you've really never been able to get.

How can you get this into your life this way? Four things. Number one. First is a preliminary step. It's not really a step, but I'll call it a step. Preliminary step is realize that being a child of God is not automatic. It's not automatic. Look who it is.

Who is he giving all this to? Look at verse 18. With those who keep his covenant. A covenant is a contract. And you keep a covenant only because you've made a covenant. It means there's a spot where you weren't in covenant and then you are. There's a spot where you weren't in a relationship and then you are. Now, the reason I have to say this is because the average person today in America has an idea of God

and even has an idea of God as a father but believes that aren't we all God's children now? The answer is yes and no, but mainly no. Here's why. If you think of the metaphor of parent, parents give you. you three things, your existence, your resemblance, and a relationship. First of all, parents give you your existence. If someone is your parents because you literally sprung from their body. Secondly, resemblance. All of your genetic code came from one or the other. All of what you look like, all of who you are in all those senses, comes from one or the other. So existence and resemblance

and last of all, relationship. Because that's what we've been talking about so for. A parent doesn't just give you existence and resemblance, but also has to create absolute safety, also has to bring you into a place of guidance and personal engagement and compassionate anger and create a home, a place where you can grow and nurture, a place that fits you and so on. And so the third thing is relationship. Now, if you ask those three things, is God the father of everybody? In the first sense, of course. God is the author of everybody. God is the creator of everybody. And Paul talks about that. You can say that. I can say that. Acts 17, Paul actually says, we are all his children. Of course we are, in the first sense. If you primarily think of God's fatherhood in terms of the source

of your existence, we're all God's children, but the Bible doesn't primarily think of it that way, because it's really not the most important. Secondly, if in the other hand, you say, primarily his fatherhood means resemblance. In that case, nobody but Jesus is his child. If you think primarily the first one, existence, basically everybody's his child. If you think of the second one, resemblance, nobody but Jesus, he's the only one that's just like his father. He's the only one that's perfectly good, perfectly loving, perfectly honest. So if you look at those first two aspects of fatherhood in this metaphor, either everybody's

a child or nobody's a child, but we all know from what the Bible says that that's not the primary part of the metaphor that God is using, it's not the primary part of the metaphor that the biblical authors have in mind when they talk about it. John chapter 1, verse 12, says, as many as believed, received him, as many as believed in his name, he gave rights to become children of God. There it is. The first thing you have to understand is being a child of God is not automatic, except in the most general sense. It's a relationship you can enter into. You're either not in the family or you can come into the family. That's the first. You've got to know that or you'll never get in. If you don't know you're out, you're never going to get in. Okay? Number one. Number two. First was the preliminary step.

Secondly, the transformative step. And what's the transformative step? You have to have your heart melted into a relationship of filial love toward your father by seeing how it's possible that the great king of the universe would be your father. That the universal judge of the universe would be father. How could that be? See, if you understand the complexity and the reality of who God is, you're going to ask that question. If you don't ask that question, if you don't say, how could God

do this? How could he love us like this? How could his anger be not payback anger? How could he never, ever, ever, ever, ever pay us back? How could God accept us like this? If you never ask that question, it's because you've got a cartoon God, just loving, and who doesn't, isn't judge, isn't holy, doesn't have standards. That's a neglectful God. That's not a loving God. So the question is, how could God do this? And here's the answer. George Bailey, that was just a story but what a nightmare his place knew him no more

he had no place in the world what a nightmare but then it was over but there's someone who came and who said foxes have holes birds have nests but the son of man has no place where was Jesus home by the way I mean he would visit his

hometown but he didn't have one and on the cross when Jesus Christ turned to the turn to God, I want you to know that every time, every time in the Bible, every, every, every, every, every, every time you see, Jesus, talk to God, he says, Father, my father, our father, holy father, Abba Father. Every time but one, only one. When he was on the cross, he says, my God, what was happening there? His place knew him no more. He lost the spirit of sonship. The door was closed. No fire. no light from within. The ultimate nightmare, something vastly deeper,

something unimaginable, cast away, out of the family, out of house, out of the home. His place knew him no more. He was gone. He felt gone.

It was like going to hell forever and worse. Why? See, he lost the spirit of sunset so we could have it. His place knew him no more so we would have a place. The door,

was closed on the ultimate home so the door could be open for us. Why? Because Jesus paid the penalty for our sin. Somebody says, I don't believe in that. I don't believe in a God of justice. Listen, don't you want your father to be the big guy? Don't you want your father to be the ultimate power? Because you see, don't you want your father to be real? And the real God created the universe. How will he not be powerful? And the real God made us to love our neighbors ourselves. And we haven't done it. So the real God will be a judge. But here's the great thing. Jesus Christ allows, in a sense, I say it reverently, you to have the ultimate judge, the ultimate guy, the ultimate warrior, the ultimate power in the universe, be your loving heavenly father, because his justice

has been satisfied. The greatest power in the universe now, you can call him at 1 a.m. and ask for a glass of water and he'll come. Because great kings do that, even for their little kid, nobody else. You can get on his lap. Nobody else can get on the king's lap. He'll listen to you no matter what. He'll love you unconditionally. Only if you understand that Jesus Christ, his place knew him no more, so that you can have a place. So do you believe that? Do you see that? Is it move you? That's the transformative step. The penny dropping? And thirdly, there's the contractual step. You have to make a covenant. That's what it says. What does you do that? How do you do that? What you do, you could do it today. I hope some of people will. I hope at least a few. I hope that when we go to prayer, some of you

are going to say, I always knew you were a God and I tried to be good, or I thought you were loving and I always grumpy that you weren't answering my prayers, but now I realize what your son did for me. And now I want you to accept me into your family because of what Jesus did. And I'm going to live as a child of yours in absolute confidence and trust. And that's the last thing. The last step is, see that it's not automatic. That's the preliminary step. Realize what Jesus did for you. That's a transformative step. Make the contract. Cross the line. That's the contractual step. And lastly, wonder and wonder and think and praise and meditate and reflect and celebrate the Father of God into your heart until it changes you for the

the rest of your life. What do you think verses one and two, why did I put him there? Did a whole sermon on this back in March, and actually, if you didn't hear that, you might want to get that sermon tape and listen to it along with this. Because look at, what does verses one and two tell us? This entire Psalm, who's it addressed to? Who is the Psalmist saying, as a father has compassion on his children? Who's it saying, from everlasting to the Lord's love is on those, who's he talking to? God? No, God knows it. Others? No. You would have thought so. Why did I put verses one and two in? Praise the Lord, oh my soul. All of your problems come because your soul does not know that you're a child of God. You've forgotten. Do you know that he absolutely loves you? You'd never have a problem with rejection. Listen, Hebrews 13, where it says, Jesus Christ suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp. taking his disgrace. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we're looking for a city that is to come.

What is he saying? Jesus Christ was thrown out so that we could be brought in. Jesus Christ was taken out. Now here's the point. If you know you have the father's love, does it matter? If you're disgraced, does it matter who rejects you? Why are you so upset with criticism? Why are you so upset with the fact that someone has criticized you? Why are you so upset with the fact that somebody that you valued has seems to have gotten cold to you? Why are you so devastated? Why do you struggle with problems of self-worth. I'll tell you why. You don't know. Your soul doesn't know this. You're living as if it isn't true. Praise the Lord, soul. Listen, soul. See? I give you another example. Some of you are so mad at your parents, but there are no perfect parents. You're so mad

because they haven't given you this kind of love. God says, how could they? If you are parents or if you're ever going to be parents, you won't be able to do it either. Some of you desperately are too dependent. Some of you are too mad at your parents. Some of you are too dependent on your parents. You're desperately looking to them. God says, they can't give it to you. I can free you from your family, the bitterness, and I can free you for your family. Or money. You know, over and over when the Bible talks about, don't be worried about money, don't be afraid, don't try to make too much money, don't be greedy, don't drive yourself into the grave in order to make money. It always says, because father knows what you need. If you're worried about money all the time, you don't believe

he's your father. Or if you're working like crazy so you can build that beautiful dream house, I want you to know it won't work. It won't be enough. It won't be enough. If you tell your soul, if you wonder in an amazement that you're a child of God, if you know you're a child of God, you keep telling yourself, you push it and push it and push it in, you'll be free from the need of approval, you'll be free from either bitterness or overdependence on your family. you'll be free from the need for money or the worry for money or for overwork and one more thing when bad things happen to you terrible things even happen to you you'll relax you know what's interesting about all these other metaphors lovers are contemporaries kings and citizens are contemporaries

friends are contemporaries but father is 45 and you're four and that means father is always bringing things in your life that you don't get and most four years old four years old are four year are much smarter than us because most four-year-olds get real mad for a while when you say, no, you can't do this, no, you can't do this, and they just, you grow upset, and then they forget about it. Why? Because they know, they're four. Have you heard that? I'm four. Okay, I'm four. I mean, what do I know? They seem to know that they don't know. And they can kind of relax. I say, yeah, mom and dad, I don't know. But you know what? They come through. When bad things happen to you, do you say, I don't know. Can you relax? What a low thing?

off if you realize you're a child of God. Dear friends, do you, does your soul know this? Tell your soul, praise, praise the Lord of my soul as Father. You're forgetting the benefits. All your problems come from that. Know that. Let's pray. Our Father, there are some people here who need to take the contractual step and who need

to say that they don't know what it means to live as a child of God, but that they want to. So I pray, Father, that the people who right now, in silence and in prayer, are saying, accept me because of Jesus. Receive me in unconditional love because of what Jesus did. Who are saying, I trust you because Jesus paid for my sin, so I don't have to get any payback anger from you again. Those people who are trusting you, for Jesus' sake today. I pray that you'd help them. You'd come around them

and let them feel your father to love immediately. Secondly, those of us who need the last step, we need to wonder, we need to be amazed, we need to fear, we need to have awesome, awesome, loving wonder before all of these great truths. Help us to put them into our lives, to celebrate them into the middle of our lives

so that we can know that you're our father. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelonlif.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources.

Again, it's all at gospelonlife.com. stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 2000. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.