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

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 8, 2000. Series: Four Ways to Live, Four Ways to Love. Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11, 27-31. 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. Isaiah 40, starting at verse 1, comfort. comfort, my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling, in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain in hill made low, the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places of plain, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. We move down to verse 9. You bring good tidings to Zion, go up to a high mountain. You bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout. Lift it up. Do not be afraid. say to the towns of Judah, here is your God. See, the sovereign Lord comes with power and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd.

He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. Verse 27, Why do you say, O Jacob and complain, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord? my cause is disregarded by my God? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary in his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. sore on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. This is God's word. We're doing a series on who God is, and the thesis has been that God reveals

himself in the Bible. Under many images, under many figures, he's father and friend and lover and king. And if we take any one of those images and lift it up to the exclusion of the others, or even lift it up in favor of the others, you come up with a one-dimensional God. You come up with a cartoon God. A God like those one-dimensional characters in those action movies that get blown away. There's no personal engagement with a God like that. Now, I guess you could actually say, in a sense,

if you don't know him as all of these, you don't know him at all. Unless you know him as all of the ones that he reveals himself to be, you don't really know him at all. Father, friend, lover, king. Now, today we look at Isaiah 40, and Isaiah 40 would be a very, very famous passage, even if Handel hadn't written the greatest music in the history of the world about it, put it to it. And the reason it would be famous is because it starts so dramatically. Make way. A voice. Voices. Make way. You can't see who it is. Notice that? A voice. And you know something big is coming. I mean, in New York City, when the police stop traffic and they set up the barriers, something big is coming. In Jurassic Park, when the glass of water on the dashboard starts to tremble, something big is coming.

But Isaiah says, shows us here, it's something greater than the world has ever seen is coming because it doesn't just make glasses tremble on the dashboard. It doesn't just stop traffic. It's bringing down mountains. Mountains are coming down. Who is coming? And let's ask the question, Isaiah, who is coming? And secondly, how is he coming?

And then thirdly, how must we respond? What must we do to receive him? Who is coming? How is he coming? And what must we do to respond? Number one, let's ask the text, who's coming? And you see the answer in verses three to five. Three to five is a very famous place.

A voice of one calling, in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, makes straight in the wilderness a highway. Every valley raised up, every mountain in hill made low. Now, any listener, any reader of these words in ancient times would have known, that what is coming is a king. What is coming is royal. Because when a king or an emperor went to another part of the kingdom that he hadn't been to or hadn't been to in a long time, didn't use just the regular roads and just the regular byways. Rather, boulevards were built. Highways were built. We have an inscription, for example, from ancient Babylonia,

and this is the announcement that the king was going to another part of the kingdom. And the announcement goes like this, make his way good, renew his road, make straight his path, shoe him out of track. So in other words, you build a new highway, you built byways, you built boulevards, you didn't just, the king didn't just use any old place. Why? The answer is that this building of highways, this building of boulevards when the king came, was symbolic of what kingship's all about.

It was symbolic in two ways. first of all, it symbolized the authority of the king. The idea of knocking down every barrier, the idea of bridging every gap, it symbolized that just as we get rid of all resistances to the king's physical presence, so we're supposed to get rid of all resistance to the authority of the king, that we're not supposed to hold anything back, that we're supposed to resist lordship in no way. So first of all, this represents the authority of the king. But secondly, it represented the healing.

influence of true kingship, the healing influence. See, we know this. This is just common sense. That under a good coach, the team flourishes, under a bad coach, the team falls apart. Under a good coach, under a good manager, the business flourishes. Under a bad manager, the business does not. Under a good leader, the community flourishes under a bad leader. The community does not. I mean, even at, look at a small group. you have a small group study, a Bible study. A lot of you are in small group Bible studies. If you're not, get into a small group Bible study.

When you meet, you let somebody be a leader. What's that mean? You've given that leader authority, and if the leader has the competence and the character, has the goodwill, the unselfish goodwill, and the competence to lead that group properly, what magic, what, how amazing the group is. I mean, even at that level, whether you're a person. parent, whether you're a small group leader, whether you're a mayor, whether you're a king. When authority is rightfully exercised, it's like rain on a thirsty field for anyone under that

authority. And that's the idea. The idea is the king comes to an impassable wilderness where there's chasms and mountains, and now it's passable. The king comes to a desolate, uninhabitable wilderness, and now it's habitable. And therefore, the reason you built this new road in these desolate, in dangerous places and you made them safe. It was not only a symbolism of the absolute authority of a king, but of the healing influence of a true king, a real king. So we know when you hear this voice that the king is coming, A king is coming,

but not only that, when you read verses three to five, Isaiah is also trying to say, it's not just a king coming. It's not just a king. The language of Isaiah bursts the banks here. Don't you see? When human kings come, you build a bridge over the chasm. But when this king comes, the chasm vanishes. The deep crevice, the canyon.

It's filled in. What? When human kings come, you might identify the pass over the mountain range, you know? So the people aren't killed trying to climb. You identify the pass and you build a road up to the pass and you widen the pass. but when this king comes, the mountains come down. What manner of king is this? And of course, here's what the answer is.

Isaiah is drawing on one of the deepest hopes of the human race. And what do we mean by the deepest hopes of the human race? Isaiah is saying, the whole world is a wilderness. The whole world is like an uninhabitable wilderness. The whole world is like a desert. There's death. There's disease. There's war.

There's poverty. There's strife. And there's broken. of all sorts. The whole world is like this. Why? The whole world is like this. Why? Because it's under incompetent managers, us. Because our lives are under incompetent leaders, us. And when the cosmic and ultimate king comes, there'll be ultimate healing. Because you see, verse five actually says what, where is this king coming to? You see, when a king would show up, the people that he was coming to would see him, what does verse 5 say?

Verse 5 says, the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind will see it together, which means this is the king of the whole world, not just king of part of it, and if the whole world will see it, where is he coming from? He's coming from outside the world.

And therefore, what Isaiah is trying to say is there is a king, there is a true king, there is a king who has absolute authority, and is a king who brings absolute and complete healing, and he's coming. Now somebody says, I can hear it. Well, that's very interesting. And that's very nice.

And of course, you know about all the legends. You know that this particular hope, the idea that there's a true king, a true king of the world who's going to come and rule with wisdom and compassion and power in such a way that all of our problems will be over. I mean, it's a deep legend. There's so many of the legends in world history are rooted, in this kind of idea. There's a king coming back. It's going to put everything right. And, of course, there's some people out there saying, thank you for reminding me of these wonderful fairy tales,

but that's all it is. This is just a fairy tale. Now, it's not just a fairy tale. No, it isn't. Let me give you some evidence in your own heart for it. You know, four weeks ago, when we started this series, I mentioned a book called Pilgrimit Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. That was a Pulitzer Prize winning book. And Annie Dillard sat down by a creek, Tinker Creek, in the mountains of Virginia, and began to observe nature and wrote about it. But what she observed was frightening to her. What she observed was rather horrible. She came to see, I guess, emotionally and personally, she came to see what she certainly knew, and what you and I know too from books, what she knew intellectually. And that is there's one principle on which nature operates, and that is power.

The power of the strong over the weak. The power, you see, of the strong eating the weak, survival of the fittest. And she saw violence everywhere in nature. She was particularly affected. You remember I mentioned she was particularly affected by watching a large waterbug jump on top of a frog, inject it with a poison that liquefied it from the inside and just suck it out. And she watched it collapse. And she realized that's what nature is about.

And we talked about that. And she realized that's the principle on which nature works. I'd like to go back to her book and read you something else. Because she said, once she realized that this is how nature was, once she and all human beings are committed to the idea that if people act, the way nature acts, it's wrong. That if strong people or strong nations or strong races pick on the weak, that's wrong. And yet nature, that's the only rule it knows.

That's the only principle it knows. And once you realize that, She writes, there was a horrible choice before her, and this is what she says. She says, I realize that either this world, my mother, is a monster, or I, myself, am a freak. Either the world is a monster or I'm a freak. Let's consider the former. The world is a monster. This world runs on chance and death and power, but I cherish life and the rights of the weak versus the strong.

So that must mean I have crawled by chance out of a sea of amino acid. and now I whirl around and shake my fist at that sea, and I crying, shame. We little blobs of soft tissue crawling around on this one planet's skin are right, and the whole planet is wrong. So that's the first possibility. The world is a monster. Let's consider the alternative possibility. Nature is fine. The frog that that giant water bug sucked out had a rush of feeling for about a second before its brain turned to broth. I, however, have been sapped by very strong feelings about the incident almost daily for years.

Okay, nature is all right. It's our emotions and values that are amiss. We're the freaks, the world's fine. So let's all go have lobotomies to restore us to a natural state. Then we can go back to the creek lobotomized and live on its bank as untroubled as any muskrat or read. You first. What's she saying? She is saying,

that either our idea that the strong should not eat the weak, either that idea of justice is absolutely wrong or else, nature is unnatural. Nature is disordered. But how could nature be disordered if nature's all we have? How could death and violence be unnatural unless there's a supernature? See? How could, how, in other words, could the idea that the weak need to be protected be true unless there's something outside of nature?

Now, you see, most, with all due respect, most New Yorkers are not as thoughtful as Annie Dillard. They say, as far as we know, this world is all there is, there is no eternal, there is no supernatural, and there is such a thing as justice for the weak. Annie Diller says either nature is broken, and the only way you can know it's broken is if you've got, there's something outside, there's a standard outside by which we know it is broken. Either there is a justice outside of nature that says the weak need to be protected, and every individual is right. Either there's a justice outside of nature, or else we're insane and our ideas of justice are wrong. And therefore the Bible, and actually makes perfect sense of how your heart feels. Perfect sense.

The Bible says there is a king outside. This world is a wilderness. This world is desolate. This world is blighted. But there's a king outside. And in a sense, our hearts have been picking up his justice, like radios pick up radio ways. And our only hope is that that king will come back and put everything right.

And Isaiah says he will. Isaiah says he is. Do you think you're crazy? Or do you believe there's a king from outside and our only hope is he's coming back? And Isaiah says he is. That's the first thing we learn here. There's a king and he's coming. But how is it possible? That's the second question we have to ask. How is it possible that this king would actually come back? And in order to answer that question to see Isaiah's answer for it, what we have to do is we've got to look at the historical context. Now, this is Isaiah 40, and one of the most interesting things, though, it's a little tedious, especially in an election year, I would really like you to go back and read Isaiah 1 to 39.

Maybe not today, but go back and read it. Go back and read Isaiah chapter 1 to 39, and you'll see there's almost nothing in there, nothing in there but judgment. All of Isaiah 1 to 39, there's nothing in there but judgment. I'll tell you why, because it was Isaiah's job to articulate the standards of the justice of this great king. And what's so interesting in reading Isaiah or actually Jeremiah or Ezekiel or any of the prophets, what's so interested in reading it in an election year is this. First thing you'll see is the prophets start going down and condemning the people for all the sins

that Democrats talk about, Republicans almost never do. For oppression of the poor, for greed, for racial prejudice. And then he turns around and starts talking about all the sins that Republicans like to talk about. Democrats hardly ever talk about. Sexual impurity and not honoring your marriage covenant and not lifting up the family. Because when you're done with Isaiah and Jeremiah, you begin to realize, oh my gosh, this is a Republican Democrat, a Democrat Republican here. 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 gospelandlife.com slash give. We also want to highlight another great marriage-related resource from Gospel in 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 the more you listen to you, more you realize, wait a minute, these are all wrong. This is how it is, and it's a very right standard. put anybody up against that kind of standard. I think it's one of the reasons why we have parties. As long as you pick up only one half of the justice of the great king, you can feel all right.

As long as your feet are absolutely firmly put in either of the political parties, you can feel pretty good. But nobody, nobody escapes the condemnation of the justice of the king if you really look at the whole thing. And of course, by the end of chapter 39, there's nothing but condemnation. In fact, at the very end of chapter 39, just a few words before, we pick it up here. What happens is God has finally told Isaiah to go to the king of Israel and of Judah and say, you are going to be taken away into captivity. You are going to go into exile, into Babylon.

Then suddenly in chapter 40, there's this incredible note of hope. Suddenly, it's so sudden, by the way, that a lot of scholars are still perplexed about it. Suddenly, Isaiah starts to say, but I want you to be comforted, my people. First of all, look, my people. No matter what happens to you, God still considers you my people. Secondly, it says proclaim that her hard service, now this is a hard word to translate. In the old King James, it says her warfare,

it's a word that means struggle, that her struggle, her conflict will be completed. By the way, because he's a prophet, he's actually talking about it in the past. Will be completed. In other words, what I'm going to put you through is not permanent. I'm not abandoning you. I'm not just sending you away. Why? And the answer is, here, her sin has been paid for, she has received from the Lord's hand, double for all her sins.

Now, when you first read that, I tell you, I know, because when I first read it, the way it lays out there, what does it sound like it's saying? It's saying, well, her heart service is completed because God has, what, paid her double, punished her double for her sins. That's not what it says. First of all, imagine, is there any place in the Bible that says that God will give you two punishments, double the punishment you deserve? No. And if you look carefully, what does it modify? When it says, she has received from the Lord's hand, what? Does it say punish? What does it modify? It's payment. It does not say, does not say that Israel has received at the Lord's hand, double punishment. The word punishment's not in there at all. It says she has received,

from the Lord's hand, double payment. This is saying that the reason why the exile will only be definite, will only be a time of discipline, will only be temporary, is because God himself has provided the payment for the sins. And that payment is double. What in the world does that mean?

Well, if you really want to understand, you have to take a look. Now, probably some people say that. Is that what it says? Yeah, of course. Because let me show you what happens. Verse 9. Go down to 9, 10, 11. When the king shows up, the king shows up, look at the extraordinary picture. In verse 10, we see that he's a sovereign lord, he's a warrior, he comes with power, and his arm rules for him.

Now, the word arm, you know, is very important. In Hebrew, it's a Hebrew metaphor for your power. But what is that arm doing? What's the arm doing? He tins his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms, and he carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those who have young. This is the king.

Every one of us knows is there. This is the reason why when we see the weak being trampled down, even though nature says, that's natural. Even though nature says, that's practical. Even though everything in this world says, that's practical. We know there's a king that cares for the weak. We know there's the king who exercises his power by providing justice for the littlest.

And here he is. The warrior is a shepherd. But why are we not afraid? Why are we not afraid? And the answer is, verse 10, see, his reward is with him. What reward? You know, for years until this week, I always read that, and I said, he's coming with his reward, which means if I just bow the knee to him, he will reward me.

He's not talking about our reward. He's not talking about my reward. Whose reward is he talking about? He's coming with his reward. He's coming with his recommendation. pence. Now, what in the world could be God's reward? What do you get the man who has everything? I mean, you know, if you go later on in the chapter, you'll see it says that God owns the stars, he owns the mountains, he owns the nations, they're like dust before him. So what in the world

could make God feel wealthy? What could, would God ever look at and feel so wealthy and so rich to see it that he would say this is my treasure, these are my jewels, this is my wealth. What is he looking at? It tells you. He comes with his reward. He comes with his recompense. What is it? It's us. It's his flock. It's the little ones. It's the weak ones. This is not survival of the fittest. This is astounding. Now you say, how in the world could this be? How could the warrior be a shepherd? How could be the king who is absolutely just, who must put down all injustice and evil, how can he look at us with all of our weaknesses and with all of our flaws, how can the warrior be a shepherd and love us and actually call us his jewels and say,

you are the wealth. The stars are nothing compared to you. They're like dust and the scales. If you read all of Isaiah 40, that's what is obvious. The mountains are nothing. The oceans are nothing. The galaxies are nothing compared to how I see you. How could that be? Double payment. Now, somebody says, how on the world could this be? I'll tell you. Where do you see the power and the tenderness of God coming together? On a very dark night, Jesus Christ said to Peter, put that sword away, that pitiful idea of power. Put that sort away.

Don't you know, I could call my father's, my father, and he would send legions of angels? Don't you realize that I have the strength? Put that sword away. You realize I could snap my finger and everybody here would be dead. But I have the strength enough to be weak. week. I have the majesty enough to be meek. I am laying down my life for my sheep. And what the Bible is telling us, only Jesus Christ can answer the question, how in the world could God have given double? When he says, I have given you double payment. What he means is, I haven't just given you

bare minimum. I haven't just gotten you off. I haven't just given you enough salvation so your sins are pardoned. I've given you double. I'm not just giving you bare enough. There is some much love, there is so much honor that it doesn't just wipe out your sins, but it also welcomes you into my arms. I don't just see you as pardoned sinners. I see you as my jewels. My salvation is super abundant. Now, how could that be? And the answer is, it's only in Jesus Christ. Years ago, I read a book, and I'll be very happy to recommend it to you right here. I'm sure it's still in print. It was a book of sermons, though, by the way, sermons by David Martin Lloyd-Jones called Spiritual Depression.

causes and cures, spiritual oppression, causes and cures. And the second sermon is called the true foundation. And in that, he tells this story. It had a big impact on me, though, it was years before I really figured out of the implication. He says, he came to realize as a pastor over the years that the average Christian was filled with anxiety and insecurity, almost more than the non-Christians. He noticed that Christians were very touchy. He noticed that Christians were very insecure, that they couldn't take criticism.

and they tended to gossip. He noticed that Christians were always feeling kind of inferior and down like they were unworthy. And he tried to figure out why. And he suddenly realized they don't understand the doubleness of the salvation of Jesus Christ. He says, they don't understand. They believe that Jesus died for our sins, meaning that we're pardoned. That means that Jesus has just barely given us enough salvation, so we're not going to hell or be lost or something like that.

But now it's up to us to live a good life, you know. It would be a little bit like, what if you're on death row? And the governor's pardoned you. And now, after the initial excitement of getting out, you suddenly realize there's this huge cloud over your life. I mean, everybody says, isn't the person who did all those terrible things who was pardoned? Yes. People aren't going to run up to you and say, great, would you like to work for my company? Great, would you like to marry my daughter?

It's not going to happen. You've been pardoned, but you haven't been accepted. You're not liable for the bad record, but you still don't have a good record. But 2 Corinthians 521 says, God made Him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God and Him. Jesus Christ did not just die the death you should have died, but he lived the life you should have lived. Your bad record is not just imputed to him so that he is treated as you deserve. The Bible says his great perfect record is imputed to you when you believe. so that now God treats you as he deserved.

And Lloyd Jones says in that fascinating sermon, he says, the average Christian, most Christians, do not understand the doubleness of it. They don't understand that there's been double payment. They don't understand it's not just the salvation of Jesus Christ gets you off, so now you better live a good life in order for God to bless you. But God sees you as a jewel now. God sees you as his reward, his recompense.

He rejoices in you. And let me tell you something. I have many people say to me, gee, Tim, I often hear you say that we're accepted completely by grace. But don't we have to obey God too? And there is no two about it. If you don't understand that you are totally accepted,

you can't really obey. Now listen. People say, I know I'm accepted, but don't I have to obey? If you don't believe you're totally accepted, you can't obey. Why? If you don't believe you're totally accepted, if you think the reason I need to obey the rules is so that God will bless me and take me to heaven and answer my prayers, if you believe that's why you're, if that's the motivation for your belief, for your obedience, do you realize you're not really obeying him at all? You're using him. You're not really serving him as Lord and you're the servant. What you're doing is you're trying to get leverage over him. You're using him. You're not obeying him just out of a joyful gratitude of what he's done just out of the delight of who he is, but you're saying, I better do this, I better do it.

In other words, if you obey out of fear, you're not really obeying. You're using him. You're doing what you have to do. And therefore, unless you see that you are at his jewels, his kingship will crush you. Or if you actually are doing well at complying with his law, you'll feel smug. If you're not doing well, you'll be demolished.

And Lloyd Jones says, until you see the doubleness of what Jesus has done, for you until you see that what he's done for you, you're not going to be able to serve him as king. You're not serving him as king. How is it possible that this king can come? If there is no judge and king, what hope is there for the world, right? With all of his evil. But if there is a judge and king, what hope is there for us because of our flaws? And the answer is the warrior is a shepherd. The answer is that through Jesus Christ, he can be both. He's the king. He's the king. He's the He's the king who is justice for the week.

Now, lastly, how should we respond? And the answer is in this very, very famous term, but let me unpack it just briefly for you. At the very end, it says, those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. The answer to the question, how do we treat him as king? How do we practice the kingship of God? The answer is weight. Now, the reason the word wait is so pregnant is because, you think about it, it means these things. Number one, wait means obey. You ever heard of

ladies in waiting? Number one, wait means obey. You are not treating him as king unless you say, not my will but thine be done. In every area, see, every mountain down, every valley, nothing held back. You're not treating him as king unless you're willing to say, not my will but thine be done in every area. As Elizabeth Elliott used to say, maybe she still does, the hardest thing to give is in. Everything else is easy. The hardest thing to give is in. It's easy to give this and this and this,

but to give up the right to determine how your life should be lived. That's the first thing. Wait means obey, number one. Number two. Secondly, weight means relax. Weight means your schedule, not mine. Weight means not just I accept your laws for my life,

but wait means I accept your ordering of my history. I accept the fact that I don't know what's best. I humble myself underneath you. Luther used to come up to his friend Philip Melanchthon, who was a big worrier, and say, let Philip cease to rule the world. Because worry is always a resistance of the kingship of Christ. Worry always means, worry, anxiety, and fear always means, if I was in charge of history, I would do a better job.

I would know just what had to happen. But you see, as soon as you humble yourself under the lordship of not just the Lord of the Law, but the Lord of History, what you're saying is, I can relax. So wait means obey, number one. Number two, weight means relax. One more. Weight means expect. Weight means hope.

Weight means, if it's really true, that the Lordship of God is a healing influence, then I am not treating God as king unless I have heart. high expectations for what he can do through me. There's a lot of people, well, how do I put this? There's an awful lot of you because you're pessimists, you're not treating him as a king. Are you a pessimist? Do you look at the problems in your family? You look at the problems in New York City. Do you look at the problems of poverty? You look at the problems of immorality. Do you look at the problems of unbelief? Do you look at the problems in your own life? Do you look at the problems in your own psyche? And you say, that's just the way it's going to be? Do you realize you're not

treating him as a king? That's the reason John Newton. says in that beautiful little hymn, thou art coming to a king. Large petitions with thee bring, for his grace and power are such. None can ever ask too much. None can ever ask too much. If you're disobedient, if you're not completely relaxed, and if you're not filled with vision and a hope of what God can do in your life, because to the degree you give him a relationship, to degree you give him a heart, to the degree you give him a neighborhood, to the degree you put anything under his lordship to that degree there's healing. That's how you treat him as a king. Wait. Wait on the Lord. And if you do, what does it say? You'll renew your strength.

You see, if your conscience is clear through obedience, if your discernment is humbled through relaxation, and if your vision is kindled, your heart will be liberated. And what's really interesting, all the commentators have always pointed out, it does not end, this passion is not in the way it ought to, does it? Don't you think first it would say they will walk in, not faint if you do that. If you treat God as king, they'll walk and not faint, they will run not be weary, they will soar on eagle's wings. It's the other way around. It's antichlamactic. They'll soar, they'll run, they'll walk. You know why? I listen to tape by Dick Lucas on this. He says, because walking is the point. The point is endurance. The point is sometimes you'll

sore, but you won't always sore, but you'll always be able to walk, you'll always be able to get through everything. If you're not able to endure, if you're not able to get through things, you're not practicing the kingship of Jesus Christ. Either you're not seeing the doubleness of his salvation, so you really sense how much you're loved, or else your conscience isn't clear, or else your discernment isn't humbled, or else your expectations are too small. Treat him as a king. Treat him as a king. And you'll be able to walk all the time. Not always sore, but you'll always be able to walk, always, because that's the climax. Thou are coming to a king. Large petitions, with thee bring, for his grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much. Let's pray.

Give us, Father, the ability to understand what it means that there is a king, that he's coming and we don't have to be afraid because of the double payment of Jesus Christ, and of how the healing happens, because we obey, we expect, we relax, and we know how much the king cares for us. We're not treating you as a king if we don't practice all that, and we ask that you'd show us how to do it, if we really do. We want that healing power to rush through our hearts and our lives now, and so we ask that you would do that for Jesus' sake.

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 gospelonlife.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 gospel and life.com. You can also 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.