Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - God With Us: Through His Presence

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

The meaning of Christmas is that God got flesh and blood. In Jesus Christ the holy and transcendent God became really and fully and truly human. He shared in our humanity. I submit to you that the traditional, moralistic religion has completely forgotten this whole idea. In fact, I submit to you that if you and I really undertstood the fact that Jesus Christ shares in our humanity, we’d live differently.  What does that teach us about God? It teaches us three things: 1) God has a concern for the physical, 2) God has a knowledge of the sorrowful, and 3) God desires the relational. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 18, 1994. Series: The Nature of Faith. Scripture: Hebrews 2:14-18. 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.

Thanks for listening to Gospel in Life. Today, Tim Keller is teaching on the surprising expectation-defying and surpassingly hopeful meaning of the Christmas story. After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelinLife.com and sign up for our email updates. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For this reason, he had to be made like his brethren in every way, in order that he might become a faithful and merciful high priest, because he himself suffered when he was tempted. He is able to help those who are being tempted.

This is God's Word. At Christmas time, it's very natural and normal for churches that believe in the historic Christian faith to stress the fact that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh. The reason we tend to do that is because we live in a modern world in which the supernatural is still looked at very skeptically. People have a conceit nowadays that the time and space is all that there is. And so it's right and necessary at Christmas to say, look, Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh. But perhaps you could argue that the more important point to stress at Christmas is that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh.

Yes, Jesus is our Emmanuel. He's God with us. But maybe it's just as important to stress that he is God with us. That in Jesus Christ, the holy and transcendent God became really and fully and truly human. See what we read? He shared in our humanity. And I submit to you, that traditional moralistic religion has completely forgotten this whole idea. In fact, I submit to you that if you and I were really understanding the fact that Jesus Christ shares in our humanity, we'd live differently. The meaning of Christmas is that God got blood. That God got flesh and blood. What does that teach us? What

does it teach us about God and about life? What does that teach us about God? It teaches us three things about him. First of all, it teaches us that he is a concern for the physical. Now I want to get a little theological on you here but I want you to see the radical implications. God has a concern for the physical. Now, I want to get a little theological on you here, but I want you to see the radical implications. God has a concern for the physical. Why is it that it says that God was very upset about death? Jesus came to share our humanity so that death could be destroyed. Now, why is God so upset about death? After all, if you and I believe in Jesus, the Bible says, when you die, our souls go to God.

So, isn't that fine? Why not just leave it at that? But we see at Christmas that God is not only concerned about the soul. He is concerned about that which is destroying our flesh and blood. This is what's so radical about Christmas. Christmas tells us something about God that no other religion will. Look at three major pictures of God in the Bible. The first picture we have is a creation in the very beginning.

And in the beginning you have God with his hands in the dirt, God with his hands in the dust, God shaping it and forming it and perfecting it and breathing the breath of heaven into the dust and getting us. Why? He wants to unite heaven and earth. He wants there to be an integrity between heaven and earth. He wants to be to be an integrity between the material and the spiritual and the first time he does that, he gets us, human beings, in the image of God. This is so radical because when the Bible gave us a picture of God with his hands in the dust,

you must remember that no other religion talked about such a thing. In fact, to this day, no other religion talks about such a thing. Because in the East, Eastern philosophy sees matter as unreal, an illusion. And Western philosophy, the Greeks, taught that matter was less real, it was bad, it was temporary. And so the Greeks would say, if there is a supreme being, if there is a supreme being, that supreme being had nothing to do with matter. That rather there are layers and hierarchies of lesser spirit beings who

created matter and deal with matter because matter is polluted, it's dirty. And salvation is getting away from the reality of matter, which is less real, to the true reality of the spirit world. And the East, of course, said that salvation is to lose the illusion that there's a material world. But here is a God with his hands in the mud, his spirit moving across the face of it all. And let's look at a second picture. Incarnation. Creation, incarnation.

When God saw that his physical creation had been marred, he entered it. God becomes flesh and blood. God becomes someone who gets hungry and who tires and who hurts and perspires. Someone who becomes physical. And then look at the last picture we have in the Bible, resurrection. Look at the last picture we have of Jesus. Before he leaves, he sits down with his folks, he sits down with his disciples. At first they're very frightened and they say,

you're a ghost and he says, give me a fish. Give me something to eat. And he eats it and he says you're a ghost and he says give me a fish Give me something to eat and he eats it and he says can a ghost do that Do you know what he's saying? He is saying the future redemption that God has in mind for the universe The future glory that he's got in mind for us is Not one of disembodied consciousness, not one of ethereal, esoteric, disembodied consciousness. No. New bodies, new heavens, new earth. In other words, God created matter and spirit and he's going to redeem matter and spirit. Put it another way. Let me be

as concrete as I can because that's the whole point at this point. Concrete. We will eat and drink in the kingdom of God. We will learn in the kingdom of God. We will love in the kingdom of God. Let me go even further. The Bible tells us we will hug and be hugged in the kingdom of God. Our flesh will be embraced. We'll be pressing flesh in the kingdom of God. Our flesh will be embraced. We'll be pressing flesh in the kingdom of God. We'll build, we'll sing in degrees and realms of power we can't understand right now, but our feet will not float over the streets. Our feet will march in the kingdom of God.

Because God is concerned about the physical. He created both the physical and the unphysical and he will redeem both. Now what does that mean? It means that if God gets his hands dirty so should we. Christians in a way that no other religion, no other religion gives us the resources of this. I'm not chordling about this, I'm not trying to be superior, I'm trying to show you what you've got. And sometimes the best way to do that is by way of contrast. Christianity is a fighting religion. God would go to these extremities, the incarnation and the death of Jesus Christ, to deal with death and pain

and disease and the marring of his creation. Christians are not to be passive about poverty. Christians are not supposed to be passive about pain, about sickness. Christians aren't supposed to be passive about these things. Christianity is a fighting religion. We're the only religion that says the future is matter and spirit in integrity together. That's why William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at one point said that in this sense, the sense we're talking about, there is no religion as materialistic as Christianity because therefore there's no other religion that can talk about the salvation of the soul and the need to work on the social systems of a city so that it provides food and safe

streets and warm homes for people in the same sense. Because God's concerned about him. He has a concern for the physical. He gets his hands dirty, so should we. We've got a fighting religion, not passive, not, oh well, everybody's suffering. But the important thing is to pray. The important thing, no. He entered this world to destroy him who has the power of death. Number one.

Number two. He not only has a concern for the physical, but he has a knowledge of the sorrowful. You see, the passage says he shared in their humanity. Why? Number one, that he might destroy him who has the power of death. But look, number two, because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted, that he might be a faithful and merciful high priest. You know what that means? I suggest to you that most of us do not have the resources we could have as Christians to face life in this world because we functionally

deny the real and true and full humanity of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that he was completely physical. He was completely and really human and therefore he suffered. I knew a guy years ago in my former church who was an x-ray technician and he worked in a hospital and he put people up on the table and I went in to see him because he was in the hospital himself because I think if I remember correctly he had a kidney stone and when I spoke to him he is in the hospital he was in a lot of pain and he had just been put on the table by one of his x-ray technician colleagues and he had just come back to his room. And I said, how's it going? And he said to me, when I get out of here, I'm going to have a radically different bedside manner. I said, why? He says, well, he says, I really never

knew what it was like to be on the table myself. I will never be impatient with a client again. I will never treat them like a cypher. I will never treat them like a piece of cattle because I know what it's like. I will never unnecessarily be breast with them because I've been on the table myself. Ah, I've been changed. I've been on the table. Therefore, I will never treat people on the table the same way.

Jesus Christ, we're told, was really human. He suffered. Here's somebody, here's someone who knows everything we know. Here's someone who knows everything we know. The biblical meaning of Christmas is historical and life-changing because it's the moment that God entered the world as a man, born to save us, bringing lasting joy and unshakable peace to those who believe in Him. The true story of Christmas is the amazing free gift of God's grace given to us in His

Son. Kathy Keller has recorded a special Christmas message highlighting the free gift of salvation that is possible because of Jesus' birth. In this special video message, Kathy and her son Jonathan present a brief encouragement about the grace and salvation found in the story of Christmas. You can watch Kathy's Christmas message at GospelInLife.com slash Christmas. That's GospelInLife.com slash Christmas. You can watch Kathy's Christmas message at gospelonlife.com slash Christmas. That's gospelonlife.com slash Christmas. Here at Gospel on Life, we want to extend greetings to everyone listening. May you know joy and peace this Christmas as you celebrate

the birth of our Savior with family and friends. Have you been betrayed this year? So has he. Have you been isolated this year lonely? So has he. Have you been broke this year? So has he. Have you faced death this year? So has he. He has faced pain and rejection and homelessness and misunderstanding and isolation and grief and loss. And we're told in the Bible, like in Hebrews chapter 5 verse 7, that when he was on earth, what does it say? Hebrews 5 verse 7, during his days on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death,

and he was heard for his reverent submission. Not a little tear in the eye, loud cries, tears. God not only came as a human being, but he refused to come as a human being with nerves of steel. Somebody who was always crying, weeping over Jerusalem, weeping over his dead friend Lazarus, sweating blood over his own doom. Weeping over his dead friend Lazarus, sweating blood over his own doom. What does this mean? It means this. If you have in your mind, intellectually, that Jesus is fully human, but functionally, you really think of himcelain looking, porcelain, you know, his white clothes glistening and always sort of hovering about six feet above the grass. He's been on the table. And he will never treat anybody else on the table in a way that's inappropriate.

You see? Now, if you really practice this, if you believe this, let me show you what would happen to you. First of all, you would go to him when your life starts to break apart. Over the year, I've been a pastor for almost 20 years. It'll be 20 years next August, I've been realizing. And over the years, one of the most normal things that I've found is if when I notice somebody who was coming to church, it seems to have stopped coming to church.

And if I run into them and I see that they've started drifting away and I ask what's going on, so often the problem is problems, troubles, brokenness. Terrible things are happening to me, and it makes me feel far from God. I don't want to pray, I don't want to go. That's a denial of something. It's a denial of the humanity of Jesus Christ.

What do you want in a counselor? First of all, you want somebody who knows what you're going through, right? You don't want somebody who doesn't know what you're going through. In fact, you know, even if you talk to somebody about your problems and they're not hostile or dismissive, but if they just sort of stare at you kind of clueless, it's still, it's an unbearable isolation that it causes. You want somebody who understands, but you also don't want somebody in the same spot that you're

in, right? You don't just want somebody where you are. You want somebody who's moved beyond it. Jesus Christ was on the table, but he's not there anymore. He's risen. He's at the right hand of God. He is the wonderful counselor. You got to go to him. Well, somebody says, but when I go to God, I try to have prayers answered, and very often my prayers aren't answered.

He understands that too. He has suffered in every way as you've suffered. He's been tempted in every way as you've been tempted. He knows what it's like to offer up a prayer and have it turned down. Father, if it's thy will, let this cup pass from me. Don't you see? He'll turn. He's turned you to...

You say, well, what I don't understand is, why is he letting this happen to me? That's the reason why I'm not praying. That's the reason why I'm not coming to church. Why is he letting this happen to me? I don't know, but here's what I do know. For you to be mad at him because you're suffering is to deny the humanity of Jesus Christ. That x-ray technician does not say, I no longer will put people on the table. Did he say that?

He knows that as painful as it is for a person with a kidney stone to have to move around, it'll be a lot more painful if we don't do something about it. And therefore, what he's promised is he says, I will never unnecessarily hurt somebody. I will be so gentle. I will be so careful because I've been on the table. There won't be a single needless jostle. There won't be a single needless pain. And all I know and all we know is that if we're suffering, he's been on the

table and there's nothing happening to us needlessly, arbitrarily. And if you deny that, you're denying the humanity of Christ. What you're really saying is you don't understand. He does. That's what Christianity means. That's what Christmas means. He knows the sorrowful. Okay, lastly. Christmas means he's concerned about the physical. And then secondly, he understands the sorrowful. But lastly, he desires, and I guess since we're trying to keep these in mind, he desires

the relational. He desires a relationship. The whole purpose of Christmas is to get near, to have us near him. You know, it says he took our humanity upon himself that he could be a high priest. A priest is a mediator. A priest is someone who brings us to God. And I will just make this rather brief, but this is the point. If God simply wanted us to submit to him, if he wanted us as subjects, that would have been easy. You wouldn't have needed the incarnation. A really good light show in the sky, okay? Special effects. Thundering voice from the top of the mountain. I mean, it worked in the Old Testament. People were very frightened.

They said, okay, you know. If he wanted subjects, you wouldn't need Christmas. If he wanted subjects, you wouldn't need Christmas. He wants friends. He wants brothers and sisters. That's what the text says. He wants children. And so he became like us in every way. A priest's job

is to get us into the presence of God and to get the presence of God into us. Now you know when Moses asked for it and Moses said, I want Emmanuel. Remember in Exodus 33, I want God with me. I want his presence with me. I want Emmanuel. What did God say? My presence is dynamite, Moses. My presence would crush you. My presence is I'm a consuming fire to you. I'm a towering inferno of purity and holiness. I would destroy you. And Moses understood that. But now look at when the Bible says he became a baby, there's nothing more accessible than a baby.

When you get near a baby, you can't help but nuzzle it. You know? You can't help it. There's nothing more available than a baby. And for God to become a baby is to say the unbearable beauty of God, the unassailable majesty of God, the consuming holiness of God is available. If you believe in Jesus Christ, he came to die to destroy the barrier so that the presence of God that was completely destructive to Moses can actually come

into your life. And therefore, you know, in Psalm 63, the psalmist says, my soul faints, my body desires you. I'm thirst for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. And what the psalmist is saying is, I don't need God as a hypothesis. He's not saying, I need God because I can't understand the universe without a God. He is saying, I have such a primal need for connection with God, it is every bit as primal as my body's need for water. I need to feel his presence. I need to sense his love. I need to sense his

love. I need to be in touch with him. Christmas is about that. Christmas has given us a human being, God in the form of a human being so we could relate to him, but God, Christmas has given us a human being who could die, but that barrier could go. And if at Christmas, if today, you believe these things and you're living a moral life, but you don't have any sense of his love shed abroad on your heart when you pray, you're missing the meaning of Christmas. That fire now can come into your life and not destroy you but purge you. One of Cathy and my dirty little secrets is, you know, and parents know this, at the end

of The Lion King, we cry. I mentioned this once before, but I'm letting everybody know my dirty secret, so it's not a secret. You know why? Because when The Lion King purges the world with fire and renews it because it was broken and ascends on high. We think about the God who's going to come back and do that someday. But whenever you worship in Jesus' name, whenever you come to God through Jesus, have you ever noticed sometimes, I hope it's already happening today,

sometimes you suddenly say, what's wrong with me? Why have I been so afraid? Why have I been so stupid? Why have I been so afraid? Why have I been so stupid? Why have I been so discouraged? Why have I been so angry? And you see who he is and you see who you are and you see his promises and your heart's melted down and you walk out rejoicing. You know what that is? That's God ascending to the throne and purging your heart with his presence, cleansing it. He can do it now. You know why? Because that presence that was hostile to Moses is now pure light to us. Because Jesus Christ

came, took flesh and blood, shed his blood, and destroyed death. Christmas means we can serve him. Christmas means we can rely on him. Christmas means we can know Him. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that we would really sense what Christmas is instead of just getting a good feeling it's about family, instead of having a nostalgia fest. We pray that we'll see today that the full humanity of Jesus Christ is something that we're not taking seriously. And many of our problems are coming because we're not taking them seriously. Help us to get rid of our fear by beholding God come in the flesh. 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's 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 preached in 1994. 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.