Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - God’s Holy People (Part 1)

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Whenever God turns to you, if you believe in him, all he sees when he looks at you is complete beauty and sweetness. Jesus Christ offered himself up and fulfilled all of the obligations we owe God, so he has completely satisfied God. God sees nothing and senses nothing but sweetness when he regards you. But you still live in a world twisted and broken by sin. And you have to deal with the realities of that. Therefore, there’s always a negative. And Ephesians 5:3-7 tells the negatives: there are prohibitions, limits, warnings. There are no exceptions to them.  We must see both the positive and the negative: 1) the positive is that Jesus has fulfilled the law, and 2) for the negative, there are three categories of no’s: no covetousness, no foolish talking, and no sexual immorality. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 5, 1991. Series: Christian Lifestyle. Scripture: Ephesians 5:3-6. 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.

Each year we make a special free resource available during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel in Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelinlife.com slash lent. Now here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching. and this week and next week we'll be looking at this passage. This is Ephesians chapter 5 verses 3 through 6. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of impurity or greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.

Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure, no immoral, impure, or greedy person, such a man as an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient, and therefore

do not be partners with them." Let's end our reading of God's word right there. This is a new section, and tonight we're going to talk about the negative. That's not a very popular subject, but that's what we have. Can't you tell, especially after the last couple times in which we were looking at Ephesians 5 verses 1 and 2, that we suddenly, when you go past the beginning of verse 3, when you get into the however, it depends on how it's translated here in our translation,

it's translated with the word but. However, yet, there's a huge change and verses 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 is all a downer. Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't do this. For the wrath of God will come upon the disobedient. For people who do these things will never inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God. Do not be partners with them. It's a very different atmosphere Last week and the last couple times we saw Ephesians 5 verses 1 & 2 We saw we saw God we saw Paul talking about wonderful truths wonderful principles

The kind of things that if you have a grip on them if if you believe them, if you know them to be true, you can face anything. You can handle anything. Nothing can overwhelm you, nothing can defeat you. We were looking at the fact that we are dear children, see in verse one and two? We are dear children, beloved children, and we have Jesus Christ, we were adopted as sons and daughters of God, and we have Jesus Christ who made himself an offering, a sweet smelling offering for

us. And last week we said this, and let me just give it to you in a sentence, and somebody says, why didn't you just give it to me in a sentence last week? Why did you take so long? Because I've been thinking about it since then, that's why. And this is what it's saying, Jesus Christ offered himself up and fulfilled all of the obligations that we owe God, so that he has completely satisfied God. Do you know what it means to satisfy God? I mean, you think you're hard to satisfy. This is God with

a heart of God, with the purity of God. This is God whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity. Do you know what it means to satisfy God? And therefore whenever God turns to you, if you believe in Him, all He sees when He looks at you, all He smells when He looks over at you, all He hears, all He tastes is complete sweetness. When He sees you, all He sees, all He smells, all He tastes, all He hears is just beauty and sweetness. Jesus is a sweet smelling saver. That means He has satisfied God for you.

You are satisfying to God. God sees nothing and senses nothing but sweetness when he regards you. Now that's the kind of stuff we were talking about and isn't that tremendous? Now, suddenly in verse three, four, five and six we're in a very different atmosphere. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the story of the transfiguration.

God took Peter, James, and John up into a mountain. Christ did, I mean. And took Peter, James, and John up into a mountain, and there we're told that Jesus Christ was transfigured. That means that the veil was taken away, and the apostles saw Jesus as the glorious person he really was. He wasn't veiled, you know, we always sing and Hark the Herald Angels sing every year, veiled in flesh, the Godhead Sea. Well, the veil was taken away and they could see the glory that he was, they could see the magnificence of his being. I don't know what that must have been like. You know beauty is

something, it's not just nice, beauty is addicting and beauty is addicting because we need it. Beautiful music, beautiful sights, light shows, you can't take your eyes off because we need it is an interesting place where Martin Luther says the poor die as much for lack of beauty as for lack of bread. He says the poor are always made to live in ugliness. They're not just made to live in simplicity, they're made to live in ugliness. And there's a place where Luther says beauty is such a necessity that to have beauty continually withheld from you

beggars you spiritually just as to have bread withheld from you beggars you physically. He says the poor are as much starved for beauty as for bread. It's a very interesting insight but it all comes in. Beauty is something we've got to have. We're addicted to it. What must it be like then to see the Lord in His beauty? That's what they saw on the mountain. Must have been amazing.

Incredible. It's like having your soul electrified the way your mouth gets electrified when something incredibly sweet hits it, hits the tongue. And the joy overflows and the beauty overwhelms. And they're up there and they're seeing Him transfigured and they're there with Moses and Elijah and they want to stay. They even say, let's build some tents. Let's stay here. What will Jesus have? He'll have none of that.

He takes them by the hand, he leads them down and as they come down the mountain, there's a fight going on. They get to the bottom of the mountain, there's the apostles fighting. There's a man who had come with a crazed child, a child who was demon possessed, a child who was out of his mind, and the disciples couldn't help him, and then there was an argument, and there was all this arguing, and all this backbiting and scratching, and so you see, Peter, James, and John are saying, why? Here we are, why? Jesus will not ever let you stay on the mountain. He brings you down because you still live in a world twisted and broken by sin.

You've got to deal with the realities of that and therefore there's always a negative. Now verses 3, 4 and 5 and 6 are the negative part of being a Christian. There are prohibitions. There are limits. There are warnings. There are prohibitions that cannot be altered.

There are no exceptions to them. This is the limit. Don't cross this line. You mustn't cross this line. That's the way it is. That's the negative. And let me just for a moment, let me just for a moment show you the importance of this little word however, this little word but at the beginning of verse 3, unless you see that there's both a positive and a negative to your Christianity, unless there is a positive and negative, you'll die. You will die. You will die. You see, unfortunately many of us have had, and some of you have,

generally had to choose between churches or styles of Christianity that are all positive without negative or all negative without positive. Let's see, for example, there are churches that are all negative without positive. Some of you were raised in them. And what I mean by that, this is a church that says, repent, you're a sinner, obey the law or you're dead meat. And all that's true.

As far as it goes. Repent, you're a sinner. These are things in the Bible. The wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. Obey the law or the ramifications will be overwhelming. That's all there. But, but, there's the negative. But, what's the positive? The positive, oh my, the positive is this. That's all true. But you have for every one look at your sin you have to take ten looks at your Savior. And here's what you have to see. First of all, Jesus has fulfilled the law, remember? He came and fulfilled the law when he was being baptized on the baptism. What

do you need to be baptized for? Are you kidding? Why don't you baptize me? And Jesus looks at him and says, it is thus appointed that we fulfill all righteousness. It's my job, he's saying, to completely obey the law for my people for the people who will unite with me by faith and who I will represent Not only that he not only obeys the law completely for you, but he also takes the penalty of the law He's been beaten up. He's been crucified. He's received the penalty of the law Listen friends, you know what it means when the Bible says, you died with them? There's a little voice inside of you that often goes off. And the little voice says some nasty things. And generally speaking, it's your conscience. It would be there anyway.

Some of you have had backgrounds in childhood with lots of stuff that other people said that now the conscience has grabbed onto. It would be there anyway, but maybe things have happened to you that have aggravated. There's a little voice down there that says you deserve to be kicked. You deserve to be tramped upon. Look at what you have done. You deserve to be spit upon. You deserve, you don't deserve to live. Some of you have got that voice.

All of us, all of us, the Bible says, has a voice down there that says, You're a failure. Thou art the one and you don't deserve to go on. In some of our lives that Conscience, that thing that's down there that says you have disobeyed the law. That conscience is really sublimated. It's down there pretty deep and It's not very conscious. Somebody once said it's a little bit like an oil leak, deep, deep, deep under. It's like an oil tanker leaking but the leak is

way down underneath the surface of the water. So everything's polluted but nobody can really tell exactly where it's coming from. In some of our cases that little voice is very, very conscious and the voice goes, you deserve to be tramped upon, you deserve be kicked you deserve to be beaten what does a Christian say what does a Christian say oh no that's not true I'm a wonderful person come on you that little voice will make duck soup of you if you talk about that they say oh sure you're wonderful person what about on March 7th what about you can't do that what does the Christian say Christian says I've already been kicked I've already had? A Christian says, I've already been kicked. I've already had a crown of thorns.

I've already been run through with a spear. I've already paid all these things that you say I owe. And you're right. Well, may the accuser roar of sins that I have done. I know them all and thousands more Jehovah knoweth none." What it means to say that you died with Christ, He already took all those things upon Himself. The law has been fulfilled. There's a part of you that will also say, well, you ought to do this, you ought to do that, and you need to turn to it and say, yeah, but I do love the Lord my God with all

my heart, soul, strength, and mind. I do love my neighbor as myself, in my Savior. Jesus did it for me. And now when God looks at me, I am sweet to him. And not only has Jesus fulfilled the law for you legally, Romans 8, chapter chapter 8 verse 4 says, and now the just requirement of the law is being fulfilled in those who walk according to the Spirit.

And that means not only did Christ obey the law for you, but now when the Spirit comes into your life bit by bit, gradually and gradually, you're no longer just legally righteous, but you're becoming actually righteous in stages. And you're becoming a person who can walk in accord with the law. See, that's the negative, but you've got to attach it to the positive or it'll crush you and then there's a kind of Christianity There's a kind of church. It's all the permissive all the positive None of the negative and those are the kinds of churches that say God loves you just as you are He accepts you just as you are you have to just claim your acceptance. You've got to see that that God is not a god of wrath. God is not a God of

wrath. He's a God of love. Now, as far as it goes, that's true too. He does love you and he does accept you, but you've got to keep this in mind. The positive without the negative will turn you just as shallow a person as the negative without the positive. Don't as shallow a person, as the negative without the positive. Don't you see the Pharisees and don't you see the people who live in the legalistic churches and the permissive churches, legalistic Christianity and permissive Christianity? What kind of Christianity does that produce? It produces Jordan River Christianity, ankle deep. Now, what happens when you realize that God accepts you? Does He accept you? Yes, that's the positive. But here's the negative. Of course the Bible says if you're a Christian, now your sins can never bring you into condemnation. Never. We've talked about that last week.

I've just been living, I've been all day, in the morning we read from the Heidelberg Catechism, and all day I've been just sucking, in the morning we read from the Heidelberg Catechism, and all day I've been just sucking on the sweetness of a particular answer of the Heidelberg Catechism. It says that I believe that the Son of God, through His Spirit and His Word, out of the entire human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, protects, and preserves for Himself a community for eternal life and united in faith. That's saying that God, for of history has been bit by bit out of the human race gathering people

into a community of people who love him. And then it says, of this community I am and always will be a living member. If you die tonight, and you're a believer, if you die tonight, May the 5th, on May the 6th, you will still be a living member of that community. You'll still be surrounded by men and women, spirits of just men and women made perfect. You will still be surrounded by people who love God and love you. You will always be a living member. That can't be taken away from you,

no matter what comes. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. We talked about that last week. But, your sins can't bring you into condemnation. But here's the negative that goes with the positive. Your sins are far more grievous to your Father than the sins of a

non-believer. Your sins can't condemn you, but they're much more grievous. Look, his special relationship with you. Hey, if my next door neighbor, suppose my wife and I get to know our neighbors and they're a nice couple and we find out that the wife of that couple has decided to leave Her husband or commit adultery. Let's say won't that hurt us of course That's not gonna hurt me nearly as much as if my wife commits adultery It's a big difference why because my relationship with her is a little bit more intimate

And of course, it's going to destroy me in a way that neighbor's sin won't destroy me. Do you not know that God is in that relationship with us? So a sin, the same sin before you were a Christian, that of course offended God, now grieves him in a new way. Do you understand that? Your sins can't condemn you, but they're far more grievous. You see, there's the positive and the negative. They have to go together. Besides that, the whole purpose of saving you from sin, the whole purpose of saying

you are accepted is so that you can be more honest in your repentance. Before I understood justification by faith alone, before I understood that I'm satisfying to God, before I understood that in Christ I am no longer condemned or condemnable, before I understood that I couldn't be honest about my sin. When somebody showed it to me I would have to say, you're exaggerating, you're exaggerating. Why? Because deep inside me there was something that said, if you're that bad you don't deserve to live. So I couldn't even admit how bad it was.

But when my conscience was framed with an understanding of grace, it didn't get to me to the place where I said, well, since I'm not condemned, since I'm completely accepted, I don't need to worry about sin, I'm more sensitive than I ever was. Not only that, I can admit it. See, I've got the strength of soul, I've more sensitive than I ever was. Not only that, I can admit it. See, I've got the strength of soul, I've got the psychic strength. I've got the psychological strength

because I no longer have all of my emotional legs in the basket of my performance. I got a lot of them there, and we've talked about this before, but not nearly as many as before. What that means is that the more I see the positive, the more I rest in who I am in Christ, the more I'm able to deal with the negative, the more honest I'm able to be about my sin. That's why Paul says, what shall we sin

that grace may abound? He's talking about how great it is to be completely accepted by God. Then he turns around and says, what may we sin? Shall we sin that grace may abound? Meaghan Oto, never, may it never be! He says the whole purpose of my salvation was to get me out of that. The reason you've got to think about this is that some people, many people, who've been raised in one kind of setting, it's the old pendulum problem. If you've been raised in a super-duper situation, super-duper positive without negative, completely permissive, therefore there's no authority in your life. You were told

everything is okay, you're fine, just find out what you want to do. Nobody can call what you want to do right and wrong. You have to fulfill your own needs. People like that are absolutely famished for authority. And very often they will find themselves sucked into the most incredibly authoritarian cults with all the negative. They need that little internal gyroscope that's been robbed of them. And some of you may have been raised in Christianity or in organizations or a culture in which it's all negative and no positive So what are you going to do? You might make a beeline over for the kind of Christianity, the kind of church that's all acceptance, all permission

Beware To some degree or another we've all suffered under the unwillingness to live both with Ephesians 5, 1 and 2 along with Ephesians 5, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. I mean it's all here, it's all everywhere. I mean the Bible is an amazing place in some sense. Sometimes I feel like if God just gave us any one chapter we could still may do because so much of the stuff is just restated and restated. Here it is again. If you have, if you are able to live both the first two verses and the next five verses, you're going to have a fate that swings. You're going to have a life that is making progress.

Otherwise, you're going to die. Okay? The negative is necessary. It's necessary because at some point you have to say no. People make fun, rightly so, of some of the just say no campaigns, just say no to drugs, just say no to this, just say no to that. But all of us realize there's no substitute for that. You know, those of you, for example, who've tried to deal with an addiction, you know

that support groups are helpful, you know that steps are helpful, you know that all that stuff is helpful, but at a certain point, if you're going to overcome it, you've got to just say no. There's a negative, right? People are supporting you, people are calling you, people are helping you, people are picking you up, but the fact is people are not going to be able to walk with you and watch you 24 hours a day. At some point you have got to just say no.

There is no trick. I've got people who often say, well I'd like to stop this, I'd like to get out of this, but I'm just weak and I've been praying to God for the strength. I've been praying to God for the strength. God will give you strength, but there is no substitute for the strength. I've been praying to God for the strength. God will give you strength but there is no substitute for the negative. Can you imagine somebody saying I've been praying for upper body strength but every time I do bicep curls they just seem so hard. And you say, well, you know, don't stop praying for upper body strength. You need to pray for upper body strength, but yeah, bicep curls are hard.

You know, God doesn't, you see, God, praying to God and asking for upper body strength does not eliminate the negative. There's no substitute for it. No substitute at all. Are you holding onto a grudge or struggling to forgive someone in your life? Would you like to experience the freedom and healing that forgiveness brings? In his book, Forgive, Why Should I and How Can I, Tim Keller shows how forgiveness is not just a personal act, but a transformative power that embodies Christ's grace to a

world fractured by conflict. Far from being a barrier to justice, forgiveness is the foundation for pursuing it. In this book, you'll uncover how forgiveness and justice are deeply intertwined expressions of love and how embracing Christ's forgiveness equips us to extend grace to others. We'd love to send you Dr. Keller's book, Forgive, as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life

share the hope and forgiveness of Christ with more people Visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give now Here's dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching Don't you know that Christianity is a fight JC Ryle one of my favorite guys, he was a bishop of Liverpool, he was an Anglican bishop in the 19th century, and there's a place where he says this. He says, there are thousands of men and women who go to church and chapels every Sunday.

They call themselves Christians, but it's not real genuine Christianity. It satisfies sleepy consciences, but it's not good money. Why? You never see any fight in their religion. Of spiritual strife, of exertion, of conflict with sin, of self-denial, of watching and warring. They know little at all. A true Christian is as known for new inner warfare as for new inner peace. See, there's places where there was pain, that when you become a Christian now there's peace, but there's places where there was peace, and now when you become a Christian there's pain. See, for example, your fear of death, you become a Christian, that begins to lift.

Your lack of meaning and certainty of what I should be doing with my life, that begins to lift. You experience that new meaning. You are a your moral vertigo, not knowing which end is up. How do I know how to make decisions? How do I know what is right and wrong? That lifts. You're dealing with your guilt and your fears. That begins to lift. You see all those places where there was a lot of conflict, peace begins to reign, but becoming a Christian, whereas it comforts places you were disturbed, it also disturbs places you were comfortable. It begins to show you things about yourself that you never believed.

It brings you up against the Word and the Spirit and shows you things that you never believed. The reason there's got to be a negative is because Christianity is a fight and if you don't think Christianity is a fight, if you think it's enough just to stay in verses one and two, if you think it's enough to simply think about and claim all the great things that God has given you, if you don't think that there comes a time in which

unavoidably you say, no, I am one of God's holy people, I can't do that. I won't do that. I don't feel the power to say no, but I'm going to say no anyway. No excuses. If you don't understand that, if you don't understand Christianity is a fight, you're going to die. Out there in the world, understand this. Now believe it or not, I'm looking at the clock here, this has been an exposition of the word but. This gives more fodder to people who say, hmm, he's long-winded. Now, it's true. What I'd like to do for what time I got remaining is actually

open up the rest of these verses. As you know, I get back to them later next week. Let me open up the verses. If you look carefully, you'll see that though there seems to be a lot of things that are forbidden, a lot of no's, there's really only three. There's three categories of negatives. Sexual immorality and impurity. They're basically talking about the same thing. Sexual immorality is the activity of fornication. Get back to that in a minute. Impurity has more to do with the thinking and the attitudes that are attached to it. In other words, what you have there is really what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount,

where he says, You have heard it said, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you, if you look at a woman with lust, you have already committed adultery. That's the same thing. Flee, fornication, and impurity. So they're basically, that's one category. Secondly, you've got the category of covetousness, which Paul returns to later in a couple of verses later, and in that place he says covetousness is idolatry, greed. And then thirdly, he gives you three more words, but they're all categories

And then thirdly, he gives you three more words, but they're all categories of speech. All categories of speech. He talks about obscenity, he talks about foolish talking, and he talks about coarse joking, but they're all having to do with speech. Now let me just run down the first two, not the sexual morality. I'll leave that to last because that takes a little bit more time to explain. Let me talk about greed and let me talk about the speech things real briefly. First of all, covetousness. Isn't it marvelous, the integrity of the biblical ethic, that sexual morality and materialism are right together. The Bible has never made a distinction between those two things.

Do you see? Sexual morality, fornication, and enjoying spending money on yourself too much are together. There's no distinction made between personal morality and social morality. There's no distinction made between personal morality and social morality. There's no distinction made between public and private. Do you see that? You go back to the book of Amos, you look at the prophets. I noticed that Jeff and Scott are teaching in the mornings a course on the prophets.

You'll see it there like nowhere else. When the prophets are denouncing sins, they never categorize them. You know, in one mouthful, in one sentence, Amos will say, you sell the poor for a pair of shoes, you gouge the poor, you charge them too much, you make shoes and you charge them too much, and you go into harlots. Same sentence. Same sin. They're both sins.

There's no distinction made. One of the things that always I find intriguing is that liberals say, hey, what I do with my body is my business, but we're going to legislate and make people be generous with their money. And conservatives say, hey, what I do with my money is my own business. We can't have anybody telling me to do my own money. But we have to have family legislation.

We've got to support the family. In other words, you see, your different political ideologies try to bifurcate things and say, we're going to put it to you. We're going to make you be moral in this area, but in this area, really anything goes. You won't have the Bible talking like that. You won't have the Bible fitting into either the liberal or the conservative party. It doesn't do that. Greed, covetousness.

There's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of forms of it. One of them, of course, is living at the level of your means. The Bible says that anybody who lives as well as they could is covetous. You're supposed to be generous. And some of you, of course, because you're living right on the edge, you know, when you make out that $5 check to charity or that $10 check to the church, that's a lot for you. And you're giving up something, alright? There's the rest of us where $10 is just nothing. The point is, you're covetous if you're giving up something, alright? There's the rest of us where ten dollars is just nothing. The point is if you're covetous, if you're living as well as you can,

another form of covetousness for sure is doing things strictly for money that aren't very helpful to the rest of the world. You know, people that produce products that you know are useless, maybe even bad for people, but they make money and so I'm going to do it. That's a form of covetousness, to trample on people, to cut people out for the sake of money, for the sake of keeping your job. That's covetousness.

In the Bible, there's two marks of covetousness, two tests. One, envy, envy of people for their standard of living. And two, worry, worry about money. It's called the cares of the world. Now secondly, kind of intriguing, it talks about obscenity and, wait a minute, obscenity, foolish talking and coarse joking. Oh brother. Listen, first of all the word obscenity really has to do with sexual immorality and purity. But the foolish talk and the coarse joking is fascinating. Isn't it amazing that Jesus Christ, isn't it amazing that Christianity can be at the top of the mountain like verses 1 and 2?

Talk about imitating God, having the adoption of sons and daughters. And next thing you know, three verses later, it's saying to be a Christian means you even have to examine your humor. Christianity means you have got the Word and the Spirit. You have got something that has got to be applied to every area of your life. Every detail of daily living. Everything. If you don't understand that, if you're not wrestling with that, you don't understand Christianity. And what Paul says here is foolish talking. The word foolish literally means weightless or thoughtless.

Thoughtless. The book of Proverbs says that good words are like a tree. The mouth of the righteous is like a tree and people can eat from it. What that means is do you say things that people ponder? Do you say things that are obviously thoughtful and wise? Or do you say things that are actually nurturing and nourishing? Can people take the things that you say to them home and live off the encouragement? Live off the compliment? Live off the insight? Are you the kind of person that when you talk you're saying things that are obviously wise and obviously encouraging?

I mean, there's people that when I'm with them, anytime I'm with them, I'm remembering what they said to me, even if it wasn't a heavy time, maybe just lunch or something, I'm remembering things they said to me because of their kindness, because of their sweetness, because of their encouragement, and because of their wisdom. And I'm remembering the things they said. I'm taking them home. I'm saying to my wife, oh, so and so said this. boy that was interesting and all that really helped me or I'm thinking about it all day Do you have that kind of is that your kind of language? That's what foolish talking is weightless frivolous

forgettable and Then course joking course joking And then, coarse joking. Coarse joking. What this is talking about is humor. It's kind of interesting. Tomorrow night's comedy night and... Maybe I should wait till next week to... I only got five minutes here.

Actually, if you came to... I have to do it tomorrow night too. If you came to the first Comedy Night, I offered a couple of ideas. I found it interesting that I have tried to say that for a Christian, humor is not just tolerable, it's inevitable. And I found when I was studying one of my commentaries on Ephesians, one of my heroes, David Martin Louis JonesJones, uses the very same sentence. And I know I didn't get it from him because I'd never read that chapter before. But he says, for the Christian, humor is inevitable.

And here's why. Number one, real Christians are having their self-importance destroyed bit by bit by the Spirit of God. And therefore, you see, the kind of sarcasm and the kind of cutting humor or the kind of humorlessness that comes from being a stuffed shirt is slowly being pulled away. But on the other hand, real Christianity also slowly destroys self-hatred. And that's where a lot of deeply cynical and a lot of self-deprecating and the kind of humor that makes you very very uncomfortable when you hear it comes from. Great sentence.

But ultimately, the thing that makes Christians inevitably humorous is that nothing but God is sacred to a Christian. See, every one of us, until you really become a Christian and make God God, you have to worship something. There's something that is too serious to make fun of, like your body, like your appearance, like how much money you make. There's certain things that are just too serious. There's certain things that are, this is what I live for. When you become a Christian, there's nothing left that's sacred except God. Nothing! There's no sacred cows.

And therefore, a Christian finds that he or she is developing a kind of humor and a kind of sparkle that arises out of, look, it says, do not have obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. A person full of gratitude is sparkling. A person full of grateful joy is bubbling. A person in that situation is not dull at all. Is your talk forgettable?

Are your jokes sarcastic or cutting? to the arise out of self-importance or self-hatred paul says the christian life has to be applied everything right last last sexual morality let me give you a definition and next week we come back do a little bit more talking about this and get into and try to finish off the rest but it's very very important to realize a lot of people give me

some trouble over this. A lot of people, one of the more interesting things about New York is that it's a blip in the history of the church. All Orthodox churches, all Roman Catholic churches, all Protestant churches historically, all the branches of Judaism and all of Islam has always said this. And that is that sex was designed by God to be used as an expression of love only in the context of a permanent, fully committed relationship. They've all said that. The fact that you live in a city where most of the Protestant churches stare at that teaching, like a cow stares at a new gate, like I can't believe it, is a blip. It's an aberration. You have to understand, in history and in the world, there's very, very, very few churches that really have ever been able to...

That's like in the last 10 years, the last 20 years, out of 2,000 years of Christian history. It's not like a crazy idea. It's not a cultic idea. It's not my idea. All right? Yet a lot of people look at it that way. The word here that's used is the word, it's a Greek verb, pornoio. And it's usually translated in the old translations, fornication.

It's a different word than the word moikoi. Moikoi means to have it, to be adultery. In adultery it's to adulterize. In most of the list in the new testament porno and more koi are put together i mean porno which means fornicators and more koi which is adulterers are put next to each other they're not the same in a sense uh... you know adultery is sexual morality but all sexual morality is not adultery

fornication means sex between people who are not married to each other. Adultery means sex with somebody that you are not married to but who may be married to someone else or you may be married to someone else. Why does the Bible say that and here's how we have to end? Because the negative always comes with a positive. That's what I've been trying to say all night. Did you hear it? The positive. The positive is that sex is not dirty. The positive is this, sex is actually, biblically, an analogy. The Bible is always saying the reason that God invented man and woman and in the marriage

relationship, the reason that married sexual love is so wonderful is because it's an analogy of the relationship between God and us, between Christ and the church. It means that the most blissful, incredible, rapturous sexual love between a husband and a wife is just an echo of what it's going to be like to see God face to face. That's where it comes from. That's what it's a sign of. Is that going to be fun to see God face to face? I'll say so, if you can use the word fun. And is sex therefore a delightful and fun thing? Of course it's supposed to be.

But therefore, because it's such a positive thing, there are limits. Can you imagine God giving his intimacy to you in any other context but a fully and permanently committed relationship? Do you think God says I'm gonna pour out my love into your heart but you don't have to commit yourself to me fully and finally and completely and permanently you don't have to do that. Does God do that? No. God says if you want to have emotional oneness with me, it's got to be total oneness. And in the same way, if you look at somebody else and say, I want to have sex with you but I don't want to marry you, it's another way of saying, I want to

be physically naked with you, but I don't want to be personally naked or vulnerable to you. I don't want to bind myself to you in such a way that I have to make all my choices with you and all my decisions with you. I don't want to be that committed to you. I don't want to bind myself to you in such a way that I have to make all my choices with you and all my decisions with you. I don't want to be that committed to you. I don't want to be as fully and as legally and as economically and emotionally committed to you as possible. I would like to have intimacy but not without that kind of total commitment.

And to have physical oneness without the total oneness to which sex obviously points is a monstrosity. And to have that kind of physical oneness without the total oneness to which sex obviously points is a monstrosity. And to have that kind of physical oneness without the total oneness that it points to in heaven is a monstrosity. There's no positive without the negative. And of course the negative without the positive will destroy you. The whole purpose of God's love and saving mercy is to bring you into his presence,

to make you fit for his presence. And therefore the negative always leads to the positive. It doesn't say, as you know, I try to make this a proverb around here, it doesn't say blessed is he who hungers and thirsts after blessedness. Blessed is he who hungers and thirsts after something besides blessedness, righteousness. Don't be like Esau, it says in the book of Hebrews. Esau was a fornicator and a profane person who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. He walked on in and he says, I'm so hungry.

And Jacob says, give me your birthright. And Esau says, like a fool, well, I have these needs. I'm hungry. Who cares about anything else? Here, take my birthright. Blessed is he who hungers and thirsts after something besides blessedness. Hunger after righteousness. Limit yourself. Go for what God has said. Just say no.

Aim for the righteousness, and you'll get the blessedness. Aim for the blessedness, and you'll get neither. Because the whole purpose of the gospel is to bring us into the kingdom, to bring us under the king. In his name we pray. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that now as we conclude, we'll see that we can't be a people of the negative, not the positive, or of the positive and not the negative.

We pray that you'll help us to bind these together in the gospel. For it's Jesus who came to us and said that we have to lose ourselves, that's the negative, to find ourselves. Father, we ask now that everybody here will work this out. I know, Lord, that we wouldn't have looked at this passage unless you wanted to say something to us in it. We pray, Lord, that every person here will recognize that there is a way in which we have to act on what we've heard.

Help us to open our hearts and take the seed of the word in so that we can bear fruit for you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching by Tim Keller here at Gospel in Life. We want to share a special free resource with you that we provide during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel in Life would like to send you a daily Lent devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelinlife.com slash lent. That's gospelinlife.com slash lent.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1991. 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.