Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - God’s Holy People (Part 2)

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Christianity is never a mechanical thing. And the church is not a morality agency—it’s a regenerating agency. The real goal of the do’s and the don’ts in the Christian life is always character—growing into God’s holy people. The church does bring about moral behavior but, in a sense, as a byproduct. Because what the church is after is to turn people into saints, to create a kind of person. In Ephesians 5, we learn three things: 1) your Christian faith has to include a saying no as well as a saying yes, 2) Paul explains a few critical things you must say no to (greed, foolish talking, and sexual immorality), and 3) the whole point is not to give us a list of do’s and don’ts, but the point is always to be holy.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 12, 1991. Series: Christian Lifestyle. Scripture: Ephesians 5:3-7. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. What makes the Christian lifestyle truly distinct? Many belief systems emphasize moral behavior, but Christianity offers something deeper, a radical transformation from the inside out. This month, Tim Keller is teaching on how the Gospel doesn't just modify our behavior, but completely reshapes our hearts. Ephesians chapter five, we're gonna look at a passage we looked at last week to start and this week to finish. And somebody's saying, you mean you're gonna finish

a passage in two weeks? And I'll say, hey, I grow in grace like everybody else The wish change Okay Ephesians chapter 5 And I'm gonna read from verses 3 through 7 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, the cheerful start, what do you think? Or of any kind of impurity or of 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. Therefore, do not be partners with them." Here ends the reading of God's word. There's three things we learned from the passage.

We started looking at it last week. The three things are this. First, there's got to be a negative and a positive to your Christian faith. There is a negative and a positive to the Christian faith. There's got to be a saying no as well as a saying yes, or you don't have the Biblical historic Christian faith. And secondly, Paul goes on to explain a couple of critical things that you must say no to. The negative is an irreplaceable part of being a Christian. And secondly, Paul gives us a little list of things that we've got to say no to. Thirdly, we see that the whole point of all the negative, along with the positive, is

to not just simply give us a laundry list of do's and don'ts that we're supposed to follow, but the point is always to be holy. Do this as God's holy people. It's easy to forget. Christianity is never a mechanical thing. It's a little bit like saying, if you were on the firing range and you saw a group of people out there shooting, trying to develop their marksmanship, and you said, why are you here doing this?

Why are you shooting this? At that target. Would any of those people say, well because I absolutely love these pieces of paper full of little holes, I love them. And so I come out here and I take those pieces of paper and I fill them full of holes and I take them home and I paper my wall with them. And that's the reason I'm doing that. Of course nobody's going to say that. The purpose of them putting holes in the bullseye is not because they want to put holes in the bullseye, but because they want to develop the mind, they want to develop the eye, they want to develop the

coordination, they want to develop the marksmanship, they want to have something happen in them. The real goal of the doing is the being. And therefore the real goal of the do's and the don'ts in the Christian life is always characters growing into God's holy people. The church is not ultimately a moral agency, it's not a morality agency, it's a regenerating agency. It does definitely bring about moral behavior but in a sense as a

means to an end or even as a byproduct because what the church is after is to turn people into saints, is to create a kind of person. So the three things are, there's got to be a negative about your Christian life. Here are the things that we have to say no to, but never forget the whole purpose of the negative is to bring us to a place where we can stand before Him and know that He loves us because we have become like Him. Now, we talked about the first of those three things last week and just to recap, especially for those of you who weren't here. When we talk about the negative, we mean this. Verses one and two we looked at some weeks ago.

It's all about how God has accepted us that we're children of His, that therefore we're His sons and daughters, and we're adopted, we're at His table. And there's another part of those first two verses that's wonderful that says that Jesus Christ gave himself up as an offering for us, which is a sweet smelling savor. So when God looks at us, he sees nothing but beauty. When he smells us, even though you think your life stinks, he smells nothing but sweetness. We looked at that a few weeks ago. If you've got a life, if you've got a religion that just is completely absorbed

in verses one and two, and not in verses three through seven, you've got an unbalanced religion, you've got half a religion, you've got no religion. In other words, if you've got the kind of religion that loves to dote on theological statements about how you're great and how you're accepted and what God has done for you, as wonderful as those are. If you don't have a religion that turns around and is willing to actually say, no, I can't do this and I can't do that, I just must say no.

In other words, if you don't have a practical side to your religion, if you've got no ability or willingness to say no to certain things, you don't have biblical religion. If you've got no ability or willingness to say no to certain things, you don't have biblical religion. Now, it turns around. The vice has to be versa, too. If you've got a religion with nothing but verses 3 through 7 and no verses 1 and 2, you don't have the real religion either. I got a friend of mine in Philadelphia, some of you have met him, named Bob Heppe, who says there's the Jesus for Me churches and there's the me for Jesus churches. A Jesus for me church is a church that's always saying hey he's done it all for you just claim it, he accepts you, everything is fine it's

just grace you see, it doesn't matter what you do everything is wonderful that's Jesus for me. He says then you've got the me for Jesus churches that is you've got to sacrifice, you've got to give everything, you've got to throw everything out, you've got to deny yourself, you've got to do all these things for him because you owe it to him. And that's a me for Jesus church. And of course, the gospel is both. The gospel is both. Not just sort of in a mechanical kind of way, slapped together and glued together, the gospel is both. The reason that I am for Jesus is because he's for me,

or another way to put it. The fact that I am a sinner and I can call sin by name leads me to see the greatness of his grace. On the other hand, the greatness of his grace makes it possible for me to be honest about my sins. I don't have to be afraid to call them by name. They work together. The positive and the negative have to work together. And just to give you one case study and then we move on. For example, bitterness. Now, a Christian cannot say, I can't tell you,

just say no to bitterness. I can't say just say no to bitterness because that word just gives you the impression that the negative is enough, willpower is enough. I can't say to you, just stop being bitter.

You're resentful, you're bitter. Just stop it. That's the negative without the positive. That can't be. We see here, for example, back in the chapter that we've been through some weeks ago, months ago, in chapter four of Ephesians, there's a place where it says, forgive one another as Christ forgave you. There's got to be a positive. It's not good enough for you to just sit there and say,

I've got to forgive him, I've got to forgive him. I have to forgive him. I have to forgive him. I don't want to forgive him, but I'm supposed to forgive him. That doesn't help. Instead, you've got to say, look what Jesus has done for me. Here's how the positive works. The renewal of the mind with the truth. Archibald Alexander, old time guy who used to teach at Princeton Seminary about 200 years ago, he put it this way. He said, the way God renews the heart is this. He says it's a little bit like the old way he used to seal a letter. You had the flame and you had a piece of wax and you had the seal. And so what you do is you take the flame and soften the wax so that when

you put the seal on the wax, the wax turns into the imprint. See, the wax is softened enough by the flame so that the seal permanently changes the nature and the shape of the wax. And in the same way, how do you forgive? Archbishop Alexander would say, well, you renew your mind. You don't just say no, There's got to be the positive. That means you say, oh, Lord, let me meditate and think on the fact that I have a tremendous debt,

and I have sinned against you. And look and see what Jesus has done for me and how much he's forgiven me. And as you think about that prayerfully, as the Holy Spirit begins to soften your heart with the truth, the spirit is like the flame, and the heart is like the wax, and the truth of the word of God is with the truth. The spirit is like the flame and the heart is like the wax and the truth of the Word of God is like the seal.

And when the Spirit of God works on you as you meditate as you reflect, you can feel, I have, you can, you have, you can feel the bitterness leaving as your heart is melted with a sense of gratitude for the forgiveness you've gotten and your ability to hold on to the old, the bitterness begins to leave. your heart is melted with a sense of gratitude for the forgiveness you've gotten and your ability to hold on to the old bitterness begins to leave that's the positive what's happening is your heart is actually being changed permanently into the likeness of the truth it's not a mechanical, it's an organic, it's a vital thing

and yet having said that in any real act of forgiveness, there's always a negative. There's a place where you don't just sit back and wait for God to do it to you. There's a place at which you've got to say, and there's an irreplaceable negative to the Christian life, there's a place in which you've got to say, I've got to forgive. I can't be bitter. I can't act bitter. I can't let the bitter thoughts keep on in my mind.

I've got to stop act bitter. I can't let the bitter thoughts keep on in my mind. I've got to stop being bitter You see along with the positive. It's not enough to just say no you do still have to say no God's not going to forgive for you He'll soften your heart, but you've got to forgive you have got to say see forgiveness is granted before it's felt say, see, forgiveness is granted before it's felt. You grant forgiveness even when the anger is gone, even when the anger is still there, and that's how the anger slowly seeps out of you. You say, when the thoughts occur to me about what that person did to me, I'm not going to entertain them. I'm going to say no to them. I'm going to refuse to act bitter. I'm going to refuse to allow the bitter thoughts to continue. I'm going to say no to bitterness. There's the positive and the negative.

Jesus for me and me for Jesus, they've got to be there. And we've got to know this in New York City. Oh, we do. Because we don't want to hear about the negative at all. Some of us have been killed by the negative in other places, and as a result we just want to swing completely away. And instead of saying no to bitterness at a certain point, we want to say, but I'm still dealing with it.

What does that mean? Well, I'm still working it through. What does that mean? What it means is, I want it to happen. I don't want to say no. I want it just to leave. I don't want to say no. They've got to say no.

There's the negative. Now, secondly, we're told here several things that we have got to use the negative side of Christianity on. There are certain things that no matter how much we're dealing, no matter how much we're working through and so forth, there's a place in which we've got to say, because I'm one of God's holy people, I can't do this. There's the positive, of course. the only way to help yourself is the positive, we just explained that, but here, these verses three to seven are trying to explain that there's a negative side that in New York we don't like to hear about it, but there is.

There are things we've got to say no to. Now, last week we talked about two of them. Greed, which is materialism, our speech, and we talked about various forms of humor and foolish talk, and sexual immorality. That's where we ended and a lot of people were so disappointed when we ended so soon, and so we're back. The sexual immorality part is important because it's actually, if you look carefully, named three times. First of all, one of the things that

you must say no to, one of the things that you must say no to, one of the things that must not even be named among you, there must not even be a hint of it, sexual immorality and then impurity, and then later on down the list, obscenity. Sexual immorality is, as we mentioned last week, the Greek verb porneo, which simply means fornication. Impure. That's the action. Impurity is any thought or attitude or anything that would lead to the action or anything connected to the action.

And obscenity is any kind of talk that promotes impurity. So they're all linked. And as a result, we've got to take a good look at them. Now, there's two things you've got to keep in mind whenever you begin to talk about what the Bible says about sex. Number one, please note the unity of the biblical ethic. The things that there's not supposed to even be a hint of, look, there must not even be a hint of what?

Sexual immorality, impurity, right? Or of greed. The Bible has never done what we do now in the 20th century and that is divide personal sexual morality from social morality. You don't see Paul saying, now greed isn't very good, but sexual immorality have nothing to do with that. His attitude doesn't change. His tone of voice doesn't change, you see?

He doesn't lower his voice to a whisper. The greed and the sexual and morality are there together. There's not supposed to even be a hint name of either of them. The unity is really pretty remarkable and pretty frightening. Any of you who make the effort to come out on Sunday morning and go to the class on prophets, on the Old Testament prophets that Jeff and Scott are teaching, will find out that the prophets just do not make any distinction. In fact, there's two things they're upset with ancient Israel on. They're upset with their sexual impurity and their materialism and how they ground

the face of the poor. Right together, they don't make a distinction. Unfortunately, in the 20th century, it's quite normal for me to read people on the one end of the left, you know, who are saying, we've got to do something about the way in which we're using our money in this country, we've got to work for equity, we've got to do something about the way in which we're using our money in this country. We've got to work for equity. We've got to work for justice. We've got to work

for social morality. And those same people insist on complete sexual freedom to do anything that they think is fulfilling. And on the other end of the spectrum, we've got people who are just beating the drums for family values, beating the drum for traditional sexual morality and traditional sexual morality and traditional Christian morality who also insist, I can spend my money any old way I want, because after all, this is a free society, this is free enterprise, and if I make enough money I can spend it on as many cars as I want. And you just don't see this bifurcation in the Bible.

You might get upset with the Amish because they're kind of legalistic and anachronistic, but they are biblical in the unity of their vision. They're strict when it came to sexual purity and strict when it came to greed and consumerism. They didn't make a distinction. In the early church, historians will tell you there were two ways in which the early Christians completely stuck out like sore thumbs in ancient Greco-Roman society. And some of you have heard me say this one before. There was two ways in which they utterly were distinct. One is they only had sex

inside of marriage, and the early Greco-Roman community thought that that was the weirdest thing they'd ever heard. And secondly, they were incredibly and promiscuously generous with their money, both in dealing with each other's needs and also in their care for the poor. And you know, you've heard me not too long ago, we quoted that ancient Roman emperor that said, hey, the weird thing about the Christians is whereas the Jews take care of the Jewish poor and the Greeks take care of the Greek poor, Christians take care of everybody's poor. In those two ways, you see, they looked weird. And when this church or when the Christian church, when the evangelical

church begins to be just as weird in those ways, when there's no disunity between those things, we're going to be again starting to make a hit, starting to make a dent, starting to make an impact. 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. One more thing. Some people say, here we go again, sexual immorality, obscenity, impurity. That's the trouble with the Christian religion. It represses people. That's the trouble with the Christian religion. It's uptight about sex. It has a negative view of sex. All it's saying is this is wrong and that's wrong and this is wrong and that's wrong

Everything's wrong except the two if a man and a wife get married then you can have sex good night That rules out at least 50 different varieties of sex You know, you know, there's 50 varieties of sex and only one of them is allowed. That's the Christian religion for you It's got a negative view of sex and let one of them is allowed. That's the Christian religion for you. It's got a negative view of sex. And let me ask you something. What if you were the director of an art museum and somebody gave you, you know, the Mona Lisa, the P.A. TAS, something that was absolutely priceless. How would you react to it? Would you say, well, I don't want to have any rules or regulations about who sees it or security or how. You know, it doesn't matter. In fact, let's put it out in the front yard of the art museum.

Because I think that, I really think that the most egalitarian and democratic approach to this particular piece of art is to let everybody see it. Let everybody do what they want with it. That's the most important thing. Of course not. What would you do if you were an art director, the director of the art museum? What you'd do is you would have incredible security, you would have all sorts of rules, and you see the more artistically sensitive you were, the more careful you would be about how that piece of art was watched and seen and used. You'd have all kinds of

strict rules and you'd be extremely upset if anybody broke them. Why? Because you have a negative view of art. In other words, lots of rules and regulations and being very upset if somebody breaks them automatically means that you have a negative view of art or a negative view of the thing that you've got all the rules and regulations about. That's ridiculous. It's because the man has such a high view of art. That's why the director of this museum or that museum has got all the rules and regulations. And in the same way, Christians have a higher view of sex. I'm not saying every Christian in every church, but I'm saying Christianity has a higher view of sex than the prevailing culture.

That's the reason there's rules. Here's the two things that we learn from this text about it. The one is, let there be no sexual morality, and the second is, let there be no hint. Now, each of those phrases teaches us something. First, the word, as I mentioned last week, the word sexual morality is a word that's translated in the older text fornication. What is fornication? Fornication is any kind of sexual activity outside of a permanent relationship, a permanent

completely committed relationship. I think that anybody who is open-minded will recognize that there's a big difference between a relationship in which you're legally bound to someone, permanently bound to someone, and a relationship in which that's not there. I mean, over the years I've talked to tons of people who basically said, look, we are living together, we love each other, we just don't want to get married. We love each other just as much as people who are married love each other. Now, when they put it that way, you know, as a logician I realize that I can't argue against that. There's plenty of people who are married who

don't love each other as well as people love each other who are not married, who are living together. But let me put it this way, why aren't you married? Why hasn't somebody said, let's do it? And the answer always is this, I don't really want to be that committed. Now that's not what they say when you first ask the question, but that's what it boils down to. I don't want to narrow down my options. I don't want to be that committed.

I don't want to be that vulnerable. When you get married, it means that I really have got a lot more complications when I make any decision. When I get married, it means that I'm no longer an independent person. Biblical understanding of sex is that what happens in bed, what actual sex is, it's a way for one person to say to another person, I belong to you completely, you belong to me completely. Unless there is

a reality outside of bed that shores that up. Unless, in other words, it's true. When you have sex, it's God's invented way, non-verbally, for a man to say to a woman, I belong completely and exclusively to you. And if it's not true, then what you're saying is a lie. Because if you've ever had sex in the early days when you probably weren't married, you remember just how much it made you feel married. You remember how much it opened you

to that person. You remember how disappointed you were, how in some cases dashed you were, when you found that other person didn't really have any obligation to make decisions with you. That person was still an independent person. Fornication is any sex inside that is not mirrored by a relationship on the outside. Intimacy on the inside, physical nakedness on the inside, vulnerability on the inside, but on the outside, the opposite. Flowers is not what does it. You know, wonderful trips is not what does it. Are you willing to say, I belong completely, permanently to you? And the Bible has always said that that's the context for marriage.

Now, if you want to understand sexual immorality, you have to understand sexual morality. That is what sex is supposed to be. And what is it supposed to be? Sex is a unit of act, and it's a unit of act of commitment. And now I started on this last week, but now I have to really press it home again. Do you think it's crazy to say that basically sex is just a way in which God gives us a little hint of what it's going to be like to meet him and see him face to face? It's not. The Bible teaches that. Why did God invent sex? To give us some idea of what it's going to be like to know him. Now, if you think that that's

radical or crazy, you have to realize that the Bible is continually coming up with illustrations saying just that. God says to Israel in the Old Testament, you're my bride, I'm your husband. God says to the church in the New Testament, you're the bride, Christ is the husband. Romans 7 explicitly says that Jesus Christ and the church are related the way a husband

is related to a wife. And as the wife puts herself in the arms of the husband, as the husband puts himself in the arms of the wife, fruit is born into the world through her body. And in the same way, it goes so far as to talk about this in the same way that when a Christian puts him or herself in the arms spiritually of the Father and of the Son, of the triune God, fruit is born into the body, into the world. Fruit of the Spirit, ministry, the Kingdom of God, It is an absolutely breathtaking illustration. Why would the Bible talk like that? But that sex is a sign of what communion with God is going to be like.

That's the reason why there's a place where C.S. Lewis puts it this way. He says, listen, the faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasure. I read you that last week, I think. He says, the faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures. And even this filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be like to drink at the fountain head, that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that is

what lies before us. St. Augustine says, the rapture of the saved soul will flow over into the glorified body. We can't imagine such joy. I warn everybody most seriously not to try. And now look, do you see therefore that there's no more negative surrounding the biblical understanding of sex than there are negative surrounding what the Bible says about communion with God? No more. If you think the biblical understanding of sex is negative, then I want you to just compare it.

Why are there any limits? Does God say, I will give you intimacy, I will give you love, I will put my spirit in you? Say, I will actually put myself in you. I will come into your life and I will give you all these blessings, but you don't have to be committed to me. You don't have to be totally committed to me. You don't have to say, I belong completely and exclusively and permanently to you. You don't have to make any of those kinds of remarks. You don't have to make any of those kinds of commitments, do you? God doesn't do that. And everybody I know

who I've ever spoken to thought that that was reasonable. If God's going to give you his complete intimacy, you have got to give him everything. Is that negative? No, it's absolutely rational. And if it's true that sexuality is a signpost pointing us to union with God If it's really true that the greatest rapture between a husband and a wife is just a faint echo of what it's going to be Like to see him face to face Then what is so irrational about saying you must not give your intimacy to somebody? Unless they say I belong to you and you say I belong to you Completely permanently exclusively.

What is so weird about that? Let me go one step further. What's the difference between lust and love? Lust is, in lust you want fulfillment. In love you want a person. You've heard C.S. Lewis say, it's unfortunate when you see a man in heat walking down the street and everybody says, hey, he's horny, he needs a woman, he's on the prowl for a woman. And Lewis says, what an unfortunate way to put it, he's on the prowl for a sexual pleasure and a woman is just a necessary commodity. He doesn't want a woman, he doesn't want a person. He just wants something that will, and he needs a person in order to get to something.

What's the difference between lust and love? Now, listen. You have heard me say again and again that it is not enough just to simply use God. You have to get into a relationship to serve him. The way you can tell that you really are serving God and you've made him your Lord is when he doesn't answer your prayers. When he doesn't answer your prayers, are you ready to cut out? Now, you've heard me say this many times.

Are you ready to cut out? Are you ready to say, I've had it! That's it! It's gone! I'm out of here. All I asked from God was that He'd help me financially. All I asked from God is that He'd find me a spouse. All I ask for God is that I'd be reasonably happy in this way. I've asked and asked and asked, and He's not come through, and I'm out of here. And you see, God then has the right to say, You're telling me that you gave your life to me,

and now you're leaving? Oh, no, you never gave your life to me and now you're leaving, oh no, you never gave your life to me. You are using me. It's not until you get to unearned prayer that you can really see whether you got into the Christian faith in order to get him to serve you or you to serve him. If you got in to use him to serve your own ends, not loving him but using him, then you'll cut out when things get rough. If on the other hand you're there because you simply want him, not the blessing but the blesser,

not just the gifts but the giver, if you've really given yourself to him totally and completely, if you've let go of your life and made him Lord, if you're really there to serve him, then comes the intimacy. Then comes the blessing. Now, if you're in a relationship, it's a lust relationship, if all you do is control, if all you do is manipulate, if all you do is you say, here's a beautiful person, and now this person doesn't look so beautiful for some reason.

This person is aged. I'm tired. I'd like a younger one. All along, it was lust. All along, you were using that person to make you feel good about yourself. All along, you were controlling and manipulating. The way you know that you really love somebody, real sexual love grows out of a commitment, it grows out of knowledge, it grows out of understanding, it grows out of serving one another, it grows out of knowing that person understands you and you understand them. That's the kind of sexual power that a godly relationship can issue. My dear friends, God says, come into my life, but don't use me, serve me. God says, come into my life and commit yourself completely to me, and then comes the intimacy. Is that negative? Is that irrational? Is that crazy? No. Then what is so crazy about the

Bible saying sex is for permanent relationships and sexual, real sexual love is serving. If the only kind of person that can turn you on is somebody with a figure out of Madison Avenue ads, you want a commodity not a person. If you find when you first get to know them there there's a lot of wow, wow, wow, wow, but as you get to know them as a person and you have to deal with all of their problems and all this sort of thing, when they start to ask you to open up or be committed, you find, hey, you know, I'm not as interested as I used to be.

That was lust. What is lust? Not sexual attraction. There's nothing wrong with sexual attraction. God created sex. Lust is wanting fulfillment instead of a person. That's why you've got to put away impurity. That's why you've got to put away obscenity.

That's why you have to put away sexual morality. Now we've got to stop, but let me just end reading you a little quote from a Christian psychologist about this. Whoops. And what happened to him? He was here a minute ago. Listen.

John White. Erotic pleasure is the most superficial benefit of sex. It's a delight of a moment. The bodily exposure that arouses and accompanies that can be both profoundly symbolic and powerfully healing. It symbolizes the uncovering of our inner selves, our deepest fears and yearnings. As I look tenderly on the body of another, as I experience what it is to feel the tenderness of another's caress and the delight of knowing I am loved as well as loving,

it seems momentarily impossible to separate myself from my body. For the one who accepts my body caresses also with tenderness my inmost being, or so it seems when everything goes right." So it makes sense that sexual relations are confined to marriage. For acceptance and mutual disclosure are not the activities of a moment, but the delicate fabric of a life's weaving. Each time sex springs from casual encounters, some of their life-giving and healing nature is destroyed." My dear friends, there's an irreplaceable negative to the Christian life. There's a place at which you say,

I'm one of God's holy people. I don't completely understand this, but I must say no to it. Why? Not because I will feel more holy than other people, because I know this is going to turn me into a certain kind of person. It's going to turn me into someone who's like him. Are you ready and willing to take the whole Christian faith? Are you ready and willing to take the negative with the positive? It's the only way it comes. If you are willing to say no to yourself, there's all kinds of yeses ready to come flooding into your life. That's the promise of the Scripture. God is no man's debtor. Are you ready to do that? Come, let's do it. Let's pray. Now Father, all we ask is as we've seen tonight, we have to say no to greed and selfishness.

As we've seen tonight, we have to say no to selfishness in the area of sexuality. As we've seen tonight, your word is pure and your word is wise. I pray that everybody here who's got to be having so many thoughts, so many minds racing, so many hearts may be hurting, I pray that you minds racing, so many hearts may be hurting. I pray that you would show us now that if we're willing to come to you and willing to say no to ourselves and willing to say no to certain practices, that you've got all kinds of yeses ready to flood in. One of the yeses is, yes, I forgive you. One of the yeses is saying, yes, I accept you. One of the yeses is saying, yes, I will give you more, far more than you can ever give up. I'll give you more than you could ever give up. Father, we pray that you would comfort us. Those of us who are confused,

clarify. Those of us who feel guilty, forgive. Those of us who feel guilty, forgive. Those of us who are weak, strengthen and empower. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life Podcast. It's our hope that today's teaching encourages you to go deeper in your prayer life. We invite you to help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great Gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit GospelInLife.com.

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.