Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - God's Love and Ours

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Jonah believes in love in general. But he doesn’t understand how God’s love actually operates. If it’s possible that you stand where Jonah stood, then chapter 4 is critical because God gives Jonah an answer. And his answer shows that God’s love, like God, is a fire. The strange thing about fire is that, on the one hand, it’s life-giving and warming, but on the other hand, it’s dangerous, consuming, and purifying. This text shows us two things: 1) God’s love is refining fire, and 2) God’s love is a seeking fire. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 16, 1990. Series: Jonah. Scripture: Jonah 4:1-10. 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 taking us through a series on the book of Jonah, a story which is about much more than the reluctant prophet being swallowed by a great fish. You may be surprised at how profoundly it speaks to the issues we face today. 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. Chapter 4, verses 1 to 10. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord,

O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.'

But the Lord replied, Have you any right to be angry? Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade, and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort. And Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm which chewed the vine so that it provided,

so that it withered. And when the sun rose God provided a scorching east wind. And the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die and said, It would be better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, Do you have a right to be angry about the vine? I do, he said. I am angry enough to die. But the Lord said, you have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.

But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned for that great city?" Here ends the reading of God's holy word. The story which we've been looking at since July, which ends today, is that Jonah was called to go to Nineveh to preach, and after a lot of detours he did. And when he got there finally and began to preach, we're told that Nineveh, the great

capital of Assyria, by and large the populace turned from their violence and their evil ways. Now, that's a marvelous thing, and that's what every newspaper in New York is calling New York to do. So when God sent Jonah to Nineveh to do this and when Nineveh turned, we would expect great joy in Jonah's heart, but surprise, chapter 4, verse 1, we read, and Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. Now why? And we've been looking at this to some degree from different perspectives for the last couple

of weeks, but the bottom line is Jonah can't figure out God's love. That's what the whole chapter four is about. Chapter four is all about God's love. In the very beginning Jonah says, I knew you were a God of love. And what he means is, God, I cannot figure your love out. I can't figure it out. This city is a violent city. This city has inflicted great pain on the whole world. It has laid waste to entire regions. It has committed genocide against entire populations. And then you forgive them. I don't understand your love." And in response, essentially, God comes back, as we will see here, and says, Jonah, I don't understand your love. So this is all about love. And Jonah, I would like to propose

to you this morning, represents us in this way. Jonah, like everybody, believes in love in general. But when it comes right down to it, it has a very… a fatally inadequate understanding of how love actually operates, and in particular, how God's love actually operates. And in the same way, my thesis this morning is that many, maybe most, of our own struggles and collapses, just like Jonah here, are due to our own inadequate understanding of how God's love really, really operates. And I'm asking that many of you would be open today to this possibility that the struggles

you're having now, right now in your life, this week, yesterday, today, might be due to the very same problem that Jonah's got and that is, I can't figure out God's love. I don't see how it really operates. It doesn't make sense to me. If it's possible that you stand where Jonah stands now, then the message of the rest of this chapter is critical because the whole point of the rest of the chapter is God coming to Jonah and says, Jonah, you asked the question, I'm going to give you an answer.

You see, God's love, like God, is a fire. The Bible tells us God's a consuming fire, and therefore his love is a fire. Now, fire is a strange thing. Its properties are such, the heat of fire is on the one hand life-giving, but on the other hand dangerous, consuming, burning, and purifying. And in the same way, well, you understand that about fire for a minute? It's warming and refining. It's life-giving, and it's also dangerous and painful.

In the same way, Jonah misunderstands God's love. He doesn't understand that on the one hand, God's love is wonderfully warming and on the other hand, is dangerous and painful. Because God's love is also life-giving and warming, and at the same time refining and purifying. Or to put it another way, God's love is more free than Jonah believes, and we believe, and more expensive. At the same time. You know why? God, God's love like God, is a matter of transcendent superlatives. God's love is more free than we know and it's more expensive than we know.

It's more free, and this is one of the things that's bothering Jonah, it's more free than Jonah believes because it reaches out and envelops and heals the most wretched and most hopeless people and conditions. But on the other hand, it's more expensive because it is a jealous love. It's more jealous for our health and for our perfection and for our purity than we are for ourselves. You see, God's love is not at all like the sickly sentimental thing that human love often is.

It's a matter of transcendent superlatives. It's actually a matter of extremes. And let's take a look at those two extremes, those two things that God is trying to get across to Jonah that he misses. And let's do it in this order. First, God's love is refining fire. It is life purifying. And secondly, God's love is a seeking fire a seeking power a seeking love It's life-giving. Hmm. It's refining life purifying. It's seeking life giving. So let's take a look at the first It's refining this first ones over here. Did you notice that? That's why I had to come over to this side the second one's over there Life

Purifying refining God's love teaching is, if it ever rests on you, it will not let you alone. You want God's love? You want God's love? God's love is a fire and it will not give you warmth in life without at the same time refining and purifying you. If it rests on you, it will not let you alone." We learn this in the text from this little word, provide, that shows up three times. Verse 6, the Lord provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give him shade. At dawn the Lord God provided a worm which chewed the vine so it withered. And when the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind so the sun blazed on Jonah's head and he grew faint."

The word provide is another word for a point. We're told first of all God appointed a comfort and then once he made Jonah pretty happy and anybody who's ever been in 110, 120 degree heat of the near east knows how wonderful a fast growing vine that provides shade can be. Not only does God first appoint a comfort, but then He also appoints an agricultural disaster, you know, and then a nasty weather pattern to bring discomfort into Jonah's life. Now, in the next heading, which is over here, in the next heading, we can talk about why God did that. He did this to teach Jonah a lesson, and we'll get to the lesson later.

But first, I think it's important for us to not notice so much the point of the lesson, but the method of the lesson. Why does God do such a thing? Is it true that God brings troubles, discomforts, and disasters into people's lives as a way of purifying them? Is that what this teaches? Yes. Let me put it in a biblical context for us for a second. The Bible teaches that evil and death were not part of God's, the best way to put it, were not part of God's original creative design. This is not the way the world was supposed to be. Evil, disasters, troubles and death that are in this world are the results of the direct consequence of our sin.

Now that may sound abstract, but let me make it more concrete. If you've ever been on an extremely well-coached team, or if you've ever been in a marvelously managed department, remember that. You might be in it, it might be something in your past, remember that. Now imagine the most incompetent worker or the most incompetent player in there and imagine suddenly they strike it rich. Suddenly something happens, someone leaves them an incredible fortune and they decide to buy the department or buy the team and make themselves the head. What happens?

Pretty soon that wonderful team or that wonderful department is a loser. It's a wreck. It's a mess. It's a disaster area because the wrong person's in charge. And Genesis tells us that when we, human beings, decided to be our own masters, when we decided to run our lives in the world without submission to God. And that decision, by the way, is a decision that most human beings reaffirm every day

that they live. That because of that, the world is a disaster area. Literally, because of that, the world doesn't operate properly. Death and disease and natural disaster and injustice and violence, all the things that create problems for us in our lives are the consequences of that decision. The wrong person in charge. Somebody who bought the team who doesn't know what he or she is doing. Now, yet, therefore here you have all this trouble that swirls around us, that's part

of our life in this world. The Bible tells us that when God puts His love on you, He puts a hedge around you. And what that means is that He monitors the flow of the pain and trouble into your life. God hasn't created all this nasty world. It's not the way He set things up, but now that we're here, when He puts His love on you, Romans 8.28 tells us this, a number of other passages tell us this, I'm not going to try to go into all those, I'll just tell you the principle. He monitors the flow of pains and troubles into your life.

The timing of them, the proportion of them, the nature of them are all according to his – did you read what it said there? – his appointment, his provision. He provided the vine, he provided the worm, he provided the scorching east wind. The word providence comes from the word provide. God's providence, that means the way in which He orders our lives, it's an old theological word, comes from that word. Why does God allow that to come in at all? The answer is, we live here. But He appoints these things out of His love. What? God using troubles? Appointing troubles?

Appointing worms in our lives? Appointing scorching east winds? Appointing circumstances like that and discomforts? Appointing disasters out of love? Yes. If you ever love somebody who is in a drunken state and you wanted to save his or her life, you know what you do, you go to them

and you can't reason with them, they, you know what you do? You go to them and you can't reason with them, they can't have a decent conversation with them. You have to do things they won't understand and will make them exceedingly mad and displeased. Just like Jonah. You know what happens? You say, I'm sorry, you can't drive home. And what do they say? They say, well, I see that everything you're doing is for my good. I can tell that I can't walk a straight line. Is that what they say? They say, give me those keys, you thief! That's my car, what are you doing?

They might try to hit you. Their aim isn't very good. But if the purpose of your love is ever realized, in other words, if they survive the night, someday they'll come to you and they'll say, if you hadn't done that, I don't know where I'd be. A milder example is parents. You know, the definition of a child is somebody who's mildly inebriated until they turn a certain age.

And a good parent is constantly doing what to Jonah, doing to their children what God did to Jonah. Constantly their children what God did to Jonah, constantly getting them exceedingly angry. If you really want to live for the present, if you're a selfish parent and you just don't want your kids mad at you, if you want to live for the present, then you can always give them their way

and just figure that later on they'll be selfish, undisciplined and maladjusted adults. Or you can decide, I'm going to make my love, I'm going to give my love a future orientation instead of a present orientation. I will not mind the fact that they're going to be mad at me today because I think about the future. My love has a teleological dimension. It's got to tell us.

It's got a purpose. It's got a future. I see where I want my child to be and the love I want to have with my child then, and so I give in. I don't give in right now to being present-oriented. And so God does the same thing with us. He looks at you and He looks at me and He says, I have a desire. Someday I want you to become the person that you and your deepest, inmost self want to be too.

That you most desperately want to be. You want to be a person of strength. You want to be a person of generosity, of integrity, of freedom, of conviction, of compassion. I want to see those things burning in you someday like the sun in full strength and therefore, I'm going to make your life rough right now." That's what you do to a drunk. That's what you do to a child. And you say, wait a minute, what would that have to do with me?

What would that have to do with me? Why would God do that to me? Because you are not so far in your natural human state from being a drunk or a child spiritually. Not at all. What God does is He tries to wreck your vines. in your natural human state from being a drunk or a child spiritually? Not at all. What God does is He tries to wreck your vines. What are your vines?

They are the things, they are your earthly life rafts. They are the things that you rest in. They are their image or their material goods or their relationships or their accomplishments. And these are things that if you really rest in them, if you really say, these are the things that give me my happiness, you'll be like a child at a mother's breast, always infantile. You know the story of the two lumberjacks that came to the... I alluded to it last week. The two lumberjacks came to a particular part of the forest and they

knew that over the next two weeks they had to bring down every tree in that part of the forest. And they noticed a bird, a mother bird making a nest in the tree. And they didn't want to see her do that. They didn't want her to be hurt. They didn't want her children to be killed. So what they did was they socked the tree with the flat of their ax, you know, to vibrate the tree so the mother was uncomfortable and left. But then she went into another tree with the flat of their ax, you know, to vibrate the tree, so the mother was uncomfortable and left, but then she went into another tree, the mother bird.

And then what they did was they socked that tree until she moved, until she moved, until she moved, until finally she took rest in the rock. She started building her nest in a rock, and they let her alone. Now, listen, isn't it possible that the reason you're struggling right now is because God in His refining love is shaking your tree.

He's rattling it. You see, you say, why is He doing this? Why do I have this physical trouble? Why do I have this relational trouble? Why do I have this financial trouble? And what God is saying is, do you see, do you realize if you want to be the person that you most want to be, I've got to show you, I've got to show you that you're, if you rest in these the person that you most want to be, I've got to show

you, I've got to show you that if you rest in these things, if you make these things your happiness, if you get your identity out of them, you will always be living on the edge of emotional disaster. You will always be a shallow person. Don't you want to be a person who's not subject to mood swings, that can take criticism and disappointment? Don't you want to be a humble yet confident person that's got a source of joy that circumstances of the world cannot mess with?

Don't you want to be a person like that? Then you have to let me draw you near to me like this. And someday, you will sit down with him and say, if you hadn't done that to me, I don't know what I would have done. Chances are you've heard some version of the story of Jonah. down with him and say, if you hadn't done that to me, I don't know what I would have done. Chances are you've heard some version of the story of Jonah, the rebellious prophet who defied God and was swallowed by a great fish. In his book, Rediscovering Jonah, Tim

Keller reveals hidden depths within the story, making the case that Jonah's rebellion also provides one of the most insightful explorations into the secret of God's mercy. As you learn what the book of Jonah teaches about prejudice, justice, mercy, self-righteousness, and much more, you'll gain fresh insight into how to become a bridge-builder in today's culture, how to foster reconciliation across lines of division, and with God's help bring peace where there is conflict. This month, when you give to Gospel in Life, we'll send you Dr. Keller's book, Rediscovering Jonah, as our thanks for your gift. Just visit GospelinLife.com slash give.

That's GospelinLife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity, which helps us reach more people with Christ's love. Someday. But what about now? You see, listen, somebody out there is saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is a strange teaching I'm hearing. I thought God was a God of love.

Where do you get with this? And you're standing in Jonah's shoes right now, and you're in great danger. Would you please stretch to understand this? You must. If you don't know God's, if you don't know the refining love of God, you cannot live in the real world. You'll have to deny the hardness of life or you'll have to deny at least it can happen

to you until it catches up with you and then you're going to have to dehumanize yourself a bit in order to survive emotionally. You see, if you know God's love as refining love, if you realize that there is love there but it's refining love, you won't be a cynic or a romantic, and those are the only two alternatives to being a Christian. Because a cynic has to dehumanize him or herself, a cynic has to say, yeah, well, it's not that important to me anyway. I don't really give. I don't really care.

It's not so big. I can handle it. That's a cynic. The romantic, you know what happens to the romantic? The romantic is saying, the world shouldn't be like this. It's not supposed to be this way. It can't be this way. And a Christian says,

I don't have to deny my pain or hate in it. My Heavenly Father is controlling in this situation and I'm going to find out what He wants to teach me. You can be a Christian, you can be a cynic, you can be a romantic, you give me another alternative, I don't know of any. Now, I've got to move on to, remember there's another heading over here, but just a couple of words to apply this and to drive this in. Your vines, right now God is probably dealing with your vines. You know, in the Old King James Bible, it doesn't call this a vine.

What does it call it? It calls it a gourd, G-O-U-R-D. And when John Newton years ago wrote a hymn about the suffering that Christians go through, and I printed it in the front, he refers to it. The hymn on the very front page of your bulletin is all about John chapter 4. He starts off by saying, I ask the Lord that I might grow in faith and love, and every grace might more of his salvation know, and seek more earnestly his face." And then he goes through a couple of stanzas showing you that instead when he asks God,

I want to be like you, I want to grow in freedom and grace, instead bad things started happening to him. And he says, "'Yea, more with his own hand he seemed, intent to aggravate my woe, crossed all the fair designs I schemed, blasted my gourds, see that, and laid me low, my comforts. Lord, why is this I trembling cried? Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death? Tis in this way the Lord replied, I answer prayers for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ from self and pride to set thee free, and break thy schemes of earthly joy, that thou mayst find thine all in me." You know, at this point, if you say, that's very interesting, I begin to see the reasoning behind it, I begin to see the logic behind it, but I don't see how in the world I can possibly, right now, trust and obey God in this.

And the thing I'm going through. You say, you're telling me that I must do it, but you're not telling me how to do it. Let me give you the only how I know. Let me give you the only one I know. It's always the same. You look at Jesus. When you look at Jesus Christ on the cross, look at the wisdom of that. Jesus Christ died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins. On the cross, God was able, on the one hand, to show his anger on sin, but on

the other hand, not show his anger to us. He was able to punish sin and save sinners at the same time. What incredible cosmic wisdom. But do you think on the day that Jesus Christ died that his loved ones and his followers stood around the cross and said, ah, there is the most wonderful example of the wisdom of God in history? Do you think so? Do you think they saw at that moment to be what we know it now to be? No, I'll tell you what. What they saw, what they said is, and we can see the hints of it in the text in the scripture when we read about it, they looked and they said, I don't see what good God could possibly

bring out of this. And so they turned their back on the greatest act of redemption and love and grace and wisdom in history and they said, I don't see what God can do because it didn't fit into their tidy little minds. It didn't fit into their tiny little idea about how God should be dealing with them. And is it possible that right now you are looking at God in that way? And because you don't see what's going on, because you can't see his wisdom, you deny that it's there. Because you can't understand it.

You're going to make the same mistake? Do you really need a degree in medicine before you go have surgery? I mean, as you're sitting there on the table, every time the doctor raises up an instrument, you say, why are you going to use that? I want to know what that is. I want you to tell me why you should be doing it. You have no right to do that to me until you explain fully what you're doing.

And at a certain point the doctor would say, until you are willing to take the role of a patient, I cannot assume in your life the role of a doctor. Look at the wisdom of God on the cross. Look at that and recognize there's a whole book written to explain what God was doing there, but you don't have a book right now for you. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It doesn't mean there isn't a book. Look at the wisdom of God in Christ on the cross, and also look and see how Jesus Christ bore his troubles on the cross, and there's your model. Look at him. When all the powers of hell

and even the wrath of his own father were arrayed against him, all that's... Now, that's trouble. He took it. You know why? He took it for us. What was his secret? He took it for us.

And now he comes to you and he says, that's all I'm asking from you. He says, I died in order to lose my glory. I suffered to lose my glory. You're just suffering to give up your idols, the things that keep you from me. I suffered to lose my father. You're suffering to gain him, to get near to him. Trust me.

Obey me. And my friends, the day that you finally say to Jesus Christ, all right Lord, you know what you're saying? You're saying number one, I promise to trust you and not be bitter anymore. And number two, I promise to look at myself and say, Lord, what do you want to change in me instead of me looking at you saying, here's what I want to change in you. And the day that you say, all right Lord, the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ leaps at your appreciation of what he did for you.

Now, there's another heading, but it's briefer. It's over here, remember? Do you know God's love is refining love? But you also have to remember that God's love is accepting love. It's seeking love. It's life-giving love. It's seeking love. It's life-giving love. And we can see it right smack dab in the center of the passage where here is God who finally has the right to say,

Jonah, I've had it with you. Again and again and again through this year life I have put up with you and I've dealt with you and I've reclaimed you and I've had it. And this is it. Instead, here is God. Can you almost see him kneeling down and saying, now Jonah, do you have a right to be angry?

Think about yourself, Jonah. Take a look at this. Here is God in the most gentle way giving to Jonah the thing that Jonah did not want God giving to the Ninevites, and that is patience, acceptance, and forgiveness. Because Jonah's behavior merits God's rejection. Instead, what does he get from God? You know what God is saying to him, in a sense? And he's saying to us, he says, Jonah, look at yourself. I love the Ninevites in spite of their violence.

I love you in spite of your arrogance. What's the big difference? Do you have any people in your life that are much more morally unworthy than you but are having a heck of a lot nicer lives than you? That's what Jonah's saying with the Ninevites. What God is saying to Jonah, he's saying to you. See, God is coming to Jonah and he's saying, would you stop looking at other people? I love them in spite of their violence. I love you in spite of your arrogance. What's the difference? Jonah, humble yourself and you'll be so much happier. And God's coming to you right this moment the way, you know,

in Aslan, the Christ figure, and those Christian fairy tales, the Narnia Chronicles, when Aslan comes and says, child, don't look at him, don't look at her. I'm not going to tell you anybody else's story but your own. Don't ask me why am I dealing with them that way. Don't ask me why I'm dealing with them that way. Don't you know that I don't give anybody what they deserve? If I did, there'd be nobody left. Just look at yourself and realize that I love you in spite of your pride, in spite of your self-centeredness. The reason you're so angry and displeased, Jonah, is because

you won't humble yourself and see the fact that my mercy in your life is completely unmerited and undeserved. That everything you ever enjoy that's better than hell in this life is sheer mercy. Good old Puritan statement, isn't it? It's biblical. Humble yourself, Jonah, and you'll be so much happier. And the other thing God, the other way God shows Jonah, just how all embracing and accepting his love is. It's refining, oh yes, but boy, is it embracing, is it accepting. He also uses the illustration of the vine. And he says, Jonah, you're real upset about the vine, and here you want me to nuke 120,000 people, and you're

ready to cheer from the sidelines as I do it." And he says, Jonah, he says, you're concerned about the vine, I'm concerned about the people. The word concerned is a very weak way to translate a Hebrew word that means to grieve or mourn over. And what God is saying to Jonah, and He's saying to all of us, He says, look what you weep over and look what I weep over. Look at what you love and look what I love. Your love flows inward. You are constantly worried about yourself. You're full of self-absorption. You're always weeping over your own troubles.

You're always weeping over your own problems. You know, see, to the unwashed, to the undeserving. Jonah, who are you really living for? Whose glory are you really living for? Whose glory are you absorbed in? Don't you see it's yourself? You know, when God talks about divine, what he's trying to say is, this is a familiar, comfortable thing. Don't you see that you're much more...

Don't you see how perverted your heart is, Jonah? Think about it. Remember that china plate that when it broke and you realized that, you know, your grandmother gave it to your mother who gave it to you? Remember when that... Remember the baseball glove you had since you were in second grade and your roommate threw it out, not thinking it was a piece of junk? Do you remember how you felt?

Remember how you felt like crying? Maybe you did cry. You can get that attached to the familiar. And what God is coming to say is, you're more concerned about your garden than about people. You're more concerned about a big pimple on your nose on Sunday morning than you are about perishing people. You weep over things like this. You weep for yourself.

And when's the last time you've wept for people that haven't got any food or worse than that, haven't got any God? Jonah, he says, who are you living for? Don't you see that if you would humble yourself, you would finally be happy? Don't you see that your love is just a kind of self-pity turned inward? It's love turned inward? Jonah, recognize that my love to you is completely undeserved. Rejoice in that. Stop comparing yourself to everybody else. Repent and let your love flow outward

the way my love flows. Now, conclusion? Here's the conclusion. The conclusion of it all. Basically, God is coming to us all at the end and speaking to us. And you know how you know that? The weirdest thing about this book, this book is a strange book because Jonah, you know, is given a job and then he falls down and God brings him back and then he falls down and God brings him back and he falls down and God brings him back and he falls down here at the very end and he's asking Jonah the final question, will you repent? Will you see that your life is completely

wrapped up in yourself? You really have been worshiping yourself? When are you going to finally serve me and live for my glory? And the book ends. Does that make any sense? You know, this is the climax. Will Jonah come through? What will happen?

And the book ends. This is the oddest thing. You know, it's one of the reasons I believe the Bible was not written by human beings merrily, because who could have thought things like this up? You know why it ends where it ends? Because you are Jonah. Because I am Jonah.

And it's like this last question is a spear being hurled at Jonah, and suddenly Jonah gets out of the way, and it's coming right at us. And here's the question. There may be some folks here who realize that, you know, you're religious, you may be very moral, you may be professing Christians, but I hope you see now your real religion is you live for yourself because you always preserve for yourself the right to decide whether God's will fits into your tidy understanding of how your life ought to go. You always preserve for yourself the right to decide whether God's will fits

into your tidy view of yourself and of how your life ought to go. And because you feel that way, there's a lot of misery in your life. You do not yet know God's love as a fire. You may believe in it in a general way, but you don't know it as a fire. If you knew it as a fire, first of all, you would say, you'd give yourself up. You'd say, I live for you. Because you see, a fire is warming, and therefore, you would know it's free, and therefore, you'd know that you're unworthy and you need its forgiveness. But on the other hand, the fire is refining, and therefore you'd be willing to forsake all

your sins and forsake living for anything else and live for Him. There was a man named Pascal. You've heard of him. He was a wonderful mathematician, great philosopher, maybe the greatest mind of the 17th century, or one of the greatest minds. When he died, they found something sewed into his shirt, a little wrapped up piece of paper. It was a journal. It was an account of an experience he'd had that was so overwhelming and life-shattering and life-transforming that he had written it down and sewed it into his shirt. And it said this, this day of grace, 1654, from about half past

ten at night to about half past midnight, fire. One word, one line, capital letters, fire. God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not a God of the philosophers and the wise. He can be found only in the ways taught in the gospel. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy." Fire! What happened to this philosopher? One day, he came to know the real God. He experienced God's love as a fire. And I can tell you right here that the only way that happened to him finally, his God was an abstraction and he suddenly became a reality, was the day that he stood in Jonah's shoes and heard God say, who are you really living for? Whose glory are you really living for? Humble yourself, Jonah, and you'll be

so happy. Take your hands off your life. Give yourself to me." And when Pascal did that, he knew fire. Not a God of the philosophers, not the God of the wise, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Joy, joy, joy. Tears of joy. Humble yourself in how happy you will be. And there's probably some people here in the room that say, look, I know God personally. I understand that. But I'm as cold as Jonah, I'm as bitter as Jonah, then will you hear the word of God? Turn your love back outward. Right now, unpack your self-pity

and start to weep over those things that God weeps over and rejoice over the thing God rejoices over. And when you get rid of your bitterness, you'll get rid of your boredom, those things appear and disappear together, you know. Bitterness and boredom, they come and go together. Say, Lord, I'm Jonah. I heard of you with my ears and I see you now with my eyes

and I repent in dust and ashes. Your fire, come in. Come in. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask now that you would grant that we would know you as you really are. We hear your question. Help us to weep for those things you weep over, to love the things that you love. Help us to know your love as it really is.

Help us to know you as a God whose love is a refinement, is refining fire, and life-giving fire. Father, every person in this room has heard a different thing from you. I pray that it was your word that spoke, and therefore everyone is feeling your finger on a different part of their lives. We ask now that you empower us to give to you what you have asked of us, and we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen. to your life. You can find more resources from Tim Keller by subscribing to our quarterly journal at GospelInLife.com. When you subscribe, you'll receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other valuable resources. We also invite you to stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was recorded in 1990. 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.