Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Healing From Decay

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

The themes of Christmas, if grasped, are life-transforming. We’re looking at the book of Isaiah, at the prophesies of the messiah. Because Christians believe the messianic king that Isaiah prophesied was Jesus, we believe these prophecies help us understand the richness of the meaning of Christmas and who Jesus is.  Isaiah 11 tells us three things about this great prophesied king: 1) the justice of the king, 2) the wisdom of the king, and 3) the identity of the king. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 15, 2013. Series: Jesus, Our Hope (Advent). Scripture: Isaiah 11:1-10. 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 teaching on the surprising expectation-defying and surpassingly hopeful meaning of the Christmas story. After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelinLife.com and sign up for our email updates. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. A reading from the book of Isaiah, chapter 11, verses 1 through 10. A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From his roots a branch will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord, and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears, but with righteousness he will judge the needy.

With justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. With the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt, and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra's den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.

The nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. The word of the Lord. Now each week what we're doing is we're looking at a passage, in December we are looking at a passage out of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah is an Old Testament prophecy, prophetic book, that often prophesied the Messiah, a great messianic king, being born into the world, out of the born into the world out of the line of Jesse or out of the line of David.

So there's a whole lot of prophecies. And because Christians believe that the messianic king that Isaiah prophesied was Jesus, at Christmas we often look at these passages because, and they're often read, some of them have already been read today, because we believe they help us understand the depths and the richness of the meaning of Christmas,

because it helps us understand who Jesus is. The themes of Christmas, if grasped, are life-transforming. So let's look at three of those right now that we find in this passage. This is telling us about a great king that's going to be born. Three things about the king. The justice of the king, the wisdom of the king, and the identity of the king. The justice, the wisdom, the identity. Look at the passage

with me. First of all, the justice. Take a look at the middle part here. It says in verse 4, With righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. At first sight, when it says he's going to judge the needy,

the way that comes out in English, usually to judge someone means to condemn them. That's not what it means. It literally means He's going to judge the needy, the way that comes out in English, usually to judge someone means to condemn them, that's not what it means. It literally means he will make things just for the needy. He will put things right. He will make the crooked straight. And when it says he will give decisions

for the poor of the earth, again, it doesn't come out as well in English. The word poor there is a word that means downtrodden, people without power. And to say he will give decisions for them, what it actually means is he's going to stand in their place and exercise his power. He's the great equalizer.

He's going to identify with the poor and give decisions on their behalf and use his power to make things right again for them. Now, at this point, you're getting the impression that this is going to be an enlightened civil servant. Some king who will come in and create more social justice, and that's great. But then the passage sort of bursts the banks, you

know, the water comes up and floods everything because then it says, look in verse six, very famous verses, the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together and the little child will lead them. The infant will play near the cobra's den, the young child will put its hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain." And this poetry is saying that this king is not just going to make the world a little bit better. He's going to get rid of death. He's going to get rid of disease. He's going to get rid of violence. He's going to get rid of disease. He's going to get rid of violence. He's going to get rid of suffering. He's going to make everything right.

Now, what's this mean? Christmas actually sheds some light on this. And that is that here we're told that this king is going to care about the poor and identify with the poor. But it's not until Christmas day that we know the lengths

to which this king will identify with the poor. Because Christmas means that the son of God was born into a poor family. Remember, his parents, when they went to get him circumcised at the temple, gave two birds as the sacrifice. That was, you know, back in those days, the sacrifice you gave depended on your income. That was from the poorest people gave two birds.

He was born into the poorest of families. He was, he did not come as a general or as a philosopher, but as a carpenter's son. And when, and look at his priorities. When he ministered, he didn't just preach the gospel, philosopher but as a carpenter's son. And look at his priorities. When he ministered, he didn't just preach the gospel, he also fed the hungry, healed the sick, raised the dead. So what's that mean for us?

We want to be in the spirit of Christmas. What does that mean? It means, among many other things, that that has to be our priority too. That not only must we be concerned about the poor, but we can't do it from afar. Jesus didn't come from afar. He didn't commute in to help the poor.

He participated. And in some non-paternalistic, non-patronizing way, we as a church, as an institution, need to figure out how to come alongside and be involved with the life of the poor. Many individual Christians need to individually and personally

Become deeply involved with the lives of the poor coming alongside non paternalistic we non patronizing Because that's what Jesus did. I'm though we can't go into this anymore. We don't it's a big subject We can't talk anymore about it, but the Christmas points us in that direction So first we see the justice of the king. Now the second Christmas theme that we see in here is the wisdom of the king. That's also a very important theme. Look up a little closer to the top.

It says the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, this Messianic king, and he will have a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, and have a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, he'll have a spirit of counsel and of might. Notice along with the might goes counsel, and that word counsel doesn't mean wisdom, just like the first two. It means not only does he have the power to do

what should be done, but he knows exactly what to do. He knows the best way to get it done, as well as having the power to get it done. Then it also says, notice, he will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears. That's another metaphor for wisdom. Why? Because if you just think back on all the, think of your most stupid choices in life, the most foolish things you've ever done. And almost always was because you went on appearances. It looked good, they looked good, he looked good,

she looked good, everything seemed fine. And you didn't have the wisdom to penetrate down to the reality and see. But see, this one has perfect wisdom. Now, the wisdom, the wisdom of Jesus, the wisdom of God, is one of the major themes at Christmas too. Because when you take a look at the Christmas passages, one of the things that's always part of the Christmas story is those wise men. What is that up? What's up with that? The wise men,

they come and they bow down and they offer gifts. It's a metaphor, it happened of course, but it was also a metaphor for this theme. That the wisdom of the world pales before the wisdom of God. And that especially in Jesus Christ's plan of salvation, the way in which God saved the world through Jesus, which began at Christmas. The wisdom of the world is seen to be foolishness because

Christmas in particular, but actually all of Christ's career, but at Christmas we see a violation of the paradigms of the world's wisdom. And a front, everything that Jesus does turns the wisdom of the world on its head. Let me just give you two examples. Two of the world's wisdom paradigms that Christmas is an affront to, it's a violation of.

First of all, Christmas and the way in which God brings Jesus in the world, the way in which salvation works, is an affront to the world's understanding of success. It's a paradigm of success. Kathy, and those of you who heard this the first time, I actually got the story wrong. So Kathy has helped me with this.

My wife Kathy years ago heard a talk, or a Christian sermon or a talk, by a guy who was trying to get, the speaker was trying to get across how the wisdom of God is different than the wisdom of the world. He had actually seen at a football, he was at a football game, PAX Stadium,

and at halftime, the Blue Angels, which is a Navy aeronautical acrobatic squadron, these are Navy pilots, crack Navy pilots who do all sorts of death-defying feats in jets. At one point they sort of dove toward each other. One of the things that the Blue Angels do is they look like they're about to crash and then they pull up at the last minute. This was all over the football stadium. And then when they were all done, they helicoptered them, the pilots into the 50 yard line and they jumped out

and they were in these incredible suits with, they were silver and blue and they had a zipper from here to here and everybody roared and cheered 50,000 people. And the speaker said, okay, if you're the son of God, you want to come to Earth, that's how you do it. Right? That's how we would do it That's not how God did it at all

You know urine smell feed trough stable poor parents or to let me put a fine point on it How does strategic planning work? Well, in strategic planning, you get everybody together and you put up on the board your end state, your vision. What are you trying to achieve? What is the end state you're trying to achieve? And once you've identified where you want to go, then you start to strategize, how will we get there?

Now, imagine that you bring your best friends together and you say, we want to have a strategic planning meeting. And your friends friends together and you say, we want to have a strategic planning meeting. And your friends come together and you say, okay, I really want to be successful, very successful in life and I want you to help me to strategically plan for it. I say, okay, well what's the end state? So let's just say you put up on the board,

I want to be so successful that 2,000 years from now, everybody in the world virtually knows my name. Okay, put that up there. Secondly, I would like a quarter of all the people in the world 2,000 years from now to center their entire lives on me. Okay? And thirdly, I would like my teaching

to be seen 2,000 years from now as the single most important body of thought in the history of the world. And I would like to have two or three major civilizations based on my person and my work and my teaching. Okay, 2,000 years from now. Well, that's pretty successful, isn't it? Yeah, that's right.

They say, okay, so how do we get there? So you start strategically planning. Would you put up things like this? Would you say, okay, so how do we get there? So you start strategically planning. Would you put up things like this? Would you say, well, make sure you're born and you spend your entire life basically in small out of the way villages, never go, you know, don't have a career in a major city or major urban area or cultural center. Make sure you stay totally, totally outside of any networks of economic, political, social, or academic power.

In fact, make sure you don't know anybody in those networks. And then lastly, just as you're beginning your career, get executed in disgrace. Would you put those things up? Nobody, nobody would put those things up. But that was on God's strategic planning board. Because why? Because the wisdom of God makes the wisdom of the world look foolish.

And in the wisdom of the world, the wisdom of God is foolish. But God's wisdom wins. From everyone here at Gospel in Life, we want to thank you for the ways you've partnered with us in 2024. We're so grateful for your faithful prayers, for your generous gifts, and for how you've shared our resources to live out the gospel missionally. And we rejoice in the stories we've heard this year from people who have been renewed by the gospel teaching they've received through our podcasts, YouTube videos, radio broadcasts, and other resources.

God is using your gifts to bring the transformative story of the gospel to people around the world. Looking ahead to 2025, we believe God is opening up new opportunities for us to spread the message of Christ's love. As we approach the end of December, we invite you to prayerfully consider making a year-end gift to Gospel in Life. Your support helps us to move into the new year with the resources we need to share the story of the Gospel all over the world, making it possible for more people to discover the life-changing reality of Christ's redeeming love.

To make a year-end gift today, go to GospelInLife.com slash give. That's GospelInLife.com slash give because the gospel truly changes everything. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's message. God went about it in a completely different way, completely violating. It's an affront to the wisdom of the world. Their paradigm of success and what creates success and what brings about world-changing influence, Jesus did it all in the wrong way.

Because, why? Because he was characterized by the wisdom of God. Let me give you one other way in which Christmas violates the paradigms of the world. Christmas is a miracle. Now, I'll show you, it's in the passage here, but we're not here yet. But you know, the story of Christmas is that

Jesus Christ was born into the world. That the pre-existing Son of God was born to a virgin because it was a miraculous birth. Well, let me tell you another paradigm the world's got. They always come up with new ones. I mean, the world's paradigms aren't always the same, but they always make, they, they all, whatever the paradigm of the world at the time,

Christianity always looks stupid to the powerful and the elite of the world. So, 100 years ago, about 100 years ago, there was a huge division inside the Christian churches and the Christian institutions of North America and Europe, basically about 100 years ago. And what many people started saying was this, the world has shown us now that everything

has a scientific explanation. The world has now shown all the smart people know that everything has a scientific explanation. Everything has a natural cause. And that miracles can't happen. The supernatural doesn't happen. And because the world has told us that, we're gonna have to change Christianity

if it's gonna survive at all. See, one of the problems we have is this book. It's just filled with miracles all over. And if Christianity is going to survive, we've got to find a way of extracting from the Bible the ethical principles that everybody can accept, that the world can accept. We should love one another.

We should work for social justice. We should understand that all people are the children of God and the image of God. That's fine. But we can't believe in a pre-existing deity, Jesus Christ being born of a virgin. We can't believe in a bodily resurrection. We can't believe in an infallible inspired Bible.

We can't believe that everybody needs to have be miraculously converted through the power of the Holy Spirit, the new birth. We can't believe that everybody needs to have be miraculously converted through the power of the Holy Spirit, the new birth. We can't believe in those things. And therefore, there was this great division. It was humongous. Every major Christian denomination, every major institution, college, university, and the people who

won, the people who basically took most of those institutions said, we've got to confront what the world is saying. The world is saying, we're going to laugh at you, we're not going to respect you. You know, no smart people are going to want to come to your church unless you get rid of the supernatural. You've got to get rid of the miracles.

And so many, many churches went in that direction and extracted the ethical. Now, here's what's so interesting. The reason I know this, I can see this story because I was educated 40 years ago or so when people still thought that was the trajectory. But here's what we know now 100 years later, that the churches and the Christian institutions

that embraced the wisdom of the world are all in steep decline. the wisdom of the world are all in steep decline. And yet Christianity is growing like crazy across the world in places nobody ever thought it would. And it's a supernatural religion. Some of you know that over a hundred, basically about a hundred years, Africa went from about 5% Christian to 50% Christian.

Some of you know that Korea went from zero to 40% Christian in about 100 years, that China is in the process of doing something similar now. This is changing the history of the world. This is changing the face of human history. And what kind of Christianity is it? It's supernatural Christianity. You know why?

Because when those smart people said, well, we have to do, if we're gonna have the world to embrace Christianity, you've gotta get rid of the supernatural elements, it's just gotta be ethical principles, live a good life. You know what that did? It turned Christianity, or the Christianity that was left, into a self-improvement religion.

You gotta suck it up, you gotta pull it together. And that only works for people in prosperous, comfortable countries. You know, it turned it into an elitist thing. But what about the wretched of the earth? What about most people in the world? The message of Christmas is that God has miraculously

punched a hole in the barrier between heaven and earth, and he's broken into time and space, and now there's hope, now there's mercy, and now there's power, see? And that, of course, actually, is something that changes lives. Do you not see, especially if you live in New York City, New York City is one of, if not the capital of the world. Which means there's no place on the face of the earth

where Christianity will look more ridiculous than here. Because the world has always, always, this has been the message from the beginning. They said it in Rome, you know, they've, over and over again, the world looks at Christianity and says, come on, get with the program. Nobody, nobody's smart, no smart, respectable people are gonna accept you unless you get with the program,

unless you change with the times, unless you get rid of this, unless you get rid of this. The world's always laughed at Christianity, yet in the end, God gets the last laugh. The world has always said, we're wise and you're foolish, but in the end, the wisdom of the world is shown as foolishness. And yet, of course, the world gets new paradigms

all the time, and they always make Christianity look bad, but Christianity will continue to grow century after century, millennium after millennium, because it's characterized by the wonderful foolishness of God. Which we see in particular, clear focus in that manger. There was glory in the manger and nobody saw it. Okay, now lastly, I said to you that Christmas

is about a miracle and there's a miracle even in this text and it also shows you why Christianity's faith will always refute the wisdom of the world. Look at it. Who is this king? What's the identity of this king? In verse one it says, "'A shoot will come from the stump of Jesse.'"

Now that's a metaphor. It's a biological, botanical metaphor. And what a shoot that comes out of a stump, or a shoot or a branch that comes out of a tree means you have descended from someone. You have come out of someone else. And so it's saying that this Messianic king will come out of Jesse, who's the father of David.

It's simply a metaphor for saying this will be a descendant, a physical descendant of David and Jesse But if you go down to verse 10 and we read this and probably I mean Many years I read this without noticing what the implication It doesn't just say that this Messiah is the shoot of Jesse, but he's also the root of Jesse It says in that day the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples and the nations will rally to him and his resting place will be glorious.

But wait a minute. Your root is something that you've grown out of and there what it's saying is that Jesse came from him and David came from him. Now wait a minute. How can someone be both shoot and root of David and Jesse? How could someone both be a descendant of David and Jesse and at the same time the source of David and Jesse? And there's only one answer, you know, as crazy as it is, especially in the eyes of the world. And that is that God, the creator God, who is the root of all of

us, who's the source of all of us, that creator God was born into the world as a weak human being and he came as a descendant of David. So he's the God-man. Jesus Christ is the God-man. Now this is the miracle right there of Christmas, but it's also an explanation of why Christmas is so category breaking for the world. The world understands two kinds of religion perfectly well. They're nice and flat, they're nice and simple. They understand a religion of wrath. The world understands a religion of wrath is a religion in which God's law is, there it is, God's law, 10 commandments, whatever, and if you're good, God will bless you

and take you to heaven if you're good enough. But if you're bad, wrath comes upon you. And the world understands that kind of religion. It's very simple. It's actually very black and white. There's the good people. Try to be one of the good people. There's the bad people.

We hate the bad people. God's gonna have wrath on the bad people. Nice, simple, everybody understands that kind of religion. And then the other kind of religion, besides the religion of wrath, is the religion of acceptance. Complete acceptance. That view conceives God as just a sort of

spirit of love in the world. I believe in a God of love, it says. And you have to decide what is right or wrong for you, and you shouldn't tell anybody else that their choices are wrong. Because basically, because we have a God of love, we just accept everyone. Everyone is included, everything is acceptable. We accept everyone, we love everyone, and that the world understands that kind of religion too. Wrath religion, you know, total acceptance religion. But Christmas shows that Christianity is neither of those.

And I'm glad. You know why? Because both of those are basically religions of the self. Those are religions that are just about you. In both cases, you summons it up. You make the decisions. You decide what is wrong for you You work it together and you you summon up all your your if you're in the religion of wrath You're though it's up to you to be good if you're in a religion of acceptance It's up to you to decide how to live your life and which way you want to go in both cases You're getting no help. It's again It's the elitist self-improvement religion that only works for the few people in the world

who are living very comfortable lives, and those of us who are living in the comfortable part of the world, usually it only works for part of our life anyway. But Christianity is infinitely richer and more multi-dimensional. How do we know? Because the one born in a manger is not just human, he's not just divine, he's the God-man. And what that means is, first of all, he's not just divine, he's the God-man, and what that means is,

first of all, he's not just one more religious founder, one more prophet or sage come to tell you how to find God. You know, pull yourself together and find God. No, he's God come to find you. But he's also not God just come to tell you their law. He's God come to die, that's why he came weak to go to the cross and this is why Christianity so transforming It's not just religion of wrath, but it's not just a religion of acceptance It's a religion of grace and grace is costly love. Listen everybody. Grace is costly love

Grace is this first of all, there is wrath. Oh yes, there is. There's wrath on sin. We aren't living like we should. It says so in here. There's lots of evil, there's lots of injustice. There's selfishness and pride in your own heart. You've done terrible things. Every one of us has done things we deserve

to be condemned for. And therefore, there is wrath. And there is wrath on our sin. But, on the other hand, God comes into the world and goes to the cross himself and takes the punishment we deserve. He satisfies his own wrath. And he does it at infinite cost to himself. Now, why don't I look at that?

Costly love, not just wrath, not just acceptance, but God's love satisfying his own wrath. To see the law by Christ fulfilled and hear his pardoning voice transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice. Did you hear that? To see the law by Christ, by love fulfilled, love fulfilling the law. And when I see God doing that, that changes me. That melts my heart.

If I embrace that, that begins to transform me. He would love me like that. See, on the one hand, that convicts me not just to live any old way I want, but on the other hand, it doesn't put any pressure on me to say I've gotta live up. Oh no, this is a faith for everybody, not just the pull together types. This is a faith for everybody, not just the pull together types.

This is a faith for everybody. That's the reason why it's so universal. That's the reason why it's spreading the way it is. This is the wonderful foolishness of God. Hey, what are you basing your life on? What are you hoping is gonna help you face death and face the inevitable sufferings of life? What are you hoping is going to give you self-esteem and a feeling of self-worth? What is it? Is it your career? Is it the hope that you're going to find

that incredible someone? Is it, you know, love and romance? Is it art and the aesthetics? Is it losing yourself in narrative and story? What is it you're hoping is gonna get you through it? If it's anything but God himself, you're listening to the wisdom of the world and I can tell you whatever it is you're basing your life on will desert you in the end, disappoint you on the way,

and eventually it will desert you, everything does. But Christmas means the wisdom of God has been revealed. He's come to do something you couldn't do for yourself. He's come to miraculously break into this world and you must embrace that. Now if you do and you live in New York, most of your friends are gonna think you're a fool because that's the way of it.

But as Saint Paul said, if anyone is to be wise, let him become a fool that you may become wise. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that at Christmas, your wisdom was revealed and it shows the wisdom of the world to be a pale and thin and weak thing. We ask that you would teach us how to follow this great Messianic King in the way of wisdom, give us a spirit of wisdom and understanding,

give us a spirit of counsel and might. Teach us how not to go on appearances, but to know how things really are. And most of all, help us to embrace that remarkable wisdom that was revealed to us in the gospel and began on Christmas Day Father we pray all this in Jesus name. Amen Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast If you found today's teaching helpful and something you'd like more people to hear, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner.

Your partnership helps more people discover the hope and joy of Christ's love. Just visit gospelinlife.com slash partner to learn more. Today's sermon was preached in 2013. 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.