Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Hope for Your Work

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

How does the gospel give us hope? And how does that hope shape our public life? We’re looking at how hope shapes the way in which we live our lives—not just in giving us inner peace and not just in our family life, but in our public life out in the world. In particular, how does hope shape the way in which we do our work?  We’re going to see 1) the passion of hope, 2) the case study of hope, and then 3) the reason for hope.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 25, 2009. Series: The Gospel, Hope, and the World. Scripture: Titus 2:11-3:9. 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.

Are you struggling to find meaning and purpose in your work? We spend most of our lives at our jobs, but our work can often be the area where we feel the most frustration and futility in our lives. Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller helps us understand how the Gospel frees us to have hope and joy in our vocations. After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll start receiving our quarterly newsletter

with articles from Dr. Keller, as well as other great gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelandlife.com. The scripture this morning is from Titus, chapter two, verses, chapter 2, verses chapter 2, verse 11 to chapter 3, verse 9. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright,

and godly lives in this present age. While we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own eager to do what is good. These then are the things you should teach, encourage

and rebuke with all authority, do not let anyone despise you. Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men. At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us. Not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior so that having been justified by

His grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone. But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. This is the Word of the Lord.

Let me repeat that right after this service, I'm going to give you a little presentation for those of you who are willing to stay, where Redeemer is going to go for the next 10 years. Actually, I'm more excited and more clear about that than I have been since the beginning of the church. So what we're going to do is I'll do the benediction. There won't be a postlude. Rather out for a couple of you know 90 seconds, 120 seconds or so, I'll stand up here while those of you who need to go or lots of good reasons you may have been in on a presentation like this in the past or in the last month or so can go.

So the rest of us can stay and I'm also going to end the service earlier so that you don't feel like you won't be held here much longer, a whole lot longer than you usually do. But usually are. However, I really would like you to stay. That's my point. So, meanwhile, sermon. Let's have a sermon. And so, we're looking this fall and discussing each week in your groups what redeemer is here

to do in the city. And each week we're looking at how the gospel gives us hope and that hope shapes the way in which we live in the city. And in this case, we're looking at how hope shapes our public life, not just our inner giving us inner peace, not just our family life, but our public life out in the world. And in particular, how it shapes the way in which we do our work. And I'd like to look at the text, though it's a very rich text,

it's much in it, but we're only going to look at it with regard to this, how the gospel hope shapes our public life. And I'd like you to see the passion of hope, the case study, we're going to apply this to work, the case study of hope, and then the reason for hope. The Passion of Hope, a case study of hope, and the reason we can have this hope. First, the force of hope, or pardon me, the Passion or the force.

Look at verse 13 and 12. It says, we wait for the blessed hope. The glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. And what does that lead to? We're waiting for the second coming, which is called the blessed hope. And it says, that creates what, a people who are eager to do what is good, passionate to do what is good. And it actually says in verse 12, who are able to lead upright lives. Now let's, let me pull all this together quickly. Do you think that if you believe in the return of Jesus Christ, visible personal, historical event in the future, that that makes you somebody like the folks that stand on the street corner with the end is near

sign. You know, they never shaved for some reason. And you feel like it's because it's pretty clear that they don't really care what happens this world because it's going to end any moment. So if you believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ that could come any time, does that mean you don't care about this world? No, not at all. Not only does the Bible when it brings up the

second coming of Christ, and by the way, it does a lot. In the New Testament, it's mentioned like 300 times, one out of very 13 verses is about the second coming, but it's never brought up to get you to speculate about the end. You know, even Jesus says in Matthew 24 verse 36, he says, even he, when he was on earth, didn't know when the second coming was going to happen. Now, the whole point of bringing up the second coming is always, it's always brought up by Paul or John or Jesus, whoever brings it up, in order to get you passionate about living now, passionate about living here. How's that work? Well, for example, Neal Plantingen, his book Engaging God's

World says this, quote, the second coming is good news for people whose lives are filled with bad news. If you are a slave in Faraz Egypt or in the Southern United States in the early 20th century, early 19th century, or if you're an Israelite exiled in Babylon or a Kosovoire exiled in Albania. If you are a woman in a culture where when the husband is mad at you, he can lock you in a closet or call up his buddies and threaten to have them rape you. If you're a Christian in Sub-Saharan Africa today where AIDS is devastating whole populations, you don't yon when somebody mentions the return of Jesus. The coming of the kingdom depends on the coming of the king,

and the coming of the king means justice will at last fill the earth. Now what that means is, he says finally, passionate Christians want the return of the Lord and so do compassionate ones. Okay, let's just think this out. If you long for Christ's appearing, then you long for the conditions that will accompany that appearing. And what are the two basic things that will happen when He comes back?

He will be known. Every eye will see Him. All will know His truth. And the end of death disease just injustice suffering hunger. And therefore, if you care about the second coming, he says it makes you passionate and compassionate to do the same two things. You want everyone to know him

and you also wanna see the end of suffering and disease and injustice and so forth. And therefore, he's saying anyone who longs for the appearing of Jesus is eager to do good, eager to call people to believe, and eager to love and sacrifcially serve everybody, whether they believe or not. But that's what makes you compassionate and passionate. And we're told in verse 13, it says, it makes you live upright lives.

Now that word upright, the translation is a little obscure things. That word is a very important word. It means it's the word de-cuyos, which means justice. It means to live a just life. Now what does it mean to live justly in the world? Bruce Walke, famous Bible scholar, says this, after having read the whole Bible and looking at this idea of what it means to be righteous or just, see when you and I see the word righteous in the Bible, we almost immediately think of private morality. We think of don't cheat on your spouse and tell the truth and go to church and pray and so forth. But that's not what the word means.

The word righteous means to live justly in the world. And this is what Bruce Wolffke says, quote, in the Bible, the just are those who are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community. The unjust are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves. And then he goes on and says this, most people think of being unrighteous as lying or committing adultery, and of course that is true. But unrighteousness or living with a lack of justice goes beyond that. Proverbs

3.27 says, do not withhold good when it is in your power to act. A just person is someone who lives in the constant recognition of the claims of human community upon you. And therefore, it is unrighteous to not feed the poor when you have the power to do so, to take so much income out of your business that your own employees are paid poorly, or to be too busy with your own concerns

to look in on your elderly neighbors. See what he's saying? When the Bible says you live an upright life, it means you live a just life, which means you constantly sense, recognize, feel, the claims of human community on you. Bruce Walke says, a just person sees his or her resources as belonging to the human community around you, whereas a wicked person is someone says, these are mine. These are just

mine. And the blessed hope turns you into a just person, a person who is incredibly civic-minded, a person who is incredibly public-minded, passionate for public justice, passionate. And that's the first thing we see. And it's very, very important to recognize. However, what I want to... And by the way, just if I was spending more time, I could just show you, if you look at verses one to three of chapter three, you see how this believing in the blessed hope,

making you a people eager to do what is good. Living just lives, it leads to verse one, remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do so, whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all. That's not just talking about private life. It's talking about your public life, being law-abiding, working for peace and society, showing a servant, humble servant attitude toward

all people, all beliefs, all races, all the groups, working for peace, with all the groups out there, and mostly ready to do whatever is good. And all the commentators say, this cannot just mean ethical goodness in general, this is the common good. What is, what would be the best thing for our city that would everybody would benefit, maybe to make the public schools better, okay?

Then that's something we care about. That's what we're talking about here. The passion that Christian Hope creates. The blessed hope makes you a people eager to do good to work for the common good. That's the point. First point. Now, the second point. I'd like to take what Titus is told here about how the gospel affects your public life and apply it to one area. Because for Redeemer, this is a very important area. We believe in helping people integrate their faith with their work.

The fact is that most Christians seal off their faith from their work. They are Christians and the weekends or in their private life, but when it comes to their job, they have a tendency to just say, I'm going to avoid anything that's immoral or illegal and not think about it. But we must. Ephesians 6 says, you're always working to God. God is looking at you work. Colossians 1 says, Christ needs to be preeminent over every part of your life.

Verse, Corinthians 10, we're told that every single thing you do must be done for the glory of God. And in John chapter 17, Jesus says, oh, I don't want my disciples to go out of the world. I want you in the world, but not of the world. I want you to be deeply involved with it, but different.

And that means we have to look at what we do. And we have to try to find out how the gospel hope shapes how we work. That's a big part of our public life. When the text says, how you live out there in the world has to be shaped by gospel hope. Well for many of us, the biggest part of what we do in the world is our work. And so we have to think it out. And it's not an easy thing to think out at all.

Many people, if you're a moralist, that is to say, if you really are sure that God only loves you because you're keeping all the rules, if you don't believe the gospel of grace very well or don't understand it or don't accept it, or haven't really imbibed it. Then you will find that this area you hate because you are the kind of person who wants to know exactly and went everything down in black and white. Everything has to be very, very specific. I want to know exactly what it means to be a Christian person in business, exactly what it means to be a Christian artist, exactly.

And you know what, you don't get exacts. You don't get little rules and regulations you get trajectories, you get guidance, which are very important. I'm gonna show you what they are in a second here. But you don't always get exactly what to do. There's very difficult issues that Christians have to be brought together to talk about

inside their vocations. So for example, your Christian in the financial world, are there certain financial instruments that are used regularly in an exploitative way? Sure there are. Are you part of a financial institution in which that is happening? Maybe you don't want to think about it, but you have to think about it because it crisis to be permanent in every area of your life Everything you do has to be part of the glory of God

If you're in promotion or if you're in marketing or advertising when is the promotion that you're working on encouraging idolatry? You know when is it what when is the ad actually? Appeal to a person's insecurity and actually suggest to them in the ad that if you were as beautiful as this model then your troubles would be over. You know, where are you as a Christian now participating

in helping idolatry, cultural idolatry move forward in the hearts of people? Well, maybe as a Christian, I wanna think about it. Or I want to know exactly what adds a Christian can create and which ones they can't. Or what stories and actor, a Christian actor can act in and which ones she can. And you don't get the rules, you get trajectories.

Some people hate that. Especially people who don't know they're saved by grace, who want everything, I only feel right with God when I'm following all the rules. Well, guess what? That kind of moralism is deadly in this area. And yet you have to go here. The Bible says you have to bring the Lordship of Christ into every area of your life. Well, then what are the trajectories? Here's three. They're in the text and they will affect how you work, though you have to work out the details of it in the community.

First, here's what the three are. They are actually motivation. The gospel has something to do with your motivation, proportion, and consolation. Motivation, proportion, and consolation. Brief here. First of all, motivation. Why do you work and why do you take the job you have? Some secular people say, basically, I take a job just so I can make money. And you know, you do have to eat. So sometimes that's the way it works. Other people say,

I don't want a job just to make money. I want a job that's emotionally fulfilling. See, and people who take jobs because they're emotionally fulfilling look down their nose and people who take jobs is because they make money. And, of course, obviously, you need to do a work that you don't utterly hate and that fits your abilities and talents somewhat. But the Bible here tells us three times, in verse 13, pardon me, yeah, verse 14, in verse 1, and then back down here in verse 8 again, that Christians are people who are concerned about the common good,

and what this means is, ultimately, you have to ask the question, is my work helping human beings to flourish in some way? Is it building up human community? I gotta ask that question. And I've gotta take work that may not be as financially fulfilling, or even as emotionally fulfilling, if I know I can do it in a way

that it actually comports with human flourishing. Now that's kind of something of a high-falutin word, but we need to go back to the original Old Testament spot where the first couple, Adam and Eve, are given a job and the first job was gardening. And gardening is a paradigm for all work. Now what does a gardener do? A gardener is not a park ranger who just walks around

and doesn't touch it. Nothing against park rangers. That doesn't fit my illustration. A gardener also is not pave over the garden. Nothing against developers. It just doesn't fit the illustration. A gardener is someone who digs up the ground

and rearranges the raw material of the soil to produce something that human beings actually need. What do they need? They need food or they need flowers for their physical or emotional needs. Now all work essentially is that. It's taking raw material and rearranging it to give human beings something they need.

So music is taking the raw material of sound and rearranging it. It takes a lot of work, by the way, to give us sounds that are meaningful, called music, that lift us, that change us, that help us. An architect takes the raw material of the earth and creates a bridge, creates a building, creates a street. And these are things that human beings need if we're going to live in community, or if we're going to need it, if we're going to survive the winter. Stories, writers and actors act out stories,

they take the raw material of human experience and create stories that teach us or help us or give us meaning. Adventure capitalist is somebody who takes the raw material of an idea usually or a talent and Resources and you put them together and you have new enterprises and you have new products that add value to life and new jobs So all work is re-arranging some kind of raw material to give people what human beings need. Are you doing that? Of course, you probably are. I suppose there are some jobs

in which you're producing something that nobody needs, but it makes money, because people buy it, even though it's bad for them. Christians just stay away from them. What are those? I don't have so much time. And I'm not trying to dodge. I'm just trying to say there's, there are, but you can imagine, on the other hand, are

there not some jobs that are not producing things as much for human flourishing as others? Here's what Christians will do. Christians will always say, in my workplace, on my job, in my work, am I helping people flourish spiritually and physically and emotionally and relationally and socially? And I'm going to do that work even if it's not as professionally fulfilling, it's not as emotionally fulfilling, as not as financially fulfilling because that's the bottom line what people need. That's going to influence the jobs you take. It's going to influence, if you use that as a straight edge,

it's going to influence how you do your jobs and the kind of job you do, or the even the department in which you work in the career that you have. Number one, that's motivation. Secondly, proportion. It's estimated that most of us spend half of our waking hours at work. How does the wisdom of the Bible apply to our careers? In other words, how can our work connect with God's work and help us make our vocations more emotional? In his book, Every Good and Devar, Tim Keller draws from decades of teaching on work and calling to show you how to find true joy

in your work as you serve God and others. The book offers surprising insights into how the Christian view of work can provide the foundation of a thriving, professional and balanced personal life. Every good endeavor is our thank you for your gift to help gospel and life share Christ's love with more people around the world. Just visit gospelonillonlife.com slash give. That's gospillonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. There's a word here that's one of my favorite words. It's the word epithemia which means inordinate desires. It says, at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. And that word enslaved by all kinds of passions, that word is a negative word.

It means an over-desire. It means an inordinate desire, a drive for something that's good, but it's become an addiction to you. Most people in New York do not come to New York to have a life. If you come to New York, you have a life, you've come to work. And therefore there may be other places where I don't have to beat this drum, but here I do. And that is that most of us who come to New York don't just want to work. Very often we want to get a self out of our work. We are, we've made it.

We've worked ourselves under the ground to get into that school, or to get into that job, and we've made it. And now we're, and to trouble with overwork, disproportionate work, because it's become an addiction, because we don't feel good about ourselves unless we're accomplishing something. We don't feel good about ourselves unless we're accomplishing something. We don't feel good about ourselves unless we can say, I have that job. The problem with talking about this in New York, it's the problem of talking to fish about

water. If you talk to a fish and say, tell me about water, the fish will say, what's water? I mean, fish doesn't know what water is, the fish has never been out of water. If you talk to a New Yorker about overwork, they'll say the same thing. What's overwork? How would I know what it is? I mean, it's not overwork. Everybody works like this in New York.

But if it's true that you're saved by grace, if it's true that verse 5, he saved us not because of righteous things we have done. Having been justified by grace, we become heirs of the hope of eternal life. The average New Yorker is justified by their work. I feel right, I feel good, I feel okay because of my work. And if the gospel really penetrates the heart, it makes you proportionate in your work. It enables you to rest, it enables you to not put it ahead of family and relationships,

not put it ahead of your health, not put it ahead of your sanity, not put it ahead of maybe actually, another job that doesn't give you as much status or money, but is one in which you can have a balanced life. Oh, yes. The gospel creates a proportionateness that really affects the way in which you work. So there's motivation, there's proportion, and finally, consolation. An awful lot of people ratchet back and forth in their life, between idealism,

through my work, I'm gonna get this done, I'm gonna write the great American novel, I'm gonna accomplish this, I'm gonna see this, I'm gonna get justice done in the world, I'm bled ever, to cynicism after a few years. Nothing ever really changed in this world, there's nothing I've been beating my head against the wall, but what we have is a blessed hope. What a blessed hope. Jesus Christ is coming back and when He comes back

He's going to put everything right. That means on the one hand right now we do not expect everything to go well. But on the other hand we do know the world we want is coming. And what does that mean? J.R.R. Tolkien told a story when he was experiencing writer's block because he couldn't write his big novel, his fantasy novel, Lord of the Rings. He was in the middle of it and he just couldn't seem to get it finished. And he wrote a short story in the middle of that called Leaf by Niggle. And it's about an artist. And he's in a little town and the town has a public building and they ask Niggle, and it's about an artist, and he's in a little town, and the town has a public

building, and they ask Niggle, the artist, to do a mural on the side of the public building. And he takes the money, and he begins to work, and he goes on for months, and then he goes on for years. And when people walk by, they see that all he's done is one little part of the side of the building in which he's drawn a leaf. And it's pretty clear he's trying to draw a tree, but he's just drawing a leaf. And they start to berate him and they say, what's going on? We spent all this money. It's been a long time.

Where's the mural? And he says, I'm working on it. I'm working money, you know, it's been a long time, where's the mural, and he says, I'm working on it, I'm working, I can't quite, I just can't get it, I'm working on it and then he dies. And he's on a train going to heaven. And suddenly he sees something off to the side and he runs to it. And this is what it says, he saw.

Before him stood the tree, his tree finished. It's leaves opening, it's branches growing and bending in the wind. That Niggle had so often felt and guessed, and yet had so often failed to catch. He gazed at the tree and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide. It's a gift, he said. See, here's an artist and he could envision a tree, but he could never get out more than a leaf in his lifetime. But the tree existed. It's there. Now, let's just say you go into city planning as a young person.

Why? You're so excited about cities and you've got a vision of what a real city ought to be unless you understand this. That someday, well, there will be, the earth will be filled with the greatest city, the New Jerusalem, and everything about it will be perfect. You're going to be discouraged because throughout your life you're only ever going to get a leaf or a branch done. Let's just say you're a lawyer and you go into law because you have this vision of justice. You've got a vision of justice. Let's like the urban planner as a vision of a city. And in a couple, in the 10 years,

you're going to be incredibly disillusioned because you're going to find that as much as you're trying to work on things, so much of what you do as minutiae or it's it, and once or twice in your life, you feel like you finally got a leaf out. You need to know this. There is a tree. There will be justice.

There will be the city, the justice, the beauty, the story, whatever it is that you're seeking to accomplish, it's there. And you won't be shocked now by just getting a leaf or two out in this life. There's a deep consolation that Christians have through their hope, that enables them to work and work and work

and work with all their being and never be discouraged by the frustrating atmosphere of this world in which thorns grow up when you're trying to bring up other things. It's part of what's wrong with the world, but you've got a consolation. So there's motivation, there is proportion, there's the consolation. You put those together and it affects the way in which you work. It affects the jobs you take, it affects how you work, it affects why you work, it affects it. But it all comes from hope and here's the last thing.

Why do we have a right to see the Second Coming of Christ as a hope? Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing that Paul can call the Second Coming of Christ a blessed hope? Here's why it's amazing. Yes, judgment day. The fact that Jesus is coming back to put the world right. That sounds great. When you think the end of oppression, the end of genocide,

the end of war, the end of genocide, the end of war, the end of disease, the end of hunger, the end of death. Oh my, if there's no judgment day, what hope is there for the world? But if there is a judgment day, here's, what if for one day everything you did and everything you thought was put up on a monitor and every image of your mind for a day was all recorded and you didn't know it. So you just had your regular day. And the next day, it's put up all around the world, on the internet, YouTube.

Okay. 24 hours of your thought life, what would happen? You would die of shame. Everybody would die of shame. What's it like to actually appear before God? When all the excuses, all the self denials, all the things that you've ever said to try to justify your self-absorption, your self-centeredness, your cruelty, all the things that are in your life that you have used to excuse and justify the way in which you live. But suddenly they all fall off because you know God is seeing you, seeing you all

way to the bottom. What hope is there? How could you call a day like this a hope? And that's a blessed. Well here's the answer. The only reason we have a right to hope, to see, second coming of Jesus, a blessed hope is this. The Heidelbricaticism asks this question, what comfort is it to you that Christ shall come again to judge the living in the dead? Answer? That in all afflictions and persecution with uplifted head, I may wait for the judge from heaven who has already offered himself to the judgment of God for me and has taken away from me all curse.

The only reason that Paul and you and I can see the second coming of Jesus Christ as hope for the world and hope for us, the only reason we can see it as blessed is because we have a judge who came to be judged. He's already been here, He died on the cross. He took our punishment in our place. We have a judge who was judged.

And therefore your judgment day is actually already in the past, you know that? God made him sin, who knew no sin? He judged sin in Jesus. We died in him so that all we have for the future is a blessed hope. Live in that hope. Let it shape the way in which you live in the world.

Let's pray. Our Father, I thank you for giving us a hope that does not make a shame, makes not a shame. I thank you that this affects the way in which we live, giving us a consolation, giving us a sense of proportion, giving us a new motivation, changing the way in which we think out how our faith shapes our work. We thank you that you made us a community of people, in which we gather together to talk about this,

this very important area of life. And we thank you for the way in which that gather together to talk about this very important area of life. And we thank you for the way in which that is going to help us to live uprightly and justly in this world. Now we pray, Father, that you would grant all these things for we ask for them through Jesus and His name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller on Finding Hope and Joy in your work. We pray that it challenged you and encouraged you. To find more Gospel-centric resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelandlife.com.

That's gospelandlife.com. This month's sermons are a selection of recordings from 1996 to 2016. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.