Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Hope, Race and Power

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Christian hope is unique. The certainty of a material future, the new heavens and new earth, and the certainty that in Christ, that’s coming to you, makes Christianity a distinct, life-shaping force. It distinctly shapes the way in which we live in every area of life. We’re looking now at an area of life that has been a matter of enormous concern to us as a whole world, especially as a society. How do people of different races, cultures, and religions live together in peace? The Christian hope gives us an enormous resource to use on this problem. In Romans 14, Paul shows us 1) the problem, 2) a false solution, 3) the true solution, and 4) the power to do it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 25, 2004. Series: Living in Hope. Scripture: Romans 14:1-3, 14:14-15:7. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

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The scripture this morning is from Romans chapter 14 and chapter 15. Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself,

but if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to bespoke in others evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.

All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall. So whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating is not from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin. We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not please ourselves. Each of us

should please his neighbor for his good to build him up, for even Christ did not build himself up, but as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. For everything that was written the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, except one another then, just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. This is God's Word.

We're doing a series on hope, and we said that each week we said that our present behavior is determined by what we believe our ultimate future to be. Christian hope is unique. First of all, there's a certainty of God's future because of the cross, because Christianity, our standing with God, isn't based on what we've done, but on what he's done. Secondly, our understanding of the hope is what is certain is not just an ethereal heaven, but a material physical new heavens and new earth. And that also makes Christianity unique.

The certainty of a material future, God's future, the new heavens and new earth, the certainty that in Christ that's coming to you makes Christianity a distinct life-shaping force. In other words, it distinctly shapes the way in which we live in every area of life, and that's what we're looking at. Now let's take another area today. The area we're going to take is an area of life that's been a matter of enormous concern to us as a whole world, especially as a society, for 50 years at least.

How do people of different races, cultures, and religions live together in peace? How do people from different races, cultures, and religions live together in peace? That's been dominating our concern from the civil rights movement all the way up to 9-11. It's all basically about that same issue. How do people of different races, cultures, and religions live together in peace? Paul here shows us the Christian hope. Gives us an enormous resource to use on this problem. This passage from Romans 14, in here Paul gets shows us

the problem of false solution, the true solution, and the power to do it. The problem, false solution for the problem, a true solution, and the power to do it. Okay? First, what's the problem? Now, chapter 14 and 15 are about a dispute that was going on in their church and Rome. We read about it in verses 1 and 2 of the very beginning of the passage, except him whose faith is weak. One man's faith allows him to eat everything,

but another man whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. Now, what are we talking about here? No, it doesn't mean the vegetarians have bad theology. It's not, it's only vegetables. Now, what's going on? What are we talking about here? No, it doesn't mean the vegetarians have bad theology. It's not what it's talking about. Actually, at all. You see, in Leviticus, in Deuteronomy, there was a long list of foods that had been forbidden to the Israelites for many years.

They were called unclean foods. And what was the purpose of the unclean foods? And what was the purpose of the unclean foods? And what was the purpose of that whole, all those regulations of clean and unclean food and behavior and so on? Jesus in Mark chapter seven, Paul in chapter, in fact all of the book of Galatians, Jesus and Paul taught Christians

that the clean laws and the clean dietary laws in the Old Testament had two purposes. One purpose was to help Israel keep its national identity when it was sometimes overrun or living amidst other, more dominant, more populists and more powerful nations. Second reason for it, it drilled into the soul a very important concept. And that is that you can't just go in before the presence of a holy God without some kind of cleansing. But notice verse 14, which is in the middle of the page, the first page, where Paul says, in the Lord Jesus, no food is unclean.

And that's what both Jesus and Paul taught to the Christians. And that is that Christ is the one who makes us clean and presentable before the Father. No amount of performance or regulations or prescriptions could do that. And therefore, the clean laws have been fulfilled in Christ. That's why we don't follow them in any kind of, you know, a particular way anymore.

Now, there was a group of people in the Church of Rome, however, who though they believed the gospel, that's either resurrection and death of Jesus, we come into the presence of the Father. They believe the gospel, but they just couldn't shake the centuries of tradition here, and they felt it was still wrong for Christians to eat these foods.

Now, if you're gonna follow the Jewish dietary laws in a pagan setting like Corinth where you couldn't get any kosher meat at all, these people, in many cases, just stopped eating meat altogether, but they were following these laws. And what Paul calls them is weak. He calls them weak in faith. He calls them weak in faith because though they believe the gospel, they are accepted through what Jesus has done, they haven't been able to work all the implications out.

They haven't been able to flesh all that out. So here they are creating unnecessary rules that help them feel spiritually okay. It shores up their kind of spiritual security, makes them feel like I've proven myself as being spiritual and right. So they haven't really applied the gospel to the serif of their life, and that's the reason I call them week in faith. Week and understanding the implications of the gospel of grace for all of life. And he says there's other people in the church of Rome, he calls strong, and that is they understand that there's really nothing wrong with eating that food. On the surface, this looks like a garden variety,

theological dispute, a doctrinal dispute. But not if you compare it to another dispute that happened at the Church of Corinth, not the Church of Rome, that you can read about in 1 Corinthians 8 and put it alongside a Romans 14. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul talks about a different dispute. Again, interestingly enough, it was about eating. And in Corinth, most of the food that you

would buy in the open-air markets was blessed. There was invocations done by pagan priests at the market in the morning. And therefore, much of the food was blessed in the name of a pagan god, Apollo, serothene or something like that, an idol. And there were Christians in the church in Corinth who said, you cannot eat meat, offer the idols. You can't do it. And part of it was because they still had a kind of lingering

superstition that somehow the idols, these gods, had some kind of, still had some kind of power, and they were afraid of it. And Paul called them weak, interesting. He calls them weak, because they don't see the implications of Christ triumph, and they haven't really worked out the implications of the gospel in this area. And there's other people in the Church of Corinth

who are strong, who know it's all right to eat the meat that the idols aren't anything, that they don't have any power. Now, when you put those two things side to side, suddenly something occurs. There were two racial groups in the early churches. There were Jewish Christians who had been converted out of Judaism. There were Greek and Roman Christians who have been converted out of paganism. Who are most likely to be the ones in Corinth who still feel that maybe the idols have some power and therefore they haven't thought out the implications of the gospel. It was most likely who, the Greeks.

And the Jews in that case would have been the strong ones who said, oh, come on. But in Rome, which racial group is most likely to be the ones that were not still stuck in superstition, but still stuck in a kind of moralism when it had to do with the mosaic dietary laws? Which racial group would have probably been the weak? It would probably have been more of the Jewish Christians and it would have been the Greek ex-pagons who would have said, oh, come on. Now, what do we learn here? Two things, and they're really important, I'm gonna press them.

The first thing we learn is that racial and cultural differences are there. They are there underneath a lot of what we like to think of as philosophical or even theological or doctrinal or ecclesiastical disputes are really cultural differences. Our racial differences, our cultural differences, have a big impact on our view of things. We read life, we even read the Bible to a great degree through our cultural position. Every people group has had a different experience in the world.

And therefore these racial differences, these cultural differences, they're there, they're underneath. And we shouldn't try to deny. Now, you know what I'll tell the people who are most likely to deny what the Bible is showing us here. The people who are most likely to just not want to think it's a racial or cultural difference are white people. Some years ago, a black Christian friend of mine once said,

the thing that bugs me about white people is they don't seem to think they have a culture. And he says, I said, what are you talking about? And he said, before I realized, I'd damn myself. He says, he says, he says, it was white Christians. They're constantly doing things in a white way, but you don't think of it as a white way. You think of it as just the way. You don't just, in other words,

you don't think of your ways as white. You think of your ways as just right. And he says, but there's other ways to do things. Now, one of the things you're learning here is, one of the things the Bible is showing us here is the culture and racial differences must not be ignored. They have to be dealt with. They're going to be there.

We must not write them off. We must not ignore them. We must not try to treat them as if there's something else besides what they are. Those differences really are there, and they are a problem, and they create problems in the church. But at the same time, here's the other thing you learn, isn't interesting that the racial background of one group in one setting makes them more wise about the implications of the gospel, but in another setting, the same racial background

makes them dumber about the gospel. And the group that was dumber about the gospel in one situation is why is there another situation? In other words, their cultural experience, their cultural background, in some cases makes them blind to the gospel implications. In some case makes them particularly far-sighted and clear-eyed about the implications of the gospel. Do you know what this means? This means that everybody is standing in some culture, no matter how hard you try. Okay? You're standing in a culture, and your position is limited,

and you can only see part of the glory of the gospel. And we have to have each other only together, only of all the people from all the different racial groups are reading the scripture and grabbing hold of the gospel and talking together, will we see all of the glory of what the gospel is? Otherwise, the more homogeneous our church is, the more likely it's going to be have enormous blind spots, the more racially and culturally homogeneous the church is, the more likely it's going to have enormous blind spots.

Let me use an illustration, which I often use not to talk about race and culture, but I usually use to talk about fellowship or community, but it's important. It's that great place in the Four Loves, the book by C.S. Lewis, where he's talking about friendship. And he talks about three guys, Jack, Charles, and Ronald. And they're best friends. They get together twice a week, and they're talking all the time.

And when Charles dies, Jack suddenly realizes that there was a part of Ronald that Charles brought out that will never come again. There's a part of Ronald that Charles brings out, that Jack just can't seem to evoke. And it suddenly struck Jack that you can only know Ronald. In fact, you can only know anybody as a group. It takes a whole group.

It takes a variety of people to know an individual. One person can only know anybody as a group. It takes a whole group, it takes a variety of people to know an individual. One person can't know another person like a group of people can. Now, if that's true of Ronald, who's just a human being, though he did write Lord of the Rings, if Ronald, if you can't know Ronald without a group,

how much less will you be able to know Jesus? We are only going to know him together. We're only going to know Him together. We're only going to really know Him, really see Him, really understand Him. So here's the great irony. Our cultural differences is a huge problem, and our cultural differences is the solution at the same time. We cannot walk away from the enormous amount of work it takes to study the Bible together, to worship together,

to live together, to relate together, to have fellowship together. We can't. Our cultural differences is maybe one of the main problems we've got in the church or in our world, but it's also the solution. Only together will we grasp the kingdom of God, will we grasp the glory of God, will we grasp the glory of God,

will we grasp who Jesus is, isn't that great? Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us, but could actually make us stronger and wiser? Those are the questions Tim Keller explores in his book, Walking with God through pain and suffering. The book doesn't provide easy answers, but is instead both a deeply theological Tim Keller explores in his book, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering. The book doesn't provide easy answers, but is instead both a deeply theological and incredibly personal look at how we can face pain and suffering. Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel Unlife share the hope of the Gospel with people all over the world.

So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Okay, but I just said it's also a problem. So how do we deal with the cultural differences? And Paul gives us a false solution and a true one, a counterfeit solution and the right one. Now the counterfeit solution is very important for us today to understand.

What does Paul say is a counterfeit solution? Well, put it like this, the modern world, when it sees these people in this one church that say, you can't eat that meat, I'm the only one who's got the right position. We recognize that right away. Narrow-mindedness. You're the... See, here's two groups of people, right? There's the narrow-minded who say, only people with our point of view are right. And then we have the broad-minded party in each church which says, well, okay, if you don't

want to eat the meat, you don't have to, but I can eat the meat. And both of our positions are right. So the one group says, only one of us is right, and the other group says, no, we're both right. Now we recognize that as narrow-mindedness, and we said, yes, narrow-mindedness brings a lot of problems in this world. But the modern world believes the solution to narrow-mindedness is what? Broadmindedness per se.

Or, to coin a phrase, broadmindednessism. You see, in these cases, the strong, the people with the proper grasp of the gospel, believe both positions were right, so they were more broadminded and the narrow-minded people. But the world today believes that broadmindedness per se is a solution, that is to say. In the media, it comes up all the time. The only way we're gonna have peace in this world, the only way we're gonna get along and have harmony, is if we all agree that nobody's got the truth,

that all the positions are right, that everyone's morality is right, that everyone's beliefs are right. We're only gonna have peace if we admit that everybody's got the truth. Now here's what Paul points out though. What shocked me about two years ago when I was studying 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14

was that Paul all through these two chapters and also all through 1 Corinthians 8, almost all of his criticisms, almost all of his slamming. He's criticizing, he's exhorting, he's slaying. Are against the strong. Virtually everything he says in here, all of his urgings, all of his criticisms are against the strong.

Why? Well, here's the answer. It's in verse 3 at the top of the chapter. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does. Now, why would Paul say that? Because they were both happening. And look, broad-mindedness is absolutely no help.

The narrow-minded people look down on the broad-minded, but guess what? Ha, the broad-minded people look down their nose just as much as the narrow-minded, and therefore it is absolutely being broad-minded, believing all the positions are right, is no solution to our problems. Now, in this world, you just read the media.

We're just flooded with this idea. If you think you've got the truth, you're narrow. And the only way we're gonna live at peace is if we admit that nobody's got the truth. But of course, and we said this several times this year, if you say that nobody's got the truth, that is basically a very particular cultural point of view. It's a northern European, very white, individualistic of view. It's a northern European very white

individualistic cultural position. It's saying every individual is the right to choose what is right or wrong for him That's a European. That's a very white. That's a very culturally located situated position and when you say oh Nobody's got the truth and anyone who says they've got the truth is narrow what you're doing is the very thing you denounce What you're doing is the very thing you denounce. What you're saying is, my relativistic approach to truth is the right one and anyone who doesn't hold to it, I consider uncivilized and dangerous. Which means you're doing the very thing you say you're not supposed to do. It's almost worse than narrow-mindedness. Narrow broad-mindedness, broad narrow-mindedness, broad-mindedness, ism,

because you see, not to put too fine a point on it, if you're intolerant of intolerant people, you're intolerant. If you're judgmental against judgmental people, you're judgmental. Broad-mindedness per se, just saying, oh, everybody's right, I'm not going to criticize anybody, can make you just as disdainful, just saying, oh, everybody's right, I'm not going to criticize anybody, it could make you just as sustainable, just as contemptuous, just as exclusive, and create just as much fighting in the world. And it is now. It is right now.

And therefore, it's no solution, it's a faux solution, it's a camouflage, it's a counterfeit solution. Well, what is the right solution? What should we be doing? Not broadmindedness per se, because the broadminded people were as big a part of those conflict problem as the narrow-minded people. Here's what Paul says. Verse 11, 14 and verse 115.

Except him whose faith is weak, chapter 15, verse 1, we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Now here's what Paul is saying. Paul is calling us to the not just a different approach to tolerance, but the exact opposite of what the world calls tolerance.

Paul is calling us to the very exact opposite of what the world calls tolerance. What do I mean? The world says, make no negative evaluations. The world says, I'm not going to say that you're doing your behavior or your beliefs are wrong or sinful or heretical or anything. I would never say that. So the world says, I'm not going to make any negative

evaluations of your beliefs, but on the other hand, I'm not going to let anything that you believe or do hinder the way in which I want to live. See, that's not tolerance, that's a form of Western expressive individualism. It's like, I'm not going to say make any negative evaluations, but I'm also not going to let you hinder the way in which I want to live.

Paul calls every Christian who understands the gospel to the exact opposite, exact opposite. On the one hand, he says, accept the the weak. Now as soon as he says accept the weak right away you realize we're not, this is not what the New York Times is talking about. Because when Paul says accept the weak he uses the word weak and what is the word weak? It's evaluative. It's negative. He's calling people weak. He's saying you're wrong. He's saying you're an error. So he's making a negative evaluation, but then he says, accept. Now, the word accept, which is critical to the whole passage,

because it starts the chapter 14, it ends the passage in 157. And it's a word, proslamano, it's the Greek word, that means, to draw in, to open up your circle, to open up your arms, and to welcome someone in, to adjust your life, and make changes in order to have a relationship with someone who is culturally, or maybe in beliefs, very different than you. Do you realize what that means?

This is exactly the opposite of what the world says. The world says, don't make negative evaluations, but then don't let the way another person lives, hinder the way you want to live, Paul says in love, make negative evaluations, though respectfully, not looking down, not to the superior way, but then adjust your life all kinds of ways in order to have deep relationships

with people with whom you're different. He says, for example, verse 20, it says, don't do something that makes your brother's stumble. Now, some people over the years have said, well, that what that means is don't do anything that offends or upsets anybody. Well, you know, how can you call someone weak without upsetting them? How can you make a negative evaluation without upsetting? Then that can't be what it means. What it really means is, essentially, you must be careful about what you say. You must be careful about what you do. You must make adjustments.

You must refrain from things that ordinarily you would like to do, so it's not to mislead or confuse people. You're trying to deepen a relationship with who is pretty different than you, pretty different culturally, and maybe pretty different in beliefs. Doug Mu, who wrote a great commentary on Romans 15, and Romans says this about verse 15,

where it says, bear, we who are strong should bear with the failings of the week. So that's exactly the opposite of modern individualism. It doesn't say no negative evaluation, but live your life the way you want. No, it says make negative evaluations, and then change your life in order to have deep relations with people and build bridges to them and care about them.

And Doug Mu on 15 verse 1 where it says, the strong should bear with the failings of the weak. Here's what he says. He says, do you realize in the Greek this verse literally says, we who are strong should bear the weak. What can that mean? He says Paul is not urging the strong simply to bear with or to tolerate or to put up with the weak and other scruples. Paul is calling us to sympathetically enter deeply into the attitudes of the weak, refraining from criticizing and judging them and do what love would require toward them. This is amazing.

Paul is not saying, obviously, since he believes the weak have some wrong beliefs. He's not saying adopt their wrong beliefs. He's saying, I want you to get in so close to these folks that you make every effort to see their side of things, to understand why they believe what they do, to see the advantages and strengths of their position. I want you to do everything you possibly can

except completely agree with them if they're wrong. I want you to do everything you possibly can, except completely agree with them if they're wrong. I want you to be patient with them. I want you to be willing to be misconstrued and misunderstood. Now, the application of this is pretty amazing. Why do you think we tend to hang out with people like us? Why do we hang out with people at the same race, at the same background, at the same culture? Why? It's so much easier. It is vastly easier. They understand. They get it. And when you, as soon as you go out of that, you're, you're right away, the, the,

the, the self-justifying natural gravity of the heart wants to stick around people who support all of your foibles, support all of your prejudices, support all of your little ways of thinking about things. And who you don't have to explain everything, and you don't have to sit around and bite your tongue every other word practically when other people are saying things that at least in the culture you come from, that's considered very offensive. We don't want to do that, but you'll never know Jesus without it. You'll never understand the gospel without it. It does mean that people of different races

have got to start to learn how to hang out with each other, make space for each other in your life. Secondly, it means the theological differences. Here's a charismatic who speaks in tongues and gets messages from God, and here's a reformed Presbyterian who thinks that's nuts. What do you do? Do you just stay away from each other? I mean, even if you go to

the same church, which isn't real likely, but if you go to the same church and you just sort of stay away from each other, you don't hang out, you don't go out for a drink with them, one of you doesn't drink. What are you going to do? You stay away, but you can't. Paul says, I ref, no, make your negative evaluations respectfully, lovingly, talk about your differences. Don't say, oh, everybody's right. How silly. But love one another.

Adjust your lives. Make space for another in your lives. And by the way, this isn't just true for people within the Christian church because notice in verse 15, 1 and 2, after talking about, do this with your brothers and sisters, it also says, do this with your neighbors. And the Bible, the difference is in a neighbor and a brother and sister, is someone who doesn't have the same belief in Christ that you do. Even with them, you're supposed to do that.

See, the secular world says, be tolerant on our terms. If you're tolerant, if you have our view of epistemology, our view of truth, our view of morality, then we will embrace you as a civilized and enlightened person. But Christianity says, you just have to be breathing, and I want a relationship with you. Doesn't put that up there. Now, where do you get the power to do this?

Where do you get the power to do this? Huh? Where do you get the power to do this? Paul says from Hope. Notice what he says in verse 4? He says, for everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement and hope give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Jesus Christ. So that with one heart and mouth, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, except one other than just as Christ accepted you

in order to bring praise to God. Why is hope so important? Give me a couple of reasons. First of all, our hope is a powerful hope in the future that we will be one, that the world will be one. One of the most important books I've read in the future that we will be one, that the world will be one. One of the most important books I've read in the last year or two is a book by David Chapel, Two Peace, Two Elves,

called A Stone of Hope. It's a history of the Civil Rights Movement. It takes its term from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, I have a dream speech. He has a term in there called a Stone of Hope. And this man, this history professor, pretty much proves something that's pretty astounding. He says white liberals in the 30s, 40s, and 50s,

white liberals did not believe you should tackle segregation. They did not believe you should demonstrate. They did not believe in any kind of coercion at all because they felt they had hope in human goodness, hope in science, hope in education, hope in human reason. The black activists, though, especially Martin Luther King, they were reading Reinhold Nebore in seminary

and they realized that their hope was the kingdom of God, as Paul puts it here, and the kingdom of God is different. The Kingdom of God on the one hand is more of an optimistic hope than the hope in human nature, because it's saying some day God's going to make everything right. It's going to be justice. We know we're on, we're heading to victory, but on the other hand, Kingdom of God hope is on one hand is more optimistic than humanistic hope, but it's also more realistic. Because the Kingdom of God, the Bible says that that Kingdom of God is only going to come through divine intervention against human sin.

And David Chappell says that black activists and black ministers because of their understanding of human sin, because of their understanding of the Kingdom of God, they knew that the only way that they were ever going to, that human sin was gonna let go of power, was through intervention. And that's why this book makes a absolutely right case that white liberals, because they were secular, to a great degree, and had opened in human nature, just let it go.

Didn't even deal with segregation, just let it be. And black activists, because larger, they were Christian inspired by a Christian hope, a Christian understanding of the kingdom of God, they went after it. And why is Paul bringing up hope then? Because every other religion gives you hope so for the future. And if you're a secular person, you just hope if we work hard enough, somehow we'll bring injustice.

And if you're a religious person, you hope, if I'm hard enough, somehow we'll bring injustice. And if you're a religious person, you hope if I'm good enough, God will accept me. But think about this. If you're not sure God loves you, if you're not absolutely certain about that future love, if you're not certain that there is a God and that he utterly loves you, then if you're a conservative, you'll be moral,

you'll try to convince yourself you're good by being moral, and then you'll have to look down, you'll be moral. You'll try to convince yourself you're good by being moral and then you'll have to look down. You'll know that anybody who's not moral, because you're getting your significance out of being moral. Or if you're a liberal, you'll try to convince yourself you're okay and you're significant by being open-minded and trying very, very hard to work for the rights of all people.

But then you're going to have to look down your nose at the bigots. Why? Because you're getting your sense of significance, the worth out of being open-minded and for all people. In other words, a conservative who's moral, a liberal, who's tolerant, but who's not absolutely sure that God loves them, absolutely sure about a God and a God who loves them. They're going to have to base their significance, hoping that if they're good enough at performing at their significance, hoping that if they're good enough at their performing

at their standard, that somehow they'll be good enough and they'll feel significant. And then they have to look down their nose at people who don't have that significance factor, don't have that same factor. But if you have hope, if you know that because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, God loves you, God accepts you, has nothing to do with your performance.

That changes things. You don't have to, you know, look to your, you might be moral, but you don't look to your morality as the basis for your significance. So you don't look down to your nose at people who aren't moral. And you might be open to people. You might be open to mind working for human rights, but you don't base your significance on that. So you don't look down to your nose at people who are bigoted.

It's only by grace that your eyes are open. When I look at the cross, here's what I see. Jesus Christ making a negative evaluation of me. When he died, you know what he was saying, your center. When Jesus died on the cross, he was making a negative evaluation. He was saying, I'm weak. But at the same moment, oh, he was making space in his life for me. He was adjusting his life for me. He was sacrificing so I could be with him. And when I see him doing that, and it gives me the hope of the future of love of God, then I can turn around and do it to anyone else.

And matter the race, and matter the culture, only hope will give me that endurance to keep at it. Only the realism of that hope, only the freedom of that hope, only the certainty of that hope, but we've got to do it. Our cultural differences, oh Christian friends, are our biggest problem and our biggest solution, because it's only together that we'll know him

and see everything that he's got for us. Let's pray. Father, we ask that as we go to, as we leave here, that we will take the gospel and use it against the natural gravity of our heart to hang out with people just like us. Help us to see we have an enormous resource in the gospel, an enormous resource to deal with the things, the barriers that have divided people, that have kept people from, kept people distaining each other, despising each other, excluding each other, whether

they're narrow-minded or broad-minded, but the gospel destroys all uncertainty about our value and our loveness. And that changes us deeply. In the way in which we handle people who are different from us. Now Father, to a great degree, we're not living out of this, help us to do so because of this time, because of your spirit, because of your word, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller on facing pain and suffering with the hope of Christ. We pray you were encouraged. To find more Gospel-centered resources like today's teaching,

you can sign up for email updates at gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 2004 and 2008. The sermons and talks you here on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.