Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Incomparable Power

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 11, 1992. Series: Salvation From the Outside In. Scripture: Ephesians 1:19-23. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Everyone builds their life around something, whether it's success, family, or the pursuit of happiness. These are good things, but can they really support the full weight of our lives? This summer, we're going through an extended series of teachings from Tim Keller that explore the central claims of Christianity, showing us how the gospel speaks to our deepest questions about meaning, identity, and hope. I'll read to you the last section of the passage in Ephesians 1 that we've been looking at. It's Ephesians 1, and it's 19 to 23. Before I read it, let me just remind you that this is a prayer.

This is the last part of a prayer. And in this prayer, Paul has asked that the Ephesian Christians, and that we, all the people who are reading this, that he is praying that we might have the eyes of our hearts enlightened to know three things. Now, the eyes of our hearts means. He's praying that we get a feeling sense for these three things. He's praying that we are melted with spiritual understandings of these three things. And the three things, and we looked at two of them already, were the hope of our calling,

the glorious inheritance that God has in the saints, and the incomparable power toward us who believe. The three things he's praying that we would all get to know, with the eyes of our heart are the hope of our calling, our glorious inheritance, and the great power of God toward us. Last week and the week before that, we looked at the first two. Tonight, we only have to look at this very last section of this prayer. I'm going to read it, and then we're going to open it up and see what it has for us. This is the Word of God.

This is His power. Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. for it is the power of God under salvation. When you open the Bible, what you're doing is you're detonating a bomb. When you open the Bible, you're taking a knife, turning it in toward yourself, and thrusting. Did you know that? A philosophy is not a power. A philosophy or a set of ethics is something that you have to pick up yourself,

and you have to live into it to give it power. The gospel, however, picks you up. and lives into you to give you power. You've never heard of a philosophy. I mean, there's lots of philosophies, you know? There's a postmodernism and deconstructionism, which is big now. After World War II, there was existentialism.

Before World War II, there was a linguistic analysis. Have you ever heard of any of those philosophies changing a whole community, converting an entire village, putting families back together, lifting people up out of poverty and oppression? Have you ever heard of that? No. because those things are not powers.

But the gospel is a power. The Word of God is a power itself. Read it with me. Actually, I'm going to just start in verse 19. He prays that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened that we might have a spirit of wisdom and revelation that we might know. His incomparably great power for us who believe.

That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. Far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church,

which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. This is about God's power. I know if you came to the earlier services, and some of you do, you'll know that the subject was about God's power then. Don't worry. It's as vast and as rich a subject that it's very, very possible for us to talk about it tonight through this passage and not in any way overlap with what we said earlier. There's just so much to say about it. What's comical about this power is how Paul almost has to, even though he's Paul, stretch defined a way of describing God's power. When he says, this is like the working of his

mighty strength. When he talks about his incomparably great power, right there, incomparably great, he uses three Greek words that if you're reading them in Greek, you actually see how comical it is, because every one of those three words is a Greek word that we have brought directly into the English language. The word great is the word hooper, from which we get our word super. The word incomparably is the Greek word megatose, from which we get our word megaton, or mega, which of course means, you know, beyond. The word power is the word dunamice, from which we get our word dynamite. And so what Paul is praying for and yearning for is that you might get a feeling.

sense for the super megaton dynamite of God. And what he's doing is he's just piling adjective upon adjective to say God's power is beyond beyond. Now in the text, he gives you four evidences of it. And he says, if you're going to understand God's power, and if you're going to have the confidence and greatness of life and spirit that comes from understanding God's power, you have got to understand that God's power is evidence and expressed in these four ways. And there's four things. The first one is our belief, our very belief. The second thing is the resurrection of Christ.

The third thing is Christ's present rule and headship over the world for us. And the fourth thing is his headship of his body and our union with him. We see his power in our belief, in the resurrection of Christ, in his rule over the world for us right now, and over us being part of his body and our union with him through the Holy Spirit. Every one of those is a tremendous evidence of power. It's a tremendous expression of power. Let's look at them all. First, I said this last week, and I got a few questions.

People are concerned. I said the translation here is not very good. It's misleading. The reason for that is that Paul has very long sentences, and in order to break up the sentences, his long sentences into a more readable form, they break it right here where it says, his incomparably great power for us who believe that power is like the working of his mighty strength. Literally, in Greek it says this, what is his incomparably great power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty strength.

And then it goes on, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead. Now, you see, the translators are trying to get rid of, they're trying to put a period in there so you can sort of take a breather, as you're reading through here in your mind. But literally it says, his incomparably great power according to us who believe. Now, last week some people came up and said, oh, what translation do you like better than this one? I said, oh, I don't like any other translation better than this one. One of the things you have to realize when you hear a minister say something

like that is there are no perfect translations. When we talk about the infallibility of the authority of the Bible, we're not talking about the infallibility and the authority of my favorite translation of the Bible. Translations are just that. There are translations made by fallible people, and you can debate whether the translation is good or not. It's what God inspired the original authors to write that we believe is without error, not necessarily this one. And the great thing about these best translations is even though you can argue with them at various points, you'll notice, write, that where the translation goes awry or where there's debate or where there's in any way, any kind of controversy, it never, ever affects a verse that

teach on which some major doctrine is based. You're never really in any kind of doubt, well, what do I believe? If this verse says this, then we have to cut out this part of the Apostles' Creed. No, nothing like that. But one of the things I'm trying to show you here is the first evidence of God's power is the fact we believe. We believe according. Now, we got started on this last week and we had to stop. Let's look at that. We believe according to his mighty power. The first thing you've got to understand, if you believe it's only as a consequence of his mighty power. See, the word according to means as a consequence of. In chapter 3, verse 7, Paul says, I was made a missionary. I was made a minister of the gospel according to the

grace of God. What's that mean? According to means as a consequence of. If I say, I believe according to what my teacher taught me, it means I believe in consequence of what my teacher said. We mentioned that last week. But now, here's the implications. You've got to understand. that your very faith is an operation of the mighty power of God. I propose to you that until you understand it is that, until you understand that the fact you believe today is a testimony to the miraculous and mighty power of God, you won't have a balanced Christian life.

There will be all sorts of distortions. There will be all kinds of misunderstandings. You see, do you believe it all tonight? Do you even want to believe? Do you even wrestle to believe and you're not sure you believe and you're upset because you don't know if you believe? That is an evidence of the power of God. If you don't see it as that, that's one more way in which you're blind to the power that's there. That's what Paul's praying about.

He's saying, I pray that their eyes would be open so they see what incredible power is operating in them. And if you think that your faith, even your desire to believe, is something engendered by your own heart and your own energy, you will fail to give God glory here. You will fail to see his power. You will fail to understand his greatness. You'll fail to experience the strength of seeing that power at work in you. Let me put it this way. If you don't know how hard your heart is, how completely unopen it is to the gospel. you don't understand yourself. To demonstrate it, I would like to use myself. I'm a teacher of the Bible. And sometimes because I'm a teacher of the Bible, and I study it and I read it, and I have to express it.

Those of you who teach anything know, that teaching requires you to get into a subject in a way that you never would have to as a student. Teachers have to know their materials so much better than their students. In fact, the very active teaching, as I think many of you know, actually is the very best act of learning. The very best way to learn something is to have to articulate it, is to have to transmit it.

There is no better way. You think you know some material until you have to teach it, and then you realize you don't know. I mean, I don't have to make that point. But as you begin to teach the Word of God, you begin to see inner consistencies and beauties and practical applications, and you begin to see all the infinities and the immensities of it as a, as a, you begin to see, one poet once puts it. And it just sometimes it thrills you, even as you're studying and as you're working on it,

and as you're presenting it, and it envelopes you. And the reality of it and the certainty of it and the beauty of it, sometimes, I guess you'd realize, as a teacher, can never quite get across to the people who are listening. Just what he or she actually can see. You always know more than your students

about the subject, and that's what makes you an effective teacher. So to teach the word, of God is a wonderful experience, but anybody who teaches the Word of God will, if they have any kind of spiritual wisdom at all, will come to realize that their hearts are far harder than they ever, ever, ever dreamed. Because it's one thing when you know a little bit about the Word of God to realize you don't really believe it. It's another thing. To see yourself caught up in it, to see yourself loving it, to see yourself marinated in it,

and then to realize you don't really live it at all. You don't really believe it. You're amazed when it actually happens. At some point, everybody begins, anybody who's really growing in grace comes to understand that the fact that you believe at all is a complete and utter miracle. May I tell you why, practically that makes a difference? It makes a tremendous difference.

First of all, it makes a difference because unless you see your faith as the operation of his mighty strength, you won't actually even be able to understand what it means to believe anyway. See, a lot of people, when they first begin to hear the gospel, and they hear something about Christ, if they begin to desire him and want him as Savior, if they begin to say, that's what I want, that's what I want, I have discovered as a pastor over the years that some people get caught for a long time, sometimes hours, sometimes days, sometimes months, sometimes longer than that. Because they think when they hear that you're saved by faith, not by your good works. They hear that you're saved by faith in Christ, not by being a good person.

No, that's what's so glorious about the gospel. The gospel is not me giving a righteousness to God so that he will love me. salvation is God giving a righteousness to me out of love for me utterly opposed to every other faith and every other religion. Amazing. Amazing. When people hear that, unless they realize that faith itself is a gift of God, that faith itself is the operation of his mighty strength, they get hung up because they say, okay, now I've got to come up with faith.

And they start looking at their faith. Now maybe you've heard me say it this way. Faith is like a windshield on a car. It should be looked through, not at. If you look at it, you'll crack up. You're driving along and you're looking at it and there's always something wrong with the windshield. Always, even brand new windshields, no matter what. There's always something wrong with it. It's always smudged. You can always see. If you look at the windshield, you'll always find flaws with it. Next thing you know, that's not what the windshield is there for. You'll find, and my wife continually says this to me, because I get so grumpy if the windshield has got too much on it. I'm always pulling over and wiping it off. She says, you can see. You can see or get better windshield wipers.

But the point is that you can see through it. No matter, almost no matter how bad it is, you can almost always see through it. As long as you don't look at it, a lot of Christians, when they hear they're supposed to be saved by faith, begin to be concerned, and they begin to say, I don't have enough faith. I wish I did. I have so many doubts. There's a lot of people, for example, who when they first

come to Christ, they get a real rush of God's reality. Their faith just seems to work extremely well. They believe and they feel they believe. They come to church and they sense his love and the tears stream down the cheek every time they pray and every time they come and worship and praise. And they're just really, really excited. And next thing you know, what inevitably always happens to a new Christian that comes into the faith that way is what we used to call, and we probably still do, post-conversion letdown. What's post-conversion letdown? At some point, God starts to, he has to do this, he has to make a little bit harder for you to feel his presence. You know why? Because you've come to trust in your faith as a work. You've come to feel the reason

that I'm a Christian is because of these wonderful feelings, this lack of doubt, this, this, this great belief I've got. So some people get hooked on their belief. Some people actually get hooked because they don't feel they can believe. If you understand that faith is a gift, you will go to God and realize that the most important thing, the way to become a Christian is simply to admit you don't have faith. When the Father says to Jesus, help my unbelief,

Jesus heals his son. Why? Because when you say, don't believe, help my unbelief, that's belief. When you say, I don't have any faith, that is faith. You couldn't even say that unless God was helping you. Because your faith, you see, is the operation of his mighty strength. And all you have to do to become a Christian is to admit you don't have any faith. All you have to do to become a Christian is to say, I am nothing, you are everything. I don't even have faith. That's the reason why a lot of the old preachers used to not

only tell people that to become a Christian, they had to believe. They used to say, repent of your sins and admit you don't believe. Admit. Go and say, I want to believe, but I don't even have faith. I don't have any goodness. I don't have any merit. I don't even have faith. And that is the faith that God has once and that God is engendering. Do you understand that? When you say, I don't really believe, help my own belief. What you're doing is you're looking through the little faith you've got. and you're not worrying anymore about whether or not you believe and how well you believe and you're not looking at the windshield, you're looking through it. You've got to go to him, not to your faith.

You've got to go to him empty-handed, not saying, look at the wonderful feelings I've got. You've just got to go and rely on him alone, utterly, completely, saying, I don't have anything, I don't have any good works to recommend myself. I rely on nothing. I don't even have faith to recommend me. I can't even say, look at this great faith. His faith, see, faith in your life is the operation of his mighty strength. When you admit you don't have it, it's begun, and it'll begin to grow.

And you don't have to worry about whether your faith is strong enough. You just have to get a hold of him. One more thing, and a very important thing. If you don't understand that your faith is the operation of his mighty strength, you'll very often lose the wonder. Just lose the wonder. There is no more amazing fact to me. in the whole world than this,

that I'm standing here tonight behind this microphone talking to you about this stuff. I can't get over that. I hope I never do get over that. There's nothing more amazing to me. There's nothing more amazing to me. There is no more amazing fact

than I am here tonight talking to you. And there should be no more amazing fact to you than that you are here sitting and listening to me. Why are you here? You say, well, I came back early for my weekend. Why are you here? Because a friend told me. And boy, I've been coming for a while and it's really helpful.

Why are you here? Because I was looking for a church and I just happened to like this kind of music. Why are you here? You're here because of the operation of his mighty power. Why do you believe? It's a miracle. It always is a miracle. If you really don't see that, you're never able to.

to look at yourself and rejoice. Why are you here? Why am I here? Why am I talking to you? Why are you listening to me? God. One and only one reason. God, there is no other explanation. Not at all. Died he for me who caused his pain, for me to him, who him to death pursued? Amazing love. How can it be that thou might's God shouldst die for me? See? Your belief is a miracle. Why don't you enjoy it? Your unhappiness over your lack of belief is a miracle. Why don't you see that's evidence that he loves me? My doubts are evidence that he loves me. It says in Romans 3, no one seeks for God. So what are you doing out there seeking him? The fact that you want him, the fact that you're longing for him, the fact that you're full of

doubts and that you know you're full of doubts proves that he loves you, that he's opening your heart, his mighty strength that's operating in you. Otherwise, you wouldn't want him. Otherwise, your heart would be hard. It's incomparably great power according to us who believe, according to the operation of his mighty strength. Secondly, and we talked about this last week, so I'll just slough right over it. The second evidence of God's power is the resurrection of Christ. The reason it's important, and we did mention it, that's why I only go a little bit beyond this, is that God always sees the, he always reveals to us his power in terms of death breaking. His power is resurrection power. His power can be measured not in megatons. It can't be measured in megatons. It's measured

in resurrection units. What that means is that if you realize that the power in you is the power, that's what Paul's trying to get across, that raise Christ in the dead. That means that death in you is being destroyed. Why does God allow suffering in the world? How can one religion be right and the other's wrong? Hasn't science basically disproved Christianity? Tim Keller addresses these questions and many more in his book The Reason for God. Drawing on literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and potent reasoning,

this book will challenge you to gain a deeper understanding of the Christian faith, whether you're a believer seeking to understand your faith better, whether you're exploring Christianity yourself, or whether you're reading it with a friend who's searching for answers. When you give to Gospel in Life during the month of August, we'll send you two copies of the reason for God, one for you and one to give to a friend. It's our hope that through reading the book with a friend,

you can have conversations about the claims of the Christian faith. To receive your two copies of the reason for God, as our thanks for your support, simply make a gift at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Thank you for partnering with us. Your gift helps the message of Christ's love go out all over the world because the gospel truly changes everything. For a minute, let me just, there's three kinds of death. We're actually going to talk about this when we get over into the beginning of chapter two very, very soon. I think next week. Ephesians 2. But anyway, there's three characteristics of death. There's three kinds of death, too. There's spiritual death, there's physical death, and there's eternal death. That's how the Bible looks at it. Now, the one kind of death that we understand the best is physical death. Well, let's look at what are the characteristics of a dead body? Well, there's many. But I'll just suggest two, three of them. A dead body can't cohere. A dead body can't respond. and a dead body can't exert.

First of all, I can't cohere. It's falling apart. It's becoming ugly. Ugliness is a lack of integration. Ugliness is a lack of coherence. It's going back into its chemicals. It's going back into its constituent parts. It can't cohere.

It's ugly. Secondly, it can't respond to stimuli. See, doesn't touch, taste, taste, see, smell. No more senses. No sensation doesn't respond to stimuli. And thirdly, it can't exert itself. It can't put forth any kind of power. It can't move.

Right? Spiritual death is just like that. A person who is spiritually death, though physically alive, walking around. First of all, there is a spiritual ugliness going on on the inside, even though outside might look quite good. What's it coming from? A lack of coherence. People who are not Christians suffer in these ways.

you've got a conscience. You've got a conscience that's full of God's law, the Bible says. On the other hand, you know, Freud talked about it. You've got the ego. You've got the ego. You've got the ego. They're all at war with each other. There's a spiritual disintegration going on in the inside. Secondly, a spiritually dead person is not able to respond to stimuli.

You know, surely this has happened to you. You've read a book. It's changed your life. You got a friend. Doesn't seem to be interested in Christian things. You give the person the same book and the person comes back to you, more intelligent than you, brighter than you, more insightful than you, and they say, what is this about?

I don't get it. Spiritual death means no ability to respond to spiritual stimuli. There's a spiritual disintegration. And then, of course, a lack of ability to spiritually exert yourself. No, I'm not going to go into it. I'm trying to be quick. but the point is that there's a spiritual ugliness, there's a spiritual beauty, there's a spiritual sensitivity to stimuli.

Have you noticed the more you become a Christian, the more interesting your life gets, the more things that you never were aware of come at you from the scripture, the more truths, the more bright and enrich your world becomes, because death is working backwards in you. God has moved into your life with a spirit, with the power that resurrected Christ. And he's destroying the power of death in you. And somebody says, well, if he's destroying the power of death in me, why do I have to die physically?

Well, you see, that's the last stage of the destruction of death. What's so amazing is the physical death for someone who is not in Christ is actually the last act of a progression toward ultimate death. physical death for a Christian is the last act in a progression completely away from it. Or, as one man once said, who was dying of cancer, a fine man, a very, very, very loving and mature Christian man, and whenever he was asked, do you believe God will heal you? And he says, oh, absolutely, I know God will heal me. I'm just not sure if he's going to do it before I die or after.

In his case, it was after. But you know what he used to say is he used to say. you know, and if he heals me before, it's just a temporary thing until he actually heals me after. That's the final healing. See, physical death is just sort of a dark door into life. The same power that resurrected Christ is at work within you. It is already transforming you, changing your insides. Death actually has no more power over you at all. Even physical death is actually going to be the last gasp of death in your life. You know, somebody once said,

the devil doesn't want a Christian to die by any means. That's the end of his ability to have any sway over him at all. The only way that he can do any bad deeds through you is to keep you alive. The forces of evil don't want you to die. Death itself doesn't want you to die. Because as soon as it crushes you, it makes you. as soon as it strangles you, see, it recreates you.

As soon as it tries to weaken you, it makes you blossom into what God means you to be. The resurrection power of Christ is in you, death is defeated. Thirdly, we see the power, we said, first of all, first evidence of God's power is the fact that you believe. The second evidence of God's power is the resurrection of Christ. The third evidence of God's power is right here in verse 21, and God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to behead over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Now, this is not what I would call an advanced lesson in theology,

but it's sort of an intermediate lesson, and we might as well do it because I've got to get to the end of this chapter tonight, so we can move on. You've heard me talk a number of times, and generally when ministers preach about the kingdom of Christ, they're preaching about the kingdom which is to come. Don't you pray for that all the time? Thy kingdom come. And thy kingdom come is the total rule of Christ. And we say that total rule of Christ is on its way. It's coming. And when he rules, everything will be great. So we read Psalm 96, let the heavens be glad that the earth rejoice, the sea roar, the trees exult, then will the trees of the woods sing for joy, for he comes to rule the earth?

And all these wonderful statements about the coming rule of Christ. Here it says, right now, his power is exerted in a present rule over the world for the church. You see this? It's amazing. It says, and God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to behead over everything for the church. which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Now, we don't usually talk about the present rule of Christ, but it's saying that right now he is exerting his power by controlling things in the world. He's exerting some kind of control over the world for you and me,

those of us who believe in him. What does that mean? It means this. This is something that the theologians call common grace. And it's a very, very difficult thing. You can't understand the world without understanding this. And as a matter of fact, if you do understand it, it creates a balance in a church and a balance in a Christian life that many people don't have.

Common grace. The word common grace means, or the phrase common grace, it means any good and perfect and beautiful and a thing that God excites or provides in anyone. James 1, 17 says, Every good and perfect gift comes down from above from the Father of Lights. Everything that's good in the world, anything that's beautiful, anything that's laudable, anything that's praiseworthy is from him. It's grace, because we don't deserve it,

but it's common grace, meaning that it goes to everybody. One of the ways in which God rules the world right now, for you and me is he excites the world to grace. The word special grace means that God gives special kinds of Holy Spirit gifts and beauties to people who trusted him as Savior. But the fact is that he restrains evil in the world, and he bestows many kinds of good things and skills all over to everyone, regardless of whether they believe or not.

He does this for you and me. just here some biblical references to it in the old testament you see it one of the most important places is you know those obvious places was the flood the world had gotten so violent and so oppressive the people were killing and murdering one another and there was one family and only one family in the world that still had a sense of a modicum of decency the family of noah god wipes everybody out but noah that's common grace he's restraining evil the fact is that he does not let us get anywhere near as evil as we ought to be. There's a place where he comes to Abimelech in Genesis 20, verse 6, and he says to Abimelech, Abimelech, I kept you from sinning. I made it hard for you to sin.

Anybody, anybody who understands how God operates knows when you look back in your life and you look on back, you'll see places where you could have done some very, very wicked things and God kept you from it. You weren't a Christian then. It was common grace. God does it all the time. He keeps evil people from being as evil as they ought to be. He keeps selfish people from being as selfish they ought to be.

He keeps the world from being as wicked and as unlivable a place as it ought to be. One of the most difficult things about trying to talk to people about the basis for Christianity is that people have too much common grace. Here's what I mean. You've heard me argue this way. when people say, well, why are you a Christian? Defend Christianity. This is called apologetics,

which is an old Greek word for Apologia means defense of the faith. And whenever I defend the faith, I'll tell you exactly how it works. I'll sit down with somebody and I say, do you believe in God? And they say, well, no or I don't know. I said, all right, well, here's a problem or two. If there is no God, and you've heard me go this way, if there's no God, that means the world is a crapshoot. Everything is an accident.

and you cannot talk about things that are good or things that are bad. There is no right and wrong, no right and wrong at all. And the person says, well, that's not true. I don't believe in God, but there's some things you know are right and wrong. And I'll say, why? How do you know when things are right or wrong? What's wrong? And they'll say, well, that's exploitative.

I say, well, who's to say exploitation's wrong? Well, somebody says it's impractical. If we allow things to be, if we allow exploitation, we can't live and have a good society. Because exploitation is impractical. I say impractical for who? It's wonderful for the exploiters. It's wonderful for the exploiters. It's tremendously practical for the exploiters.

It always has been. You have no basis for right and wrong. You have no basis for saying good and evil. I think, for example, they would say Christians are intolerant. And I'll say why? What's wrong with being intolerant? How can you say that there is no God and therefore everything is an accident, but intolerance is bad? How can intolerance be bad if everything's an accident?

you see and I would press now you know what happens usually here's what happens usually they say oh go on they can't answer it but they're not as bad as that the point is that their conscience even though they don't have a basis for it knows that there's right and wrong they because of the grace of God in our hearts and lives none of us actually live well not all but a few of us do but most none of us actually live as bad as we ought to live you have the marquee de sade you have the marquis de sade who said what is is right. Now see, there's a man who sat down and said,

if there is no God, there's no right and wrong, and whatever exists, whatever can happen, must be okay. In that case, you had a failure of common grace. You have, you see what's happening right there? You have a man who is as bad as he could be, bad as he ought to be. But when a person says, I don't know if there is a God,

I don't know if there is a right and wrong, and yet continues to live as if there's meaning, as if there is a right and wrong, that's common grace. It's one of the reasons it's hard to do evangelism sometimes with people. Because their own conscience is so full of a kind of smuggled in, hijacked sense of right and wrong that they have no basis for, but it's still there, and it's the only reason they're able to live. That's the reason why at a certain point they just say, do you go on? What does that mean?

It means, you know, intellectually you're right, but the fact of the matter is, even though I want to be able to live my own life and I don't want to believe in a God and I don't know if there is a God or not, I'm actually going to live 50, 60% of my life as if there is one anyway. God restrains our evil and he excites us to good. Every good gift, every good thing that comes down from God is good. Beautiful music. Smart politicians and government and statesmanship. Great art. technological expertise. The Bible says every one of those things is from God. It comes down from above.

It says in Matthew 5 and in Luke, God makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall and the just and the unjust. In the, you know, the movie Amadeus and the play Amidias, it's all about common grace. Salieri is so upset because God clearly has given to Mozart this divine gift. And Mozart is a completely obnoxious jerk. And Salieri, you remember if you've seen it,

the whole thing is about the fact that Salieri doesn't understand common grace. The thing he doesn't understand is that any good gift is grace. You don't deserve it. But God throws beauties out there. He throws good things out into the world for you and me. It would be an absolutely intolerable place. for Christians to live, unless Jesus Christ was continually exciting people who are not Christians to all kinds of wisdom, to all kinds of skill, to all kinds of insight, to all kinds of goodness,

that actually they don't have anything in their heart to engender. In a sense, they don't have a right to it. Celair was upset, didn't realize that Mozart was a gift for you and for me. It's a gift to make the world, a beautiful place, a place that is a place that's still livable, even this side of the coming of the kingdom of God. What does this mean in conclusion here? I'm going to have to conclude. I said this is an intermediate lesson, but it's a very important one. On the one hand, you've got a lot of Christians who don't understand common grace, and they just look at the world as a wicked, awful place. Christians shouldn't be involved in it at all. You know, in an extreme case, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, they say don't even vote. Now, I'm not

saying the Jova's witnesses are, I understand that they are actually a different religion from Christianity, but they're a good example of someone who says, the world is a wicked place, don't even vote, don't have anything to do with it. On the other hand, you've got a lot of people that don't understand the difference between common grace and special grace. There's a big difference between a Christian who has the Holy Spirit and a non-Christian who's been given a good gift like Mozart. But I'll tell you what this means. Christians have got to appreciate beauty and skill and wisdom wherever they find it as a way of honoring the God who gave it. Now, sometimes we can say it in a very humorous way. Martin Luther said, I would

much rather be ruled by a wise Muslim than a stupid Christian. If you don't understand common grace, you might feel like I can never vote for a non-Christian to rule me, a non-Christian to govern me. You see, if you don't understand common grace, you don't understand that. If you don't understand common grace, you're not going to be able to appreciate that. Here's a person who is a wonderful musician, who's not a Christian. Here's a person who's actually a very bad musician who is a Christian. Which kind of music honors God more? The answer is really kind of complex, but if you immediately say it's the mediocre musician who's a Christian,

you don't understand common grace. Christians are now concerned with excellence wherever they find it. They admire it wherever they find it. But I tell you what else. And finally, what it means is the Bible is saying that everything that happens in the world is happening for his people. Now, on the one hand, that means that you have to be humble.

You really have to be humble. Because, you see, the sin in you keeps you Christians from being as good as you ought to be. You've got the Holy Spirit, you've got the truth, but the sin in you keeps you from being as good as you ought to be. On the other hand, look at the so-called unbeliever, look at the skeptic, look at the person that doesn't agree with you. The grace in him or her keeps them from being as bad as they ought to be.

And therefore, you can't have this condescending attitude to say, well, I'm a Christian now, and therefore I'm better than everybody else. You understand the whole idea of common grace? On the one hand, common grace humbles us. It helps us to see that we have to appreciate and understand and respect beauty and truth and wisdom and insight anywhere we find it

because we know it's from God. It's from our father. It's from our maker. But on the other hand, it's humbling, but on the other hand, it's so reassuring. When it says God is ruling the world for the church, that means that everything that happens is happening for you. It means that his people are the people that he has arranged the world for. Why did he scatter jewels out there in the world like Mozart?

Why does he throw in Mozart's in Heidens? You know, here's a Johann Sebastian Bach, who was a believer. Here's a Mozart who was not a believer. If God only gave beauty to the world through Christians, we would not have enough beauty. If God only gave insight to the world through Christians, who would not have enough insight. So you see, on the one hand, it's humbling, and we better not think we're the only ones that know anything,

we're the only ones that can govern, we're the only ones that can rule, we're the only ones that can do music or art, we better not believe that. But on the other hand, you see, that humbles you, but on the other hand, I know this is going to sound proud to anybody who hears this, who doesn't understand it from inside, special grace, but I'm telling you that Mozart was for you. Haydn was for you. Every good president we've ever had was for you. It's all for the church. God is seeking to give us a world that's livable.

That's how merciful he is. Or go one step further. Everything's happening for you. Even the avalanches, even the tragedies. Everything is happening for you. John Flavel put it this way. Let God work out all his plans, all he intends, all he intends, and have patience until the end,

and then find fault with it if you can. Let me say that again. Let God work out all that he intends, and have patience until the end, and then find fault with it if you can. There's a present control he has over the world that's all for you. Right now, if I gave you the power, would any of you change the circumstances of your life?

Would any of you say, I sure like to be taller? I sure wouldn't like to be divorced. I would have liked to have had a nice mother. I wish that tragedy that I can never forget was out of me. I know that I'm, I know, I know, I know I'm not the person I ought to be because of that incident. There was terrible abuse. Of course I would change things. You'd screw it up.

You have to understand that. If we gave you control, would you do? things differently, and yet the Bible says that God is a present plan and is presently ruling all things for you, everything, everything good, and even the things that are wicked and evil, he is overruling and he's working it all out. Ending. Would you understand his power? Would you know his power? The reason I'm bringing it up is because of what Paul says. When you look at your belief, do you see it's a miracle? When you look at the beauty around you and the the world, do you see it's for you? When you look at the evil things that have happened to you,

do you think you're smart enough and you change it if you could? Don't you see that everything is under his control and it's all power to you? The same power that he used to resurrect Christ in the dead, the evidence of his power. I pray that you'll know them. I pray that I will know them. How different you'd be if you saw his power everywhere, how different I would be. Let's pray for it. Our Father, as we listen to the music, as we take up the offering, we're going to offer ourselves to you. We're going to say, Lord, I don't have patience.

I do think I could do things better. I'm forgetting your power. Lord, I don't appreciate the beauty in the world around me. I don't know your power. Lord, I don't realize that even my belief and even my doubts are evidences of your power. Oh, Lord, help me see your power. everywhere so I won't be scared anymore. Help me see your power everywhere so I won't be confused. Help me see your power everywhere so I will know that I'm safe and in your hands because the

powerful king is my loving Heavenly Father. We pray to you through Jesus, our brother, in His name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, you can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller anytime, visit gospel and life.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, Will Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.