Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Integrity

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Do you understand what your heart is really like? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is saying that the reason we’re inauthentic or hiding from other people is because we’re actually being inauthentic with ourselves, hiding from ourselves. We’re deeply uncomfortable with the reality of our own hearts. Jesus wouldn’t mention hypocrisy in the Sermon on the Mount unless he thought it was a pervasive issue, something we’re all struggling with. Jesus says this is the way we are, that there’s a real problem and the human heart desperately wants to get into image management. Let’s look at how Jesus shows us 1) two manifestations of hypocrisy, 2) how you can’t stand to see what’s in your own heart, 3) how you know the plank in your own heart is huge, and 4) how to remove the plank from your heart. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 18, 1999. Series: The Mount; Life in the Kingdom. Scripture: Luke 6:39-49. 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. What does it really mean to live in a way that reflects God's kingdom? For many of us, the kingdom can feel like an abstract idea. But in today's teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, Tim Keller shows how Christ offers us practical guidance for living out a compelling vision of a new kind of community shaped by grace. In your bulletin you've got a passage printed out on which the teaching is going to be based. We're looking at the Sermon on the Mount. section, which is Luke chapter 6 verses 39 to 49. He also told them this parable, can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?

A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when you fail yourself to see the plank in your own eye, you hypocrite? First take the plank out of your eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.

People don't pick figs from thorn bushes or grapes from briars. The good man brings good things out of the good stored in his heart. Evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like, who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He's like a man building a house, who dug down deep

and laid the foundation on a rock. When the flood came, the torrent struck that house, but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like the man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment at Taran struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete." This is God's word. We come to a new section in the sermon, and last week the sermon in a sense looked outward and it was talking about

relationships to others our neighbors this Turns around and now we're really looking more at our relationships with ourselves It's looking in is looking at how we understand ourselves and see ourselves So you see? When he talks about do you see what your heart is like? That's really what this is about. Do you understand what your heart is like? Now, the word integrity, which is the nice positive word I used to start as a title for this sermon, is what Jesus is talking about, but he doesn't use the word integrity. He uses the opposite word. He uses the,

he's talking about the sin, which is the opposite of the character quality of integrity. He calls it hypocrisy. And you see in the very middle when he suddenly says, you hypocrite. It's easy to think, well Jesus is just saying you fool or you idiot or, but no, the word hypocrisy for Jesus is a very specific word. In fact, it's a very important teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. He talks about hypocrisy a number of times. He talks about hypocrisy a great deal in his teaching in general.

Now the word hypocrite, the Greek word for hypocrite, is, pardon me, the English word is the word hypocrite in Greek. It's, hypocrite is the Greek word itself, just brought right into English, almost letter for letter. However, the Greek word hypocrite is the same word as the word, Greek word for an actor. Now right away some of you say, ah ha, I thought so. All actors are hypocrites. No.

That's not what it's saying. What he is saying, however, is all hypocrisy is acting. Back in those days, what he would do, what you'd do if you were an actor, was you'd use a mask, a literal mask. And if you were playing a joyful role, a role in which you were a joyful person, you'd put on a joyous mask, or you'd put on a grieving mask, those masks sometimes you've seen on those old insignias for theaters, that's really how they were done. But here's the point. The mask hid what you were really like.

And all good acting is that way. In other words, if you've got a joyful role but you feel sad, you're joyful. If you have to play a murderous, angry person, even though you're the sweetest person in the world, if you're a good actor, you can play someone who's murderous. Why? Because the mark of good acting is that the part is not the same as the heart. That there's a disconnect between the part and the heart. No matter what's in your heart, you can still play a great part.

What you present on the outside is not at all necessarily what's on the inside. I mean, Kathy and I always enjoy a very classic piece of bad acting, which is where John Wayne is the centurion at the foot of the cross in the movie Greatest Story Ever Told. And there he is, he's supposed to be a centurion, and the duke looks up and he says, surely this was the son of God. And you know, even though he's dressed as a centurion, he's a cowboy. Even though he's reading the lines of a centurion, he's a cowboy. He's just himself. That's bad acting.

A good actor is someone who can make an amazing disconnect. What you present on the outside is not at all what's really on the inside. Now Jesus said, that's fine on the outside is not at all what's really on the inside. Now Jesus says that's fine on the stage, but he says it's devastating when you get it into the life. And what he's actually saying in here is that that is exactly what happens. In verse 41 he says, Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank? Pay no attention. Now this means, Jesus is saying, that it's an inclination of the human heart

to want to divert attention from what it's really like. We don't want to look at it. We don't want people to see it. What's interesting here, I mean, Jesus is saying hypocrisy is really something that, I mean, he wouldn't be putting the sermon on the mount unless he thought it was a pervasive issue of something we were all struggling with. He wouldn't be doing this unless he felt that this is a real problem, that the human heart desperately wants to get into image management. It wants to get into spin. It wants to get into airbrushing. It does not want anyone to see what it's really like. It's really scared of that. And you know what's very interesting, if you read the famous, this is a very famous passage, if you look at the speck but you

pay no attention to the plank, you hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye then you'll be see clearly to remove the speck, it's interesting that the implication is this, that one form of this hypocrisy is a judgmental spirit. In other words, the way in which we divert attention from who we really are is by finding fault with other people and looking around and seeing all the bad things that they do and scolding them, or even just inside. Notice it says, why do you look at the speck, even though you're not saying anything?

Hypocrisy is, let's hide what I'm really like by focusing on what's wrong with everybody else. I mean, you know, one of the great shocks that I had in my life and some of the great shocks that many of you have had and one of the great shocks that many of you will have is that after you get married and all of your life you've been told by your father and mother about your faults, you've been told by your siblings about your faults, you've been told by your roommates about your faults, you've been told by your friends about your faults. And you get married and you find out they're true.

It's true. Why didn't, you know, because, you know, your wife is suddenly telling you these things, have you talked to my mother? No. Have you talked to my roommate? No. And you say, oh my word, they're true. Well, now why didn't I listen to them before?

Well, you know, you look at your father and your mother and you say, well you know, God, look at them. They weren't looking, they were born. What would they know? They're old fashioned. Or you look at your friends and say, well you consider the source and they're kind of this and they're kind of that. So what are you doing? You see the speck. So that you don't have to deal with what's in you. And Jesus says that hypocrisy is very, very strong. On the one hand, it takes the form of sort of looking down at other people, finding fault with other people, justifying yourself that way.

On the other hand, it's a very clear implication here that the nature of this hypocrisy is, I want to touch your speck, but hands off mine. I want to talk about your faults, but don't you dare talk to me about mine. And another manifestation or form of this hypocrisy is sensitivity to criticism, the inability to really handle criticism. Now this looks like two different kinds of people. The judgmental, on the other hand, people that just fall apart, get devastated when criticism comes. You say those are two different kinds of people. No, they're both into image management. They are both deeply, deeply uncomfortable with reality of what their heart is like. They have a presentation

comfortable with reality of what their heart is like. They have a presentation that they want to put in front and they want that disconnect. They definitely do. And Jesus says this is the way we are. This is very, very prominent. Why? So this inauthenticity is very prominent. Very prominent. Now why? Oh, by the way, one of the best ways, if you say, ah, yeah, you're exaggerating, I know hypocrites, let's get on to that, but I'm not a hypocrite. Well, have a children and then you'll know. Because your children will tell you, and they do, you punished me for twisting the truth, but what were you doing on the phone just now? You punished me for abusive language, but what was that you just gave to me? In other words, and you're right. They're right. We have a tremendous problem with this hypocrisy.

We have a tremendous, there's a spiritual inauthenticity. There's a disconnect between what we present ourselves to be, what we want people to think we are and what we are. Now, what's the root of that? Why this authenticity, inauthenticity? The root of it, the reason for it, is we are not just hiding from the world. We're not just putting on a mask and masquerading

and kidding the world and fooling the world. Jesus're not just putting on a mask and masquerading and kidding the world and fooling the world. Jesus actually comes in here and says, the reason for inauthenticity to other people is because we're actually being inauthentic with ourselves. The reason that in a sense we're spinning other people is because we're spinning ourselves. The reason we're hiding from other people who we really are is because we're actually hiding from it ourselves. And he says that here in verse 42 when he says, how can you say to your brother, brother let me take the speck out of your eye, when you yourself fail to see the plank. Now that's pretty interesting. Jesus does not just say you fail to admit it. You know, if it wasn't for that sentence you might get the impression that Jesus is talking about hypocrisy of the kind of hypocrisy that we think of.

When you think of the word hypocrite, maybe already in your mind, some of you may be resisting what I'm telling you because you say, I know hypocrites. I know what they're like. And you think of people who purport to be one thing, but they are very deliberately something else. Purport to be upstanding, you know, moral leaders, but on the side they're running a prostitution or doing racketeering. And they're saying, boy, oh boy, you know, these people out there think I'm this way, but I'm really pulling the wool over their eyes. That's hypocrisy.

Now let me point out something. Is that really worse? Is that terrible? In one sense, yes, but I want you to know that I believe that not only that number of people is very rare, but that is not as deep a hypocrisy as when you have not just pulled the wool over the eyes of everybody else, but of yourself. There's a greater disconnect between surface and substance. There's a greater disconnect between the inner and the outer when you yourself have hidden from yourself. You yourself have fooled yourself as to who you are. That's a deeper hypocrisy. And by the way, it is considerably more prevalent. And Jesus is saying when he says, you fail to see the plank in your own eye, you hypocrite, he's telling us three things quickly about

this root of hiding from ourselves. First of all, he's telling us three things quickly about this route of hiding from ourselves. First of all, he's telling us we really do fail to see the plank in our eye. That means we really hate seeing who we are. I mean, it's even true physically. I don't know about you, but I think this is true of most people. You don't just walk up to a mirror, do you? Do you just walk up to a mirror? Don't you sort of approach the mirror from a certain angle? Don't you tend to look at the mirror in a certain way?

Hmm. Okay. I don't think you're just laughing at me, are you? You're laughing at you, aren't you? We don't like what we see. And that's just physically. We hate the way we look. And that's just physically. And by the way, we most of us know the more beautiful a person is almost the worst it is And what about spiritually it's even worse that way. I mean if that's true in the mirror what it would have what? first of all Jesus says you Can't stand to see What's in your heart, but now secondly he says however, you know, it's huge this word plank I mean, I you know, in the old, it's hard to translate these words.

It's fair to say that he's talking about a speck or a splinter. He says, you see the speck or splinter in your brother's eye. He says, but you don't see the plank in your own eye. Well now, the trouble with the word plank is it's too small a word in English. Doesn't get it across. Because the Greek word that Jesus uses here is a very specific Greek word and it means the load bearing beam in a house. And therefore what he's talking about is he's talking about a tree.

He's talking, he's not talking about a little, you know, two by four. Maybe that's what you said. Did you think of that? He's talking about a telephone pole. Now there's only two possibilities that he would do that. Why you think of that? He's talking about a telephone pole. Now, there's only two possibilities that he would do that. Why would he make that kind of exaggeration? The one possibility is he's being funny.

And he's saying, well, and here's a question. Now here's a question. Does it really make sense that he's looking at these people that he's talking to, and he's saying, in their eye, there's a speck, but in your eye there's a pole. There's a telephone pole. A telephone pole is millions of times more wood than a speck. Now is he really saying that hypocrites are millions of times more sinful and wicked than other people? I don't think so. Well then what is he saying? What he's actually saying is this. All of us sense

that there is something enormously wrong with us. The reason we can't bear to look ourselves in the mirror spiritually or physically is because we know there's something enormously wrong. That there's something, not just that we're just inadequate or we're kind of flawed, but that there's some kind of, that we're enormously sinful. And we're hiding it. Isn't it weird that he would use this image? I think it's a fascinating image. When something is in your eye, on the one hand you can see it, obviously it gets in your eye. Right? And when something's in your eye, you know it's in your eye. But on the other hand, you can't see it because it's in your eye, you know it's in your eye. But on the other hand, you can't see it because it's in your eye.

I mean, you're seeing it, but you can't really. How can you even see what it looks like? It's right in your eye. And isn't it strange for Jesus to say, you don't see it, and yet, and then say, you hypocrite? Now, if we can't see it, and if we don't know there's something enormously wrong with us, why on the other hand is he holding us responsible and chiding us and telling us to do something about it? And the answer is because we know that we're sinners but we don't know that we're sinners.

Are you looking for ways to grow in your faith this summer? Or are you hoping to help new believers or kids grasp the heart of the Christian faith? For many of us, the summer months can provide more time to deepen our faith and our understanding of what it means to follow Christ. A great resource to start using this summer is the New City Catechism Devotional, God's Truth for our Hearts and Minds. This devotional brings the historic catechisms of the Christian Church to life, offering a question to consider for each week of the year.

In the introduction, Tim Keller lays out the case for catechesis, the rich and communal practice of learning and memorizing questions and answers that frame the foundational beliefs of the Christian faith. Each week includes a scripture passage, a prayer, and a brief meditation that will challenge and inspire you. The included commentaries are by contemporary pastors such as John Piper, Tim Keller, and Kevin DeYoung, as well as historical figures such as Augustine, John Calvin, and Martin Luther. This month, in addition to the New City Catechism Devotional, we're including a great companion

resource, the New City Catechism for Kids, as our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world. So request your copies today at www.gospelinlife.com. That's www.gospelinlife.com. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. True story. A commander of an allied force right at the end of World War II was liberating a death camp, went in and saw the enormous piles of bodies and saw the incredible, incredible carnage.

And went into the town and all the officials and the people of the town right there, you know, the death camp was essentially in the town and all the people there said, we didn't know. We had no idea that was happening out there. We're not responsible. We had no idea. We didn't know any of that. And that Allied commander made all of the main officials and all the leading citizens of that town march right into that death camp and see what was going on and see what had happened. And they saw the piles of bodies. And when they had done that, the mayor and his wife, who was part of that entourage they went through, the mayor and his wife went home and hung themselves. They hung themselves. Now let me ask you a question. Well, no, let

me not ask you a question. Let me analyze this with you. If they had really known, if they really had totally known what was going on, they wouldn't have hung themselves because they wouldn't have been shocked. They would never have hung themselves. They would have said, no. But on the other hand, if they totally had not known, if they really didn't know at all, they would never have hung themselves because they wouldn't have felt so guilty. In other words, if they only knew, they wouldn't have hung themselves, but if they only didn't know, they wouldn't have hung themselves, but they both knew and they didn't know. They knew and they were deliberately holding it down.

They were holding down the truth and unrighteousness. And Jesus is saying that every human being, whether you believe in God or not, whether you believe in sin or not, whether you believe what I'm telling you right now or not, that there's still a voice that calls you a fool, that calls you a coward, that makes you feel condemned. And you're spending all of your life basically trying to deal with that voice, trying to shut it up. And basically everything in your life is really a function of this. And that is, I've got to cover up my plank. I've got to cover up what I really am. I can't

live with it. I can't see it. I can't see it, but I know it's there. And therefore what I have to do is I've got to do something. Now, the Bible tells us about this. You know, Adam and Eve, before they sinned, were naked and unashamed. Why? Because they didn't care what anybody saw. They were totally transparent and they were happy, but the minute they sinned, they covered up with fig leaves. Why? Because now there was a tree in there, now there was a plank and they couldn't bear it. They knew it but they were holding it down. Now therefore, you need to rethink your life. Let me give you a couple of opposites. Why are some people so incredibly religious and therefore very condemning and they're tut-tutting and they're always acting spirit everybody?

Why? It's fig leaves. It's cover. It's looking at everybody else's spec. It's covering up. It's trying to deal with that voice. It's trying to deal with that knowledge. It's trying to smother it. But on the other hand, why are some people so anti-religious? Why are some people so, why do they just love, you know, to knock the Bible? Why do they just love to knock religion? Why do they just love it? Well, there's good reasons for both religion and any religion, but on many, many cases,

why do they say, I don't believe in a God. I believe everybody has to be right. You know, everybody has to decide who God is for them and everybody has to decide what is right and wrong for them. Why? That's cover. Two. The lady protests too much. It proves, in a sense, both religious and irreligious people, as much as they hate each other, and they get them together, they strangle each other, but why are they what they are? Why are they so strong? They're covering. Let me give you another pair of opposites. Some of you need transparency. Some of you

just want to get into people's lives and you want to sit down and you want to talk to them about their deepest inner feelings. You want them to share. You want them to open up. You want them to depend on you. You want to get into those kind of deep, heavy, let's just be real with each other as persons. And there's others of you that absolutely want nothing like that. I don't want commitment. I don't want transparency. I don't want anybody in. Why? Cover. As different as you are, it's cover. Fig leaves. See? Why are some of you just desperate to be loved by the opposite sex and you dress that way? Why are some of you just desperate to be loved by the opposite sex and you dress that way? Why are some of you just desperately wanting to not be loved by the opposite sex and you

dress this way? Cover. I've got to convince myself that I'm acceptable. I've got to find a way. I've got to know. I've got to deal with it. I've got to find a way. I've got to know. I've got to deal with it. I've got to find some way. And Jesus says that is something that every human heart's got. It cannot deal with its own reality. It finds a way of covering up. Okay? It has many, many, many, many possible forms of that. Now then, what's the solution? Now Now interestingly enough, what is the solution? Put it to you at this, I'll put it to you this way. The first thing that Jesus in a sense tells us is remove the plank. How are we going to do that? Well I'd say the first thing is this, remember that removing the plank means this. The plank is not just an individual sin or two.

The plank isn't some big sin. It's not like a speck is just, ooh, tearing up a parking ticket and the telephone pole is, you know, murder. No, it's nothing like that. We're not talking about that. What Jesus Christ is saying is, your relationships with other people are going to be filled with hypocrisy. You will not be able to take. and there's all sorts of reasons why

it's impossible for most of us to ever remove the speck from somebody else's eye. To remove the speck from somebody else's eye is Jesus' way of talking about winsome, healing, speaking the truth in love. To take the speck from somebody's eye doesn't just mean you're criticizing them. To take the speck from somebody's eye means you have mean you're criticizing them. Take the spectra from somebody's eye means you have helped somebody else see there's something wrong and they have and they want you to deal with them. They want you to help them get it out because because they believe in you. They believe you're gentle. In other words, there's a

speaking the truth in love. There's this wonderful healing ability that is what he's talking about and he says that will never ever ever ever begin to develop in your life. You either, until you acknowledge that you're a sinner. See, to remove the plank first of all has got to mean not just I'm making a list of things I've done wrong, the telephone pole, the tree, you must admit you're a sinner that cannot save yourself. Now this is something that a tremendous number of people struggle with. Everybody wants

to say, hey, I'm not perfect. But Jesus is actually challenging and saying there's something much deeper going on and you know it. To remove the plank, first of all means you're going to have to acknowledge your own sinfulness. You're going to have to acknowledge the fact that I recognize there's something wrong with me and I'm going to make it conscious. I realize I'm selfish. I realize I'm scared. I realize that I'm just filled with self-interest. Look, go back.

For example, the people who say, hey, I'm independent, I'm independent, that's very proud. You're scared. But the people who say, well, I'm very, very transparent. I just love to have people, I love to get into people's lives. That's self-interested too. You're not loving people for themselves. This is going back to last week. You're not loving them for themselves. You need to feel authentic. You need to feel acceptable in the way you do that. As you get transparent, you need to be transparent. You need to have people be transparent with you. That's the way you feel good about yourself. A Christian is somebody who looks back not

only on the bad deeds that you've done, but even on the good things that you do. Why are some of you working so hard? Why are you working so hard? People try to tell you about it. Why are you such perfectionists? Why are some of you so angry at one or two people in your life? It could be your mother, your father, your ex-spouse or somebody like that, and you're trying to blame everything on them. Even the good things you're doing are ways, essentially, of selfishly trying to feel good about yourself and using everybody and everything. trying to feel good about yourself and using everybody and everything. And so the first step is you're going to have to admit, to take the log out of your eye does not just simply mean

oh, find, you know, what's wrong with me. The first step is to admit I'm a sinner and I can't save myself. The second step though is this. Jesus, well, look, when Jesus Christ looked into our eyes, what did he see? What did he see? Of course he saw sin. John chapter 2 tells us an amazing thing. I haven't preached on this in eight years, but it's something I'm going to pull out of text. At the end of John chapter 2, it says, Jesus Christ didn't trust anybody because he knew what was in us. There's a great, go look at it, near the end of chapter, not now, but at the end of

chapter 2, it says Jesus Christ didn't trust people. In fact, if you look very carefully, what it means is he looked into our eyes and he saw it. He saw rightly. See, we don't really see other people's sins very well. It says, notice it says, until you've taken the plank out of your eye, until you've acknowledged your own sinfulness, you will never be able to see straight to help anybody else. You will tell yourself about other people what you need to believe about them to feel good about yourself. In some cases, you're going to need to believe some people are really nice because they give you a sense of self-worth from their approval of you. Other people you're going to need to believe that they're not very nice. Are you following me? In other words, until you acknowledge

your own sin, everything you do with people is not really treating them as they are or loving them as they are. Everything you do, everything you not really treating them as they are or loving them as they are. Everything you do, everything you see, you're always going to be telling yourself what you need to believe in order to feel good about yourself. Jesus saw clearly, he saw right into us, and what did he do? What did he do about our beams, our load-bearing timber. What did he do about it? He was nailed to it. He was crucified on it. There's a certain sense in which, you know, Jesus is actually saying before you'll ever be able to help anybody else in their lives,

you're gonna have to pay the cost of repentance. You're going to have to pay the cost of admitting who you are, of dealing with your sin. But Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of that. For him to be able to come and speak to us and tell us what's wrong with us, he had to pay the cost of dealing with our sin. Now here's what that means. Do you believe Jesus Christ died for you? Do you believe therefore that you're accepted because of what he's done? Do you believe that you're not saved because of your good works but because of what he's done? Do you realize then, then and only then can he come and actually tell you about

your specs, about what's in your eye? In other words, the only possible way for you to have the emotional health that enables you to welcome criticism, that enables you to welcome the truth about yourself, for you to become finally a person of integrity so that what's on the inside and what you believe about on the outside are finally together. The only possible way for that to happen is if your conscience and your heart is shored up with the knowledge that he loves you infinitely, he loves you always, he loves you unconditionally. He died for you while you were an enemy. That means he would do anything for you. He has done anything for you. Not until I know that his love for

me is unconditional and fallible can I finally begin to admit this and that sin? If I believe I'm saved by works in a religious way, or if I believe in a sense, in other words, if my self-image, if my self-image is based on any kind of performance, whether it's my performance as a liberal or performance as a conservative, performance as a religious person or performance as an irreligious person, if I'm basing my self-image on my performance, which is the only other way to build a self-image, unless you believe in the gospel with the grace of Jesus Christ, I will never be able to actually deal with the traumatic material of what I'm really like. Only when I believe I'm saved in spite of my sin will I finally

be able to admit my sin. You know that song we sing? We're not singing it tonight, but sometimes we sing it as a not singing it tonight, but sometimes we sing it as a confessional response. It's your kindness that leads us to repentance, O Lord. Until I know His kindness, I can't even begin to have the emotional strength and the spiritual strength to see what's wrong with me. And therefore, if and only if you know what Jesus has done for you, you can get out, you can throw away your airbrush, you can stop your spin, you can finally look and admit who you are. There's some amazing examples of this. In fact, think about the Bible and let me think about the disciples in general and Paul in particular. Look at all the places

in the New Testament where the disciples look like idiots. Almost every two chapters, I figure. We see them asking Jesus stupid questions. We see them saying one thing and doing another over and over and over again. All these conversations with Jesus, they look bad, they look bad. But where did we learn about these conversations? Where would we have had to have learned about these conversations? From them. After the cross and the resurrection, they got no problem telling you what they're like. They have that kind of emotional health. They have that kind of integrity. They know who they are, finally. They're not telling themselves they're there. They're not saying, I know I'm great. They don't have to convince themselves of that. They don't need transparency

but they're not afraid of transparency. Or look at Paul himself. One of the things that most amazes me about Paul, if you think about it, is Paul, before he became a Christian, as you know, was a persecutor of Christians and he put many, many people to death, many Christians to death. And he became a Christian only a couple years after the beginning of Christianity, which means, how many Christians were there in the world? You know, there were some, a few thousand, but not that many. You know, I mean, it wasn't that huge at the time. And what that would have meant is after he became converted, every time practically he visited town, every time he went to church, he'd be faced with people whose loved ones he'd killed.

How did he live with that? I'll tell you something, how did he live with that? Some of you are having a lot of trouble living with something considerably smaller than that, and you can't do it. You know why? Because you don't know what Paul knew. What Paul knew is, by the grace of God, I am what I am." If you understand that, if you're healed by that, Jesus crucified on your beam, you'll be able to turn around and admit who you are and you'll become a person of integrity. And I'll tell you, you know what this means? This means here's, when you know that you're a sinner but you're utterly loved, you'll have both the humility and the confidence to take the speck out of somebody else's eye. Because, you know, think about what it takes to take the speck out of somebody else's eye. You've got to

be so gentle, but you've also got to be pretty confident. I never have the confidence to try. I'm scared. I never take things out of, I'm afraid I'm going to hurt them. You know, you need confidence. On the other hand, you can't just say, yeah, let me see. You know, you – you have – you know, melt in your mouth stuff. The only way you're ever going to get that kind of gentleness is if you know you're a sinner. The only way you're going to get that kind of confidence is if you know you're absolutely accepted in his sight. And Christianity and the gospel is the only place you can get the knowledge of both those things, that you are simultaneously both accepted and sinful. Do you understand that? Now when we go to the Lord's table, which is right now, what

we want to do is we want to get a sense on our heart of that. Get a sense of the heart of Jesus dying on your plank, nailed to it. Then I want you to think about the people who are trying to tell you things that you're not listening to, or the people who you ought to be telling things to, but you've been too scared to do so, or the people that you have told about their faults, but you've been too scared to do so. Or the people that you have told about their faults, but you've been so clunky and you've been so unsuccessful, mainly because you've done it self-righteously. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the Gospel-centered teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner.

Your partnership allows us to reach people all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit www.gospelinlife.com slash partner. That website again is www.gospelinlife.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 1999. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you