Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Jesus as King; God's Ultimate Plan

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

When you’re young, there are probably things you’re sure would never happen to you, or things you’re sure you or friends would never do. But usually, as we get older, we begin to wonder whether there’s any rhyme or reason to life. Scientifically, they now say life is chaotic, that there is nothing but disorder. That’s both the practical and the intellectual perception. But Christianity has the most wonderful, the most sophisticated, and the most decisive answer to that perception: Jesus is King. When we see our lives and history looking chaotic, the Bible comes and says to us, “Calm down. There’s an explanation.” Let me show you how the two aspects of the kingship of Christ make up this most wonderful answer: 1) Jesus Christ has a kingdom coming, and 2) Jesus is King right now of history. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 30, 1994. Series: Understanding Jesus. Scripture: Ephesians 1:9–12. 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. Christianity isn't just a spiritual practice or set of moral teachings. At its heart, it's the person of Jesus actively pursuing us. In today's teaching, Tim Keller unpacks how Jesus actively seeks us, reveals truth to us, and calls us to himself. We've been looking all months. that aspects of who Jesus is, and today we're going to look at what it means to say Jesus is a king. And this subject, by the way, just to remind you, this subject, I mean, I've already preached

this sermon once, and I think I probably scare a few more snakes out of the bushes than I actually kill in the process of the sermon. So it might be a good day to follow me downstairs, as we usually do after the four o'clock service, to the East Lounge, after the service, after the service, post-lude. And we have questions and answers. So surely I'm going to, you know, scare out a couple of snakes that, at least to your satisfaction, I don't really nail in the course of the sermon. So jot your questions down, think about it, and come on down and we'll have questions and answers afterwards. But for now, Ephesians 1, and we read, And he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he

purpose in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him, we also were chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him, who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. This is God's word. If you were to take a person out of the heart of the South American rainforest had never been anywhere else and put him down in the middle of Times Square, it would look chaotic and crazy to him. He would want to know why are people rushing down into the belly of the earth through these

stairways. He'd want to know why these strange metallic-looking animals were whizzing by on the roads and why people were hailing the yellow ones and letting them devour them right on a spot. And, you know, there'd be all kinds of problems that this man would have. It would look chaotic and crazy because he wouldn't see the purpose to it. He wouldn't see, he would, this world would seem full of senseless components. Now, if you've lived in New York for a while, Times Square doesn't look quite that senseless, though it's a little senseless still. But I would propose to you that that image is a good illustration of how many people increasingly see their lives as time goes on. The older you get, the more you see, the life doesn't seem

to go by the rules. When you start out, when you're young, when you're in college, there's things that you're sure will never happen to you, or things that you will never do. There's rules, you see. None of your friends would ever do this, and as time goes by, you begin to wonder what rules there are. Nice guys finish last, the good day die young, and all that. They happen, that happens. And at a practical level, people as they get older begin to wonder. about whether there's any rhyme or reason to it. Intellectually, that's certainly true. Increasingly, in the intellectual world,

more and more thinkers are saying that the universe actually has randomness at its root. That the old scientific view of the universe that it was a kind of, the mechanistic view, the view that there's all these laws that have to be followed consistently knows, people like Stephen Hawking,

and a whole lot of other people, in a whole lot of other realms. They're saying, there is no rhyme or reason to it. Life is chaotic. History is chaotic. It's nothing but disorder. That's both a practical and an intellectual perception today. Christianity, though, has, I would say, the most wonderful, the most sophisticated, and the most decisive answer to that perception. And the answer is really in the text that we've just read. Jesus is king. In other words, if you went up to that poor guy from the South American

rainforest wandering around Times Square, you know, having a fit, you'd stop him, you'd sit him down and say, calm down, I can explain. You probably couldn't explain it very quickly. He has a long way to go to understand what a subway is, you see, what electricity is maybe. But you could say, calm down, there's an explanation. Well, the Bible comes. And it says to us, when we see our lives and history looking chaotic, it says, calm down. There's an explanation. And though it's not something that, again, just in the same way, the Bible says, I can't explain it all to you overnight. But the key to it all is the kingship of Christ. And let me show you how this answers this perception, how this is the most sophisticated and wonderful and decisive answer to the apparent

chaos of history. The Bible says, first of all, the kingship of Christ has two aspects, and these two aspects have to be in your mind understood and maintained as distinct but not separate. Distinct but not separate. If you don't understand the two sides of his kingship, and if you don't understand that they're not identical, but they exist together, If you don't understand both of them and see them as distinct but not separate, your life and history will look like time square to that poor guy. Let me explain what the two are. They're right here in the text. The first one is in the first part. It says the mystery of his will, his good pleasure, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. Now, this is talking about the coming kingdom. Jesus Christ has a kingdom coming coming.

His kingdom has a future aspect. I still think, probably the best way to explain that is with this illustration, God invented the universe the way a clockmaker invents a clock, except that God put himself into the clock. God made the universe in the beginning, kind of the way a clockmaker makes a clock, but God put himself into the clock. And we, humanity, you might say, was the key cog.

If you could open up the back of the clock, if the universe was a clock and you could open up the back, the way it was originally designed, there was humanity right in the center, meshing with God above and meshing with nature beneath. We were the vice regents of the world, God's vice regents in nature. But when we decided to take the vice out of vice region, when we decided we wanted to be our own regents, we wanted to be our own kings, we wanted to be our own masters, that was like a cog falling out, falling off of its axle, down into all of the wheels below. And what happened to the universe, the moment we decided to be our own directors,

to be our own regents, what happened to the universe is exactly what would happen to a clock if that happen, and that is the universe began to smoke and grind and crack and splinter. And there were coils and springs and levers flying off in every direction, see. In other words, the universe began to disintegrate. One thing that I think every scientist, every physicist, maybe even every psychologist, I hope, certainly every biblical theologian will say, is it is the nature of life and it's the nature of the universe in all of its aspects, physically, socially, spiritually, culturally, to deteriorate. Everything is decaying. Everything's in the process of falling apart. Everything is disintegrating. Everything is unraveling because that cog has fallen off of the axle

down into the bottom of the clock and everything is groaning and everything is crunching and things aren't working right. And so disease and decay comes in and injustice and oppression comes in and fear and guilt come in, all because we aren't meshed with our king above. Now, God, we're told from the Bible, and just look at history, God has allowed the tragedy to work itself out. We're free moral agents. He's let it happen. He's let us take the consequences. But he promised not to let us stew in our juices forever.

He promised not to let us die forever. He promised that someday he'd come back and that he would set up his kingdom anew, and he would put humanity back on the axle, and he'd mesh with us again from above. And when that happens, everything would be healed, physically and socially and spiritually, in every way. Everything would come together again. That's what Paul's talking about, right here, because you see, he says, this is the great plan. This is the mystery of his will, according to his pleasure, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. This is God's ultimate purpose.

This is the point of history to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, Christ. That means everything is disunited, everything is disintegrating. It's going to be brought together. It's going to become whole. Our bodies, instead of breaking apart as they get older, we're going to be made whole. Our souls, instead of breaking apart, will be made whole. Our relationships, everything is united under one head. See, this idea of head, that means Christ is king and head of the world.

That's a moment in the future. When everything has reached this fulfillment, everything will be united, everything will be healed. He'll be the head, and the universe again will be, in a sense, his body. And what is a body? It's an integrated whole. of interlocking organic systems, you see, instead of just a bunch of wheels and pulleys that are all fighting against each other, which is the way the universe is now. That is God's ultimate purpose. When the time is fulfilled, Jesus Christ will be king of all. All the resistance

will be put down. He will put us back on the axle and he'll begin to mesh with us again from above. And when that happens, we don't really know what it's going to be like. But it's usually worth spending a few moments every day meditating on what it's going to be like. All we know is paradoxical, magnificent metaphors. We know that when he becomes head and king overall, death will die. Decay will finally decay. See, disunity will disunite. Sickness will get terminally ill. Endings will be ended. Violence will be violated.

Destruction will be destroyed. Stuff like that. Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart. What he has in store for those who love him. I just love that place where, you know, Luke Skywalker says to Han Solo, he says, we need to go rescue the princes. You know, why? He says, because she's rich.

Really? How rich? He says, more than you can imagine. And Han Solo turns around and says, I can imagine an awful lot. We can imagine an awful lot. So imagine what it must be that would be in store for us on that day when God says you can't imagine. I has not seen nor ear heard nor has it entered into your heart. You have no idea.

You can imagine a lot of joy, can't you? you can't, nothing compared to it. On the day in which he is made ahead overall, that's what will happen. Now, but that's only one aspect of his kingship. He is going to take up his kingship. He's going to have a future and complete kingship. But then there's a second aspect to his kingship that's mentioned here, we've already alluded to it, and that is he is king right now of history. He may not have put down all resistance to himself yet in the world. He may not have put down all resistance to himself yet in humanity. But history has no resistance to him. He is a complete charge of every event of history. You see, the whole point of history is,

it says that when the times have reached their fulfillment to bring all things together in Christ. And he says, in him we were chosen, according to the plan of him who works out everything, everything, all things in conformity with the purpose of his will. The old authorized version used to say, He worketh together all things according to the counsel of his will. Now, you see, these two aspects of the kingship of Christ have to be brought together or you won't understand your life. Paul brings them together at the end of Ephesians 1, where he says,

and I quote, And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him head over everything for the church, his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Now, what is this saying? It is saying that though you don't see Jesus Christ crowned yet overall, you don't see him having put down all resistance to his royal will, and therefore you see brokenness, you see physical imperfection, you see pain, you see suffering everywhere. But right now, history is being steered by the king.

Christ, you might say, is in the driver's seat of history. He's steering it toward that omega point, which is actually the alpha point, the place in which he fills all in all. And so everything that happens now, every single thing, every event, we'll get to that later here, every event is under his control and as part of what this passage calls in Greek, his plan, his purpose, his boulon. It's his plan. He's got a blue print. And he's working out right now his lordship over history so that he can affect then his complete lordship and his complete healing of the universe. Now, unless you get these two things together, together, life will seem crazy. So, for example, somebody says, well,

wait a minute. If God, if Jesus Christ is king over everything and everything that's happening is happening according to his plan, that means he planned that earthquake, where the roofs fell in and all those poor people died in their sleep? If God is king, if Jesus is king, why is there suffering? Now, you know, you see, that question forgets how sophisticated this answer is. Jesus' kingship does not have one aspect, it has two. He has got right now a plan to get us to the place where there's no more earthquakes. He's got a plan for history to get us to a place where there's no more killing. There's no more murder.

There's no more death. There's no more anything. And yet, he's taking us there because many things have to happen before we get to that point. Well, what? Now, if we had lived 2,500 years ago, one thing we wouldn't have known anything about was the crucifixion. We wouldn't have understood it. We wouldn't have known that Jesus Christ had to come and die. If he hadn't died, he hadn't paid for the sins of those who believe, then what would have

happened is, of course, God could not deal with us in an appropriate way. We didn't know that. Now we do. But there are many other things along that road. In other words, God's taking us to a place where there is no pain. But the road to get to the place where there is no pain passes through pain. the road to the crown goes through the cross it had been for jesus and it happens for us at a certain level we know this many of us especially as we get older realize that it's only the most shallow

that that a life without troubles creates shallowness a life without failures creates superficiality I mean intuitively you realize if it wasn't for a trouble troubles we wouldn't know much about ourselves. In many cases, it wasn't for our troubles we wouldn't know much about, we wouldn't know God. There's all sorts of hints. We don't understand it completely, but we're told there's two aspects to his kingshoot. He's steering us to the place where there's no more earthquakes, yet he takes us through earthquakes on the road to get there. He's steering us to the place where there's no more crosses, where there's nothing but crowns, but on the way, he himself had to go through a cross. I was reading a book recently by a British author named John Stott,

John Stott said it this way. He said, one of the main reasons I'm a Christian is this. He says, the world is so full of suffering and pain. The world is so full of evil and brokenness that I could not believe in a God who had never suffered himself. I could not believe in a God who hadn't suffered and gone to the cross. And he says, one of the reasons I'm a Christian is there's no other religion that offers you a God who suffered. You see, God hates the earthquake. We're told that. And yet, it's woven into his plan. Why, somebody says, listen, if he's really the king, why does he have to take his time? What are you telling me about? Why does it have to take his time? I don't completely know.

But I know, but that question probably sounds like this to God. if you're most fathers have had this experience you have a little kid three or four years old and you say we're going to see grandmummy and granddaddy let's get in the car and the little kids say yay they get in the car and you're on your way and after five minutes kid says are we there yet daddy and you say no we're not there why not i'm tired i want to be there you told me you were going to take me there why is it taking so long Now, so you know, you say, all right, honey, it's 350 miles to grandma and granddaddy's house. We have been going for five minutes.

It's going to take a lot longer. And says, why don't you go faster, says the child. You could go faster. I mean, you see, you know, you're all powerful, father. You could go faster. So you try to explain to a four-year-old child some of the laws of elementary physics. He doesn't want to hear it. He says, you're just being mean.

And at a certain point, what do you say to a kid? You say, honey, you're four years old. You don't understand physics. I'm sorry. But all I can tell you is, fasten your seatbelt and be quiet. And you see, you know, there's an awful lot of very learned discourses, objecting to the very existence of God on the basis that if he really were king and if he was really taking us to the place where all the earthquakes would be gone,

why aren't we there yet? Very learned, very wonderful. You see, very, very detailed. And yet, basically, it boils down to, are we there yet, Daddy? Why not? Why couldn't you be going faster? And because I can't understand something that probably to God's mind is as simple as elementary physics is to our mind. Because I can't understand that. Therefore, maybe there's no God at all. That's the normal response. But don't you see, if Jesus Christ is king, it makes sense that not everything makes sense. If we relate to him, even like my four-year-old son relates to me, it would make sense that not everything would make sense. If it made sense, it wouldn't make sense. See? This is such a sensible mystery, this great doctrine, that he's in charge. We don't

understand everything. But he says, I'm taking you to that place where Jesus will fill all in all, and all things will be united. Meanwhile, everything that happens, all things are happening to get you to that place. Everything that happens, everything is designed to get us to the place where Jesus Christ is king of all. Now, what does that mean? Let's break it down practically. We just showed you why God controls history. He's trying to get us to the place where Jesus is king of all. But how does he control history? If you take a look at this, the version that we have printed here says he works everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. And I would like to meditate with you a minute on that to show you how this, now this doctrine is called, historically it's

been called the doctrine of God's providence. The doctrine of God's providence. You know, where the word providence comes from from the word provide, which means that everything that happens is God's provision. And this doctrine is unique. It's different than humanism. It's different than secularism. It's different than Islam. It's different than other than Buddhism and Eastern religions. It's unique. And it all is tied up in this word, everything. And I tell you, if you understand this word everything, it'll change your life. It'll change your attitude. It'll change the way in which you handle life tomorrow. If you understand it. If you understand, how he's exercising his kingship through providence, if you understand that everything works

together according to the counsel of his will, the purpose of his will, it will change the way you live. Let me show you. First of all, what's the word everything mean? It means three things. A, it means everything means God's plan includes little things. God's plan includes little things. It has to. You know, most of us don't think of it this way. everything. It says in Proverbs 16, the lot is cast into the lap, but the disposal is the lords. That means even when you flip a coin, if it comes down heads or it comes down tails, it was part of his plan. Nothing is left out of his plan. You may know the story of the prodigal son, but it's not just about a wayward younger brother. In fact, Jesus tells this story to speak both to those who run from God and to those who run from God and to those. who try to earn his love by being good. In his book, The Prodigal God,

Tim Keller shows how this well-known story reveals the heart of the gospel, a message of hope for both the rebellious younger brother and the judgmental older brother, and an invitation for all to experience God's prodigal, extravagant grace. Whether you're a Christian or you're still exploring faith, the prodigal God will help you see your relationship with Christ

in a whole new way. The Prodigal God is our thank you for your gift this month, to help Gospel in Life share the hope and joy of Christ's gracious and relentless love with people all over the world. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. Okay, that's the first thing I want to stress. Let me push it a little bit. People say, come on, nothing. You're telling me that the tie that Tim Keller was wearing today was part of God's plan from all eternity? You're trying to tell me the shoes that I decided to wear today

was part of God's plan? Little things like that? Well, there are only little things to you and me because we're so unwise. There are no little things. Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, somebody tried to shoot Teddy Roosevelt, and they did. They shot him in the chest. You know why he lived? Because he happened to have his glasses case on this side instead of this side. Your marriages, in many cases, your careers, what school you go to very often are based on so-called little things. I'll give you a quick example. I didn't do it this morning, but my wife told me I must tell the 4 o'clock service, even if you've heard the story before, because it's a perfect example. And the only, the reason that I'm a Presbyterian minister was because of a

particular faculty member that came to my seminary, my last semester, and pushed me over the edge when it came to my theological understanding and I decided, yeah, I think I need to be a Presbyterian. That's the reason I'm here today. Why did he come? The only reason he came that year was because somebody, he was trying, he was British and he was having a lot of trouble getting a passport to come and teach at my seminary in Massachusetts, but somebody pulled strings for him. Yeah, from real high up. He remembers one day, every day he'd go to the American embassy and he'd stand this long line and he says, I'm never going to get a passport, I'm never going to. But, you know, one of the problems

back then was he had to prove that an American citizen couldn't do the job as well as he could to get this job. And it was a very long process. and one day somebody came out looking for him, calling his name out. Somebody came out when he was standing in this long line and called him in and says, you're going to be in America within a week. We got word from real high up. Well, you know who that was? It was a guy named Mike Ford. Mike Ford was the son of the president at the time. Mike Ford was the son of Gerald Ford, and he was a student at Gordon Conwell Seminary, where I was. And he found a way to get this particular faculty member to Gordon Conwell, because his father was the president. You know why his father was

president? Because of Watergate. You know, because of the Watergate scandal, Nixon had resigned and Gerald Ford was the president. That's the reason that Mike Ford had the clout to get this guy over there. That's the reason why he was there. That's the reason I became a Presbyterian. That's the reason I'm talking to you right now. Well, why did Nixon fall? Because some stupid Watergate burglar left the door open one night. And some guard noticed the the door was open. Now, what if that guard hadn't gone by that day? Maybe he went by that day because that morning he didn't eat breakfast, and he got in a little bit early. You see, I wouldn't be here if that guard hadn't seen that door open. That's the way everything in your life is.

Ray Bradbury had it figured out. Ray Bradbury has one great story about the future, about time travel, and he has this one story about how when people would go back into time, careful to walk on a magnetic field and not touch anything. Otherwise, everything would change. And one of the stories, one of the time travelers accidentally slips and falls off the magnetic field and steps on a butterfly and kills it. And everything changes. The rest of the universe, the rest of history changes forever. Everything's interlocked. It's silly not, you know, when people say, you mean God has planned everything out? If you think, you'll realize there is no other way. can you imagine the terror that a thoughtful person would get up,

would get up out of the bed every day with, knowing that there was such a thing as chance, that anything could happen, knowing that the tiniest little thing could completely change everything about your life, completely changed civilization. God's plan includes everything. Therein lies your security.

Okay, secondly, The word everything means God's plan also includes our choices. This is something that people have trouble with, right? The first point I just made was that God's plan includes little things. Every little thing, everything is part of his plan. It says everything works out according to his plan. Well, your first reaction is, that's terrible. That means that we're all faded to do things, and we have no freedom, and there's no freedom.

That's not true. As a matter of fact, it's not true because of this word everything. My second point here is that God's plan includes our choices. Fatalism. Listen, the Greeks taught fatalism. The Romans taught fatalism. The Muslims teach fatalism of a sort of kismet. But fatalism does not include our choices in a fatalistic system of thought.

Everything is fixed except our choices. Let me give you an example. In all the Greek myths, if a prophecy comes and says, this woman or this man is destined, is fated to be a criminal, if that poor person spends years trying to be good, trying to live a good life, trying to avoid a life of crime, it won't matter why. Because you see, in the Greek worldview, in the fatalistic worldview, if you're fated to be a criminal, it doesn't matter what you do. You are faded in spite of your choices. The matter how hard you try to be good, you are fated, you are destined to be a criminal. And that's

the way fatalism works. In other words, everything is fixed except your choices. You can do anything with your choices, but it doesn't matter. But Christianity is different. Christianity says everything is part of God's plan, including your choices. The plan is fixed through your choices, including your choices, not in spite of, which means something very simple. and yet very profound, very mysterious and yet very sensible. It simply means that your choices are always part of the plan. Here's Jacob. Jacob sins against his father, and he robs his brother. As a result, he has to leave and live in a foreign land, and he has a very miserable life.

And yet he meets the love of his life in that foreign land, Rachel. And they have their children through whom the Messiah, Jesus Christ, has ascended. So it's very clear that Jacob had to sin and had to go to that foreign land for Jesus to be born. And Jesus obviously was planned by God, right? Yes. So the sin was planned, right? Yes, of course. And yet the sin was free. The sin was responsible. Nobody coerced him. And yet it was part of the plan. And the bad consequences that came into his life happened because of the plan. And because of the choice. It all works together. Jacob was completely free and completely responsible, and yet every single thing that happened to him was part of the plan.

All at once. God is in control. We are free. Why? Because everything is part of the plan. God never fixes our fate despite our choices. You know, Charles Spurgeon had that great story. He used to tell.

He went by, Charles Spurgeon believed all this. He was a Baptist preacher. He went to see a friend of his who was sick. And he says, how are you doing? And the friend says, oh, I don't know if I should take my medicine. And Spurgeon says, why? And he says, well, he says, I don't know whether God has destined me to live or die. And Spurgeon says, you know, now Spurgeon could have lectured and said, okay, in the Greek idea of fate, if you're going to die, it doesn't matter what

you do. But not in the Christian view. Oh, no. Your choices are always linked to the plan. And so what did he say? He says, my dear friend, I can tell you exactly what's going to happen. if you take your medicine, you're destined to live. If you don't take your medicine, you're destined to die. Because everything, everything is part of his plan. This makes perfect sense, even though you can't quite always kind of work the thing out. There's a great place in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 27, in which Paul's on a ship. And the ship is in a terrible storm.

And Paul gets up and says, God has shown me. that no one on this ship will lose their lives, but we will lose the ship. We're going to be shipwrecked, but no one will lose their life. God has spoken. Okay, it's a prophecy. All right. And yet, at one point, the soldiers try to get into the lifeboats. And Paul runs over and says, if you get in the lifeboats, we'll all die.

Don't get in the lifeboats. This is like three verses after he just said, God has said, no one will perish. So what did they do? They said, okay. Paul says, don't do it, or we'll be killed. And yet, of course, nobody perished. Why? Because, you see, God never fixes our fate despite our choices, but through our choices. Because unlike fatalism, everything is part of his plan. And that means, friends, when you make a choice, when you got a choice before you, make it well. Don't shrug and say it doesn't matter. Because if you make a good, you make a good, choice, you'll be in good shape. If you make a bad choice, all kinds of terrible consequences will happen. And yet, knowing that, on the other hand, the wonderful thing about this great doctrine is, and yet, you have to realize you can't screw your life up, past what God has in store for you, and he says his will for you is he loves you. You can't do something and

then frustrate God, you see? God's never looking down at you and saying, oh my gosh, What did she do that for? Now what am I going to do? I guess I could have her marry this guy instead, but I don't know. You know, that's not the way God operates. You make a bad choice. You've made a bad choice. You make a bad choice. You do something stupid. You do something rash. You do something wicked. There will be consequences. And yet, and yet, everything is part of this plan. You can't muck up your life. He's working in it. But lastly, his plan includes everything therefore little things his plan includes everything and therefore choices but god's plan includes everything his control his kingship over history includes everything including bad

things and i know this is the toughest one but let me tell you a story to explain god hates the bad things and yet he includes the bad things he weeds them into his plan why somebody says well we already i went through it once and told you that partly it's a mystery. Partly, this is a place where you have to say, I'm a child, you're a father, okay. You know, I don't understand why we can't be a grandma so quickly, but on the other hand, I understand that you're the father. All right, I'll tighten my seatbelt and I'll be quiet. And yet there's, fortunately, the Bible gives us more than that. It doesn't treat us as babies. It gives us some wonderful stories. Let me give you an example.

All things work together according to the council of his will. Or Romans 828, all things work together for good to those who love God. The quintessential story of this is the story of Jacob and Joseph. Jacob was a patriarch. Jacob was a man who had 12 sons, and he did the stupidest thing a father can do. He set his heart on one of his 12 sons. Joseph, he doted on that little boy, he doted on that young man. And he was clearly in love with the kid, and he was clearly the favorite.

And there's nothing that can inject pain into a family worse than that. And it did. As Joseph grew up because he was indulged and because he was centered on, he was becoming an arrogant kid. He was becoming a superficial and empty person. He was becoming the kind of superficial and empty person that always comes out of such an indulgent environment. Meanwhile, the other brothers were turning into alienated and resentful kids and alienated and resentful young men. And finally, their resentment grew to the place where they became capable of a horrible thing. They kidnapped Joseph, they put him into a pit, and they sold him into slavery, and they told his father he was dead, that an animal had killed him. And his father, because, you know, Joseph was his God. Joseph was his idol. His father lost all hope and went into depression for years. and the sons who had done this, the brothers who had done this, lived with a guilt,

and over the years it became unbearable, and they became alienated from each other and their father and their life was miserable. But Joseph did not die. He was sold into slavery, and in the hardship of slavery, and in the hard knocks of Egypt, he got what his father never could have given him. Jacob would never could have given it to him. Character, grit, savvy. wit, and he learned to cling to God.

And eventually, this brought out the potential in Joseph. He never would have happened if he'd stayed at home. It brought out the potential. And eventually he came to the place where he rose up to become prime minister of Egypt. And with his foresight, he realized that a famine was coming and he created a grain reserve program so that when the famine hit, instead of everybody started, to death, he was in charge of giving out the grain from the years of plenty so that the people during the years of famine weren't starving. Well, the famine stretched all the way up to the

place where Jacob and the 11 remaining brothers lived, and Jacob sent, you see, 10 of the brothers down to Egypt to get grain and to get food so they wouldn't starve. And when they see Joseph, Joseph recognizes them, but Joseph is hidden to them. they don't recognize him. Joseph can't believe it when he sees his brothers. He wants to have revenge, but he wants to test them. So he says, who are you? They explain, ah, we're from a far country. We're 12 brothers. One of them is dead. One is at home with our father, who's elderly. You're spies, he says. You're here to spy us out and give information to invading countries. No, no, no, not a bit. Not at all, they say. That's not true. We're really brothers.

There's. Okay, I'll tell you what I'll do, says the prime minister. I'm going to keep one of your brothers. I'm going to keep Simeon. I'm going to put him in jail here. I'm going to send you home with just a little food. But if you want more food, if you want to not starve, you've got to prove that you are really a family. Bring that youngest son, Benjamin, back that you tell me about. Bring him here. Then I'll know you're telling the truth. But if you don't come back with Benjamin, you'll never see my face again. You'll never get grain here. You'll all starve. So sadly, they go back to Jacob. And they say, Father, we've got a little bit of food, but if we're going to go back again, we've got to take Benjamin. And at that point, Jacob, you see, cries out. And in Genesis chapter 42, verse 36, he cries a cry that I believe is the quintessential cry of a person looking at life without

seeing it through the kingship of Christ. What's he say? I say, we've got to take Benjamin back. We've got to go back. And he says, no. Joseph is no more. And Simeon is no more. And now you would take Benjamin from me. Everything is against me. Joseph is no more. Simeon is no more. And now you would take Benjamin for me? Everything is against me. And at the moment he said that, God was moving heaven and earth for Jacob. If Jacob hadn't lost Joseph, Joseph and the whole family would have been destroyed. If Jacob hadn't lost Joseph, the whole region would be dying of starvation. Through the incident of the loss of Joseph, God was healing Joseph.

He was humbling his brothers. He was helping the whole region economically. And he was destroying the idols that were ruining and distorting Jacob's. life. God was moving everything, moving heaven and earth for Jacob. But is that what Jacob thought? No, what did he say? Everything is against me. Joseph is no more, but Joseph was just being hidden from him. He was in preparation. Simeon is no more. Simeon was really fine. He was in preparation. Everything is against me. That's how your life will always look. If you refuse to believe that God knows more than you. If you refuse to believe he's king, if you refuse to believe he's good.

Now, how about you? How do you feel when you look at your life right now? Do you feel that way? What's the cry of your heart? You say, I'm never going to find love now. I'm never going to find success now. things are no more, and everything is against me. Is that how you feel? Well, it's understandable. I mean, look at Jacob. That's how he felt. That's how he saw things. He was a patriarch. He was no idiot. He wasn't stupid, and neither are you to feel that way. But you're wrong. You're wrong. Be careful. Look in the mirror of that. cry. Joseph is no more. Simeon is no more. You're going to take Benjamin from me. Everything is against me. Look in that cry. There's a mirror there. And so, I don't want to be like that.

I don't want to say that. Friends, if you understand that God's plan includes bad things, that God's plan includes your choices, that God's plan includes little things, and that all of God's plan is controlling every single event to the end and to the goal of making God Jesus Christ all in all and king of all healing the universe. Then you understand the doctrine of providence. And if you understand it and you begin to operate on this, on that wavelength, you begin to remind yourself of these things all the time, what will that do to you? Well, I'll just close by saying it'll have three effects. One is it'll make you feisty. Feisty. You see, if you believe that God hates the evil as much as you do,

and that though it's in store, it's in store, you know, you're going to get hurt, you're going to be hurt. You're going to find all sorts of bad things happening to you and around you, but you know that it is, you can lose a battle, but you can't lose a war. See, the pagan notion of evil is that's it, accept it. And the modern notion of evil is it's random, let's fight against it. But Christians understand that we fight with hope. There's a feistiness.

The latest, the last Twyla Paris album has its, I think it's the first song on the first side, a song, God is in control. Oh, it's not the greatest work of art, but the feistiness is in the lyrics. And the chorus goes, God is in control. We believe that his children will not be forsaken. God is in control. We choose to believe, we choose to remember and never be shaken. There. We choose to remember and never be shaken. There is no power above or beside him. We know God is in control. There's a feistiness. You know, in your face, evil, we choose to remember and never be shaken. It's your choice. There's a feistiness. Secondly, there's also a kind of contentment.

Because even when things go bad, you know what God's doing to you. There's this great little book for children called the Velveteen Rabbit. and in one place in the velveteen rabbit, these two animals, stuffed animals, two toys in the nursery are talking to each other. And the one toy says the other toy, what does it mean to get real? Well, says the skin horse, it's a thing that happens to you when a child loves you for a long, long, long time. Not just to play with, but really loves you, you become real. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily or have. have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you're real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes have dropped out, and you get all loose in the joints, and you're very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you're real, you can't be ugly,

except of people who don't understand. You see, if you understand the doctrine of Christ's kingship, you know that everything that's happening to you is God's way of making you real, even if, you. your hair's loved off, or your eyes have fallen out, or you're feeling kind of shabby, and, you know, the stuffing's coming out the back. But you see, there's a contentment because you know that this is part of his plan. That includes everything. But lastly, and this is something of a warning, the doctrine of God's providence humbles us. Because, you know, the promise is all things work together for good to those who love God. Now, do you know what that means?

all things work together for good to those who love God. What does that mean? It means this. Very important. Last thing I'm going to say, very critical. Hope you wake up now, okay? If everything that happens to the goal to make Christ's king, right? Everything that's happening is happening to that end. That means that if you have made Christ king of your life, if you've made Him Savior and King,

if that's the thing you're living for, if that's the preeminent desire of your life, then everything that happens in the world, every grain of sand, every atom, every molecule, every event is for you. All things work together for good to those who love God. But if, on the other hand, you're living as your own king, if you rejected the kingship of Christ,

you might be religious, but you're your own master. You decide and you call the shots. If you're working against his kingship, that means that every event in the universe is against you. and there's no in between. Either every molecule in the universe is for you or every molecule in the universe is against you. You can see it.

Do you make Jesus king? Then, you know what? No matter good or bad things that happen to you, it's moving you more toward him. Toward it. You know, when good things happen, you're closer to God because you're so grateful. When bad things happen, you're closer to God.

Why? Because it shows you how much you need him. But now let's take a look at a person who's rejected the kingship of Christ. good and bad things the good things just make this person feel that I don't need God and the bad things make the person feel I can't trust him so whether good or bad happens to a person who is not submitted to the kingship of Christ everything that happens everything good or bad or indifferent is hardening you pushing you away moving you away you can have a universe in which every Adam is for you or every atom is against you, but there's nothing in the middle.

Thanks for listening to Tim Keller and the Gospel and Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the Gospel Center teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and 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 Gospel and Life. dot com slash partner. That website again is gospel and life.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 1994. 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. Thank you.