Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Jesus as King; The King of Hearts

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Jesus Christ carries out his office of King in two different ways. He carries it out spiritually in the hearts of his people, and he carries it out cosmically in history.  We’re going to look now at the first of these: how Jesus Christ approaches the human heart. And 2 Corinthians 10 describes this approach in an interesting way. Let’s look at this passage to see 1) what it’s describing implicitly, and 2) what it’s describing explicitly. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 23, 1994. Series: Understanding Jesus. Scripture: 2 Corinthians 10:1–6. 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. Who is Jesus? The Bible says he's fully God, the creator of the universe, and at the same time, fully human. Lose one of those, and you lose Christianity. Join us for today's podcast, where Tim Keller explores the person and promises of Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians 10, 1 to 6. This is Paul speaking. By the meekness and gentleness of Christ,

I appeal to you, I, Paul, who am timid when face to face with you, but bold went away. I beg you that when I come, I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be, towards some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,

and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience once you're obedient. is complete. And this is God's word. We've been talking about Jesus's prophet, priest, and king. There's a place in Matthew 12 where Jesus says, the men of Nineveh will stand up in judgment and condemn this generation, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold a greater than Jonah is here. And the queen of the south will rise up on the judgment day and condemn this generation, for she came from the ends of the earth to Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here. That's a very dramatic statement.

And you see what he's saying? He is saying, a greater than Jonah, I'm the ultimate prophet. A greater than Aaron or Moses, I'm the ultimate priest. A greater than Solomon, I'm the ultimate king. That's quite a challenge, and that's quite a claim. But what we're going to look at here tonight is what does that, mean? Now, it shouldn't come of surprise to you that historically Christians and people who've studied the Bible have seen that Jesus Christ executes his office. That means he carries out

his office of king in two different ways. He carries it out spiritually in the hearts of his people and he carries it out cosmically in history. And we're not going to talk about the second one tonight. We're going to talk about the first one. Because what we have here is a interesting description of how Jesus Christ approaches the human heart. What does it say? It's as though we live in the world. We do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. What is this describing? First of all, what is

describing implicitly, and then secondly, what is describing explicitly. Implicitly, tacitly, in other words, it's unstated but completely assumed and therefore taught in the passage that Jesus Christ is king. And the reason we say Jesus Christ is king is because it says every thought has to be obedient to Christ. Every thought. Now, my neighbor comes to me and asks me for a cup of sugar. And if I say no to my neighbor, I may be unkind, I may be rude, I may be uncompassionate, I may be a bad neighbor, but I'm not disobedient. You're only disobedient if you owe something to somebody, if that person has some rights over you. And the fact that every thought, see, not just part, but every thought of my life and my heart, every dimension, therefore, of my being

has to be made obedient to Christ means he's my absolute monarch. So, for example, I may have to be obedient to the police officer. Why? Well, it's part of what it means to be a citizen of the city. The police officer asked me to do something, and I should obey. Because in a certain narrow focus or scope, in a certain narrow scope, the police officer has rights over me. Now, it's all part of the social contract. It's all part of what it means when I decide to live in a place like New York. city. And when I become a citizen in the United States, and when I elect representatives, and they appoint this and they appoint that, the police officer cannot tell me who to marry. At that point, the police officer is making a suggestion. The police officer says, I want you to marry my

sister-in-law, or I'm going to give you a ticket. He can't do that. He's got a scope. He says, you must do this when you get to that stop sign, or I'm going to run you in. He has the right to do that. He has rights over me. So there is a part of my life in which I have to obey the police officer. And then, of course, you can talk about all sorts of relationships we have in which we owe things to people. A person who's done a great deed for you, a good friend. You very often, if you, that person is sacrificed for you and you know that that person has done something for you, you sense a certain moral authority that that person has over you. You don't have to spell it out. You don't have to think it out. You just recognize.

recognize a moral authority. And you know, therefore, that if that a person who has, let's just say, a person who gave you enough money to stay in school that last semester, so you could graduate, so you were able to make it through college, if a person like that comes to you and asks for a cup of sugar, and you say, no, you probably are, in a sense, being disobedient, because you realize that a small request like that from a person like that is disobedient because that person has some kind of moral right over you. So when we talk about obedience, we mean the person we owe

some kind of authority to, some kind of deference to. In this case, we have an unparalleled claim. It doesn't just say that Jesus Christ wants you on Sunday, or Jesus Christ just wants your will. He wants you to obey the Ten Commandments. It says Jesus Christ is demanding

the captivity of every thought. That means his authority and his moral authority over you is absolute. Well, where does the Bible come off saying that? And it comes off this way, and think about the logic of it, and it's overwhelming logic, I think. Were you created, or are you an accident? There's really nothing in the middle, you know. Did someone or something with intelligence,

rationality, something with a purpose, create you? If not, you are an accident. And, you know, we sometimes spend time on this. I won't spend much time on this, but just think it out. When we see a lump of lead that fell off of the, out of the sluice in the factory, which is taking lead and turning it into this or that part. And if a piece falls off, molten lead, and it falls to the floor,

and it just forms some kind of arbitrarily formed puddle, and then it hardens. What do we call that? It's an accident. You don't look at that thing and say, what's it for? Nor can you break it, by the way. You can't, you know, if you pick it up and it's sort of squished and all like this, and then you break it over your leg and it falls into two pieces, you don't say, oh, you broke it. You don't say that because it was already broke, because it had no purpose. It wasn't useful. You might be able to use it as a doorstop or something like that. but you see it wasn't created for a purpose. So it's an accident. So there's no way to violate it and there's no way to break it. It has no purpose. Were you, you, the result of the blind

collision of forces, are you an accident? Are you an accident of evolution? Are you an accident of chemical reactions? Are you an accident? In that case, there is no purpose for you. There's no right or wrong for you. There's no intention for your life. There's no meaning for your There's no way for you to be broken. You may feel I'm depressed. There's something wrong. If you weren't created, how are you to say what's wrong? That's wrong.

Whatever is is. Nobody likes to live with that. Nobody likes to believe that. And also, nobody really does believe that because you sense that there is something about me that is of design. So, most of us want to say I was created. I'm not an accident.

But if you were created, what rights would your creator have? would your creator have over you? Think of it this way. What if you had poured tremendous... Some of you have done this. What if you poured a tremendous amount of energy, creative energy, all of your talents into a song?

It's the best song you ever wrote, okay, you musicians. And before you have a chance to copyright it, somebody picks it up, sells it him or herself, gets the credit for it, and makes a zillion dollars. How would you feel? Now, because you were so maybe dumb as to not get it copyrighted,

There's no way that you can really legally say, that's mine. You can't prove it. Let's just say what the person did was perfectly legal. Yet you would feel I have moral rights. I have moral rights over that song. Why? If it wasn't for me, it wouldn't exist. And the one using it couldn't have produced it.

You know, this is all intuitive. We all know this. There's nobody in this room who would not experience that the same way. you see if it wasn't for me it wouldn't exist and the one using it couldn't have produced it and therefore should I have moral rights I have more rights I'm not saying I don't want anybody else to enjoy the song I'm not saying I don't want anybody else to use the song but I should have the ultimate moral rights over that thing or the same thing would happen if you invented a new fuel injection you know apparatus for an automobile in your basement and so that the car that uses it would get

300 miles to a gallon somebody else comes along and takes it starts to using it. How would you feel? You have moral rights over that. If it wasn't for me, it wouldn't exist. Now, what if, and plenty of you do, and plenty of us do, and all of us do at a certain point, before we get converted into Christianity, what if you decide, I alone have the right to decide what to do with my body, what to do with my sexuality, what to do with my talent, how to spend my money, how to use my time, I and I alone. Did you produce that talent? Either you're an accident, or you've been created, in which case that creator,

if we could find them, if we could communicate with them, if there's a creator, has ultimate moral rights over you, and for you to be going off and taking the things, things that have risen out of resources that you did not, generate, you couldn't have produced. And using them for your own profit without deference to him, without saying, what do you want me to do with my money? What do you want me to do with my talent? What do you want me to do with my brain? What do you want me to do with my sexuality? Just as bad. Or worse. Because let me tell you, the creative energy that goes into a song,

as great as that it is nothing like the creative energy that goes into a human being. every thought, every moment, every dimension of your life belongs to the one who created it. Without which, without whom, excuse me, without whom, none of this would exist, none of you would exist, no part of you would exist, see. Therefore, when the Bible says every thought, every one of your thoughts belongs to Jesus, it is assuming that this is the one who created you. And let me tell you one thing. There really isn't much in between. You can either say I'm an accident, and therefore I can do anything I want,

but you have to live with the consequences of the fact there's no right and wrong. If to live with the consequences, the fact there is no meaning except that which you manufacture, You have to live with all that. Or else, you have to say, I owe my creator every single thought, every dimension, not just Sundays, not just the tip of the hat. Everything. Absolute rightful king. And before we move on, let me just appeal to you.

I want you all to know that most of you are Americans, and even those of you who aren't from America have maybe been here long enough to sort of imbibe the, brib the American Western individualistic culture. And I want you to know and be aware and be completely cognizant of how prejudiced you are against this whole idea. When you come to the Bible and when you come to the Christian message, you have to realize what a filter you have over your mind and you're screening out an awful lot of the absolute natures of the claims of Christ and the message of Christianity. because John Guest is an Episcopalian pastor who has been in America for a long time,

but he came here in his 20s from Britain. He was an Anglican minister. And years ago, I heard him give a talk, and I don't know if he mentions this illustration anymore. Maybe you've heard it if you know him or have heard him before. When he first came to this country, he said he was struck because he went to some historic site, and he was going into a place that was a revolutionary, War era tavern that had been preserved the way it was in America during the Revolutionary War. This must have been either Philadelphia or Boston, I think. And he went in and he saw the tavern

and he noticed it was a sign from the era up over the tables and it said, we serve no sovereigns here. You know, kind of American in your face. We don't have kings here. We've got presidents. They do what we want. If they don't do what most of the people, 51% of us want, they're out of there. We don't have kings. We serve no sovereigns here. And John Guest said, he suddenly realized he was in a different culture. He said, you know, he says in Europe, we're secular people. I said, you know, we're not this wonderful, we're not wonderfully moral people. He says, but I tell you, at least we still have some positive memories of bowing the knee to a sovereign. We at least have some positive

of vibrations about that. People from the East, Asians, very often also come from a situation in which at least the positive benefits of authority and submission are held up. But when you come to America, you come to one place where that notion, the notion of a king is anathema. The notion of a king is really repugnant. It's very much a part of who we are. It's very deep in us.

There is no higher authority than my individual conscience. And every single person who's been in America for very long, that is so much a part of us that nobody, no Americans ever come to these kinds of passages and this kind of teaching objective. You're not objective. You are not open-minded when it comes to these things. You hate the idea. We'll get into why in a minute.

But you have to see that. But what do you do about it? What you do about it is this. You know, there's that great place, and I can't quote it exactly, but it's really sunk into my memory. In a book, which is probably at the book table, or it ought to be, or will be soon, right, David? Because I'm mentioning it, so you'll be run with it. Becky Pippert wrote a book called Out of the Salt Shaker, which is really a book on how to share what Christ has done for you with other people. There's this one wonderful section in which she says, just remember, when people say they

want to be free and they don't want to have to submit to a king, just remind them that everybody's got a king, everybody's got a lord. And she says something like this. She says, Those who seek power, those who seek power, that's the thing you're seeking, then you're serving power. Power is mastering and ruling you. It's really what drives you. If you want approval in life, then you will be mastered, you see, ruled by image or what people think of you. If you want money, then you will be ruled by money. If you say, ha, listen, if you say, I don't submit to anybody, I belong to myself.

then you're ruled by independence. You're the kind of person that has to do things. You have to do things just to show that you don't owe anybody anything. And if you have to show that you don't owe anybody anything, to show that you owe nothing to anybody, that nothing rules you, you're ruled by your own independence. Or, no matter what, something is your Lord. Something is your king.

You don't belong to yourself. So you have to realize that Christianity is not saying, you over here, you're free. You don't serve anything but yourself. Come and be captive to Christ. No, Christianity, the offer of Christianity is this. You're captive to something. Your thoughts are captive to something.

You know they are. The things that you feel like you've got to have, your thoughts are captive. You do not belong to yourself. And so the Christian message is, stop being ruled by things that tyrannize you and start being ruled by the one king that won't tyrannize you because he is your rightful,

king. He's the one that knows how you run. He's the one that knows who you are. And therefore, you don't go from freedom to slavery to become a Christian. You go from slavery to freedom. Because freedom is not a lack of a master. Freedom is not the lack of a king, but it's finding a true king, for everybody's got one. No one is his or her own. So, secondly, first we saw that this is implicit. Jesus is the king. every single part of you must be obedient to him. That's the implicit. But then explicitly, it tells us how he exercises this kingship in our lives.

And you know how he does it? This is very, very bold and also really neat. He is a conqueror. That means the way Jesus Christ exercises his kingship in our lives is he sees us as having captured a heart that belongs to himself. Some other things are ruling in there. And therefore, Paul says, what Jesus does as a king is he comes and besieges your heart. The way a king would besiege his capital that has now fallen under enemy hands.

And this is something that Jesus comes to, Jesus does, and unless you understand that this is the way in which he works, this is how he exercises his kingship, a lot of you are not going to be able to understand what's going on in your life right now. Right now, you may be under siege. there may be divine weapons being shot at you. See? You may be finding that arguments and pretensions are being demolished by some kind of spiritual weaponry. This is what Jesus does to the human heart. This is how he comes.

He comes as a conquering king. But let's see what the features of this. First, this work is not. a violent work in the sense of being physically violent, or it's not a coercive violence at all. Instead, the kind of conquering that Jesus does is he seeks to win your heart, and that literally means he seeks to get you to fall in love with him. That's the conquest. You know, we have some predilection to talk this way when it comes to romance.

We do talk a little bit about that. We talk like that sometimes. Some of the love poetry says, you've conquered me. All right? I didn't know who you were. I didn't really like you at first. And yet I've been won by you. You see?

You've captured my heart. We use that sometimes in sort of drippy hyperbolic ways, you know, when we talk about what's happened to us when we've fallen in love. But Jesus actually is using that terminology almost literally. Look, first of all, his conquering. work is full of gentleness and meekness. In the very first verse, Paul, who's about to tell us that he is in Jesus' army, he's a preacher, and he's a church planter, and he says, I am coming after you, but not with my weapons, with divine weapons. In other words, Paul is saying that

when he preaches the gospel, when he persuades people to turn to Christ, he is actually in Christ's army. And therefore, he's participating in this kingly conquering campaign. that Jesus does when he besieges the human heart. And that's what we see here. But look, he starts off talking about this warfare and this conquest by saying, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you. So we see that this conquer is meek and gentle. And he's after what? Your thoughts. He's after your motives. In other words, he is not trying to get you to be coerced. He's not trying to get you to be coerced. He's not trying to get you be a begrudging slave. He's not trying to force you to do something that you don't want to. He wants to capture your heart. He wants to soften your heart. He wants your thoughts.

See, to get your thoughts is to get you to see the delight that he is, to see the love that he is, to see the freedom that he is. And he does it with meekness and gentleness. Look, for example, let me give you a great example of this. Psalm 119. A very, very long Psalm. It would take you a week to read it, usually. It's not a typical Psalm. It's very, very long, but there's a section of it. In fact, I could read you any section to show you an example of a conquered heart.

But let me read you just a section out of it, verse 97 and so on, right around there. And the psalmist says, Behold how I love your law. I meditated on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies. for they're ever with me. I have more understanding than my elders, for I obey your precepts.

I have kept my feet from every evil path that I might obey your word. How sweet are your words to my taste? Sweeter than honey to my mouth. I gain understanding from them. Therefore, I hate every wrong path. Now, that is the language of a conquered heart. That's not the language of a person

who was just raised moral. You know, people who are raised moral, And a lot of you were raised in kind of conservative churches and raised, not necessarily Christian churches, just conservative homes and conservative backgrounds. And when you have a quiet time, when you sit down and study the Bible and pray, you say, I feel better. I feel better. But you don't feel close to God.

You just have some relief in your conscience. You're afraid. You may know the story of the prodigal son, but it's not just about a wayward younger person. brother. In fact, Jesus tells this story to speak both 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 and Life share the hope and joy of Christ's gracious and relentless love with people all over the world. Request your copy today at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. I've had a lot of people tell me, and I know I'm in danger. of throwing out here a subject that I'm not going to be able to get back to.

And some preaching professor years ago said to me, never raise more snakes than you can kill in your sermon. If you raise a snake, make sure you have time to kill it. I can't do this one. Some of you know that one of the things that we say here that Bible teaches is that once you become a Christian now, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That once you truly are united to the Father through the Son,

there's no way that your sins can bring you ever back into a state of condemnation. You're in. Ah, well, people say, I'm glad I don't believe what you believe. No, I don't believe that. I say, why? I said, well, if I knew that no matter what I did, once I became a Christian, there would be no condemnation for me, what a temptation that would be? I said, well, explain that to me.

How would that be a temptation? I say, well, I wouldn't have any incentive to live a moral life. And I would say, okay, let me get this straight. saying that if you would no longer be afraid of God, no longer be afraid of his wrath, no longer be afraid of his punishment, no longer be afraid of him coming and getting you, that you would lose all your incentive to live a moral life. Okay, let me get this straight. All your incentive is fear. All of your incentive is negative. And a lot of people who think they're Christians have nothing but a negative morality. They come to church because if they don't

come to church, their conscience bothers them. That's fine for a start. That's a fine way to get on the path to real Christianity, but that's all it is. There's people who are very careful in their business life to be straight arrows. And everybody around them says, oh yeah, she, he, yeah, very much a straight hour, very moral, you know, don't use that kind of language around her, don't do this around him. You know, don't get them in on a deal like that. You know, they're pretty straight arrows, they wouldn't like it, and so forth. And you know that you have that reputation and feel pretty good about it. It could all be fear. Your heart, your thoughts, your motives, never conquered. The reason that your moral is strictly because it's been inculcated in you

since you were little. You just, you know, it's very powerful to be told as a little kid, don't do that, never do that. God will get you if that has. happens to you. You know, you don't lose that over the years. And that's fine for a start. It is fine for a start, but that's not Christianity. Jesus is not after that. He's after something far, far more deep than that. The psalmist, when you read Psalm 119, you'll see, for example, the psalmist does not see the Bible. He's talking about thy law. He doesn't see the Bible as strictly a set of nice, he doesn't see it as a book of virtues, for example. He doesn't see it as a set of Esop's fables with morals at the end of it. He calls the Word of God, he calls the Bible,

thy precepts, thy commands, you see. I meditate on them. I love them. He knows that they're words of the king. He knows he has to obey them. But look what he says. He says, they give me insight. They make me great. There's one place where he says, I pant after your commands. What's going on here? His heart's been captured. A big difference between a Christian and a moral person, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3. You know you're really a Christian when the law is written on your heart, not just on your conscience. When you're finding your inmost self that the law of God is sweet.

You know, in Psalm 1, it tells you the mark of a godly person. It doesn't say a godly person prays day and night, though hopefully he or she will. It doesn't say that a godly person witnesses on the street corners day and night, though, of course, I hope he will, or she will. It doesn't say that that person goes to church every time the doors are open, though I hope he or she will attend church regularly. Now, you can do all that out of fear. You can do all that without a heart that's been captured by the king, with your thoughts not captive, just your will. No, what does it say in Psalm 1? It says,

for he, that's the godly man, delights in the law of God, and upon it he meditates day and night. He doesn't just read it and say, I've got to do it, I better do it, I better get to know it. He meditates. He chews on it. He gets the sweetness out of it.

He loves to see it because he senses that the more he takes it in, the more he's becoming something great. He says, I have more insight than my elders. I love what this does. for me. Think of it like this. What if you were a gymnast? What if you were a gymnast, let's say you're a young girl, but you're now, you know, you've never quite hit your peak, at least you never hit what you think you should be able to do. You haven't made it. And now you're

starting to get a little old for your career ever to really be good, and you're kind of frightened. And somebody says, let's take you to a really good coach. I know of a good coach. And the coach comes. And the coach really starts to rigorously give you a lot of hard exercise and a lot of hard rules and all that, but you begin to soar. You begin to win, and you begin to jump higher than you ever have, and your body begins to do things

that you never could do before you're flying because you're obeying, and how would you look at the commands of your coach? They'd be sweeter than honey to you. You'd pant after them. You'd say, more, more, because I see what it's doing to me. It's making me great. Has that happened to you ever?

See, that's a very big part of what Jesus does when he conquers your heart. He brings it captive. Now, how does he do it? And the answer is, good kings, or I should say good generals, if they're besieging a city, don't just say to their armies charge, you know, when and wherever you want, you know, fire at will. Instead, a good king decides where they're going to attack on the wall. and we have here two places that we're told that Jesus attacks.

It says what? It says verse 5. Now, don't forget, Paul is talking about we. He's part of the army. He's part of the thing. But he's talking about Jesus' campaign. And he says, with these weapons of divine power, we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.

Now, there's two things, arguments and pretensions. I'll try to be brief on this, even though each of these would be great to go in. The word arguments means just what it looks like, rational arguments. The word pretensions literally means high things, proud things. That's why that's not a bad, it's not a bad, you know, some of these words are very hard to translate, and the translators, when they're sitting there trying to figure out the best word, I know they must agonize. That's not bad. Pretention. To pretend means to be something that you're not. And what this is telling us is there's two ways in which the king comes after you to win your heart.

One is more intellectual and one is personal. Let's just look at these two things for a minute. The first thing is he comes after arguments. A lot of modern people don't want to hear this, but let me just explain what that means. The Bible tells us that everybody has faith. One of the things is so irritating for a thoughtful Christian when talking to people who don't believe Christianity is they say, well, you know, if you could prove God to me, I could believe, but you can't. And the implication is, I'm a skeptical person. You see, I'm skeptical, and I only believe what can be proved. And if you're the faith, the kind of person has faith, fine. You can't prove what you believe. And if you could prove it to me, then I would be very happy to believe. It's irritating because the assumption is I, as a

Christian, have faith, and it's sort of based on, you know, nothing. And you don't have faith. But that's not true. The Bible says, at the bottom of every single human being are arguments. At the bottom of everyone are arguments. You cannot make a move. I've got to be sure I do this concisely and don't go off for ten minutes. I don't have time for that. But you cannot make a choice. You, for example, just give a quick example. Let's just say all of your life, you're taught, don't have sex apart from marriage. You know, you were taught that out in Missouri, but then you moved to New York. And you come to New York, and here everybody thinks that only very odd, strange people, you know, would adhere to that. And so you start to feel attracted to

somebody who obviously wants to have sex with you and you decide what you're going to do it or not. Do you realize you can't make a decision about that unless your decision assumes either that the universe is ultimate, that there is a creator God, that he has spoken, that he's got rules, or that there's not. If you decide to sleep with a girl or the guy, why? Well, you know, intellectually, you might not want to work it all out. You don't want to work it out. You don't want to think it out.

But what you've actually done is you've bought the argument that, well, there may not be a God, but if there is a God, we can't know what he teaches. Right? Aren't you assuming that? There might be a God, but if there is a God, we can't know that he said anything about sexuality. That is a religious assumption. That's an axiom, and you're basing your life on it. You can't prove it any more than I can prove it. See, you can't prove it's wrong any more than I can prove it's right. But don't you see what that means? You are basing your life and your practice.

on an axiom that is an axiom of faith, and you are betting your destiny on it. So when somebody says to me, you can't prove God, I say you can't prove there isn't God. And even though this doesn't go too far, but at least it gets after people at one certain level, you can't prove that there isn't God, and yet you're betting your life that there isn't.

I can't prove that there is a God, and I'm betting my life that there is. Now, we can talk once you're willing to admit that we both have faith, and there we're both betting and wagering our lives on our faith assumptions and we're both deeply religious because science can't tell you whether there's a god or whether there isn't science can't tell you all these things now what paul is getting at and what the bible gets at and there's another other places where it talks about this is that there are arguments

there are rational belief structures there are all there's a matrix of these faith assumptions underneath you and everybody no matter what you say about where you stand with christianity you've got a belief system, you've got a matrix of these things, you've got arguments that you're basing your life on. The average non-Christian doesn't want to look at those things. You don't want to look at them. My sister-in-law some years ago had an interesting experience where she was at med school and she was part of an internship and they were doing the rounds and all the other students were talking about a particular patient. They said, you know, it would be better just to turn it all often let the lady die. Because she's suffering. And once she's dead, she won't suffer.

And sometimes suicide is better, because at least when you're dead, you're not suffering. And my sister-in-law looked at them and said, can you prove that? How do you know that these people aren't going to hell? Now, she said, I'm not trying to argue right now that there is a hell, but I'm trying to show you that your medical decision is assuming there's not. Well, they say, well, you know, there's no proof. Well, there's no proof that there's not. There is no way that you can make a move without all sorts of religious assumptions. That's all I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to prove that Christianity's right. I'm not even saying, please don't anybody get the impression that I'm saying, that there's no way to show that one set of assumptions is better

than another. Actually, that's the whole point. Paul says, Jesus Christ will always come and show you your faith assumptions and show you that they are inferior. That they don't explain reality like Christianity does, that you can't really live consistently with them. But the point is that Jesus Christ will always, in order to win your heart, make you think. And I have people all the time come into me and saying, I've got problems in my life, and I just want to connect with God. They don't want to think, is the Bible true or not. Well, you know, they like their argument. That means they like their intellectual construct that allows them to say, who knows? But that's a faith assumption. They don't want to have to examine it. Why? Because they want to be able to leave things

out of the Bible. They think that are primitive. They don't like to think that maybe Jesus is the only way to God. They think that, you know, they've got a modern construct that says all religions are ways to God. How do they know that? They don't know that. It's a set of arguments. They haven't thought it out. They haven't thought out if that's logical, if it's possible. They don't want to think about that. They want to connect with Jesus. They want to walk by a riverside and see the beauty of the Grand Canyon, and they just want God to be real to them so they can handle their lives. He never does that without demolishing arguments. He never does that without making you think. You see, Christianity is based on hard truth, objective truth, propositional truth. It's true

or it's not true. But to reject it takes a lot of thinking, as well as to accept it, and to reject it takes a faith commitment as well as to accept it. And people aren't even willing to do that. Jesus will not deal with you without making you think. Oh, people get very upset about this. They don't want to have to think. But he will always come in by demolishing arguments. He'll show you there's a rational basis for what the Bible teaches. There's a reason for the hope.

Christianity is full of truth claims. They'll make you think. There's no way to get his peace. There's no way for him to capture your heart. He'll always make you think. But then, on the other hand, there's pretensions. And you see underneath all the intellectual objections to the kingship of Christ are moral objections. Pretensions literally means high things.

That ultimately, Paul is saying, that besides the arguments, and in some ways the strength of the arguments is our pride, we don't, we say we can't believe, that's the arguments, because we don't want to obey, and that's the pretension. Pretension means self-will. the other day I had the experience of telling a 10-year-old boy that his mother needed him

he was in a bad mood and he stood up and he looked at me and he said she always needs me and when I go to her she asks me to do things that I hate he was furious he was just in a bad mood he was playing a video game, didn't want to go now see and I thought about this I said you know

that's the way children are all demands are unreasonable as far as a child's concern. All demands are unreasonable. I want to do what I want to do. I don't want anybody telling me what to do. Every time I go to see my mother, she asked me to do things I don't feel like doing. That's deep. That's very deep. And you don't think that when you start to approach God, it's going to go off. And therefore, there is something in us very deeply rooted that you have to admit, I hope you see it, that keeps you from really being objective when it comes to Christianity. you say, I cannot put myself in a place where I am out of control.

I know what I want. No one should have the right to tell me what to do. And therefore, when the king seeks to conquer your heart, on the one hand, he has arguments and he comes after you and he makes you think. But on the other hand, he's got to do something about your pride. And therefore, he puts out all kinds of humbling conditions and humbling circumstances and things that bring you to the end of your own resources. This, to me, is a very, very, very practical verse.

It's telling me how almost everybody I know has ever found Christ conquering their heart and getting you to love him. It's never just humbling you without arguments or just arguing you without humbling, it's always the two together. Unless something happens to show you that you do not have what it takes, you're not competent to run your own life. Unless he does something about your high things, you're just never going to come to him. But on the other hand, if you think he's going to come to you,

and you're going to come to him without thinking, just having some kind of mystical experience, it won't work either. They both come together. They have to come together. And now let me conclude this way. First of all, to those of you who have really never given yourself to him, just think about this. You are in a position where you are going to have to be willing to see

that some of the humbling things that are happening to you, maybe because the king is trying to get you to love him he's dealing with your high things instead of saying why is he doing this to me he's meek and gentle remember that's the first word he's very meek and gentle but he will do what it takes it'll hurt him

it says in lamentations three he does not willingly afflict the sons of men notice what it says he doesn't like it doesn't say he doesn't do it He says he doesn't willingly do it. He doesn't like to do it. He's meek and gentle. A bruised reedy will not break, it says in Matthew 12,

a smoking flaxie will not quench until he brings forth judgment to victory, but he'll do it. And if you resist him, don't tempt him because he will do what it takes to bring down your high things because he loves you. Or on the other hand,

you're going to have to start thinking. You're going to have to start reading. You're going to start studying. You're going to go to classes. You're going to have to study the Bible. You're going to have to talk to other people. You're not going to ever get yourself to Christ through a mystical experience. You have to decide, can I accept the Christian faith?

Can I accept the teachings of the Christian faith? They've got to happen. That could be what needs to be done right now. Humble yourself under his mighty hand, and he will exalt you in due time. You know, perfect, in fact, I don't know if he did it, but John Dunn has this wonderful sonnet that he wrote, and it's so much a great summarizing of this passage, that it's hard not to think that he had it in mind, didn't have it in mind when he wrote it. Have you heard it? John Dunn.

Batter my heart, three-person, God, for you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend. That I may rise, stand, overthrow me, and bend your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. Hear that? That I may rise and stand or throw me, and bend your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. High things. I like a usurped town to another do, labor to admit you, but oh, to no end. Reason your viceroy and me, me should defend, but is captivated and proves weak and untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved feign, but I'm betrothed unto your enemy.

So, divorce me, untie, or break that knot again. Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you and thrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chased, except you ravish me. Conquer me. Be willing to let him bring down your high things. Be willing to think. And Christian friends, one more thing to you guys. Listen, you know, you say, well, I've given myself to Christ, he's my Lord and Savior.

Ah, but is every thought captive? It's really tough to admit this. The cognitive therapists are sort of into it, but they don't put Christian content in it. It goes like this. Are you depressed? Are you anxious? Are you bitter? Look at what you're telling yourself that causes that emotion. There's always a thought down there. You know, here's a person who's the same thing happens to Mrs. A and Mrs. B, and yet Mrs. A is okay. Mrs. B gets depressed. Why? It's not the circumstance that makes Mrs. A and B depressed or okay. It's what Mrs. A and B is saying to themselves, what they're saying to themselves that makes them depressed. You know, if something bad happens to Mrs. B, and she says, yet, just like my father said, I'll never amount to a hill of beans, she'll be depressed. And if Mrs. A, the same thing happens to Mrs. A, but she says to herself, as my Lord Jesus has said to me,

though your heart condemn ye, God is greater than your heart. In other words, if you're depressed, find the thought at the bottom. If you're angry, find the thought at the bottom. anxious, find the thought at the bottom, and get it captured by Jesus. Let him throw it out. Put his truth in there. That's your problem. Let him capture every thought. Take me to you. Imprison me, for I, except you, and thrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, unless you ravish me. Let's pray to the king. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that because you have come to us, the way you have, seeking to overthrow in order to win,

seeking to defeat us in order to lift us to victory. Help us to see what your design is, and help every person here to see what your design is for him or her. There's things going on in our lives right now that will only be understood if we see ourselves through this text in 2 Corinthians 10. We ask that you would make it possible for us. this by your Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You've heard it? John Dunn. Batter my heart, three-person, God, for you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend. That I may rise, stand, overthrow me, and bend your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. Hear that? That I may rise and stand or throw me. And bend your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

high things. I like a usurp town to another do, labor to admit you, but oh, to no end. Reason your viceroy and me, me should defend, but is captivated and proves weak and untrue. Yet dearly I love you and would be loved feign, but I'm betrothed unto your enemy. So, divorce me, untie, or break that knot again. Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you and thrall me, never shall be free. nor ever chased, except you ravish me. Yeah? Conquer me.

Be willing to let him bring down your high things. Be willing to think. And Christian friends, one more thing to you guys. Listen. You say, well, I've given myself to Christ. He's my Lord and Savior. Ah, but is every thought captive? It's really tough to admit this.

The cognitive therapists are sort of into it, but they don't put Christian content in it. It goes like this. Are you anxious? Are you bitter? Look at what you're telling yourself that causes that emotion. There's always a thought down there, you know? Here's a person who's the same thing happens to Mrs. A and Mrs. B, and yet Mrs. A is okay. Mrs. B gets depressed. Why? It's not the circumstance that makes Mrs. A and B depressed or okay. It's what Mrs. A and B is saying to themselves, what they're saying to themselves that makes them depressed.

You know, if something bad happens to Mrs. B, and she says, yet, just like my father said, I'll never amount to a hill of beans, she'll be depressed. And if Mrs. A, the same thing happens to Mrs. A, but she says to herself, as my Lord Jesus has said to me, though your heart condemn ye, God is greater than your heart. In other words, if you're depressed, find the thought at the bottom. If you're angry, find the thought at the bottom. If you're anxious, find the thought at the bottom, and get it captured by Jesus.

Let him throw it out. Put his truth in there. That's your problem. Let him capture every thought. Take me to you. Imprison me, for I, except you, and thrall me never shall be free, nor ever chased, unless you ravish me. Let's pray to the king. Let's pray.

Our Father, we thank you that because you have come to us the way you have, seeking to overthrow in order to win, seeking to defeat us in order to lift us to victory. Help us to see what your design is and help every person here to see what your design is for him or her. There's things going on in our lives right now that will only be understood if we see ourselves through this text in 2 Corinthians 10. we ask that you would make it possible for us. Apply this by your Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast.

We hope that today's teaching encouraged you to go deeper into God's Word. You can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelunlife.com. 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.