Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Lord of the City

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

You can’t escape the city anymore. Technology means the kids in the farmlands of Iowa are getting immersed in the culture that’s formed in the cities. The problems of cities dominate the regions and societies in which those cities exist.  But as we see in Genesis, the city is a fundamental part of the human condition. And the Bible has some profound things to say about how Christians should understand the city.  In Genesis 10 and 11, we learn three things: 1) the need for cities, 2) the problem we have in cities, and 3) how God is healing cities. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 7, 2021. Series: Genesis – The Gospel According to God. Scripture: Genesis 10:31-11:9. 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.

Thanks for listening to Gospel in Life. Today, Tim Keller is preaching through the Book of Genesis, an ancient book that answers many of the foundational questions we all have. Why did God make the world? What is the world for? And how are we supposed to live in it? After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelinLife.com and sign up for our email updates. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. Today's scripture reading comes from the book of Genesis, chapter 10 verse 31 through chapter 11 verse 9. These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages in their territories and nations.

These are the clans of Noah's sons, according to their lines of descent within their nations. From these, the nations spread out over the earth after the flood. Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They men moved eastward, they found a plane in Sheinar and settled there. They said to each other, Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.

They used brick instead of stone and tar for mortar. Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, if as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there

the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth." This is the word of the Lord. We're going to look one more time. if you were coming before Christmas, we spent time going through the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis, and we want to look at this part of the book of Genesis one more time. You know, the word Genesis in Hebrew actually literally means a seed pod. It's the book of origins, and it's the book in a sense of fundamental seminal things, seminal meaning seed, the seminal things of human existence.

Genesis is here to tell us why things are the way they are and to give some seminal understandings of our relationship to work, to sex, to gender, to family, to power, to money, to culture, you know, to every, all these things we've been looking at. And today, one last thing we have to look at, that the early chapters of Genesis tell us something very important about, another seminal fundamental aspect of the human condition, the city. Genesis 1 to 11 tells us a great deal about the city. The city, which is the most densely populated and most specialized version of human society.

The most densely populated and the most specialized version of human society. The city has always been, as we see here, part of the human condition. It's always had a big impact on human life, but now more than ever. As the experts will tell you in the year 1800, approximately two and a half percent of the human population lived in what we would call a large urban area. By the way, a large urban area in 1800 was considerably smaller and less densely populated place than it is now.

But anyway, in 1800, 2.5% of the world's population lived in what we would call large urban areas. And in the year 2000, it's just over 50%. Just over 50% of the world's population live in large urban areas. You can't escape the city anymore. Technology means that the kids in the farmlands of Iowa are getting immersed in the culture that is formed in the cities. You can't get away from them. And the problems of cities today dominate the region, dominate the

societies in which those cities exist. There's no getting away from the city. And the Bible has some profound things to say about how Christians should understand the city and what the city is all about and what it is. Now, what do we learn about the city? We learn three things basically in this text. In fact, I'm gonna draw a little bit

because as you know, if you've been coming, we haven't gone through Genesis 1 through 11 verse by verse. And there are other places that talk about the origin of cities that we haven't looked at but Genesis 1 to 11 the Bible tells us three things about cities it tells us the need for a city hmm verse 4 come let us build for ourselves a city secondly it tells us the problem what is the what is the problem the cities have so that we may make a name for ourselves. And then thirdly, how God is healing cities. But the Lord came down. The need we have for

cities, let us build a city. The problem we have in a city, which is, we go there to make a name for ourselves. And the healing of the cities that God has inaugurated here, but later on we'll see, more so because God comes down into cities. God comes down. Now let's look at these three things. The first thing we learn here is the need for cities. Look at this. Let us build ourselves a city.

Why? Why did they come up with that idea? Where did that desire come from? Where did the idea come from? The desire to build a city in this text has three aspects. Let's look at them for a minute. First there was a social aspect. It says let's build a city that we may not be scattered. The first thing we see here is social power. The city was The first thing we see here is social power. A city was seen by this people as a way for them to not be dispersed, to not become vulnerable. It was a way of consolidating their corporate identity.

It was a way of consolidating their people's power. So the first reason for a city was a place for social power, for social identity strengthening. The second aspect of their desire was for technological advance. Notice, technological advance, as always, is associated with cities. They had come up with a new way of building. They said, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly instead of stone. And evidently, whatever this is talking about, is talking about a technological advance that enabled them to build higher and bigger, perhaps, than they'd ever been able to build before.

And what did they immediately say? Well, we need a city to try this out in. We need to take this new idea and make a city with it. So the city is all, secondly, it's a place for technological advance. And then thirdly, it's a place for spiritual seeking. Because literally they say, let's build ourselves a tower that reaches to the heavens. Now in the Hebrew it literally says, let's make a heaven topped or heaven gated

tower. And what they're building here, the archeologist will tell you, was a ziggurat. And in these, in the cities that were built in this time and the cities that were built in this area of the world, the Near Eastern cities, in the center of every city there was a ziggurat, a high tower, but it wasn't just a high tower, it wasn't just a building for people to rent. Instead it was a temple. It was a place that sought to get you to heaven. It was a man-made mountain. And you would make your, what you would do, the whole idea was to connect you to heaven. It was a man-made mountain and you would make

your, what you would do, it was the whole idea was to connect with the divine. You would go up to the top and you would build your, you would offer your sacrifices in the hopes that the gods would come down. I mean you're going halfway. Why not? You know, I mean that's how you meet somebody. You say, well you know, shake on it. I'll do this and you'll do that. You meet people halfway, right? So let's meet the gods halfway. And you build a ziggurat. And the city, at the heart of the city,

was spiritual longing. At the heart of the city was the desire to, you know, for spiritual connection. So you have the social aspect, you have the technological development aspect, and you have the spiritual aspect. Now, here's my first thesis, and I can can understand why when I first tell it to you, it's not going to immediately be obvious from the text.

My first thesis is this, cities were not human inventions and cities were not bad ideas. The city is God's invention, the city is the ordinance of God and it was given to us as a gift to benefit us and make life in a fallen world easier. It's God's invention, it's an ordinance, and it was a good gift given to us by God to make life in this world easier. Now the reason you're not immediately going to say, oh, of course, and when you read the book of Genesis, you know, once or twice through and you're just getting acquainted with it, the reason that's not going to jump up at you is because the first two

places you see cities built, first of all in Genesis 4, where Cain goes and builds a city. Cain, the murderer. And now here we clearly have a city in which they're doing something wrong. You can sort of tell that from the text. You're not exactly sure what. They're doing something wrong. And of course, what that from the text, you're not exactly sure what, but they're doing something wrong. And of course what they're doing, just to let

you know quickly here, is they're not waiting for God to come down on Mount Sinai, they're not waiting for a mountain in which God comes down and which God reveals his salvation by grace, they're trying to save themselves, they're trying to get to heaven by themselves, they're making their own mountain. They're saying, we're going to, you know, we're going to save ourselves. And they are building a, you know, a pagan temple. And so you look at the Tower of Babel, you look at this city and you look at the Cain City and your first impression is, gee, cities are places of rebellion. Cities are bad places. Cities are places of sin, ungodliness, and evil. And Harvey Kahn, who was a teacher with me

when I was teaching at Westminster Seminary, who taught me so much about the city, he taught urban ministry, he told me once about, after a lecture he gave somewhere, some guy came up to him afterwards and didn't like anything that Harvey had just said. And he says, let me tell you something, of course this made Harvey's blood boil. He says, let me tell you something. God made the country and man made the suburbs, but the

devil made the city. And of course Harvey never forgot that. It's in a few of his books. He never forgot that the man was absolutely sure. And of course he's, look at this, Cain, Babel, you know, whose idea was the city? But if you actually read the Bible in its totality, you'll see that that is utterly, utterly wrong. And what amazed me this last, this time preparing for this sermon, was that not only the, not only liberal commentators who tend to be more kind of city friendly. But even the most conservative commentators recognize something important. That in the very, very beginning, God told Adam and Eve to build a city. Hmm?

Oh yeah. Go to Revelation 21, no don't, you know, I'll take you. Revelation 21 and 22, when we get to the end of history, that's the end of the Bible, it's the end of history, the vision of the end of history, what's coming down out of heaven? And he showed me the holy city, the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, shining with the glory of God, and in the middle of the city was the throne of God and of the Lamb, and there stood the tree of life. Now here's the point. God says to Abimeev, multiply and develop the earth.

Remember that? If you were here during this series, you saw that. God says to Adam and Eve, multiply and develop the earth. But they failed, of course. They failed to develop the earth in the name of God. But the new Adam, Jesus Christ, comes and he does what the original Adam wasn't able to do. And he has come and he, at the end of history, we're told when Jesus Christ gets the world in the condition God wants it, when the second Adam produces the world that God wants,

it's a city. And in the middle of the city is the tree of life. What's the tree of life? That's from the Garden of Eden. What's that doing there? Because the holy city that Jesus Christ builds is the Garden of Eden. Develop the way God wanted it. Some of you have this shocked look. The idea of somebody taking a garden and turning it into a city, you say, what's the matter? Why would they ever do something

like that? But that's exactly what God wants. If you understand what I'm going to try to show you here this morning, when God started history, he started in a garden, but when he ends history it's going to end in a city, the future of the universe is an urban future. And therefore when God gave Adam and Eve the original mandate to develop the world, he was telling them build the city that will glorify my name. But then they fell, and they fell into sin, and they fell into brokenness. Now what? Does God say, it's all off? No. We still find in our heart something that God put there.

And just to show you what I mean by this, one of the most conservative commentators possible, he's an Old Testament professor, in fact, and Kathy and I both studied with him. Took a number of courses with him. I even learned Hebrew from this man. And yet I just came across some notes this week that I'd never read by him. This is Dr. Meredith Klein, and this is what he says about this this stretch in Genesis. He always tended to use jargon, but I'll translate. In spite of the connections of the city with the rejected line of cane,

it is not to be regarded as an evil invention of ungodly fallen man. The ultimate goal set before humanity at the very beginning of time was that human culture should take city form. There should be an urban structuring of human historical existence. The cultural mandate given to Adam and Eve, a creation, was a mandate to build a city. But now after the fall, the city is now still a benefit, serving humankind as a refuge from the howling wilderness condition into which the fallen human race, exiled from paradise, has been driven, going east. Notice the top of the passage is still going east, east of Eden. And the common grace city, he says, has remedial benefits in a fallen world.

It becomes the drawing together of resources, strength and talent, not now, just for the mutual complementation and the task of developing the resources of the created world, but now a pooling of power for defense against attack and as an administrative community of welfare for the relief of those destitute by reason of the cursing of the ground. I told you. Let me translate. He says even if the fall hadn't happened, God would have wanted the world to become a city. But now that we are in a howling wilderness because of our sin, now because nothing works right, now

I can't go back over all that. Hopefully some of you are here, we've been through all that. Because the world doesn't work right socially and physically and relationally and spiritually. Does that mean now, oh my goodness, now the city is off? No. He says now the city has still got wonderful benefits. The reason God originally invented the city still is very important. Well, what are those reasons? Well, let's go back to those three aspects we just looked at.

The three reasons the Babel builders built Babel, say that over and over and over again ten times, the same reason the Babel builders built Babel, is this has to do with the three purposes God invented the city for. What did God invent the city for? Three purposes. Listen. First of all, and you'll see why each of these purposes means the city is a great gift for us now in this broken world. Number one, the city is a refuge for the weak. Here's what I mean by that. The original cities were refuges.

They had two things that you needed if you wanted to be safe. They had walls and they had numbers. And so it was a place of safety from wild animals. It was a place of safety from marauding bands of raiders and so on. But here's the other thing. If you were out in the wilderness, you're away from the city, you're away from civilization.

And you know the word civilization means cityization, right? From civitas, the Latin word for city. If you were out of civilization and you were in a fight, somebody attacked you, you were in a fight and you killed him, there was no justice out there. You were just going to be, the vigilantes would be after you. You had to go to the city to find objective people who would give you a trial and a wall and enough order so that the people who were

out for blood would have to stop and listen to what the jury and the judge said. The city was originally a place of refuge for the weak, but even today you say, we don't have walls, you know, and things aren't like that, but listen to me carefully. Why do immigrant people, when they're coming to a new country, why do they head for the city for a couple of generations? Why do single people love the city? Why do you flock love the city? Why do you flock to the city? Why do gay people flock to the city? Why are poor people able to survive in the city in a way

they could never survive in the suburbs? They'd just be scooping them up in wheelbarrows out there. Get rid of them. Why are people without power, why are minorities always able to find it easier to live in cities? Here's the reason why. Let me just choose one minority, there's a lot of here. Those of you who are single, where's the one place where you're not having people constantly taking you by the hand and patting it patronizing when you say, oh honey, we'll get you married? What? You're not married yet? Where does that happen?

Doesn't happen here. In the city there's enough of you that you don't feel like freaks. But see now let's press this on. This is the reason why any group without power, any group that's not part of the dominant, you know, the dominant culture, that doesn't have the reins of power in the dominant culture, in the city, the city is a more merciful place for people without power. Because in the cities, because of their very inherent nature, the density, you're able to mask together, you're able to have enough of you, not only so you don't feel like freaks,

but to create communities that broker with a dominant culture. And as a result, cities are the only place, really, the only natural place on the face of the earth, where you have all these minorities living together, where you have this incredible diversity, where you have all the nations of the world actually living together in such a way that the people you've read about and heard about are actual human beings to you. They're your neighbors. This is God gave the city to be a refuge for the

weak and therefore a place, the only place where we can ever really forge practically and concretely unity and diversity and to get over the barriers that divide us culturally and racially in class. The city is a place where these people, all these other people in the world, are actually your neighbors. Where else are you going to find that? And therefore, the city is, first of all, a place of unity and diversity

in a world where culture and racial barriers just completely divide us. Secondly, the city is not only a place of refuge for the weak and a place of unity and diversity. Secondly, it's a place of human development. Remember technological advance? The city is the place, like no other place, that will tap the potentials of human heart and nature in a way that nothing

else does. How does that happen? Two ways. First of all, the city is the place. You come to the city. Don't live somewhere else out in the homogeneous, undensely populated places you came from. But you come into the heterogeneous, densely populated city. First thing you do, you're going to find is you're going to be surrounded by all kinds of people

that are utterly different than you are. And that immediately, immediately, means that you're going to suddenly find things that you never would have been challenged about. You live in a homogeneous life, world out there, all sorts of things you would have just taken for granted. In the city, everything is challenged. You're seeing people that do things completely differently, think differently, act differently, and suddenly you've got all these opportunities for creativity you never had before. You have the ability to think new thoughts.

You have the ability to partner with people who are utterly different in the way they compliment you. So first of all, the city is a place of restless creativity, giving you ideas and thoughts and stimulating to you to acts and thoughts of creativity you never would have otherwise, but also because the city surrounds you with so many people who are unlike you, but secondly, it surrounds you with people who are utterly like you. Back home, you were the best soprano in town, and you come to the city, and everybody is as good as you. You know, there's people in the subway singing, and they're better than you. What are they doing in the subway? Oh my word.

How am I going to make it here? See? In other words, the other thing that happens is back home, where you're the best at this or you're the best at that, you come to the city and suddenly everybody's as good as you, if not better. And you dig deep. I mean, the difference and the similarity, the people who are utterly unlike you and the people who are incredibly like you and better than you, you put all that together

and there is nothing that makes you dig down, reach down and pull out the very, very, very, very best. You're continually stimulated. You're continually pushed. You're continually energized by the city. It's exhausting. We'll get to that in a second. But there is nothing that makes you produce like the city. And that's the reason why the technological advances and the artistic advances the arts the sciences business you know deals it happens here and even the internet is nothing but a virtual city that's what they call it he nobody calls New York you know a concrete internet but they do call the internet a virtual city and of course it's a city with only part of

what the city gives you you see because it Because it's the massing together. So the second thing is, it's a place of incredible human development. And the third thing, the third reason that God gives a city is not only for unity and diversity and for human development, and that's what Dr. Klein was talking about when he said Adam and Eve were supposed to build a city because that's how you get into all the potentialities God put into the human heart and into the world. But thirdly, in this world, the city is the best thing for you spiritually. Most people think Christianity is either incredibly inclusive or unbelievably exclusive. But the fact is, Christianity is both radically inclusive and radically exclusive.

How can this be? In his short book, The Gospel on the Move, How the Cross Transcends Cultural Differences, Tim Keller shows us how we can make sense of this apparent paradox. Through the New Testament story of Philip and the Ethiopian, we learn how the gospel allows us to humbly critique our own cultural biases while becoming a united people of God. This month we have an exclusive resource only available through Gospel in Life that we want you to share. When you give to Gospel in Life in October, we'll send you three copies of Dr. Keller's

short book, The Gospel on the Move, as our thanks for your gift. This short book is a great way to present the Gospel to a friend or loved one. We hope you'll prayerfully consider who you could give each copy to and that it helps you live more missionally. To receive your three copies of this short book, just visit GospelInLife.com slash give. That's GospelInLife.com slash give.

And thank you for your generosity, which helps us reach more people with the gospel. Originally, the city was always a place of spiritual searching. Even Babel, in the center of the city, is spiritual longing. And God invented the city to be a place where, as we read in Revelation 21, 22, he, his throne was in the center of the celestial city. We'll get back to that. But any city has got to have a God in the center of it. Any city has got to have spiritual longing in the center of it. And here's what I want you to see, and that's going to take me a second to show it to you. Because of

the fall, all people come into this world alienated from God. Everybody has to be converted to find God. That's what the Bible says. And you're much more likely to be converted, and the word convert means to be changed, to have your mind changed. You're much more likely to be converted in the city than anywhere else. God put the city here as a way of helping people find Him. Because now in this fallen world we need cities to awaken us. Because the only way anybody finds God is through awakening and turmoil and change and conversion. Out

in the homogeneous world out there, you believe what you're taught. Because everybody believes it. You know? If you come from Buddhist non-urban world, everybody's a Buddhist, so you're just a Buddhist. If you come from a Catholic non-urban world, everybody's a Catholic, so you're just a Buddhist. If you've come from a Catholic, non-urban world, everybody's a Catholic, so you're just a Catholic. Or Jewish, or Protestant, or whatever. But in the city, everybody's different. And in the city, you're going to be challenged, and there's not going to be a single part of your religion you're going to be able to hold on to just because everybody does it, because here, everybody does something else. And that means unless you make your faith your own in the city,

you won't have a faith. Away from the city, you're not challenged. Away from the city, you just grow into it. It's environmental. You pick it up. You catch it like a cold. In the city, you're going to have to make whatever your belief is personal. You're going to have to grab hold of it. Don't you see that? But not only that, the city, because it's restless, because it's creative,

because it's always making people, pushing people, it just creates spiritual asking questions. Away from the city, people are always conservative. They don't like change. They're traditional. They don't want to think about new things. And that's the reason why St. Paul, when he was spreading the gospel around the Mediterranean, he didn't go to the countryside, he went to the cities, because the cities are, the people, the cities are more open always to new ideas and also to new spiritual ideas. Always.

And that's the reason why the cities are the places where people tend to find God. They find a lot of other things that are bad, and they put in the center of their life, but they also find a lot of sort of things are good. You know, away from the city, even if, now you know I'm a Christian, I'm a Protestant Presbyterian minister, alright? If you live, if you're born in a small town where everybody's Protestant Presbyterian, you're not very likely to ever actually meet God there because you're just going to get what everybody tells you. It's not going to become your own. You're never going to think, well, why do I believe this? What is important about it? Do I really believe it? Is it really mine? No, you're not. You're just going to go along with the

flow. You're more likely to get converted to Presbyterian Christianity right here than you are if you grew up in a Presbyterian non-urban land. God invented this city to be a place of unity and diversity, to be a place of cultural and human development, and to be a place of spiritual searching and finding because in this broken world we need the city for all three of those things. And those things do not happen very well at all outside of cities. And therefore the city is a good gift of God for life in a broken world. And we can't do without the city. Now having said all that positive stuff, well you say, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on. Cities have got a lot of bad things in them. Cities are dangerous places. There's crime, there's violence, there's racial strife, there's, there's, cities are cruel places, cities are

unfriendly places. Cities are places where you come in and if you're not good then you know, get a, you know, get a side, you know, people, you know, in small towns you, you know, it looks like you can't, you know, make it financially. People sort of, you know, they'll give you a couple extra months and they'll, they'll lend you some money and here, you're out. This is New York, you know. You can't cut the mustard, get it. You know, aren't cities cruel places? Aren't cities difficult? Yes. But why? Because cities are bad per se? No. The second point, first point is we need cities. But the second point is the reason cities don't work is because of what's in the human heart and why people go to cities. And here's why the Babylonites, the Babylonians, the Babel builders built Babel. It says, come

let us build ourselves a city, a tower the reaches of the heaven, so that we may make a name for ourselves. Now, I wish I could do the whole sermon on this subject I can't. What does it mean to make a name for yourself? What does it mean? What does the metaphor mean to the writers there? Well, you know, it's pretty close to what it means today. What does it mean to go make a name for yourself? If you need to make a name for yourself, that means two things. First of all, it means I want to know I'm valuable.

I want to know that I'm not just a nameless cog. I want to know that I'm someone special. I'm not just a little cog in a machine. Not just a cipher, not just a number. Not just a number. A name means I'm someone valuable and someone worthwhile. But secondly, it means I'm someone distinct. I'm not the same as anybody else. I've got a purpose.

I know what I'm about. I know who I am. The Bible tells us that when we're born, we don't know who we are. We're born nameless. And we have to go to a city to get a name. We cannot name ourselves. We've got to go to the city. We've got to get out into human society. We've got to find people who we impress. We've got to find people who we show.

We have to prove ourselves. We've got to go. And yet, that is what kills cities. That's what actually deconstructs cities, and that's what actually means that there's all the destructiveness of the city comes from this. Well how does that happen? Well you can actually see it here, number one. First of all, and this is not something I noticed till this last couple of weeks, why is God mad at them? Well you know traditionally people say because they built this tower to try to reach to

heaven without God. That's true but now look at the end of chapter 10. Why did I give you the end of chapter 10 before the end of chapter 11? In the beginning of chapter 10, God says to Noah and his children, spread out and become all the nations of the earth. In other words, what God is saying is, he is telling the children of Noah, I want racial and ethnic diversity. He says, I want racial and ethnic diversity. He says, I want you to spread out. I want you to... From these, the nation spread out.

He says, there are differences within your group that I want developed and accentuated into diverse cultures. I want you to become diverse cultures. I want human diversity. The world will not be what I want it to be. Human beings will not be what I want them to be. Human beings will not be what I want them to be. There's no one race, there's no one language group, there's no one cultural group that's going to be able to bring out all the splendor that I have put into the human nature.

And therefore he says, I want diversity. What do they do? In chapter one, two, and three they said, we don't want to do that. And Miroslav Volf, a Croatian, reads this text in a way I'd never read it before. He says, you know, he was Croatian, which he says, if you were part of the old Yugoslavia, if you were part of the old Romania, if you were ever part of a totalitarian regime that looked at the ethnic diversity out there and ignored it and said, we are not several races, we are not several language groups, we're all speaking one language, we're all going to be one cultural group. He says, that's racism. Totalitarian racism says,

we don't like ethnic diversity and we're going to make you all like me, we're going to make you all like us, you're all going to talk like us, you're all going to look like us, you're all going to dress like us. And essentially, Wolf says, this city is filled with people who are saying, we are not going to become ethnically diverse. We are going to be ethnically homogeneous and God has to come down and force diversity on the city. Isn't that interesting? Secondly, these people come and say, let us make a name for ourselves by using our technological

stuff and turning it into a tower. But now, this is what we're all doing. Can I just suggest something to you? Somebody says, well, that's not the way things are. Maybe back then, they built temples. The highest buildings in the city were the temples. That's not true anymore. Oh, really?

In New York City, what are the highest buildings? What are the ziggurats of New York City? Places where people go to make money. But go to Washington, D.C., they don't let them build them that high, do they? Oh no. You know, the tallest building in every city is always, is always in honor of the God who will give you a name, if you honor and work and serve it. In Washington, D.C., they won't let those big business office towers grow up. Why? You know why.

Because they want the sky. They want the biggest buildings to be the government buildings. Because you see, in New York, they say, if you make money, then you have a name, then you're somebody, then you'll know you're somebody. But in Washington, if you have governmental power, then you know you're somebody. You know, people serve you, you pass laws, you can do all these things. Every city has its ziggurat.

Every city seductively promises that if you come to my city and you serve our God, power or money or sex or art, if you say I'm going to the city to be a great artist, why? Then I'll know I'm somebody. If you say I'm going to the city to be great artist Why then I'll know I'm somebody if you say I'm going to the city why to make money, then I'll know I'm somebody I'm going to the city to have power then I know I'm somebody You are going to burn out You are going to be empty there is going to be racial conflict there because you're making an idol out of your culture So you put down other people that's what happened here, Or you're going to make an idol out of your work, you're going to make an idol out of your career and you're going to be burned out and the restlessness

of the city instead of making you productive is going to destroy you. Now listen, I have to deal with this. I walk out here and this is New York and I start making, I quote somebody, next thing you know I get an email saying I'm doing a PhD dissertation on that man and you misrepresented him. That's not what he believes. You quoted so-and-so and that's not what he believes. That never happened to me outside of New York. This is a... you come to New York, I preach to people here and I suddenly say I better be good. I better actually make sure that my quotes are from those people and that's what they really believe. That's what

they... I better know my stuff. I prepare at least three times as much for a sermon here as I do anywhere else or ever did before. And unless I come to New York City already named, unless I come to New York City deep down inside already knowing who I am, already knowing I'm valuable because I have a name in the Lord, because he loves me. Already knowing my purpose because I'm serving him. Unless I come into the city already knowing my name, already knowing who I am, the city will destroy me. The city will ruin me, and it will ruin you. All the great things about the city,

the unity and diversity, if I'm trying to make a name by thinking about my race is better than anybody else's, it's going to just, the city will actually destroy itself that way. If I come needing to make a name, the unity and diversity of the city will just be diversity and strife. See, I say, if I come in needing a name, the ability to really dig down and come to my, you know, get into my potential will actually just burn me out and destroy me. And it will you too. And therefore all the problems of the city not come because the city is, it was made by the devil, or there's something bad about the city. The city is an incredible gift to the human race. We cannot do without cities. We need cities desperately.

But if you come into the city not knowing who you are and use the city to make a name for yourself, there'll be racial strife instead of racial diversity and unity. There will be actually people burning out and people killing each other essentially in business and in art and trampling on each other, env burning out and people killing each other, essentially, in business and in art and trampling on each other, envying the people who are above you, just standing the people who are below you, dog eat dog and you're going to have to leave constantly just to get your breath back.

Why do people have to leave New York? Just to relax. And why do people leave New York? Just because they say, I'm just getting run into the ground. You're getting run into the ground by people who come here needing to make a name for themselves, or maybe you're getting run into the ground because you need to make a name for yourself yourself. Now lastly, what's the solution?

If this is why we need cities, and this is the source of the problem of cities, does that mean there's no hope? No, God comes down. Verse five, but the Lord came down. Now here's what we learn. God came down that time in gracious punishment. The first time somebody built a big city, God came down into that city. And what he did was he graciously punished. What do I mean?

Well, first of all, it was a punishment. He confused their speech. And this is a natural consequence. What he says is, I'm going to show these people that if you come to the city trying to make a name for yourself, all that's going to do is isolate you. All that's going to do is, you're not going to have harmony, you're not going to have love,

you're not going to have community, you're going to have isolation, you're going to have competition, you're going to have strife, you're going to have stress, you're going to have the breakdown of communication. If you come in trying to save your own soul and prove to the world and to yourself that you're somebody special, if you come into the city without already having a name for me, if you look to the city rather than to me in a way to give you a name, you're just going to get all this kind of strife and this lack of community.

So he comes down and he gives them natural consequences. It's a punishment, but it's also grace because he's getting them back on track toward the ethnic diversity. But this points to another time in which God came down in gracious punishment. Jesus Christ came down into the city, but where was he crucified, class? Where was he crucified, class? Class? Where was Jesus Christ crucified? Yes. Hebrews 13-12. Now Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his blood.

And we here also do not have any enduring city, but now we look for the city, now we look to the city that is to come. Now here's what happens in Ephesians, this is what Hebrews 13 and 12 was saying. The city, you have to remember, in the Bible is so positive. In the city is community. In the city is safety. You're behind the walls. To be thrown out of the city, the scapegoat, once a year, they put their hands on the scapegoat and send them out. Why? That was a symbol representing the fact that anyone who sins is going to experience isolation from human community. Anyone who

tries to be his or her own Savior and own Lord is going to be sent outside the city. That what really happens is the cities that we really want, the city is the place where we really find community, the city is the place where we find want. The city is the place where we really find community. The city is the place where we find safety. The city our hearts really want. We're going to lose if we come to the city in sin. Jesus Christ comes to the city of God, Jerusalem, but is crucified outside, Calvary, outside the gate. Why? He was punished for our sins. the gate. Why? He was punished for our sins. He lost the city so that we could become citizens of the city to come. And the city to come tells us this in Revelation 22. The city to come, it says, Revelation 22.3, and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city

and his servants will serve him and they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and there will be no more night and they will reign forever and ever." Now, let me put it like this. Jesus lost the city. That means he took the punishment for our sins so that when we believe in him, we can become citizens of the city which is to come and that's the city where you get your name. When you believe in Jesus Christ and you know God loves you and accepts you, then you get your name. Then you know the only person who really counts loves you. You see, the only city that really matters, you're a citizen there. Frank Sinatra was wrong about the city you've really got to make it in. There's only one city that

you said because I've made it there I can make it anywhere. There's only one city that says because I'm a citizen of this city, because I'm a landowner in this city, because the Lord of this city knows me personally and loves me and wouldn't it be great? Are you one of these few people in New York City that knows the insiders, that knows the people in power, that knows the people who kind of run New York City, and they invite you into their, you know, Park Avenue apartments, and they invite you into their offices, their corner offices? Don't you feel great? That's nothing compared to this. There is a city that you've got to go to to get a name. A city where once you know

you're a citizen there and you're on the inside of the mayor of that city and the Lord of that city, that then you can look at every other city and here's what happens. If you know that Jesus lost the city so you could become citizens of the city which is to come, that frees you to enjoy and serve in the city that is. In Acts chapter 2, God came down, there was a rushing mighty wind, and here's what's so interesting. All the people there who actually were ethnically diverse, so they all spoke different languages, heard the gospel preached and they all heard it in their own language.

In Babel they all spoke one language but they couldn't understand each other. And on the day of Pentecost they all spoke different in their own language. In Babel they all spoke one language, but they couldn't understand each other. And on the day of Pentecost they all spoke different languages and they understand each other perfectly. What was happening? The Bible is trying to say that in the gospel, in the gospel, you really find finally the city that God wants. Christians who have a name from God can be ethnically who they are and yet not racist because who I am ethnically is only part of my identity so I can appreciate other groups and I can also be critical of my own group. Christians who have a name for themselves come into the city to do their art and to do their business, do their science, but it's not their name, it's not the main thing,

it's not, they're not doing it out of desperation and as a result they're not going to burn out, they're not going to go nuts, they're not going to be filled with envy and filled with unhappiness because they are not making it the way they want. You'll have margin for serving in the city and you'll have the ability to enjoy the city. Jesus lost the city of God. He was crucified outside the gate.

So we could become citizens of the city which is to come, making us salt and light in the city which is. Are you ready for that? People told me before I came here, you know, Christians they said the city is a terrible place. Nobody is going to want to, you know, talk to you, your ministry will fail. And now people come to me and say, you know what, how do you get all those people into your church? Why, you know, I visited your church and I sat down and I talked to somebody next door

and that person was a Buddhist but they've been coming for six weeks. What program do you use to get Buddhists to come to your church? Somebody recently said to me, I have been in small groups out in the rest of the country, I've been in small group Bible studies all my life, 20 years. I moved to the city and I'm in a small group right now. There's a Buddhist in my group, there's an atheist in my group, and the other parts of the groups are Christian believers, but they're half divided between Catholic and Protestant, all in one Bible study.

She said, in my whole life I've never been in a Bible study in which I had two people that didn't even believe Christianity, but there they are studying the Bible with me. And I never was in a group that was half Catholic, half Protestant. How do you do this? What program do you use to get these kinds of people together and to get this kind of creativity and to see all this stuff happening? I say, it's the city. No program. It's natural. Great things happen in the city. Terrible things happen in the city. But if you are a citizen of the city of God, spreading the city of God in the city of New York.

You're in the very best possible place you can be. If you can stay there, stay there. If you can live here as that, live here as that. If you can't, go without guilt, because not everyone's called to live in the city. But if you can stay here, you know, Tony Campolo, some years ago, who lives in Philadelphia, was once confronted by a young man. He was sort of blonde, and he was from California, and he was white, and he says,

"'Would it be dangerous for me to work "'in the inner city of Philadelphia?' And Tony Campolo said, "'Not half as dangerous as working "'in the white affluent suburbs where you're from.'" And then he quoted him a Bible text. "'Do not fear those who can destroy the body, "'but fear the one who can destroy body and soul in hell. And then he said cultural pride, materialism and

spiritual complacency, which you're very likely to find outside the city, are far more dangerous possibilities than being mugged. I don't mean, he said, that everybody has to live in a city but the city's God-given benefits are so great and many of us spiritually would have died without them. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would help us see that you gave us the city, that the city is filled with strife and difficulty because we come here without you, because human beings are seeking to get a name for themselves from the city, instead of getting a name from you. We thank you that your Son lost the city, instead of getting a name from you, we thank you that your son lost

the city, that we could become citizens of the city that is to come, which makes us salt and light in the city which is. However, Lord, a lot of us have to admit that we're not filled with that inner peace. We do not really sense your love and as a result we tend to be burned out by the city or we tend to be irritated by people who are different than we are and we burned out by the city, or we tend to be irritated by people who are different than we are. And we ask that in the Lord's Supper, you could strengthen our understanding

of what you did for us, so that we can truly be salt and light in the city, and really build the city and look to the city which is to come. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [♪ music playing and video game music playing throughout the video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video game video Thanks for listening to today's message from Tim Keller. If you have a story of how the gospel has changed your life or how Gospel in Life's resources have encouraged or challenged you, we'd love to hear from you.

You can share your story with us by visiting GospelinLife.com slash stories. That's GospelinLife.com slash stories. Today's sermon was recorded in 2001. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.