Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Love and Forgiveness

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

What are the characteristics of a supernaturally changed heart? You can be very moral and active in church and still be an incredibly impatient, bitter person. So we’re looking at what Paul says are the marks of a supernaturally changed heart. And for this, Romans 12 is an explosive passage.  Let’s look at what this passage says about 1) patience and graciousness in life in general, and 2) love and forgiveness in the face of mistreatment. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 8, 2016. Series: What We Are Becoming: Transforming Love. Scripture: Romans 12:9-21. 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.

We all know that just believing in something doesn't result in changing your life. Many people engage in religious activity yet struggle with impatience, resentment, or an unforgiving heart. So what does true change look like? The gospel doesn't just modify behavior, it fundamentally reshapes our hearts. Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller shows us how Christ's love transforms us from the inside out. After you listen to today's teaching, we invite you to go online to Gospelinlife.com

and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal and other valuable Gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at GospelAndLife.com. This morning's reading is from Romans chapter 12 verses 9 through 21. Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn.

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, it is mine to avenge. I will repay, says the Lord.

On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the word of the Lord. By the way, I can't go by without mentioning this campaign is a thrilling moment for us. Kathy said recently, we've been through four campaigns in 27 years and she said rightly, helpful to say rightly so that this campaign has been more about the vision and less about money than any other one. And the most important number is the fact that three, four times more people have embraced

it through the pledging and the committing. The overall number will get there. The key is the breadth of participation. And this really is just the beginning. This is something we're going to be constantly coming back and reporting out on. The money parts on. The money parts over, the fun part begins. So thank you so much. And connected to that, we've been talking about how if we grow the

churches and the body of Christ in the city, that could really enhance the city. We were talking about how we might have more people using their money less selfishly, the poor being raised up, more humane workplaces, the arts expressing more hope, all the things we think will change the city. But that's ‑‑ listen, if our numbers grow but our hearts and lives don't change, no, that's going to happen. And last week we read 1 Corinthians 13, which of course is fine to read that at a wedding, but when Paul was writing the 1 Corinthians 13 chapter, he was not thinking

about weddings or marriages. What he was doing was he was looking at a group of people and he said, you're busy, you're active, you're religious and you're moral, but your hearts haven't been changed from the inside out by the Holy Spirit. And he gave a list of characteristics. And he said, you know, you can be very religious and very moral, but if you're impatient, if you're bitter, if you're unkind, if you're harsh, he made a whole list of things, love is patient, love is kind, it's very famous, it's always right at marriages. But what's brilliant about that passage is saying you can be very religious and even very moral and very active in your church

and still be an incredibly impatient, irritable, bitter person. Actually happens all the time. So what we're going to do is we're going to over the next few weeks look at those various characteristics that Paul says, these are the marks of a supernaturally changed heart and each week we're going to look at one. We're not going to stay in 1 Corinthians 13, we're going to go to other passages that illuminate the various traits. And so the one we're starting with, which is the one if you were here last week, you remember if you know 1 Corinthians 13, you know love is patient and it doesn't keep a record of wrongs.

Now this incredible passage, this explosive passage, every time I read it I go, oh, my word. The first four verses, verses nine to 13, first five verses, verses nine to 13, are all about patience and gracefulness before life in general. Patience and graciousness before life in general. Then verses 14 to 21 is talking about forgiveness and love before mistreatment in particular. And finally we have to ask the question, where do we get the power for a life this patient, this loving and this brave? So first let's look at the first few verses and

see what it says about patience and graciousness before life in general. Quick summary, verses 9 and 10 says serve other people's needs before your own not because you have to but out of love. Verse 11 says serve the Lord not because you have to, but out of internal fervor and hope and joy. And then verse 12 says, be patient in affliction. When things go wrong, be patient, and that word patient means enduring.

But because it's flanked with prayer and joy and hope, again it's saying be patient, be enduring, but never in a begrudging, merely dutiful way. But instead, there has got to be an internal joy and hope that makes you able to be very patient and very calm and very poised even when everything's blowing up around you. Now, what's Paul talking about in these first few verses? Even though the word is not used here, in parallel passages it comes up and I think I'm going to bring it up because it's so concrete. In some ways these are abstractions. What does it mean to be patient? What does

it mean to be impatient? Impatience and patience are kind of abstract concepts. But in the Bible, to be impatient in heart is to be a grumbler. Paul is saying, don't be a grumbler, don't grumble. Don't have a heart of grumbling. In the Old Testament, grumbling was one of the main sins of Israel, that whenever things went wrong, they grumbled against the circumstances, which means they were grumbling was one of the main sins of Israel. That whenever things went wrong, they grumbled against the circumstances, which meant they were grumbling against the God behind the

circumstances. And when you get to the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10 and James 5 also talk about the sin of grumbling. But James 5, by the way, is the best parallel passage for this passage, even though it's short. James 5, verse 8, 9, 10 says, be patient, don't grumble, for God the judge is at the door. Don't grumble, for God is on his judgment throne. This is a parallel passage. And here's the reason why. Down in verse 19 it says, leave room for God's wrath. Now that's

a very strange thing to say. Leave room for God's wrath? God's wrath is the wrath that he will pour out on judgment day. And on judgment day everybody will get what they deserve. On judgment day everybody will get what they deserve. And that's when God's wrath is poured out. And so Paul, by referring to this, is doing the same thing that James is saying, and that is, if you're an impatient person, if when things go wrong you're not patient in affliction, if you're not joyful and hopeful and poised when things go wrong, instead you're really grumbling and unhappy and grumpy in every way, it's because actually you're sitting in God's chair. Get out of God's

chair. Now how does that work? All right, here's how it works. Your plans blow up. Things go wrong. Some crucial goals you don't reach, they fail. They don't ever reach them, maybe. You have some huge disappointments in life. How do you respond? If you sit in God's chair, that means that you are saying I know how things should go. I know what I deserve. I know what everybody else around me deserves. I know exactly how my life has to go and it's not going that way. So you're sitting in God's chair and you're absolutely sure that you know better than God how life should go. You know what everybody

deserves. You know what should happen. You know what justice is. You know what fairness is. So you're sitting in God's chair and as a result you have a grumbling heart, not a patient heart. What's a grumbling heart? Well, let me give you some signs of a grumbling heart, okay? One of them is scornfulness. Do you know what scornfulness. You know what scornfulness is? Scornfulness is, all right, all right, yeah. Scornfulness. New York is filled with scornfulness. I know best. I know everything should go. I know what everybody deserves. I know what

you deserve. I know what I deserve. Self-pity is a mark of a grumbling heart. Lots of self-pity. Anxiety, why? Because you see, you know how life has to go and you're not sure the guy who is in the chair of the world is going to get it right. Worry is saying, I know better than God, otherwise you wouldn't be worried. There's anxiety, there's self-pity, there's scorn, there's disdain. What are the marks of a patient heart? A patient heart is someone who is joyful in hope. What does that mean? A patient heart is always poised, under pressure, always calm no matter what happens, has a joy that is not based on circumstances and therefore is inextinguishable, but most of all has

hope. What does that mean? It means, you know, Psalm 30 where it says, we'd be made tarry for the night but joy comes in the morning. A Christian who understands what the Bible teaches in general about everything knows this. Joy is always on the way. It might be a long way off, but goodness and glory, you believe in Jesus, goodness and glory is in your future. Maybe further away in your future than you would like it to be.

But the simple fact is no, no, God is no man's debtor. God is no woman's debtor. And a person whose heart is filled with that sort of thing is patient. You got off the throne and you're living a patient life. Don't grumble. And if some of you say, oh, my goodness, you know, I can't believe, well, you know, that's your job, you preachers. You're making me feel guilty about grumbling. Everybody grumbles sometimes, especially in New York. You get on the subway at rush hour, you grumble with them and they're grumbling at you. What's the big deal about grumble? Grumble? Grumble? If you were sitting on a sofa watching television and you notice that at the other end

of the sofa, let's say it's a fabric sofa, on the other end of the sofa you see a flame shoot up and you realize that the other end of the sofa is on fire. What do you say? Well, it's over at the other end of the sofa. I can watch my TV, my TV. No, you get off the sofa. You don't sit around and say, well, the whole sofa is not on fire. Do you know what grumbling is? It's hell fire. Just a little spot of it. Kathy and I have one of our favorites, if you've been around you know, one of our favorite books is The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis is a fiction book about a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. People from heaven come down to try to get the people from hell to

leave hell to go to heaven, but most of them won't. And it's Lewis' way of getting across the fact that hell is always a choice. There's a narrator ‑‑ this is all fiction now, you understand. There's a narrator who's walking around with a guide and they're listening in on the conversations between the people from hell and the people from heaven. And this narrator is walking around with a guide. At one point they listen to this woman begin to talk. She's from hell. Here's what she says. She's meeting a woman who's from heaven who she

used to know back on earth and she says, oh, my dear, I've had such a dreadful time. I don't know how I ever got here at all. I was coming with Eleanor Stone and we were to meet at the corner of Sink Street. I made it perfectly plain because I know what she is like. And if I told her once, I made it perfectly plain because I know what she is like. If I told her once, I told her a thousand times I would not meet her outside that dreadful Marjorie Banks woman home. But after the way she treated me, of course I wouldn't want to be there. I've been dying to tell you because I felt sure you'd tell me I acted rightly. So no, no, no, wait

a minute, I'm not done. I tried living with her. When I first came and it was all fixed up, she was due to the cooking and I was to look after the house and I did think I was going to be comfortable after all I've been through. But no, she was so absolutely selfish, not a particle of sympathy for anything but herself. And then they walk on. And the narrator turns to his guide and says, I am troubled, sir, because that unhappy creature doesn't seem to me the sort of soul that ought to be in hell in danger of damnation. She's not wicked. She's only a silly garrulous old woman who got into the habit of grumbling.

And the guide says, well, the question is whether she's a grumbler or only a grumble. The narrator says, but how can there be a grumble without a grumbler? Oh, my guide said, you'll have had the experience. It begins with a grumbling mood. And you yourself still distinct from it, perhaps criticizing it. You can still repent and come out of it again, but there may come a day when you can do that no longer. And There's no you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever. And in the preface to Paradise Lost, his preface to Paradise Lost, C.S. Lewis says a vote for Satan is a vote for hell and a vote for hell is a vote for

endless autobiography. Endless autobiography, that's grumbling, that's staying in God's chair, it's saying it's not fair, it's not fair, I don't deserve this, this isn't the way it's supposed to go, it's not going. I don't deserve this. This isn't the way it's supposed to go It's not gonna go that it's it endless autobiography and I don't this should have if only this had happened then everything endless autobiography What slavery and it's a flame? At the other end of the sofa and it will engulf the whole thing until you're nothing but a grumble Don't you dare think it's not dangerous? nothing but a grumble. Don't you dare think it's not dangerous. God does not condemn something unless it's bad for you. Just like your doctor doesn't say don't eat that food unless it harms your health. God doesn't say don't do it. The judge is at the door unless it's the worst

possible thing for you, eating up the fabric of your happiness, your relationships, your heart. So there we have something that's crucial. Are you patient and gracious and poised and able to let go of your goals? Are you humble enough to say, hey, I don't know what's best for me? Or are you going to rigidly hold on? So that's patience and graciousness before life in general. But Paul gets down to the second half and he goes into a particular kind of

trouble that happens to us, a particular kind of difficulty that really is hard, and that is specific mistreatment when someone wrongs you. Now what's great about this passage, which is verses 14 to 21, classic passage, is it lays down a principle and then it gives you five incredibly practical ways to realize that principle. So there's the principle and there's the practice. What's the principle? Verse 21. Let me read it and then let me just paraphrase it so you see the magnitude of it. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome

evil with good. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. Now the word overcome is a military word. Oh, you military people. It means to defeat. It means to conquer. And so what's intriguing here is there's only two possibilities. Either you will be defeated by evil or you will conquer and defeat evil only by responding to it with good. So we put it to you another way. If when someone hurts you, you either hurt them back or want to see them hurt in your heart. If when someone hurts you, you hurt them back or you maintain wanting to see them hurt in

your heart, you've been defeated by evil. You have lost. Evil won. Say, well, how could that be? Let me give you three ways. There's only three I can think of. I can handle it today but there's a lot more. Here's the first one. One is that when someone harms you and you want to hurt them back or you maintain wanting to hurt them back, staying angry at them, even low level, the first thing is it distorts your relationships. If you maintain anger at somebody, even a low level anger, see most of us won't call ourselves bitter, you know, because we know we're not supposed to be bitter perhaps, or we don't want to think of ourselves as bitter people. But if you maintain a

low level anger, low level enough that you don't call it bitter, well, it's still there. It distorts your relationships. How so? Well, first of all, whenever you maintain anger towards someone, you tend to replay the tapes, you replay what the person did to you, to sort of justify your anger. And when you do that, you always caricature them. You flatten them. So for example, maybe somebody lied to you.

So what do you think of them? How do you think of them? You say, that person is just a liar. But what happens if you lie? Because you lie too. And someone catches you. Then you say, well, yes, I lied, but it's complicated. It doesn't mean I'm a liar. It means I did lie. I shouldn't have lied. And here's the reasons why. This person lied, you liar. You, well, you know. So you're three dimensional, you're complicated, you're nuanced. That person's flat, caricature, liar. And that's what happens if you stay angry at them. You flatten them,

you caricature them and then everyone else in that category, it starts to distort your relationship with them. If you're a man and you've been hurt by a woman, really hurt by a woman and you stay angry at her, it's going to affect your relationship with them. If you're a man and you've been hurt by a woman, really hurt by a woman, and you stay angry at her, it's going to affect your relationship with women. And by the way, vice versa. Or somebody of another race. Or somebody of another type. Or somebody of another economic class. And it distorts your relationship with all of them because you've flattened in your mind, which is a way of justifying your anger, that person and those people's way of justifying why you're angry, and it starts to distort your relationship with all kinds of people.

Secondly, it not only distorts your relationships if you stay angry, if you maintain that wanting to hurt the person. Secondly, it distorts your relationship to yourself. Are you holding onto a grudge or struggling to forgive someone in your life? Would you like to experience the freedom and healing that forgiveness brings? In his book, Forgive, Why Should I and How Can I, Tim Keller shows how forgiveness is not just a personal act, but a transformative power that embodies Christ's grace to a world fractured by conflict.

Far from being a barrier to justice, forgiveness is the foundation for pursuing it. In this book, you'll uncover how forgiveness and justice are deeply intertwined expressions of love and how embracing Christ's forgiveness equips us to extend grace to others. We'd love to send you Dr. Keller's book, Forgive, as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the hope and forgiveness of Christ with more people. Visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give.

Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Because it's the other side. When you replay the tapes and you think about what's How that person wronged you you not only think of what's wrong with them and flatten them, but you also tend to feel noble You puff yourself up you airbrush yourself and You start to feel noble and you start to feel a certain amount of self-pity and a certain amount of self-righteousness boy What, what I've been through, what people have done to me, what that person has done to me. And there is nothing that makes you more open to being cruel or dishonest than feeling self-righteously, nobly put upon. If you feel like I've suffered, nobody knows how much I've suffered and look

what I've had to put up with, it makes you open to temptation. You have an opportunity to do something cruel, you'll do it. You have an opportunity to do something maybe sort of dishonest but it gives you a leg up, you'll do it. Why? Because you'll say deep in your heart, I deserve this. And so you're more open to evil. Evil has won. And lastly, if you maintain that anger, not only does it distort your relationships, it distorts your self‑image and your self‑knowledge, but then thirdly, it almost never, I mean, almost always increases evil in the perpetrator, the perp. See the perpetrator has done something wrong. So what happens if you maintain anger at them?

Well, there are going to be a couple of things you do. One is you can just be cold to them, just avoid them, so they never learn what they did wrong. Or you confront them, you see, and you tell them what's wrong with them and you just try to shame them and all that does is make them feel themselves more self-righteous like you're the idiot. And so they get worse and worse. Evil wins.

Evil wins in the world. Evil wins in the perpetrator. Evil wins in the world, evil wins in the perpetrator, evil wins in you. So it's not, you have to, you must defeat and only can defeat evil if you respond to evil not with hurting the person back or even wanting that person to be hurt, but with good. You say, well how do you do that? Ah, I told you. This is a most incredibly practical passage.

Let's take a look at five things it tells you on how to overcome evil with good. Ready? One, two, three, four, five. And they're all in this section. Number one, verse 14. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Now, by the way, probably this means,

because Jesus says almost the same thing in Matthew 5, where he says pray for those who persecute you. That probably bless means to pray for God's blessing. And I think that this is an incredibly practical thing. You might be angry, you know, you're really sinking into bitterness, you want to be free, you want to overcome evil, then one of the things to do is to start with the person who's wrong with you, you pray for them. You pray for God's blessing on them. You pray for God giving them help. Now, what's brilliant about this is so practical, because it's hard to

stay angry with somebody if you're praying for them. It's really hard. Even if you say, oh Lord, please open the eyes of that idiot. You're on your way. I mean, that's progress, that's progress. I mean, you're on your way. Any minute you'll turn the corner. To really be asking God to bring help down into somebody's life that they need. It's hard to stay angry if you're praying for them. But by the way, it's also

hard to stay angry with them unless you feel superior to them. It's almost impossible to stay bitter at somebody or angry unless you feel like I would never do anything like that. And it's almost impossible to stay feeling superior to people if you're praying. I mean, if you're really praying and you really have any idea who you're praying to, there's no way that you feel superior. So what happens is just praying for them knocks down the superiority, turns your heart a little bit more so you're starting to will them good and it's a huge first step. So number one, bless. That is to say pray God's blessing. Secondly, though, forgive. We say where's the word forgive? Well, it's actually I'm glad it's not here. Because people twist that word. I'm glad

it's a little more concrete. It says do not repay anyone evil for evil. And don't forget what Jesus says in Matthew 5. Remember how he says don't kill people but in your heart don't hate them. He says don't commit adultery in your heart, don't lust. He goes right on down, don't steal but in your heart don't envy. So he goes down and he says doing it in your heart is just like doing it out there. In fact the heart has been infected. Maybe you will or you won't actually be able to express it in behavior. But the heart's been infected. Therefore, forgiveness means not only not taking revenge, but not taking revenge in your heart. Now, let me give you two objections. The first thing, some

people say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Look, I can forgive, but I can't forget. I can forgive, but I can't forget. You know what that actually means? I'm not going to directly retaliate. I'm going to root for somebody else to do it. See, so why forgive I won't see What you're probably doing is what I call Christian voodoo Which means in your heart you're sticking little pins in them and you're hoping something bad will happen to them You're hoping they don't get into that that that get that job. You're hoping they don't get that promotion. And when things go bad for them, you go, yes. So basically, yes, I'm not ‑‑ when people say I forgave but I

haven't forgotten, you actually haven't forgiven. What it really means is I'm not directly trying to take revenge, but in my heart I'm hoping that somebody does. I'm rooting for them to go. And someone says, well, okay then, but here's the problem. I can't forgive because I'm too angry. And my response to you would be, you're too angry because you haven't forgiven. It's the other way around. You've got it totally reversed. You say, well, what do you mean by that? Well, because forgiveness is a command. Mark chapter 11 verse 25, go read it and let your blood

get curdled. Mark 11 25, Jesus says, if you are standing and you're praying and you realize you have anything against anyone, forgive them. Not wait until they come groveling to you crawling on their knees. If you are standing praying and you realize you've got something against anybody, forgive them right there. Now, that can't be, Jesus can't be commanding you to have an emotion. Guess why? Because you can't command emotions. Well then what is he saying? Here's what he's saying. Forgiveness therefore has to be something you can grant before you feel it. Don't wait to feel it in order to grant it. You have to grant it if you'll ever feel it. And what

do you have to grant? Here's what you do. You promise to refrain from three things. Number one, you're not going to directly retaliate yourself and try to hurt them. Number two, you're not going to indirectly retaliate by running them down to other people. See, you say, I'm not retaliating, I'm not retaliating against them, but I'm going to tell everybody else how awful they are. Well, that's memo. That's retaliation. All right? So number one, you promise not to try to hurt them. Number two, you promise not to try to run them down to everybody else you promise not to try to run them down everybody else, number three, inside your heart when you're tempted to put little pins, when you're tempted to replay the tapes, when you're tempted to go through your anger and nurse angry thoughts,

you say no. You turn aside. And if you do those three things, and those are matters of the will, dear friends, they're not just the matters of emotion. If you promise to do those three things and you do those three things, you grant it before you feel it. After you've granted it, you'll start to feel it. So first of all, you pray for them. Number two, you forgive them. Number three, four and five, they're very important. Number three is you don't avoid them. Notice verse 18, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. That's great. How realistic. I've had people say

to me, look, I've forgiven them but I want nothing to do with them anymore, which means you haven't forgiven them. You're retaliating. You're cut them out of my life. It says here, if possible, as far as it depends on you. See, the other person may say, I don't want to talk to you. The other person might want to keep up a war. But you don't contribute to that. You don't stay away from them. You don't lift a finger to contribute to any war at all. You are always open to relationship. You're always seeking relationship if you can. But, number three, that's three, so don't avoid them. Number four, give them what they need. You see this down here? If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. Now, that's fascinating. That means

you don't just forgive them and not retaliate. You give them what they need. You're doing good to them. But look carefully. It's not just sending them gifts or something like that, it says what do they need? And boy, this is nuanced. So for example, let's say you have a friend who is an addict, but won't admit he or she is an addict. Should you trust them? That would be the worst thing for them. They don't need that. That's not good for them to trust them. Let's just say a person is doing something and they not only hurt you but they hurt other people. Well, then you need to confront them. Why? Because they need. It is never loving to make it easy for someone to go on sinning. It's never loving to make it easy for someone to go on sinning.

And therefore, those of you especially that have a kind of shy temperament, then for you to say I forgive and I'm not going to retaliate and I'm not going to run them down to other people and I'm not going to nurse the grudge in my heart, okay, so I've done everything, no you haven't. What if they need you to talk to them? What if they need you to confront them? Say, oh, I don't want to do that. Well then guess what? You're not

overcoming evil with good. Okay? You're not, yeah, you're not doing evil for evil, but you're not overcoming it with good because you're too cowardly to talk. But unless you forgive from the heart before you confront, the confrontation will not be for their good, it'll be a way for you to get it off your chest, and it won't do any good, which is number five, lastly. The last thing we see here is,

remember you have to pray for them, you have to forgive them, you have to not avoid them, you have to give them what they need doing good, by giving them what they need, and lastly you have to do it humbly. Verse 16, do not be proud, do not be conceited. Proverbs 25 is a verse that says a gentle word can break a bone. Proverbs 15 verse 1 says a gentle, a soft answer turns away wrath. If you go to somebody to talk to them about what they've

done to you, if you go in a haughty way, if you go in a proud way, if you go to somebody to talk to them about what they've done to you, if you go in a haughty way, if you go in a proud way, if you go in a way to tell them what's wrong, to kind of get it off your chest, which means you're doing it for your sake, not their sake, not for truth's sake, not for the world's sake, you know, for your sake, you're just going to make the perpetrator worse. But if you have the humility and the love and you've been forgiving them enough, that they sit and they listen to you criticizing them and yet they say, you know, I don't like what you're saying and I'm not even sure I agree with it, but I can see that you care

for me. Now you're doing what it says. And you've got a 50-50 chance of maybe actually helping them. But if you don't do all this stuff, evil has won. If instead you very loudly tell people off and nurse a grudge and run people down, evil has won. It's won in your life and you are now a vehicle for evil in the world. Congratulations. Well, where are we going to get the power to do this? Every time I've ever read this passage, and some of you have been around when I've preached on it before, you do get to the end and you say, absolutely, there's no way I can refute this.

This is absolutely true. But my goodness, this is the most incredibly hard thing I've ever heard. And it's something that very few people do, this overcoming evil with good. And it's something I struggle with enormously and I have hardly ever done it myself. Where do you get the power to do this? Where do you get the power to have a life this patient, this forgiving and actually this brave? Well, let's go back. I have to go back to the well twice this time. And let's go back to verse 19.

Do not take revenge, okay? What's the secret of not taking revenge? What's the secret of overcoming evil with good? Leave room for God's wrath. See, this is actually even more direct now. Here's what it's saying. Get out of God's chair. I was trying to tell you that worry and anxiety

and impatience and grumbling in general comes from sitting in God's chair and sort of knowing like I'm the judge of all the earth and I know how the world ought to go. But in particular, if you're having trouble overcoming evil with good, it's because you are definitely sitting in God's chair. You think you know what this person deserves and you are meeting out judgment. Get out of the chair. How? I suggest two ways. The Get out of the chair. How? I suggest two ways. The number one way, look at yourself. It's not the most effective way, but let's just take 60 seconds on it. Look at yourself. You

are totally unqualified for this job. First of all, you have no idea ‑‑ you don't have the knowledge to know what these people deserve. The people you're mad at, the people you're hoping this and that will happen, you don't have the knowledge to know what they deserve. You don't know what they've gone through, you don't know what's in their heart, you don't know how their parents treated them, you don't know. So you don't know enough to know what they deserve. But then secondly, you don't have the right to give them what they deserve because you deserve judgment. Every single one of us. Have you ever gotten away with anything that you didn't ever really get caught and punished for? Yes, of course.

I mean, don't say to God, call down judgment on this person, but not over here, because you know that you couldn't bear that. You don't have the knowledge to be a judge. You don't have the right to be the judge, so get out of the chair. One way to get out of the chair and start to be able to forgive is to say, look at yourself, but actually that's not the main way. You need to look at Jesus. And you need to look at Jesus Christ, the incarnate son of God who didn't go to that chair himself. Look, the only human being in the history of the world that had the knowledge to sit in that chair and judge people and condemn them was Jesus.

He had the knowledge to do it because he knew it was in people's hearts. Lots of places in the Gospels tell us about that. But he also had the right because he was perfect. But even Jesus Christ, when he came into this world, did not go to that chair. Why? John chapter 12 verse 47, he says, I did not come to the world to judge the world but to save it. And my friends, if Jesus Christ didn't sit in that chair, how dare you or I, if Jesus Christ said, I didn't come in the world to judge it and

to tell people what they deserve, I came to save, I came to forgive, I came to pardon, I came to redeem, then you should be doing the same thing. How dare you and I get in that chair? But don't just look at what Jesus didn't do for a second. Look at what he did. Look at his patience. You know, Isaiah 53 says, he didn't open his mouth. He was like the lamb who was silent before his shearers. Even under all of his sufferings he never opened his mouth. You know, Matthew 12 says, he did not cry or quarrel in the street, but he was quiet. Quiet because he was patient. Taking what? Things like this. They stripped him and put a scarlet

robe on him and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand, they knelt in front of him and mocked him. Hail, King of the Jews, they said. They spit on him, they took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. He didn't open his mouth. Why? He was patient under suffering, under reflection. Why? For us. For us. See, for us See if you look at Jesus Christ being patient trusting God Not complaining never grumbling Under affliction just as an example. I don't think that's going to change you because it would be crushing you say I'm not Jesus I can't do that, but if you look at him if you look at him saving you through his patience His patience is what saved you saving you through his patience. His patience is what saved you. Remember last week if you were here, here's what we said. No one learns to love by trying. They learn to love by experiencing

love. Babies learn to love because someone picks them up and holds them and loves them and if nobody does that they die or rope with all kinds of attachment problems. Before love is something you do, it's someone you meet. You'll only love like you've been loved and you'll only be patient if you see someone saving you through the most costly patience possible and forgiving you even as he dies. Father, forgive me, I don't know what they're doing. And that is what changes you. Miroslav Volf puts it like this, he's exactly right. Forgiveness flounders when I exclude the enemy from the community

of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. Got that? No one can be in the presence of the crucified Messiah for long without transposing the enemy from the sphere of monstrous humanity into the sphere of shared humanity and yourself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. Why? When one knows that God's love is greater than all sin, when you've experienced God's love,

you're free to see that you're a sinner and you're no different. And then in the person you're saying, there are monsters, no, they're humans like you. And I'm a judge, no, I'm a sinner like him or her. And the gospel makes you patient. When you see that he saved you through his patience, oh gosh, friends, listen. On the cross, Jesus Christ, through his infinite patience, redeemed you by taking the penalty

we deserve for our impatience so that God will never lose patience with you. You believe in him and he'll never give up on you. And that will change you. That will make you somebody who's gracious, who's poised and who's got a joy not based on circumstances that is inextinguishable. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you that you have shown us what we have to do. Oh Lord, how it would be great to have congregations of people who practice this. How we would stand out from the rest of the human race,

unfortunately, but how we would stand out from our own past because we have not lived like this. But in the infinite saving, melting, transforming, loving patience of Jesus Christ under the suffering for us, the vision of that can make us more and more like Him so that we also can overcome evil with good as He did. So let this be true in our lives. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Gospel in Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other resources. Again, it's all at GospelinLife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook,

Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was recorded in 2016. 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.