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

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Some people say there’s a cultural crisis of integrity.  For example, Volkswagen was revealed to have deliberately used software designed to lie about emissions. It was a failure of integrity from one of the biggest corporations in the world. And some of you may be yawning, thinking that’s just the way things are. But the Bible says a supernaturally changed heart rejoices with the truth. Let’s talk about 1) how important integrity is, 2) how you practice integrity, and 3) how you can become people of integrity.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 19, 2016. Series: What We Are Becoming: Transforming Love. Scripture: Ephesians 4:14-15, 25-32. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. True transformation isn't about adopting a set of rules. It's about a heart changed by the gospel. This month, Tim Keller explores how Christianity is not just an ethical system, but a supernatural transformation. The scripture reading today is from Ephesians 4 verses 14 to 15 and 25 to 32. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth and love, we will grow to become in every respect

the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. In your anger do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands that they may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths,

but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another,

forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. The word of the Lord. Some weeks ago, we took a look at 1 Corinthians 13 that is very famous as being the wedding text, because it talks about how great love is. Love is patient, love is kind. And we pointed out that Paul was not thinking about weddings when he wrote that.

What he was talking about was the fact that it's possible to be very religious, to be very filled with biblical knowledge, to be quite active in ministry, to be very moral, and not have a supernaturally changed heart, which is how he defines love. And then he went through and gave a series of signs of a supernaturally changed heart. And what we're doing each week is we're not going back

to 1 Corinthians 13, going to other passages to look at these signs in some detail, some depth. One of the signs in 1 Corinthians 13 of a supernaturally changed heart was, love rejoices with the truth. And what we have here in this passage is, in Ephesians, is a treatment of the subject of truth telling

or what we can call integrity. And some people say there's a cultural crisis of integrity. One of the things that might be a bit of evidence for that is last year, as many of you know, Volkswagen was revealed, that Volkswagen had deliberately put on 11 million of its cars a software designed to lie about its emissions.

You know, obviously the way you're going to win in the auto making world is if you can say we have the highest mileage, the lowest emissions, and we don't sacrifice performance. And the way they were doing that was We have the highest mileage, the lowest emissions, and we don't sacrifice performance. The way they were doing that was that they actually were lying, essentially, about how many pollutants each car was actually putting out into the environment. The reason I think it's, to me, kind of a bit striking is that's a pretty astonishing

lack, failure of integrity of one of the great companies, business corporations in the world. And I don't think has been a whole lot of, I think mostly people have been yawning, ho hum, yep, that's the way things are. But that's not, listen, let's talk about that. Let's talk about how important integrity is, how you practice integrity, and how you can become people of integrity. How important it is, how you practice it,

and how we can become people of integrity. How important it is, how you practice it, and how we can become people of integrity. First of all, the importance of it. And verse 14 and 15, in some ways, is a summary of what Paul's already said and a thesis statement for what comes afterwards. And let me summarize the book of Ephesians for you, just like that. Chapters three and four especially,

in those chapters, Paul has been making a case that we need Christian community. It's all about the church, and about the greatness of the church, and what the Christian community ought to be, and the unity it ought to have, and what its characteristics ought to be. That's all what he's been talking about.

And then in verse 14 and 15, he shows us the results of that community. The results of Christian community is not just fellowship and inspiration. Here's what it is. That we no longer be infants. Instead, we grow in every respect into the mature body of him who is the head who is

Christ. Now, that is radical supernatural character change. That is nothing less than Christlikeness. To be, when it talks about growing into the mature body of him who is the head, being grafted into Christ and growing into the head, what this is talking about is the character and the love and the wisdom and the humility and the joy and the beauty and the power of Christ's character reproduced in us.

It's all talking about transformation. In fact, the passage that we left out between verse 14 and 15 and verse 25, we left a few verses out, in verse 23 and 24, it says, Paul says, put off the old self with all of its distorted desires and put on the new self being created in his likeness. Transformation.

Put off the old self. With all of its insatiable cravings for things that will not fulfill and put on the new self. Created to be like him. Now if there's anybody in this room, and I hope there is, who has a realistic estimate of both your flaws, weaknesses, and the depth of your discontent.

This should make your mouth water. This is the transformation. This is what we need. This is becoming your true self. That's what Paul's saying. Ah, but the message of Ephesians is that only comes through being plunged into a community. And it makes sense, does it not?

Because after all, what made you what you are with your flaws and your weaknesses was not just your individual decisions, although those were important, but it was the fact that you came up in a particular family and it's the way your family treated you, the way society treated you, and if you're gonna change, it means being plunged into a community

at least as intense as a family, a counterculture. See, this change does not happen just by showing up at church events three or four times a month. It means being plunged into a community that does what? Speaks the truth in love. Now that's probably not all that goes into the transformation of character through community, but that's what we have right here.

Paul is saying if you're in a body, if you're in a, that's what he says, if you're in a body, if you're in a community in which there is this truth telling in love, that's going to change you from the inside out. So that's, so in a way, integrity, truth telling is not just something in the abstract that Christians ought to do because we're supposed to do it. No, it's actually, it's a sign of a supernaturally changed character and it's the means to supernaturally

change character. Speaking of truth and love, now you say how does that work? Okay, we'll get to that in a second, but give me two minutes just to stay here and please notice two things, top level things. Top level things. The first is speaking the truth in love is important for any kind of community at all. Look at verse 25. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and lying

and speak truthfully to your neighbor for all members of one body. And that's a very comprehensive statement. First of all, it's saying because we're members of a body, because we're a Christian community, we must speak truth to each other. The idea of membership, don't think of membership meaning,

you know, the word member here translates to where that means a body part. So when you become a Christian, you are truly fused to other people, according to the Bible, because of the Holy Spirit, because of common experience, because of identity change.

And the thing that keeps members that is together, that is to say, is truth telling. If you start lying to people, where do you see how lonely you feel? Lying separates people. Truth telling unites people, brings people together. And it's not just true by the way, within the body of Christ,

but notice it doesn't just say speak truthfully to your brother or sister, it says speak truthfully to your neighbor. Because there's a sense in which truth telling is crucial to all human community. Some years ago a, you know, one academic wrote this, a scholar wrote this, imagine a society which no one trusted anyone to keep a promise, in which every leader was expected to lie as a matter of course, in which every

teacher was suspected of being an academic cheat, lying about their research findings, in which every religious leader was a moral fraud, in which every legal contract was not expected to be honored, so no legal partner could ever bank on the loyalty of another. No one could make a decision with any assurance of having the facts in hand. What would happen in that society?

The economy would collapse, rule of law would be impossible. Life would become brutalized. And by the way, Vaclav Havel, the great Czech reformer, who wrote a wonderful essay called The Power of the Powerless, which you can find online, basically says that communism collapsed because of lying. Because nobody, you couldn't trust the government

to tell you what they told you, you couldn't trust the newspapers, you couldn't trust the banks, you couldn't trust the doctors, you couldn't trust anybody, and as a result, life collapsed. And the power of the powerless is truth. Just simply tell them the truth.

And so the first thing we see here is really, human life isn't possible without truth telling. Every single time you tell a lie, you are assaulting human life. But secondly, I want you to notice, here's the other top level observation, is truth telling and love have to always go together. They must never be separated.

Truth-telling and love have to always go together. They must never be separated. Truth-telling without love isn't really about truth. Think about it. If you're truth, truth-telling without love means, we'll get to this in a minute anyway, it means being harsh, being cruel, you know, making scoring points. Well, truth-telling without love isn't really about truth.

It's about you. It's about making you look good and making you feel good. Truth-telling without love is not really about truth. But loving without truth-telling isn't really love. There was some years ago, seeing a family in which the father, out of love, would not tell his teenage daughter how grievous and how destructive her behavior was.

He didn't want to confront her. He said, oh, I just don't want to hurt her. I just don't want to disappoint her. In other words, love, but actually it was selfish because he didn't want to go through the pain of her displeasure if he confronted her. So he didn't tell her, he didn't tell her. And that meant her 20s were all taken up

by blowing up one relationship after another. Why? Because she was deprived of learning from her father how her behavior influenced people. She couldn't see the impact of her behavior on people because her father didn't tell her. And see, every time you say out of love, I'm not gonna tell that person the truth,

you exploit them because you deprive them of reality. And because they're deprived of reality, they're disempowered. So if you're selling a house and you lie about structural defects and the buyer buys it, you're keeping that buyer from seeing the reality of what it's really gonna cost to be in that house.

So you're disempowering, you're exploiting that person. The seller is exploiting the buyer to get a good price. The father was exploiting his daughter just so he didn't have the pain of having to confront her. But there is nothing more unloving than not telling the truth. And there's no better way of loving people than telling the truth. And there's no better way of loving people than telling the truth.

So truth telling without love isn't really truth telling. And love without truth telling isn't really love. They must never, ever, ever, ever be pulled apart. In sum, point one, the world doesn't work without truth telling and truth telling doesn't work without love. Now truth telling doesn't work without love. Now you see the importance of verse 15. The world's at stake.

Point one. Point two, how? What does it mean to speak the truth and love? Well, we only have time for a little bit here. James tells us a lot about this, by the way. Proverbs tells us quite a bit about this. This passage tells us to really understand all of what it means to speak the truth and love.

You have to go all over the scripture. But there's two, I'd say, practical principles we're given here, and I wanna show them to you. And the two practical principles is this. And I'm gonna use the word, and I'll explain it in a minute. Truthful speech acts, truthful speak acts never deceive. Loving speech acts always seek to edify. Truthful speech acts never deceive.

Loving speech acts never fail to build up or edify. So first of all, truthful speech acts don't deceive. Now why do I call these things speech acts? Well, here's the reason why. Because your words are also an action. When I say something, it's not just, you shouldn't evaluate what I say just on, by the content of what I said,

because the content of what I said might be technically true. But what am I trying to do with what I'm saying? What is my intention? What's my purpose? You must always evaluate every statement, not just by the actual content of what's in the statement, but also by what you're trying to do with the statement. Because you know you can say something

which is factually true, but designed to deceive. It's factually true, but it's designed to actually put people off the scent. And the reason why even Paul, I think, here recognizes that when he starts talking about telling the truth, he doesn't just mean giving factually correct statements, but not deceive is look at what's the opposite of speaking the truth and love in verse 15.

15 is speaking the truth and love. What's the opposite in verse 14? Being cunning and crafty. See, those are words that mean trickery. To speak the truth is not just to give factually correct information, it's to not deceive. And see all kinds of statements that might be kind of half-truths or even true but said in such a way as to put

people off the scent. You're depriving them of reality and so you're disempowering them and you're exploiting them. Now once you begin to realize that a truthful speech act is not just something that's technically correct, but something that does not deceive, suddenly, oh my goodness, there's a whole lot of things that we say that maybe are not truthful speech acts.

Whenever I talk about this, I always give you a list of six. Here are six kinds of falsehoods, untruthful speech acts. Political lies, exaggeration, word inflation, benevolent lies, Watergate lies and routine business lies. Okay, first of all, it's political lies. I would love to go, but I won't be home that night. Of course you will be. Here's one. You know, I think your writing is just too sophisticated

for our readers. When actually it's horrible. It's just horrible, okay? Political lies. Now exaggeration, the problem with exaggeration is, and by the way, this particular sin is usually used inside marriage. Because exaggeration, the quintessential exaggerations are

you always do that, or you never do that. You never, ever, ever, okay now, what's bad is usually there's some grounding in reality. Usually when you say you always do that, that's usually something the other person probably sometimes does. To say you always do it, it grounds it in reality, puts the person at a disadvantage,

but then obviously infuriates because it exaggerates. There's political lies, there's exaggeration. Thirdly, word inflation. Now you say, what's word inflation? Word inflation is, oh, it was wonderful, it was great, it was the, especially Christians, it was a blessing. It was just such a blessing. It was unbelievable, it was awesome,

it was unbelievable, it was brilliant. And there are people who use so much word inflation, you say, well, what's wrong with that? That's all certain lies. Well, word inflation means people get cynical. They say, well, that's how that person always talks. If I'm going to find reality, I'm going to have to ask somebody else. And you say, well, those aren't lies. No, but they actually are keeping reality away from people.

And they make people cynical. 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 gospelonlife.com slash give.

Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. So there's political lies, exaggeration, word inflation, so-called benevolent lies, I already talked to you about those. I gave the quintessential example is a family member that you won't confront, and you say it's benevolent, it's I don't want to you about those. The quintessential example is a family member that you won't confront. And you say it's benevolent, it's I don't want to hurt them but actually you don't want the displeasure and pain of having to do it, it's really all about you.

There's a whole lots of benevolent lies. There's also friends that are incompetent but you tell them they're competent. But probably the worst is a failure to confront a family member. Go to 1 Samuel, look at Eli, and failing to confront his sons. Look at David and failing to confront Absalom.

And go and see how unbeleat benevolent, benevolent lies are. Lies are, excuse me. Fourth, I said Watergate lies. Watergate lies are arrogant lies. Oh, the little people, they don't need to know. But then business lies, and those of you in business, which is, this is New York, so lots and lots of you,

go read, there's a Tom Peters book. Tom Peters is really good about integrity in business. One place he made a list about 30 lies that he says virtually happen all the time in business. It was pretty scary. You know, he said, here's three of them, I just pulled out. He says, you say publicly, our companies offer quality, but privately all your employees know

that you have unreasonable deadlines that make it impossible for the employees to make high quality products. Or secondly, you say publicly, everything's fine, we're just doing fine. Your employees know it's not. Things are not fine. He just threw this one in, he says,

you put in a big number of orders right before the end of the quarter because even though you know that most of them will be canceled, it's going to look good for the figures in that quarter. And it makes you look good. There's zillions and zillions and zillions of ways in which maybe they're not lies exactly

but untruthful speech acts. They deceive. So first of all, untruthful speech acts are designed to deceive. Secondly, unloving speech acts are not designed to edify. Look, there's two places where in here we get some more details about what it means to be loving in our speech. The one is verse 31.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander along with every other form of malice. Most commentators would say the word malice is a kind of summary word and the other words in there are forms of malice, forms of being malicious. And without boring you with looking at every single word, basically what Paul is forbidding here, basically what he's forbidding here

is being caustic, sarcastic, dripping with disdain, belittling and insulting. So he says, you might be telling the person the truth, but if you're doing it with this tone, if you're doing it with this attitude, say where you're belittling and insulting and caustic and sarcastic and dripping with disdain, he says, that's not a loving speech,

that's not speaking the truth in love. Now, we do know, do we not, that we live in an age in which on social media you are rewarded for that behavior. You're rewarded for that tone. You're rewarded with clicks. So it's always been destructive of human community. Remember, speaking the truth, truth telling without love destroys human community.

And yet we live in an era in which one of the main ways we communicate rewards this. But it's not just verse 31. Paul is not only saying that as long as you have a nice tone, as long as you're not sarcastic and as long as you're not caustic, and as long as you have a nice tone of voice and you're're not sarcastic, and as long as you're not caustic, and as long as you have a nice tone of voice, and you're telling the truth, and that's fine,

that's not enough. Speaking the truth in love is not just telling the truth with a nice tone of voice. Verse 29, I have always found the most convicting thing in this whole passage. Verse 29, therefore do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth. That's not the word untruthful.

A word could be true and not be wholesome. What's wholesome mean? It literally means putrefying or decaying. But we don't have to worry about what Paul means because he tells us. But only that which is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen.

Okay, here's what this means. You're ready to tell a person the truth. And you're gonna do it nicely. Tone of voice, not malice, not caustic, not sarcasm. You're gonna tell the person the truth in a nice tone of voice. You're free and clear, right to do it? No.

Here's what Paul is trying to say. What's your motive? Right now, what's your motive? Why are you telling that person the truth? And you better look at your motive right now and you better not make a move until you know what that motive is. Are you telling that person the truth

to show that you're in control? Are you telling that person the truth to show that you're in control? Are you telling that person the truth just for the joy of winning the argument, because you know you're going to be able to win that argument? Are you telling that person the truth in order to make points with somebody you want to impress? Are you telling that person the truth to feel better about yourself,

to feel like you're in charge? Are you telling that person the truth to punish them, even though you're going gonna be nice about it? Then don't do it. Find some other time, find some other place, work your heart until you can do it, either for A, because you see that they really need it, and B, you know that the way in which you tell this truth,

you're trying to get closer to them in a relationship. You're actually trying to draw yourselves together, the two of you together, rather than divide. Do you want to build that person up? Do you want to draw them into a relationship? Is it something you really know that would benefit them, or are you really doing it for yourself? And what Paul is not saying, don't tell people the truth,

he's just trying to say, very often, the timing, the way we do it, the words we choose, are all wrong because of our motive. Speak the truth in love. The world doesn't work without truth telling, and truth telling doesn't work unless you're doing it in love. All right, now last.

How can we become people like this? I did a little study around, sociologists and psychologists tell us that we all lie a lot. A lot more than anyone wants to admit. Now there's a great difference of opinion about how often we lie, and I'm not going to share any of that with you because I couldn't adjudicate between the various claims. I don't think it matters. I don't think you can argue with that. There's a tremendous amount of lying going on.

There always has been. It's possible that we actually are having a greater amount of it than ever. Certainly speaking the truth in love is going down because I said the way in which communication happens now. When you're not, so much communication is not face to face, it's not even on the phone. It's far easier to be doing it in a malicious way

than it's ever been. And human community is unraveling. People don't trust institutions anymore. You know, Reed Robert Putnam's bowling alone or our kids, that kind of thing. So we do have a problem. What's the solution? Well, we're not going to know the solution

until we figure out what is the cause of the problem. And I can actually tell, I don't think this is that hard to tell you. Whenever you look at people, whenever you look at studies of the types of lies, if you go to find any kind of study that says here's the kinds of lies, they generally divide it into three kinds of lies.

Approval seeking lies, power seeking lies, and control seeking lies. Approval seeking lies are things like this. I lie about who I am, had my resume, tell you things that aren't true, because I want you to like me. Or I lie to avoid conflict because I don't want you to dislike me. That's approval seeking lies.

Power seeking lies is I lie because by fabricating, by shading, I'm going to make more money. Or by lying, I'm gonna make more money. Or by lying, I'm gonna get you to do things that otherwise you would never do for me. Control-seeking lies are partly just wanting to avoid accountability, like putting all those, putting the wrong software on 11 million Volkswagens, just to make sure that they weren't punished for the emissions

and the pollutants they were producing. So control seeking is just, I don't want to stay away from punishment, but many times control seeking lies are just, you lie just to get people off your back. You lie just to get them, just to make them get lost. You lie just to get rid of them. You lie so you can feel like I've got control over my life.

So these people are not on me all the time. All right, now think. Why do we lie? We lie to get approval, we lie to get power, we lie to get control. And if we have to exploit people, if we have to lie and exploit people and disempower them in order to get a power, approval, and control,

we're gonna do it. Why? Because of the inner neediness of the human soul. We can't live without approval, and we don't have it. We're not sure. We're not sure that we're okay. We can't live without power and influence. We can't live without control. We can't live without power and influence. We can't live without control.

We can't live without these things. And over and over and over again, every single day, you're gonna have to choose between telling the truth and losing approval, power, and control. And you're not gonna do that because human beings can't live without approval, power, and control. What's the solution? Well, the solution is this.

You've got to have approval, power, and control that comes to you in such astonishing proportions and degrees and that you are assured of it and you know you have it so that you never have to lie again. Now, how does that happen? Verse 32. In verse 32, it says, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other

just as in Christ God forgave you. Now for years I thought Paul was sort of changing the subject, it seemed like a tag on verse 32. Here he's talking about truth and love, truth and love, truth and love, and suddenly he says, oh, and by the way, forgive as Christ forgave you, as God and Christ forgave you. And I used to think, oh my goodness, well that,

you know, it seems like Paul's sort of changing the subject, postscript maybe. No, I now realize this. The quintessential example of combining truth and love is forgiveness. Do you want to forgive somebody? Do you want the joy, the relief and healing of forgiveness? You have to do two things.

First of all, you've got to, number one, you've got to absolutely tell the truth. Be honest. Be honest, this person hurt you. Be honest what the cost is. See, a lot of us, I'm one of them, one of the ways I have a tendency to try to forgive people is say, oh, it's okay, no problem, don't worry,

it didn't bother me, it didn't bother me a bit. That didn't hurt me at all. No sweat, I don't even have to bring it up to them. I'm not being honest. See, if you're going to, and then at the same time in your heart, you're kind of like, you know, it's darkened your heart. See, a lot of times the way in which we fail to forgive

is we're not honest. You need to be honest. Make a full assessment of the wrong that was done, the wrong that was done, and the cost of that wrong. Make a full assessment of it, and tell the truth to yourself, and tell the truth maybe to the other person. But then, love the person by but then love the person

by bearing the cost yourself. When the perpetrator, you have an opportunity to make the perpetrator pay by making them uncomfortable, don't do it. When you've got an opportunity to make the perpetrator pay by tearing down the reputation of other people, don't do it. When you have an opportunity to sort of sit around and nurse your grudge inside your heart against the perpetrator, don't do it. When you have an opportunity to sort of sit around and nurse your grudge inside your heart

against the perpetrator, don't do it. And every time you don't do it, it hurts. It hurts, you want to make them pay, and you don't do it. And you know why it hurts? Because you're paying it. You're paying for it. You're paying the cost. See, forgiveness is being absolutely honest and then being absolutely loving.

And the more you pay, that is to say, the more you refrain and refrain and refrain from making the other person pay and you bear it, eventually the anger goes away. And through truth and love, you can forgive. And you say, my goodness, that's so hard. Paul doesn't say just forgive, he says forgive as God in Christ forgave you. Let's watch, huh? Watch. Let's watch Christ forgiving you. Why did he go to the cross?

First reason he went to the cross is a commitment to truth. He was so holy. He was, why did, Christ did not look down at all the evil in this world and say, oh well, you know human beings, there you go. What do you, no, they're just like that. Don't worry about it, overlook it. No, he was so committed to the truth,

to a true assessment of the wrong and the evil. He went to the cross because it has to be paid for. That's a commitment to truth, but he went to the cross out of love to pay for it himself. You know, if somebody you don't know very well rejects you, that hurts a little. If somebody you know well rejects you, that hurts a lot. If your spouse or your parent or your sibling

or your child rejects you, that seems to hurt, that just inflicts a wound you feel like will never be healed. But we have no idea. The greatest love relationship in the history of the world cannot even compare to the father and the son who have known and loved each other infinitely, perfectly, through all eternity, and on the cross, for our sake,

the son lost that. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He experienced an agony, he was paying the infinite debt. I don't know how much that pain was, but it probably would be like millions of eternities in hell all rolled up into one, all coming down on him at once. Millions of eternities in hell all rolled up into one, all coming down on him at once. And in John chapter 18, when Pilate,

the Roman imperial governor, looks at Jesus Christ and says, are you a king then? And Jesus knows that if he tells the truth, he's dead, more than dead. He's in agony. So Pilate says, are you a king then? Now Jesus could have said nothing, you know, which often he didn't say anything.

Or he could have said, well, I'm just a king in their hearts, you know. You know what he said to Pilate? He says, yes, I'm a king. And I've come into this world to testify to the truth and he was dead. Why did he do that? For you. Look, don't look at Jesus Christ as an example of truth telling.

Oh, you say, look at how wonderful he told the truth no matter what the cost. Be like Jesus. That'll just crush you. You can't live up to that. But if you see him saving you through his truth telling, he loves you so much that he was willing to die on the cross for you.

There's the approval. His love will fill you up in a way that no one else's love could possibly. There's the power. You've got the Lord of the universe on your side, working everything out in your life according to his good plan for you. There's control.

And now finally you've got approval and you have power and control. You never, ever, ever need to lie to get, in fact lying is actually gonna weaken your connection to it. Pinocchio is the scariest Walt Disney movie ever made. You know why?

Pinocchio of course is an animated puppet. But he's actually suspended between two possibilities, you know that. The one is he's told, you know, if he lies, he not only becomes more of a puppet, more of a caricature, but you know, one of the most horrible and most horrifying, scary passages of any children's movie ever made

is the fact that if the boys lie and cheat and do all these bad things, they become animals, they become donkeys. And see, Pinocchio, if he doesn't tell the truth and doesn't live according to the truth, can actually become less than an animated puppet and actually become an animal who can't talk and think. Or, and he's told, if you care for the truth,

if you tell the truth and you live according to the truth, then you can become a real boy. And of course, there's a lot of truth in that from a Christian point of view. But basically, Pinocchio saves himself. He tells the truth, he lives for the truth with the help of Jiminy Cricket and the Blue Fairy. Basically, he does it himself and he wins,

he becomes a true boy. Transformation, he's transformed. Well, here's what the book of Ephesians is gonna tell you. Here's what Jesus is gonna tell you. If you think that you can bring about transformation by just being a truth teller in your own power, you'll never do it. Never.

You'll want approval and power and control so much that you sometimes will lie to get it. You'll never do it. But you know what Jesus Christ is trying to say? Pinocchio gets this grace that comes out of the sky when he tells the truth and lives for the truth and sacrifices, dies for the truth, and his little grace comes on down and he becomes real.

Jesus says, I earn that grace for you. You could never earn it yourself. My grace will come down and you'll become your true self. You will become real. So believe in me. Believe in me. Go to him. Let's pray.

Our Father, we thank you that if we are members of a truth telling, loving community, we will become more and more transformed into the likeness of your Son. And Father, we thank you that we have the prospects for that here at Redeemer. We have a prospect for that here on the East side. But we ask that you would help us to realize that.

You would make us to realize that. You would make us more and more conform to the image of your Son through speaking the truth and love to each other. And Father, we do ask that you would transform us into our true selves so that we can become more and more like your Son in whose name we pray, amen. more and more like your son in whose name we pray. Amen.

Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the Gospel-centered teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner. Your partnership allows us to reach people all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit www.gospelandlife.com slash partner. That website again is www.gospelandlife.com slash partner. 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.