Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Love’s Way With the Self

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 21, 1996. Series: Love: The Way to Grow Up. Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. 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.

What are the signs that you've truly understood what it means to be saved by grace? In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul says, is possible to have impressive spiritual gifts or live by high moral standards and still not know what it means to have salvation in Christ? Today, on the Gospel and Life podcast, Tim Keller takes a closer look at this well-known passage about love and shows us why living a good life isn't the same as living a life transformed by the gospel. I'm going to read it.

We began looking at it next week, and for a period of time we're going to be studying it together. 1 Corinthians 13, awfully famous, maybe next to Lord's Prayer, 23rd Psalm, maybe the most famous passage of the scripture. And Paul says, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered.

It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes. always perseveres, love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Well, where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish things behind me.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. This is God's word. Now we said last week that if you read this thing as a standalone passage,

not seeing why Paul wrote it, to whom he was writing it, you missed the impact of it, and it's really a bombshell. And let me remind you what that context is, who he was writing to. He was writing to a very young church in Corinth, a new church. And this church was a brilliant church. And if you want to know something about what the church was like, you have to read verses one to three. It was a brilliant church, it was a growing church. It was a church filled with talented, gifted people. These were people who were visionary. They were ready to move mountains. These are people who are willing to give away everything. They gave sacrificially.

These are people who are willing to die for the movement, give their body to be burned. These were people who were so gifted that they had great gifts of insight and knowledge and speaking. They got revelations from God. They did miracles. They could heal. Versus one to three is all about who they are. But verses 4 to 7, we said last week, is actually a catalog of everything that they're not. Paul is saying, in spite of all these incredible gifts and in spite of your brilliance,

you are characterized in your corporate life by disputes, by fighting, by pride, by coldness, by rudeness. And then you see, only if you understand that, do you understand what the bombshell is in verses 1 to 3? It's very typical when you just hear the passage read to think that what Paul is doing is giving you poetic hyperbole. He's saying, even if I could do miracles, I didn't have love. Why love is even greater than miracles, it seems like poetic hyperbole. But you realize he's talking to a concrete group of people and he's saying something very specific. He means it literally. He says, it's possible to do miracles, to preach, to know the Bible inside out, to change people's lives, to lead the counsel.

to do all these things and not be a Christian at all. It's possible to do that and be nothing. Now, to apply that and make sure we understand that, let me just draw out the illustration that I just mentioned last week, just in passing. I just mentioned one line, but let me draw it out. Imagine that you've rented a car and you're driving up a mountain. And the car is struggling, but you look over here on the left and there's a dial. And as far as you can tell, it's a dial about the engine temperature. It's got a little thermometer on it. And so you notice, and you see the dial is not up in the red.

It's nice and down in the little section that says everything is safe. You look out, you see sort of, you know, little steam curling up. But you look at the dial, the dial says everything's fine. And suddenly the engine blows. What went wrong? Well, the dial for engine temperature was over here on the right. And it was in the red. The dial over here, I don't know what it was,

but the point is this dial was not tied in at all to the engine condition. It had nothing to do with the engine condition. It wasn't tied in. The little wire from that dial did not go to the engine. See? And as a result, it told you nothing. Now, Paul is saying, when you look at your gifts, when you look at how brilliant you are, how well you know the scripture, how much you're doing in your church, for example,

how many people you're helping, how much of your money you're giving away to charity, When you look at your gifts, when you look at your abilities, you're looking at a dial that is not tied into what's actually going on under the hood. Jesus Christ, we said last week, gives Judas spiritual power to prophesy and heal people. Jesus did it. And because the Spirit of God can come and does come into you and will use you to help people, even if you have never given your heart to God and your heart's never been changed by grace at all. The point is your gifts is not a dial that has a little wire that goes down really into your heart. It does not come out of the inherent change of your heart that saving grace makes.

And as a result, a lot of people, Paul says, are assuring themselves that they must have a good relationship with God. They're looking at the wrong dial. Paul says, here's the dials you should be looking at. Are you an overwhelmingly loving person? are you incredibly patient? Are you very warm? Are you filled with joy and compassion and hope for everybody around you? Are you radically approachable? And when you do have to tell the truth, you always do it kindly and never with any rudeness.

Are you that kind of person? He says, you're looking over here when all of your real dials are in the red. All of your real dials are in the red. Now, you see the importance of love. Versus one to three tells us the importance of love. But then we get to verses 4 to 7, we learn, therefore, and actually after verses 1 to 3, if you understand what Paul is saying, you're very motivated to say, well, then what is love? What is this love?

Obviously, if it's that important, what is it? And a thoughtful person will come right up and say, well, you know, Paul, let me ask you the question. Here you're telling me that miracles and healing and, you know, quoting scripture and knowing the Bible and all that sort of thing is absolutely. critical to knowing that you're a Christian. But isn't it possible that you could be loving and not be a Christian? Are you saying that only Christians can love? Now, the answer to that question in the Bible is, of course the Bible is not saying that. Of course, Christianity has never said that. In fact, verses 1 to 3 is very tied into an important teaching of the Bible. And that is that God gives very good things, gives wisdom and goodness to many people who don't believe at all. Think of the zillions of

mothers and fathers who don't believe in God at all. but who are tremendously loving. Of course, the Bible's not saying that, but when you get to first, for example, when you get First John chapter 2, verses 7 and 8, there's this very interesting

paradoxical statement that the writer makes there. He says, Beloved, I'm giving you a commandment you've had from the beginning. And then he says, I'm giving you a brand new commandment, love one another.

He says, I'm giving you an old commandment, but a new commandment, love one another. What's he mean? Well, he means, on the one hand, everybody knows we're supposed to love. Every culture, every religion, everybody knows that. And everybody has that obligation and everybody makes that effort. But he's saying is when you become a Christian, when you meet Christ, there is a dimension of love that you are capable of now, that is so beyond what you were capable of before you met Christ, that in a sense, the commandment comes to you almost as a whole new thing, almost as a whole new commandment. And here's what it is. When you look at four, five, six, and seven as a whole, you'll see that even though it looks like a list, love is this, love is this, love is not this. If you look carefully, you will see that there are three kinds of relationships that Christian love has changed.

Notice that in the beginning it says love is patient and kind. That's your relationships with other people. But then it says, for love isn't boastful. it doesn't envy it's not proud it's not rude it's not self-seeking now you know what it's going on there paul is saying that your relationship with others is directly linked to your relationship to yourself what does it mean to envy now don't forget the context paul is saying to the corinthians do you look down to pardon me do you do you look up at people who have better gifts and positions than you and envy them? Do you look down? Are you proud and boastful toward people with lesser gifts and positions?

In other words, Paul is saying your attitude toward yourself, your relationship to yourself, the way you regard yourself and your position is the basis for how you regard other people. And the reason Christianity says that there is a new possibility in relating to others is because Christian love is, first of all, a whole new way with a self, a whole new attitude to toward the self, a whole new relationship to the self. Now, what is that? Let me just show you the old relationship to the self and its signs, and then the new relationship to the self we have in Christ and the signs of that. Okay, first of all, the old relationship to the self is this. I think there's a number of words there that talk about what love is no longer. Christian love moves you out of envy.

What does it say? It moves you out of boasting, moves you out of rudeness, out of pride, and then it says it's not self-seeking. Now of all those words, that's the key word. And yet, what's so interesting about it is that's not a single word. Paul actually gives us a phrase there. And it's one of those phrases that are very untranslatable, and translators always try to put it into a word like self-seeking. But let me tell you what Paul literally says. Paul says, love does not seek its own things. Or put it, this is what Paul is saying. Paul says love doesn't get its own things. love doesn't get its own things what's that mean

well one of the things you find out when you're raising children is almost as soon as the kids can make can verbalize almost as soon as they have the grammar to do it they say I can get my own things I can do it myself

I can get it myself I don't need you mommy I don't need you daddy I can get it I can do my own things when they get a little older I've started to realize that teenagers are a lot more complicated. But essentially, that's what they're doing. Teenagers' problems with parents is this. Essentially, they're saying, I can get my own, I can do my own.

I don't need you because if I need you, then I have to answer to you. I don't want to be under your authority. I hate the fact that I need you because then I have to listen to you. I wish I didn't need you. Then I wouldn't have to listen to you. because they know what every heart knows. And that is, if you need grace, you do not belong to yourself. If you need charity, if you need help, if you need somebody else to get you your things.

If you can't get your own things, then you can't be independent. But they know that. Now, this is the essence of what sin is. Sin is that part of the heart that hates the idea we need God. sin is that part of the heart that says to God, I can get my own things. Sin is that part of the heart that says, I don't should need everything from God. I don't, he doesn't have to be my only Savior and Lord. I can be my own master.

I can be my own savior. I can get my own things. I can put God in my debt. I shouldn't have to answer to him. And actually, therefore, what this, the best way really to translate this, I think, if you're going to use a single word and a hyphenated word, what Paul is saying is love is not self-justifying. Before you understand the grace of God, well, no, I mean, you know, I really think Satan understands the grace of God. He hates the grace of God. Before you accept the grace of God, before you come to agree that you can't get your own things,

you're not competent to face life, you're not competent to deal with your heart, you don't keep your own blood pumping, you don't even keep your molecules together. Before you admit that, You can't do anything on your own. In sin, you say, I want to get my own things. Therefore, I don't have to be under your authority. And therefore, a sinful heart is a self-justifying heart. And self-justification is the way you can understand everything about yourself. Well, look, one of the reasons why many people are unreligious, even anti-religious, is it's their way of saying, I don't need God to run my life.

I don't need God to face life. Well, that's an easy one. But do you see why Paul says if you're hyper-religious, if you are deeply involved in the church, if you're preaching and praying and healing? I said this last week in verses one to three, he says, you could be doing all this stuff and it just be like the noisy gong and the clashing symbols that they have at the temples of Demeter in Corinth, which was pagan worship. In other words, it's possible to be doing your religion as a way of doing it.

self-justification. Irreligion is very obviously a way for a heart to say, I don't owe God. If there is a God, he owes me. But religion, Paul says, could very easily be. Religious activities could very easily be a way for a heart to be self-seeking, self-justifying, getting its own things. Religion could be your way of saying to God, I don't have to answer to you. I've got rights.

I work hard. I help people. I give my money away. I'm ready to die. You owe me. I don't have to totally answer to you. In other words, your religion can be a way of controlling God and avoiding God. But don't you realize that everything we do is self-justifying?

See, most people aren't very religious or very irreligious, except in New York. But out in the rest of the world, by the way, that is true. That's another sermon. but out in the rest of the real world, people are kind of in the middle. But look, everything you're doing, the Bible says, is done in sin. What does that mean? Everything before the grace of God becomes lovely to you. Most people who reject God don't even understand the grace of God,

but there's plenty of people like Satan on all his demons who understand the grace of God perfectly. And they hate it because they know that if I can't get my own things, then I cannot be independent and they want to be independent. until you come to love the grace of God, everything you do is done in sin. Everything is self-justifying. That's why you say, give me Harvard or give me death.

It said in the cover of New York Magazine, that's the cry of the high school kids of New York City, supposedly. Give me Harvard or give me death. I need credentials. Why? Because I'm trying to justify myself. I'm trying to prove that I'm something so people owe me, so I can look them in the eye,

so I don't have to owe anybody, so I don't have to kow anybody. Why do some of you work so hard? Why are some of you so desperately afraid of gaining weight, for example? Some of you are not. Some of you are. Why those of you who are just desperately afraid? Because that's your way of justifying yourself.

I will do something to make myself feel that I am something. Self-justification explains what sin is. And it explains everything in your life. Now, what's the sign of this kind of self-justification? satisfying heart. Somebody says, all right, how do I know if my religion or my irreligion or anything is really just an effort of self-justification? Well, Paul puts it, look at the verse where it says self-seeking, and immediately after self-seeking comes this, not easily angered. Those go together. Think. This is the sign. That's the reason why Paul says, look at your real dials.

This is the dial that really tells you what's in your heart. Marriage is one of the most significant human relationships there is, but is also one of the most difficult and misunderstood. In the meaning of marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller offer biblical wisdom and insight that will help you understand God's vision for marriage. Whether you're single, considering marriage, or have been married for a long time,

the meaning of marriage will help you face the complexities of commitment with the wisdom of God. The meaning of marriage is our thank you for your life. gift this month to help Gospel in Life share the love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. We also want to highlight another great marriage-related resource from Gospel and Life, a podcast called Cultivating a Healthy Marriage. It features one of Dr. Keller's most popular sermon series during his time at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. No matter your

relationship status, this series will give you new ways to apply God's wisdom about marriage to your life. You can listen to this series wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. First of all, notice, every place the Bible could say, it's always wrong to get angry. It never does. This is a little caveat, okay, just quickly. So afterwards, I do my question to answer, and somebody's going to ask me this question if I don't say, you never have a place anywhere where the Bible says, it's a sin to be angry. Never does it say love doesn't get angry. In James, in the evening service we've been going through James

is a place where it doesn't say you mustn't get angry. It says you must be slow to anger. Here it doesn't say love never gets angry. It says love is not easily angered. Because anger is that thing which is in God. God gets angry. Jesus got angry. Angry. Anger is the part of the heart that defends something.

And if you're defending somebody you love, if you're defending the right, that's good. But when you're easily angered, it's because you're defending an image of yourself that you're desperately trying to maintain. To convince yourself that you're all right. To convince yourself that other people and God owes you,

owe you. Let me put it this way. Self-justifying heart has to be a demanding heart. Because the nature of self-justification is, in the little kid, in the teenager, relating to their parents, or you relating to God, the nature of self-justification is to say, I can accomplish something so I don't. don't owe you, you owe me. And therefore, the mark of a proud heart, a self-justifying heart,

a boastful heart, a self-seeking heart, is that you are irritable all the time with God or with others. With God, for example, the mark of a proud heart, self-justifying heart, is you feel God owes you, and if your life does not go right, you get mad. Some of you are continually resentful all the time. even those of you who say you don't believe in God, but you're constantly mad and grumpy and actually kind of, there's a low level of bitterness. It's like one of those deep base notes that you can't even hear, but you only feel.

And it's all through your life. Why? Because you feel like God, the universe owes you because you've tried so hard, because you've lived so well, because you've achieved so much, or maybe even just because you've suffered so much. Everything the heart does is self-justifying.

If you've had a horribly bad life, if you've been a failure, you feel like God owes me. If you've been a success, you feel God owes me. If you're religious, you feel God owes me. If you're irreligious, you feel God owes me. That's self-justification. As a result, you're chronically unhappy. You're easily angered. You're always grumpy at God or at life.

There's no joy. You get up in the morning and say, nothing's going right all the time. That's proof that your heart. is in sin, self-justifying, saying, I went and got my own things now. I should be rewarded. But not only that, if you're self-justifying heart, you will always be mad at other people all the time, because you try so hard, you work so hard, you're a good person, you've done all these things, people owe you. If you're self-justifying, you're a demanding person. If you're a demanding person, your heart is filled with self-justification.

Don't you see where all of your unhappiness comes from? It comes from being demanding. Look, a humble heart says, things are going wrong in my life, but you know what? I am a totally loved moral failure. God loves me in spite of my failure. Everything I enjoy today, which is better than hell, is the mercy of God.

In fact, I'm not even sure what's best for me. That's the humble heart. As a result, you look at your life and you relax. A proud heart gets up and says, God owes me, people owe me. I know what's best. As a result, you look at your life and you're continually angry about it.

It's not your life that's making you upset. It's what you're telling yourself about your life. It's how you're processing your life. It's what's in your heart. You look at other people and you see how they treat you. The humble heart says, I'm a totally loved moral failure. God loves me in spite of what I've done.

Surely I can love these people in spite of what they've done. But the proud heart says, I've worked my fingers to the bone in this church, and where's the thanks? And you're always angry, or you're easily angry. You're impatient, you're irritable, you're critical. Good night. Now, how do you get the new relationship? Well, it's simple and it's not simple.

Let me end like this. If you get down to the place where Paul starts to say, love always trusts, always endures, always hopes, always perseveres, love never fails. Now, when you, I wonder,

I've been thinking about this all week, why would he say such a thing? And here's why he says such a thing. First of all, when you look at that, you immediately feel, that is what I want, and that's what I owe other people, but I can't give it. When you see that, if I take you to the law of God and say, try to be a good person, you'll get some hope. But if I take you to that, you'll realize, will you not immediately?

This is what I want from people. I want somebody who will always be there, always trust, always hope, always. I want somebody, and I should give that to other people, but I can't be like that. So you see, the first thing that that phrase does is it shatters you. It begins to make you see, I can't possibly. simply put God in my debt or anybody else. This is what I want from people. This is what I should be giving to people.

I don't even come close to it. But there's no way that Paul would be pointing to this simply to say, be like that. Paul wouldn't be doing that only for that because he knows how demoralizing it is. He has to be pointing to a love that really hoped all things, trusted through everything, persevered through everything, and never failed. You want a good example? You want the ultimate example? it's not just Jesus, of course that's the answer, and it's not just Jesus on the cross. I'll tell you where I see it. I see it in Jesus' question. When God was abandoning his son

and when he was pouring out his wrath on his son for our sake, when he was punishing, when he was crushing him, when he was forsaking him, Jesus says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And look at this. First of all, Jesus does not say, say, cruel deity, why hast thou forsaken me? What does he do? He says, my God, what is that? That's the language of faith. That's the language of trust. He trusts the one. He's like, you know, Job just talked about it, though he slay me yet while I praise him. Jesus did it. Nobody else has ever done it because God doesn't kill the people he praises, that praise him. He doesn't destroy them. He doesn't cast them off. He doesn't send them to hell.

Jesus is the only love that ever has and ever will trust all things, because no other love has ever been asked that. But then it's not all. Look at the question. Why hast thou forsaken me? What's the answer to that question? Why is Jesus up there? Why is Jesus being forsaken?

For us. For us. Jesus' love for you endured that. nobody else's love has ever endured that Jesus' love for you persevered and endured all things now Jonathan Edwards who wrote a whole series of sermons on this passage and which I'm reading every week and just being fed by

he puts it beautifully he says he says imagine Satan and the demons in hell what will make them humble what will give them a joyful humble spirit one of the reasons they're so mad is they're not is they're proud I try to show you it's pride that makes you mad about life. It's pride that makes you mad about other people. An only pride.

So how in the world can the demons become humble? He says, well, should you show them God's greatness and how high he is? No, the demons see that already. Didn't help them. They're not humbled by it. Show them God's power? No. They know that.

It doesn't help. Show them God's law. They already see that. They know it very well. Don't you remember Satan quoting the scripture to Jesus? Jesus, he knows the Bible better than anybody in this room. Well, why? Because, as Edward says, it's not seeing the greatness of God.

It's seeing his loveliness that humbles you. You see, Satan can quote scripture. Satan is very gifted. Satan can't love. Because Satan can see God's greatness, but he doesn't see the loveliness of God. It's the loveliness of God. of how he came to earth, how he gave up so much, how he was forsaken, how Lord God Jesus was forsaken by Lord God, the Father. How I went through all that. Only if you see that, do you see

the loveliness of God for you? Edwards at one point says, if you go into the ocean, you see the loveliness of God. If you see the stars, you see the loveliness of God, but you don't see the loveliness of God. For you. You don't see all of that for you. And until you see, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? For you. You will never be humbled out of your self-justifying behavior. The self-justifying heart says, I can get my own things. I don't want anything from God, because then I'll lose control. And the gospel of grace comes in and says, don't you see, you're miserable because you hate charity, you hate grace. And don't you see that it's the only way of freedom, ironically, is through the slavery of grace, is through admitting that you need him

utterly. And only when you break through and say, I see the loveliness of God, does humility begin to grow? And real freedom happens. You're not mad at everybody all the time, and you're not mad at your life all the time. Everybody has seen, it seems like, if you've lived in New York for five years, you've seen Le Miz five times every time your parents come to town. or your friends. And you know what's so interesting to me is it's a longer story how Jean Valjean gets converted. Because most of you've seen how Jean Valjean is a criminal

and he's a criminal because he's had a hard life. He was put into jail for years because of a loaf of bread he stole. And as a result of that, he justified the fact that he became cruel. He became cruel and he justified himself through that cruelty because of people were so cruel to him. And then, of course, some of you know that the bishop forgives him when he steals his silver. The bishop gives him more silver and forgives him and pardons him right in front of the gendarms. And he goes through a great struggle.

Now, in the actual book and the novel, Valjean walks away from the bishop and he's scared to death. He's experienced grace. And this is what we read. Jean Valjean left the city as if he were escaping. He was prey to a mass of new emotions. he felt something like anger without knowing, though, at whom. He couldn't have said whether it was touched or humiliated. At times there came over him a strange relenting,

which he tried to resist with the hardening of this past 20 years. This condition was wearing him out. He was disturbed to see within him that frightful calm, that frightful calm which the injustice of his fate had given him was now somewhat shaken. He asked himself, what in the world could replace it? At times he would really have preferred to be in prison with a gendar arms and free from this new development that would have troubled him much less. A little boy comes

along, a 10-year-old chimney sweep, and he's all the money he has in the world, he's sort of throwing it up in the air and catching it, and he drops it, and it rolls over. Valjean walks over, puts his foot on it. The little kid comes up and says, there's all the money I've got in the world. Please help. Valjean looks at him, and this is just the way he's always lived since he felt the world had done him so ill, and God, of course. And he keeps his foot there, and he says, get lost. leave. The little boy hits him and he says, you can't do this. This is all the money I've got.

Leave. And the little boy leaves and suddenly Valjean gets like transfixed and he stays there we don't even know how long but Hugo says the author says the shadows lengthen and he's struggling with himself

and when he moves his foot and he actually sees the coin he's electrified he's almost like shocked and he picks it up and he goes running around trying to find little boy crying out. He can't find him. And finally, this is what we read. His heart swelled and he burst into tears. It was the first time he had wept in 19 years. He could understand nothing of what was going on inside him. He stubbornly resisted the angelic deeds and the gentle words of the old man. The bishop, in opposition to this celestial tenderness, grace, he summoned up his pride, the fortress of evil in everyone. He dimly felt that the This priest's grace was the hardest assault, the most formidable attack he had ever sustained, that his hardness of heart would be complete if he could resist this final kindness, that if he yielded he'd have to renounce the hatred with which the acts of other men had for so many years filled his soul,

and in which he found so much satisfaction that this time he must conquer or be conquered, that the struggle, a gigantic and decisive struggle, had begun between his own wrongs and the grace of this man. he reeled like a drunk. And of course, the way the chapter ends, how long did he weep? What did he do after weeping? Where did he go? We don't know.

It was simply established at that very night, the stage driver who at that hour in Grenoble route, about three in the morning, on his way through the Bishop Street, saw a man, kneely in prayer, on the pavement, in the dark. See, he just, he knew.

His old self said, if I give in to grace, I've lost control. I can't step on kids' money anymore. I can't do what I want. I've lost control. And the new self that was growing says, and then I'll finally be free. Free from the anger. Free from always having to justify myself to myself.

Free from having to justify myself to other people. Free. I'll be a loved moral failure. I'll have nothing to lose. I've already gained the world. That's the reason why Jesus comes to us and he says, come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble and heart, and you will find rest

for your souls. For my yoke of grace is easy and my burden, my burden is white. Let's pray. Our Father, give us this new way with a self from which real love can grow. Oh Lord, without this change of heart, we're capable of loving deeds, we're capable of loving feelings, but nothing like this, give us this new way with the self that comes from accepting your bleeding charity, the bleeding charity of your son. Help us to humble ourselves into boldness and freedom by accepting your grace and becoming lovers indeed. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from

Tim Keller, visit gospelonlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospelonlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1996. The sermons and talks you here on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.