Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Marked as Possession
Episode Date: September 9, 2024Many people say they don’t believe in Christianity. But in all my years as a minister, I’ve seldom talked to anybody who rejected Christianity and actually knew what they rejected. If you’re uni...nterested in Christianity, you need to know what it is you’re rejecting. And if you are a Christian, you need to figure out if you’re living consistently. In these first verses of Ephesians, Paul gives an amazing picture of what it means to be a Christian. This passage shows us that being a Christian means three things: 1) truth, 2) hope, and 3) glory. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 16, 2011. Series: A Study of Ephesians: Who is the Church? Scripture: Ephesians 1:11–16. 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.
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Thanks for listening to Gospel in Life. Today, Tim Keller is taking us through a series on the Book of Ephesians, a book that is all about what it means to be Christian and what it means to live in unity with other believers.
After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelinLife.com and sign up for our email updates.
Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller.
Tonight's scripture comes from Ephesians chapter one, verses 11 through 16. In him, we were also chosen, having been
predestined according to the plan of him who works out
everything in conformity with the plan of him who works out everything
in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope
in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of
your salvation.
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy
Spirit, who was a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those
who are God's possession to the praise of his glory.
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus of your love
for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you,
remembering you in my prayers.
This is the word of the Lord.
So we keep on looking at the book of Ephesians.
And the book of Ephesians, as we've said,
is about the church.
Though we get more directly to the church
when we get to chapter two.
In these first few verses, Paul is sort of laying the foundation for what he's going
to say later.
You'll see a number of themes that he introduces in these early verses we brought back later
when we get to talking about the church.
But in these first verses, what we actually get is an amazing picture of what it means
to be a Christian. How to be a Christian. How to
become a Christian, how to live as a Christian, but even more than that, what it means to
be a Christian. The reason we've slowed down and why you have such, we're taking it so
slowly and just going a few verses at a time. It's incredibly rich and very relevant no matter who you are here tonight. Because
by looking at these kinds of verses, if you are, if you think you're a Christian, this
is one of the best ways to figure out whether you really are. And if you are a Christian,
this is one of the best ways to figure out if you're really living consistently with
who you are.
And if you say, oh, I'm not a Christian, I don't think I believe in Christianity,
okay, if you have rejected Christianity,
this is one of the best ways to be sure you know
whether you've rejected something you understand or not.
I must say, with all due respect,
in all my years as a minister,
I've seldom talked to anybody who's rejected Christianity
and who knows what they rejected.
Many people say, oh, I don't believe in Christianity
when I ask them, well, you tell me
what you understand Christianity to be,
and almost always they tell me something
that I don't even recognize as Christianity.
And therefore, if you are
uninterested, if you have essentially walked by and rejected it, you need to know what
it is you're rejecting. And so no matter who we are here tonight, it's great because
this passage will show us what it means to be a Christian and here we learn it means
three things. And those three things are, it means truth, hope, and glory. Truth,
hope, and glory. First, it means truth. See verse 13? A wonderful little definition of
how to become a Christian. It says, you were included in Christ when? When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. So, becoming a Christian,
Christianity doesn't start by you doing something, it comes by hearing something. And what is
it that you hear? You hear a word, a message, a body of content. And what are we told about that body of content or message?
Two things.
It's truth.
It's gospel.
First of all, notice it's truth.
When I got to New York City in the late 80s, high theory, it was called, or postmodernism
was at its height. And postmodernism is now seen as rather passe,
as a matter of fact in London one of the great museums of the world, Victoria and Albert
Museum in London, is now showing the first comprehensive retrospective of postmodernism 1970 to 1990. Now when you
say we're looking back at postmodernism that means that the elite opinion is that it's
over. And it's amazing that it'd be over. Edward Dox, who's a prominent British writer,
has written a fairly recent article called Postmodernism
is Dead. It's by the way based on this retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum. You can
get it online. There's three things in there that are pretty amazing in this article. First
he says, number one, he defines postmodernism and he says this, postmodernism was the idea of deprivileging any one meaning. It was the idea that all
discourses are equally valid. Postmodernism was the idea that no matter what you claim,
your claim is no better than anybody else's claim. All claims, all discourses are equally
valid. There is no truth. It's all relative. The second thing he said was the reason people embraced
postmodernism was to fight oppression. And he goes on, quote, because once you are in
the business of challenging the dominant discourse, you are also in the business of giving hitherto
marginalized and subordinate groups their voice.
And from here it is possible to redress the miserable injustices which we have hitherto
either ignored or taken for granted as in some way acceptable.
So postmodernism meant there's no truth.
It's all relative.
And the reason many people embrace this was that was a way to overcome oppression.
People saying I have the truth and therefore they feel like I can oppress you. But the third thing he
says is this, he says over time though a new difficulty was created because postmodernism
attacks everything. Therefore a mood of confusion and uncertainty began to grow and flourish until, in recent years, it became ubiquitous.
If we, and this is still him speaking,
if we deprivilege all positions,
we can assert no position.
And so, in effect, an aggressive postmodernism
becomes in the real world indistinguishable
from an odd species of inert conservatism.
Hear what he's saying?
He says the problem is if you attack everything
and nobody's got the truth,
that means you can't fight oppression.
He says if you deprivilege all positions,
you can assert no position.
The same thing was said years ago by G.K. Chesterton,
a Catholic writer who said this,
the problem with doubting everything
and saying everything's relative,
he says the modern rebel is a skeptic,
but the fact that he doubts everything gets in his way
when he wants to denounce anything
because all denunciation implies
a moral doctrine of some kind. By rebelling
against everything, you lose your right to rebel against anything. And then Chesterton
says there's a kind of thought that stops thought. That's the only kind of thought that
should be stopped. Now here's what's amazing about what Edward Dock said and here's what's
amazing.
What they're actually saying is we thought the idea that there was no truth would be
liberating but it's not.
In the end it means you can't object to anything.
You can't say anything is wrong.
And so it's over.
Now I don't know what that means for modern society because the idea that all truth is
relative is so embedded now and yet what we're being told is
you can't live without truth.
You can't do without truth.
Well, Christianity's always said that.
The gospel is truth, but the truth of Christianity
is the gospel.
And you know what the word gospel means?
The word gospel means an announcement
of something that's happened.
It's the announcement of something
that's happened in history.
There's a lot that the Bible says about how you ought to live.
But what the Bible says about how you ought to live
is based on what the Bible says
about what has happened in history.
Other religions start by saying,
here's how God wants you to live,
and if you live in this way, then you'll be saved.
But Christianity starts by saying,
not here's what you must do in order to be saved,
but here's what God has done in history to save you.
The gospel is not good advice on what you should do,
it's good news about what has been done.
Do you see the difference?
And therefore, what it means is the historic happenings,
the things that the Bible says have happened,
have been done for you.
Is that, those are the basis for anything else
the Bible says about how do you ought to live.
Now, again, when New Yorkers, so many times New Yorkers reject Christianity,
but they reject it by assuming it's something that it's not.
So I've often talked to people who say, well, I can't believe in Christianity. I say, why?
And in New York, very often they say, because what the Bible says about sex and gender
is regressive.
And I say, okay, let me ask you a question.
If because you think what the Bible says
about sex and gender is regressive,
does that mean Jesus couldn't have been risen from the dead,
couldn't have been raised from the dead?
And they say, what?
What are you talking about?
I'm not talking about that.
And I'm saying, are you talking about? I'm not talking about that and I'm saying but you need to
you can't go to what the Bible says about ethics and
Say I don't like that and reject Christianity if Jesus was not risen from the dead
You don't have to believe anything the Bible says about sex and gender
But if Jesus was risen from the dead then you have to deal with everything the Bible says about how to live
But you don't go to what the Bible says about how to live to decide whether Christianity is right or wrong
You have to go and see what the Bible says about Jesus
Have you have you checked out the claim the evidence for the resurrection have you checked out the claims of Jesus to be the son
Of God have you checked out his character? Have you looked at him until you've looked at that?
You haven't checked Christianity out at all.
To say, oh, I don't like the things that the Bible says about how to live,
without looking at that, means that you're treating Christianity as if it's like every other religion, and it's not. It's not primarily advice on what you should do,
it's primarily a gospel announcement of what has been done, and you need to look and see the claim of what has been done,
and then you really are taking hold of what has been done. And you need to look and see the claim of what has been done. And then you really are taking hold of what Christianity is.
To be a Christian means truth.
It means to believe the truth.
It means to hear the truth.
And that truth is the gospel.
That's what makes you a Christian.
Point one, secondly, being a Christian means hope.
Verse 12, you see it,
we who were the first to hope in Christ,
and all of verse 14, which we're gonna unpack in a minute,
where it talks about our inheritance being guaranteed.
Christianity gives you a hope,
and the word hope in the Bible means something
much stronger than what the word hope means in English.
In English, the word hope means hope so.
It means I'm not sure, but I hope it's true.
In the Bible, the word hope is something much stronger.
The biblical definition of hope is a life shaping certainty
about your future.
A life shaping certainty about your future. A life shaping certainty about your future.
Human beings are unavoidably hope based creatures.
And that means how you live in the present
is inevitably shaped by what you believe about your future.
You can't avoid that.
Now I've never been able to find a better illustration of that.
I keep looking, but I can't, of this than this. Imagine putting two guys in the same
room and asking them to do something for a whole day. And they're in the same room.
The conditions are the same. They're terrible. It's hot in there. It's stuffy in there.
People are yelling at them all day and they
both have the same task to do and they have to do it all day.
But before they start, you whisper into the ear of one guy, at the end of the day we will
pay you $50.
And then you go over to the next person and you whisper into his ear, at the end of the
day we will pay you $1 million.
I can guarantee you that those two guys are doing the very
same task, the very same number of hours, in the very same circumstances, they are going
to be processing their circumstances in a very different way, in very different ways.
One guy is going to be saying, I don't need this, I don't need this, forget this. And
the other guy is going to be going, this is all right, you know, okay, fine, it's hot, it's stuffy, they're yelling,
doesn't matter. Why? Because their different futures determines that they will process
the present differently. Now, here's two people in New York City walking down the street.
One person is a secular person. A person who
says, well, I don't know if there's a God or not, but I have no belief in an afterlife,
and I believe when you die, you're wrought. There's no heaven, there's no hell. When
you die, you're wrought. And not only that, eventually the sun will burn up and burn out
and everything will go up in smoke.
And the other person says, I'm a Christian and I believe
that when I die I'll go to be with God forever
and at the end of time God will come to earth
and he is going to put everything right and defeat all evil.
Now those are two people who have two absolutely
different futures that they believe in.
And even though the secular person,
as I'll show you in one second,
will almost never think out the implications
of what that future means for how they live now.
And even though Christians also, largely out of laziness,
will not think out the implications
of what that future should mean for how they live now. Inevitably, because we are hope-based creatures, those two different futures will
affect how you live. And they will either slowly but surely brighten and strengthen
your life or they will darken and weaken you. Inevitably, Somerset Maugham, the author of
weaken you. Inevitably. Somerset Maugham, the author of human bondage, he was a British novelist very well known for that particular novel. In his autobiography he said this,
he was a secular man but he thought out the implications and he said this, he said, if one puts aside the existence of God and
survival after life as too doubtful, in other words, if you decide, well, we really don't
know if there's a God or any life after death. If one puts aside the existence of God and
survival after life as too doubtful, then if death ends all, if I have neither to hope
Then, if death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good, or to fear evil after death, I must ask myself what I am here for, and how in these circumstances I must conduct
myself.
The answer is plain, but so unpalatable that most will not face it.
And that answer is, there is no meaning for life, and thus life has no meaning.
And in Mom's book of human bondage,
there is a particular character that probably represents him.
His name is Philip Carey.
And at one point, Philip Carey is sitting on a park bench
in the London park, and this is what it says. He had an epiphany, sitting on a park bench in the London park.
And this is what it says.
He had an epiphany.
Here's what it says in the book.
He says, there was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end.
Life was insignificant and death without consequence.
Philip exalted.
It seemed to him that at last the burden of any responsibility was taken from him and
for the first time he was utterly free.
So he realized if we're here by accident and if afterwards there's neither good or bad
that happens to me, I can live any way I want.
There is no meaning in life, there is no right and wrong, any way I want.
Now, what Mom is saying, some of the things that Mom is saying is that anybody who says,
as far as I know, there is no future after death
and there is no future after history,
this life is all there is, that's all there is.
He says most people will not think out
the implications of that.
They'll live as if people have value,
as if life has meaning,
as if there's a right and wrong,
as if there's some things that we ought to live and die for,
but the fact is, none of those things are true. He says, but most people will not think it out.
They won't think it out. Ah. But you can't help it. Because over the years, it seeps
in. What you believe about the future will either sweeten your life
or it will sour it.
It will brighten your life or it will darken it.
It will make it more and more possible to have poise and buoyancy
or it will make it impossible for you to put up with the problems
and the difficulties of life and you'll just sink.
It's easy to assume that if we understand the gospel and preach it faithfully, we will
be shaped by it.
But this is not always true.
How can we make sure that our lives, churches, and ministries are being shaped by, centered
on, and empowered with the gospel?
Tim Keller's book, Shaped by the Gospel, is meant to help congregants, lay leaders,
and pastors understand how to make the gospel the center of all ministry.
In Shaped by the Gospel, Dr. Keller shows how gospel-centered ministry is more theologically
driven than program-driven.
As you read, you'll discover how reflecting on the essence, the truths, and the patterns
of the gospel lead to renewal in your churches and ministries.
This month when you give to Gospel in Life, we'll send you Dr. Keller's book,
Shaped by the Gospel, as our thanks for your gift.
Just visit gospelinlife.com slash give.
That's gospelinlife.com slash give.
And thank you for your generosity,
which helps us reach more people with Christ's love.
But Christians have a hope.
And what is that hope?
That leads us to our third point, glory.
The word glory shows up a lot, but more than anything else, and I just don't have the time
to unpack it all.
It's so rich and unbelievably rich, but I want to just unpack the passage, verse 14,
and I want to do it backwards.
Here's what you're told. If you're a
Christian, this is true of you. First, you are God's possession. See that?
Now, this word that you are God's possession goes along with another statement, another
term that's used a little bit later in verse 18, which you'll come to next week, we'll get there next week, where it says we're God's inheritance. Do you know
what this means? What is your inheritance? It's your net worth, it's the bulk of your
wealth, it's your most treasured possession. Imagine you've got an apartment and you've
got all your possessions in your apartment, but imagine you've got one thing in your apartment, some family heirloom, some piece of jewelry,
some ‑‑ you know, something that you inherited that's worth 10 to 20 times more
than everything else that you've got in that apartment.
And all of a sudden you hear the fire alarm, uh-oh,
you smell smoke, there's a fire. What are you going to do? You got to get out. Very easy.
You get your inheritance, you get that heirloom, and you get your laptop and you're fine. You
have all your information and you have 95% of your net worth right there and you run out
and you know you won't have any problem buying new furniture if there's a real fire and all that sort of thing.
The Bible has the audacity to say that here is God.
He owns all the stars, all the galaxies, all the planets,
all those worlds, but when he looks at you,
he says, this is my inheritance.
When he looks at you, you feel wealth, he feels wealthy.
When he looks at you, he sees you as more valuable
than everything else in the universe put together.
Now look, this has been part of Christianity
ever since the beginning, back when no one in any society
had ever heard of self-esteem.
Now today we talk about self-esteem all the time.
How do we help people with low self-esteem in our society?
Well, to find out I went to a woman's magazine or two,
and I, you know, they smell very interesting.
And I just took a couple of articles on how to help people with low self‑esteem.
Here are some of the ‑‑ here's the advice.
Okay?
I just sort of in summary, think of your talents.
Lose weight.
Set some goals and reach them, but make sure they're reachable goals.
Spend more time doing what you really enjoy doing.
Spend more time with people who actually appreciate you.
Pat yourself on the back.
Who can argue with that?
But what is that to this?
That's like a dew drop, and this is the ocean. Here's something a little better
to say to yourself. Say, I am the special treasure of God. When the God of the universe
looks at me, his heart wells up and he feels wealthy. And the great God of the universe is willing to use all of his omnipotent power to protect
me and rescue me no matter what the cost. See, if you don't start taking that sort
of thing into your center, if you're a Christian and you don't take that sort of thing down
into your center, you're going to be like everybody else. Everybody else around you.
They're scrounging for compliments and for strokes.
They're desperate for affirmation.
They're longing for acclaim and approval.
They're always nervous and always upset.
And you don't have to have any of that in your life anymore,
not if you understand this.
Do you know the glory of what it means to be God's treasured possession?
You're like, you're like, remember,
all those old stories about a prince
who gets bumped on his head and he's out there,
and he's living on the street in poverty
because he doesn't know who he is
and he doesn't know his own power
and he doesn't know his own wealth, and you're just like that and I'm
just like that. If we go to bed at night tossing and turning because somebody insulted us,
because somebody didn't notice us, because we got slighted, how dare you, if you know
How dare you, if you know this, how dare you nurse grudges and have hurt pride or feel deeply, you know, like I don't think I like myself and people don't appreciate me.
Oh my goodness.
You're God's possession first.
Secondly, you're not only God's possession, but you are looking forward to a future redemption.
Notice it says, until the redemption of those who are God's possession. Now what in the
world does that mean? Because just a few verses before it says we're redeemed. Remember,
I think it's verse seven. In Jesus Christ you have redemption through his blood, the
forgiveness of your sins. All right. Well well if you've already been redeemed,
past tense, what in the world is he talking about
until the redemption of those who are God's possession?
And the answer is, the word redemption means freedom
from all the consequences of sin.
And of course, when you become a Christian,
in some ways your redemption is in the past
because you're free from the penalty of sin.
You're forgiven, you're pardoned.
But you are not free from the presence
and the power of sin in your life.
But someday you will be.
What is this future redemption?
Romans eight talks about it.
And this is Paul, Saint Paul says this.
I consider that our present sufferings
are not worthy to be compared with the glory
that will be revealed in us. Our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Our present sufferings are not worth comparing
with the glory that will be revealed in us.
For the creation itself will be liberated
from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious
freedom of the children of God.
We who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly
as we await eagerly our full adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved.
What is that talking about?
Excuse me, here's what it's talking about.
As best I can put it, I'm going to be very careful as I say this.
On the last day of history, a glory will descend on all people who are in Christ,
a glory so perfect, so powerful, and so transforming,
that the blast of the beauty
will cleanse the whole universe of what's wrong with it.
There will be a glory that comes down on us
that is so incredible that just the fallout
of the glory and beauty that comes down on us
is gonna cleanse the universe
and make everything in the world okay.
See, it means everything wrong with you will be gone
and everything wrong with the world will be gone.
All death, all decay, all suffering, all disease,
all imperfection, it'll all be gone.
It's the ultimate cock crow.
It's the ultimate dawn.
It's the ultimate spring.
Now, do you know what this means?
What have I been doing?
What I'm doing is, if you're a Christian,
you know about that kind of things in the future,
but I'm trying to make it more concrete,
I'm trying to make it more granular,
because the more real this hope is to your heart,
you know what that means,
what kind of life you're gonna be able to live,
that future redemption,
that absolute future glory that's coming to you.
John Newton said,
if you understand your future glory,
it will make the best times leaveable
and the worst times bearable.
The best times leaveable and the worst times bearable. Or somebody put
it like this, if you really, really know the future glory that's coming to you, it means
you won't have to take pictures. You ever come back from a vacation and say, why didn't
I take a picture of that? I'll never get back there again. Don't worry. Oh, but I've always wanted to
be that country now. Looks like I'll never get to that country. I've always wanted to
travel there. In light of this, don't you realize that this world and this life, as
great as it is, is only the title page of the book of reality? This world and this life,
as good as it is, is only the mud room in the mansion of reality.
Do you take pictures of the mud room? You don't need to.
Oh my word. Fading is the worldlings pleasure. All its boasted pomp and show, solid joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion's children
know.
And that's not quite all, even though my time's running out.
There's one more thing we're told here, and it's amazing.
Not only are we told that you're God's possession.
Not only are we told that you can await full redemption in the future, that future glory,
but then it says that you were marked in him with a seal,
the promised Holy Spirit,
who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.
You know what that word deposit means?
It's a word that means first installment.
Now you know how powerful this glory is gonna be.
When it's gonna come down on us,
it's gonna so beautify and glorify us,
it's gonna be so perfect, powerful, and transforming
that it will wipe clean the whole world around us
of everything wrong with it.
But we're not told that we have only a guarantee
of that future glory, we have some of it now.
The Holy Spirit, when it comes into your life,
when you believe in Jesus Christ,
is actually a first installment of that very same glory.
And it's in you now.
Now I want you to know that all of us underestimate
the power of that thing that's come into you.
We underestimate the change that it will bring.
You know, some people have dramatic conversions,
most people don't, but everybody who's been a Christian
for long knows that what comes into your life
will revolutionize you.
It will revolutionize you.
You will think things you never thought before.
You will feel things you never felt before.
You will have a whole new identity.
When you, anybody who comes into Christianity always
expects some changes. Nobody has any idea of how great those changes are because nobody
has any idea that the future glory is coming in now. A down payment, a first installment.
You have to anticipate, if you're becoming a Christian, you have to anticipate that you
will not be able to anticipate how sweeping the changes will
be. There's a place where C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity has a, it says it like this,
most people when they invite God into their life expect a few changes. And he says, but
what actually happens is it's like somebody who's got a little cottage and you ask somebody to come
and sort of clean out the gutters
and they start to knock down walls.
God is not just here to make a few fine tunings
to your cottage, he's coming into your life
to turn your cottage into a castle.
He's gonna make you into something infinitely greater
and more wonderful than you could even imagine
before you asked him in. Because the thing that's coming in is not just the Holy Spirit in some kind of
general inspirational sense, it's the future glory coming into your life now. Don't underestimate
the newness of what we'll bring. Don't underestimate the power of what it will bring. A lot of
you have got things wrong with you and you've given up trying to change them. How dare you?
You know, Peter was too soft, and Paul was too hard, and they were very bad, raw material,
and yet God turned them both into world changers
and history changers, and who knows what he can do with you,
and there's not a thing wrong with you.
There's no guilt, there's no fear, there's no bad habit.
There's nothing wrong with you that this can't change,
that this can't overcome.
Do you see what is offered to you?
And I wanna just, listen, in closing,
let me just say this.
This is worth giving up anything to get.
There is nothing, there is nothing that you shouldn't be willing to give up in order to get this.
This kind of hope, this kind of power, this kind of glory, this kind of future.
If there really is a God who serves, this is perfect freedom, his service is perfect freedom.
If there really is a God who is a source of all beauty and joy, and it will come into you, it will come into you if you know him.
If there's even a chance that all that is available through Jesus Christ, you should be willing to
lose anything in order to get that. I mean, I've constantly heard people say to me,
well, I'm interested in becoming a Christian, but it might hurt my career. It might mean not
being able to have sex when I want to have sex. Oh my goodness, how in the world
could you put that up against this? You will never meet the absolute one if you
absolutize anything else but him. You will never meet the supreme one unless you give
him in everything a supremacy. It's all or nothing.
You have to say, if this is available,
then I am willing to ditch anything else to get it.
Are you?
When you say, I'm afraid if I become a Christian,
I'm afraid it might hurt my career,
might mean I won't be able to have sex,
you're like a little baby playing in a mud puddle who doesn't know anything better when somebody comes and says,
hey, let's go have a, let me take you to the ocean, let me take you to the beach. And you,
no, I don't want to lose my mud puddle. Uh-uh, uh-uh. In the end. Now, there's nothing much
about Jesus' cross, is there, in this passage?
And therefore, I'm only saying this at the end. How do you know? I'm putting it in the
context of the rest of the chapter. How do you know that God really does treasure you?
Look at the cross, where the Father and the Son were willing to lose each other for you.
That's how you know you're treasured. How do you know you're gonna get this future glory?
Look at the manger.
Look at on Christmas.
Philippians 2 said, Jesus Christ,
though he was equal with the Father,
emptied himself of his glory
so you could be filled with his glory.
Look at Jesus Christ coming down. Look at Christ emptying himself. Look at so you could be filled with his glory. Look at Jesus Christ
coming down, look at Christ emptying himself, look at Christ dying on the cross, and then
you'll know you're treasured, and then you'll know that that glory is coming. In fact, some
of it's in your life now. And then you know you're finally marked as God's possession
with the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Thank you Father for helping us
to understand these great truths.
We pray that you would breathe some greatness
into our lives as we think about
what you want us to be living like.
We know Lord that we wanna live like this
but we can only do that through your help.
So we pray that you would help us to do that.
Change our lives by your Holy Spirit
in accord with the things we've read here tonight.
We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.
Thanks for listening to today's teaching.
We trust you were encouraged by it
and that it gives you a deeper appreciation
for God's grace and helps you apply it to your life.
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Today's sermon was recorded in 2011.
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.