Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Now You Are Light

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

The essence of Christianity is arguing with yourself. What makes you an effective Christian is that you’re continually arguing with yourself, and you’re winning the argument. Because of what Christ did, God can restore the world and restore everything if we come to him through Christ. And in Ephesians 5, Paul uses the imagery of darkness and light to argue with us about how we need to be living: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” If you don’t get the verse right, you’ll never win the argument.  To understand this, we have to understand what the Bible means when it talks about light and darkness in spiritual terms. It means: 1) God is truth, 2) God is righteousness, and 3) a mark of somebody who has crossed from darkness to light is that they become more of a servant. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 26, 1991. Series: Christian Lifestyle. Scripture: Ephesians 5:8-14. 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 take you through a little bit of this, enough to get us ready to receive the Lord's Supper. Please turn to Ephesians 5, and let's start maybe at verse 7. I'm just going to read from verse 7 to 14, a new section. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.

And find out what pleases the Lord, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said, Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Here ends the reading of God's Word.

You know, by spending as much time as we have in Ephesians, we started Ephesians chapter 4 about how many months ago? A long time ago. The reason we're moving so slowly is partly to show you the richness of this all. But on the other hand, the richness of the book is great, but sometimes you need to stand back and let me just show you something. The book of Ephesians is roughly divided into the first three chapters. It has a lot to do with Paul laying out his understanding of God's calling to us. Ephesians 1, 2, and 3 tells us that God's great purpose in history is to call us to himself through Christ, to reconcile all of us through Christ.

And because of what Christ did, He can restore the world which is so broken and so messed up, and He can restore everything if we come to Him through Christ. Now, chapter 4 verse 1 starts with a therefore. Starts right off in chapter 4, as a prisoner for the Lord then. That's what the New International Version says. It essentially says, Therefore I urge you to live a life worthy of your calling. for as a prisoner for the Lord then." That's what the New International Version says. Essentially it says, "'Therefore I urge you to live a life worthy of your calling.'"

So what he does at that point is he says, you know all the stuff I've been telling you in chapter 1, 2, and 3 about this great plan of God for the ages and the great calling that he's done? I want you to work this out. If you believe that, I want you to work it out practically in your daily life and walk in this way.

So he talks about how you're supposed to live and chapter 4 verses 1 to 16 is all about the church. It's delightful. We've looked at it. It talks about how in light of all these great things, therefore, live in the church and understand the resources of the church and understand all the great things you're called to in the church and understand all the great things you're called to in the church. Then down in verse 17, do you remember this?

In verse 17, he says, And therefore, I tell you this, you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. Another therefore. Now he pulls out a different image. And he says, remember how you used to to live and he helps them remember their testimony remember the hardness of heart remember the viciousness remember how unsatisfying your former life was and then he goes on and says but that conversion as great as it was is a dynamic that has to continue and from

verse 17 on he says therefore and he pulls out the image of the conversion, and he says conversion is something that in a sense has to keep going. You have to continually put off the old self and put on the new self and be made new in the spirit of your minds. And then, in chapter five verse one, he says, be imitators of God therefore. And now down here in verse seven, the imitators of God, therefore. And now down here in verse 7, he says, Therefore, have no part, do not be partakers with them, for you were once darkness, but now you are light. What Paul's doing all the way through here is he's continually pulling out argument after

argument and image after image to show you what it means to live a Christian life. Now he pulls out another image, not the image of imitation of God because you're adopted children, not the image of not walking as the Gentiles walk but remember your conversion. This time he pulls out the imagery of darkness and light and he argues with you about how you need to be living. From this image, he says once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. And we have to listen to a new argument. And tonight, you know, when we come to the table, your mind ought to be full of this particular argument.

This is the one that Paul uses. Christianity, the essence of Christianity is arguing with yourself. What makes you an effective solid Christian is that you're continually arguing with yourself and you're winning the arguments. What makes you a mess as a Christian is you're continually arguing with yourself and you're losing the arguments. Now we make a lot of fun of people that say, hey, he argues, you know, he's a split personality,

he's always arguing, he's losing the argument. There's jokes about that. I don't know of anybody who knows their own selves who doesn't realize that there's arguments going on all the time. A Christian is somebody who's learned how to preach to himself or herself. A Christian is someone who knows how to pull out the arguments and Paul's giving you a new one. Once you were light, pardon me, once you were darkness,

now you are light in the Lord. You don't get the verse right, you'll never win the arguments. You got to get it right. Now, let's just take a look and see what some of the teachings are. I'm just going to go for a while and see how far we get. The first thing that we want to see here is we have to understand what the Bible means when it talks about light and darkness in spiritual terms. First of all, the Bible tells us that God is light, and secondly, it tells us that the

world is dark. What does that mean? In the morning service, we're going through the book of John and within a, I guess, a week or two we'll get to the place where Jesus says, I am the light of the world. And anyone who comes to me will not walk in darkness but will have life everlasting and will live in light eternal. Now, if you want to know what the Bible means by light, all you have to do is take a look right here and it says in verse 9, for the Bible means by light, all you have to do is take a look right here, and it says in verse 9, for the fruit of the light, the fruit of the light,

that means that which grows out of the light, that which grows out, fruit is the outward expression of inner life. The fruit of the light is, what? Goodness, righteousness, and truth. Let's think for a moment about this. First of all, let's do it backwards, alright? When the Bible says God is light, it means he is truth. First, the reason it uses the word light

to talk about truth is that light exposes, it says that. For it is light that makes everything visible. In the presence of God things get conspicuous. In the presence of God you get conspicuous. It's in the presence of light that you see the reality. In half-light or darkness there's distortions, heavy shadows, it's hard to see how things really are. But the Bible says all things are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. And any of you who have ever experienced God personally, you know that part of the experience of God's presence is to experience Him as light and to experience Him as truth.

And you sit there and you say, why didn't I see this before? What's been wrong with me? Of course it's so obvious. How could I have missed this? Whenever you're in the presence of God, you're sensing that kind of thing. How could I have missed it? What was wrong with me?

Why didn't I see it last month? Why was I so wrapped up and absorbed? How could I have missed it? That's a sign of the presence of God. If that sort of thing isn't happening, you're not in his presence. He's truth. Truth as opposed to distortion. Secondly, he's righteousness. Now, for a moment let's talk about righteousness. What does that mean? The Bible talks about

light is the opposite of darkness Light is purity and therefore light is often used as an image for God's righteousness God is absolute and complete moral excellence He can't lie. He can't be dishonest. He can't break his own rules He's he's completely consistent now one of the one of the illustrations has helped me a lot, is an illustration I may have used elsewhere. Some of you may have heard it. David Martin Lloyd-Jones uses it this way. He says, if you want to understand what it means to be righteous, it means, think of the solar system. He says, everything that God does orbits around, turns on, centers on what is right. Why does God do anything that he does?

Because it's right, because it's true. Why does God do anything? Because this is just. And God makes everything turn on that. Now look at your center. What do you orbit around? He says. What is it that you make everything turn on that. Now look at your center. What do you orbit around? He says. What is it that you make everything turn on?

What is the linchpin? What is it that really is the real crux of why you do the things you do? Would you say that the real reason, the bottom line, the thing that you center on is what is right and what is true? That's what God does. He's righteous. But you and I, we center around, oh, we like righteousness. I mean, it's something we'll take into account, if we can. But we make everything center on our happiness. Everything center on our comfort.

Everything center on our needs. Now, Lloyd-Jones says, why is the solar system a system? Lloyd-Jones says, why is the solar system a system? Because it all centers on the solar, it all centers on the sun. And because every one of the planets, as different as they are, has the same center, they all agree on the same center, therefore they're all revolving around the sun and they're not running into each other. But what if every one of the planets had a different center for its orbit, then what would happen? Even if it was a its orbit? Then what would happen? Even if it was a little bit off, what would happen?

They would all start to crash and burn, and that's the reason the Bible says that the holiness of God and the unrighteousness of humankind are antithetical to each other. It's the reason that a human being can't live in the presence of a holy God. It's the reason that holiness is traumatic to the human being. Because what fellowship, Paul says, has light with darkness. Real darkness is immediately become less than itself when light penetrates. Light and darkness have no fellowship. They are opposites to each other.

Holiness and unholiness have no opposite. Righteousness is to center everything on the right. Unrighteousness is to center everything on me, my knees. And as a result, a solar system full of planets that all have a different center, they're always crashing and burning, always knocking into each other. The Bible says God is righteous,

therefore he is absolute and pure light. The Bible says we are unrighteousness and that's the reason why we're darkness and confusion. That's why we're crashing and burning, you see, and that's what we mean by that. You know, the world is dark because everybody in it centers on him or herself and therefore the world is a vicious place, as they say to me all the time. It's a jungle out there, you know. What would you know? After all, you're a minister. You're here in the church. Well, it's a jungle in here because there's

a lot of people in here who do the same thing. All of us will talk about that in a minute, and none of us have completely gotten the darkness out of ourselves. But the world is a dark place because of that viciousness. We'll get back to that in a second. Well, no, I'm going to mention it right now. I look at the clock, I said, who knows how long I can stay up here. For example, H.D. Wells, famous writer, thinker, best known by us as a science fiction writer, but he's really a man of letters and a great original thinker. Early on in his life, he had the greatest understanding of, the greatest hopes for the human race. He saw sciences leading on to us to greater progress. He saw us dealing with human problems by putting our best minds together and coming up with solutions.

This is a great quote from one of his earlier writings. He says, can we doubt that our race will presently realize our boldest imaginations? Now listen to this. See, I know it's hard for you in the latter part of the 20th century to understand an intelligent person thinking like this, but this is the way it was in the early part of the 20th century. Can we doubt that our race will presently realize our boldest imaginations? Unity, peace in a world more splendid and lovely than any garden or palace ever

known. Going from strength to strength in an ever-widening circle of achievement, that is our prospect." He says, boy, you know, we can do it. Near the end of his life, after World War II, after a lot of other things, the same man wrote this, Homo sapiens, as he is pleased to call himself, is played out. His depravity has come near to breaking my spirit. What happened to this man? He felt and saw the darkness, the unrighteousness,

the viciousness of everybody having a planet that centers on itself, of the incredible violence that is inevitable in that kind of condition. God is light, the world is darkness. God is righteous, the world is unrighteous and impure. God is truth, distortion. One more thing, goodness. It says the fruit of the light is truth, righteousness, and goodness. Now this word goodness, you know

The word good to many of us just means nice But there's a second aspect and that whenever in the New Testament the word goodness Usually when the word goodness comes up it has the second aspect. It means benevolent You know we talked about he was good to me. That means he was generous. He helped me light is Glorious Light rejoices. Light gives life. Studies will tell you that people get mentally ill

and depressed if they don't experience enough light. Have you heard of those things? People will tell you that people get physically ill if they don't experience enough light. Light heals the aesthetic sense. It gladdens, it brightens. There's nothing like sun on the water. Light, it not only aesthetically heals and gladdens you and enriches you and rejoices you, but it physically and emotionally does as well.

When we talk about God being goodness, God being light, we mean, among other things, that He's good. When we talk about the world being darkness, we mean, among other things, that he's good. When we talk about the world being darkness, we mean on the one hand there's unrighteousness. We also mean in the world there's confusion. People don't know which end is up. You know, those of you living here in the end of the 20th century, that's all of you, you know, you read H.G. Wells and you can't imagine that kind of optimism because you have gotten so used to the darkness of the world that it's not even something that you're aware of.

One of the things that darkness means is confusion as opposed to truth. Confusion as opposed to being conspicuous. In every field of endeavor, there is growing darkness, growing cynicism, growing disillusionment about the possibility of answers. You know, some of you have heard about the deconstruction movement. What's the deconstruction movement?

Those of you who have been in college recently have probably heard of it. It's a movement that says, you know what, there's really ultimately no standards, which means there's no answers, which means there's no real way to tell the difference between a Shakespeare play and a Batman comic book. There's no difference. Because there's no answers, which means there's no real way to tell the difference between a Shakespeare play and a Batman comic book. There's no difference. Because there's no canon, there's no standards. There's no way of saying this is valuable, this is beauty, this is unvaluable, this is ugly. There's nothing, there's no good, there's no truth, there's nothing but power, and we've got to keep from being oppressed. Except who says oppression's a sin? If there's no standards.

You see, and if you say there's no standards and therefore you mustn't say that Shakespeare is better than Batman, you've just created a standard. And you said that I can't say that Shakespeare is better than Batman, so you've laid a standard on me. There's tremendous confusion out there. There's tremendous cynicism. There's tremendous confusion out there. There's tremendous cynicism. There's continuing darkness.

In 1850, there was a book written called Carl Island about a bunch of British schoolboys who are shipwrecked on a desert island. And because they're far away from civilization and far away from the corrupting influence of adults and parents and schools and civilization, they build a little paradise, an ideal human society. You know, just the sort of thing that Rousseau believed would happen.

The little noble savages grow up into a beautiful civilization. In this century, another man named William Golding wrote a novel called Lord of Flies about the same thing, a group of schoolboys that are shipwrecked on a deserted island and they set up their own civilization in its hell. Because you see, more and more people look at life and they say there's no solutions. There's a great place in 1865, in 1865 a lot of scientists got together in Paris and said, it's not that scientists don't believe in God, scientists just don't believe he's necessary. Science doesn't disprove God, science makes him irrelevant to the human condition. Forty years ago, thirty

years ago, a man named Huxley wrote, you know science can tell us everything except three things. What the meaning of life is, how human beings got into the condition we got into and how to get out. And what he said is science can tell us everything except the important things. This is growing darkness. Second Peter 1 19 says, you have the word of prophecy, the scriptures, and you would do well to pay attention to it as to a light in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. What is Peter saying? The same thing that Paul is saying. Hear this. The world is a dark place, full of unrighteousness and viciousness, the sort

of thing that just broke H.G. Wells' heart, full of distortion and confusion, nothing's conspicuous, everything is a disaster. The Word of God, the revelation, the truth of God is the only light. The truth of God comes in and says, there is hope. There's a God. He created us. He didn't create us for this kind of condition. We chose to go our own way and so we've made a mess of life. But Jesus Christ, the light has come. And if you receive Him, that light comes into your life. And eventually, the light will come back and take over

and all darkness will be banished forever. And you're supposed to take hold of that hope, the light of God's truth, and pay attention to it in a world that's very dark until the morning star rises in your heart till the day dawns. Are you holding onto a grudge or struggling to forgive someone in your life? Would you like to experience the freedom and healing that forgiveness brings? In his book, Forgive, Why Should I and How Can I,

Tim Keller shows how forgiveness is not just a personal act, but a transformative power that embodies Christ's grace to a world fractured by conflict. Far from being a barrier to justice, forgiveness is the foundation for pursuing it. In this book, you'll uncover how forgiveness and justice are deeply intertwined expressions of love, and how embracing Christ's forgiveness equips us to extend grace to others.

We'd love to send you Dr. Keller's book, Forgive, as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the hope and forgiveness of Christ with more people. Visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, there may be somebody out here that says, you know, that's a fantasy. That's ridiculous. That's silly to think that the Bible is God's truth and the Bible has all the answers. And

you have every right to reject the Christian truth. Just realize that when you do that, you rejected the only possibility of light. You're in complete doom. You're in complete gloom. There is no answers. There's no way to know what the problems are. There's no standards. There's no canons. You're experiencing spiritual vertigo. I just want you to know where you are. I don't want you to sentimentalize your position. If the Bible isn't true, if God isn't light, there is no light. Now the other thing I just want to show you, and this is where we can really bring this

home, God is light. That means he's truth, he's goodness, and he's righteousness. The world is darkness because it's distortion and it's unrighteousness and I didn't talk about the opposite of goodness. The opposite of goodness is vacuum. See in goodness you're filling people in, in uh, what is it? What's the opposite of goodness? Malignancy. What's a malignant tumor? A malignant tumor is something that's draining you of your life. It's eating you up. that's draining you of your life. It's eating you up. A person who is in the darkness is a person who is so needy that when they get near somebody

they just have to suck them dry. They're black holes, you see. They need love, but it's never enough. They need truth, but it's never enough, no matter what you give them, until they're converted, because they are darkness. The opposite of darkness is light. The opposite of light is darkness. Now, this text tells us God is light, the world is darkness. And then it gives us a picture of Christian conversion, which is tremendously startling. It tells us this, look, for once you were darkness, or my NIV says, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. What it's telling us is Christian conversion is the way that we move from one realm to the other.

The teaching of the Bible is there's two realms. There's the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. And Christian conversion is a moving from one realm to the other. There's a lot of churches that have blurred this distinction. A lot of churches said what it means to be a Christian is just to be a better person, a nice person, to live a moral life. But right here Paul goes right at the heart of that kind of misrepresentation and says no. The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not a matter of degree, it's a matter of two different realms. You notice for example, it says once, I'm thinking of a joke, why should I think of

a joke now? Should I tell you the joke? It says you once, you now. You were, you are. You were, but now. A cleavage. Not like, well, you used to be kind of a bad person, but then you came to church and you started reading the Bible, you started following Christ, and you got a little bit better and a little bit better. You don't see Paul talking like that. The joke I'm thinking about is that Sinclair Ferguson who was preaching here last week tells me his great story about a Scottish preacher that came to this country and didn't know

some of you have noticed that people speak English differently over there than they do here and he was preaching on this and I'm going to say something about this that Paul loves to talk about One of Paul's favorite favorite phrases is but now Once we were darkness, but now you were light in the Lord once you were under the law, but now you are under grace and I'll get back to what that means now but anyway this man was trying to say this Scottish man came and he and he decided to preach a sermon on how wonderful it is that Christianity

is a huge change. Once you were this, but now you are this. So he was preaching on this verse, and the first point was, in every person's life, there is a but. It was Scottish and didn't realize the implications of what he was saying. And the second point was, one man's butt is not the same as another man's butt. And the third point was, if you go to God, he will give you his butt.

Now, what he was trying to get at was that if you are a Christian, there has to be a but now. Now, you know, the man would have been fine if he just stuck the now on the end of it. But now. Is there that kind, is there that aspect to your experience? Do you say, well, being a Christian is meant to me that I try to do my very best, I try to live according to the rules of Christ, I read my Bible, I go to God in prayer sometimes. Paul says the difference between being a Christian and not being a Christian is the difference between realms.

There's got to be a but now about your experience. And what he is saying here is that there's a huge change. He is not saying that everybody's experience of conversion is a tremendously dramatic one. For a moment, since we're talking about light, think of sunrise. There is a second at which the sun comes up. There is a moment in which we cross from night to day. There is a moment at which the sun at your spot in the world pops up over the horizon. And at that moment you cross from night to day.

Now, it all depends though, how dramatic an experience of the morning you have depends a lot on the clouds. For example, if there's a tremendously heavy cloud cover right up until the moment of the dawn and then if the cloud cover just breaks just as the sun's coming up, you go from utter pitch darkness to dazzling light. It's absolutely startling. If on the other hand it's perfectly clear and there's no cloud cover at all,

what happens is that there's, you know, some light shows up in the sky. There's streaks of dawn before the sun comes up. There's hints of it. And then all of a sudden up-firsts the sun. But if it's actually a kind of moderately cloudy day, not a heavily cloudy day, but just foggy and moderate, the fact is you never see the moment the sun comes up. Things just get a little bit brighter and a little bit brighter and a little bit brighter

and a little bit brighter, and you don't know when the sun came up. You just know that it did. You just don't remember when. You knew it came up somewhere between 6 o'clock and 7 o'clock, but you don't know where. It all depends on the cloud cover. You may experience morning differently, but the actual moment at which night crossed over into day was literally a moment. In the same way, what the Bible teaches is, some of you may have a conversion experience

that's just like the heavy clouds breaking up. There is no previous sign of light. There's utter darkness, complete darkness, and all of a sudden, wham! Other people, it's just the experience of conversion seems to be a process. A little bit of light, a little more light, a little more light, a little more light,

and all of a sudden, you know the sun came up, but doggone, you know it came up somewhere between September of 1990 and March of 1991, but for the life of you, you can't tell where. It's not the experience that he's talking about, because experience can be gradual or it can be tremendously dramatic. What he is talking about though, is that there is a spot at which the light is engrafted into your heart. Because look, it doesn't say you were in the dark,

and now you're in the light. It doesn't say that. It says you were darkness, and you have become light. That means that it's not just that you were in the darkness, but the darkness was in you. The darkness was in your center. And the only way to move from being darkness to being light is a change

of nature, is an engrafting of God's own nature into you. Now how do you know that that's happened? My question to you here, my question to you here as we try to summarize and get ready to come to the table is this. Has that happened to you? Has it happened to you? How do you know if it's happened to you? Paul is saying that the difference is a huge one. Well, the way you know is to look at the fruit of the light. Is it happening in your life? First of all, truth. If you really have crossed from night to day, if you've been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son, If you've been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. If you've turned from darkness to light, one of the things that definitely happens is that the unseen world becomes something you can see. It's like when the light comes on,

in a very dark room you can see a few things but not many things. When the light comes on suddenly everything gets conspicuous. One of the things the Bible tells us is that the human mind is darkened until the Spirit of God comes in. Now, let me ask you questions like this. Do you know that you have a soul? Do you know that someday you'll stand before God and you'll have to answer for what you did with all the resources He gave you? Do you understand, therefore, your life is just full of momentous responsibility every

day? There's things that you're doing today that can affect the way people live for all eternity. There's words that you can say that can bring somebody, that God can use to bring somebody before His throne. Do you realize, for example, that because God loves you and cares for you, that what other people think and rejection of other people, because God is giving you His riches and is going to take care of you, therefore your material success is secondary. Do you realize all these things? You see, a non-Christian can't realize those things. Those questions are nonsense to him or her. A Christian is somebody the light has gone on. There's a newness. There's a sense in which I've never seen these things. How could I

have missed them before? Has that happened to you? Secondly, there's righteousness. Have you really finally seen that your entire life has been centering around your own comfort and your own happiness? There's a lot of people that say, I'm a Christian, and that means I've got a few problems and I want God to take care of them and help me.

And if God doesn't come through, if God doesn't answer your prayers, you're ready to call it quits. Then that, see, righteousness and unrighteousness, don't think about that in terms of a degree of perfection, think of it in terms of who are you orbiting around? A Christian is somebody who has finally said, I see that the main problem in my life, I see that the... Yes, this person has mistreated me. This person has mistreated me. I had a crummy background, I had this and that. But the main reason I'm miserable is me.

See, that takes the enlightenment, that takes the engrafting of light from the outside to say that. The main reason I'm miserable is me because I make everything revolve around my happiness and comfort. Of course that person has mistreated me, but the fact that I'm miserable is because I'm bitter and I won't forgive. And I'm bitter and I won't forgive because I want to be the judge and I don't want to leave it to God to deal with that person. What is that?

That's unrighteousness. It's centering everything on your own comfort. A Christian is not somebody who's perfect. A Christian is somebody who has realized that the center of your orbit has been your own self-centeredness and you say, that I repudiate. And you come and you say, Lord, you're my Lord. Thirdly, a mark of somebody who's crossed from darkness to light, is that you may be needy, but as time goes on you see a change in your attitude toward people. You move to become more and more of a servant

and less and less of a sucker. I don't mean by a sucker the American colloquial meaning a sucker is somebody who's gullible. I mean someone who when you see somebody, what you do is you either say, I am going to just use that person, I'm going to be needy and broken down, I'm going to come to them and I'm going to let them take care of me. Or you can also use a person by going after them and making them needy and broken down and depend on you. Either way, what you're doing is you're using that person. A Christian is somebody who slowly, bit by bit, has recognized that your real attitude toward other people is one of manipulation. And you move from darkness to light, you

move from being a malignant tumor, you see, you move from always draining people to enhancing and enriching people. On the one hand, and this is the hard part, on the one hand when you cross from darkness to light, there is a once and for allness. You know when the sun comes up, it's up. But it's not until it's high noon that all the shadows are gone. Not until the sun is directly over you that the shadows are totally gone. When it comes up, the sky is totally light, but the ground is still full of shadows. And the thing you've got to keep in balance is when you have crossed over from death to life, when you've made Jesus your Lord and Savior, there's a once-for-allness about it, and yet at the same time there's a

process of growth that goes on. So on the one hand, when you've crossed from darkness to light, it means that you've seen He is the truth. You've seen that you've got to center your life on Him. That's righteousness. And you see that you now have to become a servant of people instead of using them and making them the way in which you get your identity and your acceptance instead of God. And yet at the same time, don't you all see the darkness still clinging to you? Friends when I find that I get criticism, and for at least two days I can't get it out

of my mind, was it right? If it was right, I'll be mad at me. If it was wrong, I'll be mad at them. So either way, I'm going to be mad. What is that? That's darkness. First of all, it's going back into the old approach of just centering on the most important thing is my reputation. It's also darkness in that I'm forgetting the truth. I'm forgetting the truth that it's God's acceptance of me and His verdict on me that matters. And the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is at some point when you fall back into darkness, something wakes you up. God will always come in and He'll turn the light on and say, remember, you are light.

And you'll say, what was wrong with me? Why was I so mad at me? Why was I so mad at them? Look at it. In fact, just recently, for example, when I was going through a couple of days like that, I turned over to Colossians and I saw a verse, I said, why didn't I see this before? Verse chapter 1 verse 22, now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation.

So continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. I read that and these words come through. Because of his death he presents you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation and you go that's right why did I forget that? That's the mark of being in the light. Once you were darkness now you are light. Has that happened to you? Can you see that that's happened to you? If there's anybody here who realizes, gosh, that has not happened to me. I have not seen that. I've never been convicted of sin like that. I've never given myself to

Him in that way. Then when the cup comes around, when the bread comes around, don't partake of it. You're not ready. What you need to do instead is to reach out and say, Lord, if I've never received you as my Lord and my Savior, I do it now. On the other hand, most of us here probably are just, I hope, like me, because misery loves company, I hope you're as miserable as I am, I'll be looking at myself and say, if I am light, why am I so often walking in the shadows?

If I am light in the Lord, why do I get discouraged? If I am right in the Lord, why do I get so self-centered? If I am right in the Lord, why do I look at other people as if they're going to take care of me when I should be seeking to serve them? The fruit of light is truth, righteousness, and goodness. You've got the light in you. Fruit is something that grows out from the inside.

It's a natural thing. So go to him and say, Lord, water me, fertilize me. I need more of that fruit. I know that the seeds are there. I give myself to you. I put myself in your arms as I meet you at the table. Let's get ready to do that. Let's pray.

Father, now all we ask is that you will grant that your Son becomes a reality to us. We pray that that you would use the the singing, the confession. We pray that you would use the actual taking of the the bread and the cup as a way for us to let your light shine more and more to us. We live in a dark place and we need to pay attention to your light until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts. That morning star is Jesus Christ. Shine on us now. Help us to wake ourselves. Help us to rouse ourselves from sleep and to receive your light in the sacrament. Now we need this. We ask for it and we receive it light in the sacrament. Now we need this. We ask for it and we receive

it in Jesus' name. 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 gospelinlife.com slash partner. That website again is gospelinlife.com slash partner.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1991. 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.