Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Our Call: Holy Living

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

When we become Christians we don’t just turn over a new leaf, we’re spiritually raised with Christ and his resurrection power comes into our lives. And so, what does such an empowered life look like? We’re called to be holy, but this is a difficult term to get ahold of. In our modern culture, both the word “sin” and the word “holiness” are almost never used anymore except ironically. But we need to take it seriously.  So let’s ask 1) what is holiness? 2) how does it grow and develop in us? and 3) why is it possible to be holy? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 18, 2014. Series: Following Jesus. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:13-16. 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.

You're listening to the Gospel and Life podcast. What does authentic spiritual growth actually look like? Writing to early believers, Peter outlines several qualities of a life that looks more and more like Christ's. Today, Tim Keller takes a closer look at how we can develop this in our own lives and how the resurrection of Jesus makes true, lasting transformation possible. Today's scripture is found in 1 Peter, chapter 1, verse 13 through 7. Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written, be holy because I am holy. Since you call on a father who judges each person's work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. The word of the Lord. Now, the Bible says that when we become Christians, we don't just turn over a new leaf. We're spiritually raised with Christ. It says in Ephesians 2, Philippians 3. Paul says, I want to know the power of his resurrection. So Jesus Christ's resurrection power comes into our lives.

That's quite a statement. And we have to ask ourselves the question, what does such an empowered life look like? And in these weeks after Easter, that's what we're doing. We're asking that question, what does a resurrected life, spiritually resurrected life look like? And we're looking at 1st Peter and 2nd Peter. We're taking passages out of these two epistles

because there are so many important themes within the epistles, these two particular, that are crucial to help us understand what it means to live the Christian life. A couple weeks ago, we looked at the new birth and the newness of life that brings. Before that, I mean, after that, we looked at the idea of being exiles or resident aliens, which means we're supposed to be both offensive and attractive at the same time.

And pilgrims. and that was also another very important theme that helped us understand what it means to live the Christian life now today we come to a well-known very important theme and one we have to come to grips with which is holiness we're called to be holy very very prominent he who called you is holy so be holy and all you do now that's actually not an easy this is actually a difficult term to get you. at a hold of. In our modern culture, both the words sin and the word holiness, both those words are almost never used anymore except ironically.

So we talk about sinful chocolate. But if you actually start talking about sin and saying people are sinners, this is sin, we need to be holy. If in contemporary society you start talking about sin and holiness and you're not talking ironically and say you need to be holy, you need to stop sinning, people get very quiet and very upset, very upset, that anybody would take these words seriously and not ironically. But we need to take it seriously. It's obvious that we need to take it seriously. So let's ask the most fundamental questions. What is it? What's holiness?

How does it grow and develop in us and why is it possible to be holy? What is it? And how does it grow in us and why is it possible? to be holy. First, what is it? Let's look at verse 15 and 16. Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written, be holy because I am holy. Now, it's perfectly right when you and I think of holiness to think of morality. Ten commandments.

As God is faithful, so you shouldn't lie or commit adultery. Ten commandments. As God is loving, so that God is, so God, you shouldn't kill, you shouldn't steal. So we almost always, when we think of holiness, we think of right living, moral living, and that's perfectly true, because to be holy certainly means that.

It doesn't mean less than that. But I want to show you, it means a lot more than that. The concept of holiness is way, way more than that. If you want to understand what holiness is, you should notice the quote. Peter quotes, for it is written. That's a quote from the Old Testament. Be holy because I am holy.

and he's quoting Leviticus. There's a lot of reasons why that's strange to have Peter quoting Leviticus, but he's quoting Leviticus. There's four or so times in the Book of Leviticus that God says something like this, be holy because I am holy. What's important to understand, though, is the Book of Leviticus is not talking so much about holy people.

It doesn't give you the Ten Commandments. It's not laying out all those things like Deuteronomy does and Exodus and all that. It's talking about holy things. So you see, if you go to the book a little bit, I guess if you go to the context from which Peter is talking, you're going to see there's all sorts of things that are called holy. Tables are called holy. Utensils, pots are called holy.

Now, right there, you begin to realize that holiness can't mean morality because what's a moral table look like? But more frightening, what does an immoral table look like? I mean, would you want to eat it? immoral table. No, it doesn't work. Why? So, it forces you to ask, what's the word holiness mean and holy mean? And the Hebrew word originally means separate, set apart. Separate or set apart. Now, right away, you begin to realize why God can say, I'm holy. Because he is utterly apart from all other beings. He is totally unique. He's in his own category. He's set apart. He's

totally separate. He's unique in his superlativness. There is none like him. So in one sense, the word when God says, I am holy means I am utterly set apart. There's no one like me. There's nothing like me. All right. Well, then what does it mean to have a holy table or a holy pot? And the answer is, it has been set apart for God's exclusive use. If you have a table, you're eating three meals a day on it, but you want your table to be holy. You don't read it to Ten Commandments and try to get it to behave differently.

You give it to the priests, they take it into the tabernacle, and now it's only used for the fellowship offerings and for the other things. It's only used for God and for worshiping God. It's only used for God and for worshiping God. And right there, you begin to realize when Peter quotes Leviticus

to tell people how they should be holy, the implications is this is going beyond. It's not less than, but going beyond morality. One, I read you one great commentator, one person commenting on First Peter brings it out. I'll read it carefully because you'll see how he reasons. He says, of course, this is a commentary on this passage in First Peter. He says, of course, to be holy means moral behavior.

But these words in Leviticus 11, that Peter quotes, are not given in the context of moral commands and prohibitions to people, but the context of ceremonial restrictions dealing with clean and unclean things. For belonging to God, living on his terms, reserving ourselves for him, delighting in him, obeying him, honoring him, these are more fundamental than the specifics of obedience we label morality. There's your definition.

What makes the table holy? It belongs to God. what makes you holy, not just your moral, but that you belong to God. Now let's think out the implications. This is tremendous implications. First of all, we see that the core of holiness is intensely personal. It's intensely personal. It's possible to be moral for a lot of reasons.

You can be moral because, out of a sense of duty. You can be moral because you are, it makes you feel good about yourself. you can be a moral good person because you are fulfilling social and family expectations or you can just be a pragmatist honesty is the best policy you know the you could just be saying you should be moral because it's it's good business to be moral if you're moral and you're truthful you don't get caught you know you don't get sued as as likely and all that's that sort of thing so you might just be practical but in all those cases what's going on you're being moral roughly speaking for selfish reasons.

But there's another approach. It's possible to be moral and not belong to God because belonging to God has to do with the heart. There are only, there's very few people in my life and probably in yours that you could actually say your claims of love are so great on me that I really belong to you. I really can't live my life the way I want.

I belong to you. In my case is my wife, my children. children. But you see, the claims of love are so great. I belong to them. And because I belong to them, I, there's a lot of things I do that I would rather not do, perhaps, if I, if I, if I didn't have this love relationship. And so, in other words, to belong to God means that I am not, it means that I want to delight in him. Well, let me read you the list. To belong to God means to live on his terms, reserving ourselves for him, delighting in him, obeying him, honoring him, I'm doing it because I just, I want to because I need to almost because of my love. So it's an

intensely personal thing. And by the way, just quickly, do you see why it's not enough to be moral? It is not enough in God's eyes to be moral. I've had many people say to me, oh, you're admitting then you can be moral without believing in God. You're admitting it. You're saying, you're saying, without believing in God, you can still be moral. Okay, so why do I need to believe in God in order to be moral? As if that's the big thing, to be moral. Let me give you an example. To take the relational out, imagine a woman, she's a kind of a poor woman in many ways. She's a single mother. She has one son. She loves her son. She teaches him how to live. She says, I want you to always care for the poor. I want you to always tell the truth, and I want you to always work hard.

charity, honesty, industry. Care for the poor. To always tell the truth, work hard. And she, of course, does everything for him, and even though she doesn't have much in the way of marketable skills, she works her fingers of the bone in order to raise him and to put him through college without any debt. But the minute that he gets out of college, he gets that degree,

gets a good job, he calls her and says, well, Mom, I'll probably, you know, send you a Christmas card now and then. I may talk to you now and then, but I really don't want to have much to do with you. I don't really need you. Why, she says, well, I always take care of the poor. I always, you know, I'm honest. I, you know, I always work very hard.

So I'm doing all the things, you know, you want me to do. What that's really, what's important, why do I have to have a relationship with you? I don't really don't want to talk to you anymore. Would you think that's okay? Of course you wouldn't think it's okay. You would find that repulsive. That would be horrible. Well, if there's a God, if there's a God, if there's a God,

God, you owe him everything. You owe him everything. And that you should sense that you belong to him. And for you to say, well, what's really important is that I'm moral. It's like that guy saying, what's really important, I'm doing what you're saying, Mom, I don't need to have a relationship with you. Maybe if there is no God, that's one thing. But for you to say, I don't need God, God isn't important. I've got what's really important. I've got morality. But you're not holy. You're not holy. In fact, you see, God looks at it. someone who is moral but not holy has got to feel considerably worse than that mother did see first of all what's intriguing about this quote out of leviticus the understanding that holiness is to belong to god

not just simply to be moral is it gives you the core of holiness which is intensely personal second by the way the core of holiness is not just being intensely personal but now you have a principle for applying holiness to all of life because what's the opposite of belonging to god to live for yourself. So what does it mean to be holy? To be moral? Sure. There's a lot of rules. Lots and lots of rules. But more than that, it means to no longer live for yourself.

That's the principle of holy practice. That's the principle of holy living. You no longer live for yourself, but for God and your neighbor. There's a place in the Bible that perfectly puts this principle of holiness. It's 1 Corinthians 619. You are not your own. You are bought with a price. you're not your own

you're bought with a price there it is why you're bought with a price we'll get back to that in a second you have been you're a recipient of grace free grace therefore you are not your own you never in any situation

live as if you're not living for your sake you're living for God's sake for your neighbor's sake you're not living for yourself you're living for God or your neighbor this goes across the board one of the things about Leviticus

and it's extremely interesting that Peter would quote from Leviticus, when you consider that God, if you read the book of Acts, if you know something about Peter's life, that God had to practically clobber Peter over the head to say, it's not necessary to keep the Levittical ceremonial laws. You know, Peter was still saying, you know,

he was still at one point, because he was Jewish, you had all these rules about how you ate, how you dressed, and he was saying, Gentile Christians need to do this too, or I can't be with you. And God gives him a vision and says, no, no, no, in Jesus Christ, all those laws about what you eat, what you dress, how you, everything, those things have been all fulfilled in Christ. You are clean and acceptable in Him.

So it's intriguing that Peter would quote Leviticus when it took him quite a while to get the message that all of those ceremonial regulations are now fulfilled in Christ. Well, why is he going back to Leviticus? Because the principle of holiness is the same. and that is that every part of your life has got to be holy there is no part that shouldn't be holy and to be holy is to belong to god the particulars of leviticus are you know are fulfilled but not not the basic principle so for example go to ephesian 6thesian 6 there's a place where paul is talking to people about how they do their daily work their daily job on the job now do you

Is there any commandment that tells you in the Ten Commandments how to do your work? No, there's a commandment about resting, but not about work. But here's what Paul does. He says, when you're doing your daily job, don't work for your boss. He calls it, don't work according to eye service. Don't work for your boss and don't work for yourself. If you're working for your boss, then you will only work hard when your boss is noticing. In other words, when your boss isn't there, you won't.

when your boss is it, you'll only basically do what you have to do to give your boss a good impression of you. If you're working for yourself, you'll only do what's necessary to make the money or to make more money. But what if you're working for the Lord, says Paul? What if your main motivation is to say, I notice you seeing me, Lord, I want to please you, I want to use my gifts in the best possible way. I want to do an excellent job. I want to help other people. I want to care for your creation. In other words, what if you're working for the Lord? If you're working for the Lord, do you realize that you work much more diligently, much, much more conscientiously, much, much more cheerfully because you're not living and dying as to whether you get, you know, accolades from your,

from your boss. It transforms your work. Why? Because you're not living for yourself. You're not working for him. You're not working for yourself. You're not working for her. You're not working for the boss. You're working for God. if you apply that to every single area of your life if you don't treat people classes and races of people who have oppressed your class or your race and you don't treat them for your sake or their sake but for God's sake as people in the image of God

the reason that Peter quotes from Leviticus is he's figured this out to be holy means you belong to God therefore you don't live for yourself and that principle of not living for yourself can be applied everywhere even places where there's no moral rules. That's what holiness is. Then secondly, how does it develop? I mean, isn't that something? The more I've thought about it, it's comprehensive.

And you say, oh my word, how in the world do you grow? And obviously, holiness is not something you can just switch on like this. How does it develop? Well, it develops three ways. Mind, will, and heart. Those are also here in the passage. What is my purpose in life? What is a good life?

And why does the world feel so broken? In the Gospels, Jesus meets people who are asking these very questions. And when Jesus responds, their lives are changed in unexpected ways. In his book, Encounters with Jesus, Tim Keller explores several of these conversations. Looking at Jesus' interactions with everyone from a skeptical student to a religious insider to a social outcast, Dr. Keller shows how these encounters with Jesus can uniquely address. the big questions and doubts we still face today. Encounters with Jesus is our thank you for your gift this month to help Gospel in Life share

the hope of the gospel with more people. Request your copy today when you make a gift at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. First of all, the mind. Look at the very beginning. therefore with minds that are alert and fully sober set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed wow first of all he says if you want to be holy you need to

with minds that are alert and fully sober set your hope on the grace to you when Jesus Christ is revealed let's unpack that first of all it's obviously talking about something you do with your head the intellect is engaged it says minds that are fully sober and are alert the word sober is an interesting word. It means to be very judicious. It means to be extremely reflective and careful. It's actually a word that would characterize the mindset of a scholar. You know how scholars are, lots of footnotes, careful definitions, lots of qualifications, you know, very, very, very careful, very reflective. The other word, though, and if any of you have ever read this in the old King James Bible, where it says minds that are not only sober, but alert,

literally it says in the in the in the uh Greek it says gird up your mind now that's a it's a it's a it's actually a pretty vivid metaphor in those days when men and women men and women were flowing robes everybody did not only the women the men and when you had to do something that was very active if you had to run someplace or if you had to work somewhere what did you do you would pull up all your skirts and you would tuck them in your girdle which is your belt and therefore to gird up your loins was the way of saying get ready for action.

To gird up your mind is a vivid metaphor, which means, though you should be thinking and thinking and thinking, you're fully sober, you should also be thinking unto action. You should be thinking out the implications of your faith very carefully, but to the end of action. And that's really, for example, what Paul was doing in Ephesion 6. in Ephesian 6, which I think is just fascinating, he was taking, he was sitting down and he was saying, okay, let's think out the implications of what it means if you're not living for yourself but for God, how does that transform your work? And he's thinking it out. And it's a brilliant and insightful

piece that's helped people for centuries now. Peter here is saying, that's what you have to be doing. To be holy is not first a matter of the will. You've got to think. You have to think. You have to to think intensely, have to use all of your minds. If I believe this, see, look, the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. That's talking about the fact that at the end of time, Jesus Christ is going to come back and he's going to make everything new. He says, think about the implications of that.

Constantly, constantly, constantly. What does it mean to live for him? What does it mean to, and let me give you another example of this. In Philippians chapter four, Paul says, you should have the peace of God. God in your heart. You shouldn't be anxious. You should be trusting God. Trusting God. Right? You belong to him. So just trust in him. You shouldn't be anxious and upset all the time. He says, let the peace of God guard your heart. And then he says, so think on these things.

Think on these things. That's very close to what, think on these truths, these things that you believe as a Christian. Very, very close to here where it says, set your hope. On what? I mean, set your hope means get your hope, get your confidence, get your peace by thinking what you actually believe about the universe. So put it like this. Are you a Christian? Do you know that the Bible says that God made this world to be a perfect paradise, a place of perfect love and glory, but because we turned away as a human race,

everything is broken. But God, in the form of Jesus Christ, has come into this world and at infinite cost to himself, died on the cross so that someday he will return and he'll make everything right again. Do you know what that means? It means that no matter what happens to you, it's going to be okay. You believe on him and you die, you'll be with him. The worst thing that can happen to you, death is the best thing they can happen to you. And at the end of time, everything's going to be right. Everything's going to be okay. Do you have peace right now? Do you have hope? Do you have confidence? Or are you anxious? It's because you're not thinking. If you're a Christian and you believe this stuff and you're going around

constantly under stress and anxious is because you're not thinking you know the idea that well you christians have faith but i'm a thinker an incredibly self-serving little narrative that says that well yes of course i know people believe that all this christianity stuff but i'm a reasonable person i'm a thinker paul and peter the whole bible says uh-uh uh-uh listen you will not be holy you will not have peace you will not be able to live the Christian life unless you think. Think. It's a lack of thinking that gives you a lack of peace. It's a lack of thinking that gives you a lack of holiness.

Think, that's the first thing. Engages your entire intellect. Christians ought to be the people who are most willing to think. I mean, if you talk to a typical New Yorker and you say, well, what do you believe? I say, well, I believe this life is all there is. I don't think there's a God. I think this is it. This is so you believe that love is a chemical, basically, right?

The feeling of love is an illusion. It's just a chemical reaction that helped your ancestors, you know, survive. And when you die, that's it. And eventually nobody's even going to be around to remember anything you've ever done because the sun is going to die, and there won't even be anyone around to, you know. So nothing you do in the end makes any difference. And love is an illusion, and when you die, you're right. And very often a New Yorker will say, oh, well, if you're going to think about it like that,

course you're going to be depressed, but I don't think about it all the time. I just try to live one day to time. In other words, see, you don't believe in God, and you're telling me that you are getting your peace by not thinking out the implications of what you believe about the world? Well, Christians are different. We get our peace from thinking out the implications of what we believe. So you've got to use your head. Secondly, you've got to engage the will, of course. I have to get here. As obedient children, This is the will. See this? As obedient children, verse 14, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

Now, what this means is, yes, there is a bottom line here. To be holy means you obey. Notice, by the way, it says, don't conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. He's talking to Gentiles, who didn't know the law of God, didn't know the Ten Commandments or any of that. And now they do. And because they do, he says, now you must conform to this. So there is a matter of the will. There's an engagement.

But don't forget, even here, even in this passage, where he says, as obedient children, he doesn't just say as obedient subjects. As obedient children, he's talking about the kind of unconditional, absolute trusting obedience that children give to parents that they rely on and love. to really give you an idea of what I mean here by this kind of obedience. Let me just a little story. In 2 Samuel 23, a story from the Old Testament tells about the fact that when David became king, the Philistines were really worried that David was going to turn Israel into a strong nation.

So as soon as he was crowned king, they invaded. They were trying to destabilize the nation of Israel. Came in, invaded. David was forced to flee into the wilderness. He had his handpicked men with him, his mighty men. They were kind of an elite group of soldiers around him. But he was out in the wilderness and the Philistines occupied big parts of the country, including Bethlehem, which was David's hometown. And he was out in the wilderness and certainly David was feeling pretty downcast. and one day in the midst of

he was hot I guess and he was tired and he was discouraged and one day in the midst of his men he said oh if only I could just drink one cup of water from that wonderful well by the gate of Bethlehem it was not a command

it wasn't even a request it was just a sort of a sigh and a hope and partly because of course he was from Bethlehem and he knew what great water it was and he was probably hot, but also he was longing for the day in which he would again be king of his entire land and he would be able to go where he wanted. And so he was just longing for that. Three of his mighty men looked at each other. Didn't say a thing. And then they stole away

and they put on their swords and they put on their armor and they got a water jug and they fought their way through enemy lines down to Bethlehem, got to that well, drew the water, probably one guy drawing the water while the other two were fighting everybody off and at the risk of their lives fought their way back, come in front of their king, their, their king, David, and they give him the water. He is absolutely stunned. He knows they risked their lives. He knows, and essentially they gave their lives. Because when they went to do that, he knew that they knew that they might not come back. They had actually given up their lives.

They were only lucky that they still had them. They gave them up. And you know what he did? He poured the water out on the ground before the Lord and said, I'm not worthy of this kind of devotion. And of course the men felt, I'm sure, very, very honored because the king said, your devotion is so great that even I have the king,

I'm not worthy of it, and he poured it out. It means a lot of different things, but here's what I want you to see. If you are really devoted to somebody, if you really love them, if you belong to them, if you would do anything, remember, if you would do anything to delight that person, honor that person, then there's really no difference to you between a command, a request, and even a sigh. You don't look at all the rules and regulations, which ones do I have to keep?

You know, if somebody comes to me here in New York and says, Pastor, I'm really trying to obey the Bible. I'm trying to obey the law. God. It's a rarity for somebody in New York to come up to a pastor and say that. And I say, great. And he says, I'm thinking about this tie thing. You know how the Bible says that you're supposed to give away 10% of your income to charity and other things? Yeah. Well, here's what I need to know. Do I have to do this before or ask for taxes? It seems like before taxes wouldn't be really fair. I think after taxes would be better.

Oh, my word, how far are we from this? Do you say, that's the wrong, what are you doing? What are you asking, what do I have to do? What do I mean, what do I have to do? Look how far that is from these three men. Anything that would bring joy to the heart of the one they're devoted to, anything at all. They went way beyond the commands. They went way beyond the requests. They were guessing pretty much. If you are to be holy, you not only, belong to God and you stop living for yourself and you start to live for your God and others and you think all that out you also not only obey the things that you do know but you look for other ways to please him you do it out of delight doesn't even feel like obedience but it is okay lastly the heart now

the thing it says at the very end of the passage is this since you call on a father who judges each person's work impartially live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear now I this creates a little bit of a dilemma because this term, the fear of God, live in the fear of God, is one of the main themes of the Bible, and it actually constitutes another important theme that we need to unpack at length if we're going to understand what it means to live the Christian life. And so we are, that comes up again in another passage in a couple weeks and we're not, therefore I'm not going to give you a full-throated understanding of what it means to live in the fear of God. but I can give you at least enough clues to make my final point.

This is the heart of what will motivate you and create that desire in you to please him and delight in him and to give yourself to him. The word fear means not to be scared that you're going to be destroyed. In fact, you can even tell that from this verse because notice, even though Peter's talking about judgment day, ooh, judgment day, wow, impartial judgment day. it's your father who's going to be the judge that day. Isn't that something?

Since you call on a father who judges, you know, fathers can be pretty strict. Fathers can be, you know, have standards, but fathers don't destroy their children. Fathers love their children. And so this doesn't mean to be scared that you're going to be destroyed on the last day, but here's what it does mean. The word fear in the Bible means awe and wonder, internal awe and wonder. It means not just doing things that you have to do because you have to do, amount of a sense of duty, but awe and wonder at something.

Something, your heart is engaged with something. What is it? The next two verses, which we didn't print and read, but here's what they are. Verse 18 and 19. Four, your heart should be engaged with awe and wonder. Four, you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish.

or defect. Your heart needs to be filled with awe and wonder looking at the fact that Jesus Christ's blood, his sacrificial love, has been shed for you. That's the key. Just for a moment, think about this. In John chapter 17, verse 19, I think it is, Jesus is praying to his father the night before he dies and he makes this amazing statement that ties all the things together we've been talking about. He says, Father, for their sakes, looking at his disciples, he's about to die for them. For their sakes, I sanctify myself that they might be sanctified. Jesus says, I sanctify myself that they might be sanctified. What is sanctity?

That's holiness. I sanctify myself, sanctity, holiness. What does that mean? Does Jesus mean I'm going to. I'm going to become moral? Of course he's not saying I'm going to become moral. He was already moral. He was perfect. What does he mean when he says, I sanctify myself. I give myself away. I set myself apart. I'm not going to live for myself. I'm going to live for them. I'm going to die. I'm going to be tortured. I'm going to be lonely for them. See? There's a sense in which he says,

I'm giving myself away so that for them, for their sakes. So what? So that we might be sanctified. uh-oh he loves us and he wants us to know the joy and the freedom of not living for ourselves anymore the claustrophobia of living for ourselves the crampness of it the narrowness of spirit the infinite regress of spiraling down on yourself saying i'm not getting what i deserve and what about him and what about her and what about me jesus says i want i love you so much i want you to know the freedom of being so flooded with that you don't need that anymore you don't do that you don't live for yourself you live for god you live for others and so what he's saying is i'm giving myself away and when you see him doing that when you when you stand you might say if look see from his head his hands his feet

sorrow and love flammingled down the precious blood of christ more precious than silver or gold when you sense the preciousness of it you see the ocean of that love and you stand on the shores as it were and you hear, you think about it, or you, to the degree you see him giving himself away for you, sanctifying himself, to that degree you'll be able to give yourself away to him. It's as simple as that. When you see himself, him sanctifying himself, living for you, you'll be able to live for him. Right? To the degree you see what your sin cost him to that degree, you will be holy.

In the Old Testament, God's holiness is awesome, but in the New Testament, God, God's holiness in Jesus Christ, giving himself away. His holiness is gorgeous. It's gorgeous. So look at it until it makes you holy. Let's pray. Now, Father, we ask only that you'd make us holy as you are holy. I guess for us today, the idea of being holy sounds cramped, sounds stuffy,

doesn't sound like much fun. It's actually worse and better. than that. It's not just a matter of saying no to certain things and living by certain codes. It's giving ourselves away out of love, out of devotion. It's saying your wish is my command. Your sigh is my command. It's belonging to you because we see that you gave yourself away for us. You sanctified to yourself so that we might be sanctified. Lord, help us to live this sort of joyful life of self-giving because you joyfully gave yourself. away for us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and 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 and Life monthly partner. Your partnership connects people all over the world with a life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner. That website again is gospelandlife.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 2014. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.