Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Paradise Lost

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

The Bible is a single story telling us what is wrong with the human race, what God is going to do about it, and how it’s all going to turn out.  Genesis 3 and 4 give us answers to what’s wrong with the human race and why the human race is so prone to selfishness, violence, wars, atrocity, and corruption all the time.  Let’s look at what the Bible has to say about sin. We learn four things: 1) the heart of sin, 2) the breadth of sin, 3) the depth of sin, and 4) the end of sin. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 18, 2009. Series: Bible: The Whole Story - Creation and Fall. Scripture: Genesis 3:8-24. 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.

The Bible presents us with a grand narrative of God's redemptive work in the world. But for many of us, parts of the Bible can seem confusing, disjointed, or even irrelevant. Today Tim Keller is teaching on the big story of the Bible, examining how each part fits together to reveal the character of God and his purposes for us. After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelonlife.com

and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr. Keller as well as other valuable gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelonlife.com. Our scripture reading tonight comes from the book of Genesis, chapter three, verses eight through 24. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God

as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, where are you? He answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man said,

The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. To the woman, he said, I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing. With pain, you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. To Adam, he said, because you listen to your wife and ate from the tree

about which I commanded you, you must not eat of it, cursed as the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. For dust you are, and too dust you will return. Adam named his wife Eve because she would become

the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, the man has now become one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had

been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden, cherubim, and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. This is the word of the Lord. We're looking at what the Bible says about sin. See, the Bible is not a disconnected set of stories, each of which just has a little moral about how to live life. Primarily, the Bible is a single story telling us what is wrong with the human race, what God is going to do about it, and how history is going to end, how it's going to turn out. See, it's a single story. And we're looking at Genesis 3 and 4 that tell us,

give us answers to what's wrong with the human race. Why the human race is so prone to selfishness and violence, war, atrocity, corruption, all the time? C.E.M. Joed was a British philosopher, he was an atheist, he was member of the brain trust, lived in the early 20th century, mid 20th century. And he wasn't atheist, but came back to faith later in life. And at the very end of life wrote a book called The Recovery of Belief.

And in it, he at the very end of life wrote a book called The Recovery of Belief. And in it he said this very fascinating thing. He said, it was because we rejected the doctrine of original sin that we on the left were always being disillusioned by the behavior of both the people and the nations and politicians and by the recurrent fact of war. Did you hear that? He says, he thought most of the problems were the capitalist, not the common people, because he had rejected the doctrine of original sin.

He bought into what Rousseau said, what Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, what almost all the European intellectuals in the 19th century said. And that is that though human beings have got their problems, the problems are not hardwired into us, their lack of education, you know, we can make the changes. And he realized that because near the end of his life, because he didn't believe in the doctrine of original sin, he didn't believe what the Bible said,

about the universality and the depth of sin and every human heart, he basically bases whole life on a different view of human nature. He set in motion social policies that didn't work. Basically because he didn't have the Bible's understanding of human nature, he wasn't able to navigate life as it was, and that's something. So let's see what the Bible has to say. Again, last week, this week, in the next couple weeks, as we look at Genesis 3 and 4 about sin,

and we learned four things here. The hardest sin, the breadth of sin, the depth is sin, and the end of sin. The heart, the breath, the depth, the end. The heart. What is sin? Again, what's the definition of sin? Now the reason why you may find out that every week I give you a different definition is because like the concept of God, the concept of sin is so profound that you can't stick it into one single nutshell definition. Last week we said in terms of a vertical perspective, sin is putting yourself in the place of God. It's taking upon yourself prerogatives and rights that only God has, we talked about that

last week. But today I'd like to give you a more horizontal perspective. And you see it right away. As soon as Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit and now sin has come into their lives and we're seeing the results of this. Immediately we see what I'd like to show you here. Look, when God says here in verse 11, did you eat the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?

And the man said the woman did it. And just to show you, by the way, that the man is not more sinful than the woman when God turns to the woman and said, what have you got to say for yourself? She says, the serpent did it. And we'll get back to that, the equality here. But here's the point. When Adam says, she made me do it. Send her to hell.

Give me another wife, basically. Okay? I mean, you're talking to the holy God of the universe. Send her to hell. Give me another wife, basically. Okay? I mean, you're talking to the holy God of the universe. What have you got to say for yourself? Take her. And here we see the essence of sin in a horizontal perspective. Sin is a willingness to throw anybody else under the bus to justify yourself.

Sin is justifying yourself at the expense of other people, to feel superior to other people. In order to have a self image, I have to feel superior to other people, I have to expose other people, I have to exploit other people. Sin is saying, your life to enhance mine, not my life to enhance yours. See, that's servanhood. Your life to enhance mine, I will suck you dry, I will drain you dry.

I will disadvantage you so that I can feel good about myself so I can justify myself so I can have the significant security I want. Philip Roth wrote a novel called The Human Stain and that's his metaphor for evil. And the novel is actually about a man who starts to do very well in life, and everybody feels they have to bring him down, they have to find something wrong with him, they have to ruin his career. And Philip Roth has one of his characters talk about what he calls

the human stain, which is this sense, this pronest to evil in the heart, which is in a sense deeper than behavioral actions. See, this need to pull people down, this need to justify yourself at the expense of other people, to feel better than other people. I'm good because you're bad. See, I'm competent because you're incompetent. And at one point, one of his characters says this. She says, she calls this, the human stain in the heart. And she says, it's in everyone, indwelling,

inherent, defining. The stain that precedes your acts of disobedience, it encompasses disobedience and perplexes all explanation and understanding. It's why all talk of cleansing your heart is a joke. The fantasy of purity is appalling for what is the quest to purify but more impurity. The stain is inescapable. What does he mean by that? She says, if you actually try to purify yourself, that just brings more impurity.

Here's why. The stain is self-righteousness. The stain is, I just define myself by pulling you down. If I make myself feel superior to you, better than you. See? And if that's the case, then to try to purify yourself from the stain only makes you what? More stained. Because you say, oh, look, I'm pure.

And you're not. Or, C.S. Lewis has a little satirical piece called Scrutape proposes a toast. He wrote that. And Scrutape, in his satirical piece, is a devil, a senior devil. This is a satirical fictional piece here, by the way. A senior devil who is at a, basically, he's at a dinner for a college of junior devils who are getting ready to go out there and tempt a human race and make life horrible. And so Scruté suggests a particular method for making people's lives miserable and making the world a horrible place. And what he suggests is that there's a particular feeling that human beings have.

And what you want to do is you want to turn the gas up on that feeling. At all, whatever else you do, make sure that you enhance this feeling. Because this is the feeling that will really ruin their lives. And then Stuart Tablet says, the feeling I'm talking about is that which prompts a person to say, I'm as good as you. So that's the essence of sin. That's the essence of hell operates. That's what made the devil a devil.

I'm as good as you. So Satan started saying that about God. It was all downhill for the universe. He says, anyone who says, I'm as good as you, does not believe it. No one says I'm as good as you if you believe it. You wouldn't say it if you did. St. Bernard never says to the toy dog, I'm as good as you.

I'm as good as you as a useful means for the destruction of whole societies. But it has a far deeper value as a state of mind, which necessarily excluding humility, charity, contentment, and all the pleasures of gratitude or admiration turns a human being away from every road which might finally lead him to heaven. The impulse that makes you say,

I'm as good as you, I don't like you getting ahead of me. The impulse that says, I'm better than you. That's how I know I'm okay. Is sin. And it's really at the root of all, everything from murder, to racism, to all of our conflicts. This is another view into the heart of sin. That's the first thing we learn here.

The second thing we learn, and this is really important. I've already alluded to it. The second thing we learn in the narrative, in the account, is the breadth of sin. What the man does, so does the woman. The man and the woman are both equally ashamed, both equally filled with blame shifting and doing the same behavior. Both equally banished. There's no difference. One is not more sinful than the other. And this is crucial. The Christian Doctrine of Original Sin is that we are hard-wired for selfishness and cruelty. It's not just a problem of we have bad examples or bad environment and we can, we're hard-wired for it. But secondly, the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin is that we're all hard-wired for it. All of us across the cultures, across the races, across the classes, across the

genders, everybody. Oh, you have no, do you not, let me show you, let me show you how important that is. Remember what Joe said, he said, we on the left, because we denied the doctor of original sin, thought that the problems in life were basically located, what's really wrong with where it was located, in the capitalist, located in the elites, not in the common people. But what life showed him that, no, sin is everywhere, and he realized that the mistake that he made as a member of the left was because he didn't believe in the Doctrine of Original

Sin, he demonized a certain group of people. He's demonized a certain set of folks and saw that is where the problem is, but the doctrine of original sin is it's in all of us equally. Now on the other hand, I don't want you to think that I'm picking on people from the left because people from the left. Because people from the left would say, oh, it's the elites. It's not the common people. It's not the people.

There are other ways to look at it. What about conservative people? Or what about people who are just simply are traditional and feel like what's really wrong with the people is the Hoy Poloy, it's the unwashed masses. It's the common people. It's the Unwashed Mashes. It's the common people. There's a very famous letter that has come down to us

from the Duchess of Buckingham, the Countess of Huntington, who had become converted to evangelical religion under the preaching of George Woodfield in the 18th century in Britain. Try to evangelize her aristocratic colleagues. She would send sermons by George Woodfield to her friends. She would invite them to come to hear him preach.

And one of her aristocratic peers, the Duchess of Buckingham, having been invited by the Countess to come and here George Whitfield sent her an icy note, declining, and this is what she said. She says, I thank your leadership, but the doctrines are most repulsive and strongly tinkured with impertinence and disrespect toward their superiors in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the

common wretches that crawl upon the earth. And it is highly offensive and insulting, so I cannot but wonder that your leadership should relish any sentiment so much at variance with high rank and good breeding. She's right. The doctrine of original sin levels people. The doctrine of original sin makes it impossible for people from the left to say, it's those elites up there, not us common people, and it makes it impossible for the people from the left to say, it's those elites up there, not us common people, and it makes it impossible for the people from the right

to say, it's you unwashed masses or it's you criminal element or something like that. You know, not us virtuous people that have good breeding. She was right, you know why? The doctrine of original sin creates a radical democracy of sinners. If you believe in original sin, nobody's better than anybody else.

You cannot look down your nose at a criminal or a drug dealer and say, oh, there's a sinner not me because the doctor of original sin says the same seeds of those kind of behaviors in your heart and maybe it didn't sprout because you weren't in the very same environment as that person out there. But the fact of the matter is, you're no better. We're all sinners. We're all need grace. And maybe it didn't sprout because you weren't in the very same environment as that person out there. But the fact of the matter is, you're no better. We're all sinners. We're all need grace.

You know, the Duchess of Bucking was right. She says, this levels everybody to say that I have as hard as sinful as the common wrenches that crawl the earth, but that's exactly what the Bible teaches. It destroys self-righteousness. And that's the reason why G.K. Chesterton actually says this is a great little line. He says Christianity preaches an unattractive idea, original sin. But when we wait for the results of the doctrine of original sin, we find they are pathos and brotherhood and a thunder of laughter and pity for only with original sin can we at once pity

the beggar and distrust the king. What do you see mean by brotherhood? What it means is it's possible for a society that claims to be Christian to be racist, but if it is, it's racist in spite of the doctrine of original sin, not because of it, because it's not grasping what the doctrine says. And what the doctrine says is, it's a radical democracy. We're all brothers and sisters in sin. We're all under judgment. We all have no hope except for the grace of God. And that's the reason why, if you really

grasp the doctrine of original sin, it creates a solidarity between you and every single person, even the most wretched people you see on the streets of New York City. When that comes into your heart, no longer do you say, oh, who are these people? You are these people. You know, I read a,

I read about a discussion that happened here in New York City recently about the Bernie made-off Ponzi scheme, which is still beggars the imagination, how could it have happened? And they were getting together and they were talking, well, what does this mean? And one person had the audacity to say, look, let's not call this sin.

Let's not say there was anything wrong. This is the way people are. People are gonna do this. People are gonna cheat. They're gonna lie. They're gonna do this. And this is why we need government regulation. The only hope is government regulation.

But government is people. Isn't that a solid and greenest people, but government is people. Oh, that's terrible. You guys don't know what solid and green is. You need to go back, unless you're a geek, a real movie geek, you need to go and Google solid and green and then you'll know, but has nothing to do

with the sermon at all. At all. So just please don't even think about it for the rest of the sermon or you're gonna hurt yourself. Okay, government is people. We are all the same. And that is the Brett the Sin. Thirdly, we learn not only about the heart of sin

and the Brett the Sin, but thirdly, we learn something about the depth of sin. Looking for a new way to deepen your faith and understanding of Christianity this summer? If you are, we'd like you to consider the new city catechism devotional. Based on the historic catechisms of the Christian Church, this devotional offers 52 weeks of thought-provoking questions and answers that explore the foundational beliefs of the faith. Each week includes a scripture passage, a prayer, and a brief meditation that will challenge and inspire you. Commentaries are written by contemporary pastors such as John Piper, Timothy Keller, and Kevin DeYoung, as well as historical figures such as Augustine,

John Calvin, and Martin Luther. The new City Catechism Debotional is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world. So request your copy today at GospelandLife.com slashgive. That's GospelandLife.com slashgive. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Here's what we made. Human beings are radically relational. That's what we mean. Human beings are radically relational.

That's what we're made for. Remember, we've seen this as we've gone through Genesis 1 and 2. We're in the image of God. That means we're built to reflect or to relate to God. We saw that we're built to be lonely without other human beings. We're relational beings. We live for relationships. And what we see in these verses right here

is every single relationship being destroyed by sin. Another way to put it is, sin is a malignant tumor, eating away at our variability to conduct any relationship. Sin destroys a relationship with God, a relationship with ourselves, a relationship with others, story as a relationship with God, a relationship with ourselves, a relationship with others, and even our relationship with nature and the

world around us. Look carefully quickly. First of all, we see in these verses, it destroys our relationship with God. In verse 8, we're told that God comes walking into the garden, in the cool of the day. Now, you know, when the Bible says David walked with Jonathan

or Abraham walked with Lot or something like that, of course it means they literally walked, but it means more than that. The word walking in Hebrew was an idiom that meant friendship, relationship. And so the fact that God walked with Adam and even the cool of the day meant that he was coming in, wanting friendship, seeking relationship, and we hid.

Sin is running from God who wants a relationship with us. Well, why don't we want a relationship with him? The answer is, we said already, sin now means our life is about power, about getting power over other people. About saying, well, I'll have a relationship with you as long as it doesn't get in the way of my needs, as long as it doesn't get in the way of, you know, my happiness and my fulfillment. It's always, you're alive to enhance me. You know, we're happy to have relationships, as long as they enhance you, as long as they build you up, as long as they make you feel good, well, we don't like his servanthood.

We like consumer relationships, as long as the as the cost benefit analysis is working well and you know, I'm getting as much out of you or more than you're getting out of me fine. We don't like covenant where you are committed to someone to serve somebody whether or not you're getting anything out of it or not. That's, we hate that covenant goes against the grain of the heart. Because sin is now all about keeping control and having power and there's no way for a finite being to walk with an infinite being without losing control. And so we won't have it.

And yes, it's true that most people in the world say they believe in God and they pray. But most people in the world do not actually have in their minds the real God, because most people have a God that they can pray to when they want to, and it doesn't really demand loss the control of your life. It doesn't really demand that you change your life. Haven't you seen that? Isn't that true of a lot of us? In which case, we're actually running from God and hiding from ourselves, the fact we're running from God,

by essentially believing in a God that doesn't holy, isn't infinite, isn't sovereign. So first, our relationship with God has been destroyed, and as a result, our relationship with ourselves is destroyed. How do we see that? When Adam says, the reason I hid from you, I was ashamed because I was naked. Now, in the Bible, just like walking is an idiom for something bigger than just walking. So nakedness is an idiom for something bigger than just being ashamed

of being naked. Nakedness is a sense of guilt, that there's something wrong with me. It's a sense of shame that I need to prove myself, I need to cover and keep people from seeing who I am because they'll reject me. Nakedness is a psychological dislocation, a lack of ease with who you are. And when our relationship with God was severed,

our relationship with ourself is severed. And that is to say, we really don't want to admit what's wrong with us. We really don't want to admit the worst about ourselves. See, the one thing that we don't want to believe is that we're utterly dependent on God. We want to think we need God occasionally, or maybe not at all.

But our heart, in our heart of hearts, we know we're utterly dependent on God, and therefore we are in denial about who we really are. And that's where the shame comes, and that where the guilt comes from, and that's where this lack of ease with really being able to admit who we are comes from. So our relationship with God is destroyed,

so our relationship with ourselves is destroyed. Thirdly, our relationship with each other is destroyed. We already saw some of that. When the man starts to throw the wife under the bus, just to save his neck. And even the making of fig leaves in verse seven, though we didn't print it here, but it was last week printed in Genesis 3.7.

As soon as sin came into their hearts, they covered up from each other. They sewed fig leaves to cover up their nakedness, but they were covering up their nakedness from who, at that point. God wasn't even around from each other. We cannot really bear to have other people really know who we are.

We have to control what other people see about us because we have to maintain power and control. And because our relationships are now power relationships, not love and service relationships, our relationships with each other, our messed up individually. We have superficial relationships, exploitive relationships, but corporately, races don't get along with each other. The genders don't get along with each other. The races don't get along with each other because our relations with God are messed up and our relationships with ourselves are messed up so our relationships in the world are messed up. But lastly, the fourth thing that's destroyed here

is even our relationship with nature and with the world, the physical environment. Because verse 17 says now, instead of just going out there and telling the ground and all outcomes, nothing but, I guess, flowers and food. Now thorns and thistles will come up. The dust is no longer your friend. There is a lack of mesh with the physical environment. There is a clash with the physical environment. It's no longer your friend.

Now we age. Now we get sick. Now there's natural disasters friend. Now we age. Now we get sick. Now there's natural disasters. And now we die. We came from dust, but what's going to happen at the end? Irma Bombak, who used to write humor columns many years ago, generally for women in newspapers. At one point she says, you know my life is dominated by dirt.

At this end of the house, there's dirt, you know, there's dirt in the bathroom, dirt in the plates, in the kitchen, dirt in the rug. And so I work to get rid of the dirt and by the time I get to the other end of the house, the first end of the house is dirty again. It never ends and in the end, after all these years of struggling against dirt, struggling against dirt, what do I get? Six feet of dirt. Which is almost exactly what God says in Genesis 3, 17 to 20. In the end of the dust winds, every one of our relationships has been decimated by sin. Now, what's God going to do about it? You know, even though the Bible has all kinds of authors, I mean every one of the books has got a different author, and yet the Holy Spirit is the author

behind the author, and therefore the Bible is in a sense a single book with a single author, and he, the Holy Spirit, is an incredibly good storyteller. Because what we have here in the midst of this incredible disaster is the most enigmatic and intriguing foreshadowing. incredible disaster is the most enigmatic intriguing foreshadowing. What is the foreshadowing? Of what God's gonna do about it in the future? Well, what are we gonna see? Okay, here's the first part.

First, look at the mercy of God's heart. He comes in and he doesn't smite them, but he says, where are you? What have you done? Have you done what I asked you not to do? What does God want with those questions? God could not be seeking truth and illumination for himself. He knows the answer.

So the only reason God would be asking questions is if he's trying to give truth and illumination to them. He's treating them as adults. He's not treating them as objects. He's not treating them as animals or even as children. He's doing what people in AA call an intervention. He is trying to get them to tell him what he knows, what they should know. Admit what you've done.

Say who you are. Own it. Be it or take responsibility. It's fascinating. He's counseling them. He's counseling them. He's seeking them in love, asking the questions instead of just telling them what they've done wrong. Isn't that something? And notice really carefully, by the way, whereas he asks questions to add many, he doesn't ask any

questions to the serpent to Satan. You know what that means? God loves the sinner but hates the sin. You know what that means? God loves the sinner, but hates the sin. God holds out hope for evil-doers, but He will not compromise with evil. Very interesting. So first of all, we see that God has got this distinction. He makes a distinction between the evil-doers and the evil, and He seeks in love to change people's hearts. That's the first thing we see, the mercy of his heart.

Secondly, we see the mercy of his hand. The second thing he does is he makes garments for them. Isn't that something? See, they had sewed fig leaves all over themselves. But that's not, see, now, when God makes garments for them, they need garments psychologically for privacy. Now, them, they need garments psychologically for privacy. Now physically they need garments because we have a hostile environment and they need better things than fig leaves.

And he makes garments out of animal skins and many people over the years have noticed that this seems to be God's hint, a pointer toward the sacrificial system, toward the atoning sacrifices of the temple and tabernacle, and eventually the atoning sacrifice of Jesus himself. And therefore, when God clothes Adam and Eve, you know what he's saying? He says, someday I'm going to have to give salvation, but my salvation is holistic. You need forgiveness. You also need shelter from the stormy blast. And therefore human Christians, human beings who seek to spread God's salvation out in the world have got to deal with all of the results of sin.

Physical and spiritual and psychological, right? And social. And that's the reason why we don't just go out in the world to help people get their sins forgiven and connect to God, but we also feed and clothe. And Derek Kiddner in his commentary on Genesis on this passage says, the coats of skins are four runners of the welfare, both spiritual and physical, which man's sin makes necessary and therefore social action, social justice, could not have had an earlier or more exalted inauguration. Interesting. So we see the holistic nature of God's hand and we see the mercy of God's heart.

But what is He going to do? He says in verse 15, it's this is the enigmatic foreshadowing. He looks at the serpent and he says, because you have done this, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between you're offspring and hers, he will crush your head and you will strike his heel. There's a lot to be said here, but here's what we have to say. You know what the picture is?

Imagine a group of people, a family, and into the midst of them come slithering as fast and you know how fast they can come, a snake, a venomous snake, a poisonous snake, come and write at them. And one man goes after the snake and he begins to stamp on it, he begins to stamp on it. And finally he crushes the head and saves the family. But only after in the process, the snake bites him, the poison goes into him and he dies. That's the picture. And what God is saying is, and this is amazing, if you realize that this snake is not just a snake,

but is Satan, represents evil, God is saying one of the descendants of Adam and Eve, the seed of the woman, one of the descendants of the human being, is going to destroy sin and death itself, but get a fatal woman in the process. Someone is going to come, a human being is going to come, and he's going to destroy sin and death, and in the process, lose his life. I wonder who that could be.

You see, the first Adam should have done something like that. Not just stood there and let the serpent destroy his family. The first Adam should have jumped on the snake or snamped on the snake or whatever, but the second Adam will. It's Jesus Christ. And keep this in mind. In Romans 4, Paul says, in Christ, your sins are covered.

In Romans 4, Paul says, blessed is the one who sin is covered. Blessed is the one to whom God does not impute sin. Now, we don't like cover-up, do we? Cover-up, watergate, that's not good. No, cover-up when you're actually just sweeping things under the rug, it's not good. That's not good. No cover up when you're actually just sweeping things under the rug It's not good. That's not what's happening here What we're being told is that Jesus Christ is gonna deal with your sin when he goes to the cross He's gonna deal with your sin so that your sins can be covered hardened forgiven How? Look at the last verse When God sends Adam and Eve out of the garden. There's a sword there and

Nobody can get back into the presence of And nobody can get back into the presence of God. Nobody can get back into the garden. Nobody can get back into paradise. Nobody can get into heaven unless you go into the sword. What's the sword I present? The wages of sin, the justice of God, the wages of sin is death. Nobody can get back into paradise unless they go into the sword. And the Bible says in Isaiah that when the Messiah comes, the suffering servant, he will

be cut off from the land of the living. Jesus Christ went under the sword. He opened a new and living way back into the presence of God. He went first and the sword slew him. He's covered our sins. And when I believe, so here's what it means to be a Christian. What it means to be a Christian is not to say, I'm going to try real hard to live a good life. To be a Christian means to say, Father, cover my sin because of what Jesus Christ has done. Objectively cover it by pardoning my sin, but subjectively deal with the sin in my heart.

I don't feel loved. I don't live loved. I'm trying to prove myself. I'm trying to get control. Let the love of what Jesus Christ did for me so flood my heart by the Holy Spirit that I can start to serve people. You know what? A lot of people in New York, there's one thing I've seen over the years.

It's how hard everybody's working. Everybody's working so hard to achieve. And a lot of people are really upset. I didn't get into that graduate school. It's not the top tier. I'm not there. I didn't make much money. I didn't achieve.

I'm gaining weight. Nobody wants to go out with me. And you're really upset because you're looking for beauty and you're looking to achievement, you're looking to accreditation and credentials. You know what these things are? They're fig leaves. They're fig leaves. They're ways that you're trying to deal with the nakedness,

you're trying to deal with a sense that there's something wrong with me. I don't quite know what it is. Let Jesus Christ clothe you with His love. Accept what He has done, ask God to receive you because of what Jesus Christ has done, and ask the Holy Spirit

to make real to your heart what He has done for you. And that will begin to cover not only your sin objectively, so God accepts you and you can go to heaven because of what Jesus has done, but subjectively it'll start to heal your heart of sin, the canker, the cancer.

Then, it is destroying all your relationships because you're so nervous and you're so ashamed and you're trying to prove yourself and you're so needy. And when the love of God comes in there, it changes everything. Ask God to cover you with the righteousness of Christ now, so that someday you can be utterly covered with the very glory of God. Let's pray. Our Father, we are so grateful that it's possible for us to know that this horrible spiritual cancer sin

has already been dealt with and is eventually going to be dealt with completely and it's going to be over. Until then, we ask that you would help us to receive your salvation, your grace into our lives in such a way that we can begin to more and more die on the sin and live and live more and more under righteousness and become formed

the image of your Son and whose name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. We pray you weren't encouraged by it. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching from Dr. Keller. We pray you weren't encouraged by it. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 2008 and 2009.

The sermons and talks you hear on the gospel and life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.