Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Patience

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

If you’ve ever read a translation like the King James Version, you know when you get to the word “patience,” the older English translation will use the word “longsuffering.” This is because the Greek word for patience literally means to suffer a long time, which doesn’t sound very promising.  What it’s saying is that patience is the trait by which you are able to bear up under difficulty without giving up or giving in to bitterness. There are two kinds of patience: there’s patience under difficult circumstances and there’s patience with people. And Romans 12 is a remarkable passage about how to be patient and gracious to people who are opposing you.  This passage gives us 1) a principle of showing patience, 2) some ideas on how to practice it, and 3) how to get the power to do it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 2, 2010. Series: The Real Signs of the Spirit. Scripture: Romans 12:9-21. 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. Many of us try to change through sheer willpower, conquering bad habits or forcing better behavior, only to find ourselves snapping back to old patterns. In today's message, Tim Keller is exploring the fruit of the spirit, showing how real transformation isn't about moral restraint, but a heart that through Christ is changed from the inside out. The scripture reading comes from Romans chapter 12, verses 10 through 21. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient and affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people. who are in need, practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice.

Mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceded. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written. It is mine to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is God's word. In Galatians chapter 5, verse 22, the fruit of the spirit are listed. These are the marks of a supernaturally changed heart. Love, joy, peace, patience, and so forth. And each week we're looking at one of these traits so that we can experience more of a supernaturally changed heart ourselves.

And tonight we're going to look at the theme of patience. Now, if you have ever read an old English translation like the King James Version, you'll know that when you get to in the lists like Galatians 522, it goes love, joy, peace, patience. But in the older English translations, it'll say, long suffering. And the reason why the older English translation said that was because the Greek word for patience literally means to suffer a long time, which doesn't sound very promising.

But what it's saying is, and this is the biblical idea of patience, patience is that trait by which you are able to bear up under difficulty without giving up or giving into bitterness. That patience is bearing up under difficult circumstances without giving up or giving into bitterness. And therefore, there's two kinds of patience. There's the patience under difficult circumstances, which we looked at last week, really, when we talked about peace in suffering. But the other kind of patience is patience and grace before difficult people, difficult relationships.

patience with people and that's what this text this this passage that you just heard read to you is a remarkable passage in which it talks about how to be patient and gracious to people who are opposing you who are opposing you it's going to give us a principle some ideas on how to practice it patience and grace before difficult people and then lastly it'll tell us something about the power how to get the power to do it There's the principle, there's the practice, and then there's the power for showing patience and grace before people who are opposing you. So let's take a look at the principle first. And there's a spectrum of people that we're talking about here.

At one end of the spectrum are people who just don't really like you. They don't wrong you. You know, they don't, they just don't like you, they don't work with you, they kind of work against you. They might be people at, well, it could be people at work or in your organization or whatever. These are people who just don't really work with you or help you. And then in the middle of the spectrum, you've got people who have wronged you. They've hurt you. They've done an injustice to you.

They've lied to you. They've cheated you in some way. And at the other end of the spectrum, the far end of the spectrum, are persecutors. And persecutors are people who haven't just wronged you. They have it in for you. They want to lower your quality of life. They want to see you harmed. And so all along the spectrum from people who just, you know, work against you and are irritating to you and don't like you to people who persecute you,

what's our response supposed to be? You know, I tell you what the response is. The default mode of the heart, it's involuntary. When people wrong you, you retaliate. When people hurt you, you just retaliate. You don't sit and say, I think I'll retaliate. It just happens. I mean, if you want to know what the human heart looks like,

Sigmund Freud said, one must forgive one's enemies, preferably after they've been hanged, which is another way of saying, of course I will forgive them. Once I've killed them, then I'll forgive them. And that is the way the human heart works, but that's not what the principle is it's laid down here.

What is the principle? It's in verse 17 and 21, and it's startling. It's amazing. At this point, by the way, Christianity diverges from every other religion, every other ethical system. In fact, Christianity, there's no culture or society that believes this. Whenever Christianity shows up in a society or culture, everybody thinks they're crazy. And here's what the principle is. Verse 17, do not repay anyone evil for evil. And then verse 21, do not. be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Now you put those together. Here's what that's saying. The word overcome is a military word. It means to overpower. It means to defeat. And this is

what it's saying. If when someone harms you, hurts you, you just hurt them back. When someone insults you, reviles you, you revile them back. When they hurt you and you hurt them back, you have been defeated by the evil. You've lost. you've been overpowered by it. You've become part of the problem. You've become evil yourself. Maybe that person who wronged you and was trying to hurt you wasn't maybe aiming to hurt you in this way, but the point is you have just given the perpetrator exactly what he or she wanted. If you repay evil for evil, you have been overcome by the evil. The only way to defeat evil is to overcome evil with good. What's that mean? Here's what it means. If someone wrongs you,

if you do not respond with forgiveness, with kind and gracious, you know, answers, and by willing their good, not willing their harm, but willing their good. If you don't forgive them,

do kind and gracious responses, and will they're good, you have been overcome by evil. You've been defeated. You're part of the problem. You've become evil yourself. How? Now, by the way, for a minute, we're going to get to this in a second.

What does it mean to will the other persons... See, to repay evil for evil means I want to see them hurt. I want them to suffer like I've suffered. I want to bring them down. And there's really two ways to repay evil for evil. One is to go out there and bring about the painful situation yourself. And the other is to sit and not do anything, but root against them, hope for, wish for that bad situation and that condition. And whenever you see

them unhappy, you go, yes. See? And now that's, you're still repaying evil for evil. You're still willing the evil. You're so wishing for it. You're either doing the retaliation or you're wishing you could retaliate. And so that's repaying evil for evil. And if you do that, you've been overcome by the evil. You've been defeated. How so? I'll give you a quick three. One is, if you stay angry, if you stay in a retaliation mode, or even don't retaliate, but you just stay angry, stay bitter towards someone. First of all, it distorts and poisons all of your relationships. You may think, generally what happens, people who stay angry at somebody feel like this is, they feel like they're accomplishing something. But actually, all they're doing is they're

ruining themselves. For example, let's just say you're a man, and a woman has hurt you, and you stay angry at that woman, that's going to distort and affect all of your other relationships with women, and vice versa, of course. Or whether a person of another race or another class or another nationality. Or just people. People wrong you. You hate them. You stop trusting people. It poisons your relationships.

It distorts you. Don't think it doesn't. secondly it doesn't just harm your relationships it harms you because the worst thing that can happen to you is to be pushed away from what the gospel wants for you see the gospel understands that the worst thing practically the problem of the world is self-centeredness and self-righteousness self-righteousness says i'm better than other people self-centeredness says i'm more important than anybody else. Me first, me first. Self-righteousness is, I'm better than these people or these people. Where do you think war comes from? Where do you think all our problems come from? That's what it comes

from. And the whole point of the gospel is to destroy your self-righteousness. Destroy this idea that you're better than other people. It tells you you're a sinner saved by grace. But if you stay angry at somebody, you are taking the self-righteousness of your heart and you're ramping it up because when you get angry at somebody, you nurse this idea that you're, you're you have been so hurt. You're the noble person that's been hurt. And what it's doing is it's turning you into a self-centered, self-pitying, self-absorbed person capable of more cruelty. Don't you see? The evil's winning. You know, I don't have a thyroid. And the reason, you know, if you're a young person and you have your thyroid out, it leaves a scar. If you're an old man and you have your thyroid

out, it's just another wrinkle. So I can wear this, see. But if you look carefully, you'll see, I have no thyroid, which means I have to take pills that replace the thyroid hormone. I've got to take pills for it to replace that because I don't have a thyroid gland. But I learned years ago that if I took calcium, or if I even drank calcium-fortified orange juice or milk, when I was taking the pills, the calcium actually destroyed the ability of my body to absorb the thyroid. if you've taken your gospel pill that's supposed to take away

your self-centered and self-righteousness but you maintain a grudge you're getting nothing out of your gospel pill do you hear that and not only does retaliation and bitterness hurt your relationships and hurt your heart but of course it also destroys

the person that has perpetrated if a person wrongs you you and you pay them back, all you're doing is reinforcing them in their wrongness. You're reinforcing their behavior. You're making them think, you're not making them say, you know, if someone harms you and then you just pound them, do they say, I've seen the error of my ways? No. They said, I was right to do it. And of course, not only do you just create this cycle of insult and insult back and harming and harming back, but you also alienate their friends, and though evil is winning.

If you don't forgive, if you don't respond with graciousness and kindness, if you don't respond by willing the good of that person, evil wins. The perpetrator actually wins. Maybe not the way he thought. You become part of the problem of the world. So how can we do this? By the way, that principle that you can only overcome evil with good,

Let's not jump to, well, what do you do with, you know, let's not talk about nations, all right? You know, what does China do? What does America do? What does Europe do if you're attacked? I can only preach one sermon at a time, all right? And this is about you. But I want you to know that this idea that you can only ever come evil with good is a profoundly biblical theme. And actually, if anyone's ever seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies or read the Lord of the Rings book, you know, the story Lord of the Rings, you know what's mainly about? it's about the idea that there's this ring and whoever wears the ring can rule the world and it was made by an evil lord but if you use the ring against the evil lord you'll become an evil lord yourself and so the only way to kill the evil lord and destroy the evil lord is not with

power but with weakness and sacrifice it's a profoundly biblical theme do you not see and it's the reason why when jesus christ came he didn't come to bring judgment he comes he come to bear judgment. So that's the principle, number one. Number two, practice. There's actually a number of very, very practical ways to go about this. If you say, all right, so someone wrongs me. Now what am I supposed to do?

How do I overcome evil with good? Let me give you five practical ideas from the text. Number one, bless. Verse 14, bless those who persecute you. And the word bless probably means pray for, pray God's blessing down. even if that's not what it means right here, we know that Jesus says in Matthew 5, pray for those who persecute you. And remember, this is this end of the spectrum, persecute. Think about that. Pray for those who persecute you. Remember we said there's the people who

like you, the people who wrong you, the persecutors? Now, this is so practical. You really can't hate somebody you're praying for. You just can't pray for them and hate them at the same time. Even if you say, oh, Lord, open the eyes of those idiots, I just want you to know you just turned a corner. You're praying for them. You're willing they're good. Prayer makes you do it. It's a discipline, number one. Number two, besides praying, you should always forgive.

It's what it says. What it says, do not repay anyone. Do not take revenge, my friends. Do not take revenge. That means don't take revenge outside in your life. and don't take revenge inside in your heart. I've heard a lot of people who say, I've forgiven them,

but I won't forget. And usually what that means, what that means is I'm not trying to harm them out there. I'm not taking revenge out there, but I'm taking revenge inside. You know, I don't think most New Yorkers who have nurse grudges realize that they're actually practicing voodoo.

It's a kind of psychological voodoo. In other words, you're putting little pins in a little doll in your heart, hoping that somehow it'll hurt them. You're sitting there and rooting against them. That will poison you. It'll do all the things we said, you're not, so what do you do? How do you forgive? Forgiveness is granted before it's felt. I've had an awful lot of people over the years saying, I can't forgive them. I'm angry at them. I said, no, you're angry at them because you won't forgive them. What does that mean? What it means is you just essentially refrain. You refrain from sticking pins in

them. You refrain from replaying your tapes, thinking about all the stuff that they did. You refrain from trying to retaliate them outside, but also you refrain from trying to retaliate inside. And just you refrain from your revenge fantasies. You refrain from what you'd like to see happen to them. When your mind starts going there, you turn it away. You grant it long before you feel it, but you grant it. So first you bless them, pray for them. Secondly, you forgive them. Thirdly, you don't avoid them. The Psalms can profoundly shape the way you approach God. Even Jesus relied on the Psalms to face every situation, including death. In Tim and Kathy Keller's 365-day devotional, The Songs of Jesus, you'll find daily readings through the Psalms with fresh biblical insight.

If you don't have a regular devotional practice, this book is a wonderful way to start. And if you already spend time in study and prayer, then reading and praying through the Psalms can help you bring your deepest emotions and questions before God and discover a new level of intimacy with him. We'll send you Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the love of Jesus with more people. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. I love verse 18. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live with everyone. What that means is they may not want to see you. They may stay away from you. Fine.

You can't control that. See how realistic this is? But it does say, as far as it depends on you, try to stay in a relationship with them. I've had people say to me, oh, I've forgiven them and I'm praying for them, but I want nothing to do with them. And what you probably mean is I'm punishing them by withdrawing my friendship. That's still punishment. You say, I've forgiven them. I'm not retaliating. I just want anything to do with them. What do you think that is? that's retaliation. If they don't want to stay away from you, don't you stay away from them? Bless, so pray for them, forgive them, don't avoid them, but then fourth, will they're good?

What does that mean? It's here where it says, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he's thirsty, give him something to drink. Now, what would that mean? what it's got to mean is not necessarily that you have to literally feed them a meal what it means is in every way that you possibly can you seek to will their good you do what you can for their good uh you know i mean i've had people say to me all right if someone's wronged me do i have to trust them and i said well it depends on why

because, see, I'm going to show you how subtle this is. What if you have a friend who's an alcoholic or an addict, and you're trying to be a friend, you're loving them, you're trying to help them, you know, stay sober. Should you trust them? No. If you, not if you know that if you know anything about addiction, of course you don't trust them.

Of course you know how easy it is for the person to, you know, begin to lie and lapse and so forth. And therefore, if you love your friend, you probably will know. trust them all the way. But the lack of trust, the withholding of trust, is a way that you're helping them. But, you know, it's also possible to withhold trust from somebody as a way of hurting them. I'm just refusing to let them change, of just refusing to see that they might be growing. So when somebody says, do I have to trust them? The answer is, again, no. In fact, probably if someone's wrong, you shouldn't trust them. But here's the reason why. Because you

want to see them grow. And you don't want to make it easy for them to keep on sinning. And that brings me to the fifth point. Praying for them, forgiving them, not avoiding them, willing they're good. But fifth, opposing them humbly. Now, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a curveball, but this is Christianity. And it's just amazing. You see this little place where it says, if your enemy is hungry feed him if he's thirsty give him something to drink in doing this you will keep burning coals on his head well that's a sweet little image isn't it what the heck does that mean and if actually there is i have to tell you there's a fair amount of debate about it um a fair amount but it probably means this if you were in a besieged city

and there was an army out there you know trying to take your city and you're defending your city one of the ways you can defend your city is you go up to the city wall and you pour some kind of hot liquid or flaming liquid down on the people who are attacking. And you know, I guess they tell me that if your hair's on fire, it's hard to use your sword. It's difficult to aim very well when your hair's on fire. So when you pour burning coals on your head, what do you do? Their head, you're doing, they don't attack.

And so, look at the paradox here. If a person is wronging you, you do stop them. You do oppose them. You do stop the attack. In fact, you might even do it in a way that's pretty painful. And yet look at the context. If your enemy's hungry, feed them. If your enemy's thirsty, there is a mixture of opposition and yet love.

You're opposing them for their good. You're opposing them because it's their meat and drink. In fact, look up at verse 16. Live in harmony with one other. Don't be proud. Don't be conceded. In Proverbs 15 and in 25, there's two proverbs that I love. It says, a soft answer turns away wrath.

A harsh answer stirs up anger. Now, when you see that, the soft answer means a gentle, being gentle and gracious. When first you see that, that means, okay, you don't talk back. But then it says in Proverbs 2511, a gentle word can break a bone. And what it's saying is this, do you want to persuade people? Do you really want to change people? If a person is sinning, if a person is wronging you, you must oppose them. Why?

The most unloving thing possible is to just let a person go on sinning. It's very unloving. So you're trying to oppose them, you're trying to stop them, but you do it softly, you do it graciously, you do it humbly, you do it clearly showing that you're trying to feed them and give them drink, which means, here's how you know you're doing it right. If you go to a person who's wronged you and you tell them what they've done wrong in such a way that the person sits there and says, I don't like what this person is saying, I don't even think I agree with it, but it's very clear this person cares for me. Then there's a 50-50 chance the person might actually change, but I'll tell you something, if you go and you confront and you oppose them and you say, I'm seeking truth, I'm seeking justice, and it's very clear to that person that you're confronting, that you like the confrontation, you're enjoying it, you're putting them down, you're punishing them. You're not doing it for truth's sake.

You're not doing it for God's sake. You're doing it for your sake. You're not doing it for his sake or her sake. and therefore if you oppose without first forgiving and blessing and praying and loving and being humble if you oppose without all those other things you're never going to see evil you know uh recede you're never going to get that person to really see the air of his or her ways I know an awful lot of people who are very proud that they do use harsh language they are abrasive, they're always being very forthright, and as a result, because their words aren't

soft and gentle, nobody's ever persuaded. And they feel that that's fine. I have been valiant for the truth, which means they don't care about the truth. Because if they cared about the truth, they'd say it in a way that people could be persuaded, so that people were persuaded. Instead, they like the fact they offend people. They like the fact that people are upset with them. That makes them feel very noble. They pat themselves on the back. That is evil. That's the self-righteousness that repaying for evil for evil creates. No, no. You need to forgive the people before you even tell them what they're doing wrong. You need to pray for them. You need to not avoid them. You need to will their good. And when you go and talk to them about their fault,

you need to do it humbly, but you also have to do it. You can't make it easy for people to sin against you. That's the worst thing for them. And don't you see how weird this is? Almost everybody I know either resentfully confronts or excuses and just keeps their mouth shut oh don't make waves see loving keeping your mouth shut resenting keeping your mouth open but we're supposed to love and keep your mouth open and nobody does that which brings us to our last point where do you get the power for this where do you get the power for this? Well, now, at first sight, you might think you get the power from a strict exhortation. Because in verse 19, God says, literally, do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath. It is mine to revenge. I will repay, says the Lord. Do not take

revenge. Now, what is God saying? You know what he's saying? Get out of my chair. Only I have the right and the ability to sit in the judgment seat. In fact, look at that other, look at that where it says, leave room for God's wrath. Isn't that interesting? This is what we're saying. This is what God is saying to you. He's saying, you don't really know what this person deserves.

You don't know. You're sitting up there and you're imagining things that should happen to that person. You don't know. Look, listen, you know, I often say it this way. When somebody lies to you, and you get mad at them, what do you say? Liar. But if you lie to somebody, do you ever lie? Yes.

Well, why do you lie? Well, it's complicated. You see, the person who's wronged you is a one-dimensional cartoon character. He's just a liar. But when you lie, well, it's very complicated. And there's these extenuating circumstances. There's this and there's that. And my mother didn't love me.

And all kinds of things. But guess what? The reality is somewhere in the middle. see when you're mad at somebody god looks at you i think and says you don't not know what that person has gone through you don't know what their background is like you don't know what kind of day that person had you don't know what the relationship with their mother was you don't know these things only i know what that person deserves so get out of my chair but we can't end the sermon that way because that doesn't give us power it kind of humbles us

and says yeah i ought to get out of the chair but here's where you get the power power to overcome you with good. This is patience and grace in the face of opposition. It comes from the mercies of God. What's interesting, I couldn't do this. This is the problem with printing the text. Actually, chapter 12 starts up in the beginning where Paul says, I beseech you in view of the mercies of God. In view of the mercies of God, I beseech you. And then he gives all these, all the rest of the chapter are various exhortations on how to live. And therefore, everything he says here can only be done in view of the mercies of God. Now, he could have said because of the mercies of God, and that would have worked,

but he uses the word view. A view is a breathtaking experience. Panorama. And here's what Paul is saying. If you want to overcome evil with good, you have to have a panoramic, breathtaking view. of God's mercy to you. And it's interesting that the place where Jesus talks most about forgiveness, mercy is at the heart of how he helps us forgive.

Let me close by telling you the parable that he gives in Matthew 18. It's a very up-to-date parable. There was a king, and he had a servant, and the servant owed the king 10,000 talents, and commentators always freak out over that number because it really meant billions and trillions of dollars. It was a ridiculous sum. And it could not have meant, therefore, alone. No king could have possibly given any servant 10,000 talents. It must mean that the servant was a high official in the kingdom and that through mismanagement and malfeasance, he had lost an enormous amount of money. So the very economy and the very,

the very kingdom was in jeopardy. Sound familiar? Up to date. So the king comes to the servant and says, where's my money? Pay me. And the servant says, I can't forgive me. And the king, though he had every right to sit in judgment,

forgives him. Has mercy on him. So then that servant walks along and sees a second servant. And that second servant owes the first servant the forgiven servant a few dollars and the first servant says pay me and the second servant says I don't have it I don't have it forgive me and the first servant says no and throws them into prison and when the king hears this he grabs the first servant and he says shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you

didn't you see my mercy didn't you view my mercy says the king didn't you have an experience of my mercy? How can anyone who's experienced my mercy have a grudge, hold their fellow servant liable? And then, at the end of the parable, he throws the first servant into prison, and then Jesus ends with his chilling line, so will my Heavenly Father do to you if you do not forgive your brother from the heart. You know what that means? The only way you can be spiritually lost is if you refuse to believe you're a sinner who needs to be saved by grace. The only way you can be spiritually lost, you know, according to the Bible, is through pride, is to say, I don't need charity. You can only be lost by not believing, refusing

to believe that you are a sinner who needs to be saved strictly by grace. Well, then wait a minute, what is Jesus saying? Here's what he's saying. If you hold a grudge, if you retaliate against somebody else. Then even though you say you believe you're a sinner to say by grace, you don't. You don't believe it. You're denying it no matter what you say. That is a picture of us, though. The incongruity is you have a servant acting like a king and a judge. A servant is, no, into prison. When a servant acts like a king or a judge, it's in Congress. But that's you and me. That's why we're angry with each other. That's what we're paying each other back. That's where we're

sitting in judgment. We're servants acting like kings and judges. What will change our hearts? The only thing that will change a servant from acting like a king is by getting a view of the amazing love of the king who became a servant. We should be in the dock. We put ourselves on the judgment seat, but the Lord who was on the judgment seat came down and put himself in the dock, and he went to the cross. The judge of all the earth was judged. He was punished for us so that he took the punishment we deserve for all the way in which we harm each other.

And that's what will give you what you need to forgive. The gospel, if you believe it, if you see it, and that's what the Lord's Supper is about, if you see the mercy, it humbles you. You can't stay angry at somebody unless you feel superior to them. so it humbles you out of your bitterness but it also affirms you out of your bitterness because it says you don't have to justify yourself i've been justified in jesus christ i don't have to justify myself i don't have to justify myself to you i don't have to worry about my reputation i don't care what you've done and then you can forgive you know i know there's people out there who say sometimes

you got to you know well people will say you've got to tell the truth of course you do and you got to be hard, you've got to be strong. Of course you do. But when Jesus Christ was dying on the cross, because he was being executed unjustly, in Luke 23, 34, he actually says, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. Would you think about that as we close? Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. You see the balance? First of all, I says, Father, what they're doing is wrong. They need to be forgiven. They are guilty, and I'm dying for them for their guilt. But look at it. His executioners, instead of yelling at them and screaming at them, you'll get yours. What does he say? Father, they really don't understand

the magnitude of what they're doing. Jesus has something good to say about his executioners. Look at that balance. If he treats his executioners like that, how dare you and I be cold and withdrawing to people or sarcastic and insulting and slashing and burning people? How dare we talk like that. He wouldn't even talk like that at the very end. Oh, Lord, give us the grace and patience that can grow only out of a great view of your dying, saving mercy. Let's pray. Father, the Lord's Supper is a time for us to get a view of your mercy. Give us a view of your mercy so that we can overcome evil with good. Lord, not everybody in this room is struggling with this right now, but a lot of people are, and everybody will need

this. So give us the power that we need in view of your mercies to overcome evil with good. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. We hope that today's teaching encouraged you to go deeper into God's Word. You can help others. discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospel and life.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2010. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

Thank you.