Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Perfect Freedom

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 19, 2006. Series: In Christ Jesus: How the Spirit Transforms Us. Scripture: Romans 6:1-7, 11-18. 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. Are you longing to see real change in your life, in your habits, your relationships, your heart? Today, Tim Keller explores how lasting change actually happens in the life of a Christian and why the gospel offers a radically different process of transformation than anything else. The scripture is from Romans chapter 6. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means.

We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death. In order of that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may have a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be

slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. In the same way, Count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. for sin shall not be your master because you are not under law but under grace what then shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace by no means don't you know that when you

offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves you are slaves to the one whom you obey whether you are slaves to sin which leads to death or to obedience which leads to to righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obey the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. This is God's word. We just completed a series on why and how to believe in Jesus. And now I'd like to do a short series on how if you believe in Jesus, that faith actually changes you. What is the process by which change really happens? If you need to see changes in your life, how does that flow from belief in Jesus? When I first embraced faith,

which would be late college, right after college. I had a number of things in my life that needed profound change. And nothing seemed to work until two Christian writers, one from the 16th century, 17th century, excuse me, John Owen, and one from the 20th century, John Stott, I just really met, both directed me in their writings to Romans chapter 6, 7, and 8. Paul there, more fully than any other place in his writings or the Bible, lays out how faith in Christ concretely leads to changes, how it really, what the process really consists of.

It's more succinctly put, by the way, in Colossians 3, but it's more full, the most fully put in Romans, 7, and 8, and that's what we're going to look at. I'm going to take you there. It's like kind of going home for me in a way. I'm going to take you there over the next brief handful of weeks. And the whole chapter, chapter 6, 7, and 8, that whole section revolves around the question that you heard pose twice, both in verse 1 and 15. You heard it read.

And the question arises from Paul's teaching about the gospel. In chapters 1 through 5 of Romans, he lays out the gospel. And the gospel has a theme in it that's unique to all the world. religions and all the philosophies of the world. That is that salvation is received. It's not achieved. It's received not on the basis of your merit or your goodness or anything in you at all. That's radical. And whenever you hear that form of teaching, whenever that gospel teaching is laid out, immediately and inevitably at first hearing anyway, the question arises, wait a minute, If that's the case, if salvation is surely by grace has nothing to do with how you live,

why not live any way you want? Why would you want to change? Why would this kind of message change you at all? It seems to me, somebody might say, that this message would leave you exactly the way you were. Paul answers that question. See, if you understand the gospel, why would you change? How do you change? Why would you even want to change?

Paul answers that. And in the process, he gives us three principles, which in my experience and my pastoral work with people over the years and in my understanding, my studying in the Bible, are absolutely crucial. Three keys, three secrets, three principles. I don't know. I really want you to listen to them. Three keys to real profound life change. And here's what they are. You have to recognize the shape of your spiritual slavery. You have to realize the scope of your cosmic unity. with Jesus. And you have to live daily out of your new identity. Recognize your spiritual slavery, the shape of it. Realize the breadth and scope of your cosmic unity with Jesus and live daily out of your new identity. Okay? Slavery, unity, identity. Let's look at these three things. And by the way, if you're done, the sermon, you say, I really need more detail. Well, this is

the introduction to a series to be continued. Come back. Okay. All right. So if I, if I preach this well, I won't preach this well. I won't preach this fully because it's an introduction. First of all, this passage tells us you have to recognize your spiritual slavery. And I'm looking at verse 15 and 16. In 15 and 16, Paul says, especially 16, after saying, what, shall we sin that grace may abound, that we're not under law but under grace? No, he says, don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, whether you are slaves to sin,

which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. Now, the first half of verse 16 isn't as shocking to the original readers as it seems to us. The reason why it seems somewhat shocking to us

when he says, offer yourselves as slaves, is because when we read what the Bible says about slavery, we read it through, I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, right? We read it through the filter

of our own experience of New World Slavery, and we think of slavery as race-based and for life. But in the first century, if you were facing a lifelong debt, an enormous debt, and you didn't want to be saddled with it the rest of your life, it wasn't uncommon for a person to actually sell themselves to a particular person for a period of time, for five years, for ten years, in order to work off the debt, you know, as fast as possible. And therefore, you offer yourself into bond service, you offer yourself, you offer

yourself into slavery but paul says the problem is though you're getting something which of course is getting rid of the debt that person is now your master that person has complete control over your life now that wasn't that surprising to the original readers but the second half after the dash was because paul proceeds then to bring this into the spiritual realm and he says don't you realize that there's only two categories of people in the world people who are obeying god and are in absolute unconditional service to God, or people who are spiritually slaves to something else. And there's no other category.

There's no third category. There's nothing in the middle. There's no alternative to that, those two. What Paul's doing is he's booting off of the First Commandment, of the Ten Commandments. And in that First Commandment, God says, I am the Lord God. I must be your God.

Don't make anything else your God. But notice the First Commandment only says there's two things, two categories. You either make God God, or you make something else your God. But there is no third possibility. There's no alternative. You must, if you don't worship the true God, make something else a God in your life, even if it's small G, even if it's small case G. There's no one without a God.

Now, how can that be, you say? Well, think. And this is what Paul's, this is his case. Everybody lives for something. What do I mean by that? Well, to live for something means everybody has a something that is your main way of significance and your main way of security, your main way to feel valuable, or like your life is worth anything or that you have any significance.

And there's always something that is the main way that you face the difficulties and dangers of life. something is the main way regardless what your doctrinal beliefs are about religion and so on something is the main way that you get significance and the main way you get security and that could be a career or family or achievement it could be personal independence or the need to have people dependent on you it could be power and influence or human approval it could be a political cause it could be it could be money it could be romance it could be physical attractiveness. It could be any number of things. But here's what Paul is saying. You're going to live

for something. There's going to be something that basically makes your life feel like it's meaningful, makes you feel like you're worthwhile. But he says, here's what you don't seem to know. Whatever that is, is a spiritual master. It's controlling you. You think it's doing something for you, and it is doing something for you. But you have offered yourself to it. You've offered yourself. You've given yourself. You're under its control. You're being, controlled by it. It's a spiritual master. How so? The answer would be. And Paul's answer, and those of you who have been around me for a while or heard this teaching before, no, there's always a whenever I'm talking about this subject, there's a Greek verb somewhere nearby, the same Greek

verb, and here it is. It's in verse 12. He says, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Don't let sin reign. See, there's spiritual masters. You You're going to be a slave to something. And whatever it is that you have given yourself to, whatever you've offered yourself to, is controlling you through, quote, evil desires. Now, let's be real sympathetic to the translators. There's a Greek word here that is very hard to translate. In the old King James Bible, it was usually translated lust of the flesh.

The trouble is that that's actually literally not a bad translation. for you and me today, lust of the flesh means sex. And this isn't talking about sexuality. And it doesn't actually say, there's the word thumia in it, and that means desires or drive, but the prefix to the word is epithumia, which means an overdrive or an over-desire. This is not talking about desire for bad things,

it's talking about inordinate desire for good things. And that is how you lose control. control. There's good things in your life that you've made into ultimate things, and they control your life because if they really are your means of significance or they really are, you means of security, you've got to have them, you've got to have them, and therefore they control you through inordinate desires. Let me give you three tests. Let me give you three kinds of epi desires, three kinds of inordinate desires that will show you where your spiritual masters are. The first one would be anger. If something

blocks you're getting a good thing, you get angry. But if something blocks you getting an ultimate thing, something you've based your life on, you get epi angry. You lose it. You say things afterwards, I don't know why I said that. You blow up or you get incredibly bitter. Are you having trouble forgiving anybody? Are you having trouble forgiving somebody? At the root of it is a spiritual master that's controlling you through an over-desire for something. Wait a minute. See, you start to say, wow, this really starts to make me rethink my life. That's the point.

Let me give you a second test. Fear. If something good is threatened, something good in your life is threatened, you're worried. But if something ultimate in your life is threatened, you're paralyzed with fear. Absolutely fall apart. you can't control your anxiety are you so anxious that you can't think straight it's something that so makes you afraid

that you know you're being driven by it it's because some spiritual master something is enslaving you and it's controlling you it's directing you or a third test of course would be sadness if you lose something good you grieve you weep it's terrible

It takes months to get over it. If you lose something that's ultimate, you want to throw yourself off a bridge. You want to throw yourself off a bridge. You don't feel, there's no meaning in life. Martin Luther, in his larger catechism, brilliant piece of work, expounds the First Commandment,

thou shall have no other gods before me. And in his exposition, he points out that the First Commandment is the basis for all the other commandments. He says, you never do anything else wrong in your life. You never do anything else wrong. You don't get over-angry, over-afraid, or over-dispondent. You don't lie, you don't kill, you don't steal, you don't do anything else wrong

unless first you're committing this sin. Something you've set up as an idol in your life, and that's the reason for everything that happens in your life. It's the underlying factor in everything. If you have an eating disorder, you've offered yourself to the God of thinness. At some deep level, your heart has said, if I have thinness, if I look like that, then I'll be okay.

If you're a workaholic, if you overwork, and you know you overwork, you've made a covenant, you've offered yourself to the God of money or status or achievement, you know, there's very many different ways for that. if you're in a relationship and you know and everybody knows it's really a bad relationship but you can't give it up

you can't give it up you've made an idol out of male or female affection you just can't imagine not being with somebody these things got you and here's what Paul is saying everybody in the world has got spiritual masters no one in the world is free

You think you're in control, you think you're your own person, and you're not. And until you get rid of that illusion, you'll never make the changes that you need to make in your life. And so you see his first answer to the question when a person says, well, you know, if it's all by grace and, you know, why do God's will? Why not do my own will? He says, if you say, why not live any way I want, you are comically, you are fatally naive about how the human heart works. if you're not doing God's will if you're not given holy to him

you're absolutely out of control so and everyone's shape is different everyone's spiritual masters are different so the first step in any kind of major change is to understand yourself and you have to recognize the shape of your particular spiritual savior number one number two

secondly and two and three go together but secondly if you're going to get the resources that Christ gives you to change, you have to realize the scope and the breadth of the cosmic unity you have with him. The heart of this passage, this chapter, in these whole three chapters, are in these verses up here, verse three to five. Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death in verse five? If we've been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. Now,

First of all, who's he talking about? He's talking about the baptized, and what does that mean? It's just his way of saying they converted. Who are the baptized? These are the people who have given their lives to Christ. Baptism is sort of like the wedding ring. It's one thing to fall in love to somebody. It's another thing to give your life to the person.

You know, another thing, it's one thing to be in love. It's another thing to commit yourself, and that's the ring, that's baptism. And so when he talks about baptism, he's not talking about super Christians, or he's talking about everybody who's really giving us. their lives of Jesus. Okay. What is true of these people? Verse five, they are united. We are united to him. And that word united is a strange word, actually. It's a horticultural word, and it means that we've been engrafted into the root. The root, not engrafted up here, even though there's other places in the Bible that talk about that. I mean, the metaphor is trying to say that our life has been inserted into the

very roots of his life. What does that mean? What is that mean? Well, look at verse 5. We have been united to the past and the future of Jesus Christ. Jesus' past is now our past. Jesus' future is now our future. That's what it's saying. Now, I have a whole series to unpack this, but just give me a couple minutes right now. First of all, it says we died in him.

Our past is his past. What's that mean? Remember I mentioned that Colossians 3 is another place where Paul goes into this even more succinctly. And in Colossians 3, he says, You have been raised with Christ Where Christ is seated at the right hand of God Set your mind on things above For you died and your life is now hid with Christ and God

You died in Him You're raised in Him You're seated at the right hand of God in Him What's that mean? Here's what it means Imagine a person Who has become rich And how did he or she become rich

He or she became rich Through the brilliance and the diligence of effort So riches came to this person Through the brilliance and diligence of effort Their efforts But now they get married How does all those riches come to the new spouse? Through legal union

By grace The one person has done everything in order to bring all this wealth Bring all this wealth and amass this wealth But the second person just gets married. See? Legal union, by grace. Like that. This is telling you this.

Why is Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father? That's a place of honor. That's where you put the prime minister. That's where you put the returning, conquering general. You know why he's at the right hand of the Father? Look at what he's accomplished. Look at his life. Look at the nobility and the goodness and the greatness and the courage of what he's done.

and the father looks at the sun and his heart literally burst with delight. And this text is saying that everything Jesus Christ has done is now legally true of you. The determining factor in your relationship with God is no longer your past but Christ's past. And the father dotes on you

and accepts you and delights in you and sees you as having all the beauty and the greatness and the glory of his son. He sees you as free from condemnation for the guilt of your sins as if you had died yourself and already paid the penalty for all your sins. 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 and 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 and Life share the love of Jesus with more people. Request your copy today at gospelonlife.com slash give.

That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. So that's the first thing. We're united to Christ's past. But notice in verse 5, it also says, we will certainly be united in his resurrection. See that? Certainly, it doesn't say conditional.

Now, if you really live a good life and you come to church and you come to Redeemer and take notes on Tim Keller sermons, you certainly will be, you know, it doesn't say anything like that. it says you certainly period what that means is there's an indesoluble connection the moment you believe with the future of Jesus Christ you are already connected to him what does this mean well there's a there's a fascinating Greek word that shows up twice in the Bible it's a

philosophical term and it's a term that's the name of the term is palingenesea you hear the word genesis in there and it actually means the rebirth of the cosmos the rebirth of the cosmos and it came from stoic philosophy that believed that of course history was an endless cycle and that the world would get worse and worse and worse and there would be decay and it would be brokenness and every so often the stoics believed there would be a purging and a great fire would come and cleanse everything and purify everything and take away the old and make everything new and fresh again, and history would start all over. That was the view of the Stoics, endlessly, endless cyclical palingenesias, birth and rebirth and rebirth and rebirth. Well, just what do we believe as Christians?

Here's what we believe. In Matthew chapter 1928, Jesus Christ takes that word and deliberately uses it in the most startling and astonishing way. He says in 1928, he says, at the palingeness. And it's usually translated, at the renewal of all things, when the son of man sits on his glorious throne, everyone who has lost houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or children or fields, for my sake, we'll receive 100 times as much an eternal life. For many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. Jesus says there will be a palan genusia, but one, thee, there is a single point.

at which all of history to toward which all of history is flowing at which everything sat will become untrue everything will be purged everything will become new and and everything will dance and everything will be in fullness and wholeness and what fire is strong enough what power is life-giving enough to do such a thing and the answer is when Jesus Christ puts forth his royal power when it says when the son of man sits on his glorious throne in the future the entire world is going to be purged. Everything will be reborn. Cosmic rebirth. Everything sad will come untrue. History itself will be changed. Isn't that amazing? Ultimately, what's more amazing? That word shows up one more time in the Bible. And an even more surprising

place, in Titus chapter 3, verse 5, Paul is talking about our salvation, our personal salvation. And he says, Jesus saved us, not because of righteous things we have done, done, but through the washing of rebirth through the Holy Spirit. Do you know what that word rebirth is? It's the word palingenesea. And it's totally inappropriate, at least at first glance. Because Palin Genesea is talking about cosmic rebirth, not personal renewal. But you know what Paul is saying?

Paul is saying, the minute you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes into your life, we understand right but now do you understand what this is saying the power of the future the power of that future transcendent order that absolute ultimate life-giving power that's someday going to regenerate the entire cosmos comes into your life and begins to work now and therefore when we say if it's all of grace why live a good life paul says you haven't the slightest idea what's happened do you have you? You didn't just get a get out of jail free card. You didn't just get a pardon.

You were united to everything in Christ's past and everything in Christ's future. And you know what this means? You know, when you and I come, in fact, me too, when I came to Christ, when you come to Christ, when anybody comes to Christ, we come with the most unbelievably

small ambitions. We want inner peace. We want a little reorientation. We want a little pick up. We want, you know, to feel like our life matters. You know, we want some inspiration. You know, we... But boy, oh boy, there's a lot more to it than that. For Kathy and me, this passage out of mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis has been a life-shaping, quote, listen. Lewis says, imagine yourself as a house. God comes in to rebuild it. At first, you can understand what he's doing.

Getting the drains right, stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on. You know those jobs need to doing, and so you are not surprised. But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The answer is he is throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage.

But he is building a palace. he intends to come and live in it himself if we let him he will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a dazzling radiant immortal creatures pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to god perfectly though of course on a smaller scale his own boundless power and delight and goodness the process will be long and in parts painful but that is what we are in for, nothing less. See, if becoming a Christian means union with Christ, I suggest two things. Get rid of your low goals. Get rid of all your goals. Get rid of your low goals and get rid of your your goals. Get rid of your low goals. Instead of saying, well, I just want to, you know, what I'm trying to say is people so often say, well, if I become a Christian, would I have to stop doing that? Will I still be able to do that? Anticipate that you will not be able to anticipate the magnitude of the changes that when they begin to come you'll be so grateful for. But they're

way beyond anything that you could ever dare ask or think. Nor when you're getting started is your mind open enough and alive enough and frankly spiritually smart enough to know what it is you need? So first of all, you have to recognize the shape of your spiritual slavery. Secondly, you have to begin to grasp the scope and the breadth of your cosmic unity with him.

But lastly, you must, and here's the secret, you must live daily out of your new identity. You must live daily out of your new identity. And two verses that tell you how about that right here. Verse six, we know, know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin our old self that's your former self your old identity

crucified it's a it's a past tense it's perfect it's done your old self your former self is gone when you become a christian you're not the same person so your old identity is gone you've got a new identity so that and it's out of this identity that the body of sin might be done away with now that doesn't mean your body your physical body is sinful what it's trying to say is your body under the reign of your spiritual masters you see the rest of the sentence it means your your your life your actions your body is the thing that is if paul is using it as a way of talking about the way you actually live in the world your actions your decisions through your new identity you have the ability to break the reign of your old spiritual masters in how you actually live.

That's what verse 6 is saying. But verse 11 says, though the identity is the secret, look at verse 11. It doesn't happen automatically. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin. You are dead to sin. You are alive to God, but you've got to treat yourself as dead to sin and life to God. You've got to remind yourself of who you are. In verse 12 says, therefore do not let sin rain in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desire.

and that simply means this. On the one hand, if you're not changing in the ways you need to change, you don't lack any resources if you're a Christian. You've got them all. You've got everything you need.

On the other hand, they need to be deployed and they don't happen automatically. If you ever fail to live as you should, if you ever fail to change, you're not remembering who you really are. you're not conscious of who you really are you've forgotten who you are in jesus that's the point that's the key and let me close with three questions which of course i'll unravel over the next

few weeks because as soon as you hear that here's three questions how does that work why does it take so long and why is that so hard how does it work now some of you know that one of my favorite examples of this is Augustine. St. Augustine, to put it mildly, before he was a Christian, had a problem with sexual self-control. But after he became a Christian, one day he was walking along, and one of his old mistresses showed up. And she came after him, and he was, you know, she was one of the people he was particularly attracted to, and she wanted to pull them off into a fling, you know, which most days would have lasted for several weeks. And so she starts to try to invite him up to her place and attack, attack and attract and attach to him. And he says

very kindly and very nicely and very courteously, thank you very much. Thank you. That's great. Thank you. Glad to see you. But no, no, thank you. And starts to walk away. And suddenly it occurs to her, maybe he didn't really recognize me. And she turned to him and said, Augustine, it is I. Augustine turned around and smiled and said, yes, I know, but it is not I. See, she said, it's me, Augustine, and he said, yeah, I know, but it's not me.

What's that mean? Here's what he's saying. I used to be a person that had to have female affection. That's the reason I was in relationships, whether, no matter how destructive they were to you or to me. They were never about love. They were about me. and about using you to fill the black hole which never was filled.

I used to be a kind of person that had to have. I was driven, see? It was a spiritual master. But I have a new master. And when I think of what, to the degree I think, of who I am in him and what he thinks of me, I don't need this. I am free to love. I don't need anymore the same things I used to need.

That's what he's saying. And, you know, you can fill in the blank. this is how you change you can say i used to be the kind of person that crumbled under criticism because i had to have you know always perfect approval i used to be the kind of person that couldn't break up but now i'm free to do what's really best for me and that other person i'm someone else in jesus that's how it works okay so okay second question

why is it to take so long then Because, see, let's be honest about the fact that there's an awful lot of people who have received Jesus and they've brought them, you know, and they got this new identity, they understand this, and yet the years go by, and the years go by, and they're not changing. Or should I say, we're not changing. You're not changing. Why does it take so long? Dr. David Martin Lloyd-Jones, who in his 50s and 60s preached in London, preached a long series on Romans Chapter 6, and at the heart of his series, to understand what Romans six is talking about, he used an illustration. It's a fascinating illustration. He says, imagine a country in which one group of people has for centuries enslaved another group of people. Now, it's not very hard for Americans to imagine that, even though the illustration doesn't completely fit, listen. So imagine a place where one group has enslaved for centuries and other

group. And therefore, whenever a member of the enslaved group would in the street meet a member of the oppressing group. The member of the oppressing group could order that other person around to do anything and if the person didn't obey the member of the oppressing group could have him beaten or killed. Had the right, had the power, could do it.

But then a good king comes into power and he decrees emancipation for all the slaves. And he sets up his soldiers and he sets up his police in every town and puts his judges in his place. and they're free. But the illustration goes on, do you think that's all it takes?

He says, the reality is that whenever a member of the enslaved group, having been enslaved all their lives, having been enslaved for century, whenever a member of the enslaved group would meet a member of the oppressing group, they would tremble and quake.

And when the members of the impressing group would still order around the members of the enslaved group and tell them what to do and say, go here and go there, they did it. They did it. Now, the member of the oppressing group didn't have the power really to do that anymore.

And if they had stood up, they couldn't have done a thing. And yet over and over and over again, the member of the enslaved group continued to act like slaves because though their status had changed, really changed. The reality really changed. They truly were free. They hadn't grasped it. They hadn't realized it. They couldn't live according to it.

They remained his slaves. And Lloyd Jones said, he ends his, his, his, his, his, his, illustration by saying, every Christian in this room is in that condition. It's the only reason you do anything wrong. It's the only reason you cannot change. It's the only reason you are still all wrapped up and absorbed in, you know, epi fears and epi anger and epi discouragement all the time and why you can't break your habits. You don't know who you are.

You've got a real status change. It's really there. It's not just in your mind. It's not just symbolic. It really happened. And yet you don't know. know who you are. That's why it takes so long. Took long for that group. It's going to take long for us. You say, well, I know, but you know what? I've even heard that illustration because I've been

here for 15 years. And I've heard you even say that. And I'm still not sure that I'm still not changing like I should. One more. One more question. One more answer. In verse 17, it says you were slaves of sin, but thanks be to God, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of of teaching to which you were entrusted. Now, the form of teaching is the first part of Romans. It's the gospel. And it says, you used to be slaves of sin, but the gospel set your heart on fire. And in the end, going through a little set of steps with a counselor or with a pastor is still not really the secret. And here's why. Years ago, in the beginning of time, according to the Bible, the serpent said to Adam and Eve, if you utterly offer you.

yourself to God. If you do whatever he says unconditionally, if you obey him completely, he will abuse you. And to see, all of us sons of Adam and daughters of Eve have had that lie come down into our hearts. It's still there. We believe, see, it says, offer yourself to God. And there's a part of our heart that say, he will abuse us like all the other masters. See, when we're living for career, or we're living for love, or we're living for these things, we don't feel like we're enslaved. But the idea of giving ourselves to God, offering ourselves to God, unconditionally, we have to do whatever he says.

Anything in the Bible, we have to say it. We have no more freedom. That feels terrible. And so we say, I can't do it, I can't do it. We're afraid to do it. And so we live in our kind of illusion of independence. We're actually enslaved instead of going into what looks to us like slavery, which is actually the freedom of service to God.

How are we going to break that? And the answer is the gospel, what Jesus did, has to inflame the heart. I recently read an essay about a movie, which I haven't seen, but I'd like to, now that I read the essay, it was a movie about Vietnam right after the Vietnamese War, you know, like in the 70s. And it's a movie called Three Seasons,

and it's got four vignettes in it. And one of them is about a cycload driver named Hi, H-A-I. And the cyclo-driver is, you know, a bicycle rickshaw. And he's poor, impoverished, and he loves Lon, L-A-N, a prostitute, a beautiful prostitute. Now, both High and Lon have completely unfulfilled desires, because High can't afford Lon. And Lon, as a prostitute, is trying to sleep her way out of the life she hates. She hates the life of poverty. She hates the dirty life she's in.

And she longs to be able to go to the clean, beautiful. life of the people who live in those elegant hotels where she has to come and do tricks for her customers, but she has to leave because she's never allowed to stay overnight. And she dreams of someday leaving the world of poverty and getting into that world, the world of the hotel, the world of the people who are able to live there. But it's not working because the more she gives herself to prostitution in order to get out of her poverty, the more she's being brutalized, the more she's being enslaved. But then high, enters a cyclo race, and to his surprise, wins the grand prize.

And now he's got a punch of money. And because he's got a bunch of money, maybe his life can change, but guess what he does? He blows it all on one thing. He rents a room in this elegant hotel overnight, and he pays Lon's fee. And says, I want to see you in that room tonight. All the money. Okay, well, he's going to get his heart's desire, right? And so everybody, all the viewers, are expecting this steamy,

cinematic love scene of course it's after all it's a sundance film festival movie it's there's gonna be a lot of sex in it so we're all expecting it and lon's expecting it too but then to everybody's shock they get there and he says i don't want to have sex with you and here's how the essay goes this is what he actually says he has only purchased her a place as an actual guest in the normal world she dreams of joining and he asks only permission to watch her fall asleep in it slowly comfortably she falls asleep, and he's gone by the morning, having demanded nothing from her except the chance to fulfill her desire to belong. But something snaps in her. She finds she can't go back to her old job of prostitution, having experienced for the first time someone who used his power to serve her

rather than use her. She gets a new sense of her own dignity. She's not the same person. She's changed by the transforming grace of selfless love. Now, Jesus Christ had all the power in the world, and he looks down at us, and he sees us trapped in the things that we think are going to free us, but they're enslaving us. And what does he do? Philippians 2 says, he emptied himself and became a servant. Mark, 1045, says, I came not to be served, he says, but to serve and give my life a ransom for many. John chapter 13 says, he took off his outer garment, and he girded himself as a servant. order to wash our feet. And what does this mean? He laid aside the infinities and the immensities of his being and he purchased not just at the cost of money, but at the cost of his life. A room in the only place that our hearts can rest his father's house. He denied himself to love us. And if Lon was transformed by the knowledge of his selfless love, how much more will we be able to say like Augustine to all the spiritual masters and all the spiritual

mistresses out there it's not me now why wouldn't you want to offer yourself to the only master in the universe who's offered himself for you he's offered himself absolutely utterly trust him then your career give yourself to your career career's never going to die for you your career's never going to offer itself for you if you don't fulfill its dictates it will punish you all of your life. Give yourself to him. Give yourself to the one master who became a servant. And you'll know what Thomas Cramer in the old prayer book said,

that his service alone is perfect freedom. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for this overview of how we can change and what true freedom is. And we ask that you would help us to apply it to our hearts with your Holy Spirit. And we ask it through Jesus. In His name we pray. 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 Center teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership allows us to reach people all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelonlife.com slash partner. website again is gospel and life.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 2006. 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.