Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Principles of Christian Growth

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 5, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3. 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 and Life. In his first letter to early Christians, Peter tells believers they must grow up in their salvation, much like children maturing into adulthood. But what does it really look like to grow in our faith? Today, Tim Keller invites us to consider the lifelong journey of maturing spiritually and how we move toward a life that's deeply rooted in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelinlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal with stories of gospel changed lives, as well as other valuable gospel-centered resources.

Subscribe today at gospelonlife.com. Now, here's Tim Keller with today's teaching. In your bulletin, you have printed a passage of the scripture, the Bible, and that's what we're going to look at again tonight for the fourth time, the last time. Whenever I go through a passage of the Bible and we stop on it and we look at it and I finally say, We've been in it long enough. Tonight's the night. We're going to stop. At the end of this, we're going to move on.

This means I have too much material to cover, which always happens. So we are going to try to show you the basic features, a kind of overview of it. But this passage, let me analyze it for you for a second before we read it, just so you see how it works. It's a sandwich. It's a very tall, big sandwich. It's got five layers to it. And what Peter's really trying to get at is he's trying to get people, we looked at this two weeks ago, to love one another. But he knows, he's not naive, he's not so stupid as to think that just simply exhorting people to love each other will be enough.

He says, you won't be able to love each other unless you draw on a power greater than yourself, unless you learn to draw on a supernatural power. And so what he actually does is he starts out by saying draw on that power. Then he says, love one another. Then he says, and draw on that power. Then he says, love one another. And then he says, and don't forget to draw on that power. Like any good teacher, any good preacher, he repeats himself constantly. And that's what you see. The layers is, first of all, he says in verse 22, read with me, now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply. from the heart. See? Draw on that power. See? You've purified yourselves by obeying the truth. Love one other deeply. Then he goes on. For, you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God.

For all men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall. But the word of the Lord abides forever. again, now he's back to draw on that power. You've been born again, imperishable seed. But then, look, verse one, therefore, now he's back to love one another. Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. This is God's word. So what we're looking at here tonight is that is this passage in which Peter says, as newborn babes, grow up in your salvation.

Grow up. Being a Christian is not a static thing. It's a journey. Being a Christian is not simply a static thing. Rather, it's an adventure. And what we're going to do is just look here at how this passage gives us why we should be growing as Christians. what we should be growing into as Christians and how we should be growing as Christians. Why, what, and how.

Now, last week, we really got into the why, and let me actually in a sense conclude by, for those of you who were here last week, and just summarize for those of you who weren't. Why should we grow? Grow up, he says, why? And the answer is, because you're stupid. You're infants. You're babies. Because you're newborn babies, you need to grow up.

Now, last week we said, and let me summarize this again, how important it is, if you don't understand the absolute imperative nature of growth, if you don't yearn to grow, if you don't see yourself as stupid, as foolish, as young, as a baby, you don't understand really the nature of the Christian faith and the nature of the Christian life. one of the things that's very hard, especially in a place like New York, is that as usual, non-Christian thought is always much more naive and simplistic than Christian thought. That's a principle. The Christian truth is always more complex. People think that if you're more talented than others, if you're better looking than others, if you're more accomplished than others, if you've done better in life than others,

if you've been more successful than others, somehow you're a better person. That's not true. at all. In the same way, people think if you're having a messed up life and everything's going wrong for you, somehow you must be a worse person. That's not true at all either. Ah, the reality is far more complex, the Bible says. Do you remember the movie Amadeus? And the basic problem in the movie is here's Salieri, a good and decent man. And here is Amadeus, Wolfgang Amidaius Mozart, who is an absolute schnuck, an obnoxious child of a man. And Salieri can't figure out if I'm so much more of a good person, why is that he's so much more talented? He can't figure it out. The Bible says that God, in order to make the world a far better place than it has a right to be,

a far better place to live than it ought to be, he just throws out gifts of brilliance and of artistic ability and of ability and aptitude and intelligence. He throws those gifts out the way a gardener would throw flower seed onto a bank just to beautify it. He just throws it out there. And therefore, lots and lots of people who are not particularly good people, and certainly not on the basis of what you believe or you don't believe, God just gives these gifts out. Now, here's why it's so hard. If and when you become a Christian, you might be awfully smart. You might be smarter than most of the other people at the church that you're attending. You might be very gifted. You might be much more successful, but you're still a baby. You start out as an infant spiritually, and it's very hard

to understand, and it's very hard to explain, and it's very hard to even grasp. Nobody wants to think of themselves as babies. They like to think of themselves as fairly able people. They like to think that somehow they've been quite... The average New Yorker, who finally becomes a Christian, actually feels, boy, I'm pretty special. I'm bucking in the crowd. I must be pretty insightful that I've discovered these things that other people haven't discovered. Most of my friends think I'm crazy, but I have found the truth. And you think well of yourself. You shouldn't.

You're a baby. It doesn't matter your IQ. It doesn't matter your bank account. It doesn't matter how accomplished you are. You're a baby. We all start as babies. You don't believe it. Let me just give you a couple of characteristics of babies, of little children,

and just show you how this is also the characteristics of the typical Christian. And that's why most Christians are babies. Most of us are spiritual babies. most of us haven't even gotten out of that. Now, I mentioned some of these at the very end of last week, but let me give you a little more of a treatment of them. Four, little children, first of all, are unstable. First, they'll be just, have you seen this? Children just crying and crying, and you say, let's get some ice cream. Okay. And they're fine. They're just fine. All the tears are gone. Why? Because they're shallow. I'm not trying to be nasty. There's not that much to them. You know, their sorrow can only go so deep.

And because there's only so much of them. How sorrowful can they be? But then on the other hand, their joy only goes so far, and they go back and forth. They're very, very unstable. They go all around. They go in every direction. Those of you who have had children, those of you who have even spent any time with children, you know, that's true. They're highly unstable, and they jump all around, they move all around. So, look at the average Christian, or look at yourself. Do you find, as long as everything is going well, oh, God loves me, and as soon as things start to go poorly, why has God done this to me? How could God be so cruel to me? In vain I have washed my hands. In vain I have kept my heart pure. What good am I getting out of it? I've been a Christian now for six months. And look, I'm doing more poorly financially. I'm doing poorly financially. You're excited, then you get all cast down. Or you get real excited after a sermon. You say, I'm really going to do something about it and you forget all about it. You read a book and you have all these resolutions and they're all broken. Tears of repentance, you never do anything about it. You're a child. That's all right.

Right? Everybody starts out as a child, except Adam. He was, you know, the day after he was born, evidently he looked like he was 30 years old. But apart from him, apart from him, we all have to start out that way. Children unstable. Secondly, children are self-centered. Children really, children have to be taught not to interrupt. It really doesn't matter what anybody else is talking about when they want your attention. They just want it. They have a lot of trouble concentrating on anything that's not them for a very long period of time. If you're having a conversation with a child, you know, it'll go on for, oh, at least 30 or 40 seconds, and then the child will say, well, enough about you. What do you think of my new shoes? You know, that's the way children are. And the same way, look at yourself. Do you find yourself constantly getting your feelings hurt?

Children are like that. Children don't understand why people don't drop everything to meet their needs. People don't understand why children don't understand why people don't drop everything and move heaven and earth, change their schedules to meet their need. That's the way children are. You expect children to be that way, but that's how you start off as Christians. You're always getting bent out of shape. You're always feeling people aren't noticing me. You're always feeling people are mistreating me. This is the typical church, by the way, filled with people who are always getting their feelings hurt with each other, always feeling I'm being misused, always wondering why everybody doesn't drop everything they're doing and huddle around them and meet their needs. That's a typical church because the typical Christian is a baby but doesn't realize it. It doesn't realize that unless I do something about it, I'm going to stay here for a long time. I want to move out. Children are, we said, number one, unstable.

Number two, children are self-centered. Are you? Unstable? Are you? Self-centered? Third, children have very short attention spans. very short. If you take a child to a movie, one of the things that's so bad, you take a child to a movie, and you just hope there's lots of action in it. You just hope. And unfortunately, you know,

may start out with a lot of action, and then next thing you know, oh my gosh, plot development, character development. And you know the kids will be jumping all around because they will have to fill up, you know, the lack of action with their own. Children have very short attention spans. Everything you say to them has to be really exciting, colorful, quick. That's the reason why when you Even when they're real little, you start to talk to them in an exaggerated way. You have to say, Hi there. How are you doing? Why do you talk that way to kids? Why do you automatically talk that way to kids? Because you can't keep their attention if you just talk naturally and normally. Now, Paul in 1st Corinthians, talks to a whole church full of babies and he says, you want miracles.

You want quick answers. You want God to come through like that. Your babies. Mature people. mature Christians, their emphasis is on character, on discipline, on truth, on righteousness. They want to hear the truth. They want to, and they are willing to understand that Christianity is a long obedience in the same direction. Christianity is studying the Word of God and getting it deep into yourself. Christianity is doing your duty even when your feelings are flat. We talked about that last week. Only children, everything's got to be exciting all the time. As soon as As soon as something is boring, off it goes. Are you a child spiritually? Are you able to stick at the disciplines of the Christian life? Do you jump from this particular Christian community,

the next Christian community because I've got to find the most exciting one? Do you get real bummed out when God doesn't come through with miracles all the time? Do you need special effects in your life? Do you need a ringmaster or are you willing to listen to people who just simply teach the word of God to you? children are unstable children secondly are self-centered children thirdly have short attention spans one more

and then we move out of here children are gullible very gullible I mean look I know that these are all this is a slight over simplification sometimes children are more discerning than adults for various reasons but by and large children are gullible

I was reading Calvin and Hobbs the other day and Calvin says to his child says to his father, Dad, where does the sun go? He says, well, the sun at night sets in the West, Dad. Around Phoenix, it sets around Phoenix. That's why it's so hot out there and everything's a desert and so on. And Calvin says, well, then how does it get over here and come up in the east? Well, they put it on a truck and they drive it all night. And so, you know, Calvin goes to bed and he says to Mom, he says, Mom, I hope I'm as smart as dad when I grow up. And children are gullible. Now, the fact is, you have no idea.

Listen, if you don't know how little you know about the Christian faith, how little you know about the Bible, how gullible you are, you are a child. You see, you know you're starting to grow out of childhood when you realize how little you know. I remember when I went to seminary, I was still a fairly new Christian. He had a professor. I can't imitate him. He was Swiss and he was French Swiss, so I can't imitate his French accent. But he was a very, very wise man. And I went to seminary back when at the time in the early 70s when so many of the students who went to seminary were fairly new Christians, and we thought we knew everything.

We would read a book and we would say, aha, now I've grasped that. And you know, hardly anybody in the history of the Christian church has understood this, but I have understood it. And so we would come into these theology classes, and Dr. Nicole was so loving and he was so kind, but he was so devastating. Because we would get up and say, well, the Bible teaches that. I'm quite a good Bible student, and I know this and that, and I've read this book, or I've gone to this church, and this minister says this and that, and he's brilliant, and I'm very happy with him, and this has made a difference in Dr. Nicole would say, well, it's very interesting. I'm sure there's many advantages to that particular set of beliefs. Now, you should know that in the sixth century,

all of Christendom condemned that particular belief as a heresy, and all of the people who ever subscribed and followed that belief for the next 200 years made complete shipwreck of their lives and their families and their faith and everything. And here's three books on the subject that you probably should read that would help you understand this and you would just realize, I'm a babe. I don't know that much. I've never seen a more gullible, spiritually, a more gullible group of people than the residents of New York City. The more dynamic a minister is, the more dynamic a book is, the more exciting an event is, and people just flock, they're gullible. It sets around Phoenix. Really? How does it get here?

Do you know how to read the New York op-ed pages through a biblical grid? Do you know how to say, well, what's the Bible got to say about this? Do you know how to critique it? Can you just pick a book off the bookstand and say, well, you know, how does this fit in with biblical themes and with with a biblical worldview, can you do that? Do you know how long it takes to be able to do that? Why do we need to grow? Because of our instability, because of our self-centeredness, because of our superficiality, because of our gullibility. That's the typical church. That's also true, I would say, by and large, of the typical congregation, that's also true of our congregation. By and large, I'm not mad about it. I'm even scolding you. Everybody starts off as kids. The only thing

that would be absolutely ridiculous is for you not to know what you are. If we don't know what we are, if we don't know how to grow, if we don't know that we have to grow, then we absolutely won't. That's why we must grow. We're babies. We all start that way. Now, number two, why? Okay, now what? Into what do we grow? Now it says, grow up into your salvation. Let's be more specific than that. Where do you get the standard? In verse 22, it says, now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth. Ah, there we go. We're supposed to be aiming for purity, but even so, that's an abstraction. Does the Bible give us a nice concrete way to evaluate purity? And the answer is, of course. And in Colossians chapter 1, verse 28, Paul says it this way. He says, his ministry is, quote,

so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. Or, best of all, Ephesians 413, Paul says, until we become mature, see, there's the biological analogy, but now he defines it, until we become mature, attaining to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now, that's what's so exciting about Christianity. Christianity does not say grow up into some kind of abstraction. It doesn't say grow up into some kind of abstract purity, grow up into some kind of nirvana, some kind of force field, grow up into some kind of high state of consciousness, whatever the heck that is. It says, look at Jesus, flesh and blood human being, and really look. One of the things I love about studying the book of Mark, like a lot of us have been doing this year in our small groups, Mark doesn't

give you a lot of talk. It tells you what Jesus was like. It just shows you Jesus. Doesn't give you a whole lot of theological exposition, just shows you Jesus. And when you look at him, he's constantly surprising you. I'm realizing now it's the surprises that a perfect person affords to imperfect observers. Everything he does is counterintuitive until it's over, and then it makes perfect sense. He's perfect. And when you look at him, what have you got? You see virtues in him combined that have never ever anywhere else been combined. You have tenderness without any weakness, and yet you have strength without the slightest gram of harshness. You have, here's the most amazing to me. You have humility, tremendous humility, without one ounce of a lack

of self-confidence. How does he do that? You've got holiness and unbending conviction. and complete and utter approachability. You've got power without the slightest insensitivity. You've got passion without the slightest bit of prejudice. You've got total integrity. And yet without any rigidity. Never unthinking. Never a false word.

Never a misstep. What have you got there? Moral glory. Absolute beauty. Jesus was the most influential man to ever walk the earth, and his story has been told through books, movies, and articles in hundreds of different ways. Can anything more be said about him? In his book, Jesus the King, Tim Keller journeys through the Gospel of Mark to reveal how the life of Jesus helps us make sense of our lives.

Dr. Keller shows us how the story of Jesus is at once cosmic, historical, and personal, calling each of us to take a fresh look at our relationship with God. During the month of March, we'll send you a copy of Jesus the King as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the transforming love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. When you look at the human Jesus Christ depicted in the Gospels, it's a lot like looking at the sun through a filter.

You know, you can put a filter so you can look at the sun. And you can see the outlines of the sun without it killing your eyes. And when you look at the human Jesus Christ, what you've actually got is you're looking at God, the divine grandeur through a human nature. And Paul has the audacity to say, you can grow up into that, into the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ. That's what we're out for, nothing less. And that's why Peter says here, the only way you can do this, this is verse 23, how can you grow like this?

How can you have your souls purified by obeying the truth? We saw this several weeks ago. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but imperishable seed. What's the imperishable seed? Imparishable. That means eternal, immortal. Some kind of stuff, he calls it a seed. Some kind of substances come on in. What came in? You know what it is? One way to put it is the Holy Spirit. We've told that many, many places. But in John chapter 17, he says, when I send the Holy Spirit, Spirit, John chapter 16, John chapter 15 and 14, actually, all through there. Jesus says, I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit and I will come into you. And what he means is, the Holy Spirit, when you become a Christian, enters into you. What is that? It's Jesus Christ's spiritual DNA. It's his spiritual

DNA. Best thing I can, best way we can talk about, the divine nature, Peter calls it. And what it means to grow in Christ is not what it means to kind of build your body up. You go to the workout center and you've got certain goals and you've got certain regimens. We're talking about something else. We're talking about the spiritual DNA of Jesus Christ coming into your life and unfolding until you reach the fullness of the stature of Christ. That's what we're talking about. That's what we're supposed to grow up into. And therefore, before we move on to the last point, what are we saying? What are we growing up into? The first thing, the first of the first fullness of the stature of Christ because we have the imperishable seed in us. Now, just before we

leave, let me just press this home for a second. Again, the Bible is so much more complex than the alternatives. The Christian message is so much more complex than alternatives. Whenever you read in the Bible saying, love one another, be honest, live decently, live moral, It always, always, always is assuming that the people you're talking to have the imperishable seed. In other words, the Bible never really says to anybody, live a good life. It says, grow up into the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ. That's a far more complex command. It doesn't mean, you see, if you are a Christian, if you've got that imperishable seed,

it does mean tomorrow you have a temptation to lie. You say, no, I'm not going to lie, I'm going to tell the truth. So there is, there's a volitional element. There is a sense in which you say, okay, I'm going to do right. But the Bible always assumes, always when it says love, be honest, whenever it lays down its ethical prescriptions, it always assumes that you have that imperishable seed. Being a Christian is not, it never has been, simply lifting up, picking up a set of moral principles and saying, I'm going to live like this. If that's what you think Christianity is, you are not a Christian. A Christian is someone whose center has been dealt with, has been shaken. Some new radical principle has come in.

The imperishable seed. That's why it says, you're born again by imperishable seed. Otherwise, the Bible says, until you have that, none of our ethical prescriptions will really help you. They're too hard for you. They won't work for you. You won't understand them. You'll misuse them. You'll see them as a ladder to get to God instead of the outworking of the salvation and the grace that God's already given you.

You won't understand anything. and therefore some of you are trying to get help in a piecemeal way. You might be coming to church or you might come to Christianity because you're having a hard time in your life or you've got a habit you're trying to deal with or you've got a bad patch you're trying to get over and you're coming to church or you come to Christianity for a little bit of inspiration or help. Forget it. The Bible never says change here, do this, you know, buck up, live a little better life. The Bible says you must be born by imperishable seed. You must be radically and completely remade and rebuilt from the ground up. You must get a new center, a new heart, a new principle in

you, a new DNA spiritually that unfolds. That is what Christianity is about. Thirdly, why do we have to grow? Because we're stupid. Because we're babies. Because we're infantile. What are we growing up into, not just some abstract nirvana's, not some kind of cosmic consciousness, but the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ. Thirdly and lastly, how do we grow? What you have here are three principles that I'll give you an overview of. I think I mentioned last week that years ago I heard a talk by J.I. Packer. I heard him in person, and he laid down three principles and he gave them names. And the three principles are here. And he says, you will never grow, you will never let that DNA move on. You will never grow up into the fullness of the Statue of Christ

unless you do these three things. And they're here. And here's what they are. Okay? Number one, the way of acceptance. The way of acceptance. When he says to it, well, if you want to see where it is, it's in verse 22. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying. By obeying. Now, years ago, back in the 40s, when C.S. Lewis did his radio talks that became mere Christianity, he said there's really only three basic worldviews vying for the hearts of people today. Three basic worldviews out there in the marketplace of ideas. He said there were theism, naturalism, and pantheism. And without trying to go into too much detail, just enough to give you the outlines,

Theism, of course, is the idea of the biblical God, a personal God, a God you can pray to, a holy God, a God that can be known, a God who speaks, a God who gives the law, there's heaven and hell and so on, that's theism. Naturalism, by naturalism, he means secularism. The idea that all we really have here, all that really exists is matter. All that really exists is nature. That's why he called it naturalism. All that really really is, exists is what you can taste, touch, hear, see, or smell. There is no spirit world. There is no soul. There is no afterlife. When you die, you rot. There is no meaning or morality other than what you find in your own feelings, period. Pantheism, on the other hand, was the Eastern religions, and you see

it in Hinduism and Buddhism and the New Age religions. And Pantheism says there's no personal God, but there's a kind of life force that's out there. And it's in everything. And we, are part of it. And whereas naturalism says the only thing that's real is the material, everything else is just an illusion, Eastern pantheism, the New Age stuff actually says the only thing that's real is the spiritual. Matter is an illusion. This world is an illusion. And so they say, you see, the language of the New Age theology is, therefore create your own reality. You are God. The limitations you perceive out there. are actually illusions. Anything you want can happen. Anything you really believe in can be. See,

that's the language. It's a real heady kind of language. But again, don't you see, naturalism and pantheism, naturalism says only the material world is real. Pantheism says only the spiritual world is real. See the problem? They're both too easy. But here's my point. In both cases, as different as they are, and many times they fight with each other, as different as they seem to be, they always agree on one thing. There's no such thing as obedience. How do you decide what is right and wrong for you? Well, the naturalist says, well, there is no right and wrong. You just sort of look and see what your feelings are. You just, you make your own. How do you decide what is right and wrong says to the new age person? The new age person says, well, you have to look inside and, you know, Luke, you have to

reach out with your feelings. Luke, you have to figure out what your heart really wants. Only Christian Christianity has a way of acceptance. And this is one of the reasons why so unpopular. The way of acceptance is obedience. There is something outside of your heart, says Christianity, and that something outside of your heart is a standard. It's the law of God. It's the word of God. It's the will of God. It's outside of you. And you must submit to it. Here's what the way of acceptance is. It's to look at God and to say, not my will but thine be done. You cannot grow. You will always be a baby. You will never grow up into the fullness of the stature of Christ unless you can say, not my will but thine be done. The way of acceptance. Where? Well, let me give you just three real quick. Three areas where the way of acceptance

works. Number one, God's law. God's law says a few things that are hard. It says you must always forgive. It says you must be radically generous with your money and not live as well as you could live but give away so much of your money it lowers your lifestyle. Be that generous. It says you must never twist the truth to look good. It says you must never use sex as something that gives you pleasure but always as an expression of a permanent exclusive covenant with somebody else.

So it says, you know, use sex in that way and never return evil for evil and always be generous and never twist the truth to look good. But those are hard. What is that? You have to obey. You don't look inside yourself and say, hmm, well, it looks like I should never, my heart says never, ever, ever twist the truth to look good, never lie. Your heart will not say that. How will you even get an idea of honesty? He asks where naturalism and pantheism make absolutely no sense at all. How will you even get an idea of honesty unless you look outside? The way of acceptance. You have to accept what God says is right. Oh, secondly, give you another example. You have to accept God's evaluation of you.

You know what the gospel is. Let's say it again. The gospel is, on the one hand, you are far more evil and wicked than you ever dared believe, but because Jesus died for you, you are more loved and accepted than you ever dared hope at the same time. Now, that's an evaluation of you. Have you accepted it? On the one hand, it says you are a wicked, helpless sinner. Do you get offended by that?

I know some of you are saying, you're kidding. Somebody with more than a third grade education really believes that. You know, there's pride, and you have not accepted God's assessment of you. But on the other hand, there's the second half of the gospel. He loves you more than you ever dared hope or believe. There's many of you who think that you're junk. There's many of you who hate yourself. And yet here's God saying, look what I've done for you.

Look who I've sent for you. Look how I've poured myself out for you. Look, you're engraved on the palm of my hands. what are you doing down there? Why are you treating yourself like this? Do you see what it means to submit the way of acceptance? Are you willing to admit and accept what he says about your sin? Are you willing to admit how much he loves you? Some of you are won't do either, but certainly most of you will only do one. And unless you do both, you haven't found the way of acceptance. Well, I got to keep going. You've got to finish up here. The way of acceptance. The second major way.

that you grow is the way of nourishment. Look, as newborn babes crave the pure spiritual milk. Now, the pure spiritual milk is fairly simple to see. Many times in the Bible, the Word of God is seen as food, or the Word of God is seen as milk. Like in Hebrews 5, it says the most elementary principles of God's word are milk. And what you have here is, he says, make sure that you take it in. Milk, is food, take it in. What does that mean? Just this. How do you eat? Three things. Number one, you cut the food up. You get it into a condition in which it can go into your mouth. Two, you taste it and chew it up. And three, you swallow it and digest it and it becomes part of you. The way of nourishment means, number one, you've got to believe the body.

Bible, that means you have to at least trust it enough that you're willing to really take it in. But the first step, cutting it up is like study, interpreting it, understanding it so you can take it in. But that's not enough. You have to taste it. You have to turn it over on the palate of your heart. You have to let it melt your heart. You have to let the truth that you're looking at lead you to pray. Do you do that?

And then you have to apply it. You have to digest it. You have to make it part of the deep structures of your psyche and of your life. You've got to say, if I take this truth seriously, how does it make a difference in the way I am going to live today? I'm going to be doing this with somebody. I'm going to be doing this with somebody. How, if I take this seriously, how will this truth have an impact on the way in which I live? That's digestion, interpretation, meditation, application.

It's not, you have to cut the food, you have to taste the food, and you have to digest the food. Are you doing all of it? Otherwise, you're not following the way of nourishment. And, of course, that takes a great deal of discipline. The Word of God has to come on in, you know? It says, John chapter 15, let my words abide in you. Colossians 3, let the Word of God dwell in you richly. You've got to take it in.

You've got to saturate your mind in it. You've got to dream through it. It's got to be that much a part of you. It's got to be part of your mental furniture. Okay, lastly, and this is. last, the way of exchange. The way of acceptance, see, purified by obedience. The way of nourishment, take in the pure spiritual milk. And lastly, the way of exchange, which is love one another sincerely and love one another deeply. And since we spent a whole evening on that, I'm only going to

mention it in a word. You cannot grow on your own. There's got to be relationships. You have no idea what you really look like. Haven't you ever noticed that unless you're somebody who's constantly getting up on stage or something, whenever you see yourself in a video, whenever you hear yourself on a tape, don't you go oh gosh,

I don't really look like that, do I? I don't really sound like that, do I? And all the people around you go, yes, you do. Yes, you do. That's exactly how you look. That's exactly how you sound. What is that?

That's fellowship. There is no way you will know yourself. There is no way you will know your strengths or your weaknesses. There is no way you will see your greatest flaws. Don't you understand your greatest flaw has got to be today the one you see the least? That's why it's your greatest. It's the one that has the most power over you. It's the one that you are the most unconscious of.

You're never going to see it. You've got to have other people around you. You've got to have decent people around you. People who love you sincerely and who love you deeply. You will never grow. You'll always stay a baby. And that's the reason why some of you, in spite of the fact that you have done a lot of the way of acceptance and a lot of the way of nourishment, because you are lone rangers, because you're mavericks, because you're loners, you haven't really grown much. The way of acceptance, the way of nourishment and the way of exchange. But you know what? Here's the greatest thing. You notice where it all comes from? You know what motivates it? It says, as newborn babes crave the pure spiritual milk, so by you, you know, you may grow up into your salvation now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. The word goodness, God's goodness is His grace. God's goodness is the fact, and this is the gospel, that you are not saved because of your good deeds.

You are saved and accepted because of what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross. And therefore, the moment you believe, the moment you become a Christian, God legally takes away your sin and legally adopts you into his family. Now, that grace cannot be increased. Your status can increase. You can't be more accepted than you are the first minute you become a Christian. But your experience of that goodness, your experience of that grace can increase. And that's the idea. That tasting means the experience of it.

Why is it that you want to grow? Not because you hope God might be good to you. That's the great way to become a monk in a bad sense of the world. word. That's a great way to become an aesthetic. That's a great way to become someone who is trying to purify yourself, hoping that maybe God will open the gates of heaven, hoping that other people will see that you're really a good person. That's not why you're supposed to be doing it. You're not doing it because you hope that God will be good. You have to be doing it because you've already tasted that he is good. Have you done that? Are you growing? Are you really changing? Are you really

becoming? Are you more patient than you were last year? Ask somebody who knows you. are you less worried than you were last year? Ask somebody who knows you. Are you able to take criticism better than last year? Ask somebody who knows you. Come on. Let's get practical about this. And if not, taste and see that the Lord is good. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord, that you have given us this message and this truth. Help us to taste your goodness until we grow up into your salvation of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast.

If you were encouraged by today's teaching, you can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelonlif.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.