Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Principles of Christian Growth, Part 1

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 28, 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. I'm going to read from 1st Peter chapter 1, verse 22 over to chapter 2 verse 3. This is the third week in a row we're looking at this passage. It's a rich one. 1. Peter 1.22 to chapter 2 verse 3, and it's printed, of course, in your bulletins. Let's look at it. 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. 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 stands forever and this is the word that was preached to you therefore

rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit hypocrisy envy and slander of every kind like newborn babies crave the pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up into your salvation now that you have tasted

that the Lord is good. This is God's word. Now, I want to just, I really want to just tonight, home in on one phrase. I don't want to, I don't want to take any time

to look at the structure. This passage tells us a great deal about how you can grow as a Christian. And the how-toes are here, and I'm going to ignore them

for one more week and get into them next week. How can you, starting out as a new Christian, a spiritual baby, as it says here in verse two, like a newborn babe, how can you grow up in your salvation? Grow up in your salvation. How can you do it? Now, this passage tells us a great deal about it. There's three ways, and we're not going to look at any of them tonight. But you might want to write them down anyway.

Years ago, I heard a lecture by J.I. Packer years ago in New England. And he looked at this passage and he says, there's three ways to grow up into your salvation. And they're right here. He called them the way of nourishment, the way of acceptance, and the way of exchange. The way of nourishment, crave the spiritual milk, the word of God. The way of acceptance, purify yourself through obedience to the truth and the way of exchange. love one another sincerely and deeply. And we'll look at that next week, frankly. And here's what I want to look at tonight.

I would like to look strictly at the very fact of this passage, this verse two, where it says, like newborn babies grow up. That's what it's saying. Like newborn babies grow up. What does that mean? Before we talk about how to do it, I'm afraid if I jump right into it, Christians are real great, I mean, you know, American people are very practical. We're actually worse than that. We're pragmatic. We want to know the bottom line, how to do things. We want to know techniques.

And before we run to techniques, we have to see what the heck it is that we're trying to accomplish. What does it mean as newborn babies grow up? What does that mean? And all I want to do tonight is just reflect on that and ask ourselves, what does that mean? The Bible talks about this a number of places. Over in Hebrews, it talks about the fact that the writer of the Hebrews is referring to people who should, by now, be eating meat, but they still need milk. And there's another metaphor. The idea is that there is a kind of maturation process spiritually that parallels the biological and the mental mental mental and the psychological maturation process that we go through.

It says in John, 1 John, there's a fascinating passage, chapter 2, verse 11 and 12, where John says, I write to you little children because your sins are forgiven. I write to you fathers because you have known him who is from the beginning. And I write to you young men because you are strong. You have overcome the evil one and the Word of God abides in you. What is he talking about? And most writers understand that what John is saying is that there are different stages to the Christian life, just like there's different stages to the biological life.

That there is babies, and then there's young men and women, in a sense, then there's fathers and mothers. And that, therefore, the Christian life must be seen as a process, a journey, a maturation process. We should all recognize, number one, that we are newborn babes when you become a Christian, number two, we've got to grow up. Now, what does that mean? Let's just reflect on it. What does it mean? Next week, we can talk about how we do it, but what does it mean that we're newborn names and grow up? First, let's look at the grow up. Then we'll look for a minute at what it means when the Bible tells us that when you become a Christian, you're a baby. We're learning two things here. We have to grow up, and we're babies. Let's look at the grow up part. First, this is teaching that you must learn to think of Christianity in terms of growth stages.

There are various stages. John, as we just mentioned, in a very parallel passage, just like Peter is saying love one another and then talks about the fact that you're a newborn baby and you need to grow in grace. So John, in 1 John, Chapter 2, verse 11 and 12, says the same thing. He says, love one another, and then he says, I write to you children, I write to you young men, I write to you fathers. And he shows that he recognizes that inside the church that he's talking to, you have got these stages of Christian growth. And now, to remember that, to realize that is very important. You must realize that you are on a spiritual journey very much like the journey that many of us have gone through of moving from babies and children to adolescence to grown adults.

Isn't that frightening? To think that we have to do it again. And actually, that is both the glory and the frightening part of Christianity. We're on a journey. It's a glorious thing. If you can imagine, if you had to actually, in the pioneer days, traverse the continent, if you got on a wagon and you had to traverse the continent of America, depending on where you were, at different stages in the trip, different stages in the trip would require different skills. At some point, you'd have to have the skills for how to deal with swamps and marshes and how to deal with heat. Other times you'd have to have skills

to deal with climbing mountains and dealing with cold. By the time you got all the way to the end, having gone through every one of the stages, you would have learned this sort of skill set and this sort of skill set and this sort of skill set, and by the end you'd be complete and ready for anything. And the Bible insists, when John says, I write to you children, I write to you young men, I write to you fathers. What he's saying is that at every stage there are certain skills, there are certain lessons, there are certain attitudes, there are certain capacities, there are certain aptitudes that you will have to learn to master that stage and to move to the next one. That's fascinating, is it not? Because Christianity is not a static thing at all. It's not just getting

into a status. It's not like knighthood. I've been knighted and now I go around. I am a knight. I'm a, I've become a Christian, now I'm a Christian. Instead, of course, it's this great journey, and that's the glory of it. But it's also very frightening. Children and youth don't understand themselves. You know, most places in the world, the civilized world, certainly every state of this union, certainly every place in America, if children and youth are allowed to do whatever they want, if there are no limits put them by their parents or guardians or someone. If there's no guidance given, it's illegal. It's against the law. It's called child neglect. To not ever put any limits on your kids, it's child neglect. Why? Because kids are dumb. They don't understand their own feelings. They don't understand

their own desires. They don't understand what's going on inside them. Let me give you a couple of examples. I noticed when I walk to our office, which is between 40th and 39th and Madison, when I walk down 40th Street from the subway station, there's ads, you know, of course, on the sides in the back of the telephone booths, which are fascinating. Great ads, too. There's one, just before I hit the Madison Avenue, is a picture of a young woman, obviously a very young woman who's just hitting puberty with a vengeance, evidently. if you look at it. And she's looking in the mirror, and the heading says, welcome to your 15-year-old body, instructions to follow. And then, you know, your eyes go down

the ad a little bit, and you suddenly realize that according to the ad, the instruction book is 17 magazine. Now, you can tell that this ad must be trying to get 15-year-old girls, from what I can tell, to read it, because no one, who is an adult. No one with an ounce of sense would believe that 17 magazine are sufficient instructions to your 15-year-old body. I mean, nobody else is going to believe that. Nobody else is stupid enough to believe the ad. But the person who they're trying to get to buy the magazine. Welcome to your 15-year-old body. Now, what's behind that? When your body starts to develop and you start to have all these feelings, you have no idea what's going on. You don't understand them. You can't control them.

You don't know what to do with them. You don't know how much to let them out and how much to keep them in. Well, what do you think the Bible means when it talks about growing up in your salvation? If you're a child, if you start out as a newborn baby and then you sort of move up spiritually, you're in the same situation. You are in the same boat. There's all kinds of things going on in you that you don't understand and you desperately need help. You need guidance as desperately as a child needs it.

as desperately as a youth needed. You need instructions. Do you understand that? Let me give you a couple of examples. When you become a Christian, big change happens on the inside. Christians are people, Paul says, in whom the spirit warth against the flesh, and the flesh warth against the spirit. Now, many people, in fact, most people, have made a terrible and profound mistake. They believe that when Paul talks about the flesh, that Paul's talking about the disease. desires of the body, like the desires for food, a desire for sex, and, you know, comforts, you know, physical comforts. And people think when Paul says the flesh worth against the spirit, that what Christians are supposed to do is they're supposed to beat down their bodily desires. They're not

supposed to have sex. They're not supposed to eat nice things. They're not supposed to have physical comforts. They're supposed to, in an ascetic, kind of monastic way, pummel those desires and keep them down. And that's not what Paul's talking about at all. Here's what Paul's talking about. Before you become a Christian, your heart is completely united in its opposition to God's salvation. Now, let me say this. It's going to take a minute or two to say this, and you may have heard this before, but this is critical. Whether you're religious or irreligious, before you become a Christian, you are doing everything you can, every part of your body, every part of your soul. Your whole heart is united in absolute opposition to God as Savior. You want to be your own Savior.

That's the one thing. Your whole heart knows that. Your whole heart wants that. Now, some people try self-salvation through morality and religion. Other people try self-salvation through immorality and irreligion. It makes no difference. In both cases, here's the person who's smug and self-righteous and a person who's sure that, God will love and receive them into heaven because they go to church and they are good and they do.

They're good Christian people. And over here are people who are doing their very best through the seeking of power and of pleasure, through maybe even violence and through a licentious lifestyle to fulfill themselves and find themselves in the way of the French existentialists. You know, they try everything. You look at them and they seem so opposite. The Bible says they're absolutely the same. spiritually. Each one of them, in very radically different ways, is after the same thing. They're trying to avoid a savior. Moral people, religious people are doing everything they can to be as good as possible,

to be as decent as possible, so they don't need a savior. Oh, they think they need a savior. They say they believe in a savior. But frankly, the whole purpose of their religion, until you become a Christian, the purpose of your religion is to avoid needing a real savior. You're your own savior. And there's really no difference between the religious person, the irreligious person. One thing is true of everybody in the world before they become Christians. They are united, their whole hearts are united in opposition to the idea of needing a savior. See, the Bible does not divide the world the way most people do into good and bad people. No.

The Bible says there's good people and there's bad people who don't want a savior, and then there's the people who do. Those are the two people, two groups of people in the whole world, those who are the people. are sure they don't need a savior, those who do not want a savior, and those who do. And when you become a Christian, the moment you become a Christian, into your life comes a new system, a new power. And your heart begins to operate on a whole new system of identity, a whole new system of morality, a whole new system of, well, a whole new system of life in which you say, the reason that I have self-worth, The reason that I know who I am, the reason I have happiness, the basis of my identity is the fact that Jesus died for me, that His righteousness has been transferred to my account.

And that's the new system. And yet, the Bible says, you've still got a major part of your heart that still wants to operate on the old system. And so before you become a Christian, your heart is united in one system, self-salvation. And now, when you become a Christian, your heart has two different vying systems at each other, trying to get control. The one that says, Christ is my Savior, and the other one that says something else. I want something else to be. Now, what this means is, actually, that the part of your heart that was, you know, against God,

the part of your heart that wanted self-salvation, the part of your heart that Paul calls the flesh, before you became a Christian, that part of your heart was in charge. Now, we all know what happens if you corner a bear. Park Rangers will always tell you that a bear is not dangerous unless it feels cornered. And of course, the bear gets very, very dangerous if you shoot it. In the leg, you don't expect a bear then to come in eat out of your hand. You expect the bear to attack you. When you become a Christian, one of the things that,

into your life comes this, the Holy Spirit, into your life comes this new power, and it deals a mortal death blow to the flesh. It deals an mortal death blow to that old system. It comes right into the face of the old system and throws it off the throne of the heart. What it happens to it, that part of your life, your pride, your selfishness, your fears, your defensiveness, your self-consciousness. It is, it's cornered, it's wounded, and now it's far more aggravated far more ferocious than it ever was before. And so very often what happens is after you become a Christian, you may find, in fact, at some point you will find that after all the great loving feelings wear off, you may find thoughts coming into your heart, and you may find temptations coming to you,

and you may find your ideas and concepts and desires coming out of your heart far worse than anything you'd ever seen before, and you're absolutely upset. You can't understand it. I gave my life to Christ. Didn't the Holy Spirit come in? What is going on here? What is going on? What is going on here. Welcome to your 15-year-old body. Instructions to follow. You are a kid. You see, by the way, is there anything that I just said that's news to any of you? I said that a Christian, who's mature, expects the sinful part of their heart to be worse after conversion than it was before, more aggravated, more ferocious, more upset, in a corner. Does that surprise you? Here are babes. That's okay. Everybody starts out that way. What do babies know about themselves?

They don't even remember their birth. They don't know much. There's the frightening part of what the Bible's teaching here. When you become a Christian, all kinds of things begin to happen to you, all sorts of new things. You don't understand them. You don't understand what's going on inside you. You don't understand the world around you. You need help. You need to depend on other people. People who are further down the line. You need to go to the Word of God. You need the church. You need these things. Don't you dare think that you can be self-contained little units. In other words, I'm a Christian, and I just move around. I like this church. I like that church. I like this teacher. I like these Christians. I don't like these Christians. And so, you know, it's like going through a cafeteria. I like a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You're totally in charge of your life. You're totally in charge of your growth. That's impossible. And if you really, if you really think that you can move ahead like that in the Christian

in life, without submitting to wiser heads, without really coming in and saying, I'm a babe, you've got to help me. You're going to make a shipwreck of things. You'll be just as, what kind of life are homeless kids going to have, wandering around on the streets? What kind of life are they going to have? You're in the same boat. You're babes. We all start out that way. We don't like it, but that's the way it is. Now, having said that, you see, I'm just trying to get it across. This, when it says, like newborn babies, crave the pure spiritual milk, it sounds so sweet, so cute, so warm and so soft, ivory soap, you know, just sounds wonderful. But it's an insult. Wake up. You are babies. You do not understand what's going on. You don't understand your own

themselves. You've got to be parented. Now I know plenty of churches who have really abused this very thing. Plenty of churches have come in and groups have come in authoritarian, cultic. They've come and said, ah, you're a new convert, do everything we tell you. And you know, there's groups like that in New York, of course. There's groups like that everywhere. And I know that can be abused, absolutely, and there's all sorts of qualifications you have to make to this and so forth, but I don't think that I should have to deal with that tonight. I think generally speaking, the problem that Christians have is the opposite extreme. I know there's Christians that are so insecure, so marginalized, so desperately want authority in their lives and want approval

in their lives that they're very happy to come and put themselves in under cultic authoritarian leadership, who tell them things like this. But that doesn't mean that this isn't true, and that doesn't mean that a lot of you don't need to hear it. You're babes, you have got to get advice. You need the instructions. You don't understand your 15-year-old body spiritually any more than you understood your 15-year-old body biologically. Isn't that a frightening thought? Think about what fools you were when you were 15. Think about it. Think about the mistakes you made and realize how much more help you had from people who were biologically and psychologically mature. You had teachers, you had parents, things like that. What's going on with you now? Have you got the

kind of help that will enable you to spiritually mature? Are you willing to see that? Okay, let me move on. What are these growth stages? Okay, I'm telling you that there are stages of growth. What are they? Let me suggest something to you. I'd cross-reference over to 1 John chapter 2, where he says, and I'll read it again, I write to you little children because your sins are forgiven. I write to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning. And I write to you young men because you are strong. You have overcome the wicked one and the Word of God abideth in you. Now, a man named John Newton, the guy who wrote Amazing Grace and a lot of other great hymns,

once wrote, he was a letter writer. In fact, I don't know, do we have his letters on our book table? David, do we? Probably sold out pretty soon. Got any now? Anyway, if you get his little book, well, he's written a lot of letters, but there's a little paperback edition called The Letters of John Newton. And the first three letters in that book are called Grace in the Blade, Grace in the Ear, and Grace in the Full Ear of Corn. And he believes that there's basically three stages to the Christian life, to Christian growth, that parallel the three things, the three stages that John talks about in his first epistle of John.

And on the basis of what John Newton says, let me just give you a kind of general broad brush outline of those three stages. 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 and 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. I want to start by saying, do not think that I am teaching you that there's only three stages and that everybody goes through these stages in this way. The Bible, when the Bible gives illustrations like this, I write to you children, I write to you young men, I write to you fathers. I don't think in a case like that that John, the gospel writer John, is trying to say there's only one,

there's only three stages and that everybody crosses over the line at a certain definable spot. I don't believe that at all, not for a minute. And yet, it'll help you start thinking in the right directions if I show you what John says and what the gospel writer John says, or in the first epistle, these three stages are. And I think as a pastor, having worked for almost 20 years in this business of watching people grow, I think there's a lot of truth to it. Here, listen, like newborn babies grow up. How do you grow up? Think of these three stages. First of all, John says, I write to you children because you know your sins are forgiven. I think that the reason he says babies, children, in the first stage, you have to know your

sins are forgiven, is that this is the very first lesson to know that your sins are forgiven. And you will never get out of spiritual babyhood until you do learn it. And many of us and many of you have been in spiritual babyhood for years because you don't know it yet. This is the first lesson you've got to get down. At every stage, there's a sort of lesson, I think, that has to get down before you can move on. And that's the first lesson. Do you know that your sins are forgiven? Now, a lot of you are saying, that's an awfully easy lesson.

Everybody knows that God forgives sins. Jesus died on the cross? No. No, you don't. John Newton says that the child in Christ, the baby, the baby Christian is somebody who has, quote, the remnants of a legalistic spirit. He says, you know that you're still a baby in Christ. Let me read this.

Because he or she still tends to be overly sensitive to criticism, finds repentance difficult and galling, is still fairly insecure in how he or she is being perceived. Why? Because they do not know that they're forgiven and loved. They do not know they're forgiven and accepted. And there's still lots of works righteousness clinging to them. Do you know what that's saying?

why do you think a person says oh I know that my sins are forgiven but you don't there's plenty of people who stay in spiritual babyness because even though they say intellectually I know that I'm accepted

in Jesus Christ they don't really understand that why does John Newton say works righteousness is still clinging to you wow for example many of you are still very very sensitive to criticism many of you are still

extremely up and down depending on, emotionally, depending on whether people are liking you and approving of you and noticing you or not. Some of you are extremely up and down depending on how your careers are going. And so emotionally, you're really up and down and up and down. Why? You don't know that your sins are forgiven. John Newton would say, you still, remember, there's two systems now. There's the system of self-salvation and there's a system of Christ as your Savior.

and you, baby Christians are people who, though they intellectually believe that Christ is their savior, actually and psychologically and functionally, in their day-to-day life, they act as if something else is their savior. And so radically, they're still insecure. They still really don't believe that Jesus loves them. They still don't really believe that they're forgiven. They still really, in a sense, are still trying to earn that forgiveness. And as long as you're in that state, you're still a baby, you'll never get out of babyhood.

Let me put it to you this way. David Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote a sermon, preached a sermon years ago on this passage in 1 John. And he has a very interesting statement that I just lifted right out and I'm going to read it to you. Quote, he says, let me put this in a practical form. And I do not hesitate to put it like this. If you are uncertain about the forgiveness of your sins, that in itself is a sin. If you are uncertain, by the way, some of you are definitely unscertain. By the way, some of you are definitely unscertain. certain whether your sins are forgiven tonight. Now listen to what he says. This is a bullet between your eyes, I hope. Let me put it in this practical form, and I do not hesitate to put it like this. If you are uncertain about the forgiveness of your sins, that in itself is a sin. I want to be ruthless about this because there are many people who feel that an assurance of forgiveness of sins is presumption. And they rather give the impression that they are being humble and modest. They say, oh, I would not like to say my sins are forgiven. I do not feel good enough to say that. I am so unworthy. Do any of you talk like that? And he says, they give the impression that they have

much lowliness and humility. The simple reply to that is this. If you do not know you have been forgiven, it is because you are still relying upon yourself. Because you are not relying upon the finished and complete work of the Son of God for you on the cross. It's because you do not realize the merit and power of his blessed name. And he goes on. And he simply says this, tonight, do you know that your sins are forgiven? Are you absolutely sure? Are you sure that no matter what you've just done or what you're about to do or no matter what you do that your sins can't condemn you? Do you know that your sins are forgiven? Do you know that nothing can snatch you out of his hand? Do you know it? And he goes on and says, this is the first thing. You can't get past this stage unless and until you

become clear that Jesus Christ has born your sins, has died your death, has risen again to stand as your representative, your surety, your advocate, your substitute before the first. You're born. Father, do you utterly and absolutely rely upon him and him alone and nothing else for your standing before the throne of God? If you do, and only if you do, you can say, you know your sins are forgiven. I write to you children because you know your sins are forgiven. Until you know it, you'll never move on. I hope you see that a lot of you have stayed in spiritual babyhood for years because you don't know it. Because though intellectually you say Jesus is, my Savior, you're continually sliding back into other things as your salvation, so you're always

feeling so unworthy, and you're always wondering whether God really loves you and whether he really has taken care of you. Because you look at your failures, and they just accuse you in your heart. You still don't understand the gospel. You still don't know your sins are forgiven. You'll never move beyond babyhood. Never. But then there's the second stage. He says, I write to you young men because you have overcome the evil one, and you are strong, And the word of God abideth in you. What's that stage? Now, John Newton believes that spiritual adolescence is a lot like regular adolescence.

You know, when you have a little baby or a little kid, you never let the kid cross the street by him or herself. You never let the kid, you know, you don't say to a four-year-old, now, honey, you know, go to nursery school. Here's a subway token. You don't do that. You take them by the hand. And therefore, they always sense your presence. they always feel you right there. Your parents never let you miss a step or miss a beat.

Now, you can't do that when the kid's 14. You can't do that when the kid's 24. You can't say, here, honey, I'll take you to school. You can't, at some point, you've got to let them cross the street without you. And John Newton draws an image from that. He says, listen, if we really believe the Bible is right in saying that the Bible is very clear in talking about physical and biological and psychological maturation is being parallel. He says, here's where you know you've started to grow up

and become at least you've moved out of spiritual babyhood. When God starts to call you to face things without the sense of his presence and his love. In other words, sometimes the reason that you're finding that he doesn't seem to be very real, and yet you've got all these things you've got to do, and you say, if only I had the strength, if only I felt your presence, I know I'm supposed to do this, I know I'm supposed to do that, and yet, Lord, I just don't feel you there. John Newton says, that's probably God saying it's time to cross the street by yourself. In fact, let me give you a quote. He says this. He says, stage A, babyhood, was marked by high feelings and little knowledge of the truth.

Stage B is marked by lower feelings and growth in the knowledge of the truth. See, young men, you have overcome the evil one, and the word of God. Abideth in you. So John Newton goes along and says, this is how you know you've moved out of spiritual babyhood, and you're moving into the next stage, and you're really learning to be strong and have the Word of God abide in you. He says, you will become more mistrustful of your own heart.

You will see the dimensions and peculiar nature of your own sinful nature. You'll become more dependent on God. You'll finally learn how to cling to God in prayer. You will learn to go into the word and to rely on it and make it your guide instead of feelings and impulses. you become more humble and loving and forgiving of others and in the end far more useful to God.

In other words, John Newton says, the way you know that you've moved out of spiritual babyhood is that God is not always there. You don't always feel them. Sometimes you have got to step out and go on the bare word of God. Now this is very traumatic because I've often had people say, you know, when I first became a Christian, God always seems so real to me. And every time I went to worship, I ended with tears in my eyes. and his love was always there, and he always felt he had me by the hand. And now, for some reason, you know, I don't always sense him. The quiet times aren't always good.

He wants you to grow up. He wants you to do things not just because he's got you by the hand, but because you have begun to understand his mind, because you're beginning to rely on his word and not just simply on him picking you up and taking you places. I mean, I don't want that in my 14-year-old. I don't want that in a 20-year-old. a 24-year-old, I want enough of me to have come down into them so that they now are able to move

about on their own and not need me to always be there, taking them everywhere, grabbing them, pulling them by the hand, you see. In other words, let's put it this way. You never become spiritually a young man or woman, strong. Hmm? Spiritually becoming self-sufficient. Oh, it's very got to be very careful because, you see, On the one hand, John Newton said, the mark of this second stage is that you're more dependent on God. Yes, dependent on God and not on your feelings about God. See, that's what's the problem. Babies always have got to have those great feelings.

They've got to. They've always got to feel God's got them by the hand. And you'll stay a baby. Put it this way. If nobody gets out of childhood without figuring out the difference between grace and works, the difference between knowing that your sins are forgiven because of your salvation in Christ and your self-salvations. If you never get out of babyhood, unless you understand your sins are forgiven, you never get out of adolescence until you learn to say, everything is necessary

that he sins and nothing can be necessary that he withholds. You never get out of spiritual adolescence until you start to realize, until you stop the self-pity and the temper tantrums of babies. You stop blubbering. You start to realize. You start to realize. You start to realize, you start to that life is tough and that you've got the word of God and you've got his promises and move out on that and why do I always have to have these great feelings of power and great feelings of love. Do you see that? As John says, young men, you are strong. Learn to obey. Learn just to do it. Learn to go on the bare word of God. Learn to finally live by faith. That's the second stage. And then the third stage, Fathers, it says, I write to you fathers because you have known him who is from the beginning.

Now, see, in the end, I think the last stage, the advanced stage of Christianity is just this. They know him. See, the ultimate advanced Christian is the person who really communes with God. Now, you know, when we were going through the book of Ephesians, we talked a great deal about this in the summertime. It says in Ephesians 1 in chapter 3, it says, I pray that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened, that you might be strengthened the inner being, that you can know. the height and width and breadth and depth of the love of God, which surpasses knowledge,

and be filled with all the fullness of God. You see, if you're a baby, or even if you're an adolescent in Christ, you find that there is times in which, because of troubles, you go to God and you spend a lot of time in prayer and you spend a lot of time studying the scripture, and sometimes you have these periodic crisis times in which God's love just floats down on you. and you have this great experience of his presence, and you actually feel that you know the height, the width, the breadth, and the depth of the love of God,

and you're filled with all the fullness of God, but they are sporadic. They're very rare, and they usually happen when you're having trouble. You only pray like your life depends on it when you're in trouble. And that's really when you have the best times of your life, spiritually, and they're very sporadic, and most of us, if you've been a Christian for five years or more, You've had some of those experiences, but they are not normal.

You have not learned the routine. You have not learned the discipline, and you have not learned the skills of regular communion with God. That's an advanced person. Somebody like Jacob, wrestling, remember, with the angel? And he said, I will not let you go till you bless me. Someone like Moses, who said to God, show me your glory. An advanced Christian doesn't just do that when the chips are down. a father or mother in the faith is someone who has learned through spending the time, through

relentless passion, a deep yearning that's consistent, you finally started to penetrate. You have regular communion with him. You know the one that is from the beginning. And there we go. Put it this way. Your babies, until you understand the difference in grace and works. Your adolescence, so you understand that everything is necessary that he sends. Nothing can be necessary that withholds.

You stop blubbering about the hardness of life. You learn how to live, according to the bare word of God. And lastly, you become a father or mother in the faith when you start to learn the disciplines of prayer in communing with him so that you regularly are seeing his glory. Now, you notice, by the way, I spent more time on children, a little less time on adolescents, and very little time on fathers and mothers.

You know why? Because we have less and less data about each group. Why? Because most Christians say babies all their lives, and only very few even get out of that. Do you see where you are? Can you recognize yourself? I don't mean to give people the impression these are nice clear-cut categories. But are you seeing progress? Or are you stuck right now? Because you haven't learned the lesson for your stage. Okay, lastly, now we've already seen, number one, that it's a frightening thing to be a child, to be a spiritual baby. It means that you need help. You've got to get help. You've got to submit to the help. You've got to see that you

need other people to move you along. B, we've seen something about what it means to move along through this growth stages. We haven't talked about how. That's next week, but we're talking about what it is and what you should be looking forward to. But lastly, let me just ask you, and let me just make an urgent appeal to humble yourselves because we don't like to think of ourselves as babies, let me tell you the sins of spiritual babyness so that you can see them and you can identify them and you can kind of repent of them. But with hope, because you see, there's a kind of sin. When I see a five-year-old acting in a way that's wrong, I have to say to him or her, don't do that. I have to correct him or her, but I also have a lot of hope because that's a five-year-old sin.

And I know they're going to grow out of it. Just a couple of words here. you have to realize, and it's going to be galling to a lot of you in New York, that when you start as a Christian, you are a baby, no matter how smart you are naturally, no matter how talented you are naturally. You remember a couple years ago I did some teaching on this, the Bible teaches that God gives good gifts to everybody. He gives common sense. He gives brilliance. He gives artistic talent. He gives plain IQ. He gives sense. He gives sense. He gives management skills. He gives these out to everybody. He just throws them out there in the world the way a gardener would sort of throw seeds out on a bank,

you know, flower seeds on a bank just to make it beautiful. He throws these things out. So some of you are very, very, very, very, very smart naturally. Some of you are tremendously talented naturally. And when you become a Christian, you start out as an infant. And that's a little hard for you. an awful lot of people over the years have come to Redeemer, and I can see it. When spiritual babies come to Redeemer, they look around and they want to scope out who else is here,

and they say, are these my kind of people? These are the kind of people I want to be part of? Are they as smart as me? Are they as talented as me? You know what I mean? Are they at my level? And that just proves that your spiritual babies, because imagine that you can judge love and joy and patience and kindness and wisdom and humility by dress size.

You can't. And that's going to be hard for some of you because a lot of you are very smart people. And natively, you're smarter than the people who are here who are spiritually much more mature than you. And you're going to have trouble with that. But you've got to see it. Can't you see it? Look, children are undiscriminating. You can fool them.

And you will be easily fooled unless you learn the Bible. children are exhibitionists. Children are exhibitionists. That means they, children really don't like, they get very bored unless the focus of attention is on them. You know, they'll be talking to you for a while, and then they'll say, well, enough about you, don't you like my new shoes?

I mean, that's the attitude of children. Children are exhibitionistic. Children always want you to talk about them and their needs. Spiritually, that happens too. A newborn child tends to be fairly selfish, kind of absorbed in their own needs, always wanting to talk about themselves. Children are also, they tend to enjoy the spectacular. Have you ever noticed with children, you've got to exaggerate everything, you've got to say, it'll be a great day, won't it boys and girls? Because children have these very short attention spans, and they can't see subtle nuances. And so spiritually, people very often want spectacular things.

They want great preaching. They want a great church. They want miracles. They want to see dramatic things happening in their life. They don't like the routines. They don't like praying and reading their Bible every day. They don't like just learning the truth. Don't you see the spiritual babyness in you?

You're unstable. You're undiscriminating. You're easily fooled. You tend to be exhibitionistic. You tend to like the spectacular. and you don't like the grind. These are marks of the average Christian. These are the characteristics

of the average church congregation. All I'm urging you to do is to humble yourself under them and say, on the one hand, encouraging, you say, yes, this is true of me, but I'm going to outgrow it. See, that's the encouraging side. But on the other hand,

you're going to have to be willing to humble yourself under it and say, it doesn't matter my IQ. It doesn't matter my bank account. It doesn't matter how great I look. I'm a baby. I've got so much to learn I've got to submit

I can't be so busy and so important and so interested that I think listen let me tell you something if you just show up here and come to worship services and you have not made yourself available for growth for discipling

for study for learning you're just you're almost like a homeless kid out there recognize who you are recognize your limitations you know what the goal is is to stop being childish and become childlike. Look at Jesus.

There you have the perfect childlike. It's good to be childlike. To be artless like Jesus. There's no artificiality about children. And so there should be no artificiality about us. There shouldn't be, our image shouldn't bother us. We shouldn't always be watching what other people think about us. You want child likeness.

Look at Jesus. He loved his father. He was dependent on his father. He didn't make a move without us. his father. Childlike. He was completely artless and completely genuine and there was no artificiality. Childlike. You want to be childlike. You don't want to get jaded. You don't want to get cynical. You want to be childlike but not childish. So look at Jesus because he was the most childlike and wise and mature person possible. That's what you're after. As newborn babes grow up.

resolve tonight, I'm going to do it. Resolve tonight, I'm going to make that effort. I don't want to stay a baby for 10 years. It's possible. I don't want to stay a spiritual baby for 20 years. It's absolutely possible. Some of you are living proof that it's possible. Say tonight, I'm going to grow up.

Let's pray. Thank you, Father, that it's possible to grow up. Thank you that so many of our sins and problems are the sins of children. We can outgrow them. Enable us to understand our sense. well enough that we can come to you now, humbly saying, oh, Lord, show me how to crave the pure spiritual milk and to grow up into my salvation. We pray this in Jesus' name. 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 gospelonlife.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.