Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Reconciled and at Peace

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

The gospel brings great goods into our lives. This text tells us a lot about one of them: reconciliation. We’re reconciled to God. What does that mean? One of the ways to understand this passage is to start at the end and work back. It’s actually a pretty simple argument, but its message is deeper than the whole universe.  By working backward, let’s see 1) a more visible but lesser problem, 2) a less visible but greater problem, and 3) the solution to it all. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 24, 2016. Series: Bible: What We Are Receiving: The Gospel Goods. Scripture: Hebrews 9:11-14. 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. If someone asked you what the main story of the Bible is, what would you say? Today, Tim Keller is preaching through the central storyline of the Bible. What went wrong with the human race? What God has done to rescue us through Christ? And how God means to restore the world? We're glad you're listening with us. Today's scripture reading is from Hebrews, chapter 9, verses 11-14.

But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but he entered the most holy place, once for all by his own blood, the subtening eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer

sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more than will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God. This is the word of the Lord. that we may serve the living God. This is the Word of the Lord. Now this year, the next few months, we're going to be spending a lot of time as an congregation thinking about our future, thinking about where redeemer is going, what it's going to be doing for the next number of years in ministry in New York City, but of church.

in New York City, but of church, should never look at its future without making sure its feet are grounded in the gospel, the gospel has been given once forever to us. And so for these months in June, a July, excuse me, in January and February, we're looking at, I know you wish it was June and July, and I was just being such a pastoral, the sensitive person I was responding to the needs of your heart. But as a preacher, I got to tell you, the truth, it's January and in January and February, we're looking at the great goods that the gospel brings into our lives. And the one we're looking at today is not, here's a word that theologians use to describe it though, it's not in the text, and yet this text tells us a lot about it, reconciliation.

Romans chapter 5 says, we have peace with God, we're reconciled to God. What does that mean? Let's take a look at this little short passage. It's short. It's actually what the logicians call an A-40-ory argument. That is, it says if this is true, then how much more is this true? And if this is true, how much more is this true? So one of the ways to understand this argument is to start at the end and work back. It's actually a pretty simple argument, but its message is deeper than the whole universe. And that's pretty deep.

You can go forever, practically, into the universe at light speed and not be anywhere near the boundaries. And yet, this is deeper than the universe. So, let's work ourselves backwards from 14, 13, through 11, and 12 by doing this. First we're going to see a more visible but lesser problem, then secondly a less visible but greater problem, and then thirdly the solution to it all. So first of all in verse 14, let's take a look at a more visible, but as I'm going to try to show you, something that's lesser problem.

And then later we'll look at a minute, we'll look at a less visible, but greater problem. But the more visible, but lesser problem is in verse 14, and it's an unclenzed conscience. How much more than will the blood of Christ will get to that? Through the eternal spirit offered himself, unblumished to God of Christ will get to that? Through the eternal spirit offered himself unblumished to God, we'll get to that. Cleans our consciences from accidentally to death. Now, the problem of a dirty conscience, a conscience that's not clean,

that's the first thing we're going to talk about here. What does it mean to have a bad conscience? It means to have a sense that there's something wrong with us. I kind of deepen a profound sense that there's something wrong with us. Now to understand this, actually I'm going to turn to maybe what you think would be a surprising source, Sigmund Freud. And Sigmund Freud wrote a book that many of you probably had to read in freshman 1-0 something called Civilization and its discontents.

Civilization is discontents. But it's actually about conscience. This is what Freud says in that book. He says, the human heart is profoundly egocentric. That in our in our in most being we are profoundly egocentric, incredibly self-centered. But if we pursued what our hearts wanted, we'd all want the same things and we'd fight for each other, maybe to kill each other. So do you want a civilization or do you want a jungle? I mean you can have

a jungle without self-control. In the jungle, it's a strong eat the weak. Two people want the same thing. They fight for it. The stronger kills the weaker, the stronger gets it. In other words, if everybody just went after and pursued the self-centered, ego-centric desires of the heart, according to Freud, we can have a jungle. But if you want a civilization,

if you want to have a civilization, the price you pay is guilt. You have to have a conscience. And the conscience is a little internal pain in Flickr that we take into ourselves and we make ourselves feel very, very, very bad. We feel very, very bad about our self-centeredness. And that's the only way we keep it under control until we have a civilization. So without guilt, which is the price you pay for civilization, you couldn't have civilization. Now, when, when, and when Freud talks about that, it's, you know, the name of the book is civilization and it's discontent. The discontent is guilt. See in German, when it was written in German, originally the original title discontent is the German word, translates the German word unbehagen.

And I actually think from what I can tell that the word discontent in English is actually too weak. Unbehagen means a deep unease, amalais. Freud believed our lives were pervaded with guilt. It's very, very deep. It's incredibly painful to, on the one hand, want things, and want things sort of unavoidable, just want things, and want things, and to feel terribly guilty about wanting so much.

So our whole lives are pervaded by guilt. There it's everywhere. We have this malaise. We feel uneasy about ourselves. We feel uneasy about life. Now, that can take many forms. The guilt can take many forms. You might overwork.

You might try to prove yourself. You might feel anxious or shy. You might be overconfident to overcompensate. But Freud said all of that was from this pervasive sense that there's something wrong with us. And that comes as the price of living in a civilization. Now some of you might say, and I'm think a lot of people in New York would say, oh, good, I'm a Freud, and all those other guilt-ridden, 20th century thinkers like Auden and Camus,

and all the check-off, I mean, all those people always worried about guilt. We're different. Those people live still in the shadow of religion, and they still felt all this guilt. But we know today, we late modern or postmodern, more secular western society, we're not guilt ridden, like those people were, or like Freud was. We know that you decide was right or wrong for you. You know that other people put a guilt trip on you. You know the Woody Allen film, Bullets Ever Broadway.

There's one place where Rob Reiner is playing a character, an artist. And at one point the Rob Reiner character says, guilt is petty bourgeois crap. An artist, he says, creates his own moral universe. And of course, in some ways, social media, public discourse, that's how we talk today. We don't talk much about guilt. We actually say guilt is something that people put on you, but you have to say, I have to look into my own heart, I have to decide what I want, and I have to affirm that. I have to accept that. I have to let other people maybe feel guilty for that.

Gildes, petty bourgeois crap. An artist creates his own moral universe. We should create our own moral universes. Now, if Freud was alive today, he would just shake his head. He would say, you are so incredibly naive. And Freud would say, and he's right, that don't be so naive as to think you can look into your heart and see your deepest desires and just express them, oh no, he says, nobody actually has the strength to admit what's in your heart.

Our hearts are so capable of evil, so capable of cruelty, so radically selfish, so dead set on getting what it wants. We would trample on anybody and no human being can look into your heart and actually be honest about the darkness that's there. Nobody can be honest about them. Your conscience would kill you. It's bad enough. And Freud is right, the current of the Bible. You see what Freud would say, and I think what the Bible says, too, there's overt guilt and there's covert guilt. And let's look at two pieces of literature to help us understand. In literature, the best example of overt guilt. Over guilt means I'm conscious, I'm guilty, I do not feel forgiven, I've done something wrong,

don't know, I can't seem to cleanse myself of it. The great example that is Lady Macbeth. Walking around in her sleep, knowing that she took part in the murder of somebody and just racked with gilding seeing stains on her hands, seeing blood on her hands and walking around saying, out, out them spot. I can't get it off. I can't get the stain out. So there's your perfect example of overkill. And you know, it's probably true that in our modern Western society, there may be less

of that than there used to be. But then there's covert guilt. Covert guilt is actually best, I think, conveyed by another piece of literature, by Franz Koffer, is book The Trial. It's a fascinating novel. It was unfinished actually. It didn't quite finish, even though you wrote a little summary chapter at the end to tell you how the story ends.

But the, it was about a guy named Joseph K, who's arrested and held for trial, and nobody ever tells him what he was arrested for, or what he's going to be put on trial for. And it's a perfect example of what I think we are, you know, it's a perfect example of where we are now. We don't have the overt guilt because we tend to say, well, I have to decide what is right or wrong for me.

And I can't let other people tell me what is right or wrong for me. So, you know, people can't, you can't put this guilt on me. And yet at some other level, we know there's something wrong. They were not right. See, covert guilt, that's the stuff that Freud says, you're never going to get rid of that. Because you know there's something wrong with you. Covert guilt.

Why is it some of you just work so hard? And you're always saying, if I could just get to this level, then I'd cut back and you get to that level and you're always saying, if I could just get to this level, then I'd cut back and you get to that level and you don't. Why is it that so many of you exhaust yourself trying to help people and you can't set up boundaries? You can't say no to people. Why is it some of you can never confront even when you want to because you're so afraid of the displeasure of the person. So some people, some of you can never confront no matter even when you want to.

But why is it that some of you love confronting even when you shouldn't? Because you need to show that you're right. Why are some of you just so much, much, much more agonized over your looks than you want to admit to anybody? What's going on here? Why is it some of you can't commit because you're afraid to let anybody in to see who you are? What's going on? You know what that is? If you could look, you looked at psychology, you call it complexes, you looked at sociology, and you call it alienation or something. But here's what the Bible says, you have a sense of condemnation that you can't shake. You have a sense or something wrong with you, but you're not right.

Down deep. You need a cleansed conscience. And so that's what I mean by saying, this is a fairly visible, I mean people have talked about, it's fairly visible, and even though it's a significant problem, let's take a look at verse 13, which points out a less visible and even more significant problem. I'm not saying guilt and shame isn't an important, it's not significant, it is. But here's one that's even more significant, but a lot, very less visible to modern people. In verse 13, it talks about the blood of bulls and goats, we'll get to that, and the ashes of a heifer, we'll get to that. Sprinkle on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctifying them so that they are outwardly clean. Now some of you are saying,

oh wait a minute, that reminds me of something I hate. And you know what it is? It's the book of Leviticus. Now you know, by the way, this is late January and so there's probably a few of you, hearty souls, and by the way, I want to, I just, I really want to congratulate you and I want to confirm you. You've started the year saying I'm going to reach through the Bible. And I'm going to read the Bible every day. I'm going to read right through the Bible. And so you're probably, you're still in Genesis. You know, if you're reading a chapter a day, you know, this is January the 24th, so you're

probably on maybe Genesis 23 or 24, 25 or something. But I just want you to know, Leviticus is right ahead. And many, many, many people who have sang, I'm going to be right through the Bible, have died in Leviticus. And the reason you die in Leviticus is actually this very thing. All this talk about ceremonial physical cleanliness. You get into Leviticus and you can't believe the the number of very, very minute and very intricate rituals and regulations about ceremonial

cleanness, which was all physical cleanness. You couldn't go into tabernacle worship. You couldn't go into worship God. You couldn't even be in the camp with the other people of God. If there were all these things wrong with you, if you touched mildew, if you touched a dead body, if you weren't clean, there's all this emphasis on physical cleanness and lack of contamination and spotlessness. And it's all physical. And when you're reading it, you're saying, what is going on here? And I think most people know, and you're right, most people intuitively know, somehow it's all physical. And when you read it, you're saying, what is going on here? And I think most people know, and you're right,

most people intuitively know, somehow it's symbolic. That it's actually not the physical dirt that bothers God so much, but it's symbolic of something. Maybe you sense that, but you wonder why? What's going on? Let's talk about what dirt symbolizes. Let's talk about it. So here's what it symbolizes for a minute. Let's think about what dirt symbolizes. Let's talk about it. So here's what it symbolizes per minute. Let's think about this.

Number one, dirt symbolizes, relate, how do I say it? Being relationally repugnant. If you're gonna go to an audition, if you're gonna go to a job interview, if you're going to have a first date, if you're going to go to a job interview, if you're going to have a first date, if you're going to have an investor, a would-be investor meeting.

So you're sitting down with somebody, you hope will invest in your project, or you're sitting down with somebody, you hope will give you a job or something like that. Does it matter how clean you are? Yeah. If a friend or somebody says, my goodness, your breast smells terrible.

You're not going to go to that interview like that. You're not going to go if you have body odor. You're not going to go to that interview like that. You're not going to go if you have body odor. You're not going to go if you even probably have blemishes on your face. You probably want to do something about that. And you certainly are not going to want to go to that interview, smeared with feces, excrement, bowel movements, and you're in engarbitge, probably. Probably. Why? Because when you're standing near somebody who smells like that, when you stand near somebody in which is this overwhelming stench, where the person seems to be absolutely contaminated or infected, you know, with pus, mucus, we just want to get away. Now it's a physical thing. It's a physical, visceral thing, we just know danger, danger, okay?

But of course the dirt then represents what? Relationally repugnant. There's something pushing me away subjectively, something that's hurting my ability to even have a relationship with this person. By the way, dirt doesn't just mean subjective repugnance, like I can't stand you emotionally. Dirt also actually means objective. Now here's what I mean by that. If you go to the Urban Dictionary online and you put in the word dirty, what's it going to tell you?

Your dirty if you're carrying illegal drugs, which means you're on the wrong side of the law and right now you could get arrested if found. Your dirty, in some cases, dirty means corrupt, so you have dirty judges or dirty cops. Or sometimes dirty actually means illegally obtain goods like dirty money. So in the urban colloquial slang, parlance, dirty means you are actually objectively on the wrong side of the law and you could be arrested, you could be put in jail. Now you begin to wonder why Leviticus almost obsesses. Why God said, I want you to be absolutely clean, if you're going to come in before me.

Here's what he's trying to say. There's a barrier between you and God. And it's not just on your side, it's on God's side, okay? In other words, we don't just feel guilty, we are guilty. We don't just need to be reconciled to God. God needs to be reconciled to God. God needs to be reconciled to us. That first part we kind of understand in our culture, but that second part we don't at all.

And yet it's most, it's even more important. Let me explain. Subjectively and objectively, there's a barrier between you and God. Subjectively, what does that mean? Alright, let me put it, let's put it like this. Remember how Freud said that no human being is psychologically capable of admitting the truth

about what's in your heart? That if you actually could see how bad you are, if you could actually see how selfish and cruel you are capable of being, if you could actually see the sinfulness of your heart, Freud says, you would just die. It would be horrible. It would be, you, you, you can't. Okay? You would be repulsed. But if there's a God and there is, God can see that. can see that. And if you've ever found yourself not even being able to stand in the presence of someone who smelled or was contaminated or there was an incredible stench, and you

just said, I'm sorry, I just, I have to get away. Now you have some idea how God looks at every human being, because he's infinite light, and infinite purity, and infinite holiness, and we're not. You know the place where it says, God is a pure eyes, and it can be holding theiquity? That's an image. Obviously, God is all knowing He sees everything, but there's another sense in which He is relationally repulsed by what is wrong with our hearts. And now, if that bothers you, let's talk for a minute about the objective. So God has a subjective problem with our hearts. And now if that bothers you, let's talk for a minute about the objective. So God has a subjective problem with our sin. We can't just go into His presence.

Spiritually, He's relationally repulsed subjectively, but He's also, there's an objective barrier, how so. Remember how I said the word dirty also means not just relational republics, but legal liability. Something is dirty is if it legally could bring you into jeopardy, bring you into jail, bring you into punishment from the law. And that's exactly the same thing with God. Let me put these two things together with a kind of painful illustration. Imagine a woman who's a judge, she's a good judge, and she has one and only one child, a son. And imagine that that son has gone off the rails, that son has had a terrible life,

and now he's killed somebody, and he's not repentant, and it was premeditated, and he's a fugitive from justice. But then one night he shows up in her home and says, Mother, please take me in. Please take me in. Now of course, you know, hide me. Now on the one hand, how's Mother going to feel? On the one hand, a mother's love, a father's love, a parent's love for a child is there. If anything, it's actually stronger when a child's in trouble. We all know that, I hope. And yet on the one hand, there will be a subjective revulsion. You want your child.

Wouldn't anything to be good and right. And to see it, there's nothing more revolting than to see someone become evil and wicked and cruel and terrible, but there will be nothing more repulsive to see your own child become like that. So there would be a sense in which she was subjectively revolted by her son, but objectively, here's what she'd have to say, I'm a judge. I cannot take you in. There is a barrier, there is a legal barrier between us. I stand for the law, I uphold the law, that's what I'm about. I couldn't possibly take, as much what I'm about. I couldn't

not possibly take, as much as I love you, I couldn't possibly take you in. There is a legal barrier between you and me. And there's an emotional barrier between you and me because of your sin. No, you can't come in. Now, do you understand? Let me say it again. Most people understand the idea of an unclean conscience, they understand the idea that we may feel guilty, but do you know that you are guilty? We may fail. I need to reconcile myself to God, but don't you realize it's something has to be done

to reconcile God to you. Something has to take away the legal barrier and something has to take away the subjective barrier. Because God, do you hope someday that this world will be put right? Wouldn't be great if there was a judgment day in which justice was done and everything was put right. Don't you want that? I want that. And that's only going to happen if there's a God who is the ultimate judge. And if he's the ultimate judge,

then he's going to say the same thing that that woman said to her son. There's a barrier between us. said to her son. Is it buried with us? No, I'm not. No, no, I'm not talking about any kind of external cleansing at all. All the stuff in the Old Testament, according to the book of Hebrews, is spiritual symbolism. So in other words, not literal blood, not literal baptism, not literal water, no. Something else has to happen in order to get rid of the barrier. And all the emphasis on the physical

is really pointing to the spiritual. Most Christians, even pastors, struggle to talk about their faith in a way that applies the power of the gospel to change lives, especially in our skeptical culture. Tim Keller's book, Preaching, Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism is a guide for anyone who wants to become more effective

in communicating about their faith. Pastors and laypeople alike. Drawing on his years of experience, Dr. Keller will help you share your faith in a more engaging, passionate, and compassionate way from the pulpit or in the coffee shop. Preaching is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world.

So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelunlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. What are we going to do? What's going to bring it away? What's going to take it away? What's going to reconcile us to God and God to us? And the answer is verse 11 and 12. Actually, the answer is all the way through all four. you may have noticed, it's all we all threw all four verses, but take a look at verses 11 and 12. But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that are now already here, when Christ came as a high priest, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with human hands.

He didn't come to a physical tabernacle. Okay? He went into the holy place, not a physical holy place, but when he entered that most holy place, once for all with his own blood, he obtained eternal redemption. He offered himself unblemished to God. The blood of bulls and goats cannot cleanse from sin. Can cleanse our conscience. Can't reconcile to God, but the blood of Jesus Christ can. As our great high priest, what does all that mean?

Okay, here we go. I'm taking you back to the book of Leviticus, to Leviticus 16, sorry, but here's what you have to see. When over and over again, it says here, the blood of bulls, a blood of goats, and the heifer, you know what it's talking about? Yom Kippur. The day of atonement, Yom Kippur, on that day, and only on that day, one day a year, the

high priest stood before God in the holy place, the place where God's chakana glory to weld, his presence, only on that day could anybody go back into the holy of holies. And only on that day, the high priest went back there in order to represent the people, to be our substitute, to be our mediator, to represent us, and to stand before God, and to make a tomen for our sins with the blood of bulls and goats and calves and heifers. And here's what happened on that day. A week before, the high priest goes into seclusion and praise to try to purify his heart. And the day before, the high priest is washed three times, bathed in water.

And then finally, the night before, as he goes, he's clothed in white linen, the most pure, the most spotless, you know, and the most clean as it were, possible garments, and then he represented the people before God. And if you understood all that happened at Young Capur, you would then understand why Zechariah, the prophet, was so shocked when he saw the vision that was shown to him and which he wrote down in Zechariah 3 in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, book of Zechariah 3, we know that Zechariah the prophet had a vision. In that vision, he saw Joshua, who was the High Priest at that time, the High Priest of Israel, standing before the Lord in his linen. And when Zechariah looked at you, he knew that it was Yom Kippur, and he saw, and there was Joshua. But then he looked a little more closely, and he was mazed because he was smeared with filth.

He was smeared with excrement and feces. He was smeared with excrement and feces. He was smeared with garbage. He was absolutely filthy. It was a stench. It was terrible. And Zechariah looked at him and said, how could this be? How could the hot of all days on Yom Kippur, of all people, the high priest. How could he be filthy and dirty before God? And the answer is that God was showing Zachariah and He's showing you and me that the external is not what He's about. That even if you externally make yourself as clean

as you possibly can, even if you do everything, if you pray, if you come to church, even if you come to church on the day of the biggest blizzard of the year. Oh, look at me. I'm pretty spiritual. I made it. No matter what you do externally to try to cleanse yourself, to try to make yourself right, to try to overcome anything else you've done no matter how hard you work, God sees.

God sees the uncleanness. God sees the uncleanness. God sees the uncleanness. So Zechariah is waiting for God to strike, Joshua dead or fire to come out from the throne or something like that. And instead, God says three things. One, I will take his sin off of him and his filthy garments. Number two, I will put clean garments on him.

And then number three, in verse eight, a Zechariah chapter three, verse eight, he says, and my servant, the branch, will take away the sin of the land in a single day. And Zechariah realized that this was a prophecy, that we are standing before God completely unacceptable. There's a subject of an object of barrier between us and the Holy God. We cannot know God. We cannot cleanse our own consciences.

We can't cleanse ourselves. And yet the someone will come and do it for us. And of course, this is what we know. It tells you right here. There was another person who came named Joshua. Do you know that Jesus is a kind of Latinized derivation of the Aramaic Yeshua, which is a derivation of the Jewish Joshua?

In other words, centuries later, another Joshua showed up. And on the last night of his life, he prayed. He prayed in the Garden of Gisemite. He prayed and prayed and prayed. Why? Because the next day, he was going to stand as a high priest. He was going to stand before God and represent us.

But he did not do that in a beautiful earthly building. Oh no, here's what happened. This Joshua, Jesus Christ, he was crucified on a garbage dump. Did you know what Galagatha is? You know what Calvary is? It's a garbage dump. He was crucified on the garbage. He was crucified in the midst of excrement feces, bowel movement.

And he wasn't clothed in beautiful garments. He was stripped naked, which was a sign of being shamed. And by the way, was he bathed with water? Yeah, with spit, human spit, they spit on him. He was made unclean. He was crucified outside the gate. Why? You know, John chapter 17, the night before he died, he said,

I have sanctified myself. I've set myself apart. I've gotten ready to be the high priest to represent the people. He was the only human being that was perfect. He was the only person who wasn't defiled. He was the only person who was, you know, spiritually speaking, his clothes, his life was completely spotless. So why is he treated as if he's garbage? Why is he sent outside the gate? Why is he covered with spit? And why did the father forsake him? My God, my God, why is that forsaken me? Because he was being treated the way we should be treated. He was taking our uncleanness upon himself. He was taking our repulsiveness upon himself. He was paying the penalty for our sins that objectively has stood between us and God. And you know what that means? Those barriers are going if you believe in Jesus

Christ. How does this work out? How does this actually work? Let's be practical about this. If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you believe that he became filthy so that you could become clean, that he was stripped naked so you could be clothed. The Bible is constantly talking about the fact you're clothed in the righteousness of God. Now we're going to get to that next week. This series talks about these various goods of the gospel, but they all overlap a little bit, so we can't go into it here. But we're talking about what's called justification by faith alone. Philippians chapter three, where Paul says,

I want to be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from obeying the law, but a righteousness is from God that I receive through faith. That when I say, Jesus Christ, you're my high priest, you're my representative, you're my mediator. Oh, Father, accept me because of Jesus' sake at that moment, you're somehow clothed in his righteousness. God no longer sees the filth, he no longer sees any of the things that you've done wrong. He sees you in Jesus Christ,

he sees you as an absolute beauty. How does this work out? I'll tell you this, everybody in this room has got a conscience problem. Everybody in this room has got overt or covert or both kind of guilt. And what they're going to tell you is, oh my goodness, if you're struggling with guilt, if you're struggling with low self-esteem, if you're struggling with not really feeling good about yourself, if you're struggling anyway, don't bring God into it, it'll just make it worse. And by the way, in general, bringing religion into it, bringing God in general into it, yeah, you know, actually it does make it worse. And by the way, in general, bringing religion into it, bringing God in general into it, yeah, you know, actually it does make it worse.

But not if you bring the God and Father, Lord Jesus Christ in. Because if you bring the God and Father, Lord Jesus Christ, if you bring the gospel into your life, you bring the Word of God and the grace of God into your life, that's the only way to deal with what's wrong with you, a bit by bit, look, all the guilt that you have and shame that you have is partly false and partly true.

There's some things you shouldn't feel guilty about that you do, because the society or your family put it on you. And there's some things that you ought to feel guilty about, which you may not want to admit, but deep down inside you know that you should be feeling guilty about, which you may not want to admit, but deep down inside, you know, you should be feeling guilty about. Do you understand the difference between false and true guilt? We're racked with both of them.

So, for example, what if you've got false guilt? What if your family wanted you to be successful and make a lot of money and you know you've disappointed your parents and you feel guilty about that? Let's get the word of God. Let's see what God cares about. Does God care about money? Does God care about success? Or does God care about your heart? Your character?

Your faithfulness? Which means that's false guilt. You're feeling guilty where you shouldn't feel guilty. Other people have put upon you standards that are not God's standards. So what do you do? With the authority of the word of God, you look at your heart and you say, shut up. stop condemning me, stop it. Shut up.

With all the authority of the Word of God, first John 3 says, when our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts. So what you say is God doesn't condemn me for this. So you just shut up and it, that's how you do with falsego. But what about true guilt?

What about stuff you've done that is wrong? I think you know is wrong. And maybe you've asked for forgiveness and you repented in the past and you still feel guilty, your heart's still condemning you. You know what, you can take the grace of God and say, shut up, why?

Because the Bible says in Christ Jesus, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There's a great hymn that goes like this, well, may the accuser roar of sins that I have done. I know them all and thousands more. Jehovah, know with none. Let the accuser roar, whether it's the devil or my heart or my conscience, let the accuser roar of sins that I have done. I know them all and thousands more. But my Lord, because I'm in Jesus Christ, my Father knoweth none.

See you can take the Word of God to fall skill and say, shut up to your heart when it's condemning you. You can take the grace of God to to your heart when it's condemning you and say, shut up. And finally you get that piece. Look at Paul. Look at Paul. He was a murderer. He killed people. How did he live with himself? How did he have the confidence to go out and talk to people about the gospel? You can see it. go to Romans 8 where he says, who shall bring a charge against God's people. It is Christ that died, who's raised again, who is pastor of the heavens, who's interceding for us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, says Paul, in Romans 8.

I am persuaded, he says, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, or anything to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing. And all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He's like I've got a high priest. That's how I have my confidence. That's how I put my conscience at rest.

Hey, you know, when I favored fairy tales, but it's not very well-known, it's not a Grims fairy tale, it's not a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, it's an English-British-Scottish fairy tale, it's called the Black Bull of Norway. It exists like all those fairy tales in several forms, but here's the essence of it. There was a prince, and he went into battle and he killed somebody that he regretted killing. And he felt horribly guilty and terribly bad. And he came back and he noticed that his tunic was stained with blood and he tried to clean

the blood off the tunic and it wouldn't come out. The stain wouldn't come out. It's a fairy tale. And the tunic represented his conscience. It represented his heart. He'd been wounded. He wounded himself by what he'd done wrong. And he couldn't get the stain out. So he made a proclamation and he said to everyone in the kingdom he says, any young maiden, any young woman who can get the stain out of my tunic must be my true love. And I will marry her and we will reign over the kingdom forever.

And by the way, you see what psychological sense this fairy tale makes? Because he knew he says, if there was any girl that could get the stain out, she would be my true love. And that's what I'm going to need. I'm going to need true love in order to deal with the self-hate, that my wrong actions have inflicted on my own heart. Only my true love will be able to heal me of that self-hate and cleanse my conscience. So if she can get the stain out of my tunic, she can get the stain out of my heart. And of course, what ends up happening is there's all every girl in the kingdom, every young woman in the kingdom tries and fails.

And then, you know, typically great fairy tale story. There's one poor girl, she's a servant girl, she's new to town, she has no idea about, she has no idea about the offer. She sees this whole bunch of laundry that she has to do laundry at her job and she sees this tunic with this stain on it. And she says, oh, okay, well, I guess I better do that too. And she just does all the laundry, including the prince's tunic and puts it in,

she gets a stain out. Wasn't even trying. And she says true love and how they meet and then find each other as part of the story. But here's the point. Jesus is your true love. Jesus can get to stay now. Jesus says, I'm the only one that can do that. And therefore, I'm the only one that can heal you of your self-hate, that you've inflicted on yourself. And all this stuff that Freud

said was intractable. No, no, it's not, not with me in your life. With the word of God and the grace of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus says, I can take it out. You don't have to live always recriminating yourself. You don't have to pay that price anymore. Everybody in this room struggles with over and covert guilt. Jesus is your true love. He's your high priest.

He cleanses everything. Bring this truth and bring Jesus in the middle of your life and let it change everything. Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us your gospel. And thank you for all the innumerable, amazing goods and benefits that come into our life. And one of them is reconciliation that you now, you now you embrace us, you love us, you are reconciled to us.

Thank you, Lord, that you sent Jesus Christ our true love to cleanse our consciences and break the barriers between us. And we pray that we would begin to live the kind of lives of joy, of peace, of how deep peace that comes from a clear conscience. Help us, Lord, to do this through Jesus. It's in His name that we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller.

If you were encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people access resources like this podcast. Just visit Gospel and Life.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 2009 and 2016. The sermons and talks you hear on Magospa and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor

at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.