Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Sent in Love

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

On the night before he went to the cross, Jesus was about to send his disciples out into the world in a new way, and so he trained them. He started with this remarkable act of foot washing. Jesus has just finished talking about who he is and what he came to do. And then he gets up and begins to wash the disciples’ feet. So the foot washing is clearly a sign, a symbolic act. In the foot washing, we’re going to learn something about Jesus. This act shows us 1) his person, 2) his power, and 3) his pattern of life for us.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 9, 2016. Series: Jesus, Mission, and Glory: New Purpose. Scripture: John 13:1-5. 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.

What does it mean to be sent as a disciple of Christ? What is the mission of Jesus' followers in the world? Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller is teaching on what it means to be sent out into the world as a follower of Christ. After you listen, we'd appreciate it if you would take time to rate and review the podcast. Your rating and review will encourage others to listen so they can experience the joy and beauty of the gospel because the gospel really does change everything. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller.

The scripture reading this morning is John chapter 13 verses one through five. It was just before the Passover festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Ascariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power and that He had come

from God and was returning to God. So, He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around His waist. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples feed, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. This is the word of the Lord. Now, Redeemer is actually asking God to send us out into the city in a whole new way, in a more radical, more heightened way. That's actually what the RISE campaign is all about. Jesus on the night before he went to the cross was about to send his disciples out into the world

in a new way, and so he trained them. And from John chapter 13, starting right here, all the way to John chapter 17, we have the longest body of Christian, of Christ's teaching in the Bible. And it's all there as a training course to get the disciples ready to be sent out. Now we are going to undergo that same training course because we're going to spend the entire year looking, verse by verse, at the same body of teaching. Now it starts. Jesus, you might say,

he's training, getting you ready to get into the world, hit starts with this remarkable act of footwashing. It's clearly a symbolic act. You see in verse three, it says, Jesus knew, it's talking about in his head, he was thinking about who he was and what he came to do, that he had come from the Father, he had come to earth, he was going back to the Father, he was going to rule and reign, and then it says in verse 4, so he got up, took off his outer clothing, wrapped a Taliban's base and poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet. In other words, he's thinking about heavy high theology and therefore he gets up and

he does the footwashing. So the footwashing is a sign, it's a symbol, it's a picture of what? Well much, of course, but let's just look at it like this. Thinking about the footwashing, thinking about its meaning, we're going to learn something about Jesus' person, who he is, his power, what drives him, and his pattern of life for us. The pattern of life he gives to us. So his person, his power, and his pattern of life for us. Okay? So first of all, let's think about

what the foot Washington tells us about who he is, about his person. What Jesus does here is socially, not just jarring, but offensive, at least to the people who are there. Because yes, we were talking about a climate, which was hot and arid and people were sandals. When they got to a lovely meal, of course, you had these very dirty, dusty, smelly feet.

And therefore, the feet were washed before the meal. Who washed the feet? Slaves. And not even high ranking slaves. I mean, they were all sorts of ranks of slaves. But a higher ranking slave wouldn't even do this. Only the lowest of the low, it was an incredibly menial task, and it was considered extremely offensive. But here, it's not just that a host, the host of the meal, would never do such a thing. Even a higher ranking slave wouldn't do something like that.

But certainly not a guest of honor, a rabbi, a teacher, a person who had a position of status and honor in society would never do such a thing. That's the reason it was so incredibly jarring. But Jesus is deliberately doing it. There's a shocking juxtaposition of his social status with his behavior. But don't forget, this is a sign, and what's it a sign of?

It's a sign of who he really is. Because you will never understand Jesus unless you understand him as a conundrum. You will never really come to grips with who he is unless you see the conundrum, the conundrum of his high status and his humble behavior. Because this isn't just a teacher or rabbi. Jesus made claims, high claims, higher than,

essentially anybody else ever has. Buddha, Muhammad, repeatedly and clearly denied that they were God. And denied that they were some kind of angelic being. But Jesus repeatedly and clearly claimed to be the God the creator God of the universe. Sometimes he did it directly, like we saw last week, if you were here last week, John chapter 8, the very end.

Jesus Christ says before Abraham was I am. And that's the divine name that God gave to Moses in the burning bush. Who are you, Moses said? God said I am that I am. Jesus takes that name on himself. In John chapter 8, Jesus says, to know me is to know God.

In John chapter, well actually, in John chapter 6, at John chapter 12, he says to see me is to see God. In Mark chapter 9, he says to receive me is to receive God. And we're going to see, by the way, in John chapter 14, Jesus actually says, no one comes to the Father, but by me, no one comes fully and truly to God, except through Him.

These are astonishing claims. In fact, even when Jesus says he's the Son of God, modern readers sometimes might misunderstand that. Ancient readers knew what he meant. Ancient listeners knew what he meant when he said that because if you're the son of a father, if you're the only son in those days, you inherited all the wealth, all the position, all the status of the father wasn't divided. And therefore, to say he was the son of God. All the listeners, usually when he said that, they picked up stones to try to stone him. You can see that in John 5, because they knew

he was claiming to be equal with God. So directly, he's constantly saying, I'm God, I'm equal with God, I'm equal with the Father. But indirectly, he does it all the time too. Almost every page, so Mark chapter two, he claims the right and the power to forgive sins. John chapter six, the right and the power to give eternal life. Mark chapter 14, the right and the power to judge the world and everyone in it. And in the Bible, whenever an angel appears and people try to worship the angel, the angel says, get up.

Because I'm just a creature like you. Don't worship me. So every time you try to worship an angel, he says, get up and every time somebody bowed down to worship Jesus, he basically said, stay there. You know, when Thomas said, my Lord and my God, in John chapter 20, falls down worship some. Jesus doesn't say,

don't worship me. So listen, this isn't just a rabbi or a teacher. The claims of Jesus are as high and as lofty as anything anyone's ever said about themselves. But on the other hand, the footwashing caps a whole life of behavior which is exactly the opposite of the claim. See, are you hearing the conundrum now? The footwashing caps a whole life of behavior that completely opposes contradicts the highness of the claim

because it's so low, it's so humbled, so sensitive. What do I mean? Well, you know, Jesus, Jesus constantly ate with people, ate with, by the way, in those times, meant you were having intimate friendship and relationship with. He ate with people that society saw as outcasts, people that were rejected by society, people who were shamed by society. So Jesus eats with a tax collector, that got the liberals mad. Because the tax collectors were on the side of the Roman oppressors, and they were making lots

and lots of money, they were greedy. And so if you were a social justice liberal Jew at the time, you said, you should have anything to do with those tax collectors, they're beyond the pale. On the other hand, Jesus ate with prostitutes, and that got the traditionalists and the conservatives upset. He actually touched lepers and nobody touched lepers. Everybody was afraid of contamination.

In fact, Jesus also, listen, careful. Jesus also ate with Pharisees. Now, we live in an era that says, as a truism, you should be tolerant of everybody except intolerant people. But see, Jesus be tolerant of everybody except intolerant people. But see, Jesus was not intolerant of intolerant people. He was tolerant of intolerant people, which means he was more open-minded than anybody today. So there's a humility here.

His willingness to associate with people, he went to the margins, he went to the poor, the oppressed, the shame, the rejected, and he mixed it up with them, he hung out with them. But it wasn't just, he wasn't, it's not just his humble behavior, but also his sensitive behavior, his care, his insight, his wisdom, what do I mean by that? Okay, it's so weird to see in John chapter three and four, Jesus meets two people who don't know who he is,

and he's kind of blunt and hard with Nicodemus and John chapter three. He's kind of tender and careful with the woman at the well, John chapter four. You go to John chapter 11. And here's Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus has just died and they're both grieving,

but Jesus is really kind of tough and hard on Martha, and he's gentle and careful and with Mary. Even look, in Mark chapter 5, there's a woman who has a flow of blood and she wants to be healed and she touches Jesus and she wants it to be private. She wants the healing to be private. Jesus says, no, it's got to be public. Come out and tell her where it's happened. Two chapters later in Mark 7, he meets a deaf mute and everybody's sitting

around him and Jesus takes the deaf mute into a private place, away from everybody else to heal him. So he gives the deaf mute privacy. He forces basically the woman of the flow blood into public. He's tough with these people. Why? I'll tell you why, because Jesus Christ is not an ideologue. He's not driven by habit, by temperament, by an ideology. He's infinitely sensitive. He knows, he gives people exactly what they need. Exactly.

There's an insight. There's a listening, an ability to enter into what the person actually needs. You never see a jarring note. You never see a wrong step. So you see this conundrum, infinite highness and infinite lowliness. Unbelievably high claims, radically contradicted by the most gentle and humble and kind and servant-hearted life in every regard, and this is the capstone note as it were.

Somebody once tried to explain it like this. They wrote it down like this. In Jesus Christ, you see tenderness without weakness, boldness without harshness, humility without any uncertainty indeed, towering confidence, unbending conviction, yet complete approachability, insistence on truth but always bathed in love, power without insensitivity, integrity without rigidity and passion without prejudice. Now what do we see? This juxtaposition of the high status,

the high claims with the lowly behavior, the humility, the sensitivity. John Stott, who was a great Bible teacher in the last generation, reading this passage says, that in his case, the main thing that proved to him that Jesus Christ was God was the beautiful, striking, astounding juxtaposition between the loftiness

of his claims and the lowliness of his behavior. When you put them together, how do you understand Jesus? Do you see? For cause, if you had the claims, the high claims, without the servant heart, who is he? He's just another religious quack. Making these great claims, trying to get followers. But if you have the servant heart,

but not the high claims, then you just got another teacher of love. If you try to get out of it by saying, well, maybe he never claimed to be God. No, his history increasingly, historical scholarship is showing you know he did claim to be God. So you see, the high claims and the lowly, servant beautiful, melt in your mouth, sweetness of his behavior means he can't just be a nice guy, he can't just be a religious quack.

And it concludes, it leads you, it pushes you. It's what John said. It pushes you. And I hope you're feeling the conundrum pushes you to a rational and emotional conclusion. The rational conclusion is he actually must be the son of God. The emotional conclusion is he's beautiful. He's beautiful. He's beautiful.

So that's a picture of his person. Secondly, however, this gives us not just a picture of his person, but also a picture of his power. What drives him? What's his motivation? And that comes not from three and four. It comes up here from verse one. Look at the sentence, having loved his own who are in the world, he loved them to the end.

Having loved, he loved. Having begun with love, he loved them to the end. Now look, that's a proposition in a sense. What this is saying is the thing that drove Jesus Christ was unconditional love, unending love. And you can talk about unconditional love, and okay, as a proposition, that's fine. But what's great about this picture, what's great about this story, this chosen symbol, this picture, is it shows us something really poignant about how strong Jesus love really is. Jesus Christ is washing their feet in the face of forces

that would stop other people from doing that, would stop other people from loving. Jesus Christ is experiencing huge pressure, forces that stop the rest of us from loving but it doesn't stop him. And it shows us that his love is essentially infallible. His love is unstoppable. No matter what you throw at it, it can bear it.

Well, what sort of forces do I mean? Well, let me just show you two. One is he's loving them in spite of his impending death. He's loving them, he's just thinking about their needs, he's serving them in spite of his impending death. Look, it's not that hard to comfort people when you're comfortable, but when you're in pain, it's very hard to think about anybody else. It's actually not that hard to give some money to somebody if you're flush. It's a lot harder if you're not.

And let me give you an extreme example of this. If you're hammering and you suddenly hit your thumb, don't ask that person to pass the butter or anything like that. That person is just, sorry, I can't do anything for you. Well, I'm in pain, you know, because pain makes you absorb pain naturally perhaps, but it brings you into yourself. Here's Jesus Christ, you don't know how much in pain he is in.

You'll see in the Garden of Gisemini. But the fact of the matter is that he is getting though the sins of the world are being put on him. He knows what he's facing. He knows the agony he's going to go through. He's probably beginning to experience it now, but he thinks of somebody else. See, the rest of us, self-pity, when problems are happening to us, when we're upset, when we're hurting, when something's going wrong, the self-pity pulls us in.

We don't even notice anybody else's needs, but Jesus Christ, no matter the pain, Jesus Christ loves us without a molecule of self-pity. But then secondly, and maybe even more importantly, Jesus loves us in spite of the unworthiness of the recipients. Now, you know how, isn't it kind of interesting that John, John, I'm going to give you something that John wants you to know from this passage.

John is trying to give you something, and I'm giving it to you because right in the middle of this interesting story about Jesus washing the feet, in verse 2 it says, the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon is scary at the betrayed Jesus. So right in the center of this interesting story about Jesus getting up and laying aside his garment and taking on the form of a servant, you know how the very, you know, the act of footwashing actually is parallel to Philippians chapter 2, where it says he rose from his throne, he emptied himself of his glory, he became a servant. That's exactly what Jesus does.

He rises from his meal and he takes off his outer garment and he girds himself with a towel and it takes a base and begins to watch the feet. And in the midst of all this, suddenly, he says, by the way, Judas was gonna betray him. Why does John say that? Here's the reason why. Jesus Christ is washing the foot, the feet of somebody who's going to get him killed. There's no indication that when he got to Judas Feet, he says, no, not you.

I know something about you. He washed all their feet. And we actually also know, he also knew that Peter was going to deny him in an egregious way, deny that he ever knew him. See, one is going to betray him, one is going to deny him, and all are going to forsake him. They are all going to hurt him terribly. Guess what?

He washes every single one of their feet. He serves them without exception. He washes the feet of the person who doesn't believe in him, as well as the person who does, the people who do. He washes their feet no matter what. Now what does that say? Here's what it says. Remember how I said it's very hard to love when you're hurting? Okay. Secondly, it's really hard to love when you're getting nothing out of the relationship. I mean, look, sociologists talk about this all the time now, that modern people tend to conduct their love relationships

pretty much the way in which they conduct their economic relationships. When you enter into an economic relationship, it's gotta be mutually beneficial. I'm buying your product, which means I'm trying to get your product at a cost that makes it possible for me to keep on buying it. And you're taking my money because it's you're getting more money than it cost you to make the product and we're all benefiting because we're all making a profit. But as soon as one of you starts to say, wait a minute, I am not getting my money's worth. I'm giving more value to you than I'm actually getting. Then you drop the relationship. Well, most people today, that's how we do love relationships, too. I'll be in a romantic

relationship. I'll be in a marriage. I'll be in a friendship. I'll be in a church until my needs aren't being met. And then I'm out of here, which is very much the way we do in economic relationships. That's not the way it is with Jesus. The cost-benefit thing is not there. It's estimated that most of us spend half of our waking hours at work. How does the wisdom of the Bible apply to our careers?

In other words, how can our work connect with God's work and help us make our vocations more emotional? In his book, Every Good Endeavour, Tim Keller draws from decades of teaching on work and calling to show you how to find true joy in your work as you serve God and others. The book offers surprising insights into how the Christian view of work can provide the foundation of a thriving, professional, and balanced personal life. Every good endeavor is our thank you for your gift

to help Gospel and Life share Christ's love with more people around the world. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Oh no. And this is what this shows you. When Jesus Christ, if you believe in Him,

Jesus Christ puts His love on you, and once His love is put on you, nothing can dislodge it. Not a million failures. Nothing can dislodge it. He loves you. Why? Because He loves you.

He said, well, how could that be? How could His love be unconditional? It tells you. Why? Because he loves you. He said, well, how could that be? How could his love be unconditional? It tells you having loved he loved Do you remember that place we talked about this every so often? Deuteronomy chapter 7 where God is speaking to Israel and he says he says I did not Choose you because you were a great nation or you were a better nation. It was because I loved you that I chose you That's circular. it's deliberately circular.

He says, I didn't love you because you were XYZ, God says, I loved you just because I loved you because I loved you. And that's where unconditional love comes from. Because if you say, I loved you because you were XYZ, that means you did something and then I do something. You did this, now I love you, but it doesn't say that. It doesn't say them having given themselves to Jesus Christ, he loved them to the end.

It said, having loved them, he loved them. The reason he loved them to the end is because he loved them at the beginning. In fact, the whole relationship happens because Jesus Christ puts his love on you and it's not because you're worthy, He doesn't love you because you're perfect. He loves you because He's perfect. He doesn't love you because you're great. He loves you because He's great.

His love is not a function of your holiness, it's a function of His holiness. So, when Jesus Christ deliberately washes the feet of all these people who are about to hurt him terribly and he's getting nothing out of the relationship at all, how much better for him to be in a sense looking up from the pages of this text and looking right at you and say, come be my disciple. Come be my disciple.

Once we enter into a love relationship, I will never forsake you. There is nothing that can be thrown at my love that will ever dislodge it. I was forsaken on the cross, paying the penalty for your sin, so that now I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever forsake you. So what's the thing that moves and what's the thing that drives him? What is his power? It's the power of unconditional electing love. Now that leads us to one, oh, by the way, no, not quite.

Somebody might say, before getting to the third point, somebody might say, but wait a minute, wait a minute. So he's just like that. I mean, where does that come from? And the answer of theologians throughout the ages has been the doctrine of the Trinity. See I know the Trinity hurts your head. Because the Trinity, the doctrine of the Trinity, the question of the Trinity is that there's only one God, but within the being of God, there are three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who have all been knowing and loving each other

throughout eternity. But do you know what that means? What does it mean to love someone? It means to glorify them? It means to delight in them? It means to lift them up? It means to say how wonderful they are? It means to give yourself to them?

That's what it means to love. And from all eternity, the fathers on the Holy Spirit have been giving themselves to each other, loving each other, glorifying each other. And therefore, many people have taught that when Jesus Christ gave up His glory and came down to serve us and to serve our needs, He was only doing for us what he'd been doing for all eternity. And the other way to put it is, it is the essence of the greatness of the, of, there are religions out there that say, God is too great to become a human being. God is too great to become a little human being and be killed.

But the Christian understanding of God is that is the greatness of God, that He could give up His greatness for love. That's the very essence of the greatness of God, he could give up his greatness for love. That's the very essence of the greatness of God that he was able to give up his greatness and become something lesser. Out of love. What is more glorious than losing your glory for loving someone? And that's the reason why one of the greatest things that CSL has ever wrote, I think, one of the most poignant and eloquent things

he ever wrote was when he says, that when Jesus Christ came to earth and died on the cross, listen to what he says, I'll read it twice. Jesus Christ, when he went to the, came to earth and died on the cross, he did that in the wild weather of his outlying provinces, which he had done at home in glory and gladness.

See, when he went to the cross, it was like going out into the wild weather of his outlying provinces to do something he'd been doing at home in glory and gladness with the father and the spirit for all eternity. When he was crucified, he did that in the wild weather of his outlying provinces, what he had done at home in glory and gladness, because from before the foundation of the world, the sun glorifies the Father and the Father, the Son in self-giving love. So from the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated off the throne, and by the abdication it becomes more truly self, to be there upon yet the more abdicated and so forever. This is not a law which we can escape.

The only thing outside the system of self-giving is hell. Hell's fierce imprisonment of self-absorption. No, self-giving because of the doctrine of the Trinity is the ultimate reality. You must be getting into self-giving or else, you're on your way to the hell of self-absorption. So Jesus Christ basically loved and therefore loves to the end because that's who he is.

Okay, lastly, what does this mean for the way in which we actually live? And of course, of course Jesus Christ, later on in this text, and we're not there yet, you know, this we only did verses one to five, but we're going to go on, we're going to go right through this whole four chapters this year. And later on Jesus sits down and says, now I, this is a pattern, the what I have washed your feet, I want you to wash other feet. Now we're gonna spend the whole time

when we get there on that. But here, let me just say three things quick. Just three things quick about how what Jesus Christ did should affect the way in which you live. Number one, it means you should be respectful and loving and kind and courteous to people who oppose you. We live in a time in which everybody

is talking about our polarization. We don't have conversations anymore. We just flame people, we demonize people. There's a local, recently the Pew Research Center, which does polling of the population. They ask questions, generally hot button questions, what's your position on this issue, what's your position on this issue,

A or B, A or B, A or B. And they've been doing this for years, but one thing I just noticed that I thought was kind of hidden, but very significant in a footnote. It says, they always usually ask, not only what is your position, but do you have any sympathy for the other position? And do you know right now, people who say yes to that second question are historic lows,

that people know where they stand and think the other side are crazy or evil. And it's almost a proverb that you should be tolerant of everybody but intolerant people. And Jesus Christ washes the feet, not just of intolerant people, but somebody's trying to kill him. What does that mean? That doesn't mean make it easy for somebody to sit against you. It means to be respectful, to be courteous, at least, to be patient, to be humble,

to people who oppose you. You have washed their feet, wash their feet. By the way, we'll see, We're going to talk about this. He certainly calls Judas out. You know, on the other hand, he's washing his feet. So first of all, it does mean Christians, we ought to take the lead in being respectful, in being kind, in being courteous,

and being open, not demonizing our opponents. That's number one. Number two, part of the pattern is this. being open, not demonizing our opponents. That's number one. Number two, part of the pattern is this. The topsy turviness of the world has a model of greatness. And Jesus Christ gives us a different model of greatness.

You can't really understand this passage, unless you read it together with Luke 22. Luke 22 tells us that in the upper room, there was a dispute between the apostles who said, they were arguing about who was going to be highest up in Jesus' kingdom when Jesus came into His kingdom. Jesus stops the debate and he says, who is greater, the one who sits at the table

and is waited on or the one who serves? And he says, I am among you as one who serves. Jesus is deliberately saying there, what is greatness? Is it power? Is it the number of people who serve you? Is it your wealth? Is it the number of your homes? Is it the powerful people you know?

Is greatness measured by the number of people that serve you or is greatness measured by the number of people you serve? To st- opposing views of greatness. And Jesus, I'm among you, is one who serves. Now Luke 22 doesn't tell us about the footwashing, and John chapter 13 doesn't tell us about the argument, but when you put them together and you realize that both happen together, it's so obvious why Jesus Christ is doing this, isn't it? And what he's trying to say to the apostles is, here you are immersed in the world's understanding of greatness, when you're on the very doorstep of the greatest contradiction of the world's idea of greatness you'll ever see. Because I am going to ascend to the heights by descending to the depths. I'm going to save the world by becoming weak, by serving, by losing my power, by being beaten up and killed and tortured.

And therefore, the Christian understanding of greatness is the way up, is down. The way the influence and power is to serve and the way to find happiness is to not care about your own happiness, but seek the happiness of others. And the world will tell you exactly the opposite. You live in New York City most of you, I guess. And therefore, we are swimming in the world's understanding of greatness, but we ought to just fill our minds with Jesus. Here's one last thing.

This cost-benefit relationship thing. I said that most of us are very influenced by it. When you're into a relationship, you feel like, well, unless I'm getting something out of it, I don't know how I can keep serving. I don't know how I can keep serving. I don't know how I can keep helping this person. But once you understand what Jesus Christ did for you, it blows the...it blows the cost-benefit thing completely out of the water.

Do you know why? Look at what's in the basin. When Jesus Christ washes their feet, he's serving them. Later on, a few verses later, he's gonna say, I am making you clean. So the water is his salvation. It's symbolic for salvation. Do you know what's in there?

Do you know also, by the way, Jesus in another place, it's in Luke chapter 12, verse 37. He says that on the last day, He's going to gird Himself and serve us at the table. It's a metaphor for saying, when you read that, you say, I thought He was gonna be on a throne and we were gonna serve Him, doesn't it say, we're bowing down and worshiping Him in revelation.

But then here in Luke 12, it says, I'm going to gird myself and wait on you. Okay, these are metaphors. Let me, don't sweat it. But here's what it's trying to say. Is I am going to, I'm going to show you my glory. I'm going to give you fullness of life. I'm going to give you a glorified body.

Do you have any idea how deep your hearts desires are for joy? You know, one of the advantages of being older is that as time goes on, you realize nothing will satisfy but God. Or when you're younger, you think, if I have these four or five things, I'll be happy. The older you get the more you can drive. You can drive ten trucks of gold and jewels and status and all sorts of things into your heart. And it just gobbles it up. Every human heart wants happiness and we can, nothing seems to make you content. And Jesus is saying, I will do that.

I will serve you. I will finally fill your heart. The beauty you've been looking for, the wealth you've been looking for, when you finally see the glory of my face, face to face. He's gonna give you everything. And what does that mean about the cost benefit thing? Here's what it means. Christians, are you Christians?

If you're in your right mind, you never look at somebody else and say, oh, you're not being thankful to me. You're not being nice to me. I'm gonna have to pull back. Christian, when you're in your right mind, you look at the world, you say, oh, you're not being thankful to me. You're not being nice to me. I'm going to have to pull back. Christian, when you are in your right mind, you look at the world, you say, world, you owe me nothing. I am no one's creditor. I'm everyone's debtor because I am eternally rich beyond the dreams of an earthly trillionaire.

And okay, maybe I'm in a relationship over here and I'm not getting what I could get from it. But so it was just a trillionaire, get worried if he loses 20 bucks. Look at what Jesus Christ is giving me. He's my friend, he's my spouse, he's my brother, he's my shepherd, he's my king, he's going to meet all of my needs according to his riches of glory. So why in the world would I not just serve? I'm rich. Why would I ever pull back? You need to look

at the world to say, I can kneel and serve you and never get up because the ultimate power of the universe knelt all the way into hell to serve me. If you know his love, you'll be able to serve other people, cost benefit, analysis, blow it away. If you're in your right mind, but are you in your right mind, if you see what He's promising here, when He says, I'm going to be doing this the rest of eternity, I'm going to be serving you, I'm going to be meeting all your needs according to my riches and glory. When you're in your right mind, you're going to serve other people and you're going to kneel down and you're not going to get up and get all upset because you're not getting

yours because the ultimate power of the universe nailed all the way into hell in order to love you. Look, you need this love, everybody. No friend love, no spousal love, no love from parents or love from children will ever fill the deepest recesses of your heart. How can you live without this love? You can't live without this love. So get it.

And then live as loved as you are. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this remarkable picture, not only of the greatness of Jesus' person, but of the unconditional, endless, patient, compassionate power of His love for us. And we're just simply asking, over the next few weeks, as we look at this wonderful picture of kneeling love, divine kneeling love that you would transform us into its likeness, into his likeness. And make us give us the servant hearts because we're so filled with what Jesus Christ is giving us. It's in His name we pray. Amen.

We hope you enjoyed today's teaching on what it means to be a disciple of Christ, and we hope you'll continue to teaching on what it means to be a disciple of Christ, and we hope you'll continue to join us throughout this series. Before you go, if you were encouraged by today's podcast, please rate and review it so more people can discover the hope and joy of Christ's love. Thanks again for listening. This month's sermons are a selection of recordings from 1996 to 2016. The sermons and talks you here on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1996 to 2016. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life

Podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.