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

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

The night before Jesus is going to die, he’s trying to get his disciples ready to be sent out into the world to represent him. And what does he do? He washes their dirty feet.  We’re meditating on the fact that he washed their dirty feet. Only when you understand this picture, do you really understand the kind of love that Jesus is calling all Christians to. The love that Jesus is calling us to 1) is not just attraction, it’s action, 2) is not just giving, it’s investing, and 3) is not out of our emptiness. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 23, 2016. Series: Jesus, Mission, and Glory: New Purpose. Scripture: John 13:12-17. 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. Tonight's scripture reading is from John,

chapter 13, verses 12 through 17. When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. Do you understand what I have done for you? He asked them, you call me teacher in Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

Very truly, I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. The word of the Lord, thanks be to God. Now the entirety of John chapter 13 to 17 was Jesus. Last training session with his disciples before he died. It's the night before he's going to die. So of course, he's trying to get them ready to be sent out into the world to represent

him. So how do you do this? How do you show in a nutshell what you're all about and what they have to be all about. That was the challenge before Jesus. How do I do that? What he does is this, he washes their dirty feet. He washes their dirty feet. Now, of course, you say, well, that's interesting. What does that mean?

Well, later on, chapter 13, we're going to get there eventually. Chapter 13, verse 34, he says, I want you to love one another as I have loved you. He says, oh, so that's what it means. Why didn't you just say so? You know, Flannery O'Connor once was asked about one of her short stories, a really great short story.

And she's, and he said, could you just boil it down into a nutshell, what does it mean? Just give it to me in a sentence, what does the story mean? And she said, if I could boil it into a sentence, I wouldn't have had to write the story. In fact, you can't boil a story into, generally speaking, what's great about a story, or in this case, a metaphor, he washes their dirty feet.

He's giving them not a proposition, love one another as I have loved you. He's giving them a picture. And as we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words. Actually, it's worth more than that because a proposition is nice and clear and concise. Okay, love one another as I have loved you. But by washing their feet and saying, I have washed your dirty feet. Now you should wash one other's feet. He's telling them that, but it's rich.

You can reflect on it and meditate on it and think about it for the rest of your life and by the way you should. And get more and more things out of what it means, what it, who Jesus was and if you're a Christian, what it means to represent him in the world. So that's what we're gonna do tonight. We're just gonna meditate a bit on the fact

that he washed their dirty feet. In fact, let's think of it like this. He washed their dirty feet. He washed their dirty feet. He washed their dirty feet. And when you put the emphasis on each one of those, you get something else. And here's what we're gonna learn. The love that Jesus is calling us to is not just

attraction, it's action. It's not just giving, it's investing, and it's not out of our emptiness, but must be done out of a full heart. And only when you understand those three things, do you really understand the kind of love that Jesus is calling all the Christians to? So let's get started. First of all, he's calling his followers to a love that is not just attraction, it's action. What would it mean by that?

All right, he washes their feet. There's a lot of ways you can take care of somebody, by the way. If you watch Downton Abbey, there's all these valleys and ladies maids and they're all helping the lady and the Lord get ready. And there's lots and lots of rather pleasant and, you know, congenial ways to do that. But that's not what Jesus is doing here. He doesn't say, as I have fixed your hair, so you should fix one another's hair. He doesn't say that.

Why? Well, that's kind of pleasant. What he's saying is, as I put my face right up against your dirty feet so you should wash one another's feet. Now, what if feet? Well, if you've been here for a couple of weeks, I hope you have. You know that washing dirty, stinking feet was repulsive. It's not like fixing somebody's hair.

It's repulsive, washing sneaky dirty feet. And not only that, by the way, feet are not...most people don't consider their feet very attractive. In fact, I read a couple of polls, asked women, what is the most unattractive part of your body, and the number one answer was their feet. And so when Jesus says, watch one of their feet, not fix one of his hair or whatever else. Here's what he's saying. You don't just love people that you're attracted to, that you find attractive. You know, our culture essentially almost defines love as being attracted. If you see someone that you have a desire to be with, we love them.

I love you, I wanna be with you. And Jesus is trying to say, right off the bat, is as though I define love, not only can you do it with someone who you're not attracted to, but in fact, you ought to do it to all kinds of people you find unattractive. And once you understand that love is something you do

for somebody that is completely unattractive to you, you're starting to get closer to what Jesus says, love is rather than what the culture says, love is. What do we mean? Well, when I say attracted, I'm not just talking about romantic attraction. You get attracted to people because of their success or because of their power or their connections

or their intelligence or even you're attracted to somebody who just has a wonderful, sunny disposition that makes everybody feel great when you're around them. You're attracted to people. So for these various assets, why? And here's what it means to be attracted. Every one of us, all human beings, we're just lots of little, we're just a big bundle of needs. We need approval, we need power, we need comfort,

we need control, we need all kinds of things. And when you, when the human soul senses a person out there who's got the ability to meet some of those needs, then you, hungrily, make a beeline for them. And you call that love. But is it? See, it's Lewis in screw tape letters has a very interesting line where he says, in human

life, we have seen the passion to almost digest one's fellow to make his intellect an emotional life and extension of one's own. On earth, this desire is often called love, but in hell, they know what it is. It's hunger. See often when you say, I feel love for this person. We're not just about romantic love, but you want this person to be your friend. You want to be with that person. Very often when you say, I feel love toward you, what it really means is,

I feel being around you makes me feel better about myself. Being around you makes me feel smarter, happier. In other words, to love someone for who they are in themselves, to love someone just for who they are, should be done regardless of what they do for you. But most people when they say, I'm attracted to you, I love you, what they really mean is not that you love them,

but that you're loving yourself through them using them as a commodity to meet your needs. And that's hunger. I love you means, boy, you make me feel good, in all kinds of ways. The culture basically gets you to believe, love means feeling attracted to people who will meet your needs.

And Jesus says, no. Love is something, love is washing dirty feet. Love is something you can do for people who not only are aren't attractive, but who are positively unattractive to you. And you can do that. Why? Because here's what love is. Real love is not, you meet my needs. Real love is, I'm going to meet your needs. Real love is not, you complete me.

Love is saying, what will it take to complete you? What do you need for me? Another way to put it is this. There's two operating principles for the human's whole. One is, your life for mine. I'll be in a relationship with you as long as it meets my needs. We live in a culture that actually teaches everybody to do that in a million ways. Don't get into a relationship unless it's fulfilling you, unless it's helping you

reach your goals. If it's not, you pull out. But see, that's one way is your life for mine. Your life to fill my needs. But then Jesus is saying, no, that's not the operating principle. The operating principle of the love I'm calling you to is my life for yours. My life to meet your needs. Now, like I just said, we live in a culture

that teaches us not to live on the operating principle of my life for yours, but rather on the principle of your life and everything else to meet my needs. That's not how real life works. Think about, by the way, how a child is born and grows into healthy adulthood. You know the only way a child grows into healthy adulthood is that some parent or parents have essentially died to their own convenience,

died to control of their own time. They've laid down their life. I mean, parenting is just one sacrifice after another sacrifice after another sacrifice after another sacrifice. On the other hand, by the way, if you are someone who grew up without somebody saying my life for yours, sacrificing their agenda, sacrificing their emotion, sacrificing their time and their convenience, in many cases, in their career. If you didn't rise, grow up with some parent sacrificing all those things for you, you're suffering right now and you're not going

to suffer the rest of your life. In some way, why? Because when you say my life for yours, it feels like a death, but it leads to life. So for example, let's just say you find out somebody who you don't like, but who you know. Somebody not only do you not like the person, you find very irritating, but nobody likes it. Everybody finds irritating. And this person is having a problem and they want to come over and talk to you for an entire morning or afternoon. So what do you say? Now the normal way of course is no I won't be home, no I'll never be home. No I've moved to another continent. What a shame. No the internet's down over here and it's continent. I mean the one thing you want to say is look or even if the person shows up you just you telegraph to them by your attitude that you really don't want to hear it.

So that is looking out for your own needs. And that feels like life, but it spreads death. That person experiences the death of not having anybody who's going to listen to them when they're in their moment of great need. And in fact, you're spreading death into your own heart because you become hard-hearted. But what if this person that's very irritating, that you really don't want to spend time with, they come and you sit down and you spend a long time with them, weeping with them, praying with them, giving up your morning, giving up your, it feels like a death, right? Yes, you're dying.

And yet it spreads life. It makes you more like Jesus, who lived on the base of my life for yours. It makes the person, by the way, it spreads life to the person because it's life-giving to have a friend, life-giving to have love. You see? And Jesus says, look, the very idea that you love people you're attracted to because you're getting something out of it. that you love people you're attracted to because you're getting something out of it. There's two ways to go. One is, I am my own and everything has to meet my needs. The other is my life for yours. And the more you do my life for yours, the more you experience death, but it leads to life. And the more you say, my life first,

my needs are first, you experience life, but it leads to death. And therefore, the it leads to death. And therefore, the first point is this. The love Jesus calls us for too. It's not just attraction, but action. It's serving the interests of another person rather than your own, whether you get anything out of it or not. So that's the first part of the definition.

And it's something not only that you can practice with people you're not attracted to, but you especially ought to. Because you know what nobody else is. Nobody else is. And you, therefore Jesus follows their spreading life in the world. Number two, though,

we said not only that Jesus washes dirty feet, but he washes 30 feet. And that leaves my second point. My second point is the love Jesus calls us to is not just giving, it's investing. Now here's what I mean by that. You could go to the opposite, you could make the opposite mistake. See, the first mistake is that love is basically an emotional thing when I feel attraction for somebody I want to be with them. They meet my needs. That's real love. And Jesus says, yeah, no, that's actually hunger. That's a form of hunger in which you're basically not loving them, but you're loving yourself

through them by making them a commodity to meet your needs. But the second mistake you could make, you could go to the other extreme and you know what you could say, oh, okay. So love is just serving people, just serving them, just doing what they need, just making your sacrifice. Okay. Then it's really just a matter of the will. And I've heard people argue and say, well, you know, the Bible actually commands love and you can't command an emotion.

You know, somebody cannot command you to feel an emotion. They can only command an action. So when God commands you to love one another, when Jesus grants you a love one other, He can't be talking about the heart. He wants to be talking about the will. And therefore, love is simply just meeting these other people out of a sense of duty. Is that right? Now by the way, anyone who's been in a love relationship knows that there are times in which you meet the needs of the other person when you don't feel like it. In fact, as I just said, if parents didn't do that, if parents didn't meet the needs of children, even when they don't feel like it, we'd all be dead. We just be dead, you know, or all of it, or you know, all complete a complete mess with maybe we are.

Anyway, the point is that Yeah, sometimes of course you have to, you know, Serve even when you don't feel like it. But if ultimately Your service to other people doesn't engage your heart That actually doesn't fulfill your duty. Yes, you're supposed to fulfill your duty, but to never feel, and a hard investment in someone is not actually fulfilling your duty, why? Because you're supposed to care about the effect of your service on the person's life. What do I mean by that?

Well, Jesus doesn't just confront the feet. He washes them. He washes them. And if you remember, if you were again here of one of the last two weeks, this is symbolic of his salvation. When he says now in verse 7 and 8, we didn't read that part,

but just a little earlier in the passage, when he's washing Peter's feet, Peter says, I don't want you to wash my feet. I don't want you to bathe me and cleanse me. And this is unseemly. And Jesus says, I don't want you to bathe me and cleanse me. And this is unseemly. And Jesus says, if I don't wash you, you have no part in me, which means you can't inherit

my life. So when Jesus says unless I wash you, you can't have eternal life. He doesn't mean literally unless I wash you. It means what? The foot washing. The dirt is sin. And what Jesus is saying is, I'm not just trying to serve you, I've got a goal for you, I want to see you clean, I want to see you bright, I want to see the dirt off your soul.

The stuff that makes you, the stuff that darkens your heart, the self-centeredness, the cruelty, the anxiety, all the things that are wrong about you, your heart. The self-centeredness, the cruelty, the anxiety, all the things that are wrong about you, your soul. I wanna see you clean and bright and brilliant. I wanna see you glorious, I wanna see you joyful, I wanna see you loving, I wanna see you humble, I wanna see you fill with great life and love. See, that's his goal.

And we know he had that as a goal for us. It says in Hebrews chapter 12, it says that he endured the shame of the cross for the joy that was set before him. And in the Isaiah, passage is about the suffering servant. In Isaiah 40, 50, in 53, it says about the suffering Messiah, the results of the suffering he will see

and he'll be satisfied. In other words, Jesus has a vision for what you and I can be. And he gets excited when he sees that. And he says, yes, I'm doing, I'm sacrificing, I'm serving, I'm getting nothing out of it right now. I'm going to go to the cross, I'm going to be tortured, I'm going to put the death. I mean, I'm like, I am serving you in such a way that I'm going to lose everything, but guess what? I'm excited about what this is going to do for you.

I feel, I'm filled with joy when I think about what's going to happen. Now, is that how you think about how you serve people? 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 missional? In his book, Every Good Endeavor, 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 Endeavour 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. CS Lewis has a tremendous and important sermon called the weight of glory. You can find it online by the way. I think I always say that. I hope you do. At one point he says, if you're a Christian, then you believe that we're not just bodies, but we're souls, right? We also have souls. And the souls go on forever. And then he says, think about this, every time a person operates on the basis of your life, your life or mine, me first, my needs first.

Every time you do that, it makes you more like Satan, who lives on the basis of power. He lives on the basis to digest people. I will use you to build myself up. It's how a lot of people live in New York City. Basically, my job is to get up that ladder. And if it means taking credit for something that my colleagues or my underlings have done, I'm going to do it. If it means, you know, elbowing people away to get up, I'm going to do it. So that's how Satan works. And that is to say, his basis

for life is power digestion. The basis of Jesus' life is love, self-emptying. And whenever you experience or act on the basis of me first, you become more like Satan, and whenever you experience or are acted upon on the basis of someone who says, my life for yours, I'm going to sacrifice for you. You're pushing people toward Christ or Satan, got that? And here's what this means in your...this, I read this years ago, and it just changes your understanding of daily life. Listen, see as Lewis says, there are no ordinary people. You've never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, civilizations, their mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a nat mosquito.

It's a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to, may someday be a creature which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare. Are my going slow enough for you to, for this to sink in? All day long, we are in some degree helping each other to one of the others of these destination, one of the other of these destinations. Every time you talk with somebody,

you know, you can make them feel welcome, you can make them feel cherished, you can sit down and you can, you can say, my life for you, my time for you, my attention for you, my heart for you, my things for you. Or you can say, hey, it's all about me. And I've got, see, you are helping people toward one of the other of these destinations. And then he goes and says, it is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities. It is with the awe and circumspection proper to them

that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. You see what he's saying? And here's what Jesus is saying by saying, I want you to base your relationship on other people on what I'm doing right now. I'm washing their feet. I have a vision for what they can be. You never just in a kind of dutiful way.

I said, okay, I'm going to serve that person. No, you have a hope, a goal for that person. You want to see them grow. You want to see them develop. you want to see them develop, you want to see them become more like Christ somehow. You want them to know the joy that happens when you love and serve other people and how that bonds you with other people

and how that turns you into a soft-hearted, tender-hearted wise and loving person. You don't want them to know the hard-heartedness that comes as they look out for themselves and they exploit other people and they become more and more alienated from people as the years go by. You don't want that. And as soon as you say, this is what I want. See, you're washing their feet. I want to see the dirt go away.

When you have a goal for them, like Jesus has a goal for you, that will engage your heart. And it really won't be necessary, by the way, to say, I'm just in a very beautiful way I'm just giving. No, you're investing in them because you care about where they're going and you care about getting to one of those destinations. And you want every single thing that you do, every interaction you have during the day, you know you're pushing people to one side or the other. That's the reason why he says it is in the light of those overwhelming possibilities. It is with the awe and circumspection proper to them that you should conduct every interaction

with every human being. That's an investment. Get your heart engaged. It will be engaged. And by the way, again, our modern culture on the one hand sometimes defines love. To love everybody means you're feeling attracted to them, but to love everybody also means I just tolerate and accept them and I never tell them they're wrong. Look, if you love somebody and you see them doing wrong, you get angry at them for their

sake, right? The opposite of love is not anger. The opposite of love is hate and the final form of hate is indifference. And to not care and not say your feet are dirty and they need to be clean is the final form of hate. So we're supposed to be, the love Jesus calls us to is not just attraction, it's action. And it's not just dutifully giving people things,

it's investing in who they are and who they become. Now, you know what it's so hard to do? Let me tell you, Let's finish this way. He doesn't just say go wash one of his feet. He says because I have washed your feet so you show wash others' feet, you know, they're one of his feet. The reason why we have trouble loving people the way Jesus is saying, and we do have a lot of trouble. I mean every time I ever preach a sermon, ever, Jesus is saying, and we do have a lot of trouble. I mean, every time I ever preach a sermon, ever, on, there's so many texts where it says,

love one other like this. Love your enemies, love your friends, love your brothers and sisters, love your neighbors, and there's all these things the Bible says about love. And when you're done reading any of those texts, you sit there and say, you know, hit me again, I'm still breathing. I feel like, I can't do this, but here's why.

It's so hard. It's all simple economics, friends. Do you want to mean by simple economics? You can't give a lot of money away. If you don't have enough money to even buy food and eat. You can't give a lot of money away. If you, yourself, can't even eat, it's simple economics.

And you can't give love a way like this if you're empty inside. The reason why most of us have to basically only love attractive people is because we need to love people who will love us back. We'll make us feel good about ourselves. You know why? Because we're empty. We're not full. We're not filled. Romans 5, Paul says,

the love of God is shed and brought in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It's talking to Christians. Is that true for you? That can't just mean that he's not saying, if you're a Christian, you know up here that God loves you. You inferred, I said, well, I believe the Bible, the Bible says God loves me, so it loves me.

When it says that by the Holy Spirit, the love of God floods your heart, he's talking about an experience, a sense of fullness, and without that fullness, you cannot be generous with your love. Without a sense of fullness, if you're empty, if God's love is not real to you, I can tell you this, you will only be able to love people who love you back and make you feel good. In other words, you have to always be in a profit relationship. You've got to always be in love relationships where you're getting about as much

or at least a little more than what you're giving, what you're getting back about, a little more than what you're giving. You're making a profit. Why? Because you're empty. If you were going to really give money away without regard for anything, just give it away, give it away. You'd have to have almost an infinite stream of free money coming to you all the time. And if you're going to love the Jesus Christ says, you should love, you're gonna need an infinite stream of absolutely free, unconditional love coming into your heart all the time. And guess what?

Jesus says, I can give you that. Now there's two things you have to get at. You're just two things you must do. The one is you actually have to have faith in Jesus Christ. Look, it's one thing to read this text and say, isn't that wonderful? Jesus washing the defeat of the disciples. What a great example he is.

So if you see him washing other people's feet, you can say it's a great example. It's not a great example. I'll tell you what, it's a crushing example because nobody can do it. The key is not to see him washing other people's feet as an example. The key is, have you ever seen him washing your feet?

Have you ever looked down as it were? The speaking metaphor, of course, but have you ever looked down and realized that the Lord of the universe humbled himself, became a human being, went to the cross for you. See, you got to be careful. If Peter said, what are you doing down there? I don't want you washing my feet.

It's unseemly. In a way, Peter represents all the people of the world who are frankly too proud to admit the gospel's true. Here's what the gospel says. The gospel says you're a sinner, and you're really more sinful than you think, because you not only do bad things, everybody admits they do bad things, but even the good things you do,

you do for selfish motives, generally out of hunger, to use other people. And therefore, you're so sinful that nothing less than the death of the Son of God can save you. Now, if you don't believe that, if you say, I'm not that bad, then you've never seen Jesus at your feet, never seen him washing your feet, going to the cross in order to cleanse you, and therefore you'll never get this stream of infinite love.

You've got to believe, you've got to have faith in him, and as you put your faith in him, it's astounding. You suddenly say, my Lord, what are you doing at my feet? Washing my feet. How could you do this? Have you done this for me, my servant king? You've come all this way. You've humbled yourself like this.

Has that happened to you? Have you put faith in Christ? That's the first thing you've got to do. But here's the second thing. You've got to relish. You've got to just relish the love of God in Jesus Christ. It's what prayer is about. It's one of the things that prayer is about.

One of the things worship is about. You've got to sense that love. That love has to get real to you, really real. How do you do that? Well, there's a million ways. Every time you pray, every time you get into a passage of scripture, every time you sing a song to him, what you're doing is you're saying, oh Holy Spirit, flood my heart with your love so that I can live the life that you've called me to, the life of love.

Years ago, I've preached to this passage many times and thought about it many times, but many years ago I was reading a series of sermons about Jesus kneeling down, coming to earth and washing our feet by James Boyce who for many years was the pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. And at the end of his sermon on Jesus' kneeling love to wash our feet. And where he was also at the end of his sermon, trying to say, well, how do you get the kind of love?

How do you get enough love on your heart so that you can live this way? He told a story and he says, see, it's stories like this that remind you of what the Bible says. Stories are pictures are better than propositions. Remember that? It's when we started the sermon. So let me give you a picture.

I got this. I dug this out of a book of sermons that I first read in the late 1970s when I was preaching on this for the first time. And this is how this particular man finished his sermon on Jesus' kneeling love. He says, the love of the Lord Jesus in dying for us may be illustrated by the following story. Many years ago, Zarr Nicholas I of Russia knew a young man for

whom he cared a great deal. Nicholas I of Russia had a good friend, and this was the man's son, and because of his interest in this young man, Nicholas had him assigned to a border fortress of the Russian army and caused him to be given charge of the money used for paying the soldiers. The young man started well, but he fell into bad habits and he took the gambling, and eventually gambled away not only his own wealth, but also a great fortune taken from government funds. He had started by taking just a few rubles at a time,

but these had mounted up and become prodigious. And one day, he received notice that on the following day, an official would be coming to inspect the books. The young man knew he was in trouble, so he took out the records to find out how great this short fall was. He totaled the amount. He then went to the safe and took out his own money to see whether he can make good the debt.

He subtracted the lesser from the greater and the shortfall was absolutely astronomical. As he sat looking at the final figure, he realized that it was over. And he picked up his pen and he wrote in large letters on the bill, a great debt, who can pay. Then, because he did not see how he could face the terrible dishonor the next day, he determined to kill himself with his revolver at 12 midnight.

That night was warm and drowsy as he waited for the midnight hour, in spite of himself the young man's head dropped lower and low, and he fell asleep. Now, what happened that Nicholas I, the Zarr, was in the habit of sometimes putting on the uniform of a common soldier and visiting the troops to see how they were getting on. So he did this night, and he came around the halls of the very fortress in which the young officer was sleeping. Most of the lights were out as they should have been, but when Nicholas got to the door of this one room, he noticed the light was shining from under it. He knocked, no answer.

He tried the latch, opened the door, and there was the young officer who he recognized immediately a sleep, and he saw the books open. And he saw the money out. And he looked. And the whole thing became clear in a moment. But as he read the young man's note, his heart went out to him. And he saw where he had written, a great debt who can pay.

And moved by an impulsive love, the czar leaned over, picked up that pen that had fallen from the hand of the sleeping officer and wrote one word. And then he tipped it out. For about an hour or so, the young man slept, then he suddenly awoke and seeing it was long past midnight, reached for the revolver.

As he did so, as I caught sight of his note, where he had written a great debt who can pay. But to his astonishment, he saw that one word had been written underneath it. Nicholas. Nicholas, the first, is R. He dropped his gun and ran to the files where there was a signature of the Zara available. He pulled it out, carefully comparing it with a signature on his note. ran to the files where there was a signature of the czar available. He pulled it out carefully compared with a signature shown as note. It was the real signature.

And he said to himself, the king has been here tonight. And he knows all my guilt. He's seen me to the bottom. Yet he is undertaken to pay my debt. And I don't have to die. So instead of taking his life, he rested on the word of Nicholas and it was not surprise, it was not surprise when the next morning a messenger came from the palace, bearing precisely the amount of money needed to satisfy the deficit.

And boy sends like this, thus to the Lord Jesus Christ love us and pay our great debt. Like the King, like this are, he too has come down among us in disguise as a human being. And like this are, he too has looked into the bottom of your heart and my heart and he has seen the worst. And like that King, he too has signed his name to our bankrupt account. No wonder we sing, Jesus paid it all.

All to him, I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. You have to think like that. You have to meditate on the pictures of the scripture until the reality of the love of God washes into you and creates that stream so that you can love one another as he has loved us, let's pray.

Father, thank you for the simplest thing. This is the basic Christianity, love one another as I have loved you, says Jesus. We've heard this, we've all heard this. But we fall so far short. Please now. Please now. Show us where we need to start.

Change the way in which we relate to people. And most of all, give us more sense of your love so we can love others as you have loved us with praying Jesus' name. 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 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 hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you