Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Sent to Show Christ’s Glory

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

According to the Bible, there’s nothing more eminent than the glory of God. But that term is so remote to us now. Most Christians have heard of doing things for the glory of God, but what does that mean?  Do you want to have meaning in life? Do you have some need for deep personal change? Are you concerned about justice in the world? The key to all those things is the glory of God. We see in John 12 that to live for the glory of God is to 1) treat God as supremely important, and 2) see God’s beauty. And then we see 3) how to do it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 18, 2016. Series: Jesus, Mission, and Glory: New Purpose. Scripture: John 12:27-36. 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 reading for today is taken from the book of John, chapter 12, verses 27 through 36. Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.

The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered. Others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, this voice was not for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world. Now the prince of this world will be driven out time for judgment on this world. Now the prince of this world will be driven out, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

The crowd spoke up. We have heard from the law that the Messiah will remain forever, so how can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man? Then Jesus told them, you are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light before darkness overtakes you, whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. Believe in the light while you have the light so that you may become children of light. When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them. The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Now as I said, Redeemer is beginning with the rice campaign is moving into a new chapter in his life, and there's a sense in which we're asking God to send us out into the city in a new way, send us out to be with the gospel to serve our neighbors and our neighborhoods in heightened and radical ways, more radical than we have done in the past. As I was asking a lot. But what does it mean? I mean, who do we have to be to be sent like that into our city?

Jesus Christ, just before He died, went through an intensive course of instruction with His disciples in order to prepare them to be sent out into the world. And what we're going to do this whole year in the worship services and through the preaching is we're going to start with where we are, which is John chapter 12, and all the way to the end, John chapter 17, it's the longest body of teaching, the most substantial body of teaching that we have in, from Jesus, in the whole Bible, as where He is equipping His disciples to be sent out. And we're going to go through it so that He, in a sense, can instruct us and equip us. Now, the good thing about going through a big, a part of the Bible consecutively in a year is certain themes keep coming up and that gives you, that actually gives, I'll tell you as a preacher,

that means I don't never have to feel like I got to tell you everything about that subject because it's gonna come back. So I don't feel the need to talk to you about this subject at length, in fact I'm glad because it's such a lofty one. Here in the very beginning of this part of the Bible and by the way at the very end, too, at the end of that part, John chapter 17. It's all about the glory of God. See, a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it, and I will glorify my name again. It's all about the

glory of God. At the very end of John chapter 17, just before Jesus dies, he praised his father and he says, I want them to see my glory. I want them to give them my glory. It's like, according to the Bible, there's nothing more important than the glory of God. Some of you know that first Corinthians 10, Christians are told, do everything for the glory of God. But that term is so remote to us now.

It is so distant. Christians, most Christians have heard, of course, where you have to do things for the glory of God, but what does that mean? This year, we're going to keep getting back this subject, and today is really just an introduction, but let's get started. And let me tell you why, how important it is.

Do you want to have meaning in life? Do you have some need for deep personal change? Are you concerned about justice in the world? The key to all those things is the glory of God. So let's start looking at it. Let's ask the text, what is the glory of God? Where do you find the glory of God, preeminently? And how do you get it?

How do you connect to it? How do you grasp it? What is it? Where do you find it? How do you grasp it? So what is it? You notice that this voice that comes from heaven, this is God, of course, the God

the Father is saying, I have glorified my name and I will glorify it again. And that's actually a summary of the history of the world. According to the Bible, the main thing God is doing in the world, according to the Bible, the main thing Jesus Christ has come to do is to glorify God's name, is to show the world God's glory. Now what is the glory of God? I always, look, there's more to tell you than I can tell you right here, but I've always thought that the way to start and the simplest way to give people a definition of the glory of God is to look at the word used for glory in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, and to look at the word used for glory in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, and the

word used for glory in the New Testament, the Greek Scriptures. The Old Testament word is kabooth, that's the Hebrew word, and it tells us that the glory of God is His supreme importance. The New Testament word is doxa, for which we get our word doxology, by the way, and it tells us that the glory of God is his absolute ultimate beauty. So the glory of God is his supreme importance and his absolute ultimate beauty.

Take a moment with both of these. First of all, supreme importance. Well, the word Kavoth means weight. The Hebrew word for glory means weight, heaviness, weightiness. And what's interesting is we actually have an English word that operates something like that word. We have the word matter. So when you talk about matter, you are, matter can mean something solid, something substantial, or something weighty. But matter can also mean what? Importance.

And when the Bible says God is weighty, God is glorious when it talks about His cavaud, it means He is more important than anything else in the world, and He should be more important than anything in your life. He matters the most. Most people, who believe in God, for them God is of some importance. So they believe in God and if they have trouble they may start going to church or they may pray, but if things go well then they kind of don't pray. For most people God is of some importance, most believers in God is of some importance, most believers in God. He's of some importance. He's an add-on.

He's a vitamin supplement. He's a spare wheel. But when you understand the glory of God, the tree God is glorious, is the tree of of supreme importance. It means if you believe he's in the glory of God, and if you're treating him as glorious, it means his will, his work,

and your relationship with Him are the most important things. Let me just put it to you. Is Your relationship with God the most important thing in your life? Is it the only non-negotiable so you would do nothing to jeopardize or weaken it? Does Your life center on God? See, He's not an add-on, he's not out in the suburbs of your life, he's downtown in your life.

Is he the center? Do you do your work? Do you conduct your relationships? Your marriage or the marriage you'd like to have is he always central. Is he and your relationship with him the most important thing in your life? So nothing, everything else is negotiable. See then and only then, see if you answer yes to those questions or if you even say, oh, I Wish it were that way, then you've got Some grasp on the glory of God. So God is glorious means of supreme importance. Secondly though, as we said, there's another word in the Bible that's used for glory. It's the Greek word doxa.

And whereas the Old Testament word cavoth means weight or importance, the New Testament word, Dokes that means praise and wonder, luminosity, brilliance, or beauty. And John Debra's gets at this when he says, God is glorified not only by his glories being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. Did you hear that? God's glory.

You have not grasped the glory. If you only see it, you also have to rejoice in it. You don't just see God as supremely important, but you see Him as beautiful, desirable. They attract you. Put it this way. Edwards is saying, if you obey God, because you have to. That's not really grasping the glory of God

as much as if you were beg God because you want to. So if you're beg God because you have to, you're actually not giving Him your whole stuff, you're giving Him your will, and you're basically being selfish. If you were beg God because you have to, say, well, I've got to do this if I'm going to get all the blessings I want, then you're using God. God is not beautiful to. Say, well, I've got to do this if I'm going to get all the blessings I want.

Then you're using God. God is not beautiful to you. He's useful. He's not an end in itself. He's a means to an end. You're using him to get the things that you really rejoice in. But to see the beauty of God is to be so attracted to him, to obey him for himself. You love him for himself.

There is, you don't say, well, I want to please guys so I can get this thing or that thing, to know that you've pleased God because he is that beautiful and you are that in love with him. Is the greatest happiness you could know? And Edwards is right in saying, just to kind of acknowledge the glory of God saying, well, he's the most important thing I'm going to have to deal with him and not love him. In other words, to obey him because you have to, not because you want to, to see the glory of God, but not rejoice in that glory of God is not to really glorify God. So now what does that mean?

I mean, really, what is it come down to? And the answer is, glad surrender an unconditional obedience. Unconditional obedience that is joyful. Unconditional obedience that's joyful. Eric Little, some of you know who he was. There was a movie that told his story. It's called Cherry, It's a Fire. He won the gold medal in the 400 meter dash in 19, I guess it was 400 yard dash.

It wasn't in 1921 in Paris. But he became a, though he, obviously it was a great athlete, he became a Presbyterian missionary of Scottish and he went to China and when he knew that the Japanese were going to overrun China, this was obviously in the early late 30s and 40s, he sent his family home to Canada but he stayed there in order to do what? To do what God had called it to do. To be a missionary, to love people, to talk to people about Christ, and he stayed there, and he died in an internment camp.

Now little had a, what he called a discipleship book. It was when people became Christians, or people wanted to really grow his Christians, he would disciple them, he would meet with them, and he always started with a set of questions that go like this. Here are the questions he would ask. He says, are you ready to obey God even if it means loss of face? Will you follow God even if it means personal financial loss or being laughed at or some other hardship? And will all this sacrifice really be

glad joyful sacrifice? See, doesn't this sound like he's talking about the glory of God? As not only God being of supreme importance, but also absolute beauty. Are you willing to obey God, pardon me, are you willing to obey whatever the Bible clearly teaches, whether you like it or not? Are you willing to trust God in anything he sends into your life,

whether you understand it or not? And if you say, wow, that's hard to say, right, Eric Little, who, by the way, lived this out, basically said, if you grasp the glory of God, then you obey, no matter what it costs, no matter how you feel, no matter what the consequences, and you do it gladly. Why? Because what else could be more important than pleasing him and what else could be more

enjoyable than pleasing him? And until you were able to answer those questions, yes, for those reasons, you have a grasp the glory of God. Pretty powerful, I know. 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 Gospel and Life.com slash give. That's 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. We'll tell you about another movie. Kathy and I just recently saw it. It's a movie, just a new movie called Their Finest Hours. True Story. In the winter of 1952, in the Northeast, there was a Norreaster, and those of you who live in the Northeast, know a Norreaster, essentially a hurricane in the winter time.

And off the coast of Massachusetts, the Norreaster captured two tankers, not one in two tankers, split and broke in half. and the co-scarred station at Chatham, Massachusetts, was faced with the fact that it had to do two rescues in the middle of a hurricane. And for the second tanker, when they found out there was a second tanker, they only had a tiny little boat, little thing, which would only have been able to bring in eight survivors, even if there were any survivors.

And so that little boat had to be able to bring in eight survivors, even if there were any survivors. And so that little boat had to go out there, and the guy who was the Coast Guard, the sailor who was the guy, was supposed to be in charge of the boat, he had to go and talk to people and said, I need three volunteers, three people to go. And they're all cringing over the idea of going out into the hurricane to rescue people who may not be needing rescue.

But by the way, they did rescue. 32 people brought 32 people back on a boat. There was only supposed to bring back eight. And it's a great, it's a true story, great movie. But when he's looking at his other Coast Guard guys and they're all cringing about going out into 60, 70, 80 mile an hour winds and all the danger. He looks at him and he says this. They say you got to go out. They don't say you got to come back. And what he meant is it's our job to go out there and rescue.

It's not our job to survive. That's not in the job. That's not our concern when you're surviving. Our job is to go out and rescue. See, that's what Eric Little was saying. You understand the glory of God. It's your God to obey. It's not your God to survive.

It's not your job to survive. And you do it gladly. How are you doing on the glory of God? Now here's the question. You might say, wow, okay. Now look, it's not all bad news. Some of you think this might be bad news. Say how Augustin says, if God matters most to you,

culturally and personally, it's revolutionary. See, if self-fulfillment matters the most to you, you got a society of individualists and it's fragmented and divided. If your people matters the most to you, it tends toward racism and nationalism. If your family matters the most to you, it pushes you toward paternalism and patriarchy. Augustine says, only if God matters to you more than anything else will you be able to love all individuals, all families, and all races equally.

And it's not just culturally revolutionary, socially revolutionary, but God first is personally revolutionary. If your work matters to you more than anything else, you'll crush your family or you'll never be able to build a family because work matters too much to you. Ah, you say, okay, if family matters to you more than anything else, then you'll crush your family with your expectations because they're going to have to give you all your happiness. But Augustine says, if God matters to you more than your family and your work, it will rightly order all your commitments and you will love them all well. So you say, well, all right, I guess I should glorify God.

I guess I should live for the glory of God. But what do I do? If it's true, the glory of the grace of the glory of God is to grasp his importance and his beauty, what do I do? I go home and wait for God to hit me. I don't know what I can just zap me. I don't feel like you're real enough to me for me to live a life like that. It's all abstract. Well, how do you find the glory of God? Where do you find it? It tells you right here. Two places, look.

Now, Jesus Christ says, now my soul is troubled. What should I say? Father, save me for this hour. What's the hour? In the book of John, when ever God Jesus talks about his hour, he's always talking about the hour of his death. And that's the reason why he talks about being lifted up. When I'm lifted up in the earth, what do you mean, lifted up, lifted up, hoisted up on a cross. So he says, Father, I'm dreading.

I'm filled with fear before my hour, before going to the cross, but he says, glorify your name. And the father says, that's what I'm doing. The Bible says, de place to find the glory of God, preeminently, is on the cross. Yeah, go ahead, go to the Grand Canyon. I haven't made it there yet. Times running out, but maybe I'll see Grand Canyon. And if you go there and it takes your breath away, are you sensing the glory of God?

And Psalm 19 says, yes. Yes, you are, because Psalm 19 says, the heavens are telling the glory of God. When you see the stars, you see the ocean, you see the Grand Canyon, and you're smitten by it. Yes, you are sensing the glory of its creator, their creators, their creator. And in that sense, yes, you are sensing the glory of God,

but you're seeing the glory of God in creation, the way you see the glory of the sun in the moon. It's only a reflection. But the Bible tells us, and it's gonna tell us over and over again, you're gonna see as we go through the year, that when you look at Jesus Christ dying on the cross, you're looking at the sun, the full blaze of the glory of God. How so?

Well, Jesus Christ says, my soul is troubled. In some ways, this is John's version of what we see in the other gospels in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is cringing. The word trouble there means just what you think. It means he's scared. He's cringing. He's trembling.

He's flinching before his death. Now that's interesting, because you know, plenty of people, men and women over the years, there's plenty of people who have gone to their death without flinching, you know, sometimes singing, certainly without this kind of dread. But here's the question, why are put into the right question is what would be so terrible that it would make the son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the maker of heaven and earth scared? Jesus' price is trembling because he knows he's going to be thrown into a kind of darkness up there on that cross. And he's

going to experience something more terrible than any conscious personal being has ever experienced ever will again. Now they get a handle on it. Why he's so filled with dread and fear at this, I'm going to be trying to be a sensitive, I possibly can, but let me just say, let me ask you a question.

What's the worst thing that can happen to a human being? I think it's to have love torn away from you. Being one way, of course, is to, for example, have a spouse where a child die on you. That's as terrible, I think, as can be, except it might be slightly more terrible or more awful or more bitter to have a child or a spouse scream at you, say, never want to have anything to do with you and walk out of your life and you never see

them again. That might be worse. And the reason I'm trying to muster up what sensitivity I can is I know there's people in this room who have experienced those things. And so I need to say this while I'll do respect if there's God the Father and if there's God the Son and there is, their love relationship, a perfect love relationship, infinite from all eternity without beginning, the love that they would have had would have just been infinitely greater than even the greatest love relationship any of us have ever had.

And for Jesus Christ to know he's going to be forsakenaken that he's going to have that love ripped from him. That Jesus Christ knew when he went to the cross he'd have no hope, no love, no God. He's going to be thrown into absolute darkness. What was happening up there? He tells you down here in verse 31. Now is the time for judgment on this world. Wait a minute, judgment on this world. Yeah, on the cross, the judgment that we deserve

for all of you, all of the sin and evil that human race has done, fell on him. He experienced that. And then he says, and so, when I am lifted up, that is when I'm on the cross, and I'm experiencing the judgment. And my soul is being torn to pieces. Then he says, I will draw all people to myself.

What? Yes. He is saying, that's where you'll see the beauty. Anyone who looks and sees what I'm doing up there, anyone will be attracted. You say, how could that be? There is no greater beauty than the most beautiful being in the universe, giving up his beauty, being beaten to a pulp for us to save us, to love us. There is no greater glory than Jesus Christ who had heaven's glory to become

killable and crushable and come to earth and lose it all for us. Losing His glory, losing His beauty for us, it's the greatest glory, it's the greatest beauty possible. Do you see it? Jesus Christ said, it's my job to go rescue them, it's not my job to survive. The Grand Canyon might make you say, yeah, I guess there's a God, he must be really great, but the cross shows you his glory. The glory of his justice, he is so just and so righteous, he had to punish sin, but the glory of his love, he was so loving and so merciful that he was willing to pay that penalty himself.

Jesus Christ said, there's many places where it talks about that. It is written of me in the book, I come to do that, will, Lord, okay, let me translate that. Jesus Christ said, it's my job to go rescue them. It's not my job to survive. And if you see what he's done, that will draw you. Look at that, look at that, look at that. Think about that until the beauty breaks upon you, breaks over you, and the glory,

you start to see the glory. And lastly, okay, now I said, I want to be as practical as possible because it's so, this is nosebleed stuff, isn't it, you know, like glory of God. Let's bring it down. What does it really mean to live for the glory of God? Well we said, it's to treat him as supremely important and it's see his beauty, but we all know that that comes in stages. That as life goes on, we get more and more into his glory, we see it more, we live into it more.

We become more revolutionized the way Santa Gustin said you will be if you make him the most important thing. Well, how does that happen? I would just give you two practical tips from the text, two practical tips. Don't waste your sorrows and get excited about what he could make you. Don't waste your sorrows and get excited about what he could make you. Don't waste your sorrows. Look, think about this. Look at verse 27. Now my soul is troubled.

Okay, where, by the way, is anybody here? Got a troubled soul. You know there's only two kinds of people in the world. There's the people who are, here soul is troubled now and people who's soul will be troubled later. That's it. There's nobody else, all right? Okay, so you're either having your soul troubled now or well what are you supposed to do with that troubled soul? Why don't we look at the master? What did he do with his? His soul, my soul's troubled. And what does he say? Get me out of here? You know, if you don't, if you don't get me

out of here, you know, I had it, you know, our, we have a conditional relationship, you and me, father. And if you, if you let the worst to happen to me, that what looks like is going to happen to me, hmm, I'm walking. That's not what he says. Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? Father, you got to get me out of here? That's laying down a condition. No. He says, Father, glorify your name.

If when your soul is troubled and you want a bolt and you do not know what in the world is going on to say, Father, I don't know why this is happening, but glorify your name in my life. Show me more of your glory through this. Show other people more of your glory through this. I don't know how. And actually, by the way, this is a longer sermon. We'll get back to it some other time perhaps. Generally speaking, when your soul is troubled,

it's usually because something that you've made too important to you, something that matters too important to you, it matters too much to you, is being threatened, and it's an opportunity for you to actually rest more in who he is and his love. In the 1950s, JR Tolkien was still alive, but his book was out, and people would write him letters like, what does this mean? There was a woman named Ron Abir who wrote a letter to Tolkien saying, hey, when the ring goes into, when the ring dissolves, you know, when the ring of power gets thrown into Mount Doom and dissolves, soren explodes. What's up with that?

Why when the ring goes into soren explode? And actually, fascinatingly, you know, Tolkien still being alive, he gave an answer, and here's what he said. He says, the ring of sauron is only one of the ways that you could depict the placing of your life and its power into some external object which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself. Did you figure that out? Here's what Santa Gusta would say.

It's one thing to love a person, but if you make them the most important thing in your life, anything goes wrong with them, you explode. Because you see God is not as important. God's love is not as important as that person's love. God is not as important as that person. And because that person is too important to you, it's like you created a ring. Same thing happens with a career. Same thing happens with anything, anything more important than God in your life.

You are really, really, really vulnerable. Because anything goes wrong with the thing that you love the most in the world and matters the most, you'll explode. And therefore, it's when your soul is troubled usually, you've got an opportunity to give yourself more to God and not to love the people around you less or love your career less, but love God more. And so don't waste your sorrows.

If your soul is troubled, say, Father, show me your glory, get glory. The second thing is realize that he's turning you into children of light. Believe in the light while you have a light so that you may become children of light. It's not just by the way that God in the end is going to show us His glory. He's going to make us glorious. These slight momentary afflictions, Paul says, are preparing for us an eternal weight of

glory beyond all comparison. We don't even know what that means. But those of us and those of you, I know, those of you who have seen in your troubled times say father glorify your name. I can see God making you something beautiful even here. Who knows what will be like a billion years from now. I see you getting deeper, I see you getting wiser, I see you getting more loving, I see you getting humbler, I see you becoming even here. You are being made children of light. If the more you build your life around God's glory, the more God is going to turn you into something glorious. Who knows what he can do?

Elizabeth Elliott wrote this, tells this whole story. She says there's a story about a king who went into the village streets to greet his subjects. A beggar seeing the king out amongst his people, sat on a roadside and held up his alms bowl, sure that the king would give him something handsomely. Instead the king looked at the beggar and said, give me something, which shocked the beggar and made him pretty grumpy. But the beggar was taken aback and he fished three little grains of rice out of the bottom of his bowl and dropped them in the king's hand, a little bit of a snorke probably.

At the end of the day, the beggar poured out what he had received and he was astonishment, he found three pieces of pure gold in the bottom of his bowl. And he looked up and he said, if only I had given him everything. Give him everything to turn you to gold. Let's pray. Father, thank you that your glory is revealed in the cross and we just asked this. You would make us people who reflect your glory

to our neighborhood and people who are more changed into the nature of your son as we look at his glory, and especially what he did for us on the cross. Give to us now, we pray, give us our hearts desire. Show us your glory, glorify yourself in our needs, in our lives. In Jesus' 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 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 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.