Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Bridegroom

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

If you want an idea of who Jesus is, he says he’s more like the bridegroom than anything else. If you want an idea of what it means to be a Christian, he says it’s more like going to a wedding feast than anything else. When Jesus says he’s the bridegroom, he’s telling us something about himself, he’s telling us what it means to be a Christian, and he’s telling us about our relationship to him.  When Jesus says he’s the bridegroom, he tells us that Christianity is 1) a bond that consists both of duty and love, 2) a bond of completing love, 3) a bond of absolutely permanent love, 4) a bond of utter exclusiveness, and 5) a bond of ravishing love. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 24, 1995. Series: Matthew 9. Scripture: Matthew 9:9-17. 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.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. One of the biggest obstacles for people to believe in Christianity is that they think they already know all about it. But when a person looks carefully at how Jesus interacted with people, they find their assumptions challenged. We see Jesus meeting people where they have their deepest needs and most confounding questions and changing their lives forever in the process. Join us today as Tim Keller teaches through a story from the life of Jesus.

After you listen, we'd appreciate it if you would take a few moments to rate and review the podcast. When you do, you'll be encouraging others to listen so they can discover the real Jesus, because the gospel changes everything. Now, here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. Let me just read you the section, verse 14 and 15, because that's all we're going to look at tonight. Verse 14 and 15. Then John's disciples came to him to Jesus and asked him, how is it that we in the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?

And Jesus answered, how can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast. This is God's word. Now, what is Jesus saying about the Christian life and about who we are and who he is? So much. The disciples of John come and say, we notice that most religious disciples, we, that's true of us and true of the Pharisees, we fast a lot. How comes it, your disciples don't fast?

Now we know that it's an exaggeration because we know that Jesus didn't forbid fasting of his disciples. As a matter of fact, you notice he doesn't really say here, oh, I don't let them fast. I'm against it. Christians don't fast. No, because if you take a look at Matthew 16, I'm probably Matthew 6 in this term on the mount, Jesus says when you fast,

he actually gets instructions on fasting. But if you look carefully, you'll see. He says, they say, why don't they fast? And Jesus answered, why should they mourn? Fasting at the time had really become completely associated with grieving. You fasted when someone died, you fasted when there was a time of national disaster and so on. That's not the only reason for fasting. I think Jesus shows that in Matthew 6. But the

point of this has nothing to do with fasting actually. We know that the church fasts. We know that Christians can fast. It's a great way to pray, it's a great way to concentrate and focus your attention on prayer for a period of time. But what Jesus is really trying to say is he says, listen, he says, I'm going to die and then I'll come back to you. As long as I'm with you, morning joylessness, sombreness is absolutely inappropriate. He says, I will be taken away and that's the three days between his death and his resurrection because as long as he's with us, it's a time for joy. But let's not miss the main point and here's the main point. Jesus calls himself the bridegroom. He says, if you want to get an idea of who I am, I'm more like the bridegroom than anything else. If you want to get an idea of what it means to be

a Christian, it's more like going to a wedding feast than anything else. Jesus tells us something here about Himself and Jesus tells us something here mainly about us. What it means to be a Christian, our relationship to them. First of all, what he tells us about himself is, I'll just say very briefly, though it's very huge, but I need to do it qualification or two. Jesus Christ, when he says he's the brideroom, he is claiming to be God, he's claiming to be Jehovah, he's claiming to be the Lord God himself, because all the listeners knew, and we know from reading the Old Testament, that throughout the Old Testament, God depicts himself as the bridegroom and his people are the bride. And you can see this in Isaiah 50, you can see this in Ezekiel 16, you can see this in

the whole Book of Hosea, you can see this, here's a great example of it, in the book of Jeremiah, this is very, very typical, because it's all through. Jeremiah is giving a prophecy, and God comes to his people. And he says this, he says to us, he says to his people, how can you say I'm not defiled? I have not run after idols. But you have said it's no use, I love foreign gods, I must go after them.

Does a maiden forget her jewelry, a bride, her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me days without numbered. How skilled you are at pursuing other lovers? Even the worst of women can learn from your ways. If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again, would not the land be defiled, but you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers, would you now return to me? But return of faithless Israel declares the Lord, I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful. I will not be angry forever, though you scattered your favors to foreign gods under every

spreading tree, acknowledge your guilt, and I will frown on you no longer. Now what's he doing here? All through the Old Testament, he says, on the bridegroom, I have betrothed you to me, oh my people. Jesus comes along and says, that's me. He's claiming to be God, and he's absolutely, absolutely blowing away any listeners who have any idea of what the Bible teaches about this. He's claiming

to be God. Now a little note just before we go on, this is one of the most important metaphors in the Scripture. God says, I'm a husband, he says to all his believers, all people who belong to him, you're like my wife. And just real, I have to do brief because I certainly don't want to say something if it's unnecessary, but it might be necessary. It's extremely important that we don't say this is an obsolete, this is an obsolete image, very obsolete. It used to be the idea of God depicting himself in masculine imagery that was OK.

But nowadays, we now know that that's primitive, that's unfair, it's unjust. We mustn't use masculine images. We shouldn't think of Jesus as think of God as a husband, for example, as father, as brother. I'll just say something in passing about this. Recently noticed something. Have you noticed that churches that 50 years ago tried to get up to date so desperately. Mainly in this city, mainline Protestant churches decided that

it was a permanent feature of the intellectual landscape that modern people would never be able to believe in the supernatural anymore. So in order to really have a faith that's palatable to people, we've got to get rid of these nasty parts of the Bible that offend us now, miracles, the new birth, the resurrection of Jesus. We can't believe that. We have to excise all of those supernatural elements. And here's the problem.

The church is that said, we don't want to offend people. Modern people don't believe in miracles who try to make the Bible more up to date, are now desperately out of date. Because whenever you say this is a permanent feature of the cultural landscape, you have to understand only God doesn't change, only the Bible doesn't change, and culture completely changes. And things have turned away, and the idea that science is the only way to know anything, and the enlightenment consensus, as the philosophers say, is broken up.

But in the 1920s, Protestants said we've got to get rid of the whole idea of miracles, because it's a permanent feature now. Human beings will never want a Bible or a Christianity like that. But time changes. See what C.S. Lewis says is, everything that is not eternal is eternally out of date. We've got to be careful about doing the same thing now, to say, oh, we now know that it's really offensive to talk about God in masculine terms. Let's change it.

Let's excise it. Let's not talk about it. And 30 years from now, you will look stupid. Whenever you try to change, the one thing that's changeless, which is God's revelation of himself, to fit any culture or any society. You've got to remember that culture in society is moving. And the things that are up to date now in the 1990s will look stupid 20 or 30 years from now.

You'll go back and you'll say, what idiots those people were? You can go back and read the op-ed pages of the New York Times in the 1920s and you say, how stupid? And 50 years from now, you'll be reading the op-ed pages of the New York Times now is saying how stupid. But Christians can read the Bible every century and say

this is the word of life. So we got to be very careful about thinking we're smarter. Now here is what this teaches us. When he says, I'm the bridegroom. This is what Christianity is. Number one, Christianity, a relationship with God, number one, is a bond. That consists both of duty and love. It's a bond that consists of both duty and love. Here's what I mean. Let's think of a good marriage. Let's just think of a normal and good marriage. Okay? Any marriage that is only duty will never last. Right? If you simply are saying,

well, I've got a job, I've got a, I've made these promises, it's on a piece of paper, it's a legality, there's no love. There's no joy, there's no enrichment. Any marriage that is only duty is not going to last. But let me tell you something else. Any marriage that is not filled with duty won't last either, will it? Any marriage that says, well, I'm only going to be loving, I'm only going to be faith, I'm only going to be tender, I'm only going to be loyal, I'm only going to be these things

as if I feel it. I'm never going to treat my spouse in such and such a way simply out of duty. That marriage will last either. You're up and down all over the place your emotions are not at all reliable Any marriage that is just nothing but duty will not last and any marriage that is not filled with duty won't last either Your love You see your feelings of love reinforce the duty, but the duty reinforces the feelings of love. They move together.

That's the same thing with Christianity. There's an awful lot of us that tend to either see our Christian. There's a lot of people, and here's what Christianity is. It's the thing we're afraid not to do. We've been taught it. We have this conscience, you know. We have this sense that somehow I don't really understand Christianity, but I know it's good for us somehow, it's good for me, it's good for my kids maybe.

I'm going to do it and I hope in the end it makes me come out right. You're most, I guess, there's a lot of people, the main impulse behind their Christianity is they're simply afraid not to do it. They're afraid to stop doing that's all. There's nothing positive. That's not Christianity. He's the bridegroom. You see, he's Lord of the feast of the wedding feast.

There's joy, but the reason everybody's excited at a wedding feast is because two people love themselves enough to make a promise. We don't all get together because one guy says to a woman in the back of a car, I love you for now. We don't have a party about that. Okay? Nobody gets up and say, incredible. The reason you have a party is because there's been a promise. So you see marriage is filled with duty and filled with love and it's only duty, it's won't last if it's only love, it's not

going to last either. And that's the same thing with your Christianity. People that say, my Christianity is really just duty, that is not Christianity. And on the other hand, people who do not understand a Christianity is also a duty that we pray because we owe it. We obey because we owe it. We worship because we owe it. Anybody who simply misses that has also not understood Christianity. This is the first thing. It's a bond, a bond of love and duty. Okay, secondly though, as we said, it's a bond. Now secondly, let's put it this way.

It's a bond of completing love. Now you see what's wonderful about this is as we take a look at this, we're seeing both of what marriage is in, what Christianity is and of course they are the same thing. That's what the reason that Paul was able to say in Ephesians 5. Let me tell you about husbands and wives and how they deal with each other. This is a great mystery, but this is the same thing as a relationship between Christ and the church. All right, now. When he says, I'm your bridegroom, when he's saying is, I am here to complete you. If you go back to Genesis chapter 2, and I can't do a full exposition of this, God brings

Eve to Adam. Adam doesn't feel quite right. Eve doesn't feel quite right. You see, but when they see each other, Adam says, at last, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And even though we don't hear what Eve said, Eve would say the same thing, because God, being so clever, creates Eve out of Adam so that there's an incompleteness unless they're together. You see, it's not simply that in human marriage,

two people become one. Human marriage means that a man and a woman, a husband a wife, belong together. They don't just become one. In a sense, they were one and they're just discovering their ownness. And one of the great things about this, again, is this nothing I can get into on the human side. But the Bible tells us, therefore, when Adam saw Eve, he saw Adam, and they said, this is bone of my bones, they said, now I'm whole. They're saying, love you, I am you. After 20 years of marriage,

one of the things that's so interesting is how your spouse completes you. You get into a situation and you're about to react, the way you normally react as a man or as a woman, as a person with your particular temperament. All of a sudden it's amazing, it's amazing. There are many years of marriage, it's almost like sometimes you go into slow-mo and you all of a sudden realize if your spouse was here.

After 20 years I know exactly what Kathy would say, I know exactly what Kathy would say. I know exactly what Kathy would be thinking. It's utterly different than what I would say, and very, very different than what I would be thinking. But here's what's so interesting. Suddenly you say, I know what she would do. See, this is something I wasn't capable of before I was married. You get to know another person, that person gets so into you, that person becomes so continuous with you, that you suddenly say, you know what, she would do this. You know, that would probably be a pretty wise response in this situation. And so though you do it, rather poorly, because being a man, being able to look through a woman's eyes,

you don't always do it right. Being a person of one temperament, looking through, trying to act like a person of another temperament, you don't always do it right. But what's so interesting is you realize you are a far more complete person than you were before. Her femininity has completed my masculinity. It's not just attracted to it. At some fundamental level, there's a completion now.

That is the reason. Listen, it's not an accident that God invented marriage and later on, he said, oh, and by the way, you know, here would be a good analogy for what it means to be a Christian. Oh no, he invented marriage to show you how he relates to you. In other words, if you reject Christ, you reject your true self. If you break Christ, you've broken yourself. It's not just that you owe him. See, that was the first point. You need him. And he completes you. He comes in, put it another way. You know when they get, sometimes they get married, and they say, they're getting married.

What does she see in him? What does he see in her? I'll tell you what. They see beyond the blemishes that you see. They see beyond the awkwardness that you see. And they see the real person. They see a potential, and they get excited about what that person can be, and they get committed to helping that person become that.

In other words, they get committed to a glorious future. They get committed to the future person. My dear friends, Jesus Christ knows the real you. The you you're supposed to be. The you he created you to be. And he's here to complete you. Hi, I'm Kathy Keller, and thank you for listening to The Gospel in Life podcast. My guess is that most people think they know the Christmas story. Every Christmas we see displays on lawns and in front of churches of the baby Jesus, resting in a manger surrounded by Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, and cute farm animals. We hear Christmas carols played everywhere we go, yet despite the abundance of these Christian references throughout our culture, how many people have really examined the hard edges of the biblical story.

In Tim's book Hidden Christmas, he provides a moving and intellectually provocative examination of the Nativity story. The book takes you on a journey into the surprising background of the Nativity, where you see the wonderful message of hope and salvation within the Bible's account of Christ's birth. As you read about the actual event, you'll be confronted with a remarkable redeeming power of God's grace. This month when you give to gospel and life we'll send you a copy of Hidden Christmas as our thanks for your gift. To receive your copy go to gospelandlife.com slash give.

That's gospelandlife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity. Now here's the remainder of Tim's sermon. Marriage is not just a bond of love, it's a bond of completing love. Thirdly, it's a bond of absolutely permanent love, and our relationship with Christ is a permanent one. Now, we actually, actually I mentioned this this morning, but I'm going to show you how it works practically.

When he says, I'm your bridegroom, he's also saying, I am permanently committed to you. Before somebody says, I don't like this illustration because I've seen a lot of husbands that were not faithful. Here you are talking to me about Jesus Christ. I'm the bridegroom. What that means is I am faithful to you.

It means I commit myself to you and I will never, ever, ever leave you or forsake you. When he says I'm the bridegroom, he is saying, my love for you has no limits. My love for you has no conditions. My love for you will never go out. My love for you will never go cold. My love for you is permanent. And somebody says, I hate that idea because that just makes me, I've never seen a man who really stayed.

My father didn't stay or my uncle didn't stay or my husband didn't stay or whatever. Some of you are saying that. All I can tell you is Jesus is the perfect husband. You know why you're so mad? About husbands that don't stay. Husbands that don't give permanent love. You know why you're so mad? About husbands that don't stay, husbands that don't give permanent love. You know why you're mad? You're mad because you know that husbands ought to be permanently loving, right? And where did you get this idea?

Where did you get the idea? Where did you get this concept of husband ought to be permanently loving? There isn't an example of a perfect husband anywhere in this world. So where did you get this concept that a husband ought to be permanently loving. There isn't an example of a perfect husband anywhere in this world, so where did you get the idea? You got it from here. It's deep in the substructures of your heart because you see marriage was actually created to show us Christ on the church. When Jesus says, I'm the bridegroom, he says, we have a bond, that's what it means to be a Christian. A bond of duty and love.

But secondly, he says, I am here to complete you. To be committed to your glory. But thirdly, he says, I am permanently committed to your glory. I will never leave her for sake you. Fourthly, let me give you another one. When he says, I'm the bridegroom, he is saying, the love between you and me has to be utterly exclusive. Now this could be a very big subject too, could it not? Marriage is

an exclusive relationship. In marriage, you give your love of such a high intensity. See, it's permanent, it's unconditional. All the things we said, it's completing, and you are not supposed to give it to anybody else. Husband and a wife give exclusive love to each other. Now let me tell you, let me give you an example. Imagine, let's say, a man or a woman. I mean, I have to go back and forth just to show I'm not only thinking about it one way, the images, the metaphors, the illustrations mean they work both ways. So here's a woman, for example, who says to a man, I would like you to be completely and exclusively committed to me.

That means, for example, I would like you to be physically naked to me when I want. Totally vulnerable, okay? Secondly, I'd like you to be emotionally naked to me when I want. Totally vulnerable. Secondly, I'd like you to be emotionally naked to me. That means I want you to tell me all your secrets, all your deepest fears, all your sins, all your hopes. Hold nothing back. I want you to be emotionally naked to me. You see, and then thirdly, I would like you

to be socially naked to me. That means I want you to support me. I want you to make my interests and my needs number one in your life. Everything else comes second. I want you to be physically naked. I want you to be emotionally naked. I want you to be socially naked. I want you to be totally vulnerable to me.

In other words, I want you to be exclusively committed to me. But I don't want to be exclusively committed to you. I want to be able to be naked to you sometimes, but naked other people are times. I mean, I want to be able to do other things. I don't want to, you know, now, what would you say about that kind of relationship? You would say, a man who enters into a relationship with a woman like that is sick, sick. Well, it's true. Now, you know, here's the part that's not funny is some of you are in relationships like that.

Right? Actually, and I don't think of anybody in particular, but I just have been here in New York enough. A lot of you are in situations like this. And you know what the modern line says is the solution? I'll tell you what. Instead of one person using another person like that, they say, well, you should both say that to each other. well, you should both say

that to each other. Oh, there's a solution. Let's both use each other. And then it's okay. In other words, you say, you know, I would like to be naked in all these ways to you, but other people too, and you're free to do it and so forth. You know the reason that doesn't work? You know the reason that always brings brokenness.

You know the reason that is sick? Because God's love doesn't work that way. God says, I am totally committed to you. When Jesus died on the cross for you, that is exclusive and total commitment. He held nothing back. There was nothing for anybody else. There was nothing for himself. For you. He says, in John 17, I sanctify myself for them. You know what sanctify means? What sanctify literally means to set apart. He was saying, I have completely committed myself

to their holiness and happiness and glory and salvation. Oddly, you know what says in Hebrew 7 to 25, that he's our great-high priest, and he ever lives to intercede for us. He lives for you. And that's the reason why Romans 12 says, in view of his mercy, in view of his exclusive love,

in view of his not holding anything back from himself. In view of his mercy, offer yourselves a living sacrifice. This is the reason, on the one hand, at the very same time. This is common sense, but this is all through the Bible. In the very best sense, God says that a relationship between a husband and a wife needs to be a jealous relationship, it needs to be a jealous love. In the best sense of the word. It means you hold nothing back.

You're utterly naked with the other person in every possible way, and they hold nothing back from you. And then he says, and of course, that makes perfect sense. It's the only place in which people are safe. It's the only kind of relationship that doesn't lead to brokenness and unhappiness. But then that's what I want from you. That's the reason why on the one hand you have this same idea, shows you why you must not have sex outside marriage.

For somebody to say, I want to be intimate with you all the way, but then I want to be able to do to other people. That would be sort of like saying, God, I would like you to throw your, you know, send down your spirit and love penetrating my life. But then I want to be able to, you know, live for other things besides you. God looks down and says, you may not sleep with me, you have to marry me. All healthy people say that.

How wise people say that? And this is the reason why there is nothing between absolute lordship and unbelief. You have to either say, you're number one lord, you're my absolute master, you're the only thing I live for, or else. You see, it says in, by the way, this is not a husband-wife authority thing. That's an interesting subject, but we're not talking about that. In Ephesians 5.21, it says, husbands and wives submit to one another. You know what that means? You're not your own when you get married. You are not. You belong to the other person. That's the jealousy of love. That's the jealousy of love. That's the only way it works.

And when you are united with Christ, Christ says, I've given myself completely to you. Therefore, you're not your own. I'm not my own. I've given myself, I've sanctified myself. I've put all my resources that you're disposal to bring about your redemption. I gave myself away.

There was nothing left of me. Now do the same for me. You see, I am the bridegroom. It's a bond of permanent love, it's a bond of completing love, it's a bond of exclusive love. Okay, last thing. Last thing. It's a bond Last thing, it's a bond of ravishing love. Now here's what I mean by that. And you do not get, look, put it this way. Remember that passage I just read to you? I got to summarize this, I got to summarize this.. Why is it I have never yet, and there's some people, admittedly, some of you have said this, there's some people who don't have a great deal of raw material to work with, I've never seen an ugly bride. Whenever a woman comes down the aisle,

I don't know what happens, I don't get it. I don't understand makeup, for example. I really don't. It's amazing what they can do. You know, not a pockmark, not a blemish, not a blemish. They come on down and they're utterly beautiful. Now God says, there's this wonderful passage that I already read to you in Jeremiah chapter 2. He says, does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride or wedding ornaments? I mean, have you ever seen a what a bride coming down and saying, oh my gosh, I forgot my earrings.

That doesn't usually happen. Oh my gosh, I forgot to put on makeup. That's never happened. I've never seen a bride. Never seen a bride. I've never seen a medicine. Now listen. It says, does a maiden forget her jewelry, a bride or wedding ornaments?

Yet my people have forgotten me. Do you know what God's saying? In Colossians chapter 1, verse 22, it says, what? It says, through Christ, because Jesus Christ is die for us, because His righteousness is upon us, that we are without blemish in His sight, not a pockmark. We are holy and blameless in His sight. And we're told, for example, in Ephesians 5, husbands love your wife as Christ, love the church, and He gave Himself up for her why to make her holy cleansing hers to present her to himself as radiant.

Now here's the point. When God says, does a wife, does a bride forget her makeup? Yet you've forgotten me. You know what that means? I am your spiritual ornaments, my dear. He's saying this to you and to me. He's not just saying it's the female Christians. Come on. You know what he's saying? He was saying is, I find you beautiful.

Here many of you are working so hard to make money or to look physically attractive, or to have children who love you, or to have people fall in love. There's all sorts of ways in which we're decking ourselves with ornaments, trying desperately to hide the sense that we all have of being ugly, spiritually ugly. We're afraid of people seeing who we really are. We don't want them to see who we are. We have a sense of nakedness. We have a certain sense of shame.

It's there. It's like college is no about it. They don't know where it comes from. They know, you know, they say, ah, bad families do it, but bad film is only aggravated. It's there. And what does God say? When Jesus is on the bridegroom, He says, I was naked that you could be clothed with my righteousness. I was disfigured so that you could be beautiful. I am your ornaments. Does a woman forget, does a bride forget her ornaments?

Yet you've forgotten me. What that means is, I am through my death, what makes you absolutely beautiful. Do you live that way? Do you know that I am taken with your beauty? Do you know that I'm smitten with your beauty? And when you realize what he did, to make you beautiful, to find you beautiful, then you will also find your whole heart changing and your whole life changing. You'll be free

when you know, finally, I don't need anybody else's approval. I don't need any other particular standard of achievement. My Lord loves me. He's the bridegroom. Now when you start living like that, you're going to be a very different person. And that's the reason why John Dunn put it this way. Take me to you, imprison me, for I accept you and throw me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me." You see, you get ravished with your husband because you see what he's done.

You see the permanence of his commitment, the exclusiveness of his commitment. You see what he's done to make you beautiful in his sight, and you finally begin to live in a whole new way. Revelation 19 says, and I heard the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thundering, saying, Hallelujah! The Lord God, the omnipotent raineth, let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him for the marriage supper of the Lamb has come and his bride half made herself ready. We should all be like any bride, scared to death,

and yet wouldn't miss it for the world. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask, that you would help us understand the safety we should feel, the joy we should feel, the security we should feel, the satisfaction we should feel, the love we should feel. To know that our master is not just our king, not just our general, not just our captain, not even just our helper, not even just our savior, he's our bridegroom. Let us know the joy that we should have. Let us know the love we should have, the security we should have. Let this be true in our hearts and in our lives.

We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can discover this podcast. This month's sermons were recorded from 1994 to 1997. 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.