Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Cosmic Spirit

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

As we end our series on the Holy Spirit, we come to maybe the most astonishing thing the Holy Spirit does for us. We’ve looked at a number of well-known things the Holy Spirit does in us and for us. He calls us and enables us to believe. He regenerates us, creates Christ-like character in us, unites us inside the church, and empowers us with his gifts so we can serve people around us. But now we look at a passage that tells us about the ultimate, the final thing the Holy Spirit does for us.  Let’s notice from the text 1) what the Spirit will do for us in the future, 2) what the Spirit, therefore, can do for us in the present, and 3) how we can let the Spirit do that in our lives. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 12, 2010. Series: The Holy Spirit. Scripture: Romans 8:17-25. 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. Who is the Holy Spirit? And why is the Spirit's work so vital to the Christian life? The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit is not just a vague force, but a person who works in the lives of Christians in profound ways. Today, Tim Keller is exploring how the Spirit calls us to faith, unites us together, equips us with gifts, and shapes us to be more like Christ.

tonight's scripture is from the book of Romans chapter 8 verses 15 through 27 for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear but you receive the spirit of sonship and by him we cry abba father the spirit himself testifies with our spirits that we are god's children now if we are children then we are heirs of god and co-ares with christ if indeed we share in his suffer in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits an eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for,

but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. This is the Word of the Lord. We've been doing a series on the Holy Spirit, and tonight we come to the end of the series. and we've looked at a number of pretty well-known things that the Holy Spirit does in us and for us. He calls us and enables us to believe. He regenerates us and creates Christ-like

character in us. He unites us one to another inside the church. He empowers us with his gifts so that we can serve people around us in life-changing ways. Those are all pretty well-known. But tonight we look at a passage that tells us about the ultimate thing, the final thing, the Holy Spirit does for us. And it's maybe the most astonishing of all, and not nearly as well-known. Let's notice from the text what we learn here is what the Spirit will do for us in the future. What the Spirit, therefore, can do for us in the present, and how we can let the Spirit do that in our lives.

What He will do for us in the future, what he therefore can do for us now in the present, and how we can let the Spirit do that in our lives. What are we talking about? Well, first, what the Spirit will do in the future. And in a nutshell, Chapter 8 of Romans is an amazing chapter, and a little further down on Chapter 8 in verse 30, we read, where it says he, the Lord, those he called, he also justified. But those he justified, he also glorified. He doesn't just stop at justification. He justified us. He also glorifies. We are going to be glorified. Now, one of the most confusing things about the reading Paul is he

constantly changes the tenses on salvation on us. So sometimes he says, have been saved, we have been saved, we have been redeemed, we are redeemed, past tense, then suddenly all of a sudden he turns around and says, sometimes in the same sentence, but we will be redeemed, we will be saved, so which is it? In fact, he does it here. Did you see it? Because in verses 14, 15, and 16, he says, as believers in Christ, we are his children, we have been adopted, we have received the spirit of sonship, we have been adopted, we are his children and yet look at verse 23 it says we wait eagerly for our adoption there he did it again what's a matter with this man and the answer is is the richness of of the concept see the

word redemption especially that is the word that's operative in here means to be purchased ransomed out of bondage, to be bought out of slavery, to be ransomed out of bondage or slavery. Now, to be in bondage means to literally be in chains, not to be free to be who you are supposed to be, not to be free to do the things you're supposed to do. And what we know from the Bible throughout, even at the very beginning in Genesis chapter 3, is that when we sin and lost our relationship with God, we lost all other relationships. When we lost our relationship with God, everything else broke. Nothing else is the way God designed it to be.

And therefore, we are in bondage in every area of our life where we are not free to be all the things that God meant us to be. In other words, we are in bondage psychologically and sociologically and relationally and physically. What do I mean? Even the best Christians, even the most mature Christians, still experience an enormous amount of of bondage to fear, anxiety, hardness of heart. They certainly experience a certain amount of freedom, but they still experience that. Even the best churches still experience a great deal of conflict and egos and fights and prejudice. And even the very best people still get sick, get old, and die. And none of those things are the way God originally designed them to

be. None of them. All that suffering, all that brokenness is not what God meant us to be. And therefore, the minute you become a Christian, all your sins are forgiven, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. God sees you in Christ, which means he treats you as if you've done everything Christ has done. You are absolutely as justified in his sight, the first moment you believe, and as loved as you will be a billion years from now. And in that sense, and in that's a profound sense, you are saved, past tense. And yet, though you have been redeemed in that sense, you still need redemption. There's still bondage.

We have been redeemed, but we need to be redeemed. And we will be. Because we're told in verse 17, though we're in suffering, though we're in bondage, we will be glorified, which means all the effects of sin, all the bondage will be over. And in particular, it's in verse 23, we will have our bodies redeemed. We await eagerly the redemption, the final adoption, the final salvation, the redemption of our bodies. Now, the Greeks, the old Greek philosophers believe the body was bad and the ultimate salvation

was for the soul to be freed from the body. The body is bad, the body is broken, the body is weak, and the ultimate salvation is to be freed from the body. And I must tell you, the older I get, the more I sympathize with that idea, the more you're chronically ill, or if you're just getting older

and you just sense more and more the weakness of your body, you can start to say, this is, the body is my enemy. It's a prison house. Salvation would be to be free of it, but that's not how the Bible sees it. Do you see what this is saying? Your final redemption is not even going to heaven. Your final redemption is at the end of time when you're resurrected and you have a new and glorious body.

That's the final joy, the final blessing. That's the fullness of what God wants you to have. That's the fullness of the joy and the flourishing that God wants you to know as a human being. And this is the work of the spirit, because it's the spirit doing this. Romans 8, verse 11, it's a little higher up than what we began, where we began to read, says this, and if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit. Who lives in you? The spirit that comes into you when you first

believe someday. It's going to transform your body. Philippians 321. Then the body of our humiliation, this frail form, will be conformed to the image of Christ's glory. You say, what will that be like? Well, we actually know a little bit about it. Not only do we have Jesus Christ and what he was like after his resurrection, and he's the first fruit from the dead, which means he's the one person that we have some idea about what it means to have a glorious a resurrected body, free from the imperfection, free from all bondage to decay, free from anything wrong. But we also have, 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul says some of these great things, this mortal body will put on immortality. It is sown in dishonor, it will be raised in splendor. It is

sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown in natural body. It has raised a spiritual body, right there. See what that's saying? Here's your resurrected glory future. you want to know what it looks like? You know what it's going to be like? You probably can think too much about this because you can get into speculation. We'll be able to do this or that. But our problem is that we actually think too little about it. Here's three things we know about your future resurrected body. It'll be our body. It'll be a beautiful body. It'll be a powerful body. First of all, it'll be our body. Remember what Paul said? This mortal body will put on immortality. when Jesus rose from the dead and he appeared as to his disciples, he still had his nail prints.

Remember that? How could that be? It's because it was his body, his mortal body, putting on immortality. He was still him. That's the reason why when people looked at Jesus after his resurrection, at first they didn't recognize him, and then they did. You know, one of the most irritating things, for those of you who are like maybe in your 20s, you're constantly running into older people in their 40s or 50s who knew you when you were a kid but hadn't seen you since you grew up. It's a little icky. Because you come up to them and you say,

hi, do you know me? No. Well, I'm so and so. And then they look at you. They haven't seen you since you're eight, now you're 25 or something like that. And they go, you're little Jimmy or little Sally. And it's really awful. It's really awful. But the point is, the point is, it is still you. It is your eight-year-old self transformed by a process of growth. They can see it. Your body. body, your face, your eyes. Oh, yeah. You little, how about look at you? That's what it's going to be like. We are going to be ourselves. We're really going to be us. I mean, that's an amazing. There's, there is no other religion in the world that has that kind of salvation. We're going to be us. It's going to be our body putting on immortality. You know, in this world, we have that idea,

but in that world it'll be like when we see each other we're going to say it is you i always know you could be like this i saw glimpses of it but now look at you it'll be you it'll be us so it'll be our body secondly it'll be a beautiful body it's sewn in dishonor paul says and it's raised in splendor in this world there are people with ugly souls that have beautiful bodies and there's people with beautiful souls that have ugly bodies but not then c s lewis says, if we let him, he will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine. He can make us into bright, stainless mirrors, which reflect back to God, perfectly,

though, of course, on a smaller scale, his own boundless power and delight and goodness. that is what we're in for nothing less a mirror reflecting back but there's another way to do it his friend Lewis's friend J.R. Tolkien in one place in one of his fictional pieces one of his characters dies and when he dies he lies in state and this is what it says about

and this is Tolkien and Lewis were Christians struggling to come to grips with what the future glory look like and we're told this man dies and he's lying in state And this is how he describes him. A great beauty was revealed in him. And all who came there looked on him in wonder. For they saw that the grace of his youth, the valor of his manhood, the wisdom and majesty of his age were all blended together.

And long there he lay, an image of the kings of men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world. So what Tolkien is trying to get across is, for example, see, there is a beauty that children have that they love. lose. But then there's another beauty that young men and women have, you know, in their prime, physical prime, that the children didn't have and that older people don't have. But then there's a majesty and a wisdom and a nobility about older people that the younger people don't have. And all these beauties and these glories, of course, are just sort of spread out. But then they'll all be united. They'll all be united. Paul says we will be different.

be ourselves, and yet he says, star differs from star in glory. Every star is different. Every single one of them is different. We'll all be different, but we'll be stars. And not only that, we'll not only be our bodies, and not only will be beautiful bodies, but they will be powerful. Paul says it is sown in weakness, the body is sown in weakness, but it's raised in power. And then he goes a little further and says, it's sewn a natural body, it's raised, a spiritual body. What is that? In fact, think about that.

Isn't that a category mistake? It's raised a spiritual body? That doesn't make any sense. See, in our categories, you're either a spirit or you're a body. You're either a spirit or you're a body. Well, come on, Paul. Will we be spirits or will we be bodies?

And Paul says, yeah. In fact, Jesus comes through the doors. He comes through locked doors. And they say, oh, it's a ghost. Remember this? Luke 24. The resurrected Christ comes through locked doors. And they said, oh, it's a ghost.

He says, give me a fish. And he eats the fish. He says, a spirit hath not flesh and bones. Touch me. Watch me. A spiritual body. Run and not be weary. Walk and not faint.

Right now you've got five senses. What if there is a thousand senses we have? Who knows? Let us now, you know, let us now draw the veil over this. Because I don't know that we can, we know much more. in the way of details. But do you think about your future resurrected perfect bodies and glory cells? I'm sure it's possible to think too much about it, but I don't think that's most of, I don't think that's the problem that most of us have. The reason why you're so angry because you haven't

lost the weight. And it looks like you're never going to be as good looking or as fit or as glorious as you want to be is because you're not thinking. You know, we need to be good stewards of our body. Be as good as steward as you possibly can. But don't put your hopes there. The power you want, the glory you want. Now, there's a you in there that will never come out until this moment. Until the spirit gives life to your mortal body, to the redemption.

We wait an eager longing for the redemption of our bodies. But that's not all. By the way, that is not all. The world in which we're going to live when the Spirit does its work, is a renewed natural world. Verse 19, just for a minute, just to point out that along with the resurrection of our bodies comes verses 19, 20, and 21,

which is absolutely astonishing. Tomorrow is giving Tuesday, and we want you to know about a special opportunity we have this year. As you may know, gospel and life supports Redeemer City to City, a ministry dedicated to growing gospel movements in cities around the world through church planting. City to City was co-founded by Tim Keller, and he cared deeply about this mission.

And this coming year at a 26 training event in Kenya, city-to-city will help train, coach, and support two cohorts of 20 pastors planting churches all over Africa. This Giving Tuesday, we have a goal to raise $150,000 to help sponsor the church planters attending this training intensive in Nairobi, Kenya, so that city-to-city can help and support these church planters to start churches across. Africa. This work is vital to the spread of the gospel in African cities from Kampala to Lagos to Johannesburg. So as you think about how you may give on Giving Tuesday, please consider making a gift to Gospel in Life. Every dollar we receive on Giving Tuesday will go directly to the work city-to-city is doing to help start new churches in Africa in 2026. To make a gift tomorrow, visit

gospelonlife.com slash Tuesday. Again, that's gospelonlife.com slash Tuesday. And thank you for your generous and faithful support of this ministry. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's message. 1921, what's it say? It says, the creation, and that's, by the way, the natural world, that's the mountains and the animals, you know, and the trees. It says the creation waits an eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of

the one who subjected it in host. that the creation itself will be liberated from bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. What? What? It says three things, and actually we don't know much about those three things, but we do know these three things. First of all, it says that nature, the natural world is not what it should be because of us. Somehow our sin has brought about a fallenness in nature, so even nature is not what it should be. It's frustrated. It's not, it's not It's not all that God meant it to be. It's in bondage to decay. That's the first thing. Secondly, it knows it. It knows it's not what it should be, and it's longing to be liberated. And what in the world does Paul mean by that? How could the trees and the animal? What is he saying? And of course, on the one hand, I hope you know, he's not doing fairy tale stuff. He's not saying, well, you know, the trees and the animals could talk, but when you're around, they don't. He's not saying that, but I'll tell you what he is saying. He is saying that the creation has a life of its own.

It's made also by God to glorify him, just like you are. Psalm 19 says, the heavens, this natural world glorifies God. And as such, they are fellow creatures, the trees and the animals, and they have a life of their own, and they deserve an enormous amount of respect. But here's one of the reasons why. Somehow the creation, in its own way, knows its creator better than you and I. Some years ago, that's what it's saying, some years ago, remember Elizabeth Elliott, a teacher of mine at Gordon Commonwealth Seminary years ago, once said, if you understood these things, she said, you would be humble before a very clam. You know why? Because the clams are doing a better job of being the clams God meant them to be than you are, being the man or the woman God meant you to be. You are, you fall far shorter from the, you know, what we're supposed to be. You are, you know, what we're supposed to be. to be. You fall short. Are you the man, God wants you to be? Are you the woman? No. Clams are

much closer. They're glorifying God far more than you are. They in a sense know, the creation knows there's something wrong, and it's long for the resurrection in a way the human race is not. But when, did you see the last line there, the last part? The creation will be liberated from its bonnage decay, how? It'll be brought into our freedom. And What that means is, when the Holy Spirit descends upon us to give us the redemption, the final redemption, the final glorification of ourselves and our bodies, it's going to be an explosion of such love and power and glory that it will bring all of nature with it. Nature will come into what it should be on our coattails.

Isn't this something? And let me just do a little reasoning with you for a second. It's saying, you know, God says, for example, in Exodus 19, to his people, you are my treasured possession, though the whole earth is mine. Exodus 19, you are my treasured possession, the whole earth is mine. What he's saying is, as much as I love the earth, as much as I love the stars and the moon, as much as I love the mountains and the trees and the animals, as much as I love the earth, I love you the most.

You are the most treasured possession. And you know what this means? it's nature that actually comes in on our coattails what that means is this it's an it's astounding to me when you go out and look at the beauty of nature when you look at the beauty of the mountains and the beauty of the ocean to think it's just a shadow of what it's going to be current nature is just a shadow of its future glorious self right and yet we are going to be more glorious than the future renewed nature and that's what the holy Spirit will do? Because the Holy Spirit's job is to get rid of the suffering, get rid of the bondage,

get rid of the brokenness, get rid of the groaning. That's what it's going to do in the future. So you say, ah, does that mean that's it? We just have to wait for that. We're groaning now. We're suffering now. Notice that? We inwardly groan. Nature is groaning. And the word groaning, by the way, that comes up three or four times in here is a word that means to be in pain. People grown when they're dying. People groan when they're in labor. People groan when they're in terrible searing pain. Now, we live in a time of groaning now. We groan. Nature groans. So we say, okay, eventually all the groaning will be over, all the suffering will be over. That's the job of the spirit, wonderful. But right now, we're on our own. No. And here we are in point two, by the way. Those of you care. The Holy Spirit's job is to deal with suffering and groaning. It's to deal with the brokenness of our lives.

That's what we're being told. And eventually, he's going to deal with it completely. But he doesn't leave us on our own now. Oh, no. He's already in our lives to help us with the groaning. We groan inwardly and we're in trouble. You know, remember that the line from the great poet. It's, you know, things fall apart.

The center cannot hold. mayor anarchy is loosed upon the world that's true everything's falling apart your body's falling apart your relationships are falling apart your families are falling apart your communities are falling apart everything's falling apart institutions movements they all fall apart you say what do you mean they die people move people fight there's an entropy about everything in this world we groan things are always falling apart but the holy spirit has come into our lives the first fruits of that future glory. See verse 23? Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit. That word first fruits is so crucial. First fruits means the first days gathering

from the harvest, even though they're going to spend two more weeks and they're going to bring in all the wheat or they're going to bring all the corn. But the first day you gather the corn or the wheat that's coming, you gather some now and you eat it. It's a foretaste of the future feast. It's a down payment on the future fortune. It's a real piece of the future. And what we're told is with the Holy Spirit, this wonderful person and power who in the future is going to deal with our groanings and suffering completely is in our lives now. We get a foretaste of that glory that enables us to handle the groanings and suffering of life now. That's what this text is telling us. And in two ways. I'll use the image of sailing and rowing. You know, sailing, you move through because the wind is

to your back. In rowing, you've got no wind, or maybe the wind in your face, but, you know, with exertion, you can still get home. So when you're in the midst of groaning and suffering, there's two ways that the Holy Spirit helps you, but he does. The first one is at the top, verses 15, 16, 17. It says, it says, the Spirit bears witness with our our spirits that we're children have gone, assures us that we're his children. In fact, it says the spirit testifies with our spirit that we, by him, by the spirit, we cry Abba. The word Abba is the Aramaic term for daddy or papa. And what that means is the spirit gives us such confidence that God loves us that we're able to rely on him and reach out to him, the way a little child

reached out to the father. And see, that's what I mean by sailing. Sometimes, in spite of all the troubles around us. God gives us this joy, this sense of his reality, by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Sonship, crying Abba, assurance that we're his. But not always. Sometimes the Holy Spirit helps us in more difficult times than that. Sometimes the only way to get home is not through sailing because nothing's working. You know, so many of the things that the Holy Spirit does, He changes you through the fruit of the Spirit. He illuminates you by helping you understand God. He empowers you to use your gifts.

But sometimes nothing's going right at all. You're not seeing anybody change through your life. God doesn't seem real to you. Prayer is dry. You're not getting any prayers answered. And yet the Spirit doesn't abandon you. Look at verse 26 and 27. In the same way, just 26, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

We do not know what we ought to pray for. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us. with groans that words cannot express. Sometimes we don't even know what to pray for. See, that's where we're in the depths. We don't even know what to pray for. We're so overwhelmed with our troubles. We're groaning, you might say, so deeply and so loudly.

And yet the spirit is with us in those times. And I think over the years as I've thought about that, in other words, sometimes the spirit doesn't give us the joy that knows no bounds. Sometimes the spirit just gives us the peace that passes understanding so we can keep rowing so we can just keep doing the next thing so we can just know god's with us even though we don't feel them you know how many of those psalms there's 150 psalms but i tell you an awful lot of them probably half of them are the psalmist starts off

by wrestling unhappy angry what's going on i don't understand things are terrible oh lord why are you letting all this happen but the very end he says he wrestles through the end and says but i know I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And I think what happens is he just knows in his soul, in spite of the fact, that everything else seems to be saying there is no God or God doesn't care or who cares about God in his soul. He says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know. I know he's there. I know he's not going to leave me like this.

I'm going to do the next thing. I'm going to pray. I'm going to read my Bible even though I'm not getting anything out of it. You're rowing. And it's because of spirits. they're helping you. The spirit cares about your groaning and your suffering. That's his job. Someday to end it all, but even now to help you. Now, let's not, we're not done. And here's the reason why. If you're a New Yorker, as you're practical. And New Yorkers say, this is all very

inspiring, but how do I really, how do I actually do this? How do I do this? You talk about this wonderful future and this wonderful future, but it's supposed to be somehow helping me now. I don't see how? How can I know? Well, here's the way. The thing that activates the future so that it affects you now is assured hope. Verse 24, 25, in this hope we are saved. But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. That's what you need. Patience. Poise. Stick-to-itiveness. How? It's through hope. Do you know how important hope is? Hope is an assured future. Imagine two women

and both of them have a purse. And in that purse is all the assets and money they have in the world. Everything they have in the world is that purse. $1,000 in cash. That's it. They both have a thousand dollars that's all they have. The difference is that

woman knows that tomorrow for some reasons a $10 million will be wired into her bank account. And the other woman knows that there's nothing coming from anybody for the indefinite future. And imagine those two women go out in New York City and they both have the very same experience, somebody snatches their purse. Their purses are lost. They're taken.

They're stolen. How are they going to respond to that? I can tell you this. The woman who knows that tomorrow, $10 million is coming to her bank account says, what an inconvenience. Oh, well. and the other woman is in total despair. Do you know why?

Same circumstances. Why is the response so different? Because what you know about the future completely determines how you process the present. What you know about the future, your understanding of your own future completely determines how you process the present. How can you know that the redemption of your bodies is coming?

How can you know that that's your future? If you knew it, if you were sure of it, you could face anything. Because a whole lot better than $10 million is coming into your bank account. How can you be sure? Here's how you can be sure. Many people, commentators have been wondering so over the years, how could the spirit groan? You notice in verse 26, it says that when the spirit is with us in all of our trouble, it says the spirit intercedes for us with groans, which means the spirit is suffering.

And many commentators have said, how could the divine immortal spirit of God suffer? Jesus, in Mark chapter 7, takes a little deaf mute, a man who's been really suffered his whole life, a side, he wants to heal him. And as he's about to heal him, he looks to heaven, and he groans. Same word. it means he's in pain why why doesn't he just say ha ha way do you see what i'm going to do why why is he groaning in pain well the first answer is because here's a man who's so loving and so vulnerable in his love that he can emotionally identify with the suffering man that he just met and he feels

the man suffering himself but the ultimate reason is he knows that in order to deliver him and us from his groaning and suffering. Jesus is himself going to have to be plunged into suffering and groaning to depths that no one else has ever been, you know, sent. Because when Jesus on the cross says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He's quoting Psalm 22, right? But Psalm 22, verse 1, which would have been in Jesus' head as he's dying, here's the full verse. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me? so far from the words of my groaning. Jesus groaned in pain and God abandoned him. I'm groaning and God abandoned him. Why? Because he got the abandonment that our sins deserve so that you can know, know that whenever you groan, God will not abandon you, that he's with you. So you can't face

the groaning and sufferings of this life without certainty about your future and you can't be certain about your future unless you know that because Jesus Christ died for you and went through that for you that even though you fail and even though you don't live the life you ought to live

and even though your faith is imperfect and even though your repentance needs to be repented of God is there with you the Holy Spirit is there with you he will not abandon you the implications of this are astounding are they not if god loves the world this material world like this should we care for creation and environment yes if god only and besides that only of all the religions the world only the bible says that this world is permanent and there and this material world

is a permanent and that's a terrific incentive to fight against disease and hunger is it not and if you're facing death what better you can laugh in the face of death with this and if any of you are chronically sick or even just getting old and almost come to the place where you feel like my body is my enemy

it's not I want you to hear that it's not it's sin and evil in your body that's the enemy but your sin and evils in your soul and it's in the world and we are without hope unless he gives us the victory oh God must give us the victory and he will let us pray. Our Father, help us take the theology of this passage. It should make us zealous for caring

for material needs. It should make us powerful in the face of our own sickness and even impending death. It should fill us with such hope that we are able to face the worst groaning and suffering because we know that someday your spirit will end it all. Father, we, like the rest of creation, long for the final redemption of our bodies. And until then, oh, Holy Spirit, help us, help us to have the joy and the peace of past understanding in the midst of what we have to face. Thank you for all these assurances, make us people with zeal and joy, but who also know how to weep with those who weep because we know these great truths.

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. We hope that today's teaching encouraged you to go deeper into God's Word. You can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelonlife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2010. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017,

while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.