Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Experience of Hope

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

You might say that even though you believe in most of what the Bible says about the ultimate future, it hasn’t changed your life. You really don’t handle suffering or death or other things any differently than other people. Why would that be? The answer is because it’s not simply the doctrine of Christian hope, it’s not just the cognitive belief that changes us. It’s the experience of hope. Let’s look at 1) the promise of this experience, 2) the sources of this experience, and 3) how we get it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 28, 2004. Series: Living in Hope. Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21, 1 John 3:1-3. 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 in Life. The English word for hope can canot uncertainty, but the Christian concept of hope is a life-changing joyous certainty of future with God. Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller is teaching about Christian hope and how what we believe about the future can transform our present reality. The reading for today is taken from the book of Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14 through 21, and first John chapter 3 verses 1 through 3. For this reason, I kneel before the Father,

from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. generations forever and ever, Amen. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known,

but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. This is the word of the Lord. We're doing a series on hope. The reason we're doing a whole series on the subject is because as we said last week, we tend to underestimate the power, the formative power in our lives, of our believed in futures. That is to say, we misunderstand how profoundly your character and the way in which you live

in your daily lives is determined by what you believe your ultimate future to be. Two examples quickly since I'm trying to each week want to say something about this, drive it home. Ernest Becker wrote a book called Denial of Death. Some years ago he got a pillow surprise for it. And his thesis was this. He said there's never been a society in the history of the world before that was so secular. There's never been a society in which so many people believe that ultimately our ultimate future doesn't exist. There is no

ultimate future. That when we die we rot. That our personal consciousness we have right now is utterly temporary. There's never been a whole society of people with with such a widespread belief that there was no ultimate future at all. And Becker's point is that we also live in a society that puts more emphasis on sex and romance and money and power than any culture ever because we are dealing with, we're trying to deal with the sense of cosmic insignificance that keeps breaking in on us because of our belief there is no ultimate future. Now that book won a Pulitzer Prize, I've never seen anybody deny its thesis. Or I'll give you an opposite example.

In the early church, we've talked about this every so often. Historical fact that when the plagues broke out in the urban cities of the old Roman Empire. The Christians tended to stay in the cities and take care of the people who were dying and died themselves in many cases while so many other people just left. Now why? Were Christians as more virtuous people?

Were they just more loving people, more caring, more virtuous people? No. It was their hope. Christians have absolute assurance that their ultimate hope is one of infinite personal love. That's what we're in for. We have absolute assurance that should we die? At the end of time, the New Heavens and New Earth means infinite personal love from God.

And they were just acting in line with their hope. They weren't better people, they weren't more virtuous people in some kind of way. They were completely determined. The people who left and the people who stayed, all had to do with what did they believe in? Was their ultimate future. Now, the real question that comes up right away is,

and we're gonna keep looking over the week said, how your belief in your ultimate future determines how you deal with suffering, how you deal with death, how you deal with sex and romance and money and power, and so forth. But I think a lot of people would have to say that even though you believe in most of what the Bible says about the ultimate future, it hasn't changed your life. You really don't handle suffering

or death or these other things any differently or better than other people. Why would that be? And the answer is because it's not just simply the doctrine of Christian hope, the second coming, the new heavens, the new earth, the resurrection. It's not just the doctrine, it's not just the belief, the cognitive belief, it's the experience of hope. And this experience is talked about in these two passages, especially the passage, the chapter three of Ephesians were Paul praised for the Ephesian Christians. And I'd like to look at this. Let's look at this.

The promise of this experience, the sources of this experience, and last of all, how we get it. The promise of it, the sources of it all, how we get it. The promise of it, the sources of it, and how we get it. Now take a look, first of all, the promise of the experience. If you read Paul carefully, when you get to chapter 3, you almost immediately see that there's something that look like contradictions. Paul says, saying, Closhians chapter 127, all Christians have Christ in them. To become a Christian is to receive Christ in you.

And yet here in verse 17, he's saying, I'm praying that Christ made dwell in your hearts. Why would he pray that for Christians if it's already true? Or verse 19, we know earlier in this very book, in the very letter of Ephesians, he says that to be a Christian is to receive the fullness of God. You receive Christ, you receive the fullness of God.

Yet verse 19 says, I pray that you'll be filled with the fullness of God. Now why would Paul pray for Christians to get things that else where he says they already have? And the only answer is, could be helped by this illustration. The only answer would be more clear if I give you an illustration. When I was in my first pastorate in Virginia,

I would visit. I got to know an older woman who lived by herself in a very old house. And it was so ramshackle, it was so old, that when you would walk by the side of it, you could actually, the light could come through the boards on the side of the wall. It was dangerously hot in the summer. It was horribly cold in the winter.

And she was always getting sick as a result. She was always going in the infirmary, she was always going in the hospital. And I thought, originally I thought was because she was resourceless and I discovered from her friends and actually from her that she actually had quite a bit of money in the bank. But for various reasons, and maybe no people like this,

for various reasons, she was petrified and ever touching that nest egg for fear that someday she really needed it, it wouldn't be there. So she never spent it. She actually had the wealth, but she lived poor, and as a result, it was killing her. She had it, but she couldn't draw on it. That's exactly what Paul's talking about here. And it's actually quite an indictment.

When he praised this for the Ephesians, he Christians. He knows that this is the normal Christian condition. We have got access to things that we never draw on. We have intimacy with Christ in principle. We have the love of and fullness of God in principle. But it has never broken through into our inner being where it actually is an experience of and it actually changes us. Now what do we mean by inner being? Notice this is this is one of the two main things he's asking for in this prayer. Is I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being that Christ might dwell on your heart

by faith that you may know the fullness of God. What's that? Greek scholars will tell you what that word means. Here's one, I took this out of one dictionary. It's talking about inner being is the center of personal consciousness and identity. The center of your personal consciousness and identity. Your consciousness of who you are. So for example, a lot of people have said a lot of things about you over the years.

Maybe, and this happens a lot, you've had friends and other people tell you how great you are, you have certain accomplishments, it's also possible that you have parents or some other significant person in your life who's told you what a failure you are and how you've amounted to nothing. Now here's the question, when you look at all those various verdicts that have been passed on you, which one is going to reside on your inner being? Which one's going to penetrate and come inside and become the controlling reality? The reality that controls how you see yourself

and how you respond to the world and everything else? I mean, people say many and many different things. And you may believe some of them, but which one, you say, which one will come all the way inside and penetrate you into your inner being? It's one thing to believe in the head of what God has done for you in Christ. It's another thing for it to come on the inside and become the controlling reality so that if people abandon you or people reject you, it doesn't matter. You never live as an abandoned person. You never respond as a

rejected person because what he has done for you in Christ, that is the controlling reality. That's the real reality to yourself. That's who you really are. It comes in and becomes part of the true you, the true you. Paul is saying, without the power of the Holy Spirit, you may be rich as a Christian and yet live poor and literally be dying out there. All the same resentments, all the same selfishnesses, all the same drivenness, all the same. You have belief and you've sealed it off from your inner being. And by an experience, which we're talking about here, by the Holy Spirit, this has to come all the way in.

It has to penetrate. This is the thing that Paul's talking about. This is the thing that Paul's asking for. Now, just to, and by the way, the reason he asked for this, notice this book of Ephesians is not just written to We don't think most people don't believe that this is this letter was written just to one church Because if you read the letters on it when you get to the end There's a lot of specifics about what's happening in a particular church and specific reading specific people

That's not in the book of Ephesians and many people believe I do too. The Paul wrote this to a whole region. It was written to a whole region and it was read in a whole lot of churches. So Paul's talking to the, maybe the broadest possible spectrum of people that he speaks to in any of his letters. And he assumes they actually don't have this. He assumes they need it. He assumes the Christ's dwelling, but he's not dwelling. That they know the fullness of God not dwelling. They know the fullness of God yet they don't know the fullness of God. In fact, take a look. If you want the essence of it

is in the very, very end of verse 19 where he says, I pray that you would know this love that surpasses knowledge. Wait a minute. I want you to know something that you can't know. Is he being deliberately paradoxical and is being deliberately vivid, but he's not being paradoxical? Because when the love of Christ that you believe in your head actually gets into your inner being, always the language is,

I knew it, but I didn't really know it. I thought I knew it, it was something I knew, and yet I never knew it at all. And when you have, when you cross the line and you start talking like that, I thought I knew it, it was something I knew, and yet I never knew it at all. And when you have crossed the line and you start talking like that, these things have begun to break into your inner being. Has that happened to you? Or are you living poor?

And literally dying because of it. Quick. Some examples. Blaze Pascal, great philosopher, mathematician. When he died, they discovered, soared into the interlining of his coat, a entry from his diary. And this is what it said.

In the year 1654, Monday the 23rd of November, from about half past 10 in the evening till half an hour past midnight, fire, capital letters, same one line, fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not the God of the philosophers and the learned. Certainty, joy, certainty, emotion, sight, joy, joy, joy. Tears of joy, my God, will you leave me?

Let me not be separated from you. Now that's only a piece of it. You can always get the whole thing on the internet somewhere I'm sure. What was he saying? Now compare this with what Paul was saying. First of all, he says, not the God of the philosophers. Now, Blastepascal was a philosopher. And he was a great philosopher. And he's not saying philosophy is no good. It's not like he stopped doing philosophy after November 23rd, 1654. What he's saying is that an abstract idea of God is nothing compared to this, this, this.

The things he knew about God broke into his inner being. In an amazing way, certainty, joy, he said. The God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of history, the God of personal relationship, not the God of the philosophers. And notice when he says, don't leave me, please don't leave me. He's experiencing the indwelling of Christ. It's not like, it's not like Christ doesn't indow all a Christian all the time, but he's experiencing the immediate presence, the nearness.

Dwight Moody was a 19th century, not as narrowly as famous, but a 19th century minister preacher, and he was on his way to London. This is in the late 1850s. To do that from Chicago, you had a kind of New York, so he was waiting in New York before his boat left. He tells this from his biography. He says, one day in the city of New York City, walking up Wall Street, by the way,

one day in the city of New York, what a day. I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it. It's almost too sacred and experienced to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for 14 years. I can only say that God was revealed to me, and I had such an

experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand. He goes on in the biography to say was walking up Wall Street when God broke into his inner being in a way. These are things he knew but he hadn't really not known them. And he knew he had a friend who lived not too far away. He ran to the man's house. He asked for a room for himself. he went up into the room by himself and stayed alone for hours, the Holy Spirit, coming upon him, filling his slow with such joy that eventually he had to ask God to stop it.

He says, I don't think I can take any more of this. Why do you think Paul says that they get ready for this? The Holy Spirit has to strengthen your inner being with power because you would crack under the weight of it otherwise. Now when you bring up stories like that, these are the mountaintop experiences. They're not the more mundane, the more routine sweetness and the more routine experiences that you can have. So it's a little bit dangerous to say that, but I'm trying to get a point across. What have you settled for?

What have you settled for? Are you someone who believes, but there's very, very little impact in your inner being and you know that? It's what your parents say about you is much more of controlling reality than what God says about you in your inner being. You need the experience of hope through the Holy Spirit.

You need what Paul is praying for. So there's the promise of this experience. Secondly, we also have here something about the sources of it. Now, I have given you this second section out of first John, chapter three, because he talks about what the Christian hope is. Notice the word hope in verse 3, and he's talking about something that's going to happen at the

end of time, or at the end of life. And here's how he puts it. He says, beloved, we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We shall see him as he is. This is the beatific vision. The Psalmist, David says in Psalm 17, at the end of Psalm 17 he says, when I awake, I will be satisfied by seeing your face and righteousness. The word satisfied means all the bit, absolutely filled. Psalm 16 says, in thy face is fullness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures forever more. The Bible talks about it, but says, no one can have it

in this life. Exodus chapter 33, Moses asked for it. He says, show me your glory, but says no one can have it in this life. Exodus chapter 33, Moses asked for it. He says, show me your glory, he says to God, I'm not son of I. I want to see your face and God says, it'll kill you. And in 1 Timothy 616, the same thing. God the King of kings, Lord of lords, who lives in unapproachable light, which no human being has seen or can see, to him be glory, says Paul. But John says, this is what we're in for to see him as he is.

Now to give you an idea of this, let me draw on something like what I said last week, but not quite the same. Imagine that you are, some of you are, I'm sure. Imagine that you have poured your life into being a great pianist. And when you play, you've got some friends who say you're the greatest. And you love your friends. But one day, imagine that one of the greatest pianists in history happens to be in the audience, and you don't know it. And then that person comes up afterwards into your shock, walks up to you, and says, you're one of the greatest penises I've ever heard. No offense to your friends.

This statement fills you up. Outweighs everything that anyone else ever said about you. You experience glory, you feel solid, you don't feel ephemeral, you feel filled up. But that's a do-drop compared to this. When, who do you let see as you really are? Who do you allow to see justice? Who do you let see you, just as you really are?

Who? Only the people you love the most. Only the people that are the most intimate with you. And so when it says, God will let us see him as he is. That is an act of self-disclosing love. It means that when we see him face to face, he will look upon us with his eyes of delight. He will open his heart all the way. He will declare his undying love for us in such a way that we will know in that moment

that in everything you've ever wanted, you are wanting this. In every set of arms you've ever thrown yourself into, whether it was a parent or a child or a sibling or a friend or a lover or a spouse, in every set of arms you've ever thrown yourself into, every piece of music that sent you to the moon that you listen to over and over and over and over again. In everything you ever longed for, you were really longing for this,

and you'll know it in that moment. You'll be full, the fullness, you'll be satiated. That bottomless pit of need for love and joy and glory and human heart, he'll be satiated. This is the end. John has the audacity, even though it makes sense, to say, look at his last verse. To even want that, even though it hasn't happened yet,

it's in the future, to even want that. Changes you now. To even want that purges your soul of the impurities right now. To even want that purges your soul of the impurities right now, to even want that in the future. Starts to grow love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and meekness in your heart. Hi, I'm Tim Keller. You know, there is no greater joy and hope possible

than that which comes from the belief that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 4, although Christ was crucified in weakness, he now lives by the power of God. If you grasp this life altering fact of history, then even if you find things going dark in your life, this hope becomes a light for you

when all other lights go out. With Easter approaching, I want you to know the hope that stays with you no matter at the circumstance, the hope that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In my book, which is entitled Hope in Times of Fear, the resurrection and the meaning of Easter, you'll find why the true meaning of Easter is transformative and how it gives us unwinchable hope and joy even when we face the trials and difficulties of this life which can be considerable. Hope in times of fear is our thank you for your gift this month to help gospel in

life reach more people with the hope and joy of Christ's love. You can request your copy today by going to gospelandlife.com slash give. That is gospelandlife.com slash give. Thank you so much for your generosity and as we prepare to reflect on the amazing love of Christ, demonstrated when he went to the cross to save us, I pray you will find renewed hope and comfort in the historical fact of his resurrection. Now this is what Paul is talking about actually in chapter 3. By the Holy Spirit, we have an experience of the future. We have a four taste of that. We have an experience of the future. We have a four taste of that. We have an experience of the future. We have a four taste of that. And the Holy Spirit prepares your inner being for it

very much the way silver chloride was put on, you know, photography was basically invented when we find out a way to put silver chloride on a piece of paper. If you had an untreated piece of paper, and you just stuck it up there, and you expose it to light reflected off an object, nothing would happen to the paper, it just stayed the way it was. But if you treated it with silver chloride, which was light-sensitive,

and then you exposed it to light reflected off an object, permanent picture, permanent images. Without the Holy Spirit working on your inner being, you may be very interested in Christianity. You might get very excited about something you read in the Bible. You might believe a number of things, but unless the Holy Spirit treats your inner being, when it treats your inner being, these ideas about God strike your heart and become the true you because the Holy Spirit is giving you a foretaste of the future. It's giving you a foretaste and down payment and installment of what it's going to be like

to see him as he is. So that's the promise and that's the source. But now we come to the... And I left the time because I don't usually leave the time and I get complaints. How do you get this? How do you get this? I don't want you to just go home and say, wow, I got me all excited, but I have no idea what to do about it. And so let me just suggest from the passage, five things. If you're going to get this, you're going to get this in five ways, number one. You get it deliberately. When Paul says, I kneel, for this reason I kneel before the Father,

almost all praying in those days was standing. When Jesus talks about praying, He says, when you stand praying, people stood. You never knelt unless you were really serious. This is an intense prayer. This is, you know, deep submission to God. And I think what Paul is suggesting is, if you would, if you want to move from just believing

to really experiencing in your inner being the indwelling Christ and the fullness of God and love of God, you're going to have to get deliberate about it. You're going to have to get serious. You're going to have to draw a line in the sand and step over it yourself and say, I'm going to seek this. Now be careful, you're seeking God. You're not seeking an experience of God. See? In other words, the experience is there so you can have him, not so you can have great feelings about him. You've got to be very careful, especially in a very experientially oriented age. But what it is saying here is you're going can have him, not so you can have great feelings about him. You've got to be very careful, especially in a very experientially oriented age. But what it is saying here is, you're going to have to be serious about this.

You're going to have to be deliberate. You're going to have to set your face for it. You're going to have to seek it. That's number one. Number two, you seek it. You find it deliberately, secondly, prayerfully. It's interesting that Paul doesn't tell them how to find this. Paul prays for it.

Because Paul is actually showing us how he got it. When it comes right down to it, what I'm talking about is basically a matter of prayer. Now it doesn't, I mean, Dwight Moody was walking up Wall Street and he had the experience of God breaking in his inner being. But it's only because he knew how to pray. It's only because he had been praying about it and praying to find God. When it comes right down to it,

what I'm talking about is prayer. You have to be disciplined. You have to be skilled. You have to be committed. You've got to have a prayer life. You've got to have a discipline prayer life. You've got to have it prayer life. You've got to have a discipline prayer life. You've got to have it. The connection between the future and the present

comes through prayer. Think of it this way. I mean, the light switch doesn't have any power of its own, but the light switch connects the power outside with the light inside. The light switch is just a vehicle. It's just a conduit, but this is what it is without it. All this stuff we're going to talk about, all the stuff we have talked about,

all the things that can happen in your life are not going to happen. It comes right down to this. It's prayer. And by the way, there's four, the traditional understanding of prayer is, prayer is adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, ACTS, have you ever heard it? Put out an acronym like that. You have adoration and praise. You have confession and repentance.

You have thanksgiving for what he's done. And you have petition, supplication asking for things that you need. The supplication and the thanksgiving are fairly easy to do. We do it all the time. We ask for all the things we want and we check off the things we've gotten.

We thank him. It's the first two. It's the first two. It's the first two. Do you know what it's like to spend an hour in praise and confession, and not Thanksgiving and supplication? Do you know what it's like to go after God, not just after things from God, and ticking off the things you've gotten from God?

Do you know what it's like to go after God? The discipline of that is the key to all this. There's just no other way around it. I don't know what else to tell you. It's when Paul says, when Paul bows the knee and prays to give us for this, he's trying to say, this is the only way to do it. You're going to have to bow the knee.

You're going to have to learn how to do this, too. You have to get skilled at it. You've got to be good at it. And I don't know any place worse than New York City to be trying to do this. There's no place I know harder to set aside time and find places for quiet, for contemplation. We're so busy, we don't have the time.

We have no privacy. We're up against each other all the time. But there is no other way. There's absolutely no other way. So first of all, deliberately. Secondly, prayerfully. Thirdly. Patiently. Patiently. In fact, when Paul prays for this instead of telling us how to do it, he's essentially telling us this. This is a gift to the Holy Spirit. This is not something you have control over. The Spirit has to do it. You cannot do it to yourself.

The spirit has to do it. You cannot do it to yourself. Both the Catholics and the Protestants over the years have talked about this actual experience of where something that you know with your head breaks into your inner being, they call infused love. The word infusion means poured out, poured in from the outside. You can tell the difference between working yourself up the way you can by thinking and working on your heart versus a word coming in from the outside, the spirit being poured in from the outside.

And therefore you are not in charge. You are not in charge. You've got to be patient. St. John of the Cross, a Catholic mystical writer, a great writer about prayer and experience, wrote a book called The Dark Knight of the Soul. I like that as a book on prayer. You know, you say, I think I'll read some other book on prayer, but he's right. Because he talks about dark nights and one of the dark nights he talks about is called,

he calls the night of sense. And what he means is that it is normal when you have decided to finally draw that line in the sand and you step over, I'm going to be deliberate about prayer, I'm going to develop my prayer life. He says almost one of the first things that happens is that you experience spiritual dryness. And one of the things that happens is that you just give up. It's the same thing with Bible readings.

I'm going to read through the whole Bible and you get to Leviticus and that's that. You start January 1, somewhere around February 1st, you get to Leviticus and that's that. You start January 1, somewhere around February 1st, you get to Leviticus and you never get any further. The same thing happens here. I'm gonna learn how to pray. And John of the Cross is right in saying, almost immediately you get into a sense, you get into dryness, why?

Because this is the Holy Spirit's work. So what are you supposed to do? You don't give up, you pray right through it. You just keep going right through it. Because you're gonna be patient. Because you know this right through it, because you're going to be patient, because you know this is not something that you're going to do to yourself. You're not going to want your heart up into something.

So, deliberately, prayerfully, patiently, forth, intelligently. Now, here's what's important to see. This is not just a mystical thing that you wait for just to happen. This is not a matter of, this is not something like the sound of one hand clapping.

It's not something that just hits you out of the blue, you just have to wait for it to happen. Because the second thing, main thing he asks for is, power to grasp. Notice that? He asks that out of his glorious riches. God will strengthen you with power through your spirit and your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. And I pray that, here's the second petition, being rooted in establishment love, you may have power together with all the saints to grasp.

Now, the word grasp is the word katalambano, which originally meant to besiege a city and to break through the gate and take it. To sack a city. And you see, wow, that's a very strong word. And when you look at the other places where it's used, it's very intriguing. In Acts chapter 4 verse 13, there's a place where the early disciples began to preach in public.

And we're told the religious leaders, it says, when they grasped, there's the word, that these were unschooled, uneducated men, they were astonished. That's interesting. That's not just understanding. When they grasped, that they were unschooled men, they were astonished. The same word is used in Acts chapter 11, I know, Acts chapter 10, excuse me, where Peter sees God pouring out the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles on Cornelius, and he's shocked that God is calling the Gentiles and pouring out the Holy Spirit, and he says, now I grasp, he says,

that God is no respecter of persons. In both cases, it's shocking. Something breaks in. Now here's what, this is what Paul is saying. He says, this is all a matter of you reflecting on the truth, thinking about the truth, the truth, the scripture, the word, doctrine, all this stuff I just said isn't enough, but it's where you start.

You reflect on the truth, you understand the truth, you study the truth, you meditate on the truth, you understand the truth, you study the truth, you meditate on the truth until it explodes, until it breaks through your wall, until it comes into your inner being, until you say, I always knew that, but now I know that. In a way that makes me feel like I never knew it before. If you really want to get specific, almost everybody, Protestant and Catholic, used to say this, you don't just study the Bible, you read and meditate, you pray and contemplate. You read and meditate and pray and contemplate. I suggest this, take a pastor's of the Bible and read it, read it about five or six times

and underline the two or three things that you begin to feel come at you. It surprised you, touched you, impressed you, interest you. They started to put forth its power. So first of all, read it and underline one or two things. Then meditate. And by meditate, I said, ask three things and write these down. By meditate, I said, ask three things and write these down. How does what this text says? How does this lead me to a door, God? How does this lead me to a confessescent? And how does this lead me to thank Him for His grace? In what way does this particular text lead me to adore Him, confesses in, or thank Him for His grace?

In other words, think out the implications. So first you read, then you meditate, then pray. Take the stuff you've read, you wrote down, because it's adoration and confession, right? Take the stuff you just wrote down, and pray it. And sometimes, not during the night of sense, but sometimes as you're reading, it can happen. But usually, a little later, as you meditate, it can happen.

Or usually, as you pray, it can happen, that you begin to get a sense of the reality on your heart. You sense the breaking through, and then just stop and contemplate, and adore Him and love Him. Sometimes contemplation doesn't happen. You can't force it, it's from the Holy Spirit. It's comes from the glorious riches outside of you inside.

You don't want it up yourself. So read, meditate, pray, contemplate, until it explodes. Now lastly, I said, you have to do this deliberately, you have to do it prayerfully, you have to do it patiently, you have to do it intelligently, but last of all, you must do it Jesus centrically. Because notice that Paul does not say, I want you to know the love of God in general.

He says, and look at, he's meditating, let's do it. Let's go. Let's do it. He's meditating. I want you to see how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. Now, that's interesting. Why doesn't he say, I just want you to know the love of Christ? He's meditating. He's showing you how to do it.

Let's do it. Look at the cross. You could do this with a resurrection. You could do it with any aspect. But let's look at the cross. You could do this with a resurrection. You could do with any aspect. But let's look at the cross. Do you know how long Christ's love has been? Do you know that he started in the deeps of time he made this decision? We're told that the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. In the deeps of time, Jesus Christ determined that He was going to love us and come to earth and die on the cross and take the eternal punishment. And when He got here people jirat had him and they denied him and

they betrayed him and He continued to come at us. He continued, have you ever seen the and He's going to take us all the way to the place where we see Him as He is. Jesus' love is the longest love ever. Jesus' love is a long love in the same direction toward us. Jesus' nothing has stopped Jesus' love. Nothing will ever stop Jesus' love. You see how long Jesus' love is? Let's think about how deep Jesus' love is. Have you ever loved somebody in trouble?

If you've ever really loved somebody in trouble, they always bring you down. That's like, you know, literally, if you've ever tried to save somebody who's drowning, they always take you down. They're on their way down. If you try to pull them up, they're gonna pull you down. If there's anybody who's sinking emotionally

and psychologically to the degree that you keep yourself with them to that degree, they'll pull you down. That's just the way it works, right? You survive by detaching yourself. But nobody ever went as deep as Jesus. For him to love us, he had to get down to my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Do you know no one's ever been that low? No one's ever been in a pit like that. that low. No one's ever been in a pit like that. You and I might turn from God and then He forsakes us. But do you know what it's like to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and heaven forsake you? The reason that you know, no one that never happened before, it'll never happen again. No one ever experienced that kind of heart break. No one. And also don't forget the son knew the father from all eternity.

I mean, it would be, it's hard to lose a spouse. But as, and even everyone knows that to lose a spouse under any circumstances is just traumatic. But we only know our spouses for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. But the father and the son know each other from all eternity. And they were, they lost each other. When he says, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?

No one has ever been down as deep as Jesus. No one has ever been down in a pit that low. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free. Do you see something about how deep Jesus love is? Do you see how long his love is on the cross? One more. Do you see how high his love is? What is the height of Jesus love is, you see how long his love is on the cross? One more. You see how high his love is? What is the height of Jesus love?

Jesus the night before he died said, father, I want them to be with me so that they can behold my glory. So they can have my glory. You know what Jesus glory is? It's that which fills his soul with infallible and infinite and endless joy and love, and he wants you to have that.

He goes to repair a place for you. That's what the cross is all about. The cross is about taking you as high, higher than you can even imagine. Now to him who can give us more than, measurably more than we dare ask or think. Do you see the height of Jesus love? You see the length of Jesus love? You see the depth of Jesus love?

You see the breath? It doesn't matter who you are. Doesn't matter what race? Doesn't matter what class? Doesn't matter what record? We have been redeemed by His blood out of every tongue-try people in nation. You know what Paul's doing? He's meditating and we're meditating. And is anything happened in your heart in the last 90 seconds? Of course. And as the Holy Spirit does that, the things that are cowing you, the things that are driving you, the things that are bothering you in your life, they're being weakened. Go there deliberately, patiently, prayerfully, intelligently, and Jesus centrically. The hill of Zion yields a thousand

sacred sweets, says the hymn, before we reach the heavenly fields and walk the gold of streets. The future is available now, only partially, but really, go for it. Now to him, who can do, and measurably, more than all we ask for a match, and according to his power that is at work within us to him be glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations, now and forever, amen, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us the assurance of hope

and showing us how it works. And we do ask that you would teach us how to go about taking hold of the things that Paul so powerfully prayed for us to experience. And we ask that you would help every person hearing this today to know what their next steps need to be. Please open to us now. We cannot wait to see you as you are, but open your heart to us now, and break into our innermost being so that we can know the hope that makes not ashamed. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. If you were encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a gospel and life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people access resources like this podcast. Just visit GospelUnlife.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 2004 and 2008. The sermons and talks through here on the GospelUnlife podcast will preach from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Church.