Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Finality of Jesus

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

This text tells us something that’s easy to ignore, that’s often missed: that Jesus is the final word. Jesus claims a finality here, and because he claims his salvation is completely by grace through him, the Pharisees and the Herodians get together and want to kill him.   This teaches us not only how radical Jesus’ way of salvation is, but that if you really hear it, it will create all sorts of division in your own heart. Whenever the real Jesus is revealed, there’s a juxtaposition of both attraction and revulsion. They both happen together.    This passage shows us 1) that Christ is offensive, 2) to whom he is offensive, and 3) why he is offensive. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 26, 1996. Series: The Real Jesus, Part 2: His Life. Scripture: Mark 2:23-3:6. 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.

For many people, trusting Jesus with your life is challenging. Questions immediately arise like, how can I believe in Jesus in light of the sufferings I've experienced in my life? And there's so much suffering and injustice in the world. How can we know He is the One who will make things right both in my life and in the world? Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller continues looking at the Gospels to show us who the real Jesus is and what that means for our lives.

After you listen, please go online to GospelandLife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll start receiving our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr. Keller as well as other great gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at GospelOnLife.com. In your bulletin, there's printed a passage that we're going to be looking at tonight. It's the teachings based on it. If you are actually singing, you should be right at it. If you were singing along. If you were daydreaming, you might have trouble finding it. It's Mark chapter 2, verses 23, over to chapter 3, verse 6. And it's printed, oh, it's on page 21, okay?

One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields. And as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? And he answered, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?

In the days of a by-the-arthe-high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priest-y, and he also gave some to his companions. And then he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Another time he went into the synagogue,

and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. So they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. And Jesus said to the man with a shriveled hand stand up in front of everyone, then Jesus asked them, which is lawful on the Sabbath to do good or do evil, to save life or to kill, but they remain silent. And he looked around them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn heart, said to the man,

"'Stretch out your hand.'" He stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with hererodians how they might kill Jesus. And this is God's word. Now, what's the text tell us? And why are we looking at it, actually? And the answer is, because this text tells us something that is easy to ignore. This text tells us something that is easy to ignore.

This text tells us something that is often missed. And in fact, this is a sort of text that as a preacher, I would just as soon avoid. And so this is discipline for me as well as for you. The text is about the fact that Jesus is the final word. And I may not immediately jump off the page at you. is about the fact that Jesus is the final word. That may not immediately jump off the page at you, but Jesus is claiming a finality here, because he is going to be telling, as we're going to see, he's actually saying to the Pharisees, salvation is by grace.

And because salvation is by grace, it means you lose control, and you have nothing to brag about, and you have nothing you can do but rest in me, and you have nothing to brag about and you have nothing you can do but rest in me and you have nothing to hold over other people. And because he claims his finality and because he claims his salvation is completely by grace through him, the Pharisees and the Herodians get together and want to kill him. This text teaches us not only how radical Jesus way of salvation is, but that if you really hear it, it will create all sorts of division in your own heart and it certainly creates division in society. That there is a juxtaposition whenever the real Jesus is revealed, a juxtaposition of both attraction and revulsion, and they both happen together,

and that's what the text tells us. And unless you see that, it's difficult to judge whether or not you're on the right track spiritually, whether you yourself have ever really come to grips with the real Jesus. Now, I said the finality claim leads to the, because of grace leads to hatred and hostility, but what I wanna do is leads to hatred and hostility, but what I want to do is

I want to start with the hostility and show how where it comes from. So the way I'd like to attack the passage is by starting off by showing you that crisis offensive and then secondly to whom he's offensive and then thirdly why he's offensive. Because okay, that he's offensive to whom he's offensive. Because, okay, that he's offensive, to whom he's offensive and why. Now, look at, in other words, in some ways, I'm gonna start with the end. Let me start with the end.

Look, verse six of chapter three. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. There's a lot of important teaching in there. First of all, it tells us that Jesus creates this reaction. Let me give you two premises beneath all the teaching and preaching that happens at this church. We give you two premises.

I think that's always helpful to say, you know, one of the assumptions, one of the premises underneath what's going on in a particular spot? The first premise is opinions about Jesus matter nothing, including mine. My opinion doesn't matter. My heart and my mind is as much in the dark as anybody else's. Opinions about Jesus don't matter. The only way we're gonna find the real Jesus

is if we go to the writers of the Bible who knew Jesus or knew those who knew Him. And we go back to the Bible and we simply look and look and work real hard to strip ourselves of our own prejudices, of our opinions, of what we want to believe about Him, or we're afraid to believe about Him, our ideologies, what we've been taught, what we've been raised, just strip that as much as possible away, and find out who he really is. There's no way possible to know who the real Jesus really was and is unless you go back to the Bible and try to as much as possible, strip yourself of your prejudices and opinions and really hear it with a text. And that's the first premise, that the reason that I get up here and all the different ministers and preachers who ever speak here get up here is to try to say let's go to the text because

this is the only way you're going to see who Jesus really is. Don't for a moment put aside what you've heard put aside what you've been taught put aside what you think put aside what you feel what does it? Who is he? That's the first premise. Opinions don't matter, let's go to the Bible. The second premise, well, put it this way. The first premise is, if you don't find out what the Bible says about Jesus, there is no way to know who He is. We're just locked in our constructions, we're locked in our opinions.

It's the only way to know. Then the second premise is that if you really have heard the real Jesus, you will react the way that people in the Bible react. And that is, you will be knocked off dead center. Now, here's my proposal. Most everybody in the world is right on dead center when it comes to Jesus. In other words, they generally admire him

with several reservations. Most people admire Jesus. Most people think, well of him, most people think he was pretty good. They're mildly favorable at least with a number of reservations, you see. Various ones, depends on where they're from. Everybody's really basically in the center.

But when you see what the Bible says about Jesus, then you watch how people react to Him when He reveals Himself, when He speaks, when He acts. You will see always exactly what you see here. And that is this astonishing juxtaposition of attraction and revulsion. They always happen together. Sometimes, in fact, I'll get to this in a second. One of the ways you can know that this has happened,

that you've seen the real Jesus, this happens in your own heart. In a sense, your own heart in some ways is a little microcosm. But what do you see here? Here's Jesus, healing a man. Look, look how wonderful this is. And then Jesus says, he looked around at them and he says, stretch out your hand, he stretched it out, as a man with a shriveled hand.

His hand was completely restored. How wonderful. Who could be against this? See, how great this is. What a man who's got this kind of love and power and all that. And what's the response? At that point, then, from that point, they started to plot the kill him.

Now let me show you that this is something all through the Bible, at least in the Gospel of Mark and everywhere. It's amazing how often it happens. If some of you might have been here this morning, you even see a little bit of it there. We looked at a passage at the end of Mark chapter 4, where we're told that Jesus and the disciples were in a boat and a great storm came up. Jesus was asleep. And the disciples were scared in the storm and then he got up and he said, peace, be still. And what does it tell us about the disciples after the storm? In the storm they were scared. After the storm they were more scared. Before the storm they were scared afterwards it says they were terrified. Now if you don't understand that,

maybe you haven't come to grips with who the real Jesus is. When people start to see who he is and what he demands and what he claims and what he does, see, these disciples start to say, who is this? I have gotten into my life. What power? What claims?

What is this going to mean? I wanted a teacher. I wanted a healer. I wanted someone to meet my needs. What power, what claims? What is this going to mean? I wanted a teacher, I wanted a healer, I wanted someone to meet my needs, and I've got a king in here, I've got more than a king in here, who was this that's in my life? And so you see, you have both the attraction,

this amazement, it says, they're amazed, that they had this kind of wonderful power that he saved their lives, but they were terrified. If you go over to Mark chapter 5, I'm going to do a couple more of these just to show you that this has got to be one of the most basic things. Otherwise, it would not be repeated over and over again in the Gospels. In Mark chapter 5, Jesus takes a man who calls himself Legion. And he, Legion is, at the very least, he's deeply disturbed. He seems to have a multitude of demons in him. And after Jesus is done, I can't get in all of that.

But after Jesus is done with his ministry, we're told down in verse 15, it says, when it was all done, the crowd came out to see Legion. Now, he was very, very famous. He was chained up. He was a wild man. He would cry out. He would cut himself. You know, he was a, the bane of the neighborhood.

And he was a man in tremendous pain and a man who was painful to be near. But we're told that the crowd came out and they saw the man. This is chapter 5 verse 15 of Mark, clothed, sitting clothed and in his right mind. One of my favorite passages, because of course he was always naked, he didn't have enough in a sense sanity or self-control to keep clothes on. But Jesus had healed him. Jesus had taken away all the things that oppressed him. And there he was, verse 15, sitting seated, clothed, and in his right mind. How wonderful! You know, just like the man with a shriveled hand, how wonderful.

It's wonderful. And what do we see in verse 17? Two verses later, and it says, and then the people began to beg Jesus to leave their region. Surprise. What? Look at how wonderful it is, but you see, they look at Jesus and they say, this is wonderful, they admire it, they admire it, they're amazing. They don't say charlatan, they don't say freak, they don't say, they admire him, they're attracted to him, they respect him incredibly, they see what he's say, they admire him. They're attracted to him.

They respect him incredibly. They see what he's done. They acknowledge what he's done. And they say, get away from me. They begged him to leave the region. This is how I was like, you know, basically people are saying, look, I like a little salvation. Not this much.

I would like some help. I don't want somebody like this. This is too big. This is too much. See, this is too costly. I'm afraid I'm going to lose control. A little bit of salvation, not this much salvation. A completely final salvation. See, they say leave. You may just show you one more, just one more, just to prove this. This isn't just something I pick up on or I read in. My opinion is no matter. Chapter 6.

Jesus comes back to his hometown, and he gets up and preaches a sermon, and it knocks everybody socks off. And all the hometown people, they say in verse 3, where did he get this wisdom? What is this? They say where did he get this wisdom? They don't say what a stupid sermon. They get up and they say, I've never heard anything like this.

The wisdom, the power, the insight, where did he get this? This is ridiculous. And then the second thing they say, and where did he get all the power to do these miracles? They don't deny these things. They're an awe. They're an awe. They're amazed. And what do we see two verses later?

No, the same verse. It says, where did he get his wisdom? They asked, where did the miracles come from? And where did he get this power? And then it says, isn't this Mary's son, aren't his brothers and sisters here with us? And they took offense at him again and again and again. Why? Well, that's what we're getting to. I'm just trying to show you the fact. And before we leave, this point and move the second point, the first point is when you see the real Jesus,

you're knocked off dead center. You get exercised about him. One way or the other, okay? Jesus is somebody you've got to do something about one way or the other. If you either got to stamp out Christianity or you've got to give yourself utterly to it and make it the only thing in your life serving him.

That's the only way anybody has ever responded to him when they saw him. You know, one of the reasons why I kind of get like this, when I talk about this is I'm talking to myself. I mean, if I'm talking to myself, I should be, I'm trying to talk to you too, misery loves company. I mean, people saw who he was. They got exercised about him. They got off dead center. They went one way or the other and as I'm going to show you in a minute, sometimes they go both ways at once. One of the best signs, I'll put it to you this way. Let me apply this to you. Let me ask you a couple direct questions. Have you never seen this kind of struggling in your

own heart? Have you ever never, have you ever felt not only a desire, a passion to really get near him and also at the same time to get away from as far as you possibly can? Have you ever felt upset, outraged, have ever felt intimidated? Have you ever really wrestled and really struggled. If you never have, I don't know that you've, I'll tell you something, if you've never seen this part of him, if you've never seen the offensiveness, if you've never seen the intimidation, if you've never seen how threatening he is, I doubt that you've ever tasted really his comfort, his glory, or his beauty. I doubt it because whenever he shows up, people get exercised.

And let me ask you one other question. Are you one of those people that says, well, I admire Jesus, that's the church I hate. Now, I do not want at all to defend the church, not even my church. One of the great problems of Christianity is how little we emulate Jesus and how far short we fall of what he wants us to be.

I don't want to defend the church today. Yeah, I have a cold, sorry about this. Bear with me. But what I do want to say is, when someone says something that fasts out, I admire Jesus, I really respect Jesus. It's the church that I'm against. And the way Christians are and how narrow they are, would you please think about it?

I don't know that that has a lot of intellectual integrity to it. You might be offended by the church. In fact, you know, my wife and I find ourselves incredibly offended by the church. And we're Christians. Pretty strong Christians, I hope. But don't say easily, I admire Jesus. The only people who ever really admire Jesus were also kind of put off by Him. Do you really admire Jesus? Have you ever seen His claims? We've ever seen what He said.

And if you have, watch out. You might not actually find yourself really to be an enemy. Jesus, boy, here's the thing. You know how often would say about somebody that man has not got an enemy in the world or we say that woman has not got an enemy in the world. When we say that about somebody, we're saying a high compliment, are we not? You could never say that about Jesus. You would never say about Jesus. He doesn't have an enemy in the world, not a bit. He's got lots of enemies. And all of his enemies are people who have come to grips with him. Have you come to grips

with him? Take the risk. Look at him. Of course, you run the risk of becoming an enemy. But frankly, I would want you to know that the Bible says, and I have found from my own pastoral experience, that if you are an enemy of Christ, you're a lot closer to them than when you're on the middle. It's the people who are mad at Him, who know who He is. It's the people who are wrestling with Him, who are closer. This is the reason why Jesus can actually say,

to the Pharisees, He says to the Pharisees, the pimps in the prostitutes, get into the kingdom of heaven before you. They're closer. They're mad. They're upset. They're struggling. They're wrestling. You know, on the one hand, they feel like sinners on the other hand, they think, who's to call me a sinner? They're wrestling. They're out there. They're closer than you. Dare to become an enemy. It might be the only way to ever become as friend, might be. As we near the end of another year of ministry, we want to pause

and thank everyone who is graciously and generously supported this ministry in 2022. We are so grateful for your support. We also thank God for all the ways he's working through gospel and life and through you to bring gospel renewal to people all over the world And it is our privilege to serve you through this ministry. As we come to the end of this year We ask you to prayerfully consider making a year end gift to help gospel and life finish the year strong And start 2023 ready to share the beauty of the gospel with more people.

To make a year end gift today, go to gospelandlife.com slash give. That website again is gospelandlife.com slash give because the gospel truly changes everything. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's message. Now secondly, look and see what... Who gets offended, not just that he's offending, but who gets offended. And you know, I never really thought about this until I started wrestling with this text trying to say, what does it teach? This is an amazing passage in verse 6 when it says, the Pharisees at that point went out

and began to plot what the Herodians. Now, you say, what's that? The Pharisees were the ultimate in religious people, and the Herodians were the ultimate in secular non-religious people. And they're getting together because the message of a gospel deeply offends them both. And until you see how and why

it offends them both, you don't get the gospel. Okay, who are the Herodians? Well, the Herodians, and it doesn't take too much insight or background to understand that the Herodians were the people around King Herod. King Herod had a wife named Herodius, and all of his cohorts and his party, in a sense, the people who he appointed, and they were basically running the country. The high high ups, the influential, the powerful people, the government officials, they were the herodians. Here's the guy they like to put his name on everything.

And of course, they sucked up to him. They sucked up to him tremendously. And they all got around, but who are these people? If you know anything about Herod, you know, Herod was a tremendously immoral person and a tremendously irreligious person. And so was the whole party. And in so many parts of the world, this is the case that the least religious people are the most powerful and the most wealthy and very often the people who kind of run things.

Very often is the case. One thing, if you want to understand something about how the gospel offends the Herodians, you have to look at Herod himself. And later on in Matthew and in Mark, and even a little bit in Luke, we're told this amazing story about how John the Baptist offended Herod. See, Herod's wife Herodius, and that obviously

wasn't her original name. It wouldn't have been interesting. You know, you raise, I say, gosh, her name's Herod's wife Herodius, and that obviously wasn't her original name. It wouldn't have been interesting. You know, you raise and say, gosh, her name is Herodius. I better marry her. She changed her name. I forget what it was, but the point was she had been the wife of his brother. Herod stole Herodius from his brother, committed adultery with her, had an affair with her, and went took her away. John the Baptist one day got up some plubic place when Herod was coming by evidently, or Mary Herod heard this and came to him,

and Herod and he looks at Herod and he says, you are an adulterer. You have taken your father, the wife of your brother. You abuse your power. You live a life of selfishness and sexual immorality. You are an adulterer. Now the Herodians were all extremely upset about this. Herodius were told to have a grudge. And the text I'm taking this from Mark chapter 6, the text says Herod, nursed a terrible grudge and wanted to kill him, and they all had him arrested. Now listen, this is Chapter 6, verse 20 of Mark, but Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.

What a story. Herod, like all, no, like so many powerful and rich people, doesn't have anybody ever who confronts him. They all suck up to him. They need his money. They need his leverage. They need it. He's never heard a real preacher.

He's never heard somebody that says, let me tell you, the bad news of the gospel, you are a sinner. He hasn't arrested and everybody wants to kill him. All of his friends, why? Because the last thing people who want to sleep with anybody they want to sleep with, wanna hear is a preacher getting up

with power, authority, with wisdom, with unfortunately a certain amount of convincingness, you know, with a certain amount of credibility getting up and saying, you can't live this way. you can't have a society this way, you can't please God this way, you can't do this. They don't want that, they want to kill him. Herod keeps them alive for a period of time because something is going on in his heart. Whenever anybody gets near the gospel, we said, on the one hand, it's amazing.

It says, whenever he heard John preach, he was perplexed, yet he heard him gladly. There it is. He's attracted, he's repelled. And the most amazing thing is, it says, when every heard John preach, in that amazing, he was in prison. Herod kept bringing him up out of prison. He says, John, give me another sermon. See, he was fascinated, he was repelled, and of course, eventually, he let his wife and the people around him kill John the Baptist. Now, that's why the Herodians of the world hate the gospel. They hate the gospel because the gospel says

that you're a sinner. That's why you need a savior. The things that you're doing aren't right. You cannot save yourself. You're up to your knees. You're up to your eyeballs and sin. You don't do the very thing that you, everybody wants from everyone else.

I mean, if you really want one perfect example of sin, the Bible says, everybody in their heart knows the golden rule. You demand it of everybody else around you. You demand that they love you. They treat you as you would want them to treat you, you know them. You demand the golden rule, and yet you don't live up to it yourself.

We're up to our eyeballs and sin. We do not do what we demand from other people. That's the gospel. And the herodians of the world, the secular people, the people who want to live the way they want to live, have to wipe it out. They're very offended by it. They're very upset by it. They're very upset by it.

But, whoa, wait a minute. What about the Pharisees? Now, we can understand why the Herodians will want to kill John the Baptist and Jesus, the preachers of the gospel. But why would the Pharisees? The Pharisees would applaud somebody saying, you are a moral.

The Pharisees thought that about Herod. The Pharisees would applaud a preacher who says, you need to turn to God. They like that. You're irreligious. That's wrong. They like that. You're a moral. You're abusing power.

You're being selfish. You're not obeying the law of God. They like, well, what's upsetting them? The bad news of the gospel upsets the Herodians, but the good news of the gospel upsets the religious people. And you say, where's the good news of the Gospel? Religious people want desperately to have the universal religion of the world, and Jesus denies it to you.

What is the universal religion of the world? The universal religion of the world is this. If I follow the rules, God owes me. That's at the heart of every single religion, every philosophy. It's even at the heart of the people who say they're not religious. It's the reason they're not religious. How many times have I, over the years, heard this in essence from people? They say, you know, I don't even believe in God.

Oh, and let me, you want to know why? Yes. I've lived a pretty good life better than most and my life is crummy. Where's the justice in that? Here's an interesting point. Here's a guy, man or woman who says that, I've heard this, I don't know how many times, and I know that some of you feel this way. You're saying I'm not religious because, and yet the premise on which you are saying

God and all of religion is rubbish, the premise is you assume that you assume the universal religion of the world. Every human heart, every philosophy, every religion, in fact, the average person who's in the church of Jesus Christ today also assumes this. If I follow the rules, God owes me. You know, the reason why the universal religion of the world is so popular, number one is popular because if I can get to heaven by being good, I've got to claim on God. I'm in the driver's seat.

I'm a taxpayer. I've got rights. He can't demand just anything of me. Number one, number two, it's popular because it gives religious people a way of feeling superior to others. In fact, it gives religious professionals a job. Religious institutions can come to people and say, our rules are the way to find God. If you want to claim on God, if you want his blessings, if you want his power, if you want to get into his heaven, whatever, our rules are the way to do. Our rituals, our rules, our disciplines, our efficiency,

the way, you have to come to us, through us. It gives religious people power. But Jesus refuses to let religious people have their universal religion. And how does he do that here? He says, they're very upset with him because of the way in which he's acting on the Sabbath. He seems to be not following all the rules.

The Pharisee had created, the Pharisees created hundreds of rules. I made a list of them. I forget where they all are. I'm not gonna find them in here. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Oh yeah, well, we know that at the the time of Jesus the Pharisees developed 39 different forms

of work, they were all defined, which were forbidden on the Sabbath. Why? Because if you follow the Sabbath rules perfectly, you'll have a claim on God. But Jesus Christ makes this amazing statement that echoes through time and he makes a claim here that is just astonishing. And if you understand it, you'll see why both religious people and irreligious people hate him. And you'll see why he's unique.

He says, the Sabbath was not made for man. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. The Sabbath, you see, was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. What does that mean? First of all, he says, if you try to use the Sabbath to earn your salvation, it ends up being a slave master. It becomes a burden, you see. You, in a sense, you're existing for it. But I want you to know that I am the Sabbath. Now what's the word Sabbath mean? It means rest. And the book of Hebrews tells us that the rest, that God made people do one day a week. He gave the Jews this rule, one day a week rest. It was only pointing, Jesus says, if you think that on this one day

you go to church and you do your duties and you avoid work and you're going to get God's favor, you're missing the whole point. You're missing the whole point. The Sabbath is a gift to you. God's favor. You're missing the whole point. You're missing the whole point. The Sabbath is a gift to you. The rest, the peace of God is a gift to you. It's not something you earn. It's something I give you, because I'm it.

You can't earn this. I have fulfilled it. There's a great passage in Hebrews 9, and it's talking about the fact that on the first day, you know, in the back in Genesis 1, we're told that God made all this work on creation and on the seventh day, it says, he rested. Hebrews 9 puts it this way. He says, there does remain for the people of God a rest, a Sabbath rest, for anyone who enters God's rest rest from his own good works, just as God rested from his work.

What is Jesus saying? Jesus is saying, listen. The gospel is, when you stop working for your salvation, when you stop your desperate weirdness of trying to work for your salvation, trying to put a claim on God, then the Sabbath, in fact, all of law becomes a taskmaster. You see, you are for it. You're for it. It becomes a taskmaster. It's weighing you down. But if you see that I am the Sabbath, I am the salvation, I am the thing. I have fulfilled the law. I have done everything. And I give it to you. If you come to me I can give you this rest. I can give you this piece. Then you will find that the Sabbath is for you instead of you for it.

Then you will find if on the day of worship I go to rejoice in the one who saved me not to earn I've worshiped, I go to rejoice in the one who saved me, not to earn the salvation, not to make a claim, not to work my way in. Jesus is actually turning the entire religion of the Pharisees on his head. When he says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He is saying, if you see that I'm Lord of the Sabbath,

the Sabbath would be a blessing. The Sabbath would be a great thing. And therefore, he makes the Pharisees mad because of the good news. He says, salvation is by grace, and he makes the Herodians mad because of the bad news, which is, you're a sinner, therefore you need grace. And everybody's mad. And if he was just a person who preached morality and said, the rules and then you, God will owe you salvation, then he'd only get the herodians upset. And if he came and just was, as some people today say, just a preacher of love, love everybody and God loves everyone, then the Pharisee would be upset but not the herodians.

Do you see that? In other words, if Jesus was just a conservative, he would have gotten the Herodians upset, not the Pharisees, but if he was just a sort of open-minded liberal. He would have gotten the Pharisees upset but not the Herodians. The gospel always gets everybody upset.

And you know, there's probably, let me conclude it this way. There's probably nobody who's put it better than a guy named Soren Kirchegard. He was a Danish Lutheran philosopher. The only one I know. But he says there's really three ways to approach life and approach God. He said the aesthetic, the ethical, and the spiritual.

By the aesthetic he means, follow your dream. You will be saved if you find your desires and fulfill them. By the ethical, that approach means follow your duty. Do what's right. See, the aesthetic is salvation through desire, and the ethical is salvation through duty. And Carcaguar says that almost everybody goes one way or the other trying to find happiness. And it's interesting. He says, he says, very often you're going to find that a person who spends the early part

of their life trying the aesthetic route will become extremely unsatisfied and jump over maybe and have what they would call a religious conversion and get into duty. It's Tolstoy did that. If you know anything about the biography of Tolstoy, it's amazing. As far as I can tell, he really didn't become a Christian. He jumped from the aesthetic being an artist. He was living the aesthetic life stuff.

And all of a sudden, he said, my word, I've got to get religious and he jumped over and he became incredibly legalistic. He went from the aesthetic to the ethical. And very often, I'll tell you what I find in New York. I find in New York, people who were raised in the ethical. And they found I'll tell you what I find in New York, I find in New York, people who were raised in the ethical and they found that their soul was partially ran off to New York to live the aesthetic life. Kierkegaard said, neither of them will work.

And he says, you see the aesthetic is the herodians and the ethical is the Pharisees. And when they hear the gospel, which says, you're both wrong, they hate it. They had deep down inside, one of the reasons they hate it is they know that they haven't found it. They haven't connected. They haven't met their humanity, hasn't been fulfilled,

and they certainly haven't found what their hearts are longing for. The spiritual is our pleasure and our duty, though opposites before, since we have seen his beauty, are joined to part no more, to see the law by love fulfilled, and here is pardoning voice, transforms a slave into a child,

and duty into choice. So the gospel is neither, the gospel is nearly aesthetic, it's neither the ethical, it's the spiritual. By the way, have any of you ever seen the movie Babet's Feast? It's based on a story by Isak Denison, who was a Danish writer. And it's about Sarenkirkar's three ways. And it's about the fact that it's about two women who, when they're young women,

one wants to be an opera singer and one wants to marry a dashing young man, and they're tempted to go in the way of the aesthetic, but their father, who is a very strict religious person, makes them promise to not marry and to stay with the religious community after he dies and suddenly become sort of very legalistic people, very dour, and they astute the aesthetic for the ethical. And at the very end of the, when the women are very old, their father's dead, a young woman comes into their life who is a tremendous chef.

And she makes the ladies and the whole Christian community an incredible feast because she's one of the world's renowned chefs and they did know that. They bring her in and they help her. and she says, out of gratitude to you, I want to give you the best meal you've ever eaten. And when they sit down to begin to eat it, at first they're upset. Because you see their understanding of Christianity is, if this feels good, it's got to be wrong.

And they start to take soup and they've never tasted soup like this. It electrifies them because this is the most incredible soup I've ever tasted. And they look at each other and they say, let's not enjoy it. And so they will not refer to the soup, they won't talk about it, and they try not to. But eventually the soup, and eventually the food, and eventually the meat, and eventually the incredible food begins to go to their hearts and they begin to rejoice. And it's very clearly appointing beyond the aesthetic and beyond the ethical to the spiritual, to the wedding feast of the Lamb. You know, the gospel says, the Sabbath is no longer a burden.

The Sabbath is no longer a bunch of rules and regulations. Now, why do you go to worship? Not to get God to save you, but to just rejoice in the God that has saved you. It's a day of a feast. Not the day of relentless working and not a day to stay away from. Our pleasure and our duty, though, opposite before,

since we have seen his beauty on the cross, our joined the apart no more. Be willing to hear this to the point that you find your herodianism or your Phariseism and everybody in this room is one or the other by and large, offended. See him enough to let that get offended. The only way sometimes to become a friend is to risk becoming his enemy. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank

you that it's possible for us to see this passage, this remarkable passage. Help us to see that Jesus is not a person about whom it could be said. He didn't have an enemy in the world. Help us also to see why. And let us find through your help our hearts turning to him because we see him for who he is. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to Gospel and Life and Dr. Keller's teaching. You can find more Gospel-centered content like today's teaching when you connect with Gospel and Life on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter. This month's sermons were recorded in 1996. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at

Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you