Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Freedom of the Christian

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Freedom is the greatest value in the modern Western world. The secular model of freedom is basically freedom from something. It says, “I am only free when there’s nothing in my way.” When people come to Christianity, they would like inspiration and help, but they don’t want to give up their freedom. Very often, Christians say to them, “You must give it up. God has a will,” but the Bible doesn’t come at it like that at all. The Bible instead is dripping with the language of freedom. So let’s look at what this text shows us about 1) the failure of secular freedom, and 2) the nature of real Christian freedom. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 5, 1998. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 5:5-18. 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 book of Galatians isn't a very long book, just six chapters, but it holds some of the most transformative truths in scripture. All month on the podcast, Tim Keller's teaching will be from the book of Galatians, a book that is all about the power of the gospel. Today's scripture passage is from Galatians 5 verses 5 through 18. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You were running a good race.

Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.

You my brothers were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command, love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, live by the spirit and you will not gratify

the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. This is the word of the Lord."

Greatest value in the modern Western world. It's the one thing we all agree on. It's a powerful thing. in the modern Western world. It's the one thing we all agree on. It's a powerful thing. The stories that stir us the most are freedom stories. You know, at the end of Braveheart, isn't it? Mel Gibson is getting tortured or executed or combination. And, you know, he's William Wallace, the great revolutionary in the 13th century in Scotland, and I think he's asked to recant. I think he's asked to forget what he's asked to say. But instead of saying what his executioners, what his tormentors, what his jailers want him to say,

he yells, freedom, you know, freedom. World War II, there's a huge movement after World War II of former colonies getting their freedom. 1950s, 1960s, the great civil rights movement. Freedom. It's the theme. And it's a very important theme. And when you think of it, at least on the surface, Christianity seems like it does not have anything to contribute to that. Now here's the nicest way of putting it. One person, I read this, I pulled out a couple quotes. One person says, yes, you know, Christianity doesn't seem to have much to contribute to freedom, in fact. It says, Christianity appears to be an authoritarian system of do's and don'ts backed up with heavenly sanctions. Christianity seems to get in the way of freedom. It's an authoritarian system of do's and don'ts

backed up with heavenly sanctions. Now that's a nice way of putting it. There was another guy, a French philosopher, Diderot, who was one of the Enlightenment, one of the French philosophers during the Enlightenment, and he put it a little more strongly. He says, there will be no freedom until the last king is strangled on the entrails of

the last priest. Now, you know, I've never actually read anything else of Dieter Raab, but that quote has always made me wish I should, maybe I should, you know. And he's right. If you define freedom the way it's usually defined, I'm going to give you a model that I'm going to, I have to give it some kind of name. It's the common sense model. It's the common sense model of today. I mean, not the common sense model, but it's the common sense model of our culture. And I'm going to call it secular negative freedom. SNF. The SNF model of freedom.

And the secular negative model of freedom basically goes this. It seems like common sense. It says, I am free when I am free from impediments or obstructions to do whatever I want. I am only free when I can do whatever I want as long as I don't hurt somebody else. A helium balloon rises freely if there's nothing impeding it from going up, from its tendency. A rock is falling freely if there's no obstruction impeding its tendency to go down. And I am free when there's nothing in my way. If I am free when I'm free to do whatever I want,

as long as I'm not hurting somebody else. Now I'm calling that negative freedom because that is the way it's defined and it is almost completely and almost entirely defined in negative terms. It's freedom from. Whenever a modern person hears somebody saying, well, yes, but we should be free for,

and right away they say, yeah, for what? And who's for? Your for, my for. So you assume as people say, well, freedom isn't freedom unless it's freedom for. Ah, the modern person says, wait a minute, for what? Whose values? Are you gonna say, we have to be free to do this or we have to be free to do that?

You're free to do these things, but that's your things. What about my things? No, no. Modern person says, that's why I'm calling it secular negative freedom, I am free only when I am free to do whatever I want, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. Now, what I'd like to say is,

by the way, if that is freedom, then of course that freedom is actually impossible if there's a God. You know, Sartre, a very, John Paul Sartre wrote his very famous essay that's really kind of the charter of his philosophy school, existentialism, and he said this in that essay. He says, if God does not exist, then human beings can define themselves and make themselves what they want. Since there is no God who conceived us, we are what we conceive ourselves to be. Now that is, but that is an incredibly influential statement today. And he's right. If there's a God, then we aren't free to do whatever we want. We'd have to find what his will is. And I would say the, but the average person today really follows what

Sartre says. The average person does not want to say there's no God. Most people, most places, even in Europe, most people I don't think in most places say there is no God. But what most people do say in the modern world is nobody can be sure of his will. Nobody has a pipeline. Nobody can say this is what God wants, this is wrong, you must stop doing this. You must start doing this. Nobody knows that and therefore basically everybody is free to Follow their own heart So once you've done once you've done that that's secular negative freedom now typically in the culture wars Typically today you have the liberationists and you have the traditionalists and they line up like this

So liberationists say what we just said and that is, I am not free. Everybody has to be free. Every individual has to be free and we're not free until we are free to do whatsoever we want as long as we're not hurting somebody else. And the traditionists say, no, there is a God and he has his will and he's going to get you if you don't do his will. And that's the way the debate goes back and forth. But I don't want to do it that

way. And I don't think it's right. He doesn't do justice to something. To what? To this. The language in the Bible. The Bible is dripping with the language of freedom. It is dripping with it. I mean, if we say, if we answer the person that says, I am free only if I am free to do whatsoever, my heart tells me to do, my heart desires most deeply to do, as long as I'm not hurting somebody else. That's freedom. And when people come to Christianity,

they would like inspiration, they would like some help, but they don't want to give up their freedom. And it's one of the main reasons why they don't want to be Christians. And very often Christianity, or Christians come at them and say, no, you must give it up, you see, and God has a will. But it's astounding how much the Bible,

the Bible doesn't just come at it like that. The Bible instead is dripping with a language of freedom. This morning, though it was a different sermon, a different subject, this morning I mentioned in the sermon that on the very first day of Jesus' ministry, when he went to the synagogue in Nazareth and he read the weekly lesson at Sabbath, and the lesson was from Isaiah 61, it's the place where the great servant of the Lord, the messianic figure, Isaiah 61, speaks. And Jesus Christ read this and it was his way of saying, this is what I'm about. It was his inaugural sermon and he read it and it says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim

freedom for the prisoners and release to the oppressed. And so what Jesus is saying on the very first sermon, the very first day of his ministry is, I am all about freedom. Jesus doesn't sort of put a little spin on it and say, well, you must obey me, you must submit, I'm your king, you must obey me, and that's how you'll really in the end be free.

He doesn't sort of put, he doesn't add freedom as a kind of gloss on it and say, well, as I define freedom, he says, I am all about freedom, freedom. I am all about that. Later on in the book of John, he says, when the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. And Paul, this whole letter's about it, the whole letter. The gospel is all about freedom. If you are someone who are, if you're someone who are here

and you're sort of trying to figure out religion and figure out faith and figure out Christianity, and if you wander into Christianity, I know one of the problems you're gonna have is the vocabulary. A lot of it makes no sense. A lot of it is obscure. A lot of it is strange.

A lot of it is weird. Words like sin, strange. What does that mean? Makes me feel bad. Sin, you know, what is it? Salvation, what is that? Okay, if you're having trouble with sin and salvation, I can give you extremely good biblical equivalents.

Sin is slavery. Salvation is freedom. Jesus came to make you free. Jesus came to set you free. Jesus came to set you free. Now what does that mean? That means what we have to do is when a person says I am free only if I can do whatsoever I want as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else, we have to look at that person and not say oh yeah obey the Lord. Instead we're supposed to say that is not real freedom.

And it fails on its own terms. That's what you have to do. And so what I'd just like to do is sort of, is show you, first of all, the failure of secular negative freedom, according to this text, and the nature of real Christian freedom, according to this text.

Okay, the failure of secular freedom, and the nature, secular negative freedom. First of all, the failure. Let me give you the quickest one. There's three ways in which it fails. It fails terribly. It fails on its own terms. I'll put it this way. The first point is very, very brief and maybe I should have left it out, but I'll just mention it since I've got it on my mind. One of the things, notice here, Paul says to people he loves, what does he say?

He confronts them. He says, you, my brothers, were called to be free. Do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Now one of the things that Paul is doing continually in here is he's challenging all through the book of Galatians. And here's the first thing I'd like to tell you. If everybody is free to do whatever so ever their heart wants, because nobody knows the will of God, you see, if like Sartre, basically we're only free if we believe everything's relative,

everybody has to decide what is right for them. Now I'll only stay on this for a second, but one of the things this means is you can never challenge anybody. You can't challenge people and say, what you're doing is wrong. You never know what they're doing is wrong. That means you can't challenge people you love to say what you're doing is wrong, nor can you actually challenge people that you're angry at

because they're doing something unjust. You know, G.K. Chesterton in his book on orthodoxy has this great quote that I go back to every so often and he puts it this way. He's talking about the person that says, I'm free because nobody knows the will of God. Maybe there's a God, maybe there's not a God. It doesn't matter.

Everybody's free because nobody can say who's right or wrong. Everybody has to decide that for themselves. And here's what he says. He says, the new rebel in our time is a skeptic and will not entirely trust anything. Therefore, he can't be a rebel. And the fact that he doubts everything bars his way when he wants to denounce anything for every denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind. And the modern revolutionary doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine of any moral truth by which

he would be able to denounce it. As a politician, he cries out that war is a waste of time, but as a philosopher that life is a waste of time. A scientist goes to a political meeting where he complains we're treating native people as beasts, and then he goes to a scientific meeting where he proves that we are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionary, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own minds. In his book on politics, he attacks persons for trampling on morality. In his book on ethics, he attacks morality for trampling on persons. Therefore, the modern rebel has become useless for all revolt. By rebelling against everything, he has lost his right to rebel against anything.

There is a kind of thought that stops thought. That is the only kind of thought that should be stopped. Now what is he doing? He's simply saying, first thing, if you want this kind of freedom, recognize you are not free to revolt. You are not free to be a revolutionary. You are not free to free anybody else. Because who's to say who's oppressed? Who's to say who's free? And the person who's oppressing somebody else, who's to say who's oppressed who's to say who's free and the person who's oppressing somebody else who's to say that's not the way You say oh, okay. You know it's okay to do anything I want as long as I'm not hurting somebody else. How do you know that person's being hurt? Who are you to say when that when that line has been crossed?

There is no way you're not free to revolt. You're not free to challenge. You're not free to You're not free To say anything to anybody if you have this kind of freedom. This kind of freedom fails. But that's really not the main. That's kind of a, it's almost, that's a philosophical thing. I'm talking about something a lot more serious than that. Secondly, real freedom has to be compatible with the complexity of the human heart and secular negative freedom is not. Look at this verse, 17. The sinful nature desires contrary to the spirit so that you

do not do what you want. Do you see that? Now here's what I'm saying. Secular negative freedom says, I'm only free if I can do whatever my heart wants. Now come on, your heart is filled, and Paul's admitting this, Paul's saying what's obvious. Your heart is a cauldron of all sorts of incompatible, contradictory desires. I'm free to do whatever I really wanna do. Well, listen, there's all kinds of things you wanna do. You would like to live, you would like to eat lots

and lots of steak. You're a 50 year old overweight man. Now you have two desires and they're incompatible. One I like to live to be a healthy ripe old age, the other one is I would like to eat what I want to eat when I want to eat it. Now you see all of a sudden the model breaks down because right away we're beginning to see freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. Because you want so many contradictory things. And right away you're going to start to ask yourself, which of those two desires is the liberating desire?

Which of those two desires is consonant with who I am? Which of those desires does violence to my nature and which of those desires actually enhances? actually enhances. Which of those desires actually moves me into an environment that fits my nature? Now a lot of people, you know, there's little booklets on Christian freedom that I read when I was a college student, and they're all fair.

Elizabeth Elliott's written some things on freedom, and they're great too. They tell stories like, a fish, when is a fish free? Is a fish free when it's on the sofa? No, the fish is only free when it's in the water because it's built for the water. Here's a glider. Glider. Ah, when you see the glider it looks lighter than air. But I was reading an article that says it's not lighter than air. The reason it glides, though it's light, is because of its aerodynamics. So if you stick it in the water and start to paddle it,

you'll say, well, this ought to be light. You'll drown. Why? Because the glider's not built for that. And therefore, right away, what Paul is trying to show us here and what we have to see is freedom. Here's the myth. The myth is freedom is not the freedom to do whatsoever our hearts want. True freedom is the ability to wholly want into the environment that I need. Okay, see, there's a couple ways of putting that. Freedom is doing whatever I want to do, no. Freedom is to wholly want what I was built to do.

Is to want the right thing. Is to want the, is to, I'm only liberated not when I do whatever I want, but when I am able to know and discern and to really want the want that moves me in to the environment that I need. The fish goes like crazy in water. The glider goes like crazy in air. Where does your heart go crazy? Where is your heart liberated? See, now we're starting to get a better idea. See, I'm sorry, you can't get away from liberation for. A fish is liberated when it's realizing its potential.

The glider is liberated when it's realizing its potential, when it's in the environment. And the trouble is, of course, fish, as far as I can tell, no, I don't know, and gliders, absolutely, don't have competing desires in their being, but we do, and as a result, we find ourselves continually enslaved because we're doing whatever we want,

instead of wholly wanting what we need. And that's the first mistake. This secular negative freedom fails, secondly, because it's incompatible with the complexity of the human heart. But thirdly, okay, and lastly, and probably most importantly, but they're related. Thirdly, real freedom has to be compatible with love. How can we best understand the freedom we have in Christ? Love. How can we best understand the freedom we have in Christ? What is the relationship between the law of the Bible and the grace that Jesus offers?

In the book Galatians for You, Tim Keller takes you through a rich and deep study of Paul's letter as he reflects on the amazing grace we have in Christ. Galatians is a powerful book that shows how people can think they know the gospel, but are actually losing touch with it. In this study of the book of Galatians, Dr. Keller helps you understand how this short book in the New Testament can transform your life. Galatians for you is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the love of Christ with more people.

Request your copy today at gospel.gospelinlife.com. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. I think it's pretty obvious what the water is, what the air is. You see, the environment for a fish to realize its potential is water, the environment for the glider to realize its potential is air and what is the environment for the human heart to realize its potential now Paul says absolutely right out what does he say? He says you brothers were called to be free but now let me

give you a paraphrase of this verse 13, do not use your freedom in such a way to destroy love. If you conceive of your freedom, if you define your freedom, if you use your freedom in such a way that destroys love and keeps you from loving relationships and keeps you from deep love, then what you've actually done is your freedom has actually destroyed, it its failing on its own terms. Because real freedom has to be

compatible with the greatest need, love. Now, if you want to see how secular negative freedom, the idea that I should be free to do whatever I want, that idea, that conception utterly fails here. The perfect example of this in 1985 was an interview with Francois Sagan, a French novelist, and she was being interviewed. And in the interview, somebody said, this is the interviewer says, you have had the freedom you wanted then? You had the freedom you wanted then? Now listen, this is an amazing statement. She says, yes, well, I obviously was not free when I was in love with anyone, but fortunately one's not in love all the time. Apart from that, yes, I've been free. Now I want you to realize that Francois Sagan is giving us exactly what the opinion makers

in America and Europe believe that. They believe that you are only free when you're able to do whatsoever you want. And the minute you fall in love, immediately you begin to realize, well, that won't work. I mean, the day you wake up, frankly, the day you wake up, if you move in together or you fall in love or you get married or something like that, the day after you've made that commitment, you wake up and you realize you can't just go wherever you want to go, you've got to check it out. You can't just go out to the bar with the guys after work. You're going to have to say, would it be alright if...

I mean, immediately. We're not even talking about marriage here, by the way, and we're not even talking about marriage here by the way and we're not even talking about living together, you know that. We're talking about the more in love, she's right because she's defining freedom as independence. And independence is absolutely at loggerheads with love. And yet everybody knows knows you know in your

heart you don't have to go with Paul here I mean yes of course you should go with Paul's the Bible I believe the Bible but you know you're you know common sense and that is if your conception of freedom moves you out of love in order to be free then chuck it because. Because that's where you've gotta be. That's the air for the glider of your heart. That's the water for the fish. That's you. And if you define love in such a way,

pardon me, if you define freedom in such a way that you're not able to love, and she does, and we do, because you can't just give yourself to somebody. You have to make sure that person will support you in all the things you want to do and you'll support them in all the things you want to do. That's impossible. There is no such person as that. You might as well just forget the idea of love.

I only want somebody I won't have to make sacrifices for. I won't have to sacrifice my career for. I won't have to sacrifice my heart for. I won't have to sacrifice my time for. And of course, now, you see, now we've talked about this all along, but we'll say it again. This is so naive about the reality of human motivation. You know, Euripides, I'll give you, somebody I don't quote on this subject, Euripides said no one is free.

You either serve wealth, or you serve the law, or you serve the people you're seeking to please. Euripides said that. And of course, Becky Pippard, somebody I'm always quoting, says this, what does it mean to allow Jesus to be Lord of our lives? Whatever, whatever you seek is your Lord. If you seek power, you're controlled by power. If you seek power, you're controlled by power. If you seek acceptance, you're controlled by the people you want to please.

You do not control yourself, you're controlled by the Lord of your life. Which is another way of putting this. You love something. There is something that you've given your heart to. And whatever you've given your heart to, you're not free. And the people that live in the conceit that they have given their heart to nothing and they are free. They've only, they lose their freedom when they find their heart being drawn out and given to some other human being when I'm in love.

But fortunately, as she said, we're not in love all the time. She says, then I get my heart back. It's not back. Your heart is never there. You're giving your heart to career, or you're giving your heart to a lover, you're giving your heart to your peer group, you're giving your heart to someone.

You say, no, no, no, it's mine. I am absolutely free. In that case, what have you done? You've still got a lord of your life. What are you doing? A person that says, I can't love because then I lose my independence, you're a slave to the independence,

you've actually crucified your heart on the altar of selfishness. You know, it's, it's a little, remember, you know, the famous C.S. Lewis says, if you don't want your heart broken, give it to nobody. Now, he's wrong in a way in his metaphor, but I'll finish the great quote. He says, if you don't want your heart broken, give it to nobody. Lock it up in a little casket of selfishness. Remember he says that? And in that casket, it will not be broken.

It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. But you see, what he needs to be saying is, you have given your heart to something. You've given it to your own independence You've given it to your own egocentricity Something you've given your heart to something you love something you say if I have that then I'll be happy You can't avoid it and therefore nobody's really free. There's no such thing as absolute negative freedom There's no such thing as secular negative freedom. There's no such thing as secular negative freedom. Your heart is filled with all sorts of competing desires.

You can't just say I want to be free to do whatever I want. You've got to find out which desires will move you in to what you most need, to the environment that you most want, and you're built for, and of course the Bible says what you're built for is Jesus Christ himself. He's the one. He's the love. He's the love of your life. And he's the only one who won't enslave you. Now, what's the nature of Christian freedom? We'll go at this later in a way, but let me just show you if you look kind of quickly with me. What's the nature of Christian freedom? It's right here at the very end, verse 18, if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

If you're led by the Spirit, you're not under law. What does that mean? Does that mean I don't have to obey the law? No. We've been seeing that all along. It's the reason. It's the reason. It's the reason. It's the reason. First of all, to say you're not under law means that you're free from guilt. Here's a free from. When it says, you're free, you're free from guilt. Because, you know, there's another place where Sartre says something that's pretty poignant. He says those, it's a great quote, he says, those of us without God are often very forlorn because guilt in this world is unavoidable and impossible. Now here's what he means by that. He says, if you don't believe in God or if you don't believe you know there

is a God or you don't know his will, if you're a relativist in other words, you're stuck because guilt is always invalid. You always say, why am I feeling guilty? There's no good reason to feel guilty. It's up to me to decide what's right or wrong for me. Nobody can impose it and yet you can't avoid it. Without God you're stuck because you will definitely have guilt and you cannot be free with from you can never have a free life without freedom from guilt. But even Sartre says without God there's no way to get away from guilt. To be under the law means to feel condemned. I failed. I've been rejected. And what does God say? See? What does the Bible say? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just

to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And that's something, that's the first thing. Christian freedom means freedom from guilt. Secondly, Christian freedom also means, when it says you're not under the law, it means freedom from works righteousness. See, to be under the law doesn't mean I don't want to obey the law. In other words, don't commit adultery, don't lie. Oh, I don't have to do that. Oh, no. But I don't do that now as a way of feeling good

about myself, feeling loved, feeling worthy. To be under the law means I'm free from that. I am free from the necessity of being perfect. And that is the, you know what, you realize how many of you, I know I have, has spent a tremendous amount of money going to very sincere and very competent, very competent counselors telling you, you don't have to be perfect. We just we need to have somebody with ten doctorates.

You don't have to be perfect, you don't have to be perfect. And what's happened after all these years and all this money? What's happened? You still feel like you've got to be perfect. You still always feel like I'm just not good enough. I can't be good enough. There's only one but there's only, see, and you know why? Because you're a slave to these other masters, these other things you've given your heart to. You're never as good, you're never as pretty, you're never as approved, you're never as powerful as you're trying to be because you've given your heart. But there is one, there is one lover, and only one lover,

who says, I love you though you're imperfect. It's Jesus and he proved it because he came and he died for you. And you're not under the law in that, I don't have to be perfect, I don't have to live up, I don't have to obey everything in order to know that he loves me. So I'm free from guilt and I'm free from the law and that means I'm free from fear. I'm not afraid of the future. I can walk out during the day and realize that the worst thing that could happen to me is the best thing that can happen to me. If

I'm a Christian I know the worst thing that happens is I get killed today. That's the worst thing and that's not so bad. You see in other words I'm not afraid of the future. I'm not wondering will God accept me. I'm not wondering what's at the end. I know what's coming. I eagerly await as it says up here that we didn't read it. For in Christ Jesus by. I eagerly await, as it says up here, we didn't read it, for in Christ Jesus, by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. So I'm free from guilt. Oh, see, there's a lot of negative freedom here. I'm free from needing to live up. I'm free from fear. I'm free from condemnation. What am I free for? For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love. What happens? What happens?

Which is what we're going, when we take a look at this, living by the Spirit, putting to death the sin, growing the fruit of the Spirit, we'll look at this in detail, but it goes like this. What we are free for, it's in the gospel we're free to actually find, what are we free for? We are free not just for love, but we're free to desire God. We are free to finally wholly want the one thing which moves us into the environment we need.

That's what I said in the very beginning. That environment is the beauty of God, the love of God. If you don't believe in the gospel, you'll never get there. You'll always wonder if he loves you and you'll never feel he loves you for yourself. You'll always feel like every day you think he's up there tapping his foot, waiting to see whether you're finally going to come through with all these promises that you've made. But only when you're free from – you're out from under the law do you suddenly say, now because of what he has done, now I want to give myself. And there's this enormous – there's this enormous sense

of freedom. Thomas Chalmers – and I mentioned his sermon two weeks ago, but I didn't have a copy of it here to quote. Thomas Chalmers has a great explanation of how that works. He says, along with the light of a gospel of free grace, there enters the love of the gospel of free grace, which in proportion, as you understand the freeness you are sure to be transformed, never does the sinner find within himself so mighty a moral transformation as when under the belief that he is saved by grace he finds constrained to offer his heart a devoted thing and to deny all ungodliness." Do you hear that? Never does a person find himself so mighty, morally transformed as when under the belief

that he's saved by grace, he finds he's constrained. There's this welling up of gratefulness. There's this welling up of love and joy to want to do the very thing that will liberate me. Finally, finally I want what's the right thing for me. Finally, I want myself into the environment where I will burst and blossom. Why is it so important to know this, says Chalmers, because never does a bad habit or flaw disappear by a mere process of natural extinction.

At least it's very seldom that this is ever done through reasoning or effort by the force of mental determination. But what cannot be destroyed may be dispossessed and One taste may be made to give way to another and to lose its power entirely on the reigning affections in the mind I lost you but listen it is thus that the boy ceases at length to be a slave of his appetite But it's usually because the more mature taste is brought into subordination for example the youth may cease to idolize Sensual pleasure, but it's because the idol of wealth has gotten the ascendancy. But even the love of money may cease to have mastery over the heart because it's drawn into the

world of ideology and politics. And now he is lorded over by a love of power or moral superiority in his new politics. But there's not one of these transformations in which the heart is left without an object of love. The heart's desire for one particular object is conquered, but its desire to have some object is unconquerable. Now what he's saying here is the only way that you ever, ever, ever change, ever, is because something that used to look beautiful to you

is superseded and outshone by something that becomes more beautiful. And you want into that environment. He says, the only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one. It's only when admitted into the number of God's children through faith in Jesus Christ that the spirit of adoption is poured out as it is.

It is then that the heart brought under the mastery of one great predominant affection is delivered from the tyranny of all of its former desires and the only way that that deliverance is possible. Thus it is not enough to hold out to a person the mirror of its imperfections. In other words, he says it's not enough just to say, stop it, just say no. It is not enough to hold out to a person the mirror of his own imperfections. In other words, he says it's not enough just to say, stop it! Just say no. It is not enough to hold out to a person the mirror of his own imperfections. It's not enough to come forth with a demonstration of the evanescent character of your enjoyments.

He says it's not enough just to say, don't you realize you're doing this to yourself? Don't you realize how silly you're being? Don't you realize how foolish you're being? Stop acting this way, oh no, he says. To speak to a person's conscience is folly. To say, don't you feel guilty about this? Oh no, it doesn't work. Rather, you must try every method of finding access to your hearts for the love of him who is greater than the world.

The only way you'll ever, ever, ever become un-enslaved from the things that enslave you is what? Neither circumcision or uncircumcision means anything but faith expressing itself through love. Okay, we'll continue, but now let's stop. Let's pray. Our Father, we pray as we continue to work through this chapter that we would understand more and more of what real freedom is. Real freedom is finding you not useful but beautiful. Real freedom is not just simply obeying out of a sense of condemnation, out of a sense of guilt being under the law, but real freedom is finding in your law the way to please and

to know and to delight the one who gave himself for us. We pray that you would show us how the new obedience, the constraints of love, move us into the environment that our hearts most need. Show us that it's your service which is perfect freedom. Show us that freedom is not to be able to do whatever we want, but the holy one, what you've built us to do. Show us that freedom is not the absence of some masters,

but it's the presence of the true master. It's not the absence of love, but it's the presence of the true love. So now Father, we ask that you would help us to understand these things and give ourselves holy to the one who serves his perfect freedom, Jesus the righteous. In his name we pray.

Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Tim Keller. If you have a story of how the gospel has changed your life or how Gospel in Life resources have encouraged or challenged you, we'd love to hear from you. You can share your story with us by visiting gospelandlife.com slash stories. That's gospelandlife.com slash stories. Today's sermon was recorded in 1998. 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.