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

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Matthew chapter 11 begins with John the Baptist sending a message that reveals John is struggling with who Jesus is. All of Matthew 11 is a response to John the Baptist’s question. Jesus doesn’t say something like, “John, you’ve misunderstood me.” No, instead, he says “John, the things I claim and the things I am are much more outrageous than you have even heard. Let me show you just how outrageous and how offensive I really can be.”  Jesus makes some of the most outrageous and the most offensive statements that have ever been made in verse 27. He says that he is the only way. This claim that made the people of Jesus’ day struggle is also the thing that makes us struggle. Let’s look at what this deeper claim is, why you should believe it, and how you should use it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 6, 1996. Series: The Real Jesus, Part 1: His Teaching. Scripture: Matthew 11:25-27. 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.

If Jesus is who he says he is in the Bible, why is life full of so many bad things? Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller continues to look at the gospels to discover who the real Jesus is and how we can know him. Here's today's message. Would you turn in your bullet into the spot where the passage is printed on which the teaching this morning's based? We're getting ready to go to the table. If you listen carefully to the music, if you've been reading the words here,

if you see the music, the words of the music and the songs that we're gonna be singing during the Lord's Table time, we see that the gospel is that the Lord invites us to eat with him. In the, it's hard for us to know this quite in the same way, to eat with someone in ancient times was very much to let someone into your life.

And Jesus is saying, I want to come into your life. I want you to come into my life. Let's eat together. And therefore, it's an invitation to fellowship. So what we're about to look at here is very, very important because on the basis of this text, we can actually meet Jesus. We can know Him. Let me read you the passage that we're looking at, Matthew 11, verses 23 to 27. We're continuing to look through the chapter of Matthew 11. And Jesus says, for you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the skies?

No. You will go down to the depths. And if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained this day, but I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you. At that time, Jesus said, I praise you you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my

Father, no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. And this is God's Word. Now all fall, we're looking, last several weeks and for a couple more to go, we've been looking at this chapter 11 because it's so relevant to us today. For it begins with John the Baptist sending a message to Jesus and revealing that he is getting offended by Jesus, offended by Jesus claims by what he says and what he does. And all of Matthew 11 is a response to John the Baptist question.

All of Matthew 11 is Jesus responding to John the Baptist who says, how do we know you are, who you say you are, and who reveals that he's being offended by many of the things Jesus says and does. Now what's so intriguing about how Jesus responds in Matthew 11 is that Jesus does not respond by saying, oh, John, you've misunderstood me. I'm not offensive at all. You've misunderstood me.

No, instead, Jesus responds in chapter 11 by saying, John, the things that I claim and the things that I am are much more outrageous than you have even heard. Let me show you just how outrageous and how offensive I really can be. And Jesus makes some of, it's so interesting, in the face of a person who says, I'm struggling and I'm offended by you, Jesus

makes some of the most outrageous and the most offensive statements. It's a veribund made. And we get to one that we started to look at last week, but today we have to take the bull by the horns. And we have to look at it. And we have to say that the very thing that made the people of Jesus' day struggle

is also the thing that makes us struggle. And right here at the very end of verse 27, he does it. He says, no one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. There it is. There it is. Jesus says, I alone can show you the way into God. No one knows the Father except through me.

No one can really come into the center except through me. I'm the only way into the very center of God. There it is. Now that is still something that if you say that in a subway, just get up and say that someday, next time you're in a subway. Read that verse and say that in a subway just get up and say that someday next time you're in a subway Read that verse and say Jesus is the only way into the center and see what happens I Mean that would be offensive enough, but here's one who's actually saying I am the only way in see

Jesus gets up on the subway and says I'm the only way in only way in. The only way. Now we have to come to grips with this. What are we going to do with this? We can't put the foot around. We can't avoid it. It comes up over and over again. And obviously Jesus thought it was very important to say because John the Baptist, who's

really struggling with doubts, Jesus says, you've got to come to grips with this. I'm the only way to this center, to really know God. What are we gonna do with it? Well, here's what I suggest. I'd like to show you the real structure of this assertion. And the best way to understand the assertion is just to give you an illustration, we'll come back to once or twice, and it goes like this. If you believe that what Jesus just said, or if you hear Christians say this and if you

say that's what I hate so much about Christianity, it's so narrow. Let me ask you this question. What if a group of scientists decided to assert that they had come up with a cure for cancer? What if a group of scientists published in a magazine or published in a journal, we have found the cures of cancer. What would the response be? Well, there'd be a lot of response, but nobody would say they're narrow. Nobody.

It would be in all the papers, but nobody would say they're narrow. Nobody would say how dare you think that you have the cure for cancer and no one else does. No one would say that. What would they say? Because you see, the reason they wouldn't say that

is because you don't attack the assertion. If you think they're wrong, you have to go to the research beneath the assertion. If you think they're wrong, you have to dig in. You have to do the hard work. It's just too easy. It's too simple to say it's narrow. What you have to say is, look, if the research, if the research, the basis for the assertion is right of its valid, then it's rational to make the assertion. And if the research is mistaken, then it's mistaken to make the assertion, but it's not narrow.

And I'm saying, if you look here, Jesus does not just say this in a vacuum. It comes at the end of a lot of things that He's saying. His assertion cannot be attacked directly. You can't just say this is narrow. The assertion is based on, not research, so much the assertion is based on, a deeper claim. And anybody who says, I hate this idea that Jesus is the only way in, whether you know it or not, and I'm going to try to show you today, so you know it. You're really not really attacking the assertion.

What you really should do and you should be doing and by being upset, you essentially are doing is to say it's that deeper claim that's not valid. I would like to show you what that deeper claim is, why you should believe it and how you should use it. What is the deeper claim beneath the assertion? What is it? Why should we believe it and how do we use it? And we have to do it rather briefly today because we're coming to the table.

First of all, the deeper claim. Now we started to look at it last week and I have to confess that I, we started to look at it last week and I think in some ways last week I didn't understand the context. The claim begins with Jesus making this astounding statement. He says, all things have been committed to me by the Father. No one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son. Now what we said last week in summary,

and I'm not saying I'm changing my mind, I'm just saying I didn't see all the ramifications until I got to look at the bigger picture. Jesus is saying, I am equal with the Father. When he says all things in the context, he means all knowledge. He says all things are committed to me. No one knows, no one knows.

He's saying all knowledge is mine. And he says, no one knows me, but the Father, and no one knows the Father but me, and here's what he's saying. He is saying, no one knows me, but the Father, and no one knows the Father, but me, and here's what he's saying. He is saying, no one, I alone, am capable of understanding and knowing everything there is to know about the beginningless creator about God. And God alone is capable of knowing everything there is to know about me. He is putting the knowledge and being and wisdom and

power of himself on a par with the Father. That's the reason why Michael Green, now Michael Green, we give Michael Green books out. He's quite an interesting guy. He's a British scholar. He's a scholar. Michael Green says, this is the most astounding claim that anyone has ever made. Now somebody says, no, wait a minute. what do you mean it's most astounding claim that anybody's ever made? Have another people claim to be God? Not like this, because you see, Jesus, in the very way he says it, he says, I praise the Father, Lord of heaven and earth. It's the Lord of heaven and earth that he claims to have to be co-equal with. And what Michael Green says, he says, nobody has ever claimed to be God like this.

What he meant, and what he says in the book I was reading, is he says, in the West, Western religions believed that the gods were personal but not infinite. They were bound up with heaven and earth. They sort of came out of heaven and earth and they're personal but not infinite. And therefore Western religions never had that big a deal, never made that big a thing about saying this or that person was a manifestation of Hermes or a manifestation of Zeus or something like that. On the other hand, Eastern religions say God is infinite but not personal. Eastern religions say that God is heaven and earth,

or better yet, that heaven and earth, the material world, is an emanation of God. And therefore, God is sort of in everything. And of course, Eastern religions have always agreed that various people are avatars, various figures, various individuals are manifestations of the consciousness of God, which of course is in us all.

So you see, Westerners who had a view of God as being personal but not infinite, bound up with heaven and earth, Eastern religion, which had a view of God as infinite, not personal in a sense, who is the God who is heaven and earth, when they claimed that this or that person was God, they were saying something very different than what Jesus is saying. Jesus has the biblical view of God. And the biblical view of God is that he's Lord of heaven and earth, the biblical view of God is that God is personal

and infinite, and therefore infinitely exalted above heaven and earth, he created heaven and earth. He therefore is beginningless. The biblical view of God is a transcendent God. And this is the reason why Michael Green says no one who ever had the biblical view of God had ever dared to make a statement like this. And Jesus is making with absolute consciousness, absolutely deliberately, talking about his knowledge of the father and the father's knowledge of himself as coterminous, understanding all this thing, blatant, nobody's ever made a claim like this as Michael Green. But why does he make it? Why does Jesus come and say,

Jesus come and say, I'm God. Why does Jesus come and say, God Himself has come? And the answer is, up in verse 25, He says, I praise you, Lord, of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yay! Yes, indeed, Father, because it was your, it says good pleasure, the better translation is because it was your gracious will. And here's what Jesus is saying. You've got to put verse 27 and 25 and 26 together. And here's what he's saying.

He's saying, I am God. And why am I God? Why did God come? Why did God have to come to earth? Because you didn't need human beings did not need one more Moses. They didn't need one more Elijah. They didn't need one more Isaiah. They didn't need one more Buddha. They didn't need, human beings did not need one more Moses, they didn't need one more Elijah, they didn't need one more Isaiah, they didn't need one more Buddha, they didn't need one more Muhammad.

You see, even the doctrine of the incarnation makes no sense unless you understand, at least you can't see it, it's purpose unless you understand that the reason God Himself had to come was because we are so weak and so helpless, we are such spiritually little helpless children that one more prophet wouldn't help us. One more teacher wouldn't help us. One more system of ethics wouldn't help us. One more course of spiritual disciplines wouldn't help us. If we're going to be saved, we've got to have God Himself come. We don't need another prophet to tell us how to save ourselves.

We need someone who will come to save us. We don't need one more person coming and saying, do these things to save yourself. We need someone who can come and actually do them for us. Someone who lives the life we should have lived, dies a death we should have died. In other words, Jesus Christ says, I'm God, but he says, I haven't come to create a better religion. Some people think, and in some ways, maybe I've even given the impression

that Christianity can say Jesus is the only way because Christianity has the only founder who's God and the other founders are just human. But you know what the claim goes way beyond that. Christianity does not say Jesus is the only way into God because we have a better religion. That's not what it says. Jesus doesn't say this is the best way and he says this is the only way in no one gets in. the best way in, he says, this is the only way in, no one gets in. What he's really saying is, I don't come to bring a better faith, a superior faith, I come to bring an utterly different faith. I come to bring a salvation of grace. And that's the reason why it is utterly different. He says, I thank you, Father, that because of your gracious will, because of your grace, the world is not divided into the good and the bad.

The world is divided into the wise and the children. Now, this is utterly fair. Jesus says, the real division is not between the good and the bad, but the people who think that they're powerful and the people who are helpless. Between the proud and the helpless, not the good and the bad, who misses grace, who is grace hidden from? Who to whom is the way of God invisible to those who don't think they need grace? And to whom is the way of God visible? To whom is the way of God open? To whom does this come? To those who say they need grace, little children,

carry me. Tremendously fair, but here's what Jesus is saying. Don't you see? This is why I have to be the only way. If you believe that human performance is the way to God, then anyone, there's many, many ways to God, and they all might work. But if you believe that it's the Son of God's performance, that's the only way to God, then you have to unite with Him,

or put it another way. If you believe that salvation is something that comes from you giving your righteousness to God, then there's hundreds of ways of doing that. But if you believe that salvation is something only that you receive as a gift, something that's revealed, see? You have revealed this, something that comes. In that case, it only comes to people who know they need it,

who admit that this has to be the only way. Grace, through what Jesus has done. And therefore, Jesus is not saying, I'm the only way because I'm the best of the founders. Jesus is certainly not saying, I'm the only way because we Christians like to think we're better than others. Jesus Christ says, if salvation is by grace alone,

I have to be the only way. And if you don't believe, I'm the only way, then you don't believe in my assessment of myself, who I am, God, and you also don't believe in my assessment of you, who you are, a sinner. And you have to come to grips with this. When somebody says, I don't like this idea that Jesus is the only way to the Father.

I believe all good people can reach God. What you're really saying is, I deny the research underneath the assertion. I deny the analysis. I don't believe we have to be born again. I don't think we're that bad off. I don't think we need grace and just receive what Christ has done. I don't think we're that bad off. Don't you see what's going on here?

Don't you dare say it's narrow. You have an honest disagreement with Jesus. That's OK. You've got an honest disagreement. Don't call it narrow. Don't call me narrow. Don't call Christianity narrow. You have an honest disagreement.

You say, I don't agree with the assessment of the human condition. I think teachers are enough. We don't need a God. I think human performance is enough. We don't need someone to come in and just have us reborn through a supernatural intervention. I don't believe we're that bad. I believe teachers are enough. I believe human efforts enough. Just look at the history of the 20th

century. But anyway, that's what you're saying. Honest, you have an honest disagreement. You say, I see that if salvation was totally by grace and we were that sinful and we were that lost, I agree that then Jesus would be the only way. But you see, I don't believe that. Just realize what you're doing. Here's the great divide between Christianity and religion. If you ask a religious person, why are you different? What makes you different from people who haven't found God?

If you ask a religious person, why are you different? What makes you different from people who haven't found God? The answer is, my gracious will, my good pleasure, my goodness. But if you ask a Christian, what makes you different? From those who haven't found God, the Christian says, God's good pleasure, the goodness of the Son. A Christian knows that plenty of people who are much, much better, who have much more good will, are not Christians.

Christians know there's all sorts of people who haven't found Christ who are better than they are. More spiritually disciplined, more moral, but it's not an issue. It's not a matter of my goodwill. It's his goodwill. Not a matter of my gracious pleasure. It's his gracious pleasure. Now, do you just see what you're doing? You certainly can say, I don't believe Jesus is the only way, but you can't do it without assaulting his assessment of who he is and his assessment of who we is, okay? There it assessment of who he is and his assessment of who we is. Okay?

There it is. Who he is and who we are. Forgiving someone who is wronged you can be one of the most difficult things to do in life. In his new book, Forgive, Why Should I and How Can I? Tim Keller shows how the skill and ability to forgive is one of the greatest resources Christianity offers us and, if rightly understood, it is not a hindrance to seeking justice, but a necessary

precondition for the pursuit of it. In the book, you'll discover how both justice and forgiveness are aspects of love. We'll send you Dr. Killer's new book, Is Our Thanks for Your Gift, to help Gospel and Life share the love and forgiveness of Christ with more people. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, why should you believe this? Now, I'm not here to actually lay all this out. I'm here to give you a principle. The principle is this, do you not see now that you can't do what we have a tendency to

do and say, since I'm an open-minded person, since the claim that Jesus is the only way is close-minded, therefore I don't like Christianity, therefore I rule it out. Do you not see that as silly as saying to a group of scientists, you can't have the cure of cancer because it's narrow. You have to do the hard work. Come on, you're being lazy. You have to get underneath and you have to say, I have to show that the very, the research, I have to show that the Christian assessment of human nature is wrong. And I have to also show that Jesus claims of deity are definitely stupid and silly and wrong. You have to do that, which means claims of deity are definitely stupid and silly and

wrong. You have to do that, which means you've got to do the work. And also, I'm trying to say, I'm trying to say, you have to get underneath there. I'm not going to sit down here and tell you about all of the things, the evidence for these things. There's a lot of them. In fact, I hope some of you, if you're starting to come to Redeemer, if these things are starting to make an impression on you in any way, you should go to the class we have after the service, both morning and evening, called

credibility of Christianity, or you might also want the class called overview of theology. They, in different ways, they both tackle these things, but I'm trying to say, you mustn't dismiss them. You mustn't. It's interesting, for example, this very verse is something of evidence. It's kind of, the very verse where he says, no one knows the Father but the Son, no one knows the Son but the Father, is actually evidence.

There are people around who say, oh my, I don't believe Jesus claimed to be God. I believe that years afterwards, some people wrote these things about him. One of the problems is, all scholars agree that Matthew and Luke, when they were writing their Gospels, used a document of sayings of Jesus that is very ancient, very old, very, very reliable. It's called the Q-Source.

And the problem is, with that theory, that all these statements about Jesus' deity were written many years later is this verse comes from the Q-source. This verse is from the most reliable. This verse is from the most ancient sources. This verse is a knife in the heart of the idea that you can get out from under the claims of Jesus' God by saying, well, he probably didn't even claim those things. Now, don't you see, here's your problem. Your problem is, Jesus claimed to be God.

And if he claimed to be God, we have this difficulty. What could have convinced all the people around Jesus, so many of his followers, to go against every cultural and spiritual bone in their body to believe he was God? As Michael Green said, the last people in the world that would believe a claim like this would be the Jews. Western religion, Eastern religion, but biblical religion is different. What could have possibly gotten them to believe such an unparalleled claim? A unique claim in the answer is he must have had an unparalleled life.

He must have had an incredible life to overwhelm what every single bone in their bodies was saying about these claims. And so you're stuck in a way. You might decide Jesus couldn't be God, but you've got this problem, and that is what evidence have you got that he was a wicked, crazy person? No matter what you believe about Jesus, it's going to be a step of faith.

It took a step of faith for me to believe that he must be who he said he is. But if you decide he's not, that's a step of faith too. A big step. It's difficult. How do you account for what happened? If he says he's God, he must be either God or crazy in wicked. And if he's crazy in wicked, he shouldn't have had the kind of life that he did. But he must have had that kind of life where he couldn't have possibly overwhelmed all

those Jewish people around him. And therefore, are you really going to say he was wicked and crazy? Do you really want to say that? If he wasn't wicked and crazy, he must be God. If he was God, he must be the only way. Don't you dare just say it's narrow, but Christianity is good. The only problem is it's narrow. but Christianity is good. The only problem is it's narrow. It all comes together. It all falls together. It's all of a piece. If

you want to get rid of the assertion, you've got to go down and you've got to work on it. Now, last of all, we've seen what the deep claim is. Under the assertion that is the only way is the claim that salvation is by grace alone. And there's a lot of reasons to believe that claim. But the last thing I want to leave with you, and it's a very important thing as we come to the table, is I want you to see something I didn't see until very recently.

I've studied this passage weeks and weeks, and before that I've studied it for many years. I have a tendency, and so do you, to kind of read the Bible as maybe a theological source book. And sometimes you forget to look at the personal context that teaching is almost never just laid out there. It always happens in a particular situation.

And look what it says. Do you see something? Jesus Christ has just gotten done denouncing the city's his hometown area. The little cities around Galilee, we looked at this in detail last week. Coruscant, Betheseda, Capernaum, they had come out, they loved him, but they had rejected him. And Jesus Christ says, woe to you, you in different little towns, you saw this and you wouldn't turn to me. It's going to be worse on judgment day for you than for Simon Gamor.

And we talked about this last week. I can tell you this, though, we forget what this must mean to Jesus. Let's paint the picture for a second. Jesus Christ is saying, my hometown people, the people where I grew up, they've rejected me. And He's also saying they're going to be judged. Jesus is obviously filled with emotion.

If you read anything about the way Jesus denounced people, just if you read all the gospels, you'll see Jesus never denounced without tears, except the Pharisees, but he just never denounced without tears. He was always saying Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if only you knew the things that pertain to your peace. I wish like a mother-hand would bring you like little chicks under my wings, but now it's too late. This is the way in which he would would denounce. Fill with tears.

He looks at his hometown and he says, I've been rejected. He looks at his hometown. He says they're lost. He's filled with worry. He's Fill with tears. He looks at his hometown and he says, I've been rejected. He looks at his hometown. He says they're lost. He's filled with worry. He's filled with fear. He is filled with fear because he knows that this is just the, this is just the beginning of what's going to happen to him. People are going to reject him and finally he's going to be killed.

Then it says, at that time, Jesus said, I praise you, Father. Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children. From verse 24 to verse 25, almost seems like you're in a different world. Verse 24, thunder and lightning and tears, suddenly verse 25, at that time he turns and he talks to God about his grace. Now this must mean this. If Jesus Christ who clearly is right with God, turn us to the gospel, turns to thinking

about grace, says, I praise the Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have revealed these things to the helpless. You've hidden them for the people who think they're good, and you only give your grace to the people who know they need grace to the help of his little children. What's he doing? Why is he doing that? Why is he doing that? We're overhearing Jesus.

Why is he doing that? Don't you see the gospel is not the thing that just gets you into the Kingdom. The gospel is the only way you can face everything in life. Jesus Christ is obviously right with God. Jesus Christ is in the kingdom. And he's filled with turmoil. What does he do to calm himself? He turns around and says, Father, he praises God for his grace.

He thinks about the grace of God. He says, everything is happening by grace. It's astounding. He brings in supernatural contentment in the midst of the storms of his life. And that's the only way you and I will ever be able to face the same things. We go out there and we see people rejecting us. We see people hurting themselves.

We're caught up in worry. We're caught up in fear. We're caught up in resentment. What do we do? What do you do? Oversleep, overeat. Shopping. What do you do?

Do you just try to get your mind off of it? Jesus says, I'm going to look at the graciousness of God until my heart is filled with praise. I'm going to consider the fact that the Lord of Heaven and Earth is now a father. If you're willing to become a little children, the Lord of Heaven and Earth becomes your father. How do you deal with boredom? I've been trying to work on this for at least three or four months. You know what boredom is? Boredom is forgetting that everything is grace.

boredom is forgetting the sun, the stars, the fact you have a roof over your head. boredom is forgetting that the relationships you have. boredom is forgetting that the things around you, if you got what you deserve, wouldn't be there. Are you a little child? Do you understand that everything is by God's grace? Do you understand that?

You wouldn't be bored. Turn around and praise God for His grace, and the boredom goes. The indifference goes. You begin to live a life of gratitude. Another thing I have to work on all the time is a hard, hard, a loveless hard. I see people around me, and sometimes they're irritable, sometimes I just don't care. But if I remember, it's all of grace, what Jesus has done for me. If I remember the gracious, if I praise him for his grace, if I praise him for his grace, my heart melts. When I think about what he's done for me, I can't look at anybody coldly. Of course I do all the time because I don't praise him for his grace. Do you see what Jesus is doing?

Or what about your worry? Your worry. Look at what he gave you on the cross. Do you think the thing right now that you're afraid God won't give you is happening because you're afraid he won't give it to you? Do you think he's stingy? If God would give you that, if God gives you the gift, why would he withhold from you the ribbon? I mean, if God will give you that, anything that it's not coming to your life right now, must be a function of His grace. God is not stingy. What Jesus does, you must do.

Turn to Him and say, I praise the Father, Lord of heaven and earth. The salvation is by grace. The salvation is for the weak. The salvation is for the helpless. That everything is of grace. That I is for the weak, the salvation is for the helpless, that everything is of grace, that I'm a little child. Boredom goes. See, hardness of heart goes. Self-pity. Worried. What is your problem today? What are you looking at? And by the way, not only will praising God for His grace transform you psychologically, it transforms you sociologically

and it was three or four weeks ago that we talked about this, but you see why is it that all through this passage? Jesus Christ is continually talking about the blind and the lame and the lepers and the poor. Why does he say the mark of the gospel is that we minister to the poor, that we minister to the hopeless, we minister to the marginalized, we minister to people like that, because the way you can tell the difference between religion and the gospel, the way you can tell whether you're just a religious person or whether you've understood grace is that you know the poor are no different than you.

In fact when you see the poor, you realize that there's spiritual, that's where you are. The poor receive the gospel gladly because they know. Jesus says the difference, the big difference is not the good and the bad, the big difference is the people who know their moral failures and the people who don't know their moral failures. In general, the poor tend to know that their moral failures, in general, we don't, but we are. And if you don't know that, then you may be one of the wise and learned from whom everything is hidden.

Jesus says, if you praise the Lord and heaven and earth, you have a heart for the poor. That's why we do the city vision fair. If you praise the Lord of heaven and earth, you won't be bored. If you praise the Father, Lord of heaven and earth, you will deal with all these things. Jesus, Jesus turned to the grace of God in order to face life. Are you above it? Let's pray. Father, as we go to the table, we now ask that you would show us that in the brokenness of the bread, in the poor outness of the cup, we see your son being what we should be.

We thank you that you didn't send us one more prophet. You didn't send us one more priest. You didn't send us one more king. You sent us the prophet, Priest and King. You didn't send us one more teacher. You sent us the teacher because you sent us a savior. And now we ask that you would help us to turn to that and away from our good works. We thank you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that you are God of grace.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller on the real Jesus. We pray that it challenged you and encouraged you. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, we invite you to sign up for email updates at gospelonlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 1996. The sermons and talks you here on the Gospel on Life Podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor

at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.