Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The History of the World in a Nutshell

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

The Bible’s simple answer to the question “What’s wrong with the human race?” is sin.  Contemporary people cringe when we use the word sin because we don’t like it. Then what vocabulary will you use to talk about war atrocities, massive corruption, slavery, or violence? Will you use the language of technology or sociology or psychology? The language in those disciplines isn’t profound enough to deal with the realities of what’s really going on in the world.  We learn more about what the Bible means by the term “sin” by looking at the famous story of Cain and Abel. We see three new things here about sin: 1) the potency of sin, 2) the subtlety of it, and 3) our eventual victory over it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 25, 2009. Series: Bible: The Whole Story - Creation and Fall. Scripture: Genesis 4:1-10. 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. How can we trust in God's goodness and faithfulness even when the answers were seeking seem elusive? In today's sermon, Tim Keller teaches on what it means to wait on God. After you listen, please take a few seconds to rate and review our podcast. Your review can help others to discover our podcast and experience the hope of the Gospel. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. Tonight's scripture reading comes from the book of Genesis,

chapter four verses one through ten. Adam lay with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, with the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man. Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks and King worked the soil. In the course of time,

King brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord, but Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast.

Then the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must master it. Now Cain said to his brother Abel,

let's go out to the field. And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where's your brother Abel? I don't know, he replied, am I my brother's keeper? The Lord said, what have you done? Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. This is God's Word.

We're looking at the storyline of the Bible. We're saying each week that the Bible is not primarily a set of disconnected individual stories, each which has a little lesson or moral about how to live life. But primarily, the Bible is a single storyline, a single story that tells us what's wrong with human race, what God is doing about it, and how history is going to turn out at the end.

And we've begun to trace out this storyline by starting with Genesis, the first four chapters. And the Bible's simple answer to the question, what is going on in the human race? What is the world? What's wrong with the world? What's wrong with human race? The single answer of the Bible to that question is sin. And he contemporary people, just cringe and wince

and get a tickle when we use the word sin because we don't like it. Recently I actually read a book review, kind of an older book review, but not too old. In the London Times, it was Times Online and an off-handed comment, the reviewer said, you know, we need to retire this word sin and evil.

It's empty and obsolete. But okay, then what are you going to? What vocabulary will you use to talk about war atrocities? Or massive corruption in government and business or slavery or violence. What will you use? What language will you use? Will you use the language of technology? Or sociology?

Or psychology? Will you talk about maladaptive behavior or dysfunction? That's not sufficient. The language we've got in those disciplines isn't profound enough and rich enough to deal with the realities Of what's really going on in the world and what's wrong with the world? We've got to recover the vocabulary of sin And that's one of the things we're doing as we look at here Genesis 3 and 4 and Today we learn more tonight

We learn more about what the Bible means by this term sin by looking at this sad and poignant narrative, famous story of Canaanable. Let's look at three new things we learn tonight about what the Bible says is wrong with us and therefore three new things about sin. Let's notice the potency of sin, the subtlety of it, and we see a foreshadowing of the victory over it. So let's notice the potency of it, the subtlety of it, and our eventual victory over it. All in this text. First, the potency of it.

In verse seven, God in speaking to Cain uses a remarkable image. He says, but if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is to have you, but you must master it. It's a remarkable image. It's the image of a leopard or a tiger, a predatory animal, crouching in the shadows,

coiled and ready to spring and kill. And God says that sin, sin is predatory, sin has a deadly life of its own. How is that? And here right away we're gonna see why there is no other set of vocabulary words that we've got that deals with the reality of what sin is.

How so? First of all, when God uses this image, it's telling us that sin has got an abiding growing presence in your life. If you commit sin, sin is not over. Sin is not simply an action. It's a force. It's a power. When you do sin, it's not now over,

but it actually becomes a presence in your life, it takes shape, a shadow shape, and stays with you and begins to affect you and eventually can just take you out. You say, well, how could that be? Well, you can start with the psychological concept of habit. You can start there. You can't end there. You can start by noticing the things we do become easier to do again,

then easier to do again, easier to do again, and harder to stop doing. See us Lewis some years ago wrote in Marikrish Janity a passage in one of his chapters, this. He says, I used to puzzle about certain Christian writers who seemed so strict one moment and so free the next. They would talk about mere sins of thought as if they were immensely important. And then they would talk about frightful murders

and treacheries and say that if you repent, you can be forgiven. But I've come to see that they are right. What they are always thinking of is the mark which the sinful or the virtuous action leaves on the tiny central self, which no one sees. But which each of us will have to endure or enjoy forever. One man may be so placed in life

that his anger sheds the blood of thousands. Well, another person is placed so that however angry he gets, he will only be laughed at. You hear that? Here's two people. They both get angry. One of them because of the conditions has got the power to kill people with it. The other person, no matter how angry he gets, people just laugh at them. people with it, the other person, no matter how angry he gets people, just laugh at them. But each has done a little mark on the soul, pretty much the same case in both men. Each has done something to himself, which unless he repents and gets God's grace, we'll make it harder to keep out of the rage the next time he is tempted and we'll make the rage worse when he does fall into it.

Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central self straightened out. Each is, however, in the long run doomed if he will not. The bigness or the smallness of the sin seen from the outside is not what really matters. And it's another place, by the way, nearby in the Mercury-City, where Lewis makes the interesting observation that first the Nazis killed the Jews because they hated them, and after a while they hated the Jews because they killed them. And here's the point, when you sin, the sin doesn't just go away.

The sin becomes a presence in your life. You start by doing sin, but then sin does you. So you can decide, I'm not gonna forgive my mother, I'm not gonna forgive my father for what he or she has done. So okay, you've done it, but then it'll do you, because that will poison your relationships with other people, certain people in all kinds of ways that you don't even see.

It'll harden you. Do you see the difference already in this family? When God comes to Adam and Eve, remember last week if you were here, and God says, what have you done? At least they're kind of, you know, a bastion, sheepish, an Adam saying, my wife made me do it. And, you know, and the wife says, the serpent made me do it. But here, God comes to can and says, what have you done? And wife says, the serpent made me do it, but here God comes to Cane and says,

what have you done? And he says, do you think I was supposed to keep tabs on that guy? It's a hardening. First you start to do sin and then sin does you. It becomes a presence in your life. And see, it's not just inside. It's not just that you, this is the reason why legal terminology is not enough just to say we're violating God's

norms. Nor psychological terminology, quite enough to say, well, it creates bad habits or psychological problems. No, let me go a little further. When it talks about sin as a crouching tiger or a hidden dragon, when it talks about sin like that, it says, for example, in Galatians 6, sins will find you out and you reap what you sow.

You know what that means? Sin also creates a presence not just in you, but around you. Why? It sets up strains in the fabric of things, the way God made the world, especially in the human community. Haters tend to be hated. Cowards tend to be deserted. He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. What is all that? When you sin, that sin becomes a presence in your life.

It takes shape in and around you, and it will take you out. And therefore, you should avoid sin like the plague, because it is a plague. You don't say, somebody says to you, you know, you got a cancerous tumor, you know, growing in this part of your body, you said, well, one of these years I'll get to it. You don't do that. And for somebody to come along and say, you have an abrasive, you have a, you have an abrasive spirit or you have a, you, you, you, you, you can't control yourself in this area where you've area, or you've got this

or you've got that character flow. You don't say, well, yeah, don't you dare, because that's the second aspect of potency we see in this image. The idea of sin crouching at the door, not only tells us it's coiled to spring, it's a presence in your life, that when you sin, you create a presence in your life that then can take you out. But it also, the image gets across the fact that sin hides. See, the tiger that levered is crouching. That means down, away out of your sight. Why? Because if you see a crouching tiger, you got a chance. You can get a couple steps on it. But if you don't see a crouching tiger, you got a chance, you can get a couple steps on it.

But if you don't see a crouching tiger, you're dead. And if you don't see it well or you don't know where it's located, the less aware you are, the location of the reality of the crouching animal, the more vulnerable you are, the more likely you are to die. And what that means is, sin, the worst things in your life, the character flaws and the sins in your life that are most going to ruin you or are ruining you or going to make the people around you miserable are the things the character flaws you least will admit.

They're the ones you're in denial about, you rationalize and you minimize. Whenever the consequences happen to you, when somebody brings them up, you rationalize them. By definition, those are the crouching sins in your life, the ones that are going to take you out. As long as you look at workaholism as conscientiousness, as long as you look at your grudge as moral outrage, as long as you look at materialism as ambition,

or arrogance as healthy self-assertion, as long as you look at your obsession with looks as ambition or arrogance as healthy self assertion. As long as you look at your obsession with looks as good grooming, you're vulnerable, you're in denial. What are the crouching sins in your life? Do you not have a short list of character flaws that you know have got power over you, but you always tend to rationalize, you always tend to minimize. You know, many of us get at least to this spot.

We know we're bad at that. We know that that's a problem for us. And yet, when anyone ever brings up an actual particular case of it, oh no, you don't understand. At least you know there's a crouching tiger in there somewhere, you just don't quite know where. Do you know what your sins are? Do you know your besetting sins are? Do you know what your crouching sins are? If you don't even have a list, then you've been mastered. So see the potency of sin. See how deadly it is. See why it's nothing to take lightly.

It's nothing to be trifled with. Okay, now secondly, let's notice the subtlety of sin. And this brilliant narrative shows us how subtle it is. Because here you have Cain and here you have Abel. And we have Abel being accepted by God and Cain being rejected. So what do they represent? They represent the people who call on God's name and they find favor with God and they have the people

who God rejects. But when you actually read through the narrative, it's difficult to know why, isn't it? See, that's part of the brilliance of the narrative. Because we don't have, look, liberals and conservatives, basically, when they divide the world into good and bad people, they have this nice bright line. So, I think the traditional idea is,

good people are the people who uphold moral values and bad people are the people who don't believe anything and they live anyway they want. And the liberal bright line is, good people are the people who are working for inclusion and who are working for a plurous society and equality. And bad people are the intolerant people, the fundamentalists, the biggest. I mean, they have these nice lines.

But here you have, look, you don't see that can't enable. One of them is running around, boozing it up and womanizing, and the other one is going to church and bringing their offerings. You don't see one person working hard and the other person and they're doing well, living off welfare. That's not what you have. What do you have? The only difference is one seems to be a farmer.

One seems to be a rancher from what we can tell. One is raising animals. And to make an offering to God, you bring the first fruit of the new animals born to you this year. Because that's your income. And the other one's a farmer. And what do you do is you bring some of fruit of the new animals born to you this year, because that's your income. And the other ones of farmer and what do you do is you bring some of the produce of your field because that's your income.

Well, they're both offering up to God, are they not? They're both doing God's will. They're both seeking God. So what's the problem? All we're told is God blessed and showed favor to Abel, which probably almost certainly means he prospered him and made him successful and let things go well in his life and he didn't favor Cain.

Why? What's going on? It's subtle. It's supposed to be subtle. It's supposed to be a matter of the heart. And that's how the narrative gets you to start to investigate and here's some clues to the answer. The first clue is this.

You see what it says? It says, cane brought some of the fruits of the soil is an offering, but able brought fat portions from the firstborn of his flock. Now here's what's interesting. Every year, the income of a rancher basically is how many more calves and colts and lands and that sort of thing. How many more animals are being born?

If you want to be really cagey, you wait and give the Lord His offering after you see how many animals are being born to you, right? I mean, if you're going to have 12 animals born, and oh, I'll send the Lord, you know, one or two, you know, I'm a titheir, I'll send three, a little more than tithe. But here's the danger. If you send the first one born, what if there's only two this year? What's the only three?

I don't want to give 50%. That's a kind of exorbitant, don't you think? And therefore, there's a kind of exorbitant don't you think? And therefore, there's a kind of person who's pretty calculating and is absolutely making sure that I give God just what I have to. And then there's a kind of person who's open-hearted, they're not calculating, there's a joy, there's an abandon, there's a trust,

and so we see that enable. Do you recognize that? We see a different kind of spirit there, a different level of commitment, a kind of joy, a kind of freedom you don't see it in Cane. Well, where was that? Why? Secondly, Hebrews chapter 11,

looking back on this passage, and Hebrews chapter 11 were told that Abel made his sacrifice and offering in faith. But Cain did not. Well, what the heck does that mean? That's a little difficult to understand. Why? Well, when we, you and I think of faith, faith in God, are we saying Cain didn't have faith in God? You don't think Cain believed that God existed?

I think he believed God existed. He's talking with God here. So that's not a problem. He really knows God exists. What's going on? God remember from last week, God hasn't given this first family a whole lot of information yet about how he's gonna save the world.

He's just given him one verse. It's Genesis 3.15 and in Genesis 3.15, God promised that one of the descendants of Adam and Eve is going to crush the serpent's head, is going to destroy sin and death, and therefore God promises to save the world. That's all we know. It's pretty vague. It's awfully rudimentary. But this is what I want you to consider.

There's only two reasons you can possibly bring an offering to God. There's only two reasons to put money in the plate. There's only two reasons to bring a lamb or an offering in the Old Testament New Testament. It doesn't matter. There's only two reasons to give God an offering. One is to give God an offering in response to salvation, in gratitude towards salvation. The other reason is to do it as a means of salvation, as a way of getting God to bless you, as a way of getting God to reward you,

is to answer your prayers, take you to heaven. There's only two possible reasons. And able, even in the rudimentary form that the gospel existed, enables mine. Abel in some way was putting his trust in God's promise of salvation. And as a result, there was an open-heartedness about it. It was a lack of calculation. But here's what happens with Cain.

Do you not remember if you were here in the fall, the parable of the prodigal son and the elder brother, and and the elder brother, and what the elder brother's heart was like, and we said back then, I can give it, if you weren't here, don't worry, I'll give you the nut shell, version of it. If you believe you're a sinner saved by grace, then everything's gravy. You believe God has saved you, in spite of your merits, and everything God gives you is gravy. Everything is icing, but if you're an elder brother, if you believe God owes me, because I work so hard and I've served my father

and I've obeyed the Bible and I've done everything right, God owes me, if you believe your saved by works, if you believe you've put God in your debt. The way you know you're a sinner saved by grace or an elder brother is saved by works. If you believe you've put God in your debt, the way you know you're a sinner saved by grace or an elder brother who saved by works is that when God doesn't let your life go the way you think it ought to go. When God is not blessing you and get prospering you and having things go well, the elder brothers get absolutely furious.

Why? It proves that they actually believe that God owes them because of their good works, because of their offerings. And when you see Cain looking first at Abel and seeing Abel being blessed over himself, he's murderously angry. And he's angry at God, so angry at God he's willing to say, am I my brother's keeper, get out of my face. What have we got there? The difference between can and able, you don't see it on the surface, do you? They're both hard working.

They're both going to church as it were. They're both trying to do God's will. But what is the fundamental trust of their heart? Are they looking to other things or themselves for their salvation or they looking to God. That makes all the difference between whether you're a grumpy, angry, furious cane, always mad with how the world's going, always upset because somebody's getting ahead of you, competitive looking at the ables around why are they getting ahead? They don't deserve to be ahead. What's going on here?

Do you want to be a cane or do you want to be an able? See, canes hate ables. Ables don't hate canes. Canes to now, canes demonize, canes are always comparing, canes are always grumpy, canes are always anxious. And it all has to do with what are you looking to as your salvation? Where is your heart's fundamental trust? You see the subtlety of it? That's the very essence of whether sin is mastering you or whether you are mastering sin. Looking for a new way to deepen your faith and understanding of Christianity this summer? If you are, we'd like you to consider the new city Catechism devotional. Based on the

historic Catechisms of the Christian Church, this devotional offers 52 weeks of thought provoking questions and answers that explore the foundational beliefs of the faith. Each week includes a scripture passage, a prayer, and a brief meditation that will challenge and inspire you. Commentaries are written by contemporary pastors such as John Piper, Timothy Keller, and Kevin DeYoung, as well as historical figures such as Augustine, John Kelvin, and Martin Luther. The new city-caticism devotional is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

So there's the potency of sin, and there is the subtlety of sin. But is there any hope, preacher, is there any hope? Well, you know, it's an awful, it's a sad story and of course the story seems to end, you know, very, there's no happy ending. And then the Lord said to Cain, where is your brother Abel? And the Lord said, what have you done? Listen, your brother's blood cries out from the ground. And yet, because this is such a brilliant narrative,

it's such a brilliant text, because the author ultimately was the Holy Spirit, and Holy Spirit is an incredible storyteller, we got foreshadowing. And right there at the very end, you actually have the basic furniture for the eventual victory over sin. What do you see?

Two things about God, you see. One is his grace and one is his justice. First of all, notice his grace. He's asking questions. Again, remember last week if you were here? Last week, God does not show up after Adam and Eve sin and say, how dare you do what I told you not show up after Adam and Eve sin and say, how dare you do what I told you not to do?

Instead, he comes and says, what have you done? Where have you been? What's going on? Even here. He shows up even after the murder and says, where's your brother Abel? Now look, when God asks you a question, I can guarantee one thing. He's not looking for information. If God is asking you a question, he's not trying to understand your heart.

He already understands your heart. He's not trying to figure out what's going on. He already knows what's going on. If God asks you a question, he's trying to get you to understand your heart. He's trying to bring you along. I think in Genesis 3 and 4, one of the most moving things, as I've meditated on these texts for years now, is that God does not show up and say the first time to Cain, how dare you question who I bless and who I don't bless. I mean, don't you know who I am? Who do you think you are? I will have mercy on who I will have mercy.

He doesn't do that. He says, to can I see your downcast? Literally, by the way, God says, your face has fallen, which is actually a hebridiumatic expression for depression. And he's coming and he's counseling a depressed man. And he's asking questions and he's trying, he's pursuing him and he's trying to get him to understand his own heart. Look at the tenderness of it. And what mases me is how even though he's telling him the

truth, he says, look, Cain, it's not Abel's fault that you're depressed and it's not my fault. It's your own actions and your own attitudes. And yet he says, but sin is going to master you. I don't want it to master you. Isn't that amazing? He's coming after, he doesn't want to see him perish. So there we see the grace of God. There we see the love of God. But at the very same time, in verse 10,

we see something, it's always kind of spying thing going to me when he says, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. What does that mean? All through the Bible, when he says, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. What does that mean? All through the Bible, there are places where God says the innocent shed blood is crying to me from the ground. What does that mean? God is a God of justice. It means when injustice is done, it cries to God as it were.

There's an outcry. When there's violence in Sodom and Gomorrah, he comes by, God said in Genesis 18, and he says to Abraham, I'm on my way down, you know, to Sodom and Gomorrah because of the outcry, the cry of the oppressed, because of the violence and because of the terrible things that are happening there. God can't shrug its sin. He just can't let it go. He's the righteous God, he's the just God, and injustice is cry to him all the time.

And innocent shed blood always cries to him. Ferectification for making it right. And he can't deny that. He can't just turn away from that. So here you have an absolutely just God and yet an absolutely loving and gracious God. How in the world can a just God save us? He wants to save us, but he's just, how will he ever be able to make good on his promise of Genesis 315 to save the world,

to save us like this? Here's how he can be both just and gracious. Years later, another man showed up who was a lot like Abel because he came into a nation filled with canes, people who were religiously very observant, who were always bringing their offerings, honoring the sacrificial system, and yet they hated his spirit and they slough him. And the book of Hebrews says that when Jesus Christ

shed his blood, an innocent victim of injustice. His blood cried out, but in a new way. See, this is in Hebrews chapter 12. You have come to God, says the writer of the Hebrews, the judge of all men, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus Christ, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood of Jesus Christ that speaks better than the blood of Abel. That's interesting.

What is that talking about? Here's what it's talking about. Jesus Christ was, in a sense, the ultimate Abel, because he was the only person who was truly innocent who came into this world. And he was not a grumpy can. He was beautiful. He was gorgeous. He was loving.

And the canes couldn't stand and they killed him. But he didn't die only as a victim of injustice. He also died by design. He died in our place. He died to pay the penalty for our injustices. And you know what that means? Let me be as personal as I can possibly be. In the first three or four years of my Christian life,

every time I went to God to ask for forgiveness, I was nervous. In fact, when I got up off of my knees, when I was done confessing my sins, I was still nervous. Because I would take John 1, verse 8 and 9, and there it says, if you sin, confess your sin, and God is faithful and just, forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all our righteousness. So I said, okay, I sinned, and so I'll kneel down and I'll ask for God's forgiveness. But you know what, I would sin, I'll never do this again, a few days or weeks later,

I'd done it again, I'd get down to my knees, a few days or weeks later, I'd done it again, I'd get down to my knees, a few days or weeks later, I'd done it again, I'd get down to my knees and every time I would say, please be merciful, please be merciful. And there was something in the back of my head that kept saying, you know, okay, you're in your early 20s. What if you're still doing this in your early 40s, your early 50s? Where will God finally say, hey, I'm under no obligation to be merciful to you infinitely? Every time I would get up, I would wonder, will he be back in my life? Will he bless me?

And then one day I understood what Hebrews 12 was talking about when it says Jesus Christ's blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Jesus Christ's blood, like all innocent blood, is crying out for justice. But now, what is it saying? It's a sense Jesus Christ is standing before the throne of his father and saying this,

Father, you are law demands justice. And these people here have sinned, and the wages of sin is death. But for all the people who believe in me, I've paid for it. There's my blood crying out for justice. And here's how it cries now. Justice demands that you never condemn my brothers and sisters. Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, and it says, Father, forgive me because Jesus Christ has died in my place. Do you know what that means? God can never condemn us. Why? Because that would be

to get two payments for the same sin and that would be unjust. And that's the reason why 1 John 1 verse 8 and 9 does not say if you confess your sins, he is faithful and merciful to forgive us our sins and cleanses of all and righteousness. It says he is faithful and just. What does that mean?

A life-changing sermon for me was a sermon by David Martin Lloyd-Jones that I read years ago on 1 John 1, 8, 9. Here's what he said, if Jesus Christ has shed his blood for you and you've asked God to forgive you because of Jesus Christ shed blood, God can never ever, ever condemn you because that would be to get two payments and that would be unjust and therefore the justice of God now demands that there's no condemnation for you as long as you live in that you will never perish. God, Jesus Christ in a sense is not standing before God, interceding for us by asking for mercy,

because you see, Jesus is not actually getting up there saying, here's Tim Keller and he sinned again, so the Father, give him one more chance. Please be merciful one more time. And God's up there saying, well, all right. No wonder I never felt good when I got up off my knees. But now I realize what Jesus Christ essentially is doing. He is saying, Tim Keller, sinned again. But I'm not asking for mercy.

I'm not asking for mercy. I'm not asking for mercy. I'm demanding justice. Embrace him, cleanse him, open his eyes, come into his life. The justice of God is infallible. The justice of God is like the mountains. The justice of God and the righteousness of God cannot be gainsaid. And now it's on our side, if you believe in Him. See now the blood of Jesus Christ

cries out for justice, but the justice is not against us anymore. It's for us, all of it. And if you really know that you're that secure in His love, if that moves you to the depths, it shakes you to the depths, it moves you to tears. You're not going to be a grumpy cane anymore. You're not going to always be comparing yourself to other people. You're not going to be angry because somebody's getting ahead of you. Your identity is not based on your performance anymore and all that kind of thing. There'll be a security. There'll be a poise.

You'll become a sweet, loving able, not a grumpy, condemning self-righteous can. Don't you want that? The world needs a lot of ables. The canes are out there killing each other, exploiting each other, lying about each other, elbowing each other out, and their miserables can be. Sin is mastering them, but use this potent gospel of the grace of God to deal with the potent sin in our lives, in your life. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all unrighteousness.

Go and learn what that means. Spend the rest of your life learning what that means. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have given us this great gospel and this as sad as it is to see the blood of Abel crying out from the get-round for justice. How remarkable is that it points us to the blood of Jesus Christ crying out that now there can be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Oh my! Would you give us a sense of our security? Would you give us a glorious sense of it? And let that reality be the one that controls us. And let it turn us more and more into the spirit and the image of your son, Jesus Christ who did all this for us. It's an His name that we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you are encouraged by today's podcast, of your Son Jesus Christ who did all this for us. It's an His name that we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us today.

If you were encouraged by today's podcast, please rate and review it. Some more people can discover the hope of the gospel. Thank you again for listening. This month's sermons were recorded in 2008 and 2009. 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.