Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Meaning of His Death

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

It’s very clear what Jesus Christ came to do. He came to die. That sets him apart from the founders of every other major religion. They came to live and be an example. He came to die. Most of the people in the world fall into one of two categories with regard to the cross of Jesus. Many people struggle too much with the cross, because they find it offensive and nonsensical. Many other people struggle too little with the cross. They think they believe it, but it’s not changing their life at all. Mark 10 speaks to both groups. There are two things it shows us: 1) why Jesus came to die, and 2) how that should change us from the inside out. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 14, 2007. Series: King's Cross: The Gospel of Mark, Part 2: The Journey to the Cross. Scripture: Mark 10:32-45. 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.

As we see in the book of Mark, the days leading up to Jesus' death were filled with the trail, pain, and mockery. But we also see the grace and love of Jesus on full display. Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller continues to show us how Christ loved us at an infinite cost to Himself. After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelOnLife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll start receiving our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr.

Keller as well as other great Gospel-centric resources. Subscribe today at GospelOnLife.com. The reading for today is taken from the Book of Mark chapter 10 verses 32 through 45. They were on their way up to Jerusalem with Jesus leading the way and that disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again, he took the twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. We are going up to Jerusalem, he said, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him

and spit on him, flog him, and kill him. Three days later, came to him. Teacher, they said, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. You don't know what you are asking, Jesus. They replied, let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. You don't know what you are asking, Jesus said,

can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? We can, they answered. Jesus said to them, you will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. But to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared. When the ten heard about this they became indignant with James and John.

Jesus called them together and said, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as ransom for many. This is God's Word. Last year we started and moved through most of the book of Mark, and starting today and going through Easter, we are going to return to the gospel of Mark, and we're going to complete our study of it. And the last part of the gospel of Mark is about the cross. It's about the gospel of Mark is about the cross.

It's about the death of Jesus. And this passage that we're looking at, I actually saved from earlier in the series, saved the passage we didn't preach on it before, and starting next week we'll go through chapters 14, 15, 16, right up to the very end. I saved it because it is an overview of the last part of Mark with regard to the cross.

It's very clear what Jesus Christ came to do. He came to die. He says so in verse 45, the Son of man came not to be served, but to die, to give his life. And that sets him apart from the founder of every other major religion. They came to live and be an example.

He came to die. Most of the people in the world fall into one of two categories with regard to the cross of Jesus, not everybody, but most. Most people either fall into this or that category. Many people struggle too much with the cross, because they find it offensive and nonsensical. And many other people struggle too little with the cross. They think they believe it,

but it's not changing their life at all. And I'd say the vast majority of the human race falls into one side or the other. And we want to speak to both groups in this series. And today I just want to kind of preliminary and introductory way and summary way begin that process. There's two things that Jesus shows us, or this passage shows us in this, and Mark, who wrote the passage shows us.

One is why he came to die, and secondly, how that should change it from the inside out. Okay? Pretty basic. Why he came to die and how that should change us from the inside out, right? First, why he came to die. And the answer is, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve. And to give his life a ransom for many.

And if you'll especially look at that last phrase, give his life a ransom for many. And if you'll especially look at that last phrase, give His life a ransom for many. We see the answer, which is perhaps one of the key verses in the entire Bible. Jesus Christ came to be a substitutionary sacrifice. To be a substitutionary sacrifice. First of all, there's a little word for, you see the word for? He came to be a substitutionary sacrifice. First of all, this little word four, you see the word four, he came to be a ransom for me. The word four is there's a number of Greek words that could be used there, but it's the word on T,

which means instead of in the place of. Substitute. And the word ransom, in our language, the word ransom, well, you don't even use the word ransom except with a kidnapping. But this is actually a translation of a Greek word Lutron that meant to buy the freedom of a slave or a prisoner. And the ransomware, therefore, would

bring a huge sacrificial payment, which replaced the slave or the prisoner, and therefore procured the freedom of the slave or prisoner. And that's the word that's being used here. But since the slavery that Jesus is dealing with is a cosmic kind of slavery, he's coming to deal with cosmic evil, the payment is a cosmic payment because as he says up here, he says, can you drink the cup? I will drink or be baptized with a baptism I am baptized with. Now in the Hebrew Scriptures the word cup virtually always referred to the judgment of God on evil.

The just judgment of God on evil. And Jesus is saying it's an astounding statement, I am making that payment. I am going to drink that cup. I, verse 33, will be condemned so that you don't have to be. I will take that wrath. I will take the just judgment on all human evil,

on myself, so that you can be free from all condemnation. And that's, in the word baptism there, is being used in a rather general, the older sense of being an overwhelming experience, an immersing experience. So Jesus is saying, I am going to go through the incredible experience, the overwhelming experience of receiving and taking upon myself the very judgment of God and that's the payment, that's the ransom that I'm going to do, that I'm going to pay, that you couldn't possibly pay and that will procure your freedom. Now, as I said, this first point is for people who struggle mightily, and there are so many people, especially in New York City, who just say, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop right there.

This just makes no sense to me. And the reason we have to talk about this, we have to take this very seriously. Now, this isn't just an aside. It's a whole point. There's two points. It's a whole point. And the reason it's not just an aside is because, if you live in New York City, especially,

you either feel that the idea of the blood atonement of Jesus Christ dying for our sins on the cross, you either think that that's offensive or nonsensical, or you're surrounded by people who do. And therefore we have to come to grips with this because what most people will say is, this makes no sense to me. The fear is that what we have here is the Bible giving us one more example of those ancient primitive blood thirsty gods on which those ancient primitive blood thirsty societies were based. So you go into the book of, you go to the Homer and you go to the book of the Iliad. And there we have Agamemnon, who doesn't get fair wins to Troy

until he does a human sacrifice, till he sacrifices his daughter. That appeases the wrath of the gods and then they let him go to Troy. We read that and then we read this and we say, oh no. Those ancient cultures were so bloodthirst and they're based on bloodthirst to God that need blood atonement and here we have the same thing and so the retort is why is this necessary? Why does he have to come to be a ransom? Why don't we just, if God is a real loving God, why doesn't He just forgive us? Just forgive everybody. Why does he have to go through all this? What's a matter with him? Everybody, why does he have to go through all this? What's a matter with him?

And here's the beginning of the answer. The beginning of the answer is, and I want to think about this, all life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice. All life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice. It makes perfect sense that this would be too. How so? Well, let's illustrate. Let's start the mundane level. All right? Let's start the mundane level. Let's start with parenting. Your children, when you have children, are in a state of childness. You know what

childness is? Dependent, right? Needy. They're in a state of dependency. They can't stay on their own. What are you gonna do about it? I can tell you this. They will not just grow out of it. The only way that your children will grow up into be self-sufficient adults,

and come out of their neediness, and come out of their dependency, is if you essentially drop kick your life for 10 to 15 years. First of all, you've got to read to them and read to them and read to them and read to them or intellectually they won't develop to read books that are just so boring. They're about dumb things, not all of them, but so many of them. And you have to listen to them and listen to them and listen to them say all kinds of things

that are less than scintillating conversation. You know. I mean, it really doesn't happen until around the age of like 25 actually. And so it's unless you sacrifice your freedom enormously, unless you sacrifice your time enormously, unless you are willing to really not just disrupt your life, but pretty much put your whole life on hold to a great

degree, to a great degree. They will not grow up, they will not grow out, they will not grow up whole and have, they need five affirmations for every one criticism. You guys spent on awful lot of time with kids to five, five good things to say about them. You don't have to spend any time to find the bad things to say. And here's what happens. There's plenty of parents. There's plenty of parents who just won't let it happen. They won't disrupt their lives that much.

They won't pour themselves into their children. They won't make the sacrifice and their kids grow up. Oh yeah, they're not children anymore, but they are. They're still needy. They're still dependent. Look, you can make the sacrifice, or they're gonna make the sacrifice. You stand in the place to make the sacrifice or there.

It's them or you, it's them or you. You suffer temporarily and in a redemptive way, or they're gonna suffer horribly in a very non-redemptive and destructive way. It's up to you. But look at that. All real life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice. Let me go on to another example, only one other routine mundane example. Forgiveness itself. When someone wrongs you, really, really wrongs you,

let's say harms your reputation. What are you going to do? The most natural thing is to make them pay. You make them pay. Actually, it's really rather easy. What you do is you go out and it's not that hard. You go out and you run them down to everybody you possibly know and everybody they know. And you destroy their reputation.

It's not that hard because you can show how what they did was distorted or wrong or whatever. And so you can go around and you can make them pay, but there's a bit of a problem. First of all, you've become like the person. And if you want, if there's any chance at all, that this person will ever see the error of his or her ways. If there's any chance that this person will ever, ever come to their senses at all or see that they were wrong,

the only possible way that will ever happen is if you forgive them rather than attack them. Because if you attack them and attack them, attack them. They'll get worse. You'll get worse. The world will get worse. And you're just part of what makes the world such a horrible place, which is the endless cycle of hurting and retaliating hurt and on and on and on and on and on and

it goes. If you want to stop it, if you want to stop the cycle, if you want to stop the brokenness, if you want to be part of the solution instead of the problem of the relationships of this world, if you really want to be redemptive, you're going to have to forgive it. And let me tell you what's going to happen. You know what forgive means? It means when you want to run them down, you don't. And you want to think horrible thoughts about them, you don't. You want to scratch their eyes out when they're in front of you and you don't.

And when you want to do one of those things and you stop yourself, it will be suffering. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, all forgiveness. If somebody's really wronged you, I'm not going to talk about stuff that's really not wrong. But if anyone's really wronged you, suffering is a form, pardon me, forgiveness, he says, is always a form of suffering. But here's what you're going to do. Why are you suffering when you forgive?

Because you're absorbing the debt. Instead of making them pay it, you're absorbing it. You're taking it in and the only chance you've got to stop the cycle and do some redemption and perhaps open a person's eyes and certainly at least keep the evil from spreading in the world or in your part of the world. The only way to do that is to forgive. The only way to forgive is what? Is you pay it instead of them? It's a substitutionary sacrifice again. No life changing love. No life that forgives, no love that forgives a redeems brokenness ever is anything other

than a substitutionary sacrifice. And that's the reason why, so we know that. And that's the reason why we get up to the macro level. Lily Potter. See, some of you, you're still not on board with my metaphor yet, which shows that you're not reading the really good books. Lily Potter puts herself between Lord Voldemort and her little son Harry. And Lord Voldemort is sending a death spell at Harry. Oh, he finally figured it out, right? And she takes it and she's killed, okay? That's the basic narrative structure of the entire series, a substitutionary sacrifice, because later in the very very first book Harry's grown up, and Lord Voldemort tries to kill Harry, I mean not not grown up. He's like, what is he, 11 in the first book or something like that.

And Voldemort tries to kill Harry, but he can't touch him. He burns. So Harry goes to Dumbledore, his mentor, and says to Dumbledore, why couldn't he touch me? And Dumbledore says, quote, years ago Lord Voldemort tried to kill you, but your mother gave her life to save you. A love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign, but to have been loved that deeply will give us some

protection forever. Now, this is kids' book. This is fantasy, this is magic. You know, this is, you know, this isn't serious literature, why does that move you? Tell you why it moves you because you know, you know. We know from experience from the mundane to the dramatic

that all life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice. It's all that. We know that. And we know anything that really, anybody who's ever changed us, anyone who's ever done anything that really made a difference, made a sacrifice, stepped in and did something rather than us

getting hit with it, right? Therefore, how much sense does it make that a God who is more loving than you and me, and who comes into the world to deal with the ultimate evil and the ultimate sin and death? How much sense does it make? It makes perfect sense that he would also make a substitutionary sacrifice. Because here we have a God who is so incredibly just, he had to die. He couldn't just struggle off evil.

He had to pay the debt. But he was so incredibly loving that he was glad to die. And that's where the God of the Bible is so utterly and radically different than the primitive gods of old. Why? Because I'll tell you one thing. One thing that the

ancients could never have imagined. They understood the idea of the wrath of God, they understood the idea of justice, they understood the idea of a debt, they understood the idea of punishment, but the idea that God Himself would come and Himself pay it, substitute Himself. The cross is the self-substitution of God. Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ God, is coming Himself in paying the price. That is something that never would have entered into Homer's imagination in the Zillion years. Never. That's wonderful. Why did He come?

It came to be a substitutionary sacrifice. And we know at every level of our own lives, it's the only way to change someone's life and to redeem someone. The only way that he could redeem us is he had to come and give his life a ransom for many. And that's the only way that evil can be dealt with. That's the only way your sin can be dealt with. That's the only way God couldn't just say, oh, I just forgive everybody.

You can't do that. Nobody can do that. That's just not the way evil works. Let me go so far as to say, in a certain sense, in a certain sense. God could say, let there be light, and there was light. God could say, let there be vegetation, and there was vegetation. God could say, let there be sun moon and stars. There was sun moon and stars. But He couldn't just say, let there be forgiveness. He created the world in an instant.

He recreated the world on the cross. A horrible process, why? Because that's how it works. Love that really changes things and redeems things. It's substitutionary sacrifice. That's the first point. There's only one more point, but it's a big point. This should change us from the inside out.

Now, the first point was for those of us who struggle too much with the cross. Well, the second point is for those of us who don't struggle enough. And here's what I mean by that. Mark and Jesus in this passage are showing us something very important, that all the other points of view, all the other worldviews,

lead you to think of human greatness in terms of pride and power. But the cross, if it sinks into you, shows you that human greatness is a matter of humility and service. But it doesn't sink in. I mean, it takes forever to sink in. It seems, what is this passage showing us?

James and John, Peter, the disciples, the people who are following Jesus, this is the third time Jesus has told them about his death. He tells them in the middle of chapter eight, he tells them in the middle of chapter nine, he's tells them here in the middle of chapter 10. If you were with us through this whole that whole series, you kept coming up and up. And in spite of the fact, here's James and John coming, and we'll get to this in a second. The whole point is, is that we think we

understand the cross. We believe it, we Christians, we church people, we believe it, we come and we sit, and we don't look any different than anybody else. If we really understood the cross, we would look radically different than everybody else. And this is our fault. See, there's those people out there that are struggling too much with the cross and there's those of us who are struggling way too little. We're the ones who believe it. There's no greater hope for you today than the resurrection of Jesus.

In fact, Christ's resurrection is the key to understanding the whole Bible and to facing all the challenges of your life. Discover how you can embrace all that the resurrection means in Tim Keller's book, Hope in Times of Fear, the resurrection and the meaning of Easter. Hope in Times of Fear is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share Christ's love with more people around the world. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelandlife.com slash give.

Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now there's four ways I'd like to show you. And these are seminal, these are introductory. We're going to get back to this throughout the rest of the series, I'm not trying to go deep, I'm trying to just kind of go broad. Let me show you four ways that the cross brings this humility and service and realize, first of all, the cross should bring mental humility,

a mental humility. Now, there's, you know, the John's being incredibly ironic here. It says, then James and John, in the sons of Debra, they were just told about the death of Jesus. Now, just to show they don't get it at all. They come to him and say, teacher, they said, this is verse 35, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. That's a great way to start a prayer.

Isn't it? Okay. Oh, Lord, I have a request and I want you to do it. Okay. Well, why did he put up with them? And that's the way he was. What do you want me to do for you, he asked, okay? He didn't notice, he doesn't say,

would you start over? Or how dare you talk to me like that? Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? Do you know who you are? And I said, what do you want? Amazing. And they say, let one of us sit at your right hand and the other at your left and your glory.

Now here's where the irony is. Where is, and first of all, what are they thinking of? Excuse me. They're thinking about when you sit on your throne, when you finally come into your glory, the people who sit on your right hand, your left will be your prime ministers, and we would like the top places in your cabinet when you come into your glory.

Now where was Jesus moment of great glory? Where does Jesus Christ most show forth the glory of God's justice. Where does He show that God is so just, He can't overlook or shrug about evil? And where is the place where He most shows for the glory of God's love? The God, though just, was willing to come and pay the price in Himself. Where does Jesus Christ most show for the glory of God's

justice and love? It's on the cross. And here's the irony. When Jesus is at his moment of this great glory, when he's on the cross, there will be somebody on the right and the left, but there'll be people being crucified. Jesus is the John and James, you have no idea what you're asking. And see, the irony and the paradox in the double entendre is this, he says, yeah, there will be a cup, you'll get a cup, you'll get a baptism. Just to follow me means humility and service. It means to go down not to go up.

And that's what greatness is. They don't get it. In fact, do you get it? Do I get it? Now, here's what greatness is. They don't get it. In fact, do you get it? Do I get it? Now, here's the first point. If you understand that the cross is something so counter to the way in which we ordinarily think. It's not the way we're taught to think.

It's not the way we do think. And even when we think we got it, even after we just had our lesson, this is lesson number three on the substitutionary atonement. And immediately, they lose track. When we read this and we see the disciples, we are not supposed to say what idiots, we should be saying, what are we missing right now? You know, where is our pride in our ego making us miss it? Richard Hayes, who is a New Testament scholar, writes this about this section of the book of Mark. He says, Mark's vision of the moral life is profoundly ironic, because God's revelation is characterized by reversal and surprise.

Those who follow Jesus find themselves repeatedly failing to understand the will of God. Thus, there can be no place for smugness or dogmatism. If our sensibilities are formed by this narrative, we will learn not to take ourselves too seriously. We will be very self-critical and receptive to unexpected manifestations of God's love and power. Is that what he's saying? Is when you see how they are responding, when you realize how hard it is for anybody

to really understand what the cross really means, you will always have a mental humility. You won't have a smugness. You won't be a dogmatism and arrogance. No Christians should ever walk around saying, I've got it together, I've got it nailed. I understand everything. You don't.

You don't. You shouldn't be looking at them saying, what idiots? You should be saying, how am I being an idiot right now? Because Christians are always being idiots at some point in their life. There's always some way in which you're normal way, your world's way, your pride and your ego way of thinking is actually obscuring the way you ought to be living.

And as a result, Christians should be humble. They shouldn't be smug. They shouldn't be arrogant. Let me give you one quick example, worry. Look, if you love somebody, you're going to worry about them. But real worry, real, real aggravated worry, you know what that is? That's the arrogance that comes from saying, oh, I know how my life has to go. You can't really worry without being arrogant.

You can't really worry without being smug without saying, I know exactly how that life has to go. And God's not getting it right. Nobody's getting it right. Real humility means to relax. Real humility means to laugh at yourself. Real humility means to be self-critical. Can the cross bring that kind of humility into our lives? Okay. So first, the cross gives mental humility. Secondly, it gives political humility. Now, I think we this gets missed here Really gets missed what what Jesus is saying What when he sees that they still don't get what the cross means he sets them down and says near at the end verse 42 You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials and

Their high officials exercise authority over them, not so with you. Now, what is he talking about here? He's talking about how most people try to influence society. How most people try to get their way in society. How do they do it? They lord it over. They get power in control. If I have the power, if I have the money, if I have the wealth, see, if I've got the connections, then I can get my way and that's how you influence

society. But when he says not so with you, what do you think he means? Do you think he means we withdraw, we have nothing to do with society? No. Now, here's what he's talking about. This principle that he's laying out in, you know, rather explicitly now, was already laid out earlier. In Jeremiah 29, the Israelites' nation had been destroyed by the Babylonian empire. And the exiles, the Jewish exiles have been brought to Babylon. What is their attitude supposed to be toward that society? One thing they could have done is just stay away and just have nothing to do with it.

The other thing they could have tried to do is conquer it, go into guerrilla tactics. Take power somehow. But what does God say to them? God says in Jeremiah 29, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I've carried you in exile and pray for it for a fit prosper as you prosper. And here's what he's saying. He says, first of all, he says, I want you to seek the prosperity.

I want you to make that a great city for all the pagans to live in. I want you to serve your neighbor. And I don't want you to do this out of duty. He says, pray for it, which is another way of saying, love it. Love that city, pray for that city, and seek to make it a prosperous, peaceful city, a place that is the greatest place to live. And so you're seeking to serve your neighbors, people who don't believe like you believe. People who don't even, who maybe oppose you.

He says, but if it prospers, that way you prosper. And here's what he's saying. He says, the ordinary way that we think we get influence is we take power. No. He says, I've got a different approach, a totally different approach. I want you to make yourself so sacrificial loving to the city that the people around you who don't believe what you believe can't imagine the city without you. Then you'll get influence because they'll ask you your opinion. They'll trust you because they see that you're not out for yourself but out for the whole

city and for them. And the influence that they voluntarily give you, because the attractiveness of your service and love, that's real influence. Any other kind of influence, the influence that comes from power and control is always superficial, it doesn't really change hearts. It doesn't really change society, it doesn't really change things.

Well, who's the paradigm for that? It's Jesus himself, because what did he do with his enemies? He didn't take out a sword and cut their heads off. He died for their sins. He prayed for them as he was dying. And if that the very heart of your whole world view is a man dying for his enemies, and the way you're going to get influenced in society is through service as opposed to power and control.

That's what he's talking about here. You can see that. He's talking about politics. He's talking about's what he's talking about here. You can see that. He's talking about politics, he's talking about government, he's talking about society, he says, I don't want you to go about the way they do. And of course, Christian's better to know this now. Everybody needs to know this now.

So first of all, the cross will lead you to mental humility. Secondly, it'll lead you to political humility. Thirdly, it'll lead you to joyful humility. Now, this actually isn't, this is something you'll see especially next week when we get to Mark 14. But here's what I mean by this. There's, it was an interesting article last week in the New York Times magazine called Happiness 101. Did you see that? A lot of you did. It's about positive psychology. And it's about a branch of psychology

that's trying to take a secular scientific empirical approach to what makes people happy. And what they found was that if you try to do things in life that give you pleasure, it leads to what they called in the article, the hedonic treadmill, which is the word hedonism, obviously. And what the professor, who's being interviewed in the article said was that when you basically choose things to do

because they bring you pleasure, what that does is it leads you, it makes you addicted to pleasure. You have to do more and you have to do more the need happens and you really not that happy. But scientific studies have shown, according to the article, that the best way to be happy is to do acts of selfless kindness,

to pour yourself out for needy people. So go and do selfless acts of kindness. And then you'll be happy. And in intriguing, there's one place where the professor has asked, well, why now again should we do selfless kindness because we ought to? Because it's because it's our duty. And he says, he says, no, he

says, we should do unselfish acts of kindness because it leads to better outcomes. I would never use the word morality. Now, here we have a little bit of a problem, and here's what the problem is. We all know he's right that when you are leading an unselfish life of service to other people, it gives you meaning in life. You see yourself changing people's lives, right? So when you lead a unselfish life, there are benefits.

Why should I lead that life? And he says, because it'll make you happy. But you see, if I lead an unselfish life to get the benefits, I'm not leading on selfish life, and therefore I couldn't possibly get the benefits. I'm leading a selfish life, I'm doing it selfishly. I'm doing it simply because it'll make me happy. He would never say, oh, morality, you don't do this because you

ought to. There's no moral absolution. You do it because it brings better outcomes. That great irony is, an unselfish life done for benefits of unselfishness can never give you those benefits because it's being done selfishly. Well, you say, ah, okay, so the answer is what? Religion? And you know that several weeks before, there was another article in the New York Times magazine about, by Peter Singer, about, you know, why billionaires ought to give their money away.

And he actually had a section in which he talked about the religious impulse. And he actually talks in there about the fact that religious people and moral people give their money away because they feel they ought to. Because then God will bless them And he actually talks in there about the fact that religious people and moral people give their money away because they feel they ought to, because then God will bless them and they'll go to heaven. And he brings out something about the only thing I liked in the article was this.

He points out that that's selfish. See, when you say, oh, I'm going to give my money, I'm going to care for the poor, and then I'll go to heaven. You're in the same situation. Here you are saying, I want to be on selfish because they're benefits. In this case, the benefits are eternal benefits. But if you say, I'm going to live an unselfish life because they're benefits, you can't get the benefits of an unselfish life because you're doing it selfishly.

And actually Jonathan Edwards came up with this a long time before Peter Singer in his book, The Nature of True Virtue, in which he said, if you don't believe the gospel of grace, if you believe you're saved by your works, you've never done anything for the beauty of it. You've done it for yourself. You haven't helped a little lady across the street, just for goodness sake, just for God's sake.

You've done it because now I can look at myself in the mirror and know that I'm a kind of person who helps the little lady across the street. And I'm the kind of person who knows it's someday I'll probably go to heaven because I help the little ladies across the street. He says, it's all selfish. And it'll become drudgery and it'll create superiority. How can we be unselfish? If secularism and moralism, see, if psychology and relativism, and on the other hand, religion, if psychology

and religion, if secularism and moralism actually don't give you what you need in order to be unselfish, what does this? Jesus Christ, if he's a substitutionary sacrifice, if he's paid for my sins, if he's proven to me, finally, proven to my insecure little heart that I am worth everything to him. I have everything in Jesus. It's all vouchsafed to me by grace. I don't do good things in order to get to heaven. I don't do good things in order to feel better about myself.

How little would that be compared to what I can get in terms of self-image from understanding why he did what he did and how much he loves me and how he regards me now? If you really understand the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, if you really understand the cross, you are blasted out into the world like out of a gun. Enjoy. like out of a gun, enjoy, not needing to help people and therefore, in a sense, using them, but wanting to resemble the one who did so much for you, wanting to delight the one who did so much for you. Actually, I don't know anything but the gospel that actually gives you a motivation for unselfish life that doesn't rob you of the benefits of unselfishness

even in the act of doing it. So the cross gives you mental humility, gives you political humility, it gives you joyful humility, and one last thing. Actually, if you look carefully, you'll see it takes a community to learn this humility. Notice that Jesus Christ doesn't walk around alone, and when he shows up in town, the followers get together, they take the notes, and then they go home.

They live together. They're in community. And notice that this lesson here happens only because they're in community. They're walking along, they're talking to each other. Jesus sees that something, they say, is pretty stupid. Then he says something to them, then they get mad.

You know, the rest get mad at James and John, then that gives an opportunity for some more teaching. It's only because they're in community that they're having any shaping of their lives through the gospel. And if you just show up at a church and take notes and get inspired and go home and you're not in a community, and you're not part of an ongoing

during the week interaction between people who also are trying to walk in the way of the cross. You'll never learn this freedom. You'll never get this joy. You'll never learn this mental humility. You'll never learn this political humility. You've got to have it. It's crucial. If you've ever heard of Count and Nicholas von Zinsendorf, you remember him because of his crucial. If you've ever heard of Count Nicholas von Zindor, if you remember him because of his name, if you've never heard his name, you've probably never heard his, you know, if you've heard him before you would remember him. Count Nicholas from Zindor was one of the founders of the Moravian Church and he was a German,

nobleman and he was born into incredible power in privilege. He lived from 1700 to 1760, just to put him in context. And he was a person of incredible wealth, but he pretty much spent his wealth down to zero over the years, doing good deeds, pouring himself out for others. Why? What happened to him? And here's what happened to him. He was sent as a young man of 19 to visit the capital cities of Europe in order to complete his education. And one day he found

himself in the art gallery of Dusseldorf before Dominico Fettis Echehomo, a painting in which Christ's portrayed before Pilate with a crown of thorns. It was very moving to Zinsensorf, but underneath the painting, the artist had penned an inscription. It was the words of Jesus, and the words were, quote, all this I did for the, what do a style for me? And it shook Zinsensorf to the roots. And later on, he said, then in there, I asked Jesus Christ to draw me into the fellowship of His sufferings. And to open up a life of service for me, He did. And He will.

Let's pray. Our Father, in the coming weeks, we pray that you would take us the way, patiently, the way Jesus took James and John and took you patiently instruct us because we either struggle too much with the cross or too little. We either find it offensive or ho-hum. We don't let it change us. We don't let it turn our understanding of greatness upside down. We don't let it turn us into joyful servants of each other.

And our neighbors. We don't let it give us the mental humility that takes away worry. We don't let it give us the political humility that makes us real salt and light in a city rather than something that people are worried about. We don't let it just change our motivation dynamically from the inside out. We don't let it lead us into humble community with others so that we can learn this together. We pray that you would through this, taking us through the book of Mark, you would affect all these things in our lives. We need your cross. And we pray that you'd give us a cross-shaped,

cruciform life, which is a life of joy and service because we've spent this time these weeks going up to Easter, reading your word and listening to what it has to say to us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller on the transformative power of

Christ's death and resurrection. We pray that it challenged you and encouraged you. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelonlife.com. That's gospelonlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 2006 and 2007. 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.