Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Power of Generosity

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

Why is it that we celebrate Christmas with gift giving? We don’t do that at Easter. We don’t do that at Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. At anniversaries and birthdays, we give one person gifts..., but at Christmas everybody gives everybody gifts. Why? I’m not actually looking for a literal answer. I’m asking as a rhetorical question, “Why is it that everybody gives gifts to everybody else at Christmas?”  I’m here to say it’s profoundly appropriate, because it gets at the theological heart of Christmas: that Jesus Christ is the only human being who wasn’t just born but was given.  Everyone who knows something about the Bible will say that 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is the longest, most involved, and explicit passage in all of the Bible on the subject of generosity. We’re being told 1) there’s a problem with regard to giving and generosity, 2) what will happen if we don’t solve that problem, and 3) how we can solve it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 13, 2015. Series: What We Are Giving: The Dynamic of Grace. Scripture: 2 Corinthians 8:8-15; 9:6-12. 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Believing in Christianity doesn't automatically change your life. For example, you may believe God loves you, but often we're easily discouraged or self-conscious, and it can be hard to see how your life has been transformed. So how do we experience actual change? It's through regular Christian practices or spiritual disciplines. Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller continues a series on the practices or disciplines that help and still beliefs into your heart, resulting in real transformation. After you listen, we invite you to go online to Gospel and Life.com and sign up for our email
Starting point is 00:00:35 updates. When you sign up, you'll start receiving our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr. Keller as well as other great Gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelalife.com. sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich yet for your sake He became poor, so that you, through His poverty, might become rich. And here's my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year, you were the first not only to give, but also to have the desire to do so, now finish the work so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it,
Starting point is 00:01:32 according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At that present time, your plenty will supply what they need.
Starting point is 00:01:54 So that in turn, their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written. The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Remember this, whoever soes sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever soes generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for
Starting point is 00:02:25 God loves it a cheerful giver, and God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work, as it is written, they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion and through us your generosity will result
Starting point is 00:03:03 in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people, but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God, the Word of the Lord. So why is it that we celebrate Christmas with gift giving? We don't do that at Easter. We don't do that at Thanksgiving. We don't do it at the 4th of July. At anniversaries and birthdays, we give one person gifts, but at Christmas, everybody
Starting point is 00:03:39 gives everybody gifts. Why do we do that? It's really the only holiday we have like that. Now, I'm not actually looking probably for a literal answer because I think you'd have to be a socialist story and to explain how that happened. And I'm not even sure if social historians would exactly know. It's more of a rhetorical question. Why is it that we give—everybody gives guest else a Christmas, a rhetorical question, because I actually think, from here to say, it's profoundly appropriate. Because it gets at the theological heart of Christmas.
Starting point is 00:04:14 And that is that Jesus Christ is the only human being who wasn't just born, but was given. He wasn't just born, he was given. Now I'll get back to explaining what I mean by that. Rather, I'd like to take a look here at this subject. Everyone will tell you who knows something about the Bible, but this is the longest and the most involved and explicit passage in all of the Bible on the subject of giving and generosity. And when we read it, we're going to learn, we're being told here, that there's a problem passage in all of the Bible on the subject of giving and generosity.
Starting point is 00:04:45 And when we read it, we're going to learn, we're being told here, that there's a problem with regard to giving and generosity. What will happen if we don't solve that problem and how we can? There's a problem regarding giving and generosity. What will happen if we don't solve the problem and how we can? So first of all, the problem. All right, well, the situation, and I said, it's a very long passage,
Starting point is 00:05:13 and so even just to read it, we took selections of it. The situation is this, which isn't that hard to see if you start the beginning of chapter 8 and read all the way through, and that is the Corinthian church was pretty well off and was Gentile. And Paul was seeking a collection from them. He's trying to raise money from them for famine relief for victims of a famine in Judea,
Starting point is 00:05:38 of course, where most of the people who were the victims were Jews. He's trying to raise money from relatively wealthy Gentiles to give to relatively unwealthy Jews and famist-trickened people. But you'll see how one of the main themes, maybe the main theme of this whole passage, has to do in Paul's mind with the motivation. Look what he says three times, very first say it at the very top.
Starting point is 00:06:03 He says, I am not commanding you. I want you to give, but I'm not commanding you to give. I want you to test this in serenity of your love. Then, or you can go down, diverse 11. Now, finish the work so that you are eager willingness to do it. He wants them to be eagerly willing. I don't want to command you. I don't want to ask you to do something you don't want to do. I want you to be eagerly willing. I don't want to command you. I don't want to ask you to do something you don't want to do.
Starting point is 00:06:25 I want you to want to do it. And then, of course, the strongest is down here, all the way down in chapter 9, verse 8, verse 7, excuse me, where he says, each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. But another way to put it, God wants generosity. He says, for God loves a cheerful giver. That kind of trivializes, I think what he's saying here. You should have so much joy that your giving is a response to that joy.
Starting point is 00:07:00 No compulsion. I want you. Now, right off the bat, in the area of moral philosophy, let me just tell you, this is an extremely interesting set of statements. Can you imagine Paul saying to somebody, I don't, it's a Christian, I mean, can you imagine Paul saying to Christians, I don't want to command you to be faithful to your spouse, not to give me the little trouble, I want to command you, I just, I just want you to be faithful only if you want to. give me the little trouble, I'm gonna command you, I just want you to be faithful only if you want to. He's not gonna do that.
Starting point is 00:07:29 I don't know, he's not. Well then what is he doing here? The moral philosopher is I just, you know, use the technical term that explained the moral philosophers would say that it's because when it comes to, the difference between adultery and greed, they're both sins. Greed is the opposite of generosity. Adultery and greed. They're both sins. Greed is the opposite of generosity.
Starting point is 00:07:47 Adultery and greed, they're both sins, but greed in some ways is a slip, more slippery sin. It's more difficult to define because there is no definite external behavioral referent for it. What does that mean? Well, it means you can't set a dollar number or whatever the currency is. You can't set a number and say, if you give that number or above your generous, and if you give less than that number, you're not generous. So if you're over here, you're in generosity, if you're under here, you're in greed. It's nice and simple.
Starting point is 00:08:21 See, adultery, lying, I mean, you know, obviously there's always some questions around all those things, but they have behavioral reference in other words, you know if you're committing adultery. You don't just say, wait a minute, am I committing adultery? You know if you're committing adultery. And therefore, in this case, though, do you ever know when you're greedy or whether you're generous? Well, the difficulty is there's not a simple line. It's not that easy to do.
Starting point is 00:08:52 Well, it's not that easy to figure out what that means. Well, now what that means in this is kind of scary. In God's eyes, greed or generosity is almost completely a matter of the heart. Your motivations, your emotions, your attitude toward your money is absolutely crucial in God's eyes. You say, well, wait a minute, what about the tithe? Which, of course, is the idea that you have to give 10% of your income away. Now, in the Old Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures, yes, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:09:21 It was absolutely required. It was a law. If you're a believer, you gave away 10% of your income, you might say, to ministry and charity. You know, you gave it to support the tabernacle, to the poor, and so on. 10% absolutely. In the New Testament, it's intriguing that Paul doesn't mention it here. And it's even intriguing that when Jesus Christ mentions that he mentions it positively, and yet in the context, you see why the New Testament doesn't talk just about tithing. In Luke 11, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees
Starting point is 00:09:57 and he says, you tithe everything. You tithe everything. You don't just tithe your money, you tithe your, the vegetables, you eat and all that sort of thing. They tithe everything, they're really strict. And he says, that's fine. And then he condemns them. You know why? He condemns tithers. He condemns people to give away 10%. You know why? He says, because you neglect justice and the law of God, the love of God, excuse me. You neglect justice and the love of God.
Starting point is 00:10:26 justice and the love of God. And what he's saying there, of course, is you legalistically are complying with a number with a percentage and it your passion, your attitude, your motivation. See, if you give in order to get respect from other people, if you give in order to get, say, well, what do I have to do in order to please God? So I'm getting his blessing. I order to get, say, well, what do I have to do in order to please God? So I'm getting his blessing. I want to get God's blessing. I want God's respect. I want people's respect.
Starting point is 00:10:51 So what do I have to give? If you say, how much do I have to give, you're automatically giving for yourself. You're actually giving to yourself. You're self-centered. You're giving, but actually you're giving in order to get. It's actually a deal. You're actually not giving.
Starting point is 00:11:09 You're investing. You're saying, I'm going to give, I'm going to give the charity, I'm going to give the ministry, but then I'm going to feel good about myself and have other people think that I'm generous. And God is going to bless me. And Jesus looks at the Pharisees and says, because that's your heart, I condemn you, even though you're giving 10%. So here's what's fascinating.
Starting point is 00:11:31 If your heart is generous, if your attitude toward your money is no more begrudging and no more anxiety, if, as he says here, if your heart is so filled with joy and so filled with grace, that you want to give, well, the amount takes care of itself. Because all of your life, you'll be pushing and pushing and pushing to give more and more and more. You're not going to be capped at a 10%. That's the reason why the New Testament is careful. So on the one hand, say, yeah, the time is a great guideline. I mean, Jesus doesn't say to the Pharisees,
Starting point is 00:12:07 that's too much, what are you doing there? But instead, he slams them because it's why they're giving. Let me go back and say what the point is. And it's a scary point. As far as God's concern, greed or generosity is mainly a matter of the heart, unless you're giving joyfully, eagerly, unless you're always trying to give more. You actually don't have a heart of generosity.
Starting point is 00:12:34 You see the problem? And by the way, now, like I said, we didn't read all this. If you want a good example, it gives you a good example. In the very beginning of chapter 8, he gives the example. It's the Macedonian Christians. Macedonia was obviously, you know, they were Gentiles. They were, you know, Macedonia is part of Greece today. But they were Macedonian Christians,
Starting point is 00:12:54 and they were actually quite poor. And they've already given generously to the famine relief. And this is what he says. This is chapter 8 verses 1 to 4. He says brothers, he's Paul's writing to the Corinthians. Brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, they're overflowing joy
Starting point is 00:13:16 and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testified that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. And entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. They gave themselves first of all to the Lord and then also to us. Wow.
Starting point is 00:13:41 When Paul says they gave beyond their ability, I don't think that means, that they gave all their money away, so now they're starving, we have to give to them. I don't think it's what he's saying at all. Instead, here's what he says, first of all, they're giving sacrificialy. They have needs of their own, and they're not living on much, but when they saw the greater needs of, are they starving brethren in Judea?
Starting point is 00:14:09 They actually took the little air they're living on and they made that even smaller and gave them some of it away. That's what he's saying. But you know why? They gave themselves the Lord and they gave themselves to us a person who says, how much do I have to give? You've held on to yourself.
Starting point is 00:14:26 So you've held on to yourself. In fact, you're being selfish. You're saying, what do I have to give, you've held on to yourself. So you've held on to yourself. In fact, you're being selfish. You're saying, what do I have to give in order to have self-esteem and order to make sure that God's not mad at me and order to make sure that other people think that I'm pretty generous? You've held on to yourself, but if you give yourself away, they gave themselves the Lord and they gave themselves away. And then they just were as generous as they could possibly be.
Starting point is 00:14:50 So look, if generosity is really a matter of the heart, here's the problem. We just don't have hearts like that, do we? We really don't. Okay, here's the second, it's a really brief point. I said the first point was, there's a problem. The second point is that the serious results, if we don't solve the problem. I'm thinking about this interesting section here in the middle, and I, like I said, this is rather brief,
Starting point is 00:15:16 but I've read it many times, never really got what Paul was talking about. Here, near the, it's in the center of the page, but it's near the end of the section from chapter 8. Paul says, our desire is not that others may be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be a quality. At the present time, your plenty will supply what they need
Starting point is 00:15:38 so that in turn, their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is a quality, as it has written, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Now, when you read that, unless you find where that quote is from, go back and read that whole section, you will not see the pretty deep insights that are being given here.
Starting point is 00:16:01 This is a quote from Exodus 16. The one who gathered much did not have too much,. The one who gathered much did not have too much and the one who gathered little did not have too little. And it's talking about the fact that when the children of Israel had left Egypt and they were out in the wilderness, they were not going to be able either through hunting or gathering or through agriculture, they were not going to be able to support themselves.
Starting point is 00:16:21 They could not accrue enough food for a large body of people to be marching through the wilderness. And so what God did was he did a miracle. And every morning, except on the Sabbath day, early in the morning, when they got up there on the ground was mana, mana. Now, there's a lot of, I'm not going to get into it, there's all sorts of interesting discussions about what it was, but we do know what the Bible says. And what the Bible says is that this was something that when you gathered it up, put it into bowls, took it back, they could be turned into cakes, it was like a kind of flower, it was something that looked like it was able to be, it was obviously something that could
Starting point is 00:17:02 be eaten. But what was interesting was, when you went out, you must not take more than your family needed for one day. One of the rules was that when you went out there, you must not take more than the family could take for one day. And if you tried to hoard it, if you tried to take too much, then it would rot. And it would stink. And the next day there would be maggots all through your and
Starting point is 00:17:25 worms all through your tent. Now what is Paul talking about here? Kind of interesting. First of all by likening your money to mana, the money you have to mana, he's telling you two things. The first thing is it's a wonderful way of saying you need to start to learn to look at all the money you've earned with your hard work as nonetheless a gift. A gift from God. Why? Well on the one hand, how did you get the manna? It didn't just jump into your bowl.
Starting point is 00:17:54 You had to go out and do something. So you had to go out and you had to gather it. So there was work involved, right? It's also interesting that physically some people will just do a better job than others. Younger people would be able to get around and do more than older people. But it was absolutely crucial that when you gathered it, you shared it so every family had what they needed. If you had a little bit more ability to gather more than you should share with what other, the people who had less ability, and you must not hoard it and try to keep it overnight.
Starting point is 00:18:23 So on the one hand, it tells us that our money's like that. You can say, what do you mean, wait a minute, I don't look at my money as my own. I've worked hard for that money. Yes, this is like the man I, yes, there's something you have to do. On the other hand, one of the reasons why your hard work has given you what you have is because in God's grace you were not born in a rice patty in China in the 15th century or in a you weren't born into a peasant family in France in the 12th century. You weren't born on a mountain to bet in the 13th century because actually if you had been, what you easily
Starting point is 00:18:56 could have been, you could have been working back then as every bit as hard as you're working now and not have much to show for it. I mean, ultimately the fact that you've got your health, if you do, that you have the opportunities you've had. These are all gifts of God. So what's interesting is on the one hand, certainly the Bible says, work. You need to work. You can't expect to have anything without work. And yet after you've gathered it in, it was a gift. Yes, go out and gather the manor. On the other hand, if God's not giving you that manor, you're starving. So first of all, the illustration is trying to say,
Starting point is 00:19:30 you need to start to look at your everything in you that you have as a gift. That's a first step to dealing with your heart problem. Thank you for listening today to Gospel and Life. Today is Giving Tuesday, and we are excited to share with you that an anonymous donor has provided a matching gift of $20,000 for Giving Tuesday. So all gifts made today will be matched,
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Starting point is 00:20:15 of this ministry. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's message. Here's the second thing. If you keep too much money, if you're not generous with it, if you store up too much for yourself, it'll rot your soul. They'll be maggots. They'll be worms. I'm drawing the metaphor out a little bit. You know, I'm a minister. Okay, I'm a preacher, you know, rhetoric, that sort of thing, metaphor. But I think that's what Paul is talking about. So it's, there's great danger involved in not having a generous heart. So the problem is we don't have a generous
Starting point is 00:20:52 heart. That's the sort of thing that could happen if we don't solve the problem. How do we solve the problem? Well, there's two things. And they're wonderful, wonderful, wonderful things. There's two ways to do it. To a great degree, it depends on how much attention you pay to these two things. I don't believe I'm going to tell, most of the people in this room, I'm going to tell you something you already know. But here's what I, well, what's great about what Paul is saying here, is that if you don't have a generous heart,
Starting point is 00:21:25 in spite of the fact that you know certain things that ought to be affecting your heart and making you more generous and giving you more freedom to give, you don't have to be passive about it. There's things you can do. You can look. So, for example, one thing you need to look at is you need to get a vision for the harvest that your giving can produce, a vision for the harvest. See, notice it says here at the top, this is the beginning of the ninth section of the
Starting point is 00:21:56 ninth chapter, this is nine verse six. Remember this, whoever so sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever so's generously will also reap generously. Now, if you're here last week, I think I've already talked about this a couple times. There are people who don't think about the metaphor here far enough. If you just take a look at that, oh, if I sow sparingly, if I sow generously, which means give my money away generously, I will reap generously. And reaping is seen as, I'll make more money.
Starting point is 00:22:28 So there are plenty of people that make this turn this into a kind of prosperity gospel verse, which says, the more money I give away, the more money I'll make. I'll get richer and richer the more I give away. That's not what it's saying. Not only does that not fit the metaphor, because you see you sow seed, but you harvest fruit. You don't get the same thing back that you gave out, right?
Starting point is 00:22:51 I mean, a sower goes out. If you're sowing seed or you're planting seeds, you don't want to go out at harvest time and just get seeds. That wouldn't be what you want. You have to get things that you can eat. Well, if you're giving your money, then how does it come back? If it's not coming back exactly the same way, if it doesn't mean you're just making more money,
Starting point is 00:23:12 it well tells you, because again, it is Paul quotes an Old Testament text. Verse 9, as it is written, they have freely scattered the gifts of the poor, their righteousness and dures forever. Now, that's a quote from Psalm 112. And now, I want you to know what the word righteousness is, what that means. And the Old Testament, righteousness, generally does not mean what you and I think it means, which is moral goodness.
Starting point is 00:23:42 A slightly better translation of the word would be justice. But even there, when you and I see here the English word justice, we almost immediately think of jurisprudence and people getting what they deserve. That's actually not what this word righteousness means, either. The Hebrew word for righteousness means right relationships, people relating to one other rightly. And when the Bible talks about righteousness and his righteousness and does forever, what he's talking about is because he's scattering his gifts to the poor, right relationships are happening,
Starting point is 00:24:17 poverty's being healed, conflicts are being healed, families are being put back together again. You know, when, for example, in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 13, Peter talks about the future in which everything's going to be put right. The world's going to be renewed. No war, no poverty, no suffering, no death. And this is what he says, we, according to his promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth,
Starting point is 00:24:49 wherein dwelleth righteousness. It doesn't just mean everybody's gonna be obeying the law. It's saying everything's gonna be healed. Everything's sad, it's gonna come on true. It means the relationships between God and humanity, that will be healed. See, the relationship we put back together again. The relationship between the races,
Starting point is 00:25:10 the relationship between the classes, the relationship between us and in the environment. There won't be hunger, there won't be disease, there won't be suffering. Everything will be righteous, everything will be right. Things will be finally put right and get this. When you scatter your gifts, when you're generous, when you are sowing generously, you are healing the world.
Starting point is 00:25:34 You are reaping a harvest of righteousness. Doesn't that excite you? You're supposed to get excited, see? That's the idea here. That's one of the things that starts to make you more generous. It's one of the things that starts to heal your heart. Get you out of yourself. Make you give yourself away and give yourself the Lord,
Starting point is 00:25:54 along with giving your money. And so that's one of the things you need to do. That begins to change the heart. Does it not? I can feel changing my heart just now as I'm telling you about it. But on the other hand, you don't just get a vision for the harvest. You don't just get a vision for renewed world. But you also get a vision of the Savior himself. Let's go back to what I said in the very beginning. Chapter 9 verse 15, sorry, we weren't able to print everything in these two chapters. Chapter 9, second Corinthians 9, 15, which we didn't
Starting point is 00:26:29 print says, thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. And it's Jesus. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. When I said that Christmas doesn't just tell us that Jesus was born but given. You know why? Because Jesus Christ is the only human being that was older than his parents. Okay? The only human being that ever existed before he was born. And therefore it wasn't just born, he was given.
Starting point is 00:27:03 John 3.16, the father so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son, that who so should believe in him, who so ever should believe in him, would not perish, but have everlasting life. Then of course you have Isaiah 9, verse 2, for unto us his son is born unto us his son is given. He's not just born, he's given. And maybe arguably the most wonderful verse in the Bible.
Starting point is 00:27:28 That's saying it's my favorite verse. I'm just saying maybe the most wonderful verse. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? From his 832, if you receive Jesus Christ as a gift, eventually you'll have every other gift. Here's the thing. Jesus Christ, the Son, was the jewel of the Father's heart and the greatest treasure that heaven had and God gave him. Christmas, incarnation, born and major, the Father gave him that. That is radical generosity. The Father
Starting point is 00:28:13 gave us his son, the son gave us his life. And that's the reason why Paul can say what he says right up here. Verse 8 and 9, I want you to know even though this is about generosity, He says, right up here, verse 8 and 9, I want you to know even though this is about generosity. This, these two verses changed not only my own thinking about how I would change my own heart, where it needs to be changed, but how I as a pastor would try to have other people have their characters changed. Look, verse 8, I'm not commanding you,
Starting point is 00:28:38 I want to test the sincerity of your love. Okay, he says, I want, if you're going to make a change, it needs to be from the inside out. And then he says, for you know know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich. What's he doing there? See saying, look, you don't love. You don't love enough.
Starting point is 00:29:02 You don't have enough love and enough joy to be generous. But that doesn't mean you have to be passive and say, well, I guess I just don't love enough. You don't have enough love and an off joy to be generous. But that doesn't mean you have to be passive and say, well, I guess I just don't have the right motives. You can work on your heart. How do you do it? Think. You know, okay, at one level you know what? But now what he's doing here is he's taking the gospel and putting it into economic terms. He's affecting your heart attitude toward
Starting point is 00:29:29 money by bringing the gospel into the economic world by saying, he was rich. He was incredibly rich. He had all the riches of the universe and yet he became poor. He became mortal. He became vulnerable. He became killable, he eventually walked the earth and in the very end he was stripped of everything, he was even on the cry, he was stripped of every possession. He was spiritually rich and he became spiritually poor, he was even rejected by the father so that you could have the only riches that will last forever. Now you know what, he does this by the way, when it comes to sex, too. Because in Ephesians 5, he's saying,
Starting point is 00:30:06 husbands be faithful to your wife. You know, don't have sex with other people. Husbands be faithful to your wife, as Christ loves the church. Look at him out. Look how faithful he was to you. Look at him in the garden. Under so much pressure, the garden that gets so many, to say, I've had it, but he was faithful to you and he loved you, not because you were lovely, but to make you lovely.
Starting point is 00:30:30 See what Paul does, what the Bible does over and over again, and says, don't take a look at your heart and say, well, I guess it's just too hard. You know, I just don't have the right motives. You know, you know the gospel, you know the grace, you know the love of Jesus our husband, you know the grace of Jesus know the love of Jesus our husband, you know the grace of Jesus, the great giver, you know these things, bring the gospel into that part of your life. And think about what he did for you till it makes you weep and rejoice, and let it melt you like him. One last thing.
Starting point is 00:31:11 When God made himself a gift, he really did it. You know, when God appears to Abraham, he was a smoking furnace. When God appears to Moses, he was a blazing tree. When God appeared to Job, he was a tornado, not very cuddly. And none of these situations could you say God gave I mean, he revealed himself, but a baby. For God to become not a blazing tree or an earthquake on a mountain or a smoking furnace or a hurricane, but a baby, I've got a baby living with us right now. I got a grandchild, three months old, nothing more vulnerable. He can always kiss, and he's always glad. He can always hug
Starting point is 00:32:07 and he's always glad usually. See, a baby is not just an image of vulnerability. God became a baby at Christmas. His way of saying, I'm making myself vulnerable, I'm giving myself a way to you. Now you give yourself a way. To me, give yourself a way to one another, heal the world through your giving. Get a generous heart for you. Know the grace. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you've given us in the gospel, all the power we need to change, those parts of our lives that we need to change. And we've just looked at one tonight, but we pray that you would make us generous people.
Starting point is 00:32:53 There's so much we can do in the city if we're generous. There's so much we can do in each of those lives if we're generous. There's so much that you can do in our lives if we're generous. So make us so to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to His name that we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to Gospel and Life
Starting point is 00:33:13 and Dr. Keller's teaching on the Christian disciplines. You can get more content like today's teaching when you connect with Gospel and Life on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter. This month's sermons were recorded in 2008. The sermons and talks you here on the Gospel and Life Podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor
Starting point is 00:33:34 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you

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