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

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

We’re tracing the storyline of the Bible, and we looked first at what it says went wrong with the human race. Now we look at Romans 1 through 4, at perhaps the single most comprehensive place where we learn what God has done to make things right. Scholars of Romans believe verses 16 and 17 are Paul’s way of putting the gospel in a nutshell. Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, said these two verses brought about his own breakthrough, where he was completely transformed by pondering on these verses. If these two verses have never done to you what they did to Luther, I’m going to try to show you three factors you have to grasp if you’re going to break through. According to this text, you have to grasp 1) the form of the gospel, 2) the content of the gospel, and 3) the power of the gospel. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 8, 2009. Series: Bible: The Whole Story - Creation and Fall. Scripture: Romans 1:1-7, 14-17. 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.

The Bible presents us with a grand narrative of God's fordemptive work in the world, but for many of us, parts of the Bible can seem confusing, disjointed, or even irrelevant. Today Tim Keller is teaching on the big story of the Bible, examining how each part fits together to reveal the character of God and his purposes for us. 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 receive our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr. Keller as well as other valuable gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelonlife.com. The scripture this morning is from Romans chapter 1, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God. The gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who, through the spirit of holiness,

was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Through Him, and for His names sake, we received grace a apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all in Rome, who are loved by God and called to be his saints, grace, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I am obligated, both to Greeks and non-Greaks, both to the wives and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. I am

not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. First for the Jew, then for the Gentile, for in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. This is the Word of the Lord. Every week we start by saying that we are tracing out the storyline of the Bible because the Bible is not so much a series of disconnected individual stories each with a little lesson or moral telling us how to live. It's primarily a single story telling us what's wrong with the human race, what God has

done to make things right and how it's going to work out in the end. And we're drilling down into three places in the Bible. We've drilled down into Genesis 1 to 4, where we learned something about what the Bible says about what's wrong with us. And now we're going to drill down into Romans 1 through 4, perhaps the single most comprehensive and packed place

where through a letter of Saint Paul, we learn what God did about it. And verse 16 and 17, all scholars and students of Romans believe, verse 16 and 17, is Paul's way of putting the gospel at a nutshell, his message in a kind of a thesis statement. And therefore, it's an extremely important statement. And I want to meditate on it with you until you, or to help you, break through. Now, that's kind of an odd statement. Break through.

Let me tell you why I use the word. Breakthrough. Now that's kind of an odd statement. Breakthrough. Let me tell you why I use the word. Martin Luther, founder of Protestantism, actually, tells, later in his life, he told a story. It was a preface to one of his collections of writings. He wrote a little reminisc of a great experience he had. It's also called the Tower Experience as a young man, and many people would call it his conversion experience, and it all had to do with Romans, and Romans 1, 16, and 17.

And he wrote, I greatly long to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans, but nothing stood in the way more than that one expression, the righteousness of God. Because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, though an impeccable monk I stood every day before God, feeling like a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Therefore, night and day, I pondered.

And then I saw the statement, the righteous will live because of faith. And then I grasped that through gift and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and who have gone through open doors into paradise. When I discovered a distinction that the law is one thing and the gospel is another, I broke through. That's interesting. He had this breakthrough and what he means is he was completely transformed. His thinking, his heart, his life, everything by these verses because he pondered and pondered

until he broke through. And I would like to help everybody here break through. That is to say, if you haven't, if these two verses have never done to you, whether they did the Lutheran, I'm going to try to show you three factors you have to grasp if you're going to break through. And if it has, if this, the ideas here, these verses have transformed you. I'd like to give you by telling you the same three things, of course, since you're on the same room together,

how you could help other people who are open, how you could help them have a breakthrough. There's three factors that have to do with breakthrough. You have to grasp, according to, I think this text, the form of the text, the form of the gospel, the content of the gospel, and the power of the gospel, the form of the content, the power, and I'll give you tests along the way. So I'm being very focused. How do we break through? First, you have to understand the form of the gospel. Now, you

can see, especially if you read all the way through Romans 1, 1 to 17, that the word gospel shows up more here than any other place in the book. In fact, I think it may be the word gospel shows up more in these verses per phrase than any other place in the Bible. So we have to ask ourselves, what is so important, why this word? And the word gospel, as most of you know,

is a Greek word that we transliterate, evangel, EV, ANG, EL, AO-Angle. The good, angle, what's the angle? Well, angel, we look at the word angel in English, of course, it's right away we think of wings and things like that, which is wrong because the word angle means a herald. And what actually isn't the very heart of the word gospel is the news media. Did you know that?

News media? Okay. How did news about great historic events get distributed back in those days. What was the news media? No print paper. No audio video, radio, television. Well then how was news? What was the media for the news?

And the answer was Haralds. That is, when everybody's back in the town because they know there's a great military battle that's being fought miles away. So they're behind the barricades, they don't know what's gonna happen. What happens when the general achieves a great military victory?

How do we spread the news? He would send Haralds, the Angoloi, an Angle, which is a message or a Harald, the news. And the Harald would come in to the town and declare the news, victory, you know, and then he'd run to the next town square and proclaim victory, and then everyone would go back home with joy. And if that's at the very, very heart of the word gospel, if that's what the message is, the Christian. The essence of the Christian message is news.

Good, joyful news, then this is the difference between the gospel and every other philosophy of religion. The gospel is not good advice about what you must do. It's primarily good news about what's already been done for you, something that's already happened. See, other religions say, if you really want to meet God, do this, this, this, this, it's good advice.

Only Christianity is not good advice, but primarily good news about something that's already been done for you. Now this is, this is test one, and we've talked about this actually not too many weeks ago, so I won't belabor it, but it's a crucial. One of the breakthroughs is to realize how utterly different Christianity is because it's good news, not good advice. If I ask somebody here in New York, what do you think the essence of Christianity is? What does it mean to be a Christian?

The average person on the street would say, well, I think it means to try to live like Jesus and try to love your neighbor Try to obey, you know follow live by the golden rule Now I want you all to know I think that is a incredibly great idea. Let's all do that. That'd be okay Let's I'm I'm all for it, but that's not news That's not the heart of Christianity can't be because not news. Is that news? Is that news about what has been done for you? Outside of you for you that inflicts in you such joy that you finally can live by according to the golden rule See that's Christianity something's happened outside you something momentous

It's happened outside you for you and that's what inflicts into you life-changing joy. So now I can live according to the Golden Rule. But to say, well, you know, being a Christian is the Golden Rule, that's not news, and therefore there's no breakthrough. See, breakthrough, transformation comes like this. If you say to somebody, here's the essence of the Christian message,

you need to live like Jesus and love your neighbor and according to the golden rule. There's only three responses to that. One is you say, sure, I knew that, shrug, in difference. The second like Luther is, oh, that's very hard, I can't do that, crushed, discouraged. And the third is the Pharisees says, I do that all the time. See, either shrugged or bugged or smug. But no breakthrough, no breakthrough, no. Oh my word, I never thought of that. See, that's what happened to Luthor Broke Through.

He said, this is a paradigm shift, sorry, it's a cliche, but it's far worse than that, but it's not less. So here's my question, here's the first test. I don't know what you believe, but whatever you believe about God or how you ought to live is it mainly about you or is it mainly about what He has done? Is it mainly about you, what you must do, or mainly about Him, and what He has done? Which is it? See the breakthrough?

The gospel is news, not advice. Number one, that's the form. Second thing is we have to understand the content. And the content of the gospel is that very spot where Luther meditated and meditated where he says, for in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that comes by Dea through faith. Just as it is written, the one who is righteous through faith, that's the person who lives. And he was thinking and thinking about this until suddenly he realized, the righteousness

of God is a righteousness that comes to me and I received by faith and that opened everything up. Now, if we want to understand this term, which isn't a very ordinary term, it's a technical term in a way, it's a term that Paul uses though, so we need to try to figure it out. Change Luther's life, change mine. We're justified by faith.

Now, right away, let me use an illustration to show you, I'll use two illustrations, the second one's considerably more poignant than the first, the first one, don't think about this. Whenever we talk about being justified, we're talking about not a change in the object but at a change in the relationship to the object. Not a change inside the object but a relationship to the object. So for example, if you're speaking to me and you say something and I say, hmm, justify that statement.

And what do I mean? And you say something, and I say, hmm, justify that statement. And what do I mean? I'm not saying change the statement. What I'm actually saying is, it's hard for me to accept that, do something, say something, to change my relationship to the statement, to change my regard for it, so that I can accept it. I'm not saying change the statement,

help me get into a new relationship with it, because I'm about to reject it. Justify that statement means change my regard for it, do something. That is actually what the word means, especially at certain points, is here, but also in Romans five, where Paul says, in verse two, since we're justified by faith,

we have access to this grace in which we stand. And the word stand there means to stand in the presence of a great God or a great king or judge. And this is what Paul is saying. Jesus has done something so that God looking at us in spite of everything wrong with us. Jesus has done something to change God's regard for us, his relationship to us. Jesus, something has been done. So that's the news. Something has been done so that now the Father looks at us and loves us and delights in us and accepts us.

Our relationship has been changed. It's not so much something happened inside because then that would all be about us. That wouldn't be gospel. It would all be, well, you have to do something. It's about something that's happened outside of us. It's changed God's relationship to us. What is that? To me the second factor in what brings a breakthrough over the gospel is When you realize that the gospel is about more than just forgiveness

Follow me please. It's about more than just forgiveness. Please. Don't think I'm saying something, there's anything wrong with forgiveness. But most people think that's what this is. That's what salvation is. That's what Jesus did. The idea is, because Jesus died on the cross, when I do something wrong, I can ask God for forgiveness and I'm forgiven. Isn't that wonderful? Yes, of course, it's wonderful.

It's more than wonderful. But I want to show you here for a second, it would not be enough. And it's way less than what's being promised here. Yeah. Because you see, if it's true that that's really salvation, that because Jesus died on the cross, now when I ask for forgiveness, I'm forgiven. God forgives me. Whites the slate clean.

You realize what that means? It means that even though he's forgiven me for what I just did wrong, my relationship with him is still up to me. Because actually, in a sense, guys, it had just forgave you for what you did. I'm not going to hold that against you, but now you better get it right.

If that's all forgiveness is, it's not enough. You know, for example, here's a man, and let's just say, and he's in prison. What is going to get him a new life? Well, you could say the first thing it's going to get him a new life is pardon. A governor writes a pardon, and he's in prison. What is gonna get him a new life? Well, you could say the first thing, it's gonna get him a new life is pardon. A governor writes a pardon, and he's out. Wow, he's got a new life.

Hmm, no. He's just back to where all the rest of us slabs are. He's not in prison. And now he's gotta get a job, and I just gotta work. And he's a long haul. He doesn't have a new life yet. Well, you say, well, what more do you want? I'll say what more? The salvation

of the gospel is not so much like simply getting a pardon to get out of prison. It's besides getting a pardon for forgiveness. It's also like getting the congressional middle of honor on top of it. It's a negative and a positive. There's a TV series called NCIS, and it's about in Navy criminal investigative services. It's a cop show amongst military criminal investigators. And there's a really great episode that was done about four years ago. And the main character was played by Charles Durning, the great actor, I think. And in it, it's about a poor, broken down old man, ex-Marine, played by Charles Dernie. He's in his 80s, he's broken down, he's kind of dottie, you know, and he's accused of murder.

He's accused of murder. And at one point, two huge big beefy marines and a snarling, navy lawyer comes after this poor little man. And they're about to arrest him, you see, and they're overshadowing him, and here he is standing in their presence accused. But as they stand, and they're about to cuff him, actually, a friend of the old man pulls his tie aside, and under it is the Congressional Medal of Honor. Because on Iwo Jima, he had been found, he had done acts of extraordinary valor and bravery

beyond the call of duty and to be given a Congressional Medal of Honor. And when he pulled that aside, the Marines and the snarling lawyer immediately saw what it was. Instead of looking at the poor little man, the accused condemned me and they saw that mellow honor, and they immediately snapped to attention and salute. They're in awe. Just like that. It's very, very good.

Brahma, and it's very, very kind of moving to see, and it is just an image, however faint, of what Paul's talking about here. You know, one of the verses that I always quote to you, but I never explain. Is 2 Corinthians 521, God made Jesus sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. What's that mean?

God made him sin, that knew no sin, that we might become the righteous of God and him, we'll think. On the cross, what does it mean to say Jesus was made sin? God made him sin. Does that mean God made him sinful? That God put sin in his heart, so he became greedy and angry and violent?

No. He was up there forgiving his enemies. I mean, no, he was up there loving his father, even when his father was turning on him. Absolutely, it didn't mean he became sinful. I mean, he was treated as Arsons deserve. He was given the treatment that our record deserves. So what does it mean to say that when you give

your life to Christ, Arsons are put on him. God made him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the him. God made him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him, in him. What does that mean? It can't mean that automatically the minute you become a Christian, you become righteous in your heart, in your heart. Any more than he became sinful on the cross. No, no, no, no. What it must mean is that we are covered with his medals. We are covered with his glory.

We're covered with all the awards and the medals and the v—that his valor and his cosmic bravery because he took on evil and he went down to death. And all that he deserves is now on us. And here's where the illustration doesn't quite work because that old man basically was suddenly given all this, you know, even though he was condemned, he suddenly, they suddenly saw his metal which he had won in a former life. But in our case, the metals on us were won by Jesus in a former life. And now the whole universe silhouettes us. And now God Himself delights in us. We have become the

righteousness of God in Him now. You see the test? Do you see where the breakthrough comes? The first breakthrough is when you see it's not advice but news. The second breakthrough is when you see it's not just forgiveness, but it's being clothed in the righteousness of Christ. It's a righteousness from God has given to me, my gift, no wonder, Luther said, oh, my word. That's incredible, it is incredible. And so when you ask somebody, I do, all the time, if I say, hey, are you a Christian

and the person says, well, I'm trying, that shows they have no idea about what Christianity is about because Christianity is a standing. We have access to this grace in which we stand. See, means you have no idea about what it means to be a standing. We have access to this grace in which we stand. See, means you have no idea about what it means to be a Christian. You're still stuck back in the idea. It's good advice. Or if you know something, you said, well, I

hate to call myself a Christian because I don't feel worthy of the name. Of course, you don't feel good enough. But you're in him if you understand the gospel. And he's always good enough. He's utterly good enough. We're covered with his medals, covered with his trophies, covered with his badges and vanners and ribbons and glory. 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 Catechism Debotional 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. And you know some people will say,

well you know that's interesting. I guess the Luther types religious people, gosh, he was a monk, how much more religious can you get than that? I guess there's people there who are always filled with guilt and shame and they're religious and they're, and they need this, they need this idea. No, it's not just them. Oh no, I have talked to an awful lot of people recently and they need this, they need this idea. No, it's not just them. Oh, no. I have talked to an awful lot of people recently,

who've lost an awful lot of money. And you know what, one of the things you can see, in fact, sometimes they tell me, is it was a lot more than money. They didn't know. They didn't know. There's a disorientation at the center of their being. They're not sure who they are. You know, there's a disorientation at the center of their being. They're not sure who they are.

There's a complete loss of identity. There's a complete loss of confidence. You know why? Because that money was their righteousness. See, irreligious people don't use the word righteousness. But as we said a couple weeks ago, when we were talking about Kate and Abel, no human being can assure themselves.

We cannot assure ourselves of our value and worth. We've got to get somebody outside approving us, acclaiming us, declaring us worthy, declaring us people of value. And so some people do it through, I wanna look beautiful. Some people, I wanna make money. Some people, I wanna achieve, I wanna, whatever.

The fact is everybody is desperately struggling for righteousness. And here's the weird thing. Everybody's righteousness. If it's not God, it's going to be blown away. Recession is one way. But it's going to happen. Old age is another way. Everybody's righteousness is going to blow, unless this is upon you.

Now, the second breakthrough then, that you see it's not just negative, forgiveness, weaponous, like, clean, but getting the cosmic medal of honor, you know, being accepted in the beloved, having the righteousness of God put upon us in Jesus. Being legally righteous, even when we're actually unrighteous.

And we'll see more about that. Thirdly, the last thing you've gotta do, if you're really going to understand and break through, is you gotta have a sense of the power of the gospel, not just the form, not just the content, but the power. And Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation. I guess in my case of all these,

even though it's brief, 16 and 17 is brief, this is my favorite part of this nutshell. Because see, it's not saying that the gospel brings the power of God, or it results in the power of God, or it's a means to the power of God, or it results in the power of God, or it's a means to the power of God, does it? Well, no, it doesn't, what does it say? It says the gospel is the power of God in verbal form. And therefore, when I believe it, when I hear it,

when I understand it, when I grasp its propositions, its meanings, its words, to the degree that I actually get this gospel into my life, to that degree, the power of God is coursing through me. It is the power of God. And therefore, the way you know you're beginning to understand the gospel and breaking through is instead of it just being a set of ideas, you begin to sense it being a power. How's that so? Well, here's a couple ways. First of all, one of set of ideas, you begin to sense it being a power. How's that so?

Here's a couple ways. First of all, one of the ways you know you're breaking through, or you're at least perhaps breaking through, or got a chance of breaking through, is you feel it's offensiveness. Notice connected to this idea of the power of God, he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. Now, when you say something like that, I'm not ashamed of her, I'm not ashamed of him, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Now when you say something like that, I'm not ashamed of her, I'm not ashamed of him, I'm not ashamed of that. That means there's a whole lot of other people that are, or you wouldn't have said that.

There's a whole lot of other people that are offended or they think it's crazy. And I want you to know that everybody, everybody who hasn't broken through, or isn't on the verge of breaking through thinks the gospel's crazy. hasn't broken through, or isn't on the verge of breaking through, thinks the gospel's crazy. Everybody, I've had two churches, one in a very blue-collar traditional conservative place, small seven-town, and the opposite place.

And here's what's so interesting, everybody's offended by the gospel. Because if you go down, in Virginia, in Hopewell, Virginia, where I was a pastor, everybody's hardworking, they're all religious, you know, even the atheists are Baptist, you know, everybody, I mean, even the atheists, the God they don't believe in is the Baptist God. It's, you know, everybody's religious, everybody's very traditional, everybody's hardworking, everybody's conservative, okay? And they're offended by the gospel because they think it's too easy. I never forget one of the first people

I shared the gospel with was a woman right across the parking lot behind our church was a very broken down area, you know, rental property and bad rental property, by the way, and trailer trailers and things like that. And there was a woman there, she was very unhappy, woman, her name was Joy. And, but in a southern town in the late 70s, she was divorced, she had two children, one was I think, with no husband, one was with her former husband, she was living essentially

in poverty, she was a mess, she was disgrace, she was ashamed. We went in there, three of us sat down and we shared what I just shared with you, almost exactly the same thing, and she couldn't believe it. She says, you mean in spite of everything? He can accept me. I remember one of the things we talked about was, I said, well, you know, if you really understand the gospel, that means, at the minute you believe in Christ, and ask God to accept you because of what he's done. The minute that your sins are put on him

and his righteousness is put on you, God loves you and delights in you as much this very second as he will, a billion years from now, when you're perfect and glorious. You see, and that you can't even look at you without sunglasses. And I said, he won't love you anymore than now. And he less than now than then, she couldn't believe it.

And she was one, and she cried, she thought it was the greatest thing. She embraced it, she believed it. Now, a week later, we came back. Follow-up, sat down, she was really upset because she called her sister. Sister was a very hard-working woman, you know husband three four children, you know upstanding citizens They went to church. They were you know good people and when Joy called her older sister up and

Told her you know she was born again and she was saved, you know God loved her and all that this sister said What are you talking about it can't be that easy? It says it you have to work for this sort of thing you have have to work very hard, years of self-disman, years of moral effort. I don't look on a God that pastor is talking to you about, but I have no respect for him that he would just take somebody like you like that. It's too easy.

You see, it sounds really very dignified to say, I can't believe in a God, I have higher standards than that except, you know what? That sister had built her identity on being the good daughter and Joel was the bad daughter and it was incredibly self-justifying to say, you can't be. They can't be that easy. We have to take the, you know, the gospel was in danger of destroying that wonderful dysfunctional family system in which joy was the sick one.

See, and so we had to go right back with the gospel. And it did. I think it did. But you see in a traditional conservative culture, it's too easy. Now we come up here, where everybody's liberal and sophisticated and secular. And up here, it's offensive, not because it's too easy, but because it's too simplistic. And here's why, because you see everything here, everything here is ambiguous and difficult and nobody's sure. And see, we like philosophy here, we like ethics, we like discussions, and we have that, here's the pros and the cons, and we get together and we have discussions and forms, and everybody's a little bit right and everybody's a little bit wrong, and nobody's really sure.

And then we go home and live anyway we want. It's a great, great system. Because who's to say? And the clarity of the gospel, the absolute clarity of it, you know? I mean, they even like religion better because, you know, you're always trying, and you're trying, you're never quite sure that, you know, whether you've done the clarity of it. Here's this first century carpenter.

He dies. Everything changes if you believe in that. You believe in that, and then you're in. that. You believe in that and then you're in, you don't believe in that and you're at, oh my gosh, the clarity of it, the simplicity, the goodness of it, don't you see liberal or conservative? Blue collar or white collar, North South, East, West. The gospel is absolutely unique.

It's absolutely on its own. Everybody hates it. It makes absolutely no sense to anyone. It contradicts every system of thought in the world. It contradicts the heart of every culture in the world. Every worldview is completely on its own. It offends everyone and see whoever you are, you've got to come from somewhere. You've got to come from North or South or East or West or conservative or liberal or

something. You're human beings, it or deliver something. You've got your human being. So you had some, and therefore, unless you felt the offense of the gospel, you don't know yet what it even claims. Unless you wrestle with it, struggle with it. You don't even know what's in it. You couldn't know what's in it. And when you begin to feel it,

and you begin to wrestle and struggle, then you're at least got the possibility of breaking through. And by the way, the gospel is not just from a person, pardon me, the gospel is not an academic thing. It's not a set of bullet points that we're trying to get you to memorize. It's from a person to a person, and therefore, it feels personal when you're really beginning to hear

the gospel truly and understand the gospel. You start the sensors of power dealing with you. Disturbing you, upsetting you. Maybe during this sermon I hope. Maybe when you think about it or talk to a friend about it, do you find the gospel upsetting you? Kind of dealing with you? You wrestling with it, bothering you? I would rather somebody came to redeem her for a couple weeks and was so revolted that they had to leave, at least they were feeling the power. We're out in the say, what's interesting, but I don't have much time for that.

Then you're absolutely, absolutely in no position to ever have a breakthrough. So you have to feel the power of it, you have to feel the offensiveness of it, but here's the other way in which is the power. Some people would say, well, all that matters, I suppose, is that you, you know, now that you receive the righteous of Christ,

that's all that matters, you know, now you're fine, doesn't matter how you live, no, no, no, no, no. You know, it's so amazing about Paul, is he's able to get sound gospel theology everywhere. Look at verse 7. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints, at the beginning of the memo, to from re, he's already got the gospel in there. You know why?

He says, what is the Christian? To all who are loved by God and called to be saints. Look at that. What is the Christian? Not primarily someone who's living in a certain way. The first is your love by God. Your relationships have been changed. Something's been done to justify you.

See, you're loved, but if you're loved and if you know you're loved, then you're called. That means you're invited. That means you're attracted to be saints, which means to be holy. You never ever ever have the righteousness of God put upon you without at the same time finding its beginning to develop in you. You never ever ever ever are loved by God in spite of your bad character without that starting to change your character. You never justified except that you automatically begin to get sanctified. The righteousness of God will never be put upon you without it developed within you.

And if it's not developing within you, then you haven't really received it upon you. And that's the reason why Paul could look at Peter in Galatians 2, where Peter is beginning to his old racist sensibilities have begun to come back. And he's not eating with Gentile Christians. He won't even eat with them. And what does Paul say? Paul doesn't say, Peter, you broke the no racism rule.

Even though there is a no racism rule, Christians shouldn't be racist, but what he says is, Peter, you say you're justified by faith, not by works. You say you're a sinner, say by grace. And how can you have a, be superior to any other race? You say you've got the righteous of Christ on you, but you're not living in righteousness, and therefore it's not upon you if it's not beginning to develop within you. If you are loved, then you are called,

you're attracted into holiness. You want it. You long for it, because I wanna look like the one who did this for me. I wanna like the one who did this for me. I want to please the one who did this for me. And if you don't want to please, if you don't want to look like the one who did this for you, then it's still not personal, you know. You don't really still don't know what's happened.

Now, one of the great things I love about, there's a passage in Matthew 11, where John the Baptist in prison about to be beheaded, send some messengers to Jesus, and the messengers say, are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another? John the Baptist is doubting, and I can understand why. You know, he declared Jesus the Messiah. He said, behold, the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. But everything's going wrong.

He's in prison. Wait a minute. You're the Messiah, and I'm with you, and I'm about to get my head chopped off. And are you really the one who is to come? Or should we be looking for somebody else? He's doubting. And Jesus so nicely says, go back and tell John the Baptist,

the blind see, the poor have good news preached to them. He gives them some arguments why he's the Messiah. And then he says, and say this to John, blessed is he who finds no offense in me. See what I loved about that is, instead of Jesus saying, how dare you question me? I'm the Messiah instead. He says, let me give you some answers.

And I want you to know that I am not offended by people who are struggling with my offensiveness. Good luck. Hope you get through it. It's not very easy. I hope you get the blessedness of people who finally get through that offensiveness and break through. What a man.

He's not offended that we struggle with his offensiveness. He's not all upset about the fact that it's hard. He says, you know, here are some answers to questions. If you have any more, please come back. What a savior. What a man. Go to him. Let us pray.

Our father, we thank you for the gospel, and we thank you that we're able to look these few weeks together at what St. Paul has said that has changed so many lives, that's changed minds, and you've so many here. We ask that you would help us to break through, and we ask that you would help us to grasp the form, the content, and the power of the gospel

in such a way that we do, so that we, knowing that we're loved by you, since you're calling into a whole new life, we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. We pray you weren't encouraged by it. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelandlife.com.

That's gospelandlife.com. That's gospelonlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 2008 and 2009. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel on Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you