Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Search for God

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

It’s acceptable now to say, “I am spiritually searching.” But it’s not really acceptable to say you’ve found anything. But the Bible says you can find God. Not just search for God, but find God. And the famous passage about the burning bush, where Moses finds God, is very important—it gives you all of the basic principles for truly finding God. And until the same three things that happened to Moses happen to you, you can’t find God. Looking at this passage, we can see three stages: 1) the burning bush is a disrupting event, 2) when Moses gets closer he sees it’s an unmanageable power, and 3) in the midst of the burning bush, there’s an angel. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 4, 1998. Series: When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough. Scripture: Exodus 3:1-14. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Have you ever found yourself asking, What if nothing I do really lasts? Is this all there is? In today's podcast, Tim Keller looks at how Ecclesiastes helps us face our doubts, fears, and uncertainties, and points us to the lasting hope and significance we have in Christ. You can read from that with me. I'm going to read in Exodus chapter 1.

You have verses 1 to 11. I'm going to read all way down to 14. So when you get to the bottom of the page, just wait another 8 seconds, and it'll be over. Exodus chapter 3 verses 1 to 14. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horib, the mountain of God.

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that through the bush, that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight. why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush. Moses, Moses, and Moses said, here I am. What else do you say?

Anyway, I've always wondered. Do not come any closer, God said. Take off your sandals. For the place where you are standing is holy ground. Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At this, Moses hit his face because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out

because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amrites, Parasites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And now, the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.

But Moses said to God, who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? And God said, I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you, that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. And Moses said to God, suppose, I go to the Israelites and say to them, look, God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say,

they ask me, what is his name? What shall I tell them? God said, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. This is God's word. In the beginning here of the fall, we've been giving some concepts and some guidelines for people.

who are searching spiritually, and, you know, it's really, well, not everywhere, but it's certainly a plain fact that it's actually acceptable, even in a secular urban place like New York City, it's now acceptable to say, I am a spiritual searcher. I am spiritually searching. If you go to the Barnes & Noble and you look at all the new nonfiction books, which I did recently, there was something like 25% of the first shelf that I saw that had something to do with God, something to do with spirituality, something to do with soul, something to do. Here's some of the titles. Here are two of my favorite titles.

One is called Cyber Grace, Searching for God in a Digital Age. Searching for God. Okay, here's another one, not as funny, but same thing. besides still waters, and the subtitle was searching for meaning in an age of doubt. Now, as I read these, or surveyed them. Of course, in Barnes & Noble, you know, you can sit down and just read them and just stay there. But as I was surveying and reading them, I noticed something. And I noticed that the writers of these books are tremendously conflicted, if that's the right word. And here's where the conflict is. Though 10 years ago, even, certainly 20 years ago,

If you are a modern, sophisticated, secular, urban type person here in New York, it would not have been acceptable. It would not have been respectable to say, I'm a spiritual searcher. Today, it is very respectable. It's very almost noble. It's insightful. It's wise to say, I'm a spiritual searcher, but I've noticed when I read the book that it is not acceptable. It's acceptable to say I'm searching, but it's not acceptable to say I've found anything. It's one thing to say, I'm searching for God.

None of these books would be up on the shelf if they said finding God in an age of doubt, finding God in a digital age. That's what they're not talking about that. And what's intriguing is they're all in this kind of bind. It is a bind. They are searching with a tremendous fear of finding. Now, that's a terrible situation to be in. It would think it has to be far more comfortable to either search,

either not search or to find, but not to search, not wanting to find. And the reason for this is, I've been thinking about this, I'm looking at this thing, and I'm seeing what they say, and they feel, they say, well, I'm a spiritual searcher, but I'm not one of those people that say, I've found God. I'm not one of those people that believe you can have certainty anymore. Now, here's my belief on that. Here's my understanding from what I can tell, and sometimes it comes right out in the books. Most spiritual searchers have been involved in religious institutions. They were, many of them were raised in churches or synagogues or something else. They have some kind of religious background, and they found that inside religious

institutions, religious people are more angry, more insecure, more judgmental, more hypocritical. There's more fighting. There's more pride and prejudice going on inside religious institutions than outside. And religious people say, I found God. And we don't want to be like them. Now, I want to put it on the record right here that I agree that by and large, inside religious organizations, religious societies, and religious bodies, there is more insecurity, anger, there is more fighting, there is more brutality, there

is more abuse, there is more hypocrisy than I. outside. I will just come out and say yes. And therefore, it's perfectly understandable why people say, I'm searching, see, they're stuck between the smugness of the religious people they don't want and their own deep spiritual emptiness. They're stuck. Is there a way out? Yeah, I think there's a way out. The way out is this. First of all, you have to recognize a fallacy. And the fallacy is this. Let me put it to you this way. Imagine John Doe. He's always getting drunk. Why? Well, on Monday night he got drunk on gin and soda water.

On Tuesday night, he got drunk on vodka in soda water. On Wednesday night, he got drunk on bourbon and soda water. What is it that's making him drunk? Obviously, the common factor. Soda water. That must be what's making him drunk. Right? No. Of course not. And yet, here's a narrow person, and they think they found God. Here's an narrow person they think they found God.

Here's an hour of person. See, association is not causation. And for a person who's very narrow and condemning to say, I found God, doesn't mean at all that the judgmental attitude is caused by the conviction of finding God. And yet, that's the assumption. It could be that you see there's something else causing it. There's something else besides religious certainty that they found God. There might be some other cause.

And if that's true, and you get over that fallacy, you can finally go to the book, which is by far the most likely book to tell you something about God, and that's the Bible. In fact, if you go to the Old Testament where you have, you know, Judaism and Islam and Christianity, you put those three together and you have three quarters of the human race or something like that in terms of the people's tradition, if you go, if you take a look at all that, you see, they all take a look at the Old Testament and they all say, this is sacred. The only intelligent way to find out how do I find God is to go to the Bible first, at least. When you go to the Bible, you'll see the Bible says you can find God, not just search for God, but find God. And this particular passage that I read, where Moses finds God, is really very, very important

because it really gives you all the basic principles. There's three things that we see here. Not exactly three things. There's actually the same thing looked at more and more deeply. There's burning bush. At first, it's a distracting, disrupting sight. At first, all it is to Moses is a dishearting. disrupting sight. When he gets closer, he sees it's an unmanageable power. And when it gets even closer,

he sees there's a burning angel in the middle. And I would like to say to you, as you see each of these three, you are going to pass through the stages through which you have to go to find God. You have to see the same three things. You have to know and experience the same three things. What are they? I'll summarize at the end. Phenomenally, that means when I'm looking at it from the outside. First of all, we look at it and it's just a disrupting sight. It takes him out of his normal course of action. Then he goes in closer and he sees it's an unmanageable power. And then last of all, he sees there's a burning angel in the middle of it. Until you see all three things, until the same three things happened to you, you can't find God. Now, let's take a look at the

three things. Each one is a stage. First of all, the burning bush is a disrupting event. Now, what I mean by disrupting, notice it says, here in verse 3 and 4, says, Moses saw that though the bush was on fire did not burn up, so he said, I will go over and see it. And verse 4 says, the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, and then he spoke. Now, the word gone over is not a very good translation. This is one of the places where our translation, I think, fails us. Because we have a very specific word here that's used twice, and a much better translation would be, turn aside. It's a word that's used in Hebrew to mean go off the beaten path, go off the normal path,

go off the main road. Moses was just, what was he doing? He was just moving his flock around. He was doing his thing. He was in ordinary life. And unless something came to disrupt ordinary life, he would never have started to search for God. You know, Moses doesn't say, I think I'll search for God today. Something has to disrupt him and turn him aside from the normal path. because the Bible tells us ordinary life makes you too busy and disinclines you to search for God. What do I mean? Well, you know, C.S. Lewis and his book on the screw tape letters is a lot of fun. It's a fun thing to read if you've never read it.

It's a quick read. And it's a fiction book, I hope. And it's about a senior devil writing letters to his nephew, a junior devil who's still out on the tempting field. a senior devils named Screw Tape. Screw Tape is in retirement, sort of, at least he's up higher in the bureaucracy now of hell, and he's giving advice to his nephew, and he starts to tell his nephew one of the best ways to make sure that you're patient, he calls him, never falls into the clutches of the enemy, which, of course, is Jesus.

And here's what he says. He says, the trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the enemy's ground. By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason, and once it's awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular strain of thought can be twisted to end in our favor, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on that stream.

Teach him to call it real life, and don't let him ask what he means by real. Remember, he's not like you. He's not a pure spirit. You don't realize how enslaved these humans are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The enemy, of course, was at his elbow. Before I knew where I was, I saw my 20 years of great...

hard work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defense by argument, I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I immediately suggested. It was just about time he had some lunch. The enemy presumably made the counter suggestion. You know how one can never quite overhear what he says to them, that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been his line for when I said quite. In fact, it's much too important to tackle at the end of a morning. The patient brightened up considerably, and by the time I that had much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind. He was already halfway to the door.

Once he was in the street, the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper. I showed him a number 73 bus going past as usual. And before he reached the bottom of the steps, I had gotten into him the unalterable conviction that whatever odd ideas may come up into a man's head when he's shut up alone with his books. A healthy dose of real life, by which he meant the bus and the newsboy, I imagine,

was enough to show him that all that sort of thing just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape, and in later years was fond of talking about that inarticulate sense of actuality, which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic. He is now safe in our father's house below. We're never going to search for God as long as we're in ordinary life. We're just busy. We're just carried along. Sense experience keeps us from asking the question, why am I so busy?

What am I doing? What is it accomplishing? what's the purpose of it all? What is my life accompanying, you know, accomplishing? What is it all amounting to? We never asked that question. We're too busy in ordinary life. Something has to turn us aside. We'll never do it on our own. Something has to come and turn us aside or we're stuck. And what is that thing that has to turn us aside? It's got to be a burning bush. He turned aside and to see the strange sight. Now, what is a burning bush? The burning bush. The burning is something that contradicts the model or view of reality that you've got.

A burning bush is something that is actually a paradigm bomb. It comes inside your paradigm of what things should be like, and it explodes it. Now, I'll tell you how a burning bush works. The burning bush works like this. If such and such is true, which I think it is, then such things couldn't happen. But there's one of those things. Therefore, such and such can't be true.

Got that? See, I believe such and such. And if such and such, then this can't be, this can never happen. But this just happened. Therefore, such and such can't be true. That's a burning bush. See, in this case, if you're empiricist, if you're somebody who says, well, I just believe in what's here and now, I believe that everything has a natural cause.

I don't believe in the supernatural. I don't believe in mystical things. I just believe everything has a natural cause. Well, what's a burning bush? It's a contradiction. Because a bush is either burning and is disintegrating, or it's cold and it's intact, but this is a bush that burns and is not consumed. And that means that there's something more to life and reality. If you don't have a supernaturalist view of reality, the burning bush

is a paradigm bomb. If this world is all there is, then burning bushes can't happen. A burning bush has happened. Therefore, there must be something more. To my view, my review of reality has to change. Now, a burning bush is the only thing that ever gets us out of ordinary life and makes us turn aside. And think about it and concentrate on it and ask the big questions. Now, what form is going to Burning Bush come in? Oh, my, many, many forms, many forms. Let me give you four quick ones, but they're very important. I mean, this is one of the main things that this tells us.

You'll never find God just by abstractly one day saying, I think it's about time. I'm 35. I should go find God. That'll never happen. You're stuck in the stream of ordinary life. Something's got to turn you aside, and these are the things that turn you aside. Let me give you a quick example. four. One is an inexplicable person can be a burning bush. One of my favorite illustrations

on this is a woman who, this actually is in a book somewhere. I have to go find it. But there's a woman who told how she'd come to Redeemer back in the early days when Redeemer was rather small. She was someone who never thought much about religion, wasn't interested in religion, but she worked for a TV network in town, and she had a boss. And one day she screwed up. and if she, she could have easily lost her job, but the boss took the blame for her fallout. He was able to keep his job with that kind of thing, but she probably would not have been able to keep it. And she was amazed. She said she had a number of bosses who would shift the blame to her, you know, but she'd never had a boss who took the blame from her.

And she was just astounded. And so she went and she thanked him, but then she kept pushing it. You know, why would you do that? And that was awfully nice. Why would you do that? He tried to put her off a little bit and say, well, thank you. And no, no, it's just something anybody would do. And she's, no, I don't think.

And finally, she says, all right, I'm a Christian. And she said, what's that got to do with it? He says, well, you know, he says, well, you see, in other religions, you know, God does this and that. But in our religion, our God actually came and took the blame. My Savior took the blame for me, and therefore I can take the blame for other people. Now, this was a paradigm bomb because in her mind, Religion made people blamers.

That's the only kind of person she'd ever see that got religious. Blamers. You never thought of a religion that could turn you into a taker of blame. You never saw that. And suddenly she says, maybe this religion is different. Maybe this person is different. She says, where do you go to church? And it was Redeemer, and she started coming.

So she had a model, and it blew it up. Let me give you another example. Another kind of Burning Bush is not an inexplicable person, but an inexplicable train of thought. Now, what I mean by that is a lot of secular people are starting to become spiritual searchers because they're starting to think out the implications of what it means to be a secular person, to believe that there's really no eternity, there's no supernatural, there's no heaven, everything is just an accident, everything is just matter, everything is matter in motion, everything is chemistry and biology and physics, that's it.

And a lot of people are beginning to say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Jack Miles, in his lead article in the 97 December, New York Times magazine, whole issue on spiritual searching, that's the one, the title of it was, religion makes a comeback, belief to follow. And you see, the title of that shows exactly what I said in the beginning. People are searching, but they're searching for belief. they're searching and they're hungry, but we're not really ready to find yet. But this is what he says. This is terrific. He says, can a postmodern path be open for thinking people to religion that they can practice? If the answer is yes, see, he's careful, I suspect the first step on the

path will be the religious reflection on the secular loss of faith. Secular loss of faith. Now listen to this. He says, a man or woman who turns to religion may not do so to acknowledge the mystery of God or religion, but to acknowledge the mystery in response to which their religion has come into being, namely the felt necessity mysterious in itself to live a moral life even when the grounds of morality cannot be known. Now, I mean, it's a little hard, unless you've read the whole paragraph in the column. Here's what he's saying. He says, we are secular people, and therefore there shouldn't be such a thing as morality. There shouldn't be, there's no moral absolutes. I mean, it's all a matter of opinion. There's no such thing as beauty. It's all a

matter of chemistry. There's no way to say that human beings are more valuable than rocks or trees or salamanders because we're just all, we're just accidents. But he says, if my worldview that this life is all there is true, then there can't be such a thing as human value, there can't be such a thing as beauty, there can't be such a thing as real injustice, but there is. And I'm seeing that I have to live a moral life, even though my secular worldview gives me no basis for it. Now, you see what's going on? If you're willing to think, see, this guy is completely out of screw tapes control. This guy is thinking.

This guy is not looking at the 73 bus. He's starting to think. He says, wait a minute. If secularism is true, then there can't be injustice. There can't be real love. There can't be beauty. People really aren't valuable, but they are. And that means that everything almost he's looking at is becoming a burning bush.

And he's going back and saying, if my premises lead me to a conclusion I know is not true, then I have to go back and check the premises. Maybe there is a God. You may know the story of the prodigal son, but it's not just about a wayward younger brother. In fact, Jesus tells this story to speak both to those who run from God and to those who try to earn his love by being good. In his book, The Prodigal God, Tim Keller shows how this well-known story, story reveals the heart of the gospel, a message of hope for both the rebellious younger brother

and the judgmental older brother, and an invitation for all to experience God's prodigal extravagant grace. Whether you're a Christian or you're still exploring faith, the prodigal God will help you see your relationship with Christ in a whole new way. The prodigal God is our thank you for your gift this month to help gospel in life share the hope and joy of Christ's gracious and relentless love with people all over the world. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching.

So an inexplicable train of thought can be a burning bush. Thirdly, an inexplicable trouble. Now, what do I mean by that? Troubles are our burning bushes. Oh, my. And here's why. And this is especially, no offense. This is especially relevant for a crowd that,

with so many young people in it. Because especially in a place like New York, and who comes to New York? Young people come to New York. You're the people that work out. You're the people with good grades. You're the people who have really got your ducks in a row. You're the people who have come here and you're saying,

I'm going to work out and I'm going to work real hard and I've got this plan, I've got that plan, and I can master life, you know? Come on, world, I'm ready. And you've got a little paradigm, and the paradigm is, If I really, really work hard, if I'm really wise, I'm really careful, if I'm really savvy, I will be able to handle life. Life is manageable. Oh, no, it's not.

And when some, you know, you see yourself as big and life is little, and all of a sudden the troubles hit you, and you suddenly think, see of yourself as some little teeny thing beside the huge mountain of reality, and you begin to realize that the trouble is a burning bush that is smashing your little model of reality, namely that you're competent to run your own life. That you're wise enough and strong enough to be able to just handle normal life. Most of us think that way until a little trouble comes. You can't do it by yourself. You can't be your own Savior. You can't be your own Lord. Here's the last one. Burning Bush can be an inexplicable person, can be an inexplicable train of thought, can be an inexplicable trouble, but it also

can be an inexplicable emptiness. Now, we actually, if you were here last week, we talked about this. We had an open forum and we talked about success. And I made a reference to one of my favorite quotes is a column by Cynthia Heimel in the Village Voice some years ago, in which she talked about the fact that she knew an awful lot of people who had been not famous and they became famous. She knew a lot of movie stars before they became famous. And she found out after they became famous, they got to be extremely angry, extremely upset, extremely manic, extremely depressed. And here's a part of her article I didn't read last week. She says, I believe that when God wants to play a really rotten joke on you, he grants you your deepest wish and then giggles merrily as you suddenly realize you want to kill yourself.

Now, you know why she says that? She says that everybody she knows who's ever gotten their fondest dreams, and there's not that many. People who've dreamt of fame, they get it, dreamt of wealth, they get it, dreamt of some kind of success they get it. She says, the few people she knows go berserk because they think that that is what surely is going to fulfill them and it didn't. That's surely what's going to make them feel good about themselves and it doesn't. That's surely what's going to really make life great now and it hasn't. And as a result, they suddenly realize, oh my gosh, there is a vacuum in me huge and their paradigm

and that is that this is salvation, this is what life's about, completely is destroyed. success and the emptiness that always comes with success is the, maybe the most powerful of all of the burning bushes, you see? But you have to have one, or you'll never find God. They've got to come in. And notice they're almost all unpleasant, unless your boss takes, you know, saves your job. That's the best kind. But they tend to be very unpleasant. They tend to be full of storm and drong, you know, they really are very, very hard. And so listen, When they come, here's what I suggest. Those of you who are searching, it could be that this has happened to you.

It could be that you're in the very beginning. Something like this has come into your life and you've turned aside. Good. Would you please turn aside? What does it mean to turn aside? What if Moses had looked at his watch and said, I've got to get the flock home by 8 o'clock. You never would have heard of Moses. He never would have met God. Why?

Because he was in ordinary life. He was just in a stream. You have to turn aside. You have to spend time. You have to spend time. You have to read. You have to think you have to become vulnerable to a degree because you've got to talk to somebody about these things. And, boy, who knows, you know, what that will lead to.

You've got to turn aside. You've got to give it time. You've got to. You've got to make room. Oh, do. Now, Christians, if you say, well, this isn't about me, is it? Oh, of course it is. And here's why.

I know you're not going to want to hear this, but here it is. The way to find more of God always happens on the same principles. on the same principles on which you find God. In other words, the same principles for finding more of God are the principles on which you find God, which means if you're just sort of moving along in the ordinary stream of life as a Christian, you're never going to get deeper unless something comes in and smashes the little paradigms. And the reason why we are not growing, the reason we are not more like Christ, is not simply that we need to try harder.

Always the reason why we're not more like Christ is because our understanding of the gospel, our understanding of Jesus, our understanding of what the Bible teaches about God is faulty. We read it, we think we understand it. In other words, the average Christian says, Jesus is my meaning in life. I am a Christian. I'm born again.

I'm a Christian. Jesus is my meaning in life. And then along comes some kind of career failure. And you're ready to slit your throat. And what does that mean? You thought Jesus was your meaning in life. You thought Jesus was your righteousness, that Jesus was your honor and your glory. You thought that you were saved by what Jesus has done, not by what you're doing.

And then along comes this little paradigm bomb and blows it up. And that's just not been the case at all. You thought you were depending on God and then along comes some kind of burning bush. Or you thought you understood God. And then suddenly something happens. You say, God should never let such a thing have. happen? Well, in your view of God, that could never, nothing like that should ever happen, but it happened. It's happened. There it is. The burning bush. You see? And because it's there, that means

your view of God is wrong. Don't get mad at God. Realize it's your view of God. It's your model of reality. There is no way to find more of God without doing it in the same way you found God to start with. Secondly, after he turns aside, and he comes to on in, he realizes that God has something to say to him. Now, a lot of people turn aside and they start to come in, but they don't hear this. And here's the best way to put this. It's a little contradiction, a little contradiction that always gets you into a search mode. It's these contradictions of, you know, persons or troubles or intellectual trains of thought and so on. But the way you know you're right at the threshold of actually finding God is when

you come to see the big contradiction. Little contradictions lead you to a big contradiction. And here's the big contradiction. Unless you've felt this, unless you've wrestled with this, unless this is borne down on you, you're not going to meet the real God. And the big contradiction is this. He speaks to Moses, and this is what he says. Moses, Moses, do not come any closer. Now that is an incredible contradiction. Why? I'll tell you why. On the one hand, And then on the other hand, first of all, Moses, Moses. Now, in English, this doesn't seem to work because we say, Moses, Moses, okay, what does that mean? In Hebrew, the doubling of a word means magnitude.

In the Old Testament, there's many places where in your translations, you're reading the Old Testament in English, and it'll say things like Great Pits. They fell into the Great Pits. That's not like in Genesis 18 or something. They fell into Great Pits. But if you're actually reading in Hebrew, it'll say the Pit Pits. pits. Because in Hebrew, the way to say big pits is to say pit pits. Okay? And when you double a proper name, like when David doesn't just say Absalom, but it says, Absalom, Absalom,

my son, my son, when Jesus says Simon, Simon, Satan wanted to have you and sift you like wheat, when Jesus says Martha, Martha, the doubling of a name means emotional intensity, magnitude of relationship. Now, it always means I want to have a relationship with you. It always means love. It always means intensity. Now, are you starting to figure this out? When Moses walks up, God says, I want you closer. Go away. Moses, Moses, don't come any closer. Now, wait a minute. You see? He's saying, come closer. Stop. Take off your shoes. This is holy ground. What's going on here?

On the one hand, he's being told, I am a holy God. That's the reason why the God is a God of fire. Fire means holiness, fire means justice, fire means majesty. Fire means I am what I am, not what you want me to be. When Moses said, what is your name? God did not say, my name is, I am what you want. No. What God said to Moses is, I am what I am. You see, if his name was I am what I want, it wouldn't have been fiery, but it would have been clay. You can do what do you want with him.

People are constantly doing this. They start right out saying this. They say, well, I just am looking for God. You got your faith, and that's good for you. And it helps you, that's fine for you. And it's true for you. But if I can find a faith, I need a faith, it's true for me. And so when they ask me, well, I'm interested in being a Christian. Now, do Christians believe this? I mean, if I become a Christian, well, I have to do this, and this, I don't want to have to do this, and I don't want to have to do this. Now, you know what's going on? That's a clay god.

That's not a fiery God. What you're looking for is a God that fits you instead of a God that you fit. You see, in clay, it's molded by the toucher, but fire melts the touchee. I mean, the toucher comes in and touches clay, and of course the clay gives to the toucher. toucher. But fire, if you touch the fire, turns you to clay. And what God is saying right off the bat is, if you want the real God, you've got to look for a God that can contradict you. If you want the real God, you've got to look for a God. You have to be willing to see a God who's going to tell you things you don't want to hear. When somebody says, let me go right out,

But when somebody says, you know, I've got a girlfriend, I got a boyfriend, I don't want to be a Christian if it means getting in the way of that. Now, here's what you're saying. It's an utter contradiction. You're in the stream of life, so you're not being logical. So let me get you out. What you're saying is, I know who I am before I even know who he is. I haven't even met God, but I know what I need. I haven't even met God, but I know what my needs are. How could you know who you are before you even met him if he's the creator? If there is a creator, if there is a creator, if he's a creator, if he's a He's done all this. Which means you can't even begin to search for this God, a real God, without taking your shoes off. You see, God doesn't say, I want to meet you, and then you can take your shoes off. He says, you're not even going to meet me until you take your shoes off first. And what that means, you have got to say, God, if you're there, I am willing to do things that right now I don't like. And if you're not willing to say that, and most modern people are not,

then what you've actually done is you're saying, I'm looking for God, but you're not looking for God. You're not looking for a real God. Reality is not what you want it to be. Don't you know that by now? Reality is always itself. You can't really change. I mean, you know, all right. Guy, you're 125 pounds, and you're 5'6, and you're working out, you're never really.

going to play professional football. I don't care. Never. You can do everything you want. You're just not going to be able to do it. You probably won't even be able to be a kicker. But certainly not going to be the linebacker you've always dreamt to be. Reality is there. And if there, see, I mean, if somebody comes to you and says, I want to get to know you, you say, fine. So, well, I like to think of you as a demanding, domineering person. You say, how dare you? You don't even really want to know who I am. You can't get to know me by just saying, I want to think, but now look what you've done. When a person says, I don't want to find a God who won't let me do this or that, and I don't want to be a narrow person.

What you're really saying is, I refuse to give to God the same deference I demand from anybody else who wants to get to know me. See, unless you take your shoes off from the beginning, that means unless you're willing to find a God who tells you things you don't want to hear and demands things that you don't want to do, You haven't even begun to search. You can't start the search objectively and then hope that somehow will find a God. You've got to start out by saying, God, if you're there, I'm willing to agree that you may be holy. You may be fire. Now, I've said that, and you say, wait a minute, if that's the case, oh, my goodness, I'm my goodness, I don't want a God like that. But now, the same God who says, stay back, I'm holy, don't just walk into me.

Don't just be casual with the spirit of curiosity, you see, show some deference, show some respect, be willing to surrender, to even find me. But then he's also the God who says, Moses, Moses, you know, or your name here, whatever your name is. He says, I want you in. I want to be part of you. I want to come close. In fact, the very statement, Moses, Moses, stay away, is a burning bush. It's an utter contradiction.

What God is saying is, I want to have my holiness in you. Well, how can God's holiness come in me? How can this great, majestic thing come down into me? You see what God is, you see what the burning bush is? The burning bush is the contradiction at the heart of biblical religion, and that is the true God insists that he is not really holy and maybe a little loving. or not really loving and maybe a little holy, but he's absolutely holy and he's absolutely loving. He is a burning bush.

He is an utter contradiction, and everybody else in the world refuses to listen to who he is. Religious people say he's really holy, and we can get to heaven by trying our best and doing good. In other words, they emphasize the holiness and not the grace, and that's the reason why we don't like them. and that's the reason why basically they don't have a god that they really enjoy but a god of drudgery and they don't even have a god they can really get passionate for because they have a god that you can control you have a tame god if you think you can earn your way to heaven that's not a fiery god that's a very tame god you've bought him off but on the other hand the other people don't look at the holiness they look at the love modern people love the idea of a god who just accepts us

you know, Mr. Rogers God, right? I love you just the way you are. And I just love and accept you. And that also is not a fiery God. That is a sentimental God. And you're not going to get, you don't get passionate about that. A person who says, God is holy and he occasionally forgives, you're not filled with joy to God like that. Or God who says, yes, he accepts me just the way I am. And there's no cost of his love and you're not accepting. There is no fire unless he, both equally. Do you see the contradiction? If you insist on going truth or love and not keeping them together, if you insist on saying, I believe in a God who's really basically demanding God, or I believe in a God who's a completely loving, accepting God of everybody, if you go either way,

you'll never see the true God. Because the true God is a fiery God who says, I want a relationship of love with you. This is the reason why Jesus says, we pipe the flute for you and you would not dance, and we sang a dirge for you and you would not mourn. Christianity is far more optimistic and pessimistic, far higher and lower. God says, I am the holy God, but I come down. See verse 8 in mercy? Christianity is far more demanding in what God does than any other religion

and far more loving and far more gracious in what God does than any other religion. No other religion has a God that holy who says be perfect or he won't get to heaven. God says that in the Bible. No other religion says that. But on the other hand, no other religion has a God who comes down. And that's the solution. The little contradictions will bring you to God. The big contradiction will be in front of you. Don't leave that. Don't ever compromise. Don't ever move away from what it says. But what's the solution? How can that holiness come into my life? And the answer is, in the midst of the burning bush, there's an angel. Not an angel. I'm sorry. Did I say an angel? Very important in the Old Testament. Whenever you see an angel and anybody tries to worship an angel, the angel always says, get up. I'm a creature just like yourself. But in the Old Testament, there's a very mysterious figure who is called the angel of the Lord. Verse 2, there the angel of the Lord appeared in flames of fire.

Now, how is it possible that this contradiction can be brought together? And the answer, is, the Lord spoke through the angel. There was a mediator in the bush. The angel was in the bush, and yet the Lord spoke through the bush. What? Through the mediator? There was this figure, this mysterious figure. But this mediator was in the midst of the fire. Why? We know the answer. All through the Old Testament, God says, the way you can live with a holy God and have a personal relationship with me is if someone substitutes and takes your punishment. And so over and over and over again, sacrifices were made into the fire of God's holiness. When you were guilty, you made a sacrifice and you asked for forgiveness. And there was a substitute. Something was slain and put into the

fire. But the New Testament tells us why. Because there was one who went in and by one sacrifice threw himself into the fire. He was consumed. so that we will not have to be consumed. And because Jesus Christ was consumed by the holy wrath of God, we are able to become burning bushes ourselves. Do you know what a burning bush is? A burning bush is someone with the holiness of God in us, but it doesn't destroy us.

You know what that means? A Christian is someone filled with power, personality and dwelling personality. Secondly, a Christian is someone with beauty. In fact, there is no better picture of what Martin Luther called the card of the gospel, similustis et peccator, simultaneously when you become a Christian, because Jesus Christ has died for you, you are simultaneously just and sinful. Simultaneously, you're beautiful but a bush.

You know, not a giant redwood sequoia. You know, when you become a Christian, you become a sequoia, you become a burning bush. You're still a bush. You're still a sinner. And yet, you're clothed with the righteousness of Jesus. You're filled with the beauty of Jesus. You know, that is what's possible. And it will only be possible, and you will only turn into a passionate, burning, heart person.

If you see not just he's a God of truth or just a God of love, but to see the law by Christ fulfilled and hear his pardoning voice, transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice. Do you understand? let the little contradictions drive you to the big contradiction, and then stay with that. If this is the first time you've heard of it tonight, I can tell you this. You probably don't get it yet. I wasn't that clear. There wasn't enough time, but I tell you, please turn aside. And Christian friends, realize this, if you need to get your bush burning again, go back and see what Jesus did.

Go back and see him consumed in the fire. go back and see that because he was burned and consumed, we can burn and not be consumed with the holy power of God. To the degree you see that, to the degree you see him burning in the bush, you'll become a bush that burns and is not consumed. Let's pray. We ask, Father, that you'd help us to apply these things. A lot of us are actually suffering right now, and we're just grumpy about it.

We're just mad about it, instead of seeing that this is your way of turning us aside with contradictions and bringing us into the heart of the great contradiction, which is that the law was fulfilled by your love in Jesus Christ. We ask that you would change our hearts with these things and apply them to our lives through Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps.

helped you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelonlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Gospel and Life quarterly journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1998.

The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.