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

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

When you go on a spiritual search, there are problems people always run into. One of them is the problem of pain. But there’s also the problem of pleasure. I don’t think I’ve ever really talked to anybody who said, “I have trouble believing in God because of pleasure. Why is there pleasure in the world?” But my thesis, and the Ecclesiastes writer’s thesis, is that it should bother you, because pleasure is a huge problem.  The Ecclesiastes writer teaches us three things about pleasure: 1) what pleasure promises, 2) why it fails, and 3) how it points beyond. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 20, 1998. Series: When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough. Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:1–11, 3:10–14. 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. The book of Ecclesiastes is very, very difficult, and I'm actually teaching it to try to give you overviews.

I think if anybody says, oh, this is great, and sit down and just read it through one time, you're just going to say, what in the world is this doing in the Bible? And we said last week that one of the reasons for this, one of the reasons for its difficulty, there are a number of them, and I can't go into all of them every time. I'm not here to give you a survey of Ecclesiastes,

as much as I'm here to give you to pull out some basic themes that I think are relevant to us today. But Ecclesiastes is the only book of the Bible that's written from the viewpoint of a skeptic, someone who is looking at life without God, someone who's seeking after truth and who's not standing in the place of a person who believes. Now, one of the reasons why it's a little difficult is because in the very beginning and at the very end and a couple of places in the middle, it seems like the writer steps away from his doubt and begins to make comments. And the reason for that, just to show my hand here is my best understanding of what's going on is that this is a piece of work. It's a brilliant piece of art. And it was also very typical in Old Testament times in ancient times and in that part of the world. for a person to make a point by essentially taking on a role.

In the very beginning, in the very end, the author talks about this ecclesiastes, this teacher, this commentator. It talks about him in the third person. And then suddenly in chapter 1, verse 12, he goes into the first person and say, I, the teacher, I did this, and I did this, and I did this. And then at the very end, he comes back out and says, what have we learned? Because what he's doing is he's, this is a man who is a believing person, who believes in God, but he goes into a role and explores what it's like and explores the doubts

and the skepticism and difficulties of someone who's searching. And that's one of the reasons actually why sometimes it's a little tough to interpret unless you understand that. But on the other hand, it's also one of the reasons why it's so relevant. In December of 97, the New York Times Magazine had a whole Arctic, a whole issue on it was called God decentralized, the lead article's subtitle was, even people without faith are searching for God. And when major newspapers and major magazines who are written and produced by editors and managers and reporters who we know are, generally speaking, much less religious than the

mainstream, when those places start to devote whole issues on a revival of religious seeking and religious searching, then it just must be true. It must be happening. And I agree with them, and I agree with that particular issue, that there is not yet, I don't think, a revival of religious finding. There's not a revival of spiritual finding. You know, the churches in the synagogues of the country have not doubled in size. That's a revival.

But there is a huge revival of religious searching, maybe not finding, but searching, absolutely. And this is the only book written from the viewpoint of a searcher. Now, when you go on a spiritual search, there are certain things that people always run into. Last week, we looked at one of them that the Ecclesiastes writer talks about, and that is pain. What do we do about pain? What do we do about the problem of pain? You know, there's a book called The Problem of Pain. In fact, there's lots of books that are essentially on the problem of pain.

What do we do about the evil and suffering and injustice of the world? But this week, there's another problem that you have to deal with of your spiritual search. seeker, and he brings this up, and he looks at it, and here's what he says. Let's read it. Ecclesiastes 2, 1 to 11, and then a section, just a little later, chapter 3, verses 10 to 14, I'll read them together. So I thought in my heart, come now. I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good, but that also proved to be meaningless. Laughter, I said, is foolish, and what does pleasure accomplish? I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly. My mind still guided me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile

for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives. I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water, groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I massed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers in a harem as well, the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all my wisdom, in all this, my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing, my eyes desired. I refused my heart,

no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun. I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and to do good while they live, that everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil. This is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever. Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will

revere him. Now, what's the other problem? I said, there's a problem of pain, but when you go out and looking at life, there's another problem out there. I know we don't tend to think of it as a problem, but it is. It's a spiritual problem. Same way. See, when you look at evil and suffering, When we look at pain, it's a tremendous puzzle we saw last week, but there's pointers to God in it. However, this week we're looking at the problem of pleasure, not the problem of pain. Now, you know, I know if I talk to people about God, what do you think about God? Ah, I've got a real problem with God. What's that problem?

Well, pain, evil and suffering. I don't think I've ever really talked to anybody who said, yeah, I have a lot of trouble believing in God. Well, I have a pleasure. Why is there pleasure in the world? Why is pleasure the way it is? But my thesis tonight and his thesis tonight is it should bother you because pleasure is a huge problem. For some of you tonight, there's no...

And you know who you are, probably already. It's the biggest problem in your life. Now, maybe you don't know who you are until we get through it, but some of you know right away. Pleasure is a puzzle. Pleasure is a problem, and pleasure has a lot of pointers in it. Now, what he teaches us is three things here, and I'm going to put it this way. He teaches us what pleasure, what it promises, how it fails, actually what it promises,

why it fails, and how it points beyond. Okay, that's what it clearly, it's basically what he does all the way through in every one of his themes, but what it promises, why it fails, and how it points beyond. First of all, what it promises. Here in verse of one to three, it gives us something that's really very, very intriguing. He says, so I thought in my heart, come now, I'll test you with pleasure to find out what is good. So I tried cheering myself with wine, embracing folly. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

Now, this is important. Look at the word, come now. He doesn't go into his project, which is to live for pleasure, until, now. Well, what happened before? See, he's coming out of something that he did in chapter one, and I didn't print it for you, and we don't have it in front of us. Let me read it to you. He's already been through something, and then he turns to pleasure. That's very important to understand what he's saying. In chapter one, he says, I devoted myself to study and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. But when I saw all things under the sun, I saw all of them

are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow and the more knowledge, the more grief. Now, here's what he did. He did not decide at first to live for pleasure. He said, I am going to use my mind and go look at life. And I'm going to figure out what the meaning of life is and what the purpose of life is and really what life's about and why things happen that they do. Now, remember, and I read it to you, and we mentioned this last week, he said, I looked at life to try to understand life under the sun. And the word under the sun, which shows up again and again in the book of Ecclesiastes, tells us he's looking at life like a practical secular person. He's looking at life, as John Lennon says, you know, imagine,

no heaven, no hell, no eternity, just this life, living for today. And he says, if that's all we have, we don't know what comes before, we don't know the after, if that's what, if that's all we have, he went there to try to figure out what the meaning of life was. And he, what did he decide? What did he determine? What did he conclude? He concluded. He concluded. if this life all there is, there are no answers to the big questions. If this life is all there is, there's no answers to the big questions. What are we here for? What are we for?

What is our purpose? What is right and wrong? What is the absolute moral standard? What is truth? Where do we go when we die? There are no answers. And that's when he turns to pleasure. Now, this is very important.

When he looks at life as it is and comes and says there are no answers, and then he turns to pleasure, he's recapitulating Western history. Because first of all, you should know that those of us who live in America or Europe, live in what we call Western society, increasingly it's broader than America and Europe because of technology. But in Western society, we are the first society whose cultural leaders as a whole have said, There are no answers I mean, there's never been a society that wasn't built on some kind of religion or philosophy that said, here are the answers.

It could have been Buddhist, it could be Shinto, it can be, it can be Islam, it can be Christianity, can Judaism, something. But we're really the first one, even, and I would just say, what about communism? No, sorry, communism also believed. They know the answers. They know where history is going. They know what you're supposed to be doing. They know it. They understand, right?

They give the answers. Now, they're all maybe different, you know, they contradict. They can't all be right. But here's the thing. We're the only one who actually says there are none. This life is all there is. When you die, that's it. We have no idea why we're here. And we're building a civilization on that. Now, what happens when you do that? I'll tell you, let me give you a little vignette. Actually, we have a little vignette right here, but let me give you another one. In radio days, I think that's the name of God. The Woody Allen movie Radio Days. Early in the beginning of the movie, a little, a boy goes to class, and this will teach you to go to science class now, he goes to class and he hears something and he's just, he's just distraught, he's depressed, he, you know, he's just, he's going crazy. And the mother has to drag him to a counselor and sits him down, and the counselor says, what's going on? And the little boy says, you know, he's about eight or nine years old, and I guess it's been a week or two now since he discovered this, but he says, do you know that the universe is expanding? Do you realize that eventually everything's going to burn up?

Do you realize everything's going to be over? What's the use of doing anything? Now, what does the counselor say? In any other civilization, the counselor would say, that's just not true. There's plenty of reason. This is not all there is. There's right, there's wrong, there's God, there's eternity, there's, you know, what they're saying?

But the counselor can't. say anything to him because he's right. However, he's also crazy. And if he persists in that, in this society, we'll call him crazy. Why? G.K. Chesterden said, in our society, insanity, insane people are not illogical. In our society, insane people are only logical. In other words, this little boy was saying, I am a lot of the way. I am a little bit of understand finally from school what life's about. There's no answers. Everything's going to burn up. Nothing means anything. In the end, it makes no difference what I do. Everything is going to be over. See, he's being logical, and that's why he's on the verge of being put away. Because, you see,

there's never been a civilization that had a set of non-answers to the basic questions. Every other society, though, maybe they're wrong. I mean, from my viewpoint, as a Christian, some of them definitely are wrong. they were there. And therefore, there was no danger of people going insane by simply logically taking out what the culture says about the reality. This little boy's ready to go crazy. So what do they say to him? What do you say to anybody that starts talking like that? Lighten up. Eat an ice cream cone. Play a game of ball. And if he was a little older, they say, you know, go out, you know, kiss a girl. girl, you know, have sex, climb a mountain. Look at the view. You know, smell the roses. Come on. And what are

they saying? Now, that just sounds like, yeah, yeah, you know what it is? They're turning to pleasure for what? Look at verse three. For a sense of being worthwhile. The reason in our society, when you don't have anything bigger than yourself to live for, when you don't know what truth is, when you have no cause worth dying for, you're not dying for your family, You're not dying for the truth. You're not dying for nation. You're not dying for God. You know, there is nothing bigger than you. Therefore, there are no answers to the questions. What do we do? Since there's no objective meaning, we try to manufacture subjective meaning. Because our wisdom shows us that things are meaningless, therefore we turn to pleasure.

But we're not pleasure now becomes very complicated. We expect pleasure. We see a promise here that is much there's more going on here than pleasure in our society by and large we are not just going after pleasure i mean rats go after pleasure rats have sex and it's just about sex but when we have sex is not just the physical experience also what starts to happen you start to say i'm loved i'm valued my life is worthwhile See, that's what verse 3 is about. He turned to pleasure, not for pleasure. He turned to pleasure to deal with the fact that he had nothing bigger to live for.

And he wasn't looking just for pleasure. He wasn't looking just for sex. He was looking to, he wanted to have that. I know this is on tape. There's a physical orgasm and there's a spiritual orgasm. The physical is a matter of, you know, certain chemicals. hitting the hypothalamus. But the spiritual is to say,

life is worthwhile. My life, there's love. Ah, all right, Bernstein says when he listens to Beethoven's fifth, he doesn't just tap his feet. I mean, you know, you listen to music, you can't help it. There's a physical thing about music, you know. You listen to music, you know, what is that? What's going on there? That's physical. It's neurological. Your neurological system is...

You on the tape, I just made funny rhythmic, you know, I don't know what, the people on the tape are going to figure what are you laughing. I was just sort of making funny rhythmic movements. I'm just trying to be thoughtful. Beethoven says, pardon me, Bernstein says, when I hear Beethoven, I feel that something is right in the world, something is right in the universe, something checks out, something that obeys its own laws consistently, something that will never let us down. You know that quote, one of my favorite quotes. But what is he saying? My life is worthwhile. I was reading, back in July, there was a New York Times Magazine article called Lux Populi, not Vox Populi.

And it was about the fact that luxury items are being sold, very expensive luxury items. Instead of just being sold to people who live in just a few rich people someplace, they're being sold everywhere. People are putting out an incredible amount of money for luxury items. And at one point, one of the people who makes these luxury items, you know, was being interviewed and said, they asked, you know, look, okay, your sweaters are 20 times more expensive than the next, you know, sweater, are your sweaters really 20 times better than the next competitor? And what does he say? He said, we sell dreams, he explained. When you see one of our boutiques and you go in and you buy lipstick or you buy this or that,

it has the dream in it. Now, what is he saying? What a nice euphemistic way of putting it. But he's right. there's something more than pleasure going on here there's something more than the feel of probably you know his his sweaters probably are incredibly comfortable but there's something much different there's a just like it's sex is not about sex now and music is not about music

what he's really saying is you buy that sweater so you know my life is worthwhile you're manufacturing subjective meaning but let us be clear what's going on in a society that has no object of meaning, there is going to be a kind of freneticness about pleasure. And really, I'm not sure we can ever say that there has ever been a society. I mean, society has always had its pleasures?

But has there ever been a society that puts the metabolism and entertainment into sexual activity into material, you know, luxuries that we do? There's never been one. Maybe the Greco-Roman world as it was beginning to fall apart. But that's also because, just like the Eccasiasis guys. says here, it was because they had lost their ability to believe in any objective, any objective meaning, and so they had to turn. And therefore, they turned to pleasure, not just for pleasure, but a sense of worth-wileness. Now, before I move on, you understand, let me apply this to you

personally. What does it mean to live a life of pleasure? A lot of you don't think you're doing it, because, you see, one of the things here is in the very beginning, and it says, laughter is foolish. See, verse two, and what does pleasure accomplish? Now, laughter and pleasure, two Hebrew words, they're not really synonyms. Laughter really means a kind of orgy. Laughter means, you know, to lose your discernment. Whereas pleasure, the second word, has more of a sense of refinement, aesthetics. And you see, one is, you know, whole hard, full-throated, party and orgy.

The other is refinement. You know, one is get smashed, the other one is by art. But let me tell you, he is saying they are the same. They are the same. 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 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. When it comes right down to it, I don't know whether you are having a lot of sex or whether you're just, whether you just have a job that you hate, because it's not doing anything productive or anybody, but it's making enough money. So someday you'll be able to do the things you want to do. That's the same thing as a person that's partying all the time. You see, there's the downtown and the uptown approach to hedonism, but you see, there's Ophra Winfrey and there's Jerry Springer, but it's the same.

What is the bottom line in your life? Do you have anything worth dying for? You have anything that you'd go to the mat for? is there any truth that this is the bottom line or really is it comfort affluence is it good feeling see is it is it sensory pleasure if you do that you're not doing it just for pleasure you're looking to get a life you're looking to get a sense of worthwhileness and it's going to fail that's the second point the first point is what it promises the second point he gives us and shows us, is it fails and explains why. Now, one of the things it's important to understand,

and boy, this is very powerful. This is not a regular guy. No, it isn't. First 10, I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. Now, what's that? I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. Now, there's only 99.99% of people cannot say that. All of us deny ourselves all sorts of things our eyes desire, mainly because we don't have the money or the power to take them. And because of that, most of us are going down this path, and pleasure is our bottom line, and it is the main thing we're living for, even though, by and large, you know, unless we're party-hardy types, we kind of really, really hide that from ourselves. I'm trying to, trying to reveal this to some of you here tonight. But it's that if you're going down that

path and you're empty, instead of saying there's something wrong with the path, we have a tendency to say it's because I haven't gone far enough. If I had better, if I could build that house in the lake, if I could have a better love life, if I could just lose weight. In other words, because you haven't gone far enough down, that's the reason why you feel like you're empty. You're blaming yourself when it's the path. And what's so very powerful about this, when he is depicting himself as the great, the greatest, one of the 0.001% who actually was able to do anything he wanted, to satisfy any sensory pleasure. Now, somebody says, well, how do I know that really happened?

You kind of made me wonder, is this person really a king, or was he taking the role of a king? It doesn't matter. Here's what he's trying to say. I challenge you, look at the lives of the people who are in that point zero, zero one percent. Read their biographies, read their interviews. They found exactly what he has. They're just not, the reason they're so unhappy and the reason they're so devastated is they're not living in the veil of illusion that we are. because they got to the end of the road and there was a dead-in.

And we're empty, but we say, well, if I only got them further down. Well, they got down there. That's the reason why they're so unhappy. They're not happy because they're rich. They're unhappy because they got to the end of the road. And they saw they were still just them. It's a powerful argument for the fact that pleasure ultimately fails us. Not that it fails to deliver the orgasm,

not that it fails to deliver the neurological rhythm, Not that it fails to deliver the comfort of the nice sweater, but it fails to deliver worthwhileness. It fails to give you what you're really looking for, and that is transcendence. We're looking for a way to do an in-run around the fact we have nothing to live for. We have nothing solid. We have nothing we're sure of. We have nothing that's going to take us to the stars.

We have nothing that we think will last past us. You see? We're looking for transcendence, and it will fail. at that. Utterly fail. In two ways. Number one, pleasure will fail to distract you. In verse three, he says, my mind was still guided me with wisdom. He said, I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly, but my mind was still guiding me. Down in verse nine, he says, I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem. In all this, my wisdom stayed with me. What is that? What's he talking about? I'll tell you what he's talking about. This is a, this is a,

One of my, as some of you know, one of my favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis, what he's trying to say is, no matter how hard I tried through pleasure, to forget the fact that I had nothing to live for and nothing means anything, I tried and it broke through. Pleasure, see, subject of pleasure, trying to wipe out the lack of objective pleasure is like trying to butter too much bread with too little butter. You know, you spread it, and by the time the knife gets to the end, there's no butter there. I mean, it wasn't enough butter. It just sunk in. And in the same way, subject of pleasure fails because, no matter how hard he tried to stop thinking, his wisdom stayed with him.

The truth kept coming through. You know? If your origin is an accident and your destiny is just rot. If your origin is insignificant and your destiny is insignificant, have the guts to admit your life is insignificant. Well, now that thought,

we try to keep away. But this is what Lewis says. He says, let us suppose that nature is all that exists. This meaningless play of atoms in space and time by a series of a hundredth chances has regrettably produced things like ourselves, conscious beings who now know that their own consciousness is an accidental result

of the whole meaningless process and is therefore itself meaningless, though to us, alas, we feel significant. In this situation, you might decide to simply have as good time as possible. Right? say, hey, life is meaningless, let's have a great time. Why not? What differences it make? I might as well have these great feelings. You might decide to have as good a time as possible, but you can't accept it.

Listen, you can't accept in the lowest animal sense. Be in love with a girl if you know and you remember that your view of the world means that all the beauties of her person and her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms and your own response to them is only a sort of psychic chemical phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genetic material. And you can't go on getting very serious pleasure for music if you know and remember that its air of significance is a pure illusion that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. Yes, you may still, in the lowest sense of a good time, but just insofar as it becomes very good, just insofar as it ever threatens to push you from cold sensuality on into real warmth and real enthusiasm and real joy,

so far will you be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the universe in which you think you really live it'll break through as time goes on even if it's unconscious or semi-conscious the fact that you've got nothing to live for it's going it's it's it the wisdom breaks through it creates a grimness it creates a joylessness no matter how much pleasure you try to take. But not only does pleasure fail to distract us from the lack of objective reality, but secondly, it fails to satisfy. Because down in verse 11, you know, at the very sort of the climax, he says, I looked at it all, and everything was meaningless.

A chasing after the wind. I was chasing after the wind. Wind is something you can't keep. Wind can be a wonderful experience, but you can't keep it. You can't say, ah, let me grab that thing so I can have that wind tomorrow. It can't be done. Now, on the physical and spiritual level, see, here's what frightening. I said that especially in our society, what's really going on when we seek pleasure

is we're not after just the physical sensory pleasure. We're after transcendence. We're after worthwhileness. Well, first of all, one of the most awful things to know, and addiction counselors will tell you this, is that pleasurable agents at first give you a rush, but then there's a tolerance factor. Pleasurable agents, you know, a amount, you know, five leaders of such a pleasurable agent will give you a great, great experience the first time. But the next time it'll take a little more to get the same amount of experience, the same amount of pleasure. And next time a little bit more, and next time a little bit more, because we adapt, and pleasurable agents wear off in their ability to create pleasure.

And that's how addictions happen. You need more, and you need more, and you need more, and if you're lucky, you can break it off before it completely destroys you, and then you just be empty. And that's physical pleasure. Physical pleasure is like the wind. It doesn't stay. If you give it, if you really rely on it, not if you enjoy it. But if you just rely on it, if you go to it for transcendence, especially, it cannot deliver. And Lewis, of course, has some classic stuff about the fact that it's not just physically the pleasure we can't hold on to, but spiritually it disappoints us in this way.

He says, in one of his more famous quotes, he says, all of your life, there's been an unattainable ecstasy that's hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The loft on the verge of breaking through, you know, when you're in a boat or when you're falling in love, you know, he says, when you're starting into a pleasurable experience, you think, ah, finally I'll be worth, this is it. Somehow this is it. He says, off on the verge of breaking through, and yet you've never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed you, your soul, have been but hints of it, tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they were caught your ear. It's the secret signature of each soul. It's the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds when the mind is no longer knowing wife or friend or work. The books of the music in which we thought the beauty was located

will betray us if we trust in them. It was not in them. It only comes through them. If they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself. They are only the scent of the flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard. News from a country we've never yet visited.

It's a music we're born remembering. There's a music we're born remembering we're trying to hear in music. There's a scent we're born remembering we're trying to smell in a flower. Now, what is that? I believe that it's even though, how do you prove it? I can prove it just by saying it. We know that this is true, that that sense of transcendence does not come through. As he said, the best marriages, the best careers, the best houses.

In fact, people who get to the very end of the road find it hasn't come. They're the ones that know the best. Those of us who don't have these wonderful pleasures, we're still in the avail of illusion. We think, if only, no. Well, why would this be? Why isn't pleasure enough? Why do we want to go beyond? Well, here's the pointer.

in chapter three it says there's a lot more in chapter three but we just can't go into it all tonight he says he has made everything beautiful in his time he has also said eternity in the hearts of men yet they cannot fathom what god has done from beginning to end now that's something pretty interesting take a look at this first of all he says there's all sorts of beautiful things out there in fact if you want to know the definition of a pleasure it's beauty do you want know the definition of beauty? A beauty is something. Something is beautiful rather than instrumental. Something is beautiful if it's pleasurable in itself, just for itself. You see, if you studied art because you had to get an A in a class, and then as soon as the class was over, you never went to

see art. Art, it's fine, okay, it's just instrumental. It's not beautiful. But if afterwards you would go, when you didn't have to, when it doesn't get you anywhere. As a matter of fact, it costs you money. You see, something is beautiful rather than instrumental. Something is beautiful when it gives you pleasure just because of your delight in it, just to see it, just to let it be there, just to put it on your eyes, on your tongue, on your ear, on your heart. That's what something is. It's beautiful. But we have seen that there's something wrong because the beautiful things that we set our hearts on, addict us, and yet, at the same time, they don't satisfy us. Why? Well, it's the second clause. He has put eternity in the hearts of men. That's almost a unique

verse in the Bible. He has put endlessness in our hearts. And what that means is that there is a desire for an eternal beauty, and that all the beauties that are here, if we set our hearts on them, as Lewis said, they disappoint us because they're only the scent of the flower we haven't smelled. They're only, you know, the hint, the echo of a tune we haven't really heard. You know, if there's a music we're born remembering, well, what is it? Well, in general, it's the face of God. Psalm 16, verse 11, in thy face is fullness of joy. In thy right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 27, verse 4, one thing, see, that's an addict, one thing do I seek after? One thing do I ask for? To gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in

his temple. Now, in general, this is a challenge to everybody. If this is true, a lot of people are in trouble. A lot of you have said, I believe in God. Fine. Why? Can I ask you why? I believe in God. Why? Well, he's there. Okay. Well, what do you do about it? Well, I go to church or I obey the Ten Commandments. Why? Because I ought to. Why? Let me keep pushing you. In the end, there's only two. See, Christians, real Christians whose lives have been changed and whose attitude toward pleasures is so different because we can enjoy them. We're not afraid of them now. But on the other hand, they are not the main thing,

so they don't addict us either. The difference has been a Christian whose life has really been changed, and a religious person is this. Religious people find God useful. instrumental, and Christians are people who have finally found him beautiful, who obey him just because of who he is, wouldn't care what else it brought them, just for the delight. You see, religious people and Christians, they share obedience. Religious people and Christians may be desperate for God. They might be obedient to God. See, they may have all sorts of awe and reverence to God, but the difference between a Christian and just a religious person, a nice person, is that they find him useful, but Christians find him beautiful. That you come after him and you seek him and you

obey him because of the beauty of who he is. Has that been true of you? Have you experienced that? That's what real Christianity is. Well, somebody says, wow, how? How could that happen? Here's the answer. Jesus Christ, can I tell you what the gospel is? The Bible actually gives you the gospel in terms of beauty. We, because of our sin, have made the world ugly. We've made our soul's ugly, we've made the world ugly. How are we going to be saved from our sin? We're told in Isaiah chapter 53, the servant came from heaven, and he came to earth, and we're told this about him. He had, this is Isaiah 53. He had no beauty that we should desire him. Jesus Christ lost his beauty. Jesus Christ became ugly. Jesus Christ became shrivel. Jesus Christ lost his glory, and he lost

his beauty. Why? That's the first half. Because of our sin. And what did he do when he died on the cross? He died on the cross in our place so that when we believe in him, what are we told in Colossians chapter 1, verse 20, 22? There it tells us so that now, when we believe in God with Jesus, God looks at us and he sees us holy and spotless without blemish. Listen, religion says, obey God, or he'll get you. The gospel said, You've made the world ugly and yourself ugly. Jesus Christ came and lost his beauty so that now when you believe in him, you don't just now, you know, that doesn't just make you a better person in some way.

You're beautiful in God's sight. You are in a sheer beauty to him because he lost his beauty so you could get it. Now, if I tell you, obey God, or he'll get you, you'll have to treat him as instrumental. And frankly, every religion essentially tells you that. but the gospel says, no, look at what he's done for you. That's beautiful. Do you believe you're a sinner? Do you believe you're lost? Now, a lot of you wouldn't. I mean, you live in New York. A lot of you wouldn't. Do you know what that means? Until you see that, you'll never find them beautiful. You'll only find them instrumental and you'll never have the things in your heart that are

addicting you thrown out for a greater beauty. Your heart needs an object of beauty. You can't get rid of the ones that are holding on to you just by trying to throw them out. They have to be displaced, by a higher beauty, a greater beauty, and this is it. You'll never find him beautiful if you just say he's very big and he's very big, and I better obey him because he'll crush me. The only way, I mean, we get beauty that way, only if you see that you're a sinner and you see what he's done. That's how you become a Christian, seeing the beauty of the Lord. But now some of you are Christians, and you know what you're saying? You're saying, I am a Christian, but I'm addicted to something. All right? That's because you're not gazing on his beauty.

You're not gazing. Well, you say, how do I gaze on this beauty? Well, that'd really be another sermon. However, let me just tell you three things. First of all, you have to get to know Jesus. Not God in general, Jesus. Jesus became a human being. He became a sensory person, a human being.

He entered into our sensory environment. So we can have this kind of intimacy with him, so he can really be a beauty to us. You have to read about him. You have to get to know everything you can about him. everything. That's first. Then secondly, prayer is very deep. First thing is get to know Jesus. Secondly, don't think prayer is easy or simple. If you want to become a professional baseball player, it's going to take a long time. You can't just get out there. Here's a bat. Here's a ball.

I throw up in the air. I hit the ball. I'm going to go to show up at Shea Stadium. Hey, I understand you're in a wild car race. Do you need somebody? It takes years and years and years. And prayer is a lot harder than that. You haven't even begun to figure out the depths of prayer. You haven't begun to look at praise. You haven't begun to see what happens through repentance. Beauty happens. You see the beauty of his majesty. You see the beauty of his symmetry. You see the beauty of his fragility, of his weakness. You just see it. It comes in prayer. Thirdly, you need the Holy Spirit because you know an artwork needs a light. Every art gets. Every art gets. gallery has lights. And Jesus Christ is nothing without the Holy Spirit. Jesus says when the Spirit comes,

he will glorify me. He will take of mind and he will glorify me. Ask the Spirit, learn to pray, look at Jesus, and know that real thing that your heart needs to overcome your addictions is not just a general knowledge of who he is and trying harder, but an experience of his beauty. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. We hope that today's teaching encouraged you to go deeper into God's Word. You can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it, and to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelonlife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 1998.

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