Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Sympathy of Jesus

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Though there may have been other occasions, the only time we know of that Jesus ever left his country, ever left the boundaries of Israel is here in Mark 7. He did so for a purpose, and he did so to teach us something. There are two stories: the healing of the little daughter and the healing of the deaf-mute. Let’s look at them and see what they teach us. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 1, 1996. Series: The Real Jesus Part 2; His Life. Scripture: Mark 7:24-37. 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 visitinghttps://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. For many of us, trusting Jesus with our lives is challenging. How can we trust Him in light of so much suffering and pain? How can we know He is the one who will make things right, both in our lives and in the world? Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller continues looking at the gospels to show us who the real Jesus is and what that means for our lives. The passage on which our teaching space this morning is printed in your bulletin. It's Mark chapter 7 verses 24 through 37.

Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, yet he could not keep his present secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian finicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. First, let the children eat all they want, he told her, for it is not right to take the

children's bread and toss it to their dogs. Yes, Lord, she replied, but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. Then he told her, for such a reply, you may go, the demon has left your daughter, and she went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon down to the sea of Galilee and into the region of the decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.

After he took him away, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, Fatha, which means be opened. At this the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone, but the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement.

He has done everything well, they said. He even makes the deaf here in the mute speak. And this is God's word. And what we've been doing here on these morning services over these weeks is we're actually building a biography of Jesus. We're putting together a life of Jesus, and so we're looking at the main events of his life.

Now these few weeks right before Christmas is the time in which the church looks at the grand miracle of the incarnation. It looks at the fact that Jesus Christ has God become human. And for these weeks before Christmas, what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at events in the life of Jesus that show his humanity, who show his solidarity with us. And the interesting thing about this particular event

are these two stories of healing, which Mark puts back to back back is this is the only time that we know of there might have been other times what's the only time that we know of that Jesus ever left his country. It's the only time that Jesus ever went abroad. The only time that he ever left the boundaries of Israel. He did so for a purpose and he did so to teach us something and let's take a look at it. There's two stories.

The healing of the little daughter, the healing of the deaf mute. Let's look at them and see what they teach us. Now first of all, we see, and let me show you here in the very beginning, Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. Now this is a Hellenistic area, a Gentile area, and the reason that Jesus went there is only really possible to understand if you read the first part of chapter 7. Let me give you a synopsis. The first part of chapter 7 of the Gospel of Mark immediately before this passage. Jesus has a knockdown drag out fight with the Pharisees about cleanliness, about ritual cleanness.

The Pharisees, the religious leaders, came to Jesus and said, why don't your disciples follow the laws of ritual purity? What were the laws of ritual purity? Well, they were the laws that had to do with washing your hands continually, only eating certain foods, only wearing certain garments and clothes, and not touching or dealing with Gentiles or with the sick or with deformed people, and the reason that the Pharisee had developed these elaborate rules was because in the Old Testament, when God set up the worship in the Old Testament, in the Old Testament before you would go into God, before you go into the temple, you had to cleanse yourself.

You had to wash, there was a large labor, sort of like a huge bathtub in a sense, right before you came into the holy place, into the sanctuary, you had to wash, and there were a number of rules that God gave to the Israelites to say, now cleanse yourself before you go in. And these rules were visual aids to remind you that you needed not just to go into God, but you needed repentance.

You needed to be cleansed of your sin. The Pharisees didn't understand the clean laws to be visual aids to help you repent. They saw the clean laws as the actual way to make yourself acceptably for God. And so they built on top of the Old Testament regulations and they went way beyond them. So for example, in the Old Testament,

Gentiles could not go into the inter courts of the temple. They had to stay on the outer courts. Well, the Pharisees said, well, that means the Gentiles are unclean. And if you want to make sure that you are clean, you should not touch a Gentile. You shouldn't even deal with the Gentiles. You should never eat with the Gentiles.

Never. See, this went way beyond what the Old Testament said, but these were the laws of ritual purity and the laws of cleanliness. And Jesus has a tremendous argument with the Pharisees, and they are only part of the chapter. It would be a great passage to look at someday in some detail.

And he says, he says, listen, it is not food or soap, it's not what goes into the body or what goes onto the body, that has anything to do with cleanliness before God. It's what comes out of the heart. It's sin or holiness that makes you cleaner and clean before God. And as soon as he's done with this argument, he immediately goes into the land of the unclean. He goes up into the Gentile place.

Now what do we read? We read as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. She was the Syrophonician woman. And she came and she fell at his feet. She was the sire Phoenician woman. And she came and she fell at his feet. And she begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. Now what do we have here? Here is this woman and she comes and she throws herself at his feet. Well, you know, a couple of things about her problem. First of all, it says she had a little daughter. By the way, the word little doesn't really mean young. You know that? It means beloved.

It means dear. For all we know, the daughter might have been a grown woman. A little daughter meant she was utterly precious to her mother. And we're told that she's possessed by an evil spirit. Again, I'm just going to go by this rather quickly. If there's anyone here that has some real questions about boy, demon possession, how primitive. All I can tell you is three or four weeks ago,

we looked at this whole subject in some detail. I can't do it now, but I can say this. Over the last 100 years or so, Western civilization. Pupu the idea of devils, Pupu the idea of personal supernatural evil. And I just want you to know in the last few years, an awful lot of people in the West are beginning to have second thoughts, an awful lot.

And before you poo poo it, as being primitive and all I want you to remember is you might be behind the times. An awful lot of people are beginning to think maybe Hamlet was right when he said to the secularists, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Now, all we know about this daughter was that she was demon possessed. And no, there's no description here. If you go to Mark chapter 9, you will see that there was a man that comes and describes his son who was demon possessed. And he says, my son is continually having convulsions, and the demon throws him into the fire,

or throws him into the water. And so you see this woman is miserable and we're told, it says she comes and she falls down at his feet. One commentator said, that for her to prostrate herself at his feet is not just her way of saying, I respect you and I am asking for something, but also to express profound grief. And when it says, she begged Jesus, it's a progressive verb. And here you have mother love. It says, she wouldn't stop begging. She wouldn't stop talking. She wouldn't stop begging. She wouldn't stop talking. She wouldn't go away. You know Mother love, and there it is again. She wouldn't stop.

And finally, Jesus says, and here's what He says, let the children eat all they want for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs. Now what is He saying here? Is this look harsh? It is. Does this surprise you? Is it offensive?

It is. And there's a lot of ways of slicing it. Let me remind you, first of all, that for him to say this would not have surprised her. And the reason it wouldn't have surprised her is you must remember what we've been saying in the context, she as a Gentile woman would have known that any Jewish holy man would have probably not even have spoken to her in public. She knew that Jewish holy man and religious leaders felt that Gentiles were unclean.

They were defiled and to speak to one in public and to touch one and to deal with one, she expected that she knew that she was asking a lot. And when he says what he says, she wouldn't have been too surprised, but no matter how you slice it, Jesus calls this woman a dog. He says, I can't take the bread that I am feeding to the children of the father

to Israel, and throw it to dogs. She says, I need something from you and he says, I'm not going to give it to dogs. He's calling her a dog. Now, if you're offended and not puzzled, it's only because you're not reading the whole chapter. See, if you read the whole chapter, you realize that all of chapter 7, verses 1 to 23, in that entire passage, Jesus is saying that Gentiles are not undefiled by being Gentiles.

It's not what's on the outside. It's not the flesh, it's not the pedigree. It's the heart that makes you cleaner and unclean. So what he's saying here is it should not be offensive, it should be puzzling because it seems to be contradicting everything he says. And he's alluding to something. And he's alluding to the fact that dogs were unclean. Now dogs, and you can imagine,

dogs were unclean by, as far as the Jews were concerned, it was an unclean animal. But it was also, frankly, very unclean to anybody with common sense. You don't bring your dog and put it up on the table with the children. You're having a meal, the dog jumps on the table, what do you say? Oh, here, no. You say, get down because the dog, of course, is unclean.

The dog brings diseases. You can't be up here. Get down. The dog is not allowed to be on the table at the table with the children only under the table. Away. And he says says you're a dog. How does she respond? And this is what's so fascinating.

First of all, she picks up on the illusion. I just say illusion, ALU is the SION because he is alluding to a picture. He's creating a picture. In the Greco-Roman household, when the family would come to eat, the father would be at the head of the table, and the children would come around, and the children would eat the father's food. And the only way that there were dogs around, the dogs might, as she said, eat the scraps from the table.

But she says, well, wait a minute, though, the dogs eat the father's bread, too. Sure we get it later. Sure we get it lesser, but we do. Yes, Lord, she says, you're right. But there's enough bread for us dogs as well. And Jesus looks at her and praises her. She says, for this answer, your daughter is healed. Now what in the world is going on? What's going on?

Here's what's going on. This woman is giving you and me a model. This woman is a model, she's not unique. In fact, what she shows us is something the Bible throughout shows us is the nature of saving faith, the nature of faith that connects, the nature of faith that brings the power of God into your life. This is it. Because she says two things, two things. First of all, she says, yes, I am unfit for the Father's Table.

She doesn't get all upset. She doesn't jump up and down. She doesn't run around. She doesn't say, how dare you talk to me like that. In fact, almost for sure, because of her response, she recognizes that this is not a racist statement that he's making, it's a theological statement. He's not saying, you're unclean so much because you're a Gentile and I'm a Jew,

but rather she perceives that what he is saying is, you're unclean, you're unfit as a human sinner. She understands that. She intuits that. And she recognizes that he is not making a racist statement, but a theological statement. And what does she say? She says, yes. Of course I don't deserve to be at the table.

Of course I'm unfit for the mercy of God. Of course I'm unfit for the blessings of God. Of course I am. And that's the first thing she does right. But then there's the second thing. She doesn't hang her head. She doesn't walk away. She says, oh yes, I am exactly what you say. So unworthy. There's no bread for me. She turns around. She says, but I want you to know that I know that there's enough mercy on that table for me. Of course I'm not fit to sit at the table. I don't even ask for that, but there's

enough mercy for me. I know you've got a heart that's big enough. I want it. And when you see these two things together, you've got Christianity. Let me show you what I mean. First of all, she's a model when she says, yes, Lord. When she says, yes, Lord, she says, okay, I'm not fit to be there. And when she says, yes, Lord, she agrees. Of course, I'm not fit. That's a model for all of us. You remember it, you know, the movie it's been made twice now. The last one time was very recently with Harrison Ford and Julia Orman, Sabrina. And Sabrina is about a servant girl and has a love affair with a rich tycoon, Harrison Ford.

At the very end, Sabrina runs away to Paris, and Harrison Ford, the rich man, comes to her father and says, where is she? And the father says, you don't deserve her. You see, you're a dog. You don't deserve her. And what does Harrison Ford say? I know, but're a dog. You don't deserve her. What does Harrison Ford say? I know, but I need her.

Then the father says, oh, here. He tells him where she is. What if the father, what if Harrison Ford says, where is she? The father said, you don't deserve her. What if Harrison Ford said this? What do you mean I don't deserve her. What if Harrison Ford had said this? What do you mean I don't deserve her? She's just a servant girl. I'm this rich master of the universe.

She's fortunate to have me. What would the father have done? The father would have done what you and I would have done. And what we all know, the common sense says, if Harrison Ford thinks he deserves her, he doesn't. And if he thinks he doesn't deserve her, he does. Until he finally realizes he doesn't deserve her, their marriage will never work.

I mean, you can tell that from the whole movie. The only way for him to be fit for Sabrina is to admit that he's not fit for Sabrina. If he thinks he's fit, he's not. If he thinks he's not fit, he is. And that's Christianity. Jesus says, you're not fit, he is. And that's Christianity. Jesus says, you're not fit for the table. And it's not until she says, I'm a dog under the table

that she is fit to be a child at the table. It is not till she admits that she's a dog under the table, that she is admitted as a child to the table, because that's what he does. This is the gospel. If you say, I'm blind, I see, Jesus says, you're blind. If you say, I'm blind, Lord, he says, finally, you see. If you say, I'm all right, he says, you're condemned.

And if you say, I'm condemned, he says, all right. I took your condemnation for you. He who humbles himself will be exalted. He who exalts himself will be humbled. See. He who finds himself will lose himself. He who loses himself will find himself. This is the gospel.

She comes in. She says this. She says, yes, Lord, oh my, oh my. And listen, let me just suggest before I move on to the second thing she says, she's such a model here, right now for some of you. Do you know what he's doing to you? He is doing the same thing to you, not with words, with events. He's showing you, you don't belong at the table.

He's showing you the hidden evils of your heart. He's humbling you. He's bringing you down. And what are you doing about it? He's letting things reveal to you your weakness. He's letting things reveal to you your cowardice. He's letting things reveal to you your selfishness. He's letting you see you don't deserve to be at the table.

What are you doing? Are you running around roaring and saying, I deserve a better life than this? I'm better than most people. If you say I deserve a place at the table, you never will have one. It's spiritually the same until Harrison Ford knows he doesn't deserve her.

He's not fit for her. It would be bad for them to be married. Until you say, yes, Lord, I'm under the table. You're not fit to sit at the table, but if you say I'm under the table, you will sit at the table. Everybody thinks they know the Christmas story. Yet, while there are many Christian references all around us during this season, how closely have you examined what really happened that first Christmas night? In his book Hidden Christmas, Tim Keller takes you on an illuminating journey into the surprising background of the Nativity story to help you better understand the redeeming power of

God's grace. Hidden Christmas is our thanks for your gift to help gospel in life reach more people with the amazing love of Christ. Request your copy of Hidden Christmas today when you give at gospelenlife.com slash give. That's gospelenlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. But then the other thing she does is she says, yes Lord, but even the dogs eat the scraps. Now what she's saying at this point, and this is actually something that's very important to realize, a lot of people might say, oh I see, being a Christian means just to hate yourself and just hate you, you see, look down, I'm a sinner, I'm terrible, hit me again, I'm still breathing Lord.

I just am not worthy. If she walks away, see, if she screams because she won't see the magnitude of her sin, she has failed to understand Jesus' savior. But if she walks away because she will not see the magnitude of his grace, she has also failed. In other words, it takes pride, yes, to say, what do you mean I'm a dog, but it also takes pride to say, there's not enough mercy for me up there. My sins are

too great. See, I think there's probably people in this room that walk around, feeling very bad about themselves, filled with self-loathing, filled with a sense of inferiority, and you think you're spiritual. Let me tell you, repentance is not just based on humility. Repentance is based on confident joy in the greatness of the love of Jesus Christ. And a continued sense that there's nothing for me. God couldn't receive me. God couldn't accept me. God, I'm too unworthy.

A continued sense of that is an insult. An insult. How much is up on the table? You know, John Newton lived at the end of the 1700s. He was a pastor. He wrote a pastor friend, a young pastor friend who was depressed, and he rebukes him. This is what he says in this letter. He says, you say, he's talking to this depressed pastor friend, you say you're overwhelmed with guilt and a sense of unworthiness. Well, you cannot be too aware of the inward and inbred evils you complain of, but you may be, indeed you are, improperly controlled and affected by them.

You say it is hard to understand how a holy God could accept such an awful person as yourself. So that means you express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is perfectly right, but also such a low opinion of the person work and promises of the Redeemer, which is utterly wrong. You complain about sin. But if I examine your complaints, they're so full of self-righteousness, unbelief, pride, and impatience that they are little better than the worst sins you complain of. He goes, see, he says, you express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is fine,

but also too low an opinion of the person working promises of the Redeemer, which is absolutely wrong. This woman did not just say, you see, I'm a sinner. She also said, but your mercy is deeper than my guilt, wider than all my wanderings, stronger than my weakness, greater than all my sin. You see, you do not know what real repentance is until there's a fountain of joy underneath it. Joyful confidence that there's bread and despair up there.

She says, I'm going to eat from the Father's table. Of course I'm unworthy, but I know that my Father's mercy is greater than my worthiness. My unworthiness, greater than my unworthiness, greater. It's greater than my guilt. Why do then all my wandering? Stronger than my weakness. Greater than all my sin. And that's the reason why Jesus says, for that answer,

go home. Your life will come together. And what does it say? She went home. Your life will come together. And what does it say? She went home and she found that her life had been healed. Do you understand what's going on? Do you see what's going on? This is astounding. This is the ultimate. Do you have to put the two things together? In Isaiah, chapter 6, when Isaiah says, what was me? I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips.

That's when the angel flies to him like lightning with healing from the altar. When the prodigal son, Luke 15, he is run away from his father and he's in a far distant country and he says, he suddenly came to his senses, he says, in my father's house there's bread and despair. And on the way back, because he's willing to say, father, I have sinned against heaven and in my sight, I'm not worthy to be sit at your table. The father runs to him and bounces on him and kisses him. You see, it's repentance.

And real repentance is as characterized by deep humility as it is by joyful confidence in the mercy of God together. And that is the thing that releases the love of, and power of God into your life explosively, and nothing else does, nothing else. For this answer, go home. I'm in your life. There it is. Now look at the other one. Now what I want to do at this point briefly is to show you the second healing, mainly in comparison with the first so we can finally draw the applications out. Okay?

The healing of this deaf mute. And by the way, the little Greek word that is used for him is an interesting word. It's called Moga-Lilan, which means a severe speech impediment, accompanied with being deaf. And when he grabs this man, he does several things that are very unique and weird. First of all, he takes him aside privately. Look at it. Secondly, he points to his ears, then he spits on his own fingers, and he touches the man's tongue, then he looks to heaven, he sighs to the bottom, deeply sighing, and he says, be opened.

Now, here's what I want to ask you a quick question. Does Jesus have to do that? What about all the other places where Jesus is able to heal with just a word, not all this stuff? What about all the places where Jesus heals without any word at all? He doesn't, look, what did he do with a little daughter? He didn't go to the little daughter. He didn't do any mumbo jumbo over her. He didn't, he didn't, you know, there was no incantations, there were no magic words. He just says, go home, you'll find that she's healed.

He's got that kind of power. He doesn't have to do this, why is he doing this? He's doing it kind of power. He doesn't have to do this. Why is he doing this? He's doing it for the man He's doing it for a scared man who's used to being a spectacle. That's why he takes him aside privately So his miracle is not one more show And he uses sign language. Can you believe it? That's all that a deaf man would know He lets him know what he's gonna do. So he's not scared to death. Why wouldn't he be scared to death? He says I'm gonna do something about those. He says, I'm going to do something about that.

He says, I'm going to pray to God. This is astounding. It means that the only things that Jesus Christ does when he heals, all the differences that you see from healing story to healing story, are adaptations to the needs and the heart of the person he's helping. And finally, when he says, be opened. And the man begins to praise God. One of the reasons I mentioned the Greek word is

because the only other place in the Bible where this little Greek word shows up is in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And it's in Isaiah 35 verse 5, where it says, then show the eyes of the blind be open and the ears of the deaf be on stop, then with the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Of course Charles Wesley put it into the hymn, hear him, you deaf, his praise you dumb, your loosened tongues employ. You blind behold your Savior come and leapy lame for joy. But when Jesus does it, he sighs. And you know what that word, he deeply sighs. That word has more in it than all the books I could possibly give you about the incarnation. I want you to know, and a lot of you do know this, if you're a minister, if you're a counselor, if you're a social worker, if you're a caregiver, you know a dirty little secret. I'm afraid

to tell the rest of them. All right, I will anyway. It is easy. If you're the kind of person that listens to people's problems fairly regularly, at a certain point you say, I can't take this. And what you do is you turn them off. You turn them off emotionally. You don't turn them, you know, you're nodding, you're smiling, you seem to be listening, you ask all the right questions, you've turned them off emotionally. Because you don't want to be so connected

that their hurt's going to hurt you. You don't want to be so connected that their emptiness is going to be a vacuum in you. You don't want to be that connected, but Jesus Christ never turns us off. Kathy and I remember there was a funeral director in the little town we first went to and we were in there a couple times a month. And the poor widow, the poor widow, where the poor, people were sitting there crying, he would walk up and you'd always have the same look on

his face. He'd always say, they're there, she's in the hands of God. Just like that, flat tone, they're there. I mean, totally turned it off. Absolutely, grief all around, but I'm not gonna let it get to me. And you might say, well, he's a funeral director, he has to do that. Well, maybe he does.

I'm not in here to talk about funeral directors, I'm here to talk about Jesus. And Jesus sighs. And that means finally you see the magnitude of the little word of manual which we're going to sing in a minute. Now do you know what it means when it says he's God with us? God has tied himself to our hearts so that until we're happy, he will never be happy.

Until we're at rest, he will never be at rest. That's not just profound doctrine when Jesus Christ's size look at it because that's your life. This is astounding. He didn't just become human being. He became a human being that's size, the sighing savior. Hear him, you deaf. His praise you dumb, your loosen tongues employ. You blind behold your savior come and leap you lean for joy. What is Mark saying? He's saying, this is the king.

This is the king that's to come. But look, he comes lowly and meek and sighing. Now, what do we learn? Here's what we learn. You put these two things together comes lowly and meek and sighing. Now, what do we learn? Here's what we learn. You put these two things together and this is what we learn. Number one, Jesus Christ can cleanse anybody, anybody at all.

He goes up into the land of the Gentiles. He goes and he deals with these Gentile people, these unclean, why? He even calls them a dog, they call some dogs to show that anybody considered the table. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter whether you've lived for the last 10 years at the gates of hell. And some of you say, oh yeah, I was there. It doesn't matter how messed up you are, it doesn't matter how broken you are. It doesn't matter.

There's a really great sermon written by a Scottish preacher named Octavius Winslow. And he has a whole sermon on this verse where it says Jesus side, it's called the Sive Christ. And in it, he says this, he says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forget her. This tells us, no ebb and the tide of your love, no trembling of the needle of your faith, can create the slightest variation in his love for you. Your waywardness is not chilled it, but only stirred it. Your fickleness is not harmed it, nor can your sinfulness forfeit it, for he is ever the same. Though we are faithless, he is faithful,

and he cannot deny himself. So he can cleanse anybody, but secondly, it tells us that he cleanses everybody differently. Look at, with the woman, she's asking for help with a daughter, right? And Jesus says you're a dog. With the man, he's not even asking for help. And he grabs the man and he says to the man,

I'm gonna heal you and he's so gentle and he's so sweet and he's so kind and he's so sensitive, never discouraging word. What's going on here? What's going on is this. These are both Jesus, but Jesus' sympathy is real sympathy because he always gives you what you need.

Always. And he will sometimes be rough with you and sometimes he'll be soft with you, but it's only because he's really sympathetic. A real sympathetic person gives you what you need. And that means John Newton, the same guy that I read from a minute ago, is right. John Newton says, everything is necessary that he sends you. The same guy that I read from a minute ago is right.

John Newton says, Everything is necessary that he sends you. Nothing can be necessary that he withholds from you. Think about it. Thirdly, since these are both Jesus, I've been trying to say this for three weeks, so I'm gonna say it now. It's really an implication of so many of the sermons, so many of these passages

we're looking at. Jesus with the woman confronting her, challenging her, Jesus with the deaf mute, being so kind. These are both Jesus. And you're never going to know Jesus until you see all the different facets of him. And this is one of the reasons why, you know, Jeff was up here saying before, get into a small group. Let me tell you why you should be in a small group right here. We call our small group Cells, and a lot of people say that sounds like prison or something. And no, I'll tell you why we call themselves because a body, the body of Christ, this church, can a body consist of Cells. And in a very real sense, if you're not in a cell, you're not in the body.

Because unless you, if you come here and you listen to me, you're only getting me. I mean, I'm an individual person, and I read the passages of the Bible, and my experience shows you the Jesus I can see. But I'll tell you, C.S. Lewis says that when his friend Charles Williams died, he didn't just lose Charles Williams,

but he also lost the part of J.R.R. Tolkien, the Charles Williams alone brought out. See when he and Charles Williams and J.R.R. Tolkien were sitting around having a beer, he says, you know, we brought things out on each other. And when Charles was gone, I lost a part of Ronald that only Charles could bring out. I can't know Ronald all by myself, he said, I realize I've got to know Ronald in community. The fact is, some of you experience Jesus

more like the Sarafanician woman and some of you experience Jesus more like the deaf mute and unless I'm in a small group with all kinds of people who all see different sides of Jesus because he's so multifaceted, no one of us is ever going to see it all unless I'm seeing Jesus in community, unless I'm studying a Bible passage in a community.

I'm never going to see all the richness of him. I'm never even going to understand the multi-faceted nature of him. I'm not going to see him as the diamond that he is. You don't see a diamond through one facet. You turn it, you see it all. These are all Jesus. And you mustn not just insist Jesus is this way. No, no, no. He challenges, he's gentle, but he's always sympathetic. Here's another thing. If Jesus is this gentle and sympathetic with you and with me, then we've got to be this gentle with each other. We've

got to sigh for each other. We cannot turn each other off. This is another reason to be in a small group. We can't turn each other off. He would not disconnect. I know it's so, in New York, it's gets awfully hard. After five years, you've been through about 20 best friends. They're gone. They've moved. They've transferred. And you say, I don't want to do this again. What if Jesus had said that? Jesus would not turn you off. Jesus would not disconnect. And we must not disconnect from each other.

We must sigh for each other. We must touch each other. We must sigh deeply for each other. Do you? Will you? One last thing. To follow Jesus, you will be a sire, as I, G-H-E-R, but you'll never sigh the way he sighed. Do you realize how often he sighs when he heals?

Could you sort of hear him sigh when he turned the water into wine? Why? Because whenever he helps somebody, he sighs not just for us, but for himself. Because he knows what it's gonna take in order to really heal us. And don't you see, for the dog to become a son at the table,

the son at the table has to become a dog. For us to be admitted to the table, he has to be cast away. For the woman to come and drink the wine of joy at the table of the Father, Jesus is going to have to be cast out, put on the ground and trampled. For the dog to become a child, the child of God has to become a dog, and he's size, and he'll never make you go through that. He's been through it for you.

Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life Podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people discover the transformative power of Christ's love through this ministry. Just visit gospelandlife.com-slashpartner to learn more. That's gospelandlife.com-slashpartner. This month's sermons were recorded in 1996 and 1997.

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