Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Wellspring of Wisdom

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Most of the situations you face in life aren’t covered by moral rules: “Do I say something, or do I wait? Do I act, or should I be more passive?” The rules don’t cover those things. And yet, you will sink, and the people around you will sink, unless you get wisdom.  Wisdom is not having a technique for making choices. Wisdom is having the character of mind and heart that enables you to make the right choices. How do you get that character?  Proverbs 4 shows us 1) how this character develops, 2), where this character comes from, and 3) how character can be transformed. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 26, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 4:11-27. 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.

Many of the questions we face in life are complex and aren't directly addressed by the rules. So do I say something now or do I wait? Should I take that job or stay put? That's why wisdom is so crucial for our lives. So how do we develop it? Today, Join us as Tim Keller explores how we apply God's wisdom to the complexities of our lives. After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelUnlife.com and sign up for our email updates.

When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly newsletter with articles about Gospel Change Lives, as well as other valuable Gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at Gospelunlife.com The Scriptures found on page 8, it's from Proverbs chapter 4, verses 11 to 27. I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered. When you run, you will not stumble. Hold onto instruction. Do not let it go.

Guard it well for it is your life. Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it. Do not travel on it. Turn from it and go on your way. For they cannot sleep till they do evil. They are robbed of slumber until they make someone fall.

They eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn shining ever brighter to the full light of day, but the way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know what makes them stumble. My son, pay attention to what I say. Listen closely to my words.

Do not let them out of your sight. Keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them in health to a man's whole body. Above all else, guard your heart. For it is the wellspring of life. Put away a perversity from your mouth. Keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead. Keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead. Fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left.

Keep your foot from evil. This is God's Word. They're looking at the book of Proverbs, and at the subject of wisdom. And we've defined wisdom as competence with regard to the realities and complexities of life. And see, that means wisdom is a lot more than just having high moral values. It's not less than that, but wisdom is knowing what the right thing to do is in all the majority of life situations where the moral rules don't apply.

You see, the most right and virtuous word or deed done at the wrong time, done in the wrong way, in the wrong order, can blow everything up. Most of the situations that you face in life aren't covered by the rules. Do I say something or do I wait? Do I act or should I be more passive? The rules don't cover those things. Yet you will sink and the people around you will sink unless you get wisdom. And we said last week that wisdom is not having a technique that helps you make right choices and decisions, but it's having character of the mind and the heart that enables you to make the right choices in places where the rules don't apply.

Now how do you get that character? How does it come? We started looking at that last week. We're going to look at it again this week. How do you get the character that chords with discipline? And if we look at this passage in Proverbs chapter four, we're going to see, first of all, how this character develops, where it comes from, and how character can be transformed.

Its development, its origin, its transformation, the character that accords with wisdom. Now, we're just going to go through the passage sort of in order. And the first half the passage from verses 11 down to 19 talks about how character develops. And you see, as we mentioned last week, if you were here, the Bible says that living life is like walking a path away. Living life is like walking a path. Because first of all, walking a path is mainly walking. Mainly, sometimes you run, sometimes there's emergencies.

Like first 12 talks about running on a path. But mainly the way you make progress is step step, daily repeated small activities. Yet those daily activities take you someplace. Your steps take you to a place you weren't before. And this is the Bible's way of saying your character is fixed and determined not by the dramatic events, but by the daily choices you make, the littlest choices. That's what fixes your character.

I mean, I just cannot forget. An interview I read years ago, I must have read it in the 70s. It was an interview of a man in jail. And he was telling the story of his life. And he told the story about how that when he was a young boy, his father had this wonderful gold watch that he loved, and one day he snuck into his room, he took the watch out of his father's drawer, he was playing with it, or looking at it, and he dropped it. And it cracked.

And in fear, the boy put it back into the drawer and said nothing. And when his father found it, he got everyone in the family together and said, who did this? And he still didn't say. Because he had always before that, and this just confirmed he had the instinct to cover up. He didn't tell the truth. He wasn't candid. He covered up.

And years later, one night, he was driving a car on a dark road, and he ran over a little kid. And in an instant, he left the scene. Instinct, he fled. When he got home, he realized what he'd done, but then he felt he was too afraid to turn himself in, because he was hit and run, and eventually found him. And he was in jail run and eventually found him.

And he was in jail for years, most of the rest of his life. And he said in an interview, what fixed his destiny was not the decision he made on the road. It was the little decisions he'd been making for years and years and years. His character was already set in place so he did what he had become. It's not the big events, it's the little daily choices you make that set in, fix your character and your destiny. Now we have an example of a particular path like this in verses 11 to 19. In verse 14, notice in the beginning of a pathway, you're in control. You have choices. Do not set your foot on the path of the wicked,

avoid it, turn from it. So the assumption is in the beginning, you can choose, you can decide to do it or not, right? But look what happens to people further down the path. Verse 16, they are robbed of slumber till they make someone fall. They're robbed of slumber until they make someone fall. They are robbed of slumber until they make someone fall. Now that's the language of addiction, of obsession, of drivenness.

They want us to go to sleep, but they can't sleep because someone's gotten ahead of them, someone's doing better than them, someone's got more money, more acclaim, more power, more polish, and they need to bring them down. And by the way, if there's anybody right now, any group of people, or anybody particular, that you would just love to see humiliated, love to see brought down. You might be on this path. Now, what is this addiction? It's addiction to self.

It's addiction to self-centeredness. It's comparing yourself to others. It's needing to bring others down. It's the addiction of self-centeredness and a self-absorption. The more often and the more intensely you go through your day thinking, I'm as good as him, I'm as good as her, I'm as good as you. Now you may not think at all that consciously, but the more often you operate your life on the basis of I'm as good as you, the more often you compare yourself to others, the more often you feel that you're not getting your rights and other

people are getting ahead, the more self-pitying you are, the more absorbed you are in yourself, the more addicted you are to your own ego. Self-centeredness. You see? Listen, the unsmiling concentration on self, which is this addiction, can take many forms. I mean, on the one hand, you might be a very shy person, a person who feels very inferior, a person who is very unsure of yourself, always feeling like you're not smart enough or good enough or good looking enough. You walk around with this attitude deep in your heart, nobody knows how self-centered you are, but you know inferiority is a form of self-absorption. You're thinking about yourself, poor me.

Now, the other form, another form of this is the out-brash person, the person who literally says, I'm as good as you, you know, the arrogant person, the rude person, but a superiority complex, or an inferiority complex are both equally self-absorption. You're always thinking, other people are getting ahead of me, you're always noticing it. And eventually, verse 19, you go down to, where's the end of this? Deep darkness. Notice though what that means. They do not know what makes them stumble.

That's the language of unwisdom. It's the language of, see, they're out of touch with reality. They, things are going wrong in their life, but they don't know what it is or why. Wisdom is being in touch with reality, and the more you need to think of yourself as good, the more you compare yourself to other people, the more you need to think of yourself as good, the more you compare yourself to other people, the more you need to impute motives to people in order to justify

your own position, the more out of touch with reality you are, the less you really know what's going on, the less accurate a self-view you have, the less accurate a view of other people you have. And as a result, you make stupid choices and you blow up your life. Now, how do you get to this deep darkness? How do you get into this addiction? How do you get there? A path.

Step, step, step, step. Your daily choices. For example, do you know every time you experience something good and you're not deeply grateful, but you just take it for granted. Every time you just experience something good instead of being deeply grateful for how undeserving

you just take it for granted as if you deserve it, you're putting a mark on your soul. You're on your way to self-pity, You're on way to resentment. You're on way to feeling like I'm never getting my rights. Every time you get into a conflict and instead of admitting you're wrong, if you are wrong, you defend yourself, you rationalize, you blame shift. Every time you make a decision based on the principle, your life for my interests, rather than my life for your interests, you're on your way down. Until you're out of control.

The addiction to the self. Now, by the way, it's in the little things, those little choices that you become fixed, what becomes fixed is your character and your destiny. One thing first though, before we move on, if you understand this, it's a huge help in coming to grips with one of the parts of the Bible

that modern people in the West have the most trouble with. And that is the idea of eternal punishment. The Bible says that there are many people who are gonna live all of eternity away from the presence of eternal punishment. The Bible says that there are many people who are going to live all of eternity away from the presence of God, away from the presence of God, cast out of the presence of God, all right? And a lot of people, hell, we call it, in the Bible, and a lot of people say, understandably, I cannot stand that idea. Well, it's understandable, but you know,

you've probably got the wrong end of the stick. Now, most people think of it going like this, that the minute you die, suddenly God appears and says, aha, it's too late now. You didn't make the right choice. You didn't believe in me, and now you're going to suffer. And then suddenly the little souls are being cast out into the darkness. And as you go down saying, no, no, no, God says in Latin or something, tough cookies.

But what if you actually read the Bible? And you see, this is how character develops. And imagine, just for the sake of argument, what if when you die, your soul keeps on going? What if the religions of the world are right, that when you die, you continue? That what if there is an afterlife? Then suddenly you realize something. C.S. Lewis is a very famous place where he says this,

Christianity asserts we are all going on forever, and this must either be true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only 80 years or so, but which I had better bother about if I'm going to live forever. Maybe my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse, so gradually that the increase in my lifetime will not be very noticeable.

But it might be absolute hell in a million years or so. In fact, if Christianity is true, hell is precisely the correct technical term for it. Listen to this. It is not a question of God sending people to hell. In every one of us, there is something growing up which will be hell unless it is nipped in the bud. Those who are in hell are there by their own choice. Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others, but you're still distinct from it. You may

even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it, but there will come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine. I don't know whether you believe in hell or not, but if there is a hell, if Christianity

is true and there is a hell, no one spends eternity away from the presence of God except people who choose it and continue to prefer those conditions to being in the presence of somebody bigger than them. Because every day in your little choices, all of your life on earth. You cultivated a feeling like, I don't like to be around people better than me, brighter than me, smarter than me, wealthier than me, I don't like that. I want to see people brought down.

And the more selfish you are, out to eternity, what's going to happen to you? As Lewis says, it's a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. Or else a horror and a corruption, such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare. All day long, we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. So, how grateful you are for the little things you've got, how you handle conflicts and disagreements.

The little daily choices are setting your character, your destiny, your eternity now. Well, somebody says, I'm glad this first point of the sermon is over. It has been a little alarming. I'm not even sure I believe in hell yet. It seems to be very alarming, yes, okay. So what are you going to do about it? Well, you say, you know, I really do want to be careful. How I might, you know, you're right.

That's interesting. I hadn't thought of it like that. I need to watch my little choices. I need to become a good person, you know, I really do want to be careful how I might, you know, you're right. That's interesting. I hadn't thought of it like that. I need to watch my little choices. I need to become a good person, a selfish person, a kind person. But I want you to know the Bible says that it's not that easy to change your character. You can't just do it through willpower. Look at the second half of this passage. In the beginning, it says, my son, pay attention to what I say, listen closely to my words.

Now the words of the sage would be his teaching of the truth, his teaching of the Bible, his teaching of God's law, and so on. But notice what he tells them to do. He doesn't say just obey my words, though of course he would want him to. He doesn't say memorize the words, though of course he would want him to do. That's not the primary thing. The primary thing is put them in your heart. Above all, guard the heart.

You cannot just change your life by trying to work on the will. St. Augustine said, the key to life change is not the acts of the will, but the loves of the heart. Now what is the heart? Well, take a look at verse 23. The heart is the well spring of life.

Boy, that tells you a lot. What does it tell you? First of all, a spring is not a pool. A spring is an outflowing, outgushing stream of water. Things are coming out of the heart. The heart is a spring. Well, what comes out of the heart? And who speak English, when you and I think of the heart as a metaphor, not the physical heart, but the heart as a metaphor of the inner life, what comes out of the heart? Feelings, emotions, that's what comes out of the heart. That's because our English word evidently comes from

a Greek view of human nature. The Greeks believed that we were a dualism, a conflicting dualism of body and soul. The soul had the reason and the rationality. The body had the reason and the rationality, the body had the passions and the feelings, and therefore the Greeks believed that human beings were a combination of head and heart. You had your feelings which were in conflict with your thinking, your reason, and you had to choose between your head and your heart. That is not where the Bible looks at the heart

at all, not at all. And when you see the word heart in the Bible, it's talking about something else. It doesn't say it's the wellspring of emotions. It's the wellspring of life. The Bible says, out of your heart, what's in your heart determines not just your feelings, but your actions and your thinking and the way you perceive everything. Everything in your life comes from what happens in the heart.

Notice the rest of the passage. Once you get your heart right, once you get truth in the heart, then you can look at what you say, verse 24. Then you can look at how you, then you notice your eyes, how you view things, verse 25. Then you look at your behavior, your actions, verse 26 and 27. But first the heart, everything flows out of the heart. Why? the heart. Why? The heart, in your heart,

your heart is what you believe you must have in order to receive life joyfully. In your heart, you've decided certain things. If I have them, then I can receive life joyfully. If I have certain things, you know, your heart is where your greatest loves are, the things you love the most, the things you hope the most in. There are certain things that you say, if I have that, I can receive life joyfully. If I have that, then I know I'll have significance and worth. You know, everybody from the

Christian Kirchegard to the atheistic, you know, humanist, earnest becker, the so many thinkers have recognized that human beings are looking for a glory. They're looking for a beauty to merge with. We say if that person loved me, if I could achieve that, if I had that, then I would know I'm somebody. We're looking for a beauty, we're looking for a glory that we can merge with so we can participate in it. And every human heart has decided on something that is your main love, your main hope, the main thing you think of, I have that. I'm not talking, by the way, about whether you're a Buddhist

or an atheist or a Christian or a Muslim or a Confucianist, I'm not talking about what you believe. What does your heart look to? What is the most important thing to your heart? What have you decided? If I have that, then life will be happy, then I'll be secure, then I'll know I'm somebody. You've made that decision in your heart and everything is determined by that. Your thoughts, the way you perceive things, the way you understand things, the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you act. Now you say, what is that got to do with wisdom? Everything.

Here's the heart of the sermon, finally. Whatever your heart has decided is its ultimate love. Determines all the ways in which you make choices in your life. In the midst of life's uncertainties, where do you turn for wisdom? The Book of Proverbs is filled with wisdom to help guide us in all aspects of life. In Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional book, God's Wisdom for Navigating Life. You'll get a fresh, inspiring view of God's wisdom each day of the year from the book of Proverbs. This devotional book will help you unlock the wisdom within the poetry of Proverbs

and guide you toward a new understanding of what it means to live the Christian life. This resource is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel and Life share Christ's love with more people. You can request your copy of God's wisdom for navigating life when you give today at GospelandLife.com slash give. That's GospelandLife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Whatever is the ultimate object of your heart, the ultimate love of your heart, spins out a whole way of making choices and decisions in life.

But look how it works, some examples. If having money is not just a good thing, but the ultimate thing for you, it's the ultimate way that you feel secure, that you feel important, that you have something. So if having money isn't just a good thing but the ultimate thing, look at how you're gonna make your decisions.

You're gonna choose jobs that don't particularly fulfill you, they may not fit your gifts, they're gonna make money for you. And as a result, you're gonna burn out and feel empty faster than other people. Or you're going to decide to make lifestyle decisions that really you extend yourself financially in order to have this kind of lifestyle. And then you'll exploit people in order to keep it up. And you might even do dishonest things in order to keep it up. All of those choices undermine your economic status.

They're the most likely ways to bring about financial collapse. In other words, if money is the most important thing in your life, you will make choices in life that actually lose the thing you most want. Give you another example. Marriage. Romance. What if you are one of the few people in the world who feel, Marriage, romance. What if you are one of the few people in the world who feel, unless I married to Mr. Wright or Mr. Wright, unless I have this Mr. Wright, Ms. Wright, I will not be able to receive

life joyfully, unless I really marry this great person. If that's the most important thing, it's not just a good thing, but an ultimate thing. Unless I'm happily married, I'll never be happy in life. If that's the language of your heart, let me show you what's going to happen. Either you will be too picky in choosing a mate, way too picky. The person has to be just about perfect because this, you know, polished and perfect and everything's got to be right because this person is going to, you know, make your whole life right, isn't it? You'll either be too picky or You'll be so desperate to get married you'll choose somebody that you really shouldn't

But here's what's and if you do get married you'll be emotionally dependent and controlling in other words if marriage is the most important thing To you the most important thing All of your choices and decisions will undermine you ever being happily married Which is the most important thing to you. The most important thing. All of your choices and decisions will undermine you ever being happily married. If money is the most important thing, all of your choices and decisions will undermine you actually having financial security. What if, most of you don't look old enough, have this problem, but what if, more than anything else, you build your life around your children.

Their happiness, their success, and their love of you is the main thing in your life. Do you realize what's going to happen? You're either going to over-correct them. You're going to over-discipline them. You're going to totally control their lives because everything's got to be right. Or else you'll under-correct them because you can't stand it when they're mad at you. I mean, you're afraid to ever discipline or say no. All of which will completely destroy, at least your kids' lives, or maybe your relationship to them.

In other words, if your children are the most important thing in your life, all of the wisdom of your life, all the way, the basis, the guidelines for abiding choices and making decisions, the way you make choices and decisions will undermine the thing you most want. What if work is the most important? My career is the most important thing to me. You know what you're going to do?

You're going to overwork, which means you're going to choose work over emotional health and physical health maintenance. You're going to choose work over relationship. You're going to choose work over family. You're going to choose work over friendship. In other words, you're going to make all the choices that will undermine your ability in the long run of doing your work well. What if you say, no, I'm not going to go on. I actually have a list of 10 times running on.

But do you see here's the point. If anything but God is the main love of your heart, you will be a fool. Unless God is the basis for your identity, unless the love of God is the main thing that you say, if I have that, then I can receive life joyfully. If God is more important than money,

only then will you make decisions that will help you financially. If God is more important to your children, only then will you make decisions that will help you financially. If God is more important than your children, only then will you be in a position where you actually make good decisions for your children. If God is more important than being married, only then will you actually make good choices about who to marry. Unless God is the very center of your life, not just in belief, but I mean, unless his love for you is something that just captivates your heart. Your wisdom is foolishness on its own terms. The thing you most want, the way you make choices in life, the thing you most want will be undermined.

It will be lost. And now you see why C.S. Lewis is right about hell. You see, even in this life, unless God is the basic thing of your life, the central thing in your life, you will find as your life goes on, you will become more and more frustrated, more and more angry, more and more needy, more and more empty. The thing you most want, whether it's recognition or love or approval or power, will more and more be taken away from you, less and less, when you get satisfaction. And what are you going to do? You'll get angry, you'll get paranoid, you'll get bitter about life, nobody understands, nobody

knows what I've been going through, nobody, you'll lose more and more humility and to lose humility is to lose your sanity, you're out of touch with reality, and what if that goes on forever? Deep darkness. That's what it is. So we're in boxed in by the book of Proverbs because on the one hand, see our first two points here? On the one hand, it's your little choices that determine who you're going to be. But on the other hand, you cannot change your choices just by trying.

You know, Saint Augustine, 1500 years ago, had quite a debate with a man named Pelagius who said, you can change your behavior. You can change your character by trying hard. You can change your behavior by exercising your will. If you just want to change your character, just try hard. And Augustine said, absolutely not. The main problem in your life is that your heart is filled with disordered loves.

Disordered loves, yes, your loves are out of order. There's nothing wrong with loving money, actually, or children, or career, but you've made good things into ultimate things. They're out of order, there's an ordinate loves. And because of that, because your heart deeply is putting its claws on something besides God, you can't change. And by the way, that's true. How are you going to change what you most want in life? How are you going to start to, you know,

you can tell how much you need people's approval, how much you need what your parents approval, how much you need your children's approval, how much you need power, how much you need recognition, how much you need to have your cause, whether it's a moral or social or political cause succeed, because then you know how deeply your heart wants what it wants. Remember the great philosopher Woody Allen? The heart wants what it wants, absolutely. How are you going to change that? Now there was nobody who was more frustrated and freaked out by this problem than Martin

Luther. Martin Luther realized that we were all on this path, down to the deep darkness of self-centeredness, down to the deep darkness of self-absorption. He saw it in himself. And he also realized, however, because he was an Augustinian monk, which meant he read Augustin, which was one of the greatest thinkers in history, that he had to change his heart in order to do that, not just his behavior, and he didn't know how.

He read Augustin who said, all human beings are curved in on themselves. They're curved in on themselves. They're self-centered. They're twisted because they have chosen certain things, idols of the heart, that they think will give them control, will give them the glory and beauty they're looking for, and so they're twisted in on themselves. They're facing away from other people.

They're facing away from God. They're curved in. And this freaked Luther out. Martin Luther was part of an order, I just read this biography of his recently, he was part of an order of Augustinian monks, and his vicar general, the head of his order, was a great man really, Johannes von Staupitz. And von Staupitz was also Martin Luther's confessor. In other words, Luther would go to confess his sins to Funtstoppits. And pretty soon, Martin Luther was going in for six-hour confessional sessions every day.

Six hours every day. And it began to drive Funtstoppits crazy. And at one point he said, Martin, it's as if you call every fart a sin. But Martin Luther answered brilliantly and rightly, and here's what he said. He said, Father from Stelperts, the big problem of the human race is self-centeredness, we're curved in on ourselves. Where do you think wars come from? Nationalism, racism, oppression. Where do you think the violence?

Where do you think all the misery of this world comes from is from self-centeredness? So I wanted to find the path to life. I didn't want to go down that path to the deep darkness of self-centeredness. So I became a monk and guess what? Now I care for the poor, I help the poor, but I've come to realize I don't help the poor for the sake of the poor. I do it so I can feel noble. I do it so God will bless me. I'm doing it not for the poor, not for God, I'm doing it for myself. And when I come to repent for you, when I come to confess my sins to you,

I realize I'm not doing it for the sake of humility. I like being humble. I like to think of myself as humble. I'm humble. I am noble. I'm not like these proud people. Proud people, you hate these proud people. I look down at you, proud people, proud people, you hate those proud people. I looked down at you, proud people.

He said, I began to realize, I felt noble about being humble. I felt better than other people about being humble. I felt this way, God would bless me. I'm being humble, not for God's sake for my sake. I'm caring for the poor, not for the poor sake for my sake. I had left being lusty, and now I'm chased and religious, but I'm just as curved in on myself. I am just as self-centered in my morality, as I was in my immorality. I'm on the same path.

I'm still curved in. I'm just as addicted. I can't change my heart. I know Proverbs 3, I know Proverbs 4, I know the Psalms. You know, Martin Luther at this time was teaching the Bible at Whitonburg University. And he knew the Bible and he knew what it said. Take the truth, find the way, go down to life. Take the truth, find the way, go down to life. Take the truth, find the true way, down to life. Truth, way, life. Truth, way, I can't, he said, I can't get the truth in my heart.

I can't change my heart. I'm still on the path. I went into the monastery to avoid. I'm on the wrong way. Centuries after Proverbs was written. There was a group of disciples sitting around their rabbi hoping he would help them with wisdom. And their rabbi said, I'm soon going to be going to my father's house. There are many rooms in my father's house. I'll prepare a place for you. And one of his disciples, Philip,

said to Jesus, master, we don't know the way. Now, Philip was using wisdom language. Philip was saying, look, we've read the Proverbs. We're looking for the way to life. Take the truth, put it in your heart, follow the way to life. But we don't know the way. And Jesus in response gave us one of the great thunderbolts

of history. He looked at them not like any other teacher has ever lived. Every other teacher, every other wise man has ever lived said, I have blazed the way. Follow me. I have shown you the way. Follow me. Do what I do. I have, I'm pointing to the way. If you live like I live, then you will find the way, you will find life. But Jesus doesn't say, I pointed the way, he doesn't say. I blazed the way, he doesn't say, I show you the way. Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the way. I have done it for you. I lived the life you should have lived. I died the death you should have died. I don't show you the way. I am the way to life. And you know why he could be the way to life? Because on the cross, when he cried out, my God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me? He took the deep darkness. He experienced the cosmic unraveling of uncreation, which is what happens when you get away from God. Darkness was on the face of the deep. And He did it for you.

And He did it for me. When Martin Luther realized that, it changed his life. He said all of his life, he had been thinking, I have to give God a righteousness to placate him. And now I realize that God gives me a righteousness as a gift I received by faith because of what Jesus Christ has done. And he says, the minute Martin Luther says, the minute I understood that, I thought I was born again and ushered into open gates, into paradise. But it didn't just heal his fears.

When he realized, of course, I'm never going to be able to clean my life up and not it. It healed his heart. This is the beauty. This is the glory your heart has been looking for. If you just tell yourself, be good, don't be self-centered. You put that truth in your heart, watch. You'll find what Luther found.

It doesn't matter whether you're immoral, and now you're going to get moral, you'll be on the same path. But Jesus dying for you. Jesus taking hell for you, Jesus taking the deep darkness. Jesus saying, Isaiah 53, the results of my suffering I will see and I will be satisfied. You know what that means? He says, I went to hell. I experienced all of the eternal agonies of hell and it's worth it if you and I can be together. That's the beauty you're looking for. That's the glory you're looking for. You have to take the gospel into your heart and that's the only thing that will completely change your identity and only then will you not be a fool. Yeah, when the only way you're going to get your heart to look away from money or your

children or your marriage or anything else is you've got to have a greater beauty. The only way to pull your heart off of one beauty is to find a better one. You can't just say, stop it, stop it. Marriage shouldn't be that important to me. Children, money, people's approval. These Marriage shouldn't be that important to me. Children, money, people's approval. These things shouldn't be too important to me. That doesn't work. You're just wagging a finger at yourself.

You need the beauty of Jesus Christ coming into the center of your heart that will melt your heart away from these other things. It will heal your heart. It will change your heart. And only when money is second and Jesus' first will you make wise financial decisions. And only when money is second and Jesus is first where you make wise financial decisions. And only when marriage is second and Jesus is first where you make decent choices of who to marry. And only when Jesus is first and

your work or your children, only then will your heart will be healed and you will finally be wise. But it takes time. See what verse 18 says, get the gospel in your heart, doesn't happen overnight. The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn shining ever brighter and brighter until the full day. There's a place in Jan Martell's book The Life of Pi, where the narrator who's a Hindu at the time is told by Father Martin that Jesus, the Son of God died for our sins. And he couldn't get over this. And he started railing. But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected, the Son must have had the taste

of death forever in his mouth. There must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon himself? Why not leave death to mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful? Why spoil what is perfect? Love, Father Martin said. Love is the reason he went through that. Look at that until it changes your heart and finally gives you the only source of real wisdom there is in the world. Let us pray.

Thank you, Father, that you have healed our heart with the gospel. We have a long way to go. The dawn just gives us enough light to see things. We're a long way from noon time. Father, certainly are people present tonight that are finding a lot of this intriguing maybe even, convicting, but certainly there's huge parts that they don't understand. I pray that they will keep pursuing the path of the gospel until the light dawns on them. And they start to get it.

And I pray, Father, that you would help us all to understand the riches of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Jesus Christ and whose name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it equips you to know more about God's Word. You can find more resources from Tim Keller at GospelOnLife.com.

Just subscribe to the GospelOnLife newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotional and other resources. Again, it's all at GospelOnLife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. This month's sermons were recorded in 2004. 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