Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - To Revive the Spirit of the Lowly

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

This is a text of realism. There are many promises in the Bible about the great blessings Jesus’ salvation brings. In Isaiah 57, we have a reminder that we still live in a world filled with tragedy, difficulty, and suffering.  The salvation we get from Jesus is by no means an exemption from the same brokenness that everyone else in the world is experiencing. Rather, the salvation is wonderful because it gives us the resources to face the brokenness in a way we never could without it.  In this chapter, let’s look at 1) what we face in life as Christians, 2) how we should try to face it, and 3) why we can be assured that we’ll be able to. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 21, 2010. Series: The Songs of the Servant (from Isaiah). Scripture: Isaiah 57:12-21. 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. The book of Isaiah prophesies a servant of the Lord, a mysterious figure who is going to bring salvation. New Testament writers tell us that this servant is Jesus Christ himself. Why is it so significant that Jesus is identified as a servant? And what does it mean for his followers today? Join us as Tim Keller explores the person of Jesus Christ, the gentle and strong servant of the Lord. Tonight's scripture is from the book of Isaiah, chapter 57, verses one and two, and verses 13 through 21. The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart.

Devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace. They find rest as they lie in death. When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you. The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away.

But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain. And it will be said, build up, build up, prepare the road, remove the obstacles out of the way of my people. For this is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry. For then the spirit of man would grow faint before me, the breath of man that I have created. I was enraged by his sinful greed. I punished him and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his willful ways. I have seen his ways, in his willful ways. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him. I will guide him and restore comfort to him,

creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace to those far and near, says the Lord, and I will heal them. But the wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked." This is the word of the Lord. This is a text, a passage of realism. There are so many promises in the Bible about the a passage of realism.

There's so many promises in the Bible about the great blessings that Jesus' salvation brings. But at this passage, you actually have a reminder that we still live in a world filled with tragedy, difficulty, and suffering. And therefore, the salvation we get from Jesus is by no means an exemption from the same brokenness that everyone else here is experiencing. Rather, the salvation is wonderful because it gives you the resources to face it in a way that you could never face it without it. And so what we're gonna take a look here at is in this chapter, what we face in life, how we should try to face it, and then thirdly, why we can be assured that we'll be able to.

See, as Christians, what do we face, how should we try to face it, and then why we should be able, why we can be assured we will be able to do it. So first of all, what we face. Verse one says the righteous, and that means people who are right with God, perish. And then the second, the third clause says the devout are taken away. The word perish is a word that means sudden death, tragic death, early death. Last week I was writing to a man who is 62 and he is about to die any time of cancer. And great tragedy, he's a fine pastor. And he says, but all three, I have three children,

they're all married, they're all part of our church. In some ways it would be great to live another 15, 20 years, but this is not a tragic death. And I'm sure there's a whole lot of people around him that consider it still pretty tragic. However, that's not what this is talking about here. This is speaking about the kind of untimely deaths cut off in the midst of life, somebody who everyone is depending on. And the word devout, by the way, actually means a person who God loves and who loves others.

So here's someone who is filled with God's love, experiences God's love, and gives to others God's love, and yet they're cut off like this. We're being told here that people that God loves, people who God cares for, he cares for them and he loves them, are often subject to great tragedies. Jesus in John 11 was told by Martha, the sister of Lazarus, him who thou lovest is sick. She sent him a message because Lazarus, who was a good friend of Jesus, was dying. But verse five of John 11 says, even though,

I'll read it, says even though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed exactly where he was, until he died. Which is a picture of the fact that sometimes we cry out, oh Lord, help us, and God comes through. And other times, people that God loves, people that he loves, get sick and die. And so this is simply saying, good people and God's people suffer tragedy. And what does that mean? It means we're not supposed to

just freak out or we're not supposed to just melt down, but it says no one ponders. See this? The righteous perish and no one ponders it in his heart. Devout men are taken away and no one understands. The word for ponder means to think about something, meditate on it until you grasp it and understand it. And God says when all these terrible things happen to good people and especially to God's people, no one ponders it. Jesus in John chapter 9 is asked about a man born blind. Rabbi, did this man, was he born blind because of his own sin or because of his parents' sin? And Jesus says neither because God has a purpose for his blindness through which he's going to manifest his glory. And what Jesus says there, what Isaiah is

saying here is this, when it comes to suffering in your life, abandon your linear thinking. Abandon your linear thinking. The linear thinking is if I'm good, things should go good. If I'm bad, things should go bad. But that's just not the way things work. Consider the possibility that maybe the best punishment for a bad person is success. And also that maybe the only way for a person to be equipped and fitted for greatness and usefulness in life is through some kind of suffering and disaster. When Jesus says, essentially, abandon your linear thinking, it reminds me of the place where it says, you know, in Shakespeare, there is more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of, Horatio,

in your puny little philosophy. And every approach to suffering but the Bibles is flat and one-dimensional by comparison. Because even here, for example, verse one and two, verse one, we'll get to more of this later, God says when a good person is cut off, suddenly dies, you don't realize that there's some kind of evil that you don't know about that I'm sparing him or her. See, from your point of view, things are untimely, things are terrible, but I have the right point of view. Only I can see the whole thing. Only I know. You don't know. So stop your linear thinking that says, oh I can't see any good God could possibly

bring out of that. How in the world could you see? How could you know? So the first thing we're told here is, you should expect if you are God's man or woman, if you belong to him, very bad things can happen to you. And when they do, you have to ponder. Now what does ponder mean? Here's how you can ponder in such a way that when you come

into suffering, you come out on the other side, a better person instead of a worse person. You need to look down, you need to look in, and you need to look forward. Look down, verse 15. This is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever whose name is holy, I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. This is an amazing promise. God says, even though I live in a high and holy place, I also, in a particular way, dwell in the lives of a particular kind of person.

A particular kind of person, I really come in and I live with him. My power is released in their lives. What kind of person? That person has two characteristics and they're both important. The first characteristic is contrite. I dwell in the person who is contrite. Now that word contrite, unfortunately, our translators have deserted us at this point. Because the word

contrite, though it's an old word that actually probably means this, what the Hebrew word means today, it means to be penitent, right, contrite. Actually, the Hebrew word means to be crushed, to be just crushed with our problems. And I'm amazed at that. And yet I'm not amazed at that. That one of the qualifications for having God just infusing your life

is usually trouble, being crushed, something really wounding you. Ah, but the second characteristic is not just contrite but lowly, not just crushed but lowly. And again, that word doesn't maybe get across the meaning of the Hebrew word. The Hebrew word means a person who does not promote, people who don't promote themselves.

The lowly are people who don't push to the front of the line. There are people who don't promote themselves and constantly push their own interests. They're servants. They are profoundly unself-centered. They're profoundly unselfish. They're profoundly unselfish, they're profoundly unselfconscious. And this is strange.

Because these two things do not go together, they ordinarily do not. When you're crushed, that doesn't make you unselfish, frankly, troubles tend to make you more selfish, more self-centered, more thinking about yourself. In the psychotherapy world, there's a couple of little aphorisms that get this across. One of them goes like this. Hurt people, hurt people. Right? Hurt people, hurt people. If you're hurt, if you've been hurt and wounded and trampled upon, you

know what that does? It fills you with self-pity. It makes you feel like I've had a lousy life and I need this and okay, if that bothers you, well, tough. Hurt people hurt people. Generally when you're hurt it makes you more self-centered, more self-absorbed, more concerned about how you're doing and looking at yourself. And here's another aphorism. Abused people abuse, which by the way, statistically true. People who abuse physically usually were abused physically and so it's almost the opposite of what we see here. To be crushed usually makes you not lowly, not unselfish, not unself-absorbed, it makes you very self-absorbed, very, you know, caught up in yourself and filled with self-pity and very often harder and more self-righteous

too. Sometimes people who suffer feel very cynical about everybody else. But there's another way to go. There's a way that suffering can turn you into a person who's less selfish. Do you realize that whenever you go through a tough season, you hold your soul in your hands because the suffering will either make you more selfish or less, more self-centered or less. One or the other won't leave you alone. And that means if you're going through a tough season right now, beware. And here's what could happen, however, instead of it making you harder and more selfish. When you lose something big, your job, your

career, someone you've loved or your health or something like that. Your first stage is always anger. You're angry because you feel helpless and because you feel out of control. See, when bad things happen, you feel like I've lost control of my life. I was doing okay, things were going along, things were going according to plan and this happened and that happened. And you feel angry and you're right on the verge of going down this road which makes you more selfish and more self-centered. But there's a fork in the road and there's another way to go.

You're feeling helpless, you're feeling out of control, but then what if you suddenly said, wait a minute, I thought I was in control, but I never really was in control of my life. The suffering hasn't really put me out of control. The suffering has revealed that I never was in control. The way our life goes, we talked about this actually last week, the way our life goes is partly due to whether we work hard or not, but it's mainly due to all kinds of forces and factors beyond our control. And very often trouble and suffering shows that you really are not able to keep control of your life. That without God at the very center, you are in trouble. You can't do it. And if you start to realize

that, and instead of just getting angry about life, you begin to realize that you've been living in an illusion, you start to turn toward God, here's what can happen. A friend of mine once said, we don't realize that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. I think that's actually maybe too weak a way of putting it. I think it might be better to say almost always we don't realize, we almost never realize that Jesus is all we need until Jesus is all we have, until these other things that are so important to us

get stripped away. And if instead of it just angering you and turning you cynical, if instead you turn toward Jesus and you find to your shock that even though you believed in him before in some general way, he's enough. He's enough. Then, because life is cyclical and things usually do get better and a lot of the things you've lost start to come back in, you'll find that they're not nearly as important to you as they were. And they don't control you as much as they did. And you're not driven by them as much and anxious about them as much. And you begin to realize the suffering has not made me lose

control of my life. I now have more control than I had before, before I was out of control. Before I was beholden to these things. And when Jesus is at the very center, when God's at the very center of your life instead of in the periphery, then, as John Newton says, the best times in life are leaveable and the worst times in life are bearable. And you're liberated. So what does it mean to look down?

What does it mean to become lowly? It means that when you're crushed, instead of just railing, say, I'm being humbled. I'm being shown that I never was in control. I'm being shown that God's got to be the very center of my life, that I've been wrong, that I've been living in an illusion. And if you humble yourself like that, if you look down, cast your eyes to the ground. That's the first thing that will take you through that forest of suffering out on the other side, a better person instead of a worse person. But there's another thing to do. The second thing we need to do is look in. Verse 13, when you cry out for help, let your idols save you. My, my.

You know how often this comes up in the prophets? Like in Jeremiah 2, Jeremiah says, Where then are the gods you have made for yourselves? Let them come if they can save you when you're in trouble, for you have as many gods as you have towns, oh Judah. The prophets say, if you want to understand your heart, and if you want to see what your real gods are, and I bet you there's a lot of you in this room that say,

I don't have any gods, in fact, I'm not sure I even believe in God. The Bible says everybody's living for something. Everybody is finding their meaning and their value and their self-esteem in something. You're looking at something. Whatever that is, is your real God. And even if you do believe in God, even if you're kind of religious, you've got a real God. But the only way you'll ever really understand your heart is not when the sun is shining, it's in the storm. Not when things are going well, it's only when things go bad.

Because only when suffering comes, that you realize what is the true God and what are the false gods. Because only the true God can go with you through that suffering and out to the other side. All the other gods abandon you in the forest. All the other gods abandon you in the storm. Jesus was the most influential man to ever walk the Earth,

and his story has been told in hundreds of different ways. Can anything more be said about him? In his book, Jesus the King, Tim Keller journeys through the Gospel of Mark to reveal how the life of Jesus helps us make sense of our lives. Dr. Keller shows us how the story of Jesus is at once cosmic, historical, and personal,

calling each of us to look anew at our relationship with God. Jesus the King is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the transforming love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at GospelInLife.com slash give. That's GospelInLife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. You don't think so? Listen, let me give you some examples.

Injury. Johnny Erickson, who's about my age, which means this must have happened a long time ago, when she was about 18, she had a diving accident, broke her neck, and she's ever since been paralyzed from the neck down. She's in a wheelchair, quadriplegic. What was she living for before that? Even though she was religious, what was she living for? Well, she tells you in some of her books, she was very athletic, She loved to ride horses

and do other things. She lived for her athletic activities. She lived for guys. She lived for the possibility of a career. And if you're living for those things, none of them can come into the wheelchair with you. You know that. You're in a wheelchair, the guys aren't coming. The athletic prowess isn't coming. None of the things she was living for before could go into the wheelchair with her. But if you live for God, if you live for God, I don't mean you just believe in God.

If you live to please him, if you live to enjoy his love, if you live to know him better and better and know his ways better and better, you can do that in a wheelchair. That's a God that stays with you in anything. That's a God that continues to give you meaning. It continues to animate your life. All other things that were animating your life, they were really the thing that you live for. They're gone. Why? Where are the gods you have made, oh Israel, when you go into the wheelchair? Let them come and save you now. They can't. That's injury. Let me give you a second one. Surgery.

I've only experienced this once. But when they wheel you into surgery, and it's serious, back in 2002 I had surgery for cancer. All cancer. When they wheel you back into surgery and they know it's serious and who knows what's going to happen. Do you know how lonely that is? Because everybody comes to see you, in my case your children, my wife Kathy, all the people that give me meaning in my life, they're all there, you see, we're with you, we're with you, dad, we're with you. And then they take you into surgery and they all leave. They don't come with me. I go in there alone. Well, there's doctors in there, but they're the problem. They're going to cut me open. So

no offense to the medical community members who happen to be here, all right. They're the problem. No, look, the only God that goes with you is the true God. Anyone else that's a bigger source of love and meaning and strength for you in your life abandons you at the surgical door. Where are the gods you've made for yourself, oh Israel, when you're having surgery? They're not there. They cannot rescue you. They can't come with you. Only the real guy can go in there. He's the only one you can talk to as you go in there. Or grief. I listened to a sermon years ago by David Martin, Lloyd Jones, andJones and even then, it was actually recorded in the 1950s and I have a tape of it. Do any of you remember what tapes are?

And yesterday, because I was looking at this passage, I pulled it out and listened to it, at least part of it. And it was on Jeremiah 2. It was him preaching on this text. Where are your gods, O Israel, that you have made? Let them come and save you. And one of the things he said was this. He said, false gods can't follow you into the suffering. And he says, they cannot help you in grief. When someone that you love dearly has died, do you know why? When you're looking

at him or her in the coffin and your heart is breaking, can your career help you? No. Worse. What if the person in the coffin is the person that was the main source of love and meaning in your life. Can she help you now that your heart is broken when she's in the coffin? No. See, where are your gods, oh Israel, that you have made for yourself now that you're facing the worst thing, you're facing grief, bereavement and loss? Let them save you. They can't. Let them come with you. They can't. They don't. They can't help you when your heart is breaking.

I'll give you one more example. Injury, surgery, grief. Then there's also failure. Now, you know, it's one thing when people say, oh, I believe in God. Oh, I believe in God. But on the other hand, you say in your heart of hearts, what really matters is your moral excellence because you know you're a really good person and that's why ‑‑ that's how you look at yourself in the mirror every day or because you're a good parent or because of your professional achievement. And when I've had people over the years say to me, I failed in this or that way and I know God forgives me but I can't forgive myself. Whenever somebody says to me, I know God forgives me but I can't forgive myself. What that really means is you believe

in God in the abstract and he forgives you in the abstract, but your real God is punishing you, and you have nothing higher. See, if the main thing in your life is this or that, and you failed it, your career can't die on the cross for your sins. And if you fail in your career, and that's the main thing that you've been looking for, you always wanted to be this or that, you wanted to be, and now you can't get in there.

False gods cannot forgive you for your sins, they can just punish you for your sins. They will punish you all of your life because you failed him or that or this. Only the true God died on the cross for your sins. See, where are your gods when suffering comes? They abandon you. They cannot when you lose them, of course they can't help you. And God's the only God that you can't lose. The real God's the only God you can't lose. You will lose your loved ones. You will

lose your job, your career. You will lose your looks. You will lose everything. No false you will lose everything. No false god can help you when your heart is breaking. They abandon you. And therefore it's in suffering that you see where your heart really is. And your reason why you're just falling apart is because that's your real god and it's abandoned you. And that's what I mean when I said before,

when you're stripped away of everything so that Jesus is all you have and you begin to find him enough, then even when the stuff comes back, even when those good things sometimes come back, they're not idols anymore and you get liberated. And therefore sometimes the very best thing that can happen to you is suffering and disaster.

So it's not only that you have to look down and not only have to look inside if you're going to come through the forest of suffering on the other side and be better instead of worse, you need to look ahead. And that's all verse one. And two, the righteous perish and no one ponders it in his heart. Devout men are taken away and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace and they find rest as they lie in death.

Well, I already mentioned part of this. God says no matter what is happening in your life, look ahead. What does that mean? All right. Sudden death, tragic death, untimely. And what does he say? If you have a ‑‑ in a right relationship with me and something terrible happens, it's always because I'm trying to spare you from something worse. Even if it's death. Even if I let you die in some kind of tragedy. It's because there's something out there that you would have experienced that would have been worse,

and only I can see it. But he goes on further and says, and verse two, and besides that, if you are right with me, if I have you by your hand and you have me by the hand, if you're in a right relationship with me, and I have you by the hand, then even death when it comes upon you will only bring you rest. And you know what's great about, from the New Testament perspective,

we know even more than Isaiah that when death comes upon us, if you're in a right relationship with God, if he has you by the hand and you have him by the hand, it's rest and then eventually resurrection. You rest for a while and then there's resurrection. In Mark chapter 5, Jesus is brought into the presence of a dead little girl. She's dead. And he stands, sits down and he takes her by the hand and he says, Talitha cum, which means literally honey. Talitha means little girl, it was a pet name, the kind of name a mother or father would use for a kid, sweetheart, Talitha, little maid or something like that. So basically saying honey, it's time to get up. And then he pulled her, and you know what happened?

Jesus Christ is facing the most implacable, inexorable foe, opponent, power, enemy that the human race has, death, death. And yet he has her by the hand, he tugs and he pulls her right through it. And she's raised up, of course. And it's Jesus' way of saying to the whole world, if I have you by the hand, even death will be just like a nice night's sleep. And that's what Isaiah 57 is saying. What can happen to you? All kinds of bad things. What's the worst that can happen to you? Well, I could be killed. That's the best thing that could happen to you, if he has you by the hand. He can just

make you better. And when you know that, when you know that, when you know about that future, you can face suffering. Well, how can we be sure, final, how can we be sure about that future? How can we be utterly sure that Jesus does have us by the hand and he won't let us go in spite of the fact, by the way, that we will do all this wrong? You know, suffering comes upon you. Ah, humble yourself. Well, we won't do it very well. Look in your heart and see what your idols are. Well, we won't do that very well. Set your hopes on the future. Well, we really won't do that very well.

We're gonna mess up. Well, how will God treat us? What's amazing down here in verse 16, 17, he says, I will not be angry forever. I was enraged by humanity's sinful greed. I punished him. He kept on being willful, but I have seen his ways and I will heal him." Isn't that amazing? What I want to know is, why would

God say, even though I have my just anger, I am justly angry with the human race for his sin, why would he say, however, I'm going to heal you anyway, even though you stay willful, even though you do things wrong? And the answer is that little word mistranslated contrite where it says, I am near to the crushed in spirit in verse 15, remember, the lowly and the crushed, that's the same word that we saw in Isaiah 53 where it says about the servant, he was pierced for our transgressions and he was crushed for our iniquities. Same word. And what it means is because Jesus Christ was crushed and was abandoned, now when you're

crushed, God will stay with you. Why? Because all the anger, the righteous anger that God has for sin, all that anger fell into the heart of Jesus. He took the punishment so that now God can say, even though I have a right to be angry, I'm not gonna stay angry at you, I will heal you. And if you know that, if you know what Jesus did in order to raise us up, why is it that when Jesus has us by the hand,

he will never let us go? Because actually on the cross, he lost everything. He lost the hand of his father, he lost the face of his father, he lost everything. He took the punishment we deserve, so now you know he'll never let us go. You know the place where he comes to Lazarus' tomb and he raises him up, raises him from the dead?

We're told almost immediately in chapter 11, almost immediately after that, the religious leaders got together and said, he raised this man from the dead. This Jesus is way too dangerous, and it says in verse 53 of John 11, from then on, the religious leaders sought for a way to kill him. Now

you don't think Jesus knew that? You don't think Jesus knew that the only way to bring Lazarus back from the dead, the only way to bring Lazarus out of the tomb was to put himself in? The only way to bring Lazarus up out of death was to bury himself? He did know that and he did it. But it's not just Lazarus, it's for us. God says, I will heal you, I won't crush you when you're crushed. And if you know what he did for you on the cross, then even when you're hurt, you'll become not a hurt person who hurts people, but you'll become a hurt person who learns to be a healer.

Because Jesus Christ, though he was hurt, he did it to heal us. And so when we're hurt, following in his footsteps, we'll be able to heal. We'll be healers. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that you'd help us to see that because of what Jesus Christ endured on the cross, you will never let go of our hand and therefore, if we go into the wheelchair, if we go into the

surgery, if we go to the undertakers, if we face death itself, no matter what, you will be with us there and will come out the other side, even if it's death itself, better than before. and will come out the other side, even if it's death itself, better than before. And because you, oh Lord Jesus Christ, when you were hurt, you forgave. You were hurt, you healed. When we see you doing that for us, then when we're hurt, we won't turn on people. We'll humble ourselves, we'll turn to you, and we'll become healers in the world. Please help us, oh Lord, to more and more be like your Son because we've seen more and more what He did for us. It's in His name we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can discover this podcast.

This month's sermons were recorded in 1990, 2003, and 2010. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.