Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Walking in Wisdom (Part 1)

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Ephesians 5 talks about light and wisdom. Paul says that because you once were darkness and now are light, you should now expose works of darkness and experience the fruit of light. Then in verse 15, Paul says that we are to walk as wise and not as fools, for the days are evil. What Paul is saying is that walking in wisdom is the way in which you expose the deeds of the darkness. In these verses, Paul shows us 1) there are two different realms—darkness and light, 2) we are to have nothing to do with unfruitful works of darkness, but are to instead bear the fruit of the light, and 3) as one who is in the light, your job is to expose the deeds of darkness. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 2, 1991. Series: Christian Lifestyle. Scripture: Ephesians 5:15-18. 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.

We all know that just believing in something doesn't result in changing your life. Many people engage in religious activity, yet struggle with impatience, resentment, or an unforgiving heart. So what does true change look like? The gospel doesn't just modify behavior, it fundamentally reshapes our hearts. Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller shows us how Christ's love transforms us from the inside out. After you listen to today's teaching, we invite you to go online to Gospelinlife.com

and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal and other valuable Gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at Gospelinlife.com. I'd like to try to prepare you for the Lord's table tonight by taking you to Ephesians chapter 2. No, chapter 5. Chapter 2 is in the morning. Last week we talked about the section that we got to in Chapter 5, verses 8 through 14

about the light and the darkness. And I like to start looking at the section from verse 15 to 18, but it's at… we have to look at the connection between the two. And we don't have tons of time tonight, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you what the connection is between the two sections and treat as much of it as we possibly can tonight as a way of preparing you to try to meet him over the table. Now, let's therefore read in chapter 5 verse 8 to 14 and then I'll read verses 15 to 17. So I'm going to read all the way from 8 to 17 and treat as much of it as we

possibly can tonight. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. And find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything

visible. That's why it is said, Wake up, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you. Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." This is God's word. The two sections are, the first section is about light, the second section is about wisdom.

And the first section says, because you were darkness and now you are light, it says therefore, what? You should expose the works of the light, excuse me, the works of the darkness, and you should experience the fruit of the light, and have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness. Then in verse 15, Paul says, then walk as wise and not as fools for the days are evil. And walk circumspectly, the old King James says, because

you must redeem the time and approve what the perfect will of God is. Now see, the word then shows that there's a connection. And what I've got to do is, I'll just point out what Paul's saying is because your job as the light is to expose the unfruitful works of darkness, therefore you should walk as wise. So walking as wisdom is the way in which you expose the deeds of the darkness. Now, that means to recap and to try to finish up what we were talking about last week. And lots of you weren't here last week and lots of you were, so here's the recap as well as the essential teaching of the section verses 8

to 14. First, what Paul is saying is once you were darkness, now you were light. And he's saying here that the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not one of degree. That's very, very hard to remember and to understand. It doesn't mean that everybody's conversion process has to be a dramatic one. But underneath, the differences in temperament, underneath the fact that some of us sob and scream when we get excited and some of us go, oh, we get excited. Underneath the differences of temperament, underneath the different ways which God can draw you,

the difference between a Christian and non-Christian is the difference between night and day. That's what Paul's saying. It's not a matter of degree. It's not like Christians are just nicer people than non-Christians. I think many of you, if you believe that, you're being very disappointed because plenty of non-Christians are nicer than Christians.

Paul's not saying that the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is one of degree. He's saying the difference is tremendous. It's a difference in realms. A Christian is in a different realm than a non-Christian. A Christian is in the realm of the light and has been translated out of the kingdom of darkness. Very, very strong. We mentioned that last week, so we'll go on. But just have to keep this in mind. One of the great things about ministry in New York

is the difference in the darkness and the light is so obvious that people know. See, if you're not a Christian, it's very difficult to have any particular reason to live a moral lifestyle. And so people know where they stand. And the corruption and the perversity and the dishonesty and the in-your-face rudeness and the meanness and the cruelty and the violence is right there.

You see it in the sidewalk. And the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian in New York is not as hard to see. That's one of the great things about ministry here. It's one of the reasons why in some ways, in some ways it's easier to minister here than other places where the difference is really kind of difficult to see. Please keep this in mind because a lot of you have never lived in New York all your lives and you're not going to live in New York all your lives. Just keep this in mind, because you're not, a lot of you have never, haven't lived in New York all your lives and you're not going to live in New York all your lives.

Just keep this in mind. The difference that Paul's talking about is absolute regardless of where you are. There's many other places in America where people are sort of raised in niceness and everybody's nice whether you're a Christian or not. And it's hard to relate to this, but do not be deceived. Paul is talking about darkness. It doesn't just say that a person was in darkness and now is in the light.

It says you were darkness and you are become light. That means not just that you were in the darkness, but the darkness was in you. The darkness was in your center. It was part of you, part of your nature. And now the light has been engrafted into your center. What I'm trying to say is you can have a dark center, a dark heart. You can be darkness and still be extremely nice.

Because the heart of darkness, the essence of darkness, the essence of sin, the Bible says, is not murder, rape, and armed robbery. The essence of sin is wanting to do things your way. There's a great place in Isaiah where it says, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to our own way. Just remember some years ago Burger King had a great ad campaign in which it said, we're not like the other places where you get burgers.

You can ask for onions or no onions. You can ask, have it your way at Burger King. You can ask for onions or no onions. You can ask, have it your way at Burger King. And of course, that's very attractive. They didn't realize that they were in a very, very helpful way, encapsulating what the Bible says the essence of sin is. There's nothing wrong with wanting onions on your burger. But you see, they were smart. They realized that when they were not creating a mindset when they said, have it your way, they were playing on a mindset.

They were exploiting a mindset. There's nothing wrong with wanting to have burgers your own way. But there is something wrong with saying, this is my life and I'll lead it the way I want to. And no one is my captain and I'll lead it the way I want to and No one is my captain. I'm captain of my own soul See that's something deep in the heart of everybody And that's what they're playing on and that's the heart of darkness and a person can be raised in niceness And yet underneath use the niceness as a way of staying in control of their own lives You You look down your nose at other people, you say, oh, look at these people.

I'm nice, I'm moral, I'm a straight arrow. Look at them. Look at them. So your niceness is what? Your niceness is just one more way for you to keep control of your own life. Stay in charge. Be your own savior. The heart of darkness is what Paul's talking about.

You once were darkness. He doesn't just say you were in darkness. He doesn't say, yeah, you were out there on the streets, and you were shooting people on sight. He didn't say that. You can be quite nice. You can be nicer. Quite a bit nicer than most Christians.

And still be darkness. Now, that's the first thing. The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is the difference of two different realms. nicer than most Christians and still be darkness. Now that's the first thing. The difference between a Christian and non-Christian is a difference of two different realms. It's not a difference in degree. It's a difference of status and standing. There's some things around the church I hope will be proverbial. I want to say them enough because I think they're important enough that you'll know

them by heart. If I ask somebody, are you a Christian? And they say, I'm trying. I know that you have no idea what it means to be a Christian. You think Christianity is a matter of your efforts, a matter of moving up the ladder a few more degrees. Christianity is a matter of realm of standing. You're either in Christ or you're not. You're either relying on Him or you're not. Either He either relying on Him or you're not. Either He's your Savior or you're your Savior. Either you have said, God, I come to you on the basis of what Jesus has done for me, or

else you say, God, I don't know if you're there, but I'm going to live my life my own way, or I'm going to come to you on the basis of my niceness, or whatever. One or the other. Secondly, second point that Paul, you can draw out of here, is we're told have nothing to do with the fruitless, unfruitful works of darkness, but instead bear the fruit of the light. Now, last week, and I won't go over this at all, last week we talked about what the fruit of the light was.

It's listed here, goodness, righteousness, and truth. And if the light is in you, it shows itself through truth, honesty and integrity, truth about yourself, facing the truth about yourself, facing the truth about other people, becoming an honest person, it's one of the fruit of the light, righteousness, goodness, which is generosity, not just a niceness, but generosity and benevolence. We talked about that. Here's what I'd like to show you. What Paul is teaching is the way you know that your darkness or light is by the end

results. Fruit. See it says if you are the light, eventually it will bear fruit. If you're darkness, eventually it will bear fruit. Put it this way. Here's two saplings. Now I'm not a botanist and I don't, we're a treologist or a saplingologist or whatever. You know, we live in an expertise culture. I'm sure there's experts in saplings. Now I'm not a botanist and I don't, we're a treeologist or a saplingologist or whatever. You know, we live in an expertise culture. I'm sure there's experts in saplings. You know, here's two saplings and one is a pear tree and one's an apple tree. Probably,

you're not going to be able to tell which is which. Here's two saplings, they're sitting side by side or maybe they're wrapped up, you know, and you can buy them. You have no idea which is which. What if you get them mixed up? Oh my, I wanted the pear tree in the front yard, I wanted the apple tree in the back. What are we going to do? How are we going to know what tree is what? Guess what? You plant them, and you wait, and you see the fruit. Now, the truth of the scripture is this. You cannot often tell whose heart is dark, whose heart is light, see the light and the darkness, but in the end eventually these things come out.

I want to put it another way. In the short run, godliness is always harder, in the long run it's wonderful. In the short run ungodliness is always wonderful, and in the long run it's terrible. This is something that scripture teaches, and in the long run, it's terrible. This is something that Scripture teaches again and again. For example, in Hebrews 11, there's a place where it talks about Moses. Hebrews 11, 24 says, Moses chose not, oh, Moses chose to be mistreated with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. He counted disgrace with the people of God of greater value and he looked ahead

past Egypt to his treasure. It says, he did not fear kings, he persevered as one seeing him who was invisible. Moses is a perfect example who said, in the short run, the fruit of darkness always tastes good. In the long run, it's terrible. In the short run, the fruit of light, of godliness, is hard. It may be sour, it may be difficult. In the long run, it's sweet. That's the way the Bible sets it up everywhere. Go to the book of Proverbs, and there's a constant talk about adultery. And it says what? Adultery tastes sweet in the mouth, and when it gets to the stomach, it's more bitter than gall.

This comes up again and again and again. It's remarkable how often it happens. And that means that you have to keep that in mind. What it means is that always, always, always, in the long run, your sins will find you out. There are some scary, frightening places. In the end of the book of Galatians, be not deceived, Paul says, God is not mocked. What you reap you will sow, see fruit. What kind of seed you have sown will show itself.

God is not mocked. He'll reap what you sow. Are you holding on to a grudge or struggling to forgive someone in your life? Would you like to experience the freedom and healing that forgiveness brings? In his book, Forgive, Why Should I and How Can I, Tim Keller shows how forgiveness is not just a personal act, but a transformative power that embodies Christ's grace to a world fractured by conflict. Far from being a barrier to justice, forgiveness is the foundation for pursuing it. In this book, you'll uncover how forgiveness and justice are deeply intertwined expressions

of love and how embracing Christ's forgiveness equips us to extend grace to others. We'd love to send you Dr. Keller's book, Forgive, as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the hope and forgiveness of Christ with more people. Visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. He who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind. And that's the way it always is. In the long run, in the short run, it's better to go get the tooth yanked or not.

Well, in the short run, you've got the unpleasantness of going and the yanking and the soreness afterwards but in the long run you're healed. Or you can decide, yes, this is Saturday, I should go and get that toothed out with, but I can't take it, I don't want to take it. So in the short run you have a much more pleasant Saturday, much more pleasant, absolutely more pleasant than if you went and got the tooth yanked. But in the long run it'll abscess, in the long run it'll poison you. Lying is almost always because in the short run it gets you

out of something. But most of you realize how hard it is to lie. I mean, as a person who used to lie a lot, I want you to know how difficult it is in the long run. We've talked about this once before. It's very difficult because you have to always remember who you said the what. See, truth isn't in the... in the short run, the truth gets you in trouble a lot. But in the long run, it's much easier because you don't always have to worry about it because you can just tell it. See, the trouble with lies is you always have to say, now what am I supposed to say? What did I say last time?

Who did I say this to? Lying is hard in the long run. Dishonesty is hard in theying is hard in the long run. Dishonesty is hard, and generally in the long run. It's hard to cheat an honest man, the old proverb goes. What happens is over the years, over the years, the more you sin, the more you cheat, the more you deceive people, the more suspicious you get, and the more difficult it is for you to trust. You destroy your ability to trust.

It's hard to cheat an honest man, they say, because an honest man is somebody who simply not only tells the truth, but also has learned the difference between truth and falsity. The more you tell falsehood, the more you will find yourself becoming someone who can't tell the difference between truth and falsehood. Because in order to tell the falsehood, you have to lie partly to yourself every time. When you tell a lie, you have to tell yourself, well, it's sort of true. Well, it's kind of true. Well it should be true. And you start to lie to yourself.

And as time goes on, you live in a never-never land. Or we've talked in the past, I'll just mention it again. In the short run, sex can be wonderful. Because why? Because the person is with you and because the person will not leave you. In the short run, to say no, we're not married, means that you might be a pretty lonely person pretty quickly.

In the long run, we've said that if it's true what the Bible says, that sex is built for, it's designed by God for permanent and exclusive relationships. If that's true, then what? You know, you go back and you think about it, and you remember that when you first had sex with somebody, though you weren't married to them, you felt married. You felt like taking vows right there. You wanted that person to say, I belong completely and exclusively to you. That's how you felt.

Why? Because the Bible says God built sex for that setting. But when you decide, well, because the culture says that that's ridiculous to have that kind of possession of somebody else, I'm just simply going to have sex because what I'm saying with sex is, I love you now. I want you now. You meet my needs now. You watch what happens. Sex was supposed to be the way for you to commit yourself to somebody else completely and exclusively. If you use it outside of that context, it works backwards, and it actually begins to destroy your ability to trust, and destroy your ability to make commitments, and destroy your ability to actually say to somebody, I'm for you and with you permanently.

God is not mocked. Your sins find you out. You reap what you sow. What does that mean? It means that darkness will always show itself with the bitter fruit. It means that light in the short run, as hard as it is in the long run, will always show itself in the sweetest of fruit. Third thing that Paul says here. First was, what was the first one? Is it truth?

The first one was that the difference between a Christian and non-Christian is the difference in darkness and light, two different realms. Secondly, that those two realms will show themselves in fruit. Oh, by the way, you notice if you look carefully, even though I just did this to you, it doesn't actually say that the light bears fruit and the darkness bears fruit. Do you see what it called? It says the unfruitful works. In the book of Galatians, it will say the same thing. The fruit of the spirit, but the works of

the flesh. It's almost like Paul knows that there's a sense in which when you disobey God, there is a result and it looks like fruit, but it's not. It's mechanical. It's not organic. It's not vital. It doesn't nourish you. There's a kind of joy that comes through disobedience, but it's not a fruit. It's not something you can feed on. It's you. There's a kind of joy that comes through disobedience, but it's not a fruit. It's not something you can feed on. It's superficial. It's artificial. It will not last.

You know, the humor that comes out of the joy that comes out of disobedience is not a humor that builds anybody up. Have you ever noticed that? It's a cynical thing. It's a cut down thing. It can even be a self-cutting down thing. It's a joy, but it's not a fruit. It's a work. It's a joy but it's not a fruit. It's a work.

It's a mechanical thing. You can make a confidence from disobedience, but it's a confidence that's like a bubble. It'll burst. It's not a fruit. It's something mechanical. Okay, last. The last thing. It says, your job is to expose sin.

Now you know, the old King James, it says, reprove the works of darkness. Here it says, have nothing to do with the works of darkness but expose them. And I'll just be pretty brief here. What does expose mean? Literally, the Greek word means to persuade with evidence. And this is a great, great verse. People over the years have just debated, what is the relationship of the light to the darkness? Now that you're light, how are you supposed to relate to the darkness? Many people have said, well, you have nothing to do with them.

That's what it says. No, it doesn't. It says, don't have anything to do with the unfruitful works, but expose them. There's a place where Paul wrote the Corinthians and said, have nothing to do with fornicators. Then back in the next time he wrote the Corinthians, he said, hey, when I said have nothing to do with fornicators, I didn't mean have nothing to do with any fornicators, because then you'd have to go out of the world. And in New York, that's obviously true.

If you had nothing to do with fornicators, you know, you couldn't take any public transportation, for example. And what he said is, what he said is, he says, I don't mean to go out of the world. He says, what I mean is people that say they're Christians but are living in that particular sin. No, and there's a place where, you know, the man that Jesus Christ cast demons out of,

the Gadarene demoniac. The Gadarene demoniac comes rushing after Jesus and says, I'm with you now. I'm coming to seminary. I'm coming to Bible college. I'm going to sit at your feet. And Jesus says, no way. Go back to the place where you have been crazy for all these years, go back to the people that you have been living with for all these years and tell them what God's done for you.

And he sends them back with a power he doesn't know about yet. No, no, no, you're not supposed to get out of there. Not a bit. To expose doesn't mean to denounce either. It says to persuade. And what will persuade people? You flash the light of the Gospel on them. The joy of your life, the attractiveness of the way in which you work, this exposes the

works of darkness. It doesn't mean they'll always like it. It's not saying to denounce, to denounce somebody to say, oh, I'm a Christian, you're that, you do that. This is talking about exposing them, which means to persuade them. And if all you do is denounce them, that's not persuading them. Persuade them means to win them. You win them over by flashing the light on them. And, just to to move to this, to finish, what we're going to look at next week is, in order to expose people, darkness, in order to expose people's

darkness, in order to do that in a place like New York, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to get up and denounce? Are you supposed to withdraw? Are you supposed to get up on street corners and preach? I don't preach on street corners, maybe I should sometime. And there's nothing absolutely wrong with that, but that's not the heart of what Paul's talking about. He says the way to do it is to be wise. You know what it means to be wise? In the book of Proverbs,

oop, hmm, get this back now. In the book of Proverbs, one of the words for wisdom is bina, insight. And it means the ability to make distinctions. One time I was watching, we were watching TV in Philadelphia and there was a ballet on. And Kathy says, look at this, this guy has just come over from some place and wait until

you see his light years and everybody else turn, watch this, watch this jump. And I watched and I said, don't they all do that? And about an hour later I was watching a 76ers game and there was Dr. J going up with, you know, four people on him. And he went that way and somehow then he said, oh, there's people over here. And then he's in midair, he went that way. And then there was people over there and he says, no. And then he went that way, there's people over here. And then he's in midair, he went that way. And then there was people over there. And he says, no. And then he went that way.

There were people there. And so he just sort of kissed the ball off the glass, his left hand when he was going to the right, and it went in. And I said, Kathy, watch this instant replay. You've got to see this thing. So he turned it on and she said, don't they all do that? You see, wisdom is the... I didn't have the wisdom in ballet to be able to make distinctions.

Where Cathy saw beauty, I saw blur. Don't they all do that? She didn't have the wisdom in basketball to be able to make distinctions. What is wisdom? Look at your heart. Can you make distinctions? Do you know when you've talked too long? Do you know when you've overstayed your welcome?

Do you know when you've chosen a job that's wrong for you? How about distinctions with other people? Do you know when it's right to bring up that touchy subject and when you better shut up? Do you know when it's right to make a move into a relationship and when you shouldn't? You say, oh, I've been waiting to tell me how to do this. This is wisdom. And the Bible says that if you're a Christian, you have in you the one who, Jesus Christ, in whom all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom is hid. We're going to get to this later. But the only way that you

can expose the unfruitful work of darkness is the long, difficult, and yet absolutely possible job of developing Christ's wisdom to make distinctions, to know when to shut up and when to speak up, to know when to move and when to pull back. To have that kind of wisdom, that is what is going to make the people around you say, what makes you different? That's going to be it. Not training programs, not reading the Bible even inside out, at least just to memorize and know information, but take it on inside so that it makes you wise.

Wise. When we go to the Lord's table, here's my suggestion to you. That you say, Lord, number one, I see places in which I am not bearing the fruit of the light because I'm actually in the short run taking shortcuts. I want to repent of that because I don't want to reap what I'm sowing right now. In some of your cases, you must say the hard work of learning wisdom, which is fellowship and study of the Word of God and practice of obedience and all the things that I know

I should do, I haven't developed that. I'm not exposing the light, the darkness of people around me I haven't developed that. I'm not exposing the darkness of people around me. I'm not remarkable. I'm not special. Nobody looks at me and says, what makes you different? I want to be like you, Lord Jesus. I'm tired of my spiritual mediocrity.

I'm through with it. And it starts now, the change in my life. If you're ready to talk like that to your own heart, come to the table. Let's pray. Father, as we do go to the table, as we do partake, help us to apprehend the Savior and to receive His wisdom so we can expose the darkness around us and we can bear the fruit of light, the sweetest fruit of all.

We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you trust God's Word and love Him more. You can find more resources from Tim Keller at GospelInLife.com. Just subscribe to the Gospel in Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other

resources. Again, it's all at GospelinLife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was recorded in 1991. 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.