Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Walking in Wisdom (Part 2)

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

There is nothing that beggars your own sense of wisdom than to study what the Bible says about divine wisdom. Ephesians 5 tells us a lot about wisdom. And it shows us that biblical wisdom puts God in the center in a way that develops three aspects of wisdom. We see in these verses 1) why we need to walk in wisdom, and 2) what it means to walk in wisdom. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 9, 1991. Series: Christian Lifestyle. Scripture: Ephesians 5:11-17. 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. What makes the Christian lifestyle truly distinct? Many belief systems emphasize moral behavior, but Christianity offers something deeper, a radical transformation from the inside out. This month, Tim Keller is teaching on how the Gospel doesn't just modify our behavior, but completely reshapes our hearts. I should probably admit to you that teaching the words of funny things, sometimes as you prepare and sometimes as you pray,

you get a sense of, boy, this is important and I just can't wait to lay it out for people to feast on. And there's other times in which you look at a subject and you think about a subject, you pray about a subject, and instead you get nothing but a kind of growing sense of your inadequacy to give a decent exposition of it. And I'm in the latter condition tonight because we're going to talk about wisdom. And there's nothing that beggars your own sense of wisdom and your own wisdom than to

study what the Bible says about divine wisdom. So I'm going to do what I can to try to show you what the biblical teaching and issues are and we'll have to ask the Spirit to convict us and show us where we should go. Let me just show you Ephesians chapter 5, and I'd like to read just from... Okay, let's read from verse 13 through 17. Ephesians 5, 13-17. But everything is exposed by the light. It becomes visible. For it is light that makes everything visible, and this is why it is said, wake, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on 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." And we'll stop right there. "'Everything is exposed by the light.' Have nothing…" Verse 11, "'Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but expose them. Everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it's light that makes everything visible. Be careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making most a very opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish but understand what the Lord's will is." This ends the reading

of God's Word. And now, what I'd like to just, I'd like to point out as many things as I have time to tonight about wisdom. The passage here, and we looked at the earlier passage on the light last week and the week before last, this passage is telling us why we need to be walking as wise, why we need to be walking in wisdom. And secondly, it gives us some insight into what it means to be walking in wisdom. First, why we have to walk in wisdom, and then secondly, what it is to walk in wisdom. So let's start with the first thing, and it has to do with the light. It says in verse 11,

do not have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but expose them." And then it says, therefore walk as wise. Now let's see what this is saying. First of all, let's remember, and I think, did we not get into this somewhat last week? In the old authorized edition, it says, have no fellowship with the deeds of darkness, but reprove them. And here it says, have no fellowship with the deeds of darkness but reprove them. And here it says expose them. And I remember I had about two minutes to try to talk about that, but

this is the reason and this is the rationale for why a Christian needs to walk in wisdom. So we have to understand what it means to expose. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but expose them now. Number one, what's this mean? First of all, the word does not mean to denounce and secondly it doesn't even mean to apply morality to it. This is actually saying there is a very important balance that Christians have got to have on the one hand. They're not to have anything to do with the unfruitful works of darkness

and yet the word reprove or expose is a Greek word that literally means to win, to persuade or to convince. Let me explain what I mean by this balance. The reason you have to walk in wisdom is because you're called to this remarkably balanced attitude and stance toward the darkness. You are light, the Bible says. You've been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. What is your stance toward the darkness now? And the answer here is that you have this balance.

Reprove, win, convince, and yet have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. I really have to say that, and I don't know whether we're going to be successful at this, one of the goals of this church, one of the reasons that it's been started, one of the prayers in a sense, you know, I don't know if the church is going to have goals, but they do have prayers. The prayers, one of the hopes, one of the aspirations for this church

would be that we'd be able to come to grips with what this means. Because it's my firm conviction that most churches and most Christians fall into one side or the other. They either find that they have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, or else instead of trying to convince and win the dark, they just withdraw from it. One of the reasons that the Christian gospel and the Christian faith is not spread as fast as it ought to in the world is because of a dynamic that happens. A new believer, a new believer

usually has lots and lots of connections to people who are not believers. They have lots of friends, they have lots of close relations with people who are not believers, they can talk to them because their heads are not yet full of Christian jargon and their heads are not full of Christian technical technical terms. And they remember what it's like not to believe, and they realize how confusing it is, and they realize what Christianity looks like. And so in all sorts of ways, new believers relate very well to people who do not believe,

but new believers generally don't know a lot about their own faith yet. They're not very articulate. They can't make illuminating answers to difficult questions. It takes years to master the data. It takes years to master all the truth. And therefore, new believers have a remarkable relationships with people who are outside of the faith. They can relate to them, they can talk to them, they have connections with them, but they really don't have, very often they can't give the most thorough going and articulate presentation of what the faith is. Well, eight or nine years later, the Christian has a marvelous maturity in the understanding of the faith and can answer the questions, but no longer

has any non-Christian friends because you're completely ghettoized. You know, you read Christian books and you listen to Christian music and you spend all your time with your Christian friends and you're inside. And so what happens is the people who really could do some, how do you say, who could convince people outside, don't know the people outside, and also can't understand them, forget what it's like. Start to use all the jargon and talk about Christianity in ways that are just designed to turn off or designed to confuse the average person from outside. You just forget what it's like.

You forget how hard it is, how confusing it is, how difficult the Christian faith can sound. You don't have the sympathy anymore. So the person with the knowledge doesn't have the channels and the person with the channels doesn't have the knowledge. And this comes because Christians have a tendency to move away, to ghettoize themselves, to pull back. Or on the other hand, you've got Christians who basically just get in there and mix it

up and they don't look any different than the people who walk in darkness. What is being held out here in verse 11 is something pretty remarkable. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. It doesn't say have no fellowship with the people. Remember what we talked about last week? The Bible doesn't say have nothing to do with people who are immoral. It says have nothing to do...the word fellowship, by the way, is the word koinonia, the word from which we get our word fellowship in community.

Have no fellowship with the works of darkness. Don't be involved, don't produce those works, don't do those things. But it doesn't say have no relationships. No, not a bit. Maybe some of you remembered, and you know, it may have been almost years ago, but one time we, at some point I tried to give you this as a scenario or a schema for how Christians are to relate to the world. You've got three models. You've got the tourist model, the immigrant model, and the ambassador model. Do any of you remember that?

Not that many. How does a tourist relate to another country? The ugly American, you know, with the Bermuda shorts and the flower shirt and the camera, you know, walking around Paris or walking around Germany or something like that. You know, look at this, Ethel. Now, how does a tourist relate? A tourist uses the culture. Just learns enough language to ask for an apple, plant, coffee, and you know,

how do I get to the bus and that sort of thing. Takes a lot of pictures, is in and out, complains about how dirty the hotels are, things like that. And just goes enough to see the sights. Then you have the immigrant. The immigrant is somebody who says, I've come here to settle in here. I want to adapt. I want to assimilate.

I want to be part of this culture, and if I can't assimilate, I at least want my children to. And I want them to completely move in and really get the benefits of this culture and to get up in it, and to get more power, and to get more money, and to move up, that's an immigrant. But an ambassador is neither a tourist nor an immigrant. An ambassador is someone who on the one hand knows always

who his or her true country is. An ambassador, unlike an immigrant, never gets rid of the old citizenship papers. And the ambassador always says, I'm here to do the business of my country. And yet the ambassador must do everything necessary to make perfect communication possible between the ambassador and the culture where the ambassador lives. That means you have to learn the language perfectly, flawlessly, hmm? Dialectlessly, if possible.

You have to understand the institutions, and you have to understand the customs, and you have to understand the culture inside out, so there can be absolute unimpeded communication. And yet the ambassador never actually settles there, the ambassador never becomes a citizen of that country, the ambassador never says, I'm becoming part of this country, I'm here to do the bidding of my government. That's a Christian.

A Christian is somebody who has no fellowship of the untruthful words of darkness, keeps your citizenship papers in heaven, realizes who your true country is, loves the true country, is very careful not, actually, to assimilate. But on the other hand, is extremely concerned to communicate. The tourist doesn't communicate. The immigrant assimilates, but the ambassador doesn't assimilate, yet does communicate. How do you do that? How do you become the kind of person that convinces people who aren't Christians that

Christ is the light? How do you have that kind of relationship with them, that you're able to communicate well and win them and make them amazed at your understanding of their own heart, your approachability, the penetration of what you say and so on. How can you become a person like that? That is what Y Paul says, therefore, you see down in verse 15, therefore walk carefully as wise.

And this is the most convicting thing, and this is one of the things that's making me feel very inadequate tonight to talk about it. And that is, this is saying that it's your wisdom. It's the way in which you conduct your daily affairs It's the way you make your decisions It's the way you you size up people and discern whether or not they're taking you for a ride or not It's the your ability to get things done. It's your ability to have insight into people's hearts. It's your day in and day out exhibit of wisdom in your daily life that should be convincing people that Christ is the light.

See, it says, now, one of the things I notice about this translation is it's really fairly different than the King James in a couple of key places. There's a lot of things about the King James Bible, the old authorized Bible that are difficult to understand, but one thing you've got to realize, the bad part is it uses ancient English as opposed to modern English. The good part is it's very literal in its translation. In verse 15, it says here,

be very careful then how you live. But maybe some of you remember me talking about this. It actually says walk circumspectly Walk circumspectly not as unwise but as wise. Oh first of all You see what it's saying walking circumspectly means first of all it's talking about your walk Maybe you remember a couple of months ago We talked about this in the Bible Bible the walk is your day in and day out, moment by moment, way of living.

That's why it doesn't talk about be circumspect in the way in which you somersault. It says be circumspect in the way you walk. A somersault is something you can always pull together and summons up and do it. But a walk is something you do routinely without thinking. You know, if somebody is coming over to your apartment, you can always get it cleaned up. But the real point is, day in and day out, are you a sloppy person or are you a neat person? See, you can always summon up enough neatness for a party.

Most of you. You can always, I mean, most of you can, it summons up neatness, but the real, you know, to really know whether you're neat or not, the question is, do you walk neatly? In your, you know, to really know whether you're neat or not, the question is do you walk neatly? In your, you know, day in and day out is your apartment a neat place? There's a great place where C.S. Lewis says, the way to find rats in the basement is not to go to the door and to clear your throat and to rattle the knob and then to turn on the light and walk down slowly.

You'll never find if there's rats down there. The way to find if there's rats is to sneak up and jump to the bottom of the steps and look around, ah-ha, and then you'll see if there's rats or not. It's the day in and day out walk that Paul's talking about. It's the way you are when nobody's looking that he's talking about. And he says, how are you day in and day out? Do you walk circumspectly? To walk circumspectly means to have a completely examined life. Circum means to, you know, a circle. And it means to be continually inspecting every part of your life. It means to be looking at every part of your life, weighing it, and making sure that what you're doing, everything, the way in which you use your time, the way in which you make

decisions, the way in which you decide who to spend time with and who not, the way in which you decide whether this job is the right one for you or not, that sort of thing, day in and day out walk, is it circumspect, is it wise? And if it is, the people around you will say, there's something about that person's faith. This is very, very convicting, and this is deeply convicting to me and to you, I hope it would be as well. You can always summons up or somersault. Paul is not saying that the way in which the world will see that Christ is who he said he is, is by you learning a presentation really well oiled, really articulate, really well put together a tremendous presentation of the truth of the scripture.

It doesn't say that. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't do that, by the way. I train anybody who wants to be trained in it. It's very, very helpful. That's not what Paul's talking about here. That's a somersault. You can always study. You can always learn.

What he's saying is, day in and day out, the people who live around you, and especially the people who are outside of the faith, what do they see? Are they amazed by your wisdom? Are they surprised by it? Do they find you living in an examined life, a circumspect life, a wise life? That's what Paul's saying. That's why Paul is saying why you have to work in wisdom, because the whole world's watching and because people will decide who Christ is by the way in which you make decisions and the degree of wisdom with which you walk. See, are you foolish? Does everybody know that? Does everybody know you're disorganized?

Does everybody know that you have too many goals? Does everybody know that you can't keep a secret? Does everybody know that you're sometimes too harsh with people when you need to be nice? Does everybody know that you're too nice to people when you ought to be harsh? This is the thing that Paul says here, you've got to walk circumspectly, otherwise they're not going to know that Jesus Christ is the one that He said He is. What's your reputation? It's a frightening thing, isn't it?

Now that's why you're supposed to walk wise, because everybody's watching. Those of you who are parents realize something that the kids won't understand until they grow up and have their own kids. And those of you who don't have kids don't understand, and that is that how your kids are perceived by the world reflects so deeply on you. If your child is being ugly, it really tells the whole world, my parents are fools. If your child is being great, it tells the whole world, my parents are wise. They don't realize that. Nobody realizes except the parent. You have no idea what that means. When you see your child being honored, you feel honored, no matter how hard you try.

How hard you try to say, this isn't me who's getting this award, it's the kid who's getting this award. You can't help it. Because you see, if my kids are beautiful, I'm beautiful to the world. If my kids are ugly, I'm beautiful to the world. If my kids are ugly, I'm ugly to the world. There's a place where Jesus Christ says, wisdom is known by her children. You are his children.

What does the world think about him? Now that's why we have to walk in wisdom. Secondly, now let's talk about what wisdom is. And actually, this is another place where I feel pretty inadequate, because if you want to learn what wisdom is, you realize it takes all the wisdom you can muster to figure it out. And you don't have a whole lot, it's sort of a vicious circle. You know, it takes all the wisdom you have to find wisdom,

but you don't have much wisdom. If you go back to the book of Proverbs, for example, you'll find that wisdom is really not like a coin, it's more like a diamond, with not one side or two sides, but all kinds of facets. In fact, if you study the first chapter of the book of Hebrews, you will find that there is literally a half a dozen words used for wisdom, a half a dozen different Hebrew words. You can't always tell that when you read it in English, because you just see the word wisdom and understanding coming back and forth. But actually there's a whole pile. It's almost like wisdom is a

diamond and there's all these different facets. And unless you understand all these different facets you don't understand wisdom. Let me see if I can get something that across to you. The idea of being circumspect means every single area of your life falls in underneath the Lordship of Christ. And that's really what wisdom is. See, if you are essentially an intellectual person, that what drives your life is your thinking, what drives your life is your intellect, you'll be a cold person and people have probably already told you that. Okay?

Especially people with the opposite sex. If on the other hand, that you basically go on the basis of emotions, then you're an impulsive person. Really what happens is your desires, your needs, your emotions, that's really what counts. That's what drives you. Then you're an impulsive person. Or if what really drives you is your will, duty, discipline, then you're a driven person. And all three of those things are variations of foolishness. You'll be foolish because you will not, because if you're driven by any one of those three things occasionally the smart, occasionally the wise thing to be driven by is your intellect and occasionally the wise thing to be driven by is your emotions.

And occasionally the wise thing to be driven by is your emotions. And occasionally the wise thing to be driven by is your will. Sometimes the right thing is the smart thing. Sometimes the right thing is the feeling thing. Sometimes the right thing to do is the right thing, is the dutiful thing, is the disciplined thing. But the problem is those, we're all foolish in various ways and that means we all have a tendency to always respond to reality in our way, and that's why we're not wise.

We're foolish because a half the time, a two thirds of the time, three quarters of the time, our habitual response to reality isn't the right one. Wisdom is not to be driven by any of those things, but actually to be driven by the truth of God in the heart. Are you holding onto 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. That's the reason why the Christian life, the wise life, is an examined life. It's walking circumspectly and it's always discerning, you see, what the will of the Lord is.

Do not be foolish. The opposite of wisdom is foolishness. Do not be foolish, but always understand God's will. The Bible says a person should be a person of the heart, not of the intellect, not of the emotions, and not of the will, because the heart is the seat, the seat of the mind, the will and the emotions. Thus, when you go to the book of Proverbs, you will see there's places where the word for wisdom is l'ka, which means learning.

It means simply getting a lot of understanding of God's truth. It's great to have a lot of Bible knowledge. It's great to have a lot of theological knowledge. It's great. The trouble is a lot of us who are cerebral types anyway, we're not really wise. We're just intellectuals. That's the kind of wisdom we go after and because it's only one facet of wisdom, we really never become wise, we stay fools. Then there's another word for wisdom in Proverbs 1 called haskal, which actually means the ability to be successful. It means to be skillful, it means to be efficient, it means to know how to get things done, it

means to be practical. Again, that's only one facet of being wise, but it goes along with the intellectual. See, there are those of you, I know, who are those pragmatic types. You're not idealistic. You say, just show me how to get it done. You see, you're a, I've got to get it done. I've got to produce. I'm driven.

I'm driven by my will. That's actually a form of foolishness. If you put it all together, real wisdom is getting the truth in the heart. There will be a lot of learning, la-ca. There will be a lot of learning, l'cah. There will be a lot of skill, haskal. And then there's another word, maybe the best word, but I don't know what the best word is. There's another Hebrew word for wisdom, b'na, which means insight. And it has to do with your character. You are not really wise.

You haven't been putting truth in the center of your heart. You haven't been putting God in the center of your life if you're simply full of knowledge of the Bible or if you're simply a pragmatic get things done person or if you're simply a person of pristine character, but all those things go together and have to go together. Now, I don't have time to actually go back over those three in detail, but let me just give you some ideas about each one of those three until our time runs out. Are you following me now so far? Wisdom is putting God in the center, putting truth in the center. Let's start with the first one. Wisdom really is understanding what the will of God is. It means one of the things that wisdom is, is a truth-centered life.

A fool is somebody, one form of foolishness, I'm trying to show you that there's all kinds of foolishness. A fool is somebody, for example, who is very impulsive and will not operate on the basis of the truth. Here's a fool who says, I voted for him for president because he's so dashing, because he's smooth and polished, because he's smooth and polished, because he seems to know what he's doing, because he was in the same branch of the armed services as me. That's a fool.

There's a place, one of my friends is a very, very great public speaker. His name is R.C. Sproul, and he tells a story about once he went to a college and he was speaking in chapel. And R.C. is very dynamic and he's very excited and he's very powerful as a speaker. Afterwards one student came up to him, two of them, one of them came up to him and said, that was the greatest talk I've ever heard in this school. I was so excited, you were so dynamic. And after about 30 seconds, R.C. said, now, just tell me what was it that really stuck with you? Of all the things I've said to you,

what was it that you really remember and sunk in and was the most helpful to you? And the guy really didn't have anything. He really didn't know. He didn't seem to be able to remember anything, but he was dynamic, and that was the important thing. That's a fool. remember anything, but he was dynamic, and that was the important thing. That's a fool.

There was a person once who told me that she had brought somebody to redeem her and afterwards said, didn't you find that challenging? And the person said, I get challenged all week. On Sunday I want to relax." And that's probably a compliment, but also it's very difficult. I never met the person and this is a secondhand story, but probably that would also be what the Bible would call a foolish response. Because the fool who says, don't tell me about the truth, you know, I want to relax, I want to go with my impulses, I want to go on my impulses, I want to go on my feelings.

It's very, very dangerous to be going in that direction. Extremely dangerous to be going in that direction. You have got to put truth in the center, and you've got to let everything revolve around that. I'll move on to the next, but one thing about that. For example, this is something that seems to have come back to me recently in everything I've been preaching on or studying. The morning sermon,

I see it there, studying 1 Corinthians 13 recently, I see it there. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul contrasts human love with divine love, selfish human love with godly divine love, and he says, real love rejoices in the truth. Now, what that means is something we better really take very seriously, and it shows something about wisdom. What Paul is saying is, real love rejoices in the truth. There's a kind of love that says that I will do anything

to get that person. I will compromise any principle. I will overlook any conviction. I will break any of the Ten Commandments. But I am not going to lose this person. If love in you is wrong, I don't want to be right. When love comes so strong, Anitta says to Maria, there is no right or wrong. Or I think it was Maria said it to Anitta, yes. When love comes so strong, well they sing it together eventually. When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong. But listen, it comes up again and again when people say, well I know I should say that but I'm afraid she'd leave me. I know I ought to discipline him, my son, but I'm afraid he'd be angry at me. I know that I should do this or that, but I'm afraid that person would be out of there."

Now what that is, is foolishness. It's a refusal to have a truth-centered love, a truth-centered relationship. And the ironic thing, always, the ironic thing always about foolishness is that you lose everything. If you refuse to keep truth and love together in your relationship, you eventually will have neither truth nor love. If you don't keep truth and love together in your relationship, refusing to choose between the two, you will eventually have neither truth nor love. So, for example, if you put a human being,

if you put a relationship above the truth, above God, that person becomes your God, becomes a God in your life, and you watch, you will smother that person. You'll have to control that person, you'll have to manipulate that person, and you will not be'll smother that person. You'll have to control that person, you'll have to manipulate that person, and you will not be able to take any disappointment. Some studies show that a lot of parents who have trouble with child abuse

are not parents who hate their kids, but who are parents who revolve their entire lives around their kids. I mean, their kids give them meaning in life, and therefore when their kids are either disobedient or when their kids are disrespectful, they can't take it. The parents cannot take it. And the parents just absolutely explode.

Why? Because you see what's happened is that the relationship has become a god. Didn't you ever notice that it was the kids in school who most wanted friends that nobody wanted anything to do with? The kids who were always obviously just trailing everybody around saying, I want to be your friend, I want to be your friend. But didn't you ever notice that it was the kids in school who most wanted friends that nobody wanted anything to do with? The kids who were always obviously just trailing everybody around saying, I want to be your friend, I want to be your friend. Everybody said, get away from me.

Unless you have truth and love in a relationship, unless you have the truth center relationship, the relationship goes bad. Unless you keep truth and love together in your relationship, unless you're willing to say my love rejoices in the truth, then you're a fool and you'll lose everything. So first of all, there is the intellectual side. It's got to be a truth-centered life. You've got to put truth in the middle of the life.

Secondly, we said there's hoskal, and that means ultimately, truth is practical. I mean, pardon me, wisdom is being practical. But, remember, if you, there's a practical-minded person who only has that particular facet of wisdom, that is just the pragmatic part. And if you just have the pragmatic part without the intellectual part, if you just have the pragmatic part without continually trying to see God as the center of everything, then what you'll turn out to be is nothing but a sophisticate,

somebody who just learns how to... you become a pragmatist, you do whatever seems to work in the short run, but real wisdom is seeing what works in the long run. Real wisdom... that's why the book of Proverbs is continually coming up with statements like Proverbs chapter 10, verse 2 and 3, where it says,

ill-gotten treasures do not satisfy, and God thwarts the craving of the wicked, but the righteous will always be satisfied. There's tons of those statements in the book of Proverbs, and here's the reason why. Because disobedience sets up strains in the structure of the fabric of life that always leads to breakdown. Disobedience to God's law always sets up strains in the fabric of the structure of life that leads to breakdown. That means God invented life and He wove it together.

So when He tells you what to do, he's actually telling you what's most practical. See, I know you say, but if I tell the truth, I'll lose my job. Now, what a person is doing right at that point is you're being a pragmatist. You're taking one aspect of wisdom, but you're being a fool because you have to stand back and take it all. If you want to be the most practical kind of person, you've got to see that God is the ultimate reality and for you to disobey God is to be extremely short-sighted. In the long run, obedience has to work because God is the ultimate reality, not your boss and not your employer. The one

who really takes care of you is Him. Who is the one who takes care of you? That's the reason why in the long run, in the long run, God may give you some rope. Now we talked about this last week, so I don't have to go on. Your sins will find you out. There's a place in this new book by about, you see this book written by two FBI men who bugged the house of Paul Castellano, who was the head of the big mafia family before John Gotti. And they bugged his house for about six months. They actually had a device stuck in the lamp on the kitchen table where he did all of his

business for five months. And the book that's been written is absolutely fascinating. There's one place where this poor man man who really has probably as much power as anybody in the world and had as much wealth as anybody in the world and who is really, really, seemed to have it all, there's a place where he's, it's a pathetic, where he's making a pitch to try to take his housemaid and make her into his mistress. And she's a very poor woman from a very poor country, doesn't speak English very well,

and there's a place where it's very pathetic, where the mafia boss says, I wish I was like you. This is on the tape. She says, what do you mean? And he says, well, I have everything and I am so sad, and you have nothing and you're so happy. But he didn't know her.

She wasn't happy. She was sure, because she was poor, that she was unhappy and she would only be happy when she got rich. All he knew was that he had broken every one of the Ten Commandments every day and he had gotten everything that he thought practically he would ever need and he was inside absolutely dead. Real wisdom is recognizing that in the end what actually is practical is obedience. Real wisdom understands this, obedience is a way of knowing. Obedience is a way of knowing. Obedience to God is a way of knowing the future. You say, how do I know

what's going to happen? Well obey the Ten Commandments, that's a start. Because the only practical thing to do is to put yourself in the arms of the one who controls everything and who created everything and the future is in his hands. Thirdly, we said wisdom is intellectual, putting the truth in the center, always thinking out a truth-centered approach to life as opposed to a feeling-centered approach. Secondly, we said that ultimately obedience is a way of knowing. It's the most practical way to go about things. Thirdly, if you really are sticking the truth into your heart and if you're obeying, if

there's study, the Bible says, and if there's obedience, there will develop the third aspect of wisdom, moral insight, be not. Now, I talked a little bit about this last week, remember, with the illustration. Moral insight means the ability to see distinctions where everybody else sees a blur. So the illustration I used is that when my wife is showing me ballet on TV, she says, look at this, look at this woman, look at her leap. And I look at it and I say, but they all do that, don't they? They all jump high and they all come down and somebody catches them.

They all twist around like that. And she says, well, but you don't understand. And the point is that I am not wise enough in ballet to understand the differences. When I show her somebody doing a slam dunk, you know, on TV, I say, look at that. Have you ever seen a slam dunk like that? She says, they all look like that. Wisdom is the ability to make distinctions. Do you know how to make distinctions?

If you are wise by bringing the truth into your life and if you become wise through obedience, and thirdly, eventually you'll develop this moral insight, this ability to walk circumspectly, which by the way is a Greek word that actually means to walk accurately, to always put your step in the right place. Jesus Christ did not have a temperament. Some of you have done these temperament analyses, some of you are introverts, some of you are extroverts, right? Some of you hold your feelings in, some speak your feelings out. Some of you are more thinkers, some of you are more feelers.

Some of you like decisions and some of you like to keep things kind of open-ended. Haven't you taken those personality tests? And you know, they always say there is no right or wrong answer, and that's only partly true. Because the reason we have temperaments is because we aren't wise enough. I'm an introvert or an extrovert means that I have a habitual way of dealing with reality. It means that there are times in which I probably should be outgoing, but my habitual way of dealing with life is to be kind of introverted. Or if I'm a thinker versus a feeler, there are times in which I ought to be acting on the basis of feeling, but instead I act on the basis of thinking.

Jesus Christ, because he was perfectly wise, would have had no temperament. He would have shown up as a blank on those personality inventories. Because he would always, always, always, always be appropriate. He could make distinctions. How many times you've been lately in the situation saying, I should have seen that coming. I should have seen that he was that kind of person. I should have realized this wasn't the job for me. I should have realized I was talking too much. I should have realized that that person the job for me. I should have realized I was talking too much.

I should have realized that that person had gotten that mad at me. I should have realized how mad I was. The reason that we're always in that situation is because we don't have the moral insight. We can't make those distinctions. And yet the Bible says, here I have to conclude, the Bible says, what I've just told you is that those three aspects of wisdom, the mental, you see, the mind, the will and the heart, studying the truth and always pressing it into the center of your decisions, obeying the truth in spite of what it looks like, slowly that develops

this moral insight, this ability to make distinctions, to see distinctions where other people see a blur. And yet, ultimately, what the Bible says is that in Christ, all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hidden. Ultimately, the way you get wise is, this is what's so different about Christianity and every other religion, is that every other religion talks about abstractions. It talks about getting wisdom, but Jesus Christ is wisdom. Other religions talk about getting truth, but Jesus Christ is truth.

Other religions talk about getting meaning, but Jesus Christ is meaning. That's the reason why, I'll say it again, Christianity is the one religion that children, children can be saved in Christianity. Because other religions talk about meaning and they talk about wisdom and they talk about all these things. And a child doesn't understand abstractions. But Christianity says if you want wisdom, all you have to do is meet and welcome a person

into your life and a child can do that. Christianity says if you want meaning, you have to meet and welcome a person into your life and submit to him as a king. Jesus Christ says, I am the wisdom. It says in 1 Corinthians. It says, Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The convicting thing is that we are to be people that the world looks at and we have to realize that we have got Jesus Christ and

in Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid and does the world see that in us? That's convicting. On the other hand, the hopeful thing is that when the Spirit of God comes into you, that's divine wisdom that's come in and it must grow and it must take you over. It must. It has to. It's like acid. Acid, infallibly, has to destroy or change the chemicals around it or the metal around it. You put acid on metal, what it does is it has to change the chemical constitution of the metal.

It makes it into its own likeness. That's why the metal gets eaten away. The wisdom of God that comes into your life eventually must change you. It makes it into its own likeness. That's why the metal gets eaten away. The wisdom of God that comes into your life eventually must change you. It must destroy the foolishness in you. It's infallible. That's why Paul can say, the good work he began in you he will bring to completion on the day of Jesus Christ.

So what does this mean? As usual, what it means is on the one hand we ought to feel terrible when we realize that all the wisdom of the ages is in Christ and Christ is in us and the world is watching us and it's not what we say really but ultimately how we live in consummate wisdom that will convince them that the light is within us. That's terrible. But what's wonderful is that it's inevitable that that wisdom will slowly eat up the foolishness

in our lives. Let's cooperate with them. Are you spending the time understanding the will of God and develop memorizing it and working into your life? Are you really being obedient? Or are you putting forth short-term human wisdom solutions in your life instead of long-term obedient solutions? Are you really... Can you tell you're growing in wisdom, in your life instead of long-term obedience solutions.

Are you really... can you tell you're growing in wisdom, in insight? Are you really a wiser person than you were last year? Are you really able to make decisions better? Do you know yourself better? Do you understand the times and seasons better? Can you size up people better? Are you less often fooled? Because only fools are fooled.

Wise people aren't fooled. If not, repent and turn to Him and say, be my wisdom and my righteousness and my sanctification and my redemption. Let's pray. And now, Father, we thank you that on the one hand, you call us to wisdom and then you give us wisdom in the form of a person. This is the great paradox and the great genius of the Christian life. On the one hand, we can work at wisdom.

If tomorrow we sit down and we measure out a scriptural teaching, if we memorize it, if we reflect on it, if we work it into our life, if we obey it tomorrow, we are being changed into the likeness of your Son. So on the one hand, we've got so much we can do practically. On the other hand, we realize that it's out of our hands, that wisdom is a person, wisdom is a force in our lives, and we have to say, Oh Lord, help us to walk circumspectly so that the darkness sees that your Son is the light. It's in His name that we pray.

Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life podcast. It's our hope that today's teaching encourages you to go deeper in your prayer life. We invite you to help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great Gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit GospelInLife.com. 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.