Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Wonderful Counselor

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

The book of Hebrews is telling us we’ll never make it through life without counseling—daily counseling. A main theme of Hebrews is that life in this world is a journey, spiritually speaking, through a wilderness. In verse 13, it says the only way we’re going to get through it is with this little word: the Greek word, parakaleō. It’s often translated as encouragement, but it comes closest to what we today would call counseling.  Let’s ask the text these questions: 1) why do we need counseling? 2) what kind of counseling do we need? 3) who can give it to us? and 4) how do we receive it? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 27, 2005. Series: Christ: Our Treasury (The Book of Hebrews). Scripture: Hebrews 3:12-13; 4:14-5:7. 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. This month on the podcast, Tim Keller is preaching through the book of Hebrews to answer this essential question, if God loves us so much, why is life so hard? Today's scripture reading comes from Hebrews chapter 3 verses 12-13, chapter 4 verses 14 through chapter 5 verse 7. See to it brothers that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Therefore, since we have a great High Priest who has gone through the heavens,

Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself

is subject to weakness. This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the sins of the people. No one takes this honor upon himself. He must be called by God, just as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, You are my son. Today I have become your father. And he says another place, You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death.

And he was heard because of his reverent submission. This is God's Word. Each week we've been saying how the book of Hebrews is written to first century urban people who are experiencing so much in the way of troubles and difficulties that they're really in danger of just giving up. In this passage we see one of the main themes of the book of Hebrews and that is that life in this world is a journey spiritually speaking through a wilderness and the only way we're going to get through it is this

little word in verse 13. Now it's very hard to translate this word and we'll get to it in a minute. It's a Greek word, parakaleo, it's translated encouragement, but it's a very important word in the New Testament and it's actually a complex word to translate. And it comes closest in the whole Bible to translating the word that we today would call counseling. That is to say, this is the closest word we've got in the New Testament to what you and I today would be calling counseling. The book of Hebrews is telling us you'll never make it through life without counseling. You'll never make it through the wilderness of this world without daily counseling. Why do we need counseling? What kind of counseling do we need? Who can give it to us? And how

do we receive it? Why do we need it? What kind do we need? Who can give it to us? And how do we receive it? Let's ask the text that question. So first of all, those questions. First of all, why do we need counseling? Now, verse 12 and 13, see to it brothers that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But counsel one another daily as long as it is called today so that none of you may be hardened

by sin's deceitfulness. Now, before this passage, this is the end of a paragraph that goes like this, starting in verse seven. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the testing in the wilderness. That is where the Lord swore in his wrath, they shall never enter my rest. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you

an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from God. Council one another daily so that you may not be hardened by sins deceitfulness. Now this is referring back to a time when the children of Israel were between Egypt and the promised land. And that part, they were in the wilderness.

Now when you and I think of wilderness, we tend to think of forests or something. But that's not the wilderness the Bible means. The wilderness that is referred to in the Bible is a desert. Arid land, so arid that you can't settle in it. You can't settle there. There was grass. There was some grass, there were some shrubs. There was sometimes rainwater that could be caught in certain places. It wasn't like there was no way you could even survive the minute you stepped into a desert, but the desert was too arid to settle in it.

You could move through it quickly. You had to have enough food with you because you could never get enough food. It couldn't support agriculture. It couldn't support your livestock. That's what a wilderness was. When the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they were thirsty. They had eaten well in Egypt and they'd seen God do many great deeds to get them out of Egypt, you know the ten plagues.

But when they got into the wilderness, God just didn't seem to be around. They were very thirsty. Nothing seemed to be happening the way it should. So in Exodus 17 we read this, when the whole Israelite community camped at Rephidim, there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses and said, give us water to drink. Moses said, why do you put the Lord to the test? But they were thirsty for water and they grumbled and they said, why did the Lord bring us out of Egypt to make us die here of thirst? And they called the place Masa and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord saying is the Lord among us or not? Now the book of Hebrews writer is talking to suffering people right now

Right in his at his point in in history who are about to give up and he said don't be like them don't be like the people when they were in the wilderness that they turned from God they gave up now you know what the implications of that are the implications are that life in this world is spiritually speaking a wilderness he's saying we're really in the same situation that they are in now and of course if he was saying that to his people in his time, it's true of us today. What he is saying is spiritually speaking, life in this world is a wilderness. Now what does that mean? Well, it's two implications. First of all, like in a literal desert, so in this world, family, professional success, money, friendship, all the things that make your life happy

and fulfilled, none of those things will actually be able to satisfy the deepest needs of your heart. See, just like when you went through a literal desert, you know, your livestock could graze for a while and you might be able to satisfy the deepest needs of your heart. See, just like when you went through a literal desert, you know, your livestock could graze for a while and you might be able to live off the water for a while, but if you try to stay there, you'd die. Family is great. Professional success is great. All the things in this life that we enjoy, they're great,

but if you try to get the deepest needs of your heart fulfilled by them, you're gonna die. You're gonna die of thirst. Even, you know this, even the best marriages, even the best, you know, the best jobs, even the best possible, even life at its peak doesn't completely satisfy. And the frightening thing about life at its peak is almost the minute you get anything that you really wanted, it begins to slide right out of your hands. Every family, every family is in the process

of scattering and dying off. Every beautiful face is turning to dust, slowly, but surely. Every strong body, it's on its way to dust. Well, you say, well, you're in a cheerful mood today, yeah, but you can't deny it either. This life is a wilderness, and if you try to settle, that is to say, if you put your greatest hopes for happiness and success in anything in this world, you're going to die. Secondly, though, when the Hebrews writer says this life is like, anything in this world, you're gonna die. Secondly though, when the Hebrews writer says this life is like, life in this world is like a wilderness,

he's actually talking about God too. You see, in Egypt, God seemed to be around, you know, a new plague every week practically, you know. In the promised land, God seems to be around, but in the wilderness, the miracles are few and far between. In the wilderness, God doesn't seem to be doing what you expect him to do what you want him to do what you ask him to do and when the Hebrews writer tells us that this life is like a wilderness what he's actually saying is More often than not God will not seem to be doing things the way you wanted to do them way you want him to do

God will not seem to be doing things the way you want him to do them, the way you want him to do them. More often than not, God will seem asleep or God will seem to not care. More often than not, wilderness experiences will outnumber every other kind of experience. Because when you're in the wilderness, God just doesn't seem to be around. It is very hard to believe in God when he's not doing anything, especially not doing anything you ask. This text is saying that's the way most of the times in your life are going to be.

Now let's put this together. If this world is really a place where even the best things in life are bound to disappoint you eventually, and if this world is a place in which in general you're never going to find that God does things the way you expect, ask God to do things, then it's almost inevitable that you are going to become hard, hard. You need counseling, it says here, or you're going to get hard.

Do not harden your hearts as they did in the wilderness. Don't you see what that means? You're going to get cynical. You're going to get bitter. You're going to stop trusting. You're going to stop hoping. You're going to kill out of self-defense the parts of your heart that really hope for things. You're going to become hard.

You're going to become hard-bitten. You're going to become cynical about others and about life and maybe even about yourself. And the only possible way you can avoid that, that's inevitable, the only possible way you can avoid losing your humanity in this life is through what it says here in verse 13. You need daily counseling, you need constant counseling. Okay, so that's why we need it.

Secondly, all right, what do we mean by it? What kind of counseling are we talking about? What is the counseling we need? Well, I want you to see, well, you would see, if you actually read the whole book of Hebrews, one of the things that all the commentators say, one of the things that all the students of Hebrews have said over the years, and you see it

if you would sit down and read it, is almost seems schizophrenic in its tone. On the one hand, you know, it's talking to suffering people. You know, people that need counseling, really hurting people. And there are at least five or six times that it is incredibly stern, incredibly strict. At the end of chapter three, for example,

you know, in chapter three, it's stern, it's strict. It says, it says, don't turn. Be careful, don't turn. Be careful, don't disbelieve. Don't have a sinful heart. Don't turn away from God. At the end of chapter three, it says, you know, back in the wilderness, their bodies were strewn in the desert.

Their carcasses were everywhere. Let that be a lesson to you. Well, all right. And yet, it turns around. like here, almost immediately after that, in verse 14, 15, and 16, look at 16, let us then approach the throne of grace, that's God's throne, with utter confidence that you're going to get mercy and grace to help in our time of need. It swings back and forth between these amazingly tender invitations and these amazing stern warnings.

Over and over again, but the one who most embodies that is the very ministry of Jesus. I was struck so hard many years, about ten years ago by a sermon I heard, a tape sermon I heard by Dick Lucas of London on Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, at the funeral of Lazarus is one of his best friends. It's in John 11 and Dick Lucas points out that when Jesus gets to the funeral, Lazarus has two surviving sisters, Mary and Martha. And when Jesus comes up to them, each of the women approach Jesus and says the exact same things, word for word, letter for letter. Both Mary and Martha come up to Jesus and say, Lord, if you'd been here, our brother would not have died. Martha says it, Mary says it,

within just a few verses of each other. But Jesus' response to those identical statements, to two grieving sisters, it's the same statement in almost the same situation. His response to them are utterly at variance, utterly different. Martha comes up and says, Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died. And Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life.

What is he saying? He challenges her. He comes after her. He says, hey, I'm here. You know who I am? It's never too late with me. Get that through your head. And like two verses later, Mary walks up and says, Lord, if you had been here, a brother would not have died. And what does Jesus say? Not a word, not a lesson, not a lecture, not advice.

All he does is weep. He just lets himself in a sense, and it's funny with Martha, he pulls her heart out of its flow into the flow of his heart. But with Mary, he allows himself in a sense to be sucked down into the grief and the sorrow and the agony of her heart and he just weeps and

As Dick Lucas pointed out first of all no one would have ever made that up He says no, this is not a piece of fiction No fiction writer a probably could have ever imagined such schizophrenic behavior from a character or B if he did if the writer did imagine such schizophrenic behavior wouldn't dare have written it down if You're trying to promote Jesus as some great leader He says this had to have happened nobody could have made it up, but what does it mean it means Jesus Christ is equally Adept at equally committed to the ministry of truth and the ministry of tears With Martha truth

Just comes right at her. With Mary, tears, nothing but love. Nothing but just sitting and weeping with her. Now if you know your own heart, or if you've spent 20 years trying to raise children, it's the same thing, you will know that we cannot survive without both. A human being cannot survive without both. Equally, sometimes we absolutely,

in order to grow, in order to make it, sometimes we absolutely need nothing, not a single word, we need nothing but somebody to sit down and weep with us. And not a single word or groan or moan or anything else like that, and not even a hint. But sometimes we need, spiritually speaking, to be punched in the gut. And we don't need anybody's pity. It would be the worst possible thing for us. And it's not just that sometimes we need one and sometimes we need the other. We need them both in our lives. We need them intertwined because the ministry of truth without tears is too brutal. We just

won't listen. And the ministry of tears without truth is too sentimental. We won't benefit. And a truth teller who never weeps with us, we're never going to listen to. But a weeper who doesn't tell us the truth, don't you realize it's the truth tellers that we know are telling us the truth that when they weep, makes their tears so valuable, so supportive, so cleansing, so rich. You've got to have them together. They've got to be together. Now who can do that? I want you to know that it's not me and it's not you.

Some of us are fixers by nature. You know what that means. We're into the ministry of truth. Wow. We love the ministry of truth. And when somebody has a problem, we analyze it. And we just say, well, there it is. You know, if you don't, that's the

solution. If you don't take that solution, you know, it's not my problem. And of course, nobody takes your solution because it leaves people cold. And then some of us are feelers. And we just weep and we're just so merciful and we're just so sympathetic, but we're too afraid, you know, or too gutless, or maybe just actually too unwise and mature to even know what to tell people they should be doing. We are either feelers by nature, by temperament, or we're fixers by nature or by temperament.

And since we can't survive in this world without the counseling that is equally committed to truth and tears, then we're all in trouble unless we look to the ultimate counselor, the one that the Bible calls the wonderful counselor. You know, Isaiah 9 calls him the wonderful counselor, and I was reading a commentary that said the best translation of that would be the supernatural heart changer, the wonderful counselor, the ultimate counselor, it's Jesus, of course.

And listen, if you need a counselor and you do, he's the only one that'll give you exactly what you need. And if you wanna be a counselor, and you know, we need you to be, you're gonna have to have your nature changed by meeting with him, or you're not gonna be of much help to anybody else. So now, Jesus is the one we get it from.

So thirdly, let's ask the question, okay, who do we get it from, Jesus? Okay, how's that work? Well, look at verse 15. Let me show you why Jesus is the ultimate counselor, why he can be the ultimate counselor. Verse 15, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,

but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. Now, there's two things there that make Jesus the ultimate counselor. First of all, tempted in every way as we. He's been there. He's been through it all. We all long for a home, for a place where we can truly flourish and belong. In One with My Lord, a new book by Sam Albury, he shows how the Bible promises that there is a place like that for all of us, but it doesn't have a zip code.

Instead, the key to home and the very heartbeat of the Christian faith itself is that we find ourselves in Christ. For the New Testament writers, this phrase was so important that instead of using the term Christian, they referred to followers of Jesus as those who are in Christ. Jesus is not only our Savior, Lord, Teacher, and Friend. He is also our home and our location. Each chapter of One with My Lord is short enough to be read as a devotional, and in it, Albury examines what being in Christ means, giving us a fresh lens to view the gospel and all that it means for our hope, purpose, and identity.

We believe this new book will help you grow in your relationship with Christ. To request your copy of One with My Lord, visit GospelandLife.com slash give. That's GospelandLife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. I don't even know anymore whether they do this procedure, but I remember years ago when I was in my little town in Virginia, I had to go through a procedure where they pump you filled with a particular fluid before they x-ray you so that they, I guess, can see the various things they want to see,

which means you're very uncomfortable when they put you up on the table to do the x-ray. And I remember years ago the x-ray technician in this little hospital where I was going was a member of my church and was not, he was a young man and he was pretty brusque and pretty ungentle and pretty, you know, didn't have a very good bedside manner. And of course being his pastor I was afraid to say anything. And I remember about three or four years later I came back and I had to have something like the same procedure again and there he was and I, you know, I held my, but he was very different. And I said something about it, I said, you know, your bedside manner has changed.

And he said, he says, two years ago I had a kidney stone, and I went into a hospital, and I was up on the table, and I went through a lot of these procedures, and I had no idea what patients really go through, and he says, I'm never gonna be treating my patients the same way now that I've been on the table Now the only religion in the world That says the Lord the Creator Lord of the universe Has been on the table

Is Christianity Jesus has been rejected Jesus has been Grieved Jesus knows grief and loss and rejection and pain and torture and death and misunderstanding. Jesus knows it. He's been there. And not only that, we all know that suffering is somewhat relative to our experience. I mean, if you're a child living in dirt poverty, you know, just dirt poor somewhere, but if you've never seen anything else and maybe you've never even, not only never known anything else, but you've never seen anybody else live any better than you, you know, you're suffering, but you're not suffering anything like a person who once lived in the lap of luxury and lived in beauty and lived in absolute exquisiteness and now has been thrown into a dungeon, right? A person who's lost something incredible now suffers more in a particular condition

than someone else who's never known anything else but that condition. But then think about what Jesus had. No one could have ever experienced the same darkness that he experienced when he was rejected, when he was killed. Jesus knows, he's been on the table. In some ways, he knows more than you and I about what we're going through. But then secondly it says, but without sin.

And some people read that and they say, oh wait a minute, wait a minute. If he doesn't know without sin, if he was perfect, well then obviously he doesn't know what it's like. You know, he can't put himself in our shoes. You're missing the point. Let me just speak for myself. I don't want to speak for you, but let me speak for myself.

It's my self-absorption. It's my self-pity. It's my self-centeredness. It's my sin that makes it hard for me to put myself in other people's shoes. You know, I don't want to think about them. I don't want to, I don't, you know, I've got my own problems. But Jesus' perfect love, there's no barrier.

And that means he knows. He knows, he loves you better than you love yourself and far more wisely. He completely finds, because he's perfect, because he's been here and he's wisely. He completely finds, because he's perfect, because he's been here and he's experienced what we've experienced and he's perfect love, he absolutely is sucked down deep into our pain and feels it with us. Yeah.

Look at him, read the Bible. Oh, he's always weeping. He's always weeping. He's always sighing. In Mark chapter 7 when he heals the deaf mute, he sighs. Why? With all of his power, why does he? He lets himself be drained by us. Jairus' daughter, remember Jairus has a little girl and she died. And Jairus' daughter, remember Jairus, a little, has a little girl, and she died. And Jairus comes to him, comes to Jesus and says, my child has died. Jesus goes with Jairus and his wife, goes back into the room.

I mean, he could have just said, but he goes into the room and he sits down and he says, Talitha, kumi, which means basically, honey, it's time to get up. And he touches her hand as if she's just sleeping. And because he touched her hand, she is. The tenderness and the gentleness of Jesus is everywhere. Have you been betrayed? So is he. Have you been mocked?

So is he. Have you been broke? Are you broke? So is he. He you been broke? Are you broke? So is he. He's been through it all. But to me the best and the most wonderful of all the examples of Jesus' ultimate counseling is the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8. The woman caught in adultery. Now, you remember? There's a woman who's been caught in adultery and they're about to stone her, execute her. And Jesus deals with her accusers and says,

let him who's without sin cast the first stone and sends them away. But then he looks at her and here's what he says, neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more. Now look at that. There is the ultimate counselor. There is the wonderful counselor. And there is the perfect counselor. There is the wonderful counselor.

And there is the perfect balance of truth and tears. And not just balance, but intermingling of it. He doesn't say, does he, I don't condemn you. Because who's to say what sin is? We all have to work these things out for ourselves. No. On the other hand, he doesn't say, he doesn't say, go and sin no more. You've sinned, I got you, you are such trash. I got you out of, you know, I got you off this time, but don't ever let it happen again. No.

And he doesn't say, if you go and sin no more, maybe I won't condemn you. He does not say, I base my love on your behavior. He says, I want you to base your behavior on my love. I don't condemn you. Now, therefore, go and sin no more. There it is. It's utterly perfect.

Absolute, complete hatred of sin, absolute, complete love and acceptance of the sinner at the same time. Now, how can that be? I mean, that's what you need. That's what I need. How can you do that? Here's why. Chapter 5 verse 6, second last verse on the page. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Now what in the world does that mean? Here's what it means. In the Old Testament, one thing you never ever ever see is a priest who is a king, or a king who is a priest.

There are no priest-kings. There is no human being that combines the two together. You know why? Think about it. The king represented God to the people. The king, the law, told the law and enforced the law. But the priest represented the people to God. The priest was the caregiver.

The priest was the supporter. The priest was the one who accepted. The priest was the one who sympathized and who dealt gently, see, as it says there. And so how in the world could you possibly combine those two things in the same person? The king was the person of truth and the priest was the person of tears. And practically how could you do them together? I mean, you know, kings were like stern fathers telling you where to toe the line and priests were like wonderful mothers who just love you no matter what you do. So it's impossible to put the two together, except as we said,

you need the two together. And there's one little mysterious place in the Bible where a person shows up who's a priest king. It's way back in the bowels of the book of Genesis. It happens very quickly in the life of Abraham where Abraham meets a guy named Melchizedek. And this Melchizedek is a king of a city who offers sacrifices to the Lord. He's a priest king.

He's a king who's a priest and he shows up for a couple of verses and he leaves and no one knows who he is. He's gone, you know, and everybody said, what was that? But the book of Hebrews says it was a foretaste because the true priest king has come. Jesus is not just a priest. He's not just a king. He's a priest king, and if we don't have both, we are lost. He is absolutely committed to holiness and to truth, and he's absolutely committed to love and acceptance at the very same time. Well, you say, now that's impossible. You know why it's impossible? Because people are going to gonna fail isn't that right people are gonna fail Everybody's gonna fail at some point and so in the end if you're counseling people

You either have to put truth over tears and just say I'm gonna make you pay Or you have to put tears over truth and say well, you know, you're flawed and I can't do anything about it That's just the way it is You know, it's either truth over tears or tears over truth. It can't be both Can't be both priest and King both,'s either truth over tears or tears over truth. It can't be both. It can't be both priest and king, both truth and tears. It just can't be. But Jesus said it will be. Now, how could Jesus be the priest king?

How could he bring the two together? On the cross. Chapter five verse seven, last verse. During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death. When did that happen? When did Jesus Christ cry out to God,

save me from death? When did he scream? When did he agonize? When did he pray in loud crying and tears? There's only one place where that happened. Happened in the Garden of Gethsemane? It happened on the cross? Why?

Because on the cross, Jesus Christ took what he calls the cup, the cup of eternal justice. And because he experienced the cup of eternal justice, because he took the penalty that the human race deserved. Here's what you saw. Infinite love was honoring infinite justice. Infinite love was honoring infinite truth. If Jesus Christ had been a Lord of truth over tears, he wouldn't have had to die on the cross. He would have just let us die. But if Jesus Christ had been

a Lord of tears over truth, he wouldn't have needed to die. He would have just said, I accept you. You know, you're flawed and you're a mess, but that's just the way it's gonna be. But he didn't do that. The Bible said, as John Newton put it, to see the law by love fulfilled and hear his pardoning voice, transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice. And now you know why he was able to talk to the woman

caught in adultery the way he did. He says, neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more. That makes no sense. Because it was sin. He said it was a sin, so she's guilty, but he doesn't condemn her. She's guilty, but he doesn't condemn her. How could that be?

Because he took the condemnation. Can you imagine what he must have been thinking when he said to her, neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more. He's saying, sister, you're not getting stoned because I'm going to get executed. I will get the stones, I will get the spears, I will get the thorns, I will get the nails, so that I can, at infinite cost to myself, hate the sin and love the sinner, at infinite cost to myself, separate the sinner from the sin. He's the wonderful counselor, he's the ultimate counselor, he's the only thing that your heart really, really, really, really needs. Now, how do we get this?

We need it, don't we? We got to have this. How do we get it? Three ways. Now, by the way, first of all, let me just say something. You may, a lot of you are saying, gosh, a whole sermon on counseling. Are you trying to say we all need to go get counseling? Well, when you and I think of counseling, we think of professional counseling. And guess what? This would help. There's a lot of you, if you don't understand the gospel of what Jesus has done for you,

if you don't really know Jesus as your ultimate wonderful counselor, you're either gonna be too proud to ever admit you need to go get counseling, and you never do, or on the other hand, you might be too dependent on it, you know? You might be too dependent on your therapist. So actually, this helps in many, many ways.

But this is not talking about professional counseling and I have been talking about it. Here's what I've been talking about. Number one, you have to get this through it. The counseling you need comes through. Number one, you need to be saved. I know for Presbyterian ministers to say this, you know, it's just, you know, it's hard.

But you need to be saved. What I mean by that is not that you just believe in your head, oh I believe that Jesus is a son of God, no, have you received Christ as your personal counselor? That's what it means to be a Christian. It means to allow Jesus because of his tears to tell you the truth. Because you see how he was broken and shattered for you,

you're willing to finally admit, you don't just need a little bit of help, but that you are an absolute failure. And it's, think, take responsibility, think of him broken and shattered for you, and see what he had to do in order to not condemn you, and that will begin, as he says to the woman, that will begin to shrink the tumors of pride and fear that are distorting your life. Religion is go and sin no more,

and maybe I won't condemn you. But the gospel is neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. It completely separates the sin from the sinner, and it's the ministry of truth and tears. Have you done that? Have you let him do that? So you need to be saved.

Secondly, besides salvation, you also need communal sanctification. You know what I mean by communal sanctification? Well, there it is. I've been referring to it the whole time. It's in verse 13. Council one another, encourage one other daily. Now the word, by the way, parakaleo,

which can be translated encouragement, actually means to come alongside, para, and kaleo, to yell. To come alongside, friend, and to scream at each other. No, not quite. What it really means is it's a mixture, it is a mixture of truth and tears. But here's what it's saying,

you need to get the exhortation of Jesus through one another. Now there's a whole lot of places where this word encourage or exhortation or counsel, this read parakaleo, comes up in the book of Hebrews as coming from scripture. Hebrews chapter 12 quotes Proverbs and says, this is God's word of exhortation,

the parakaleo to you. See, are you being moved at all by this sermon? It's not the sermon. Are you being helped in any way by the sermon? It's not the preacher. It's the Holy Spirit counseling you about Jesus through the scripture. And in this case, I'm standing in as a person

who's encouraging you today, but according to this, we have got to let Jesus turn us into small versions of himself, so that we can give it to each other what we've gotten from him. See, if you're a fixer by nature, you know, you're a little bit on the self-righteous side, you need the gospel to humble you into being able to feel as well. And if you're a feeler by nature, you know, you're a little bit on the self-righteous side, you need the gospel

to humble you into being able to feel as well. And if you're a feeler by nature, you're kind of a coward, you need the gospel to show you, you don't need people's approval that you're able to not think about so much how you look. See, the gospel will turn fixers into also feelers and feelers into also fixers so we can give it to each other, and that's how we do it.

Especially when we study God's word of exhortation, the scripture, and let the Holy Spirit speak through us to each other, we desperately need it. Lastly, I said you get it through salvation, you get it through communal sanctification, and you get it through duration. What do I mean by duration? Look at the very last sentence.

During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard. Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he says, don't, I don't want to die.

I don't want to take the cup. I don't want to, deliver me from death. That's what he says. He was asking to be saved from death. And it says he was heard? He went to the cross, didn't he? Commentators have been trying to figure out this verse for quite a long time, by the way.

Because it seems to be saying something that didn't happen. But it did. Jesus asked to be delivered from death and God did deliver from death through the resurrection. In other words, Jesus Christ asked for something, and God, in a sense, gave him what he asked for, but not the way he'd asked for it. And look, when you're in the wilderness,

are you in it right now? Do you feel like I'm asking God for things, and he's just not coming through? God's letting things happen that I don't understand. God seems to be asleep, he seems to't understand. God seems to be asleep. He seems to not care. He seems to be away. The Lord you pray to has also been in the wilderness.

He spent 40 days in the wilderness. He was tempted by Satan. But most of all, Jesus was abandoned by the Father. Jesus prayed a prayer and didn't get what he asked for. Jesus went through all the wilderness experience you're going through, but don't you see? He did it for you. See, that's different.

This is not just a general religion in which you're asked, trust God, because even though you don't understand why things are happening the way they are, he's very inscrutable, you just have to trust him. The one we're praying to has been in the wilderness. He went through all of this for you. And in the end, his suffering was redemptive.

In the end, he was heard, but he wasn't heard, but he really was. And you have to realize that God's hearing you now, even though you don't think he is. You have to realize God's using this and going to use this in a redemptive way, even though you don't think he is. He went through the wilderness for you.

You surely can endure the wilderness for him. Why not trust this wonderful counselor? Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us what we need to get through the wilderness. You've given it to us, first of all, in your Son, the wonderful and ultimate counselor, and secondly, you turn us by our relationship with him

into counselors for each other as well. And it's only if we live in a community of people doing that all the time with us and around us, only if we know your son savingly, spiritually, powerfully as our wonderful counselor, can we make it through the wilderness. But we know that we can, and we ask that you would help us to apply this to our lives by your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' 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. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit GospelInLife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2005. 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.