A Broken Wall
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Many of the questions we face in life are complex and aren't directly addressed by the rules. So, do I say something now or do I wait? Should I take that job or stay put? That's why wisdom is so crucial for our lives. So how do we develop it? Today, join us as Tim Keller explores how we apply God's wisdom to the complexities of our lives.

After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly newsletter with articles about gospel-changed lives as well as other valuable gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelandlife.com. Our scripture reading comes from selected passages from the book of Proverbs and from the book of Titus. The name of the Lord is a strong tower.

The righteous run to it and are safe. Listen, my son, and be wise and keep your heart on the right path. Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkenness and gluttons become poor and drowsiness clothes them in rags.

Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control. For the grace of God that brings salvation appears to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age while we wait for that blessed hope.

the glorious appearing of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

We're looking at the book of Proverbs every week. We're looking at the subject of wisdom. We said wisdom is the ability to make the right choice, to know the right thing to do, to know the right action, make the right decision in the vast majority of life situations that the moral rules don't address.

And we said one of the things that for technique-minded Americans is very frustrating about the book of Proverbs is that the book of Proverbs does not tell you, does not talk nearly so much about how to make right decisions as to how to become the kind of person who makes right decisions. And we've been looking each week at a very, lately, at various qualities you've got to have in order to live a wise life. And today we come to self-control.

A man or a woman without self-control is not going to live a wise life, is not going to make wise choices, is going to mess up their lives, and they are going to mess up the lives of people around them. Now, what do we learn from these passages in Proverbs about self-control? Three things. We learn the problem of self-control. We learn something about the principle of self-control. And then last of all, the practice, how we do it. The problem of it, the principle of it,

and the practice of it. Now, problem of self-control. We have a nice, easy to understand example of this in the middle of the section of Proverbs, chapter 23, 19 to 21. Listen, my son, be wise. Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor and drowsiness clothes them in rags. Now, a

We're talking here about people who have eaten so much and they drank so much that they're drowsy. Now, having just come through Thanksgiving, I figured this was a good illustration to start with, be vivid to your mind. And if you eat or drink too much, it squeezes out your ability to do anything else but veg or sleep.

You can't focus. That's what drowsiness is. You know what that's like. You're distracted. You can't focus. You can't do anything else. In fact, if you really have eaten or drank too much and somebody's about to try to kill you, there's not much you can do about it. So you can't focus on the important things. But here we're not talking about just an individual instance, are we? Because of the reference to rags and to being poor, we're talking about people who...

who ordinarily eat and drink too much, who do binge drinking, do binge eating. And as a result, you might say their whole life is characterized by drowsiness. And as a result, they can't focus on the important things, matters like making money, maintaining family relationships and things like that. And because of that neglect, their life falls apart. Now move on down to the next proverb. And we see we're moving to a broader canvas. Like a city whose walls are broken down.

is a man who lacks self-control. Now, let's look at these phrases. First of all, the word lacks self-control literally means a man who cannot manage his spirit. Now, when you read the book of Proverbs, I've tried to point this out a few times. The word heart in the Old Testament, in fact, in the whole Bible, but the word heart in the Bible doesn't mean what it means to you and me in our English usage. It doesn't mean emotions. The word heart means your core beliefs.

the core commitments. But when you see the word spirit, when it talks about not being able to restrain your spirit, the word spirit, at least in Hebrew, does mean your energy, your force, your passions. It does have much more to do with your emotions. And here it says, a man who can't control his longings, his desires, they're out of control. It's like a city without walls.

Now that again doesn't hit us too much. When we find cities with walls, there's not many left in the world. They're very picturesque. We take pictures of them. Isn't that beautiful? We come home. But a city without walls was a disaster.

in ancient times or a disaster waiting to happen. When Nehemiah in chapter one, in chapter one of the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah was a Jew who was exiled to Babylon. And he asked, he made inquiries about what were things like for the people who were still back in Jerusalem. So he asked for a report. And a man came to him and said, Nehemiah, things are terrible in Jerusalem because the wall of Jerusalem is broken down. Jerusalem doesn't have a wall.

And when he heard that Jerusalem had no wall, Nehemiah sat down and wept for days because a city without walls is a disaster waiting to happen or it's already happened. Why? Well, here's why. First of all, because the city had walls, there could be a market economy. See, if you didn't have walls, then every harvest, brigands and raiders and armies would come through and take virtually everything because the city had walls and created security for its people.

You didn't worry about that. That didn't happen to you. And you actually had things to sell as well as to eat for yourself. And then you developed a market economy. In other words, without a wall, civilization falls apart and everybody's just scrambling for survival. Or just another example, there's millions of them. Another thing is because the city had a wall, you had a justice system. See, without a wall...

when there was no security for its inhabitants, if there was a conflict or a dispute or something like that, everything was settled through blood feuds between tribes and clans and families. But in a city, you could take a complaint to the council and they would make decisions about it so you had a justice system. See, without a wall, civilization fell apart. Everybody was just scrambling for survival. Now, what's being said is this. A glass of wine is a wonderful thing.

But if it becomes the main way in which you deal with life, the desire for it has become disproportional. It's gotten out of control and it squeezes out the other things, the important things of life, and your life falls apart. But if anything, if any passion, if any desire, if your desire for anything gets out of control, gets disproportionate, it can squeeze out the other things in your life and your life falls apart.

A man, a woman without self-control is like a city without walls. You're defenseless against the chaos that is inevitably going to come into your life. Now, so, okay, what's the definition of self-control? The definition of self-control is this. Self-control is the ability to recognize and choose the important thing over the urgent thing at any given moment. Because within yourself, your desires are properly ordered. The most important things are desired the most, and the less important things are desired less.

I should say that again, shouldn't I? Self-control is the ability to both recognize and choose the important thing over the urgent thing at any given moment. Because within yourself, your desires, your passions are properly ordered. That is, the most important things are wanted the most, the less important things are wanted less. And in other words, if with your appetite, your physical appetite, you fulfill the urge to eat things,

which are undermining your health, which is much more important to maintain than to just simply satisfy your appetite, your life will spin out of control. In other words, if you eat the urgent things and rather than maintain your health for the important things, it's not just your appetite out of control, your whole life will go out of control until the doctor starts to say, stop or you're going to die and you can't eat any more of those things.

If, for example, let me give you another example. If your tongue's out of control and you lash out and you vent your spleen and you ruin relationships, which are much more important to maintain than just to vent, your tongue's out of control, eventually your relationship's out of control, eventually your whole life is out of control. If you satisfy sexual urges at the expense of real relationships, at the expense of your conscience, at the expense perhaps of your marriage,

You see, whenever you choose the urgent thing over the important thing, because the desires of your life aren't properly ordered, because you're desiring things that aren't as important as too important, your life is like a city without walls, defenseless against the chaos that eventually will come in. That's the problem of self-control. And before moving on, let me just say that there seems to be an explosion in the last few decades of programs to try to help people whose lives seem out of control. Now, you have the classic ones.

You've got people who are addicted. They have the classic addictions. There's drinking, and there's drugs, and of course then there's gambling. There's rage and anger. There's physical abuse and battering. There's all sorts of sexual addictions. There's eating too much or not eating enough. There's all of those classic addictions, and they are devastating. And there's sort of a never-ending stream of them. There's gambling.

But then, on the other hand, they're slightly less, how do you say, they're less focused as addictions, but there's all kinds of people whose tongues are out of control. As a result, you can't maintain relationships or your time is out of control. So you're always over committing and never following through and letting everybody down and it's hurting your career and it's hurting your relationships. There's people whose attention is out of control. You can't hold your attention to things. You can't stick with hard things over a long period of time.

There's some of you whose, our thoughts are out of control. We can't stop our anxious thoughts. We can't stop our fearful thoughts. We can't stop our jealous thoughts. There's some of us who just, our spirit is out of control. We make impulsive decisions and afterwards we say, why did I ever do that? Just about everybody's out of control somewhere. And you know what? You don't have to be a city without any wall, do you? I mean, that's terrible to be a city without any wall. All you need to be is a city without part of a wall. You just need one breach in the wall, the whole army can come in.

So there's the problem of self-control. Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control. Secondly, what's the principle then of self-control? What is self-control? How do we get it? Well, look at this verse, the very top, 1810.

The name of the Lord is a strong tower, and the righteous run to it and are safe. Now, if I would be a little smarter, I would have printed out verse 11, because the sage, the writer of Proverbs, put verse 10 and 11, chapter 18 together, and here's how they read. The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city. They imagine it an unscalable wall. Hmm?

The name of the Lord is a strong tower. Run into it and you're safe. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city. They imagine it an unscalable wall. Now, what's going on here? What's being said here? Well, a city wall, we said, represents security. And you notice when it's talking here about, and a tower represents security as well. If there's an attack, getting behind a wall, which is unscalable, getting up in a tower represents

is the way to be secure. And the reason that we know that the sage is evoking that setting is because notice it doesn't say the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous man goes to it. We're not talking about going to a tower. We're not talking about, hey, you want to meet at the tower at two o'clock? No, they're running to the tower. Why? Because there's an attack.

Whenever there was an attack, everybody within about a 20-mile radius of a city ran for their lives to get behind the wall. And if, by the way, there was an attack that actually breached the walls, then everybody would run for their lives into the tower, and in the high fortified tower, you were safe. Now, what are we being told? Here's what we're being told. Everybody runs for their ultimate security into something.

That's the reason why verse 11, I should have printed it out. It's so important to understand verse 10. Verse 11, it says the wealthy think their wealth is an unscalable wall. They imagine it to be an unscalable wall. Now, what does that mean? It means everybody has a wall, has a tower. Everybody has a place of ultimate security, something they look to and they say, if I have that, then my life will be okay. Then I'll be safe. Then everything will go all right.

The problem comes in when you go into an imaginary high tower. That is something you think will give you that ultimate security, but it really can't. It just can't. Now, you might say, okay, the wealthy go into their wealth. Other people go into their romantic relationships. Everybody goes into something. You say, fine, what's that got to do with addiction and self-control? Everything, and here's the reason why. Of course, most self-control problems don't have a physical addiction involved.

If you have a problem with alcohol, if you've got a problem with drugs, some of you do, some of you have, you know that there's a physiological aspect. There's a physical dependence. There's a problem of withdrawal. And besides the spiritual aspect, there always is one, you also need people who understand the physical aspect. But you need to realize that anything besides God that you look to as your ultimate security creates addiction patterns in your life writ large.

Do you see what I'm saying? Anything you run into as your high tower, as your wall, as your ultimate thing, whether it's money, whether it's career, whether it's an individual, whether it's your spouse, anything you look to as the ultimate security of your life, rather than God, more than God, creates an addictive pattern in your life writ large.

Neil Plantinga wrote an article called The Tragedy of Addiction. In it he says, let me just illustrate this. He says, no matter how they start, addictions operate like this. Addictions begin when we use something we believe will relieve distress. Then eventually addictions create their own distress.

And finally, addicts spiral down when they try to cure the additional pain with the thing that caused it. See that? A, B, C. You're under pressure. There's distress. And you look to a substance. That's A. Then B, the use of the substance creates pain on top of the original pain you were using the substance to escape. And C, when you start to use the substance to actually escape from the pain caused by using the substance in addition to everything else, then you are stuck. Okay.

Well, you say, well, that's interesting, but that's drugs and that's alcohol. Ah, do you know it's the same with anything? It wasn't a very distinguished movie, but I remember it was like the late 80s. There was a movie called Dad with Jack Lemmon, Ted Danson, and Ethan Hawke, a very young Ethan Hawke.

And there's one place where Ethan Hawke is talking to his father, and his father had left the family years ago. His marriage had broken up, and Ethan, the young man, had not known his father very well. And at one point, he confronted him. Why did the marriage break up? Why was our family such a wreck? And after a lot of hemming and hawing and defensiveness, it's one place where suddenly Ted Danson has this shock of this epiphany. Here's what he said. He said, making money...

Made me feel like a man making money made me feel significant and then because I worked so hard to make money the family started falling apart and I felt like a failure and the more I felt like a failure in my family the more I compensated by trying to make more money and eventually the whole thing fell apart and Even today he said I'm still driven. I'm still driven. What is that? What is that? That's addiction. That's addiction Here's why at the heart of addiction is what's called a tolerance effect you start with a substance and

And at first it gives you a high, and that's why you go back to it. But the tolerance effect means your body gets used to, adapts to the substance. And you need more and more of the substance to get the same level of high, that good feeling. The problem is you never can get back to it. You need more and more of the substance to get less and less of that good feeling. And down and down and down you spiral. That's exactly what's going to happen if you put anything...

in the place of God in your life, if there's anything that's your high tower, anything that is your unscalable wall, it'll drive you. You'll need more and more of it, and yet it'll never give you what it should give you, and your life will spiral down just like the guy who needed money to feel good about himself. That's why Neil Plantinga goes on and says this, what moves the addict to the bait?

What moves the addict to the bait? At every stage, addiction is driven by one of the most powerful, mysterious, and vital forces of human existence. What drives addiction is longing, longing not just of brain, belly, or loins, but finally of the heart. Because we are human beings, we long for wholeness, we long for fulfillment, and for the final good that believers call God. Like all idolatries, addiction taps this vital spiritual force and draws off its energies to objects and processes that drain the addict.

Instead of fulfilling them. But we're not just talking now about drugs. We're not just talking about drink. We're talking about absolutely anything. In the midst of life's uncertainties, where do you turn for wisdom? The book of Proverbs is filled with wisdom to help guide us in all aspects of life.

In Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional book, God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, you'll get a fresh, inspiring view of God's wisdom each day of the year from the book of Proverbs. This devotional book will help you unlock the wisdom within the poetry of Proverbs and guide you toward a new understanding of what it means to live the Christian life.

This resource is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share Christ's love with more people. You can request your copy of God's Wisdom for Navigating Life when you give today at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now you say, well, what do you do then? What are we supposed to do? Run into the name of the Lord. Run into the name of the Lord.

See, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. Run to it. And then finally, you're safe. Now, what does that mean? I don't know exactly. You say, what? I guess we can go home early today. No. You need to realize this is an incredibly rich metaphor. The name of the Lord in the Bible means so many things and so many aspects. And this is the only place where the Bible says, run into the name of the Lord. It's a metaphor. And it...

They want you to meditate on it. They want you to think out its implications. And I made a list of 10, but I'm only going to give you two because I think they're the two most important. Running into the name of the Lord means telling your mind the truth and converting the soul to love. And this is the secret of self-control. Not only the macro secret, but the micro secret. If you've got a problem with self-control in some particular area, today you can start with these two things. Telling your mind the truth, converting the soul to love. What do I mean? Well, let's go. First of all, telling the mind the truth.

The name of the Lord in the Bible means his nature. In the Bible, your name was not just a label. Your name told your attributes. Remember, when Abram changes his character, he becomes Abraham. When Simon changes his character, he becomes Peter. Your name conveys who you really are.

in the Bible and the Lord's name the name the Lord or his attributes who he really is and to run into the name of the Lord means to forcefully tell yourself who he is forcefully remind yourself about his sovereignty about his wisdom about his holiness about his love about his mercy forcefully remind yourself of the life of the world you really live in because God is your ultimate context so for example in Luke chapter 8 Jesus asleep on the boat the storm comes up and the men panic the disciples panic

When Jesus gets up, what does he say to them? First he calms the storm, then he looks at them, and of course he addresses their lack of self-control. They panicked. They lost control. And you know what he says? Where is your faith? Notice he didn't say, you have too little faith. He didn't say that. He said, you have faith. It should be here. Get it out. And this is what he's saying. He's saying,

You lost self-control because you know who I am. You've seen what I've done. You've heard what my promise is to always take care of you. You've heard what I... You don't think a storm is going to get rid of me and us, and somehow I'm not going to get my mission fulfilled. You know enough. You shouldn't have panicked. You should have told yourself who I was. See? He says you should have taken yourself in hand and told yourself who I was. Your lack of self-control is you're just not telling yourself the truth. Now, you know...

Look at the time. But the most forceful piece in all literature where this happens is the place where Jane Eyre, who is in love with Mr. Rochester, discovers that he's already married, that he has a wife who's at a mental institution, but he's married, and therefore she can't marry him. And he says, I want you to come and live with me.

You can't get married. And she says, but you're married and you still have an obligation for, you know, for better, for worse, for richer and poorer. And he says, no, I want you to come. I still want you to come. And she's in love with him. Now I've read some of this before, but I've never read the whole dialogue. Here it is. And it's fascinating. So this is, by the way, the narrator's voice is Jane, of course. She says, I was experiencing an ordeal, terrible moment, full of struggle, blackness, burning, not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved by him.

"'And him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped, yet I knew I must renounce my idol. "'Jane, you understand what I want of you?' he said. "'Just this promise. I will be yours, Mr. Rochester. "'Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.' "'Another long silence. "'Jane,' he said, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief. "'Jane, do you mean to go on? Do you mean to go one way in the world and let me go another?' "'I do.'

Jane, bending towards and embracing me. Do you mean it now? I do. And now, he said, softly kissing my forehead and cheek. I do. Oh, Jane, this is bitter. It would not be wicked to love me. No, but it would be wicked to obey you. A wild look crossed his features. What shall I do, Jane? Where shall I turn for a companion and for some hope? Do as I do, Mr. Rochester. Trust in God and be yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet me there.

Then you will not yield? No. Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed? No, I advise you to live sinless and therefore die tranquil. Then you snatch love from me? You fling me back? You fling me back on lust for a passion, vice for an occupation? Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure. You as well as I do so. Jane, who will be injured by the breach?

For you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me. And then she started talking to herself. This was true, she said. And while he spoke, my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me and charged me with crimes in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as feeling, and that clamored wildly as well. Oh, comply, it said. Think of his misery. Soothe him, save him, love him. Tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? Or who will be injured by what you do?

Still indomitable was my reply. I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane and not mad as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation. Therefore, such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor, stringent are they, inviolate they shall be,

If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth, so I have always believed. And if I cannot believe it now, it's because I'm insane, quite insane, with my veins running fire and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Forgone determinations are all I have this hour to stand by. On those I plant my foot, I did. You're not going to find a better place in all of literature to hear what it means to run than

into the name of the Lord. To forcefully tell yourself, this is who God is. And this is the ultimate context. Not what my feelings tell me, not what the culture tells me, not what anybody else tells me. Tell yourself the truth. Now having said that, and I believe that it is absolutely critical to having that ability. If you want to have self-control, you've got to know how to do that. You have to understand that self-dialogue.

You have to know how to take hold of the various voices inside and tell them the truth. And yet, I must tell you that in the long run, in the short run, that's very often all you can do just to keep yourself from doing the wrong thing. But in the short run, yes. In the long run, you need something deeper. You don't need just to tell your soul, your mind the truth. You need to convert the soul to love. What do I mean? Well, the name of the Lord...

Secondly in the Bible, it means that we do not have an ineffable, infinite, vague, impersonal God who's just a force, but he's a person. The name of the Lord means he's a person. It means he's got a heart, he's got a mind, he communicates. It means you can have a personal love relationship with him. And ultimately, self-control comes from

what you love the most. Jonathan Edwards, in his Freedom of the Will, a major book, takes hundreds of pages to say something that we Americans just don't believe. He says, you never, ever, ever, ever, really, ever do anything that you don't really want to do. He actually says, there's no such thing as the will as opposed to the emotions. He says, forget that. That idea that you have emotions and you have will and you can exercise the will and you can do things that you don't want to do, but you do them because you know you should. He says, forget that. He says, you never...

Do anything other than what you most want to do at that moment. Basically, the will is just the exercise of the heart. You say, that can't be true. The other day, somebody came up to me and put something in my back and said, give me your wallet. I didn't want to give him my wallet, but I gave him my wallet, and he ran. See, I did something against my will. No, Jonathan Edwards says, sorry, you didn't want to give him your wallet, but you also wanted to live, and you wanted to live more than you wanted to lose your, not wanted to lose your wallet. You did what you wanted to do. You always do what you most want to do.

And here's how self-control works. In Genesis 29, we are told in the story of Jacob and Rachel that Jacob worked seven years for his uncle Laban in order to win Rachel. This is from Genesis 29. So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. And there's the secret of self-control. Seven years is a long time to work.

Surely at some point he said, I can't believe it. Two years, maybe three years, maybe. He says it's so tedious and it's so long and the hours are so awful and he is so hard to work for. How was he able to exercise the self-control to stick with it? Well, the point is it says it didn't even feel like exercising self-control. There wasn't any tedium to it because what does it say? Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. He loved her.

And because he loved her, all the other desires in his heart were mastered. There was an over-mastering passion. There was a love that was supreme. And that love put everything else straight. If your love for him slowly converts your soul. A Catholic writer, Thelma Hall, has a great book on prayer. She calls Too Deep for Words. And in it she says this.

She says,

are experiencing the partial mystery of Jesus as described by Paul when he writes, in Christ all the promises of God are yes, and therefore through him we answer amen and give praise to God. So what's he saying? He says if you go in prayer to God constantly to get things, you're probably being driven by your out-of-control lusts, your desires, the things that are too important to you. But if you go in prayer to say, you have given me the most wonderful thing,

And my purpose in prayer is to continually say amen to what you have given me, what you have said to me. That converts the soul to love. And the more you convert the soul to love, the more you get self-control. Well, finally, here's the question. How do we actually practice this? The New Testament makes explicit what the Old Testament says implicit. And in Titus chapter 2, 11 to 14, it says something amazing. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to

to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age. Stop. That's not how I've taught anybody self-control. You know how you teach your children self-control? Not with grace, love. What do you do? You say, if you don't get control of yourself, you're not going to the party, you're going to spend the rest of the afternoon in your room. And what do the kids say? Okay, okay, okay. I'm scared. In the long run, that doesn't make you self-controlled. That's not the way Jacob got control.

That's not the way Jabod got control. In the short run, fear just makes you more anxious, more driven, more upset, right? There's another way. The grace of God has appeared. Now, that word appeared means become visible. How could it become visible? Jesus. Jesus was born. Jesus died. Jesus was raised. And what is the grace of God? As we're told in chapter 3 of Titus, the grace of God is that he saved us not because of our righteous deeds,

but because of his mercy. Look it. Do you know why we can run into the name of Jesus, into the name of the Lord? Do you know when Moses said, I want to see you, Lord, I want to see your glory. God says, no, you can't. It'll kill you. I'll put you in the cleft of the rock and I'll declare my name to you. See, the name of God is the presence of God is the glory of God. And Moses couldn't even get close to the name of God. Why can we run into it? People run into the city to get security.

But when Jesus Christ was crucified, they threw him out of the city, right? He was crucified outside the city. Why? Because all the criminals were executed outside the city. It represented the loss of the city of God. Jesus Christ lost the father. He was run out of God. He was run out of the city. He was hoisted up and became radically vulnerable so we could run into the father's arms so that we could be absolutely safe.

Now, Jesus Christ dying on the cross, losing the father, becoming radically vulnerable, suffering like he did. That was hard. That was incredibly difficult. That took endurance, don't you think? A huge amount of endurance over and over. He must have, it must have been incredibly hard. How did he get self-control? Do you realize the greatest act of self-control in history was Jesus Christ knowing what was coming, having a chance to leave when everyone, you remember the garden of Gethsemane? Everybody was dark.

The guards weren't there yet. And the three disciples were sleeping. He stayed with it. And they beat him. He stayed with it. He stayed with it. At various times, he actually said, I could call a bunch of angels. And he stayed with it. Where did he get the most incredible self-control in the history of the world? Where did he get the self-control that enabled him to endure the cross? The answer, according to Hebrews 12, is he endured the cross. He ran the race. He endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. Now, let's think about this. He's a son of God.

reigning in heaven forever, right? Has all glory. What in the world do you give the man who has everything? What prize could have possibly motivated that kind of endurance? What reward, see, could have possibly motivated that kind of endurance? What didn't he already have? There's only one thing that Jesus Christ did not have before the cross that he had after the cross, us. And you know what that means? The reason Jesus Christ had the self-control he had was that we were his Rachel.

And you know what that means? The degree to which you know that, the degree to which in prayer you experience that, to the degree to which you tell that truth to your mind, it will convert your soul and he will become your Rachel and you'll be able to do anything. All the stuff that you think you've got to have, all the anxiety will be gone. All the fear will be gone. I've got to have that, I've got to have that. All the addictions eventually will be gone after a lot of work. Don't you see? Do you see?

For the grace of God brings salvation and has appeared to all men. It teaches us. The word teach there means it argues with us. It pushes us. The gospel says you are loved. You are loved. You are his Rachel. Make him your Rachel. See? And the more that sinks down, the more you will live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's the secret of self-control.

Go and learn what this means, my friends. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us a high tower to run to. Teach us how to run into it when we feel that we're getting out of control, that we're losing the ability to control ourselves. Teach us how to tell ourselves the truth that converts our soul to love and makes us temperate, self-controlled, on top of things, free.

because we are controlled by your love. To the degree that we, as Paul says, are constrained by your love, to that degree, we'll be free in our relationship to everything else. Help us understand how to apply this to our lives through Jesus. It's in his name we pray.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it equips you to know more about God's Word. You can find more resources from Tim Keller at gospelandlife.com. Just subscribe to the Gospel in Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

This month's sermons were recorded in 2004. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.