Repose: The Power and Glory
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Welcome to Gospel in Life. We all know there's a big difference between knowing about God and actually knowing God personally. To know anyone, you have to spend time with them. If you're a Christian, prayer is essential to have a deep relationship with God. You won't be able to know yourself, know God, or grow in your relationship with Him without prayer. Join us today as Tim Keller teaches on why prayer is such an essential part of life with Christ.

The scripture reading is from Psalm 27 verses 1 through 14. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is a stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear. Though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.

1 Peter chapter 1, verses 1 through 10.

Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me. At a sacred tent, I will sacrifice with shouts of joy. I will sing and make music to the Lord. Hear my voice when I call, Lord. Be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, seek his face. Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my helper.

Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. Teach me your way, Lord. Lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations. I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. The word of the Lord. What we've been doing this fall is looking at prayer through the lens of the Lord's Prayer. Each week we've been taking a phrase from the Lord's Prayer and trying to find...

some other place in the Bible that is an example of the kind of prayer that that phrase represents so that we can enhance and enrich our own prayer lives. And we come finally to the very last phrase in the Lord's Prayer. Give us this, pardon me, the last phrase which is, I do know this. I do know the Lord's Prayer. I do know the Lord's Prayer, honestly. I spent all week memorizing it just so I could preach this sermon. Amen.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Now, is that just a rhetorical flourish? You know, after all, it doesn't seem to be a prayer. It's actually more of a statement of fact, kind of a truism. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. But ancient commentators on the Lord's Prayer have said, rightly, that this is a prayer of repose.

See, after all the other, the Lord's Prayer is quite a workout. You're asking for a whole lot of things. Daily bread, deliver us from evil. Temptation, you're looking. There's a lot of things you're asking for, but at the end, you rest in God. You enjoy God. You're not asking for anything. You're enjoying God. In fact, you're seeing, you're realizing that all the things you've been looking for, all the kingdom and the power and the glory are already there in him.

And if you have him, you have everything you need. And therefore, at the very end, the last part of the prayer is the prayer of repose. Now, where do we get any examples of this sort of prayer in the Bible? And we have one. It was just read to you. It's one of the most famous examples.

Psalms in the Bible, Psalm 27, and we're going to see that this is exactly what that part of that end of the Lord's Prayer embodies. This is a Psalm of David telling about something that happens in his life, and the best way to get through it is to notice that in the very beginning, he talks about what he's facing. So we learn what he's facing, then what he does about it, then how he does it, and why he's confident it'll work. So what he's facing is

what he does, how he does it, and why he's confident that what he does will work. So here's what he's facing. We can be brief about this, but it's really important to see. He is facing fearful things. He says in the very beginning, "Whom shall I fear? "Of whom shall I be afraid? "Why? "Because when the wicked advance against me to devour me, "though an army besiege me, "though war break out against me." Now this is David, he's a king.

And it's unlikely that probably anybody in this room will ever have an army actually come and besiege you and try to overthrow you. That is New York, and you might be a king or queen in disguise, and you're just hanging out. But by and large, we're not going to face this. But see, David is saying at one end of the spectrum, people are always trying to overthrow him. People are always literally trying to devour his flesh, kill him, and take his throne.

And he says, so at one end of the spectrum, he's got armies trying to besiege him. At the other end, by the way, is verse 10, where he says, if my mother and father forsake me. Now, we'll talk about that later. But here he's looking at the other end of the spectrum, crushing emotional sorrows. Nothing is probably more crushing than to be rejected by your father and mother. At the other end, not emotional sorrows, but physical danger. Now, David's showing us the spectrum of

These things may have happened to him. It looks more like he's saying if they happen to him. But the fact is that they do happen. And David's saying, I've got something that'll help me face it. See, this is the realism of the Bible. It's all through the Bible. Ernest Becker, one of my favorite authors, says, I think taking life seriously means that whatever is done must be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation.

Of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise, it is false. He says, reality, here's real life. There's a rumble of panic underneath everything. Because are you ready to recognize the terror of creation? See, there's this great line in Macbeth that goes like this. Each new morn, new widows howl. New orphans cry. New sorrows strike heaven on the face.

Kathy and I spent last weekend with one of our best friends whose husband just died a month ago, and he was one of our best friends too. And she described to us what it was like to wake up the first morning after her husband died. The first morning, you wake up, you know how you always try to say, where am I? And you suddenly realize he's dead. Each new morn, new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven upon the face. That's life.

That's the terror of creation. There's a rumble of panic underneath everything if you're smart enough to know what life is like. That's the realism of the Bible. Here's what David is saying. David is saying, I can take the terror and the evil and the panic of life with utmost seriousness and still know I've got something that will overcome it. I've got something with which I can face it so that it will not overcome me. That's the reason why he begins and ends with this confidence. I've got something. What is it?

Point two. So that's what he's facing. But point two, what does he do? It's the first half of verse four. One thing I ask from the Lord. See, this is what's going to help him handle all of life. One thing I ask from the Lord. This only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. And what's he talking about? Well, first of all, let me show you what he's not doing. He's not going into God and asking about the army.

He's not going into God and asking him to change circumstances, to say, please help me defeat the army or turn them away. He's not doing that. That never shows up anywhere in here. And that doesn't mean it's wrong, of course, because the Lord's Prayer itself says, you may pray, give us this day our daily bread. You may pray, deliver us from evil. But even in the Lord's Prayer, think about it, even inside the Lord's Prayer, you don't get to daily bread and to deliver us from evil until you spend a lot of time looking at God.

He's father. He's a heavenly father. He's got a name. He's personal. But it's holy. He's got a kingdom. See, in other words, you spend all this time looking at God before you ever get to circumstances. And this is actually one of the main lessons you're going to get if you really read the Bible and you ask yourself every day you read up another page and say, what do I learn about prayer? And one of the main things is

we learn, is it's fine to pray about circumstances. It's fine to say, Lord, keep me from financial reversal. Keep me from ill health. Keep me from this. Keep me from that. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but that's not your main issue. It's not your main problem. Because listen, bad circumstances are going to happen to you. So what do you really need? What is it that you really need? Here's what he says. I want to dwell in your house and

I want to see you, your beauty. I want to seek your face. And that's the one thing I want. Now, when he says, I want to dwell in your house. Now he's talking about, by the way, the tabernacle. Notice down a little further, he talks about your sacred tent, your dwelling. He also calls it his house, the house and the temple. This is David, not Solomon, which means the temple had not been built yet. So he's talking about the tabernacle. He says, I want to dwell there. And he almost certainly doesn't mean literally dwell there. He's the king, Levites and

priests dwell there. He's, he, he doesn't, he's not going to live there. What does he mean then? And what does he mean by this term? One thing. And then he says it again. One thing I asked from the Lord, this only do I seek. Um, one of the Hebrew commentators I read getting ready for this, uh, the sermon says in the Hebrew, uh,

David is using a construction that is astonishingly intense. He's essentially saying one, one, one, one, only, only one thing I want. The commentator says it's a grammatical expression of extraordinary singleness of purpose. There's almost no way you could express singleness of purpose more intensely with any grammatical phrase than this. And here's what he's trying to say.

He says, I don't care what it takes. I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what it costs. I want unbroken fellowship with you, O Lord. I don't want to just know about you. I want to know you. I want to experience your reality. I want to see your face. I want to experience your presence. That's what I want. It's the only thing I need. If I have that, then everything is all right. I want to dwell in your house means I want the unbroken fellowship. One thing and one thing only.

See, we're back to actually where we were last week, if you were here last week, and we were looking at Psalm 73. And at the very end, there's a place that I went over pretty fast, and I was here preaching on it last week. But I'm very happy to be able to make the point at greater length now. St. Augustine was raised with the Greek philosophers. And one of the things he knew that the Greek and the classic philosophers taught was that if you set your heart...

too much on anything in this world, you're going to be held hostage by that thing emotionally and you'll become enslaved to it. So that if you live for your career or you live for your family or you live for your children or you live for some lover, if there's anything that you really set your heart on,

It's going to emotionally whipsaw you all the time because if anything goes wrong with it, you're scared. If anything blocks it, you're angry. You'll be driven by it. And so what the Greek philosophers said is what you really need to do is achieve what they called adorakia, which is a hard thing to translate, but it really means detachment. Detachment is very much like Buddhism, actually.

You need to realize that these are good things, but don't get too attached to them because they're passing away. In fact, one of the Greek philosophers said that when you kiss your little boy good morning in the morning, you should always say in your heart, you may not live till next month. You're going to die soon. In other words, the philosopher says, just keep telling yourself, hey, don't get too invested in anything.

That's Adarachia. In other words, if you live for anything and you invest your whole life in anything, if you love anything too much, you're going to be terribly disappointed and you're going to be up and down. And so detach. Now what Augustine said was that is so wrong and yet so right. It's so right because anything, any created thing, anything in this world that you live for

You're a slave to it. You're not free. Everybody's got to live for something. And whatever you live for, that's the thing you're going to have to have. You're going to have to have it to be happy. And therefore, if you live for anything, yes, it makes you a slave. But if you think the answer is detach, Augustine says on the one hand, that's incredibly selfish that you would actually love less, love less just to protect yourself. It's not just selfish. It's inhuman selfishness.

Because you're also hardening yourself. You say, well, you know, sit loose to everything. Let's just not get too attached. You know, you become a little bit cynical. You become a little bit. He says, no, here's the only answer. And this is the answer. You should not love your child less. You should not love your career less. You should not love anything less. You should love God more.

And not just know about God or believe in God, but love him more and know his love. It's the love of God, the immutable, unchanging love of God, because it's not based on your performance. You can't lose it. And even if you die, it only gets better. That's the only thing that will bring tranquility. And this is actually what it means to say, thine is the power and the glory forever and amen. There's a great sermon and kind of almost a

almost a frighteningly good sermon, funeral sermon that Jonathan Edwards, the 18th century Massachusetts pastor preached once and it was printed up and you can read it. It's called the, uh, the sorrows of the bereaved spread before Jesus. And he was preaching about, he was preaching at the funeral of a good man who had died, left young children, left a wife. And as the end of the sermon, he actually looks, this is the sort of thing you can only do

I really couldn't do any more. But he looks at the, on the front pew, there's the wife, there's the widow, and there's the children. And he looks at them and says, now children, you had a loving father, but now I tell you, get a father who cannot die. And then he looks at the wife and he says, I remember he says something like, you the aggrieved, forlorn widow. He says, now go get a husband that cannot die. And then he actually says, he says, as wonderful as that man was,

The love you had in him was like a tributary, but in God you have the headwaters. And therefore you actually haven't lost what you had in him. See, there's another place where Augustine actually says, if you're lazy, you're really looking for the peace of God in the wrong way. If you're ambitious, you're really looking for the glory of God in the wrong way. That everything you're trying to find here, you can have in him. And that's the reason why Augustine actually says,

God alone is the place of peace that cannot be disturbed. And he will not withhold himself from your love unless you withhold yourself from him. He will not withhold your himself from your love unless you withhold your love from him. The only possible way for you to really have peace and be able to face anything, face the loss of money, the loss of health, the loss of loved ones is to say, thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I,

You give me the only wealth that I really need. You give me the only love that I really have to have. Only if I'm in you do I have the health that means I know I'm going to be resurrected and last forever. Now, that's the reason why, basically, what David is saying is, I want the kind of prayer life in which I don't just get things from God where I'm saying, please give me this, please give me this, please give me this, so that my heart continues to rest in those things, so I'm whipsawed back and forth with fear and anger. No. No.

So I'm not going into prayer in order to get things from God, though I might. I may ask about things. I want to get God, not things from God. I want to get God. And that's the one thing I've got to have. I've got to have that kind of prayer life. I have to have that kind of fellowship. If I have that, then it doesn't matter what my enemies do. So that's what he faces and that's what he's after. That's what he does. Now, how does he do it? And the second half of verse four, let's be as practical as we can possibly be.

How does he do this? In the second half, he says, well, what does it mean to dwell in the house of the Lord forever? He says, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. Two things. So first of all, what does it mean to gaze on the beauty of the Lord? Well, the word gaze is trying to translate a Hebrew word. He could have just used the word look.

But clearly he's using a stronger word. And the word for gaze means what you think. It means to stare. It means to drink it in. It means to look and look and look and burn what you're seeing into your mind so that it will always be there for recall or replication. When you pray to God, is it more like a chat or are you really connecting with him in a deep and meaningful way? We'd like to help you establish a stronger, deeper, and more personal prayer life.

Tim Keller's book, Prayer, Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, offers biblical guidance as well as specific ways to pray in certain situations, such as dealing with grief, loss, love, and forgiveness. In the book, Dr. Keller helps you learn how to make your prayers more personal and powerful through a regular practice of prayer.

Prayer, experiencing awe and intimacy with God is our thanks for your gift to help us reach more people with the life-changing power of the gospel. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, he's not talking, almost certainly when he says, I want to gaze on the beauty of God, he's not talking about a literal thing.

vision of some kind of brightness that he would see with his visual, with his actual physical eyes? Almost certainly not. In fact, most commentators say that he could use other words to talk about that. So what is he talking about? Here's what he's talking about. He's talking about the difference between an abstract understanding of God and an actual heart experience of God. So for example, Daniel Steele, believe it or not, not Danielle Steele, no, but Daniel Steele, who was the first president of Syracuse University and a devout Christian,

At one point wrote a friend of his about the Renaissance that was happening in his prayer life. And this is how he described it. He says, almost every week and sometimes every day now, a pressure of his great love comes down upon my heart. The inner spot has been touched and my heart's flintiness has been melted in the presence of love divine, Jesus, the altogether lovely. That's gazing on the beauty.

And John Owen, a 17th century British minister and theologian, talks about this. And he's using archaic language, but listen, it's very penetrating and perfectly clear. He says, if we settle for mere mental notions about Christ as doctrine, did you hear that? If we settle for just abstract mental concepts or notions of Christ as doctrine, we shall find no transforming power given to us.

But when our affections cleave to him, when our affections cleave to him with full purpose of heart and our minds fill up with thoughts and delight in him, then change in character will proceed to purify us and sometimes fill us with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now, did you hear what he said? He's not pitting the feelings against the mind.

He says, what we're talking about here in gazing on the beauty of God is not just saying, well, I know God is wise. I know God is holy. I know God is loving. To gaze on the beauty means, he explains, on the one hand, he says, when, you don't just know it with your head. That's just what he calls mental notions. He says, when our affections cleave to him with full purpose of heart and our minds are filled with delight, large thoughts that basically just, the intellect is filled with delight

You say, I hadn't seen it like this. The mind is going 100 miles an hour and the heart is being drawn out. He says, then when you sometimes, he didn't say all the time, sometimes experience joy unspeakable and full of glory, when your heart's full purpose, full affections cleave to him, that's what we're talking about. Occasionally we use this. Jonathan Edwards says there's a difference between knowing that honey's sweet with the mind because you believe a report and actually tasting it

And so what it means is you don't just believe the doctrine of God's wisdom. It becomes so real to you that you finally relax. He knows you don't just believe in the doctrine of God's love. You feel the love. I mean, Romans five says it's shed abroad in your heart. You feel it so that you delight. You don't just know God is holy, but the sense of it is such that it really purifies you. You said, I just can't live the way I've been living.

That's what it means to gaze on the beauty of God. And that's the one thing he says you got to have. Now, let's get practical. I know you're going to say, okay, you said be practical. All right. What does it mean to gaze on the beauty of God? It means, number one, I'll give you two things you have to do if this is going to happen to you. Number one, you need to praise him.

Obviously, gazing on the beauty of God means at least you take time to praise him. You're actually going through what's great about him and you're telling him and you're appreciating. By the way, it's how lovers work all the time. You're always telling each other what's wonderful about the other one. So do that to God. Praise him. But secondly, it also means to be satisfied. Satisfied. To find God not just useful.

Lord, please help me get out from under this army. Please defeat the army or help me defeat the army. See, that's God is useful. He's powerful, yes. But to find God beautiful and not just useful is what we're talking about here. Anybody can find him useful. But only, frankly, a person whose heart's been regenerated and born again by the Holy Spirit will ever find him useful. The best illustration is

Musicians always like this part, this illustration. When I was an undergraduate in college, in order to get my degree, in order to get out and get a degree and get a job, I had to take a music course, music appreciation. You had to learn, you had to listen to Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and Brahms and all those various people. And then you had to be able to know them well enough that you could identify them. If they played a snatch of the music, you had to identify it on a test. So it was music 101.

And originally, I listened to all those, you know, I listened to Mozart in order to get a degree so I can get a good job. In other words, I listened to Mozart in order to make money. But today, something's happened to me. Now I'm willing to pay quite a bit of money to listen to Mozart. Why? Because Mozart has become a satisfying thing in itself. The music is satisfying. The music is pleasing. The music gives meaning. You know, the music...

It's not like, well, I'll listen to Mozart in order to, no, I just listened to Mozart. Why? Because it's beautiful to me. I don't know about you. When God gets to the place where he's not just useful, but he's beautiful because he's satisfying in and of himself. You're not just saying, why haven't you done this? Why haven't you done that for me? No, no. Just having him. See, that's what it means to say, thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.

In you, I've got the power and you have got the glory I need. In fact, here's a little here in order to not only praise him, but find him satisfying. Here is an exercise when I'm asking for something. I mean, am I asking for a change in circumstance? I'm saying, please give me good health or my wife, good health.

Or if I'm praying, please keep this financial reversal from happening. Please keep us safe financially. Please keep us safe in health. Whenever I'm asking for something, I always remind myself that I already have in him the essence of what I need in that area. See, if I say, oh Lord, I'm praying for my wife's health or my health, and yet I gotta realize the only sickness that can actually destroy me is sin. And Jesus has forgiven it. And I've actually got forgiveness.

The spiritual health is a Christian is the only health that you really need in order to survive forever. And the same thing with true of wealth. See, as you're asking for things, always remember, always get to, but you know, Lord, give me power. Oh, please, Lord, give me honor. Like, give me the, but thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. And if I have you, I have what I need. Now, if you don't mind, I'd love to get some help over here.

But what you've started with is you're gazing on the beauty. And then secondly, by the way, seek him in his temple. And that word actually means pretty much what verse 11 means. It's a Hebrew word that doesn't, they often don't translate it very well. Teach me your way, oh Lord. To seek him means to learn. And what's interesting here, he says, I want to gaze on your beauty and I want to learn your word.

And you and I may think, well, that's kind of strange. See, gazing on his beauty is more than just learning the truth of the Bible, but it's not less. In fact, usually they go together. It's as you meditate on, and we're going to talk about this next week, as you meditate on what the Bible says, very often you see his beauty. In other words, you might be meditating on a text and you might say something like this. If someone as great as this loves me like this, has saved me at infinite cost to himself,

Says he'll never let me go. Says he's going to raise me at the end of time. He's going to make me perfect. Why am I justifying this behavior? Why am I worried about this? Why am I this? Why am I that? Ah, see, you're moving from learning about his word, seeking him, learning his way, to gazing on his beauty. They go together. And it's the one thing you've got to do. You've got to find time for it. You've got to make time for it. You've got to say, I don't care how long it takes. This is the one thing.

Because if you have it, look what he says in verse six. Look what he says. In verse six, he says, then my head will be exalted. You will keep me safe in his sacred tent. He will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent. And then my head will be exalted above my enemies. I will sacrifice with shouts of joy. He's not so stupid as to think that if he goes into the tabernacle, the enemies can't get to him.

What he's trying to say is, I'll finally be safe because when I have learned to gaze on your beauty, when I have learned to seek you in your temple, when I have that one thing, when I've got you and I recognize who I have in you, then I'm not worried about whatever happens. I'm just not worried. My head will be held high. There was, in 1850, an ill-fated group of six men

Englishmen left on a boat from England to try to go to Patagonia in South America to start an Anglican mission, to start an Anglican church in Patagonia in South America. And on the way, they essentially were shipwrecked on an island very close by, and no other ships came by. And over a year's period, because of exposure, because of thirst, because of hunger, they died one at a time. There were six of them.

Uh, the leader was a man named Alan Francis Gardner. By the way, this all happened on a little, uh, Island. Those of you who are no South America called Picton Island. And, um, the, uh, the leader was a man named Alan, uh, Francis Gardner. He had been a ship's captain, but he went into the mission field. And as he was dying, he was losing everything. He was losing his wife and his children. He was losing his health. He was losing his life. He was losing everything.

But he was keeping a journal and he was the last one alive. And when they finally later on found all the dead bodies, they found the journal. And this is the last thing he said in his journal as he was dying. Stripped of everything, he said, I am by his abounding grace kept in perfect peace, refreshed with a sense of my Savior's love and an assurance that all this is wisely and mercifully appointed.

Here's the verse of the last things he ever said. He said, I'm just filled with a sense of my Savior's love. And I know that he is merciful and wise in why he's letting this happen. So almost at the very end, stripped of everything, he essentially is overwhelmed with the sense of the goodness of God. Do you know why? Do you know how he could be like that? You say, how could he say that? Why wasn't he mad? Why wasn't he scared? Why could he say such a thing? Why did he feel loved when everything was going wrong? Because he had the one thing.

thine is the kingdom thine is the power thine is the glory i've got it in you if i have that i've got everything his head was lifted up in spite of his enemies okay lastly briefly but important why is he so confident this will work he starts off with confidence the lord is my light and salvation whom shall i fear the lord is a stronghold of my life that word stronghold means a mountain refuge

And at the very end, even though he's got some nervousness, by the way, if we had the time, we could go through verse by verse. It's clear that he's got some concerns. Obviously, he's imagining. He says, don't hide your face from me. Don't turn your servant away in anger. Don't reject and forsake me. He's not saying that my prayer life is always fine. He is saying, in hard times, I'm still going to seek you. But at the end, he says, I remain confident.

I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart. Now here's what I want to know. Why is he so confident this will work? Especially how dare he say you will hide me in the shelter of your sacred tent. So he used the sacred tent. It's the tabernacle. It's where the Shekinah glory was. It was where the Ark of the Covenant was. Where the priests went. And even the high priest could only go into the Holy of Holies once.

A year, Yom Kippur, taking the blood of the atonement. And here's David. And he's happy in there. He says, then I'll be brought in. Why is he so confident? When Job saw God, got near to God, he said, I heard of you with my ear. Now I see with my eyes and I repent in dust and ashes. When Peter got near God, he said, depart from me. I'm a sinful man. When Moses got near the glory of God, God said, stay away. It'll kill you.

When Isaiah went into the temple, not the tabernacle, but the temple, and he saw the Lord high and lifted up, what's the first thing he said? Did he say, my head is raised high, you will hide me in the shelter? No, he says, I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. See, when you get near holiness, you see your flaws. When you get near infinity, you see your finitude. When you get near superlativeness, you see what's wrong with you.

And anyone else who's ever gone into the tabernacle or the temple and drawn near to the holiness of God immediately feels like they're falling apart. Why is he so confident? In fact, it's astounding. Verse 10, though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will not. In fact, the old King James was the Lord will bear me up. Now I have to, you need to realize that David lived in an incredibly family centered society. Some of you think you've come from family centered societies, nothing like this.

And therefore, for a mother and father to forsake you, you must do something incredibly bad. You realize that in those days? For your father and mother to forsake you, you must have done something incredibly bad. And so David is saying, even if I do something incredibly bad, you won't forsake me. You will accept me. You will hide me in the shelter of your sacred tent. How can he be that confident that God would forgive him, that God would overlook all that? How can he be confident of this? That he'll be able to just go in and gaze on the beauty of God? Answer, I'm not really sure.

Which is scary, isn't it? Because generally you want the preacher to tell you things he knows, not the things he doesn't know. I don't want to waste your time. I'm really not sure why. But probably like Isaiah, who felt about when he saw the holiness of God, he sensed his sin. And the only reason he was able to stay there was because a coal from the altar touched his lips and atoned for his sin. Because the altar is the place of sacrifice. The altar is the place where sins are dealt with.

And David would have gone in there and he would have, as he gazed on the beauty of God, he would have seen the altar of sacrifice. Well, I'm not completely sure what went on in David's mind, but I know what should go on in our mind and how we can really, really be sure that we can gaze on the beauty of God. John chapter one says, Jesus Christ, the word became flesh and tabernacled among us and we beheld his glory forever.

John chapter one deliberately uses a strange word. It doesn't just say Jesus Christ, the son of God became human and dwelled among us. I know that's what your English translations say, but literally it says the word became flesh and tabernacled among us. And this is John's way of saying Jesus is the tabernacle. He is the bridge between heaven and earth. He is the final sacrifice for all of our sins. He is the reason why we can go in. And besides that,

Here's how you know that no matter what you do, God won't forsake you. Even if your mother and father forsake you, everybody else, God will not forsake you because on the cross, Jesus Christ said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was standing in your place. He was taking the forsakenness that we deserve. So that if you believe in God through Jesus Christ, you can know no matter what you do, God will open to you.

God will take you in. God will not forsake you. And if you want to see the beauty, don't just look at the abstract God. So, you know, just I'm going to think about the beauty of God. Look at Jesus Christ, the infinitely beautiful one who came to earth, emptied himself of his glory. As Isaiah said, he had no beauty with which we should desire him. The infinitely beautiful one became beaten to a pulp, lost his beauty so that we could be holy and blameless in God's sight. That's beautiful.

I had my two-year-old oldest son. This is a long time ago. My oldest son was two years old. And I was walking with him. He was on my shoulders, up on my shoulders. We were walking on a beach in wintertime in Massachusetts, a rocky beach. It was beautiful out. It was cold, but it was beautiful out because the sun was out. And my son, David, was, you know, what you do with little kids when it's cold, is he was bundled up in this, you know,

coat with a fur hood. So he was on top of my shoulders and suddenly I stumbled and I dropped him. I don't even like thinking about it because I remember how nauseated I was. Fortunately, he was in this coat that he practically bounced and he cried, but he was fine. Not even a bruise on him. But I remember how sick I felt. It wasn't long after that that I saw this verse, though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will bear me up.

And I realized I'd let him down. But not only that, other people would let me down. And what are we going to do with a world like this where we're always letting each other down? Even if everyone else lets you down, the Lord will bear me up. Why? Jesus is saying, I've got a love for you that will enable you to face anything. It's the one thing you need. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for...

showing us the one thing and even showing us how to seek the one thing. And we pray that you would teach us how to pray for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. And be the kind of people that David says we can be should we do that. Help us, we pray through him. In Jesus' name we ask it. 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 2014. 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. ♪