The Freedom of Love
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Are you seeking to change something in your life, but find yourself falling into the same habits? Is there any hope for lasting change? This month, Tim Keller is preaching through the book of Galatians, which is all about how Christians can experience true transformation in Christ and how our issues are not solved by our good works, but by allowing the gospel to transform every area 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 Life in the Gospel quarterly journal with articles that feature how the gospel is changing hearts, lives, and communities, as well as highlighting other gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelandlife.com. We're going through the book of Galatians, and tonight...

You know, this is sort of like, you remember how God said to Gideon, ah, we don't want too many people. I want to get more glory, and he cut down the numbers. And it's hot tonight, and it's beautiful out. And if you have come here to this service, I'm going to treat you as the mature, grown-up people you are, and I'm going to give you a little more theology than I usually do, so I want you to concentrate and think. I'm just going to read from Galatians 5, just from verses 5 down to...

that we'll cover tonight, okay? Galatians 5, 5 to 12. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision or uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.

I'm confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves. Okay? And this is God's word. Now, which tells us a few things, and that's what we're going to look at. Uh,

The subject, you know, if you don't come regularly, what's the subject? Since we're going through the book of Galatians, what's the issue? What's the occasion? What's the context? It's this. Paul planted a series of churches in Galatia, and he's right into those churches, because when he planted those churches, he gave them a basic charter, a basic understanding of Christianity. And he said, this is Christianity. You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,

and you're saved, and as a result, you will obey God and live a good life, change life. But there's a group of teachers that came to the same churches, and they said, no, no, no, that's not quite right. It's good that you believe on Jesus Christ, but it's not believe, and then you're saved, and then you'll live a good life as a result, but rather you have to believe, and you have to live a good life. As a result, you'll be saved. Belief in Christ isn't enough. Faith in Christ isn't enough. You've got to live a good life.

You've got to obey the law before you can have any confidence that God will bless you and favor you. So Paul had come to them and said, once you believe in Christ, no matter what you are, what you've done, your sins can never bring you into condemnation. You're children of Abraham. And this group of folks said, no, it's not true. And they said, good works has got to be part, along with faith, of the basis for why God accepts you or how God accepts you. Now, this is a big issue. And

In some ways, what we're looking at in chapter 5 is the answer to the people who pretty regularly come up to me and they say this. They say it after sermons, they say it in question and answer, and they say this. They would say, I don't see how in the world it's possible that telling people that God accepts them no matter what they do could be any incentive, could result, could be any kind of engine or energy for good life, for a good living.

And the illustration I used last week is I had my two oldest sons have gone through this situation where the end of the junior year and the beginning of their senior year, they busted hard, got great grades because they wanted to get into good colleges. And once they got their college acceptances, once they knew the colleges couldn't see what they did in the second semester, their grades fell off. And I would look at them and I would say, why are you falling off in your grades? And they would say, the colleges don't see that. I'm in. I'm in.

So people turn and say, okay, let me ask you a question. I mean, that's natural. It's natural. If the colleges have already accepted them and they're already in, why should they work hard in the second semester of their senior year? Why should they? And in the same way, if you go to people and say, look, God, in a sense, doesn't see those sins. They're covered. The Bible does say that. Blessed is the man whose sins are covered.

You see, they're covered. God doesn't see them. And if they're covered and God doesn't see them, how in the world could that be any incentive? How could this idea that you're saved by faith alone, you're saved by grace alone, apart from your works, how could there be any incentive to live a good life? I don't see how it could. Here, Paul explains in chapter 5, Paul explains how it is that the gospel of salvation through free grace, not works, is actually a greater incentive than

to a life of honesty, a life of sacrifice, a life of love, a life of holiness than anything else. And just as we started looking at it last week, we'll look at it this week, and we will actually continue to look at it next week. Let me pause for a second to explain or to help us understand how important this is. When Paul talks about this stuff in Galatians 5, and it is so incredibly important, in a way the heart of the whole thing is right here in verse 6.

All right, now that's kind of the heart.

And Paul is talking about what changes the motivation, what changes the heart so that we want to live lives of sacrifice. We want to live lives of love. We want to live lives of goodness and so forth. Now, the reason this is so incredibly, incredibly important. Do you know that this is the thing that all the heads of state, this is the thing that all the smartest people in the world, this is the thing that all the experts are after. This is this is the thing that we're all after. There was a.

I've occasionally quoted in the past, but it's been a while. There was a woman named Beatrice Webb, who was also named Lady Passfield. She and her husband, Sidney, lived in the late 19th century, early 20th century in Britain, and they're considered the founders of the social welfare structure of Britain. Now, I'm not trying to knock the social welfare structure with what I'm reading, but it's pretty interesting. They formed it. They were very typical, smart people.

uh people the intelligentsia of that time they decided that though they've been raised in the church they renounced christianity and uh in 1925 near the end of her life um lady pastiel beatrice webb wrote this in her diary she spoke she actually no not in her diary she wrote this in an essay she said somewhere in my diary in 1890 i wrote quote i have staked everything on the essential goodness of human nature

But now, 35 years later, I realize how permanent are the evil impulses and instincts in man and how little we can change these. For example, the greed of wealth and of power. We must continually be asking for better things from our own and from other persons, human nature. But shall we get any response? And without a response, how can we shift social institutions from off the basis of brutal struggle for existence and power and onto that of fellowship?

No amount of knowledge or science will be of any avail unless we can curb these evil impulses and set free ourselves for good. Can this be done without the authoritative ethics associated with faith and a spirit of love at work in the universe? Now, here's what was going on. Here's a lady who in her early days said, I have staked everything on human nature, the goodness of human nature, and she set things up so that through education and social welfare people would be free

To respond in fellowship, by the end of her life, she said, I have finally come to realize that there are evil impulses in human beings, a desire for power, pride, selfishness, violence, and we can't stop it. She says, how in the world are we going to have a world? We keep asking people, and they won't respond. And then near the very end, she says,

Unless there's a God, is there any hope? But you notice she doesn't quite say that. She's afraid to say that. She never did. She says, how can this be done without the authoritative ethics associated with faith and a spirit of love at work in the universe? That's a pretty wimpy way of putting it, but you see what she's moving toward. She realizes, in fact, she realizes that the question is how in the world do you deal with the human heart? How do you change the human heart?

So that there's a desire to love and to sacrifice and to be generous. That's not the way the human heart works. I was intrigued and I thought it was pretty interesting. There's a good editorial in the New York Times this week in review section of the paper today. And it was good because it was talking about the shooting in Arkansas. It was talking about the two boys that killed five children, other children.

And the New York Times did a pretty good job of saying that everybody is jumping on the bandwagon to use it to advocate their causes. And the point was that there were shallow causes. So liberals get it and say, see, this is why we need to have gun control. And conservatives say, this is the reason why we need to have more control of the entertainment industry and the violence of films. And parents aren't taking care of each of the kids and the breakdown of the family. And yet at the very end of the article,

They quote a guy I never heard of. Well, I did probably hear of him. Anyway, they quote a man who's a literary critic. And he says the response, the sound bites, the pat answers, the spin is very bad. And then he says, imagine Dostoevsky. He says, now, Fyodor Dostoevsky actually had a diary. And what he would do is when he heard of some incident that really struck him, that he wanted to reflect and meditate on, he would write it down in the diary.

And so many of his great novels and great essays were based on incidents that he reflected on his diary. And this man says that, I didn't know this, but Dostoevsky's diary had at least two incidents exactly like the Jonesboro Massacre. In other words, children killing a whole lot of other children. This happens, this has always happened.

And Dostoevsky had a couple of incidents in his diary. And this is what this man says. He says, imagine what Dostoevsky would do with that. There were incidents like this, two boys killing other children, that he put in his diary. How would he deal with the transcendentally important question of evil in the child? But today, the editor would call up and say, Theodore, tomorrow, please, your piece. What?

Don't tell me you need 10 months to think about it. Theodore, tomorrow or else. Now, it was trying to say, ah, we need to think about it, but it was great. Look at that. He's absolutely right. He says, Dostoevsky realized...

The issue wasn't gun control. It wasn't entertainment industry. It wasn't MTV. It wasn't, you know, the breakdown of the family. This has been happening for centuries. The thing that we want to believe is that we're innocent and something makes us go wrong. The thing we want to believe in is if we live out in little homogeneous communities and, you know, beautiful rural areas, these sort of things won't happen. We want to believe that evil is an external thing. Evil is an odd thing. Evil is something we can control. And it turns out that it's in deep, in deep.

It's in the human heart. It's even in the child. It's in the thing that we think is so innocent. It's the transcendentally important question of human evil, even in the child. Now, Dostoevsky spent a lot of time meditating on it, and he wrote great novels about it. And of course, the editorial was trying to say how silly we are. We don't know how to deal with these issues, and we don't. But Paul is. Paul is saying that this is the only hope. This is the thing that Beatrice Webb gave her life to understand.

actually in some ways barking at the wrong tree because she didn't know about this. Near the end of her life, she realized this is what we need. There's a transcendentally important problem. Evil in the heart. The human heart. How do we change the human heart? How do we do it? Gun control? See, I'm not against gun control, by the way. You know, censorship of movies? I'm not against that either. Social welfare? I'm not against that either.

But you see, this is the important thing. This is the important thing. Now, what Paul tells us is this. I'm going to be very prosaic. I'm going to go through this passage. I'm going to show you what he says. Basically, what Paul is saying is that the reason we obey God, the reason we do good things is all important.

The difference between Paul and these false teachers was not that Paul said, oh, now that you're saved, you can commit adultery and lie. He didn't say that. Paul said you can't commit adultery or lie. You mustn't. And the teacher said you can't commit adultery or lie. You mustn't. But the point was not that one said it was okay, one said not. They both said it wasn't okay. But the reason they gave for why you should obey God was utterly different. And Paul says the reason is everything.

Let's take a look at that. Paul says the reason of everything. So he says it's the motivation. The reason you obey God is everything. So first of all, he tells us that the new motivation is crucial. He shows us what the new motivation is, and he shows us how the new motivation works. You know, that is crucial, this new different motivation for obedience. First, that is crucial, what it is and how it works. First of all, that is crucial. Look in verse 7 and 8. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?

That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. Now, this is interesting. First of all, notice he says you have to obey the truth. He's not saying, well, now that you're accepted in Christ, you don't have to obey. You do have to obey the truth. He's going to say the real question is why? You must obey, but where's the must get its power? Why must you? That's the important thing. You must, but why? What will happen if you don't?

What is the reason why you should feel constrained? Yes, you feel constrained, but why are you constrained? So first of all, there's no issue that we have to obey the truth. But then secondly, look here, very interesting. It says, who caught on you and kept you from obeying the truth? Do you realize how weird this is?

The Galatians think that they're getting more obedient. The Galatians are about to undergo a kind of regimen of the most fastidious and conscientious obedience to every single aspect of the Mosaic law. And yet Paul says, you are about to, you've been cut into, you're being pulled out of obeying the truth. And this means, see, here's the implication. Paul is actually saying that if you obey God for the wrong reasons, you're going to be

It's as bad as if you were disobeying God. In other words, if you obey God formally in your behavior, but out of the wrong reasons, God still sees it as disobedience. They're going to be obeying the rules, but not obeying the truth. In fact, the word truth is probably pretty interesting. It's probably deliberately chosen. He doesn't say obey the law. He says obey the truth, and here's the reason why. If you obey, this is actually, some of this is common sense. If you obey a rule that

but your heart is filled with pride or anger or fear. You see, in other words, all those things, all the opposites of the fruit of the spirit. In other words, if you obey the law of God, but your heart's not right, then it's like disobedience. I mean, I think almost everybody knows that a formal conforming to a law, but with a malicious intent is just as bad as if you, you know, it's immoral.

Formal morality with an ill intent to hurt somebody, to rub their nose in it. You know, we would say that that's not right. But even I'll go a little further. When Paul says, if you think obeying the law can win you God's favor, what you're actually doing is disobeying the law in the sense that you're not listening to the law. I've had people say to me,

I don't need Jesus Christ. I don't need the Savior. I don't need all that doctrine, incarnation, atonement, all that stuff. I'm a golden rule Christian. I've had people say this to me. I focus on the golden rule. I listen to the golden rule. And as long as I live according to the golden rule, I think I'm a Christian. I don't need all that other stuff. And the problem is when somebody says that, you can't say, well, yes, you're listening to the golden rule, but you also have to know you don't say that. What you have to say is fine. Go ahead. Listen to the golden rule. You're not.

Because if you really look at the golden rule and you see what it asks for and you see what it's after, it's utterly just to say, I will always treat people the way I would want to be treated. But nobody, nobody does that. Nobody comes close to that. And if you were really listening to the law, the golden rule is saying, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But the golden rule is saying something else. The golden rule is also saying, and you can't do it.

If you actually listen to the law of God, that's why Paul says the law of God is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. If you really listen to the law of God, you will know that though this is right and this is just and this is something you ought to try to do, you'll never in a million years do it. Which means anybody who says, I'm following the golden rule, I don't need Jesus Christ, is not following the golden rule because the golden rule does not just tell you how to live. It leads you to seek a savior.

every aspect of the law of God if you're really listening to it. Anybody says, "Sure, I obey the law of God. I'm a good person." You are not listening to the law. The very thing you say you're obeying, you're not. And so these people who think they're about to really incredibly obey the law, or obey the rules, are actually being cut in on, and they're not gonna obey the truth at all. - How can we best understand the freedom we have in Christ? What is the relationship between the law of the Bible and the grace that Jesus offers?

In the book, Galatians for You, Tim Keller takes you through a rich and deep study of Paul's letter as he reflects on the amazing grace we have in Christ. Galatians is a powerful book that shows how people can think they know the gospel, but are actually losing touch with it. In this study of the book of Galatians, Dr. Keller helps you understand how this short book in the New Testament can transform your life.

Galatians for You is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the love of Christ with more people. Request your copy today at gospelinlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. So the motivation is everything. The motivation is crucial. Let's just move on, okay? I don't want to spend much more time on that. Well, let me say this. One of the things that really gets some people excited

really gets them going, is when they hear that some prisoner in prison who's led a terribly cruel, vicious life says, I've become a Christian. You say, good, that's great. That means they were living a vicious, cruel life. Now they're going to live a moral and decent and responsible and loving and sacrificial life. One of the things that people cannot understand, people who don't really get this motivation, they don't see the heart of the motivation. What they can't understand is there are lots of people, and there's some of them in this room,

who have all their lives lived very conventional lives, very traditional morality, very nice people, parent pleasers, sweet-natured, kind, incredibly responsible, and all that kind of thing. And then suddenly, these people will suddenly say, I've become a Christian. And you watch them, and they don't seem, at least on the outside...

To actually be changing their behavior. And you say, what are you talking about? I say, well, I'm doing everything. I mean, on the inside, I'm doing everything for a completely different reason. I've totally become a Christian. I wasn't a Christian. I was a very wicked person before. And of course, you won't understand it.

Unless you see the motivation is everything. The reason is everything. Okay, now that is crucial. Secondly, what the new motivation is. Now look carefully. Oh, in 9 and 10, somebody's going to say, what does this mean? A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. I'm confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who's throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. That's almost a footnote. What he's saying is a little yeast works through the whole batch. That's a way of saying this false persuasion

This false reasoning, this false motivation that you've been given, see, that kind of persuasion. This is a unique word. This persuasion is a word that literally means the convincing. When you ask somebody to convince you of something, what are you asking? You're saying, why should I do it? And Paul says, the why behind your obedience, if it's wrong, is as good as disobedience.

And he says, this kind of motivation is like a little yeast that works itself through the whole batch. This teaching is pernicious. This teaching is like cancer. This teaching could spread and destroy the churches. But, he says, I don't think that you're going to bite. I don't think it. He's affirming them. And then he says, the one who's throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. It's a little odd because it's one of the first places he refers to an individual. We don't know who that is. And it almost seems to me like he hasn't met the person either. He's just heard about him.

Okay, now, what is the new motivation? It's this. It starts with offense. Down in verse 11, it says, Now, I'm going to get back to the word offense later because he actually brings this up in chapter 6, but here's what it means now. The gospel always starts this way.

If you've never been offended by the cross, if you've never been offended by the gospel, if you've never really felt it, you probably don't understand it. The difference between the two approaches is this. The approach of the teachers on the inside is very demeaning and very negative, but on the outside seems very affirming and positive. Whereas the approach of the gospel on the inside is incredibly affirming, incredibly positive, but on the outside, negative.

It's extremely offensive. Why? All right, well, look at it this way. The teachers say on the outside, be good, be noble. Nobody has ever been offended by that.

An Anglican evangelical minister, I read this, I think, he went to preach at a chapel of some boys' school in Britain. And right afterwards, the wife of the headmaster came up and said, in all the years I've been here, in all the chapel speakers we've had here, you're the first one who ever talked to us as if we were sinners. And he said, what are you talking about? What do you mean? And here's the point.

If you tell people, be good, work for world peace, love one another, you can make the world a better place. You know, that might seem like a lot of pressure, but it is absolutely, it's ennobling, it's affirming. But when you come and say the cross, you are so far from being able to live a good life that nothing less than the death of the son of God on the cross was necessary. You're so lost, you're so weak that nothing less than the death of the son of God would save you.

That's offensive. So on the outside, the teachers look like they're affirming. And on the outside, the gospel looks like an offensive. But on the inside, it's exactly the opposite. Because when the teachers come to you and say, the reason you got to obey is if you don't, God will get you. If you don't, God will reject you. But on the inside of the motivation of the gospel is why should you obey? Because God will never reject you. Because God will never, ever, ever leave you.

So on the inside, on the outside, one is offensive and one is complimentary. But on the inside, it's the other way around. On the inside, the teacher's approach is absolutely fear based, absolutely negative, absolutely demeaning. You better live up or God could just cast you off. And this is the reason why over and over again, I've had people say to me, if I believed like you, that once I became a Christian, no matter, I would never be afraid of

of being rejected, no matter how I lived, if I felt that, if I felt my sins could never condemn me, I'd have no incentive to live a good life. And my answer is always, always, always, always the same, almost word for word. What I say is, if when you lose your fear of rejection by God, if when you lose your fear of rejection, you've lost all your incentive to living a holy life, then the only incentive you had for living a holy life was fear.

Now, you see, after the offense of the cross, which on the outside looks very demeaning, on the inside, what is the new motivation? Verse 5. But by faith, we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus, all right, for which we hope. Now, the word hope in the Bible means the thing that we know will happen.

What? Yes. You see, for example, here let me give you an example. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1. It says, now faith is being assured of what we hope for. It's the certainty of things we don't see. The word hope, the English word hope translates a Greek word here that means the absolute conviction.

At first, you know, the word hope looks like we eagerly wait through the spirit, the righteousness for which we hope. And you know what you're probably going to say the first time you read that? You're going to say, wait a minute. This is talking about the fact that someday in the future, righteousness always means the beauty of God, the acceptance of God, the glory of God will come down on us. We'll be absolutely perfect. We'll be righteous. Wait a minute. I thought we already were. What is this talking about? We hope. We don't know. The word hope means certainty. In fact, and the giveaway is the word eagerly.

Here's what Paul is saying. A Christian is absolutely assured and convicted in a way that no other person is of the glory and beauty that's waiting you in the future. A Christian is galvanized by the thought of your future. If you are a secular person, you have no idea where you're going to be a billion years from now, except possibly you're going to be nothing but molecules spread out through the universe, period.

And if you are a member of any other religion, you don't know either. You have no idea whether you're going to live up. You might be feeling right now, if I died, I'd go to heaven, but I don't know whether I'd keep it up. Nobody but a Christian can say, by faith, we eagerly await through the spirit, the righteousness for which we hope. Christians are galvanized by the knowledge of the beauty and righteousness and glory that we are going to be, we know we're going to be enveloped with, which is guaranteed, which we're certain about.

And what that does, you see, that, the absolute opposite of fear, the absolute, absolute opposite of fear, completely changed their motivation. That's the new motivation. Not fear, hope. Not flattery, humility. Well, you say, but how does it do it? Now, you want the answer? Here's your theology. I told you a story last week, which I'll recall. But let me give you a theology. Turn to the front of your bulletin. See, free theology in the bulletin.

Bulletin cost you nothing, right? You go to Barnes & Noble, you buy something this big, five bucks. Now here, Jonathan Edwards, in a couple of his works, I put this together. This is what he says about Galatians 5, 6, and read it and listen carefully. The apostle teaches in Galatians 5, 6 that faith works by love. A truly Christian faith always produces good works.

Now, here, listen. Indeed, in such cases, the gifts are but an offering to some idol.

But in gracious, that means grace-filled gratitude, Christians are affected by God's goodness and free grace, not only as it benefits them, but as infinitely glorious in itself. A result of faith working by love is freedom. On this basis, obedience is called evangelical, gospel-based. The obedience of children to a father done with love and delight as opposed to legalistic, slavish-enforced. God is now chosen for his own sake. Holiness is chosen for its own sake and for God's sake. Now, you know what he's saying? It's quite simple.

If you say, how does this work? It's as simple as this. The thing every one of us wants, the thing every one of us wants is to be loved for who we are in ourselves. It's to have someone consider you a beauty. You know what? When you find something beautiful, it means that you find it an end in itself. You appreciate it for what it is in itself, not for what it gets you, not what it gives you.

If you find music beautiful, you sit and you listen to it. If a work of art is beautiful, you sit and you look at it. Why? There is no why. For what? For itself. Just being in its presence builds you up. That's beauty. That's aesthetics. Now, Jonathan Edwards is saying, if you are not sure you're going to heaven unless you live a good life, then every good thing you're doing is never for God, it's for you.

And not only that, every little old lady you help across the street, sorry little old ladies, but every little old lady that you help across the street, you're saying, I need to do this so I know I'm going to get to heaven. You're not loving her for who she is in herself. You're not doing this just for the sheer value of who she is. You're not doing the deed for the sheer glory of holiness itself. And you're not doing it for God. You've never done anything for God until you know you can do nothing for God at all.

And that you are completely accepted in Jesus Christ and you don't need anything from him anymore because you have it all. And it's not until you are actually doing responding simply because, because you love me for who I am in myself. When Jesus Christ died on the cross for me, his value for me must have been an aesthetic joy. It could not have been anything because there's nothing that he gets out of us. There's nothing we could possibly do to help him.

He needs nothing, Paul says in Acts 17, nothing. And therefore he loves us for who we are in ourselves. And only when we see that are we so transformed that we begin to say, he loves me for who I am in myself. We begin to find him a beauty. We're not doing things in order to get things from him.

We're not using God. Until you see that you're saved by grace alone without works, you're using God. You're not serving God for the joy of who he is in himself. And that's what he's saying. And here's what's so interesting. This means two things about our obedience. It's a hot night. I want to close up on this. I gave you more information and inspiration tonight. But it's very, very, very important. This is the heart of everything. The heart of everything. First of all, Edwards says that disobedience would be limited.

The only obedience to God would be unlimited, would be obedience that boots off of grace. Here's why. If you obey God, like most people do, and that is, I'll obey God, but why isn't he answering my prayers? I'll obey God, but why isn't this and that happening in my life? What does that mean? You're obeying God, really not for the joy of who he is, not for the glory of who he is, not for appreciation, as it says right here, as infinitely glory in himself.

You're doing it because you want prayers answered. You want a comfortable life. You want your life to go in certain ways. And therefore, your obedience to God is really negotiable. Whenever your life goes bad, if you're a Christian, whenever your life goes bad and you start to go clutch underneath, it's God coming to you and saying, now we're going to see whether you got into this religion to serve me or whether we got into this religion to have me serve you.

Those really are two different religions, according to Edwards. Two different personalities result. One condescending, one limited, one begrudging, one slavish, one impersonal, and the other one absolutely personal. Now I'm obeying a father, not a boss. Absolutely aesthetic. It's booting off of beauty. It's booting off of the sight of the beauty of God for who he is in himself.

And therefore, aesthetic joy and assurance of our future beauty. In other words, aesthetic joy in the beauty of God and the conviction of our future beauty to him, as well as our beauty to him now, is the new dynamic. Now, somebody says, how do we actually work that out? I told you we're going to keep on going. We're not done with this chapter. But when it says the apostle teaches in Galatians 5, 6, that faith works by love. And he says, for by the spirit.

We eagerly hope, we eagerly await by the Spirit, through the Spirit, we eagerly await for the righteousness for which we hope. Now, listen, you know, whenever I used to read the sermons of David Martin Lloyd-Jones, I always could tell, especially when I read his sermons on the witness of the Spirit and when I read his sermons on the experience of love, he talked in such deep experiential terms. And I said, there must have been something that happened to this man.

But he never talked about it. However, after he died, before he died, he talked to a biographer about the most, well, really one of the most, oh, one of the most seminal moments in his life, which he never spoke of. And here's what happened in 1949 when he was in, he took the whole summer off because he was burned out.

He was a preacher in Britain, but he went to Wales, his homeland. He spent the entire time there, but basically in a state of spiritual depression. One day, early in the morning, 6 a.m., he woke up, and he was not sure. He felt very burdened. He felt very far from God. But as he was getting dressed at 6 a.m., his eye just happened to look over at a book that was open, a book of sermons by A.W. Pink.

And it was open. And as I just happened to notice the bottom, the last word and the bottom line of one of the pages, and it just had the word glory on it, just the word glory. And when, as I hit the word glory, suddenly the glory of God came down on him. And for two hours, he couldn't speak. For two hours, he couldn't stop weeping. For two hours, he got this, the deepest conviction through the spirit of the righteousness for which we hope.

And by the way, what's interesting is that happened to him that day. And about a week or two later at another place, it happened to him again. And, you know, what he told the biographer was, look, you know, when Paul had to speak about these experiences in 2 Corinthians 12, he felt like an idiot. Remember, in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul said, let me tell you about some of the things that God has shown me. And you made me a fool. You're forcing me to do it. And he had reasons why I had to do it. Nobody likes to talk about it. I'm not going to tell you about mine. And Lloyd-Jones didn't tell you about his experience.

The fact is it's through the spirit that this assurance that's pretty much a matter of the head for a long time becomes a matter of the heart. I am not saying that this is the solution, a snap solution. Thomas Chalmers wrote this wonderful, wonderful sermon that I'm going to bring back to you and give you some quotes out of it. It's called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.

And in it he says the only way anybody's heart is changed is this. At the heart of every heart, there is an object of the greatest beauty. And a heart cannot live without it. You can replace...

The object of the greatest beauty in your heart, but you can never remove it. You can replace it with a more beautiful object, but you can never remove it. And therefore, you can't just stop being proud. You can't just stop being addicted to love. You can't just stop lying. You can't just stop these things because the whole reason is there's some other kind of righteousness that you are eagerly waiting for, that you put your hope in. And it's only as Jesus Christ becomes the most beautiful and your hope in him through the spirit becomes the most vivid that it can replace the other things that your heart

is grabbing onto. And therefore, this isn't a snap, but this is the way. This is the thing that Beatrice Webb couldn't find out. This is the thing that Dostoevsky did know something about. This is the thing. His arms are the only arms. These are the arms you've been looking for. His heart is the only heart. This is the heart you've been looking for. Faith, working through love, nothing else counts. Let's pray.

Father, as we continue to look at this material, we ask that you would illuminate us. I pray that when we're all done with this, we can really have quite a, we can have a great deal of hope and we can have some very practical ways in which we can see ourselves change more and more into the image of your son. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching. We trust you were encouraged by it and that it gives you new insight into how you can apply God's word to your life. You can find more resources from Tim Keller by subscribing to our quarterly journal at gospelandlife.com. When you subscribe, you'll receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other valuable resources. We also invite you to stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1998. 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.