Shownotes Transcript
Welcome to Gospel and Life. How do you live a life of stability in a world full of uncertainty? This month, Tim Keller is exploring the book of Hebrews and looking at how genuine faith rooted in the work of Christ empowers us to live with courage, hope, and poise, even in difficult circumstances. The passage on which we are basing our teaching this morning is found in your bulletins. It would be at the place where you would be if you were following and moving along with everyone else. It's
Hebrews chapter 11, verses 8 to 16. Let's read it together. I mean, let me read it and you listen. I don't mean to read it together. Read it together. My faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he is good as dead."
came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, and they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country.
a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. This is God's word. There's two great artists of history, Shakespeare and Mel Brooks, and they both said it the same thing, but in different ways. Shakespeare put it this way, each new morn, new widows howl, new orphans cry,
New sorrows strike heaven on the face. And Mel Brooks said it, life stinks. Basically the same message. Shakespeare a little more elegantly, a little more verbosity. Each new morn. Yeah, it's hard to laugh, isn't it? See, you couldn't laugh too long, could you? Each new morn, new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on the face.
This particular passage of Hebrews that we've been looking at each week, Hebrews 11, because we've only been looking at this one chapter, we haven't stood back and looked that much at the context. And it would be good to know for a moment that the author of the Hebrews is writing a group of Christians who are beginning to question just how great it is to be Christians because they had become Christians, but their lives were going very badly.
Many of them had been persecuted. Some of them had suffered the plundering of their homes. Some of them were facing imprisonment and death, and they were beginning to ask this question. Where's all the peace and joy and safety I signed up for when I became a Christian? How can I live my life in the face of an uncertain future? How can I live my life in the face of an uncertain future?
And the people that the Hebrews writer was writing to, these Christians, were beginning to say, you know, I don't know why I have to face this uncertain future. It seems like in the Bible it was different. In the Bible, God always came through. Look at Noah. His enemies were wiped out by a flood. Look at Moses. His enemies were wiped out as they walked through the Red Sea miraculously. Look at Daniel. The lion's mouths were stopped. But that's not the way it is anymore.
It seems like all kinds of bad things happen to us. How in the world, knowing that bad things could happen to us, can we live life in the face of an uncertain future? And of course, you see, the writer of the Hebrews brings you chapter 11. And in chapter 11, he's going through all of the great men and women of God of the past, the ancients. And he says to them, you don't understand. The great men and women of God have never had designer lives.
They've always been in situations in which there was tremendous uncertainty around them, and they never knew what was coming in the future. Yet they lived great lives. They weren't mastered by life. They mastered life. And you can too, he says, if you live a life of faith. Now, we've been looking at Abraham this week, last week, and next week.
Because Abraham is perhaps, it's certainly in this particular hall of fame of faith, as some have called it. It's the biggest case study. Abraham is given the most press, the most verses. And last week we looked, mainly, the whole time, at the first part of verse 8, where it says, he went out. God came to him in Genesis 12. Abraham was comfortable. Abraham had what he thought was
was a very, very certain and comfortable and secure future. And God said, get out. Get out. Get out of your security. Get out of your safety. There is no security there anyway. Now, we looked at that last week. And in a sense, what we're looking at this week is the last half of that verse. Because it doesn't just say that Abraham went out. It says he went out not knowing where he went. He went out even though he didn't know where he was going. Abraham...
had greatness in the face of a completely uncertain future. He had no idea what was coming, and yet he lived a life of greatness, a big life. How can we? There's three principles embedded in this case that will show us not only how we can do it, but how we can grow and become greater and greater at this. How we can live life with greatness, with stability, with confidence, mastering life, not being mastered by life, in the face of a completely uncertain future.
And those three principles I'll call the negative principle, the positive principle, and the ultimate principle. And don't worry, when we get to the end, I'll summarize them in a sentence. The negative principle, the positive principle, and the ultimate principle. First, the negative principle. Now, the negative principle is actually something that we've already touched on here in our introductory words. He went out not knowing where he was going.
We're told in Genesis 12 that he went out. God told him to get out, but he didn't tell him where he was going. It took him years to find out even where he was going. He wandered. His father died in the midst of his wandering, and then God told him where he was going. So Abraham went out not even knowing where he went. And this is the negative principle. Let me put it to you a couple of ways. He went out not caring where he was going. He went out not needing to know where he was going.
Abraham had understood the negative principle, and that is you cannot trust circumstances. You can put no trust in circumstances. You must take all of your heart off of the circumstances. Or, put it another way, Abraham knew it's not what happens to you in life that matters, it's what you bring to it that matters. It's not the events of life that matter.
that make or break you. It's what you bring to those events that make or break you. This is the negative principle. Let's spend a minute or two on it, even though in some ways you don't have to be a Christian to understand this at all. You don't have to know the Bible to understand this. What Abraham realized was that if he decided he would only do things if it looked practical, that he would only do things if he was sure that what would happen in the future would be good. If he based his life
on circumstances, his life would be ruined because circumstances never turn out the way you want. See, the way most people operate, most people, is this. They say, whether my life is going to be successful or not depends on what I possess, what happens to me, the events of my life, the circumstances of my life. And because you believe that,
Because you say things will work out well if I can get this, if I can get this career, if I can get into this school, if I can get a particular kind of spouse, if this and that, then I'll have a great life. And because you are basing your life on circumstances, you are so anxious. When we do that, we're so anxious. We're always straining and striving to see the future. We're always hedging our bets. We're always afraid to commit. We're afraid to do anything because we want to know where we're going. We will not go out.
Unless we know where it will take us. But you see, Abraham realized that if you base your life on the circumstances, your life is ruined already. You don't even have to wait for the circumstances to ruin it. You're an accident waiting to happen because circumstances will not treat you well. They will abuse you and you won't be ready for them. In other words, Abraham knew it was the going that mattered. It was his response to God that mattered. Now, I know there's a lot of people, I know there's a lot of people who will not find this to be good news.
Because I have discovered, certainly in New York, that the typical person who thinks of Christianity, who comes and looks at Christianity, and I know there's plenty of you in this room now, you are coming and your first question, your first question, your primary question is, will Christianity work? Will it work for me? Will it do what I need it to do? In fact, I find that people in New York actually get offended. They're not interested, but not only that, they actually get offended by the idea of argument.
If you try to argue for Christianity and you talk about the evidence for Christianity, they very often get offended. They say, oh, that doesn't matter. I don't really care about those things. I think it's a little offensive for you to say that Christianity is true and all these other religions aren't true in the same way. I think it's very bad. I don't even care whether these things are true for other people. I can't answer for other people. I want to know, will it work for me? Will it help me?
Will it help me get the things I need? Will it help me get the inner strength that I need? Will it help me get to my goals? Will it bring me into a position where God will answer my prayers? Will it work? Now, here's the irony. When you come to Christianity and start with that question and make that your primary question, will it work? Will it change my circumstances? Will it help me gain control over my circumstances?
You're twisting Christianity into something it's not and it can't work for you. If you start by asking, will it work? It will never work. But if you start by asking, is it true? Is he there? Is it real? Unless you start with that. Unless you say, I have to find out whether he's really there. Whether the God that the Bible talks about really is there. Whether the Jesus Christ that the Bible talks about really is there. And if he's there, and if he's real, and if he's true, it doesn't matter.
Whether or not it's practical, it doesn't matter whether or not it's going to make me happy or whether I'm going to get answers to prayer, whether I'm going to find the man or woman of my dreams. It won't matter. I must come to him because he's there. See, unless you start with that question, Christianity, ironically, will never work. If you come to Christianity so it'll work, it will never work. That's the whole idea behind seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you. That's the same principle behind you must lose your life to find your life.
You have to say, my life doesn't matter if you're ever going to have a life. You have to say, his loving kindness is better than life if you're ever going to find a life. In other words, when people say, I want to know if Christianity will work for me. I want to know whether God will answer my prayers. Or people very often start dabbling in Christianity and their prayers don't get answered. And they say, what good is it?
What you're really saying is, I will not go out until I know exactly where I'm going. I will not go. I will not obey. I will not give my life to Christ unless I know exactly where I'm going. And God says, in that case, you can't have me at all because I am not the thing you're worshiping. You're worshiping circumstances. And, you know, here's the irony of the thing. This is the very problem you've got. This is the base of your problem. You have such instability. You have anxiety. That's why you're even coming and looking at Christianity.
And yet you won't, you're twisting Christianity into your own image. And you won't see that this is the very basis of the problem. This is the thing that Christianity is trying to get you away from. It's trying to say, make him the only thing that matters, not your circumstances. Look at Jesus. What made him great? That his life went so well. If you want to understand Jesus' life, just imagine a candidate for president campaigning for the presidency.
Imagine Jesus is a candidate for the presidency of the United States, but his enemies really pull something off. They get him arrested. They get him tried on a trumped up charge. And then they get him brutally tortured and ignominiously executed. And on the way down to this unbelievable defeat, Jesus Christ comes to God with the greatest request of his life.
The biggest thing he ever asked for. He says, Lord, I'm about to be tortured and killed. I don't think I can bear it. Would you please save me from it? So on the way down, everything going wrong in his life, Jesus has one request, the greatest request of his entire life, and the Father turned him down flat. What made Jesus great? The circumstances of his life went well. What made Jesus great was he said, not my will but thine be done.
What made Jesus great was not that his life went well. As a matter of fact, it was that he faced a life not going well with courage and integrity and obedience. And here's what's so wonderful. He didn't just master life when he did that. He mastered death. And because he died, he changed the universe. He changed the universe not because circumstances treated him well, but because life mistreated him. And he answered it. He responded.
He was obedient. It's not the circumstances of your life that matter. It's what you bring to it. It's not the circumstances of your life that will make you or break you. It's how you respond to them that will make you or break you. He went out. That's the negative principle. Get your heart off of those circumstances. Recognize that they are not the thing that will make or break you. It's a horrible thing to watch young people.
which many of you are, you spend the first half of your life sure that that's what's going to make your life. And so you spend all of your time arranging the circumstances. If I can just get them all to come together. Around the middle of your life you realize the circumstances will never come together the way you want. And that what you really need is the kind of heart that enables you to deal with fears and to deal with problems. And you spend all of your time arranging your circumstances and not spend enough time cultivating the kind of heart that
that Abraham had, that Jesus had. First principle, the negative principle. Don't trust circumstances. Don't trust them a bit. Don't make them the point. Don't consider them that important. Don't make them the thing that you know is going to make you a successful person. Secondly, the positive principle. Now, you see, the negative principle is some... Many people actually do nothing but deal with life with only the negative principle. And I must tell you that if you get just the negative principle, and that's all,
You'll be a lot less of a nuisance to society. Well, no. You see, you don't have to be a Christian. You don't have to believe the Bible to figure out that people who put all their hope in circumstances are in for a real disaster. I mean, I have children. I'm seeing them grow up. I see a lot of people around me who would just desperately love to have children, and I can see it in their eyes. If I had children, it'd be so different. Your children leave. Your children grow up and go.
Your children have to have their own lives. Your children move away. And eventually you're by yourself again. And you know, you don't have to know the Bible to know this. You look out there and you begin to say, if I bank on all these circumstances happening, I know that they're not going to either come true anyway. If they come true, they don't satisfy anyway. And so you become a stoic.
There's no greater hope for you today than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, His resurrection is the key to understanding the whole Bible and the greatest resource we have for facing the challenges of life. Discover how to anchor your life in the meaning of the resurrection by reading Tim Keller's book, "Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter."
Hope in Times of Fear is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share Christ's redemptive love with people all over the world. Just visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. And so it's possible to live on just the negative principle. And the negative principle alone goes like this. Well, you know, life is—life stinks—
And my worrying about it, my crying over it is not going to change it, so I'm just not going to let it get to me. Now, that's okay. And it's, in a sense, true. But Christianity does not say that you become a big, great man or woman simply by refusing to put your heart anywhere. You see, the Stoics know that if you put your heart in circumstances, you are not going to be a great man or woman. You're going to be jerked about by everything that happens, and you're going to end up a ruin.
So a Stoic pulls it away and says, I won't give my heart to anything. I'll put my hope in nothing. And Christianity says the answer to that, of course, is that that doesn't make you great. That makes you cynic. It makes you hard. You know people like that. They're making it in life, but nobody's going to call them great. Oh, no. The Bible says you were built to look forward. You need to look forward. You have to travel hopefully.
You have to have an overarching goal to just simply give your heart to nothing or live only for the moment, even living for the moment. Seize the day, carpe diem, but tomorrow's Monday. See, these things don't work. You need to look forward. What are you going to look forward to? We're told the positive principle. Abraham yearned for his true country. You see what it says there? And it's not just talking about Abraham. See, this is a principle. It's not just something that Abraham did. It's what they all did. It says...
If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have an opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them, a city with foundations. Now, in other words, what Christians do is, this is a discipline, and it's very deliberate. Christians know that your heavenly citizenship and only your heavenly citizenship will empower you for earthly citizenship.
Only your heavenly citizenship will empower you for earthly citizenship. Only if you know where you're going. Ultimately, not immediately, but ultimately. See, the negative principle is you must go out not knowing where you're going immediately. You don't know what's going to happen to you in history. And you don't need to know what's happening to you in history if you know what's going to happen to you ultimately. You don't need to know what's happening to you historically.
If you know what's going to happen to you ultimately. Ah, yes, somebody says, there we go. I knew it. Christians, heaven, pie in the sky, the opiate of the people. All this talk about heaven, this is the way it goes. All this talk about heaven doesn't really...
empower you to live a life here. You're just so heavenly minded that you don't have any concern about what goes on here. This is bad. The opiate of the people, Marx called it, because thinking about heaven just makes you really good for nothing here. Now, listen, any great teaching of Christianity can be twisted and can be misused. They all can be misused, but that's libelous to say it's libel. Look and see what these, look and see what the people here in Hebrews 11 did, but here's the way it works.
Here's the way it works. Where do you get the rational and emotional wherewithal to do the right thing, even though it's going to cost you? To speak out against injustice in your neighborhood, to speak out against dishonesty in your professional field, and to speak out against abuse in the family. Think about what it takes to be good earthly citizens. It takes the willingness to lose, to lose reputation, to lose reputation,
Status to lose money many of you know this many of you know that you're in jobs that pay well And even though there's another job that would be more fulfilling and more useful to people, but you can't bear the idea Why not the loss what will give you both the rational and the emotional? ability to bear losses
To bear the kind of losses that always come if you stand up for the right, if you stand up for justice, if you're compassionate, if you make sacrifices, if you're generous. What can possibly do it? It's very simple. You have to learn to look at the reputation you've got here, to look at the money you've got here, to look at the health you've got here, to look at the achievements you've got here, like loose change in your pocket when all your gold is stored in a Swiss bank.
You know, you may have 500 bucks in your pocket and somebody steals it. And you know you've got 5 billion dollars in a Swiss bank. How upset can you get? You know, the idea, indignation, sure. Somebody did that. That's wrong, of course. But do you get devastated? But if that 500 dollars is all that you've got in the world, your attitude is completely different. The same action, the same thievery, the same 500 dollars. One person destroyed, the other person, oh well. What's the difference? What you've got in the bank. And Abraham...
Longed for a better country. And this is what he said. Abraham says, I will not treat this country. I will not treat my family. I will not treat my culture. I will not treat my ethnicity. I will not treat my money. I will not treat my success. I will not treat my career. I will not put the pressure on them that would come to them if I say, these are my, this is my life. This is my identity. This is, this is my whole wad. You know, parks, city parks are wonderful.
They're wonderful if you visit them, but when people start to try to live in them, they get crappy. Why? Because they're not built to bear the freight of a person's whole life. Have you noticed that? If people start to live in them, they get pretty ratchet. Abraham knew that that's the same thing with this life. He says, you know what? As long as I understand this life as a park, a beautiful park, a place where I can enjoy it, but it isn't home. Money is great. Marriage is great.
Children are great. Work is great. Politics is great. Culture is great. It's not home. If I try to make this bear the whole freight of all of my life, I'll ruin it. I will not. I'll look ahead to my true country. And he, in a disciplined way, when he did lose something, he says, yeah, I know, but this is just change in my pocket. This isn't my gold.
And he thought that way. And he thought that way all the time. And as a result, it didn't mean he never wept. It didn't mean he never struggled. But it meant he went through. That's the positive principle. Not stoicism. Not what they used to call philosophical adorakia. Detachment. Ah, I don't care about anything. That's not true. He began to look at this life as the vestibule of his real home. But it's not the living room. I don't sit down here. I don't expect it to be that comfortable. This is the vestibule. It's part of my home. The living room.
Heaven, the bosom of God. Now that's the second principle. Up to now, it's pretty abstract, but there's a third principle. There's a final principle for enabling you to live life in the face of uncertain future. The ultimate principle, and you see it in verse 11, and this is the final principle, and this is where we have to let our hearts rest. By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father. Why? Because
Because he considered him faithful who made the promise. He considered him faithful. Oh, my friends, listen. How many people have you heard say, well, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. Now, that's the utter opposite of what we're talking about here. It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere, which means it's not the object of your faith that matters, but just having faith. That's faith in faith.
That's a little bit like saying it doesn't matter whether the windshield is clear or not. Let's just look at the windshield. You know, the windshield, if you look at it, you'll crash up. You'll crack. You'll crack up the car. Why? Because the windshield is not meant to be looked at. It's meant to be looked through. What matters, frankly, if you're going to have a safe trip is what you see through the windshield, not the windshield. And in the same way,
Abraham did not get strong by looking at his faith and by considering his faith and saying the important thing is just to believe. No, he looked at the one who was faithful. Faith is grasping the faithfulness of God, and here's how he did it. We read it today, Genesis 15. You see, when you get the romantic poets of the 18th century, they were on the verge of understanding this. They said, how do you face life? All you need is love.
That's all you need. Love is an anchor. See, the Romantics said, it doesn't matter what your circumstances are if you have love. It doesn't matter whether you live in a hovel in a shack. Love in a shack is better than no love in a palace. And they were right.
And what they were saying was, love is the anchor, an anchor for the soul. If you put love, if you have love, you put your heart's anchor down in someone who loves you. Let circumstances come. Let the waves come. Let the wind come. You have an anchor. You can face anything if you have love. Now, they're halfway there. And the reason they're halfway there is because here's the problem. If you put your anchor down into any human love, every human being is both mortal and sinful.
Because they're sinful, they'll sometimes let you down, and many of them will completely let you down. Because they're mortal, someday they will be swept away with the wind and the waves. But here's what Abraham discovered. And we're not told about it in this chapter, but in chapter 6 of Hebrews, we're told, Abraham, because God wanted him to have the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear...
He confirmed it with an oath so that we who have fled to take hold of the hope might be greatly encouraged. And we have this as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. An anchor. What is the anchor? It's God's love. We read about it a minute ago. In Genesis 15, we're told that Abraham asked God, God, how do I know you will give me all this reward? How do I know? How do I know?
You've promised to bless me. You've promised to give me children. You've promised to give me a land. And you've promised to give me a child who would bless the whole world. How do I know? You have said, if you're faithful to me, Abram, I will give you these things. But, you know, why was Abram doubtful? I'll tell you why he was doubtful. Because he didn't trust God. That's because all sinful hearts don't trust God. But he didn't trust himself.
He knew that he wouldn't be faithful. So how could he be sure that he'd get the reward when God says, I'll give you this reward if you're faithful to me. I've made a covenant with you. And if you obey your part of the covenant, I will obey my part. I will bless you. How do I know, he says in chapter 15, verse 8. And God says, take a bunch of animals and cut them in half. Bring a heifer, bring a goat, bring a ram, bring a dove and a pigeon and cut them in half and wait.
Now Abraham knew what he was talking about. We don't. In those days, you didn't make a contract. You didn't sign it. You cut it. Because the way in which you would make a contract in those days was you cut an animal in half and you'd walk between the pieces. What were you doing? You were acting out the curse of disobedience. What you were saying when you walked through the pieces is you were saying to whoever you were making this contract with, if I don't do all that I have promised to do today, may I be cut off.
And you see, to be cut off is the ultimate, ultimate, ultimate, always has been the ultimate curse. To lose love, it's a relational thing. To lose love, to be cut off. Now, Abraham figured that God was trying to make him make another covenant. He figured that God was going to make him make another promise. Okay. But he cut those animals in half and he sat and we're told a tremendous darkness came down, dark and thick. And a smoking pot and a blazing torch appeared and
And instead of Abraham being asked to pass between the pieces, that passed between the pieces. It was God. It was a theophany. And it was God himself actually saying, I promise to give you what I have promised. And if I don't, may I be cut off. This is the most amazing place in the Bible, frankly. It's never happened before. It didn't ever happen again.
As R.C. Sproul, my old teacher, used to put it, what God was actually saying was, may my immutability suffer mutation. May my infinity suffer finitude. May my immortality suffer mortality. May I die and be cut off if I don't give you all of this reward. Abraham began to realize, though he couldn't completely understand, what God was saying is, even if you fail, even if your heirs fail, even if Isaac and Jacob fails, I will pay the cost so that you can have the blessing.
Abraham had no real idea what was that going to cost God, but we know because in Isaiah 53, verse 8, it says about Jesus, he was cut off from the land of the living. He was stricken for our transgressions. My friends, when Jesus Christ went on the cross, the Father and the Son lost each other.
And though this may sound strange, I know this is true after thinking about it for many years. If Jesus was really suffering everything that we were going to suffer, if he took our penalty on the cross, that means he must have been cut off from the Father, not knowing whether he'd ever come back. He had to. That's what hell is. He was cut off. And here's the most incredible thing. Jesus Christ went out not knowing where he was going.
And he said, I'll do it. He went willingly. Now here is the sum, the three principles. Number one, the negative principle, the positive principle, the ultimate principle. You can go out regardless of circumstances. You can go out regardless of immediate circumstances if you know where you're ultimately going and if you grow in the knowledge of the one who went out not knowing where he went for you.
The way you become a person of greatness, the way you become a person of greatness is you study the love of what he did. Study till you weep, pray to him until you feel it, and then act as if it's true. And in ever greater cycles, the more you study, the more you pray, the more you obey, the more you'll study, the more you'll pray, the more you'll obey, and you'll become like Abraham. You see, Abraham considered him faithful. He went out not knowing where he went, but he knew with whom he went.
That's why he went out not knowing where he was going. He went out not knowing where he went because he knew with whom he went. And that's all that mattered. And you can be the same. Let's pray about it. We ask that you would give us the same greatness of spirit and heart that Abraham had. Father, we see that it's not enough to be a Stoic. And it's not enough even to have an intellectual understanding about heaven. We have to be melted by the thought of who God
what Jesus Christ did and how he went out for us, though he didn't know where he was going. Let this all be true for us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Today's sermon was recorded in 1994. 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.