A Transcription of Tim Keller's "The Power of the Gospel"

Transcription:

Every week we start by saying that we are tracing out the storyline of the bible because of the bible is not so much a series of disconnected individual stories, each with a little lesson or moral telling us how to live. It’s primarily a single story telling us what’s wrong with the human race, what God has done to make things and how all the things are going to work out in the end and we are drilling down into three places in the bible, we drilled down Genesis 1 before where we learned something about what the bible says about what’s wrong with us. And now we are going to drill down into Romans 1 through 4, perhaps the single most comprehensive and packed place where through the letter of Saint Paul, we learned what God did about it. And verse 16 and 17, all scholars and students of Romans believe is Paul’s way of putting the gospel in a nutshell. His message in a kind of thesis statement and therefore it is extremely important statement and I want to meditate on it with you until you, or to help you break through. Now that’s kind of an odd statement, “breakthrough”? Let me tell you why I use the word. Martin Luther, founder of protestantism actually tells later in his life, he told a story, it was a preface to one of his, in a preface to one of his collections of writings, he wrote a little reminisce of a great experience he had, it’s also called “The Tower Experience” as a young man and many people would call it his conversion experience and it all had to do with Romans, Romans 1:16 to 17. And he wrote, “I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the righteousness of God,” because I took it to mean that justice is whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore, I did not love a just God, but rather hated and murmured against Him. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. When I discovered the distinction that the law is one thing and the gospel is another, I broke through.” That’s interesting. He had this “breakthrough” and what he means is, he was completely transformed: his thinking, his heart, his life, everything by these verses because he pondered and pondered until he broke through and I would like to help everybody here to “break through,” that is to say, if you haven’t, if these two verses have never done to you what they did to Luther, I am going to try to share you three factors you have to grasp if you’re going to “break through.” And if it has, if these ideas here or these verses have transformed you, I’d like to give you by telling the same three things of course because we’re all in the same room together, how you could help other people who are open, how you can help them have a “breakthrough”. There’s three factors that have to do with “breakthrough” you have to grasp according to this text: the form of the gospel, the content of the gospel, and the power of the gospel. The form, the content, the power. I’ll give you tests along the way. So I’m being very focused. How do we “break through”? 

 

The Form of the Gospel

First, you have to understand the form of the gospel. Now, you can see, especially if you read all the way through Romans 1:1 to 17, the word “gospel” shows up more here than in any other place in the book. In fact, I think, it may be the word “gospel” shows up more in these verses per phrase than any other place in the bible. So we have to ask ourselves, “what is so important, why this word and the word “gospel,”” as most of you know, is a Greek word we transliterate “evangel,” “e-v-a-n-g-e-l,” “angel,” what’s an “angel,” well, “angel,” we look at the word “angel” and in English of course right away we think of wings, and things like that which is wrong because the word “angel” means a “herald” and actually what’s at the heart of the word “gospel” is “the news media”. Did you know that? News media? Okay. How did news about great historic events get distributed back in those days? What was the news media? There was no print, paper, no audio-video, radio-television, well then how was news, what was the media for the news? Well the answer was, it was “heralds”. That is, everybody back in the town because they know there’s a great military battle that is being fought miles away so they are behind the barricades, they don’t know what’s going to happen. What happens when the general achieves a great military victory? How do we spread the news? He would send heralds, the “angelou,” “an angel” which is a message, you’re a herald, the news! And the herald would come into the town and declare the news, “victory!” And then he would run to the next town square and proclaim victory and then everyone would go back home with joy. And if that’s at the very very heart of the word “gospel,” if that’s what the message is, the Christian, the essence of the Christian message is “news,” “good, joyful news” then this is the difference between the gospel and every other philosophy or religion. The gospel is not “good advice about what you must do,” it’s primarily “good news about what’s already been done for you,” something’s already happened. See, other religions say “if you really want to meet God, do this, this, and this, it’s “good advice””. Only Christianity is not “good advice,” but primarily “good news” about something that’s done for you. Now this is test one. We’ve talked about this actually not too many weeks ago so I won’t belabor it but it’s crucial. One of the “breakthroughs” is to realize how utterly different Christianity is because it’s good news, not good advice. If I asked somebody, here in New York, “what do you think the essence of Christianity is? What does it mean to be a Christian?” The average person on the street would say, “well I think it means to try to live like Jesus and try to love your neighbor, try to live by the golden rule.” Now I want you all to know, that is an incredibly great idea, let’s all do that, okay. I’m all for it, but that’s not news! That’s not the heart of Christianity, it can’t be because it is not news! Is that news? Is that news about what has been done for you, outside of you, for you that inflicts in you such joy that you finally can live by the “golden rule,” see that’s Christianity. Something’s happened outside you, something momentous. It’s happened outside you, for you, and that’s what inflicts into you, life changing joy. So now I can live according to the “golden rule”. But to say, “being a Christian is the “golden rule”,” that’s not news therefore there’s no “breakthrough”. See, “breakthrough,” transformation comes like this: if you say to somebody, here’s the essence of Christian message, “you need to live like Jesus and love your neighbor according to the golden rule,” there’s only three responses to that. One is, you say, “sure I knew that,” shrug, indifference. The second, like Luther is, “oh that’s pretty hard, I can’t do that,” crushed, discouraged. And the third is the pharisee, “I do that all the time!” See, you know, so it’s shrugged, bugged, or smugged, but no “breakthrough”. No “breakthrough,” no “oh my word! I never thought of that!” That’s what happened to, when Luther broke through, he said it was a paradigm-shift. Sorry that’s a cliche, it’s far more than that but it’s not less. So here’s my question, here’s the first test: I don’t know what you believe, but whatever you believe about God or how you ought to live is mainly about you or is it mainly about what He has done? Is it mainly about you or what you must do or mainly about Him and what He has done? Which is it? See the “breakthrough”? The gospel is not news, not advice, number one, that’s the form. 

 

The Content of the Gospel

Second thing is that we have to understand the content and the content of the gospel is that very spot where Luther meditated and meditated, where he says, “for in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that comes by, through faith. Just as it is written, the one who is righteous through faith, that’s the person who lives.” And he was thinking and thinking about this and until he suddenly realized, the righteousness of God is a righteousness that comes to me and I receive by faith and that opened everything up. Now, if we want to understand this term, which isn’t a very ordinary term, it’s a technical term in a way, it’s a term that Paul uses though so we need to try to figure it out, changed Luther’s life, changed mine, “we’re justified by faith”. Now right away, let me use an illustration to show you. I'll use two illustrations, the second one is considerably more poignant than the first. The first one; now think about this: whenever we talk about “being justified,” we are talking about not a change in the object but a change in the relationship to the object. Not a change inside the object but a relationship to the object. So for example, you’re speaking to me and you say something and I, “hmm, justify that statement,” and what do I mean? I’m not saying, “change the statement”. What I’m actually saying is, “it’s hard for me to accept that, do something, say something to change my relationship to the statement, change my regard for it so that I can accept it”. I’m not saying, “change the subject,” “help me get into a new relationship with it because I’m about to reject it.” “Justify that statement!” means, “change my regard for it, do something.” That is actually what the word means especially at a certain point, but here also in Romans 5 when Paul says in verse 2, “since we are justified by faith, we have access to this grace in which we stand,” and the word, “stand” there means “to stand in the presence of a great God or a great King or judge.” And this is what Paul is saying, “Jesus has done something so that God looking at us in spite of everything wrong with us, Jesus has done something that changed God’s regard for us, his relationship to us, something has been done.” See that’s the news. Something has been done, so that now the Father looks at us and loves us, delights in us and accepts us, our relationship has been changed. It’s not something so much that happened inside because that would all be about us, that wouldn’t be gospel. It would all be, “oh you have to do something,” it’s about something that happened outside of us that has changed God’s relationship to us. What is that? To me, the second factor in what brings a “breakthrough” over the gospel is when you realize the gospel is about more than just forgiveness. Follow me please, it’s about more than just forgiveness. Please don’t think I’m saying something that there’s anything wrong with forgiveness but most people think that’s what this is, that’s what salvation is, that’s what Jesus did. The idea is because Jesus died on the cross, when I do something wrong, I can ask God for forgiveness and I’m forgiven, isn’t that wonderful? Yes of course it’s wonderful. It’s more than wonderful. But I want to show you here for a second, it would not be enough and it’s way less than what’s being promised here. Yeah, because see, if it’s true that that’s really salvation, that because Jesus died on the cross, now when I ask for forgiveness, I’m forgiven, God forgives me, swipes the slate clean, you realize what that means? It means that even though he’s forgiven me for what I just did wrong, my relationship with him is still up to me because actually in a sense, God said, “hey I just forgave you for what you just did, I’m not going to hold that against you but now you better get it right!” If that’s all that forgiveness is, it’s not enough. You know, for example, there’s a man and let’s just say he’s in prison, what is going to get him a new life? Well you can say the first thing that is going to get him a new life is pardon. A governor writes a pardon and he’s out! Wow, he’s got a new life! Hmmm, no! He’s just back to where all the rest of us slobs are. He’s not in prison. And now he’s going to get a job. Now he’s going to work and it’s a long haul. He doesn’t have a new life yet. Well you say, “what more do you want?” I’ll tell you what more: the salvation of the gospel is not so much like simply getting a pardon to get out of prison, it’s besides getting a pardon, forgiveness, it’s also like getting a congressional medal of honor on top of it. It’s a negative and a positive. There’s a TV series called “NCIS,” and it’s about a Navy Criminal investigative services, it’s a cop show, military, criminal investigators and there’s a really great episode that was done about four years ago and the main character was played by Charles Durning, great actor I think and in it it’s about a poor, broken down old man, ex-marine, and played by Charles Durning, he’s in his eighties, he’s broken down, he’s kind of dotty, and he’s accused of murder. He’s accused of murder and at one point, two huge beefy marines and a snarling Navy lawyer comes after this poor little old man and they are about to arrest him you see and they are overshadowing him and here he is standing in there, in their presence accused but as they stand they’re about to cuff him actually. A friend of the old man pulls his tie aside and under it is a congressional medal of honor because on Iwo Jima, he had been found, he had done acts of extraordinary valor and bravery on the call of duty and been given a congressional medal of honor. And when he pulled that aside, the marines and the snarling lawyer immediately saw what it was and instead of looking at the poor little old man and condemn him, they saw that medal of honor and they immediately snatched to “attention” and salute. They’re in awe. Just like that. It’s very, very good drama and it’s very kind of moving to see and it is just an image, however faint, of what Paul’s talking about here. You know one of the verses that I always quote to you but I never explain is second Corinthians 5:21: “God made Jesus sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” What does that mean? God made him sin that knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, well think? On the cross, what does it mean to say that Jesus was made sin? God made him sin: does that mean God made him sinful? That God put sin in His heart so He became greedy and angry and violent? No! He was up there forgiving His enemies, I mean, no, He was up there loving His father even when His Father was turning on Him. Absolutely, it didn’t mean He became sinful, I mean He was treated as our sins deserve. He was given the treatment that our record deserves. So what does it mean to say that when you give your life to Christ, our sins are put on Him, God made Him who knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, in Him! What does that mean? It can’t mean that automatically the minute you become a Christian you become righteous in your heart anymore than He became sinful on the cross, no, no, no, no. What it must mean is that we are covered with His medals. We are covered with His glory. We are covered with all His awards and the medals and His valor and His cosmic bravery because He took on evil and down to death and all that He deserve is now on us! And here’s where the illustration doesn’t quite work because that old man basically was suddenly given all this, even though he was condemned, he suddenly, they suddenly saw his medal he had won in a former life but in our case, the medals on us were won by Jesus’ former life and now the whole universe salutes us. And now God himself delights in us. We have become the righteousness of God in Him. Now, you see the test? You see where the “breakthrough” comes? First “breakthrough” is when you see it’s not advice but news but second “breakthrough” is when you see it’s not just forgiveness but it’s being clothed in the righteousness of Christ. It’s a righteousness from God is given to me as a gift. No wonder, Luther said, “Oh my word! That’s incredible! It is incredible!” And so when you ask somebody, I do all the time, when I say, “hey are you a Christian,” and the person says, “well, I’m trying,” that shows that they have no idea what Christianity is about because Christianity is a standing. We have access to this grace in which we stand. It means that you have no idea what it means to be Christian. You’re still stuck back on the idea that it's good advice. Or, you know, some people say, “well, I hate to tell myself I am a Christian because I don’t feel worthy in the name of Christ,” of course you don’t feel good enough but you are in Him if you understand the gospel and He is always good enough, He is utterly good enough. Covered with His medals, covered with His trophies, covered with His badges, and banners, and ribbons, and glory. And you know, some people will say, “well, you know, that’s interesting, I guess the Luther types, religious people, gosh he was a monk, how much more religious can you get than that? I guess there’s people there that’s always filled with guilt and shame and they are religious and they need this, they need this idea,”  no, it’s not just them. Oh no. I have talked to an awful lot of people recently who’ve lost an awful lot of money and you know what, one of the things you can see, in fact sometimes they tell me, “it was a lot more than money,” they didn’t know, they didn’t know. There’s a disorientation at the center of their being. They are not sure who they are. You know, there’s a complete loss of identity, there’s a complete loss of confidence, do you know why? Because that money was their righteousness. See, irreligious people don’t use the word righteousness but as we said a couple weeks when we were talking about Cain and Abel, no human being can assure themselves, we cannot assure ourselves of our value and our worth, we’ve got to get somebody outside proving us, claiming us, declaring us worthy, declaring us people of value. And so some people do it through “I want to look beautiful”. Some people: “I want to make money”. Some people: “I want to achieve, I want to “whatever”!” The fact is, everybody is desperately struggling for righteousness and here’s the weird thing: everybody’s righteousness, if it's not God’s, it’s going to be blown away. Recession is one way but it’s going to happen; old age is another way. Everybody’s righteousness is going to blow away unless this is upon you. Now the second “breakthrough” then that you see it’s not just negative, forgiveness, wiping the slate clean but getting the cosmic medal of honor, you know, being accepted in the beloved, having the righteousness of God put upon us in Jesus, being legally righteous even when we are actually unrighteous and we’ll see more about that. 

 

The Power of the Gospel

Thirdly, if you’re really going to understand and “breakthrough” is you’ve gotta have the sense of the power of the gospel, not just the form, not just the content, but the power and Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the power because it is the power of God unto salvation.” I guess in my case of all these, you know even though it’s brief, 16 and 17 is brief, this is my favorite part of the this nutshell. Because, see, it’s not saying, that the gospel brings the power of God or it results in the power of God, you know, or it’s the means of the power of God, does it? No, it doesn’t, what does it say? It says the gospel is the power of God in verbal form! And therefore when I believe it, when I hear it, when I understand it, when I grasp its propositions, its meanings, its words to the degree that I actually get this gospel into my life to that degree the power of God coursing through me. It is the power of God! And therefore the way you know you begin to understand the gospel and “breaking through” is instead of it just being a set of ideas, you begin to sense it being a power, how is that so? Here’s a couple ways. First of all, one of the ways you know you’re breaking through or at least perhaps breaking through or get a chance of breaking through is you feel its offensiveness. Notice, connected to this idea of “power of God,” he says, “I am not ashamed, I am not ashamed of the gospel”. Now when you say something like that, “I am not ashamed of her, I am not ashamed of him, I am not ashamed of him,” that means there’s a whole lot of other people that are or you wouldn’t have said that. Okay? There’s a whole lot of other people that are offended or they think it’s crazy! And I want you to know that everybody, everybody who hasn’t “broken through” or isn’t on the verge of “breaking through” thinks the gospel is crazy. Everybody! I’ve had two churches, one in a very blue-collared, traditional, conservative place, small southern town and opposite place. And here’s what is so interesting. Everybody is offended by the gospel. In Virginia, in Hopewell, Virginia where I was pastor, everybody’s hard-working, they’re all religious, you know, even the atheists are baptists, even the atheists, the god they believe in is the baptists god. Every is religious, everybody very traditional, everybody is hard-working, everybody is conservative, okay? And they are offended by the gospel because they think it’s too easy. I’ll never forget the first people I shared the gospel with was a woman right across the parking lot, behind our church, it was a very broken down area, you know, rental property, bad rental property by the way, and trailers and things like that and there was a woman there and she was a very unhappy woman, her name was “Joy”. In a Southern town in the late 70s, she was divorced, she had two children, one was I think with no husband, and one was with her former husband. She was living essentially with poverty. She was a mess, she was a disgrace, she was a shame. We went in there, the three of us sat down and we shared what I just shared with you, almost exactly the same thing and she couldn’t believe it. She says, “you mean in spite of everything, he can accept me?” I remember one of things we talked about was I said, “well, you know, if you understand the gospel that means the minute you believe in Christ, and ask God to accept you because of what he has done, the minute that your sins are put on Him and His righteousness is put on you, God loves you and delights in you as much this very second as He will a billion years from now and you’re perfect and glorious, you see? And you can’t even look you without sunglasses.” And I said, “He won’t love you anymore than the now, any less now then then,” she couldn’t believe it. And she cried, she thought it was the greatest thing. She embraced it, she believed it. Now a week later, we came back, you know follow up, sat down and she was really upset because she called her sister. Sister is a very hardworking woman, you know, husband, three, four children, you know, upstanding citizens, they went to church, you know, they were good people and when “Joy” called her older sister and told her she was born again, she was saved, God loved her and all but the sister said, “What are you talking about? It can’t be that easy!” She says, “You have to work for this sort of thing. You have to work very hard, years of self-discipline, years of moral effort, I don’t know what kind of God that Pastor is talking about but I have no respect for him that he would just take somebody like you like that!” “It’s too easy!” You see, it sounds really very dignified to say, I can’t believe in a God, I have higher standards than that, except, you know what? That sister built her identity on being the good daughter and she was the bad daughter. And it was incredibly self-justifying to say, “it can’t be that easy,” you know, the gospel was in danger of destroying that wonderful dysfunctional family sister which was the sick one, you see. And so we had to go right back to the gospel and it did! I think it did. But you see in a traditional, conservative culture, it’s too easy. Now we come up here, where everybody’s liberal sophisticated and secular. And up here it’s offensive not because it’s too easy but it’s too simplistic. Now here’s why: everything here is ambiguous and difficult and nobody is sure and we like philosophy here, we like ethics, we like discussion, here’s the pros and here’s the cons and we get together, we have discussions and forums, everybody's a little bit right and everybody is a little bit wrong, nobody’s really sure, and then we can go home and live anyway we want! It’s a great, great system because who’s to say? And the clarity of the gospel, the absolute clarity of it, you know. They even like religion better: you’re always trying, you’re trying, you’re never quite sure, you know whether you’ve done [the right thing]. The clarity of it! Here’s this first century carpenter, he dies, everything changes if you believe in that. You believe in that and then you’re in and you don’t believe in that, you’re out. Oh my gosh, the clarity of it, the simplicity of it, don’t you see? Liberal or conservative. Blue-collar or white-collar. North, south. East, west. The gospel is absolutely unique, it’s absolutely on its own, everybody hates it. It makes absolutely no sense to anyone. It contradicts every system of thought in the world. It contradicts the heart of every culture of the world, every worldview! It's completely on its own! It offends everyone. And see, whoever you are, you gotta come from somewhere, you gotta come from north, or south, or east, or west or conservative or liberal, something, you know, you are human beings, you know and therefore unless you felt the offense of the gospel, you don’t know yet what it even claims! Unless you wrestle with it, struggled with it, you don’t even know what’s in it! You couldn’t know what’s in it! And when you begin to feel it and you begin to wrestle and struggle, then you’re at least got the possibility to “breaking through”. And by the way, the gospel is not just from a person, excuse me, the gospel is not just an academic thing, a set of bullet points that we’re trying to get you to memorize, it’s from a person to a person and therefore, it feels personal when you really begin to hear the gospel truly and understand the gospel, you start to sense there’s a power dealing with you. Disturbing you, upsetting, maybe during this sermon. I hope. Maybe when you think about it or talk to a friend about it. Do you find the gospel upsetting you? Kind of dealing with you? You wrestling with it, bothering you? I would rather somebody came to Redeemer for a couple weeks and was so revolted they had to leave and at least they were feeling the power! If they happen to say, “well that’s interesting, I don’t have much time for that,” then you’re absolutely, absolutely, no position to ever, ever have a “break through”. So you have to feel the power of it, you have to feel the offensiveness of it, but here’s the other way in which is the power: some people would say, “all that matter I suppose, now that you receive the righteousness of Christ, that’s all that matters, because now you’re fine, it doesn’t matter how you live,” no, no, no, no, no. You know it’s so amazing about Paul is he’s able to get sound gospel theology everywhere. Look at verse 7, “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints,” at the beginning of the memo, “to, from, re,” he’s already got the gospel in there, you know why? He says, “what is a Christian? To all who are loved by God and called to be saints.” Look at that, what is a Christian? Not primarily someone who is living in a certain way, the first is you’re loved by God. Your relationship’s been changed. Something has been done to justify you! See. You’re loved! But! If you’re loved and if you know you’re loved, then you’re called, that means you’re invited, that means you’re attracted to be saints, which means to be holy. You never, ever, ever have the righteousness of God put upon you without at the same time finding it’s beginning to develop in you. You never, ever, ever, ever are loved by God in spite of your bad character without that starting to change your character. You never are justified except that you automatically begin to get sanctified and the righteousness of God will never be put upon without it develop within you if it’s not developed within you, then you haven’t really received it upon you. And that’s the reason why Paul could look at Peter in Galatians 2 where Peter is beginning to, his old racist sensibilities have begun come back and he’s not eating with Gentiles Christians, he won’t even eat with them. And what does Paul say? Paul doesn’t say, “Peter, you broke the “no-racism rule!”” even though there is a “no-racism” rule, Christians shouldn’t be racists but what he says, “Peter, you say you’re justified by faith not by works! You say you’re a sinner saved by grace then how can you be superior to any other race? You say, you’ve got the righteousness of Christ on you but you’re not living in righteousness and therefore you don’t, it’s not upon you if it’s not beginning to develop within you!” If you are loved then you are called, you’re attracted into holiness, you want it! You long for it because I want to look like the one who did this for me. I want to please the one who did this for me. And if you don’t want to please, if you don’t want to look like the one who did this for you, then it’s still not personal, you know. You still don’t know what’s happened. One of the great things I love about, there’s a passage, Matthew 11 where John the Baptist, in prison, about to be beheaded, sends a messenger to Jesus and the messenger say, “are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” John the Baptist is doubting, and I can understand why? He declared Jesus is the Messiah, he said, “behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” but everything is going wrong, he’s in prison. “Wait a minute, you’re the Messiah and I’m with you and I’m about to get my head chopped off, are you really the one who is to come or should we be looking for somebody else?” He’s doubting! And Jesus so nicely says, “go back and tell John the Baptist, the blind see, the poor have the good news preached to them,” he gives him some arguments why he is the Messiah and then he says, “say this to John, blessed is he who finds no offense in me.” See what I loved about that is, instead of Jesus saying, “how dare you question me? I’m the Messiah,” instead he says, “let me give you some answers and I want you to know that I am not offended by people who are struggling with my offensiveness, good luck, hope you get through it, it’s not very easy, I hope you get the blessedness of people who finally get through the offensiveness and “break through”.” What a man? He’s not offended that we struggle with his offensiveness. He’s not all upset about the fact it’s hard. He says, “you know, here are some answers to questions and if you have any please come back.” What a savior. What a man. Go to him. Let us pray.