Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Made For Relationship

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

We are created for relationship. One of the key differences I hope to show you between the biblical idea of God and other alternative views of God is in this whole idea of relationship. Genesis 1 shows us three things: 1) why we need relationships, 2) what kind of relationships we need, and 3) the key to getting relationships. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 29, 2000. Series: Genesis – The Gospel According to God. Scripture: Genesis 1:26-27; 2:18-25. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The Book of Genesis is an ancient book that gets down to some of the most foundational questions we have. We get answers to the big why questions and the what for questions that have plagued us for centuries. Join us today as Tim Keller preaches from the passage of Genesis. What we're doing is we're looking at the early chapters of Genesis and we saw in these first two chapters that we're created and the first week we looked at the fact that we're created. And the first week we looked at the fact that we were created for worship.

And then the second week we saw that we were created for stewardship. And tonight we see that we're created for relationship. And I'm going to read you a passage, first of all, the famous place where we're created in Genesis 1, verses 26 to 27, and then the corresponding passage later on in the chapter 2 verses 18 to 25. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the

fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God made man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. The Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air, and all the beasts of

the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. And then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and brought her to the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh. So the man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame." This is God's word. One of the key differences, as I'm going to show you I hope, between the biblical idea of God and other alternative views, between biblical Christian understanding of faith and other alternatives, is this whole idea of relationship. And there's three things you learn from the passage. We learn why we need relationships, and secondly, we learn what kind of relationships we need,

and lastly, we learn the key to getting them. Why we need relationships, what those relationships are that we need, and the key to getting them, all here in one little passage. First, first thing we're taught here is we need relationships desperately and why. One of the most interesting things about the creation account, and even though we didn't have it all printed here, it's very, very familiar, and besides that we've printed most of it in the last couple of weeks.

Every time you see God creating, He creates the stars and the moon and the sun. It would be nice if the sun was a little closer in here tonight, but it's gone away, and all we have is the moon and the stars right now. He's created the vegetation, He created the fish, and he created the birds. And every time he creates it, it always says, he created, he created, he created, he created, he created. But when it comes to humanity, and only when it comes to humanity, the pronoun changes. Only when God comes to create humanity, only when he does that, does he refer to his own pluralness. Only when God creates us, does he refer to himself in the plural.

And that's why we see, then God said, let us make man in our image, our likeness. Not my, our, not he, let us. And what does that mean? Well, of course somebody's gonna say, well, of course that means, does it not, that the Christian faith teaches the Trinity? That God, if Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is three persons in one?

Yes, yes, of course. But I want you to see what this is saying right here. It is particularly when he created us that his plurality is brought out. St. Augustine says that the Trinity is the only version of God. You go to the east and you see the impersonal God. You go to the East and you see the impersonal God. You go to the West and you see multiple Gods, but they usually came out of some kind of primordial ooze or something. Or you have the idea of a single person, unipersonal God who creates the world.

Only the Trinity gives us an understanding of ultimate reality that has relationship, personal relationship at the heart of it. St. Augustine says only the Christian God is a community. The Bible says from all eternity, there was never a time in which this was, from the beginningless, you know, remember God is beginningless, from all eternity God has been a community of persons delighting in each other, loving each other, communicating with each other. And in every other, every other faith, every other worldview, every other philosophy, relationship comes in later.

You see, the Eastern idea is that God is an impersonal divine force, and that personality is derivative and temporary and illusionary, right? Your personal individuality is an illusion. When you die, you're the drop that goes back into the ocean. Western polytheism, the Greek gods and the European gods and the Roman gods and all that, they always came out of something. They came out of the swamp. They came out of Tiamat.

They came out of something. There was always a time in which there was not. The idea of beginningless God, tri-personal community, is just not there. If you believe, for example, that God was unipersonal, okay, if you believe God is unipersonal, and one day he created angels, or one day he created other beings,

or one day he created the world, that means love comes later, right? Now any other god except the triune god, love and personal relationship comes later. It comes in afterwards. It's derivative. It's secondary. But the trinity means the personal relationship is primary. It's the meaning of ultimate reality. It's the meaning of life itself. It's not a means to end. It is life. And that's the only way you can explain chapter 2 verse 18, this very remarkable passage which is otherwise inexplicable. Chapter 2 verse 18 says, The Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone. Now you realize that up to now

everything God's made is good. God makes the birds and they're good. God makes the fish and they're good. God makes the light and the darkness and they're good. Suddenly God makes somebody and there's something not good about him, something deficient, there's something not good. Well you say, wait a minute, is that because God, there was some design flaw? Does God say, not good? What's missing? You know, like, you know, which, like most of us, we write a book or you paint something or you do something and you say, something missing. Is that, is that the idea? No, no, oh no. There's really nothing in the Bible that indicates that the nature of God is to make mistakes. Why is the first human being lonely?

Why is the first human being a sense of lack? Why is the first human being unhappy, basically? In paradise, and the answer is this, we're made in the image of someone who is not just a me, but an us. And therefore, we won't be happy until we are not just a me, but also an us. Adam was made in the image of a community and therefore when he was the only individual, he desperately needed community because he was made in the image of one who was a community. I mean that's pretty simple, but it's very important. God refers to his plurality as he makes us because he made us for community.

He made us in the image of a community. He made us in the image of a me who's also in us. And therefore you and I cannot be our true selves. We cannot get in touch with our hero humanity. There will always be something wrong with us. If we're only a me, we've also got to be in us. Personal relationships, therefore, is the meaning of life. Personal relationships is the essence of our humanity. Personal relationships are what we were built for. If you live in New York City, that's not what you're going to hear. What you're going to hear is personal relationships are a means to an end to get you ahead. You choose the people you hang out with to open career doors. You choose people to hang out with because they affirm the view you have or that you

want to have of yourself. You choose relationships to get you where you want to go. They're a means to an end. And that might work in with unipersonal idea of God or an impersonal idea of God, any other except the Christian understanding of God in which personal relationships are not a means to an end, they're the end itself. You need relationships because you were built in the image of an us, an us-ness God, a Trinity God, a God who is a community. That's the first thing. That's why we need relationships. But that's not all. The second thing we learn here is the kind of relationships we need.

Now, there's three insights about this, three kinds of relationships that we need if we're going to be fully human. What makes us different than everybody else? It's the us-ness, the need for community. So what kind of community and relationships do we need? Number one, we need a deep personal relationship with God. Now you might say, yes, I've always heard that, but look and see what we're told here. This chapter 1, verse 26, needs to be read in connection with two other creation accounts in the Bible.

Do you know there are other creation accounts? See, what picture do you have of creation? Let me be honest about my kind of untutored, visceral, imaginative picture. When I think of creation, maybe you think, I think of an old man, God in a big beard, walking into a dark room and just starting to go like this. Stars, light, sea. It's a little bit like Stokowski in the beginning of Fantasia. In fact, Stokowski

looks a little bit like God, doesn't he? In the beginning of Fantasia, with white hair and he starts doing this and there's colors everywhere. Is that how you think of it? Do you think of an individual coming into a dark room and just doing this and this? Or do you think of an individual artist sort of going after a blank canvas? Lose that picture, please. In Proverbs 8, yes, Proverbs 8, we have a fascinating creation account. In Genesis 1, God always speaks, remember, to create? He always creates through a word. But Proverbs 8 draws it out, goes further. In Proverbs 8, God's Word, God's wisdom is personified and speaks in the account. And this is what

God's Word or wisdom says. God's Word and wisdom is alongside of God during creation. And this is what God's wisdom or Word says. God's word and wisdom is alongside of God during creation. And this is what God's wisdom or word says. When he set the heavens in place, when he fixed the fountains in the deep, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing in his presence, in his whole world, and delighting in humankind." Proverbs 8. Well, somebody says, that's weird, but that's just poetic personification. Isn't that just a poetic personification of the Word of God? So you have this group, you see, creating the world. Isn't that just a personification? Well, if you go to the one more creation account, if you go to John chapter 1, we're told there that the Word of God, the wisdom of God, was

not just a poetic construction but a divine person. Jesus Christ, and this is what we learn in John 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. See, that's Trinitarian language. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. For the law came through Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the only begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known." Now, do you see what I mean about Lou's that other picture? In Proverbs 8 and John 1, what is the picture of creation? It's, wow, look at the picture. First of all, it tells us that during creation,

see, Proverbs 8 says, I was the craftsman at his side, I was by him. But John 1 goes further and John 1 says, the Father and the Son during creation, we were in one another's bosom. I'm in the bosom of the Father. Now if you're lying on the bed, if you're lying on the couch with somebody right up against your bosom, what are you doing? Well, there's a variety of things, but not a terribly great variety of things. I mean, maybe you're a mother nursing her little baby. Maybe you are two lovers. Maybe you are a husband and a wife, you know, just cuddling each other, or making love. Maybe you're a parent with your young

child and he or she can come right up to your bosom and you sit there and you hug the person. You see, whatever you're doing, it is the most intimate interchange of love possible. Almost nobody has access to your bosom. I mean, that's something that is only the most intimate people in your life and yet in creation, the father and the son were wrapped up in each other's bosom. That's not all. The other thing we're told is, remember how it says in Proverbs 8, it says, when he set the heavens in place, I was the craftsman, I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing in his presence in his whole world and delighting in humankind.

And the Hebrew scholars will tell you that this word delight, shakach, is a word that means to dance, to frolic, to play. And what we have is not what you thought, not what I thought. It's not this idea of sort of a man with a gray beard walking in and just doing this. This is a community event. This is the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit loving one another, laughing, dancing. Creation is flowing out of this rapturous interchange of love. They're loving and being loved. They're knowing and being known. They're praising and being praised. They're enjoying and being enjoyed.

And so when verse 26 comes up, in light of all that, and they're creating and they're creating and suddenly they say let us make this set of beings in our image what do we mean what's an image what's a mirror a mirror is something that has the capacity unlike a rock of reciprocating you put a beautiful candle next to a rock and the rock doesn't look like the candle, the rock doesn't respond, it's just a rock. But you put a candle before a mirror and the mirror overflows with the light of the candle. It responds to the light of the candle. It reciprocates, you see.

It reflects back. And so what are they saying? When they say, let us make this set of beings in our own image, what they're saying is, let's make these beings able to give what we're giving each other. Let's make these beings able to love and be loved, know and be known, praise and be praised, enjoy and be enjoyed. Let's make these beings capable of entering our dance.

Now, do you realize what that means? This is what you were created for. Is this anything like what the average person thinks of religion as? Is this anything like what the average person thinks of Christianity? What kind of relationship do most people think you get through Christianity? I'll tell you what they think. You know. Most people think Christianity is you come to church

and you pray, especially when things are tough, and you sort of send your prayers up, but you don't know if anybody's listening. Prayer is sort of like sticking a note in a bottle, throwing it in the water. And you try to be good, but you're never totally sure if you're good enough. And occasionally you're out on the water or you're looking at a mountain and you get this sort of general vague sense of the presence of God and that's

it. Is that what this is talking about? You are called into his arms. You are called into a dance. You are called to overflow with the light of who he is. You are called into a dance. You are called to overflow with the light of who he is. You are called into an assurance of his love. You are called into an interchange. You are called into his bosom. And you are made for that kind of relationship with God. Not just a general, I'm trying to be good. I pray to him. I hope he likes me. I hope he blesses me. I hope he takes me to heaven someday. That's not what we're talking about here. You were made, you were made for his arms. You were made for the dance. You were made to be brought into a very, very deep, close, personal relationship with him. To give him joy in the sense that you are his delight, to give him praise in the sense that he is delighted and affirms you, you see? To give him love and to sense his love. That's what you're called for.

And that's the first thing you need to be human. That's what you're made to be. That's the first major relationship, but that's not all. Secondly, you are not just made for that relationship, a relationship with God, deep unity with Him, but you're also made for deep unity with other human beings. And here, wow, this gets pretty strong. Chapter 2 verse 18, let me show you one more thing in here. When the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. Would you realize, would you think for a minute about the radical implications

that the Bible says that in paradise Adam was lonely? Let me remind you of a couple things about the Garden of Eden. Great food. Much better than New York, even New York, even better than Paris, great food. Not only that, power. We don't know exactly what power means. Remember, they had dominion. They had dominion over nature. I don't know what that means. It probably doesn't mean shivering on your way to church. It certainly doesn't mean...

Whatever it means, it means power. He had power. He had comfort. He had beauty. Think of the beauty of the Garden of Eden. He had pleasure. He had power, he had comfort, he had beauty. Think of the beauty of the Garden of Eden. He had pleasure, he had everything. He also had a terrific prayer life. No sin, he walked with God. He could talk with God, right? Okay.

And he is still unhappy, he is still lonely. He still needs human friendship, he still needs human relationship. He still needs human relationship. And what does that mean? It's staggering. Think of the humility of God to do this. Unless you believe that God made a mistake, and there's no indication he did, on purpose God made us so that we have such a deep need for human relationships that not even paradise could satisfy it and not even a perfect quiet time and prayer life with God could satisfy it. God made us need other people so much. He on purpose made us need other people so much that even He Himself can't satisfy us all

by Himself. He made us in such a way that many things that He wants to show us and many things He wants to give us can only come through other human beings. Most people think Christianity is either incredibly inclusive or unbelievably exclusive. But the fact is, Christianity is both radically inclusive and radically exclusive. How can this be? In his short book, The Gospel on the Move, How the Cross Transcends Cultural Differences, Tim Keller shows us how we can make sense of this apparent paradox. Through the New Testament story of Philip and the Ethiopian, we learn how the gospel allows us to humbly

critique our own cultural biases while becoming a united people of God. This month we have an exclusive resource only available through Gospel in Life that we want you to share. When you give to Gospel in Life in October, we'll send you three copies of Dr. Keller's short book, The Gospel on the Move, as our thanks for your gift. This short book is a great way to present the Gospel to a friend or loved one. We hope you'll prayerfully consider who you could give each copy to and that it helps you live more missionally. To receive your three copies of this short book, just visit GospelInLife.com slash give. That's GospelInLife.com slash give.

And thank you for your generosity, which helps us reach more people with the gospel. Paradise wasn't paradise without love. Paradise wasn't paradise without friendship. Paradise wasn't paradise without friendship. God made us like that. Now, what are the implications of that? Huge. Let me give you two practical implications. Two very practical implications. Number one, you live in New York? You live in this modern world? Here's what the modern world is telling you. Here's what New York is telling you. Do you want a garden of Eden life? Do you want this ideal garden of a life?

Do you want a life of power and of material plenty? Do you want a life of pleasure? Do you want a life of beauty? Do you want a great career? Do you want a claim? Do you want popularity? Do you want two or three homes? Do you want success?

Do you want this garden life? Fine. Put relationships on the back burner for years. That's what the world tells you. The world says if you want to be successful you have to move all around so you don't have any stable friendships any place. And you have to put in such hours and so much time that you're not going to see much of your family.

You want this garden, this ideal garden of a life? You have to put relationships, you have to put friendships, you have to put deep friendships and relationships. They have to be second, third priority. They have to be on the back burner. But how much more vividly can the Bible say that even the Garden of Eden, my gosh, I don't care how great your life is going to be, you're never going to get to the Garden of Eden. You're not going to put that together. The Garden of Eden wasn't a paradise, it wasn't a paradise without friends. All the money, all the pleasure, all the power in the world, The Garden of Eden wasn't a paradise without friends.

All the money, all the pleasure, all the power in the world, in the universe Adam had, and he was lonely. What does that mean? Don't you dare try to build a life that doesn't put personal relationships as a high priority. Don't you dare. Don't try. It won't work. Secondly, here's the second practical application.

You can't know this God. You can't grow into the image of God without community. You can't grow into the likeness. Don't you want to be like Him? Don't you want to have His wisdom and His courage and His power? Don't you want to be stronger? Don't you want to be like him? Don't you want to have his wisdom and his courage and his power? Don't you want to be stronger? Don't you want to be more joyful? Don't you want to be more loving? Don't you want to be more wise? Don't you want to grow and be all he meant you to be? You can't grow into the image of someone who's not just a me but an us as an individual. You can't know him. You can't become who you're supposed to be. You can't become who you're supposed to be. You can't possibly without community.

And in this modern individualistic Western culture, we don't like accountability. We guard our privacy. We don't want to join things. Here's what you want to do. What you want to do is you want to come to big groups. You want to come here, inspiring preaching occasionally. Good music always. You want to go to classes. You want to read books. You want to take programs. You want to go home and learn how to pray. Fine. Here's what you don't want to do. You don't want to

take, you don't want to find a group of friends, people that you live in the same town with, not internet, not phone call because you see you can control what those people know about you. Friends, and you have to give them permission and the ability to tell you who you really are because you don't know outside of community. Hebrews chapter 3 verse 13, exhort one another daily lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Notice it goes way back in my life, that verse, I'm quoting it out of the old King James

Bible. I don't even know what it says in the modern translations, but let me say it again. Exhort one another daily lest you be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. And there's two premises in that verse. The first premise is you've got to have some people that see you so often, daily, so often anyway, regularly, that they see who have some people that see you so often, daily, so often, anyway, regularly, that they see who you are, they see you, they catch you just being yourself. Not just people who call up, not just people who visit, not just people who you talk to on the internet, people who actually are in your life, that you're hanging out with. And the second premise is you've authorized these people to tell you what's wrong with you.

You've authorized people to come and share, you share your flaws, you share your hopes, you let them talk to you. You understand all that. And the premise is that otherwise outside of community you don't know who you are. You can't really see yourself. Why is it whenever you listen to yourself on tape and your friends around you say, oh, what an awful whiny, that doesn't sound like me at all, and your friends say, yes it does. Because you don't know what you sound like, they do. That's how you really sound.

You can't tell from inside. Why is it when you see a pic, you know, you're looking at some pictures, and there you are in the picture, and your friends around you say, oh, I look so awful, I look so terrible in that picture and your friends just get very quiet. Why? That's how you normally look. You don't know what you look like.

You look in the mirror. That's the opposite by the way. And besides that, you don't really look. You don't really look. You're very careful how you look in the mirror. And things like that. You don't know how you look. You need a community.

And here's what happens. You come to church, or you read a book, or you say your prayers, and you think you're getting all this information. Eighty percent of what you're hearing, you don't know how it applies to you because you screened out all kinds of things that you need to hear but you don't you're not listening to them because you don't know who you are if you are trying to find God as an individual if you're trying to grow into his image as an individual you can't just come to big groups or classes

or all by yourself, try real hard. You've got to be in a group. You've got to be in a group of friends that you create. People who affirm you, who confront you, who ordain you, in the broadest sense that term, who bear your burdens, who you talk to, who you're transparent with. You've got to have that. You either have to create that group yourself. These have to be people in town, by the way.

Otherwise they can't stay, they don't really know who you are anymore. You've got to either create that group or you have to get in a group. If you're not in a group, you're not really in the church. You cannot know God individualistically. You can't know a God who's not just a me, but an us, only as a me. You've also got to know him as an us. You know that famous place where C.S. Only as a me. You've also got to know him as an us. You know that famous place where C.S. Lewis said he was one of three friends, Jack, Charles, and Ronald? And when Charles died, Jack was very sad, but he said, well, at least now I have more of Ronald.

It's not Jack, Charles, and Ronald. It's just Jack and Ronald. I have more of Ronald. And he found out he didn't. He had less of Ronald. Why? He realized that there were certain things that Charles brought out in Ronald that Jack couldn't. He says, you know, no one person is enough to call the whole person into action. And he came to realize that by losing Charles, he lost part of Ronald. And then he saw, this is a famous place in the four loves that I love very much. And he says, he started to realize, if that's true of a human being, what about Jesus? And he says, I will never know Jesus Christ all by myself. I need other Christians. I need other people who know him, who will see another side of him, who understand a different thing. I will never really see the real Jesus without being in

community, deep community, people I pray with, people I talk to, people who I'm willing to say, this is not my private life. My life is your business. I am accountable to you. I am talking to you. You'll never know who Jesus is outside of community, and you'll never know who you are outside of community. That wonderful relationship with God that Adam had wasn't enough without with God that Adam had wasn't enough without another human being because it's only together that we image God not just by ourselves. So you need a deep relationship with God, you need deep relationships with other human beings and lastly one more thing. Now this is going to take some self-control on your part. All right, you ready? The third thing is you need deep relationships

with people who are different than you, not just people who are like you. That's the third thing you learn here. Now, here's what I mean by self-control. In our time and in our culture, I'm gonna be real brief on this because I wanna get to this very last point quickly, but let me just say something briefly.

This passage, you think, and I think when we first read it, because of who we are, this is all about sex. And there's a lot in here about sex. It's about gender. It's about maleness and femaleness and gender and marriage. Isn't that what it's about? Yeah, of course. But you know what? Here's what I want to do. There's a lot in there, and I'm going to come back later on in the year. Not in the calendar year, later on in the year. I'm going to come back and I'll preach a sermon on marriage out of this passage and everybody can, we can talk about these things. But I've come to

realize we're missing the forest for the trees. What does it mean that when Adam had this deep relational need, God brought him Eve? What does it mean? Can this mean that we have to be married in order to have our deep relational needs met? No. And the reason for that is if you go to the New Testament, you go to 1 Corinthians 7, you go to Ephesians 5, and you'll see the Christian religion was the first religion in the history of the world to lift up singleness as a viable, a viable lifestyle. Every other religion has always said family, everything is family. You've got to have a family. You've got to have a wife, husband, you've got to have

kids. Christianity brings our founder, Jesus is not married. St. Paul is not married. St. Paul says it's a perfectly valid way to be a Christian is to be unmarried. There's some advantages to it and disadvantages and so on. There's never been a faith like that and why? Ephesians 5 tells us. And that is that Jesus is the ultimate spouse. Jesus is the ultimate brother. And if you have a deep relationship with him, you've got the family and love you ultimately need. And therefore no, the Bible does not say that unless you're married you can't have your deep relational needs met. Is that what it's saying? No, it's not saying that. Is it saying that? But here's

another thing, let me point you out. He brings Adam, not an animal, right? That's the whole point. The animal is not the thing he needs, but he doesn't bring him another male either. Now right away people are saying, ah, now we're into some interesting stuff here. No. Yeah, maybe, but we're not talking about tonight. Is this, for example, is this trying to say men shouldn't be friends? Men don't need other men friends? Is that what it's saying? Of course not. The Bible certainly again says, what in the world is it saying?

Let's stand back. Here's what it's saying. God brings Adam somebody mysterious to him. God does not bring him somebody just like him. Adam doesn't say, yo, buddy. He doesn't bring Adam somebody just like him. Now listen, can you for a minute just step back and not look at the particular and look at the general? God is saying that your deep relational needs will not only be met by finding people just like you, you also need to find people on the other side of the gender barrier, the other side of the racial barrier, the other side of the temperament barrier.

You need people who are like you but unlike you. He doesn't get an animal, he doesn't get a male. He gets a woman. And I'm not going to go any further than to say this. God brings him somebody who's hard to get to know. He brings him somebody who's mysterious, somebody who's different, somebody who's going to stretch him, somebody who's going to see things very differently. By the way, the word helper there, because I know somebody's going to ask me about this

afterwards, the word helper there does not mean an errand runner. The word help in the Bible is usually used for God. You only help somebody who's different. I can help my child with his algebra if I know algebra and he doesn't. The woman can only help the man because she's got some things he doesn't have. In other words, she's different. There's complementariness in all that. Why does God bring him neither a male nor an animal? Does it mean we're supposed to trample on the animals? Does this mean we're not supposed to have same-gender friendships? No! What it's really trying to say is, lastly, you need God and the other human beings, but you particularly

also have to be very careful that you don't ghettoize yourself. You've got to have deep relationships with people on the other side of these barriers. The gender barrier, the racial barrier, the cultural barrier, the class barrier, the temperament barrier. So you need relationships or you're not fully human. Now lastly, I'm going to be brief because when we get to Genesis 3 in a week or two, we get right back to this thing. There is a key to relationships that Adam and Eve had in the garden but we don't have and that's the reason why our relationships do not completely fulfill us like those relationships back then did. When Adam sees Eve, he says, this is now bone of my bones. Now,

that's not a very good translation. That word now is a Hebrew word for finally. Adam is saying finally, or my favorite translation is, Adam is saying at last. But you know what, when we, our relationships never seem to have that same note of absolute satisfaction and finality to them at all. Our relationships are superficial, or sometimes actually abusive, and even the best ones tend to always keep breaking down. And the reason for it is that they had in the Garden of Eden something we've lost, but something you can get back through Jesus Christ. What did they have? Well, the key to all great relationships is verse 25. They were naked and unashamed.

Now that's the key to relationships. I'll show you why. They were naked means they were transparent. They weren't spinning. They weren't in control of what the other person saw. They didn't need to hide. They weren't afraid of exposure. They weren't afraid of being explored. They didn't need to control what the other person knew. Why? Because they were unashamed. They were completely at ease with themselves. They had a completely stable identity. They knew who they were. Now that's what we all need. We need to be known and yet loved. We need to

be naked, totally known, and yet completely loved, unashamed. And the problem in this world is, we can't do it. We have a choice to be made, don't we not? Most of us know this. We can get loved if we try to be somebody we're not. We can get loved if we try to spin people, try to let people not see our flaws and our selfishness and our pride and our weakness and our anxiety. We can get love, we can be unashamed but not naked, or we can get naked and find ourselves just constantly getting rejected. Why? Because we live, and we're going to get into that in a couple of weeks, because the minute Adam and Eve sinned, the minute Adam and Eve ate the tree, the minute Adam and Eve decided

to be their own masters, they became ashamed and they covered. And the reason for that was, deep down in our hearts, we know there's something wrong with us. Whether you believe this story or not, whether you believe the Bible or not, whether you believe in Christianity or not, we'll get to that. You know there's something wrong and you have to cover. And yet, the thing that Trinity has, they know each other to the bottom yet love each other and that's what we have to have because we're made in the image of the Trinity.

We desperately need it more than anything else. When somebody you don't know says, I really like you, you feel good. But when somebody who deeply knows you, knows you intimately, says you're one of the finest people I ever know, It's like wine. You start to weep. Why is that so great? That's the meaning of your life. That's what you were made for. And why can't we get that? We can't open up because we know if we are, open up. People see our sin. People see our flaws. What you need is spiritual cover. What you need is spiritual cover. What you need to know is this. On the cross Jesus Christ was crucified. And do you

know he was crucified naked? He was stripped naked. Remember they cast lots for his clothes. That was the ultimate humiliation, you know. Why was he willing to do that? Why was he ravaged like that? He did it to pay for our sins, and there it is. Jesus' nakedness can be your cover. Why did he do that? He did it because he loved you. Didn't he know who you were? Didn't he know? Didn't he look right deep in your heart? Yes, but he loved you anyway. The nakedness of Christ is proof that God has looked all the way into your heart and loves you anyway, enough that his son would be sacrificed. Jesus did that enough that he would give his life. And if you take that into the middle of your life, if you understand and believe in Jesus Christ so that you realize what that means. You realize

that kind of love. Here's what's so ironic. If you believe in Christ in such a way that you can be naked and unashamed before God, that you can say, I know that I'm a sinner but I'm covered and I'm loved anyway because of Jesus. If you can believe in Jesus Christ, nakedness on the cross for your sake, in such a way that you can be naked and unashamed before God, then you can actually be naked in a sense of being transparent. That doesn't mean you've blurred everything out. It doesn't mean you have no boundaries. I'm not talking about that. It means if you can be naked and unashamed before God, you have the power finally to guide into the world

and be transparent because you don't need anybody's approval. You're so unashamed finally because of the love that you got through Jesus. You can be transparent. You can move out into relationships. You can at last have the relationships that you need to have. See that? Jesus was stripped so you could be covered.

Jesus' nakedness is your cover. And that's the key to having the relationships that'll make you the human being God meant you to be. At last. Let's pray. Give us, we pray, Lord, as we consider what your word says to us about who you are, about who we are. We ask that everybody in this room will, by your Holy Spirit's power,

be able to understand and apply that to our lives, where and when we need it. I ask, Lord, that some of us who are just seeking you will see that we can't do it without friends. I pray, Lord, that some of us who are been Christians for a long time realize that we aren't growing because we're not in a community,

we're not really part of a community. And I pray, Lord, that we might all see that we're never going to be able to have the relationships with others until we learn how, through Jesus Christ, to be naked and yet unashamed in your presence. Only when we have Jesus Christ as our righteousness, only when we can be completely honest because we know we're completely loved in Him, can we be completely honest with other people and build the relationships we need to build. And we ask that you help us do that through Jesus. In His name we pray, amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. We trust you were encouraged by it

and that it gives you a deeper appreciation for God's grace and helps you apply His 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 2000. 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.