Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Search for Transcendence

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

There is a thirst in the human heart that will not be denied. It cannot be denied. That thirst is for transcendence. Transcendence is intimacy with the infinite. Psalm 63 is about the search for transcendence. It says there is irreducible knowledge, there is terrible thirst, and there’s only one resolution for it.  Psalm 63 tells us 1) the human heart needs transcendence and 2) how the human heart can find transcendence. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 26, 1993. Series: Modern Problems; Ancient Solutions. Scripture: Psalm 63. 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.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Our culture places so much faith in empirical reason, technology, and personal experience that it's easy to wonder, does something as old as Christianity have any relevance to the problems of modern life? This month, Tim Keller invites us to consider how Christianity is more relevant than ever in offering answers to the deepest longings of our hearts. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods. With singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me.

They who seek my life will be destroyed. They will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword to become food for jackals. But the king will rejoice in God. All who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced." This is God's word. This psalm is about the search for transcendence, the thirst for transcendence that every human heart experiences.

The first Megatrends book talked about this. It talked about the fact that science and technology, which tried to reduce everything to commodity, which tried to explain everything and reduce everything to natural causes and natural components, had created a kind of spiritual desert, the book said, a dry and weary land. And as a result of that, as a result,

there was going to be a tremendous reaction in the direction of religion. Theodore Roszak was a guy who wrote in the 1960s the book, The Making of the Counterculture. And if any of you were around then, if you were adults then, some of you were, some of you weren't, you might remember that book. He wrote another book in the 1970s though called Where the Wasteland Ends, Politics and Transcendence in a Post-Industrial Age.

That's the name of the book and it's not a very well-known book but I tell you it was a profoundly prophetic book because in it he said just like as I mentioned in the megatrend books Western culture and Western scientific secular culture has done everything it can to try to commodify everything he said and break everything down into natural components and things that used to be mysterious and awesome and supernatural, now are explained away. And Roszak warned in the book, and he said this, however, there is, he said, quote,

there is an irreducible knowledge in us that reality is awesomely vast, that it has a transcendent dimension, a metaphysical supernatural dimension to it. You hear that? There is an irreducible knowledge in us that reality is awesomely vast, that it has a transcendent dimension, a metaphysical supernatural reality. And he went on to say, if you try to deny that thirst for transcendence, if you try

to deny that thirst, if you try to eradicate it, if you try to suppress it, it's like putting a cork in Old Faithful. Now, you know, if you put a cork in Old Faithful, you have not heard the last of Old Faithful. I mean, if you put a cork in its normal outlet, it's going to have to erupt in all kinds of crazy places, in all kinds of crazy, even violent ways. And if you don't understand that insight, you will not be able to understand what's happening in the modern world today. What is happening is that technology and science and all the efforts on the part of the knowledge

elites to say, you don't need God anymore, try to put a cork in the top, you might say of old faithful, and it is bursting out in all sorts of ways, there is a thirst in the human heart for transcendence that will not be denied. It cannot be denied. Now, we don't have to go to Theodore Roszak to understand that. We can go to the Psalms, and this Psalm in particular. And this Psalm tells us about that inconsolable, irreducible knowledge that we need to be connected to the infinite. Do you know what transcendence is? Transcendence is intimacy with the infinite.

And therefore, this thirst for transcendence, the rosax says, cannot go away. And that this psalm says is fundamental to the human heart. this thirst for transcendence, the rosax says, cannot go away. And that this psalm says is fundamental to the human heart has its only resolution right here. This psalm says there is that irreducible knowledge, there is that terrible thirst, and there's only one resolution for it. So let's take a look and see what the psalm actually says about this. I'll just break down the message of Psalm 63 into two parts.

First, it tells us that the human heart needs transcendence. And then secondly, it tells us how the human heart can find transcendence. That it needs it, how it finds it. Number one. Now, I don't have to press this but too long, but we want to go at this a little bit. This is an extremely important biblical teaching. The human heart needs transcendence.

It needs to be connected to something greater than itself. It needs intimacy with the infinite. It says right here in verse one, oh God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land in which there is no water. Now when the psalmist says my soul thirsts and my body longs, that's a typical Hebrew redundancy

which is trying to say my entire being cries out for connection to God. This is not, the psalmist is not saying, well, it's hard for me to account for reality unless there is a God. He's not saying I need a God hypothesis to account for what I see out there. This is not a matter of reasoning. He is saying, and this is the best way to put it,

he says, I find in myself a need for transcendence as primal and as elemental as my physical body has a primal and elemental need for water in a desert. He says, I need, my soul needs transcendence like my body needs water. It is as deep a drive as that. I don't know if any of you have ever been in a situation where you really were deprived of water for a long time.

Did you have, have you ever been in a situation where you didn't have water for hours in terrible heat? Do you know what actually happens? It's just like this. Your soul and your body cry out. Psychologically and physically, you go crazy. Psychologically, you start to see everywhere water. You have mirages, you have hallucinations, you see it where it's not. You find it everywhere, even though it's not there. And your body goes crazy even when it gets near even a little bit of moisture, even just grubs, and you'll start to grab hold of horrible things that you would never think of putting

in your mouth, but now you almost have to. The psalmist is saying that the human need for a connection with the infinite, a human need for that which is beyond the natural, beyond the physical, the metaphysical, the human thirst for transcendence, is that irreducible. Now, you know in the early part of the 20th century, we have to bring this out because it's a very important point. In the early part of the 20th century, most of the experts, and you can go back and read those books, most of the experts said that in a country or a culture in which science would advance and technology would advance, religion will diminish, religion will erode. And the reason they always said was because when human beings see nature as being kind of

overwhelming and uncontrollable then they need God. But as science whittles nature down to size, as science takes us and shows us that nature isn't as mysterious as we thought, that nature isn't as uncontrollable and as overwhelming as we thought, when all that happens then there'll be less and less of a need for God. And so all the experts predicted that there wouldn't be much of a need for religion, and religion would diminish in those countries, in those societies. Now, do you see the hidden assumption in the heart of that so-called objective prediction. The assumption is that the thirst for transcendence is really a kind of primitive response to

helplessness. As long as human beings feel helpless, as long as they don't understand their surroundings, they will need God. But as soon as they come to understand their surroundings, they understand what lightning is, they understand what thunder is, They understand how the physical body works. They won't need God. That was the assumption. And here's what's so amazing. To the absolute horror and shock of all kinds of experts, the opposite has happened. Just like Rosach said it would, the more we've explained things,

the more technological we've gotten, the more technological we've gotten, the more scientific we've gotten, the more we have tried to say, we can explain everything by natural causes. Instead of that thirst for transcendence going out, it's been aggravated. It's gotten stronger. There's not an anthropologist, psychologist, sociologist who would disagree with that right now. They don't understand it, but they're realizing

that there's an incredible religiosity about the human race. Unbelievable. Take a look at the New Age Movement, for example. Who would have thought 50 years ago that there would be an explosion in a modern scientific culture, an explosion of reincarnation, an explosion in the belief of reincarnation, in the resurrection of witchcraft, of paganism, of astral projection, of all sorts of pantheistic meditation, of astrology, of spirit channeling.

Who would have thought fifty years ago, everybody said, that'll just die out. It's growing as fast as possible. Alvin Toffler said, probably since 1945, since the end of World War II, there have been at least a thousand new religions, not churches, new religions started in this country, in the United States.

The Economist, which is a very, very well-known and respected British weekly, the Economist in 1980 ran an article in which it said that in Britain alone, from the end of World War II, there had been at least 800 new religions started. And in the article it said, there is an enormous groping for new forms of spiritual experience. The current wave of new religions results from the repression of transcendence

in the modern consciousness. You see that? Wait a minute. The experts said that the reason there's a thirst for transcendence was simply because, you know, human beings couldn't control their environment. But you see, the more we control our environment, the more we're told that there really isn't anything beyond the physical, there really isn't anything

beyond the natural. The more we find in ourselves an irreducible knowledge that reality is awesomely vast, and that there's a dimension beyond the natural, it's amazing. Take a look at the environmental movement. Very, very popular and growing rapidly. And yet, if you get involved in the environmental movement,

you're immediately struck by the religious nature of the language. It's amazing. And one prominent leader in the environmental movement wrote this. We need to worship something, he said. But in order to worship worship you have to find something outside yourself and better than yourself. Many of us are falling in love with the environment in lieu of having fallen out of love with God.

What do you think he's saying? Don't you see what he's saying? There's a thirst for transcendence. And one of the great ironies, one of the great ironies, in the 1950s, Time Life, oh it wasn't Time Life, Life Magazine put out a series, a very important series called The World's Great Religions. It was a series of articles that was made into a book. And you can still find the book in a lot of libraries. And I took it out recently and read it and it was amazing.

Essentially it had this opinion, you could see it, it was very much informing the authors' writings. And the authors were saying, well, you know, most of the world's great religions are diminishing, but that's to be expected, because in a scientific age, people are gonna feel less and less need for religion. They're gonna feel less and less need for the supernatural.

Now you know, there have been a lot of churches in this country that bought into what they said in that Life Magazine series, or what the people behind that were saying. They were saying modern human beings don't have the same thirst for transcendence anymore. So we need to sort of strip ourselves of all the supernatural elements. So the Bible is a nice book, but it's not the authoritative Word of God through the prophets and the prophetic authors. And Jesus was a very, very good and great man, but he's not the pre-existent second person of the Trinity born of a virgin. And being a Christian means to be a very good

person living a life of justice and compassion. But being a Christian doesn't mean that you're miraculously born again through some kind of mysterious and wonderful conversion experience. Oh no, nobody will buy that anymore, they said. So let's get rid of all that kind of talk. And you know what the irony is today? The churches that are dying are the ones that decided people just wouldn't buy that anymore. They're the ones that are dying. They're the ones that are dying. They're the ones

that are empty. Such is the thirst for transcendence. There is a primal elemental need for connection with the infant in the human heart as primal as elemental as the body's need for water in a desert. And you can argue all you want about whether God exists or not. That's not the point of this passage. That's not the point of this psalm. That's not the point of this sermon. I'm not trying to talk about whether God exists or not. I'm trying to say that there is no way we can get rid of the human drive for God. And that whenever people think they understood why we had that great thirst for transcendence, we find that there's no way it can be eradicated.

The Bible actually says the reason for it is because you were built for him. By him, for him. So the first thing we learn here, and it's a critical thing, is the heart needs transcendence. You can't live without transcendence. Some of you are dying on the vine for a lack of it. Secondly, the second thing the text tells us, and our second point is this. It not only tells us that the human heart needs transcendence, it tells us how the human heart finds transcendence, how it can find transcendence. And let me, before I tell you what the passage tells us, it gives us three steps,

or three steps, that's not the right word, but three principles for how to find and experience the transcendence of God. And the, I must have two microphones on here. Yeah, I did. Now that's overkill, isn't it? Trying to figure out why I was doing that. Some of you are saying, well, I'm a Christian.

I have faith in Christ. I've received Christ as Savior, so I have a relationship with a transcendent God. That doesn't necessarily mean that you really are experiencing the transcendence of God as the human heart needs it. A lot of Christians have their little doctrines. You know, I believe my doctrine, and I have my doctrine all in order, and there it is.

Great. And then you have your morality. I have all of these things that I do, and this is my biblical Christian lifestyle, and I do it. Fine. But have you got transcendence? Have you experienced the transcendence of God? Does your soul cling to Him? Do you see His power and glory?

Do you experience His love? Or do you just have a smug little evangelicalism? You know, here's my Born Again certificate. I know I'm a Christian. Because five years ago I went forward and I did this, and I've got my straight and I got my morality straight. Do you know him? Your heart can't live without him. You can't. Well there's three things here that we're told and I'll just go through them fairly briefly, you know, and if you need me to pull it out which you always seem to do and I'm glad that's why at four o'clock you can go down and say tell me more about that. But here's the three principles, and they're very important.

If you want to experience the transcendence of God in your life, you must do or have understand these three principles. Number one, first of all, you've got to put knowing God, knowing the transcendent God, as an end in itself. It's got to be your highest priority. You'll never have the transcendence, you'll never experience the transcendent God as an end in itself. It's gotta be your highest priority. You'll never have the transcendence, you'll never experience the transcendence of God if it's a means to an end. It must be an end in itself.

Where do I see that? David says, thy steadfast love is better than life. I know in the modern translation we printed the bullet and it doesn't say it, it just says your love is better than life. In the old authorized version it says thy steadfast love is better than life. And that is a remarkable statement under the circumstances. What are the circumstances? Well, if you open, when you open your Bibles you will very often see headings at the top of the Psalms. At the top of Psalm 63 it says, a Psalm of David when he was in the desert of Judah.

Do you know when he was in the desert? His son Absalom was trying to take the kingship. His son had raised an army. His son had chased David into the desert. His son was trying to kill him to get the kingship. His life was at stake. trying to kill him to get the kingship. His life was at stake. So David comes to God and he begins to pray. And what does he say?

He doesn't say the expected. He doesn't say, oh Lord, I need strength so that I can have my life saved. I want you to give me a safe life. Oh Lord, I've done my duty. I've been a good king. I've done many, many things. Now I have this request. Give me my life. Save my life." He doesn't say that. He says, show me your love because your love is better than life. Do you see what's going on here? It's profound.

Why does God allow suffering in the world? How can one religion be right and the other is wrong? Has science basically disproved Christianity? Tim Keller addresses these questions and more in his book, The Reason for God. Drawing on literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and potent reasoning, this book will challenge you to gain a deeper understanding of the Christian faith, whether you're a believer seeking reassurance or you're reading it with a friend who is searching for answers. When you give to Gospel in Life during the month of May, we'll send you two copies of

The Reason for God, one for you and one to give to a friend who is exploring Christianity. It's our hope that through reading the book with a friend, you can have conversations about the claims of the Christian faith. The books are our thanks for your support of this ministry. To receive your two copies of The Reason for God, simply make a gift at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. We also encourage you to check out our short podcast series, Questioning Christianity,

for people exploring the claims of the Christian faith. To listen to this short series or share it with a friend, visit Gospelonlife.com slash questioning. That's Gospelonlife.com slash questioning. Your gift helps the message of Christ's love go out all over the world, so thank you for partnering with us, because the gospel truly changes everything. I read in a science magazine just last month, just a magazine I got off of a newsstand,

and I had to buy it because it had an article on how to experience spiritual reality in a seven-day set of exercises. That's what it said. It said, if you want to get in touch with spiritual reality, seven days of exercises will enable you to do it. I opened the book, I opened the thing up. It was an amazing thing. Day five it said, Mother Teresa proves that selfless deeds of good works toward other people will help us experience spiritual reality. So today, don't just throw a quarter

in the homeless person's cup, buy him a meal, give him a blanket, you know, hide a $20 bill in the blanket. Nothing will make you feel more spiritual than if you do a selfless deed of goodness to other people. And I'm sitting there thinking, what is wrong with this picture? How could this be a selfless deed

if the reason you're doing it is so that you feel spiritual? I tell you something, people are continually coming to church, people are continually coming to Christianity saying, my life is falling apart, I need strength. My career is falling down, I need to keep myself sharp. Things are difficult, I need an experience of God

so that I can have the life I want. David doesn't do that. David says, when I have your love, I have my life. Your love is better than life. Your love gives me all the life I want. I have all the honor I want. I have all the safety I want when I know your love. Lord, I just want to see your power and glory.

I want to experience your presence. I want to know your love." That's pretty frightening, because I think if we take a look deep in our hearts, we'll see that there's a great tendency for us to say, I would like to experience God so that I'll be the person that I want to be, so that I'll have the life I want to have. David says, no, no, thy steadfast love is better than life. You will never know the transcendence of God. You will never experience intimacy with the infinite unless you're first willing to say that you are an Indian yourself. Knowing your love and serving you and pleasing you is my highest goal.

You know, it's normal for people, regardless of what they believe, when they get in crisis to pray. And you know what you usually say when you pray because of a crisis? You say, God, if you're there, I'll do anything if you'll just answer this prayer. God, if you're there, I'll do anything if you'll just answer this prayer. God, if you're there, I will do anything if you'll just answer this prayer. And the irony of that kind of prayer, and most all of us in this room have done that

at some time or another, said something like that. Maybe we were little kids at the time, but it's there. God, if you're there, I will do anything if you could answer this prayer. And the irony is that you're not giving him the one thing that he asks. What is the one thing that he asks? He says, I want you to come to me and love me and serve me because of who I am unconditionally, regardless of whether I answer this prayer or not.

And you know, the real irony of the whole thing that the paradox and the glory and the irony of the Christian life is, you get to the end of this psalm and you see David's got all kinds of strength and he has all kinds of, he's ready for a fight, he's ready to take on the enemy, he's ready, he's got the confidence, he's got everything he wants because he didn't start asking for that. He said, I just want to see your power and glory the way I used to back in the temple. Your love is better than life. It is life. That's the first principle and a profound one it is. Secondly, now here's the second thing. So the first thing is you have to

understand that God cannot be a means to an end. He is the end. Knowing His transcendence must be an end in itself. Secondly, the second principle is, you have to realize that in Christ, the transcendence of God, an experience of the transcendent power, glory, and love of God in Christ, is your right. It's your right. Now look, David starts out saying,

Oh God, wherever you are, Oh God, if you're there, Oh great and powerful God, I know that I'm not worthy of you listening to me, but if you could just find it in your heart to listen to me." He doesn't say that. He says, Oh God, you are my God, and everything else in the entire Psalm is predicated on that. He says, Because you are my God, I would like to see your power and glory and love, please." You know how he's acting?

He's acting like a son. Sons don't say, do I have a right to ask my father for something? They just come right in. I happen to know. They never question it. Why? They just know it. You see, the only persons that you call my, you don't even really do it in a marriage.

You know, in the past I've mentioned that this word my tells you that you're so tremendously intimate with somebody. Who would you call my? You might call your wife, I mean, I might call my, but you know, my wife's a grown woman and she doesn't like to be called my Kathy. I mean, I could do it, I can get away with it. I couldn't call many other people that, but I wouldn't do it. But you know, what's the funny thing is how often

you can look at a little boy, your son, and say, my Johnny, and he says, you're my daddy. You know why? The other day I was realizing why we tend to express intimacy between a father and a son with a possessive pronoun. Why can he call me my daddy? I began to realize why the more you think about it.

I'm his daddy because I'm not my own anymore. It's wonderful to have a son, but as soon as you have a son, you've lost your independence. I'm his. My time is his. I have an obligation to him. He's gotta lean on my life.'s got to lean on my life.

He's got to lean on my time. The only way a greater party can enter into an intimate relationship with a lesser party is at infinite cost to the greater party. And that's exactly what the gospel tells you. How is it that in the Bible we're able to call God my God? And that's exactly what the gospel tells you. How is it that in the Bible we're able to call God my God? Think of any other religion, it wouldn't work. The Buddhist doesn't look at the all soul, you know, and say,

this is my force, my all soul. No, think of it in Islam, it would never work. Can you imagine some Muslim saying, my Allah, my Allah, it would never work. Allah isn't something, Allah is not somebody who makes himself obligated to anybody. And yet when Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, and when we receive him as savior, the Bible says, this is the amazing thing, the gospel says this is the staggering thing, you

receive Christ, his righteousness is transferred to your account, and that's why when God looks at you he sees no stain on you, he sees something only holy, and that means he is obligated, he says, I am obligated to give you all the honor and all the welcome and all the love that I would give to my perfect son Jesus Christ. I am yours. You have claims on me. You have a right to my love. You have a right to my heart just like my little boy has. David walks in the front door. God, you are my God. That's why I want this just like my little boy has. David walks in the front door. God, you are my God. That's why I want this transcendence.

Now, let me tell you something. There are a lot of people who are religious, but who think that's incredible, that's impertinent. They would say, what are you talking about? You have a right to the transcendence of God. Of course not. You try your best to live your very best, and then you can come to God. But what's this idea of the right? I don't like that. You may think that's audacious. You may think that's impertinent. Let me just tell you something. You are not a Christian. You may be religious, but you're not a Christian. I know this is harsh. If you don't understand that in Christ you have a right to the power and glory and love of God,

you have never understood the gospel yet. You may have a religion of reverence, but not transcendence. A religion of reverence, you know, you're reverent in a kind of general way, but you still will never receive what David asks for until you know that because Jesus died for you and you've received Jesus Christ, He is your God, my God. You know we sing, hail Abram's God and hail Abram's God and mine, mine. Do you know that? Do you understand that? Do you take hold of that? If you can't, it's because you're coming in your own name saying, I'm a pretty good person, I've lived a pretty good life. God would you do something for me?

See you know better than to say you're my God You don't feel like you have that right you don't feel like you have the you don't have you know You don't feel like you in a sense possess God this actually tells you this God Can be your God? So second principle is you'll never receive the transcendence of God or experience it unless you see that it's your right through Christ. You have a right to it. And lastly, you won't receive the transcendence unless you make it your first priority.

You will not receive and experience the transcendence unless you see it's your right in Jesus Christ. But thirdly, you will not experience the transcendence of God unless you meditate on your bed, remembering Him, seeking Him every morning. Now, what I mean by that is there's a discipline here that David is practicing that many of us, though we have Principle 1 and 2 down, we don't have Principle 3 down, and our life is fairly much of a desert. And I hope Christian friends you listen to this carefully. At the end of the summer, right before Labor Day, I did a sermon or two on this basic subject,

but in the English translation we put in your bulletin, it says, I will remember you on my bed at night. I'm looking down here at these great verses. It says, on my bed I remember you and I think of you through the watches of the night. That second word, think, is usually translated, meditate. It's the word meditate. A lot of Christians say, well, I have my quiet time. I study the Bible so I learn my doctrine and I pray and I ask God for things.

Friends, that's not meditation. That's not your soul clinging to Him. That's not seeing His power and glory. Meditation starts with Bible study because it takes truths from the Bible. And it ends in prayer because it propels you into prayer. But it's really neither, and yet it's both. And until you understand the discipline of it, you're not going to experience the transcendence of God.

What is it? Well, see, he says, early will I seek you. The first thing in the morning, David gets up, and right away he reminds himself, he says to himself, you are a son of God, you are an heir of eternity. God loved you so much that he died for you. Do you do that? That's meditation. Meditation is taking the truths of the Bible, thinking about them, meditating on them, insisting that you think and live and feel through those truths.

I'm a son of the king. Am I living that way? Jesus did this for me. Do I understand that? Do I realize that? That's meditation. It's talking to yourself and it's looking at God through these truths. Do you know how to do that? And if you do it, it's taking these truths and screwing them down into your heart till they catch fire, until your heart starts to melt with them. And then you begin to experience the transcendence of God. Do you know what that means? It means his reality begins to press on you. It means the truths that you're thinking about start to become vivid and real

to you. Do you know what I'm talking about at all? If you don't, you haven't really ever experienced transcendence, the transcendence of God, which your heart needs above everything else. Another way, John Owen used to put it, you know, there's a place in Colossians where it says, set your affections on things which are above. Meditation means you realize that your heart's love, your affections have clung to all sorts of things.

You sit there and you think about what Jesus has done for you. You think about it and you think about it and you think about it until the other things that your love has gripped to, the other things that your soul has clung to, they start to loosen their grip and they come over to Jesus and your soul clings to him. That's what it means to meditate. That's what it means to experience the transcendence of God.

Do you do that? You know, Psalm 62 actually has the audacity to say, give him no rest. Don't give God any rest. Bother him for his transcendence. Go after him. That's exactly what David's saying. Your power and glory and your love, I want it more than anything. My soul clings to you. In

the morning I think about it and I start to seek it. At night on my bed I seek it. All the time I seek it. And by the end of the psalm, he's knee-deep in it. All those who swear by God's name will praise him. The king will rejoice in God. He feels it coming on. Do you understand that? Friends, we read it in the call to worship, Psalm 81, I am the Lord thy God, open your mouth and I will fill it Let's let me conclude this way

If there's anybody here who's very skeptical about all this you say hey, I'm a modern person I don't believe in the miraculous I don't believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. I don't believe this sort of thing I don't believe this sort of thing. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. I hope you can look at your own heart and see that your own heart thirsts for this transcendence. I hope that you'll face the facts that the human heart is built that way and you are no different than other people.

Why are you from Mars? You're not. You're a human being and you need the very same thing. Seek it. And Christian friends, let me just tell you, a lot of you are very busy, very busy. Oh, you've got friends around you that are hurting. You've got a city around you that's hurting.

So you're out there doing all these things. You know what the people around you need more than anything else? They need for you to know God. Zechariah, there's this interesting prophecy in Zechariah. Zechariah 8, it says, in those days it will come to pass that ten men will take hold of the skirt of you, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." You know what that's saying? Do you want to help people? Do you want to spread the gospel? Do you want to reach out and help the people around you? You know what the people around you need more than anything else? They need for you to have the radiance. They need for you to have the calmness. They need for you to have the greatness that comes if you know Him.

They need for you to experience the transcendence of God. That's the best thing you can do for anybody around you. That's what your children need from you, is for you to know God. That's what your parents need from you. That's what your friends need from you. Don't say, how can I help them? How can I help them? Go to the sanctuary. That's what your friends need from you. Don't say, how can I help them? How can I help them?

Go to the sanctuary. Look on his power and glory. Robert Mary McShane was a minister who said, the thing that my people need from me most of all is not great sermons, they need my personal holiness. And that's not just true of ministers. I pray that everybody in this room can know the truth of this and can say this about themselves soon. My soul is satisfied with the riches of foods, and with singing lips my mouth will praise

you. Let's pray. Father, as we go to the Lord's Table, we simply ask that you would help us to know that as your children we have a right to your power, your glory, and your love. Father, some of us in here do not have that right because up to now we haven't understood that we have to come through your Son and receive him as Savior, not in our own goodness, not in our own morality, not in our own religiosity. And I pray if there's anybody here

who needs to come to you through Christ, they will come to you right now. And I pray, Father, for the rest of us, who though in theory we know you, in practice our lives are very barren and very, very much like a desert. I pray that our lives will change. I pray that your knowledge will come in like a flash flood. And I pray that you grant this through Jesus. In His name we pray, Amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can

discover the Gospel in Life podcast. This month's sermons were recorded in 1993. 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.