Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Sickness Unto Death

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

In a fragmented culture like ours, identity formation is a challenge. We decide our own goals and standards, and we get our sense of worth from whether we can achieve them. Jeremiah shows us that there’s something profoundly disordered and sick about the way in which we form our identities. In a traditional culture, where identities and roles are assigned, it might be hard to recognize this. But in our culture, where we’re actively aware of identity formation, we can better see what Jeremiah means. Jeremiah shows us 1) how identities are formed, 2) why our identities are sick, 3) a glimpse of a cured identity, and 4) the medicine that can cure it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 14, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Jeremiah 9:21-26. 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. We live in a culture today where there are competing worldviews about what the purpose of life is, what truth is, and how we can determine what's right and what's wrong. In such an environment, it can be challenging to decide what and whom to believe. Join us today as Tim Keller teaches on how the Bible can help us navigate the complexities of our cultural moment. Thank you for joining us. The scripture is found in Jeremiah 9 verses 21 through 26.

Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses. It has cut off the children from the streets and the young men from the public squares. Say, this is what the Lord declares, the dead bodies of men will lie like refuse on the open field, like cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather them. This is what the Lord says, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, or the strong man boast of his strength, or the rich man boast This is what the Lord. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh, Egypt, Judah, Edom, Amnon, Moab, and all who live in the desert in distant places. For all these nations are really

uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart. I think we said last week that Jeremiah lived in what you could call a fragmented culture. Now, fragmented culture is a culture in which there's no consensus about big questions like what is life for, and who… and what is right and wrong, and what should society be like? That's a fragmented culture rather than a coherent culture in which there's consensus. And we said that we live in a culture like that, and therefore reading the sermons and the preaching and the writings of Jeremiah will be a help to us. Now, last week we said that in a fragmented culture, one of the challenges is how you

form beliefs, because in a coherent culture where everybody believes the same, you grow up and everybody believes the same thing and it just happens to you. And you don't have to think out the issue of belief formation, which means we don't… you don't, in those kind of cultures you don't say, well, why do I believe this? How do I know which belief is true? In a fragmented culture you have to understand belief formation. Now this week, another challenge living in a fragmented culture is identity formation, is how you form your identity. Again, in a coherent culture, a more traditional culture,

a homogeneous culture, your identity is just assigned to you. You grow up and there are certain roles, prescribed roles in the culture. You know, you have father, mother, you know, husband, wife, son, daughter, and you have various roles, and you're assigned to them. You're assigned one. And you get your identity, that is to say, your sense of who you are, your sense of your own value and worth by fitting in and fulfilling the role. Now, in our society, in a fragmented culture, there are no prescribed roles.

You have to decide who you want to be. You have to decide your goals. You have to decide your standards, and then you have to achieve them, and you get your identity. You get your sense of value and worth from whether you can achieve them. Now, I hope nobody gets the impression,

I hope you didn't get it last week, but I'm certainly gonna try to set you straight this week, that I think necessarily it's better to be a Christian in a coherent culture versus a fragmented culture. I would say that if you want to be a spiritually alive, spiritually vital person, both cultures provide rather equal kinds of challenges, they're just different. And in this case, however, I would have to say that it might be an advantage to living in a fragmented culture because Jeremiah is going to show us that there is something profoundly disordered and sick about the way in which we form our identities. There's something automatically profoundly disordered and sick about it.

And in a traditional culture where identity formation actually isn't even something you think about, it just sort of automatically happens, you may not be as quick to pick it up. You may not be able to see it. You may not be able to do anything about it. Whereas in a fragmented culture where identity formation is something that you actually are more overtly involved with, you can. Jeremiah is going to show us in this fairly brief passage,

at least compared to some of the other passages we've been looking at, four things. He's gonna show us how identities are formed, why our identities are sick. He's gonna give us a glimpse of a cured identity and tell us the medicine that can do it. How identities are formed, why there's something wrong or disordered and sick about them. A glimpse at a cured identity and the medicine that can do it.

Number one, how identities are formed. And that we see in this famous verse 23. Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, let not the strong man boast of his wisdom, let not the strong man boast of his strength, let not the rich man boast of his riches. Now there's a verb over and over again that's used in each one of those phrases, and it's a very interesting Hebrew word. It's not the word I would have thought until I studied it, not the word probably anybody would have thought.

It's the word hallelu. Now you all know, no matter who you are, what the Hebrew word hallelu means. Hallelujah means praise the Lord, Yahweh. Hallelu simply means praise, just praise. Now that's interesting. If the verb hallelu was used in a sentence in its ordinary form, it would be saying, don't praise wisdom, don't praise wealth, don't praise riches, don't give praise to wisdom, don't give praise to wealth, don't give praise to wisdom. But it's a reflexive form. The verb is a reflexive form.

And not to get you too confused, but a reflexive form is action within or upon the self. And therefore, the translators aren't quite sure what to do with it. This translation calls it boasting. The Old King James Bible calls it glorying in. Let not the rich man glory in his riches. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Maybe you've heard it that way.

But let me just tell you what it's literally saying. It's saying, don't try to get praise from your wisdom. Don't try to get praise from your riches. Don't try to get praise from your might. In other words, what all the people in verse 23 are trying to do is they're trying to find a way to get applause, acclaim, accolades, approval. They want thunderous applause deep in their heart. In other words, every person in verse 23 is saying, I am praiseworthy, I am loveworthy, I am important, I am valuable, I'm significant because I have that. That's

identity. I am somebody, I'm not nobody because I have that. But what is the that? It's different things. But how does it give you your identity? It gives you praise. You need praise. What do you mean by that? I know that sounds weird, but let me just make my case. We know some people who are hams. They seem to need literal applause. But maybe they're just the ones who are more overt and maybe they're just more honest. Kathy and I have a CD of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, being performed by a whole orchestra, but also Yo-Yo Ma, Yitzhak Perlman, Daniel Berenbaum. And it is, we play it in our car on vacation as loud as the speakers and our ears can take.

But to me, one of the most thrilling parts of it is what happens when it's over. It is a tremendous performance. It is a tremendous performance. It is a great performance. It is a terrific performance. And as a result, as soon as the last note is hit, the people who'd made the recording allowed a very long amount of the thunderous applause that happened immediately. As soon as they're done, people must have leapt to their feet. There was wild applause, there was thunderous applause, and more than applause, they were

yelling, they were crying, hallelujah. No, they weren't crying, hallelujah. That's a different culture, but they were doing this. This is what they were doing. Just another way. In other words, when an audience listens to a performance, there are several ways an audience can give a verdict. One is by booing and jeering.

One is by stony silence. But one is by thunderous applause, wild applause, acclaim. Do you have the courage and the humility and the psychological insight to recognize that every one of us wants that? Every one of us wants applause, acclaim, accolades, thunderous, wild praise. Every one of us in our innermost being needs an inner applause going on. We need that. Do you recognize that? Do you see that? See, that's what they're trying to get. Every single human being is trying to get an identity by finding some way to perform

in a way so that they get this inner applause. That's how identities are formed. That's how they come together. Do you recognize that? You say, I know certain hammy type people, you know, kind of exhibitionists that need that. Maybe they're just the more overt ones. Maybe they're just the more honest ones. So that's how identities are formed.

Now secondly, Jeremiah is also trying to show us that there's something very disordered and sick about the way we form our identities. You see that by looking at the first two verses. Now look, some of you, if you were ever raised in a church and you ever went to Sunday school, you know that these verses 23 and 24 are very famous, right? They're very well known. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might.

They're, you know, they're eloquent. And many people, many churches have had kids memorize verses 23 and 24. But you know what? That's just, that's not the whole passage. Why don't they start with verse 21? Why don't you send little Johnny and Suzy home, five-year-old Johnny and Suzy home, and say, Mommy, I have my memory verse from Jeremiah 9,

let me tell it to you. Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses. It has cut off the children from the streets. That's the context. Let me keep going on. The dead bodies of men will lie like refuse on the open field, like cut grain behind the reaper,

with no one to gather them. What's that? Then God says, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Why? Why is that the context? The fragmented society of Jeremiah eventually completely unraveled because the professional classes trampled on the lower classes, and double-crossed their more powerful neighbors Egypt and Babylonia until they were sacked, they were invaded, they were, they

were, and literally this happened. This is a prediction of what was going to happen. The society was going to completely collapse, there were going to be so many dead bodies out there, there wouldn't be enough live people to bury them. And at that point when God says, that's what's going to happen, then he says, let not the wise man go in his wisdom, let not the mighty man, why? What is he saying? Here's what he's saying. Why did the professional classes of Israel become so ravenous for more and more power,

more and more wealth, more and more. Why? Why do they need more and more and more to get the praise, the inner applause of their heart? What God is saying is the reason that all this awful stuff happened was because of the way in which identities are formed. Because when you try to get that inner applause, that acclaim, that thunderous wild praise that your heart desperately wants, if you admit it, we go to places and we try to get it from places that don't satisfy. Now, the person who has thought longest and hardest about the connection between verses 21, 22, 23, and 24 is Søren Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher, and the only book he ever wrote

that I found it possible to understand is his book, The Sickness unto Death. But it's actually an extremely important book because in it, Kierkegaard gives us a definition of sin that is both modern and biblical, and that's not easy. Here's how he defines sin. Actually, here's how he defines it. He says, faith is when the self wants to be itself, grounded transparently in God. Sin is trying to become a self without God. And when you do that, he says, quote, your identity is like a king without a country or one who has subjects who could desert him at any moment. Now what's he saying? He's saying this.

If you build your identity on any created thing, you have a radically unstable identity. If you try to get your applause, if you try to get your praise, if you try to get that accolade that you're looking for, from any created thing, your self-image, your self-regard, your self-confidence is always hanging by a thread. Always by a thread. Let me, you know why? You can never be satisfied. Or put it, listen, some of you are real performers, you're musicians, actors, some of you are.

And you know, some of you might have actually had this happen to you. It's possible that you might have actually had this happen to you. It's possible that you may have actually performed and people leapt to their feet and they shouted their hosannas as it were and they went bravo and they clapped and they applauded and if you've ever been the object of a standing ovation, that kind of incredible applause, you'll know two things. Number one, that you really want this deeply, deeply, deeply. And number two, the other thing you know if that's ever happened to you, is to your shock, it doesn't last. To your shock,

listen, outer applause never translates into permanent inner applause. What do I mean by that? Outer applause never translates into an absolute certainty that you are praiseworthy, that you are loveworthy. You never get... The outer applause never becomes that permanent, you see, stick. It doesn't stick. It doesn't sink in. It doesn't become that permanent permanent applause you're looking for.

Because all the outer applause in the world on Wednesday, by Monday you're saying, now what am I going to do next? You can throw all the outer applause possible into your ego, and it's never enough. And you know what that tells us? There is something wrong with us. There is something really wrong with us.

Well, let me give you my example. Look, your body parts never call attention to themselves unless there's something wrong with them, right? For example, I did not come tonight saying, wow, my elbows are really working great. Look, look, every time just back and forth, I can just keep it up, my elbows are working fine. If you heard somebody talking about how well their elbows were working, you would assume rightly that there had been something wrong with them. Because you don't notice your elbows working right if they're working right.

If that's the case then there must be something incredibly wrong with your identity, something incredibly wrong with your ego, something incredibly wrong with your self-image, because you're always noticing how you look, how you're being treated, whether you're being respected or not respected. You can't walk by a mirror without either admiring it or cringing, but in other words, you draw attention to yourself. The ego is constantly drawing attention to yourself. Why do you feel snubbed? Why do you always get your feelings hurt?

There's nothing wrong with your feelings, by the way. It's your ego that's getting hurt. Your feelings are fine. Okay? Why? How could that be? Because there is something wrong with your identity or you wouldn't be calling attention to yourself.

You wouldn't notice it otherwise. Your ego. And you know the reason why? Every human heart, we said, is seeking a claim, a verdict, for a great performance. But you know the problem with life is, the verdict is never in

because the performance is never over. The verdict is never in because the performance is never over. No matter how much applause you get on Wednesday, it's just, oh my gosh, I need to do, it's not enough, I need to do better. You know, now they're going to want to see something else. The worst thing possible could be if a critic writes, this is a great young talent, we can't wait to see what this person brings next month, next year. Oh my God, there's nothing worse than, there is no more crushing thing than potential. To be told you have

potential is just a, oh my, now how are you going to, well, wasn't that praise? What's wrong? Outer praise never translates into the inner praise. Outer applause never translates into the inner applause that we need. The permanent, settled certainty that we are praiseworthy, loveworthy. And there is something radically wrong therefore with our egos. The verdict is never in because the performance is never over. So, we see that too. Okay? So first we see from this passage how identities are formed. And secondly we see why they're sick. Now thirdly we get a glimpse at a cured identity. Because Jeremiah now begins to show us something that is really, really quite remarkable. I hope I, trouble is the verses are kind of eloquent and inspirational and familiar and

you may not notice it. In the top of verse 24 he says, but let him who boasts, boast about this, that he understands and knows me. Now this is very interesting, oh my. You know that traditional cultures have always believed that the reason that there's crime and oppression and violence and injustice is because some people have too high a regard for themselves. They have too high a regard for their interests and their desires and their abilities.

That's why they trample on people. But do you know that in our culture, all of our public schools, most of our private schools, all of our popular culture is based on the idea that people do crime and they do injustice and they do violence because they have too low self-regard. Isn't that amazing? Utterly opposite analysis of the problem. Now in traditional cultures, even today, and in historically traditional cultures, therefore boasting, self-promotion, look how great I am, That was always something that was seen as unseemly. Oh no, you kept your eyes down, right?

There's many traditional cultures today that you don't look people in the eye. You keep your eyes down. If you look at ancient documents, ancient letters, they almost always end, you're most unworthy servant. You always say sincerely. We wouldn't say you're most unworthy of service. Why? Because we don't think the problem is too high self-regard, too high self-esteem.

We think the problem is too low self-esteem. Who's right? Neither. And Jeremiah shows us. How can we understand the meaning of life's milestones through the lens of the gospel? In the How to Find God series, Tim Keller offers three short books on birth, marriage, and death that will help you understand the meaning of these milestones

within God's vision of life with biblical insight for how the scripture teaches us to face each one. These books of pastoral care are designed for specific life situations you or someone you know will go through. When you give to gospel in life during the month of April, we'll send you the How to Find God series as our thanks for your support of this ministry. To receive this short three-book set, simply make a gift at gospelonlife.com slash give.

That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Your gift helps us share the message of Christ's love all over the world. So thank you for partnering with us because the gospel truly changes everything. First of all, Jeremiah says, let not the wise man boast in his riches. He says the old way, this approach to identity formation leads to death,

leads to psychological and social death. So he gives us another one and look at it. First of all, he says, what? Does he say, therefore, if you follow God, no boasting? No. Look what he says, let him who boasts, boast. That's amazing. This is written in a hierarchical culture where everyone was always keeping their eyes down and where everyone was always saying, you're most unworthy servant, you're most unworthy servant. you're most unworthy servant. But what does he say? First of all, he says, let him who boasts boast.

Jeremiah says, I can give you that confidence. I can give you that boldness. I can give you that. I can give you a head held high. I can give you that applause. I can give you that absolute certainty. But notice where it comes from. Here's where he goes off the map. On the one hand he says, let him who boasts boast. But notice, if you go through the rest of the sentence, all of the possessive pronouns, all of the possessive adjectives are gone.

Because you see above it says, where were these other people getting their praise? From your riches, from your wisdom, from your might. But Jeremiah says, God can give you an identity filled with boldness, but it is not tied in any way to your anything, to your performance, to your possessions. It's not tied to your anything.

Shockingly, what he's saying is, I can give you that verdict, I can give you that acclaim, but it's not tied to your performance at all. How could that be? That's astounding. That's neither high self-esteem or low self-esteem. Now, how could it be? St. Paul shows us because sometimes the things that are explicit, pardon me, implicit in the Old Testament become more explicit in the New. And one of the things that's fascinating is to see how Paul loved these two verses, Jeremiah 9, 23, and 24. He loved them. He quotes them in 1 Corinthians 1. He rephrases them as the climax of Galatians.

I'll get to that in a second. But most importantly, when we see Paul talking about his own self, you'll see that Paul inhabits, do you hear that word? Paul inhabits the radical new off-the-map self-image identity that Jeremiah says is possible. Jeremiah says if you know God, God can give you this utterly different and utterly new kind of self-image. Now where do you see it in Paul? In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul makes a little statement, just a couple sentences, but it shows all of this. In 1 Corinthians 4, he says, I care very little if I am judged by you

or by any human court. Indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It's the Lord who judges me. Now listen. On the one hand, Paul says, I don't care if I'm judged by you or any human being. In other words, he says, I don't care what you think of my performance. I don't care about your verdict on my performance. I don't care about any human being's verdict on my performance. Is that a man with low self-esteem? No, indeed. Paul had enormous confidence. You can read it in his life. He had incredible confidence. Well, where did he get it? Well, somebody says, obviously,

if he doesn't care what anybody else thinks, if he's not getting his confidence from other people's verdicts on his performance, it must be that he only cares what he thinks. He only cares what he thinks. That's the modern approach. We today do not know how to heal low self-esteem without high self-esteem. Or put it this way, we don't know how to deal with the inadequacy of other applause without saying, let's try self-applauds. We don't know how to heal somebody who's so worried about what everybody else thinks without saying, don't worry what other people think, all that should matter is what you think.

Don't worry about their verdicts on your performance, All that should matter is what you think of your performance. Now let me say that that doesn't work. It doesn't work. It's not logical. Think about it. First of all, how could it help to change from what other people think about your performance to what you think about your performance unless you have lower standards?

And all of that makes me feel better about myself. I'm a person with lower standards. And oh, that makes me feel better about myself. I'm a person with lower standards. That's the reason I'm happy. Years ago, when I was very discouraged and depressed, when I was in grad school, I went to a counselor, and the counselor said, you need to feel better about yourself. I said, okay, how do we do that?

He says, well, I want you to try and exercise. What do you like to do? I said, I, how do we do that? He says, well, I want you to try an exercise. What do you like to do? I said, I play a trumpet. He says, fine, I want you to imagine yourself becoming solo trumpet in the best symphony orchestra and having this great concert and playing a solo that brings everyone to their feet. Applause! So just think about that. It'll just make you feel better. I thought about it and every time I thought about it, it made me feel worse and worse because I could never do that. I was terrible at auditions, I could never be a solo trumpet player, I could never do that.

And the more I thought about how great it would be if I did it, the more I realized I could never do it. You see, because my standards are at least as high as other people's standards, self-applauds was no help. If I said, I don't care what you think, all that matters is what I think, well, I think more than what they think. It didn't work. And if it would have worked, what happens if you actually get somebody to say, I don't care what you think, I only care what I think. I have my own standards and I live up to them. Do you realize what that does? Does that make you a better person? There's an anecdote from the life of Winston Churchill. I don't know if it's true or not, but it was just in the... I read it before and it was also in the HBO movie about his life recently with Albert Finney. And it goes like this.

There was a... Yeah. He had an argument with his valet and he said to his valet, you were kind of rude with me. And the valet said, but sir, you were first rude with me. And instead of apologizing, Winston Churchill just turned and walked away. But as he walked away, he was heard by the valet to say, yes, but I'm a great man. You were rude, I was rude, but I don't have to apologize because I'm a great man. What happens when you say, I don't care what you think, I only care what I think? Either you will be absolutely devastated because you can't live up to your own

standards, or you'll be twisted into a pretty mean-spirited and awful, disdainful person because you can. So when Paul says, I don't care what you think, he doesn't get that incredible confidence and boldness by saying, I only care what I think. No, you heard me. What he says in 1 Corinthians 4 is, I care very little if I'm judged by you or any human court. Indeed, I don't even judge myself. Now that is off the map. He does not have low self-esteem,

but he does not have high self-esteem. You know what he's saying? He says, I don't care what you think of my performance, but I have learned that I don't care what I think either. I don't care about your opinion about me. I don't care about my opinion about me. I don't care what I think either. I don't care about your opinion about me. I don't care about my opinion about me. I don't care what you think of me. I don't care what I think of me. That's the trick. That's the trick. That's the reason why this is... Here's a man who doesn't have low self-esteem or high self-esteem really. He is not looking

to outer applause, but he's not trying self-applauds. What has he got? What does he say? He says, it's the Lord's opinion of me. In other words, he says, now, and this is really going to, this is hard to believe. He says, let me tell you what you need. Let me tell you what you've got to have inside. Not outer applause, not self-applauds.

You need the applause of God. Let me tell you what you've got to have inside, not outer applause, not self-applauds. You need the applause of God. Not just His pardon. You need to know the thunderous, wild praise of God, the delight of God, the acclaim of God, the approval of God. That's the only thing that will fill that ego so you don't even notice it anymore. That is the only thing that will give you that permanent inner applause that you're looking for so that you're utterly certain that you're praiseworthy, utterly certain that you're loveworthy,

not trying to work on it all the time, not desperate for it. That's it. Well, you say, that's wild. How, you say that's wild. How do you get that? And Jeremiah tells us, he says, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, of strength or riches, but let him who boasts boast about this,

that he understands and knows me. Now, first of all, he's saying that he doesn't just understand, but he knows me. Not just knows about God, not just knows a lot of things about God, but has a relationship with God. So he says, I can give you this self-image that's off the map if you know me personally. But he doesn't just say God, he doesn't just say me.

He goes on and says that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth. Wow. Kindness, righteousness, and justice in the earth. Now, in light of what we just said about how we form identity as a verdict, looking for the verdict on the basis of a performance, that's a pretty threatening statement. The justice of God, the righteousness of God, who in the world can live up to that? Nobody can. And yet God has the audacity to make the first adjective in the list of attributes,

kindness. And it's not just a general kindness, it's the Hebrew word kesev, which has a very specific meaning. It means unfailing love, covenantal love, unconditional committed love. And that's an astounding statement now. What God is saying is, do you want to boast? Do you want boldness? Do you want confidence?

I can give you absolute acclaim and applause and approval apart from your performance, in spite of your performance. Even though you can't possibly live up to my justice, you can't possibly live up to those kinds of standards, I can give you the verdict you've always wanted, apart from your performance. I'm going to snip the connection between how you're doing today and your self-regard.

I'm going to cut it. So it can't affect you. That's the kind of confidence I can give you. I can give you my praise, my applause, my approval, my acclaim. That's incredible. C.S. Lewis writes about this in his great essay, or sermon actually, The Weight of Glory, where he says, When I began to look into this matter, I was shocked to find such different Christians as Milton and Thomas Aquinas taking glory of heaven to mean fame with God. Let me read this carefully and slowly. Approval or even the divine accolade. I am not forgetting how horribly the innocent desire

to please and get praise from those whom it was my duty to please turned into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thought I could detect a moment—a very, very short moment—as a child, before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved was pure. And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what might happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then.

She will be free from that miserable illusion that it is her doing, that is her doing, with no taint of what we would call self-approval. She will rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment that heals her old inferiority complex forever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero's book. The divine accolade, the divine applause, thunderous, wild praise from God. C.S. Lewis says, that is what you're after. That's what you need. Well, you say, how could that be? A verdict apart from your performance, despite your performance, how could that be? Paul says it. at the end of Galatians chapter 6, at the end of the book, Paul summarizes everything he's saying about the gospel in a single phrase, and it is a rephrase of Jeremiah 9, 23, and 24.

Here's what he says, God forbid that I should boast, except in the cross of Christ. God forbid that I should boast, except you can boast, boast in the cross. Why would that do it? This is the, listen, I can't be more practical than when I am being right here. I can't be more practical than this verse. What happened at the end of Jesus' life? The greatest somebody in history became a nobody. The one person whose life deserved absolute applause was mocked, was jeered, was spat on, and was rejected even by God. Why? 2 Corinthians 5.21, God made him sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

And what does that mean? On the cross, Jesus Christ got the verdict that our performance deserves. Deep in his heart he heard, depart from me, you cursed into everlasting fire, so that when we embrace him by faith, we can hear deep in our souls, well done good and faithful servant. Well done, what do you mean? What did we do? The point is, Jesus got the verdict

that our performance deserves, so we can get the verdict, the applause, the praise praise that his performance deserves. And if that boggles your mind, let's just take it down to this. When Paul says, boast in the cross, that is the key to this radical new self-image. Here's how it would happen. Imagine Abraham. Remember Abraham?

He takes Isaac to the top of the mountain. He's about to raise the dagger and God speaks and says, Abraham, now I know that you love me, for you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me. But do you realize that if you could have brought Abraham to the cross and he would have looked at the cross, you know what he would have said? He would have said to God, Now I know that you love me, for you did not withhold your only son from me. The more you boast in the cross, Abraham, in other words, look at the courage of God, look at the love of God, look at what he's done for me. The more you boast in the cross, Abraham in other words, look at the courage of God,

look at the love of God, look at what he's done for me. The more you boast at what he's done for you, the more you're amazed at what he's done for you, the more you brag about what he's done for you, the more you'll realize how valuable you are. Here's the irony. The more you boast about him, the more you applaud him, the more you acclaim and praise him for what he did for you, the more you'll see how absolutely he loves you. If you just say, oh, I believe God loves me, that will not transform your identity. You have to boast in the cross. You have to boast in the cross. And to the degree you do that, you'll move beyond low self-esteem or high self-esteem.

Oh, absolutely. You'll finally have an ego like your elbow. If your elbow's working okay, you won't even think about it. See, if you are so absolutely and completely sure of the very applause of God, who cares what anybody thinks? Who cares what somebody snubbed you? It won't even bother you. Don't you want to become the kind of person who's that you. Don't you want to become the kind of person who's that free?

Don't you want to become the kind of person who doesn't need honor and isn't afraid of it? Don't you want to become the kind of person who, when you look into the mirror, you don't admire or cringe and you're not always looking? Don't you want to be kind of the kind of... Listen, if you're not sure of who you are, if you're not utterly sure that you're praiseworthy, loveworthy, either when criticism comes you're devastated because your performance is what's determining your self-regard. You're either

devastated or else you say, oh no, that's stupid, such stupid criticism, I hate that person, that person doesn't know what he's talking about. You either be devastated or else you say, oh no, that's stupid, such stupid criticism, I hate that person, that person doesn't know what he's talking about. You either be devastated by criticism if you have low self-esteem or you'll be disdainful of criticism if you have high self-esteem. But what if you have such certainty that you're beyond self-esteem one way or the other? Then you'll be not devastated by criticism but you can listen to it, you can learn from it, you don't have to write it off, you don't have to disdain it. Don't you want that kind of freedom? Paul says it's available. The Bible says it's available. C.S. Lewis ends his time on the weight of

glory like this. It is written, we shall stand before him. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that any of us who really choose shall please God, to please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in her work, or as a father delights in his son. It seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain, but so it is. It means good report with God, acceptance, response, acknowledgement and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open to us at last. What do you think Christianity is? Do you think it's a set of doctrines if you believe or a set of rules if you follow that God will let you into heaven? Don't you see? It's

so comprehensive. It's a whole other way of being a self in the world. And that's the meaning of these last two verses. It's shocking for God to say that Israel, you have uncircumcised hearts, even though you have circumcised flesh. You know what he's saying? He's saying rituals don't matter, ultimately. Externals don't matter.

Religious observances don't matter. You need the new birth. You need to be circumcised in the heart. You need the Holy Spirit to come in and illumine you that Christianity is something more than just a set of things you have to do in order for God to take you to heaven. It's a whole new way of being a self, a whole new way of knowing God. And frankly, your old, we all know this as Christians, your old identity and your new identity coexist, don't they? But the more you know God, the more the applause of God, the more the cross becomes something not just that you know intellectually but it becomes existentially real to your heart. The better you get at contemplation,

the better you get at prayer, the more deeply you know God, your new identity strengthens and your old identity burns away. Don't you want that? Come and get it. God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. We thank you, that it's possible to have something beyond our hopes and dreams, the applause of heaven, thunderous wild love, certainty of who we are. And we ask that you would help us with the power of the Spirit to appropriate this for our lives so we can become a community of people like this.

Oh, how we want it. Oh, how we want the freedom. We seek it by giving ourselves to you in fresh and new and deep way tonight. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen visit GospelInLife.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 2003. 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.