Death Can Only Make Me Better: Remembering Tim Keller (1950–2023)

foreign [Music] farewell to our friend pastor and author Tim Keller Tim passed away in New York City at the age of 72 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2020. over the years Dr Keller graciously appeared as a guest on this podcast leaving us with nine Rich apj episodes on topics like vocation or work and on the themes of prayer and Solitude I'm thankful for the time that he invested with us cancer for Dr Keller was an old Nemesis back in 2002 he was first diagnosed with thyroid cancer a battle he would fight between 2003 and 2004 God would heal and restore Keller but not before thyroid surgery knocked him out of the pulpit for three months a decade later Keller preached a sermon on boldness in the face of death and recounted what he learned during that first cancer battle opening up about his fears as he was rolled into the operating room in that moment he caught a glimpse of something otherworldly he saw the sheer magnitude of God's glory and God's joy Beyond this world of pain and suffering and cancer and death I want to play for you a sermon clip that comes to my mind on This Day celebrating his life knowing that he has passed into the presence of God and into God's incredible unspeakable joy that the rest of us are left longing for here's Tim Keller in 2013 answering the question where do we find courage for life's scariest moments to me my favorite version of this ex this example of what real courage is comes out of this little passage in one near the end of The Lord of the Rings trilogy uh it's a place where Sam if you're one of the three or four people in the world never heard of Lord of the Rings it's a story and there's these two little Heroes and one is the master one is the servant of the master Sam is the servant he loves his master and they're on this terrible Quest and at one point his master is is a uh imprisoned in a tower Sam rescues Frodo his prison his master uh largely by screwing himself up and saying you are not going to hurt him I'm going to do this and I'm you you can't stop me I'm the great where I'm here I come you know and he he uh he does rescue him now after after that they're still on their terrible Quest and the danger is still very real one night Sam looks up into this into the sky and he sees a star and this is in the book not the movie and this is what the passage says it says he saw us white star twinkle for a while the beauty of it smote his heart for like a shaft clear and cold the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing there was light and High Beauty forever Beyond its reach song in the tower had been defiance rather than hope for he was thinking of himself now his own sake and even his master ceased to trouble him and he fell into a deep untroubled sleep see the author Tolkien is trying to say there's a difference between Defiance which screw yourself up I can do it that's still in the end not the courage you need when you because you're looking at yourself courage on the one hand is not looking at yourself and banishing fear no it's just letting the fears play their role and not letting the fears play too much role by looking away from yourself okay you say but then to what it's even in the text that I just read it was Defiance not hope hope when Paul met Jesus Christ on the on the road to Damascus who are you Lord he said I asked I am Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you're persecuting resurrected Jesus now when we were going through acts 9 the first account of Jesus I mean Paul's conversion we talked a little bit about this when Paul realized that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead suddenly everything broke open suddenly the meaning of his death made sense and that and and hope for the Future made sense because if Jesus Christ really died on the cross taking our punishment and he's now raised from the dead now when we believe in him not only is our for our sins forgiven but now we have incredible hope about the future we're going to be raised and everything in this world is going to be put right and there is not going to be and there's not going to be any suffering or death that is an astonishing hope now as I said the first part of Courage is looking away to yourself from yourself the world tells you look at yourself and banish fear okay secondly the second part of Courage is looking toward hope getting a hope real courage is not the absence of fear it's the presence of joy so much joy that the fear plays its proper role well how do you get that Joy well before we get that Joe let me just tell you that there is I'd say a second way out there in the world that people are counseling each other to get courage I think the primary way is this sort of self-esteemism the primary way that the world tries to tell you to get courageous is just tell yourself no fear you can do it you know summons up the blood and go do it I do think that there's an alternate discourse out there and it's older it's more ancient it goes back to the east it goes back to the Greeks Cicero for example who is one of the Greek you know Greek Roman uh stoics actually Cicero wrote a very famous a couple of treatises on why you shouldn't be afraid of anything especially not death you shouldn't be afraid of death and here's what he says he says courage makes light of death for the dead or only as they were before they were born it encounters Pain by recollecting that the great pains are ended by Death others we can usually control if they're endurable but if they're not we may serenely quit life's theater when the play has ceased to please us now what he's saying here is he says there is no reason to be afraid of anything including not of death why because when you die that's it it's like before you're just not there huh and so what is he saying you shouldn't be afraid of anything because you tell yourself I'm going to lose it all anyway no use crying over spilled milk when you die that's it you know I'm enjoying things but everybody loses things what are they doing you're still deadening your heart aren't you you're still dead there's a way of getting courage not by deadening your heart to fear but by deadening your heart to love because when Cicero says and it's not just cicer I've read it in the New Yorker I've read it so many smart secular people today say the same thing there's no reason to be afraid of things no reason to be afraid of death when you're dead that's it you know there's no reason to be afraid of death oh no what is it that makes your life meaningful is it your health partly is it your wealth partly is it your success partly but what if you had those things and you didn't have love what if you had nobody in your life to love you nobody in your life for you to love could be meaningless what makes your life meaningful is people that you love and people that love you that's what makes your life meaningful and now you're going to stand there Cicero or whoever and you're going to tell me I should not fear a future state in which the one thing that makes life meaningful is taken away all love and all loved ones are taken away that's the state and you're telling me I shouldn't be afraid of that crazy of course we should be afraid of that I'm sorry deadening your heart to love is is you know just like deadening Your Heart To Fear it kind of works partly but I don't know it's certainly not good for your heart here's a better way here's a better way George Herbert 17th century Anglican priest incredible poet one of his one of my favorite poems in the history of the world is his little poem called dialogue anthem it's a dialogue between a Christian and death I'm going to read the whole thing through it won't be that hard to tell who when Christians talking when death is talking because when I when I'm deaf I'll just frown here's the Christian starts a last four death where is thy Glory where is thy famous Force thy ancient sting alas poor mortal void of story go and read how I killed your king poor death and who was hurt thereby thy curse being laid on him makes thee accursed let losers talk yet Thou shalt die These Arms will crush thee and the Christian responds this is the this is the last part spare not do thy worst you shall only make me one day better than before thou so much worse that thou shalt be no more okay you want to be Fearless well you want to look out there and say nothing can really hurt me because of my hope because of my infallible hope you want to look out there saying even the worst thing that can happen to me death can only make me better spare not death come come on all you could do is make me better than I am now George Herbert has a great line where he says death used to be an executioner but the gospel makes him just a gardener all he can do is plant you and you finally come up into the beautiful flower that you were meant to be or just a seed and death all just plants you and then you finally become who you were meant to be that's not courage the ciceronian way just kill your heart just say you know well we're going to lose everything anyway just deaden it that's not necessarily this isn't Hercules this isn't King Arthur this is Jesus because how can you know how can you be utterly utterly sure that you've got that hope how can you say to even death itself spare not do thy worst I can tell you how you have to believe in the only God there's a lot of religions out there and they all claim God God God but the only God who has is one of his attributes courage Christianity is the only religion that even claims that our God has the attribute of Courage why because when Jesus when God became Jesus Christ he became vulnerable it became human and when he was in The Garden of Gethsemane when everybody was asleep and it was dark and there was nobody there and he realized what he was about to face I actually think the Garden of Gethsemane is the place where you see the greatest act of courage in the history of the world because by the time he got nailed to the cross you know even if he wanted to turn around it would have been too late there he was nailed the cross but that night he could have left in fact he even thought about it he says my soul is overwhelmed to the point of death what do you see in Jesus Christ you see courage you don't see him saying Bring It On he would the bloody sweat showed he was feeling fear he wasn't saying come on what was he doing here's what he was doing we're told all about it in Hebrews 12 therefore let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and Perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross scorning his shame and sat down at the right hand of the Throne of God consider him who endured such opposition so you will not lose heart there it is what was he he looked he looked away from himself and what did he look toward Joy what was the joy the joy of pleasing his father and redeeming his friends the joy of pleasing his father redeeming his friends the joy of that enabled him to have courage listen if you see him courageously dying for you like that so that you can say to death spare not do thy worst then you can have courage one of the few times I needed courage God was very happy to give it to me and I was very nice when I was when I was going under being wheeled in for my only cancer surgery right thyroid cancer years ago and I do remember it was so nice I had a sense as I was going in I suddenly had this sense that you know the world is wonderful and there's just this little the universe is this big ball of the glory of God and we're just trapped in this little tiny I remember it very clearly we're tapped in it we're trapped in this little tiny Speck of Darkness and even that's going to be taken away eventually and therefore no matter what happens now whatever happens with the surgery I'm going to be all right my family's going to be all right the world's going to be all right everything's going to be all right it was very nice to have a moment of Courage now I have to tell you I haven't had many of those moments I can't I can't hold on to them but guess what the courageous Jesus Christ holds on to me and holds on to you and if you look at him until the joy of his courageous of what he accomplished through his courageous Act by looking at the joy of what is now fair for you you'll face whatever you have to face real courage is not the absence of fear it's the presence of Joy a moving testimony of the sheer magnitude of God's glory a clip from Tim Keller's sermon titled the gospel and courage preached on May 26 2013. a couple years later Dr Keller took this story and wrote it into his book Walking with God through pain and suffering I want to read his published version as well quote there have not been many times in my life when I felt the peace that passes understanding but there was one time for which I'm very grateful it was just before my cancer surgery my thyroid was about to be removed and after that I faced a treatment with radioactive iodine to destroy any residual cancerous thyroid issues in my body of course my whole family and I were shaken by it all and deeply anxious on the morning of my surgery after I said my goodbyes to my wife and sons I was wheeled into a room to be prepped and in the moments before they gave me the anesthetic I prayed to my surprise I got a sudden clear New Perspective on everything it seemed to me that the Universe was an enormous Realm Of Joy mirth and High Beauty of course it was didn't the Triune God make it to be filled with his own boundless Joy wisdom love and Delight and within this great globe of Glory was only one little speck of Darkness our world where there was temporarily pain and suffering but it was only a speck and soon that spec would fade away and everything would be light and I thought it doesn't really matter how the surgery goes everything will be all right me my wife my children my church will all be all right I went to sleep with a bright peace on my heart end quote I trust in these last days Tim was given this courage and this Vision again of the magnitude of God's joy enveloping everything else Dr Keller escaped this Speck of Darkness for the High Beauty forever beyond the Shadow's reach and entered into the boundless Joy of his master at the age of 72. farewell for now Dr Keller

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 211,175

Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism, Tim Keller, Remembering Tim Keller, Tim Keller Death, Tim Keller Cancer, Keller, Death Can Only Make Me Better

Id: czihTs6q5zs

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2023