Faith and Work – Timothy Keller [Sermon]

in 1989 when my wife Kathy and I first moved to New York City less than 1% of the population of Center City New York was attending a gospel centered church today by God's grace that number has grown to 5% now God has given us a pretty audacious vision to work with churches across the city to try to triple that figure to 15% in the next decade if that happens we'd have tens of thousands more people bringing the gospel into the culture making fields of media finance law the arts and beyond because the gospel changes everything if there were thousands of change lives this could be a vision that brings about radical philanthropy profound racial reconciliation and real social justice if this vision is realized we might see a humane city with ripple effects which could extend to other cities across the country and around the globe we're launching this vision with the rise campaign it's our hope that God would build up the body of Christ as we've never seen before so that we could serve our neighbors and help the city flourish like never before why am I telling you this because we need your prayers please visit rise redeemer calm / rise and pray to learn more a reading from the book of Isaiah chapter 60 verses 1 through 11 and 18 to 21 arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord Rises upon you see darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people's but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you nations will come to your light and Kings to the brightness of your dawn lift up your eyes and look about you all assemble and come to you your sons come from afar and your daughters are carried on the hip then you will look and be radiant your heart will throb and swell with joy the wealth of the Seas will be brought to you to your riches of the nations will come herds of camels will cover your land young camels from Midian and ephah and all from Sheba will come bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord al-qaeda's flocks will be gathered to you the rams of nebi iof will serve you they will be accepted as an offering at my altar and I will adorn my glorious temple who are these who fly along like clouds like doves to their nests surely the islands look to me in the lead are the ships from Tashia Sh bringing your children from afar with your silver and gold to the honor of the Lord your God the Holy One of Israel for has endowed you with splendor foreigners will rebuild your walls and the Kings will serve you though in anger I struck you in favor I will show you compassion your gates will always stand open they will never be shut day or night so that people may to you the wealth of the nations their Kings led in triumphal procession no longer will violence be heard in your land no ruin or destruction within your borders but you will call your walls salvation and your gates praise the Sun will no more be your light by day not the brightness of the moon shine on you for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory your Sun will never set again and your moon will wane no more the Lord will be your everlasting light and your days of sorrow will end then all your people will be righteous and they will possess the land forever they are the shoot I have planted the work of my hands for the display of my splendor the word of the Lord the passage you just had read is talking to us about one part of our vision the rice campaign is unfurling of via a future for us in the city we want it to be based on the way in which we have always been ministering in a city the our vision for operation in the city has always been this where we have this is in your bulletin it's I think somewhere certainly on the website our vision is as a Church of Jesus Christ Redeemer exists to help build a great city for all people through a movement of the gospel that brings personal conversion community formation social justice and cultural renewal to New York City and through it the world and when we talk about cultural renewal where we mean that Christians are to integrate their faith with their work and as you're going to see here in a minute we believe what that does that really has a wholesome effect on the way human life has lived in the world which is on our culture now the passage you just had read at first it looks like the Israelites are coming back from exile you know the Israelites first we're in exile in Egypt later they were in exile in Babylon it certainly looks like they're coming back from exile to Jerusalem they are now going to experience a time of great economic prosperity but if you look a little closer you'll see that what's actually being depicted here is not something that ever happened in human history in fact it's nothing that could happen in normal human history all the wealth of all the nations of the entire world in fact a lot of these names that you and I don't mean it doesn't mean much to us but Sheba is the exalted the ultimate South for a reader at that time ephah and and that be off for example in Kay Darby ultimate north it's saying that all the nations in all the world are not only bringing all their wealth to Jerusalem but they're not doing it out of coercion it's not they're not coming to give tribute because they've been conquered but if they've been attracted by the light of the Lord and as verse 6 says in other words in praise of the Lord in praise of the Lord it's they're coming to bring all their wealth as offerings to God not only that if you get down to verse 18 you'll notice there's no more violence anywhere and in verse 20 there's no more sorrow anywhere and there's no more Sun or moon because the light of God what this is is a vision of the new heavens and new earth this is paradise restored this is God putting everything right at the end of time and therefore there's a sense of which to read this is to see a fulfillment of paradise as God made it in Genesis in fact you go back to Genesis you'll see how we had paradise on we lost paradise so this is paradise restored therefore Isaiah 60 has to be read in light of not only what God originally intended the world to be but also in light of what bad things happen so it's both of a filament of the promise of Genesis and a reversal of some of the curses of Genesis and that's why I want to show you what this passage teaches us about work because the thing you read this and the one thing that we kind of miss it's it's so big that it's it's right in front of us but you miss when you read it is this in the original paradise God put work and in paradise restored there's work well what is the wealth of the nation's what is gold and silver what are flocks in Grain it's the product of our work and they're all being brought to God to offer it up to God in joy in praise out of worship not out of coercion and therefore what this passage teaches us in fact what the entire Bible teaches us is a great deal about the importance of work in fact let me show you three things that the text tells us about which is the importance and dignity of work right the broken purpose of work and the healing of work the importance and dignity of it but the broken purpose of work and the healing of it okay briefly today but here it is number one the first thing this teaches us as part of what everything else in the Bible teaches us is about the goodness and dignity of work and of all work virtually all other ancient creation accounts if you go look them up you'll always see that work is always an evil or something very demeaning so remember Pandora's box Pandora's box was a Greek myth about the fact that Pandora was given a box by the gods and everything was fine in the world and Pandora's would don't open that box and she opened the box and all the evils of the world came out including what work the ANU mulisch which was a Mesopotamian myth about the origin of the world the gods create the world and then they create human beings you know why because when they created the world they saw the world would take upkeep and Marduk who's the chief god says I will bring into being a lowly primitive creature I will call him man to him shall be charged the labor so the gods may have rest so the point is work was something too demeaning for God or the gods human beings were created as just people who had to keep up the place and so over and over you see the idea that in most other ancient origin myths and ancient origin creation accounts work as demeaning work as evil work is bad and then you go to Genesis and in Genesis you see God working with his hands in the dirt in joy and when he creates paradise and he puts human beings in paradise and makes everything beautiful and blissful everything's perfect he he gives us work why because that's part of in God's creation what a good life is what a perfect life is what a blissful life is he puts human beings into the garden too till it and it's care for he gives us work and so you know years before Karl Marx the God of the Bible was a manual laborer he was a manual laborer he had his hands in the dirt and in fact when he comes into the world in the form of Jesus Christ he doesn't come the way a Greek God would he doesn't come as an aristocratic philosopher nor as he comes a Roman God what he doesn't come in as a as a general he comes in as a carpenter at what we would call a working stiff now the the idea that work is something God does it's not too demeaning for him and something he creates us in paradise to do that that idea the goodness and the dignity of all kinds of work by the way the work the silver and gold that's coming in as the work of miners flocks and grain are the is the work of shepherds farmers all kinds of work has dignity including what you and I would call menial work so for example nobody nobody drew out the implications of what the Bible said about work better than Martin Luther Martin Luther for example went to passages in the Bible and he noticed a few things for example the Bible says that God feeds us all God feeds every living thing did you know that okay and yet the the food doesn't magically appear on our tables so how is God feeding us through farmers through the drivers who drive the the the food - through this is what Martin Luther would say through the girl the made the the at the on the farm who milks the cow these are the fingers of God God is caring for you God is feeding us through them and therefore God is actually caring for his creation through ordinary work that's how he does it here's another place where Martin Luther noticed that the Bible says God makes the the bars of your gates secure now that you know when a city heads had gates and had bars on the gates that made them secure and but Martin Luther says okay so the Bible says that God makes your your society secure how does he do that he says well through good laws and law enforcement and politics and government these aren't necessary evils these are ways in which God is actually caring for his creation all work all work is God caring for his creation in fact listen the work of cleaning up your house or apartment maybe you'll do it maybe you'll pay somebody to do it it's certainly not what you call high tech high skill labor but if somebody doesn't do it you're going to die you've got to clean your house or you're going to die God takes care of you God cares for his creation God loves and cares for his creation through ordinary human work and therefore all kinds of work even the most simple kinds of work in God's eyes is good in fact God in fact God is using that now do you have that understanding that is a Christian as a deeply Christian understanding and if you if you have it we got to move on here if you have it it means a lot it makes a great deal of difference let me just give you four or five number one we it gets rid of class snobbery we live in a city that valorizes high-paying work work that takes talent and technical skill work that changes the world oh that's the kind of job we want to have nobody wants to push a broom nobody wants to clean a house nobody that's just menial work and if you have your Christian theology screwed on straight you will not look down at anybody you will you will not have that kind of class snobbery secondly there's a whole lot of us especially in places like New York who have been pushed either by our own fears our own desires I get this in a second or by our families into jobs that we really don't like we're not really good at we're kind of dying on the inside but we had to go there why because status because money you gotta have a good job not just any kind of job and of course a lot of us actually being very unhappy because we do not see the dignity of all work and yet if you have your theology screwed on straight you will oh here's one more thing if it's really true that God is caring for creation through our work so everyone is doing their work and doing it well is actually doing God's will in fact is pleasing God see in some ways a simplifies thing how can you do work in a god-honoring way how can you do your work in a distinctively Christian way do it well do it well you know if you clean up your house and do it well and that's pleasing to God or my favorite illustration as some of you know is what is the most God honoring way what is the most Christ honoring way to be a pilot the answer is lay on the plane so that you can use it again in other words do that well you don't say well what does it mean to what does it mean for me to please God as I as I pilot this point laying the plane anything you do well and here's one more thing which is actually pretty interesting if all work all work has got this dignity that doesn't just mean blue-collar and white-collar jobs equally it also means religious and secular jobs so-called it means that whether it means that you serve God by doing your job well whatever it is you don't have to be in a religious calling in order to please God dick Lucas who was a minister and a preacher in London for many years I heard a recording he did of a sermon on Joseph some years ago and as you know Joseph in the Bible was a civil magistrate and he was serving God and and blessing the nation's by simply his work as a civil magistrate in a non believing pagan government which was Egypt and this is what dick says and I wrote this down he says if you were to go up to a book table at a church and he saw a biography with a title the man God uses or the woman God uses you would immediately think it was the story of a missionary or a minister or a specialist in some sort of spiritual work pastoring mission leading Bible studies that's because the church has conditioned you to think this way but in fact what you have here in Joseph is a highly successful manager he's not a preacher he's not a missionary he's not leading a Bible study group I think that being a preacher missionary leading a Bible study group in many ways can be easier because it's the black and the white is easier to see when you're doing it right you're doing it wrong there's not much gray so it's often hard to get Christians to see that God is telling us and is willing to greatly use men and women in medicine law business the arts that is the great shortfall today you see the dignity and importance of work now secondly however there's a brokenness to work I said you can only understand in Isaiah 60 if you understand Genesis and if you go back to Genesis not only see the creation of paradise in which God puts work but you also see another place where work is at the center of things but it's the story of the Tower of Babel now the story of the Tower of Babel is certainly a place where people got together to work they were going to build a tower but we're told that they decided to get together to work to build the tower to make a name for themselves in other words they decide they were going to they're going to work for themselves they're going to work for status for power to get an identity to say look at this great tower that I have built saying there's a there's a great example of this by the way when Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 4 is looking at this great the great castle and the great the Great Palace ease in and the great city he is building says it's not this great Babylon that I have built for the glory of my power in other words to make a name for yourself you say because I'm successful because I'm good because I'm talented because I've done this work really well now I can feel good about myself you make a name for yourself and the result by the way when people used work like that was fragmentation see when you're working for your own personal advancement if that's the ultimate reason you're doing your job then you do it at the expense of other individuals over the groups and of course the human race fragments you know the story of the Tower of Babel they it fragments and in various nations and ethnic groups and all because they because of the brokenness of work what do you mean by the brokenness of work well here it's reversed all the nations are coming together they're all finally unified why because they're all offering up the fruit of their work to God they're offering it up it's an offering now the reality is all work is done for something all work is offered up for something you're working for somebody you're working for some ultimate good what is it you can say well I try to do what is the ultimate of course you got multiple reasons when you do a job what's the ultimate reason you're working are you working to get a name for yourself are you working for your own personal advancement status and power is that the actual bottom line because if it is everything else breaks down John Coltrane was a jazz a great jazz saxophonist I do not know much about his life or how yeah how his life went after this but I do know this in a very famous famous album called a Love Supreme a John Coltrane wrote the liner notes and in the liner notes he wrote these very very famous words he said quote during the year 1957 I experienced by the grace of God a spiritual awakening at that time in gratitude I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music to inspire them for living meaningful lives because there certainly is meaning to life all praise to God now if you parse that carefully this is what he's saying he like all of the human beings is under the curse of Babel that is to say his music was a way of making a name for himself he was doing music so he could say if people applaud me then I have meaning in life then I know I'm significant if I'm good if I'm the best then I know I've got meaning in life but then he had experience of God's love he had an experience of God's grace and it changed what it changed the reason he did his music he says when I experienced that love I turned around and said from now on I want to offer up my music to make other people happy and as an offering to God here's what's happening when music was the meaning of his life the music was actually about him I don't know what he said to himself but he realized when when music was the meaning of his life when that was the way he got a name for himself the music was about him when God became the meaning of his life when he became assured of who he was through the love of God suddenly the music wasn't about him it wasn't about look at me look at me suddenly the music his work was not for his sake his work was for the music sake it was for the listeners sake because it was for God's sake that when it became an offering to God it became something he was doing for others and not for himself and it changed everything there's a man I remember some years ago I read a article in new york times by a writer and he said when writing was my main goal in life it was my main meaning in life he says I made the quality of my work the measure of my worth made the quality might work the weather of Worth and as a result he says what was really weird was he couldn't write because either he had to believe this is really good I couldn't admit it was anything wrong with it because I had to be good because if it wasn't good then I didn't have a name didn't know who I was or if it wasn't perfect it was trash it was terrible throw it away every one of us needs some deep assurance of our value and Worth we need to find some kind of meaning apart from work or else we'll work to save our souls we'll work to save our souls even if you don't believe in God you're still working to save your soul you're still working to get a name for yourself as Coltrane said when work was my meeting in life it was all about me but when it became something I could offer up to God because I knew his love then I then it became about the work about the music or about the people or because it was offered to God that's what you got to have unless if you're working for yourself the work will destroy you it'll enslave you but if you can offer to God it won't well how can that happen lastly what's interesting about this passage is it it is a return from exile you say your sons and our daughters are coming from afar it is a picture of coming home from exile but it's all it's all the nations of the earth this isn't the Jews coming back from Babylon or the Israelites coming up from Egypt this is this is the old this is the healing of the ultimate exile what was the ultimate exile I'll tell you what it was it was in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve decided gonna live for themselves instead of her God God exiled them and the marks of that exile what does that mean restlessness now it's interesting when the when the when the Jews came back from Babylon when the Israelites came back from Egypt God always said I will bring you back from exile and I will give you rest rest rest as a deep peace rest is a deep fulfillment and if you're in exile you're in restlessness why you see it the whole human race we're all in this we experience restlessness so human beings are cast out of the Garden of Eden so we experience restlessness Cain is a wanderer on the earth restless and God says your work will be exhausting now see when work is your meaning in life your ultimate meaning in life when work is the way you get a self way to make a name for yourself it's it's exhausting to the there's a deep exhaustion that no a number of vacations will ever satisfy and God made a repartee made a symbol of it he says thorns will come up out of the ground when you're planting grain your work now is no longer going to be very satisfying thorns will come up instead of grain so we're all in exile and our work has been broken and we're all experiencing the thorns and we're all experiencing the exhaust from all experience the restlessness and it's because we work the way we do but God sends his son Jesus Christ earth listen he comes as a worker Jesus a working stiff but not only that he comes as a wanderer he says foxes of holes birds have nests the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head but more than that he gets thorns a crown of thorns pounded into a skull and on the cross when he's crying out my god my god - now 4segments was experiencing his experiencing peace is experiencing fulfilment knows experienced cosmic restlessness absolute emptiness he cries out he's miserable why he's taking the exile he's taking the curse he's taking the thorns all the stuff that we deserve for living for ourselves he's taking it he's taking the penalty we deserve he's taking the just penalty for our sins so that when we believe in him we receive his love and His grace without earning it without work right it says by the way in Hebrews 4 therefore we see the promise of entering God's rest still remains for we who have believed in Christ enter that rest there remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God for anyone who believes in him rest from his own work just as God did from his what this means is this look Jesus is looking at you as it were and saying this if you try to earn your salvation religiously by trying to live a good life maybe God will take you to have it you'll be exhausted or if you try to earn your salvation socially emotionally by working very hard to get status so you can feel good about this up I'm a doctor I'm a lawyer I'm an artist I'm good at this I'm good at that that will exhaust you it'll grind you into the ground oh but Jesus says I work myself to death for you I was ground into the ground for you I took the restlessness I took the homelessness I took the thorns and when you see me dying on the cross that should assure you of my love for you receive me as your savior rested me and now finally you know who you are there's your meaning in life there's your value and then when you turn with that knowledge that sense of his love resting in his work not in your own you get a deep rest of soul deep deep deep deep rest that suddenly means your work becomes not about you but about the work and about the people you're serving and it becomes a joy you know it says there was no Sun there will be no Sun no moon no need for that in the new heavens and new earth why because God is the Sun well you know in the revelation the same same vision John says the lamb is the light of the world the slain lamb died for you he can be your light now he can be your rest now that the lamb be your light and your deep rest and let that change your work let's pray thank you father for providing for us the vision for the importance of work that dignity of work this explanation for what's wrong with our work father thank you that through Jesus Christ you reverse the curse of Babel the curse on our work but we pray that you would help us apply these goods apply this this transforming grace to our hearts and to our lives and especially to our work so that we can be people who integrate our faith with our work and we truly because we're building a new human culture not based on power and status but on love and service and justice can really really change the world really change the world through our simple daily work we pray that you would change our work and there through that change others we ask this through Jesus and his name we pray amen thank you for listening to this week's sermon please join us in praying for gospel renewal both where you live and in New York City

Channel: Gospel in Life

Views: 143,280

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Keywords: Redeemer, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Timothy Keller, Tim Keller, Dr. Keller, Sermon, Sermons, Redeemer NYC, City to City, Gospel in Life, Gospel, Faith and Work, Work, Faith, Isaiah

Id: x2ZUeFYlk-I

Length: 32min 42sec (1962 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 11 2016