The Wounded Spirit – Timothy Keller [Sermon]

an anxious heart weighs a man down but a kind word cheers him up Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a longing fulfilled as a Tree of Life each heart knows its own bitterness and no one else can share its joy even in laughter the heart is sad and the end of joy is grief a tranquil mind gives life to the flesh but passion makes the bones rot the tongue that brings healing is a tree of life but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit a happy heart makes the face cheerful but heartache crushes the spirit the discerning heart seeks knowledge but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly all a man's ways seem innocent to him but motives are weighed by the Lord a man's spirit sustains him in sickness but a crushed spirit who can bear the wicked man please though no one pursues but the righteous are as bold as a lion this is God's Word well we're looking at the book of Proverbs every week we continue to do that we're looking at the subject of wisdom we've said that wisdom is competence with regard to the complex realities of life so for example it means being not less than moral and good but more so for example if you want to help a poor family out of poverty that's wonderful that's right that's good it's moral but if you're simple-minded if you're simple-minded conservative and you think poverty is completely the result of lack of personal responsibility or if you're simple-minded liberal and you think poverty is completely the result of unjust social structures in other words if you're reductionist to give you're simplistic you're not savvy about the complex realities of poverty though you have you mean well and you're being moral and right and good you can ruin that poor family's life now tonight what we want to do is talk about wisdom with regard to the complex realities of the inner being the inner life or what we would today call the psychological life which as we're going to see in a moment is a modern category that's actually itself to reductionistic nevertheless what are we talking about well you know we all at certain times just have a lot of trouble understanding dealing with a very deep conflicting confusing powerful sometimes warring dynamic impulses and feelings that just just roll through our heart roll through ourselves and sometimes we don't feel we we've got any power over it we feel helpless and we don't know how we got feeling like that we know there's something deeply wrong with it we don't know what to do about it well tonight maybe we'll get some wisdom because we're taking a look at what The Book of Proverbs says about this subject and I'd like to look at the the passage under four headings let's see what we learn from these collected proverbs about the priority of the inner life the complexity of the inner life the solitude of the inner life and how to heal a crush spirit you're not going to be wise unless you understand the priority of the inner life the complexity of the inner life the solitude of the inner life and the healing of the inner life now let's take a look first take a look at the second from the last proverb in the list and we'll learn something about the priority of the inner life a man's spirit sustains them in sickness but a crush spirit who can bear now what's the word spirit mean in in the Hebrew Scriptures in the Old Testament the word spirit is actually literally the word for wind and whenever the word wind ruha spirit is used in the Old Testament it has to do with force with power with energy when it refers to your inside the human inner being the human spirit is roughly analogous to what we would call today emotional energy passion for life that which propels us out into life makes us want life makes us want to take it on navigate deal with it so what's up crush spirit a crush spirit then is to look out at life and to have no desire for it have little or no joy in it I have no passion to get out there and deal with it and of course there's degrees of a crush spirit it can be anywhere from listlessness and restlessness to discouragement to despondency to being very very cast down and to let to losing all desire to live now what is this proverb saying look at it again and here's what it's saying there is nothing more important than maintaining your inner being when it says a man's spirit sustains them in sickness but a crushed spirit who can bear here's what it's saying a broken body can be sustained with difficulty by a strong spirit but a crushed or broken spirit can never be sustained or carried by the strongest body of all in other words this proverb is getting at something that actually the whole Bible gets at we human beings are obsessed with the idea that our happiness is determine by our external circumstances that our happiness is completely determined by whether our body is healthy or whether a body is looks good whether we have money whether people are treating us right whether things are going well out there that's what makes us happier that's what makes us unhappy when the Bible actually says no it has nothing to do with your circumstances happiness is determined by how you deal with your circumstances from inside how you process how you address how you view them that's the reason why Paul Paul's prayers for the churches he's writing in the New Testament letters are amazing when you consider when he's writing all these these churches he's writing churches that were in great difficulty and straits he's writing churches that were persecuted he was writing churches where civil magistrate said had broken in and and pulled off some of the Christian families to jail uh and yet whenever he prays he says I'm praying this for you or I'm praying this for you he never mentions things like that he never says I'm praying that that civil magistrate won't come and take any more of you off to jail he doesn't pray for protection he doesn't pray against suffering what does he pray for he prays this sort of thing here's Ephesians 3 he says I pray that out of his glorious riches God may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inmost being what he's saying if your life is all broken all things are wrong and your spirit is strong your and powerful you move out into the world and strength but if everything about your life is is going fine just all the circumstances are doing fine but your spirit is crushed you move out into the world in weakness now do you believe that do you understand the priority of that the Bible says proverbs says if you don't you're fool or put it another way are you anyway are you far far far more concerned to deposit grace in your spirit then you are to deposit money in your bank account if you're not your fool the priority of the inner life now secondly you're not wise if we see don't see the priority but secondly you're not going to live a wise life unless you see the complexity of the inner life see after having said what we just said it's natural to ask a question like this all right so what do you do to keep your inner being from deteriorating and what goes wrong with a spear what causes a crushed spirit why do our emotions and our feelings seem to get out of control why do we get so downcast sometimes why we do we lose all passion for life why do we struggle so much what is our problem and you know what the biblical answer is it's complicated in fact I in fact I want to show you this for the next couple of minutes in fact the Bible's understanding of human nature understanding of what goes wrong inside is more nuanced more multifaceted more multi-dimensional more complex than any other answer that I know of any other counseling model any book on despondency or what's wrong or how to have emotional health or how to have a happy life you read them all and compared to the Bible they are one-dimensional they're reductionistic they boil everything down they're too simple-minded or too simplistic they're not savvy they're not wise the Bible gives you the most fully nuanced the most complex assessment of what can go wrong and lead to despondency and lead to a crushed spirit let's take a look at five of them they're right in here okay here's five first of all a crushed spirit may have a physical aspect I know that sounds very weird your spirit has a yes a crushed spirit we have a physical aspect so for example let's take a look sort of in the middle of the of the page it's chapter 14 verse 30 a tranquil life gives life to the flesh but passion makes the bones rot and the word passion means literally a hot feeling and we're it's that word can refer to anger or bitterness or envy or fear or something like that but what it's it's giving us here is a very nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the relationship of the body to the emotions emotional unhealth leads to physical unhealth in all kinds of ways disintegration deterioration but what's the implication the implication of course is that since the body and the emotions are united then bodily weakness can lead to emotional unhealth if you're weary if you're not eating right if you got chemical imbalances there's a there's a there's a physical aspect to your spirit to being crushed in spirit there can be there often is you say how could that be well for example I had a thyroid problem a couple years ago and of course the problem is gone as well as the thyroid or that's why it's gone one of the things I learned about is hi Roy Gore moan what happens when you don't have it or you don't have enough of it oh my word and even though I didn't experience anything like this here's one here's here's something I can just tell you the truth of and that is if you don't have enough thyroid hormone in your body you're going to eventually want to kill yourself and you say well of course that's all in your head of course it's all in your head I mean I mean all the crush spirit is in your head but the point is if you lose all desire to even live because of something wrong with your body you've got a crush spirit doesn't matter what the cause is and one of the causes can be the physical and one of the causes can be the physical there's a physical aspect to what goes on in our inner being secondly there's an emotional relational aspect emotional relational look at the very first proverb on the list an anxious heart weighs a man down that's synonymous with a crushed spirit it's talking about literally sinking an anxious heart weighs a man down but a kind word cheers him up and don't trivialize it in English it comes across a little bit trivial sounding what is it saying you need sometimes what is the what do you need you need an outside word of love of kindness you need eating support sometimes you don't need medicine sometimes you don't need therapy you don't need an answer you don't need complicated reflection you need love sometimes it because we have an emotional relational nature you just need arms around you you need a shoulder you need intimacy you need support because we have a role we have an emotional relational nature third there's not just a physical aspect what goes on inside an emotional relational aspect to go what goes on inside what can go wrong inside but third there's a moral aspect take a look at the last of the of the proverbs in the list the wicked man flees though no one pursues but the righteous are as bold as a lion what's that talking about well it's a quote from Leviticus 26 where God says if you disobey me you will flee though no one pursues and my word look how look how nuanced this is it's talking about conscience it's talking about guilt it's talking about what can go wrong inside in your spirit in your emotions what can go wrong inside if you know that you're not living right if you know you're not living up the standards if you feel guilt if you feel shame if you feel like a failure in any way but look how new once it is it doesn't say you flee when someone pursues you flee when no one pursues guilt just generalizes a sense that there's something wrong with you just generalizes so you so you not only feel guilty for some things you ought to feel guilty before but you also can't help then feeling guilty for all kinds of things you shouldn't feel guilty for so someone someone criticizes you and you feel assaulted attacked bad conscience some you make a little failure and you feel like a total failure bad conscience there's a moral aspect there's a conscience aspect okay and that's not all you see that can be a medical aspect or physical there can be emotional aspect or relational it could be a conscience or moral aspect and you realize how wrong it would be if you treat a crushed spirit that's basically a physical problem as a moral problem or not look at all these men but let's keep going then third fourthly there's an existential aspect yeah go to the fourth proverb down even in laughter the heart is sad and the end of joy is grief now when you first read that you know what you're automatically doing you say oh I think I know what that's talking about and you're relativizing it you're saying sometimes some people are laughing and they're having fun but down deep they're still sad they're putting on a happy face they're trying to forget their troubles but though they're laughing down deep they're sad and and though they have they're trying to be happy in the end they're still grieving but that doesn't it doesn't say does it some people in laughter the hardest sad it's an absolute statement and what amazed me was that every single Hebrew commentator I mean every Hebrew scholar that was that I looked at about this verse says we mustn't relativize that we must realize what a profound thing is saying this is true of everybody everybody why do you not realize that there's an existential angst that comes down deep under everything everybody knows that all parties eventually are going to be over that all joy really does end in grief you say what are you talking about well let me just give you some examples here's the happy family sitting around the dining room table and the simple reality is that one of those people is eventually going to see every other member dead death ends everything everything your heart wants out of life eventually will be taken away from you your health will be taken away from you if you don't die a tragic young death eventually your health will be taken away from you your loved ones will be taken away from you everything will be taken away from you everything it'll all be gone and some of some of you are saying gee I'm so glad I came tonight this is a wonderful yeah I guess that's right I guess that's true but I mean do you have to tell me about it we have to think about it guess what try not to think about it and this is saying down deep you know about it that there is a there is a ground note of sadness that you cannot overcome I mean New York is filled with people who say well you know I don't believe I was created I believe I'm here by accident and I believe when you did that's it you're rot that's it you're gone and I understand that but you know that point is have fun while you're here wait a minute if your origin is insignificant and your destiny is insignificant which means someday not only nobody will even remember anything you ever did if your origin is insignificant and your destiny is insignificant have the guts to admit your life is insignificant and what that means is unless you have some way of dealing philosophically with this unless you have some way of ascribing meaning to the daily things that you do which is really pretty hard you're going to have this ground out of sadness that underneath all your laughter you're going to be sad because you know that all joy eventually ends in grief now I'm not exaggerating do you see what what's happening now this is a philosophical problem and a lot of people have it in fact we all have it until somebody helps us deal with death if you know if you're not able to deal with the idea of death if you're not able to overcome your fear of it if you're not able to find some way in light of death that you can ascribe meaning to the things you're doing now today do you see there's a medical possibility for a crushed spirit there's an emotional a relational a moral an existential of philosophical you see how and you see by the way doctors don't want to think about philosophy and friends don't want to think about medicine they just want to love you and Christians you know what Christians do or which are and everything in the moral hmm we say oh you're downcast you're down well have you have you acclaimed all the promises if you confessed all known sinner you're having your quiet time are you praying are you thanking God you know are you doing everything right check check check check list you turn everything into a moral issue we're reductionistic and of course the people who are into self-esteem what do they say what's all emotional and relational and of course the people who think we're just a body what's what what do they say it's all the physical and that's not all there's a physical aspect but not only a physical aspect there's an emotional aspect there is a moral aspect there's an existential aspect and finally there's a faith aspect oh yeah and here's what I mean look at look at about halfway down a little more than halfway down this is chapter 14 part of me for chapter 15 verse 13 a happy heart makes the face cheerful but heartache crushes the spirit heartache crushes the spirit now a lot of people would say well wait a minute I thought the heart the spirit pretty much the same thing well in English heart means emotions versus head which means the reason and so that's why we would say you know the spirit which seems the emotional passion and the heart wouldn't be the same thing no in the Bible the heart means something quite a bit more than that the heart is your core commitments the things you most fundamentally trust the things you most fundamentally love the things you most fundamentally a living for the things you must fundamentally hope in that's why ii will get back to this in a minute the second proverb says Hope deferred makes the heart sick but longing fulfilled is a tree of life and that word longing means a desire from the depths of your personality now when your heart has been set on something and it's got to be set on something you've got to set your heart on something as your ultimate hope your ultimate trust the thing you're looking forward to really make yourself happy really make yourself feel significant the thing you say if I have that then my life means something then I know I'm somebody then I know I'm alright and you got to put your heart on something because we are that's the kind of beings we are and this is telling you that if you put your heart on something in the most fundamental way and any problem happens to it anything threatens it in any way it's deferred you won't even want to live you'll be crushed in spirit so for example of you you know you're dating somebody and you're starting to really love them and and then they break up with your you break up now that's going to create sorrow is going to create great sorrow but if romance having somebody love you is the ultimate hope of your life if you really do believe down deep what the Righteous Brothers said years ago you're nobody you know without you baby what good am i okay there's another one you're nobody unless somebody loves you now listen if you really look at somebody else and say you're my fundamental hope you're the thing that really makes me know that I'm okay you break up with that person you won't even want to live its the heartache creates a crushed spirit a bad conscience creates a crushed spirit existential ants creates a crushed spirit now look at this look at this go into Barnes & Noble and you'll never find a book that will tell you how complicated you really are every book on emotional health every book on counseling every book is going to reduce you it's going to make it's going to simplify you because you see some people think that you're basically a body that's basically what you are they don't believe in a soul so let's let's do deal deal with it physically and some people are going to say you're really your emotions your deepest feelings is the real you not your conscience not your beliefs your emotions so we just have to non-judgmentally support people and to just follow their feelings other people but you're not just a body you're not just your emotions you're not just your conscience you're not just a will you're not just your thinking and of course you have objects relations and you have cognitive therapy and you've got you've got you know we got psychoanalysis and every one of them does something the Bible won't do because you are not mainly a body or mainly your motions are mainly your conscience or mainly any of these things you are a man or woman in the image of God and God's image is stamped on absolutely every aspect of your being and unless you're living with every aspect of your being before God you are going to have despondency you are going to have out of control emotions you're going to have despair you're going to have a crushed spirit that you will not be able to remedy and you'll get the books and you'll go and listen to people who tell you the way to emotional health and they'll always be too simple to always be foolish when I read the books I want to say compared to the Bible I want to look at those books and I want to say what Hamlet said it was friend Horatio there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy now you're not going to be wise unless you see the priority of the inner life the complexity in her life now thirdly and briefly you also have to see the solitude of the inner life if you take a look at the third down proverb very interesting proverb each heart knows its own bitterness and no one can share its joy what in the world does that mean you say well I got friends they can share my joy I've got people who understand and you know what this is saying again don't relativize this here's what this is saying your insides your the movements and motions of your heart are so complex and they're so inward and they're so hidden that there's an irreducible unavoidable solitude about human existence nobody will ever completely understand you nobody don't you know what they're going to do they're going to do the same thing to you that you're doing to them you're going to think you understand them you're going to put them in a category so oh it's just like what happened to me or just like what happened to so-and-so no this is saying that you are so unique and you are so hidden and you're so inward that nobody in the end in the final analysis will ever really understand you you're going to have to basically go through life alone nobody can completely even the people closest to you very often just will not understand you and you can sense that and it's horribly disappointing but this is saying get over that don't be dumped don't be shocked at being misunderstood and especially in light of the fact that look at this look at the third proverb from the bottom it says all a man's ways seem innocent to him but motives are weighed by the Lord you know what that's saying you don't even understand yourself you have absolutely no idea what's all down there you have a better idea than anybody else but nothing compared to what God can see nothing you are alone there is nobody no human-being they can walk with you everywhere you go there is no human being he can help you interpret really everything you're going through but you know what this means here's what it means listen carefully if God is only somebody you believe in if he's an abstraction or maybe somebody you don't believe in at all but if God's not a friend if God isn't someone you know personally if God isn't someone you have a personal relationship with if you don't have sometimes a sense of God really with you putting his love and his truth palpably on your heart if you don't have an intimate personal relationship with God you are utterly alone in the world you are absolutely alone in the world and human beings can't live in that kind of isolation they obviously cannot he's the only one that can walk with you through every dark Valley he's the only one who can understand he's the only one if you don't have him and I don't you see it's not good enough to be good or moral or even to believe in God in some general way if you don't have him as a personal friend if you don't have an intimate personal relationship a sense of real dealing with him you are utterly alone all right so finally okay well what happens then if you've got a crush spirit what are we doing you see I've actually set up on purpose how hard it is to heal a crush spirit and here's the reason why we just said we need a word from outside a kind word we can't heal ourselves we need someone from outside to come in with love and yet we also just said nobody really understands you we said we've got a conscience and and years and years and years of therapy you can even go to therapy for 30 or 40 years I know people have some of you have and have been told almost every week stop feeling guilty about everything stop feeling guilty about everything don't let them put that guilt trip on you don't you have to feel guilty don't feel guilty guess what 30 40 years and you still do because you see you're pretty even when no one's pursuing you flee there is something indelible about a sense that I'm just not right on that living up I'm not doing what I ought to do what are you going to do about that what are you gonna do about existential angst in the face of death and how in the world are you going to stop your heart from putting its ultimate trust and ultimate hope in things that you can lose well here's the answer the secret is the Tree of Life the Tree of Life what do I mean by the secret being a tree of life well the Tree of Life which is mentioned twice here actually three times in Proverbs is a it's an it's an interesting reference because the Bible talks about the Tree of Life Genesis and the Bible talks about the tree of life in Revelation but there's nowhere else in all the Bible where it's discussed except in the book of Proverbs through wisdom the Book of Proverbs says you can actually get a taste of it if you go back to Genesis the tree of life was in the middle of the Garden of Eden paradise and what is what does the Tree of Life mean what is it what does it represent it represents not just endless life eternal life being endless it represents fullness of life absolute satiation of the deepest desires you got creative desires to accomplish things you've got aesthetic desires for beauty you've got romantic and relational desires for love you've got epistle mcdhh Azai errs for knowledge and and The Tree of Life represents absolute satiation a million times over a million times magnified of the greatest amount you could think you could want and that's the Tree of Life but the book of Genesis also tells us that we lost it we lost it the end of Genesis chapter 3 says and there was a flaming sword that turns and sweeps back and forth keeping us from the tree of life because when we turned to be our own masters to be our own saviors to be our own lords and we decided we want to be in charge of our own lives we lost the tree of life now what does that mean here's what it means and what is this saying here look second proverb Hope deferred makes the heart sick but longing fulfilled is a tree of life it's be possible to read this as just saying Hope deferred makes the heart sick okay when you really have your heart set on something it's a disappointment but it's talking about something different what it's really saying is our deepest longings the things we put our hearts on to fulfill our deepest longings will never fulfill them because we're really looking for in everything we do is the tree of life in other words when you get into your career and you get so excited about the new career when you get a new boyfriend or girlfriend when you get into a new relationship when you go on vacation when you travel to someplace you've never been there's always something it promises something that net it can never actually deliver why one commentator says this tree of life image in the Bible is not simply referring to eternal life one Hebrew commentator puts it like this in the Bible the tree of life is an image of immortal eternal life but also it's an image of irretrievable loss it's an image of cosmic nostalgia a longing for something we remember yet we've never had in all of the music you go to to kind of give yourself a high you're actually looking for a song that you remember but you never heard what you're looking for in love is your lot look you're looking for arms that you remember but you never really had that's what the Bible's saying that's what the tree of life is and unless you understand that that what you're looking for and everything you're looking for is the tree of life you're not going to be wise of course there's nobody who's put it like Louis it says most people if they really learn how to look into their own hearts would know that they do want and want acutely something that cannot be had in this world the longings which arise in us when we first fall in love or first think of some foreign country or first take up some subject that excites us our longings which no marriage no travel no learning can really satisfy I'm not speaking of what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages or trips and so on I'm speaking of the best possible ones there's always something we grasp that in that first moment of longing that just fades away in the reality our lifelong nostalgia our longing to be reunited with something in which in the universe from which we now feel cut off our longing to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside is no mere neurotic fantasy but the truest index of our real situation now once you get a little older and some of you look like you've got a ways to go some of you look like you don't you start to realize that every single thing you look for to give you a service Attis faction it never really delivers and you several things you can start doing one is you can be really stupid and you say I need a new city I need a new job I need a new wife I need a new husband I need a new lover I need a new city I need a new place to go and you're just constantly changing all the time or you can just get mad at yourself and blame it on yourself your failure you it's something wrong with you or you can just get cynical and say you know you shouldn't expect anything out of life you just hard you're in every case you're going to have a crushed spirit or at least an atrophied spirit what's the solution do you know that the New Testament continually says that Jesus died on a tree yeah in the book of Acts and first Peter 2 in Galatians 3 they hung him on a tree he was nailed to a tree he died on a tree ever wondered about that if you said that's that's kind of an exaggeration it was a cross i'ma go obviously there was a big trunk and but it wasn't really a tree was it why do they say a tree oh it's so significant and I'll tell you why the Garden of Eden God comes to Adam and Eve and says obey me about the tree don't eat it and you will live they didn't centuries later Jesus comes into a garden Garden of Gethsemane and God comes to Jesus and says obey me about the tree and he did but look at the difference you see to the first Adam God said obey me about the tree and you will live but the second Adam God says if you obey me and go to the tree and do go to the cross and do what I'm asking you to do you will be crushed Oh crushed crushed in spirit crushed in body and crushed eternally and he it you know in Psalms 22 when she quotes from the cross my God my God why hast thou forsaken me there's a place in verse 14 where it says my heart has turned to wax it melts away within me there's a crushed spirit Jesus lost his ultimate hope he put all this hope in his father and the only person in the history of the world who put his ultimate hope in his father the father the father and he lost the father eternally on the cross he was crushed in spirit he was infinitely crushed he went through all that agony why for us to pay the penalty and George Herbert the great poet puts it perfectly sums up the whole Bible in one stands in that great poem the sacrifice in which he depicts Jesus speaking from the cross and is that one stanza where Jesus says all ye who passed by behold and see man stole the fruit now I must climb the tree a tree of life for all but only me see the cross was a tree of death but because he climbed the tree of death we have the Tree of Life where actually he turned the tree of death and the cross it was a tree of death to him and therefore was a tree of life for all of us now to the degree you let that melt your heart to the degree you see what he did for you to the degree you rejoice in that to the degree you orient your heart toward that and just melts you at the thought of that love to that degree you will experience what Tolkien calls joy beyond the walls of the world more poignant than grief there's a joy it's the take foretaste of the Tree of Life and listen when you take the gospel that's what that is and you start to use it on your spirit that's what you finally need that's the ultimate kind word it's the ultimate good word and we just said you need isolation I mean you need to get rid of your isolation you need emotional connection and yet nobody understands you the only eyes in the universe who can see to the bottom love you to the skies use that on your motion use that on your relational aspect use that on your conscience your conscience you know this last verse I was looking at a minute ago how will Harris I think it was he was a Welsh creature 200 years ago when he was a young man he wasn't a Christian yet he was like 14 or 15 uh his aunt was dying and there was a the family was all gathered around her and back in those days they were waiting for her to die and it looked like she was dead and they said I think she's going I think she's gone poor aunt so-and-so poor aunt so-and-so and she opened her eyes and she looked up and she said who calls me poor she says I am rich and I will stand before him as bold as a lion and then she died and it had a big impact on how harris who later on wrote wrote a hymn i think that went like this well made the accuser roar of sins that I have done I know them all and thousands more jehovah knoweth none come on he took the tree of death so you could have the Tree of Life use that on your motion use that on your conscience use that on your existential angst that'll get rid of your fear of death but most of all use it on the hope of your heart so that love the people you love and love the things you love but through them realize the ultimate song the ultimate Beauty the ultimate arms the ultimate tree of life that you're going to have now am I going to say am I saying to you okay you really don't need people now you just need God you just need this take this tape home take the CD home and listen to it you know just me and God in my Bible and I'll be able to overcome all my depression no that's not what I'm saying I mean that's way too simplistic and besides that do you know how hard it is to get the gospel deep down inside every aspect of your being your eyes how long it takes do you realize how almost always you need somebody to tell it to you over and over and over again oh man eat friends you need counsellors Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it like this he says it is possible that a person may by God's grace break through to certainty new life the cross and fellowship without the benefit of confessing to a brother or sister it is possible that a person may never know what it is to doubt his own forgiveness in Christ but most of us cannot make that assertion when the confession of sin when opening up the heart is made in the presence of a Christian brother or sister the last stronghold of self justification is abandoned the sinner surrenders he gives his heart to God and finds the forgiveness of Allah said in the Fellowship of Jesus and his brother the expressed acknowledged sin has lost all its power it's been revealed and judged as sin and as the open confession of my heart to a brother or sister insurers against self-deception so to the assurance of forgiveness becomes fully certain to me only when it is spoken by a brother or sister in the name of God put your hope in him take hold of the gospel work it into one another's lives not just into your own life and you will no power in your inmost being let us pray father we ask that you would help us now as we come to your table really taste the Tree of Life we know that the sacrament can be a foretaste of that and we pray you would nourish us and feed us in our hearts through our faith in you we pray this in Jesus name Amen for more of this series and other resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church please visit

Channel: Gospel in Life

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Keywords: Timothy Keller, Tim Keller, Redeemer, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Gospel in Life, Tim Keller (Author), Christianity (Religion), Sermon, The Bible (Religious Text), Jesus, Jesus Christ, God, Church, Faith, Proverbs, Happiness, Spirit

Id: pkL3R27ZV1o

Length: 41min 45sec (2505 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2015