Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, if I could
have your attention. My name is Andy Westmoreland, I'm the president
of Samford University. Welcome to this gathering and congratulations
to each of you for actually finding a parking space this morning. [applause] Applause for parking spaces, that's
entirely appropriate. Well, this is a very special event for us
at Samford today, and I want to say a word of appreciation first for the Kern Family
Foundation for underwriting this program and so many other events that have been transpiring
at Beeson Divinity School in recent years. And professor Mark Devine is directing this
grant. Mark, will you please stand and accept the
applause of our guests this morning for the work that you do? [applause] The grant specifically is to help
us in finding the intersection of faith and economics and work, and Mark has done a wonderful
job of directing the activities related to the grant. And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is an honor
for me to introduce a person who I feel is one of the finest theologians in the world. Would you please welcome Dean Timothy George
of Beeson Divinity School. [applause] It's my joy to introduce our speaker
today, Dr. Timothy Keller. He's a native of Pennsylvania, he received
degrees at Bucknell University, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Westminster Theological
Seminary, where he was also a professor for awhile. But we know him best as the founding pastor
of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, a church that begun 1 year after Beeson Divinity
School was started. In 1989, Tim Keller, his wife Kathy and their
three young sons moved to Manhattan to begin the work of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. It's grown to a weekly attendance of more
than 5,000. He's also the chairman of Redeemer City to
City, which is a wonderful church planting ministry all of the world, really. In over 10 years they have helped to launch
over 380 churches in 54 cities. A few years ago, Christianity Today published
an article and it said "50 years from now, if evangelical Christians are widely known
for their love of cities, their commitment to mercy and justice, and their love for their
neighbors, Tim Keller will be remembered as a pioneer of the new urban Christians. Well, as a pastor in New York City, it was
the responsibility of Tim Keller to preach on the Sunday after 9/11 in 2001, one of the
most remarkable sermons I've ever heard. Truth, tears, anger, and grace. We've played that on the Beeson Podcast and
you can go later today, we're posting it again if you want to hear this remarkable sermon
preached in the midst of great agony and uncertainty, but clearly conveying the hope that we have
in Jesus Christ and the Gospel. We're so honored to have Tim Keller with us
here on this campus today, will you join me in giving him a warm welcome, Dr. Timothy
Keller. [applause] I'm glad to be here at all, and
I'm also particularly glad to be talking to you about this subject. I'm glad to talk about the way Christian faith
should integrate with work. I'm going to talk for --well, who knows, exactly
-- but I won't take the whole time. We do have an opportunity for questions. Now, it's an awfully big place, but I still
want to do the questions. Most of you won't be able to ask questions...
those of you in the balcony, if you've got a question, it doesn't really matter [laughter]
because you see this little thing down here, this little mike? So I'm actually going to say, if you've got
a question, we'll probably take some time and have you line up until the time's up,
because this isn't a subject - how faith integrates with work - it's not a subject that the church
has actually been working on for a long time. Yes, of course and no, I'm going to be citing
what other theologians have said, but by and large, at least in America, this is a relatively
new thing. Just to give you an example - I often use
this example - When I started my church Redeemer in New York City, early on a number of people
became converted, and they had these jobs in New York. I remember one guy in particular was an actor,
a soap opera actor who was on television every day, and he became a Christian. And he came in to see me and he said, "You
know, I really appreciate what the discipleship classes here at Redeemer are teaching me about
how to study the Bible, share my faith, and things like that. But I got questions about how to be a Christian
in my work, and most of my time is at work. In other words, 80% of my waking hours is
at work," and I said "What kind of questions?" There were two kinds. The one kind of question was stories. Basically, in acting, you're telling a story. Your movie is a story, your play is a story...
and he said "What kind of stories should a Christian artist write and act in and depict. What kind of stories? Should they always have a happy ending?" And I said "Probably not," and he said "Why
not?" And I said, "Have you read the book of Judges?" There are a lot of stories in the Bible that
don't have happy endings. He said, "Oh, OK, well, then any kind of story?" And I said, "Well, probably not... well, wait,
let me think about that.." And then he had another category question,
and it had to do with how he had been trained as an actor. He said, "The British and the American actors
are usually trained differently. American actors are often trained in method
acting." And I said, "What's method acting?" You don't just act angry, if the role calls
for anger, you don't act angry, you get angry. You think about something in your past that
made you angry and you angry. You don't just act sexual, you get sexual...
and he said, "But British actors are usually aren't taught in that direction." And he laid it out and said, "I have a feeling
that the American approach maybe doesn't fit in as well with Christian values." And I though, "Probably true." And somewhere in the midst of this discussion
I was helping him not a bit. I suddenly realized that I had been trained
well theologically, but I had been trained to disciple people by getting them out of
the world and into my church. Or I saw them as spiritually maturing as they
became more involved inside the church where I was as the minister, and actually less involved
in the world, in their neighborhoods, less involved in society, less involved in their
vocational field. If they spent more time in church, I saw them
as maturing. But he had a good point, he said "Even if
I get more active in church, still, most of my time is in work. It's not the weekends, it's not the evenings,
it's in work." Especially since, in a place like New York,
you don't have evenings. You work and then you have weekends, that's
about it. And I came to realize that I did not know
how to disciple people for their whole life, not just their private life. For every part of their life. And I hadn't been taught that. And even today, there's still not a lot available,
and so every time we talk about it, every time you have a lecture in a series like this,
it's helping the church to begin to get the expertise necessary, but we have a long way
to go. What I'd like to share with you are 4 ideas,
I guess I could call them 4 principles (and a 5th) for how the gospel transforms your
work, your daily work. 4 ideas (and then a 5th) on how the gospel
transforms your work. And I wouldn't say, by the way, that every
one of these 4 principles is equally applicable to every job or vocation and I'll tell you
why, but let's just start going through the 4. Ready? The first one is: Christian faith gives you
an identity without which work will sink you. Here's what I mean by that. This principle is especially important for
white-collar work. In a sense, this is a university, so by and
large, you all are preparing for white-collar work or you are in white-collar work. Not all of you, but nevertheless, this is
particularly for that. What do I mean by saying that you need a new
identity? David Lloyd Jones was a physician, but he
went into the ministry, he actually left the medical profession and went into the ministry. And there's a place where gave a lecture on
the dangers of what he called "The Professions." And he says there's a danger with professions
such as high finance, medicine, law, some kinds of businesses. And he says If I'm going to summarize it,
I would summarize it like this. He said he had a lot of people he knew who
were doctors, who were physicians, who, when they die, what you ought to put on their gravestones
is this: 'Born a baby, died a Doctor.' Now what he meant is 'The Professions' tend
to give you your identity. At first you're a man who is a doctor, then
after awhile you're a doctor. It's who you are, your identity is completely
bound up in your profession. Why do you feel good about yourself? Why do you feel like you're a significant
person? Why do you have self-worth? Because I'm a successful lawyer, I'm a successful
doctor, I'm successful at this, this profession has a knowledge-base that I've mastered, I
help people, I'm making good money, I'm the pillar of my community. Born a man, died a whatever. Born a woman, died a whatever. Now here's the problem, when you make your
work your identity, if you're successful, it goes to your head. If you are unsuccessful, it destroys your
heart. So, let me circle through that. First of all, one of the worst things about
success, if your identity is your work, if you're successful in your work, success goes
to your head and it's very destructive. Why? Surely you know that if you feel - if your
identity is in your work and you're successful in work, then you don't just feel like a good
lawyer or a good doctor or a good businessperson, you feel like you're a great person. So it's very natural that people, by and large,
who are successful in one area think that makes them experts in every area. It happens all the time. I've made a lot of money, therefore, I know
which philosophers are stupid and which ones are not. No you don't. In other words, well, you have a hunch or
2 hunches, and you make $30 million. Then I have a hunch about philosophers or
I have a hunch about who I should marry, then I start to trust my hunches because it made
me $30 million over there. Well, if your mind was normal, if your self-image
was normal, if your personality was normal, if your psychology was normal, if your spiritual
maturity was normal, then you would say, "No, I'm just good at making money. That's it. In every other area I'm just as stupid as
everybody else. I need to work like everybody else." But no, if my identity is "I'm a successful
businessman or woman," then you start to feel like "Oh, I'm an expert at everything." And it happens across the board. It also makes you overconfident about your
relationships. Very often you don't marry the right person,
you don't hire the right persons, you actually don't befriend the right persons. That is to say, you go on your hunches because
your success makes you arrogant. You know, it puffs you up. But, here's the other problem, is, if you
make your work your identity and things aren't going very well, then it's far more destructive,
far more emotionally draining, far more anxiety-producing, far more devastating than it ought to be. It's just work. Work is a good thing, and if you're very good
at it, money's a good thing, and if you don't have a lot of it then that's not so good. But if it becomes your identity, your very
self-worth, your very self is at stake. A couple of years ago, in the New York Times,
there was a guy named Benjamin Nugent and he had been an author, a writer, a novelist. And he wrote about why he had to stop writing. I'll read to you what he says, but then there's
one sentence he says that summarizes it all. He says, "When good writing was my only goal
in life, it was my main goal in life, I made the quality of my work the measure of worth,"
there it is, " I made the quality of my work the measure of my worth. For this reason, I wasn't able to read my
own writing well. I couldn't tell if something I had just written
was good or bad because I needed for it to be good in order to feel sane. I lost the ability to cheerfully interrogate
how much I liked what I had written to see what was actually on the page rather than
what I wanted to see or what I had feared to see." You hear that? When he made the quality of his work the measure
of his worth it destroyed his work because when he would write something it needed to
be good and he actually couldn't admit where it wasn't good. If somebody else critiqued it it just devastated
him. So he finally got out and still... It's almost laughable. At the end of the article he said he realized
that he was basically building all of his self-worth and meaning in life on his work,
on his writing, and he said No, I'm not going to do that anymore. Because instead, he fell in love. And he says now this love relationship is
giving him the meaning in life he was trying to get from his work and he said it's so much
more healthy. No, it isn't. [laughter] There's another lecture on that. When what your girlfriend says about you is
the measure of your worth, how will you ever be able to handle her criticism, how will
you ever be able to give her criticism? You're just as bad -- well, I haven't been
following him so I have no idea where he is now. He didn't seem to get the idea and here is
the idea, and this is point 1: Unless you have an identity that's rooted not in your
own performance, and that's the Christian identity. The Christian identity is basically that when
the Holy Spirit comes into your life because you believe in Jesus Christ, essentially what
happens to you, and Romans 8:15-16 says it, is what happened to Jesus at his baptism. God says to you "You are my beloved child
in whom I am well pleased. I love you not because you're perfect, but
because Jesus, because I'm perfect. I don't love you because of your performance
I love you because of Jesus's performance. I don't love you for your work I love your
for Christ's work, you see." And its the only identity, by the way --an
identity rooted in romance, an identity rooted in work, an identity rooted even in pleasing
your parents or an identity rooted in your race or your tribe or your ethnicity. All of those identities are essentially achieved
identities, not a received identity. Only Christianity gives you an identity not
due to your performance. And only if you've got that, only if you really
have that, not just in theory, but if that's really how your heart works, only then will
you be able to handle success or failure. Success will destroy you through inflated
pride, failure will destroy you through inferiority. Success will destroy you through the superiority
complex, and unsuccess will destroy you through the inferiority complex. That's what you gotta have, first of all. Especially white-collar workers, you've gotta
be 'Born a woman, died a woman,' 'Born a woman, died a Christian,' 'Born a man, died a Christian
man.' Not a doctor, a lawyer, whatever. So faith gives you a new identity without
which work will sink you. Second principle: Faith gives you a new concept
of the dignity of all work without which work will bore you. And this is more of a blue-collar concept. Here's what I mean by that. Martin Luther did a lot of teaching about
the importance of work and much of it is actually missing, I don't think the church has grasped
what he says. But especially in his expositions of the Psalms,
he says some fascinating things about work. So, for example, some of the Psalms say that
God feeds every living thing. So if you're eating food today, Martin Luther
says that God says "I gave you that food. I feed every living thing." But he says actually, the fact is that the
food does not appear on the plates, does it? How did you get that food? Well, you see, somebody grew it, then somebody
prepared it, then somebody drove it to the market and so on. But Martin Luther said "Now think about this,
though." What that means, then, is that the simplest
milk maid, who's milking the cow to create the milk is doing God's work. Because God says "No, no I'm the one giving
you food. I feed you." And so Luther says that means that the person
who's milking the cow and the truck driver who brings it to the market - they are the
fingers of God. The most basic kinds of work, if it helps
people, that's God caring for His creating through human labor. Even the most menial kinds of things like
driving a truck or pushing a broom. If It helps, then it's God's work. There's another place where the psalmist says
not God feeds every living thing, but it says "God strengthens the bars of your gates." And that's saying to the people back in those
days that God makes your city secure. Luther says, "Well, the policemen, the lawyers,
the people who make laws, the people who enforce laws, all the people around making a community
a safe community to walk around on the streets, that's God's work." God strengthens the bars of the city gates. And so Luther presses and says, Don't you
ever look at any kind of labor that actually cares, through which God is caring for creation
and not see that this is God himself working. A teacher of mine years ago used to say, Look,
you need to clean up your house, you need to vacuum, you need to wash dishes, you need
to clean up your house. You can either pay someone to do it or you
have to do it, but if somebody doesn't do it, you're going to die. If somebody doesn't clean up your house, you're
going to die. Wouldn't you consider that pretty important
work? Yes. But we call that menial work. If people do it we pay them very little, if
we do it we just grump. And yet, this is one of the ways in which
God is caring for His creation. Cause t's work that has to do. Martin Luther says "caring for creating through
human labor." Now, we have to grasp that, and I'll tell
you there's all kinds of psychological and cultural implications that are really important. First of all, we live in a culture that valorizes
high-paying jobs, but not only that, world-changing jobs. I mean, I talk to young people all the time. Excuse me, aren't you a lot of young people?Sorry
about this. But I talk to young people all the time and
they say, "I want to change the world. I want to wipe out poverty in Africa." On the other hand, Martin Luther is trying
to say, Yeah but somebody's gotta milk the cows, and somebody's gotta clean the house,
and that is every bit as important, because without that people can't live. All work is God's work, even so-called menial
work is God caring for his creation through human labor. And if you do it, or if somebody else does
it, you must not look down on it, you must not disdain it. You must honor it, you must honor yourself
doing it. You should honor your own work. I mean we live in a culture right now in which
everybody wants to change the world and make a lot of money doing it. You know, to Silicon Valley, you know, we're
going to change the world and we're going to make a zillion dollars. And everybody says 'that's where I want to
go.' And yet, that's so short-sighted. Not only that, here's the other great thing
about Luther's approach to work. Faith gives you a new concept of the dignity
of all work without which work will bore you. A lot of people just work for the weekends. There's a certain kind of job where if it's
not making a lot of money, it's just doing something that has to be done, it doesn't
seem to be changing the world, you tend to work for the weekend. Paul, by the way, in Ephesians 6 says that's
working unto 'I' service. Which is another way of saying you just do
what's necessary to get your check so you can get that money and go on the weekends
or go on vacations and really live life instead of saying "I'm working for God. I'm serving the world and I'm doing something
that God wants me to do. And it gives you some sense of the dignity
of what you're doing, and it makes you do it well, which is the last thing that I'll
just quickly say here, and it's important. A lot of people say, "Well I want to work
distinctly as a Christian, I want to do my job distinctively as a Christian." And I say Great. And in a minute I'm going to talk about how
that's a good thing to think about. But Martin Luther's approach is really helpful
because what he's actually saying is even in the simplest tasks, if you get them done
well, you are achieving exactly what God wants you do to. So, let me just ask you a quick question. What is the Christian way to fly the plane? You're a Christian airline pilot... what's
the Christian way to do your job? Hand out tracts on the way, just say 'Hey,
would you just read this?' I'll tell you what the Christian way is to
fly that plane: Land. [laughter] That's the Christian way to fly
that plane. And if you're really good, land the plane
so that it can take off again, which is really really good. In some ways, Luther's approach, which is
perfectly biblical, it's based off what the Bible says about the dignity of work and the
dignity of all work simplifies our life. Do you job well, do your job with pride. But not your own pride, just pride in a job
well done. Clean the house really, really well. Land the plane. Just do it well and you are not only pleasing
God but you're doing His work. Number 3, the ethics. The 3rd principle is: Faith gives you a moral
compass without which faith could corrupt you. Pardon me, 'work' could corrupt you. Excuse me. Let me make sure I got those all right. Faith gives you a new identity without which
work can sink you. Faith gives you a new concept of the dignity
of all work without which work will bore you. Thirdly, faith gives you a moral compass without
which faith could corrupt you. I said it again didn't I? [laughter] Thank you, by the way, for giggling
me and mocking me because if you hadn't I wouldn't have known that I said it wrong again. And in this case, to do my work well is to
do it rightly, so... Faith gives you a moral compass without which
fa-- oh you know what, I wrote it down wrong! [laughter and applause] So I'm only following
my own notes. Wait a minute, just excuse me. So, anyway. Listen, I live in New York City and I'm only
speaking about what some people tell me about one particular area which is the financial
world. A fair number of Christians who have been
in the financial world for a long time say that it is not that hard to see that over
a 20-30 year period there were all sorts of informal and ethical habits and intuitions
that have gone away. He says there was no rule about how much,
if you were a business owner, you could pay yourself and take out of the company. There was no literal law about it. There were no real laws and rules about how
transparent to be with customers and shareholders. There was lots and lots of moral intuitions
about what was fair and what was honest, and most of the folks will say that these things
have gone away. And essentially what is moral is only what
is legal. That whole network of what is called a 'moral
habitus,' a moral habitus is actually a set of habits of mind and heart that just do things
in a fair and honest and considerate and equitable way that are not required by the law but just
create an environment in which people feel like they're not being used as tools, they're
being treated as people. Christians have got to go into all of those
fields where that moral habitus is going away, where people feel it but they also don't have
the inner moral compass to resist. They're under tremendous, tremendous pressure. You know, the Wells Fargo scandal in which
there were literally millions of new checking accounts and savings accounts opened without
the knowledge of the client as a way of just creating fees largely happened because people
at the top are putting such pressure on the people in the middle, that people in the middle,
to even keep their job had to produce. So they went out and did things, they fudged
things to produce. The people at the top said They're probably
not doing things that are right, but oh well, I don't what to know. Plausible deniability. That whole culture is not just a problem in
1 bank or even in the banking industry. Christianity will give you a moral compass
that will help you resist that. And when I say a moral compass, I mean a way
of treating people. It will be such a witness for you to simply
have a moral compass even though there will be a lot of pressure on you not to follow
it. Let me give you just one example, this is
my most vivid example, and the easiest one to see. Some years ago, there was a woman coming to
my church who was not a believer and I saw her a couple of times and I spoke to her a
couple of times. About the third or fourth time she came I
said "How did you come to find out about Redeemer?" And she said "well there's a story," and here's
the story she told me. She worked for one of the major television
networks and she had gotten a pretty good job she had gotten promoted and not too long
after she got that job she made a really, really stupid mistake. And it was really bad, and she thought that
she was going to lose her job. But her boss went into his boss and said "I
should bear the blame for that because I really didn't train her well." And that was probably true, nevertheless,
he really took a hit. He, though, was so well thought of by the
people above him, that it didn't jeopardize his job, but he did take a hit. That is to say, he lost credibility, he lost
social-professional capital. And then he went back and he said, "You haven't
lost your job, don't worry about it, we'll do better next time. We'll figure out how to keep this from ever
happening again." And then she looked at him and said "I can't
believe you did that for me." He said "Ah, don't think about it." She said "Why did you do that for me?" He says "Don't worry about it, you're a good
kid, I think you have a lot of potential, I didn't want to lose you." She said "No, I need to talk to you more about
this. I have been in this business and here's what
I know. My superiors are constantly taking credit
for what I do, they never take the blame for what I do. Never. In this business you take credit for what
the people beneath you do, you try to push those people away and you take credit so you
go up the ladder and you kind of trample them on the way up. It's not illegal, but it's cruel, it's ruthless. So, I've had superiors who always take credit
for what I've done but I've never seen one take the blame for what I've done. Why in the world did you do that?" And he said "I really think you have great
potential, I didn't want to lose you." She said "I don't think that's right, that
doesn't account for it. Why did you do it?" And finally he said "Okay, you're pushing
me, I'm going to tell you once. I'm a Christian, and I base my life on what
Jesus Christ has done for me and he took the blame for me, that's why I'm saved. I did something wrong and Jesus, instead of
writing me off, bore the blame. And because of that, I try to apply that to
my life, which means that I try to bear more pain than I inflict in all of my work dealings." And then she looked at him and she said "Where
do you go to church?" See, now what's that? That's a moral compass. I would say that you did not have to be a
strong Christian maybe 50 years ago to act the way he did, but increasingly, you're going
to have a religious reason for it, because otherwise you're not going to have any support
in the culture for that sort of behavior. So fourthly, and I hope I wrote this on down
right. Fourth and last, and this might be the one
that you thought I was going to get to and I'm actually going to speak the least about
it. The Christian faith gives you a new worldview,
without which work will be your master, not your servant. Here's what I mean by that. Whenever you get out into the work world,
you will find, if you're willing to look deep enough, that there's a certain worldview behind
your field. In other words, most people in your field
are working on the basis of some world and life view. Robert Bellah who wrote Habits of the Heart
talked about two kinds of individualism. What he called "utilitarian individualism,"
which was totally cost benefit. I'll do it if I make a profit. If it costs me less than the benefits, do
it. He calls that 'utilitarian individualism.' I only do things if it benefits me. Then there's something else called 'expressive
individualism,' which is, regardless of the cost, I need to be who I am, I need to step
out and let people know who I am. And he talks in some places that the arts
are based on expressive individualism, the business world is based on utilitarian individualism. If you learn to look, you will see that underneath
almost every field of work there are a set of tacit or implicit, never spoken of, assumed
set of values, a way of deciding what is right and wrong, what you do and what you don't
do. And they're based on views of human nature,
they're based on views of what life is about. And if you're a Christian with a world and
life view, you come into those fields and you can actually think outside the box. Otherwise the work will be your master, not
your servant. So some years ago -- You know, by the way,
there are some Christian college professors that were called up by a guy named Max De
Pree who was the CEO of Herman Miller, they made furniture, he was a very wealthy man,
he was a very powerful executive, and they called in some Christian philosophy professors
and they brought them together and they said "We really need some help on doing our work
according to a Christian world and life view." And they said, "Really? I thought the purpose of business was to make
money." And this is what Max De Pree said. He says, "Money is like breathing, you have
to breathe in order to live but who in the world would want to live just to breathe?" Can I say that again? Money is like breathing, you have to breathe
in order to live but who in the world would want to live just to breathe? You can't have a business without a profit,
so absolutely the profit in the business is like breathing. But how could you ever say our business is
just to make a profit? It would be like saying the purpose of life
is just to breathe. The profit is there but for what? He says, what I want to know is why are we
making a profit? What is it for? And then he asked another question, "Is there
any Christian moral imperative in designing furniture? Are there any ways in which the furniture
we make should be in line with what the Bible says about the purpose of human life?" And you know what he was doing? He was just thinking outside the box. He was just thinking outside the box. Because other furniture makers are just going
to do what everybody else is doing. But if you're a Christian, you can come in
and ask some very deep questions about 'Why are we doing what we're doing?' And also why are we making money? Not just 'Oh, that's the purpose,' that's
not the purpose. The purpose is just like breathing, you have
to breathe but certainly that shouldn't just be the purpose of life. Now, lastly, let me just say one last thing. In my book 'Every Good Endeavor' I say this
at greater length, what I'm about to say right now. Remember I said that there are 4 principles
and a 5th? Those were the 4 principles. But here's the 5th. It's not so much a principle. Christianity gives you a sophisticated kind
of hope without which I do think that ultimately work will frustrate you. I tell the story that comes from J.R.R. Tolkein. J.R.R. Tokein of course wrote The Lord of the Rings,
but while he was in the process of writing it over many years he came up to a spot in
the 1940s where he got writers' block. He had been working on the book for a long
time, and he just couldn't figure out a way forward, and he was just stuck. And one night he had a dream and on the basis
of that dream he woke up and he wrote a short story called "Leaf by Niggle." And he wrote it and it kind of helped him
get through his writers' block and he went back to Lord of the Rings and eventually finished
it. But the short story is fascinating, it's about
an artist named Niggle. He's called Niggle because he works very slowly. But he had this vision in his head of a tree
and he wanted to paint this huge tree on the side of a library or some public building
in his village. So they put up a canvas and it was this big
mural and he had this tree in his mind, and he wanted he wanted to paint this tree. But the years went by and he worked so slowly,
and at one point he only got to the place where he had actually just painted one leaf,
and then he died. And as he died, he even thought about it. It's a short story, a bit of a fantasy story,
so death comes to take him and he says "No, no I can't possibly - I can't die now! I've only gotten one leaf out! I've got the whole tree to go, and I've only
done one leaf!" And death says, "Sorry." So he gets on a train and he's going to the
mountains, that's how the story goes, but as he's going to the mountains he's dying,
and he's going to where dead people go in this particular little short story world. He suddenly sees something off to the right. He jumps off the train, he runs up to the
top of the hill and there's his tree. There really is a tree. He looks up at it and he says "It's a gift!" And what in the world was Tolkien trying to
say? Here's what he was trying to say. You get out of college and you have this vision
for what? I'm going to go into criminal justice because
I want to see justice done. I'm going to go into city planning because
I really want to build great cities. I want to go into law because I want to see
justice done. I want to go into art because I've got a vision
for something. In your entire life you're never gonna get
out more than a leaf. You're not talented enough to do more than
a leaf, the world won't let you. But if you're a Christian here is what you
know, there is a tree. The vision God has given you for great cities,
for beautiful art, for justice being done - you know someday God is going to bring that
to pass. So, you're on the winning side. Your tree exists. So if you only even get a leaf out, don't
worry, there is a tree. That's a sophisticated hope. It's enough hope to keep on going but it's
also enough hope to not be frustrated when you see that I really haven't gotten that
much done in life. And yet at the same time you can work with
your head up. Okay, now that's the 4 ideas and a 5th. If you've got a question, even though we have
20 minutes here, and obviously you're within striking distance of this mike and if you
have the kind of personality that's willing to get up in front of a couple thousand people
and ask your questions, and you know, not everyone would want that, but you know who
you are. [laughter] Come on forward and ask a question
and let's see, I'd love to hear some. [applause] You must be very popular, they're
applauding for you! Go ahead. [audience member] We're so thankful to have
you here. That's not my question. I need to find my leaf. [Keller] Oh, you mean you don't even have
your leaf, yet, let alone the tree. [audience member] Do you have thoughts of
wisdom on best ways to go about finding my leaf? [Keller] Yeah, I'll give you an idea. Have a seat and I'll give you my idea there. Three ideas: affinity, ability, and opportunity. Write those down, got that? I can't say it again. [laughter] I'm 66, I forgot what I just said. Ability, affinity, and opportunity. I think the last time I said it the other
way around, didn't I? Ability means you have the talent to do it. Affinity is I have the desire to do it. And by the way, affinity without ability is
no good. You know, there are people who think they
have the gift of singing but nobody has the gift of listening to them. [laughter] That's a person with affinity,
not ability. But you can also have ability but not affinity. And then you have to have opportunity. It means you knock on doors and they open
or they don't. Unless all three come together, you do not
have a call. But you put the three together and you have
a call. For example, you might have a desire, and
people say you have the ability, but somehow circumstances just don't open up for you. I mean, there's a fair number of people in
a place like New York, they come to New York to try to make it in a profession. It could be dancing, it could be the arts,
and they know that probably 1 out of 10 people are going to go through that door, and that's
a risky kind of thing to do. So, there are people who say 'I want a job
in which it's not 1 out of 10. I don't want to be an actor, because 1 out
of 10 are gonna make it. I would like to go into business where most
of the people who go into business work in business. So it depends, if you have an affinity and
you have some ability then you go and you seek the opportunity, when they all come together
then you have a call. If you have affinity and ability and God just
doesn't open a door, then go find something else to do and feel like this is God guiding
me, not frustrating me. If you've got affinity and not ability, and
people are honest with you saying I don't think you're that good at that, you oughta
do something else, I think you need to, again, listen to your friends, but the three of them
have to come together. The only other thing I was going to say is
besides the ability, affinity, and opportunity as a way of finding what you should be doing
is keep in mind the 2nd of those 4 principles which was 'All work that helps people is God's
work.' And there is a danger, I think, especially
among younger people today that they would like 2 kinds of work, they'd like high-paying
work and/or they would like work that is sort of dramatically changes people's lives. You know, wipes out poverty in Africa or things
like that, when actually a lot of very simple jobs just done well really help the people
around you, and God is pleased with that. So be careful about thinking that the only
job that gets me excited is the job that's really spectacular and dramatic. And guess what, you've been waiting patiently,
go ahead. [audience member] I say this with humility... Do you believe that the body of Christ, that
our church is making progress with idolatry. And the 2nd part of the question -- [Keller]
Which kind of idolatry, by the way? [audience member] Well, the power, control,
approval, offense, identity... [Keller] Oh, you've been reading. Go ahead. [audience member] Alright, so are we making
progress? And the follow-up would be: If not, what does
that say about the Holy Spirit and our relation with the Holy Spirit? [Keller] So good, you're putting the responsibility
on us and not the Holy Spirit. Okay, I got ya. You might as well have a seat [laughter] because
I think the best thing to do is to ask the question and have a seat because who knows
how long I'll go? Thank you, by the way, that's a great question,
and I would say we're not doing very well, and the reason is the church in America - let's
just talk about the church in America - the church in America is going through an experience
it has never had before, which is going from a place of cultural dominance to where it's
becoming more marginal. It's values are becoming more marginal, many
of its teachings are vilified, and I do think that one of the reasons we're struggling,
instead of saying 'This is where we're going, this might be a judgement on -- I mean, in
the past when Israel or Judah -- go read 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles -- whenever
there was a setback usually it was because God was trying to say, "There's a lot of idolatry
in your life and I'm humbling you and I'm trying to purify you." And I would say generally what's going on
now in the church is probably something like that. We need to be careful. God does hold Babylon and Assyria responsible
for their behavior, too. So when Babylon and Assyria come and they
invade Israel and they in a sense punish Israel, God is trying to say "I'm letting that happen
because of your idolatry, and I'm going to purify you and humble you," and I actually
think that's happening. God still doesn't say Assyria and Babylon
are fine. So I would say that a lot of the forces against
Christianity in this country right now, they're not fine, they're doing a lot of bad things. Nevertheless, I think the fact that Christianity
is being pushed politically and socially more to the margins... we need to, in a sense,
receive that as God's chastening and recognize that we do make idols out of money and power
or we do make idols out of we want people to love us and like us. We're not used to people thinking we're all
bigots and we're horrible. And so I think there's gotta be a balance
here between accepting our chastening, and at the same time still standing for the faith
and not just rolling over as if the criticism and the attacks on Christianity are just fine. That's a really hard balance and I don't think
we've gotten it. But basically we're not doing well with our
idols, and I actually don't think -- we're talking corporately -- as a church I don't
see us actually cooperating with the Holy Spirit very well right now. Anybody else? Yeah. [audience member] I want to do this first. [takes a picture] [laughter] [Keller] Wait
a minute, are you saying you couldn't have done it from there? [audience member] I tried, the glare didn't
allow me to. [Keller] Well, it's the being bald, you know,
a lot of glare. [audience member] It wasn't any easier with
Dr. George, either, so... As a young pastor, the situation I'm in, how
do I avoid ministry from becoming my self-worth? [Keller] Ooh, okay. Umm... [laughter] Read 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Isn't that it? Those of you who were just over at Beeson
at the chapel, wasn't that it? It's 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Paul talks about the fact that the bad things
that are happening in his life he sees as God's way of humbling him, and I actually
do think that it's the natural bent of the human heart that if you get [inaudible] you
will turn that into your identity. So how your church does becomes the measure
of your worth. Remember that Benjamin Nugent guy says "When
I made the quality of my work the measure of my worth I was emotionally up and down,
I couldn't bear criticism..." The same thing happens if you're in the ministry,
and it is really seductive because when you're in the ministry... First of all, when you go into the ministry
you're not making as much money as the other people who didn't go into the ministry, so
you feel a little noble about that. You know, I could've gone off to law school
or business school or med school, but I went off to seminary, after which you make nothing,
whereas the other graduate schools... So you feel noble about that. There's all kinds of ways in which you work
on your heart to feel a little better than other people, you know, 'I'm helping people,'
and people come to you with tears in your eyes saying "You've changed my life," and
yet it becomes every bit as absorbing as that guy who said 'I make the number of compliments
I get for my sermons the measure of my worth. I make the number of people who come into
my church the measure of my worth. I make how much people are giving the measure
of my worth. Every year and every week, I live or die by
the attendance figures and the offering figures." Those of you who are in ministry, come on
and admit it. You're really no more noble and no less addicted
to your work as anybody else. And actually, it can take years to realize
that you have done the exact same thing as the greedy business man who just lives for
money. You live for people who comes up and say "Oh,
you've changed my life!" That becomes your identity, "I change peoples'
lives." You know, that's like the breath of life for
you. You need to be real honest with yourself,
people in ministry, how dangerous it is. But Paul actually says the only reason why
he didn't just get conceited and get caught up with making the ministry his identity is
that God was gracious enough to give him a lot of trouble. Failures, disappointments, ministry failures...
that instead of just giving up, you hold onto God during those times and it pulls you and
you find more and more that you're doing ministry for God's sake, not your sake. That's the biggest problem, is that when you
first get into ministry you're really doing it for your own sake, no matter what you tell
yourself. Sorry to be so bold and blunt, but there we
are. And thank you for asking the question. It's a very important question. Yes sir. I think this is my last question, I'm sorry. No, this is the last one, so make it great. [laughter] [audience member] Here we go. Alright, so the way that I'm wired, my sinful
response to the things that you're saying is, 'Well sweet, all I have to do is cut grass
or paint a leaf and God will be pleased with me. So can you just say a word to how do we avoid
complacency in the model you've presented." [Keller] Yes, that's great. And first of all it's great because it's not
a long answer, but at the same time it's a great question. Let's put it this way: there's clean fuel
and there's dirty fuel, we all know that. There's a kind of fuel that charges the engine
and makes it go, but gums it up. There's another fuel that makes the car go
but actually keeps the engine clean. The kind of fuel that makes you strive for
excellence because you've made the quality of your work the measure of your worth, in
other words the bad identity, that is dirty fuel, but it does make people go. They work hard, they work long hours, they
really want to succeed. What you're asking about is what's clean fuel
for excellence, so that you're not just complacent. You know the place in Chariots of Fire where
Eric Liddell, who is kind of a hero of mine. The more I've gotten to know him, the more
I've realized... the more I've read about him the more I've come to see that he really
was the genuine article. Chariots of Fire was a movie done in the 80's,
for those of you who are older you've probably all seen it, the younger ones might not have. It was about a man who was a Scotsman who
was born and raised in the missionary Christian background, but he was also a terrific runner. And he ran in the 1921 Olympics, I think,
and he was pretty famous for the fact that because the 100 yard dash was -- yard, not
meters then -- being run on Sunday, he wouldn't run because that was breaking the Sabbath. And even though that was his event that he
trained for, weirdly enough, he ended up running in the 400 yard dash later which he should've
have won but he won the gold medal. So it's a very great movie. At one point his sister, Jennie, comes to
him and says, "Why are you doing all of this, why are you working so hard at this when you
should be on the mission field? We're supposed to go to China." Which he did, eventually. And he looks at her and he says, "I will go
to China, God's called me to China," and then he says "but God also made me fast. So when I run, I feel his pleasure." It's fascinating, he says "I've been gifted,
I'm good. And I sense that when I run really well, as
hard as I can, I am pleasing the God who gave me the gift of running hard." I don't know if you know, he actually literally
did, he had a weird way of running that when he got near the finish line he would put his
head up and he would open his mouth and look like he was jut praising. He really would do that. And in the movie they actually have him doing
that. Go on YouTube or something and find some old
clips of him. When he got near the end when he had really
given it his all he looked like he was praising God, and he probably was because he said "I
just want to please God, I don't want to be successful so that people can say 'Ooh look,
a gold medal.' I love God enough that I've put my happiness
into his happiness." By the way, if you love somebody enough so
that you're only happy when they're happy, I hope everybody in this room has experienced
that, because that's the meaning of life, when you love somebody so much that you actually
insert your happiness into their happiness so that you're only happy when they're happy,
you gotta do that with God. You gotta love God enough to say if he's happy
and he gave me this gift, and when I run I feel his pleasure and that's clean energy. And that's the last thing we can say here
tonight. Thank you very much. [applause] [Dean George] Your response indicates
our gratitude to Tim Keller for coming today and sharing his heart and his life with us
in this very special time. Let's gather in prayer as we go. Lord, we know that every good and perfect
gift comes down from above. You, the Father of lights in whom there is
no changing or variableness, help us, we pray, to receive these good gifts from your hand. Help us to use these gifts in our lives for
your glory in this world. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our
Lord, amen.
