The Sandals of Peace (Part 3) 36:08

In the Bible, the Apostle Paul writes about the armor of God. He explains the reality of evil and the resources Christ offers for protection. If you're a Christian, Paul has given you everything you need to stand in the battles of life. So then why do so many of us feel ill-equipped for the troubles we face? Today, join us as Tim Keller explores how we can make use of the amazing resources God offers us in Christ.

After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly newsletter with articles about gospel-changed lives as well as other valuable gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelandlife.com. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."

Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert."

and always keep on praying for all the saints. This is God's word. We're looking at this little phrase, see, "With your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace." "With your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace." Even though we're taking like a few weeks on this one little phrase, I've got to show you the logical structure of this phrase. Paul is saying that a Christian

has got to be characterized by readiness, a spiritual buoyancy and joy that comes from the use of the gospel of peace. And therefore, what we've actually -- I'll let you know now, now the truth can be told -- what I've actually been doing, as far as an outline, is that I'm looking at three basic parts of what this is teaching us. That there is such a thing as a spiritual joy or buoyancy that should be our characteristic,

And it comes from using the gospel of peace, first of all, to bring peace between our hearts and God, to get rid of the hostility and the warfare and the enmity. And secondly, the readiness, the spiritual joy comes from using the gospel to bring peace between people.

Number one, there's a spiritual buoyancy which comes through. Number two, using the gospel to get peace with God. And three, using the gospel to get peace with one another. You see, it doesn't say, though up to now we've only been talking about peace with God, it talks about the gospel of peace. The gospel we know from the Bible brings peace not only between us and God, but also between us and us. Therefore, that's the structure. There's a joy, number one.

through the gospel that brings peace with God, number two, and three, the gospel that brings peace between people. Now, as you know, we've spent most of our time on the first and almost we're finished with the second. The spiritual joy that's called readiness here, that's an English translation of the Greek word etoimasia, which means, what did we say last week it was? A spiritual athleticism. By definition, a great athlete is somebody who mocks others.

in the face of gravity. Ha, he says. Ha, she says. In the face of gravity. In other words, you look at an athlete and that athlete has better balance than you and me, has better traction than you and me, has better speed than you and I. Than you and I. Which is it? No, than you and me. Oh, okay. Are you sure? The left side says I. It's not an object, right. I got it straight. Who says that I'm not open to reason?

I'm willing to change my sermon for you. Think about this. And therefore, spiritually, what that means is there is a joy that comes that enables you, in a sense, to laugh in the face of gravity. The things that get most people down, if you've got the spiritual joy, duties, sins, troubles, do not have the same power to make you lose your balance if you have this joy.

that you've got attraction in the face of trouble, you've got a speed and a lightness of foot in the face of guilt. You can do something about troubles, guilt, and duties. And we said last week, the joy, in a sense, comes from our hope of glory. In other words, the weight of God's glory is so powerful. Our joy in knowing what's coming to us, our joy in knowing that we're free through the gospel, gives us

Such a sense of the weight of God's glory that all duties and troubles and sins become light by comparison. And that's why we said there's a lightness of conscience. And you see this in the Bible. If you look at Romans 8, if you want to see a great example of etoimesia, of this lightness of foot, this spiritual athleticism, this buoyancy, the whole end of Romans 8 is one big shout.

If you could see through all the old language, if you could see through all the footnotes and the references and all that, if you would stand back and read Romans 8 very quickly, almost listening as if somebody's saying it, you'll see it's a big shout. Paul says, who can bring a charge against us? Who can condemn where God is justified?

It's Christ who has died for you, yet risen for us, who is sitting at the right hand of the Father. And so Paul starts to say, "What will separate us from his love? Will famine or nakedness or danger or peril or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." And he goes on, "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth

nor any other creature, nor anything in all creation will separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. See, what is Paul saying? O sword, you can't take anything from me that's really of value. O famine, O nakedness, O peril, O sword. Paul is shouting, nothing can get me down. And it's not just Paul, but you see the people in the face of the flames. We've talked about the martyrs.

Martin Luther standing before all of the great officials, the people who can have his head on a platter, and he says, here I stand. I will not, I cannot take back what I've said. Anyway, the main point, of course, and we've talked about that, the spiritual joy and buoyancy is something that comes if you're using the gospel properly. Have you got that traction? Have you got that balance? Have you got that shout in your life? Do you have, in a certain sense, the Christian snarl?

that you see at the end of Romans 8. You know what I mean by a snarl? Come on, death. Come on, nakedness, famine, peril, or sword. You have nothing on me. There's a snarl in the joy of a Christian. There's a snarl in the joy of an athlete. I mean, some of them go overboard, you know, on the way into the touchdown. You know, they taunt. They taunt with the football. Of course, the NFL says, no, that's absolutely...

Of course, that's wrong and that's bad, and they should forbid that, but there is a snarl, there's a joy. There's a kind of world--there's a defiance that lasts in the face of gravity when you know you can run a nine-second, hundred-yard dash and you're doing it.

That's what Eric Little meant when he said, you know, he says to his sister Jenny, you know, God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure. I think that's true really of anybody, even the athletes that don't know God, they sense that. That's why Paul uses this very word, pleasure.

to say that in another realm, in a higher realm, in a more cosmic realm, there's that world-defying snarl, that sense that nothing can get me because I have my Father in the Gospel. That should be the characteristic of Christians. Now, we've talked about that, and then we said that was number one. Now, number two, it comes through using the Gospel on your own heart to get rid of your hostility toward God. And then thirdly, we said...

It means using the gospel to get rid of those things which separate you from one another. Now, let's finish up the second and at least start, maybe finish the third. Probably not tonight. Let's finish up the second. A lot of you have been very stirred by these two weeks of talking here about the fact that the Bible teaches that underneath everything else that you've got, every human being is mad at God. I'm a little surprised that so many of you are startled, but it's a very clear teaching in Scripture.

that we're his enemies, that our natural hearts are against him. And the reason for this, let's quickly remind ourselves of what we've been teaching. Every human being wants to be in charge. You want to be in charge. You want your life to go the way you want your life to go. You're sure that you know what you need. Listen, even those of you who supposedly are full of low self-esteem, you are fiercely sure you know what you need. The only difference between people of...

of high self-esteem and low self-esteem is the high self-esteem people say, "I know what I need and I'm getting it." And the people with low self-esteem say, "I know what I need and I'm not getting it." But you both, you see, but you both are absolutely, absolutely sure that you know what you need or you wouldn't be depressed actually. Nothing will, nothing, nothing seems to shake this deeply felt faith conviction

that I am competent to know what really will make me happy. That's why I'm so unhappy, because I know what would make me happy and I don't have it. There's very little difference ultimately between people with high and low self-esteem when it comes to this. And the Bible says that that really is at the essence of our problems. We're sure we know what we need to have. We're sure we know how our life ought to go. We all want to be our own bosses. We all want to be our own masters. And in some ways, the difference...

Until you become a Christian, until that root thing, that root part of your heart has been dealt with, has been uprooted, has been changed, there's a sense in which the differences between a Christian and non-Christian are vast. The differences between happy and unhappy, high self-esteem and low self-esteem, non-Christians, people that have not ever really admitted...

Their conviction, their desire to master themselves, there's really not that much difference between so-called mentally healthy people and mentally unhealthy people. It's a continuum. It's almost a matter of time before everybody finally realizes that you're really not in charge of your life. And when you realize you're not in charge, and when you realize you really can't control, that there really is no such thing as a self-made man or woman, when you finally realize that you're really not in control,

you fall out of mental health. Why? Because the fundamental, the Bible says, the fundamental inclination of the heart is, I know what I need and I have got to control my world and my life to get it. As soon as you begin to realize, some of us through unhappy lives realize it earlier. Others of us have the misfortune of getting into the schools we want to, getting the jobs we want, getting the spouses we want.

You know, for 10 or 20 or 30 years, some of us have the misfortune of, in a sense, being distracted by this steady stream of successes that makes us, gives us for at least temporarily, the illusion that we really are in charge of our lives. But eventually, all of us come to realize we're not, and we get so mad. And there's really no way to be mad at the God, because really, he's the culprit. Let's be logical. Let's be reasonable. He's the culprit. It's not our parents. Who gave us those parents? So...

It's not those bad marriages. After all, how could I have known? It's Him. It's God. He's the reason. And at a certain point, at some point, we realize that. We realize we're mad and we realize there's enmity. And then what you have to do is you have to use the gospel on yourself. Just a quick illustration of how this works before I try to summarize what it means to use the gospel.

Very recently, my two younger sons, they're not here tonight. One of the things at a certain point a preacher's kid starts to say is, Dad, I know what I did was probably pretty interesting, but please don't make me a sermon illustration. You just started to live in dread. So I'm free tonight, though. My two younger children, can you see yourself in this?

See yourself in this. My two younger children were with me in an elevator. And on the way up in the elevator, they had a scuffle over a ball. When one of the ball, I have the ball, and they scuffled and they did a few things that they shouldn't have done. And I looked at them and glowered at them and said, you stop that right now or there's going to be some consequences. And they both said, sorry. Well, we got up.

to the top to the floor and I suddenly realized I was taking back some things to a friend's apartment and I knew that in that apartment there was an infant that was sleeping. And just instinctively, being a father, I realized that I was only going to go there for a moment, I was only going to go in for a second. So I looked, I turned around, I said, "I've got two kind of rowdy kids. It'll be difficult to impress upon them the need to be totally quiet."

And I could just see one of them saying something and saying, "Oop, I'm sorry, but the kid wakes up." So I just said, "Look, why don't you guys stay right here by the elevator? I'll go to the apartment. I'll be right back." I said, "Why?" Well, my hands were full and I said, "Don't worry, just stay here." You're punishing us for the incident in the elevator. But we apologize, and you know the rules. If we say-- if we-- After--

Because we obeyed right away. You shouldn't punish us. I said, look, I'm not punishing you. I've got my reasons. I'll be right there. Yes, you're punishing us. Explain. What's the matter? Why are you doing this to us? Stay right there and I'll tell you. And only fear of more punishment kept in there. I went...

I delivered the material. I came on back and there they were kind of glowering because they wanted to come in. They didn't know the baby was asleep. Actually, they wanted to see the baby. I could have explained it all there. I was in a hurry. Okay, it's my prerogative. You're eight. You're 11. I'm 41. Stay there.

On the way down, we went back down and later, in just a minute, we were out on the bus. And the older one, who was the most put out by the whole thing, said, "You didn't tell me why." I was really upset. And I said, "I'm upset because I had to tell you three times to stay there." "Well, why couldn't I come?" I explained. "The baby's asleep. If you had come, all you would have done is maybe risked waking the child up. And therefore, there wasn't anybody to see."

says the kid. Well, you should have told me that. I said, I didn't really have to, did I? Yeah, I need, he says, to know the reason. Then I'll be able to obey. And I said, in other words, you don't want to obey. That's not obedience. You want to know. You want to be in charge. I was standing between you and something that you thought you had to have. You didn't realize that it wasn't really there. You didn't realize that if you tried to get it, actually you could only make things worse.

I didn't immediately tell it to you. Why? I was in a hurry and besides that you should realize that you're a child. I'm the father. Come on. Then I looked after a while and he was sort of glowering and I said, you know, the problem is this. You will not grant this premise that I'm wiser than you because I'm your father and you will also not grant the premise that I love you and I do not on purpose simply try to make you miserable. He looked up and he said, I guess you're right. Now look,

If there is a God, doesn't it make sense that he would know considerably more than you would? You have every evidence that if there is a God, you couldn't possibly understand all the reasons. See, when he says, stay here, and you say, but I've got to go. I know it will make me happy. You're standing between me and what will make me happy. And God looks and says, stay here. And you say, I've got to know why or I can't possibly obey you. In other words, God says, in other words, you don't want to obey me.

It's the same thing. Do you realize how irrational it is for you to really think that you know more than he does? See, that's an irrational contempt for the wisdom of God that's got to come from what the Bible calls a sinful enmity. It makes no sense. It's irrational. It's there. It dominates us. You will not grant the premise that he's more competent than you and that he loves you. You won't grant that premise.

Success, true love, and the life you've always wanted. Many of us have made these good things into ultimate things. We've put our faith in them when deep down we know that they cannot satisfy our longings. The truth is that we've made lesser gods of good things, gods that can't give us what we really need.

In his book, Counterfeit Gods, Dr. Keller shows us how a proper understanding of the Bible reveals the truth about societal ideals and our own hearts, and that there is only one God who can wholly satisfy our desires.

Dr. Keller's book is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the power of the gospel. So request your copy of Counterfeit Gods at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, what does the gospel do? The gospel changes that premise. It's in the gospel that God says, don't you see what I've done for you?

Therefore, even though you can't understand why I'm saying no to you now, even though you can't understand why I'm standing in the hallway and blocking your going to where you think you need to go, in the gospel I have proven that I love you. I have laid myself on the line. I've lavished my son on you. In the gospel I have shown that I'm not an ogre, I'm your father. In the gospel I've shown, in the cross I've shown I'm both wiser and more loving to you than you ever imagined.

Now, you've really got only two alternatives. One is to receive what he says. One is to say, you're right. I see it. I see the irrationality of my thinking that I'm wiser than you. I see the irrationality of doubting your love. You can either go that way or you can stay where you are. And if you stay where you are, you're doomed. You're doomed.

Because you right now maybe some of your your life is going kind of going along and so you're living under the illusion that you're in charge of your life you're not won't take anything Maybe you have no idea there right now. There could be some little little vessel in your brain. That's been weak It's been weak ever since you were born and three years from today It's it's it's it's gonna go off and when you're in the hospital you say guess what I wasn't in control Why is this happening to me?

Maybe it's to show you that you never were in control. Maybe, you know, when people are in the hospital, they feel so incredibly out of control. But you know what's a lot is, it's when you feel out of control that you're in touch with reality. It's actually when you get out of the hospital and things start to look like they're back in control that you actually lose touch with reality. When you're in the hospital, you see things as they really are. When you feel helpless, you see things as they really are.

And that's when, in many cases, it's the only reason you're willing to go to the gospel when you're helpless, is because God in his mercy is finally trying to show you what you should have seen all along, what you should know intuitively, that he knows better, that you're not competent to run your own life. There's no evidence for that, and yet you are building your life on it. It's a faith. It's a religion. There's no proof for it at all. So you take the gospel and you use it. As Martin Luther puts it, he says, if Christ is your savior...

You immediately have a gracious God. To behold God in the gospel is to see a Father's friendly heart. That's it. To behold God in the gospel, to realize what he did, the good news of him coming to earth and dying for you and rising from the dead, and to have him seated at the right hand of the Father,

where he stands to intercede. That's the gospel. In the gospel, God, you see a fatherly, friendly heart. You see God's smarter than you, loves you more than you love yourself, loves you in a more wise way, stands in the hallway saying, no, you can't come in. But in the gospel, you know he's got a reason. Are you using the gospel in your heart like that? You say, oh, it's so hard. What's the alternative? That's all I want you to know. You tell me, what's your alternative?

Something I've had to say to people as a pastor for years and years: You've only got two alternatives: You can obey, which is terribly hard, or you can disobey, which is impossible. No, I don't mean it's impossible to disobey. I mean when you disobey, your life becomes impossible. Because if God is really who he says he is, if he says this is the way of love and wisdom and holiness, walk ye in it, and you walk in a different way, if you decide to be your own master,

Then you're in for disaster. You can't possibly fight that. To disobey always leads to a much harder life. Obedience is hard, disobedience is harder. Worse, disobedience is impossible. Okay, now thirdly, and I'll just give you an introduction to it. Spiritual joy doesn't simply come from using the gospel to turn your heart toward God so you stop fighting him, stop being angry at him, stop insisting that you know better than him.

The gospel brings peace between people, between human beings. Now, when I say I'm going to give you an introduction, I really do mean I can only give you an introduction tonight and have to complete later on. The gospel magnetizes you. You know, a magnet is something that is attracted to other metal. When Adam and Eve became hostile to God, as soon as they... Remember what they did? I've been reminding you a lot lately. I think it's important to go back to Genesis 8.

Everything in the Gospel is in Genesis, if you look. But you remember, Adam and Eve's sin was to believe a lie that said, "God is out to get you." That was their first sin. That's the original sin. Adam and Eve believed a lie that says, "God is out to get you. If you obey him, he will keep you from certain things that you really should have and need to have to really reach your potential."

We've been believing it ever since. In other words, when the serpent said that to Adam and Eve and they believed him, they immediately began to be suspicious of God, which means they began to hold him in contempt, which means they began to have enmity toward him, hostility toward him. The first thing that happened when they got mad at God was they had to hide from each other. Remember, they were naked and unashamed. The minute they said, I'm going to be my own master, which means I have to distrust God, can't trust him anymore,

Immediately, they couldn't handle being naked. They had to be private. That meant that they could not come up to another human being without being in control of what the other human being saw. Do you hear that? Why did Adam and Eve need clothing? Why didn't they need clothing before? Because when they really trusted God, when they really had no enmity, then they didn't feel they had to be in control of everything.

They said, I'm not in control of everything. I serve God. And of course, they were built to serve God. And when you do serve God, and you really give yourself to him wholly, you find out that's what you were built to do. He loves you. He's wise. And you blossom. The minute they decided, I'm going to be in control of my life. I'm going to decide what I'm going to do and what I'm not going to do. As soon as that happened, their relationships immediately deteriorated because they had to be in control of what the other person could see.

They had to have clothes so that they could open up when and how they wanted to. They had to have clothes so they, in a sense, could actually hide a lot of what was really there or change or create a different image.

As soon as you feel like I've got to be in control of my life in relationship to God, you immediately feel that you've got to be in control of your life in relationship to other people. You've got to be in control of what they see. There can't be real intimacy. There can't be real vulnerability. The manipulation comes in. And therefore, the Bible has always tied these two things together. Why do you think that even in the Lord's Prayer it says, forgive us our debts as what? As we forgive our debtors.

The freedom you have in your relationship with God increases or decreases in the same proportions as your freedom in relationship to other people. The more you're able to let go and stop manipulating God and begin to serve and love him, the more you're going to be able to let go in relationships and stop manipulating them and serve and love them. The more you find that you feel guilt-free in your relationship with God, you'll be guilt-free in your relationship with others. I mean, I can go down the list.

The more you feel that God hasn't rejected me, but he loves me and accepts me, the less afraid of rejection you're going to be in your relationship with other people. I can go down the list, and I continue to. That's the reason why the gospel of peace doesn't say, "Put on your feet the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace with God." It doesn't say that. It says, "The gospel of peace," because the gospel does not just bring peace between you and God, it also consequently brings peace between you and other people. For example,

It brings peace to us as we consider... Maybe I'll close with this because obviously I've got more material here that I can go over. It brings peace in our relationship to other people the more aware we are of the fact that we were enemies and now reconciled by God. See, when you look at another person and that person is treating you badly,

Here's the first thing that happens to a Christian. A Christian knows that you're supposed to forgive. And a Christian knows that you're supposed to cover that sin and not be upset and not pay evil for evil. Right? You know all that. But unless you focus on the gospel, unless you focus on your salvation, if you, in a sense, just through willpower decide, I'm not going to fight back, I'm not going to pay back, I'm not going to be as weird and mean as this person is being weird and mean to me,

All you really do in a fleshly way is refrain from striking back. And inside, you are full of condescension. You say, there's a part of your heart that says, I'm being nice to this person, but my, what a martyr I am to do it.

There's a pride, there's a condescension, and ultimately, even though you're not actually striking out at this person who's being obnoxious, they can tell what's going on inside. You're doing nothing redemptive. You're not really bringing the gospel to bear on your relationship and bringing peace, no. You've got a martyr complex. You feel superior to this person. But what if, while that person is mistreating you, you say, "I was an enemy.

And if I was an enemy, how in the world can I lose hope for this person? Have I forgotten what a miracle I am? If I was an enemy, how in the world can I despise this person? I know what I was like before God. There's a place in Psalm 73 where the psalmist says, "I was ignorant and senseless. I was as a beast toward you." You know that spot in Psalm 73? He says, "Before I was convicted,

Before I was convicted of my sin, I was ignorant and senseless toward you. I was as a beast. I trampled on you. I spit on you. I was incredibly ungrateful to you. I used you. Do you remember that? If you say, I was an enemy, look at how I treated God. How in the world can I feel that I am in any way superior to this person? If I was an enemy, I can't be superior to this person. If I was an enemy, I can't lose hope for this person. If I was an enemy...

I can't be condescending toward this person. You see what happens? The person will sense a gentleness in you, will sense a humility in you, will sense a truth, you see, because you're not being manipulated. You can't be manipulated when you're thinking of the gospel. You don't have to please them, but you're not mad at them anymore. The gospel brings peace. And as we apply the gospel, it repairs our relationships. As we apply the gospel, it creates strong relationships and so on.

Just remember that. The spiritual athleticism that comes, the buoyancy that comes, not only from using the gospel to get rid of the tremendous enmity that we have, and in many cases even as Christians still have, to some degree, between us and God,

and also to get rid of all the irritations and the and the irritability and not only that the manipulation and the dissembling and the play acting and the hypocrisy that goes on between two people as soon as we realize that we're accepted in the beloved the barriers come down in a certain sense the clothes come off in the most important way and we say

Like Adam said to Eve, at last, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. We can look at other human beings and we can say, I can finally let you in. You know why? Because in some fundamental way, I need you and yet I don't. I need you and yet I don't. You're not my God anymore. You're not my Lord anymore. And therefore, I need you, but I don't need you like I used to. The gospel brings peace. Use it. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that

Even though you have given us this armor, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the shoes of peace, we don't have them on. That's why this passage was written. We realize that as Christians, we've got the capabilities for relationships that the world should be dumbfounded by. Instead, the world looks at us and doesn't see us really doing any better job of forgiving each other, doing any better job of dealing with our irritations.

Oh Lord, let that stop, let that change. Let us put on the Gospel so that the peace between us mirrors the peace between you and me and between you and us, so that we can find ourselves full of joy, the joy that comes from the joy of Jesus Christ, who ran the race for the sake of the joy that was set before him. So help us to run the race.

Help us to have those kinds of, that kind of feet, those kinds of shoes on our feet. We ask all this now, and we consider and ponder this. Apply it to our hearts by your Spirit. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it equips you to apply the wisdom of God's Word to your life. You can find more resources from Tim Keller at gospelandlife.com. Just subscribe to the Gospel and Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

This month's sermons were recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. ♪