Haughty Eyes 43:54

Welcome to Gospel and Life. There are lots of things the Bible is pretty clear about. Don't steal, for instance, or don't commit adultery. But no single Bible verse will tell you exactly whom to marry, which job to take, whether to move or stay put. We need God's wisdom to make good decisions in every part of our lives. Join us today as Tim Keller explores how we can cultivate wisdom with God at the center of all life's choices. ♪

Tonight's reading is from the book of Proverbs and is found on page eight of your bulletin. When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his tongue. Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.

The Lord tears down the proud man's house, but he keeps the widow's boundaries intact. The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor. Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud. Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin. He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe."

This is God's Word. We've been looking at the book of Proverbs. We've been looking at the subject of wisdom. We've said that wisdom, according to the Bible, is competence with regard to the complex realities of life. And that means that being wise isn't less than being moral and good, but it's quite a bit more. It's knowing the right choices to make. It's knowing the right courses of action to take in life.

in the great majority of situations in life that the moral rules don't address. For example, pull like this, not like this. See, that's music stand wisdom. It takes skill, it takes experience. And if I was wiser, I wouldn't have pulled at this point. I would have pulled like this. Life is like that. Now, one of the things that's frustrating about for Americans who are very, very how-to oriented, we're very technically oriented. We want technique oriented.

It's frustrating to read the book of Proverbs because the book of Proverbs does not give you methods by which you can make wise decisions. Instead, it says, here's the kind of person you have to become that makes wise decisions. Instead of giving you methods for how to make wise decisions, it says, you must become this kind of person, and then you'll be the kind of person that makes wise decisions. And that's one of the reasons why, for the last few weeks, we've been looking at, I guess what you could call character traits,

You could call them virtues that if you have them, you become wise. So we've been looking at self-control. We've been looking at generosity. But tonight we come to the one character quality which is the most crucial to becoming a wise person. And that is what? Over and over and over again, the Bible says, especially the book of Proverbs says, if you think you're wise, you're a fool. But if you are painfully aware of all of your foolishness,

You are, or at least you're on your way to becoming wise. And chapter 16, verse 19, which is a proverb that's about two-thirds of the way down the page, where it says, better to be lowly in spirit and among the poor than to share plunder with the proud. You know what that's saying? Humility is more valuable than all the gold and silver and jewels that lay beneath the earth. So this is about pride and humility. And we're going to learn three things by looking at these texts.

We're going to learn the diagnosis of pride, what it is, the destructiveness of pride, what it does, and the antidote. The diagnosis of it, the destructiveness of it, and the antidote for it. Okay? Now first, let's see what the diagnosis means. What is it? What is pride according to this book of Proverbs? And there's three things that it tells us about pride. First of all, it tells us pride is needing...

to feel better than other people in some way. Pride is what makes your heart need to feel better than other people in some way. We've got to see ourselves as being better in some way. For example, the second proverb, a man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor.

Pride makes us deride. That is to say, pride makes us look down at other people, disdain, feel contempt, feel better than other people. We're always comparing ourselves to other people, and this is absolutely key to diagnosing pride. In C.S. Lewis's famous chapter on pride in his book, Mere Christianity, he writes this, Pride gets no pleasure out of having something. Pride only has pleasure in having more of it than the next person.

Proud people are not really proud of being successful or intelligent or good-looking. They are proud of having more success, more intelligent, and better looks than the people around them. It's the comparison that makes us proud. It's the pleasure of being above the rest. Therefore, he gives an example, lust may drive a man to sleep with a beautiful woman, but in lust, he may actually want her. Pride drives a man to sleep with a beautiful woman as well, but just to prove that he can do it,

and do it over the others. He doesn't really get any pleasure from her. Now, let me give you a little less racy example. My last two years in high school, my junior and senior year, I remember very clearly my parents were always saying, go out for the chess club, go out for the photography club, go out for that sport. And I would say, I don't like photography. I don't like these things. Why do I want to go out? I don't like these things. And they'd say, but it would look so good on your college application.

So this last two years, I spent lots of time doing things that I really didn't like, but it was just a way of accruing a resume. Not so bad, I guess, for getting into college. But what if it's the master narrative of your entire life? What if everything you're doing, you're not doing because you like it, but in order to make a case, in order to amass a resume, in order to prove to yourself and others that you count, that you're a person of consequence?

Arthur Miller, in his play After the Fall, has a powerful passage at one point where the main character says this. He says, For years I looked at life like a case at law, a series of arguments. When you're young, you prove how brave you are or how smart. Then what a good lover you are. Later, what a good husband or father you are. Finally, how wise or powerful or whatever. But underlying it all, I now see there was an assumption that

that a person moves on a path toward, I don't know, toward being justified or condemned, a verdict anyway. My disaster happened when I looked up one day and realized the bench was empty. No God, no judge in sight, and all that remained was the endless argument with myself, the litigation of existence before an empty bench, which is another way of saying, of course, despair.

Now, what's so powerful about this? Here you have a character who's saying he didn't believe in God anymore. Or, and maybe for all I know, it's Arthur Miller is saying he didn't believe in God anymore. But it doesn't matter whether you believe in God or not. It doesn't matter whether you use the term. He is saying every human being, inexorably, unavoidably, is out there earning his or her salvation. We're all unsatisfied enough, incomplete in some way,

We are all out there amassing a resume. We're in a courtroom. We're constantly arguing. The endless litigation. Whether you believe in God or not, whether you believe in salvation or not, we're all out there earning our salvation. There's an endless litigation, endless arguments, endless spinning, endless accruing of evidence for and against what? A verdict. And what's the verdict? I am a person who counts. I'm a person of consequence. I'm okay. I'm a person of worth.

Every single human being desperately needs to prove that to themselves and other people, and therefore we're all in court. We're all arguing, endless litigation, whether we believe in God or not. If you're a religious person, you're doing it before God. If you're not a religious person, you're still doing it. You have to do it. That's what Arthur Miller is saying. And the easiest way to do that is find somebody else that you're better than and remind yourself and them of it. That's the way to do it.

And it's so easy because we're doing it to each other. See, over here is a crowd of people. We are hipper and we are cooler and we are savvier and we are more ironic than them. Well, those people over there, that makes it easy because they're saying, I hate savvy, postured, styled, stylistic, ironic people. We are hardworking. We're sensible. We're down to earth. We're not cynical. Here's a group saying, we're more moral and religious. And we're here...

We are open-minded. We're not religious. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Conservative, liberal, atheist, believer, Christian, Muslim, religious person, it doesn't matter. We all need to feel better than other people. We're all out there spinning. We're all out there arguing the endless litigation, the endless trial, the endless accumulation of evidence that we count proving ourselves. Now, that's the first thing pride is. Well, why do we do it? Why do we need to do it? Second,

Second thing the Bible says is that pride, we said already, it needs to feel better than others. Secondly, pride needs to take God's place in your own life. The proud heart wants to take God's place in your own life. There are several Hebrew words used for the word pride throughout these proverbs, these verses. They are all translated pride or proud in English, but they're actually different Hebrew words. Hebrew words.

And in 1525 and in 1619, the word pride is a very interesting Hebrew word. It's the word go on and a gaon, excuse me. And it means it's almost always applied to God. And it means supreme majesty. And to use it for a human being is ironic, but it's also very telling. The Bible says that every single human heart wants to be its own supreme being.

We all want to be our own gods. We all want to be our own saviors and lords. We want to call the shots. We want to run our own lives. We want to decide what is right or wrong for us. We want to earn our own self-worth. We want to find meaning in life on our own. We don't have to center our entire lives on God. And that is what creates the exhausting, endless litigation and scrambling for recognition and acclaim. Now, somebody who put this extremely well is Lewis Smedes, a Christian writer,

who wrote it up like this. He said,

And wishing instead to be the creator, independent, reliant on your own resources. And that is the greatest delusion, the delusional fantasy of all fantasies, the cosmic put on. And see, that is what leads to the endless litigation, the sense of being on trial. Why? Here he keeps on going. He says, the fantasy that we can make it as our own gods leaves us empty at the center. We are therefore attacked by demons of fear and anxiety all the time.

We learn to swagger, we learn to bluff. Deep down inside, we're afraid we can't make it on our own, and therefore we look around for people to use as buttresses for the shaky ego that our pride has created. We look for those people. Now every new situation calls forth the question, what can I get out of this situation to support the need of my ego for power and applause? And every new person elicits the question, how can this person contribute to my need to prove that I am better than other people?

Life becomes a constant battle to use people to bolster your own self and to avoid letting others use you in the same way you are using them, all because we're empty at the center. And there's a third thing. So pride is needing to feel better than others. Secondly, pride is needing to be your own supreme being, is to take God's position in your own life. And third, pride, or I should put it this way, the proud self is constantly aware of itself.

The proud self is desperately aware of itself. That's the nature of pride, to be self-aware, to be always thinking about how I'm looking, how I'm doing, how I'm performing, how I'm being treated. You see in chapter 13, verse 10, the third proverb, wisdom is found in those who take advice, but pride only breeds quarrels. That's an interesting picture. See, for example, when you give somebody advice, you're talking about the thing. Like if you say, uh...

You put the nail up too high. It shouldn't be up there. You should put it down here. You're talking about the nail. You're talking about the wall. You're talking about the picture. You're talking about the hammer. But that's not how the proud person sees it. The proud person says, don't tell me how to hang a picture. I know where to put the nail. In other words, the proud person is all about him or her. The proud person, the self, is always calling attention to itself. The ego, how you look, how you are doing, how you're performing, how you're being treated.

Your body parts do not call attention to themselves unless there's something wrong. Your body parts do not call attention to themselves unless there's something wrong with them. So when I come home at night and I say, and Kathy says to me, hey, how was your day? I never say, oh, my elbows worked wonderfully today.

Every time I reach for something, look at this. It's amazing how the hinge, I don't know. My elbows are just working fine. If your elbows are working fine, you don't come at the end of the day thinking your elbows are working fine. Your elbows don't call attention to themselves if they're working fine. You would only mention your elbows if something was wrong with them. But the ego calls attention to itself every hour at least.

You can't get through the day without thinking about you're being snubbed or you've been ignored or your feelings are getting hurt. Your feelings are fine. It's your ego who's gotten hurt or feeling getting down on yourself. What does that mean? It means there's something really wrong with our identities, with the basis for our sense of self. There's something really wrong with ourselves, really wrong. And you know what this proves? Since pride is a proud self is always aware of itself,

What we call in this country low self-esteem is really a form of pride. I know we don't think of it like that. We say, oh, proud people are these, you know, swaggering people, arrogant people. People with low self-esteem, poor babies, they don't have any pride. Yes, they do. You know what low self-esteem is? You're still concentrating on yourself. You're still thinking about yourself. You feel like a failure. You feel bad. You're down on yourself. You feel this and you feel that. But you're still thinking about yourself.

You're just as absorbed, you're just as aware of yourself as a person with a superiority complex. And you know why? You're still on trial. You're still in the courtroom. Everything that happens is evidence for or against you. You're still spinning. You're still arguing. You're still in the endless litigation. The only difference between you and the person with the superiority complex is that you're losing the trial.

You're losing the case. There's too much evidence against you. But you see, you wouldn't be down on yourself. You wouldn't be telling people, oh, I'm nothing. You wouldn't be afraid of failure. You wouldn't be saying, oh, I'm really no good. Unless you were just as self-absorbed as the person who we normally call proud. It's the same system. You're in the same courtroom. So pride is needing to feel better than others, being your own supreme being, and being morbidly self-conscious and aware of yourself. Now that's what it is.

But what does it do? The Bible doesn't just say, here's what it is. It also doesn't just diagnose pride. It also talks about how destructive it is. It talks about what it does. It's pretty blunt. Look at the two-thirds of the way down. It says, pride goes before destruction. Notice what that says. It doesn't say, pride might lead to destruction. Does it say that? No, no. It says there's a parade going, and after pride...

destruction's coming. Here comes the pride. Destruction is on its way. Pride leads to destruction. Haughtiness leads to a fall. Now, why? Why would pride be so utterly destructive? And I think the text gives us the Bible, and these verses give us two reasons, both the practical reason and the cosmic reason. I'll be fast about this. There's the practical reason. Look, 1310,

A man who lacks judgment, pardon me, 1310, pride only breeds quarrels. A wisdom is found in those who take advice. A proud person doesn't learn from mistakes. A proud person doesn't learn from criticism. Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked are sin. That probably means, commentators think that image means this, at night you can only see by the light of the lamp. If your lamp is yellow light, everything's yellow. If your lamp is red, the flame is red, everything is red, you know?

And what this is saying is pride distorts and colors everything you see. You can't admit when you've done things wrong. You can't admit your own weaknesses. Everything has to be blamed on other people. You've got to maintain that image of yourself as a good person, as an okay person, as a savvy person, as a competent person, as better than other people. And therefore, of course, pride is going to distort you, your view of reality, and therefore you're going to make terrible decisions. And that's why it says, he who trusted himself, the last proverb, is a fool.

but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe. So there's all kinds of practical reasons why pride keeps you out of touch with reality, and therefore you're going to make bad decisions. But there's a much deeper and a more scary and a more fascinating reason that pride leads to destruction, and that is not just the practical but the cosmic reasons. What do we mean by the cosmic reasons? Well, notice, for example, in the middle of the page, it says, "...the Lord tears down the proud man's house..."

but he keeps the widow's boundary intact. And down further, 1619, better to be lowly in spirit and among the poor than to share plunder with the oppressed, with the proud. This is just two examples of an incredibly important theme in the Bible, incredibly important. God loves the widow. God loves the poor. God loves the outsider. God loves the weak.

God loves the people who have lost, the losers in the struggle in this world for position and power. God loves them. He's for the widow. He's for the fatherless. He's for the poor. He's for the weak. Why? Why is that so important? And here's why. The Bible says, the Christian Bible, Old Testament and New Testament together, says that our God is a trinity.

That from all eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have been what? What do they do with each other? What's the essence of who God is? What has God been doing for all eternity? We get a hint of it in John chapter 17, where Jesus says to God at the very end of his life, he says, Father, glorify me with the glory that you used to give me before the foundation of the world. And there it is.

And the ancient, the early Christian theologians, especially of the Greek church, the Eastern church, used to call this, they had a name for the inner life of the Trinity called perichorosis. It's a Greek word, of course. And if you discern the word choreography in there, you're right. Jesus was saying the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit from all eternity, each person

gives glory to the other two. Each person adores the other two. Each person loves the other two, delights in the other two. In other words, there's a dance of love going on. Each person centers on the others, gives glory, doesn't take glory, gives delight, gives love. In other words, at the very heart of the universe and at the very origin of the universe, in God, there is an other orientation.

At the very heart of God is self-giving love. And therefore, if you are in the business of getting glory rather than giving it, of scrambling for it, of attaining recognition, of always struggling for recognition and acclaim,

You are on a collision course with the very fabric and being of God himself, because God loves the lowly. God loves the humble. You know, that's what it says. He says in an incredible place in Isaiah, he says, I am God and I live in the high and holy place and also with him who is of a humble and contrite spirit, but the proud I know from afar. And it's not only that you are on a collision course with the very being of God, you're on a collision course with a

God's future. Because the Bible says eventually God is going to lift up the humble and put down the proud. He's going to lift up the weak and he's going to put down the strong. And if your whole goal in life is to get glory and is to get acclaim and is to get recognition and is to prove yourself and to prove your person of worth and confidence and consequence and so on, if that's what your job is, you're on a collision course with God's

You're on a collision course with God's history. Pride leads to destruction. And now you know why. In the midst of life's uncertainties, where do you turn for wisdom? The book of Proverbs is filled with wisdom to help guide us in all aspects of life.

In Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional book, God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, you'll get a fresh, inspiring view of God's wisdom each day of the year from the book of Proverbs. This devotional book will help you unlock the wisdom within the poetry of Proverbs and guide you toward a new understanding of what it means to live the Christian life.

This resource is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share Christ's love with more people. You can request your copy of God's Wisdom for Navigating Life when you give today at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. All right. So that's what it is.

And that's how serious it is and destructive it is. What are we going to do about it? What is the antidote? And I think we find it in the very center of the list in chapter 1533 that reads, the fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom and humility comes before honor.

Now, there's two parts to that proverb, and there's two principles here. First of all, you've got to get the glory that only comes to the humble, and then you've got to use the joy of the gospel to erode your pride for the rest of your life. You've got to find the glory that only is there for the humble, and then you've got to use the joy of the gospel to erode your pride for the rest of your life. Let's look at this verse. First of all, let's look at the second part of the verse. Honor comes before humility.

Pardon me. Humility comes before honor. In other words, there's an honor that comes only to the humble. And by the way, this word for humble is not unusual, but the word for honor is. The word for honor is the Hebrew word kabodh. It's the word for supreme glory. The glory of God is what makes him not just important, but what makes him solid. It's the substance. It's what makes him last. And this is saying something astounding. The humble are the people who are not

They don't think they're important. The humble are the people who are not after importance. But here's what it's saying. Only if you're not after importance can you get a glory that never fades. Only the people who are sure they're not important can matter forever. There is a glory that's being spoken of here that only goes for the humble, which means there's a glory, there's a substance, there's a significance that isn't attained. It's not argued for. It's not merited. It's not earned.

It must be a gift. Now, what we're on to right at this point where there is a glory that only comes to the humble, at this point we're not into just a practical principle for living, though of course it is. We are into the very nature of the meaning of the universe. We are at this point getting after what God is after in all of human history. What do I mean by that? Well, go back to the beginning of the history of the world. Look at Genesis.

If you go through Genesis, as actually we've been doing for the last four or five years, at various times I've been trying to preach through the book of Genesis, Exodus, the Old Testament, one of the things that we've seen, one of the things I've seen, and it's amazing. In all ancient cultures, the oldest son gets all the power. And yet at every generation, God works with the younger son, the son that is...

It's Abel over Cain. It's Isaac over Ishmael. It's Jacob over Esau. It's Moses over Aaron. Over and over and over again, God does that. Deliberately, obviously, to completely turn upside down the world's understanding of greatness and power. In all ancient cultures and in modern cultures, the beautiful women get the powerful men. And yet, at every place, God works with Sarah over Hagar, works with Leah over Rachel, works

works with Tamar, works with Rahab the prostitute, works with Hannah the barren woman. What? In every single spot, God always works with the barren woman, the unwanted woman. God only, only works through the girl nobody wanted and the boy that everybody's forgotten in every generation. Now, why does he do that? God just got a sense of poetic justice? Is he just a romantic? He just sort of likes the underdog? Or is there something more profound going on here? Yes, there is.

When this God, who had self-giving love at his very heart, came into the world, he came into the world as a poor man. He was born in a manger. He was born in a feed trough. He didn't come to Madison Square Garden. He didn't come to Times Square. He was born in a feed trough, in a colony, an unimportant colony in the Roman Empire. A manger. See, that's the God who's the real God, who does things in a completely different way.

If you want to find God, as the Christmas carol says, seek not in courts or palaces, nor royal curtains draw, but search the stables and see your God extended on the straw. And so he comes and he's born in a feed trough. He's born into a poor family. He grows up as just a homeless person, basically. And in the end, he's betrayed or denied or deserted by everybody, and he dies an ignominious death. Now,

Is that the way to win the world? You're New Yorkers. New Yorkers love to have long-term goals, strategy, vision. Let's suggest this. What if somebody today here in New York said, I have a goal. My goal, my long-term goal is 2,000 years from now, I'd like to be the most influential and famous person who ever lived. I would like a half to a third of all the people in the world to worship me and build their whole life around me.

I would like to have many, many major civilizations completely built on my teachings. Okay, that's a very worthy goal. And if that was your goal, what would your strategy be? How would you get there? How would you go about it? Would you do it the way Jesus did it? Not on your life. Would you be born in obscurity? Would you studiously avoid ever getting involved in any of the powerful political or economic or academic networks? Would you studiously avoid...

All that? Would you be killed tragically when your life wasn't even half over yet? Would you think that's the way to become the most influential and powerful and life-changing person in the history of the world? No, but that's how Jesus did it. And he makes foolish the wisdom of the world. Because what if he had done it the way we would have done it? What if he had come as a great philosopher with this great system? Well, then the only people who would really get it would be the intellectually strong. You know, you have to have brains.

Or what if he came in strength and he just lived like most of the other religious founders, a great life, all of his life, he lived in strength and he said, now live like me and you will be blessed. Then only the morally strong could follow him. But right now, in Asia and Latin America and Africa, Christianity is sweeping. It's...

It's kindling the hearts of the poor and the oppressed. It's sweeping through those places and growing at 10 times the rate of the population. Do you see poor people across the world starting Plato studies? We're going to sit down, we're going to study Plato, but they're studying the message of Jesus and their lives are being changed and their lives are being healed and their families are being put together again and they're getting hope. Why? Because he brought a salvation that was achieved through humility.

He didn't come and say, I'm strong and I have lived a strong life. Now you suck up your strength and you can be like me. No. Jesus Christ came and lived the life you were too weak to live and die the death you were unwilling to admit you needed to die. He came to live the life you should have lived and die the death you should have died. You should have died. He came to take your punishment. He came to be your substitute. He came to do it all for you. It was a glory sacrifice.

They can only be achieved through humility. He came in weakness so that, and this is why the message is so, it's good for everybody. This is why it's sweeping the world. It's not just for the intellectually strong. It's not just for the morally strong. It's for everybody. And here's what the message is. The message is it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter whether you've murdered people. It doesn't matter whether you've so abused yourself that your mind hardly works anymore.

If you believe that Jesus Christ has done all this for you, and if you say, Father, receive me and accept me, not because of what I have done, but because of what Jesus has done, at that moment, you have moved out of the religion into the gospel. Religion is give God a moral record, and then God owes you blessing. But the gospel is God gives you a perfect record in Jesus Christ, and then you live for him.

And when you say, Lord, accept me for Jesus' sake, at that moment in Christ, God looks at you. This is the gospel. God looks at you and values you above all the gold and silver and jewels that lie beneath the earth. Now, how do you get that kind of glory, that kind of unconditional glory and regard, that kind of impervious glory and regard that's not based on your performance at all, at all? How do you get it? I'll tell you how to get it. There are some gifts that are utterly insulting.

And you can only get them if you accept the insult. Like John Gerstner put it like this. He says, if I come to you and say, here, I have this Christmas present for you. Say, oh, thank you. What is it? And you take off the wrapper and it's this huge bottle of mouthwash. If you say, thank you, what you're saying is, yes, I do have body odor. There's no way to receive some gifts without admitting something bad about yourself.

And it's the same thing with the gospel. You have to be humble to get the glory. New Yorkers, let me tell you what the gospel is. You are so sinful and you are so prone to evil and you are so flawed that

that nothing less than the death of the Son of God on the cross can save you. Okay, here I am standing in the middle of Manhattan in the year 2004 telling you that, and some of you are saying that is so primitive, that is so over the top, that is so insulting. Yes, you don't have the humility to receive this gift yet. It was achieved through humility, radical humility, humility unto death, and it can only be received through humility. You have to admit that you need it.

See, that's hard for us, us New Yorkers. I mean, it's sweeping and always has swept and will sweep again and change the lives of the poor and the oppressed. But we have more trouble with it. Oh, yeah, we do. Because it takes humility to get this honor. It takes humility to get this glory. All you need is need. All you need is nothing. But we don't have it. You don't have nothing.

if you're offended by the very idea that you have to accept this gift, which doesn't just say you have body odor, but says that you're a moral failure and that you need to be saved strictly through the grace of Jesus Christ. So the first thing you have to do, well, you have to get this, this glory. This is poise. You know the word poise comes from the old English word that meant the ballast in a ship.

In the old days, you had to have ballast in a ship. You know why? If the keel was not set down deep enough in the water because there was weight in the boat, it would capsize. But on the other hand, if there's too much weight in the boat and the keel was down so deep that the deck was practically at water level, then it was also dangerous. You had to have just the right amount of weight to have poise.

The gospel is so unique because the gospel says at the same time, you are really more lost than you ever dared believe. And you're more absolutely loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than you ever dared hope at the same time. And that gives you the ballast. That gives you the poise that nothing else can. You're not too light. You're not too heavy. You're just right. So first, you've got to get the glory that only the humble can get. But then secondly, just finally, somebody says, wait a minute.

You know, even though I believe all that you're saying, I mean, I know plenty of you out there are saying, well, I don't even know if I believe all this about Christianity, although I've never thought of it like this. Fine, good, keep coming. But there's some of you out there who say, well, I do believe the basics of Christianity. I understand what you're telling me about the gospel, and thank you very much. But the problem is, every day I get out into the world and I get sucked back into the courtroom. I get sucked back into the courtroom. And I find myself doing it again, arguing,

gathering evidence, spinning, criticizing other people, being devastated by criticism, needing to look down on people. I'm still trying to convince myself and other people that I'm a person of consequence, that I'm a person that counts. I find myself stuck back in the courtroom. What am I going to do about that? Well, the first part of that verse says, the fear of the Lord, which we've looked at each week practically, and that means worship. It means awe and wonder and joy before the grace of God.

The fear of the Lord, notice it doesn't say gives you wisdom, but it teaches you wisdom, which of course under these circumstances means humility. And here's how this works. Here's how this works. When you get out into the world, we almost automatically go back into courtroom mode. And you know how courtroom mode goes? Performance leads to verdict. Remember what Arthur Miller says? Performance leads to verdict. If you do good, then you feel somehow deep down inside, I am good.

And if you do no good, you feel somehow deep down inside, I am no good. Because performance leads to verdict. We connect everything we do with our self-image. Now, there's a great place in 1 Corinthians 4 where Paul says something totally amazing. He says, I care very little, he says to the Corinthians, if I am judged by you or any human court. Yea, I don't even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not justify me. It is God who judges me.

Do you see what he just said there? He says, I don't care whether I'm judged by you or any human court. Now, wait a minute. He's talking to the Christian church. They're not a court. Ah, but see, great minds think alike. He's grasped the same metaphor that Arthur Miller has grasped. He realizes that every day under ordinary circumstances, our hearts are like on trial. We're in the courtroom. We're arguing. See, we're trying to make the case. We're trying to prove our worth. But he says, I've gotten out of the courtroom. Totally. First, he says, I don't care what you think about me.

Well, some of you say that's very healthy. It shouldn't matter what other people think about you. It only should matter what he thinks about himself. But that wouldn't have gotten him out of the courtroom. To have to judge yourself and prove yourself by your own standards is every bit as exhausting as proving yourself by other people's standards, unless you have low standards. And then you feel really bad because you say, oh, I'm the kind of person with low standards. So you see, you can't lose. You can't win.

No, no. Look what he says. It's off our maps. It's wild. It's radical. He says, not only don't I care what you think about me, I don't care what I think about me. I've stopped connecting my performance with my self-image. I've gotten out of the game. The courtroom is over. I'm out of the court. If I do well today, I don't commit... That doesn't puff me up because I don't connect that to my self-image and my self-regard.

If I do poorly today, I don't get devastated. I don't connect that to my self-image and my self-regard. My self-regard and self-image is based on something completely else, other. Performance does not lead to verdict. Why? He says, it's God who justifies me. What he's saying is Christianity turns upside down the normal way the heart works. And it says, no, the verdict is in. The verdict is in.

God already accepts me. God already loves me. The verdict is in. And in Christianity, it's not performance that leads to verdict. It's not like you base your self-image on how you perform. The verdict leads to performance, not the performance leads to verdict. The verdict is in and that changes my performance. Now I go out and I help people not because I need to feel good about myself, but because I just want to help people. The verdict is in and that changes the way in which I live.

That's a completely different way. The gospel changes the way you even look at yourself. Well, you say, how is that possible? Here's how it's possible. Paul is out of the courtroom and you and I can be out of the courtroom because Jesus went into the courtroom. Jesus went on trial for his life and the jury began beating him before the trial was even over. He didn't have a chance. Why did he do it? He went in and got the verdict that we deserve so that we can get the verdict that he deserved.

We can get out of the courtroom because Jesus went into the courtroom. And you have to remind yourself of that every day. You can do it. The fear of the Lord will teach it to you. You have to remember the gospel. You have to revive yourself with the gospel in the middle of the day. Let me just tell you how I do it. There's a little piece of paper in my wallet that I try to get out almost every day. There's a series of questions on it. And they're questions like this. Are you anxious? Are you afraid of how you look?

Are you getting down on yourself? Are you criticizing other people? Are you being devastated by criticism? Are you looking down at anybody else? And then I have one single line, and here's what it says. Court is adjourned. In Jesus, court is adjourned. The verdict is in. We can leave the courtroom because he went into the courtroom.

You don't need to be doing that anymore. And you know what? It works. You got to do it every day. The fear of the Lord gradually teaches you wisdom and humility, but it can happen. It can happen. My dear friends, Jesus Christ said, he who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. That is the meaning of the universe. Go think about it. Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us the key to the meaning of the universe.

Help us to work it out in our lives. It's wise, it's wisdom, it's profound. We certainly have only begun to scratch the surface tonight, but help us to apply it to our lives. Let us walk in the footsteps of the one who came not to be served, but to serve. In the footsteps of the one who said, come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest for I am meek and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Give us the rest, the relief.

of knowing your love, which gets us out of the rat race of pride. We thank you for all this and ask for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can discover this podcast.

This month's sermons were recorded in 2004. 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.