God and Sinners Reconciled 39:10

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Does it seem like God is working very slowly in your life? Or do you feel like He may have forgotten His promises altogether? Today, Tim Keller is preaching on the incredible hope that the Christmas story brings. The birth of Jesus shows us that God never forgets His promises, and that when they come true, they are greater than we ever could have imagined. ♪

The passage on which the teaching is taken this morning is found in your bulletin. It's printed. It's from Colossians chapter 1, Paul's letter to the Colossians. And we've been looking at this chapter through the four weeks of December, the four weeks leading up to Christmas. And let me read you this passage now. Colossians 1, verses 19 to 23. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in his sight.

Now, there's always two questions. There's always two basic questions about the event that Christmas declares.

The first question is, how did the Son of God come to earth? And the second question is, why did the Son of God come to earth? I mean, the event, the claim of Christmas is that the Son of God, a divine personage, came to earth. Well, the first question is, how did he come to earth? And the answer that the Christian faith has given over the centuries is incarnation. God became physical.

And the second question, all right, why did he become, why did God, the Son of God come to earth? Why did he become physical? And the answer is reconciliation. How he became, how he came, incarnation. Why he came, reconciliation. And the Hark the Herald Angels Sing, the famous carol, the hymn that we'll sing at the end, it puts it all together very well. Charles Wesley, he wrote it.

saw that in the Christmas story, the angels sing that the reason that the Son of God came to earth is for peace on earth. And properly translated, which we've already used in our call to worship today, properly translated what they sang was, peace on earth toward those upon whom God's grace and favor rests.

And that's the reason why Charles Wesley put it so beautifully. He said, peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. That's why he came. That's really the purpose behind Christmas. God and sinners reconciled. And you see, why did he become physical? It says in verse 22, now he reconciled you by Christ's physical body.

There was a problem. We were in an unreconciled relationship, and the reason that Jesus Christ came and became physical was to reconcile us. Just before we move on, I've got to mention that that is not the normal way that you're going to hear, at least in public places, the meaning of Christmas explained.

Ordinarily, Christmas is seen as meaning, you can get this on TV shows and in store ads and so on. Ordinarily, Christmas is seen as meaning that if we really work hard, we can make the world a better place.

That's the meaning of Christmas. If we hold hands and breathe in unison, if we really get together, we can make the world a better place. It's like that song that they sang in the Live Aid concert in 1985. We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones to make a better place, so let's start giving and so on. And that's what most people think the meaning of Christmas is. But you know, after the Live Aid concert...

in 1985. Bob Dylan, who was one of all those rock stars, you know, who were singing in that, remember that video? Afterwards, Bob Dylan said to the press, he was very uncomfortable singing a song like that. We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who can make a better place. So let's start giving. And somebody said to Bob Dylan, why were you uncomfortable? He says, I'll tell you why. Because man cannot save himself, unquote. So we look today unto Bob Dylan for the true meaning of Christmas, because he got it right.

The Bible says Jesus Christ came because we cannot save ourselves, because there's a problem. He had to do something about it. The way Christmas is expounded in public anymore is that Christmas means if we work hard, we can save ourselves, and Bob Dylan was right. Bob Dylan was right. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners need to be reconciled. Now, this little passage tells us that, and it gives us

It shows us the reason we need reconciliation, the need for reconciliation, the way of reconciliation, and the results. Let's just take a look at this. It's a beautiful little summary of this whole issue. It shows us our need for reconciliation with God, the way of reconciliation, and the results, the radical, thorough results of the reconciliation that Christ affects. Now, first of all, and this is pretty important today, the need, the need for reconciliation.

An awful lot of people say, why would we need to be reconciled with God? But here it says, he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation.

Now, what Paul does here, which happens so often in the New Testament, is when he tries to explain our spiritual condition, he is at least somewhat indirectly, but always, this is always happening in the New Testament, somewhat indirectly, sometimes it's more directly, he's referring to the Old Testament. He's referring to the tabernacle and temple rituals and ceremonies. He says we are not in a condition of presentability.

We're not ready to be presented before God because we're unholy and we're blemished. And see, even though it's not directly alluded to, Paul is clearly talking about the way in which people approach God in the Old Testament ritual of the tabernacle and the temple. What was that ritual? And let me just give you a summary because Paul's talking about it. In the center of the tabernacle or in the center of the temple was the holy place, the place where God dwelled, his presence, his panim, his face.

And if you wanted to go back there, you had to go in clean and unblemished yourself and with a sacrifice that was also clean and without blemish or defect. You had to become yourself clean, but you also had to go back with a sacrifice that was also without blemish. Now, when you read, especially Leviticus numbers, and you read all those regulations, modern people today are extremely confused by them, and especially the clean laws.

You were not allowed to go, you were not fit to be presented before the presence of God if you weren't clean. Now, when you read the clean laws, you'll see that they were incredibly comprehensive and they're incredibly detailed. And as a result, we're very confused. First of all, you couldn't go back with any kind of dirt on your body. You had to have clean bodies. You had to wash in the laver. You know, there was a laver, a big bowl, a big sea, actually, it was called.

of water and you couldn't go back to worship God unless you washed. But it wasn't just that you had to get yourself clean, but you also had to make sure you were wearing clean clothes. Your clothes couldn't be soiled. They couldn't be of certain fabrics. They certainly couldn't have excrement on them or blood or anything like that. But in addition to that, you had to be physically whole. You couldn't have skin diseases. There couldn't be blemishes. There

You couldn't be disfigured. You couldn't be a eunuch. Remember, we talked about that a few weeks ago. You couldn't be a leper. You couldn't have a hemorrhage of any sort. There couldn't be a flow of blood. And all of these laws, and then of course it was the dietary laws, and all those had to do with making yourself clean, without blemish, fit for going before God. Now we get pretty confused when we read these. I think partly because...

We don't see the forest for the trees. You have to stand back and say, what was the purpose of these things? If you realize how detailed they were, you realize that there was almost no way, unless you worked constantly, and even if you worked constantly, that you weren't continually getting, just by the normal way in which you went about life, unclean. You were getting unclean.

And there was almost no way you could even go out in public during the day because you would come into contact with dead things, which made you unclean, or diseased things, or you might get a disease. It was extremely difficult. Why? Why did God do that? Why was that there in the Old Testament? Let's not forget the forest for the trees. What God is trying to say is there's something wrong with you spiritually. The physical clean laws were there to say that spiritually we're in an unclean condition.

That just the normal way in which we go about life, there's almost no way to avoid it. We're continually getting into a position where spiritually we're unfit before God. We're unreconciled. We're unholy. We're unworthy. We're not fit for his presence. And that's what those laws were to tell you about. They were visual aids. Now, when somebody says, well, that was nice for then, but that's very, very primitive.

We don't understand God that way anymore. We've come to a higher understanding of God. We don't believe in that sort of God anymore. And I want to say, I need to take a couple minutes here because I think the passage here is alluding to this because Paul is not saying, well, yes, of course, that was hundreds of years ago, but now we believe in a God of love. No. He says those things...

which the temple ritual we're pointing to, we're pointing to reality, spiritual realities, unchanging spiritual realities. We are unfit for the presence of God. I would even go so far as to say, forget the Old Testament. It's common sense. Let me show you. Well, you know, you can almost talk about it psychologically. When I was a kid, when I was an adolescent, I had a real problem with facial blemishes.

I lived in a... Before the era that I've discovered recently, that before the era of these incredible drugs you can take that just destroy acne from the inside out. But I lived in those days in which I had plenty of blemishes.

And I used to get, you know, I used to check, you check yourself in the mirror. Some of you might remember this. You check yourself in the mirror, usually once or twice a day in order to decide who you would go see, whether you would allow yourself to get in the car and go someplace, whether you wanted to see somebody if they came over to visit. In other words, you looked, you checked your presentability out all the time. And sometimes you were pretty upset. You'd go in, you'd say, oh my gosh, look at the blemishes.

And then, you know, your parents might say, "Hey, we're going over to see so-and-so. Would you like to come along?" And you say, "No, thank you." But you don't say, "Why? I'm not presentable. I wouldn't want them to see me like this." But listen, I would say that the common sense goes deeper than this, much deeper than this. Let me take you down and ask you a question about how human law systems work. And then you'll see. Look.

When you look at human law, let me ask you three things about human law. What's the purpose of human laws? The content and the consequences of disobedience. The purpose of human laws, why do we have them? To live at peace with each other. We have human laws so we can have fellowship with each other, so we can live together, so we can get along, so we can have peace. That's the purpose of human laws. If we didn't have laws, we couldn't get along, we couldn't have a civil society. All right? Then let me ask you then, what are the content of human laws? And here's what the basic content is.

The basic content of human laws is to demand that we treat other human beings as nothing less than what they are. We must not treat them as less than human beings. If we trample upon them and treat them as less than what they are, there will be no peace. And so the laws are out there saying you must treat other human beings with dignity. You must treat other human beings as what they are, human beings. That's the content. And what happens? What are the consequences of breaking human laws?

What happens when we trample on human beings and treat them as less than what they are? I'll tell you what happens. If somebody breaks into your house and ransacks it and destroys things, if someone robs a bank and they come before the judge and they say, "I'm sorry," what do you say? What does the community say? What does the judge say? "Not good enough." You're in an unreconciled relationship with this community.

There's a debt that has to be paid. Until that debt is paid, you do not have the privileges of citizenship. You are not in reconciliation. You are unclean. And this is what happens. If somebody is convicted of a crime, if they break a law, and what is breaking a law? Treating another human being or other human beings as less than what they are. They just can't say, I'm sorry. They lose their privileges. There's all sorts of levels and all sorts of ways. I'm talking in the most general thing, in the most general way.

They might be put in prison. There might be other sorts of things that happen. If they don't, of course, if they try to run away, they're still in an unreconciled relationship. But even when they're in prison, they don't have all the citizenship privileges anymore. They're in an unreconciled relationship until the debt is paid. It's got to be. Now let's look at divine law. What does the Bible say is the purpose of divine law? Why do we have to obey God's law? For peace, for fellowship.

so that we can live with him. Okay, well, what's the content of divine law? Very simple. It all breaks down to this. To treat God as nothing less than what he is. To love him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, with all your strength. Why? If he's your creator, that's simply loving him and obeying him and treating him as he is. Not to treat him any less than what he is as God. What are the consequences of refusing to obey God's law?

When you decide to live your life as if you belong to yourself, as if you're your own creator, what are you doing? You're treating him as less than what he is, and you've broken the law. Don't you see? It's not a matter of rules and regulations. Let's look at the essence, the core of things. And when you break God's law, when you act as if you are your own king, when you treat him as anything less than what he is, king, creator, source of all things, what happens? You can't just say, I'm sorry.

Many people think we've evolved to the place where we have a God who is love and all you have to do is say, "I'm sorry," and he'll forgive you. We don't believe in a God who says that debt must be paid. And yet, in other words, what you're trying to say is you refuse to treat God with the same consideration with which you would demand to be treated. Think about it. When the human community's laws are broken, you're in an unreconciled relationship and the debt has to be paid. You're unclean. There couldn't be community otherwise. There couldn't be society otherwise.

Only let me just point this out to you. This is much more serious because as much as you may owe to your family, as much as you may owe to your community, as much as you may owe to your fellow human being, it's nothing like what you owe to God. If there's a God, if there's a personal creator, God transcendent, the God to whom you owe everything, then your debt's an infinite debt. And while all the Bible is simply saying is common sense, it is common sense. You wouldn't even need the old Testament and all the laws and the clean laws and the sacrifices to know this.

In fact, Romans 1 says that every human being knows it. That if there's a God who has created me, I owe that God a debt I can possibly pay and still have anything left over at the end. I owe that God a debt and I can't possibly pay and live. I owe that God a debt I can't possibly make good. We are unclean. We are unholy. We are blemished. We're in an unreconciled relationship with God.

I really don't. I'm sorry. There's a lot of things in the Christian faith that don't make sense at first. In fact, take a long time. I have taken a long time for me to figure out. This is not one of them. This is something that on the surface of it, I think is perfect, makes perfect common sense. You can't sin against God, treat him as less than who he is, and then turn around and say, well, no problem.

You know, as the, at that French philosopher died when he died, you know, and some people, some people say it was Voltaire that said this. Some people say it was Baudelaire and I don't know, maybe it was nobody, but I know there's people like this. And somebody said, aren't you afraid of meeting God? And as he died, he says, no, I'm not afraid. God will forgive me. That's his job. It doesn't make any sense at all that if there'd be a God, there'd be a God whose job it was to forgive.

You might have a God who wanted to forgive, just like the judge wants to forgive, like the community wants to forgive, but there's got to be payment, unclean, unreconciled. So Paul shows us that we need to be reconciled because we're unholy and we're blemished. Now, the second thing we're shown here is the way of reconciliation.

And what's the way of reconciliation? Again, even though Paul is not directly alluding to the temple and tabernacle worship, he is definitely alluding to it because he says, not just down in verse 22, he has reconciled you to Christ's physical body through his death, but up in verse 20, what he puts it this way, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood. Here's the way of reconciliation.

As I said, in the Old Testament, in the tabernacle temple ritual, not only did you have to go in all sort of washed up and you could not be blemished and you couldn't have a hemorrhage and you had to be physically clean, but you had to bring with you a sacrifice. And the sacrifice, just to let you know how important it is that I give you something interesting on Sunday, I made myself read some of Leviticus yesterday.

And I read a lot of Leviticus, about 15 chapters of Leviticus, 16 actually. And all the way through, I was just amazed at the repetitiousness of it. And any of you who have read Leviticus know it's true. But let me tell you what continually was repeated. Actually, you can see the whole thing in the very first chapter. In chapter 1, verse 3 and 4, it says, When any of you makes an offering, offer a male without defect, a male animal without defect,

And lay your hand on its head, and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you. And when you get to Leviticus 16, when it talks about the day of atonement, there were two goats. And one goat, the high priest Aaron, was to lay his hand on the goat's head. And what does it say? It says, lay your hand on the goat's head and confess all the sins of the people and put the sins of the people on the goat and drive it out.

Send it out of the camp. Put it into, and I quote, a solitary place. And the other goat, without defect, was slain for the sins. What are we talking about? Here's the possibility. The Old Testament ritual said, when you lay hands, it represents you. When you touch the sacrifice, it is without blemish, and its blemishlessness represents you. But as you touch it,

It gets your blemishes, you see? It represents you, in a sense, in two ways. On the one hand, it's perfection becomes your perfection, but your imperfection becomes its imperfection. And the Bible tells us, in other words, that this is what it means to be a Christian. What it means to be a Christian is to see that Jesus Christ is that sacrifice, that bloody sacrifice, without defect.

And you know what it means to be a Christian? Not just trying to make Jesus your example and work harder. I'll tell you what it means to be a Christian. It means to spiritually lay your hands upon him like Aaron on the goat, like every person who ever did a sacrifice. You lay your hands on him and his blemishlessness becomes yours and your blemishes become his. And he gets what your sins deserve.

The biblical meaning of Christmas is historical and life-changing because it's the moment God entered the world as a man, born to save us and provide life everlasting to those that believe in Him. The true meaning of Christmas is transformational.

Kathy Keller recorded a special Christmas message to encourage you to see the hope, joy, peace, and love that Christ brings to us through his birth. In this special video message, Kathy and her son Michael share how the hope and joy of Christmas can help us through hard times and difficult circumstances. You can watch this Christmas message at gospelonlife.com slash Christmas. That's gospelonlife.com slash Christmas.

From everyone on our team here at Gospel and Life, we pray that you and your family have a warm and joyful Christmas. Now, one of the things that recently, it's very interesting how very often I'll be doing a Bible study or something somewhere else.

And one thing, one passage of scripture sheds light so much on the other passage I'm working on. I've been going through the book of Mark in a Bible study, and the woman with the flow of blood and the hemorrhage is a woman who had been sick for many years and had a flow of blood and decides she's going to go up to Jesus Christ in the crowd and touch him. This is Mark 5. And when she touches him, she says, then I know I'll be healed, but I better do it secretly. Now, what's all that about? Here's what it's all about. This woman...

Was unclean. Because she had not, it wasn't just that you weren't allowed to go to the temple. If you had a flow of blood, you had to be healed. But she had some hemorrhage. We're not told exactly what the nature of it was. But she had a hemorrhage that had gone on for years and she couldn't get it fixed. She couldn't get it cured. And as a result, she had not been in to the presence of God in years. She was ritually unclean.

Now, when you are richly unclean, if you touch somebody else, you made them unclean. Even if they didn't have the problem, they were unclean for several days. I forget how much, and I should have read that, but I didn't. If you had touched a dead body, you were unclean. If you touched someone who was clean, the unclean made the clean unclean.

So she said, well, I'm going to have to go up and get healed. I have to touch the master. I have to touch this Jesus Christ. But I could never come up in the front and say, please let me touch you. To touch a rabbi? To touch a holy person? No. She says, so what I'll do is I'll sneak up in the crowd and I'll touch him. She says, I'm not worthy to go near him, but I'll touch him. It's interesting, by the way, to see.

That you know how the Pharisees and many of the religious leaders of the day had twisted the clean laws so that they were virtually, in their mind, the physical cleanliness was virtually the same as spiritual cleanliness.

And they were very proud that they were fit for God because they were so clean. And the poor lepers and the poor, the woman with the hemorrhage and the eunuch, remember all the people we've talked about somewhat this fall, these people felt so unclean. In other words, by turning the ritual ceremonial laws into a legalistic code, by missing the forest for the trees, which is what the people of that day were doing, what's so ironic is it was the religious snobs that were killing themselves because it's the women, a woman like this, the lepers,

The outcasts who came after Jesus because they felt unfit. The legalistic code made them feel unfit and the legalistic code made the other people feel fit. That's the reason why Jesus at one point says to the Pharisees, the pimps and the prostitutes are closer to the kingdom of God than you. Let me just apply this for a minute. Is there anybody here who thinks that what I'm saying, that this particular biblical approach, that you're offensive to God, that you're unreconciled to God, that you're sinners?

that you're not fit for his presence. Does that bother you? Does that offend you? Do you say, I'm not that bad. I'm not a sinner. I'm a pretty good person. I don't like this whole idea. I don't feel that way at all. Jesus says, you're far from the kingdom of God. And if there's anybody here who says, I'm unworthy, I'm unfit. You don't know what I've done. I've failed in so many ways. I'm unfit for God. Jesus says, you are very close to the kingdom of God. If you think you're far, you're near. If you think you're near, you're far. That's the gospel.

So this woman who thought she was far was really quite near, and she came up and she touched him, and she was healed. And boy, is that startling. You know why? Whenever the holy and the unholy touch, whenever the unholy touches the holy, someone dies. And up until that time, take a look. At Mount Sinai, God says, don't touch my holy mountain. If a sinner touched the holy mountain, he died. Look at Uzzah and the ark. Remember that?

They were bringing the Ark of the Covenant back, and Uzzah touched the Ark, thought it was going to fall over, and anyone who touched the Holy Ark died. Nadab and Abihu in the Book of Numbers, anyone who touched the Holy Fire died. She comes up and touches Jesus, and she lives and is healed, and here's why. She is a picture of what it means. Do you see what happened? She was unholy. He was holy. She touched him. Why did she live? Because in the infinite wisdom and the infinite grace of God...

The wonder of the ages. When the unholy touches the holy, someone still has to die. But in this case, Jesus, the holy one, dies. It's the holy one who dies. She did make him unclean. Her uncleanness went to him. And that's a picture of what it means to be a Christian. I touch him. And instead of me, the unholy, dying and he, the holy living, my uncleanness goes to him. The holy one is the one that dies. I don't make...

He doesn't make me dead. I make him dead. Actually, the picture in Mark 5 is such a picture. Her flow of blood stops because his flow of blood began. Oh, not right there. It's just a picture. In other words, he died so we could live. We got his blemishlessness so that he would get our blemishes.

And so that we now stand before God represented by Jesus Christ. That's the reason why he can say what it means to be a Christian now is to be holy and without blemish and without any accusation in his sight. Now, you see the word now? Look, now.

It says, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body. This is all in the present tense. Through death to present you holy in his sight. You are presentable. You are being presented now. If you have done that. Oh, done what? Done what she did. Touched him. The unholy touches the holy. And the holy becomes unholy and dies. And the unholy becomes holy and lives. This is what's going on.

Now, let me just show you what the results are, briefly. That's the reason why Mary's song... I don't know if any of you noticed, there's a poem I usually put in the reflection piece every year, not the whole poem. In fact, our prayer confession was based on it. But it's by Lucy Shaw, and she says...

Now native to earth as I am, nailed to my poor planet, caught that I might be free, blind in my womb to know my darkness ended, brought to this birth for me to be newborn, and here we go, and for him to see me mended, I must see him torn. The exchange, see? The transfer.

Lay hands on. And now it represents you. He represents you before the Father and makes atonement for you. Now, here's what the radical results are. And there's two that are mentioned. And all I can do is spend a little bit of time showing you the ramifications. There's a radical individual result of reconciliation. And there is a radical cosmic result. Now, the radical individual result is one that we've already mentioned. You are now wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation.

And if you just spent some time today meditating on what that really says, there'd be a joy and a confidence in your life that nothing could extinguish. See, I believe that it's talking about God both personally and legally. First of all, it says, holy in his sight without blemish. Somehow it means that we're beautiful to him.

If you're listening to someone hit a high note, some soprano hitting a high note, and you say, oh my gosh, how beautiful that is. If you're looking at a seascape or if you're looking at a painting or a piece of art and you say, oh my gosh, how beautiful that is. You know how your heart leaps up? You know how a delight happens, how it takes your breath away? This is saying that in Christ...

We take God's breath away. Now, he finds us that beautiful. He loves us like that. This is astonishing. There is no other religion that even tries to say this. I mean, you can reject Christianity by saying this is too good to be true. But that, and that, by the way, there's a very, you can make a very good rational case for saying this is too good to be true. I can really respect people who can't doubt Christianity when they say this is too good to be true. This is too much. This is too wonderful.

I don't mind it when people say, I can't believe that. I have trouble with it myself at many points. But when someone says this is too terrible, this is too primitive, this is too awful, this is too negative, you don't know it yet. Holy and blameless, he finds us beautiful. He finds us presentable. He's proud of us. He's proud of us. You remember last year, if anybody was here on Christmas Day, the genealogies of Jesus.

In Matthew chapter 1, leading up to the account of his birth, and in that genealogy, Matthew is very, very, very careful to include Tamar in Jesus' genealogy. She was there, but she was an incest survivor. And Bathsheba, and she was there, but she was an adulteress with David. And Rahab, and she was there, but she was a prostitute. And Ruth, and she was there, but she was a pagan Moabitess.

And you remember what the point is? Why do you think Matthew sticks those women in there, those Gentiles in there, those sinners in there? Do you know why? All the people who used to be ritually unclean, all the people who used to be cut off from the presence of God. And the answer is your genealogy are the people you're proud of. They're your family. And it means that if you come to God in him, if you lay your hands on him and treat him as what he says he is here,

It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done. You can be part of Jesus' family, and he's proud of you. His love and his grace just abound over you. What it means is that now you're absolutely free from accusation. He's not just feeling mercy. Jesus Christ has paid the debt. Reconciliation is a legal thing.

For Christ, if you're a Christian, for Christ not to forgive you, for God not to forgive you for sin would mean that Jesus, that God would be getting two payments, right? If God would say, yes, you've sinned, but I'm going to make you pay for that. But if Jesus Christ has already paid, if you've laid your hands on him, then God would be getting two payments. What does that mean? The very justice of God demands that you stay free from accusation, that you never be liable to condemnation in any way. Mercy is an obligated thing.

But justice is obligated. See, mercy is unobligated. If it was obligated, it wouldn't be mercy. But justice is absolutely obligated. If it was unobligated, it wouldn't be justice. And that's why 1 John 1, verse 8 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Just for God not to forgive a Christian would be unjust. It's justice that demands. You couldn't be more secure.

He finds you beautiful, personally. He treats you as perfect, legally. There has never been such a radical claim that such a relationship with the Creator God is possible. And those of us who have that relationship know that it gives you a joy and a confidence that can never be put out. Now, the only other thing I've got to point out is that Christmas, the fact that God became human and became physical...

Christmas implies strongly that the reconciliation effected by God through Christ on earth is not just going to help you individually and spiritually because it says, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Now that's another whole sermon, of course, but let me just remind you of this.

The whole idea behind Christmas, the idea that God would become flesh and no other religion would grant this, that God would permanently inhabit a human body means that God is not out simply to take your poor little soul, which is falling apart, and put it together, but to put the entire universe, which is falling apart, and put it together. The universe is falling apart. Second law of thermodynamics, everything's falling apart. You and I are falling apart. Time is out of joint. Nature is out of joint. Bodies are out of joint.

Everything's falling apart. But the reconciliation in Jesus Christ someday will bring it all together. Everything. This is the reason why Christians, on the one hand, are more pessimistic and more optimistic than anyone else. We're more pessimistic because we know that the problems that we've got in our society...

are never going to be solved by this or that legislative program because they come from the fact that existence itself is falling apart under the weight of sin. But on the other hand, Christians are more optimistic than anybody because we can work against physical decay, social decay, and spiritual decay. We can get out there and heal bodies. We can get out there and work against poverty. We can get out there and seek people to believe in Christ, even though it seems like

that we're fighting such big problems because we know in the end, God is going to reconcile all things to himself. Everything will be healed. Everything will be brought together. Everyone, everything will come together. And that's the reason why we can say at Christmas, peace on earth and mercy mild, every part of reality with God reconciled.

And so there's a joy and a confidence that we've got. Now remember, some of you weren't here in the very beginning. I said, the way for you to really celebrate Christmas is not just to have the experience by going and listening to people sing the same music you've always heard and watching people light candles. What you've really got to do is you've got to think of the glad tidings. Remember? Shepherd, why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains prolong? Say, what may the tidings be? You see?

that have led you to this heavenly song. Think about the tidings. Think about this message. Reject it as too good to be true, or accept it and take it in and say, this is the reason for long strains of joy. This is the reason for a jubilee. And let the glory of Christmas take hold of you because it emanates from the truth. Let's pray.

Our Father, as in a minute we're going to sing, peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled, I ask that you would help us to know what we're singing.

Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people discover the transformative power of Christ's love through this ministry. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner to learn more. That's gospelandlife.com slash partner.

This month's sermons were recorded from 1994 to 1997. 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. ♪