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Is it possible to know who the real Jesus is? Today, Tim Keller is teaching about the authentic Jesus of the Bible. Not the Jesus who is a projection of our own desires and biases, but the real surprising Jesus who changes a person from the inside out.
After you listen, we'd appreciate it if you would take a few moments to rate and review the podcast. When you do, you'll be encouraging others to listen so they can discover the real Jesus, because the gospel changes everything. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. The passage on which our teaching is taken this morning is printed in your bulletin. It's
Colossians chapter 1, the very first verses of it, of that chapter, and the very last verses of it. Let me read to you. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints.
The faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world, this gospel is bearing fruit and growing just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who also told us of your love in the spirit.
We proclaim him admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end, I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. This is God's word. Now, the two high celebrations of the church are Christmas and Easter.
And every year for centuries now, it's been not only traditional, but it's also been right to do what the church does. And that is you look straight at Jesus at these times. In the weeks going up to Christmas, we look straight at who he is. On the weeks leading up to Easter, you look straight at what he did. Who is the one that came and what did he come to do?
And therefore, we look at his person and in his work. And during these four Sundays coming right up to Easter, we're going to look at Colossians chapter 1. And I would actually urge you to read it during the week. And not just the passage that's coming up, but just read through the chapter and study it this month. Because there's no higher picture of Christ. There's no loftier or, another way to put it, more penetrating, to mix the metaphors. There's no greater picture of Christ than that. Colossians 1.
And today we see the Colossians tell us something about Christ that we touched on last week. We only kind of out, we only got the outskirts of a little, a little bit of the story, but I'd like to tell you the whole story. We talked last week about a man named William Holland and, and how he was converted. But let me tell you the whole story. Back in May of 1738,
In London, there was a little group of young men, and they were all Anglicans. They were all Church of England, and they were very religious and very moral people. But they were aware of an inside emptiness. They were very religious, but they had become aware of an emptiness, and they recognized that their religion was all externals, and it wasn't alive. It wasn't a living thing.
And they met together in the quarters, a little apartment of a man named William Bray just off of Aldersgate Street in London. And every night they met together to talk about religion and to sometimes pray for each other and discuss every night. Two of the people are now today very famous, John and Charles Wesley brothers. And if you want to get an idea about
how they struggled in the emptiness that they felt. Here's a place in Charles Wesley's journal. These guys all kept journals, and it's very helpful later on to know something about where they were. And in May of 1738, one day Charles went to church, and he took the Lord's Supper. He took the Eucharist, and then he came back and he said, Receive the sacrament, but not Christ. In other words, I'm going through the motions. Receive the sacrament, but not Christ. I don't know him.
I don't understand. I'm not connected with him. Now, one of the men who was coming to this meeting was a man named William Holland. And William Holland one day brought with him a book that somebody had given him, and it was Martin Luther's Commentary on the Galatians. And he asked one night, it was May 17th, 1738, he asked Charles Wesley to read it, read part of the preface, the introduction to him.
And this is what we mentioned last week. But in William Holland's journal for that night or the next day, he said, when Mr. Charles Wesley got to these words of Luther, what, have we nothing to do? No, nothing. But except of him who God has made for us our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And he says, at those words, I broke through. And suddenly power came on me and I knew who he was. And he became a Christian.
Now, it's interesting. Wesley was reading this thing out loud, and he noticed that William Holland was just changed. And the next day in his journal, he put down, Mr. Holland seemed to have found faith tonight, but I don't get it. He got it. I didn't get it. Now, that, by the way, kind of helps me a little bit. I realize that somebody might come home today or somebody may go home from worship services. Some people absolutely changed, and other people going back saying, I don't get it. That's the way it's always been.
But finally, just a few days later, May 21st, what is that, four days later? It was on a Sunday. It was in a service. And what does Charles Wesley say? He finally says, I found it. I saw by faith I stood. I saw by faith I stood. Though of myself I am always sinking in sin. So I went to bed sensing my weakness, but finally, finally confident in Christ. Now,
This is Charles Wesley, and only one year later, he wrote a very famous hymn that many of you, most of you will probably sing sometime in the next month. Charles Wesley, and the third verse of that hymn goes like this. He says, Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace. Hail the Son of Righteousness. Life and light to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. Mild he lays his glory by. Born that men no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give them second births.
Charles Wesley, hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Now, how could those guys have missed this? And how could William Holland on the same night get it and Charles Wesley come home and say, I don't get it.
Now, what are we talking about? We're talking about the gospel. Because Paul says and talks about the gospel in such an amazing way, the gospel is the pith, it's the core, it's the essence of Christianity. And look how he speaks about it. He says, the gospel, the word of truth, has come to you and it's bearing fruit and growing and has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace and all the truth. Listen, it's one thing to have the gospel presented to you. It's another thing
to drop in. It's another thing to come to you. Paul talks about, you say, why would Paul talk about it like that? Why doesn't Paul say somebody came and explained the gospel? Yes, of course somebody came and explained the gospel, but there's another sense in which the gospel comes to you. It comes into you. It must be very easy to miss the gospel according to this passage. It must be very easy to miss the gospel according to the story, the history I just told you.
How do you know if the gospel has come to you? How do you know? How do you know if the gospel maybe has been presented to you or maybe you've listened? How do you know that time after time after time you've received the sacrament but not Christ? How do you know? How do you know? And I'm going to give you four tests. They're all here. There's four things that this passage tells us. And it's a test. There are four tests so that you can know the gospel has come to you or not.
Here's four things we're told about the gospel, and they're all tests. The first one is, and this is real brief, I'm going to say it briefly, but I'm going to apply every one of these things practically. First of all, the gospel's a joy. The gospel's joy is
You say, where does it say that? Well, look, it says, when you heard of the gospel, there was hope and out of it sprung faith and love. The very word gospel, and many of you certainly have heard this, the very word gospel is a Greek compound word that means joyous proclamation, a proclamation of joy. Let me apply this practically.
Is there anybody here, and I don't care whether you're inside Christianity, you think, or outside Christianity, you think, or whether you think you're on the border, I don't care where you think you are. Is there anybody here who mainly thinks of Christianity as primarily a hard task? Primarily a hard task.
I've been amazed lately by how many things I'm reading in the media, calls from not just the conservative side of the political spectrum, but from the liberal side of the political spectrum. There are all these calls saying, we need spiritual renewal to address our social decay.
This is amazing to me, and it would be very interesting to go down some of them and tell you who said what, and it's very interesting, but here's what they all say. They say, you know, our social problems are to some degree the result of a spiritual problem. We need a spiritual renewal. Why? Ah, they say, because spiritual renewal, religion...
helps people reign in their passions and work for the common good instead of just pursuing individual peace and affluence and happiness with disregard for the common good. And that's what all these guys are saying. All these men and women who are talking about this today, they're saying, ah, we need a spiritual renewal because if we don't have a spiritual awakening, we're going to keep on falling apart socially. We need to reign in our passions. Is that primarily what Christianity is?
I'm not saying that a spiritual awakening wouldn't be good for society. I'm not saying that. Is that primarily what it is? A discipline. Self-denial. Reign in the passions, you see. Pull it in. A round of duties. A moral grind. Is that primarily what Christianity is? Or let me be even more personal. Is there anybody here who feels, if only I could get out from under the church and out from under Christianity, I'd be free. I could really swing.
Do you feel that way? Or have you felt that way? Or are you feeling that way right now? There's only one thing to say to you. You don't get it. You have absolutely, you're wrong about the very essence and core of Christianity. Anyone who has ever understood the gospel, anyone to whom the gospel has come,
the response is always joy. The gospel is news that brings joy. If when you think of Christianity, it brings a sense of grind, if you think of negativity, if that's all you think of, you don't understand it at all. That's the first point. In other words, how do you know you got the gospel? How do you know it's sunk in? William Holland had it from May 17th to May 21st, and Charles Wesley didn't have it. And what was the difference? William Holland had joy, and Charles Wesley didn't. They both had religion.
Do you understand that? Did you get it? And it says here, all over the world, this gospel is bearing fruit and growing just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace and all its truth. It's bearing fruit and growing. Now, this is an amazing passage. It says the word of truth, the gospel, which is bearing fruit and growing. So on the one hand, it calls the gospel a word of truth. And a word of truth means that there's
There's information, there's content. The gospel is a set of things that you have to believe. And it's a set of coherent propositions. And to believe it, if it's a word of truth, it means you have to reject any propositions that are opposed to it. So, you see, it's not a vague mystical thing. It's content, it's truth, it's a body of ideas and concepts. But that's not all. It is also bearing fruit and growing.
That means there's a power to it. It means it comes on in and makes a change. And this word fruit, in Paul, we know what he means. When Paul talks about fruit, he's talking about internal character revolution. Like, for example, in Galatians chapter 5, he says the fruit of the Spirit. What is the fruit? Love, joy, peace, patience, self-control. Look at your lives right now.
And if there's any distress in you at all, if there's any discomfort this morning, if you have anything, if you are anything utterly, anything short of utterly happy, if you're experiencing anger, what is that? That's the lack of the fruit of love. You're angry at somebody. If you're experiencing discouragement, what's that? That's the lack of a fruit of joy. If you're experiencing anxiety, that's the lack of a fruit of peace. All of our problems come from a lack of this kind of character that Paul talks about, fruit of the Spirit.
And he says it comes from the gospel. It's the gospel, which is the source of all of that. Now, it's a power. It comes in and it makes the change. Now, let me apply this again. OK, I mean, a lot of you saying, well, gospel's a joy. I've heard that before.
The gospel is a power. I've even heard that before. Let me bring it home to you a little bit. First of all, for those of you who aren't sure what you believe, I mean, this is a big group of people. There's plenty of you, I know, because every Sunday I talk to people afterwards. There's plenty of you that you're not sure you're a Christian or you're not sure what you believe, or at least you're not sure you like our kind of Christianity or, you know, all right. So you're going to be skeptical. You're not sure you're a Christian or you're not, or you're sure you're not a Christian. You need this.
What do you mean? You need this. Michael Musto wrote an article for New York Magazine about 7th on 6th. He usually writes for the Village Voice, but he wrote an article in the New York Magazine covering the big fashion annual hoopla in Bryant Park. Now, the reason I'm always interested in this is because every... See, when I go to work, I take the 6th Avenue line, I get up at... I come up on the 40th Street and 6th Avenue line,
entrance, exit, and I walk down 40th Street by Bryant Park to the office, the church office. And so every year when they put all the tents up and all these incredible looking people are hanging around outside on the spectacular looking people outside on the sidewalks, I mean, for that week, it's a very interesting experience to walk through that, looking, you know, a kind of an ordinary mortal looking person, walking through all these people who don't look ordinary and mortal, walking
And Michael Mosto has a very interesting statement about it. He says, I know it's catty, but it's something else in there. The nagging feeling of soullessness. Now, what is he talking about?
Here's what he means by a nagging feeling of soullessness. It's somebody who says, my outside is greater than my inside. That's the nagging feeling of soullessness. My outside, in other words, I look really pulled together on the outside, but inside, I don't know who I am. I don't know what I believe. I don't really know what I'm living for, and surely I don't have anything to die for. My outside is much greater than my inside.
Paul gives us a picture of the exact opposite, not soullessness, but utter soulfulness. Hi, I'm Kathy Keller, and thank you for listening to the Gospel in Life podcast. My guess is that most people think they know the Christmas story. Every Christmas we see displays on lawns and in front of churches of the baby Jesus resting in a manger surrounded by Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, and cute farm animals.
We hear Christmas carols played everywhere we go, yet despite the abundance of these Christian references throughout our culture, how many people have really examined the hard edges of the biblical story? In Tim's book, Hidden Christmas, he provides a moving and intellectually provocative examination of the Nativity story. The book takes you on a journey into the surprising background of the Nativity, where you see the wonderful message of hope and salvation within the Bible's account of Christ's birth.
As you read about the actual event, you'll be confronted with the remarkable redeeming power of God's grace. This month, when you give to Gospel in Life, we'll send you a copy of Hidden Christmas as our thanks for your gift. To receive your copy, go to gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity. Now, here's the remainder of Tim's sermon.
And what do we have? What is Paul saying? Paul gives us an amazing little insight into how he became the person he was. Where did he get the courage?
Where did he get the love? Where did he get the ability to influence so many people? Where did he get the greatness that made him one of the most influential people in the history of the world? You know what he says? It's at the end. Look, at the very end of the passage. He says, to this end I labor. To what end? He's bringing people to Christ. He's changing their lives. He's deeply involved, admonishing everyone, teaching everyone. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy which he so powerfully works within me.
Something my insides are churning with God's power. That's the fruit of the gospel. Do you see what he is? He's the exact opposite. A person with a nagging feeling of soullessness is somebody who says, my outsides are greater than my insides. But Paul is saying, my insides are greater than my outsides. I don't care about my outsides. I don't look like much. I don't care what parties I get invited to. I don't care about those things. But I know who I am. And I know what I'm living for. And I know what I'm about to do.
Even if a whole army is standing before me. And I know what I'm going to do if it means my life. That's soulfulness. That's greatness. Don't you see that? My outsides, my insides are greater than my outsides. My insides are churning with life. When he says...
I am involved with people's lives and I'm changing them left and right and it's because of the power that God so mightily works within me. That amazes me. Any of you know this, and I surely know this, if you sit down to talk to somebody and they start to pour out their heart and it gets personal, there's a couple things you can do. One is you can detach. You know, they may not know, but you know. You detach. You just say, I can't take this.
So you listen and you kind of go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And you might say a few things, but you detach. The other thing you can do is you can engage. And you can feel. And you can bind your heart up with that person. And you can get deeply involved. And what happens? You're drained. Remember when Jesus Christ was walking through a crowd and a woman touched him? The woman with a flow of blood touched him. And he says, power has gone out for me. You can't change a person's life without engagement. You can't engage emotionally.
with a needy person, without power going out. And as a result, you want to change people's lives? I'll tell you, you can start out in the morning around 8 o'clock and really try to care about people. And by noon, you're out. The love, the joy, it's gone. It's out. And you have to detach. Where do you in the world do you get the love and the joy to really be involved with people, admonishing and teaching and involved? Where did Paul get it? Him. Where did he get it? The fruit of
The gospel bears fruit. The gospel gives you that love, that gives you that joy, that gives you it. Soulfulness. Michael Musto knows a lot about New Yorkers. He's been here a long time, and he knows, boy, you look great on the outside, but it's because you're trying to deal with a nagging feeling of soullessness. You need this. The gospel gives you soulfulness. The gospel will remedy that. But now...
What about you Christians? Let me apply it to you too. The gospel is a power. And you know what it says here? Look carefully. Look, it says in verse six, it says the gospel has come to you. It's bearing fruit and growing as it has been doing among you since. Now, the average Christian says the gospel gets me into the kingdom.
But then the way I grow is through obedience to the principles of the Bible. This is the way every Christian that I know thinks until somebody comes and beats it into their head. This is the thing that I live, by the way, to say. This is the big burden of my ministry. Let me say it right here. Paul says, fruit of the Spirit...
comes from the gospel. It's not like the gospel just gets you into the, into, it's not that gospel saves you, but now obedience and hard work advances you. The gospel saves you and advances you. The gospel is what brings you in and it's the gospel that sends you forward. The fruit comes from the gospel. What does that mean? Are you anxious today? It's a lack of peace. And if you're anxious, it's because you're not believing somehow you're not applying. Somehow you're not using the gospel.
Are you angry? Are you discouraged? In other words, anything that's wrong with you is a lack of fruit. And lack of fruit is only and completely remedied by the gospel. The gospel continues to bear fruit. All your problems today, are you a Christian? If you're a Christian and there's anything wrong with you, you don't say, well, the gospel saved me. Of course, I believe Jesus died for me and so on. But now I just can't seem to understand what to do next. Go back, turn back.
Look at the door that brought you in. Look at the power that brought you in. It's the same thing that will bring you forward. Here's how you know you've understood the gospel. Here's how you know you've got the gospel. The way you know you've got the gospel is you have become aware that the gospel is also the solution to all your problems and that all your problems come from a failure to somehow apply it and understand it and use it in your life.
If you say, I never heard of that, then you really don't understand the gospel yet. So that's the second test. The gospel's a joy, the gospel's a power. Thirdly, what is the gospel? The gospel's grace. If you look carefully, the synonym in the first part of verse 6 says,
For the gospel is the grace of God. See, it says all over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing as it, what is that? The gospel has been doing among you since the day you heard it, the gospel, and understood what? God's grace and all its truth. God's grace is a synonym for the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel is God's grace.
Or look at it this way. See verse 5? Here's the gospel. It says, pardon me, go up to verse 3 and 4. Okay. It says, The faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel. The gospel tells you that something is stored up for you in heaven. You know what the word store? Saved. It's saved for you. What's up there? Heaven, glory, a crown. It's saved. The message of the gospel is...
That heaven is not like money that's at the finish line, which will be yours if you finish first. Heaven is like money that's in the bank. It's already yours. It's already yours. God has accepted you. It's absolutely accepted you. And now, what does it mean to work the gospel into your life? We said a minute ago that if the gospel is a power, the reason you don't have fruit in your life is because you haven't understood the gospel in all its truth. Look at that. Understood the gospel in all its truth.
What does that mean? The word all shows that Paul sees the gospel as like a well that's bottomless. Here's one of the ways in which you can tell you've understood the gospel. You have come to know that it's a well, it's infinitely rich, it's infinitely immense, that there are so many new ways in which you need to understand and apply the gospel of God's grace to
that you loved and accepted. There's so many ways to do it. And you know that this well is so deep that all the solutions, all your problems are down deep in that well, further down than you've ever gone before. That's what it means. He says, the fruit didn't start growing until you understood it. The fruit didn't start growing until you understood it in all of its truth. And you saw all of its ramifications and you saw all of its implications. That's what it means.
The gospel is not just working. The gospel is grace, and therefore the fruit comes from understanding that your crown, your glory, is stored up in heaven absolutely guaranteed, and you have to boot off of that every day. And every one of your problems, you have to boot off of that, and that is how the fruit grows. Just to show you how much further we've got to go on that, let me give you an example.
Imagine two football teams both get to the Super Bowl. Now, in the beginning of the year, one team was supposed to be last in their division. They have no talent. And the other team was supposed to win the Super Bowl. Hands down, they've got great talent. And they both get to the Super Bowl. How will they approach the game? Fundamentally different. Here's why. The terrible team that has had an incredible year
My dear friends, they know it hardly matters what they do in the Super Bowl. Why? Because the verdict is in for them. The coach has already been named coach of the year. The players already know that though they're not talented, their teamwork has made them the stuff of legends. Their hometown. People will never forget this year. And their love and their adored and their honored and their place in history is secure before they play that game. And the other team, utterly different.
The other team has not yet made good on its promise. The other team, if they lose, are going to be vilified. And so they both come into the game in two totally different ways. The first team is absolutely loose. They're playing it for the sheer joy of playing it. And as a result, they'll play very well. And the other team is coming in absolutely tight, knowing everything rests on this. And as a result, they will play very poorly. Now, they're very talented. They're probably going to win. I want to ask you something. How do you go and approach games?
the arenas, the big games. How do you play the game? How do you go through life? See, the first team says, this enterprise is not a referendum on our value because our value is already set. It's already secure. A Christian is somebody who gets into any audition. A Christian is somebody who looks at any job application. A Christian is someone who looks at any love relationship saying the same thing. This is not a referendum on my value.
Because it's already set. It's stored up in heaven. Now, if you get scared and if you get anxious and if you are full of fears and if you're always upset with yourself, don't you see what's going on? There's a lack of fruit. Why is there a lack of fruit? Because you don't understand God's grace and all of its truth. You haven't worked it all out. Is this basic? Of course it's basic. I hate to be sneaky, but let me give you a little sneaky test. If there's anybody here who says, look...
I've heard this before. Let's move on to something else. That shows you haven't heard it yet. Because anybody who says, well, I know this stuff. I need something else, doesn't know this stuff. But lastly, here's the test. The gospel is joy. The gospel is power. The gospel is simply God's grace. Understanding it. But last of all, the gospel is Christ himself. You notice...
What it tells us in the end, all through the whole chapter of the Colossians, you'll see Paul saying, I proclaim the gospel. I bring you the gospel. In chapter 1, verse 23, it's not printed here. He says, I proclaim the gospel. When he gets to the end, what does he say? I proclaim him. And what does that mean?
Here's the reason the gospel is a power. Here's the reason it's a joy. And here is the reason why the gospel is simply the grace of God and all of its truth. Because Jesus Christ is Christianity. Jesus Christ is the gospel. The gospel is Jesus. The gospel is not about Jesus. The gospel is Jesus. That's what William Holland got. And that's what Charles Wesley didn't. See, Charles Wesley read it. What, have we nothing to do? Says Luther. No, nothing.
but except of him who is made by God unto us to be our wisdom, righteous sanctification and redemption. See, other religions say, here's the way. And Jesus says, no, I'm the way. Other religions say, here's the truth. Follow it. And Jesus says, no, I'm the truth. Other religions say, here's how to be a righteous person. And Jesus says, no, I am your righteousness.
I am your righteousness. Now, if you want to understand the Bible, if you want to understand the book of Galatians, Colossians, Corinthians, for example, this is the way it always works out. Paul talks to somebody who says, I have Jesus, but I also need circumcision. I have Jesus, but I also need righteousness. I have Jesus, but I also need this or that. And Paul always comes back and says, all your problems become because of the but also. Get rid of the but also. I have Jesus, but also.
then you don't see that the gospel is Jesus. You think the gospel is about Jesus, Jesus and something else. But the gospel is Jesus. There is nothing else. When you become a Christian, he becomes your righteousness. He is your holiness. He is your wisdom. That's the gospel. Because he came and he lived the life you should have lived and died the death you should have died. And so now do you see why the gospel is the thing that solves your problems? If you're angry today,
What you're really saying is, I have Jesus, but I also need something else to be special, to be worthy, to be successful. If you're anxious, if you're discouraged, whatever it is you're saying, Jesus, but also. The gospel is Jesus and something else. No. The gospel is this and this alone. When you understand this, the fruit begins to grow. It fills your soul.
with a churning energy that enables you to be involved with people. And though drained, you find that you're continually supplied. There it is. There's the test. Do you understand that? Do you understand the gospel's a joy? Do you understand that it's the bottomless pit out of which all of your solutions are going to come? Do you understand it to be a power? The only way in which you grow as a Christian?
Do you understand it to be the ramifications of grace? Because Jesus Christ is you before the Father. You know, in verse 2 he says, to the saints in Christ. Paul knows that Christians stand before God in Christ. And because he knows that, he's filled with power. And if you're not filled with power, you don't know that. As we go to the Lord's table, what the bread and the cup is, it's a visible gospel. And here's what I want you to say.
I want you to say, Lord, show me the but alsos in my life. Show me the but alsos. Show me the other things that I have worked into the gospel when Jesus is the gospel and nothing else. Help me to understand God's grace in all of its truth. Help me to understand your grace in more of its truth today. He promises to appear and he'll do so.
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.
