Brought Near (Part 3)

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_00] Welcome to Gospel in Life. We tend to think of faith as a personal matter, a relationship that's just between us and God. But the Bible presents a much bigger vision, one in which God brings people into a relationship with Himself and brings them together into a new kind of community with each other. This month, we continue going through an extended series of teachings from Tim Keller that explore the core truths of the Christian faith and what they reveal about God's purposes for our lives together.

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_01] For the teaching, as we continue to go through the book of Ephesians, Surrounded, I'm going to do something for a change. I'm going to read you one verse, one verse only, because we're going to consider the teaching of one very, very pregnant verse in Ephesians 2, and we're going to seek to deliver tonight.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_01] Ephesians 2, verse 18. Let me read it. For through Him, we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_01] Now, the reason I want to look at that, if you've been following along, which you may, you may not be, we've been going through the book of Ephesians, and we said that the book of Ephesians is actually, it kind of goes like this. In Ephesians 1, Paul prays, like you just prayed, that the greatness of God's power would be obvious to everyone.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_01] Then in chapter 2, he gives us, Paul gives us the two greatest evidences that God is powerfully present in the world. And those two great evidences are first in verses 1 to 10, which we looked at back in the fall, how God, when he comes into a life full of deadness and brokenness, brings life and vitality.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_01] And then in verses 11 to 20, which is what we're looking at now, the second great evidence of God's powerful presence in the world is that he can take very diverse people and bring them into one community, into the church, and make people live together who otherwise could never live together. That the church is supposed to be an evidence of God's power. It's not just an aggregation. It's not just a group of people who come together to sing and to listen to teaching. It's unusual. It's different. It's unique.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01] Paul says, by using the term Greek and Jew, Jew and Gentile, he is giving us a case study, one case study, of the principle of the church. In which people who otherwise have nothing in common through Christ are brought together, and therefore there's a bond in Christ that unites people. That bond transcends family differences and cultural differences and economic differences and language differences and racial differences.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_01] And therefore the church is actually one new human being, Paul says up earlier in the chapter. A new humanity, a place where family relationships and gender relationships and economic relationships and business relationships and race relationships are recreated and reoriented. And there's a unity there that the world cannot attain and longs for and has longed for for centuries.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_01] Now, we've been looking at that and the question comes up, how is it possible that God is able to do that and bring those very diverse kinds of people together? And we said the chapter tells us that there's really two ways in which he does that. First of all, the blood of Christ brings us together, gives us the same position. And we looked at that the last couple of weeks. Some of us are far away. We're terrible people.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01] We're far from God. We're very immoral. We're very violent. We're very broken. Some people are near. That means they're very respectable. They're very decent. They're very moral. And we saw that the gospel is that whether far or near, whether pagans or prudes, whether broken or really together, we're all lost. We're all hostile toward God. We're all cut off from God. We looked at all that. And the blood of Christ gives us the same legal position, the same spot.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01] And so the first way in which God is able to take people and bring them together is that our positions are obliterated. Instead of saying, here's a person who's far away and a person who's near, here's a person who's together, here's a person who's moral, here's a person who's immoral, here's a person who's broken. Instead, all those are obliterated and we're given the same standing. We talked about the same legal standing because the blood wipes away the sins and puts us right with God. Well, we talked about that.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_01] But now the second way in which God takes diverse people and makes them one is not only does he give them all the same, a common legal position, but secondly, he gives them a common mystical experience. Yes, I said it, mystical experience. And it's in this verse.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01] And the verse, I only read one verse because I want to show you that every single word in the verse is critical and significant and full of meaning. That's why I said it's like a pregnant thing that we have to deliver here. For, for, notice every one of them, for through him, that's Christ, we both have access to the Father by one spirit. Let me unpack it.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01] Now, look, there's a place in one of George Herbert's poems where he talks about a Bible verse and he says, it's a box in which sweets compacted lie. You know, there's incredible sweetness compacted in here. Every single word is heavier than heaven and earth. For, through him, we both have access to the Father by one spirit.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_01] Look, first of all, the word both, we've already talked about. Both means Jew and Gentile. And what that means is that this thing I'm about to describe is what brings us together into one new humanity. This is what makes us one. This is what unifies us. I think I've mentioned to you that one of the most interesting, well, David Martin Lloyd-Jones, one of my heroes,

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_01] he was a doctor, a very educated person in the early part of the 20th century in Britain. And he heard God's call to him to go into the ministry. So he took a cut in salary of something like 90% in order to go into the ministry. He left his physician salary and became a mission pastor in some little town in Wales. And the story goes this way.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_01] He said very often he would, like many of us, have doubts. We'd have doubts. Am I really a Christian? How do I know I'm really a Christian? Sometimes he says, I would have those doubts. I would say, look, you know, you hear the voice. It's the voice of the accuser. And the voice would go like this. It would say, you call yourself a Christian. What makes you think you're a Christian? How do you know God's been at work in your life? Lloyd-Jones says he used to turn around and he used to say something to the voice. It always shut it up.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01] The thing he used to say is this. Lloyd-Jones lived in the early part of the 20th century in Britain. He was born in the latter part of the 19th century in a situation that was much more class conscious than we are here. And he would turn to the voice and he would say, you know, all my people, so many of my people that I minister to and preach to all the time and that I visit and speak with, they're illiterate practically. They're terribly uneducated. They're extremely backward. And here I am an educated man. Here I am a brilliant man.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01] Here I am a cultured man. And he would turn to the voice and say, how do you explain? That I have so much more in common that I can spend two and three and four hours talking with the most ignorant fisherwoman on the coast of Wales and have a great time doing it and know exactly what she's talking about as we talk about our Lord, as we talk about what it means to know his love and as we talk about what it means to humble ourselves before him and to pray to him. How do you explain that?

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_01] He said, how do you explain that? I feel more of a oneness here than I ever did back where I was educated before. You see, that's what the word both means for by him. We both both, no matter who we are, no matter who you are together, we both have this common experience. Access to the father. All right. Now look at also another word, the word for. What does the word for tell us?

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_01] The word both tells us that no matter who you are, any two people, any two people can become brother and sister, brother and brother, sister and sister. Any two people can become one member of a family, no matter how much you hated each other before, no matter how different you were. That's what the word both says. This experience levels us all. Secondly, the word for tells us that this experience is the whole purpose of all of the work of the triune God and of all of Christianity.

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_01] That word for, what comes in front of the word for? The rest of the book of Ephesians, you know. What comes before the word for? All this that Paul's been talking about. Jesus Christ has died on the cross. Jesus Christ has reconciled us. The father has sent the son. Everything that God has done, the great plan of salvation and Jesus dying on the cross. What is it for? Well, somebody says the purpose that God had in mind was that I might have my sins forgiven.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01] True, of course. Is that it? Well, the purpose is that I might have eternal life and live in heaven forever. Sure. Is that it? That's not all. Well, the whole purpose of everything the triune God has done is that you might have access. You know, Romans 5.5 says, Paul writes, the love of God is poured out and it floods our heart through the Holy Spirit. Here is one of the most well-kept secrets of Christianity.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01] You are meant to have access to the Father's love, not just to know about it. Now, I know this is going to sound very strange, especially those of you who know much about Presbyterians. You're going to say, this is a Presbyterian talking? Yes. To know about God's love is very important. To be convicted that he loves you is very important. That's all great. To believe in his love is very important. But Paul says, and this text says, you are to experience God's love. That's what the cross was for.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_01] The love of God is meant to be experienced. All right. Okay. Okay. Qualifications. All right. Feelings are often very erratic. Feelings are very often very sporadic. We can't always follow our feelings. We can't follow our feelings into disobedience. We can't base our acceptance on God when our feelings. We can't base our understanding of things on feelings. Of course, feelings, we all know that that's a very difficult area. And they come and they go. And they're unreliable.

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_01] But having said all that, we are supposed to know God in the totality of our being. God wants us to know him intellectually and volitionally and emotionally totally. The love of God was meant to be experienced. I was reading some a while ago. I was preaching on Luke 15, where the father kisses the prodigal son.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_01] And one of the great Baptist preachers, Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon, wrote this. He got very personal in the sermon. And he was preaching on that text. And he says in the sermon, he says, Some of us know what it is to be too happy to live. The love of God has occasionally been so overpoweringly experienced by us. And that was the editorial weed. He was talking about himself.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01] The love of God has been so overpoweringly experienced by us on some occasions that we almost had to ask God to stop the delight. For we might have died. If he had not shielded me from his love and glory, I might have died for joy. I couldn't endure anymore. You know, and I know this is very dangerous to bring up. Because some of us want this so badly, it's easy to make an idol of it.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01] And I also know it's very dangerous to think that that's a kind of experience you can always have. But what I really want to ask is, do you know anything of this? Do you know what he's talking about? If you read biographies and journals, if you get to know the great men and women of old, read the journal of Teresa of Avila. I'm saying that wrong. Read the journals of a guy like Spurgeon or somebody like George Whitefield who kept journals.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_01] One place where Whitefield said, last night I couldn't get to sleep. God kept pouring love into me and I kept saying, I've got to get some sleep, Lord. He says, I couldn't stop because it kept coming. It kept coming and it kept praising him. And I found next thing you know, the sun was up. Boy, I was tired that day, he said. Another place, he says, last night I was meditating on the doctrines of free justification and salvation by grace. And they filled me with a holy fire.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_01] Here's Spurgeon saying, sometimes the love of God has been so repoweringly experienced by us that we almost had to ask God to stop the delight for we could endure no more. Do you know anything about this? This is access, friends. And having just said how easy it is to make that into an idol, I just said that that's not the basis for how we relate to God. That's not the basis for our acceptance. That's not how we know things. I still want to ask, do you know this? I think we know shamefully little of this.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_01] Well, you say, how do I get that? I don't know. It doesn't matter. Are you after it? We're so smug. We haven't even begun to drink out of this world. Where's the joy and the boldness and the wholeness that would come from knowing the love of God like that? Yeah, even Presbyterians talk like this every so often. Because, you know, if you read the Bible, it forces you to realize

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_01] that we're supposed to know Him in our totality. For, the word for means that God, all the things God has done, is not simply to get you forgiven, not simply to get you saved, not simply to help you with this and that. He wants to know us. He wants us to know Him. He wants us to have access. Now, let's look at the word. Access to what? Access to the Father. Access to the Father.

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_01] Now, the word access is a word that means, literally means to be introduced to someone who's very great. It means to get an introduction to royalty. Partly, we don't really have words like that, because especially Americans don't have much familiarity with the idea of royalty. But the picture is this. The picture is this. Imagine yourself finding out, now this is maybe a little harder for New Yorkers to get into,

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_01] because we're so used to gorgeous and famous and influential people just walking down the street. There's no other place, not even in L.A., in places like that, where everybody's in cars. You know? You know? But as we know, it's not that unusual to walk down the street and look over and say, oh, there's somebody that I've heard about all my life. Huh? He doesn't look quite like he did in that last picture. I mean, that's not that unusual. And yet, if you're going to understand access, you have to understand this word. You have to go like this. You have to say,

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_01] imagine there was somebody who was finally coming to your town, someone that you've almost adored, someone that you've admired, someone that you desperately, desperately would like to just catch a glimpse of. And so what you are is you're out there in the crowd. You're being jostled around, and the police barricade is pretty far away, and there's everybody trying to get up, but you're just hoping to catch a glimpse. And all of a sudden, someone from this great, let's just say this great man's entourage, breaks out, comes over to the police barricade, and calls your name out. Are you there?

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01] And the police open, you see, a path, and you walk up and say, yes, I'm so-and-so. Well, we would like you to come on in and have lunch with us. We're so glad to meet you. We've been waiting to see you. We knew you lived here, and we were hoping we might run into you. And in they usher you, and Secret Service people open doors everywhere, and you walk on in, and you sit right down, and there he is,

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_01] and he looks better than in his last picture. And he says, I'm so glad to meet you. I've heard so much about you. I hope we can end up being good friends. When's the next time you'll be out where I'm coming from? I'd love to have you to my place. And all of that is in this word, access. It's a very pregnant Greek word. It means to get in. Do you know how much you want to get in? And let me have, give me a minute or two to show you. There is one of the deepest and greatest drives of the human heart. And where is it from?

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01] The need to be on the inside. We all have a need for access that's deeper than sex. It's deeper than gender. It's deeper than greed. It's deeper than many other things you might guess. Now, you know, it's interesting. Back at the end of World War II, C.S. Lewis gave a commencement address to graduating seniors at Oxford, at King's College. No, no. Sorry, the University of London, King's College.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01] And the name of the sermon was called The Inner Ring. And he said something in here that I think is tremendously insightful and without which you're never going to understand the impact of what is being offered to us here. And he says in here, he talks about, he talks about the army, because he was in the army, and this is in the middle of the war. And he says this. He says, There exists in the army two different systems or hierarchies. The one is printed in a little red book, and anybody can read it up.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01] It remains constant. A general is always superior to a colonel, and a colonel is always superior to a captain. And everybody knows who is in charge of who. But the other system, the other hierarchy in the army, is not printed anywhere. Nor is it even a formally organized secret society with officers and rules, which you could be told after you'd been admitted. You're never formally and explicitly admitted by anyone. In fact, you discover only gradually in almost indefinable ways that it exists, and you're on the outside of it.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_01] And then perhaps, maybe, you're on the inside of it. It's not easy at a given moment to say who's really inside and who's outside. Some people are obviously in, and some people are obviously out, but there's always a few on the borderline. And you know, if you come to the same divisional headquarters or brigade headquarters or the same regiment or even the same company after six weeks' absence, you may find that the second hierarchy has altered. There's no formal admissions or expulsions. People think they're in it

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_01] after they have, in fact, been pushed out of it or before they've even been allowed in. And this, of course, provides great amusement to those who really are inside. It has no fixed name. The only certain rule for this little society is that the insiders and the outsiders call it by different names. From the inside, it's only to be designated in simple cases by mere enumeration. It might be me and Tony and John and you. When it's very secure,

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01] sometimes we just refer to it as we. However, if you're on the outside, people talk about it as that gang or they or so-and-so and his whole set or the caucus or the inner circle.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_00] Woven into our slogans, songs, and social media feeds are the stories that our culture tells us about life's biggest questions like, what gives my life meaning? Can I have a happy and fulfilling life? And why is there so much suffering in the world? We don't really choose these stories, but our culture is telling them to us every day. So what are these stories our culture tells us about who we are? And do they actually deliver what they promise? Tim Keller and his son Michael Keller explore this in a brand new book,

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00] Tim began this book before his death, compiling hundreds of pages of notes and collaborating with Michael before giving it to him to complete. In it, they explore some of our culture's most prominent narratives about topics like identity, freedom, happiness, and progress, unmasking how these narratives shape our lives. They examine why these stories resonate with us so deeply and yet how these narratives ultimately aren't able to help us through the hardships and sufferings of life. The Stories We Live By offers a challenge

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_00] to skeptics and to Christians alike to examine the underlying narratives that drive our lives and an invitation to discover a story that's big enough to make sense of the beauty and the brokenness of the world. When you give to Gospel in Life during the month of September, we'll send you this new book, The Stories We Live By, as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_00] gospelinlife.com slash give. Because the gospel truly changes everything.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_01] What Lewis comes out and says is that in almost any place, not just the army, any place, there's a group of people on the outside and there's a group of people on the inside. Who's the people on the inside? It's the inner ring. The people who know. The people who really run things. The people who know what's going on. And he says, trouble is that nobody ever sets out a little book and says, here's the people on the inner ring and here's the rules for the inner ring and here's how they get there. He says, they change. People are pushed out. People think they're in when they're really on the outside and the people on the inside who really are inside

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01] laugh at the person on the outside who thinks they're on the inside and they laugh at the people on the outside. And he says, everywhere you go, everywhere you go, there's these inner rings and we desperately, desperately, desperately want to be included. He goes a little further and he says, now the easiest inner ring to see is what we call high society. He says, Victorian literature is full of characters who are hag ridden by the desire to get inside to society. But it must be clearly understood that society in that sense of the word is merely one

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_01] of hundreds of rings and therefore snobbery has many forms. People who think that they are free of snobbery, people who write satires about this society set, people who make fun of them may be very intensely devoured by the same desire in another form. It might mean, listen, it may be the very intensity of their desire to enter some other very different inner circle renders them immune from the allurements

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_01] of high life. An invitation from a duchess would be a very cold comfort for a man smarting under the sense of exclusion from some artistic circle. Poor man. It's not large lighted rooms or champagne or even scandals about peers and cabinet ministers that he wants. No. He thinks he's above all that but it's the sacred little attic or the little studio where the heads are bent together and there's a little fog of tobacco smoke and the delicious knowledge that we,

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_01] just we, we four or five all huddled together are the only people that really know. Freud would say no doubt that the whole thing is a subterfuge of the sexual impulse but I wonder whether the shoe is not on the other foot. I wonder whether in ages of promiscuity many a virginity has not been lost less in obedience to Venus than in obedience to the lure of the inner ring. See what he's saying? He was saying this is so deep

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_01] that a lot of people think that they have a problem with sex, they have a problem with drugs, they have a problem with other things but in many cases this is deeper than that. sex, but out of a desire to get on the inside. How many people have first taken drugs? Not out of a desire to take drugs, some people do just simply because they're trying to escape but how many people do it because we want to get in? We need to be in every place. We've got to get on the inside.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_01] We're desperately afraid of being on the outside. He says, I have no rights to make assumptions about the degree to which any of you have already been compromised. However, in the whole of your life as you remember it right now, has the desire to be on the right side of that invisible line ever prompted you to any act or word on which in the cold small hours of a wakeful night you can look back with satisfaction? If so, your case is more fortunate than most. This is one of the permanent great mainsprings

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01] of human actions. Unless you take measures to prevent it in yourself, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life. From the first down which you enter your profession to the day in which you're too old to care. It's the very mark of a sinful desire that it seeks what is not to be had. As long as you are governed by the desire to be on the inside, you will never get what you want. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_01] This is surely very clear when you come to think of it. If, for example, you want to join a musical society, a musical circle, because you really like music, that's fine. But you may find yourself playing in a quartet and you may enjoy it, but if all you wanted to be was on the inside, in the know, your pleasure will be short-lived. What he's trying to say is something very important. Would you please consider how many of your problems have this as the deeper analysis? We want access,

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_01] we want to be in, we're so afraid of being on the outside. One illustration which may seem incredibly bizarre but shows you how basic this is. He's trying to say, at that point, Freud would say this is all a sexual impulse. Oh no, he says this is deeper than the sexual impulse. We need to be on the inside. How much of your unhappiness is a sense of being excluded? By the way, this is even worse if you're single than if you're married. I think he's

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_01] right about that. Lewis makes a point of that. Sometimes being married or being in families pulls you away and yet if the family gets big enough, what happens is you get an inner and outer circle even in the family. He says, do you realize how much of your unhappiness is a sense of I'm on the outside? Do you realize how much that desire for this can actually destroy you, can prompt you to do things you shouldn't do? And do you see how deep it is? This might be a very bizarre illustration but I've used it before and it's pretty interesting.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_01] Somebody just gave me one of these very poorly written books. There's lots and lots of books of look what a mess I was but now I've come to become a great new creature in Christ. There's a lot of books that are great testimonies but they're terribly written. I read one of them and it was about a man who had lived a very licentious gay lifestyle and had been a famous female impersonator. And he says at one point in the book he was growing up he'd always been a sissy, he'd always been effeminate, he'd always been weak, he'd never been athletic and as a result since

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_01] he was male he was always on the outside, always pushed on the outside, always on the outside. And then the first time he did his female impersonator act he says, I got it, up and I went into my act. They whistled, they shouted, they clapped, they demanded more. Finally, for the first time in my life, I was in. He found he had something that could get him on the inside. Suddenly everybody wanted to make him a celebrity. I was in. Now what made him that? Well you could

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_01] look at a lot of psychology, you could talk about gender dysfunction, you could talk about sex, you could talk about all kinds of stuff. There was something deeper. I wanted access. I was on the outside. I was marginalized. How do I get in? This desire to be in will run your life, Lewis said so, will run your life unless you not only recognize it for what it is, but satisfy it. Well how can you satisfy it? Because we all know we're on the outside

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01] of the ultimate circle and that ultimate circle is the Trinity, the triune God. God. This tells us that through Christ we can come in. The Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all in verse 18 and so are you, both of you, right in the center. It says in the Psalms, the secret of the Lord is with those who fear him. The word secret is the Hebrew word for secret, yesoth,

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_01] means the secret counsel. God confides in you. God takes you on the inside. He gives you access He says, I'm so happy to meet you. He opens the doors. He opens the gates. He makes the policemen open the barricades for you. He brings you right on inside, right down in the chair. And He says, I want to be friends. We want to be on the inside so badly. Can you recognize it in yourself? Can you see it in yourself?

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_01] We have access to the Father. How? How do we get that? How do we get all this great stuff? The other two phrases are here. And they're very simple, and yet I hope to show you just in the last five minutes how important it is to use these two phrases to actually get that access. We've just seen that people, no matter who you are, can be brought together in this mystical, in this deep, in this intimate, actual experience of God.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_01] That we have access to the Father, and it's the most powerful experience we possibly can have. And it satisfies some things in us that can't be satisfied any other way. An itch that we are trying to scratch by trying to break into all sorts of inner circles and never finding satisfaction. Well, how can we have that access? How can we have that experience? It says, through him, by one spirit. First of all, through him means this.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_01] The introduction has to be done by somebody else. What if the president comes, and you are on one side of the police barricade, the president doesn't know you, and nobody's there to introduce you. What if you decide, I'm going to introduce myself? Just try it. Just try it. Run through, you know. Jump the barricade. Walk up, and try to introduce yourself to the president of the United States. Go ahead. Just try it.

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_01] Better make sure that your will is in order before you do, though. Because, you see, unless you get somebody to introduce you, you can't do it. If you go in your own name, if you try to introduce yourself to a person in power and of influence, at the very least, you're going to be humiliated. At the very least, you're going to be turned away. At the very least, you're going to be said, who is that nut? At the very worst, you're going to come down with a bullet in your arm, or in your heart. You can't do that. He's busy. He's powerful. He's important. What if everybody who

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_01] just wanted to come up and introduce himself to you, you know, if everybody who wanted to talk to the president of the United States did it, what would happen? We wouldn't have a president of the United States. We wouldn't have a presidency. It wouldn't be possible. Access has to be limited, and the only way to get in is if somebody who knows him and who knows you introduces. That's the only way. How can you know that you have access to the Father? Through Christ. We spent time on that. Here is someone who, on the one hand, is a humble carpenter's son. Here's someone who's

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_01] like us. Here's someone who comes in. He's accessible to us. We read about him and we say, I understand how he felt. He was lonely. He was abused. He was hurt. He died. He was a human being. But at the same time, he knows the Father. He is the confident of the Father. He's the apple of the Father's eye. He will introduce you. Now, listen, this is very practical, extremely practical. Many of you who are Christians experience very little of the access. You don't experience what Whitfield and Spurgeon and Teresa were talking about.

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_01] You don't experience that. And you say, why not? I'll tell you why. Because you're going in your own name. When you sit down and pray, what do you do? You go in with your gimme list. You go in with your grocery list. And you have all these things to pray for. And then you might say at the end, in Jesus' name I pray. Well, you are supposed to pray in Jesus' name. But do you know what that means? You have to go through him. I tell you, do it tomorrow. Sit down and really go through him. What that means is, you take time.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_01] Take at least five minutes, at least, to go through him. What does that mean? Sit there and say, I realize, oh Father, that I'm only coming through Jesus Christ. I realize the audacity of coming to a great person like you and asking for this. I realize that you should wipe me out for even having the audacity to speak. I realize that just as impossible as it would be to break through a barricade and get up to introduce myself to the President of the United States, I have no right to come before you. But Jesus died for me.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_01] Jesus opened the way for me. Jesus is my righteousness. Jesus is my advocate. Jesus is my brother. Jesus is my king. Jesus is all of this to me. Just spend five minutes realizing that the only access you have is through Jesus. Martin Luther says, think of God as a consuming fire. And if you try to go directly into him, you'll be burned alive. But if you come around to the Jesus store and you open it, you walk in and his presence is cool light itself.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01] He says, just think of it that way. Every other door you try is a consuming fire unless you come through Jesus. And if you just think about that, and if you just are grateful for that, if you just think about what he's done and what the meaning of the access, if you go to him through, if you go to the Father through him tomorrow instead of just saying, in Jesus' name we pray, amen, I tell you, you'll begin to experience the excess. Then lastly, it's by one spirit. The point is, it's the

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_01] Holy Spirit that actually comes and gives us the experience. How does that happen? It's fairly simple. Have you ever experienced spiritual eloquence as you're praying? I mean, by yourself. Have you ever felt yourself being brought out of yourself? Have you ever looked down at your watch and said, oh my gosh, I've been praying for an hour. How did it happen? The time just flies. That's the work of the Holy Spirit, because what the Holy Spirit does is the Holy Spirit comes and takes

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_01] the truth and makes it shine. It says in Ephesians 1, the eyes of your heart will be enlightened so that you may know, so you may grasp the height and the width and the breadth and the depth of the love of God. The Holy Spirit, if you seek it, if you say, you take a look at the word of God and you start to read something and you read a verse, like this verse, what do you do? You meditate on it and you say, I want access, Father. I want to see what you really

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_01] got to say for me here. Make these truths real to me. Make these truths real to me. Meditate on them. Think about them. And ask the Holy Spirit and say, oh, Holy Spirit, I know I'm a slow learner, but I thank you that you're a teacher. Teach me these truths. And what the Holy Spirit will do, if you go through Christ, instead of going through your own name, is he will teach you. Now look, let me just close this way. The irony of all this is that last Sunday night I decided I wasn't getting

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_01] enough access in prayer. And I made an absolutely ironclad agreement to triple the amount of time this week that I prayed. Because I said, you know, the only way I'm going to get access and experience that access and get enough love to do this job is if I just say I have access to the Father through him by the one Spirit. I'm going to claim that. I'm going to do it. And I did triple the amount of time, and I had one of the most dead, stagnant prayer weeks I've ever had.

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_01] It was amazing. It was like beating your head against the wall. Sometimes good coaches do that to you. Sometimes good fathers do that to you. Sometimes they say, let's really teach, let's just see what this kid's got. Let's just teach them a little bit of gumption. Let's teach them a little bit of perseverance. God might do that to you. Why not? Very ironic. I said, I don't want to get up there and preach on access without having experienced them this week. I didn't experience hardly any at all.

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_01] I put a lot of time in, probably more time than you're going to put in this week. I mean, I'm not bragging. I'm just telling you. I want you to know, therefore, there's no secret to this. We have to get rid of our smugness, and we have to realize that God's love was meant to be experienced. There's an access to God that we can have, that we all desperately want. We'll finally get in. We finally can get in. Very un-Presbyterian sermon. I tell you this.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_01] Do whatever it takes. Go to him and say, I need your love. I need access. I need to have that freedom. I need to feel, I need to sense your love. I need to feel my burdens coming off in prayer. I want your reality. I want spiritual reality. What do you think he's going to do if you come and ask him things like that? He's going to say, I can't wait to see this person just squirm. I'm not going to do anything. Do you really believe that God isn't good?

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_01] If one of my kids comes up to me and says, I haven't had enough of you, Daddy. I just want to hug you more, and I want to talk with you more, and I want to, I just want you to know I love you, and I just want to know more about your love. What am I going to say? Ha ha. Just what I've been waiting for. Even I, an extremely imperfect father, the worst I could do is, I'm awfully busy now.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_01] Can we get back together tomorrow? I mean, even I, as imperfect a father as they come, will say that. But who's going to say, this is exactly what I was waiting for? No supper with you tonight. No allowance. You're grounded to your room. What is a father going to do when you hear something like that, huh? Huh? He's going to just melt down himself. He's going to say, oh, come here. He'll do that to you. He has to do it to you. Sooner or later, you have

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_01] to give yourself to him. And then finally, finally, you'll be in. For, by, through him, we both have access to the Father by one spirit. Let's pray. Father, we do ask for this. There's dangers in talking about it. It's very easy to get an imbalance. It's very easy to turn this sort of feeling into an idol. Especially we, modern

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_01] people, love so much to have good feelings. We don't like to talk about duty. We don't like to talk about truth. But, boy, we sure like to talk about experience. And yet, Lord, as important as it is for us to be balanced in all of this, we ask that you would give us more and more access. The anointing of your spirit. A sense of your presence in our midst. A sense of presence every day. Letting the truth shine in our hearts. Giving us a sense of your love.

[00:40:31] [SPEAKER_01] Father, we come to you and we say, do what you want with us, but we will destroy our idols and we will seek you and we will wait on you. And we will obey and seek you until you show us your face. That's how Jacob wrestled with the angel and that's how we'd lay hold on you right now. And we ask that you would show us yourself. We come to you through Jesus and we ask that you do it by the Spirit. Give us access. In his name we pray.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_01] Amen. Amen.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel quarterly journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook,

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_00] Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.