I Am the Vine

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_00] Welcome to Gospel in Life. Where do you turn when you're searching for spiritual truth? Some approaches to spiritual searching look to traditional religion or morality, while others tell us that the answers lie within ourselves. The Gospel offers something completely different. It points us to a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Today on the podcast, Tim Keller explores Jesus' own statements about Himself and shows how our search for truth can only be satisfied when we understand who He really is.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01] I'll tell you why we're looking at these passages. Coming up to Christmas, we're asking ourselves, what child is this who's laid in the manger? Who is this? Who's the one that was born? And it's best to listen to Jesus' own statements from His own lips. And we're looking at a series of statements He makes in the Gospel of John called the famous I Am passages, where He says, I am the way, the truth, the life. I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. I am the good shepherd.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_01] And tonight, we'll look at this. John 15. I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01] I am the vine. You are the branches. If a man remains in me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_01] This is to my Father's glory that you hear bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01] I have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. My command is this. Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love is no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01] You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, and then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command. Love one another. This is God's word. This is every, you know, funny thing about the Gospel of John, just to tell you something, is when you're learning Greek,

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01] to learn how to study the New Testament in Greek, almost the first books they take you to is John, the Epistles of John, the Gospel of John, because can you not tell John is very simple. Simple vocabulary, short sentences, repetition, nothing like reading Hebrews, for example, which is very hard to read, or even St. Paul. And yet, and yet, the grammar might be simple,

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_01] but this is, this is like a bottomless well, and every verse, obviously, could be a, not just a sermon, but a series of sermons. But let's see what he's talking about. When he says, I am the vine, what is he talking about? He's talking about growth. He's talking about fruit. The word fruit comes up over and over and over and over again. Fruit. And what he's really talking about is the fact that in me, he says, you got the potential for enormous change,

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01] because the word fruit in the Bible always has to do with character. I mean, let me just give you one, one little illustrative list is Galatians 5, where it talks about the fruit of the Spirit. And that's just one, one list, but think about it. What are the fruit of the Spirit? Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. You know, forgiving.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_01] Patience. Kindness. That's unselfishness. Goodness. That's transparency and integrity. Faithfulness. That's courage. Gentleness. That's humility. Self-control. Self-control. Jesus is saying, I'm the key to that. Or let me put it another way. How can a selfish person become unselfish? How can a controlling, manipulative person become a liberator?

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_01] How can a cowardly person become courageous? How can a whiner become a giver? How can a warrior become a rock? How can a bigot become understanding? That's the question. I mean, there's no more relevant question in a society. There's no more relevant question in our city. There's no more relevant question for us individually. And Jesus says, when he says, I'm the true vine, he's saying, I'm the key to that. Now, what does this teach about this potential for personal growth?

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_01] Boy, every bookstore in New York is just filled with books on how to change, how to develop your inner potential. But they either are mechanical books saying, here's the technique. Or they're morality books, which is said, now try hard to be virtuous. Or they're magical books saying, tap into some kind of power. But the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Christianity offers something that's not just secular technique. It's not traditional morality. And it's certainly not New Age spirituality either. It's none of those. It's all of them.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_01] It transcends them. It says, you need to have a vital connection with Jesus Christ, the only cosmic and concrete person who ever lived. Concrete persons who are not cosmic and cosmic forces that have never become concrete persons. But if you have a personal relationship with him and you know how to draw on his pulsating life like a branch draws on that of the vine, then that's the secret. And that's what Jesus is saying. I'm the key to that.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01] Now, what do we learn about it? Well, what do we learn about this growth? Here's what we learn. Quite a few things. First of all, we learn that it's a fact. It's a possibility. Especially here in this wonderful verse down here where Jesus says, I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit. If you go back to Romans 8, where Paul talks about this idea of Jesus coming and choosing us, there's a lot involved.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_01] It says he foreknew and then he came down and then he justified and then he glorified us. Why? So we might be conformed into the image of the sun. What's all that mean? This. Verse 16, Romans 8 comes down to this. Jesus is saying, everything I've done, all my plans, the loss of my glory, my incarnation into the flesh, my death on the cross, my resurrection, everything I've done in order to break into your life is for one purpose. Fruit.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_01] Your fruit. Or, put it another way, I am absolutely, with all of my power and being, I am completely engaged to one goal. To make you a person of greatness. To give you the same incredible glory that I have and to bring my beauty into your life so that you will be a beautiful person too. I am committed to your greatness. I'm committed to taking my pulsating life and hooking you up to me so it comes into your life.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_01] That's what I'm about. Look me in the eye. Anyway, there's a whole lot of you. You came to Christianity and you're in Christianity and you just hoped for sort of a help over a couple of bad habits. You've got things in your life that are making you unhappy, are making the people around you unhappy, and are grieving the heart of God. And you're living with them. You're just leaving them there undisturbed. You're pessimistic about you ever being able to change.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_01] Jesus Christ says, I am the one who brought all the stars, the innumerable stars into existence with the sound of my voice, and all of my power is committed to making you a person of greatness, and to dealing with every problem, every flaw, every weakness in your life. I am committed to your holiness and your happiness and your purity and your beauty. I'm here to make you a person of greatness. What do you think of that? Are you living as if that's true?

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_01] Are you taking that seriously? Are you as scared and as happy as you ought to be in the light of that? No, we're not. That's so scary. Who knows what he'll make us then? But that's so incredible. Give up your small ambitions for your own character. That's the first thing. The very fact, the very possibility of this incredible growth. Second thing we learn is the organic nature of this growth. And this organic nature, Jesus Christ is very careful.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01] Before he gets into the last paragraph, you see where Jesus actually kind of leaves behind the vine and branches metaphor, and he says, I want you to obey my commands. I want you to read my word. I want you to obey my commands. I want you to pray. I want you to do all this. And if we only had that paragraph and not the first part, we might easily think that Christianity was basically a mechanical and moral thing. In other words, if you want to be a Christian, fine. There's all these things you have to do. Get going.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_01] Discipline. Duty. Let's do it. But the first part says that what he's really after is to hook us in some kind of vital organic connection with him so his life comes into our life. And that's what... Let me give you a thesis statement here. Jesus is after this. He is after organic, organic change through a new internal dynamic, not mechanical compliance through external force. I better say that again.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01] He's after organic change, not mechanical compliance. He's after organic change through a new inner dynamic, not mechanical compliance through external force. What do I mean? Let me give you an example. Now, actually, in my life, the place that this really hit home was, especially in my first pastorate where I did a lot of marriage counseling. And I'm going to give you a case example of something I saw many, many times.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_01] The only problem with giving you one case example is you have to choose either the husband or the wife being the dumb one. And there are dumb husbands and dumb wives. I don't want you to think. I think that it's always the dumb husband. But I'll use a dumb husband example. All right? Okay. And this is very typical. Husband calls up and says, My wife's about to leave me. I can't believe it. But she says, She'll come with me to talk to a counselor. Can we come see you? Okay. Fine. So they come in. What's the matter? Well, she goes through a list of grievances.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_01] It's very typical. And she says things like, Look, you're domineering. We never mutually come to decisions. You just order me around. And then you aren't emotionally vulnerable. You never open up to me. And then she goes down the list. And he looks at her and he says, Well, I've always heard of these things. I've heard you say these things. I didn't realize they grieved you this much. I didn't realize you were ready to leave me. Of course I'll change. I will do everything you ask. And she says, Well, all right.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_01] And then they go home. And for a while he changes. He changes. He changes. He does everything she wants. But then usually one of two things happens. In fact, usually the first one. But usually one of two things happens. First, when he's pretty sure she's back to stay, he just goes back to the way he was. He's not scared of her leaving anymore. He just slides right on back. It was mechanical compliance,

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_01] not internal change, through external force. Or sometimes, not as often, sometimes what will happen is he'll stay changed in the sense of he will continue to do the things he promised, but he'll get more and more grumpy about it. He'll get more and more unhappy about it. He'll get more and more galled and frustrated with it. He'll get more demanding of her. He'll feel more self-pity until she leaves anyway. Now, what's going on? I'll tell you. External force can restrain the heart,

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_01] can make the heart comply without changing it from inside, without any real change of life. The two external forces I'm thinking of are this. One is fear. See, the guy is saying, I won't be able to live without her. How will I ever do without her? I love her so much. I need her so much. That sounds like love, doesn't it? But it's really fear. He's not thinking about what he's done to her. He's thinking about how will he do without her. It's completely selfish. And he's scared to death.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01] And fear can get you to toe the line. Right? And the other external force is pride. He could change out of fear, or he could change out of pride. He could say, I'm going to be a good husband. I'm not going to be like all these awful husbands out there. I'm going to love my wife. I'm not going to be a cold-hearted person. I'm going to be a great dad. I'm going to be a great father. I'm going to be a great guy. And you know what? That makes you a little less of a nuisance to society in some ways than just totally out of fear.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01] But in the long run, what happens is there's really no change. And here's why. When you change out of fear and pride, you've got a little bit of a problem because the reason you've got the problems you do in your life is because of fear and pride. It's fear and pride that leads you to do all the things that you're trying to change. And if you use fear and pride in order to change the things that are rooted in fear and pride, what you've really done is you haven't changed the heart. You've jury-rigged the heart.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_01] And it's a matter of time before it all falls apart. Another example of this would be take a piece of metal. If you want to change the shape of the metal, you heat it so that when you forge it under the heat, it's melted, you see? And then you forge it, and then it's permanently changed. But the other way, if you want to change the shape of the metal, just bend it. And there's two things that will happen. Either when you take your hands off, it'll spring back to its original shape, or else it'll break. That's what always happened to those guys,

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_01] or not just the husbands, but the wives that I saw. They would bend mechanical compliance out of fear and pride. They'd bend themselves. Okay, honey, don't leave me. And it wasn't very long before they either snapped back the way they were, or else they were so galled by the unnaturalness of the changes that they broke. Actually, I'll give you one more quick illustration. Sorry. I'm a pastor. I think of these things all the time. But you know what? Kathy and I went out and cut down a Christmas tree

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_01] out in the wilds of New Jersey someplace. I don't know where it was passed. Out beyond electricity and paved roads and things like that. And we cut a tree down. We brought it back, and we started decorating, and it looked so much nicer than it did before. It didn't have lights on it. It didn't have all the... You know, you couldn't even see it at night. Now you can see it at night. It looks so much more beautiful. It didn't have gold and red and all that stuff on it. It looks so much nicer now that we are pasting stuff on it. If we give it about five weeks,

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01] then it's going to look a lot worse. Because, you see, we took its life out. We cut it. It's not in the vine, you see. Mechanical. Jesus is after organic, internal, dynamic change as opposed to mechanical compliance through external force. He says, look, there's two kinds of branches here. And to the external eye, they're all connected, are they not? Externally.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_01] But some of them are fruitful and some of them are not. Why? Because some of them are actually, though they look externally like they're connected, internally, that organic connection's not there. There's no life going from the vine to the branch. That's why it says here, see? He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while each branch that does bear fruit he prunes. Externally, lots of people say, well, I guess I believe in God. I believe in Christianity. I believe in Christ.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01] I've been raised in the church. Jesus says, do you have the vital connection that transduce forms you from the inside? And you see, if you have that, then fruit is inevitable. Absolutely inevitable. Now, before moving on, because I know you're going to start to say, well, but okay, how? How do I make this connection? How do I draw on the life of Christ instead of just simply comply? But let me just push you a little bit on a couple things. First of all, Christians, talk to Christian friends here. It is very typical

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_01] when you first get into Christianity without knowing better. What you actually do is you move into all kinds of mechanical compliance instead of organic change. Because you put all of your focus, very often, all of the focus is on busyness and serving Jesus instead of friendship with Jesus. And I'll tell you how easy it is. I'll tell you why. Because you hear, when you first become a Christian, you hear and you embrace this. You're not saved by your good works.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_01] You're saved by grace. But it's very hard for the human heart to believe that. And so what you do is you get busy doing several things. First of all, you start helping people. I'm a Christian. I'm going to help people. I'm going to listen to people. I'm going to talk to people. I'm going to feed people. I'm going to help people. I'm going to reach out. And then secondly, you go to a lot of meetings and you go to a lot of classes and you study a lot of things and you learn a lot of things. And then you also get rid of big, juicy, obvious sins in your life. And there's always a few. Big, juicy, obvious sins. Study a lot of things.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_01] Go to a lot of meetings. Help a lot of people. And what you're doing is you're saying what? Surely God must love me if I'm doing all this. And so what you're actually doing, listen carefully, is you are inferring the love of God instead of experiencing the love of God. You're inferring the love of God instead of drawing on it. By the way, those of you who are doing this, I can't. If this is the first time you've ever heard this, don't expect to get it. I'm sorry. Everything I've ever learned

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_01] took me time. I had to hear things over and over again. A lot of Christians think that they're experiencing the love of God. They're not. They're inferring it. They're being very busy and they're saying, surely because I'm being such a nice Christian person, God must love me. I'm sure he does. Well, I'm sure he does too. But you're just inferring it. And so, you know, there's a Christian version of the Christmas tree, in a sense. Without really drawing, without really working at friendship, without really working at listening to him and praying to him and knowing him

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01] and walking with him and spending time with him, you're out there really, really, really busy. And you know what's going to happen? You're going to find that you're not really changing much. That after two or three years of being a Christian, you're not much more loving, you're not much more joyful, you're not much more patient, you're not much more humble, you're no better at taking criticism. You're no better at overcoming your habits. You haven't hardly changed at all. You've changed a little bit, but very little. Very little fruit. Why? You're not drawing.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_00] A lot of people think they know the Christmas story. Cultural references to the birth of Jesus are unavoidable this time of year. But how closely have you examined what really happened that first Christmas night? In his book, Hidden Christmas, Tim Keller takes you on an illuminating journey into the surprising background of the Nativity story to help you better understand the redeeming power of God's grace. Hidden Christmas is our thanks this month for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the good news of Jesus with more people.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_00] Request your copy of Hidden Christmas today when you give at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now, here's Timothy Keller with the rest of today's teaching.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01] Okay. And let me say something to those of you who aren't sure you're Christians or maybe you're thinking about Christianity. Maybe you're saying, well, I'm wondering, you know, about Christianity. What does it mean to be a Christian? Now, it's very typical for people when they're thinking like that to ask a question like this. What do I have? What do I, if I become a Christian, what will I have to give up? You know, it's very typical. People come and say, you know, I'm thinking of Christianity but what are the rules? When I become a Christian, like, I've heard that you can't

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_01] have sex until you're married. Is that true? I've heard you have to tithe or you have to give a lot of your money. Is that true? What will I have to do? Now, look, look, look. On the one hand, of course, nobody's going to keep you from reading. I mean, if you come, you say, I'm not a Christian but I want to know what are the Christian rules. There's no secret book someplace, okay? There's not, you know, it's not like, well, we'll make you a Christian and then, aha, guess what? You can't do this and you can't do that but it's too late now. You know, it's almost the reverse of Faust, you know?

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01] It's God who comes and says, sell your soul to me but you'll never know how bad it'll be. I mean, sign on the dotted line is too late. Look, there's nothing like that. I'd be happy to tell you all this but what you're doing is you're making Christianity at the same time way too hard and way too easy. First of all, you're making it way too hard because you are really thinking that what it means to be a Christian is to basically clean your life up and Jesus, look, think of the illustration, think of the image, think of the image.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_01] Does the branch get into the vine? Does the branch get the life of the vine because it's fruitful? Does the branch say, hey, I'm being fruitful, would you please, you know, hook up with me? I mean, does the branch get the life because it's fruitful? Of course not. The branch is fruitful because it gets the life and what Jesus Christ is saying here is you're saved by grace. Without me, you can't do nothing. You can't do anything. To become a Christian is not to say, boy, look at me,

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_01] I'm willing to change my life. You know, now you're going to have to accept me. Jesus says the only way for you to really become a Christian, the only way, really, for a branch to get into the vine is to be grafted in. You don't have anything to recommend yourself. Basically, the way to become a Christian is to say, I'm going to live a good life, but I can't live a good life. I haven't lived a good life. I need for you, oh Lord God, to accept me because of what Jesus did. So on the one hand, you're making Christianity way too hard, but on the other hand, you're making it

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_01] way too easy. Do you see what the illustration here is? Jesus does not want you to say, well, am I going to have to be willing to give up sex outside marriage? Am I going to have to be willing to give up money? Jesus is saying, hey, you know what it means to be a Christian? I don't want your money. I don't want sex. I don't want this and that. You know what I want? C.S. Lewis put it pretty well in his book, Mere Christianity. He said, the Christian way is different, it's harder, and easier.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_01] Christ says, give me all. I don't want your time, I don't want your money, I don't want your work so much as I want you. I have not come to torment your ordinary self, I've come to kill it. No halfway measures. Hand over your whole ordinary self, both the things you think are innocent as well as the things you think are wicked. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you myself. My own will will become yours, my own life

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_01] will become yours. You see, Christianity is both harder and easier than what you were trying to do. See, when somebody says, well, I have to give up sex before marriage, well, I have to give up my money, you're lowering the bar, my friends. To become a Christian is to say, since I'm going to be saved completely by grace, not because I can clean up my life, therefore, to become a Christian means to come into the vine. Jesus is saying, I want to become your reason for doing everything. I want me, I want to be your life, I want to be your life. That's what it means, the branch is no life except for the vine. I want you, in other words,

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_01] to give me your whole life, to give up the right to yourself, to give up the right to call the shots in your life, to give up the right to decide what's right and wrong. This is the reason why when someone comes and says, I'd like to become a Christian, what are the rules? I want to look at you and I want to say, you have no idea. You have no idea of the changes that you're going to be called on to make. And if I even begin to enumerate them, I'm going to be giving you the impression that this is all there is. You're going to be, you're going to be asked for a whole lot more than money. You're going to be asked

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_01] for a whole lot more than celibacy, temporarily. You're going to be asked to make Jesus the reason you get out of bed in the morning. You're going to ask, to make Jesus your very life, to make Jesus your very vine, which leads us to the next part. See, somebody says, all right, what does that mean then? What does that mean? What does it mean to actually be vitally connected to him so that there's really fruit growing in my life? What does that vital connection mean? Well, when you look

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_01] at the rest of this passage, you know, I'll tell you, there's four things in here and they're intertwined. And I'm going to talk to you about them all right here in these last few minutes. But they're so intertwined that you could actually go into any one of them and find the other three. And those four things you've got to have in your life, if you are going to have this vital connection and see this fruit growing, you have to have the knife of the Lord, the joy of the Lord. See? The knife of the Lord is in verse 3. The joy of the Lord. It says, I want you to have my joy completely.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_01] You have to have the friendship of the Lord. See, that's what this is all about, he says, that you be my friends, not just my servants, not just my robots. I am not the general and you are the soldiers, me bringing orders, but I am the vine and you are the branches because I want you to be my friends. The knife of the Lord, the joy of the Lord, the friendship of the Lord, and of course, the love of the Lord. Remain in my love. Now, let me show you how this works. Let's just start, I'm going to start with one because it's the one that you're most going to be interested in and I'll show you

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_01] how they all rest, or in, you know, I could start with any one of them, pull the other three out. The knife of the Lord, you won't grow without pruning. Verse 3, you are already, oh, pardon me, verse 2, I blew it. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so it will be more fruitful. Now, what's he talking about? He's making a claim and it's astounding. If you go into a vineyard at the pruning time and every year they prune,

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_01] every year, if you have an untutered eye like me, I don't know anything about this, whenever I've seen people do the pruning, it looks like a disaster. From what I can tell, the gardener is attacking the poor plant and trying to kill it because when it's done, when he's done, all over the ground are beautiful things that look like they should never have been taken off. Beautiful, small branches and twigs and leaves, beautiful leaves and also little

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_01] incipient clusters of grapes. When you look up at the branches and the vine itself, it's bleeding. Hundreds of places it's been cut and it looks horrible, it looks like it'll never survive and it looks like everything is a pointless waste. Why are all these things gone? But you know and I know that if you have a skilled gardener, there is not one thing cut off that was not a loss to keep, that would not have been a loss to keep and that was a gain to lose. Can I say that again?

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_01] A skilled gardener never cuts off anything, never proves off anything that wouldn't have been a loss to keep and a gain to lose. In other words, everything that was taken off has to be taken off if that plant is going to reach its fullness, its productivity, you see, if it's really going to reach its power, if it's going to reach its potential. And therefore, when Jesus says this, oh my word, what he's saying is,

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_01] when the knife comes into your life and things that you've always wanted get taken off or things that you put your heart on are removed or things that you've always wanted are taken, you know, the dream is gone because it'll never happen. All these awful things that happen to you, all the troubles and difficulties that have taken things out of your life, you look at them with the untutored eye and you say, this is a waste, pointless waste. There's no reason why I should not have been able to get into that school. There's no reason why I should have lost that person. There's no reason. These things should never have happened to me.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01] And yet Jesus Christ is saying, that's because you don't understand gardening. There's not one thing I ever take out of your life that wouldn't have been a loss to keep and would have been a gain to lose. Look, he says, my father and I, my father is the gardener. Now right away, somebody says, hold on. And you get pretty upset and I understand why. Are you telling me, somebody says, that God looks out

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_01] at us and says, hmm, there's Sally, there's John. What will it take for them to become noble and great? I know, I'll send terrible things into their life. And people say, wait a minute. You know, one person once said to me, you know, after a sermon, he says, my mother died when I was five years old. You mean God sent that to me to make me a better person? You know, the idea that suffering makes us noble, what kind of God would do that? Somerset Maugham had a very interesting statement in one place he was writing.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_01] He had worked as a doctor at one time or at least worked in a hospital. And he says, there's a school that believes in the maul value of suffering. They claim that it was, it's salutary. They claim that it increases sympathy and opens the spirit to new avenues of beauty and strength and character. But I see that suffering did not ennoble, it degraded, it made people selfish, mean, petty, and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things that did not make them more human, but less. And he's right. What do you mean he's right?

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_01] You say, didn't you just say? No, I didn't. Absolutely not. Jesus isn't saying that either. Look, here's what he's saying. The knife comes onto every branch. The same knife to every branch. But Jesus says this, if you are hooked into me, the same troubles and evils and bad things that happen to everybody in this life, if you're connected to me, they won't make you hard, they'll make you soft. They won't make you

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_01] less human, they'll make you more human. They won't make you stupid, they'll make you wise. They won't make you mean and small, they'll make you great. But, if you are not connected to me, what will happen is those very, very same things that come into everybody's life, the same knife, the knife will come to everybody. Every branch goes under the knife. If you're connected to me, you'll be cut back into fruitfulness. But if you're not connected to me, the same knife will cut you off. Do you hear that?

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_01] You see, God didn't want a world as evil. If you want to see the world the way God wanted it, go to the Garden of Eden. No disease, no death, no hatred and cruelty. The world's broken because we decided to try to be in charge of it. Just like your car would be broken if you gave it to an eight-year-old. It wouldn't take long. So here we have a broken world and here we have all this, but this is what Jesus is saying. The knife, therefore, is coming down on everybody, but I'm telling you if you are connected to me, the bad things are going to actually come into your life

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_01] and what they're going to do is they are going to turn you into something great. So be connected to me. Well, you say, what do you mean? I'm going to give you the best illustration I know of and it really sums up all the different ways. Some years ago, I counseled two different women. Both came to my church and they both were in very similar situations. They both had husbands that were bad husbands and fathers and they had teenage sons that were beginning to get into tremendous trouble and looked like their life was going down the toilet largely because their fathers were such schnooks.

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_01] And both of the women were struggling with bitterness toward their husbands. But now listen. Here's what happened. To my surprise, you know, I wasn't very smart. I wasn't a very good counselor back then. I'm not sure I am a good one now. But I said to them, you need to forgive your husbands. And I mean, I didn't say it together. I was talking to them at different times, of course. And the one who had the worst husband, the worst of the two, struggled and did.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_01] But the one who had the better husband, really, a less difficult situation, struggled and struggled and just wouldn't. And not only couldn't she forgive him, she couldn't forgive her son for making her life miserable. Not only couldn't she forgive her son, she couldn't forgive herself for clearly failing him in some way. But here's the reason why. The same knife, the same situation came into one person's life and cut her back into fruitfulness. And the same knife came into the other woman's life

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_01] and actually cut her off because she got more and more bitter, more and more devastated, more and more in despair. The woman who forgave and was able to forgive turned into a kind of beacon in the middle of her family. And I know, I've known her for many, many years, and in the middle of that family, tremendous things happened over a long period of time, though. The other woman I kind of lost touch of, but I know it was, things pretty much fell apart. Why? I'll tell you why. The woman who couldn't forgive, couldn't forgive for this reason.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_01] She loved her son, that's fine. She enjoyed her son, that's fine. But her son was her vine. She didn't just enjoy her son, her son was her joy. Her son was her meaning, her son was the way she knew that her life would mean something. If her son went bad, if her son didn't respect her, if her son didn't love her, her life was over. And because of that, you see, because of that, because he had become the vine, there was absolutely no way

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_01] she could possibly forgive herself or anybody else. Whereas the first, the other woman, she began to realize, wait a minute, wait a minute, I've got to draw on my true joy. My son's not doing what he ought to do, my husband's not doing what he ought to do, but wait a minute, where do I get my approval? Where do I get my joy? Who's the only spouse that I really need? Who's the only family that I've really got to have? And what did she begin doing? She began drawing. She was pruned.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_01] When you prune the branch, it makes it draw on the stem, it makes it draw on the trunk, it makes it draw on the vine, that's how it works. And the more she drew on the joy of what Jesus did, and the more she drew on the love of what Jesus did, and the closer she got in friendship, she began to pray, not just get busy, not just do all these things, she began to really get to know him. Then what began to happen? She became something great. I remember the poor woman that was sinking, and she did sink, went to another therapist at one point. I mean, not that I was a therapist,

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_01] but went to a therapist, and the therapist wisely said, you know what your whole problem is? Your whole problem is that your family, and your son is your meaning in life. You need to get a career. You need to try to make a dent in the world. You need to get your own career, your own life. But the woman was smart enough to realize, oh, in other words, I put all my emotional legs of my basket in my career, then if my career has a problem, if I lose money, then I'll be in the same boat. The same knife

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_01] that will cut off a person who doesn't find his or her joy in Jesus will, okay, that same knife will cut back and prosper and make great a person who does. Well, you say, how do I do that? Like I said, what did she begin to do? She began to pray. She began to let his words remain in her. That means she didn't just study the Bible, but she really tried to listen to him through the Bible.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_01] She began to pray, not for things, but for him, for the Lord, for reality. And therefore, you see, through the knife of the Lord, you draw more on the love of the Lord. Well, somebody says, I still don't quite get it. Well, let me give you a bottom line. Jesus Christ was cut off so that you could only be cut back. My friend began to realize, as hard as the knife was for me, she began to realize how much harder

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_01] it was for him. You see, back in the Garden of Eden, you remember when Adam and Eve sinned, and what did God do? He threw us out of the Garden of Eden, and he put at the gate of the Garden of Eden, what? And when the temple was built, when the temple was built, there was the Holy of Holies and there is the presence of God. The only person who could get back into the presence of God was the high priest. Once a year, Yom Kippur, but he had to go by way of the altar in front. He had to have a blood sacrifice

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_01] under the knife. So what God was saying is, the only way you're going to get back into the presence of God is if somebody takes the divine justice, the sword of justice, the only way you're ever going to be able to get back into my presence is if there's punishment. And what Jesus Christ did on the night in which he died, well, it was a daytime, but a turned night, when the veil was ripped, we're told Isaiah he was cut off from the land of the living. See, Jesus Christ was cut off so that you would only be cut back. And the more that lady,

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_01] who's a very good friend of mine, the more she thought about what he did to her, did for her, the more she began to say, if you would do that for me, then certainly I can do this for you. What is that? That was drawing on the life, not just being busy, not saying, I must be a pretty good person, surely you love me. But that was friendship. That was remaining in his love. That was drawing her joy from him. Do you see that? And therefore, the knife made her draw and made her into something really, really, really, really great.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_01] That's the reason why. Let me close with this. C.S. Lewis put it all so beautifully. Again, I got most of what I just told you tonight many years ago reading the last five or six chapters of the Screwtape Letters. He puts it this way. We must not be surprised if we're in for a rough time. When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well, he often feels that it would now be natural if things went on more smoothly. When troubles, though, come along, illnesses, money troubles, new temptations, you begin to get disappointed. Why is this

[00:38:52] [SPEAKER_01] happening now? Didn't I already give myself to God? It's because God is forcing us onward and upward to a higher level. He's putting us into situations where we'll have to be much braver, much more patient, much more loving than we ever dreamed before. It's unnecessary to us, seemingly, but that's only because we've not got the slightest idea of the tremendous thing he means to make of us. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild the house. At first, you usually understand what he's doing.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_01] He gets the drains right, he stops the leak in the roof, and so on, and you know those jobs needed doing, and you're not surprised. But then, he starts knocking the house about in ways that hurt abominably and that do not make much sense. What on earth is he up to? And then, the explanation is, he's building a very different house than the one you thought of. Here he's throwing off a new wing. There he's putting up towers. Now he's making a courtyard. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_01] He's building a palace because he intends to come and live in it himself. I am the vine. You're the branches. I have appointed you for greatness. Let's pray. Our Father, teach us how to draw on the vine and not just paste Christmas tree ornaments on ourselves. Show us, Lord, if we're under the knife right now, that it's not because you like suffering and evil. If you like suffering and evil, Jesus wouldn't have come and taken it on

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_01] so he could end it. But rather, we do see that if we come under the knife and we draw on you, you can finally make us into the persons that we were designed to be. Show everybody in this room how to apply that to their own lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_00] Amen. Thanks for listening to Timothy Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the gospel-centered teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps connect people all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner. That website again is gospelandlife.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 1998.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_00] The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.