Mission

Welcome to Gospel in Life.

Where do you turn when you need clarity or strength in a difficult situation?

In Luke's Gospel, we see how Jesus confronted his own temptations and trials through

Scripture in prayer.

Today, Tim Keller explores how we can claim these same powerful resources and how we can

live with hope and resilience in a difficult world.

The Scripture reading is from Luke chapter 5 verses 4 through 25.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, without into deep water and let down

the nets for a catch.

Simon answered, Master, we have worked hard all night and haven't caught anything, but

because you say so, I will let down the nets.

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to

break.

So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them and they came and

filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus's knees and said, Go away from me Lord, I am

a sinful man.

For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken.

And so were James and John's sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, Don't be afraid.

From now on, you will fish for people.

So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy.

When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, Lord, if you are

willing, you can make me clean.

When Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man, I am willing, he said, Be clean and

immediately the leprosy left him.

Then Jesus ordered him, Don't tell anyone, but go.

Show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing

as a testimony to them.

But the news about him spread all the more so that crowds of people came to hear him and

to be healed of their sicknesses.

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

One day Jesus was teaching and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there.

They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem.

And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick.

So a man came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house

to lay him before Jesus.

And they could not do this because of the crowd.

They went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle

of the crowd right in front of Jesus.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said, Friend, your sins are forgiven.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, Who is this fellow who

speaks blasphemy?

Who can forgive sins but go out alone?

Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, Why are you thinking these things in your

hearts?

Which is easier to say, You sins are forgiven or to say, Get up and walk.

But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

So he said to the paralyzed man, I tell you, Get up, take your mat and go home.

Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home

praising God.

This is the Word of the Lord.

On the weeks leading up to Easter, what we're doing is we're looking at the book of Luke

and these weeks are often called Lent in the history of the church and during this time

we're looking at the things or maybe we could say the resources that Christianity gives

us to live life in a very hard to live in world.

The hard place to live Christianity gives us resources, there's various words and names

for them, sometimes they're called means of grace.

They're ways of helping us live in a world that's actually not that easy to live in.

Now we looked at the Bible and Scripture last week, we're going to look at prayer, but

this week we're looking at one that might not immediately spring to your mind as a source

of strength.

Jesus sends us into the world, the Word sent, the Latin word sent is misio-mission.

When Jesus calls us, he sends us into the world to serve others and which we see here

and we're going to see how he does it and why he does it.

Now I said that's not immediately what you usually think of as a resource God gives

you to live life in this world, but it actually is.

Yes, it's true, by the way, that serving other people is draining, but it's not only

draining, it's also strengthening, because if you come to see that you should be living

for your brother or your sister or your neighbor's fulfillment rather than your own fulfillment,

paradoxically, ultimately, that becomes very fulfilling, it's a very fulfilling life.

So let's take a look and see what it is we're told here is our mission, if you're called

to Jesus, how does he send you out?

In what ways does he send you out?

He sends you out in three ways.

First of all, the mission is he sends us with our faith out into our work.

Secondly, he actually also asks us to take our faith out to the margins of society, to

the marginalized, and thirdly, he asks us to go out and help change people's hearts toward

God.

So our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to take our faith out into our work

out to the marginalized society and out to help people change their hearts toward God.

So number one, first, there's three incidents here, and that's what we're going to do is

we're going to look at each of the incidents and see in what way this tells us about mission.

The first is, in verse 4-11, the miraculous catch of fishes, where we're learning something

about how faith changes our attitude toward our work.

Jesus tells the disciples to cast their nets again.

Peter is very, very skeptical, not only is it the wrong time of day, those of you who do

some fishing though, that it's dawn or dusk, it'd be the best time of day to fish.

It's the wrong time of day, and also it was the wrong day, it was a bad day, they hadn't

been catching anything, but they do what Jesus says, and they not only have a big catch of

fish from what we can tell, it's a miraculous catch, the ships were actually sinking under,

probably, these were professional fishermen, but probably it was the biggest catch they'd

ever seen in their lives, the biggest haul of fish they'd ever seen in their lives.

When Peter realizes Jesus has done it and his power, he falls down, and he says, go away

for me, Lord, I'm a sinful man, and yet Jesus says, don't be afraid, from now on you will

fish for people, and he calls them to follow him, and it says they pulled up their boats, left

everything and followed him.

Now, what do we learn from this?

First of all, two things, the first thing is, when you meet Jesus Christ, you experience

a self-quake, that's a lot like an earthquake, except it's the self that's in upheaval.

What do you mean a self-quake?

Notice, self-quake, first of all, if you get near someone who's extremely smart, if you

think you're smart, but you get near someone who's much smarter, it's painful.

Okay, it's painful, but if you don't just think you're smart, but thinking of yourself

as smart is a very important part of your self image, it's a very important part of your

identity, thinking of yourself as smart is a very important way in which you feel like

you're a significant person.

So if being smart is part of your identity and you get near a person who's way smarter

than you, it's not just painful.

You will experience psychological dislocation, a disorientation, because your self image is

breaking up.

This is one of the reasons why identity in college is so fluid, because suddenly you're

around all the, you know, you may be the smartest kid in your high school, you go off to a school

in which you're like below average and suddenly you're having a self-quake.

Now what about with God though?

I mean, I've had people over the years telling me things like this, they say, oh, yeah,

you're a pastor, fine, but I feel so much closer to God when I'm out in nature and I'm on

the lake or looking at the mountains.

I say, oh, really, well, how does it feel when you're drawing you to God out there on

the lake and in the mountains?

They say, oh, peaceful.

And I say, okay, well, let me ask you a question.

If there is a God, he would be infinitely beautiful, wouldn't that make you feel ugly?

He would be infinitely wise, wouldn't that make you feel stupid?

He would be infinitely good, wouldn't that make you feel flawed and sinful?

See in the Bible, when people get near the real God, that's exactly what happens.

So when Isaiah gets near God and Isaiah 6, what does he say?

Well, it's me, I'm undone, I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people

of unclean lips, what happens when Job gets near God?

What does he say?

I heard of you with my ear, but now I see you with my eyes and I repent.

I despise myself.

I repent in dust and ashes.

And what does Peter say to these people, wow, this is incredible, Lord, no, get away

from me.

And the old King James depart from me, oh, Lord, for I am a sinful man.

Go away.

That's right.

That shows you're drawing near to the real God, why?

Because when people come into contact with Jesus, they experience a self-quake, but the

self-quake is actually a change in identity.

Because two things happen.

You see, two moves?

The first move is suddenly Peter gets a real picture of himself.

And actually, you know, Abe's already talked about it.

When you get near Jesus, you begin to realize you have curved in on yourself.

You may have thought of yourself as a good person, but when the gospel starts to dawn

on you and you start to draw near to Jesus, you begin to see you were very small, basically

very self-centered, that even the good things you have done tend to be self-centered.

You begin to see yourself as a small, curved in on yourself, self-centered person, and

you might say that your self-image starts to break up.

The idea of yourself as being an unusually good person, or even maybe a religious or

moral person, or an accomplished person, it starts to break up.

But the other move is, Jesus, what does Jesus say?

He says, yes, stay away.

You are a sinful person.

Now what does he say?

Don't be afraid.

Come with me.

I want you to be my partner.

This is grace.

This isn't just charity, by the way.

This is undeserved grace, but he's not just treating us like charity cases.

He's saying, I want you to help me with what I'm doing.

I want you to be my loved partner, and that gives you a radically new identity.

Now, when that new identity comes, here's what we see in this little part of the passage.

It changes your attitude toward your work.

First of all, by the way, it's interesting to know that even though these guys are professional

fishermen, Jesus has the audacity to tell them something about how to fish.

He says, hey, throw the nets over there, or throw the nets down again.

He doesn't say, well, you know, I'm a spiritual guy, and you guys are out there doing your

secular work, and I've got nothing to say about that.

I'm only going to help you in your private inner life.

No, he tells them something about their work.

And then we're told, they pulled up their boats, on shore, left everything and followed

him.

Now, at first, you might say, oh, does this mean that when you become a Christian, you

have to leave your job and go off into full-time vocational professional ministry?

No, the Bible does not teach that overall.

Many of the great heroes of the faith were not in ministry.

Remember Joseph from Genesis, remember Daniel, remember Esther, these are all people.

The God called and used it a mighty way, but they were in what you call secular jobs.

They weren't ministers, they weren't prophets, they were administrators and government officials

and leaders.

No, no.

No, the Bible never says that.

But I want you to see what's going on here.

First of all, what is it they leave?

It's that they left everything.

You say they left, well, they left their nets, they left their boats, but they also left

the catch.

Now, keep this in mind.

That was a load of loot.

That was the most successful, probably the most successful single day they'd ever had.

And they left enormous prophets on the beach, or in the boat, for other people.

And when they went, can you imagine, all this fish, and they walk away calmly.

There must have been a rush for the boats.

Every other fishman said, wait a minute, you know, this will be enough to feed my family

for a year.

They will left the prophets, and what does this mean?

When you have a new identity in Jesus, when you're self-worth and yourself image is now

based in Jesus, what it means is the prophets and success are not as crucial, they're not

as important.

What this means is, if Jesus is your identity, and it's going to be unethical, or you have

to do something unethical, or illegal in order to get the prophet, you're going to walk away

from it.

Or if Jesus is your identity, and you even just have to trample on somebody, just be ruthless,

just be unkind in order to make prophet, you're going to walk away from that too.

It won't be worth it.

Why?

Because it's not as important.

It's not as important.

It's not the big thing.

Let me press you further.

If Jesus Christ is your identity, it changes your attitude toward every aspect of your

work.

Why is it that, by the way, so many English names are things like this, Baker, Fisher,

Smith?

Those are jobs, but they became identities.

David Martin Lloyd-Jones, who was a physician, he was a pastor, also a preacher in Britain

in the mid-20th century.

He had a lot of colleagues.

He went to med school, he was a physician, and a lot of colleagues, and at one point,

he was actually lecturing to the Christian medical society in London, and he made a very

sardonic statement.

He says, I have to tell you, honestly, I have a lot of friends who, when they die, you're

probably going to have to put on their gravestone this.

Born a man, died a doctor.

What he's trying to say is that it's great to enjoy your work, but when your work becomes

your identity, when your success and your ability and your work becomes the very thing that

makes you feel like, this is how I know I'm good about myself, you're a slave, why?

Because if the main thing about yourself is your work and your career and your success,

if your work becomes your identity, then success will destroy you by going to your head,

and failure will destroy you by going to your heart.

Success will destroy you by going to your head, it will make you arrogant, it will make

you overconfident, but failure will make you feel like I'm nothing at all.

When we were doing an open forum in the downtown congregation earlier this year, it was an

improv group that was doing it, and the head of it was a Christian.

The head of the Christian improv group was asked a question during the Q&A, because improv

is frightening, because you go out there on the stage in front of a group of people, and

you're given a theme, and then you have to make up things, in other words, you have no lines.

It's frightening enough to be an actor and go out there to deliver your lines in front

of an audience, but if you go out there as an improv, and so somebody was trying to say,

how do you deal with that?

He says, well, I'm a Christian, and Jesus died for me on the cross, and that means he's

done all the important things, so now I can just have fun.

Did you follow that?

He says, I'm not trying to get out of my work, what only Jesus can give me.

I'm not out there trying to prove myself.

I'm not out there feeling like, if I do a bad job, I'm a failure as a person, why?

Because my work isn't my identity anymore.

That's a pretty strong statement.

Are you recognizing that?

Now who hears what this means?

If Jesus crisis your identity, if you're not trying to get out of work, what you could

only get out of Jesus, then what this means is sometimes you can put your nets down,

how so.

See, if Jesus isn't your identity, your work is your identity, you won't be able to put

your nets down, even to relax.

You won't be able to put your nets down, even to go on vacation.

In fact, you really never go on vacation.

You won't be able to put your nets down, that is to say, in order to give your family

and your children and your spouse enough time, no, you'll always be at it.

You'll always be at it.

But see how different it is.

If you have a fishing beyond your fishing, if you have a wealth beyond your wealth, if

you have an art beyond your art, see when Jesus Christ says, look, fishing is great, but

I have a fishing, you know, a spiritual fishing, I want, basically what this is saying, unless

you're real meaning in life, unless you're real wealth, unless you're real art, is something

beyond the work.

The work will strangle you.

You'll never be able to lay it down, you'll never be able to walk away from it, ever.

You'll never be able to walk away from it, sometimes meaning, I'm not going to make

as much money, but I'm not going to be on kind, I'm not going to be on ethical, I'm

not going to be ruthless.

You won't be able to, you just won't, it won't be in perspective, oh, this does not

mean in any way that once you become a Christian, you've got to walk away from any kind of work

and just go into ministry, what this does say, is we'll radically change your understanding

of work, the way in which you work, and therefore you need to take your faith out into the

workplace, you need to take your faith out into the way in which you do life in every

area of, in every public sector, and that's just the first thing.

So in other words, mission is first of all, you don't just keep your faith, sort of locked

away in private, you take it out into your work, secondly, we're also sent out to the

marginalized on the margins of society, that's the second.

Jesus was the most influential man to ever walk the earth, and his story has been told

through books, movies, and articles in hundreds of different ways.

Can anything more be said about him?

In his book, Jesus the King, Tim Keller journeys through the Gospel of Mark to reveal how the

life of Jesus helps us make sense of our lives.

Dr. Keller shows us how the story of Jesus is at once cosmic, historical, and personal,

calling each of us to take a fresh look at our relationship with God.

During the month of March, we'll send you a copy of Jesus the King, as our thanks for

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Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

Now, the second story is a very, very moving story, especially if you do a little bit

of research to think about this historical context.

The second story is the healing of a leper.

Now, let's do the context.

When the Bible talks about leprosy, it's talking about really a series of debilitating

skin disorders and physical diseases.

It was more than one thing.

And in those days, someone who was stricken with leprosy or some form of leprosy was not

simply sick.

Because of the fear of contagion, they were sent away.

They were not allowed to live in the towns.

They were not allowed to live in the city.

They were sent out.

And they were not allowed to have jobs.

They were not allowed to be part of the economy.

And therefore, any leper was not just physically sick.

They were also absolutely poor and impoverished.

They were absolutely emotionally isolated and they were not allowed to go to worship either.

So they were spiritually cursed.

Now, what did we tell, we're told here.

It says, when Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy.

When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, Lord, if you're

willing, you can make me clean.

Now, one of the things that the commentators point out is, what is a leper doing in a town?

Lepers were not allowed to be in towns.

And therefore, this leper must have heard that Jesus was in town, made a mad dash against

all the laws against all the rules into town, saw Jesus ran and fell down before him.

Now, you realize he's taking his life in his hands to have a leper come into the middle

of the town?

He knows the chances are nobody's going to touch him.

What will they do?

They'll probably stone him.

And here's what's so moving to me.

When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, Lord, if you are

willing, you can make me clean.

Now, he doesn't say, you got to, you have to make me clean before they kill me.

Now, if you're willing, see the humility, see the trust, see the remarkable trust and

respect for Jesus.

But see what Jesus does.

He doesn't just say, I am willing to be clean.

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.

I'm willing, he said, be clean, and immediately the leprosy left him.

Because we've been going through the book of John looking at the miraculous signs, here's

one thing we know, right?

If you've been coming lately, Jesus does not need to touch this man in order to heal him.

Jesus didn't need Hocus Pocus.

He did it differently every time due to the needs of the person who was sick.

We know that Jesus couldn't heal with a word from a distance.

In fact, Jesus could heal without a word from a distance.

So what's he doing?

It's very, very possible that this man hadn't touched another human being in a long time.

And Jesus is doing a couple of things here.

The first thing is, he is not only healing him physically, he is seeking to heal him

emotionally, but more than that, he's bringing him back into community.

He's bringing him back into community.

He's saying, come in, be part of the human race again.

Now this is one of the themes of the book of Luke.

And I think as we go through Luke in these few weeks, I'm not sure we're going to be doing

it enough for you to see it.

But one of the most moving things about the book of Luke is how often Luke brings in what

are called back then, social outcasts.

He's constantly having Jesus deal with lepers, with tax collectors.

So a lot of people say, what is up with a tax collector thing?

Because when you and I think of tax collectors, we're not excited about tax collectors, but

we don't quite see them the way they were seen then.

These were collaborators.

Tax collectors were Jews who were collaborating with the occupying army.

These are like, if you think, do you know anything about the French and Norwegian collaborators

with the Nazis when those countries were under Nazi occupation, do you know anything about

how they were regarded, how they were seen, okay, get the idea.

There's lepers, there's tax collector collaborators, there's just Gentiles, Jesus is always dealing

with pagans, that foreigners, and he's also all constantly dealing with women.

And particularly, women of ill repute, so called.

He's always reaching out and he's touching them and he's bringing them into community.

He's receiving them.

In fact, so many of the people that Jesus reaches out, pulls in to community, become leaders.

Matthew, one of his disciples, was a tax collector collaborator.

Peter, of course, denied Jesus three times.

It was an unterrible moral failure.

Mary Magdalene, evidently, had demons cast out of her.

You might say, a former mental patient.

Yet these were the prominent people.

These were the leaders.

And Jesus reaches out and says, I'm willing to be clean.

Okay, two implications of this story.

The first is a very practical implication.

Jesus seemed to be attracted to the people at the margins of society, people on the outskirts,

people that the world thought of as losers, people excluded from the centers of power.

Are you a Christian?

Then we should be two.

We should sense ourself being sent out to those margins.

Now, be careful, because if you're in New York or right away you say, oh great, I love

this socially social justice thing.

I was trained to do this.

I'm so glad that you Christians are with the program.

And so now, if you gave me just 10 minutes to do a little bit of a historical argument,

I could tell you that Christianity created that program.

The idea Peter Brown at Princeton University, who's a tremendous historian of antiquity,

says, the idea of loving the poor, the idea of loving the poor, not just giving alms

here and there, but loving the poor is a Christian idea.

He said it came from nowhere else, but Christianity.

But it's not just that we should be caring about the economically and socially marginalized.

This is telling us, New York is filled with people who want to help the poor, but in their

own actual use of time, the people that hang out with, you just want to be with the cool

kids, you want to be at the hotspots, you want to be as high up the a list as you can

possibly get.

And you are way too observant of whether the person next to you is someone that would

be helpful for you to know.

We're not talking here about networking.

Networking is basically a self-interested way of hanging out with the people that you

want to hang out with because it makes things happen for you.

Christians should be anti-glitz.

You should love your neighbor, which means you turn to the person who happens to be in

your path, the person who's next to you, and you don't care how many social media followers

they have.

You don't look it up.

You don't decide as a person I need to spend time with.

No, no.

You go out to the marginalized.

Maybe not even a person who's socially economically marginalized, but a person who's not very

glitzy, a person who's rather socially awkward, a person who seems to have a lot of problems,

and you're willing to be drained by that.

So first of all, this is telling us that Jesus is willing to go out to the margins, but

here's one thing, another thing.

This brings up a big question that we have to answer by going to the last story.

Do you realize how crazy it is that Jesus Christ touches this leper and says, be clean?

Throughout all of history, and throughout all of history, everything we know about in science

and everything we know about in religion goes like this.

If the clean touches the unclean, it becomes unclean.

If you're healthy and you touch something infected, you get infected.

And throughout all of history, if someone is morally clean and you touch something morally

soiled, I mean, this is what all of Old Testament religions based on this.

In fact, all religions based on this is that if you want to stay pure and spotless and

clean so that God can accept you, you got to stay away from the soiled people, you got

to stay away from the tainted people, you got to stay away from the dirty people.

But Jesus Christ touches the leper, says, you're clean and there's no indication that Jesus

had to go and go through the ceremonial cleansing rights.

This is astounding.

Jesus is saying, I'm the first person in the history of the world who when I, the clean,

touch you, the unclean, you become clean.

I don't become unclean.

Jesus is saying, I don't care how soiled you are, I don't care how tainted you are, I don't

care how defiled you are.

If I just touch you, you're clean.

I don't care who you are, I don't care what you've done, I don't care what your record

is, though your sins be a scarlet, get it right, I got three more times to do it right,

though your sins be a scarlet, they will be wider than snow.

Jesus is saying to you, if I just touch you in a stroke, you are clean.

I am not one more prophet, here to tell you how to make yourself fit for the presence

of God.

I come to make you fit for the presence of God.

I am cleanliness, I am fitness.

How could that be?

The answer is here in the last one.

This last story is certainly worth an entire sermon on its own, and if you've been around

for a number of years, you know that we've sometimes treated this story, but what you have

here, and this is the top level approach to it, is you've got a group of men who bring

a paralyzed man to Jesus, and they bring him in, they actually went up to the roof and

lowered him down.

There's a lot of interesting parts of this story, which we can't look at right now.

He says, when Jesus saw their faith, he says, friend, your sins are forgiven.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, who is this fellow

who speaks blasphemy?

Who can forgive sins but God alone?

Jesus knew that they were thinking, what they were thinking, and said, why are you thinking

these things in your hearts?

Which is easier to say?

Your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up and walk.

But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, so

he said to the paralyzed man, I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home, and immediately

he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God.

Now the features of this are pretty clear, and it really answers the question that I just

raised about, how could Jesus do this?

First of all, what's intriguing to see is though this man is being brought to be healed

of his paralysis, Jesus first of all says, friend, your sins are forgiven.

Now here's what this means.

He says, you've got two paralyzing diseases, not one.

You've got something paralyzing your body, and that's a terrible, horrible thing.

But the only disease that can really kill you, that can really destroy you forever, that

can really destroy your life forever for all eternity is the fact that you're not right

with God.

You have sins between you and God, and I'm going to remove that barrier, and I'm going

to make you right with God.

And so he does.

See, Jesus can heal you psychologically, he can change your social relationships, he

could even heal you physically, but unless you get that right, in fact, everything else

is based on that.

It's only the new relationship with God.

It's only the being pardoned.

It's only knowing that your, your, your, his delight.

It's only the humility, the repentance, and the reception of that love that makes you

right with God, that is the basis for all the other transformations.

And this in a sense is the basis for all the other mission.

You've got to get this right.

However, interesting, Jesus says, it's hard, now what do you mean hard?

Jesus knew what they were thinking, he says, why do you think, why do you think of these

things in your heart?

Which is easier to say?

Your sins are forgiven, or get up and walk.

Now that seems like a trick question, it is a bit.

In fact, commentators and Bible teachers and pastors have been, preaches have been working

on this for years, what, which is harder?

Now it's pretty clear, I think, the Pharisees know that you might be a magician, you might

have supernatural power from whatever, and therefore you might be able to heal someone,

that's pretty amazing.

What to forgive sins is an astonishing claim of power and authority.

And Jesus says, right, which is easier, he says, I want you to know that healing this man

is going to be proof that I have the authority to forgive his sins.

And therefore healing the man is easier, if you want to answer, healing the man is easier.

What's hard, what's incredibly hard, not for the man.

Not for you and me, but for Jesus is how that forgiveness is procured, and how Jesus' salvation

is so powerful that he can make you clean in a stroke, not years of purifying yourself

and purging yourself of sin, but in a stroke, how can happen?

The answer, of course, are these texts, famous texts, 1 Peter 2, 24, he himself bore

our sins in his body on the tree.

In my favorite, 2 Corinthians 5-21, God made him sin, who knew no sin, so that we might

become the righteousness of God in him.

Think about this, and then walk back to the passage with me.

2 Corinthians 5-21, God made him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness

of God in him, which means he became what we are and took the punishment we deserve.

He became what we are so that we could become what he is.

He became what we are and took the punishment for our sins, so we can become what he is

and get the reward that he deserved.

You know what that means?

He can heal this immobilized man because he himself was immobilized on the cross, nailed.

He can bring that leper in because he was crucified outside the gate.

He was crucified outside the gate.

He became a pariah.

He became the leper.

And you know what?

Those disciples could leave their nets.

They could leave everything because Jesus Christ left everything.

He left His Father's throne.

He left all of His glory.

He left His divine prerogatives and He came to earth to do all this for us.

That's the reason why His salvation is so powerful.

That's the reason why He can heal on a stroke.

He can make clean in a stroke.

He can forgive in a stroke because it's a stroke for us.

It's easy for us, actually.

We receive it.

And yet it's all because it was infinitely hard for him.

And let me just suggest three things.

Number one, trust Jesus.

You know why you should trust Jesus?

Have you noticed that He forgives this man's sin and the man hasn't asked?

Do you see any place where He says, Lord, forgive my sins?

Doesn't ask.

He just forgives them.

And we know throughout the Bible that God doesn't forgive sins unless you repent.

He doesn't forgive your sins unless you repent.

And you know what this means?

Jesus Christ must have sensed the fragmentary, imperfect, unexpressed desire for forgiveness

because in this man's heart and responded to it so passionate is Jesus Christ to give

us His grace.

He is so eager to forgive us.

He is so eager to bless us that He responds to a fragmentary, imperfect, unexpressed

desire for forgiveness.

You don't have to get your act altogether for Him.

I have to surrender just right.

No, just turn to Him and can't you see how you can trust this man?

You can trust this man.

Number one, number two, this new Christian identity, this idea that I know who I am in Christ

and profit doesn't matter, success doesn't matter what people think doesn't matter.

It's astounding but you only get it in stages because one of the most interesting things,

interesting contrast in the Bible, is in Luke 5, the first time that Peter has this miraculous

catch of fish through Jesus' power and what does he say, depart for me, get away from

me.

But it goes to John 21 and we will see this later on this year.

Go to John 21 when Jesus is on the shore and they're out on the boat and Jesus has

throw your net on the other side and they have a miraculous catch of fish.

What does Peter do?

He runs as fast as he possibly can to get near Jesus.

In Luke 5, he's trying to get away from Jesus in John chapter 20 when he's trying to get

near Jesus.

Why?

Because it takes time for what we believe to sink in.

I mean, you know, it's one thing for you to say this year, I am a new creature in Christ

but your heart is still going to respond the old way.

Somebody's going to say something, you know, hurt your reputation.

You're going to turn on them like this is if you're the old person because the old person

is still to a great degree there.

It takes years for it to really sink in.

Take the years and lastly, this is a public faith year.

This is a year which we've been talking about.

We want to take our faith out out of the walls here, out of our own, our little private

world, out into the world in all these ways.

So let's do it.

Even though a church that cares for the marginalized and still calls people to repentance and faith

and believing in Jesus Christ and who's seeking to engage, you know, have our faith, engage

the way in which we do our work in the public spheres, we're not going to look like any particular

kind of church.

Some people are going to say, that's too liberal, that's too conservative, doesn't matter.

Let's be public with our faith.

Let us pray.

Thank you, Father, for showing us these, in these three stories, quite a panoramic view

of what it means to be in mission.

We thank you that you have been so willing to take us with all of our weaknesses and

flaws and say to us, I want to be partners with you.

I want you to come out into the world with me and do with me the things I'm doing in the

world.

Oh, Lord, make us fishers of people, help us to know how we can help others come out

of the darkness into the light, like you have brought us.

And we pray that you would make us agents of reconciliation in the world in all ways.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast.

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Today's sermon was recorded in 2014.

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.