The Gospel-Shaped Life-Tim Keller
This sermon very powerfully illustrates the duality between Law and Grace, which he describes as Law and the Gospel. He shows how to distinguish which of the two is in operation based and their effect upon us by analyzing our motivations for doing specific things. He also says there are three sources for our motivations:
- God (religion)
- Government
- Self
He also says that which of the three motivations we have from the list above usually becomes the source of our identity and personal sense of worth and respect. He says selfishness, the last item above, destroys cultures. He also says that even God as a motivation, which is called Religion, can make us tribal and destroy a culture, but the Christianity does not do that, meaning that that Christianity does NOT make us tribal or destroy our culture, and therefore is unique among religions. He says that:
“Christians, though they are the citizens of the city of God, are the very best citizens of the city of man.”
A gospel shaped life will be culture changing. If enough people live a gospel shaped life, it will be clear to people that this is what our culture needs more of. He says our culture is falling apart, and that it will be hard to get the genie back inside the bottle because we have no basis for moral values any more without Christian foundations. At the same time, people don’t want to go back to Religion (other than Christianity) because it can create tribalism and haughtiness. People don’t see the difference between Religion and the Gospel, and we have to emphasize those differences so that Christianity will spread and return to its former popularity.
He also talks about about three approaches for dealing with problems in our own life, and that these approaches affect our approach to humor:
- Gospel (God)-goes to the heart. The gospel makes you able to laugh at yourself. Its the only kind of humor that truly funny. Its the only kind of humor that is healing. The gospel makes you think not to much or too little of yourself, but makes you think of yourself LESS. You don’t have to steal self-acceptance from what everyone else says.
- Legalism (government)-problem is sin. Find the sin and stop doing it. Legalists lack a sense of humor. They go around to people saying “that’s not funny”
- Relativism (self)-do what’s best for yourself. Relativistic humor is cynical and skeptical.
He compares all three as a source for our own motivation. For more on legalism, see:
- Who Were the Pharisees and the Saducees, Form #05.047
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/WhoWerePharisees.pdf - The Dreaded Pharisee Card-Wretched
https://youtu.be/aKYAmPZcFgQ
For a detailed description of the Gospel Shaped life from the perspective of this ministry, please read:The Gospel of the Kingdom of God, Form #17.003
https://sedm.org/Forms/17-Theology/TheGospelOfTheKingdomOfGod.pdf The audio in this video breaks up for about 2 minutes. We apologize for that, and searched for a better version of the above sermon but could not find one.