It is likely that this will be my last piece of writing here for a bit, as the busyness of life has been infringing upon the time and attention I can devote here. Will be back occasionally, but probably not consistently until 2027.
A while back I came across this TGC YouTube Short of Tim Keller’s sermon from the 2016 TGC Women’s Conference:
In the clip, Keller shares a story from Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and his work on the Sermon on the Mount. Dr. Lloyd-Jones wrote of someone who he heard say, “To be a Christian you don’t have to believe in Jesus, you just need to live accord to the Sermon on the Mount.”
Dr. Lloyd-Jones replies, paraphrased by Keller, “Have you ever read it? God saved me from the Sermon on the Mount!”
As someone for whom the Sermon on the Mount has been particularly impactful—sermons on Matthew 6 effectively saved in me in high school—I appreciate this anecdote.
Keller goes on, “The only way to delight in the law of God, and not find the law of God an everlasting despair, is if you understand that Jesus Christ fulfilled the law of God perfectly.”
The only way to delight in the law of God is to realize you’ve been freed from it.
Of course by being freed from the law of God with regard to our justification and our salvation, we’re freed to live in accordance with it and feel no shame when we inevitably break it.
In his book/sermon The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, Keller writes:
Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance?
….
You see, the verdict is in. And now I perform on the basis of the verdict. Because He loves me and He accepts me, I do not have to do things just to build up my résumé. I do not have to do things to make me look good. I can do things for the joy of doing them. I can help people to help people – not so I can feel better about myself, not so I can fill up the emptiness.
….
The performance never gets the ultimate verdict. But in Christianity, the verdict can give you the performance. Yes, the verdict can give you the performance. How can that be? Here is Paul’s answer: he is out of the courtroom, he is out of the trial. How? Because Jesus Christ went on trial instead. Jesus went into the courtroom. He was on trial. It was an unjust trial in a kangaroo court – but He did not complain. Like the lamb before the shearers, He was silent. He was struck, beaten, put to death. Why? As our substitute. He took the condemnation we deserve; He faced the trial that should be ours so that we do not have to face any more trials. So I simply need to ask God to accept me because of what the Lord Jesus has done. Then, the only person whose opinion counts looks at me and He finds me more valuable than all the jewels in the earth.
When I consider our relationship to the holiness of God (expressed in the law of God) a metaphor comes to mind.
The Spotlight and the Lighthouse
I think it’s easy—perhaps our default mode—to experience the holiness, the incomparable righteousness of God, as a spotlight. We see it in the Old Testament Law or the Sermon on the Mount, and we feel the heat on our skin, exposed, every present sin and old scar suddenly on display for any- and everyone to see.
Of course God’s holiness and his law are meant to reveal our brokenness (Rom. 3:20; 7:7). But too often that exposure repels us into shame instead of drawing us home in love.
The law is a lamp. It is a light (Prov. 6:23). What if, instead of a spotlight meant to shame us, we saw it as a lighthouse calling out to us in the dark?
So often we live adrift, unsure where we’re headed, taking on water through the holes punched in us by our own sin and others’ sin against us. The lighthouse of God’s holiness stands on the shore, and its light does two things at once. It warns us off the rocks that would wreck us. And it draws us in toward harbor, toward the presence of God.
No doubt, as we turn toward that light, our ship’s weaknesses are revealed—the fractures at bow and stern are made plain. But the light was never pointed at our brokenness to shame us. It was always pointed at us to bring us home.
