Forgiving Grace

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

Welcome to Gospel in Life Radio.

We often assume that being kind, generous, and forgiving is all that matters. But in his writings to the early church, the Apostle Paul offers a challenging truth. Even the greatest acts of love and sacrifice are empty if they're ultimately done out of self-interest. Today, Tim Keller explores how the Gospel transforms us completely, even our motivations, making us people who love and serve others in response to God's grace for us.

SPEAKER_2 (0:38)

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?

Jesus answered, I tell you not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had to be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me, he demanded. His fellow servants fell to his knees and begged him. Be patient with me, and I will pay you back. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. You wicked servant, he said. I canceled all the debt of yours because you begged me to.

Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.

Love is patient. It does not keep a record of wrongs. This is the word of the Lord.

Tim Keller (2:27)

We're looking at, we're starting a series that I guess could be called a series on character or virtue. At least a lot of people would use those words out in our culture for what we're going to be talking about, but I don't think it, it's not, it doesn't fit. Those are not adequate terms. We saw last week that Paul in the famous love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, says that we must remember that morally virtuous behavior can arise out of a heart filled with deep spiritual emptiness.

In other words, what Paul said, just a real brief summary, he says people can live, they can be loyal to their families, they can be generous to the poor, they can be deeply committed to moral principles and to biblical principles as well. And the heart motive for that, the force for that, the dynamic for that can be one of self-centeredness, self-absorption, self-interest, self-righteousness.

So see, a character, morally virtuous behavior can arise out of a heart that hasn't actually been changed, that hasn't really been supernaturally changed. Now, just to give you an example, how do we, in traditional moral training, how do we teach people, encourage people to be honest? How do we encourage them not to lie? Now it goes something like this. We say, don't lie, or you'll get caught. Don't lie, or society won't work. That's a more humanistic approach, the more religious approach is don't lie, or God will punish you.

Don't be a liar, liars are terrible. You don't want to be a terrible liar. Alright, so that's how we train people. What's the motivation, what's the heart motive then that we're using to get people to be honest? And the answer is the heart motive is the deep insecurity and fear that the heart has got. We're playing on the fears. We're saying, you don't want to be rejected, you don't want to be caught, you don't want other people to think of you as a terrible liar, do you? Now, there's only a problem with this. It's a pretty big problem with this. And that is, yeah, of course, out of fear, you can harness the insecurity and fear of the heart to make people honest, but what makes people dishonest? Why do people ever lie? And the answer is they lie because of fear. You lie because you're afraid of losing approval, or afraid of losing control, or afraid of losing power, or something like that. And therefore, in traditional moral training, you've only restrained the heart, not fundamentally changed the heart. You haven't changed its character. The roots of dishonesty, which is the deep fear and insecurity, instead of dealing with it, you've just jury-rigged it, so that it makes people honest, but it's artificial. It's artificial and therefore temporary. What do I mean by artificial?