Category: The Gospel

Tim Keller on Pleasing God, Self-Salvation, and Two Lost Sons

The Bible’s most potent depiction of this truth—that there’s more than one way to be lost—is crystallized in Luke 15:11–32.

April 24, 2025 by: Matt Smethurst

Two Lost Sons

The Bible’s most potent depiction of the truth that there’s more than one way to be lost is crystallized in Luke 15:11–32. The broad outline of the parable is familiar: a father has two sons, the younger of whom demands his share of the inheritance and then moves to a far country, where he squanders it on wild living. Eventually, after coming to his senses, the prodigal returns home empty-handed and broken; he simply hopes his father will take him back as a hired servant. But seeing his wayward son from a long way off, the father runs to meet him and requests a party thrown in his honor.

Many people tend to stop there, at least in terms of emphasis, which is why it’s known to history as the parable of the prodigal son—singular. But the returning son isn’t the only prodigal. That’s actually the whole point. Jesus is not addressing the wayward but is aiming the story, like a heatseeking missile, at the religiously devout. Note the context of the chapter:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable. . . . (Luke 15:1–3)

In light of the audience, then, we dare not overlook the dramatic final scene:

Now [the father’s] older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.” But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:25–32)

On September 11, 2005, Keller preached a sermon titled “The Prodigal Sons”—plural—which became the genesis of his 2008 bestseller The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith. This book captures the most distilled essence of Keller’s teaching regarding the heart. Near the beginning he credits a sermon on Luke 15 by his mentor, Ed Clowney, that altered his understanding:

Listening to that sermon changed the way I understood Christianity. I almost felt I had discovered the secret heart of Christianity. Over the years I have often returned to teach and counsel from the parable. I have seen more people encouraged, enlightened, and helped by this passage, when I explained the true meaning of it, than by any other text.1

That last sentence is a remarkable statement. What about the parable is so powerful? If you compare the teaching of Jesus to a lake, Keller says, this parable is “one of the clearest spots where we can see all the way to the bottom.”2 And that’s because what Jesus says about the elder brother is one of Scripture’s most vital teachings.3 We impoverish ourselves, therefore, when we fixate on the younger brother:

The first time I heard the parable, I imagined Jesus’s original listeners’ eyes welling with tears as they heard how God will always love and welcome them, no matter what they’ve done. We sentimentalize this parable if we do that. The targets of this story are not “wayward sinners” but religious people who [think they] do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. He wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self-righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them. It is a mistake, then, to think that Jesus tells this story primarily to assure younger brothers of his unconditional love.4

Apart from Jesus Christ, flagrant lawbreaking and fastidious rule keeping are dead ends. In Keller’s words: “Jesus’s purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories.”5

Each brother in the parable represents “a different way to be alienated from God”6—and both ways are strikingly resonant with the latemodern West. Keller dubs the approaches “the way of moral conformity and the way of self-discovery.”7 In fact, he observes, Western culture is “so deeply divided between these two approaches”8 that it’s difficult to imagine an alternative option:

If you criticize or distance yourself from one, everyone assumes you have chosen to follow the other, because each of these approaches tends to divide the whole world into two basic groups. The moral conformists say: “The immoral people—the people who ‘do their own thing’—are the problem with the world, and moral people are the solution.” The advocates of self-discovery say: “The bigoted people—the people who say, ‘We have the Truth’—are the problem with the world, and progressive people are the solution.” Each side says: “Our way is the way the world
will be put to rights, and if you are not with us, you are against us.”9

But King Jesus is not kind to false dichotomies. Nor is he beholden to natural expectations:

So we have two sons, one “bad” by conventional standards and one “good,” yet both are alienated from the father. The father has to go out and invite each of them to come into the feast of his love. . . .

But Act 2 comes to an unthinkable conclusion. Jesus the storyteller deliberately leaves the elder brother in his alienated state. The bad son enters the father’s feast but the good son will not. The lover of prostitutes is saved, but the man of moral rectitude is still lost. We can almost hear the Pharisees gasp as the story ends. It was the complete reversal of everything they had ever been taught.10

Both sons are lost, but only one knows it. You are lost, Jesus is saying, but you refuse to know it.

Self-Salvation Projects

It’s sobering to notice that when the older son protests, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command” (Luke 15:29), the father doesn’t disagree! His firstborn has been obedient; he has done everything “right.” And ironically, it’s keeping him fromthe feast. His outward goodness—and resultant pride—has erected a barrier between him and the father’s love.

An elder-brother mindset can haunt us all. Keller offers an example:

I knew a woman who had worked for many years in Christian ministry. When chronic illness overtook her in middle age, it threw her into despair. Eventually she realized that deep in her heart she felt that God owed her a better life, after all she had done for him. That assumption made it extremely difficult for her to climb out of her pit, though climb she did. The key to her improvement, however,was to recognize the elder-brother mindset within.

Elder brothers obey God to get things. They don’t obey God to get God himself—in order to resemble him, love him, know him, and delight him. So religious and moral people can be avoiding Jesus as Savior and Lord as much as the younger brothers who say they don’t believe in God and define right and wrong for themselves.11

The stakes are that high. If you think God should accept you because you’re good, “then Jesus may be your helper, your example, even your inspiration, but he is not your Savior.” How could he be? You are occupying that role.11 Keller concludes,

So there are two ways, not one, to be your own Savior and Lord: you can break all the moral rules and chart your own course, or you can try keeping all the external moral rules and seek to earn heaven’s favor. Both are strategies for avoiding God. Apart from Jesus Christ, every person is “dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. We are just going about it in different ways.”12

King Jesus is not kind to false dichotomies. Nor is he beholden to natural expectations.

Equally Wrong, Not Equally Dangerous

By the end of Jesus’s parable, only one son has been reconciled to his father. Why conclude like this? Why not show us a redemptive arc for Tim both brothers? The reason certainly isn’t that elder brothers are hopeless; if they were, the father wouldn’t have gone into the field and pleaded at all. We can’t know for sure, of course, but perhaps Jesus is conveying that while “both forms of the self-salvation project are equally wrong,” they are not “equally dangerous.”13 The younger brother’s rebellion is obvious; the elder brother’s is not. And therein lies the danger:

He would have been horribly offended by the suggestion that he was rebelling against the father’s authority and love, but he was, deeply. Because the elder brother is more blind to what is going on, being an elder-brother Pharisee is a more spiritually desperate condition. “How dare you say that?” is how religious people respond if you suggest their relationship with God isn’t right. “I’m there every time the church doors are open.” Jesus says, in effect, “That doesn’t matter.”14

The takeaway, Keller says, is shocking: “Careful obedience to God’s law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God.”15 He often returned to an image of two people sitting side by side in the same pew—hearing the same sermons, singing the same songs, engaging in the same spiritual activities—but for utterly different reasons. One does it all to please God; the other does it to justify self.

And yet on the outside, they look exactly the same.16

The True Elder Brother

When it comes to pleasing God, both the rebellious path and the religious path are dead ends. But Jesus shows us a more excellent way. It is not a comfortable middle option between earthly extremes, for his gospel occupies a transcendent plane.17

In the parable, the older son should have gone into the far country in pursuit of his wayward brother. He should have rejoiced at his return. He should have gladly relinquished part of his inheritance in order to reinstate his brother’s. He should have joined the party. But, as Keller observes, “By putting a flawed elder brother in the story, Jesus is inviting us to imagine and yearn for a true one.”18

Jesus Christ is the ultimate elder brother who didn’t just travel to a far country; he descended from heaven to earth to seek and save the lost. “Who is the true elder brother?” Keller asked in a funeral sermon for his own younger brother Billy. “Who is the one who truly obeyed the Father completely? Who truly has lost his robe so he [could] put it on us? Jesus!”19 He is the “God of Great Expenditure,”20 who, at infinite cost to himself, paid our debt and now binds our wounds and brings us home to the Father.

This message is true, but it’s not tame. The process of reckoning with it is disruptive to idol-ridden hearts. Keller recounts a time when a woman coming to Redeemer was hearing, for the first time, that she could be accepted not on the basis of her behavior but by God’s sheer grace. Keller was intrigued by her response: “That is a scary idea! Oh, it’s good scary, but still scary.” When he asked what was so scary about unmerited free grace, she replied,

If I was saved by my good works—then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace—at God’s infinite cost—then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.

Keller comments,

She could see . . . the wonderful-beyond-belief teaching of salvation by sheer grace had two edges to it. On the one hand it cut away slavish fear. God loves us freely, despite our flaws and failures. Yet she also knew that if Jesus really had done this for her—she was not nher own. She was bought with a price.21

As we wait in hope for the ultimate feast and eternal party, may we never get over what it cost to bring us home. In December 1662, a Scottish minister named David Dickson lay dying when a close friend of over fifty years arrived to inquire how he was. The eighty-year-old man replied, “I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad deeds, and have cast them together in a heap before the Lord, and have fled from both to Jesus Christ, and in him I have sweet peace.”22

That is the message of the gospel, and it is the message Tim Keller loved to communicate. Don’t just flee your bad works. Flee your “good” works, too. Flee them both and collapse into the open arms of Jesus Christ.

Notes:

  1. Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (New York: Penguin, 2008), xvii. Clowney’s sermon, “Sharing the Father’s Welcome,” is available in Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ in All of Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003).
  2. Keller, Prodigal God, xvii.
  3. Keller, Prodigal God, xix.
  4. Keller, Prodigal God 12.
  5. Keller, Prodigal God, 13.
  6. Keller, Prodigal God, 9.
  7. Keller, Prodigal God, 34. See also Tim Keller, “The Prodigal Sons,” preached on September 11, 2005, and “The Lord of the Sabbath,” preached on February 19, 2006. He writes, “Each acts as a lens coloring how you see all of life, or as a paradigm shaping your understanding of everything. Each is a way of finding personal significance and worth, of addressing the ills of the world, and of determining right from wrong,” Keller, Prodigal God, 34.
  8. Keller, Prodigal God, 37.
  9. Keller, Prodigal God, 37. As Keller explains in a sermon, “Jesus says, ‘You’re both wrong. You’re both lost. You’re both making the world a terrible place in different ways.’ The elder brothers of the world divide the world in two. They say, ‘The good people are in, and the bad people (you) are out.’ The younger brothers do as well—the self-discovery people also divide the world in two. They say, ‘The open-minded, progressive-minded people are in, and the bigoted and judgmental people (you) are out.’ Jesus says neither. He says, ‘It’s the humble who are in and the proud who are out.’ ” Keller, “The Prodigal Sons.”
  10. Keller, Prodigal God, 40.
  11. Keller, Prodigal God, 48. In a 1992 sermon, Keller remarked, “I’ve seen plenty of people—who have been non-Christians and skeptical and under the influence of the flesh—come on into the Christian faith, and their flesh continues to dominate them, because now they find religious ways of avoiding God, whereas before they were finding irreligious ways.” Tim Keller, “Alive with Christ: Part 2,” preached on November 8, 1992.
  12. Keller, Prodigal God, 44.
  13. Keller, Prodigal God, 45.
  14. Keller, Prodigal God, 51.
  15. Keller, Prodigal God, 53.
  16. Keller, Prodigal God, 54. Keller explains further, “The younger brother knew he was= alienated from the father, but the elder brother did not. That’s why elder-brother lostness is so dangerous. Elder brothers don’t go to God and beg for healing from their condition. They see nothing wrong with their condition, and that can be fatal. If you know you are sick you may go to a doctor; if you don’t know you’re sick you won’t—you’ll just die.” Keller, 75.
  17. Keller, Prodigal God, 43.
  18. See, for example, “Preaching the Gospel,” 2009 Newfrontiers Conference at Westminster Chapel in London, available at https:// vimeo .com /3484464. Elsewhere was a gardener who grew an enormous carrot. He took it to his king and said, ‘My lord, this is the greatest carrot I’ve ever grown or ever will grow; therefore, I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you.’ The king was touched and discerned the man’s heart, so as he turned to go, the king said, ‘Wait! You are clearly a good steward of the earth. I own a plot of land right next to yours. I want to give it to you freely as a gift, so you can garden it all.’ The gardener was amazed and delighted and went home rejoicing. But there was a nobleman at the king’s court who overheard all this, and he said, ‘My! If that is what you get for a carrot, what if you gave the king something better?’ The next day the nobleman came before the king, and he was leading a handsome black stallion. He bowed low and said, ‘My lord, I breed horses, and this is the greatest horse I’ve ever bred or ever will; therefore, I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you.’ But the king discerned his heart and said, ‘Thank you,’ and took the horse and simply dismissed him. The nobleman was perplexed, so the king said, ‘Let me explain. That gardener was giving me the carrot, but you were giving yourself the horse.’ ” Timothy Keller, The Gospel in Life Study Guide: How Grace Changes Everything (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 17. Keller first shared this illustration at Redeemer on May 5, 1996. Though he attributes it to Charles Spurgeon, I cannot find the original source.
  19. Keller states, “It’s off the scales. It’s not halfway in the middle. It’s something else [entirely].” Keller, “The Prodigal Sons.”
  20. Keller, Prodigal God, 94.
  21. Hansen, Timothy Keller, 218 (emphasis original). As a young man, Keller had, in a sense, embodied both younger-brother and elder-brother tendencies: “Tim was the oldest child who always did the right thing, and yet at the same time when he went off to college he really did rebel, and he rebelled in large part against his [overbearing] mother. He was torn between the dynamics of wanting to do the right thing, but also the pressures of falling far short. . . . Once I saw that [he had demonstrated the proclivities of both sons], all of a sudden Tim’s core message of the transforming power of grace—this gift from God that changes everything about our lives—made a lot more sense.” Hansen, “Collin Hansen on The Making of Tim Keller, Overcoming Loneliness, Tim’s Teenage Rebellion, How He Finished Well, and Why He Wanted People to Know About His Weaknesses,” The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast, July 11, 2023, https:// care ynieuwh of .com/. In his book, Hansen also shares a poignant story about Tim’s literal younger (and only) brother Billy, a gay man who died of complications from AIDS in 1998: “[Over the years] when they visited [Billy and his partner], Tim and Kathy talked to him about the gospel. . . . Tim tried to emphasize the difference between grace and the legalism of their childhood. . . . [Eventually] when Billy entered hospice in December [1997], he said to Tim, ‘My Christian family isn’t going to come with me when I enter eternity, and neither are my gay friends. So I have to figure out what is on the other side of this life.’ . . . [Billy] had thought being a Christian meant cleaning up his life and making himself righteous. But Tim pointed to 2 Corinthians 5:21: ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ Finally, Billy felt God’s love. The transformation was immediately evident. He even called his lawyer and told him to give his money [marked for donation to gay causes] to [a local] ministry instead. . . . When all hope seemed lost, God welcomed this prodigal son home.” Hansen, Timothy Keller, 218–20.
  22. Keller, Prodigal God, xx.

This article is adapted from Tim Keller on the Christian Life: The Transforming Power of the Gospel by Matt Smethurst.

Matt Smethurst is lead pastor of River City Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia. He is the author of several books, including Tim Keller on the Christian Life; Before You Open Your Bible; Before You Share Your Faith; and Deacons. He also cohosts, with Ligon Duncan, The Everyday Pastor podcast from the Gospel Coalition. Matt and his wife, Maghan, have five children.

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A Devotional for Talking with Your Kids About Jesus Being the Only Way to Salvation

True salvation does not depend on how well you obey but on what Jesus has already accomplished. All these other roads are about “doing.” Christianity is about “done.” Jesus is the only road to God.

April 17, 2025 by: Champ Thornton

The following is composed of three daily devotional readings from 10 Questions about Salvation: 30 Devotions for Kids, Teens, and Families, a new devotional written especially for children ages 8–14.

One Road

Sometimes people say, “You can believe what you want, and I’ll believe what I want. We just need to be good and treat people nice.” If you told them that you disagreed, they might get upset and say, “How dare you think that only Christianity leads to God! Don’t you know that all roads lead to God?”

But think about what they just said. How do they know that? If they say that “all roads lead to God,” where did they get this information? Answer: It’s what they believe. So they are simply sharing their faith, just like you are.

And there’s another problem: All these “roads to heaven” can’t all be true at the same time. Islam says that you have to faithfully obey Allah. Buddhism says that you achieve their version of heaven through meditation and good living. Hinduism requires the right kind of knowledge and life choices. And Judaism requires obedience to the law of Moses.

But Christianity is different. True salvation does not depend on how well you obey but on what Jesus has already accomplished. All these other roads are about “doing.” Christianity is about “done.” Jesus is the only road to God.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Why is this true? Why is salvation only through Jesus?

Because only Jesus is both God and man. He’s not half God and half man. Jesus is truly human: he had a real body (Acts 2:31), grew up (Luke 2:52), and got hungry and tired (Matt. 21:18; John 4:6). And Jesus is truly God: he receives worship (Matt. 14:33), forgives sins (Mark 2:5), and is eternal (John 1:1). He is God incarnate, which means he is God come in the flesh (1 John 4:2).

But why is it important that Jesus is both God and man? Because only a true God-man could save humans from God’s judgment against sin (1 Pet. 3:18).

Because Jesus is human, he can take our place. He can die taking the punishment for sinful humans (Isa. 53:4–6; 1 Pet. 2:24). (And think about it, if he weren’t human, how could he have died at all?)

And because Jesus is God, he was able to live a sinless life (Heb. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:22), something we sinners would never have been able to do.

If he weren’t God, he would have been a bad substitute. And if he weren’t human, he couldn’t have been a substitute at all.

Instead, we have the perfect substitute. Because Jesus is both God and man, he is the only true way to salvation.

Mission Accomplished

You may say, “I believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man. I know that he lived and died as a substitute for sinners.”

But how do we know that what Jesus did actually achieved salvation? And does it really rescue people from sin?

First, you can be confident in his salvation because every detail happened according to plan. Jesus explained—in advance—exactly what he planned to do: “For even the Son of Man came . . . to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

But, second, did Jesus’s plan actually work? Did his death really pay for sins? The Bible says, “Yes!”

Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. (Phil. 2:8–9)

The key is thinking through the word “therefore.”

The death Jesus died was for the sins of other people (Rom. 5:6–8). The sins Jesus was carrying on the cross deserved death (Rom. 6:23). And that’s exactly what happened—Jesus died.

But Jesus didn’t stay dead. The Father raised him from the dead. Why? Because those sins were gone. The penalty for every single one had been fully paid!

When he raised Jesus, the Father was telling the whole world that there was no more sin on Jesus at all. The resurrection declared that he was righteous, the sinless Son of God (Rom. 1:4; 4:25; 1 Tim. 3:16). So the resurrection was proof that he had accepted Jesus’s payment for sin. (And here’s where we get to that key word.) The death of the Son of God paid for every sin he carried; therefore, the Father raised him from the dead (see Phil. 2:9 on the previous page). Jesus’s salvation plan had succeeded!

The resurrection shows that Jesus—as both God and man—is the only true way to salvation.

And this means that you can be confident in Jesus’s salvation. Acts 17:31 says that God “has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” So, if you’re a Christian, all your sin has been placed on Jesus. And when he died, Jesus paid the full penalty for all your sin (Isa. 53:4–6). When God the Father saw that all those sins had been paid for, he (“therefore”) raised sinless Jesus from the dead. And since he was declared righteous, if you belong to him, you are too.

Salvation through Jesus is the real deal; the only true way to God. Through his death and resurrection your sins were truly, completely, and eternally paid for. There’s nothing left to pay. The resurrection proves it.

The resurrection shows that Jesus—as both God and man—is the only true way to salvation.

Truly Alive

But are we sure that the resurrection really happened? Some people think it’s all pretend. Yet here are some facts showing that God truly raised Jesus from the dead.

The tomb was empty. If you read the New Testament, you’ll see that no one said, “You thought Jesus was raised, but look: here’s his body!” Instead, there was no body; the tomb was empty (Matt. 28:11–15). However, someone could’ve asked, “What if someone stole the body?” And that’s exactly what some Roman soldiers claimed.

The guards were lying. The Roman soldiers who guarded Jesus’s tomb said they had fallen asleep. And they claimed that’s when Jesus’s disciples snuck up and took the body (see Matt. 28:13). But that’s not a convincing story. If the guards were sleeping—as they claimed—how could they have seen anybody steal the body? The soldiers’ report is obviously a lie. But what about other witnesses? Is there reliable evidence that Jesus rose from the dead?

The eyewitnesses were authentic. In New Testament times, women were not allowed to give eyewitness testimony in a court case. Sadly, men thought that their words were unreliable. But in the Bible, who is it that gives firsthand testimony about Jesus being alive? Women! (See Matt. 28:1–8; Mark 16:1–8; Luke 24:1–11; John 20:1–2.)

So just for a moment, pretend you wanted to spread a lie in New Testament times. Would you get women to tell everyone, “Yes, this really happened!”? In that time and culture, this wouldn’t help you spread a lie. So why would the disciples claim that women were eyewitnesses of the resurrection in all four Gospels? Because that’s what truly happened. (And also because they and Jesus think that the testimony of women is wonderful and trustworthy!)

There’s other evidence too. Over five hundred people saw the risen Jesus (1 Cor. 15:6). And almost all the apostles were eventually killed for their faith. Would they really die for something they knew was a lie?

So is Jesus the only way of salvation? Yes.

Only someone who is fully God and fully human could provide salvation. Jesus is truly God and truly man. And how do we know that God accepted his payment for our sins? Because God raised him from the dead. And how do we know that Jesus was raised? The evidence from history and from the Bible is incredibly strong!

Since the God-man, Jesus Christ, was really raised from the dead, his resurrection shows that he is the only true way to salvation.

This article is adapted from 10 Questions about Salvation: 30 Devotions for Kids, Teens, and Families by Champ Thornton.

Champ Thornton (PhD, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the director of children and family resources at Crossway and the author of numerous books for kids and families. He and his wife, Robben, live in Newark, Delaware, and have three children. You can learn more about Champ at champthornton.com.

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Jesus Is Not Ashamed of Those Who Opposed Him

Were we really enemies of God? And, if so, does God indeed welcome us in the most intimate setting of fellowship with him? I think so.

April 11, 2025 by: Erik Raymond

Once Enemies

“Once Your enemy, now seated at Your table, Jesus, thank You.”1 These words punctuate the chorus of a familiar hymn sung in many churches. As you read these words, which part is more difficult to believe? The fact that you were once an enemy or that in Christ, you are welcome, like family, at God’s table? It depends on how you see yourself and how you think God sees you.

Were we really enemies of God? And, if so, does God indeed welcome us in the most intimate setting of fellowship with him? I think so. The song gets it right. And when we understand this, then things begin to change for us. When we know what we deserve and what God gives us instead, we start to experience increasing gratitude, humility, security, and evangelistic zeal. God is not ashamed of welcoming and identifying with his former enemies. Such people stand out as monuments of his grace.

Theological Framework

Minimizing sin has a dangerous side-effect. It minimizes grace. By downplaying how lost we were, we run the risk of underappreciating how staggering the rescue is. It’s one thing for me to tell you that I got lost in a shopping mall and couldn’t find the way back to where I parked. But it’s quite another matter to be lost in the mountains of Colorado before being dramatically recovered by a mountain rescue unit. When thinking about how sin separates us from God, we have to be clear on the degree of the problem. Otherwise, we risk downgrading the gospel to a friendly volunteer at a kiosk giving directions rather than a breathtaking rescue mission.

The biblical teaching is clear, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Every single person who has ever lived, except for the Lord Jesus, has sinned. A sin is a violation of God’s word (1 John 3:4), either by failing to do what God says or by doing what God says not to do. But that’s not all. Our natural disposition is opposition to God. We were born into this fallen state of rebellion. All of us are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). And this fallen state leads to sinful actions. Sin and separation from God don’t lie dormant. Sin is active. Therefore, all people are sinners both by nature and by choice.

The language the Bible uses to describe people in their unconverted state can be jolting. I think that’s the point. The words are meant to rattle us. Some of the descriptions of unbelievers include “wicked” (Ps. 10:3); “a slave to sin” (John 8:34); “full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness” (Rom 1:29); “haters of God” (Rom. 1:30); “inventors of evil” (Rom. 1:30); “enemies” (Rom. 5:10); “hostile to God” (Rom. 8:7); “evil” (2 Thess. 3:2); and “foolish” (Titus 3:3). This language doesn’t reflect ambivalence but rather active opposition to God. In terms of our status before God, we are all sinners, but the degree of expression may differ. As Spurgeon says, “They are all in the mire; but they have not all sunk to an equal depth in it.”2 While some people’s sins may be more pronounced than others, all people—even you and me—-stand naturally opposed to God.

In a summary form, the apostle Paul writes that we “once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds” (Col. 1:21). You can see the progression here. Alienation refers to a status; by nature we are separated from God. Hostility in mind is a mind at war with God. This translates into the action Paul labels as “evil deeds.” Even though he hadn’t met the Christians in Colossae and the surrounding regions (Col. 2:1), Paul confidently labels them this way. How could he do this without knowing them personally, without sizing them up morally? Because this is the common condition for all people. Our natural state is helplessly and hopelessly depraved. This is what it means to be lost.

But God acts. He pursues us. He rescues the rebels. Those who were enemies are reconciled through the death of Christ (Col. 1:21–22). Those who were alienated, hostile in mind, and doing evil deeds are now reconciled to God. And one day they will be presented “holy, blameless, and above reproach before him” (Col. 1:22).

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We All Need Reminders!

In the busyness of life it’s all too easy to forget who God is, what he has done for us, and who we are because of him. Crossway wants to help! Sign up today to receive concise Scripture-filled, gospel-saturated reminders that will encourage you and strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Now and then, we come across a scene in a book, in a film, or in the news that reflects this type of radical reconciliation. And when we do, it shakes us and brings with it a mandatory moment of silence. One example came in a courtroom in 2019. After an off-duty police officer killed his brother, Brandt Jean was allowed to give a victim impact statement. He addressed Amber Guyger, the woman who shot his brother:

If you truly are sorry, I can speak for myself, I forgive, and I know if you go to God and ask him, he will forgive you. And I don’t think anyone can say it—again I’m speaking for myself—but I love you just like anyone else. And I’m not gonna say I hope you rot and die just like my brother did, but I presently want the best for you.3

Then he asked the judge if he could hug Ms. Guyger. The judge permitted, and the image of a grieving, yet forgiving, brother hugging the woman who took his brother’s life flooded the news. It challenged the limits of forgiveness and the possibility of reconciliation. To forgive and embrace someone who caused such pain is not common. It’s extraordinary. It’s shocking grace.

Yet, as riveting as this scene was, our reconciliation to God is ratcheted up a few levels. Our crimes against God are even more heinous because God is so holy. And while people commonly show remorse for the consequences of sin, remorse is rarely expressed for the sinfulness of the sin itself. We hate how sin makes us feel. We fear sin’s repercussions or its punishments in this life, but we do not hate how it dishonors God. Looking through the lenses of God’s infinite holiness and our sin’s ugliness, we begin to better appreciate God moving toward his enemies with the embrace of the gospel. By means of his grace, he says, “I love you. I forgive you. I want you to be part of my family.”

Think again about the above-quoted song lyrics: “Once Your enemy, now seated at Your table, Jesus, thank You.” Perhaps you see more clearly the depth of our alienation from God and the loving grace that sets your place at the family table. But if you’re like me, then you’re prone to forget this, especially when you sin or remember things you’ve done. This is why it’s good to see through the eyes of Christ and understand how he looks at those who opposed him. He’s not ashamed of them. Instead, he loves them. He delights in conquering them with his grace and in welcoming them to his feast. Let me show you a couple of biblical examples to make my point and, in doing so, encourage you about the significance and security of the believer’s position in Christ.

He pursues us. He rescues the rebels. Those who were enemies are reconciled through the death of Christ.

Some Implications

Since every person is naturally born with the status of an enemy of God, everyone can relate in some way to these stories of opposition. Though our experiences and sins may be different, nevertheless, our standing apart from Christ is the same. Therefore, it is good for our souls to revisit these examples of how Jesus prioritizes and pursues his enemies. Consider these brief reflections in closing.

Jesus delights to save his enemies. Everything Christ does, he does for the glory of God. The plucking of one sinner from the path of destruction ignites a chorus of rejoicing in heaven (Luke 15:10). If you have come to Christ, you must know that heaven—even the Prince of heaven—rejoices.

Those who oppose God are prospects for grace. We might be tempted to write off certain people as too far from God. But is this true? What does the family photo of Jesus teach us? To paraphrase John Newton, none are so bad that the gospel cannot be their ground for hope, and none are so good as to have any hope without it.4Consider Stephen. The crowd responded to his faithful proclamation of the gospel by pelting him with rocks. How did he respond to that? In his last breaths, he prayed for them, “And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:60). Don’t forget that Saul of Tarsus was a member of that violent mob. The Lord answered Stephen’s dying prayer. Our Lord can cure man’s arrogance. He can lead a man to the knowledge of the evils of his heart.5 May God help us to pray, preach, and share the gospel like we believe that God delights to save his enemies.

Our history does not eclipse our status. Paul was a bad guy; there is no doubt. But his past didn’t hang over him. God made him a new person and used him significantly. His former life never defined him but only served as an encouraging example of the kind of mercy people who come to Jesus should expect to receive. In Philippians 3, Paul looks back to who he was (Phil. 3:4–6). Then he reminds himself and his readers of the privilege of the grace of Christ (Phil. 3:7–10). And then he writes words that should be especially precious to those who formerly lived in active opposition to Christ, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13–14). Even though Paul, you, and I were formerly enemies of God, as soon as we come to Christ, we are welcomed at his table. We forget what lies behind, and we press on toward the goal. With our minds set on the loveliness of Christ (Phil. 4:8), we go out, just as he has sent us, to call others home.

Could you imagine how our churches might change if we looked at people the way Jesus does?

Notes:

  1. Pat Sczebel, “Jesus, Thank You,” Sovereign Grace Music, https://sovereigngracemusic.org/
  2. C. H. Spurgeon, “A Great Gospel for Great Sinners,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1885), 31:231.
  3. Ashley Killough, Darran Simon, and Ed Lavandera, “His Hug of Forgiveness Shocked the Country. Yet He Still Won’t Watch the Video from That Moment,” CNN, December 8, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/.
  4. John Newton, The Works of John Newton, 6 vols. (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1824), 2:278.
  5. Thomas Boston, The Whole Works of Thomas Boston, ed. Samuel M’Millan, 12 vols. (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1849), 4:369.

This article is adapted from He Is Not Ashamed: The Staggering Love of Christ for His People by Erik Raymond.

Erik Raymond is the senior pastor at Redeemer Fellowship Church in Watertown, Massachusetts. He is the author of Chasing Contentment: Trusting God in a Discontented Age and a frequent contributor to many websites and periodicals. He blogs regularly at Ordinary Pastor, hosted by the Gospel Coalition.

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An Open Letter to Anyone Who’s Hit Rock Bottom

If you’ve hit rock bottom, you know one thing for sure. It’s horrible. I know it too. You’re not alone. Jesus is down here, and he welcomes you.

March 24, 2025 by: Ray Ortlund

This article is part of the Open Letters series.

Dear friend,

If you’ve hit rock bottom, you know one thing for sure. It’s horrible. I know it too.

You’re not alone. Jesus is down here, and he welcomes you. His friends are down here, and we welcome you. Rock bottom isn’t where we wanted to go, obviously. But here we are. And to our amazement, rock bottom is where great things are finally starting to happen, thanks to Jesus and his gospel of grace. That’s the first thing we need to know. Down at rock bottom, we discover that hope is waiting for us—with open arms too.

Here’s the second thing we need to know. Before we can start feeling hopeful again, before we can risk getting excited about our future again, we must get closer to God. He is where hope gets traction. He is our hope. Without him, why care about anything? With him, we can face life as it is, and we will prevail. We will even laugh again.

So, our pain gets us to reach out to God with a deep urgency. We’re sure not playing churchy games anymore, are we? But we are wondering, Where do we turn now? We really need God. But where can we find him? Amazingly, God anticipates our need, our question. He tells us where he can always be found:

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
     who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
“I dwell in the high and holy place,
     and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
     and to revive the heart of the contrite.” —Isaiah 57:15

Okay then. Now we know. God dwells in two places. He lives way up high, up in the holy place, in eternal heaven above. And he also lives way down low, among the lowly and the contrite, down with the crushed and devastated people, down at rock bottom.

The thing is, we can’t go up to his lofty dwelling place above—not while we’re still living in this world. But we can go down to his humble dwelling place below, down at rock bottom, where the lowly and the contrite are being revived by his grace in Christ. His dwelling place high above is beyond our reach. But rock bottom way down low is where we can go, and where we do go sooner or later. And God loves it down there. It’s where his grace is reviving broken people. They’re coming alive again. They’re getting excited about their future again. What a great place to be! Sign me up!

That’s how Mary, the mother of Jesus, saw it. It’s how she felt:

He has shown strength with his arm;
     he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
     and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
     and the rich he has sent away empty. —Luke 1:51–53

I’m guessing you’re ready to say the same.

Rock bottom is where great things are finally starting to happen, thanks to Jesus and his gospel of grace.

So let’s take our next step. Our part in all this is to accept, deeply accept, a new realization, a new reality. And it’s sobering. Here it is. That life you and I wanted to live, that life we even expected to live, that ideal “designer life” where we’d be happy and popular and well-off and in control, our careers trending well, our children getting above-average grades, and we have enough money coming in to keep trouble out—that life, that world, that social space I call “the mushy middle.” It isn’t heaven above, and it isn’t rock bottom below. It’s a culture floating around in between.

Nearly everybody wants to live there! And why not? That world, with its neighborhoods and career tracks and social events, it’s pleasant, convenient, prestigious. But there is a problem with “the mushy middle.” It’s a serious problem, though few people pay much attention. The problem is, it can be harder to find God in “the mushy middle.” Oh, he’s there all right. Of course, he’s present there. He’s present everywhere. But the clutter, the ease, the selfishness make it easier to marginalize God and harder to experience him. And the reason for our obliviousness there is downright scary. God will never agree to being used as a lifestyle enhancement for the privileged few. Never.

So “the mushy middle” looks nice. But it’s much better to be down at rock bottom. It’s where God is near—so available, his arms wide open.

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What then is happening down in the low place, where God is so wonderfully present? Two things.

One, God is “reviving” the contrite and the lowly. Isaiah’s word “revive” means to reinvigorate. It’s about exhausted people getting fresh strength, crushed people standing tall again, injured people feeling alive as never before. And what if you’re not eager to become more religious? I’m not either. But who doesn’t long for the richness and fullness of life? It’s what God gives to the contrite and lowly.

They don’t deserve God, and they know it. But through the cross of Christ, they receive God with the empty hands of faith. And he gives them all that his grace can do—forever.

Two, the contrite and lowly are also discovering one another. I include this, because “the contrite” and “the lowly” in the last two lines of Isaiah’s verse are plural nouns. Yes, God draws near to the individual: “. . . him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.” But God also gathers the contrite and lowly together as a new community. And what a community!

The best people I’ve ever known I discovered down at rock bottom. Are they recovering from some hard things? Yes. Some really hard things. But the contrite and lowly are also relaxed, honest, open, gentle, and downright fun. They listen well. They care sincerely. They are tearful, and they are cheerful. They pray, and they work. They believe the gospel, and they confess their sins. You don’t have to wonder about them. They have your back, and you have theirs. I love it down there with those precious people! You’ll love it too.

It's a privilege to be your friend down here, where God dwells and where broken people get their lives back.

God bless you.

Warmly,
Ray

Ray Ortlund is the president of Renewal Ministries, the pastor to pastors at Immanuel Church in Nashville, and a canon theologian with the Anglican Church in North America. He is the author of several books, including Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel; The Death of Porn; and the Preaching the Word commentaries on Isaiah and Proverbs. He is also a contributor to the ESV Study Bible. Ray and his wife, Jani, have been married for fifty years.

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Listening Might Be the Best Evangelism Tool You’re Not Using

Gospel fluency isn’t just about talking. It’s about listening as well. This requires love, patience, and wisdom. We need to learn to slow down and listen closely to the longings of their hearts.

March 20, 2025 by: Jeff Vanderstelt

Listen and Learn

I recently observed a conversation a few Christians were having with a man who has yet to come to faith in Jesus. It was amazing to me, and saddening, to watch the Christians missing the point of this man’s struggle and questions. It seemed those speaking to him were more concerned about convincing him they were right than about listening to his heart. As a result, he walked away without any good news about Jesus, becoming even more convinced that this “religion” wasn’t for him. It’s not for me either—at least, not what I saw in that conversation.

We can do better. We must do better. We’re talking about people’s souls!

And we’re representing Jesus.

Helping people come to know the love of Jesus is the most important thing there is, and Jesus’s love for us compels us to love people better. If we don’t, the good news that people need gets muffled by our religious pride.

Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” We need to become people of understanding—people who seek to understand others before we expect them to understand us and what we believe. We need to learn how to ask more questions and draw out what is deep inside people’s souls. We need to learn to slow down and listen closely to the longings of their hearts. We need to learn their stories. In short, we need to care more about winning people to Jesus than about winning arguments.

Gospel fluency isn’t just about talking. It’s about listening as well. This requires love, patience, and wisdom.

Drawing Out the Heart

Jesus was so good at this.

Whenever I consider how I can grow in being a person of understanding who listens well, I think of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well.1

It was high noon, when the sun was at its hottest. There was a reason this woman was getting her water at this time. She chose a time when no one else would be at the well. Nobody went there in the heat of the day. But she probably wanted to avoid running into one of the wives of the men with whom she had been sexually involved. She had had five husbands, and the man she was then involved with was not her husband. However, Jesus didn’t start with where she was wrong. He actually started in a humble posture of receiving from her.

He asked her for water, and she poured out her soul.

I’ve found that starting with a posture of humility, standing in a place of need and having a heart that is willing not only to give answers but also to receive insight, creates a welcoming place for people to open their hearts. The more open we are to listen and learn, the more likely people are to be open as well.

If you look at the story closely, you discover that Jesus continued to make very short, provocative statements that invited more conversation. He was drawing out, little by little, the longing of her soul.

He’s a master at drawing out the heart.

You notice this if you read the Gospels. Jesus regularly said just enough to invite further probing or create intrigue. He also loved to ask questions so that the overflow of the heart (belief) would spill out of a person’s mouth (words).

I’m amazed at how often well-intentioned Christians overwhelm people with a barrage of words. We go on and on about what we believe and what they should believe, assuming we know what others think, believe, or need. I often find that we are giving answers to questions people are not even asking or cramming information into hearts that are longing for love, not just facts.

We fail to listen. We fail to draw out the heart. And we miss opportunities to really love people and share the love of God with them. They also miss out on getting to hear what’s going on in their own hearts. I have found that when people, including myself, are invited to say out loud what they believe, they come to realize something is wrong.

Jesus slows down, draws out the heart, and listens.

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Talk Less, Listen More

As we are changed by the gospel, we want to share how the gospel has changed us. It’s a great thing to do so. In fact, one of the keys to growing in gospel fluency is to regularly share what Jesus has done or is doing in our lives with others. Our stories are powerful demonstrations of the gospel’s power to save.

However, if we don’t also listen, we tend to share the good news of Jesus in a way that applies primarily to our lives, the way it was good news to us, but fails to address the situations others are facing. We can become proclaimers of the good news while remaining ignorant of the ways in which others need to hear it. This doesn’t negate how good the news of Jesus is at all. However, if we read the rest of the story of Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman, we find that while her testimony created intrigue, the people in the village had to meet Jesus for themselves. It wasn’t enough for her just to share her story. They had to get to Jesus as well.

So she brought them to him.

Our job is to testify to Jesus’s work in our lives while also listening closely to others so we know how to bring the truths of Jesus to bear on the longings of their hearts. We need to bring them to Jesus so he can meet their unique needs and fulfill their personal longings.

In order to do this, we have to slow down, quiet our souls, ask good questions to draw out the hearts of others, and listen.

Our stories are powerful demonstrations of the gospel’s power to save.

Francis Schaeffer said, “If I have only an hour with someone, I will spend the first fifty-five minutes asking them questions and finding out what is troubling their heart and mind, and then in the last five minutes I will share something of the truth.”2

My regular counsel to Christians these days is to spend more time listening than talking if they want to be able to share the gospel of Jesus in a way that meaningfully speaks to the hearts of others.

We were created by God to find our greatest satisfaction and fulfillment in him. Every human is hungry for God. Everyone has eternity written on their hearts, producing a longing for something—someone—better, more significant, and eternal. This is a longing for God (Eccl. 3:11). The cry of every heart— the native tongue of our souls—is for better, not for worse; for the eternal, not for the temporal; for healing, redemption, and restoration. And only Jesus can bring this about.

We all long for Jesus Christ. Everyone is seeking him, even if they don’t know it.

They are looking for something to fulfill their longings and satisfy their thirst.

However, they are looking in the wrong places. They are going to the wrong wells to try to draw soul water. They need to look to Jesus. But they will not come to see how he can quench their thirst if we don’t take the time to listen.

And as we listen, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can discern the longings of their hearts, the brokenness of their souls, and the emptiness of their spirits. And then, we must be prepared to show how Jesus can meet them at the well with soul-quenching water—himself.

Notes:

  1. This story is from John 4.
  2. Cited in Jerram Barrs, introduction to Francis A. Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent, 30th Anniversary Edition (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2001), xviii.

This article is adapted from Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life by Jeff Vanderstelt.

Jeff Vanderstelt is a pastor, speaker, author, and founder and visionary leader of Saturate and the Soma Family of Churches. He serves as a teaching pastor and director of missional communities at Doxa Church in Bellevue, Washington. Additionally, Jeff supports church planting globally through training and as a member of the advisory board of C2C Network. He and his wife, Jayne, have three children. You can connect with Jeff at his website, JeffVanderstelt.com, or on Twitter (@JeffVanderstelt).

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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.