The New Community

Welcome to the Gospel and Life Podcast. Today, Tim Keller is teaching on perhaps the most well-known sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. In it, we'll find Jesus' invitation to a radical new kind of life that is far beyond a guide to morality. After you listen to today's teaching, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal and other valuable Gospel-centered resources. You can subscribe today at gospelandlife.com. Turn your bulletins to the passage from the Sermon on the Mount we'll look at tonight. Now, the Sermon on the Mount is not something that we should be reading as if it's an individual, a guide for an individual, a guide simply for how I, as an individual, should live my life. The Sermon on the Mount is really a description of a new kind of community. That's the reason why John Stott, who's a great Bible commentator, very well-known, when he wrote his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he called it the Christian counterculture, because this is really describing a body of people. It's describing a community. But what's so interesting is that even though that theme, the theme of Christian community, of Christian fellowship, of deep Christian relationships, even though that theme is all through the Sermon on the Mount, there's no one section where Jesus lays out how a relationship with him radically changes our relationships with other Christians, how it forms a new, deep, radical human community in Christ. He doesn't actually lay it out in any one place. It's through everything else. And so in order for me to do what I want to do tonight, which is to say what Jesus tells us about this new human community that his gospel creates between believers, in order to talk about that, I have to pull these pieces out. So let's read these pieces and string them along like a string of pearls on a string. This is what we're going to read, Matthew 5, starting at 21. "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago. Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother Raqqa is answerable to the Sanhedrin, anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift. He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect. Do not judge. Or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when all the time there's a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and then turn and tear you to pieces. Let's end our reading right there. What does Jesus teach us about this radical new community that is formed by His gospel message when it comes into your life? How does it create this new community between those who believe in Jesus? Here's what He teaches us in this passage, five things. Five things. It's a liberal arts major. Five things. First of all, He teaches us the necessity of this new community. You can't be a Christian without entering a new community. The way He gets this across, this is something that you're over going to overlook unless you bring it out and look at it. What does He call other Christians? What do we call them? What are they? Over and over and over again, in verse 21 to 23, four times, five times, He says brother. Do not murder. But I tell you, anyone who's angry with his brother, anyone who says to his brother, anyone, therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar and you remember your brother, then down in chapter seven, those verses, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye? Hypocrite, take the plank out of your eye, then you'll be able to clearly remove the speck from your brother's eye, seven, eight times. Now, this is pretty obvious, but let me help you. Let us sink in. The people that you automatically get related to when you're born into a family are not friends. You choose your friends, not lovers. You choose your lovers. Relatives. You don't choose your relatives. And they're not ... Well, look at your relatives. These aren't people you would have chosen. Look at your siblings. Look, your brothers and sisters, they come automatically. You don't want to be an orphan. Oh, no. You'd like to have parents. Who wouldn't want to have parents? The trouble with getting parents. If you don't want to be an orphan, you get parents. If you get parents, you automatically get family. You automatically get relatives. You automatically get brothers and sisters. And they're not like friends or lovers. Those are people you choose. Those are volunteer relationships. Your family relationships are with people that you don't particularly like. And yet, there's really no way to get away from them. They're there. And you have obligations. And you've got to see them. And you've got to deal with them. You've got to deal with them. And Jesus has the audacity to use that terminology to describe other Christians to you. Well, let's put it ... Let me put it another way. When you enter into a relationship with a father through Jesus, the whole point of Christianity is he is not a boss. You're not working for a boss. So as long as you're producing, you have a job. But if you stop producing, you're fired. He's a father. That means you have an enduring and unconditional and unmerited relationship. But what that means is, unlike your friends, you enter into a relationship with a friend because, "Hey, I think I can get something out of this relationship. I like you. You like me. Let's do things together. We have common interests." That's friends. Or you fall in love. "Wow, I'm attracted to you. You're attracted to me." And so on. Those are actually conditional relationships. But family is unconditional. Jesus says if you want an unconditional relationship with your father, you're going to get unconditional relationships with brothers and sisters. You're going to have people around you, Christians, who now are family. And you have got to treat them as family. You have an obligation to them. It's not a voluntary relationship. Now, I know, I'm putting this in the most negative possible way. Am I not? Because it's part of what it means. Basically, you can turn them into friends. You ought to try. In fact, we're going to spend the rest of the time talking about how you do. You want to turn your brothers and sisters into friends. In some cases, you would like to marry a brother or sister, hopefully. Okay? I mean, you would like to turn at least one of them into a lover and into a spouse. But the fact is they all start out there at least brothers and sisters. And that means you have got an unconditional relationship with them. They are yours. Whether you like them or not. And in many, many cases, in fact, in most cases, you won't. You won't like them. Just like you don't like your own relatives, so many of them. And that's what Jesus is saying. In C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles, there's a place when Aslan, the great lion who's the Christ figure, he's been resurrected, okay? Which is like Jesus. And then he bends down to these two girls, Susan and Lucy. And he says, "And now," said Aslan, "to business, we have a long journey, and you must ride on me." And he crouched down and the children climbed onto his warm golden back. And Susan sat first holding on tightly to his mane. And Lucy sat behind holding tightly to Susan. And with a great heave, he rose underneath them and shot off faster than any horse could go. Now, this is very interesting. If you read the story, and if you know, and some of you do, not most of you, but some of you do, if you know something about the characters, it's very interesting how the author, C.S. Lewis, depicted the post-resurrection church and their relationship to the Lord. Because that's what he's showing. Susan, of all the children in the book, Susan is the weak one. She's the spiritually weak one. She's obtuse. She's cruel to Lucy. She never gets it. She's kind of stupid, spiritually speaking. But Lucy is the true heart. Lucy is the dear heart. Lucy's the one with the deepest spiritual sight. Lucy's the one with the best relationship with Aslan. But C.S. Lewis puts Lucy up on Aslan's back, and the only way she can hold on to Aslan is to hold on to Susan. And this is exactly what the Bible says. If you want to have a relationship with Jesus, if you want to be related to Him in mission, see, Aslan says, "We've got places to go. I've got things to do. You've got to hold on to me." But the only way he will let you hold on to him is if you're willing to hold on to Susan, to brothers and sisters that you don't like. Lucy, when you read the book, if you do read the book, you identify with her, and you say, "If anybody deserves to be able to get on Aslan's back and be an individual practicing mystic, it would be her." She gets up there, she holds on to the main, personal contact, "I don't need anybody else." And you see, typically Americans today say, "I want to be spiritual, but I don't want to be religious." And what they usually mean by that is, "I want to have a personal experience of divine reality, but I don't want to have to deal with other people. I don't want to have to join an institution. I don't want to have to be part of a body." And the God of the Bible says, "I don't work like that. You're going to have to make up another God." The only way you can hold on to me is if you hold on to Susan, to hold on to brothers, to hold on to sisters. People that you wouldn't really have chosen to be friends, but because they are related to me, now you have to be related to them. You have to hold on to them. You have to love them. You have to know them. And the question, can I get personal with you? There are people around you who are Christians, your brothers and sisters, and they're not your friends, but they're your brothers and sisters. Are you putting up with them? Are you dealing with them? Are you trying to turn them into friends? Now, that's the first thing Jesus talks about, the necessity of a new community. He doesn't work in your life as an individual. He only works in your life corporately. Secondly, he not only talks about the necessity of Christian community, he talks about the intensity. See, clearly you're supposed to have deep relationships. Okay, somebody says, "How deep? How deep do they have to go?" Well, he tells us in verse 23. He tells us how intense. Therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, first go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift. Now, there are two standards in this little verse. Jesus is telling us here just how deeply involved you've got to be with other Christians. You have to be involved in the place of personal accountability and corporate spirituality. Personal accountability, corporate spirituality. What do we mean? Well, first of all, personal accountability. Look, therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar and you remember your brother has something against you, leave, go, get reconciled. Now, this is really weird. Listen carefully. It doesn't say if you've got something against your brother. It doesn't even say if you've done something against your brother. See, look carefully. This person, whoever this is, this brother, has a grievance against you, but you don't have a grievance against him. Now, if that person has a grievance against you, shouldn't he come to you? Yes. He hasn't. Why not? Now, if this person's got a grievance against you and he hasn't come to you, that means either he's a coward or it means he's oversensitive and he's really making things up and he's too upset or he's overly resentful. In other words, this guy is at fault. If this was a voluntary relationship, there'd be no reason for you to go to that. I mean, it's up to him. If he's got a problem with me, he should come to me. Okay. But Jesus holds you responsible inside the family of God that whether that person is worthy of it, whether that person's being stupid or smart, whether you've actually done something wrong or not, you are responsible to go. Why? You're accountable. You're accountable for that person's spiritual growth, and that person's accountable for yours. The Bible says that that's the difference. That's the difference. Friendship is an informal, voluntary kind of mutual relationship, but your brothers and sisters, family, you are accountable to each other. In Hebrews chapter 3, verse 13, it says, "Exort one another daily lest you're hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." Now, that's very interesting. Hardened. The Bible says sin is like frigid air and your heart is like a bucket of water. Now, if you've ever gone camping in the winter, you know that you've got to always be breaking the ice on the top of the bucket of water because it just forms there naturally. And if you don't keep breaking it, next thing you know, you'll turn around and you'll be looking for something to drink or to cook with, and it will be frozen solid. Now, the Bible says that your heart is like that, that it's automatically getting proud or it's getting either hard through pride or hard through sadness. If things are going well in your life, it's getting hard through proudness. If things are going poorly in your life, it's getting hard through sadness, but it's going hard. It's always getting hard naturally as water on a cold day. And what does the Hebrews 3.13 say is the only way you're going to avoid freezing? And the answer is, you've got to have some people in your life who know you well enough to be able to talk to you about your pride and talk to you about your sadness and talk to you about your problems and talk to you about your character flaws. And not only do you have to have people who know you, who you're that open with, you've also got to have people that you have that much contact with. This is one of the issues, a big issue. If you're a Christian and you live in this day and age, you're mobile. You're mobile and your friends are mobile. Especially if you live in New York, you're always saying goodbye to friends. And you know what that means? And they're saying goodbye to you and they're moving around. You know what that means? That means you do have people in the world that you're open enough with for them to be breaking the ice over your heart, but usually you don't have anybody nearby. I mean, it takes tremendous work to be constantly getting open enough with the people who know you, the people who really live near you and the people that you are seeing enough so that they can hold you accountable. But you've got to be deeply involved enough so that there's personal accountability between you and other people. Who does know about you? Who have you given the green light to blow the whistle on you? Who are you opening your, who, to whom are you opening up fairly regularly about everything, about your prayer life, about how you use your money, about your sex life, about your thought life, about your, who? If you have nobody, Jesus holds, Jesus says, "I insist you have people that you're that accountable for and that you're that accountable too, who are always breaking the ice over your heart." Who are they? Do you have them? So first of all, he's saying you've got to have relationships that are deep to the place of personal accountability. Superficial fellowship, saying hi to everybody, hugging and kissing at church is not enough. Secondly, you also, he's showing us here, you have to also have deep relationships to the point, not just the personal accountability, but of corporate spirituality. What do I mean? Well, look at the verse again. What's the problem? You need to go get your brother and bring him to the altar. Your brother's not there. See, the issue is don't worship alone. You must not worship alone. Now, this simply doesn't mean by, you know, it doesn't mean, well, I want to go to a big church where there's 1,500 people there and that's more spiritual than a small church. That's not what we're talking about. Here's what we're talking about. The Bible says in this place that only as a temple, you know, it says in 1 Peter and also in Ephesians 2, it says, "As a temple, we are living stones in a temple inhabited by the Spirit of God." You know that image? Well, that's not just a beautiful image. It's beautiful. "We are stones, we're built together, we're cemented in together, and the Lord inhabits us." It's only together that we're inhabited. C.S. Lewis says in his book, "The Four Loves," and by the way, I'm using all C.S. Lewis illustrations tonight. Anybody notice? C.S. Lewis says that when he was a circle, he was a member of a circle of three people, three friends, Jack, Ronald, he's Jack, Jack, Ronald, and Charles. And when Charles died, he thought he'd have more of Ronald. But what, but he said, and I'll read it, to his shock, he found he had less of Ronald is what he says. He says, "In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself, I am not large enough to call the whole person into activity. By myself, I am not large enough to call the whole person into activity. Now that Charles is dead, I'll never see Ronald's reaction to his humor. Far from having more of Ronald, now that Charles is gone, I have less." Are you looking for ways to grow in your faith this summer? Or are you hoping to help new believers or kids grasp the heart of the Christian faith? For many of us, the summer months can provide more time to deepen our faith and our understanding of what it means to follow Christ. A great resource to start using this summer is the New City Catechism Devotional, God's Truth for our Hearts and Minds. This devotional brings the historic catechisms of the Christian Church to life, offering a question to consider for each week of the year. In the introduction, Tim Keller lays out the case for catechesis, the rich and communal practice of learning and memorizing questions and answers that frame the foundational beliefs of the Christian faith. Each week includes a scripture passage, a prayer, and a brief meditation that will challenge and inspire you. The included commentaries are by contemporary pastors such as John Piper, Tim Keller, and Kevin DeYoung, as well as historical figures such as Augustine, John Calvin, and Martin Luther. This month, in addition to the New City Catechism Devotional, we are including a great companion resource, the New City Catechism for Kids, as our thank you for your gift to help gospel and life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world. So request your copies today at gospelandlife.com/give. That's gospelandlife.com/give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now why did Lewis bring that up? If that's true of a human being, if it's true that you really can't know somebody, now you know this by the way, when you're married to somebody, you think you know them one on one, and in a way you do, you know them better than anybody else. But you still, one on one, one of the things that is kind of interesting is very often you think you know your spouse pretty well, and a new person comes into your life, a new friend, a new somebody, and that new person brings something out in your spouse that you've never seen before, even if you've been with her or him 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, amazing. Why? Here's the principle, as an individual, you are insufficient to draw the entire person into activity. You cannot bring it all out. It's only in a group that you can know an individual well. And if that's true of human beings, what about God himself? It means that if you know two or three Christians really intimately, you're not going to know God very well. If you know more Christians, the more Christians you know intimately, the more of God you're going to know, because they see a part of God that only they see. They bring out something in God that only they can bring out. And as a result, unless you're praying with people, unless you're worshiping with people, unless you've got people that you can talk to about your Christianity, talk to about your feelings about God, talk to about what your struggleings and wrestling with God. If you don't have people you're wrestling and praying and praising God with, you don't really know Him very well. Jesus says, "Go get your brother. I don't want you to be at the altar by yourself. Go get your sister. I don't want you at the altar by yourself." That's the necessity of this new community, and that's the intensity of this new community. Thirdly, we're told about the symmetry of this new community. Now, here's what I think. Symmetry, you say, yeah. How do you get these relationships this deep? How do you get them down that deep? And Jesus says the key is treating people with a balance. And it's a balance of truth and love, basically, but look at the way He puts it. It's down here at the bottom, chapter 7. "Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you'll be judged." Okay. Now, that's interesting. Don't be judgmental, right? Don't condemn. That sounds great. But then look at that in verse 6. "Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn interior to pieces." Verse 1, in verse 1, He's saying, "Don't condemn people. Don't be judgmental." And in verse 6, He's calling people pigs and dogs. And now, you know what? If you think that's a contradiction, you don't understand the balance. And almost nobody does. I mean, I don't. And really, nobody but Jesus had this. Over and over and over, the Bible says, "Love without truth." If you just say, "Oh, I don't want to tell anybody the truth. I don't want to tell anybody that they're wrong. I don't want to confront. I don't want to challenge." Who am I to say they're wrong? If you have relationships like that, we're always saying, "Who am I to say they're wrong?" That's love without truth, and that's not really love. You say, "I don't want to be judgmental." But you never are willing to say, "This person's being a pig. This person's being a dog. This person's being stupid. This person's being spiritually obtuse." If you never are willing to challenge, if you love without truth, it's not really love. It's idolatry, it's self-indulgence, it's cowardice because you're not giving them what they need. If you love them without truth, you're not really loving them. You're not really loving them. You're loving yourself. You coward. You're loving yourself. You don't want that person to ever go away. You're too dependent on them. And therefore, if you're too dependent on them, you're not really loving them. You're loving yourself through them. You're using them. But on the other hand, truth without love, condemning people, writing them off, holding them to standards and then saying, "You're not living up to standards." Truth without love is not really truth, you know why? Because it tells people that God's not about grace. Truth without love is actually a falsehood. Verse 6 has been used over the years by people this way. People have read verse 6 and they say, "Well, clearly the pearls and the holy things, the sacred things are the things of God, the truth, the gospel, the things of the kingdom." And clearly what this is saying is don't give people that which they can't appreciate. Don't give to people who don't believe the gospel. Don't tell them about it. Don't give to people who can't appreciate it and who are unworthy of it. Don't take the truth to them. Don't just trample it under feet. Have you ever heard it preached that way? Have you ever heard it discussed that way? Actually, I have to admit that long ago I found a sermon that I preached on this in 1977, hopefully, in which I said that. I said, "This verse means that you must not take the truth to people who can't appreciate it." It's a small problem with that. I was reading a book by Dallas Willard called The Divine Conspiracy, which is a new book and it's a meditation on the Sermon on the Mount. And he says, "If this means that you shouldn't give truth to people who can't appreciate it, then why in the world did Jesus ever come?" I mean, if you say, "Don't give the truth to people who can't appreciate it and aren't worthy of it," well, Jesus could have saved himself a trip then. I mean, there's nobody down here who appreciates it. There's nobody down here who's worthy of it. And by the way, if that's the way you understand verse 6, then Jesus didn't take his own advice because he came down. He told people about the truth who didn't appreciate it and they didn't turn upon him and they tore him to pieces. However, that's not what it's saying. Dallas Willard does a very good job in which he says, "Pigs and dogs are not people who can't appreciate the truth. They're people who can't digest the truth." When it says, "Throw," what do you throw to pigs? You throw them food. And what he's saying is, and I think he's absolutely right, he says, "When you give people the truth in such a way," here's a pig, very, very hungry, and you're throwing pearls. And the pig bites down and it hurts and swallows and chokes. Eventually, he says, Dallas Willard says, "The pigs are going to turn on you." Why? Because at least you're edible. And what he means is, this is saying that love without truth is not love, but truth without love. Truth where you take the truth and you push it on people, you force it on people, or you demand that they get it or understand it or journey through it or process it the way you did. In one of C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles called "The Horse and His Boy," there's two characters. One is named Shasta and one is named Aravus. Shasta's a boy, Aravus is the girl. At one point, they're traveling along and a lion appears. And with his huge claws, he scratches Aravus across the back and it hurts and it draws blood, but then he disappears. Later in the book, Shasta meets Aslan, the lion. And Aslan is the Christ figure. And Shasta says, "Are you the lion that scratched and wounded Aravus?" And Aslan says, "Yes, I am." So Shasta says, "Why in the world did you do that? You're this great king. You're this good person. You're this great and glorious savior. Why did you do that?" And this is what he says. He turns to him and says, "Child," he says, "I'm telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story, but his own." Now, C.S. Lewis got that right out of the Bible, right out of the end of the book of John, where St. Peter asked about John the Apostle. He says, "Lord, what's going to happen to him?" And Jesus says, "I don't tell anybody their other story. I only tell you your story." Now, what does that mean? This is the reason why Christians don't keep this balance, I'm afraid. Christian, you've got to speak the truth. You've got to confront people, but you must be very, very careful. You only know your own story. You don't completely know anybody else's story. You don't know what they deserve. You don't know what God's doing in their life completely. You cannot see their whole journey. You must not prescribe your experiences if it has to be their experience. You must not push. Otherwise, you're turning them into pigs. I mean, the idea behind the verse is really that you deserve to be eaten, and they will turn on you, and they will bite you because you're saying, "It's got to be done this way, and it's got to be done in this order, and you've got to accept this." No, no, no, no, no. Love without truth is not really love, but truth without love is not really truth. There needs to be humility before the greatness of the soul in front of you, a humility before the greatness of Christ being formed in that person. Unless you've got that, if you don't see the greatness of what God's doing in the life of another Christian, if you don't realize it's there, you're either going to love and not tell the truth, but Jesus says no. If that person is something's wrong, verse 23, go to him. Reconcile with him. Figure it out. Go. Don't you dare be silent. Don't you dare be a coward. But on the other hand, don't you dare think you know exactly what that person has to do and how that person has to jump through the hoops? Oh, no. There has to be a symmetry, a balance in your life between truth and love. Now, I know what somebody's saying. Somebody's saying, "Well, how do I know if I'm unbalanced in my attitude toward other people and my other Christians? How do I know if my relationships are unbalanced?" Oh, assume it. Assume that you're unbalanced. You are. In our temperament, our natural temperament without the Holy Spirit, you're either going to be a truth type or a love type. You're either going to be a nice person, diplomatic and sweet, but basically a coward, or you're going to be a challenge, forthright, direct person, but basically cruel, basically unfeeling. We're going to be one or the other. And the only way to get that symmetry so that your relationships get down into the depths unto personal accountability and corporate spirituality is if you read about Jesus and how he treated people, read it over and over and over and over and over again. Now, lastly, that's the necessity, that's the intensity, that's the symmetry, but what's the causality? What is it that actually causes these kinds of relationships? Now, it's really pretty subtle, but let me just suggest, when Jesus says, "Judge not, don't be judgmental," or, "You'll be judged." You know what the word "judge" is here? It's the word "condemn." It's not the word "evaluate." He's not saying, "Evaluate not." You have to evaluate. Otherwise, you can't tell the truth. Otherwise, you can't know what somebody needs. He says, "Don't condemn," but the word "condemn" is the same word as in Romans 8 verse 1. Now, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you know that Jesus Christ was judged, if you know Jesus Christ took the condemnation, all of it, that creates an energy in you so that the judgmentalism is just drained right out of you, and that brings the symmetry, and only that brings the symmetry. Let me close this way. Let me be real practical. Let me say something to three kinds of people. If you're not sure you're a Christian, you're not sure what you believe, if you're kind of in spiritual process, get a friend, a good friend who is a Christian that you respect. You'll never ever probably ... It's very rare, I should say, not ever ever. It is very unlikely you're going to process the gospel and the information about Jesus Christ on your own. God doesn't work that way. He works through people. Isn't that good? Don't say, "Oh my word, that's good. Isn't that the big problem in the world?" If you read the gospel narratives, you'll see John the Baptist tells Andrew about Jesus, and he meets Jesus. Andrew tells Philip about Jesus, and he meets Jesus. Philip goes and tells Nathaniel about Jesus, and he meets Jesus. None of these people get there on their own. If you're trying to figure out where you are spiritually and what you believe, and you're trying to do it all by yourself, reading books, coming to Redeemer, I don't care if you're inspired by the music or the sermons, I don't care. You're going to get bored or you're going to get confused unless you've got a friend to process it with. Secondly, Christian friends, how do you get personal accountability and corporate spirituality? By coming to a worship service? By coming to a worship service every single week? By volunteering or something, even? No, only in a small group. Either a small group you put together or a small group that you go to that's already ... Unless you have a small group of Christians who are praying together and holding each other accountable, you cannot obey what Jesus Christ calls you to. Lastly, one more C.S. Lewis reference, there's six tonight. Lewis wrote a book called "Mare Christianity" some years ago. Actually, it was a series of radio talks, and it's basically about ... He says, "I'm not going to talk about Greek Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism or Presbyterianism or Baptists. I'm going to talk about General, "Mare Christianity." "Mare Christianity." And boy, a lot of people love that. I mean, isn't that what we want? Instead of getting into denominations and differences, don't we just want to be Christians? Of course we do. And yet, he wrote a major warning at the beginning of his book, and he said this. He says, "I hope no reader will think "Mare Christianity" is put forth here as an alternative to existing churches. As if you could adopt Christianity in preference to Congregationalism or Presbyterianism or Anglicanism or Greek Orthodoxy, what I'm writing is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into the hallway, I shall have done what I attempted, but it is in the rooms, not in the hall, where there are fires and chairs and meals." Now, hear this, because I know this is true of a lot of people. We want to be mere Christians. We hate the scandal of particularity. What Lewis is saying is we all want to just be Christians in general. But if you're actually, he says, "Christianity itself, this idea of Christianity is an abstraction. If you really want meals, if you really want fires, if you really want chairs, if you really want rest, if you really want growth, you've got to get into a real church. You've got to get into a church where people are accountable to each other. You've got to get into a church where there's covenants, where there's accountability. And that means it's going to be a particular kind of church. It's going to be a Baptist church or it's going to be a Presbyterian church. It's going to be an Anglican church or a Greek Orthodox church. Now, I know you've got churches to say, "We're not denominational." Well, that's Congregationalism. I mean, that's the denomination of churches that insist they're not a denomination. There's always been there. You're never going to be able to actually grow in grace unless you get into a real church, and that church is going to have positions you don't like. I don't like the way they baptize. I don't like this or that about the way they do this. The scandal of particularity, you're never going to find a church that's just right. But a lot of you are still in the hallway. You stay in the hallway. You flit around. You go from church to church or you go to no church. You're a mere Christian. But see as Louis says, it's only in the rooms. It's only in the real particular churches with all their warts and all their specifics and all their particularities that there's meals and fire and chairs. That's the reason why you're not growing. You got to get involved in something. You got to put your feet down in a particular church. See, Jesus Christ says you're in a family, admitted. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for granting to us a family. Oh, we want family until we actually get it. We want brothers and sisters. It sounds so wonderful until we actually see them. Brothers and sisters are not ones that we've chosen. They're not friends. They're not lovers. They're brothers and sisters. And, Lord, there's a lot of people in our lives around us that we're not taking seriously as brothers and sisters. We pray that you would help us to admit and accept our brothers and sisters and turn them more and more into friends and fellow worshipers. People that we know and love and hold tight to because we know the more we hold tight to them, the more we'll hold tight to your son. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com. There you can subscribe to the Gospel and Life Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1999. The sermon's in 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.