every culture says You must achieve your salvation as the culture defines it this way every culture is trying to suck you into its meaning system and say unless you have that and that you're nothing New York is a culture of experts we love people who have expert awareness or expert knowledge on many things and so I think because of that that's one of the things that people have resonated with when they've listened to Tim that he has in some respects a very plain style he doesn't have anything that's flashy uh there's nothing gimmicky he's a
Visionary someone who reads everything under the sun um in a group meeting he's a consensus Builder and then an individual basis he's just a nice guy that you want to hang out with unlike a lot of entrepreneurs I think he has the ability to to change his style change how he exercises leadership to to meet the needs of today and also prepare the church for tomorrow we have a lot of church plants that have modeled themselves after or they've used our core values to actually B churches and so we really hope that that will be
the Legacy or the ongoing kind of impact of Tim Keller and also redeemer's Ministry that more than simply uh personal salvation it also involves cultural renewal it also involves social justice in the evening I go back and and fourth between a 5:00 service on the west side of Central Park then a 6:00 service on the east side of Central Park and then a 7:15 service on the west side and we're on our way right now from the 6 to the 7:15 which is uh a normal part of my uh routine every Sunday we have corporate
professionals and creative professionals that are very different we have Asian and Anglo and Black and Hispanic people most of the folks are young most of the folks are single most of the folks are between age 25 and 40 uh and most of them are awfully sharp fun people brilliant people uh and um hard to preach to unless you uh really do your homework he has a very vast and Broad vision of what the gospel is and how it should impact and change the world and change communities throughout the world even in their Vision it's about
the city not about Redeemer Presbyterian Church it's about what what's the best way I can change New York City and that's exciting because that's bigger than one church that invites all the churches to the table on how God's Kingdom Agenda can impact New York City and then even cities around the world but enough about me what about you um you know a lot more about me than you should uh I've been a minister for 35 years and as a minister I am an absolute sucker for anybody over the years author speaker Pastor you know consultant
who has come along and said to me I have the key to spiritual renewal I always buy that I always pick it up I always download the Audio I always listen and the reason is us we ministers here's a it's a little dirty little secret I'm going to let just you 120,000 people in on the the thing that's shocks us as ministers is the amount of spiritual deadness in our congregations uh a tiny number of people do almost all the work uh the vast majority of virtually every congregation is filled with great in spiritual indifference
low spiritual commitment on top of that there's the backbiting there's the uh there's the critical spirit there's the turf Consciousness there's the selfishness there's the pride and that's the reason why by the way anybody any entrepreneurial minded people need to keep this in mind that anything that comes down the pike that promises a minister some idea on how to do spiritual renewal in his congregation we're going to get it we're going to take it because we're so desperate spiritual deadness uh a lack of spiritual Vitality is still the main problem because we say oh we're
going to do this we want to do this we want to do this but we don't have the horses to do it because we don't have the people who want to do it or can do it or and therefore what I'm going to do with fear and trembling here is I'm going to give you my best shot at what I've always wanted over the years I want to give you a diagnosis of what that spiritual deadness consists of and some prescription that's not too programmatic or too vague whatever we do about the spiritual deadness that's
out there if if whatever I tell you today is too programmatic this it can't be a matter of organizational development ultimately but on the other hand whatever I say here can't be too vague I'm going to try my best to give you a diagnosis of the spiritual deadness a prescription for it and then some ideas about how you can take that prescription out into your church to see what the old timers used to call Revival and what new timers call renewal for reasons I don't know I don't understand starts with the same two letters same
thing and I want to start with the parable of the Prodigal Son uh the word prodigal originally in English meant um recklessly extravagant that's why you have the a child prodigy or prodigious uh nowadays the word prodigal almost only means Wayward but when Charles Spurgeon preached on this uh text years ago he entitled his sermon prodigal love for The Prodigal Son and the reason he said that was we need an extravagantly loving God to deal with our Reckless sin now when you and I think of the parable of the prodical son we almost immediately think
of the younger brother the Wayward Boy the boy who went off but I'd like to make a case right off the bat here that the the parable was not really written to younger ppes it's not mainly about the younger brother in the very beginning of chapter 15 of Luke we see two groups of people around Jesus there's a bunch of Sinner types social outcasts immoral people and there's the religious leaders and the Pharisees and the religious leaders and the Pharisees see Jesus hanging out with The Sinner types and they he said they say what in
the world is he doing hanging out associating even eating with Sinners and then we're told Jesus told three Parables the parable of the lost sheep the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the prodigal son to them it says to them who the Pharisees the religious people that's who the the parable is for and inside you have two figures well you have three you have a father with two sons you have a younger brother and an elder brother and the younger brother is like the Sinners Around Jesus he takes his money and he
runs off into a foreign country and he uh and he squanders it on prostitutes he squanders it that way and he's like the the Sinners Around Jesus but the elder brother who stays home and obeys the father he is like the Pharisees he's like the religious leaders and actually the last part of the of the parable is all about him in the very end the father is addressing the elder brother not the younger brother that's how the parable ends the point of the parable the purpose of the parable is to address Us in the church
religious people moral people not the dissolute not the people out there not the irreligious not the immoral it's us it's for the Pharisee it's for the religious people it's for the religious leader that's the first thing second thing I want to show you is the main point of the parable the parable this is just shocking the parable shows that both younger brothers and Elder brothers are alienated from the father who represents God the younger brother and the elder brother both are alienated from The Father's Heart uh they both in both cases they're lost that means
the father has to come out and invite them in and here's what's really strange strange about the whole Parable the younger brother it's very obvious he doesn't love the father he just wants the father's money and because he wants the father's money and not the father he asked for his part of the inheritance he takes it he runs off into a foreign country and he lives any way he wants but by the end of the uh Parable we see that the elder brother also doesn't really love the father you know when the father's giving this
big Feast for his younger brother to come back this was the greatest day in the father's life and the elder brother knows that and he doesn't care he won't go in he doesn't love the father what do he upset with he's upset with how the father is using the estate how he's spending the money what he's doing with the possessions of the family in other words the elder brother just like the younger brother love the father's things but not the father what they care what what both of them want is the money of the father
not the father but but look how the younger brother gets the money by being very very very bad that's how he tries to get control of the money by demanding it and taking it away and going off how though does the elder brother try to get the father's money by staying home and by being very very very good by being completely compliant absolutely obedient you know in verse 29 he says I've never disobeyed you he says to his father wait a minute you know what that means there's two ways to be your own Savior and
Lord there's two ways to try to get control of your own life instead of letting God control you one is by being very very bad and immoral and irreligious and one is by being very very good and moral and religious and never disobeying and obeying the Ten Commandments and going to church and praying having your quiet time every morning those are two ways to get the father's things you see the elder brother says because I'm living such a good life God has to bless me God has to answer my prayers God has to take me
to Heaven God has to respect me now you know what that means for the elder brother Jesus might be his inspiration or might be her example or uh Jesus might be the Elder brother's Helper but he's not their savior they being their own savior so there's two ways to be your own Savior and Lord one is by being very irreligious one is by being very religious one is by being very immoral one is by being very moral both ways are ways to reject God basically the trouble is the elder brother thinks and claims the Elder
Brothers believe that they are with God look I stayed home I'm I'm doing everything you want and yet underneath there's no difference and so when you get to the shocking ending and this is the shocking ending we have seen now that both the elder brother and younger brother are alienated from the father in both cases the father has to come out and urge each son to come into the feast which is salvation but at the end of the parable where are we the younger brother comes into the feast but the elder brother does not he
refuses he won't come in do you know what that means class it means the bad boy is saved at the end of the parable the prodical Son and the good Boy Is Lost and the good boy is not lost in spite of his goodness he's lost because of his goodness because in verse 29 the reason he won't go in the reason he will not come into the father's Feast the reason he rejects the father he says is because I've never disobeyed you I'm mad at you because you're not doing things the way I want you
to do them and the reason why I'm so alienated from you and so furious with you is I have been so good and you're not doing what I want you to do so in the end he's lost not in spite of his goodness but because of his goodness the gospel is neither religion or irreligion it's neither morality or immorality it's not in the middle either it's something allog together different now how does this play out in the church very simple but frightening religion operates on this principle I obey therefore I'm accepted the gospel operates on
the exact opposite principle I'm accepted because of what Jesus Christ has done for me therefore I obey I obey therefore God accepts me versus God accepts me because of what Jesus Christ has done for me therefore I obey two people operating on these two opposite principles will sit right next to each other in church they're both coming to church and they're trying very hard to give their money and to and to pray and to obey the Ten Commandments and to love their neighbor as themselves for two utterly different motives in two utterly different spirits and
with two completely different results and here's why Elder brothers are obeying God to get things they're actually making God a means to an end they're obeying God they're trying to serve God they're trying to surrender to God they're doing all this stuff but they're using God to get things but people who believe the gospel are utterly different you see go the gospel is not I give God a righteous record and then he owes me that's how older brothers think the gospel is God through the infinite sacrifice of Jesus Christ gives us a righteous record and
then we live for him and if you believe that that means that everything that a rational being could possibly want is already yours when you receive the father father on be through the son everything is yours eternal life adoption into the family guaranteed citizenship in the new heavens and new earth no suffering no disease and the knowledge that you are the delight and the joy of the only person in the universe whose opinion matters and it's already yours it's all yours so why does a gospel believing person obey God Elder Brothers obey OB God to
get things but gospel Believers obey God just to get more of God they're not sitting around saying you better do this and you better do that what do you mean yeah you better do this and you better do that gospel Believers want to resemble God want to Delight God want to just have more of him and therefore here's the source of spiritual deadness Elder brothers because they basically are trying to make God through their obedience and their spiritual performance and their spiritual commitment and their how good they are to people and what good family members
they are they believe they're getting leverage over God and because they believe that on the one hand they're self-righteous toward anybody else who's not living a good life on the other hand they're insecure inside because they're not sure they're being good enough and as a result even though Elder brothers are are all through our churches and if you give them a gospel test they'll probably say yes Jesus Christ Christ died for me that's why you know that my salvation is because Jesus died for me but functionally in their hearts they're standing with God is based
on their performance and as a result you do not see the things that Paul says should be growing it's called the fruit of the spirit love joy peace humility self instead you have self-centeredness and pride you have backbiting me let me press you a little bit longer on this you see at one level we believe the gospel but functionally the fault mode of our hearts is so persistent that we constantly go back to religion we go back to being Elder Brothers we go back to at least being Elder brother-ish what are some of the marks
of an elder brother what are some of the marks of the spiritual deadness look you can actually see it if you look at the parable and see the elder brother number one is Elder Brothers get incredibly angry when their life doesn't go well now disappointment yes sadness yes discouragement yes but when things don't go well in their lives Elder Brothers don't just get sad and disappointed they get furious with life with God and you know what that shows they believe God owes them and if you when you your prayers are not being answered you just
get furious with God you may say oh I believe I'm a sinner saved by grace but you don't believe it you believe God owes you you believe that you have leverage over him and you're Furious and it's your fault it's because you say you believe the gospel you don't really believe the gospel and there's a spiritual deadness in your life I'll give you another example how do you respond to criticism um you know um when elder Brothers get criticized they either respond with vicious Counterattack or they get completely devastated and demolished you know why because
Elder Brothers self-regard is not rooted in who they are in Christ it's rooted in their self-image and reputation of being a good person they've got to have that self-image they've got to have that reputation of being a good person so when criticism comes the very Foundation of your life is being broken up so you either either you either melt down or you melt them down you can't take it and if you do if you either viciously Counterattack or you just get demolished by criticism you may say oh I believe I'm a sinner saved by grace
but you don't you say I believe the gospel but that's not how your heart's functioning and that's the source of the deadness or another example prayer Elder Brothers pray you know Pharisees prayed a lot but by and large the prayers are petitionary prayers and when things are going bad you do a lot of praying and when things aren't going so badly almost you almost stop praying but the one thing Elder brothers almost never do is just enjoy God there's not intensity and Intimacy in their prayer life uh there's not there's there's not contemplation there's not
much adoration in other words there's no Intimacy in the prayer life or or here's another one it's almost impo well I shouldn't say it is impossible for Elder Brothers not to constantly be loathing people if you if your self-image is based on you being a hardworking person then you've got to despise look down your you look look down on anybody who you think is lazy if your self-image is based on having the right Doctrine by the way I'm a presbyterian I'm all for right Doctrine okay however when your self-image is based on you having right
Doctrine not on what the right Doctrine is about when your very self-image is based on being hardworking you will look down your you'll load people who you think are lazy when your self-image is based when your self-regard is based on having the right Doctrine you will loathe anybody who disagrees with you Elder brothers are just filled with loathing there's all kinds of people they just can't stand to be around and probably worst of all Elder brothers can't forgive you know why it's impossible to stay angry in the in the short run anger is Right normal
natural but if you if you can't stay angry and bitter at somebody unless you feel Superior to them you have to say I would never do anything like that in other words you you have to have a fair amount of pride to stay bitter and Elder Brothers have plenty of it and so what we have in Elder Brothers what we have in this here's the spiritual deadness it's an undercurrent of anger toward life it's uh holding grudges for a long time it's looking down your nose at people with other beliefs in lifestyle it's very little
intimacy and joy in prayer it's being so deeply insecure when people criticize you yet merciless in your condemning of others and our churches we are filled with it some people terribly but so many people partly what do you do two things have got to be done you've got to get to a new level of repentance and a new level of rejoicing what do I mean I'll be practical when you and I think of repentance almost always we think that means being sorry for our wrong doings and by the way yes that's included you should be
sorry for your wrongdoings you should turn away from them but that's not the key to Renewal you know why Pharisees were sorry for their wrongdoing whenever a Pharisee saw that they broke one of the laws they repented and when they were done they were still Pharisees didn't help them in fact they were more Pharisee look how much I've repented who said the main thing separating you and God is not your sins it's your damnable good works because you really don't see your need you basically still think until you see until you have learned to repent
for the reasons the motivations for your rightdoing you basically think you're doing God a favor by following him and that's just leading to all kinds of spiritual deadness in your life all over the place you've got to get down to that new level that deeper level of repentance and if you do and only if you do it'll help you break through to a new level of rejoicing and the grace here's what I mean it's typical to read the parable of the prodigal son and to say what's the moral of the story the moral of the
story is you better you know if you do wrong you need to humble yourself and you need to really repent and you need to be sorry then God will have you know receive you back which is true but if that's all you get out of it don't you say it's one more thing for you to do I just showed you Pharisees never never broke out of their phariseeism through repentance of their wrongdoing it's just one more thing to do here's what you need to be moved by here's what you need to see in the parable
what it cost to bring the young man home and you see look what did it cost the father to bring back the prodigal son you say what well nothing he just he just welcomed him back in put on a robe put a robe on him put a ring on him slew the fatted calf and a party it it didn't cost anything to bring him back that's not true because don't forget this is a man who had two sons therefore he had only two heirs he had divided his estate between them the younger son had taken
his share of the estate and it was gone it had been spent and that means every robe every ring every fatted calf actually belongs to the elder brother and therefore there was no way for the father to bring the younger son back in except at the expense of the elder brother atonement was going to be costly and guess what this elder brother was mad about it he didn't want to do it that's the that's that's that's where the plot thickens see in those days the oldest son's job was to keep the family together and if
he was a true elder brother he would have not just been happy when he came back if he was a true elder brother he would have been like the true Shepherd earlier on in the chapter he would have gone out into a foreign country and he would have found his brother in a pigs side and he would have he would have embraced him and he would have brought him back to his father and said I bring my brother back into the home at my expense that's a true elder brother but the point of the parable
is that that poor young man didn't have a true elder brother he had a Pharisee yeah what a tragedy that young man didn't have a true elder brother but you do you do if it's really true that the father can only bring us back in at the expense of a true elder brother what kind of elder brother do we need we don't just need a brother who would go into a far country we need someone who would come from Heaven to Earth and we don't just need a brother who would save us at the cost
of his money we would need a true elder brother who would save us at the cost of his life and we have him the only reason we can be clothed in the father's robe is because he was stripped naked on the cross the only reason we can drink his cup the cup of fesal joy in the kingdom of God is because Jesus Christ on the cross drank the cup of judgment and wrath and he did he did it all and when you're moved to the depths after you've done the deeper level of repentance when you're
moved to the depths to see what it cost your true elder brother to bring you home on the one hand that humbles you out of your self-righteousness but at the very same time it lifts you out of the insecurity and that sense of worthlessness at the very very heart that we're trying to paper over with all of our performing and it destroys your elder brother this it does now is somebody going to say when is he going to start getting practical how do we really renew our churches is anybody feeling anything that is practical don't
you see th listen Church renewal ultimately spiritual renewal is not something I can say do these five things and then go out and do it it's got to happen on the spot it's got to be happening here you know 15% of your Elder Brothers needs to get start needs to get being it has to be squeezed out of you by the Holy Spirit right now you're not going to do a good job at doing the five things I'm about to tell you because there are five things I want to tell you about how you get
this basic idea this basic idea biblically informed Spirit empowered deeper deeper repenting and deeper rejoicing screwing the gospel down into a the deeper parts of your people's hearts so it can destroy the spiritual deadness showing people that the gospel is not religion or irreligion it's not morality or immorality it's a third way it's a new thing that is what you've got to get into people's hearts in order to see spiritual renewal go it it does I've seen it at least at this Daye this time in this culture the basic message I've given you and there's
a million other ways to put it besides getting it out of the prodical S it actually what I just gave you comes out of any other text in the Bible there is the gospel is not religion or a religion it's something else young people are so demoralized by legalism until you they see you able to show that The Gospel is not just hey you can live any way you want but it's also not legalism until they hear that they're they're not going to come they're going to be totally demoralized and unless you distinguish the gospel
from moralism and phariseeism the way I've just done in some way don't you know that when you actually ask people oh invite Christ into your heart you know what they think you're asking them to do try real hard to be like Jesus what they're going to think is okay Jesus died on the cross to forgive me for my past and now I'm going to live for him there just going to be a bunch of Elder Brothers unless you're able to thread the needle use the gospel in the surgical way that I'm talking about here the
spiritual deadness will continue and we it doesn't really matter how many organizational change strategies you use but here's five things you can do to take the basic material that I'm talking about and get it out into your people number one you the leader you have got to work this into your heart yourself especially you the ministry leader listen I heard bill today admit even though he's Dutch that God speaks to him and so I I I can let me tell you a story that even though I'm Presbyterian which is the same thing as being Dutch
is uh like that some years ago in my early days of being a minister I was looking at a particular uh translation of the verse uh Romans 1:16 and the translation went like this he who through faith is righteous shall live and I had a thought Heard a Voice had a feeling suddenly I said yeah yeah and he who through preaching is righteous dies a thousand deaths every Saturday night who said that I'm still not quite sure but I suddenly realized oh my word why am I trying so hard to help people and I realized
it was for me see ultimately elder brother is this here you are loving your neighbor's yourself you know laying yourself out for the poor helping people to find Christ surely there's nothing could be wrong with that yet I read an old I years ago I read a an old lecture of a of a it's a 200- year old book on lectures to uh young Ministry students and the and the lecturer said don't go into the ministry to save your soul I remember reading that thinking what idiot would go into the ministry if he wasn't already
saved but now I know idiots like me idiots who are saved in one sense in another sense are trying to save themselves through their Ministry and that's why you live and die by your attendance because it's your very self-regard is is is is bound up in it you're just don't you see the spiritual deadness in that don't you realiz realize why you overwork don't you see don't you see why why it's the criticism kills you utterly kills you because it's not going after your ministry it's going after your very self-image is going after your salvation
you're lost if you're a failure at minist no you're not but that's how you feel look and that's just one example you have got to get this into your own life and you've got to experience personal renewal and Revival yourself I wrote a book Prodigal God read it by you know it's one way it's not certainly not the only way but it's a way of doing personal private renal number one number two again let me go let me press a little you're a preacher or if you're a teacher and that's an awful lot of you
when you communicate be very careful to always move Beyond biblical principles to the gospel that the reason people don't do biblical the reason we don't live in C one of the reason we don't give our money like we should is not just because we're not obeying that's true we're not obeying because the Bible says you should give but what did Paul say he says I'm not going to command you you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ though he was rich he became poor so that through his poverty we might become rich what's he
saying to the degree you see you've got real spiritual riches in Christ to that degree you'll stop worrying about money because you'll have the only security that really counts and money will stop becoming your security it'll stop becoming a kind of form of righteousness it'll stop becoming a kind of spiritual God and it'll become just money and you'll be able to give it away in other words Paul is saying the reason you're being stingy is you don't believe the gospel you don't believe the gospel all the way down you're not seeing what Jesus did for
you so you can't just preach a sermon pounding people over you need to give you to give without taking him to the cross again taking him to the gospel and say ultimately let's believe the gospel more deeply today and then we'll be able to give our money away you know don't even preach a sermon don't teach Psalm 23 the way we usually do the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want why because he makes me lie down in Green Pastures he leads me beside the Still Waters you know he he's uh he's with me
in dark valleys now let's end the sermon go and trust him like that well you know what a lot of your people are going to sit there and say but I I have trouble trusting him and also how do I know he'll really be with me well you know what never end the teaching without pointing out the fact that there was another one who came and he wasn't led to Quiet Waters he said I thirst and he wasn't allowed to lie down in Green Pastures they made him carry his cross and when he was not
just in a dark Valley when he was the darkest moment in history there was nobody with him he cried out my God my God why hast Thou forsaken me and if you don't if you don't preach Psalm 23 by first of all taking people to Jesus and saying you know that's why you can trust him look what he did for you and even if you feel like well I'm not a very good person how do I know God will be with me because your sins are covered do you know how to always make sure that
you're bringing the gospel to bear on people's hearts rather than just pounding on their Wills so first of all you have to work it into your own heart secondly you've got to make sure that you're all of your teaching all of your preaching and all of your communication isn't moralistic it's gospel centered thirdly get a group of leaders together and when those leaders you could take them through a book like the prodical God because now we've got a study guide like in the last couple weeks and a DVD that would help you go through it
with a group but listen do not treat it like a class because you're going to have to go back to Step One what's step one you work it into your own life you see how this where the spiritual deadness is coming in your own life and you've got to share that with your leaders then step four is this you work it into your congregation either the slow way which is just let all the leaders that you just took through this material and open your heart to them and then let them do it with groups and
let it spread through the church gradually as as you change the way in which you communicate you know you teachers and leaders or you could do the whole church at once taking him through the book if you want because we've got a way of doing that it goes along with the study guide in the DVD and if you do all that here's the differences you'll start to see how do you know your church is being renewed number one you'll start to have gracious disagreements really disfunctional churches don't have disagreements they just people just leave because
nobody ever is direct about anything they're so dysfunctional other churches are always fighting but when you have gracious disagreements when you have catholicity of spirit that is to say you start to be able to appreciate other traditions and other ways of doing church and yet you're still happy in your your own when you see a lot of religious people coming to you voluntarily and saying I thought I was a Christian but you know I've been going to this church for several months I see that I'm really not pray for this pray pray for this John
Newton has a hymn that goes like this Thou Art coming to a King large petitions with thee bring for his grace and power are such none can ever ask too much let's pray Our Father we uh thank you for your gospel we thank you that your gospel is alive and active we thank you that your gospel is your power power uh un salvation for those who believe it's not just a it's not just it doesn't just bring your power it doesn't just um it doesn't just talk about your power it is the power of God
into salvation believe and we pray that in the churches of the people who are listening today and watching this we pray that it would really be a power in their lives and in their churches as well we thank you for this and we ask you for this in Jesus name amen amen
