The Story of the World – Part 3

Over the next three chapters of the book, we begin to see the weight of what Jesus actually did at the cross. We see how much we don’t deserve, and also how much God loves us. In Chapter 7, ‘The Stain’, Dr Keller talks about the state of our heart. God is a holy God and He cannot be in the presence of sin. He says;

‘Unless you’re clean, you can’t be in the presence of a perfect and holy God’ (p.71).

Dr Keller then goes on to look at the source of our uncleanness and how we should deal with it, by looking at the fact that we are unclean from the inside not the outside. The world looks at the outside, but God looks at the inside of us;

‘But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’ (1 Samuel 16:7)

We all know we are unclean. We try to hide bits of our lives that we are embarrassed or ashamed about, yet struggle to find the right way of addressing it and sorting it out. Dr Keller quotes from Mark 7: 17-19, were Jesus declared all foods clean. Through this Jesus taught that it’s not from the outside in that we become unclean but from the inside out. The source of our uncleanness is our heart. The smallest sin, whatever it is, can spread out of control and consume us like fire, pushing us further and further away from God. Dr Keller also quotes from Mark 9: 43-48 to illustrate the source of our uncleanness.

We need God to tackle the sin in our lives. We can’t do it on our own and yet we still try to clean ourselves up. Even as Christians we can sometimes think, as Dr Keller says;

‘If I pray and read my Bible, if I try really hard to be good, then God will see that I’m worthy and come in and heal my heart’ (p.76)

We can’t tackle the heart of the problem without God. It’s not a routine we have to go through, it’s just receiving the love and grace of God.

God sees what the world doesn’t see – He sees our hearts. Dr Keller then looks at Zechariah 3, which illustrates the rituals that occurred in the Temple to make the high priest as clean as possible. As Zechariah discovers, God still sees all the filth, all the sin and all the baggage. No matter how we try and clean ourselves up, we will still be filthy in the eyes of God, unless God intervenes. In the Old Testament, we see people trying to prevent themselves from getting dirty by using the cleanliness laws, yet as with the High Priest, they were still dirty and sinful. However, in the New Testament we see that Jesus fulfils the cleanliness laws and replaces them with his death and resurrection. Jesus’ blood has made us clean and can cover our sin.

In Chapter 8, ‘The Approach’, Dr Keller goes on to look at how we approach God. How do we ask Jesus to cover our sin when He is so holy? We do not deserve the love of God, far from it, and yet God loves us. When we approach God we should come with this mentality;

‘Give me what I don’t deserve on the basis of YOUR goodness’. (p.89)

We are nowhere near good enough to approach God, yet God loves us enough to allow us to approach him, and he accepts us.

Finally, Dr Keller goes on to look at what this means for our lives. We need to realise who Jesus really is. Jesus came and he had to die for our sins, He knew that was why He was on the earth. Mark 8:31 says, ‘He then began to teach them that the son of Man must suffer’. People believed God would send a saviour, one who would be strong and defeat evil, but not one who would die. We needed Jesus’ sacrifice. We were in debt to God, yet He still gave us everything because of His love for us. We need this unconditional, selfless love that God gives and we can’t give love like this unless God first loves us in this way. Jesus faced the most horrific death to save us and in the shedding of blood He gave us life – a life were we can be clean and Jesus can live in our heart.

We need to respond to Jesus, to the King. He tells us to take up our cross (Luke 9:23) and to lose ourselves in him (Luke 9:24). If we fix our eyes on Jesus, if we live in such a way that He is the centre and He is in control, then we will lose the ‘us’ that the world aspires to and we’ll find who we are truly meant to be, who God called us to be. How can we not love and trust a God who humbled himself and gave up everything to go to the cross for us?

Suzi Gardener

**This post is part of a series of posts that will take place in the run up to Easter, recording various Firwood members’ reflections as they read through Timothy Keller’s ‘King’s Cross’. Please feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments below. For more information, click here**