welcome to gospel and life thank you for joining us we go through this special series of meditations by Tim Keller trusting God and difficult times this new series is meant to encourage you to trust God more deeply and to meditate on his word and what it promises to give you strength and hope in difficult times and now here’s today’s meditation let me read from psalm 46 verses 1 to 4 and then two other verses God is our refuge and strength an ever-present help in trouble therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea there is a river whose streams make glad the City of God the Lord is with us and he says be still and know that I am God now this is a very very famous psalm of course and it’s also a great song for times of anxiety and fear and it’s more eloquent than maybe any other song when it talks about we will not fear though the earth be removed and the mountains fall into the midst of the sea it’s interesting that when psalm 46 was written it was normal to besieged cities and sometimes you actually could sack a city you could get through the walls and you could defeat it they surely thought it was exaggerating to say that the mountains could fall in the midst of the sea but today we do have bombs that could do that we actually are facing things like that it’s possible human beings are able to do that so what is talking about our earthly cities which can be besieged they can be bombed they can be destroyed and it’s contrasting that with a heavenly City the City of God when it says there is a river whose streams make glad the City of God what it’s telling us this when an earthly City had a river running through it it actually made it harder to besiege it if it actually had a supply of water and maybe even fish and things like that it was more difficult for the the invading army to bring it but what this is saying is the heavenly City has a river it’s the Spirit of God it’s the it’s the power of God that means well any earthly city can be destroyed the heavenly City cannot be destroyed now what Matt what what difference does that make every Christian is a citizen of some earthly City I’m a citizen of New York City but every Christians real citizenship is in the heavenly City so you have places like Philippians 3 verse 20 that says our citizenship is in heaven that’s our true and most foundational citizenship Luke chapter 10 verse 20 says our names are written in heaven you see if you want to be if you’re not a natural-born citizen to the United States and you come here and you want to be a citizen you have to learn things you have to take classes there’s things you have to do you have to stay out of trouble of course you can’t be in you can’t do crime and therefore you have to in a sense earn your citizenship but we are told that our names are already written in heaven by the grace of God they’re already inscribed there so what this is telling us is the benefits of earthly citizenship can be taken away from you there’s all sorts of things that can do it what are the benefits of earthly citizenship well I can vote choose my leaders I can I have rights I have rights in court I have rights to public schools I have rights to medical care I’ve write all sorts of rights but of course if there’s a there’s all sorts of things that can take those rights away a plague a war there’s all kinds of things that can sweep away the benefits of my earthly citizenship but nothing can take away my the benefits of my heavenly citizenship head citizenship nothing at all what are those benefits Jonathan Edwards wrote a sermon when he was just of eighteen years old it’s the first sermon we know he ever preached certainly the first time we ever had and it’s on Christian happiness and this basic three points of his sermons are this that basically three points were this if you’re a Christian you’re back things were turn out for good you’re good things can never be taken away from you and the best things we get to come bad things will turn out for good Romans 8:28 if you’re a Christian then all things work together for good to those who call are called according to God’s purpose and we’re loved by God secondly your good things cannot be taken away from you what are those good things you’re justified by faith you’re adopted and you’re now a child of God he’s not just your boss or your king he’s your father you have the Holy Spirit in you these things can never be taken away and the best things are yet to come – the worst thing that can happen to a Christian is that you die and then of course all that does is actually put you into the father’s arms puts you right before the glory and beauty of Jesus Christ and so Jonathan Evert said if you know all these things you don’t have to be afraid let me just read you a fascinating quote by from a from Jonathan Byrd’s sermon he’s only 18 years old miss what he said how joyful and gladsome must the thoughts of Jesus Christ be to a Christian – think how great a love Christ has for us even to lay down his life and suffer the most bitter torments for our sake who also now continually intercedes for us at the throne of grace – consider that so great a person as the eternal son of God who also made the world’s is not ashamed to call us brethren who will come in and sup with us and us with him and we will see his arms expanded to embrace us and we will see him offering himself to be embraced by us therefore you may now look down upon the whole army of worldly afflictions and suffering and you can consider with joy that however great they are and however numerous even though they might join all their forces together against you and put on their most rueful and dreadful habits forms and appearances and spend all their strength vigor and violence against you they cannot do you any real hurt or mischief and it will all be in vain you may triumph over them all if you know these things and now here’s Tim and Kathy killer for a short time of qat on today’s meditation [Music] when you were reading the scripture the first that really jumped out at me was be still and know that I am God and the women in my Bible study that I was talking to we had a zoom Bible study on Thursday one of the topics that kept getting kicked around was how can we utilize this time of quarantine and lockdown etc so that we come out on the other side stronger better wiser smarter so you have any ideas on you know here we are within a period of enforced stillness who would have ever thought that you could do such a thing in New York City is the city that never sleeps us now you know forced to be still it’s the whole thing the lockdown all of the whole thing is going to be just wasted if we come out on the other side having not changed a bit spiritually grown grown is in our relationships personally just give me some I mean this has come up in my ladies BIOS slave I’m sure it’s come up in the minds of a lot of other people is what do we do with this time so that we come out on the other side stronger better wiser I think that’s a very wise thing to pick up on being still there there’s been plenty of things read written about the fact that we are the least contemplative culture in history people have no time I mean I read from Jonathan Edwards and I do know that Edwards spent a lot of time riding on his horse from place to place it would take him an hour to get to you know sign to to go see a a parishioner and on the way he would think and pray and actually one of the one of the funny things is that what he would do is when he would get an idea he would take notes and he would pin them to his coat because I was the only thing he could do and so sometimes he would arrive at a prisoner’s place with with little we look like a pin cushion but that’s because he had time to think and we do not and I do think that what we have to do is we have to cultivate contemplative habit of habits it does mean praying more but I mean really learning how to pray it does mean maybe praying morning and evening it does mean reading the Psalms it does mean perhaps I’d hate to call it journaling I when I’m reading the Bible I find because of my temperament or maybe as my with the way in which I learned things if I write down my thoughts I remember them better and they become more clear it’s not really journaling it’s not really a diary it’s just writing out what I’m reading and very often it’s easier for me to meditate on it and pray it back to God if I’ve written it down so I don’t know what your contemplatively but we are we are the least contemplative busiest most mobile running around group of people I know and the big danger is where I still on our cell phones at home yeah and if you just so you’d be just as dominated you really do need solitude you do need to get you know into your prayer closet and this is the time to do it because we don’t have the commutes we actually can make time for that right now and I do think therefore being still in order to meet God would be a wonderful slogan for this time it might fall on deaf ears if you’re talking to parents who are trying to work at home and you’re not a couple of kids under quite a bad though well they do go to bed and there’s such a thing as trading off morning and evening that sort of thing so ok well that’s good advice I read a book I didn’t mean a book I read the title of a book years ago called don’t waste your sorrows right bye Paul Bill Hemmer I think it’s funny and never never read the book never read the content because the title was so challenging I didn’t feel I felt like I didn’t really in some ways it’s a good book but actually the Tarot says it all right so here we are in a time of sorrow and can and everything’s don’t waste your side down yeah don’t waste your shut down don’t waste your confinement don’t waste your quarantine get something out of it you don’t just do it your teeth and say once it’s gonna be over but find ways to use what you’ve been given I agreed if you found today’s meditation encouraging please subscribe below and be sure to share it with a friend to encourage them as well and if you’d like to hear more teachings by Tim Keller you can listen to new sermons every week at gospel and live.com slash podcast thanks again for watching gospel and life [Music]