Satisfaction

Thanks for listening to this special podcast series, questioning Christianity. This short series is meant to address common questions people have about the claims of the Christian faith. In each podcast, Tim Keller addresses a variety of questions like, can there be moral absolutes? And how can you believe in something you can't prove?

We encourage you to share this podcast with others and discuss the topics addressed with friends. And for more content about exploring Christianity, visit gospelandlife.com slash explore. Every week we like to share a fun fact about Tim, and what we'll share tonight is that he's a very musical person, and in college he was actually the first chair trumpet in his orchestra, but he might say that it was because there was no trumpet.

majors at his college, a small university. But yes, he played many instruments, including trumpet. So please join me in welcoming Dr. Keller.

I'm glad you're here. The first week in this series, we said, and this is kind of the premise for everything else we're doing, the first week in this series, we said that there's no demonstrable, totally slam-dunk way to prove that there is a God, but it's also impossible to totally demonstrably prove that there isn't a God.

So, for example, many atheists would say, well, matter, the material world, generated itself. Matter generated itself. Or, they say, matter has always existed beginninglessly. without cause, even though there's nothing in this material world we know like that. So then the question comes, how would you prove that?

What experimental design would you use to prove a hypothesis like that? And the answer is you can't because it's not a scientific hypothesis. It's a statement of faith. And to live life... as if there is no God or on the base of no God is an act of faith. So what we said that first week was secularism is not the absence of belief, it's a different set of beliefs.

And secularism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam can't demonstrably prove their set of beliefs to everyone. But that doesn't mean they can't be compared. That doesn't mean we can't rationally interrogate and weigh sets of beliefs. That's what we're doing. You say, well, how do you do that? Well, one is you ask whether or not the belief system is...

consistent with experience. You can also ask if the belief system is consistent with evidence. So, what do you mean by consistent with experience? Well, is it livable? It's one thing to say, I believe this, but when you actually live it out, do you find yourself smuggling in values from other systems that are not in yours? In other words, is it livable? Is it consistent with experience?

our experience. And then, of course, is it consistent with evidence? There are arguments. They can't prove this completely. There's arguments for and against Jesus and God and so on. And what we're going to do in this series is weigh these things. Now, right now...

Last week, this week, next week. We're going to look at a number of things. We're actually in the livability way of comparing belief systems. We're looking at whether they fit our experience. They're consistent. And because everybody, regardless of what you believe, you've got to have the same things. You have to have meaning in life that can help you face suffering. You've got to have...

a satisfaction in life that's deep enough to get you through the ups and downs of circumstances. You have to have an identity that's strong enough to sustain you through the ups and downs of your own performance. You've got to have a basis for making moral judgments and doing justice that doesn't turn you into an oppressor yourself. And you've got to have a hope.

that enables you to face the future. So everybody has to have those things to live, and every set of beliefs gives you a working theory of how to get those things, and we're going to compare those working theories. and we're going to compare them. And, of course, even though I'm going to be trying, I hope you believe, trying to be as fair as I can to all the different belief systems, I am here to say that, arguably, Christianity has unequaled resources for those things.

Now, tonight we're going to look at the pursuit of happiness or satisfaction or contentment or fulfillment. And to a great degree, everything you're doing in life is a pursuit of happiness, satisfaction. contentment fulfillment. Should we search for it? And then why do we search for it? How do we search for it? And where should we search for it?

So let's start by asking the question, should we even search for it? Now, I'm only going to be brief on this, but I need to bring out honestly the fact that there are some people who say that the search for happiness, the quest for happiness, really is sort of a non-issue. Because most people are happy. So, for example, Julian Baggini and Tom Nagel, both philosophers, public intellectuals, they write a lot. And I've been very helped by both of their writings.

But what I think is interesting is they both make the same argument that they look at things that say most people say they're happy most of the time. There's a lot of surveys like that. almost all the surveys that you take when you ask people are you happy most people say they're happy most of the time and tom nagle and julian begini say and since nobody expects to be happy all the time anyway

What's the big deal? Most people say they're happy. It's a non-issue. There's no quest for happiness. Now, Terry Eagleton, who's a British literary critic and a very funny writer,

What he says is the depth of our problem is masked by the very word happiness. So what he would say is that, let's not use the word happy. In fact, what he says is, He says, the problem is, when you ask people to be happy, he says, happiness is, quote, a feeble holiday camp sort of word evocative of manic grins and cavorting about.

And then he goes and says, most people, if you ask them, are they happy, in most people's minds, happy means being okay to having some fun. So when you ask people if they're happy, they say, okay. But then he says, why don't you listen more carefully? Say, let's listen. Do you see how angry everybody is? Do you see it on social media? Do you see it in the media? Do you see how angry people are? There's always these explosions of rage and outrage, sometimes in violence.

Certainly, like I said, on social media. Or look at the depression and the suicide rates. A couple of years ago, I mean, everybody knows, for example, that at colleges there's like three, four, five times more people going to the mental health services. talking about depression, anxiety, and suicide. A couple years ago, there was an article in the New York Times saying, ah, maybe it's just because younger people are more willing to go get help. But recently, a very awful...

set of stats came out. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which is run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, what they do is they survey 600,000 people. Now, there's not just people going to, you know. seeking help, 600,000 people. Between 2009 and 2017, I'm just being very selective, reports of depression doubled for people in their early 20s, and suicide attempts doubled.

for people in their early 20s. And as a society, we aren't happy. We are not finding a depth of satisfaction. We are not.

we are maybe in denial about the depth of our discontent. But that word depth, I've used the word deep a couple of times, and here's why I wanted to talk about that. If Kathy was here, she would smile if I say this, and that is my wife, Kathy. She knows that I really would love a fireplace in my home. For the last 35 years, I have not had a fireplace in my home.

And she also knows it's enough of a sustained desire that I bring it up all the time. She knows that if I got a fireplace, if I lived in a place with a fireplace, I'd be incredibly delighted. But the fact of the matter is, if my work is going well, if my family is going well, if my relationships are going well, the lack of a fireplace does not really overshadow my life. Because...

When your more fundamental desires are satisfied, then frustration of more superficial desires is something you can manage. Got that? When the more fundamental desires are... fulfilled, the more you can handle frustration of the more superficial desires. But that's why we search. Because what happens if you go after the

the kind of things that should be as fundamental as there can be. In other words, the things that really should make you really, really, really sustained, deeply happy. Like your career. What if you get far more successful than you ever thought you would be? Like love, like family, like relationships, what if they're all fine and you're still not satisfied? Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist, wrote a book that...

he's not well known for but it's a terrific little book called The Happiness Hypothesis and he looks at the history of western thought and eastern thought to see how people approached happiness. And he says the surprising, overwhelming consensus of the philosophers and the sages of ancient times, East, West, Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian.

The overwhelming consensus of the sages and philosophers of ancient times was that even if all the deepest desires for worldly success and love are fulfilled, it won't be enough. you will still be dissatisfied. You will still be deeply dissatisfied. And therefore, it seems like we're searching for something deeper still than...

all the things that we would ordinarily think, yeah, that should be enough, that should be enough. There was a Roman poet named Horace, you may have heard of him. He had the fortune, the good fortune, of really befriending a great guy, and they became close friends, and after a while, his friend became Caesar Augustus. That's hitting the jackpot. So one of his best friends becomes the emperor of the world. Not bad.

And Horace is what happened to be a good poet as well. And so in the middle of his career, he had reached the heights. He was the leading intellectual light in the Roman world, the leading artist. He had wealth. He lived in a palace. He had fame. He had fortune. He was at the apex. And Horace said, no one lives content. No one lives content. Think of who's saying that.

He's saying, I've been to the top and there's nothing there. A lot more funny and still, I think, unsurpassable expression of this ancient truth was written by Cynthia Heimel. who wrote in the Village Voice years ago. She had a column in the Village Voice. And she had known, in the 1980s, she knew a couple of people who became big movie stars. And I'm leaving their names out just because it's a little bit of cruel, but you know who they are too.

Except if I told you the names, but I won't. And she said she knew some movie stars who she had known them when one was working behind the cosmetic counter at Macy's and one was a bouncer at a club in the village. And then they became incredibly famous, big celebrities, movie stars. And she noticed as they got big and successful, they were, if anything, more unhappy, more angry, and more mean than they'd ever been. And this is what she wrote.

She said that giant thing they were striving for, that fame thing that was going to make everything okay, that was going to make their lives bearable, that was going to provide them with personal fulfillment and ha-ha happiness had happened. And they were still them. Their disillusionment turned them howling and insufferable. And then she adds, and it's a remarkable statement.

She says, I think if God really wants to play a rotten practical joke on you, he grants your deepest wish and then giggles merrily as you suddenly realize you want to kill yourself. And you know, that's very cheeky and very funny. But it's exactly what Jonathan Haidt says was the consensus of all the philosophers and sages of the ancient times.

C.S. Lewis puts it awfully well, not quite as funny, of course, but extremely clearly in his famous BBC radio talk. And this actually distills everything that Jonathan Haidt would tell you if you went to. Cicero or if you went to Confucius or you went to anybody in the ancient times Lewis summarizes the thesis like this most people if they really learned how to look into their own hearts

would know that they do want and want acutely something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never keep their promise. arise in us when we first fall in love or first think of some foreign country or first take up some subject that excites us or first start a new job. Our longings which no marriage

No travel, no learning can really satisfy. I am not speaking of what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages or trips or so on. I'm speaking of the very best possible ones. But there's always something we grasp at in the first moment of longing that just fades away in the reality. The spouse may be a good spouse. The scenery has been excellent. It's turned out to be a wonderful job, but it has evaded us. It. There's something deeper. Here's the fireplace. Here's career.

you know, romance and family and all the things you think should be enough, there's something below that. There's something deeper. It. There is something deeper. As deeper than success or family, then success or family is deeper than a fireplace. What is it? Lewis just calls it it.

There's something deeper still, and we're after. And the greatest success doesn't give it to us. The greatest family, the greatest romance, the greatest accomplishment doesn't give it to us. You know the classic U2 album, Joshua Tree? song. It's all about that. Bono sings, I've climbed the highest mountain, I've scaled the city walls, I've kissed honey lips, is that it? But I still haven't found what I'm looking for. That's the same thing. Now, here's the question.

Once you come up against this fact that, you know, here's the superficial desires and here's the deeper desires and you fulfill those deeper desires. And there's something deeper still that we don't even know what it is, but it's just these things are not giving us satisfaction. What do you do then? What do you do when you realize all those things won't satisfy? And Jonathan Haidt, that's what's so great about this book. He says basically there's two ways.

He calls it the ancient way and the modern way. Now, he says the ancient way, and it is remarkable, he talks about the fact that East and West were pretty much the same. The ancient way, here's how he responded to this fact. The ancient way was to say... It is not out there. It's an illusion that there's an it. There's an illusion that there's anything out there that will ever satisfy you. So stop searching for it and suppress your desires for it. That's the ancient way.

Actually, I think I might have even quoted this last week. Ancient Greek philosophers would say, you attach your heart from anything. So Epictetus, who was a Greek philosopher. This is a quote. Last week I didn't have the quote. He says, what harm is there that while you're kissing your child in the morning you should murmur softly to yourself, tomorrow you will die.

And what Epictetus is trying to say is emotional self-control, detach, be kind to your child, but don't love your child too much. Don't get too emotionally attached because this world is like a forest. and every tree is coming down, so don't make your nest in any of them. Now, Buddhism, as some of you know, is actually based on this idea, that the idea you can find...

satisfaction, it, in the things of this world, that is a total illusion. In fact, that's what Buddhism is all about. All your suffering, all your discontent, all your problems come from the idea that this world can satisfy you. What you need to do is realize that the world is due. That's a very famous Buddhist metaphor. The world is due, D-E-W. And that you are all dew drops.

temporarily individuals, and eventually when we die, we go back into the ocean, dew drops go into the ocean, and we still exist, but we're not individuals, we're not personal, and so it's an illusion that you're an individual. It's an illusion that you're a person. Love is an illusion. We're all one. Whether you're poor or you're rich, it doesn't matter. It's all kind of an illusion. We're all one. And so...

Buddhist meditation tries to get past that. But it's the same thing as Epictetus. Basically, what you have to say is, it is not out there. And you need to suppress your desires. That's the ancient way. Thank you for listening to Questioning Christianity. If you're exploring the claims of Christianity, we would like to send you a free book, Making Sense of God by New York Times bestselling author Tim Keller.

Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it's easy to wonder, why would anyone believe in Christianity? As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. In this book, Dr. Keller demonstrates how Christianity provides modern people with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs.

To request your free copy, go to gospelinlife.com slash free. Free copies will be shipped while supplies last. Again, that's gospelinlife.com slash free. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of his talk.

But the modern way, Jonathan Haidt says, is exactly the opposite. The ancient way is it is not out there, and the modern way is it, happiness, is out there, and you need to pursue your passion, and you don't let anybody tell you. that you can't do it. You figure out what will make you happy, you decide what that is, and then you don't let anybody stand in your way. But, as Jonathan Haidt says, what happens is, the ancients weren't crazy.

Because when modern people start to get some of these accomplishments, they are surprised. They've begun to realize what everybody else does eventually. And that is it's not that satisfying. It's disappointing. It's much more disappointing than I thought it would be.

Then what happens? And there's four things that can happen to modern people, actually a fifth. I'll talk to you about that in a way. But there's mainly four things that can happen. Because modern people still are sure it's out there. and we have to pursue our passion. So when they start to get disappointed, what happens? There's four things that can happen. One is they can become perpetually frantic. You know why?

Some people, when they realize they're being disappointed, they haven't found it, but they think it is still out there. They blame the things. They have a good job. They have a good spouse. But I'm not happy. it must be the job and the spouse. I need a better job, I need a better spouse, and then I'll be happy. Now, that's partly true in the sense that all jobs and all spouses have flaws. And then there's a certain amount of...

warrant to saying, well, there must be something wrong with these things. But the perpetually frantic person is someone who just keeps working and it's perpetually driven because if I'm not happy, it's because I need... more money, I need a better job, I need a better spouse, I need a better body, I need these things. And so the perpetually frantic blame the things, but of course…

they become exhausted with their franticness and their pursuit of them. Secondly, you can become perpetually angry. Perpetually angry people believe it is out there but I don't have it so they don't blame the things they blame social forces they say the reason I'm unhappy is that there's groups or people or social structures out there that are keeping me from being everything I should be

keeping me from being free to pursue everything. And so these people become activists. They don't blame the things, they blame society, they blame social forces, and they become activists. And again, there's some truth in it, because there really are unjust social forces. But in light of history, what you want to say is, hey, there's nothing wrong with seeking justice and freedom, but guess what? When you get it, if you get it, you're going to be as unhappy as the free people are.

You can look at them and, oh, they must be happy. They're not happy. So you can be perpetually frantic because you blame the things. You can be perpetually angry because you blame social forces. Thirdly, you can be... perpetually self-hating because you blame yourself. One of the reasons you look around, I'm not happy. It must be my fault. It must be my fault. It must be something I'm doing. I must be a failure. It's out there.

And if I don't have it, it's something wrong with me. And of course, again, there's some truth to that. There's always something wrong with you, whoever you are. But, of course, if that's how you deal with it, if you say it's out there, I don't have it, you're not blaming the things, you're not blaming social forces, you're blaming yourself, you are in an incredibly vulnerable position.

Of course it leads to depression. Of course it leads to addiction. Of course it can lead to suicide. It's very, very bad and very dangerous. But there's a fourth way you can go, and that is you can get deeply cynical. In C.S. Lewis' famous radio talk I've already quoted, and I'll quote it again in a second, he believes that one of the things that happens when you realize...

that these most fundamental things in life can't give you satisfaction. One of the things you do is you become what he called the disillusioned, sensible person. The disillusioned, sensible person who says, Well, by the time you get to my age, you've given up chasing the rainbows in. And so, Lewis says, the disillusioned, sensible people repress that part of themselves that they say used to cry for the moon.

you say, oh, well, they're just being like the Buddhists or like the Greek philosophers. No. Because I think what Lewis hints at, what I'm going to tell you, is if you start out as a modern person, sure that it is out there, and you finally, after years, realize it's not there. Nobody will be happy. Just stop trying to be happy. Just forget all about it. You're going to be a lot more bitter.

There's going to be a lot more bitterness than the ancients had. And here's the trouble with it. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger at one point says, excuse me, between a human being and an animal, is animals are quite happy just to survive, and human beings never are. He goes on and he says, human beings want joy, they want meaning, they want fulfillment, and if you decide...

All I can do is survive. And not try to look for joy and fulfillment. If you kill the part of the heart that wants that. So you won't be disappointed. So you won't continue to be disappointed. You get hard and cynical. You kill that part of your heart. Don't get your hopes up. You're killing the part of your heart that makes you different from animals. You're dehumanizing yourself. You're hardening yourself.

And so there you are. Once you come up against this reality that your deepest desires for happiness and satisfaction cannot be fulfilled by anything in this world. You either can take the ancient way, which I think detaches you, basically tamps down love, it admits it, can harden you, or else the modern way, which is you're perpetually exhausted.

with franticness or exhausted with depression or exhausted with anger. Is there another way? Yeah. It's the Christian way and... I would be more specific than that. I would like you to look for a moment with me at both the life and the teaching of St. Augustine, one of the greatest thinkers in history of the world and certainly one of the greatest thinkers in the history of the church.

Now, St. Augustine was an African, born and raised in Africa, North Africa, of course, and he was probably a Berber, meaning he was probably dark-skinned. And St. Augustine was... He was in a marginal part of the Roman Empire and he was a marginal race. But he longed to be on the inside. Because he was brilliant. He was brilliant. And he so much wanted to go to the big city.

and to get educated and to be admitted into the elite circles, the intellectual circles, and he also wanted to have sex. So he moved to Carthage. And there in Carthage, which was the most cosmopolitan possible city in Africa, he did get educated. He started to get into the... the the intellectual world and he started to he had started to experience sexual love but he was pretty unhappy because Carthage in the end he decided this was a backwater this isn't happy it's not making me happy

I'm disappointed. So he found a way to get to Rome and he set up as a tutor in Rome. But when he got to Rome, he was still unhappy and he wasn't content, even though he was closer to power and he was moving on up. and he was meeting more powerful people, but he still found an emptiness inside. So then he finally figured out a way to get to Milan, which Milan was the seat of the Roman Empire, and he actually were the emperors.

was, and he actually began to enter into the administration of the imperial administration. He thought, I've reached the top, and it still wasn't enough. And he started to experience this disillusionment, like, I'm getting to the top, and I mean, there's nothing here. And then he read a book by Cicero called Hortensius. We actually, the only reason we even know about it or what we know about it comes from Augustine because it's been lost.

But basically the book said, you're never going to, it was Cicero, it was one of the ancient philosophers, and Cicero said, you know what, you're never going to be happy. Sex isn't going to do it, family's not going to do it, you know, success isn't going to do it. Intellectual attainment is not going to do it. You're never going to find pleasure and joy in success. And therefore, turn to philosophy. Get philosophical.

Augustine started going to philosophy, but eventually led him to Christianity. And he finally realized something. Now, here's the famous quote. I mean, here's two quotes. One you haven't heard before, but one you may have. He said, my mistake, I realized, consisted in this, that I sought pleasure and sublimity, not in God, but in creation, in myself and other created beings.

And then more famously he said to God, to worship you is the deepest desire of humanity for you have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it finds its rest and fulfillment in you.

You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless till it finds its rest and fulfillment in you. Now here's the revolutionary thing that Augustine saw. First of all, he said, the ancient philosophers and sages are wrong. It is out there. There is something that will satisfy the deepest recesses of your heart. But, he said, he had been wrong, and of course...

all modern people are wrong, because it is not something you can find inside the confines of the world. What is it? He says, what we're after, the deepest need of our heart... is to love and be loved by God who made us for that. He made us for himself. He made us for that. And therefore, our hearts are restless till they find it at rest in thee. There's an emptiness. There's a cavity that only God could possibly fulfill.

And if you love anything more than God, see, excuse me, we know this at the addiction level. Addiction to substances, we all know this. When you start to get addicted to a substance, The substance gives you a high at first, but it wears off. And then you need more of the substance to get the same high, and then that begins to wear off. And then you need more and more, so you become enslaved and increasingly empty. But what Augustine saw...

was everything is actually like that. If you love anything more than God, the very same spiral starts. It starts off seeming like it's going to give you a high, and then it wears off, and then he did more, and then he did more, and then he did more, until you become absolutely empty and addicted. And he says, that's the answer. The answer is not that you should love your little boy less, like Epictetus says, but you should love God more and enjoy the love of God more.

Don't love your child less. Don't love your career less. Love God more in relationship to your child. And then the child and the career will no longer, you will no longer be seeking to have those things do the same work in your heart that only God can do. And so you don't love them less. If you love God more and you rest more in God's love, those things, you no longer look to them to do work in your heart that only God can do, and therefore the franticness or the anger and or the depression.

starts to diminish. You're not loving those things less. You're not less engaged. You're not doing the stoic thing, the Buddhist thing. You're not doing the ancient thing. You attach your heart. You love them, but because God... has a supremacy in your life, and that's what you're created for, that's the Augustinian theology, philosophy, then when you love God more, you love everything else better. Look, let me just get down.

If I don't love God more than I love Kathy, I love Kathy terribly because I crush her with my expectations. I can't take her criticism. I can't take it if she fails me in any way. Only if I love God more than I love Kathy will I actually stop trying to make Kathy do things that only God can do for me. And I love Kathy better. I love her more freely. That's Augustinianism. That's Christianity.

And that's the gospel. And that's not only an existential, but it's also actually a rational argument for the truth of Christianity. C.S. Lewis puts it like this. This is his, you know, you might say this is his conclusion. uh of this chapter I've been quoting he says I'll do it slowly because it's it's a it's a rational argument he says so duckling ducklings are born wanting to swim

There's such a thing as water. Babies are born wanting to suck. There's such a thing as milk. And if I find myself in myself... a longing which this world cannot meet, then it probably means I was made for another world. See, that was a rational and an existential argument for Christianity fitting our experience.

Now, you might say, how does that actually work? You say, this sounds really interesting, but how does that actually work? So let's conclude by telling you three ways. I'm not proving Christianity here. I'm telling you... how it works, how it actually gives you something I don't think the ancient way, the modern way, any other religion, secularism, they just can't give you. So I'm not trying to prove it. I'm just trying to show if you believe it, here's how it works.

Three things to tell you about how it works. Number one, you'll never be happy if you go to God to make you happy. That's the first thing. And I'm being Augustinian here. You say, what do you mean? Well, what if you say, and you might.

And by the way, we're going to go upstairs and talk afterwards, and so I'm just going to try to say, please don't come up to me and say this, because I'll say, I told you not to say that, but actually I'll be nice anyway, no matter what. You know, because for all I know, you might have just, I'm not the, you know.

You might be snoozing right now and missing what I'm about to say, but you can't go to God and say, oh, okay, if I love God, I'll be happy. Great. Okay. Let me love God so I'll be happy. That's not loving God. That's using God. What if somebody came to you and said, I want to be your friend. Oh, really? Yeah, because you can open doors for me and you can meet people and get me jobs and, you know, help me in all kinds of ways. And you say,

I don't feel like a friend. I feel like a tool. In other words, you're not loving me because loving a person means loving them for who they are, not what they can do for you. Otherwise, it's just an instrument. You realize that. And so the first principle of this, if Augustine is right, and I believe he is, that the only way that you are ever going to find anything like satisfaction is if your loves are reordered.

So you don't love certain things less, but that you reorder them so that you love God more and you rest in God's love more. so your loves are reordered. If that's true, the only way for your loves to be reordered is to love God, and you can't go to Him to make you happy. The only way you ever will be happy is if you go to Him just because you love Him.

And then you'll be happy only as a byproduct. Aim at heaven and you'll get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you'll get neither. So that's the first idea. Keep that in mind. Second, though, is how does it actually work? And here's where Christianity has a leg up on other monotheistic religions. With all due respect, hat in my hand here. If somebody says,

to me, how can you love God? I mean, how do I just say, okay, I've got to love God. I buy the theory. I've got to love God. How does that work? I'm trying. It doesn't work that way. I don't know how you can love an abstraction. I don't know, you know, I can describe God. There is God in heaven and he created you and he's this and he's that. Is that going to make you love? Where Christianity has a leg up on all other religions is.

Christianity says that God came to earth in the form of Jesus Christ and died for us and saved us at infinite cost. Now, again, I told you I'm not here to explain all that and prove it. I'm trying to tell you how it works. One of the best ways to do that is to tell you a story. This is a story about one of the czars of old...

old Russia before the communist revolution. I haven't been able to track it down, but it's a helpful illustration. So the story goes like this. The Russian czar had a friend. And this friend, dear friend, and this friend was dying of something. And this friend came to his, the czar came to see him and he said, would you please raise my son? My son is only eight years old or something like that. And he will be, and my wife is dead. So would you please.

That would be a great thing for you to do. And the czar says, I am your friend, you are my friend, and I will do that. So the man dies, and the czar adopts the boy. Raises him up, loves him, gives him a great... gives him a great education, and he goes into the army, and he gets up into a higher rank, and he becomes an administrator of a particular regiment. But he gets into gambling, and he keeps it a secret.

But as the gambling debts accrue, he starts to have to embezzle army funds, regiment funds, to make good his debts. And it's getting worse, and it's getting worse. And one night, he looks at the books, and he realizes the jig is up. And there's absolutely no way he's not going to be found out. And he says, the shame and the dishonor will be too much. I'm going to have to kill myself. So he gets out a revolver and he also gets out something to drink.

some alcohol, because he wants to get his nerve up. So he drinks and drinks to get his nerve up, and he drinks too much and he passes out. Now this particular czar, the story goes, was a czar not unlike Henry V. by the way, in the Shakespeare play.

who sometimes would dress up as an enlisted man, dress up as a corporal, as a poor man, disguise himself, and go out amongst his troops to see what the morale was like. Basically, go out amongst the people and see what it was like. So he was in disguise, and he was moving around.

the camp, and he comes into the tent, and he sees his adopted son, and he sees him passed out, and he sees the gun, and he sees the open books, and he looks at it, and he realizes everything that happened. And when the young man wakes up, There is a note that says, I, the czar, will make good this debt for my own personal wealth. I am good for this entire debt.

It was signed, and his insignia was on it. And the young man said, the czar has seen me, and he's seen everything, and he knows what I've done, and he still loved me. Not only that, he's saving me at infinite cost to himself, his own honor and also financial. Now, see, that actually is the Christian, basically the Christian gospel.

God created us, and we owe him everything, but we've turned away from him. And now God has come down in the form of Jesus Christ, and as it was, he's become one of us. He's come out among us, and he's looked into our hearts, and he's seen everything that's there. And he went to the cross to pay the debt. Again, I'm not explaining all this. I'm just telling you how it operates. And if you believe that and you see what he did for you, how precious we must be to him, then...

that makes him precious to you. If you see how precious we are to him and what he was willing to do for us, that begins to make him precious to you. Uh-oh, you're starting to love. It evokes love. I don't know any other way to do it. But that's how it begins. And here's the last point. So the first point is you can't go to God to make you happy. You have to go to God to love him for what he has done, or otherwise you won't be happy. Secondly, you have to see...

that how the love of God is evoked in your heart by looking at what he did in Jesus Christ. That's how the Christian thing works. Here's one last thing. The love of Christ, God, that you experience in this life is always partial, but it's sufficient.

It is never enough. It doesn't completely satisfy you. There are moments of incredible joy, but they are nothing but moments. And yet, even the very hope of it and the experience of it and the taste of it is what sustains you. It's always partial, but it's... It's sufficient. So that's it. And at this point, I'm just trying to show you that there are things that Christianity gives you as a way of finding that satisfaction, I think.

do a better job of dealing with our actual experience and our actual need than any other particular source of any other set of beliefs. So I'm going to ask Susan to come up here and start to take your questions and we'll spend some time on that.

Thanks for listening today to Tim Keller on the Questioning Christianity podcast. We encourage you to subscribe and share this podcast series with others and discuss them with a friend. We hope you'll go on to listen to the Q&A session for this talk in the episode that follows. And remember that you can find more content about exploring Christianity by visiting gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com.

The Questioning Christianity talks in this series were recorded in 2019 in New York City, where Dr. Keller spoke with a local live gathering made up of attendees who did not identify as Christian and their Christian friends who invited them.