Yesterday, I listened to a sermon by Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan. This excerpt convicted me of my comfortable, moralistic Christianity.
Now a user and a servant sit together in the same pews in churches, and the question is: how do you tell the difference? It is their prayer life. For example, a user will only pray when he/she is in trouble . . . there is no desire to serve and know the Master. It is just a desire to get what needs to be gotten . . . A user and a servant differ utterly when [their] prayers are not answered. A servant knows that the one he is praying to is a father and when your father doesn't give you what you want, you can wrestle and struggle with that, but you still know He's a father. So you say, "I don't like this and I'm upset about it, but I know this: I can't make you jump through hoops for me. I am not in this religion for you to serve me. I am in this religion to serve you." But a user, when you pray and pray and you're not getting what you want, says, "What good is this religion?" [So] all along [the user]was using God.
Download the sermon for free: Here
(HT: McCoy)
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