Keynote: Tim Keller - An Identity That Can Handle Either Success or Failure

thanks oh gosh I'm kind of tall can you hear me yeah uh by the way I was looking at my uh driver's license JY and uh you had to tell skip but my you know what my middle name is it's James you know that you had no idea does anybody else see what's going on around here sorry yeah uh yeah these talks might be disperate but you watch they're not going to be that disperate those four talks even though John and I haven't talked to each other at all about uh uh our themes what we're

going to talk about but and tomorrow I'll tell you why I'm doing my two talks in this order but I won't talk to you about it now I can just say what I like to to say today and tomorrow it's not going to be light Fair uh it's not going to be light Fair intellectually it's not going to be light Fair uh spiritually because because the issues are are life and death issues I tonight want to talk about identity identity is the moral absolute the only one in our culture today and that is you've got

to be yourself that's the only moral absolute there is on the other hand it's kind of at the heart of what it means to be a Christian because Christians are not people who are just trying to be better people Christians are people who've gotten a new identity as a gift we're going to get back to that so what I want to do and and by the way there's two things identity is sort of at the heart of what makes our culture what it is now identity is kind of at the heart of what the gospel

is all about too uh I want to talk first about our late modern cultures approach to Identity and then the Christian alternative but I'm going to spend plenty of time on the our culture's approach to Identity and you know why because most Christians are affected by it in a very deep way and don't know it they subscribe to the doctrines they believe the Bible and yet they're operating out of the cultural Narrative of identity that the late modern culture has given it's one of the reasons why tomorrow when I talk about change it's one of

the reasons why we don't change it's one of the reasons why we very often embrace the Christian faith but we don't change because we're actually uh more conformed to the world's understanding of identity than the Christian understanding so I got to spend half my time on the cultures understanding of identity and what's wrong with it then I'll spend the other half of my time on the Christian alternative the Christian understanding of human identity and the glories of it so first just for like 90 seconds what's an identity an identity is a stable self- understanding a

it's like this is the core this is who I most fundamentally am yeah I'm a father Yes I'm a son yes I work here yes I do this yes I have all these but what am I most fundamentally what am I really about who am I really that's the stable core and then self-regard self- understanding and self-regard self-regard is well how do I feel about that am I happy with that do I feel good about that so identity is your self- understanding who you really think you are most fundamentally and then whether you feel good

about it or not now let me give you the cultures approach to Identity and then the Christian the first the culture's approach look every culture without calling it this gives you an identity formation process every culture says this is how you can determine who you are and how well your self-worth your self value how well you should feel about yourself every culture does that no you know no culture uses the term and every culture pushes an identity process on you as the only one in our culture you'll understand it better if you contrast it with

other cultures in traditional cultures in ancient cultures and in non-western cultures today basically your identity comes from the role in your family and in your clan and in your community that's assigned to you and then your self-worth and esteem to depends on how well you fulfill that role so in non-western in traditional in ancient cultures who are you you're a father or a mother you're a son or a daughter uh you know you are a husband or a wife first who you are in the group who you are in the family that's who you are

and if you fulfill that role then you should feel good about yourself then the culture bestows Honor on you your you're an honorable person you should feel very good about yourself you have high self-esteem because you're a good son a good father a good husband because you fulfill your role in the clan uh in the in the community now modern culture reverses that listen carefully modern culture says your identity and your self-worth is not based on sublimating your interests and your desires for the good of the family no identity happens you become yourself when you

assert when you when you assert your desires you assert you assert your interests and you live the way you want to live in spite of what your family or anybody else tells you it's it's exactly the reverse uh in ancient cultures identity and self-worth was based on self-sacrifice in our culture it's based on self assertion in ancient cultures was self-renunciation deny yourself in favor of of the greater good of the community in our culture you're told no no no you must never do that you must be yourself you have to look into your heart and

you see what your desires are and your dreams and you must follow those dreams no matter what anybody says to you so you see the two the two cultures are utterly and absolutely different so in modern culture the the the way we we talk is no one has the right to tell me who I am I look into myself I see my deepest desires and my dreams and I'm becoming myself as I realize those no matter what anybody tells me now there's lots of just to give you all kinds of both of examples to show

how it works you know you know for example I remember some years ago watching an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation not that I read watched many of those but there's a place where Jean Luke peard is talking to a young guy who wants to go into Starfleet Academy and he says I forget what the guy's name is the character's name but he says son he says if you want to go to Starfleet Academy if you aspire to that great great but don't do it because I want you to do it don't do it

because your mother wants you to do it don't do it because I'd be proud of you don't do it because your mother proud of you will be proud of do it because you want to do it because you decide it's a good thing only you can determine what is right or wrong for you and only you can bestow Honor on yourself that's what he said um a completely different example but just to show you how overwhelmingly how much consensus there is about this in 1970s a lot of you too old remember this but there was

a a woman uh no the other way around the woman I would it's late I was trying to catch you uh Gail sheii wrote a book called passages in the 1970s was a major bestseller and it was really one of the ways after World War II in which uh this approach to Identity became popularized and at one point in it for example she says this here's a quote she says she says when you are moving away from institutional claims and other people's agendas when you're moving away from external valuations and accreditations you are moving out

of roles and into yourself now her whole idea was you hear that don't worry about what other people say about you external evaluations external accreditations you move away from that and the way you become a self is you say I accredit myself I don't care what you think I don't care what you say I determine who I am and this is the only heroic narrative practically we've got left in popular culture watch the sitcoms watch the Walt Disney movies go going back even to the 80s over and over and over again what you have is

not quests now if you have something like Lord of the Rings or something like that that was based on a man's uh the author who understood stories from the ancient times but by and large most of the moral narratives the heroic narratives are some individual saying I'm going to I don't care what my family wants me to do I don't care what my Society wants me to do I have to set out on my own course Littlest Mermaid for example The Little Mermaid was an example of that one of the first ones but the most

recent perfect example of this is frozen right and there's that great song and it's a great song by the way that Elsa sings and she says what she says you got to let it go can't hold it back whatever's inside don't be the good girl they always want you to be and I don't care what they're going to say I mean Robert Bella wrote a book uh called the habits of the heart with a bunch of other people uh 1980s habits of the heart extraordinarily important book he says that the uh the modern understanding of

identity is based he called it expressive individualism you have to look in your heart see what you most want to do and express that or you're not becoming yourself and you couldn't possibly have a better theme song written of of expressive individualism then let it go because it's all about the fact that I completely reject identity through self-sacrifice I completely reject identity through renouncing my self-interest and sacrificing for the greater good I'm going to be who I want to be I'm going to be who I am I'm going to express what's inside expressive individualism and

that's how modern culture is telling you you get an identity how you figure out who you are how you get selfworth that's how you do it you know in in a thousand 1,00 years ago there was a poem written called The Battle of Malden it's in Old English Anglo-Saxon and it's about Warriors I think it's the Anglo-Saxons are fighting the Danes and and and they're losing and the Anglo-Saxons instead of running away and uh you know saving their own skins brith Wald shakes his spirit Spar of Ash and says to the remaining survivors here lies

our King all slain I will not away but I myself will die here beside my Lord so loved a man you know that's the old approach in other words here's how you get honor is you give your life for your people for your king for your family more recently this poem Climb Every Mountain Ford every stream follow every rainbow to until you find your dream and that's sung to a woman who's leaving the convent who took vows remember Maria in Sound of Music she's taking vows and and she's renounced but now she said no I

got to go out into the world and find myself by the way I like Sound of Music I like Julie Andrews I like all those I mean and I like the movie and I'm not trying to and I liked Frozen I've got you know why I've got granddaughters if you don't if you have granddaughters you've got to like Frozen you have to like Frozen and uh you know that but the point is the cultural narrative is is incredibly strong now is there any problem with this let me take five minutes to say there are enormous

problems with this by the way the narrative works works itself into Christian into Christians lives all the time all the time but there for let me just give you a couple reasons why this doesn't work I give you three really big reasons why dis approached identity doesn't work number one it's incoherent you know why because if you look into your heart of hearts and you find your dreams and you find your deepest um desires you'll find they contradict you know I I would love to have this wonderful career but I'd also love to have this

wonderful relationship but if I have this relationship I give myself to this person I won't have this career well what is my deepest desire give me a break what would make you think your deep desires are in harmony Francis spufford wrote a great book called apology itic he's a British Christian writer and he says this at one point he says you are a being whose wants make no sense they don't harmonize your desires deep down are discordantly arranged so that you truly want to possess and you truly want not to at the very same time

human beings are equipped you eventually realize for farce or even tragedy more than for happy endings in other words if you look into your heart and say I'm going to find out who I am by looking at my desires they cont adct so which desire are you going to choose I'll get to that in a second they're also unstable the whole idea behind an identity is you want a core you know when I'm a father when I'm a husband when I'm a minister when I'm a friend I need a I need a core that makes

me the same I have to have to have integrity I don't want to be completely different in every group of people there's got to be something that is most fundamental to me part of my identity is being a father part of my identity is being a minister part of my identity is being all these different things but like I've got to have a core and if it's my feelings my feelings are going to change in every one of those environments and there won't be a me it it just it's it's incoherent secondly it's an illusion

the idea what Gail shei says what Elsa says don't care what other people say you know what John Luke beard said don't care what other people say you decide what is right or wrong for you and if you are happy with yourself then you can be happy with yourself don't don't worry about what other people say you look inside that's an illusion there is no way to live like that let me give you a quick example um 1,00 years ago an Anglo-Saxon Warrior is walking around Britain he wouldn't have walked around New York uh and

he looks in his heart and he sees two very strong impulses one of them is he likes killing people you know he when people get in his way he just likes smashing them he just just likes to get you know so aggression and he looks in his heart and he sees something else um he sees a sexual desire that doesn't fit in with what the rest of the culture says is okay so here's what he's going to do he's going to look at his aggression and he's going to say that's me that's me it's a

shame and honor culture it's a warrior culture it fits in fine that's me but he's going to look at that sexual desire and he says that's not me squelch that okay scroll forward 12200 years later young man walking down the street in Manhattan he looks into his heart and he sees two very strong impulses one is aggression he likes smashing people what's he going to do with that he's going to go to therapy he's going to go to he's going to go to anger management classes or he's going to go to jail but the other

thing he looks in he sees a particular kind of sexual desire he says that's me that's not me why because your culture 12200 years ago told you aggression is a good thing and on the other in other words in other words both the Anglo Saxon Warrior and the modern person who says oh that that sexual desire that's truly me because any sexual desire is me you are not being yourself you're not liberated you're doing what your culture told you and by the way you're no more liberated than that angloa Warrior 1200 years ago because each

of those guys has received a grid a value Laden moral grid that they've laid down a grid but that I mean the culture saying this is good this is bad this is who you should be this is who you shouldn't be and you're laying it down and you're looking at your heart through it and the parts of the the the emotions and the impulses that you don't like that don't fit in with the grid you said well that's not me I have to do something about that and the impulses that the culture says those are

good that's me and you're really not actually looking into your heart and just being yourself you're doing what your culture tells you and you're no more liberated today than the Anglo-Saxon Warrior was 12 100 years ago you know why you can't bless yourself you can't validate yourself whenever I see people on social media say my parents said this my church said this these things but this isn't who I am this is who I am and determine who I should be you're not actually saying I'm going to bestow blessing and validation on myself you know what

you're doing you're going and getting another group of cheerleaders a different group because on social media they're going to say w yeah heroic you're willing you're courageous in other words I've got another bunch of people over here who are telling me how to live you can't bless yourself listen here's how identity comes the praise of the praiseworthy is above all Rewards I need and you need somebody that you respect and adore to the skies respecting and affirming you and then and only then will I start to get a stable identity and a positive self-regard I

need to have somebody who the praise of the praise worthy is what I need I need someone who I respect and adore to the disg to come and say I affirm you I love you I accept you I've got to have that and everybody has to have that and if you say well I'm giving that to myself don't be ridiculous you're doing what your culture tells you you're getting a new set of cheerleaders and therefore and one last thing negative to say about the culture and then turn to what Jesus says what the Christianity gives

as an alternative one of the scary things to me about uh this whole approach is that the uh the culture's approach weirdly enough is supposed to be liberating but it's actually quite crushing because it can be suffocating it definitely can be suffocating to be live in a culture where you're where you're told well your selfworth is based on you know being a good family member being a good son or daughter husband wife and all that that can be pretty suffocating the expectations of your family but I got to tell you in our culture where you're

supposed to be able to Define yourself that means you look into your heart you find your dreams and then you have to go out and achieve it you have to achieve it so you know work is a good thing in most World you know in every culture work is an important thing everybody you know making money making a living was very important but today in our modern culture your work becomes your identity how much money becomes your identity it's not just a good it's not just what you do it's who you are and that will

crush you because if you are successful it'll go to your head because you have this inflated idea of your identity it's your identity so if I made a lot of money I'm going to have this inflated idea I'm going to make all kinds of bad moves because I'm going to think of myself as being more able and wise than I really am frankly if you've made a lot of money you know what that means it just means you've made a lot of money but not but not in our culture what it means is you're great

you're wonderful you're brilliant you know you're wise and that's what you think too and then of course if you haven't made a lot of money you know what that means it actually just means you haven't made a lot of money but not in our culture means you're a failure you're not a man in many cases you see there's much more crushing pressure put on you and as a result we live at a time in which it's really weird people don't believe in sin they don't believe in hell they don't believe in judgment and yet people

walk around with a sense of condemnation that they can't shake they hear a voice calling them fools they hear a voice calling them stupid cowards not living up they feel stained and yet you know France kofka said the modern predicament is this I have wrote it down here FR FR France kovka in his book in his diary wrote this down the modern problem is we find ourselves today sinful but independent of guilt and what he meant by that I he is France Kafka he needs a little bit of translation we find ourselves sinful what he

says is he says even though we're not supposed to feel guilty you can't make me feel guilty you know Rob Riner in Bullets Over Broadway that Woody Allen movie there's a great place where the Rob Riner character says guilt is petty Bourgeois crap a true artist creates his own moral universe that's what he says and that is the essence of modern culture but here's what's so funny France kofus says we don't believe in guilt why because who's to say whether that was right or that was wrong you know you have to determine your own right

and wrong and yet we still feel sinful we don't have a definition for sin we have no but we still we we don't believe in hell I'll say it again we don't believe in sin we don't believe in judgment and yet we have a sense of condemnation we can't shake and there's a voice telling us we're fools that we're stained that we're bad and so we really are in our modern culture really stuck what's Christianity gives an alternative oh my goodness first of all as you already heard and you know I'm going to say this

but think this out I not going to say to people who are struggling under the incoherent illusory and crushing burden of the modern understanding of self trying to have an identity in that I would never say just get religious you know why traditional cultures where you've got to live up to your family's expectations modern culture where you have to achieve and perform and compete in order to feel good about yourself and religious religions that say if you're a good person then maybe God will take you to heaven all of them are the same in what

way what they're saying is your identity is achieved not received it's achieved not received you have to do it you have to perform and so you can only say whether you're religious Orchard traditional or even a you know even a modern agnostic or secular person you basically your identity works like this because I've performed because I've obeyed because I followed the rules because I've achieved then I can feel good about myself see then I I obey therefore I'm accepted but the Christian Gospel is the only system in the world of thought that gives you a

radically and totally different identity than what the secular world will give you what any other religion will give you what mod what traditional cultures will give you because Christianity says your your identity is received not achieved every other system says if you follow the rules if you compete if if you perform then you're accepted but Christianity says no I'm accepted and I H I'm accepted in Jesus Christ therefore I perform I perform because I'm accepted Christianity says I perform and therefore I'm accepted Christianity says no I'm accepted therefore I perform or put it another way

every other system says if you follow the rules whether the rules you created or whether the rules from the family or the rules of your your religion if you follow the rules then you can have a stable sense of self but Christians get a stable sense of self and then follow the rules then they then because they already know who they are in Jesus do you know how radically different that is let me count the ways until my time runs out let me count the ways it means number one every other approach to Identity means

you're either going to be bold and confident or you're going to be humble and understanding but you can never be both at the same time right in other words let's just say you're living up to your standards you're living up to your standards okay what does that mean it means I feel good about myself I'm C confident and bold but if I see somebody else who's not living up to standards I look down at them and say oh gee see if you get your identity from being a hardworking person you have to look down your

nose and anyone who's lazy if you think of yourself as being a liberal open-minded person you have to feel Superior to someone you consider a narrow-minded bigot see these whatever your identity factor is in every other approach to Identity you have to feel very Superior condescending disdainful of people who don't have your identity Factor because you've achieved your identity and anyone else who hasn't achieved isn't worthy of honor so you're either confident because you've lift up the standards or maybe you're actually because you failed you failed your standards see people who fail uh they they're

trying to get their identity by living up to these standards but they failed then they're humble and then they're kind to people and then they're very open-minded and then they talk about hey you know what I'm a failure too you're a failure too but they don't have that incredible confidence see if you are a sinner saved by grace if you have your identity in Jesus Christ if it's been given to you by Grace then on the one hand you're humbled into the dust because you were such a sinner that Jesus had to die for you

and you weren't able to achieve it but at the same time you're a firm to disguise because he accepts you and loves you and that means you're bold and humble at once no other system of thought no other culture no other approach to Identity can create that kind of person none now where does that come from how do you get it here's how you get it now wait let me I'm going to give you two words before I give you those two words I want you to know that the way a person changes is by

changing what they worship you see I believe that essentially the way you change is not through thinking or through feeling but by taking truth and bringing it into your heart that's what I mean by worship what you whatever you love the you may say well I believe in Jesus Christ but if you love making money the most That's the basis of your identity and if you know you love making money too much and if you know your identity is too much in your in your in this or that then the only way you're going to

change that is not by saying no no I'm a chistian I'm a you don't just talk to yourself you've got to worship you got to change what you worship what does that mean you got to take theological truths gospel truths you got to pray them sing them uh counsel them uh worship corporate worship you have you have to meditate on them you have to get them in your heart till they catch fire down there now let me just give you two truths and let me show you how that works one is substitution one is justification

two doctrinal words that have meant the most to me that that have been basically My Life Savers first of all substitution what do I mean by substitution 2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him think of that verse God made him sin now what does that mean when it says God made Jesus Christ sin does that mean he made him sinful no was he up there on the cross snarling with self-centered no when well then what does it mean when it said God

made him sin it means God made him legally sinful that is to say God treated Jesus Christ as if he was a sinner on the cross that's what it's got to mean when it says God made him sin that means he's legally sinful even though in himself he was perfect he was legally treated as a sinner and he died on the cross for our sin which means that we might become the righteousness of God in him what does that mean it can't mean that the many you become a Christian then you start to grow and

you start to become more and more righteous well that's true and then someday God will love you more more the more righteous you get and at the end of your life if you're really righteous it'll take you to heaven no no no if Jesus Christ became legally sinful on the cross then when you say father accept me because of what Jesus Christ has done for me at that moment you become the righteousness of God in him in other words that means right now God looks at me and he sees a beauty he sees righteousness you

know there's an old NCIS not NCS there's an old NCIS episode in which um I think Charles dering played this old broken down 85-year-old World War II vet and he's wanted for a crime and these big snarling Jag you know the these uh you know Navy U uh police officers are coming after him and they're ready they're they're they're looking down at him they're snarling they're about to take him into custody and Charles derning is sitting there like this doesn't know what's to do and his friend next to him opens his tie pulls open his

shirt and shows that he's wearing the Congressional Medal of Honor underneath now the way the story worked he had the Congressional Medal of Honor because of something he'd done the minute these snarling Norman military police see the metal they snap that's their job why they're saluting the metal why they don't know what the guy's like they don't know what he's like maybe he did do the crime but they're saluting the metal when it says God made him sin that knew no sin God made him sin the one who knew no sin that we might become

the righteousness of God in him there's a sense in which when I become a Christian when I say father accept me because of what Jesus said at that moment Jesus medals are pinned on me everything that Jesus accomplished Richard hooker 17th century Anglican Theologian writing about the doctrine of justification by faith says this let it be counted as folly or frenzy or Fury whatsoever this is our comfort and wisdom we care for no knowledge in the world but this that God has made himself our sin that's Jesus that we might be made his righteousness we

are in the sight of God the father as the very Son of God himself and John bunan in his uh uh spiritual biography uh grace abounding to the chief of Sinners he struggled a great deal with understanding the gospel of grace he felt like a sinner but he couldn't really grasp well how in the world could God ever love him and this is what he says in his autobiography he says' one day as I was passing into the field passing through the field with dashes on my conscience struggling in his conscience suddenly a sentence fell

upon my soul thy righteousness is in heaven and suddenly I thought I saw with the Eyes of My Soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand there I thought was my righteousness so that whatever laws or whatever things that I had broken laws I had broken and whatever else I was doing God could not say to me John where is your righteousness today because it's ever before him in Jesus Christ I saw moreover that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better nor could a bad frame of heart make it worse

for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself the same yesterday today and forever then the chains fell off my legs indeed I was loose for my afflictions and irons and I went home rejoicing for the grace and love of God because now I saw that all the imperfect character of my heart was like the four Pence half penny that rich men carry in their purses when their gold is safe in their trunks at home I saw that my gold was in my trunk at home in Jesus Christ my savior substitution and justification changed my understanding of

my identity and what it has meant was freedom and if you have an identity based in Jesus Christ success bothers you a little bit because you say wow I got to be careful here it might go to my head but it never does completely failure upsets you because you say this is going to discourage me but you know it's just a job now it's just money it's not your righteousness it's not your identity and now you're free and now you're free here's how you get an identity that's radically different than the identity the culture gives

you or any other culture possibly can give you it's one of the most wonderful and unique things about the Christian Gospel we'll continue to work out the implications of that right now I'm going to close this in prayer Our Father we thank you that uh you have given us your son and what does that mean what does it mean that he died for us tonight we see some of the radical nature of what that means it's radical psychologically it's it would be radical sociologically what would a society look like that wasn't turning work or beauty

or money into these big cultural Idols that people literally bow down to how different it would be Lord we can't spread the good news of the Gospel if we don't live into it in our own lives if we're just as irritable and proud and greedy and driven by a desire for Success if we're just as if we're just as a addicted to pleasure as way of trying to console ourselves and and quiet that voice of condemnation if we don't live into the Glorious new identity we have as children of the king uh as justified in

Jesus Christ we can't spread this gospel so teach us how to do that teach us how to do it this weekend in a way we haven't done it before we pray in Jesus name amen