Sermon Illustration

The Lordship of Christ Is ‘A Life-Quake’

Tim Keller compares the Lordship of Jesus Christ to what he calls "a life-quake":

When a great big truck goes over a tiny little bridge, sometimes there's a bridge-quake, and when a big man goes onto thin ice there's an ice-quake. Whenever Jesus Christ comes down into a person's life, there's a life-quake. Everything is reordered. If he was a guru, if he was a great man, if he was a great teacher, even if he was the genie of the lamp, there would be some limits on his rights over you. If he's God, you cannot relate to him at all and retain anything in your life that's a non-negotiable. Anything … any view, any conviction, any idea, any behavior, any relationship. He may change it, he may not change it, but at the beginning of the relationship you have to say, "In everything he must have the supremacy."

Then Keller adds:

Imagine you had a dear friend who was dying of a very rare disease, and you bring this friend to a doctor. "You'll be dead in a week. I can cure you, but I want you to know if I give you the remedy there's just one thing. It'll keep you alive for the rest of your life, but you can never eat chocolate again." Well, you're so excited. You turn to your friend and say, "Isn't this great?" Your friend says, "No chocolate? Forget it!" You say, "Are you crazy?"

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Lordship of Christ; (2) Easter; Resurrection—Through the resurrection, Christ has been vindicated as Lord of all.

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