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To Be Continued… with Tim Keller is a captivating podcast inspired by the wisdom of beloved pastor and theologian, Dr. Tim Keller. The premiere episode features a conversation with Tim Keller. Subsequent episodes seamlessly blend archived Keller teachings with fresh dialogues featuring Christian leaders from across the globe. Through these conversations, "To Be Continued…" paints a hopeful picture of the global church, bridging the gap between timeless truths and contemporary challenges.
In partnership with Redeemer City to City, each episode showcases a dynamic exchange between two global leaders deeply shaped by the gospel-centered approach infused throughout Keller's work, delving into topics central to city ministry, but accessible to all.
Listen and discover that the best conversations don’t end… they continue.
Laura Sauriat:
Let's face it, cities are complex. In cities, you find more skeptics, more religions, more suffering. You also find more diversity in background, worldview and ideology. Cities are centers of much of the world's wealth, power, art, and innovation, all of which eventually shapes and informs non-urban lifestyles. It could be said that the future of the world is forged in cities. This is to be continued with and without Tim Keller. And on this podcast, I'll be joined by dynamic City to City leaders. These city leaders have been shaped by the work of the late Dr. Tim Keller and have much to share about how the gospel can bring shalom and hope to our cities, our work and our relationships. So wherever it is in the world that you find yourself, we invite you to listen in on our conversation, one that we hope will spark new ideas, curiosities, and questions. Because the best conversations don't end, they continue.
Tim Keller:
The basic dynamic is grace. And only grace leads to, a really changed life. Notice in the Book of Exodus that God doesn't say to Israel, here's the ten commandments, and now what I want you to do is if you obey it, then I'll deliver you from Egypt. I'll take you out of slavery. Does he do that? No, he doesn't say, obey the ten commandments and I'll deliver you from slavery. First he delivers them from slavery, takes 'em to Mount Sinai. He says, now obey the ten commandments. Why? Because I delivered you. He says this, in the beginning of Exodus 19, I brought you on wings like eagles, eagles wings to myself. I brought you out of Egypt. I delivered you by grace. Now, respond to that grace by obeying these commands I give you now. In other words, grace leads to a changed life. The gospel says it's not moralism where you're trying to save yourself, but it's not relativism where you're just living any way you want. It's being saved by grace, which leads to holiness.
It's being saved by grace, which leads to holiness. So you're not a relativist, you have to live a holy life, but you're not a moralist because you know you are saved by grace. And what that does is give you a framework. When it comes to suffering, what do you do? Well, the moralist is going to say, it must be me. I must be living a bad life. I hate me. I'm doing something wrong. The relative says, no, I'm a great person. God is being unfair. So the relativist says, I hate the, and the moralist says I hate me. And of course the Christian says, I know that this suffering must be from a loving father who's got some reason for it, but I know it's not punishment because all the punishment fell into Jesus Christ.
Laura Sauriat:
That clip from Tim Keller gives us a brief introduction to today's conversation on personal gospel renewal. Today's leaders and guests are also friends. And that fact infuses this episode with a vulnerability and generosity that lends self well to this critical topic. Please welcome Abe Cho, based in New York City and Jose Ricardo Escobar from Cartagena, Columbia. Okay, well hello Abe and Jose, it's so nice to be with you today to talk about personal gospel renewal. I thought I'd get us started by finding a little bit more out about what each of you is doing in your work at City to City Jose in Cartagena, what is your role there and how are you connected to City to City?
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Well, thank you Laura. Thank you for inviting me into this podcast. I'm City to City director in Colombia, but since 2018 I started my church planting incubator in Colombia. But it was a very beautiful adventure to get in contact with Redeemer City to City because everything was searching the internet and looking for some ministry in the world that impacts the city. And that was the way that I found City to City in New York.
Laura Sauriat:
And Abe, how about you?
Abe Cho:
Yeah, well, after many years pastoring in Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan, where I first got to know you, Laura, over all those years, the last couple of years I've been serving as the director of strategy and training for City to City North America, and I'm also the senior director of global resources for City to City's work more globally.
Laura Sauriat:
So getting onto the topic of the day, which is gospel renewal, if we say that gospel is a loaded word in our culture today, would you change anything about its literal meaning when defining it and how would you define it to a skeptic? And I thought I'd start this one with Abe.
Abe Cho:
Yeah, I mean, in the US there's a lot of connotations or associations with the word gospel. I think for me it's still such a beautiful word if in its essence is this notion that there is good news about something that someone else has done on your behalf. And when I think about the American culture and maybe even more broadly western cultures, there is such intense pressure right now to find something within yourself that is amazing, that is going to change the world, that there's all this pressure to go deep inside and find a true self that is going to wow the world. And I can't imagine having to live with that pressure and then to have to find ways to display it to the world and to find communities or people that will come around you and affirm the beauty of that thing that you've discovered within yourself. It's just a whole system of how we talk about who we are or a sense of identity that is such a burden. And so the notion that the gospel is, there's actually good news of what someone else has done outside of you for you because they've loved you. So in that sense, there's not much that I would change.
Laura Sauriat:
Jose. Oh, how would you, in the context of Cartagena describe the gospel? Are you faced with similar cultural positions as in America or does it vary in any other way? And also please feel free to give your definition of the gospel.
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Well, something that happens here in Colombia and in Cartagena is that most of the people understand gospel as a religion because of the very big influence of the Roman Catholicism. So most of the people thinks that gospel is only for salvation and nobody thinks about gospel for sanctification, for being transformed, for being renewed. And most of the people, because they don't have the right understanding of the gospel, live with shame and with a lot of burden in their lives and it's not easy for our people to live. But when they begin to understand what the gospel is, they start to feel new hope for their lives, freedom, new life and also joy because we are Colombian and because the wrong understanding, people lost the joy, but with the right understanding, they notice, hey, I have a new hope in my life. One of the biggest expression we uses here is the gospel is new opportunity for you because most of the people thinks that they don't have opportunity in their lives.
Laura Sauriat:
That reminds me of the next topic I wanted to ask you about, which would be the gospel alone; it has the power to renew us individually. And so when we think about that, what role would you say that the Holy Spirit plays in that?
Abe Cho:
Yeah, it's a great question because in our work with City to City, we're a transdenominational organization and especially in North America, a lot of times we're working with more Pentecostal traditions and there's much more of an emphasis on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And so they can sometimes hear for me, I'm a Presbyterian, we talk a lot about the gospel doing X, Y or Z, and they're like, does the Gospel do that or does the Holy Spirit do that? I find myself saying, well, actually yes, it's both. is the classic spot where it talks about the gospel not just as a message or a truth or an idea, but it talks about the gospel as the power of God for the salvation of everyone who would believe. And so I think that notion where the power of the gospel and the enlivening power of the spirit overlap that there's a lot of overlay that happens there.
We see that all throughout scripture, but I think oftentimes it can have an understanding of the Holy Spirit that sometimes can just feel like an amplification of my effort so the Holy Spirit will amplify what I am trying to achieve or perform, that there can be misunderstandings that fall into that when we talk only about the Holy Spirit. So there's something I think to be preserved about talking about how the gospel is the power of God, how the gospel does the work, but I think my Pentecostal brothers and sisters are a hundred percent correct to say we can drain the third person of the Trinity of his necessary work in the Christian life if we only talk about the gospel as if it were some sort of propositional truth that has power, the two overlap in very profound ways.
Laura Sauriat:
Well, that's very clarifying, Abe, Jose, I wonder what you think of that.
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Most of their influence in Latin America is Pentecostal. The first missions in our continent came from Baptist and Presbyterian, but in the 20th century, Pentecostal is the biggest influence in our continent and it's very special because the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is prominent, is the priority for Pentecostalism. That's something that we don't struggle with, that we don't struggle, but we are trying to understand what is happening with this. But we are having some understanding on how to the Holy Spirit uses all of the leaders and denominations to impact lives with the gospel. We know many pastors and leaders from different organizations that prioritize the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and they are very, very gospel center and that's very beautiful. And that's the reason we know that the gospel, along with the power of the Holy Spirit has been impacting a lot of lives in our country and in my city.
Laura Sauriat:
Jose, that was very helpful and I wondered if you had any particular illustration to help us understand how the gospel and the Holy Spirit might be working in any specific area.
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
One of the words I love when we are talking about Holy Spirit is enlighting. And that's very beautiful because the special work of the Holy Spirit is giving us light to understand how do we have to live. One illustration in my church plant In Cartagena, we have received a lot of newborns. They came from the Roman Catholic tradition, but when they started to study the Bible and to understand what the Bible says for real, they said, oh my God, this is really new. And we could testify that we have families with reconciliation, families restored, people restored from abuse, people restored from rejection, people restored because of the enlightening of the Holy Spirit through the gospel.
Laura Sauriat:
I wondered if you could each talk to what the hallmarks of a life that has been transformed by the gospel might be?
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Well, talking about hallmarks, I could talk about new hope. New hope is necessary, especially in countries like us. Before we have slaves also from Africa, and we had here exploitation. And actually most of the people lives that kind of exploitation in their jobs because of the political system, because of the economical system. So new hope is one of the special hallmarks, also real freedom. Why? Because one of the biggest idols here is money. Because money give us freedom and money give us the opportunity to do whatever we want. So, they're not doing whatever they want. They're being slave because of the money, because of these idols. So gospel is freedom, but it's a real freedom. And when they realize that they are in a jail of idols, they understand, oh my God, I was lost, but I've been found and that's amazing grace. Something curious, when they understand the song, amazing Grace, they cry. It's really beautiful. Another hallmark is joy. Those are very beautiful hallmarks in our country and Latin America.
Abe Cho:
I think just listening to Jose. The phrase that came to mind there, and it's one that I use with my kids a lot, is that the gospel makes us joyfully different. So we're not angrily different, we're not fearfully different, we're not guiltily different. The gospel makes us joyfully different. And I think it speaks to that freedom you were talking about, Jose, it speaks to that agency, the ability to be free, to not be enslaved, just all those things. So it makes us joyfully different. So it makes us an attractive kind of non-conformist. And I talked with our kids about that. So one of the practices I often like to talk about, we've got four kids and we always feel like we're trying to figure things out, but one of the things that we've done that I feel like I'm like, oh, we did good there. I think there's a lot of angrily different and fearfully different and guiltily different, but there's something about being joyfully different that I think is maybe most consistent with the gospel.
Laura Sauriat:
Well, how might someone living in that freedom, experience, loss, hurt, setback, failure and even success, accolades and approval?
Abe Cho:
Oh boy, that's a great question. I think in the end, as long as we live in a world fallen and broken, still shattered by sin, the life that every Christian calls is called to is a cruciform life and it's a life where we enter into suffering and darkness, the valleys and the darkness and that sort of thing. I think even in my own personal story, I just posted this recently, but it was a 10 year anniversary of when I was first diagnosed with depression and I was put on some meds and I started to have to see a counselor. And so that question of what does it look like for me to sustain joy in the midst of what feels like a constant pit at times, just kind of this constant drag down of depression and to wrestle with that I think has been at the heart of my walk with Christ over the last 10 years or so.
But what I do know is that in those places where I feel bruised or weak or exposed or vulnerable, those end up being precisely the places where our crucified Lord meets me. It just reminds me, there's this one quote that I think, yeah, that I'm probably butchering, but there's a quote that says something like grace, like water flows down to the lowest places, and some places are so low that God's grace gathers and pools other places are lower still, that God's grace creates entire oceans and worlds of life and mystery and beauty. And that has been such a comfort for me when I find myself sometimes in those low places at the grace of God, like water flows down to the lowest place.
Laura Sauriat:
Well, you nearly had me crying there. That is so good.
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
I remember that in 2019, we received in our church a friend with cancer in his stomach, and that was the terminal diagnose. Then he came for the first time because his brother of a friend of us, one of our leaders in our church, then we had a night to pray for him and we start praying for him, asking God for health, asking God for a miracle in his life. And then in 2021 doctor said, you are free of cancer. And that was oh my God. Wow, wow. And that's the work of the Holy Spirit. But after this doctor identified another point of cancer in him and he said, okay, I know that I'm going to die someday, but only God knows when it's going to happen then right now my commitment is to share the gospel with everyone. And right now we have the half of his family in our church. And that gave me the opportunity to say that how someone could live with pain, with ill, with loss, with heart and everything with that, when someone came to Jesus Christ and gave his life to Jesus, he loves God. He loves God, he experience real joy. He feels not guilty to live. He start to live with real freedom and with eternal security.
Abe Cho:
My turn to cry, Laura.
Laura Sauriat:
Seriously, we'll all be weeping at the end with amazing grace. Right? So, is it fair to say that we're saved by grace and then given the law, is this how God prepared the Israelites for salvation and why do you think so many people think that it works in the reverse?
Abe Cho:
When you look back at the story of Israel, the Exodus was entirely a work of God's grace and because God saves and really all they had to do was believe that the blood of the Passover to lamb would be enough to cover them and then the angel of death would pass over. And so it was entirely by the grace of God. And he says, I've chosen you not because you're greater or stronger, but simply because I've chosen you. And then he gives them the law as an expression of who he is. This is an expression of my character as your God, as your redeemer, as your Savior. And because you're made in my image, your lives will flourish if you live along the grain of the universe, along the grain of your nature, that sort of thing. So the law is given as this gift of God's grace. And so I think for the Christian, when you experience that redemption by grace, the law becomes just this beautiful revelation of who God is and who God is creating you to be. That there is this freedom and this power that comes with genuinely and deeply believing that you're saved by his grace and by his grace alone. And that's what finally frees you to be able to keep the law.
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Yeah. I want to add something because I was struggling with my kids, especially with David, my 10 years old son. I was very concerned for the impact of the cultural messages, the progress system and all that he watch on PBE, video games, his school, et cetera. And I was trying to push him not to see, not to do, trying to have control over him. And I remember a pastor friend of mine told me, Hey, you're not God. And many times it is difficult because God cannot be seen and because we forget that God is loving us and that also is difficult for many to feel love because of the damage in everyone's heart, because of sin. And I remember a book that I read many years before this book was called Don't Beg for Love. And it refers precisely to the exodus where God put out his grace on a completely unfaithful people who did not. He understood that he could and was being loved by a great and wonderful God that unfaithful Israel was loved by God, but they forgot. So they were begging for love from the idols. They were begging for love for the situation, for their leaders, but not for the God who was loving them. And that happens to us, and that's the reason because we always forget the beautiful grace of God.
Laura Sauriat:
Well, thank you. Abe, I wanted to know, when did you first experience Jesus' beauty? When did you find it a compelling force in your own faith?
Abe Cho:
Yeah, I grew up largely in a Christian home. So they're Korean immigrant family and we grew up in the Korean immigrant church. And so God and the Bible and prayer, going to church on Sundays were always very load-bearing walls in my life. You would not be able to move some of those things. But I think Jesus appeared to me as beautiful, probably in a very personal way, probably for the first time in high school, and at that time one of the only ethnic minorities in these small towns that we grew up in. So we tended to find in the suburbs good public schools. And so there was usually predominantly white dominant culture folks there. But part of what that meant for me by the time was in ninth grade, 10th grade, is that I felt like I was constantly trying to do the work to gain the approval of my peers, but I was always experienced as other as something different or something foreign and that kind of a thing.
And we also moved around a lot. So I felt like I was doing that every two years or so where I had to restart all over again. And in high school, I think I got to a point where I realized it doesn't matter if you wear all the right clothes, say all the right things, listen to the right music, say all the right jokes, that your peers are never really going to be able to see you for who you are, and they will never fully accept all that you are. They might like the part of you that you display to them, but they won't know all the stuff that makes you feel like you're really you. And so I realized that even there, no matter how perfectly tuned I was able to adjust to my social setting, I would never experience the embrace and the approval that I was craving.
And then even with my parents, my parents were great parents and so really grateful for that. But even there as being the son of immigrants, so much placed on education. And so there was always a sense of as long as I'm able to perform academically and to excel academically, then I'll get the smile of my father or I'll get the embrace of my mother, that sort of a thing. But A- will be met with disapproval, a frown, that sort of thing. And so even with my parents as good a parents as they were, I felt like this constant sense of you must perform to be exceptional. And for me, it was really only in church and it was this message. And I started to realize if what the Bible says is true, that there's a God who's perfectly holy, whose standards I could never live up to no matter how hard I tried. And if it's also true that this God who's perfectly holy died to forgive me because he loves me and offers me his unconditional embrace right now, even though he knows everything about me, if that message is true, then the one place in the whole universe where I'll be able to finally rest, where I could just stop the striving, is paradoxically in the presence of a holy God. And that was a moment where I was like, I'm giving my life to this God,
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Thank you Abe. Wow. It's a beautiful question. I don't remember a first time, but I remember this. I always look for a leader. I always look for someone who lead me, who teach me. And many times when I was young, I was looking for someone with more intellectual, with more impact in my life. I was looking for a mentor if this word is useful here. And I understand, I understood that when I realized that when I was a child and I was living with my parents, my mom and my dad, but they were very young, but I never realized that I was abandoned by them because they were doing their lives. They didn't know how to be parents for me. They didn't know anything about parenting. So I was alone. Tell you right now that I understood that I was looking for a father and I found my father when I was teenager and I was preparing to be a priest.
And I quit my preparation because I was reading the Bible and I understood that I could have my wife and my kids and I said, oh, I went to serve God. I went to be a pastor with my wife and my kids, and I was gaining understanding and I realized that I have a father and that's God, and I was adopted. But when I understood that my life start change, then I could tell you right now that maybe 15 years before I started to live with my parents, as I parent, they start to live with me and share with me as father and mother, and I have the opportunity to forgive them because I understood that I was forgive. And that's my story with I could share to you my experience of renewal, my experience of discovering the beauty of Jesus in my life,
Laura Sauriat:
Wow, reconciliation. Thank you. I wonder what either of your thoughts would be on the role of community in personal renewal?
Abe Cho:
Yeah, I mean it is so essential. I think this is why we still think church planting is so crucial because in multiplying disciples that's really great. But the community of disciples that's formed and gathered into a church that is the crucial unit as it were of what God is doing in the world. I think there are times where we need the voices of others to speak the word of God's love to us. We need the gospel preached to us in the shape of a voice of another, that no matter how much we speak to ourselves, we actually need somebody else to say, Abe, your loved no matter what. We need that so that we have an embodied expression of what of God's love for us. And other times we need that community to show us ways that we're resisting the way of Jesus. We're resisting the life of Christ being formed in us, that if we take sin seriously, the essence of sin, Dietrich Bonhoffer says, is to make us alone, is to isolate us and to isolate us into the darkness of our own sin so we can no longer see it. And so part of the remedy of sin is to open us up to others and to both the truth of our sin, but also the truth of our belovedness as it's embodied in the community around us.
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Yeah, I was thinking about what you were talking about, and this morning we were sharing something in our Facebook about lone rangers. And lone rangers is very common in our country, in my city, and in Latin America because of their religious influential. There's a lot of people that you found and you asked, Hey, how are you? I'm excellent. I'm in victory. I'm good. And okay, if you are in that way, okay, see you. I'm not good. I'm bad. I feel alone. I have pain in my heart. I have needs. I need a friend. But if you are good, I am not going to share with you my problems. City to City has given us the opportunity to find a beautiful gospel community, very diverse community with Presbyterians, with a general Baptist, with reformed Baptist, with Pentecostals, with Presbicastal, Bapticastals. And it is a jungle, but it's beautiful, this jungle because we have times to share and to say, Hey brother, I need your help.
Hey brother, I was crying because I dunno what to do. I dunno if I have to quit. I dunno what to do with my family. I have some trouble. Please help me. Please listen me, please come with me. And that's something that is impacting in Cartagena, in Colombia, in the six cities we are working right now in our country because most of the pastors and leaders and church members with interest, they are finding right now beautiful places, safe places to share, to gather and to walk together with that kingdom vision. So I think in a personal renewal process, community is essential because community is the place where Jesus reflects in the middle of us.
Laura Sauriat:
Thank you. What should a modern Christian reasonably expect to give up or lose in his or her journey as a believer, thinking about costly grace?
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Well, I think people, because of the impact of the culture, it has a difficulty to understand the costly grace. And it is very difficult. Oh, God loves me as I am, not God loves you, but he want us to be renewed. And the costly grace is a very high price to understand. It's very difficult to understand it. And as leaders, as pastors, as we need to teach, we need to share with the people highest work of Jesus in the cross, his death and his resurrection and the impossible way to understand what happened there. But the beauty of the grace that he pour on us to give us laws, freedom, and a new way to live it is very difficult because the modern people is thinking about results. The modern people is thinking about effectiveness. The modern people is thinking about how to make a new business, but they don't understand a kingdom business. But the other side, I think it's a very beautiful opportunity to teach, to train and to communicate the new hope of the gospel of grace.
Abe Cho:
I mean, it could be tempting to believe when you start to understand the concept of grace, it can be tempting to think, well, if all my sins are forgiven and I've been given the righteousness of Jesus, then aren't I free to live however I want? So that can be a very easy conclusion. But actually if you follow Romans, Paul goes a step further and says, the gospel doesn't just take the chains off you and set you free. The gospel puts you to death, and then it raises new life in you. So it's not just that the gospel sets you free, so you could do whatever your old self wanted to do. The gospel, when it takes a hold of your life, it actually puts you to death and it raises you to new life. And what is that new life? It's the life of Jesus formed in us.
It's the life that was willing to leave all the comforts of heaven and enter into poverty. I remember Tim in a sermon years ago, he would say that the Christian life is a life that's called to not an upward mobility, but a downward mobility. And I've never been able to forget that. And I think the more that I've thought about it, that I'm more, I'm like, I think that's exactly right, that there should be a visible downward mobility that marks the life of a Christian. And so I think that costly grace, when grace doesn't just unchain you and say, now you can go live your life when grace actually puts you to death and raises a new life in you, that's the costly grace that says, now my life must be poured out because it's the life of Christ born in me, being formed in me. And that new life will be the abundant life that Jesus talked about, and it won't look like the American dream life in many respects. It'll look like the opposite of the American dream life, but it'll be the life of Christ in you.
Laura Sauriat:
Amen and amen. Thank you. Well, that seems like a really great note to end on. Jose and Abe, you have been so transparent and vulnerable and generous in this conversation, and it's one that will stay with me for a very long time.
Abe Cho:
Well, thank you, Laura. Yeah, you've been great host and Jose, it was great just hearing more of your story and love your perspective, and I need to find more ways to get some more time with you. So I'm glad we at least got this time.
Jose Ricardo Escobar:
Yeah, thank Abe. Thank Laura. It's been a great opportunity and very beautiful.
Laura Sauriat:
This is to be Continued with Tim Keller. I'm your host, Laura Sauriat. Thank you so much for listening. We hope today's episode inspires you to continue the conversation, which you can do by sharing this podcast within your own circles. City to City is a nonprofit whose vision is to see the gospel of Jesus Christ, transform lives and impact cities. To learn more, visit redeemercitytocity.com. Follow us on social media at Redeemer CTC. All of the above can be found in our show notes To Be Continued is produced in partnership with Redeemer City to City, our producers are Stephanie Cunningham and Rebekah Sebastian. Audio Engineering by Jon Seale.
Stand clear of the closing doors please.