Lane Arthur was in a taxi in New York, right? When was it? Yesterday? And he was in a taxi, and when he was in a taxi, another taxi came up and rammed the end of the taxi that he was in. What did the taxi drivers do? What did they do? Nothing. They just kept on going, you know. One guy rams into the other guy, “Bam!” and, you know, what’s he do? Put on the pedal and off, you know, the off we go, you know? You say, well, just imagine any other town in which that sort of thing would happen. You imagine two people running into each other, you know, crash, and what happens? Your typical American town, everybody goes, “Oh, no! Oh, my word! Oh!” and you walk, you know, you’re either distressed, you know, and it depends on your upbringing, of course. You know, you’re either very distressed, it’s the end of the world, how am I going to face people, what a hassle, my word, oh, my goodness, you get on out and you exchange cards. The other thing to do is to get out and say, “How? What did you do that for?” and you get real angry. Here’s two taxi drivers say, “Ah, I had an accident.” “Oh, well,” you know. That’s it’s not so bad. It’s been three hours since the last one, you know, and… Right? Neither of them got out, isn’t that right? They just rear-ended, okay. Now, look, the reason for the difference between the way the one taxi driver, the taxi drivers in New York operate and the way, you know, two people in, uh, Richmond, Indiana, would operate is is because of expectations.
Tim Keller, Peace Overcoming Anxiety
Surrounding Biblical Exposition: The sermon focuses on Philippians 4:4–9, exploring peace and joy. The speaker sets up the theme of looking at the roadblocks to peace and joy rather than just summarizing the concepts.
Illustration’s Point: Expectations dictate our reactions; New York taxi drivers expect conflict and turmoil, so an accident causes no surprise or distress, whereas people in other environments expect peace and react with intense shock or anger.
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