Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life
697 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 10 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 13.4K ratingsSermons by Tim Keller, founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC and NY Times best-selling author of ”The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.” For more sermons and resources, visit www.gospelinlife.com.
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Episodes
Fear, Faith and Courage
January 25, 2020 04:26 - 37 minutes - 17 MBIt’s clear we don’t see courage the way the Bible sees it. Courage and faith, in the Bible, aren’t really different. Courage is considered a moral trait, along with love, patience, honesty. It’s a moral character, and it’s something God expects from us. What we’re reading about here has to do with fear. The ultimate fear is a kind of mistrust in God. We cling to these other things because we all believe at the deepest level, that if we clung completely to God, he’d let us down. In fact, if ...
Cost of Commitment
January 22, 2020 12:45 - 45 minutes - 20.9 MBCommitment always makes you vulnerable, but Jesus Christ cannot be known apart from absolute commitment. He can’t be known any other way. Jesus Christ can’t be sampled; he can’t be known on a money-back guarantee trial. It can’t be done. He can only be known through absolute commitment, and to absolutely commit means the willingness to obey absolutely. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 13, 1990. Series "Growth in Christ, Part 2". Scriptur...
The Power of the Spirit
January 20, 2020 12:45 - 47 minutes - 21.8 MBThough there’s probably at least a hundred things the Spirit does, the main thing the Spirit does is he makes Jesus real to you. Everything else the Spirit does, all the fancy names we come up with–illumination, regeneration, sanctification–every other word you may hear me say and everything you hear anybody else say, it all boils down to that. When the Spirit of God made Jesus Christ not merely an intellectual concept or something on the periphery of your life, but rather when he made him ...
Assurance and Witness of the Spirit
January 17, 2020 12:45 - 48 minutes - 22 MBWhat does the Spirit do? The Spirit does a lot of things. It’s astonishing. If you really go back into the Old Testament you’ll see the Spirit was a creator. The Spirit is a teacher, and we’re going to see that the Spirit has three main ministries in the life of a Christian. Those three main categories are: The Spirit regenerates us (which means he is the agent of being reborn), the Spirit sanctifies us (which means he gradually turns us more and more into the likeness of Christ in our char...
Passive Discipline
January 15, 2020 12:45 - 46 minutes - 21.3 MBNobody grows without trouble. You can plan to obey this week, but you can’t plan to suffer. Suffering is one of the main ways in which Jesus Christ gives you what you really want, and that is becoming the person you want to be. How you respond to the troubles in your life will go a long way toward whether or not you ever develop courage, patience, compassion, or humility. How can you make sure you don’t waste your sorrows? This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyt...
Active Discipline
January 13, 2020 12:45 - 36 minutes - 16.8 MBWe’re now going to talk about, in some ways, the simplest of all of the disciplines: You have to obey. It’s the simplest and the hardest of all of the ways in which we grow, of all the tools for growth. We have to obey, and as we obey him, we change. We’re transformed. In Philippians 2:12, it says, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” It doesn’t mean to be saved, to go to heaven, is something you have to be good and work for. It doesn’t say, “Work for your salvation.” It says,...
All Things New
January 10, 2020 12:45 - 36 minutes - 16.8 MBWe are fascinated with the new. The reason we’re fascinated with the new is because every human being has a deep need for eternity. We all sense ourselves fading away. We see ourselves sagging and wrinkling. We see ourselves decaying, and that’s not natural. Nature is subject to futility, we’re told in Romans 8. Underneath the diets, underneath the need for vacations in new places, new clothes and new things that make you feel good for a little while, there is this need for eternity. We all...
Spirit and Presence of God
January 08, 2020 12:45 - 31 minutes - 14.6 MBIn this series on Christian growth, we’re going to talk about the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. One of the main differences between Christianity and moral religion in general is that Christians believe only through the influence of the Holy Spirit are we able and enabled to do anything good. Only through the Holy Spirit can we grow. It’s through the Spirit’s work anything gets accomplished in our lives, not through our own effort. If we come to faith in Christ, come t...
Finding our Identity in Christ (Part 3)
January 07, 2020 02:00 - 39 minutes - 18.3 MBWe’re taking a look at Colossians 3:12–17 and pointing out some how-to’s. How do you work the gospel, the good news down into your life? Paul essentially says, “because your life is hid with Christ in God, live that way.” If Christ is your life, then when other people come and criticize you, you say, “Well, you know, it hurts to be criticized, but my reputation isn’t my life, and what they think of me isn’t my life. Christ is my life.” Paul is saying, “Be what you are. Take hold of what you...
Finding our Identity in Christ (Part 2)
January 03, 2020 13:15 - 40 minutes - 18.3 MBThe gospel tells you to stop trying to steal self-acceptance from other sources and to instead warm yourself at the fire of our standing in Jesus Christ. In Christ, God treats believers as if they have done all that Christ has done. It doesn’t matter what kind of day you’ve had. The gospel says that the determining factor is not your present or your past, but Christ’s present and past. That’s what the gospel is. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church...
Finding our Identity in Christ (Part 1)
January 01, 2020 13:15 - 40 minutes - 18.5 MBFaith is finding your identity in Christ. But how do you do that? What we’re going to do is look at what it means to live by faith. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 29, 1989. Series "Growth in Christ, Part 1". Scripture: Colossians 3:1-4. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to...
Removing Idols of the Heart
December 30, 2019 13:15 - 37 minutes - 25.6 MBAn idol is something else besides Jesus Christ that is your life. In order to grow, the job of the Christian is to identify what those idols are and to pull them out. You’re looking at yourself and you’re saying, “Why am I so angry? Why am I so worried? Why am I so depressed?” Then you say, “Let me analyze this. What is actually driving me? What goals do I feel like I must have?” Many of us say, “Oh, I trust Jesus and nothing else.” But what is your heart functionally trusting? What does it...
How Can We Grow
December 27, 2019 14:39 - 41 minutes - 37.9 MBWe’re beginning a series on Christian growth–growth in grace, growth in supernatural maturity. Sometimes it’s only as you begin to see what the Bible says is true of a Christian, what is in store for a Christian, the kind of growth that can happen in the Christian’s life, that you can come to see very clearly you’re not a believer. You’ve been in and out of churches. You’ve been in and out of different religious organizations. “How do you know?” Sometimes one of the best ways to know is to ...
A short Christmas message from Tim Keller
December 25, 2019 10:15 - 1 minute - 2.17 MBTim Keller and the Gospel in Life team would like to wish you a Merry Christmas. Thank you for listening and for your support, especially over these last 6 months. We look forward to sharing more Gospel centered resources with you in 2020.
Christmas Message
December 23, 2019 13:15 - 36 minutes - 49.6 MBChristmas utterly contradicts and shows the foolishness of the wisdom of any age, the prevailing thought forms that hold sway over the most educated, enlightened people. Christmas shows the wisdom of the world is dated, shallow, inadequate, and lastly–narrow and exclusive. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 20, 1992. Series "Advent 1992". Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:20-21; Romans 1. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life,...
Christmas Wisdom
December 21, 2019 00:13 - 29 minutes - 39.9 MBI’d like to prove to you that really everything Christianity is about and everything the Bible is about is locked in the statement, “Fear not: for, behold, the gospel of joy.” Why were the shepherds afraid? It’s because of the light–a particular kind of light. It’s the light of the glory of God. Whenever God gets close, he shows you you’re not God. The light of the glory of God reminds us we’re creatures; we’re not God. The first thing grace does is make you scared. The first thing at Chris...
How to Sing at Christmas
December 19, 2019 02:29 - 37 minutes - 51.8 MBMary’s song, the Magnificat, is in a way the first Christmas carol. In fact, we should say that Mary, in a sense, is the first Christian. She’s not the first person saved, not the first believer in God, but she’s the first Christian in that she’s the first person who actually finds her life changed by the Christmas message, by the message God is becoming a human being. Mary is a great model for us today because when she hears the Christmas message, she’s changed. She’s totally changed. She ...
Generosity and Power
December 03, 2019 15:05 - 35 minutes - 48.8 MBWe’ve been looking at the Gospel of Luke and seeing what it says about the theme of generosity. This particular text looks again like it’s about being generous with our money, and of course that’s very much a part of it. But the Bible is primarily not about money, power, and everything else; it’s primarily about Jesus. Once you see what the text is telling us about Jesus, then in light of Jesus we come to understand everything else, including money and power. What we’re actually learning ab...
Generosity and Wealth (Part 2)
December 02, 2019 11:00 - 32 minutes - 45.1 MBJesus calls us to be relationally and emotionally generous, generous with our homes, generous with our time, our talents, our gifts. While you can be financially generous without being generous in heart, you can’t possibly be generous in heart without being shockingly generous with your money. We’re looking at what Jesus says about the subject of generosity with your money, and now we come to a text which can be a little distracting. What can be distracting is Jesus comes up with a parable....
Generosity and Wealth (Part 1)
December 01, 2019 11:00 - 38 minutes - 52.4 MBGenerosity is way more than just giving away your money. Generosity needs to be pervasive in your life. There needs to be a generosity of spirit, a generosity of heart, a generosity in relationships, an emotional generosity. And yet, in order to be thoroughly generous, it also means being generous with your money. We now get to one of the more famous places in the Bible where Jesus talks about that. This is in his interaction with the rich young ruler. In Jesus’ interaction with the rich yo...
Generosity and Ministry
November 30, 2019 11:00 - 45 minutes - 62.7 MBWe’ve been talking about the fact that there are different currencies of generosity, and the currency we now get to is a very important one. It’s a non-financial currency, but it is a way for you to give value to other people. Every believer should be not just a ministry consumer coming to get your needs met–but a ministry provider. You’re here to serve. But where does that come from–a generosity that’s so deep that it’s pervasive in every currency of life, in every area of life? Generosit...
Hospitality and God’s Grace
November 29, 2019 11:00 - 41 minutes - 56.4 MBThe Bible considers generosity to be radical, deeply unselfish living in every area of life. It’s possible to be technically generous––writing big checks. It’s possible to be generous with your money, but not be a generous-hearted person. There are many currencies besides money, and we’re looking at those other areas of our lives in which we should be generous. We now come to one that is very underestimated in importance: hospitality. If anyone says, “Oh, that doesn’t exactly sound like an ...
Generosity and Relationships
November 28, 2019 11:00 - 40 minutes - 55.7 MBAs soon you hear the word generosity, you say, “Oh, a series on money.” No, not necessarily. It is possible to be technically generous with your money and not at all generous in your spirit or in your heart. There are plenty of people who are actually quite generous with their money, generous with their time. They volunteer their time. They help. They’re charitable, yet they’re not relationally generous at all. There’s a specific form of relational generosity we want to talk about because i...
Generosity and God's Grace
November 27, 2019 15:05 - 34 minutes - 47.5 MBAccording to the Bible, generosity is not less than being generous with your money, but it’s quite a bit more. In a place like Isaiah 32:8, it says, “The generous make generous plans, and by generous deeds they stand.” There’s no talk of money there, because generosity is something much more radical. Generosity should be something so deep in us that it is completely pervasive in all parts of our lives. Money is only part of it. What I’m talking about is radical generosity. We’re going to as...
Cultivating a Healthy Marriage – Q&A
November 26, 2019 04:45 - 54 minutes - 74.9 MBIn this Q&A (and the talk that precedes it), Tim and Kathy Keller use the metaphor of cultivating a garden to address cultivating healthy marriages. They explore eight areas in marriage: planning and planting, roles, headship and submission, fertilizing and watering, love languages, sex, conflict resolution, forgiveness and repentance, as well as spiritual life together. This Q&A was with Rev. Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 1, 2005. Series "Cultivat...
Cultivating a Healthy Marriage
November 23, 2019 04:57 - 1 hour - 101 MBIn this talk (and the Q&A that follows), Tim and Kathy Keller use the metaphor of cultivating a garden to address cultivating healthy marriages. They explore eight areas in marriage: planning and planting, roles, headship and submission, fertilizing and watering, love languages, sex, conflict resolution, forgiveness and repentance, as well as spiritual life together. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 1, 2005. Series "Cultivating a Healt...
Marriage: Supper of the Lamb
November 21, 2019 02:49 - 47 minutes - 65.5 MBIn Ephesians 5, Paul says, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” This verse is teaching us that there are some things we would never know about marriage if we don’t know about how you relate to Christ by faith. Conversely, there are things we would never know about our relationship with Christ if we didn’t know about marriage. When you look at marriage, you see things you would never know about a relationship with Christ otherwise. In a sense, one teache...
Word: Teach Us To Pray
October 24, 2019 01:29 - 38 minutes - 53 MBIf you open the Psalms, which is the divinely inspired prayer book, the first page of the Psalms is not a prayer. Interesting. The very first page of the book that tells you how to pray is not a prayer, but actually a meditation on meditation. It’s a call to meditation. Meditation is not the same as studying the Bible, because in studying the Bible you’re just learning the truth of it. You’re just learning information. What meditation does is it takes what you’ve learned and does something ...
Repose: The Power and Glory
October 22, 2019 01:30 - 40 minutes - 55.6 MBThe Lord’s Prayer is quite a workout. You’re asking for a whole lot of things: daily bread, deliver us from evil, temptation. There are a lot of things you’re asking for, but at the end, you rest in God. You enjoy God. You’re not asking for anything; you’re enjoying God. In fact, you’re realizing that all of the things you’ve been looking for, all the kingdom and the power and the glory are already there in him, and if you have him, you have everything you need. Therefore, at the very end, t...
Battle: Lead Us and Deliver Us
October 19, 2019 01:43 - 40 minutes - 55.7 MBHow do you pray when you’re embattled? How do you pray when you feel like there are bad things inside you, bad things outside you, and you’re just spiraling down? You’re confused. You don’t know what to do. So this is the prayer that Jesus says, “When you’re in the battle, when you’re in the trenches, when you feel like you’re falling, it’s through prayer that you get yourself out.” What does he actually do in prayer? There are four things. I’d like to spend our time looking at these four t...
Reality: Forgive Us Our Debts
October 17, 2019 02:23 - 43 minutes - 59.2 MBWhat if I told you that there was a process and no matter how much you blew up your life, if you used this process, there would be a way to come out the other side, to get through it. Or no matter how broken your life is, if you used this process, there was a way for you to come out whole. Would you be interested? Well, here it is. It’s what the Bible calls repentance. Here’s how you do it: Psalm 51. You say, “Repentance? You mean just saying I’m sorry?” When you say that, you have revealed...
Petition: Our Daily Bread
October 14, 2019 13:30 - 32 minutes - 44.9 MBWe now get to a particular kind of prayer in which people are very interested–what some call a “give me” prayer. “Give us today our daily bread.” This prayer is the reason why most people even get involved in prayer. They have a need, and they want God to meet it. They have a situation, and they want God to change it. But notice, “Give us today our daily bread” happens dead in the middle, dead smack in the middle, of the Lord’s Prayer. It is surrounded by all sorts of other statements and i...
Struggle: Thy Will Be Done
October 12, 2019 01:15 - 37 minutes - 51.7 MBToday, we’re going to look at what it means to pray, “Thy will be done.” We’re going to need every bit of help we can get to learn how to pray this, because this goes right into the teeth of our culture. American culture says that the more free we are to decide what is right or wrong for ourselves, having no one else tell us how to live our lives, the happier we’ll be. But here, Jesus Christ says every time you pray to God you need to say to him, “Thy will be done.” This goes right into the...
Hope: Thy Kingdom Come
October 10, 2019 00:32 - 35 minutes - 48.1 MBWe’re now looking at the phrase “thy kingdom come.” What does it mean to pray this? We’re going to look at this passage in Luke where he talks about the kingdom of God and the blessedness of the kingdom. “Blessed are you, for yours is the kingdom.” These passages both tell us a lot about the kingdom of God. I want to show you what the kingdom of God is, what it’s not, what it’s like, how you enter it, and then we’ll apply it to how all that helps us pray, “Thy kingdom come.” What it is, wha...
Awe: Hallowed Be Thy Name
October 08, 2019 00:48 - 33 minutes - 46.2 MB“Hallowed” is an old English word that means to treat something as sacred, to treat something as holy. “Hallowed be thy name” means to praise and adore. It means to be captivated, astonished, to be melted with grateful joy for who God is and what he has done. So we’re looking at Psalm 63, a very famous psalm about praise. It tells you quite a lot that is very specific about praise. We’re going to look at five aspects to praise and adoration: thinking, expressing, appraising, beholding, and ...
Family: Our Father
October 05, 2019 04:45 - 41 minutes - 57.6 MBIn this series, we’re going to take one phrase each week from the Lord’s Prayer and then go to some other place in the Bible that gives us access to the strain of biblical doctrine and teaching that is required if you’re going to pray that part of the prayer. What does it mean to pray, “Our Father”? What’s intriguing to me about this passage is that in verses 4–5, when it describes everything Jesus Christ came to do, the reason he came, the purpose of his salvation, was that we might receiv...
A Personal Testimony on Prayer
October 03, 2019 14:30 - 21 minutes - 29.9 MBThis is a testimony and teaching about three stages in my own prayer life–my growth in prayer, my growth in understanding in prayer, my growth in the practice of prayer. So I'm going to go back through my whole Christian life and ministry life and give you some ideas. I would say there's three layers or three lessons I learned over the years. The first one was prayer as helplessness. The second was prayer as work. The third was prayer as love. This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at R...
How We Are Formed as Believers
October 01, 2019 00:59 - 34 minutes - 47.3 MBWe’ve already asked, “How do you become a believer?” and “How do you know you have become a believer?” We looked at the great story of Naaman the Syrian and his conversion. We’re now going to ask, “How can we be sure we are formed as believers?” How do we make sure the beliefs we have in our head actually form and shape our entire lives? The general answer over the centuries that the church has given is prayer. And the more specific answer to, “How do we know how to pray?” has been the Psal...
How We Live as Believers
September 28, 2019 00:12 - 44 minutes - 60.5 MBOne of the reasons we’re looking at this guy, Naaman, is because he is a lot like the typical New Yorker. He met God. Now let me ask you … Have you met God? Have you really met God? If you say, “Well, here I am. I’m in church. I go to church,” yeah, but that’s what the second half of this narrative, this historical account, is about. Naaman, who was a pagan, who knew nothing about the Bible, who had absolutely no (what we would call) religious background is converted. He gets a changed hear...
How We Become Believers
September 26, 2019 01:05 - 38 minutes - 53.2 MBIn this passage, a Syrian general, Naaman, goes to the God of Israel to get help. As we’re going to see, there was an astonishing amount of hatred and disdain between these two nations. But Naaman, the sophisticated, powerful Syrian, goes to Israel and to the God of Israel to get some kind of help, and it’s shocking that such an unlikely person would do that. What brings a Naaman and what brings a typical person who lives in Manhattan to start to seek the God of the Bible? That’s what we’re...
Love and the Future of God
September 24, 2019 00:34 - 44 minutes - 61.1 MBWe’ve been looking at the ways in which an experience of the grace of God creates a new inward character and a new interior character of the heart. We now come to the end of the series and return to the same passage on which we started, 1 Corinthians 13. What we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the end of this passage in which Paul tells us that the key to developing that interior supernaturally changed heart is to look to the future, to look to something that’s going to happen in t...
Living Grace
September 20, 2019 23:53 - 45 minutes - 62.7 MBPaul, in 1 Corinthians 13, said it is possible to live a completely ethical life without any love at the root of it, but rather, fear, pride and power. What we’re doing is we’re taking a look at the traits of a life that’s not just morally restrained externally, but supernaturally changed from the inside. This passage is not like the other passages, because every other week what we have been doing is looking at one trait each time. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kin...
Enduring Grace
September 19, 2019 03:34 - 45 minutes - 62.3 MBWe’ve been looking underneath ethical behavior to the marks of supernaturally changed character, a heart that’s changed at the root in its fundamental desires and motivations. Today, we come to a term that’s very important in Greek philosophy and in Greek language. It’s the word self-control. Think of how much misery there is in our lives because we can’t control our tongue, our time, our thoughts. We make impulsive decisions or use impulsive words, then we wish we could take them back. Wha...
Passionate Grace
September 17, 2019 00:53 - 41 minutes - 56.7 MBWe’re looking at what the marks are of a heart that has been changed at its very core. We now come to a trait that is hard to summarize in any one English word. A supernatural heart has its relationship to the truth changed. In 1 Corinthians 13, it says the mark of a heart that has been changed by the supernatural love of God is that it rejoices with the truth. Paul is talking about something more than ethical honesty. There’s a place where Jesus Christ speaks of his followers as people who...
Blessed Self-Forgetfulnesss
September 14, 2019 00:35 - 41 minutes - 57.7 MBUp until the twentieth century, the traditional cultures have always believed too high a view of yourself is the real root cause for most of the evil in the world. This is still true in most cultures of the world. Why do people abuse others? Why are people cruel? Why do people do the bad things they do? Traditionally, pride–too high a view of ourselves–is the reason why we misbehave. In the modern Western culture, particularly in the United States, we have an utterly opposite cultural conse...
Receptive Grace
September 12, 2019 00:19 - 43 minutes - 59.3 MBWhat we’re looking at is not the moral behavior Christianity requires, and which to a great degree other religions require, but what we’re looking at is the supernaturally changed heart–the traits or characteristics of a new heart that only the gospel in its peculiar way of relating us to God can produce. The trait we now come to is what the world calls tolerance. And we have to confront a very, very urgent question. The question is how should you relate, how can you relate to someone whose...
Resting Grace
September 10, 2019 00:51 - 47 minutes - 65.1 MBWe’ve been talking about the fact that there’s a difference between a supernaturally changed heart and a morally restrained heart. The marks of a supernaturally changed heart are sometimes called the fruit of the Spirit. They’re listed a number of places in the New Testament. We now come to another trait or quality of a supernaturally changed heart: peace. In almost all the lists of these traits, it’s joy or peace. I want to spend more of my time than I have the last couple of weeks on how ...
Befriending Grace
September 06, 2019 23:13 - 45 minutes - 62.7 MBThis sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 27, 2002. Series "Practical Grace; How the Gospel Transforms Character". Scripture: Ephesians 4:29-5:2; John 15:12-15. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do...
Forgiving Grace
September 05, 2019 02:29 - 44 minutes - 61.5 MBIn traditional moral training, how do we teach people to be honest? How do we encourage them not to lie? It goes something like this. We say, “Don’t lie, or you’ll get caught.” “Don’t lie, or society won’t work.” The more religious approach is, “Don’t lie, or God will punish you.” Therefore, in traditional moral training, you’ve only restrained the heart, not fundamentally changed the heart. You haven’t changed its character. Instead of dealing with the roots of dishonesty, you’ve just jury...
Love and the Practical Graces
September 03, 2019 02:50 - 47 minutes - 21.6 MBIn the first sermon of this series, we’re going to look at 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 and ask these questions: What is heart character? What is inner love and joy? What is the inner supernatural change in character that God can bring? This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 13, 2002. Series "Practical Grace; How the Gospel Transforms Character". Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for al...