Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life
692 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day 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
God at Work
January 30, 2023 11:00 - 42 minutes - 34.6 MBAt first glance, Psalm 111 seems to be a generic recitation of the great things God has done for his people. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. If you read consecutively, Psalm 111 and 112 look a lot alike—and there are remarkable links between the two. Psalm 111 describes the great God, and Psalm 112 describes a great, flourishing, happy life. The links between the two are unmistakable. If you want the life of Psalm 112, you need to know the God of Psalm 111. This psalm teaches ...
God of the Nations
January 27, 2023 11:00 - 35 minutes - 28.7 MBPsalm 96 is an astonishingly happy psalm. It depicts joy and rejoicing for the whole human race, and not just for everyone, but for everything—even the trees, the fields, the mountains, the earth, and the seas are filled with joy and rejoicing. But this isn’t the world the way we know it—where there are hurricanes, natural disasters, diseases, and death. So how do we get from where we are to there? Is this nothing but an inaccessible, crazy idea, or is it possible to get to a world like th...
Certainty of the Spirit
January 25, 2023 11:00 - 34 minutes - 27.8 MBRomans 8 tells us it’s possible for us to experience God because of the work of the Holy Spirit. At the end of the chapter, we get to the heart of the Holy Spirit’s job: to assure us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. If this is the main job of the Holy Spirit, it means that your main problem tonight is that you’re not persuaded. At every level, the Spirit works to convince us. And we need to hear the Spirit’s arguments because there will always be 1) the inside problem, an...
Witness of the Spirit
January 23, 2023 11:00 - 34 minutes - 28.1 MBWe’re in a series on experiencing God, and we’re looking at the work of the Holy Spirit. The main job of the Holy Spirit is to assure you that you are a child of the King—to assure you that you belong to him, that you’re his child, that he loves you. The three great ministries of the Holy Spirit, which are all assurance ministries, are 1) the ministry of regeneration, 2) the ministry of sanctification, and 3) the ministry of high assurance and power. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timot...
Cleansing of the Spirit
January 20, 2023 11:00 - 37 minutes - 30.1 MBWe’re looking at what it means to experience God. To be a Christian is to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Not just to be helped by the Holy Spirit, not just to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, but to be indwelt. Today, we’re going to look at how we increase spiritual dynamics in our lives. What are the basic dynamics which, when they’re heightened, heighten spiritual vitality? If we are to walk in the Spirit, we will be involved in two processes: 1) mortification, which is putting to death ...
Life of the Spirit
January 18, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 23.6 MBWe’re looking at what it means to experience God. The reason we say Christianity is an extremely experiential religion is because the Bible says when we become Christians, we’re indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit resides in you—as a permanent resident. As we look at Romans 8, we’re taught 1) who the Holy Spirit is, and 2) what it means that he resides in you. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 16, 1997. Series: Lessons in Dra...
Freedom in the Spirit
January 16, 2023 11:00 - 42 minutes - 34.1 MBHow do you actually experience God? How do you sense his presence in your life? If you want to understand the key to real experience of God, the Holy Spirit is the key. Romans 8 shows us that the Holy Spirit’s job is to convince you and to show you nothing can separate you from the love of God, because the Spirit unites us with what Jesus Christ has done. In Romans 8, we see that 1) we continue to struggle with sin, but 2) there is no condemnation. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy...
Disciplines of Repentance
January 13, 2023 11:00 - 40 minutes - 32.2 MBWe’re in a series on experiencing God. And we’ve talked about experiencing God’s presence in prayer, in guidance, and in suffering. But how do we get the presence of God in prayer, and in guidance, and in suffering? Repentance is the secret. Repentance is the way to experience God’s presence in everything. In Psalm 32, we look at experiencing God through repentance. In it, we see 1) the power of guilt, 2) the power of repentance, and 3) the process of repentance. This sermon was preache...
Disciplines of Distress
January 11, 2023 14:09 - 36 minutes - 29.6 MBWe’re in a series looking at how we experience God. Now we ask, how do you experience God in troubles and distress and difficulties? There are many texts in the Bible about suffering. Psalm 11 is a short Psalm, and yet we find in it the same principles on how to deal with trouble that we find all through the Scripture. In this psalm, David shows us how to take refuge in God. Psalm 11 shows us that we need to realize: 1) who is ruling the world, 2) all disasters are examinations, 3) only f...
Disciplines of Guidance
January 09, 2023 14:23 - 41 minutes - 33.3 MBWe’re in a series on experiencing God. Now we come to another aspect: How can you know God is leading you and guiding you? How can you know you’re not just making these decisions on your own, but rather, that there’s a plan, and God is leading you through that plan? Psalm 25 is one of the greatest passages on how God guides. It shows us that 1) there’s a promise of God’s guidance, and 2) there are four things that are true of a person who receives God’s guidance. This sermon was preache...
Discipline of Desire 3
January 06, 2023 11:00 - 44 minutes - 35.9 MBHow do we know what real spiritual experience of God is? And then how do we have it? How do we actually move toward it? The Psalms are a journal—almost a kind of instruction manual from the inside—with people who are experiencing God and explaining and describing it. And Psalm 63 is one of the greatest at showing us these things. We’re going to look at 1) three marks of spiritual experience, and 2) two very key and different disciplines in order to experience God. This sermon was preach...
Discipline of Desire 2
January 04, 2023 11:00 - 40 minutes - 32.8 MBWhat does experience of God actually consist of? How does it happen? And how do I know if I’m experiencing God? Psalm 63 shows several principles of what a real experience of God is and consists of. Each principle can be used as a test on your own heart. And each principle is also a discipline—a practical handle for what to do to draw near to God. We’re going to look at two of these principles: 1) you develop a spiritual appetite and, 2) you are capable of a new sense of God. This sermon ...
Discipline of Desire
January 02, 2023 11:00 - 26 minutes - 21.5 MBWe have a tremendous hunger for spiritual experience. But how do we experience God? And how do we know we’re experiencing God? The Psalms are an amazing resource, because in the Psalms you have someone describing their experience of God from the inside. Psalm 63 shows us features of authentic Christian experience—and each feature is both a test and a discipline. Let’s look at the first feature: 1) the way you know you’ve found God is that you develop a spiritual appetite. In other words, ...
The Law of Grace
December 19, 2022 11:00 - 40 minutes - 32.5 MBWe’re looking at the Sermon on the Mount. It is very famous because in it, Jesus says, “This is what God wants from you. This is the law.” We learn that Jesus really demands things that no other founder of any religion has ever demanded. But when you look at this passage as a whole, you see that the law of God is filled with grace. As Jesus expounds it, we see that the law is grace and that it drives us into grace. Let’s look at three aspects of the law of God that show us his grace: the p...
The Grace of the Law
December 16, 2022 11:00 - 43 minutes - 34.9 MBThe gospel of Matthew is famous for having long discourses of teaching. Matthew 11 is the best single place where Jesus explains how to receive him; Matthew 5 through 7 is the best single place where Jesus explains how to follow him. He teaches us what it means to become a Christian and how to live the Christian life. If you go through the Sermon on the Mount verse by verse, you learn a tremendous number of details about what it means to be a Christian, but we’re going to look at it as a wh...
The Restful Burden
December 14, 2022 11:00 - 32 minutes - 25.9 MBWe’re looking at one of the more well-known parts of Matthew 11. If you’re looking at Christianity, this is a matchless summary. Jesus calls out to those who are burdened and weary, and he gives an invitation to find rest in him. He says, “If you are weary and if you are burdened, you haven’t really yet understood the greatness of what I offer.” We’re going to look at two things in this passage. First of all, Jesus gives us an analysis: we all have restlessness and we’re all yoked to somet...
The Grace of Jesus
December 12, 2022 11:00 - 33 minutes - 27.3 MBMatthew chapter 11 begins with John the Baptist sending a message that reveals John is struggling with who Jesus is. All of Matthew 11 is a response to John the Baptist’s question. Jesus doesn’t say something like, “John, you’ve misunderstood me.” No, instead, he says “John, the things I claim and the things I am are much more outrageous than you have even heard. Let me show you just how outrageous and how offensive I really can be.” Jesus makes some of the most outrageous and the most off...
The Greatness of Jesus
December 09, 2022 11:00 - 39 minutes - 32.1 MBIn Matthew chapter 11 John the Baptist is struggling with the identity of Jesus. He sends a message and he says, “Are you really who you claim to be?” The rest of the chapter is Jesus’ answer to that question. The contemporary relevance of a chapter like this is so amazing and so obvious, because Western civilization is filled with people just like John the Baptist. People who are filled with doubts and questions about Jesus. Jesus gives us two important things to do in his response. First...
Rejecting the Real Jesus
December 07, 2022 11:00 - 43 minutes - 34.7 MBThis passage is part of Jesus’ response to John the Baptist who was struggling with doubts about the identity of Jesus. It is so relevant for today because many of us may have similar questions or doubts about Jesus. We may be in a similar situation as John the Baptist. In Jesus’ response, we find answers to that unbelief. Let’s look at three wonderful things about unbelief that Jesus teaches us in this passage: the power of unbelief, the character of unbelief, and the solution for unbelie...
Meeting the Real Jesus
December 05, 2022 11:00 - 34 minutes - 27.6 MBMatthew 11 has incredible relevance to us today. In the last 1500 years in the West, there has always been indifference to Jesus; but never have there been so many people who are offended at Jesus. John the Baptist is in the same place. When in prison, he sends Jesus a message, and he says, “I don’t know that you’re the One. Are you the Messiah? How do I know?” In Jesus’ response, we see three groups of people that don’t take offense at Jesus: the poor, the violent, and the least. Each one...
Who Is the Real Jesus?
December 02, 2022 11:00 - 35 minutes - 28.8 MBIn this passage from the book of Matthew, John the Baptist is struggling with who Jesus is. Why would John, this great religious figure, be dealing with such difficulty? We learn two things from his struggle: 1) you have to make sure you do not try to understand yourself before you understand Jesus, and 2) you also had better realize that if you reject him you’ll never be able to stop searching for him. As a response, Jesus gives John a straight answer. We learn two more things from Jesus. ...
Forgiveness: An Open Forum
November 30, 2022 16:06 - 48 minutes - 38.9 MBThe theme of forgiveness is something that’s in so much of opera, theater, and literature—because it’s a very important issue in human living. So our theme comes in the form of a question: should we always forgive? Forgiveness is always easy when you’re asking someone else to give it. And it’s always hard when someone’s asking you to give it. A lot of people have problems with forgiveness. They say forgiveness seems to make light of what was done wrong, or they say they can’t forgive unless...
The Power of Generosity
November 29, 2022 11:00 - 33 minutes - 27.1 MBWhy is it that we celebrate Christmas with gift giving? We don’t do that at Easter. We don’t do that at Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. At anniversaries and birthdays, we give one person gifts, but at Christmas everybody gives everybody gifts. Why? I’m not actually looking for a literal answer. I’m asking as a rhetorical question, “Why is it that everybody gives gifts to everybody else at Christmas?” I’m here to say it’s profoundly appropriate, because it gets at the theological heart ...
Self-Control
November 28, 2022 11:00 - 34 minutes - 27.9 MBWe’ve been looking at Christian practices, or spiritual disciplines, by which our character changes. Now, instead of looking at one practice, we’ll look at how a number of practices come together to create one particular character quality: self-control. A self-control problem is when you’re doing something you desperately want to stop, but can’t. There are the classic addictions like drinking and drugs, spending and gambling, overeating and undereating. But we shouldn’t think of self-contr...
Hospitality
November 25, 2022 11:00 - 40 minutes - 32.5 MBWe’re in a series on Christian practices. We believe certain things, but those beliefs don’t necessarily change our lives unless we instill those beliefs into our hearts through Christian practices, through spiritual disciplines. Let’s look at a Christian practice, a spiritual discipline, that you probably don’t think of as a spiritual discipline. It’s the practice of hospitality. All through the Scripture, hospitality is extremely important. It’s a sign of spiritual maturity. If you put t...
Spiritual Friendship
November 23, 2022 11:00 - 28 minutes - 23.3 MBIn this series, we’ve been saying beliefs don’t automatically change your life. They have to be instilled into your heart through spiritual disciplines, through Christian practices. I’d like to talk now about a Christian practice you probably don’t think of as a practice—the practice of friendship, especially friendship between believers. Friendship only happens to the degree you work at it. The ancients considered it the most virtuous of all the loves—because it was the most deliberate. T...
Community Building
November 21, 2022 11:00 - 37 minutes - 30.5 MBMany people believe God is real and God loves them. That belief ought to make you more secure, happier, and more humble. But beliefs don’t automatically turn into changed thoughts and feelings and behavior. Beliefs have to be turned into changed character through Christian practices, through spiritual disciplines. Over the next three sermons we’re going to look at different aspects of community-building. The importance of Christian community is masked when we read the Scripture. Because we...
Forgiveness and Reconciliation
November 18, 2022 11:00 - 41 minutes - 33.5 MBWe’re in a series on Christian practices. We’ve said beliefs have to be turned into changed character through Christian practices, through spiritual disciplines. We come now to forgiveness and reconciliation of relationships. In our culture, we tend to think of forgiveness as a private, emotional process. But the Bible sees it as a communal discipline that we all have to practice. Matthew 18 is a very hard-hitting chapter on this subject of forgiveness and relationship reconciliation. Le...
Led by the Spirit
November 16, 2022 11:00 - 42 minutes - 34.2 MBWe’re in a series on Christian practices. Beliefs don’t automatically produce a changed life. Beliefs have to be turned into changed character through Christian practices, through spiritual disciplines. We’re going to look now at a Christian practice that never stands on its own. Rather, it happens within the other practices. When we get to Galatians 6:1, it says Christians shouldn’t hold one another accountable without examining themselves. But what are we examining ourselves for? The ans...
The Supper
November 14, 2022 16:31 - 30 minutes - 24.3 MBThe belief that God loves you ought to make an enormous difference. But in so many cases, it does not. Beliefs don’t automatically produce changed character. Beliefs must be turned into changed character through Christian practices, through spiritual disciplines. Maybe the Christian discipline par excellence is observing the Lord’s Supper. In 1 Corinthians 11, there’s a Greek word that shows up five times: synerchomai, which means to bring together, to come together, to unite, or to connec...
The Bridge to Prayer
November 11, 2022 11:00 - 39 minutes - 32 MBWe’re in a series on what we’re calling Christian practices or spiritual disciplines. You may have beliefs, but those beliefs don’t automatically produce a different character unless your beliefs are turned into actual changed character through spiritual disciplines, or Christian practices. Today we come to a very important spiritual discipline. It’s the subject of Psalm 1: meditating on the law of the Lord, the Scripture, to the point of delight. Psalm 1 says that meditating on the Script...
Thy Word
November 09, 2022 11:00 - 45 minutes - 36.3 MBChristians have all of these great beliefs, yet the beliefs we have don’t automatically produce changed character. That’s the reason there are so many people who profess Christianity who are just as selfish as everybody else. Beliefs don’t just produce character. Beliefs have to be turned into character through practices, through spiritual disciplines. Today we’re going to be looking at how we are supposed to use Scripture, the Bible, in our lives. Psalm 119 is the longest psalm in the Bibl...
Singing
November 07, 2022 11:00 - 41 minutes - 33.8 MBAn awful lot of people who believe in God are as messed up and as selfish as everybody else. Why? Because beliefs don’t automatically create changed character. You have to turn beliefs into character with something in the middle. Between beliefs and character come spiritual disciplines or Christian practices. Unless you understand what those practices are and unless you participate in them, you will not actually change your character. The second most commanded Christian practice in the Bib...
Worship
November 04, 2022 10:00 - 37 minutes - 29.9 MBWe’re starting a new series on spiritual disciplines, or Christian practices, like gathering for corporate worship, private meditation and prayer, the disciplines of simplicity and generosity, reading the Bible in community, and spiritual friendship. The best way to introduce the series is to plunge into the first Christian practice, the first of the spiritual disciplines, which is worship. We’re looking at Psalm 95, which is called the Venite. In Latin, venite is the first word. It’s “O c...
Should I Not Love That Great City?
November 02, 2022 10:00 - 40 minutes - 27.9 MBAs we come to the end of the book of Jonah, we can ask ourselves the question, “What’s this story about?” Who is the protagonist? Who is the antagonist? It’s not Jonah who is the protagonist. It’s not the fish who is the protagonist. It all comes down to this last question in the passage. In the last question, God says, “Should I not have compassion? Should I not love that great city?” This is what the story is about. It’s about God, who is the protagonist, seeking to bring grace and love ...
Let Them Give Up Their Violence
October 31, 2022 10:00 - 41 minutes - 28.7 MBThe book of Jonah is awfully relevant to our situation, especially today. Jonah has been asked to go to the capital of Assyria, the great rising, emerging imperial world power. It was a violent place. It slaughtered helpless people. Jonah’s response to that is anger. He wants them punished. He is angry at them for their violence. Yet, in one of the great surprises in all of biblical narrative, there’s probably no more surprising turn than what we see in this book. God refuses to accept ei...
Those Who Cling… Forfeit the Grace
October 28, 2022 10:00 - 47 minutes - 32.7 MBWe continue to see the relevance of Jonah’s situation and the story of Jonah to our own. Jonah was a prophet and he had a relationship with God. He was a preacher. He had faith. He had an understanding of who God was and who he was. He was moving along in his world just fine. Then his world changed, because God came to him and said, “Now I call you into a new ministry, a new situation. I want you to go to Nineveh.” Ninevah was a violent, ruthless, imperialistic nation. It was, as it were, a...
They Greatly Feared
October 26, 2022 10:00 - 42 minutes - 29.4 MBJonah is a prophet. God has come to him and told him to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the implacable foe, the implacable enemy of his country. “Go to that city and preach against it. Warn them about God’s anger.” What Jonah does, of course, is he runs away. He refuses to do it. He goes in another direction. Jonah’s on the run. Why? Because Jonah has fear in his heart. He’s afraid to go to Nineveh, because–why put himself in the very midst of his enemies? We’re going to see what t...
Running From God
October 24, 2022 10:00 - 46 minutes - 32 MBThe book of Jonah is really one of the best possible places to get an overview of what the Christian message is about. This passage is about sin. But it doesn’t actually ever use the word sin. And yet, not only does it profoundly map out the real nature of sin, it gives us an understanding of sin that goes deeper than what you’d think the definition of sin is. It’s one thing to believe in sin. It’s another thing to understand it and understand your own heart. We’re going to take a look at ...
God’s Love and Ours
October 21, 2022 10:00 - 38 minutes - 26.3 MBJonah was called to go to Nineveh to preach, and after a lot of detours, he did. When he got there and began to preach, we’re told that Nineveh, by and large, turned from its violence and its evil ways. Now this is a marvelous thing and we would expect great joy in Jonah’s heart. But surprise, in 4:1, we read, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” Why is that? The bottom line is Jonah can’t figure out God’s love. Jonah, like everybody, believes in love in general, but when it...
Angry Enough to Die
October 19, 2022 10:00 - 38 minutes - 26.5 MBJonah went into a big city like New York, and he saw a massive change. He saw repentance that was culturally transforming. The people turned from their violence and evil ways. In response to this amazing thing, we’re told, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” What’s going on here? How can we explain Jonah’s mood swings, his tremendous emotional instability, able to praise God in chapter 2 and a few days later saying, “I am angry enough to die?” The answer is a divided heart....
Abounding in Love
October 17, 2022 10:00 - 40 minutes - 27.9 MBThe last chapter of Jonah is a surprise chapter. It’s the most surprising ending of any of the books of the Bible. If you gave this whole chapter a title, you might call it “The Incredible Collapse of Jonah.” Why would a preacher get exceedingly angry when, as a response to his preaching, he’s actually turned a culture away from violence, oppression, and wickedness to the living God? The incredible collapse of Jonah is because of a misunderstanding of God’s love. There are several lessons w...
The Secret Siege of Nineveh
October 14, 2022 10:00 - 36 minutes - 24.9 MBNineveh, which is the capital of Assyria, was the greatest city the world had yet seen. Nobody in their right mind would even think of besieging the city, let alone trying to capture the city, because you couldn’t even get an army around it. Who had an army that could stretch around the circumference of this city? But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, and God decides, not just to besiege the city, but to sack it with an army of one. God did it by taking one man and tur...
Your Own Grace
October 12, 2022 10:00 - 38 minutes - 26.5 MBWe’ve seen that when Jonah was called to preach in the great city of Nineveh, he refused and fled from God. God sent a storm to reclaim him, and he was thrown over the side of the boat into the ocean. There, he was swallowed by a great fish. Then in the belly of the deep, Jonah prays a prayer of faith, and he grasps the grace of God. We’re going to look, not so much at the subject or topic of the prayer, but the phenomenon of the prayer itself. How did Jonah, who was in this condition of ut...
Faith Rising
October 10, 2022 10:00 - 43 minutes - 30.1 MBThe plot line of Jonah goes like this. Chapter 1: God says to Jonah, “Go and preach to Nineveh, the greatest city in the world.” Chapter 2: Jonah refuses and flees on a boat. Chapter 3: God sends a great storm on the ocean to reclaim Jonah. Chapter 4: Jonah is thrown into the sea and swallowed by a fish. The point of all of this is in this chapter, almost exactly in the very center of the book. The point is about God’s grace. This book says a religious professional, a preacher, and even mor...
The Church Before the Watching World
October 07, 2022 10:00 - 43 minutes - 29.7 MBJonah is called by God to go to Nineveh, the greatest city in the world, to warn the city about impending disaster and preach there. Jonah refuses, heads in the other direction, and gets on a boat. God sends a storm to hunt him down, endangering the lives of everyone on the ship. Jonah, recognizing this, offers to be thrown into the ocean so the lives of the other sailors will not be forfeit. We’re going to pause and look at the sub-plot here: Jonah’s impact on the sailors and their impact ...
Love Beneath the Waves
October 05, 2022 10:00 - 40 minutes - 27.6 MBWe’re looking at the Book of Jonah, and we’ve seen that one subject in the book is sin and grace. Even though there are many places in the Bible that talk about those topics very theologically, the great thing about the book of Jonah is it presents these concretely. Sin is running away from God, and grace is God chasing us down, hunting us down in love, and intercepting our self-destructive behavior. We’ve learned that Jonah ran from God – he literally decided to get as far away from God a...
Runaway Believer
October 03, 2022 10:00 - 41 minutes - 28.3 MBThe book of Jonah is a very simple story. It’s a book about a man running away from God and about God pursuing him, and as a result of that, this book is one of the most concrete ways to learn what the Bible means by sin and grace. Almost everybody is familiar with the words sin and grace, but what they actually mean is another thing. Essentially (as concretely as you can put it), sin is running away from God and grace is God’s effort to pursue and to intercept self-destructive behavior. T...
The Parable of the Pearl: On Priorities
September 30, 2022 10:00 - 46 minutes - 32.1 MBIn these short parables, we see sacrifices made in the context of such tremendous riches that the sacrifice is made with incredible joy. In other words, the characters sacrificed in the joy and knowledge of what was on the way. This story shows us several principles of the kingdom of God: 1) Give up your small ambitions; 2) Christianity is a change of dimension and of essence; 3) To make that change, Christianity requires you to sell everything; 4) What Jesus gives in response to unconditio...
The Parable of the Farmer: On Servanthood
September 28, 2022 10:00 - 39 minutes - 27.4 MBIn this parable, we see Jesus teaching about how he wants his followers to live. The main theme of this story is that a Christian is no longer his or her own, but a Christian is a servant. Through this story, we'll see that a servant is somebody who has settled something intellectually and emotionally; they’ve settled that God owes them nothing. But we'll also see that a Christian is more than a servant: Christians are sons and daughters of God. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Kel...