Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

Jesus addresses our worry about money. 

We are in the grips of anxiety about money, about what we will eat, about what we will drink, where we will live, whether we can make the rent. We are in deep anxiety. Jesus comes to us and says, “Stop it!” But he’s a surgeon, not a sergeant. He goes underneath and says, “Let me show you why. Let me help you out.” 

Jesus teaches us 1) that money makes us deeply anxious, 2) why money makes us deeply anxious, and then 3) how to break the power of money.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 23, 1997. Series: Stewardship, Generosity and Money. Scripture: Luke 12:22-34.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Jesus addresses a crowd with some things he wants them to hear, but he also gives them some things he wants them to overhear.

Jesus wants the crowd to overhear him talking to his disciples about their money. And I’ve begun to realize that one of the main ways you will come to know and understand who Jesus is and what he’s done is if you see him talking to his disciples about their money. 

If you’re not sure what you believe, Jesus is not asking for your money. But if you want to understand him, you need to hear what he says to his disciples. This passage shows us three r’s: 1) a request, 2) a refusal, and 3) a rebuke. 

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 16, 1997. Series: Stewardship, Generosity and Money. Scripture: Luke 12:13-21.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

No place gives us a loftier and more penetrating view of who Jesus is than Colossians 1, which tells us that Jesus is a king. 

This passage tells us Jesus is the king of all kings. One paragraph tells us about the kingship of Christ that is. The other paragraph tells us about the kingship of Christ that can be. He is king of the cosmos, but he needs to be, and he can be, king of your personal life. 

Let’s take a look at both these aspects: 1) that Christ is cosmic king, and 2) that Christ must be your personal king.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 10, 1995. Series: Matthew 9. Scripture: Colossians 1:9-17.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

If you want an idea of who Jesus is, he says he’s more like the bridegroom than anything else. If you want an idea of what it means to be a Christian, he says it’s more like going to a wedding feast than anything else.

When Jesus says he’s the bridegroom, he’s telling us something about himself, he’s telling us what it means to be a Christian, and he’s telling us about our relationship to him. 

When Jesus says he’s the bridegroom, he tells us that Christianity is 1) a bond that consists both of duty and love, 2) a bond of completing love, 3) a bond of absolutely permanent love, 4) a bond of utter exclusiveness, and 5) a bond of ravishing love.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 24, 1995. Series: Matthew 9. Scripture: Matthew 9:9-17.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Jesus tells us that to become a Christian, there has to be a smashing. Christianity is new wine: it ferments, it swells, it’s organically and chemically active, and it will smash the old, inflexible wineskins. 

Jesus teaches that there’s an old way that everybody, religious or not, operates under. You will not be a Christian until all your old foundations, your whole approach to yourself and God, are utterly smashed. You must be called away from mere religion.

What’s the difference between religion and Christianity? In Matthew 9, we see 1) what religion is, 2) how Jesus smashes it, and 3) a few tests by which we can judge whether we’ve moved away from religion.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 17, 1995. Series: Matthew 9. Scripture: Matthew 9:9-17.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Here’s my thesis: The reason most people who profess belief in Christianity still don’t live big lives is because they don’t actually understand Christianity.

Most people think Christianity is basically like other religions. But Jesus says his message is absolutely different. Everyone who really becomes a Christian has a sense of being awakened. Something radical has to happen. A real Christian is someone who has been called. A real Christian is someone who has had an experience like Matthew.

The calling of Matthew shows us that to be called means 1) you sense a power coming in from outside taking charge, 2) you are confronted with a person, not a lot of intellectual ideas, and 3) you rise and follow him.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 10, 1995. Series: Matthew 9. Scripture: Matthew 9:9-13.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

At the end of Jesus’ life, the religious leaders want him executed. But the Romans have all the political power. So they bring Jesus to the Roman politicians, saying he’s a threat, and the question is put directly to Jesus by Pilate: What are your politics, Jesus? 

I always found Jesus’ answer maddeningly ambiguous, but today I can say it is beautifully, profoundly, deliberately ambiguous. Jesus is not just playing hard to get; he is trying to bring us to the truth. 

So let’s look at 1) what this tremendously ambiguous answer is, 2) how Jesus is not political, and 3) how Jesus is political.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 23, 1997. Series: The Real Jesus Part 2: His Life. Scripture: Luke 23:1-25.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Jesus debated. Jesus fought. Jesus argued with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, the teachers of the law, people we would call religious and civil elites today. But Jesus never picked a fight unnecessarily. 

In Mark 7 Jesus argues about the clean and unclean laws, the ceremonial washings, the ablutions the Jews observed. We might think it’s an antiquated point, but Jesus never debated something that wasn’t a universal, profound principle. 

We see three basic things here: 1) that we all have a problem with a sense of spiritual uncleanness, 2) that we all find a particular way to try to clean ourselves, and 3) why our ways of cleaning ourselves will never work, and what will.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 16, 1997. Series: The Real Jesus Part 2: His Life. Scripture: Mark 7:1-23.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

It’s not the whale events in your life that make you who you are. It’s all the guppies. Every morning you wake up and millions of them come at you. You have to eat. You have to sleep. You have appointments. The mundane, the hum-drum, the hustle and bustle. 

The difference between Martha and Mary is that Martha is swept along by the mundane, but Mary has put her feet at the bottom of the stream. The stream is going one way, but Mary walks the direction she wants to walk. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet in spite of distractions, in spite of opposition. 

Because we’re more like Martha than Mary, we’re sinking in a sea of mediocrity. So we ask, what does it mean to sit at Jesus’ feet? Let’s look at: 1) who Martha is, 2) what Martha needs, 3) what Mary does, and 4) why we should do like Mary.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 9, 1997. Series: The Real Jesus Part 2: His Life. Scripture: Luke 10:38-11:13.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The real Jesus believed in demons. The real Jesus believed in the devil. Most of us say, “They didn’t understand then what we understand now about diseases and mental illnesses. They attributed them to demons.” But in Matthew 4:24, you see something that explodes that whole idea. 

In Matthew 4:24, it says they brought all manner of sick people to him, and then they have a list: they say there were demon-possessed people, paralyzed people, and people with madness. Both the gospel writers and Jesus understood there were illnesses that had a demonical base and illnesses that did not. In other words, Jesus did not believe in demon possession out of ignorance, but out of conviction. If you screen that out, you’ll miss important insights for living your life. 

Mark 5 teaches us at least three things about evil: 1) the power of evil, 2) the patterns of evil, and 3) the pattern for the healing.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 2, 1997. Series: The Real Jesus Part 2; His Life. Scripture: Mark 5:1-20.

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 so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.