Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

No matter how savvy you are, no matter how much planning you do, no matter how powerful or successful you are, there’s no way to stop times of difficulty from coming into your life. They will come into your life.

So how do you get peace and poise in your heart in the face of a world like this? That’s the question that this psalm is about. It starts off by making a remarkable promise in the first four verses. There’s a claim and there’s a misunderstanding of the claim. And finally, we’ll see how we can take hold of the claim in such a way that we enter into the peace that’s offered.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 15, 2015. Series "Pilgrim Prayer: Psalms for the Journey". Scripture: Psalm 91:1-16.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Psalms 42 and 43 talk about how to deal with being downcast, how to deal with being despondent, in despair, in darkness. Everybody needs this throughout life. No matter who we are, we all go through these times.

Let’s notice that there’s a condition described, then there are causes diagnosed, and then finally, there’s a cure prescribed. There’s the condition of being downcast. It’s described. Then the psalm actually gives you some idea about the causes of the condition, and then finally gives you three extraordinarily practical cures.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 8, 2015. Series "Pilgrim Prayer: Psalms for the Journey". Scripture: Psalm 42:1 - 43:5.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The way the word “sin” hits modern people’s ears, it either makes us laugh or shudder. We laugh, because, generally speaking, the word sin is usually used in modern public discourse in a lighthearted, ironic way. But we don’t like to talk about sin seriously. When anyone uses the word sin like I am now, people get very nervous.

Yet the Bible says there’s nothing more important for practical living than for you to understand the concept of sin generally, and your sins in particular. Let’s take a look at this psalm, which will teach us three things about the subject of sin: the poisonous reality, the treatment, and the antidote.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 22, 2015. Series "Pilgrim Prayer: Psalms for the Journey". Scripture: Psalm 32:1-11.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The gospel is only an implicit, untapped power in your life until it’s released in power through repentance. For the changes you want, the changes you seek, the changes you need–the secret is repentance.

This passage is perhaps the classic and the greatest passage in all of the Bible on this wonderful theme: repentance. What is repentance? We don’t know how to do it because we think we know how to do it already. So let’s take a look at it.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 24, 1996. Series "The Faces of Sin". Scripture: Psalm 51:1-10.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

In the narrative we’re looking at, Naaman continually seeks to go to kings, but God insists on continually speaking to Naaman only and exclusively through slaves. Naaman is continually going to “somebodies,” and God insists on speaking to him through “nobodies.”

What does that mean? What does that tell us about ourselves? What does that tell us about God?

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 10, 1996. Series "The Faces of Sin". Scripture: 2 Kings 5:5-17.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What is the problem with the human race? Why do we have the problems we have? The Bible says the answer is a disorder of the human heart, a dislocation of the soul called sin.

The account we’re looking at is one of the most wonderful illustrations in all of the Bible about what the Bible has to say about the nature of the problem and the cure for it. Let’s look at it under three headings. First, the text tells us what Naaman really needed the cure for, secondly, what the nature of his cure was, and thirdly, how we know he was indeed cured.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 3, 1996. Series "The Faces of Sin". Scripture: Kings 5:5-17.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The biblical teaching about sin is one of the strongest arguments for the truth of Christianity that there is. There have been many thoughtful people who abandoned Christianity, abandoned religion, but were pushed back and embraced the faith because there was nothing else except the religious idea of sin that, when they actually saw human evil up close, could account for human history and human behavior.

And yet, if there is a lack of joy in your life today, if the thought of Jesus dying for you does not revolutionize you, does not transfix you, does not transform you, do you know what the main reason for that is? You have not seen how deep he went to pay for you. You don’t know how far he has brought you. You don’t know the seriousness and the depth of your sin.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 4, 1996. Series "The Faces of Sin". Scripture: Mark 7:25-30; 8:11-17.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What’s wrong with us, the human race? The answer of the Bible is all of our sociological and psychological problems are theological problems, and the only answer that possibly gets underneath all of these other semi-answers is the real problem of sin.

We now look at what I’m going to call our capacity for self-deception. What is the capacity for self-deception? It’s the almost infinite ability of the human heart to hide the truth from itself when that truth is too unpleasant or uncomfortable. Self-deception is not the worst thing we do, but it’s the reason we can do the worst things.

There’s no better example of the tragedy of self-deception and the dynamics of it than this tragic story of Saul, the first king of Israel. This text tells us about the fact of self-deception, the structure of self-deception, and a prescription for the healing of it.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 28, 1996. Series "The Faces of Sin". Scripture: 1 Samuel 15:12-23.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with the human race? If you don’t ask that question, if that question doesn’t burn in your heart, your head is in the sand. The answer the Bible gives us to this question is that it is, to a great degree, a problem of underestimation.

God says, first of all, that sin hides itself. It crouches. Secondly, that sin is tremendously powerful. It will have you. Thirdly, we’re told about hope. You must master it. It tells us about the hiddenness of sin, about the power of sin, and that there’s a hope for the defeat of sin.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 21, 1996. Series "The Faces of Sin". Scripture: Genesis 4:3-15; Hebrews 12:24.

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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

[NOTE: This message was recorded on cassette tape in 1990, therefore the audio quality is subpar in some portions of the recording.]

Paul says that if you want to understand the Bible, you need to realize that everything is about Jesus. He says it’s written not just for them, but it’s written for us, on whom the end of the ages has come.

This passage teaches us three things. The world is a wilderness. God has opened a fountain for people in the wilderness. And this fountain is only available because God himself entered the wilderness and received our punishment.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 24, 1990. Series "Growth in Christ, Part 2". Scripture: Exodus 17:1-17; 1 Corinthians 10:2-4.

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 this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.