Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

There is a courtroom, and we all know it. You don’t even have to go to the Bible–your own experience tells you. It doesn’t matter if people are coming to you and saying, “You’re great. You’re really great.” That’s nice, and you cling to that like a life raft, but you really wonder, “What about the other people who seem to have rejected me in my life? Who am I really? What do I really look like? Am I acceptable?”

The reason we’re so deeply insecure is because there is a courtroom. There is an accuser and there is a bar of justice and we are being accused there. We know it. Our conscience is a radio transmitter picking up the prosecution. How do we deal with the prosecutor? We look to the advocate.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 3, 1990. Series "Growth in Christ, Part 2". Scripture: Zechariah 3:1-7.

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.

Do you know how often Jesus Christ says, “You may be fake. You may be bogus. You may be counterfeit?” Paul likewise says, “Examine yourself to see if you’re in the faith. Jesus tells very clearly here in these two agricultural parables that there are counterfeits inside the body of Christ.

There are three kinds of Christianity that are fake, that are counterfeit, where the message of the kingdom comes in, but there is no real true central root the truth actually takes. First, there is intellectual Christianity. Second, there is emotional Christianity. And third, there is volitional Christianity.

I think emotional Christianity is mentioned as the second soil, intellectual Christianity, the third soil. And it’s probably volitional Christianity that is represented by those people in Matthew 7, who on the last day say, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we do all sorts of great things in your name?” and Jesus says, “I never knew you.” Let’s take a look.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 27, 1990. Series "Growth in Christ, Part 2". Scripture: Matthew 13:1-9; 18-30; 36-43.

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.

It’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 you clung completely to God, if he was your only security, you would be a perfect person.

The process of growth and grace and sanctification is to get to that place where you find out what those other things are that you are basing your security on, what you are really resting on instead of God. Do you know how you find where those things are, how you can find the trail to those security blankets? Follow your fears.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 20, 1990. Series "Growth in Christ, Part 2".

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.

Commitment 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". Scripture: John 12:1-6, 23-26.

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.

Though 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 glorious, the most important and significant thing in your life, that’s the day you moved from being a nominal Christian to being someone transformed by the power of the Spirit.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 6, 1990. Series "Growth in Christ, Part 2". Scripture: Romans 8:12-17.

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.

We’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, “Work it out.” This passage lays out with three basic principles about obedience–the person of obedience, the method of obedience, and the results of obedience.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 14, 1990. Series "Growth in Christ, Part 1". Scripture: John 8:31-39.

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.

Tim 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 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, 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.

I’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 Christmas God’s revelation did was it made them scared. God wanted to bring the good news of Christmas to the shepherds.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 13, 1992. Series "Advent 1992". Scripture: Luke 2:8-14.

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.

Mary’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 therefore is a model for us. She sings about three things in here. She understands the message of Christmas, and so she’s singing about it. She sings about God’s nature, his purposes. And then she sings about his adequacy.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 6, 1992. Series "Advent 1992". Scripture: Luke 1:46-55.

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.