Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

To be a holy person is not what people popularly think it is these days. In modern English we often use the word “holy” to mean “holier than thou”—inaccessible, condescending, and self-righteous. Or at best, people will think of a holy person as somebody who keeps all the rules.  But holiness is not about keeping all the rules. Holiness is an attitude of the heart in which you look at God and you...

Many Western people today think that Christianity is for people who don’t want to use their minds, that if you’re educated and thoughtful you wouldn’t believe. They think that to be Christian you’d have to jettison your thoughts and surrender to a realm of feeling, to a leap of faith. But the Bible tells us the opposite. In 1 Peter, when it calls us to holiness, it says we must prepare our minds....

How can you be in such a condition that the troubles and sufferings of life don’t crush you but actually hone and refine you? Peter tells us that to be that kind of person, you have to be holy. In these verses, Peter says to “gird up the loins of your mind.” It’s a picturesque statement of preparing for action, of tucking your robes into your belt. And Peter applies this to the mind, meaning you h...

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 10, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:10-12. 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 l...

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 3, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:10-12. 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 li...

There’s only one God who has wounds that can speak to your wounds. There’s only God who has been through it.  The Buddhists look at suffering as an illusion. Western secular culture looks at suffering as a curse. But Christianity looks at it as something both extremely real and far more hopeful. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, came to glory through suffering. And when you see what he went through for yo...

If Jesus Christ went into the furnace for you, he certainly can go into the furnace with you. That’s what the book of 1 Peter is all about: how we can deal with the furnace of suffering in this life and how we can know Jesus will be with us. Because Jesus faced the furnace of God’s wrath for us, we can be saved. And our salvation is a multidimensional thing: we have been saved from the penalty of...

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 12, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:1-2. 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 l...

When Paul was in prison, facing and expecting death, he had the audacity to say, “I have found the secret of being content no matter the circumstances.”  The amazing thing is that in the Bible this is not some kind of high nirvana that only certain people can find. In fact, the Bible doesn’t just say this is possible—it actually says this is commanded. The tenth commandment is “Thou shalt not cove...

Honesty is a difficult commodity. It’s pretty hard to find. Instead, you can see dishonesty everywhere: in the high places in the professional places, and all the way down to the inner places. We’re not honest with other people, and we’re not even honest with ourselves. Dishonesty starts because we’re all so good at denial. All around you there are people who, through blame-shifting and rationaliz...

If you’re not radically generous, you’re a thief. The Bible is full of this teaching. If the money you have was yours and you’re not generous with it, you’re just being stingy; but if the money is somebody else’s and you’re not generous with it as the owner directs, it’s robbery. The Bible says your attitude toward your wealth and your possessions is not an incidental or peripheral or optional iss...

Money is not a silly or superfluous thing. Money was designed to be our dignity. It answers to something God put down deep in us: that we all need to have part of the world to care for, and without any part of the world to care for, we have no dignity. But what has happened in most of our lives is instead of being our dignity, money has become our definition.  Money is power. It can act destructiv...

When Christianity burst onto the scene, the early Romans were amazed and astounded in two particulars: that Christians were radically generous, giving away large portions of income, and that Christians were radically pure, believing in no sex outside of marriage. This unique understanding transformed the Roman world. At that time, there were two major philosophies about sex. The first was the plat...

Jesus gives us the most radical ethic of love that’s ever been put forth: “Turn the other cheek.” This ethic has been criticized and disregarded, but no one ever says the reason is because it’s too low or vile or unworthy. They always say it’s too high, too lofty. The reason it seems so lofty is it’s a whole new dimension. The love ethic in Matthew 5 is part of a package. The package is that Chris...

Every individual human life is sacred. Every individual person is of infinite value. In Genesis 9, at the end of the flood, God assures Noah and his family of this truth. He says that if a person takes the life of any other human, he will hold that person accountable. This passage is meant to get everybody to feel the weight of your neighbor’s glory, to feel the weight of the value God has investe...

What gets God angry? Romans 1 tells us: ingratitude. If there’s a God who created you, do you work for his goals or do you take all that he’s given you and live for your own interests? My friends, that is ingratitude of the highest order, and this passage says it is secret treason.  The reason this is a secret treason is because you keep it secret from yourself. Romans 1 says even though we know d...

The fifth commandment is talking particularly to adult children. It says, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” What’s intriguing about the Ten Commandments is they are a summary of everything human beings ought to be. Yet in all of the Ten Commandments, there’s no place that talks about how people should relate to the government or to the people above them. It doesn’t talk about authority except rig...

What is true rest? In Psalm 3, we see a man who goes to sleep the night before a battle knowing full well that he’s greatly outnumbered. And he sleeps. He rests.  Scientists will tell you the thing that restores the body is not the length of your sleep—it’s the depth. In the same way, the Bible shows that there are all kinds of shallow ways you can get rid of tension, but none of those are the dee...

If you have any other gods before God—and we all do—to that degree that you have other gods before him, you’re in bondage, co-conspirator with your own jailers. God in his grace seeks to liberate us—with the most liberating of all of the Ten Commandments: “I am the Lord thy God … thou shalt have no other gods before me.” What he’s saying there is, “I’m the only God there is; all others are imposte...

The book of Deuteronomy is a series of sermons Moses preached just before he died. In it, he lays out, in the most comprehensive and practical way, how you should live if you experience the grace and salvation of God. If you experience God, how should that actually affect the way in which you live your life? It’s a very, very practical book and an incredibly comprehensive book. Today, we get to th...

Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious,” three times in this passage. Quick question that comes up: how does anybody have the audacity to command us to not be anxious? Nobody gets up in the morning and says, “I’m going to really be anxious today. I can’t wait.” It’s not a very voluntary thing. So why would Jesus command us? If we look carefully, we’ll see that he’s not commanding us in a drill sergeant way...

To many people, the whole point of prayer is this: how do you get God to give you what you need? Now, that’s not the point of prayer, and if you think it is, you will get very little. That’s the irony. Prayer is very effective for those people who don’t come into it hoping it will primarily be a way to get God to give you things. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus shows us that after you are done centeri...

A life of absolute peace, a life of tremendous clarity, a life of total power and freedom, a life of high beauty—that’s the vision of the Lord’s Prayer. A whole new life that revolves around God. We’re going to look now at the part of the prayer that’s about admitting. Let me reiterate that since prayer essentially is centering on God, everything starts with adoration and everything has to be unde...

What’s ironic is the Lord’s Prayer has probably the most familiar words in the English language, and yet it is the secret to what you seek. We’re so tired of technology, of quantifying everything, of being a number. At the core of our being, we need and we desperately want real soul experience. And how to have it is right in front of us.  Jesus Christ taught it to us in the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus sa...

It’s artificial to avoid the subject of money when so many of your problems, your worries, and your difficulties revolve around money. And it’s also artificial to avoid the subject because so much of the Bible is about money. The Bible says there can be no significant spiritual growth unless you put your money and your attitude toward it into God’s hands. And 2 Corinthians 9 shows us that it’s the...