Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

In Jonah, the antagonists are the religious, moral people. It’s us. It’s the city-disdaining, city-phobic, religious, moral people. We’re the antagonists, and God is the protagonist. It all comes down to this last question when 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’s love for a big, unbelieving, unjust, violent,...

History tells us the Assyrian empire brought cruelty and massacre to a new level. It was a violent empire that slaughtered helpless people. And Jonah’s response to it is anger. He wants them punished.  Yet, in the book of Jonah, we see one of the greatest surprising turns of all the stories in the Bible. God refuses to accept either the violence of Nineveh or the poisonous anger of Jonah.  Let’s l...

Jonah’s spirituality was fine for his old world and his old situations. But when he’s faced with a new situation, it just collapses.  Then, when he’s in the belly of the fish, Jonah begins to reflect and pray, and as the prayer moves along, we see he has a spiritual breakthrough. Now the new situation is something he can handle. How do we, too, move to the next level?  By looking at Jonah’s prayer...

Jonah runs away for two reasons: fear and hate.  God has told Jonah to go to Nineveh to warn them, but Jonah refuses. He’s afraid to put himself in the midst of his enemies, but he’s also filled with hate toward them. So the book of Jonah addresses in a real way the questions “What do I do about my fear?” and “What do I do about my anger?” Let’s notice three features of the story: 1) the stormy se...

Words like sin, sinner, heathen and heretic have been used for centuries to exclude and oppress people. That’s one reason we need the book of Jonah.  Jonah gives a concept of sin that can’t be used to oppress people. In fact, it shows that it’s one thing to believe in sin and another thing to understand it in your own heart. Jonah was a prophet, but there was a kind of sin in his heart that flew u...

In the old tales, if they were sending people out on a quest, they always gave them special gifts with special powers. That’s what Jesus is doing in John 14—he’s sending his disciples (us) out into the world.  The night before he dies, Jesus is giving mighty gifts with special powers to his disciples and to us. And of all the gifts that he gives, the greatest gift possible is this one: the Holy Sp...

God sent Jesus into the world to say the things he said and do the things he did — and it got him killed. Now Jesus is sending us into the world, and we should probably expect at least a hard time. In John 14, Jesus gives us gifts for the journey, gifts that will equip us for the difficult work of being his representatives. One of those great gifts is prayer. And if anybody is saying, “Oh, yeah, I...

Philip asks Jesus for something I think most of us can identify with. He asks Jesus to actually show them God. And at this, Jesus is exasperated.  Philip’s saying, “We believe in God, but it’s hard. So give us just one view, and that will be enough for the rest of our lives.” And essentially, Jesus says, “I’m offering you something greater than a vision, that through me you can know God.”  Let’s l...

Trouble will come. And because we’re going to have trouble, Jesus says he wants to give us something so that our hearts are not troubled by the trouble. John 14 begins and ends with Jesus saying, “I don’t want you to be troubled.” So what is it that Jesus does to give us confidence and strength to face life as it is?  The first thing Jesus gives us to help us deal with the troubles of life is the...

To live a Christian life is much more transformative than just trying to live better. If you’re a Christian, you are a living stone in the temple of the Holy Spirit, and you are a holy priesthood called to do sacrifices to the Lord, because you’re related to the cornerstone, Jesus Christ. Now that’s quite an image. What does it all mean? Let’s unpack that under three headings: 1) what we are calle...

The Christian understanding of freedom is at complete loggerheads with what our culture tells us. And I’d say most of us as Christians have trouble understanding it ourselves.  An extremely important concept for understanding the Christian life is the freedom of a Christian. It’s a theme that runs all the way through the New Testament: the paradox that Christians are free through submission, free...

Living the Christian life is not a matter of willpower and self-effort. Because of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have the potential for radical and organic growth and change.  2 Peter talks about moving from selfishness to unselfishness, from enslavement to freedom, from foolishness to wisdom. It’s talking about inward character change, about spiritual growth.  According to this passage, spirit...

The book of 1 Peter is probably more about suffering than anything else.  It might be the only book in the New Testament completely devoted to the subject of suffering. And it shows us that going through trials, troubles, and sufferings is one of the main ways in which we grow into Christlikeness.  So let’s see what we learn here about 1) the inevitability of suffering, 2) the good potential of su...

When we become Christians we don’t just turn over a new leaf, we’re spiritually raised with Christ and his resurrection power comes into our lives. And so, what does such an empowered life look like? We’re called to be holy, but this is a difficult term to get ahold of. In our modern culture, both the word “sin” and the word “holiness” are almost never used anymore except ironically. But we need t...

Jesus’ resurrected power is in our lives now. Even though we are not yet bodily resurrected, Christians are, according to Ephesians 2, raised with Christ and knowing the power of his resurrection. What does that mean? What does it mean to live that kind of life? What kind of life should we live now in light of the resurrection of Jesus?  Let’s look at 1) how we’re supposed to live as Christians, 2...

When we unite with Jesus Christ, his resurrection power comes into our lives.  Even though we believe we’ll be resurrected in our bodies at the end of time, there is already a spiritual resurrection that happens to us now. What does that look like?  Looking at this text, we can see 1) what happened, 2) where it happens, 3) how it keeps happening, and 4) why it happens. This sermon was preached by...

Jesus’ resurrection isn’t supposed to just change history—it’s supposed to change you and me. The New Testament everywhere says we should expect to encounter the risen Christ. And that’s how our lives are changed.  Peter is a case study for us, because we have here the story of how the resurrected Christ sat down with Peter at the fire by the Sea of Galilee—about how Peter’s life had fallen apart...

Easter is too marvelous for words, but we’re going to try.  Luke 24 is an account of the resurrection: from the morning when the empty tomb was discovered, to the middle of the day when Jesus appeared on the road to Emmaus, to the evening when Jesus appeared to his disciples. And in that evening account, we see that Jesus said a number of things to his disciples. We can learn three things about th...

For centuries now, on the Sunday before Easter, the church has observed the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem just days before he was crucified. It’s called Palm Sunday.  What does Palm Sunday mean? It means Jesus is king, and it’s important to see that’s not just an abstract proposition. Palm Sunday is about this: you can’t know Jesus Christ unless you know him as king. He can’t chan...

Christianity gives us resources to help us live in a world that’s hard to live in. And in Luke 5, we see a resource we wouldn’t immediately think of as one — that is, that when Jesus calls us, he sends us out into the world to serve. Serving other people is draining, but it’s also strengthening. Because if you see that you should live for your neighbor’s fulfillment rather than your own fulfillmen...

When you’re in the wilderness, how do you handle the trials, the difficulties, and the temptations? In Luke 4, we have a famous passage about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus is assaulted by the Devil, and he deals with it through the Word of God. We’re going to look at how Jesus uses Scripture, and how, in a practical way, we can too. This text shows us 1) the depth and complexity...

The raising of Lazarus is the seventh and climactic of Jesus’ miraculous signs in the Gospel of John. John says Jesus did many miracles, but these seven particularly revealed who Jesus was and what he came to do. And this one is probably the most famous.  Jesus especially loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus—there was a special friendship there. But Lazarus gets sick when Jesus is away, and Lazarus is...

The healing of the man born blind is one of Jesus’ miracles that’s called a sign, meaning it symbolizes something about who Jesus was and what he came to do. This is a story about a man who’s born blind, and it takes up an entire chapter. The man is healed in the very first few verses, then there’s quite a bit of interrogation with the Pharisees, and then the man comes back, has an encounter with...

In the miraculous sign of the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus takes a few loaves and fish and miraculously feeds a multitude of people. This is the only one of Jesus’ miracles that’s told in all four gospels. And the gospel of John gives us the final discourse in which Jesus explains the meaning of the miracle. Jesus says it’s a symbol. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” Let’s meditate on the aspec...

Can you imagine a perfect human being? You may say, “Sure.” But perfection would necessarily be surprising to us because we’re not perfect and we’ve actually never seen perfection.  The challenge of the New Testament is to read about Jesus, not just once, but page after page after page. If you do that, you’ll pretty much be forced to the conclusion that nobody could’ve imagined someone like this....