Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

I’ve heard people say, “Oh, I wish I had his faith, or her faith,” as if faith is a talent. And I do think there’s a kind of faith that’s a temperament—people who are more trusting or more skeptical—but that’s not saving faith.  There is no type of person who becomes a Christian. Saving faith, the faith that brings you eternal life, is for everyone. And Jesus’ miraculous sign in John 4 teaches us...

Jesus’ first sign was not feeding the poor. It wasn’t healing the sick or raising the dead. It was keeping a party going.  In the book of John, there’s a series of miracles that are called signs. That’s important because it means Jesus’ miracles weren’t naked displays of power. They signify. They’re symbolic. They point to who Jesus is and what he came to do. And the first sign of Jesus’ ministry...

People come up to John the Baptist and say, “What is your identity? What is your self-understanding?” That has a very contemporary ring to it. And it has quite a bit to do with us.  We’re looking at the life of Jesus and who Jesus is. In the second half of John 1, in this encounter with John the Baptist, we learn that Jesus is the Lamb of God. So we ask, “What does that mean for us?”  Let’s take a...

You can’t really understand the real Jesus if you only look at his birth and his death. You must also look at his words and his deeds during his life. To study the words and deeds of Jesus, we’re going to look in the Gospel of John, starting with John 1. It’s one of the most famous passages of the Bible, with too much great stuff to possibly discuss it all. So I’d like to give a top-level view of...

In ancient architecture, the cornerstone was the first stone laid, and it had to be the most perfectly cut stone and the strongest stone. Because, you see, what the cornerstone is, the house is. If the dimensions of the cornerstone are off, the house is off. If the cornerstone is true, the house is true. If the cornerstone crumbles in any way, the entire house will be compromised or lost. All of t...

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 5, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3. 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...

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 28, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3. 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...

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 21, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3. 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...

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 14, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3. 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...

If you don’t have a desire for a transformation of character from the inside out, it’s because you just haven’t faced yourself. There is in all of us a selfishness, a lack of self-control, a dysfunction. And yet God calls us to, “be ye holy.” Being holy does not just mean to keep the rules. Being holy means you are wholly reoriented in your thinking, in your feeling, and in your behavior. It means...

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...