Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

Whenever God turns to you, if you believe in him, all he sees when he looks at you is complete beauty and sweetness. Jesus Christ offered himself up and fulfilled all of the obligations we owe God, so he has completely satisfied God. God sees nothing and senses nothing but sweetness when he regards you.
But you still live in a world twisted and broken by sin. And you have to deal with the realities of that. Therefore, there’s always a negative. And Ephesians 5:3-7 tells the negatives: there are prohibitions, limits, warnings. There are no exceptions to them. 
We must see both the positive and the negative: 1) the positive is that Jesus has fulfilled the law, and 2) for the negative, there are three categories of no’s: no covetousness, no foolish talking, and no sexual immorality.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 5, 1991. Series: Christian Lifestyle. Scripture: Ephesians 5:3-6.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

If you look at the particulars Christian teachings, the particulars don’t look that different from many other ethical systems. The difference is that Christianity is never interested in moral behavior simply as moral behavior. In every instance, putting on the new self means to remember your identity.
Being a Christian is ultimately about being melted with spiritual understandings of who you are now that Jesus Christ has said, “You are my beloved child,” of who you are now that the Holy Spirit has come in and said, “I now live within your heart.” Ephesians 4 is an amazingly multifarious passage on what the Christian lifestyle really is. And the purpose of this passage is to show how we can put off the old self and put on the new. 
Let’s look at anger and forgiveness. We’ll look at anger to see 1) suppression or denial of anger is wrong, 2) anger is sometimes required, 3) there are sinful forms of anger, and 4) if you can’t forgive, it’s because you haven’t sensed his forgiveness.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 3, 1991. Series: Christian Lifestyle. Scripture: Ephesians 4:25-32.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Christianity has an amazing approach to lying and to anger that almost nobody else has. For truth-telling, it says truth must always be told with love. And for anger, it says, “Be ye angry, and sin not.”
Paul doesn’t say, “Well if you get angry, it might be okay.” He says, “Be angry. Do it.” Very often it is wrong not to be angry. But then he turns around and says, “and sin not.” It must mean two things: that anger can easily lead to sin and trouble, and that it’s possible to be angry but not become sinful.
Ephesians 4 shows us a lot about lying and anger. Let’s look at 1) what it means to speak the truth in love. And then we’ll discuss how 2) anger is not wrong in itself, 3) we are to sin not, and 4) we have a way to deal with anger.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 27, 1991. Series: Christian Lifestyle. Scripture: Ephesians 4:25-32.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

A good test shows you what you really are, what’s really in you. If you’re in denial, the tests are devastating. If you’re dropping the ball, the tests are traps. Jesus says the only way you’re going to come through the tests of life is if you seek God.
How are you doing right now? Are you going through and failing the little tests, and are you setting yourself up for failure of some big test in the future? How can you be delivered from evil in the tests of life? Jesus tells you how. 
Let’s look at four very practical ways of dealing with the tests of life: 1) expect the tests of life, 2) in the tests, realize the real enemy is evil, not pain, 3) process your tests through the love of the Father, and 4) see Jesus swaying, “Pray: Lead us not into temptation.”
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 28, 1995. Series: The Lord’s Prayer 1995. Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

In this passage, we finally get to a particular kind of prayer in which people are very interested: to the place where Jesus says prayer is a way to change our circumstances. 
Prayer makes a difference. You can come to God and say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” But notice this happens in the very middle of the Lord’s Prayer. It’s surrounded by all sorts of other concepts. And you can’t understand how it works unless you see all of its relationships to the rest of the prayer. 
Petitionary prayer will only work if you 1) get confident, 2) get perspective, 3) get humble, and 4) get reconciled.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 14, 1995. Series: The Lord’s Prayer 1995. Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

I’ll say it consciously: this is our worst nightmare. More than anyone else in history, modern people believe we ought to have a good life and we ought to have some control over our lives. But Jesus says when you connect with God, you must pray, “Thy will be done.” 
This means the purpose of prayer is not that we would bend God’s will to meet ours, but that we melt and soften our will into God’s. The Bible says the way to find yourself and your happiness is never to seek yourself or your happiness but to seek God and his righteousness.
In order to make it possible for us to do this, let’s look at what the Bible tells us about 1) where, 2) why, and 3) how to pray “Thy will be done.”
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 7, 1995. Series: The Lord’s Prayer 1995. Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What does it mean to hallow? It’s a word virtually never used anymore in everyday English, but we don’t quite have an equivalent. 
To hallow something means to treat it as sacred and ultimate. It means to make something your ultimate concern, to make it the most important thing, to make it the most crucial thing, to make it the supreme beauty, the supreme aim of your life. Jesus says this comes first, and I want to show you that praise and adoration is really what life is about.
Matthew 6 teaches us 1) the necessity of praise, 2) the primacy of praise, and 3) the anatomy of praise.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 30, 1995. Series: The Lord’s Prayer 1995. Scripture: Matthew 6:6-15.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Jesus doesn’t just point the way to God—rather, he is the way to God because he’s risen. And that means that for Christians, prayer is a unique, radically different process than it is for other religions and philosophies. 
Prayer is a rather universal thing, and there are many ways to pray. But Jesus says there are really two different bases on which you can approach God. He’s not talking about whether to ask; he’s talking about how to ask, about why you think you’re being heard. And he says there are two utterly different bases on which you can go to God.
Looking at Matthew 6, let’s try to 1) understand the true basis of prayer, and 2) employ the true basis.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 23, 1995. Series: The Lord’s Prayer 1995. Scripture: Matthew 6:6-15.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The Psalms is the divinely inspired prayer book, but when you open this prayer book, the first page is not a prayer. It’s a meditation on meditation.
Meditation is not the same as studying the Bible. In studying the Bible you’re just learning information. Meditation takes what you’ve learned and does something with it. And according to the Psalms, meditation is actually the key to prayer. 
Psalm 1 tells us 1) the priority, 2) the promise, 3) the products, 4) the practice, and 5) the problem and solution of meditation.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 23, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Psalm 1:1-6; 2:1-12.
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 like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The Lord’s Prayer is quite a workout. You’re asking for a lot of things: daily bread, deliver us from evil. But at the end, you rest in God. 
The last phrase in the Lord’s Prayer is, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, amen.” Is that just a rhetorical flourish? After all, it doesn’t seem to be a prayer. But ancient commentators have said this is a prayer of repose. You realize all the things you’ve been looking for are already there in God. 
In Psalm 27 we have an example of a prayer of repose, and it’s exactly what the end of the Lord’s Prayer embodies. This is a psalm of David, and we learn 1) what he’s facing, 2) what he does about it, 3) how he does it, and 4) why he’s confident it will work.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 16, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Psalm 27:1-14.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

We don’t see that envy is as terrible as it really is. Envy is wanting somebody else’s life. Do you know what that does? It sucks the joy out of the life you actually have. 
In Psalm 73, the psalmist is living as good a life as he can, and everything is going wrong. And on top of that, he sees a lot of other people who are corrupt and they’re having a great life. What is the solution? A particular kind of prayer.
There are four things the psalmist does in prayer that can only be done in prayer: 1) he admits the worst, 2) he sees the whole, 3) he grasps God’s grace, and 4) he reorders the loves of his heart.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 9, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Psalm 73:1-3, 13-26.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What if I told you there was a process and no matter how much you blew up your life, if you used this process, there would be a way to come out the other side whole?
Well, here it is. It’s what the Bible calls repentance. You say, “You mean just saying I’m sorry?” But that reveals you don’t understand the power of this kind of prayer. This kind of prayer, if you do it in an ongoing way, will finally enable you to change deeply from the inside out. 
Looking at Psalm 51, we’ll see 1) what one thing must you stop doing, 2) what two things must you start doing, and 3) where you get the power to do those two things.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 2, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Psalm 51:1-19.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

We need every bit of help we can get to learn to pray, “Thy will be done,” because we’re going right into the teeth of our culture. 
The essence of American culture is the belief that the more free we are to decide for ourselves, the happier we’ll be. But Jesus Christ says every time you pray to God, you need to say to him, “Thy will be done.” That goes right against probably everything you’ve been taught in our culture.
To understand this phrase, we need to see that when Jesus himself prayed it, he was in the midst of terrible agony. Let’s reflect on 1) the magnitude of that agony, 2) the immediacy of that agony, and then 3) how that helps us understand what it means to pray, “Thy will be done” in a life-transforming way. 
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 19, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Matthew 26:36-46.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What does it mean to pray, “Thy kingdom come”? 
Jesus gave us his instruction on how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, and it’s filled with concepts you need to know from the rest of the Bible. There are two places—Matthew 5 and Luke 6—where Jesus tells us a lot about the kingdom of God and the blessedness of the kingdom.
I want to show you 1) what the kingdom of God is, 2) what it’s not, 3) what it’s like, 4) how you enter it, and 5) how that relates to prayer.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 12, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Luke 6:20-26, 46-49.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Hallowed is an old English word that means to treat something as sacred. It means to be captivated, astonished, melted with grateful joy for who God is and what he has done. 
For many years, I felt I didn’t know how to praise God, because nobody ever gave me specifics. As we look now at one phrase in the Lord’s Prayer, “Hallowed be thy name,” we’ll look at five aspects that are all needed if we’re going to praise.
There are five aspects to praise and adoration: 1) thinking, 2) expressing, 3) appraising, 4) beholding, and 5) resting.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 5, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Psalm 63:1-11.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What does it mean to pray, “Our Father”? It’s much more complicated than you think. 
Everything Jesus Christ came to do—the reason he came, the purpose of his salvation—was that we might receive adoption. We can pray “Our Father” because we’ve been adopted into the family of God. 
Let’s look briefly at 1) the gift of adoption, 2) what it means to be adopted, 3) the reason we can be adopted, and 4) how it applies to prayer.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 28, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Galatians 3:26-4:3.
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 like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

If you’re going to deal with the brutal realities of life, the writer of Hebrews says you have to have shepherds in your life.
Hebrews is written to people whose lives are filled with problems. And here, in the last passage of Hebrews, the writer tells us if we’re gonna make it, we have to have shepherding in our lives. 
The text tells us 1) our insulting need for shepherds, 2) the surprising identity of shepherds, and 3) the secret power of the shepherds.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 8, 2005. Series: Christ: Our Treasury (The Book of Hebrews). Scripture: Hebrews 3:13; 10:24-25; 13:17-25.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

When you embrace God by faith two things come into your life: a transforming power and a deep tension. It’s a duality. If you try to resolve the deep tension, you lose the transforming power. 
The writer of Hebrews says the great believers in history were resident aliens on earth. In Greco-Roman society, a resident alien was a permanent resident but not a citizen. That is the tension that anyone who wants the transforming power of God must live with.
If we want to understand the message, we need to see four things we learn in this passage: 1) there are two cities, 2) each city has a conflict with the other, 3) only one city is for the other, and 4) how to become citizens of the one city that’s for the other.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 1, 2005. Series: Christ: Our Treasury (The Book of Hebrews). Scripture: Hebrews 11:13-16; 13:10-16.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

This passage in Hebrews seems like an anti-climax. Throughout the book, the writer gives us something to help us face the brutal realities of life. But then, Hebrews 13 seems different. At first it looks like a to-do list, like miscellaneous ethical prescriptions, but that’s wrong. 
This is not an anti-climax. What we’re being told is that we’ll never make it in life without being deeply embedded in a robust community of people who have experienced the grace of God.
This passage tells us about 1) the importance of that community, 2) the intensity of the community, 3) the openness of the community, and 4) where we get the power to create it.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 24, 2005. Series: Christ: Our Treasury (The Book of Hebrews). Scripture: Hebrews 12:28-13:9.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Hebrews was written to people who have been shaken by life. Difficulties and sufferings have shaken them to the core. 
The writer is trying to help them find ways to face the brutal realities of life, to stand solid when everything around them is falling apart. In Hebrews 12, we have the climax. The writer pulls together all of the threads and says, “In an unstable world, here is how you can live an unshakeable life.”
This passage depicts 1) the shakable life, 2) the unshakeable life, and 3) how to receive that unshakeable life.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 17, 2005. Series: Christ: Our Treasury (The Book of Hebrews). Scripture: Hebrews 12:18-29.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.