Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

How do you talk about kindness? Depending on the context, the Greek word can be translated as fitting, pleasing, honest, or compassionate. How do you talk about a word with that kind of lexical range?
The answer is you can’t do it abstractly. You have to look at a kind of relationship that combines all those traits. The kind of relationship that combines them is friendship. And nothing is more humanizing and life-changing than friendship. 
John 15 is a unique passage about friendship. It tells us 1) the character or nature of friendship, 2) how you forge friendship, and 3) where you get the power for friendship.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 9, 2010. Series: The Real Signs of the Spirit. Scripture: John 15:6-15.
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.

If you’ve ever read a translation like the King James Version, you know when you get to the word “patience,” the older English translation will use the word “longsuffering.” This is because the Greek word for patience literally means to suffer a long time, which doesn’t sound very promising. 
What it’s saying is that patience is the trait by which you are able to bear up under difficulty without giving up or giving in to bitterness. There are two kinds of patience: there’s patience under difficult circumstances and there’s patience with people. And Romans 12 is a remarkable passage about how to be patient and gracious to people who are opposing you. 
This passage gives us 1) a principle of showing patience, 2) some ideas on how to practice it, and 3) how to get the power to do it.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 2, 2010. Series: The Real Signs of the Spirit. Scripture: Romans 12:9-21.
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.

There’s a difference between controlling or suppressing the natural self-centeredness and insecurity of the heart through willpower and seeing it permanently changed through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In Galatians 5, there’s a list of the traits or characteristics of a supernaturally changed heart. They’re called the fruit of the Spirit. We’re in a series trying to understand how we can have more of that supernaturally changed heart in our own lives. Today we look at peace. 
We’re going to learn three things from this classic passage in Philippians 4: 1) the character of peace, 2) the three disciplines of getting peace, and 3) the secret of peace.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 25, 2010. Series: The Real Signs of the Spirit. Scripture: Philippians 4:4-12.
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.

How do you know whether you’re just trying to be good, or whether the Holy Spirit has really brought transformation into your life? 
The way to know is to look at what’s called the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. There’s a whole set of characteristics of a supernaturally changed heart. We’re looking now at the first of these: joy.
Romans 5 tells us three things about joy. It tells us 1) joy is important, 2) Christian joy is unique, and 3) where Christian joy comes from.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 18, 2010. Series: The Real Signs of the Spirit. Scripture: Romans 5:1-11.
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.

Almost all of us have parts of our lives we really want to see changed, but change is really hard. And it’s very possible to mistake a morally restrained heart for a supernaturally changed heart. 
If you squeeze a rubber ball and then take your hand away, it snaps right back to where it was. You restrained the rubber ball temporarily, but you didn’t really change it. Almost all of us have that rubber ball experience. We try to change parts of our lives, and we put a lot of willpower behind it. Then as soon as circumstances change, it snaps right back.
1 Corinthians 13 tells us that a supernaturally changed heart 1) is not the same as a busy life in service of others, 2) is not the same as a morally committed life, but 3) is meeting love as a power and as a person. 
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 11, 2010. Series: The Real Signs of the Spirit. Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.
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 sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 14, 1999. Series: What’s Really Wrong with the World. Scripture: Isaiah 49:8-21.
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’ve lost connection with part of what the Bible teaches about sin: that God gets angry at sin. And I’m here to tell you that losing that is a bad thing.
In fact, I’ll go this far: you need an angry God. If you don’t believe in an angry God, a really angry God who hates sin and is going to punish it, you’re impoverishing yourself. You’re taking away all sorts of hope and humility and love.
Isaiah 64 and 65 show us 1) God’s anger is not like our anger usually is, 2) you need an angry God if you’re going to live in hope, 3) you need an angry God if you’re going to live in humility, and 4) you need an angry God if you’re going to understand how loved you are.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 7, 1999. Series: What’s Really Wrong with the World. Scripture: Isaiah 64:1-9, 65:17-18.
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 people in the West were faced with the atrocities of World War II, the culture’s prevailing optimistic views of human nature were devastated. Two questions kept coming up: what’s wrong with us that we’re capable of this, and what are we going to do about it? 
Isaiah 52 to 53 was written to answer those same two questions. It was written to a nation facing exile, to people who were about to face captivity, atrocities, and prison. And it has maybe the most well-known answer in the Bible to the question about human evil: God is sending somebody, the servant of the Lord.
In this passage, we learn 1) who he is, 2) why he came, and 3) what he did.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 28, 1999. Series: What’s Really Wrong with the World. Scripture: Isaiah 52:13-53:12.
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.

In Isaiah 61, we have one of the great prophecies about the Messiah. It tells us the Messiah is going to deal with the problems of life—and that shows us something about sin. 
Sin is not just breaking God’s scale and breaking God’s heart; it’s also breaking God’s design for us. God’s law is also the design print of your heart, the way you were built to work. So when you break God’s law, you’re trampling on yourself.
In Isaiah 61, we can see 1) what the problem is, 2) what God is going to do about it, and 3) how we should respond.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 21, 1999. Series: What’s Really Wrong with the World. Scripture: Isaiah 61:1-11.
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.

Even when we feel vaguely guilty for things in our past, or when we feel outraged by what we see other people doing, we have trouble talking about sin and evil. In our society, we’ve been taught that words like “sin” or “evil” are oppressive or meaningless. Yet we sense something out there that we don’t have the vocabulary for.
But the Bible gives us a far richer vocabulary and helps us understand sin in far more nuanced ways. In Jeremiah 2, there’s a prophesy from Jeremiah to a nation in spiritual decline. And in it, we’ll see how sin is replacing God, and the result is addiction of spirit.
Jeremiah’s telling us about 1) the dynamics of spiritual attraction, 2) the dynamics of spiritual addiction, and 3) the dynamics of spiritual restoration.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 14, 1999. Series: What’s Really Wrong with the World. Scripture: Jeremiah 2:1-8.
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 story in Judges 17 is not interesting. It’s a bunch of trivial people doing kind of dumb, weird things. Micah robs his mother, but then he gives the money back. Then his mother cheats God. Then Micah hires a Levite, and then Danites hire the Levite instead. What’s the point? 
On the one hand, this is terrible storytelling. Why was this incident chosen out of this whole period of history? There’s nobody in this narrative who you care about. They’re shallow and uninteresting. And we’re left completely unprepared for what happens in the following chapters, where there’s rape and civil war and genocide. So why is this here?
Every other part of Judges is about God’s salvation. And this passage shows us what we look like without his salvation. In other words, this shows us the nature of sin, and it shows us some things that are very surprising. This tells us 1) what sin does to us, 2) what sin does to God, and 3) how we can be cured of it. 
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 7, 1999. Series: What’s Really Wrong with the World. Scripture: Judges 17:1-13.
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 people see the evidence of great evils and atrocities, they automatically turn into philosophers. They start to ask the metaphysical questions. How could this have happened?
Why doesn’t God do something about evil, about the wickedness and violence that’s here? Why doesn’t God do something about the brokenness of the world? Exodus 17 tells us that God has.
This passage tells us about a trial that happened years ago, and it was the most remarkable trial in the history of the world. Look at it carefully: 1) there’s a lawsuit, 2) then there’s a trial, and 3) then there’s an execution.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 9, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Exodus 17:1-7.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The story of Jacob and Esau is a great example of how anger works out in a family situation. 
Esau and Jacob were twins, and Esau was the oldest. When their father is fooled into giving Jacob the birthright, Esau can’t get ahold of his anger. We’re told that Esau held a grudge against Jacob and consoled himself with thoughts of killing Jacob. And when Esau’s father does pronounce a blessing on Esau, he predicts that Esau is going to be driven by anger all of his life.
How can you make sure your anger does not imprison and control you? How can you make sure that you control it? This passage in Hebrews gives us some principles: 1) it tells you what anger is, and then, 2) it tells you three ways to handle it.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 2, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Hebrews 12:14-17.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The rich young ruler looked like he had it made. He’s characterized by moral excellence and he’s financially wealthy. He’s got it so together that he even admits he doesn’t have it all together—that there’s still something he lacks. He isn’t sure what it is. He’s gotten to the top and realized, “I’ve almost made it.” 
So he comes to Jesus and says, “I just need that one more step.” And Jesus gives him an outrageous, strong answer. Jesus tells him he’s on a completely wrong road—that he’s totally outside the kingdom of God.
Unless we understand why the rich young ruler went away from Jesus grieved, we might be in danger of also being sent away. The rich young ruler went away grieving because 1) he talked to the real Jesus, 2) Jesus smashed two of his basic assumptions about how religion works, 3) Jesus got personal, and 4) he didn’t understand treasure in heaven.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 19, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Matthew 19:16-25.
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.

Joseph’s career was going along fairly well. He’d risen from servanthood to becoming, in a sense, the Chief Operating Officer of a huge estate. And then sex came. He wasn’t even looking for it, but it came at him.
Things may be going very well for you, but sex will come—and it’s such a powerful force that how you handle it can make or break you. From Genesis 39, we can learn about what we’re going to call lust. We learn something from what we see Potiphar’s wife doing, we learn something from what we see Joseph doing, and we learn from what we see God doing. 
Let’s look at 1) how to understand lust, 2) how to handle it, and 3) how to heal it.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 12, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Genesis 39:4-21.
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 the Middle Ages, theologians said there are different forms of gluttony—that you can eat and drink excessively, sumptuously, daintily, or impulsively. Technically, gluttony means to eat and drink immoderately. But gluttony also tells us something about each of us.
Gluttony is taking something good and then cramming it in until we’re sick of it. Our desires are disordered so that good and necessary things become cravings. Sin, in other words, makes us all addicted to something. We all crave something, and we do it in such a way that it is very, very bad for us.
Let’s look at three things this Scripture teaches us about craving: 1) the depth of our craving, 2) the structure of our craving, and 3) the healing.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 5, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Joshua 7:19-26, Hosea 2:13-15.
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.

There’s a sickness in us. We are cruel to each other in ways we cannot seem to heal. We have an inveterate kind of unhappiness in our hearts we can’t seem to put out. 
For the last hundred years, the reigning Western understanding of why we are so cruel and unhappy has been that it comes from outside of us, that it comes from conditions. But in the last few decades, the intelligentsia have increasingly admitted there’s something deeper than that. The Bible says the problem with human beings is not environmental—that there is a poison in us that’s called sin. And we need to understand the symptoms of that poisoning, the symptoms of sin.
Let’s look today at 1) the symptom of envy, 2) the root cause, and 3) the antidote.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 26, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Numbers 11:4-6.
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.

After he broke his promise to Jesus, Peter wept bitterly. Peter was an absolutely broken man in the profoundest possible way, and yet within weeks he was poised as the leader of a new movement, about to become one of the most influential leaders in the history of the world.
What broke Peter like this, and then what restored him so quickly? The answer is the same: promises. Promises are the reason he was broken, and promises are the reason he was restored. And the case of Peter tells us more about the power of commitments than, I think, any other incident in the Scripture.
Let’s look at what Peter learned: 1) how promises make us, and 2) how we can make promises.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 12, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Matthew 26:69-75.
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 sixth century B.C., Nebuchadnezzar was the absolute monarch of the Babylonian empire. He’d built maybe the most incredible city in history. He was at the pinnacle of power, and his life fell apart anyway. And here’s the incredible part: he’s glad it happened! He praises God for having done it.
Do you know why? Because he says, “There was a spiritual cancer in me. There was something in me that was so bad, it was so dangerous, it had poisoned my soul so deeply that even as drastic as the treatment was, it was worth it to get it out of my soul.” What was it? Pride. Spiritual pride.
Could it be that we need to know the same lesson he learned? This text teaches us four things: it tells us about 1) the sleep of pride, 2) the heart of pride, 3) the outcome of pride, and 4) the healing of pride.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 5, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Daniel 4:24-37.
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.

Jeremiah is speaking at a time when his society was literally falling apart—politically, psychologically, socially and culturally. Everybody was asking, “What’s wrong?” And the answer of God through Jeremiah, was, “It’s not the economy. It’s sin.”
The Bible shows us that sin is a dislocation of the soul. The soul should be centered on God, and all of our problems come from our unwillingness to center on him because we don’t want to lose control. So what happens? What are the effects of centering on something else?
Jeremiah gives a metaphor of us falling in love with other gods, meaning these other things we center our lives on. And he shows that there are two major consequences: 1) our lover gods will always enslave us, and 2) our lover gods will always leave us empty.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 29, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Jeremiah 2:19-32.
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.