Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

At the end of the end of the last of Moses’ sermons, he says something so simple that it’s difficult.
Moses starts saying, “I’m offering you this personal relationship with God.” He’s saying, “It’s not too difficult. It’s near you. You don’t have to go up to heaven. You don’t have to go over the sea.” And actually, people miss this personal relationship with God because it’s so simple; the simplicity is its difficulty.
We’re going to see here, when it comes to this personal, covenant relationship with God, 1) its deceptive ordinariness, 2) its threatening graciousness, and yet 3) its unimaginable promise.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 23, 2007. Series: The New Heart God Gives. Scripture: Deuteronomy 30:11-20.
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’re about to die, there are no tangents; you get right to the point. You only say the things that are the most important that you’ve ever learned in your whole life.
Here, at the very end of the end of his sermons, at the very end of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses gets to the most crucial things he could possibly tell anyone. Here he gives us the solution to what could be called the ultimate human problem. 
So let’s ask 1) What’s that problem? 2) What’s the solution? 3) How do you know if you have it? and 4) If you don’t, how can you receive it?
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 16, 2007. Series: The New Heart God Gives. Scripture: Deuteronomy 30:1-10.
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 the last thing, practically, that Moses said before he died was, “You need to be in a covenant relationship with God,” then it would behoove us to figure out what that is.
What is a covenant relationship with God? In Deuteronomy, we have a series of sermons that Moses preached just before he died. And Moses thought a covenant relationship with God was that important — that this would be almost the last thing he said.
In this passage, we learn three things: 1) the uniqueness of the covenant, 2) the mystery surrounding the covenant, and 3) the hero of the covenant.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 9, 2007. Series: The New Heart God Gives. Scripture: Deuteronomy 29:2-4, 9-18.
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.

If we look at Jesus Christ, at the case for Jesus being who he said he is, there are five things to see.
First, there was a man who claimed to be God. Second, he apparently did miracles. Third, he got the people closest to him to believe he was God. Fourth, after he was dead, many people saw him risen to life again. And fifth, those people were so transformed by the experience of meeting that risen Savior that they spread the word everywhere.
How do you account for those five facts, for the data of who Jesus is? You have to come up with something. There are only five options for how you account for this. We’ll look at these five options, and what they mean for us.
This talk was given by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 1, 1994. Series: Redeemer Open Forums. 
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 John 5, Jesus heals a lame man, and then he begins to teach about himself. He makes some astounding claims, and the people challenge him. “Why should we believe you?” 
In the context of Jewish jurisprudence, if a claim was made, you had to have two or three corroborating witnesses. Jesus responds to the people’s challenge with three: John the Baptist, Jesus’ own works, and the scriptures.
In the process of looking at what he says here, we learn three things Jesus himself believed about the scripture. Jesus believes in the Bible’s 1) complete authority, 2) unity, and 3) vitality and power.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 24, 2013. Series: A Public Faith. Scripture: John 5:31-47.
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.

You can’t talk publicly about Christianity unless at some point you get down to say, “Well, what is it?” 
There’s great consensus that 1 Corinthians was written just 20 years after the death of Jesus Christ. So when Paul says he’s summarizing the message the Corinthians heard and believed before this, he’s talking about something that happened a handful of years after Jesus’ death. If you want to get down to the irreducible core of what Christianity is about, here it is in this passage. 
This is the gospel. The gospel is about 1) Jesus, 2) sin and substitution, 3) history and resurrection, and 4) astonishing, transforming grace.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 10, 2013. Series: A Public Faith. Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.
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.

One of the best ways of having a discussion about faith is to not simply talk about what you believe, but also how you came to believe it. Not just the content, but the process or the journey you went on. It’s often very helpful, because everybody is on a journey. 
We’re looking now at a famous passage: Moses and the burning bush. Moses already believes in God, but until this, he’s never encountered him. This is Moses’ conversion experience: he actually meets God. 
Four things bring Moses to this moment, and they’re the same four things the Bible says usually have to happen if you’re going to meet God. What are they? They are 1) a disrupting sight, 2) an expanding concept, 3) a personal problem, and 4) a surprising grace.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 3, 2013. Series: A Public Faith. Scripture: Exodus 3:1-14.
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 all have very strong moral convictions about what we think is right and wrong. And in a pluralistic society, we need to find ways of sharing our beliefs and being honest about who we are in a way that’s respectful and promotes peace.
One of the ways we can make for a more civil conversation is to ask a more fundamental question: Where do you get your moral convictions? How do you determine what is right and wrong? 
There’s almost no place I know that has a more interesting answer to this question than Romans 2. It tells us three things: 1) no one can succeed in being a relativist, 2) no one can really succeed in being a moralist, and therefore, 3) this is our only hope.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 27, 2013. Series: A Public Faith. Scripture: Romans 2:12-29.
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.

If we’re going to have a truly open society, we have to learn how to be public about our deepest faith beliefs, and yet to do so in a way that’s respectful to others and promotes peace. 
So how do you talk about God and God’s existence? One way to talk about this with more reflection is not to ask, “Does God exist?” but to ask, “How do you know whether God exists?”
I don’t think there’s any more brilliant answer to the question, “How can we know whether God exists?” than in Romans 1. Paul actually gives four answers, all at once. He says, 1) we can know God, 2) we do know God, 3) we don’t know God, and 4) we can truly know God.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 20, 2013. Series: A Public Faith. Scripture: Romans 1:16-21.
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.

To become a mature society in which we’re able to talk about faith, we also have to be able to talk about doubt. We don’t get much help here from either religious people or secular people. Religious people tend to see doubt as a bad thing. And secular people tend to think perennial doubt is the only sophisticated position. 
However, what the Bible says about doubt is unique, nuanced, and multidimensional. The Bible sees doubt as something that’s not all good and not all bad. Only when you begin to see it in a nuanced way can it be something through which we make progress. 
Let’s look at doubt in this famous psalm of Asaph: 1) what is it? 2) what causes it? and 3) what transforms it?
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 13, 2013. Series: A Public Faith. Scripture: Psalm 73:1-3, 12-26.
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.

Ecclesiastes is one of the most confusing books in the world. It depicts a very disillusioned man. And you may be saying, “Is the Bible really saying all human life is pointless?” 
To understand what’s going on here, we need to keep two things in mind. The author of Ecclesiastes is called qoheleth, which basically means professor. And he’s doing a thought experiment. So Ecclesiastes is a set of thought experiments in which the professor is saying, “Let’s imagine living like this. Does that work?”
If we want to understand what Ecclesiastes is after, we need to look at its thought experiments. So let’s look at it this way: 1) there’s a major thought experiment, 2) with a lesson, and 3) there’s a small thought experiment, and then 4) an arrow or a pointer.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 6, 2013. Series: A Public Faith. Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:9-26.
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.

We live in a pluralistic society, so we must ask this question: how can people be true to themselves and still get along? No matter who you are, if you care about the social fabric, that’s a huge question to answer. 
My goal is to show Christians how they can be part of the solution. We’re going to look at the subject of public faith. In John 4, we see that immediately after speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus talks to his disciples and gets really metaphorical. He talks about spiritual sowing and reaping. What’s he trying to get across? 
If we delve into it, we see that Jesus gives us 1) a call to spiritual sowing of seed, 2) the method of doing it, and then 3) the power, or the inner motivation, for doing it.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 29, 2013. Series: A Public Faith. Scripture: John 4:27-42.
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.

It’s very common for people, even those who want to live the Christian life, to feel they have to check their brains at the door if they’re going to believe.
Often, we hear this basic approach to the Bible: the gospels were written down after years of legends, so we don’t really know how much of them are true. But let me give you a case that the Jesus the Bible shows you is historically reliable. 
Here is the case in three stages: 1) if you look at what the gospels claim, you’ll see they’re not written as legends or fiction; they’re either historical accounts or a deliberate hoax, 2) we now know now that all of the gospels were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses, and 3) the same rules of historiography that are used on other documents of antiquity show the gospels to be trustworthy.
This talk was given by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 4, 1994. Series: Redeemer Open Forums. 
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 live in a culture of choice. In our individualistic culture, our place and our parents and our social location don’t determine everything that we can do. We have some choices. Choices! What does that mean? 
That means we’ve never needed wisdom more than we do now, because wisdom is the ability to make wise choices.
Proverbs 4 shows us that if we want to lead a life of wisdom, our lives will be characterized by three things: 1) a glorious fight, 2) a guarded heart, and 3) a living word.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 22, 2013. Series: Wisdom in Life. Scripture: Proverbs 4:5-9, 14-27.
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 live in a culture in which there are more choices than there ever have been. But you can be incredibly good, moral, and knowledgeable and still make pretty stupid choices. 
Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do in the 80 percent of choices that the moral rules don’t directly apply to. What you need in order to make good choices is wisdom. 
In Proverbs 3 we learn 1) where wisdom develops, 2) the vehicles through which wisdom develops, and 3) the catalyst that sparks and fuels them all.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 15, 2013. Series: Wisdom in Life. Scripture: Proverbs 3:1-8, 11-12.
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.

There are choices everywhere, just zillions and zillions of choices. And if you don’t make good choices, it can be very destructive. Bad choices blow up on you. Every choice is like a fork in the road, and once you make it, you really can’t go back to where you were. 
What does it take to make good choices? It takes wisdom. And the book of Proverbs is perhaps the most famous text in the world on wisdom.
If we look at Proverbs 1, we can see the basics: 1) what wisdom is, 2) why it’s important, 3) why it’s a problem, and 4) where you can find it.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 8, 2013. Series: Wisdom in Life. Scripture: Proverbs 1:1-9, 22, 32-33.
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 trouble with the Sermon on the Mount is it’s so familiar that almost nobody listens to it, almost nobody knows what it’s saying. How do we know that?
At the very end of the sermon, it says the crowds were amazed at Jesus’s teaching. And that word, “amazed,” in Greek meant thunderstruck, shocked, astounded. That’s the prevailing way people responded. Have you been thunderstruck? Are you shocked by it? If you’re not astounded, you haven’t listened to it. 
So let’s listen to it. There are basically three great things Jesus says that are utterly astounding: 1) that there are two ways, two options spiritually, 2) that at the end of those two ways, there’s a judge, and 3) that at the end of that judgment, there’s a sentence.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 23, 1999. Series: The Mount; Life in the Kingdom. Scripture: Matthew 7:15-29.
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.

There’s no one section where Jesus lays out how a relationship with him radically changes our human relationships and forms a new, deep, radical human community in Christ. It’s not in one place — it’s all throughout the Sermon on the Mount. 
The Sermon on the Mount is really a description of a new kind of community. What does Jesus teach us about this radical new community that is formed by his gospel message? When it comes into your life, how does it create this new community between those who believe in Jesus? 
Jesus teaches us four things: 1) the necessity of this new community, 2) the intensity of this new community, 3) the symmetry of this new community, and 4) the causality of this new community.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 16, 1999. Series: The Mount; Life in the Kingdom. Scripture: Matthew 5:21-24, 45-48; 7:1-6.
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.

When people say, “I’ve tried prayer, and it didn’t work,” what Jesus is saying is, “You used prayer, not the way I designed it, but with a false model of spirituality.”
For Jesus, the importance of prayer is revealed in a little unobtrusive word at the beginning of this passage in the Sermon on the Mount: the little word “and.” Right before Jesus talks about prayer, he talks about our engagement with the poor and the needs of the world. Then he says, “And when you pray …” Because in Jesus’ understanding, it’s the people who are characterized by the most radical interiority who have the most courageous, visionary engagement with the needs of the world. And before Jesus gives us a model of prayer, the famous Lord’s Prayer, he tells us two other models of prayer that we should avoid. 
Let’s look at 1) the two false models, 2) the true model, and 3) a few practical ideas on how to go about it.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 9, 1999. Series: The Mount; Life in the Kingdom. Scripture: Matthew 6:5-13.
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.

If we actually take the gospel, the essential message of Jesus Christ, and we live it out, what will it look like? That’s what the Sermon on the Mount is about. 
And in this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we get to the area of money and possessions. 
Jesus tells us three things we can draw out here: 1) how money exercises power over us, 2) why money exercises power over us, and 3) how we can break the power.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 2, 1999. Series: The Mount; Life in the Kingdom. Scripture: Matthew 6:19-34.
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.