Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

Of all the things the book of Proverbs says something about, speech is at the top of the list. It has so much to teach us about how to use our tongues and about language. In short, how you speak will make or break your life. Learning to speak wisely is all-important. 
We’re going to look at several different proverbs that shed light on these topics for us. These three headings will guide us: the power of our words, the character of our words, and the healing of our words. 
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 15, 2005. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 10:18-19.
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.

Today we’re going to look at the subject of wisdom. Wisdom is so much more than just being good and moral and ethical. Wisdom has to do with knowing something about the way the world works so that you can make the right decision when you’re faced with multiple options that are morally permissible. This doesn’t necessarily happen with more education, or by being a world traveler, or by becoming more sophisticated. The secrets of wisdom are locked in your ordinary experiences if you know how to learn from them.
According to the book of Proverbs, there are two particularly common experiences, and when you’re in either of these two situations, you are in both a moment of great spiritual danger and a moment of great spiritual opportunity. There are tests, and if you pass the tests, you’ll become wiser about yourself, the world, and about human nature. If you fail, you’ll actually become more of a fool. We’re going to ask these three questions: 1) what are the tests, 2) why do they work, and 3) how we can pass. 
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 23, 2005. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 3:9-14; 10:16, 25; 24:10-12.
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 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 Proverbs we see that at the heart of what it means to live a wise life is caring for justice. Take a look here at this last verse that was just read to you, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.” This little word caring is way too weak an English word to get across what’s actually being said here. The Hebrew word here is the word yada`, which is the deepest and most intimate and experiential word in the Hebrew language for knowledge. It’s even used in Genesis to describe sexual activity that brings forth children — it’s a very strong word. 
What this is saying is, “You’re not wise unless you are living an intensely passionate life, committed to justice.” We’re going to look at this under four headings. Why do we need justice? What is justice? Who does justice? How can we be one of the ones who do justice?
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 16, 2005. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 3:18-20, 27-32; 11:10-11; 19:17; 29:7.
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.

In the book of Matthew, the account of the birth of Jesus tells us the “wise men” came to worship him. Who were the wise men? The wise men were the culturati, the cultural experts and the leading thinkers of their society. So why did they come to worship a baby? Their coming illustrates the point that God makes foolish the wisdom of this world — God’s wisdom makes the world’s wisdom bow to God. 
In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul asks, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” When you grasp who the child born in the manger really is, the things you thought of before as foolish will look wise, and the things you thought of before as wise will look foolish. We’re going to learn more about how this happens by looking at the antonym of wisdom: foolishness. First, what a fool is; secondly, what kinds of fools there are; thirdly, how to be a fool no more.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 26, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 1:22, 32-33; 8:27-32; 14:15; 15:5; 16:25; 19:25; 21:24.
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.

Psalm 113 points us back to the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 and 2, and it looks forward to the song of Mary in Luke 1, where Mary sings because she has been told she’s going to give birth to Jesus. So these three — the song of Hannah, Psalm 113, and the song of Mary — are connected. There’s a theme running through all of these that will shed light on what Christmas is about. 
So what is Christmas about? It’s about the infinitely high becoming inconceivably low, the infinitely huge becoming astoundingly small. In other words, there’s a protocol God has when it comes to renewing the world and renewing your life. The protocol is he tends to work through the poor to renew the world, and he tends to work through weakness and suffering to renew you. Let’s take a look at this protocol as God depicts it in Psalm 113 and then as Jesus Christ works it out through his own life. 
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 19, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Psalm 113:1-9.
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.

Today’s message is part of a series on the subject of wisdom in the book of Proverbs. We’ve said that wisdom is basically the ability to make right choices. You make or break your life on the basis of your choices and we need wisdom to make the right ones. For example, is this the right career for you? Is this the right person to marry? Is this the right place to live? In every one of those situations, the options in front of you are many. Most of them are moral and most of them are legal. Most of them are allowable, but most of them aren’t wise. 
We need guidance to make decisions. How do you get God’s guidance? We’re going to look at a few different proverbs to see 1) the guidance God does; 2), the guidance God gives; and 3) the guidance God purchases for us.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 12, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 11:3; 12:5, 15; 15:22; 16:1-4, 9, 25, 33; 21:5; 27:1.
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 gospel brings about a radical change in the way in which a believer regards money and possessions. Money has tremendous power. It exerts a huge power in our lives. 
Let’s look at why and how it does that, and then how we can break the power of money over our lives. We’re going to learn three things here. We’re going to learn that money exercises great power over us, why it exercises great power over us, and how to break that power over us.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 29, 2015. Series: Proverbs: What We Are Giving: The Dynamic of Grace. Scripture: Proverbs 10:15.
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Today we’re going to talk about wisdom with regard to the complex realities of our inner beings — what we would today call the psychological life. We all at certain times have a lot of trouble understanding and dealing with the very deep, conflicting, confusing, powerful, sometimes warring dynamic impulses that just roll through our hearts. Sometimes we don’t feel we have any power over those impulses. We feel helpless. We don’t know how we got there and what to do about it. 
The book of Proverbs can help us. We’re going to look at four headings in a collated group of proverbs. You’re not going to be wise unless you understand the priority of the inner life, the complexity of the inner life, the solitude of the inner life, and the healing of the inner life.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 5, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 12:25; 13:12; 14:10,13,30; 15:4,13-14; 16:2; 18:14; 28:1.
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 book of Proverbs is one of the best places to learn about the topic of wisdom. The book teaches us that a wise person has certain characteristics and qualities. In order to be wise, you need to become a certain type of person. The book does not talk nearly so much about how to make the right decisions but it teaches us how to become the kind of person who makes the right decisions. 
Today, we come to self-control. A man or a woman without self-control is not going to live a wise life and will inevitably mess up their lives, along with the lives of people around them. What do we learn from the passages in Proverbs about self-control? There are at least three things: the problem of self-control; the principle of self-control; and the practice of self-control.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 28, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 18:10; 23:19-21; 25:28; Titus 2:11-14.
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.

Today’s sermon is a continuation of a study on wisdom in the book of Proverbs. Throughout the book you’ll find that work is a recurring theme. It talks positively about work under the heading of “diligence.” It talks negatively about work under the heading of “sluggard” or “the sluggardliness.” It tells us if you want to have a fulfilled human life, you need to do four things with your work: do your work, love your work, re-narrate your work, and redeem your work.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 21, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 8:1-4; 10:4-5; 12:10-11; 15:19; 22:29; 27:18.
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.

Today’s message comes from a series on the topic of wisdom in the book of Proverbs. We’ve defined wisdom according to the Bible as “competence with regard to the complex realities of life.” This means being wise is knowing something about the way the world works in order to make the right moral decision. It’s not enough to just know the rules, but we need to have wisdom so that we can apply the rules appropriately in all types of life situations. 
We are technically-oriented as a society, so generally we want a technique when it comes to rules. However, the book of Proverbs does not give you methods by which you can make wise decisions. Instead, it says, “Here's the kind of person you have to become who makes wise decisions.” Today we’re going to focus on pride and humility, and we’ll learn about three things: the diagnosis of pride (what it is); the destructiveness of pride (what it does); and the antidote for pride.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 14, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 11:2, 12; 13:10; 15:25, 33; 16:18-19; 21:4; 28:26.
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.

The book of Proverbs is one of the best places to learn about the topic of wisdom. The book teaches us that to gain wisdom you must come to understand and redirect the deep currents of our hearts — things like anger and sexual desire. Today we’re going to zero in on envy. It is very important to see the reality of it and to understand its power. We’re going to look at three things in the passages: how to understand envy, why to deal with envy, and where to take your envy.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 7, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 23:17-18; Psalm 73:1-3, 20-26.
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.

Today’s message comes from a series on the topic of wisdom in the book of Proverbs. To be wise, we’ve studied the power of anger and the power of sexuality. And now we look at the power of money.  
In the area of money, people who only look to the rules — what’s legal or illegal — are going to be destructively unwise in their lives. If you want to be wise with your money and possessions, according to the book of Proverbs, you need to know three things: 1) the power of money, 2) the reasons for the power of money, and 3) how to break the power of money and use it in your life.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 31, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 10:15-16; 11:1, 4, 24, 26; 13:21, 23; 30:8-9.
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.

In 1 Kings 3, Solomon asks for wisdom. He asks for “a heart that can discern right from wrong.” The question is, “If he’s the king of Israel, he has the law of God. Why would he need wisdom? Doesn’t the Word of God tell you what’s right and wrong?” The reason is that it’s not enough to just know the rules, but you need discernment from God for knowing what decision to make when the moral rules don’t fit your situation perfectly. 
Last week we saw one of the important ways to develop a heart of wisdom is to understand and manage the power of anger. This week we will see that in order to be wise, we need to understand and manage the power of sexuality. To do this, we have to know three things: 1) why and how we tend to undervalue sex; 2) why and how we tend, at the same time, to overvalue sex; and 3) how we can solve that.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 24, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 5:15-19; 11:16, 22; 30:18-20.
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.

Today’s message comes from a series on the topic of wisdom in the book of Proverbs. What is wisdom? In 1 Kings 3, Solomon prays for wisdom, and he defines it like this. He says, “God, give me a heart that can discern right from wrong.” You might say, “He was the king of Israel. He had the law of God. Why does he need a heart to discern right from wrong?” The answer is that wisdom is more than just knowing what’s good and what’s bad. It’s knowing what the right decision to make is — what the right course of action is — in the vast majority of life situations the moral rules don’t address.
If you’re going to live a wise life, you need to understand anger. You need to be able to understand and handle anger, not only in yourself, but in other people as well. There are four things we’re going to learn about anger that you have to know to be wise: its power; its goodness;  why it goes wrong; and how it can be healed.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 17, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 14:29-30; 15:1, 18; 16:32; 19:11, 19; 24:28-29; 25:21-22.
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.

Wisdom is more than being moral and good. Wisdom is knowing something about how the world works so that you’ll know what the right thing to do is in the majority of life situations in which the moral rules don’t apply. 
The book of Proverbs is one of the best places in the Bible to look at the topic of wisdom. There is a theme that runs all through Proverbs and, in fact, all through the whole Bible. That is, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Today we’re going to consider that the fear of the Lord begins with 1) knowing God, 2) trusting God, and 3) discovering the grace of God.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 10, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 3:5-6; 9:10; 16:6; 19:23; 20:9; 23:17-18; 28:14.
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.

Today’s message comes from a series on the book of Proverbs in which we’ve been looking at the subject of wisdom. Wisdom can be defined as: competence with regard to the realities of life. It is knowing the right thing to do in the vast majority of life situations in which the moral rules don’t apply or in which there are multiple permissible options. 
Why is it that so many religious communities want to make up new rules? One answer is that we won’t have to think. We want a rule to cover every single situation, so we don’t have to apply wisdom and think out the implications. But the truth is that you can never create enough rules to cover every situation. This is where wisdom comes in — you have to know something about the true nature of reality. Today we’re going to look at 1) the persistence of reality, 2) the problems with reality, and 3) how it gets healed. If you want to be wise, you have to know all three.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 3, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 5:16-23 and Revelation 21:1-5.
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 book of Proverbs is one of the best places in the Bible to look at the topic of wisdom. Wisdom is a lot more than just having high moral values. It is knowing what the right thing to do is in the majority of life situations where the moral rules don’t apply. The most right and virtuous word or deed done at the wrong time, done in the wrong way or in the wrong order, can blow everything up.
Wisdom is not having a technique that helps you make right choices and decisions, but it’s having character of the mind and the heart that enables you to make the right choices. So how do you get that character? Today we’re going to look at 1) how this character develops, 2) where it comes from, and 3) how it can be transformed.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 26, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 4:11-27.
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.

Wisdom can be defined as: competence with regard to the complex realities of life. It has to do with understanding a particular situation and then knowing the right thing to do. For example, you might decide you really want to help a poor family to get out of poverty. That’s a noble thing, but you could do it in a way that actually ruins the family. You need to be conversant with the complexity of the realities of how things work in the world.
It’s not good enough to be a person of vision or of moral values if you’re not a person of wisdom. For most of the decisions you have to make, there are multiple permissible options and wisdom is the ability to know what the right thing is. So how do we develop wisdom? Today we’re going to look at 1) the path of wisdom, 2) the process of wisdom, and 3) the man off the mountain.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 19, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 3:1-12; 30:1-4.
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, which results in people continually fighting about morality. They’re fighting about different views on what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. In many ways this was different in ancient societies because on the whole, there was generally more consensus on morality in each society. There were spoken and unspoken rules that were necessary for the society to exist. 
If you’re going to not make an absolute mess of your life, then there is something very important that you must have. The secular culture talks about science and facts, and the moral communities — the churches and synagogues — talk about morality, but actually what we need is something that’s hardly talked about at all nowadays. It’s not identical to knowledge, and it’s not identical even to moral goodness; it’s wisdom. Today we’re going to look at 1) the importance of wisdom, 2) the definition of wisdom, 3) the problem of wisdom, and 4) a clue to its solution.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 12, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 8:10-16; 22-31.
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.