Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

Jonah was called to go to Nineveh to preach, and after a lot of detours, he did. When he got there and began to preach, we’re told that Nineveh, by and large, the populace turned from its violence and its evil ways. Now this is a marvelous thing and we would expect great joy in Jonah’s heart. But surprise, in 4:1, we read, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” Why is that? The bottom line is Jonah can’t figure out God’s love.
Jonah, like everybody, believes in love in general, but when it comes right down to it has a fatally inadequate understanding of how love actually operates, and in particular, how God’s love actually operates. In the same way, many, maybe most, of our own struggles and collapses (just like Jonah here) are due to our own inadequate understanding of how God’s love really, really operates.
Let’s look at two things that God is trying to get across to Jonah. First, God’s love is refining fire. It is life-purifying. Secondly, God’s love is a seeking fire, a seeking power, a seeking love.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 16, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 4:1-10.
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Jonah went into a big city like New York — Nineveh was proportionally bigger — and he saw a massive change. He saw repentance that was culturally transforming. The people turned from their violence and evil ways. In response to this amazing thing, we’re told, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” What’s going on here?
How can we explain Jonah’s mood swings, his tremendous emotional instability, able to praise God in chapter 2 and a few days later saying, “I am angry enough to die?”The answer is a divided heart. Jonah believed in and served the true God, but he also believed and served a rival god. As a result, his heart was divided between worshipping two different things. 
Hearts divided between more than one god create that kind of instability we see in Jonah. They create the kind of misery and drivenness of Jonah. And what we see is that it could be true of us as well. Now let’s just ask two questions of the passage: 1) What’s a divided heart? And 2) how can we heal a divided heart?
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 9, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 4:1-10.
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.

The last chapter of Jonah is a surprise chapter. It’s the most surprising ending of any of the books of the Bible. If you gave this whole chapter a title, you might call it “The Incredible Collapse of Jonah.” Why would a preacher get exceedingly angry when, as a response to his preaching, he’s actually turned a culture away from violence, oppression, and wickedness to the living God?
The incredible collapse of Jonah is because of a misunderstanding of God’s love.There are several lessons we can learn, but one is that God’s love is a patient love. Fruitful Christians like Jonah can fall back into old patterns of sin and self-deception but  only the patient love of God stands between them and oblivion. God’s patient love is such that he will always bring his children back.
Why is God’s patient love not more operative and powerful in our lives? How can God’s patient love be more powerful and operative in our lives? Let’s look at four things we can do: 1. Examine your heart; 2. Confess sin; 3. Make sure you realize God’s patient love is the thing that will keep you out of despair; and 4. Seek reality.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 2, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 4:1-10.
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.

Nineveh, which is the capital of Assyria, was the greatest city the world had yet seen. It was an impregnable fortress. Military might, economic might, cultural might …Nobody in their right mind would even think of besieging the city, let alone trying to capture the city, because you couldn’t even get an army around it. Who had an army that could stretch around the circumference of this city? But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, and God decides, not just to besiege the city, but to sack it with an army of one.
God did it by taking one person (one man, in this case) and turning that one man into a city-changer, into a world-changer. Then, by doing so, he was able to sack the greatest city in the history of the world up to that time. How did God make Jonah an Army of one? There are four things that we learn: God’s persistent grace makes you an army of one; God’s calling makes you an army of one, God’s strategy, and God’s power.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 26, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 3.
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We’ve seen that Jonah was called to preach in the great city of Nineveh, he refused and fled from God, God sent a storm to reclaim him, and the storm made things such that Jonah was thrown over the side of the boat into the ocean. There, he was swallowed by a great fish. The result is, in the belly of the deep, Jonah prays a prayer of faith, and he grasps the grace of God.
We’re going to look, not so much at the subject or topic of the prayer, but the phenomenon of the prayer itself. How did Jonah, who was in this condition of utter despair, of cowering fear, and of rebellion … How did he come from that position to a posture of triumphant faith by the end of the prayer? The answer is that faith rose up and it brought with it Jonah’s heart. We’ll see his faith that he exercised was done in three stages. First, he calls, then he remembers, and finally he commits.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 19, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 2:1-10.
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The plot line of Jonah goes like this. Chapter 1: God says to Jonah, “Go and preach to Nineveh, the greatest city in the world.” Chapter 2: Jonah refuses and flees on a boat. Chapter 3: God sends a great storm on the ocean to reclaim Jonah. Chapter 4: Jonah is thrown into the sea and swallowed by a fish.
The point of all of this is right here in this chapter, almost exactly in the very center of the book. The point is about God’s grace. This book says a religious professional, a preacher, and even more than that, a prophet who received direct revelation from God can be deeply and profoundly in the dark about God’s grace. Jonah’s deepest fears, his racial prejudice, and his lack of endurance are all tied to his blindness to the reality of grace. Let’s look at three questions that this passage answers for us: 1. What is the grace of God? 2. How do you receive the grace of God? 3. How do you know you have received the grace of God in your life?
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 12, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 2:1-10.
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Jonah is called by God to go to Nineveh, the greatest city in the world, and warn the city about impending disaster and preach there. Jonah refuses, heads in the other direction, and gets on a boat. God sends a storm to hunt him down, endangering the lives of everyone on the ship. Jonah, recognizing this, offers to be thrown into the ocean so the lives of the other sailors will not be forfeit.
We’re going to pause and look at the sub-plot here: Jonah and his relationship and impact on the sailors and their impact on him. God uses the sailors to teach Jonah something about himself and the world. In doing so, let’s just take a look and see how God will teach us something about ourselves and how we are supposed to regard the world.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 5, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 1:4-16; Philippians 2.
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We’re looking at the Book of Jonah and we’ve seen that one subject is sin and grace. Even though there are many places in the Bible that talk about those topics very theologically, the great thing about the book of Jonah is it presents these concretely. Sin is running away from God, and grace is God chasing us down, hunting us down in love, and intercepting our self-destructive behavior. 
We’ve learned that Jonah ran from God – he literally decided to get as far away from God as he possibly could. Then God sent a storm, and so the plot thickens. This chapter is about the storm God sent and about Jonah’s response to the storm. 
Until you see you are not competent to run your life, you are not competent to run your life. This is an intervention of God. Let’s look to see how God intervenes and uses the storm as a way of teaching Jonah about himself and about sin and grace.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on July 29, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 1:1-17.
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The book of Jonah is a very simple story. It’s a book about a man running away from God and about God pursuing him, and as a result of that, this book is one of the very most concrete ways to learn what the Bible means by sin and grace. 
Almost everybody is familiar with the words sin and grace, but what they actually mean is another thing. Essentially (as concretely as you can put it), sin is running away from God and grace is God’s effort to pursue and to intercept self-destructive behavior. That’s it. Sin and grace. Running and chasing. 
In this passage, we’re going to see, first of all, Jonah is called to do something. Secondly, Jonah runs away from it. Thirdly, we’ll see how God pursues him.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on July 22, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 1:1-10.
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.

We have all faced these questions at some point or another: How can you live with both justice and mercy in the world? Can mercy and justice be combined? Can forgiveness and justice be combined? I’m not sure that immediately grabs you as one of the great problems in your life or in the culture, but it is.
We have at least two problems, and I’m going to show you it’s because of a third. We have a problem of public justice. In public justice, when one group has really wronged another group, should there be forgiveness? How can there be forgiveness and justice? On the other hand, personally, if someone has wronged you, how can there be both forgiveness and at the same time justice? 
Let’s break this down, and let’s show there’s a problem of public justice, there’s a problem in the area of private justice, and it’s all because there’s a huge problem with perfect justice.
This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 27, 2000 as part of the Redeemer Open Forum series. Open Forums were specifically designed for skeptics or those wrestling with the claims of Christianity.
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We’re looking at the book of Proverbs and the subject of wisdom. At the heart of what Proverbs says it means to live a wise life is caring for justice. “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.” This little word for caring is way too weak an English word to get across what’s actually being said here. The Hebrew word here is yada`, which is the most deep and intimate and experiential word in the Hebrew language for knowledge. It is knowledge so passionate and so intense and so intimate that it’s a synonym for sexuality when used in the book of Genesis. 
This proverb is saying, “You’re not wise unless you are living an intensely passionate life, committed to justice.” What does that mean? Let’s look at this under four headings: Why do we need justice? What is justice? Who does justice? And how can we be one of the ones who do justice?
This sermon was preached by Rev. 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.

I read a treatise by Jonathan Edwards on the Christian’s duty to the poor. I was really struck by something: one of the marks of the church (not just urban churches) is care and involvement with the poor. That’s how Jesus designed it. Edwards said, “Where have we any command in the Bible laid down in stronger terms, and in a more peremptory urgent manner, than the command of giving to the poor?” He is saying there is nothing clearer and stronger in the Bible than our duty for care and involvement with the poor — not just churches near poor areas, not just certain kinds; everybody.
The Sermon on the Mount — Jesus’ famous sermon on the principles of the kingdom — is clearly something he preached very often. We read, “Blessed are the poor; woe to the rich. Blessed are the empty; woe to the fool.” There’s no way to spiritualize this away. There’s no way to allegorize it away. There’s no way to “metaphorize” it away.
The Bible tells us the gospel, if you get it, does three things to you with regard to the poor. The gospel is an agent in us knowing the poor, becoming the poor, and loving the poor. Knowing, becoming, and loving. The gospel does them all.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 5, 1998. Series "The Church - How to Believe Despite Christians". Scripture: Luke 6:20-26.
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.

We’ve been looking at the Ten Commandments. We’ve said the Ten Commandments are without doubt the single most influential set of ethical directives in the history of the world. We now come to the tenth commandment, and it is perhaps the key, in some ways, to understanding all the rest.
This commandment expresses one of the most important principles to believing and practicing the Christian life that I know of. This theme is something that is part and parcel of what we talk about at Redeemer a lot. When we take a look at this text, notice verse 21: “You shall not covet …” If we meditate on it, we’ll see three things: what we need, why we need it, and how to get it.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 19, 2007. Series "Deuteronomy - Doing Justice, Preaching Grace". Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:1-6, 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’re looking at the Ten Commandments, and today we’re getting to the ninth commandment. I always tend to hear all the commandments in Cecil B. DeMille tones. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” I don’t know if you remember it. There was sort of a little pillar of fire, and these little comments were coming out of it into the stone tablets in the Cecil B. DeMille movie, The Ten Commandments.
In spite of how famous these Ten Commandments are — by far, the most influential, ethical set of directions in the history of the world — most of us don’t know exactly what each commandment requires, and even fewer of us know how to get the power to be able to actually and practically live as the commandments require.
We’re going to take a look here at the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” As we look at what the text tells us, we’ll see three things. We learn what people need, why they need it so much, and how you can become the kind of person that gives it to them.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 19, 2007. Series "Deuteronomy - Doing Justice, Preaching Grace". Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:1-6, 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.

We’re looking at the book of Deuteronomy, which we have said is a series of sermons preached by Moses just before he died. The subject is: “Having experienced the salvation and grace of God, how should we then live? How should that concretely affect and shape the way we live?” It’s a very practical book, and no passage is more practical than today’s, because here we have some insights about how you handle suffering and pain and grief and difficulty. There’s nothing more practical than that.
We learn three things from the text. First, we can’t survive in the wilderness. Secondly, we can’t survive without the wilderness. Thirdly, therefore, we only have one hope.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 17, 2007. Series "Deuteronomy - Doing Justice, Preaching Grace". Scripture: Deuteronomy 8:1-16.
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In Deuteronomy 7, we come upon a topic that is a very controversial topic and a difficult one for, I think, everybody actually. This word that comes up a couple of times in the first couple of verses, where it says, “The Lord your God chose you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people …” He chose you. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament say that if you believe, you believe because God has chosen you. He came to you, and he opened your heart, and that’s the reason you believe.
People struggle mightily with this whole idea, and so we’re going to see how this text helps us — it text helps us struggle very smartly and wisely. It’s going to tell us three things. Being chosen by grace produces a deep humility and a radiant community, because it creates, at bottom, an absolute security. Let’s take a look at the first point.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 10, 2007. Series "Deuteronomy - Doing Justice, Preaching Grace". Scripture: Deuteronomy 7:6-11.
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.

We’re looking at the book of Proverbs every week, and that means we’re looking at the subject of wisdom every week. Wisdom, while not being less, is more than being moral and good. Wisdom is knowing what the right thing to do is in the vast majority of life situations in which the moral rules don’t apply, that they don’t address.
Today we come to a theme that runs all through Proverbs and, in fact, all through the whole Bible. That is, that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. There’s a place in Job where God actually shows how important the term is when he says, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him in all the earth; a man who fears God and shuns evil.” It’s obvious the term fear of the Lord is something that is a summary of everything we’re supposed to do and be.
So why is it so important and what in the world is it? Today we’re going to see how the fear of the Lord is 1. beginning with God, 2. knowing God, 3. trusting God, and 4. discovering the grace of God.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 3, 2007. Series "Deuteronomy - Doing Justice, Preaching Grace". Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:4-23.
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/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The book of Deuteronomy is a series of sermons Moses preached just before he died. In it, he lays out, in the most comprehensive and practical way, how you should live if you experience the grace and salvation of God. If you experience God, how should that actually affect the way in which you live your life? It’s a very, very practical book and an incredibly comprehensive book.
Today, we get to the Ten Commandments. This is one of the most influential texts in the entire history of the world. Let’s take a look and see what we’re taught about it. It’s awfully basic, but it’s awfully basic because it’s awfully important. There are four things we’re going to learn here about God’s Law: 1. the origin of the Law; 2. the substance of the Law; 3. the problem of the Law, and 4. the solution to that problem.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 27, 2007. Series "Deuteronomy - Doing Justice, Preaching Grace". Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:6-21, 24-29; James 2:10; Luke 19:41-42; 2 Corinthians 5:21.
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/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

We’re looking at the book of Deuteronomy, and there’s probably no single book of the Bible that is more comprehensive in showing us how we should live if we’ve actually met God. 
The primary concept of the book of Deuteronomy is the concept of covenant. The Bible says you can only relate to God covenantally. Right away, we say, “What’s a covenant? Is it a contract?” We’re going to see our relationship with God is far more personal and intimate than a contractual relationship. At the very same time, far more binding and solemn and accountable than a friendship. It’s covenantal.
In this chapter there are three awesome terms — awesome images — Moses introduces for us to understand what it means to have a covenantal relationship with God. Those three terms are jealousy, idolatry, and the fire of God.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 20, 2007. Series "Deuteronomy - Doing Justice, Preaching Grace". Scripture: Deuteronomy 4:15-24; 33-36.
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/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Deuteronomy is a series of sermons by Moses just as he was about to die, giving the people of Israel a comprehensive look at, now that they had received God’s grace, how they should live. It begins with this story about the children of Israel who had come to the border of Canaan actually 40 years before Moses is preaching these sermons. Because of the report of the spies about the size of the inhabitants and about the danger of going in, they had failed God. They had failed to obey him and listen to him and turned away. It was a great disaster.
This passage teaches us some basic things about who we are and who God is. Here’s what we learn from this passage: 1. what’s wrong with the human heart, 2. two forms wrongness can take, and 3. God’s solution for it.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 13, 2007. Series "Deuteronomy - Doing Justice, Preaching Grace". Scripture: Deuteronomy 1:26-28, 34-36, 41-46.
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/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.