Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

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.

Today’s passage is not an easy one. When you look through it, there’s a lot of obscurity. Nothing leaps up and grabs you, but if we do some mining, we’ll find all sorts of gems in here. This passage helps unlock one of the keys for understanding all of the Bible. Paul shows us how the Bible fits together with beautiful coherence. 
Paul is writing to a series of churches in Galatia that he founded. They had come under the influence of a group of wayward teachers, and Paul is at great pains to correct them. The teachers said to first believe and obey and then you’ll be saved. But Paul taught to believe and be saved, and then you’ll obey. The teachers said faith and obedience go together and result in salvation, but Paul said faith and salvation go together and result in obedience. This change in order makes all the difference for how we live.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 11, 1998. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 3:10-22.
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.

All of our personal problems and practical problems are really theological ones. Most theological problems are really practical problems, because theology affects the way you live. Today we’re going to look at one huge problem. There’s a theological way to put it, and there’s a more practical way to put it.  
The theological problem is this: when you are saved, how do you move beyond being accepted by God as righteous to actually living a righteous life? This is a move from imputed righteousness to imparted righteousness. The more practical way is fairly simple. When you become a Christian, you realize you’re forgiven and that God loves you, but you may continue to see sins in your life that continue to pop up. How do you move beyond that? How do you actually grow in the faith and become more like Christ? Paul gives us a radical answer: the way you enter the Christian faith is exactly the same way you advance in the Christian faith. We’re going to dig deeper and look at this in more detail in today’s sermon. 
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 14, 1997. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 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.

This is a great passage. There are so many details in it. I think, however, the important thing would probably be to get the gist of it, the point, which I think is actually in verse 8. Then we can come back and look at the parts and the details later without losing our way or being confused. This passage in the very beginning, which we began looking at last week, talks about, “How do you get the Spirit? How do you have spiritual power?” It’s a very, very relevant question nowadays.
Here you have Paul talking about the Spirit. How do you get into contact with the Spirit? He keeps on saying “hearing.” The first five verses are all about hearing. You have to hear. It’s not what you do; it’s what you hear. It’s the message. In this case we see where it’s from. He’s talking, of course, about the gospel; the gospel is the way. Well, how do you find the gospel? How do you know the gospel? In verse 8 we have a stunning verse. Here’s basically what verse 8 says: “The Scripture preached the gospel to Abraham.” You have a very important and “bipolar” truth.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 7, 1997. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 3:1-9.
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.

In our culture, many people go to church looking for spiritual power. They’re looking for spirituality, or prayer, or changes in consciousness. People don’t want to be told how to live decently, because that whole idea that there’s a certain way to live is gone. But they’re empty, and they want spirituality. This text from Galatians has everything to say about spirituality. Paul says, “If you want to understand spiritual power, spiritual reality… not just an ethical life, but a spiritually powerful life… here it is.”
How did the Galatian Christians get converted? How did they receive the Spirit? How did this inner transformation happen? There are two things we’ll discuss in this passage. One is the instrument of the Spirit, and the other is the secret of spiritual power.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 30, 1997. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 3:1-5.
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.

This passage tells the story of how Peter and Paul had a confrontation over the nature of the gospel, the essence of the Christian faith, over what a Christian really is. What is a Christian? We’re going to look at a definition in this teaching, a definition that is vast in its implications. Almost any other definition than this one is unbalanced, misleading, and distorted.
Becoming good is a result of being a Christian; it’s not the essence of becoming a Christian. When you become a Christian you are justified. It doesn’t mean you suddenly stop being bad. It means you’re no longer viewed in the same way. It means your sins can no longer bring you into condemnation. It means you’re righteous in God’s sight.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 23 1997. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 2:17-21.
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 this passage, Paul has confronted not just Peter, but Barnabas and all of these great Christian leaders, over what it means to live in accordance with the gospel. The word gospel or “good news” is the essential core; the thing that makes Christianity, Christianity. Here we have Paul arguing with Peter, another apostle, and all of the leaders, as to how the gospel is to be worked out, and what the gospel is. 
For the first time in the book of Galatians, Paul gets into terminology. First of all, we’re going to talk about the fact that there's a need for a vocabulary, and why we need a vocabulary. Then secondly, what that vocabulary is. There is a gospel vocabulary—let’s see how this teaches us why we need those terms, and then secondly, what they are.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 16, 1997. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 2:14-21.
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 this sermon we continue looking at an account of two very important visits: Paul coming down to Jerusalem and Peter coming up to Antioch; Paul coming down to where Peter lived and Peter coming up to where Paul lived. In the first visit, we saw a very important principle laid down as to the nature of the gospel, what it is. We saw that the problem was the message of a certain group of religious teachers.
Their point was believing in Jesus Christ was very important; they weren’t against Christ. But they said you have to add to Jesus Christ, his work, his love; faith and union with his work and his love is not enough to cleanse and beautify you. It’s not enough. You have to believe in Christ, and, in their case, they said you have to adopt the entire Mosaic law, all the ceremonial laws. The important thing is the principle of the gospel: is Jesus Christ’s work and love enough to cleanse and beautify you all by itself? Paul’s answer is “Yes.” For these folks the answer was “No.”
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 9, 1997. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 2:11-16.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.