Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

The Psalms are deeply emotional prayers. If you’re a modern person, a modern New Yorker, religious or non-religious, you have a tendency to say, “Now David, we mustn’t be angry at our enemies. We must control ourselves.” But the Psalms are too real for that. The Psalms give us a unique approach to emotions.   
David is being deposed as king, and there’s an army after him to literally imprison and kill him. But David is not just simply being attacked physically; he’s being attacked psychologically and spiritually. His very identity is under attack and assault as well.
David is really at the bottom. So what’s he going to do about it? The four things he does, the four steps out of the pit, are all there in verses 3–8. I’ll tell you what they are, and then we’ll go through them: Follow your thread, relocate your glory, see the substitute, and remember the people.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 5, 2000. Series "Psalms - The Songs of Jesus". Scripture: Psalm 3:1-8; Genesis 15:1,8.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

As you can see, these psalms are about weeping, suffering and grief. Religious people, by and large, want to deny the power and the depth of their feelings. On the other hand, secular people tend to see discovery and expression of your feelings almost as a good end in itself. To bow to your feelings or to stuff your feelings, to be over-awed by your feelings or under-aware of your feelings are both dangerous. 
The Psalms give us a gospel third way of dealing with your feelings. The Psalms do not say to deny or vent, but to pray your feelings. Pray your deepest feelings. Bring them before God and process them. There are three things these texts tell us. Expect tears, invest tears, and pray your tears.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 27, 2000. Series "Psalms - The Songs of Jesus". Scripture: Psalm 39:12-13, 126:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:17; Psalm 16, Psalm 17.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The Psalms are not so much about lofty, high doctrine as they are about how the human heart works, the deep recesses of the motives and emotions of the human heart. And what we’re now going to look at in Psalm 73 is doubt. 
Doubt always masquerades as more intellectual than it is, but doubt is a condition of the soul and the heart. Here’s a person filled with doubts, struggling with doubts about God and about faith. Let’s see what the condition is, what the cause of the condition is, and what the cure of the condition is.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 20, 2000. Series "Psalms - The Songs of Jesus". 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/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

We’re looking at the life of David, and this episode in 2 Samuel 6 is a strange one for modern readers. One of the very first things David does after he becomes king is he wants to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. To do so meant putting, in a sense, God’s worship in the very center of the national life and in the very center of David’s life. 
Two fascinating incidents happen first; one is the death of Uzzah, a man who simply tries to keep the ark from falling off the cart. David is frightened and angry, thinking, “This God is more holy than I thought.” Secondly, the ark is given to Obed-Edom, the Gittite, and there the ark actually doesn’t do anything but make them prosper, showing God is more gracious than he thought. 
Let’s notice three things when David brings the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem: David is a changed man. Secondly and thirdly, the first thing that changes him and the second thing that changes him.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 31, 2015. Series "David: The Man of Prayer". Scripture: 2 Samuel 6:1-23.
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.

We’re going through the books of 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel, which tell the story of King David’s life. Each week we look at a new episode, and each week the episode ties us into another major biblical theme. This week, this particular story talks to us and tells us quite a bit about what it means to love people who have wronged you.
What I’m going to do is kind of recount the story, and as we recount the story, we’re going to see what it tells us about loving a neighbor, loving an enemy or someone who has wronged you, loving a fool, and where you get the power to do so.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 24, 2015. Series "David: The Man of Prayer". Scripture: 1 Samuel 26:7-14, 21-25.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

We’re looking at the life of David, and the life of David is a little bit of a challenge for a preacher because we have more information in the Bible about the life of David than about any other figure. Therefore, the narrative arcs are longer in this part of the Bible than normal.
If you’re going to follow David’s relationship with Saul or David’s relationship with Jonathan, you have multiple texts, so we did something a little unusual today, and we gave you four texts. We’re going to show you how they tell us about the rightly famous friendship between Jonathan and David; and what these texts and what the Bible tell us about the importance of friendship.
Let’s take a look at what we learn from the relationship of David to Jonathan about the 1) absolute importance of friendship, the constituent elements of friendship — what it’s made of — and 3) the requisite power in order to be a friend and to have friends.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 17, 2015. Series "David: The Man of Prayer". Scripture: 1 Samuel 18:1-4; 19:4-7; 20:40-42; 23:15-18.
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/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

We’re looking at the life of David, and it’s interesting how this ancient text every week yields so much insight about very current problems (you could even say perennial problems), and this week we get a portrait, a simple portrait of something that is a lot bigger problem than most of us think of it as being. Saul’s life is being destroyed by envy.
Envy. Over the years, I’ve had plenty of people come to me to talk about issues like anger and despondency, but almost never does somebody come to me and say, “I have a problem with envy.” I’ve had lots of people say, “You need to preach on this issue,” or “You need to preach on that issue. These are important issues.” Never, I want you to know, has anyone ever asked me to preach on envy.
Yet, Aristotle … Not just the Bible but all of the ancients understood envy is one of the deadly sins, one of the things that destroys people’s lives, one of the things that’s making the world such a miserable place, so let’s look at what this passage tells us about envy: what it is, what it does, and how we can escape it.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 10, 2015. Series "David: The Man of Prayer". Scripture: 1 Samuel 18:1-14.
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/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Of all the episodes in the life of David, his encounter with Goliath is the most famous, it’s the most dramatic, it’s the most often told, and it’s probably the one that deals with the most fundamental question of all … How do you deal with fear? How do you have the courage to face life?
The ordinary way this text is read to answer that question is kind of like this. Goliath represents your fears. Look at them. They’re intimidating, but David is your inspiring example to show you how to handle those fears, which is to go right at them. Banish the fears. Face your fears, and the bigger they are the harder they will fall.
I’m here to say that’s a shallow understanding, even a deceptive understanding of how to read the text, and it has a lot more in here to answer that question if we read it a little differently, so let’s, first of all, ask the question, “What is this telling us?” I think it’s going to give us two answers. It’s going to show us the problems of counterfeit courage, but it will also show us the way to true courage.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 3, 2015. Series "David: The Man of Prayer". Scripture: 1 Samuel 17:32-50.
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 life of David, and it impresses me how each week each time we look at a new episode we not only are getting ancient history, but we’re always getting some question addressed that has quite modern, contemporary … I should actually say perennial … relevance. For example, I think the question we’re going to be helped to answer today is … What do you really look like? Am I ugly? Am I attractive? What do I really look like? This passage helps us answer these questions.
There are a number of ways to read a passage, so let’s read this one while keeping that question in mind. Let’s notice what it teaches us about 1) the importance of true beauty, 2) the source of true beauty and 3) the secret of both detecting and developing true beauty.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 26, 2015. Series "David: The Man of Prayer". Scripture: 1 Samuel 16:1-13.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

We’re looking at the life of David, and today we get to a text that actually gets us to address one of the most urgent and important questions you could ask: what’s wrong with the human race? The problem is we know how we should live, and we aren’t able to do it. Why do we do the terrible things we do when we basically know how we should live? One answer is in this passage from 1 Samuel. It’s not the only answer, but it’s an extremely important one. It’s a small but important subject I want to bring to your attention. To get at it, let’s ask these questions: How did Saul fail? Why did Saul fail? How can we escape the thing that destroyed him?
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 19, 2015. Series "David: The Man of Prayer". Scripture: 1 Samuel 15:10-23.
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.

We’re going to be looking at the life of David, who is not only the author of most of the Psalms but was a great man of prayer. First and second Samuel are often called the book of David. This story begins with a woman who radically changes her life through prayer. She’s a desperate woman. She’s culturally oppressed, but she takes control through prayer, so it’s very appropriate.
She’s obviously the forerunner of David and the mother of the forerunner of David. Let’s take a look at this very attractive person. Her name is Hannah.
We are first going to look at Hannah’s sorrow, which we’re given more insight to in the first few verses. Secondly, Hannah’s response to her sorrow. Lastly, in her great song, only of which a few verses we were able to read, we see a Savior who Hannah is looking forward to who actually enables her to respond to the sorrow in the way she does.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 12, 2015. Series "David: The Man of Prayer". Scripture: 1 Samuel 1:3-11, 18-20; 2:8-10.
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/partner and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Whenever you really fall in love, you want to completely give yourself away. You want to just let all your defenses down. You want to be completely vulnerable. On the other hand, we also see love is continually letting us down because people are letting us down.
When you love someone, you’re loving a human being. That human being to whom you’re giving complete trust will tend to let you down. There’s something cosmic about love. There’s something, on the other hand, completely fickle about love.
Do you have a philosophy of life, an understanding of the world, that can account for all the various aspects of love, explain them and enjoy them? There is one model of love I’m going to call the conservative ideal. There’s another model I’m going to call the liberal ideal. Both of them don’t work. Then there’s another model of love which, I think, is the Christian model that pulls it all together.
This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 19, 1995 as part of the Redeemer Open Forum series. Open Forums were specifically designed for skeptics or those wrestling with the claims of Christianity.
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 subject of this talk is one of those perennial human questions. Joy, happiness–what is it? How do you get it? In these gospel spirituals, we see the celebration of the oldest roots of the African American music, which said the solution to the joy problem is the message of the Christian gospel.
I would suggest to you that there are three themes in the music. The first is that there’s a joy vacuum that’s very deep in the human heart. Secondly, there are joy strategies every human being has. You have some way of trying to fill that joy vacuum. You might have this one or that one. You may change them, but there are joy strategies. And lastly, this music has a solution for the joy vacuum.
This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 6, 2002 as part of the Redeemer Open Forum series. Open Forums were specifically designed for skeptics or those wrestling with the claims of Christianity.
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’d like to look at two objections, two problems people have with God today. First of all, the problem of evil and suffering. How could a good and powerful God allow that? Secondly, the problem of the exclusiveness of religion. If you think you have the truth, if you think your religion is right, if you think you have the superior take on spirituality, doesn’t that lead to exclusion and oppression and abuse?
You say, “Well, you’re a minister, so obviously you don’t think those problems are very big.” No. I think that’s quite wrong. They have great weight, and I think we’re all in the same boat here. Whether you believe in God or you really don’t believe in God, you still have those problems.
The real question is are they insurmountable? Is there a way through them? I would like to at least give you a way through. Let me give you something to consider as a possible way through.
This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 9, 2003 as part of the Redeemer Open Forum series. Open Forums were specifically designed for skeptics or those wrestling with the claims of Christianity.
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 some ways, the key prayer in Mozart’s requiem is in the “Rex Tremendae,” the king of terrible majesty. It says, “… who saves those who are being saved freely.” In spite of all the talk about judgment day, we get mercy.
Now on what basis do we get mercy? On what basis do we get rest, if we don’t deserve it? When modern people in Western society listen to something like Mozart’s Requiem, there are certain questions that come up right away.
First, did Jesus really die like that? Was he a sacrificial lamb? Was Jesus crucified on the cross? Did that really happen historically, or was that just made up? Second, why did Jesus have to die like that? What’s the whole idea? Why was it even necessary? Third, what difference does it make to us?
This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 4, 2004 as part of the Redeemer Open Forum series. Open Forums were specifically designed for skeptics or those wrestling with the claims of Christianity.
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.

What we’re going to do is look at the question–who is Jesus Christ?
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is both intellectually credible and existentially satisfying. I’ve come to see over the years that those are the two tests of any valid worldview, philosophy or religion. It has to be both rational, coherent, and it has to be true. It has to meet my needs. It has to connect with my experience.
Don’t come to Christianity because it’s relevant–though, it certainly is. Don’t come to Christianity because it’s exciting–though, absolutely, it is. Don’t come to Christianity because it’ll meet your needs–though, it certainly will. Come because it’s true. And because it’s true, it’ll meet your needs, it’s exciting, and it’s relevant.
This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 1, 1994 as part of the Redeemer Open Forum series. Open Forums were specifically designed for skeptics or those wrestling with the claims of Christianity.
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.

Miguel de Cervantes, Albert Camus, Aldous Huxley, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Jesus Christ–they all know the average person is so busy in both work and play that you go years and years without asking yourself, “What is my reason for doing all this? What is my reason for life? What’s my whole life about?” Put another way: “When all is said and done, what will I have really accomplished?”
Do you want freedom? The great thinkers will say that if you want absolute freedom to live your life the way you want, you have to admit the utter meaninglessness of life. If you want complete freedom, you must face utter meaninglessness. That’s the first point.
The second point is nobody can live that way. To really believe life is meaningless gets you into convolutions that are emotional, psychological, logical, philosophical. You can’t even live that way, because life does have meaning. Let me argue that both freedom and meaning are found in Jesus Christ.
This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 27, 1994 as part of the Redeemer Open Forum series. Open Forums were specifically designed for skeptics or those wrestling with the claims of Christianity.
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 want to talk about the reasoning behind belief in God–what the reasons for God and belief actually are. Why is the reason for God important? How does it work? What are the actual reasons for God?
This talk was given by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 2, 2008 as part of the Redeemer Open Forum series. Open Forums were specifically designed for skeptics or those wrestling with the claims of Christianity.
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.

Each week we’re choosing one of the things that most trouble people today about Christianity. The problem with Christianity we now come to centers around the Bible. Many people in a place like New York would say this: “There are many good things in the Bible, but you shouldn’t take every word of it literally. There are legends in there. Don’t insist on it being entirely trustworthy and completely authoritative in everything it says.”
What do we say to that? I’d like to argue (to the contrary, of course) that you should trust the Bible. You can and should trust the Bible in three ways: historically, culturally, and, most of all, personally.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 5, 2006. Series "The Trouble with Christianity: Why it's so Hard to Believe it". Scripture: Luke 1:1-4, 24:13-32; 1 Timothy 1:9-11, Deuteronomy 2:24-27.
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.

Every week, we’re taking one of the things that in our culture troubles people the most about Christianity. We’re now going to look at the Christian teaching that God is a judge and a judge who consigns people to hell.
Someone says, “How can you possibly reconcile the concept of judgment and hell with the idea of a loving God? They just don’t go together.” What do we say about that? I’d like to argue that understanding what the Bible says about hell is crucial for understanding your own heart, for living in peace in the world, and for knowing the love of God.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 22, 2006. Series "The Trouble with Christianity: Why it's so Hard to Believe it". Scripture: Luke 16:19-31; Romans 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.