Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

As soon you hear the word generosity, you say, “Oh, a series on money.” No, not necessarily. It is possible to be technically generous with your money and not at all generous in your spirit or in your heart. There are plenty of people who are actually quite generous with their money, generous with their time. They volunteer their time. They help. They’re charitable, yet they’re not relationally generous at all.
There’s a specific form of relational generosity we want to talk about because it’s something that must characterize all Christian believers. And that is forgiveness. Forgiveness? Yes, because there are people out there who relationally owe you. They owe you because of how they’ve treated you. They owe you.
Matthew 18 and Luke 17 are parallel passages in many ways, and they are masterful passages that talk a lot about what it means to forgive. Let’s notice what it teaches us here about the enormity of forgiveness and then the practice of it (exactly how you do it), and then the key to forgiveness (the only way you will actually ever do it). There’s the enormity of it, the practice of it, and the key to it.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 7, 2012. Series "Generosity: Studies from the Gospel of Luke". Scripture: Luke 17:3-10.
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

According to the Bible, generosity is not less than being generous with your money, but it’s quite a bit more. In a place like Isaiah 32:8, it says, “The generous make generous plans, and by generous deeds they stand.” There’s no talk of money there, because generosity is something much more radical.
Generosity should be something so deep in us that it is completely pervasive in all parts of our lives. Money is only part of it. What I’m talking about is radical generosity. We’re going to ask three things about this text. First, what is the source of radical generosity? Secondly, what is the sign or mark of radical generosity? Thirdly, what is the key to becoming radically generous?
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 30, 2012. Series "Generosity: Studies from the Gospel of Luke". Scripture: Luke 18:9-17.
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

In this Q&A (and the talk that precedes it), Tim and Kathy Keller use the metaphor of cultivating a garden to address cultivating healthy marriages. They explore eight areas in marriage: planning and planting, roles, headship and submission, fertilizing and watering, love languages, sex, conflict resolution, forgiveness and repentance, as well as spiritual life together.
This Q&A was with Rev. Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 1, 2005. Series "Cultivating a Healthy Marriage".
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

In this talk (and the Q&A that follows), Tim and Kathy Keller use the metaphor of cultivating a garden to address cultivating healthy marriages. They explore eight areas in marriage: planning and planting, roles, headship and submission, fertilizing and watering, love languages, sex, conflict resolution, forgiveness and repentance, as well as spiritual life together.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 1, 2005. Series "Cultivating a Healthy Marriage". Scripture: 1 Corinthians 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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

In Ephesians 5, Paul says, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” This verse is teaching us that there are some things we would never know about marriage if we don’t know about how you relate to Christ by faith. Conversely, there are things we would never know about our relationship with Christ if we didn’t know about marriage.
When you look at marriage, you see things you would never know about a relationship with Christ otherwise. In a sense, one teaches you about the other, and you can’t completely understand one without understanding the other. What does marriage teach us about our relationship with Jesus and what does our relationship with Jesus teach us about marriage?
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 13, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Today's passage teaches us how the husband and the wife complete one another and that there is an authority structure inside marriage.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 6, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Today's passage teaches us three things about gender roles. It teaches that there are roles. Secondly, it teaches why there are roles. Thirdly, it teaches what those roles are.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 29, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

In the Bible, the word flesh doesn’t simply mean your body. It doesn’t simply mean what the English word flesh means, which always means simply skin, sinew, blood, and guts. Actually, there’s a place in the Bible where God says, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…” That doesn’t mean, “I will pour out my Spirit on everybody’s body.” It means, “I’ll pour out my Spirit on all people.” The word flesh means a person. When it says the two will become one flesh, it says you’ll be one person.
You’re really no longer the same two people, but you’re a third entity. This oneness is tremendously deep. It’s organic. It’s vital. It’s not mechanical.
How is it that this one-fleshness can be developed? Let me give you three ways it can happen and three reasons it doesn’t happen. If you do these three things properly, it develops deep oneness. If you fail to do them or if you do them wrongly, it creates what most marriages are–basically, business partnerships.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 22, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Marriage is not romance garnished with friendship. It’s not in essence romance and attraction, and friendship is thrown in as a wonderful little option, a wonderful little plus if you can get it. Rather, marriage is friendship with romance garnishing and flavoring it.
Furthermore, friendship is not just a feeling of affection. Friendship is a deep oneness that comes from two people journeying toward a common horizon. First, the oneness; secondly, the walking together, the interacting; and thirdly, the common horizon or goal you’re going to.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 15, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Marriage is many things. Marriage is glorious. Marriage is hard. It’s blood, sweat and tears. It’s defeats, and it’s victories. It’s almost everything except sweet. We’re going to see the Bible’s view of marriage is completely realistic.
The topic we now come to is the purpose of marriage. We’ve looked at the power and the definition, the priority of marriage. What’s the purpose of it? The purpose of marriage is friendship, companionship. Your spouse has to be your best friend.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 8, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

We’re looking at marriage in this passage under six headings. We’re looking at the power of marriage, the definition of marriage, the priority of marriage, the purpose of marriage, the structure of marriage, and the mystery of marriage. So far, we’ve only looked at the first two. We now want to get to the third: the priority of marriage.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 1, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

A person who understands the gospel–who has the gospel in his her blood–is a person who is strong and yet humble, and therefore, out of reverence for Christ submits and is able to serve other people, putting the needs of other people ahead of their own. That’s the power of marriage. That is the basis. Paul here gives us not just the power of marriage, but also its definition. That’s what we’ll now look at.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 25, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Marriage, contrary to what a lot of people say, is not something a bunch of people around a cave-fire in the Late Bronze Age suddenly thought up. According to the Scripture, marriage is a divine invention.
In this passage, we’re going to see first that the essence of marriage is a covenant, secondly, that the purpose of marriage is companionship, and lastly, the priority of marriage has to be number one.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 18, 1991. Series "Marriage". Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What we’re now looking at is a psalm about how to handle life in general. It in a sense gives you the key approach to handle all of life’s circumstances, no matter what they are. The principle is applied in different ways to despondency and fear and anxiety, all of the things we’ve been looking at, but in here what you actually have is David laying out the basic key to dealing with all conditions, all circumstances of life, any situation. It’s the basic way to handle the problems of life. That’s what this psalm is about.
David is calling for something far deeper than mental recall, and he’s dealing with something far more transforming than just counting your blessings. He’s not just saying, “Oh, count your blessings.” It’s something else. What is it? Remember. What is that? We’re going to learn here why we need to remember, where we need to remember, what we need to remember, and how we need to remember. This is the key to handling life.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 19, 2000. Series "Psalms - The Songs of Jesus". Scripture: Psalm 103:1-22.
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

If you’re trying to evoke God’s blessing through the goodness of your record and your life, you are psychologically unable to admit dark, intense, turbulent feelings. You can’t admit who you are. You can’t look and see what’s really in your heart; not if the whole basis for your understanding of who you are is, “I’m good. I’m a good person. I have to get it all together. That’s the only way I know God will listen to me.”
We’re now looking at guilt and shame–having your heart broken under a sense of failure, liability, and general unworthiness. This particular psalm has eight verses in it, and yet, in these wonderful few verses, we actually see guilt and shame likened to a hole, to something we’ve sunk down in. We here have the sinkhole of guilt and shame, the rope that’s given to a person sinking in guilt and shame, and something about the climb out of the hole. The sinkhole is in verses 1–2, the rope is in verses 3–4 and 7–8, and the climb out is in verses 5–6.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 12, 2000. Series "Psalms - The Songs of Jesus". Scripture: Psalm 130:1-8.
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The religiosity approach to emotions is to stuff them, deny them, and act like they’re not there. We’re uncomfortable with these strong emotions. We need to get control of them quickly. On the other hand, in secular circles there is this sort of love of just expressing our emotions as if it’s a good in itself.
The Psalms don’t do either. The Psalms do not say we should be under-aware of our emotions or over-awed by our emotions. We shouldn’t be stuffing our emotions or bowing to them. We should be praying them. We don’t mean by praying them that you put them in nicely manicured and managed little theologically correct confessional prayers, but you pre-reflectively pour them out into the presence of God and you process them there.
In this passage, David is really at the bottom in fear. He’s saying, “I’m scared,” but he’s going to do something. He’s turning. 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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

If you open the Psalms, which is the divinely inspired prayer book, the first page of the Psalms is not a prayer. Interesting. The very first page of the book that tells you how to pray is not a prayer, but actually a meditation on meditation. It’s a call to meditation.
Meditation is not the same as studying the Bible, because in studying the Bible you’re just learning the truth of it. You’re just learning information. What meditation does is it takes what you’ve learned and does something with it. He says that actually it’s a way of deliberately affecting your mind and your heart and moving it to love and humility and wonder at what you have just learned.
Let’s take a look and see what Psalm 1 tells us about meditation. We’re going to learn about the priority, the promise, the products, the practice, and then the problem and solution of meditation.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 23, 2014. Series "The Prayer of Prayers". Scripture: Psalm 1:1-6; 2:1-12.
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

The Lord’s Prayer is quite a workout. You’re asking for a whole lot of things: daily bread, deliver us from evil, temptation. There are a lot of things you’re asking for, but at the end, you rest in God. You enjoy God. You’re not asking for anything; you’re enjoying God. In fact, you’re realizing that all of the things you’ve been looking for, all the kingdom and the power and the glory are already there in him, and if you have him, you have everything you need. Therefore, at the very end, the last part of the prayer is the prayer of repose.
Our example of this is one of the most famous psalms in the Bible, Psalm 27. We’re going to see that this is exactly what the end of the Lord’s Prayer embodies. This is a psalm of David, telling about something that happens in his life, and the best way to get through it is to notice that in the very beginning he talks about what he’s facing. We learn what he’s facing, then what he does about it, then how he does it, and why he’s confident it will work.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 16, 2014. Series "The Prayer of Prayers". Scripture: Psalm 27:1-14.
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

How do you pray when you’re embattled? How do you pray when you feel like there are bad things inside you, bad things outside you, and you’re just spiraling down? You’re confused. You don’t know what to do.
So this is the prayer that Jesus says, “When you’re in the battle, when you’re in the trenches, when you feel like you’re falling, it’s through prayer that you get yourself out.” What does he actually do in prayer? There are four things. I’d like to spend our time looking at these four things. They all can only be done in prayer. Those four things are: he admits the worst, he sees the whole, he grasps God’s grace, and he reorders the loves of his heart.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 9, 2014. Series "The Prayer of Prayers". Scripture: Psalm 73:1-3, 13-26.
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What if I told you that there was a process and no matter how much you blew up your life, if you used this process, there would be a way to come out the other side, to get through it. Or no matter how broken your life is, if you used this process, there was a way for you to come out whole.
Would you be interested? Well, here it is. It’s what the Bible calls repentance. Here’s how you do it: Psalm 51. You say, “Repentance? You mean just saying I’m sorry?” When you say that, you have revealed that you do not understand the power of this kind of prayer, if you know how to do it. This kind of prayer, if you do it in an ongoing way, will finally enable you to change deeply from the inside out.
What we’re going to do is mainly look at the first five verses, and we’re going to ask these questions. What one thing must you stop doing? What two things must you start doing? Where do you get the power to do those two things? What to stop, what to start, and how to do it.
This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 2, 2014. Series "The Prayer of Prayers". Scripture: Psalm 51:1-19.
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 gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.