Gospel in Life

Forget the heroes. These days, we want authenticity. We want personal vision. We’ve done away with hero worship.  In the story of Samson, we see that the Bible doesn’t give us hero worship, but it also doesn’t give us hero hatred or deconstruction. Some people have called Samson an old-fashioned hero, like Superman—but he’s not. I’ve been waiting for people to call him the anti-hero—he even makes jokes when he’s killing people. Samson is physically quite strong and morally quite weak. But in spite of this, God actually judges Israel with him. What does it all mean? In the story of Samson we see that 1) hero worship does not help, 2) but hero deconstruction doesn’t help either, and 3) we need something else. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 12, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: Judges 15:9-20. 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.

If you don’t yet, you will soon sense an acute need for wisdom. You’ll take a job you never should’ve taken, hire somebody you never should’ve hired, date somebody you never should’ve dated. Often, the older you get, the more you worry. Because the older you get, the more you see how important wisdom is, how difficult it is to gain, and how your life absolutely blows up when you make choices without it. Many centuries ago, Solomon became king of Israel at the age of 20. When he did, he got wisdom, and he exercised wisdom in a way that can teach us a great deal about how we can get it ourselves.  If we take a look at this narrative, we’ll see 1) the need for wisdom, 2) the anatomy of wisdom, and 3) the essential principle of wisdom that runs all the way through it—the heart of wisdom. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 5, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: 1 Kings 3:16-28. 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 story of Joseph tells us something awfully basic, and yet probably all of us will recognize that the problems in our lives are due to a lack of orientation to this thing that’s so basic. This story tells us God is a God both of truth and of love—equally, together. And what does he want for us? He wants us to forgive the way he forgave us. To see this, we need to look at the very end of a very long story that goes from Genesis 37 all the way to Genesis 50. This is the end of the story, and in many ways it looks back and recaps the rest of the story.  We’re going to ask two questions about the narrative: 1) Why did Joseph weep? 2) What did Joseph say? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 28, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: Genesis 50:15-21. 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.

How do we find God? We’re looking now to, I think, probably the strangest of all narrative accounts in the Bible of a human being encountering God. It’s a long story. All of Jacob’s life, he’s been wrestling with his twin brother, Esau. He’s been away, but he decides to come back and finally have it out. He sends a bunch of gifts ahead of him, he divides his own family up, and he gets ready to meet Esau alone. And there in the dark when Jacob is alone, a mysterious man—not Esau—attacks him, and he wrestles him all night. Finally, as the day is about to break, Jacob realizes this is the Lord himself—that he’s wrestling with God. Jacob meets God, and the encounter tells us how we can meet God and how we can check our own hearts to find out if we’ve met God. Four things: 1) an encounter with God is personal, 2) an encounter with God is personal wrestling, 3) an encounter with God is always losing, but 4) an encounter with God is winning through losing. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 21, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: Genesis 32:22-32. 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 laughter and bitterness by looking at a particular experience, and that is a woman laughing because her only child has been born. It’s an incredibly old woman we have here: a woman who’s 90 years old. We’re told in the Bible that this laughter is a clue to who God is and what he has done and how you find him.  This passage is actually the key, because all of Abraham and Sarah’s lives and all of their fascinating incidents can be understood in terms of the name of their son. The name “Isaac” means laughter. You can understand all of their lives, and actually I think eventually you’ll be able to understand all of your life, through the word “laughter.”  There’ve been three kinds of laughter in the story of Abraham and Sarah. They had to go through the first two to get to the third. Let’s look at these three kinds of laughter: 1) the laughter of scoffing, 2) the wild laughter of addiction and fixation, and 3) the laughter of grace. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 14, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: Genesis 21:1-7. 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.

A lot of people say Ecclesiastes is the greatest book of the Bible. But I can almost guarantee none of them felt that way the first time they read it. Because when you first read Ecclesiastes, what you’re struck with is a professor in absolute despair.  Some will think this seems to contradict the rest of the Bible. Others will say, “Who needs this pessimism?” It can be a confusing book because people don’t realize its instructional approach of andragogy, which means adult instruction by goading and asking questions. And it can also be confusing because people don’t notice that the teacher is looking at life in two different ways, and that he keeps going back and forth between them. Let’s look at both of the ways he looks at life. Let me show you: 1) how he looks, 2) what he sees, and 3) why he sees it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 7, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:17-26. 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're at a cultural moment in which most people recognize that marriage is struggling. And what does the Christian vision of marriage have to say for that? We believe that understanding the biblical vision for marriage will help you no matter your own situation. We’re applying it to the culture. We're applying it to unmarried people. We're applying it to married people. Kathy and I will each talk about different aspects of this. We’ll look at 1) marriage and our culture, and 2) the biblical contours of marriage: the power, the essence, the purpose, and the three major means of marriage. This talk was given by Dr. Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 30, 2012 for the conference "Marriage, Sex & Singleness Conference". 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 the least appetizing of titles, but I want to talk to you about a theology of singleness.  I’d like to share with you the basic theological principle in the New Testament about singleness. There is a Christian biblical theology of being a single adult, which means to be an adult without a spouse or children of your own. I’d like to discuss 1) that there is a theology, 2) the uniqueness of this theology, 3) what it means when Paul says singleness is a gift, and 4) the practical implications. This talk was given by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 1, 2014 for the conference "S1NGLE: God’s Gifts — Our Plans". Today's podcast episode 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.

There’s a wide spectrum of how individuals experience singleness: some would describe it as suffering, others might just call it sadness, and still others say it’s a sense of freedom. It’s important to recognize though that the experience of suffering and unhappiness are a part of life for everyone—whether you are a single Christian, whether you are happily married, or whether you are unhappily married. Our core challenge is to live a godly and holy life in whatever condition we are in. Every situation will have its particularities, but the similarities are greater than the differences. I’d like to talk about how to live godly lives in Christ under any of our circumstances. This talk was given by Kathy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 1, 2014 for the conference "S1NGLE: God’s Gifts — Our Plans". Today's podcast episode 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 look now at the peak verse of the most famous biblical passage on marriage. It’s Ephesians 5:32, where Paul says, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” He says everything he’s said about marriage has also been about Christ and the church.  This verse teaches there are some things we would never know about marriage if we didn’t know about how we 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. You can’t completely understand one without understanding the other.  I’d like to look at this under these two headings: 1) what does marriage teach us about our relationship with Jesus? and 2) what does our relationship with Jesus teach us about marriage? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 13, 1991. Series: Marriage. Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33. Today's podcast episode 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.