Gospel in Life

Moral reformation is not the same thing as spiritual transformation. In moral reformation, one begins to outwardly comply, but the habits of the heart haven’t changed. In other words, moral reformation comes by looking at the rules and conforming, but spiritual transformation comes from looking at Jesus Christ. When we look at Christ, we can be regenerated — he can change our hearts and transform us spiritually.  Today’s sermon comes from a series on the character of Christ and how that character can produce deep changes in our hearts. Today we’re going to look at the joy that Jesus gives us. We learn three things in this passage about joy: the promise of it; the structure of it; and the growth of it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 3, 1998. Series: The Fruit of the Spirit – The Character of Christ. Scripture: John 16:19-24. 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.

On the night before Jesus is about to die, Jesus says to his disciples, “You have listened to many of the things I’ve said, and you’ve somewhat learned them, but you haven’t really changed.” Jesus doesn’t want his followers to simply start obeying rules, but he wants them to have changed hearts. Today’s sermon comes from a series on how God brings about deep, permanent, transformative change in our lives. This happens when God changes your heart. There are four things this passage teaches us about a changed heart: the importance of the fruit of the Spirit (love); the unity of the fruit; the nature of the fruit; and how this fruit is cultivated.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 26, 1998. Series: The Fruit of the Spirit – The Character of Christ. Scripture: John 13:1-21. 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.

When sharing the Christian faith with others that don’t believe, sometimes there are people who want to believe, but are just too overwhelmed by it. They see the beauty of what the Christian life is supposed to be, and they say, “I could never do it. It’s just beyond me.”  This is the kind of situation that Jesus addresses in today’s passage from John 16.  Jesus speaks to his disciples the night before he dies, right before he leaves them. In his last words to them, he maps out the kind of life he wants them to live and they are presumably overwhelmed. It’s not something that they have to do alone though. Jesus says that he will send a counselor, which is the Holy Spirit. We’re going to look at four things in regard to this counselor: the power, the goal, the method, and the results. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 19, 1998. Series: The Fruit of the Spirit – The Character of Christ. Scripture: John 16:7-16. 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.

Today’s sermon comes from a series on the hard sayings of Jesus. In Mark 10:25, Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” That’s as controversial now as it was then. What’s striking about this is Jesus is talking about something very basic: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” It can’t be any more basic than that. Jesus is addressing the very essence of what it means to be a Christian.  If we look at the larger context, we see that he’s actually explaining to the listeners how to become a Christian, and yet right in the middle, he brings up money. Another way to put it is if you want to be a Christian, money is an issue. This is very nuts-and-bolts. First, we’re being taught here about the spiritual dangers of money and wealth; secondly, the reasons for this danger; and thirdly, how we deal with the danger. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 27, 2000. Series: Hard Sayings of Jesus 2000. Scripture: Mark 10:17-27. 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.

Today’s sermon comes from a series on the hard sayings of Jesus. These are the statements Jesus makes in his teaching that people wrestle with. They’re either hard to understand or they’re hard to do or they’re hard to accept. This saying is particularly difficult because Jesus says that the temple is in fact his body. This would have been such a huge and cosmic claim to his original audience. Compared to other hard sayings, this one may not strike us in the same way though. It’s not because what he’s saying is irrelevant to our concerns today, but we need some help  translating the meaning of it. We’re going to have to ask ourselves three things to get to the bottom of it: 1) what is a temple; 2) what is Jesus’ claim about the temple; and 3) what practical difference does it make to our lives? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 20, 2000. Series: Hard Sayings of Jesus 2000. Scripture: John 2:15-21. 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.

Today’s passage from Luke 13 gives us two incidents that we would call tragedies today. The first one in verse 1 took place when Pontius Pilate, the Roman colonial governor of Judea, evidently had fallen upon some political enemies and destroyed them. What was particularly grisly about this was Pilate had sent his henchmen to find his political enemies at a time they were making sacrifices so when they were killed, their blood was mixed with the blood from the sacrifices. Then in verse 4, Jesus tells about another incident in which 18 people drowned in a reservoir due to a tower collapsed. The question that comes up is a natural question, a very relevant and very contemporary kind of question. Why the asymmetrical way in which pain and comfort is distributed amongst the human race? Why is it that some people have all the “luck,” and why other people seem to have all the bad “luck”? Jesus’ answer, of course, is totally unique and completely counterintuitive. It’s absolutely counter to the wisdom of this world. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 13, 2000. Series: Hard Sayings of Jesus 2000. Scripture: Luke 13:1-9. 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.

Today we’re going to look at a hard saying of Jesus in Matthew 7:6. Verses 1–5 are music to modern people’s ears — there’s nothing hard or particularly difficult about the first five verses. But in the context of the entire passage, you will see why verse 6 can be so difficult for people to understand and accept.  Jesus is likening someone to a dog and to a pig. It almost seems contradictory to verses 1-5, right? And how does it square with his charge to tell everyone the good news? Are we to write people off? What Jesus means here is that animals need care, i.e. you shouldn’t give pigs something they can’t digest or handle. So when we look at the parable in this light, we see that Jesus is actually scolding the caretaker in a sense. Let’s look further into what this teaches us about the hearts we have and the help we need. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on July 9, 2000. Series: Hard Sayings of Jesus 2000. Scripture: Matthew 7:1-6. 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.

Today’s sermon comes from a series on the hard sayings of Jesus. We find many of these throughout the New Testament — sayings that are difficult to understand or accept or both. Jesus says in verse 18: “I tell you the truth … not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” If Christianity is about grace, then what does Jesus mean by not a stroke of the law can be disregarded? How does that fit in with the rest of the Bible?  We’re going to see that it tells us a great deal about the Bible itself: It’s going to tell us three things: 1) the whole Bible is absolutely true (verse 18); 2) it’s all about Jesus, not about us (verse 17); and 3) if you learn to read it that way, it changes your life (verses 19 and 20). It changes everything. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 25, 2000. Series: Hard Sayings of Jesus 2000. Scripture: Matthew 5:18. 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 sermon comes from a series on the hard sayings of Jesus. The hard sayings of Jesus, the wisdom of Jesus, are more like hard candy than chocolates. You can bite right through chocolate, but with hard candy you have to work on it, going layer through layer slowly. Today’s “hard saying” has haunted people for a long time – the unforgivable sin. What does it mean to say that this thing is unpardonable? Even if we didn’t have this specific text to teach us about it, it’s imaginable that the issue would still come up. People would curiously ask, “Is there such a thing as an act or a deed, something so deeply wrong and wicked, that it really can’t be forgiven? We’re going to learn three things regarding the sin against the Holy Spirit: the problem of forgiveness; the power of repentance; and the danger of goodness. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 18, 2000. Series: Hard Sayings of Jesus 2000. Scripture: Matthew 12:30-32. 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.

Almost everybody says Jesus Christ was a great teacher, but when you actually begin studying Jesus’ teaching, he has a lot of sayings we can call “hard sayings.” They’re hard partly because they’re difficult to understand, but just as much, and maybe even more so, they’re hard because they’re tough to swallow, they’re hard to accept. The hard sayings of Jesus are things that on the surface look pretty difficult and maybe even look absurd, but as you reflect upon them, you’ll find that you actually never get to the bottom. Our text today is not really about fathers and mothers, although it would appear to be so on the surface, but it’s about discipleship. It’s about what it means to exclusively follow Jesus and be his disciple. We’re going to look at these five aspects of Jesus’ discipleship: it’s not optional; it’s unpredictable; it’s deeply emotional; it’s completely positional; and it’s unconditional. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 4, 2000. Series: Hard Sayings of Jesus 2000. Scripture: Luke 14:25-27. 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.