Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

The twentieth century philosopher Martin Heidegger believed all human beings were characterized by unheimlichkeit, which means homesickness. It means to be alienated, to feel that we’re not really home in this world, to feel that we are in exile, that we’re in a world that’s profoundly at variance with our deepest desires. Why would that be? What are we going to do about that? Those profound questions are all addressed and actually answered by this wonderful parable in Luke 15. We’re going...

The one thing everybody knows when you read the parable of the prodigal son is it’s about forgiveness. The parable is a beautiful picture of a father that forgives his son and welcomes him home. Let’s take a look first at what it teaches us about forgiveness and then ask the question … What kind of community would we be if we took the teaching about forgiveness seriously? Consider these four headings: forgiveness is assertive, it’s sacrificial, it’s powered from inside, and it leads to a...

This great parable of the prodigal son teaches us many insights as to how the grace of God affects our relationships with each other, how it creates a unique community, a unique human society. Today we’re focusing on the theme of sonship. What did sonship mean in ancient culture? What does sonship mean in the Bible? We have to understand this if we’re going to grasp not only the narrative in the text but some of the greatest information we can get about what God has given to us through...

We’re looking at the parables of Luke 15. Of course, the biggest, longest, and most famous of them is the parable of the prodigal son. We see how the grace of God not only changes my individual life or your individual life, but how the grace of God creates a new kind of community, a new kind of human society, and how it creates new kinds of relationships. This parable is essentially an image about the meltdown of a community and the restoration of it. The key theme we’re going to look at in...

In Luke 15, we’re learning how the gospel creates a special kind of community, and how it creates a new kind of community. We’re looking at the last of the three parables: the parable of the lost son. It’s the most famous. And it’s the longest. I’d like you to think about this story in a slightly different way than you probably want to do. I’d like you to consider the story is giving us a picture of an assault on community because of idolatry. And this is only overcome by agony. This is our...

We’re looking at the parables Jesus tells in Luke 15: the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the lost son. These are famous parables and they all show us how God’s grace can change someone’s life. The not only show us how God’s grace changes us individually but forms us into a unique kind of human community. With the grace of God, the gospel creates a completely unique and distinct kind of community — a community the world has never seen. Let’s take...

The book of Jonah is awfully relevant to our situation, especially today. Jonah has been asked to go to the capital of Assyria, the great rising, emerging imperial world power. It was a violent place. It slaughtered helpless people. Jonah’s response to that is anger. He wants them punished. He is angry at them for their violence. Yet, in one of the great surprises in all of biblical narrative, there’s probably no more surprising turn than what we see in this book. God refuses to accept...

We continue to see the relevance of Jonah’s situation and the story of Jonah to our own. Jonah was a prophet and he had a relationship with God. He was a preacher. He had faith. He had an understanding of who God was and who he was. He was moving along in his world just fine. Then his world changed, because God came to him and said, “Now I call you into a new ministry, a new situation. I want you to go to Nineveh.” It was a violent and ruthless and imperialistic nation. It was, as it were,...

Jonah is a prophet. God has come to him and told him to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the implacable foe, the implacable enemy of his country. “Go to that city and preach against it. Warn them about God’s anger.” What Jonah does, of course, is he runs away. He refuses to do it. He goes in another direction. Jonah’s on the run. Why? Because Jonah has fear in his heart. He’s afraid to go to Nineveh, because why put himself in the very midst of his enemies? We’re going to see what...

The book of Jonah is really one of the best possible places to get an overview of what the Christian message is about. This passage, this text, the book, is about sin. But it doesn’t actually ever use the word sin. Not only does it profoundly map out the real nature of sin, it gives us an understanding of sin that goes deeper than what traditionally you’d think the definition of sin is. It also deconstructs the very danger contemporary people are so afraid of. It shows you not only a concept...

Jonah was called to go to Nineveh to preach, and after a lot of detours, he did. When he got there and began to preach, we’re told that Nineveh, by and large, the populace turned from its violence and its evil ways. Now this is a marvelous thing and we would expect great joy in Jonah’s heart. But surprise, in 4:1, we read, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” Why is that? The bottom line is Jonah can’t figure out God’s love. Jonah, like everybody, believes in love in...

Jonah went into a big city like New York — Nineveh was proportionally bigger — and he saw a massive change. He saw repentance that was culturally transforming. The people turned from their violence and evil ways. In response to this amazing thing, we’re told, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” What’s going on here? How can we explain Jonah’s mood swings, his tremendous emotional instability, able to praise God in chapter 2 and a few days later saying, “I am angry enough to...

The last chapter of Jonah is a surprise chapter. It’s the most surprising ending of any of the books of the Bible. If you gave this whole chapter a title, you might call it “The Incredible Collapse of Jonah.” Why would a preacher get exceedingly angry when, as a response to his preaching, he’s actually turned a culture away from violence, oppression, and wickedness to the living God? The incredible collapse of Jonah is because of a misunderstanding of God’s love. There are several lessons...

Nineveh, which is the capital of Assyria, was the greatest city the world had yet seen. It was an impregnable fortress. Military might, economic might, cultural might … Nobody in their right mind would even think of besieging the city, let alone trying to capture the city, because you couldn’t even get an army around it. Who had an army that could stretch around the circumference of this city? But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, and God decides, not just to besiege...

We’ve seen that Jonah was called to preach in the great city of Nineveh, he refused and fled from God, God sent a storm to reclaim him, and the storm made things such that Jonah was thrown over the side of the boat into the ocean. There, he was swallowed by a great fish. The result is, in the belly of the deep, Jonah prays a prayer of faith, and he grasps the grace of God. We’re going to look, not so much at the subject or topic of the prayer, but the phenomenon of the prayer itself. How...

The plot line of Jonah goes like this. Chapter 1: God says to Jonah, “Go and preach to Nineveh, the greatest city in the world.” Chapter 2: Jonah refuses and flees on a boat. Chapter 3: God sends a great storm on the ocean to reclaim Jonah. Chapter 4: Jonah is thrown into the sea and swallowed by a fish. The point of all of this is right here in this chapter, almost exactly in the very center of the book. The point is about God’s grace. This book says a religious professional, a preacher,...

Jonah is called by God to go to Nineveh, the greatest city in the world, and warn the city about impending disaster and preach there. Jonah refuses, heads in the other direction, and gets on a boat. God sends a storm to hunt him down, endangering the lives of everyone on the ship. Jonah, recognizing this, offers to be thrown into the ocean so the lives of the other sailors will not be forfeit. We’re going to pause and look at the sub-plot here: Jonah and his relationship and impact on the...

We’re looking at the Book of Jonah and we’ve seen that one subject is sin and grace. Even though there are many places in the Bible that talk about those topics very theologically, the great thing about the book of Jonah is it presents these concretely. Sin is running away from God, and grace is God chasing us down, hunting us down in love, and intercepting our self-destructive behavior. We’ve learned that Jonah ran from God – he literally decided to get as far away from God as he possibly...

The book of Jonah is a very simple story. It’s a book about a man running away from God and about God pursuing him, and as a result of that, this book is one of the very most concrete ways to learn what the Bible means by sin and grace. Almost everybody is familiar with the words sin and grace, but what they actually mean is another thing. Essentially (as concretely as you can put it), sin is running away from God and grace is God’s effort to pursue and to intercept self-destructive...

We have all faced these questions at some point or another: How can you live with both justice and mercy in the world? Can mercy and justice be combined? Can forgiveness and justice be combined? I’m not sure that immediately grabs you as one of the great problems in your life or in the culture, but it is. We have at least two problems, and I’m going to show you it’s because of a third. We have a problem of public justice. In public justice, when one group has really wronged another group,...