Gospel in Life

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 of sin, but it gives you a concept of sin you can’t use to oppress people once you’ve grabbed it. You can’t use it that way. It’s one thing to believe in sin. It’s another thing to understand it and understand your own heart. We’re going to take a look at four features in the narrative, and each one is going to tell us something about sin. The four features we see are in verse 1. We see the coming word. “The word of the LORD came …” In verse 3, we see the running man. In verse 5, we see the deathly sleep. And lastly, we see the stormy hope. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 9, 2001. Series "The Church in the City". Scripture: Jonah 1:1-10. 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/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

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 general, but when it comes right down to it has a fatally inadequate understanding of how love actually operates, and in particular, how God’s love actually operates. In the same way, many, maybe most, of our own struggles and collapses (just like Jonah here) are due to our own inadequate understanding of how God’s love really, really operates. Let’s look at two things that God is trying to get across to Jonah. First, God’s love is refining fire. It is life-purifying. Secondly, God’s love is a seeking fire, a seeking power, a seeking love. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 16, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 4:1-10. 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/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

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 die?” The answer is a divided heart. Jonah believed in and served the true God, but he also believed and served a rival god. As a result, his heart was divided between worshipping two different things.  Hearts divided between more than one god create that kind of instability we see in Jonah. They create the kind of misery and drivenness of Jonah. And what we see is that it could be true of us as well. Now let’s just ask two questions of the passage: 1) What’s a divided heart? And 2) how can we heal a divided heart? This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 9, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 4:1-10. 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/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

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 we can learn, but one is that God’s love is a patient love. Fruitful Christians like Jonah can fall back into old patterns of sin and self-deception but  only the patient love of God stands between them and oblivion. God’s patient love is such that he will always bring his children back. Why is God’s patient love not more operative and powerful in our lives? How can God’s patient love be more powerful and operative in our lives? Let’s look at four things we can do: 1. Examine your heart; 2. Confess sin; 3. Make sure you realize God’s patient love is the thing that will keep you out of despair; and 4. Seek reality. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 2, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 4:1-10. 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/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

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 the city, but to sack it with an army of one. God did it by taking one person (one man, in this case) and turning that one man into a city-changer, into a world-changer. Then, by doing so, he was able to sack the greatest city in the history of the world up to that time. How did God make Jonah an Army of one? There are four things that we learn: God’s persistent grace makes you an army of one; God’s calling makes you an army of one, God’s strategy, and God’s power. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 26, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 3. 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’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 did Jonah, who was in this condition of utter despair, of cowering fear, and of rebellion … How did he come from that position to a posture of triumphant faith by the end of the prayer? The answer is that faith rose up and it brought with it Jonah’s heart. We’ll see his faith that he exercised was done in three stages. First, he calls, then he remembers, and finally he commits. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 19, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 2:1-10. 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/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

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, and even more than that, a prophet who received direct revelation from God can be deeply and profoundly in the dark about God’s grace. Jonah’s deepest fears, his racial prejudice, and his lack of endurance are all tied to his blindness to the reality of grace. Let’s look at three questions that this passage answers for us: 1. What is the grace of God? 2. How do you receive the grace of God? 3. How do you know you have received the grace of God in your life? This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 12, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 2:1-10. 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/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

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 sailors and their impact on him. God uses the sailors to teach Jonah something about himself and the world. In doing so, let’s just take a look and see how God will teach us something about ourselves and how we are supposed to regard the world. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 5, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 1:4-16; Philippians 2. 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 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 could. Then God sent a storm, and so the plot thickens. This chapter is about the storm God sent and about Jonah’s response to the storm.  Until you see you are not competent to run your life, you are not competent to run your life. This is an intervention of God. Let’s look to see how God intervenes and uses the storm as a way of teaching Jonah about himself and about sin and grace. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on July 29, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 1:1-17. 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/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

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 behavior. That’s it. Sin and grace. Running and chasing.  In this passage, we’re going to see, first of all, Jonah is called to do something. Secondly, Jonah runs away from it. Thirdly, we’ll see how God pursues him. This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on July 22, 1990. Series "Jonah". Scripture: Jonah 1:1-10. 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/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.