The Search for Identity
May 10, 2024
When it comes to building up identity and self-esteem, I’m afraid Americans are very pragmatic—and our pragmatism gets to us. Our books and articles say if you want self-esteem, you should lose weight, change your friends, switch your career, and so on. But nobody asks why. They don’t like to think about the underlying theory.
It’s important to understand that there are certain reigning theories of identity formation. Unless you recognize them and analyze them, you’ll just pick them up like a virus.
Let’s divide our inquiry into two parts: 1) what the world says is the way to find out who you are and 2) what the Bible says is the way to find out who you are.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 10, 1993. Series: Modern Problems; Ancient Solutions. Scripture: Psalm 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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.
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A fool can be brilliant and a fool can be stupid. Foolishness is not a function of your intelligence. Foolishness is a function of how you use your intelligence.
The Bible says every human being is born with a heavy streak of foolishness. It’s like a deposit. It’s foolishness, according to the Bible, that destroys our sense of God’s reality. And it’s a common reason why people have trouble believing God is real.
The Bible tells us 1) foolishness is a proud willfulness that keeps us from learning, 2) foolishness is a superficiality that makes it impossible to see our own heart commitments as alternatives to believing in God, and 3) foolishness can’t understand grace.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 3, 1993. Series: Modern Problems; Ancient Solutions. Scripture: Psalm 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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.
May 8, 2024
There is a thirst in the human heart that will not be denied. It cannot be denied. That thirst is for transcendence.
Transcendence is intimacy with the infinite. Psalm 63 is about the search for transcendence. It says there is irreducible knowledge, there is terrible thirst, and there’s only one resolution for it.
Psalm 63 tells us 1) the human heart needs transcendence and 2) how the human heart can find transcendence.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 26, 1993. Series: Modern Problems; Ancient Solutions. Scripture: Psalm 63.
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.
May 6, 2024
A plant without roots is at best a tumbleweed. Is a tumbleweed freer than an oak tree? Yeah, it’s free to be blown about forever.
There is what the Bible calls a rootlessness and a weightlessness about our society right now. Many of the problems you face today are that you’ve been affected deeply by this weightlessness we experience in our culture and society.
The roots of this rootlessness were addressed long ago in Psalm 1, which tells us 1) the diagnosis of rootlessness and 2) the prescription for rootlessness.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 19, 1993. Series: Modern Problems; Ancient Solutions. Scripture: Psalm 1.
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.
May 3, 2024
Have you in this modern world learned how to become happy and stay happy?
I hope you don’t think that’s a trivial question. Because if you read the psychology books, the urban planning books, the biochemistry books, the political science books, they’re really about this problem: we’re not happy. How can we be happy?
The Bible has always said the issues that make you happy or unhappy are profoundly cosmic and spiritual. In Psalm 1, we see 4 principles: 1) happiness is possible, 2) happiness is fundamental, not superficial, 3) happiness can never be found directly, and 4) happiness is something you choose.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 12, 1993. Series: Modern Problems; Ancient Solutions. Scripture: Psalm 1.
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.
May 1, 2024
Jesus, in Matthew 18, uses a word for conversion that means to turn completely around and face in a whole new direction. That’s a perfect image of what Christian conversion really is.
Christian conversion is a radical inner transformation. But it’s not so much a replacing of what you are as a re-facing of what you are. Your temperament doesn’t go away; your culture doesn’t go away. But everything you are is now lived on a whole new basis.
The case study of Cornelius the centurion teaches us four important facts. Christian conversion comes 1) through God’s initiative, 2) through the challenge to religion, 3) through the transformation of the Holy Spirit, and 4) through the words of the gospel.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 30, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 10:27-47.
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.
April 29, 2024
Christianity was originally never understood as a set of teachings that one took on. Christianity was a power that took you up. It completely turned you inside out, transformed you from the inside.
The classic example is the conversion of Paul. Paul was an abusive, violent zealot. He went from someone who was deeply unhappy and restless to someone who was utterly unflappable, absolutely content. How? A radical, deep conversion.
We all need to know how to live deeply converted lives. And though Paul’s conversion is dramatic, it shows three things involved in every conversion: 1) an untame God, 2) a stubborn fact, and 3) a radical relationship.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 23, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 9:1-19.
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 https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.
April 26, 2024
Conversion is a radical change of life. And in its early days, Christianity grew through conversions. It spread so rapidly that it changed a hostile society completely.
What does it mean to become a Christian? By looking at the conversions in Acts, we can see what Christianity really is.
In this passage, the conversion of an Ethiopian, we learn three things: 1) who converts, 2) the context of conversion, and 3) the key instrument conversion uses.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 16, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 8:26-40.
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.
April 24, 2024
Christianity was born into a culture that was every bit as resistant and unsympathetic to its claims as ours is. So how did its message come into the lives of people and actually change them?
In Acts, we have more case studies of conversion than anywhere else in the Bible. And in this passage, Luke chooses three to show us both how incredibly different and yet how incredibly similar Christian conversions can be.
What does it mean to be a Christian, and how do you become a Christian? 1) Lydia is a case of the gospel for the religious, 2) the slave girl is a case of the gospel for the oppressed, and 3) the jailer is a case of the gospel for the secular.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 9, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 16:13-34.
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.
April 22, 2024
The biggest problem people have in believing in God is probably the problem of evil and suffering. In the Greek imagination, the voyage was a metaphor for your life’s journey, and a storm was a metaphor for the evil and suffering and tragedies that come upon us. In this passage in Acts, Luke is in a boat, and he includes this account to teach us about the problems of evil and suffering.Let’s take a look at what he teaches under three headings: 1) the paradox of the storm, 2) the product of the storm, and 3) the presence in the storm.This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 2, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 27:15-32.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.
April 19, 2024
Christianity was born into a society hostile to its claims. And the claim that was most revolting to that society is also what our society sees as the most repugnant: the shocking claim that salvation is found in no one else.
It’s critical to realize this claim was as implausible in the Greco-Roman world as it is in ours. The Roman Empire was every bit as religiously pluralistic as our society, if not more. If they were as revolted as we were, why did so many believe it?
Acts 4 shows us four important things: 1) the claim was an implication, not arrogation, 2) the claim is no more exclusive than the claim of religious relativism, 3) this exclusive claim led to a transformation of identity, and 4) this exclusive claim led to the most inclusive human community the world had ever seen.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 26, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 4:8-14, 31-37.
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.
April 17, 2024
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The Reason for God
Why does God allow suffering in the world? How can one religion be “right” and the others “wrong”? Hasn’t science basically disproved Christianity? In his book The Reason for God Tim Keller addresses these questions and more. When you give to Gospel in Life this month, we’ll send you two copies of his book as our thanks —one for you and one to give to a friend.