In the Middle Ages, theologians said there are different forms of gluttony—that you can eat and drink excessively, sumptuously, daintily, or impulsively. Technically, gluttony means to eat and drink immoderately. But gluttony also tells us something about each of us. Gluttony is taking something good and then cramming it in until we’re sick of it. Our desires are disordered so that good and necessary things become cravings. Sin, in other words, makes us all addicted to something. We all crave something, and we do it in such a way that it is very, very bad for us. Let’s look at three things this Scripture teaches us about craving: 1) the depth of our craving, 2) the structure of our craving, and 3) the healing. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 5, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Joshua 7:19-26, Hosea 2:13-15. 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.
October 10, 2025 ListenThere’s a sickness in us. We are cruel to each other in ways we cannot seem to heal. We have an inveterate kind of unhappiness in our hearts we can’t seem to put out. For the last hundred years, the reigning Western understanding of why we are so cruel and unhappy has been that it comes from outside of us, that it comes from conditions. But in the last few decades, the intelligentsia have increasingly admitted there’s something deeper than that. The Bible says the problem with human beings is not environmental—that there is a poison in us that’s called sin. And we need to understand the symptoms of that poisoning, the symptoms of sin. Let’s look today at 1) the symptom of envy, 2) the root cause, and 3) the antidote. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 26, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Numbers 11:4-6. 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.
October 8, 2025 ListenAfter he broke his promise to Jesus, Peter wept bitterly. Peter was an absolutely broken man in the profoundest possible way, and yet within weeks he was poised as the leader of a new movement, about to become one of the most influential leaders in the history of the world. What broke Peter like this, and then what restored him so quickly? The answer is the same: promises. Promises are the reason he was broken, and promises are the reason he was restored. And the case of Peter tells us more about the power of commitments than, I think, any other incident in the Scripture. Let’s look at what Peter learned: 1) how promises make us, and 2) how we can make promises. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 12, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Matthew 26:69-75. 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.
October 6, 2025 ListenIn sixth century B.C., Nebuchadnezzar was the absolute monarch of the Babylonian empire. He’d built maybe the most incredible city in history. He was at the pinnacle of power, and his life fell apart anyway. And here’s the incredible part: he’s glad it happened! He praises God for having done it. Do you know why? Because he says, “There was a spiritual cancer in me. There was something in me that was so bad, it was so dangerous, it had poisoned my soul so deeply that even as drastic as the treatment was, it was worth it to get it out of my soul.” What was it? Pride. Spiritual pride. Could it be that we need to know the same lesson he learned? This text teaches us four things: it tells us about 1) the sleep of pride, 2) the heart of pride, 3) the outcome of pride, and 4) the healing of pride. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 5, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Daniel 4:24-37. 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.
October 3, 2025 ListenJeremiah is speaking at a time when his society was literally falling apart—politically, psychologically, socially and culturally. Everybody was asking, “What’s wrong?” And the answer of God through Jeremiah, was, “It’s not the economy. It’s sin.” The Bible shows us that sin is a dislocation of the soul. The soul should be centered on God, and all of our problems come from our unwillingness to center on him because we don’t want to lose control. So what happens? What are the effects of centering on something else? Jeremiah gives a metaphor of us falling in love with other gods, meaning these other things we center our lives on. And he shows that there are two major consequences: 1) our lover gods will always enslave us, and 2) our lover gods will always leave us empty. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 29, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Jeremiah 2:19-32. 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.
October 1, 2025 ListenIn Jeremiah, the people of Israel were calling out and saying, “What’s wrong with us? Why are things falling apart?” And God came through and said, “Let me tell you what’s wrong.” In Jeremiah 2, we have the first sermon by the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Israel. It’s a sermon to show them why their lives are falling apart, why their culture is falling apart, why their psyches are falling apart, why their families are falling apart. And it’s a sermon on sin. There are three things that we learn from this passage about the nature of sin: 1) sin is denial, 2) sin is a disposition, and 3) there is a solution. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 22, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Jeremiah 2:2-13, 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.
September 29, 2025 ListenIt’s acceptable now to say, “I am spiritually searching.” But it’s not really acceptable to say you’ve found anything. But the Bible says you can find God. Not just search for God, but find God. And the famous passage about the burning bush, where Moses finds God, is very important—it gives you all of the basic principles for truly finding God. And until the same three things that happened to Moses happen to you, you can’t find God. Looking at this passage, we can see three stages: 1) the burning bush is a disrupting event, 2) when Moses gets closer he sees it’s an unmanageable power, and 3) in the midst of the burning bush, there’s an angel. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 4, 1998. Series: When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough. Scripture: Exodus 3:1-14. 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.
September 26, 2025 ListenThe Ecclesiastes writer says, “I have sought to construct meaning in life.” He takes the view of a practical secularist—that we don’t know for sure if there’s a God, and that this life is all there is. And then he asks, “If this life is all there is, does that make life meaningless?” He tells us in Ecclesiastes that he tried to construct meaning by being a cause-based person who fought injustice. He tried to construct meaning by seeking pleasure and beauty. And next, he tries a work-based life, making career and achievement the organizing principle of life. In exploring a work-based life, he finds three things: 1) a life of work is not worth it, 2) why it’s not worth it, 3) what is worth it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 27, 1998. Series: When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough. Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:17–26, 4:4–8. 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.
September 24, 2025 ListenWhen you go on a spiritual search, there are problems people always run into. One of them is the problem of pain. But there’s also the problem of pleasure. I don’t think I’ve ever really talked to anybody who said, “I have trouble believing in God because of pleasure. Why is there pleasure in the world?” But my thesis, and the Ecclesiastes writer’s thesis, is that it should bother you, because pleasure is a huge problem. The Ecclesiastes writer teaches us three things about pleasure: 1) what pleasure promises, 2) why it fails, and 3) how it points beyond. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 20, 1998. Series: When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough. Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:1–11, 3:10–14. 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.
September 22, 2025 ListenIf you’re on a spiritual search, there’s no better place to go than the book of Ecclesiastes. In the entire Bible, it’s the only book written from the viewpoint of a skeptic. The writer of Ecclesiastes asks, “If this life is all here is, what meaning is there in life?” To explore that, he looks at several questions we all have to answer in some way. The first of these is how we deal with the injustice and suffering we see in the world. How do you deal with injustice? The Ecclesiastes writer 1) refuses to let you avoid the question of injustice, and 2) gives us clues to two answers for how to deal with injustice. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 13, 1998. Series: When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough. Scripture: Ecclesiastes 9:2–16. 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.
September 19, 2025 Listen