22 Tuesday Aug 2017
Without the gospel, we may obey the law, but we will learn to hate it. We will use it, but we will not truly love it. Only if we obey the law because we are saved, rather than to be saved, will we do so ‘for God’ (Galatians 2:19). Once we understand salvation-by-promise, we do not obey God any longer for our sake, by using the law-salvation-system to get things from God. Rather, we now obey God for His sake, using the law’s content to please and delight our Father.
– Tim Keller
11 Sunday Jun 2017
Posted in Christian Life, Idolatry, Worship
≈ Comments Off on Live for God
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To live for anything else but God leads to breakdown and decay. When a fish leaves the water, which he was built for, he is not free, but dead. Worshiping other things besides God leads to a loss of meaning. If we achieve these things, they cannot deliver satisfaction, because they were never meant to be ‘gods.’ They were never meant to replace God. Worshiping other things besides God also leads to self- image problems. We end up defining ourselves in terms of our achievement in these things. We must have them or all is lost; so they drive us to work too hard, or they fill us with terror if they are jeopardized.
– Tim Keller
06 Tuesday Jun 2017
Posted in Creation, Thanksgiving, Worship
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God created us and built us for a relationship with him. We belong to him, and we owe him gratitude for every breath, every moment, everything. Because humans were built to live for him (to worship), we will always try to worship something – if not God, we will choose some other object of ultimate devotion to give our lives meaning.
– Tim Keller
01 Saturday Apr 2017
Posted in Creation, Heaven, Restoration, Worship
≈ Comments Off on The Future Kingdom
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Psalm 96:12-13 says, ‘All the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth.’ Isaiah 55:12 says, ‘The mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.’
If you put seeds into a pot of soil and then put it away in the dark, away from the sun, the seeds go into dormancy. They can’t grow to their potential. But if you bring the pot with seeds into the presence of the sun, all that has been locked within them bursts forth. The Bible says that everything in this world – not just we human beings but even the plants, the trees, the rocks – is dormant. These things are just shadows of what they have been, would be, and will be in the presence of their Creator. When the Lamb of God presides over the final feast and the presence of God covers the earth again, the trees and the hills will clap and dance, so alive will they be. And if trees and hills will be able to clap and dance in the future kingdom, picture what you and I will be able to do.
– Tim Keller
31 Tuesday Mar 2015
Posted in Christian Life, Sin, Worship
≈ Comments Off on Enslaving Habits
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If you are a Christian and you are dealing with enslaving habits, it’s not enough to say, ‘Bad Christian, stop it.’ And it is not enough to beat yourself up or merely try harder and harder and harder.
The real reason that you’re having a problem with an enslaving habit is because you are not tasting God. I’m not talking about believing God or even obeying God, I’m saying tasting — tasting God.
The secret to freedom from enslaving patterns of sin is worship. You need worship. You need great worship. You need weeping worship. You need glorious worship. You need to sense God’s greatness and to be moved by it — moved to tears and moved to laughter — moved by who God is and what he has done for you. And this needs to be happening all the time.
This type of worship is the only thing that can replace the little if only fire burning in your heart. We need a new fire that says, ‘If only I saw the Lord. If only he was close to my heart. If only I could feel him to be as great as I know him to be. If only I could taste his grace as sweet as I know it to be.’
And when that if only fire is burning in your heart, then you are free.
– Tim Keller
08 Sunday Mar 2015
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We need to serve God in order to have purpose. We need to know God in order to have love. We need to be right with God to have self-worth. But sin leads every person to reject God as our only source of meaning, security, and worth. If we reject God our hearts must make idols.
– Tim Keller
23 Monday Feb 2015
Posted in Jesus, The Bible, The Gospel, Worship
≈ Comments Off on Christ-Centered, Gospel-Motivated Sermons
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A BASIC OUTLINE FOR CHRIST-CENTERED, GOSPEL-MOTIVATED SERMONS
The following may actually be four points in a presentation, or they may be treated very quickly as the last point of a sermon. But more generally, this is a foundational outline for the basic moral reasoning and argument that lies at the heart of the application.
The Plot winds up: WHAT YOU MUST DO.
“This is what you have to do! Here is what the text/narrative tells us that we must do or what we must be.”
The Plot thickens: WHY YOU CAN’T DO IT.
“But you can’t do it! Here are all the reasons that you will never become like this just by trying very hard.”
The Plot resolves: HOW HE DID IT.
“But there’s One who did. Perfectly. Wholly. Jesus the—. He has done this for us, in our place.”
The Plot winds down: HOW, THROUGH HIM, YOU CAN DO IT.
“Our failure to do it is due to our functional rejection of what he did. Remembering him frees our heart so we can change like this…”
a) In every text of the Scripture there is somehow a moral principle. It may grow out of because of what it shows us about the character of God or Christ, or out of either the good or bad example of characters in the text, or because of explicit commands, promises, and warnings. This moral principle must be distilled clearly.
b) But then a crisis is created in the hearers as the preacher shows that his moral principle creates insurmountable problems. The sermon shows how this practical and moral obligation is impossible to meet. The hearers are led to a seemingly dead end.
c) Then a hidden door opens and light comes in. The sermon moves both into worship and into Christ-application when it shows how only Jesus Christ has fulfilled this. If the text is a narrative, you can show how Christ is the ultimate example of a particular character. If the text is didactic, you can show how Christ is the ultimate embodiment of the principle.
d) Finally, we show how our inability to live as we ought stems from our rejection of Christ as the Way, Truth, and Life (or whatever the theme is). The sermon points out how to repent and rejoice in Christ in such a way that we can live as we ought.
– Tim Keller
*Quote taken from Monergism article, “Moralism Vs. Christ-Centered Exposition”
16 Friday Jan 2015
Posted in Anger, Forgiveness, Idolatry, Love, Worship
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Anger is the result of love. It is energy for defense of something you love when it is threatened. If you don’t love something at all, you are not angry when it is threatened. If you love something a little, you get a little angry when it is threatened. If something you love is an ‘ultimate concern,’ if it is something that gives you meaning in life, then when it is threatened you will get uncontrollably angry. When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, is is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.
– Tim Keller
15 Monday Jul 2013
Posted in The Gospel, Worship
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It is because Jesus Christ experienced cosmic thirst on the cross that you and I can have our spiritual thirst satisfied. It is because he died that we can be born again. And he did it gladly. Seeing what he did and why he did it will turn away our hearts from the things that enslave us and toward him in worship. That is the gospel, and it is the same for skeptics, believers, insiders, outcasts, and everyone in between.
– Tim Keller