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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

The culture in which Christianity was born was every bit as skeptical of the claims of Christianity as ours is. But the case for Christianity was made so strongly that skeptical people believed in numbers so great that it changed the entire Roman culture. 

There’s no better place to see the case that changed the whole Roman Empire than the book of Acts. Within it, there are a number of spots where Paul or Peter make the case, including this famous spot where Paul speaks to the intellectual elites on Mars Hill in the Areopagus. 

This text shows three aspects to the persuasive power of gospel: 1) the cultural, 2) the intellectual, and 3) the personal.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 19, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 17:16-34.

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.

It’s a simple fact that in the Greco-Roman world, the claims of Christianity were found every bit as implausible, if not more, than people find them now. So why did so many people believe? 

Fortunately, we have a case study in Theophilus. How does a cultured, intellectually sophisticated person living in a culture that’s hostile to the basic claims of Christianity come to believe Christianity is true? The answer in a nutshell: the resurrection. 

Whether we already believe or aren’t sure we believe, because of the resurrection we can know three things: 1) the truth is out there, 2) the truth is up there, and 3) the truth is in there. 

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 12, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 1:1-11.

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.

When the Jewish exiles got to Babylon, they found a huge city—hostile, big, brutal—and it was filled with other exiles, with different people groups and radically different views. Our culture is not so different.

Liberals feel our country is so conservative that they’re pulling their hair out, and conservatives feel our country is so liberal that they’re pulling their hair out. Both groups feel like exiles. Millions of ethnic minorities feel like exiles. So how do you respond to a city that’s hostile to your views? How do you live in a fragmented society? 

God’s answer to the Jewish exiles is astounding. In it, we see three things: 1) wrong ways to relate to the city, 2) God’s way to relate to the city, and 3) how to get the power to do it.

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 5, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Jeremiah 29:4-14.

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.