Tim Keller on Prayer

"To fail to pray, then, is not to merely break some religious rule--it is a failure to treat God as God."

Tim Keller
Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Keller on Rejoicing and Repentance

“Rejoicing and repentance must go together. Repentance without rejoicing will lead to despair. Rejoicing without repentance is shallow and will only provide passing inspiration instead of deep change. Indeed, it is when we rejoice over Jesus’s sacrificial love for us most fully that, paradoxically, we are most truly convicted of our sin. When we repent out of fear of consequences, we are not really sorry for the sin, but for ourselves. Fear-based repentance (‘I’d better change or God will get me’) is really self-pity. In fear-based repentance, we don’t learn to hate the sin for itself, and it doesn’t lose its attractive power. We learn only to refrain from it for our own sake. But when we rejoice over God’s sacrificial, suffering love for us -- seeing what it cost Him to save us from sin -- we learn to hate the sin for what it is. We see what the sin cost God. What most assures us of God’s unconditional love (Jesus’s costly death) is what most convicts us of the evil of sin. Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.”

Tim Keller
Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters  

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Keller on the Dignity of Work

"We were built for work and the dignity it gives us as human beings, regardless of its status or pay. The practical implications of this principle are far-reaching. We have the freedom to seek work that suits our gifts and passions. We can be open to greater opportunities for work when the economy is weak and jobs are less plentiful. We no longer have any basis for condescension or superiority; nor is that any basis for envy or feelings of infidelity. And every Christian should be able to identify, with conviction and satisfaction, the ways in which his or her work participates with God in his creativity and cultivation."

Tim Keller
Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work

Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor

I just ordered and am very much looking forward to reading Tim Keller's newest release, on the topic of vocation. It is entitled Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work, and below is a brief video preview of the book.

Every Good Endeavor from Redeemer City to City on Vimeo.

A Word for Preachers...Keller on Preaching Christ, Not Moralism

"In nearly every text of Scripture a moral principle can be found, shown through the character of God or Christ, displayed in the good or bad examples of characters in the text, or provided as explicit commands, promises, and warnings. This moral principle is important and must be distilled clearly. But then a crisis is created in the hearers as they understand that this moral principle creates insurmountable problems. I describe in my sermons how this practical and moral obligation is impossible to meet. The hearers are led to a seemingly dead end, but then a hidden door opens and light comes in. Our sermons must show how the person and work of Jesus Christ bears on the subject. First we show how our inability to live as we ought stems from our forgetting or rejecting the work of Christ. Then we show that only by repenting and rejoicing in Christ can we then live, as we know we ought."

Tim Keller

(HT: Scott Sauls)

A Word for Preachers...Keller on Christ-like Preaching

"Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did."

Tim Keller  
The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

Video Available for Race & the Christian

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, John Piper, Tim Keller and Anthony Bradley got together last Wednesday to discuss the topic of Race & the Christian. Each of the three men spoke for approximately 20-25 minutes followed by a Q&A session.

If you were unable to catch this important discussion via the live stream last Wednesday, or if you did and you'd like to watch it again, Desiring God has made the videos available online. To watch them, you can either go to their website, or simply watch them embedded below.

Piper, Keller and Bradley Discuss Race & the Christian

The February 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida has brought the topic of race to the forefront of our collective consciousness. Next Wednesday (March 28) from 7-9pm (EDT), fellow Covenant Theological Seminary alumnus Anthony Bradley will moderate an important discussion with John Piper and Tim Keller on the topic of Race & the Christian. The event will be live-streamed for free at Desiring God and I encourage you to check it out. If you have questions you would like to submit, you can email them to raceandthechristian@redeemer.com.

In the words of Piper, "This is not a social issue. It is a blood issue." Here is a video invitation from him:


Invitation to Piper and Keller on Race & the Christian from Desiring God on Vimeo.

This event will be sponsored by Crossway and hosted by the Grace and Race Team at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Keller on the Idolatry of Money

"The solution to stinginess is a reorientation to the generosity of Christ in the Gospel, how he poured out his wealth for you. Now you don't have to worry about money -- the Cross proves God's care for you and gives you the security...What breaks the power of money over us is not just the redoubled effort to follow the example of Christ. Rather, it is deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ, what you have in him, and then living out the changes that the understanding makes in your heart – the seat of your mind, will, and emotions. Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding and identity, our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without a complete change of heart will be superficial and fleeting.”
Tim Keller
Counterfeit Gods

Tim Keller on New York City Church Decision

Perhaps you have heard in recent days that the city of New York has announced that churches, unlike secular organizations, will no longer be allowed to rent space from New York City schools. This is troublesome not just for the immediate impact on the city of New York and its churches, but because of the fact that so often, as goes New York, so too eventually goes the nation.

Tim Keller's words at the Redeemer Presbyterian Church online newsletter, The Redeemer Report, were far better than anything I could say, so I simply share them with you here:

I am grieved that New York City is planning to take the unwise step of removing 68 churches from the spaces that they rent in public schools. It is my conviction that those churches housed in schools are invaluable assets to the neighborhoods that they serve. Churches have long been seen as positive additions to communities. Family stability, resources for those in need, and compassion for the marginalized are all positive influences that neighborhood churches provide. There are many with first-hand experience who will claim that the presence of churches in a neighborhood can lead to a drop in crime.

The great diversity of our city means that we will never all agree completely on anything. And we cherish our city’s reputation for tolerance of differing opinions and beliefs. Therefore, we should all mourn if disagreement with certain beliefs of the church is allowed to unduly influence the formation of just policy and practice.

I disagree with the opinion written by Judge Pierre Leval that: “A worship service is an act of organized religion that consecrates the place in which it is performed, making it a church.” This is an erroneous theological judgment; I know of no Christian church or denomination that believes that merely holding a service in a building somehow “consecrates” it, setting it apart from all common or profane use. To base a legal opinion on such a superstitious view is surely invalid. Conversely, I concur with Judge John Walker’s dissenting opinion that this ban constitutes viewpoint discrimination and raises no legitimate Establishment Clause concerns.

A disproportionate number of churches that are affected by this prohibition are not wealthy, established communities of faith. They are ones who possess the fewest resources and many work with the poor. Redeemer has many ties with those churches and their pastors, and our church community invests time and resources to assist them to be good neighbors in their communities.

Let them be those good neighbors. I am hopeful that the leaders of New York City and the legislators of New York State will see the value of a society that encourages all spheres of culture—the church, government, education, business, etc—to work together for human flourishing.

Dr. Timothy Keller
Senior Pastor
Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Keller on Idols

"We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.

"What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give."

Tim Keller
Counterfeit Gods

The Meaning of Marriage

I confess, I am not all that "up" on the world of entertainment. That being said, even I am aware of Kim Kardashian and her recent (brief) marriage. This episode served only to reinforce what I already believed: that our culture as a whole has a profoundly distorted view of what marriage is and what it should be.

Into this quagmire enters Tim Keller, who (with his wife Kathy) has written The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of  Commitment with the Wisdom of God. I have not yet read the book, but based on the video below (recorded during a recent visit to Google's New York offices) and what I already know about Keller, I will gladly commend it to you. Whether you're married or single, Christian or not, please consider what Keller has to say. The first 30 minutes or so of the video are essentially a lecture, while the second half is in a Q&A format.



(HT: Justin Taylor)

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Keller on Idols and Guilt

"There is legitimate guilt that is removed through repentance and restitution, and then there is irremediable guilt. When people say, 'I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself,' they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God's."

Tim Keller
Counterfeit Gods

Wednesdays Words of Wisdom...Keller on the Uniqueness of Christianity

"The essence of other religions is advice; Christianity is essentially news. Other religions say, 'This is what you have to do in order to connect to God forever; this is how you have to live in order to earn your way to God.' But the gospel says, 'This is what has been done in history. This is how Jesus lived and died to earn the way to God for you.' Christianity is completely different. It's joyful news."

Tim Keller
King's Cross

The Gospel Coalition Women's Conference

From time to time I try to recommend good conferences to readers of this blog.  Though it obviously won't work for many of my readers, one such conference is The Gospel Coalition Women's Conference next June 22-24 in Orlando, with the theme Here is Our God: God's Revelation of Himself in Scripture.

If you are a woman, I highly recommend you look into this conference, and consider registering before the early registration deadline of December 31.  Among the main session speakers will be Tim Keller, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, John Piper, D.A. Carson, Paige Benton Brown and Jenny Salt, the final two of which can be seen on the video below discussing their views on teaching the Bible to women.


Dare to Go Where Few Women's Studies Will Go from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Jared Wilson on Taking Notes During Sermons

Jared Wilson offers some helpful thoughts today at The Gospel Driven Church on the value of note-taking during sermons. Though generally against note-taking, Wilson is far from dogmatic and his reasons are well-considered and developed.

For a long time I have been a note-taker.  I tend to get distracted easily and it helps me to focus my attention to take notes. Along with Wilson though, I was prompted to think about this issue a couple years ago when I heard Tim Keller say, "I don't mind if you take notes at the beginning of a message, but if you're still taking notes at the end, I feel like I haven't brought it home."

So should I ditch my note-taking?  I don't know.  In the end, this much is certainly true: How we receive a sermon says a lot about what we understand preaching to be.  Though I will most likely (at least for the meantime) continue to take notes during sermons, there is real value in what Wilson has to say:

Ditching the note-taking preaching ethos both elevates sermons and properly diminishes them. It treats a sermon as proclamation aided by the Spirit, which gives the sermon a supernatural weight. On the other hand, by treating all words in a sermon as expendable to memory, it puts the preacher's words in the right place compared to the Scripture's words. It diminishes the impact of a well-turned phrase and magnifies real revelation.

Click here to read his entire post.

Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

The Gospel Coalition has a blog post today with cautions on how we preach Christ from the Old Testament from three men who do so wonderfully: Tim Keller, D.A. Carson and David Murray. All three had very helpful comments, but I was especially struck by some of Murray's closing words:

I’d also like to encourage preachers and teachers to be clear and consistent on the question: "How were Old Testament believers saved?” The most common options seem to be:

1. They were saved by obeying the law.
2. They were saved by offering sacrifices.
3. They were saved by a general faith in God.
4. They were saved by faith in the Messiah.

Unless we consistently answer #4, we end up portraying heaven as not only populated by lovers of Christ, but also by legalists, ritualists, and mere theists who never knew Christ until they got there...

Click here to read the entire post.

Teaching From The Gospel Coalition

Two years ago I attended The Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago.  It was a fantastic experience and I thought very seriously about attending the 2011 installment of TGC this week.

Though it didn't work out for me to go, thanks to the wonders of technology, I've been blessed by the opportunity to take in some of the conference's great teaching.  Yesterday I watched Albert Mohler's talk via the live online stream of the conference's plenary talks provided  courtesy of Desiring God and TGC.  Last night I reviewed hundreds upon hundreds of tweets tagged #TGC11 and got a good feel for Tim Keller's talk, which has now been posted online, and which I plan on listening to later.

After the conference is over I will post another entry with links to all the talks.  Though I haven't heard it yet, I look forward to hearing Allistair Begg's talk from last night.  According to Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds, he concluded with this quote from John Calvin:

Without the gospel

everything is useless and vain;

without the gospel

we are not Christians;

without the gospel

all riches is poverty,

all wisdom, folly before God;

strength is weakness, and

all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made

children of God,

brothers of Jesus Christ,

fellow townsmen with the saints,

citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven,

heirs of God with Jesus Christ,

by whom

the poor are made rich,

the weak strong,

the fools wise,

the sinners justified,

the desolate comforted,

the doubting sure, and

slaves free.

The gospel is the Word of life.

Tim Keller on the Sovereignty of God

In his new book, King's Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, Tim Keller wisely writes, 

"(I)f I go to Jesus, he's not under my control.  He lets things happen that I don't understand.  He doesn't do things according to my plan, or in a way that makes sense to me.  But if Jesus is God, then he's got to be great enough to have some reasons to let you go through things you don't understand.  His power is unbounded, but so are his wisdom and love."

He goes on to further make the point,

"If you have a God great enough and powerful enough to stop your suffering, you also have a God who's great enough and powerful enough to have reasons you don't understand. You can't have it both ways."

Keller Speaks the Truth in Love about the One Who is Truth and Love

Saw a great interview with Tim Keller on MSNBC as he was publicizing his new book, King's Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus.  In my estimation, Keller is one of the sharpest pastors in the Church today, and does as good a job as anyone of living out both ends of Paul's injunction in Ephesians 4:15 to "speak the truth in love."  I very much look forward to reading King's Cross.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(HT: @Scott Sauls)