If you don’t have a desire for a transformation of character from the inside out, it’s because you just haven’t faced yourself. There is in all of us a selfishness, a lack of self-control, a dysfunction. And yet God calls us to, “be ye holy.” Being h...
To be a holy person is not what people popularly think it is these days. In modern English we often use the word “holy” to mean “holier than thou”—inaccessible, condescending, and self-righteous. Or at best, people will think of a holy person as some...
Many Western people today think that Christianity is for people who don’t want to use their minds, that if you’re educated and thoughtful you wouldn’t believe. They think that to be Christian you’d have to jettison your thoughts and surrender to a re...
How can you be in such a condition that the troubles and sufferings of life don’t crush you but actually hone and refine you? Peter tells us that to be that kind of person, you have to be holy. In these verses, Peter says to “gird up the loins of you...
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 10, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:10-12. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all se...
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 3, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:10-12. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all ser...
There’s only one God who has wounds that can speak to your wounds. There’s only God who has been through it. The Buddhists look at suffering as an illusion. Western secular culture looks at suffering as a curse. But Christianity looks at it as somet...
If Jesus Christ went into the furnace for you, he certainly can go into the furnace with you. That’s what the book of 1 Peter is all about: how we can deal with the furnace of suffering in this life and how we can know Jesus will be with us. Because...
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 12, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:1-2. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all se...
When Paul was in prison, facing and expecting death, he had the audacity to say, “I have found the secret of being content no matter the circumstances.” The amazing thing is that in the Bible this is not some kind of high nirvana that only certain p...
Honesty is a difficult commodity. It’s pretty hard to find. Instead, you can see dishonesty everywhere: in the high places in the professional places, and all the way down to the inner places. We’re not honest with other people, and we’re not even ho...
If you’re not radically generous, you’re a thief. The Bible is full of this teaching. If the money you have was yours and you’re not generous with it, you’re just being stingy; but if the money is somebody else’s and you’re not generous with it as th...
Money is not a silly or superfluous thing. Money was designed to be our dignity. It answers to something God put down deep in us: that we all need to have part of the world to care for, and without any part of the world to care for, we have no dignit...
When Christianity burst onto the scene, the early Romans were amazed and astounded in two particulars: that Christians were radically generous, giving away large portions of income, and that Christians were radically pure, believing in no sex outside...
Jesus gives us the most radical ethic of love that’s ever been put forth: “Turn the other cheek.” This ethic has been criticized and disregarded, but no one ever says the reason is because it’s too low or vile or unworthy. They always say it’s too hi...
