A Vision for a Gospel-Centered Life

260 Pages·2017·1.53 MB·English

by  Timothy J. Keller

A Vision for a Gospel-Centered Life
The Gospel: Justified – Tested - Works
13 Sermons
of
Dr. Timothy J. Keller
Redeemer Presbyterian Church
New York City , New York
and
Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Westminster Chapel
London , England
Table of Contents
Preface: Standing on the Shoulder of Giants
Introduction: Revelation
Chaper I: The Prodigal Sons
Chapter II: Christ, Our Life
Chapter III: The Gospel
Chapter IV: Where is Your Faith?
Chapter V: The City of God
Chapter VI: Living in Community
Chapter VII: Witness
Chapter VIII: Justice
Chapter IX: Cultural Renewal
Chapter X: The Gospel & Your Wealth
Chapter XI: The Gospel & Yourself
Chapter XII: The Gospel, the Church, and the World
Jesus at His Friend's Feast
Endnotes
PREFACE – STANDING ON THE SHOULDER
OF GIANTS
Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of
Christ.
Romans 10:17 (ESV)
John Owen, the greatest Puritan theologian and contemporary of John
Bunyan, when asked by King Charles II why he, a great scholar, went to
hear an uneducated tinker preach said, "I would willingly exchange
my learning for the tinker’s power of touching men’s hearts.
[1]"
Once or twice in a century God hauls off and creates a servant so mighty
in gift that the only proper response is “Wow!” Charles Haddon
Spurgeon was one of God’s special projects in the nineteenth century.
Dr. Haddon Robinson, Introduction to Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening
[2]
Dr. David Martin Lloyd-Jones was “a thoroughly humble man. He
was a man of prayer, a powerful evangelist, an expository preacher
of rare quality, in the fullest sense a servant of the Word of God.” Dr.
F.F. Bruce
In 1959, Dr. Lloyd Jones did a series of lectures on revival. When I
came to New York City (in 1989), and was trying to figure how to
preach, I listened to the Doctor’s evening sermons…that all through the
‘50s and into the ‘60s he would preach evening messages…they were
expository but they were evangelistic …aimed at the person who didn’t
believe…in London. I listened to scores of them…maybe hundreds of
them. [3]
Tim Keller, Senior Pastor, Redeemer
Presbyterian Church, NYC
Tim Keller is the most culturally relevant preacher in America today.
Dr. Donald A. Carson, to a
friend, September, 2007
] ] ] ]
These thirteen sermons – herein labeled “ Readings ” in manuscript form,
were preached in London and New York City . The 4th sermon by Dr.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones was preached on March 14, 1954 . The other 12
sermons were preached by Dr. Timothy Keller in the fall of 2005 at
Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City , a series entitled the
Vision of Redeemer.
The first three sermons of Dr. Keller focus on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The 4th sermon by Dr. Lloyd-Jones deals with the nature of faith, and the
challenges every Christian will face, if indeed they are Christian. The last
9 sermons by Dr. Keller focus on the implications of really believing the
gospel.
Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones ( 20 December 1899 – 1 March 1981 )
was a Welsh Protestant minister, preacher and medical doctor who was
influential in the Reformed wing of the British evangelical movement in
the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of
Westminster Chapel in London . Dr. Lloyd-Jones was expected to assume
the position of the Royal Family Physician following his mentor, but
shortly after graduation gave up his medical practice intentions to preach
the Gospel.
Dr. Timothy J. Keller (born 1950) is an American Christian apologist,
author, speaker, and the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian
Church in New York City , New York . He is a graduate of Gordon-
Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div., 1975) and Westminster
Theological Seminary, where he received his D.Min in 1981 He was
ordained by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and served as a
pastor in Virginia for nine years, while serving as director of church
planting for the PCA.
INTRODUCTION
Where there is no vision…no redemptive revelation of God…the people
perish;
Proverbs 29:18 -Amplified Bible
A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge
extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast
horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of
white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in
white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and
leaping like frogs.
And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she
recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little
of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to
observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity,
accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and
respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked
and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. She lowered
her hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed
unblinkingly on what lay ahead.
“Revelation [i]”
Flannery O’Connor
The first revelation, after the book hit Mrs. Turpin directly over her
right eye, came as her head cleared, and she asked the book-throwing girl
what she had to say for herself. The girl said, “Go back to hell where you
came from, you old wart hog.” Metaphorically speaking, it was a
“sledgehammer-to-the-heart-beginning” to a day…which ended with
Mrs. Turpin gasping, unblinkingly, at a mind-blowing revelation about
her self-righteousness.
Isaiah and Jeremiah…major prophets of the Old Testament…as well
as minor prophets, delivered similar blows to the ostensibly God-fearing
people of their times. The same was true in Jesus’ day vis-à-vis His
encounters with the legalistic and unloving “religious leaders” tracking
and monitoring His every word and movement. Dr. Timothy J. Keller,
Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, and
author of the New York Times bestseller, Reason for God: Belief in
an Age of Skepticism [ii] – critiqued for his own people the ease by
which people rest easily in their own presuppositions about life…death…
and immortality in a 12-part sermon series in the Fall of 2005. It could be
considered a review of the ultimate questions and answers to the “why of
our lives?”…as well as a summary of 16 years of ministry in Manhattan to
that time, having begun in April, 1989. Each week Dr. Keller reminded
his listeners that the Vision of Redeemer was – “(we’re here) to build a
great city, for all people, through a movement of the Gospel, that brings
about personal conversion, community formation, social justice and
cultural renewal in New York City, and through New York the world.
You may come to this work as a skeptic, a seeker, or one convinced
that Jesus remains a fascinating historical figure…but His followers will
always be religious hypocrites (like Mrs. Turpin) – part of the reason we
have so many problems in the world today, You may well be surprised
by the insightful words of Dr. Keller. Or, you may come as a person of
faith – one believing that Jesus is who He said He was…and perhaps