Timothy Keller Podcast

The only way to understand God's plans for us is to see Christ truly and trust him fully. Gods plans for us are not abandoned to fate; our choices matter, and once we have committed entirely to His will, we can receive his guidance humbly and boldly.

Haman, who plots to kill the Jews exiled in Persia, exemplifies pride and its downfalls. His pride manifests itself in self-absorption, an inability to learn from his mistakes, a progression into more serious forms of evil, and a blindness to his own pride. Pride is overcome by forgetting oneself and clothing oneself in the overwhelming praise of the Father through Christ.

The worship of the living God gives us peace and equilibrium to face the troubles of life. Worship engages our entire being in adoration and brings us to a sense of joy in God’s ravishing beauty.

Seasons of spiritual dryness and disillusionment are inevitable in life, and may derail your faith. They don’t seem to fit with a just and holy God. Psalm 42 offers a prescription for your soul when it seems impossible to feel close to God and sense his lovingkindness.

One of the major narrative plot lines of the Bible is the story of the lamb. It runs all through the Bible, beginning with the story of Abraham being asked to kill Isaac, continuing with the Passover in Egypt, and running through the Passover supper with Jesus and his disciples. In all of these cases a lamb is offered as a sacrifice for a debt. In John 1, John the Baptist tells us to "behold the lamb of God," meaning to soak in and understand who Jesus is and the debt he paid for us with his death.

What does it mean for Jesus to be the alpha and the omega? When we see him as "alpha," we see him as God. We understand who we are in the light of knowing that we are beings created by and for God. When we see him as "omega," we cease to use Jesus as a means to a greater end. Instead, Jesus himself becomes our greatest end.

There are three kinds of people who are open to Jesus: the poor, the violent, and the "least of these." Those who are poor, or those who know they're no different than the poor, identify with Jesus the most. If we identify with him and choose to accept him, he will disrupt our lives in order to change us and heal us.

Why did Jesus use his powers for something as trivial as replenishing wine at a party? It is because he knows that history will ultimately end at another feast, the wedding supper of the Lamb. Jesus sits in sorrow at this wedding party as he thinks of the price he will have to pay in order to invite us to the ultimate wedding party. He offers us his wine so we may taste God and know joy.

There are two ways to know someone: knowing information about them and knowing them personally. Christianity is about having a personal relationship with God, and the only way to do this is through Jesus Christ.

Near the end of his life, Joseph displays his hard-earned wisdom. He shows us that we need to leave all righting of wrongs to God; we must see God’s providing hand in man’s malice; and we must never repay evil with evil, but instead we must meet evil with forgiveness, and even affection.

In the parable of the Prodigal Sons, Jesus redefines God as Father, redefines sin, and redefines salvation. We need the initiating love of the Father to learn to repent for something besides sins and to be moved by the cost of bringing us home.

The gospel is not moral conformity, which is religion, nor is it self-discovery, which is secularism. The gospel is something else altogether — a grid through which we see the world. There are three results of the gospel: the restructuring of our hearts, the removal of our sin, and the reversal of our values.

In dealing with inner emptiness we often hope for “one true love.” Jacob and Leah have that hope after the failure of their lives. When their dreams are achieved, their hopes are dashed. Leah eventually achieves inner peace by placing her hope in God, who alone can deliver.

There are two spiritual tests highlighted in these passages: good times and bad times. These circumstances show our sin in general or our idols in particular. We can choose whether to deal with them or deny them, but we will not stay the same.

Anger has the power to disintegrate our health, our communities, and our individual wisdom. However, anger can be a good thing; it is an attribute of God and of anyone who loves. The key to healing anger is to find out what you truly love and why your anger is out of control.