Timothy Keller - Sermon Archive 2012-2013

The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive, 20122013

Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2014

Copyright 2014 Redeemer Presbyterian Church and Timothy Keller. All rights reserved.

2012

A Study of Ephesians: Who is the Church?

1 Children of the LightEphesians 5:521

2 Marriage in ChristEphesians 5:2133

3 Work and FamilyEphesians 6:19

4 Spiritual WarfareEphesians 6:1013

5 How to Be StrongEphesians 6:1424

Savior and TeacherA Study of Matthew

1 Out of EgyptMatthew 2:1323

2 Into JerusalemMatthew 21:114

3 The Last TemptationMatthew 26:3646

4 The CrucifixionMatthew 27:4556

5 The ResurrectionMatthew 28

6 The Norms of the KingdomMatthew 5:110

7 The Witness of the KingdomMatthew 5:1116

8 Law and LoveMatthew 5:1722

9 Love and LustMatthew 5:2730

10 IntegrityMatthew 5:3337

11 Prayer and the PoorMatthew 6:115

12 TreasuresMatthew 6:1924

13 Rules for RelationshipsMatthew 7:111

14 Three Ways to LiveMatthew 7:1327

15 The World Will Hate YouMatthew 10:525

16 Greatness in the KingdomMatthew 18:114

17 Relationships in the KingdomMatthew 5:2124; 18:1520

Savior and Teacher: A Study of Matthew

1 Healing the SickMatthew 8:517

2 The TransfigurationMatthew 17:113

Gospel in Life: Grace in the Case of Naaman

1 How We Become Believers2 Kings 5:114

2 How We Live as Believers2 Kings 5:23; 1527

Generosity: Studies from the Gospel of Luke

1 Generosity and Gods GraceLuke 18:917

2 Generosity and RelationshipsLuke 17:310

3 Hospitality and Gods GraceLuke 14:724

4 Generosity and MinistryLuke 9:4910:2

5 Generosity and WealthPart 2Luke 16:114

6 Generosity and PowerLuke 19:110

Generosity: Study from the Gospel of Luke

1 Generosity and WealthLuke 18:1830

Acts: The Gospel in the City

1 The Ascension of JesusActs 1:111

2 The Descent of the SpiritActs 2:113

3 The First SermonActs 2:1239

4 The First ChurchActs 2:4047

5 The Birth of JesusLuke 2:17

6 Responding to Jesus BirthLuke 2:820

Children of the Light

A Study of Ephesians: Who is the Church?January 8, 2012

Ephesians 5:521

5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure, or greedy personsuch a man is an idolaterhas any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things Gods wrath comes on those who are disobedient. 7 Therefore do not be partners with them.

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. 14 This is why it is said: Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 15 Be very careful, then, how you livenot as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lords will is.

18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

This is the Word of the Lord

We are continuing to move through the book of Ephesians. We started several months ago. We continue to go through it section by section. We have here a long passage on what it means to live the Christian life, because thats actually what the second half of Ephesians is about. Lets remind ourselves of the outline, the framework.

Ephesians 13, the first part of the letter, is about what happens to us when we receive Christ by faith what we become, what we receive when we receive Christ by faith. But now, in chapters 4, 5, and 6, Paul moves on to say, What does it mean to live the Christian life? How do we live as Christians?

That is the right order, because its not that we live in a certain way and, therefore, become Christians. Its that we become Christians and, therefore, we live in a certain way. If by living in a certain way we become Christians, then we would be saving ourselves by what we do. But if we become Christians, and then, as a result, live in a certain way, thats because were saved not by what we do but by what Christ has done.

So Paul has begun, in these three chapters, to lay groundwork for helping us understand what it means to live in accord with what we are. In Ephesians 4:17 there is an aside that shows how sweeping this is, because Paul says to his readers, I do not want you to live as the Gentiles live. But they were Gentiles.

In other words, what hes saying is Christianity is not just a kind of a vitamin supplement. It doesnt just come into your life and give you a little boost to live a better form of the kind of life youre living. Its a sweeping revolution that affects every part of your life.

In this passage, there are actually three extremely important keys to understanding what it means to live the Christian life. Were going to move through the passage. The first key is the longest, verses 514, where it talks about living in obedience. In verses 1517 it talks about living in wisdom. In verses 1821 it talks about living in joy.

To be a Christian entails knowing sin and walking in obedience, knowing the time and walking in wisdom, and knowing the Lord and walking in joy. Were going to take a commensurate amount of time matching the length of the points, so the first one will be longest, the second one will be the shortest, and the third one will be a little longer than that. Just a heads up.

1. Know sin and walk in obedience

The first part of the passage, from verses 514 To live as a Christian you have to know sin (know what it is) and walk in obedience. In this whole passage, Paul is saying to live as Christians we must have a sense of the horror, of the evil, of the danger of sin.

He gets that across by saying there have to be four things you know about sin if youre going to live a Christian life. The first one is in verse 11 where he defines sin. He says, Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness Thats one way to understand sin. That means externally to disobey the law of God, to disobey the things God says in his Word he wants us to do.

Theres an example of it up in the very first verse: For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure, or greedy person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. There are actually two case studies there of disobedience. The first is immoral, impure (and the word immoral there is the Greek word porneia, from which we get our word pornography, and its a word that means sexual immorality).

The second case is greed. Why would Paul choose just those two examples of ways of disobeying the law of God? I think they get across the comprehensiveness of the law of God. There are many churches in this country that actually say what the Bible says about sex is obsolete, but what it says about greed, materialism, injustice, and oppression is absolutely right and should be heeded.

There are other churches in this country that put a lot of emphasis on denouncing sexual immorality and making a pretty big show of it but at the same time essentially ignoring what the Bible says about greed and the importance of involvement with the poor and not spending too much of your money on yourself.