Thank you, God, for Tim Keller
Tim Keller has gone home to be with the Lord.
It was almost 20 years ago when I heard my first Keller sermon. It was a CD burned and given to me by a friend who raved about Keller’s gospel insights. I can’t remember the sermon’s title (I think it was from the Book of Isaiah), but it was wonderful. And I mean, it was literally full of wonder. It was exegetically faithful and psychologically aware in a way I had never heard before, and more than anything, it aimed at the heart.
Needless to say, that sermon became the first of many. I snagged MP3s online and played them as much as I could. When I worked a short stint as a drywall finisher, I’d listen to Keller lectures on Christ-centered preaching all day long, on my iPod. He had taught a class with Edmund Clowney at RTS that was available for free (on “iTunes U”). I repeated a few of those lectures enough times to remember his sticky three-part approach: Expound Christ, apply Christ, adore Christ. And I decided that’s basically what I want to do with my life.
I also read whatever I could find from Keller, which wasn’t a lot at that time. Somehow a buddy had managed to get a copy of an old spiral-bound Keller church planting manual (which later developed into the book Center Church, published in 2012), and I at least got to thumb through its pages under my buddy’s supervision. Little did I know that the content I was scanning would be so influential to actually planting a church one day. When our original core team first met in 2014, we used Keller’s categories as vision building blocks: What is our doctrinal foundation? Our theological vision? Our ministry expression? All that came from Keller.
Honestly, I could say much more. I’m often reminded of Keller’s impact not just only on me personally, but also on my wife. Melissa could tell you herself, but she has told me that Keller’s influence on her is incalculable. As for so many, through Keller’s exposition of the gospel, she experienced gospel awakening — the realization that we are “far worse than we ever imagined, and far more loved than we ever dared dream.” That the gospel says not “Obey, therefore you are accepted” but “You are accepted, therefore obey.” These are explosive, life-changing truths.
But if I had to name one favorite sermon from Keller, it’s a message he gave decades ago, aptly titled, “Who Is This Jesus?” (see below). It’s a 42-minute plea to spiritual seekers to embrace Jesus Christ. It’s an earnest apologetics lecture, and just downright moving. He ends the message, vintage Keller, by inviting interested listeners to stick around for a Q&A afterward. And he prays, affectionately, that the Holy Spirit makes everyone in the room see that Jesus is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying. Because Jesus is. And Tim Keller knows that now more than ever, in the very presence of his Savior.
Thank you, God, for Tim Keller.
