The City of God

Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

Tim Keller

Religion & Spirituality, Religion, Religion & Spirituality:christianity, Christianity, Spirituality

4.8 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

When you embrace God by faith two things come into your life: a transforming power and a deep tension. It’s a duality. If you try to resolve the deep tension, you lose the transforming power. The writer of Hebrews says the great believers in history were resident aliens on earth. In Greco-Roman society, a resident alien was a permanent resident but not a citizen. That is the tension that anyone who wants the transforming power of God must live with. If we want to understand the message, we need to see four things we learn in this passage: 1) there are two cities, 2) each city has a conflict with the other, 3) only one city is for the other, and 4) how to become citizens of the one city that’s for the other. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 1, 2005. Series: Christ: Our Treasury (The Book of Hebrews). Scripture: Hebrews 11:13-16; 13:10-16. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Gospel and Life. This month on the podcast, Tim Keller is preaching through the book of Hebrews to answer this essential question. If God loves us so much, why is life so hard?
0:20.8	Tonight's scripture reading comes from Hebrews chapter 11 verses 13 through 16 and Hebrews
0:27.4	chapter 13 versus 10 through 16.
0:32.2	All these people were still living by faith when they died.
0:36.1	They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on Earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had the
0:54.3	opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore,
1:01.6	God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. We have an altar
1:08.4	from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.
1:13.7	The high priest carries the blood of animals into the most holy place as a sin offering,
1:18.8	but the bodies are burned outside the camp.
1:21.8	And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us then go to him
1:30.0	outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city,
1:36.8	but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to
1:43.2	God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess his name,
1:47.7	and do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices, God is pleased.
1:53.8	This is God's word.
1:57.4	Hebrews is written to people who are beaten up.
2:01.6	They've been experiencing a great deal of difficulties, a lot of suffering in their lives,
2:06.6	and the question that's on their hearts constantly that the Hebrews' writers addressing is this,
2:16.6	if God supposedly loves us so much, why is our life so
2:20.8	hard? You've never said that, have you? If God supposedly loves us so much, why is our life so
2:30.2	hard? And one of the most amazing of the answers that the writer gives is in this text here.
	...

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