In Joshua Harris’ Sermon Notes series, he has a copy of sermon notes by Tim Keller. My admiration just went up a few notches, for I can not understand how in the name of all things holy Keller can preach from those notes. They are in short-hand and don’t seem well-organized to this small mind. But I’ll let Joshua continue:
Tim leads Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and is the author of The Reason For God
. I’ve asked my friend, pastor Tullian Tchividjian who leads New City Presbyterian Church, to write an introduction for Tim:
To be a great preacher, one needs to be tri-perspectival in their exegesis. That is, they need to be committed to the exegesis of the Bible, the exegesis of our culture, and the exegesis of the human heart. Some preachers claim that if you exegete the Bible properly, you don’t need to bother yourself with the exegesis of our culture or the human heart. The problem with this view, however, is that the Bible itself exhorts us to apply Biblical norms to both our lives and to our world.
As a preacher myself, I benefit greatly from listening to a wide variety of preachers. In some cases I learn what to do, and in other cases I learn what not to do. But in every case, I learn something. Some preachers teach me how to be a better exegete of the Bible. Others teach me how to be a better exegete of our culture. And still others teach me how to be a better exegete of the human heart. But no preacher has consistently taught me how to do all three in the context of every sermon more so than Tim Keller. His balanced attention to all three forms of exegesis makes him very unique, in my opinion.
Tim knows how to unveil and unpack the truth of the Gospel from every Biblical text he preaches in such a way that it results in the exposure of both the idols of our culture and the idols of our hearts. His faithful exposition of our true Savior from every passage in the Bible painfully reveals all of the pseudo-saviors that we trust in culturally and personally. Every sermon discloses the subtle ways in which we as individuals and we as a culture depend on lesser things than Jesus to provide the security, acceptance, protection, affection, meaning, and satisfaction that only Christ can supply. In this way, he is constantly showing just how relevant and necessary Jesus is; he’s constantly proving that we are great sinners but Christ is a great Savior.
Personally, I am grateful for Tim’s friendship. His interest in me as a person and a preacher shows a side to him that many perhaps do not see. I know how busy he is and how many demands he has and yet he has always found time to talk with me, advise me, meet with me, and in a thousand other ways, help me out. So Tim, thanks for all you do and for who you are. Preach on brother—we’re all listening!
Did you catch that? Exegeting the Text (normative), our hearts (subjective/existential) & our culture (situational/circumstantial). Too often Reformed guys focus on the text to the exclusion of our hearts and culture. Emergent guys can focus on the culture to the exclusion of the text. And the wheels on the bus go round and round. To properly understand and apply the Text we must do all three.
This past Sunday I was so overwhelmed by the Text that I didn’t exegete the culture as much as I wanted to. And it made my sermon the poorer. Since Nehemiah was identifying himself in solidarity with the sins of his culture. The sins of my city are often the sins of the churches there, too. I did some of that, but didn’t spell it out sufficiently.
Rabbit Trail: How many of you pastors are usually disappointed with your sermons on a regular basis?
Cavman Considers 
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