Tim Keller’s Legacy: Adorning the Gospel He Loved to Proclaim

Keller’s Most Powerful Message

Of all the themes and topics Tim Keller preached and wrote about over nearly 50 years, his teaching shone brightest when the topic was darkest. When it comes to the topic of pain and suffering, his teaching sings. And so much of what he says about suffering is so beautifully and uniquely Christian, meaning only a Christian could think, talk, live, or ultimately die that way.

Keller would talk about suffering as a furnace. A furnace can do one of two things. It can either burn you to a crisp or it can burn away the dross and enable you to emerge stronger, more beautiful, more radiant because of what you experienced in the heat. And at one point in one sermon, Keller observed Isaiah 43 that when you pass through the fire, he will be with you and the flames will not set you ablaze.

Tim Keller on the Christian Life

Matt Smethurst

Matt Smethurst distills over 40 years of Tim Keller’s teaching topic by topic—drawing from popular books to lesser-known conference talks, interviews, and sermons—to present practical insight for generations of readers eager to grow in their walk with Christ.

And in quintessential Keller language, he said, it’s almost like Isaiah is saying that you will be in the heat, but the heat will not be in you. And of all the things that Keller preached, the most powerful sermon and message he ever delivered was that of his own life and ultimately his death.

He was diagnosed in 2020 with stage-four pancreatic cancer, a very aggressive form of cancer. And the way that he suffered and even spoke about his suffering at one point, saying, My biggest fight is not with cancer, it’s with sin. I’m going to die of something at some point, but I’m fighting my sin because I want to be ready to meet a holy God and to be with him forever. Or the way he talked about what he and Kathy were learning in even those final months together, and about how shortsighted and foolish it is to try to make a heaven out of this earth. With Kathy, that was sometimes through vacations, and with Tim, it was with ministry productivity.

But what they found was a counterintuitive lesson that actually, when you stop trying to make a heaven out of this earth and you treat the real heaven as heaven and earth as a gift from God, you’re freed to enjoy it for what it is. You can enjoy the good gifts that God has provided. And so at the very end of his life, among his final words, he said to his family, I’m just ready to see Jesus. I want to see Jesus send me home.

And so I think we can learn and be instructed by and ultimately praise God for the way that Keller, in his suffering and in his death, adorned the gospel he loved to proclaim.

Matt Smethurst is the author of Tim Keller on the Christian Life: The Transforming Power of the Gospel.

Matt Smethurst is lead pastor of River City Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia. He is the author of several books, including Tim Keller on the Christian Life; Before You Open Your Bible; Before You Share Your Faith; and Deacons. He also cohosts, with Ligon Duncan, The Everyday Pastor podcast from the Gospel Coalition. Matt and his wife, Maghan, have five children.

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