Sermon
The Silent Sovereignty of God
By Tim Keller
Talk
Surprised by Joy (2002 Open Forum)
Tim Keller | October 6, 2002
Overview
The subject of this talk is one of those perennial human questions. Joy, happiness–what is it? How do you get it? In these gospel spirituals, we see the celebration of the oldest roots of the African American music, which said the solution to the joy problem is the message of the Christian gospel.
I would suggest to you that there are three themes in the music. The first is that there’s a joy vacuum that’s very deep in the human heart. Secondly, there are joy strategies every human being has. You have some way of trying to fill that joy vacuum. You might have this one or that one. You may change them, but there are joy strategies. And lastly, this music has a solution for the joy vacuum.
Related
This Month's Featured Book
Is Your Identity in Your Achievements or in Christ?
In this booklet, Tim Keller looks at how one can become a gospel-humble person who is neither too self-condemning, nor too self-loving, but instead is transformed by the gospel to be a self-forgetful person, loving our neighbors like we love ourselves.
