2LCF Chapter 18 - Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
The 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 18 grounds the assurance of salvation not in emotional experience but in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ as the objective foundation, confirmed by the inward evidences of the Spirit's work in regeneration. The chapter distinguishes between the false presumption of unregenerate men and the genuine, infallible assurance available to true believers through faith in Christ. Assurance does not belong to the essence of faith — a true believer may struggle and doubt without thereby forfeiting salvation — yet the confession calls every believer to diligent pursuit of settled assurance as a duty. The subjective evidences of grace (repentance, love for Christ, good works, the Spirit's testimony of adoption) are consequential to the objective ground, never a replacement for it.
Ask FGBC #5 - Are people who “chose” for Jesus actually saved?
A listener asks whether people who speak of 'choosing Jesus' or 'accepting Christ' are necessarily unsaved because of that language, and whether such language betrays a works-based understanding of salvation. The response distinguishes between imprecise theological vocabulary and a genuinely defective view of salvation, arguing that God's grace saves people who may articulate that grace poorly. The answer touches on the relationship between sloppy speech, theological precision, and the question of perseverance implicit in how one frames conversion.
The Nature of the Holy Spirit
How does Jesus comfort his disciples in the upper room by pointing them to the Holy Spirit, and what does that reveal about who God is? Expounding John 14:16–18, this sermon works through four aspects of the Spirit's nature drawn from the text: the distinction of persons in the Godhead, the unity of the Godhead, the world's ignorance of the Spirit, and the believer's knowledge of him. The eternal processions — the Father unbegotten, the Son eternally begotten, the Spirit proceeding from Father and Son — ground the temporal missions in which the Father sends the Son and the Father and Son send the Spirit for the salvation of God's people. The congregation is called to hold fast to the Trinitarian guardrails of the creeds and the 1689 confession, to resist the modalism and Arianism that perennially distort who God is, and to rest in the gospel of free and sovereign grace through faith in the one who declared 'I am.'
2LCF Chapter 12 - Of Adoption
The doctrine of adoption, as set forth in chapter 12 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, is grounded exclusively in the justified sinner's union with Christ and utterly excludes human merit, free will, or moral achievement as its basis. Drawing on both Pauline and Johannine categories — legal adoption and organic new birth — the sermon demonstrates that these are complementary facets of the single truth that God receives sinners into His family as sons and heirs. The benefits of adoption are fourfold: inclusion in the family of God, reception of the Spirit of adoption with access to the Father, fatherly treatment (pity, protection, provision, and chastening), and the sealed inheritance of everlasting salvation. Adopted sons and daughters are therefore called to walk in love, light, and wisdom — not as a condition of sonship, but as its proper fruit.
The Regulation of the Church's Worship
What gives the church the right to dictate the forms of its own worship — and what happens when it does? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:14–16, this sermon grounds the regulative principle of worship in the nature of the church itself: because the church is the house of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, God alone determines what is done within it. The sermon surveys the pastoral epistles to show that Scripture consistently prioritizes sound doctrine over therapeutic or culturally-tailored substitutes. The practical call is to use the means God has ordained — corporate prayer, preaching, psalm-singing — trusting that Christ is genuinely present in the midst of his gathered people.
The Authority of the Church
Christ's promise in Matthew 16:19 to give 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven' to the church raises two perennial dangers: authoritarian abuse of ecclesiastical power and the outright abdication of it. This sermon expounds the identity of those entrusted with these keys (apostles, elders, and the gathered congregation together), the nature of the authority delegated (binding and loosing through preaching and discipline), and the proper ground of confidence when the church acts — not sacerdotal infallibility, but the assurance that heaven ratifies the church's faithful obedience to Scripture. The practical conclusion is that the keys are exercised through the proclamation of the Word, the admission and exclusion of members, and the administration of the sacraments — never through entertainment, self-help, or moral do-goodery.
The Mission of the Disciples, Part 2
John 14:16–18 presents Christ's promise to send the Holy Spirit as the resource by which the disciples would carry out the greater works of the gospel mission. This sermon works through the foundation of that promise — salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, the love that flows from justification as the animating power of obedience and mission — before pausing to mount a sustained defense of Trinitarian theology proper. The preacher argues that biblicism without creedal guardrails, anti-intellectualism, and laziness have left the contemporary church vulnerable to the same Trinitarian errors the Nicene and Chalcedonian fathers labored to foreclose, and calls the congregation to pursue the knowledge of the triune God as the very substance of eternal life.
The Depths of Sin and the Riches of Grace
Psalm 130 moves from the depths of spiritual distress to the heights of pardoning grace, and this exposition traces that movement through three divisions: the psalmist's cry of distress (vv. 1–2), his recognition of divine justice and divine forgiveness (vv. 3–4), and his patient exhortation to all Israel (vv. 5–8). The sermon establishes that the believer's remaining corruption should drive him not to silence but to earnest prayer, since the only remedy for sin is the grace of God. The justice of God is never mitigated in the gospel: at the cross, strict justice was satisfied upon Christ as substitute and curse-bearer, so that God is simultaneously just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. The sermon closes with an appeal both to the struggling believer — do not make peace with remaining sin, but cry out to God — and to the unconverted, for whom the same abundant redemption is freely available in Christ.
The Triumph of the Church
What is the church, who builds it, and can anything destroy it? Expounding Matthew 16:13–18, this sermon works through Peter's confession of Christ as the Messiah and Son of the living God, traces the promise of the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7 to its fulfilment in Christ's declaration to build His church, and refutes the Roman Catholic claim that Peter is the rock upon which the church rests. The sermon closes with the triumph of the church: Christ owns it, Christ builds it, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
The Great Commission
Matthew 28:11–20 presents two responses to the resurrection of Christ: the fraudulent suppression of the evidence by the chief priests and elders, and the Great Commission given by the risen Lord to his disciples. The passage exposes the lie concocted by the Sanhedrin as historically incoherent and theologically revealing — a judgment of God upon covenant-breaking Israel. The Great Commission is then unfolded through its four-fold use of 'all': Christ's absolute authority as mediator grounds the command to go, make disciples, baptize believers as new covenant members, and teach them to observe all that he has commanded.
The Empty Tomb and the Risen Lord
The empty tomb of Matthew 28:1–10 is not a symbol or a felt experience but a historical event on which the entire Christian gospel stands or falls. Working through the arrival of the women, the descent of the angel, and the appearance of the risen Lord, this exposition shows that the resurrection was predicted by Christ, attested by angels, and confirmed by the physical presence of the one who holds his disciples as brethren even after their desertion. The sermon closes by grounding the believer's freedom from fear, confidence in advocacy, and obligation to proclamation in the fact that Jesus was raised for our justification.
Ask FGBC #5 - Are people who “chose” for Jesus actually saved?
This pastoral Q&A addresses whether Christians who use Arminian or synergistic language — 'I chose Jesus,' 'I accepted Jesus' — are genuinely saved, or whether such language betrays a fatal misunderstanding of the gospel. The response distinguishes sloppy speech from substantive doctrinal error, urging a judgment of charity toward those lacking theological precision while insisting that doctrinal faithfulness is essential to Christian identity. The episode closes with a call for patience with new believers growing in understanding and for the importance of sound preaching and good church membership as the ordinary means by which precision is cultivated over time.
March 24, 2024
Romans 5:1 declares that justification by faith produces peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ — a peace that assumes a prior condition of enmity, guilt, and divine wrath. This sermon traces that peace through the whole of Scripture, from its Old Testament promise in Isaiah and Micah, through its announcement at the nativity, to its accomplishment in Christ's active and passive obedience. The principal pastoral application is that Christian assurance rests not on the ebb and flow of one's walk but on the immutability of the divine decree, the intercession of the ascended Christ, and the covenant of grace.
March 24 AM
What does it mean to be justified before God, and on what ground does that justification rest? Working through Romans 4:23–5:1 against the broader backdrop of Romans 3:19–5:5, this sermon expounds four heads: the nature of justification, the receiving instrument of justification, the perfect ground of justification, and the blessed result. Justification is by an act of imputation — the sins of all who believe are reckoned to Christ and His righteousness is reckoned to them — not by any admixture of human works. The resurrection of Christ stands as the divine vindication that the work of atonement is complete, and the call goes forth to believer and unbeliever alike to rest in Christ alone.
Ask FGBC #4: Is accepting salvation a choice? (Hyper-Calvinism)
Is accepting salvation a choice, and does that choice conflict with divine election? This Q&A addresses the relationship between the general call of the gospel and the effectual call of God, arguing that human faith is a real act of the will, but one that presupposes prior regeneration — sinners are dead in trespasses and sins and must be born again before they can believe. The discussion also addresses the pastoral problem of assurance, directing struggling believers away from introspection and personal performance toward the objectivity of Christ's finished work and his ongoing intercession as High Priest and advocate.
March 17 PM
The Lord's Supper rests on a layered theological foundation that most communicants have never fully considered. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, this sermon traces six doctrinal streams — Scripture's divine inspiration, the perfections of God, the person of Christ, covenant theology, the substitutionary cross, and communion with God as a means of grace — showing how all of them converge in the ordinance. Transubstantiation is rejected on the grounds of Chalcedonian Christology, and the new covenant ratified in Christ's blood is anchored exegetically in Jeremiah 31:31-34. Hearers are called to approach the Lord's Table with an informed and joyful obedience, knowing that in this ordinance the risen Christ, by His Spirit, feeds and strengthens the faith of His people.
March 17
Paul's rehearsal of the Lord's Supper institution in 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 exposes the Corinthians' wretched conduct precisely because the ordinance comes by divine apostolic command and carries the full weight of Christ's atoning death. The sermon traces four aspects of the Supper: its character as a divine command, as a remembrance generally, as a remembrance of Christ specifically, and as a proclamation of His death until He comes. Christians who absent themselves from this ordinance rob themselves of the Spirit-wrought strengthening that God has annexed to this living symbol of the gospel.
The Whole Armor of God, Part 2
The sword of the Spirit and the necessity of prayer form the offensive weapons of the whole armor of God in Ephesians 6:17–24. This exposition argues that the church is constituted as the pillar and ground of the truth and must wield the Word of God against spiritual enemies rather than substituting entertainment, therapeutic programming, or institutional management for gospel proclamation. Prayer is examined through its manner — constant, Spirit-dependent, watchful, and persevering — and its objects: intercession for all the saints and for gospel boldness in the ministry of the Word. The close of the epistle is read as a benediction grounding grace and peace in the Trinitarian life of God.
The Mission of the Disciples, Part 1
John 14:12–15 addresses the mission Christ assigns to His disciples and the obedience He requires of them in light of His imminent ascension. The 'greater works' the disciples will perform are not a competition with Christ's own ministry but are the works of the ascended, reigning Christ accomplished through His disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit sent from the Father. Prayer in Christ's name is examined in its tight missional context — the asking that drives the greater works — and is shown to be governed by the will of God rather than functioning as a blank check. The sermon closes by distinguishing loving obedience as the fruit, not the ground, of justification by faith alone, grounding the entire missionary enterprise in the grace that has already been given.
The Covenantal Status of Israel in the Parable of the Vineyard
Matthew 21:33–46 presents the Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers as a compressed history of Old Covenant Israel — a nation privileged with God's presence, prophets, and promises, yet persistently covenant-breaking and finally guilty of rejecting the Messiah himself. The parable is read against Isaiah 5 and fulfilled in the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem, which is the covenantal judgment pronounced in verse 43: the kingdom of God is taken from ethnic Israel and given to the church, the true Israel of God. The New Covenant people — constituted by faith in Christ, not ethnic descent — are that nation bearing fruit, identified as such in 1 Peter 2 and Galatians 6:16. The sermon argues that any future geopolitical restoration of Old Covenant Israel with a rebuilt temple and renewed sacrificial system would be a reversal of redemptive history, and that ethnic Jews today stand in need of the gospel like every other nation.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification
How is a guilty sinner declared righteous before a holy God? This study of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 11 works through the six paragraphs on justification, giving careful attention to the three pairs of denials and affirmations in paragraph one. The confession is set against the Roman Catholic conflation of justification and sanctification, Socinian and Arminian errors regarding faith and evangelical obedience as the ground of justification, and the doctrine of eternal personal justification. The sole ground of the sinner's acceptance before God is the imputed active and passive obedience of Christ, received through faith alone — itself a gift of God — so that God is glorified as both perfectly just and richly gracious in the justification of sinners.
The Revelation of the Father
John 14:7–11 presents Christ's claim that knowledge of the Son is knowledge of the Father, and that the Father dwells in the Son and the Son in the Father — a claim no mere creature could make. The sermon works through three confirmations of this unity: the nature of the Son (his consubstantiality with the Father), the words of the Son (which are the Father's words by virtue of shared essence, not mere instrumentality), and the works of the Son (which the Father performs through the Son as one divine operation). The Trinitarian theology at stake is not speculative — it is the doctrinal ground upon which the disciples, and all believers, stand when the world collapses in on them, because the Son who is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, is the one who came down 'for us and for our salvation.'
The Pharisee and the Publican
Luke 18:9–14 sets before the reader two men whose manner of prayer exposes the only two grounds on which a person can seek acceptance with God: self-righteousness or the imputed righteousness of Christ. The Pharisee's boastful rehearsal of his own religious merits and his contempt for the publican show that pride and the despising of others are inextricably joined. The publican, who can do nothing but beat his breast and cry for propitiation, goes home justified — declared righteous not by what he was or did, but by the alien righteousness of another received through faith alone. The sermon calls hearers to examine whether they stand before God as the Pharisee or the publican, and to come to the Lord's Supper not as a reward for good behavior but as those who rest entirely on Christ's doing and dying.
Ask FGBC #2: Is pouring or sprinkling sufficient for Baptism?
The proper mode of Christian baptism — immersion, sprinkling, or pouring — is examined through the lens of Scripture, Baptist confession, and the symbolism of Romans 6. The discussion distinguishes between the validity of baptism (requiring a credible profession of faith) and the propriety of its mode, arguing that the Greek term baptizō, the baptismal accounts in the Gospels and Acts, and the death-burial-resurrection imagery of Romans 6 all converge on full immersion as the biblically warranted mode. Sprinkling and pouring, while practiced in paedo-baptist traditions, fail to embody the confessional standard of 'due administration' and obscure the visible word that baptism is meant to declare.
What is Hyper-Calvinism?
Hyper-Calvinism so elevates the sovereignty of God that it cancels out the responsibility of man, producing a fatalism that paralyses sinners rather than calling them to repentance and faith. Over against both hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism, apostolic gospel preaching holds divine sovereignty and human responsibility as 100% true simultaneously — friends, not rivals requiring balance. The gospel is propositional revelation concerning Christ's life of perfect obedience, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection, and sinners are commanded to believe and repent on the authority of that word alone. The brazen serpent of Numbers 21 illustrates the point: the remedy is look and live, not first examine yourself and then look.
2LCF Chapter 21: Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience
Christian liberty, properly understood, is not primarily about matters of lifestyle preference but about the freedom Christ has purchased for believers: freedom from the guilt, power, and punishment of sin, and freedom for joyful, childlike access to and obedience toward God. The 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 21 unfolds this in three movements — the definition of Christian liberty (paragraph 1), the protection of liberty of conscience (paragraph 2), and the qualification that Christian liberty is never a license to sin (paragraph 3). Central to paragraph 2 is the confession's axiomatic claim that God alone is Lord of the conscience, which means neither civil authority nor ecclesiastical authority may bind the conscience beyond or against the Word of God. The practical application presses believers to distinguish between God's explicit commands and their own preferences, and to resist the near-universal temptation to elevate personal opinion to the status of thus saith the Lord.
Ask FGBC #1 - What is a Reformed Baptist?
What distinguishes a Reformed Baptist from a generic Calvinist or a generic Baptist? This question-and-answer exchange works through the defining marks of the Reformed Baptist tradition: the supreme authority of Scripture, covenant theology, the regulative principle of worship, the centrality of preaching, believers' baptism by immersion, and congregational church polity. The 1689 Second London Baptist Confession is identified as the clearest doctrinal touchstone, held not loosely but in full subscription — not as an authority alongside Scripture, but because it faithfully summarises Scripture's teaching. The historical designation 'Particular Baptist' is also commended as an accurate and less confusing alternative label for the same tradition.
Live Stream - February 25, 2024
Jesus prepares his troubled disciples for his imminent departure by directing their faith toward two great realities: the Father's house with its many mansions, and his own identity as the exclusive and accessible way to the Father. Working through John 14:1–6, this sermon traces the exhortation against soul-trouble to its remedy in believing on God and on Christ as the equal object of saving faith, the preparation of heaven through the cross, resurrection, and ascension, and the surpassing claim that Christ himself — as the way, the truth, and the life — is both the sole path to the Father and the ground of the believer's unshakeable comfort in every trial.
2024 Conference Theme - Of the Holy Scriptures
This brief conference introduction previews a study of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), Chapter 1, 'Of the Holy Scriptures.' The discussion covers the authority, canon, sufficiency, and interpretation of Scripture, with particular attention to the confessional principle that Scripture interprets Scripture (analogia scripturae). Two scholars — one specializing in historical theology and one in hermeneutics — will situate Chapter 1 in its seventeenth-century context and apply its interpretive principles to the contemporary church.
CTF - Promoting unity among Reformed churches
This conference Q&A exchange addresses how a Confession of Faith Conference can foster unity among Reformed and Presbyterian churches by drawing attention to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith as a historic confessional document standing in deliberate continuity with the Westminster Confession, the Savoy Declaration, and the Three Forms of Unity. The speakers note that the 1689 Confession was written not to introduce novelty but to demonstrate solidarity with broader Reformed orthodoxy, as its own preface states: 'we have no itch to clog religion with new words.' The discussion concludes that the Reformed churches share an overwhelming doctrinal heritage, and that remaining differences — including baptism — should not prevent mutual recognition and brotherly regard among confessional Christians.