Cited in sermons
Augustine
153 sermons · All people cited
The Example of the Savior, Part 2
Philippians 2:7 sets forth Christ's incarnation as the supreme argument against selfish ambition and conceit. This expository sermon works through four statements in the verse — Christ made himself of no reputation, took the form of a bondservant, came in the likeness of men, and was found in appearance as a man — with careful attention to the kenotic controversy, the hypostatic union, and the patristic formulations at Nicaea and Chalcedon. The heresy of kenotic Christology (that Christ emptied himself of his divine attributes) is refuted from 2 Corinthians 8:9, John 1:14, and Hebrews 2, while docetism is equally rejected in favor of Christ's true and complete humanity. The doctrinal weight is carried in service of Paul's pastoral concern: the one who was in the form of God and equal with God voluntarily humbled himself, and that reality demolishes every claim to selfish priority among his people.
The Dedication of the Temple
Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8:22–53 is grounded not in Israel's merit but in the character of God — his incomparability, faithfulness, and transcendence held together with his immanence. The petitions that follow address every covenant curse Moses had warned of: civil injustice, military defeat, drought, famine, and exile, each met with Solomon's recurring plea that God hear from heaven and forgive. The prayer reaches beyond Israel to encompass the nations, anticipating the Gentile inclusion Paul expounds in Ephesians 3 and finding its ultimate fulfilment in the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God who builds the eternal house of God. Believers are exhorted to imitate Solomon's theology-saturated prayer, to receive affliction as God's appointed means of conformity to Christ, and to rest in the faithfulness of a God who has always kept his covenant promises.
The Wars of the LORD
Numbers 21 traces Israel's journey through military victory over the Canaanites, the punishment and grace of the bronze serpent, and the conquest of the Amorite kings Sihon and Og. The bronze serpent — condemned people bitten by fiery serpents, healed only by looking in faith to the remedy God prescribed — is taken up by Jesus in John 3:14 as a type of his own crucifixion, teaching that salvation comes by divine initiative alone, received through faith, not works. The same recurring sins of complaint, lack of faith in providence, and idolatry that marked the first generation persist in the second, warning the church that these corruptions follow the sin nature across every generation. The chapter closes with God's sovereign hardening of Sihon and the defeat of the giant Og, both down payments on the promised conquest and demonstrations of God's faithfulness, sovereignty, and goodness to his people.
Sons and Daughters of God
What does it mean that sinners dead in trespasses can be called children of God? Expounding 1 John 3:1, this sermon works through five elements of the verse: the imperative weight of 'behold,' the immeasurable and immutable love of God rooted in his own essential being, the unmerited bestowal of that love upon the undeserving, the Christian's status as adopted sons and daughters in union with Christ, and the world's consequent ignorance and enmity toward believers. The sermon grounds adoption in the eternal predestinating love of the Father, the incarnation and obedience of the Son, and the indwelling of the Spirit — and closes with a call to behold these realities with eyes of faith as the only ground of encouragement for a church opposed by the world.
The Spirit's Ministry to the Apostles
John 16:12–15 presents the Spirit's ministry to the apostles as the continuation and completion of Christ's own self-disclosure to the disciples. The sermon expounds Jesus' promise that the Spirit of Truth will guide the apostles into all truth, situating that promise within the doctrine of the Trinity — specifically the eternal processions of the Son and Spirit and their corresponding temporal missions. The Spirit's 'not speaking on his own authority' is shown to mirror Christ's own language about receiving all things from the Father, testifying not to any inferiority of persons but to the consubstantiality of the three divine persons, each possessing the whole divine essence undivided. The congregation is called to pursue the knowledge of the triune God as the foundation for every other duty of the Christian life.
The Spirit's Conviction of the World
The Holy Spirit's conviction of the world — of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment — is not a promise that every hearer will be saved, but a declaration that the Spirit will confirm the identity and vindication of Jesus Christ through the apostolic proclamation. Drawing on John 16:8–11 alongside Acts 2 and Acts 24, this sermon argues that the Spirit's primary work in the world is to expose unbelief in Christ, to declare the sufficiency of Christ's imputed righteousness, and to announce the judgment already rendered against the ruler of this world at the cross. The church's calling is therefore not to measure success by numerical response but to preach sin, righteousness, and judgment faithfully, trusting the Spirit to do His own sovereign work.
The Priority of the Gospel for the Apostle
Paul's imprisonment in Rome, far from silencing the gospel, became the occasion for its advance — to the Praetorian Guard, and through the emboldened preaching of the wider brotherhood. Philippians 1:12–18 presents a progress report that reveals Paul's singular priority: the proclamation of Christ, regardless of the motives of those who preach him or the circumstances that surround the preacher. The sermon works through the paradox of fruitful suffering, the anatomy of bad and good ministerial motivation, and the theology of providence that sustains both. The congregation is called to the same pattern — faithfulness and perseverance to the end, interpreting all circumstances through the lens of God's sovereign purpose for the gospel.
The Gospel's Irreplaceable Value
Galatians 1:6–10 confronts every generation with the irreplaceable value of the gospel by exposing three responses to its perversion: astonishment, abhorrence, and anathema. The Judaizers who troubled the Galatian churches were not offering a different gospel but no gospel at all — a metastrophe that renders God less holy than he is, man less sinful than he is, and Christ inglorious and his work useless. Justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, or there is no justification before the God of heaven and earth. The sermon closes with a call to Pauline vigilance in protecting gospel purity and to seek God's approval rather than man's.
Ask FGBC #13: Is there a difference between our temptations and what Jesus faced?
The question at hand is whether the temptations Jesus faced were different in kind from those faced by fallen human beings. The discussion distinguishes between the sinless nature Christ assumed — not fallen, yet genuinely human — and the far harsher conditions under which he was tempted compared to Adam in paradise. Drawing on the Adam-Christ typology found in Luke 3–4 and Matthew, the speakers explore why the Son of God's obedience in a fallen, hostile world makes his conquest of temptation more weighty than Adam's failure in paradise.
Ask FGBC #12: Can I apply Old Testament promises to my life?
The question of whether Old Testament promises — such as Jeremiah 29:11 — can be applied by Christians today requires careful attention to covenantal epochs, the progress of revelation, and the organic unity of Scripture. The discussion distinguishes between positive laws tied to Israel's tenure in the land, moral principles embedded within those laws that endure, and the climactic focus of all Scripture on the incarnation, sufferings, and glory of Christ (Galatians 4:4). The Old Testament is affirmed as the Christian's book, but application must reckon with the difference between Old Covenant and New Covenant rather than collapsing that distinction into a flat one-for-one transference. Faithful reading looks first for something larger than the reader — the mediator of salvation — and from that vantage point finds genuine ground for hope and doxology.
The Apostle Paul, Part 4: His Doctrinal Legacy
The doctrinal legacy of the Apostle Paul is surveyed across seven theological themes: the comprehensive nature of sin and depravity, the incarnation of the divine Son of God, the sovereignty of the triune God in salvation, amazing grace, justification by faith alone, sanctification in union with Christ, and a simple and glorious eschatology. Paul's writings are shown to move consistently from the gravity of man's ruin to the glory of God's redeeming grace in Christ. The sermon closes with a direct call to believers to be built up in the knowledge of the gospel, and to those outside of Christ to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
The Apostle Paul, Part 3 - His Ministerial Character
Paul's ministerial character and doctrinal legacy in Philippians 3:1–11 are examined through four defining characteristics: his zeal for the centrality of Christ crucified, his ardent defense of the truth, his strong opposition to error, and his earnest desire for the salvation of both Jew and Gentile. The juxtaposition between Paul's former confidence in fleshly privilege and his post-conversion boast solely in Christ exposes the bankruptcy of all self-righteousness before the alien righteousness received through faith. The sermon closes with a Spurgeon quotation calling every Christian — not only ministers — to have the cross as their philosophy, tradition, gospel, and glory.
The Ground of Christian Love
What is the ground and shape of the command to 'love one another fervently with a pure heart'? Expounding 1 Peter 1:22–25, this sermon works through three movements: the exhortation to fervent, sincere Christian love; the foundation of that love in the new birth wrought through the incorruptible Word; and the motivation for that love in the stark contrast between the transient glory of man and the enduring Word of the Lord. The sermon draws on 1 Corinthians 13 and Romans 13 to define love's character and content, and closes with the assurance that the divine promise sealed in the gospel is itself imperishable — and therefore the sufficient ground for fervency in loving the brethren.
The Departure of Christ
John 14:28–31 presents Christ's departure not as cause for sorrow but as grounds for rejoicing, because it leads through the cross to his exaltation at the right hand of the Father. The sermon gives sustained attention to the clause 'my Father is greater than I,' defending Trinitarian orthodoxy against Arian misreading by deploying two hermeneutical guardrails: the consubstantiality of the divine persons (each having the whole divine essence undivided) and partitive exegesis (predicating statements of Christ according to whichever nature is in view). The Father is not greater than the Son in respect of the divine nature, but is greater with respect to the Son's assumed humanity and mediatorial office in the covenant of redemption. Believers are called to rejoice in Christ's departure, to stand in awe that the Spirit has been sent so they are not left as orphans, and to receive the peace Christ bequeaths as their stable foundation for mission.
2LCF Chapter 15 - Of Repentance Unto Life and Salvation
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 15, treats repentance not as a human achievement that merits divine favor but as a sovereign gift granted by God in effectual calling, rooted in the covenant of grace, and ratified by the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ. The chapter distinguishes saving repentance — an evangelical, Spirit-wrought change of mind toward sin — from both mere Judas-like sorrow and the moralistic performance of good works in place of bad. Five structural concerns of the chapter are examined in sequence: the place, necessity, outflow, duration and duty, and result of repentance, culminating in the assurance that no sin is so great as to bring damnation upon those who truly repent. Hearers are called to daily, particular repentance for known sins, to pray for strength and supplies of the Spirit, and to embrace the ministry of reconciliation as the abiding means by which God renews sinners and saints alike.
The Gifts Given by Christ
John 14:25–27 presents two gifts Christ gives his disciples on the eve of his departure: the Holy Spirit and his peace. The sermon expounds the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, the Spirit's specific work of teaching and bringing Scripture to remembrance in the apostles, and the distinction between Christ's objective, lasting peace and the transient peace the world offers. The practical weight falls on the call to displace carnal fear — which the sermon argues signals bad theology, lack of kingdom priority, and ultimately endangers the soul — with the peace that flows from knowing the triune God.
The Blessing of Communion with God, Part 2
What does Jesus mean when he promises that the Father and the Son will come and make their home with the one who loves him and keeps his word (John 14:23)? This sermon works through seven observations on that promise, showing that the indwelling of Christ necessarily entails the indwelling of the entire triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — because the divine persons are inseparable in their operations. The sermon traces the biblical pattern of God dwelling with his people from Eden through the tabernacle and temple to the new covenant, and concludes that union with Christ is union with the triune God, which is both the chief blessing of salvation and the ground of the believer's worship.
Ask FGBC - Podcast with Jim Butler, Dr James Renihan, Dr Richard Barcellos
This roundtable conversation between three pastors and theologians addresses a wide range of questions submitted by church members, covering biblical theology, covenant theology, baptism, eschatology, and Christian living. The discussion moves from how Christ fulfills Old Testament Israel, through the covenantal basis for believers' baptism, to the nature of the eternal state, the hermeneutics of applying Old Testament promises, the place of ethnic Israel in relation to the church, and the means of grace for raising covenant children. Throughout, the speakers return to a consistent Reformed hermeneutic: Christ is the true and greater fulfillment of all Old Testament promise, the church is the eschatological Israel of prophetic expectation, and the ordinary means of grace — Word, prayer, and faithful worship — remain God's appointed instruments for the conversion and nurture of his people.
The Departure of Paul
Paul's final written words in 2 Timothy 4:6–8 disclose the mind of a man at the eleventh hour of his life: conscious of imminent martyrdom, yet unshaken in confidence. The sermon works through three movements — the apostle's present situation as a drink offering poured out (v. 6), his past perseverance in fight, race, and faith (v. 7), and his future hope in the crown of righteousness (v. 8). Central to the exposition is the insistence that the crown of righteousness is not a reward for performance but a confirmation of justification by faith alone, the imputed righteousness of Christ conveyed freely by the righteous judge. The application presses every believer to live now in such a way that the eleventh hour may be faced with the same God-graced confidence Paul displays here.
CTF 2024 Session 5 - Confessional Guidelines for Scripture Interpretation
Christ is the scopus scripturae — the bullseye around which the entire canon coheres. Drawing on Luke 24, John 5, and Acts 2, this lecture argues that the Old Testament was a messianic document independent of Christ's own self-witness, and that the apostles, particularly Peter, interpreted Scripture exactly as Jesus taught them: finding the sufferings and glory of Christ throughout the law, prophets, and writings. The session establishes that when Scripture cites and explains Scripture, the explanatory words need not appear in the cited text — a pattern that legitimates expository preaching and creedal formulation alike.
Very man: "Now my soul is troubled"
John 12:27–28 records the Son of God incarnate declaring 'Now my soul is troubled' — words that are simultaneously a window into his true humanity and a display of his sinless obedience at the threshold of Calvary. This sermon works through the four clauses of those verses, arguing that Christ's soul-trouble was real and holy, arising not from cowardice before mere bodily suffering but from his contemplation of the divine wrath he would bear as the substitute for sinners. Drawing on Cyril of Alexandria's principle that 'what is not assumed is not healed,' the sermon shows that Christ's sinless experience of grief, agitation, and soul-anguish recapitulates every stage of fallen human experience so that he might procure both the forgiveness of guilt and the positive righteousness his people need in every circumstance of life. The congregation is called to rest its entire confidence — prayer life, grief, daily obedience — in the blood and righteousness of the one who said 'For this purpose I came to this hour.'
CTF 2024 Session 6: Further Explorations in Scripture Interpretation
Christ is the scope of the whole of Scripture — this is the claim Peter makes in Acts 3 and unpacks theologically in 1 Peter 1:10–12, and it is the claim this session presses upon interpreters of the Bible today. Beginning with Peter's sermon in Acts 3 and moving to his mature reflection in 1 Peter 1, the lecture traces how God spoke through the writing prophets from Moses onward concerning the sufferings and glory of Christ, how those prophets studied one another's writings in search of a fuller understanding, and how the coming of Christ together with the New Testament's explanatory revelation made explicit what was implicit in the Old Testament all along. The session closes with several hermeneutical implications: the analogy of Scripture is not a Reformation invention but a prophetic practice; the Old Testament contains a surplus of divinely embedded meaning that awaits later revelation to unveil; and subsequent revelation does not reinterpret the Old Testament but fulfils and illuminates the meaning that was always there.
CTF 2024 Session 7 - Q&A Panel Discussion
A conference Q&A panel addresses a wide range of confessional, theological, and pastoral questions arising from lectures on the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession and its relationship to broader Reformed orthodoxy. Topics range from the nature of creedal subscription and what it means to be Reformed, to the hermeneutics of typology, the mystery language of Ephesians 3, the humanity and knowledge of Christ, divine immutability and impassibility, and the differences between the Second London Confession and the Three Forms of Unity. The panel consistently grounds its answers in the churchly authority of confessions over individual interpretation, the centrality of the means of grace for generational faithfulness, and the necessity of theological humility before the accumulated witness of the church.
The Nature of the Holy Spirit, Part 2
Jesus' promise in John 14:17–18 — that the Spirit of truth cannot be received by the world, yet dwells with and will be in his disciples — grounds the church's dependence on sovereign grace for all gospel ministry. The sermon works through the doctrine of inseparable operations and appropriations to protect both the unity of the Godhead and the distinction of persons, before applying the Spirit's indwelling to the perseverance of the saints and the sufficiency of the gospel. The closing exhortation presses both believers and unbelievers: the Spirit abides forever, justification is by faith alone, and the righteousness of Christ is imputed — not merely forgiveness extended — to all who come to him.
Ask FGBC #6 - Why is historical confessional Christianity important?
The question of why historical confessional Christianity matters is addressed by examining what Scripture itself says about the gifts Christ gives to his church. Drawing on Ephesians 4 and Matthew 28, the argument is made that creeds and confessions are the accumulated fruit of those gifts — the best doctrinal articulation the church has produced across centuries of theological controversy, from Nicaea and Chalcedon through the Second London Confession. To reject them in favor of a 'no creed but the Bible' posture is not humility but a subtle repudiation of the very ecclesiology the Bible commands, and it leaves individuals without the guardrails that preserve orthodox Christianity.
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 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.'
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.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 4
The person of the Lord Jesus Christ — his true humanity, sinlessness, and mediatorial office — is examined through paragraphs 2, 3, and 7 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 8. The session works through the Virgin birth by the power of the Holy Spirit, the essential properties and common infirmities of Christ's assumed human nature, his sinlessness according to that nature, and the role of the Holy Spirit in equipping him for his mediatorial task. Paragraph 7's doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum is then treated, establishing what may and may not properly be said of Christ given the hypostatic union of two natures in one person.
The Defense of the Faith
Jude 3 commands every believer — not merely clergy or scholars — to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This sermon expounds the exhortation, its rationale in the infiltration of ungodly men who pervert grace and deny Christ, and the practical readiness required: remembering apostolic warnings, building on Scripture, praying in the Spirit, and looking for the mercy of Christ at His return. The defence of the faith is not optional, not confined to specialists, and not finally dependent on human faithfulness — it is God's fight, and He keeps those who contend.