Cited in sermons
C.J. Mahaney
3 sermons · All people cited
Be Clothed With Humility
Pride is the greatest enemy of the Christian life, and 1 Peter 5:5–11 commands believers to be clothed with humility — not as a religious technique, but as the necessary outworking of submission to the sovereign God who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. The passage moves through a fourfold structure: the command to be submissive and clothed with humility (v. 5), the implication that genuine humility toward others flows only from prior submission to God (v. 6), the disposition required — casting all care upon a God who cares for his people and resisting the devil steadfast in the faith (vv. 7–9) — and the benediction that sets fleeting suffering against eternal glory in Christ (vv. 10–11). The sermon closes with practical counsel on cultivating humility: the necessity of new birth, meditation on the cross, acknowledgment of dependence on God, thankfulness, and returning glory to God at the close of each day.
Faith, Hope, and Love
Hebrews 10:19–25 brings the great doctrinal section on Christ's high priestly office to its application: two encouragements and three exhortations that together constitute the whole of the Christian life. The believer's boldness to enter the holiest and the possession of a perfect High Priest over the house of God are not abstract truths but the very engine of sanctification — the gospel must be grasped before the commands can be obeyed. The three exhortations — draw near with full assurance of faith, hold fast the confession of hope without wavering, and consider one another to stir up love and good works — are expounded as the expression of faith, hope, and love respectively, against the persistent errors of emotionalism, legalism, and perpetual self-condemnation.
The Pharisee and the Publican
Luke 18:9–14 presents two men who go to the temple to pray — one a celebrated Pharisee, the other a despised tax collector — and the parable exposes the fatal error of self-righteousness and the only ground on which a sinner may stand before a holy God. The Pharisee's prayer is a catalogue of self-achieved merit; the publican's cry — 'God, be propitious to me, the sinner' — is the only prayer that avails, because it casts the soul entirely on divine mercy rather than human performance. Justification is declared a forensic act of God alone, grounded in the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith, not in fasting, tithing, or any work of the law. The sermon closes with the charge that the same gospel that humbles the self-righteous must produce in the justified a charity toward others and a watchfulness against out-Phariseeing the Pharisee.