Cited in sermons
D. A. Carson
149 sermons · All people cited
The Rich Young Ruler
What must a man do to inherit eternal life? This exposition of Matthew 19:16–22 examines the encounter between Christ and the rich young ruler, showing that the young man's question is at once legitimate — every soul must reckon with eternity — and illegitimate, because it proceeds from the assumption that salvation is earned by human merit. Christ answers him on the terms of the covenant of works, pressing the second table of the Decalogue and then the tenth commandment in particular, not to prescribe a new way of salvation by poverty, but to expose the man's covetousness and unmask the bankruptcy of his self-righteousness. The sermon calls hearers to abandon proud self-righteousness, reckon honestly with the spirituality of God's law, and flee by faith to the one who alone kept it perfectly.
The Instruction on Celibacy and Children
Matthew 19:10–15 presents two closely linked teachings: Christ's instruction on celibacy and His reception of little children. Against Rome's doctrine of clerical celibacy and any Protestant tendency to exalt singleness above marriage, the sermon argues that celibacy is a sovereign gift of God given to some, not a spiritual superior state to be mandated or celebrated above the married estate. The blessing of the children exposes the disciples' failure to understand that Christ receives the weak and dependent, and the passage calls fathers to the concrete duty of bringing their children to Christ through prayer, Scripture, and faithful church attendance.
The Risen Lord and a Doubting Disciple
Thomas's demand to physically verify Christ's resurrection before believing exposes the human tendency to place conditions upon God — the creature setting terms for the Creator. This sermon works through John 20:24–31, examining Thomas's obstinacy, the patient grace of Christ who meets Thomas on his own stated terms, and the lofty confession that follows: 'My Lord and my God.' The passage closes with John's stated purpose in writing the fourth gospel — that readers would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so have life in his name — a purpose the risen Lord underscores in his final beatitude: blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
The Procedure for Church Discipline, Part 2
Church discipline is not optional for any believer — Matthew 18:15 commands the offended party to go directly and privately to the one who has sinned against them, before any witnesses or congregational involvement. This sermon works through the situation, command, and outcome of that first private confrontation, distinguishing between genuine sin and mere preference, and between the path of direct rebuke and the path of love covering a multitude of sins. The goal throughout is not excommunication or the infliction of pain, but the recovery of a sinning brother and the preservation of the purity and peace of Christ's church.
The Blessing of Spiritual Liberty
John 8:31–36 confronts every person with a diagnosis before offering a cure: whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. This sermon expounds Christ's words under two heads — the reality of spiritual slavery and the blessing of spiritual liberty — drawing on Romans 1–3, Galatians, and Acts 26 to demonstrate that bondage to sin is universal, that it is not political but moral and spiritual, and that freedom is granted by the Son alone through the truth of His Word. The occasion of the Lord's Supper grounds the application: believers examine themselves against the marks of true discipleship (abiding in the Word) and receive the supper as a joyful remembrance of redemption from sin's penalty, the law's curse, God's wrath, Satan's dominion, and sin's reigning power.
The Payment of the Temple Tax
Matthew 17:24–27 records a miracle found only in Matthew's Gospel, in which Jesus instructs Peter to pay the temple tax from a coin found in a fish's mouth. The passage is not incidental: it is anchored between Jesus's second passion announcement (vv. 22–23) and the teaching on offense in chapter 18, connecting the temple tax — rooted in the ransom and atonement language of Exodus 30 — to the atoning work Christ will accomplish at the cross. Jesus's exemption from the tax declares his unique divine sonship ('the sons are free'), while his willingness to pay nonetheless teaches a principle of self-denying deference that Paul draws on explicitly in 1 Corinthians 8–9. The sermon calls hearers to behold Christ as sovereign Lord over nature, as the fulfillment of every Old Testament ransom-type, and as the one who paid a debt he did not owe for sinners who could not pay it.
The Question Concerning Elijah
Matthew 17:9–13 records the disciples' question about the scribal expectation that Elijah must precede Messiah — an expectation derived from Malachi 3–4. Jesus resolves their confusion by identifying John the Baptist as the Elijah-figure who fulfilled Malachi's prophecy, thereby laying unmistakable claim to being Yahweh of hosts, the messenger of the covenant. The sermon moves through three elements: Christ's command to silence until the resurrection, the disciples' question about Elijah, and Christ's authoritative interpretation of Malachi. Throughout, the pattern of cross before crown is pressed upon the congregation as the ordained path to glory for both Christ and his people.
The Glory of the Father
John 17:1–5 records the opening of Christ's High Priestly Prayer, in which the incarnate Son petitions the Father to glorify Him in and through His approaching death, resurrection, and exaltation. The sermon expounds three grounds for that petition: the salvation of the elect, the accomplishment of redemption through Christ's active and passive obedience, and the restoration of the pre-incarnate glory to the God-Man. Central to the exposition is verse 3, where Christ defines eternal life as the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ — a knowledge that necessarily issues in glorifying God, sustaining believers through trial, and grounding assurance not in personal performance but in the character and covenant of the triune God. Hearers are pressed to pursue that knowledge through the ordinary means of grace: the reading of Scripture, prayer, and faithful attendance upon the Word.
The Coming of the Kingdom
Matthew 16:28 records Jesus' promise that some standing with him would not taste death before seeing the Son of Man coming in his kingdom — a promise whose referent has generated significant interpretive disagreement. This sermon argues exegetically and theologically that the event in view is the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, presenting seven lines of evidence: the contextual sense of 'some,' parallel passages in Matthew, other New Testament texts, the connection to Christ's resurrection and ascension, Old Testament covenantal prophecy (especially Deuteronomy 28 and Daniel 9), the theological commentary of Hebrews 8, and the principle that judgment is itself a sign of the kingdom's arrival. The destruction of AD 70 is presented not as a relic of ancient history but as a covenantal and typological event that vindicates Christ's kingship, foreshadows the final judgment, and calls every hearer to take refuge in the Lamb before the great day of his wrath.
The Apostle's Prayer and Reminder
Paul's prayer for Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:3–7 reveals the anatomy of apostolic intercession — gratitude to God, constancy of remembrance, and earnest desire — and grounds a pastoral reminder to stir up the God-given ministerial gift. The sermon traces the connection between a pure conscience and an effective prayer life, drawing on Psalm 66:18 and 1 Peter 3:7 to press the point that those who live well tend to pray well. Timothy's genuine, unhypocritical faith is traced to the effectual calling of God, nurtured through his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, establishing a pattern for covenantal family religion. The exhortation to stir up the gift is not a rebuke but a reminder: God has given his ministers not a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind, and faithful ministry demands that these resources be actively employed.
The Objection to the Divine Plan
Peter's rebuke of Christ in Matthew 16:22 is not merely a disciple's well-intentioned blunder — it is an alignment with the adversarial agenda that Jesus had already confronted in the wilderness temptation of Matthew 4. This sermon expounds the divine necessity of Christ's suffering and death as grounded in the eternal Covenant of Redemption, and presses the point that to object to a suffering Messiah is to object to the only ground of sinners' salvation. The response to Peter — 'Get behind me, Satan' — exposes the disease-at-the-heart nature of any theology that removes the cross from Christianity's center, and the sermon closes by pressing listeners either to embrace the crucified Christ or to reckon with the inescapable judgment of that same Christ.
The Crucifixion of Christ
John 19:16–24 records the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ with deliberate conciseness, and this exposition works through four elements of that account: the setting, the crucifixion itself, the charge written by Pilate, and the division of Christ's garments. The sermon argues that John's restrained narrative avoids passion mysticism while insisting that the physical suffering of Christ was real, public, and theologically loaded — every detail, from the seamless tunic to the trilingual inscription, unfolds under the sovereign decree of God and fulfills Old Testament prophecy. Ungodly men such as Caiaphas and Pilate become unwitting prophets, confessing substitutionary atonement and Christ's kingship by the overruling providence of God. The sermon closes with a call to the Lord's Supper, distinguishing the symbol from the reality it represents and exhorting unbelievers to faith in Christ alone.
The Establishment of the Church
Matthew 16:18 is, as one commentator notes, the most discussed verse in the most discussed paragraph of Matthew's Gospel — and its controversies are anything but settled. This sermon works through four aspects of Christ's declaration concerning His church: its definition as the catholic or universal assembly of the elect, its foundation in the confession that Jesus is the Christ, its triumph over the gates of Hades, and its builder, who is Christ alone and not any man or institution. The Roman Catholic claim that Peter's person is the rock undergirding a papal succession is examined and rejected on exegetical, historical, and biblical-theological grounds, while the legitimate priority of the apostles in the church's foundation is carefully maintained. Believers are called to hold together the church's certain triumph with the reality of persecution, guarding the deposit committed to them and confessing Christ as Lord.
The Warning Against Heresy
Matthew 16:5–12 records Christ's warning to His disciples to 'take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees' — a command the disciples immediately misread as a remark about physical bread. This exposition works through three movements: the warning Christ issues, the disciples' failure to comprehend it, and the clarification Christ graciously provides. The sermon argues that a small doctrinal error, like leaven, silently pervades and corrupts an entire religious system, and draws direct lines from Pharisaic works-righteousness and Sadducean rationalism to contemporary threats — Arminianism, Roman Catholic merit theology, and theological liberalism. The congregation is urged to prize the means of grace, resist the addition of human tradition to Scripture, and rest in justification by faith alone in Christ alone, recognising that it is revealed truth, not human will, that produces saving faith.
The Unholy Alliance Seeks a Sign
Matthew 16:1–4 records a politically improbable coalition — the theologically opposed Pharisees and Sadducees — uniting in their demand that Jesus produce a sign from heaven. The sermon traces three features of this encounter: the nature of their demand, the hypocrisy Jesus exposes in their selective discernment, and the gravity of his description of their generation as wicked and adulterous. Jesus refuses to satisfy carnal curiosity or submit to carnal scrutiny, responding instead with the sign of the prophet Jonah — the death and resurrection of the Son of Man — the very gospel that calls every hearer to repent and flee to Christ rather than bargain with God.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 5
The fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer — 'Give us this day our daily bread' (Matthew 6:11) — addresses the believer's daily dependence upon God for temporal provision. This study examines what the petition does not mean (it neither excuses idleness nor promises wealth), what it does mean (a request for all necessary temporal sustenance, not luxury), and its theological weight: it confesses the forfeiture of blessing through the fall, acknowledges that even the capacity to work is a divine gift, expresses faith in God's provision, and recognizes God as the first cause behind every blessing. The practical scope of the petition extends beyond personal need to intercession for fellow believers, the suffering church, and the persecuted worldwide.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 1
The preface to the Lord's Prayer — 'Our Father in heaven' — calls the believer to ground every act of prayer in sound theology proper before a single petition is offered. Against both the hypocrite's ostentation and the heathen's vain repetition, the Lord Jesus provides a model that is at once personal and majestic: the One addressed is Father by adoption through the redemptive work of Christ, and He is in heaven, sovereign over all creation. This study traces six qualities of 'Our Father' — that He is personal, gracious, hearing, caring, loving, and the exclusive object of prayer — before turning to 'in heaven' as the warrant for approaching God with both filial confidence and reverential awe.
2LCF Chapter 1 - Of the Holy Scriptures, Part 2
What gives the church the right to declare these 27 books—and no others—the Word of God? This session works through 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 1, paragraphs 2 and 3, to answer that question by examining the origins of the New Testament canon and the three attributes by which canonical books are recognized: divine qualities, corporate reception, and apostolic origin. Drawing extensively on Michael Kruger's scholarship, the lesson demonstrates that the canon was neither a fourth-century political invention nor a community preference, but a self-authenticating body of Scripture whose recognition by the church was providentially prepared for from within the structure of redemptive history itself. The closing application presses the hearer to see that no argument for canonicity finally persuades apart from the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit.
The Faith of the Canaanite Woman
A Canaanite woman — an ancestral enemy of Israel — confronts Israel's Messiah in Gentile territory and refuses to accept silence, rebuff, or unfavorable parable as the final word. This exposition of Matthew 15:21–28 traces her persistent petitioning through two encounters with Christ, showing that great need demands great earnestness and that true faith worships even when heaven appears silent. The sermon draws out three lessons: the triumph of faith expressed through dependence, humility, and persistence in prayer; the Christological display of Christ's mercy and sovereign power over demons; and the benefit of affliction, which drove a pagan mother to the Son of David and teaches parents to pray without ceasing for children under the power of sin and Satan.
The Confrontation Concerning Authority
Matthew 15:1–9 records a formal confrontation between the Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees and the Lord Jesus Christ over the authority by which men govern their religious lives. The real dispute is not hand-washing but the foundational question of whether the tradition of the elders or the commandment of God holds supreme authority. Christ exposes Pharisaic religion as simultaneously legalistic and antinomian — binding consciences with human inventions while providing loopholes to evade the fifth commandment — and confirms this indictment by citing Isaiah's prophecy against lip-service worship. The sermon calls hearers to examine their own Pharisaic tendencies, to subject every tradition to the Word of God, and to rest in Christ who alone delivers sinners from both legalism and lawlessness.
The Healing of the Sick at Gennesaret
Matthew 14:34–36 records the healing of the sick at Gennesaret, a summary passage that Matthew uses to display the sovereign power and compassionate mercy of the Son of God. The passage demonstrates a progression from lesser to greater: Christ's mastery over food, storms, and physical illness points to His supreme authority to forgive sin and heal the spiritually dead. The fitting response to recognising who Jesus is — as modelled by the men of Gennesaret — is to come to Him in faith, to bring others to Him, and to rest in the justifying righteousness that is imputed to the sinner through faith alone in Christ alone.
The Fact of the Resurrection
John 20:1–23 presents three convergent lines of evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ: the empty tomb witnessed by Peter and John, the personal appearance to Mary Magdalene, and the appearance to the assembled disciples. The sermon examines each episode as a first-hand historical account, noting the specific details — the folded grave clothes, the testimony of a woman, the skepticism of the disciples — that authenticate rather than undermine the record. Running throughout is an apologetic case against the mass-hallucination and grave-robber theories, grounded in the nature, variety, and consequences of the post-resurrection appearances. The resurrection is shown to be the Father's public vindication of the Son's substitutionary work, and hearers are called to trust the living Christ whose empty tomb guarantees both judgment for unbelievers and justification for all who believe.
The Rejection at Nazareth
Matthew 13:54–58 records the rejection of Jesus Christ in his hometown of Nazareth, where familiarity with his person produced not neutrality but active offense and opposition. The sermon traces the movement from initial astonishment at Christ's wisdom and mighty works to suspicion, critical questioning, and full-scale rejection — demonstrating that curiosity about Christ, apart from saving faith, inevitably hardens into hostility. The passage is read through the lens of Isaiah 53:3, with Christ's dishonor in Nazareth understood as a fulfillment of the suffering servant's rejection. Hearers are pressed to reckon with whether they are with Christ or against him, warned that unbelief hardens with each exposure to the gospel, and called to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ while it is still the day of grace.
The Parables of Seed and Leaven
The two briefest parables in Matthew 13's kingdom discourse — the mustard seed and the leaven — address a perennial temptation: to judge the kingdom of God by its small and seemingly insignificant beginnings. This exposition argues that both parables teach the same essential truth: the kingdom inaugurated by Christ begins imperceptibly but grows inevitably and pervasively, and its lowly origin in the incarnation, ministry, and crucifixion of Jesus is not a contradiction of royal power but its very pattern. The sermon concludes with a threefold application — the parables explain Christ's ministry, call the church to resist discouragement, and confront the unconverted with the call to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Parable of the Wheat and Tares
Matthew 13:24–30 presents the parable of the wheat and tares, in which Christ teaches that his kingdom advances through a world — and a visible church — where genuine believers co-exist with those sown by the devil. The sermon addresses the theodicy embedded in the parable: God's sovereignty over evil does not mean the immediate expulsion of wickedness, but its certain, final judgment at the eschaton. Hearers are called to grow as wheat, to resist an overly censorious spirit toward apparent tares, and to trust that the Master has the harvest entirely under his control.
The Family of Christ
Matthew 12:46–50 presents Christ identifying his true family not by bloodline but by faith — those who do the will of his Father in heaven. The sermon expounds this text in two movements: the approach of Jesus' physical family (vv. 46–47) and his instruction concerning his spiritual family (vv. 48–50), demonstrating that entry into this family is by faith alone in Christ alone, not by moral achievement. The doctrine of adoption grounds the exposition: chosen in eternity, secured by the Son, sealed by the Spirit, the believer is called brother, sister, and mother by the holy Lord of heaven — not begrudgingly, but because of sovereign grace. The sermon closes with a threefold application: marvel at the privileges of belonging to God's family, bear its responsibilities faithfully, and above all behold the glory of the Christ who is not ashamed to call sinners his own.
The Word Became Flesh
John 1:14 presents one of the most concentrated statements of Christology in all of Scripture: the eternal Word, who was God and was with God in the beginning, became flesh and tabernacled among men. This sermon expounds the incarnation under two heads — the fact of the Word becoming flesh, and the glory beheld in that incarnate Word — with sustained attention to the doctrine of eternal generation, the Shekinah-tabernacle background of John's prologue, and the covenantal purpose of the incarnation in redemption. The hearer is called to rest in the Christ who perfectly fulfilled the law, bore the wrath due to sinners in their stead, and rose for their justification, and to hold fast to a sound Christology as the very ground of salvation.
The Tree and Its Fruits
Matthew 12:33–37 confronts every hearer with the inseparable connection between the inner condition of the heart and the words that proceed from it. Working through Christ's fourfold address to the Pharisees — exhortation to repent, condemnation of their wickedness, explanation of the heart's role as the source of speech, and anticipation of the Day of Judgment — the sermon establishes that words are not morally neutral but are the public evidence of what a person truly is before God. The doctrines of total depravity and total inability undergird the exposition: no one can speak good things from an evil heart, and only sovereign regeneration — God removing the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh — can change the root so that the fruit changes. The only shelter from that coming day of accounting is the Lord Jesus Christ, the one man who never spoke an idle word, whose righteousness alone justifies the ungodly.
The Unpardonable Sin
Matthew 12:31–32 contains Christ's solemn warning about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit — the one sin that will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come. This exposition sets the saying in its Matthean context: the Pharisees, having witnessed the Spirit-empowered works of the Davidic Son, willfully and self-consciously attributed those works to Beelzebub. Drawing on parallel passages in Mark 3, Hebrews 6, Hebrews 10, and 1 John, the sermon distinguishes this sin from sins of ignorance and ordinary moral failure, showing that the unpardonable sin is not a moment's rashness but a settled, knowing rejection of the gospel accompanied by an irreversible hardening of heart. The sermon closes with a dual application: believers are urged to use the means of grace and guard against spiritual stagnation, while unbelievers are warned that persistent rejection only hardens the heart, and are called to flee to Christ while there is still time.
The Servant Song of Matthew
Matthew 12:15–21 records Jesus withdrawing from the murderous rage of the Pharisees while multitudes — including Gentiles — follow Him for healing, and Matthew interprets this through the first Servant Song of Isaiah 42:1–7. The sermon works through six characteristics of the Servant of Yahweh as Matthew presents them: His excellence as the Father's chosen and beloved, His empowerment by the Holy Spirit, His message of justice to the Gentiles, His character and commitment as one who does not quarrel or cry out, His mercy toward bruised reeds and smoking flax, and His worldwide mission culminating in the Great Commission. Throughout, the preacher presses the comfort that weak faith — however small — is true faith, and that Christ as the great Savior of great sinners is the hermeneutical center of all Scripture.