Cited in sermons
John Chrysostom
56 sermons · All people cited
The Opened Sanctuary
Mark 15:33–39 presents three interlocking realities at the crucifixion: the forsaken Son bearing divine wrath, the torn veil opening the sanctuary to God's presence, and a Roman centurion's confession inaugurating the gospel's reach to the nations. The noontide darkness fulfills Old Testament types — the Egyptian plague of darkness and Amos 8:9 — while Christ's cry of dereliction, drawn from Psalm 22, expresses not a severing of the Trinity but the full weight of divine justice borne substitutionarily by the Son as mediator. The tearing of the veil declares that the shadowy Old Covenant order is fulfilled, the true high priest has acted, and access to the holy presence of God is secured through the veil of Christ's flesh. Those who gather at the Lord's Supper are exhorted to glory in the Savior who bore the wrath His people deserved so that they need never cry out in God-forsakenness themselves.
Christ in the River Jordan
The baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 3:13–17 is not merely a biographical episode but the inaugural step of the incarnate Son of God in His mediatorial mission to fulfill all righteousness for sinners. Tracing a rich theology of water through creation, the flood, the Exodus, and Joshua's crossing of the Jordan, the sermon demonstrates that Christ enters the river as the antitypical fulfillment of every prior act of divine cleansing, conquest, and covenant ratification. The descent of the Spirit like a dove and the Father's voice of approbation publicly inaugurate the new creation and identify Jesus as the obedient second Adam, the suffering servant, and the Davidic king. The sermon closes by drawing the believer's baptism directly from this pattern: only those who are the recipients of Christ's substitutionary righteousness, indwelt by the Spirit, and adopted into sonship are candidates for baptism by full immersion.
The Refuge for God's People
Psalm 46 sets an axiomatic foundation — God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble — from which the necessary inference follows: therefore we will not fear. This sermon works through the psalm's four movements: the affirmation of God's presence (vv. 1, 7, 11), the demonstration of God's power amid cosmic and political chaos (vv. 2–6), the contemplation of God's proven works in history (vv. 8–9), and the sovereign command of verse 10. The titles 'Lord of hosts' and 'God of Jacob' ground the psalm's confidence in both the divine warrior who fights for his people and the covenant Lord who cannot be separated from them — a comfort the New Covenant believer holds with even greater fullness in Christ.
The Burial of Christ
The burial of Jesus Christ in John 19:38–42 and Matthew 27:62–66 is not a peripheral narrative detail but a theological linchpin between the humiliation of the cross and the triumph of the resurrection. Through the actions of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus — two secret disciples emboldened by the death of Christ — the gospel accounts establish the true humanity of the Son of God, confirm the reality of his death against ancient and modern denials, and set the stage for the empty tomb. The security measures taken by the Sanhedrin, far from suppressing the resurrection, served only to make the miracle undeniable and the wrath of men an instrument of God's glory. Sinners are called to receive the gospel as historical fact: that Christ died for sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day.
The Clarity of Apostolic Preaching - Galatians 3:1-4
Paul's rebuke in Galatians 3:1–4 confronts the Galatian churches for being 'bewitched' away from a gospel that had been proclaimed to them with unmistakable clarity. The sermon traces three elements: the pastoral severity of Paul's charge of folly, the transparent sufficiency of apostolic preaching that set Christ crucified visibly before the Galatians, and Paul's measured appeal to their own experience of receiving the Spirit through faith rather than works. The central burden is that any addition to the finished work of Christ — however subtle — is not a lesser error but a bewitching delusion that empties the cross of its glory and replaces the peace of the gospel with bondage.
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.
2LCF Chapter 25 - Of Marriage
Marriage as a divine institution is examined through the four paragraphs of 2LCF Chapter 25, with Matthew 19:5–6 as the anchor text where Christ grounds marriage in the creation of male and female. The sermon argues that marriage is not a social construct or ecclesiastical sacrament but a creation ordinance ordained by God before the fall, designed for the union of one man and one woman in monogamous covenant. A threefold providential purpose is unfolded — companionship, the inhabitation of creation, and a hedge against sexual immorality — and the regulative bounds of marriage regarding consanguinity, affinity, and Christian marital duty are applied against both contemporary sexual confusion and Roman Catholic sacerdotalism.
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 Believer's Race, Part 3
Hebrews 12:3–11 presents three reasons believers must persevere in the race of faith: the example of Christ who endured hostility from sinners, the forgotten exhortation of Proverbs 3 concerning divine discipline, and the Father's sovereign purpose in chastening every son He receives. The sermon argues that suffering and hardship are not evidence of God's absence or anger, but proof of the Father-son relationship and the means by which God conforms His people to the image of Christ. Believers are called to neither despise nor be discouraged by chastening, but to receive it as the painful yet fruit-bearing discipline of a loving Father, whose corrections are light in comparison with the sins that deserve them.
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.'
Justification by Faith Alone
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.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 3
The incarnation of the Son of God — that the eternal, divine Son took to himself a true and complete human nature without ceasing to be God — stands at the centre of the Christian religion and is inseparable from the doctrine of salvation. This confession study works through 2LCF Chapter 8, paragraphs 2 and 7, first clearing away eight historical errors about what the incarnation is not (mutation, docetism, a heavenly body, a bodyless appearance, an animal soul without a human soul, a mixing of natures, a divestiture of divine attributes, and a Nestorian conjunction of persons), then positively establishing the language of assumption, union, and incarnation as the church's consistent witness from the apostolic era forward. The Son did not subtract from nor add to himself; he took to himself that which he was not while remaining fully what he eternally is, and the Trinity — Father, Son, and Spirit — acts undividedly in this work, though it terminates on the Son alone.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 1
What does it mean to confess that Jesus Christ is very God and very man, and why does the precision of that confession matter for eternal life? This introductory session on 2LCF Chapter 8 surveys the doctrine of Christ the Mediator by establishing both the necessary posture and the interpretive rules required for sound Christology, then sets out seven reasons why the study of Christ stands at the center of all Christian theology. The session moves from the scope of Scripture as Christ-centered revelation, through the connection of eternal life to a right knowledge of Christ, to the comprehensiveness of all redemptive benefits being located in union with Him, calling the hearer to pursue a high Christology as the only safe and saving confession.
The Cessation of Revelatory Gifts
First Corinthians 13:8–13 declares that tongues, prophecy, and words of knowledge have a designed and determined end, giving way to the completed New Testament canon. This sermon argues from Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 13–14, Hebrews 1–2, Ephesians 2, and Daniel 9 that the revelatory gifts were temporary, apostolic, and tied to the first advent of Christ and the foundational era of the church. The 'perfect' of 1 Corinthians 13:10 refers not to the eschatological consummation but to the inscripturated fullness of divine revelation in the New Testament scriptures. Christians today are called to glory in the completed Word of God and in the abiding work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and illumination, rather than seeking gifts that have ceased.
2LCF Chapter 2 - Of God and of the Holy Trinity
The doctrine of the Trinity is the capstone of the confession's treatment of God, asserting that the one divine and infinite being eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — three subsistences of one substance, power, and eternity, each possessing the whole divine essence undivided. This session works through six confessional affirmations: that Trinitarian monotheism excludes tritheism; that confessing one God in three persons is no contradiction; that the persons do not collectively comprise God in fractional parts; that the persons are distinguished solely by their eternal relations of origin; that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are fully co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial; and that the doctrine of the Trinity is not a cold academic exercise but the very foundation of all communion with God and comfortable dependence on Him.
The Judgment Throne of Christ
Matthew 25:31–46 presents not a parable but a prophecy: the Son of Man, identified as Daniel's divine king, will sit on the throne of glory and separate all nations into the righteous and the wicked. The passage is examined to show that it does not overturn justification by faith alone, but rather demonstrates that those justified by grace will inevitably produce the good works that serve as fruits and evidences of saving faith. The sermon sets the evidentiary nature of works — care for Christ's brethren — against any works-righteousness reading, drawing on Galatians 5:6, Ephesians 2:8–10, James 2, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession to ground the argument. Hearers are called to confess Christ now, since the same Lord who bids 'come' in his earthly ministry will bid 'come' or 'depart' on the day of judgment.
The Burial of Jesus
The burial of Jesus in Matthew 27:57–66 is examined across two movements: the burial proper (vv. 57–61) and the security measures taken at the tomb (vv. 62–66). Against both the swoon theory and ancient Jewish counter-testimony that the disciples stole the body, the sermon marshals the apologetic force of the sealed, guarded, newly-hewn tomb to demonstrate that the resurrection overcame every human precaution. The burial also carries weight in four theological categories: it confirms the reality of Christ's death, marks the final act of his humiliation as the last Adam, demonstrates his conquest of death, and strips the grave of its paralyzing power for all who belong to him.
The Conversion of the Philippian Jailer
Acts 16:16–34 presents the arrest and imprisonment of Paul and Silas as the God-ordained means by which a Roman jailer was brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ. The sermon traces two movements: the exorcism of a python spirit that provoked false charges and a severe beating, and the subsequent earthquake and gospel conversation that issued in the jailer's conversion and household baptism. Paul and Silas's midnight prayers and hymns amid unjust suffering demonstrate that Christ is worth all suffering, while the jailer's question — 'What must I do to be saved?' — receives the apostolic answer: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon closes with three baptisms that embody the same gospel the Philippian jailer heard, illustrating that believers' baptism by immersion is the fitting public sign of union with Christ in His death and resurrection.
The Discourse on God's Salvation, Part 3
John 3:17–21 declares that the Son of Man's incarnation was a redemptive, not a condemnatory, mission — yet the world He entered was already under condemnation by virtue of Adam's sin and its own actual transgressions. The passage moves from the declaration of man's condemned state (vv. 17–18) to the demonstration of it (vv. 19–21): fallen humanity resists the light of Christ, loves moral darkness, and avoids exposure — the classic scriptural portrait of total depravity confirmed across Genesis, the Psalms, the Prophets, and the New Testament. The necessity of regeneration by the Holy Spirit follows directly: because sinners are constitutionally hostile to the light, they cannot come to Christ unless the Spirit first makes them alive and grants the graces of faith and repentance.
The Prediction of Desertion and Denial
Matthew 26:31–35 records Jesus predicting both the desertion of all His disciples and the specific denial of Peter on the night of His arrest. The passage demonstrates that the salvation accomplished at the cross was entirely the work of Christ alone — His friends fled, leaving no horizontal assistance — and that Scripture, citing Zechariah 13:7, had appointed this scattering from eternity. The sermon draws out the persistent problem of remaining corruption in the regenerate: the pride, self-confidence, and lofty self-assessment that Peter epitomizes are not unique to him but are symptomatic of all God's people. The remedy is not stronger resolution but a biblical self-assessment that drives the believer away from confidence in the flesh and toward continual dependence on the grace and Spirit of God.
The Royal Purpose in the Incarnation
John 18:37 records Jesus declaring before Pontius Pilate, 'For this cause I was born,' identifying the incarnation with a royal purpose — he entered the world as king. This sermon expounds John 18:33–40, tracing the nature of Christ's kingdom (not originating from this world, yet encompassing it), the method by which that kingdom advances (through truth, not military force), and the prophecy of Isaiah 9:6–7 that illuminates both the king and his everlasting dominion. The listener is called to receive the truth Christ embodies rather than dismiss it as Pilate did.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 14, 2018 PM
Depression — what Scripture calls a broken spirit or heavy heart — is a real affliction that has touched the lives of Elijah, Jeremiah, the Apostle Paul, and the Lord Jesus himself. Drawing from repeated passages in the book of Proverbs, alongside First Kings 19, Psalm 88, and Psalm 102, this exposition surveys both the presence of melancholy among the people of God and a range of strategies — physical, psychological, and spiritual — for those who suffer and for those who walk alongside them. The central application is that the sorrowful saint must not abandon the corporate means of grace — the Word, prayer, and the gathered church — which are God's appointed instruments for sustaining the broken spirit.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 2, 2018 PM
The wisdom of God in the gospel is displayed not in the nobility, intelligence, or virtue of those he saves, but in his sovereign, gracious election of the weak, the base, and the despised — so that no flesh might glory in his presence. Expounding 1 Corinthians 1:26–31, this sermon identifies the three spiritual blessings Christ has become for his people — righteousness (justification by imputed obedience), sanctification, and redemption (glorification) — as the full ordo salutis secured in union with Christ. The ground of salvation is traced through Romans 5, Philippians 3, Zechariah 3, and Acts 13 to demonstrate that the entire plan of redemption flows from God's sovereign grace, not human merit. The inevitable and proper response of those who have received these blessings is to glory in the Lord alone, not in themselves.
The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ
What is the gospel, and why does its content matter for the Lord's Supper? Expounding 1 Corinthians 15:1–20 with focused attention on verses 3–4, this sermon argues that the gospel is defined by three inseparable historical and theological events: the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Each event carries precise atoning weight — the death is substitutionary, propitiatory, and expiatory; the burial confirms the reality of that death and sets the stage for resurrection; the resurrection vindicates Christ's saving work, bears witness to the justification of his people, and establishes him as judge of the living and the dead. Delivered in the context of the Lord's Supper, the sermon calls believers to a wonder-filled, theologically informed observance of the ordinance, and warns unbelievers that the risen Christ who died for sinners will also be their judge.
The Fulfilment of Joel's Prophecy
Acts 2:14–21 records Peter's explanation that the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the fulfilment, not a mere pre-fulfilment, of Joel 2:28–32. The sermon addresses three interlocking questions: what 'the last days' means (the entire Messianic age from Christ's first coming to his return, with a specific reference to the covenantal termination of Old Covenant Israel in AD 70), what the abundance of the Spirit's outpouring means for the New Covenant community (every believer, without distinction of gender, age, or class, receives the Spirit as seal and guarantee), and why the sign gifts of tongues and prophecy are no longer in force (the completed canon fulfils Daniel 9:24's sealing of vision and prophecy). The sermon closes with a direct call to sinners to do the one thing Joel and Peter both demand: call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
The Denial of the Resurrection
Matthew 28:11–15 records not only the resurrection of Christ but the immediate counter-offensive mounted by the chief priests and elders to suppress the fact of the empty tomb. Against the backdrop of the Great Commission in verses 16–20, these verses expose a counter-mission: a bribed, fabricated narrative designed to replace the truth of the resurrection with the stolen-body theory. The sermon examines the soldiers' report to the chief priests, the wickedness and implausibility of the lie they were paid to spread, and the theological reasons — including divine judicial hardening — that such a falsehood gained traction in first-century Judea. The application presses every believer to be armed to defend the resurrection and to rest the whole of their justification on faith in the risen Christ alone.
The Burial of Jesus
Matthew 27:57–66 records the burial of Jesus Christ — a passage easily overlooked between the crucifixion and resurrection accounts, yet one that carries significant theological, apologetic, and pastoral weight. The burial confirms that Jesus truly died, marks the completion of his humiliation as the second Adam, and establishes the historical ground on which the resurrection stands as an undeniable public event. The section also presents a stark contrast between the courageous devotion of Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and the faithful women, and the cynical scheming of the chief priests and Pharisees — whose very precautions to prevent a 'fake' resurrection unwittingly served to make the genuine resurrection that much more incontrovertible. The tomb of Christ removes the fear of the grave for his people and grounds their certain hope in the resurrection of the dead.
OF Christ the Mediator (2LCF 8)
The doctrine of the Incarnation — that the eternal Son of God took to himself a full human nature, body and soul, yet without sin — is one of the two great mysteries of the Christian faith alongside the Trinity. This confession study works through 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 8, Paragraph 2, establishing first what the Incarnation does not mean (mutation of the divine nature, mere appearance, assumption of body only, full humanity without exception, addition to divine being) before drawing out five positive theological entailments: it is the Son alone who became incarnate through the undivided work of the triune God; it is the divine Son who assumed flesh; the assumed humanity is full and complete; Christ is sinless in that humanity; and the two natures are united in one person without conversion, composition, or confusion. The whole doctrine is shown to be the necessary foundation of the Christian gospel, since only a mediator who is truly and fully God, truly and fully man, and wholly without sin can accomplish the redemption of fallen humanity.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 2, 2017 AM
This expository sermon on Matthew 26:40–46 examines the sluggishness of the disciples in Gethsemane against the backdrop of Christ's resolute, prayerful obedience to the Father. The disciples' repeated failure to watch and pray — despite explicit warning and their own loud protestations of loyalty — exposes the persistent pride and creaturely weakness of even regenerate believers. Christ's threefold prayer, his endurance of the cup of divine wrath by imputation, and his gracious invitation to the sleeping disciples ('let us be going') together constitute the ground for the sermon's central exhortation: the ordained means of victory over temptation and spiritual lethargy is watchfulness and prayer, practiced in both private devotion and the corporate worship of God.
The Prediction of Desertion and Denial
Matthew 26:31–35 records three predictions Jesus makes on the night of His betrayal: that all the disciples will desert Him, that Peter in particular will deny Him three times before the rooster crows, and that He will be raised and go before them to Galilee. The passage demonstrates both the sovereignty of Christ, who is not caught unawares but walks toward the cross in accordance with Zechariah 13:7 and the eternal decree of the Father, and the weakness of even the most zealous believers, who prove incapable of standing in their own strength. Peter's brash self-confidence — his flat contradiction of Christ's word and his lofty assessment of himself above his fellow disciples — stands as a warning against pride and self-reliance. The sermon calls believers to kill pride, cultivate dependence upon God, embrace Scripture's honest assessment of indwelling corruption, and rest in the grace of a Savior who, despite foreknowing every act of betrayal, still promises to meet His scattered sheep.