Cited in sermons
John Chrysostom
56 sermons · All people cited
The Anointing at Bethany
Matthew 26:6–13 records the anointing of Jesus at Bethany by Mary, sister of Lazarus, who poured a flask of costly spikenard worth a year's wages upon his head. Matthew places this account between the conspiracy of the chief priests and the betrayal by Judas for deliberate theological reasons: where the cross is associated with treachery on every side, it must also be associated with wholehearted worship and adoration. The disciples' indignant charge of 'waste' is exposed as both a direct insult to Mary and an indirect slight upon the dignity of Christ himself, while Jesus' fourfold response vindicates her act as a beautiful thing, a prophetic preparation for his burial, and a deed to be proclaimed wherever the gospel is preached. The sermon calls believers to imitate Mary's extravagant, undivided devotion to Christ, resisting the tendency to reduce Christian faithfulness to either social concern or piety alone.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 16
Matthew 25:41–46 presents the judgment of the unrighteous as the precise structural mirror of the judgment of the righteous: those who depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels are distinguished from those who inherit the kingdom not by degree of works but by the presence or absence of saving faith. The sermon defends, through nine arguments drawn from the text and from Galatians 2:21, that this passage does not teach justification by works — the sheep and goats are already determined, the kingdom is inherited not merited, and the good works function as evidence of faith rather than its ground. The 'least of these my brethren' is shown, through Matthew 10 and 12, to refer specifically to Christ's disciples, so that reception or rejection of them constitutes reception or rejection of Christ himself. The passage concludes by calling all hearers to be found in Christ — clothed not in their own righteousness but in the righteousness of God through faith — as the only preparation for the certain judgment to come.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 15
Matthew 25:31–46, the conclusion of the Olivet Discourse, presents the final judgment of the Son of Man — not as a basis for works-righteousness, but as the definitive revelation of what saving faith produces. The sermon argues that the sheep and goats are already distinguished before the throne, exposing the error of Roman Catholic and moralistic readings that treat the acts of charity as the ground of salvation. Christ's declaration 'come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world' is the language of election and inheritance, not merit. The application is twofold: look to Christ alone in faith for justification, and let that faith show itself — as the confession states — 'no dead faith but worketh by love,' particularly toward the brethren in the local congregation.
The Wisdom from God
Christ is the wisdom of God made concrete for sinners, and 1 Corinthians 1:30–31 inventories what that wisdom consists of: righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. This exposition argues that these three blessings are not coordinate with wisdom but are its very demonstration — the specific ways God's sovereign, gracious salvation exposes the folly of human wisdom and self-commendation. Justification by faith alone, grounded in the imputed righteousness of Christ, is shown to be the necessary foundation for, not the enemy of, holiness. The design of the whole — election, union with Christ, and the triad of blessings — is that the redeemed glory in the Lord alone, not in themselves.
The Hymn to Christ as to God, Part 3
What does it mean that Christ 'emptied himself' in Philippians 2:7? This sermon works through the first clause of Christ's condescension, arguing that the self-emptying was not a divestiture of deity but an addition of humanity — Christ took on what he was not without ceasing to be what he eternally was. The incarnation is treated under two headings: his self-emptying by assuming man's nature, and his self-humiliation in engaging that nature as a bondservant. The sermon closes by drawing out the practical weight of Christ's true humanity for worship, perseverance under suffering, and help in temptation.
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 20, 2016 AM
Philippians 2:6–11 contains one of the richest Christological confessions in all of Scripture, composed within two decades of the resurrection and already rehearsing Christ's pre-incarnate divine majesty, his voluntary humiliation, and his subsequent exaltation. This sermon opens the 'anatomy' of Paul's hymn to Christ as to God, establishing two foundational realities: the structural movement of the text from loftiness to lowliness to supreme exaltation, and the full, unqualified deity and equality of the Son with the Father. The church is called to hide these truths in their hearts against every heresy that diminishes Christ, and to find in his condescension the very ground and pattern of Christian humility and unity.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 31, 2016 AM
Hebrews 10:19–25 presents the doctrinal foundation and practical exhortations that flow from Christ's high priestly office. The passage opens with two grand encouragements — the believer's boldness to enter the holiest of holies by the blood of Jesus, and the possession of a great high priest over the house of God — before issuing three corresponding imperatives: draw near, hold fast the confession of hope, and consider one another. The sermon insists that the access to God secured by Christ's atoning death and the tearing of the veil is a present possession to be actively used, not a theoretical privilege to be admired from a distance. Believers are urged to attend the public assembly, maintain private and family worship, and pray for one another with the urgency appropriate to those who see the day approaching.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 24, 2016 PM
Matthew 4:1-11 is not primarily a moral example but a substitutionary act: Christ enters the wilderness as the second Adam and the true Israel, undergoing probationary testing in order to render the perfect covenantal obedience that Adam and Israel failed to render. Seven interlocking theological observations — divine sovereignty, the Spirit's ministry in Christ's life, the hypostatic union, the probative nature of the episode, Christ's fulfillment of Old Testament types, the seed-and-serpent motif, and the substitutionary character of his obedience — are drawn from the text to show that this wilderness battle is a prelude to Calvary's victory. The primary application is not moralism but adoration: Christ did all these things for his people, and his imputed obedience is the ground on which sinners may confidently rest.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 24, 2016 AM
Matthew 4:1-11 presents the wilderness temptation of Christ not merely as a moral battle against sin but as a divinely ordained probationary test in which the Son of God proves himself the obedient Israel where the first Israel perpetually failed. The sermon traces each of Satan's three assaults against the backdrop of Israel's wilderness failures in Exodus and Deuteronomy, showing Christ as the covenant-keeping second Adam whose steadfast obedience secures a righteousness his people could never produce. The post-victory report — angels ministering to Christ — fulfills the very promises Satan had twisted, vindicating God's timing against all satanic shortcuts to glory. Hearers are called to find their exclusive champion in this Christ and to answer every temptation as he did: with the word of the living and true God.
The Lament Over Jerusalem
Matthew 23:37–39 records Christ's lament over Jerusalem — a cry of sorrow that follows directly upon the severest condemnations he has pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees. The sermon traces Jesus' prophetic lament through its Old Testament antecedents in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Psalms, arguing that Christ speaks here according to his human nature, expressing genuine grief over a city that has killed the prophets and now rejects the Messiah himself. The declaration 'your house is left to you desolate' marks a decisive redemptive-historical shift: as in Ezekiel 8–11, the withdrawal of God's glory precedes the destruction of the temple, and that withdrawal is enacted when Christ departs to the Mount of Olives. The sermon closes by refuting the Arminian use of 'you were not willing' as a proof text for free will, showing instead that the text confirms total depravity and that the free and genuine offer of Christ to sinners is fully consistent with the Reformed doctrine of sovereign grace.
The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 8:26–40 records the Spirit-orchestrated conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch through Philip's proclamation of Christ from Isaiah 53. The passage is set within the fulfillment of Isaiah 56's promise that eunuchs and Gentiles would be brought near to God in the messianic age — a promise Luke deliberately highlights as the risen and exalted Christ builds his kingdom to the uttermost parts of the earth. The sermon expounds the substitutionary suffering of the servant of Yahweh as the content of Philip's evangelism, the great exchange of 2 Corinthians 5:21 as the ground of justification, and the proper order of faith then baptism as the pattern of apostolic practice. Hearers are pressed to ask whether they understand the gospel, to believe it without delay, and — if already believing — to submit to baptism as an act of obedience and a means of grace.
An Encouragement to Consider the Father's Purpose
Hebrews 12:3–11 calls suffering believers to consider the Father's purpose in divine discipline, not as evidence of abandonment but as proof of His fatherly love. The sermon works through three movements: a preliminary call to consider Christ who endured hostility, the presence of divine discipline as the demonstration of God's fatherhood, and the purpose of that discipline — that believers may be partakers of His holiness. The central pastoral concern is that God's people too easily forget the word of exhortation (Proverbs 3:11–12) when trials come, interpreting chastening as divine absence rather than divine presence. Believers are urged to resist despising discipline, to guard against weariness and discouragement, and to rest in the certainty that God works all things — including painful pruning — for their conformity to Christ.
The Question Concerning Taxes
Matthew 22:15–22 records a trap laid by an unlikely coalition of Pharisees and Herodians who sought to impale Jesus on the horns of a political dilemma: endorse the Roman poll tax and alienate the Jewish populace, or reject it and face a capital charge of sedition. Jesus exposes their hypocrisy, turns their own coin against them, and delivers one of the most compressed and consequential ethical statements in all of Scripture: 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' The sermon works through the parties, the plan, and the particulars of the question before drawing out the doctrine of two distinct but overlapping spheres of authority — civil and divine — showing that Caesar's jurisdiction is real but bounded, while God's claim on his image-bearers is total and is met only through faith in Christ.
The Parable of the Vineyard, Part 1
Matthew 21:33–39 presents the Parable of the Vineyard, in which Christ identifies himself as the Son sent by the divine Landowner to a covenant people who have repeatedly rejected and killed God's prophets. Drawing on Isaiah 5, Psalm 80, and a range of Old Testament and New Testament texts, the sermon establishes that Israel's religious leaders had filled up the measure of their covenant guilt, and that their rejection of the Son would culminate in the judgment executed upon Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The sermon argues that God's extraordinary patience toward covenant-breakers — patience that extended across centuries of prophetic witness — is designed to provoke repentance, and calls hearers to receive rather than resist the servants of God and to flee to Christ while the call of the gospel stands.
The Purpose of the Incarnation
Jesus' declaration before Pontius Pilate — 'For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world' (John 18:37) — frames the Incarnation not as a seasonal sentiment but as the entry of the eternal Son into his mediatorial kingship. The sermon expounds Christ's kingdom as non-terrestrial in origin yet universal in scope, advancing not by armed revolt but by the truth he himself embodies and proclaims. Pilate's cynical shrug — 'What is truth?' — is set as a mirror before the hearer: indifference to the truth of Christ is indifference to the only ground of liberation from the wrath of God. The sermon calls every listener to receive the King through faith in the gospel, and every Christian household to press children toward Christ through diligent engagement with Scripture.
2LCF Chapter 17 - Of the Perseverance of the Saints
The perseverance of the saints rests not on the believer's free will or moral resilience, but on five immovable pillars: the immutability of God's decree of election, the believer's union with Christ, the oath of God, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of the covenant of grace. This exposition of 2LCF Chapter 17 works through all three paragraphs, distinguishing the genuine saints from temporary believers, refuting both Arminian and Roman Catholic denials of the doctrine, and showing that perseverance is inseparable from divine preservation. The challenges to perseverance — Satanic temptation, the world, and remaining corruption — are honestly confronted, with the vital role of the means of grace pressed upon the hearer as the God-ordained pathway through them.
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
Peter's question about the limits of forgiveness — 'up to seven times?' — draws from Christ the parable of a servant forgiven an astronomically unpayable debt who then seizes a fellow servant over a trifling sum. This sermon works through Matthew 18:21–35 in three movements: the setting of Peter's question, the three scenes of the parable itself, and the concluding verdict of verse 35. The central argument is that the forgiven community must be a forgiving community — not by counting to 490, but by forgiving without counting — and that a professing Christian who withholds forgiveness from a repentant brother thereby gives evidence that he himself has never truly received the grace of God.
The Greatest in the Kingdom
Matthew 18:1–4 confronts the disciples' dispute over who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven with a child placed in their midst as the model of kingdom greatness. The sermon exposes pride as a systemic spiritual disorder native to fallen humanity — present even among the regenerate — and argues from Christ's own words that the kingdom ethic inverts worldly ambition entirely: the greatest is the most humble. Three means of cultivating genuine humility are set out: knowing oneself rightly through Scripture, knowing the person and work of Christ in his self-humiliation, and knowing the glory of God as revealed in texts such as Isaiah 40.
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 Identity of the Son of Man
Matthew 16:13–17 confronts every hearer with the most consequential question ever asked: who is the Son of Man? Working through Christ's question to the disciples, Peter's confession, and the beatitude Jesus pronounces over him, this exposition demonstrates that the title 'Son of Man' points not primarily to Christ's humanity but to Daniel's cosmic ruler given an everlasting dominion, and that Peter's identification of Jesus as 'the Christ, the Son of the living God' is the climax of Matthew's Galilean narrative. The sermon argues that this confession is not the product of human wisdom or religious sensitivity but of the Father's sovereign, gracious act of revelation — and that those who receive it are called to live and die in accordance with it.
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 One Who Justifies the Ungodly
Romans 4:5 announces that God justifies the ungodly — a declaration that seems to violate the standard of Proverbs 17:15, which condemns justifying the wicked. The doctrine of imputation resolves the apparent tension: God reckons, credits, and accounts righteousness to sinners not on the basis of moral transformation but on the basis of Christ's active and passive obedience received through faith alone. Three acts of imputation structure the biblical argument — Adam's sin imputed to his posterity, the elect's sin imputed to Christ, and Christ's righteousness imputed to the elect — establishing that the gospel upholds rather than undermines divine justice. This sermon was preached in the context of a Lord's Supper service, directing communicants away from any sense of personal worthiness and toward the finished work of Christ as the sole ground of acceptance before God.
The Emancipating King
John 8:31–36 confronts two realities simultaneously: the totality of human bondage to sin and the sufficiency of Christ as the sole emancipating King. The sermon expounds five headings — the evidence of true discipleship, its blessing, the false assessment of unbelief, the divine assessment of unbelief, and the divine sovereignty in conquering unbelief — demonstrating that abiding in Christ's word is the evidence, not the cause, of regenerate discipleship. The liberation Christ brings is not social or political but forensic and spiritual: freedom from sin's guilt, power, and condemnation, purchased on Calvary and applied by sovereign grace alone. Hearers are called to know the truth, rejoice in it as the only lasting joy, and rest in the emancipating King rather than in any self-assessed freedom of will.
Divine Chastening and the Peaceable Fruit of Righteousness
Hebrews 12:5–11 confronts a perennial misreading of suffering: that the presence of trials signals the absence of God. Drawing on Proverbs 3:11–12, Deuteronomy 8:5, and the analogy of earthly fatherhood, the passage argues the opposite — divine chastening is the proof of divine sonship, not its contradiction. The sermon works through two categories: the presence of paternal discipline (vv. 5–10a) and its purpose (vv. 10b–11), showing that God's fatherly correction is perfectly calibrated to produce holiness and to conform his people to the image of Christ. The exhortation throughout is to run with endurance, refusing both despair under affliction and a false prosperity-gospel ease, trusting that the painful training yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
The 5th Petition: Forgiveness
What does it mean to pray 'forgive us our debts' when the believer has already been justified by faith alone? This exposition of Matthew 6:12 and 14–15 distinguishes between God's forensic pardon of the sinner and the ongoing filial forgiveness a child of God seeks from his Father in the life of sanctification. Six reasons are given for the necessity of this daily petition — remaining corruption, desire for the smile of God, consciousness of sin's evil, trust in divine mercy, renunciation of self-righteousness, and acknowledgment of Christ's sufficient atonement. The sermon closes by pressing the inseparable link between receiving forgiveness and extending it: an unforgiving spirit that approaches God for pardon is a form of hypocrisy, while those who freely forgive others give evidence that sovereign grace has genuinely worked in their hearts.
The Good Shepherd
John 10:1–21 presents Christ under two complementary images — the door and the Good Shepherd — images that together exclude every other ground of salvation and every other claimant to spiritual authority. The Pharisees of John 9 stand as the type of all false shepherds who steal, kill, and destroy; Christ alone enters through the proper door, knows his sheep by name, and lays down his life as a willing substitute in their place. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is the hinge of the passage: the sheep deserve to die, and the Shepherd dies in their stead, not as a moral example or martyr but as the divinely appointed substitute. The sermon calls the unconverted to come through this door in faith and the converted to rejoice in the intimate, abundant life that union with the Good Shepherd secures.