Scripture
1 John
11 sermons
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 18 - Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
The 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 18 grounds the assurance of salvation not in emotional experience but in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ as the objective foundation, confirmed by the inward evidences of the Spirit's work in regeneration. The chapter distinguishes between the false presumption of unregenerate men and the genuine, infallible assurance available to true believers through faith in Christ. Assurance does not belong to the essence of faith — a true believer may struggle and doubt without thereby forfeiting salvation — yet the confession calls every believer to diligent pursuit of settled assurance as a duty. The subjective evidences of grace (repentance, love for Christ, good works, the Spirit's testimony of adoption) are consequential to the objective ground, never a replacement for it.
The Wondrous Love of God
God is love — not merely that love is one attribute among many, but that love is what God is, a statement grounded in the doctrine of divine simplicity: all that is in God is God. John's argument in 1 John 4:7–11 moves from declaration ('God is love', v.8) to demonstration: the sending of the only begotten Son into the world (v.9) and, supremely, the propitiation Christ accomplished on the cross (v.10), by which the wrath of God due to sinners was not deflected but fully absorbed and satisfied. The Son did not come to procure the Father's love; He came as the supreme manifestation of a love that was antecedent to any love or knowledge we have of God. Those who have been born of God and savingly know Him will therefore love the brethren — and the Lord's Supper proclaimed at this service is the corporate, horizontal expression of that same love.
Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation (2LCF 18)
Assurance of salvation is grounded not in the strength of faith or the quality of obedience but in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ revealed in the gospel. This exposition of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 18 works through the four paragraphs of that chapter: assurance stated, assurance grounded, assurance realized, and assurance disquieted. The objective foundation of assurance is the active and passive obedience of Christ, proclaimed in the gospel and sealed to the believer by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Believers are called to rest upon Christ alone, to attend the ordinary means of grace, and to resist grounding their hope in their own acts of obedience.
Warning of Antichrist
What does the term 'antichrist' in 1 John 2:18–23 actually mean, and why is the popular question 'Who is the Antichrist?' the wrong question to ask? This exposition argues that John is not pointing to a single future eschatological figure but to a multitude of false teachers who deny that Jesus is the Christ and that He came in the flesh — teachers who have already appeared in every generation of the last hour, the entire era between Christ's two Advents. The remedy against antichrist is not prophetic speculation but deep, Spirit-illumined knowledge of the true Christ: His identity as the eternal Son, His unity with the Father, and the Trinitarian relations that ground saving faith. The sermon closes with a direct call to confess Christ, study His person rigorously, and stand ready for His return.
Do Not Love the World
First John 2:15–17 commands believers to refuse love for the world — meaning not the created order but the entire moral system of sinful desire arrayed against God. The sermon works through three headings: the command (v. 15), the character of the world (v. 16), and the end of the world (v. 17). Because the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are passing away while the one who does the will of God abides forever, believers are called to resist sin not to earn standing before God but as the fruit of a new heart already forgiven and already victorious in Christ.
The Christian's Spiritual State
What is the true spiritual state of God's children, regardless of how they feel in the midst of trials and false teaching? Expounding 1 John 2:12–14, this sermon identifies three present realities that belong to every believer: the forgiveness of sins grounded in Christ's propitiatory work, the knowledge of the gospel through union with Him who is from the beginning, and spiritual strength over the evil one because Christ has conquered the devil on behalf of His people. The application is that these are not aspirational goals but fixed heavenly realities already secured in Christ, and they are to be the source of assurance and courage in daily battle against sin and temptation.
The Call to Marvel, Part 1
The imperative 'Behold' in 1 John 3:1 is not a casual glance but a commanded, faith-filled, astonished gaze upon the love of God the Father displayed in adopting guilty sinners as His children. This sermon opens the first of three headings in the verse — the call to marvel, the content of marveling, and the intent behind it — treating in full the call itself and beginning the content (divine love, divine grace, divine fatherhood). The love that is to be beheld is uninfluenced, eternal, sovereign, infinite, immutable, and gracious — attributes rooted not merely in what God does but in what God is, since God does not merely have love but is love. Believers are pressed to behold this love daily, grounding their ongoing pursuit of holiness in the astonishing truth that those who were children of wrath and children of the devil have been sovereignly adopted into the household of God through the perfect work of Christ.
The Call to Marvel, Part 2
What does it mean that God has 'bestowed' on sinners the right to be called children of God? Expounding the first half of 1 John 3:1, this sermon works through the content and intent of the apostle John's call to marvel — tracing divine love, divine grace, and divine fatherhood as the three constituent elements of the Christian's astonishment. The sermon presses the doctrines of adoption and sovereign grace against any scheme of salvation that credits the creature, and closes by showing that the same behold which exhilarates also obligates: children of God are to pursue practical godliness, avail themselves of the ordained means of grace, and walk in cheerful conformity to the law of their Father.
The Privileged Status of the Believer
What does it mean that God calls sinners his children? Expositing 1 John 3:1, this sermon calls believers to stop and behold the sovereign, eternal, and demonstrated love of the Father that has brought those who were by nature children of wrath into the family of God through adoption and new birth. Five dimensions of that love are unfolded — its pre-temporal origin, its historical manifestation at the cross, its eternal duration, its concrete demonstration, and its sovereign bestowal by grace alone — drawn together through parallel reflection on Ephesians 3:14-19. The sermon closes by pressing believers to anchor their Christian health not primarily in activity but in knowing and meditating on the love of God revealed in Scripture.
Amazing Love
What does it mean that God has 'bestowed' his love on believers, calling them children of God? Expounding 1 John 3:1, this sermon traces the love of God across three horizons — before the foundation of the world in eternal election, in redemptive history at the cross, and throughout eternity to come — while pressing the permanence of that love against any notion that it can be forfeited. The sermon closes by drawing from Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3 to show that the believer's calling is not to measure the intensity of his own love for Christ, but to be spiritually strengthened, educated, and saturated in the inexhaustible love Christ has for his people.