Scripture
Psalm
82 sermons
Our Response to Our Shepherd
Psalm 23 sets before the believer not merely a catalogue of divine blessings but a model of how those blessings ought to shape the believer's whole inner and outer life. Drawing from David's own experiential response to his blessedness, this exposition identifies four corresponding responses the Lord's sheep must cultivate: strong confidence in God amid every trial and dark valley, active praise that declares truth about God with joy and adoration, genuine delight in God's presence expressed in real fellowship with him, and obedient following in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. The sermon closes with a direct call to the unconverted to come to their senses and trust the Good Shepherd who laid down his life to rescue, forgive, and transform sinners.
A Psalm of the Cross
Psalm 22 is a prophetic psalm of David that transcends David's own experience to describe with precision the suffering, death, and exaltation of the Messiah. The sermon examines the cry of dereliction ('My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?') with theological care, rejecting the notion that the Father abandoned the Son in any way that ruptured the Trinity or dissolved the hypostatic union, and instead grounding the forsakenness in the Son's substitutionary bearing of the wrath due his people. Three features of Messianic confidence sustain Christ through his ordeal — the holiness of God, the past faithfulness of God, and the invoked presence of God — and the congregation is called to meet their own trials with the same theological ballast that sustained the Savior on the cross.
The Majestic Name
Psalm 8 frames the majestic name of God as the beginning and end of all true praise, confronting the reader with the infinite distance between Creator and creature while simultaneously revealing the astonishing condescension of God in both creation and redemption. The sermon works through three movements: God's majestic name proclaimed in creation and defended through weakness (vv. 1–2), God's mindfulness of an infinitesimal humanity (vv. 3–5), and God's appointment of man to vice-regential dominion (vv. 6–9). Each movement is shown to find its ultimate fulfilment in the Lord Jesus Christ — the one who, as the last Adam, was made a little lower than the angels to purchase new creation for his people. The sermon closes with a call to study the attributes of God as the antidote to idolatry, and with a direct appeal to unbelievers to look to Christ, in whom Psalm 8 is fully realised.
The King's Wedding
Psalm 45 is a royal wedding psalm that the New Testament applies directly to Christ, identifying the king as God incarnate whose throne is forever. This sermon works through four movements: the psalmist's overflowing intention, the glory and divine-human person of the king, the call for the bride to forsake all competing allegiances, and the declaration of the king's everlasting dominion. The congregation is pressed to enter the Lord's Supper — and every Lord's Day gathering — with the gladness and rejoicing that befits a bride coming into the presence of the one who is fairer than the sons of men.
Thanksgiving for the Mercy of God
Psalm 103 calls the redeemed sinner to bless God with the totality of his being, and to resist the ingrained tendency to forget the Lord's benefits. This expository sermon works through the psalm's three movements: David's self-directed reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons that fuel that blessing — the gifts received, their recipients, and above all the character of the Giver whose mercy is infinite, thorough, tender, and enduring (vv. 3–18) — and the recognition of God's sovereign kingdom that widens the summons to bless into a universal chorus (vv. 19–22). The sermon closes with five applications showing that thanksgiving is not an annual posture but the daily disposition of every soul that has tasted the mercy of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Most Important Question for Young People
Psalm 119:9 poses what the sermon calls the most important question for young people: 'How can a young man cleanse his way?' Before answering, the text forces an honest reckoning with the doctrine of total depravity and total inability — the way stands in need of cleansing precisely because every faculty of human nature is corrupted by the fall in Adam, and no sinner can commend himself to God apart from sovereign grace. The answer the psalmist gives, 'by taking heed according to Your Word,' encompasses both initial justification by grace through faith in Christ and ongoing sanctification by the same Word and Spirit. Parents and young people alike are exhorted to engage Scripture with the whole heart — obeying, memorizing, meditating, declaring, and delighting in it — as the only path to a cleansed way.
God and Man in the 107th Psalm, Part 1
Psalm 107:1–9 opens with a summons — 'Oh, give thanks to the Lord' — that exposes a perennial failure of fallen humanity: thanklessness toward a God of inexhaustible mercy. This sermon works through two headings from the psalm: the call to thanksgiving and the content of that thanksgiving, showing that gratitude is not an optional sentiment but the defining disposition of the redeemed, rooted in God's character and displayed across all of life — blessing, affliction, law, and gospel. The sermon closes with practical means for cultivating thankfulness: corporate worship, prayer, Scripture, and the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
The Enthronement of the Priest-King
Psalm 110, the most-quoted Old Testament verse in the New Testament, sets forth the Messiah under three aspects: divine king enthroned at the right hand of Yahweh, eternal priest after the order of Melchizedek, and conquering warrior who shatters every enemy of God. The sermon argues that Christ's enthronement at the ascension inaugurates a reign that cannot fail, grounded in the unbreakable oath of the covenant of redemption, and that his priestly office is inseparable from his role as both offerer and offering — the seed of the woman crushed on Golgotha so that he might crush the serpent. The congregation is called to hold this warrior-king vision without embarrassment, to grieve sin without shock at its prevalence, and to press forward as a willing people in the day of his power.
The Divine Refuge
Psalm 46 proclaims God as the divine refuge of His covenant people in the midst of cosmic upheaval, national crisis, and personal trial. The sermon works through the psalm's four movements: the declaration of God's presence, the contrast between earthly chaos and divine stability, the invitation to behold God's redemptive works in Scripture, and the command to be still in God's sovereignty. The central comfort is covenantal: because Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, has bound Himself to His people in the covenant of grace, no trial, calamity, or fear can unseat Him from His throne or separate His people from His care. Believers are called to meet their sorrows not with fretting but with a deepening knowledge of God, which is itself the appointed means of comfort and strength.
The Blessing of Knowing God
Psalm 91:1–2 presents four distinct names for God — El Elyon (Most High), El Shaddai (Almighty), Jehovah (LORD), and Elohim — each disclosing a different facet of the divine character: absolute supremacy, all-sufficiency, covenant faithfulness and redemptive love, and creative power. The sermon argues that knowing God by these names is the believer's chief comfort and greatest need in a world of rival truth-claims, competing gods, and the constant assault of the world, the flesh, and the devil upon intimate fellowship with him. The application presses every hearer — especially those who have grown up in Christian homes without personal faith — to personal repentance and trust in Christ, so that they may say with the psalmist, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him I will trust.'
Prayer for Gospel Missions
Psalm 67 is a prayer for gospel missions structured around six petitions — three for the church and three for the world — and a two-fold promise of temporal and spiritual blessing. The church's mission to the nations flows necessarily from her own reception of divine mercy, blessing, and the manifest presence of God; a church that has not received these cannot rightly propagate them. The sermon argues that worship is the ultimate end of missions and evangelism, which are themselves the means by which God populates eternity with worshippers from every nation. Believers are exhorted to pray with this psalm regularly, interceding for the missionary enterprise and for the extension of Christ's kingdom to the uttermost parts of the earth.
The Glory of Christ
Psalm 45 is a royal wedding song that the New Testament explicitly applies to the Lord Jesus Christ, and this expository meditation works through its portrait of the glory of the Savior under three headings: His person as the God-Man, His attributes, and His saving works. The sermon traces how the psalmist's overflowing heart moves from the beauty and eloquence of Christ, through His might, blessedness, glory, majesty, and righteousness, to His work as warrior King riding in truth and righteousness for His church. The church is called to respond to so glorious a Savior with wholehearted worship, abandonment of competing loyalties, and the endurance of faith — looking unto Jesus as the author and finisher of faith, not unto one's own performance.
Out of the Depths
Psalm 130:3–4 sets in sharp relief the three movements of redemptive grace: strict justice, pardoning mercy, and gospel fear. The psalmist's cry 'out of the depths' arises from a confrontation with the holiness of God and the reality of personal sin — the same confrontation Paul expounds in Romans 1–3, where every mouth is stopped before God and no flesh is justified by the deeds of the law. Yet the same God who marks iniquity has provided full and free forgiveness through the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone, so that those pardoned would be moved not to flee from God in terror but to fear, revere, and worship Him.
Thanksgiving for the Mercy of God
Psalm 103 calls every redeemed soul to deliberate, whole-hearted praise — not as a passive emotion but as a disciplined act of self-address rooted in theological memory. The sermon works through three movements: the reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons to bless God both individually and corporately (vv. 3–18), and the universal summons extending that call to angels and all creation (vv. 19–22). Forgiveness of all iniquities stands at the head of the list of benefits, and every temporal and spiritual blessing flows from a God whose mercy is not transient like the grass of the field but everlasting to everlasting. The psalm, rightly applied in the new-covenant believer's life, keeps one near the cross, corrects the tendency toward practical atheism, and transforms ingratitude into genuine thanksgiving.
Do You Like Going to Church?
Psalm 95 is a 'provocation to worship' — a divinely inspired summons calling God's covenant people to approach the Lord with joyful, thankful, and humble adoration. The sermon works through four movements in the psalm: the emphatic invitation to worship, the reasons grounded in God's singular greatness, creative sovereignty, and redeeming love, the posture of humility and divine recognition that worship requires, and the solemn warning against the hardness of heart that marked the wilderness generation. Christians are called to view the gathered assembly not as a weariness but as the nearest foretaste of heaven, marked by retrospective recollection of Christ's saving work and forward-looking confidence in the covenant God's sure promises.
A Psalm of Comfort
Psalm 46 presents God as the impenetrable refuge and omnipotent strength of his covenant people — not by promising a trial-free life, but by declaring that the Divine Warrior and God of Jacob remains sovereign over every earthly catastrophe, political upheaval, and spiritual assault. The sermon traces four movements in the psalm: a statement of God's character to comfort, a contrast between earthly chaos and divine sovereignty to instruct, an invitation to behold God's works, and a command to be still and know that he is God. The practical summons is to resist paralysis and fear by cultivating theology proper — studying the character of God — because a revelation of God's character and glory is the best remedy for any trial.
The Most Important Question
Psalm 119:9 asks what is in fact the most important question any person can face: how can a sinner cleanse his way before a holy God? The sermon establishes total depravity as the unavoidable presupposition of the question — every person, from infancy, stands in need of cleansing — before setting forth the Word of God as God's own appointed answer, which furnishes both justification through the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith alone and ongoing sanctification by the Spirit through that same Word. Drawing on the psalmist's own eightfold example in verses 9–16, the sermon calls hearers to obedience, whole-hearted seeking, Scripture memorization, dependence on divine instruction, witness, joy, meditation, and holy determination — all while ending where the psalm ends: casting oneself as a straying sheep upon the seeking, saving grace of God in Christ.
The Missionary Enterprise
Psalm 67 is a missionary psalm that moves from petitions for the church to petitions for the world, grounding the entire missionary enterprise in the mercy, blessing, and presence of God. The psalmist prays first that God's people would know his mercy and communion so that they might then be a vehicle for publishing his salvation to the nations. Worship — not missions itself — is the ultimate end of gospel proclamation, for missions is a temporary necessity that ceases when the redeemed fall before the throne. The sermon calls the church to lift its eyes to the grand promises of Scripture, to pray earnestly for the nations, and to go forth in the authority and presence of the risen Christ.
The Beauty of Christ
Psalm 45 is a royal love song that the New Testament, in Hebrews 1:8, applies directly to the Lord Jesus Christ as the eternal God-man. The sermon works through four observations: the beauty of the Savior as stated by the psalmist, the beauty of his person as both fully human and fully divine, the beauty of his attributes or perfections, and the beauty of his works in advancing his kingdom. The closing application presses both believer and unbeliever: the same arrows of Christ's word that subdue sinners to saving faith will, for the impenitent, become the instrument of final judgment — the only question is whether one falls under him now in submission or later in condemnation.
The King and the Company of Fools
Psalm 2 confronts the reader with the absolute folly of humanity's rebellion against the sovereign Lord and His Christ. The psalm moves through three movements: the arrogant rebellion of the nations who reject God's law and Christ's rule, the awesome response of God who laughs from His throne and installs His King on Zion, and the sobering instruction that calls all people — rulers and subjects alike — to kiss the Son before His wrath is fully kindled. The sermon presses the application in two directions: unbelievers are called to cease their vain rebellion and trust in Christ, while believers are called to draw deep confidence from the certainty that He who sits in the heavens shall laugh at every company of fools arrayed against His kingdom.
Thanksgiving for God's Mercy
Psalm 103 grounds thanksgiving not in comfortable circumstances but in the character and acts of God toward sinners — his pardoning of iniquity, his redemption from destruction, and his everlasting mercy toward those who fear him. Working through David's psalm, this exposition unfolds three movements: a deliberate self-exhortation to bless God, a catalog of reasons to bless him spanning personal and corporate blessings, and a universal summons calling angels and all creation to join in praise. The sermon presses the hearer to recognize that forgetting God's benefits breeds apostasy, while rehearsing them — above all the forgiveness secured at the cross — is the only path to genuine, intelligent worship.
Proclaiming, Recollecting, Redeemed, Satisfied
Psalm 107:1–9, 43 calls the redeemed to give thanks to God whose mercy endures forever, and this sermon expounds that call under three overlapping movements: proclamation, recollection, and satisfaction. Christians are a verbal people who declare the praises of their Redeemer (1 Pet. 2:9), a recollecting people who survey redemptive history with 'historical retrospect,' and a people whose every hunger and thirst is wholly and finally satisfied in Christ alone. The sermon is preached in the context of the Lord's Supper, whose dual function — proclaiming Christ's death and remembering his atoning work — runs as a thread through each point. The closing summons addresses the unconverted directly: wisdom is found not in the passing pleasures of sin but in believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.