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The Lord's Prayer in Gethsemane
What does the agony of Christ in Gethsemane reveal about who He is and what He accomplishes? Expounding Matthew 26:36–46, this sermon traces the Savior's three prayers against the disciples' repeated failure to watch, showing that Christ's soul-sorrow is perfectly consistent with His true humanity, while His unwavering resolve to drink the cup of divine wrath flows from His eternal commitment as covenant mediator. The cup is not metaphor for mere suffering but the concentrated fury of God upon a sinless substitute — which explains both why martyrs die differently than Christ and why the imputation of His active obedience is as necessary as the forgiveness of sins. Believers are called to marvel at His sufficiency, to watch and pray with sobriety about their own weakness, and to rest entirely on the righteousness of Another.
The Thief on the Cross
What does the conversion of a man guilty of insurrection and murder on the day of his execution reveal about the grace of God? This exposition of Luke 23:39–43 traces the marks of sovereign grace in the dying thief — his fear of God, his ownership of personal guilt, his acknowledgment of Christ's sinlessness, and his faith cast entirely upon a crucified Lord — before turning to the willing and able Savior who, in the extremity of his own suffering, assures a notorious criminal of immediate paradise. The sermon argues that justification is by faith alone, apart from works, baptism, or religious knowledge, and that the distinguishing mercy shown to one thief and withheld from the other is the clearest emblem of sovereign grace. Hearers are pressed not to presume on a deathbed conversion but to cast themselves now, by grace, upon the mercy of Christ.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 3
Acts 19:21–41 records Paul's final days in Ephesus, culminating in a riot instigated by the silversmith Demetrius, whose financial interests were threatened by the gospel's advance against idolatry. The passage is examined under four headings: Paul's strategic plans for further ministry, the anger of the silversmiths rooted in profit dressed as piety and patriotism, the confused uproar in the theater, and the intervention of the city clerk whose cool legal reasoning protected the church. The exposition draws out the apologetic purpose of Luke's account — demonstrating that Roman civil authority found no legal fault with Christianity — and closes with an urgent call to forsake every idol and trust the righteousness of Christ alone.
The Victory of Samson at Jawbone Height
Judges 15 recounts Samson's victory over the Philistines at Jawbone Height, but the chapter's deepest scandal is not the enemy outside — it is the cowardice of the covenant tribe of Judah, who bind their own deliverer and surrender him to those he was sent to destroy. This sermon traces three movements in the text: the betrayal by Samson's father-in-law, the treachery of Judah's three thousand men, and the Spirit-empowered defeat of a thousand Philistines with a fresh jawbone. Throughout, Samson emerges as a type of Christ — delivered by his own people into enemy hands, yet vindicated by God — and the lesson pressed upon the hearer is that God's grace delivers a people who neither cry out for deliverance nor deserve it.
The Messiah, The Baptist, And The Kingdom
Matthew 11:2–15 presents three interlocking questions: who is Jesus the Messiah, who is John the Baptist, and what is the nature of the kingdom of heaven? The sermon works through John's imprisoned inquiry — not as rank unbelief but as a struggle with the shape of the messianic agenda — and Christ's answer, which grounds assurance in fulfilled Old Testament prophecy rather than in political deliverance. John is then assessed by Christ himself as more than a prophet, the very subject of Malachi's covenant-messenger prophecy, a man of unflinching courage who stands as a model for preachers and all believers. The enigmatic kingdom-violence saying of verse 12 is read as a positive-negative pairing: the kingdom forcefully advances through proclamation and regeneration, but violent men persist in opposing and plundering it until Christ's enemies are made his footstool.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 2
Acts 19:11–22 presents four movements in Paul's ministry at Ephesus: the unusual miracles God works through him, the humiliating defeat of the itinerant Jewish exorcists who invoke Christ's name without saving faith, the voluntary burning of occult books by Ephesian believers as fruits of genuine repentance, and a Lukan progress report declaring that the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. The sermon argues for cessationism — that the apostolic sign-gifts authenticated the apostles and their message and have ceased with the closing of the canon — while exposing the fraudulence of those who imitate them today. Believers are called to examine all teachers by Scripture, to expect progressive fruits of repentance throughout the Christian life, and to take confident hope from the unstoppable advance of the gospel.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 1
Acts 19:1–10 opens Paul's extended ministry in Ephesus on the third missionary journey. The sermon works through three exegetical questions: the identity of the disciples Paul encounters (argued to be genuine Christian believers, not pre-Christian inquirers), the relationship between John's baptism and Christian baptism (argued to be one and the same ordinance), and the significance of the Spirit's coming with tongues and prophecy (argued to be a salvation-historical confirmation of Pentecost's fulfillment, not a normative pattern for all believers). The exposition concludes by drawing out Paul's ministry at the school of Tyrannus as a model of bold, reasoned, expositional gospel preaching that God uses to spread the word across an entire province.
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 Ministry of Apollos
Acts 18:24–28 introduces Apollos of Alexandria as a case study in what faithful gospel ministry requires. Six marks characterize this man — eloquence grounded in scriptural mastery, accurate instruction in the way of the Lord, fervency of spirit governed by knowledge, precise teaching, bold proclamation, and humble openness to correction — and these same marks should shape the church's prayers for and training of men for public ministry. Luke's phrase 'believed through grace' discloses the ordo salutis: saving faith is itself the gift of God's sovereign grace to dead sinners. The sermon closes by pressing both the need for trained, bold preachers and the equally urgent need for obedient hearers, applying the gospel of justification by faith alone to any who have not yet come to Christ.
The Lord's Instruction on Prayer
Matthew 6:5–13 contains Jesus' instruction on three aspects of prayer that the disciples must get right: the motivation that drives them to the closet, the manner they adopt when they arrive, and the model that frames their petitions. The sermon works through each in turn, contrasting godly prayer with the exhibitionism of the hypocrite and the manipulative vain repetition of the heathen — illustrated at length from the contest on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. It closes with eight reasons why the sovereignty of God, far from making prayer unnecessary, is the very ground on which the believer brings every petition in faith.
Psalm 46
Psalm 46 presents God as the impenetrable refuge and omnipotent strength of His people in the midst of natural catastrophe, national upheaval, and personal affliction. The study works through four heads: the assurance of God's presence (vv. 1, 7, 11), the demonstration of God's power (vv. 2–6), the invitation to behold God's works (vv. 8–9), and the command to rest in God's sovereignty (v. 10). Covenant theology is not merely a theoretical construct but the very ground of the believer's comfort — the God of Jacob is a covenant-keeping God whose purposes cannot be frustrated by any earthly power. The congregation is called to the practical discipline of theology proper: to know God deeply so that the soul is stabilized, not paralyzed, in times of trouble.
Man's Responsibility and Rejection of Christ
Human responsibility before God stands alongside divine sovereignty — neither cancels the other. Drawing on Ezekiel 33, Psalm 2, Isaiah 45 and 55, and the gospel invitations of Christ, this address confronts the perennial tendency of sinners to evade accountability by deflecting blame onto circumstances, other people, or divine predestination itself. The hearer is called to abandon every such evasion, acknowledge personal guilt before the moral Governor of the universe, and flee to King Jesus Christ for mercy, grace, and peace with God.
The Christian Husband/Father
The duties of the Christian husband and father are examined through the book of Proverbs, with Proverbs 4:1–9 as the anchor text and wide-ranging support from Deuteronomy and the New Testament. The sermon sets forth the godly husband as one who fears the Lord, deals with sin, provides for his household, protects his wife, communicates faithfully, and maintains sexual purity. The Christian father is then treated under four heads — being a godly man, loving his children, instructing them in word and life, and disciplining them with both verbal correction and, when necessary, the rod — all exercised in love rather than anger or indulgence. The closing application calls fathers to confess sin before their households, pray for and preach law and gospel to their children, and rest not in their own performance but in the imputed righteousness of Christ.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 9
Acts 18:12–28 traces the close of Paul's second missionary journey through three episodes: his trial before the Roman proconsul Gallio, his departure from Corinth back to Antioch, and a preview of the Alexandrian Jewish teacher Apollos. The exposition treats Gallio's dismissal of the Jewish charge against Paul as a model of properly bounded civil authority — punishing wrongdoing, not regulating theology — while also exposing Gallio's failure to protect Sosthenes as a departure from impartial justice. Paul's continued residence in Corinth after the hearing illustrates faith in the sustaining promises of Christ, and the sermon closes with a call to pray for faithful gospel preachers and an obedient people who respond to their ministry.
Exodus 1
Exodus 1 traces the rapid shift from Israel's prosperity under Joseph to their brutal subjugation under a new Pharaoh who knew nothing of the covenant arrangement his predecessors had honored. The chapter moves in two broad movements: the origin of the oppression in the multiplication of Israel, which paradoxically fulfilled God's Abrahamic promise of seed and land, and the gravity of that oppression as Pharaoh escalated from forced labor to state-sponsored infanticide. The defiance of the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, grounded in the fear of God rather than the fear of man, illustrates the Reformed conviction that civil obedience finds its limit where God's law begins. The sermon closes by drawing three contemporary applications: vigilance against the gradual escalation of tyranny, confidence in the sovereign providence of God who keeps his covenant promises even through suffering, and the call to Spirit-wrought courage that refuses to silently deny Christ.
The Rejection of Heretics
Titus 3:9–15 closes Paul's letter to Titus with a sharp command to avoid unprofitable disputes and to reject the divisive man — a command the broader pastoral epistles and the apostolic witness consistently reinforce. The sermon distinguishes heresy from damnable heresy, identifying denial of the Trinity, the hypostatic union, and justification by faith alone as the errors that condemn, while pressing the church not to confuse the struggling saint with the proud, self-serving false teacher. Church discipline for doctrinal error is treated with the same gravity as discipline for moral sin, and the concluding emphasis on good works is grounded in the confession that such works are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith, not the grounds of justification.
CLIP: Man's Responsibility and Rejection of Christ
Human responsibility before God does not disappear behind divine sovereignty. Drawing from Acts 18, Ezekiel 33, and Psalm 2, this clip exposes the error of using God's sovereign election as a shield against personal accountability for rejecting Christ. The call is direct: sinners must own their rebellion, lay down their weapons against God, and come to Christ who freely offers rest, water, milk, and wine to all who are weary and thirsty.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 8
Acts 18:1–11 records Paul's arrival and eighteen-month ministry in Corinth, one of the most morally degenerate cities of the ancient world. The sermon traces Paul's gospel strategy — reasoning in the synagogue, enduring Jewish opposition, and turning to the Gentiles — before dwelling on Christ's night vision to Paul: 'Do not be afraid, for I have many people in this city.' The doctrine of election explains how Christ could speak with certainty of many yet-unconverted people awaiting the call; the gospel, not moral reform or civil intervention, is the sole instrument for transforming a corrupt culture. The sermon closes with a call to pray for and to be men who preach Christ and Him crucified, stand under opposition, persevere in weakness, and believe the promise that Christ is present with His church in the great commission.
Introduction to the Book of Exodus
The book of Exodus is not a standalone document but the second movement of the Pentateuch, continuing the story of the covenant people from Genesis through to their deliverance from Egypt, the giving of the law at Sinai, and the construction of the tabernacle. This introductory study surveys the book's structure through three themes — deliverance, demand, and dwelling — and traces how each anticipates Christ: Moses as covenant mediator prefiguring the greater Mediator, the Passover lamb pointing to the sacrifice of Christ, and the tabernacle foreshadowing the incarnation. The threefold division of God's law (moral, judicial, ceremonial) is explained with reference to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, with particular attention to why the moral law remains perpetually binding while the judicial and ceremonial laws have expired. The study closes by applying the Immanuel principle — that God redeems his people in order to commune with them — to the corporate worship of the New Covenant church.
The Appearance of the Love of God
Titus 3:4–8 sets the merciful act of divine salvation against the backdrop of human depravity, and this exposition works through that contrast under three heads: the appearance of God's love in verse 4, the application of God's grace in verses 5–7, and the affirmation of God's word in verse 8. The passage is shown to teach that salvation originates entirely in God's kindness and mercy — not in works done before or after conversion — applied through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, and sealed by justification by grace through faith. The sermon closes by pressing the pastoral logic of verse 8: it is precisely the constant preaching of justification by grace, not moralistic exhortation, that empowers the life of good works among God's people.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 7
Paul's sermon at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22–34) confronts Athenian idolatry by grounding the Christian worldview in the doctrines of creation, providence, and judgment. He establishes the Creator-creature distinction against both Epicurean deism and Stoic pantheism, exposes the guilt of all men through natural revelation and their own poets, and calls all men everywhere to repentance because God has appointed both a day of judgment and its judge — the resurrected Christ. The sermon closes by applying the abiding prohibition of idolatry from the Decalogue to contemporary life, pressing hearers toward faith in Christ as the only corrective to the idolatry that already invites God's temporal and eternal judgment.
Genesis 50
Genesis 50 closes the book of Genesis with the deaths of Jacob and Joseph, and with Joseph's brothers at last seeking the forgiveness they had long withheld. The sermon traces three movements in the chapter — Jacob's burial in Canaan, the reassurance Joseph gives his fearful brothers, and Joseph's dying charge to carry his bones out of Egypt — and shows how each movement is anchored in the covenant faithfulness of God. Central to the exposition is Genesis 50:20, treated as the Old Testament counterpart to Romans 8:28: God overrules the wickedness of men not despite His goodness and omnipotence but because of them, working all things toward His glory and the good of His people. Hearers are called to confess sin honestly, forgive as they have been forgiven, and rest in the God whose promises — from Genesis 3:15 to the exodus and beyond — never fail.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 6
Acts 17:16–21 presents the Apostle Paul in Athens, a city saturated with idolatry and celebrated for its philosophical culture. The sermon traces three movements in this brief passage: Paul's provocation of spirit at the sight of rampant idolatry, his deliberate response of preaching Christ in both the synagogue and the public marketplace, and his engagement with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who summon him to the Areopagus. Paul's example establishes that righteous anger at the transgression of the First and Second Commandments, mingled with grief and compassion, is a mark of God's people — and that the fitting response to such provocation is not silence but the proclamation of Jesus and the resurrection.
The Christian's Duty toward Non-Christians
Titus 3:1–3 sets out the Christian's duty toward both civil government and all people outside the church. The sermon traces the divine origin of civil government from Genesis 9 through Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, arguing from Francis Turretin's two-kingdom framework that Christ rules both the civil and spiritual spheres, and that the civil state therefore has no authority to command the church as church. Verse 3's catalogue of pre-conversion vices — foolishness, disobedience, malice, hatred — is read as a theological reason for patient, peaceable, and humble conduct toward non-Christians: believers were once exactly what they now struggle to bear in others, and those others may yet become objects of the same sovereign grace.
Genesis 49
Genesis 49 presents Jacob's deathbed blessings and prophetic declarations over each of the twelve tribes of Israel, reaching its theological apex in the Shiloh prophecy of verses 8–12, which identifies the tribe of Judah as the royal line from which Messiah will come. The scepter's promised continuity in Judah until 'Shiloh comes' is shown to anticipate not only David's dynasty but the obedience of all peoples — Jew and Gentile — to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Jacob's closing instructions concerning his burial in the cave of Machpelah reaffirm Israel's legal title to the promised land and underscore that Egypt is only a sojourn, not a destiny. The chapter closes with a call to confidence in God grounded in a lifetime of witnessed divine faithfulness, expressed in Jacob's peaceful death and his declaration, 'I have waited for your salvation, O Lord.'
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 5
Acts 17:10–15 records the ministry and departure of Paul and Silas at Berea, where the Jewish hearers were commended as 'more noble-minded' than those in Thessalonica because they received the word with readiness and examined the Scriptures daily to verify Paul's proclamation of Jesus as the Christ. The sermon expounds three movements in the text — the perseverance of the missionaries, the tenacity of unbelieving opposition, and the noble-mindedness of the Bereans — and draws sustained application from Nehemiah 8 and the parable of the sower in Luke 8 on the right reception of God's word. The Berean example is pressed as a standing model for the church: Scripture is sufficient and self-evidencing, and the truth has nothing to hide and everything to gain by investigation. Hearers are exhorted to come to the word with expectancy, attentiveness, reverence, and responsiveness, since faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
The Manifestation of God's Grace
Titus 2:11–15 presents God's grace not merely as the ground of salvation but as the very teacher of holy living. This exposition traces four aspects of grace in the passage: its appearance in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ, its instruction toward denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts and pursuit of sober, righteous, and godly life, its demonstration in the deity of the returning Christ and the definite redemption he accomplished, and its proclamation through authoritative gospel ministry. The controlling hermeneutical key is the grammatical and theological priority of the indicative over the imperative: believers obey not in order to be saved but because they have been saved, and inverting that order collapses the gospel into moralism.
Genesis 48:1-22
Genesis 48 records Jacob's adoption of Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as tribal heads within Israel, and his deliberate bestowal of the greater blessing on the younger Ephraim — a pattern running throughout Genesis that the covenant blessings are dispensed not by birth order but by sovereign divine election. The chapter's vocabulary of "firstborn" is examined in light of Colossians 1:15, demonstrating that the term denotes preeminence rather than creaturely origin, directly refuting the Arian Christology of Jehovah's Witnesses. Jacob's deathbed testimony — praising God who fed him all his life and whose Angel redeemed him from all evil — is held up as a model for how the people of God should rehearse divine faithfulness at the close of life.
Titus 2:7 - Reverence and Humour in Preaching
Titus 2:7 calls the preacher to manifest dignity and gravity (Greek: semnotes) in the proclamation of the word. This brief exposition distinguishes judicious, fitting humor — illustrated from Spurgeon, Elijah's mockery of Baal's prophets, and Christ's condemnation of the Pharisees — from the coarse, shock-value language that has characterised certain celebrity preachers, treating reverence in preaching as a positive imperative with direct application to contemporary ministry.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 4
Acts 16:35–17:9 records Paul's departure from Philippi and his gospel ministry in Thessalonica on the second missionary journey. The passage presents two interlocking lessons: Paul's principled invocation of his Roman citizenship to protect the integrity of gospel ministry, and his rigorous expository method of reasoning, explaining, and demonstrating from the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ who had to suffer and rise. The sermon draws out three grounds on which a Christian may lawfully invoke civil rights — innocence, governmental accountability, and future precedent — while insisting that the efficient power behind every conversion is the sovereign grace of God through the Holy Spirit, not the eloquence of the preacher. Hearers are called to imitate the relentless faithfulness of Paul, Silas, and Jason, and to proclaim the kingship of Jesus regardless of civil hostility.