Theological term
Active Obedience
420 sermons · All terms
The Worship of God in Private Families
Family worship — the regular practice of reading Scripture, praying, and singing with one's household — is grounded in a consistent biblical pattern running from Abraham in Genesis 18 through the Apostle Paul's commands in Ephesians 6. This topical survey traces the biblical warrant for family worship through key Old Testament figures and texts, examines the elements that should mark it, and presses the duty home with both positive examples and negative warnings. Parents and grandparents are called to diligent, consistent instruction of their children in law and gospel, with the sobering reminder that neglect — not busyness — is the real obstacle.
The Need for Due Process
Proverbs 18:17 establishes that the first to state a case seems right until cross-examination occurs — a principle with profound implications for personal conduct, church life, and civil justice. This sermon expounds that verse alongside Deuteronomy 19:15–21 and Deuteronomy 25:1–3 to demonstrate that due process — including cross-examination, the two-or-three-witness rule, proportionate punishment, and the preservation of human dignity — is grounded in the law of God, not in modern legal convention. The Old Testament judicial laws are shown to protect the accused, deter false witness, and honor image-bearers even in their guilt. The sermon closes with a Christological application: Psalm 15 describes the perfectly law-keeping Mediator, and union with him by grace through faith is the only ground on which any person stands before God.
The Dedication of the Temple
Solomon's dedicatory prayer in 1 Kings 8:22–53 is examined as a model of theological depth and dependent petition. The prayer opens by rehearsing God's incomparability, faithfulness, transcendence, and imminence — attributes that ground every request that follows. Six petitions structured around covenant curse and restoration (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28) demonstrate that forgiveness is the central burden of the prayer, and that affliction is a designed instrument for drawing God's people back to dependence on Him. Practical applications press the congregation toward reverent worship, heart-obedience rooted in justification by Christ's righteousness alone, daily confession of sin, and confidence in God's unfailing covenant fidelity.
The Glory of the Father and the Son
John 17:1–5 opens Christ's high priestly prayer with a petition that the Father glorify the Son so that the Son may glorify the Father — a reciprocal glorification whose goal is the glory of God Most High. The sermon works through three grounds for this petition: the salvation of the elect given to the Son in the covenant of redemption, the accomplishment of Christ's active and passive obedience as the basis of justification, and the restoration of the Son's pre-incarnate glory. The full deity of Christ is defended against subordinationist readings by surveying New Testament texts where the title theos is applied directly to Jesus, and the sermon closes with the call to pursue the knowledge of God and Christ as the very essence of eternal life — through Scripture reading, prayer, and faithful attendance upon the means of grace.
The Male Child and the Dragon
Revelation 12 presents Christ as the decisive victor over Satan, tracing the dragon's fourfold defeat from the incarnation through the casting out of heaven to his continuing failed campaigns against the church. The chapter is read through the lens of Genesis 3:15 and its fulfillment in Christ's crosswork: the male child escapes the serpent's grasp, is caught up to God's throne, and the accuser is cast down by virtue of Calvary. Satan's ongoing rage against the church is not a sign of his power but of his desperation — a conquered enemy making war against those he cannot ultimately destroy. The people of God are called to understand that suffering under satanic opposition identifies them with Christ's own suffering and conforms them to his image, not to despair but to faith in the one who has already overcome.
The Arrest of Peter and John
The arrest of Peter and John in Acts 4:1–4 is not a setback to the mission of Christ but an instrument of its advance. The religious leaders of Israel — Sadducees especially — are provoked by the apostolic proclamation of resurrection in Jesus, yet even as the preachers are jailed, the Word of God prevails and the number of believers swells to five thousand. The sermon draws out from this episode the sovereignty of Christ over his church, the doctrine of justification by faith alone secured by Christ's active and passive obedience, and the pattern of suffering through which the gospel spreads. The hearer is called to present faithfulness as the only credible preparation for future persecution, and to trust that what is preached in chains cannot itself be chained.
The Sermon in Solomon's Porch, Part 2
Peter's sermon in Solomon's Porch confronts Jerusalem sinners with the necessity of repentance, pressing three realities upon them: their ignorance was willful, not innocent; God's sovereign providence overruled even their wickedness in crucifying Christ to fulfill all that the prophets foretold; and the call to repent and turn carries with it the promised blessings of sins blotted out, times of refreshing from the Lord's presence, and the indwelling presence of Christ by Spirit and Word until the restoration of all things. The exposition of Acts 3:17–21 drives toward a direct appeal: those burdened with sin must repent and turn to Christ, the only one in whom those blessings are found.
Free Grace Baptist Church - June 13, 2018 Bible Study
Genesis 3:1–13 records the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, events that form the theological foundation for the whole of redemptive history. The sermon traces three movements: the serpent's subtle assault on the veracity, goodness, and security of God in verses 1–5; the fall itself and its immediate consequences in verses 6–7; and God's gracious interrogation of the guilty pair in verses 8–13. The anatomy of temptation displayed in Eden — doubt cast on God's word, denial of divine sanctions, and the lure of autonomous wisdom — is the same pattern by which sin operates in every generation, making a firm grip on Scripture the believer's only sufficient defense.
Genesis 2:15-17
Genesis 2:15–17 presents Adam not merely as a gardener but as a priest-guardian of a garden-temple, placed under a divine probation that Reformed theology identifies as the Covenant of Works. The study defends the presence of a genuine covenant in this passage despite the absence of the word 'covenant,' marshalling the elements of covenant structure, the covenantal name Yahweh Elohim, and later biblical commentary in Hosea 6:7, Isaiah 24, and Romans 5. The argument presses to a pointed soteriological conclusion: a deficient understanding of the Covenant of Works predictably produces a deficient understanding of the Covenant of Grace, opening the door to the error of faith plus works in justification. The remedy is to see the Covenant of Grace as the Covenant of Works kept for sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ, whose active and passive obedience is imputed to all who believe.
The Great Commission, Part 3
Matthew 28:19 commands that disciples be baptized into the singular name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — a text that stands as one of Scripture's clearest witnesses to the doctrine of the Trinity. This sermon works through the baptismal formula to establish what the one name and three persons require the Christian to confess: one divine essence, three distinct subsistences, free from the errors of tritheism, modalism, and subordinationism. The active obedience of Christ is exposited as the ground of the righteousness imputed to sinners in justification, showing that the gospel itself is inseparable from a right doctrine of God. The congregation is urged to study the confession's chapters on theology proper and Christology, and to hold the doctrine of the Trinity as a white-knuckle conviction worth dying for.
Free Grace Baptist Church - January 21, 2018 PM
James 3:1-12 presents not a program for tongue improvement but a sustained lament over the tongue's untamable, poisonous, and inconsistent nature. The passage warns that no man, however disciplined, can fully bridle his speech — a recognition meant to cast the believer upon sovereign grace rather than upon personal resolve. The sermon moves through three main headings: the warning concerning teachers and universal sinfulness, the power of the tongue illustrated through bits, rudders, and fire, and the impossibility of human self-control over speech. The practical conclusion grounds tongue-discipline in justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, the fear of God, self-examination, and prayer — and closes with the imputed active obedience of Christ as the believer's only ultimate hope before a God who will call every idle word to account.
I Am the Gate of the Sheep
How does a sinner enter into heaven? John 10:7–10 presents Christ's self-declaration 'I am the door of the sheep' as the exclusive answer to that question, set against the backdrop of Israel's false shepherds (Ezekiel 34; Jeremiah 23) and the Pharisees who taught salvation by works. The sermon expounds two contrasting realities: the false entrance into heaven pursued by thieves and imposters who climb in by their own merits, and the right entrance secured by Christ alone — the one gate through whom his elect sheep receive salvation, covenant security, and everlasting pasture. The application presses both the unbeliever to look to Christ as the only narrow way and the believer to rest in the security and nourishment that the Good Shepherd provides for all who enter through him.
The Angelic Word & Song
What did the angels announce to the shepherds on the night of Christ's birth, and why does it matter for sinners today? Expounding Luke 2:10–14, this sermon traces the angelic word and the angelic song under two headings, showing that the announcement is one of greatest significance, greatest joy, universal scope, and divine salvation — a Savior who is Christ the Lord, born in fulfillment of Old Testament promise (2 Samuel 7, Isaiah 9:6, Micah 5:2) and condescending from infinite glory to a feed trough. The sermon calls hearers to hasten their gaze upon this Christ, to hitch the joy of their lives to the triune God and His gospel alone, and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for everlasting life.
The Three-Fold Exhortation
Hebrews 10:19–25 sets forth a two-fold foundation and a three-fold exhortation for corporate Christian life. The foundation is Christ's blood-purchased boldness of access into the holiest and His abiding high-priestly intercession — both of which make the old-covenant sacrificial system not merely obsolete but inferior in kind, not degree. From that foundation the apostle issues three commands: draw near with a true heart in full assurance, hold fast the confession of hope without wavering, and (deferred to a subsequent sermon) consider one another to stir up love and good works. The sermon presses hearers to root their weekly confidence not in the quality of their obedience but in the dignity of Christ's person and the virtue of His once-for-all sacrifice.
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 26, 2017 AM
Acts 3:11–15 presents the Apostle Peter's proclamation of Jesus Christ to a crowd of Israelites gathered at Solomon's Porch, astonished at the healing of a man lame from birth. The sermon examines three movements in Peter's address: the occasion for preaching Christ (the healing and the crowd's amazement), the correcting prologue (Peter redirecting attention from the miracle and its instruments to the God of the miracle), and the preaching of Christ itself, which identifies the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the one who glorified his servant Jesus — the fulfillment of Isaiah's servant prophecies — and incriminates the audience for crucifying the Holy One and the Just in favor of a murderer. The vindication of Christ in his bodily resurrection is the cornerstone of apostolic proclamation: 'whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses' grounds the veracity of the gospel and the confidence of every believer.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 5
Matthew 27:51–56 records a cluster of supernatural signs accompanying the death of Christ — the rending of the temple veil, the earthquake, the splitting of rocks, and the resurrection of saints — each of which publicly attests the efficacy of Christ's atoning work. The torn veil simultaneously signals the judgment of God upon apostate Israel and the opening of access to the Father through Christ's blood, marking the covenantal transition from the old order of sacrifice to the new covenant inaugurated at Calvary. The centurion's confession, 'Truly this was the Son of God,' demonstrates that the cross reaches sinners from every tribe and tongue, while the faithful women at a distance stand as witnesses to Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. The sermon calls every hearer to receive the torn veil as God's own invitation to draw near through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Redemption Accomplished
The sixth word from the cross — 'It is finished' (John 19:30) — is a single Greek verb carrying the full weight of accomplished redemption. This sermon works through the explanation and then the application of that cry, showing that Christ's tetelestai declares the fulfillment of messianic Scripture, the termination of Old Covenant types and shadows, the completion of the Father's redemptive plan, and the full accomplishment of redemption: active righteousness secured, divine wrath exhausted, the devil defeated, sin finished, every spiritual blessing purchased, and death itself marked for destruction. The application presses the church to rest her comfort and security not in her own performance but in the finished work of Christ alone, the only ground of justification by faith.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 4
Matthew 27:47–50 records the final moments before Christ's death on the cross — the mockery of bystanders who misheard his cry of dereliction as a call for Elijah, the offering of sour wine, and his loud, voluntary yielding of his spirit. The sermon examines what the cry of dereliction does and does not teach: it does not indicate a division within the Trinity, a dissolution of the hypostatic union, or patripassianism, but it does express the qualified, temporary withholding of the Father's favour from the Son as he bore the punishment due to his people. Christ's loud cry at the moment of death demonstrates that he laid down his life sovereignly and willingly, not as a victim overcome by suffering but as a priest offering himself as substitute. The only fitting response to this substitutionary sacrifice is not moral self-improvement but worship, gratitude, and faith in the one who was forsaken so that his people would never be forsaken.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 22, 2017 PM
First John 2:3–6 confronts a perennial problem: people who claim to know Christ while living in blatant disregard of his law. The sermon works through two tests John gives for genuine knowledge of God — keeping Christ's commandments as an evidence of salvation (not its ground), and walking as Christ walked as a fruit of union with him. Obedience is not the condition for knowing God but the necessary mark and assurance of it, grounded not in human effort but in the imputed righteousness of Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 22, 2017 AM
Matthew 27:32–54 records the crucifixion of Christ amid layered mockery from three distinct groups — passers-by, the religious establishment, and the two robbers. This exposition argues that each taunt ironically confirms what it intends to deny: that Jesus is the Son of God, the true temple-builder, and the Saviour of Israel. The sermon draws out the substitutionary logic of the cross — that Christ remained on it not despite his divine sonship but because of it, bearing the wrath owed to his people so that divine justice might be satisfied in him rather than in the sinner.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 2
Matthew 27:39–44 records three distinct groups — passing bystanders, the chief priests and elders, and the two crucified robbers — each heaping mockery and blasphemy upon the Son of God while he hangs on the cross. The preacher demonstrates that in every taunt, the mockers unwittingly speak truth: he is the temple builder, the Savior of others, the King of Israel, and the Son of God — and it is precisely because he is all of these things that he must stay on the cross to satisfy divine justice for his people's sins. The irony Matthew constructs reaches its apex in the dying thief, who looks past the gore of the crucifixion and confesses Christ as Lord, while the religious leaders who possessed the very scriptures that prophesied this scene remain utterly blind to it. The sermon calls both unbelievers and believers to look to the crucified Christ by faith, to receive salvation as a gift rather than bargaining with God, and to find in this scene the unsurpassed measure of the Savior's love.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 15, 2017 AM
Matthew 27:32–38 presents the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the central event in redemptive history, the long-anticipated fulfillment of Old Testament promise from Genesis 3:15 through Isaiah 53. The sermon traces two movements: the way to the cross — bearing, location, and the bitter drink — and the act of crucifixion itself, attending to the division of garments, the watching guards, the charge above his head, and the company of criminals. Throughout, the visible shame of the Son of God is shown to be the appointed means by which he crushes the serpent's head, satisfies divine justice, and secures justification for all whom the Father gave him. Hearers are called to abandon every notion of contributing to their own salvation and to look in faith to the crucified Christ alone.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 8, 2017 AM
The mock enthronement of Jesus recorded in Matthew 27:27–31 simultaneously exposes the comprehensive guilt of every human participant — Pilate, the soldiers, the Jewish leaders, and the elect whose sins were heaped upon the Savior — and reveals the ironic glory of the King who would actually bear every emblem the soldiers placed on him in jest. The sermon argues that what the soldiers devised as dishonor — the robe, the crown of thorns, the reed — were unwitting foreshadowings of Christ's true royal majesty as depicted in the book of Revelation, where he reigns with golden crown, glorious robe, and iron scepter. The exposition closes with three applications under the gravity, the glory, and the gratitude of the scene, pressing both unbelievers to flee to the Savior from the coming wrath and believers to exceed the soldiers' inventiveness in devising honor for their King.
The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 2
Matthew 27:15–23 presents Pontius Pilate's attempt to grant amnesty to Jesus through the Passover custom of releasing a prisoner — an attempt that collapses under the pressure of crowd manipulation and Pilate's own moral cowardice. The passage exposes the envy driving the religious leaders, the warning of Pilate's wife confessing Christ's righteousness, and the moral depravity of a multitude persuaded to choose a violent insurrectionist over the sinless Son of God. The repeated declarations of Christ's innocence — by Judas, Pilate's wife, and Pilate himself — are Matthew's design: the just stands for the unjust, and every voice proclaiming 'he has done no evil' opens the door to the gospel of substitutionary atonement. Hearers are called to see their own capacity for the crowd's guilt, to recognize total depravity in themselves, and to flee to the holy, harmless, undefiled Christ for forgiveness and righteousness.
The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 1
Why does Jesus stand silent before Pontius Pilate, refusing to answer a single charge? Matthew 27:11–14 records the interrogation of Christ by the Roman governor, in which Jesus affirms his kingship with a qualified 'it is as you say' and then offers no defense against the accusations of the chief priests and elders. That silence is not weakness but resolute, covenantal determination — the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:7, the refusal to retard the death that alone can save sinners from the wrath of a holy God. The sermon calls both believer and unbeliever to marvel at the silence of Christ, recognizing in it the ground of every sinner's boldness before God on the day of judgment.
The Righteousness of David
Romans 4:5–8 announces that God justifies the ungodly, and the Apostle Paul calls David as a witness to that doctrine. This sermon works through the theology of David in 2 Samuel 22, Psalms 2, 18, 32, 51, 110, and 130 to show that David's celebrated righteousness is not his own moral achievement but the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith. David's recognition of his own sin, his understanding of atonement, his grasp of the doctrine of imputation, and his personal faith in the coming Messiah together resolve the apparent tension between his notorious moral failures and his claim to cleanness of hands. The sermon calls hearers to approach the Lord's Supper not in mere introspection over sin but in joyful confidence in the righteousness of David's greater Son.
The Use of the Blood Money
Matthew 27:6–10 records the chief priests' disposal of the thirty pieces of silver used to betray Jesus — and Matthew's citation of this event as the fulfillment of prophecy attributed to Jeremiah. This sermon examines the rank hypocrisy of the religious leaders who scrupled over depositing blood money into the treasury while simultaneously orchestrating the judicial murder of an innocent man, exposing the self-condemning logic of ceremonial fastidiousness divorced from the weightier demands of the law. The sermon then defends the inerrancy of Matthew's composite citation of Zechariah 11 and Jeremiah 18–19, 32, showing how Matthew functions as a biblical theologian weaving together prophetic themes of rejection, judgment, exile, and restoration to demonstrate that the passion of Christ was the fulfillment of the entire prophetic witness. The application calls hearers to recognize their own guilt before a holy God and to flee to the imputed righteousness and atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Supreme God
First Samuel 5 narrates a comedic yet deadly serious confrontation between Yahweh and the Philistine god Dagon, exposing the utter powerlessness of idols and the supreme sovereignty of the living God. When the Philistines place the ark of the Lord beside Dagon, Dagon twice falls prostrate before it — losing his head and hands — while Yahweh's hand falls with devastating judgment on city after city across Philistia. The passage teaches both that all false gods are helpless before Yahweh and that idolatry remains the deepest disease of the human heart, whether expressed in carved images or in the good things we elevate above God. The call of the sermon is to turn from every idol — visible or conjured — to the one divine Warrior who conquered sin and death, and in whom alone there is everlasting life.
The Exalted Servant
Philippians 2:5–11 presents the humiliation and exaltation of Christ as both the ground and pattern of Christian humility. Working through Paul's 'Christ hymn,' this sermon expounds the pre-incarnate glory of the Son, his kenotic condescension in taking the form of a bondservant, his obedient death on the cross under the wrath of God, and his subsequent exaltation to the name above every name. The christological argument is anchored in the Chalcedonian distinction of two natures in one person, guarding against any suggestion that the incarnation required Christ to surrender divine attributes. The congregation is called to cultivate the mind of Christ — not as a means of earning salvation, but as the fitting response of those who have been saved by sovereign grace.
2LCF Chapter 16 - Of Good Works
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 16, 'Of Good Works,' teaches that good works are defined exclusively by God's revealed word, flow necessarily from justification and sanctification, and are enabled entirely by Christ as the believer's vine. The chapter distinguishes scriptural good works — requiring the right matter, root, manner, and end — from both the meritorious works Rome supposes possible and the common-grace works of the unregenerate, which, lacking a heart purified by faith and the goal of God's glory, cannot please God. Believers are exhorted to pursue good works not as the ground of their acceptance before God, but as the fruit of a living faith, performed in Christ's strength and received by God through Christ despite their imperfection.