Theological term
Active Obedience
420 sermons · All terms
The Lord's Betrayal in the Garden
Matthew 26:47–50 records the betrayal of Christ in Gethsemane, and this expository sermon works through three dimensions of that event: its significance as the arrival of the cup of God's wrath that Christ had prayed over, the plan behind the betrayal as Judas and the religious leaders converge under God's sovereignty, and the execution of the betrayal through a hypocritical kiss. Woven throughout is the parallel account in John 18, where Christ's absolute declaration of 'I Am' causes the arresting mob to draw back and fall to the ground — a manifestation of divine glory that underscores both his power to resist and his voluntary surrender to the Father's will. The sermon calls hearers to see in Christ's resolve the willingness of the Savior to save sinners, and to flee to him rather than trust in external proximity to Christ or religious position.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 2, 2017 AM
This expository sermon on Matthew 26:40–46 examines the sluggishness of the disciples in Gethsemane against the backdrop of Christ's resolute, prayerful obedience to the Father. The disciples' repeated failure to watch and pray — despite explicit warning and their own loud protestations of loyalty — exposes the persistent pride and creaturely weakness of even regenerate believers. Christ's threefold prayer, his endurance of the cup of divine wrath by imputation, and his gracious invitation to the sleeping disciples ('let us be going') together constitute the ground for the sermon's central exhortation: the ordained means of victory over temptation and spiritual lethargy is watchfulness and prayer, practiced in both private devotion and the corporate worship of God.
The Active Obedience of Christ
Romans 5:19 grounds the doctrine of Christ's active obedience: as Adam's disobedience constituted many sinners, so Christ's perfect law-keeping constitutes many righteous before God. This sermon surveys the theological structure of that doctrine under three heads — its explanation in covenant terms, the obligation that would fall on sinners apart from it, and its realization in Christ's historical life of obedience. The controlling pastoral burden is that God demands personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, a demand no sinner can meet, and that the righteousness imputed to believers by faith alone is the only ground on which any creature may ascend the mountain of God and dwell in His presence.
The Prediction of Desertion and Denial
Matthew 26:31–35 records three predictions Jesus makes on the night of His betrayal: that all the disciples will desert Him, that Peter in particular will deny Him three times before the rooster crows, and that He will be raised and go before them to Galilee. The passage demonstrates both the sovereignty of Christ, who is not caught unawares but walks toward the cross in accordance with Zechariah 13:7 and the eternal decree of the Father, and the weakness of even the most zealous believers, who prove incapable of standing in their own strength. Peter's brash self-confidence — his flat contradiction of Christ's word and his lofty assessment of himself above his fellow disciples — stands as a warning against pride and self-reliance. The sermon calls believers to kill pride, cultivate dependence upon God, embrace Scripture's honest assessment of indwelling corruption, and rest in the grace of a Savior who, despite foreknowing every act of betrayal, still promises to meet His scattered sheep.
The Prince of Life and the Penitent Thief
The conversion of the penitent thief on the cross presents what one 19th-century commentator called the finest demonstration of vital theology in all the gospel narratives. Working through Luke 23:38–43, this sermon examines four elements of that occasion: the ironic truth embedded in the inscription 'This is the King of the Jews,' the unrepentant blasphemy of the cursed robber as a mirror of unregenerate depravity, the dying thief's Spirit-wrought confession of God's holiness, Christ's innocence, and Christ's lordship, and the sovereign comfort of Christ's assurance that salvation rests on divine promise rather than human merit. The sermon is delivered in the context of a Lord's Supper service, and each point is drawn toward the ordinance as a call to remember the King, to recall one's former state of enmity, and to rest on the blood and righteousness of Christ alone.
Of Justification (2LCF 11)
Justification — the forensic declaration by which God accounts and accepts sinners as righteous — is examined through the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 11. The confession distinguishes justification sharply from sanctification: it is not an infused or imparted righteousness but an imputed one, grounded entirely in Christ's active obedience to the law and passive obedience in His death. Faith, itself a gift of God and not a human contribution, is the sole instrument by which the justified receive and rest on Christ's righteousness. The sermon closes by tracing the ongoing practical realities of the justified life — including fatherly displeasure, confession, and the impossibility of falling from the state of justification — and by drawing on J.C. Ryle to clarify precisely how justification and sanctification are alike yet distinct.
The Institution of the Lord's Supper
Matthew 26:26–30 records Christ instituting the Lord's Supper in the context of the Passover meal, and this sermon expounds the theological significance of that institution under three headings: the setting, the institution itself, and its conclusion. The bread and cup are shown to be covenantal signs rather than instances of transubstantiation or consubstantiation — the elements represent Christ's body and blood without any change of substance. The covenantal background of Exodus 24 and Jeremiah 31:31–34 illuminates the cup as the blood of the new covenant, fulfilled by Christ as the true Israel who accomplished what national Israel swore but failed to do at Sinai. Believers are called to receive the supper as God's gift of spiritual nourishment and to trust not in their own performance but in the blood and righteousness of Christ alone.
The Passover with the Disciples
Matthew 26:17–25 presents Jesus as the sovereign master of the Passover, not a hapless victim of events spiraling beyond his control. Working through the preparation for Passover and the announcement of betrayal, this exposition shows how Christ's active obedience to the law, his precise foreknowledge, and his willing submission to the Father's eternal decree together constitute the ground of redemption for his people. The contrast between Judas, whose hardened heart renders him a reprobate despite extraordinary privilege, and the eleven, whose sorrowful self-examination models the disposition of genuine faith, drives home two applications: trust in Christ alone, by grace through faith, for justification; and cultivate a healthy self-suspicion rather than a confident presumption of one's own standing before God.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 is, as Matthew Poole observed, 'an abridgment of the whole gospel' — binding Christ's penal death for specific offenses to His bodily resurrection for the justification of those who believe. The sermon expounds the redemptive purpose of both events: the Father delivered up the Son to satisfy divine justice for the sins of the elect, and raised Him to testify that the sacrifice was accepted, that satisfaction was rendered, and that redemption was accomplished. Against the moral-exemplary reduction of the atonement, the sermon insists on substitution, propitiation, and particular redemption as the irreducible ground of peace with God. Hearers are called to look away from every incapacity of their own — as Abraham did — and to rest entirely on the one who was delivered up for offenses and raised for justification.
The Prologue to the Passion Narrative
Matthew 26:1–5 opens the Passion Narrative with two structurally parallel statements placed side by side: Christ's sovereign prophecy of His own crucifixion and the chief priests' conspiracy to accomplish it. The sermon argues that the word 'delivered up' (paradidōmi) carries far greater theological weight than a simple 'betrayed,' pointing ultimately to the Father as the primary agent who delivered His Son according to the eternal covenant of redemption. The Passover timing is no coincidence but the deliberate fulfillment of Old Testament typology — Christ is the new Moses leading a new exodus — and the only fitting response to such grace is worship, adoration, and the resolve to point children and neighbors to the cross.
Of Christ the Mediator 2 (2LCF 8)
The person and work of Christ as Mediator, as confessed in chapter 8 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, is the most central locus in all of Christian theology — to be wrong here is damnable. This session surveys paragraphs 3 through 10 of that chapter, tracing Christ's anointing and suitability for office, the active and passive obedience by which He fully satisfied divine justice, the retrospective application of His redemption to the elect of all ages under the old covenant, the communication of idioms in His two natures, and the effectual application of salvation to His people by His Spirit and Word. The threefold office of prophet, priest, and king supplies precisely what the elect need in their ignorance, alienation, and inability — and no other mediator may share or transfer any part of that office.
The Bridled Tongue
James 1:26 confronts professing Christians with a concrete test of genuine faith: the bridling of the tongue. The sermon expounds the passage within its context of James's call to be doers of the Word, arguing that an unbridled tongue is not a minor failing but a symptom of self-deception — a religion James pronounces useless. Drawing on the Decalogue, the Proverbs, Romans 1, and James 3–4, the preacher demonstrates that Scripture condemns sins of speech — gossip, slander, backbiting, hypocrisy — with the same severity as the grosser immoralities the church is quick to discipline. The sermon closes by grounding the believer's hope not in perfected speech but in Christ, who alone fulfilled the law of the tongue in his sinless life, and calls hearers to pursue tongue-discipline as a fruit of sovereign grace and dependence on God.
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.
Of Covenant (2LCF 7)
2 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 7 traces the whole architecture of Scripture through the lens of covenant theology, demonstrating that God's dealings with humanity are covenantal from creation to consummation. The chapter distinguishes three interlocking covenants — the covenant of works, the covenant of redemption, and the covenant of grace — and shows how each is necessary for a right understanding of the others. Particular attention is given to the progressive revelation of the covenant of grace from Genesis 3:15 through the historical covenants (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic) to its full discovery in the new covenant inaugurated by Christ. The practical stakes are high: a faulty grasp of the covenant of works will inevitably distort one's understanding of Christ's mediatorial obedience, justification by faith alone, and the covenant of grace itself.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 12
Matthew 24:45–51 closes the first section of practical application in the Olivet Discourse with a parable of two servants: one faithful, one wicked. The parable's central question — 'Who then is a faithful and wise servant?' — is designed to arrest the conscience and promote eschatological self-examination. Watchfulness for Christ's return is not idle sky-gazing but active fidelity in one's God-appointed vocation, whether pastoral ministry or ordinary daily labor. The wicked servant's ruin flows directly from his denial of the master's return, a pattern the sermon presses against both unbelievers and professing Christians living as practical atheists.
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 Baptisms of Jesus Christ
Christ's two baptisms in Matthew 3 and Matthew 20 illuminate the two pillars of the gospel: His active obedience, by which He fulfilled all righteousness on behalf of His people, and His passive obedience, by which He endured the cross as a substitutionary ransom for many. The water baptism in Matthew 3 marks the public inauguration of Christ's life of perfect law-keeping, while the 'baptism' He anticipates in Matthew 20 refers to His immersion in suffering and divine wrath at Calvary. Together these two baptisms demonstrate that sinners need not only the forgiveness of sins secured by Christ's death, but also an alien righteousness — His own perfect obedience imputed to them by faith alone. The sermon calls both unbelievers and the baptized congregation to rest in the full sufficiency of what Christ accomplished, rejecting any gospel that offers the crown without the cross.
Free Grace Baptist Church - December 18, 2016 AM
Luke 7:36–50 presents three parties whose interaction discloses the nature of saving grace: the notorious sinner whose transformed devotion exposes the bankruptcy of self-righteousness, the Pharisee whose surface-level hospitality masks a judgmental contempt for God's mercy, and the Savior who receives worship, pronounces forgiveness, and vindicates faith as the sole instrument of justification. The parable of the two debtors (vv. 41–43) governs the entire passage: the woman's extravagant love is the effect of prior forgiveness freely granted, not its cause or condition — a point the sermon drives against both Roman Catholic and Protestant moralistic misreadings. Believers are called to examine whether the depth of their love for Christ reflects a genuine reckoning with the magnitude of what has been forgiven.
Free Grace Baptist Church - December 4, 2016 AM
Philippians 2:8–11 presents the obedience of Christ as the crux of the gospel: the Son of God, fully God and fully man, humbled himself unto the cross death in substitutionary obedience to the law of God in the place of all who believe. This sermon works through three movements — the reality, the crux, and the result of Christ's obedience — grounding each in the theology of the two Adams: as Adam's disobedience plunged mankind into sin and condemnation, so Christ's perfect obedience as the second Adam restores and surpasses all that was lost. The obedience of Christ is not merely a doctrinal category but a free gift of righteousness received by faith alone, the very lifeblood of the gospel, received with joy and answered in humble service to others after the pattern of the Lord.
The Importance of Preaching
Paul's declaration in 1 Corinthians 1:18–25 that God saves sinners 'through the foolishness of the message preached' establishes preaching not as one option among many but as the divinely ordained and irreplaceable means of grace. The sermon traces four interlocking claims: preaching is the means by which dead sinners are brought to saving faith, the means by which Christ builds his church, a proclamation that has Christ himself as its sum and substance, and a proclamation that has the cross as the apex of its content. Hearers are pressed to pray and give financial support for gospel ministers, to deepen their knowledge of Christ crucified, and — if as yet unconverted — to seek salvation through that cross alone.
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.
Isaiah's Child of Promise
Isaiah 9:6 announces a child born and son given as the divine answer to covenant judgment — not a military conqueror, but a gift of sovereign grace. This sermon traces four aspects of the promised Messiah: his humble beginning as a given gift, his royal commission over an eternal kingdom, his divine majesty expressed in four throne-names, and the perfect peace he secures through his atoning blood. The exposition grounds Christological adoration in its Old Testament context, showing how the prophecy builds on Genesis 3:15 and Isaiah 7 before finding its fulfillment in the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. Hearers are called to count Christ as the chief of all blessings, to rest in his kingship over a disordered world, and to flee immediately to his cross-won peace when guilt assails.
The Hymn to Christ as to God
Philippians 2:5–11, known in scholarly and devotional tradition as a hymn to Christ as to God, opens a series of expository studies through one of the most concentrated christological passages in the New Testament. This sermon establishes the exhortation's context within the letter to the Philippians — a message of thanksgiving and rejoicing addressed to a church facing external persecution but inward temptation toward pride and disunity — and then examines the exordium of verse 5: 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.' Three qualifications govern the use of Christ as example: He is not only nor primarily an example, Christians are called to imitate His disposition rather than duplicate His saving work, and this lowliness of mind is not the pathway to salvation but the characteristic mark of those already saved by grace through faith. The sermon closes with a direct call to humility modeled on Christ's condescension and an evangelistic summons to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ before that day when every knee shall bow in judgment.
The Hope of OT Believers
What did Old Testament believers actually know about the coming Redeemer? This sermon works through six lines of biblical evidence — from the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 through the prophets and Psalms — to demonstrate that the messianic hope of Israel was not vague or mystical but concrete, objective, and increasingly specific across the covenant history of redemption. Old Testament saints knew that the Deliverer would be a man born of a woman, would accomplish victory through substitutionary death, would be of Davidic lineage, would be both God and man, and that faith in him was the appointed way of salvation. The sermon closes at the Lord's Supper, grounding the ordinance in the fulfillment of all these promises in the person and work of Christ.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 9
Matthew 24:30–31 presents what many regard as the decisive difficulty for a preterist reading of the Olivet Discourse: the Son of Man coming on clouds and the gathering of the elect. This sermon argues that both verses are best understood through the grammar of Old Testament prophetic and apocalyptic language, in which cloud-coming consistently signifies God's judicial intervention against nations rather than a physical, bodily descent. The primary interpretive key is Daniel 7:13–14, read as an ascension text in which the Son of Man comes *to* the Ancient of Days, receives universal dominion, and then sends forth messengers to gather his elect — a movement that corresponds to Christ's post-resurrection enthronement and the subsequent worldwide proclamation of the gospel. Hearers are urged to rest their souls in the present, active reign of Christ at the Father's right hand, and to guard against both false teaching and carnal anxiety by understanding what Scripture actually teaches about the session and kingdom of the ascended Lord.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 2, 2016 PM
Genesis 15 records God's covenant with Abram, and this sermon expounds that passage under two headings: the promise to Abram (vv. 1–6) and his request for a sign (vv. 7–17). The central argument is that when God alone passes between the divided animals — taking the covenant's self-maledictory oath entirely upon himself — he typifies what Christ accomplished on the cross: bearing the curse that covenant-breaking sinners deserved. Justification is by faith alone, as Genesis 15:6 declares and as Paul confirms in Romans 4 and Galatians 3; Abram's faith was not in a nebulous future hope but in the promised seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon closes by leading the congregation into the Lord's Supper, calling believers to eat and drink in grateful remembrance of the substitute who passed through judgment in their place.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 25, 2016 PM
Second Samuel 22 records David's song of deliverance, but verses 21–25, in which David appeals to his own righteousness before God, present a theological problem: David was an adulterer, a murderer, and a negligent father, yet he claims the Lord rewarded him according to his righteousness. This sermon argues that David's righteousness is not intrinsic or earned by law-keeping but is the alien righteousness of Christ imputed to him by faith — the same doctrine Paul expounds in Romans 4 and Psalm 32, which David himself composed. The resolution lies in David's own theology: he understood his total depravity, the necessity of atonement, the doctrine of imputation, and the appropriation of Christ's righteousness through faith alone, demonstrating that Old Testament saints were saved in precisely the same way as New Testament believers.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 18, 2016 PM
Second Samuel 23:1–39 records the last words of David and the roster of his mighty men — warriors whose exploits are attributed not to raw human ability but to Yahweh's gift of victory. The sermon draws four observations from the passage: the divine power behind the three elite warriors (vv. 8–12), the sacrificial devotion of the three unnamed men who fetched water from Bethlehem (vv. 13–17), the notable exploits of Abashai and Benaiah (vv. 18–38), and the sobering reminder of David's sin in the final mention of Uriah the Hittite (v. 39). The Uriah reference serves a double function: it grounds David's success entirely in the grace of God, and it drives the reader forward to the greater Son of David — the Lord Jesus Christ — who alone rules with untainted justice, righteousness, and perfection.
2LCF Chapter 32 - Of the Last Judgment
The Last Judgment, as confessed in chapter 32 of the Second London Confession of Faith (1689 LBCF), is certain, comprehensive, and purposeful: God the Father has appointed a day on which God the Son will execute righteous judgment over fallen angels and every human being, accounting for thoughts, words, and deeds. The goal of that day is the manifestation of divine mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and divine justice in the eternal damnation of the reprobate — a theocentric purpose rooted in Romans 9. The secrecy of that day is itself a means of grace, designed to deter sin, sustain the godly through adversity, and cultivate watchful readiness to say, 'Come, Lord Jesus.'