Theological term
Covenant of Grace
848 sermons · All terms
The Potential Dangers Facing Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 sets before Israel three concrete dangers they will face upon entering the promised land, dangers that map directly onto the experience of the new covenant church. Prosperity tempts God's people to forget the giver and embrace practical atheism; the gods of surrounding nations tempt them to forsaking covenant loyalty for idolatry; and hardship tempts them to test God's faithfulness by calling his word into question. The sermon calls believers to respond to God's grace with fear, service, and oath-bound covenant loyalty — and to resist the governing power of emotion, circumstance, and felt experience in favour of the unchanging word.
The Finished Work of Christ
When Jesus declared 'It is finished' (John 19:30), he was not announcing defeat but uttering a triumphant cry of completion — the single Greek verb teleo carrying the force of a paid-in-full receipt. This sermon expounds the finished work of Christ under three headings: its fulfillment of all prior Scripture and typology, the glory it reveals in the Son's perfect filial obedience to the Father, and the comfort it secures for the church. That comfort is fourfold and concrete: the forgiveness of sins through Christ's blood, the imputation of his active obedience as the believer's righteousness, peace with God through justification by faith alone, and the purchased inheritance of eternal life — leaving the believer with no ground for despair and every ground for worship.
Idolatry and Its Effects, Part 2
Romans 1:18–32 presents a relentlessly bleak anatomy of human sin flowing from the root of idolatry — the suppression of God's self-revelation, the exchange of his glory for images, and his judicial abandonment of sinners to escalating depravity. This application sermon draws out three lines of response for the believer: sober caution against the idols of false religion, Mammon, and self; genuine concern for a world standing under God's wrath; and wholehearted worship and thanksgiving as those who have been justified by the blood of Christ. The antidote to every form of idolatry — including the most pernicious idol of self — is the cross, where Christ frees his people from self-devotion and calls them to live for him who died and rose again.
The 5th Petition: Forgiveness
What does it mean to pray 'forgive us our debts' when the believer has already been justified by faith alone? This exposition of Matthew 6:12 and 14–15 distinguishes between God's forensic pardon of the sinner and the ongoing filial forgiveness a child of God seeks from his Father in the life of sanctification. Six reasons are given for the necessity of this daily petition — remaining corruption, desire for the smile of God, consciousness of sin's evil, trust in divine mercy, renunciation of self-righteousness, and acknowledgment of Christ's sufficient atonement. The sermon closes by pressing the inseparable link between receiving forgiveness and extending it: an unforgiving spirit that approaches God for pardon is a form of hypocrisy, while those who freely forgive others give evidence that sovereign grace has genuinely worked in their hearts.
The Basis for the Believer's Forgiveness
What is the basis upon which God forgives the believer's sins? This sermon works through a chain of Old and New Testament texts — from the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 through Isaiah 53, Matthew 26, Romans 4, Ephesians 1, Hebrews 7, and Revelation 5 — to establish that the sole ground of the believer's forgiveness is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, not the believer's own act of forgiving others. The fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer ('forgive us our debts') presupposes this finished, objective atonement; forgiving others is its fruit and sign, not its cause. The sermon closes at the Lord's Supper with a call to trust Christ alone and a doxological meditation on penal substitution as the basis of every pardon God grants.
The 3rd Petition: God's Will, Part 1
The third petition of the Lord's Prayer — 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven' (Matthew 6:10) — requires a prior understanding of the two categories of God's will: the decretive (secret) will, by which God sovereignly ordains all things according to the counsel of his own purpose, and the preceptive (revealed) will, which constitutes the duty God has set before his creatures in Scripture. The sermon argues that Christians are primarily praying for conformity to the revealed will — active obedience to God's commands and passive submission to his providence — rather than seeking to align their lives with the secret things that belong to God alone. Four concrete duties follow: recognizing God's absolute right to command, knowing the revealed will through Scripture, obeying it, and submitting with faith, contentedness, and determination to whatever God inflicts by his providence. Throughout, the active and passive obedience of Christ is held forth as the only perfect fulfillment of this petition and the ground of the believer's confidence before God.
The Preface to the Lord's Prayer
What does it mean to address God as 'Our Father in heaven' before a single petition is spoken? This sermon on Matthew 6:9 argues that the preface to the Lord's Prayer is not a formality but a theological foundation: the invocation shapes the entire posture of prayer. Six truths embedded in the two words 'Our Father' are examined — that God is personal, gracious, hearing, caring, loving, and alone to be addressed — followed by two truths in the phrase 'in heaven': that God is transcendent and omnipotent. The sermon closes with a pointed call to examine whether one can honestly pray 'Our Father' at all, since access to the Father comes only through faith in the Son.
Peace Upon the Israel of God
Galatians 6:16–18 closes Paul's polemical epistle with a benediction of peace and mercy upon 'the Israel of God,' a phrase that has generated significant debate between covenant and dispensational readings of Scripture. This exposition argues that Paul is not reintroducing an ethnic distinction between Jewish and Gentile believers but is rather identifying the entire church — Jew and Gentile united in Christ — as the one Israel of God, in fulfillment of the prophetic promises of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets. The marks Paul bears in his body (v. 17) are not a lamentation but an apostolic badge of identification with the crucified and risen Lord who has inaugurated the new creation. The sermon closes by drawing together the epistle's central burden: justification is by faith alone in Christ alone, and the Christian's only boast is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God in a Feed Trough
Luke 2:1–14 presents the incarnation of the Son of God not as myth or legend but as a historically verifiable, prophetically grounded event. The sermon traces four features of the nativity narrative: its veracity, its condescension, its proclamation, and the angels' hymn of praise. The central burden is that 'God in a feed trough' — the Word made flesh, born in Bethlehem, lying in a manger — is not a sentimental image at which thought terminates, but the inaugurating moment of the redemptive mission that ends at the cross and empty tomb, and therefore the proper object of unceasing wonder, proclamation, and praise.
Exclusive Commitment to God
Joshua 24 presents a covenant ratification ceremony at Shechem in which Joshua calls Israel to exclusive, whole-soul commitment to Yahweh on the basis of what God has done — not what Israel has merited. The sermon works through the chapter in two movements: a review of covenant history that highlights the grace, pace, ways, and power of God, and the demand for covenant commitment that is at once logical, exclusive, and serious. The sobering counter-intuitive move of Joshua — telling an eager people 'you cannot serve the Lord' — exposes the blathering self-confidence of emotional religion and drives the hearer back to dependence on divine grace from first to last.
The Law of Love
Matthew 5:43–48 contains the sixth and final antithesis of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Christ corrects the Pharisaic addition 'hate your enemy' — a phrase found nowhere in Scripture — and restores the full demand of the moral law: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you. Christ is not introducing new legislation but faithfully expounding the eternal righteousness of the Father, whose law always required love even toward enemies, as texts from Exodus, Leviticus, Proverbs, and Job demonstrate. The sermon traces the contrast between true law and scribal distortion, the three positive duties of love, the theological ground of sonship in reflecting the Father's common grace, and the summary call to perfection — which ultimately drives the believer to the cross and to the imputed righteousness of Christ who alone satisfied these demands perfectly. Kingdom citizens are not bare-minimum disciples but are called, by the Spirit's enabling, to embody an ethic that distinguishes them entirely from tax collectors and pagans.
The Third Commandment: Oath-Taking
Jesus' instruction in Matthew 5:33–37 is not a universal prohibition against oath-taking but a condemnation of the Pharisaic practice of swearing by created things — heaven, earth, Jerusalem, one's own head — as a device to lend apparent solemnity to speech while evading accountability to God. The sermon exposes this abuse by tracing the Old Testament's positive teaching on oaths, demonstrating from Christ's own submission to adjuration in Matthew 26 and from Paul's sworn affirmations that lawful oath-taking remains valid. The corrective Jesus offers is the kingdom ethic of simple truthfulness: the citizen of Christ's kingdom needs no oath to be believed, because his yes is yes and his no is no, and any compulsion to pad speech beyond this reveals the depraved bent traced ultimately to the father of lies. The Sermon on the Mount, rightly understood, drives the hearer to the cross, where Christ — who honored every commandment and swore to his own hurt — provides the righteousness no oath-keeper can supply for himself.
Rejoice in Christ! A Gracious Command
Philippians 3:1–3 opens with what Paul calls a gracious command — 'rejoice in the Lord' — issued to a congregation facing false teachers who demanded physical circumcision as a condition of acceptance before God. The sermon works through three movements: the command to rejoice (v. 1), the apostolic warning against the Judaizers (v. 2), and the defining contrast between the false circumcision and the true (v. 3). The true circumcision is identified not by ethnic descent or ritual observance but by three marks: worshipping God in the Spirit, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and placing no confidence in the flesh — a threefold description that locates salvation solely in the sovereign, gracious work of the triune God from first to last.
Christ As Our Great High Priest
Hebrews 5:1–10 and 7 present Jesus Christ as the fulfillment and surpassing of the entire Old Testament priestly order — both Levitical and Melchizedekian. The sermon traces how the book of Hebrews develops a two-strand typology: Christ fulfills what the Levitical priests anticipated (solidarity with the people, divine appointment, sacrifice for sin), while simultaneously transcending them by coming from an entirely different and superior order, the eternal priesthood of Melchizedek. Because Christ's priesthood is indestructible and his sacrifice once-for-all, he is able to save completely and intercede permanently — a Redeemer whose priestly work is final, all-sufficient, and the only ground of forgiveness before a holy God.
The Seventh Commandment, Part 1
Matthew 5:27–30 expounds the seventh commandment, not as new legislation from Christ, but as Christ's faithful exposition of what the law of God has always demanded. Against the Pharisaic reduction of the commandment to its outward, physical expression, Jesus establishes that sinful lust in the heart already constitutes adultery, since God's moral law has always searched the inner man. The sermon traces the eternal and temporal consequences of sexual sin, calls hearers to radical mortification of sin in the manner of verses 29–30, and presses both saint and sinner to seek pardon and righteousness in Christ alone.
Paul's Prayer for the Colossians
Paul's prayer in Colossians 1:9–14 sets forth four characteristics of a walk worthy of the Lord: fruitfulness in good works, growth in the knowledge of God, strength for patient endurance, and thankfulness to the Father. The sermon argues that doctrine and practice are inseparable — the knowledge of God fuels the good works God prepared for his people — and that genuine thankfulness flows not from natural disposition but from the Spirit's work in those whom God has qualified, delivered, transferred, and redeemed. The ungodly are marked by ingratitude and failure to glorify God; the converted are called to a daily, Spirit-wrought thankfulness that honors God for every circumstance, not merely the pleasant ones.
The New Covenant
Jeremiah 31:31–34 contains the Old Testament's sole explicit use of the phrase 'new covenant,' and this sermon expounds its announcement, essential features, and fulfillment in Christ. Against the backdrop of Judah's covenant-breaking idolatry, God promises a covenant that is unbreakable, one that internalizes his moral law, grants saving knowledge of himself, and secures the definitive forgiveness of sin. The Hebrews quotation of Jeremiah 31 and Christ's own words at the Last Supper confirm that this covenant finds its ratification in the blood of Jesus, the surety and mediator of a better covenant. The sermon closes by drawing out the Reformed Baptist implication that new covenant membership — marked uniformly by regeneration, law-internalization, knowledge of God, and forgiveness — necessarily implies believers' baptism, and by calling the unconverted to seek that fountain open for sin and uncleanness.
The Privileges of Christ's Church
1 Peter 2:9 presents the church with a fourfold corporate identity — chosen generation, royal priesthood, holy nation, special people — rooted in what God originally purposed for Israel at Sinai and fulfilled in Christ. This sermon traces that identity from Exodus 19 through the failure of Old Covenant Israel, to its consummation in Christ who, by his obedience, death, and resurrection, purchased these privileges for his church. The God-centered function of this identity is the proclamation of God's excellencies, which demands a gospel rightly understood as centered on the doing, dying, and rising of Jesus Christ. Believers are called to take up the corporate privileges of access to God, prayer, praise, and the knowledge of God with the seriousness these mercies deserve.
The Pure in Heart
What does it mean to be pure in heart, and how can sinners whose hearts are described in Scripture as deceitful and desperately wicked ever attain it? Expounding the sixth Beatitude in Matthew 5:8, this sermon works through four observations: the description of heart purity as single-minded devotion and internal righteousness (in contrast to the Pharisees' meticulous external compliance); the source of that purity in the sovereign, monergistic grace of the triune God — the Father's electing work, the Son's atoning blood and imputed righteousness, and the Spirit's indwelling power; the cultivation of purity through meditation on the gospel, prayer, and Scripture as God's binding command; and the promise that the pure in heart shall see God, a beatific vision already begun in creation, providence, and redemption, and consummated in the new creation of Revelation 21–22. Hearers are called to rest not in civility or external compliance but to flee to Christ, whose blood alone cleanses the heart, and to pursue purity by dwelling deeply in the gospel.
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 Object of Our Gaze
Hebrews 12:2 commands believers to run the race of faith by 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.' This sermon works through three aspects of that gaze: the means (faith, not physical sight), the direction (Christ alone, away from temple religion, self, and human performance), and the object (Jesus Christ as the one in whom faith, hope, and love have their only proper anchor). The practical burden is that every displacement of the gaze — onto one's own faithfulness, the visible condition of a congregation, the conduct of fellow believers, or the splendors of religious ceremony — is a form of the same error the first-century Jewish recipients of Hebrews were tempted toward, and must be corrected by a constant return to Christ as both the beginner and the completer of salvation.
The Arrival of the Messianic Kingdom
Matthew 4:18–25 records the arrival of the Messianic Kingdom through two decisive acts: Christ's sovereign call of four Galilean fishermen to discipleship, and his healing of multitudes throughout Syria, Galilee, and beyond the Jordan. The passage resists the expectation that kingdom advancement demands spectacular instruments — four local fishermen casting nets are the nucleus of a world-overturning apostolic ministry. The theological weight of Christ's healing ministry is not mere spectacle but the attestation of kingdom power; teaching, preaching, and healing together define the Messiah's work. Hearers are pressed to respond to the gospel call with the same immediacy as Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and to pursue faithful, determined, and patient witness in whatever station God has appointed.
The Dawn of the Messianic Light
Matthew 4:12–17 marks the dawn of Jesus' public ministry in Galilee, a region steeped in centuries of spiritual and political darkness. Drawing on Isaiah 9:1–2, Matthew demonstrates that Christ's settlement in Capernaum was not incidental but theologically purposeful — the fulfillment of God's promise that light would break upon the people sitting in the shadow of death. The sermon expounds the wretched spiritual condition of those in darkness, the messianic identity of Jesus as Isaiah's promised light, and the content of his first proclamation: 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Hearers are pressed to examine whether they have come to the light of Christ or remain in the self-satisfied darkness of moralistic religion.
The God Who Justifies the Ungodly
Romans 4:5 declares that God justifies the ungodly — a statement that stands in apparent tension with Proverbs 17:15, which calls the one who justifies the wicked an abomination. This communion meditation resolves that tension by tracing the doctrine of imputation through three movements: Adam's sin imputed to his posterity, the sin of God's elect imputed to Christ, and Christ's righteousness imputed to believers. Far from promoting moral laxity, this forensic reality — that sinners are declared righteous on the sole ground of another's obedience and atoning death — is shown to be the very foundation of genuine sanctification and the most powerful incentive to holy living.
The Resurrection in the Book of Acts
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not an isolated miracle but the climactic fulfillment of God's covenantal promises to David and Abraham, the ground of every redemptive blessing the church now enjoys. Working through the Book of Acts, this sermon traces five blessings that flow from the risen and ascended Christ: the revealed Word, the sovereignty of his reign, his active direction of the church, the outpouring of the Spirit, and the remission of sins through his blood. Because Christ sits enthroned at the Father's right hand with all authority in heaven and earth, nothing in the church's history is haphazard — every trial, every addition, every missionary advance is governed by the living Lord. The sermon closes with a direct summons to the unforgiven: the empty tomb is the loudest declaration that sin's power is broken and pardon is available to all who believe.
Justification
Romans 3:24 stands as the doctrinal heartbeat of the gospel: guilty sinners are declared righteous before a holy God freely, as a gift, on the sole ground of the redemption accomplished by Christ Jesus. The sermon expounds each word of that verse — 'justified,' 'freely,' 'by his grace,' and 'through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus' — to show that justification is a forensic declaration of changed status, not a moral transformation, and that it rests entirely on Christ's atoning blood and imputed righteousness, received through faith alone. A running contrast is drawn between earthly judges who rightly condemn the guilty and the divine Judge who justifies the ungodly without compromising his justice, because the penalty was fully borne by the Son. The sermon closes by tracing the necessary fruit of justification — humility, assurance, and a transformed life bearing the likeness of Christ — while guarding the distinction between justification and sanctification.
The Ministry of John the Baptist
John the Baptist's ministry in Matthew 3:1–6 is examined as the divinely appointed fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3, marking the end of four centuries of prophetic silence and the inauguration of the messianic kingdom. John appears as the promised Elijah-figure whose wilderness preaching summons Israel to genuine repentance — a thoroughgoing change of mind that produces visible fruit — in preparation for the coming of Yahweh himself in the person of Jesus Christ. The sermon presses the doctrinal content of John's call to repentance against shallow professions of faith, asking whether hearers have truly forsaken sin and entered the kingdom of God by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
The Riches of Christ
What does it mean that the eternal Son of God, though rich beyond comprehension, became poor for sinners? Expounding 2 Corinthians 8:9 in the context of Paul's appeal for generous giving, this meditation traces three movements: the pre-incarnate riches of Christ as Creator, Lord of angels, and second person of the Trinity; the poverty he assumed by addition — taking on humanity, lowly condition, and the curse of the cross — without ever ceasing to be God; and the inexhaustible spiritual riches that flow to believers through that poverty: forgiveness, justification, sanctification, the Spirit, perseverance, sympathetic intercession, and advocacy. Delivered prior to the Lord's Supper, the sermon calls believers to reflect on every spiritual blessing secured by Christ's humiliation and to respond with generous, worshipful hearts.
The Blessed Invitation
Isaiah 55 presents what the prophet, functioning as an evangelist, calls a blessed invitation: sinners are commanded to come to the Lord on the basis of Christ's atoning work in Isaiah 53, receiving water, wine, and milk — refreshment, exhilaration, and nourishment — freely, without price. The sermon works through three particulars: the universal and gracious invitation to gospel blessings (vv. 1–5), instruction in faith and repentance as the means of coming (vv. 6–7), and information intended to amaze — the sovereign efficacy of God's Word and the contrast between divine and human ways (vv. 8–13). The linchpin of the whole invitation is Jesus Christ, the sure mercies of David, who as prophet, priest, and king carries out the covenant promise made to Abraham and calls sinners to come to him for rest.
The Magi Worship the Son of David
Matthew 2:1–12 presents the Magi's visit not as a nativity-scene tableau but as a carefully crafted theological narrative: the Davidic King has arrived, and the nations bow before him while those closest to the promise remain indifferent. The passage sets in motion a tension that runs through the entire Gospel of Matthew — Israel's religious leadership possesses the Scripture but rejects its subject, while Gentile outsiders travel vast distances to worship with exceedingly great joy. The sermon calls hearers to examine which camp they occupy: Herod's, marked by self-protective hostility to Christ's reign, or the Magi's, marked by joyful, prostrate worship of the Son of David.