Theological term
Effectual Calling
509 sermons · All terms
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 13, 2015 PM
Psalm 107:1–9 calls the redeemed to give thanks to God for His goodness and mercy — two terms the psalmist binds together to signal covenantal faithfulness. This exposition traces God's goodness through creation, Providence, and redemption, showing that divine beneficence reaches its pinnacle in the saving work of Christ. God's mercy, distinguished from its human counterpart as originating entirely within God's own nature rather than being moved by anything external, is shown to be operative in temporal blessings, in the judgment of the wicked, and supremely in the salvation of sinners. The sermon closes with a direct call to those outside of Christ to flee to Him, that they too might give thanks to the Lord whose mercy endures forever.
2LCF Chapter 17 - Of the Perseverance of the Saints
The perseverance of the saints rests not on the believer's free will or moral resilience, but on five immovable pillars: the immutability of God's decree of election, the believer's union with Christ, the oath of God, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of the covenant of grace. This exposition of 2LCF Chapter 17 works through all three paragraphs, distinguishing the genuine saints from temporary believers, refuting both Arminian and Roman Catholic denials of the doctrine, and showing that perseverance is inseparable from divine preservation. The challenges to perseverance — Satanic temptation, the world, and remaining corruption — are honestly confronted, with the vital role of the means of grace pressed upon the hearer as the God-ordained pathway through them.
The Call to Marvel, Part 2
What does it mean that God has 'bestowed' on sinners the right to be called children of God? Expounding the first half of 1 John 3:1, this sermon works through the content and intent of the apostle John's call to marvel — tracing divine love, divine grace, and divine fatherhood as the three constituent elements of the Christian's astonishment. The sermon presses the doctrines of adoption and sovereign grace against any scheme of salvation that credits the creature, and closes by showing that the same behold which exhilarates also obligates: children of God are to pursue practical godliness, avail themselves of the ordained means of grace, and walk in cheerful conformity to the law of their Father.
The Call to Marvel, Part 1
The imperative 'Behold' in 1 John 3:1 is not a casual glance but a commanded, faith-filled, astonished gaze upon the love of God the Father displayed in adopting guilty sinners as His children. This sermon opens the first of three headings in the verse — the call to marvel, the content of marveling, and the intent behind it — treating in full the call itself and beginning the content (divine love, divine grace, divine fatherhood). The love that is to be beheld is uninfluenced, eternal, sovereign, infinite, immutable, and gracious — attributes rooted not merely in what God does but in what God is, since God does not merely have love but is love. Believers are pressed to behold this love daily, grounding their ongoing pursuit of holiness in the astonishing truth that those who were children of wrath and children of the devil have been sovereignly adopted into the household of God through the perfect work of Christ.
The Spirit's Application of Redemption
The Holy Spirit's work in applying redemption to sinners is the focus of this exposition of Ephesians 1:13–14, the concluding verses of Paul's great doxology on the blessings of God the Father and God the Son. The Spirit functions both as a seal — impressing upon the heart of the believer the assurance that he is a child of God — and as a guarantee or down payment of the full inheritance yet to be received in glory. Drawing from the 1689 London Baptist Confession's chapter on assurance and the writings of J.C. Ryle, the sermon calls believers struggling with weak faith to rest in the objective work of the triune God, and exhorts them to pursue holiness through the means of grace as the proper fruit of that assurance.
"The Instruction on Riches and Rewards" - July 12, 2015 AM
Matthew 19:23–30 presents Christ's instruction on the spiritual dangers of wealth, the impossibility of self-salvation, and the gracious recompense awaiting those who follow him. Working through three movements — the commentary on riches, the question of salvation, and the instruction concerning rewards — the sermon argues that riches (and by extension every besetting sin) render men spiritually helpless apart from sovereign, effectual grace. The sermon closes with both a gospel call to the unconverted and a sober exhortation to believers: no one who follows Christ will ever be a loser for it, because eternal life and the hundredfold recompense of the messianic community are the portion of all who believe.
The Enthronement of the Priest-King
Psalm 110, the most-quoted Old Testament verse in the New Testament, sets forth the Messiah under three aspects: divine king enthroned at the right hand of Yahweh, eternal priest after the order of Melchizedek, and conquering warrior who shatters every enemy of God. The sermon argues that Christ's enthronement at the ascension inaugurates a reign that cannot fail, grounded in the unbreakable oath of the covenant of redemption, and that his priestly office is inseparable from his role as both offerer and offering — the seed of the woman crushed on Golgotha so that he might crush the serpent. The congregation is called to hold this warrior-king vision without embarrassment, to grieve sin without shock at its prevalence, and to press forward as a willing people in the day of his power.
2LCF Chapter 13 - Of Sanctification
Sanctification belongs to the unbreakable chain of redemption: all whom God effectually calls and regenerates will be sanctified and glorified. This study of 1689 LBCF Chapter 13 traces both a divine and a human chronology of sanctification, distinguishing definitive sanctification — the once-for-all decisive break with sin's dominion accomplished in Christ's crosswork — from progressive sanctification, the ongoing renewal of the whole man by the indwelling Spirit through the Word, prayer, and the sacraments. The sermon insists that conflating sanctification with justification corrupts the gospel no less than denying sanctification's necessity, and calls believers to pursue holiness through joyful, evangelical obedience to the law of Christ.
The Conduct of God's Servant
Second Timothy 2:20–26 confronts the reality that the visible church always contains both honorable and dishonorable vessels, and calls God's servant to respond not with contentious disputation but with flight from youthful lusts, pursuit of righteousness, and gentle correction of those in error. Paul's metaphor of vessels in a great house is applied to Timothy's pastoral conduct: cleansing oneself from the influence of false teachers issues in sanctification and fitness for the Master's use. The closing verses ground the servant's patient, humble engagement in the doctrine of repentance as a sovereign gift of God — not merely a failure of argument or evidence, but a work of divine grace that alone restores men from the devil's snare to rational, truth-knowing life.
2LCF Chapter 12 - Of Adoption
The doctrine of adoption — that God, by free grace, receives the justified into the number and privileges of His sons — is the subject of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 12, paragraph 1. The teaching works through five aspects of adoption: its origin in God's eternal loving-kindness and decree, its procurement by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit's role as guarantor and testifier, the recipients (the elect alone), and its nature as an objective legal determination made by God as Father. The doctrine is grounded in the ordo salutis, follows logically from justification, and calls believers to be grounded in the joy of adoption, to walk as children of God, to welcome fatherly chastisement, and to love their brothers and sisters in the household of God.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 3
Justification is the article upon which the church stands or falls, and this exposition of 2LCF Chapter 11 works through the nature, basis, and instrument of justification as the confession presents them. The sermon distinguishes justification sharply from sanctification against the Roman Catholic doctrine of infused righteousness, the neo-Nomian teaching of Richard Baxter, and the New Perspective on Paul, arguing that the elect are accepted by God solely on the basis of Christ's imputed active and passive obedience received through faith alone. The active obedience of Christ — his 33 years of perfect law-keeping — is shown to be as necessary as his death, because forgiveness alone would leave the believer back in a probationary state without a positive righteousness that avails before God. Faith is the alone instrument of justification, not its condition or cause, and is itself a gift of God, so that every ground of human boasting is excluded.
He Saved Us
Salvation by works, whether in whole or in part, is a criminal doctrine — so the Apostle Paul insists in Titus 3:5–7, and this sermon works through that text under four headings: the one at work in salvation (God alone, not man), the nature of salvation (regeneration, renewal, and justification), the foundation of salvation (Jesus Christ exclusively), and the certainty of salvation (grounded in the immutable decree of election and the perfecting work of the triune God). The washing of regeneration is not water baptism but the sovereign operation of the Holy Spirit making dead sinners alive, paralleling the new-covenant promise of Ezekiel 36. Justification is a legal declaration in which Christ's righteousness is imputed to the believer and received by faith alone — not supplemented by any work of the believer's own. Both the regenerate and the unbeliever are called to rest solely upon Christ, the one foundation of all salvation.
The Pursuit of Christian Unity
Ephesians 4:1–3 commands believers to walk worthy of their calling by cultivating four virtues — lowliness, gentleness, long-suffering, and forbearing love — as the means by which the church maintains the Spirit-wrought unity already given to it. The sermon distinguishes this genuine, truth-grounded unity from any ecumenicism that achieves togetherness by dissolving doctrinal conviction. Because the Holy Spirit is the author of church unity and the triune God is its ultimate foundation, to abandon the pursuit of it is to dishonor God himself. Hearers are pressed to give diligent, active effort to preserve what the Spirit has produced, and those outside of Christ are reminded that Christian ethics, including the pursuit of unity, can only flow from salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 2
The forensic doctrine of justification — God's one-time legal declaration that the sinner is righteous on the sole ground of Christ's imputed righteousness — faces persistent assault in every era. This session surveys three modern deviations: Arminian evangelicalism (which collapses faith into a meritorious work or relocates righteousness within the believer), the New Perspective on Paul (which reframes Paul's argument as a corrective for ethnic exclusivity rather than a remedy for the condemnation of sin), and the Federal Vision (which renders righteousness relational, conflates Christ's faithfulness with the believer's, and anticipates a future eschatological justification grounded in covenantal obedience). Against all three, Scripture and the confession insist that justification is a completed legal verdict, not a process, and that its ground is exclusively the active and passive obedience of Christ credited to the elect.
The Risen Lord and a Doubting Disciple
Thomas's demand to physically verify Christ's resurrection before believing exposes the human tendency to place conditions upon God — the creature setting terms for the Creator. This sermon works through John 20:24–31, examining Thomas's obstinacy, the patient grace of Christ who meets Thomas on his own stated terms, and the lofty confession that follows: 'My Lord and my God.' The passage closes with John's stated purpose in writing the fourth gospel — that readers would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so have life in his name — a purpose the risen Lord underscores in his final beatitude: blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 1
Justification is the cardinal article of the Christian faith — the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. This first of two sessions on 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 11 (paragraphs 1–6) surveys the definition of justification through the Confession, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the 39 Articles, then examines five reasons why departure from the biblical doctrine is catastrophic: it is a damnable error, it diminishes the holiness and justice of God, it contradicts God's eternal decree, it lessens the severity of sin and robs Christ of his exclusivity as Savior, and it destroys the believer's peace. The session closes by tracing the three historical errors the Confession's negations target — Roman Catholicism, Anabaptism, and Arminianism — and calls the hearer to treasure the precise forensic definition of justification as a bulwark against every corruption of the gospel.
The Incentives for Perseverance, Part 2
Paul's 'faithful saying' in 2 Timothy 2:11–13 supplies three conditional clauses that together form both an encouragement and a warning for the persevering Christian. The sermon exposits the believer's union with Christ in conversion (dying and rising with Him), the present communion that sustains endurance, and the solemn warning that denial of Christ evidences a faithlessness that Christ Himself will not overlook. The means of grace — Scripture, prayer, and corporate worship including the Lord's Supper — are set out as the God-appointed instruments by which believers are kept running the race.
1 Samuel 14:1-23
Jonathan's courageous assault on the Philistine garrison in 1 Samuel 14:1–23 exposes the sharp contrast between a faithless king who sits under a pomegranate tree and a faithful son who acts in confident reliance on the sovereignty of God. The study traces Jonathan's famous confession — 'nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few' — as an expression of genuine faith that neither doubts God's omnipotence nor presumes to dictate the divine will. Along the way, the passage warns against seeking guidance through signs and fleeces rather than through the completed canon of Scripture, and it closes with the reminder that the Lord's salvation of Israel that day was an act of sovereign, unmerited mercy toward an undeserving people.
The Warning Against Despising Believers
Jesus' warning in Matthew 18:10–14 against despising fellow believers is neither a peripheral concern nor a suggestion for pleasant church life — it is a binding command addressed to the very tendency toward pride and contempt that lurks in regenerate hearts. The sermon works through three movements: the prohibition itself with its two supporting reasons (the ministry of angels and the redemptive mission of the Son of Man), the parable of the straying sheep (read in its Matthean context as pastoral recovery rather than evangelistic proclamation), and the Father's stated will that none of these little ones should perish. The congregation is pressed to see that when the Father, the Son, and the angels all esteem the little ones, any contempt shown by one believer toward another is an affront to the entire Trinitarian economy of redemption. The exhortation is concrete: kill pride at the root, receive rather than reject fellow believers, and willingly surrender Christian liberties rather than scandalize a brother for whom Christ died.
2LCF Chapter 10 - Of Effectual Calling
Effectual calling is the sovereign, monergistic act by which God brings his elect out of spiritual death and into saving union with Christ — by his Word and Spirit alone, apart from any foreseen merit or creaturely co-operation. Walking through 2LCF Chapter 10, paragraphs 1–4, this study situates effectual calling within the broader covenant structure of the confession, distinguishing it from the general gospel call that goes forth indiscriminately to all. The session addresses the regenerating work of the Spirit, the doctrinal grounding of infant salvation, the exclusion of the non-elect from saving grace, and the eternal perdition of those outside Christ regardless of moral sincerity — with a sustained application to how these truths ought to shape corporate prayer and gospel proclamation.
2LCF Chapter 9 - Of Free Will
The doctrine of free will, as confessed in chapter 9 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, is neither denied nor affirmed without qualification — it is carefully defined in relation to the fourfold state of man. In the state of innocency man possessed genuine freedom to do good, yet was mutable; in the state of sin he retains natural liberty of choice but has wholly lost all ability to will any spiritual good; in the state of grace God monergistically transfers the sinner from bondage into freedom to will and do what is spiritually good, yet remaining corruption sustains a continual warfare within; and in the state of glory the will is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone. The central pastoral application is that a true grasp of total depravity and total inability is the only ground on which amazing grace is truly amazing, and the presence of ongoing battle against sin — not its absence — is the mark of regenerate life.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 3
The perfection, particularity, and certain application of Christ's saving work — as confessed in 2LCF 8.5, 6, and 8 — is examined through an extended exposition of Hebrews, John, Romans, and related texts. Christ's once-for-all sacrifice fully satisfied divine justice, procured reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance for a fixed and particular multitude given to him by the Father before the world was. The confession's teaching is traced along three coordinates: the pactum salutis (the pre-temporal intra-Trinitarian covenant of redemption), the historia salutis (the historical accomplishment of salvation), and the ordo salutis (the Spirit's effectual application of that finished work to the elect). Believers are called to rest in the certainty that Christ's redemption is not a matter of 'perhaps' but of infallible, sovereign, and free grace from first to last.
The Healing of a Demon Possessed Boy
Matthew 17:14–23 sets a desperate father's plea for his demon-possessed son against the disciples' failure to cast out the demon, and Christ's authoritative word that immediately effects the cure. The sermon works through four movements: the request for mercy, the Lord's rebuke of faithless Israel and the demon, instruction on the nature and exercise of faith, and the second formal passion announcement of Matthew's Gospel. Throughout, the contrast between Christ's kingdom of mercy and the devil's kingdom of self-destruction frames both the evangelistic and pastoral applications: sinners are called to come to the sovereign Christ who alone delivers, and parents are urged never to despair of the conversion of any soul, pressing the atoning work of the cross upon their children.
The Apostle and his Apostolic Task
Titus 1:1 opens with a two-word identification — 'Paul, a bondservant' — that is itself a monument to sovereign grace. This sermon works through Paul's self-designation as bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, tracing the apostolic commission through Acts 22 and Acts 26 to show that Paul's entire ministry was aimed at three ends: bringing the elect to saving faith, securing their public ownership of the gospel, and ensuring that gospel truth adorns itself in godly conduct. The application presses both the congregation and the unconverted: appreciate God's appointed means of grace in faithful preaching, grip tightly the acknowledged truth, and adorn the doctrine of Christ with lives worthy of the gospel.
The Hope and the Preaching
Titus 1:2–3 sets before believers a hope of eternal life that is neither wishful thinking nor earthly optimism, but a certain expectation grounded in the immutable character of God and the finished work of Christ. This sermon works through three headings: the believer's certain expectation of everlasting life as a goal of gospel ministry; the foundation of that hope in God's unchanging nature and eternal promises; and the ordained means by which those blessings are made known — namely, the preaching of the Word. The application is direct: believers are to rejoice daily in this sure hope, find comfort in God's immutability, and never despise the act of preaching; unbelievers are called to flee to Christ as the only ground of any lasting hope.
The Ministries of Paul and Timothy
Paul's appointment as preacher, apostle, and teacher of the Gentiles was not self-generated but rooted in the eternal decree of God, who foreordained both the salvation of the elect and every means by which that salvation arrives — including gospel proclamation. Examining 2 Timothy 1:11–14, this sermon traces Paul's God-given role, his suffering in that role, and his unashamed confidence in a sovereign God able to keep what has been committed to Him. Timothy is then charged with two complementary duties: to hold fast the pattern of sound words received from Paul, and to guard that apostolic deposit by the indwelling Holy Spirit — not for his own sake alone, but so that the church across successive generations remains anchored to the truth.
The Glory of the Father
John 17:1–5 records the opening of Christ's High Priestly Prayer, in which the incarnate Son petitions the Father to glorify Him in and through His approaching death, resurrection, and exaltation. The sermon expounds three grounds for that petition: the salvation of the elect, the accomplishment of redemption through Christ's active and passive obedience, and the restoration of the pre-incarnate glory to the God-Man. Central to the exposition is verse 3, where Christ defines eternal life as the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ — a knowledge that necessarily issues in glorifying God, sustaining believers through trial, and grounding assurance not in personal performance but in the character and covenant of the triune God. Hearers are pressed to pursue that knowledge through the ordinary means of grace: the reading of Scripture, prayer, and faithful attendance upon the Word.
The Unashamed Commitment to the Gospel
2 Timothy 1:9–10 sets before the reader the entire arc of God's redemptive plan, from its eternal origin to its historical execution in the appearing of Jesus Christ. The text answers Paul's command to Timothy in verse 8 — to be unashamed of the gospel and to suffer for it — by grounding that command in the glorious nature of the gospel itself. Salvation originates not in human will or works but in God's sovereign purpose and grace, decreed before time began and administered through the effectual calling of the elect. Because Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, the preacher and every Christian has every reason to hold fast to this message without shame and to labor in its proclamation without relenting.
The Description of Discipleship
Matthew 16:24–26 sets before every professing believer a three-part description of discipleship: self-denial, cross-bearing, and following Christ. This sermon argues that Jesus is not addressing unbelievers with a program for earning salvation, but is describing the necessary shape of a life already transformed by sovereign grace — a life in which self is renounced, suffering for Christ is embraced as a daily reality, and nothing in this world is valued above the soul. The exhortation is direct: examine whether your life is ordered around Christ or around self, repent where it is not, and trust not in your own self-denial but in Christ's perfect obedience and resurrection.
The Apostle's Prayer and Reminder
Paul's prayer for Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:3–7 reveals the anatomy of apostolic intercession — gratitude to God, constancy of remembrance, and earnest desire — and grounds a pastoral reminder to stir up the God-given ministerial gift. The sermon traces the connection between a pure conscience and an effective prayer life, drawing on Psalm 66:18 and 1 Peter 3:7 to press the point that those who live well tend to pray well. Timothy's genuine, unhypocritical faith is traced to the effectual calling of God, nurtured through his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, establishing a pattern for covenantal family religion. The exhortation to stir up the gift is not a rebuke but a reminder: God has given his ministers not a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind, and faithful ministry demands that these resources be actively employed.