Theological term
Imputed Righteousness
165 sermons · All terms
The Olivet Discourse, Part 11
Matthew 24:36–44 presents Jesus's declaration that no one — not even the angels, nor the Son according to his human nature — knows the day or hour of the coming judgment, followed by the analogy of Noah's generation and the illustration of the thief in the night. The sermon works through a contested exegetical question: whether 'that day' in verse 36 refers to the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem or to the final second coming, concluding that the hortatory application holds on either reading. Central to the exposition is a careful defense of the hypostatic union — Christ's genuine ignorance according to his humanity is not a denial of his divinity but a necessary consequence of the incarnation. The controlling exhortation is watchfulness: not withdrawal from ordinary life, but faithfulness, preparedness, and diligence under the conscious reality that God is near and will judge the living and the dead.
The Riches and the Poverty of Christ
Second Corinthians 8:9 presents the incarnation of the eternal Son as the supreme theological ground for Christian generosity: though he was rich in essential deity, Christ became poor by addition — taking on humanity — that his people through his poverty might become rich. The sermon exposits the riches of Christ in his divine nature and the poverty of Christ in his state of humiliation, drawing on the Chalcedonian definition of the hypostatic union as articulated in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 8. Doctrinal appropriation of Christology is shown to be the indispensable spring of practical Christian living, including sacrificial giving, mortification of sin, and love within the home.
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.
2 Samuel 22:32-51
Second Samuel 22:32–51 closes David's great psalm of praise — a passage paralleled in Psalm 18 — by celebrating what the speaker calls the invincibility of God's kingdom. The study traces four movements: the incomparable power of Yahweh as the sole ground of David's military victories, the people encompassed by David's expanding dominion (both internal opponents and foreign nations), the praise David ascribes to the living God, and the Davidic covenant promise (2 Samuel 7) that secures the kingdom's advance through David's greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. David's assertion of his own righteousness in verse 21 is read through a redemptive-historical lens — the imputed righteousness of Christ — grounding Old Testament soteriology in the same doctrine of justification by faith that Paul expounds in Romans 4 from Psalm 32. The congregation is exhorted to learn from David's example: to praise the living God publicly and to trust Him through every internal and external trial.
2 Samuel 22
Psalm 18's twin text, 2 Samuel 22 presents David not as a great military king but as a theologian of grace, ascribing every victory to Yahweh alone. The sermon examines the deliverance of God's servant (vv. 1–20), then takes up the harder exegetical question of David's assertion of his own righteousness (vv. 21–31), arguing from Psalms 32, 51, and 65 and from Romans 4 that David's righteousness is the imputed righteousness of Christ, received through faith, not a claim to sinless perfection. The sermon closes by grounding David's confidence in the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 and calling the congregation to the same exuberant, theologically informed praise.
A Psalm of Habakkuk
Habakkuk 3 is a psalm composed by the prophet on the brink of the Babylonian devastation of Judah, and it shows what it looks like when a man lives out the principle of Habakkuk 2:4 — 'the just shall live by his faith.' Working through the psalm's three movements — petition, remembrance, and refuge — the sermon traces four gifts that faith provides in tumultuous times: rest in the day of trouble, joy in God amid devastation, stability grounded in God's strength, and material for the corporate worship of the church. The evangel is pressed home at the close: no human righteousness commends a sinner to God, and the sole instrument by which a sinful soul enters saving union with Christ is faith receiving and resting on Christ and His imputed righteousness.
The Lament Over Jerusalem
Matthew 23:37–39 records Christ's lament over Jerusalem — a cry of sorrow that follows directly upon the severest condemnations he has pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees. The sermon traces Jesus' prophetic lament through its Old Testament antecedents in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Psalms, arguing that Christ speaks here according to his human nature, expressing genuine grief over a city that has killed the prophets and now rejects the Messiah himself. The declaration 'your house is left to you desolate' marks a decisive redemptive-historical shift: as in Ezekiel 8–11, the withdrawal of God's glory precedes the destruction of the temple, and that withdrawal is enacted when Christ departs to the Mount of Olives. The sermon closes by refuting the Arminian use of 'you were not willing' as a proof text for free will, showing instead that the text confirms total depravity and that the free and genuine offer of Christ to sinners is fully consistent with the Reformed doctrine of sovereign grace.
The Whole Armor of God
Ephesians 6:10–18 calls believers to put on the whole armor of God — not for ceremonial display but for genuine hand-to-hand combat against principalities, powers, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness. The armor is not native to the believer but is provided entirely through union with Christ: truth, imputed righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, and salvation constitute the defensive elements, while the Word of God is the offensive sword. The sermon argues that the Christian life is a lifelong fight requiring daily, persevering diligence — not passive rest — and closes by urging both believers and unbelievers to recognize that lasting victory over sin is possible only through the blood of atonement and the grace of the triune God.
The Parable of the Wedding Feast
Matthew 22:1–14 presents the parable of the wedding feast as a sobering account of divine invitation, human rebellion, and eschatological judgment. The parable unfolds three responses to God's sovereign call — unwillingness, indifference, and violent opposition — each met by the king's patient re-invitation and, ultimately, his righteous wrath. The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is identified as a visible, covenantal judgment prefiguring the final day when every mouth will be stopped before God. The sermon closes by pressing the imputed righteousness of Christ as the only wedding garment that makes a sinner fit for the feast, and by urging the church to pursue gospel mission with urgency.
Rejoicing in Christ's Righteousness
Philippians 3:1–11 presents Paul's charge to rejoice in Christ's righteousness rather than in any credential of the flesh. The sermon exposes the Judaizing error of mixing works with justification, demonstrates that every fleshly advantage Paul possessed was counted as rubbish compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ, and traces the spiritual wealth found in Christ through justification, sanctification, and the hope of glorification. Hearers are called to rejoice in an alien righteousness received by faith alone, to beware of any teaching that smuggles works into salvation, and to walk as kingdom citizens whose passport is Christ's righteousness imputed to them.
The Inclusion of the Gentiles in God's Covenant
Ephesians 2:11–22 addresses the radical transformation of Gentile believers, who were once 'aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise,' into full participants in the covenant of grace. The sermon traces three movements in the text: the former plight of Gentile unbelievers (vv. 11–12), their present reception through the blood of Christ (vv. 13–17), and the purchased benefits now belonging to them as fellow citizens, members of God's household, and living stones in his temple (vv. 18–22). Christ is shown to be the one who is peace, who makes peace through the cross by abolishing the ceremonial law's enmity, and who preaches peace through the apostolic gospel. The exposition concludes with a call to prize corporate worship as the special dwelling place of God Most High, in which Jewish and Gentile believers together form one temple indwelt by the Spirit.
The Fourth Commandment
The Fourth Commandment, as confessed in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 22, binds all men in all ages to set apart one day in seven for the worship of God. This exposition of Deuteronomy 5:12–15 traces the Sabbath from its creation ordinance grounding in Genesis 2, through its Sinaitic rationale of creation and redemption, into its prophetic anticipation in Isaiah 56 and 58, and finally to its New Covenant fulfillment on the first day of the week as the Lord's Day. The sermon argues that the Sabbath's moral principle — one day in seven devoted to God — is permanent and continuous across the covenants, while the positive element (the particular day) shifts from Saturday to Sunday in light of Christ's resurrection. Hearers are called to receive the Sabbath not as a legalistic burden but as God's gift, and to guard equally against Pharisaic rigidity and antinomian dismissal.
The Rich Young Ruler
What must a man do to inherit eternal life? This exposition of Matthew 19:16–22 examines the encounter between Christ and the rich young ruler, showing that the young man's question is at once legitimate — every soul must reckon with eternity — and illegitimate, because it proceeds from the assumption that salvation is earned by human merit. Christ answers him on the terms of the covenant of works, pressing the second table of the Decalogue and then the tenth commandment in particular, not to prescribe a new way of salvation by poverty, but to expose the man's covetousness and unmask the bankruptcy of his self-righteousness. The sermon calls hearers to abandon proud self-righteousness, reckon honestly with the spirituality of God's law, and flee by faith to the one who alone kept it perfectly.
The Instruction on Divorce, Part 2
Sexual immorality and willful desertion are the two lawful grounds for divorce recognized in Scripture, and this exposition of 1 Corinthians 7:10–16 establishes both the prohibition against divorce and the Pauline exception. Paul's instruction divides into two sections: the command to believing spouses not to separate, and the rule governing mixed marriages in which one partner is converted after the wedding. The sermon argues that when an unbeliever departs and dissolves the marriage, the believing spouse is released from bondage and may remarry, grounding that conclusion in the absence of a prohibition in verse 15, the consistent biblical assumption that lawful divorce permits remarriage, and the analogy with Matthew 19:9. Throughout, the original intent of marriage as a lifelong, one-flesh covenant is upheld as the governing norm, with the exceptions confirming rather than undermining that norm.
2LCF Chapter 16 - Of Good Works, Part 2
The second half of a two-part study on 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 16 (Of Good Works) examines paragraphs four through seven, working through the doctrines of supererogation, the nature of merit, the acceptance of believers' works before God, and the status of works performed by the unregenerate. Supererogation — the Roman Catholic teaching that the saints perform meritorious works beyond what God requires, which the church then dispenses as indulgences — is refuted from Romans 3 as incompatible with the universal sinfulness of mankind and the nature of divine law. The study then distinguishes between condign merit (which belongs to Christ alone) and any informal divine reward, while grounding the acceptance of believers' imperfect works solely in their union with Christ and God's free grace. The works of unregenerate men, however outwardly decent, are shown to be spiritually dead, incapable of pleasing God, though greater external wickedness remains more displeasing to him than lesser.
The First Commandment
The First Commandment — 'You shall have no other gods before me' (Deuteronomy 5:7) — demands the exclusive covenantal allegiance of God's people to Yahweh alone. The sermon works through both the prohibition and the positive demands of the commandment, exposing atheism (doctrinal and practical), polytheism, syncretism, idolatry, sorcery, and heresy as violations of the first word, while showing that the commandment positively requires the knowledge, love, fear, trust, obedience, and worship of the one true God. The pedagogical function of the law is also pressed: the commandment, taken seriously, drives the believer to repentance and to Christ, the only law-keeper, who gave himself for the sins of all those the Father had given him.
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.
The Pattern for Gospel Ministry
Second Timothy 1:8 calls Timothy — and by extension all ministers and believers — to an unashamed allegiance to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and a readiness to suffer for it. The sermon traces two movements in the verse: a prohibition against shame and a positive exhortation to share in the sufferings of the gospel according to the power of God. Four temptations toward shame are examined — the person of Christ, the work of Christ, the doctrine of Christ, and the cause of Christ — before the message closes with the assurance that the Spirit supplies power, not fear, to those who must persevere under opposition and trial.
The Objection to the Divine Plan
Peter's rebuke of Christ in Matthew 16:22 is not merely a disciple's well-intentioned blunder — it is an alignment with the adversarial agenda that Jesus had already confronted in the wilderness temptation of Matthew 4. This sermon expounds the divine necessity of Christ's suffering and death as grounded in the eternal Covenant of Redemption, and presses the point that to object to a suffering Messiah is to object to the only ground of sinners' salvation. The response to Peter — 'Get behind me, Satan' — exposes the disease-at-the-heart nature of any theology that removes the cross from Christianity's center, and the sermon closes by pressing listeners either to embrace the crucified Christ or to reckon with the inescapable judgment of that same Christ.
The Good Fight of Faith
First Timothy 6:11–12 sets a man of God in sharp contrast to the false teachers Paul has just condemned: where they pursue comfort, ease, and financial gain, Timothy is commanded to flee, follow, fight, and hold fast. The sermon works through four imperatives — a necessary flight from wickedness, a righteous pursuit of six virtues, a good fight waged as both soldier and athlete, and a steadfast grip on the eternal life God has effectually given. The passage drives home that perseverance in the Christian life demands active, disciplined, Spirit-dependent effort, not passive coasting, and that the same effectual call that conquered Paul conquers every believer, however quiet their conversion.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 1
The preface to the Lord's Prayer — 'Our Father in heaven' — calls the believer to ground every act of prayer in sound theology proper before a single petition is offered. Against both the hypocrite's ostentation and the heathen's vain repetition, the Lord Jesus provides a model that is at once personal and majestic: the One addressed is Father by adoption through the redemptive work of Christ, and He is in heaven, sovereign over all creation. This study traces six qualities of 'Our Father' — that He is personal, gracious, hearing, caring, loving, and the exclusive object of prayer — before turning to 'in heaven' as the warrant for approaching God with both filial confidence and reverential awe.
The Blessed Yoke of Discipleship
Matthew 11:29–30 presents the 'blessed yoke of discipleship' — the claim that coming to Christ in justification is inseparable from taking up His yoke in sanctification. The sermon moves through three considerations: the command to submit to Christ's rule, the demand to learn from Christ as both teacher and lesson, and the description of discipleship as a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light compared to the bondage of sin and Pharisaic legalism. Antinomianism is directly refuted: the grace that justifies is the grace that sanctifies, and the law of God in the hand of Christ remains the believer's rule of life. The hearer is pressed to either believe on the meek and lowly Christ for rest, or continue in the hard and heavy way of sin.
Justification By Faith Alone
Philippians 3:7–11 presents the Apostle Paul's own testimony as the sharpest exposition of justification by faith alone: he counted every religious credential as loss in order to be found in Christ, 'not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.' The sermon works through Paul's possession of Christ (vv. 7–8), his position in Christ (v. 9), and his privileges in Christ (vv. 10–11), giving sustained attention to the forensic character of justification — pardon of sin and imputation of Christ's righteousness — as defined by the 1689 London Baptist Confession 11.1 and the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q33. The Roman Catholic doctrine of justification, as codified at the Council of Trent (Canons 9 and 11), is examined as a counter-example, demonstrating that any conflation of justification with sanctification destroys assurance and leaves the dying sinner without the comfort of Romans 8:1.
The Gospel Committed to Paul
What does it mean that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners? Expounding 1 Timothy 1:15–17, this sermon traces the faithful saying of verse 15 from its roots in the eternal decree of God through the covenant of grace to its historical execution in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ. Paul's own conversion is examined as a paradigm of sovereign mercy — not a unique case, but a pattern establishing that even the chief of sinners may obtain grace — and the sermon closes with Paul's doxology as the only fitting response to the gospel of free and sovereign grace.
The Joy of the Messianic Kingdom
Why did Jesus' disciples feast while John's disciples and the Pharisees fasted? In Matthew 9:14–17, Jesus answers with the image of the bridegroom: mourning is incompatible with the presence of the long-promised Messiah. Drawing on OT prophecy (Isaiah 54, 62; Hosea 2; Zechariah 8), the sermon argues that the joy of Christ's disciples is not carelessness but the only fitting response to the dawn of the messianic kingdom. The two parables of unshrunk cloth and new wineskins reinforce the same point: fasting and mourning in the presence of the bridegroom is as incongruous as patching old cloth with new fabric, and the disciple of Christ is called to a joy that is consistent, deep, and grounded in forgiveness and imputed righteousness.
The Whole Armor of God
Ephesians 6:10–20 calls believers to put on the whole armor of God not as a passive ideal but as an urgent, daily discipline in genuine spiritual warfare against principalities, powers, and the wiles of the devil. The sermon works through three structural observations: the two commands of verses 10–11 (be strong in the Lord; put on the armor), the reason given in verses 11–12 (the nature and reality of the enemy), and the armor described in verses 13–20 (five defensive elements and one offensive element). Each piece of armor — truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the Word, and prayer — is shown to direct the believer away from self-reliance and toward Christ as the captain of salvation. The central application is that theological grounding, not spiritual showmanship, constitutes genuine spiritual warfare, and that apart from Christ no believer will stand in the evil day.
Jesus Was Born to Reign
What does it mean that the eternal Son of God was born? John 18:37 places the incarnation in its most demanding context: Jesus, exhausted and on trial before Pilate, declares with quiet certainty, 'For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world.' This sermon exposits the Roman trial narrative of John 18:28–38, arguing that Christ's birth must be understood not sentimentally but regally — he was born to reign as King of Kings, bearing witness to truth as the instrument of his conquest, and ruling a kingdom whose origin and character are altogether unlike any earthly empire. The hearer is called to examine whether they hear Christ's voice as subjects of his kingdom, and to rest their standing before God not in their own righteousness but in the righteousness that comes through faith in him.
Walk in His Ways
Deuteronomy 10:12–22 sets forth the covenant obligations God requires of his people — fear, obedience, love, service, and keeping his commandments — grounded not in Israel's righteousness but solely in the sovereignty and mercy of God. The passage exposes the internal religion God has always demanded: external compliance was never acceptable, and heart circumcision is the necessary prerequisite for covenant fidelity, a work that belongs to God alone. Moses drives home that right doctrine produces right living — a high view of God's transcendent majesty and his compassion toward the fatherless, the widow, and the alien are the twin motivations for the five-fold response. The sermon applies this pattern to the new covenant: the justified believer is called to the same fear, love, service, and obedience, enabled by an imputed righteousness that does not abolish the sanctification these obligations require.
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 Old Testament and Jesus: Specific Warnings
Matthew 5:19–20 presents two specific warnings that frame Christ's exposition of the law in the Sermon on the Mount: a warning against antinomianism and a warning against legalism. Both errors, though apparently opposite, share a common root — a contempt for God's law as he actually gave it, whether by subtracting from it or by supplementing it with human tradition. The sermon argues that the righteousness required for entrance into the kingdom of heaven is not produced by moral effort nor excused by doctrinal sleight of hand, but is found only in Christ, whose imputed righteousness is received through faith alone.