Theological term
Intercession
86 sermons · All terms
The Comprehensiveness of Salvation
Jude 1–2 presents a compressed theology of salvation — the called, sanctified, and preserved — that serves as the launching pad for a full-orbed defense of the perseverance of the saints. Drawing on the golden chain of Romans 8:29–30, the new covenant promises of Jeremiah 31 and 32, the priestly intercession of Hebrews 7, and the doxology of 1 Peter 1:3–5, the sermon argues that perseverance is grounded not in the believer's own holiness but in the inviolable, triune work of God from election to glorification. The doctrine is presented under four heads — the perfect plan, promise, performance, and power of God — and applied as the only sure ground of soul comfort, soul-stirring doxology, and gospel-worthy conduct.
Hebrews 1
Hebrews 1:3 declares that Christ 'by himself purged our sins' before sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty on high — a compressed statement of the entire work of redemption. This Bible study exposition unpacks that purging under four aspects: it was a thorough cleansing of sin, an expiatory sacrifice removing legal guilt, a propitiatory sacrifice satisfying divine wrath, and a substitutionary act in which Christ bore the curse in the place of his people. The finality of the work is sealed by Christ's session at the Father's right hand — a posture no Levitical priest could assume because their work was never complete — and by his own word from the cross, 'It is finished.'
The Demand for a Sign
Matthew 12:38–45 exposes the demand of the scribes and Pharisees for a sign as a mask for ethical rebellion: the problem is not insufficient evidence but an unwillingness to fear God and repent. Christ identifies them as an evil and adulterous generation, declares that his death and resurrection will be the only sign given, and warns that Gentiles — the Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba — will rise in judgment to condemn those who rejected far greater light. The passage closes with a parable warning that moral reformation without the conquering grace of the gospel leaves a man in a worse condition than before, and the application presses hearers to believe the word, flee moral reform as a substitute for the gospel, and reckon with the greater condemnation that falls on those who enjoy greater privilege.
The Priestly Office of Christ
Hebrews 2:16–18 introduces the high priestly office of Christ, which the author of Hebrews will develop through chapters 5 to 10. This exposition works through three interlocking truths: Christ's role as covenant mediator — taking on the seed of Abraham rather than the nature of angels — establishes the ground of His representation; His incarnational identification with His brethren qualifies Him to serve as a merciful and faithful High Priest; and His function of propitiation reveals that He exhausted the wrath of God on behalf of a particular people given to Him by the Father, making definite atonement the only coherent conclusion. Believers are called to cry out to their interceding High Priest in every temptation, since He who withstood the full weight of temptation without sin is able to aid those who are tempted.
Colossians 1:9-14
Paul's intercessory prayer in Colossians 1:9–14 sets the pattern for how believers ought to pray for one another: not merely for temporal relief, but for a life that walks worthy of the Lord and fully pleases Him. The sermon works through four participles that Paul uses to describe that worthy walk — fruitfulness in good works, growth in the knowledge of God, strength for patient endurance, and thankfulness — showing these as a unified package rather than a menu of options. The closing verses of the passage (vv. 12–14) then ground that thankfulness in three cosmic realities: qualification for the inheritance of the saints, deliverance from the dominion of darkness, and transfer into the kingdom of Christ, all secured by redemption through His blood.
A Manifestation of Brotherly Love
Hebrews 13:3 commands believers to 'remember the prisoners as if chained with them' — not as a passive acknowledgement that suffering exists, but as an active, continual intercession on behalf of persecuted brothers and sisters. The sermon situates this command within the broader biblical pattern of enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15), arguing that persecution is the expected and normal experience of the godly throughout redemptive history. Three considerations structure the exposition: the duty to remember, the objects of remembrance (prisoners and the mistreated), and the reason for remembrance ('as if chained with them' — intense identification through shared membership in the body of Christ). Ten practical applications are drawn out, from intercessory prayer and letter-writing to praying for the conversion and restraint of persecutors, with the governing motive that Christ Himself is worth any suffering His people are called to endure.
The Priority of Prayer in the Church
Paul's command in 1 Timothy 2:1–2 to offer supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for all men — including kings and those in authority — establishes corporate prayer as the first order of business in the life of the church. This sermon works through the four terms Paul employs, the scope of those for whom prayer is made (all classes of men, not every individual without exception), and the purpose clause that grounds the command: that the church may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence so as to pursue the Great Commission. The exhortation to pray for governing authorities is traced across the canon, from the Babylonian exile in Jeremiah 29 through Ezra 6 and Psalm 2, demonstrating that intercession for civil rulers is no novelty in redemptive history. Hearers are called to replace complaint about government with prayer for the salvation of those in authority, trusting that God sovereignly moves the hearts of kings.
The Revelation of God's Glory
Exodus 34:6–7 reveals the attributes of God not in the abstract but in the wake of the catastrophic covenant-breaking of the golden calf — making the declaration of divine mercy, grace, long-suffering, and forgiveness all the more staggering. This sermon works through the context of Exodus 32–33 to show that God meets great sin with greater grace, and that sovereign grace is not a theological concession but the very content of the divine name. The same passage that grounds Moses' intercession grounds the call to flee to Christ, who accomplishes what Moses could only typify: atonement for covenant-breakers.
The Trinity and the Death of Christ
The death of Christ on the cross is not the work of the Son alone but of the entire Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — each acting distinctly yet inseparably in the one work of redemption. Drawing from 1 Peter 1:2 as a launching text, the sermon traces each person's role: the Father in purpose, promise, and punishment; the Son in penal obedience, perfection, and protection; the Spirit in publication, persuasion, and purification. The definite, efficacious nature of Christ's atonement is insisted upon throughout — Christ did not die to make salvation possible but to actually and perfectly save his elect. Observed in the context of the Lord's Supper, the sermon calls believers to reflect on the Triune God as the sole and sufficient author of salvation from beginning to end.
Colossians 4:2-6
Colossians 4:2–6 closes Paul's extended section on the conduct of the new man in Christ by addressing two inseparable responsibilities: how believers are to speak to God in prayer, and how they are to speak to unbelievers in witness. Four elements of effective prayer are drawn from verse 2 — persistence, vigilance, thanksgiving, and petition — each grounded in the broader Pauline teaching on prayer across the epistles. The sermon then treats faithful witness in terms of conduct (walking in wisdom toward outsiders, redeeming the time) and conversation (speech that is gracious and winsome), calling believers to understand that godly character and well-ordered speech are the ordinary means by which the gospel reaches the world.
The Gracious Remedy
Matthew 7:7–11 presents prayer not as a religious technique but as the God-ordained remedy enabling believers to live as the Sermon on the Mount demands. The passage's four considerations — its connection to the preceding ethical instruction, the exhortation to persistent prayer, the promises given to those who pray, and the encouragement drawn from God's fatherly character — all converge on a single point: the emphasis falls not on the act of praying but on the God to whom we pray. Because the Father in heaven is neither a reluctant stranger nor a malicious tyrant, believers are called to ask, seek, and knock with confidence that He defines and supplies the good things His children truly need.
Nothing Left but a Bleeding Saviour
Isaiah 53 presents with prophetic clarity the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, written seven centuries before Calvary yet as theologically precise as any New Testament text on the atonement. This sermon expounds five dimensions of Christ's saving work as the congregation prepares to observe the Lord's Supper: His humility in condescending from glory to ignominy, His substitution bearing the penal sanctions due His people, His resolve in completing the messianic task despite affliction, His ethical and redemptive perfection, and His triumphant reward shared with those for whom He died. The Lord's Supper is presented as the occasion for believers to return to the ABCs of Christianity — glorying afresh in a bleeding Saviour who is the only treasure in the treasury of merit.
Not By Israel's Righteousness
Deuteronomy 9:1–10:11 delivers a threefold warning against self-righteousness: Israel is not receiving the promised land because of her own merit, but because of the wickedness of Canaan, the covenant faithfulness of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and God's sovereign mercy displayed repeatedly in the face of Israel's rebellion. The historical review — from the golden calf at Horeb to Taberah, Massah, Kibroth Hattaavah, and Kadesh Barnea — demonstrates that Israel had no claim to righteousness whatsoever, and that her survival depended entirely on the mediatorial intercession of Moses, who points forward to Christ. The sermon drives this pattern into the conscience of the hearer: no one enters into the blessing of God on the ground of personal righteousness, wisdom, free will, or any self-generated merit, but solely through God's grace, covenant faithfulness, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
The High Priest of the New Covenant
Hebrews 7:20–28 presents Jesus Christ as the high priest of the new covenant who surpasses the entire Levitical order in three decisive respects: his appointment by divine oath rather than tribal descent, his permanent and unchangeable priesthood grounded in an endless life, and his sinless character and once-for-all self-offering. The sermon expounds why Christ's eternal intercession and definitive sacrifice leave nothing undone for the salvation of his people, pressing these doctrines as the ground of perseverance against every temptation to seek completeness elsewhere.
The Current Session of Christ
Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2 demonstrates that the session of Christ — his present reign at the right hand of the Father — is the convergent fulfillment of the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants, together with the royal-priestly announcement of Psalm 110. Working from Acts 2:29–36, this sermon traces Christ's universal sovereignty over all creation and then hones in on his specific interest in his church, exercised through his threefold mediatorial office as prophet, priest, and king. The current session is not a distant or past reality but a present comfort: Christ subdues his people to himself, intercedes for them continually, and governs every circumstance of history for the glory of God and the good of his elect. Believers are exhorted to engage Christ in his offices — hearing him as prophet, going to the Father through him as priest, and submitting to him as king — before that submission becomes compulsory at the final judgment.
True and False Religion: Prayer
True prayer, according to Jesus in Matthew 6:5–8, is defined not by its outward form but by its inward orientation — a point the Lord makes by exposing two distortions: the hypocrite who prays to be seen by men, and the heathen who babbles to manipulate God. The sermon establishes that Jesus assumes Christians will pray, treating prayerlessness as a mark of unregenerate life. Biblical prayer is neither a performance for human approval nor a technique for divine manipulation, but an exercise of faith directed to the Father alone — communing with the unseen God, conforming to His will, and unburdening oneself to the One who cares supremely.
The Redemptive Focus of the Incarnation
Hebrews 2:14–18 sets forth four redemptive purposes that drove the Son of God to take on flesh and blood: the destruction of Satan's tyranny, the liberation of his people from the fear of death, the assumption of the covenant mediator's role as seed of Abraham, and the execution of the high-priestly office through propitiation and intercession. The incarnation was not incidental but was decreed from eternity in the covenant of redemption, with the Father giving a people to the Son who then assumed their nature as surety of the new covenant. Christ's atoning work — bearing the Father's wrath as the substitute of sinners — is the nerve center of the argument, and the passage calls believers to draw near to a high priest who has suffered and is therefore able to aid every tempted soul.
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 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 Superiority of the New Covenant
Hebrews 8 presents the New Covenant as categorically superior to the Mosaic covenant — not because the old was defective in design, but because the fault lay with sinners who could not keep it. The sermon traces four essential features of the New Covenant from Jeremiah 31: its unbreakable character grounded in Christ's heavenly intercession, the internalization of God's law in the believer's heart, the personal knowledge of God granted to every covenant member, and the full and final forgiveness of sins secured by Christ's blood. These features define who legitimately enters the baptismal waters and call every professing Christian to honest self-examination about whether their life reflects genuine New Covenant membership.
The Suffering Servant
Isaiah 52:13–53:12, the fourth servant song, presents Christ as the suffering servant whose humiliation, substitutionary death, and triumphant exaltation form the theological foundation of the gospel. The servant's suffering is solitary, substitutionary, and comprehensive — he bore the griefs, iniquities, and wrath due to his people so that peace with God might be secured. His death was not accidental but decreed by the Father according to the eternal purpose of God, grounding definite atonement and the justification of many. This meditation, delivered prior to the Lord's Supper, calls believers to receive these realities with gratitude and to reflect upon them at the Table.
Behold the Lamb of God
John 1:29 records John the Baptist's climactic announcement — 'Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world' — and this meditation, preached before the Lord's Table, draws out three aspects of that declaration: Christ's arrival as the fulfillment of centuries of typological promise, His identification as the Lamb provided by God Himself, and His mission to remove sin in its totality. The sermon traces the Lamb motif from Genesis 3 through the Passover, Isaiah 53, and into the book of Revelation, demonstrating that definite atonement is God's sovereign provision rather than any human design. Hearers are called to stop and genuinely behold Christ crucified — not merely affirm justification by faith alone as a doctrine, but find in it daily comfort, worship, and the ground of true gospel holiness.
The Coronation of the High Priest
Zechariah 6 closes the vision sequence of the book with an eighth chariot vision and a symbolic coronation of Joshua the high priest — both pointing beyond their immediate historical setting to the person and work of Jesus Christ. The chariot vision declares God's comprehensive sovereignty over the enemies of His people, while the crowning of Joshua as priest-king anticipates the one Branch who would unite the offices of priest and king in His own person, build the true temple, and bear all glory. Against dispensationalist hopes for a rebuilt physical temple, this exposition argues that Christ has fulfilled and therefore abolished the need for any such structure, since He is Himself the meeting place of God and sinners. The congregation is called to rest in Christ's present kingly-priestly intercession and to come in faith to the Branch who will never cast out those who come to Him.
The Cleansing of Joshua
Zechariah 3 presents a fourth night vision in which Joshua the high priest stands before God clothed in filth — a vivid picture of human depravity and covenantal guilt — while Satan stands ready to accuse. God rebukes the accuser on the grounds of sovereign election and acts unilaterally to remove the filthy garments and clothe Joshua in festal robes, a scene the Westminster Shorter Catechism's definition of justification precisely captures: God pardons all sin and accepts the sinner as righteous solely for the righteousness of Christ imputed and received by faith alone. The vision then points forward to 'the Branch,' God's servant who would remove the iniquity of the land in a single day — a reference ultimately fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ. The passage calls both the unconverted to look to Christ for the removal of their filth and the believer to rest in the intercession of their advocate before the Father.
Amazing Love
What does it mean that God has 'bestowed' his love on believers, calling them children of God? Expounding 1 John 3:1, this sermon traces the love of God across three horizons — before the foundation of the world in eternal election, in redemptive history at the cross, and throughout eternity to come — while pressing the permanence of that love against any notion that it can be forfeited. The sermon closes by drawing from Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3 to show that the believer's calling is not to measure the intensity of his own love for Christ, but to be spiritually strengthened, educated, and saturated in the inexhaustible love Christ has for his people.
The Vision of One Like the Son of Man
Revelation 1:9–19 presents John's vision of the ascended and glorified Christ, identifying him as the Danielic Son of Man who has received dominion, glory, and an everlasting kingdom. The sermon works through three movements: the content of the vision itself (Christ's high priesthood, sovereign rule, all-seeing knowledge, inexorable judgment, conquering word, and restored pre-incarnate glory), John's prostrate response as the only fitting posture before such majesty, and the threefold comfort Christ speaks over the fallen apostle — his eternality, his resurrection victory, and his sovereign ownership of the keys of Hades and death. The exhortation is to wake and sleep with this exalted Christ consciously held before the heart, and to flee the passing pleasures of sin by bending the knee to the King of Kings.