Theological term
Justification
521 sermons · All terms
Isaiah's Child of Promise
Isaiah 9:6 announces a child born and son given as the divine answer to covenant judgment — not a military conqueror, but a gift of sovereign grace. This sermon traces four aspects of the promised Messiah: his humble beginning as a given gift, his royal commission over an eternal kingdom, his divine majesty expressed in four throne-names, and the perfect peace he secures through his atoning blood. The exposition grounds Christological adoration in its Old Testament context, showing how the prophecy builds on Genesis 3:15 and Isaiah 7 before finding its fulfillment in the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. Hearers are called to count Christ as the chief of all blessings, to rest in his kingship over a disordered world, and to flee immediately to his cross-won peace when guilt assails.
The Hymn to Christ as to God
Philippians 2:5–11, known in scholarly and devotional tradition as a hymn to Christ as to God, opens a series of expository studies through one of the most concentrated christological passages in the New Testament. This sermon establishes the exhortation's context within the letter to the Philippians — a message of thanksgiving and rejoicing addressed to a church facing external persecution but inward temptation toward pride and disunity — and then examines the exordium of verse 5: 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.' Three qualifications govern the use of Christ as example: He is not only nor primarily an example, Christians are called to imitate His disposition rather than duplicate His saving work, and this lowliness of mind is not the pathway to salvation but the characteristic mark of those already saved by grace through faith. The sermon closes with a direct call to humility modeled on Christ's condescension and an evangelistic summons to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ before that day when every knee shall bow in judgment.
The Reformation of the Church
What does it mean for the church to be 'the pillar and ground of the truth'? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:14–16, this sermon examines the identity and confession of the church through three descriptions Paul gives in verse 15 — the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and ground of the truth — before applying the doctrinal legacy of the sixteenth-century Reformation to the contemporary church. The great Christological confession of verse 16 is shown to be the theological center around which all church conduct, worship, and proclamation must orbit. The sermon calls the church to guard sola scriptura, justification by faith alone, the regulative principle of worship, and a proper Christology against the perpetual drift toward pragmatism, experientialism, and Romanizing errors.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 23, 2016 PM
What does it look like for a justified sinner to walk in the Spirit? Working through Galatians 5:22-26, this exposition of the fruit of the Spirit demonstrates that love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are not optional extras but the necessary outflow of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The sermon argues that because those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires at regeneration, the absence of these fruits is not an excuse but a call to repentance, and the presence of the Spirit provides the very power by which they are cultivated.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 7
Matthew 24:22–28 addresses the days of the great tribulation surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and Jesus' warnings against false Christs who would arise during the siege. Taking a preterist hermeneutic, this exposition argues that the shortening of those days (v. 22) reflects God's sovereign limitation of covenant judgment for the elect's sake, and that the lightning metaphor of verse 27 describes not Christ's final physical return but a judgment-coming executed from His enthroned position at the Father's right hand. The carcass-and-eagles image of verse 28 is read against Deuteronomy 28 and Habakkuk 1 as a covenant-curse idiom for the Roman armies as instruments of divine vengeance. Throughout, the passage is applied evangelically: the only refuge from any coming judgment is flight to Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.
The Works of the Flesh
Galatians 5:19–21 presents a vice list Paul calls 'the works of the flesh,' catalogued here under four headings: sins of the flesh (adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness), sins of religious apostasy (idolatry, sorcery, heresy), sins against personal relationships (hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, envy, murder), and sins of intemperance (drunkenness, revelries). The sermon distinguishes between remaining corruption — the ongoing struggle common to every justified believer — and reigning corruption, the habitual, unrepentant practice that characterises the unregenerate and excludes from the kingdom of God. Drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism, Calvin, and Perkins, the preacher grounds each vice in the moral law and closes with a double summons: believers who have fallen into these sins are to repent and seek forgiveness through the blood of Christ; unbelievers are to see in the law their need for the Saviour.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 2, 2016 PM
Genesis 15 records God's covenant with Abram, and this sermon expounds that passage under two headings: the promise to Abram (vv. 1–6) and his request for a sign (vv. 7–17). The central argument is that when God alone passes between the divided animals — taking the covenant's self-maledictory oath entirely upon himself — he typifies what Christ accomplished on the cross: bearing the curse that covenant-breaking sinners deserved. Justification is by faith alone, as Genesis 15:6 declares and as Paul confirms in Romans 4 and Galatians 3; Abram's faith was not in a nebulous future hope but in the promised seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon closes by leading the congregation into the Lord's Supper, calling believers to eat and drink in grateful remembrance of the substitute who passed through judgment in their place.
The Most Important Question for Young People
Psalm 119:9 poses what the sermon calls the most important question for young people: 'How can a young man cleanse his way?' Before answering, the text forces an honest reckoning with the doctrine of total depravity and total inability — the way stands in need of cleansing precisely because every faculty of human nature is corrupted by the fall in Adam, and no sinner can commend himself to God apart from sovereign grace. The answer the psalmist gives, 'by taking heed according to Your Word,' encompasses both initial justification by grace through faith in Christ and ongoing sanctification by the same Word and Spirit. Parents and young people alike are exhorted to engage Scripture with the whole heart — obeying, memorizing, meditating, declaring, and delighting in it — as the only path to a cleansed way.
The Pharisee and the Publican
Luke 18:9–14 presents two men at prayer whose contrasting postures before God expose the heart of the doctrine of justification. The Pharisee's self-congratulatory prayer — cataloguing what he is not and what he does — illustrates the fatal error of self-righteousness: banking one's standing with God upon personal merit, which inevitably produces contempt for others. The tax collector's wordless self-renunciation — 'God be propitious to me, the sinner' — is the only posture that receives the verdict 'justified,' because justification is an act of God's free grace wherein the righteousness of Christ alone, received by faith, is the ground of the sinner's acceptance. The parable calls every hearer to kill pride, renounce all self-congratulatory religion, and cast himself entirely upon the mercy of God in Christ.
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.
The Salvation of Zacchaeus
Luke 19:1–10 presents Zacchaeus — a wealthy, corrupt chief tax collector — as a demonstration of the divine power described just verses earlier in Luke 18, where Christ declared it easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The salvation of Zacchaeus is therefore not merely a warm story of hospitality but a proof of omnipotent, sovereign grace: the effectual call goes forth, the dead sinner descends from the tree, confesses Christ as Lord, and manifests genuine repentance in the only currency that could prove a rich man's heart-change. The sermon closes with the mission statement of Luke 19:10 — 'the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost' — as the ground for evangelical confidence, joyful worship, and hope for any who have not yet come down from their own sycamore tree.
The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 8:26–40 records the Spirit-orchestrated conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch through Philip's proclamation of Christ from Isaiah 53. The passage is set within the fulfillment of Isaiah 56's promise that eunuchs and Gentiles would be brought near to God in the messianic age — a promise Luke deliberately highlights as the risen and exalted Christ builds his kingdom to the uttermost parts of the earth. The sermon expounds the substitutionary suffering of the servant of Yahweh as the content of Philip's evangelism, the great exchange of 2 Corinthians 5:21 as the ground of justification, and the proper order of faith then baptism as the pattern of apostolic practice. Hearers are pressed to ask whether they understand the gospel, to believe it without delay, and — if already believing — to submit to baptism as an act of obedience and a means of grace.
The Condemnation of the Religious Leaders, Part 4
Matthew 23:25–28 presents Jesus' sixth and seventh woes against the scribes and Pharisees, condemning their emphasis on outward religious compliance while their hearts remain filled with extortion, self-indulgence, hypocrisy, and lawlessness. The cup and the whitewashed tomb function as related analogies: both expose the fatal gap between external religiosity and inward moral corruption, with the tomb analogy adding that such teachers actively defile those who come under their influence. The sermon draws the contrast through the Old Testament's consistent demand for heart religion — from the Shema to the prophets — and presses the application that the only cleansing of the inward cup comes through faith in the blood of Christ. Believers are warned equally against the twin errors of antinomianism and mere externalism, since justification produces progressive sanctification that reforms the outside as well as the inside.
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 Covering of Sin
Proverbs 28:13 presents both the ruin of the one who covers sin and the mercy awaiting the one who confesses and forsakes it. This exposition works through the problem of sin-covering under four heads — the scriptural assumptions behind it, biblical examples of it, the various means sinners employ to conceal transgression, and the cursed result in this age and the age to come. The solution is penitential faith in Christ alone: genuine confession lays the hand on the great sacrifice, and true forsaking proves the sincerity of that confession. Believers and unbelievers alike are called to stop concealing sin and to cast themselves upon the mercy of God, which is the only covering that satisfies divine justice.
The Lawyer and the Great Commandment
Matthew 22:34–40 records a Pharisaic lawyer testing Jesus with the question of which commandment is greatest — a live dispute in rabbinic Judaism with deadly intent behind it. Jesus answers by citing the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–5) as the first and great commandment and Leviticus 19:18 as its inseparable companion, demonstrating that the whole Decalogue hangs on love to God and love to neighbor. The sermon argues that these two commandments expose every person's total failure to render the perfect, personal obedience God demands, driving the hearer to the only One whose obedience is reckoned to all who trust Him. Believers are exhorted to examine whether their love to God is genuine and whole-hearted, expressed in Sabbath observance, rejection of idolatry, and tangible love for the brethren.
The Hope of the Resurrection
Paul's closing words in 2 Timothy 4:6–8 set before the church three interlocking realities: his present situation as a condemned man being poured out as a drink offering, his past perseverance across the full course of Christian warfare, and his future hope — the crown of righteousness awarded by the righteous Judge on the day of resurrection. The sermon argues that the resurrection hope is not a passive consolation but the very engine of faithful Christian living: Paul fought, ran, and kept not as an ascetic but because of the surpassing worth of Christ and the certainty of what awaits. Believers are exhorted to examine whether they are presently fighting, running, and keeping — for what is said in the eleventh hour can only be said because of what was done faithfully in hours one through ten.
The Christocentric Gospel
John 20:30–31 gives the purpose statement for the entire Gospel of John: that readers would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they would have life in His name. This sermon examines, first, the deliberate divine design behind gospel revelation — that God superintended the inscripturation of Scripture not to disclose all things, but to set forth with clarity the saving knowledge of Christ — and, second, the Christocentric character of that revelation, tracing how the whole of Scripture, from Moses through John, has Christ as its intended terminus. The sermon closes with a direct call to believe on Christ, warning that rejection of such a glorious Savior issues in eternal condemnation, while faith issues in spiritual life now and eternal life in the age to come.
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 Justifying Grace of God
Zechariah 3 presents a divine courtroom scene in which Joshua the high priest stands before the angel of the Lord clothed in filthy garments — the most vile expression of defilement in the Hebrew language — while Satan stands ready to accuse. God silences the accuser not on the basis of Joshua's merit but on the grounds of sovereign election and justifying grace, stripping away the filthy garments and clothing Joshua in rich robes. This double transaction — the removal of guilt and the imputation of righteousness — is the Old Testament portrait of justification by faith alone, anticipating the work of the Branch, the Lord Jesus Christ, who bears the sin of his people so that they might bear his righteousness. The sermon calls believers to combat accusation, whether from Satan or from their own hearts, not by appealing to their performance but by resting in the finished work of Christ and the electing grace of God.
The Cleansing of the Temple, Part 1
Matthew 21:12–17 records Jesus entering the temple and driving out the buyers and sellers — an act that is neither impulsive nor isolated but stands as a prophetically scripted portent of divine judgment on apostate Israel. Drawing on Haggai 2, Zechariah 14, and Malachi 3, the sermon establishes that Christ's entrance into and cleansing of the temple fulfils the office of prophet-king-priest announced across the post-exilic writings, and that the glory of this latter temple infinitely exceeds Solomon's because Christ himself is the temple. Three ecclesiastical implications follow: the purity of divinely authorized worship is a primary concern of God; the church must pursue faithful obedience over popularity; and hypocrisy — living in sin while invoking the covenant — is precisely what the temple cleansing condemns.
Dr. Steven Lawson - "How Blessed is the Man" - November 8, 2015 PM
Psalm 1 sets two paths before every person who enters the house of God: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. This exposition moves through the psalm's four movements — the pronouncement of blessing, the prerequisites for blessing, the picture of blessing, and the prohibition of blessing — arguing that the blessedness declared in verse 1 belongs exclusively to those who have been sovereignly transplanted by the new birth and who are sustained by the inexhaustible streams of divine grace. All the blessings of Psalm 1 are mediated through Christ alone: his active obedience supplies the righteousness imputed to the believer, and his atoning death reconciles the sinner to God. Hearers are called to examine whether they are on the narrow way of the righteous or the broad way of the wicked, and to sink their roots deeper into the Word of God as the primary means of sanctifying grace.
2LCF Chapter 21 - Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience, Part 1
Christian liberty, as defined in 2LCF Chapter 21, is not primarily about what believers are permitted to do but about what Christ has accomplished for them — freedom from the guilt, power, and punishment of sin, as well as freedom from the ceremonial yoke of the Old Covenant. The chapter also guards the conscience from two opposing errors: the tyranny of ecclesiastical or civil impositions that bind the conscience beyond God's Word, and the antinomian perversion that treats liberty as license for sin. The sermon calls believers to live under God's Word alone as the Lord of the conscience, neither adding to it nor subtracting from it, walking in holiness and righteousness without fear.
The Healing of the Blind Men
Matthew 20:29–34 records the last detailed miracle of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel: the healing of two blind men outside Jericho. This expository sermon traces three movements in the passage — the setting, the earnest petition of the blind men, and the gracious response of the Son of David — arguing that the blind men's importunate faith, their address of Jesus as Lord and Son of David in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant and Isaianic prophecy, and Christ's immediate compassion together present the gospel in miniature. The sermon presses unbelievers to cry out to Christ with the persistence of these men and assures them that the same Jesus who stood still for two wretched beggars extends pity joined with power to all who come to Him in faith.
The Third Announcement of Jesus' Death
Matthew 20:17–19 records Jesus' third and most detailed formal announcement of his coming death, functioning as a table of contents for the remainder of Matthew's Gospel. The passage identifies four prophetic elements: the betrayal of the Son of Man to the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council's condemnation, the delivery to the Gentiles for mocking and scourging, and the triumph of resurrection on the third day. This announcement is grounded in the Covenant of Redemption — the pretemporal compact between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture, and the necessity of saving God's elect from their sins. The sermon calls the church to receive, embrace, and worship in response to the gospel, and calls the unbeliever to flee the wrath of God by faith in Christ crucified and risen.
The Parable of the Gracious Landowner
The Parable of the Gracious Landowner (Matthew 20:1–16) confronts the deep human instinct to measure God's dealings by commercial fairness, and exposes that instinct as a fundamental misunderstanding of grace, sovereignty, and justice. Jesus places this parable between Peter's question about reward (Matthew 19:27–30) and the sons of Zebedee jockeying for position (Matthew 20:20–28), using it to humble every form of pride that imagines God owes any sinner anything other than hell. The sermon argues that every sinner who enters heaven — whether an early-morning convert or a deathbed convert — arrives solely by sovereign grace through faith in Christ, and that this reality, far from being monstrous, is the supreme display of God's goodness. Believers are warned against the envy that sours at great grace; unbelievers are warned against the presumption that delays repentance until the eleventh hour.
The Seventh Commandment
The Seventh Commandment — 'You shall not commit adultery' (Deuteronomy 5:18) — is grounded in God's creation ordinance of marriage as a covenant of companionship, the prevention of uncleanness, and procreation, and it comprehends a far broader category of sexual sins than adultery narrowly defined. Working through eleven specific violations forbidden by Scripture — from adultery and fornication to pornography, rape, sodomy, and unlawful divorce — the sermon demonstrates that sexual sin is never victimless but is first and foremost an offence against God, confirmed by both divine sanction and the wrath of violated human covenants. The law's pedagogical use exposes every hearer's guilt and drives sinners to Christ, in whose name the sexually defiled may be washed, sanctified, and justified (1 Corinthians 6:11). The sermon closes by urging the mortification of sin, faithful biblical marriage, and renewed communion with God through the means of grace as the only sustainable path to sexual purity.
The Precious Blood of Christ
What is the value of Christ's blood, and why does the New Testament insist that nothing corruptible — no silver, gold, or human religious tradition — can redeem a sinner? Drawing from 1 Peter 1:18–19 in the context of a Lord's Supper meditation, this sermon works through three considerations: the vanity of any bloodless redemption, the aimless sinfulness that necessitated a blood redemption, and the exclusive and infinite worth of Christ's precious blood. The application is direct — because believers have been purchased at such an infinite price, they are to hold Christ alone as precious and to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of that redemption.
1 Samuel 20
1 Samuel 20 narrates the covenant bond between David and Jonathan at the moment Saul's murderous hostility becomes unmistakable, and this study treats that covenant as the chapter's controlling theme. The covenant of hesed — loyal, steadfast, committed love — provides David recourse in danger, proves a vehicle for uncommon faithfulness (fulfilled in 2 Samuel 9 with Mephibosheth), demands costly commitment (Jonathan surrendering his royal rights under the threat of his father's spear), and affords peace in the midst of confusion. The central application is that the church of Christ, and Christian marriage in particular, ought to display the same covenant fidelity Jonathan and David embodied: a kingdom-first selflessness that subordinates personal ambition to the advancement of God's purposes.
2LCF Chapter 6 - Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof
What is sin, where did it come from, and what has it done to us? This confession study works through 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 6, paragraphs 1–5, examining the origin of sin in the covenantal breach of Adam, the universal solidarity of mankind in that guilt and corruption, and the abiding effects of sin in both the unregenerate and the regenerate. The remedy is shown to be twofold: justification to deal with the guilt of sin and sanctification to deal with its remaining corruption, both secured by Christ as the second Adam who fulfilled what the first Adam failed to keep.