Theological term
Justification
521 sermons · All terms
Free Grace Baptist Church - February 17, 2019 PM
Proverbs 6:20–35 presents a father's urgent warning to his son against the sin of adultery, grounding the exhortation in the law of God as a lamp, a guide, and a restraint. The sermon works through two movements: the necessity of internalising God's Word as a preventive against sexual sin, and the inevitable consequences — social ruin, the fury of an offended husband, and the judgment of God — that attend the adulterer. The application is direct: parents must instruct their children in sexual purity, married persons must cultivate faithfulness, and all who have fallen must look to Christ, in whose name fornicators and adulterers have been washed, sanctified, and justified.
The Great Commission
Christ's Great Commission in Matthew 28:18–20 provides the church with her complete marching orders: go, make disciples, baptize those disciples, and teach them to observe all that Christ commanded. The authority behind the commission belongs to the risen and exalted Christ, who possesses all authority in heaven and earth; the assurance sustaining it is His promise of perpetual presence to the end of the age. The sermon treats the specific focus of the commission in sequence, defending believers' baptism by immersion as the pattern demanded by the text and the order it establishes — make disciples first, then baptize — against both baptismal regeneration and paedobaptism. The Trinitarian formula of baptism occasions an extended treatment of theology proper, including divine simplicity, impassibility, and the unity of essence in three persons, with warnings against tritheism, modalism, and subordinationism.
The Dedication of the Temple
Solomon's dedicatory prayer in 1 Kings 8:22–53 is examined as a model of theological depth and dependent petition. The prayer opens by rehearsing God's incomparability, faithfulness, transcendence, and imminence — attributes that ground every request that follows. Six petitions structured around covenant curse and restoration (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28) demonstrate that forgiveness is the central burden of the prayer, and that affliction is a designed instrument for drawing God's people back to dependence on Him. Practical applications press the congregation toward reverent worship, heart-obedience rooted in justification by Christ's righteousness alone, daily confession of sin, and confidence in God's unfailing covenant fidelity.
The Glory of the Father and the Son
John 17:1–5 opens Christ's high priestly prayer with a petition that the Father glorify the Son so that the Son may glorify the Father — a reciprocal glorification whose goal is the glory of God Most High. The sermon works through three grounds for this petition: the salvation of the elect given to the Son in the covenant of redemption, the accomplishment of Christ's active and passive obedience as the basis of justification, and the restoration of the Son's pre-incarnate glory. The full deity of Christ is defended against subordinationist readings by surveying New Testament texts where the title theos is applied directly to Jesus, and the sermon closes with the call to pursue the knowledge of God and Christ as the very essence of eternal life — through Scripture reading, prayer, and faithful attendance upon the means of grace.
The Male Child and the Dragon
Revelation 12 presents Christ as the decisive victor over Satan, tracing the dragon's fourfold defeat from the incarnation through the casting out of heaven to his continuing failed campaigns against the church. The chapter is read through the lens of Genesis 3:15 and its fulfillment in Christ's crosswork: the male child escapes the serpent's grasp, is caught up to God's throne, and the accuser is cast down by virtue of Calvary. Satan's ongoing rage against the church is not a sign of his power but of his desperation — a conquered enemy making war against those he cannot ultimately destroy. The people of God are called to understand that suffering under satanic opposition identifies them with Christ's own suffering and conforms them to his image, not to despair but to faith in the one who has already overcome.
The Decision of the Council
Acts 5:33–42 records the Sanhedrin's decision to beat the apostles and command them to cease preaching in the name of Jesus — and the apostles' rejoicing response. This exposition works through three movements: the council's murderous fury at Peter's gospel proclamation, the qualified wisdom of Gamaliel's historical and theological arguments for restraint, and the apostles' departure rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name. The sermon calls the congregation to a readiness for persecution that mirrors the apostles', grounded not in stoic resolve but in the altogether loveliness of Christ who is chief among ten thousand.
James 1:2-8
James 1:2–8 addresses two inseparable realities in the Christian life: the believer's response to trials and the believer's request during trials. Trials are not anomalies but expected instruments of divine sanctification — God's means of producing endurance, maturity, and conformity to the image of Christ. When wisdom is lacking in the midst of affliction, the prescribed remedy is not complaint but prayer, offered in faith to a God who gives liberally and without reproach. The double-minded man who doubts will be unsettled, unanswered, and unstable — a sobering warning to approach God with single-minded faith.
The Riches and the Poverty of Christ
Second Corinthians 8:9 packs a vast Christology into a single verse: the eternal Son, rich as the second person of the Trinity and agent of creation and providence, became poor through incarnation, a life of rejection, and death on the cross — not by divesting himself of deity (kenosis is rejected), but by addition, taking on humanity while remaining fully God. The hypostatic union — one person, two natures — is shown to be not academic abstraction but the doctrinal foundation that motivates Christian liberality and sustains joy. Believers are called to count their spiritual riches: justification, sanctification, and glorification secured by Christ's poverty, all received by grace through faith.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 30, 2018 PM
Psalm 143 confronts the fundamental problem of human unrighteousness: in God's sight no one living is righteous, and David's only refuge is not his own covenant faithfulness but God's righteousness, faithfulness, and hesed. The sermon traces David's two movements — his appeal to God's righteousness in the face of a crushed soul (vv. 1–6) and his petitions for God's guidance as a troubled servant (vv. 7–12) — showing that both sections keep the focus relentlessly on who God is rather than on the psalmist's circumstances. Luther's description of Psalm 143 as a Pauline psalm is vindicated by Paul's verbal allusion in Romans 3:20, where the same confession that no flesh is justified by works of the law becomes the pivot to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. The sermon calls believers to let their prayers be preoccupied with God's character and Christ's imputed righteousness rather than their own merit, and invites the unbeliever to look to Christ for a righteousness entirely outside themselves.
Genesis 7:1-24
Genesis 7 records the command to enter the ark and the arrival of the floodwaters — a worldwide, catastrophic judgment of God upon all flesh outside the ark, and a sovereign act of divine preservation for Noah and his household. The flood is not myth or moral fable but datable history, rooted in the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15: God preserves the seed of the woman so that Messiah may come. Noah's righteousness did not merit God's grace; rather, grace preceded and produced the faith that issued in obedience, with justification preceding sanctification — a pattern consistent throughout both Testaments. The ark stands as a type of Christ, the refuge for all of God's Noahs, and the passage calls believers to the same costly, faithful obedience Noah displayed in a faithless world.
The Wisdom of Little Things
Proverbs 30:24–28 presents four creatures — the ant, the rock badger, the locust, and the spider — each marked by a specific weakness yet compensating for it with exceeding wisdom. The sermon argues that God instructs his people through the created order, calling them to self-awareness of their own limitations and to the cultivation of corresponding wisdom: industry, caution, unity, and persistence. These virtues apply both to temporal life and to the eternal — preparing for judgment, fleeing temptation by hiding in Christ the Rock, advancing together under his kingship, and persisting in grace after failure. The unconverted are pressed to prepare for the coming day of God's judgment while the summer of opportunity remains.
Livestream - Baptism: Wim Kerkhoff
Acts 8:26–40 records the conversion and baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, and this exposition sets that account against its Old Testament backdrop in Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 56 to show that what is happening is not merely one man's conversion but the fulfillment of covenant promises: the inclusion of those doubly excluded from the assembly of Israel. The sermon works through three movements — the divine appointment of the contact, the gospel communication beginning from Isaiah 53, and the conversion issuing in immediate baptism upon confession of faith. The central application is that God is characteristically and eagerly a saving God, that believers' baptism follows faith as its ordained external sign, and that no sinner — whether powerful or poor, crisis-converted or quietly brought to faith — is beyond the reach of sovereign grace.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 2, 2018 PM
The wisdom of God in the gospel is displayed not in the nobility, intelligence, or virtue of those he saves, but in his sovereign, gracious election of the weak, the base, and the despised — so that no flesh might glory in his presence. Expounding 1 Corinthians 1:26–31, this sermon identifies the three spiritual blessings Christ has become for his people — righteousness (justification by imputed obedience), sanctification, and redemption (glorification) — as the full ordo salutis secured in union with Christ. The ground of salvation is traced through Romans 5, Philippians 3, Zechariah 3, and Acts 13 to demonstrate that the entire plan of redemption flows from God's sovereign grace, not human merit. The inevitable and proper response of those who have received these blessings is to glory in the Lord alone, not in themselves.
The Sermon in Solomon's Porch, Part 2
Peter's sermon in Solomon's Porch confronts Jerusalem sinners with the necessity of repentance, pressing three realities upon them: their ignorance was willful, not innocent; God's sovereign providence overruled even their wickedness in crucifying Christ to fulfill all that the prophets foretold; and the call to repent and turn carries with it the promised blessings of sins blotted out, times of refreshing from the Lord's presence, and the indwelling presence of Christ by Spirit and Word until the restoration of all things. The exposition of Acts 3:17–21 drives toward a direct appeal: those burdened with sin must repent and turn to Christ, the only one in whom those blessings are found.
The Believer's Race
Hebrews 12:1 calls the people of God to run the Christian race with endurance, laying aside every weight and entangling sin. This sermon expounds the first of three incentives the author of Hebrews sets before believers: the great cloud of witnesses from Hebrews 11, who function not as spectators watching the runner, but as witnesses testifying to the faithfulness of God through every trial and affliction. Drawing on Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, David, Job, Habakkuk, and the martyrs Polycarp and Thomas Hawkes, the sermon presses believers to receive the unanimous testimony of the saints — that God is faithful, God sustains runners, and God will bring them through to the end — and to run without quitting, because the Christian life is a marathon requiring daily faithfulness, not a glamorous sprint.
The Precious Blood of Christ
1 Peter 1:18–20 presents the redemption accomplished by Christ as grounded in the infinite value of his sinless sacrifice, the eternal decree of the triune God, and the certainty of its historical occurrence. This sermon expounds three dimensions of the 'precious blood of Christ': its surpassing worth measured against corruptible earthly things; its origin in the determined counsel of God before the foundation of the world; and its singular reality as a manifest historical event attested by eyewitnesses. The Lord's Supper, observed the same evening, provides the pastoral occasion for calling both believers to joyful reflection on the blood that cleanses from all iniquity and unbelievers to repentance and faith in the one Lamb without blemish and without spot.
The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ
What is the gospel, and why does its content matter for the Lord's Supper? Expounding 1 Corinthians 15:1–20 with focused attention on verses 3–4, this sermon argues that the gospel is defined by three inseparable historical and theological events: the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Each event carries precise atoning weight — the death is substitutionary, propitiatory, and expiatory; the burial confirms the reality of that death and sets the stage for resurrection; the resurrection vindicates Christ's saving work, bears witness to the justification of his people, and establishes him as judge of the living and the dead. Delivered in the context of the Lord's Supper, the sermon calls believers to a wonder-filled, theologically informed observance of the ordinance, and warns unbelievers that the risen Christ who died for sinners will also be their judge.
The Response to Peter's Sermon
Acts 2:41–47 records the immediate fruit of Peter's Pentecost sermon: three thousand souls baptized and a church marked by steadfast doctrine, fellowship, the Lord's Supper, and prayer. This exposition argues that the passage is both descriptive and prescriptive — what the early church did defines what the church in every age must be. Along the way, believers' baptism is defended against paedo-baptist readings of verse 39, and the growth of the church is traced not to programs or techniques but to the sovereign calling of God through the faithful preaching of Christ crucified.
Genesis 3:14-24
Genesis 3:14–24 records the consequences of the fall, and the heart of this study is the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 — the first gospel promise in Scripture. God's curse upon the serpent contains within it an announcement of the Messiah: the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, accomplishing total victory through suffering and death. The sermon traces this skull-crushing seed through the biblical narrative — from the typological head-wounds of Judges and David's defeat of Goliath, to New Testament fulfillment in Colossians, Hebrews, 1 John, and Revelation 12 — demonstrating that the cross of Christ is the decisive blow against the devil foreshadowed in Eden. The study closes by examining the consequences for the woman and the man in verses 16–19, situating the tensions of marriage and labor in a post-lapsarian world that Christ's redemptive work is already beginning to address.
The Application of Psalm 16 to Jesus Christ
Peter's sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2:24–32 hinges on a single exegetical claim: Psalm 16 is not about David but about the Messiah, and the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth. The sermon works through Peter's two-part argument — the declaration of the resurrection in verse 24 and the prophetic proof from Psalm 16 in verses 25–32 — showing that it was impossible for death to hold Christ because the Father had sworn otherwise in the Davidic covenant. Believers are urged to pray Psalm 16 as their own, trusting that the same God who raised Christ from the grave is their preserver, their joy, and their confident hope through death and into resurrection.
2LCF Chapter 30 - Of the Lord's Supper
The Lord's Supper is a divinely instituted ordinance of the new covenant, commanded by Christ and belonging to the gathered church until His return. Walking through 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 30, this study examines the purpose, nature, celebration, elements, and recipients of the Supper — contrasting the Reformed understanding with the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. The Supper is neither a sacrifice of atonement nor a reward for obedience, but a means of grace through which God confirms and nourishes the faith of believers, binds them to Christ and to one another, and stirs them toward renewed obedience and praise.
Introduction to the Book of Acts
The book of Acts is not merely a record of human achievement but theological history — the continuing acts of the risen and ascended Christ, who builds his church by the Spirit through apostolic agency. This introductory sermon on Acts 1:1–3 examines the authorship, date, purpose, and major themes of Acts, defending the apostolicity of Luke as a non-apostle who nonetheless wrote under apostolic oversight and companionship with Paul. The sermon anchors the entire book in three great themes: the glory of the triune God, the normative practice of the early church, and the unstoppable spread of the gospel — all driven by the necessity of the Christian gospel for sinners under a holy God.
The Liberality of God and the Believer's Security
Romans 8:31–39 confronts the believer with a single overwhelming argument: because the Father did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for all the elect, He will most certainly freely give them everything else they need. The sermon works through three movements — the declaration of God's liberality in the gift of His Son, the implication that every lesser need is thereby guaranteed, and the application to the believer's unassailable security against accusation, condemnation, and separation. Drawing on the language of propitiation, penal substitution, and the Ordo Salutis, the exposition insists that the believer's confidence rests not on personal virtue or perseverance but on the justifying grace of God and the interceding, unchanging love of Christ.
The Great Commission, Part 3
Matthew 28:19 commands that disciples be baptized into the singular name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — a text that stands as one of Scripture's clearest witnesses to the doctrine of the Trinity. This sermon works through the baptismal formula to establish what the one name and three persons require the Christian to confess: one divine essence, three distinct subsistences, free from the errors of tritheism, modalism, and subordinationism. The active obedience of Christ is exposited as the ground of the righteousness imputed to sinners in justification, showing that the gospel itself is inseparable from a right doctrine of God. The congregation is urged to study the confession's chapters on theology proper and Christology, and to hold the doctrine of the Trinity as a white-knuckle conviction worth dying for.
The Denial of the Resurrection
Matthew 28:11–15 records not only the resurrection of Christ but the immediate counter-offensive mounted by the chief priests and elders to suppress the fact of the empty tomb. Against the backdrop of the Great Commission in verses 16–20, these verses expose a counter-mission: a bribed, fabricated narrative designed to replace the truth of the resurrection with the stolen-body theory. The sermon examines the soldiers' report to the chief priests, the wickedness and implausibility of the lie they were paid to spread, and the theological reasons — including divine judicial hardening — that such a falsehood gained traction in first-century Judea. The application presses every believer to be armed to defend the resurrection and to rest the whole of their justification on faith in the risen Christ alone.
The Empty Tomb and the Risen Lord
The empty tomb of Matthew 28:1–10 is not merely an absence but a proclamation: Christ was raised bodily from the dead by the Father, vindicating His atoning work and confirming every prophetic word He spoke. The sermon works through the discovery of the empty tomb by the women and the appearance of the risen Lord, attending carefully to the apologetic weight of the narrative details — the guards' terror, the invitation to examine the tomb, the folded graveclothes, and the physical feet of Jesus grasped in worship. The message closes with 1 Corinthians 15, pressing the stakes of the resurrection: without it, faith is futile and sin remains unatoned; because Christ is risen, justification, sanctification, and glorification are secured for all His brethren.
The Resurrection and Justification by Faith
Romans 4:25 presents what the commentators Matthew Poole and Charles Hodge each called an abridgment or comprehensive statement of the whole gospel: Christ was delivered up because of our offenses and raised because of our justification. The sermon works through both halves of this verse to show that the death of Christ was a substitutionary, propitiatory sacrifice satisfying divine justice on behalf of the elect, and that his bodily resurrection is the Father's public declaration that the sacrifice was accepted and justification secured. Four theological connections between resurrection and justification are drawn out: the resurrection declares Christ to be the Son of God with power, testifies that his sacrifice was accepted, confirms that satisfaction was rendered, and demonstrates that redemption was fully accomplished. The sermon closes at Romans 5:1 with the fruit of the whole discussion — peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ — applied to those who once stood condemned as ungodly offenders.
The Preaching of Peter on Pentecost
Acts 2:37–42 records the first gospel sermon of the apostolic church and the conversion of three thousand souls on the day of Pentecost. This exposition works through Peter's proclamation — centering the gospel in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ — and his call to repentance and baptism, showing that sin must be named plainly before the Savior can be received gladly. The sermon draws on John Bunyan's 'The Jerusalem Sinner Saved' to press the point that Christ's mercy is offered most conspicuously to the vilest of sinners, and closes with a direct call to believe, repent, and be baptized.
Do Not Love the World
First John 2:15–17 commands believers to refuse love for the world — meaning not the created order but the entire moral system of sinful desire arrayed against God. The sermon works through three headings: the command (v. 15), the character of the world (v. 16), and the end of the world (v. 17). Because the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are passing away while the one who does the will of God abides forever, believers are called to resist sin not to earn standing before God but as the fruit of a new heart already forgiven and already victorious in Christ.
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 26, 2017 PM
Titus 3:3–7 expounds the full arc of sovereign grace: the grave former state of all believers in foolishness, disobedience, and depravity; the divine condescension by which God's kindness and love appeared in Christ; and the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit in washing and regenerating dead sinners to new life. Salvation is not by works of righteousness which we have done but entirely according to divine mercy, secured through Jesus Christ alone and applied by the Holy Spirit — a triunely accomplished redemption that eliminates all boasting in self and grounds the believer's perseverance in the immutability of God's electing love.