Theological term
Ordo Salutis
206 sermons · All terms
The Believer's Response to Trials
James 1:2–8 commands believers to count trials 'all joy' — a disposition that runs counter to every natural instinct. This exposition works through the passage in two movements: the believer's response to trials (vv. 2–4), which establishes the identification, expectation, disposition, and divine purpose of affliction; and the believer's request during trials (vv. 5–8), which calls for the pursuit of wisdom and the exercise of faith. The central burden is that God's redemptive purpose in suffering — conformity to the image of Christ — supplies both the ground for joy and the reason to seek wisdom rather than mere deliverance.
The Thief on the Cross
What does the conversion of a man guilty of insurrection and murder on the day of his execution reveal about the grace of God? This exposition of Luke 23:39–43 traces the marks of sovereign grace in the dying thief — his fear of God, his ownership of personal guilt, his acknowledgment of Christ's sinlessness, and his faith cast entirely upon a crucified Lord — before turning to the willing and able Savior who, in the extremity of his own suffering, assures a notorious criminal of immediate paradise. The sermon argues that justification is by faith alone, apart from works, baptism, or religious knowledge, and that the distinguishing mercy shown to one thief and withheld from the other is the clearest emblem of sovereign grace. Hearers are pressed not to presume on a deathbed conversion but to cast themselves now, by grace, upon the mercy of Christ.
The Ministry of Apollos
Acts 18:24–28 introduces Apollos of Alexandria as a case study in what faithful gospel ministry requires. Six marks characterize this man — eloquence grounded in scriptural mastery, accurate instruction in the way of the Lord, fervency of spirit governed by knowledge, precise teaching, bold proclamation, and humble openness to correction — and these same marks should shape the church's prayers for and training of men for public ministry. Luke's phrase 'believed through grace' discloses the ordo salutis: saving faith is itself the gift of God's sovereign grace to dead sinners. The sermon closes by pressing both the need for trained, bold preachers and the equally urgent need for obedient hearers, applying the gospel of justification by faith alone to any who have not yet come to Christ.
The Appearance of the Love of God
Titus 3:4–8 sets the merciful act of divine salvation against the backdrop of human depravity, and this exposition works through that contrast under three heads: the appearance of God's love in verse 4, the application of God's grace in verses 5–7, and the affirmation of God's word in verse 8. The passage is shown to teach that salvation originates entirely in God's kindness and mercy — not in works done before or after conversion — applied through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, and sealed by justification by grace through faith. The sermon closes by pressing the pastoral logic of verse 8: it is precisely the constant preaching of justification by grace, not moralistic exhortation, that empowers the life of good works among God's people.
The Christian's Duty toward Non-Christians
Titus 3:1–3 sets out the Christian's duty toward both civil government and all people outside the church. The sermon traces the divine origin of civil government from Genesis 9 through Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, arguing from Francis Turretin's two-kingdom framework that Christ rules both the civil and spiritual spheres, and that the civil state therefore has no authority to command the church as church. Verse 3's catalogue of pre-conversion vices — foolishness, disobedience, malice, hatred — is read as a theological reason for patient, peaceable, and humble conduct toward non-Christians: believers were once exactly what they now struggle to bear in others, and those others may yet become objects of the same sovereign grace.
Free Grace Baptist Church - December 29, 2019 PM
Hosea 11:1–11 sets before us the indictment of Israel as a wicked, ungrateful son who responded to the Father's covenant love with relentless idolatry, earning the just sentence of Assyrian exile. Yet the passage turns on the sovereign mercy of God, whose holy love — not Israel's repentance — is the sole ground of restoration. The sermon traces the typological arc from the Exodus through the exile to Matthew 2:15, arguing that Jesus Christ is the true Israel, the obedient Son called out of Egypt, who absorbs the exile his people deserve and so secures their passage through the final judgment. The application is that false worship earns the displeasure of a holy God, while those who cling to Christ alone — justified by his merits, not their own — shall never be handed over.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 6, 2019 PM
What does it mean that the Father has 'bestowed' his love on sinners so that they should be called children of God? Expounding 1 John 3:1 in the context of a Lord's Supper service, this sermon examines the divine love under four headings: the call to consider it, the object in view, the blessed result of adoption, and the attendant conflict with the world. The love of God is grounded in his impassibility and immutability — he is 'most loving' not as an emotional fluctuation but as an unchanging perfection — and the doctrine of adoption is carefully distinguished from and harmonized with John's language of new birth, following B.B. Warfield's analysis. The sermon closes by directing communicants to fix their minds on Christ rather than on themselves as they receive the bread and cup.
The Conversion of Cornelius, Part 4
Acts 10:44–11:18 records the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Cornelius and his Gentile household and the controversy that erupted among Jewish believers in Jerusalem when Peter reported what had happened. The sermon examines the divine initiative behind Gentile inclusion in the covenant of grace, the cessationist significance of the tongue-speaking at this 'Gentile Pentecost,' the apostolic command of water baptism following credible conversion, and the collapse of Jewish objections before Peter's ordered defense. The passage's closing doxology — 'God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life' — presses home that faith, repentance, and the Spirit himself are gifts of sovereign grace, received through the preaching of Christ crucified and risen, apart from any work of the law.
The Justice of God and the Gospel
Proverbs 17:15 declares that justifying the wicked and condemning the just are alike an abomination to God — yet the gospel does precisely both: God condemned the sinless Christ and justifies ungodly sinners. This sermon works through the theological architecture that vindicates God from any charge of self-contradiction in the gospel, tracing the doctrines of covenant representation and imputation from Genesis through the Prophets and into Paul's argument in Romans 3–5. The three acts of imputation — Adam's sin to all mankind, the elect's sin to Christ, and Christ's righteousness to the elect — are shown to be the biblical answer to the problem Proverbs 17:15 raises, grounding assurance in an alien righteousness received by faith alone.
The Chastening of the Lord
Proverbs 3:11–12 commands God's people not to despise or detest divine chastening, grounding that prohibition in the father-son love that moves God to correct those He has received into His family. Working through the Proverbs passages on correction and then taking up the New Covenant application in Hebrews 12:5–11, this sermon demonstrates that chastisement is not evidence of divine hostility but of divine fatherhood — a necessary instrument of sanctification flowing from sovereign, covenant love. The presence of chastening confirms a believer's legitimacy as an adopted child of God, while its fruit — conformity to Christ and the peaceable fruit of righteousness — far outweighs its momentary pain. Believers are therefore called to receive God's correcting hand with submissive trust, remembering that all things, including affliction, work together for good to those who are the called according to His purpose.
The Ministry of Philip in Samaria
Acts 8:5–8 records Philip's preaching ministry in Samaria — a region despised by Israel as racially and religiously impure — and presents it as the deliberate fulfillment of Christ's commission in Acts 1:8 to carry the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. The sermon traces the historical background of Samaritan alienation from Israel, the fourfold summary of Philip's ministry (his preaching, the response of the crowds, the authenticating miracles, and the resulting joy), and the theological significance of the Spirit's confirmation through Peter and John. Against contemporary debates over racial justice, the sermon argues that the cross of Christ — preached faithfully in his offices as prophet, priest, and king — is the only power that reconciles divided peoples and extends the kingdom of God across ethnic boundaries.
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.
The Importance of the Knowledge of Christ
The most important question ever asked — 'Who do you say that I am?' — exposes a crisis in the contemporary church: a Ligonier survey found that 78% of polled evangelical Christians answered that Jesus Christ is the highest creature of God, effectively the ancient Arian heresy. This sermon works through Matthew 16:13–20 as a launching point, pressing seven reasons why the knowledge of Christ is of supreme importance: He is the scope of Scripture, eternal life hinges on a right knowledge of His person, the gospel is about Him, He is the exclusive way of salvation, all redemptive benefits are found in Him, the church's commission is given by and about Him, and our present and future hope rests in Him alone. The practical import of Christology — rightly defined as the dignity of Christ's person and the virtue of His office — is shown to bear on worship, humility, beneficence, good works, and steadfast confession.
The Divine Provision of Eternal Life
Isaiah 55 presents God's gracious and urgent invitation to sinners to receive the fullness of salvation — the refreshment, gladness, and nourishment of the gospel — entirely without cost, because the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 has already satisfied the purchase price. The sermon expounds the chapter in two movements: the invitation to come (vv. 1–5), grounded in the new covenant and secured by the Davidic king, and the call to faith and repentance (vv. 6–13), sustained by the sovereign power of God's Word. Believers are urged to treasure the abundance of every spiritual blessing already given in Christ, and unbelievers are warned not to squander their lives on what cannot satisfy while the Lord may yet be found.
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.
Wisdom from Above
James 3:13–18 presents heavenly wisdom in direct contrast to the earthly, sensual, and devilish wisdom that breeds jealousy, faction, and confusion. This exposition identifies four fundamental features of wisdom from above: it is communicated from the triune God through His Word and Spirit; it is a copy of God's own pure, immutable wisdom suited to finite creatures; it is contemplative, engaging the regenerate mind to perceive all things in relation to God; and it is consequential, bearing the practical fruit of peace, meekness, mercy, and a good life ordered by God. The sermon calls hearers to test whether they possess this wisdom by asking whether they trust Christ alone, love God, and earnestly seek to frame their lives in the order God has established.
Genesis 2:15-17
Genesis 2:15–17 presents Adam not merely as a gardener but as a priest-guardian of a garden-temple, placed under a divine probation that Reformed theology identifies as the Covenant of Works. The study defends the presence of a genuine covenant in this passage despite the absence of the word 'covenant,' marshalling the elements of covenant structure, the covenantal name Yahweh Elohim, and later biblical commentary in Hosea 6:7, Isaiah 24, and Romans 5. The argument presses to a pointed soteriological conclusion: a deficient understanding of the Covenant of Works predictably produces a deficient understanding of the Covenant of Grace, opening the door to the error of faith plus works in justification. The remedy is to see the Covenant of Grace as the Covenant of Works kept for sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ, whose active and passive obedience is imputed to all who believe.
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.
Free Grace Baptist Church - March 18, 2018 AM
Matthew 28:18–20 closes Matthew's Gospel with the Great Commission, grounding the church's entire mission in the absolute authority and perpetual presence of Christ. The sermon draws out three implications from Christ's promise 'I am with you always': his presence should promote appreciation for the church past and present, concern for the church now and in the future, and confidence that Christ actively equips her through a trained gospel ministry. Ephesians 4 is opened at length to show that the gifts Christ gives his church are gifted men — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers — whose threefold purpose is to equip the saints, fulfil the work of ministry, and edify the body toward mature knowledge of the Son of God. The sermon closes with a call to unbelievers, directing them to Matthew 1:21, 20:28, and 11:28–30 as the purpose, means, and gracious offer of Christ's saving work.
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 Conduct of a Faithful Minister
What does faithful gospel ministry look like in practice? Expounding 1 Timothy 4:12–16 at an ordination service, this sermon works through four apostolic charges Paul lays on Timothy: the minister must be an example to the flock in word, conduct, love, faith, and purity; he must give sustained public attention to Scripture reading, exhortation, and doctrine; he must meditate on these things and give himself entirely to personal growth in godliness; and he must persevere in both personal holiness and sound doctrine, because the stakes of gospel ministry extend to the eternal welfare of those who hear. The sermon closes with a direct charge to the ordinand and to the congregation forming a new church plant, and with an evangelistic appeal grounding the seriousness of the gospel ministry in God's concern to save sinners through it.
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 19, 2017 AM
Preached at the ordination of a new elder, this exposition of 1 Timothy 4:12–16 sets forth four charges Paul lays upon Timothy as a faithful minister of the gospel: the minister's example in life and conduct, his public ministry of reading, exhortation, and doctrine, his personal growth through devoted meditation on apostolic truth, and his perseverance in both personal holiness and sound doctrine. The sermon insists that ministers are made by God and vetted by the church, not self-appointed, and that the gravity of the office lies in this: faithful gospel ministry is the ordained means by which God saves sinners and sanctifies his people. The congregation is charged to receive the gift of an ordained minister with joy, to prize the public means of grace, and to reject heresy with earnestness alongside their pastor.
Redemption Accomplished
The sixth word from the cross — 'It is finished' (John 19:30) — is a single Greek verb carrying the full weight of accomplished redemption. This sermon works through the explanation and then the application of that cry, showing that Christ's tetelestai declares the fulfillment of messianic Scripture, the termination of Old Covenant types and shadows, the completion of the Father's redemptive plan, and the full accomplishment of redemption: active righteousness secured, divine wrath exhausted, the devil defeated, sin finished, every spiritual blessing purchased, and death itself marked for destruction. The application presses the church to rest her comfort and security not in her own performance but in the finished work of Christ alone, the only ground of justification by faith.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 8, 2017 PM
What happens when a believer sins against a holy God? Expounding 1 John 2:1–2 within the broader context of 1 John 1:5–10, this sermon answers that question under two headings: Christ as advocate and Christ as propitiation. The advocate language draws on the high-priestly intercession of Christ at the Father's right hand — distinct from, yet complementary to, the Spirit's advocacy on earth — while the doctrine of propitiation is traced through the Old Testament sacrificial vocabulary of kippur to show that Christ both turns away divine wrath and removes guilt. The sermon closes with a direct call to unbelievers to flee to Christ, the only one under whose blood the wrath of God is turned away and peace with God secured.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 8, 2017 AM
The mock enthronement of Jesus recorded in Matthew 27:27–31 simultaneously exposes the comprehensive guilt of every human participant — Pilate, the soldiers, the Jewish leaders, and the elect whose sins were heaped upon the Savior — and reveals the ironic glory of the King who would actually bear every emblem the soldiers placed on him in jest. The sermon argues that what the soldiers devised as dishonor — the robe, the crown of thorns, the reed — were unwitting foreshadowings of Christ's true royal majesty as depicted in the book of Revelation, where he reigns with golden crown, glorious robe, and iron scepter. The exposition closes with three applications under the gravity, the glory, and the gratitude of the scene, pressing both unbelievers to flee to the Savior from the coming wrath and believers to exceed the soldiers' inventiveness in devising honor for their King.
2 Kings 5
2 Kings 5 presents the curing and conversion of Naaman, commander of the Syrian army, as a window into the comprehensive sovereignty of God, the free grace of God, and the inclusion of Gentiles in the covenant promises of Israel's God. Working through three sections — the sovereignty of God (vv. 1–8), the healing of Naaman (vv. 9–19), and the greed of Gehazi (vv. 20–27) — the exposition argues that the greater miracle is not Naaman's cleansed skin but his cleansed idolatry, his monotheistic confession of Yahweh as the only God in all the earth. The simplicity, exclusivity, and freeness of God's grace illustrated in Elisha's instruction to wash in the Jordan anticipate the gospel itself, while Gehazi's attempt to monetise the cure warns against every addition to grace.
The Active Obedience of Christ
Romans 5:19 grounds the doctrine of Christ's active obedience: as Adam's disobedience constituted many sinners, so Christ's perfect law-keeping constitutes many righteous before God. This sermon surveys the theological structure of that doctrine under three heads — its explanation in covenant terms, the obligation that would fall on sinners apart from it, and its realization in Christ's historical life of obedience. The controlling pastoral burden is that God demands personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, a demand no sinner can meet, and that the righteousness imputed to believers by faith alone is the only ground on which any creature may ascend the mountain of God and dwell in His presence.
The Truth Concealed and Revealed
Matthew 11:25–30 presents three interlocking realities that together form the foundation of gospel rest: the sovereign will of the Father in concealing and revealing gospel truth, the exclusive mediatorial office of the Son as the only means of access to the Father, and the gracious invitation of Christ to sinners burdened by sin. The sermon argues that a right understanding of divine sovereignty — including both election and reprobation — should produce not polemical pride but the thankfulness and praise modeled by Christ himself in verse 25. Sinners are called to come to Christ by faith alone, receiving rest from the burden of sin, and to take up his yoke in discipleship, which the Savior himself declares easy and light.
2LCF Chapter 12 - Of Adoption
Adoption is a gracious act of God whereby those whom He has justified are brought from the household of Adam — where they were sons of disobedience and children of wrath — into the household of God, with all the rights and privileges of divine sonship. This study of 1689 LBCF Chapter 12 traces five dimensions of the doctrine: the recipients of adoption (all the justified), the author of adoption (God alone, not human will), the pre-temporal provenance (the immutable decree of election flowing from divine love), the objective historical ground (the redemptive work of Christ), and the temporal application (the effectual work of the Spirit). The hearer is called to take great comfort in the benefits the confession enumerates — access to the throne of grace, the Spirit of adoption crying Abba Father, divine pity, protection, provision, and chastening — and to live as imitators of God, conducting themselves as members of His household.