Theological term
Redemptive History
96 sermons · All terms
The Messiah, The Baptist, And The Kingdom
Matthew 11:2–15 presents three interlocking questions: who is Jesus the Messiah, who is John the Baptist, and what is the nature of the kingdom of heaven? The sermon works through John's imprisoned inquiry — not as rank unbelief but as a struggle with the shape of the messianic agenda — and Christ's answer, which grounds assurance in fulfilled Old Testament prophecy rather than in political deliverance. John is then assessed by Christ himself as more than a prophet, the very subject of Malachi's covenant-messenger prophecy, a man of unflinching courage who stands as a model for preachers and all believers. The enigmatic kingdom-violence saying of verse 12 is read as a positive-negative pairing: the kingdom forcefully advances through proclamation and regeneration, but violent men persist in opposing and plundering it until Christ's enemies are made his footstool.
Free Grace Baptist Church - February 19, 2020 Bible Study
Genesis 42 records the first meeting between Joseph and his brothers in Egypt, a narrative dense with divine providence, unresolved guilt, and the hidden hand of God directing events toward an end no human agent could have devised. The brothers' anguished confession — 'we are truly guilty concerning our brother' — illustrates that length of time neither diminishes sin nor lightens the conscience, and that only the blood of Christ can do what twenty years of elapsed time cannot. The chapter is traced through three movements: the brothers sent to Egypt, their two audiences with Joseph, and their return to Canaan — each segment demonstrating that God overrules the choices of sinful men to accomplish his redemptive purposes for his covenant people.
Genesis 41
Genesis 41 narrates the providential exaltation of Joseph from prison to vice-regent of Egypt through his God-given interpretation of Pharaoh's two dreams. The chapter's three movements — the report of the dreams, their explanation, and their fulfillment — together demonstrate that the sovereignty of God is not a speculative doctrine but a force working through every human contingency toward the preservation of His church. The sermon draws out three concluding applications: the wisdom that comes from God alone surpasses all human learning; God's blessing outlasts and outweighs His servant's affliction; and divine sovereignty never collapses into passivity — Joseph's predestined knowledge of famine calls forth prudent human action, not hyper-Calvinist resignation.
Genesis 40:1-23
Genesis 40 records the imprisonment of Pharaoh's chief butler and chief baker alongside Joseph, the dreams God gave them, and Joseph's divinely sourced interpretation of those dreams. The chapter turns on Joseph's declaration that interpretations belong to God alone — a polemical claim against Egyptian dream-divination — and on the bitter irony that the butler, restored exactly as Joseph predicted, promptly forgot the man who served him. Working through the three movements of the chapter (the imprisonment, the dreams, and their fulfillment), this study shows God's providence operating through every injustice and disappointment to advance Joseph toward his appointed exaltation, demonstrating that God never forsakes his people even in the deepest pit.
Genesis 38:1-30
Genesis 38 interrupts the Joseph narrative with the account of Judah and Tamar — a passage that is neither misplaced nor incidental, but essential to the theology of the whole. The chapter exposes Judah's failures as a covenant son, a father, and a father-in-law, while demonstrating that God's sovereign providence works through morally compromised instruments to preserve the messianic line. Perez, born of this unsavory union, stands in the genealogy of David and of the Lord Jesus Christ, anchoring Genesis 38 to Matthew 1 and to the whole of redemptive history. The text calls hearers to see that salvation comes not by racial privilege or personal virtue but by grace through faith in Christ, the promised seed who crushes the serpent's head.
The Superiority of the New Covenant
Hebrews 8 presents Christ as the minister of the true heavenly tabernacle and the mediator of a new covenant that is categorically superior to the Mosaic economy. The old covenant was not defective in its essence but in its inability to justify and renew fallen humanity, and its breakability exposed the fatal flaw of any covenant whose continuance depended on human fidelity. The new covenant, announced in Jeremiah 31 and now realized in Christ, is unbreakable, writes God's law on the heart, grants saving knowledge of God to all its members, and secures the full remission of sins — four blessings that belong essentially, not accidentally, to every member of the covenant. Because membership in the new covenant is defined by these regenerate characteristics, believers' baptism by immersion is the only covenant sign consistent with new covenant theology.
The Conversion of Rahab the Harlot
Joshua 2 presents the conversion of Rahab the harlot as a sovereign display of divine grace toward an unlikely recipient — a Canaanite prostitute who heard of Yahweh's mighty acts, confessed His majesty, and cast herself upon His mercy. The sermon traces the contact, confession, and contract with Rahab, arguing that her faith — evidenced by works — is a paradigm case of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, consistent with both Paul and James. The closing application calls believers to ground their relationship with God not in their pursuit of holiness but in the righteousness of Christ alone, lest gospel-forgetfulness corrupt their devotion into self-congratulation.
The Fourth Commandment, Part 2
The fourth commandment's perpetual moral obligation is examined through the lens of Christ's ministry, his resurrection, and apostolic teaching, demonstrating that the Saturday Sabbath of the old covenant has been transformed into the Lord's Day — Sunday — under the new covenant. Hebrews 4:9 is treated as the theological linchpin: 'there remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God' is not an eschatological footnote but a present weekly obligation, with the change of day grounded in Christ's resurrection as the completion of new-creation work. The sermon distinguishes the positive-law element of the fourth commandment (which day) from its abiding moral-law element (one day in seven devoted to God), before closing with practical qualifications against both legalism and antinomianism in Sabbath observance.
Genesis 31:22-55
Genesis 31:22–55 records the pursuit, confrontation, and covenant between Laban and the departing Jacob. The passage exposes Laban's hypocrisy, his powerlessness before the God of Israel, and his resort to a non-aggression covenant once he recognizes that divine providence has secured Jacob against him. Jacob's theology in verse 42 — confessing God's presence, power, and mercy — serves as the interpretive key to the whole chapter, pointing forward to the same God who will later see the affliction of Israel in Egypt and deliver them.
The Conversion of Cornelius, Part 3
Peter's sermon to the household of Cornelius in Acts 10:34–43 marks a watershed moment in redemptive history: the formal, Spirit-ordained inclusion of Gentiles in the covenant of grace, without circumcision or submission to the ceremonial law. The sermon examines the providential convergence of Peter and Cornelius, the content of apostolic gospel preaching — the peace, person, work, and prophetic witness to Christ — and the doctrinal significance of justification by faith alone apart from ethnic or ceremonial identity. The central application is urgent: because Christ is ordained as judge of the living and the dead, sinners of every tribe and nation must believe now and receive remission of sins through His name alone.
The Conversion of Cornelius, Part 1
Acts 10:1–8 records the opening of the Cornelius narrative, which Luke presents as the pivotal, formal inclusion of Gentiles in the covenant of grace. This sermon examines Cornelius's identity and his preparatory vision, arguing from five lines of evidence within Acts 10–11 that Cornelius was not yet saved before Peter's arrival — his devout almsgiving, prayer, and God-fearing religion notwithstanding. The passage is set against contemporary Catholic and Protestant inclusivism, which the sermon rejects in favour of the exclusive claim that remission of sins comes only through conscious faith in Christ. The practical call is to refuse the delusion that religious conduct commends a sinner to God, and to rest instead in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ alone.
The LORD is my Shepherd
Psalm 23 is examined as a hymn of trust composed amid difficulty rather than prosperity, arguing that David's confident confession — 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want' — is made precisely in the shadow of danger, not in spite of it. The sermon expounds the psalm under two headings: the covenant Lord as the shepherd who provides daily physical and spiritual provision, and as the gracious host who prepares a table in the presence of enemies. Christians are exhorted to make diligent use of the means of grace — private prayer and Scripture, corporate worship, the preached word, and the Lord's Supper — as the God-ordained way to walk with Christ through the valley of the shadow of death toward their eternal dwelling in the house of the Lord.
The Conversion of Saul of Tarsus
Acts 9:1–9 confronts the reader with one of the most dramatic conversions in redemptive history: the sovereign arrest of Saul of Tarsus, the church's most ruthless persecutor, by the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon traces Saul's murderous hostility toward the disciples before examining the divine initiative, interrogation, identification, and instruction Christ brings to bear on the road to Damascus. That Christ identifies himself with his suffering members ('I am Jesus whom you are persecuting') and overcomes Saul's resistance through effectual grace establishes that no sinner stands beyond the reach of sovereign mercy. The sermon closes with a call to repentance grounded in the certainty that the God who conquered the chief of sinners is able and willing to save all who come to Christ.
The Samaritan Pentecost
Acts 8:14–17 records the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Samaritan believers through the apostolic ministry of Peter and John — an event frequently misread as a proof text for Roman Catholic confirmation or Pentecostal second-blessing theology. This sermon argues that the Samaritan Pentecost is neither a repeatable pattern for individual Christian experience nor evidence of a subsequent work of the Spirit distinct from regeneration, but rather a unique, unrepeatable, redemptive-historical event marking the corporate inclusion of Samaritans into the one covenant people of God, in direct fulfillment of Acts 1:8. The three Pentecosts — Jerusalem (Acts 2), Samaria (Acts 8), and the Gentile household of Cornelius (Acts 10) — together attest Christ's messianic lordship from the Father's right hand and demonstrate the unity of His people across every ethnic division. Believers are called to receive the Word by faith, submit to baptism as its public sign, and embrace the corporate solidarity of the one new man in Christ.
Genesis 19:30-38
Genesis 19:30–38 records one of Scripture's most disturbing episodes — the incestuous union of Lot's daughters with their father — yet the passage cannot be rightly understood apart from its place in the unfolding line of the Messiah. The daughters' scheme was wicked and abominable, but the Moabites and Ammonites who resulted were not condemned by God on account of their conception; rather, their subsequent hostility toward Israel was what drew divine censure. Most remarkably, Ruth the Moabitess — a descendant of this very union — stands in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ, alongside Tamar and Rahab, demonstrating that the sovereign God works redemptive purposes through the most unsterile human instruments. The passage calls believers to imitate Lot's pattern of genuine righteousness: to dwell in a lawless age without making peace with it, remaining tormented in conscience by what is wicked rather than becoming desensitized to it.
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.
Free Grace Baptist Church - April 3, 2019 Bible Study
Genesis 17 presents the formal ratification of the covenant of circumcision with Abraham and his descendants, distinguished carefully from the covenant of grace revealed within it. The sermon traces the progressive enhancement of God's promises — seed, fruitfulness, kings, land, and the covenant formula 'I will be their God' — while insisting that the covenant of circumcision operates simultaneously on physical and spiritual levels without the two being conflated. Drawing on Galatians 3–5 and Nehemiah Cox, the exposition argues that to identify the covenant of circumcision with the covenant of grace is an exegetical misstep that yields infant baptism and mingles the law principle with the grace principle in a way the Apostle Paul expressly forbids.
Stephen's Defense, Part 8
Stephen's defense before the Sanhedrin turns on a single argument: the tabernacle and temple were never ends in themselves but types pointing forward to Jesus Christ, so the Sanhedrin's attachment to the temple above the one the temple signified exposes them as the true anti-temple party. Working through Acts 7:46–50 against the background of the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7, the sermon traces how David's desire to build a house for God is fulfilled typically in Solomon and ultimately in the Lord Jesus Christ, who as the Son of God builds the church as the true dwelling place of God Most High. The testimony of Isaiah 66:1–2 then seals the point: God who fills heaven and earth cannot be confined to any man-made structure, yet this same transcendent God condescends to dwell with the poor and contrite in spirit — a reality now fully realized in new covenant worship through Christ.
Stephen's Defense, Part 6
Acts 7:37–43 records Stephen's appeal to the wilderness generation as the climax of his defense before the Sanhedrin, demonstrating that Israel's persistent idolatry — not Stephen's teaching — represents the true rejection of Moses and of God. Stephen cites Deuteronomy 18:15 to show that Moses himself predicted the coming of Christ, the prophet like Moses, so that the council's rejection of Jesus is simultaneously a rejection of Moses and of the living God who sent him. The sermon traces Israel's descent from refusing Moses' word, to fashioning the golden calf, to God judicially giving them over to worship the host of heaven, drawing a direct line from Exodus 32 through Amos 5 to the very council Stephen addresses. The practical summons is double: flee idolatry in all its forms, whether tangible or inward, and flee to the God who, even in righteous judgment, remains ready to pardon.
Genesis 14:17-24
Genesis 14:17–24 presents two contrasting encounters after Abram's defeat of the eastern coalition: the blessing of Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, and the cold demand of the king of Sodom. The study traces the typological significance of Melchizedek through Psalm 110:4 and Hebrews 6–7, arguing that this enigmatic figure prefigures Christ as the royal priest appointed not by Levitical lineage but by the sworn oath of God. Abram's refusal of Sodom's goods and his tithe to Melchizedek together illustrate faith's dependence on God Most High rather than on human patronage. The sermon closes with an application to persevering faith under trial, drawing on the whole of Genesis 14 as evidence that the life of faith is marked by difficulty, not prosperity.
Stephen's Defense, Part 3
Stephen's defense before the Sanhedrin, as recorded in Acts 7:9–16, turns on the narrative of Joseph: a man chosen by God, sent to his people, and rejected by his own brothers. The sermon traces two movements in Stephen's argument — the patriarchs' envious rejection of Joseph, and God's sovereign providence overruling that evil for the preservation of Israel — and shows how each element constitutes a deliberate typological indictment of the council that condemned Jesus. The controlling hermeneutical claim is that Christ is the proper key to the Old Testament, and that the ceremonial law and the temple were always types pointing forward to him, not ends in themselves.
Stephen's Defense, Part 2
Stephen's defense before the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:2–8 turns on a redemptive-historical reading of Abraham that dismantles the charges of blasphemy against the law and the temple. The sermon traces three movements: the call of Abraham (vv. 1–4), the promise of land and descendants made to a childless man (vv. 5–7), and the covenant of circumcision (v. 8). Central to the exposition is the argument that God appeared to Abraham outside the land and apart from any temple, that both circumcision and temple find their terminus in Christ, and that Abraham's justification was by faith alone — his obedience being the fruit, never the ground, of that faith. Listeners are urged to trust not in any outward religious token but in the God of Abraham who sent his Son to fulfill every covenantal obligation his people could not meet.
Stephen's Defense, Part 1
Acts 7:1–2 opens Stephen's defense before the Sanhedrin — the longest speech in the book of Acts — and this sermon surveys the whole of that defense before turning to its parts in subsequent weeks. Stephen answers two formal charges: that he has blasphemed Moses and the law, and that he has blasphemed the temple. His argument from Israel's own history demonstrates that the Sanhedrin, not Stephen, has missed the trajectory of redemptive history, because the law points to Christ and the temple was always a signpost, not a final resting place. The sermon closes by calling hearers who are convicted of sin to run to Christ rather than to gnash their teeth at those who declare the truth.
Genesis 12:10-20
Genesis 12:10–20 records the first major moral failure of Abram after receiving the Abrahamic covenant promises: fearing Pharaoh more than God, he deceives the Egyptians by presenting Sarai as his sister, thereby jeopardizing both the seed promise and his wife's honor. The passage exposes the weakness of the patriarch — the father of the faithful walking by pragmatism rather than faith — while demonstrating that the fulfillment of God's covenant promises rests on divine faithfulness, not human faithfulness. The account also foreshadows the later Exodus narrative, as famine, Egyptian affliction, divine plagues, and departure with wealth prefigure Israel's bondage and deliverance. The take-home message is neither license nor despair, but confidence: God's promises are yea and amen in Christ, irrespective of the feebleness of those to whom they are given.
Genesis 29:1-30
Genesis 29:1–30 narrates Jacob's arrival in Haran, his meeting with Rachel, and his marriages to both Leah and Rachel through the fraud of Laban. The passage is examined in three movements — arrival, meeting, and marriage — with particular attention to the irony that Jacob the deceiver is himself deceived by his father-in-law. The overarching application is the doctrine of divine providence: God works sovereignly through morally disordered and even perverse circumstances — the switched brides, Leah's unexpected marriage, the messianic line through Judah — to accomplish his redemptive purpose in Christ.
The Arrest of Stephen
Acts 6:8–15 narrates the arrest of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, whose faithful ministry and superior argumentation so threatened the religious establishment of Jerusalem that they were forced to resort to false witnesses, mob agitation, and a rigged Sanhedrin trial to silence him. The sermon traces two movements: the mounting opposition to Stephen's Spirit-empowered preaching and sign-working, and the formal charge of blasphemy against the temple and the law of Moses — a charge virtually identical to what was leveled against Jesus before the same court. Stephen's composure before the Sanhedrin, his face shining like an angel's, and his masterful biblical theology of temple and law anticipate his defense in Acts 7, where he demonstrates that the temple and Mosaic ceremonies were always typological pointers fulfilled in Christ. Believers are called to study, exegete, and contend for the truth with the same reasoned fidelity Stephen displayed, and to expect that faithfulness to Christ will attract the same hostility it has always attracted.
Genesis 10:1-32
Genesis 10, the 'table of nations,' traces the seventy nations descending from Shem, Ham, and Japheth after the flood — but Moses is doing far more than recording ethnography. The genealogy is a deliberate theological narrowing: from all nations, to Shem's line, to Eber's son Peleg, and ultimately to Abraham, identifying the family through whom the promised seed of Genesis 3:15 would come. The chapter also grounds the later Gentile inclusion in the covenant promises of God, confirming Noah's prophecy that Japheth would dwell in the tents of Shem — a reality James cites at the Jerusalem Council from Amos 9.
Genesis 9:8-28
Genesis 9:8–28 divides into two sections: God's establishment of the Noahic Covenant with its sign of the rainbow, and the sin of Ham with the subsequent prophetic curse upon Canaan and blessing upon Shem and Japheth. The Noahic Covenant is identified as a common grace covenant securing the stability of the created order so that the covenant of grace may be proclaimed. Noah's prophetic pronouncement in verses 25–27 is treated as programmatic for redemptive history, tracing the two seeds of Genesis 3:15 through the flood into the post-diluvian world, culminating in the Gentile inclusion foreshadowed by 'Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem' and confirmed at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15.
The Descent of the Spirit
Acts 2:1–13 records the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, fulfilling Christ's promise and inaugurating the apostolic mission to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. The sermon argues that the tongues given at Pentecost were intelligible human languages — not ecstatic or private utterances — serving as the revelatory and confirmatory word of God to diaspora Jews assembled from every nation, and simultaneously as a sign of judgment against unbelieving Jerusalem, echoing Deuteronomy 28 and Isaiah 28. The three instances of tongue-speaking in Acts (chapters 2, 8, and 10) correspond precisely to the mission parameters of Acts 1:8 and are unrepeatable redemptive-historical events, not a paradigm for individual Christian experience. Believers today possess the Holy Spirit through regenerating faith in Christ, and the filling of the Spirit is evidenced not by tongue-speaking but by love, submission, and corporate worship.
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.