Theological term
Sanctification
470 sermons · All terms
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.
An Introduction to Christology
What does it mean to study Christ, and why does it matter above every other theological discipline? This introductory Christology study, anchored in John 20:24–31, argues that the doctrine of Christ is not one branch among many but the integrating center of all Christian theology — the terminus of the Old Testament's canonical trajectory, the non-negotiable content of apostolic proclamation, the sole ground of salvation, and the pattern for the believer's practical life. Hearers are called to fill their minds with precise Christological knowledge so that their hearts may be both warmed in worship and guarded against the errors that have always threatened the church's confession of Christ's full deity, full humanity, and undivided person.
The Usefulness of Scripture
Paul's claim in 2 Timothy 3:16–17 that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable is examined across four categories of usefulness — doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness — before turning to Scripture's specific function in completing and thoroughly equipping the man of God for every good work. The sermon challenges the anti-doctrinal sentiment prevalent in contemporary evangelicalism, arguing that indifference to biblical doctrine is indifference to God himself. Ministers in particular are shown to be completed not by leadership models or charismatic gifts but by deep saturation in the word of God. The hearer is called to approach Scripture not as a duty to discharge but as a daily feast — mining its treasures with diligence and gratitude.
The Parable of the Vineyard, Part 1
Matthew 21:33–39 presents the Parable of the Vineyard, in which Christ identifies himself as the Son sent by the divine Landowner to a covenant people who have repeatedly rejected and killed God's prophets. Drawing on Isaiah 5, Psalm 80, and a range of Old Testament and New Testament texts, the sermon establishes that Israel's religious leaders had filled up the measure of their covenant guilt, and that their rejection of the Son would culminate in the judgment executed upon Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The sermon argues that God's extraordinary patience toward covenant-breakers — patience that extended across centuries of prophetic witness — is designed to provoke repentance, and calls hearers to receive rather than resist the servants of God and to flee to Christ while the call of the gospel stands.
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 Proven Faithfulness of Timothy
Paul's appeal to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:10–12 rests not on flattery but on a proven record of faithfulness — in doctrine, conduct, purpose, and endurance through persecution — that now grounds the exhortation to press on. The apostle holds out his own life, particularly the stonings and expulsions at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, as concrete evidence that godly perseverance is possible precisely because the Lord delivers his servants through tribulation. The sermon closes with the general maxim of verse 12: suffering persecution is not the experience of a spiritual elite but the inevitable mark of all who genuinely desire to live godly in Christ Jesus. Christians are called to seek out exemplary models of faithful ministry, to pursue a comprehensive rather than selective obedience, and to be assured that the gospel of Christ is worth every cost.
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.
An Enemy Worse than the Philistines
The silence of God toward King Saul in 1 Samuel 28 is a more terrifying reality than any Philistine army, and this sermon exposes why. Working through verses 3–25, the exposition traces Saul's apostasy from covenant member to enemy of Yahweh — a man who seeks a word from God through forbidden necromancy because God will no longer answer him through lawful means. The sermon draws a sharp contrast between Saul's utilitarian, self-serving religion and David's practice of strengthening himself in the Lord through the knowledge of God, the rehearsal of His promises, and the use of the means of grace. The congregation is exhorted to reckon honestly with remaining sin, to refuse the deceitfulness that masks spiritual defection, and to find in Christ's darkness on the cross the guarantee that no elect soul will ever be abandoned by God.
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 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.
Be Imitators of God
Ephesians 5:1–21 confronts believers with a single pressing question: what is truly honorable and acceptable in the sight of God rather than in the sight of men? Working through three consecutive imperatives — walk in love, walk in light, and walk in wisdom — the sermon grounds each in the indicative of redemption: because the Father has predestined, adopted, and redeemed a people through Christ's perfect and acceptable sacrifice, they must imitate God as dear children. The practical implications range from the mortification of sexual sin and covetousness to the filling of the Spirit expressed in mutual speech, psalmody, thanksgiving, and submission, all of which flow from what Christ alone accomplished as the only sweet-smelling offering acceptable to the Father.
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.
The Conversion of Matthew
What does genuine conversion look like? Expounding Matthew 9:9–13, this sermon traces the call of Matthew the tax collector — one of the most notorious sinners in first-century Jewish society — to show that Christ's power to forgive is precisely suited to the wretched. The three movements of the passage — the call to discipleship, the feast at Matthew's house, and Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees — together establish that Christ came not for the self-righteous but for sinners, and that His summons produces immediate, costly, and joyful obedience. Five marks of genuine discipleship are drawn out: saving faith, repentance as a consequence (not a condition) of grace, kingdom priority, beholding Christ as altogether lovely, and serious pursuit of sanctification — set alongside an honest account of remaining corruption and the struggles that attend the Christian life.
2LCF Chapter 19 - Of the Law of God
The moral law of God — summarized in the Ten Commandments, written on the heart of man at creation, and codified at Sinai — remains perpetually binding on all persons, regenerate and unregenerate alike. This study of 2LCF Chapter 19, paragraphs 1, 2, 5, and 6 traces the law from its origin in the covenant of works with Adam through its threefold use (civil, pedagogical, and normative) for believers under the covenant of grace. Christ did not abolish the law but fulfilled it, thereby confirming rather than dissolving its authority. The session closes with a call to avoid antinomianism, to obey the law from proper gospel motives, and to delight in it as the revealed will of God.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification
The doctrine of justification — that sinners are legally declared righteous before God on the basis of Christ's work alone — is examined through 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 11, paragraphs 1, 2, and 5. The sermon distinguishes the essence, grounds, and method of justification, exposing the errors of Rome's infusion theology, Arminian faith-as-righteousness, and Baxterian neonomian imputation, while showing that faith is the instrument, not the ground, of justification. The inseparable yet distinct relationship between justification (a single forensic event) and sanctification (a progressive inward work) is explored against both legalism and antinomianism. Hearers are called to theological precision, assured confidence in their unlosable standing before God, and consistent holy living as fruit of that standing.
The Father's Plan of Redemption
Ephesians 1:3–6 opens a doxology that gives the believer a glimpse into the eternal counsel of the triune God — what Reformed theology calls the covenant of redemption, or pactum salutis. The Father's role in that counsel is threefold: he blesses his people with every spiritual blessing in Christ, he sovereignly elects and predestines a multitude to adoption as sons, and he does all of this to the praise of his glorious grace. The sermon calls believers to respond to this free and sovereign electing love not with presumption but with worship, obedience, and a deepened sense of the gravity of sinning against so gracious a Father.
The Instruction on Divorce, Part 2
Sexual immorality and willful desertion are the two lawful grounds for divorce recognized in Scripture, and this exposition of 1 Corinthians 7:10–16 establishes both the prohibition against divorce and the Pauline exception. Paul's instruction divides into two sections: the command to believing spouses not to separate, and the rule governing mixed marriages in which one partner is converted after the wedding. The sermon argues that when an unbeliever departs and dissolves the marriage, the believing spouse is released from bondage and may remarry, grounding that conclusion in the absence of a prohibition in verse 15, the consistent biblical assumption that lawful divorce permits remarriage, and the analogy with Matthew 19:9. Throughout, the original intent of marriage as a lifelong, one-flesh covenant is upheld as the governing norm, with the exceptions confirming rather than undermining that norm.
The Role of the Law in Justification
Romans 3:20 stands at the hinge of Paul's argument in Romans 1–3: the universal condemnation of Jew and Gentile is summarized and confirmed, and the ground is cleared for the proclamation of a righteousness that comes apart from the law. This sermon examines both the unlawful use of the law — seeking justification before God through law-keeping, which Paul categorically condemns — and the lawful pedagogical use, by which the law defines sin, demonstrates the gravity of human guilt, and drives the sinner to Christ. The central burden is that no amount of moral effort can secure acceptance with God, because the problem lies not in the law but in the sinner; the law's only saving function is to press men toward the law-keeper, Christ, whose obedience and sacrifice are the sole ground of justification.
The Preface to the Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments are not a path to earned standing before God but the covenant stipulations of a God who has already redeemed his people — the indicative of grace always precedes the imperative of law. Expounding Deuteronomy 5:1–6, this sermon examines the summons to obedience Moses issues to the second generation on the plains of Moab, and then the preface to the Decalogue itself, showing that the identity and activity of the Lawgiver are the indispensable foundation for understanding why God's moral law binds his people. The threefold division of the law — ceremonial, judicial, and moral — is defended from the confessional Reformed tradition, and the abiding validity of the Decalogue in the new covenant is grounded in Jeremiah 31 and 2LCF 19. The sermon closes by tracing the law's three uses — civil, pedagogical, and normative — so that hearers neither abuse the law as a ladder to heaven nor discard it as obsolete, but receive it as the Spirit-given pattern for a life of grateful obedience.
The Pharisee and the Publican
How can a sinful person be accepted before a holy God? Jesus answers that question directly in Luke 18:9–14, where two men pray in the temple and only one goes home justified. The parable exposes the bankruptcy of self-righteousness — trusting in one's own moral record before God — and vindicates the tax collector who, acknowledging himself as 'the sinner,' casts himself wholly on divine mercy. Justification belongs to those who bring nothing but their sin and receive by faith alone the righteousness of Christ, whose personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience is imputed to all who trust in him.
The Conduct of God's Servant
Second Timothy 2:20–26 confronts the reality that the visible church always contains both honorable and dishonorable vessels, and calls God's servant to respond not with contentious disputation but with flight from youthful lusts, pursuit of righteousness, and gentle correction of those in error. Paul's metaphor of vessels in a great house is applied to Timothy's pastoral conduct: cleansing oneself from the influence of false teachers issues in sanctification and fitness for the Master's use. The closing verses ground the servant's patient, humble engagement in the doctrine of repentance as a sovereign gift of God — not merely a failure of argument or evidence, but a work of divine grace that alone restores men from the devil's snare to rational, truth-knowing life.
Matthew 6:13
The sixth petition of the Lord's Prayer — 'lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one' (Matthew 6:13) — is a plea for divine protection from the solicitation to sin, distinct from the God-ordained trials that conform believers to Christ. This study examines the meaning of temptation in the petition, its two-part structure (negative and positive), and four reasons the church must pray it: remaining corruption, desire for communion with God, zeal for God's glory, and longing for the eschatological state. The Westminster Larger Catechism Q195 frames the petition's full scope, and Owen's warning — 'he who prays as he ought will endeavor to live as he prays' — issues the closing call to integrity between confession and conduct.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 3
Justification is the article upon which the church stands or falls, and this exposition of 2LCF Chapter 11 works through the nature, basis, and instrument of justification as the confession presents them. The sermon distinguishes justification sharply from sanctification against the Roman Catholic doctrine of infused righteousness, the neo-Nomian teaching of Richard Baxter, and the New Perspective on Paul, arguing that the elect are accepted by God solely on the basis of Christ's imputed active and passive obedience received through faith alone. The active obedience of Christ — his 33 years of perfect law-keeping — is shown to be as necessary as his death, because forgiveness alone would leave the believer back in a probationary state without a positive righteousness that avails before God. Faith is the alone instrument of justification, not its condition or cause, and is itself a gift of God, so that every ground of human boasting is excluded.
The Pursuit of Christian Unity
Ephesians 4:1–3 commands believers to walk worthy of their calling by cultivating four virtues — lowliness, gentleness, long-suffering, and forbearing love — as the means by which the church maintains the Spirit-wrought unity already given to it. The sermon distinguishes this genuine, truth-grounded unity from any ecumenicism that achieves togetherness by dissolving doctrinal conviction. Because the Holy Spirit is the author of church unity and the triune God is its ultimate foundation, to abandon the pursuit of it is to dishonor God himself. Hearers are pressed to give diligent, active effort to preserve what the Spirit has produced, and those outside of Christ are reminded that Christian ethics, including the pursuit of unity, can only flow from salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 1
Justification is the cardinal article of the Christian faith — the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. This first of two sessions on 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 11 (paragraphs 1–6) surveys the definition of justification through the Confession, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the 39 Articles, then examines five reasons why departure from the biblical doctrine is catastrophic: it is a damnable error, it diminishes the holiness and justice of God, it contradicts God's eternal decree, it lessens the severity of sin and robs Christ of his exclusivity as Savior, and it destroys the believer's peace. The session closes by tracing the three historical errors the Confession's negations target — Roman Catholicism, Anabaptism, and Arminianism — and calls the hearer to treasure the precise forensic definition of justification as a bulwark against every corruption of the gospel.
The Incentives for Perseverance, Part 2
Paul's 'faithful saying' in 2 Timothy 2:11–13 supplies three conditional clauses that together form both an encouragement and a warning for the persevering Christian. The sermon exposits the believer's union with Christ in conversion (dying and rising with Him), the present communion that sustains endurance, and the solemn warning that denial of Christ evidences a faithlessness that Christ Himself will not overlook. The means of grace — Scripture, prayer, and corporate worship including the Lord's Supper — are set out as the God-appointed instruments by which believers are kept running the race.
The Blessing of Spiritual Liberty
John 8:31–36 confronts every person with a diagnosis before offering a cure: whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. This sermon expounds Christ's words under two heads — the reality of spiritual slavery and the blessing of spiritual liberty — drawing on Romans 1–3, Galatians, and Acts 26 to demonstrate that bondage to sin is universal, that it is not political but moral and spiritual, and that freedom is granted by the Son alone through the truth of His Word. The occasion of the Lord's Supper grounds the application: believers examine themselves against the marks of true discipleship (abiding in the Word) and receive the supper as a joyful remembrance of redemption from sin's penalty, the law's curse, God's wrath, Satan's dominion, and sin's reigning power.
1 Samuel 12
1 Samuel 12 records Samuel's final public address to Israel at Gilgal, functioning as a covenant renewal ceremony in which Samuel vindicates his own integrity, indicts the nation for rejecting Yahweh as king, and summons the people to renewed covenantal obedience. The chapter exposes the characteristic human pattern of forgetting God's past deliverances when a new crisis arrives, a forgetfulness that is answered not by the people's merit but by God's own commitment to his name and to his covenant promises. The anchor of the entire chapter, and of the Christian's assurance, is verse 22: God will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, grounded in his free election and not in their fidelity. Hearers are therefore urged to maintain short accounts with God — confessing sin promptly, forsaking it, and pressing forward in simple, grateful obedience rather than wallowing in guilt as a form of Protestant penance.