Theological term
Saving Grace
9 sermons · All terms
The Authority of Christ Over the Demons
Matthew 8:28–34 records Christ's encounter with two demon-possessed men whose condition — violence, self-destruction, nakedness, and ceaseless torment among the tombs — exposes the wretchedness of Satan's kingdom and the glamorization of the occult as godless deception. The passage stands within Matthew's sustained demonstration in chapters 8–9 that the same authority with which Christ taught is confirmed in His works: one word, 'Go,' expels a legion. The city's request that Jesus depart reveals that the fear of God drives men either toward Him or away from Him, never to indifference. The sermon closes with the application of 1 Timothy 1:15 — that these two men are exhibit A that Christ Jesus came into the world to save even the chiefest of sinners — and an exhortation to parents to raise children who flee to the cross rather than to self-righteousness or the occult.
Ask FGBC #31: What is the difference between saving and common grace?
Common grace and saving grace are distinct but related aspects of God's goodness. Common grace is God's non-redemptive kindness extended to all mankind and creation — including the restraint of sin, fruitful seasons, and the capacity for civic good among unbelievers — while saving grace is God's particular redemptive work in the hearts of sinners through the preaching of the gospel. Understanding this distinction shapes how Christians relate to the world, how they pray for unbelievers, and how they understand the church's mission without compromising it.
Clip - Sinners, Don't Despair!
Drawing from the account of the Samaritan woman and villagers in John 4, this clip addresses those who remain outside of saving grace with a direct and tender appeal: do not despair, but come to Christ. The Evangelist John wrote his Gospel precisely for this purpose — that readers might believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they might have life in His name.
The Blessedness of Belonging to Our Shepherd
Psalm 23 is among the most familiar passages in Scripture, yet its very familiarity can breed inattention to the depth of its claims. This exposition works through the psalm under four heads — God's provision, God's protection, God's consolation, and God's presence — showing that these blessings belong specifically and personally to all who belong to the Lord as his sheep, not to the world at large. The sermon presses the hearer to be consciously and consistently aware of this blessedness in the light of Christ, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep, and closes with a direct call to the unconverted to hear his voice and believe.
The Lord's Arrest in the Garden
Matthew 26:50-56 records the arrest of Christ in Gethsemane — an event the speaker expounds as the voluntary, scripturally determined surrender of the sinless Son of God, not a defeat. Working through four structural movements (betrayal, defense, assertion, and desertion), the sermon treats Peter's sword-stroke as a case study in zeal without knowledge, unpacks the legitimate and illegitimate uses of the sword in biblical ethics, and shows that Christ's willing submission to arrest was the necessary means by which He bore the wrath of God as the scapegoat for His people. The closing application summons hearers to the Psalm 2:12 command — 'Kiss the Son' — contrasting Judas's kiss of treachery with the saving trust that finds all shame removed in the One who went alone into the wilderness bearing sin.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 9, 2017 PM
Humility is not merely an outward posture of social deference but an inward disposition that every believer must cultivate, grounded in a right knowledge of self, of God, and of the gospel of Christ. Expounding 1 Peter 5:5–7, this sermon traces three movements: the command to humble ourselves toward one another and toward God, the means of doing so by casting all anxiety upon him in prayer and through the means of grace, and the reason to do so — namely that the God of heaven and earth, who proved his care at the cross and sustains his people through trial, will exalt the humble in due time. Pride is shown to be not merely loudness or arrogance but any self-trust that withholds dependence on God, and the remedy is the gospel itself: the one who humbled himself to the death of the cross is the ground and pattern of true humility.
Joshua 2
Joshua 2 presents Rahab the harlot as an unexpected trophy of divine grace — a Canaanite prostitute whose confession of Yahweh's sovereignty stands as one of the most remarkable declarations of faith in the entire Hebrew Bible. Working through the chapter in three movements — the reconnaissance mission (vv. 1–7), Rahab's confession of God's sovereignty (vv. 8–14), and the covenant agreement with the spies (vv. 14–24) — the study shows that the ethical question of Rahab's lie is a distraction from the text's true center: her recognition of Yahweh as the one God over heaven and earth. The concluding application presses the Abrahamic promise that all nations will be blessed through Israel, and reminds hearers that the church is not a club for the respectable but a refuge for sinners redeemed by grace.
The Message of John the Baptist
John the Baptist's message in Matthew 3:7–12 is not merely a call to moral improvement but a declaration of imminent judgment and the arrival of One mightier than himself. The sermon works through three particulars: the reproof of the Pharisees and Sadducees as a 'brood of vipers' whose false doctrine poisons the covenant community; the instruction of the crowd to bear fruits worthy of repentance — a saving grace given by God, not a human achievement — and not to rely on Abrahamic pedigree for standing before God; and John's testimony to the supremacy of Christ, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire, gathering his elect as grain into the barn while burning the chaff with unquenchable fire. The sermon calls hearers to repentant faith, warning that there is no third option between the barn and the fire, and to imitate John's humility: 'He must increase, but I must decrease.'
Greetings and Final Instructions
Colossians 4:7–18 closes Paul's letter not with abstraction but with names — real men whose faithfulness, failure, restoration, and apostasy illuminate the pastoral realities of gospel ministry. The passage reveals Paul not as a theology machine but as a suffering apostle sustained by the fellowship of Jewish and Gentile brothers alike, directing the advance of Christ's kingdom from a Roman prison cell. The sermon draws from each figure a single defining lesson — faithfulness, restoration, saving grace, apostasy, and strategic kingdom labor — while closing with an exhortation to guard against heresy by making much of the supremacy of Christ.