Theological term
Sola Fide
279 sermons · All terms
The World According to Haggai
Haggai 2:10–23 confronts a people whose neglect of God's house exposed a deeper failure: they had made comfort and self-interest primary while relegating God to an afterthought. The sermon traces two movements in the text — a promise of blessing conditioned on restored covenant faithfulness (vv. 10–19), and a messianic announcement centering on Zerubbabel as an ancestor of Christ (vv. 20–23). Defilement, unlike holiness, is contagious, and the unbuilt temple was not merely a construction failure but a declaration that God was an unwanted resident. The governing application, drawn from Matthew 6:33, is the imperative to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness in every domain of life — worship, work, evangelism, and devotion.
A Word for Fathers
Ephesians 6:1–4 addresses fathers and the entire domestic order within which fatherhood functions — husbands as servant-leaders of their wives, wives submitting and rendering respect, and children obeying and honoring their parents. The sermon argues that God invests fathers with real, God-given authority, and that this authority carries commensurate responsibility: to lead sacrificially, to disciple, to nourish, and to discipline without provoking to wrath. Throughout, the gospel grounds the whole: no husband, wife, or child meets these standards perfectly, and the righteousness required is found only in Christ's active and passive obedience imputed to the believer by faith.
Observations on the Gospel
What is the gospel, and what does it demand of its hearers? Expounding 1 Corinthians 15:1–11, this sermon traces six defining observations about the gospel of Jesus Christ: it is rooted in history, revealed by God in Scripture, Christ-centered, received by faith alone, essential to salvation, and powerful for the worst of sinners. The Lord's Supper frames the meditation, reminding believers that the bread and wine point not to human merit but entirely to Christ's accomplished work. Hearers are called to examine whether they possess a saving interest in Christ and to trust him alone for justification.
The Command to Walk in Christ
Colossians 2:6–7 presents what Paul considers the heart and substance of the entire epistle: a command to walk in Christ, grounded entirely in the prior reception of Christ by faith. This sermon works through three particulars of that command — the indicative basis (what God has already accomplished in salvation), the imperative itself (walking in Him), and the attendant circumstances (being rooted, built up, established in the faith, and abounding in thanksgiving). The believer's walk is not a self-generated moral effort but a response to sovereign grace, sustained by the same divine power that accomplished the initial rooting in Christ.
A Cross-Centered Mother's Day
John 19:26–27 records the third of Christ's seven sayings from the cross — his provision for his mother Mary by entrusting her to the apostle John. This saying is examined under three headings: as a moral example of honoring one's mother rooted in the fifth commandment, as an illustration of Christ's active obedience rendered on behalf of his people who fail that commandment, and as a display of sovereign control by the one who lays down his own life according to the Father's decree. The sermon rejects the Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary as co-mediatrix and calls every hearer — regardless of age — to concrete, costly care for their parents, grounded first in faith in the crucified and risen Christ whose perfect obedience alone avails before God.
Brethren Beloved by the Lord
Paul's contrast in 2 Thessalonians 2:13–15 between those who perish in unrighteousness and those who are 'brethren beloved by the Lord' opens onto the full architecture of sovereign grace: election grounded not in foreseen merit but in the eternal love of God the Father, salvation worked out through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, and the whole chain sealed unto glorification. The sermon presses the doctrines of unconditional election and the effectual call into pastoral and doxological form, refusing cold dogmatism in favour of wonder that God would set his love upon sinners dead in trespasses. Hearers are exhorted to stand fast in apostolic tradition, to abound in love toward one another, and to grow in sanctification through the word — and unbelievers are warned that the same Christ who comforts the beloved will consume with the breath of his mouth those who had pleasure in unrighteousness.
The Lawful Uses of God's Law
The law of God is good when used lawfully — and Scripture identifies three distinct lawful uses that the church must recover. Drawing from 1 Timothy 1:8–11 and ranging across Romans, Galatians, and the Westminster Larger Catechism, this sermon exposits the threefold use of the law (civil, pedagogical, normative) as the historically Reformed framework for understanding law and gospel. The civil use restrains wickedness in society; the pedagogical use exposes sin and drives sinners to Christ; the normative use provides the regenerate with a pattern of holy conduct that the indwelling Spirit enables them to pursue freely. The central burden of the sermon is that stripping law from gospel preaching produces a generation that wants comfort rather than righteousness, and that a high view of the law is inseparable from a high view of the Redeemer.
The Foundation for Christian Baptism
Baptism is grounded not in the merit or decision of the one being baptized, but in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who was himself 'baptized' — overwhelmed unto death — as a substitute for sinners. The sermon works through Mark 10:32–45 to show that Christ's language of drinking the cup and being baptized with his baptism refers to his substitutionary suffering at Calvary, not his water baptism by John. Baptism is therefore an act of obedience that publicly declares the believer's identification with the triune God and union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, while picturing — though not providing — the forgiveness of sins.
Paul's Intercessory Prayer for the Colossians
Paul's intercessory prayer for the Colossians (Colossians 1:9–14) defines what a worthy walk before God actually looks like, tracing four participles that mark genuine Christian discipleship: fruitfulness in good works, growth in the knowledge of God, divine strengthening for patient endurance, and thankfulness to the Father. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone — not by works, but unto works — so that every lawful act, whether in the home, the workplace, or the church, is rendered as sacred service to the Lord. The sermon moves from these four marks of discipleship into the theological ground of thanksgiving: God has qualified the believer for an inheritance, delivered him from the dominion of darkness, transferred him into the kingdom of the Son, and redeemed him through Christ's blood. The hearer is urged to examine whether these four characteristics genuinely identify his own walk, resting the assurance of that examination on the sovereign, irresistible grace of God.