Topic
Anthropology
562 sermons · All topics
The Laws Concerning Homicide & Bodily Injury (Part I)
Exodus 21:12–21 applies the Sixth and Fifth Commandments through the judicial law of Israel, treating the capital offenses of murder, parental assault, cursing of parents, and kidnapping, then moving to laws governing non-fatal bodily injury and the discipline of servants. The sermon draws on the Noahic Covenant (Genesis 9:6), the abiding authority of civil government to bear the sword (Romans 13), and the general equity principle to argue that these case laws carry enduring moral weight even outside the Mosaic theocracy. Listeners are called to pray for civil governments to discharge their God-ordained duty of punishing criminal offenders, and to take seriously the fifth commandment's demand that parental authority be honored and enforced in the home.
Live Stream - September 11, 2022
Ephesians 2:8–10 sets out the application and consequence of redemptive grace, arguing that salvation is entirely God's act — given by grace alone, received through faith alone, and issuing in good works that are themselves God's gift. The sermon works through the grammar and theology of the passage to demolish every form of human contribution to salvation, whether by faith conceived as a human offering or by works, so that God alone receives the glory. Believers are shown to be trophies of divine grace, created in Christ for good works God prepared beforehand — works that confirm justification rather than cause it.
The Reaction to Jesus and His Words
John 7:40–53 records the sharply divided public reaction to Jesus's preaching at the Feast of Tabernacles and the private opposition of the Sanhedrin to him and his followers. The crowd fractures over whether Jesus is the promised prophet of Deuteronomy 18 or the Christ himself, while the religious leadership responds not with argument but with contempt, attempting to silence him through force and scorn. The temple officers sent to arrest Jesus return empty-handed, confessing that no man has ever spoken as he has — a testimony that magnifies Christ's divine authority even as the Sanhedrin descends into lawlessness. The sermon calls hearers to abandon the confusion of the crowd and the hardness of the Sanhedrin, and instead to come to Christ in faith, receiving the everlasting life he freely offers.
The Saving Grace of God, Part 3
Ephesians 2:8–10 demolishes every notion that the sinner contributes to his own salvation, whether by supplying the faith or by bringing meritorious works. This sermon works through the passage in two movements: the application of redemptive grace in verses 8–9, where salvation is shown to be by grace alone through a faith that is itself God's gift and not the sinner's offering, and the consequence of redemptive grace in verse 10, where the good works of the justified are presented not as the cause or condition of salvation but as its God-prepared effect. The controlling purpose is doxological — that in every age where sinners are saved, the exceeding riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus are displayed, and God alone receives the glory.
The Saving Grace of God, Part 1
Ephesians 2:1–3 confronts the reader with a precise diagnosis of humanity's condition apart from saving grace: spiritual death in Adam, slavery to the world-system, subjection to Satan, and liability to the wrath of God. The sermon grounds this diagnosis in the covenant of works, the doctrine of original sin, and the federal headship of Adam, drawing on Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 to show that all humanity stands condemned either in Adam or justified in Christ. Total depravity is shown to be comprehensive — corrupting not only outward conduct but the mind and heart — making sovereign grace the only remedy for sinners who are, apart from Christ, lifeless, helpless, and hopeless.
The Prohibition Against Judgmentalism
Matthew 7:1–5 is among the most frequently misapplied texts in Scripture, routinely weaponised to silence any and all Christian judgment. This sermon from the Sermon on the Mount demonstrates that Christ's prohibition targets not judgment as such but the censorious, fault-finding, hypercritical spirit endemic to the Pharisees and to fallen human nature generally. The preacher surveys five legitimate spheres of Christian judgment — identifying false teachers, exercising church discipline, addressing sins of elders, and rendering civil judgments — before expositing the speck-and-plank illustration as Christ's indictment of hypocrisy. The sermon closes with practical counsel for mortifying judgmentalism through dependence on the Holy Spirit, the pursuit of humility, and a right understanding of remaining corruption in oneself and in one's neighbour.
The Feast of Tabernacles, Part 2
John 7:14–24 presents two confrontations: the Jews question Christ's authority, and Christ in turn questions the Jews' ethical integrity. The sermon works through three grounds of Christ's authority—his unity with the Father, the regenerate hearer's capacity to receive his word, and his mission to glorify the Father rather than himself—before turning to Christ's indictment of the Jews for plotting murder while professing fidelity to the Mosaic law. The exposition closes with Christ's appeal to righteous judgment over mere appearance, and the preacher applies the whole passage as a call to sinners to come and drink from the one who alone satisfies the soul's thirst.
2LCF 16 - Of Good Works (part I)
Good works in the Christian life must be carefully defined, grounded, and distinguished from every meritorious scheme if the glory of Christ is to be preserved. This study of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 16 works through the definition of good works (their substance, manner, and definitive character as fruits and evidences of a lively faith), the necessary foundation of good works in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, and the non-meritorious nature of good works as plainly asserted in Romans 3 and Galatians 2. The central burden is that no work of the creature — however sincere, however commanded — can merit pardon of sin or eternal life before God, because the only works that avail with divine justice are the active and passive obedience of Christ alone imputed to the believer by faith.
The Things God Hates
Proverbs 6:16–19 presents a numerical list of seven things God hates and finds abominable — a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren. This sermon works through each item in canonical order, grounding the list in its immediate context (the portrait of the son of Belial in vv. 12–15) and in the broader testimony of Proverbs, the Psalms, and the New Testament. The abominable members (pride, lying, murder, the cunning heart, swift feet) and the abominable actions (perjury and discord) are each exposed and applied. The sermon concludes by urging hearers to pursue the opposites of each vice — humility, truth-telling, protection of innocent life, guarding the heart, swift pursuit of good, faithful witness, and peacemaking — and to rest in Christ, whose perfect obedience is the righteousness that covers remaining corruption in the believer.
June 26, 2022 - Sunday School Confession Study (2LCF 7)
The covenant of works and the covenant of grace are not competing arrangements but sequentially related covenants that together explain why Christ had to become a man, obey the law perfectly, and bear its curse. Working through 2LCF Chapter 7, this study traces the Creator-creature distinction that grounds the covenant of works, the fall that rendered humanity incapable of meeting its terms, and the covenant of grace wherein God freely transfers sinners from Adam's representation to Christ's through spiritual regeneration and faith. The Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants are examined as historical types that reveal but do not constitute the covenant of grace — a distinction with direct bearing on the Reformed Baptist rejection of paedobaptist covenant structures.
Live Stream - June 19, 2022
What does it mean that Christ is the 'chief cornerstone' laid in Zion, and how does that ancient prophecy from Isaiah 28 apply to the church today? Working through 1 Peter 2:6–8, this sermon grounds the doctrine of the church firmly in the Old Testament by tracing the biblical-theological arc from Adam's failed dominion mandate in Genesis, through Israel's covenantal history as a type of that failure and restoration, to Christ as the one who has come to accomplish what Adam could not — building a global kingdom of redeemed image-bearers out of the darkness of sin and death. The sermon applies the doctrines of God's sovereignty in history, the unity of the biblical storyline, and the believer's unshakeable standing in Christ to encourage the church that those who trust in this cornerstone will never be put to shame, while those who reject him do so to their own ruin.
The New People of God, Part 1
What does it mean for the church to be built on Christ as a living cornerstone, and how does the Old Testament ground that identity? Expounding 1 Peter 2:6–8, this sermon traces the biblical-theological arc from Adam's failed dominion mandate in Genesis through Israel's typological history—law-giving, exile, and restoration—to the fulfilment of Isaiah's cornerstone prophecy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Israel's covenant history is shown to be a historical type of the cosmic reality: the broken covenant of works and its restoration by the Messiah, who is now building a global kingdom of redeemed image-bearers out of every tribe and tongue. Believers are called to marvel at God's sovereignty over history, over the kingdom of darkness, and over the unified message of Scripture that runs from Genesis 3:15 to the church as the true Israel of God.
Brotherly Love - 1 Peter 1:22-25
What does it mean to love the brethren, and what is the source of that love? Expounding 1 Peter 1:22–25, this sermon works through three interlocking realities: the common Christian experience of soul-purification through Spirit-wrought faith alone, the command to love one another with a fervent, self-sacrificial agape love, and the regenerate new birth through the incorruptible word of God that grounds and generates that love. The exhortation is concrete: foster genuine fellowship, receive as well as give, and resist the tendency to confine brotherly love within the narrow boundaries of denomination, theological system, or Christian liberty — for our identity is in Christ, not in any confessional tradition.
Live Stream - June 12, 2022
Spiritual growth is not merely a personal benefit but the primary means by which the church of Christ is built up as a strong, enduring structure. Expounding 1 Peter 2:1–5, this sermon argues that believers are called to mortify the self-serving sins of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking — all of which collapse the very foundation upon which other believers must stand — and to cultivate an insatiable desire for the pure word of God as their appointed means of growth. Christ is the chief cornerstone and the ultimate builder of his church; believers are living stones whose solidity or weakness determines what the next generation inherits. The congregation is exhorted to press on in sanctification and doctrinal growth not to earn their justification — which rests on faith alone in Christ alone — but to be the solid building blocks upon which children, new believers, and future generations of the church may be securely built.
Chapter 13 - Of Sanctification
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 13, sets forth sanctification as a real and personal moral transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit through the Word, inseparably joined to justification yet categorically distinct from it. The confession distinguishes the dominion of sin — broken decisively at regeneration — from the remnants of corruption that remain in every part of the believer throughout this life, producing an irreconcilable war between flesh and Spirit. Against both perfectionism and antinomianism, the chapter insists that sanctification is neither a checklist of religious performance nor a license for presumption, but a progressive, Spirit-empowered conformity to Christ that never constitutes the ground of acceptance before God. Hearers are urged to reject the conflation of justification and sanctification — whether in Roman Catholic merit theology, the New Perspective on Paul, or Federal Vision — and to rest acceptance with God solely on the imputed righteousness of Christ.
The Tenth Commandment
The tenth commandment's prohibition of covetousness exposes the spirituality of God's law: external compliance is insufficient, for the law reaches the desires and affections of the heart. Covetousness is defined as inordinate desire for what belongs to a neighbor — whether his wife, his goods, or anything that is his — and its connection to the first commandment reveals that misplaced desire is a form of idolatry. The sermon traces covetousness through envy and discontentment, showing how inward sin often becomes the prelude to overt transgression. The positive counterpart calls believers to contentment grounded in God's sovereign ownership, his covenant promise of provision, the surpassing weight of eternal glory, and the cultivation of a genuinely charitable spirit toward others.
The Faithful Christian Mother
Proverbs 31:28–30 presents the faithful Christian mother not merely as a moral exemplar but as a woman whose fear of the Lord is itself the fruit of sovereign grace — a grace Jeremiah 32 promises God will plant in the hearts of his covenant people. The sermon works through four aspects of the Christian mother's calling: her condition before God, her influence over her children, her God-given authority over them (rooted in the fifth commandment), and her fourfold responsibility to instruct, to set an example, to discipline, and to love. Mothers are urged to press law and gospel upon their children tirelessly, to embrace corporal and verbal discipline without apology, and to find their ultimate confidence not in their own faithfulness but in Christ, the stellar Savior, whose life, death, and resurrection is the only ground of acceptance before God.
The 9th Commandment, Part 1/2
The ninth commandment, 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor' (Exodus 20:16), extends far beyond the courtroom to govern all speech — forbidding perjury, lying, slander, gossip, and talebearing. Drawing on the Mosaic law, the Wisdom literature, the Gospels, and the Epistles, this study traces how Scripture consistently condemns every form of false speech as an assault on the image of God, the stability of society, and the character of God himself, who is truth and cannot lie. The passive reception of gossip is indicted alongside its active propagation, and hearers are called to close their ears to talebearers as firmly as they close their mouths to speaking falsehood.
The Bread of Life Discourse, Part 3
John 6:41–51 records the Jews' grumbling rejection of Jesus as the bread of life and his pointed rebuke of their unbelief. This sermon expounds that rejection in two movements: the nature of the Jews' complaint against Christ's divine origin, and Christ's twofold response — his assertion of the Father's sovereign, efficacious drawing of sinners and his appeal to the prophetic scriptures that learning from the Father issues in coming to the Son. The doctrines of total depravity and total inability are drawn from verse 44 and grounded in parallel texts from John 1, Romans 8, and Ephesians 2, establishing that salvation is possible only because the Father draws whom he will. The sermon closes with an exhortation to look to Christ in faith for everlasting life, the sole remedy for the problem of human sin.
The 8th Commandment, Part 2 & Economic Theory
The Eighth Commandment's prohibition against theft carries positive moral obligations — diligent labor, charitable giving, and biblical contentment — and provides the scriptural framework for evaluating economic and political systems. Drawing on the Mosaic law, the apostolic letters, and historical narrative, the sermon argues that socialism and communism are founded upon institutionalised theft and therefore stand under divine condemnation, while capitalism, for all its imperfections, respects the God-given right to private property. Israel's demand for a king in 1 Samuel 8 and Ahab's seizure of Naboth's vineyard in 1 Kings 21 are presented as biblical case studies in governmental confiscation. Hearers are exhorted to cultivate contentment, labor faithfully, give charitably, and judge all economic theory by the standard of Exodus 20:15.
The Redemptive Work of the Son, Part 2
Ephesians 1:8–12 grounds the individual believer's redemption within a cosmic divine purpose: God's wisdom in the plan of salvation maintains all his holy perfections without compromise, the mystery of his will now openly revealed in the gospel calls sinners from every tribe and nation, and all things will be recapitulated — gathered up and set in order — under the lordship of Christ at his return. The inheritance of the elect is secured by predestination, not by human performance, so that the redeemed exist 'to the praise of his glory' — as a trophy case of grace before angels and the entire created order.
Exodus 20:14, the 7th Commandment, part 2
Expounding the seventh commandment (Exodus 20:14), this study completes a survey of the sins the commandment prohibits — polygamy, prostitution, pornography, transvestitism, and transgenderism — before turning to the manner in which the commandment is violated: externally through the act, internally through lustful imagination, and verbally through corrupt speech. The Westminster Larger Catechism frames the duties required: chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior. The threefold use of the law (civil, pedagogical, normative) is applied to contemporary sexual ethics, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 is held out as the ground of gospel hope: the same sinners who practiced these things were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.
The Bread of Life Discourse, Part 1
John 6:22–34 records the opening exchange of the bread of life discourse, in which Jesus confronts a crowd whose pursuit of Him is driven entirely by physical appetite rather than spiritual need. The sermon works through three movements: the exposed motive of the people (vv. 22–26), the Savior's exhortation to labor for food that endures to everlasting life (vv. 27–29), and the crowd's demand for a sign to rival Moses (vv. 30–34). Central to the exposition is Jesus' declaration that the 'work of God' is faith in the One the Father has sent — a faith that is itself God's gift — and His identification of Himself as the true bread of God who comes down from heaven to give life to the world, surpassing the manna of the wilderness and extending to every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
The Gracious Purpose of the Father, Part 2
Ephesians 1:5–6 presents predestination not as cold metaphysical fate but as an act of divine love, wherein God in love predetermined his elect unto adoption as sons by Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his own will and not any foreseen merit in the creature. The sermon works through the motive of predestination (the love of God), the means (adoption as sons by Christ, grounded in the covenant of redemption), and the goal (the praise of the glory of God's grace), drawing extensively on parallel Pauline and Johannine texts. Against both Arminian and Pelagian objections, the preacher demonstrates that predestination to adoption is precisely what makes Christian praise coherent — the creature contributes nothing, and God receives all glory. Believers are called to live out their adopted status by walking in love, light, and wisdom as members of the household of God.
Chapter 10 - Of Effectual Calling
Effectual calling is the first step in the application of redemption — the sovereign act by which God, through His Word and Spirit, brings the elect from a state of total spiritual death into union with Christ. This session works through 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 10, situating effectual calling within the broader ordo salutis and showing how it alone accounts for the biblical data on God's absolute sovereignty, the total spiritual inability of fallen man, and the uncoerced freedom of the believer's response. The result guards against both the Arminian error of grounding salvation in the foreseen decisions of the creature and the hyper-Calvinist error of denying man's responsibility to repent and believe, while grounding evangelism in confidence that God can revive the deadest of hearts.
The 7th Commandment, Part 1
The Seventh Commandment — 'You shall not commit adultery' (Exodus 20:14) — prohibits not only the specific act of adultery but subsumes all sexual sins under its scope, while positively requiring chastity and the promotion of righteous sexual ethics. This exposition establishes the basis of the commandment in the creational purpose of marriage (Genesis 2), the function of God's law as a revelation of his character, and the severe sanctions — capital punishment in Israel, present social consequences, and the final judgment of God — attached to its violation. The sermon then works through the prohibited acts: adultery, fornication, incest, rape (with careful exegesis of the contested cases in Deuteronomy 22), homosexuality, bestiality, unlawful divorce (tracing the lawful grounds of porneia and desertion through Deuteronomy 24, Matthew 19, and 1 Corinthians 7), and immodesty. Throughout, the law's severity is balanced by the gospel: 'such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.'
The Gracious Purpose of the Father
Ephesians 1:3–6 opens with what the Apostle Paul calls a 'barakah' — a formal blessing of God followed by specific reasons for that praise. This sermon expounds the Father's role in the covenant of redemption: His sovereign, unconditional election of sinners in Christ before the foundation of the world, and His predestinating purpose that those chosen would be made holy and blameless. Election is the cause, not the consequence, of faith and repentance — sinners dead in trespasses and sins are chosen not because of foreseen merit but according to the good pleasure of God's will alone. The sermon calls believers to respond to the doctrine of election not with defensive polemic but with the doxological posture Paul himself models: praise, blessing, and adoration to God Most High.
The 6th Command, Part 2
The sixth commandment's prohibition against murder extends far beyond the physical act of killing to encompass the internal disposition of the heart — unwarranted anger, bitterness, and character assassination. Drawing from Exodus 20:13, Matthew 5:21-26, Leviticus 19:17-18, and the Westminster Larger Catechism, this study traces the biblical distinctions between murder and lawful homicide (capital punishment, just war, and self-defense), demonstrates that all human beings at every stage of life bear the image of God and therefore possess inviolable dignity, and applies the commandment's positive duty to preserve life. Hearers are called to deal faithfully with relational sin rather than harbor grudges, to resist the culture of abortion and euthanasia as violations of the image of God, and to understand the civil use, pedagogical use, and normative use of this commandment.
Chapter 9 - Of Free Will
What does it mean that human beings have 'free will'? This confession-study exposition of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 9 argues that free will is real but always conditioned by the moral state of the heart — whether man is in original innocency, post-lapsarian sin, the state of grace, or the state of glory. The fourfold framework drawn from the Confession exposes the Pelagian and Arminian error of treating free will as unqualified and neutral, while grounding the sinner's inability and the believer's renewal entirely in sovereign, monergistic grace. The study closes with the pastoral application that even the believer's ongoing corruption is no surprise, and that the state of glory — not the present age — is where the will is at last perfectly and immutably free to good alone.
The 6th Commandment -
Exodus 20:13 — 'You shall not murder' — is one of the briefest commands in the Decalogue, yet it carries profound theological and legal weight. This expository Bible study examines the precise Hebrew terminology that distinguishes murder from other forms of killing, establishes the internal disposition (hatred, unrighteous anger, character assassination) as equally condemned by the sixth commandment alongside the external act, and then surveys three exceptions to the prohibition: capital punishment, just war, and self-defense. Each exception is grounded in both Old and New Testament texts, with sustained attention to the Noahic Covenant, Romans 13, and Exodus 22, demonstrating that the civil magistrate's sword is a God-ordained instrument of justice rather than a violation of the commandment.