Topic
Bibliology
415 sermons · All topics
The Nature of Saving Faith, Part 1
James 2:14–17 has provoked sharp disagreement in the history of the church, with readers perceiving a direct contradiction between James and Paul on the doctrine of justification. This sermon works through five hermeneutical tools for harmonizing the two apostles — the unity of Scripture, the internal consistency of James's own doctrine of salvation, the immediate context, the different audiences and purposes of each writer, and the statement of 1689 LBCF 11.2 — before turning to the question James poses in verses 14–17 concerning the validity of a particular species of faith. The central distinction is not faith versus works or faith plus works, but false faith versus true faith: genuine saving faith is never alone in the person justified, but is always accompanied with all other saving graces, producing the practical Christianity James demands.
1 Kings 13
1 Kings 13 records the confrontation between an unnamed man of God from Judah and Jeroboam's idolatrous altar at Bethel, followed by that prophet's fatal disobedience when deceived by an old prophet, and Jeroboam's unmoved persistence in sin. The chapter turns on how men respond to the word of the Lord: the man of God obeys it before Jeroboam but abandons it under the old prophet's lying claim of angelic revelation, receiving temporal chastisement rather than condemnation. Jeroboam, by contrast, witnesses message, sign, mercy, and providence in sequence, yet does not turn from his evil way — becoming the negative standard against which subsequent northern kings are measured. The study calls hearers to simple, unreserved obedience to whatever God commands, and to recognize that signs and evidences do not produce faith; the Holy Spirit does.
Of Christ the Mediator 1 (2LCF 8)
The person and work of Christ as mediator stands at the center of Christian theology, as this study of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 8 makes clear. Working through all ten paragraphs of the chapter in overview, the session traces the pre-temporal appointment of Christ as mediator in the covenant of redemption, the historical stages of his mediatorial work, and the necessity of his threefold office as prophet, priest, and king. Particular attention falls on paragraph 2's account of the incarnation — the eternal Son taking true human nature with all its essential properties yet without sin — and paragraph 7's careful rule for reading Scripture passages that attribute what belongs to one nature to the other, guarding against both a divinized humanity (Lutheran ubiquitarianism) and a humanized deity. Hearers are called to hold fast the church's historic confession of Christ as one person in two natures, whole, perfect, and distinct, without conversion, composition, or confusion.
Of Covenant (2LCF 7)
2 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 7 traces the whole architecture of Scripture through the lens of covenant theology, demonstrating that God's dealings with humanity are covenantal from creation to consummation. The chapter distinguishes three interlocking covenants — the covenant of works, the covenant of redemption, and the covenant of grace — and shows how each is necessary for a right understanding of the others. Particular attention is given to the progressive revelation of the covenant of grace from Genesis 3:15 through the historical covenants (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic) to its full discovery in the new covenant inaugurated by Christ. The practical stakes are high: a faulty grasp of the covenant of works will inevitably distort one's understanding of Christ's mediatorial obedience, justification by faith alone, and the covenant of grace itself.
The One Thing Needful
Luke 10:38–42 presents two sisters whose contrasting responses to Christ's presence expose a perennial danger for every believer: allowing lawful, even godly, activity to crowd out the one thing needful. The sermon works through the difference between Martha's distracted service and Mary's devoted hearing, establishing that Christ's commendation of Mary is not a commendation of monasticism but of right priority — the kingdom of God and communion with Christ must govern the believer's ordering of life. Drawn from the parallel teaching of Matthew 6 and Luke 12, five consequences of carnal anxiety are identified, and the congregation is exhorted to repent of marginalizing Christ from the daily calendar and to attend faithfully to both the corporate preaching and the private reading of God's Word.
Of Creation (2LBCF)
The doctrine of creation as confessed in chapter 4 of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (2LBCF) establishes that the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — created all things ex nihilo in the space of six literal days, for the primary purpose of manifesting His own glory. Man was made in the image of God, constituted as a dichotomous being (body and soul), endowed with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, and placed under a probationary covenant arrangement that sets the stage for all subsequent redemptive history. This session surveys all three paragraphs of the chapter — the overview of creation, the creation of man, and the probation of man — before drawing out ethical implications concerning vocation, the sanctity of human life, marriage, gender, and the rejection of Gnosticism in all its forms.
The Importance of Preaching
Paul's declaration in 1 Corinthians 1:18–25 that God saves sinners 'through the foolishness of the message preached' establishes preaching not as one option among many but as the divinely ordained and irreplaceable means of grace. The sermon traces four interlocking claims: preaching is the means by which dead sinners are brought to saving faith, the means by which Christ builds his church, a proclamation that has Christ himself as its sum and substance, and a proclamation that has the cross as the apex of its content. Hearers are pressed to pray and give financial support for gospel ministers, to deepen their knowledge of Christ crucified, and — if as yet unconverted — to seek salvation through that cross alone.
The Reformation of the Church
What does it mean for the church to be 'the pillar and ground of the truth'? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:14–16, this sermon examines the identity and confession of the church through three descriptions Paul gives in verse 15 — the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and ground of the truth — before applying the doctrinal legacy of the sixteenth-century Reformation to the contemporary church. The great Christological confession of verse 16 is shown to be the theological center around which all church conduct, worship, and proclamation must orbit. The sermon calls the church to guard sola scriptura, justification by faith alone, the regulative principle of worship, and a proper Christology against the perpetual drift toward pragmatism, experientialism, and Romanizing errors.
Of the Holy Scriptures (2LCF 1.5-10)
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, paragraphs 5–10, sets out a comprehensive doctrine of Holy Scripture, and this study draws out the hermeneutical principles embedded in each paragraph. The scope of Scripture is theocentric and Christocentric — all of it tends toward the glory of God through the mission of Christ — and every other interpretive concern flows from that governing conviction. The sufficiency of Scripture encompasses both explicit texts and implicit doctrine derived by good and necessary consequence, while the perspicuity of Scripture assures even the unlearned that the things necessary for salvation are clearly propounded. The analogy of Scripture and the analogy of faith together form the infallible rule by which obscure passages are interpreted through clearer ones and through the theological sense of the whole.
Of the Holy Scriptures (2LCF 1.2-4)
What gives the Bible its authority, and how did the church come to recognise which books belong in it? Working through paragraphs 2–4 of the Second London Confession of Faith (1689 LBCF chapter 1), this study examines the canon of Scripture — its 66 books, the exclusion of the Apocrypha, and the ground of scriptural authority. Three factors explain the origins of canon: the eschatological expectations of early Christianity, the covenantal framework that always paired redemptive acts with written covenant documents, and the unique apostolic authority Christ invested in his designated spokesmen. Against both the community-determined and historically-determined models, the confession's self-authenticating model is defended: Scripture's authority rests wholly on God as its author, confirmed inwardly by the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and evidenced by the divine qualities of the text itself, its providential spread across the churches, and its corporate reception among believers of every age.
The Most Important Question for Young People
Psalm 119:9 poses what the sermon calls the most important question for young people: 'How can a young man cleanse his way?' Before answering, the text forces an honest reckoning with the doctrine of total depravity and total inability — the way stands in need of cleansing precisely because every faculty of human nature is corrupted by the fall in Adam, and no sinner can commend himself to God apart from sovereign grace. The answer the psalmist gives, 'by taking heed according to Your Word,' encompasses both initial justification by grace through faith in Christ and ongoing sanctification by the same Word and Spirit. Parents and young people alike are exhorted to engage Scripture with the whole heart — obeying, memorizing, meditating, declaring, and delighting in it — as the only path to a cleansed way.
2 Samuel 23:1-7
David's final official words in 2 Samuel 23:1–7 are not a backward glance at his own reign but a forward-looking messianic prophecy concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, identified as 'the anointed of the God of Jacob' and 'the favorite of the songs of Israel.' The passage discloses the Trinitarian agency behind the words, the comprehensive and just nature of Messiah's reign, the everlasting Davidic covenant that grounds the hope of a perfect king despite David's own failures, and the exclusion of the unrepentant from that kingdom. Believers are called to take comfort in Christ's just and universal rule, to proclaim the terror of divine judgment honestly, and to worship the one to whom all the Psalms point.
Free Grace Baptist Church - August 28, 2016 PM
Galatians 1:1–24 sets out three interlocking realities: the astonishment of the apostle at the Galatians' swift defection, the nature of the Judaizing perversion of the gospel, and the divine curse pronounced upon all who distort the message of Christ. The Judaizing heresy — like its successors in Roman Catholicism, the New Perspective on Paul, and the Federal Vision — did not deny Christ outright but mingled faith with human merit, a synthesis Paul condemns as no gospel at all. Justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, grounded in his active and passive obedience, as the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession chapter 11 confesses. Believers are called to a blessed intolerance toward every departure from the gospel, to doctrinal precision, and to find their only peace with God in Christ's doing and dying on their behalf.
The Rejection of Saul
Saul's disobedience in 1 Samuel 15 — sparing Agag and the best livestock against the explicit herem command — is not an isolated failure but the culminating point of a progressive apostasy rooted in disregard for the Word of God. The sermon traces the anatomy of that apostasy through Saul's blame-shifting, false piety, self-deception, and counterfeit repentance, setting him in deliberate contrast with David, whose genuine faith expressed itself in confession and flight to the mercy of God. The critical lesson is that great privilege within the covenant community — anointing, early victories, religious activity — does not confirm saving grace, and that obedience to the revealed Word of God, not religiosity, is the mark of the true people of God.
Of Baptism and the Lord's Supper (2LCF 28)
The two ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper are positive and sovereign institutions of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only lawgiver, to be administered in His church until He returns. This study of 2LCF Chapter 28 traces the confessional and biblical foundations of these ordinances across multiple chapters of the 1689 London Baptist Confession, demonstrating how doctrines of Scripture, Christology, sanctification, saving faith, and ecclesiology together undergird their proper observance. The sermon distinguishes the Baptist use of 'ordinance' from both Roman Catholic sacramentalism and the Paedo-Baptist covenantal framework, while insisting that these are not optional ceremonies but dominical injunctions binding the conscience of every believer. Christians are called not merely to be informed about baptism and the Lord's Supper, but to obey and rejoice in them as holy appointments given for the strengthening of faith and the glory of Christ.
The Believer's Response to Trials
James 1:2–4 commands believers to count trials 'all joy' — a response so counterintuitive that James must ground it in theology before it can be practiced. This sermon works through four elements of the believer's response: the nature of the trials in view (external afflictions and hardships, not solicitations to sin), the settled expectation that trials are a normal feature of Christian life, the disposition of joy that must govern the believer under trial, and the recognition that God's purpose in trial is the production of endurance leading to spiritual maturity and completeness. The governing application is that Christians must be formed by passages like this one before trials arrive, so that when they do, the believer counts God as sovereign and purposeful rather than panicking, raging, or despairing.
The Condemnation of the Religious Leaders, Part 3
Matthew 23:23–24 records the fifth of Christ's eight woes against the scribes and Pharisees: they meticulously tithe the smallest garden herbs while neglecting the weightier matters of the law — justice, mercy, and faith. Tracing this indictment through Micah 6:8, Genesis 18, Deuteronomy 10, Hosea 12, and Zechariah 7, the sermon demonstrates that Jesus is functioning as a covenant-lawsuit prophet in a line stretching back to Israel's earliest history, condemning the nation for collapsing piety into external ritual while abandoning love toward God and neighbour. The qualification Christ appends — 'these you ought to have done without leaving the others undone' — forbids both the majoring on minors that marks religious hypocrisy and the neglect of minors by those who camp exclusively on justice and mercy. The sermon closes with a direct gospel summons: neither tithing nor social virtue saves; salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, after which the redeemed are called to obey all of God's law in its proper proportion.
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 29, 2016 AM
Matthew 23:14–22 presents Jesus pronouncing three woes upon the scribes and Pharisees — condemning their exploitation of widows under a pretense of piety, their missionary zeal that produces converts destined for hell, and their casuistic perversion of the oath. Far from being an anomaly in Christ's ministry, these denunciations stand in the prophetic tradition of Isaiah and serve as a direct warning to the contemporary church: religious appearance, evangelistic fervor, and clever theological reasoning are no evidence of saving grace when divorced from a true and plain understanding of God's word and genuine inner righteousness.
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 15, 2016 PM
Scripture commands parents to teach their children the ways of God — not occasionally, but diligently, formally and informally, from morning to night. Drawing on the biblical warrant from Genesis through the New Testament epistles, this sermon traces the family worship mandate across the whole canon: God's covenantal purpose for Abraham in Genesis 18, the Shema of Deuteronomy 6, the example of Joshua, the assumption of the Psalms, the teaching of the Proverbs, Paul's command in Ephesians 6, and the example of Timothy's mother and grandmother. The elements of family worship are then set out in order: commitment to public worship and the sanctification of the Lord's Day come first, followed by the family altar with its singing, prayer, Scripture reading, and the use of creeds and catechisms as tools for forming children in conceptual, confessional faith.
The Warning and Report
Paul closes his final letter by warning Timothy against Alexander the coppersmith, whose opposition was directed not against Paul personally but against the Word of God, and by giving a theologically ordered account of his own imprisonment. The sermon traces how Paul's confidence in God's retributive justice, his experience of the Lord's present strengthening, and his certainty of future heavenly preservation together produce doxology rather than complaint. Seven marks of Paul's apostolic character — vigilance for God's Word, concern for the church, dependence on the Lord, worship, care for friends, hope for glory, and faithful ministry to the end — are set before the congregation as a pattern for gospel ministers and the church alike. The primary application is that faithful proclamation of God's truth, not celebrity or popularity, is what God requires of his ministers.
The Visit, the Cloak, and the Books
Paul's final personal requests to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:9–13 — the urgent summons to visit, the cloak left at Troas, and the books and parchments — reveal the interior life of an apostle facing death in a Roman prison. Three lessons emerge: the indispensable value of Christian fellowship, the forgiving and forward-looking spirit that reconciled Paul to John Mark, and the bookish, industrious mind that turned a prison cell into a command post for gospel strategy. The passage calls God's people to crave Christian communion, to refuse grudge-bearing, and to read widely for the service of Christ.
The Final Charge to Timothy, Part 1
Paul's final formal charge to the church, delivered through Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1–2, consists of a solemn charge and a specific command: preach the Word. The solemnity of the charge is grounded in the presence of the triune God as divine audience and in the coming judgment of Christ over the living and the dead, which simultaneously weighs on the minister who handles the Word and on the people who will one day stand before God. The command itself, rooted in the image of the herald (Greek kēryx), demands faithful proclamation of the Word — not creative substitutes, not life-coaching, not entertainment — through conviction, rebuke, exhortation, longsuffering, and teaching. The sermon closes with a call for biblical preachers, biblical preaching, and biblical hearers, arguing that the church's abandonment of the pulpit is the root of her contemporary crisis.
Free Grace Baptist Church - February 21, 2016 PM
1 Timothy 1:15 — 'This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners' — is expounded as a self-contained creedal summary of the gospel. The sermon moves through three structural heads: the introduction to the creed (its truthfulness and trustworthiness), the creed itself (the person of Christ, the doctrine of the Incarnation, and the certainty of his saving work), and the demonstrable confirmation of the creed in the conversion of Paul as chief of sinners. Hearers are called to rest their assurance not in inward evidences but solely in the finished, effectual work of Christ Jesus, and unbelievers are urged to receive the only Savior who saves to the uttermost.
A Sure and Proven Creed
First Timothy 1:15 presents what Charles Spurgeon called 'the whole gospel in one verse' — a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance. This sermon expounds the verse under three headings: the introduction to the creed (its truthfulness and trustworthiness), the creed itself (Christ Jesus as champion, his incarnational coming, and his consummate saving work), and the demonstrable confirmation of the creed in the conversion of the Apostle Paul, the self-declared chief of sinners. Believers are exhorted to ground assurance not in inward experience but solely in the person and finished work of Christ Jesus, the Lord.
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.
Free Grace Baptist Church - February 7, 2016 AM
John 20:30-31 contains the Gospel of John's own purpose statement: these things were written that readers might believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they might have life in his name. The sermon examines two realities arising from this statement — first, that God's revelation is deliberate and purposive, disclosing not everything but precisely what is needed for salvation; second, that this revelation is radically Christ-centered, presenting Jesus as the fulfillment of every Old Testament office (prophet, priest, and king) and the sole source of both present spiritual life and eternal life in the age to come. Hearers are called to move from mere doctrinal apprehension to adoration — from theological affirmation to Thomas's confession, 'My Lord and my God' — and those outside of Christ are warned that rejecting so glorious a Savior is the height of human folly.
The Incarnation and True Humanity of Christ
Philippians 2:5–11 anchors a study of the incarnation and true humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Drawing on the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian creeds together with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, the study traces three aspects of the incarnation — assumption of human nature, the virgin birth, and the union of two natures in one person — before marshalling seven biblical proofs of Christ's full humanity. The central argument throughout is soteriological: the Son of God must be truly and perfectly man, body and soul, yet without sin, because only such a mediator can make propitiation for guilty sinners and be their faithful high priest.
Sola Scriptura: The Bible Alone
Hebrews 1:1–3 opens with the declaration that God has spoken — a claim the author of Hebrews treats not as background noise but as the controlling fact of redemptive history. This sermon works through six attributes of Scripture drawn from those opening verses: its divine source, its authority, its finality in the Son, its intended beneficiaries, its perspicuity, and its sufficiency for faith and life in the new covenant community. The Reformation's sola scriptura is shown to be not a negative protest but a positive testimony: Scripture alone is God's last, best, and sufficient word, complete in Christ, requiring no supplement from tradition, continuing prophecy, or moralistic self-help.
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.
Free Grace Baptist Church - December 27, 2015 PM
What makes the Bible the word of God, and how should that conviction shape the way believers read and live by it? This expository sermon on 2 Timothy 3:16–17 examines three interconnected questions: what Scripture is, where its authority comes from, and why it is indispensable. Working through Paul's claim that 'all Scripture is God-breathed,' the sermon establishes that this includes both Testaments, defends the unique apostolic authority that underwrites the New Testament writings, and argues that the doctrines of inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy are inseparable. The sermon closes with a call to imitate the psalmist of Psalm 119—hiding the word in the heart, meditating on its precepts, and rejoicing in its testimonies as in great treasure.