Topic
Christian Living
16 sermons · All topics
Laws Concerning Debt, Slaves, and Firstborn
Deuteronomy 15 contains three interlocking bodies of legislation governing debt release, indentured servitude, and the sacrifice of the firstborn — all set within the framework of Old Covenant Israel's theocratic obligations under the covenant of works. The sabbatical release of debts and the manumission of Hebrew slaves both press beyond bare external compliance to demand a right internal disposition: generosity flowing from a heart shaped by the memory of God's own redemptive act in the Exodus. The firstborn legislation culminates typologically in Christ, the unblemished firstborn Son of God, whose sacrifice fulfills what the animal sacrifices prefigured. The session closes with an extended Q&A examining how these principles of restitution, due diligence, and ordered benevolence translate into the life of the New Covenant church.
2LBC Chapter 25, Of Marriage
What does Scripture authorize regarding marriage, divorce, and remarriage? Working through Chapter 25 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession alongside Westminster Confession Chapter 24, paragraphs 5–6, this lesson establishes that marriage is a monogamous, heterosexual covenant ordained by God for companionship, procreation, and the lawful expression of sexuality. The confession's teaching is set against contemporary assaults on the definition of marriage, and extended exegesis of Deuteronomy 24, Matthew 5 and 19, and 1 Corinthians 7 demonstrates that Scripture authorizes divorce and subsequent remarriage for the innocent party in cases of porneia and willful desertion.
The Exhortation to Wage the Good Warfare
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:18–20 is a summons to wage good warfare against false teaching — a warfare grounded in Timothy's apostolic authority, prophetic calling, and possession of faith and a good conscience. The sermon exposes the defection of Hymenaeus and Alexander as the concrete conflict that makes this warfare necessary, tracing their blasphemy to a rejection of both the objective content of the faith and a good conscience. The application presses the church to hold the line through faithful exposition, qualified eldership, and the exercise of church discipline, all in defence of the gospel that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
2LBC Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
What authority does civil government possess, and what are its limits? Working through 2nd London Baptist Confession Chapter 24, this study argues that God alone is the ultimate sovereign who ordains civil magistrates for two ends: his own glory and the public good of man, expressed concretely in the maintenance of justice and peace. The confession deliberately repudiates the Anabaptist rejection of Christian participation in civil office, affirming that believers may lawfully serve as magistrates, soldiers, and executioners of justice. Christians are called to submit to civil authority in all lawful things for conscience's sake and to pray persistently for governing authorities, so that the church may worship freely and fulfil her gospel mission without hindrance.
Deuteronomy 14:1-29. Laws of Death, Diet, and Tithing
Deuteronomy 14 regulates Israel's mourning practices, dietary laws, and tithing — each regulation grounded in the same theological foundation: Israel is a holy people, chosen by God as his special treasure, and every dimension of life must reflect that covenantal identity. The dietary laws in particular are not arbitrary hygiene codes but ceremonial law designed to separate the covenant community from surrounding pagan practice, laws now abrogated and fulfilled in Christ, the true Israel of God. The tithing legislation calls God's people to acknowledge that prosperity is divine beneficence, to fear the Lord in feasting as much as in prayer, and to provide materially for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. New covenant believers are not bound by these ceremonial structures, yet the underlying logic — that God governs every dimension of his people's lives and calls them to distinction, generosity, and gratitude — carries forward unchanged into the present age.
Testimony, confession, and baptism: Hans
A believer presents his public testimony before the congregation prior to baptism by immersion, tracing his journey from Eastern mysticism and Stoic philosophy to saving faith in Jesus Christ. His conversion crystallised through reading Scripture — beginning with Proverbs and ending with a sermon on Matthew 24:15 — when the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 became for him a vivid demonstration of divine justice and mercy held together. The 1689 London Baptist Confession's teaching on baptism frames the ordinance as a public pictorial representation of the believer's union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.
2LBC Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
Chapter 24 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession addresses the divine origin, scope, and limits of civil government, the lawfulness of Christian participation in that government, and the Christian's duty of submission and prayer toward governing authorities. The confession roots civil magistracy in God's sovereign ordination, limits its authority to the maintenance of justice and peace, and explicitly rejects the Anabaptist position that Christians may not hold civil office or bear arms. Listeners are called to think carefully about voting, praying for rulers, and obeying governing authorities in all lawful commands — while refusing compliance whenever the state commands what God forbids.
The Goodness of God's Law
The goodness of God's law is not nullified by the false teachers who mishandle it, nor by those who reject it in the name of the gospel. Expounding 1 Timothy 1:8–11, this sermon establishes that the law is intrinsically good because it is a revelation of God's own nature, and then works through the three classical Reformed uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — showing that each harmonises with the gospel rather than opposing it. The civil use restrains external lawlessness, the pedagogical use drives the sinner to Christ by exposing sin and misery, and the normative use directs the blood-bought believer in the pattern of sanctification. The sermon closes with a direct exhortation: do not seek justification by the law, use it lawfully to show the unconverted their need for Christ, and in the life of faith delight in it as the Spirit-empowered norm of obedience to God.
2LCF Chapter 22 Of Religious Worship and Sabbath Day Part 2
The Sabbath is a creation ordinance and a trans-covenantal, positive-moral, perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages — not merely a Mosaic institution that expired with the Old Covenant. This study of 2LCF Chapter 22, paragraphs 7–8 traces the threefold character of the Sabbath (positive, moral, and perpetual), the divinely-ordered transfer from seventh-day to first-day observance grounded in Christ's resurrection and the inauguration of the new creation, and the proper disposition required for keeping the Lord's Day holy. Because Christ alone kept the Sabbath perfectly as our substitute, Christian Sabbath observance flows from sanctified delight in the triune God rather than from legal merit, and the governing question for the Lord's Day is not how far one may go but how near one may draw to God.
The Lament of the Psalmist
Psalm 13 is a lament psalm in which David — and, by virtue of his identity as the greater Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ — cries out to God under the perceived forgetfulness of divine providence, the daily sorrows of the soul, and the threatening triumph of the enemy. Lament is distinguished from whining precisely in that it is directed toward God in faith, not away from Him; it is the transitional space between present pain and future promise, driven by covenant confidence in God's hesed. The sermon traces the structure of the psalm in two movements — the lament of verses 1–4 and the refuge of verses 5–6 — and applies it to the believer's life through the sympathizing high priesthood of Christ in Hebrews 4:14–16, calling Christians to bring their sorrows boldly to the throne of grace.
The promise of blessing or curse
Deuteronomy 11 sets before Old Covenant Israel a stark choice: obedience leading to blessing in the land, or disobedience leading to curse and exile. The sermon traces three sections of the chapter — the works of God in Israel's history, the requirement of obedience, and the promise of blessing or curse — showing how the covenant of works that Israel repeatedly broke is fulfilled by Christ, the true Israel of God, who bore the covenant curse on the cross. The Apostle Paul's argument in Galatians 3 is brought to bear: all who trust in works of law are under the curse, but Christ has redeemed his people from that curse by becoming a curse for them, so that the blessing of Abraham comes upon the Gentiles through faith alone.
2LCF Chap. 22 Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
The regulative principle of worship — that God alone prescribes acceptable worship through his revealed Word — is the governing claim of 2LCF Chapter 22, paragraphs 1 and 2. The confession grounds this in natural theology: the light of nature declares that God exists and deserves worship, but general revelation cannot instruct the creature in how that worship is to be conducted. Scripture alone, from Deuteronomy 12 through 1 Timothy 3 and Hebrews 12, maintains that God's people are neither to add to nor take away from what he has commanded in public worship. The sermon calls hearers to reject the normative principle of worship and instead color strictly within the lines God has drawn, worshiping with reverence and godly fear rather than with entertainment, felt-need satisfaction, or cultural innovation.
The Apostle's Charge to Timothy
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3–7 exposes a crisis in the Ephesian church: false teachers devoted to fables and endless genealogies were generating disputes rather than the godly edification that flows from sound doctrine. The sermon traces two movements in the passage — the apostolic charge to silence the heterodox and the anatomy of the false teachers' departure from the law — demonstrating that gospel ministry is driven by love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. The application presses churches to hold elders to the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, to refuse a pulpit to the unqualified, and to guard the congregation against any teaching that diverts attention from the truth as it is in Jesus.
The Authority of Christ Over the Demons
Christ's authority over the demonic kingdom is the central demonstration Matthew presents in chapter 8, where two men reduced to a subhuman, tomb-dwelling existence are liberated by a single word from the Son of God. The passage exposes both the wretchedness of Satanic bondage — no glamour, only madness, nakedness, and self-destruction — and the sufficiency of Christ's power to deliver the most apparently irredeemable sinners. The sermon draws a direct line from the Gadarene demoniacs to Paul's confession in 1 Timothy 1:15, arguing that the same sovereign grace that rescues the most visibly ruined also reaches the self-righteous religious man who trusts in his own standing before God. Parents, youth, and all hearers are urged to flee the occult, resist the devil through gospel proclamation, and rest in the one whose word alone — 'Go' — dismantles the kingdom of darkness.
2LCF Chap.19 Of the Law of God
The moral law of God, written on the human conscience at creation, is trans-covenantal in its binding authority — obligating all people in every age, including justified believers under the new covenant. This confession study of 2LCF Chapter 19 traces the threefold division of Old Covenant law (moral, ceremonial, judicial), the divinely designed obsolescence of the ceremonial and judicial laws at Christ's first advent, and the abiding utility of the moral law in its civil, pedagogical, and normative functions. Christ stands at the centre of the law's story as its giver, its perfect active and passive obedient fulfiller, and the one who by his Spirit now governs the hearts of his people in cheerful, free compliance with what the law requires.
The Exhortation to Perseverance and Unity
Philippians 4:1–3 presents two interconnected apostolic exhortations: the call to stand fast in the Lord and the call to pursue unity among the saints. The sermon examines the apostle's affection for the Philippians as his joy and crown, the meaning and manner of steadfast perseverance, and the concrete dispute between Euodia and Syntyche as a vehicle for a thorough exposition of biblical conflict resolution from Proverbs 18, Matthew 5, and Matthew 18. The practical burden is that both perseverance and unity demand disciplined, long-haul commitment — fastening one's grip on Christ, the doctrines of the gospel, and the one-another obligations of church life.