Topic
Christian Living
1,140 sermons · All topics
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 Ministry of Paul in Corinth
What does faithful gospel ministry look like when met with sustained opposition, rejection, and fear? Expounding Acts 18:1–11 within Paul's second missionary journey, this sermon traces four movements: Paul's strategic arrival in Corinth, his testimony in the synagogue, the fierce Jewish opposition and his response, and the Lord's night vision that commands him to speak because God already has a people in the city. The sermon argues that sovereign election and human culpability stand together — the God who predestines the elect also holds every rejector accountable for his own blood. A closing application presses believers toward faithful gospel proclamation, the planting of churches, and the catechesis of covenant children as genuine instruments of the effectual call.
The 9th Commandment, Part 2/2
James 1:26 places the ninth commandment's prohibition of false witness directly inside the local church: a professing believer who does not bridle his tongue deceives himself, and his religion is exposed as useless — the same Greek word applied to idolatry. The sermon surveys the tongue's destructive power across James 3–4, Matthew 12 and 15, and a wide range of Proverbs texts, arguing that sins of speech are systematically undertriaged in the church compared to sins of action. Ten practical helps are offered, grounded in the conviction that taming the tongue is a fruit of genuine saving faith and requires the enabling power of the Holy Spirit working through the ordinary means of grace.
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 Oppression of Israel by Pharaoh
Exodus 1 records the escalating oppression of Israel in Egypt — from the rise of an ignorant pharaoh, through forced labor, to an explicit policy of infanticide targeting Hebrew male infants. This exposition traces the passage in two movements: the connection between Exodus and the Abrahamic promises of Genesis, and the progressive stages of Pharaoh's tyranny, culminating in a national decree of genocide. The Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah are held up as models of God-fearing civil disobedience, and the whole chapter is read typologically, anticipating the greater deliverance wrought through Moses and ultimately through the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. The congregation is called to imitate the courage of the faithful — to obey God rather than men in whatever sphere God has placed them.
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 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.
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 Lord Who Treads the Waves
John 6:16–21 records the fifth of the seven signs in John's Gospel: Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee toward his storm-tossed disciples. The sermon works through two movements — the disciples' vulnerability in the storm and the Savior's sovereign approach across the water — to establish that Jesus, by treading the waves, enacts what the Old Testament attributes exclusively to Yahweh (Job 9:8; Psalm 77:19; Isaiah 43:16), thereby demonstrating his consubstantiality with the Father and his lordship over the natural order. The divine self-disclosure 'I am' (ego eimi), voiced both here and at key junctures throughout John's Gospel, is shown to be Jesus' deliberate appropriation of the covenant name revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. The sermon closes by pressing the theological remedy for the fear that afflicts God's people: a right knowledge of Christ as the great I AM displaces anxiety about trials, persecutions, and earthly circumstances.
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 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.
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.
The 5th Commandment
Exodus 20:12, the fifth commandment to honor father and mother, stands as the first commandment of the second table of the law and governs the entire structure of human authority relations — in the family, the church, the workplace, and the civil commonwealth. The command's scope extends beyond parent-child dynamics to all lawful superior-inferior relationships, a point the Westminster Larger Catechism makes explicit. The sermon traces the commandment's explanation, scope, and sanctions through the Old Testament case laws, the prophets, and the New Testament vice lists, before treating the covenant promise of longevity as a general principle of divine providence rather than an unconditional guarantee. The application presses parents to discipline their children by word and rod, warns of the social consequences of failing to do so, and qualifies submission to authority where superiors command sin.
The Refuge for God's People
Psalm 46 sets the people of God in the midst of cosmic and political chaos and calls them to find their sole refuge in the Lord of hosts. This exposition works through four movements in the psalm — the assurance of God's presence, the demonstration of his power over creation and the nations, the invitation to rehearse his past works in redemptive history, and the command to be still and know that he is God. The sermon argues that Reformed Christians who rightly confess God's sovereignty in salvation must equally rest in that sovereignty under tyranny, pandemic, and war. The chief application is that the church must know God — his perfections, his names, his covenant fidelity — because it is the knowledge of God, not practical principles, that steadies the soul and fuels missionary confidence in the darkest of times.
The Confidence of the Believer
Micah 7 opens with a prophet's anguished cry — 'Woe is me' — over the collapse of covenant faithfulness in Israel: corrupt leadership, broken families, and the absence of godly community. The sermon works through three movements in the chapter: Micah's lamentation over the state of the covenant people (vv. 1–6), his counsel to the faithful remnant to look to God and trust his promises (vv. 7–13), and his petitions and doxology to the God who pardons iniquity, subdues sin, and casts all transgressions into the depths of the sea (vv. 14–20). The central corrective the prophet offers is the same one the just have always lived by: not optimism, not realism, but faith in the sovereign God of the covenant, whose compassions are new each morning and whose purposes for his remnant cannot be frustrated.
Clip: The Hyper-Calvinism Lie
Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2 simultaneously affirms God's comprehensive sovereignty over the crucifixion and demands personal repentance from those who crucified Christ. Hyper-Calvinism distorts both truths by collapsing human responsibility into divine decree, leaving sinners with no reason to repent. The sermon argues that Scripture holds divine sovereignty and human accountability together without theodicy or apology, and calls every hearer to repent and believe the gospel.
Wednesday Night Bible Study (Feb 23, 2022) - 4th Commandment, Part V
This concluding session on the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11) surveys the entire biblical-theological arc from creation through the new covenant, demonstrating that the weekly sabbath is a perpetual moral obligation rooted in creation and redemption, not a ceremonial shadow abolished at the cross. The lecture reviews the progression from Genesis 2, Exodus 16, and Sinai through the prophets, the ministry of Christ, apostolic practice, and Hebrews 4, before working through the 1689 LBCF chapter 22, paragraphs 7 and 8, on the Christian sabbath. Application addresses the threefold use of the law with respect to sabbath, answers objections from alleged anti-sabbatarian texts in Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2, and closes by grounding sabbath keeping in the active obedience of Christ imputed to believers.
The Prophet's Faith in a Time of Distress
Habakkuk 3 presents the prophet's response to the announced Babylonian invasion of Judah: not despair, but a structured movement from fearful petition through deliberate theological remembrance to confident refuge in God. The sermon traces three movements in the psalm — petition, remembrance of God's acts in redemptive history, and refuge — arguing that a perplexed faith steadies itself not by self-reflection but by rehearsing who God is and what He has done. The doctrine of justification by faith (Habakkuk 2:4), appropriated in the New Testament, is shown here in its practical dimension: the just do not merely begin by faith but continue to live and persevere by it through every extremity. The congregation is called to imitate the prophet by building their own 'collage' of God's mighty works in Scripture, thereby finding rest, joy, and stability in God alone when earthly supports fail.
The Wisdom of Little Things
Proverbs 30:24–28 presents four creatures — ants, conies, locusts, and a spider or lizard — each marked by inherent weakness yet possessing a compensatory wisdom that enables them to thrive. Expounding Agur's numerical proverb, this sermon draws out four corresponding virtues for the people of God: industry in preparation, caution before danger, unity in cooperation, and persistence under adversity. Both temporal and spiritual dimensions of each lesson are developed — from Sabbatarian labor ethics and self-defense to readiness for the day of judgment and the endurance of the Christian race. The whole is gathered under a call to honest self-awareness: to know one's limitations, refuse indolence and complaint, and by grace overcome through wisdom.
The 4th Commandment (Part 3)
The Christian Sabbath is grounded in both creation and redemption, and the New Testament establishes Sunday — the Lord's Day — as the day of corporate worship by precedent and pattern rather than by bare precept. This third installment in a study of the Fourth Commandment examines three apostolic texts (Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:1–2, Revelation 1:10) that demonstrate the early church's practice of gathering on the first day of the week, then turns to two alleged anti-Sabbatarian passages (Romans 14 and Galatians 5) to show that neither addresses the weekly Sabbath but rather deals with Jewish calendar observances and the question of justification by works. The moral principle of one day in seven set apart for God remains binding on New Covenant believers, while the positive law has lawfully shifted the day from Saturday to Sunday in light of Christ's resurrection.
If you aborted your baby, there is hope!
Abortion is a violation of the sixth commandment, but the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin — including this one. Preaching the law faithfully means following it immediately with the gospel, offering the forgiveness and rest Christ promises to every sinner who comes to him. The church's duty is not only to resist abortion politically and socially but to herald the sovereign grace of God to those broken by guilt and regret. There is hope in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The 4th Commandment (Part 2)
The fourth commandment's demand for Sabbath observance does not dissolve at the close of the Old Covenant; it runs through redemptive history and finds its New Covenant expression in the Lord's Day. Working through Matthew 5, Matthew 12, and Hebrews 4, this sermon argues that Christ upheld the moral law in both doctrine and practice, that his resurrection on the first day of the week grounds the shift from Saturday to Sunday, and that Hebrews 4:9's use of 'sabbatismos' constitutes a positive, unequivocal New Testament Sabbath ordinance for the people of God. The moral principle — one day in seven set apart for worship — is trans-covenantal; only its ceremonial aspect, the specific day, is conditioned by the covenant one inhabits. Believers are called to approach the Lord's Day not as a burden but as a gift that functions as a weekly foretaste and down payment of the eternal rest secured by Christ's finished work.
The Healing at Bethesda
John 5:1–15 presents the healing of a paralyzed man at Bethesda as a display of Christ's sovereign initiative, mercy, and power. The man's 38-year infirmity — physical, helpless, and rooted in personal sin — mirrors the spiritual condition of every sinner apart from grace: unable to save himself and without recourse. Christ seeks the man out from a great multitude, issues a word of command that effects immediate and complete healing, and then addresses the deeper need by calling him to repentance. Against this glory, the opposition of the Jewish leaders — fixating on Sabbath casuistry while ignoring a manifest work of God — warns against a religion so narrowly fastidious that it cannot acknowledge divine mercy.
The 4th Commandment (Part 1)
The fourth commandment, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy' (Exodus 20:8–11), is grounded not in Mosaic legislation alone but in the creational ordinance of Genesis 2:1–3, where God's sabbathing after six days of work establishes the one-in-seven pattern binding upon all his image-bearers. The Deuteronomy 5 parallel adds redemption alongside creation as a second rationale, and these twin foundations carry into the New Covenant. Surveying Genesis 2–4, Exodus 16, Mark 2, Isaiah 56 and 58, and Jeremiah 31, this exposition demonstrates the trans-covenantal utility of the Decalogue and argues that the Sabbath is not a burdensome restriction but a gracious gift through which God's people enter into fellowship with their Creator.
Clip: If you aborted your baby, there is hope!
The sixth commandment exposes abortion as a grievous violation of God's law, but the law's condemnation does not have the final word. This clip applies the gospel directly to those who have participated in abortion, grounding the offer of forgiveness in the atoning blood of Christ, the faithfulness of God to cleanse all unrighteousness, and the universal call of Christ to come to him. The church's responsibility is to preach both law and gospel together — the law that wounds and the gospel that heals.
Sanctity of Life
The Sixth Commandment — 'You shall not murder' (Exodus 20:13) — extends its protection to the pre-born, grounding the prohibition against abortion in the doctrine of man as image-bearer of God. This sermon works through three lines of argument: the precise meaning of the Hebrew word for murder, the consistent biblical testimony to the sanctity of human life at every stage from conception to old age, and the specific case law of Exodus 21:22–23, which affords the pre-born equal legal protection under the lex talionis. The sermon closes with a call to press the law upon a culture that celebrates abortion, while proclaiming that the blood of Christ is sufficient to forgive all who have participated in this sin.
The Depravity of Man
Romans 1:18–32 presents the universal human condition as one of willful suppression of God's self-disclosure in creation, resulting in inexcusability before a holy God. The sermon traces three movements in the passage: the revelation of divine wrath, the reason for that wrath in humanity's idolatrous exchange of the Creator for the creature, and the nature of God's judgment as a punitive giving-over of sinners to the very sins they pursued. The sermon argues that the preaching of the law — including the full weight of human depravity — is indispensable to the proclamation of the gospel, because sinners must understand their ruin before they will look to the remedy of blood atonement in Christ alone.
The Seventh Commandment
The seventh commandment, 'You shall not commit adultery' (Deuteronomy 5:18), governs not merely the act of adultery but the full range of sexual conduct God defines in Scripture. Preached against the backdrop of Canada's Bill C-4, this sermon grounds sexual ethics in the creation order of Genesis 2, expounds twelve prohibited acts — from adultery and fornication through homosexuality, transgenderism, and pornography — and confronts the state's attempt to criminalise biblical teaching on sexuality. The law is preached so that sinners will see their need for Christ, whose blood alone washes, sanctifies, and justifies those who come to Him in faith.
Clip: How to pray for civil government during persecution
When facing governmental hostility, the church is called not only to endure but to pray with theological precision about civil authority. Drawing from Acts 4, 1 Timothy 2, Proverbs 21, and Psalm 74, this sermon excerpt identifies three legitimate petitions for civil government — redemption, restraint, and removal — and argues that each is grounded in Scripture and consistent with covenant love. The decisive application is that alongside praying outwardly for rulers, believers must pray inwardly for grace to respond rightly to persecution and oppression.
Clip: God isn't crippled, hindered, silent, or absent
The sovereignty of God over creation and providence is the proper ground of confident, bold prayer. Drawing on Acts 4 and Psalm 2, this excerpt shows how the apostolic church prayed not to a God diminished by circumstance but to the God who made and governs all things — including the threats of the Sanhedrin against the early church. The vantage point of God's absolute sovereignty is what makes petition coherent and emboldening rather than desperate.