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Christian Living
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The Lord Jesus and the Demoniacs
Matthew 8:28–34 presents Christ's authority over demonic powers as a ground for confident trust in him as the Son of God. The demons' own confession — 'You Son of God' — exposes what the disciples have not yet grasped: that Jesus holds sovereign dominion over every spiritual power, including the devil himself. The exorcism at Gerasa is set within Matthew's sustained demonstration, across chapters 8–9, that the one who teaches with authority also acts with authority. If Christ has conquered death and the devil, every lesser affliction that threatens the people of God lies well within his sovereign reach.
Exodus 10
Exodus 10 records the eighth plague of locusts and the ninth plague of darkness, both of which expose Pharaoh's hardened pride and vindicate the sovereignty of God over Egypt, its rulers, and its gods. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is examined not as a capricious act but as a judicial act of divine justice against a man and a dynasty already guilty of enslaving and murdering God's people. The passage carries forward two covenantal purposes: the public declaration of God's supremacy and the transmission of that knowledge to successive generations within the covenant community. Believers are called to pray for God's glory above all earthly concerns, to refuse embarrassment over God's justice, and to trust his sovereignty even in prolonged seasons of affliction.
Introduction to the 2nd London Baptist Confession 1677/1689
Why should a church bind itself to a confession of faith? This introductory lesson on the Second London Baptist Confession of 1677/1689 grounds the answer exegetically in Ephesians 4 — where Christ gives gifted men to the church so that the body attains doctrinal unity and is no longer tossed about by every wind of teaching — and then traces the historical origins of the 1689 among the Particular Baptists, distinguishing them from Anabaptists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists. Four functions of a confession are developed: defining, defending, discriminating, and disciplining with reference to the doctrine of the church. The lesson closes by distinguishing Reformed theology (Calvinism plus covenant theology plus the regulative principle) from mere five-point Calvinism, and by defending the confession's silence on matters of Christian liberty as a feature, not a defect.
The Call to Faithfulness in Perilous Times
Paul's warning in 2 Timothy 3:1–9 concerns not pagan opposition but a more dangerous internal threat: professing Christians within the local church who bear the outward form of godliness while denying its power. The sermon works through the passage in four movements — recognising the danger of 'the last days,' identifying the vice list under categories of pride, lovelessness, disobedience, slander, and treachery, heeding the exhortation to withdraw from such persons, and receiving encouragement that their folly will be publicly exposed. The congregation is called to maintain vigilant, doctrinally grounded churchmanship, to agonise over the church's internal corruptions as Ezekiel's faithful remnant did, and to resist both despair and naivety, trusting Christ's promise that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against his church.
The Lord's Assessment of John the Baptist - Matthew 11:2-15
Matthew 11:2-15 presents Christ's own assessment of John the Baptist, and this exposition works through two movements: the question John sends from prison concerning the Messiah's identity, and the Lord's threefold commendation of John as no mere reed, no court prophet, but the greatest born of women and the anti-typical Elijah. The sermon argues that John's struggle was not with who Jesus was but with the implications of the messianic reign — why the herald of judgment should languish in prison while the Messiah's full justice remained deferred — a tension the church in every age must learn to hold without abandoning confidence in God's sovereign timetable. Listeners are called to pray for and expect ministers who combine the light of sound exegesis with the heat of genuine conviction, men who, like John, neither fear nor flatter any flesh.
The Divine Savior and His Afflicted People
Matthew 14:22–33 confronts the church with the Christological reality that the presence of Christ does not guarantee the absence of trial. Working through the storm on the Sea of Galilee, Christ walking on the water, Peter's sinking, and the disciples' confession of Christ as the Son of God, this exposition presses the claim that the 'I Am' of Exodus and the Psalms is the same Lord who meets his afflicted people in the middle of their storm-tossed sea. The sermon closes with a direct rebuke of health-and-wealth theology and a call to displace the fear of man with a robust fear of God grounded in Christ's sovereign lordship over creation.
The Ethics of Motherhood
Titus 2:3–5 sets older women in the church as instructors of younger women in the domestic virtues that honor the created order and adorn the doctrine of God. Against a cultural moment that treats the word 'mother' as offensive and obliterates God-wrought gender distinction, the passage calls women to love husbands and children, to exercise discretion, chastity, and diligence in the home, and to submit to their own husbands — not as cultural accommodation but as a reflection of the eternal created order grounded in Genesis and reaffirmed by Christ's redemption. The overarching rationale Paul supplies is theological: the conduct of women in household and church either blasphemes or adorns the Word of God before a watching world. The sermon closes by grounding every duty in grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, warning that no degree of faithful motherhood constitutes grounds for justification.
The Trial before Pilate, Part 2
Matthew 27:15–23 records Pilate's attempt to grant amnesty to Jesus through the Passover prisoner-release custom, a device that exposes the cowardice of the Roman governor, the envious malice of the Jewish religious leaders, and the terrifying moral bankruptcy of mob rule. The passage is expounded under five heads — the custom of amnesty, the leaders' motivation of envy, the warning of Pilate's wife, the demand of the multitudes, and Pilate's cross-examination — each of which illuminates the comprehensive reach of human depravity. The substitution of Barabbas for Jesus is treated as emblematic of definite atonement: the just going to the cross in the place of the unjust, securing both the forgiveness of sins and the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith alone. Hearers are urged not to be carried along by ungodly leaders, to flee to Christ without delay, and to eat the Lord's Supper as a memorial of the blood atonement and active obedience of the Second Person of the Trinity wrought entirely on behalf of his people.
The Practice of the Church
Acts 2:41–47 describes the first-century church's response to apostolic preaching and, when read in light of the whole New Testament, is prescriptive for churches today. The sermon traces two main movements: the power of the gospel that produces faith, repentance, and baptism, and the fourfold practice of the church — steadfast continuation in the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Cessationism is applied to the signs and wonders of the apostolic era, while the ongoing marks of the church are drawn from the Belgic Confession's articles on the true church and the obligations of her members. The practical burden is that believers must resist both the reduction of church life to entertainment and the temptation to substitute online participation for embodied, corporate worship.
The Good Soldier of Jesus Christ
The qualifications and character of faithful gospel ministry are examined through 2 Timothy 2:1–7, where Paul gives Timothy three interlocking commands: be strong in the grace of Christ, commit sound doctrine to faithful men who can teach others, and endure hardship as a soldier of Jesus Christ. Three metaphors — the devoted soldier, the disciplined athlete, and the diligent farmer — together with the dedication of the disciple, frame what faithfulness in pastoral ministry demands. The sermon presses both pastors and congregations to resist the pressure of cultural and governmental opposition, to identify and train men for ministry, and to understand that the dignity of gospel preaching warrants the highest standards of devotion, discipline, and endurance.
The Problem of Sin and the Mercy of God
Proverbs 28:13 sets the problem of sin and its remedy in sharp relief: the one who covers his sin will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes sin will have mercy. The sermon works through the anatomy of sin-covering — denial, minimization, blame-shifting, and self-righteousness — with biblical examples ranging from Adam and Eve to Ananias and Sapphira, demonstrating the futility of every human attempt at self-atonement. Confession is shown to be not merely verbal acknowledgment but a saving act of faith in Christ, inseparably joined to repentance, whereby the sinner lays the hand of faith upon the surety of the new covenant and receives imputed righteousness. The closing application calls both unbeliever and believer to stop covering sin and look in faith to Christ, the only authorized covering for guilt before a holy God.
The Christian Sabbath, Part 3
Three passages in the New Testament — Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2 — are commonly marshalled against the abiding validity of the Fourth Commandment, but careful exegesis reveals that none of them address the weekly Lord's Day Sabbath. Romans 14 concerns Christian liberty over matters indifferent, principally Jewish dietary laws and Israel's feast calendar; Galatians 4 rebukes the Judaizers' demand that calendar observance supplement faith in Christ for justification; and Colossians 2 warns against a syncretistic heresy that mingled Christ, Judaism, and angel worship. In each case Paul is dealing with Israel's ceremonial calendar, not the moral Sabbath commandment rooted in creation and redemption, which remains binding on the new covenant people of God and is observed on the first day of the week in light of Christ's resurrection.
The Christian Sabbath, Part 2
The Christian Sabbath, grounded in both creation and redemption, does not cease in the New Covenant but is transformed by the resurrection of Christ from the seventh day to the first day of the week. Working through the ministry of Christ in Matthew 5 and 12, the resurrection accounts across all four Gospels, and the apostolic teaching in Hebrews 4, Acts 20, 1 Corinthians 16, and Revelation 1, this exposition argues that the moral obligation of one day in seven for the worship of God remains perpetually binding on the church. The shift from Saturday to Sunday Sabbath is grounded in Christ's completed redemptive work, which mirrors the Father's rest at the close of creation, establishing the Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath. Believers are called to receive this day not as a legal burden but as a gracious gift from God, a weekly foretaste of the consummate rest that awaits the people of God.
The Lukewarm Laodiceans
Revelation 3:14–22 confronts the church in Laodicea with a charge of spiritual lukewarmness — not outright apostasy, but ineffectual, self-satisfied religion that neither heals nor refreshes. Drawing on the city's historical wealth, its piped-in tepid water supply, and the covenantal language of Leviticus 18, this exposition argues that lukewarm Christianity is, in the end, no Christianity at all. Christ's threatened judgment is not arbitrary but covenantal, and his counsel to buy gold, white garments, and eye salve from him is an act of love that calls the church to honest self-assessment, renewed zeal, and genuine repentance.
The New and Living Way
Hebrews 10:19–25 presents two grounds of confidence for the people of God — boldness of access to the Holy of Holies through Christ's blood and flesh, and the possession of a great high priest over the house of God — and then presses three exhortations upon that foundation: draw near, hold fast the confession of hope, and consider one another to stir up love and good works. The sermon traces the problem of sinful man's exclusion from God's presence from Exodus 40 through the Levitical sacrificial system to its resolution in the incarnation and definite atonement of Christ, who consecrated a new and living way. Particular attention is given to the prohibition against forsaking the assembly, argued to be grammatically tied to the third exhortation and theologically governing all three, so that corporate Lord's Day worship is the ordained context in which God's people draw near, are educated in hope, and mutually provoke one another to love and good works. The sermon closes by calling the unconverted to look to Christ and the converted to embrace their shared responsibility for one another's souls through faithful churchmanship.
The Christian Sabbath, Part 1
The Fourth Commandment's call to Sabbath observance is grounded not in Mosaic legislation alone but in the created order itself, the pattern of divine rest in Genesis 2, and the logic of redemption running through both Testaments. This sermon, the first in a series on the Christian Sabbath, expounds Deuteronomy 5:12–15 alongside key Old Covenant passages — Genesis 2, Exodus 16, Isaiah 56 and 58, and Jeremiah 31 — to argue that Sabbatarianism is a moral, perpetual, and trans-covenantal obligation rooted in creation and confirmed by covenant. The confession of the Second London Baptist Confession chapter 22 frames the doctrinal parameters, and the sermon closes with a call to receive the Sabbath not as a burden but as a blessed provision of God for his creatures.
The Second Commandment
The Second Commandment (Deuteronomy 5:8–10) does not merely forbid the worship of false gods — it forbids the worship of the true God in a false manner, a distinction that carries enormous weight for how the church orders its worship today. The sermon works through the commandment's prohibition against idols and images (including pictorial representations of Christ), the theological rationale grounded in God's jealousy and immutability, the transgenerational consequences of false worship understood not as a hereditary curse but as the imitation of godlessness, and the promise of mercy to those who love and obey God. The positive application is the Regulative Principle of Worship: only what God has commanded is acceptable, and anything beyond or contrary to that command — however sincere the motive — constitutes the offering of strange fire to Yahweh.
The Defense in Jerusalem
Acts 22 records Paul's defense before the Jerusalem mob and his invocation of Roman citizenship before the commander, and this exposition traces both movements as a pattern for how believers engage hostile civil and religious authorities. Paul's account of his conversion — his Jewish upbringing under Gamaliel, his confrontation with the risen Christ on the Damascus road, his instruction through Ananias, and his temple vision — demonstrates that he is not an enemy of Israel but rather the fulfillment of what a faithful reading of the Old Testament demands. The crowd's fury erupts not over Paul's biography but over Christ's commission to the Gentiles, exposing their rejection of covenant promises made to Abraham and repeated through the Psalms and prophets. The sermon closes by pressing Paul's gospel — blood atonement, imputed righteousness, and salvation by grace through faith — upon every hearer, including the worst of sinners.
The Deliverance of David by the Lord
The providential preservation of David under Saul's murderous pursuit, traced through 1 Samuel 19, illuminates how God delivers His people by ordinary and extraordinary means alike. Three escalating attempts on David's life — a thrown spear, messengers at his house, and a third company sent to Ramah — are each turned aside, culminating in the Spirit of God falling upon Saul's own men and upon Saul himself, rendering them incapable of violence. The chapter also traces the inverse arc of Saul's apostasy: his repeated, deliberate disobedience issues in a divine hardening that mirrors the 'giving over' of Romans 1. The central pastoral lesson is that the clearest evidence God has not deserted His servant is not that the trial is past, but that the servant is still standing in the middle of it.
Nov 08, 2020 Sunday PM Service
First Timothy 5:1–2 instructs Timothy — and by extension all Christians — on how to treat members of the congregation according to age and gender, framing those relationships by analogy to the family. The sermon grounds this instruction in the Fifth Commandment, drawing on Westminster Larger Catechism questions 124–131 to show that the commandment's scope extends beyond natural parents to all relationships of authority, age, and equality. Pastors must exhort older men as fathers, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters with all purity — avoiding harshness on the one side and laxity or impropriety on the other. The closing application presses the doctrine of adoption: because believers are children of God and joint-heirs with Christ their elder brother, the church is a genuine household, and its members bear mutual responsibility to encourage and bear one another's burdens without waiting for pastoral direction.
Bible Study - Exodus 5
Exodus 5 narrates the first confrontation between Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh, ending not in liberation but in intensified oppression and blame directed at the very messengers God had sent. The chapter exposes a recurring pattern in the life of the covenant community: when God's promised deliverance does not come immediately, his people tend to murmur against his instruments rather than wait upon his sovereign hand. Drawing on John Calvin's commentary, the study identifies six reasons God permitted things to grow worse before they grew better — including the demonstration of divine power, the testing of his people's patience, and the inexcusability of Pharaoh's hardness — and calls believers to feed on the promises of God so that faith produces courage rather than cowardice.
The Meeting with James in Jerusalem
Acts 21:17–40 narrates Paul's final recorded visit to Jerusalem, where he meets with James and the elders before being seized by a mob in the temple. The sermon works through four aspects of the meeting — reception, report, response, and recommendation — to demonstrate that James and Paul were in full theological harmony, both preaching justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The arrest that follows illustrates both the rage of unbelieving Israel and the sovereign providence of God, who uses Roman civil authority to preserve his apostle. Hearers are urged to imitate Paul's spirit of conciliation on secondary matters, insist on the gospel above all else, and trust the God who receives sinners.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 8
Acts 21:1–16 concludes Paul's third missionary journey with his determined journey to Jerusalem in the face of repeated prophetic warnings and the tearful pleas of fellow believers. The passage grounds Paul's resolve not in stoic courage but in his consuming vision of the gospel: men and women under God's wrath and curse, and Christ alone as the remedy. The sermon draws out Paul's love for the gathered people of God, his complementarian ecclesiology (defending male leadership in church office from 1 Timothy 2 and the cessation of revelatory gifts), and his example of a missionary strategy that planted self-governing, elder-led churches across the Roman Empire.
The Victory of David Over Goliath, Part 1
1 Samuel 17:1–37 is not a psychological self-help story about facing personal obstacles; it is a narrative of the glory of God. Goliath defies the armies of the living God, and David — a type of Christ — meets that defiance not with natural courage but with faith grounded in the proven faithfulness of Yahweh. The sermon traces the contrast between Israel's faithless paralysis and David's God-centred confidence, showing that apostasy produces cowardice while faith in the living God produces boldness. The practical summons is to walk by faith rather than by sight, to serve faithfully in ordinary providential callings, and to draw confidence for present trials from remembered past mercies.
The Believer's Gratitude Toward God
Psalm 103 grounds thanksgiving not in vague sentiment but in the specific mercies of a covenant-keeping God toward those He has redeemed. Working through David's threefold structure — the reminder to bless God, the reasons for blessing God, and the reflection on God's kingdom — the sermon traces the chief benefit of divine grace as the forgiveness of sins accomplished in Christ, before moving outward to temporal providences, divine mercy measured against human frailty, and the universal summons of all creation to praise. The sermon draws on Deuteronomy's warnings against forgetting God's benefits and Paul's account of the worthy walk in Colossians 1 to show that detailed, specific thanksgiving is a mark of those who have received grace. The congregation is called to speak to their own souls, directing them away from self-absorption and toward the God whose mercy extends from everlasting to everlasting.
The Lord's Arrest in the Garden
Matthew 26:50–56 records the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane, and this exposition works through four movements in the passage: Peter's misguided sword-stroke, Christ's rebuke concerning the nature of the messianic kingdom, his rhetorical indictment of the mob's hypocrisy, and the disciples' desertion. The sermon shows that Christ's surrender was entirely voluntary, governed by the covenant of redemption and the fulfillment of prophetic Scripture, not by any inability to resist. Hearers are warned against mistaking external proximity to Christ for saving grace, called to zeal tempered by theological knowledge, and directed to the Lord's Supper as an occasion to 'kiss the Son' in faith rather than in the betrayal of a Judas.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 7
Acts 20:32–38 concludes Paul's farewell address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, functioning as a pastoral charge that moves from doctrinal grounding to ethical example to affectionate departure. The sermon treats three movements: Paul's commendation of the elders to God and the Word of His grace as the only sufficient resource for long-term ministry, Paul's example of non-covetousness and manual labor as a rebuke against ministerial greed, and the tearful parting as a model of godly gratitude for the instruments of grace. A sustained excursus defends the biblical warrant for paying pastors from 1 Corinthians 9, 1 Timothy 5, and 2 Timothy 2, establishing that Paul's voluntary self-support was the exercise of a right, not the abolition of one. The sermon closes with a call to pray for faithful ministers and to value the means God ordains for the salvation of sinners.
Sunday School - Biblical view of self-defense, part 2
Matthew 5:38–42 is frequently misread as a blanket prohibition against self-defense, capital punishment, and just war — three instances of justifiable homicide that Scripture plainly upholds. This exposition argues that Jesus is not contradicting the lex talionis (the law of retribution found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy) but is correcting the Pharisaic misapplication of a civil-judicial principle to everyday interpersonal conduct. The passage addresses four specific situations — insult, litigation, conscription, and benevolence — and calls believers to a disposition of forbearance in personal relations, while leaving entirely untouched the legitimacy of lawful self-defense, just war, and capital punishment as administered by the civil magistrate.
The Rejection of Saul by the Lord, Part 2
The rejection of Saul in 1 Samuel 15:24–35 exposes the anatomy of false repentance, the character of a reprobate, and the nature of a God who does not change. The sermon works through Saul's admission of guilt, Samuel's execution of Agag, and the theological tension between God's expressed regret and his immutability, resolving that tension through the doctrines of divine impassibility and anthropopathism. The justice of God in dispatching the wicked is shown to be a cause for righteous rejoicing, not moral discomfort, as texts from Judges 4–5 and Proverbs 11 confirm. Saul's downward trajectory — blame-shifting, false piety, delusion, fake repentance, and apostasy — is held up as a warning that great privilege does not equal saving grace, while Christ's imputed righteousness is offered as the only ground of true standing before God.
Sunday School - Sept 6 - Self-Defense, Part 1/2
What does Scripture teach about the right of individuals to use lethal force in self-defense? Working through Exodus 22:2–3, a range of Old Testament illustrations, and the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, this study argues that defensive homicide is not murder and is consistent with the whole counsel of God's law. The session also draws on Francis Turretin's four conditions for lawful self-defense and the Westminster Larger Catechism's treatment of the sixth commandment, situating the biblical case within the broader Reformed and historic Christian tradition. The study closes by distinguishing private revenge — which Scripture forbids — from necessary defense of life, family, and property, which Scripture assumes and authorizes.