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Christian Living
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1 Samuel 25
First Samuel 25 sets David's near-catastrophic act of vengeance against Nabal within the larger narrative of God's providential establishment of the Davidic kingdom. David, who rightly restrained his men from killing the Lord's anointed in chapter 24, immediately loses that self-possession when personally affronted by a foolish and godless landowner, drawing his sword to execute a man who did not deserve death. God sovereignly intervenes through an unnamed servant, a wise woman named Abigail, and ultimately the direct stroke of divine judgment upon Nabal himself — demonstrating that the advance of God's kingdom depends entirely on divine providence, not human vengeance. The practical lesson is that believers must praise God not only for deliverance from suffering but for restraint from sinning, trusting that God himself will repay wickedness in his own time.
Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation (2LCF 18.1-4)
What does it mean to be assured of salvation, and is such assurance available to ordinary believers? Walking through 2LCF Chapter 18 paragraph by paragraph, this exposition of the confession's treatment of assurance of grace and salvation establishes that assurance is real, attainable, and grounded not in subjective feeling but in the blood and righteousness of Christ, the inward evidences of the Spirit's graces, and the Spirit's own testimony that we are children of God. The sermon addresses the false assurance of the unregenerate, the foundation and marks of true assurance drawn especially from 1 John, the place of the ordinary means of grace in attaining assurance, and the causes by which assurance may be shaken — including God's sovereign withdrawal of the light of his countenance. Believers are called to diligently pursue assurance through Word, prayer, and preaching, knowing that true assurance produces not looseness but humility, holiness, and cheerfulness in obedience.
The Sixth Commandment
The sixth commandment, 'You shall not murder' (Deuteronomy 5:17), prohibits not only the external act of unlawfully taking human life but also the internal dispositions of hatred, unwarranted anger, and character assassination that Christ exposes in the Sermon on the Mount. The prohibition is grounded in the imago Dei: because every human being bears the image of God, to assault a human life is to assault the divine majesty itself. The sermon carefully distinguishes murder from lawful killing, defending the legitimacy of capital punishment, just war, and self-defense, while applying the command's positive obligation — the active promotion of life — to contemporary issues including abortion, euthanasia, and gossip.
God and Man in the 107th Psalm, Part 1
Psalm 107:1–9 opens with a summons — 'Oh, give thanks to the Lord' — that exposes a perennial failure of fallen humanity: thanklessness toward a God of inexhaustible mercy. This sermon works through two headings from the psalm: the call to thanksgiving and the content of that thanksgiving, showing that gratitude is not an optional sentiment but the defining disposition of the redeemed, rooted in God's character and displayed across all of life — blessing, affliction, law, and gospel. The sermon closes with practical means for cultivating thankfulness: corporate worship, prayer, Scripture, and the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
The Escape from Saul
God's provision for David during his flight from Saul — through bread at Nob, deliverance at Gath, fellowship at Adullam, safety for his parents in Moab, and a prophetic word at the forest of Hereth — is the controlling theological theme of 1 Samuel 21–22:5. The narrative exposes both the reality of severe trial in the life of God's people and the sovereign grace that meets them in and through their own failures. David's response of praise, crystallised in Psalms 34, 56, 57, and 142, rebukes a health-and-wealth theology and models the only fitting reply to affliction. The gathering of the distressed, indebted, and discontented to David in the cave of Adullam functions as a type of Christ, who bids weary sinners come to him as captain and lord.
1 Samuel 24
First Samuel 24 presents David at En-Gedi, poised to kill Saul but refusing to lay a hand on the Lord's anointed. The sermon traces three movements in the chapter — the confrontation in the cave, David's appeal to divine judgment, and Saul's hollow response — drawing out three controlling themes: David's patient submission to God's ordering of providence, the proper place of divine vengeance as something prayed for rather than personally executed, and the typological significance of David's restraint as a foreshadowing of Christ's refusal to take a shortcut to the throne. The congregation is pressed to interpret providence through the plain commands of Scripture rather than through circumstantial inference, and to bring the imprecatory Psalms to bear in prayer as a legitimate means of giving place to God's wrath.
The Covenant between David and Jonathan
The covenant between David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 20 is examined as both a historical narrative of loyalty under mortal pressure and a typological pointer to the new covenant secured by Christ. The chapter is organized around three movements: David's urgent meeting with Jonathan, Saul's explosive response at the new moon feast, and the final covert signal and farewell. Four features of the Davidic-Jonathanite covenant — help in trouble, uncommon commitment, costly commitment, and peace in the midst of confusion — are shown to find their fullest expression in the Lord Jesus, whose blood, righteousness, and resurrection constitute the only ground of covenant peace. The sermon calls hearers to covenantal faithfulness in marriage and family, to kill pride after the pattern of Saul's ruin, and to enter the new covenant through faith in Christ alone.
The Fifth Commandment
The Fifth Commandment, 'Honor your father and your mother' (Deuteronomy 5:16), is the first commandment of the second table of the law and governs not merely the parent-child relationship but all relationships between superiors and inferiors in family, church, and civil society. The command to 'honor' (Hebrew: to treat as weighty and burdensome) carries covenantal significance for Israel and is extended by Paul to Gentile believers in Ephesians 6, demonstrating that the moral law transcends any particular covenantal administration. The sanction attached to its violation — from the rod and reproof of Proverbs to the death penalty of Deuteronomy 21 — underscores the gravity God assigns to lawful authority. Pedagogically, the commandment exposes the universal failure of all people to render perfect obedience and drives sinners to Christ, who alone fulfilled this word by continuing in subjection to Joseph and Mary throughout his earthly life.
Free Grace Baptist Church - August 23, 2015 PM
First John 3:1 commands believers to behold — with faith-filled astonishment — the love the Father has bestowed in making sinners his children. This sermon expounds three constituent elements of that marveling: the divine love that is infinite, eternal, and sovereign; the divine grace by which adoption, faith, and all salvific benefits are gifted freely and not earned; and the divine fatherhood into which the redeemed are brought as full members of God's household. The call to behold is not merely doxological but carries a practical intent: to arouse steadfast obedience, right doctrine, and cheerful conformity to God's law in those who have been saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Free Grace Baptist Church - August 23, 2015 AM
What does it mean that God has made guilty sinners his children? Expounding 1 John 3:1, this sermon unfolds the apostolic command 'Behold' as a summons to arrested, faith-filled wonder at the love, grace, and fatherhood of God displayed toward those who were once children of wrath. The love of God is shown to be uninfluenced, eternal, sovereign, immutable, and demonstrated supremely at Calvary — not the cause of God's love, but its supreme expression. Christians are called to resist the drift of a distracted mind and to re-fix their gaze daily upon the incomprehensible reality that, by the sovereign grace of effectual calling and adoption, such sinners are named children of God.
The Call to Marvel, Part 2
What does it mean that God has 'bestowed' on sinners the right to be called children of God? Expounding the first half of 1 John 3:1, this sermon works through the content and intent of the apostle John's call to marvel — tracing divine love, divine grace, and divine fatherhood as the three constituent elements of the Christian's astonishment. The sermon presses the doctrines of adoption and sovereign grace against any scheme of salvation that credits the creature, and closes by showing that the same behold which exhilarates also obligates: children of God are to pursue practical godliness, avail themselves of the ordained means of grace, and walk in cheerful conformity to the law of their Father.
The Deliverance of David by God
1 Samuel 19 records the escalating persecution of David by King Saul and God's sovereign deliverance of his chosen servant through Jonathan, Michal, and the overpowering work of the Holy Spirit at Ramah. The chapter functions typologically: Saul embodies the murderous rage of all who reject God's anointed, while David's preservation foreshadows the Father's protection of the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon traces two broad movements — the defense of David by Jonathan and the deliverance of David by Yahweh — and calls hearers to trust the same God who delivered David through every trial, on the ground that his care for his people does not always mean the removal of affliction but sustaining grace in the midst of it.
The Fourth Commandment
The Fourth Commandment, as confessed in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 22, binds all men in all ages to set apart one day in seven for the worship of God. This exposition of Deuteronomy 5:12–15 traces the Sabbath from its creation ordinance grounding in Genesis 2, through its Sinaitic rationale of creation and redemption, into its prophetic anticipation in Isaiah 56 and 58, and finally to its New Covenant fulfillment on the first day of the week as the Lord's Day. The sermon argues that the Sabbath's moral principle — one day in seven devoted to God — is permanent and continuous across the covenants, while the positive element (the particular day) shifts from Saturday to Sunday in light of Christ's resurrection. Hearers are called to receive the Sabbath not as a legalistic burden but as God's gift, and to guard equally against Pharisaic rigidity and antinomian dismissal.
1 Samuel 21:1-15
David's flight from Saul in 1 Samuel 21 traces a fugitive's desperate stops at Nob, Gath, the cave of Adullam, and Moab — each one a theater of divine providence operating through human weakness, foreign enemies, and ancient familial arrangements stretching back to Ruth. The narrative neither excuses David's deception nor leaves him without bread; God sustains his anointed man not because of David's faithfulness but because of Yahweh's grace, planned long beforehand. Christ, the greater David, stands behind every detail: he is the captain of the distressed, the indebted, and the discontented, and his people are called to see their own trials as the very means by which God conforms them to the image of his Son.
The Rise of David and Resentment by Saul
First Samuel 18 traces the rise of David alongside the deepening spiritual declension of Saul, and the passage teaches that David's success rested not on political skill but on the presence of Yahweh. Jonathan's voluntary surrender of his royal robes illustrates the kingdom-first posture that God honours, while Saul's envy, rage, and murderous scheming expose the destructive trajectory of unchecked pride. The chapter is read typologically: David's growing favour with all Israel and Saul's malice toward him anticipate the popular esteem and Pharisaic hatred directed at David's greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Hearers are called to examine whether they stand with the godly David or with the resentful Saul, to kill pride at its root, and to seek first the kingdom of God.
Be Imitators of God
Ephesians 5:1–21 confronts believers with a single pressing question: what is truly honorable and acceptable in the sight of God rather than in the sight of men? Working through three consecutive imperatives — walk in love, walk in light, and walk in wisdom — the sermon grounds each in the indicative of redemption: because the Father has predestined, adopted, and redeemed a people through Christ's perfect and acceptable sacrifice, they must imitate God as dear children. The practical implications range from the mortification of sexual sin and covetousness to the filling of the Spirit expressed in mutual speech, psalmody, thanksgiving, and submission, all of which flow from what Christ alone accomplished as the only sweet-smelling offering acceptable to the Father.
The Believer's Gratitude toward God
Colossians 1:12–14 presents thankfulness not as a general Christian virtue but as an identifying mark of the believer — the fourth of four participles Paul uses to describe a walk fully pleasing to God. This sermon works through the structure of Paul's prayer in Colossians 1:9–14 before expositing the two great grounds of the believer's gratitude: the inheritance of the saints in the light, and the threefold deliverance from the power of darkness — comprising rescue from spiritual darkness, transfer into the kingdom of the Son of His love, and redemption from bondage through the blood of Christ. The Lord's Supper serves as the sermon's occasion, pressing the congregation to come to the table not as a religious routine but as those who genuinely reckon with what forgiveness, deliverance, and a heavenly inheritance cost the Son of God.
1 Samuel 20
1 Samuel 20 narrates the covenant bond between David and Jonathan at the moment Saul's murderous hostility becomes unmistakable, and this study treats that covenant as the chapter's controlling theme. The covenant of hesed — loyal, steadfast, committed love — provides David recourse in danger, proves a vehicle for uncommon faithfulness (fulfilled in 2 Samuel 9 with Mephibosheth), demands costly commitment (Jonathan surrendering his royal rights under the threat of his father's spear), and affords peace in the midst of confusion. The central application is that the church of Christ, and Christian marriage in particular, ought to display the same covenant fidelity Jonathan and David embodied: a kingdom-first selflessness that subordinates personal ambition to the advancement of God's purposes.
The Victory of David over Goliath, Part 1
1 Samuel 17:1–37 presents the backstory of David's confrontation with Goliath, and this exposition insists that the Valley of Elah is not a mirror for personal struggle but a display of the singular glory of Yahweh over his enemies. Three movements structure the passage: the formidable threat the Philistines pose to Judah, the quiet providential orchestration by which God positions his servant David, and the theological confidence that drives David's determination where Israel only cowers. The sermon closes by drawing the typological line from David's unconventional victory to the greater Son of David, who achieves total victory through the blood of his cross, calling unbelievers to trust in Christ alone.
The Third Commandment
The Third Commandment—'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain' (Deuteronomy 5:11)—encompasses far more than profane speech: it governs every use of God's titles, attributes, and works, whether in word, oath, prayer, or conduct. The sermon works through the richness of the divine name (Yahweh, Elohim, El Shaddai, and the Triune persons) before examining the prohibition's reach across blasphemy, unlawful oaths, magic and manipulation, misapplication of providence, and misinterpretation of Scripture. The positive demand of the commandment calls believers to reverent use of God's name in worship, to integrity in oaths and vows, and to a holy profession of faith whose conduct matches its confession. The law's pedagogical use is pressed upon the hearer: all stand guilty before this commandment and are thereby driven to Christ, who alone kept it perfectly and bore the penalty for those who did not.
The Conversion of Matthew
What does genuine conversion look like? Expounding Matthew 9:9–13, this sermon traces the call of Matthew the tax collector — one of the most notorious sinners in first-century Jewish society — to show that Christ's power to forgive is precisely suited to the wretched. The three movements of the passage — the call to discipleship, the feast at Matthew's house, and Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees — together establish that Christ came not for the self-righteous but for sinners, and that His summons produces immediate, costly, and joyful obedience. Five marks of genuine discipleship are drawn out: saving faith, repentance as a consequence (not a condition) of grace, kingdom priority, beholding Christ as altogether lovely, and serious pursuit of sanctification — set alongside an honest account of remaining corruption and the struggles that attend the Christian life.
Of the Law of God (2LCF 19.1-2,5-6)
The moral law of God — summarized in the Ten Commandments, written on the heart of man at creation, and codified at Sinai — remains perpetually binding on all persons, regenerate and unregenerate alike. This study of 2LCF Chapter 19, paragraphs 1, 2, 5, and 6 traces the law from its origin in the covenant of works with Adam through its threefold use (civil, pedagogical, and normative) for believers under the covenant of grace. Christ did not abolish the law but fulfilled it, thereby confirming rather than dissolving its authority. The session closes with a call to avoid antinomianism, to obey the law from proper gospel motives, and to delight in it as the revealed will of God.
"The Instruction on Riches and Rewards" - July 12, 2015 AM
Matthew 19:23–30 presents Christ's instruction on the spiritual dangers of wealth, the impossibility of self-salvation, and the gracious recompense awaiting those who follow him. Working through three movements — the commentary on riches, the question of salvation, and the instruction concerning rewards — the sermon argues that riches (and by extension every besetting sin) render men spiritually helpless apart from sovereign, effectual grace. The sermon closes with both a gospel call to the unconverted and a sober exhortation to believers: no one who follows Christ will ever be a loser for it, because eternal life and the hundredfold recompense of the messianic community are the portion of all who believe.
The Rich Young Ruler
What must a man do to inherit eternal life? This exposition of Matthew 19:16–22 examines the encounter between Christ and the rich young ruler, showing that the young man's question is at once legitimate — every soul must reckon with eternity — and illegitimate, because it proceeds from the assumption that salvation is earned by human merit. Christ answers him on the terms of the covenant of works, pressing the second table of the Decalogue and then the tenth commandment in particular, not to prescribe a new way of salvation by poverty, but to expose the man's covetousness and unmask the bankruptcy of his self-righteousness. The sermon calls hearers to abandon proud self-righteousness, reckon honestly with the spirituality of God's law, and flee by faith to the one who alone kept it perfectly.
1 Samuel 18
1 Samuel 18 traces two trajectories simultaneously: the providential rise of David and the accelerating spiritual declension of Saul. The chapter is not primarily a political narrative but a spiritual one — the Lord's presence with David explains his success, his military favour, and the love of all Israel, while the Lord's departure from Saul explains his fear, his envy, and his murderous scheming. The sermon presses three lessons from the text: the danger of spiritual declension through neglect of God's ordained means, the sovereignty of God who turns Saul's every scheme to David's advantage, and the parallel threats to God's kingdom from both external enemies and internal corruption.
The Instruction on Celibacy and Children
Matthew 19:10–15 presents two closely linked teachings: Christ's instruction on celibacy and His reception of little children. Against Rome's doctrine of clerical celibacy and any Protestant tendency to exalt singleness above marriage, the sermon argues that celibacy is a sovereign gift of God given to some, not a spiritual superior state to be mandated or celebrated above the married estate. The blessing of the children exposes the disciples' failure to understand that Christ receives the weak and dependent, and the passage calls fathers to the concrete duty of bringing their children to Christ through prayer, Scripture, and faithful church attendance.
The Instruction on Divorce, Part 2
Sexual immorality and willful desertion are the two lawful grounds for divorce recognized in Scripture, and this exposition of 1 Corinthians 7:10–16 establishes both the prohibition against divorce and the Pauline exception. Paul's instruction divides into two sections: the command to believing spouses not to separate, and the rule governing mixed marriages in which one partner is converted after the wedding. The sermon argues that when an unbeliever departs and dissolves the marriage, the believing spouse is released from bondage and may remarry, grounding that conclusion in the absence of a prohibition in verse 15, the consistent biblical assumption that lawful divorce permits remarriage, and the analogy with Matthew 19:9. Throughout, the original intent of marriage as a lifelong, one-flesh covenant is upheld as the governing norm, with the exceptions confirming rather than undermining that norm.
The First Commandment
The First Commandment — 'You shall have no other gods before me' (Deuteronomy 5:7) — demands the exclusive covenantal allegiance of God's people to Yahweh alone. The sermon works through both the prohibition and the positive demands of the commandment, exposing atheism (doctrinal and practical), polytheism, syncretism, idolatry, sorcery, and heresy as violations of the first word, while showing that the commandment positively requires the knowledge, love, fear, trust, obedience, and worship of the one true God. The pedagogical function of the law is also pressed: the commandment, taken seriously, drives the believer to repentance and to Christ, the only law-keeper, who gave himself for the sins of all those the Father had given him.
The Instruction on Divorce, Part 1
Matthew 19:7–9 presents a Pharisaic challenge to Jesus on the Mosaic permission for divorce, and this sermon works through that challenge under two heads: the Pharisees' objection and Christ's response. The exposition moves through Deuteronomy 24:1–4, demonstrating that its protasis (verses 1–3) assumes the legitimacy of divorce and remarriage, while its apodosis (verse 4) prohibits only return to a first husband — not remarriage as such. Drawing on Leviticus 21, Ezra, Jeremiah 3, and the Westminster Confession 24.5, the sermon argues that porneia (sexual immorality broadly construed) constitutes a lawful ground for divorce and remarriage, and that to forbid what God's law permits is both antinomian and a burden God never intended to lay on innocent parties.
Of Sanctification (2LCF 13)
Sanctification belongs to the unbreakable chain of redemption: all whom God effectually calls and regenerates will be sanctified and glorified. This study of 1689 LBCF Chapter 13 traces both a divine and a human chronology of sanctification, distinguishing definitive sanctification — the once-for-all decisive break with sin's dominion accomplished in Christ's crosswork — from progressive sanctification, the ongoing renewal of the whole man by the indwelling Spirit through the Word, prayer, and the sacraments. The sermon insists that conflating sanctification with justification corrupts the gospel no less than denying sanctification's necessity, and calls believers to pursue holiness through joyful, evangelical obedience to the law of Christ.