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Christology
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The Psalmist's Contemplation on the Revelation of God, Part 3
Psalm 19:9–14 presses the believer to consider both the benefits of Scripture and the right response to divine revelation. The fear of the Lord, pure and enduring, is the fruit of sovereign grace working through a word that is perfect, sure, right, and pure — a word more valuable than gold and sweeter than honey. David's closing petitions in verses 12–14 trace a graduated reckoning with sin — secret faults, presumptuous sins, and the dominion of sin — answered not by human resolve but by pardoning, preventing, and restraining grace grounded in God as rock and redeemer. The sermon calls believers to prize Scripture above every temporal good, to deal honestly with remaining corruption, and to rest the whole petition for acceptance on Christ, the true David, whose imputed righteousness alone makes the prayer of Psalm 19 fully and finally ours.
Deuteronomy 16:1-17 - The Annual Feasts of Israel
Deuteronomy 16:1–17 presents three annual feasts — Passover and Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Tabernacles — as divinely ordained memorials calibrated to keep Old Covenant Israel's allegiance fixed on Yahweh. Each feast commemorates a distinct aspect of God's redemptive work: deliverance from Egypt, provision at harvest, and sustenance through wilderness wandering. The Passover's substitutionary logic — where efficacy rested in God's provision rather than the offerer's moral worthiness — typologically prefigures Christ as the Lamb whose blood alone secures the sinner's safety. The sermon draws out the connection between the central sanctuary requirement of Deuteronomy 12 and the New Covenant church as the God-ordained means by which worship is preserved from corruption and believers are hedged against apostasy.
The Trial of Jesus Before the Jews
John 18:13–27 interweaves two scenes: Jesus standing firm under unlawful interrogation before Annas, and Peter collapsing three times before servants in a courtyard. The passage exposes the trial of Jesus before the Jews as a juridical farce engineered to secure a death warrant from Pontius Pilate, while the Sanhedrin — the very experts in the law — trample every evidentiary requirement their own law demanded. Peter's threefold denial is set in deliberate contrast to Christ's unflinching confession, calling believers to examine whether a willingness to die for Jesus necessarily includes the daily courage to live and testify for Him.
The Psalmist's Contemplation on the Revelation of God, Part 1
Psalm 19:1–6 presents the doctrine of general revelation — God's self-disclosure through the created order — and David's prophetic anticipation of the gospel's universal proclamation. The sermon traces the content, constancy, and comprehensive scope of general revelation, grounding each observation in Paul's parallel argument in Romans 1:18–32. The expositor then argues, against Calvin's merely comparative reading, that Paul's citation of Psalm 19:4 in Romans 10:18 legitimizes a Christological interpretation of verses 4b–6, in which the sun typifies Christ the Son of Righteousness, the great Bridegroom of his church, whose gospel goes forth conquering to the ends of the earth. Hearers are called to receive the Son whose rays of saving grace cannot be stopped any more than the circuit of the sun.
The Holy Confidence
Jeremiah 9:23–24 confronts the hollow complacency of boasting in wisdom, might, and riches — the carnal securities that cannot avert the certain judgment of God — and calls God's people instead to a holy confidence whose sole ground is the knowledge of the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness. The sermon traces a threefold structure: the folly of earthly boasting illustrated from Scripture and the case of Nebuchadnezzar, the necessity of glorying in God alone as the antidote to every false confidence, and the hallowed contemplations — lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness — that are to fill the believing mind. The Christward trajectory of the passage is pressed home: Christ secures the lovingkindness, bears the judgment, and provides the righteousness that alone avails before God, so that the promise 'believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved' is as certain as every judgment God has already executed.
The Importance of Our Knowledge of Christ, Part 2
Philippians 3:8 frames the Apostle Paul's claim that the knowledge of Christ possesses surpassing worth above all things. This sermon completes a seven-point exposition by arguing that Christ is the sum and substance of the Christian gospel (established from 1 Corinthians 15 and the book of Acts), the head and savior of the church (seen in the Great Commission, worship, baptism, and the Lord's Supper), and the ground of both the believer's present hope and future glory (grounded in 1 Timothy 1:1 and 1 Peter 1:3-5). The Christian's knowledge of Christ is not a cold intellectual exercise but the natural expression of a heart that has found in Christ the one who is precious, and that knowledge ought to animate every dimension of calling — preaching, praying, giving, and testifying.
The Sin of David and the Grace of God
David's adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah the Hittite stand as the gravest sins of Israel's greatest king, yet 2 Samuel 12:1–15 is ultimately a text about the pursuing grace of God. Through Nathan's carefully constructed parable, God exposes David's sin in all its senselessness and treachery — making clear that to despise the commandment of God is to despise God himself. The sermon traces three movements in the passage: God's confrontation through his servant Nathan, the full indictment of David's covenant treachery, and the stunning declaration that the Lord has put away David's sin — a declaration that underlies David's celebration of forgiveness throughout the Psalter and points forward to the atoning work of David's greater Son.
The Deliverance of the Psalmist, Part 4
Psalm 18:46–50 closes with a threefold ascription of praise to the God who delivers His anointed King — a King who is not merely David but David's greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage is expounded under four movements: the praise of God as the living Rock (v. 46), God as the God of vengeance and victory (v. 47), God as the God of deliverance and destruction (v. 48), and God as the God of grace and glory (v. 49), all grounded in the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7. The sermon presses the church to find in the invincibility of God's covenant kingdom the steel needed to persevere through present affliction, and to ground all worship in the theological confession that the Lord lives, that Christ's righteousness is imputed to His people, and that God's promises are yea and amen in His Son.
The Arrest of Jesus
John 18:1–12 records the arrest of Jesus, and the passage confronts the reader with a Savior who is not a hapless victim but the sovereign I AM who initiates, controls, and willingly enters every step of His own arrest. The sermon works through three movements: the betrayal by Judas and the convergence of internal, external, and spiritual threats upon Jesus; the glory of Christ displayed in His divine self-declaration that drives His captors to the ground; and the arrest itself, where the cup of divine wrath — not Peter's sword — is shown to be the true focus of the scene. The controlling application is that Christ's covenantal resoluteness in going to the cross for the salvation of His people is the proper ground for approaching the Lord's Supper with joy.
The Deliverance of the Psalmist, Part 3
Psalm 18:31–50 brings the psalm's three-part structure to its close, presenting Christ's resurrection, heavenly session, and sovereign reign over all nations as the fulfilment of what David celebrated in type. The sermon expounds four movements in the text: the divine power equipping the King for battle (vv. 31–42), the submission of peoples to the King (vv. 43–45), the praise due to the God of the King (vv. 46–49), and the covenant promise that undergirds the King's advance (v. 50). Throughout, David's victories serve as historically grounded prefigurations of Christ's definitive triumph over sin, death, and every opposing power. The application presses the congregation to lean on God's strength in spiritual warfare, to guard the church against both internal and external threats, and to rest in the alien righteousness of Christ credited to every believer by faith alone.
The Gospel Foundation for Corporate Prayer
The apostle Paul grounds the church's corporate prayer in a three-part theological rationale drawn from 1 Timothy 2:3–7: the nature of God, the office of Christ, and the ministry of Paul. The phrase 'all men' in verses 1–4 refers not to every individual without exception but to all kinds of men without distinction — Jew and Gentile, slave and king — a reading demanded by Paul's own doctrine of reprobation in Romans 9 and confirmed by the scope of his apostolic commission to the Gentiles. Christ's mediatorship is shown to require both a divine and a human nature, and his ransom is definite in its design — paid for all kinds of men, not all men without exception — precluding both universalism and any notion of unmet desires in God. The sermon closes by pressing the congregation to show up for corporate prayer, to pray specifically for the salvation of those in civil authority, and to exhort all around them to flee to Christ.
The Deliverance of the Psalmist, Part 2
Psalm 18:20–30 presents the righteousness of the psalmist not primarily as David's own moral record but as a prophetic description of the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam and covenantal representative. David's language of blamelessness and perfect obedience in verses 20–24 transcends anything David himself could claim, pointing forward to the active obedience of Christ, whose spotless life and atoning death constitute the sole ground of justification for all who believe. The sermon argues that the deliverance celebrated in verses 1–19 is grounded in the righteousness declared in verses 20–24 — precisely as Romans 5:18–19 teaches — so that the church reads this psalm not as a moral target to reach but as the righteousness of their surety freely imputed to them by faith. The vivid illustration of Zechariah 3 anchors the application: filthy garments removed, rich robes bestowed — justification by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
The Deliverance of the Psalmist, Part 1
Psalm 18:1–19 presents David's praise to God for deliverance from all his enemies, and the psalm functions typologically: David points forward to his greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose sufferings, death, and resurrection are the ultimate fulfillment of what the psalmist describes. Working through three divisions — the occasion of praise (the superscription), the declaration of praise (vv. 1–3), and the motivation for praise (vv. 4–19) — the sermon demonstrates that David's deliverance rests not on David's own prowess but on the sovereign power and delight of Yahweh. The sermon calls believers to love God with the love that is the chief fruit of faith, to cry out to God in distress rather than to despair, and to find consolation in the reality that God moves heaven and earth to vindicate his people and vanquish their enemies.
The Expectation of the Righteous One
Psalm 17 is approached as primarily the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ according to his human nature — a perfectly righteous man crying to his Father for vindication, protection, and ultimate glorification. The sermon works through three movements: the psalmist's petition grounded in his righteousness, prayerfulness, and defenselessness (vv. 1–9); the character and violence of his enemies (vv. 10–12); and the psalmist's expectation of judgment on the wicked and resurrection presence with God (vv. 13–15). Because Christ's righteousness is imputed to believers by faith alone, the psalm becomes the church's prayer — a call to earnest, importunate intercession, patient endurance in a hostile age, and fixed hope in the resurrection rather than in temporal prosperity.
The Instructions of Calvary
Luke 23:32–43 presents, in twelve verses, a concentrated display of the doctrines that define the gospel: total depravity, effectual grace, justification by faith alone, the hypostatic union of Christ's two natures, assurance, and immediate conscious glory at death. The sermon traces seven theological loci arising from the conversion of the penitent thief, demonstrating that the entire redemptive narrative of Scripture converges at Calvary. The penitent thief is not an extreme case or a last-minute exception but a paradigm of every sinner who comes to Christ with nothing in hand and receives everything by sovereign, irresistible grace.
The Insurrectionist and the King
Luke 23:32–43 sets two criminals beside the crucified Christ — one blaspheming, one confessing — and leaves no neutral ground between them. This exposition works through the passage under three headings: the setting at Calvary (its geography, its Old Testament typology, and the fulfillment of prophecy in the crowd's mockery), the scoundrels (the total depravity of the blaspheming robber, and the remarkable faith of the converted one), and the Savior's response (certainty, immediacy, and felicity in the words 'today you will be with me in paradise'). The sermon closes with an urgent call to believe on Christ now, finding in the dying thief a picture of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Laws Concerning Debt, Slaves, and Firstborn
Deuteronomy 15 sets out three bodies of legislation governing Old Covenant Israel: the sabbatical release of debts, the release and provision for indentured servants, and the sanctification of the firstborn. The sermon traces how each law flows from a divinely ordered reciprocity — God prospers his covenant people so that prosperity rolls downward to the poor and the victim — while insisting that outward compliance must be driven by an internal disposition of genuine covenantal loyalty. The firstborn legislation is read as pointing forward to the unblemished firstborn Son of God, whose sacrifice fulfils what the animal offerings could only foreshadow.
The Resurrection-Hope of the Righteous One
Psalm 16:7–11 presents the steadfast confidence of the righteous sufferer, who is ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ himself — the Holy One whose soul the Father would not abandon to Sheol nor allow to see corruption. Working through the psalm's declaration of praise in verse 7, the stability and hope of the psalmist in verses 8–11, and the apostolic interpretation of these verses in Acts 2 and Acts 13, the sermon argues that Christ's bodily resurrection is the very foundation of the resurrection-hope his people now possess. The practical force is twofold: unbelievers are called to repent and believe on Christ, through whom alone sins are forgiven and justification is received; believers are called to heavenly-minded confidence grounded in the word, power, and promises of God.
The Freeness of the Priceless Feast, Part 1
Isaiah 55:1–2 issues what this sermon calls an 'imperatival invitation' — a divine summons that carries the grammatical weight of a command and the gracious warmth of an offer. The sermon argues that the feast of water, wine, milk, and bread is not a bare general provision but a Christological feast: Christ himself is every element, secured by the infinite-worth payment of Isaiah 53's suffering servant, and therefore freely given because it cannot be purchased at any price. The squandering madness of spending wages on 'not bread' — whether in Israel's idolatry or in every Christless cosmology — is set against the freeness of the priceless feast to which God, as town crier, summons all hearers without condition of merit.
The Freeness of the Priceless Feast, Part 2
Isaiah 55:3–13 grounds the free gospel summons in the covenant of grace secured by Jesus Christ, the greater David and covenant champion. The sure mercies of David — an everlasting covenant made with Christ and all the elect in him — are fulfilled in the resurrection of the Son, as Paul's sermon in Acts 13 makes plain. The response to that summons is fourfold: seek, call, forsake, and return — not as the price of the feast, but as the fruit of regenerating grace. The passage closes with the guarantee that God's word never returns void, that the redeemed go out in joy and peace, and that Christ the second Adam has reversed the curses of Genesis 3, securing an abundant, priceless feast for all who believe.
The Blood of the Unblemished Lamb
What makes the blood of Christ 'precious'? Expounding 1 Peter 1:18–21, this sermon works through Peter's characteristic rhetorical pattern — negation followed by assertion — to establish that no corruptible thing, whether material wealth or old covenant religious observance, can redeem a soul bound under sin and condemnation. The sermon then unfolds why the blood of Christ is precious: because of the dignity of the God-man who shed it, what it infallibly accomplishes in the redemption of the elect, what it cost the Father to give his own Son, and its eternal appointment in the counsel of the triune God before the foundation of the world. Preached in the context of a Lord's Supper service, the sermon closes by examining the typological significance of the unblemished Passover lamb, showing that the holiness of God, the depth of human sinfulness, and the logic of penal substitution each demand a perfectly spotless sacrifice — which Christ alone is and was.
The Resurrection-Hope of the Righteous One
Psalm 16 is expounded as a Messianic psalm concerning the mind and experience of Christ in his earthly ministry — his earnest petition for divine preservation, his joyful contentment amid sorrow, and his sufficiency rooted in the Father alone. The apostolic witness of Peter in Acts 2 and Paul in Acts 13 establishes that David speaks in this psalm concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, and only secondarily of David and the saints in union with him. The sermon calls believers to follow the pattern of their Savior: praying for preservation, finding sufficiency in God rather than earthly blessings, meditating on Scripture in the night seasons, and navigating trial through a settled confidence in divine providence.
The Gospel Committed to the Apostle Paul
1 Timothy 1:15–17 contains one of five 'faithful sayings' in the Pastoral Epistles, and Paul deploys it here to contrast the life-giving gospel with the idle speculations of the false teachers troubling the church at Ephesus. The sermon works through three elements: the faithful saying as a standard confession received and guarded by the church; the glorious content of that saying — the incarnation of the Son and his effectual, definite work to save sinners; and the merciful application illustrated in Paul himself, who as the chief of sinners functions as a pattern of Christ's longsuffering for all who will believe. The doxology of verse 17 demonstrates that rightly understood soteriology issues in worship, and believers are called to keep this faithful saying at the centre of their hearts and to press it upon the unconverted.
The Supper on Betrayal Night
On the night of his betrayal, Christ instituted the Lord's Supper within the context of the Passover meal — a deliberate act of covenantal timing that pressed upon his disciples the reality of what his broken body and shed blood would accomplish. This sermon works through Luke 22:19–20 under two heads, the bread and the wine, tracing the biblical theology of each element: the bread overturning the curse of Genesis 3 by providing divine nourishment freely, and the cup of the new covenant corresponding to the third Passover cup of redemption in Exodus 6. The sermon calls Christians away from coldness and neglect of the Lord's Supper toward a warm, particular reception of the truth that Christ's body was given for you and his blood was shed for you.
The Conversion of the Apostle Paul
Paul's gratitude in 1 Timothy 1:12–14 is inseparable from the radicalism of his own conversion. Working through these three verses, this exposition traces the apostle's pre-conversion state — blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent man — as deliberately set up to magnify the sovereign mercy that overthrew him on the road to Damascus. The sermon gives careful attention to the nature of Paul's ignorance in unbelief, distinguishing it from the willful, light-rejecting sin of those who witnessed Christ's signs and wonders firsthand, and shows how effectual calling brought not only forgiveness but a hermeneutical key that unlocked the entire Old Testament. The governing application is that every believer, like Paul, stands before God not on the ground of moral reformation or law-keeping but solely on received mercy and exceedingly abundant grace — and that this reality is the wellspring of genuine Christian gratitude.
The Active Obedience of the Righteous One
Psalm 15 poses the question of who may dwell in the presence of God, and this exposition argues that the answer is not a moral prescription for the believer but a description of the active obedience of Jesus Christ alone. The psalm's portrait of the righteous man — pure in works, words, company, and commitments — indicts every reader who imagines it describes them, and points instead to the one man in human history who satisfied every demand of God's law with perpetual, exact, entire obedience. Justification is God's act of pardoning all sin and imputing that accomplished righteousness to the believer through faith alone, so that sinners described in Psalm 14 enter the holy hill of God solely on the merits of the Savior described in Psalm 15.
The Psalmist's Description of Depravity
Psalm 14 furnishes a comprehensive doctrine of total depravity, showing that man's rejection of God is not merely intellectual but ethical — a practical atheism that issues in universal corruption and abominable works. The psalmist's two-part structure moves from the description of the ungodly (vv. 1–3) to the deliverance of the godly (vv. 4–7), with Paul amplifying the same argument in Romans 1–3 by citing and structurally imitating the psalm. The only remedy for the corruption of the heart is not behavioral modification but the righteousness of Christ received through faith — the salvation that comes out of Zion — which gives believers both ground for evangelism and comfort in a sin-cursed world.
The Priestly Blessing of the Ascending King
Luke 24:50–53 closes the Gospel with the ascending Christ lifting His nail-pierced hands to bless His disciples at Bethany — a gesture laden with Old Testament typology, most immediately the Aaronic priestly blessing of Leviticus 9. The sermon argues that this blessing is not a mere farewell gesture but an authoritative, ongoing priestly act: Christ ascended while still blessing, signifying that His intercession and the bestowal of divine favor upon His people never cease. Preached in the context of a Lord's Supper service, the exposition calls believers to receive the sacrament as participants in the everlasting blessing of the great High Priest, and to respond with the pattern of the early disciples — continuous, corporate, joyful worship of the Triune God.
The Lament of the Psalmist
Psalm 13 is a lament psalm of David that moves through raw grief — the perceived forgetfulness of God, the daily sorrow of the soul, and the threat of encroaching enemies — to a resolved trust in the covenant mercy of God. The sermon traces this trajectory through the true humanity of Christ, who himself prayed lamentingly in Gethsemane and on the cross, establishing lament as a legitimate and God-given vehicle of prayer for his people. Lament is distinguished sharply from whining: whining refuses to petition God and ends in despair, while biblical lament drives the soul toward God and terminates in doxology. The congregation is called to bring their distress boldly to the throne of grace, resting in the hesed of God covenanted to all who are found in Christ.
The promise of blessing or curse
Deuteronomy 11 sets before Israel a stark covenantal choice: blessing conditioned upon obedience to the Lord, or curse consequent upon idolatry and rebellion. Working through the chapter's three sections — the works of God rehearsed in history, the requirement of covenant fidelity, and the promise of blessing or curse — the sermon traces how Israel's failure to meet the covenant's demands is precisely the ground upon which Christ, as the true Israel and last Adam, fulfills all righteousness and absorbs the covenant curse on behalf of his people. The exhortation closes by connecting Deuteronomy 27:26 to Galatians 3, showing that the Mosaic covenant of works for Israel becomes the ground of Christ's redemptive obedience and that justification has always been by faith alone in the one who kept what Israel could not.