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Christology
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The Conversion of Cornelius, Part 3
Peter's sermon to the household of Cornelius in Acts 10:34–43 marks a watershed moment in redemptive history: the formal, Spirit-ordained inclusion of Gentiles in the covenant of grace, without circumcision or submission to the ceremonial law. The sermon examines the providential convergence of Peter and Cornelius, the content of apostolic gospel preaching — the peace, person, work, and prophetic witness to Christ — and the doctrinal significance of justification by faith alone apart from ethnic or ceremonial identity. The central application is urgent: because Christ is ordained as judge of the living and the dead, sinners of every tribe and nation must believe now and receive remission of sins through His name alone.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 18, 2019 Bible Study
Genesis 26 traces Isaac's sojourn among the Philistines, his expulsion from Gerar, and his return to Beersheba, and the narrative is deliberately constructed as a series of parallels with the life of Abraham. The chapter demonstrates that the covenant promises of land and seed — sworn by God to Abraham and now confirmed to Isaac — are preserved not through the patriarchs' virtue but through God's sovereign faithfulness. Isaac's prosperity, the recovery of his father's wells, and the covenant made by his former adversaries all illustrate how God causes even a man's enemies to be at peace with him when his ways please the Lord. The exposition closes with the observation that every episode of Genesis points forward to the singular seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed.
The Ongoing Ministry of Peter
Acts 9:32–43 records two miracles wrought through the Apostle Peter — the healing of the paralyzed Aeneas at Lydda and the raising of Tabitha from the dead at Joppa — and this sermon works through both accounts to establish that the power displayed was Christ's alone, not Peter's. The miraculous signs of the apostolic era served a redemptive, confirmatory purpose: to authenticate the preaching of the apostles and usher hearers into the kingdom of God through the gospel, not to impress or dazzle. On cessationist grounds, the sermon argues that with the close of the apostolic ministry and the completed canon of Scripture, the church's standing commission is to preach the Word — not to seek or perform signs and wonders. The passage also foreshadows Peter's mission to the Gentiles, as Peter's lodging with Simon the tanner at Joppa anticipates the barrier-breaking vision and the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10.
The New and Living Way
Hebrews 10:19–25 presents two encouragements and three exhortations for the covenant people of God. The two encouragements — bold access into the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, and the possession of a great high priest — ground the three commands that follow: draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, hold fast the confession of hope without wavering, and consider one another so as to stir up love and good works. Neglect of these exhortations is the path by which professing believers drift toward the apostasy warned against in verses 26–31, making faithful corporate worship, steadfast confession, and mutual encouragement indispensable means of perseverance.
The Nature of the Gospel
Galatians 1:1–5 is not merely a conventional greeting but a compressed summary of the gospel itself. Working through each clause of verses 4–5, this exposition identifies five defining features of Christ's death: it was voluntary, it consisted in penal substitution, it secured deliverance from this present evil age, it was determined by the Father according to His eternal will, and it promotes the glory of God alone. The sermon presses toward the Lord's Supper, calling each hearer to examine whether they can say with Paul in Galatians 2:20, 'He loved me and gave Himself for me,' and to receive the bread and cup only on that ground.
The Warning Against Apostasy
Hebrews 10:26–31 is one of the most pastorally misread warning passages in the New Testament, and this expository sermon works carefully to distinguish the sin of apostasy from the ordinary, ongoing sin of weak believers. The apostate is not a struggling saint who confesses and seeks mercy; he is one who, having made an outward profession of faith, openly and obstinately repudiates Christ — trampling the Son of God underfoot, counting the blood of the covenant a common thing, and insulting the Spirit of grace. The sermon draws on Owen, Calvin, Gill, and Ursinus to establish that apostasy is a total, willful renunciation of the gospel, not any species of sin for which Christ has made atonement. Believers burdened by remaining corruption are urged to distinguish themselves from apostates by the very instinct that drives them to the throne of grace — and to make full use of the means of grace God has appointed to preserve them from the apostasy the passage warns against.
Judah and Tamar
Genesis 38 interrupts the Joseph narrative to focus on Judah, the man through whom the Messianic line would descend — and the portrait is not flattering. Judah marries a Canaanite, fathers wicked sons, withholds Shelah from Tamar in violation of levirate obligation, and solicits what he believes to be a roadside harlot. Yet God, faithful to His covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, protects the seed through Tamar's act of faith and brings forth Perez, the ancestor of David and of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon calls hearers to marvel at a grace that saves wretched sinners — not because of their worthiness, but because God always does what He has promised to do.
The LORD is my Shepherd
Psalm 23 is examined as a hymn of trust composed amid difficulty rather than prosperity, arguing that David's confident confession — 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want' — is made precisely in the shadow of danger, not in spite of it. The sermon expounds the psalm under two headings: the covenant Lord as the shepherd who provides daily physical and spiritual provision, and as the gracious host who prepares a table in the presence of enemies. Christians are exhorted to make diligent use of the means of grace — private prayer and Scripture, corporate worship, the preached word, and the Lord's Supper — as the God-ordained way to walk with Christ through the valley of the shadow of death toward their eternal dwelling in the house of the Lord.
Free Grace Baptist Church - August 11, 2019 PM
Matthew 7:24–29, the parable of the two builders, presses the closing application of the Sermon on the Mount onto every hearer within reach of Christ's words. The sermon examines the wise builder who hears and does, the foolish builder who hears but does not do, and the astonishing authority with which Christ delivers both. The central diagnostic question is not whether one occupies space in the company of hearers, but whether one has built upon the only foundation that survives the storm of divine wrath — the righteousness of Christ received by faith alone.
The Two Builders
Matthew 7:24–29 closes the Sermon on the Mount with a parable that presses every hearer to examine the foundation of their life before God. Both builders hear the words of Christ, but only the wise builder obeys them — and that obedience, rooted not in moral effort but in faith in Christ alone, is the mark that distinguishes genuine discipleship from hollow profession. The foolish builder is not a pagan but a hearer who pays lip service to the Word without submitting to it, a condition Ezekiel 33 and James 1 both diagnose with sobering precision. The sermon calls every listener to repent, believe the gospel, and rest on Christ as the only foundation that will withstand the final storm of God's holy wrath.
The Baptism of Saul of Tarsus
Acts 9:17–25 records the baptism and initial preaching of Saul of Tarsus following his encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus road. Ananias addresses the former persecutor as 'brother Saul,' and Saul is immediately baptized — a pattern the sermon presses as normative: conversion precedes and grounds baptism, which is the public confession of a forgiven sinner, not a converting ordinance. The sermon then traces the character of Saul's early preaching: immediate, Christocentric, apologetic, and persuasive — proving from the Old Testament that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God — while showing that the same mission statement of Acts 9:15–16 (preach and suffer) begins its fulfilment within hours of his conversion. Hearers are urged to confess Christ openly, to submit to baptism without delay, and to recover a persuasive, Scripture-grounded proclamation of the gospel rather than the entertainment-driven substitute that fills contemporary pulpits.
The Suffering Servant
1 Peter 2:21–25 sets forth Christ's suffering as redemptive before it is exemplary: Peter's primary purpose is not to give believers a moral template but to ground their conduct in the substitutionary, sin-bearing work of the Servant prophesied in Isaiah 53. The sermon traces the description of Christ's redemptive suffering — his sinlessness, his silence under reviling, and his substitutionary death on the tree — before turning to its results: the freedom of God's people from sin's penalty and power, and the recovery of straying sheep by the Shepherd and Overseer of their souls. Believers are therefore called not to whine or revile under unjust treatment, but to commit themselves to him who judges righteously, following the pattern of the one whose stripes have healed them.
The Mission for Saul of Tarsus
Acts 9:10–16 records Christ's commission to Ananias concerning the newly converted Saul of Tarsus, and in it Jesus reveals a twofold purpose for his chosen vessel: to bear the name of Christ before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel, and to suffer greatly for that name. This sermon traces how that double calling — to preach and to suffer — was fulfilled across Paul's entire apostolic ministry, drawing on 2 Corinthians 11, Colossians 1, and 2 Timothy to show that affliction is not a contradiction of divine favor but an instrument of it. The sovereignty of Christ over conversion and calling stands as the controlling theme, pressing hearers to abandon every excuse for unbelief and to come to Israel's Messiah in faith.
The Judgment Seat of Christ
Matthew 7:21–23 is often misread as a warning to believers to produce more good works, but the passage concerns entrance into the kingdom of heaven and exposes the damning error of self-righteousness. The false professors are condemned not because they lacked works but because they rested their hope for acceptance with God on those works rather than on Christ's blood and righteousness — a form of lawlessness that is an assault on the cross. The will of the Father in Matthew 7:21, rightly understood through John 6:28–40, is to believe on the Son whom He sent; justification is by faith alone, received once, and the Sermon on the Mount functions as law to drive sinners to the foot of the cross rather than to self-congratulation.
The Justice of God and the Gospel
Proverbs 17:15 declares that justifying the wicked and condemning the just are alike an abomination to God — yet the gospel does precisely both: God condemned the sinless Christ and justifies ungodly sinners. This sermon works through the theological architecture that vindicates God from any charge of self-contradiction in the gospel, tracing the doctrines of covenant representation and imputation from Genesis through the Prophets and into Paul's argument in Romans 3–5. The three acts of imputation — Adam's sin to all mankind, the elect's sin to Christ, and Christ's righteousness to the elect — are shown to be the biblical answer to the problem Proverbs 17:15 raises, grounding assurance in an alien righteousness received by faith alone.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 21, 2019 AM
Acts 9:1–9 records the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the arch-enemy of the early church, and the sermon works through this passage in two movements: the hostility of Saul and the sovereign confrontation by Christ on the Damascus road. The preacher argues that the violence and ruthlessness of Saul's pre-conversion mission magnifies the richness of divine grace, because Christ's effectual call reaches even the chief of sinners without any prior disposition toward God on Saul's part. Drawing on parallel accounts in Acts 22 and 26, Galatians 1, and 1 Timothy 1, the sermon applies this reality as an encouragement to those who fear themselves beyond the reach of redeeming grace, and as a rebuke to any confidence in moral or religious achievement as a ground of acceptance before God.
The Conversion of Saul of Tarsus
Acts 9:1–9 confronts the reader with one of the most dramatic conversions in redemptive history: the sovereign arrest of Saul of Tarsus, the church's most ruthless persecutor, by the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon traces Saul's murderous hostility toward the disciples before examining the divine initiative, interrogation, identification, and instruction Christ brings to bear on the road to Damascus. That Christ identifies himself with his suffering members ('I am Jesus whom you are persecuting') and overcomes Saul's resistance through effectual grace establishes that no sinner stands beyond the reach of sovereign mercy. The sermon closes with a call to repentance grounded in the certainty that the God who conquered the chief of sinners is able and willing to save all who come to Christ.
The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 8:26–40 records the Spirit-directed encounter between the evangelist Philip and an Ethiopian eunuch, a man doubly excluded from Israel's assembly by Deuteronomy 23:1 yet drawn by God's sovereign grace into the new-covenant community. The sermon traces three movements in the narrative — the providential meeting, the expository dialogue from Isaiah 53, and the eunuch's confession and baptism — arguing that the passage is not merely a quotation but a fulfillment of Isaiah 56, in which eunuchs and foreigners are brought near through the blood of Christ. Against any notion of baptism as a converting ordinance, the preacher grounds believers' baptism in the pattern of faith preceding baptism throughout Acts, Calvin's own concession that immersion was the ancient mode, and the 1689 LBCF's definition of baptism as an ordinance primarily for the party baptized. The sermon closes with an indiscriminate call to all sinners to relinquish their own righteousness and rest in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.
The Priority of the Moral Law
Proverbs 21:3 states that to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice — a declaration that exposes the perennial human tendency to substitute external religious performance for genuine moral obedience. This sermon traces that priority through Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms before examining Christ's fifth woe against the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, where he condemns the same imbalance of tithing mint, anise, and cumin while neglecting the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. The threefold division of the law underlies the exposition: the ceremonial law has been fulfilled in Christ and abolished as a covenant obligation, but the moral law — comprehending both tables, duty to God and duty to man — retains its binding claim on the people of God. The sermon closes with the gospel ground of that obedience: because our righteousness before God falls short on the best of days, the imputed active obedience of Christ, received by faith alone, is the only hope — and the motivation for the wholehearted, balanced compliance Solomon demands.
From Alienation to Reconciliation
Colossians 1:21–23 sets the condition of fallen humanity — alienated from God, hostile in mind, and characterised by wicked works — against the sovereign act of divine reconciliation accomplished through the incarnation and substitutionary death of Christ. This sermon works through Paul's three-part description of man's former state before turning to the means and goal of reconciliation: the bodily death of Christ to present his people holy, blameless, and above reproach. The exposition closes with a call to perseverance grounded not in the believer's resolve but in the completed work of the one who reconciles, redeems, and saves to the uttermost.
The Sovereignty of God
Proverbs 3:19–20 grounds God's sovereignty not merely in creation but in every sphere of existence — the world was founded by divine wisdom, and that same sovereign wisdom governs all of history and secures the redemption of His people. Drawing widely from Proverbs alongside Genesis, the Psalms, Daniel, and Romans, this sermon traces three distinct expressions of God's sovereignty: His free, unconstrained creation of all things; His comprehensive providence over human affairs including civil government; and His eternal purpose in redemption, centred in the pre-existent Christ of Proverbs 8. The practical force of the message is that divine sovereignty — rightly understood — produces neither fatalism nor hyper-Calvinist passivity, but rather deep comfort, stable faith, and the use of appointed means, all to the glory of God.
The Conversion of Matthew
Jesus calls Matthew — a despised tax collector and notorious sinner — to discipleship with two words: 'Follow me.' This sermon on Matthew 9:9–13 traces three movements: the sovereign, immediate call to Matthew at his tax office; the feast Matthew throws in honor of Christ, filling his table with fellow sinners; and Christ's threefold response to the Pharisees' complaint, in which he identifies himself as physician for the sin-sick, appeals to Hosea's rebuke of mere external religion, and declares his mission to call sinners to repentance. The passage insists that the power demonstrated in forgiving the paralytic avails equally for the greatest of sinners, and calls every hearer to respond as Matthew did — immediately, wholly, and with joy.
Genesis 22:1-24
Genesis 22 presents the testing of Abraham's faith as the pinnacle of the patriarch's walk with God — a command so severe that it required Abraham to march three days to Mount Moriah to offer up Isaac, the son of promise. The narrative is read as dense with typological significance: Abraham foreshadows the Father who gives his only Son, Isaac prefigures Christ who carries his own wood and submits as a willing victim, and the substitutionary ram points forward to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The obedience of Abraham is shown not to establish his righteousness before God but to manifest the validity of the faith already credited to him as righteousness in Genesis 15, consistent with James 2 rightly read against any Roman Catholic scheme of initial faith sustained by subsequent merit. The sermon closes with a call to faithful perseverance under trial, grounded in the confidence that God provides and that Christ has borne what no angel stayed.
Free Grace Baptist Church - June 9, 2019 AM
The Christological unity of Scripture — the truth that the Old Testament prophets testified to Christ by the Spirit of Christ — grounds the believer's hope under suffering and shapes a properly Christocentric hermeneutic. Drawing from 1 Peter 1:10–12, this sermon argues that the Spirit of Christ was personally present in and through the prophets, disclosing the sufferings of Christ and the glories that follow, so that the Old Testament is not Israel-centric but Christ-centric in its ultimate focus. The sermon calls believers to read Scripture not merely for cognitive information but as a supernatural encounter with Christ himself, whose revealed glory transforms the reader into his likeness and sustains eschatological hope in the face of suffering and persecution.
Genesis 21:1-34
Genesis 21 records three interlocking events — the birth of Isaac, the expulsion of Ishmael, and Abraham's covenant with Abimelech — all of which demonstrate the faithfulness of God to his dual promise of seed and land made to Abraham at the call from Ur. The birth of Isaac after 25 years vindicates the persevering faith of Abraham and the sovereign elective purpose of God, who chose Isaac over Ishmael not on grounds of merit but according to his own prerogative. The expulsion of Ishmael, though painful to Abraham, is endorsed by God as consistent with his covenant plan, a pattern the Apostle Paul reads allegorically in Galatians 4 to expose the error of the Judaizers. The covenant at Beersheba, often read as a mere appendix, is in fact a down payment on the land promise, so that by the chapter's end Abraham holds both seed and a legally acknowledged foothold in Canaan, prompting his worship of El Olam — the everlasting God.
Genesis 19:30-38
Genesis 19:30–38 records one of Scripture's most disturbing episodes — the incestuous union of Lot's daughters with their father — yet the passage cannot be rightly understood apart from its place in the unfolding line of the Messiah. The daughters' scheme was wicked and abominable, but the Moabites and Ammonites who resulted were not condemned by God on account of their conception; rather, their subsequent hostility toward Israel was what drew divine censure. Most remarkably, Ruth the Moabitess — a descendant of this very union — stands in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ, alongside Tamar and Rahab, demonstrating that the sovereign God works redemptive purposes through the most unsterile human instruments. The passage calls believers to imitate Lot's pattern of genuine righteousness: to dwell in a lawless age without making peace with it, remaining tormented in conscience by what is wicked rather than becoming desensitized to it.
The Profession of Simon Magus
Acts 8:9–13 presents a direct clash between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the sorcery of Simon Magus, who had captivated the whole population of Samaria with his claim to divine greatness. The sermon expounds two movements in the text: the comprehensive grip of false doctrine under Simon, and the liberating power of divine grace through Philip's proclamation of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. Salvation comes exclusively through faith in Christ — not through a mixture of truth and magic, not through works — and believers' baptism publicly identifies the convert with the triune God while repudiating every former allegiance. The passage is set forth as a demonstration that Christ, enthroned at the right hand of the Father, must reign until all his enemies are made his footstool, which is ground for courage, prayer, and faithful gospel proclamation in every generation.
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 5, 2019 AM
Christ declared 'I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me' — a claim as offensive to the ancient world as to the modern, yet the only word that addresses the guilt, ignorance, and rebellion of sinners. Working through Acts 8:1–17, this exposition traces the Spirit-confirmed extension of the gospel from Jerusalem into despised Samaria, showing how Philip's preaching of Christ — not social commentary, not racial reconciliation programmes, but Christ as prophet, priest, and king — produced joy in a city that had been alien to the covenants of promise. The sermon argues that the cross, and only the cross, is the answer to ethnic hostility, civic disorder, and personal despair, and calls hearers to attend to the preached Word with the same urgency the Samaritans showed when Philip came among them.
The Ministry of Philip in Samaria
Acts 8:5–8 records Philip's preaching ministry in Samaria — a region despised by Israel as racially and religiously impure — and presents it as the deliberate fulfillment of Christ's commission in Acts 1:8 to carry the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. The sermon traces the historical background of Samaritan alienation from Israel, the fourfold summary of Philip's ministry (his preaching, the response of the crowds, the authenticating miracles, and the resulting joy), and the theological significance of the Spirit's confirmation through Peter and John. Against contemporary debates over racial justice, the sermon argues that the cross of Christ — preached faithfully in his offices as prophet, priest, and king — is the only power that reconciles divided peoples and extends the kingdom of God across ethnic boundaries.
The Good Soldier's Incentives
What motivates a Christian to endure suffering rather than abandon the faith? Expounding 2 Timothy 2:8–13, this sermon identifies three incentives Paul sets before Timothy: the contemplation of Christ in his incarnation and resurrection, the conduct of the Apostle Paul who endured chains as a self-described evildoer for the sake of the elect, and the believer's present and future communion with Christ — dying with him, living with him, and ultimately reigning with him. The sermon closes with a sober examination of the faithful saying in verses 11–13, distinguishing the warning against apostasy from the assurance belonging to the wavering but genuine believer, and connects the Lord's Supper as a divinely appointed means of grace for sustaining the good soldier's contemplation of Christ.