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Christology

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Oct 22, 2017

The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 2

Jim ButlerMatthew 27:39–44

Matthew 27:39–44 records three distinct groups — passing bystanders, the chief priests and elders, and the two crucified robbers — each heaping mockery and blasphemy upon the Son of God while he hangs on the cross. The preacher demonstrates that in every taunt, the mockers unwittingly speak truth: he is the temple builder, the Savior of others, the King of Israel, and the Son of God — and it is precisely because he is all of these things that he must stay on the cross to satisfy divine justice for his people's sins. The irony Matthew constructs reaches its apex in the dying thief, who looks past the gore of the crucifixion and confesses Christ as Lord, while the religious leaders who possessed the very scriptures that prophesied this scene remain utterly blind to it. The sermon calls both unbelievers and believers to look to the crucified Christ by faith, to receive salvation as a gift rather than bargaining with God, and to find in this scene the unsurpassed measure of the Savior's love.

Oct 22, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - October 22, 2017 AM

Unknown

Matthew 27 records the layered mockery poured upon Christ at Calvary — by the chief priests, scribes, and elders, and even by the revolutionaries crucified alongside him. The sermon exposes three lines of their reproach: his supposed inability to save, the illegitimacy of his kingship, and the apparent abandonment by his Father. Throughout, the mockers speak more truth than they know, for it is precisely because Christ will not come down from the cross that sinners are saved, and the dying thief stands as the living proof of that saving power exercised in the midst of agony and derision.

Oct 22, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - October 22, 2017 AM

Unknown

Matthew 27:32–54 records the crucifixion of Christ amid layered mockery from three distinct groups — passers-by, the religious establishment, and the two robbers. This exposition argues that each taunt ironically confirms what it intends to deny: that Jesus is the Son of God, the true temple-builder, and the Saviour of Israel. The sermon draws out the substitutionary logic of the cross — that Christ remained on it not despite his divine sonship but because of it, bearing the wrath owed to his people so that divine justice might be satisfied in him rather than in the sinner.

Oct 18, 2017

2 Kings 11

Jim Butler2 Kings 11

Second Kings 11 records one of the most acute threats to the Davidic covenant: the usurper Athaliah nearly extinguishes the royal line that would ultimately produce the Messiah. The chapter is examined under four headings — the preservation of the Davidic line, the coronation of Joash, the execution of Athaliah, and the renewal of the covenant — tracing how God's providence, not direct intervention, defeats the murderous scheme through the obscure faithfulness of Jehoshabah. Covenant renewal in verse 17 carries an immediate implication: genuine fidelity to Yahweh requires the total destruction of idolatry, a principle that applies with equal force to the believer's ongoing war against sin. The session closes by anchoring the believer's confidence not in the hidden reign of Joash but in the present, absolute reign of his descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Oct 15, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - October 15, 2017 AM

Unknown

Matthew 27:32–38 presents the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the central event in redemptive history, the long-anticipated fulfillment of Old Testament promise from Genesis 3:15 through Isaiah 53. The sermon traces two movements: the way to the cross — bearing, location, and the bitter drink — and the act of crucifixion itself, attending to the division of garments, the watching guards, the charge above his head, and the company of criminals. Throughout, the visible shame of the Son of God is shown to be the appointed means by which he crushes the serpent's head, satisfies divine justice, and secures justification for all whom the Father gave him. Hearers are called to abandon every notion of contributing to their own salvation and to look in faith to the crucified Christ alone.

Oct 9, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - October 8, 2017 PM

Unknown

What happens when a believer sins against a holy God? Expounding 1 John 2:1–2 within the broader context of 1 John 1:5–10, this sermon answers that question under two headings: Christ as advocate and Christ as propitiation. The advocate language draws on the high-priestly intercession of Christ at the Father's right hand — distinct from, yet complementary to, the Spirit's advocacy on earth — while the doctrine of propitiation is traced through the Old Testament sacrificial vocabulary of kippur to show that Christ both turns away divine wrath and removes guilt. The sermon closes with a direct call to unbelievers to flee to Christ, the only one under whose blood the wrath of God is turned away and peace with God secured.

Oct 8, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - October 8, 2017 AM

Unknown

The mock enthronement of Jesus recorded in Matthew 27:27–31 simultaneously exposes the comprehensive guilt of every human participant — Pilate, the soldiers, the Jewish leaders, and the elect whose sins were heaped upon the Savior — and reveals the ironic glory of the King who would actually bear every emblem the soldiers placed on him in jest. The sermon argues that what the soldiers devised as dishonor — the robe, the crown of thorns, the reed — were unwitting foreshadowings of Christ's true royal majesty as depicted in the book of Revelation, where he reigns with golden crown, glorious robe, and iron scepter. The exposition closes with three applications under the gravity, the glory, and the gratitude of the scene, pressing both unbelievers to flee to the Savior from the coming wrath and believers to exceed the soldiers' inventiveness in devising honor for their King.

Oct 2, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - October 1, 2017 PM

Unknown

This Lord's Supper service exposition of 2 Samuel 6 traces three movements in the account of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem: the desire for God's presence, the reminder of God's holiness in the death of Uzzah, and the celebration of God's goodness in David's exuberant worship. The Uzzah incident grounds an extended defense of the regulative principle of worship — God demands precise, commanded obedience, not well-intentioned innovation — while David's dancing in a linen ephod demonstrates that such precision does not exclude but rather secures gladness and joy. Each movement is drawn into parallel with the Lord's Supper: believers come seeking the presence of Christ, they are reminded that his body was broken and blood shed because God is holy and just, and they receive the Supper as a means of covenant renewal and joyful commemoration of the once-for-all sacrifice.

Oct 1, 2017

The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 3

Jim ButlerMatthew 27:24–26

Matthew 27:24–26 records Pontius Pilate's attempt to wash his hands of Christ's blood, the crowd's acceptance of blood-guilt upon themselves and their children, and the formal sentencing of Jesus to scourging and crucifixion. This sermon exposes Pilate's self-absolution as rank hypocrisy — he declares innocence while simultaneously ordering the execution — and traces the crowd's fearful cry ('His blood be on us and on our children') as an omen fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The passage is set within the larger framework of substitutionary atonement: Christ, the only truly innocent man, willingly bore the penalty owed to guilty sinners, satisfying divine justice on behalf of His people. Hearers are called to see their own culpability in the cross and to repent and be converted, trusting in the sufficiency of Christ's shed blood for the remission of sins.

Sep 25, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - September 24, 2017 PM

Unknown

First John 1:5–10 presents three interlocking claims about fellowship with God: the nature of God as absolute moral purity (light), the deceptive professions of those who walk in darkness while claiming communion with God, and the path of true fellowship grounded in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. The sermon engages the Gnostic false teachers who denied sin's reality and the law's relevance, and sets their errors against the revealed gospel — that total depravity rightly understood drives sinners to Christ, the light of the world. True assurance of salvation rests not on sinless perfection but on ongoing confession, the atoning work of Christ, and the Spirit's inward fruit, so those who struggle with assurance are directed to the cross while those who live in blatant antinomian rebellion are warned that false doctrine produces false assurance.

Sep 24, 2017

The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 2

Jim ButlerMatthew 27:15–23

Matthew 27:15–23 presents Pontius Pilate's attempt to grant amnesty to Jesus through the Passover custom of releasing a prisoner — an attempt that collapses under the pressure of crowd manipulation and Pilate's own moral cowardice. The passage exposes the envy driving the religious leaders, the warning of Pilate's wife confessing Christ's righteousness, and the moral depravity of a multitude persuaded to choose a violent insurrectionist over the sinless Son of God. The repeated declarations of Christ's innocence — by Judas, Pilate's wife, and Pilate himself — are Matthew's design: the just stands for the unjust, and every voice proclaiming 'he has done no evil' opens the door to the gospel of substitutionary atonement. Hearers are called to see their own capacity for the crowd's guilt, to recognize total depravity in themselves, and to flee to the holy, harmless, undefiled Christ for forgiveness and righteousness.

Sep 18, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - September 17, 2017 PM

Unknown

How do we know the gospel is true? First John 1:1–4 opens with John's answer: the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ is grounded in direct sensory experience — hearing, seeing, and handling the Word of life. This sermon works through the introduction to First John under three headings: the messenger, his message, and the benefits of that message. The exposition confronts early docetism (the denial that Christ came in the flesh), insists that eternal life is found only in the incarnate, crucified, and risen Son of God, and calls hearers to hold fast to the apostolic gospel as the only ground of true fellowship with the Father and the Son and of lasting joy.

Sep 17, 2017

The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 1

Jim ButlerMatthew 27:11–14

Why does Jesus stand silent before Pontius Pilate, refusing to answer a single charge? Matthew 27:11–14 records the interrogation of Christ by the Roman governor, in which Jesus affirms his kingship with a qualified 'it is as you say' and then offers no defense against the accusations of the chief priests and elders. That silence is not weakness but resolute, covenantal determination — the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:7, the refusal to retard the death that alone can save sinners from the wrath of a holy God. The sermon calls both believer and unbeliever to marvel at the silence of Christ, recognizing in it the ground of every sinner's boldness before God on the day of judgment.

Sep 14, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - September 13, 2017 Bible Study

Unknown

Second Kings 6 presents God's sovereign care over both the minute and the massive: a borrowed iron axe head recovered from the Jordan, and an entire Syrian army blinded and marched into captivity at Samaria. The sermon works through three distinct episodes — the floating axe head (vv. 1–7), God's protection of Elisha from Syrian intelligence (vv. 8–17), and the miraculous capture of the Syrian force (vv. 18–23) — to establish that the Lord's providential rule extends without diminution from the trivial losses of a poor prophet to the geopolitical crises of a nation. The controlling application is that verse 16 ('those who are with us are more than those who are with them') is the permanent, unwavering ground of the believer's confidence, whether or not God grants the extraordinary vision of verse 17, and that knowing Scripture deeply is the instrument of the spiritual discernment required to rest in that reality.

Sep 6, 2017

Genesis 14

Mike KirkpatrickGenesis 14

Genesis 14 presents what appears to be an obscure ancient war narrative, but the chapter is deliberately structured around one controlling question: who is the true King and possessor of heaven and earth? Working through the three movements of battle, bravery, and blessing, this exposition shows how Kedorlaomer's military supremacy, Abram's faith-driven rescue of Lot, and Melchizedek's priestly blessing of Abram together build to a single climax — God Most High, El Elyon, reigns sovereign over every kingdom. Melchizedek emerges as a typological figure whose lack of genealogy and perpetual priesthood, interpreted by Hebrews 7 and Psalm 110, points forward to Christ's eternal high-priestly office after the order of Melchizedek. The proper response to God's sovereign kingship is Abram's own: refusing worldly plunder and glorifying God alone.

Sep 3, 2017

The Righteousness of David

Jim Butler

Romans 4:5–8 announces that God justifies the ungodly, and the Apostle Paul calls David as a witness to that doctrine. This sermon works through the theology of David in 2 Samuel 22, Psalms 2, 18, 32, 51, 110, and 130 to show that David's celebrated righteousness is not his own moral achievement but the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith. David's recognition of his own sin, his understanding of atonement, his grasp of the doctrine of imputation, and his personal faith in the coming Messiah together resolve the apparent tension between his notorious moral failures and his claim to cleanness of hands. The sermon calls hearers to approach the Lord's Supper not in mere introspection over sin but in joyful confidence in the righteousness of David's greater Son.

Sep 3, 2017

The Use of the Blood Money

Jim ButlerMatthew 27:6–10

Matthew 27:6–10 records the chief priests' disposal of the thirty pieces of silver used to betray Jesus — and Matthew's citation of this event as the fulfillment of prophecy attributed to Jeremiah. This sermon examines the rank hypocrisy of the religious leaders who scrupled over depositing blood money into the treasury while simultaneously orchestrating the judicial murder of an innocent man, exposing the self-condemning logic of ceremonial fastidiousness divorced from the weightier demands of the law. The sermon then defends the inerrancy of Matthew's composite citation of Zechariah 11 and Jeremiah 18–19, 32, showing how Matthew functions as a biblical theologian weaving together prophetic themes of rejection, judgment, exile, and restoration to demonstrate that the passion of Christ was the fulfillment of the entire prophetic witness. The application calls hearers to recognize their own guilt before a holy God and to flee to the imputed righteousness and atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Aug 27, 2017

The Rebellion of Moab

Jim Butler2 Kings 3

Matthew 27:1–5 exposes two devastating portraits set in immediate sequence: the murderous resolution of the Sanhedrin and the miserable end of Judas Iscariot. The sermon presses a distinction the text itself demands — that remorse, however acute, is not repentance, because genuine repentance moves God-ward and Christ-ward, apprehending the mercy of God in Christ, whereas Judas's guilt drove him only to self-destruction. Listeners are urged to see in Judas the bitter end of undealt-with sin, and to flee instead to the one who is altogether lovely and chief among ten thousand, trusting that saving faith and repentance are themselves gifts granted by sovereign grace.

Aug 27, 2017

The Miserable End of Judas Iscariot

Jim ButlerMatthew 27:1–5

What does it look like to use God rather than worship Him? Preaching through 2 Kings 3, this sermon exposes Jehoram's utilitarian religion — reaching for Yahweh only in crisis, and blaming His sovereignty when circumstances sour — and sets it against the godly example of Jehoshaphat and the prophetic word of Elisha. The sermon closes by drawing the Christological thread that Jehoram received water and victory not by desert but by proximity to Jehoshaphat, a son of David's line, and that every believer stands in the same position: receiving massive mercies not on their own merit but because they stand next to Jesus, the Davidic King.

Aug 23, 2017

2 Kings 4:38-44

Jim Butler2 Kings 4:38–44

Two miracles in 2 Kings 4:38–44 — the purification of a deadly stew and the multiplication of bread for one hundred men during a famine — reveal a God who governs both the rise and fall of nations and the smallest necessities of ordinary life. The famine itself is a covenant curse (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28), yet within that judgment God provides for his remnant with conspicuous abundance, feeding the prophets and leaving surplus. Elisha functions throughout as a type of Christ, whose own feeding miracles echo and surpass this episode. The passage calls believers to resist carnal anxiety and fear by resting on God's demonstrated sovereignty in everyday, earthy circumstances.

Aug 20, 2017

United in Worship

Mike KirkpatrickJoshua 22:10–34

Joshua 22:10–34 presents a near-civil-war among the tribes of Israel triggered by the erection of a large altar east of the Jordan, and this exposition works through the text under three headings: the western tribes' perception of apostasy, their perception of disunity, and the concluding perception of God's presence among his people. The sermon grounds the western tribes' alarm in Deuteronomy 12 and 13, showing that their concern for a rival place of worship was a sound application of the regulative principle of worship, and traces the typological significance of Phinehas as a figure pointing to Christ's atoning zeal. The eastern tribes' explanation — that the altar was a witness-monument, not a sacrificial site, built so that future generations would not be excluded from the covenant community — is set against the church's call to maintain unity in worship through lowliness, longsuffering, and mutual confrontation after the pattern of Matthew 5 and 18. The sermon concludes that the object uniting the people of God in every age is not themselves but the Lord, to whom worship is due as Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer in Christ.

Aug 13, 2017

The Denial of Christ by Peter

Jim ButlerMatthew 26:69–75

Peter's threefold denial of Christ in Matthew 26:69–75 exposes both the anatomy of a disciple's fall and the magnitude of divine grace that restores the fallen. The sermon traces Peter's descent from evasive mumbling to sworn denial, showing how self-confidence, prayerlessness, and neglect of the Word prepared him for catastrophic failure before a servant girl. The contrasting thread throughout is the mercy of Christ — his look of 'sorrow, pity, love, and forgiveness' — which, together with the remembered word, brought Peter to godly repentance and eventual restoration. Hearers are exhorted to watch and pray, to hide the Word in their hearts, and to flee to the Christ who does not cast out those who come to him.

Aug 13, 2017

The Supreme God

Mike Kirkpatrick1 Samuel 5

First Samuel 5 narrates a comedic yet deadly serious confrontation between Yahweh and the Philistine god Dagon, exposing the utter powerlessness of idols and the supreme sovereignty of the living God. When the Philistines place the ark of the Lord beside Dagon, Dagon twice falls prostrate before it — losing his head and hands — while Yahweh's hand falls with devastating judgment on city after city across Philistia. The passage teaches both that all false gods are helpless before Yahweh and that idolatry remains the deepest disease of the human heart, whether expressed in carved images or in the good things we elevate above God. The call of the sermon is to turn from every idol — visible or conjured — to the one divine Warrior who conquered sin and death, and in whom alone there is everlasting life.

Aug 13, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - August 13, 2017 AM

Unknown

Matthew 26:57–75 records both the illegal trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin and Peter's threefold denial in the high priest's courtyard. This expository sermon works through the anatomy of Peter's fall — from evasive mumbling to flat denial under oath and self-curse — and traces how the crowing rooster, Christ's look of sorrow and pity, and the remembered word of Jesus together broke Peter and began his recovery. Two governing lessons emerge: the fragility of even the most eminent disciples apart from sovereign grace, and the magnitude of Christ's mercy that restores the most wretched confessor-turned-denier to useful service.

Aug 6, 2017

Free Grace Baptist Church - August 6, 2017 AM

Unknown

Matthew 26:65–68 records the formal charge of blasphemy against Jesus before the Sanhedrin, the unanimous verdict of the council, and the cruel physical mistreatment that followed. The sermon expounds these three movements in sequence, demonstrating that every element of the trial — the charge, the verdict, the spitting, and the blows — fulfills streams of Old Testament prophecy running from Psalm 110 and Daniel 7:13–14 to the suffering servant songs of Isaiah 50 and 53. The wrath and mockery of lawless men unwittingly accomplish the redemptive purposes of God, so that the very indignities heaped upon the Son of God become the means by which he wins salvation for sinners.

Aug 6, 2017

The Unsurpassed Value of the Gospel

Jim Butler2 Timothy 1:8–10

Paul's exhortation to Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel in 2 Timothy 1:8–10 rests on the unsurpassed worth of the salvation it announces. The sermon works through the divine authorship of salvation, the basis of election in God's eternal purpose and grace rather than human works, and the pre-temporal covenant of redemption executed in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ. Because Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, believers have every reason to suffer for it without shame, and unbelievers are called to look to Christ alone for justification by faith apart from works.

Aug 6, 2017

The Hearing before the Sanhedrin, Part 3

Jim ButlerMatthew 26:65–68

Matthew 26:65–68 records the formal charge of blasphemy leveled against Christ by the high priest Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin's unanimous verdict that he is deserving of death. This sermon, the third in a series on Christ before the Sanhedrin, examines three movements in the text: the high priest's indictment, the Sanhedrin's verdict, and the physical mistreatment of the Son of Man. The central irony running through the passage is that the one charged with blasphemy is the eternal Son of God, while those bringing the charge are themselves blaspheming — misrepresenting and condemning the Holy One of Israel in fulfillment of the very Scriptures they profess to uphold.

Jul 30, 2017

The Hearing before the Sanhedrin, Part 2

Jim ButlerMatthew 26:59–64

At the trial before the Sanhedrin, two false witnesses twist Christ's words about destroying the temple, and the high priest demands to know whether Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Christ's answer — 'it is as you said' — is an unambiguous messianic confession, immediately amplified by his identification of himself as the Son of Man of Daniel 7 enthroned at the right hand of the Father (Psalm 110:1), a claim that converges multiple streams of Old Testament prophecy. The sermon sets this confession against the backdrop of human sinfulness — visible in the kangaroo court's predetermined verdict and willingness to suborn perjury — and calls hearers to see in Christ the true temple-builder of the Davidic covenant, the substitutionary curse-bearer of Isaiah 53, and the only Savior in whom God and sinners dwell together.

Audio
Jul 26, 2017

2 Kings 1:1-18

Jim Butler2 Kings 1

2 Kings 1 records the idolatry, judgment, and death of Ahaziah, king of Israel — a man who, when facing death, turned not to Yahweh but to Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron. The chapter exposes the nature of idolatry as a practical confession that the living God is incompetent to meet one's needs, and it establishes the certainty of God's word against any king or army that would silence it. God's protection of Elijah through consuming fire is neither divine caprice nor Old Testament barbarism, but the settled, holy justice of a God who will brook no rival and whose jealousy for his own glory is inseparable from his mercy toward sinners. The passage calls hearers to examine what their instinctive cry in trial reveals about the true object of their allegiance.

Jul 23, 2017

The Hearing before the Sanhedrin, Part 1

Jim ButlerMatthew 26:57–61

Matthew 26:57–61 places Jesus before the Sanhedrin in what the preacher demonstrates was not an impartial criminal trial but a predetermined hearing whose guilty verdict had been settled before any witnesses were called. The sermon maps the political and ecclesiastical machinery of the Sanhedrin — its composition, its lack of authority to execute, its violations of due process, and its need to construct a charge sufficient to deliver Jesus to Pilate — and addresses the charge that the gospel accounts of these events are colored by anti-Semitism. Against that background, the contrast between the faithful witness of Christ and the fearful, distanced discipleship of Peter issues a direct call to close, unashamed allegiance to the Savior, and an invitation to unbelievers to come to the One who restores even those who deny him.