Topic
Covenant Theology
1,714 sermons · All topics
Live Stream - November 26, 2023
Colossians 1:13–20 sets forth one of the richest concentrations of Christology in the New Testament, and this exposition works through it under three heads: the concise statement of salvation as divine deliverance from darkness into the kingdom of the Son, an expansion on the identity and work of that Son (his essential Divine Majesty, his mediatorial kingship, and his Redemptive Excellence in the crosswork), and finally the apostolic proclamation of this same Christ as the proper content of all Christian preaching. The sermon argues throughout that the errors threatening the Colossian church — and the church today — are answered not by novelty but by a high and uncompromising Christology that refuses to bring Christ down from his throne. The closing application draws from Hebrews 5: Christians are to press on from milk to solid food, growing in the knowledge of Christ so as to speak truthfully of the King of Kings to a world that in the Christmas season catches only a blurred glimpse of a babe in a manger.
11/26 AM
Psalm 19 is read not merely as a declaration of general and special revelation but as a prophetic anticipation, interpreted by the Apostle Paul in Romans 10, of the apostolic proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Working through seven points across the psalm's three movements, the sermon traces the symbol, referent, and message of each image: heavens and firmament pointing to the apostles, the sun pointing to Christ the Bridegroom and Son of Righteousness, and the law, testimony, statutes, and judgments pointing to the gospel itself. The Word of God is shown to be perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, and righteous — qualities that belong to the gospel, not the Mosaic law — and its effects of conversion, wisdom, rejoicing, and enlightenment call both believer and unbeliever to rest in Christ, the Son of Righteousness, whose glory has gone out to the ends of the earth.
2LCF - Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 1
What does it mean to confess that Jesus Christ is very God and very man, and why does the precision of that confession matter for eternal life? This introductory session on 2LCF Chapter 8 surveys the doctrine of Christ the Mediator by establishing both the necessary posture and the interpretive rules required for sound Christology, then sets out seven reasons why the study of Christ stands at the center of all Christian theology. The session moves from the scope of Scripture as Christ-centered revelation, through the connection of eternal life to a right knowledge of Christ, to the comprehensiveness of all redemptive benefits being located in union with Him, calling the hearer to pursue a high Christology as the only safe and saving confession.
Death Penalty, Part 3
Romans 13:1–7 furnishes the New Testament's clearest warrant for civil government bearing the sword, including capital punishment — yet common objections, both biblical and pragmatic, continue to challenge this teaching. This third installment of a study arising from Leviticus 20 addresses the two most significant biblical objections: the pacifist misreading of Matthew 5:38–42 and the attempt to leverage John 8:1–11 against lawful execution. The sermon argues that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is correcting the misapplication of the lex talionis to personal relationships, not dismantling civil jurisprudence, and that his handling of the woman caught in adultery actually upholds Mosaic evidentiary law rather than nullifying capital punishment. Five pragmatic objections — that the death penalty is incompatible with Christian forgiveness, lacks mercy, risks executing the innocent, fails to deter, and forecloses salvation — are each answered from Scripture and reason.
The Husband and Wife Relationship, Part 1
Ephesians 5:22–24 presents the duty, reason, and practice of a wife's submission to her husband within the covenant of marriage. The passage is expounded within the broader Pauline household code of Ephesians 5:21–6:9, which itself flows from the Spirit-filled life commanded in verse 18. The sermon grounds wifely submission in both the created order (the husband as head by divine indicative, not negotiation) and in the analogical relationship of Christ and the church. Husbands and wives are called to embrace their respective obligations — loving leadership and willing, comprehensive submission — as an act of obedience to God, knowing that the grace enabling this obedience flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ alone.
Live Stream - November 12, 2023
John 12:34–41 presents what the Apostle John calls a theology of unbelief: the Jewish crowds, confronted with Jesus' announcement that the Son of Man must be lifted up, demand to know how a dying Messiah can be the eternal Christ of the Scriptures. The sermon traces their error — not misquoting the Old Testament but failing to reckon with its full testimony to a suffering Savior — through Psalms 72, 89, and 110, Isaiah 9, 53, and 6, and Genesis 3 and 22. John's appeal to Isaiah 53:1 and Isaiah 6:9–10 establishes that this unbelief was divinely foreknown and judicially confirmed, not a defeat of Christ's ministry but its precise execution according to the Father's plan. The sermon closes with a direct summons to believe in the light while it remains, grounding the call in the hypostatic union and the imputed righteousness secured through Christ's incarnate obedience, death, and resurrection.
The Explanation of the Jews' Unbelief
John 12:37–41 presents a theology of unbelief: despite the abundance of miraculous signs performed before their eyes, the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus refused to believe. The sermon examines their question about the Messiah's death in verses 34–36, shows their partial but deficient grasp of Old Testament prophecy, and then expounds John's double appeal to Isaiah — Isaiah 53:1 on the rejection of the servant's report, and Isaiah 6:9–10 on the divine judicial hardening of those who persistently resist. The unbelief of Jesus' hearers was not a failure of his ministry but the precise fulfillment of what God had foretold through his prophet, confirming that regeneration and faith are gifts of sovereign grace, not products of evidential persuasion. The sermon closes with a direct call to believe in the light while it may be found, grounded in the glory of the incarnate Son that Isaiah himself beheld in the throne room.
2LCF Chapter 7 - Of God's Covenant
The doctrine of God's covenant is not merely one column in the architecture of systematic theology — it is the architecture itself, the organizing and unifying principle of the entire Bible. This session works through 2LCF Chapter 7, examining the ground of covenant necessity in the creator-creature distinction, the nature of God's voluntary and revelatory condescension, the occasion and provisions of the covenant of grace, and the progressive revelation of that covenant from the protevangelium to its formal ratification in the New Testament. The distinctively Baptist formulation — using 'revelation' rather than 'administration' — reflects the conviction that the covenant of grace was not formally and properly a covenant until Christ ratified it in his blood, a distinction with direct bearing on the doctrine of baptism and the composition of the church.
Wednesday Night Bible Study - November 8, 2023
Leviticus 20 prescribes specific penal sanctions for covenant violations, and this study surveys those sanctions before turning to the broader biblical teaching on capital punishment. The Noahic Covenant (Genesis 9:6), understood as a universal common grace covenant never abrogated, grounds the death penalty for murder in the imago Dei and assigns its execution to the civil magistrate. Old Covenant Israel adds further distinctions — between accidental homicide and murder, between first-table and second-table offenses — and Numbers 35 establishes that no monetary ransom may substitute for the execution of a murderer. The study closes by noting that blood guilt defiles the land and can only be expiated by the blood of the one who shed it, setting up a subsequent session on the New Testament's treatment of capital punishment.
Holiness in the daily lives of Old Covenant Israel
Leviticus 19:19–37 presents a series of miscellaneous laws governing mixed breeding, pagan practices, sacred prostitution, necromancy, care for the elderly and the stranger, and fair trade — all set within the covenant calling of Israel to be holy as God is holy. These laws are classified under the threefold Reformed distinction of moral, ceremonial, and judicial law, with the ceremonial portions fulfilled and abrogated in Christ while their embedded moral duties remain, traceable to the Ten Commandments. The passage is expounded to show that Israel's separation from surrounding nations was not arbitrary but theologically grounded in God's own act of separating Israel as his covenant people. The enduring application is that the law's pedagogical function — exposing sin and driving the people to the Lamb of God — is as operative for the New Covenant believer as it was for ancient Israel.
Live Stream - October 29, 2023
Hosea 3 presents the redemption of Gomer as a mirror of God's unconditioned love toward his covenant people — a love not conditioned by the worthiness of its object but by who God is in himself. Hosea's purchase of his adulterous wife from bondage at the price of silver and barley points directly to Christ's redemption of his bride from the slavery of sin at the cost of his own life, meeting the covenantal demand that the wages of sin is death. The sermon traces three movements in the chapter: the display of unconditioned love, the call to fidelity during the betrothal period, and the promise of final consummation when Christ returns for his people. Hearers are called to pursue holiness not as legalism but as the fitting response of a bride who has been purchased at infinite cost, and unbelievers are urged to flee now to the only Savior who can free them from the bondage that leads to destruction.
The Gospel According to Hosea: Part 2
Hosea 3 presents the redemption of Gomer by her husband Hosea as a typological mirror of Christ's redemption of His people from the bondage of sin. God's love for His adulterous people is unconditional not because covenantal conditions go unmet, but because He meets those conditions Himself — the wages of sin is death, and Christ pays that price in full. The sermon calls believers to faithful perseverance in the betrothal period between justification and glorification, and urges the unconverted to flee from the bondage of sin to the Savior who offers full and free salvation.
2LCF Chapter 6 - The Fall of Man, Sin, and Punishment Thereof
The fall of man, sin, and the punishment thereof — explored through 2LCF Chapter 6 — answers the fundamental question of why the Lord Jesus Christ came in His first advent. This study traces the confession's argument from the fall as God's wise and holy counsel in paragraph 1, through the representative sin of Adam and its covenantal consequences in paragraphs 2–3, to the doctrine of original sin, total depravity, and total inability in paragraph 4, and finally to the remaining corruption that persists in the regenerate throughout this life in paragraph 5. The doctrine of imputation — both of Adam's guilt to his posterity and of Christ's righteousness to His people — is shown to be the theological nerve running through the whole chapter. The study closes with the pastoral application that an honest reckoning with one's own remaining corruption ought to produce charity and grace toward fellow believers rather than a Pharisaical demand for perfection in others.
The Gospel According to Hosea: Part 1
Hosea 2:14–23 presents the gospel in the form of an ancient Near Eastern marriage sequence — courtship, betrothal, and consummation — in which Yahweh pursues His unfaithful bride with an offer of abundant and eternal life. The passage is read as a mirror, not a window: the same spiritual harlotry that defined Israel before God defines every human being who has followed Adam into exile from God's presence. Justification is the legal transaction by which the sinner entrusts herself to God as husband, not master — received by faith alone, sealed by Christ's atoning work as the bride price of righteousness and mercy. The sermon closes with an urgent call to the unbeliever to accept the offer of eternal life, and with an exhortation to the believer to press on in anticipation of the consummation still to come.
Wednesday Bible Study - Oct 18, 2023
Leviticus 19 opens the Holiness Code's application to individual, family, and social conduct, demanding that God's covenant people be holy as he is holy. Working through verses 1–18, this study traces four overlapping imperatives: the pursuit of holiness as separation unto God, reverence for parents as the foundational social structure, sabbatarianism as a trans-covenantal moral obligation grounded in creation and redemption, and the prohibition of idolatry as covenant fidelity. The New Covenant application is drawn throughout — holiness, the fifth commandment, the Lord's Day, and the rejection of false worship all bind the blood-bought, Spirit-filled church with the same authority they carried in Israel, though the ceremonial forms have been fulfilled and set aside in Christ.
Live Stream - October 15, 2023
Ephesians 5:15–17 calls believers to walk circumspectly — not as fools but as wise — by redeeming the time in days that are evil. The sermon distinguishes biblical wisdom from mere intellectual knowledge, defining it as the skillful application of God's word to the whole of life. The twin remedy against folly is the regular study of Scripture (with particular attention to the Book of Proverbs as a manual of wisdom) and persistent, faith-filled prayer for wisdom as commended in James 1. The new man in Christ is not left to himself but is given the pattern and the means to navigate a present evil age in a manner consistent with his calling.
Sunday School Confession Study - Oct 15, 2023
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 5, 'Of Divine Providence,' paragraphs 2–7 sets the agenda for this study. After reviewing paragraph 1's foundational statement that God upholds, directs, and governs all creatures by his most wise and holy Providence, the study works through the confession's treatment of second causes, the ordinary use of means, the relation of Providence to sin (both in its general scope and in the specific cases of believers and unbelievers), and the special providential care God exercises over his church. The central concern throughout is theodicy properly grounded: that God's absolute sovereignty over first and second causes does not make him the author or approver of sin, while also refusing the weak refuge of 'bare permission.' The study closes with the encouragement that whatever befalls the elect is by God's appointment for his glory and their good, and that Providence's ultimate telos is the perfecting of the church as the bride of the Lamb.
The Explanation of the Hour
John 12:27–36 presents Christ at the threshold of the cross, his soul genuinely troubled yet wholly resolved to do the Father's will. This sermon expounds the theological weight of that moment: the true humanity of the Son of God, the Old Testament prophecy that framed his mission, and the glory of the Father as the animating purpose behind Calvary. The cross is not an accident or a tragedy — it is the hour for which the eternal Son entered time, bearing the cup of divine wrath as the only sufficient substitute for sinners who cannot redeem themselves. Unbelievers are pressed with urgency: while the light remains, believe on Christ and become sons of light.
Laws concerning sexual relations
Leviticus 18 regulates sexual morality within the structure of a covenant document, moving from preamble to prohibition to sanction. The chapter forbids incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality — not as arbitrary decrees but as God's just response to the documented wickedness of Egypt and Canaan, with the land itself serving as the instrument of covenantal judgment. Paul's invocations of Leviticus 18:5 in Romans 10 and Galatians 3 reveal that the chapter's 'do this and live' principle exposes the impossibility of law-keeping as a ground of justification, driving the reader to salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. The abominations condemned here are not confined to the Mosaic code but are binding legislation upon all people at all times, as their reappearance in the New Testament epistles confirms.
2LCF Chapter 5 - God's Providence
God's providence, as defined in 2LCF Chapter 5, is not blind fate or impersonal chance but the active upholding, directing, disposing, and governing of all creatures and things by the good Creator, according to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will. The chapter roots providence in the eternal decree of Chapter 3 and traces its scope across four domains: the whole system in general, fortuitous events, the free actions of men, and even the sinful actions of men — the last illustrated supremely by the crucifixion of Christ in Acts 2:23, where God's absolute sovereignty and man's full culpability are held together without cancelling either. The session works through paragraph 1 of the chapter in detail, drawing on Psalm 73, Isaiah 46, Daniel 4, Acts 17, Proverbs 16 and 21, Ephesians 1 and 2, Philippians 2, and Genesis 50 to show that Scripture, not merely the confession, grounds these claims. Believers are exhorted to interpret every circumstance — including political wickedness and social evil — through the axiomatic principle that God is good, while continuing to pray, preach the gospel, and live according to God's revealed will rather than retreating into fatalism.
A Psalm of Thanksgiving
Psalm 103 calls God's people to bless the Lord with the whole soul and to forget none of His benefits — a command that presupposes the constant human tendency toward spiritual amnesia and ingratitude. The sermon works through David's threefold structure: a reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons to bless God (vv. 3–18), and a reflection on God's universal kingdom (vv. 19–22). The reasons are organized around the gifts God gives (spiritual and physical), the recipients of those gifts (the oppressed and covenant people), and the character of the giver Himself — merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Thanksgiving is not a seasonal sentiment but the daily reflex of those who know their guilt before a holy God and have received forgiveness through the blood of Christ.
Wednesday PM - Sept 27, 2023
Leviticus 17 governs the sacrificial use of blood among the covenant people of Israel, and this exposition traces three interlocking regulations: the prohibition against slaughtering sacrificial animals outside the Tabernacle, the prohibition against ingesting blood, and the rules for handling game animals. The central rationale is penal substitution — the blood of the animal represents life given in the place of the worshiper's life, prefiguring the atoning work of Christ. The Holiness Code of Leviticus 17–26 functions as the ethical imperative that follows the indicative of sacrificial forgiveness, a pattern that anticipates the New Covenant movement from justification into sanctification.
The Cessation of Revelatory Gifts
First Corinthians 13:8–13 declares that tongues, prophecy, and words of knowledge have a designed and determined end, giving way to the completed New Testament canon. This sermon argues from Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 13–14, Hebrews 1–2, Ephesians 2, and Daniel 9 that the revelatory gifts were temporary, apostolic, and tied to the first advent of Christ and the foundational era of the church. The 'perfect' of 1 Corinthians 13:10 refers not to the eschatological consummation but to the inscripturated fullness of divine revelation in the New Testament scriptures. Christians today are called to glory in the completed Word of God and in the abiding work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and illumination, rather than seeking gifts that have ceased.
Wednesday Night Bible Study - Leviticus 1-16
Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement, stands at the theological center of both the book and the Pentateuch, answering the question Exodus leaves unresolved: how may sinful man enter the presence of a holy God. This session reviews the whole of Leviticus 1–16, tracing the book's structure from the sacrificial system and the institution of the priesthood through the laws of cleanness, showing that every element of the ceremonial apparatus — offering, priest, atonement — was divinely instituted, not humanly devised. The Nadab and Abihu incident demonstrates that unauthorized worship is mortal transgression, while the two-goat ritual of chapter 16 pictures both propitiation and expiation, all pointing forward to the once-for-all sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Glorious Exchange
Zechariah 3 presents a courtroom scene in which the high priest Joshua stands before the angel of the Lord clothed in filth while Satan waits to bring his accusation — and God silences the devil not by appealing to Israel's performance but by sovereignly removing the filthy garments and clothing Joshua in rich robes. This fourth night vision of Zechariah illustrates what Luther called the glorious exchange: the sinner's guilt imputed to Christ and Christ's righteousness imputed to the believer, received by faith alone. The sermon traces this double imputation through Romans 5, 1 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 5, Galatians 2, and Philippians 3, and refutes the New Perspective on Paul's rejection of forensic imputation. The exhortation is plain: when the adversary accuses, the Christian's only answer is not performance but the gospel of sovereign grace in Christ the Branch.
The Triumph of the Church
Matthew 16:13–18 presents three interlocking realities about Christ and his church: the identity of Christ confessed by Simon Peter, the divine source of that confession, and the indestructible promise Christ appends to his church. The rock upon which the church is built is not Peter's person but the Christ Peter confessed — the second person of the triune God who assumed humanity, died, and rose for his people. Christ himself is the builder, foundation, and protector of the church, which means the gates of Hades assault the church not as a conquering force but as a defensive one being overrun by the church's gospel advance. The practical summons is for the church to fulfil her three marks — the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of discipline — with the confidence that Christ's triumphant headship guarantees the church's survival into the eschaton.
Live Stream - September 10, 2023
First Corinthians 15 grounds the certainty of the resurrection in the testimony of the Old Testament scriptures, the evidence of eyewitnesses, and the grace of God attending gospel proclamation. The great hope of the gospel is established by Paul's chain of logical argumentation: if Christ is risen, then preaching is full, faith is complete, sin does not reign, and believers who have died have not perished. The sermon closes with the adamic theology of the gospel — the contrast between the first Adam, in whom all die, and the last Adam, Christ, in whom all shall be made alive — calling hearers to praise God for so great a salvation.
Live Stream - September 10, 2023
What is the gospel, and why does it hold primacy of place in Christian proclamation? Expounding 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, this sermon argues that the gospel — the death, burial, and resurrection of the incarnate Son of God — is the indispensable ground of salvation and the lifeblood of the Christian faith. The person of Christ is examined as very God and very man, his obedience at Calvary as substitutionary curse-bearing, his burial as the reversal of the Adamic curse, and his resurrection as the vindication of completed atonement and the declaration of the justification of all who believe. Sinners are called to believe on Christ alone, and saints are exhorted to regard the gospel not as routine doctrine but as the very air they breathe.
2LCF Chapter 4 - Of Creation
Creation is not a brute fact but a deliberate act of the undivided Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — for the manifestation of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness. This study of 2LCF Chapter 4 traces what creation is (all things not God, made ex nihilo and from previously created matter), who created (the triune God whose immutability and eternality mean creation produced no change in Him), and what man is within creation (a being made male and female, bearing reasonable and immortal souls, the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness). The chapter culminates in the covenant of works: man was not created in covenant but was brought into covenant by God's voluntary condescension, establishing the pre-fall communion whose loss in Adam and recovery in the second Adam frames the entire remainder of the confession.
Live Stream - August 20, 2023
Numbers 21:4-9 records Israel's sin of complaining against God and Moses in the wilderness, God's judgment of fiery serpents, and the divinely appointed remedy of a bronze serpent lifted on a pole. This sermon argues that complaining against God and his appointed authorities is a serious transgression that violates both the first and tenth commandments, and that God in sovereign mercy provides healing through ordained means that require faith to embrace. The exposition is the first part of a two-part message; gospel application connecting Numbers 21 to John 3:14-16 is reserved for the evening service.