Topic
Ecclesiology
1,163 sermons · All topics
2LCF 26 - Of the Church, Part I
What is the church, and who governs it? This confession study works through 2LCF Chapter 26, paragraphs 1–4, examining the universal (catholic) church: its election-grounded identity, its visible and invisible dimensions, the perpetuity of Christ's kingdom despite the inevitable mixture and error found in even the purest churches, and the exclusive headship of the Lord Jesus Christ over his body. The session challenges both Landmark Baptist denials of a universal church and Roman Catholic claims to papal headship, grounding ecclesiology in the confession of Christ as Son of the living God as articulated in Matthew 16.
The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 8:26–40 records the conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch whose exclusion from the assembly of God under the Mosaic order (Deuteronomy 23) is overturned by the new-covenant fulfillment of Isaiah 56, as God sovereignly directs Philip to him on the Gaza road. The sermon traces three movements: the divine initiative behind the contact, the Christ-centered content of the communication from Isaiah 53, and the confession and baptism that mark the conversion itself. Throughout, the preacher insists that the eunuch's deepest problem was not his ethnicity or his condition but his sin, and that the only remedy—then as now—is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose righteousness is received by grace through faith alone and sealed in believers' baptism by immersion.
2LCF24 - Of Civil Magistrate, part II
The institution of monarchy in Israel, recorded in 1 Samuel 8, exposes the perennial danger of substituting a new form of government for trust in God—a sin Israel had already committed in 1 Samuel 4 and against which God had vindicated himself in chapter 7. The passage illustrates that total depravity applies not only to individuals but to corporate institutions, and that governments possessing legitimate divine sanction can nonetheless exploit those they govern. The sermon concludes with a survey of four historic approaches to the church-state relationship—Erastianism, Roman Catholic theocracy, theonomy, and the two-kingdoms framework—arguing that the two-kingdoms distinction, wherein Christ rules the church by his Word and the civil order by natural law, provides the most scripturally defensible framework for Christian citizenship.
Live Stream - January 08, 2023
Colossians 2:11–15 teaches that believers are spiritually circumcised and made alive in Christ, finding their complete identity in union with him rather than in law-keeping, philosophy, or any other system. The circumcision made without hands — a heart-circumcision accomplished by Christ's death and resurrection — strips away the old man and brings the new man to life through faith in God who raised Christ from the dead. Christ's cross work simultaneously cancels the record of debt owed to God, removes the dominion of sin, and publicly triumphs over principalities and powers. Because the already-not-yet tension of inaugurated eschatology means remaining sin persists, believers are called to live as those who have died, been buried, and been raised with Christ — clinging to their identity in him rather than despairing under the weight of ongoing struggle.
Live Stream - January 01, 2023
Luke 19:1–10 presents Zacchaeus as a living demonstration of Christ's sovereign power to save even the most unlikely and despised sinners. The passage is set against the backdrop of Luke 18's declaration that what is impossible with men is possible with God — Zacchaeus, a wealthy chief tax collector, is that impossibility made reality, a camel through the eye of a needle. The sermon expounds two movements: the object of mercy (who Zacchaeus was) and the mission of Christ (why he came), culminating in the definitive statement of verse 10 that the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. The service concludes with the Lord's Supper, which rehearses the same gospel: lost sinners found, dead sinners made alive, by grace alone through the atoning death of Christ.
The Practice of the Early Church
Acts 2:41–47 describes the irreducible practices of the early church — the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer — and this sermon argues that those practices are not merely historical description but prescription for the church in every age. The gospel that created the church (sovereign grace working through proclamation to bring dead sinners to faith and repentance) also defines what the church does when it gathers. The sermon presses both the unconverted (to seek the Lord Jesus Christ in whom alone there is forgiveness and an imputed righteousness) and the congregation (to continue steadfastly in the ordained means of grace rather than chasing experience, ecstasy, or entertainment).
2LCF24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
Civil government is divinely ordained, not diabolical — a claim the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) sets out in chapter 24 and grounds in Romans 13:1–7 and the Noahic covenant. This study works through the confession's three paragraphs to establish the divine origin of the magistrate's authority, the lawfulness of Christian participation in civil office, and the Christian's duty of submission and prayer toward governing authorities. Against both Anabaptist withdrawal and statist overreach, the confession teaches that the magistrate is under God and over the people for God's glory and the public good — charged with maintaining justice and peace, wielding the sword against criminals and foreign aggressors, and accountable to God and the governed alike. Christians must yield subjection in all lawful things, yet obey God rather than men when civil law transgresses divine law.
The Camel and the Needle
Luke 19:1–10 presents Zacchaeus — chief tax collector, rich man, notorious sinner — as a living demonstration of what Jesus declared in Luke 18:27: 'the things which are impossible with men are possible with God.' The sermon works through two movements: first, the person of Zacchaeus as the object of sovereign mercy, and second, the mission of Christ who seeks and saves the lost by divine initiative, not human worthiness. The effectual call of the Son of God upon Zacchaeus — who climbed the tree in curiosity but descended in love — illustrates that God's saving grace makes its object worthy rather than waiting to find one worthy.
Live Stream - December 25, 2022
Revelation 12 presents what the speaker calls a 'behind the scenes' account of the cosmic significance of Christ's incarnation, defeat of Satan, and the consequent persecution of the church. The chapter is structured around three movements: the incarnation of the male child (vv. 1–6), the defeat of the dragon in heaven (vv. 7–12), and the dragon's redirected rage against the woman and her offspring (vv. 13–17). The decisive victory over Satan was accomplished not at the second coming but at the first advent — through Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension — and believers overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Far from promising earthly comfort, the passage calls the church militant to faithful perseverance, holding fast to the truth of God's word in a world that hates Christ and his people.
The Triumph of the Lamb
Revelation 12 presents a cosmic drama in three acts — the incarnation of the Son, the defeat of the dragon in heaven, and the persecution of the woman — that together constitute a behind-the-scenes theological account of what Christ accomplished at His first advent. The serpent of old, identified as the devil and Satan of Genesis 3:15, suffers four successive and total failures: he cannot stop the birth of the male child, he is cast from heaven, he cannot destroy the woman in the wilderness, and his rage against the rest of her offspring only confirms that the decisive battle has already been lost. Christ's ascension to God's throne, not His second coming, marks the moment Satan is ejected from heaven and universal kingship is secured. The church, still militant on earth, overcomes not by health, wealth, or worldly ease but by the blood of the Lamb and the word of its testimony, persevering under persecution as the sign of Satan's defeat rather than his victory.
2LCF 25 - Of Marriage
The confession's chapter on marriage (2LCF 25) rests on the foundation of Genesis 2 and Matthew 19, defining marriage as an exclusive covenant between one man and one woman, ordained by God before the fall and therefore neither a social construct nor a second-rate reality beneath celibacy. The chapter serves four structural functions: establishing the monogamous design of marriage, grounding its divine origin and pre-fall holiness, articulating its threefold providential purpose (companionship, procreation toward the inhabitation of creation, and a hedge against sexual immorality), and setting its regulative bounds with respect to both consanguinity and the Christian obligation to marry in the Lord. The placement of this chapter immediately before the chapter on the church (2LCF 26) is deliberate: God's use of marriage to populate the earth is the providential means by which He gathers the elect from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation unto Christ.
The Ratification of the Covenant, Part II
Exodus 24:9–18 concludes the ratification of the Mosaic covenant and introduces Moses' solitary ascent to receive the Decalogue inscribed by God. The passage raises the theological question of how sinful, finite creatures can see the invisible God — answered through the category of theophany, a creaturely manifestation of divine glory that does not expose God's essential being. The covenant meal of verse 11 seals the bond between God and Israel, while Moses' charge to Aaron and Hur underscores the necessity of law and legal structure given the persistent sinfulness of man. The passage closes the 'demand' section of Exodus and opens toward the 'dwelling' section, whose pinnacle is God's desire to tabernacle in the midst of his people.
The Promise of God's Son
The Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 stands at the center of redemptive history, advancing the promise of the seed from Genesis 3:15 through Abraham to David and ultimately to the Lord Jesus Christ. The word 'house' in the passage carries triple meaning — David's palace, the dynasty God promises to establish, and the temple God will build through David's line — and each meaning finds its terminus in Christ, who reigns on David's throne forever and builds a spiritual temple from living stones. God's covenantal fidelity is the sole reason the Davidic dynasty survived the persistent sin of its kings, and that same fidelity secures the church today as citizens of Christ's everlasting kingdom. The sermon calls believers to come to the public worship of God on the Lord's Day with the joyful expectation of those who know they live in the age of fulfillment.
The Ratification of the Covenant, Part I
Exodus 24:1–8 records the formal ratification of the old covenant at Sinai, and this expository study examines three elements the text presents: God's instructions structuring nearness and distance on the mountain, Moses' compliance in writing the covenant words and erecting the altar and twelve pillars, and the blood-sprinkling ceremony that sealed the covenant between Yahweh and Israel. The sermon argues that the old covenant, far from being a mere administration of the covenant of grace, is a republication of the covenant of works — a position the 1689 LBCF reflects in distinction from the Westminster Confession. The blood of the ratification ceremony finds its antitype in the blood of Christ, whose once-for-all sacrifice inaugurates the new covenant in which believers stand accepted not by their own obedience but by that of their covenant head.
The Astonishment of the Apostle
Paul's opening salvo in Galatians 1:6–9 registers apostolic astonishment at the speed with which the Galatian churches were deserting the gospel of free grace for a Judaizing supplement of circumcision and Mosaic law-keeping. The sermon expounds why any addition to the finished work of Christ — however small — is not a variation of the gospel but its outright denial, because a man must choose either perfect law-keeping or the wholly sufficient righteousness of Christ received by faith alone. The anathema Paul pronounces in verses 8–9, drawn out through the Hebrew concept of ḥērem and its New Testament cognate anathema, exposes the perverter of the gospel not merely to church discipline but to the judicial wrath of God. The sermon closes with an urgent call to doctrinal vigilance: to resist indifference, imprecision, compromise, and novelty, and to hold fast to justification by faith alone as the very heart of the Christian religion.
The Preservation of Love and Unity
Ephesians 4:1–3 opens Paul's extended practical section (chapters 4–6) with a call to walk worthy of the effectual calling by which God has saved His people. This sermon expounds the three virtues—lowliness, gentleness, and long-suffering—that must characterize the redeemed, and the two corresponding conducts—bearing with one another in love and zealously keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace—that follow from those virtues. The theological order is insisted upon throughout: justification precedes sanctification, the indicative grounds the imperative, and none of these commands are the basis of salvation but the fruit of it. The practical burden is that disunity, bitterness, and the failure to pursue reconciliation according to Matthew 18 or to let love cover offenses according to 1 Peter 4 grieves the Holy Spirit and undermines the church's witness as the end-time temple of God.
The Children of the Devil, Part 2
John 8:42–47 presents one of the most confrontational moments in Christ's public ministry: his declaration that the religious leaders who claimed God as their Father were in fact children of the devil. This sermon works through three elements of that indictment — the rejection of their claim to divine sonship (v. 42), the affirmation of their total inability to receive Christ's word (v. 43), and the opening of his identification of their true father (v. 44). The doctrine of eternal generation grounds the argument: because the Son is consubstantial with the Father, rejection of the Son is conclusive proof that God is not their father. The sermon extends the application to warn the church against those who, like these leaders, do the desires of the devil — whether as false teachers within or persecuting powers without — and calls believers to the one antidote: love for Christ as the fruit of regeneration and sovereign grace.
The Sabbaths and Annual Feasts
Exodus 23:10–19 legislates two kinds of Sabbath and three annual feasts within the Book of the Covenant, each designed to order Israel's life around the worship of Yahweh alone. The seven-year land Sabbath provided for the poor and beasts through a system of crop rotation, while the seventh-day Sabbath — whose moral principle is perpetual and now observed on the first day of the week in the new covenant — extended its restorative benefit to every member of the community, including servants and resident aliens. The three annual feasts (Unleavened Bread, Harvest/Weeks, Ingathering) were not merely ceremonial obligations but instruments for rehearsing redemptive history, promoting communal joy and reciprocity, and guarding the covenant people from idolatry. As judicial and ceremonial laws, these specific institutions have expired with Old Covenant Israel, yet their general equity and the moral principle of Sabbath rest continue to bind the new covenant community.
2LCF 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
Second London Confession of Faith chapter 23 treats the doctrine of lawful oaths and vows, distinguishing Reformed Baptist practice from the Anabaptist rejection of oath-taking and from Roman Catholic monastical vows. The sermon argues that swearing by God's name is itself an act of religious worship — acknowledging his omniscience, omnipresence, and vindictive justice — and that Scripture warrants oaths in matters of weight and moment while condemning their careless everyday use. Matthew 5:33–37 is shown to address the abuse of casual, trivial oath-making rather than solemn oaths before lawful authority, as confirmed by Christ's own oath before the Sanhedrin, God's oath to Abraham, and Paul's repeated appeals to God as witness. The sermon closes by exposing popish monastical vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience as superstitious devices of men that contradict Scripture's positive assessment of marriage, honest labor, and just remuneration.
November 19, 2022 - Wedding Stream
A wedding homily grounding the institution of marriage in the creation account of Genesis 2 and the redemptive promise of Genesis 3:15. The sermon traces God's good gift of companionship in creation, the disruption of the fall, and the protoevangelium as the first announcement of the gospel — that Christ, born of a woman, would crush the serpent's head through substitutionary suffering and resurrection. The couple is charged to embody in their Christian marriage the relationship between Christ and his church as depicted in Ephesians 5, and all hearers are called to trust in Christ's righteousness received by faith alone.
The Prayer and Praise of the Apostle, Part 2
Ephesians 3:19b–21 concludes the apostle Paul's prayer with a petition for the church to be filled with all the fullness of God, followed by a doxology that extols divine omnipotence and the church's perpetual role in displaying God's glory. The third petition — 'that you may be filled with all the fullness of God' — encompasses both the practical benefits God confers on his people (justification, sanctification, glorification) and the typological reality of God's presence filling the tabernacle, the temple, and the visionary temple of Ezekiel, now fulfilled in the corporate gathering of the church. The doxology of verses 20–21 answers the petitions by celebrating the God who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, and declares that the church — in its ordinary, faithful, weekly assembly — is the primary instrument through which God's glory is demonstrated in redemptive history and into eternity.
The Freedom in Receiving the Son, Part 2
John 8:33–36 sets two irreconcilable conditions before every person: slavery to sin or freedom in the Son. Working through Jesus' response to the objecting Jews — His declaration of spiritual slavery in verse 34, His illustration from the household in verse 35, and His promise of true liberty in verse 36 — this sermon argues that sin's bondage is total, that the sinner is constitutionally blind to his own condition, and that freedom comes exclusively through the only-begotten Son who abides in the Father's house forever. The law of God must be pressed upon the conscience so that sinners know their malady before they can receive the remedy: the Son who makes men free indeed.
The Prayer and Praise of the Apostle
Ephesians 3:14–21 presents the apostle Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church and a concluding doxology, and this exposition works through the prayer's occasion, posture, and first two petitions. Paul prays from his knees before 'the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' drawing on the boundless storehouse of divine glory, for two things treated in this sermon: that believers would be strengthened with might through the Spirit in the inner man so that Christ dwells in their hearts by faith, and that they would comprehend the boundless love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. The sermon grounds both petitions in Trinitarian structure — strength flowing from the Father through the Spirit issues in the presence of the Son — and in the confession that God is 'most loving,' whose love neither increases nor diminishes. Hearers are urged to imitate the apostle by praying not only for temporal needs but for the spiritual strength and knowledge of Christ's love that alone sustains perseverance in a world hostile to the gospel.
The Miscellaneous Laws Concerning Society, Part 2
Exodus 22:21–31 sets out miscellaneous civil laws for Old Covenant Israel that bear directly on how God evaluates any society's treatment of its most vulnerable members. The sermon works through two major divisions: the laws prohibiting the abuse of aliens, widows, orphans, and the poor (vv. 21–27), and the laws preserving the honor of Yahweh through respect for authority and consecrated service (vv. 28–31). God's threatened covenant sanctions — enemy invasion, exile, and the widowing of the oppressor's own family — reveal that abuse of the powerless is not a private moral failing but a covenantal crime that invites divine judgment upon an entire nation. Hearers are called to embody "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:27) by actively rendering aid to the alien, the widow, the orphan, and the poor, while maintaining reverence for lawfully exercised authority in the family, civil, and ecclesiastical spheres.
The Martyrdom of Stephen
The martyrdom of Stephen in Acts 7:54–60 displays the triune God sustaining, comforting, and ultimately receiving His servant in the moment of violent death. The sermon works through three movements: the blessedness of Stephen as he receives a vision of the glorified Christ standing at the right hand of the Father; the murderous rage of the Sanhedrin who stone him outside the city in lawless contempt of Roman authority; and Stephen's dying words — echoing the Savior's own cross-utterances — as he commends his spirit to Christ and intercedes for his killers. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus is set before the congregation as the answer to that dying prayer, a monument to sovereign grace, and the entire passage is pressed home with the comfort of Heidelberg Catechism Question 1: Christ alone is the believer's comfort in life and in death.
The Command to Remember the Prisoners
Hebrews 13:3 commands believers to 'remember the prisoners as if chained with them' — not as a vague awareness, but as an active, continual concern that issues in prayer, correspondence, advocacy, and tangible aid. The sermon traces the biblical pattern of righteous suffering from Joseph and Jeremiah through the apostolic era, demonstrating that enmity against the people of God is not an anomaly but an expectation rooted in Genesis 3:15. The command is grounded in the solidarity of the one body: those who enjoy liberty share membership with those who suffer chains, and to forget the persecuted church is a failure of brotherly love. Believers are called to cultivate a global, intercessory prayer-life that refuses to confine concern to the local congregation, and to find in Christ's worth the courage to rejoice if they themselves are called to suffer.
2LCF 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
The 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 22 grounds all religious worship in the regulative principle: God alone determines the acceptable manner of his own worship, and nothing not warranted by Scripture may be introduced. This session surveys the chapter's four movements — the regulative principle (paragraphs 1–2), the specific elements of worship (paragraphs 3–5), the appropriate location for worship (paragraph 6), and the Christian Sabbath as the appointed day (paragraphs 7–8). General revelation establishes the duty to worship; special revelation alone prescribes the way. The practical application is that Christians are bound neither to ecclesiastical tyranny (Rome, Anglicanism, independent pastoralism) nor to the inventions of men in God's house, but only to what God has commanded in his Word.
The Mystery and God's Eternal Purpose
Ephesians 3:8–13 presents Paul's apostolic ministry and God's eternal purpose as two inseparable realities: Paul's grace-given charge to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles flows directly from God's comprehensive plan to display His manifold wisdom through the church. The mystery once hidden in ages past — that Jew and Gentile stand as one new man in Christ — is now made known not only to humanity but to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, as the church serves as a living trophy case of divine wisdom. God's eternal purpose, accomplished in Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection, secures for believers boldness and access with confidence to the Father. The sermon calls saints to resist despondency, to use the access purchased by Christ's blood, and to find stability in the sovereign God who governs creation, providence, and redemption.
The Freedom in Receiving the Son
John 8:30–36 sets before the reader a sharp contrast between the blessedness of spiritual liberty and the wretchedness of spiritual slavery. This sermon expounds the theological order of salvation — justification by grace alone through faith alone precedes and produces the disciple's abiding in Christ's word, not the reverse — and then traces what that freedom means: deliverance from the curse of the law, the condemnation of sin, the wrath of God, and the tyranny of the devil. The church's calling to be the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) demands that she identify, propagate, contend for, and protect that truth in every generation.
The Laws Concerning Property, Part III
Exodus 22:5–15 sets out case laws governing negligence, stolen property, and borrowed goods within the Mosaic Book of the Covenant. The passage is examined under the principle of general equity — the 1689 LBCF's standard for applying Israel's judicial law beyond its original theocratic context — showing that negligence carries a cost, and that responsible stewardship of property is a moral obligation in any body politic. The study moves through three subsections: the wandering grazing animal (v. 5), the uncontrolled fire (v. 6), and the cluster of laws governing entrusted and borrowed property (vv. 7–15), with sustained attention to the role of judges as God's vicegerents and the principle that the punishment must fit the provable offense.