Topic
Means of Grace
9 sermons · All topics
The Danger of Neglecting the Means of Grace
Hebrews 2:1–4 issues the first formal exhortation of the letter: pay much closer attention to what you have heard, lest you drift away from so great a salvation. The sermon traces the logic from Hebrews 1 — the Son of God is the final and supreme Word of God, surpassing angels, prophets, and every prior mediator — to the terribleness of neglecting that Word. Three causes of drift are identified: over-familiarity with the gospel, allowing lesser things to displace the greater, and the hardening of the heart through closed ears. The remedy is the faithful use of the means of grace — the gathered assembly, preaching, baptism, and the Lord's Supper — through which Christ continues to speak to his people.
Ask FGBC #37: Why join a church?
Church membership is not optional for the Christian: Scripture commands gathering together, pastoral ministry presupposes a definable flock, and the means of grace — preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, mutual accountability, and church discipline — are administered within the bounds of a local, covenanted congregation. The question of why one should formally join a church is answered first by the authority of God's command, and then by the necessarily local character of the duties owed between members and their pastors. Those who have been hurt by church abuse are exhorted not to abandon the institution but to find a congregation where they can commit themselves as members.
The Blessings of the Ascended Christ
The ascended and glorified Christ actively dispenses blessings to his church from the right hand of the Father. Expounding Acts 2:22–47, this sermon traces three categories of those benefactions: his proclamational gifts (the gift of preachers, the preaching of the Word, and the Spirit's empowering of that preaching), his salvific gifts (effectual calling and the forgiveness of sins), and his ecclesiastical gifts (the creed of the church, the building and unity of the church, the gathering around apostolic doctrine, and the new covenant ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper). Believers are exhorted to pray for Spirit-empowered preaching, to attend diligently upon all the appointed means of grace, and to find their unity in the objective content of Christian confession rather than in secondary things.
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).
Of The Perseverance of the Saints
The perseverance of the saints is not grounded in the will or strength of the redeemed but in the immutable decree of election, the finished work and ongoing intercession of Jesus Christ, the oath of God, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, and the inviolable nature of the covenant of grace. Working through chapter 17 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession, this study traces the "golden chain of redemption" from predestination through glorification, demonstrating that every link is secured by the triune God rather than by human willing. The session also addresses the reality of backsliding — its causes in the world, the flesh, and the devil — while insisting that the means of grace (prayer, the Word, the ordinances, and the fellowship of the saints) are the appointed instruments by which God preserves His people. Christians are called to heed apostolic exhortations to diligence precisely because perseverance is God's work, not a license for antinomian presumption.
Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 3 (2LCF 22.1-8)
What does God require of his people in corporate worship, and by what means does he strengthen them in faith? Working through 2LCF Chapter 22, Paragraph 5, this session examines five constituent elements of religious worship: the Word of God (read, preached, and heard), songs to God, the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the worshipper's disposition, and occasional worship. The regulative principle governs the whole: only what God has prescribed in Scripture may be brought into worship, and every element is to be engaged with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear. The practical burden is that corporate Lord's Day worship is not liturgical formality but God's ordained means of grace by which the Spirit strengthens and grows the faith of his people.
The Importance of the Lord's Supper
The Lord's Supper is a divine commandment, not a recommendation, instituted by Christ on the night of his betrayal and binding on his church until he comes again. This exposition of 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 moves through four aspects of the ordinance's importance: its nature as a positive and sovereign institution, its character as a commanded act of remembrance, its object as Christ himself in his person, life, and atoning death, and its quality as a means of grace through which the risen Christ spiritually nourishes his people by his Spirit. The sermon calls believers to joyful, cheerful compliance with the Lord's table — to come, take, eat, and be fed by the exalted Savior who blots out the sins of all who trust in him.
The Necessity for Biblical Preaching
God has appointed the preaching of the Word as His ordinary instrument for calling sinners to faith and nourishing the saints — a reality the apostles grounded in the nature of the gospel itself and the logic of Romans 10. This sermon works through three passages (Romans 10:14–17, 1 Corinthians 1:18–23, and 2 Timothy 4:1–8) to establish that preaching pleases God, confounds the natural man, and remains the irreplaceable mandate of the church regardless of cultural pressure. Drawing on confessional witnesses from the Didache and Westminster Larger Catechism to the Second Helvetic Confession, the sermon calls both preachers and hearers to recover a holy expectation of what God does through the faithful exposition of Scripture.
The Place of Preaching in the Church
What is the place of preaching in God's design for the salvation and maturation of his people? Drawing on 1 Corinthians 1:21–23 and a broad sweep of biblical and confessional texts, this sermon argues that preaching is not merely one spiritual activity among many but the divinely ordained, Spirit-attended means by which God calls the elect and strengthens the faith of believers. The Word of God — and specifically its proclamation — is traced from Romans 1 and Psalm 19 through 2 Timothy 4, showing that faith comes by hearing, and that God is pleased with preaching even when men resist it. Hearers are urged to prize attendance upon the preached Word, to pray for biblically qualified preachers, and — if unconverted — to believe the gospel now proclaimed to them.