Topic
Sacraments
68 sermons · All topics
Do this in Remembrance of Me
The command of Christ to 'do this in remembrance of me' (1 Corinthians 11:24–25) grounds the Lord's Supper as an act of joyful obedience, not arbitrary religious imposition. Working through Paul's corrective to the Corinthians, the sermon examines three dimensions of the ordinance: its divine authority as a positive institution of Christ, its character as a memorial of the once-for-all sacrifice at Calvary in direct contradiction to the Roman Catholic Mass, and its Christ-centeredness as an extrospective gaze upon the perfections of the Redeemer rather than an introspective audit of the self. Christians are called to cultivate the habit of historical retrospect — remembering the full scope of Christ's messianic work — and warned that forgetfulness of the Savior is a perennial danger that the Lord's Supper is designed by God to remedy.
The Trinity and the Death of Christ
The death of Christ on the cross is not the work of the Son alone but of the entire Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — each acting distinctly yet inseparably in the one work of redemption. Drawing from 1 Peter 1:2 as a launching text, the sermon traces each person's role: the Father in purpose, promise, and punishment; the Son in penal obedience, perfection, and protection; the Spirit in publication, persuasion, and purification. The definite, efficacious nature of Christ's atonement is insisted upon throughout — Christ did not die to make salvation possible but to actually and perfectly save his elect. Observed in the context of the Lord's Supper, the sermon calls believers to reflect on the Triune God as the sole and sufficient author of salvation from beginning to end.
The Pattern, Mandate, and Context of Baptism
Believers' baptism by immersion rests not on ecclesiastical tradition but on a conspicuous New Testament pattern, an explicit dominical mandate, and the covenantal logic of Jeremiah 31 as expounded in Hebrews 8. Working through the baptism narratives of Acts, the Great Commission of Matthew 28, and the new covenant promises of Hebrews 8, this sermon argues that the proper subjects of baptism are those who have repented and believed — the new covenant community defined by internalized law, experiential knowledge of God, and the forgiveness of sins. The case for credo-baptism is grounded not in a rejection of covenant theology but in a distinctively Reformed Baptist appropriation of it: the new covenant differs from the old precisely in that all its members know the Lord. Baptism is commended not as optional piety but as a commanded ordinance of positive institution carrying ongoing significance as a means of grace.
The Blessing of Christian Baptism
Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament instituted by Jesus Christ, and this sermon examines what it means, who its proper subjects are, and why it is necessary. Working from Matthew 28:18-20 and the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 29, the sermon argues that baptism is a nonverbal proclamation of the gospel, signifying union with Christ in his death and resurrection, the forgiveness of sins through his blood, and the believer's public consecration to walk in newness of life. Against both baptismal regeneration and indiscriminate administration, the sermon grounds believers' baptism in the New Covenant community described in Jeremiah 31 and demonstrated throughout the book of Acts, where profession of faith consistently precedes the ordinance. The sermon closes by urging baptized believers to recall their baptism as a summons to holiness, and by calling the unbaptized to trust in Christ alone, in whom every spiritual blessing is secured.
A Tale of Two Covenants
Israel's repeated pledge at Sinai — 'all the words which the Lord has said we will do' — was broken almost immediately, exposing the fundamental weakness of the old covenant: its dependence on the faithfulness of sinful human parties. The new covenant does not repeat that weakness, because its covenant head is the Lord Jesus Christ, who as the second Adam pledged fidelity to the Father and executed every obligation perfectly, obediently, and completely. This sermon, preached in the context of the Lord's Supper, traces the contrast from Exodus 24 through Jeremiah 31, Matthew 26, and John 17 to show that justification rests entirely on Christ's active and passive obedience imputed to believers by faith alone. The application is a call to rest in the finished work of Christ rather than any mixture of personal faithfulness, and to come to the communion table with that covenant framework in view.
The Superiority of the New Covenant
Hebrews 8 presents the New Covenant as categorically superior to the Mosaic covenant — not because the old was defective in design, but because the fault lay with sinners who could not keep it. The sermon traces four essential features of the New Covenant from Jeremiah 31: its unbreakable character grounded in Christ's heavenly intercession, the internalization of God's law in the believer's heart, the personal knowledge of God granted to every covenant member, and the full and final forgiveness of sins secured by Christ's blood. These features define who legitimately enters the baptismal waters and call every professing Christian to honest self-examination about whether their life reflects genuine New Covenant membership.
The Foundation of Christian Baptism
The death of Christ is the foundation of Christian baptism — not water's mystical power, not human merit, but the overwhelming of the Son of God under the wrath of God in the place of sinners. Expounding Mark 10:35–45, this sermon argues that Jesus' reference to his own imminent 'baptism' is a direct anticipation of his atoning death under divine wrath, which is the basis on which believers' baptism derives its meaning. Baptism is then shown to be an ordinance that portrays — not provides — union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, the forgiveness of sins, and the call to walk in newness of life. The hearers are pressed to examine not their view of the mode or subject of baptism, but their personal saving interest in the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ's Circumcision
Colossians 2:11–12 is frequently marshalled by paedobaptists to argue that baptism has replaced circumcision as the covenant sign and therefore ought to be administered to infants, but the passage cannot bear that weight. This sermon works through three preliminary observations — the structure of covenant theology, the relationship between circumcision and baptism, and the actual point of the passage — before exegeting verses 11–12 directly. The circumcision Paul describes is spiritual regeneration performed by Christ without hands, and baptism is its retrospective public sign, not a parallel to the prospective sign of physical circumcision given to Abraham's infant sons. The sermon closes with a sharp warning against any gospel that supplements Christ's finished work, insisting that justification is an alien, forensic righteousness imputed to the believer by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.