Topic
Sanctification
1,682 sermons · All topics
Live Stream - September 11, 2022
Ephesians 2:8–10 sets out the application and consequence of redemptive grace, arguing that salvation is entirely God's act — given by grace alone, received through faith alone, and issuing in good works that are themselves God's gift. The sermon works through the grammar and theology of the passage to demolish every form of human contribution to salvation, whether by faith conceived as a human offering or by works, so that God alone receives the glory. Believers are shown to be trophies of divine grace, created in Christ for good works God prepared beforehand — works that confirm justification rather than cause it.
The Saving Grace of God, Part 3
Ephesians 2:8–10 demolishes every notion that the sinner contributes to his own salvation, whether by supplying the faith or by bringing meritorious works. This sermon works through the passage in two movements: the application of redemptive grace in verses 8–9, where salvation is shown to be by grace alone through a faith that is itself God's gift and not the sinner's offering, and the consequence of redemptive grace in verse 10, where the good works of the justified are presented not as the cause or condition of salvation but as its God-prepared effect. The controlling purpose is doxological — that in every age where sinners are saved, the exceeding riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus are displayed, and God alone receives the glory.
Epilogue to the Decalogue
Deuteronomy 5:22 supplies a concise epilogue to the Decalogue, highlighting the divine origin, absolute authority, comprehensive character, and finality of God's moral law — a law that is trans-covenantal and binding on all men everywhere. Working through Exodus 20:18–26, this exposition examines Israel's terrified response to Sinai's theophany, Moses's distinction between slavish fear and filial fear of God, and the protocols for the altar that bridge the giving of the law to the detailed judicial legislation of chapters 21–23. The threefold division of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — is defended against dispensationalist revision, with the 1689 LBCF chapter 19 paragraph 5 cited as the correct Reformed statement of the moral law's perpetuity. The sermon closes by calling believers to a filial fear of God as the most fundamental restraint against sin, and to gratitude that Christ, as the true Israel, perfectly kept the law his people swore and failed to keep.
Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation (2LCF 18)
Assurance of salvation is grounded not in the strength of faith or the quality of obedience but in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ revealed in the gospel. This exposition of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 18 works through the four paragraphs of that chapter: assurance stated, assurance grounded, assurance realized, and assurance disquieted. The objective foundation of assurance is the active and passive obedience of Christ, proclaimed in the gospel and sealed to the believer by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Believers are called to rest upon Christ alone, to attend the ordinary means of grace, and to resist grounding their hope in their own acts of obedience.
The Saving Grace of God, Part 1
Ephesians 2:1–3 confronts the reader with a precise diagnosis of humanity's condition apart from saving grace: spiritual death in Adam, slavery to the world-system, subjection to Satan, and liability to the wrath of God. The sermon grounds this diagnosis in the covenant of works, the doctrine of original sin, and the federal headship of Adam, drawing on Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 to show that all humanity stands condemned either in Adam or justified in Christ. Total depravity is shown to be comprehensive — corrupting not only outward conduct but the mind and heart — making sovereign grace the only remedy for sinners who are, apart from Christ, lifeless, helpless, and hopeless.
Live Stream - August 21, 2022
Hebrews 10:19–25 marks a pivotal transition in the epistle: the apostle's extended exposition of Christ's supremacy — over the Levitical sacrifices, over the Aaronic priesthood, over every shadow of the old covenant — now gives way to three congregational exhortations. Because Christ has opened a new and living way by his blood and holds the office of great high priest over the house of God, believers are called to draw near in confident new covenant worship, to hold fast the confession of their hope without wavering, and to assemble together in an others-minded constancy that stirs up love and good works. The perfection of Christ's person and work is not merely the subject of theological meditation but the only ground on which Christians can be bold, steadfast, and mutually encouraging until the day of judgment.
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.
The Perfection of Christ as the Prompting of His People
Hebrews 10:19–25 marks the great hinge of the epistle, where doctrinal exposition gives way to exhortation. The perfection of Christ's sacrifice and priesthood — the absolute sufficiency of His once-for-all offering and His unceasing high-priestly office — forms the irreplaceable ground upon which three congregational imperatives rest: draw near to God in full assurance of faith, hold fast the confession of hope without wavering, and consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Christians are not called to seek experiential novelty or emotional stimulation, but to the settled, corporate, and simple obedience of gathered worship, resting entirely upon the finished work of the One who consecrated a new and living way through His own flesh.
The Promise of Eternal Life
Isaiah 55 presents God's universal, gracious, and free invitation for sinners to come to Christ for life eternal — an invitation that has never changed from Genesis to Revelation. The sermon expounds the chapter in two movements: the invitation to come (vv. 1–5), grounded in covenant promise and secured by the Davidic king, and the exhortation to believe and repent (vv. 6–13), which calls sinners to faith and a change of mind toward sin. God's thoughts are not man's thoughts precisely because He pardons abundantly where man would not, and His word goes forth with certain efficacy to accomplish all He purposes in the salvation of sinners from every nation.
Of Good Works (part II)
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 16, teaches that good works neither merit pardon of sin nor eternal life, yet are genuinely accepted by God — not on the ground of their own quality, but solely through the believer's union with Christ the Mediator. This session completes the chapter by examining first why good works are accepted in Christ (the Mediator's priestly office presenting both persons and works acceptable to God), and then the sixfold purpose of good works: expressing gratitude, strengthening assurance, edifying the brethren, adorning the doctrine of Christ, stopping the mouths of adversaries, and glorifying the triune God. The controlling application is that a right understanding of good works drives the believer away from every meritorious scheme and toward Christ alone, in whom both persons and performances are accepted.
The Judgment Seat of Christ
Matthew 7:21–23 confronts the reader with Christ's own words at the final judgment: 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.' The sermon argues that this passage is not a call to more good works but a stark exposition of the doctrine of justification by faith alone — the false professors are condemned not for lack of works but for resting upon their works as the ground of their acceptance with God. Self-righteousness is identified as a species of lawlessness, as damning as any gross immorality. The believer's only refuge is the doing, dying, and rising of Christ, received by faith alone, and it is to Christ — not to personal performance — that all assurance must be anchored.
The Prohibition Against Judgmentalism
Matthew 7:1–5 is among the most frequently misapplied texts in Scripture, routinely weaponised to silence any and all Christian judgment. This sermon from the Sermon on the Mount demonstrates that Christ's prohibition targets not judgment as such but the censorious, fault-finding, hypercritical spirit endemic to the Pharisees and to fallen human nature generally. The preacher surveys five legitimate spheres of Christian judgment — identifying false teachers, exercising church discipline, addressing sins of elders, and rendering civil judgments — before expositing the speck-and-plank illustration as Christ's indictment of hypocrisy. The sermon closes with practical counsel for mortifying judgmentalism through dependence on the Holy Spirit, the pursuit of humility, and a right understanding of remaining corruption in oneself and in one's neighbour.
The Feast of Tabernacles, Part 2
John 7:14–24 presents two confrontations: the Jews question Christ's authority, and Christ in turn questions the Jews' ethical integrity. The sermon works through three grounds of Christ's authority—his unity with the Father, the regenerate hearer's capacity to receive his word, and his mission to glorify the Father rather than himself—before turning to Christ's indictment of the Jews for plotting murder while professing fidelity to the Mosaic law. The exposition closes with Christ's appeal to righteous judgment over mere appearance, and the preacher applies the whole passage as a call to sinners to come and drink from the one who alone satisfies the soul's thirst.
2LCF 16 - Of Good Works (part I)
Good works in the Christian life must be carefully defined, grounded, and distinguished from every meritorious scheme if the glory of Christ is to be preserved. This study of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 16 works through the definition of good works (their substance, manner, and definitive character as fruits and evidences of a lively faith), the necessary foundation of good works in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, and the non-meritorious nature of good works as plainly asserted in Romans 3 and Galatians 2. The central burden is that no work of the creature — however sincere, however commanded — can merit pardon of sin or eternal life before God, because the only works that avail with divine justice are the active and passive obedience of Christ alone imputed to the believer by faith.
The Problem of Israel's Apostasy
Israel's apostasy in Judges 2:7–3:6 follows a pattern rooted not in ignorance but in a failure to know the Lord experientially — a failure that produced syncretism, Baal worship, and divine chastisement. The sermon traces the root, description, and divine response to Israel's apostasy, showing that God's repeated raising up of judges was not provoked by Israel's repentance but by his own covenant faithfulness and mercy. Samson is presented as a type of Christ, each of the twelve judges pointing typologically to the Savior who would definitively deliver his people from their sins. The church is exhorted to keep herself unspotted from the world, resisting the toleration that leads by degrees to full apostasy.
The Things God Hates
Proverbs 6:16–19 presents a numerical list of seven things God hates and finds abominable — a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren. This sermon works through each item in canonical order, grounding the list in its immediate context (the portrait of the son of Belial in vv. 12–15) and in the broader testimony of Proverbs, the Psalms, and the New Testament. The abominable members (pride, lying, murder, the cunning heart, swift feet) and the abominable actions (perjury and discord) are each exposed and applied. The sermon concludes by urging hearers to pursue the opposites of each vice — humility, truth-telling, protection of innocent life, guarding the heart, swift pursuit of good, faithful witness, and peacemaking — and to rest in Christ, whose perfect obedience is the righteousness that covers remaining corruption in the believer.
The Believer's Race
Hebrews 12:1 commands the believer to run with endurance the race set before him, stripping away every weight and ensnaring sin. This exposition of that verse examines what the race requires and then opens Hebrews 11 to demonstrate that the 'great cloud of witnesses' are not spectators cheering the runner on, but testimonies given on the runner's behalf — each one declaring, from Abel to Polycarp, that God is faithful to his people whatever their circumstances. The sermon closes with a clear distinction between the ground and the motive of running: salvation is received by grace through faith in Christ alone, and it is from that standing that the believer is called to press forward with resolute endurance.
The Idolatry of Solomon
Solomon's idolatry in 1 Kings 11:1–13 exposes how a man richly blessed by God — with the law, direct divine appearances, a faithful father, and transcendent wisdom — can fall into the grossest sin when he fails to guard his heart. The sermon traces the problem, precedent, and practice of Solomon's idolatry before examining God's just and covenant-shaped response: judgment tempered by the unconditional Davidic covenant that finds its telos in the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage issues sober warnings against the assumption that age, experience, knowledge, or good pedigree secure ongoing faithfulness apart from vigilant dependence on the Holy Spirit.
Chap. 15 - Of Repentance unto Life and Salvation
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 15 treats repentance not as a meritorious work but as an evangelical grace — a gift sovereignly granted by God through the Holy Spirit, inseparable from saving faith. This study walks through all five paragraphs of the chapter, distinguishing the Greek definition of repentance as a change of mind from its fruits, exposing the danger of collapsing that distinction into a salvation-by-works scheme. The covenant of grace is shown to be the practical ground by which God provides and sustains both faith and repentance for the elect throughout their lives, including ongoing repentance for remaining sin.
Live Stream - July 03, 2022
Joshua 2 narrates the story of Rahab the Harlot, a Canaanite prostitute who sheltered the Israelite spies and confessed Yahweh as 'God in heaven above and on earth beneath.' This sermon exposits the chapter under three heads — the contact with Rahab, her confession of faith, and the covenant contract made with her — arguing that the chapter interrupts the conquest narrative to magnify the sovereign mercy of God toward an outsider who was utterly without covenant standing. The sermon concludes by tracing Rahab's place in the messianic genealogy and applying her conversion to the gospel call: Christ saves to the uttermost all who come to him, and the church is a refuge for sinners, not a club for the respectable.
The Conversion of Rahab the Harlot
Joshua 2 presents the conversion of Rahab the harlot as a sovereign interruption of divine mercy within the context of holy war and Israelite conquest. Before Israel kills a single Canaanite, the narrative compels the reader to stand in awe of a God who justifies a pagan prostitute by grace through faith alone — faith that is demonstrated by treason against Jericho and the sheltering of two spies. Rahab's confession that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on earth beneath places her alongside the great confessions of Scripture, and her inclusion in the Messianic genealogy of Matthew 1 reveals that the conquest was always inseparable from the redemptive purposes of God. The sermon calls hearers to resist self-righteous judgmentalism, to trust in a Christ who saves to the uttermost, and to marvel that the ancestress of Jesus was the shady lady of Jericho.
The Conversion of Matthew
Matthew 9:9–13 records the sovereign call of a tax collector — among the most despised and morally compromised figures in first-century Jewish society — to follow Christ and ultimately to author the first Gospel. The sermon works through three movements: Christ's effectual call of Matthew to discipleship, the feast Matthew hosts to honour Christ and evangelize his associates, and the confrontation with the Pharisees in which Jesus declares the nature of his mission — not to call the self-righteous but sinners to repentance. The account is pressed into seven marks of genuine discipleship, closing with an appeal to the unconverted to look to Christ as the great physician of sin-sick souls.
The New People of God: Part 2
The titles given to the church in 1 Peter 2:9–10 — chosen generation, royal priesthood, holy nation, and his own special people — are drawn directly from Old Testament Israel typology and applied to all who believe in Christ. Working through Deuteronomy 32, Exodus 19, 2 Samuel 7, and the Abrahamic covenant, the sermon traces how God's act of separating Israel from the nations at Babel prefigures his rescue of the spiritual Israel — the church — from the dominion of darkness into the marvelous light of Christ. The sermon argues that the new covenant fulfils what the old covenant typified: believers now constitute the household of God, the spiritual temple, and a royal priesthood whose commission is to proclaim the excellencies of the one who called them out of darkness. This demands that the church pursue its prophet-priest-king calling not through military or political dominion but through the proclamation of the gospel of King Jesus to every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
Wedding Stream
Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3:14–19 frames the theological heart of this wedding message: that the strength, knowledge, and fullness believers need for godly marriage flow entirely from what God has accomplished in salvation. The sermon moves from the doctrinal foundation of Ephesians 1–2 through the spiritual petitions of chapter 3, arriving at the practical marital responsibilities of Ephesians 5 — the wife's submission and respect, the husband's sacrificial love and leadership after the pattern of Christ and the church. Drawn from Luther's counsel and the creation account in Genesis, the message calls both husband and wife to reflect the mystery of Christ's covenant union with his bride in the daily conduct of their marriage.
Brotherly Love - 1 Peter 1:22-25
What does it mean to love the brethren, and what is the source of that love? Expounding 1 Peter 1:22–25, this sermon works through three interlocking realities: the common Christian experience of soul-purification through Spirit-wrought faith alone, the command to love one another with a fervent, self-sacrificial agape love, and the regenerate new birth through the incorruptible word of God that grounds and generates that love. The exhortation is concrete: foster genuine fellowship, receive as well as give, and resist the tendency to confine brotherly love within the narrow boundaries of denomination, theological system, or Christian liberty — for our identity is in Christ, not in any confessional tradition.
Live Stream - June 12, 2022
Spiritual growth is not merely a personal benefit but the primary means by which the church of Christ is built up as a strong, enduring structure. Expounding 1 Peter 2:1–5, this sermon argues that believers are called to mortify the self-serving sins of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking — all of which collapse the very foundation upon which other believers must stand — and to cultivate an insatiable desire for the pure word of God as their appointed means of growth. Christ is the chief cornerstone and the ultimate builder of his church; believers are living stones whose solidity or weakness determines what the next generation inherits. The congregation is exhorted to press on in sanctification and doctrinal growth not to earn their justification — which rests on faith alone in Christ alone — but to be the solid building blocks upon which children, new believers, and future generations of the church may be securely built.
The Call for Christian Growth
Unrepentant sin and a failure to desire the Word of God are the chief hindrances to Christian growth — and that growth is not merely a personal blessing but a corporate responsibility. Working through 1 Peter 2:1–5, this sermon argues that believers are living stones being built into a spiritual house, and that weak, doctrinally shallow Christians produce a structurally unsound church. The exhortation is concrete: mortify the sins of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander; cultivate an insatiable hunger for the pure milk of the Word; and do so knowing that justification rests on faith alone while sanctification calls every believer to steady, disciplined growth.
Live Stream - June 05, 2022
First Peter 1:22–25 grounds the command to fervent brotherly love in the doctrine of regeneration. The passage distinguishes between the natural, emotional bond of phileo and the deliberate, self-sacrificing agape the redeemed are called to exercise toward one another within the covenant community. Justification is by faith alone — faith understood not as a meritorious act but as passive reception of Christ's finished work, wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit's regenerating power. The sermon closes with exhortations to pursue unhypocritical, reciprocal, cross-denominational love, and with a warning to those who have heard the gospel preached and have yet to submit to it in faith.
Chap. 14 - Of Saving Faith
Saving faith is the gracious gift of the Holy Spirit, worked in the hearts of the elect through the ministry of the Word, enabling them to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. This study of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 14 distinguishes true saving faith from temporary or false faith, establishes that faith is built on knowledge rather than religious emotion or experience, and traces the three classical elements of faith — notitia, assensus, and fiducia — while guarding against both the mysticism that smuggles emotion into the essence of faith and the rationalism that mistakes bare intellectual assent for it. The practical burden throughout is that the proper object of saving faith is Christ and his work alone, and that assurance, while distinct from faith itself, grows through the appointed means of grace.
Brotherly Love
What grounds the command to love fellow believers, and what does that love look like in practice? Expounding 1 Peter 1:22–25, this sermon argues that brotherly love among believers is not merely a moral duty but flows necessarily from regeneration — the purification of the soul through faith worked by the Holy Spirit. The sermon carefully distinguishes passive, receiving faith from any works-based or neonomian construal of 'obeying the gospel,' grounding the command to love in the incorruptible seed of the new birth. Application presses toward sincere, unhypocritical, self-sacrificial love that crosses denominational and theological-liberty lines, because the bond of the brethren is founded on the eternal word of God, not on natural or doctrinal affinity.