Topic
Soteriology
2,239 sermons · All topics
July 01, 2018 - PM
What is the gospel, and why does its content matter for the Lord's Supper? Expounding 1 Corinthians 15:1–20 with focused attention on verses 3–4, this sermon argues that the gospel is defined by three inseparable historical and theological events: the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Each event carries precise atoning weight — the death is substitutionary, propitiatory, and expiatory; the burial confirms the reality of that death and sets the stage for resurrection; the resurrection vindicates Christ's saving work, bears witness to the justification of his people, and establishes him as judge of the living and the dead. Delivered in the context of the Lord's Supper, the sermon calls believers to a wonder-filled, theologically informed observance of the ordinance, and warns unbelievers that the risen Christ who died for sinners will also be their judge.
The Response to Peter's Sermon
Acts 2:41–47 records the immediate fruit of Peter's Pentecost sermon: three thousand souls baptized and a church marked by steadfast doctrine, fellowship, the Lord's Supper, and prayer. This exposition argues that the passage is both descriptive and prescriptive — what the early church did defines what the church in every age must be. Along the way, believers' baptism is defended against paedo-baptist readings of verse 39, and the growth of the church is traced not to programs or techniques but to the sovereign calling of God through the faithful preaching of Christ crucified.
Genesis 3:14-24
Genesis 3:14–24 records the consequences of the fall, and the heart of this study is the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 — the first gospel promise in Scripture. God's curse upon the serpent contains within it an announcement of the Messiah: the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, accomplishing total victory through suffering and death. The sermon traces this skull-crushing seed through the biblical narrative — from the typological head-wounds of Judges and David's defeat of Goliath, to New Testament fulfillment in Colossians, Hebrews, 1 John, and Revelation 12 — demonstrating that the cross of Christ is the decisive blow against the devil foreshadowed in Eden. The study closes by examining the consequences for the woman and the man in verses 16–19, situating the tensions of marriage and labor in a post-lapsarian world that Christ's redemptive work is already beginning to address.
The Call to Repentance
Acts 2:37–40 records the crowd's response to Peter's Pentecost sermon and his command to repent and be baptized. This exposition examines the nature of genuine conviction of sin, the inseparable relationship between repentance and faith, the proper place of baptism as an outward sign of inward grace rather than a means of salvation, and the comprehensive scope of God's electing call that reaches Jerusalem sinners, their children, and Gentiles afar off. The sermon presses the hearer to embrace conviction of sin as a mercy, to understand that repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, and to respond by believing the gospel and submitting to baptism without delay.
The State of Man after Death and the Resurrection (2LBCF31)
What happens to a person at death, and what does the future hold for both body and soul? This session works through 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 31, tracing the confession's teaching on the intermediate state, the rejection of Roman Catholic doctrines of purgatory and limbo, and the final bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust. The soul's immortality, its immediate departure either to paradise or to hell at death, and the inseparability of the body from God's redemptive purpose are shown to rest squarely on Scripture. The session closes with a deliberately simple amillennial eschatology drawn from 1 Corinthians 15:20–28, urging believers to let the hope of bodily resurrection purify present conduct and comfort one another in grief.
Free Grace Baptist Church - June 13, 2018 Bible Study
Genesis 3:1–13 records the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, events that form the theological foundation for the whole of redemptive history. The sermon traces three movements: the serpent's subtle assault on the veracity, goodness, and security of God in verses 1–5; the fall itself and its immediate consequences in verses 6–7; and God's gracious interrogation of the guilty pair in verses 8–13. The anatomy of temptation displayed in Eden — doubt cast on God's word, denial of divine sanctions, and the lure of autonomous wisdom — is the same pattern by which sin operates in every generation, making a firm grip on Scripture the believer's only sufficient defense.
Free Grace Baptist Church - June 10, 2018 PM
Proverbs 3:5–6 sets before the believer a threefold structure: a command to trust in Yahweh with the whole heart, a prohibition against leaning on one's own understanding, and an exhortation to acknowledge God in every area of life. The sermon traces total depravity and remaining corruption as the root of self-reliance, exposes three concrete forms of that self-reliance — outright reliance on self, rejection of godly parental counsel, and reception of ungodly influence — and grounds the call to entire, exclusive, and exhaustive trust in the immutability, impassibility, and covenant faithfulness of God. The closing movement draws on Jeremiah 32 and the divine simplicity formulated in the 1689 confession to show that God's commitment to his people is itself entire, exclusive, and exhaustive — making the demands of Proverbs 3:5–6 not burdensome but reasonable in light of the gospel.
The Believer's Commitment to the Lord
Proverbs 3:5–6 commands an entire, exclusive, and exhaustive commitment to Yahweh — a trust that spans salvation and all of ordinary life. The sermon works through three structural elements of the text: the command to trust in the Lord with all the heart, the prohibition against leaning on one's own understanding, and the exhortation to acknowledge God in all one's ways with the promise that He will direct the believer's paths. The doctrine of remaining corruption in the regenerate explains why this command is needed, while the perfections of God — His impassability, immutability, and divine simplicity — ground the assurance that His commitment to His people is equally entire, exclusive, and exhaustive. Hearers are called to search Scripture for explicit texts, implicit applications, and general principles, and to cultivate lives of prayer as a concrete expression of dependence upon God.
The Exaltation of Christ
Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:33–36 reaches its climax in the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Father. This exposition works through three movements: the supreme dignity conferred on Christ at his ascension, the fulfillment of Psalm 110:1 as ancient prophecy now openly vindicated, and the unavoidable implication for guilty hearers that this Jesus whom they crucified is both Lord and Christ. The current session of Christ — his ongoing reign, intercession, gathering of the church, and conquest of every enemy — is pressed as the ground of the believer's confidence and the urgent call for the unconverted to repent and call upon the name of the Lord.
The Problem of Sin and the Mercy of God
Proverbs 28:13 sets the problem of sin and the mercy of God in sharpest relief: the one who covers his sin will not prosper, while the one who confesses and forsakes it will have mercy. Working through biblical examples — Adam, Achan, Saul, David, Aaron, Ananias and Sapphira — the sermon exposes the instinctive human strategies for concealing sin: outright denial, minimizing its gravity, blame-shifting, religious compensation, and abandonment of moral categories altogether. The solution is not Roman Catholic penance but genuine confession that sides with God's indictment and genuine forsaking that constitutes the inseparable twin of saving faith — what Christian theologians call conversion — received only through Christ, the surety upon whose head the confessing sinner lays his hand by faith.
The Application of Psalm 16 to Jesus Christ
Peter's sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2:24–32 hinges on a single exegetical claim: Psalm 16 is not about David but about the Messiah, and the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth. The sermon works through Peter's two-part argument — the declaration of the resurrection in verse 24 and the prophetic proof from Psalm 16 in verses 25–32 — showing that it was impossible for death to hold Christ because the Father had sworn otherwise in the Davidic covenant. Believers are urged to pray Psalm 16 as their own, trusting that the same God who raised Christ from the grave is their preserver, their joy, and their confident hope through death and into resurrection.
The Purpose of the Proverbs
Proverbs 1:2–7 sets out both the purpose and the prerequisite of the entire book of Proverbs. The purpose is comprehensive — to impart wisdom, instruction, and just judgment to the simple, the young, the wise, and every condition of man — while the prerequisite is singular: the fear of the Lord, which is not a natural attainment but a gracious work of God in the soul. The fear of God is shown to be the epistemological foundation of all true knowledge, the animator of righteous conduct, and the preserver of the soul — available only through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the one greater than Solomon in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
Genesis 2:15-17
Genesis 2:15–17 presents Adam not merely as a gardener but as a priest-guardian of a garden-temple, placed under a divine probation that Reformed theology identifies as the Covenant of Works. The study defends the presence of a genuine covenant in this passage despite the absence of the word 'covenant,' marshalling the elements of covenant structure, the covenantal name Yahweh Elohim, and later biblical commentary in Hosea 6:7, Isaiah 24, and Romans 5. The argument presses to a pointed soteriological conclusion: a deficient understanding of the Covenant of Works predictably produces a deficient understanding of the Covenant of Grace, opening the door to the error of faith plus works in justification. The remedy is to see the Covenant of Grace as the Covenant of Works kept for sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ, whose active and passive obedience is imputed to all who believe.
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 20, 2018 PM
First Kings 3 opens a new series through the book of Proverbs by establishing the credentials of Solomon as its primary teacher. The sermon examines Solomon's prayer for wisdom at Gibeon and its immediate proof in the judgment of the two harlots, showing that true wisdom is God-given, others-oriented, and marked by equity toward all people regardless of station. The generosity of God — who bids his people to ask boldly — is presented as the very foundation of prayer, and the sovereignty of God is answered as the reason to pray, not the reason to abstain from it. Hearers are urged to adopt Solomon's pattern of prayer, to seek wisdom for the benefit of others, and to enter the school of Proverbs expecting God to supply what is lacking in heart and mind.
The Fulfilment of Joel's Prophecy
Acts 2:14–21 records Peter's explanation that the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the fulfilment, not a mere pre-fulfilment, of Joel 2:28–32. The sermon addresses three interlocking questions: what 'the last days' means (the entire Messianic age from Christ's first coming to his return, with a specific reference to the covenantal termination of Old Covenant Israel in AD 70), what the abundance of the Spirit's outpouring means for the New Covenant community (every believer, without distinction of gender, age, or class, receives the Spirit as seal and guarantee), and why the sign gifts of tongues and prophecy are no longer in force (the completed canon fulfils Daniel 9:24's sealing of vision and prophecy). The sermon closes with a direct call to sinners to do the one thing Joel and Peter both demand: call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
Of Baptism (2LCF29)
Baptism, as confessed in chapter 29 of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (2LCF), is examined here as a divine and mediatorial ordinance instituted by Jesus Christ for the New Testament church. The exposition grounds the doctrine of baptism in a web of interconnected doctrines — Scripture, the covenant of grace, effectual calling, union with Christ, and the regulative principle of worship — demonstrating that believers' baptism by immersion is the necessary conclusion of consistently applied Reformed theology. The confession's fourfold structure is traced: what baptism is, to whom it is properly administered, in what element, and by what mode, with sustained argument from Romans 6, Galatians 3, Mark 16, and Matthew 28 that only professing believers are lawful recipients of the ordinance.
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 13, 2018 PM
Philippians 1:27–30 calls the church to conduct worthy of the gospel and to receive suffering for Christ as a divine gift. Expounding these verses under two headings — worthy conduct and worthwhile suffering — the sermon argues that the local church, as a colony of heaven, is called to stand fast in unity against adversaries, and that both the initial grant of faith and the grant of suffering are gracious tokens of God's saving presence with his people. Persecution, far from being a mark of divine abandonment, is shown historically and biblically to be an assurance of salvation, a sign of perdition to those who oppose the gospel, and a means by which God strengthens his church.
The Majestic Name
Psalm 8 frames the majestic name of God as the beginning and end of all true praise, confronting the reader with the infinite distance between Creator and creature while simultaneously revealing the astonishing condescension of God in both creation and redemption. The sermon works through three movements: God's majestic name proclaimed in creation and defended through weakness (vv. 1–2), God's mindfulness of an infinitesimal humanity (vv. 3–5), and God's appointment of man to vice-regential dominion (vv. 6–9). Each movement is shown to find its ultimate fulfilment in the Lord Jesus Christ — the one who, as the last Adam, was made a little lower than the angels to purchase new creation for his people. The sermon closes with a call to study the attributes of God as the antidote to idolatry, and with a direct appeal to unbelievers to look to Christ, in whom Psalm 8 is fully realised.
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 13, 2018 AM
Psalm 8 is a hymn of praise situated amid the laments of Book One of the Psalter, offering a glimpse of hope by directing the worshiper to consider the majesty of God displayed in creation. The sermon works through three movements: the majestic name of the Lord proclaimed throughout the earth and demonstrated paradoxically through weakness; the condescension of God in being mindful of frail man within the created order; and the God-given dominion of man over creation, which finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. Drawing on the New Testament quotations of the Psalm in Matthew 21 and Hebrews 2, the preacher shows that Psalm 8 is a 'two-Adams text' — the dominion forfeited by the first Adam is purchased and perfected by Christ through his incarnation, suffering, resurrection, and exaltation. The hearer is called to study the character of God, to offer praise that silences the adversary, and, if an unbeliever, to look in faith to the Christ who has conquered sin and secured the new creation for his people.
The Descent of the Spirit
Acts 2:1–13 records the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, fulfilling Christ's promise and inaugurating the apostolic mission to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. The sermon argues that the tongues given at Pentecost were intelligible human languages — not ecstatic or private utterances — serving as the revelatory and confirmatory word of God to diaspora Jews assembled from every nation, and simultaneously as a sign of judgment against unbelieving Jerusalem, echoing Deuteronomy 28 and Isaiah 28. The three instances of tongue-speaking in Acts (chapters 2, 8, and 10) correspond precisely to the mission parameters of Acts 1:8 and are unrepeatable redemptive-historical events, not a paradigm for individual Christian experience. Believers today possess the Holy Spirit through regenerating faith in Christ, and the filling of the Spirit is evidenced not by tongue-speaking but by love, submission, and corporate worship.
The Recovery of Wandering Brethren
James 5:19–20 closes the epistle not with a random aside but with a call to mutual accountability rooted in the high stakes of wandering from the truth. The sermon establishes two movements: the problem of professing believers who drift from the truth into the error of their way, and the encouragement given to every member of the local church who pursues their recovery. Drawing on Matthew 18, Galatians 6, Hebrews 2, and Psalm 119, the exposition argues that truth and conduct are inseparably connected, that instrumental means matter in God's sovereign purposes of salvation, and that the antidote to defection from God is a disciplined, resolute, corporate love for the truth.
The Replacement for Judas
The replacement of Judas Iscariot in Acts 1:12–26 raises questions about the nature of apostolic authority, the sovereignty of God over human treachery, and the continuing rule of the risen Christ over his church. Peter's leadership in securing Matthias as the twelfth apostle demonstrates that the apostolic college was not dissolved by Judas's defection but reconstituted by Christ's own direction — through prayer, Scripture, and the casting of lots. The sharp contrast between Peter, restored by grace after his denial, and Judas, who went to his own place as a reprobate, anchors the sermon's gospel appeal: no sin is too great for the pardoning mercy of God in Christ, and sinners are urged to look to Christ and live.
The Exhortation to Pray, Part 2
James 5:16–18 calls every believer — not a spiritual elite — to confess sins to one another, to intercede for one another, and to pray with the confidence that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. The 'righteous man' of verse 16 is not a super-saint but any person justified by faith alone in Christ alone, whose imputed righteousness gives boldness at the throne of grace. Elijah is set before the church not as a larger-than-life wonder-worker but as a man of like passions — weak, despondent, yet prevailing in prayer — precisely so that ordinary believers will not despair of their own access to God. The sermon closes with a searching examination: are God's people truly prayerful as individuals, as families, as elders, and as a congregation?
The Ascension of Christ
The ascension of Christ in Acts 1:9–11 is no mere epilogue to the resurrection but a theologically freighted event with direct consequences for how believers understand Christ's present reign, the Lord's Supper, intercession, and final glorification. Working through the passage, the sermon establishes that the ascension was visible, local, bodily, and glorious — witnessed by the apostles and interpreted by angelic messengers who announce Christ's return in like manner. The ascension completes Christ's earthly mediatorial work, secures the gift of the Spirit, and grounds the believer's assurance in a high priest who always lives to make intercession — the pledge that those whom He justified He will also glorify.
Free Grace Baptist Church - April 15, 2018 AM
Acts 1:1-8 introduces Luke's second volume not merely as a history of the early church but as a record of what the risen and enthroned Christ continues to do and teach by his Spirit through the Apostles. The sermon examines the prologue (vv. 1-3), where Luke establishes the resurrection as infallible and certain fact, and the apostolic commission (vv. 4-8), where Christ commands the Eleven to wait for the promised Spirit before going as witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. The inseparability of doctrine and deed, the sovereignty of God over the timing of the kingdom, and the necessity of the Holy Spirit for both mission and sanctification are drawn out as the governing themes of the entire book.
The Exhortation to Pray, Part 1
James 5:13–15 addresses the full range of Christian experience — suffering, cheerfulness, and sickness — and directs each condition toward God in prayer and praise. This exposition works through three aspects of the passage: the individual at prayer in verse 13, the elders and their ministry in verse 14, and the prayer of faith and its outcome in verse 15. The sermon confronts both the health-and-wealth error that denies sickness a place in the redeemed life and the cessationist question raised by the anointing with oil, arguing for a symbolic interpretation of the oil while insisting that prayer — not any physical element — is the means God honors. The governing application is that every condition of life, whether affliction or ease, calls for the same disciplined, God-directed response: pray, praise, and submit to the sovereign will of God.
The Prologue and Commission
Acts 1:1–8 opens with a prologue establishing that the book of Acts is not merely the acts of the apostles but the continuing acts of the risen, enthroned Christ — carried out by the Spirit, through the Word, and by means of the apostles he himself commissioned. The sermon examines what Luke signals by the phrase 'Jesus began both to do and teach,' arguing that faithful Christianity holds doctrine and good works together as an inseparable knot, neither collapsing into social-gospel activism nor retreating into a purely intellectual faith. The apostolic commission is shown to be authoritative and externally given, grounding the church's mission in Christ's own mandate rather than human initiative.
Introduction to the Book of Acts
The book of Acts is not merely a record of human achievement but theological history — the continuing acts of the risen and ascended Christ, who builds his church by the Spirit through apostolic agency. This introductory sermon on Acts 1:1–3 examines the authorship, date, purpose, and major themes of Acts, defending the apostolicity of Luke as a non-apostle who nonetheless wrote under apostolic oversight and companionship with Paul. The sermon anchors the entire book in three great themes: the glory of the triune God, the normative practice of the early church, and the unstoppable spread of the gospel — all driven by the necessity of the Christian gospel for sinners under a holy God.
The Liberality of God and the Believer's Security
Romans 8:31–39 confronts the believer with a single overwhelming argument: because the Father did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for all the elect, He will most certainly freely give them everything else they need. The sermon works through three movements — the declaration of God's liberality in the gift of His Son, the implication that every lesser need is thereby guaranteed, and the application to the believer's unassailable security against accusation, condemnation, and separation. Drawing on the language of propitiation, penal substitution, and the Ordo Salutis, the exposition insists that the believer's confidence rests not on personal virtue or perseverance but on the justifying grace of God and the interceding, unchanging love of Christ.
The Doubter Turned Confessor
Thomas's refusal to believe the disciples' eyewitness testimony of the risen Christ is one of the most emphatic denials of the resurrection in the New Testament — not mere doubt, but obstinate, threefold rejection of Scripture, Christ's own words, and apostolic witness. When Jesus appears and meets Thomas's exact conditions, Thomas confesses 'My Lord and my God,' bookending John's Gospel with the same declaration of Christ's deity found in its opening verse. The sermon expounds John 20:24–31 in two movements: the post-resurrection appearance to Thomas and the stated purpose of John's Gospel — that all who read it might believe and have life in Christ's name. Hearers are urged to stop placing conditions on God, to confess with Thomas that Jesus is Lord and God, and to avail themselves of the church's theological resources to grow beyond a superficial grasp of cardinal doctrines such as the Trinity.