Topic
Sovereign Grace
2 sermons · All topics
The Thief on the Cross
What does the conversion of a man guilty of insurrection and murder on the day of his execution reveal about the grace of God? This exposition of Luke 23:39–43 traces the marks of sovereign grace in the dying thief — his fear of God, his ownership of personal guilt, his acknowledgment of Christ's sinlessness, and his faith cast entirely upon a crucified Lord — before turning to the willing and able Savior who, in the extremity of his own suffering, assures a notorious criminal of immediate paradise. The sermon argues that justification is by faith alone, apart from works, baptism, or religious knowledge, and that the distinguishing mercy shown to one thief and withheld from the other is the clearest emblem of sovereign grace. Hearers are pressed not to presume on a deathbed conversion but to cast themselves now, by grace, upon the mercy of Christ.
The Thief on the Cross
Luke 23:39–43 presents the conversion of the dying thief and Christ's response as a window into both the nature of saving faith and the character of Christ as a willing, able, and sovereign Savior. The thief's transformation — from blaspheming Christ to confessing his own guilt, acknowledging Christ's innocence, and calling upon him as Lord — illustrates the marks of genuine repentance and the power of sovereign grace working from without. Christ's reply, 'Today you will be with me in paradise,' demonstrates that he saves to the uttermost even from the cross itself, suffering hell there so that the penitent sinner need not. The sermon closes with a warning against presumptuous delay of repentance and a clear affirmation that salvation is always by grace alone, never by works.