Topic
Worship
972 sermons · All topics
The Psalmist's Contemplation on the Revelation of God, Part 3
Psalm 19:9–14 presses the believer to consider both the benefits of Scripture and the right response to divine revelation. The fear of the Lord, pure and enduring, is the fruit of sovereign grace working through a word that is perfect, sure, right, and pure — a word more valuable than gold and sweeter than honey. David's closing petitions in verses 12–14 trace a graduated reckoning with sin — secret faults, presumptuous sins, and the dominion of sin — answered not by human resolve but by pardoning, preventing, and restraining grace grounded in God as rock and redeemer. The sermon calls believers to prize Scripture above every temporal good, to deal honestly with remaining corruption, and to rest the whole petition for acceptance on Christ, the true David, whose imputed righteousness alone makes the prayer of Psalm 19 fully and finally ours.
The Psalmist's Contemplation on the Revelation of God, Part 2
Psalm 19:7–11 presents four attributes of Scripture — perfect, sure, right, and pure — and traces the effects each produces in the souls of those the Spirit converts. The sermon argues that 'law' in this psalm comprehends the entirety of God's Word, including the gospel, and that the attributes ascribed to Scripture are inseparable from the perfections of its divine Author. Against a merely convicting or condemning view of the law, the preacher demonstrates that the same Word that exposes sin is the instrument through which the Holy Spirit effectually converts, enlightens, and rejoices the heart of the sinner. Hearers are pressed to receive the Word with joy rather than religious duty, and any who are yet dead in sin are called to cast themselves upon the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom a willing and rejoicing Savior stands ready to save.
The Conduct of Women in Corporate Worship (Authority)
First Timothy 2:11–15 contains one of the New Testament's clearest directives on the role of women in corporate worship, and this exposition works through the passage in three movements: the duty of women to receive the Word in silence and submission (v. 11), the apostolic prohibition against women teaching or exercising authority over men (vv. 12–14), and the blessing held out to women in the childbearing (v. 15). The prohibition is grounded not in the culture of first-century Ephesus but in creation order and the fall, the same foundations the apostles consistently invoke across Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, and 1 Peter 3. The messianic reading of verse 15 is defended: 'she will be saved in the childbearing' points to the incarnation of Christ as the hope for Eve and every believing woman, not to physical childbirth as a condition of salvation. Women are called to embrace their creationally ordered role — silent, submissive reception of the Word and the full range of ministry open to them — as the sphere in which they work out their salvation in faith, love, holiness, and self-control.
2LCF Chapter 30 - Of the Lord's Supper
The Lord's Supper is a divine command, a perpetual memorial of Christ's atoning sacrifice, and a genuine means of grace by which the Holy Spirit nourishes believers' souls with the benefits of Christ's redemption. This confession-study exposition works through all eight paragraphs of 2LCF Chapter 30, contrasting the biblical Reformed view of spiritual presence against transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and the purely commemorative position. The Christian necessity of observing the Lord's Supper is argued on three grounds: its institution by Christ as the only lawgiver, its character as a high and worshipful remembrance of Christ's person and work, and its function as a means of grace through which faith is increased and strengthened. Believers are urged to approach the Table not in rote external compliance but with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear, availing themselves of real spiritual communion with the triune God.
Deuteronomy 16:1-17 - The Annual Feasts of Israel
Deuteronomy 16:1–17 presents three annual feasts — Passover and Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Tabernacles — as divinely ordained memorials calibrated to keep Old Covenant Israel's allegiance fixed on Yahweh. Each feast commemorates a distinct aspect of God's redemptive work: deliverance from Egypt, provision at harvest, and sustenance through wilderness wandering. The Passover's substitutionary logic — where efficacy rested in God's provision rather than the offerer's moral worthiness — typologically prefigures Christ as the Lamb whose blood alone secures the sinner's safety. The sermon draws out the connection between the central sanctuary requirement of Deuteronomy 12 and the New Covenant church as the God-ordained means by which worship is preserved from corruption and believers are hedged against apostasy.
The Psalmist's Contemplation on the Revelation of God, Part 1
Psalm 19:1–6 presents the doctrine of general revelation — God's self-disclosure through the created order — and David's prophetic anticipation of the gospel's universal proclamation. The sermon traces the content, constancy, and comprehensive scope of general revelation, grounding each observation in Paul's parallel argument in Romans 1:18–32. The expositor then argues, against Calvin's merely comparative reading, that Paul's citation of Psalm 19:4 in Romans 10:18 legitimizes a Christological interpretation of verses 4b–6, in which the sun typifies Christ the Son of Righteousness, the great Bridegroom of his church, whose gospel goes forth conquering to the ends of the earth. Hearers are called to receive the Son whose rays of saving grace cannot be stopped any more than the circuit of the sun.
2LCF Chapter 29 - Of Baptism
The 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 29 sets forth a thoroughgoing Baptist doctrine of baptism: its nature as a New Covenant ordinance ordained by the incarnate mediator, its proper recipients as professing believers alone, its proper element and Trinitarian formula, and its proper mode as immersion. The study presses the case for believers-only baptism across five arguments — from covenant theology, federal headship, the doctrine of salvation, New Testament clarity, and the regulative principle of worship — demonstrating that paedo-baptism is not merely a secondary matter but a violation of Christ's express institution. The session closes with extended Q&A engaging questions about baptismal regeneration, the formula 'in the name of Jesus only,' and the standing of paedobaptist believers.
The Importance of Our Knowledge of Christ, Part 2
Philippians 3:8 frames the Apostle Paul's claim that the knowledge of Christ possesses surpassing worth above all things. This sermon completes a seven-point exposition by arguing that Christ is the sum and substance of the Christian gospel (established from 1 Corinthians 15 and the book of Acts), the head and savior of the church (seen in the Great Commission, worship, baptism, and the Lord's Supper), and the ground of both the believer's present hope and future glory (grounded in 1 Timothy 1:1 and 1 Peter 1:3-5). The Christian's knowledge of Christ is not a cold intellectual exercise but the natural expression of a heart that has found in Christ the one who is precious, and that knowledge ought to animate every dimension of calling — preaching, praying, giving, and testifying.
Ask FGBC Batch 8: Church Planting, Creation, Imprecatory Psalms & More | Reformed Baptist Theology
This Q&A episode addresses ten questions spanning ecclesiology, pneumatology, soteriology, and worship, drawing on confessional Reformed Baptist commitments throughout. Topics range from church planting and confessional subscription to the nature of saving faith versus assurance, the love of God for the non-elect, literal six-day creation, the theology of imprecatory psalms, and the regulative principle of worship as it applies to musical instruments and the offering. The consistent thread is that Scripture and the 1689 London Baptist Confession provide the sufficient framework for answering practical and doctrinal questions facing Reformed Baptist churches today.
The Conduct of Women in Corporate Worship (Adornment)
Paul's instruction in 1 Timothy 2:9–10 on the adornment of women in corporate worship is not a blanket condemnation of ornamentation but a call to modesty and moderation governed by the priority of Christ in public worship. A biblical theology of adornment — from Genesis through Revelation — establishes that adorning is assumed and even commanded by God; what Paul prohibits is the ostentatiousness that draws attention to oneself and away from the Lord. The sermon works through four observations: the operating assumption that women will adorn, the general principles of propriety and moderation, the particular prohibitions against elaborate hairdressing, gold, pearls, and costly clothing, and the positive exhortation to adorn with good works befitting a profession of godliness.
The Conduct of Men in Corporate Prayer
What does faithful corporate prayer look like, and who is responsible for leading it? Expounding 1 Timothy 2:8, this sermon argues that Paul's apostolic desire — carrying the full authority of God — requires men to lead in corporate worship prayer, lifting holy hands free from wrath and interpersonal dispute. The sermon establishes male headship in worship from creation order, traces the New Covenant universality of prayer ('everywhere'), and shows from Matthew 5 and 1 Peter 3 that horizontal reconciliation with fellow believers is a necessary precondition for acceptable vertical worship before God.
The Deliverance of the Psalmist, Part 4
Psalm 18:46–50 closes with a threefold ascription of praise to the God who delivers His anointed King — a King who is not merely David but David's greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage is expounded under four movements: the praise of God as the living Rock (v. 46), God as the God of vengeance and victory (v. 47), God as the God of deliverance and destruction (v. 48), and God as the God of grace and glory (v. 49), all grounded in the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7. The sermon presses the church to find in the invincibility of God's covenant kingdom the steel needed to persevere through present affliction, and to ground all worship in the theological confession that the Lord lives, that Christ's righteousness is imputed to His people, and that God's promises are yea and amen in His Son.
2LCF Chapter 28 - Of Baptism and the Lord's Supper
Chapter 28 of the Second London Confession of Faith introduces baptism and the Lord's Supper as the two ordinances of the New Testament church, distinguishing the particular Baptist position from both Roman Catholic sacramentalism and paedobaptist covenant theology. The Baptists' deliberate use of 'ordinance' rather than 'sacrament,' and their inclusion of 'positive institution,' reflects a credobaptist insistence that only regenerate believers can obey these commands of Christ, the sole lawgiver of his church. The confession grounds both ordinances in Christ's mediatorial work, connects them to the means by which faith is increased and preserved (2LCF 14.1, 17.3), and reserves their administration for those qualified and called according to Christ's commission. Neglecting these ordinances is not a minor failure but a forfeiture of appointed means of grace and a disservice to the covenant community.
The Gospel Foundation for Corporate Prayer
The apostle Paul grounds the church's corporate prayer in a three-part theological rationale drawn from 1 Timothy 2:3–7: the nature of God, the office of Christ, and the ministry of Paul. The phrase 'all men' in verses 1–4 refers not to every individual without exception but to all kinds of men without distinction — Jew and Gentile, slave and king — a reading demanded by Paul's own doctrine of reprobation in Romans 9 and confirmed by the scope of his apostolic commission to the Gentiles. Christ's mediatorship is shown to require both a divine and a human nature, and his ransom is definite in its design — paid for all kinds of men, not all men without exception — precluding both universalism and any notion of unmet desires in God. The sermon closes by pressing the congregation to show up for corporate prayer, to pray specifically for the salvation of those in civil authority, and to exhort all around them to flee to Christ.
The Deliverance of the Psalmist, Part 1
Psalm 18:1–19 presents David's praise to God for deliverance from all his enemies, and the psalm functions typologically: David points forward to his greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose sufferings, death, and resurrection are the ultimate fulfillment of what the psalmist describes. Working through three divisions — the occasion of praise (the superscription), the declaration of praise (vv. 1–3), and the motivation for praise (vv. 4–19) — the sermon demonstrates that David's deliverance rests not on David's own prowess but on the sovereign power and delight of Yahweh. The sermon calls believers to love God with the love that is the chief fruit of faith, to cry out to God in distress rather than to despair, and to find consolation in the reality that God moves heaven and earth to vindicate his people and vanquish their enemies.
The Expectation of the Righteous One
Psalm 17 is approached as primarily the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ according to his human nature — a perfectly righteous man crying to his Father for vindication, protection, and ultimate glorification. The sermon works through three movements: the psalmist's petition grounded in his righteousness, prayerfulness, and defenselessness (vv. 1–9); the character and violence of his enemies (vv. 10–12); and the psalmist's expectation of judgment on the wicked and resurrection presence with God (vv. 13–15). Because Christ's righteousness is imputed to believers by faith alone, the psalm becomes the church's prayer — a call to earnest, importunate intercession, patient endurance in a hostile age, and fixed hope in the resurrection rather than in temporal prosperity.
The Insurrectionist and the King
Luke 23:32–43 sets two criminals beside the crucified Christ — one blaspheming, one confessing — and leaves no neutral ground between them. This exposition works through the passage under three headings: the setting at Calvary (its geography, its Old Testament typology, and the fulfillment of prophecy in the crowd's mockery), the scoundrels (the total depravity of the blaspheming robber, and the remarkable faith of the converted one), and the Savior's response (certainty, immediacy, and felicity in the words 'today you will be with me in paradise'). The sermon closes with an urgent call to believe on Christ now, finding in the dying thief a picture of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
The Freeness of the Priceless Feast, Part 1
Isaiah 55:1–2 issues what this sermon calls an 'imperatival invitation' — a divine summons that carries the grammatical weight of a command and the gracious warmth of an offer. The sermon argues that the feast of water, wine, milk, and bread is not a bare general provision but a Christological feast: Christ himself is every element, secured by the infinite-worth payment of Isaiah 53's suffering servant, and therefore freely given because it cannot be purchased at any price. The squandering madness of spending wages on 'not bread' — whether in Israel's idolatry or in every Christless cosmology — is set against the freeness of the priceless feast to which God, as town crier, summons all hearers without condition of merit.
The Blood of the Unblemished Lamb
What makes the blood of Christ 'precious'? Expounding 1 Peter 1:18–21, this sermon works through Peter's characteristic rhetorical pattern — negation followed by assertion — to establish that no corruptible thing, whether material wealth or old covenant religious observance, can redeem a soul bound under sin and condemnation. The sermon then unfolds why the blood of Christ is precious: because of the dignity of the God-man who shed it, what it infallibly accomplishes in the redemption of the elect, what it cost the Father to give his own Son, and its eternal appointment in the counsel of the triune God before the foundation of the world. Preached in the context of a Lord's Supper service, the sermon closes by examining the typological significance of the unblemished Passover lamb, showing that the holiness of God, the depth of human sinfulness, and the logic of penal substitution each demand a perfectly spotless sacrifice — which Christ alone is and was.
Deuteronomy 14:1-29. Laws of Death, Diet, and Tithing
Deuteronomy 14 regulates mourning rites, dietary practices, and tithing for Old Covenant Israel — not as arbitrary impositions but as expressions of a holy people set apart by God from the nations around them. The chapter's controlling logic is covenantal identity: because Israel bore the status of God's firstborn son, every dimension of daily life, from the menu to the method of mourning, was to reflect that consecration. The dietary laws, now abrogated under the New Covenant as ceremonial law fulfilled in Christ, nevertheless carry a permanent New Covenant counterpart: the people of God are still to be distinguished from the world in holiness, presenting their bodies as living sacrifices. The tithing section closes the chapter with a call to generous, joyful giving that cares for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow — a call that carries into the New Covenant era as well.
SLBC Chapter 23: Of oaths and vows
Lawful oaths and vows occupy a distinct place in Christian ethics, grounded in the third commandment's demand for reverence toward the divine name and the ninth commandment's prohibition of false witness. This confession-study exposition of 1689 LBCF Chapter 23 distinguishes oaths (horizontal promises between men, made before God as witness) from vows (vertical commitments made directly to God), explains why both the Quaker rejection and Catholic corruption of oaths are condemned, and works through five paragraphs covering definition, solemnity, carefulness, integrity, and the lawful use of vows. The governing application is that the integrity of speech in all of life — family, church, and civic — flows from a rightly ordered fear of the God in whose name oaths are taken.
The Resurrection-Hope of the Righteous One
Psalm 16 is expounded as a Messianic psalm concerning the mind and experience of Christ in his earthly ministry — his earnest petition for divine preservation, his joyful contentment amid sorrow, and his sufficiency rooted in the Father alone. The apostolic witness of Peter in Acts 2 and Paul in Acts 13 establishes that David speaks in this psalm concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, and only secondarily of David and the saints in union with him. The sermon calls believers to follow the pattern of their Savior: praying for preservation, finding sufficiency in God rather than earthly blessings, meditating on Scripture in the night seasons, and navigating trial through a settled confidence in divine providence.
The Solicitation to Apostasy
Deuteronomy 13 confronts Israel with three escalating scenarios of solicitation to apostasy: the false prophet, the intimate family member or friend, and the corrupt city given over to idolatry. In each case the text demands not tolerance but purging, because defection from the living and true God constitutes treason against the theocratic covenant order. The chapter's severity is inseparable from its mercy: faithful execution of justice removes the cause of divine wrath and secures the covenant blessings sworn to the fathers. The passage presses the hearer to examine whether fidelity to God holds firm against both miraculous signs that lead astray and the subtler pull of intimate relationships.
The Supper on Betrayal Night
On the night of his betrayal, Christ instituted the Lord's Supper within the context of the Passover meal — a deliberate act of covenantal timing that pressed upon his disciples the reality of what his broken body and shed blood would accomplish. This sermon works through Luke 22:19–20 under two heads, the bread and the wine, tracing the biblical theology of each element: the bread overturning the curse of Genesis 3 by providing divine nourishment freely, and the cup of the new covenant corresponding to the third Passover cup of redemption in Exodus 6. The sermon calls Christians away from coldness and neglect of the Lord's Supper toward a warm, particular reception of the truth that Christ's body was given for you and his blood was shed for you.
The Central Sanctuary
Deuteronomy 12 establishes the principle that Israel's worship must be conducted where and how God commands — not where or how the surrounding nations worship their gods. Working through four sections of the chapter, this exposition traces the logic from the destruction of Canaanite shrines and the centralization of sacrificial worship, through the legislation governing ordinary and sacrificial eating, to the climactic prohibition of verse 32: 'You shall not add to it nor take away from it.' The regulative principle of worship is not an Old Covenant curiosity but a transcovenantal demand, grounded in the first and second commandments and confirmed in the New Covenant by 1 Timothy 3:15 and Hebrews 12:28-29. The sermon calls hearers to resist the perennial temptation to import pagan practices and autonomous creativity into the worship of the living and true God, and to find in prescribed worship the very joy and blessing God promises his obedient people.
2LCF Chapter 22 Of Religious Worship and Sabbath Day Part 2
The perpetual moral obligation of the Christian Sabbath is grounded not in Sinai alone but in the creation ordinance of Genesis 2, where God blessed and sanctified the seventh day as a reflection of his own divine perfections. The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 22, paragraphs 7 and 8, frames the Sabbath as a positive-moral commandment — moral in its trans-covenantal, creation-rooted character, and positive in its covenantal form, shifting from seventh-day to first-day observance upon the resurrection of Christ as the inauguration of the new creation. The day belongs to God before it belongs to man: the governing question is not what may be avoided on the Lord's Day, but how near to God the worshipper may draw. Paragraph 8 calls for whole-souled preparation, rest from works, words, and thoughts entangled in worldly concerns, and the filling of the day with public and private worship, works of necessity, and works of mercy.
The Lament of the Psalmist
Psalm 13 is a lament psalm of David that moves through raw grief — the perceived forgetfulness of God, the daily sorrow of the soul, and the threat of encroaching enemies — to a resolved trust in the covenant mercy of God. The sermon traces this trajectory through the true humanity of Christ, who himself prayed lamentingly in Gethsemane and on the cross, establishing lament as a legitimate and God-given vehicle of prayer for his people. Lament is distinguished sharply from whining: whining refuses to petition God and ends in despair, while biblical lament drives the soul toward God and terminates in doxology. The congregation is called to bring their distress boldly to the throne of grace, resting in the hesed of God covenanted to all who are found in Christ.
The Priestly Blessing of the Ascending King
Luke 24:50–53 closes the Gospel with the ascending Christ lifting His nail-pierced hands to bless His disciples at Bethany — a gesture laden with Old Testament typology, most immediately the Aaronic priestly blessing of Leviticus 9. The sermon argues that this blessing is not a mere farewell gesture but an authoritative, ongoing priestly act: Christ ascended while still blessing, signifying that His intercession and the bestowal of divine favor upon His people never cease. Preached in the context of a Lord's Supper service, the exposition calls believers to receive the sacrament as participants in the everlasting blessing of the great High Priest, and to respond with the pattern of the early disciples — continuous, corporate, joyful worship of the Triune God.
The promise of blessing or curse
Deuteronomy 11 sets before Israel a stark covenantal choice: blessing conditioned upon obedience to the Lord, or curse consequent upon idolatry and rebellion. Working through the chapter's three sections — the works of God rehearsed in history, the requirement of covenant fidelity, and the promise of blessing or curse — the sermon traces how Israel's failure to meet the covenant's demands is precisely the ground upon which Christ, as the true Israel and last Adam, fulfills all righteousness and absorbs the covenant curse on behalf of his people. The exhortation closes by connecting Deuteronomy 27:26 to Galatians 3, showing that the Mosaic covenant of works for Israel becomes the ground of Christ's redemptive obedience and that justification has always been by faith alone in the one who kept what Israel could not.
The Psalmist's Cry in an Age of Deceit
Psalm 12 presses the question Psalm 11 leaves open: not what becomes of the wicked in the end, but how the people of God survive and remain faithful in the present evil age. The sermon traces two movements in the psalm — the destruction of foundations (vv. 1–4), marked by idle speech, flattery, and the proud autonomy of godless men, and the preservation of the righteous (vv. 5–8), grounded in God's arising to deliver the oppressed and in the utter purity of his Word. David's prayer is read through a Christological lens: the psalm is supremely the prayer of Christ in his earthly ministry, opposed at every step, yet sustained by the Father's Word and promise. The congregation is urged to respond to cultural and ecclesiastical decay not by retreat or despair but by theology, prayer, and dependent trust in the pure and preserving Word of God.