Acts 16, part of Paul's second missionary journey. We begin to read at verse 6. Acts 16, beginning to read at verse 6 and reading through verse 34. Acts 16 verse 6, Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia they assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man in Macedonia and prayed him saying, come over into Macedonia and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore, loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis, and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony. And we were in that city abiding certain days. On the Sabbath, we went out of the city by a riverside where prayer was wont to be made, And we sat down and spake unto the women which resorted thither. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized and her household, she besought us saying, if ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. And it came to pass as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with the spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. The same followed Paul and us and cried saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the Spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her master saw that the hope of their gains was gone, They caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, They cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. Having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, waking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. And Paul cried with a loud voice saying, do thyself no harm, for we are all here. And he called for a light and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. When he had brought them into his house, he sat meet before them and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. So far we read God's holy word. Based on that and many other passages of the Word of God is the instruction of the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord's Day 7. Lord's Day 7. The question 20 asks, are all men then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ? And the answer, no, only those who are engrafted into him and receive all his benefits by a true faith. What is true faith? True faith is not only a certain knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart. that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits. What is then necessary for a Christian to believe? all things promised us in the gospel, which the articles of our Catholic undoubted Christian faith briefly teach us, and then follows the articles of the Apostles' Creed, which I will not read. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. Much can be learned about salvation by faith alone from the account that we read in Acts chapter 16. Notice, first of all, that Paul and Silas and those with him and the church of Antioch, which sent them, understood the importance of the preaching of the gospel as regards faith. That is why they were on the missionary journey. Everywhere they went, they preached. And that because it is through preaching that God gives faith. They understood that. So think about that. They went out desiring to bring Gentiles who never heard anything about God, bring them to faith in Jesus Christ. They understood the importance of the Preaching, as Paul later wrote to the Romans, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Romans 10. So that first of all, they understood the importance of preaching. Second, God directs preaching to the people he has eternally chosen unto salvation. That's why we read the first part of what we read, verses six and following, where we saw that Paul wanted to go north, and then Paul wanted to go east, and the Spirit did not allow that. He kept directing them west. And ultimately, by vision, they understood they had to go to Philippi. God was directing the preaching to those who needed to hear it to be able to believe. Third, from this passage, we also see that God accomplishes their salvation by giving faith. We read of Lydia, a seller of purple, and how God opened her heart to receive the things that Paul was teaching them. That's God's work. He opens the heart. He gives faith. And we see that especially in the Philippian jailer and the most unusual circumstances, but consider all of them directed by God. God directed that this girl would follow Paul and Silas, relentlessly crying out against them, and that Paul would cast out the demon, that the owners of this slave girl would then bring them to the magistrates. They would be arrested, beaten, put in prison, and on that particular night, this particular jailer would be in charge. And then the earthquake, then Paul and Silas in the middle of the night praying and singing praises to God. And the other prisoners heard that and no doubt the jailer did as well. He wasn't far from them because Paul saw him take out his sword. And the jailer must have been struck by the fact that he had never had prisoners like this before his whole life. And then the earthquake that God sent, shaking the very foundations of the prison, a sign of God's terrible judgment against man's sin. That's what an earthquake is. Then the jailer, after calling for a light, coming in, trembling into their prison cell and asking, sirs, what must I do to be saved? A question that makes it very obvious that God had already worked something in that man's heart. Because when earthquakes hit San Francisco, you do not hear people running around on the street saying, what must I do to be saved? They're terrified. They may be angry, but they're not asking, what must I do to be saved? As this man was asking, God had already worked something in this man's heart. And Paul's response, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. and thou shalt be saved. That's the gospel. That's the message of the gospel. In the face of sin, in the face of death, in the face of hell, into which this Philippian jailer had almost plunged himself, now comes the message of hope. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved from that, from hell. But then notice verse 32, Paul had much more to say than that. They spake unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house. Paul had much more to say than merely that one statement. Who is this Jesus? And what has he done? And how can he save me? The man and his family had to hear that message. And the instruction in the word of God the Spirit used to produce faith. And the jailer and his household believed and rejoiced before God. The story captures the Heidelberg Catechism's development that leads up to Lord's Day 7. Because the Catechism has made plain that all men fallen in Adam deserve Eternal death under the wrath of God. And the catechism has demonstrated that there's only one who can possibly save man from that terrible judgment. And that is Jesus. Very God, very man. The only one that could save man by paying for his debt. The only one who could restore to righteousness and life. Only Jesus. So now the Catechism comes with question 20. Based on all of that instruction, are all men then, as they perished in Adam, saved in Christ? They're all perished. Does Jesus now save them all? And the answer is no. only those who are engrafted into him and receive all his benefits by a true faith, faith. Salvation is by faith alone and faith alone takes the benefits of Jesus Christ because all our salvation is in him and faith appropriates that. So let's look at the instruction of the Heidelberg Catechism on faith, taking as the theme the gift of saving faith. Notice in the first place, divine engrafting, secondly, personal conviction, and thirdly, gospel embracing. Faith involves divine engrafting. When God created the world in his profound wisdom, he made plants where the process of engrafting could be done. And engrafting, of course, is that one takes part of one plant, usually the branch of a tree, and inserts it into a cut into another tree, and that branch that was living as part of another tree now is engrafted into this other tree, it begins to attach It begins to grow now out of that tree. The life of that tree comes into the branch. It is a living branch now in a new tree. That's grafting. Frequently done with fruit trees. The Bible indicates that grafting is a spiritual picture that a believer is united to Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 11 speaks of Gentiles who were engrafted, that's the word used, into a tree And there are other branches, the Jews that had been broken off from that tree, but now the Gentiles are graft into it. And then specifically it says, thou standest by faith, indicating that the reason why they are in that tree, what unites them to that tree, the root of which is Jesus, What unites them to the tree is faith. Faith. The Catechism's answer is exactly expressing that reality. One can be graft into Jesus Christ by faith. Faith is rightly described as a spiritual bond that connects, unites a sinner a lexenter to Jesus Christ. Notice three observations about that. What some implications of faith as grafting into Jesus. First of all, grafting implies that there is a unity among those who are graft into Jesus Christ. The church is not simply a mob of individuals who come together or scattered around the world here and there, a believer. But believers are a unity because they are all, one and all, graft into Jesus Christ. They're part of a tree. Christ is the root of that tree. Now, to understand that, obviously, divine election accounts for this. And that's exactly the connection the Bible makes between faith and the individual. Listen to Acts 13, verse 48. For as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. As many as were ordained to eternal life, chosen, Believed. Not one more, not one less, but every single one that is elect, believed, was given faith. Titus 1 speaks of the faith of God's elect. The faith of God's elect. They're the only ones who have faith. but every one of them is, at some time in his life, given faith. Grafting, therefore, forms a unity, a church, where every single member is united to Jesus Christ. Secondly, the whole matter of grafting obviously involves giving and maintaining life life. The branch grafted into the tree becomes part of the tree by a living union. The life of the tree flows into that branch. If the grafting does not work, the branch dies. It's not attached. So when the elect sinner is grafted into Christ, the life of Christ flows into him. And here the figure of grafting does not capture, does not do justice to the spiritual reality, because with grafting A living branch from one tree is brought to a living tree, and attachment is made. But in the work of Jesus Christ, a dead branch is graft into Him. We are all dead by nature, dead in sin, and the Spirit must come and make us alive, and at that moment also unite us to Jesus Christ so that the life of Jesus can flow into us. Dead branches are graft into a living tree, and they live. They live. Again, calls the attention to the tremendous miracle. of this grafting by faith. Jesus makes it plain how important it is that his life flows into his people in John's 15 with a figure of the vine and the branches. I am the vine, said Jesus, ye are the branches, he that abideth in me and I in him. We have to be united to him, but he has to be in us. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same, bringeth forth much fruit." The life of Jesus flows into that elect sinner, connected to him, and it produces fruit. The grafting creates a unity, a church, united to Christ. The grafting involves giving and maintaining life. Thirdly, grafting It's all God's work. Isn't that obvious? Obvious from the language of the catechism. Those who are engrafted into Him and receive all the benefits. The branch is not doing the activity. Not in a natural situation. No branch volunteers. The orchard owner determines what branches he will graft into another tree. We don't choose, we don't volunteer, we don't do anything. God grafts us into Jesus Christ. It is all His work. Even the receiving of the benefits as it goes on. Receiving is not like we're going out after them and getting them. We're receiving the blessings. Again, God's work. In that scripture, Hebrews 12.2, Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. Philippians 1.29, which reminds us, it is given to you to believe. And the canons therefore explain it well when it says the Spirit produces both the will to believe and the act of believing also. Faith is God's work. He makes that faith active. Of course, it becomes active. But God gives faith, even the activity of faith. Faith, you can see, then, is absolutely life-changing and dominating. The importance of faith cannot be overstated. It's a matter of being saved or not. The Philippian jailer was not saved until he had faith. He was on his way to hell from a human point of view. Of course, God had eternally chosen him to salvation, but he was not saved. Faith transforms. It justifies. It declares sin forgiven and righteousness imputed. It sanctifies. It preserves, holding fast that elect sinner to Jesus Christ. He cannot be lost. Once you have faith, you have it eternally. You cannot leave faith behind. There are all kinds of things that we possess that we have to leave behind. A man may own a great set of fishing rods, but when he goes to work, he has to leave those behind. A child may have a wonderful scooter that he loves to play on, but when it's time for school, he has to leave that behind. Faith, you never leave behind. You're grafting into Jesus Christ remains, no matter what. It's God's work. It's part of you. It cannot be undone. The Spirit abides in the believer, maintaining that faith. You cannot go on vacation and leave your faith behind. You cannot go to church by faith on Sunday, and then Monday leave faith behind and say, well now I go around the rest of my duties without faith. A man may sinfully hide the life of Jesus that is in him. He may put it under a bushel. He may live out of the old man of sin instead of the life of Jesus. But that's a vile denial of Jesus, and Jesus condemns that in the strongest language he that Denies me before men, I will deny before my Father. Faith determines our life. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Even eating and drinking, if it's not done in faith, is sin. The fruits of faith are plain in the believer's life. He sorrows over his sin. He has an earnest desire to thank God for the life of obedience, and then he speaks boldly. Listen to 2 Corinthians 4 verse 13. We, having the same spirit of faith, the spirit of faith, the spirit who gives faith, strengthens faith, maintains it, According as it is written, I believed and therefore have I spoken, we also believe and therefore speak. Paul's talking as a minister here, but this is for all of us, because we have the spirit of faith, because we believe, we speak. We speak. We confess boldly the name of Jesus Christ. Faith is a new life. The life of Jesus dominates that father as he goes off to work. The life of faith dominates that mother as she works in the home, especially when she's working with her children. The young adult, as she sets off to college or to work, faith is dominating her. That teenager or child that goes off to school, faith is dominating. It must. And because faith is not merely this mysterious bond which gives us life, which of course is the source of everything, but faith also is personal conviction. Personal conviction. That's the second thing that we examine in the sermon this morning. That of course is Heidelberg Catechism question 21. What is true faith? What is true faith? And now I want to point out that there may have been someone in the past that said, faith is a spiritual bond. That's all faith is. And now answer 21 is going to tell you what faith does. That's not what the catechism says. Faith is a spiritual bond. But now when the catechism is going to explain what faith is, this is its answer. Not what faith does, but what faith is. What is true faith? True faith is not only a certain knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart. that not only to others but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits. This is the work of the spirit in the elect sinner. Both of those ideas about faith are very helpful, very important. because an unborn child and an infant and a little child will not have the kinds of understanding and conviction that we're going to talk about here in this second point, but he still can have that bond of faith, still is united to Jesus Christ, still has the life of Jesus Christ in him or her. But for an adult, faith is conscious activity. It is conscious. But let me point out three inadequate forms of what someone might consider to be faith. And really, I'm going to be using what the Catechism says here, but now just What if we would just take knowledge and say faith is only knowledge. Faith is only knowledge. Now knowledge is indispensable. You must have knowledge. Faith has to believe something. It has to believe something. But faith is not merely knowledge. A child that grows up in a Christian home has a tremendous amount of knowledge. The Bible has been read at the table for years. He has memorized passages of Scripture. He has learned the Bible. He knows Reformed doctrine. He comes to know the truth of creation and the fall and the history of Israel. He knows about Jesus, the incarnation, his life, his death, his resurrection. He knows all that. As a young man, he can give all the right answers. He can prove that Arminianism is wrong. He can prove that the Baptist view of the covenant is wrong. He can prove evolutionism is wrong. But if that's all he has is knowledge, he does not have faith. That's not faith. That knowledge will not sustain him. That knowledge will not endure. The devils have this kind of knowledge. They know God. They know his judgments, James says, and they tremble. But they do not have saving faith. No one is saved simply because he knows the Bible and knows Reformed doctrine. The second erroneous form of faith is mere conviction without the knowledge. Mere conviction without knowledge. We could be describing someone who is infatuated with Jesus. I love Jesus. He is my Savior. I believe in Jesus. Now, for a child like Faith, that's wonderful. That's fine. But for an adult, you need to know, who is this Jesus? What has He done? And how has He saved you? The Catechism reminds us that the believer holds on to all that God has revealed in His Word. Whenever he reads something in the Bible, he searches it and he says, I believe that. So the one who says simply, I believe in Jesus, I don't have to know about all this doctrine stuff. I only know that I was lost and now I'm found. I was blind and now I see. This kind of personal conviction without knowledge is not faith, this is emotion. And this is the parable of the four soils where the man is sowing his seeds, and some of it falls on stony ground, and the ground is only that heavy over the stone. And so it's nice and warm there, and when the seed is sown, it springs up quickly, but because there's no root, when the sun comes, it withers and dies. And Jesus said that's like a person who hears the preaching of the gospel, is all excited about it, full of joy, but there's no root. It's not rooted in Christ, and therefore, when persecution comes, they leave. That's not faith. Faith is not merely emotional conviction. In the third place, faith is not all works. There are those who insist, it's not important, you know, as a Christian, what you believe. It's what you do. It's what you do. This is our calling to be doing. The emphasis is on service, service, service. You can make a difference in this world. You must be out there fighting the culture wars in our country. You can make this place a better place. Establish the rule of Jesus Christ on this earth. That's our calling. But that, people of God, is not faith. Emphatically, it is true that faith produces works, but faith is not simply works. So what is faith? Thankful, I'm sure we all are, for the Catechism's clear explanation. What is faith? Two things. First of all, it's a certain knowledge. Certain knowledge, sure. Certain means sure. It is knowledge. Faith is information about God and his works. Faith is the record of past actions of God. Faith is the knowledge of promises and the declaration and everything that God has revealed about himself in his word. Faith knows these things. Faith affirms these things. It declares, this is true. I know this is true. I know it. Why can faith be so sure? Well, the answer very simply is because God said it. Because God said so. The whole Bible is God's infallible, inspired word to his people. The devil is always seeking to undermine that. That's the way he started out with Eve, and he continues that to the present day. Yea, hath God said? Did God really say that? Did he really mean that? The devil seeks to make the way of obedience look hard, evil, and even wrong, according to man's judgments. For example, it is unloving to condemn homosexuality. That's unloving. Yea, hath God said that there are only two genders, and that only they may be married, and that they're married for life? And that the bond of marriage is something God establishes, and it's only broken when God takes one of the spouses by death. Hath God said that really? Has God really only said that only men may be office bearers and vote in congregational meetings? Has God really said that He created everything in 24-hour days, six of them? Not with evolution. Hath God said truly that Christ died only for the elect, that God does not love all men and desire to save all them? Yea, hath God said. And here's the biggest problem. Our flesh is in league with the devil. And our flesh will go along with his ideas and will even try to convince us that God didn't say. The parts of the Bible that do not restrict us, we can, oh sure, I believe that, hold fast to that. But when it binds us, then It's more difficult. When doing this might condemn a family member because, well, they're living that way and now if I say this, it will condemn that family member. Maybe the Word of God condemns us in our lifestyle. You see the struggle. Faith knows the knowledge that he has is certain because God said it. The world hates it. The world condemns it and contradicts it. And the church must not give in, even a little. Common grace, of course, has been used to do that. Common grace supposedly given to unbelieving Sociologists and psychologists will say, there really is no difference between men and women. There's no reason why women couldn't be elders and deacons and ministers as well as men. And so the church holding a common grace said, well, that's common grace. God gave them that. So it must be something we can follow. And now they contradict the very word of God following the philosophies of men. and we could go on. God spoke. It is truth. And that really is enough. But God is so good, and so understanding of our weakness, that he will confirm that word in such a way that we know it's true. In two ways. In the first place, God confirms the spoken word and the written word with the work of the Spirit in the hearts of His people. The Spirit confirms it. The Spirit makes us to know that is true. That is the truth of the Word of God. The knowledge we have is not merely a knowledge, well, I've read the Bible, I've taken notes, It's not a matter of, well, I've reasoned through it and it seems to me logically correct. That's not where our knowledge comes from. It's a spiritual knowledge. The Spirit confirms it. He writes it upon our hearts. Without that internal work of the Spirit, no one will for long believe what the Bible says. The Spirit must confirm it. Second, the knowledge of faith is the knowledge of experience. The knowledge of experience. Let me try to explain that with an illustration. A woman who has never given birth can find out a lot about giving birth. Books to read, videos to watch. You can find out all kinds of information about what it is to give birth to a child. And a lot of knowledge. And you can say, well, okay, this is what happens. This is how it happens. I know all these things about giving birth. But then if she gives birth, suddenly that knowledge has a totally new dimension. It's experiential. The things that she learned before, she can say, that's exactly what happened. Or others say, no, it didn't happen that way at all for me. She now has the knowledge of experience for giving birth. That's exactly what I'm talking about here. The knowledge of faith is not merely the knowledge of a book. It's not even the knowledge merely of the Spirit confirming it, as important as that all is and absolutely foundational, but it is also the knowledge of experience. And that's why the catechism can say what it does. that not only to others but also to me is granted, are granted, remission of sins, eternal life, and salvation. By faith, the believer is experiencing those realities personally. He can testify, I am forgiven He knows that. He's experienced that. I have the joy of eternal life. I have the blessings of salvation. That's the kind of knowledge we're talking about. It's a knowledge grounded in the fact that God said it. It's the Spirit confirming that in the heart of the believer. And it's the experience that what the Bible is saying is true. This is exactly what I'm experiencing. Certain knowledge. And that gives him the assured confidence, the second element of saving faith. Faith is certain knowledge, hearty confidence, or assured confidence. Confidence, what does that mean? Think about it. If you have confidence in someone, you trust. You trust. I have confidence in you. I trust. I trust that what you say is right. I trust that what you're going to do will be good. I trust you. That's confidence. The certain knowledge of the Spirit that is confirming the Bible and our own experience which is also supporting that, by faith, we believe that God loves That He cares for us. That He is, in fact, working all things for our good. What a beautiful thing to have confidence in God. Trust Him. Assurance, therefore, is part of the essence of faith. Assurance. To be assured that one has salvation. Does that mean that we never doubt? Oh, I wish. We do doubt sometimes, but the doubt, you understand, is coming because of our own sinfulness, our own weaknesses. Faith never doubts. Faith never doubts. Faith does not doubt because everything rests on God. And that's how the question 21 ends. All these things are given to me. Why? Freely given by God. I don't have to work for it. There's nothing I can do to work for it. It's freely given, merely of grace. Merely of grace. No works, past, present, or future, will ever get me any of the things that I'm getting by faith. only of grace and only for the sake of Christ's merits. Faith embraces Jesus. Faith appropriates the blessings that Jesus earned on the cross and in his resurrection. All the blessings of salvation. That's what faith does. Personal conviction. Personal conviction. But faith also embraces then the gospel. It embraces the gospel. That's the third thing we examined this morning. And that's question 22. Question 22, what then is necessary for a Christian to believe all things promised us in the gospel? That's the heart of it. All things promised us in the gospel. Another way of saying that is, what is necessary for a Christian to believe? It's the Bible. It's the Bible. And especially the promises of the Bible, so precious. The Bible's loaded with promises. Go back to Lloyd's Day 6 a moment in your mind and remember what it said there. Where was this Savior revealed? And the answer is in the gospel. which God announced in paradise, and then began to publish it through the patriarchs and the prophets, set forth for the people in all the signs and the types of Israel's life, and finally fulfilled that gospel in His Son, Jesus Christ. The gospel is all through the Bible then, isn't it? Starts out in Genesis. and goes all the way through. The Bible is everywhere in Scripture. That's the whole of the Bible, and that's the purpose of the Bible, to reveal God as the God of our salvation in Jesus Christ. Why is there so much in the Bible then? Why all this other stuff? Histories, genealogies, epistles, when we really only have to believe the gospel, the promise of the gospel. Well, let me try to explain that. Think of a portrait that is painted, maybe a portrait of a face, maybe a scene, and obviously there is a central figure there in that portrait. But there's a lot of things on the outside that are the background of that, which enhance the whole of the portrait. It's not a bare face, not bare scene with no trees, no flowers, no animals. It's a scene, but it has much in the background that explains the central part of the portrait. That's the Bible. That's the Bible. The Bible is the revelation of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So the face of Jesus is most important. His incarnation, his life, his suffering, his death, his going through hell, his rising again, ascending into heaven and sitting at God's right hand. There's the core. There's the center of it. But everything else in the Bible is background that helps us to understand the main point all those genealogies the history of Israel the prophecies that say Jerusalem will be destroyed later Babylon will be destroyed All these things contribute to the whole revelation of God. Now, the point I'm making is then, that we read and study the Bible, we're always, in every passage, looking for Christ crucified. That's what we're looking for. That's what we're searching for. How does this passage shed light on the main subject of the portrait? Jesus. We're determined to know more and more the riches of the gospel. This is the exciting work that a minister gets to do, devote his life to studying and seeing Jesus in every passage. That's his exciting work. But that's all of our work. When we open the Bible and study, we find beautiful truths and suddenly something we hadn't thought about before opens up something about the glorious work of God saving his people in Jesus Christ. So we study, we believe the whole Bible. It doesn't mean you have to have every passage memorized. But it means as you come into any new passage, what you discover there, you say, that's more truth about God, my Savior. Accordingly, the Catechism draws our attention to the Apostles' Creed as a summary of what is found here in the Bible, a summary The Apostles' Creed, a little bit of the history, it was probably a baptism creed. It was developed gradually in the early, early church. Some of the parts of this, most of it is found already about 250 years after Jesus. And it was apparently something that they would want a new convert to confess, not memorize, confess this. Do you confess this? And they wanted them to say that they did, and show they did, before they would be baptized and become a part of the church. It's called the Apostles' Creed, therefore, not because the apostles wrote it, they didn't. No evidence of that. But because it contains the truth, the doctrine, that the apostles taught in the inspired scriptures, not some tradition that we don't know much about. only what the Bible gives us. So the catechism brings up the confession, not in the sense that, well, here's the minimum now. Here's the minimum knowledge. If you have this, you're good. But simply, this is the summary. This is the summary of what the Bible teaches about God, what you and I must believe. What we must believe. And the beauty of it is, it's what the church universal confesses. That's the beauty of it. It's what the church in Moscow confesses. It's what the church in Singapore confesses. It's what the church in Brazil confesses. And so it will be our joy to examine these articles and to develop the truth that they summarize and thereby to strengthen our faith in that certain knowledge and hearty confidence. May God give us grace. Amen. Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy abundant goodness to us, for giving us faith. Without faith, we would not understand. Without faith, we would not Believe that thou hast worked it in us, and we pray, Lord, we pray, strengthen it. Strengthen that faith day after day. And give glory to thy name as thy people, united to Jesus Christ, live in this world as pilgrims and strangers. We really don't belong here. Our life is in heaven, hid with Jesus Christ. and make us to be faithful by faith. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Now we will have a new experience. We will sing the Apostles' Creed. So now you need to go to the back of the song section, past the Psalms, into the doxologies and spiritual songs. And number 17, number 17. I have never sung this either. The tune is familiar to me. It is not a Psalter tune that I know of, but it is familiar to me, and I hope that it will be to you. It's the Apostles' Creed, obviously not in the word-for-word form that we confess it Sunday after Sunday, but it does capture the, stay as close as possible and capture the thought of the Apostles' Creed. So let's sing the four stanzas, number 17, the Apostles' Creed. ♪ you. O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? ♪ To stand by you now ♪ ♪ Keep within the graceful silent ♪ ♪ As the practice immortal ♪ ♪ Like a song still too wise and deep ♪ the prayer of his heart. Till God's light there be exceeded, till his body to the living and the dead. I have blessed the Holy Spirit that was sent through Christ the Son, through the blight, salvation's death, of the Spirit reborn. I believe the Church of Jesus, through all we have learned, through all the ages, one communion of the saints. I believe since I'm forgiven that our bodies will be raised. I live by faith. I will gladly sing thee praise. ♪ Blessed be the rising sun ♪ ♪ Of all the God of Israel ♪ ♪ For he alone has won the sun ♪ ♪ And he's in glory at last sun ♪ ♪ And blessed be his glorious name ♪ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.