What else we got to do? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this Lord's Day where we get to worship together, corporately as we call it, but we long for that day when every day will be corporate worship. We pray for Jesus' return, of course, in your timing, not our own, but we do long for that day to spend eternity with you and all the things that we have no idea what's going to happen. But we trust you that you love us so much that you gave us your only begotten son to die for us. So the treasures in heaven just will be unbelievable, I'm sure. Father, we ask that you be with us today, not just in presence, but in power, giving us a lesson on how we should be humbled before you and how we should live among each other. We thank you for this confession that we study, which we consider a great summary of your word. So Father, it doesn't replace your word, but it certainly helps us to understand. Just, again, have us be good hearers today. Prepare our hearts for worship in an hour or so. And for the rest of the day, we would be reminded of you in all things. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well, let me start. We're going to do the second part of chapter 8 in the confession today. Let me start with Proverbs 3, 13 to 18. It harkens back a little bit to Pastor Aaron's class on the church fathers and what we talked about about wisdom. Now, I didn't come to every class. I missed a couple of classes, and I also don't always pay attention. So Aaron might have covered this verse, but anyway, I'm going to read it again. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand, in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Those who hold her fast are called blessed. And the verse 18 is what I wanted to focus on there. It compares wisdom to the tree of life, hearkening back to the garden. So if the tree of life, what is a picture of Christ, and wisdom is Christ personified, It's a good easy way to relate the tree of life was also Christ, and the wisdom that comes from him is better than riches. So I hope I tied that together properly. If not, well, I'll blame it on the church fathers. But I really love the wisdom in Proverbs as being Christ. And as I think Dr. Park mentioned, that every time wisdom is mentioned in the scriptures, you just can't fill in Jesus' name, because it would be kind of senseless to do that. But also, if Jesus is our wisdom, then those verses, the tree of life thing really struck me this morning when I was listening to a podcast. Just struck me, the tree of life and wisdom. So let me read 8.5 here at the top of your notes. The Lord Jesus by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal spirit once offered up to God, has fully satisfied the justice of his father. He purchased not only reconciliation, but also an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father has given to him. So we're gonna talk about God's justice was fully satisfied in Christ. And we all would say amen to that, but it's always a little bit more than our just saying amen to truth. There is so much deeper meaning in these things that, We talk about, sometimes we just use phrases and gloss over things when we really should take time to study God's word and meditate on it, not just be cliche artists, as I would say. We need to understand these. So what's it mean to be, for God to have his justified, yeah, his satisfied justice completely in Christ? Well, last week we talked about Jesus being the only mediator right between God and man. He is fully man and fully God and full of the Holy Spirit. And we're going to reiterate from last week that Jesus has to be a man to die for his people. And I know we say God died for his people and that's something we're going to talk about. Jesus is one person. He's the Christ. He's fully God, fully man. We don't intermix all these things. Jesus slept The person of Jesus slept. We can't say, well, his God nature didn't sleep. Jesus slept as a person. And I think we need to understand those things better than I do anyway, because it's important that we don't try to mix all these things together. So knowing who he is and what he's done explains what he purchased by his obedience and sacrifice. We talked about that. He purchased us. Nonworthy gifts he paid his life for. And he makes us worthy in the sense of we're in God's family. We're treated as adopted children. So our worth comes from Christ, not from ourselves or not what we have done or what we own, right? Our worth comes from him. So ever since scripture began, I don't know if that's the right word or not, ever since time began and Adam was created, There's been sacrifice, there's been offerings given to God, right? Because we have to appease a God. And back in the, we talked about covenants a couple, who knows, months ago. When God created Adam, he had to create him with a covenant overseeing that relationship. Because think about this, if God just creates Adam and there's no covenant, Adam maybe didn't sin and God could still send him to hell because he never promised anything, right? The covenant is promises. And there are rewards and sanctions for disobedience. Punishments, I should say. So there has to be a covenant when Adam's created or it doesn't make any sense that there's eternal life because God had no rules. Just do whatever you want. So that's the basis of a covenant. When you get married, there has to be a covenant or it doesn't make any sense. We have to work in the framework of covenants. Even when you have a child, there's a covenant made. That's your child now. It's not like somebody else's. It's yours and it's your duty to raise or you can put it up for adoption and those things, but there's covenants in everything we do. You go to work, you work under a covenant. There are promises if you do a good job and there are things if you don't do a good job. So, all this starts from a covenant and works its way down through Adam sinning and Christ saving us under a covenant of grace now. Okay. No idea if you wanted to know that or not, but anyway. Jesus was like no other priest, of course. He offered up himself. His perfect obedience to God is what he offered in himself was perfect obedience. The animals in the Old Testament were sacrificed. They certainly weren't capable of saving man because that would be really silly if we had an animal die for us and God accepted that as fine, right? It was a picture of Christ, again, the ultimate sacrifice. But even the animals were supposed to be without blemish, right? I don't know how you tell animals have blemishes or not. I don't know. But they're supposed to have their best animal. And you've seen animals, horses, some look better than others. Some have that big dip in the back there that isn't too pleasing looking. Pigs all look the same, I don't know. But they had to offer sacrifices of some sort of perfection. And they were told if you don't, it's not a good thing, right? So in perfect obedience, what did Jesus do? He obeyed every command that God asked of him. And since Jesus kind of knew all the commandments in his divineness, but he had to obey them in his manness to be perfect. And we read that he grew in knowledge, so he grew in obedience, although he never was disobedient. to be a perfect sacrifice, you have to fulfill the perfection. And he did. And I always wonder sometimes whether his disciples were waiting for him to sin. He's a man, he's going to sin. We all do, right? Or do you think they knew that he was sinless? I don't know. Peter rebukes him, so I'm thinking, Maybe Peter might have thought, well, this might be sin, you talking about going to Jerusalem to die, that might be sinful. So I'm gonna put a stop to it, which we all know what happened, right? Get behind me, Satan. And he wasn't calling him Satan, it was just the thoughts of Peter were not obedient. Okay, so Jesus comes, his mission was to come and die, right? So doesn't it make sense that he's perfect? Because if he wasn't, then he didn't come and die for his people because he couldn't have saved them. So however you get to that perfection, it had to be perfection. There's no half perfection or 99% perfection. There is no such thing. In God's eyes, you're either perfect or you're not, and we all fall under the you're not, right? Only one. So since Jesus is perfect in all that he does, his birth was perfect, which We don't talk about a whole lot. We always talk about his active obedience and his passive obedience on the cross where he died without much of a fight, right? He allowed it to happen because he knew that was his mission. So the sacrifice has to be perfect also. His death is perfect. His ascension is perfect. He's perfect. And he's still in his body interceding for us perfectly. So the irony of all this is there's one man who's sinless, Jesus, he finally comes to the world to obey his father, the only man ever that didn't deserve to die so his perfection led to his death so he could die for us. That's irony personified. That does not happen in any novel I've ever read. That does not happen. Man writes novels about himself being the hero. That's how it works. They're sort of on the right track, but they always pick somebody that's not Jesus. Well, obviously, it's a novel. But all those stories that we hear about heroes, especially nowadays, we have all these superhero movies and stuff. People are looking for a savior, right? So we look to movies. That's pretty funny. Or we look to Superman, which, by the way, can still beat up Batman. We can talk about that later. Batman has some bad qualities. He's a bat. That's one thing that discounts him altogether. So, listen to some scriptures here. Ephesians 5, 1 and 2. Hebrews 10.14, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Now, listen to that again. This might be one of those gloss over verses that we just, okay, yeah, one offering, I got it. But what happens here? For by a single offering he has perfected who? Us. I haven't seen any of you guys being perfect lately, but I'm giving you time here. I'll give some time. So you know when that's going to be, right? So he offers a sacrifice for us to make us perfect, to sanctify us fully, even though while we're on earth, you know, we have progressive sanctification, which is a very strange thing. We talked a little bit yesterday in the men's group about this, that we should see sanctification in others. Looking inside to see if you're being more sanctified than you were yesterday, I don't think's the point. People should see us being more sanctified. Now, I'm not saying you can't think about your sanctification and realize you need a long way to go or, well, that sin is no longer in play or however you word that. But the idea of sanctification is it should be obvious to other people you're being sanctified. Now that you're all here in Sunday school, I'll check off more sanctified, right? Sorry. So, again, we always talk about a sacrifice of atonement. The confession talks about that. Again, it's true, he gave himself as a sacrifice for us, but God also presented us to him. So he dies for us and he gets us back. He gets a raw deal in this. We get the good deal. He gets like, what, Gary? What are we doing with him? It's really just amazing to me that Jesus died for me. All you people, I understand he could die for you, but for me, I just don't see it. It's a miracle of all miracles. Is Giles here? Oh, man. I put this in here just for him. Jesus was to propitiate. He told me that word should be in the confession, so I put it in here even though the confession doesn't have it. I did. No. He was to appease the wrath of God by a sacrifice. And guess what? God wants to be appeased. So he gives us a son. This is triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit always working together for our salvation. What we're talking about today is the Spirit's part of teaching us what this is all about. And I think it's just amazing that God wanted to be appeased so he could have his people back. or I don't know if back's the right word there, but you know what I mean. So, okay, here's the plan. I'll give you my son, he'll die for you, and then he'll get you as a reward or a gift. And he's the only one that could satisfy the justice of his father. So our, I wouldn't know if I should call them Christians if they don't believe in this, If you believe that Jesus was not fully God, just man, then I would have trouble calling you a Christian. I guess maybe you're just an unlearned Christian, if that's what you think. But you have to have a perfect man to die for man. You have to have a perfect dog die for a dog. You can't mix things like that. It has to be a perfect man. You can't die for somebody if you're not perfect. That's just the way God worked this whole thing out. What's really interesting to me is before the foundation of the earth, before the earth was created, Jesus was already the son who was going to save his people, but there aren't any people yet. Well, I guess you work that direction, you're going to have to have a world and you're going to have to have people in it, you're going to have to have sin for Jesus to die for. So it's a pretty good plan. It's been the plan all along. There's no plan Bs. There's no nothing. It's plan. That's the plan. So Christians, we should rejoice in my favorite word, penal substitution, which most people don't use anymore because it doesn't make any sense. It's dying for somebody else. Penal penalty. Jesus paid the penalty for us. And we will no longer have our sins held against us. 8.6, also the work of redemption was not actually accomplished by Christ until after his resurrection. Yet the power, efficacy, and benefits of it were applied to the elect in all ages, successfully from the beginning, successively from the beginning of the world in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices by which Christ was revealed and signified to be the seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent's head and to be the lamb slain from the beginning of the world. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So we're going to talk about redemption applied or communicated, however you want to express that. John Murray wrote a book, Redemption Applied, and I forget the whole name of the book now. Accomplished and Applied. So, okay, we got Jesus dying for us. And the question I've heard plenty of times in my Christian life is, how were the Old Testament people saved? And there's a whole gambit of wrong answers. Yes, sir. Oh boy. because, well, I just haven't been really here a whole bunch of the time before because church wasn't really like a main priority for me and my mom and dad for a while. And I just want to, and I just started like a couple weeks ago, and I just wanted to ask you, why did God sacrifice Jesus even though, like, That's a very good question. The answer to that is I have no idea. All I do know is this was the plan that God gave us in his word, and I'm not going to try to guess why he did that. I don't know. That's not much of an answer. So Terry can help you out. And I say it's a good question because a lot of people have asked, why couldn't he have done it a different way? And the answer is, he could have. But he chose this way to do it. And that's what I have to go with. Aaron, anything? You want to help me out there? I mean, it is an incredibly good question. how the sacrifice of Christ exhibits God as a just God. If God is not just, then there is no right or wrong people Thanks Aaron, I appreciate the help there. So how are people saved that lived before the work of redemption was complete? Somebody just say the right answer. The same way we are. Very good, very good, I appreciate that. They look forward to Christ's work and we look And by the way, we have the advantage of looking back at the scriptures. We really do. Even the people that lived during Jesus' disciples, we read some of the things they thought and said, and you wonder, geez, he was standing right there. How did you miss that, right? And Jesus even says, those who are blessed who believe in me haven't seen me. And that was a paraphrase, by the way. So we are blessed. because of the scriptures, and we see all the issues from Genesis to Revelation of believing in Jesus. It's not a leap of faith, and I said this last week, it's more reasonable to believe in Christianity than it is to not believe. It is unreasonable not to believe in Christ, it's unreasonable. It's not lack of proof, it's lack of want. People don't want to believe. No matter how Ravi Zacharias ended his, or his life ended with all kind of weird things happening, he could speak that part about reasonable and unreasonable as well as anybody I ever heard. He made Christianity sound so reasonable. He'd be like, geez, how could I have never, why didn't I believe this my whole life? This is so reasonable, right? The evidence is clear. our hearts are not that clear. And that's why we believe that God has to change your heart, regenerate you, so you can see that this is reasonable. So when I ask, when I say it's not unreasonable, it's more unreasonable to believe than it is, whatever I said. The thing is, when you say that to somebody who doesn't believe, that's not very reasonable to them. So it's just another circle logic. It's like I always kind of chuckle at saying, certain things about Christianity that you know non-believers aren't going to believe, so why do we say them and not explain what we, like scriptures are self-authenticating? Say that to somebody who's not a Christian, they'll look at you like, what are you talking about? Right? So that's why we need to be explainers of the faith, not just sayers. of the faith. We have to explain what we're talking about. I mean, I think it's great when we invite our non-believing friends or neighbors to church, but I think you ought to give them a warning of what we're going to do here. You know, if you're looking for what you see on TV with, you know, flashing lights and smoke coming off a stage, I'm going to have to change your idea of what we're doing here because you're going to be very disappointed if that's what you think we're doing. You know, to be really unreasonable and stretch this way out, they might think we're coming to cut chickens' heads off or something. You know, there's a bloody sacrifice for you. No, we don't do that either. We already have our bloody sacrifice. So I think it's helpful to explain to people what you're inviting them to. It would be like me inviting somebody to Heinz Field. I have two tickets to go to Heinz Field. You want to go? Well, don't you think they're going to want to know what we're going to do there, right? I would think so, so you have to explain to people what you're doing. We could invite them to the bowling alley to eat dinner. Well, that would be kind of good to tell them. You're not going to be bowling, right? So we sometimes just want to invite people to church and go, whew, at least I got that done. That's not helpful. We need to explain our faith to people in a reasonable way, knowing they're not understanding what we're saying. So, we talk about in the New Testament every spiritual mercy and blessing being available to us. Well, it was available to them also, right? Again, trusting in God, Abraham trusted in God that there will be a Savior. Not just Abraham, but Moses and all the others. We tell others it's never too late to find salvation. This part of the confession says it was never too early to find salvation. And that's one of the reasons confession is so important for us because it just says things in a plain way, especially if you get the plainer translation than the old one. I think I mentioned this funny story about a pastor in Florida that we were studying parts of the confession, not like this. But anyway, someone said, well, there's a modern version out. Maybe we should use it. And he said, no, we should learn the language of the men that wrote it. But he uses an NIV Bible. I'm like, wait a minute. There's a contradiction here, I think. You're using a plain Bible, but not the confession. I think it should be the other way around. We ought to try to help get through the confession. Anyway, it's just a funny story. The New Testament tells us the Old Testament saints were saved. Since there's only one mediator between God and man, should be pretty obvious to us that all of God's people were saved by Christ. He doesn't have people that are saved different ways. Now, we have denominations that we call brothers in Christ that would say, yep, they were saved by the law. Then there weren't anybody saved in the Old Testament then because none of them kept the law perfectly. It's by grace alone. And grace is taught in the Old Testament. I mean, it's clear. Right in the garden, Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves. And would God say, no, I have to cover you? I mean, how hard is it to get from that to the way we believe in election and predestination? God said, I had to cover you. Now, in the New Testament, we cover ourselves. Why would God do that? There's no continuity in that. There is just none there. We're saved the same way. And then we can look back in the Old Testament and see that Christ was revealed. It's not hard, especially with the class on the church fathers. They saw Christ everywhere in the scriptures. And again, the church fathers had the advantage of what? After the death of Christ. They could look back and see that. That's why we're blessed more than the Old Testament saints are, because we have the advantage, right? If you know the score at the end of a game, you can be an idiot like me and watch it anyway. Or you can say, well, I know the outcome, right, post-game overtime. I just like watching the game. I don't know if they win or lose. Well, it depends. Never mind. Okay. So page two. Throughout the Old Testament, it's clear that people cannot save themselves. Romans 4 tells us Abraham was righteous, but he was righteous by faith in someone else, right? Jesus said in John 8, 56, Abraham rejoiced to see Christ's day. Jesus alone is foreshadowed as the seed of the woman in Genesis 3, 15. He's the one that, Jesus is the only one that could undo sin because he had none. Right? The sin cannot be undone. So how did the Old Testament saints understand that there was going to be a Savior to come? The Holy Spirit. Right? Same way we know. You don't know Christ is your Savior unless the Holy Spirit reveals it to you through a changed heart. So it's the same in the Old Testament. It seems hard to understand how they interpreted all that, but again, the Holy Spirit was there for their salvation. It was in them to be saved. And we can talk about the power of the Spirit being different in the New Testament than the Old Testament, because every believer now is a priest, in a sense. They were not. So when we make fun of the Israelites for their sins, remember, the Spirit wasn't in them like it's in us. And we still have things that match what the Israelites did, sin-wise anyway. So it does help. Trust me, it does help. But again, we have the law written in our hearts, and so do non-believers. But guess what? We have the Holy Spirit applying those laws in our hearts. The Reformed people believe that nonbelievers have the spirit working in their hearts with the law, in a sense, but not like Christians would have. Now, the Lutherans would disagree with that. They'd say the spirit doesn't work at all in nonbelievers. Well, whatever. That's okay. It's pretty clear that they are. They would be more evil than they would be now. So, the law does apprehend people's hearts. because the spirit works in them in some sense, even non-believers. It does affect the way they apply the law. And we see that where in governments, they try to do justice with people. Their justice is not anywhere near perfect because we're not perfect people, so we can't expect a perfect government. We would hope to have better or worse, but we can't expect them to keep the commandments We don't keep the commandments if we're honest with ourselves and we have the Holy Spirit working in our life. So when we expect non-believers to keep the law, what are you counting on here? That God would work in them somehow to keep them obeying the law. It's never, and I hear this and I'm probably guilty of it at times in my life, that the church, we're always blaming those people out there. They did that. Well, what about our responsibilities? Do we think we're doing a great job at teaching people right and wrong? Do we think we're like the strongest church known to man? Do we really think that? We're to blame for a lot of the ills of the world. We don't always make a stand where we should, and sometimes we make stands where we probably shouldn't make them. So it's a mess, but we do have peace because of Let's go to 8.7. Again, we have to go back to Jesus' two natures. fully God, fully man. We need to understand that it's not the human nature that saved us. It's not the divine nature that saved us. It's the person of Christ that saved us. We're not saved by his natures. We're saved by a person. And that's a big thing to wrap your heads around. I was going to say little heads, but I don't want to say that. Your big heads around. Because that really helps us understand the fully God, fully man, if we understand that natures don't save us, that Christ himself, acting according, as the confession says, to both natures. So again, it's a person that saves us, and the natures were doing what they were supposed to be doing. It's really hard to understand, for me anyway, that we don't do anything, we're taught we don't do anything apart from our nature. But the natures didn't save us, Jesus did. So I'm not saying I understand that, and I probably don't get it very much. All I know is that Jesus died for us. The person of Christ died. His divine nature couldn't die, but he died. And so maybe you understand it better than I do, but that's all I know. Okay, Hebrews 9.14, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 1 Peter 3.18, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Both those verses refer to the work of Christ as a whole person. While we keep the person of Christ in view, we can't forget about the two natures, right? We have to remember the two natures of Christ. So Hebrews 9 said it was the blood that was needed to save us. And 1 Peter tells us the suffering was required for our salvation. The blood of the suffering were Christ because the eternal Son of God became embodied and embodied man with a human nature. Christ is one person with two natures for eternity, and he remains as a whole person, right? He's not going back to one nature. He's always going to have the two natures. And there's no analogy for the incarnation but Christ. I know there was a period, well, maybe 20, 15, 20 years ago now, we were going to have this incarnation ministries. We need to be the incarnate people. Well, sorry, you can't do that. There's only one incarnation. You can't. If you're God and you become a man, let me know, because I'll start to worship you then instead. So that whole thing was just a mess. We're always trying to come up with gimmicks to do things. And all we need is Christ and him crucified. And again, this is all mystery. It's like the Trinity. It's a mystery. I don't know how there's one God with three essences. I don't know how to do that. Or three persons, I should say. I'm sorry. One essence, three persons. So, there's a lot of mysteries in the Bible, right? And Deuteronomy 29, 29 tells us the mysteries belong to God. It's not for me to figure out. Some things are just what they are. The Trinity is just what it is. So, how do we understand the two natures of Christ, how they relate to his person? I guess the theologians call the communication of attributes, which is not that helpful. But what can be said of the humanity of Christ can be said of his person. What can be said of his divinity can be said of the person. Again, we're going to get back to that same thing. And I think the divines that wrote this were like, we've got to really try to explain this two-nature thing. Because there have been heresies already when they wrote this about the two natures. And so Jesus wasn't really a man. He just looked like a man. He wasn't really God, because God would never come down to earth as a man. Never. So, what do we have? We have the two natures of Christ, and there it is, the mystery of how that works. You're never going to have two natures, I can tell you that. We may need them, but we aren't going to have them. We could use them now, but in heaven we won't need the divine nature because the desire to sin will be taken from us, or we'll be so full of the Spirit there will be no desire to sin, however you understand that and believe that, that's fine. There will be no temptations to sin. And we've got to be careful that we don't say what's true of one nature is true of the other. We were just talking about that, right? Christ's human nature did not exist from eternity. The divine nature could never die, right? So we have to be careful. And I mentioned that before, Jesus' divine nature didn't die on the cross. The teaching of the communication of attributes of Christ's natures to his person is assumed when the divines say that what is proper to one nature is attributed to the person. This falls under the category of biblical language and I have on here can be confusing because, well, I'll give you some examples and you'll understand what I'm talking about. The phrase that the divines use, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature. Confession is trying to teach us how to understand biblical language about Christ and not to oversimplify it. And I think we're very guilty of oversimplifying Scripture. We use it out of context. We use it as a way out of arguments. We use it not for the intent that God gave it to us. Winning arguments is not the answer. Winning souls is the answer. And I'm guilty, believe me. I'll argue about some things until you just run away, which most people end up doing. And I repent from those things, I really do. I'm a terrible person. So there are times in scripture where the humanity of Christ is expressed using divine categories and vice versa. This may happen in scripture, but we must not confuse the two natures. And we do that with scripture in other places. Jesus says, if you abide in me, I will abide in you. So we have a whole ministries of trying to abide in Jesus. When really what he said is, if I abide in you, you will abide in me. I wish he would have wrote it that way because it's so much easier. But the order of words in scripture isn't the telltale sign of what it means. Right? We have some baptism verses that sound like, you're baptized and you will receive the Holy Spirit. See another one, they should have just fixed that. Because you get the Holy Spirit, then you're baptized. An adult. That's an adult. So, sometimes the Bible can be confusing because we put things out of order and then try to build a ministry on that and there's denominations that Say you have to be baptized in our church to be saved because they use that one verse that puts it out of order I think it's first Peter So again, they took the whole Bible got one verse and they're gonna build a ministry a church on that one verse. I Find that kind of odd that you would build your church on one verse when the scripture builds the church in the first place and all of the scriptures and You ever see the sign for full gospel church? What is there, half full gospel churches? What does that mean? It means we're going to make you charismatic and you're going to learn how to speak in tongues. That's what that means. Okay, well, I'm signing up for that one. So we're a New Testament church. What happened to the Old Testament? We're just going to forget that one. I know they have good intentions, but it's silly. It's just silly trying to make a doctrine out of the name of your church. I find that odd. Okay. How about the church? Let's go to the church, all right? Of course, our church is named after a man, so I'm not going to go there. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Actually, when I saw the name of the church, I did hesitate, like, what? What are we doing? But then I've learned the history. See, we always got to learn the history of our stuff, right? Anybody buying that? Okay. In the Scriptures, there are times humanity, oh, I said that. In other words, something may be true only of one nature, but in the Scriptures, it may be attributed not only to the person of Christ, which we would expect, but it may also be attributed to Christ by reference to his other nature. Now, how about that for confusing? Example, here we go. Acts 20, 28. The Ephesian elders were warned to take care of the Church of God which he has purchased with his own blood." Well, when we see the term God used in that sense, we're talking about the Father. We know that God doesn't have blood. It's the person of Christ in view. Now, He is God, and I'm not saying He's not, but God Himself does not bleed. Even if you look at that as God the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit doesn't bleed either. So, they took blood and applied it to the divine nature, which we know is not true. 1 John 3.16, it refers to God dying. Well, we know God doesn't die, right? Jesus, the person, died. That can be very confusing. Again, the divines thought we better try to explain this because people are going to take these verses and just try to apply them across the board that God bleeds. So the confession people decided we need to put something in here so people aren't overly confused. All right. If you have questions about that, I probably can't answer them. We'll just move on to 8.8. He overcomes all their enemies by his almighty power and wisdom in such a manner and by such ways as are most agreeable to his wonderful and unsearchable administration." A lot of words there, right? But the Holy Spirit, again, is working in us. And I love the, governs their hearts. We, in the men's study yesterday and previous weeks, The book we're reading, The Bruised Reed, talks about God, the government. Yes, sir? Is there a special thing about the number three? I don't know. It just happens a lot. So does the number 10, the number seven. They're sort of God's ways of communicating certain things to us in threes. I don't know if I would tie anything like something's going to happen to you or anything in threes. Man, you have good questions. Terry, what? And I appreciate it. I really do. They're not weird at all, by the way. Those are questions I wish everybody would ask when Aaron's up here, not me. But those are all good questions, son. Don't ever let anybody tell you they're not good questions. It's a heart that's working and a spirit that's working in a heart. So, I have no idea where I am. The final paragraph eight is a bridge to move us from Christ's accomplishments of our redemption in past history to his application in our present lives. And I don't know if that needs to be said in our group, that God's still applying things to our lives. We know he is, right? And sometimes my prayer is I wish he would go faster and apply them quicker than he is because we all have our struggles and just wonder, you know, that's our prayer life as God. How come I'm still struggling, not even with just sin, with struggling with understanding your word? Why am I not getting what other people seem to understand? Right? That's our prayer is we want to know. You know, inquiring minds want to know. We want to know the truth. We want to live by the truth. We don't want to live by what I think the truth is, right? God's truth is all truth. Everything that's true is God's truth. And so, sanctification is a struggle. It really is because we want to be more sanctified. Right? That's our lives. We want to continue to be sanctified every moment. And then we take the steps backwards where, geez, where'd God go in that one? And it's never his fault. We know that. Right? We have responsibilities as people to apply the scriptures with the help of the Spirit. Our help is in us. Right? And we have all the teachers out there teaching us from outside in and the Spirit's applying those things that are true. Right? And there's another discernment we need. Did what I hear today on the radio, was that truth? I haven't heard our pastors say that. Call them and ask them if it's truth. You know, we need to use what God's given us, and that's other people, to help us through these struggles. And Christians, as I'm a very good example of saying, I just don't know the answer to that, that's what we're supposed to say. We're not supposed to make up stuff, right? We're supposed to say, I don't know. And believe me, I don't like saying it, but I have to because I don't know. And I'm longing to know, but I don't. Okay. So since all these things we're talking about Christ being the perfect mediator, mediator between God and man, how do you think this is all gonna end? You think he's just gonna stop mediating for us? No, I think a perfect mediator would never stop mediating. That's what perfection's all about, right? So this is all gonna end in our favor, even though down here we might not see it and we fight and struggle and all those things with all kind of things. Right? The outside world is a mess and we're in it. And part of the problem. Giles, he showed up there. You're docked for being late, son of a gun. The point is... Yeah, we probably won't see any of those people we told so, though. That's the problem, right? Unless I can take my last breath and yell at everybody. I have a feeling my last breath will be only one person near me. That would be Carol, by the way. Everybody else would be going like, whew, finally. We shut them up, finally. Anyway, and by the way, it's okay if you think that, because I probably wouldn't be thinking it, too. Okay, so Jesus doesn't simply hope that what he has done will be applied to his people, right? Boy, God, I hope you just apply that to these people. Again, the promises of God are so clear that whoever comes to him will never be cast out. I'll give what the Father, who the Father's given me, I'll give back. I mean, it's a big circle of people, God around us, like we're in the middle. Them Venn diagrams, you know, those Venn diagrams, these overlap completely. We're in the middle, they're all around us, and all is good. So I'll just read that from John 10. Jesus says, That's pretty good news, right? So let's move on down here. Christ's interceding and revealing Romans 8.14, who is to condemn? Christ Jesus, the one who died. More than that, who was raised? Who is at the right hand of God who indeed is interceding for us? 1 John 2, 1 and 2, my little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Right? John 15, greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. And those verses are just, I love combining verses and stuff. It just paints the picture better than anything else. Ephesians 1, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us. We don't use that word nearly enough, lavished. In all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ. And Paul uses the term in Christ or those similar so many times that you have to start wondering, what do you mean in Christ? It means we're adopted in the family of Christ. We are in him. God sees Christ when he sees us. That's a mystery. I don't know how to explain that to you. But he doesn't forget who Gary is, but he just sees me in Christ. And I don't know how he does that. And John 17.6, I have manifested your name to the people. whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. No matter how unworthy we are of his gifts and unable to see the glory in his gifts, the glory of Christ, he continues to intercede for us and reveal himself more and more to us through the spirit and his word and the sacraments, means of grace. We talked about that yesterday in the men's thing. You need to attend the means of grace. We don't just say that to sound reformed. You need to get in the way of grace. And I said this yesterday, and I think Pastor Bob even laughed. Don't put your Bible on the coffee table only when Pastor Bob shows up. Put it out there all the time. Maybe you'll read it. Maybe. If it's in the drawer, you have no chance of reading it. Put it in the way. Come to church and put the sacraments in your way. As we pass out the sacraments, if you want me to just pour it over your head, I'd be glad to apply it to you. But the sacraments are important or we wouldn't do them. And thank God that we do the Lord's Supper weekly. I can't tell you how important that was in caroling up my choice for a church. That's not the only reason, but that was certainly one And as slow as I am, we came to visit here, because our daughter was here, and I wasn't always knowing the day, or you know what, Sunday. So I told Carol, I said, boy, every time we go there, they have communion. Or like, we go on the same first Sunday every week or what? And she's like, no, they probably have it every week. I'm like, oh, didn't realize that. Okay, the effectual work of Christ's spirit. Christ has authored and is perfecting a work in us, and we need to understand that He is working by His Spirit. He never works apart from His Spirit and His Word. And you ever think about this, the same Spirit that filled Christ is the same Spirit that's in us. I just find that astonishing that God would fill us with the same Spirit that His Son is filled with. Maybe that's not astonishing. It is to me. Maybe not in the same measure as how we're going to measure the Spirit, because Jesus is the only one who could be filled. I don't know what would happen to us if we were filled with the Spirit, but it would be crazy. We'd be charismatics, probably. We'd be speaking in tongues. The work of the Spirit is all-encompassing, for it is the Spirit who helps us. He is the Spirit of our faith. 2 Corinthians persuades us to believe, and it's a big persuasion. persuades probably not nearly strong enough. I like causes us to believe better. He the spirit who controls and leads us and he persuades us to obey because believing seems to be, every Christian believes, but we're not so good at the obeying part. So he must work harder to get us to believe, persuades harder than he does persuade us to obey because we're good at disobeying. The spirit governs our hearts and makes us holy by his word. The Bible tells us the way of salvation and sanctification. It's not just about salvation, folks. It's about both. And Jesus' prayer, John 17, we're all familiar with. We're sanctified by the truth and God's word is the truth. That doesn't mean you just hear the word and now you know the truth. And you're okay. You have to live out the truth. That's what obedience is, living out the truth. All right. Let's skip down to the overcoming all. He not only overcomes all of our sins, but He overcomes our enemies, death being the last one. He has conquered death. God uses His enemies as a footstool. All enemies will be put under His feet in 1 Corinthians, and God will trample them underfoot in Malachi, or some people would say Malachi 4, 2, and 3. This work was already begun by Jesus while He was on earth. Colossians 2.15, He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame. by triumphing over them in him. We could never exercise wrath and judgment like God. That's why he says, leave it to me. We should not be going around judging everybody with our own judgment criteria. We let God do the judging. Now, we are supposed to judge sin. Don't get me wrong. We are supposed to know what sin is and people are committing them and all those things. And I'll just read the last sentence. Our Lord overcomes all His enemies, all our sin, and even death itself as He does all things in a manner that is in perfect harmony with His wonderful arrangement of the world and in a way that exposes the unsearchable greatness of our Mediator. What can I say? Amen? Let's pray. Father, we again just thank you for this confession that it's a summary of your Word. And again, it doesn't supersede your Word. It's subordinate to your Word, but it helps us to understand our faith. It helps us to understand the truth of your Word. It helps us to understand Christ and what he's done for us and what he continues to do for us. And again, we long for the day of eternity when we will be with you. and prepare our hearts for worship this morning. We pray in Christ's name, amen.