I'm thankful to be here with you this evening and thankful that we can continue to worship God on his Lord's day and spend time in his presence and also fellowship with one another. I wanna read Psalm 23 to begin our time this evening. And it's a wonderful Psalm, of course, a well-known beloved Psalm. And as we get into what I'd like to talk about, it'll start to be more evident as to why we start with this psalm. Psalm 23. This is Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, You are our shepherd, the great triune God, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the great three in one, Yahweh, Lord, the great I am. You are our shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd. We thank you for this marvelous truth, this wonderfully comforting news that you're with us, that you're always with us. You lead us, you give us rest, you guide us, you comfort us, you prepare for us a table, you prepare for us blessing, glory and abundance beyond our comprehension. We thank you for the foretaste we have of that even now this evening, as we consider your word and consider more about who you are. We pray that you'd be with us now tonight. In Jesus' holy name, amen. Well, what I wanted to discuss tonight and what I think we'll talk about over the next few weeks, we'll see how this goes. But if you're here this morning, we used Heidelberg Catechism. Question one is our confession of faith. What I wanted to do this evening is to consider more of that catechism, look at it in more detail. and slowly go through it. And we won't go through all of it tonight, so we'll at least go through more of it next week and maybe the next few weeks. And maybe we'll keep going through. We'll see how it goes and what we do. But I love the Heidelberg Catechism. I absolutely love it. It's part of my Dutch roots. I grew up with it. So naturally, I love it. But it's so beautifully crafted, so wonderfully comforting. And we hear in Psalm 23 those words of comfort, the Lord is our shepherd. That's the most comforting thing in the world. And we get more of that in the Heidelberg Catechism, especially in question one. But question one and two, if you're not familiar with Heidelberg, with the Catechism, it's structured into three parts that can be summarized into three words, guilt, grace, and gratitude. And those three parts are the three things that we need to know in order to live and die happily in the comfort of belonging to Christ. That's the second question. The second question is what are these three things? The three things first is guilt. To know the depth of our sin and misery. That's the guilt. We need to understand that. Who we are in relation to who God is. But the good news is the story doesn't end there. But the second thing is grace. We need to understand that we are redeemed from all of our sin and misery through Christ. And because of that, the third thing then, because of that is gratitude. How we live matters. We live in light of the truth of the gospel. We don't live in order to earn the gospel. We don't live in order to achieve our salvation. But we live in response, in thankfulness, in gratitude to what God has done. So guilt, grace, gratitude. Those are the three things, the three necessary things we must know for our salvation. That's the Christian life and that's how the catechism is structured as well. That's the second question. gets to the very heart of the issue, gets to the very heart of Scripture and the great doctrines of the Bible, from which we get this sure and wonderful comfort. So the first question gets to the comfort with which a Christian holds, we hold our religious beliefs. The second question gets to the method of how we attain that knowledge. But first, the first question. and what we want to discuss this evening while we have this time. What is your only comfort in life and in death? That's the first question. What is your only comfort in life and in death? We'll read the answer in a moment, but consider that question. Only comfort. There's only one true comfort for our lives. There's a lot of fleeting comforts in this world. There's a lot of things we can look to to find comfort in this life. We can find peace in our financial stability. We can find comfort in our society and in the hope for this nation. We can find and try to find comfort in all kinds of things. some of which can be good in their own right, some of which can be outright sinful, and those are the fleeting passions of the flesh and those sinful desires. But none of them, good or bad, can ever fully satisfy what the Christian needs. Not in this life, and certainly not in the life to come, and certainly not in death. See, that's the question. What is your only comfort in life and in death? What's the only comfort that can give us comfort in both of those things? And there's only one. This is the beautiful, beautiful nature of this first question in this catechism is it brings about the comfort that is available to us in Christ. So what is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ. He is fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood. and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. And because I belong to him, because I belong to Christ, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. That's our only comfort. in life and in death, our comfort is in Christ. And we need that comfort, don't we? We really need that comfort. So how is this truth, how is this fact so comforting? How is Christ himself as our shepherd, as our savior, as our friend, how does he bring comfort? How is he so comforting? This first catechism, this first question and answer, there's kind of two parts to it. And we'll consider the first part of it. It states the main fact of the matter. Where is our comfort? Well, here's our comfort. And then in the second half, it gets into the particulars of that fact. the particulars of it, of our redemption, of our salvation, of our assurance, those sorts of things. But first, it just states plainly, this is what it's all about. I love statements like this. I love that it's so clear that you can take it to the bank, that there's no confusion about it, that it tells you exactly what you need to know. And just one easy, quick sentence. What is your only comfort in life and in death? This is the main fact, that I am not my own, but belong body and soul, life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. That's the main fact. Let's look at each of those phrases. My only comfort is that I am not my own. That's an interesting place to start. And maybe we can bristle at that a little bit. I can certainly do that. I have my own libertarian streak in me. I don't like being told what to do. I don't like other people telling me what to do. I don't want to be chained down or shackled or anything like that. But this was our first sin. This was the great sin of our parents in the garden. That they would not have anybody own them, but they would be a God unto themselves. It was a denial that they belonged to anybody else, that they would have a creator over them, that they would have a God over them. Did God really say, is he really the master over me, or can I be a God unto myself? Can I choose my own destiny? So this was our first sin. And we're sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, and we follow in their footsteps all too often. The beauty of the gospel and of God working in redemption is that what was our great sin can now be seen as a great source of comfort, that we are actually not our own. But when we recognize that we belong to someone else, then we can find true comfort in that. We are not our own. And we certainly are not. And scripture tells us plainly, we are not our own, but we've been bought with a price. This is a reference here, Paul's words in first Corinthians chapter six. And I'll read just a portion of it to us. First Corinthians chapter six, verse 19. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. You're not your own. It's wonderful news. For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Even there, we see the threefold nature of the Christian life and how the catechism is structured. We have the guilt there. that we needed the Savior, but we had been purchased by grace through Christ's precious blood. Now, therefore, out of gratitude, he says that we ought to glorify God in our body. For right away, we see the main fact of the matter. We are not our own. We are not our own, but we belong to someone else. We'll get to him in a moment. But notice the interjection they put in here. I'm not my own, but I belong, body and soul, life and in death. In other words, in totality, we belong completely. There is no partial custody, as it were, between us with Christ and the devil or Christ and the world, but we belong totally to one or the other. And he has fully purchased us. That payment has been fully made, body and soul. We should not fear the one who can kill the body, but the one who can throw both body and soul into hell. And thankfully, that person is our redeemer and our shepherd and our friend. Body and soul, life and in death. Here, the author is thinking of Romans chapter 14. Chapter 14, verse seven, says, for none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. That's wonderful comfort. If we had comfort only in this life, then that would be good for a while, but then death would be looming. And we wouldn't have comfort there, but we have comfort in both, in life and in death. Does not remove the pain, does not remove the worry or the doubt in all instances, in all circumstances. There's still grief, there's still pain. We live in this world that's broken, and we live in this time of already but not yet, But what's never absent from us is Christ himself, who's able to bring comfort. Because he is not the God of the dead, he's the God of the living. And he's the God of all who have passed away. He's the God of all his people. He's the shepherd of all his sheep. So I'm not my own. I belong body and soul and life and death, and I belong to a certain someone. And that's a very important point that we need to hit on as well. It wouldn't be such good news depending on who we belong to. But the main fact, the fact of the matter is, our comfort in this life is found in a person. It's found in Christ. We belong to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ. The one to whom we belong is faithful. The one to whom we belong is perfectly good. He's full of comfort. He's full of grace. He's the one who gave himself up for us. And here the author's thinking of Titus chapter two, which talks about how Jesus has fully given up of himself in order to redeem his people. And of course, Here we also see the comfort that comes from having a personal relationship with the faithful shepherd, who we see in Psalm 23. The one who's able to bring comfort to his people. The one who's always with his people. the one who leads before, goes before his people, who walks beside his people, and then also is constantly behind them, pursuing them with his goodness and with his mercy and his love. This is our only comfort in this life, in our death, in our life everlasting. So I hope that we can rest in that comfort Hope that as we enter into a new year and who knows what New Year's hold, who knows what 2024 will hold every year. Seems like it's full of all kinds of uncertainty and And this year, of course, I think of the fact that we're in an election year again, and that always brings so much uncertainty. And every election is always the most important election, and I understand that, and all those things. And there's so much to that, maybe not as much to that as we might think. But where is our comfort gonna be in all these things? Where's our comfort gonna be when the world around us might seem like it's crumbling? We might grow anxious. We might grow worried. Where is our comfort going to be found? Certainly not going to be in any politician. That would be a horrible place to put our hope and our comfort. Certainly not into any institution. Into any government program. Certainly not even into an institution like the church, if I could be as bold as to suggest that. or into any church leaders, because we're all fallible, and the church is imperfect in this life. But our only comfort is found in Christ, our faithful Savior, Christ our faithful Shepherd. We have to always look to Him, to keep our eyes focused on Him, to keep our gaze focused on Him. He is the author and perfecter of our faith. So we see those two ends as well, in totality. He's the beginning of it, and He's the end. life and in death, author and perfecter, body and soul. Christ is the all in all. He's all these things for us. So that's my encouragement to us this evening from the Heidelberg Catechism. And I do want to pick up with that next week as well as we consider some of the particulars of how Christ brings about this comfort through our redemption, through our salvation, through the assurance that he gives us by his Holy Spirit, be comforter. But for tonight, let's focus on Christ. Let's look to him. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are Our great shepherd, you are the great shepherd of the sheep. You are our faithful savior. You have redeemed us. You have purchased us with your precious blood, and we belong to you completely, body and soul, in life and in death. There's nothing that can separate us from you, but you are our perfect redeemer. You have defeated sin and death. You have lived for us and you died in our place. You live forevermore. So you are Lord of both the living and the dead. There's nothing that can separate us from your love. So please comfort us in those words this evening. Please comfort us even as we lift up our many concerns to you this evening as we consider different needs and requests and petitions. So Lord, meet with your people tonight. Please meet with us and help us by your spirit to comfort us in our need. We pray this in your holy name. Amen.