evening it's gonna be with you tonight I want to start our evening reading first Corinthians 6 verses 19 and 20 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 for you were bought with a price so glorify God in your body let's pray Heavenly Father We pray that we would take this truth to heart, that we would not only understand, but believe that we are not our own, but belong to you, and that we would apply that to our lives, that we would glorify you in our bodies, that you have made to be a temple of your very own spirit living within us. Please bless us this evening. Bless us with yourself. Bless us with your presence. We know this is never apart from us, but we do know that where two or three are gathered, you are there with us. So we thank you that you are here tonight. We pray your blessing on our time. In Jesus' holy name, amen. Well, it's good to be back with you tonight. I'm thankful for Cody filling in last week for me. And we are back here looking at, I wanna continue what we were discussing last time we met. It's been several weeks now with the snowstorm as well in there, mini snowstorm, but freezing snowstorm. But looking at the Heidelberg Catechism, And that passage I read is the heart of that first question, which asks, what is our only comfort in life and in death? And what we looked at last time we were together is that there's that answer, there's the main fact of the matter, and then there's all these particulars about that main fact, and we just looked at the main fact. And the main fact is what we read. that our comfort is that I'm not my own, but belong body and soul and life and death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. That is our only comfort in this life. Our only comfort in this life, and our only comfort as we all approach death, unless the Lord tarries. We will face that. But we can face that with comfort, even, and even with joy, knowing that we belong, body and soul, to Christ. We looked at all those things last time we were together, So tonight I wanna look at the particulars of what it means that we belong to Christ, why we can have comfort in that, what Christ has done for us as our faithful Savior. And that's the remainder of this first question and answer in Heidelberg. So it continues, it says, we belong body and soul to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. And it says, he has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood. That's the first particular of our faith and of our comfort. He is fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood. The passage that this answer is pulling from in that statement is from 1 Peter 1. Which says this, knowing that you were ransomed, this is verse 18, ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. That's what it means that he's fully paid with his precious blood. There was a ransom, there was a payment due on our account because of our sin. But that ransom has been paid, that payment has been paid. If we belonged to ourselves, if we were just left to ourselves, we still have that obligation of that payment. But that payment was such a high sum. Sinful rebellion against the holy, living, eternal, true God. No mere man since the fall, no mere man could ever hope to attain to pay that payment. If we were left to ourselves and we were left that obligation to pay, none of us could ever hope to achieve that. But we don't belong to ourselves, but we belong to another. And he has fully paid for all of our sins with his precious blood. Commentator on the The Heidelberg Catechism discusses this part, and he puts it this way. He says, if he belonged to himself, he would be obliged to meet in his own person all the guilty consequences of his many offenses against God, and be unavoidably overwhelmed by eternal wrath. That would be the case if we belonged to ourselves. But now Christ claims him, at the hands of divine justice as his, interposing his atonement between the vengeance of God and his ransomed one, covering the unworthy with his merits, representing the penitent in his ever prevalent prayers, claiming for him acceptance with himself, in whom the father is well pleased. Christ has claimed us. It's like the penitent tax collector in that parable, he prays out, oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And that short prayer is a picture of the gospel because we have God here and we have the sinner here. And it's his mercy in Jesus Christ that saves him, that meets in the middle, that creates and establishes that connection once again. And this is what it says here. He has covered us as unworthy with his merits, and he's always representing us in his prayers. Christ is praying for his people daily. He's praying for you. Even as we gather to pray tonight, he's praying for you. That's a wonderful thought. It's a comforting thought. He claims us. We belong to him. So he's fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood. The question and answer continues, and it says, and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil. I love this quote from Luther. He's thinking about this when we receive the accusations of the devil, of our own memory, of our past, and we might want to feel the guilt be heaped back upon us. Luther says, so when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, Tell him this, tell the devil this. I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? For I know one who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, son of God, and where he is, there I shall be also. I love that, I love Luther. Yeah, I'm guilty. So what? I have a savior. And he's fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood. You have nothing on me. But we know, again, the devil, he does not yield his desire to overwhelm us with our sin and guilt so easily. But even the weakest saint will defeat him in the end. And we all will defeat and trample him underfoot because he has already trampled him underfoot and we are with him. It is not upon the strength of our faith, but upon the might of our mighty redeemer. He is our strength and he has redeemed us and has delivered us from all the tyranny of the devil. It goes on. 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. Now that is a remarkable truth from scripture. He is so sovereign over all things, including every hair on our heads. Something so insignificant. so inconsequential, yet God has so ordered everything in the universe. I think I heard the name Sproul mentioned before we started, but that was one of his favorite lines, that there is no maverick molecule anywhere in the cosmos, but everything is at God's sovereign command and at his will. He's ordered everything. So of course, he's ordered our lives. He's even numbered and counted every hair on our heads and not one falls without his sovereign will. So of course he's going to work all things for our good. And that's exactly what it says next. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Romans 8 28. This is the preservation of the saints, that P in the word tulip, usually perseverance, but maybe better stated preservation, because we do persevere, but it's because God is the one who's persevering us. He's preserving us into the end. It's God's work in our lives. All things work together for our salvation. He goes on, the answer goes on, because I belong to him. Christ, by His Holy Spirit, also assures me of eternal life. So the God of our salvation is the God of our adoption. In Ephesians 1, this is where they're thinking of this and drawing this biblical imagery. Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee or the down payment of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, the praise of his glory. So this is the Holy Spirit. Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is God's down deposit? and he's gonna get his deposit back, including all of you. This is his way of assuring you that if he's given you his spirit, which he has, if he has not withheld his own son from you, but his son's precious blood paid for all your sins, if he's given that to you, how will he not also give you all things, which is heaven and earth and life with him forever? That's our hope. And that's what we have to look forward to. That's the comfort that we have in this life and in our death, because we're looking forward to the life to come. That's our assurance. And he's given us his spirit. His spirit is our assurance, our assurance of eternal life. And finally, the first question ends and the answer ends. says, because I belong to him, Christ by his Holy Spirit also assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. So we are called to live for Christ. Sometimes we might not always feel like we are wholeheartedly living for Christ. But again, remember, it's not upon our working as much as he is the one at work in us. And he's renewing us in the whole person, in the whole man. That's where the whole comes from. And we now ought to live, as becomes followers of Christ, we now ought to live for him, not to earn or achieve or gain what we just talked about, but that is already given graciously to us. So we don't live in order to earn, That's the law. The law says do this and live, but the gospel says it has been done for you. So now live in the blessing of your father who's given you all things. Now live a life that shows your gratitude for him. Because you love him, not out of fear, not out of any kind of sense of trying to achieve a merit and to earn His forgiveness, but out of gratitude for that forgiveness freely given. And that's what we do. So if you're here this morning, that's the first question. I mentioned the second question, and we'll touch on this briefly. That's the comfort we have. We're not our own, but belong body and soul to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. This is all that He has done for us. The second question then asks, how many things must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort? So can we summarize, can we synthesize what the Bible teaches? What things do we need to know in order to have this comfort in our lives? And it summarizes it into three things. The first thing we have to know is how great my sin and misery are. Second, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery. And third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance. So how can I come to know I belong to the Lord? How can I live and die in the joy of this comfort that comes from Jesus Christ? It's these three things. And maybe you'll remember that from the outline of the sermon this morning, where we see that in that demon-possessed man. He was plunged into the depths of his sin and misery, but Christ redeemed him out of all of his sin and misery. He expelled all the demons. And now, in the third place, he's able to live a life of thanksgiving to God, sitting at Jesus' feet, being clothed in his righteousness, seeking after him, and going out and making his name known. But this is what we do. And maybe you've also noticed, and the cogs are turning in your brains, probably quicker than mine turn, but maybe you've made some connections from these three parts of this answer to our first three membership vows that we take in our church. What are those membership vows? Well, it's exactly what these three things are. Because these three things are the three parts of the Christian life. And we can summarize them with the three G's. Guilt, grace, and gratitude. That's the Christian life. Guilt, grace, and gratitude. Our membership vows are exactly that. To be a member of our church, we want you to be nothing more than a Christian. And to be a Christian is to know these three things. So our membership vows, they read, Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save His sovereign mercy? Or in other words, to know the depth of my sin and misery? Or in other words, to know my guilt? The second question, do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners? And do you receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the gospel? That's the second vow. Or in other words, secondly, how I am redeemed from all my sin and misery. Or we could put it into a word grace. The third vow. Do you now resolve and promise and humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ? Or in other words, how I am to thank God for such deliverance. or that third G, gratitude. So it's the same three part pattern, guilt, grace, and gratitude. Am I a sinner? Yes. Am I guilty? Yes. But what of it? I have a mighty savior. He's given me grace. And now because of what he's done, I'm going to live a life of gratitude. not out of fear, not as a slave, but as a son, as a daughter, as a member of his household. That's how I'm going to live. This is exactly what we see in scripture. This is the scriptural pattern. And as we get going into more of Heidelberg and just studying that and thinking about it, remember those three things, but don't ever mix those up. Don't rearrange them. That order is important. Because we want to flip around those second and third. We want to say, I'm guilty, so I better live this way so that I can have some grace. That's not the order. I'm guilty, so I better double my efforts to be a better person and to obey the Ten Commandments so that I could get God's mercy. That's not mercy, that's not grace. By definition, that's not grace. But the order is, I'm a sinner, But God has saved me. And now, that third part, the law, obedience, that's where that third part comes in. It comes in the third place. Because we're living a life of gratitude for what He has done. So remember that. Remember those three words. Remember how you can live and die in the comfort of Christ, your Savior. Because yes, you're a sinner, but He has saved you. and he's given you his spirit to empower you to live this life for him. Amen. Awesome. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we marvel at who you are as a mighty Savior. We thank you for helpful teaching tools like the Heidelberg Catechism that lays out the Christian faith so eloquently and helpfully for us, this three-part pattern of guilt, grace, and gratitude. I pray that this would Help us tonight to understand more of who you are and how you relate to us, not as a fearful tyrant or some kind of evil or unloving father, but as a father full of love and grace and one who loves to lavish your children with good gifts. What better gift than yourself and your own spirit? What better gift than your own son sent in our place? So we thank you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the great three in one. We thank you for the mighty salvation that you accomplished for us. And we pray now as we turn our attention to some prayer requests and needs that we have, that you would bless us in this time as well. We thank you, Jesus, that you are always, ever interceding for us, and by your spirit, helping us to pray when we don't have the words. So we thank you for that. Please be with us tonight, we pray, in your holy name, amen.