Your Confession of Faith tonight will be in chapter 14, paragraphs two and three. If you've got the Trinity Hymnal for the Confession, that's page 927. If you've got the Bible from over there, it's page 1313. So we're gonna be looking at Confession of Faith, chapter 14, paragraphs two and three for most of our time together tonight. But just as by way of review, we've been looking at In paragraph one, several things. First of all, we looked at different aspects to what is saving faith. We said one aspect to saving faith is knowledge. There's certain things that you have to know. What's another one? Yes, Stephen. Belief. Belief, right? So you have to know some things, And you have to believe that those things are true. Who can give me some examples of what those things are? What are some things that like a Christian must know and believe to be true? Yeah. Oh. The Bible to be the inerrant word of God. The Bible to be the inerrant word of God. We're going to talk a lot about that tonight. That's good. Yeah, Steven. That Christ died for his sins and rose again. Yep. I delivered to you that which I received as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. First Corinthians 15, three and four. Next. Yeah. That Jesus is the son of God. That he's the son of God. What else should we know about Jesus? That's important. Yeah. He is with God and man in two full persons. Two full natures one person yeah, that's but that's that's that's good We need to know that he's fully God and fully man One person two natures three offices prophet priest and King you don't necessarily be that's not on the checklist to get into heaven But it's helpful But so very good, what are some other things that we need to know How are sinners in need of a Savior? That we're sinners in need of a Savior? Yeah, that's a good place to start. That's where Paul starts in Romans, right? Romans 1.18 to 3.23 is the bad news condemning us of our sin. And then he gets into the good news in chapter 4 forward about Jesus and what he's done for us. So we need to know some things. We need to believe them to be true. But what's the third aspect to saving faith? You were excited to answer this. We need to trust that it's true. Now, what does that mean? How do you trust something that you believe? Yeah, cool. You act on your belief. Very good. No trick questions here. You act on your belief. You act as if the things you believe are true are actually true. That's what it means to trust in saving faith. And I've probably told you all this story before, but I think it's a helpful illustration of one of the most important conversations that I ever had in my life. I was 20, carry the one, I was 23 years old. And, don't do that. I was 23 years old. I had pretty much somebody coming in Okay, um so I was about 23 years old and I had pretty much what a young man could want and I was miserable and I was hanging out with Mrs. Early now who was at the time miss Maxon and And she, being raised in a Christian home, said, I know what this guy needs. And she shared with me the good news of Jesus, who he was, what he had done, all this stuff. And I looked at her and I said, Bethany, I have believed everything you just said for as long as I can remember. And then she hit me with a very important question. Why don't you go to church? And what I'm bringing that up to illustrate is how it's possible that I knew it was true, I believed it was true, and yet I wasn't acting on it. So it's possible to have those first two aspects of faith without actually trusting it, and without that, it's not actually saving faith. That's the purpose of that illustration. Not to say that going to church necessarily makes your faith real. That's not my point. My point is I knew it, I believed it was real, but I wasn't pursuing it. I wasn't acting on it. And so also last week we spent some time talking about all of the things that our faith secures for us. We talked about the fact that our faith secures justification. This is the means by which we are forgiven of our sins and we're accepted as righteous in the sight of God only for the sake of the righteousness of Christ given to us by faith alone. What else is a benefit that we get through our faith in Christ? Sanctification, very good. What else? Adoption, very good. And then we also looked at the Shorter Catechism, and this is going to be page 1313, if you want to look at that, for just some other benefits that accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification. I'm sorry, 1401. I don't know what I'm saying with 1313. 1401. And the benefits that in this life accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification are assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, And what's the last one? Perseverance there into the end. Did I miss any? Okay, so we've got all these. And then there's also benefits in the catechism that the believer receives from Christ at death. Who can tell me what those are? Or just read it from the catechism on the page. Anyone? Yes, Mr. Cancino. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness. and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies being still united to Christ. Do rest in their graves until the resurrection. Very good. Next one. Benefits that we receive at the resurrection. At the resurrection, believers shall be... Go ahead. A new glorified body. Yep, a new glorified body. That's very good. That's actually not listed in the Catechism, surprisingly, but you are absolutely right. At the resurrection, believers shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted, that means like the gavel drops on the not guilty verdict of your life, and made perfectly blessed, perfectly blessed to the full enjoying of God to all eternity. These are all the benefits that we get by one means and one means only. These all come from Union with Christ. And so how do we get united to Christ? By our faith. You look at this list of benefits and blessings that we have from Christ, and I hope you look at that and you say, I want these things. I hope more than that, you look at that and you look at this and you say, I see some of this in my life, and I would like more of it. The way that that happens, as we talked about last week, is your union with Christ secures all of these benefits for you. And the way that you grow in them is by growing in your relationship with Christ, drawing nearer to him, strengthening your faith. And the last thing that we talked about last week was what is it that we need to avail ourselves of, what is it that we need to make use of to strengthen and nourish our faith? We talk about this all the time in here. But I'll give you a hint, it's in 14.1, yeah. The ordinary means of grace, number one. What is it? The Word of God. That is the primary, number one means of grace. What else? Prayer and sacraments. These are the means that we need to avail ourselves of to strengthen and nourish and grow our faith so that we would grow in assurance of God's love, so that we would grow in our peace of conscience, so that we would grow in our sanctification, et cetera and so forth. soul making sense so far okay yes question I have no idea why they left it out. I think it's implied by their bodies being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection, when it asks what do believers receive at their death, and they're trying to make it short and able to be memorized. That's my suspicion. I suspect also if we looked at the larger catechism, it would include that, but because we're going with the shorter, it's not there. But no, it's not a point of contention. That would be one of those articles that like, if you don't believe this, you're not a Christian. So. Good stuff. So what we're gonna look at tonight in paragraphs two and three are the products of our faith. So this is what our faith secures for us. We're gonna look at what our faith produces in us, the products of our faith, and the outcome of our faith. The product of our faith and the outcome of our faith is 14.3. So we've got some products of our faith that are listed in 14.2, and I'm gonna read this for us and we'll talk about it. 14. 2. By this faith a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the word of God for the authority of God himself speaking therein, and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth, yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace. So there's a lot there. I've kind of grouped it into, there's basically two products of our saving faith. And the first is belief in the word of God. This is, I believe, what Mr. Reese led us off with. Number one, what a Christian needs to believe, that the Bible, is the Word of God. We believe the Bible because it is God's Word. I won't take the time to look this up now, but for those of you that are taking notes and want to look this up later, I would cross-reference Chapter 1, Paragraph 5 of the Confession. It talks about all the means by which we could be inclined to believe the Bible. The testimony of the Church, the beauty of its doctrine, the unity of it, all these things, but ultimately we believe it because God speaks through it. And again, I've used this illustration with you all before, but I think it's helpful. In the same way that a newborn child in the delivery room, amid all the chaos of that room that I hope you all one day enjoy, and all the voices and all the clatter and all the clutter and everything that's going on, recognizes through all of that the voice of his or her mother and father. And in the same way, a born again believer in Christ recognizes the word of their heavenly father speaking through the scriptures. And because it is him who speaks, we believe it and accept it as true. A couple of passages of scripture that would point to this. Luke 24 and verse 32 this is Jesus with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and he's in his resurrected body, but they don't recognize him and He begins to explain to them because they're all distressed about the fact that you know their Lord has just been crucified And they said we thought he was the one but it turns out He's probably not and he says Oh foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had said and beginning at Moses Beginning in Genesis that is He opens the Bible and began to explain to them everything. And then when he leaves, they say, Did not our hearts burn within us when he explained the Scriptures? We hear the voice of God speaking to us in the Word of God. Or Paul would write in Romans 10-17 that faith comes by hearing, but hearing by the Word of God, or the Word of Christ, as some translations render it. But notice also that the Confession speaks of how we are to act in response to the Bible. It's one thing to say, I believe the Bible is the Word of God. But how you act in light of it really evidences whether or not that's the case. Does that make sense? Again, going back to me, right? I would have said way back when that I believe the Bible is God's Word. And yet I cared nothing about being at church when it was taught, Lord's Day morning and evening. I cared nothing about reading it myself. I cared nothing about it. But I would have said, I believe it's God's word. And I don't think I would have been lying. Intellectually, I would have said, yeah, that's the deal. But if I really believed that the eternal creator of the universe, my maker, was speaking, then I would want to avail myself of that. Okay, and so the confession lists some ways that we are to act differently based on different passages of scripture. It actually gives us three pairs here, and the first response it says is we should yield obedience to what parts of scripture? What's it say? Yielding obedience to the commands, right? God says do it, and so we ought to do it, right? We have to yield obedience to the commands. to the commands. And then what else, what happens next? What's the other response that we are to give to God's word? Trembling at the threatenings. And then what's the third pairing that we have? Right embracing the promises so we act differently based on what part of scripture We're in we want to recognize not just what God said But how he said it because how he said it dictates how I respond to it and again I'll use my son as an example because he doesn't listen to these recordings, so he's fair game If I said James early go clean your room the appropriate response is to obey if I say James Early, because you did not clean your room when I asked you, you will receive some fatherly affection. The appropriate response to that statement is not joy. It is trembling. It is fear, because that's not a pleasant thing for either one of us. And if I say, James Early, because you are so obedient and you have cleaned your room without me even asking, this is hypothetical, I will take you out for a treat. The appropriate response to that is not trembling. It's joy, right? The response is dictated by the part of Scripture in the same way. Does that make sense? Are you guys following with that? We want to respond with faith and obedience to all of it, but distinct to the part of Scripture that it is. So when we read the Ten Commandments, God's saying, do this, don't do that. And we say, yes. When he gives us a warning about judgment for those who do not obey the gospel, who do not believe in Christ, we tremble on their behalf and seek to evangelize them. And when he offers a rich promise, we embrace that warmly by faith. I'm gonna show you guys, we don't have time for this, but we're gonna make time. My favorite Bible verse right now, Zephaniah chapter three in verse 17. I want you to put your eyes on this. It's one of the richest promises in the Bible. Zephaniah chapter three. Minor prophets are gonna be tricky to navigate if you're using the Youth Group Bible. It's page 882. Zephaniah 3, 17. This is the Lord making a promise to his people. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He says that all over the place, but this is what's really powerful about this verse. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. I've read that a bunch of times, but recently I read it and that's just that last part, those last two lines especially, jumped out at me. He will quiet you by his love. When you're distressed, when you're anxious, when life is tossing you all over the place, the Lord says, I will quiet you by my love. The Psalm 46.10, be still and know that I am God. He says here, I'm going to do that for you. I'm going to quiet your distressed heart by my love. And then he says, and he will exalt over you with loud singing. That God rejoices over you to the point that he sings about you. He sings over you. That blows my mind. And there's three promises in that verse, and what do we do? We embrace them by faith. That's how we're to respond to that kind of part of scripture. We don't have that same response to You shall, you know, honor your father and mother. Well, sometimes I don't want to do that. I always want that promise. Okay, you see what I'm saying? We respond according to the genre, according to the type of passage that it is. All right. Now the confession says, it gives us what's called the principal acts of saving faith. The principal acts of saving faith. So the first thing it says is we believe whatever the Bible says. Second thing it gives us is the principal acts of saving faith. This is what it produces. And it lists them as what? Who can read that for us? Francis raised her hand. We're going to give it to the polite young lady. Go ahead. Very good, thank you miss Duncan so we talk a lot in the Evangelical Protestant Christian world about accepting Christ as Savior and Lord and all of that's good But I want to draw your attention to receiving and especially to resting Resting is an attribute, is a product of saving faith. And I say this because my background, at least religiously, when I went to church that the future Mrs. Early suggested I go to, it was an independent fundamental Baptist church. And I'm grateful for them, and I'm happy that I have that background. But my pastor at that time was like old school Bob Jones, which some of you know something of what that means. And what it means for a lot of people in that camp is an overwhelming anxiety that my faith isn't enough, that I'm not doing good enough in X, Y, and Z area for God to love me. They do not mean to communicate that, but that is what comes across. And to the point that my former pastor's wife was in turmoil for years. over whether or not she was a good enough Christian, over whether or not her faith was strong enough that she was saved. And usually when you hear people talk about getting baptized over and over and over again because they weren't really sure, it's that kind of setup. Saving faith knows that Jesus has done everything that was necessary for your salvation, and that he's enough. And therefore, we can rest We understand that by being united to Christ, that we have everything that is needed for our soul, and that that's sufficient. We're able to rest. I really like this extended quote from Robert Shaw. He's a 19th century Presbyterian, Scottish Presbyterian minister, and he explains this paragraph this way. And what he's trying to get at is accepting, receiving, and resting, while they're three different words, they're not three different things. They're all different aspects of one thing. And so he writes, as Christ is exhibited in scripture under various character and similitudes, so faith in him is variously denominated. So he's saying there's a bunch of different ways that we refer to it, but it's all faith, right? We refer to Jesus as prophet, priest, and king, but we're talking about one person, right? Accepting, receiving, and resting, Three different words, we're talking about one thing, which is saving faith. That's what he's getting at there. He says that it is expressed by coming to him, by looking unto him, by fleeing to him for refuge, by eating his flesh and drinking his blood, by receiving him and by resting upon him. It is to be observed that the terms employed in our confession do not denote different acts of faith, but are only different expressions of the same act. Believing on Christ is called a receiving of Him in reference to His being presented to poor sinners as the gift of God to them. We receive Christ as a gift from God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Why did He send Jesus? Because He already loved you. We receive Him as a free gift. And it is styled as resting on him because he is revealed in the gospel as a sure foundation on which a sinner may lay the weight of his eternal salvation with the firmest confidence. You rest upon him like you rest on your bed when you go to bed at night. You're not worried that your bed's gonna collapse or that you're gonna fall out if you're old enough. I couldn't help it, I'm sorry. But we rest upon him because we know that we're secure We know that we're steady. We know that we have what we need. And we rest on Him, as the confession says, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. What they mean there is a summation of all this. We rest upon Him for the fullness of our salvation. That is what we get in Christ, is a fullness of our salvation. Do we have questions on anything that I've covered so far before we move into the last section, which I promise will be quick? Anything I can clarify? All right, come see me after class if you do have questions, and you're just trying to formulate them right now. All right, so that's the products of our faith. Products are believing whatever the Bible says to be true, and receiving Christ, resting on Christ. All right, so what's the outcome of our faith? Well, 14.3 says, this faith is different in degrees, weak or strong, It may be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory, growing up in many ways to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith. So the outcome of our faith is simply this. It's victorious. It wins. And I love that the confession gives two honest caveats that you all are gonna need to hold on to for the rest of your life. First of all, that faith may be weak or strong. It's going to be various degrees. I know you guys pretty well, and I know that there's various degrees of faith in this room. We're kind of all over the spectrum. There's various degrees of faith on the staff here. There's various degrees of faith on the session. There's various degrees of faith wherever you go. And so do not look to one another as the measure of your faith. My faith isn't as strong as so-and-so, therefore it is not real. False, varying degrees. And it says that it may be assailed and weakened. There are things that will happen in this life to you and to those that you care about. that may weaken your faith. And on the one hand, I wanna say that that's normal. That happens. That doesn't mean your faith isn't real. On the other hand, I don't wanna say that that's okay. We want to grow our faith. We want to strengthen our faith when we recognize that it's weak. Does that make sense? So we don't want to abandon hope because that happened, but we do want to grow stronger in it. How do you do that? Go back to what we were talking about earlier. The ordinary means of grace. Being in the church. Letting God's word be poured over you. Letting the prayers of God's people be prayed over you. Praying them yourself. One of the most effective things that you can do to strengthen your faith and the faith of your friends is to pray with and for them. It is a much more, like, It is such a powerful thing. And that is the way that God does this. And what I want to close with is, again, another illustration that we've used before. Because we tend to look at our faith and we say, we base our salvation just instinctively, I think, without thinking about it, on whether or not our faith is strong enough. If you're jumping out of an airplane, faith, is the straps that secure you to the parachute. It does not matter if those straps are made out of, you know, solid leather, genuine leather. It does not matter if they're made out of, I don't know, plastic or some kind of polyester or whatever they're made out of. It does not matter. What matters is, do they have you securely fastened to the parachute? The parachute is what's going to save your life. In the same way, you are not saved by the quality or quantity of your faith, you're saved by the object Is your faith in Christ? Do you see these things growing? If that is the case, then you are secure. And I'll end with this. Because Jesus is the source, the substance, and the summit of our faith, our faith is unable to fail. Those three words are important. He's the source. He's the one that sends the Holy Spirit to work faith in us. He is the substance. He is the one our faith is in, the one our faith is about, the one it's grounded in. And He is the summit, meaning He's the one we aspire to through faith. And because He is all of that, your faith cannot fail. 1 John 5, 4, this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Let's pray. God in heaven, we give thanks to you for the gift of faith. We give thanks to you for all the things that it secures for us, but we thank you most of all that it secures our union with Christ. And I pray for these, my dear young friends, that you would grow them strong in the faith, that you would protect them, that you would watch over them, that you would lead them and guide them all their days for your glory and their good. I pray in Christ's name, amen.