Ephesians 2; Genesis 15
All right, turn to Genesis 15 and then put a finger in, is it Ephesians chapter two? Genesis 15 and Ephesians chapter two. With these studies in the Heidelberg Catechism, I’ve tried to pick an Old and New Testament passage that broadly cover what we’re gonna talk about. But then our, I guess you’d call it our exposition is going to be of the phrases and the words of the Heidelberg Catechism.
So Genesis chapter 15 is one of the many places where God appears to Abraham and says, have faith. I’m going to do this. Abraham does have faith and God does it. So you go to, say, Hebrews chapter 11, the by faith chapter, and you read about what Abraham did by faith. All the stories of Genesis 12 through 25 or so are there explained.
So we want to read, I’m sorry, Genesis chapter 15. Abraham has been in the promised land. He’s been down to Egypt. He’s just had to go rescue Lot from all the kings that have waged war in that region. And so he’s a little worried that he’s getting old, a little battle weary. And the Eleazar of Damascus, who’s his valet, since we all watch Downton Abbey probably at some point, is going to be his heir.
And God says, no, you’re going to have a kid. out of your own and Sarah’s own loins, as it were. So after these things, that’s rescuing Lot, meeting Melchizedek and crew. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. And Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, this man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.
But he said, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? He said to him, bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abraham drove them away.
As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. And the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.
When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your offspring, I give this land. From the river of Egypt to the great river, to the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
And now chapter two of the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter two, beginning at verse one, Paul says to that church, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Amen. This is God’s great and gracious word.
So one of the, I think the most fun things about being a pastor and the other elders will have to affirm this is most fun thing I think that we do is interview people for church membership. It’s the way we get to know people. It’s the way we get to kind of have a face-to-face chit-chat that establishes a relationship that seems to last. It’s a good, what the doctors call it, a baseline, when they get your health picture and then they work from that baseline. It’s good and fun for that, but the most fun part is we hear your testimony. We hear about faith in Jesus. We hear about your desire to love the Lord and live for Him.
But there’s this question that always sort of nags in the mind and heart of church leaders. And it’s this, how much must one know in order to be a Christian? How much one, how much must one know in order to be considered a Christian or for their profession of faith to be deemed credible? And then you got the whole problem of we can’t see into the hearts of people. And we have to assume that God is at work and trust that their profession of faith, genuine, real, all the rest. And then of course, we got to assume they can’t know everything, but how much must they know? There’s got to be at least a bare minimum. There’s got to be a limbo bar, right? That you, you got to be able to, you know, like, what is it at the, um, the County Fair or at Carowinds or something, you got to be this tall to get on the ride. What’s the bar, so to speak? How much must one know in order to be a Christian?
Well, our associate reform Presbyterian form of government, our constitution, says these couple things. First, applicants for church membership must be examined by the session, in private, with the regard to three things, knowledge of their spiritual need, their faith in Jesus, and third, their intention to be obedient to him.
Perhaps get away from the form of government for a moment, go to the scriptures. Jesus says in Mark chapter one, a person must repent, that is turn from their sins. Going this way, turn, go the other way. Going the wrong way, you need to go the right way. Repent, and the second action is believe. Well, what do you believe? believe enough to be a demon? Well, the demons believe, but they don’t believe savingly, right? We need to believe at least some level that shows not only has it hit our head, it’s hit our heart.
Romans chapter 10 verse nine, Paul says, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if we believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, So there’s an if conditional, then what’s the condition met? You will be saved, right?
So back to the ARP form of government, the gospel, right? Our church membership vows, and we’ve got them pasted in our Trinity Psalter hymnal, which is in the closet while we’re having church in here. But we’ve got the six vows of membership. They ask, and the person has to give assent. Are you a sinner? The second question, do you believe in Jesus? The second person of the Trinity, Son of God, Savior of sinners. Third question, do you believe in the Bible? Only rule of faith, what to believe. Only rule of practice, how to live. Fourth question, do you promise to live under the guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit so that you’ll live the Christian life? Promise to be a good steward. Promise to adhere by the ARP standards insofar as you think they’re biblical. And then will you submit to the government and discipline of the church? And if we say you’re being a meathead, you’ll listen to us. Those are kind of the questions.
So spiritual need, faith in Jesus, and intent to be obedient. And then you go to the ARP form of government, definition of a church member. a couple of things. They’ve made a profession of faith. I believe in Jesus. I’m a sinner, but I believe in Jesus. Baptized, brought into the church. Remember that’s basically what baptism is. Baptism is not a sign that you have done anything. It’s a sign that God has done something and he has washed you and regenerated you and brought you into his family. So there’s public profession, there’s baptism, and then there’s submission to Christ, uh, by, uh, uniting with the church, becoming one of his disciples.
So how do we know what’s enough? How do we know what’s satisfactory? Well, we got Jesus’ standard, repent and believe. We got Paul’s standard. If you confess with your mouth, believe in your heart. Then we got the ARP, which is said, what does the whole Bible say about uniting with the church? Got those six things. So the elders, they’re challenged. We’re challenged when we meet with people for membership. Has this person made a satisfactory profession of faith in Jesus? And if we believe so by affirmative action, by a vote of yes, we take their profession to be credible. Uh, and we present them before you all as members, uh, in the church of Jesus.
But there’s two little statements in our form of government that are interesting. And I have to tell you only one time. Uh, well, well, one time for each, uh, one talks about a testimonial that is defective. I can remember a kid came with mom and dad, mom and dad profess faith. Dad did a great job. Mom did a good job. The son got up there and he, he might as well said, I worship Satan. It was so terrible. And all the elders were in tears, pleading with him to come to Jesus. Only time I’ve ever experienced that. It was very difficult. So a person could make a testimonial and it could be defective. It could be missing things. It could just be very obvious, you know, something’s not right. Our spirit and their spirit aren’t jiving as it were. But then there’s this other statement, their motives appear to be unchristian. And there’s only been one other time, the young man who really couldn’t profess faith, There’s been another time where a family came to the church and their motives appeared to be very unchristian. And thankfully the elders were bold enough to say, no thanks. And I think it’s here at this church, and I think we’re very thankful that we did that as hard as it was.
So back to the question, all this rigmarole, he’s up here rambling. How much must one know in order to be a Christian? Now let’s let the Heidelberg catechism give us the answer. So it says in the first stanza, not all men and women as they have perished in Adam are saved by Christ. Basically, automatic damnation does not mean automatic salvation, right? We understand that. Salvation is not automatic. Yes, by representation from Adam, we are born sinful and our sinful condition plus our actual sins both condemn us. That’s why the little kids’ catechism song that my kids heard growing up, Oh Adam, I’m not gonna sing it, but Oh Adam, why did you disobey, laments the song. So all are born in sin, all are dead in sin and trespasses. God passes over some who are dead in their sin, sentence and trespasses, but in his covenant love, he does not pass over others and elects or saves them to everlasting life. That is the doctrine that gets people’s goat.
God could have passed over all. You know, isn’t it very funny? Um, I’m not picking here, but I’m just sort of pointing out the ones who say God saves everybody. They just need to reach out, latch hold of it. And if they didn’t, that’s their fault. Um, they love the all word until you remind them that God could have passed over all. God could have left everyone in their state of sin and death. But the fact that he chose some to everlasting life as a mercy, he would have been just, And he would have been right to leave everyone dead on sentence and trespasses. But the fact that he in his out of his own good pleasure elected some to everlasting life is it’s his prerogative. I’m glad he did it. I guess I sort of think I’m saved. I feel like it. Believe it. All the rest. Hope you do the same.
Wonderful, our hearts do break for the lost while we preach the gospel. But what is this statement it makes? Only those who are engrafted into him and receive all his benefits by a true faith. If tomorrow morning you decide to go to the gym and say you go over there on Huffingville Road to Planet Fitness or whatever it is, and you walk up to the door with your gym bag, You got your towel over your shoulder. You got your 1980s sweatband, like you’re Michael Jordan. I mean, you’re ready to go. You bought new clothes next door at Academy, the whole works. And you go to the door and say, I’m here to work out. And they say, please sign in. Well, what do you mean? Well, you’ve got to be a member. Well, look at me. Aren’t I a member? But they’re going to ask you to leave unless you pay up. And I think a lot of folks think just because they come to church, just because they wear the sweats, or whatever it is you’re supposed to wear to church, please don’t wear your sweats. That’s for Walmart. I think a lot of folks think they’re saved by association, and perhaps the church over the years in America has given that impression, but notice the standard that the Heidelberg Catechism gives. It’s those who are truly in Jesus. They are engrafted into him.
Remember the language that is used in the scriptures, especially of we who are Gentiles. We were the wild olive branches. Wild referring to our sins. We were wild by nature, Paul says in Romans chapter 10. But we have been grafted into the true olive tree. Y’all know the apple tree, the olive tree thing. You whack off a branch, and you can wrap it and graft it. And eventually, you can mix and match. And you make a new apple hybrid for them to invite you to the mountains. And they somehow sucker you into paying high dollar for apples that you pick. Isn’t that how the thing works? And then you can’t help but get out of there with some cider and some donuts and some apples. And so that’s agribusiness in the mountains of North Carolina.
Well, you’ve seen the whole grafting in. But what about Jesus? What does he say? I am the vine, you are the branches, abide in me. And so you see the logic, you see the rationale the Heidelberg picks for how do we know who is indeed saved? It’s those truly engrafted in, it’s those who get the sap. Right? It’s those who get the vitamins and the minerals from the trunk of the tree. It’s those who are abiding in Jesus and receiving his benefits by a true faith.
And so if you have a true faith, we’re going to talk about what that is in a sec. If you have a true faith and you have indeed by God’s grace and power been engrafted into him and the grafting has brought you into the sap, the wine or the nutrients of the tree are yours. You are indeed a believer. That’s a wonderful thing to understand. And you can feel, I think, in a sense, when the Lord is at work in you, when your faith is real and your growth is real, when your struggles are real, you can feel that sap running through the veins of your olive branches, your apple branches.
Okay, so what is true faith? This is sort of the big section we want to think about. True faith is two things. It’s a certain knowledge. You see that on your top line. And then if you look about four lines down, true faith is also an assured confidence. So these two big headings we need to think about.
True faith is a certain knowledge. Yes, you have to know things, but true faith is also an assured confidence. What does it mean a certain knowledge? Well, it’s certain knowledge by which I hold for truth that God has revealed to us in his word. You have to have the Bible in order to know the way of salvation. You have to have the Bible to tell you that you’re a sinner. You have to have the Bible to tell you that God is just, God is holy, God is righteous, God by no means will clear the guilty. You have to have a Bible to know what God has revealed for the articles of faith, the conditions of salvation. And so this certain knowledge that we hold for truth must come from the Bible. It can’t come from dreams and visions and it can’t come from good thoughts and, you know, happy desires. It can’t come from, you know, worldly wisdom. It can’t come from the Bible plus things. It has to come from the word of God alone. That’s why way back over when we were chatting a minute ago about what the elders have to look for in our standard, in our denomination, we have to hear that, you know, you’re a sinner. We have to hear that, you know, Jesus is the way of salvation. We have to hear that, you know, that apart from Jesus, you’re dead in sin and trespasses. We have to hear that, that knowledge. And so there is a certain knowledge by which I hold for truth that God has revealed.
Now, in other confessions and catechisms, we’re not gonna let the Heidelberg say it all at night, there’s a couple things in this whole knowledge realm. Our Westminster Confession of Faith speaks of knowledge, assent, and trust. Okay, you gotta know things. Then you have to assent and say, I believe these things are true. Really hard to say, yeah, I’m a sinner. And then you have to trust. You have to believe that those words are life-giving. You have to believe that what they say about God’s threatenings make you tremble, God’s promises make you joyful, and God’s commands cause you to submit and yield in obedience.
So there’s knowledge and assent. and there’s trust. And then there’s sometimes what we call the principal acts of faith. I know this is getting highly technical and whatever, but anyway, y’all are smart. Y’all can, y’all can handle this. The principal acts of faith, accepting, receiving and resting.
Now, every Sunday morning without fail, after our corporate confession of sin, after we’ve had time for private and personal confession of sin, I give, the assurance of pardon, but I do not give the assurance of pardon to all. Who do I give it to? Those of you who have received Jesus and rest in him alone for your salvation. That’s two of the principal acts, isn’t it? It’s one thing to, um, acknowledge the truth. It’s another to receive it and to rest in it. And so who gets the assurance of pardon every week? Is it a blanket assurance? If you prayed this prayer and you walked the aisle, then you get assurance of pardon. No, we don’t do that. But I do assure those who have accepted Jesus, received him and rest in him alone for salvation. I think that’s important to do.
What about this trust idea? We kind of get the knowledge thing. We read facts, we stick them in our head and we believe them. The ascent thing, okay, they’re true. It’s the Bible. I’m not gonna wrestle or argue with God. It didn’t work out for Jacob that night. But what about trust? Do I trust the Bible to be true? And one theologian said that this trust has several parts to it. One is we renounce the things we used to trust in. It’s kind of a repent thing, isn’t it? Used to believe this, now I don’t. So there’s a renouncing of maybe reliance on self. There’s a renouncing of Satan and his authority. There’s a renouncing of, oh, my heart loves to sin. I can’t do that anymore. I renounce my sinful ways. So there’s renouncing.
And then there’s, I can’t read my own language here. Oh, consent. I believe these words to be true and I consent to obey them. I consent to live by them, to be judged by them. And then there’s kind of the heart side. There’s an acquiescence. I really believe this. I’m going to do it. There’s a trust. I’m going to say no more. God, you’ve spoken. It’s good enough for me. What was that saying? Everybody used to say, um, God said it. I believe it. That settles it. And I think you can scrap the I believe it part. If God said it, doesn’t that settle it? Yeah.
Okay. Y’all are doing great. Now, should you believe it? Of course. But God said it, that settles it. But then there’s the word composure, kind of a funny word, you know, hell is composure. It’s the heart attitude, it’s the position we have before the Lord, our composure before him. We bow in reverence, we bow in awe, we submit to him, we lower ourself and we’re under his kingship, under his command.
So true faith is a certain knowledge. There’s knowledge, there’s assent, there’s trust, there’s accepting, there’s receiving, and there’s resting. Where do we get this knowledge from? It comes from his word.
So back to our question, how much should we say in evangelism, or how much must we hear from someone? How much is enough certain knowledge to profess faith? Okay, there’s a big question. Maybe we’ll leave it open to our look at the articles of the Apostles’ Creed.
The second part of true faith, though, is the assured confidence the assured confidence, and where does it come from? It comes from the Holy Spirit working by the gospel in my heart. We don’t know how it works, but we know that it works.
When we hear the gospel and we hear the bad news, we’re sinners, we hear the bad news, God is a holy and just and righteous God, and he will by no means clear the guilty, we hear the bad news, and then the good news, He sent his son to seek and save the lost. He lived the life they didn’t live. He obeyed the law they failed to keep. He died a death that should have been theirs, but he was their substitute. And so by faith in him, we get his obedience, his righteousness. By faith in him, we also get forgiveness. We are cleansed. And we hear that, and the Holy Spirit causes us to accept it, receive it, and rest in it.
And the longer we live and the more we go to church, the more we’re in the Bible reading, we hear assurances of pardon at church, we receive the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. All that testifies to us by word, by sacrament and by spirit. You are my child. Satan no longer has a hold on you and you keep on pressing on in the Christian faith. And it’s a rinse and repeat, isn’t it? We don’t just pray the prayer, walk the aisle, get our card, stick it in our pocket and say, chariot, when you swing low, be sure to come by my station because I’m gonna pull the ticket out and go to heaven. The Christian life is way more than that.
And so by an assured confidence, the Holy Spirit works by the gospel in my heart. Now let me say one thing about the certain knowledge and the assured confidence before we go to the three things that come. your whole lifelong Christian walk is the word salvation. Being saved is past tense. Yes. It is present tense as well. You are being saved and it is future tense. You will be saved. And we have cheapened salvation, especially in the American South. Do you want to go to hell? No. Then pray this prayer. Okay. You’re saved. read the Bible, it’s a little more sophisticated. It comes back to our question, is that enough gospel to inoculate somebody to think they’re saved? Or is that enough to have fully presented Christ to them? I think you probably ought to say more.
I told y’all I get a little aggravated on TV, you know, hey, is your life bad? Pray this prayer. If you prayed this prayer, call toll free 1-800-I-got-saved. And I don’t know, that’s a little, I mean, yay for them. They’re telling the gospel. But I think it’s a little, I don’t know, maybe a little thin ice personally, but that’s me, negative nanny.
But what three things are we to come to know? And what three things are we to continue to come to know? And what three things will we glory in when we’re around the throne? And there’s the lamb who was slain for the sins. of the children of God. What three things must we know to be saved? What three things must we keep knowing and growing in when we are saved? And what three things, when we are fully and finally saved, will we be singing about when we’re around the throne in heaven?
And it lists them, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and then salvation. And these three things come to us freely by God, and they come merely of grace and only for the sake of the merits, forgiveness of sins.
Uh, if you’ve been around here long enough, you know, the justification word justification is just as if I never sinned and just as if I always obeyed, it’s both. We usually think of justification as, as if I never sinned, my sins are pardoned. They were paid for the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross paid for my sins. I’ve got forgiveness. That’s exactly right. But to be accepted in God’s sight, not only do you need to be forgiven, but you need to keep the covenant of works, right? You need to keep the law of God. You will never be able to keep the law of God. Jesus kept it. And so we get that righteousness granted to us by faith.
And so we remember forgiveness is a judicial act. Somebody may whack your car with a grocery cart at Harris Teeter this week, and you can say, Oh, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. And you drive off and you think, well, it’s just a character flaw on my car. If you want to know, I’ll teach you about parking uphill and away from people. It’s a highly skilled thing to drive a car, especially a black one that doesn’t have a shopping cart den in it yet. But what do we do? We forgive them.
Now, do we have the right to call the cops? Yes. Do we have the right for a police report? So thrilled to come do that at Harris Teeter in that tight parking spot. And do you have the right to claim from their insurance the funds to fix the ding in the side of your car? Because you chose not to park uphill like me because you’re not neurotic. Yeah, you could judicially do that, right? But we forgive, you know, whatever.
Did we forgive on the basis of satisfaction being made? No, we just swept it under the rug. What must God do with sin? Can he say, I’ll forget about it. It’s just a shopping cart. No, he has to, because he’s a righteous God, because he’s a just God, he has to exact punishment due for sin. We’ve talked about that these last several weeks, but his judicial act where we are declared innocent, we are declared forgiven, declared righteous is a judicial verdict. It is an acquittal. We are innocent because of an outside or an alien righteousness. And it’s that of Jesus Christ. And it’s because of his substitutionary death. We’re going to talk about this a gazillion other times when we come to it. So we’ll leave it there.
There’s forgiveness of sins. What about everlasting righteousness? We have the righteousness of Jesus. And it will not fade. It will not wear out. It will not spot. It will not diminish. It will not decrease. We have an everlasting righteousness that is our standing before the throne of almighty God. It’s a forever righteousness. And that’s a wonderful thing.
We live in the world I know of Roman Catholicism. We live in the world of Can I graciously say, not the good Baptist, but the backward Baptist, who somehow thrown works righteousness into the mix? Have I got that right? Sort of, kind of. You come to church, you’ve been backsliding, you need to rededicate your life. Well, what if you believe in justification? Is there a rededication? No, there’s just a mortification of sin. You need to get sanctified.
But we live in a works righteousness world. if you don’t believe me that it’s not just the Catholics, it’s us backward Southerners, listen to a person who Tuesday was a you know what, and he died on Thursday and he got justification by death. Right, you ever heard that? Tuesday, this guy was the worst person you ever knew. But by Thursday after his death, oh, there was never a better man. And if anybody, here he goes, should be in heaven, It should be Billy Joe because he rescued cats or something like that.
But we live in a world. that thinks that our righteousness ebbs and flows. That’s the Catholic view. And somehow it’s gotten into our Southernese, as it were, but we have an everlasting righteousness. It is alien, it is outside of us. It is, as the Protestant reformers would say, extra nos, it is outside of us. And so Jesus’ righteousness doesn’t go up or down in flux like the stock market, or perhaps like a Roman Catholic’s justification, Our everlasting righteousness is Jesus. That’s wonderful.
Okay. Salvation. That’s the saved word. Saved from what? Saved from the wrath of God. That’s the most basic thing, isn’t it? And these things, forgiveness, righteousness, salvation, they’re freely given by God. He did not have to do it. And there was only one way he could do it. It wasn’t free. It cost his son. It wasn’t free, it cost the life of the Savior, Jesus Christ. He could have sat in heaven, arms crossed. He could have dusted off his hands and said, fine, people, be like that. That’s kind of how we do it, isn’t it? Be that way. Go to hell. I’ll give you an extra push. That’s how we would do it. But it’s freely by God. It’s merely of grace.
What is grace? God’s riches at Christ’s expense. is what you got in the parking lot at Harris Teeter when you dinged somebody’s new Lexus. Grace is unmerited favor. And then what about for the sake of Christ merits? That goes back, doesn’t it, to the forgiveness of sins and justification.
Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost. Joseph was not the father, otherwise he would have passed on Adam’s sin. conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, yet without sin, he was made under the law. He lived under the particular hardships of the curses of this world that were unique to Mary and Joseph and life in the Roman Empire. You know, she had to ride a donkey at eight and a half weeks pregnant from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That had to have been quite a thing. I can remember going to birthing classes. And they said, if you really want to push things along, take your wife down a gravel road in your SUV. So I’m sure the donkey probably helped that along.
But Jesus came to earth and was under all the hardships, including the threat of the curse of the law. If you don’t obey, you die. But we know that he obeyed God perfectly. He passed the temptations and the wilderness as well as all the others. And when he went to the cross, he was the sinless savior. the spotless lamb. And when he went to the cross, his obedience and his spotlessness made him the righteous substitute. So when we get his forgiveness, it’s because of the meritorious sacrifice. When we get his righteousness, it’s his righteousness, not ours.
Uh, so when you say I am a righteous person, it’s because Jesus has given that to you. And so true faith is a certain knowledge and an assured confidence. Where do we get the knowledge? The Bible? Where do we get the assured confidence? The Holy Spirit? Is this a one-time thing? Walk the aisle and you get the content and the confidence? Absolutely not. You live a Christian life. You come to the means of grace and in the sacraments and in the word and in the spirit and in your private prayers and devotions and interaction with other Christians, your sufferings and hardships, you grow in grace and you grow up into your assurance. You grow up into, your knowledge as you are a lifelong learner.
So then the final section answers our question, how much must one know in order to be a Christian? Jesus says, repent and believe. Paul says, confess with your mouth, believe in your heart. Our ARP standards sort of echo the Bible. Here’s what the Heidelberg says, it is necessary, not suggested, It is necessary for a Christian to believe all things promised us in the gospel, which the articles of our Catholic, notice the little C, don’t get your hairs up on your neck, which the articles of our Catholic undoubted Christian, that’s capitalized, that’ll be nice, briefly teach us.
So we say the Apostles’ Creed a couple Sundays a month. We say the Nicene when we’re feeling a little testy. We say some other creeds and confessions when it’s appropriate. We have about four or five we rotate through and we have our other book in the other room. Heaven help us to get back there and have that book again.
But why do we say our creeds and our confessions? It’s to remind us what we have renounced. It’s to remind us what we have pledged to believe. And it’s sort of a witness to each other. Hey, y’all, I still believe this. And it’s also kind of yelling at Satan, isn’t it? Hey, Satan. Jesus got me. I’m not yours anymore. But it’s also a witness to the watching world. The confessing church believes these things.
If you’ve perhaps had the misfortune of a big box church experience, what do they not do in church? There’s a lot of things they don’t do. They don’t say the creed. I mentioned when I showed y’all the table talk issue for December, a lot of young people are going to the roots of the church. Sadly, they’re leapfrogging the Reformation and going either Catholic or Orthodox. But it’s important for us to say and believe these things. It’s important that the children in our church, who I hope you are hearing their little voices say these things because they learned it just the hour before in Sunday school and at home with their parents. It’s necessary for us to know and have the Spirit confirm these things in us.
So in the weeks to come, Heidelberg will explain the tenets of the Apostles’ Creed. Here’s one thing I hope you’re seeing. If you are truly by faith engrafted into Jesus, you are also truly and really by faith engrafted into his church.
There’s a wonderful little book out called The Ark of Salvation. I think Bill Haines got it a while ago, read it, passed it along. I think some of you have read it, and it follows the premise of the early church father who said, without God as our father and the church as our mother, there is no faith.
And God works through the revelation of himself in the scripture, but he also works through the care and nurture of the church. And so it’s really important, and I know I’m preaching to the choir, the Sunday night crowd, it’s really important for us to be, if we’re grapes, to be connected to the vine. If we’re olives to be connected to the olive branch, the tree. If we are apples or fruit or whatever, you get the idea to be connected. And it’s good for us to encourage others.
There is a really big move today. And I know some of you, especially ladies, have seen the struggle in some of our long-term visitors. There’s a really big move today to not unite with the church. Can you be saved and not unite with the church? Of course. The thief on the cross. never got baptized. Thief on the cross never went to catechism class. The thief on the cross never went to a fried chicken supper. But he went straight to heaven. That’s good. That’s the big church, the real church.
But should we encourage people to be in and connected to the life of the church? Absolutely. And so that’s a big prayer for us.
Let’s pause now and give thanks. Lord, we give you thanks for your everlasting love, which has been shown to us so clearly in Christ our Savior. We thank you that Christ, our Passover lamb who died for us, lived the obedient life, fulfilling all your law, all your righteousness. and granting it to us by faith. We thank you for Jesus, our Savior, not leaving us on earth and in this world without a friend, without a helper, without an advocate. And so we are grateful for the Holy Spirit to be our guide, our teacher, our comforter. And we thank you that on this earth, Lord, we have your church. We have the institution of the church. We have the people of God. Both are important to our growth and grace, our nutrients, And so we thank you, Lord, for the union we have with Jesus, but the union we have with one another, and pray, Lord, that that vital union would be seen as valuable and beneficial by others, and they so may unite to the church and receive the sap, the life-giving juice that Jesus promises.
Lord, thank you for teaching us that we’re sinners, for showing us the righteousness and holiness of God, but most of all for the brightness of the good news of the gospel that Jesus saves sinners. And so help us to joy, joy and revel in that we pray in his name. Amen.
We want to respond to God’s good grace number 705. I know whom I have believed.