Amen. Let us turn to our confessional reading. Lord's Day 23. We'll come back to Lord's Day 5 and 6 next week, or in a couple of weeks, Lord willing. Those are two very closely related Lord's Days. We'll take those as a Part 1 and a Part 2, starting in a couple of weeks. But for tonight, we jump ahead to Lord's Day 23. It's on page 224. And these are the question and answers that follow, the question and answers that work line by line through the Apostles' Creed. So, all this of question 59 is all these lines of the Apostles' Creed. So I'll read the question. for 59, 60, and 61. Let's together see the answers. Question 59, but how does it help you now that you believe all this, that I am righteous in Christ before God and an heir to life everlasting? How are you righteous before God? Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments, of never having kept any of them, and of still being inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. If only I accept this gift with a believing heart. Why do you say that through faith alone you are righteous? Not because I please God by the worthiness of my faith, for only Christ's satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness are my righteousness before God, and I can receive this righteousness and make it mine in no other way than by faith alone. That is the faithful summary of God's Word. Let us turn now to that very Word of God, 1 John chapter 4, page 1304 in the Bibles under our seats, or if you're at Revelation chapter 1, you turn back about three or four pages or so, and that takes you to 1 John chapter 4. And we'll read from verse 7 down to verse 21, but we're looking especially at 13-17 and even especially at verse 16, but we'll read 7-21 for context. Let us hear the Word of God. Beloved, let us love one another, Love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God. but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God abides in Him and He in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because he who is so also are we in this world because as he is also are we in this world. There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. and the grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in James chapter 1 we are told to be doers of the word and not hearers only. 1 John does not use exactly these words, though verse 16 comes close, but 1 John 4 and other texts make it clear that we are to be believers of the gospel and not knowers only. We are to be believers of the gospel and not knowers only. So when we come to Lord's Day 23, which follows a rather, you know, Lord's Day 8 to 22, all of that is working through the Apostles' Creed line by line. And after following all those Lord's Days on the Apostles' Creed, the Catechism does not ask, what does it help you now that you know all this? No, the Catechism asks, how does it help you now that you believe all this? And again, this reminds us of the beginning of that ancient creed. Even those first two words that I emphasized before we confess them together tonight. How does the Apostles' Creed begin? I, not I know, I believe. I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth. For merely knowing truths, even those basic truths put together in the Apostles' Creed. Mere knowledge is not what we are called to. We are called to know and believe. Our theme this evening is this. The Gospel of Christ must be known and believed. We'll look first at the truth, which is to be known, second, the righteousness given, and third, the gift received. the truth known. Now the necessity of believing does not mean knowing is irrelevant. It is possible to know and to not believe. A very dangerous place to be. But it is not possible to truly believe without also knowing something. knowledge and belief. They must go together. And so, brothers and sisters, the phrase blind faith, it is at best unhelpful. We do not have a blind faith. We believe in God whom we cannot see. And so, faith is the conviction of that which is not seen, Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1. But we We cannot see God, but we know God. He has revealed Himself in His Word. We do not have a blind faith. We do not have a faith without knowledge. No, we believe in Him who we cannot see, but whom we know. We know who He is, that He is our Creator, that He is also our Savior who sent His Son. And so, 1 John, every page of scripture does, gives us some truths to know. And even 1 John 4 emphasizes some of the most basic truths, such as the character of God, with an emphasis upon the love of God in these verses. God is love. And also some basic and most essential truths about what God has done, that God has sent his Son. And so we see language of the incarnation in verse 15 and also in the verses before that. And all of that leads into verse 16. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. that knowledge and belief go together in true faith is something that we see in various places in the catechism. We could go back all the way to question and answer 21, which gives a definition of faith. What is true faith? True faith includes what? It includes not only a sure knowledge, but also a deep-rooted assurance of God's grace and forgiveness. We are called to know and believe. Many people, brothers and sisters, have some knowledge of the Bible. How easily accessible is the Bible in the United States? Who does not have a Bible? Who does not have access to the Bible? Who does not know some basic truths about the Bible? knowledge of the true word is so accessible and even for many there is some knowledge of that knowledge. We know, we know. If we think on a larger scale Wycliffe Ministries as of September 2024 estimates that 75% of the world now has access to the whole Bible in a language that they can read. 98% of the world now has portions of the Bible in a language that they can read. Praise the Lord. That's encouraging. There's still work to do. 2% of 8 billion is still a number that approaches 200 million. And there are some who only have scripture in their second language but not in their heart language that they know the best. There's still work to do but brothers and sisters praise the Lord for that work which has been done. Access to knowledge of the truth of who we are and who God our maker is. Access to that knowledge is there for not just essentially everyone in our own nation but for many people the whole world over. It is encouraging in the battle of the kingdom of light against the kingdom of darkness to know that knowledge of the truth is at our fingertips. But it is not enough. It is not enough for us. It is not enough for anyone. It is not enough for the labor of the harvest and the work of discipleship. There must be Knowledge, yes, but there must be belief, there must be trust in the knowledge, in the truth that God's Word reveals to us. And so as encouraging as the truth that the Bible is readily available is, not only here, but really the whole globe over, it is just the start of the work. And it is not enough by itself. We know this from coming back now again to our own nation. Here again, the Bible is so readily accessible and some basic knowledge of the truths of the Bible are known by basically everyone in the United States. But yet, that knowledge is denied. It is not held to be truth. Think just Now a little bit more narrowly within our nation about our institutions of higher learning. Many, many of the colleges in our country were founded by Christians and often by conservative Bible-believing Christians of one denomination or another. How many of those institutions now are unrecognizable from their Christian roots? Or maybe they do still have the word Bible in their name, but the authority of God's Word is denied. Knowledge of the truth is not enough. Access to the truth is not enough. And so speaking about those who have the Bible in their hand, John gives us this warning in Revelation chapter 22 verses 18 to 19. I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. Knowledge is necessary, but knowledge itself is never enough. There must be trust in the truth of the knowledge of who God is and what God has done. There must be a righteousness given, which is also tied together with faith, and that takes us to our second point. is tied to righteousness. So question answer 60 speaks about how, how are you righteous before God? Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. And speaks about how in the middle there, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ. And then question answer 61 then also emphasizes this relationship between faith alone and Christ alone, between the fact that we're saved by faith alone and through the work of Christ alone, is a way we could basically paraphrase question and answer 61. 1 John 4, our text, speaks about the righteousness of Christ and Christ's righteous requirements in the verses leading up to that call to know and to believe in verse 16. with this language about the righteousness of Christ in verse 10. It speaks about how God loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Well, what is that? That is to be the one whose righteousness pays for our sin. To be the one who is righteous for us. Christ's righteousness. That is our salvation. We, even when we think about our faith, must remember that we are totally depraved. Question and Answer 60 certainly speaks to that truth about how my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned and of still being inclined toward all evil. And so, brothers and sisters, what do we do What do we do with our sin? We look to Christ. That is the good news. His very righteousness is given to us. Question and answer 60. Once in a while, when we're reading the Catechism, once in a while when we're reading the Catechism, do we think it is Scripture? Do scriptures say that? The perfect satisfaction, look towards the end of question and answer 60. The perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ. God grants and credits this to me. As if I had never sinned nor been a sinner. And as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. knowledge and faith, not works, because it is not my own works. Brothers and sisters, as we grow in the knowledge of the truth, we grow in the knowledge of who God is and what God requires of us, may we May we grow in the knowledge of God's law and may that lead us to service. That's one of the things that the law does. But another thing that the law does is it humbles us. It shows us that we are sinners because we do not keep that law. And so what do we do? What do we do? What do we do when we hear a sermon and we say, Yes and amen, but then we're struggling with those sins hours later. I know that happens because that happens to the preacher too. It's like, wasn't I just preaching about how we should grow in this or that? Why? Because we are all sinners. Because we all struggle against our sinful flesh. Because we are all still inclined toward all evil. But we are not saved by works and works or by faith which is a work. We are saved by knowledge of who God is and what God has done and faith in God. And faith is not a work. And when we understand faith and salvation, We see that God now looks at me, though I am a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. Is that even true? Yes and amen it is. We love. Why? Because God first loved us. Something that we read twice in our scripture reading. We are righteous. because of Christ's righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. The Catechism is not overstating the truth. It is summarizing the beautiful truth that we, depraved and weak sinners, though we are, stand righteous before God, as though we had the righteousness of Christ himself, because that's part of what faith is. Faith is trusting in God, and then God grants and credits the very righteousness of the Eternal Son to us. These are beautiful truths, people of God. This is the Gospel. What do we do with our sin? We confess our sin. And where do we see salvation? We see salvation in Christ and then His righteousness by God the Father, the Eternal Judge of all the world is granted, counted to us. It is the truth of God's Word as beautifully summarized at the end of question and answer 60. It is the gospel, the comfort of the gospel because it's a salvation in a righteousness which is not our own. A righteousness that we receive by faith and that takes us to our third point, the emphasis on faith as as a receiving, the reception of a gift. It's often true that we can have an image or a word and it's possible to think of it in two very different ways. And there's an illustration of this with the sun. You see a picture of a sun that's halfway above the horizon. How do you know if it's a rising sun or a setting sun? There's the famous example of this in the early days of our nation when at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, President George Washington had this high-backed chair and on the top of that high-backed chair was carved this sun halfway above the horizon. And so after months of meeting, Ben Franklin has that quote where he says, I have often in the course of the session looked upon that sun behind the president without being able to tell whether it was a rising or setting sun. But now at length I have the happiness to know it is a rising and not a setting sun." Was the United States going to be a short-lived nation? Was this it? Was it just already crashing and burning or was the sun just coming up above the horizon? Well, brothers and sisters, when we come to faith, if we think about hands at all in relationship to faith, well, there's two very different ways we can think about that. You can think about hands that are active at work and doing something, and there are sadly many who have made faith into a work in one way or another. Even if they'll say, you know, we're saved apart from works then the understanding of faith essentially makes faith at work. Well, that's the one thing we do. It's the one thing that our hands are doing. But if we take faith, and if we have to use hands as a picture tied to faith, there's not hands at work. There are hands receiving a gift. The role of faith is a receiving role. It is not an active role or work of our hands. Faith is a gift. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9, For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Faith itself is not at work. Faith itself is just part of the receiving process. The hands at work are the hands of Christ. The hands that lived the life of perfect righteousness and compassion and healing. The hands that were on the cross to pay for our sins as that propitiatory sacrifice. The hands that healed and forgave. The only righteous hands. Our hands If we're going to picture hands with faith at all, are receiving hands, receiving the gift. Look at how the emphasis on the reception of faith is emphasized in question and answer 60 and 61. The last lines of both question and answers On to page 225, if you're looking at the forms and praise, that last line, if only I accept this gift with a believing heart, that language of reception. And then again at the end of question and answer 61, and I can receive this righteousness and make it mine in no other way than by faith alone. Salvation is the work of God. Faith is a receiving thing, the reception of a gift. And then even, brothers and sisters, we know that the faith itself is only worked in us. So it might be better to not even have a picture of hands at all. But with the language of the catechism, it's good to use receiving language for faith, the reception of the gift. If only I accept this gift with a believing heart. Because it's not the work of my hands. And praise the Lord for that. Because then we would not be saved. Because you and I and every other person who has ever lived has sinful hands. But it's a reception of the grace of God accomplished by the hands of Jesus Christ. And so we know and we believe the gospel. And that is the good news of salvation. Let us pray. Lord, our Lord, You are love. which we love because You loved us. And so may we indeed know and believe the love that You have for us.