We're going to turn in our Bibles now to Titus chapter 2 and we're also going to be taking a look in light of God's Word, a very cherished confession that we have made over the years as a Reformed people and that is the Heidelberg Catechism question and answer 1 from Lord's Day 1. I've had, as you No, I've had opportunities to minister in many places since my ameritation, since my retirement. And one of the things that I've thought of doing and looked into doing is try to get back to some basic things. There's a series of sermons that I'm trying to do on God being the covenant God out of Genesis. And also just looking back at some of the more cherished portions of our confession that we carry out, and this is certainly one of them out of Lord's Day 1, question and answer 1, which is on page 872 in the Trinity Psalter Hymnal. We'll look at it from there in a moment. But some of those basic things are also the most consoling things for us, right? It's just like when we just professed our faith using the words of the Apostles Creed, the consoling thing is that we're not trusting in ourselves, we are putting our focus where it belongs, in our God. And those very basic tenets of our faith are those things that matter most valuably for us as we carry on in our lives. Well, same here with Lord's Day question and answer one. But before we look at that, we're gonna be looking at the Word of God, Titus 2, and we'll read those first 15, well, those 15 verses there that we see in Titus 2. But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good. And so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say about us. Bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope. the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority Let no one disregard you. We've read from God's word, we take a moment to respond to it and if you would please, could you turn to page 872 in the Trinity Hymnals and if you would be willing to answer the question that is posed to us there in question one. in Lord's Day 1 and we'll answer that question together as God's people tonight. This is on page 872 in the back of the Trinity Psalter hymnal. Let's answer this question. What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. 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. May God's word indeed be a blessing to us this evening as it's ministered to us. Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, Imagine if we were to say that it'd be nice to breathe today, but not tomorrow. Or a slice of bread would be fine this afternoon, but I think I'll skip food for the next month or so. Give me a sip of water this morning, but let's hold off again for another sip until July. No, we need these things and we don't need them just for the moment. We need them throughout our lives. And on a religious plane, that's also true when it comes to the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our profession of God, as we do so in our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. As we're called to make public, as we even do in this place, as we publicly profess our faith for our comfort in Christ and for his glory, we come to realize that it is a comfort that we can never do without. It's not something that we can have for a moment and not for another. And thanks to the grace of the Lord, we are not without it. Our profession of Christ is never meant simply for the moment. It is meant for time and it is meant for eternity. Greater than our need for bread, air, or drink that we would say, we need all these things, not just for a moment. But our only true comfort as we face our futures is the comfort of belonging to Christ. And that is worth professing Always, for time and for eternity, because nothing in life and in death can comfort us like Christ can when he says to us, you belong to me. Body and soul in life and in death. As we face futures, as we do, they sometimes are things that we encounter with different thoughts in mind. Sometimes we're looking at the futures that are in front of us. and we can take pause on the Lord's day to consider what God has done for us and also what he has in store for us but as we're looking at what he has in store for us sometimes we look at that as to how it is that we can be building on that which we've been doing in his name in the places to which he's called us but sometimes it can be a bit of uncertainty that we face when we look at the future because we do not know the end from the beginning. And so in one sense, from a human standpoint, there is that sense of uncertainty about what the future is going to hold. But for us as Christians, for us who put our Our daily comfort in belonging to Christ, the comfort of Christ is exactly what we need to face what's in front of us. He's exactly what we need to face new seasons ahead. Or maybe the continuing of seasons that we've been experiencing already. So we focus this evening on why that is. We reflect a moment on our calling to profess the comfort of our Savior always. And why is such a profession a continuous comfort? Well, it's because we're possessed by Christ always, we're kept by the will of the Father in heaven or Christ's Father always, and we are equipped by Christ's Spirit always. It's a continuous comfort because you're possessed by Christ always. Our passage says that the grace of God appeared when Christ came. And he gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession. Now we say by way of a profession of faith that the essence of the comfort that Christ provides us is in similar tones. It is that we belong to him. We are his own. We are not our own. Every part of us belongs to him. Now normally, being owned and the thought of being owned by another, it wouldn't sound very comforting. We would consider it, left to ourselves, a blow to our dignity. I belong to no one. I am my own. I'm the master of my own ship. And to belong to somebody else is to be under the enslavement of another. And my liberty would be violated and that's just not the American way. As we espouse the liberty to pursue life and happiness. And yet the good news of the gospel at its core is about belonging to Christ. We even go so far to say that isn't just one of many comforts in life, but we make the assertation in the profession that it is the only comfort in life and in death. If you were to boil down your comfort for the future, for time and for eternity, that's where you need to find it. It's in belonging to Christ. Now how can that be? What helps us understand that truth is to put aside the presumption that any of us on a religious plane ever belong to ourselves. That is biblical nonsense according to scripture. It's an attractive idea. but it's a total lie. It's a total fabrication. It's a third option among two. It's like telling people, well, you can have, you can tell, you can say to your daughter or your wife comes home and says, which dress do you like, the red dress or the brown dress? And we pick the green one. And there isn't a green one. There is no third way. It's either or when it comes to possession as well. Could you imagine someone inquiring at a football game as to which team has the ball, the home team or the visiting team and somebody would chime out to you and say, oh let me set you straight, neither has the ball, the ball belongs to itself. And you say that's nonsense, it's never that way. The ball belongs either to the home team or the visitors but never to both and never to neither and never to itself. And that's the way it is with our lives. We either by grace come to believe that we belong to Christ or we remain in that comfortless way of Satan's tyranny. We belong to Christ or we're slaves to the devil. Those are the choices, liberated or tyrannized. Now society loves to set up all other kinds of divisions in the world, all other kinds of distinctions. Now we see distinctions in our passage today. older women, older men, younger women, younger men, different societal rankings that were taking place, societal divisions that way. The world likes to compartmentalize in that way though and look at those things as if those are the ultimate distinctions. But not with scripture. In scripture, We either are belonging to the devil or we're belonging to Christ. We are not our own, ever. And if we think that we are our own, then we are deceiving ourselves. Because the reality is that we are tyrannized by the devil with no comfort at all, or we have come to know the comfort of Christ in belonging to him. So Christ came to change that tyranny and he came to change it for all kinds of people. And then we get into all these different categories and that's legitimate. Young and old and rich and poor and male and female and slave and free and people who have heard about Christ all their lives and those who have heard about him only recently. He came to give himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession. He's calling those he has redeemed in this passage to that kind of life, all kinds of people. And contrary to public opinion, there is good news then. and consoling news and comforting news in belonging to Christ. Being his possession means that he had to pay a price, a price of redemption, a price that we could never pay, a price we would never want to pay, and a price which only his precious blood could pay. And it was a debt that to God that left unpaid would leave us spiritually tyrannized as slaves to sin. The believer in Christ loves it. That he belongs to Christ. And that he belongs to Christ always. And that every part of him belongs to Christ. He loves it. She loves it. that he or she belongs to Christ in all that lies ahead. And why is that? Well, simply speaking, belonging to Christ is heavenly while being tyrannized by the devil is hellish. And in that tyranny, I'll never do the good I need to do. Never. What kind of life is that? What kind of way is that to live, to face the future. In such tyranny, I'll never be able either to pay the debt of love that God deserves and demands. In that kind of tyranny, I live a life of hell on earth, and I am destined to hell, and I have nothing but death and eternal death as the end point of my life. That is no life, and that is no way for anybody to face the future. But when I belong to Christ, everything's different. Scripture says that we can profess with faith that whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. That's living. When I belong to Christ, I'm liberated from that penalty of sin. I'm liberated from the power of sin. And I gain, I gain so many important changes in my life. It's no wonder we sing, we sang that this morning in Daman, Indiana. You know how vast the benefits divine which we in Christ pulls out. We've gone from death to life, from a child of wrath to a child of God, from nothing to look forward to to everything to look forward to. To be able to confess that all will end well. Nobody can make that profession, after all, than the Christian. And you and I just did that a few moments ago. We said that all is going to end well in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. That's where everything's heading. From belonging to somebody who doesn't care about me to one who will take care of me always. Nothing else can comfort us for the future like that transforming, continuous, comforting possession. In life there's either continuous comfort in belonging to Christ or there is no comfort in the tyranny of the devil, one or the other. And we all profess one or the other. And of course we're all called, and as Titus was supposed to be teaching as well what was in accordance with sound doctrine. We're all called to profess and to respond to the sound doctrine that says there is nothing more consoling for you than belonging to Christ. Belonging to Christ in a transformed way means that you're viewed by Christ, as our passage reminds us, as a treasured possession of Christ. And that's as part of God's family. as children of the Heavenly Father. And that really gets us to our second point too, which is the fact that as our passage, as we look in our sermon points here, that we're under the will of the Father in heaven always. Scripture says Christians are part of a holy nation, a chosen people, a treasured possession, a people belonging to God, once not knowing mercy, now knowing mercy. And if you and I think about our most treasured possessions, we make sure that we never forget it, we never forsake it. And if we happen to do that, it's like people are going, how could you lose that? Right, how could you forget where that was? How could you let that go to pot? You know, our boys and girls have certain things that they treasure at home. And they're not gonna wanna abuse those things. And even as parents, if we see that they might, we have to teach them a lesson. You do not forsake and you do not forget about those things that you hold precious. Well, part of our comfort for the future in professing Christ is that he watches over us in such a way that not a hair can fall from our head without the will of our Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Our passage says that when the grace of God appeared, God gave his son. And we know from scripture that that was the most precious thing he could ever do for us. Because scripture tells us that if he didn't spare his own son but gave him up for us all, will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Part of what brings us comfort like none other in belonging to Christ is that we are now children of the Sovereignly Heavenly Father. We are children of God and part of that, the continuous comfort of belonging to Christ is that under the watchful eye of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Nothing comes to us accidentally. Nothing comes to us by chance. Nothing comes to us without his purpose. Nothing comes to us without his fatherly hands touch upon us. Nothing comes outside of his watch. Nothing comes our way outside of his bounds. outside of his control. Not even the hair of our head falls without his will and we think of that as being pretty, well for the most part, we think of that as a pretty trivial thing if we lose a little bit of hair. Everything is under his control and everything in the end works to our good. There's no gospel at all, unless that's so. And no other news can claim that. There's no gospel in saying that sometimes things will work to our good as we love God. If God is for us, then sometimes other things cannot be against us. Some things separate us from the love of God, but not everything. Maybe he can help you cope with the hair falling from your head. But don't expect it for the hard things, the sorrowing things, the debilitating things, the mysterious things, the crippling things, or whatever you find difficult. Because he can't help you there. You're on your own there. You're going to have to go find your answers somewhere else. Or you just stay comfortless. That's not how Christ watches over us. That's not the profession we make about it. That's not what the scriptures teach us. We're his treasured possession. I belong in body and soul and life and in death. What else is there? What else is there? To my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Christ who died, no more than that, who was raised and is seated at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us. So who shall separate us from the love of God? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Now that doesn't mean we don't face death all day long. For God's sake, we do. But we have something greater than death. We have the inescapable love of God and the inseparable love of God. And it's Christ all day long. And we're more than conquerors to him who loved us. And we can say then, and we have every right to say, nothing is going to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And there is nothing and there is no one that can give you that kind of continuous comfort going forward. For every one of your situations and for as long as you live and for the day you die. And that's why it makes sense to profess the comfort of Christ always, because he'll always keep us by his will and the will of our Father in heaven, and that's why it makes sense for us to do what the profession says, as we say it in terms of what the scriptures tell us, that we are to deny ourselves and to follow Christ. We also profess Christ as our comfort always as those equipped by the Spirit always. That's the confession we make too, 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. Jesus gave himself, our passage says, to purify himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. Zealous for good works. And he did that so that we might renounce, our passage says, ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in the present age as we're waiting for the appearing of Christ. I mean, that's as contemporary as it gets. That renouncement and that life are by the power of the Holy Spirit. We know that we wouldn't profess Christ always without His Spirit always at work. We wouldn't seek to live zealously and serve Christ zealously without His Spirit equipping us. and assuring us that eternal life is ours, that we have much for which to look forward, that helps us in the trying times before the glory that awaits. We would not seek to serve Christ without that, and these are the truths that the Spirit declares through preaching and the sacraments. Paul tells Titus, declare these things. Teach what accords with sound doctrine. The Spirit assures us of eternal life by the means of grace. Teach it. Remind. Assure. Encourage. Direct. We're tempted to put our confidence in ourselves and when we do that, then we're left to our own inadequacies and we despair because we're focusing on ourselves. But preaching and sacraments don't do that. They focus on Christ so that we'll live life where we're focusing on Christ. And when our focus is on Christ, we are assured by the spirit of eternal life. Because we recognize it's on Christ's righteousness and not on our own that we are saved. We're ready then to serve our Savior. And it doesn't matter who we are. It doesn't matter if we're an older man. It doesn't matter if we're an older woman. It doesn't matter if we're a younger man. It doesn't matter if we're a younger woman. It doesn't matter what social class we may be in. Because the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all kinds of people. Nobody shut out. This speaks to us all. In knowing God's blessing, then we seek to be a blessing. That's what this is. We've come to know God's blessing so we can be a blessing. That's what Titus 2 tells us. That's the Christian way. Christ served to save me. From now on, I seek to serve my Savior. And Christ doesn't leave us under a quip to face the future. We may not always know what's coming. And we might look back on things that have happened to us and we say, I never knew that was coming. I never knew that was going to hit me. We don't always know what's coming. But in Christ, we do know that we are never left to ourselves. Christ would never leave us that way. He's Emmanuel. He's God with us. Or if you put it just literally, with us is God. By his divinity, by his majesty, by his spirit, he is never absent from us even for a moment. By faith we can say He's always equipping, always assuring, always working in us in this present age so that we would be what we've been called to be, zealous for good works from now on. Willing, ready, wholeheartedly to live for Him. By His Spirit, Christ's people will serve Him from now on. And that's part of the comfort of Christ. We're comforted about everlasting life and that Christ will help us to do what he wants until that day. And he's not going to leave us with an unfunded mandate to fulfill our callings. He gives what is needed in accordance with his glorious riches in Christ. He gives what is needed so that we can be what he wants us to be from now on. He's always equipping us by His Spirit to serve Him, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. And this is what Titus is supposed to be teaching, this is what our churches are supposed to be teaching, so we'd be those kind of things that God wants us to be. Because God's been a blessing to us in Christ. And that's the kind of comfort we need for the future. We don't always know what will come, but in Christ we're called to confess that we do know our calling and that we have the Spirit's power to carry it out with zeal, with ability, assured by the gospel, That we belong to our Savior. What's to be our only comfort moving forward, my friends? What's to be our profession always? It's that we belong to Christ. That we're watched by his Father. And we're equipped by his Spirit. And we can never do without any of those blessings. And the consoling thing is, is that in Christ we never will be. And I pray that that's the comfort that you'll possess always. As somebody that knows that you're possessed by Christ, as somebody who hears the call possess and to profess the comfort of Christ always. Amen. Let's take a moment to respond in prayer, shall we? Dear Heavenly Father, you are a God who consoles us with your gospel. We're glad that long ago, through the Apostle Titus, you taught him to teach Titus, to teach what was in accordance with sound doctrine, so that we might hear about the blessing of belonging to Christ, the blessing of being under your fatherly care, and the blessing to be a blessing, as your spirit so equips us with a vision for eternity and service until that day. May we find ourselves one in all, in all that we face, sometimes building on what we've already known, sometimes facing things we've never thought we'd ever have to face. May we find ourselves professing the comfort of the Savior always, consoled in knowing that we're not our own, but that we belong to Christ. Accept our prayers, dear Father, for the sake of Jesus. Amen.