This morning will be our 23rd question under the heading of God's Decrees as we work through Benjamin Keech's catechism. God's Decrees, as we learned in question 10, are his eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. It says God's decrees are grounded in his eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will. The will of God as we keep going back to according to Ephesians 1 and verse 10 is that all things might be gathered together in one in Christ. God created the world and everything in it and then God provides for that creation for the eternal purpose of gathering all things together in one in Him. That's the most fundamental foundational aspect of God's decrees and I want us to begin there once again as we consider our next question this morning. God has an eternal purpose and that eternal purpose is to gather all things in one in Christ. And as we've worked through this catechism, we've seen that each question builds upon the question or questions before it, haven't we? And we've seen a very systematic movement through the theology of God's decrees here. And so we've seen concepts of God's decrees from one answer, say question 10, explained in question 11, and then words and concepts such as God's execution of his will using creation and providence in question 11 are expounded in questions 12 through 14, and we see that kind of pattern so on and so on. There's been a very systematic theological progression beginning with the foundation, which is God's will, and moving toward the culmination of God's decrees, which of course is Christ's work. which beginning today is followed by the application of that work to the souls of his elect. We begin today with a section on the application and benefits of Christ's work for his elect. So these Puritan catechisms are laying a foundation for the doctrines that we hold to and then building on that foundation doctrine by doctrine with these catechism questions. These catechism questions are teaching us the cohesive ways in which the Bible and all of the Bible's doctrines work together to proclaim this perfect plan of God's according to God's eternal purpose. God's Word tells us everything he plans to do and how he will do it and why he will do it. This includes his purpose in creation and in his purposes in the Garden of Eden, And it also includes his purpose in the fall. It includes every single thing that sets the stage for the salvation of his elect through Jesus Christ. As we think about his decrees in terms of his eternal purpose, I want us to think about the idea of what's really eternal. God's decrees are dealing with the eternal purposes of God. And what is eternal? I want to think about that this morning before we jump into the 32nd question. Heaven and earth will be burned up, the Bible says, but the word of God is eternal. What else is eternal? God, of course, is eternal. And what else? The promise of everlasting joy that the saints will enjoy in heaven, right? We have an eternal gathering of the saints waiting for us with God in heaven. Forgiveness is also eternal. Life in Christ is eternal. And the new heavens and the new earth will be eternal. And I make this point for one reason, and that is to remind us that everything God does on this earth, in this life, is for the eternal gathering that God intends to do in Christ. There is something everlasting and eternal that waits for us. Ephesians 1 in verse 10 again, he will gather all things together in one in him for eternity. He'll gather us into eternity. And these are the eternal purposes of God. He will save his elect. And so everything that happens in terms of the decrees of God are to gather these people. And these people who God said to the Old Testament prophets are not my people. are now called and are being gathered from the four corners of the world together in one in Christ. And when we gather together with the people of God each Sunday morning, we are professing to be part of that eternal gathering, aren't we? We have our eyes set upon a celestial city that God is gathering us into and we look forward to an eternal rest there. So why does God do everything he does? for the sake of his elect in his eternal purposes. God has determined that his enemies would become the loving children of his kingdom. And by his decrees, as we've studied in the past several months, he will manage that he will govern every aspect of this gathering and he will be glorified by exposing and proclaiming his own goodness and his own glory through these things. We see the genius and the wisdom of God here. The more we view the Bible in all its cohesiveness, the more we see that the entire story of creation and sin and fall have laid the foundation for the redemption of the enemies of God and the reunion of the people of God in the eternal kingdom of God. This entire story from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 is one cohesive story with one common spiritual and eternal author. God wrote this eternal book to demonstrate to us who he is. And we see who he is in the ways he decrees his holy and eternal purposes. We see who he is in creation. We see who he is in providence. And we find these things in the eternal word of God. When we look into the scriptures, we see a God of holiness and righteousness, don't we? God reveals himself. We also see the justice and mercy of God when we see sin and slavery to sin and death and deception and hell and everything that sin deserves. And then we find a gospel message that expresses the mercy of God and the grace of God in his dying in the place of his elect. So in his decrees, we see his glory. This holy and eternal Word of God that we hold in our hands has a purpose, and that is to reveal the God of the Bible and the purposes of the God of the Bible in every single thing we see in the world around us. Everything that happens around us has a purpose. Even sin and sufferings have an eternal purpose, and that purpose is to gather His elect and to reveal the will of God in accomplishing that wonderful mission, which is his redemption. So redemption is God's eternal purpose. Redemption is the reason for God's decrees. Everything that happens, happens so that God would redeem his children. Creation, providence, sin, the fall, death, sufferings, thorns and thistles, curses and blessings. Everything happens for one overarching and eternal purpose, and that is that God would be glorified and honored for all of eternity with his saints gathered around him. And that's the topic of our study this morning. Question 32 asks, how are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? In these past several weeks, we've been focused on redemption as it was purchased by Christ. He is our prophet, he is our priest, and he is our king. He suffered for us, and he was exalted for us. That was how he purchased redemption. Now we consider how we are made partakers of this purchased redemption. We move from Christ's work, in a sense, to the Spirit's work, to the Holy Spirit's work. Our answer this morning as we are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit. So that's our question this morning. Now let's pray now as we begin. Dear Heavenly Father, once again we thank you for the gift of this day. We thank you for the beauty of your creation, the brightness of your Son today, We also thank you, Lord, for the gathering of the saints in this local body. We thank you for the truth that all of your saints around the world are gathered together, lifting up praises as one voice. We pray that we might be a part of that one voice, that universal church, and we see that as the gathering that you refer to in Ephesians 110. Lord, you are gathering and you will one day gather us all finally in the heavenly places. And so what a wonderful thought we have, and may that thought be what guides us through this study, and may we know how blessed we are to know that the king of this world and of this creation wants us to be with him in eternity. So we thank you for that, and we ask your blessing now upon the study of your word. May your Holy Spirit be our teacher, and may he effectually apply all these things to our souls. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Okay, so how do we partake of everything that Jesus Christ accomplished for us? How do we partake of his suffering, and how do we partake of his exaltation? How are these things effectually applied to us, as the Catechism puts it? This word, effectual, is a word that's going to come up in the next few questions, and it means to be successful in accomplishing a desired outcome. Redemption is successfully applied to us, if we want to put it that way from the catechism, by the Holy Spirit. That's what we're going to study this morning. How does the Holy Spirit successfully apply redemption to us? And while we're thinking about definitions, let's also define this word redemption. What is redemption? Redemption is a word that is rooted in slavery, by the way. It's a word that means to save. And how that happens is that one person buys or earns a person's freedom for them. If you are enslaved because of a debt, you can either earn your freedom through work or someone else can purchase your freedom and that's redemption. That's what Jesus did in his work on earth. He purchased our redemption through a perfect life and a sacrificial death to free us from slavery to sin and Satan and death. We are freed from those things through Christ's purchasing blood. So now how do we partake of the redemption that Christ purchased? This is the most important thing that any of us could ever endeavor to know in this life. The first question in the Shorter Catechism tells us that to enjoy God and glorify him forever are our chief purpose in this life. And so knowing the way to partake of him must be the most important thing we could pursue, right? And I think it is. How do we partake of this great salvation? The answer again is the successful or effectual application of it to us by the Holy Spirit. Our first proof text this morning can be found in the Gospel of John, chapter one. And the proof text itself is verses 11 and 12, but I'd like to begin in verse one. Turn there with me if you would. John says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. And now listen to how John shifts his focus to how the world reacted to Christ. He was in the world, it says, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. Now listen to this. But as many as did receive him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name. who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." And this is the work of the Holy Spirit. So how must we partake of the redemption purchased by Jesus Christ? It says right here, it is given to us. He gives that right, John says. But first let's think about this from the human perspective. John begins by talking about the need for the world to know Him, and to receive Him, and ultimately to believe in His name. But who is this Savior? John makes a point of beginning by telling us that He is God, in verse 1, and the Creator, in verse 3. He is life, verse 4, and He is the light of men, also verse 4. These are the things that Christ, that makes Christ able to save us. He's able to give because of the things he possesses. We must know him and receive him. And we must believe in him. This is the purchaser of our redemption. So the coming of the Son of God was to reveal himself to the world. The Word of God came to the world to reveal all of this about himself. But John says, the world, even after seeing him, did not know him, and his own did not receive him. But notice again that those who did receive him, we see that he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name. So how do we partake of the redemption that was purchased by our dear Savior? by believing in His name, it says. This is something we must do to be saved. We must repent of our sins, we must turn from our sins and turn to God in faith. We must believe in His name and believe in everything that He is and everything He has done. That's faith. But I want us to see that even believing requires the work of the Holy Spirit and John teaches that here. There are two things going on here. First we see what the people must do or what they didn't do in response to the Savior. John makes it clear that they must know, they must receive, and they must believe. That's what we are to do. That's our experience as part of our salvation story. Those are things we can look back upon and say, yes, I did those things. I received those things. I experienced those things. We might say, I remember recognizing Him for the first time ever. and knowing him for the first time ever. I remember receiving him and I remember believing in him for the first time ever. And we really do recognize that these were all things we didn't do prior to our conversions. So the first things are from the human experience. What the world didn't do, it didn't know him or receive him or believe in his name. That's what John was telling us. And what we are called to do, is know Him and receive Him and believe in His name. Those are our duties. The second thing we see is the cause of these things, the effectual application, we might say. Verse 13 in John 1 tells us these believers were born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. This is a monergistic work of God. What is monergistic, by the way? Monergistic means that God did it all. Even the parts of this equation that we see ourselves doing is only because of an act of God that came before it. God is the one who makes us partakers of the redemption that was purchased by God. He effectually applies these things to us. He allows us and leads us to know him and receive him and believe in his name. This is a gift and this is the work of God that he does. But that doesn't let us off the hook, does it? Our first sub-point in our outline this morning is knowing God. That's a responsibility of ours. And so the fact that God ultimately does these things for us doesn't change the importance of what we are called to do. Now let's just think about this. What does it mean that the world did not know him? We could say this is something the world failed to do, right? The Bible often tells us that we are responsible for things, and then it tells us that it's God alone who accomplishes them. And this is one of those instances. We are responsible to obey here, and responsible if we fail to obey. But we don't want to fail to know Him. We want to know Him truly, right? We want a knowledge of God, a personal knowledge of God. After all, that's what it means to be born again in the image of God. We are renewed in the image of God, in holiness and righteousness and in the knowledge of Him. That's what it means to have the image of God renewed in a born-again soul. So if the world failed to know Him, what does it mean to know Him? John Gill answers that question in his commentary. He says, the inhabitants of the world knew Him not first as their creator, nor did they acknowledge the mercies they received from him, nor did they worship, serve, and obey him, or love and fear him, nor did they, the greater part of them, know him as the messiah, mediator, savior, and redeemer. This was the world in all its unbelief. They did not know him as creator or as mediator or as savior. This is the natural condition of mankind. In Adam, all are born dead and unable to know God. That's why we must be born again. But it wasn't always this way, was it? At the beginning, there was a knowledge of God, especially in the garden for Adam and Eve. John Gill goes on to say, there was at first a general knowledge of Christ throughout the world, even among all the sons of Adam. That's amazing, right? Even after the fall, there was a knowledge of Christ. Then Gill writes, this was after the first promise of Christ in the garden in Genesis 3.15. And for a while, Gill says, this knowledge continued, but in process of time, being neglected and slighted, it was forgotten and utterly lost among the greater part of mankind." That's the world we generally live in today. So you see the knowledge of God was possessed perfectly in the garden when Adam walked with God in the cool of the day. Then it was downgraded to a second-hand knowledge to Adam's sons after the fall. And eventually it was lost altogether among the greater part of mankind. But again, it wasn't always so. Adam and Eve knew Christ. They experienced Christ in the garden, and they truly expected the coming of Christ based on the promises of Genesis 3.15. And they knew what to expect. Same with Noah. About Noah, it says, Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord, as the only one remaining on the earth who remembered the promise of Christ, which was passed down all the way from Adam. Noah had a special knowledge of Christ. To know Christ is to know that he is the creator and the savior of mankind, and to recognize him when we actually do see him, and also to expect him in his promises. Adam and Eve and Noah had an expectation that Christ would save them and fulfill that great promise. That's part of knowing Him, to trust in Him, and to believe in His name. But I believe there's more to knowing Christ than just that. I believe there's more to this than just recognizing a person when he gets here, or even expecting a person to come and fulfill the promises of Genesis 3.15. This isn't just a head knowledge, it's a knowledge of the heart as well as of the mind. And more importantly, it's a knowledge of the spirit of man. This is the knowledge of God. Do you know Christ with your spirit? That's the most important thing. The entire soul needs to know him. Richard Sibbes, in his book called The Bruised Reed, that I'm reading right now, says the soul is made up of the mind and the heart. The mind reasons and the heart feels, he says. I like the way he put that. The mind and the heart together make up the soul, and the whole soul must lay hold of Jesus Christ. The whole soul must know him. We must know him objectively as we study and believe in his works and promises as our creator and savior, and we must also know him subjectively with the feelings of the heart as the one who literally, personally touched us and changed us, and as the one who saved us and continues to save us and walk with us. So we must know him with the rational mind and with the feelings of the heart. Is that our experience? That's important to think about in terms of our knowledge of Christ. To know about Christ is not enough. We must know him as a brother knows a brother. or as a son knows a father, or as a wife knows a husband. We must have a confidence and a faith in His goodness and a love for Him as one who has been proven faithful and dependable and trustworthy with our souls and in our entire walk with Him. We need to know Christ by experience, experience Him in His Word, and experience in Him in our obedience, and an experience in our sufferings, and we need to have an experience of his goodness as we look back upon our Christian walk and see him there teaching us and changing us along the way. There is a feeling in this experience of the soul when we know him. So the world did not know him, but we see that there is a need for us to know him. John says the world also did not receive him. This is something else that we do, so to speak, when we're born again. We receive Him. But the world, it says, did not receive Him. Why? Because they didn't receive anything He came to offer, right? Jesus came offering a gospel of grace and mercy, but the world didn't want what He was offering. They didn't want grace. It's kind of hard to believe, but the world, apart from the Spirit working, hates grace. Jesus came offering forgiveness and justification and adoption and sanctification and mercy. These things violate the pride. But the people of the world didn't want these things. They thought they were fine, right? They thought they were good or at least good enough. They believed in their idols and their own deities and their sacrifices and their feasts. And so the offer of Christ wasn't received. And think about this, he had already offered all of this to the Jews and they rejected him too. He had offered the covenants and the law and protection as they would be the people of God. And yet ultimately everything the Jews rejected in the old covenant, the world rejected in the new covenant. The world had no use for the promises of Christ and his redemption. It's unbelievable really. Really demonstrates the neediness of the human race. Even the minds and hearts of men are totally unthinking and unfeeling. And probably the biggest hindrance was that the world didn't want a righteousness that was found by faith, because it was too full of self-righteousness. I think that's the plague of our world. And the world didn't want life or light either, because it failed to see itself as dead and overcome by darkness. And so in the condition of the world, the world did not receive him. And that's because with man, we know it is impossible to be saved. We know that as Reformed believers. But John says we receive him. If we are born of God, we will accept everything he offers. And we will receive him along with the justification and adoption and sanctification he offers. Why? Because we will know our need. And how do we know our need? How do we know what is impossible with man? Jesus said in Luke 18 and verse 27, the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. That's monergism. God saves. How do we know our need? By the successful effectual application of Christ's redemption to us by the Holy Spirit. That's what we're talking about in this question, right? God prepares us by making us see our need. That's probably part of your own salvation story. Most of us began to be unsettled in our spirit for one reason or another, right? We began to see ourselves as sinners and we began to understand the holiness of God and our need for holiness to be with him. He does this when he puts a desire for holiness and righteousness in our hearts, doesn't he? and then we're able to receive it when it's offered to us. What was impossible becomes possible, but only with God, and only because our hearts are prepared to accept it beforehand. That's why John says, this is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Our catechism will be moving in the next few messages to the benefits of redemption. These are the things we receive. They are justification and adoption and sanctification. A person must see themselves as devoid of righteousness to be able to receive justification. He must also see himself as an enemy of God in order to be able to receive adoption as a son or a daughter of God. And he must see himself as needing holiness in order to be able to receive the promise of sanctification. We must be prepared to receive. in the TULIP acronym, the T stands for total depravity, a totally depraved person has no desire to receive these things. That's why the world did not receive him. But the person who is successfully and effectually prepared by the Holy Spirit will see themselves as totally depraved, and this must be the case. before they can truly receive the benefits of the redemption which is purchased by Christ. So we see that the world did not receive him either. John also says that those who partake are distinguished from the world by their belief in his name. What does that mean? This is an important study that I won't go into completely, but I also don't want to oversimplify it. Belief, which is often a synonym for faith, is something that born-again believers do, that the world, once again, fails to do. But I want us to notice that this is a faith that knows Him, and it is this faith that receives Him. Belief comes even before these other things. It is the reason we are able to know and receive. Again, this is the work of God, preparing the soil of the heart even before the seed is ever planted. Belief, therefore, knows that Christ is knowable and knows that his promises can be received. And so we must know and receive him by faith. These are the human experiences of this successful application of salvation to us. They are a fruit of the Holy Spirit, not something we did in our own strength. That's important to remember. We must have these experiences, and they are certainly things we do, but they are the result of the successful application of the Holy Spirit. So once again, how do we partake of the redemption purchased by Christ? Well, according to John, by faith we believe in his name, and we know him and we receive him along with everything he offers. We must believe everything attached to his person and his work as it's found in the scriptures, even the challenging and uncomfortable things. That's the part of the equation that we do as part of our experience. That's the human side. We know and we receive and we believe in his name. But again, there's something else happening within us before we ever experience our knowing or our receiving, and this is the true nature of our of our partaking. The Catechism says we are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit. This is the key to our partaking, the Spirit successfully applying it to us and changing our hearts. It's only by His successful application that we are able to know and receive Him and believe in His name. the rational part of the soul can kind of understand this, right? We can follow that logic. And the feeling part of the soul, I hope, for all of us, has actually experienced it. The whole soul must lay hold of these things and only the Holy Spirit can do that work. That's why God tells us to ask anything in his name and it will be granted to us. In his name, Meaning anything offered in his name, when it's asked for in his name, will be granted in his name. The spirit alone applies Christ and everything that Christ is, including his work and his person, the feeling part, to the human heart and to our experience. Titus three, verses three through six says, for we ourselves, were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by the works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. How did he do that? Through the washing of regeneration, He made us new, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. That's what John taught in John chapter one, right? This is the successful applying of the redemption purchased by Christ to the souls of the elect by the Holy Spirit. God's will is to gather all things together in one in Christ. And how does He do that? By sending His Son to purchase redemption. And how is that redemption applied to the human soul? By the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. That's how we are made partakers. That's our answer this morning. Do we know Him and receive Him by faith? Of course we do. Now the Bible's very clear that we come to him by faith, but only because he first saved us according to his mercy. As I mentioned before, this is a work of God alone. This is a monergistic work of God whereby the redemption purchased by Christ is given to us, a free gift, by the Holy Spirit and all according to the will of God in his decrees and according to his eternal purpose. So salvation and the eternal gathering and security of the Saint is a Trinitarian work here. The Father decrees salvation, the Son accomplishes salvation, and the Spirit successfully, effectually applies salvation to the Saint. Redemption is a Trinitarian work. And we are made partakers by His gift to us, applied by the Holy Spirit. John 1, verses 12 and 13, once again says, as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. That's adoption. To those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Paul writes that we are made heirs of God. That's adoption again. And John tells us we are given the right to become children of God, but only as a gift of grace and mercy by God. Salvation is the gift of God. It is the work of God. And everything we do, in quotes, in knowing and receiving and believing, is a fruit of His mercy. He's the one that gives those things to us first. The first chapter of John, once again, reveals Christ as God, as creator, as life, and as light. These are the attributes of God that enable him to give these things to us. As God, he gives eternally and infinitely. As creator, he gives us being. As life, he gives eternal and spiritual life. And as light, He gives the light of understanding. The great I am is able to give because of who he is and because of what he is. That's why John begins his gospel that way. He lays the foundation by revealing this giver. And because he is these things, he is able to give the right to become children of God. Only God can do that. I want to now think about this monergistic work of God in our final point. in giving us this salvation. This redemption that was purchased by Christ is given to us by God. Titus 3 in verse 5 again says, salvation is not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. And how does He do that? Through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. In order to partake of this redemption, We must be washed and renewed. These are the works of God. These things happen before we know or receive or believe in his name. First, we are washed, it says. Washed from the stains of sin, we are purified and made holy. We are also justified and made righteous. Dead men don't cling to salvation. Before we're able to know God, he prepares us to know him by washing us in regeneration. This is the kind of redemption that we have in Christ. We are made new, the Bible says. We are new creations. We're made as white as snow. The old man, we're told, is dead now. And the new man is made alive in Christ. And all of this has to happen before we can possibly know him or receive him or believe in his name. And so literally everything that is required in the new covenant is given to us, just as Paul says, by God. I can't help but think about how much is really required for us to just believe in Jesus. It requires the supernatural work of God and the cooperation of the entire Trinity. We often hear the gospel made to be something soft or easy, and we hear Jesus made to be soft and weak when the gospel is presented today. But what we've seen here today is that the gospel is a commandment, really, that requires obedience to it. The gospel says, know him. The gospel says, receive him. The gospel says, believe in his name. Those are commandments. Let me say something that might be controversial in some circles. The gospel itself is a law. It says, do this and live. Fail to do this and die. just like God said to Moses at Mount Sinai. The gospel is a law. The free offer of grace and mercy must be known and it must be received and it must be obeyed. And to violate the law, which we see in the gospel, is the one and only unforgivable sin. Think about that for a minute. The gospel is the only law that when violated becomes the unforgivable sin. Every other law can be broken and forgiven. What is the unforgivable sin after all? Unbelief, right? The blaspheming of the Holy Spirit, the rejection of the Spirit's work of applying the redemption that was purchased by Christ to the soul. Think of the law. Think about the forbidden fruit with Adam and circumcision with Abraham and the Mosaic law with Israel. Every single one of those laws had an offer of forgiveness that was greater than them in the gospel. And all of those laws pointed toward forgiveness in the gospel. And the gospel is the only free offer of grace that would wipe away all tears and all stains and all sin. But that gospel is a law that must be obeyed. Obey or be cast away where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. No other law is unforgivable. Know him and receive him and believe in his name, it says. Fail to do that and there is no salvation. But this law, which we find in the gospel, is also unlike all the other laws in that it gives all that it requires of us. It is a law of grace. It requires perfection and it gives perfection. That's why our response to it, everything we saw in John 1 was to know and to receive and to believe. Every other law required men to work, to be perfect. This law requires men to accept and receive. The obedience that the gospel requires is what we find in John chapter 1. We need to know and to receive and to believe in the obedience that was purchased by Christ. And the gospel offers all of these things to those whom the Lord has given salvation. That's amazing grace, right? Part of this grace is to be washed in regeneration. We're given justification and we're made holy and righteous and we're made alive in Christ for the first time ever when we believe the gospel. There are things we can't do for ourselves. All of these things we can't do for ourselves. And yet if we are going to be able to stand in the presence of His perfect holiness, we must be washed and made alive. And to the soul who is prepared by God for salvation, these promises can only be received, right? What else could we possibly do? To the soul who is tired from work and anxious about sin and struggling to survive in this sinful world, There is amazing grace in a promise of regeneration. But only the soul who has been prepared by God can know or receive or believe on this amazing grace. God alone gives the right to be children of his kingdom. So we must be washed in regeneration. Then Paul says we must also be renewed in the Holy Spirit. I can't help but think of that scene in the Holy War when Emmanuel restores the image of God in the town square of Mansoul after conquering Satan's forces and reclaiming Mansoul for himself and for his father. That's what happens to us when the Spirit makes us partakers in redemption. When he successfully and effectually applies redemption to us, the image of God is renewed in us. We are literally given holiness and righteousness and the knowledge of God, and this is the most transformative aspects of our new nature. We are filled with the Holy Spirit and we become temples of the Holy Spirit. Again, we see the how we become partakers of this redemption, and it's the work of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. But before we are renewed, Before the image of God is restored in us, we are lost and hopeless and sinful, aren't we? Titus again, we ourselves were also once foolish and disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. These are attributes of the people of the world. This is the image of Satan in us, and this is what man has become after the fall. We, therefore, must be renewed, and we must be renewed in the Holy Spirit. When Adam fell, he became a slave to sin, and the image of God was really made unrecognizable in his soul. Instead of being a holy, righteous, and knowing soul, he became sinful, and harsh and unfeeling toward God. He became estranged from God. He ceased to truly know God. That's what sin does. It estranges us from God. It grieves the Holy Spirit. And unrepentant sin is a sign that the image of God is not in us. And so to live in unrepentant sin is a sign that we are image bearers of Satan, not yet renewed in the Holy Spirit. But when God calls us, and prepares us for grace, there is a renewal that takes place, and that renewal is the image of God being restored within the soul. We begin to love righteousness, and we begin to long after holiness, and we begin to see God and know God again. The new creation, the renewed man, will no longer cherish his sin, he will despise it. He will run from it, and he will no longer despise God, he will love God. Now, let me just say something. The renewal we experience on earth is imperfect. It's incomplete. In this life, we still struggle against those old desires and those old sins. But we have a promise that we will experience these things perfectly in heaven. That's a promise of redemption. That's what Jesus secured for us in the work he did here on earth. This is what he was doing as prophet, priest, and king. And this is what he was doing in his sufferings and in his exaltation. These are the things that the Spirit successfully and effectually applies to our souls when he makes us partakers of this redemption. Before we close, I'd like to just for a moment consider this wonderful gift. A gift that was purchased by the precious blood of the Son of God. Think with me about the meaning of a gift. How valuable. is our eternal soul when you realize that Christ died to redeem human souls. Think about that. We could spend a lifetime thinking about that and compare that to the value we receive from sin or even a lifestyle of sin. And yet I like to challenge us all because this is challenging me. How cheap do we make grace sometimes? Think with me a minute. Do we make light of sin sometimes? Especially small sins, do we allow ourselves to laugh about sin? Sin nailed Jesus to the cross. Sin is really expensive. And what about forgiveness? Do we struggle to forgive? If we are forgiven at such a high price, who are we to withhold forgiveness to others? Sin, our own sin, nailed the only perfect being to a tree, and forgiveness was what was purchased by that bloody act. And yet we do take sin lightly at times, and we do struggle to forgive others, even when our sin killed the precious Son of God. But if that is true to us, then we should hate sin with such a passion that we should be rooting it out day and night. That's my challenge to myself. I don't always see that. And if our soul is as valuable as Christ says it is, valuable enough to die for us to pay the ransom for it, then we should be the most gracious people to ever walk the earth, shouldn't we? We should hate sin and we should love to forgive those who hate us. To be a Christian, to be a recipient of the grace of God, is nothing to be taken lightly. But again, to reject it, To reject the free offer of grace is the only unforgivable sin. We cannot afford to fail here. Our calling as Christians comes with a tremendous responsibility that none of us can live up to. But it's a calling that comes with the gift of everything that is required to fulfill it. God will give to us everything we need to follow him and he will gather us to himself. We will not fail. That's because we don't go alone. We go with the Holy Spirit who is successfully and constantly applying redemption to us so that we don't fail. I hope that's the case for all of us here today. I hope that we all find ourselves knowing and receiving and believing in the name of this Savior. And I pray that we all find ourselves to be the recipients of the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. something so transformative that we're in fact partakers of redemption and new creations and only because of the successful and effectual application of the redemption purchased for us by Christ by the Holy Spirit of God. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this doctrine and we thank you for the depths of your word that we're able to plunge into. And Lord, we thank you for these Puritan men before us who gave us such deep things to meditate upon. I pray, Lord, that you would bless all truth to our minds, that you would guide us in our walk in this life, even though sin surrounds us. I pray, Lord, that your spirit and his effectual work would continue to move us in the direction of holiness. that we would know our justification and our adoption and our sanctification, and that we would be truly changed in the image of God. And I pray, Lord, that you'd bless the rest of our time today. I pray again that you'd bless our time in your word, that your spirit would apply these things to our hearts and change us for good. And I pray in Christ's name, amen.