Please take your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5, and then also to 1 Peter 1, and we'll begin reading in verse 3. And we do that all in light of Lord's Day 23, which we begin to look at this morning, that first question and answer, question and answer 59 on page 30 in the back of the psalter hymnal, the blue hymnal. So, 2 Corinthians 13, 1 Peter 1 and page 30, Lord's Day 23. We sang from Psalm 36, and in the brightness of thy light we clearly light shall see. The psalmist here reflects upon the light that God's Word sheds upon our life, and it's in the brightness of that light of God's Word that we are given light to see. And so, this morning especially, We, as we begin with what is at the heart of the Christian faith, an understanding of how we arrive with God, it's important to understand that we can only understand that in the light of God's Word. 2 Corinthians 13 verse 5, just this exaltation, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realise that Christ Jesus is in you? Unless, of course, you fail the test. And then, the words of Peter in 1 Peter 1, beginning in verse 3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may resolve in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Thus far, the reading of God's Word. And then we'll read responsibly that first question and answer of Lord's Day 23, Page 30, question and answer 59. Beloved Christian in the Lord Jesus Christ, what good does it do you, however, to believe all this? We begin, brothers and sisters, this morning, the study of this Lord's Day 23. It is a Lord's Day that brings us to the very core of what makes us Protestant. What does it mean to be a Protestant Christian? It's at the heart of what the Reformation stood for. Why it happened. And really it's at the heart and core of the Christian faith. It's the question of how can I be right with God? How can God accept me and welcome me again into His presence? Now, I want us in the next several weeks to look at this Lord's Day because it's so fundamental and we need to grasp it. And I want us to begin today to look at that first question and answer and to put it within the context, the bigger picture of what the Catechism does here, where it takes us. And then to see how it's going to lead us forward and how this all impacts and should or should impact our lives. The Catechism is a book of comfort. That's where it begins, isn't it? What is your only comfort in life and in death? That's a critical question, isn't it? What comfort do you draw, or where do you go for comfort that will sustain you as you live now in the brokenness of this world, experiencing the very trials that burden us? Where do you go for comfort? But ultimately, as you stand before death's door, as you are ready to die, what comfort do you have beyond that door? It's the comfort in which you delight in now, in which you root yourself now, the kind of comfort that will sustain you through the storms of this life, but also ultimately into death. We have asked ourselves that question over the last weeks. Are you ready to die? You see, the Catechism brings these realities all before us. And it's a book of faith we discovered, isn't it? It is by faith that we are united to Jesus Christ. And it's through faith that we are anchored and rooted in Him and we receive these glorious blessings. In Lk 7, is where it all began, this examination of faith in particular. And the question was asked, are all men saved through Christ as they are lost in Adam? After having discussed why we are in such a predicament, why we are lost, why we are in need of a Savior, and having revealed to us that that Savior is Jesus Christ, the Catechism then asks us, are all men saved in Christ as all men were lost in Adam? And the answer is emphatically no. Only those who by a true faith are grafted into Christ. They are rooted and anchored in Christ. Now that's of course what the Bible teaches. That's of course the central teaching of all of Scripture. John has these words. John 3, verse 36. Nowhere is it clearer or more emphatically put than this. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. But whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him. It is only those grafted into Christ that are saved from the judgment that comes on all of Adam's children. And if you are not in Christ, if you are not grafted into Him, if you are not rooted in Christ, John says you have no life. The judgment of God still remains upon you. We see this throughout the Old Testament, especially in the days of Noah, don't we? The ark is a beautiful symbol of exactly that. It was only those who entered the ark who escaped the judgment of God. It's only those who were in the ark, who were here and there, the ark that was sealed by God's hand. It's God who closed the door of the ark when it started to rain. God saved. And that's of course a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's only those who are in Christ, grafted into Him, rooted in Christ, that escape the judgment. Everybody who is outside of the ark, outside of Jesus Christ, they will experience the terrors of the judgment of God. That's the verdict of all of Scripture. And so the question of true faith is a vital question. It means, are we in Him? So grafted in Him that we escape the judgment that is to come? And so the catechism goes on to ask, what is this true faith? What is the kind of faith that grasps us and grabs us into Christ that we can escape this judgment? That we can have life eternals? It is not only a sure knowledge and a conviction that all of scripture is true. There are some who believe that the Bible is true. It is indeed what it says it is, the Word of the living God. And when it warns us of the judgment to come, it speaks the truth. When it speaks about Jesus Christ and salvation of Him, it is true. But merely believing that the Bible is true is not saving faith. There are many who believe the Bible is true, but they don't believe in the Christ of Scriptures. They are not rooted in Christ. That's why the Catechism says it's not only that knowledge, but it is also the firm assurance, the beautiful trust that that truth is my truth and I am saved by the Saviour it proclaims, that I am grafted into Him, that what is proclaimed about Him is now mine because I am in Him. And my sins is the sins that were paid for on the cross. That's true faith. That assurance and trust that what Jesus did was not merely for other people, but was for me. It's personal. And then the question goes on from there in terms of what must we then believe. If that's faith, what should we believe? And then it says all that we confess and is spelled out for us in the Articles of the Christian Faith, which we have taken our time to look at. to believe in God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and what we confess about them to be true. There is a wideness there of the content of faith. And now coming after all of that, after setting forth the very content and the value of that faith which we have examined these several weeks, The question is now asked, what good does it do you, however, to believe all this? It's a personal question. It's one of those questions that stares each of us in the eye this morning and it says, you, each one of you, not you together, but you, each one of you, what good does this do you, however? What's the benefit of your faith? What does it do to you to have all of these wonderful truths? To have them all, what difference does it make in your life? How does it change you? How does it affect you? How does it help you? And by the way, it's the literal German original translation or the version of the catechism. What does it help you? What's the good that you get out of this? You see, it's a question here for us to do what Paul charges us to do in 2 Corinthians, to examine ourselves whether we are in the faith. Because you see, if all that we have said before us really has no benefit for you, does you no good, has no impact on your life, then you don't have true faith. You see, if everything that we have seen about the Father and His creation and the fact that He still sustains the world and that everything that happens to you is not chance, but is this the loving care of your Father, who by His hand brings all the trials, all the sufferings, all the difficulties, but all the good things, all the beautiful things by His own hand into your life. Or the Son who through His suffering, through His humiliation, has restored us to fellowship with God. For the Holy Spirit who brings us the knowledge of all these things, who binds us together as the people of God, who brings us the knowledge of the assurance of the forgiveness of sins and opens up for us the glory of eternal life. You see, if these things are mere statements and they don't live in your heart and mind, They don't benefit you anything, do they? So examine your heart and life today. Ask yourself, are you in Christ? Is it living for you? Because you don't want to get on the other side and stand before the judge of all the earth and then discover at that moment, at that terrible day, that it was all dead. You don't want to get there. You don't want to get there and look the judge of all the earth in the eyes and say, I was under the preaching. I heard the glory of the truth. I've been there. But you know what? I slept through it all. It really, really, really did not matter one bit in the way I lived. It did not change one thing. Oh, my brother and sister, boys and girls, you don't want to be there. Examine your heart. And if there is death there, if there is no living faith there, run to God. Run to Christ. Run. Run. Run, because only in Him and through Him there is hope and confidence. You see the good? The good that our faith does is that we can get to that point in that final day. And we can stand before the Judge of all the earth. The Judge who knows everything about us. who knows our deepest thoughts, those kinds of things that you are ashamed to make known to anybody else. The kind of things that you want to forget and wipe your mind clean. He knows it all. He has seen. He has been there. He knows what we think. He knows the deepest motive of all of our actions. But you see, when we are in Christ Jesus, we can get there. We can reach that point. And we can look Him in the eyes. And we can call Him, Father! Father! Because we are close with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We are not enemies of God. We are right with Him. We are right with Him. You know what's the beauty of that? Imagine that God knows who you are. He knows you perfectly. And the glory of God is He yet embraces us. That's what Jesus Christ came to do. or the work of Christ that we have seen over the last few weeks and what we will see next week as we specifically work it out more fully in this area of justification. The glory of the work of Christ is that God is able to look at us exactly as we are with all of our flaws, with all of our sins, with all of our brokenness. And He can yet embrace us because our sin is being dealt with in Christ. And we are clothed with Christ. So, even though we are unholy, even though we are unrighteous, even though we are ungodly, God still wraps His arms around us. because He's made us right in Christ. My brothers and sisters, there's nothing more precious than that. And notice that reality is not a future reality. It's a present reality. What good, what good does it do you, however, to believe all this in Christ I am right with God! I am! I am right with God now! Now, I have the confidence to say at this very, very moment, I am acceptable to God. I measure up to God's perfect standard. God who hates sin, who is too holy to even look upon sin, look upon me. And He embraces me as His own. I am reconciled to Him. Now, that can only come through Jesus Christ. and we'll see exactly how it works and how it is folded out for us the next week, Lord willing. But it's so crucial for you and I to grasp this. Do you have this reality now? Do you have this confidence right now as you sit here that you know that you are right with God? That God has nothing against you? that He cannot accuse you of anything, of any wrong. How can you have such a confidence? It's a confidence that is rooted not in you. Well, you surely know that, don't you? It's a confidence that cannot be rooted in us. Because if any of us are Just a tiny bit honest with ourselves, we know that we cannot be right with God on the basis of who we are and what we have done. There is all kinds of way in which we self-justify ourselves, isn't it? We are masters in self-justification. This is just the way we wired. Who did it? Not me. Even though the guilt is right there. You know what they say in prison? I'm sure you've seen it on television and movies. The joke. The guy who says he's innocent in prison and everybody laughs because they all claim to be innocent. What is that? It's our denial of our culpability. We don't say we're wrong. That's why it's so hard to say we're sorry. That's why our relationships are so broken and bruised, because we cannot, we cannot utter those words. We cannot acknowledge to one another, I have wronged you. Because there's always a but, there's always an excuse for our behaviourism there. But the glory is God who knows us, who sees through all of those things, He exposes us for who we truly are. And yet, He embraces us. Why? Because it's not upon who we are, but it's upon who Jesus is. It's Christ who makes us acceptable to God. It's Christ! It's Christ who clothes us so that we may enter the presence of God. When God looks at us, He sees us not as we are, but He sees Jesus Christ. And that's why He embraces us. And that's why if you were this morning in Christ, if your confidence is in Him, when you examine your faith, what would you see? Imperfection in yourself. but perfection in Christ. That's our confidence. That's why we can say right now at this very moment, I'm right with God. That means God is my Father. That means I have access to God. That means that when that day of judgment comes and Christ comes upon the clouds and we will be in front of that glorious white throne of judgment, that we will not stand there as those who have to cower because judgment is to come, like the prophet said will happen to the ungodly and unbelieving who would call for the mountains to cover them, to hide them from this terror of God. No, we can walk. standing upright into God's presence and saying, here we are Father, because in Christ we are right with you. Now the wonderful thing is, is that this legal standing, because that's what it is, isn't it? To be right, to be not guilty. It's a legal standing. is not merely cold and clinical. I've already hinted to that by saying that the Judge of all the earth is our Father. You see, through that right relationship that we have with God through Jesus Christ, what happens? We enter into the fullness of what it means to be right with God. We are His children. Isn't that remarkable? That as you sit here this morning, rooted in Christ Jesus, who are you? What is your identity? Who do you claim yourself to be? You are sons and daughters of the Living God. That's your identity. That's the family you belong to. That's who you are. And what happens when you are a son and daughter of the living God? You're an heir. Now that is amazing. You see, as adopted children, we receive all the privileges that the rightful son has. We get all the privileges that Jesus Christ has. Every one of them. It's ours. Isn't that amazing? That's why Peter can speak with so much confidence. That's why he can speak with so much confidence and say to these Christians, Christians that suffer, and I'll get to that in a moment, Lord willing, but he says to them, you have an inheritance laid up for you in heaven. An inheritance that cannot fade, cannot spoil. Nobody can steal it. Nobody can get to it. It's there. It's kept for you in heaven. We said something about that inheritance last week. It's so amazing that we cannot even begin to imagine what it will be like. But now, think for a moment how far you've gone. You have gone from an enemy of God, at war with God, under God's judgment, and you have gone to one who is right with God, acceptable to God, because of Jesus Christ, to one who is a child of God, receiving the glorious privileges of childhood you inherit. everything that is Christ. Isn't that amazing? That's the benefit. That's the good of your faith. Is it doing that for you? That as you live right now, at this very moment, with your struggles, your turmoil, the pressures that are upon your life, whatever they may be, Are you rooted in a sure knowledge that I am right with God? That I am a child of God? That I am therefore an heir of all that God has planned and in store for His children? It's mine. It's rightfully mine because of Jesus Christ. And you see, if you have that confidence, you will understand the difference that is so vital to grasp. The difference between success and blessing. What happens when the gospel gets married to the American dream? You get the prosperity gospel. The gospel that says that if you believe in Jesus Christ now, oh, you will succeed, your business will go well, your stock portfolio will do well, your children would be well behaved, everything will just be fine in your life. You don't have to live very long to realize that that's not how it works. Generally, what happens is, because life is messy, and you don't succeed, and your children don't behave, and you suffer, maybe from bad decisions, or maybe not, maybe just from economic pressures, you're struggling, If that's the gospel you hold to, then it would say to you, there's a problem with your faith. You have failed God. That's why God's not blessing you. You're the problem, not God. But you see, the glory of the true gospel is that God promises blessing, and blessing is different because blessing is not success. Because the Bible warns us that many times riches is not a blessing, but a curse. What the Gospel offers us is true blessing, so that we can face the trials of life, the sufferings of life, and we may know that these things do not in one bit touch our inheritance. Not for one moment does it make our glory that we have in Jesus Christ fade or disappear. My brothers and sisters, it's not in the circumstances of your life that you see the love and favor of God upon your life. I'm going to say that again. It's not on the circumstances of your life. It's not on what you face from day to day that you see the smile of God upon your life. No, you see it only in Jesus Christ. And then you will see that no matter what happens, no matter where you are, no matter what trials you're going through, whether your health is fading, or your children are running from the Lord, or you're facing whatever difficulty you face, You may know that these things are but trials to purify your faith. Your faith which are more precious than gold. Gold which goes through purifying fires to be shown its glory and beauty. So, God will do with our faith. So, my brothers and sisters, your trials are meant to draw you more and more to Christ, to rest in the glory of that inheritance that is yours through Him, to remind you, I am right with God, not through what I do, but through what He has done in Christ for me. Rejoice in Christ. He is our hope. He is our confidence. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord, we cannot begin to praise and exalt You for the glory of Your mercy to us, that we are heirs, heirs with Christ, that we are sons and daughters of the living God. that we are right with You. We acknowledge, O Lord, that so often we lose sight of these glorious truths, so often we forget about them in the struggles and turmoils of life. And so we pray this morning that You would again root our hearts in these certain realities, that no matter what trials we face, no matter what difficulties we find ourselves in now, that we would not try and read back from them to Your love and mercy, but that we would take our stands in Christ and through Christ understand that these things are but trials to draw us closer to You, to make us look to Christ, to definitely make us long for glory more and more. Bless us now. Take the gifts that we bring. Build your church. Establish your kingdom. And please, may the glory of Christ be extended throughout the earth. For Christ's sake we ask this. Amen.