If you would turn with me today in the Word of God to the book of Titus, just keep going right past Joshua. We're going to come back to that tonight, Lord willing, but this morning we'd like to consider the Word of God from Titus chapter 2. And while you're turning there, I'd also like you to take out your Psalter hymnals and turn to page 8 in the back as we consider Lord's Day 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism, the first two question and answers. And we're going to read that responsibly in just a minute after we read our text today from Titus. So Titus chapter 2, reading through the end of, I'm sorry, through verse 8 of Titus chapter 3. And then we'll read the Heidelberg Catechism 1 and 2 together. From Titus 2, let's hear Paul's word and God's word to us today. You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to too much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything, set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching, show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you. Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities and to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men. At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, We might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone. Thus far, the reading of God's Word. Let us look together at Lord's Day 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism. If you could, when I read the question, together read the answer. People of God, what is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong in 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 set me free 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 assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort? First, how great my sin and misery are. Second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery. Third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance. We'll be considering these two questions and answers this morning in light of our scripture reading. If we look at the title of the sermon this morning, the title is, Where Do We Begin? We're considering the first part of the Heidelberg Catechism, and it's a good question to ask. Where do we begin? a long time ago now a number of years ago my grandfather came out and was going to put a hardwood floor down at my parents house covering about half of the living room or all the living room and half of the downstairs floor and i can remember as a kid watching him tear up the carpet tear everything off the concrete get it ready to put down the wood floor and i remember everything looked ready to be built on to me as a kid and i went off to school and i was interested to see what it would look like when I got home. And so I got home, and nothing was on the floor. I thought, that's a little strange. What's Grandpa been doing all day? And so he was measuring. He wanted to make sure he knew what he was doing. So I went back to school the next day, and I thought, well, surely when I come home this time, there'll be some progress here. And I can distinctly remember coming home from school and seeing four tiles laid on the floor. These little tiles about this big. And so there was a square of floor like this, right in the middle of the floor. And I remember thinking as a kid, what is he doing? Why is he starting in the middle of the room? Wouldn't it be easier to start against a wall and work your way across? I thought we'd be making progress. There are just four tiles in the middle of the room. That's where he began. And I was wondering why he began there. And of course, as the floor took shape, I understood why he began where he did and why he took the time to measure it. Because all the lines run straight. They run straight down the hall. They run straight into the entry room. And he knew that if he started there, everything else would be where it belonged. And so today, as we come to the catechism, we ask the question, where do we begin? Maybe we look at these first two questions like those tiles in the middle of the floor. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why do we begin here? You know, for a lot of us, this is a question and answer that we knew without reading. I bet if I chose a high school kid at random, they could stand up and recite for me question and answer one of the Heidelberg Catechism. I just want to make you sweat a little bit. I'm not going to do that. But I bet you could if I asked you to. It's a question that we all, that many of us know very well. It's a question we had to learn in catechism. It's a question we can still maybe recite from memory. But have we ever asked the question, why is it number one? Why does it come first? Maybe if I asked you to summarize the catechism in three words, you could do it pretty easily. Sin, salvation, and service. Guilt, grace, and gratitude. We learn those three things, but if we look at question one, it's not in any of those categories. If you look at your catechism there, Lord's Day 2 begins man's misery, the sin section of the catechism. So again, we ask, what are 1 and 2 doing here? Why do we begin here? If you had to summarize the catechism in one word, what's the word you would use? There's any number of good words we could use. We could talk about God. We could talk about Christ. But there's one word that is repeated here. It's comfort. Comfort is where the catechism begins. Boys and girls, maybe you don't think too much of your catechism classes, that they can be kind of a drag. I've been there. I remember the feeling. But it's a precious truth. And we know that over 500 years ago, this catechism was written out of a concern for people who wanted to teach their children the truth of Scripture. A little state in Germany put this together, and people have been using it for 500 years to teach. And the teachers who put this wonderful work together so long ago said, we need to start with comfort. And we know that the necessity to teach goes back even further than 500 years. It goes all the way back to Paul instructing Titus on what he should teach. So today, as we look at comfort, we know what Paul knew, that comfort ultimately comes from Jesus Christ. The comfort comes from Jesus Christ, and he's the source of our comfort in three ways. And you have these three points listed for you in your bulletin. What are the three ways that Christ brings us comfort? What is the source of our Christian comfort? In the first place, it comes from being Christ's possession. In the first place, it comes from being Christ's possession. Then it comes from Christ's preservation. From Christ's preservation. And finally, from Christ's proclamation. So his possession, his preservation, and his proclamation. The first thing we're told is that we belong. We belong to Jesus Christ. that he has redeemed us. Now, oftentimes we have to think when we come to the catechism, the catechism is trying to teach people who don't know these things already. And so it often comes at these questions at a very basic level. And maybe you've had this experience talking to someone who knows nothing about the Christian faith, and you had to try to figure out, where do I begin with them? How do I start this conversation? And maybe you've found that words you use talking to them that mean a lot to you don't mean so much to them. And so we often talk about being redeemed by Christ, by being bought back by him. But maybe if we came to someone who is ignorant about the truths of the Christian faith, they would say, well, what does it mean to be redeemed? Why is that a comforting thought to know that I belong to Jesus Christ? And in order to understand what that means to be redeemed, we first have to ask the question, from what have we been redeemed? If we've been bought back, what had possession of us in the first place? What are we being redeemed from? And I think in the first question and answer of the catechism, we're reminded of the fact that there are three things from which we've been brought back. From sin, from death, and from the tyranny of the devil. now why does the catechism talk about sin death and the tyranny of the devil because as we look in scripture we see how these three things are in a sequence how they all operate together to enslave us to sin and to fear reminded in romans 5 that sin leads to death romans 5 12 says sin entered the world through one man and death through sin and in this way death came to all men because all sinned. So first you have the sin, then you have its effects. What happens when sin entered the world? Death entered the world. And ever since then, all men died because all men sinned. Sin enters the world and death is a direct consequence. It's the ultimate misery of our sin. You know, oftentimes the catechism talks of sin and misery and maybe you've thought to yourself before, what exactly do they mean by its misery? I think they mean its effect. Sin doesn't happen without an effect The effect is you're separated from God Death enters the world And who holds the power of death? It's the devil That's the tyranny he exercises over people He tempted Adam to fall And when Adam fell, sin entered the world And when sin entered the world, death entered the world And when death entered the world, Satan had a power with which he could tyrannize people. And he used that power to enslave people to fear. If you ask, where do you get that? It's in Hebrews 2, 14 and 15. Satan has the power of death. And he uses it to enslave people by fear. Because now they know that they are separated from a holy God. They know that there is a judgment coming and they know that they can't stand. And he uses that to tyrannize us and to terrorize us. That's the miserable condition in which we find ourselves. But the wonderful promise is that we've been redeemed. We've been bought back. And how have we been redeemed? We know how serious the stuff that was we needed to be redeemed from, but how has that been accomplished? Through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Because what does he do? He fully pays for all my sin. Titus reminds us that. Titus 2.14, Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness. He put an end to our sin. He put an end to our sin by dying a death. And so in the great triumph of God's power, death was conquered by death. Death, that power of Satan, has been taken away, and by his death, Satan has been destroyed. So sin is paid for, death is overcome, and the tyranny of the devil is over. That's why we talk about being set free from the tyranny of the devil. He had enslaved us by a fear of death. This is what the writer of Hebrews says, Since the children have flesh and blood, he, that is Jesus, also shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. That's what the precious blood of Jesus comes to do. That's what Christ did by his death. He destroyed the power of Satan. Boys and girls, maybe you can think about it this way. when we go hiking around here. When you go off the trails or when you go out into the wilderness, you have to be careful of rattlesnakes, don't you? Why do you have to be careful? Because if they bite you, they have a poison that they can inject into you and it can be deadly. But what if you had a rattlesnake whose ability to produce venom was taken away? Whose ability to kill you had been removed? He could still bite you. It would probably still hurt. I don't know, I've never been bitten by a rattlesnake. But it would probably still hurt. It probably wouldn't be a pleasant experience. But it also wouldn't kill you. His ability to kill you would have been taken away. And that's how we have to think of the devil. Like a rattlesnake. It's not hard to think of the devil as a snake, is it? Whose power to kill has been taken away. You still probably don't want to get bitten, But his ultimate power to do you harm is gone. And isn't that the balance we see in the Bible when we talk about the devil? Peter says, still be careful. The devil is still out there. He still roams around like a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour. But what's the wonderful thing that James reminds us of? Resist the devil and he'll flee from you. Why? Because the one who is in you now is greater than the one who is in the world. Satan's power has been destroyed. We're set free from his tyranny. Christ has made us his possession by his blood. And that's the wonderful promise of being Christ's possession. Because in the second place, being his possession means you're under his protection. Christ preserves his people. And we have a wonderful reminder in the second part of this question about the care that Christ provides. Because we belong to him, we know that not a hair can fall from our head without the will of our Father in heaven. We know that Christ cares for us. And we see that wonderful interaction of the Father and the Son, don't we? That the Father has determined to protect you, and he has sent his Son to make you his possession and to protect you. It's the Father's will that not a hair will fall from your head. It's the Father's will that controls what happens in our lives. And I think this is a particular reminder of when blessings come. Who have those blessings come from? They've come from your Father. And why have they come? Because you're his heir. Paul talks about that in Titus in 3.7. Jesus Christ, our Savior, we've justified us by grace so that we might become heirs. We have a Father who cares for us. Cares for us so much that he sent his son to protect us. Jesus reminded the people to listen to him. The Father has given you into my hands. It's the Father's will that I came. And nobody can snatch you out of the Father's hand. When Christ protects you, that providential care of God is being exercised. And we can see that all the time in the blessings that he's given us. And the care he exercises for us. And how he sustains us in trouble. But there's also a wonderful element of his preservation. It's not just that there's providential care exercised over us. But that even evils are turned to our good. For the good of our salvation. And I think that's a reminder we need to be reminded of in difficult times. That all things work together for our salvation. When we enjoy blessedness, when we enjoy happiness, it's easy to see how God is blessing us. It's easy to attribute that to the Father. But in difficult times, we also need to be reminded that evils are turned to our good because of the wonderful work of Jesus Christ, because he protects us. All things must work together for our salvation. That's the wonderful promise we have. And I want to emphasize that point because as a Sunday school teacher, I often get to hear you recite question and answer one. And usually what gets left out is that line. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. I don't think it's intentional. But it's a phrase that I see left out more than any other when people are reciting it. It's easy to forget, and we can never forget that. We need to think about that fact in all circumstances is because there will come evils in this life. We live in a broken world. We live in a fallen world. We're going to encounter difficulty and the effects of sin. And we need to be reminded that Christ still protects us in those bad times. He still turns that evil to our good because we're his possession. And another way he preserves us is by always reminding us by his spirit, by assuring us that we have eternal life. That we become heirs to the eternal life that is Jesus Christ by his life, death, and resurrection. He has ascended into heaven and lives. Human being, body and soul in heaven. Fully human and fully God. And he's the down payment. He's the reminder to us that there is an eternal life for us in heaven coming. That even though we suffer a little while on this earth, that is coming. That sure hope is ours. And just as the Father and the Son interact for our care, so the Son and the Holy Spirit interact. Christ leaves His Spirit to assure us that eternal life is ours. It's not something we have to try to remind ourselves of. God Himself reminds us all the time that eternal life is ours. The Holy Spirit points us to Christ and says He sits enthroned in heaven as a promise that just as he is there, body and soul, you will be there, body and soul. The glorious hope that we wait for, the assurance that comes to us by the Holy Spirit. Again, Titus 3, 7, this hope comes from the pouring out of the Holy Spirit that Christ has left for us so that we might not be alone, so that we might be assured of the life to come. But while we're in this life, he also attests to the fact that we belong to Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit. And sometimes that can be a source of difficulty for us. We can look at our lives and the works we do and say, I fall so far short. Am I really a Christian? Does the Holy Spirit really dwell within me? It can be a source of despair for us sometimes when we look at our good works. Paul does two things in Titus to remind us. First of all, he reminds us that we are not made right because of what we've done. The righteous acts we have done will not make us right with God. It's his grace that he pours out. And it's his grace that he pours out by the Holy Spirit. And it's the grace of God that teaches us how to obey him. It's something that God puts in our hearts. It's something that God gives to us. It's something the Holy Spirit shows us. And that's the emphasis in the catechism question, isn't it? The Holy Spirit makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. The Holy Spirit is the teacher. And Jesus Christ is the purifier. That's the wonderful point. If we look at Titus 2.14 again, Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own. That work of purification doesn't come to us to do. It's something that's given to us by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we shouldn't despair when we look at our lives and say, I'm not living a life of service that measures up to what God wants. We should recognize that that desire to please God only comes by His Spirit. Without His Spirit, we wouldn't have any desire to please God. We'd be in that same miserable condition that is described in Titus 3. We're just deceived, enslaved, hating one another and being hated. But no, because the Holy Spirit has been poured out on us, we have a desire to live a life that pleases God. So we need to avoid despair. Jesus Christ said, those who the Father gives me, I will lose none of them. I will bring them into eternal blessedness. We should be confident that we have a God who is powerful to save. But we also need to avoid pride, don't we? Because sometimes we can look at our lives and be pretty pleased with how things are going. Think that God will smile on us just because of our good works, that we have in some way contributed. And of course, Paul shatters that too. He says, it's not because of the righteous things that you've done. It's because grace has been poured out. So if you're doing well, praise God for giving you that gift of obedience and be diligent to do what is right. The Holy Spirit testifies to eternal life, and he testifies to this life. By demonstrating to us that that will to do good works is evidence that he's working. That he is purifying a people for his very own. So we need to avoid pride. We need to avoid despair. And how do we do that? By thinking, finally, of Christ's proclamation. Christ's proclamation. We start off our passage by Titus telling Paul, I'm sorry, Paul telling Titus, you must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. That's where we begin. That's where Titus was to begin. Teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. So we ask the question, what is sound doctrine? How do we know? How do we know what it is? And that brings us to the second question we have in our Lord's Day. What must you know? Now think about that question. Think about it not in terms of the catechism and what the answer is. But think of just somebody walked up to you. So you're a Christian, what do you need to know? How would you answer that? Maybe the first thing that would pop into your mind is not three things. First, maybe say, well, you need to know the Bible. And that would be a good answer, wouldn't it? But it's a big book. There's a lot in it. There's a lot in it that's hard to understand. So much so that we have seminaries that just train people to try to figure out what it says and how it says it so that we can be edified, so that we know. So it's true. You could say to people, you need to know one thing. need to know the Bible. But remember, this was designed to be, the catechism was designed to be something that would teach people. So I guess we could say the Bible tells you two things. The law and the gospel. And that's what the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism recognize. That's essentially the teaching of the Bible. It's the law and the gospel. What God requires and when you fall short, how God restores you. And they said, that's pretty good, law and gospel. But I think we can break it down further to be helpful, break the law into two things. So we have first how great my sin and misery are. We often call that the first use of the law. Remember, when we talk about sin and misery, what are we talking about? We're talking about the disobedience and we're talking about its effect. How great my sin and misery are. And that's what we get from Titus 3, isn't it? We were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. And that's the first thing that the law does. It holds up a mirror. It holds up a mirror and shows you what you look like. In seminary, in our preaching classes, One of the first things you have to do when you give your first sermon, they videotape you. And then having given your first sermon, you've got to go home and watch the videotape. It's a terrible thing to have to do. I mean, maybe you've heard your own voice on a tape recorder before and you said, is that what I sound like? It's even worse watching yourself on video. You see all the quirky little things that you do. You see the weird things and it's such a distraction. and you say, oh, is that really what I look like? And you're all nodding your heads. That is what you look like. But the law acts that way as a mirror to us and says, look, this is what you really look like. This is what you really look like in light of what a holy God sees. This is what stares back at you. And it's terrible. It's ugly. It's wretched. and it drives us to see we need a Savior. Someone needs to bring me out of this, and I can't bring myself out. Who's going to come and rescue me from this body of death? Because now I'm looking at the mirror, I see what I look like, and I see how desperate my situation is. And then the gospel comes, how I'm saved, how I'm delivered, how I'm set free. And it shows me Christ. It tells me to look away from myself and look to my Savior. It tells me to look at His life. Look at the righteousness that He demonstrated. Look at the sacrifice that He made. Look at the power that He displayed. Look at the glory of His ascension. and the wonderful promise of his return. It says, as great as your sin and misery is, it can't be compared to the greatness of your Savior. You know, we talk about that, how the glory that's coming is not worth being compared. It's not just that it's not worth being compared. It can't compare. It just can't compare. And when we get to heaven, we'll look back and say, Anything I had to suffer, no matter how hard it was in this life, it's not even worthy to be compared with the glory that I enjoy now. As great as the desperateness of our situation is, the greater glory is ours in Jesus Christ. So that's the gospel. But we also return to the law, don't we? Because what do we want to do? We want now to look at the law as a guide for our gratitude. It's no longer a mirror that shows us ourselves. It's a window through which we see our Savior and see how he lived and how we ought to live a life of gratitude. It's important because we need to know that we ought to be grateful. We should live a life of gratitude. But it's also important because God has showed us how we can express that gratitude. Boys and girls, if your mom and dad gave you a really great birthday present, It was just the greatest birthday present you've ever gotten. And you went out in the front yard and you took a rock and threw it through your front window. And said, well, Mom and Dad, I was just trying to say thank you for the gift that you gave me. Well, that's not how you say thank you. You don't say thank you by throwing a rock through your mom's window. How do you say thank you? You say thank you by giving her a hug, maybe giving her a thank you card. In the same way, God has shown us how to say thank you for a wonderful salvation. He's done that in his law. It no longer is a mirror. It no longer is a terror. It's a window. It says, this is what pleases me. And we need to be reminded of that, don't we? Paul spends a lot of time in our passage reminding us of that. And that's what sometimes gets confusing. People will sometimes call this the first use of the law versus the third use of the law. The second just kind of gets forgotten. But the first use of the law is that mirror. It shows us our sin. The third use of the law is the window. It shows us how we're to live in gratitude to God. And it serves separate functions, but it's important for both reasons. And it's good, and it's pure. But remembering when we come to the law that it's a means of showing gratitude will always remind us of the salvation. If we always think of our work as gratitude, we'll always be reminded of our salvation. Because look what Paul does. He balances that, doesn't he? He tells them what they're to teach, what they're to do. And it's a lot of requirements. To be sober, to be self-controlled, sound in faith, love, and endurance, worthy of respect, reverent, not slandering, good teachers, not talking back to authorities, not stealing, devoting themselves to doing good. It's not easy to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. In the sense of which, there's a lot to do. There's a lot that the law requires. Holiness is a difficult pursuit. But after giving this laundry list of things, Paul says, but remember your salvation. It's the grace of God that teaches you to say no to the world. It's the grace of God that teaches you how to put this on. And these are the things we're working towards as we await the blessed hope. The appearance of our Savior. who is our righteousness and who is our purification. And then he returns, reminding of them who they were, holding up that mirror, the first use of the law, a reminder. Remember your misery. Remember what you were like, but remember your salvation. Remember what Christ has come to do. He's poured out his Holy Spirit on you. That's why all that working together should be a source of comfort for us. We have a God not only who has saved us, but preserves us by his Holy Spirit, who teaches us more and more how to say no to the wicked things of the world, who shows us how to express our gratitude for such a great salvation, and who reminds us that he will return to bring us home to be with him. What a comfort. that's why the authors of the catechism are saying if you want to know what this says ultimately it speaks a word of comfort in Jesus Christ and that's where we need to begin we need to begin with what's your only comfort in life and in death Jesus Christ our Lord Amen let us pray Father in heaven we thank you for the glorious reminder that comes from your word as is summarized in the catechism. That so often, Lord, we meet people that live without any sense of comfort. Who have no sense of their place in the world. No sense in their relationship to you. Who are lost. Who are struggling. Sometimes we feel like that too, Lord. But we thank you for the wonderful reminder that there is a word of comfort in the Bible. A word of comfort that tells us that we are not alone, but we have been bought with a price. We have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. He has made us his possession. He protects us as if we were a treasure, Lord, for that is what he has made us. And he has proclaimed the good news. The good news that although God is holy and we are not that there is a holiness that's available apart from the law in Jesus Christ that as great as our sin and misery was our Savior is greater and more glorious we thank you that he has remade us in his own image and continues to purify us every day and Lord may we work more and more to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit to work more and more to show our gratitude for such a great salvation but never to forget that we're saying thank you not offering back something to be paid for and help us when we despair Lord to look to Jesus Christ and when we're proud to remember our sin and misery and how even our good works are tainted always set Christ before us and may we take comfort in him always. We pray in his name. Amen.