This morning I invite you to turn with me to Ezekiel 37 as we re-read beginning at verse 15 to the end of the chapter there. Ezekiel 37, and to read that in connection with Titus 2, Titus chapter 2, which we'll read our text being verse 14, along with question and answer 56 of the Heidelberg Catechism. So I ask you to find three places this morning. Ezekiel 37, Titus 2, and then page 28 in the back of the Psalter hymnal. Again, as we've been considering the church, the glorious body of Christ, we've considered that the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints as well, And now, this morning, our confession, the forgiveness of sins, question and answer 56. Read first Ezekiel 37, beginning at verse 15. Hear now the Word of God. The Word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him. Then take another stick of wood and write on it, Ephraim's stick belonging to Joseph and all the house of Israel associated with him. Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand. When your countrymen ask you, won't you tell us what you mean by this? Say to them, this is what the sovereign Lord says. I am going to take the stick of Joseph, which is in Ephraim's hand and of the Israelite tribes associated with him and join it to Judah's stick, making them a single stick of wood and they will become one in my hand. Hold before their eyes the sticks you have written on and say to them, This is what the Sovereign Lord says, I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding and I will cleanse them. They will be my people and I will be their God. My servant David will be king over them and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children will live there forever. And David, my servant, will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I, the Lord, make Israel holy when my sanctuary is among them forever. In Titus 2, the Apostle Paul says, 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, in love, and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to 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, in courage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you. Verse 14, again, 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. And again, if you would turn to page 28 in the back of the Psalter hymnal. The third and final question and answer of Lord's Day 21. Let's confess the answer together to this question. What do you believe concerning the forgiveness of sins? I believe that God, because of Christ's atonement, will never hold against me any of my sins, nor my sinful nature, which I need to struggle against all my life. Rather, in His grace, God grants me the righteousness of Christ to free me forever from judgment. Beloved in Christ the Lord, we profess to believe the forgiveness of sins. Now, once again, we don't place our trust and our faith in the forgiveness of sins, just like we don't place our faith in the one holy Catholic Church. We only place our faith in the triune God, but we profess to believe the forgiveness of sins, that it's real, that it's true, that it's actual for God's children. And we know about forgiveness. We all know about the sweetness of forgiveness when it is given and when it is received among us as human beings. Maybe from spouse to spouse or from parents to children or from friend to friend, boys and girls. If you've done something wrong, naughty at home, and you know your parents are angry, you shouldn't have done it. Things are just not right. That relationship just isn't right. You are in the presence of their fear, of their anger. But when they forgive you, and you know that they remember what you did no more in the sense that they won't hold it against you anymore, and that relationship is restored as it ought to be, you know how sweet that is, how wonderful that is. But as wonderful as that may be, there's something even more wonderful, even sweeter, and that is the forgiveness of God who forgives us of all of our sins. Yet in order to understand that sweetness, we need to also understand our sin and we need to understand the consequences of our sin. Generally speaking, we might say that sin is doing something wrong. And of course, it's God who says what's right. And sin is doing what's wrong compared to what God says is right. Sin is disobedience to God, to His will, to His Word, to His commands. We sin by committing sin. We call it sins of commission. We commit, we do that which God tells us not to do. But we also sin by failing to do what God tells us to do. We omit sins of omission. For example, take the commandment, you shall not murder. God says you shall not murder. If you murder, you commit that sin. But at the same time, as the catechism beautifully says, instead we are to uphold our brother's welfare. But when we fail to uphold our brother's welfare, look out for their welfare, then we have omitted doing what God says to do. So we sin by committing. We sin by omitting, in a sense. And then there are our original sin, the sin that we inherit from our father Adam. That which makes us sinful even in our mother's womb before we commit our actual sin, before we actually say a bad word or do a bad deed. And the Bible describes our sin in such a way that we can't help but notice it talks about filthy rags. It talks about dirty, stained clothing. Imagine rolling around in the mud and being fully covered from head to toe in the mud. That's what it's like with our sin. We are fully covered, fully indwelt with sin. And the result of our sin, we know, is enmity with God. We hate God because of our sin, in our sin. But also it results in separation from God. And the truth is we also categorize sin, don't we? We put them in nifty little categories and we even make some sin worse than other sin and we go even further, we make some sin acceptable. Well, if I do this, it's bad. If I do this, it may not be totally right, but it's not quite as bad as this. So this will be okay for me. We categorize sin. But the thing we need to remember and understand is that even apart from our original sin which stains our heart, even one little white lie, as we might call it, is enough to separate us from God. To make us utterly and completely incapable of restoring that relationship with God. It makes us eternally lost and deserving of hell. In the forum for the Lord's Supper, it says that God's wrath against sin was so great that He punished it. He punished it. And boys and girls, we're not talking about the kinds of punishments that you and I receive. I received when I was your age. It's not like getting a time out. Go sit in a corner for five minutes and think about what you did. It's not like getting a grounding. You know, you don't leave the yard for a week because of what you did. Or writing lines or even a spanking. Those are all temporary. God's punishment is eternal. And it is so severe that you and I can't even begin to imagine it. But because of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, not only is the church, not only is that glorious body of Christ a comprehensive community, the Holy Catholic Church, and a connected community, the communion of saints, but she is also a cleansed community. The church exists because of the forgiveness of sins. Apart from that, there is no hope. That which offends God, that which violates His holiness, that which makes His wrath so great, has to be removed. Now Paul, in his letter to Titus, he talks about the church. He talks about the visible church, really from beginning to end in these three chapters. And in those chapters, he gives details about the leadership of the church, about appointing elders. He also gives details about proper teaching that is to take place, and then also the proper response to that teaching. The proper response to the truth of Jesus Christ. In other words, godly living. And as believers, we are called to live consistently and confidently with what we have in Christ. And it all depends on one thing. As verse 11 says, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Why is the teaching about God our Savior so attractive? because of the grace of God that brings salvation, it has appeared to all men. Grace is the reason why every member of the Christian family of the church can and should live a godly life. If we were to give a definition of grace, we might say that it is God's active favor, freely giving the greatest gift to those who deserve the greatest, most severe punishment. The church of Jesus Christ is a cleansed community because she enjoys God's grace of redemption in the first place. And secondly, God's grace of purification. Verse 14 again, 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. This text, the truth of this text, is the reason that believers can confidently be instructed, commanded with regard to what does and does not belong to the Christian life in relationship with God. And it includes, first of all, God's grace of redemption. Through redemption. The believer's forgiveness, the believer's cleansing is secured. Well, in connection with this redemption, who is the agent of redemption? Again, verse 13, right before the text ends, our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. And then it goes into verse 14, who gave Himself. Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who the Lord Jesus Christ is the agent of redemption God man one person two natures man sinned therefore man needed to pay for his sin other creatures as the catechism says could not pay for the sin of human beings the son of God emptied himself as Paul says by adding something that He was not before. He added to Himself the human nature. Like you and me. Except sinless. Because only one who Himself is sinless can pay for the sins of another. Boys and girls, you're sinners. I'm a sinner. I can't pay for my sins. You can't pay for your sins. And I surely can't pay for your sins. And you can't pay for my sins. Now, we don't fully comprehend this, but only one who is sinless could pay for the sins of others. but also He had to be God because only the almighty, powerful God could do what needed to be done in the human nature which points then to the action of redemption. The text says He gave Himself for us. Now as we think about this giving of Himself we can think of it in a broad way first of all. Broad scope we might say. He left His home in glory. He left the glory of His Father surrounded by angels who adored Him and praised Him and honored Him to enter a world of sin and shame where He would be hated and despised and mocked and rejected. And He gave Himself to live that perfectly righteous life in perfect obedience to God that He might earn for you and me His righteousness. but also by His perfectly righteous life to earn the right to give Himself for our cleansing and so that we could be given freely His righteousness. And that points to His giving of Himself in a specific way. He gave Himself in our place. Boys and girls, there's a phrase that we use in our theology called vicarious atonement. atonement, talking about giving payment for sin. And vicarious means substitutionary, substitute. We were directly, as it were, in front of God's eyes, His eyes of wrath and anger. And our Lord Jesus Christ, as it were, picked us up and moved us out of the way in Himself, stepped in, in the path of the gaze of God's wrath. He substituted Himself. Now, you and I, we're willing to substitute ourselves if we have something to gain by it. For example, if you're invited to go to Disneyland because by a friend, you say, well, I invited another friend, but they couldn't go. Would you go? Sure, I'll go. I'll substitute myself for that. Over playing in an athletic competition, soccer, basketball, whatever, we're sitting on the bench and we get a chance to be substituted into the game. We get to play. It's to our gain. But if somebody is digging a deep hole in the desert and they need a break, how quick are you going to substitute yourself for that? Our Lord Jesus Christ substituted Himself for you and me. And not because He would gain something in the way that you and I think of gaining something. At least not in His physical body, in His spirit. Although it was gain to be sure. Gain for you and me. But also He gave Himself freely. He gave Himself voluntarily. He wasn't forced. He gave Himself because He wanted to for God's glory and for our salvation. Our Lord says in John 10, the reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. And Paul in 1 Timothy 2 says, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men. Now again, children, mediator. Mediator means go between. A mediator is one who goes between two others, say two quarreling parties, to bring them together, to bring the two sides together. If you have two good friends that are fighting, and you go between them to try to bring them to make up, to try to show each side where they were wrong and they both need to apologize, and you bring them together, Jesus is our mediator, but in a little bit different way. You see, in this case, the two sides were not equal. Apology did not need to be made on both sides. The offense only came from one side, our side. And our Lord Jesus Christ is our mediator, our go-between, our ransom, Paul says. And He fixes the situation by doing on our behalf what God requires. He gave Himself to take our sin and its curse. He gave Himself to take the punishment that was reserved for you and for me. He gave Himself to pay for every last sin. The full debt has been paid. To say it another way, the debt has been paid in full. And He paid it with His blood. He paid it with His blood. That was the price of our redemption. He went all the way to death. The book of Hebrews makes it clear again. It talks about Jesus as a high priest as we talked about with Adrian for a few moments this morning. The book of Hebrews says that only His blood is sufficient. The Old Testament sacrifices, bulls and sheep and goats, that blood was not enough. That blood pointed out to the people that blood needed to be shed. Death needed to happen. But it pointed to Jesus Christ alone whose blood is sufficient. Peter says in 1 Peter 1, For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Jesus, a lamb without blemish or defect. And in Acts 20, verse 28, we read about the church of God, which He, that is Jesus, bought with His own blood. Well, the agent of redemption is Jesus Christ. The action is that He gave Himself, but what about the accomplishment of redemption? The text says, to redeem us from all wickedness. In essence, that's describing you and me correctly. We are poor, perishing sinners. Rebels against God. But He gave Himself to redeem us from all wickedness. We can talk about the power of Christ's work, and we can talk about it as an exodus. Boys and girls, you know the book of Exodus. About the Israelites who enjoyed an exodus, and exit out of Egypt, delivered out of the bondage, slavery, Egypt. They moved away. There are a number of words that can be translated to redeem, but the specific one here has the idea of to gain release by paying a price. The price needs to be paid for the freedom to take place. In those days, to a slave, an amount of money could be given to a slave owner to pay for the freedom for a slave. we too have enjoyed an exodus. Deliverance brought out. And the power of Christ's work is that it's enough to redeem us from all wickedness or lawlessness as it's also translated. Lawlessness being, we can think about that, we reject God's will and we replace God's will with our own will, with our own law. His work is sufficient to redeem us from all wickedness, the chains of sin and slavery to sin have fallen off. I'm set free. The power of sin and Satan over me is broken. This isn't just a maybe or a I hope so. This is talking about actual deliverance. A permanent release. I am free from the guilt and the penalty and the power of sin. I'm no longer guilty before the sight of God. The penalty of sin is gone. It's been taken. The power of sin doesn't control me anymore. And one day I will be delivered from the presence of sin when God delivers me from this life. Now this release, it's hard to believe this release sometimes because for each one of us, the evidence is against this, isn't it? Because of our sinful thoughts and our sinful desires and our sinful actions that we actually have once in a while. It seems like, how can all this be real? How can this release be real? but the evidence of release comes in another way too. By the blessing of God, when my conscience accuses me and I'm truly sorry for my sin, that too is evidence of being set free. And the effectiveness of Christ's work is that it's accepted by God. The Bible is clear. It's beautiful on this point. Psalm 103. Psalm 103. As far as the east is from the west. an immeasurable distance. So far has He removed our sins from us. And as the Lord says in Isaiah 43, I will remember your sins no more. He will never hold them against us. When we face God in the judgment one day, it will not be with fear and trepidation and terror, but it will be with joy and the comfort and the confidence of our Lord Jesus Christ. The curse has been removed. I'm no longer guilty before God. As Paul says in Romans 8, verse 1, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Make no mistake about it, beloved. We stood before the face of God condemned. You are a sinner. You deserve hell. That's what you're going to get. It's all gone. It's all gone in Christ Jesus. God sees me as free in Christ. Clothed in His righteousness. Spotless. spotless. The blood of Jesus Christ is the most effective stain remover there is. Boys and girls, you get stains in your clothes if you don't tell your mom and she can't spray it with shout or something. Even that way, she might not get them out. And blood stains, we know that blood stains, but the blood of Jesus is the most effective stain remover there is. Satan no longer has his way with me. His power is broken because the redeeming work of Jesus Christ earns for me and secures for me forgiveness. But also, that redemption with forgiveness is not only accomplished by Jesus Christ, but it's also applied to you and me as His cleansing also includes God's grace of purifying, to purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good. Now, in our day, when we think of purifying, we probably think of water. You need to have a reverse osmosis system or you've got to have some sort of a filter or you buy it at the store because it's filtered. It's purified. The organisms and the bad stuff for you and me supposedly have been removed. Or boys and girls, when you take a bath, you, in a sense, purify your body. You wash the dirt off with soap and water and you become clean, purified. Christ died to purify us as well as to pardon us. He died to obtain grace to heal our sinful nature as well as to free us from the guilt and the condemnation of sin. And the power of purification, the power behind that purification is God the Holy Spirit. Jesus, as we said a few weeks ago, said that the Holy Spirit would take of what is mine, of what is His, and make it known to you. Most often when we think of this purification by the Holy Spirit, We think of sanctification, that beautiful, that wonderful daily, lifelong process of cleansing and purifying you and me from the pollution of sin, and little by little from the committing of sin. But the process of purification is even more than that. It includes that, but it's more than that. It begins with regeneration. The Holy Spirit gives new birth to God's elect, those redeemed by Christ. And through that new birth, then, He brings them to repentance and faith, which again is a demonstration. It's evidence of being set free, of being redeemed. And by faith, the believer believes and claims the truth of justification, that declaration that God makes concerning you and me, that you are forgiven, you're righteous. And the Holy Spirit in that process of purification, we know, sets the redeemed, the church, apart from the world. with the truth and confidence of 1 John 1, verse 7, the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. And we are purified objectively before the sight of God. Boys and girls, we are objects before the sight of God. Objects in which He no longer sees us with sin like scarlet, red as crimson. But instead, He sees us as objects in Christ. as white as snow. But the Holy Spirit also purifies us subjectively. Getting back to that sanctification, actually making us as God sees us in Christ. And that will be completed in glory, we know. And that's why answer 56 is so very correct when it says I need to struggle against my sinful nature all my life. All of this is true, but yet I need to struggle against my sinful nature all my life by saying, I believe the forgiveness of sins, that it's real, that it's true for me. We're not saying that Satan and his temptation are not powerful. They are. By confessing this, we're not saying that I will never choose the sinful path and that I will never ever fall. Because I will. But my comfort is that the Holy Spirit causes my conscience to accuse me. He causes me to be troubled by my sin. And then He brings me to confess my sin, to repent of it, and He brings me to the joy of God's forgiveness, that sweet release. I'm free in Christ. Why does He do that? Because I am one of God's very own people. You see, that's the purpose for purification. To purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good. Now, some translations translate that as people of his own possession or his own peculiar people. And I like that word, peculiar. If someone says you're peculiar in our day and age, you might not like that so well, because for us that means you're odd, that means you're strange. To the world we are odd, and we are strange. But here, this means that we are God's own private possession. The Greek term literally means to be around, and one analogy goes like this. Think of a circle with a dot in the middle. And that circle is God. That dot is you or me, the believer. God is around completely each one of His saints. That circle, you see, monopolizes the dot. It has the dot all to itself. God has His own all to Himself, His own private, unique possession because no one else did or could do what Jesus Christ did for us. We belong to Him. Now, that's not to say that we, the dot, don't sometimes try to look outside of the circle. From our perspective, we might not always be the unique possession of God, but from His perspective, we belong to Him. We are His unique possession. He is jealous for His people like a husband is to be jealous for his wife and not want to share her with any other man. God is jealous for His people in such a way that He is not willing to share His people with any other God, false God. We are a peculiar people of God and we enjoy the blessing of being peculiar, which is to be the private, unique possession of God, the recipients of His love, the objects of His love. And we enjoy a place of high privilege, His favor. The favor of God. A desire for us. We enjoy a place of protection. Safety. Where He gives us the needed comfort and grace in whatever we need when we need it. And this is beautifully portrayed, I believe, in Ezekiel 37, especially verse 23. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding and I will cleanse them. They will be my people and I will be their God. What a continuity. God has a people for Himself in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, one people of God. God's peculiar people are distinguished from the world that lies in wickedness. The world is unclean. It's defiled, not purified. Unbelievers are slaves to Satan and sin and selfishness, but God's peculiar people are eager to do what is good. Zealous is how we are to think of it. God's peculiar people, by His grace, understand such a great Savior and such a great salvation. And again, they're zealous. They have an eagerness and a passion to obey God, to do His will, to do that which pleases Him. Eager to do good works, the text says. As the catechism says, good works are those which proceed from faith. From faith. Thanksgiving to God for His salvation. They're done according to God's law. A desire to obey Him. And they bring glory to Him. Not to you, not to me, not to anybody else, first of all, but to God. But as God's peculiar people, we are not deceived. We understand, again, this is a lifelong struggle. Our forgiveness, our assurance of salvation is sure, but we need a constant reminder. Again, as we read a little bit before the text, 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. Those who are redeemed, they're redeemed from wickedness so they can say no and they're purified to live as Paul says. But maybe you notice This is a theme of Paul throughout his writings. To put off sin, to put on righteousness. To put to death the deeds of the body, to bring to life the deeds of the Spirit, to put off the old man, and to live the life of the new man. It's constant throughout Paul. We are called to do battle with sin, which we don't do in our own strength. The Holy Spirit empowers us with the armor of God to take up our responsibility as God's own peculiar people, to fight the good fight of faith. To put to use, to put to work the new man thoughts, desires, actions, motives. Our obedience doesn't just fall out of the sky, beloved. The Holy Spirit gives us new birth. He gives us responsibility to exercise all that He gives us. To actively want to be obedient. We are called to live as a forgiven people. What does that mean? How do you live as a forgiven person? By understanding the blood that Jesus shed to pay for your sins. Forgiven people hate sin and love righteousness and love to obey God. Do you love to do what is right? Do you have a passion? More today than yesterday and hopefully more tomorrow than today, but a passion to be obedient to God. We're called to fight the good fight of faith. yet we do so with confidence. Because not only is God's grace sufficient to bring me salvation through Jesus Christ, but it's also sufficient to keep me in that salvation. The church, the glorious body of Christ, is a cleansed community, forgiven and being purified. We still struggle. That's why we ask and we must ask daily for forgiveness. In our assurance of pardon this morning, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us. There are some who say today and preach today that His work is done. He paid for our sins, past, present, and future. We don't need to ask for forgiveness anymore. Yes, His work is accomplished. But our asking for forgiveness, which the Bible commands, is part of that purification process. It's evidence of having a true sorrow for our sin. And knowing that forgiveness is needed and understanding that we depend upon God completely for Jesus' sake for that forgiveness. Yet even as we ask daily for forgiveness, beloved, we are confident, we can be confident because Jesus redeemed us. He paid the price. Our release, our freedom is sure. It's real. It's eternal. Never to be bound again. Someone who's paid their debt to society is not thrown back in prison for the same crime again. We will never be bound again. Satan can take away, if God wills, he can take away your health, he can take away your wealth, he can take away anything you have in this life, as Job found out, but he can never, make no mistake about it, he can never take away your forgiveness. Is this your confidence this morning? Sin separated us from God's presence and earned for us His great wrath. But Jesus Christ was separated from God in our place. He suffered the wrath of God as He endured our punishment. He earned for us God's grace and favor and restored us so that we are a people of His very own. Is this your comfort in Christ Jesus? Because only in Him can you confess, all is well with me. My debt has been paid. praise the Lord let's pray together Father even as you remind us and strengthen us in the knowledge and assurance of such a great forgiveness in Christ Jesus we pray oh Lord that you would equip us as well more and more each day to live in the confidence of that forgiveness that we might understand what a precious treasure that is that apart from that treasure we have no hope but that treasure alone is hope in christ jesus and may that be our desire for for all those we have contact with for the people of this world for our loved ones and dear ones, our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, those who have been taught the truth but have fallen away. Maybe some who have never known it. We pray, Lord, that in some way you would use us to speak boldly and passionately for you as well as to live boldly and passionately for you. Father, we thank you for your blessing in Christ Jesus alone. Amen. Thank you.