My Strength & My Song!

Sermon by Rev S Bajema
on Lord’s Day 1
of the Heidelberg Catechism

Scripture Reading:
Luke 21:5-19

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ...

This is the beginning of the Heidelberg Catechism. This is the start of one of our four confessional statements. Together with the Belgic Confession of faith, the Canons of Dordt, and the Westminster Confession of Faith, this Catechism expresses our summary, as a federation of churches, of what Scripture teaches.
So what do you state at the beginning of what is a very important document? How would you start something which is about everything that matters?
Well, I think that because of what it is you would want to have a clear statement about what you were going to say in the rest of the confession. I think of the Westminster Shorter Catechism - and what a first Question and Answer that has! “What is the chief purpose of man” it asks. So, what’s it all about? And the Answer is precisely and absolutely clear: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
That tells us heaps about what we learn through the rest of that Catechism. And yet it has used so few words!
It is the same with this Heidelberg Catechism. This Catechism which the Westminster closely followed. And this Catechism which has been such a strength in reformed churches.
So the first Question and Answer are crucial. Although it may seem that the second Question and Answer more clearly tell us about what is in the Catechism, that same three-fold division is already found in Answer 1. That’s why this sermon will closely follow those three parts.
But there is first an introductory part to all this. And that concerns why we have these confessions in the first place. You see, if you were a visitor to one of our churches, you might well wonder why these confessions have this kind of authority among us. Isn’t that what the Bible’s for?
The question is not new. Many times since this Catechism was written, and it was then decided to use it also as a teaching aid through the preaching in the churches, there have been those who have objected against this.
It seems to be an awkward thing. The Church Order says that we are to preach from one of the confessions each Sunday. And, yet, do we really have to? I mean - it’s not the Bible, is it?
Though, let me place this from a different perspective. A point of view which draws in this first Lord’s Day. And I do this by asking, dear believer - what is it you believe?
You say, “In Jesus as my Saviour and Lord, of course!”
And where do you know that from? “The Bible, naturally!”
Now, if you were asked to share what you believe, how would you do it? It wouldn’t help to quote the whole of Scripture. That would take ages!
Giving them a Bible would be a nice gift. But how has your witness to the Bible encouraged them to want to receive this precious gift? In the words of 1st Peter 3:15, have you been always “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have?”
It is this simple testimony which the Catechism states. A purpose which it has served well for more than four hundred years.
There is much value in a testimony to your faith. We know that personally in our own lives. And we should also know that together as a church.
B.B. Warfield, a well-known Presbyterian theologian of the 19th century, once described the worth of this Catechism. He put it this way, “Two things keep the relatively small Christian Reformed Churches straight in an ecclesiastically crooked world: the systematic instruction of its youth and the preaching of the Heidelberg Catechism.”
So one may say, “No creed but Christ!” yet if he’s true to his witness to Christ, then it will be words identical to this Catechism which he’ll use. For this tells of the Word of Scripture Himself!
In the everyday situation of your life, here is a realistic and warm approach to the heart as we unfold the truths of God’s Word. The first Question and Answer couldn’t show this more clearer.
For if there is one thing this world lacks, it’s comfort. You see, it’s not in what we have. Forget good food, nice clothing, or a fancy car. This comfort isn’t found in things. Nor is this comfort is what we feel. This is no cosiness. And it’s far from the health-and-wealth gospel that some churches teach, as though now being a Christian means we’ve arrived!
Rather, this comfort is a certain quality. Indeed, that’s what comfort means. For “comfort” is derived from two words - “con’ and “fort”, meaning “with strength.” This is the power to survive. This what really gets you through. And in the process of this surviving, true comfort eases misery, suffering, and grief. The Dutch even have a special word they say to those going through such a difficult time. They say to them, sterke!
It comes as no surprise, then, to discover that this first Question and Answer were written specifically in this way because of the persecution that the Huguenots were experiencing in France. And what a suffering that was! Who could ever forget the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572? The Catholic holy day when thousands of thousands of Reformed Christians were slaughtered by the Catholics. Butchered on the streets! And blood that had already been pouring for many years.
So the believers then could take little comfort in their material possessions. Nothing they had was any use when a brutal death could come tomorrow. And while the situation might seem alright one day, the next day it could be completely different! Forget your feelings!
Then - what kept and sustained them? Now we go on to the three parts in the Catechism. The first of which, in the words of Answer 1, says simply, I AM NOT MY OWN.
I am not my own		
We have come to the point where we realise our total uselessness. In the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 3:10, “there is no one righteous, not even one.”
It’s so true. We who thought we had it all! We who were so important in our own balloon of self-importance!
Then someone went and pricked it! It was only hot air after all. And it seems they just went and pricked it again and again and again!
That’s true - isn’t it Christian? That powerful convicting of the Holy Spirit made us realise the first part of Answer 2: How great my sin and misery are!
Fancy, what a way to talk about comfort? And, yet, that’s exactly what the Catechism does in Lord’s 2 till 4. It really drags us down to the dirty ground. We’re shown that, as it’s dust we came from so it’s to dust we’ll return.
It’s a pain which pierces the very depth of the soul. There’s no other way. Your heart must be broken and contrite.
Then - and this is the marvel of it all - as we look up the Light is shining so bright. All around us everything is so fresh and new! Though you’ve been brought so low, your whole life is now joined to the heights of eternity itself!
He is everything I will never be
That I AM NOT MY OWN becomes the relief that HE IS EVERYTHING I WILL NEVER BE! Our second part.
The eyes that had been so blind to the spiritual realities before, have now come to see! Why, I “belong - body and souls, in life and in death - to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.” Good Friday makes all the sense in the world to me - in fact, I really know why it is such a Good day for me! For though it was the innocent One who hung on that cursed cross, yet He’s bearing it all for us!
My friend, I want to plead with you to see! Do you know this phenomenal knowledge in your own heart and mind? Are you really in love?
Love. If there is a word that’s been over-used and much abused it’s “love.” “Love” doesn’t even mean “love” anymore! It’s become an infatuation. You can fall out of love as easily as you fell into love. It’s all up to what you’re feeling then!
And at the end of the day what can mankind say, except in those words Frank Sinatra made famous, “I did it my way!” What vain conceit and selfishness! How different that is to the relationship the Christian has with Jesus Christ!
Or - should I say - how different it ought to be with what we have in Jesus. For the influence of the world has also come yielding her sickle of destruction amongst believers. Far worse than the physically-bloody massacres of Christians in the past, is the great spiritual-carnage the devil is doing in our day.
Dear believer, run with all your strength, flee with every last pant of your breath; exert the final desperate spasm of your muscles, to go to Him who “has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and set me free from the tyranny of the devil. Because your eternal life depends on it, go to Him who “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.”
Are you in love? Have you seen - in the words of the second part of Answer 2 - how you’re set free from your sins and misery? Then be in love!
For love is trust - isn’t it? I mean, without trust you couldn’t give yourself to someone the way that love truly demands. And if you have that trust shattered, as it can so tragically happen between husband and wife, then it’s some time before there can be what there was before. If indeed it can ever be like it was before!
But now you’re in love with Jesus! He’s the One who has already poured out Himself completely for us. There’s no worry now about whether or not He’ll let us down. He won’t - and that’s all there is to it! It’s completely against His character to do such a thing.
How faithful we’ll be - that’s a different question. But our Lord we must trust eternally! It’s this Lord who has been quite clear about how things will be in our faith.
Luke 21 pointed out how we will suffer for our faith. And it’s happening as He said it would. “All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will save yourselves.”
It’s not easy. The way to glory is a winding and crooked narrow path compared to the huge and wide straight motorway that leads to hell itself! And along that difficult track there’s much battering and bruising and bleeding.
To know where it goes, though! And to realise more and more, this is the way! Because it was not my way! Then we know, thirdly, HE MAKES ME MORE AND MORE FOR HIM.
He makes me more and more for Him	
Fellow Christian, do you know God’s working in your own life? Can you glance back on the road you’ve travelled, and realise that the Lord Himself was keeping and guiding and blessing? Are you seeing His hand at work in your life?	
Isn’t this what we especially think about at a public profession of faith? The Lord has kept that person. The Lord brought him or her to that point- through their learning, their fellowship, and all those other ways that His grace has touched them. And he will keep them - and us! As we say in our Catechism, “because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life.”
Assurance. This is a peace which believers so much want. Christians through the centuries have been asking, “How can I know I am one of His?” “How can I be sure I’m saved?”
Here it is - by the grace of God! You belong to Him! It’s His Holy Spirit which tells you that in your heart.
Let me give you one example of our assurance. And I do this by asking you a question: Believer, in which way do you love?
Think about it. Now, what’s your thought? Is it something like, “I love by showing love”? You feel the urge in you heart to  reassure, to show concern, and to be together with the one you love.
Another example is that the very fact you are here amongst God’s people right now might well be because you honestly want to worship Him. There may be those times we don’t fully commit ourselves to His way, times we slip away, times when sin tries to take its cold icy grip. But to be in love! To know that you’re not your own; that Jesus is everything you will never be; and that now He makes you more to live for Him.
For if ‘sin’ is self - so it’s making yourself into your own god - then the opposite must surely be an-other. True love takes us outside of our selves. In the words of Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates his own love for us: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
This is why Answer 1 ends by saying, “Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.” It fits in exactly with the third aspect - of thankfulness - in Answer 2, and so with the last part of the Catechism, in Lord’s Day’s 32 till 52.
That’s where we realise that the Ten Commandments and The Lord’s Prayer are actually ways that we show we love God. Because we so much want to be with Him, and live out of His wonderful grace! The most marvellous thing has happened in our lives, and we can’t help but show it!
And we do! And we will even more do it as we draw closer still to our Saviour and Lord, through being reminded of the simple facts of our salvation.
Thus Lord’s Day 1 is a beautiful beginning. These are great words to learn off by heart - as some of our catechism students do! It’s a good start to whatever follows.
And Lord’s Day 1 is a tremendous end. These are words which have given much comfort to a beloved saints dying in his or her Lord. How many of our senior folk don’t remember the psalms they learnt at Christian school - and the Catechism!
But even more than what we start with, or remember at the end - let’s use it to help us on the way! The Good Shepherd bids us come. “I know my sheep and my sheep know me” Jesus says in John 10:14.
So, let’s then, be like the sheep in Palestine. Let’s follow where He has trod, knowing that in those well-worn paths He will safely lead. Amen.

PRAYER:
Let’s pray...
O LORD God, We thank You for the heritage of the saints. We stand so richly blessed by what has been passed on to us by You Spirit.
We thank You for this Catechism among those treasures. And we pray that You may bless our learning again through it. Touch our hearts and turn our lives ever more to You. Then this world will truly see the Light.
Through Him who is the Light, Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and Lord, we pray, Amen.