Tom Groelsema | Life's Most Important Question

Sunday Evening, June 14, 2026

Given by Tom Groelsema | Executive Pastor, Christ Covenant Church

Life's Most Important Question

Heidelberg Catechism—Lord’s Days 23 & 24

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I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Galatians. Galatians chapter 2. We're going to be reading together two verses, verses 15 and 16 – Galatians 2:15-16 – and use these verses to help us think about what I'm calling life's most important question. So, not only turn to Galatians 2, but then turn in your bulletins to the last page where you'll see the questions of Lord's Day 23 and 24 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Last week, because of Clay's ordination service and Clay's father preaching at that service, we did not take a Lord's Day. Lord's Day 23 would have been last week and Lord's Day 24 this week. We're taking two Lord's Days tonight. But in actuality, what I want to do with you tonight is not cover both of those Lord's Days, but actually focus upon one single question from those Lord's Days, and that is question 60 – the second question that you see there. How are you righteous before God? Or how are you right with God? So that's the question we'll be thinking about tonight. So, keep your bulletin handy as we work our way through the answer to that question. But let's read from God's Word together. Galatians chapter 2, verses 15 and 16. Hear now God's Word:

“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. And so, we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.”

Let's pray together. 

Father in heaven, as we turn to this important question tonight, and as we open up your Word and are reminded of this great doctrine of justification by faith, we pray, Lord, that you would teach us again this wonderful truth, this all-important truth. Help our hearts, Lord, to be open. We pray that the Word of God as a seed would fall into our hearts and bear much fruit and that we would be drawn to Christ to look to him for all of our righteousness. And we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Well, dear people of God, we are considering tonight, as I've already mentioned, what I think is maybe the most important question you could ever be asked in life. And that question is this: how am I right with God? Or how are you right with God? There are many important questions, of course, in life. We could ask questions just about life in general, like how can I have a good marriage? How can I love my children well? What career should I pursue? Those are questions that we ask. They are important questions. We asked some important questions tonight, didn't we? So, we asked these new elders and deacons and returning elders and deacons six questions that were part of a vow about their service to the church, and then I asked you a question in response. Those are important questions. I officiated a wedding yesterday, and I asked the bride and groom an important question. Do you promise to love each other and to cherish each other in sickness and in health till death do you part? That's an important question. But all of these other questions, I think, are not as important as this question, how are you right with God? Think about it. Eternity hangs in the balance on that question, because I'm either right with God, or I'm not right with God. Either I stand innocent before him, or I don't. The issue of whether I live at peace with God or I live with a lingering sense of guilt – this feeling that God is always just a little bit unhappy with me – rests on this question. The answer to this question determines whether I rest in Christ or I wear myself out trying to make God happy with me. Heaven, hell, life, death, peace, turmoil all ride on the answer to this question. 

This question, question 60, comes about halfway through the Heidelberg Catechism. There are a total of 129 questions in the catechism. We are at question 60 tonight. And it's appropriate that question 60 is at the center of the Heidelberg Catechism because in a sense, symbolically, it reflects the heart of the Reformation that this catechism was born out of. To be right with God is the doctrine of justification. To be accepted by God, to be declared innocent before God – that question, how am I right with God, not only is at the heart of the catechism. Friends, it's at the heart of the gospel. And tonight, I kind of picture it like this. Tonight, like a good friend, the Heidelberg Catechism cozies up to you and coaxes you, and like a good friend asks this question, are you right with God? Or how are you right with God? And it wants to probe our hearts, and it wants to direct us to put our hope in God alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

So, three points related to this question tonight. Our need, the answer, and our response. So, first of all, the need. Or another way of putting it is why bother asking this question? And the simple answer is this: because in ourselves we are not right with God. Now that doesn't register, does it, for most people in our world. They're not thinking about this. They're not even asking the question or thinking about the question. How am I right with God? It might be the furthest thing from their mind. And there's a reason for that. Paul reminds us of that in 2 Corinthians 4:4 when he says, "The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers." Unbelievers don't go around asking the question, do they? They don't wake up in the morning, how am I right with God? That doesn't even register with them. But that doesn't make this question less important, because the reality is that our sin is real, and we must become right with God. 

This is something that Paul wrote to the Galatian church about. The church had heard the gospel from Paul. They had believed in Christ, and then the church began to drift. And the way that it drifted is that they went from the gospel of Jesus only to a gospel of Jesus plus. Yes, faith in Christ is important, but you need other things. And particularly what happened in the Galatian church was this: you must believe in Jesus, they said, plus be circumcised. It was a gospel of Jesus plus works. And not only was it found in the Galatian church, but that kind of teaching began to spread among other believers so that even the Apostle Peter was affected by it. He wasn't influenced so much by the Galatian church as much as the fact that what was going on in the Galatian church also began to settle into the heart of the Apostle Peter. And so, if you have your Bibles open, you can see in verses 11 to 14, in the verses just before our text, Paul talks about how he opposed Peter. Peter had preached the gospel of faith in Jesus, and then he drifted from that as he refused to eat with Gentiles. It was partially an ethnic issue in the early church, but even more fundamentally it was a gospel issue. He would not eat with them because they had not been circumcised, and his lack of fellowship communicated, “Unless you are circumcised, you are not part of the body. I can't eat with you.” It was Jesus plus. Jesus plus be circumcised. And the Apostle Paul puts it like this in verse 14. He says, "The conduct of Peter and others was not in step with the truth of the gospel." You see, this was a drift from the gospel of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And the question at play for Peter, the question at play in the Galatian church: how does a person get right with God? 

The Heidelberg Catechism here in question 60 kind of exposes us. It opens up our hearts and shows the reason why this is such an important question, and it lays out three truths about us apart from Jesus. It says, first of all, our conscience accuses us that we have grievously sinned against all God's commandments. The catechism says we know that we are lawbreakers. We have failed to do what God has commanded. Call this “sins of commission.” We've committed sin. God's Word, God's law says we are not to steal, and we have. It says we are not to kill, and yet we hate others. We have committed violations against the law of God. The second thing it says about us is that we have never kept any of them. Our conscience tells us that. And it's not as if we could go through the Ten Commandments and say, "Well, I've never kept that fifth commandment." What the catechism is really just saying is this: we have never kept God's commandments in perfection. We have not done what we should have done. And so, not only have we committed sins of commission, but there are also “sins of omission.” The Bible says we ought to be generous, and I haven't been. Or the Bible says I ought to speak when this comes about, and I have been silent when I should have spoken. And then there's the third thing the catechism says about us. It reminds us that we are still inclined toward all evil. In other words, sin is not just past tense. It's not just we've committed sin in the past, but sin, rather, is a present reality. It's lodged in my heart. As Jeremiah tells us, my heart is desperately sick with sin. The song goes like this, doesn't it? Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. That is my inclination, the inclination of my heart. And you see what the catechism is doing here tonight? It is saying, first of all, do this tonight. Look in the mirror. Look at yourself in the light of the law of God and the Word of God, and what do you see? Do you see your desperate need to be right with God? Do you sense it? Do you feel it? Do you recognize that your life is out out of alignment with God? You're alienated from him. As one commentator put it, “The language of faith is not only a sky-high praising of God, but an also to-the-death sorrow because of our evil.” The language of faith is not only a deep trust in God, a sky-high praise of God, but the language of faith is also a recognition of who we are and a sorrow because of the evil in our heart. That's what was going on with the tax collector that we read about tonight. Would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” The first step toward being right with God: recognize your need that you're a sinner in need of saving. 

And so, secondly, the answer. And friends, the answer to the question “how am I right with God?” is incredibly good news. This is so wonderful in the catechism. The catechism says the answer is this. It gives a very short answer and then elaborates on it, but the answer of the catechism is this. How are you right with God? Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Only by true faith. Not faith plus virtue, not faith plus baptism, not faith plus prayer, not faith plus anything. Oh, we know, don't we? We're good Reformed folks. We know that it is by faith alone and in a faith which is never alone. But that's not what's at the heart of this question. That's a question about a life that pleases God, that comes along with true faith. But this question, how am I right with God? Only, only, only by true faith. By faith alone. And this is exactly what Paul is telling us so clearly in these two verses from Galatians 2. If you want theme verses for the book of Galatians, here they are. These two verses capture what the entire book is about. And three times in one verse, verse 16 – three times Paul says, "It is faith alone that justifies." Look how he puts it. He says, "A person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ." Number two, so we have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. And then a third time, by the works of the law, no one will be justified. The Apostle Paul wants to drill it into us. Not by works of the law, but by faith. Only by faith is a person justified. Friends, this is a hallmark, isn't it, of the Reformation, of our theological, spiritual heritage. Faith alone. So important to the Reformers, because in their day the Roman Catholic Church was teaching faith plus love justifies. The Reformers said, “No, faith alone.” Building on the Apostle Paul here: faith only, and it is faith in Jesus Christ. Not a general faith, not just an assenting faith, kind of a nod to the teachings of the church whether you understand them or not, but true faith – receiving, resting in Jesus. That is a glorious truth. Justified before God, right with God by faith alone in Christ. 

The Heidelberg Catechism accentuates the glories of all of that. Look at the answer again. Just kind of pick it apart with me. Look at the third line down in the answer. Fourth line down, I guess: the word “nevertheless.” A gospel nevertheless or the nevertheless of faith. Even though my conscience accuses me, and all these things are true about me in regard to sin, nevertheless. All that is said about my sin is true, but there is something that is just as true. What is that? Well, the catechism goes on: nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, here is what it is. God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was for me. By faith, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Jesus. To credit something means that something that is not ours is counted as if it were. A number of years ago, I took a trip to China, did some teaching to the underground church, and when I was on my way back – I had gone with this ministry, and I was on my way back – and I met the president of the ministry that I was with in the airport in Beijing. So, we're getting ready to fly back, and we're talking about this long flight, and he, of course, has traveled around the world many times. He's flying first class. I'm going to fly in coach or whatever we call that today – economy or whatever. And he says to me, he says, "How would you like to fly in first class?" Oh, great. I'd love to fly in first class. And so, he does his magic with his account, his airline account, and I got to fly in first class. His status became my status. And I sat in first class like I was a premier client, like a premier customer. Nothing had changed about me. Not at all. But I was treated like I was a first-class customer. His status credited to me, counted as if it was mine, and by faith we are credited Christ's perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness. Sometimes we'll use this language. It's imputed to us. It's counted as if it was ours. Not infused, not kind of put into us, and then our nature changes, and then we are made right because our nature has changed. No, it's simply credited. All that Christ has done is credited to me – his perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness. 

It's really interesting that the catechism uses those three things, because I think what it's doing is wanting to correspond to our sinful condition that we described earlier. So, we have sinned against all of God's commands, and Christ satisfies the demands of God, and his satisfaction is counted as ours. And then we have left undone what we should have done, but not Jesus, because he is righteous. His righteousness is perfect. He's never failed to do what should be done, and his righteousness is granted to us. And then we said we are inclined toward all evil, but not Christ, for he has a perfect holiness. His perfect holiness is imputed to us with the result, the wonder of all wonders, that God sees us as if we had never sinned, the catechism says. And even more, he looks at us as if we had always been perfectly obedient, just as Jesus was. Can you believe that? That by faith in Christ, God looks at you and sees you as if you had never sinned? All of that sinful condition we talked about before: gone. Or he sees you as if you had always been perfectly obedient. God reckons us as if we were Christ himself. I tell you, it was wonderful to step on that airplane. They look at my boarding pass. First class, you get to be first in line, right? They're not like zone four or seven or eight. Hey, first class customers, come on up. And I marched right up there, and I marched onto the plane, and I sat in first class, and I was served a drink and stretched out. I'm still just a coach guy. Nothing changed about me. It was just Tom. But everything that was part of the status of this friend became mine. Nothing changed in me. We call this the great exchange, friends. Christ is credited with our sin as if it were his own. And his righteousness is credited to us as if it were ours. This is what Martin Luther said. He said, "Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him and say, ‘Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness. I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not.’” 

It's almost hard to believe, isn't it, that these gospel truths could really be true of us tonight? For some of us, when we think about how God sees us, all we can think about is our sin. We might wonder about God's love. We might live with the sense that he must be constantly displeased with us. God's face toward us is not a smile, but we think it's a frown. Our conscience accuses us. Our conscience condemns us. There is little “nevertheless” in our way of thinking. Friends, tonight look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. Trust in Jesus. Lean on Jesus. And when God sees you, he sees his Son. The Puritans put it like this: for every one look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. Look to him. Look to him. Look to him. Look to him. The answer for our conscience is not our subjective experience, how we feel, but Christ's accomplished salvation. Our problem is on the inside, our sin and our hearts. And the result of that is God has given us an answer on the outside, sometimes called an alien righteousness – the righteousness that is, in other words, not ours. It has to come from without. It comes through Christ. God sees you as perfect, because he sees you in Jesus. What a glorious truth. What a glorious gospel. 

Finally, what's our response? Our response is given by what I think is one of the best lines of the Heidelberg Catechism. Notice how it's put there in the bulletin: all this is true if only I accept this gift with a believing heart. Some other translations of the catechism put it like this: all I need to do is accept this gift of God with a believing heart. That's all we need to do – to accept, to simply open our hand, the hand of faith, kind of like a spiritual Christmas. God says, "Here's a gift. It's yours,” and all I need to do is take it. Just receive it. Receive it with a believing heart. Faith becomes that channel through which all the benefits of Christ flow. It's all you need to do. Nothing more. And would the believing heart say, "God, yes." 

Friends, you see, this is the best news in all the world for both lost sinners and redeemed saints. Life's most important question. This is the most important question, especially tonight if you are not right with God, because you can leave here asking all kinds of questions, but your life hangs in the balance. Eternity hangs in the balance for you tonight if you are not right with God. You must come up with an answer to that question. Jesus has satisfied the wrath of God. He has taken the curse of our sin. You cannot be justified by your works or anything else but through faith in Christ. It is so simple. It is so beautiful. Simply turn from your sin, and accept Christ and his salvation with a believing heart, and it's yours. You'll be right with God. But you see, this is also life's most important question for believers, because those of us who are justified sometimes need to learn again to live out our justification. And elders and deacons, this is where your ministry is to the saints, to help them remember their justification, to call the saints to trust in Christ again and again and again, when we're struggling for acceptance. Am I accepted by God? Rest in Christ's record and not your own. That's what you need to call God's people to. Lean upon Jesus and his record. Our sins are many as we sing, but his mercy is more. And then when we're struggling to keep up a reputation and put on appearances, give it up. You see, we can admit our failures. We can confess our sins to one another, because we say, "My hope is in Jesus. It is not in me, but I rest on him." And so, whether you've been a believer for 50 years or more, or whether you're still struggling to find a righteousness with God, the answer is Christ, by faith in him. 

Let me end tonight just reminding you that the book of Galatians was sometimes called Luther's book. He leaned on it hard to stay grounded in salvation by grace through faith. But you'll recall that it was actually Romans 1:17 that opened the doors for him to become right with God. And he described it so beautifully. He says, "Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith." Now listen to what he said about himself. He says, "When I discovered that, I felt myself to be reborn, to have gone through open doors into paradise.” That could be true for you tonight. If you just simply accept with a believing heart all that Christ has done for you, the doors of paradise will swing open for you. You'll have a new life. And if you have it, just come back to it again and again and again. How am I right with God? Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. 

So, Father, we thank you for this such an important question. The Heidelberg Catechism poses it to us. It wants us to answer it. We thank you for the answer – by true faith in Christ, the perfect satisfaction, righteous and holiness of Christ is counted as ours. And so, Lord, we pray that if anyone here tonight doesn't have an answer to that question, they would find it in Jesus tonight, and that for the rest of us, we would keep leaning upon him. We would not drift like the Galatians drift. We would not drift like Peter drifted, but we would remain centered upon Jesus alone and faith alone in him. So, we pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.