#6- Living by Grace through the Means God Provides
The Christian life is not sustained by human effort, but by God’s appointed means of grace—His Word, the sacraments, and prayer.
Through them, the Spirit works to strengthen faith, deepen repentance, and conform us to Christ. Faith and repentance are not mere initial responses, but ongoing marks of a life transformed by grace.
And in it all, we are reminded: true doctrine does not begin with us, nor end with us. It begins with God—and returns to God, to whom alone belongs all glory.
#5- How The Redeemed Should Live?
The law of God does not save us—but it shows us who God is, exposes our sin, and leads us to Christ.
In Christ, we are no longer under the law as a covenant of works. There is no condemnation for those who are in Him. Yet the law remains—revealing God’s holiness, shaping our understanding of love, guiding our sanctification, and exposing the ongoing need for grace.
We do not obey to be accepted. We obey because we are already accepted in Christ.
So we guard against both legalism and lawlessness, and instead walk in grateful obedience, by the Spirit, for the glory of God, ever dependent on Christ, who fulfilled the law perfectly on our behalf.
#4- Christ and the Application of His Redemption
The hope of sinners rests not in ourselves, but in Christ alone.
The only Redeemer, fully God and fully man, who perfectly obeyed, bore the wrath of God, and conquered death.
Salvation is accomplished by Christ and applied by His Spirit—from effectual calling to justification, adoption, sanctification, and finally glorification. All of grace. All of Christ. All to the glory of God.
#3- Sin and the need for a Redeemer
The gospel begins with honesty.
Sin is not just what we do—it is who we are apart from Christ.
But God, in His mercy, did not leave us there.
In Christ, He provides the Redeemer we desperately need.
#2- Who God is and What He has done
Rightly knowing God must come before rightly living for Him—because a small view of God will always lead to a shallow faith. The Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—reveals Himself not only in who He is, but in His sovereign works of creation, providence, and redemption. When we submit to His Word, even in its hardest truths, we find a faith that is steadied, humbled, and anchored in His perfect will.
#1- Why Do We Exist and How Do We Know God?
Catechism isn’t replacing Scripture—it’s helping us rightly understand and faithfully hold on to it. The creeds, confessions, and catechisms serve as a guardrail against error and a guide into deeper, clearer, and more grounded faith. As we begin the Westminster Shorter Catechism, we’re not just learning answers—we’re being shaped to know, glorify, and enjoy God rightly.
#6- Living Life for the Glory of God
Ecclesiastes confronts us with life as it truly is—brief, broken, and often filled with suffering. When viewed only “under the sun,” oppression goes unanswered, wealth never satisfies, and even wisdom seems futile. Yet the Preacher does not leave us in despair. He redirects our vision “under heaven,” where suffering is not wasted, joy is received as a gift, and every moment carries eternal weight. In Christ, pain becomes participatory, work becomes meaningful, and simple pleasures become foretastes of glory. The final call of Ecclesiastes is clear and urgent: remember your Creator, fear God, and live all of life before His face, knowing that what is done now echoes into eternity.
#5- Live Life Now For Eternity
Ecclesiastes presses us with life’s most unsettling question: Does our brief existence truly matter? When life is viewed only “under the sun,” it ends in vanity—marked by death, injustice, and unfulfilled longing. Yet Scripture shifts our vision “under heaven,” where God orders every season with purpose and has set eternity in the human heart. Nothing is meaningless in His hands. Life gains weight not by its length, but by its orientation toward God. To live wisely, then, is to live with eternal awareness—embracing each season, answering to a holy Judge, and finding true meaning not in what fades, but in what endures forever in Christ.
#4- A Time for Everything
Life is not an endless cycle to escape, but a single, God-appointed journey—where time has meaning, history has direction, and every moment finds its beauty in Christ, the Lord of time and eternity.
#3- The Attempt to Escape
When life ‘under the sun’ feels like endless striving and escape, Ecclesiastes exposes the emptiness of pleasure, pragmatism, and achievement—and calls us back to ultimate truth, where meaning, joy, and rightly ordered pleasure are found only in God.
