There's the Wisconsinites. I got a haircut. Hey, you're back. It's all good. I'm going to do a change of posture. I'm going to start in the front. Is he holding up? Okay. Okay, brethren, we're gonna get
started. Let's turn to Ephesians. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter
one, and we'll be looking at verses 13 and 14 today. So far in Ephesians, we've looked
at the blessings of God our Father and his acts of salvation for
his people. And then last week we saw the
blessings of the Son of God in his acts for the children of
God, and this morning we'll look at the blessings of the Holy
Spirit in his acts of salvation for the children of God. I've
titled this, Sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise. And what we'll look at first
in verse 13, the first things we'll see, there is the basis
or the foundation of our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then I wanna look a little more closely at our being sealed by
the Holy Spirit and what that means, because it's not necessarily
something that we often think about a lot. All right, now,
First, regarding our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The text
here states, in whom ye also trusted, in whom you also trusted. And what the Lord reveals to
us in his scripture is that our trusting of Christ, our belief
in Christ, our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, That's owing to
the grace of our God. That's His fruit being born in
us and revealed in us. That's His work. That's one of
the blessings, the spiritual blessings that our God gives
us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's the fruit of every born-again
believer. Every born-again child of God,
they have faith in Christ. Now, a lot of people in this
world, they speak of faith. They speak of believing in a
very general sense, right? Even the movie company, Disney,
speaks about faith, but that's not the spiritual fruit of the
spirit of God that has worked in his people. That's just a
general work of the flesh that believes or hopes in something. that has no basis in the truth
of our God. And so faith is, it's a wonderful
fruit. It's a wonderful fruit. And the
reason why we rejoice in the faith that God has given to us
is because it's how we have an understanding and a knowledge
of what our God has freely done for us in his son Jesus Christ. And so it's that means by which
all the blessings of God and his son are flowing to us, that
they're given to us. So what I want to show you now
is what is this basis of the trust that the children of God
have? How is it that believers come to trust and believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ? And how is that faith maintained?
How is that faith maintained? Well, Paul gives us an answer. Speaking by the Holy Spirit,
he refers to our having heard. He speaks of our believing Christ,
and then he speaks of our being sealed by the Holy Spirit. That's
what's covered here in Ephesians 1 verse 13. All those that hear the gospel,
that hear Christ, that believe Him, that's the effectual working
of your God doing that in you, working that in you, working
those fruits and bringing them forth in you. You hear because
you're given an ear to hear. You're given an ear of faith.
You hear things that others in this world know nothing of. And
then we find that you believe. You believe what you hear. You
believe the gospel. You hope in Christ because that's
what he's revealed in you. He's revealed that faith in you. He's given you that faith. And
then you are sealed. That sealing secures you in that
salvation. It certifies, proves, it's verified
that God has done this work in you. to the glory and praise
of His name. He chose you. He elected you. He purposed you unto this salvation
in the salvation that He's provided in His Son. All right, so look
there at verse 13. We read, in whom ye also trusted. After that ye heard the word
of truth. the gospel of your salvation,
in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise." So according to this word, the children of
God hear the word of truth. They hear the word of truth. We know this is a work of God
because many people sit under the sound of the gospel, right?
There's many that sit in so-called churches, right, hearing many
things. They hear these things and yet,
They don't believe, but what can you say? They don't hear
the, they're not even hearing the truth. There's also many
that sit under solid preaching, right? Where they preach the
gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet they themselves never hear. They
never come to an understanding of what God has done for his
people. And if you think about it, as
we read the scriptures, we see that many people heard Christ
himself preach. and it didn't profit them. Many
people heard the apostles of Christ preach. and they saw miracles
and wonders and that word yet did not profit them. Many people throughout the scriptures
have heard what your ears hear and it doesn't profit them. But
there are those whom the Lord blesses who hear this word and
they are profited and they do rejoice and they are glad for
what the Lord has shown to them and given to them. And so many
will hear But they don't believe, they don't have faith, because
you can't give what you don't have. And if you do have faith,
it's because God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
have worked that blessing in you and borne that fruit in you
by which you now give back to Him what He's borne in you. you
bear that fruit back to the Lord. All right, so what or how we
hear the gospel is very different for the people of God than it
is for the inhabitants of this world who know not God and could
care less. about what the Lord is saying.
So 1st Paul says, after that he heard the word of truth. And regardless of whether you
believe it or not, it's still the word of truth. It is the
word of God and it is the word of truth, which he's given for
his people's comfort and their help and their deliverance and
their assurance. But it does reveal a difference
from those who don't believe the word of truth. There is a
difference being spoken of. You hear it, not as others hear
it, you hear it as the word of truth. You receive it as it is,
the word of truth. You embrace it as it is, the
word of truth. And so, when the children heard
it, faith, we're told, was revealed in them. When these Ephesians
heard it, faith was revealed in them. To them, they were very
much profited by what they heard. It was good news, it was a savor,
Christ unto them. It was their deliverance, their
hope, their joy, their peace, and their comfort. Our Lord said,
blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear. And that cannot be said of all,
and I'm emphasizing it because we shouldn't just glaze over
it and pass over that as though there's not some special, gracious,
glorious work being done for us who do hear Christ and rejoice
in Him. All right, so what they heard
then, they put into practice, right? They followed the Lord,
they heard Him, they rose up believing on Him and they followed
Him, all right? As many of you, you hear Christ. and you desire Him. You have
a need that you see and know only He can satisfy. Only He
heals us of our sin-sick diseases. Only He does this work for whom
He will. And so we now have that fellowship
and relationship with our God, whereby we call upon Him, we
confess our sins to Him, we ask Him for help, We ask them the
questions that we have, the understanding that we need, the things that
we don't really know or understand. And so we cry out to our Lord
and we read his word and we come and hear his word preached that
we might have a deeper, more fuller understanding of the grace
of our God for us and his son. And when they heard that word,
it revealed faith that God put there in them. It reveals God's
power to save His people as opposed to those utterly ruined in sin
who cannot hear and will not hear and have no desire to hear
what the Lord says. When Paul was writing to the
Thessalonians in the first epistle to them, chapter 1, verse 4 and
5, he says, Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto
you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost,
and in much assurance. And so the children of God are
not going to be left indifferent to what they hear. They will
be affected. They will be moved. They will
be stirred and turned back to the Lord. And that's opposed
to what we see of the inhabitants of this earth who hear it and
are not moved, and are indifferent. Some get angry, but many are
just indifferent and don't care for what they hear, and they
pass on to their eternal judgment and destruction. And then God's people are quickened
by the Holy Spirit, that is, they're quickened when he attends
the preaching of that word. In the time of his love and the
appointment of his grace, he brings that word with power to
the hearts and minds of his people so that they are profited by
what they hear. That word isn't just stolen out
of their minds by the birds, if you will. It doesn't simply
fall on the hard, rocky ground, which withers under persecution
and any pushback. It doesn't, it isn't choked out
by the weeds of this life, the cares and concerns that are common
to us all. It's not removed. It falls rather
into good ground, into ground prepared by the spirit of God
to receive that word. And it grows and then bears that
fruit of God, some 30, some 60, some 100 fold all by the grace
of mercy. of our God. So Paul wrote to
the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5.17 saying, if any man be in
Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold,
all things are become new. Furthermore, Lord Paul calls
it the gospel of your salvation, because this word reveals what
Christ has fully accomplished for you, brethren. It convinces
the child of God, the elect child of God, that Christ is both willing
and able to save you. He is willing and able to save
all who come to him, crying out for mercy, for his grace. Lord, show me what you are showing
others. Don't pass me by, Lord, but have
mercy upon me. Help me, Lord, as the Syrophoenician
woman cried out for her daughter, help me. I've seen and heard
what you've done for others. Have mercy upon me, Lord. Don't
pass me by and leave me here in this unmoved, dead state. Have mercy upon me, Lord. All
right, and then we're given assurance of his word. because it's made
effectual to us by the grace and power of God, by the Holy
Spirit regenerating us, giving us life and hope, which looks
to the Lord Jesus Christ and stays upon him. All right, now,
as a result of their hearing the gospel, as it is in truth,
the word of God, which comes to them, we find the belief that
God works in them. Ephesians 1.13, in whom also
after that ye believe, Now this phrase is working up towards
the next thing which follows, which we'll come to in a moment,
but this is a second fruit. You hear, right? You hear with
your faith and faith is worked in you. You believe. It looks
to the Lord Jesus Christ. It hears of what he has accomplished
in himself. When he took upon the likeness
of this sinful flesh, fulfilled perfect righteousness, being
made the fit sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice, the lamb of God sent
to take away the sin of his people scattered throughout the world.
And he went to that cross faithfully, bearing you and your sin in him.
And he did not deliver himself from the wrath of God. He remained
there under the hands of justice in your place that you would
go free. from that justice which you earned
and which you deserved. Christ paid that price to deliver
you from the hands of justice, that you might have life and
know him, your glorious creator, who formed you and purposed you
to know him and to walk in his light. Turn over to Romans 10.
Romans 10. And we'll look at verse 9 and
10 there, seeing this second fruit which the Holy Spirit works
in us. Paul first says here in verse
9 and 10, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. Drop down to verses 13 and 14.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not
believed, and how shall they believe in him of whom they have
not heard? So we hear, and then faith is
worked in. His people, they believe, all
right? And so they're made obedient to the gospel called, all right? And we know that they're made
obedient to it because it's witnessed in their faith and they're continuing
in that walk of His grace and His light and His mercy. All
right, now, this leads us to another act of the Holy Spirit,
which is done for us, right? He gives us a hearing ear, He
gives us faith. But we're also told that He seals
us, that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. Now, I don't know
about you, but that's not something that I typically I don't often
think about the sealing of the Holy Spirit. We speak much of
his regeneration of his people, right? Giving us life, giving
us spiritual life, born of the seed of Christ, whereby we have
an ear and whereby we believe Christ. But what is the sealing
of the Holy Spirit? What is that talking about? All
right, Paul says there, in whom, back in Ephesians 1.13, in whom
also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. All right, so it's separate.
It's a separate work of the Holy Spirit from your regeneration. Your regeneration precedes your
hearing. Your regeneration precedes your
believing. But after that, you're sealed
with the Holy Spirit. So it's a spiritual, it's a mystical
sealing, a spiritual work of the Spirit of God for you, to
seal you. Now, a seal, it can be used to
denote property. If something is yours, you can
put a seal on it and it denotes that it is yours. It differentiates
what is yours from that of another's. And we see that in Revelation
17 Revelation 7 verse 3, where the angel says, Hurt not the
earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the
servants of our God in their foreheads. That's speaking of
the very fact that all the children of God shall be saved. They shall be delivered from
death and destruction before God destroys the earth before
he comes in that final day of judgment all the children of
God shall be called out they shall hear and believe and be
sealed in their foreheads by the Spirit of God right it's
certifying that they are the Lord's and that's because the
Lord is not willing that any of us should perish but that
all of us should come to repentance. There's another use that we see
where a seal is used to hide what is behind it, to secure
it or to protect it. So if you have important documents
in a letter, you might close that letter up, put a seal on
it so that people know, don't break this seal. It's not yours.
Don't touch. You're not to know what's behind
it. It's for whoever I'm sending this to. So that's how a seal
can be used as well, to protect or hide what's behind it. But
another use that we see in scripture is that it's meant, a seal is
given to certify a thing, to assure as proof positive that
it is what it is, right? That what the Lord says it is,
that's exactly what is so. The Lord certifies it. He makes
a thing proved. He proves a thing and gives proof
of it, right? We see this use in John 3, 33.
He that hath received his testimony, hath set to his seal, hath certified
that God is true. You that have faith are certifying
that everything God has said concerning you and concerning
his Son is true. It's more accurate than even
we know and can certify it is true. And that's what the Lord
does for His people. He puts a seal. He certifies
that His people are indeed His very people by sealing them with
the Holy Spirit. It's also used in 2 Corinthians
1.22. There in 2 Corinthians 1.22, It says, of God who hath also
sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. So that we're given this seal
of the Holy Spirit as an earnest, which is a down payment. It's
to let us know that God truly does love me and everything he's
promised me he shall bring to pass. I know this because he's
given me the down payment, the earnest of my inheritance so
that we know there continues to be a desire in us. There continues to be an understanding
of what I am and my need of the Savior. He shows me as I have
need of seeing that I am weak and impotent and incompetent
in myself to save myself. When I forget, he'll show me.
In grace and in mercy, He will show me just how weak and unable
I am to save myself. And He'll show me just how glorious
and wonderful His power is to save me to the uttermost, even
when I most don't deserve it. God is able to do all that, and
He keeps and stirs up that interest in the Lord. He stirs up that
love that we have for Him. He gives us all that we have
need of. He provides everything. And He
shows us that Christ my Savior died for me. He shows me that
when He died, I died in Him. And I'm dead to that law. And
don't have to fulfill that law perfectly because I have already
fulfilled that law perfectly in the Lord Jesus Christ. So
I don't have to not eat a cheeseburger because it's breaking some law
of, you know, you can't mix a mother and a child's cow or something
like that. I don't have to worry about those
laws. I can eat a pig because all things are made clean unto
me by the Lord Jesus Christ, all right? So we don't look to
the law for righteousness. We look to Christ who leads us
and keeps us and gives us love for our brethren, all right,
that we won't sin against our neighbor because we love them.
And if we sin against them, our God shall correct us and turn
us from that way. And we shall repent of it and
be turned by the grace of our God. And just as I was put to
death in him, so I was buried with him. And as he rose, that
same power which raised Christ from the dead has raised me. from spiritual death and given
me life and hope looking to Christ. All right, and so our hope, in
that hope, we walk in the Lord Jesus Christ and we're kept by
his grace. And even though there's times
when we are turned out of the way, as David was turned out
of the way, we see in him, even so the Lord turns us back into
the way, sometimes gently. sometimes severely, all right,
severe chastening. We all have seen it and experienced
it who know the Lord, that it's He that keeps us, all right?
And so the Lord keeps His children by sealing them with the Holy
Spirit of promise. Now, I'll come back to that.
I'll give you another verse, but we'll close with that because
that I think helps reveal to us what this sealing is, but
I think it's a great verse to end on, and it's a good verse
to chew on as we break and fellowship with one another for a bit, but
verse 14 says, which the Holy Spirit is the earnest of our
inheritance until the redemption of the purchase possession unto
the praise of his glory. So we've already said earnest
is a down payment, right? And earnest here means down payment,
a pledge. which your God has given to you
to confirm to you that you are his and he shall return for you."
It's like an engagement ring and that wedding ring. That's
pledging. That's saying, this is my word
to you and I shall marry you as you are pledged to be my bride
and I shall be faithful to you in marriage. We honor those values
that we made to one another. That's what the rings symbolize.
Well, your God has given you the Holy Spirit as a pledge to
you of his love and his keeping of you. All right. And it's also
a reminder to us that we have an inheritance. This life is
not our inheritance. This is not to be filled up in
and experience everything like Solomon did. He attempted to
experience everything. good and bad, everything under
the sun. You can read about it in Ecclesiastes
and he saw it was just unprofitable and there was nothing but death
in it. But we have an inheritance and
our God shall return and save his people. He shall redeem us. He redeemed us with his own blood
on the cross and it also speaks of the day of redemption when
he returns and claims that which he's already purchased by himself. So there's that redemption. But
let's close, turn over to 1 Thessalonians chapter five. First Thessalonians
chapter five, because, again, this ceiling, we don't usually
think a lot about this ceiling. And for you that like systematic
theology, if you're putting it, say, in the doctrine of grace,
this would fit really nicely with perseverance of the saints,
right? That the Lord is keeping you
unto the end. That's what this ceiling is.
It's what our God does to keep you and secure you in him unto
the end. 1 Thessalonians 5, 23. Here's
a right understanding of what it means to be sealed with that
Holy Spirit of promise. And the very God of peace sanctified
you wholly. It's your God who makes you righteous. Your God sanctifies you and works
righteousness in you. And I pray God, your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless." That's the sealing
of the Holy Spirit, preserving you blameless unto the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you
who also will do it. So that's what the sealing of
the Holy Spirit accomplishes for you. It's your whole spirit
and soul and body being preserved blameless unto the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, let's close in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your mercy, your kindness, the abundance of spiritual
blessings that you pour out upon us in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, often we don't think of
the sealing that you've given to us by the Holy Spirit of promise
being given to us and Lord, how you keep us, how you preserve
us, how you are keeping us unto the end, that we not fall away
with and die with the rest of this world. Lord, we thank you
for this grace. We pray that you would indeed
teach us in our hearts, reveal to us all that you have worked
and accomplished for us in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray
for Our brethren, we thank you how you have healed them that
were sick. We thank you for Scott getting
better and being returned to us. We're thankful that Ron has
recovered much so, Lord, and is able to eat again and able
to be at home and not in the hospital. Lord, we pray for our
sister, Johnny, that you would help her and heal her of her
sickness, help her to feel and to get well. Lord, help us to minister to one another in love
and kindness and in thoughtfulness that we would pray for one another,
that we would be mindful of the needs of others, and that we
would present our bodies, a living sacrifice to our God, that we
might be able to do those things which so encourage and help our
brethren and let them know the love of God for them as evidenced
in the people who care for them and think of them and pray for
them. Lord, we pray that you bless this time of fellowship
now. We pray that you would indeed keep our hearts and minds and
thoughts upon the Lord and that we would say things that edify
one another. For we thank you for your son.
We thank you for this unspeakable gift of your salvation in him.
And we pray that you bless your people The Lord calls us to continue
to hear, to believe, and to experience that sealing of the Holy Spirit.
It's in Christ's name that we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, brethren. About 15
minutes.