Well, good morning. If you'll
open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter 1. We'll continue our
study in the book of Ephesians this morning. Before we begin,
let's bow before our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, which
art in heaven, holy and reverent is your matchless name. And Father,
we come before you carefully, reverently, this morning, knowing
that we come into the presence of Almighty God. And yet how
thankful we are that we can come before you as your children,
crying Abba Father. It's only because of your mercy
and grace, and Father, we're thankful. And Father, I pray
this morning that you give us the spirit of worship, that you
would meet with us and enable us to worship you in spirit and
in truth. Father, I pray that as we open
your word this morning, that you would open it, open your
word to our hearts, and that you might be pleased to reveal
your redemptive glory in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Father, give us faith to see, faith to believe and rest in
our Lord Jesus Christ. Will we pray for ourselves in
this hour? We pray for our children's classes.
Father, that you might make this a hour of special blessing. That you'd be pleased to Be merciful
to our children, how thankful we are for them. And Father,
pray you'd be merciful to them. Bless them and bless their teachers
in this important hour. We pray that you'd be with Brother
Eric as he's away preaching in Danville. Father, that you bless
them and him in preaching and them in worship, that you bring
him and Abby back home safe to us. And Lord, we pray for our
country. This is such a difficult time.
Father, we pray that you would not give us what we deserve,
that you would continue to preserve and protect the freedoms that
we have in this country, that we may be enabled by thy goodness
to continue to worship thee, free of reprisal and fear that
this might remain a land of freedom and liberty. We pray that you'd
be with our leaders and, Father, that you'd give them wisdom and
direction that they do not have naturally. that you might use
them as instruments for good, to preserve our freedoms and
preserve the land of liberty that you've given to us. Father,
for those that you've brought in the time of trouble and trial,
we pray for them. We pray you comfort their hearts,
that you heal and that you deliver according to thy will. All these
things we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, it's at
his name and for His glory we pray, amen. All right, I've titled our lesson
this morning, The Work of the Holy Spirit. Now, the work of
the Holy Spirit is a very misunderstood subject because of all the religious
propaganda that men put out about the Holy Spirit. You know, men
make the work of the Holy Spirit to be something that is impressive
to the flesh. Men make out the work of the
Spirit to be miracles and healings and speaking in tongues and so
forth. And you know, that's not the work of the Holy Spirit at
all. Now, the Lord gave those gifts. The Holy Spirit gave those
gifts to the early church. Those men did work miracles and
healings. They did speak in tongues. But
the Lord gave, the Holy Spirit gave those gifts to men at that
time because there was no New Testament written. The New Testament
was still being written by the apostles at that time. So the
Holy Spirit gave those gifts, the gifts of what we generally
associate with the gifts of the Spirit, so that unbelievers,
he didn't give those gifts to men for believers, he gave for
the sake of unbelievers, so that unbelievers would know the Lord
has to be with this man. The Lord, God, had to give these
men the ability to perform these miracles, and the Spirit gave
those gifts so that unbelievers would listen to these men preach
Christ. See, the whole point of the work of the Spirit is
to point men to Christ so that sinners will hear Christ. It's
not so that men will be impressed with the gifts other men have.
It's so they listen to these men preach. So they listen to
these men preach Christ. Now, once the New Testament was
completed, those gifts of the Spirit ended because the scriptures
were complete. See, before the scriptures were
complete, how do you know if a man's got a message from God?
Well, he has these miracles, these gifts. Now the New Testament's
completed. If you wanna know if a man's
got a message from God or not, if he's preaching the truth,
all you gotta do is check him out by the scriptures. Is he
saying what the scriptures say? If he is, he's got a message
from God. So now that the scriptures are
completed, these gifts aren't needed anymore. And hold your
place there in Ephesians. Look back at John chapter 16.
I told you that the work of the Holy Spirit, is to reveal Christ. Here, this is what our Lord tells
us in John chapter 16. Verse 13, how be it when he, the spirit
of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth for he'll
not speak of himself for whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak
and he'll show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for
he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. That's
the work of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is
to take God's word, take the preaching of Christ and reveal
Christ to the hearts of God's people so they'll trust their
soul to Christ. Look back at chapter seven there
of John 16. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth, it's expedient, it's necessary, it's expedient for you that I
go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto
you. But if I depart, I'll send him unto you. And when he's come,
he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment. Of sin, because they believe
not on me. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father and
you see me no more. Of judgment, because the prince
of this world is judged. Now the Holy Spirit, his work
is to reveal Christ to the hearts of God's people. He's gonna reveal
to us our sin. The Holy Spirit's the one that
reveals to us what sin really is. It's a sin nature. And this is what it takes to
put sin away. The suffering of Christ the Savior.
He's gonna show that. This is, oh, what it took to
pay for sin. Sin is not just some violation
of the rules, you know, that we don't like. Oh, sin is an
offense against God. And this is what it took to put
sin away. the suffering and the death of
God's Son. And the Spirit's gonna show us what righteousness really
is. The Spirit shows us our unrighteousness by showing us Christ, who is
our righteousness. And the way we know he's righteous,
he has made sin for his people, but his sacrifice put that sin
away. He has sent him back to the Father. Well, the Father
wouldn't have accepted him if he wasn't righteous. If he hadn't
made his people righteous, Christ is our righteousness, and when
we see Christ and His righteousness, that's when we know how unrighteous
we are. And the Holy Spirit shows us
sin is what we are. It's not just what we do, it's
what we are. And here's the evidence of our
sin nature. We will not believe on Christ. Unless the Spirit
gives us faith in Christ, we will not, we cannot believe in
Him, because we have a sin nature. And only the Holy Spirit can
reveal Christ to our hearts that way. Now that's the work of the
Holy Spirit. It's to reveal Christ. And back
in our text, Ephesians chapter one, there are four words in
our text that show us the work of the Holy Spirit. Those four
words are trusted, heard, sealed, and earnest. And those are the
four words I want to look at this morning. The first one is
trusted. Verse 12 of Ephesians chapter
one. that we should be to the praise
of his glory, who first trusted in Christ, in whom you also trusted. Now last week, we saw how the
father was the first one to trust in Christ. In the covenant of
grace, the father elected a people. He elected a people to save,
and he gave those people to his son to save. And he promised
the son, you make them righteous. You put their sin away, I'll
accept. And the son promised his father,
I'll do everything it takes to save those people. He promised
his father, I'll come in the flesh as the representative of
those people, as the second Adam. And just like the first Adam
made them unrighteous by his disobedience, I'll make them
righteous by my obedience to all. I'll obey the law for them
as their representative. And he promised his father, I'll
take their sin and I'll put it away by my blood, by my sacrifice
for their sin. He promised his father he'd do
everything it took to save his people from their sin. And the
father trusted him to do it. The father believed him. The
father trusted all of his purpose of salvation, salvation by grace,
to his son. And the son proved himself to
be trustworthy, didn't he? He did everything he promised
his father that he would do. He has come and he has redeemed
his people from their sin. Now you who know Christ, You've
also trusted Christ, haven't you? The same way the Father
trusted Christ. That's how you trust him. If
Lord has saved you, you trust Christ to do everything he promised
he'd do. You trust him to fulfill every promise in this book, don't
you? You trust him to be your righteousness. You trust him
to make you holy and righteous before God. You don't have to
do it by your works, by your obedience. You trust Christ to
do it because he promised he would. You trust Christ to call
you to himself and to keep you by the power of his grace. You
trust him to keep you all the way to the end. You know it's
got to be by his power because you can't do it your own self.
You trust Christ to one day glorify you in heaven and bring you where
he is that you may behold his glory. You trust him to do it
because he promised that he would. You trust. If God has saved you,
you trust Christ is enough. He's enough. He's all it takes
to save you. You can't be better than you
are in Christ. So you don't feel compelled to
add works of your own to make sure that you're saved, because
you trust Christ. He's enough. He's all it takes.
Paul says here, in whom you also trusted, in whom you believed. That word there doesn't just
mean, well, you know, I get mental assent to this, you know, that
this is true. It means committed your soul. Commitment. You've committed your soul to
Christ. And that's what faith is. It's
commitment. It's committing my soul to Christ. Committing my all to Him. He's
going to do all the work and I'm going to do none of it. It's
a commitment to Him. And the work of the Holy Spirit
is this. It's to reveal Christ to the hearts of God's people.
Not just so we know his name, not just so we know what he did,
but so that we'll commit our souls to him. That's the kind
of trust only the Holy Spirit can give. All right, the second
word is heard, in whom you also trusted after that you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Now I'll make
a statement here. I don't think anybody here would
disagree with it, but it's a very important statement. No one is
ever saved apart from hearing the gospel of Christ. No one. You think of the Ethiopian eunuch.
There he was coming back from that ceremony, the feast day
that he'd been at, and he'd been able to buy a scroll, the word
of God, the gospel of Isaiah, and he was reading it. and he
could not understand what it said. He knew it was speaking
of somebody, but he didn't know who. He didn't understand this
is speaking of Christ until Philip came and began at that very scripture,
Isaiah 53, that's what the eunuch was reading. He began at that
very scripture and preached what to him? Christ, who Christ is. Then that eunuch believed, but
he could not believe till somebody told him who Christ is. Look
at Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10, Paul tells
us this very same thing. In Romans chapter 10. Verse 13. For whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But now how then
shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? And how
shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard, and how
shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it's written, how beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings
of good things. But they've not all obeyed the
gospel, for Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed their report?
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And you can't trust Christ until
someone sent from God tells you who Christ is. Somebody's got
to tell us who He is. Somebody's got to come preach
the gospel to us. Now you can hear the gospel.
We can make people come and hear the gospel with these ears. But
only the Holy Spirit can make us hear. Lots of people heard
the gospel and didn't believe Christ. You've heard the gospel
and believed on Him. What's the difference? The Holy
Spirit gave you faith to believe. You heard and he caused what
you heard to be mixed with faith, and you believed on Christ. This
is a miracle. Sinful men hear the gospel preached
by another sinful man, and they believe on Christ. That's the
way God does things. That is the way that God saves
his people. Now, people say, well, I don't
know that you really gotta hear a preacher. You know, God could
do this, God could, well, wait a minute. Could God save sinners
without the preaching the gospel? Well, I have absolutely no doubt
that he could. God has the power to do whatever
he wills. Could God save a sinner? Could God reveal Christ to the
hearts of a sinner without them hearing the gospel? I reckon
he could, but he won't. He won't do it. God will not
do it. It's pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. It's pleased God by
what men call foolish. You know, men say, what you're
doing is foolish. All you do is preach. You don't
do anything to entertain anybody. There's not enough excitement
going on. All you do is preaching. That's just foolish. You're preaching
things that are foolish to the natural mind. It doesn't grab my attention.
Can't you tell me something new? It's pleased God by what the
world calls the foolishness of preaching. will save them that
believe. And that's the one and only way Almighty God will reveal
His Son to the hearts of His people. Now look over 1 Peter
chapter 1. It's not just any preaching.
You know, it's preaching the Word of God. It's preaching the
truth. That's what Paul said, the truth.
When a sinner is saved, the Holy Spirit causes that sinner to
be born again. Born again with a brand new nature
and The way he does that is the preaching of the word. 1 Peter
1 verse 23, being born again, not of corruptible seed. You're not born again the same
way you're born the first time with corruptible sinful seed.
If you could do that, you'd just be born a sinner all over again,
wouldn't you? If you're born from corruptible seed, but you're
born again of incorruptible by the word of God. That's the seed,
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all
flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is a flower of grass.
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.
But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. See, in order for a
new life to be born in us, life's got to come from a seed, doesn't
it? Life's got to come from a seed, and that seed has to be planted. And the seed that gives spiritual
life is the word of God. And the way that seed is planted
is by the preaching of Christ. Preaching. If God the Holy Spirit
is gonna give us spiritual life, this is what he's gonna do. He's
gonna make us hear. Somebody's gonna come preach
the gospel to us. Somebody's gonna come tell us
who Christ is, and the Holy Spirit will give us faith to believe.
We're gonna hear and believe. All right, the third word is
sealed. Back in our text, Ephesians 1, in whom you also trusted, after
that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
in whom after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. That word sealed is to stamp
a mark on. It's like the old kings used
to do, you know, they'd use that wax seal and they'd press their
ring into it. That's a seal showing this thing
is genuine. This is something that's come
directly from the king. It's a stamp to show us something's
genuine. And it also means to make secure,
make secure. Now this seal, don't go looking
for an outward sign of this seal. It's not a seal of the king's
ring, you know, in our flesh. It's not an outward sign. It's
an inward sign. It's a seal in the heart. Well,
what is that seal? What is the seal God uses to
put on the hearts of his people to show they're genuine? This
is a genuine believer. This is a genuine son or daughter
of the king. It's the new birth. When a new
man, a new nature is born in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And that new man bears the image of Christ. He's been stamped
in the image of Christ. That new man has the nature of
Christ. He's genuine. Peter said he's been made a partaker
of the divine nature. He's got a nature that came from
the seed, from the seed, from the word of God that gave him
life in the first place. Now that new man, he's been born
again. He's been born again in a fashion similar to the way
the old man was born, isn't he? By a seed. But this new man,
bears no semblance to the old man whatsoever. The new man bears
no semblance to Adam whatsoever. The flesh does. Our flesh has
been stamped in the image of Adam and we can't change it,
can we? I mean, we can't change it. And
where that new man is going to lug around this flesh has been
stamped in Adam's image to the day this flesh dies. And when
this body dies, the flesh is going to go back to the dust
from whence it was made. And that new man is going to be set
free. And he's going to go straight
into the presence of the Lord. Straight into the presence of
the Lord. No qualification period. No trial
period. No probationary period. Straight
into the presence of God Almighty. You know why? The new man's qualified. He's qualified. He's been stamped
as he's shown genuine He's qualified to be in God's presence because
he's been made just like Christ. Now, we get ourselves in a world
of trouble. We start looking for this outward sign in us. If you look for outward evidence
of salvation, I mean, you're just opening yourself up for
heartache. Because everything we do is sinful. I mean, the
only thing you can see about us is sin. The only evidence
that our salvation is genuine. It's the salvation of God is
a seal in the heart. It's God-given faith in Christ.
And if you find that you trust Christ and you can't find anything
else or anyone else to trust but Christ, that's the seal. That's the seal that God gives
his people. It's a seal that God gives if
you're a genuine believer, a genuine child of God. Well, the second
meaning of this word, sealed, is to make secure. The Holy Spirit
keeps and preserves God's people so that they cannot be lost.
They cannot spoil, just like preserves that we can and make
today. Now, when I was a boy, my mom
used to make cheese to canned strawberry jam. And she made
it from strawberries. We'd go down to Beal's Farm,
if any of you are old enough to remember Beal's Farm. We'd
go down there and pick strawberries at Beal's Farm. Oh, I hated picking
those strawberries. I mean, I hated it. I hated it.
Jonathan was a little guy. He'd go, and Dad would tell him,
he'd say, you better weigh him when he comes in, weigh him when
he goes out, because more is going in him than what's going
in that bucket, you know. We'd go down there and pick strawberries.
Had to go a couple times a year. And mom would try to make enough
jams. She'd try to cam enough of these strawberry preserves
or jelly or jam, whatever you call it, so there'd be enough
to eat all year long. And I have to tell you, I mean,
I hated going and picking those strawberries in the summertime.
Boy, I'm telling you, in the wintertime, it sure was nice
to open up that jam, put it on a piece of hot toast. Oh, I've
never found jam taste that good ever. Oh, it was so good. And
if by some weird coincidence, one of those cans would make
it a whole year long and you'd open it up. You know what? It'd
be just as good as the first one from a year ago because it
was sealed. It was sealed so that it couldn't
spoil. Now that's the life of a believer.
We've been sealed by the Holy Spirit so we can't spoil. And if you know yourself, that's
good news. I'd spoil it in a minute, in
a second, I'd spoil it. But the Holy Spirit won't let
you. He sealed God's spirit. He sealed God's people so that
they can't start trusting in anything else. They can't start
trusting themselves. They're sealed. They're preserved.
A false prophet cannot deceive them. Oh, if it were possible,
he would. But it's not possible because
the Holy Spirit has sealed these The Holy Spirit will see to it.
He's going to keep and preserve his people so that they cannot
spoil. And one day they walk straight
in the presence of God because the Holy Spirit has sealed them. And the fourth word is earnest.
Verse 14, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of his glory.
I have an example. of this point that I believe
will help us remember it. I used this illustration when
I was in San Diego a month or so ago, however long ago that
was, and it seemed to go over good, so I'll give it to you
all too. Right now, Maddie Cook is planning a wedding. She's
gone and picked out a venue for her wedding. She's reserved a
place for the ceremony and for a party afterwards. She's ordering
things. She's gone to stores and wherever
you do all this stuff. She's ordered flowers for the
wedding. She's ordered a cake for the wedding. I haven't heard
this, but more than likely, if she has it, she's going to do
this right soon. She's going to go buy a real nice dress.
She's going to try on a bunch of different dresses. She's going
to pick out one. To me, a dress can be shockingly
expensive for something you're just going to wear one time,
but she's going to buy it. She's going to buy this nice dress.
I mean, it's going to be nice. She's picked out a color scheme
for the whole affair. This is something men don't understand.
I mean, the whole affair has got a color scheme. I mean, of
all the colors you can think of in the rainbow, Maddie's picked
out one or two colors. That's a color scheme for this
whole thing. I just bet you she's very carefully picked out. She's
looked at a hundred different kinds of wedding invitations,
colors and fonts and all this stuff, you know, picked out just
what she wants so it looks just the way that she wants it to
look. She and Ethan have even picked
out a house to buy where they're going to start their life together,
where they're going to live together. And Maddie's gone to a lot of
trouble, hasn't she? I mean a lot of trouble. And what I'm sure
is some expense for this thing that she's planning. I got a question. How does she
know that's all going to happen? How does she know she's not wasting
her time? How does she know she's not wasting her money? You know why she's sure? Here's
why she knows. I'm not wasting my time. Ethan bought a ring and put it
on her left hand. And that ring is a promise. I'm
going to marry you. I'm going to stay married to
you forever. See, that ring on her left hand
is a promise. It's just a little ring. I mean,
it just fits on one finger, you know, on your hand. But you know
what that ring says? There's a whole lot more to come.
There's a whole lifetime to come together. That's what that ring
is a promise of. Now why is a believer so sure
all these promises of God are ours? How can you be so sure? Does it seem like pie in the
sky kind of thinking? To say that a sinner is made
righteous in God's sight? Well, I don't see anything but
sin about myself. I mean, how can I really know?
God, when God looks at me, he sees me as righteous. How can
I really know? I mean, Frank, you're sold out
to this thing. You're sold out to this thing
of the gospel. How can you be so sure that you're
spending your life believing this gospel, trusting Christ,
trusting him and him alone, looking to him and him alone. You refuse
to look anywhere else. And you're saying, that when
you die, that you are going to be in glory. We're going to see
your body laid out in a casket. How do you know that's not the
end? It's like when a dog dies, how do you know that's not the
end? You're saying you've got a spirit that's going to leave
this body and go be with the Lord? And that spirit, in whatever
form that it's in, is going to be with God until Christ returns,
and he's going to raise that body, your body that has returned
to the dust, that's just gone. And yet God's going to raise
that body and join it to that perfect soul. And that you're
going to be with the Lord forever. Worshipping him, saying his praises,
being around his throne. And you mean to tell me you're
never going to get tired of it? You're never going to need a
break. How do you? I'd say almost every
person in this room has staked their soul on that. How can you be so sure? The Holy Spirit is the ring.
The Lord's given you the ring, if you will, the earnest. He's
given you the earnest of His Spirit. He's the firstfruits. There's a whole lot more to come.
There's a whole lot more to come. We have the Spirit which keeps
pointing us to Christ, which keeps reminding us of Christ,
which keeps telling us there's a whole lot more to come. There's
an eternity with Christ to come. God's giving you the first fruits.
There's going to be many more fruits. The first fruits means
there's going to be a second and a third and a fourth and
many more to follow. There's a whole lot more coming
in there. It doth not yet appear what we
shall be. Or you just wait till Christ
comes. When he appears, we'll be like him for we'll see him
as he is. How can you possibly believe that so? God's given
me the earnest. He's given me his spirit that
keeps me looking to Christ and waiting for Christ, that keeps
me trusting Christ and Christ alone. And that is the work of
the Holy Spirit. That's the work of the spirit
to point us to Christ. God help us. God give us eyes
to see him, huh? And a heart to believe him. All
right, the Lord bless you.