Sealed with the Promised Holy Spirit

If you're willing and able, would you stand with me for the reading of God's word? Ephesians chapter 1, beginning at verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption through His blood.

The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.

Until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory, the grass withers and the flowers fade. But God's word stands forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Please.

Have you ever sent an important package, maybe a title to your car or some legal documents, and you tracked it? You followed it obsessively. You looked to see where the package was. You waited until it actually said, delivered. And because of the package's importance for you, it was, it gave you a little anxiety until you finally saw that it had safely landed in the hands of the recipient to whom it was addressed.

Can you imagine if our salvation worked like that? That God just said, here you go. I'm sending you on your way. Good luck. And some of you grew up in churches that taught that. That the gospel was essentially about what you must do to clean your life up so that God, the Father, would look at you and see that you're doing such good work and then reward you with salvation.

But indeed, it is impossible, isn't it, to possibly please an infinitely holy and beautiful God. Amen? And so what we as Christians receive is this beautiful thing called grace. He comes to us and He offers us salvation. Not because of what we've done, but because of what He has accomplished for us. And this news just throws Paul riding from a Roman prison into amazing praise.

As he just says, and can't put his pen down, Praise be to you, blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's blessed us in every way. And I wonder if you know that. When you get to the very end of the sentence, I want to speak especially to those of you who are suffering and going through very difficult times because the truth is that you do wonder if God's tracking you.

Your granddaughter is sick. Your husband is ill. Your child has been diagnosed. There's just a kind of spiritual malaise over you, and you can't really figure it out, and you say, God, where are you? Do you know where I am? Are you tracking me? And for some of you who are in really good rhythms, the same is true for you.

Some of you are in great seasons of joy. And perhaps you're not even aware of the fact that God knows exactly where you are at every moment of your life, and He loves you, and He has placed you in these seasons to give Him praise and rejoicing. And how often it is that we just completely forget about His presence in our life.

The last part of this sentence in verses 12 through 14 is this beautiful section where God says to us, I have signed you up. I have written your life down. Day by day. Year by year. Decade by decade. And I have signed your salvation. Not only that, I have sealed it by my Holy Spirit. And I will guarantee that I will get you through.

What I began in you, I, Paul says in Philippians 1. 6, will be faithful to complete it. And so in these verses, I just want us to think about the fact that God has signed, He has sealed, and He has delivered our salvation for His glory. First, in verse 12, we are signed by God's sovereign plan, and if I could put the sentence, uh, the sermon in one sentence, it would be this.

Your salvation has been signed by God's sovereign plan, sealed with the Holy Spirit, and guaranteed for delivery into eternal glory, all for the praise of His name. Isn't that good news? Verse 12. Lower your eyes and look at it in the Bible with me. It says, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory.

The key phrase here is to the praise of His glory. It designates purpose. It looks back at the inheritance that we have received in verse 11. We saw that last week. This Greek word, eklerothemenon. And we see here that to the praise of His glory is marked by this sense of purpose. The ultimate reason for our salvation is not primarily about us, but it's about bringing glory to God.

Because salvation is utterly God centered, not man centered. And the word here for first to hope is in the perfect tense, which means it's past action with continuing results. And Paul, commentators are quite mixed on it. Some like Harold Hohner. Ernest Best would say that Paul here is referring to Paul and those who were in prison with him at the time.

You notice in verse 12, little Bible study here, verse 12 says we, notice what it says in verse 13, it says you. Who is the we and who is the you? Some commentators think that it's Paul and his companions in prison. And the you are the recipients of the letter and Ephesus. Others think that Paul is referring to the Jews who were the first to hope in the Messiah.

Looking down through the lens of redemptive history and longing for the Messiah and the you refers to Gentiles. Listen, commentators, great minds are mixed on what it actually means, but the point here actually doesn't require us to have confidence in which of those we have to choose because the result is the same.

We who were the first to hope in Christ. Could be the Jews who were the first to open Christ, who have faith in Jesus, those Messianic Jews. But so also it applies to you, because you also, you, have the joy of being recipients of this amazing inheritance. And in a world where our hope is fragile, we think of all the fleeting promises of political leaders or financial systems or even of our relational security, and Paul reminds us that your hope is fixed in the heavens.

It's a hope that doesn't depend on you, but it depends on God's unchanging character. Hallelujah. Listen, many of our, many of us, families are trying to build our lives on fragile hopes. Parents, we hope our children will exceed, succeed academically, athletically, socially. Pressure is put on athletes now at younger and younger ages.

Couples hope their marriages will thrive amidst the pressures of work and finances and raising kids. Men often think that their careers will bring them fulfillment or that if they achieve a certain financial status that they will finally have arrived. But what happens when all those hopes fail? Just this week I heard about a man who invested into a company and lost everything that he owned.

What then? What happens when our kids struggle, our marriages hit turbulence, our careers don't pan out the way they should? And Paul says in the midst of those cultural narratives that tell you what success actually looks like, he gives us good news. That our ultimate hope isn't found in performance or circumstances, it is found in God's sovereign plan.

In Christ, your life is not a series of random events or outcomes that are dependent merely on your effort. It is part of a divine story signed by God, whose purpose for you is to glorify and enjoy Him. So families, would you join me in re centering your priorities? I happen to be the preacher, but I also need the sermon.

Just this week, uh, Lauren said to me, Hey, you know how you tell people not to let other people's anxiety dominate you?

I said, I get it. I receive that. Thanks, babe. Think about a legal document. Think about your will, for example. When it's signed, it becomes official. The signature confirms the authenticity and the purpose. Without the signature, it's just a piece of paper. And in the same way God has signed your salvation by a sovereign plan, it is authentic, it is purposeful, and it cannot be revoked.

He's got you. And 99 percent of the things you worry about are silly. In the context of his sovereign plan, if I could say it so boldly. Sports psychologists have taught athletes for many, many years how to imagine the game. Jalen Hurts, Pat Lee's mom and dad. That's not to say that our children shouldn't have decorum and manners, and of course they should.

But many of you know what I mean because you had parents that just reminded you that you were not worth it. And you're still dealing with it, I know, because you come and we talk about it. What would it be like to imagine leading your family in a new way, men? Reminding them of the gospel. What would it be like for your children to know the story of redemptive history?

What would it be like when we get the library set up out here? It's going to be exclusively for children at first. What would it be like for you to use those resources that we have out in that book nook? For you to take and to read the gospel over your kids. Imagine it, because you've been sealed with God's salvation.

And so this morning, ask yourself, What is my hope in? Am I placing my ultimate hope in the things that can fail, or am I resting in God's unchanging plans? Teach your children about God's sovereignty. Because God's sovereign plan is like a signature over his life. He assigned it. Designed it, and He has given it to you to enjoy.

Secondly, not just has He signed us by a sovereign plan, but He has sealed us by the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 13. Notice the shift from the first person plural, we, to now the second person plural, you. In Him, you, there it is, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

The word sealed in Greek is this funny Greek word. Sphragizzo. Can you say, Sphragizzo? Sphragizzo. I know, good luck. It's a funny Greek word, and it means to seal. It means to be secured. A seal is an authentic mark that was placed upon a letter that was placed usually by the Roman emperor, empire, uh, emperor.

You can think about, um, uh, Jesus when He was buried in the tomb. What did they do in Matthew 27? It says they sealed, same word, they sealed His tomb so that it wouldn't be tampered with, and people would know that that tomb was indeed closed. To be sealed by something means to have the mark of authentication.

It means to be delivered from the hand of the sender, and it has not been tampered with. Paul tells us that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit when we believe in Christ, and the Holy Spirit is our guarantee that we belong to Him. And this phrase, we have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, is the gift of the New Covenant, that God said that Jesus says in John 14, 16 and John 14, 26, when I leave you, I will leave you another paraclete.

I will leave you another comforter, the promised Holy Spirit, who, unlike in the Old Testament, doesn't just come temporarily, but will permanently indwelt you, as He did at Pentecost. And isn't it amazing to know that God has, what would He give us to remind us that we are His? The third person of the Holy Trinity indwells you and seals you.

What more would you want? He gives you His very self to indwell you, and to remind you that you have His promised Holy Spirit. And so when you heard the word of truth, and you believed in Him, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. Salvation is initiated by God. The Spirit is given to us to seal us, to remind us that we are His.

And so, therefore, amidst all the cultural anxieties that we have, we can say amidst all the social media stuff that just dominates our life, makes us envious of others, reminds us that we haven't measured up, we can say we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, and we are His. Do you know that? In today's world, students and singles often Navigate questions of identity and belonging and security.

Who am I? What should I do? Do I belong? And am I enough? What if people really knew me? What if we don't measure up and God says, Shh, I have sealed you with my promise to Holy Spirit and I sing over you with my love. Can you rest in that?

On a passport, when you travel internationally, customs officers will Put a seal on your passport, saying that you have permission to go into that country. But unlike on a passport, where those stamps fade, God's seal upon you never fades. Children, it's like the stuffed animal that many of you have. It's torn and tattered, ears are falling off, noses are chewed on, perhaps by family pets.

But you know what? That stuffed animal is yours. And your parents may look at it and see it as hardly recognizable, but you know it. You know the smell. You know the feel. It is yours. You love it. And you care for it. And in the same way, the Lord looks at you and He says the same thing. Listen, though you're bruised, I see you.

Though you've been through difficult times, I know you and I have sealed you and you are mine. You may look to the world like something that's not worth keeping, but oh, I've placed my love upon you. And I've got you. You're mine. So we are signed by His sovereign plan, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

And thirdly, this text teaches us that we are guaranteed for glory. Look at verse 14. Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory? The word guarantee is the Greek word Erebon, which means just what it says. A certain guarantee. For those of you who have ever bought a house before, you put a down payment.

It's another way that some translators translate that word in Greek. It's a down payment. I have placed a down payment on this home and I will certainly follow up. And even before you receive the home, once the down payment is made, you already begin to imagine what is it going to be like? How are we going to decorate this place?

You're imagining life in it in the same way God calls you, you've been guaranteed. So begin to imagine life, what it's going to be like in the new heavens and new earth. We get to run through the woods and splash in the lakes to degrees of power and glory that we can't even imagine without sin in His presence altogether.

And to become that kind of counter cultural community the best we can, broken by sin, full of disappointment and grief and pain and trial, but yet with hope. Amen? Because we are guaranteed to be delivered. And so those of you who are young in your careers know that amidst all the uncertainty of what's next and where the promotion is coming, you are guaranteed to get there.

He is going to get you there, and not necessarily to the narrative that you've written for yourself, but if you feel like you're not in control. Reread and let verses 12 through 14 sink into your bones. That you are signed by His sovereign hand. That you are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. And that He has guaranteed you for delivery.

Imagine that package, that letter that we talked about at the very beginning. The one you sent with so much care, you tracked every step. What a relief it is when you see the notification on your phone where it says delivered. And that is the confidence and the hope that we have. That He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

God has taken every step to ensure that your salvation is not just started but completed. And a picture of that is sending His Son to die on the cross for you. And to rise again on the third day. And He's given you the guarantee of the promised Holy Spirit to indwell you. May we feast upon this truth this week.

May we take verses 12 through 14 and would we own them as though Paul were writing them to us. Because your salvation has been signed by God's sovereign plan. It has been sealed with the Holy Spirit. And we are guaranteed for delivery into eternal glory, all for the praise of His name.

Sermon transcript is computer generated.