Before you get too settled, I'd like to ask those who are dads or granddads here this morning to stand up. Would you do that, please? Would you like to join me in congratulating them? Please don't be seated yet because we're going to have word of prayer for you. Let's bow together. Father, we are glad that you, as our Heavenly Father, give us an example to follow. leading, loving, nurturing our families. For the privilege that you've given to us to have a loving spouse and
children, grandchildren in some cases. How glad we are. And we stand before you today in humility. And we cry unto you for the wisdom, the grace, the understanding and compassion. But we need to be men of God, the fathers and grandfathers that you've designed for us to be in our family. And so with gratitude and yet with supplication, we give ourselves afresh to you on this Father's Day. In Jesus' name, amen. Be seated, please.
have you open your Bibles with me, please, to the book of Ephesians, where we'll be looking in chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. This epistle begins with a doxology to God, expressing praise for all that he has done on our behalf. The Apostle Paul recounts the works of God in saving us. He tells us in the sentence which begins in verse 3 that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ and there's nothing that we
lack in Christ. He tells us that God has chosen us even before the foundation of the world to
be his own in Christ. He further explains that God has predestined us to be full -grown children in his family with all the rights and privileges that go with that adulthood he tells us that god has redeemed us by the precious blood of the lord jesus christ he tells us that god has made known to us the mystery of his will that he might sum up all things in christ with an administration that is suitable for the fullness
of the times, in other words, the kingdom. And then explains to us that God has given us an inheritance in Christ. Now this sentence concludes in verses 13 and 14, and I say it's one sentence because that is the way it is in the original language as it's written in the book of Ephesians. This sentence concludes with the seventh work of God on our behalf. It is closely linked to the previous one because you will see again the word inheritance used. I want you to notice that
he says here, you also. Your salvation. You were sealed. If you've read closely, you'll remember that up to this point, he's used a plural personal pronoun in the first person. He's used we. Now he uses second person, you. It seems that Paul is here planting a seed that later he's going to blossom fully. He's going to develop it as a theme in chapter 2 as he talks about the Gentiles and the Jews. In verse 11, he talks about we who were the first to hope in Christ. He has
there in mind the early converts. who were primarily Jewish by nature, by birth. Now he speaks to you, and he seems to have in mind the later converts in his ministry, who were primarily Gentiles. In chapter 2, you'll see him repeat this same kind of thought. He says in verse 11, you, the Gentiles in the flesh. In verse 12, you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from
the commonwealth of Israel. And then again in verse 13, he says, you who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. And so it seems that the you that he mentions in verse 13 seems to focus especially on the Gentiles. But the point is this, that whether you're part of the we or the you, together we are in Christ. And in Christ we are sealed. Notice
how he puts it. In him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory. He tells us that God has sealed us into Jesus Christ. I want you to think with me first today about the action that is involved in the sealing. What does it mean that
God has sealed us in him? The word seal was a common word with a wide variety of uses in the New Testament days. For example, the word seal had the meaning sometimes of securing or protecting something. It's used that way in Matthew 27, 66. where it says they sealed the stone at the tomb of Christ. In other words, they put the seal of Rome upon it to protect the content so that no one would break into it and steal the body of Christ. Of course, that didn't stop the
resurrection, did it? But the idea was to protect or to secure the contents of that tomb. It's used again in Revelation 20, verse 3. For the great angel takes Satan the dragon, binds him, and casts him into the abyss. We read about this last week, maybe two weeks ago. And having put him into the abyss, he then closes it up and seals it for the duration of a thousand years. The idea being that the abyss is then secure, that the contents of the abyss, Satan, have been
sealed into there. secured there so that Satan cannot escape until his appointed time. That's one meaning of the word seal. It was also used in that day to speak of the ratification of a document or to testify of the finality of a transaction. The Apostle Paul uses it this way in Romans 15 .28 when he speaks about the fruit that he was delivering to Jerusalem. as needing his seal.
That fruit was a monetary offering collected among the Gentile churches for the Jewish believers in Jerusalem who were being persecuted and were therefore poor. Paul says he is delivering this fruit of money as a gift from the Gentiles to the Jews, and he wanted to finalize that. He wanted to put his seal on it before going on to other plans and desired travels. And so it was used to testify the finality of the transaction,
to conclude a deal. Paul is saying, I want to get to Jerusalem and finish what I am trying to get accomplished. The word seal is used thirdly to authenticate as true, genuine, or approved. In John 3, 33, John the Baptist says, He who has received his witness, has set his seal to this, that God is true. John says, I put my seal to this. This is my testimony. I authenticate this as genuine. What I have seen and heard,
God is true. It is used by the Lord Jesus in John 6, 27, when he says, On him, the Son, The Father, even God, has set his seal. The Father approved the Son, put his seal on him, authenticated him as genuinely the Son of God. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The same thought is found again in the book of Esther in the Old Testament in the third chapter of the twelfth verse. For the signet ring of Ahasuerus was used to seal the scrolls that had been written ordering
the death of the Jews in Persia. The wax was warm, moldable. His ring was put into it, sealing that document, indicating that it was authentically from Ahasuerus. And finally, the word seal was used in the New Testament days to signify ownership. In Revelation 7, verses 2 through 5, it is used several times in that sense. In that context, 144 ,000 Jews, 12 ,000 from each of the 12 tribes, are sealed as the servants of God. They are sealed to indicate that they are genuinely God. They
belong to him. They are his servants for ministry during the days of the tribulation. So you say, well, if it can be used in that wide variety of ways, which way is it used in Ephesians chapter 1? Is it 1, 2, 3, or 4? Well, the answer is 5. You know, all of the above. In the first place, it means that God has secured us in Jesus Christ. We are protected in Christ under the day of our redemption. Secondly, it means that God has finalized the transaction of our salvation. It's complete.
Christ's work is finished. Our salvation in Christ is done. There's nothing more that needs to be added. Thirdly, it means that God has authenticated us as his genuine children. And finally, when it says that we have been sealed, it means that God has marked us for his ownership. There is a text in the Bible that we can turn to, and almost without turning a page in your Bible, depending on the Bible you have, I can prove that all four of these meanings can be wrapped
up in the word sealed. Now the word itself isn't used, but all four of the thoughts that can be found in the word sealed are used in that context. The book is 1 Peter. I invite you to turn there with me to the first chapter. We have said that God... has sealed us and that he has secured us in Christ. We are protected. Notice in chapter 1 and verse 5, he says, who, that's referring to those who are born again, who are protected by the power of God. That means we are watched
over. It's in the present tense. We are continually being guarded, continually being watched over and protected by the power of God. through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. So you see, here's the meaning of our being secured. Just like the tomb of Christ was secured with a seal, we have been sealed. We are protected. We are secured in him, in Christ. Then look down at verse 18. We have said that God has finalized
the transaction. Well, it says, knowing that you were not redeemed, with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. We were not redeemed with certain things, but we were redeemed with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That word redeemed means that we have been purchased.
There has been a transaction. And the tense of it means that it is completed once and for all. God is never again going to redeem us. He doesn't have to. The price has been paid. We never need to go through the process of being redeemed again because we have been redeemed once and for all by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. A completed transaction. We are sealed. In this sense, that the transaction is done, it's over, once and
forever. Look in verse 14. We have said that we are sealed in the sense that God authenticates us as genuine. Here he says, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lust. He calls us children. He says in verse 23. You have been born again, not of a seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God. Chapter 2, verse 2, like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word. And so you see, God calls us his children
here, not something less. We are genuinely, truly his children. God approves us. He calls us his children, his born ones. We have been brought into his family. That seal of authenticity is true. And then finally, we have said that we are secured in the sense that God owns us. Look with me in chapter 2 and the 9th verse. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people for God's own possession. that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. And so you see, we have been sealed in this sense that we are God. In a peculiar and special way, we belong to him. That's why I say when in Ephesians 1, It says we have been sealed in Christ. It includes all
of these thoughts. That sealing into Jesus Christ is our position in him and it's unchangeable. Now having looked at the action that's involved in the sealing and what that means, let's think for a moment of the agent. Because you will notice if you look at the verb that it's passive. We did not do the sealing. We did not do something here in order to be sealed. We were acted upon. The subject of the sentence is acted upon when a verb is passive. Now who was it that acted
upon us? Well, the answer is given likewise in the context. It is the Holy Spirit of promise. The Holy Spirit is the one. He is the agent who has sealed us into Christ. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the blessed Godhead. He is distinct from the Father and from the Son, and yet he is equal to them and of one essence with them. He is God. Here he is given the specific title, the Holy Spirit of promise. Why is he called that? It is because the Holy Spirit himself
is a promise. Turn with me to the Gospel of Luke, where we see the words of the Lord Jesus in the 24th chapter, shortly before he ascended back to heaven. He speaks to his disciples, and he says in the 49th verse, And behold, I am sending forth the promise of my Father upon you. He doesn't identify the promise as Luke records it here. But turn with me to Luke's continued account, the book of Acts, and the first chapter. And notice that he states it again a little more
fully this time. Acts 1, verse 4. And gathering them together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised. which he said, you have heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And so Jesus says that this promise
is the Holy Spirit. And so in chapter 2 of the book of Acts, in the 33rd verse, it says, Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God, Peter's preaching here, and having received from the Father, The promise of the Holy Spirit, he, Jesus, has poured forth this, which you both see and hear. And so the Lord Jesus said, When I go back to heaven, I will receive from the Father the Holy Spirit, and I will pour him out
upon you. On the day of Pentecost, from the Father and the Son, the Spirit of promise came forth. And from that day until this day, he indwells. the believer in Jesus Christ, every single one of us. He is the fulfillment of what Jesus called the promise of the Father. And so he's called here the spirit of promise. I think there's also a more personal meaning to us. It is that the Holy Spirit brings to us the promises of the Lord Jesus Christ and fulfills them in our lives.
You see, the Holy Spirit is the administrator of the salvation planned by the Father and provided by the Son. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin, who calls us to the Lord Jesus Christ, who regenerates us. It is the Holy Spirit who administrates the salvation that the Father thought and the Son provided. As someone has put it, the Father sought it, the Son bought it, the Spirit wrought it. Faith wrought it. The devil fought it. The Bible fought it, but I got it.
There it is. It is the Spirit who wrought it, who worked it out in our lives. It is the Holy Spirit who administrates the promise of God. And thus he is called here the pledge, going back to Ephesians 1, the pledge of our inheritance. This word pledge is a wonderful word. It literally means a down payment, a deposit given to secure, a guarantee of the completion of a transaction that has begun. If you've ever bought a house,
you know what earnest money is. When you buy something, very often you have to put down something of value to guarantee that you're going to follow through with that purchase. Something of value has to change hands. Now God has said that he has purchased us through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now to guarantee that he is going to complete that purchase, i .e. the rapture, Take us to heaven. To guarantee that, he has given us a down payment. The pledge of our inheritance
is the Holy Spirit. He dwells within us to guarantee that God is going to fulfill in us, to us, what he has promised to do. Our inheritance, as we saw last week, is the glory. that we will share with Jesus Christ. How do I know that I'm going to be in heaven? How do I know I'm going to reign with Christ? How do I know that I'm really going to inherit eternal life? Because the Holy Spirit has been given to you as a pledge, a down payment.
In Ephesians 4 .30 it says, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. The day of redemption being defined even in our text today as when the Lord will come back and take home his position. And body, soul, and spirit will be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a
great day that's going to be. Now, as a guarantee of that day, as a promise of that day, the Holy Spirit has sealed us and become a down payment, guaranteeing that God is going to fulfill what he's begun. There are those who say, well, we can grieve away the Spirit. Look, in the very context in the Bible, I'm the only one where it mentions grieving the Holy Spirit. It says nothing about grieving him away. But don't say we should not grieve him because he as a person
has holy sensitivities. We grieve him by our sins. So he says, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Don't sin. Don't live in sin. But he goes on to say, whereby you are sealed. of the day of redemption. This word can also mean, and was used in that day, of an engagement ring. Isn't it fun to watch a gal who's just got an engagement ring? She begins shaking hands with the left hand. Have you ever noticed that? The right hand suddenly becomes paralyzed. It's the left hand
that goes out. And she'll sit here in church under all these lights and just watch the sparkles and the diamond move it around like that. That engagement ring is pretty special because that is a promise that there is a young man who is going to marry her. It is his guarantee that his proposal will be carried out in a marriage ceremony one day. Isn't it wonderful to think
of the Holy Spirit as our engagement ring? guaranteeing that one day we are going to be married to Jesus Christ because we are the church, his bride, the Holy Spirit seals us into Jesus Christ, the one who is our engagement ring, our down payment. In 2 Corinthians 1, verses 21 and 22, the apostle repeats this. He says, he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us as God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. Same word. So the Holy Spirit
is the agent. Now think with me, if you will, of the application of it. When was it that the Holy Spirit did this? When was it that he applied the seal securing us to Jesus Christ? When did it occur? I want you to notice first the completed action in the verb. It's not a present tense. He's not continually sealing us. It's not in the future tense. He will seal us. It's in a
completed sense. And by the way, all of the other key verbs that we've looked at in this sentence, in verses 3 through 14, have been in the same aorist tense. It's an action that is done already, once and for all. But the question is, when did this once and for all sealing take place? Well, look in the context of our verse again. He tells us. He describes it, first of all, as after that time when we listened to the message of truth. In other words, the sealing did not occur if
you were sprinkled as an infant. It didn't occur then. It didn't occur at some point when you may have been confirmed. He says it was after you heard the message of truth. So that narrows it down somewhat, doesn't it? Because you didn't always know the message of truth. There was some point in your life as a child or a teenager or maybe an adult when for the first time you heard the gospel. The sealing took place not before
you heard, sometime after that. He goes on to describe it as the gospel of your salvation. And then he says, having also believed, you were sealed. And so now he tells us specifically when it was that we were sealed. It was at the moment that we believed. The two verbs are in the very same tense. Now there are some translations which frankly confuse this, and the King James is one of them. It says, after that you believed, you
were sealed. And it implies that at some time after you believed, maybe a week later or a year later, who knows, but it was afterward that you were sealed. And that is not what the Apostle Paul wrote. The NASB puts it more accurately when it says, having believed, you were sealed. The point is that at the very moment that you believed, you were sealed. The time is contemporaneous. It occurred at a simultaneous point in your life. At the moment you believed, at that same moment,
you were sealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. That means there is no subsequent deeper work of the Holy Spirit that a believer must pray for or speak for. The Bible never teaches a second blessing that we are to look out for. I know that there are some people who say, but in the book of Acts, listen, when it comes to the book of Acts, you have to remember that it's a book of transition.
Before you select a verse out of the book of Acts upon which to base a doctrine, you better make sure that you have some evidence from the epistles of the New Testament that what is said there in the book of Acts is for today. Because you see, in the book of Acts there's a transition. There are things that happen differently in the book of Acts until the norm is established for the age in which we live. And the norm for this age is... Having believed, you were also sealed
with the Holy Spirit. It occurred at the same moment when the Holy Spirit indwelt you. You have to keep in mind, folks, that the Bible is progressive revelation. In the Old Testament, New Testament, and the like, truth is progressively revealed to us. We can't go to one isolated place and base a doctrine on it. We must allow the whole of Scripture. to interpret for us individual passages. The Holy Spirit has come into us the moment that we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ
and brings to us the feeling into Christ. Now, I'm glad that God included this in this paragraph because it brings to our heart a wonderful note of assurance that we may have regarding our salvation. You see, God wants us to have complete assurance that we are saved. He who has the Son has the life. He who has not the Son of God has not life. These things I have written unto you, says John, who believe in the name of the Son of God, that
you may know that you have eternal life. God wants us to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are saved. And we can know that. I know from my own personal experience that it's very difficult not to have the assurance of salvation. But after I had trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, I went through several years of wondering whether I was really saved. If someone were to ask me, when did you pray to receive Christ, I'd have
to honestly say, oh, many times. Because, you see, after I first trusted Christ, I was not taught the Bible. And so I got involved in sin as a child, and I felt guilty about that, but I didn't know what to do with it. And consequently, I began to doubt my salvation. And so an evangelist would come through, or I'd hear a message from the Bible from our pastor, and I would ask Jesus
to come into my heart and save me again. and things were okay for a while, and then after a while sin would accumulate, and I had no joy in my salvation, I wanted if I was saved, I would ask Jesus to come into my heart again. And some of you are smiling because you've been through that. That's a terrible way to live. Because you don't know from one month to the next if
you're really going to heaven. It is a wonderful day, my friends, when you finally come to that point of realizing That that first time when you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, that at that moment the Holy Spirit came into you and you were sealed into Jesus Christ. So that there's no need any longer for doubt about it. I hope today you had that assurance. I certainly would not want to give you assurance about your salvation
if you're not saved. If there's doubt there because you've never trusted the Savior, then you need to deal with that today by trusting in him. But I want to speak to you who have trusted Christ to let you know that you can rest upon his finished work. It's like Sandy Crosby says in her hymn, Blessed Assurance. It's like a foretaste of glory divine when you can finally come to that point inside in your heart of just letting go and relaxing. and almost sitting down, as it were, and resting
upon the finished work of Christ. It's a blessed day when you realize you can have assurance regarding your salvation because you're secure in the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, how can I be sure whether I've been saved or not and had this assurance? Well, notice what he says here. He tells them to listen to the message of truth. What have you been listening to? There are many messages of deceit and lies available today. Have you been listening to the message of truth? To what
is that? Well, he tells us. He calls it the gospel of your salvation. The message of truth is the good news of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection for you. It's the good news that he lives today to save all who will come to him. It's the move that he will deliver us from our sins. Forgive us of it. Take us to heaven. Give us eternal life. Because it's the gospel of your salvation. It becomes your salvation when you personally trust in this Savior. And you believe this message
about him, the message of truth. Is this the message you believe? Is this the gospel that you're trusting in today? If it is, then we may go on and say regarding you, having believed, you were sealed. You were sealed in Christ. That's blessing, assurance. Jesus is yours if you believe. To conclude this, A wonderful paragraph, as it's written in our English version, with a phrase that simply says, to the praise of his glory.
You may notice that that's the third time he's used that phrase, to the praise of his glory. Do you realize that that's why God has saved you, beloved? God has not saved you to keep your miserable soul out of hell. Now bless the Lord, your soul which was in misery. God had compassion on you, and he is saving you from hell. But the real heart of salvation, the real meat of it is this, that God did all of these things that we've studied to the praise of his glory, to
glorify himself. Are you satisfied with that? Are you satisfied with the abuse of the praise of his glory? There are some people who want to live for their own glory. A person who does that competes with God. If you are a Christian, God has purchased you for his glory. Don't live for your own. Because if you compete with God, I want to guarantee you one thing. You'll lose. There's no way you're going to win. It is a wonderful thing when we finally realize that the reason
God has saved us is to glorify himself. And that the highest purpose we can have in life is simply to cooperate with God's purpose and to live for it. To live for his glory. Is that the way you're living today? To the praise of his glory? Oh, child of God, don't live for something less than that. Don't pour out the days of your life for yourself because you see your own glory saved. It's saved. And the things that you may be able to stimulate, they're already passing away, the
Bible says. So live for the praise of his glory who has saved you and purchased you and sealed you. Let's bow together. Astrid Nelson has written a prayer that I'd like to read, and perhaps you'd allow these words to flow through your mind as your own commitment to Jesus Christ. O may my life be to thy praise, O Father. In all I do, may thou be magnified. Thou choosest me before the world's foundation, thine own to be, that
thou be glorified. O may my life be to thy praise, O Savior, thy finished work in all its glory see, and precious thought, that thou entrustest to me this task to praise and glorify thee. O may my life be to thy praise, O Spirit, this temple filled, empowered, and yielded be, that in thy strength my life may glorify thee in life or death, whatever thou hast for me. Lord, I pray that you will help us, who are your children, to back away from life for just a moment and
look at it. And see it as a gift and a privilege that it is. Forgive us for getting so involved in the day -by -day routines, demands, and instances of life that we forget the big picture while we're here. It is to the praise of your glory. And Father, may that indeed be our motivation. as well as our goal through this week, that we might glorify you. Before I finish praying with our heads down, I wonder if there's one here who would say, Pastor Carly, there's a point
in the message today that's gotten to me. I don't know what that point may be. It may be that you're doubting your salvation. You're not sure you're saved. Or it may be that you're struggling with sin. You see, there's nothing that will rob a... a Christian of the assurance of his salvation quicker than sin that's ongoing in the life. If you're a Christian living for yourself, living in sin, I'll guarantee you, you do not have assurance
of your salvation this morning. It doesn't mean you aren't secure in Christ if you don't have the confidence and the joy that God wants you to have. By this lifted hand will you say, Pastor Paul, God has spoken to me. I want you to pray for me in closing. Just lift it up and pray with me. Yes, God bless you. There's been a point of stuff in my heart. I'd like to pray for you. Anyone else? Yes, thank you. Just before we pray.
Lord, thank you for speaking to our hearts and for bringing to us a reminder this morning of your gracious work on our behalf. Especially for these who are at a point of struggle in their lives, who are facing some internal conviction or conflict, you know, meet their needs today. And may we be able to depart from here with a kind of confidence and assurance regarding their salvation. that you've provided for them to know. In Jesus' name.