Sealed

We did pray, but let me just ask the Lord to bless our time and His word this morning. We'll be in Ephesians 1, so you can get there if you're our guest. My name is Brian. I'm the lead pastor here, and I try not to treat my staff that bad all the time. Only Brad.

Yeah. Let's have a prayer. Lord, you're kind to us and gracious to us. We do love you. We thank you that we have the joy and privilege of gathering to open your word, to peek inside, to look, to see what it is that you might have for us.

And so we want to invite you You're present among us. And by invitation, we want to just say that we're available. that we're open. That Oh. We have a posture of receptivity.

We're not presumptuous of things you might want to point out in our lives or things you might want to point us to. We want to, um Just render ourselves submissive to you. Lord, we're here in that way for you. Not because you need us, but because we get the opportunity to Glorify your name. We get the opportunity and the privilege to turn our hearts to you and to further.

Be filled and fueled to spread your fame throughout this valley. We long for you to Um be put on display in our lives. We long for people to see A people who are ransomed from the grave, whose character. has been captivated by you. And so, Lord, to that end, we bring the burdens that we have in our lives that are part of our journeys, that are intrinsic to us.

We come before you, Lord, with them. And we we give as it were. those parts of us. Lord um to you and we we just ask you to hold them. We ask you to minister to them.

If they're physical, we pray for healing and strength. We pray for a kind of perseverance, Lord, that we need. If they are emotional, Lord, mental, psychological, spiritual things weighing on the inner man and the inner woman. We would ask you to be one who liberates and frees. The relational strains.

There are places that only you can heal. There's there's work that only you can do. And so, Lord, we're inviting you to do those things. And we ask that you'll just guide us this morning. Um Teach us, we pray, in Jesus' name.

Amen. All right, we are in Ephesians 1. We're finishing up a section this morning, so if you're just jumping into this this morning, I would encourage you to maybe give the previous messages in Ephesians 1 a bit of a listen so that you get caught up to sort of where we are in that sense. But we're going to be in verses 13 and 14 this morning. And we're thinking about this idea.

Call it sealed. Sealed.

So, we're actually going to zero in on one very narrow, specific doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It's true that the Holy Spirit does a number of things in our lives. The Holy Spirit indwells believers. The Holy Spirit empowers us for life and service. The Holy Spirit baptizes us, which isn't a second blessing, but is the identification according to texts like 1 Corinthians 12.

It's our identification with the body of Christ. We're baptized in that way in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit fills or controls us. And in some ways, that's not so much that you're getting more of the Spirit per se, but rather the Spirit is laying hold of more of you, in a sense, and you're yielding more of yourself to His control. This morning, we're going to focus on this idea of what it means that the Holy Spirit has sealed us.

It's a doctrine that comes not solely from this text, but probably most significantly in the New Testament. Testament from this text. I racked my brain all week. I woke up this morning. And I laid in bed just trying to go, like, I have no real opening illustration at all.

I got nothing. And I thought and thought and thought. And I realized the fact that I have no opening illustration is its illustration. And what I mean by that is this. I can't think of a human relationship that has an analogy to this.

The closest thing I can get to is marriage in some sort of way, but here's the problem: you married. I married, my wife married, your spouse married, a sinful person. who may be faithful through their whole life. And you may have a great marriage. I have, by the grace of God, a great marriage.

It wasn't always that way in the early days, especially, mostly due to me. But it wasn't always that way. But I have a great marriage. Right now. And yet, I still sin.

I still offend. I still marginalize. I still do dumb stuff. I still have to say I'm sorry. I I still have moments where passion Was up here and it's down here and it's in the middle and all those kinds.

And that's just the nature of even the best. of marriages. You may have had unbelievable parents. You may be an unbelievable. Parent.

You may be a vision of the character of God to your child, but you'll fail them. You'll be passive-aggressive at some point in your life. This day probably by the time it's done. Yeah. You may be angry at some point.

You may get a little sideways. You may work for a great company, and you have a relationship with them, but I think you know well enough that when the profits don't quite match, they really are not there for the deep, abiding relationship they have with you at the moment.

Okay, they'll say goodbye to you fairly easily and fairly quickly. You may have great friends. And yet Fickle hearts often show up, and offended hearts show up in friendship.

So I was thinking: what's an analogy for the kind of thing? Where something is given to you, and it is so secure. It is so anchored. And it is that because the character of the one giving it... is completely pristine, undefiled, Knows nothing of unrighteousness ever and can never fail.

And there's no illustration for it. There's none.

So when we come to this doctrine, we come up against a ceiling a little bit. And by ceiling, I don't mean ceiling, I mean see. With a word the letter C we bump up against the top of something And that thing is our capacity to understand in the felt nature of our human experience what it is to have a relationship that doesn't just not dissolve. Your marriage may not dissolve. You're always going to be the father or mother to your kids, but one that in the process of the relationship maintains such a sustenance.

that it never wavers one iota in the felt dynamic that is available to you.

So there is no illustration for this, and that's the illustration.

So, what we need to do is be prepared to really capstone the benefits that Paul has been talking about in Ephesians 1:4 through 14 with this final benefit that is the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit, and we need to receive it as what it is, which is, in a sense, a wraparound kind of benefit that says everything we've talked about. Paul's saying. From verse 4 through verse 12, is all wrapped up in this final one. It's secured for you. Yes, you've been chosen, verse 4.

Yes, you've been adopted, verse 5 and 6. Yes, you've been redeemed, verse 7 through 10. Yes, God has purposed something that effectually is walking out in your life in the macrocosm and in the microcosm, wedding your essay to his larger anthology in the story, in the narrative. And it all comes together because. God Gives you his spirit that walks alongside you, moves in you, bearing witness to an unchangeable reality that is not dependent upon you.

It is not dependent upon me.

So if this message is anything, the message is the celebration that in the midst of my inability to maintain constant fidelity to God, which I ought to be able to do, but I can't. He remains faithful still.

So it's an absolute celebration in that way.

Now, You have this movement, I don't know if you've seen it in the text, but in 4 through 14, there's sort of a move in verse 4 through 6. There's an emphasis upon the Father and how the Father having chosen and the Father has adopted. And then you move in verse 7 through 12 with a focus upon the Son and about his redeeming work and how the purpose in Christ has been worked out for you. And then in verse 13 and 14 here, we focus on the work of the Spirit. What Paul's done is he's developed this Trinitarian Father.

Son, Spirit perspective throughout the move of this text as a way of showing us that when one member of the Trinity is invested in this process of giving you spiritual blessings, in a sense entailed within that, are each of the other two members of the Trinity that are at movement in this. It's all synergistic in that way where God is at work. in your redemption fully and freely. With all that said, we're going to look at five kind of angles, I'm calling them, but sort of different ways that we're going to look at this idea of sealing so we can gain a full understanding of it, or at least an understanding from this text. We'll go to some other texts as well.

But let's look, and we're going to be in verse 4. 13. I'm going to start in verse 11 just to give us a little context. In Him, that is in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance. And we talked about, and this is actually important for this message as well, because the same language will show up at the end of our text.

That language we mentioned last week. Obtain an inheritance either means that we receive something, From God, namely a future inheritance that we're beginning to access now, but is ultimately culminated in the future, or that we actually are His inheritance. And we talked about how in the Greek grammar either could be the case, and theologically, both are the case because I am His and He is mine.

So either we've obtained an inheritance or we are in inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, His deliberate decision-making, working all things according to an ultimate will that He has, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His body. glory, and then we come upon our Texas morning. And we have the phrase repeated in him in him And we've seen it all throughout, right? You just let your eyes go from about verse 4, really even three, blessed us in Christ, chose us in Him. You work your way all the way down through this text, in the beloved in verse 6.

We keep working our way down in Christ, verse 9. We saw in verse 11, in Him. We see in verse 9 again, in Christ. Like you get this repeated phrase, in Christ, in Him. It's in Him, sourced in Him.

So we've mentioned it almost every time. We need to mention it again. We have nothing without Jesus. What Paul is trying to do in this text is to exhaust us if we're reading it slowly or if you're having umpteen messages on it in a church. He's trying to exhaust us with the idea and repeat it to us again and again and again.

It's like a, I don't know if you've seen these Medicare commercials lately. You've seen them? I was watching TV last night. You seen this? I watched TV last night, and they said, it's like the time where you got to check with your provider and make sure you're dialed up.

And I thought, are they just repeating this 5,000 times because they're targeting old people? Like, what is going on here? I think I know that number. I feel like I need to go to a website and check my status. After hearing it, over and over and over and over and over again.

Paul's writing to a bunch of spiritual Medicare patients. All right? You all listening out there? You gotta go, go, go, go, go. Back again, again, again, again.

And the idea is: okay, we get it, we get it. But the problem is, existentially, we don't, and that's why. We have our identity. destabilized on a regular basis.

So what we have to do is sort of get in this text and go, what does it mean for us to resolve to live within the context of I only have something because it's in him. It's in Christ, in him, the context of all blessing. Also, when you heard the word of truth. The gospel of your salvation. and believed in him.

What happened?

Well, you were sealed. with the promised Holy Spirit.

So what I want to do for a sec is just think about the timing. of this ceiling. You see He says in him When you heard the word of truth, and then you have a comma, the gospel of your salvation. That's two ways. They're sort of in a relationship of what's called apposition.

They're positioned next to each other and in relationship to each other, appealing to the same thing.

So to speak about hearing the word of truth and a reference to the gospel of your salvation are two different ways of referring to the same thing. Why? Because the gospel, the Uangelion, the good news of your deliverance, your salvation from sin, is what is the word that bears witness to ultimate reality. That is to say, that when you've come to Christ, you are realigned. Your position is reborn to be rightly related now to ultimate reality.

You're now in a frame where you can begin to receive from God that which He's attempting to give you. You can orient your life.

So, the idea here is that when you're in Christ, you're actually at your most real and your most authentic. With what God made you to be and who He made you to be. You're responding to the word of truth.

Now, The emphasis in this entire passage From verse 3 down to verse 14, and we've talked a lot about it, has been upon the sovereign work of God. He is the one. Choosing. He is the one adopting. He is the one redeeming in Christ.

He's the one purposing, working things out to the counsel of his will. Even here, you'll see he is the one who is sealing. But what I want you to notice is he says, when you heard the word of truth, The gospel of your salvation, what is it that you did? You believed. You believed.

So this idea that somehow You are passive. You're disengaged. as a recipient is not true. You're wildly engaged as a recipient. The reason you're engaged as a recipient Is because he is at work in you.

You're not engaged because you're smarter. brighter more enlightened Have arrived at a higher spiritual Gnostic state. You ate the right spiritual Snickers bar. You are engaged because God has moved in you. He's turned the knobs in your life.

So, when we speak of the sovereignty of God, so much of the sovereign care of God is a hidden reality.

So much of my daily life is happening, and I have no idea. I have no idea. I hit the brakes in my car to stop as a car is stopping in front of me so I don't run into the end of it. And when I hit the brakes, I'm hitting the brakes. The brakes are working, and they're working because a sovereign God keeps them working.

They don't have to work. They could fail. But guess what? If I go, the Lord will stop me. Woo!

Well, my insurance premium is going up.

Okay. I'm going to need more than Medicare. At that point. I have to do something, but God is the one moving. God is the one making it effectual in that way.

So to believe, we've talked about it at Lifeline a bunch, but to believe means that I am ready to act as if something is true. Think of belief in terms of a preparatory posture. that results in something. There's a kind of, it's not a mental assent, it's not a kind of cognitive acknowledgement, nor is it the kind of thing that is equal to obedience, but it is that disposition of soul and life where dependence is rendered. Before God, and the acknowledgment is made that it only comes from Him alone and that all effectiveness.

All capacity, all renewal, all transformation is his and his alone.

So to believe is to say, I can't, actually. But you can. To believe is to release. Myself to believe is to let go And believe in that way. Trust is the word that we use that's related to it.

We have faith, and we speak about it in the verbal tense. To believe is to live in that posture where I'm ready to act as if something's true. I believe that He is the one in Christ alone who orders me to reality through the word of truth. It's the good news that I'm rescued from my own machinations.

Now, Romans 10, 13 through 14 is an important text in this regard. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they've not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? heard and how are they to hear without someone preaching?

So in this text, right, hearing presupposes understanding. Understanding is necessary for belief. Belief And sealing, as we'll see, become kind of a simultaneous, a contemporaneous thing that happens. I want you to notice that that progression is important. Hearing here is not just audible.

It's not as though this eliminates the death from salvation. The idea is hearing is a way of speaking about comprehension or understanding. You have to understand something before you're able to act as if it's true. And one of the things that I have noticed in the life of the church over, certainly the life of Lifeline over the 19 years it's been in existence. is that Often there are people who come every Every single week or most weeks, we'll put it that way.

Most weeks. And I'm not certain. They have really heard the gospel. I really heard it. I think.

They Know the words. But I think they have struggled to grasp what it means in that way. to get its sense. to understand that it is a cessation. of their own idea that they play a part in the process of earning.

Remember. Grace isn't opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Right? Remember that.

It's not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning. My effort comes from gratitude. My effort comes because I have believed, but I don't work to earn a status of belief in that way. Instead, I sit as a recipient of what God is doing. And I give my amen to what Jesus did completely on the cross for me, freeing me from my sin, being punished in my place.

And I receive that. I have to understand that, then, to be able to believe, to be able to act as if it's true, otherwise, I'll be acting on the basis of something else. I'll be believing a gospel that isn't true. It's not the good heart that saves. It's that I believe something that actually is.

And it's the believing that is. is what causes me to be rescued from my sin. Look at your text. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel, your salvation, and believed in him. And immediately it says were.

Sealed.

with the promised Holy Spirit.

So Let's just think about the spirit for a second. The spirit. You this idea of sealing Can mean a couple of different things. And we'll get into a little bit more of this in the next point. But for now, the idea of sealing can probably mean a couple, two angles, maybe in Scripture.

It's kind of the way that we commonly use them today. You can seal a document. And you can even seal that document in a couple of ways. You can seal it as in you lick it and stick it and it's closed up. You can make it like uh the the book of Job uses um the word for sealing this way, that you can uh put it like in a bag and seal it like a Ziploc bag, although they didn't Job didn't have Ziploc bags, but that's the idea.

You can seal it up, like a jar that you seal. Yeah. a tomb that could be sealed in that way. Or you can seal it by giving a stamp or a mark, some kind of maybe a wax mark that's an approval of some kind.

Sometimes you'll have something that's sealed with both. It's actually sealed and sealed. It's actually contained or protected by this wax seal that actually acts as a kind of certifiable piece on the document at the same time.

So sealing carries this dual idea of being marked in one sense and being protected in a way in another sense. New Testament uses the term for sealing up the tomb of Jesus.

Well, the agent of this sealing, the text says to us, is the Holy Spirit, the one who, and I want you to notice, is promised.

So if you have your Bibles, take them. Turn to a text with me. Go back to Ezekiel. Ezekiel 36. Turn back to Ezekiel.

In your Old Testament. I won't tell you what page it is in my Bible because it won't help you. But it's page 724, if you're interested. Ezekiel thirty-six Let's look in verse 25. Prophetically.

I will sprinkle clean water on you. And you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart. And a new spirit.

I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you. and cause you to walk in my statutes. And be careful to obey my rules.

Now, who will walk in the statutes of the Lord? We will. Who will obey? His rules.

Well we will. He's not giving a command to himself. He doesn't need to obey himself and he doesn't walk in his own statutes. We will do it, but why will we do it? I will put my spirit within you and.

cause you. To walk. The spirit Is placed in all this language here is this internal idea. The Spirit is placed within you. Given to you in the new covenant of redemption that Jeremiah 31 talks about.

It's given to you, and from within you now, there's a part of you that says, I want. To honor the Lord. Doesn't mean you always do. But when you don't, there's this dynamic in you that is no longer settled the way it used to be. You you used to not be troubled When you'd act in sin, I wasn't troubled when I'd act in sin, but the Spirit moves in me and says, Something's not right now.

And it's not merely just a kind of social morality that's at work. There's a sense in which it's not that I have somehow not acted according to social norms, it's that I've actually offended someone. And I need to make something right with one who relates rightly to me. And it's because his spirit is in me, stirring me and moving me. Go over to verse 14 of chapter 37.

And I will put my spirit within you. And you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. I have spoken. I will do it, declares the Lord.

I want you to actually now go back to chapter 36.

Okay. You have this idea in both these texts that he'll place his spirit within you. He's going to draw you to himself. He's going to move in you, and you're going to follow him because of his movement within you. And I want you to look in verse 31 and 32 to reinforce something we talked about last week.

Then you'll remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good. You'll loathe yourselves in your iniquities and your abominations. You know what we call that, right? The convicting work of the Holy Spirit in your life. But then look at verse 32.

It's not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God. Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. What what is he getting at? He he's saying When you sin, And you think, why would God continue to move in my life and draw me back to Himself?

It's not because he needs you. It's not because he needs me. It's because he has made a commitment to you. He has made a commitment to me. And for his sake and his name, he will not do otherwise.

So any notion That somehow this is dependent upon hinging upon me. is removed from the equation. And it sits with his name and for his sake and for his glory alone. that he is acting. The fact that he does that.

Is a remarkable reassurance because my heart is way too fickle for this thing to be conditional. I would walk in perpetual insecurity on eggshells. But and I'd never be doing enough. I'd always be thinking I could do more because I'd always be under conviction to do more.

So, the elixir to my conviction is to go back into the security of the gospel. You feel convicted over sin? Run in gratitude to the fact that you've been forgiven. Don't get out the whip and start beating yourself to death. You gotta get brought in, bro.

He died for you. What's wrong with you? You're a wreck. You're just going back under law. Run to the fact that he secured your salvation.

Because of his name. Because of his glory. Because of his character. Because of his wonder. It's all him tied.

Top to bottom. is the idea. Listen to Joel. 22829. And it shall come to pass afterward that I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants, in those days I'll pour up my spirit. Where is that text quoted for us?

Men and women prophesying. It's quoted in the first sermon of the church. Peter preaches in Acts 2 and he says, this is what Joel was talking about. The Spirit comes. Tongues are loosed to speak in concert with the revelation of the Lord.

Jesus in John 14. We read it as our scripture reading this morning. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He'll give you another helper. A paraclete, one who comes alongside to be with you forever, to walk alongside you in your life, even the spirit of truth.

Right? This one who bears witness to the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, whom the world cannot receive. Why can't they receive him? Because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

He comes in. And he bears witness, Romans 8 says. to you that you are a child of his. These things Verse 25 and 26, later in that same chapter, I've spoken to you while I'm still with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he'll teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I have said. To you, the promised Holy Spirit comes.

So, in the text that we're looking at in Ephesians 1:13, this promised Holy Spirit. Acts. in sealing.

So now what we need to do is think about sealing. What's the significance of it? In a sense, What's sort of the point and what is he playing off of even with the term that he's utilizing?

So, in the ancient world, when they sent something that would be like a letter. A document of some kind that would be certified, if you will. They might send that, and it might be that they had to write it on a hard surface even before using papyrus and then eventually using papyrus and so forth. But in the Roman world, here's just a drawing of what this kind of would look like. You'd have this document that would be tied up.

Think of it almost like a UPS sort of package. On it. Is this thing that looks like a pendant of sorts, but in archaeology they've discovered them in their ancient Roman seal boxes.

So, this is a drawing of what a sealbox would look like if it was opened up.

So, inside the bottom portion of that, you have this hole. And in that hole, it's difficult to kind of see the way the drawing is, but in that hole, you would have the strings come together and they would be tied in a knot inside that hole. And then they would pour wax in that, and so it would go on top of the knot, so that anybody who would tamper in trying to get the thing open, it would be sort of an identifier, a little CSI that they had done something they shouldn't have done.

Now, of course, somebody could tamper with it.

Somebody could cut the string and take the document out. It could be stolen. That's not the point of the wax seal, to somehow keep it away from being stolen. It was to keep it being tampered with in a way where somebody would tamper with it and then put it all back together and give it to the official as though now it was hidden knowledge when actually whatever secrets may or private information may have been in the document would have actually been exposed. And so they would see that the wax had been tampered with in some way.

So they had these seal boxes, a way of securing something. cementing it, as it were, so that it would not be tampered with.

So what I want to do is give you briefly four sort of points of significance. As we think about this ceiling and what it means for us. Here's the first one. The first is ownership. Ownership.

Look at your text. We were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, and then you get the explanation: who is the guarantee? The guarantee of our Inheritance. You might even have a little note in your Bible that says something like, or down payment. But the guarantee, the word, there's Sometimes in your New Testament, it's not often, but sometimes in your New Testament, there are what are called Hebrew or Semitic loan words.

And all that means is that. A Greek word was created from the Hebrew word. We have English loan words. An English loanword would be like, well, technically be a Greek loanword, would be baptize. There was no English word for baptize.

But they took the letters of the Greek and just did what's called transliteration. They took each letter and gave its equivalent. They added an E on the end, and that's how we got the word baptize.

So here you have a word erebone. And Erebone is a Hebrew loanword or Semitic loanword. It's said the same in Hebrew, and it's just transliterated into Greek.

Now, a place that this shows up, which is an odd text for sure, but it is where you see it in the Old Testament, is Genesis 38. And in Genesis 38, you have this ethically Weird situation that occurs where Judah has not dealt honestly with his daughter-in-law, whose husband died. Judah's son died, he's not dealt honestly with Tamar. And Tamar dresses up as a prostitute on the side of the road. and deceives Judah into sleeping with her so that she can have a child.

to carry on the family line because he's denied her the opportunity to marry uh her husband's surviving brothers. And it's just not materialized, and so she takes matters into her own hands. But when she does, he sleeps with her thinking that she's a cult temple prostitute. Yeah. And as a payment to her, he apparently doesn't have any currency with him.

And so his payment to her is to give her a few different objects. He gives her a signet, which would be like a signet ring, maybe or something like this, or a family signet piece that would be a sign of a family crest or something like that, to give his cord, something that he would wear, and his staff, so that they would be like a down payment. To her for him to come into her. The word in your English Bible is: she says, give me a pledge. She's saying, give me an Erebon.

Give me, in a way, the earnest money. in a sense is the idea. Think of like a house that you're purchasing. And you put it down. You put the earnest money down because you're not paying cash for the house necessarily.

Maybe you are, and you're just putting earnest money down, but for most of us, you're not paying cash for it. You're going to put the earnest money down, and then you're going to make a succession of payments subsequent to the earnest money once you get the house. The earnest money is the initial payment that is a statement about future payments to come that will follow.

Okay. So here you have this deposit guaranteeing. and inheritance.

Now what is the implication Of the idea that the Spirit comes and seals you in the sense of. Owning you in the sense of saying, no, no, we're putting the down payment down, and the Spirit is saying, you are. Ours. You are ours. The Spirit is saying, you're not your own anymore.

You're God's. And the implication is that no one else then can own you, even you. Even you. The idea of being sealed by the Spirit is a statement about you being marked for ownership. That the price has been paid to secure owning you, so that in 1 Corinthians 6, when it says you're not your own, you're bought with a price.

That Price offered in Christ secures you. For the future. He owns you in that way. No one else can own you. It's not only ownership, though, it's also authentication.

The idea that the Spirit seals you is like This wax seal that would go on a on a document. Right, so in the ancient Roman world they had these signet rings. We've found all different kinds of signet rings through different eras of society and culture, but particularly in the Roman era. And you can see this depiction of an individual there. And so they would take this and they would press this into some wax, seal a document, seal a letter possibly, and they would identify it as this is coming from the sender of the document.

It was a way of stamping the authenticity. It was a signature. in that way.

So now we sign things, and experts can look and see, is that your signature, or is that not your signature? There they had a signet ring that would do that. It's an authentication that, in fact, you are his. In that way, but also that he's the one. Who identifies you?

He's the one that bears witness not just to owning you, but to saying what you are. This is the implication of it. I'm sealed, so therefore he's the one who authenticates the fact that I'm his. He's the one who authenticates that my identity is hidden with Christ and God. The Spirit is the one bearing witness with my Spirit that I am His, is the idea.

Third, is security.

Something that was bound up, the intention for the seal box. Right? Was that it would keep the document secure. The intention of the tomb being sealed. was that it would keep the tomb secure from being tampered with.

All right? In fact, just by way of a little historical note, we sort of glorify the way that we conceive. If you go to Israel and you tour to see the site of the resurrection, you'll go to a place called Gordon's Calvary and you'll see this great garden with this amazing tomb. It's where all the pictures of a tomb come from. And you'll have a tour guide and they're going to tell you how wonderful it is and how this is the site of the resurrection of Christ.

It's not.

Okay, it's not. It's not the proper site. It's beautiful and it's intoxicating, and everybody wants it to be that, but it's not. The historic site is a site that when you go to, it won't make any sense to you at all when you see it. You'll go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Right, kind of almost down in the old city. of Jerusalem. You go in and you'll be in a church. And it's in that context. Where historically we can know about 95% certain that that was the site of the resurrection of Christ.

You might picture a stone that's like a disc that rolls in front. That's kind of what you think of it because didn't the stone rolled away, right? In all but one gospel it says it rolled away.

Well, there are tombs that are like that. There are tombs that are found that have the rolling stone in the little groove and kind of usually that thing's about four feet high or three feet high and it would roll over the mouth of it. But Those tombs are almost exclusively for the opulently wealthy.

So, it's possible that that's the way it was. Joseph Arimathea had some means. But most tombs were sealed, but they were sealed not with a rolling stone, but almost with a stone that had been hewn and acted like a cork that would be shimmied over and slide into it like this. And then you'd pull it out. And you probably would have to roll it, but you'd kind of roll it out, but it would go into it like a cork.

And the idea of the sealing of the tomb was, obviously, to keep everyone out, but also to expose if anybody had tampered with it at all. You have been sealed. And this is why we don't have a human analogy. Because people divorce. Kids get abandoned.

People get fired. Friendships break up. And so there isn't an illustration. That completely adheres to the nature of what has happened to us in Christ. Let me give you at least one text here about this.

For all, and this is where we see this language used elsewhere of sealing. For all the promises of God find their yes in Him, Paul says. That's why it's through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

Now, I want you to think about the audience. Yeah. 2 Corinthians. The Corinthian church. You get to the end of 2 Corinthians, and what are you told in chapter 13?

Examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. Because as he writes to the Corinthians, they are a people. who have struggled to obey. They are a people who have struggled to walk out at times the confession of their lips. I found a quote by a mentor of mine, Charles Ryrie.

And Doc said it this way in a book on the Holy Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 1.22, Paul makes no exceptions in writing to a group among whom exceptions could easily have been justified. Oh All are sealed. Otherwise, we could have redeemed but unsealed Christians. In other words, I don't get my security.

Based upon the chips I put on the table, because all the chips were put on the table in the gospel. I don't get my security. Based upon something that I'm doing that is adding anything to what God in Christ has done for me. Rather, it comes fully and freely through Him alone. What's the implication of that?

Nothing can take away my salvation. Not even me. The reason it can't is because I'm not providing the deposit. I'm not providing the earnest. The earnest money is the spirit.

And is that currency good at all times, anywhere? And the answer is yes. Yes, because God both gives and receives. in the transaction. It's a monolithic transaction in that way.

It's not Dependent upon me. We get in 1 Peter 1:3 through 5: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again. Let's look at the language, take it seriously. He moved in us to be born again.

Caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to an inheritance. That is, imperishable, undefiled, unfading. Kept. in heaven for you. Kept in heaven.

As in passive, like someone else is keeping it. who by God's power are being guarded. Actively, you're being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. He's actively guarding you. Same term is used in 2 Corinthians 11 when Paul is going to try to get out of Damascus, and there's a guard put around the city to keep him from escaping.

The word cuts both ways. I'm protected from somebody taking it, and I'm protected from me leaving it. Because it's all him. He's the one at work in my life.

So it's secure. And then finally. It's a Earnest money, as we mentioned, a down payment, so to speak, a final. Redemption. Look at your text.

Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire? See that word acquire? It's the same word that's used earlier of redemption. Same word that's used of redemption earlier in this text.

So you have been redeemed, you've been acquired in that way. But here, it's speaking something a little bit differently.

Now, you remember that redemption had a kind of a two-fold idea: it purchases your freedom and it buys you back. Into ownership, so to speak, into that slavery to the Lord, right? Here, it's looking forward. Who's the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire, until we acquire? until we acquire possession.

Meaning that there's a final redemption that is coming to us.

Something that is in that way awaiting us that's not yet fully realized and not yet fully actualized. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed. For what? The day of redemption. In other words, the day of having that earnest money come to full fruition.

having everything in that way fully received.

So I'm redeemed, absolutely. I've been rescued from sin, and yet I still sin. I'm redeemed. I'm rescued from slavery to the world. to the flesh, to the devil.

And yet. I still sometimes fall prey to them because there'll come a day when that redemption becomes fully realized. Final redemption. He's using the term in two different stages. 2 Corinthians 5, 4, and 5.

For while we are still in this tent, that's our body. This is, by the way, is a text looking forward to us getting a glorified body. We groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may not be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing, this future tent, this future body, is God. Who has given us the Spirit as a?

Are a bone? As a guarantee. As the deposit securing what is coming in the future. Do you see that? Do you see that you were given salvation as a gift?

Listen close. You were redeemed as a gift.

Okay? You will be fully redeemed. as a gift. What is it? that is keeping that status in the interim.

You? No, it's the Spirit. It's the guarantee of the Spirit that's keeping it in the interim. My salvation is. From God.

To finish. The gift of sealing is what makes me be able to go. Yeah. Okay. I can chillax.

A little bit. I don't have to feel like I gotta keep up. In such a way that the pressure of somehow performing. to merit something. It's utterly removed.

The implication is what awaits you is not in doubt. Final point. Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession?

Now we have the same question with this idea of our inheritance as we had in verse 11. Is it the inheritance that is ours, or is it that we are held as his inheritance and we already established? The answer is: yeah. Yes, both are true. Both are true.

Until we acquire possession of it. to the praise of his Glory. We are His. He is ours. And then He is praised.

He's the one who is blessed. It goes all the way back and cycles back the very beginning to verse 3. Blessed be the God. Remember that word? I don't know if you recall.

It was. Yeah. The Let God be eulogized. Let God be spoken well of because he has done these things. And it culminates with God being spoken well of because he has done these things.

Three times throughout this text, praise be, praise be, praise be. To the Lord. Close with a quote from Gordon Fee, a New Testament scholar, died in 2022. Along with the resurrection of Christ, the Spirit is certain evidence that the future has been set in motion. And the Spirit's indwelling presence serves as God's own guarantee that we are to inherit all that has been promised.

It is God and God alone. It is the Spirit who comes and bears witness to us that we are His. That sealing minister. is intended fully to alleviate the striving tendencies within your human nature to make up for all the wrongs that you've committed. You'll never be able to do that.

Instead, he redeems you. He redeems you. He secures you from start to finish. Father, thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you for your grace among us and your word, Lord.

And we pray that you would fill us up. that you would draw us close to yourself. that you would be our great shepherd, our great teacher. That you would be one who ministers truth, Lord, to our hearts. That in moments where we might have fear, that you would fill us up with the security of gratitude in all of your giftings to us, and namely your gifting of redemption.

Thank you, Lord, for the sealing work of the Spirit. And I ask, Lord, that you would help us to find joy in the freedom of celebrating your goodness to us today. In Jesus' name. Amen.