Sealing Power

This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida, where Dr. Pete Owinson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part 1 in a series on the Holy Spirit. This message is taken from Ephesians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14, and is called Sealing Power. Now here's Pete with today's message. Take the Bible. If you brought it and turned to Ephesians chapter 1, you say Ephesians, I thought we finished the series in Ephesians. If you were here last week, you remember that I said I was going to do one more sermon in the book of Ephesians, right? Actually, I'm going to do five more sermons in the book of Ephesians. It's just one of those things. The more I got into it, the more I studied through Ephesians. I told you I needed to come back and do more about what the book of Ephesians taught about the Holy Spirit. I got studying today. I'm pretty sure it was the Holy Spirit who said, and I didn't hear this audibly, said, you got to spend more weeks on it. Steve Brown is going to be speaking in May 20th. He wrote a book on the Holy Spirit. This month we're going to be talking about the Holy Spirit. My goal is that you would today get a grip on this idea of the ceiling work of the Holy Spirit, and it would transform your life. This stuff can change your life. I guarantee you. If you are married, understanding the role of the Holy Spirit can transform your marriage. If you've got kids, it will certainly enable you to endure such hardship as you experience and such joy of raising kids. It is, but it's a challenge. If you are simply seeking to live following Jesus Christ and you find that difficult, is it ever difficult for you? Well, it is for me. This series on the Holy Spirit can change you, can transform you, and set you free. Like the title, I know. I know. I know I am the one that takes the blame for approving the pictures that are up here. And I certainly in no way am seeking to undermine the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit who is high and holy and lifted up. This is not reflective so much of his dignity as this picture is reflective of what happens to us. When we really understand the work of the Holy Spirit, we are set free. The problem with most of us as Christians is that we understand the doctrine of the Trinity cognitively, but not practically. We understand it intellectually and we can give all the verses, but we are not living into the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not set free. And it's a spirit of God who fleshes out the work of Christ in our life to set us free. And so you see what I found among Christians, frankly, Christians either under-emphasize the Holy Spirit, or we wrongly emphasize the Holy Spirit. Typically, that's what we do. We under-emphasize the Holy Spirit, or we wrongly emphasize the Holy Spirit. You can never overemphasize the Holy Spirit. And we're going to learn that in this title. Our starting point is Ephesians 1, 13 through 14, and verses chapter 4, verse 30. This is God's word. And if you've been with us for many weeks, you know that this is a review, this first part. We've read this verse before, but we're going to focus on the application about the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1, 13. And you also, Paul says, were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed you were marked in him with a, what, seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who was a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance, until the redemption of those who were God's possession to the praise of His glory. And then Ephesians 4, 30, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed until the day of redemption. Now, in order to work out the working of the Holy Spirit and understand it practically, to help us get a grip on the ceiling of the Holy Spirit, we've got to do a quick review here from Ephesians chapter 1. And you say a quick review, you've never done anything quick in your life. I know, I tend to go over one of my elders before the sermon, bet me I wouldn't be able to get through this whole thing. And he actually, and after the second service, he came up and put this on the podium. Anybody want to bet I can't get through this today? I'm going to take him to lunch and give the rest to Jesus, I think. I'm not sure. But this is simple, powerful truth, and we've got to go back and do this review, because if we don't, we don't understand the work of the Spirit in our life. I want you to get the inside story of your salvation. I want you to get the anatomy of your salvation. Theologians call this the Ordo Saludis, the Order of Salvation. I want you to understand it from the inside, from God's perspective, because you understand your salvation from the outside, don't you? You understand it. You were going along through life, just cruising through life, and one day you became a Christian, right? One day you became a Christian. You chose Jesus Christ. You were just mining your own business, and then you decided to choose Jesus Christ. Now, my question is, what was the precipitating event that caused that? Was it an obnoxious Christian? And we Christians are a little obnoxious sometimes, because we just keep coming to people and say, hey, you need Jesus. You need Jesus. And Christians are people who believe that they found something so great, that they simply have to pass it on. We found forgiveness. We found grace. And we got to pass it on, so we come up to people and we say, hey, you need to get right with God. Why? What's wrong with my life? Your life's a mess. We bring bad news into people's life, before we bring good news. And so somebody came and did that for you, and then maybe that was what brought you to faith. Maybe you were raised in the church. I've told you my story. I've been in the church as long as I can remember. I cannot remember a day that I wasn't in the church. I was in the cradle role of the church. I got a picture of me in a cradle in the church there, and then not long after that, in a little wall suit with a bow tie. That was cruel. Oh, it's you to know. My grandma made the suits. Walls suits. Cruel, but I was there. But I didn't accept Christ right away. Until at some point, somebody came along and said, you need Jesus and made it. What was the precipitating event for you? Maybe it was a moral failure. And you sinned so bad, and you felt guilty so bad, you thought, this is it. It's over. Not even God could forgive me. And somebody said, oh no, he can't. He can. And you accepted Jesus Christ. That's sort of the outside story. The question did anybody come and do anything inside you to enable you to choose him? See, you think from the outside, you chose him. But Ephesians, he says, no, God chose us. And that was the first thing that we looked at the first week. God said he chose us. Ephesians 1, 4 through 11, he chose us before the creation of the world. I love that. And then in verse 11, in him, we were chosen, having been predestined. God chose you. You thought you chose him, right? But he was choosing you first. And then Paul tells us about the predestining work of God. And so because God chose, you see, it's one thing to say, I choose you. It's another thing to say, I'm going to make it certain that you come to me. And so God says he chose us. But then he predetermined that we would come to him. In other words, he made it so. He is the one who put those precipitating events into your life and the people into your life so that you would come to faith in Christ. And it was the Holy Spirit who enabled you to hear the gospel. To hear the gospel, God was choosing God was predestining. But because the Holy Spirit was working, he enabled you to hear the gospel. That's our verse today, verse 13. You were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. Now, do you always hear things the first time? No. Who helped you with capital H? To hear the gospel, not hear, not hear, but hear the Spirit. John 663, the Spirit gives life. The flesh counts for nothing. Your flesh doesn't count for anything. You might have thought you chose God but he chose you first. And then John 16, Jesus in the farewell discourse before he goes to the cross says to his disciples, I tell you the truth. You're upset that I'm going but it's for your good that I go. Unless I go, the counselor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. Are you a Christian? How do you know? You know if you've been through a process. You know you're a Christian. If you've been through the process where one day you woke up and you said, I'm not as good as I thought I was. I've got guilt in my heart. You woke up one day and you said, I'm in trouble because God is righteous. I understand that he is righteous. And you know what? I understand that God is a judge. And then you say, I need help. I need a savior. And you hear the gospel. You hear. See, I know a lot of people who are guilty and bad people. And I knew a lot of people who are guilty and bad people before I came to Christ. Then God made it personal to me. And you know you're a Christian if God made it personal to you. You heard it on the inside. Guys, we struggle to listen, don't we? Guys, yes, 100% are biggest sin. You know is not listening to our wives. What do women say about their husbands all the time? They don't listen really. And when they're home, they're really not home, they're at work. Okay, that's a typical criticism. And of course, I've never struggled with that at all. I'm not very focused. I'm always present, 100%. I see some smiles out there and some lies. Yeah, in our home, we've had to work on that because I'd be home but not present. I'd be home but not listening. So my little strategy my wife used for a while was, hey, Pastor Pete, she'd call me Pastor Pete at home. That got my attention when she started calling me Pastor Pete. Why? Because I was in my role still. And when I came home, I wasn't listening. I was there, but I wasn't listening. I was thinking about here. I was thinking about, right? I was, was I listening really? Not with a capital H. By the way, guys, this is free. This will make, this will make this sermon worth it for you. When you're driving home, deroll, punch the time clock, right? You're not a longer, no longer at work. Now you're at home. You're putting on another hat, the family hat. My problem is I only got two miles to do that in. I got to do that quick to change roles. You can do it too, but God is the one who threw his spirit helps us to hear the gospel. So as to personalize the gospel, because then once we hear it, we can then what? Believe it. And having believed the gospel of Jesus Christ, then what happens? Well, the Bible says there's a conversion that takes place. This is the order of soludus, the order of how it works, repentance and faith. If you come to faith in Christ and you turn away from your old life and turn to Christ, that's conversion. You accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord and you are declared not guilty for your sins. Incredible process. The Holy Spirit adopts you into the family of God and here's where we get to what we're talking about today. Then he seals you. The Holy Spirit of God seals you. That's your salvation from God's perspective. A little more complex than you thought, right? You thought you were choosing him, he chose you. But then through the end of the process, he sealed you. Now sealing, sealing goes on in every culture and has in every culture of mankind. And what do seals mean? Well, we're going to talk about that in a minute. I've got this Tylenol bottle. You remember Tylenol when they had their problems a few years ago, some of your members, some of you weren't born. They put seals around them. Why? Because somebody tampered with it and they wanted to provide protection. All right. So we put sealing on our medical objects. Then this is a seal here. What's this seal of? This shows that this is a real authentic bottle of. Not just any water, not just drink any water. Period. Period. This is a seal. This is a garbage. This is a grace church. And this is a seal. Right? Showing that it is an authentic box of empty of whatever these are or were. This is a stamp with my name on it that I printed in this book. This is stamped in my book. This happens to be Steve Brown's latest book. What was I thinking? Shameless promotion on Sunday morning, but everybody needs to read this. But if you come up and take this book, and the elders will come after you. Because it's mine. Is this a seal? What is it? It's a lot. Is this a seal? Yes, it is. It is a seal. When you put this on something that's valuable to you, what are you saying? This is mine. I'm not letting you in here. I'm protecting this thing. Seals come down into three basic categories. And it's important for you to understand that all the way down through human history, humankind have used seals, understanding and explaining biblical truth. The first sign of a seal is that or the first truth of a seal is it authenticates. It says, this is the real deal. This is really a bottle of Perry empty, but this is my ordination certificate. Sometimes I walk into my office and I say, am I really a minister? Some people say, when I tell them I'm a minister, you're a minister? I say, no, it surprises me, too. I don't know. But my ordination is this is this is authentication right there. If you don't believe it, come look at it afterwards. A seal authenticates the identity of a thing. A seal then reveals possession. This is mine. This is mine. Stay away from it. A seal thirdly talks about protection. You're trying to cut with a bad pair of bolt cutters, cut through a lock, you can't do it. And all three of those elements are wrapped up in the fact that the Holy Spirit of God, when you accept Christ, he seals you. He says to you, you're the real deal. He says to you, your mine. He says to you, I'm protecting you. Who do you trust in life? I like the story that my friend sent me. He said, is about the officer who was under cross examination by the defense attorney who had the officer up on the stage and up in the box. And he said, officer, did you see my client fleeing the scene? No, sir, but I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender running several blocks away. Officer who provided this description, the officer who responded to the scene. Okay, so let me get this straight. A fellow officer provided the description of the so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers? Yes, sir, with my life. With your life, let me ask you this then. Do you have room, a room where you change your clothes and preparation for your daily duties? Yes, sir, we do. And do you have a locker in the room? Yes, sir, I do. And do you have a lock on your locker? Yes, sir. Now, why is it, officer? If you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room. You share with these same officers. You see, sir, we share the building, the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room. Who do you trust? I get my best lawyer jokes from lawyers. What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? Very good start. And I'm probably going to be in trouble here today. Who do you trust? Who do you trust for your life? Are you trusting your lawyer? Are you trusting the law? Who are you trusting for your relationship with God? It's the Holy Spirit. What is baptism? Baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. And every time we baptize an infant who is born to a believer, 1 Corinthians 12, or 7 says, that a child is set apart. A child is a covenant. We give them the sign and seal of the covenant of grace that they would grow into it and receive Christ early in life. Does it regenerate them? No, it's a sign and seal of an outward external action. The real baptizing goes on in here in the heart when God is ready. Every time you see a baptism, you ought to say to yourself, if you're a Christian, I'm authentic. I'm the real deal. You ought to say, I belong to the living God. And you ought to say the living God protects me. How can this change your life in three ways? Real quick, let me pull this together by saying this. If you understand the sealing work of the Holy Spirit, you will understand that authenticity develops identity. By knowing that you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit of God, you will come to grip who you really are. What is your identity? Who are you? That's one of the big questions. Students always ask that. I was asking that up until just a few years ago. Who am I really? And most of the time what we try to do is we try to decide how good we are or who we really are, and that is our identity. Oh, I'm a mother. I'm a dad. I'm a dancer. I'm a racquetball player. I'm the best salesman around. We tend to develop our identity based on what we do. Our identity is based on our being. Your identity is based on your being in Christ. You're the daughter of the living God. If you embrace Christ, you're the son of the living God. You don't have to prove yourself to anybody else because he's already given you that identity, the child of the king. Your identity comes from your being in Romans 8, 15, 17, puts it this way. You did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship, daughter ship, and by him, by the spirit we cry, father, father, daddy. I'm your child. The spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. Don't. If your parents said some bad things to you when you grow up and you still think that way, you're not that way. If you're a Christian, this is who you are, you're the daughter of the king, son of the king. If it work, you mess up and blow it and sin, or you get fired, your identity is not in what you do. Your identity is in who you are now in Christ. If you've been abused, your identity is not in that abuse. If you've been an addict, your identity is not in the substance. That's who you are. That'll set you free, but you see, that's only the first point. Authenticity develops identity and possession fuels confidence. When you understand that the Holy Spirit says to you, you are mine. You are mine. That develops confidence. We think confidence in life comes from if I could be the best musician, then I'll have confidence. Or if I could be the best factory worker, then I'd have confidence. The best doctor, lawyer, whatever. Then I'd have, no, no, no. Confidence in life comes not from performance. It comes from possession. I am the son of the living gods. I belong to him. I belong to him. I'm okay. I'm his. Who I belong to? It sets my identity and gives me confidence to go out there. You say, sometimes I don't even look like a Christian. I know. There are some families where you look at their kids and you just go, oh, I know who's, I know, I know your mom and dad. You say, but you don't know my last name. I don't need to. Because you resemble. And you say, but sometimes we don't resemble God morally. I mean, right? Sometimes you don't look like your father. Do you? Sometimes you don't look like Jesus. I know me too. So what do we do? We come back to him and we confess our sins. We say, father, I haven't been looking like you much this week, but I'm yours. I'm yours. And we develop a confidence in life when we move out into the world. God never follows the Alec Baldwin School of parenting. He never will call you a pick. But parents, sometimes we've gotten upset with our kids. Will he forgive you if you call your son or daughter a pig? We've got forgive Alec Baldwin if he came to him and said, I need a savior. I'm sorry for what I said to my kids. Would he forgive? Because it's by grace in what Jesus did that the father can say, you're mine. There isn't any sin that can separate you from the father that leads to confidence. Authenticity develops identity. Possession fuels confidence and protection ignites us to action. You are protected by the living God. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Have you heard that before? You are locked tight. And no pair of bolt cutters can separate you from God. You are his. And what that does for us is it says, well, if I have this identity as a son and daughter of the living God, if I have confidence now in life to go out there, I better go about living my life and doing something important. I'm going to be involved in kingdom work. Listen, we have so many opportunities. We invite you to be involved in ministry. Get involved. The happiest Christian I've ever found is somebody who's involved in extending the kingdom of God. Why? Well, because it's their identity. It's their confidence. It's their, I want to be involved. I'm doing something really important. This that fuels us out into the world, your identity is not based on your performance. Your confidence is not based on your performance. Being involved in what God is doing in the world, which will bring you the greatest joy in life, is when you understand that you are protected and so you can risk it and get out. If you ever tempted a ministry and you said, I feel like I had to do this, but it scares me to death to attempt it. I know I'll fail, but I'm going to do it anyway. And God comes through. That's that life. He's called us to that ignites us and get us out into the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit, it says, is the pledge of our inheritance. Oh, I have almost forgotten where it says, in Ephesians 430, and do not grieve the Spirit of God, Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed to the day of redemption. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Well, what's that all about? Well, it's this. Your sin can never, ever, ever destroy God. Can it? Does God grieve? Some people have said, God does not have emotions. God is impassable. Of course God has emotions. God grieves when we sin. Why? Because your sin destroys God? No. No. Because as any good mother or father, when their children go astray and sin. And sin and hurt themselves, it grieves us. Your sin will never destroy God. He's invincible. Your sin will grieve God. And he wants you by following him just to enjoy the freedom of living large. So he gave you the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is the pledge of our inheritance. And we are sealed until the day of redemption. I love this. Okay, if I was going to buy your house, say your house was up for sale for $250,000. And I come to you with a check for $249,000. Help me with the math. How much do I owe you? $1,000. Do you think I'm really set an intent on buying your house? I think I'm serious. You say, well, I don't know, is a check a registered check? You better check that. Let me take. If I wrote you a check for $250,000, $49,000, I couldn't back it up right now. Just waiting for it all to come in. Maybe a few more bets on some of these sermons will help me out. But if I come to you with a check for $249,000, you think I'm pretty certain I want to buy your home, right? I mean, I can get a thousand bucks right now by asking the elders to not shake your head. No. The Holy Spirit is the pledge. You know, paraphrasing John Calvin, God has invested so much in you already that he simply is not going to withdraw from the deal. The Holy Spirit is $249. He's got too much in you to pull back now. No sermon is any good unless you do something with it. So I encourage you to take these verses that you've read before in memorizing, and to let it sink in. You'll know you're changing when, as you memorize these verses, your identity is, I'm not what I do, I'm not what they said, I am who God says. You'll know you're changing when your identity changes, your confidence grows, and you start doing something for God that surprises you, knowing that you're protected. And you cannot fail. You take it to heart. Now let's pray. We love having people who come to Willow Creek Church, just kind of wondering what Christians are about. We're not perfect. This is a hospital, and we're quite wounded at times, and we still sin and we mess up. But today, if you are sensing that the Holy Spirit has been pointing out to you, you're guilt, and you're sin, and you're need for righteousness, and that you're not really prepared to face the righteous judge of the universe, then we invite you to Jesus. We invite you to accept Him, praying something like this, Lord God, I feel guilt, and I can't be good enough. And so today, I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. Come into my life, and well, I guess you are already in my life. Now transform me, and set me free. Lord Jesus, thank you for the fact that we are yours, that we're your disciples, that we get to follow you, that you get to be set free. And I pray this week that you would allow the Holy Spirit to enable us to understand who we now are. Lord will give you the honor, praise, and the glory. Pray these things, Jesus, holy. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org, and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.