In Him: Sealed For An Inheritance Part 2

Please stand in honor of God's Word.

The Old Testament reading will be in Ezekiel chapter 36, starting in verse 22.

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O

house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the

nations to which you came.

And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which

you have profaned among them.

And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I

vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own

land.

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 to be careful to obey my

rules.

You shall dwell in the land that I give, you shall dwell, excuse me,

you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Today's New Testament reading will be in John 7, 37 through 39.

That's on page 893 in your pew Bible.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let

him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of

living water.

Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.

For as of yet, the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

You may be seated.

Opening Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians chapter 1, I'll start in verse 3 and get the whole context.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ

with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should

be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through

Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace

with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,

according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and

insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ,

as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven, and things on

earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the

purpose of him, who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we, who

were the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory.

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the

gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised

Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire

possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Father, we thank you for these many spiritual blessings that are laid out before us in the scriptures.

Lord, our hearts are often so callous to these blessings.

We often are like animals that just seek for the physical pleasures of this world, and we

are not satisfied with the higher blessings of what Jesus provides or what's found in

him.

Oh God in heaven, I pray that you would animate our hearts by the spirit and cause us to thirst

after righteousness, to know that it is of the greatest existence to live close

and in union with a good relationship with you.

That is what life is all about, to glorify you with everything that is within us and to

enjoy you forever.

And so God, I pray that we would all have minds desiring to see what Jesus has provided for

us and the spiritual blessings, the inheritance that's laid up for us, and the blessings that we can live

that out in taste form, even today, even right now, even in this moment.

So let us not waste this moment, but let us rather give it full meaning by looking to you

through your son, by your spirit.

Oh, be praised and worshiped in us even now, even in our listening, even in our speaking.

May your word be exemplified and Christ glorified.

In Jesus' name,.

Amen.

So this is really the last sermon that we'll be going through with this initial

burst of praise by Paul in Ephesians 1, in which he just starts out of the gate

with this just one long sentence of blessed be the God and Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ, because he has blessed us with every spiritual blessings in Jesus.

And then he, boom, boom, boom, lays them all out for us.

And he's finishing here in verses 11 through 14 with detail on the fact that in Christ Jesus,

we have an inheritance that's awaiting for us, that we have obtained an

inheritance that's in the heavenlies that Jesus has provided for us in his death, in

his redemption, in adopting us to the family of God away from the family of Satan.

And remember last week, we talked about how the Jews were the first to experience this

inheritance as they were in the Old Testament economy of his salvation.

They were the first to trust in Jesus.

That was the whole purpose of the Old Testament, was to bring the believing Jews into trusting their Savior when he came.

And we saw that when the Jews came into the inheritance, they lived that inheritance

life out today in their own life, which then caused the gospel to go out to the

Gentiles, in which we are the happy recipients.

We have received the gospel.

We have responded as this church.

The inheritance is awaiting us.

It's laid up for us in the heavenlies because the Jews were called out first and it was coming forth from them,

their own inheritance that we then received the gospel ourselves.

And so now here we are in this week, this final couple verses in which he details that those

who first hoped in Jesus, the Jews, then gave it to the Gentiles and he's going to lay out

exactly how we enter into that inheritance and how that should

affect our lives today, which is again the running theme of last week because I was supposed to preach all that

last week.

And so it's the same theme today, that the inheritance that's laid up for us in eternity should

affect your daily life today because it's massive and big as it

affected the lives of the Jews, which caused them to bring the gospel message to the Gentiles and the salvation was

played out there.

So we should have the same kind of work of the Spirit in us as we anticipate the great

inheritance that's laid up for us.

That's why it semi -offends me when people say that God's promise was not

fulfilled or given completely to the Jews yet, that we're still waiting for that.

We are a product of the promise being good to the Jews.

Without that promise that they would gain the inheritance of Jesus, we never would have found out about the gospel and we

never would have gained into that inheritance that we have in Jesus with them.

But indeed, beloved, we have.

And so we get to celebrate that, we get to look at that, we get to see how is it that we enter into this

inheritance because it's vital for you unbelievers today who can gain in right now

and also it is how should it or how does it affect that inheritance affect our lives

today?

We're going to see that played out.

And then we see the first thing starting with he says in verse 13, which is where we left off, in him you

also.

If you remember, he's talking about the Gentiles.

Not only were the first ones to come to believe but in him you also, Gentiles, through the Jews, in

him you also.

And he's going to talk about how we enter into that inheritance.

That spiritual blessing of the inheritance in eternity.

He says in him you also.

How do we enter into it?

He says when you heard the word of truth, that is the gospel of your salvation and believed in

him.

So you gain, you enter in, you receive the inheritance

not by circumcision, not by a work that you could do, not by baptism, not by the

Lord's Supper, not by church attendance, not that I went to Sunday school every single week.

I did all these things.

In fact, I was talking to a reformed Jew yesterday and he said he talked about the importance of doing

the Ten Commandments.

And the problem is is that we gain that inheritance not by any work that we do, not by anything that we can

kind of say that I did this and so therefore that inheritance is mine, but rather that inheritance is given

and the taste given today of that inheritance, it comes from simple belief

upon Jesus.

That is the cornerstone of everything.

That is the center of everything.

The floodgates open when we believe upon Jesus, when we put our trust upon Jesus,

upon Christ.

But how does that belief come?

In fact, Paul says in Romans, faith comes from hearing and hearing the

word of Christ and he says something similar in here, in him you also when you heard the

word.

And so the beginning of any inheritance given is whenever someone hears the word.

Now they ultimately had to believe, but in order to even believe upon the word, they must first hear the word

of truth.

They must hear.

The first step to inheritance is for the word to be.

Heard.

This is why word proclamation needs to be central in our

lives, in our homes, in our church.

Word.

Proclamation, since it's the hearing of it, is the first step into the inheritance laid up for us as we

experience it, is found in hearing the word of God.

And this is why Satan has always tried to keep that at a minimum or make it extinct.

You understand that prior to the Reformation, it was illegal to own a Bible, to have a Bible in your home.

Prior to the Reformation, when Catholicism, the dark clouds of Catholicism controlled the

world, it was illegal to have the word that needs to be heard in order to believe and gain that

inheritance.

It was illegal to have the word in your home.

It was illegal to translate the Bible in your own language so you could understand that word.

And worship service was all done in Latin and that's all fine until you realize that

no one could understand it.

And not only that, but they spoke a different language and they looked this way.

Imagine this.

It'd be hard enough.

You can't barely hear me.

Imagine me speaking a different language.

The whole purpose of it is that Satan was working in that so people wouldn't hear the word so that people would be

caught in his snare and not freed in Jesus.

The redemption is found in Jesus and the inheritance that are for them.

Post -Reformation, what do we see?

The word explodes.

We see the word is produced and translated in good vernacular or of the language of

the people so the people could hear the word and respond and believe and have the

inheritance of Jesus.

Post -Reformation Bibles were everywhere.

And now today we have the fruits of that.

We have Bibles.

It's not hard to get a Bible at all and we can have it in a very good translation whether it be the ESV, the

NASV, even the Legacy, the King James Version.

We have all sorts of good English translations that will make the word out there to be heard.

Problem solved, right?

Problem solved.

But sadly it isn't.

The word oftentimes is not central to our church life, to the churches across the world.

It's not central there and it's oftentimes not central in our families.

The Bible oftentimes is an ornament and not a tool in homes and churches.

Why is that?

If it's so available, if the hearing of the word is really the way we get to that belief

and inheritance, why would if we have it available to us, why would it be more of an ornament, something that's kind of

showcased but not actually proclaimed faithfully as the centerpiece of our worship in our

homes and in our churches?

Why?

Well, honestly, I think a huge part, now a lot can be talked about this, about this,

but I think a huge part is Satan trying to keep his people

in his slavery has led our society to be one

obsessed with getting their senses tickled.

Our society is obsessed with our senses being tickled.

What I mean by that is life is all about entertainment and feeling good.

That is the telos of the society and sadly Christians can join in that

in their homes and in the churches.

That really all life is about things being quick, easy, and fun and not laborious or challenging

at all.

We are more desiring of our senses to be tickled than for us to

listen to something of a word being proclaimed which doesn't tickle the senses.

That's why stadiums are filled with sports games and entertainment venues instead of the word of

God being faithfully preached.

Because we desire our senses.

It's easier.

It's passive.

We can just relax and entertain.

And that's what life has become all about.

It's a running joke in my house that when anything inconvenient happens to me, I say this shouldn't

be.

I'm an American.

My internet shouldn't go out.

I'm American.

That shouldn't happen.

I shouldn't have anything get in the way of my entertainment at night of watching prime video because I'm an American.

Why is my food late in the restaurant?

It should have been here 10 minutes ago.

I'm an American.

This shouldn't happen anymore.

We are filled with this wealth and with entertainment and it fills our home.

It fills our churches and that becomes our focus.

And the thing is, is the word being heard does not tickle the senses and so it gets pushed aside.

Even in Marion, there's a church there by that huge, yeah, it's that huge

building.

I don't want to name names mainly because I don't remember their name.

But it says, it says Jesus Encounter, right?

I thought it was some kind of play or something like that, but it's always there.

And I realized, no, I think they're advertising their worship service as a Jesus Encounter.

And what that really is telling you is that you'll have an experience when you come here.

And I mean, I'm not against experience.

There's nothing wrong with experience, but that can't be the tell -all.

It can't be the central of all we're doing because the word declared and listened to, it does not

facilitate the senses in the same way that entertainment does.

It's not supposed to.

It's not supposed to relieve those kind of yearnings in us the way that those things do.

But when our lives are filled with, I just need entertainment and those things, it gives us not a

taste to hear the word.

That's why children, when all they do is they have video games in front of them, TV in front of them,

you're in a restaurant and all they do is have these things in front of them, they don't have patience to listen to

the word.

They can't do it.

They can't focus because they've just been filled with this sort of getting my

senses tickled.

And so that makes the word unpalatable.

I can't even listen to it.

It doesn't even matter what it is, really.

I just, I can't listen.

I don't have the appetite to.

And the point that I'm getting at here is, and again, this isn't to say that we can't watch TV.

We can't do anything.

But when our lives is filled with that as we join in society, we do not

have a palate.

We do not have the ability to hear the word.

Our minds go elsewhere and we cannot focus.

I cringe when I hear people say, I just, I can't read.

I just, I don't read well.

Well, could it be it's because you're used to watching TV and all these other things that just is quick

fixes instead of just being able to sit and focus upon the word declared?

Could that be it?

Could it be that you have to train yourself to get back there, to get away from that kind of view that society

has given you?

Could it be that?

And I think a lot of cases it could.

Hearing the word, hearing the word of

truth, which brings about faith in Jesus, is the floodgates to the

inheritance experience.

And so we need to train ourselves to be able to hear the word.

We need our homes to be a place in which our children are given the tools necessary that they can

sit and pay attention and hear the word.

What that looks like specifically in your home is going to be different than what it looks like mine, perhaps.

But nevertheless, it needs to be a strategic thing.

I'm not going to fill my kids up with all these entertainments and all these things where when I try to give them the word they have no

appetite for it.

And even me, I'm not going to be a prey to that.

I'm going to teach myself to hear the word of God.

Hearing the word does not tickle the senses.

It's a focus mind exercise.

But belief upon hearing the word does tame the senses.

And it causes you to enjoy life as you have that inheritance in your daily life.

And there's a lot that can be said in that and unpacked.

But I'm just going to leave it there.

And if you have questions we can talk about later.

Hearing the word does not tickle the senses, but belief upon hearing the word does tame the senses,

which is your life.

There's a lot there.

Enjoyment of the inheritance.

But not only is it just difficult, right, to just listen to the word, right?

This is not something that's easily done, which me preaching the word and you having to sit there, you got to work at

listening, right?

It's not just something where you're watching a great movie on TV and it's just all passive hitting you and you're just entertained.

You don't need to do anything to be entertained.

This is difficult.

So not only is it difficult just by the nature of proclaiming and hearing, but it's the word he says of

truth in verse 13.

It's the word of offense.

Truth, as Ben Shapiro, the theologian, just kidding, says, truth doesn't care about your

feelings.

And there's a truth to that, is that truth is truth no matter how you might feel or not feel about it.

And so the point here being said is that the word of truth when you hear it, when it goes against the

grain of your soul, of what you feel, what you desire, it is an offensive affair.

It is not something that's always palatable.

So not only is it hard just to hear the word because you got to sit and listen and exercise your mind to do so, but

it is the word of truth which very often, because we are sinners, it is offensive.

Truth is offensive as it is not rooted in self and desires therein.

It doesn't cater to your natural desires.

It informs your desires and tells you to change your desires and that can be offensive.

Truth, those things we naturally like to do is actually sin

that satan uses to shackle you.

That is offensive.

But the start of entering the inheritance is to offend your flesh and hearing the

word of truth.

Let me say that again.

The start of entering in the inheritance as you experience it is to

offend your flesh by hearing the word of truth.

It is an offensive affair.

I was on a medieval philosophy course for my undergrad at Oakland University and we,

as medieval philosophy, we got to read Augustine.

And I remember the the teacher who was no Christian.

I said, I remember him just saying, Calvinists are always just making people feel bad.

That's what Calvinists do.

Or that's what reform -minded people do.

He called them Calvinists.

He says they're just, they just make people feel bad.

And there's a sense in that in which when you're faithful to tell the truth to someone who is not living in accordance with truth,

it does make them feel bad.

And it's not like we see, okay, this is going to make you feel bad.

Okay, I won't tell you the truth.

Now we say that truth in love, but we don't just not say it because we're afraid that it might hurt their feelings, right?

We love them too much to do that.

And so the point is that truth does hurt, but that's only the beginning.

Jesus said only the sick see a doctor.

We only point people to their need.

So you cannot point people to their need without, you can't point people to Jesus without pointing them to their need,

which is that they are a sinner and that hurts.

So that's the goal.

That's why we do it.

That's why we point people to truth.

That's why we point ourselves to truth because through that hurt as it goes against the grain, it then sets up

Jesus as our savior as the one we need to flee to in order to find relief.

So that pain has a purpose to give to lead us to the doctor who gives us our

healing, Jesus our Lord.

He says in verse 13, when you heard the word of truth, this is the beginning of your inheritance, you need to hear the word and that

is the word of truth, but it doesn't stop there.

He says the gospel of your salvation, that is the good news of your salvation.

You see, you understand that the forgiveness of sin overshadows the offense of the hurt of the truth.

Whenever you give the full reality that yes, you're a sinner.

Yes, you are far from God.

Yes, the wrath of God abides on you.

It is there.

God hates your sin.

He doesn't like it.

That stuff is offensive and that's why a family just left.

But the whole reality of the fact is that then you tell them the good news of Jesus, the gospel of Jesus, and all of a sudden all

that badness, that feeling bad, it becomes beautiful in the light of Jesus our savior.

But you need to begin with the bad news.

You need to begin with the truth that offends so that they go to the savior of the world and

receive the inheritance that he has won by his cross.

The gospel of your salvation.

Of course, just hearing the word of truth, just hearing the gospel of salvation means nothing

if it's not believed upon.

It must be believed upon in order to gain that inheritance.

It must be believed upon.

I grew up in a system of belief that to believe upon the gospel just simply means mental assent.

Just saying, okay, I believe the facts of the gospel, therefore I'm saved.

And that lack of full -bodied understanding would have led me to hell if it wasn't for the good graces of

God.

Because belief or trust is not simply just to say I believe in the facts of the gospel, but it is a

trust or a confidence in the one in Jesus Christ that he can save and he does save and it will

change the way you live your life when you have that true belief in Jesus.

You cannot truly believe upon Jesus.

It did not affect your life.

Or to say it in the way that we've been saying it, that inheritance through the belief will show itself in

your daily life.

And so the question I pose as we go forward into verse 14 is how do I know if I have truly

believed upon the gospel?

How do I know when that happens?

How do we know when belief is genuine?

And I think that's the purpose of what he has going on with the rest of 13 going into 14.

Look what he says in 13.

He says in him also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, right?

That's the start of it.

We cannot have that inheritance without that.

But and believed in him you were sealed with the promise Holy Spirit.

You were sealed with the promise Holy Spirit.

So that's what's going on.

Word proclaimed.

Word heard.

Word believed.

Sealed with the Holy Spirit.

That's the progression here.

Now, we know the Holy Spirit has many works in salvation.

And the one focus on here is what comes after belief.

But we know he doesn't mention it here, but we know that there's the work of the Holy Spirit that comes upon belief.

We will not believe in the gospel without the Holy Spirit making it palatable to our hearts.

We won't do it.

We're too far into our sin and rebellion against God.

We need the Spirit to work in that in order for our hearts to receive it.

We need the Spirit for that.

But I don't think this is the sealing or what he's talking about here.

Here he assumes that and he says when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were then

sealed with the promise Holy Spirit.

So, the question is what does it mean in this context to be sealed with the promised Holy Spirit?

I need to take a breath for this one.

To be sealed.

There's a few different aspects of that in the scriptures.

There's one aspect in which it it is, it authenticates as genuine.

When something is sealed, it makes it authentic that this is genuine.

This is a genuine document or a genuine thing.

Think about Nehemiah 9 .38, the covenant that they then entered into with God after failing so

bad.

It was sealed by all the Jewish leaders.

This was a genuine covenant document that all the Jewish leaders signed to say this is what we are in

covenant with God.

It authenticated that.

It made it genuine.

There's another aspect of sealed to be sealed and it means to render secure or to secure something.

Think about the tomb of Jesus.

What did they do with the tomb of Jesus in Matthew 27, 66?

They sealed the tomb.

They secured it.

They made sure that you couldn't get into it, right?

Or nothing could come out either.

There's another aspect of sealed in which it marks ownership.

It marks ownership.

Revelation 7 .3, the 144 ,000 elect people, they were sealed on their forehead

that marked their ownership that God owned them so that they wouldn't endure the plagues of the wrath of

God.

And so there's, it authenticates as genuine.

It can render secure or it can mark ownership.

What does Paul mean here when he says that after you believed you were then sealed with the Holy Spirit

there's an aspect of which it's talking about ownership because you remember these we're talking about Gentiles here.

These Gentiles were at one time of the world under the prince of the power of the air and now they are owned by

God.

So I think there's an aspect in which he's talking about the transfer of ownership.

Now they are adopted in the family of God.

You have been sealed by the Spirit in that way.

But I think what Paul is mainly referring to here as we'll see in 13 and 14 is

that this marks that you were then, the Holy Spirit sealed you as

authentic, as genuine.

In other words, your belief was marked as genuine or authentic.

You were sealed in the Holy Spirit that way.

Let's see this played out in 1 Thessalonians.

Go with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.

I think this is exactly what Paul is referring to in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.

Being sealed with the Spirit upon belief or after belief and it showed that it was authentic.

Their belief was authentic.

1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 2.

Paul says,

Remembering your faith in

Jesus is what he's saying.

For we know brothers, we know love by God that he has chosen you.

So he's saying we know that you're authentic.

We know that.

Why?

Because our gospel came to you not only in word.

You believe the word, right?

The word was declared to you.

You believed upon it not only in word, but also in power.

And in the Holy Spirit who sealed them with the full conviction.

You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake and you became imitators of us.

And of the Lord.

For you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

So that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and

Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything.

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how and here it

is, you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God.

And to wait for his son from heaven whom he has raised from the dead.

Jesus who delivers from the wrath of God.

To wait to hope in the inheritance that Jesus was given at the end.

And it changed their lives in that day in that they turned away from sin.

Turned away from idols and instead served the living God.

So what is Paul getting that?

Not only did we come with the word to you.

We gave you the word and you believed upon the word, but it came in power.

What does that power look like?

That they turned away from their sins and went to righteousness.

That was the power of the gospel displayed right there.

That was what authenticated their belief.

He knew that they truly believed upon Jesus because of how they turned away from sin afterwards and lived for

the Lord instead.

It came in power to live for the Lord.

That is a powerful life when you deny the deeds or the desires of the flesh to live as

Jesus as Lord.

And that's how he knew.

That's how it was authenticated.

That's how he knew that not only did the word come, but it came with power and the fact that it changed their

lives now as they waited for Jesus in the heavenlies.

And I think this is the same kind of ceiling he's talking about now.

Again, going back to Ephesians 1 verse 13, in him you also

when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him

were sealed with the promise Holy Spirit.

He sealed it by making your faith authenticated by your changed life,

by enjoying that inheritance laid up for you today, by living righteously for the Lord as a

gift from him given by the Spirit because it's his work.

He says it's the promise Holy Spirit that does it because you remember what we read even today Ezekiel 36, I

believe it was Daniel, Ezekiel 36 27.

He promises I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be

careful to obey my rules.

The Holy Spirit's work is to come within you to enable belief and not only that but then to help

you walk in his law or in his statutes because you can't wait for the full inheritance of

righteousness in the end.

So you start walking in righteousness even today denying sin.

So we see that salvation,.

What.

It means to have that inheritance laid up for you is to want so bad the taste of it today by what the Spirit

works in you that you start living a different life one of obedience to Jesus today.

The Spirit's role is to do this until we receive the entire inheritance as he

says in verse 14.

He says who is still talking about the Holy Spirit who seals it to make authentic to change you to make you walk

in truth or obedience.

He says he is the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance.

The down payment of our inheritance the guarantee we can know that we will

receive the whole inheritance in eternity by the way the Holy Spirit works in our lives today.

When you know someone who did not live as a foretaste of this inheritance of

righteousness and that's going to be ours with Christ in eternity.

If you know someone who didn't live with any kind of desire for a taste of that today in their lives do not think for a

moment they're enjoying the whole inheritance in the future.

Because the whole role of the Holy Spirit is to give you the taste of righteousness today.

To enjoy that inheritance that you're going to receive in full to be a guarantee of that in your life today so that

when you die you enjoy the completed thing.

So this notion it might it might feel good to talk about someone at

their funeral when they lived with no foretaste of the inheritance at all to say that they're enjoying the their

inheritance, but that's not the work of the Spirit being played out in their life.

And I want you just in case it's not a matter of okay in order for me to be sure of my salvation I just got to have good works.

The point is that the Spirit's work is to help is to make the gospel palatable to you so you respond and

also to show the fruits of it in your life.

So when you're fighting your sin each day, what should you tell yourself?

You should not just say well, I just need to get a little bit better.

I need to get stronger.

Just got to do a little bit better here.

No, you got to tell yourself the truth here that the whole purpose of my life is to be a foretaste of

the inheritance that I'm going to receive in eternity.

And that inheritance is righteousness, beloved.

It's togetherness with God, which is righteousness.

And so you need to remind yourself what's the work of the Spirit in my life today?

It is to give me a taste of that.

So I'm going to say no to this sin because it will directly oppose that taste.

I'm going to say no to it and this is the Spirit working in me.

So you go forth in confidence, not in yourself, but in the Spirit because his role is to make

your belief authentic in the way that you live your life.

Your confidence comes forth from the trying work of salvation that is in you.

The whole point of the Spirit and his work here in this context is for him to be the guarantee of your

inheritance until you acquire it in full.

That is he will show, he will show you, lead you into righteousness each day.

So as you are facing your temptation to sin, you need to tell yourselves what is going on in

salvation and the Spirit's role to bring you away from the things that will cause you not to enjoy

the foretaste of inheritance.

That is sin.

This is what the Spirit does.

So what's spiritual blessing?

Again, as we try to then circle this all the way through, what does it mean?

What is spiritual blessing?

It's simply being with God.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.

Spiritual blessing means to be near God, to be with him.

And that means sin is done away with and we are adopted into his family.

Jesus has blessed us with every spiritual blessings.

And that is seen in our inheritance and when we will be with him forever.

And your life today should be a foretaste of that because the Spirit's job is to guarantee that until you

receive the foreverness.

As a guarantee, he will work in you righteousness today.

It should affect your day today.

Hating sin for the sake of enjoying the taste of inheritance today.

All spiritual blessings are found in Christ.

You can only experience that by believing in the gospel of your salvation.

From that belief comes the sealing of the Spirit to enable you to taste that future inheritance today.

Turn it away from sin and enjoy God's presence even today.

So are you fighting sin with that mindset?

Are you fighting sin at all?

Because as someone who has been obtained the inheritance of God, you should fight sin because

sin disables that.

It causes you to not enjoy the foretaste of that.

So are you fighting your sin with that theological underpinning?

That my inheritance of righteousness is laid up for me in Jesus and I get to taste that today by his power?

Yes, I will fight my sin.

Are you fighting sin in that way?

Not as cold duty, but as a desire for the taste of the promise of the Spirit.

Are you thirsting for the word since it is the fountain head of

initial belief and sustenance in the inheritance?

Is this the life that you are living as a Christian?

And again, I must ask and implore those who are unbelievers who do not know Jesus

Christ, who have perhaps heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, but they not have

responded in belief and has not shown themselves in the foretaste of in their lives today.

Will you believe upon him now?

Will you listen to the word of truth?

Will it offend your flesh so that you will go to the Jesus who has given forgiveness by his blood?

And will you believe upon him and rely upon the Spirit's work to make that authentic so that your life

will change?

That your life each day will be a foretaste of the inheritance waiting for you?

What a hope we have in Jesus.

You know, you don't need to get up each morning with no hope.

Your day is filled with eternal meaning because it's in anticipation of an eternal

reality of the inheritance that Jesus has won for us.

So that each and every task, thought, desire you have can be under the conformity

under that authority of Jesus in the inheritance he's won.

This changes everything about you.

It changes the way you talk to your wife, changes the way you talk to your husband, changes the way you talk to your children.

It changes the way you come into worship.

It changes everything in which is give me the word of truth so the Spirit can seal what he is doing

in me that I could live a changed life in light of the word of Christ.

This needs to be the way the Christian lives.

And if you're an unbeliever, oh that you would repent and believe upon Jesus and have the Holy Spirit through his

power authenticate you to cause you to walk in God's law by the

work of Jesus.

What a great thing we have in the Lord of spiritual blessings.

Let's pray.

Thank you Father.

For the work of Jesus.

Lord, this is not something that we do of ourselves, but rather it's a work of what he has accomplished in

his righteousness and in the cross.

And it's also the work that he does in giving us the Spirit upon our belief.

Not that we believe without the power of the Spirit.

Certainly Lord, we need the Spirit's ability to even believe at all.

But we know that here what we see from Paul is that he does the work of causing us to live

and to conform ourselves to Jesus each day as a foretaste of that righteousness in full

that we'll have.

I'm, so thankful that we're made perfectly righteous in our justification even today.

But we see that the Spirit's role is to help us play out that righteousness in our daily life as a way to enjoy

and taste that inheritance.

Oh God in heaven,.

I, I,.

It is so easy for us as Christians to obey you with the wrong hearts and wrong motivations.

I pray God for those who are doing the things that Christians should do without this proper motivation that it is a

foretaste of the inheritance waiting for us.

I pray that you would enlighten them, that the Spirit would work in them to cause them to

enjoy you in a way that their obedience is filled with, oh, I get to enjoy righteousness

now, the living it out because of what Jesus has laid up for me in eternity.

I pray that this kind of living would just transform us each day, each breath, so that you would be

glorified, that your work would be marveled at, that we would praise you for this glorious grace

that you are doing in us.

Let the glory be yours, Lord, for it's not our work, but it's yours, so that we would live a life glorifying and

enjoying and praising you even starting in this moment.

Thank you, Lord, for this purpose we have in Jesus.

May he be glorified in Jesus' name.

Amen.