The Revolutionary Sentence (part 2) - [Ephesians 1]

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Tests That Every Christian Pass (part 3) - [1 John]

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If you have your Bibles, please turn to Ephesians chapter 1. We're going to be looking at Ephesians 1, 3 through 14.
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While I was in my study at 6 o 'clock, the phone rang, and I thought it might have been someone who wanted to call and say, how do you get to church?
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And the person said, basically, I'm a Jehovah's Witness. Why do you believe in the Trinity? It has to be the
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Father alone. And I said, well, I'd love to have you call back sometime and talk to Pastor Steve on a
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Tuesday, but in the moment that I had before our service starts, Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 and 20, talk about the name of God, the one singular name with three persons, the
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Father, the Son, and the Spirit. So we have one name of God with three specific persons.
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But I could have said, why don't you turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 to 14 and see the great triune
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God in redemption, how the Father chooses, the Son dies for, and the
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Spirit seals. I could have said either one of those, but I really didn't have time. It had to come out for the worship service.
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We are looking at Ephesians chapter 1 tonight, the second part of a message that I've called the most revolutionary sentence in the
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Bible. If you don't have a Bible in front of you or behind you, there'll be a black pew Bible. And Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14 is one sentence in the original
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Greek language. It's broken up with sentences in your English translation. And if you have a
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Spanish translation or Portuguese translation or a Russian translation here or any other translation, it's going to be broken up.
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But the original Greek, it's one single sentence. And that one single sentence is there for a purpose.
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And that purpose is for you to be so consumed with your salvation that you will respond with praise.
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Praise means to speak well of, to be thankful for, to say, God, you are wonderful and you are great.
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The more you understand your salvation, the more you understand the intricacies of salvation, the greater your praise should be.
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And so this whole sentence talks about the father's role, then the son's role, and then the spirit's role.
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I love Martin Lloyd -Jones when he said of this chapter and this sentence, he said, how little we have been told about the glory, the greatness, the majesty, and the sovereignty of God.
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That's what we need in life. More about the glory of God. Less about how we make ends meet, how we get along, what we do.
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Those are all after effects, but what we really need is a good picture of who God the father is, who
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God the son is, and who God the Holy Spirit is. That's exactly what happens here with this sentence.
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Here's the goal of the sentence. So you know more about God so that you'll praise Him more.
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Thomas Watson said, praising God is one of the highest and purest acts of religion. And you'll find out very quickly that this praise is not somehow in a mental vacuum.
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This is not I've got a warm feeling and my hands are up and I don't know why I'm praising. There are specific reasons here for praise.
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This is mental knowledge that needs to be understood because your mind and praising are forever linked.
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It's like the engine and the caboose. Show me someone who knows more about God, I'll show you somebody who can praise
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Him better. It is not the way other people say, well, you know, I don't wanna get bogged down in the letter of the law.
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I go with the spirit. Paul said, church at Ephesus, you better know who your God is and I'm gonna teach you exactly who
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He is so you can praise Him. He said, this is how I praise God. And the inference is, this is how you should praise
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God. And you should praise God as a great father who has elected people, has a son die for them and have the spirit seals them to the day of redemption.
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25 years after Paul was saved on the road to Damascus, he now tries to rouse the hearts of the people at Ephesus to say, this is how you should be praising the
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Lord. Sadly, in Revelation chapter two, what happened to the church of Ephesus? They lost their what?
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Their first love, they forgot about God. Now, let's look at Ephesians chapter one, verses three through 14.
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And with John Stott, you'll probably say with me, nobody can read this sentence without being moved to wonder and worship and challenged to consistency of life.
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Verse three, as we've looked at last week, this is part two, but we'll have a little catch up. Of course, that's
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C -A -T -H, C -A -T -C -H, catching up. Blessed be the
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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
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He says, we ought to be speaking well of God. Did you know that word blessed there is only applied to God in the
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New Testament? Luke one, Romans one, Romans nine, second Corinthians one,
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Mark 14, first Peter one, only of God. This praise is not to the doctor, to the surgeon, to your friend, to Michael Jordan, to Tom Brady.
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I mean, what would we do if Tom Brady was hurt for the rest of the year? I mean, the world would stop. It's not for some
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Kevin Uchuless. This is only a word that has a special reservation to be used for God.
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Only God is to be praised this way. And it talks about God's character. It talks about God's nature.
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Why should we praise God? Because he chooses, the son dies for, and the spirit makes alive and seals to the day of redemption.
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Let's look at the first section, a little bit of review. Verses four through six talks about the first person of the
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Trinity to work in salvation, and that is the father and how he elects. What's the word elects with an
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S in front of it? What's the word elect and you put an S in front of it? Select, God selects.
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By definition, he gives favor to some and doesn't give favor to others. Don't ever forget when we're looking at this passage, everybody in this world because of the fall deserves what?
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They deserve hell. So if God wants to save some, that is, friends, his prerogative.
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It is his good pleasure. None of the nations deserve to be God's special chosen bride, but God said,
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I pick Israel, Deuteronomy 7, not because they're big, because they're great, because they're wonderful, they're mighty, they've got a big military, but because it is my good pleasure to choose them.
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And so when you come here and you say, yes, but this talk of picking and choosing, it bothers me.
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Well, that just should tell you how far off you are when you think of God. Because Paul doesn't say, it bothers me.
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Paul doesn't say, this is my rationale to believe it. He says, this is just true. If you believe in the
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Bible, you better believe in election. And it's not going to be the election that says, well, God foresees what we're gonna do and then he chooses.
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Does that evoke praise? Which one gives more praise? God looks down the quarters of time and sees nothing but sinners who will love to die in their own sin.
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And he said, you know, I'm gonna rescue some of those out. I'm gonna pick some out and I'm gonna make them look like my son with holiness and blamelessness.
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And I'm gonna rescue them and save them by myself. Or if God looks down the corridors of time and says, well, there's a couple of them that pick themselves up by their own bootstraps.
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And they kind of responded in faith and they maybe gave a sinner's prayer or they said, you know, yes,
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God. And since they did that, I'll save them. Which one gives more praise? Any thinking person would say, it's the one where the people gave no contribution except sin.
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We do contribute to our salvation, Horatius Bonar said, but we contribute sin. We contribute sin and God does the saving.
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And so here, look at the language. You can't argue with the language. What gives the most praise to God?
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Unconditional election, verse four. Just as He chose us, you better underline that. He chose us.
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It means taking smaller out of the larger. When I was in Omaha a couple of weeks ago, we had a bunch of grapes for a snack.
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And they had all kinds of donuts, fiber rings, we call them in Omaha, you know, and other things there. But they had grapes.
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And every time some people walked over and they took a handful of grapes out of the big thing,
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I said, election, you're selecting some. Those other poor grapes, they didn't get elect.
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You're just taking some out of the many, how could you? Every time you reach into the Bing cherries, every time you reach into that Dorito bowl tonight when we have the salsa party afterwards, you're picking one out of the box or one out of the bag.
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You are choosing, that's the word here, to choose. You're choosing a little out of the many.
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He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. That's before we contributed anything good with the purpose that we should be holy.
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Not because, verse four, we were holy, but that we should be holy and blameless before Him. You say, well,
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I don't believe in this kind of election. It's totally unloving. Oh, end of verse four, in love
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He predestined us to adoption. And here God picks people by name.
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It is personal. God doesn't pick John Doe, Anonymous, to whom it may concern.
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When God picks, He's got, when He's selecting some out of the many, He's selecting by personal name.
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Can you imagine if you're a Christian, God picked you out of the group by name before time began.
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That should cause you to what? Oh God, how could you not pick those other people? What should you be doing?
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I can't believe He picked me, especially when He knew about all my sin. You've heard me say a hundred times, why was
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I only engaged for a month? Answer, it's pretty easy, because I want to make sure Kim says
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I do before she gets to know me to the extent that I'm to be known. And then she might say, no,
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I won't say I do. So you've got to quick get the deal done. Till death do us part. That's the most important words
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I've ever heard in my entire life practically. Till death do you part. I do.
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But God knows every sin. True or false, God has never learned anything in His entire existence.
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Think of that. God doesn't look down the court at a time and go, wow, you know, I should have had a
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V8. I should have done something else because I see what Mike did. Wow, friends, He's never learned anything.
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He's omniscient. God doesn't learn. God knows. If God could learn something short of Jesus's language of learning in the incarnate state, but God doesn't learn.
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God just knows. He selects. And by the way, R .C. Sproul said, this is
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God's favorite doctrine. He chooses. And he said, if you were God, it'd be your favorite doctrine.
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You say, well, I don't know if I like that. This is kind of invented by John Calvin. Maybe it's invented by Augustine.
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Maybe it's invented by Paul. Sorry, this is invented by God Himself. And it's unsettling.
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It should be unsettling because it means we contribute nothing. And we like the American work ethic, don't we?
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We love to think, you know, together we can and all these kind of slogans. When did
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God choose? Look at verse four, before the foundation of the world, based on some kind of foreknowledge.
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Now, I have a question. If you think you believe in election, maybe you'll say this.
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Well, then if that's true, then how can anybody be held accountable? Fair enough.
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Turn with me to Romans chapter nine for a moment. God does whatever He wants, with whom
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He wants, as He wants, to those He wants, according to the kind intention of His will, verse five says of Ephesians.
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But what if you say, well, you know, I don't know about this discretionary grace. I don't know about God showing favor to some, favorites.
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I don't know if I like that, that He sits in the heavens and He does whatever
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He pleases. I don't like it when the text says, all inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing.
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He does according to His will and the host of heaven, Daniel four. If you look at Romans chapter nine, verse 18, dealing with the same kind of language,
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I think it's very helpful. No one deserves mercy. No one deserves grace.
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And it says, verse 18, so then He has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom
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He desires. Friends, no one deserves mercy.
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No one deserves grace. If you think you deserve it, you've presumed upon it and you don't understand grace.
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Verse 19, hey, how can I be accountable? God didn't pick me. I'm here tonight and I'm not a Christian.
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God didn't pick me and now I can just do what I want. Verse 19, you will say then to me, you will say to me then, why does
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He still find fault? For who resists His will? By the way, this is all singular language here.
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This isn't corporate language. This isn't nation language. You will say to me, why does
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He still find fault? For who, singular, resists His will? This is not talking about electing nations.
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Who's going to resist His will? Who's going to put a blockade up? Who's going to put a barricade up?
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Who's going to put some kind of SWAT team thing up there against God? Who can do it? No one can.
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Basically, God, why don't you save everybody? People sometimes blast the
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Roman Catholic Church because the Pope can grant indulgences to anyone He wants and so why doesn't He grant indulgences to each and every person?
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So maybe some people have the same kind of philosophy. God couldn't do it. He could save everyone if He wanted. Why didn't
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He? Why didn't He pick every nation? Why didn't He pick every angel? You know what the answer is?
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Are you ready? Most of you know me. I love you ahead of time. Here's the answer.
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It's none of your business. Everyone in this room, myself included, is fallen, we're sinful, and we're finite.
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And God doesn't owe us any answers at all. How humbling is that?
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We don't like that in American churches. You say, I don't think I like that either.
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Verse 20 though. On the contrary, Paul says, inspired by the Spirit of God, who are you, pipsqueak?
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That's the idea. Who are you, oh little man? Who are you, created man?
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Who are you? I made you out of the dust of the ground and you've got your fist up now and somehow I give grace to some and I don't give grace to others and you're questioning me?
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You're taking your finger and putting it in my chest, as it were. I want an answer now.
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Sternum talk. On the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God?
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If it's a theological question, I just kind of like to understand it, fine. But if it's God, how could you?
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Then the answer is, the thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this?
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Will it? The answer is no. When you say God, why don't you grant grace to everybody and not just some?
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The answer is, you better shut your mouth. Shh. Kids, you know, when they grow up, they go, we never say shut up, right?
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We don't say shut up. Well, I'll give you a divine shut up.
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That's the essence of the text here. And again, I'll say it to try to be nice. If you're trying to figure out theologically how all this works and you're coming to the text and you're saying,
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God, I'm not, whatever you wanna do, you can do, but I'm just trying to understand it a little bit more. Then I think it's fair to ask some questions.
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But when it's God, why didn't you do such and such? Then Paul says, you are to be rebuked.
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You are to sit down. You are not to stand up and run your mouth. You are to be quiet. As we say in class, do we say this in class?
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We used to. It's time to zip your what? Lip. Calvin said, let us treasure the following observation in our minds.
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Never to feel the least desire to attain any other knowledge concerning this doctrine of election, except what is taught in scripture.
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When the Lord shuts his sacred mouth, let us also stop our thoughts from advancing one step further in our inquiries.
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So what Calvin says is, if the Bible teaches election and the Bible teaches responsibility, the
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Bible teaches predestination and the Bible teaches duty, the Bible teaches election and the
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Bible teaches that man is gonna still be responsible for God one day and then God doesn't give us any more information.
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Our job is to be content with the information. I meet people all the time, they're running around and they're basically not content with scripture.
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God, I'd like to know more. God, I kind of have these two parallel truths. It's like Bobnik, I think said, it's like there's a pulley up in heaven, but you can't see the pulley and there's a rope coming down the pulley and there's one side here and one side here and it's hooked on up there and if you jump on this side of the pulley alone, you just, you know, you fall down.
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You jump on this side, same thing. How do you like the sound effects? You know, you just go down. Can't just jump on God's only sovereign.
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Can't just jump on only God's, you know, we're responsible before God. You've got to grab both truths and God says, these are the two truths, but he doesn't tell us how they co -mingle, how they get worked out.
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He doesn't say anything. So why would we then run around and say, God, I demand an answer. I want to know how can these two truths be true.
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I want to figure it all out. Friends, we are finite and we are fallen and Paul doesn't even make an explanation.
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He just says, this is the facts and then in Romans he says, be careful how you come to God. By the way, the first imperative in all the book of Ecclesiastes, 12 chapters, the first imperative is found in chapter one, no.
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Two, no. Three, no. Is there a pattern here? Four, no. In five, the first imperative is this from King Solomon, the wisest man ever to live outside of Christ Jesus.
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When you come to the house of God, it's better to listen than to talk. In other words, well,
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I believe this and I believe that and what about God when he did that and all this God over here and this is how I was taught in my Sunday school. It's just time when you hear the word of God to be taught to do what?
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Listen, it's how we learn. So when you say, I've got to try to figure out how to put this together.
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Friends, can I tell you something liberating? It was liberating for me. As you mature in Christ, you will not have to force mental closure about these doctrines.
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As you're maturing, you'll go, well, they're side by side. Jesus is fully God. Jesus is fully man.
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I just accept both. They're in the scripture. Say, well, you know, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling.
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It's God who wills and works in me. I accept both. There's all kinds of those things in scripture and so when it's there, the sovereignty of God, responsibility of man, you just go,
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I accept them. You're growing. You're mature and dare I say, if you're demanding things from God, then you need creatures.
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Don't get to register complaints to the creator, do they? So back to Ephesians chapter one.
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If you believe in an election that's conditioned on future faith, something that people might do or say,
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I would be so bold to say you are robbing God of the praise, do his name. The only ultimate and true praise of God is when he chooses you not based on anything you would do, but based on his good pleasure.
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You say, that'll split a church. Maybe, but at least there's, at least, you know, there's some wood to split.
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I'm trying to think of the slogan. Can't split dead wood, so at least there's something alive then.
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So God says, through Paul, God is to be praised, to be spoken well of, chapter three for election found in verses four, five, and six and then you look at it, the rest of the verse there in verse six, to the praise of the glory of his grace.
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This is to elicit praise, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.
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So I could ask you the question, when was the last time you praised God for your election? Number two, the second section here, as we look at the triune
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God and his role in redemption, the father chooses and now the son is going to die for those that the father has chosen.
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Let's look at verses seven and 12. That was quite a long review, but we threw in some extra things and we like review.
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I like review at least. We're gonna focus on verses seven now through 12.
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And if you look at verse 12, the real reason this is all happening again is to the praise of his glory.
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It's all gonna be about God. You look to yourself, you're going to get depressed. You're gonna look at other people, you're gonna get distressed, but when you study
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Christ, you're going to be blessed or impressed. Let's get our eyes off of ourselves.
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Why is Jesus to be praised for what he has done? Take a look at the text in review verse seven.
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In him, we have redemption. All that we have to our salvation's credit is because of Christ Jesus' work.
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And it is an effective work. Verse seven, we have redemption. He does not say we have redemption possible if we add the faith.
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It is not probable if we add repentance. It is not kinetic energy somehow that it's there.
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We just have to provide something. This is the son doing his glorious father's will dying for those the father has given.
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Now, I would say right away from the get -go, before you run to other verses about the world or all or this or that, friends, as Steve Lawson would say, if you don't believe that the son is going to die only for the elect ones, you are fracturing the
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Trinity. You're saying this, the father is going to choose some, not all.
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The spirit is going to only make alive those some and not all. But the son is going to say, oh, by the way,
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I think I'll die for them all. That would be like the father and the son in creation creating earth as the place where there's life with image bearers of God.
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But the spirit saying, no, I don't think I want just earth. I think I'm going to create 10 other universes where there are going to be image bearers.
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Would the spirit of God ever do that? Let me give you another illustration. Let's say the son and the spirit say, we're going to give some spiritual gifts to the local church, some teaching gifts, some serving gifts.
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And we're sovereignly going to distribute those gifts. And we are essentially God, we're by essence
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God rather. And we're going to give those gifts out to whomever we please. But then the father goes, no, you're not.
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You two are going to give some. You're going to give them this way. But I think everybody in here should have the teaching gift.
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More teachers, the better. Would the triune God ever act that way? Of course not.
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How about the father, son and the spirit and their role in sanctification?
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And you have the father and the son saying, we're going to really help these Christians at Bethlehem Bible Church grow.
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And we want them not to grow too fast because they might somehow be not dependent upon us. And so we're just going to be baby steps and they're going to grow and we're going to help them grow.
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And we're going to give them a desire and a duty and sweat and toil. They're going to grow. And then the spirit of God goes,
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I like fast growth. I want a lot of fast growth. We'll have a lot of church plants and a lot of things going on.
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And I want double the growth. Would the spirit of God ever do that? Answer, of course not.
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Because the spirit of God and the son of God and God the father all work together.
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You mean to tell me that the spirit of God only regenerates some, those elect. The father only chooses the some, the elect, but the son dies for each and every person?
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You go, well, what about he died for the world? What about he died for the world? What about this verse right here?
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The son, the spirit and the father? Of course the word world can be used for anything. And so you say, it's not just the
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Jews, it's the Gentiles, John chapter four. You say, well, what about those people in second
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Peter chapter two, verse one and two where these false teachers were bought by God?
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Yeah, they were certainly bought because they were Jewish and God bought them out of Egypt and rescued them.
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And out of anybody to be a false teacher, why would it be them? You go, well, he's a propitiation for not only our sins, but also of the whole world, first John two two.
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That's right, not just the Jews, but the Gentiles. If you only had this sentence on the desert island, you would never believe that Jesus died for each and every person who ever lived, including
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Judas, Jezebel and Hitler. Would you? I think
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I'm shouting. Why am I shouting? We were told in seminary, we had to do justice to the text before we did a bunch of cross -referencing.
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Jesus's death was great enough to save a billion trillion worlds. But Jesus's death worked within the
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Trinitarian construct and that is the father chooses some not the all, the spirit regenerates some not the all and the son redeems, look at the language, verse seven, we have redemption for the some and not the all.
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By the way, 200 years ago in New England, nothing else was ever taught, that was par for the course. You go,
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I don't like that, that's somehow not evangelical. Well, did you know Hudson Taylor believed that? Did you know
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Jonathan Edwards believed that? Did you know George Whitefield believed that? Did you know Charles Spurgeon believed that?
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You know, John MacArthur believes that? R .C. Sproul believes that? Do you know William Carey believes that? Do you know Adonai Judson believes that?
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You show me a person who's a great evangelist and a great missionary and I'll show you someone who says the
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Father, Son and the Spirit all do the same thing. I think
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I could win my argument, it's not even an argument, I'm not trying to win anything, but if you look at verse seven, we have redemption.
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It's not possible, well, God died to make your salvation possible. Friends, that doesn't elicit the highest praise.
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He died to make your salvation possible, that means he didn't get anything done. You've got to add something.
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If you've got to add something, I'll tell you what happens to that praise meter, it goes down. God does the selecting and the dying and the sealing and we are passive in salvation.
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It happens to us and you don't say, well, God, he died to make it all possible and now it's your turn.
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Friends, if it's your turn, we're gonna wait an awful long time for you to step up to the plate.
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When the language of Scripture is used, it is used in an effective way. We have redemption.
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Don't neuter the cross of its accomplished fact. On Calvary, Jesus died for every sin that was ever committed by every one of those people that the
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Father gave the Son to go get. I have a question for you. In John 17, where Jesus says,
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I'm only praying for those that you have given me, Father. Why would Jesus do that? Why would
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Jesus pray for those that the Father has given him and not go, well, I think I better pray for everybody else?
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He wouldn't do that. He didn't do that. Jesus was the ransom.
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His life was the ransom paid for the elect. Cost him everything.
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Look at verse seven, through his blood. Theologically, a shorthand term for Christ's sacrificial substitutionary death.
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You say, well, I don't believe it. Can we still come to this church? Of course you can.
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We don't divide over the extent of the atonement. I would say this to you if you don't believe it.
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There has to be an intention in the mind of God before eternity began.
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What's the intention? And did God get his intention done? I would say that if Jesus Christ died for each and every person that is ever born, he didn't do a very good job.
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Because there are millions, billions in hell today. And you mean to tell me Jesus died for them and they're still in hell?
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Why are they in hell? Well, they didn't believe. Isn't a lack of faith a reason to go to hell too?
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You mean to tell me Jesus died for all their sins except they didn't believe? Well, if you believe that, friends, then you believe there's only one sin that'll send you to hell and there's no degrees of punishment in hell.
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But there are degrees of punishment in hell. Hebrews 10 makes that clear. Look at verse seven.
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The forgiveness of our trespasses. Our. Say, but God so loved the world.
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Of course he did. He sent his Son. He loved humankind. But don't make the mistake where you say,
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I think I'll look at the word world and make sure I import every single time I see the word world, it means each and every person that was ever born.
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We learned this morning in 1 John 4 that world can mean all kinds of things. Real forgiveness of sins.
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Verse seven. Why is this? According to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us.
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It wasn't fractions. By the way, when you think of grace, don't think of fractions. Don't think of decimal points.
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Don't think about numerators. Don't think about denominators. I want you to think about it's poured out.
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The only way I can think about pouring out is because I'm a sports fan, is you know at the end of the game, when some team wins, they got a big, huge thing of Gatorade.
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You know the big buckets of Gatorade? And what do they do to the coach? Well, come on, let's just kind of infant baptize him and kind of just put a couple of drops over.
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Poop. What do they do with that thing? It is lavished upon.
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It's dumped out every bit. You mean to tell me that God the Father sent the Son to pour him out for each and every person that has ever born and they're more in hell that are gonna be in heaven?
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No way. He lavished upon, verse 8, us, the
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Christians. That's what the text says. How can we with one commentator say there's no adequate explanation of divine forgiveness can be made apart from these beautiful and precious words?
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The riches of God's grace. And that should force you to praise the
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Lord. Lloyd -Jones says, have we appreciated these riches? It is because so many of us have not done so that we are constantly grumbling and complaining that we cannot see this or understand that.
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It explains also why many are miserable and look miserable and therefore never attract a soul to Christ because they won't bow to the need to the truth that Christ actually redeemed.
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Look at verse 8. In all wisdom and insight, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to the kind intention which he purposed in him.
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It was all kindness. It was all goodness. Well, we better get to the third, and that is section number three, verses 13 through 14.
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Verses 13 and 14. So far we've got the father choosing, the son dying for, and now we have the spirit of God sealing to the day of redemption.
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Let's read the verses, verses 13 and 14. In him, you also after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were sealed in him with the
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Holy Spirit of promise was given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory.
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Why is this written? Because it's all gonna be about God. So you'll say my salvation is determined by God and I will praise him for that.
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Now let's take a look at this passage. We know that the Holy Spirit, he is a person, he has a mind, he has an intellect, he has emotions, he has will.
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And what does the spirit of God do? I'll teach you two Greek words tonight. Here are the two Greek words. Here's the first one. I'll spell it first.
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S -P, got some good lungs back there. S -P -H -R -A -G -I -Z or Z.
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S -P -H -R -A -G -I -Z -O. That's the word sealed in verse 13.
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You were sealed, sfregizo. S -P -H is like an
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F sound, sfregizo. I dare you to say it. Somebody say it. Okay, good.
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Kind of feel like I'm at a secret church. Turn to your neighbor and say sfregizo without spitting. Why do they do that?
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I don't know why everybody does that but I guess we don't do that. There are three nuances to sfregizo.
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First nuance is that when somebody is sealed or sfregizo, no one else can get in.
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Inaccessibility, inaccessibility. The chief priest and the Pharisees said, pilot, secure
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Jesus's tomb, make it sfregizo so no one else could get in.
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Not only inaccessible, but the second nuance is ownership. You put a seal on something with a signet ring, it says,
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I own that. Judah gives the signet seal to Tamar in lieu of illicit relations because that is his, it shows ownership.
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And thirdly, most importantly, he talks about protection. Inaccessibility, ownership and protection.
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Now let's think about the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God seals those that the Father has chosen, that the
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Son has died for and He seals them. They are not accessible to Satan, to the world system, to sin, so that somehow those people can be lost in their salvation.
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They're not accessible. Intruders are kept out. God says to Satan regarding Job, you can go this far, what?
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No farther. Luther says, for we ourselves are so feeble that if the matter were left in our hands, very few or rather none would be saved.
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Satan would overcome us all. Sfregizo, one, inaccessible.
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Two, it shows that he owns us. Sealing is a mark of ownership. When you drive by cows in Nebraska, in the old days, you would see something on the back of the cow and it would have a letter or a number and what would that be called?
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A brand. Can you imagine the smell of that burnt brand? The burnt hair, if you were the branding person. Psss. Branding.
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But today they don't brand, at least in Nebraska. They put a little yellow thing in the ear with some numbers.
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Doesn't look as neat. I don't think I like that as much. Some kind of, you know, pierced ear for cows.
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My dad, before he died, this is now 25 years ago, he got this engraving tool and you had to plug it in and it made some kind of sound, bzzz.
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He went around the entire house and engraved everything, including my stuff. L .A.,
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Lee Abendroth, bzzz. This is mine. You know, somebody's gonna borrow his ammo box,
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L .A. Somebody wants to borrow his shovel, L .A. This is mine. So what does the spirit of God do?
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No one can get in without God's permission. He's going to keep you and he's also, he owns you.
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You are God's own possession. Did you know that you are more God's possession? He possesses you more than you possess him.
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We talk about it from human language, will ya? I possess the spirit of God. True, but he possesses you.
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That's the idea of sfragizo. True or false? God has more riding on your eternal salvation than you do.
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If you lose your salvation, the worst that's gonna happen is you're going to hell. If God loses you, he's no longer
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God. But the spirit of God also protects us.
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This is the big one, protection. Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter nine. And by the way, if you're here visiting or you don't come on Sunday nights, this is gonna rock your world right here.
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You haven't seen anything like this in your life. People go, oh, the Bible's boring. I have a little slogan and here's the slogan.
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You're boring if you read the Bible and you think it's boring. You can't read, I guess, or you need tutorial school or something.
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You read Ezekiel chapter nine. Here is the talk about God protects with a seal.
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Here's the seal of protection, the sfragizo. We're almost done. Ezekiel chapter nine, verse three.
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You're never gonna forget this chapter. Then the glory of the Lord, excuse me, the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been to the threshold of the temple.
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And he called to the man clothed in linen at whose loins was the riding case. And Yahweh, the
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Lord said to him, go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in the midst.
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You go around and you find those who are sad because of sin. You go find those that are saying,
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I can't believe the sin in our city, God's city, the city of peace, the city of David.
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This is an abomination. Oh Lord, help us. Find them and you put a seal on their forehead. Verse five.
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But to the others, he said in my hearing, go through the city after him and strike.
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Do not let your eye have pity and do not spare. To what extent? Verse six.
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Utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children and women.
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And do not touch any man on whom there is the mark. They've got the seal. They're protected.
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It's Phrygidzo. And by the way, this is so appallingly wicked.
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Where are you gonna start? Start in the church. You start in the temple. Start in the sanctuary.
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So they started with the elders who were before the temple. Why? Because the elders should have said, quit it.
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We can't dishonor God this way. Verse seven. And he said to them, defile the temple.
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Fill the courts with a slain. Instead of saying, you cannot have a dead body here in the temple, stack it up. It's already defiled anyway.
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Go out. Thus they went out and struck down the people in the city,
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Jerusalem. Verse eight. And as they were striking the people and I alone was left, I fell on my face and cried out saying, alas
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Lord God, are you destroying the whole remnant of Israel by pouring out your wrath on Jerusalem? The answer could be, no,
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I'm not because I protected those Phrygidzo.
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God keeps his people safe. They're kept intact. You, if you're a
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Christian, are a marked man. Marked by the seal of inaccessibility, ownership, and protection.
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It's Phrygidzo. And then we get the second Greek word back to Ephesians chapter one.
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Ephesians chapter one. Last Greek word and we're set. Ephesians chapter one, verse 13 and 14.
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Two Greek words that help us understand the ministry of the spirit of God as he takes care of those that the father and the son have done their work in.
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And four. By the way, before I get there, do you see what Ephesians chapter one, verse 13 calls the
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Holy Spirit? You were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of what? Promise. What a wonderful description.
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That's so neat. He has the characterization of always keeping his promise. There's the promise keeper for you.
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I'm gonna keep you. No accessibility. I own you. I'm gonna protect you. Now here's the second
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Greek word. The first one was sfragidzo. The second one is Erebon.
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A -R -R -A -B -O -N. Erebon. Jose, what did you give your fiance while she was still a fiance to say,
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I pledge my love to you and there's something better on its way. Engagement ring.
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You know what you gave her? An Erebon. An engagement ring is the Erebon. When the spirit of God gives you himself, he is the down payment.
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He is the engagement ring. He is the one that says, there's something good.
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The engagement ring's good. You go, oh, this is good. I'm engaged. I love to see ladies and, oh, you know,
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I got engaged and it's a big diamond and they don't care if it's a negative one carat or a thousand carats.
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They love the person. This is my engagement ring. And you go, wow, engagement ring. Oh, I just wanna kiss that engagement ring.
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Is that what you do? No. You go, I'm engaged to that person, but I'm getting something better than this ring.
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I'm getting the person. That's exactly the language here. A pledge of a future business transaction.
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A future transaction of love when it comes to this right here. It's a pledge or an earnest of our final salvation, the spirit of God.
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Verse 14, who was given as a pledge, engagement ring, an Erebon of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory.
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How wonderful is that? Paul is making a point. It's spirit of God is a pledge or an inheritance of what is to come.
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We are God's property. We are God's possession. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ.
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So I ask you this question. If the spirit of God has given us a promise, he has made us inaccessible.
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He owns us. He's protected us. And he is a down payment for a future glory in heaven.
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How can a Christian lose their salvation? Because if they can, then there's no praise for the father, son and spirit.
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The better question is not can a Christian lose their salvation? Is can God lose a
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Christian? Because if God can, then he's no longer God. Oh yes, there are some people that say they're
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Christians and they run off like hellions. And you say, oh, 1 John 2 .19. As false leaders came out from among us, those people did too.
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They never really were Christians. Luke chapter eight says the same thing. They make a big show, but there's no fruit.
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We have theological categories for those people. But people, if they're really a Christian, the father has chosen you.
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The son has died for you. And the spirit of God has given himself as a down payment for something future. You can't be lost.
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And we ought to rejoice because Luther knew it. If we could lose ourselves, we would be lost today. How many times did you lose your salvation today?
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If you could have, the answer's probably pretty high for all of us. 2 Corinthians 5 uses the same language.
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God who gave us his spirit as a pledge. You're gonna make it to heaven.
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You're going to glory. I promise, God says. Latimer said, when
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I live in a settled and steadfast assurance about the state of my soul, methinks I am bold as a lion.
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I can laugh at all trouble. No affliction daunts me. But when I'm eclipsed in my comforts,
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I am fearful of spirit that I could run into a very mouse hole. This is important because as we learned this morning, when you have assurance, you can do great things for the
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Lord. By the way, if you serve the Lord all out, full bore, wide open, full throttle, what's the worst thing that can happen to you?
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Glory. You get killed. That's the very worst thing. Not bad.
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The first installment's good. I'm engaged. The wedding's better. Better days ahead.
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Jonathan Edwards said, the blessedness of heaven is so glorious that when the saints arrive, they will look back on their earthly pilgrimage, however wonderful, and think it was a veritable hell.
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As good as you have it now with wife and kids and family and friends and taste buds and all these and the sites in Niagara Falls and Grand Canyon, compared to heaven when you get there, you're gonna look back at earth and go, that was comparatively hell.
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That's pretty amazing. Consequently, by the way, the worst thing that could happen to an unbeliever on earth if they are to go to hell, when they look back and they say, that was heaven on earth.
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That was heaven. Richard Baxter, a famous saint, was going to die.
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And he was a man who would praise the Father, the Son, and the Spirit for their work.
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And he was asked this question. How are you? Baxter said,
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I bless God and have a well -grounded assurance of my eternal happiness and great peace and comfort within.
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How are you? He said, I'm almost well. You can trust
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God. He's no Indian giver. He's no God that goes back on his promises.
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The Father chooses, the Son dies for, the Spirit seals.
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You can imagine those in the boat with Columbus. Will we make it? You can imagine the pilgrims in the
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Mayflower. Are we gonna make it across the ocean? Can you imagine Shackleton on the endurance? Are we going to make this trip?
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Can you imagine Apollo 13 people trying to come back around and boomerang around the moon? Are we going to make it? For the
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Christian, you're going to make it. The Father has chosen you.
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The Son has died for you. The Spirit will seal you to the day of redemption. And your response is praise.
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That's right. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this time tonight. Just like the congregation just did, we almost wanna say, great, thank you, amen.
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Thank you that we can trust you. Thank you that we have a great down payment on our salvation.
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The Spirit of God himself. Thank you that every blessing we have comes because of Christ's perfect life and work confirmed by the resurrection.
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Thank you that before time you chose us. For some reason, Lord, if there are people here tonight who have not repented of their sins and believed in Christ Jesus, the risen
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Savior, I pray that you would break them tonight and grant them newness of life.
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Would you be so kind and generous as you have been in our lives to do that for them. Grant them grace.