Praising God's Spirit

Praising God’s Spirit

Eph. 1:13-14

Over our last two weeks together,  we have been in a series from Ephesians, chapter 1, looking at reasons for praising God.  We praise Him, of course, for who He is, but also for what He has done.  We learned that God has chosen and accepted us in His Son, Our Lord Jesus, and that was all within His plan from the beginning of time.   Today we are going to conclude this series on the Trinity learning about One whom Christian author, Francis Chan, called, “The Forgotten God:”  The Holy Spirit. 

Dorothy Sayers tells of a Japanese convert struggling to grasp Christian theology. "Honorable Father, very good," he said to his missionary teacher. "Honorable Son, very good. But Honorable Bird, I do not understand at all"

So as we begin, we need to remind ourselves the Holy Spirit is not an “honorable bird,”  neither is He a feeling, attitude, or impersonal force. He is not an “it.” He is the third Person of the Trinity. He is God.   Our text today is found in verses 13 and 14 of Ephesians, chapter 1. There we will learn that we have relationship with God through His Spirit and by The Spirit we discover…

The Truth (v. 13a)  

Our Seal (v 13b)       and

Our Guarantee (v. 14)  

1. Body
1. The Truth. (v. 13a)
1. … you heard the word of truth…
1. Jesus spoke about God’s Spirit in John 16.  Beginning with verse 7, He said, “I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.  And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:  of sin, because they do not believe in Me;  of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;  of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. [vv. 7-11]
2. Jesus later proclaimed, "when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth… He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you." (John 16:13-14).
2. … you believed …
1. Apart from God, the human heart is dull and dead.
1. Isaiah 6:9-10 — He said, “Go, and tell this people:  ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;  Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’  “Make the heart of this people dull,  And their ears heavy,  And shut their eyes;  Lest they see with their eyes,  And hear with their ears,  And understand with their heart,  And return and be healed.”
2. In answer to the question of why He spoke to the crowds in parables, Jesus quoted that passage from Isaiah, and then He turned to His disciples and said,  “But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”  [Matt. 13:16-17]
2. The Spirit of Truth is with all who believe
1. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments. I will ask the Father to give you another Helper, to be with you always. He is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. But you recognize him, because he lives with you and will be in you.”  [John 14:15-17]
2. 1 John 4:2-3 — By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.

1. Our Seal  (v. 13b)
1. So what actually happens then when you hear the gospel and put your trust in it? Paul says here that we are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.”
2. Galatians 4:6 tells us “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts…”. When we became Christians, God placed His Spirit inside of our hearts.
3. But why would God put His Spirit inside us as a seal of our salvation? He could have used anything to "mark" us as His. Why do it this way?
4. A 4 year old boy was visiting his aunt’s home. She was pregnant with her first child and she allowed him to place his hand on her belly and feel the baby kick. His little face scrunched and said, "How does the baby get out of there?”
5. She wanted to keep it simple so she said, "The doctor will help.”
6. His eyes widened in amazement as he exclaimed, "You’ve got a doctor in there, too?”
7. Of course, she didn’t have a Doctor inside.
8. To get that kind of help she needed to
1. get into her car
2. drive down to the Hospital
3. wait in the ER Room
4. … and even when they got her into a hospital bed, she’d still have to wait until the BABY decided to come out.
9. It would be so much easier for pregnant mothers if the doctor WERE in there helping out.
10. The Bible tells us that God believed our lives as Christians would be so much better if He were inside us helping us out. 
11. As 1 Corinthians 3:16 tells us:  “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?”
12. We don’t have to go to a church building, or a cathedral, or a prayer closet to get in contact with God. We ARE the temple of God. He’s always with us (in us) whether we’re at home, work or play. He’s always there.
13. And so we are sealed by God’s Spirit.
1. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption/. Eph. 4:30
2. He has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee [2. Cor 1:22]
3. He has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. [2 Cor. 5:5]
4. In Roman days, property like cattle and slaves, were branded to show who owned them. This way, no one could come along and just take them, so it protected the property of the owner. God has “branded” or “sealed” you with His Spirit as a way to show that you belong to Him and will be protected until He takes you to be with Him.
2. Our Guarantee. (v. 14)
1. “He is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.” [v.14]
2. The Greek word for "guarantee" is arrabon. It originally referred to a down payment given to secure a purchase. Later it came to represent any sort of pledge.
3. One day Arthur Lewis, an expert in biblical Greek, was walking along the streets of Athens. Accompanying him was a professor who teaches Greek. They stopped occasionally to read the sign in shop windows.
4. As they gazed into a jewelry store, they saw a sign with the word arrabon on it. When they entered and talked to the proprietor, he told them that in modern Greek the word arrabon means "an engagement ring." The Greek professor thought for a moment, then commented, "How interesting! In the New Testament that’s the terms for ‘a guarantee, a down payment’" (Our Daily Bread).
5. The Lord Jesus Christ has given to us an engagement ring—the Holy Spirit—and He has promised, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5).  
6. John MacArthur writes,  As believers, we have the Holy Spirit as the divine pledge of our inheritance, God’s first installment of His guarantee that the fullness of the promised spiritual blessings "in the heavenly places in Christ" will one day be completely fulfilled. They are assured and guaranteed with an absolute certainty that only God could provide. The Holy Spirit is the church’s irrevocable pledge, her divine engagement ring, as it were, that, as Christ’s bride, she will never be neglected or forsaken
7. And what use is an engagement ring without a wedding?  As it says in Revelation 19:7-9 —  “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”  And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.  Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ”

1. Conclusion
1. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin and guides us into all TRUTH.
2. The Holy Spirit is our SEAL who guarantees that WE WILL BE KEPT SAFELY FOR THE INHERITANCE.
3. The Holy Spirit is our GUARANTEE that THE INHERITANCE WILL BE KEPT SECURELY FOR US.
4. For as far back as she could remember, Annie associated her Aunt Edith with a beautiful walnut piano. Each visit to her aunt’s brought the opportunity to lovingly stroke the finely carved piano legs and cautiously play the ivory and ebony keys.
5. It was no surprise, then, that her aunt’s will left the piano to Annie. At the time, however, Annie’s family had no room for the piano. A relative agreed to keep the piano until Annie could take it. Finally, after Annie graduated from college and got a place of her own, she called her relative to make arrangements to move the piano.
6. Her relative’s response shocked her: "Why, that old thing! I sold it last year to get a new air conditioner!”
7. Perhaps you know of a similar story regarding an inheritance, or perhaps you have experienced a similar disappointment. Few issues can create disputes in families like inheritances can.
8. Fortunately, God’s inheritance is not like human inheritances!