The Assurance of Salvation

Good morning, it is always good to be here and to be behind the pulpit. I love being behind this pulpit and this pulpit loves me because it only gets brought out when I'm here So, no, I know that's not true, I know other people use the pulpit But yeah, it's always good to be here It's always good to gather with Christ's people even when they're in a different body than you are. I know the people at our church are praying for you even this morning as the word of God is being preached here We would ask that you pray for us in return The Lord is doing some wonderful things at our church

We are seeing sinners being saved, saints being sanctified, those who are professing Christ undergoing the waters of baptism, and we are experiencing this just amazing phenomena of unbelievers coming to our church and being so blown away by the truths that they are hearing from God's word that they're inviting other unbelievers to come And right now, some of the best advocates of bringing people to our church are people who are trying to figure out who Christ is and whether they know him or not My wife and I, we just had our fifth daughter, fifth child, five for five, we drew a straight

And we were at the hospital and we were talking to a nurse and she said, she knew several people who were going to our church and so we were telling her, oh yeah, I pastor at Trinity Reform Baptist Church and you know, oh, you may know so and so, you may know so and so We start going back and forth and she starts talking about all these people that she knows that are being saved that are going to our church And she goes to a mega church in town and she looked at me and said, I did not realize that your church was that big And I laughed because we have like 30 members

But the weight of what is going forward, the gospel of Jesus Christ is going forth, the power of God is being manifest and made known And so we would appreciate your prayers that more of that would continue That said, let's go ahead and take our copies of God's word and open to Ephesians chapter 1 We will be reading verses 3 through 14 right now, but our focus will be on the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1, 3 to 14, specifically verse 13 is what we'll focus on today But I think it's helpful for us to read this entire text Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 to 14, hear the word of God

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on 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 on us and all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention, which he purposed in him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times That is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will

To the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory 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 Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory Let us pray Oh great God and highest heaven, as we have opened up your word and we have read it, we ask that you would add your blessing not only to the reading and the preaching, but also the hearing of your word

And Father, we ask that as we discuss the Holy Spirit this morning in Ephesians chapter 1, we ask that the Holy Spirit would do that which the Spirit does, which is not only cause us to gaze upon Christ in all his glory, but to be conformed into his image We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen Two particular things I want to do this morning as we work through this text, and they consist in looking at the work of the Spirit, as I already said in Ephesians 1, 3-14, but specifically assurance of salvation

Assurance of salvation. A lot of people have questions about whether or not they are in fact saved Am I a believer and how can I know that I'm a believer in Jesus Christ? Well this morning, I hope that we can expound on that as we look at an assurance that we have from this text, specifically as it relates to the work of the Holy Spirit And if you think, just by way of introduction, if you think that the Spirit is kind of an afterthought in Ephesians 1, 3-14, kind of waiting until the tail end to come, you're mistaken He's present very, very, very early on in the text

In fact, he's right there in verse 3, and you say he's not named, and I know he's not named, he's not explicitly named, but the Holy Spirit is present in Ephesians 1, 3, in three different ways First, we have these scriptures because the Holy Spirit He is the one who speaks truth He is the one who moved men as they wrote Holy Scripture So the very fact that you're reading these words, these are the words that come to you and are made possible by the Holy Spirit So he's present right there in the text

You don't read about the Father, and you don't read about the Son in Scripture apart from the Spirit He's the author of Scripture, indeed the primary author of Scripture So that's the first way that he's present In the very words themselves, we see the work of the Spirit of God being made known The second way that we see the Spirit of God in Ephesians 1, 3, is in that one word, Christ Jesus Christ, it's not Jesus first name, last name, Christ, as if you were to sign his name, what's your first name? Jesus, last name, Christ No, Christ means anointed one It means Messiah

And when you see the word Christ, you should think of anointed one, and you have to ask yourself, what's he anointed with? And Acts chapter 10 tells us that he's anointed with the Spirit So he's present right there, the one who anoints the Christ, who is the anointing of Christ Blessed be the God and Father of our, another word right there, our Lord Jesus Christ How does one confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? First Corinthians chapter 12, verse 3, no one can confess that Jesus Christ is Lord except by whom? The Spirit of God

And so the Spirit is not an afterthought that kind of is tacked on here at the end in verses 13 and 14 He's present all throughout the text Anytime you see Christ, you see the Spirit as the one who is on the Christ Anytime you see someone saying, our Lord, you see the work of the Spirit as believers are confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord And anytime you read the Bible, you're reading the words of the Spirit of God that have been given to you That said, let's look at verse 13 now that we've properly situated the Holy Spirit and where he is

And what I want to look at is we're going to look at this text, we're going to pull a doctrine from this text, and then we're going to apply that doctrine So as we look at the text, we're going to break it up into two parts, an external work and an internal work, an external work and an internal work Let's look at the external work Verse 13, the Apostle says, in him, that is Jesus Christ, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation The Apostle Paul is emphasizing that people hear the word about the Christ He does this elsewhere

We know this from Romans chapter 10 verse 17 Faith comes by what? Hearing In him, you also, after listening, after you have heard the word of truth The Christian religion is a religion that proclaims and declares and publishes the truth about who God is and how man can be reconciled and made right with Almighty God God makes the mystery of the faith known through the proclamation, the publication, and the declaration of Holy Scripture and the preaching of the word about the Christ So as Christians, we are a word people All Christians everywhere ought to be a word people

We were formed by the word of God We are shaped by the word of God Christians become Christians because they have heard the word of God and placed their faith in Jesus Christ As Christians, we are people who care about words We care about language We care about translation of Holy Scripture We care about precision with our words because we are a speaking and hearing people We are those who have heard, received, and then confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord and call others to do the same And that is what has happened here This is the phenomena of Christianity

People hear the message of truth, the gospel of salvation It goes forth And what is it that goes forth? It's the message or the word of truth Again, this is an emphasis on the fact that things are being spoken, truths are being heard You've heard the message, the word that is described as the word of truth It's a true word But it's not just that it's a true word There are lots of true things. I'm wearing a blue blazer right now Picked it up yesterday at the dry cleaner If I didn't pick it up, I was going to wear a sports coat That has absolutely no bearing on your life whatsoever It's true

The word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, is not a truth like my blazer It's something that's completely different Can you imagine going to the doctor? You have cancer You know your time is coming to an end You're laying there in the hospital bed and the doctor comes in and you look at the doctor and you say, doctor, just tell me the truth And he goes, okay, Drew It is 65 degrees outside Sunny Small chance of rain It's kind of windy

Doctor, that's not the truth that I am here to hear about. I want you to tell me about the important truth that I need to hear. I want to know about my diagnosis. I want to know if there is a cure There are more important truths than the weather There are more important truths than the fact that I'm wearing a blazer There are important truths that pertain to our eternal destiny and the God who made us It's not just that it's a word of truth, but it's that it's truth in its imminent form It's not trivial truth It's the most important truths

Martyrs are made over the truths that are contained in Holy Scripture Martyrs aren't made over blazers Martyrs aren't made over weather Martyrs aren't made over math Martyrs are made because they say there's something more to this life than what is happening right now And so I will die for these truths These are important truths It also speaks to the inerrancy of Scripture This message that is proclaimed in Holy Scripture sanctified them in truth Jesus said, your word is truth These are true words from God God does not stutter God does not misspeak God knows exactly what He's going to say

He's the almighty all-knowing God and He can speak a word of truth Should you doubt that, that just shows how arrogant and proud you are because you think you can somehow communicate your words to me and say that's not true And you think you can speak clearly God made you He formed you He shaped you He made the mouth He made the ear He knows how to speak and He knows how to speak true words It's an imminent truth It's an inerrant truth It's also an exclusive truth It's exclusive It makes certain claims about who God is and who man is and who Christ is

And truths that contradict these truths that are contained in Scripture are just wrong The word of truth The gospel of your salvation Both to the contents that are contained in it as well as its power As Paul talks about in Romans 1, verse 16 The word gospel means good news Returning to that hospital bed, it's like the doctor coming in and saying the cancer is gone That's good news That's a word that you want to hear You want to hear that your cancer is gone You want to hear a word of pardon about your health That's what this is It's a word of good news It is not a word of law

It is not a word that says do this and then you will have life It's a word that says you can have life in Jesus Christ Believe and then live accordingly It's that great glorious good news that God who is the infinite, holy, holy, holy God Who is blessed in and of himself Needing absolutely nothing Not needing to create this world nor needing to redeem anyone who has fallen This God made a world And He is the judge of all mankind He is the judge of all the earth And He is the all knowing God who knows everything that man has done Everything that man will do

And all the sins that we commit in thought, word and deed This God made man Started by making one man, Adam And his wife Eve These finite creatures fell Rebelling against God Disobeying His word Listening to the lie of Satan These finite creatures are fallen creatures Because in Adam's fall sinned we all These finite fallen creatures are separated from God They've become by nature children of wrath Hostile towards God Angry towards God And in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son Born of a woman Born under the law Jesus Christ Truly God Truly man Taking all that is ours

Assuming humanity to Himself Living a perfect life that you are required to live And dying a death where He suffered the curse that we deserve to receive Because as finite creatures we have rebelled against a righteous and holy, holy, holy judge And all who come to Jesus Christ In true faith and repentance Receiving Him and resting upon Him alone for salvation Can be made right with this thrice holy God All who reject this Christ will suffer eternal conscious torment As God pours out His wrath on them for all eternity But there is a way to be made right

And those who receive this Christ by faith Therefore, Paul says, having been justified by faith We have peace with God There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus That is good news There's no greater truth There's no greater news than the news you heard today And if you receive that news by faith If you have received that news by faith These aren't new truths to you But we're comforted over the fact that we have been saved by God This is great news Great truths Then as I said, these truths are exclusive They make exclusive claims But it doesn't exclude sinners

It says come Come without money Come without price All manner of sinners who have committed all manner of sins Can come to Jesus Christ and find Him to be a perfect Savior of their sins Yes, these truths are exclusive But we do not exclude people from coming to meet and know the Savior of the world That's the external work That preaching of the gospel That word of truth That good news of salvation And we move now to that internal work So you've heard that That's something outside of you But you, having heard that Having also believed You were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise

Having believed the truth about the one who is the way, the truth, and the life Having received the word about the one who is the eternal word of God The contents of faith and the one in whom our faith rests We have believed in Jesus Christ This too is a work of the Spirit of God And this sealing work that He does is different than faith and comes after faith So having believed in Him, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise What is a seal? Well, kings and officials would often seal documents by pouring hot wax And they would have a signet ring that would indicate who they were

And they would take that ring and they would place that in the hot wax And that would indicate that this is indeed a message from the king We have this in our day We have notaries, right? And notaries have either a stamp or a signature of some kind to authenticate what has happened And that is what a seal is We are sealed to Christ We are sealed in Him Who is sealed? All those who believe Look at Ephesians chapter 4 Just turn your Bible over either a page or two Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption

All believers have the seal and they are sealed for the day of redemption And who is the seal? It is the Holy Spirit We confess as Christians that we believe in the Holy Spirit This one who is the Spirit is the third person of the Godhead He is called the Holy Spirit He is not called the grandson of the father He is not called the mother of the son He is the Spirit of God who is from the Father and the Son And this one who is the Spirit is a person as the Father is a person and as the Spirit is a person

And Paul's inclusion of Him here in Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 to 14 is a testimony to that We have this thrice praise that we have in this text Look in verse 6 To the praise of the glory of His grace after just speaking about the Father Look then down at verse 12 To the end that we were the first to hope in Christ after just speaking about the work of Christ being bought with that precious blood would be to the praise of Christ His glory And we come down to the end talking about the work of the Spirit who is the seal and is the pledge or guarantee to the praise of His glory

The Spirit is included here with the Father and the Son because He is very God of very God He is true God Something similar you have in Matthew chapter 28, 19, and 20 Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit It's not of one person of the Godhead, another person of the Godhead and a force It's not one person of the Godhead and a great prophet and then something that no one really knows about No, this is a Trinitarian declaration He is a person He is the triune He is the third person of the triune God He is called in this text the Spirit of promise

He is the one that was promised to come We often think of Christ as the promised one and that's true That's absolutely true But the Spirit is also promised to us in Holy Scripture Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 11 We'll see just a brief glimpse of this Isaiah chapter 11 verse 2 Very familiar text Actually, we'll begin in verse 1 You see the promise of the Messiah There's the promised one, the Messiah Verse 2 Who? The one we just talked about, the promised one that's coming And so he is promised from old He is promised to be resting upon the one who is the promised one to come

Turn just a little bit further in Isaiah chapter 32 verse 15 And there's a promise of the Spirit coming being poured out Isaiah chapter 32 verse 15 There's a promise of the Spirit not only resting on the Messiah Go ahead and turn to Isaiah chapter 44 There's a promise of the Spirit resting upon the Messiah but there's also a promise that the Spirit will be poured out Isaiah chapter 44 speaks likewise Verse 3 Like poplars by streams of water And this one will say, I am the Lord's And that one will call on the name of Jacob And another will write on his hand, belonging to the Lord

And will name Israel's name with honor And as you read Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 to 14, you see people doing what? Crying out and saying, this is our Lord This is our Father We are His and He is ours The promise from of old There's also a specific promise from the Father. A specific promise from the Father Turn to the book of Luke The third gospel The very end The 24th chapter As you know, Luke was written by Luke And Luke also wrote Acts So you have the prequel and the sequel We get to the end of the prequel in Luke chapter 24

And then we're going to turn to Acts chapter 1 and see right where Luke picks up Look at Luke chapter 24 verse 49 As we continue looking at the spirit The word of God says, and behold, this is Jesus speaking. I am sending forth the promise of my Father upon you But you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high So here we have that the promise of the Father is coming What is that promise of the Father? We'll go ahead and just turn to the book of Acts And Acts is going to pick up right where Luke left off Right there in the beginning Acts chapter 1 verses 4 through 5

Gathering them together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem But to wait for what the Father had promised Which he said, you heard of from me for John baptized with water But you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now Acts 2 verse 33 Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit He has poured forth that which you both see and hear The spirit of God was promised from long ago The spirit of God was promised from the Father And the spirit of God was also promised from the Son

In John chapter 7 verses 37 through 39 Jesus Christ calls people to come to him This is at the end of a feast And as he calls all people to come to him What does Jesus Christ promise to do? All those things that we read in Isaiah He's going to pour forth the spirit of God as water on dry ground John chapter 7 verse 37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast Jesus stood and cried out saying if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink He who believes in me as the scripture said from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water But this he spoke of the spirit

Whom those who believed in him were to receive For the spirit was not yet given Because Jesus was not yet glorified So here we see the spirit of God was promised from of old He's the promise of the Father And the Son promises to send forth the spirit For this reason he is called the Holy Spirit The spirit of promise So we've looked at that external work The preaching of the word of God That message of truth The gospel of your salvation And that internal work Having believed you were sealed Now we want to pull a doctrine from this text And that doctrine is this

The Holy Spirit is the seal that assures all believers that they belong to God The Holy Spirit is the seal that assures all believers that they belong to God There are three kinds of assurance a believer can have That they are in Christ Jesus And they will be saved from the coming day of wrath The first assurance is belief in the promises of God If you confess with your mouth, Jesus Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised you from the dead, you shall be saved Think of the Philippian jailer What must they do to be saved? What was the answer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ

And you shall be saved So we have something that's from God It's a promise And it's outside of us This promise doesn't exist inside of us But we have God holding forth a promise If you come to Jesus Christ, you will find Jesus Christ to be a perfect Savior of your sins So then you ask the question, have I come to Jesus Christ? Do I believe in Him by faith? The answer is yes Then you're saved from your sins And that's one assurance of salvation Another assurance of salvation is the evidences of graces that come in our life We have been united to Jesus Christ

Look at all the times in Ephesians 1, 3 to 14 that the Apostle Paul says, In Him we are in Jesus Christ like branches are in a vine, John chapter 15 And those that are in the vine, those that are in Jesus Christ, what do they do? Bear much abiding fruit So those who are in Christ are conformed into the image of Christ So you have the promise of God which is from God and outside of us And then you have the fruits of grace in our life, the evidence of grace that is inside of us And it comes from us It's the fruit that we have It's the fruit of the Spirit in our life

But there's a third assurance that is often overlooked And that is the work of the Spirit or the presence of the Spirit inside of us This is internal to us But it is also from God This is God, the Holy Spirit, as the seal on believers that they are surely saved We have the promises of God and the presence of the Spirit in the life of the believer These two assurances are unchanging God's promises hold fast When you believe, you're sealed with the Spirit That's unchanging You don't have more of a sealing or less of a sealing You believe, you're sealed Case closed

Our fruit, on the other hand, grows and fades If you're a believer in Jesus Christ and you've been a believer for longer than 10 minutes, you know that to be true There are times when we know that we are in communion with the Triune God And there are the times when we feel distant So the fruit that comes from inside of us, that grows and fades And sometimes it really doesn't grow and fade Sometimes it's just our recognition of it Sometimes we think, man, I'm doing so great Maybe It could just be that you don't realize how sinful you are You don't know the sinfulness of sin

You don't realize how self-deceived you are Sometimes as you grow in holiness, you think, man, when I thought I was living really holy back then, I did not know what I was doing Sometimes even that discouragement that we feel as we look back on our life and see how little we've progressed is also a sign of holiness Because we see more and more how sinful our sin is And we learn to hate that more But that grows and fades The promises of God are unchanging and sure The seal of the Spirit in our life is unchanging and sure

And so believers ought to have great assurance because they have the seal of the Spirit upon them So our assurance of salvation is thoroughly Trinitarian Turn to Paul's other writings in 2 Corinthians 1 And you'll see that Paul says a lot of the same things here in 2 Corinthians 1 that he says in Ephesians 1. 2 Corinthians 1 verses 21 through 22 Now, he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed is of God This is the Father establishing us in the Son, the Christ, the anointed one, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge

So here you have Paul talking about anointing with the Spirit, the pledge of the Spirit, and the seal of the Spirit We are sealed by the Father to the Son with the Spirit of God This is a Trinitarian work The Father is the one who seals us He seals us to who? The Son In John 6, it refers to Jesus and it says that the Father has set His seal on the Son So the Father doesn't just seal us The Father sealed the Son What did He seal the Son with? The Holy Spirit This happened at His baptism And the Father says, this, this one is my beloved Son He's mine. I've authenticated Him as mine

In whom I am well pleased. I've authenticated Him and He has my approval Hear this one speak The Father has set His seal upon the Son And what is the seal of the Father upon the Son? It is none other than the Spirit of God The same Father who sealed the Son with the Spirit seals believers to that Son with that same seal, the Spirit of God So what does that mean? Well, the seals have many purposes And one of the purposes I've already indicated is to authenticate something You have something signed by a notary, you can go and you can hold that paper up and say, Ah, see, this is authentic

It was signed by a notary It has a seal on it The Spirit of God authenticates that we are gods It doesn't just authenticate that we belong to God It also shows approval The Son was not merely authenticated by the Father He's also the Son of delight So this is my Son, authentication, in whom I am well pleased, approval Beloved, if you believe in Jesus Christ, that God says, You are mine, my Spirit is upon you Not only that, I approve of you because of the work of Jesus Christ, the one to whom I set my seal And we're protected, sealed for the day of redemption So that's our doctrine

Let's apply this to our life The first application is this You need to discern the presence of the seal in your life. I mean, if everything that I said is true today, or at least the bulk of it is true, then you need to walk out of here today making sure you have the seal of God How do you know that you have the seal of God? I'm going to tell you exactly how you know Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? If the answer is yes, then you are sealed with the Holy Spirit of God It's that simple

The Spirit of God has been sealed, you've been sealed to the Son with the Spirit by the Father And that internal presence of the Spirit in your life is there And beloved, you are secure The end What a great confidence that should give us in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the message Am I saved? Yes, the promise of God holds true It's unchanging And not only yes, God promises that if you believe, sealed to the Son with the Spirit What a joy If you're here today and you do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord, then you have no authentication that you belong to God

If you have no authentication that you belong to God, you have no approval of God God does not have any approval over you And if God does not have any approval of you, then you have no protection And what does that mean? That means you have no protection from God That's what that means It means that God will not protect you from His own wrath Just as people in the days of Noah who were outside of the ark had no protection from the floodwaters that God sent

So also on the Day of Judgment, will those who do not believe and do not have the authentication and do not have the approval in the Son, they will not be protected from the wrath of God So, what do you need to do to be authenticated, approved, and protected by the Father and the Son? You need the Spirit How do you get the Spirit? You believe in the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation That's the first application The second is trust the infallible nature of the seal Trust the infallible nature of the seal There are three other major instances of seals in Scripture

Two are of great importance to us One is in Daniel chapter 6, and the other is in Matthew chapter 27 In both instances, you have men put into something And in both instances, you have a stone rolled over that something And in both instances, you expect that if that stone was rolled away, the person that was inside there would be what? Dead? You have Daniel in the lion's den, you have Jesus Christ in the tomb And guess what? Darius, seal over David Pilate, seal over Christ's tomb Both seals broken Both men alive

The assurance of our seal comes from the triune God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, breaking Pilate's seal And because that seal is broken, we know that we will follow Jesus Christ not just into death, but into resurrection life with him Trust in the infallible nature of the seal Third, differentiate between the seal as witness and the witnesses of the seal Differentiate between the seal as witness and the witnesses of the seal That sounds a little complicated Let me explain Let's go back to a notary You go to the notary You have your paper The notary puts his seal on that paper

What else do you have to have? Witnesses And what do those witnesses testify to? The presence of the seal Are the witnesses the seal? No They testify to the seal If there's no seal, then the witnesses are kind of useless What are they witnessing to? So you have the difference between the witnesses to the seal and the seal itself which functions as a witness So we differentiate between the spirit of God who is the seal, and those other things that witness to the presence of the seal in our life That goes back to the evidences of graces that we have in our life

And so it would be wrong for you today to hear this and walk out and try to somehow mystically detect the seal apart from looking at the work of God in your life How do you know that God exists? You know He exists by His works He has made Himself known, Romans chapter 1 How do you know the spirit of God dwells in you? He makes Himself known How? The fruit of the Spirit But those are witnesses to the seal They're not the seal itself So we have to differentiate between those things because, again, sometimes the fruit will be high Sometimes it will be low But the seal is unchanging

So you need to ask yourself, do you believe in the promises of God? If you do, you're sealed You're secure Look for the fruit of the Spirit in your life But this isn't the emphasis of the text It's also not the emphasis of the sermon The emphasis is, do you believe in Christ? Then you've been sealed by the Spirit of God That comes with witnesses But the most important one is the presence of the Spirit in your life Lastly, rejoice in the good news This is the good news of your salvation

This is that eminent truth, the fact that if you have believed in Jesus Christ, the Father who set His seal on the Son has sealed you to the Son The Father said, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased We respond, John 3.33, setting our seal to the Son, saying, This one is the beloved Son We say of the Son what the Father says of the Son And we say, This one is the Son in whom I am well pleased And that has a two-fold meaning One is that in Jesus Christ, God is pleased with me

We say of the Lamb who is our righteousness, that perfect righteousness that God requires for you to be made right with Him, Christ procured that for believers That curse that you were supposed to bear on your own body, in your own soul, Christ bore that for believers That's good news So we say, This is the beloved Son in whom I am well pleased God is pleased with me in Jesus Christ If you're not in Jesus Christ, God is not pleased with you But if you're in Jesus Christ, the Father loves you as He loves the Son Not only that, there's a second meaning, in whom I am well pleased

We look at this one and we say, I am pleased in this one. I delight in this one. I am the Bride This is my Bridegroom And I adore Him in all His beauty, for He is my Savior This is that Gospel of good news And so the proper response to it is to rejoice Just like you do when you hear any other good news In great exaltation You didn't do the news, you don't live the news, you hear the news and you rejoice over the great news We didn't purchase salvation, we don't do salvation We receive the salvation that Christ accomplished for us by faith and we rejoice in that good news Let us pray

Father in heaven, we ask You to forgive us, for we often neglect the Spirit If there's a person in the Godhead that has more misunderstanding and more confusion surrounding him and is more maligned in our day, it may just be the Spirit of God And because of that, we often neglect Him And yet, Father, You have promised that there is an infallible way that we can know that we have assurance And that is with none other than the Spirit of God being sealed to the Son So Father, we pray that this would cause us to yearn to know the Spirit of God more

And that we would properly discern what that means To know the Spirit more is to know the one to whom the Spirit points to To be conformed into the one whom the Spirit conforms us into His image, the Son To love the one that the Spirit sheds the light on To read the word that the Spirit gave us And to rejoice in the fact that this Spirit opened up our eyes That we would see Christ And not only did He open our eyes, and upon opening our eyes, we saw Christ and we believed But then is our seal saying, You are approved and authenticated and protected

May we love the Spirit, Lord, and do so by loving the Christ more We ask this in Jesus' name Amen.