Sealed - Week-1 - Sealed by the Spirit

Sealed By the Spirit

Series Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship on this amazing day that the Lord has made. Welcome to those joining us online. I know some of you skip through the singing and corporate part of worship to get to the message, but you are missing so much. I am so honored to lead worship with these amazing musicians and liturgists. It is through the corporate worship experience as the gathered Body of Christ that we engage the Holy Spirit and are drawn close to the throne of Grace. I know sometimes we can’t gather in person, or we are traveling and want to still be a part of worship here, but we should never forsake the assembling together with other believers. That said, it is great to worship with you online or here in person.

I want to reiterate a couple of things from the announcements earlier. In your bulletins, you have two inserts. One is an insert for information regarding flood buckets. I was visiting with one of the pastors in Corpus Christi earlier this week and he shared that they are in need of flood buckets. Not so much for this storm, but their supply is running low as they prepare for the storms that are sure to come through the summer… so, I know how generous and mission-minded this congregation is, so I wanted to put something in your hands so that as you go out and buy supplies for our Operation Christmas Child, you can also buy flood bucket supplies. You can bring those into the office and we will store them here until we have enough to feasibly deliver to Corpus in preparation for future storms.

I also want to remind you to fill out the informational sheet if you would like to receive the news letter. We are in the process of revamping and restarting our newsletter, and what we discovered in the last attempt was that many of you had bad emails in our system. That’s why you didn’t get what we were sending before. So, please fill that out to update our system and mark if you wish to receive the newsletter by email.

OK, enough of that business, we are here to talk about being identified with Christ! We are starting a new sermon series called “Sealed” where we are talking about being marked, sealed, identified in Christ. Today, we live in a world that plays identity politics. I know, that’s a catch phrase for the Republicans as they lob a volley across the bow of the Democrats – but the Republican, and Independents, and Green-Party, and Libertarian Party all do it too. So often we find our identity in our political party and cast aspersions toward the other. In light of recent events, I almost left this part out of my sermon, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had to leave it in.

You see, I am an equal opportunity offender. If you are a Republican – my goal is to offend… If you are a Democrat, my goal is to offend… why? – our identity should not be in politics, it should be in Jesus Christ… and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive as we read in Scripture. It is exclusionary. It is exclusive. Jesus’ own words “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” are offensive… or as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing and spiritually dead.” That doesn’t mean others are left out, all are welcome at God’s Table. “For God so loved the world, literally, the Cosmos – all of creation – that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. He didn’t send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

That’s why I will throw rocks at everything we put our identity in other than Jesus Christ.

So, if we place our identity in our politics… OR… We claim our identity is in our social group or social standing in the community… OR…

We locate our identity in our sexuality, or gender, or race, or nationality… and yes, even our denomination, we are missing the boat.

These days, we place our identity in anything and everything, creating this dichotomy within our personality and separating ourselves from others. Then… we blast our newfound identity on Social Media and find ourselves in an echo chamber of that identity, never seeing anything else and we end up lost in our own identity. AND

When we place our identity in anything other than God as revealed in Jesus Christ and experienced through the Holy Spirit, we are missing the abundant life that God created you and me for.

So, today we are looking at what it means to be marked with a seal as Paul said in Ephesians 1:13.

Let’s pause for a moment to think about what a seal is…

Seal

Ok, yes it’s a playful creature in the North Pacific. I have watched videos of seals with SCUBA Divers cuddling up for a belly rub. They are cute, but that’s not the seal we are talking about.

And then there is a seal that keeps the wind and rain out.

Truck

One thing I’ve learned from owning a couple of different old cars through the years is, sometimes you have to replace the door seal to make sure the interior stays dry and the doors close well. But again, not the kind of seal we are talking about.

What we are talking about is more like the seal we see on a letter.

Letter

Today we’ve got lick-em and stick-em or peal and stick envelopes, but in years past, an envelope, or a letter was often sealed with a clay or wax seal. The use of a seal as a form of authentication actually dates back some 7500 years to the region that we think of as Babylon, or modern-day Iraq.

By the time Paul was writing to the Ephesians, a seal, or being marked with a seal, was known as a way of authenticating and identifying the author. When someone saw a seal of a Roman bureaucrat, they knew that it was official. A seal was and is today an identifying mark. It was often the signate ring of the dignitary… the signature… marking who and whose the letter is from and for. I often wear a signate ring, marked with the Alpha and Omega… it is who I belong to. It is a reminder of whose I am!

So, when Paul said we were marked with a seal of the Holy Spirit, what he was saying is that “…when you believe in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit.” (NLT)

Sermon slide

As followers of Jesus Christ, you are marked, you are sealed, you are identified. So, let me ask you… when someone looks at you, do they see the mark of the Holy Spirit? Do they see that you are a follower of Jesus Christ? Does your life bear witness to the fact that you belong to Christ? Do others see the stamp of God on your life based on how you act and react?

That’s really what the entire book of Ephesians is about. Paul wants to make sure that the followers of Jesus know that they have a new identity in Christ. We are marked, we are sealed, we are identified with Christ. Then, he wanted us to know what that means for our daily lives. So, the first half of Ephesians deals with our identity in Christ and the second half is full of practical examples of how to live as a follower of Jesus Christ. That’s why Ephesians is one of my absolute favorite letters or books of the Bible.

So with the final few minutes, I want us to dive into this passage that we just heard.

Ephesians 1:3-6

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship[b] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Isn’t it good to be chosen? How many of you ever played a pick-up game as a kid… baseball, football…, basketball… it didn’t matter. You picked your team captains… then they took turns picking players… anyone here ever the last one picked? I was… it didn’t feel good because you weren’t really chosen… one of the teams ‘got stuck’ with you… or me…

But isn’t it good to know that you are chosen! Before the world began, you were chosen. You meant enough to God that you were created and you were chosen. I don’t believe we are just some lump of flesh that happened to form into the right combination of atoms and elements to be a living breathing being… I believe that you and I and everyone else was predetermined by God to exist and it was God’s will that we would be in relationship with God. In Christ we have been blessed with Spiritual Blessings…

I know, it says we are “predestined” and some have said that means some are picked to go to heaven and some are picked to go to Hell… but I don’t believe that!

I believe that God knew we would exist before we were born… and we have a destination… we are destined to be adopted under Christ. That is God’s will, that is God’s pleasure…

But, God loves us too much to force it. Our ultimate good, our ultimate goal, God’s ultimate will is that you and I are in Christ, but it is still your choice… it is still up to you.

So, how do we accept that adoption? How does God make a way for us who have failed to be obedient to God’s will to be made right?

Lets look at the next verses:

Ephesians 1:7-10

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

Ahhh… here’s the good stuff. – “In him, we have…” not had. We have, it is present tense. What Christ did in the past Christ does today. Jesus continues to be our source of deliverance from sin.

“In him we have redemption…” Redemption is the word used to describe the freeing of a slave. One commentator put it this way, “Christ’s death was understood as the expiation (the act of making amends or atonement) for sin, that makes redemption God’s free gift to believers a reality.” (Pheme Perkins, Commentary on Ephesians)

Y’all… think about it. Our redemption is the forgiveness of sins… your sins, my sins. Even me, Oh Lord, even me!

John Wesley exclaimed it this way in his journal,

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

That is redemption!

It is a grace that God has lavished upon us… to lavish means “sumptuously rich, elaborate, or luxurious”. God’s grace is elaborate, it is luxurious, it is sumptuously rich! And it is poured over you and me! Why? For us to be united in Christ… for us to bring unity… as we prayed earlier, on earth as it is in heaven.

Our unity is God’s good pleasure, God’s will for you and me! That is why we are chosen.

Ephesians 1:11-14

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, (that’s the Jews)

might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ (that’s you and me – we Gentiles)

when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Again, you were chosen, you were predestined… not pre-determined. God’s will is that we all come to Christ. God’s wills that we all accept the love and grace, the riches of God’s forgiveness. But God doesn’t force us.

I’ve had people ask me… “how can a good God send people to Hell?” Well, God doesn’t… and before you go there, yes, I do believe there is a literal Hell… I don’t think it’s a place of eternal fire and I don’t think the devil has a forked tail and a pitchfork. But I do believe there is a place of eternal separation from the goodness of God. God wants us to be with Him. God made a way for us to be united to Him, and that is through his Son Jesus Christ.

God loves you and God has a wonderful plan for your life and your eternity… but God loves you too much to force you to follow him. God doesn’t want a bunch of Automatons. That’s why we have been given free will. God loves us enough to let us choose Him and His will for our life or not.

Sermon Slide

But ohhh… when we hear that good news… when we hear that Gospel, and we accept the Good news of what God has done for us and continues to do… when we choose to follow the life we were created for, everything begins to make sense. Our life begins to work. All cylinders start firing… and others see it.

Why, because we are marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit. When we are living our life as a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ, our life is changed. It’s like a visible mark on our lives that others can see. It’s something they want.

So, let me ask you again, maybe in a different way…

Have you been one that has been running from the love of God, the grace of God, “the redemption through Jesus’ blood, the forgiveness of sins”?

Have you been one that blamed God for sending others to Hell, knowing that it was just an excuse not to be who God created you to be?

Have you been running from God’s call on your life? A calling to something different, something more… maybe it’s vocational ministry. Maybe it’s lay ministry. Maybe God’s calling you to be a pastor, or preacher, or teacher, or volunteer with the children or youth, or to step up in another area of the church or the community?

Maybe it’s time to hear and believe the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and be marked in Christ with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.

Invitation… prayer…