Sermon Tone Analysis

Sealed by the Spirit

June 3, 2007

Ephesians 1:12-14

 

This is our fifth message in Ephesians.

What have we learned from chapter one so far?

In our first week, we focused on our adoption into God’s family.

In the second week, we focused on God’s call to make us holy and blameless for His glory.

In the next week the emphasis was on our becoming a part of His body, the church.

In last week’s message we talked about our blessed assurance.

You would think that would pretty much cover chapter one, wouldn’t you?

Well, it doesn’t because this week’s message is also from chapter one, verses 12 to 14. Let’s look at those verse right now.

Please turn to Ephesians chapter one and verse 12 and we’ll read through to verse 14.

If you forgot your Bible, you’ll find the Scripture on the insert in your bulletin.

/“we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory.

In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,  which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”/

God's great desire for his people is that we feel secure in his love and in his power.

Everything else in life may be unstable—our health, our family, our job, our education, our society, our world.

At any of these, you may feel as if you are out on a ledge forty stories up in an unpredictable wind.

Doesn’t that sound like a dangerous place to be?

Well, when you swore allegiance to Jesus Christ, you signed up for a more dangerous mission.

You may be secure in God’s love.

But security does not mean ease, does it?

How did Paul describe it?

Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword—we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered (Romans 8:35–36).

Listen to this condensed autobiography of the apostle from 2 Corinthians 11:25-28:

“Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned.

Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches.

How could a man, like Paul, so frequently subject to danger, so opposed from every side, so weak with hunger and sleeplessness—how could he be so stable and powerful as to carry the weight of many floundering mission churches and write letters that changed world history and dream as an old man of yet reaching Spain with the gospel!

The stability and power of the apostle Paul came from his great discovery: that God's desire for his people is that we feel secure in his love and in his power, even if everything else in the world is uncertain.

That's what I want you to feel today as a child of God: secure!

It is what sustained Paul, and it will sustain you!

One of the great obstacles to the enjoyment of this security is the apparent contradiction found in so many New Testament Scriptures.

Just when we start to feel that we are eternally secure in his love, along comes a passage of Scripture that seems to rob us of security.

I don't think there will be any deep, abiding sense of security in God until we face up to these passages of Scripture and see how they relate to the assurance of God's love and power.

We can’t ignore them!

And to make sure you don’t ignore them, we’re going to look at some of those “security stealers” right now: six of them to be precise.

There are many more, but this is a sampling: They are all printed in your bulletin insert for today.

Let’s start with                                                     /Romans 11:20//–21/, /"Unbelieving Israelites were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith.

So do not become proud but fear.

For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you."

/

/1 Corinthians 10:12/, /"Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall."

Also 15:2,/

/ 2 Corinthians 13:5/, /"Examine yourself to see whether you are holding to your faith.

Test yourselves.

Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you fail to meet the test!" /

/Galatians 6:9/, /"Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart."/

/Colossians 1:21//–23/, /"You who were estranged . . .

Christ has reconciled .

.. .

provided that you continue in the faith, /

/1 Peter 1:17/, /conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile."

/

All of these passages teach that the test of genuineness for the Christian is /perseverance/ and /holiness/ of life.

They warn us that the attempt to find security apart from God Almighty is perilous.

But it would be a terrible misunderstanding if we thought that these Scriptures were written to threaten our security in God.

Exactly the opposite is the case.

They are written to threaten our security in everything but God.

If you find your security in health, the Bible is a threat to you.

If you find your security in your family or job or money or education, the Bible is a threat to you.

And in threatening all these utterly inadequate foundations of security, the Bible drives us relentlessly and lovingly back to the one and only eternal and unshakable foundation for security—God.

All the threats and warnings of the Bible declare with one voice: /sin/ is an effort to feel secure in anything other than God’s everlasting arms.

Let’s go back to our key passage for this morning for a minute.

We are talking about security, but have you noticed the word “secure: is nowhere in that passage?

Another word is used instead.

Can you see which one I mean?

It’s in the 13th verse.

It’s the word “sealed”.

My message this morning is on this sealing.

The term /sealed/ carried with it the idea of protection and security.

In Scripture, to seal something was to close it off from outside influences and interferences.

We’ll lokk at several examples later.

What does seal mean today?

We seal windows and doors to keep the wind out.

We seal letters to keep everyone out except the addressee.

We seal our basements to keep water out – although it failed to keep the water out of my basement during last Monday’s rainstorm.

We even put a seal on our furniture to keep the dust from getting into the pores of the wood.

Today we are going to focus on how we are sealed.

As a believer, you have been sealed.

We know this to be true because in his second letter to the Corinthians.

Chapter 1, verse 21-22 Paul says: /“Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.”/

\\      

As one writer put it,

Sealing belongs to believers only and to all believers.

In that passage I just read, Paul makes no exceptions: “He who establishes us in Christ also sealed us.”

You have been sealed.

Do you remember the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

God gives us His divine seal of approval.

The moment you trusted Christ as your Savior, God sealed you.

In light of the varied uses of the word “sealed”, several questions must be addressed.

First of all, what is the nature of this seal?

Are we stamped with a seal?

Are we sealed like a letter or a tomb?

Second, what is the purpose of our sealing?

And third, for how long are we sealed?

* *

*A Fitting Illustration*

In our culture we do not usually think of putting a seal on people.

Therefore, it is a bit difficult to imagine the significance of being sealed by God.

Fortunately, we have an illustration in Scripture that clarifies this matter for us.

During the Tribulation, God will place a seal on 144,000 Jews (see Rev. 7:4–8).

The seal is apparently some sort of visible mark on the forehead.

As the Tribulation progresses, it becomes evident that the members of this group bearing God’s seal have been granted supernatural protection from the chaos surrounding them.

At the end of the Tribulation period, the entire group reappears intact to welcome the King (see Rev. 14:1–5).