Sermon Tone Analysis

One of Annette’s most treasured possessions is her engagement ring.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the same thing is true of many of you women here today who are married or have been married.

I wish I could tell you that there was a great romantic story about how I gave it to her.

The simple fact is that I’m not very romantic, so I simply decided to ask her to marry me one night and then asked her.

In fact, I think I woke her up to ask her.

I didn’t have a ring to give her at the time, and at that point in my life, I didn’t have the money to buy her something appropriate.

We just figured we’d get married without the ring.

But when I told my mother that I had proposed and that Annette had said yes, Mom did something wonderful that helped seal the relationship between her and her future daughter-in-law.

She gave me her own engagement ring and said I should give that to Annette.

I remember giving that ring to Annette and seeing the stunned look on her face.

She couldn’t believe Miss Lynn would be willing to part with this treasured memory of my parents’ 25-year marriage, which had ended a few years before when my father died.

She was touched by by Mom’s generosity and by the sentiment it carried.

Mom was welcoming Annette into the family as a daughter.

And I think the gesture meant more to Annette than any ring I might have bought at the mall jewelry store.

There are so many things I wish I could go back and do over in my life — so many of them that I wish I could go back and do the right way, instead of the wrong way I did them.

But one thing I think wouldn’t change would be that ring.

Even if I could change all the wrong things I did as Annette and I launched our lives together, I think I would still give her my mother’s engagement ring.

I like the sense that I think she gets from it of connection, not just to me but to my family and my history.

But if I were able to go back and do it all over, I WOULD make the proposal something more romantic and memorable.

And I’d give her the ring when I popped the question.

I’d do it differently, because I have a better understanding now of the the ring’s significance and symbolism.

And, as it turns out, this better understanding came about through Bible study.

Now, today, we are continuing our series “The Church — Revealed.”

And as we continue, we are going to look at another aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work in the church.

As we do, we’re going to discover some interesting parallels to a part of the Spirit’s work in the Church and the significance of the engagement ring.

And we’re going to see that — just as the giving of an engagement ring brings some expectations from both parties — the giving of the Holy Spirit to the church also results in expectations, both of God, the giver, and the Church, the recipient.

You may recall that last week we spoke of the fact that the church is born of and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Next week, we’ll talk about how the church is indwelt by the Spirit, and the following week, we’ll talk about the Spirit’s work of sanctifying the church.

Much of what we’ll cover during these weeks will come out of the Book of Ephesians.

One commentator estimates there are 59 references to the Holy Spirit in this letter.

That works out to about a quarter of all the references to the Spirit in the New Testament.

This letter to the church at Ephesus, then, is a great place to spend time if you want to get a better understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit, both in your individual lives as followers of Christ and in the life of the church.

We’re going to look at just a couple of verses this week, verses 13 and 14 of chapter 1.

Following a brief introduction, the Apostle Paul launches in verse 3 of this chapter, into an extended doxology — a psalm of praise — to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for their work in salvation.

God the Father had a plan to redeem sinners, to take we who were dead in our trespasses and forgive us for our sins, to give us new life, to bring us into His family as adopted sons and daughters, and to lavish upon us His grace.

And He accomplished this plan at the cross, where His sinless Son, Jesus, gave Himself as a sacrifice so that all who put their faith in Him and in the sufficiency of His sacrifice might be saved FROM eternal damnation and TO eternal life.

And the purpose of this work of Jesus, along with God’s gracious offer of eternal life to those who believe, is, according to verse 10, “the summing up of all things in Christ.”

In other words, God’s plan of salvation wasn’t ultimately designed simply to give sinners who were destined for Hell an opportunity to go to Heaven instead.

That’s one of the mistakes we often make when we talk about salvation.

We make it all about US.

And it’s certainly true that we benefit greatly from what Jesus did for us at the cross.

But there is something much greater going on here that we shouldn’t miss.

God’s plan of salvation for fallen mankind was designed to bring all things together in Christ.

We who follow Jesus in faith are said in the Bible to now be IN Him.

He is the beginning and the end of all things, and all things hold together in Him.

He is the one into whose image we Christians are being conformed.

To the extent that we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, Jesus is the one we are being made to be like.

“In the fullness of times,” as Paul puts it in verse 10, the perfection and righteousness and holiness and grace of Jesus will be reflected throughout the new heavens and the new earth and in all who inhabit them.

Everything and everyone will be under His rule and authority, and all will worship Him as King of kings and Lord of lords.

And this, as Paul puts it in verse 12, will be to the praise of God’s glory in Christ.

Your salvation and mine is to bring glory to Jesus, who bought us at the price of His own blood, and He paid that price to bring glory to His Father.

And so, having described the work of the Father and the Son in salvation, Paul turns in verse 13 to the Holy Spirit.

Having heard the message of truth, the gospel of salvation, the good news of a savior whose death and resurrection provide a way for sinners who have rebelled against God to be reconciled to Him, many of you have chosen to put your faith in Jesus.

You have believed the gospel.

You have trusted that He is who He said He is and that He will do what He said He will do.

You have repented from your sins.

You have turned from trusting in yourself and in your own goodness.

And you have placed your trust in Jesus and Him alone as your only hope to be saved from the just penalty for your sins.

And, having believed, Paul says in verse 13, you received the gift of the Holy Spirit, who now dwells within you.

We who are followers of Christ, Paul says, are sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit.

At the time that Paul wrote this letter, a seal was part of a signet ring worn by someone in authority.

It would be pressed into soft clay or some other substance, and the impression it left would be the seal of that person’s authority.

The seal might be affixed to a letter or official correspondence.

It might be placed on a shipment of grain or some other commodity to show that it belonged to a certain person or that it had passed through their hands and they were responsible for it.

The seals of Roman emperors were found on coins and denoted that they were official currency of the Roman Empire.

A Roman seal was placed on the tomb of Jesus.

In fact, seals during the first century indicated security, authentication and approval, genuineness, and ownership.

Just as the Roman guards placed a seal on Jesus’ tomb to show that it was secure, the Holy Spirit is given to us as a seal to help us know that we are secure in Christ.

Now the Roman seal was no match for the resurrection power that brought Jesus back to life on the third day after His crucifixion.

But the Holy Spirit of God is more than capable of securing our eternal future in Christ.

The same Spirit who made Jesus come alive again will do so for each one of us who follows Him in faith.

And the Spirit is more than capable of securing His Church to the extent that not even the gates of Hades will overcome it.

Christ’s church will prevail, but not through Christian nationalism, not through political might, not through any righteousness of our own.

Christ’s church will prevail, because it is sealed with the security of the Holy Spirit.

So, the Spirit is a seal of security for believers and for the church.

He is also a seal of authentication and approval.

After Jesus had fed the 5,000 with the five barley loaves and two fish that a young boy had provided, He and His disciples had gone over the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum.

But the crowd followed them there the next morning, looking for Jesus.

The Apostle John records what Jesus had to say to them.

God had set His seal on Jesus.

He had filled Jesus with the Holy Spirit to show that Jesus was authentic and that He was ministering under God’s authority and approval.

In the same way, every true believer in Christ is sealed by the Holy Spirit to show that we are authentic followers of Jesus, that we are approved by God because of our position in Christ.

In one of his epistles, John wrote that the presence of the Holy Spirit within a person is evidence that the person is a Christian.

The same Spirit who authenticates believers also authenticates the church.

And, as we talked about last week, a church operating without the Holy Spirit, or outside of the life-giving Holy Spirit, is a church that will not bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.

So, the Holy Spirit secures believers and the church.

The Holy Spirit seals believers and the church as authentic and approved.

And the Holy Spirit seals believers and the church as genuine.

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul put it this way:

Anybody can call himself a child of God.

And, indeed, one of the favorite sayings of liberal “Christians” for whom so-called “tolerance” is the highest virtue is, “Hey, we’re all children of God.”

But is that what Paul tells us?

No.

Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the genuine children of God.

And those CHURCHES that are led by the Spirit of God are the genuine churches.

Before we came to Liberty Spring Christian Church, my family and I visited a number of other churches in the area.

We were looking for the right fit, but we were also looking for the churches that were being led by the Spirit of God.

We found a few churches where people were very spiritual, where they lifted up their hands and even seemed to be overtaken by the emotion of the music and the message.

But we found only a few where they seemed to be led by the Spirit of God.

And how did we judge that?