New Identity

Good morning. This morning we're going to be looking at one simple question. We're going to be looking at this text and asking the question, what matters most? What matters most? And I really want to challenge us this morning to think about what do we value the most? And what should we value the most? Because those two things are oftentimes disconnected. So we're gonna be looking at this passage, which declares all these many blessings of God. And what I want us to do is be prepared to realize that the blessings that God has given us, those are the greatest blessings. Those are the truths that we should be clinging to. Those are the things that we should be longing for. These are the things we should be rejoicing in. And so we're gonna be looking to God's word, and we're going to ask, God, what should we value the most? And as we begin, I kind of want to start with just one of the basics. We're starting a new series in Ephesians. We're walking through the Bible. And I just want to start with this. This is the Bible. This is what we call God's Word. There's 66 books. They span 6,000 years. There's 39 authors. There's 38 Old Testament books. Those, we can just say, are all the promises that are looking forward to the Savior. There's 27 New Testament books. They're all declaring who the Savior is, Jesus Christ. It's important that we have the Bible. God speaks. He's not left us in silence to figure out everything on our own. God speaks. He tells us who we are. He tells us who He is. He tells us what He's done for us. He tells us what He expects of us. He gives us promises. He gives us commands. He declares truths. It's good. We get to come and submit to His word. We don't have to be creative. As we think about what Scripture is, I want to give you an acrostic. This has been very helpful for me as I think about God's Word and its importance. The acrostic is scan. It gives us four different ways we can think about God's Word. It's sufficient. It's sufficient. God has said everything we need to know to be saved and to worship Him. It's sufficient. Secondly, it's clear. Okay, there are some really hard things in scripture. We're gonna get into some of those hard things this morning, but for everything we must believe, it's clear. We were just sung of the mysteries. There are mysteries, but what God has said that we need to believe, there's clarity. Third, it's authoritative. And that kind of goes without saying, right? If God speaks, it's authoritative. We don't try to figure out what's right when God says, we try to believe and trust everything God says. It's authoritative. And then finally, it's necessary. Because left to ourselves, we are a foolish and rebellious people. God's word is necessary. We need his truth. So this morning, we're beginning a new series in Ephesians. We're gonna be walking through this book, and it's a very clear, hopeful book. It sets forth truths to be believed in chapters one to three, and then commands to obey in four to six. It's a very hopeful, simple, organized book. Let's look at the first two verses of Ephesians just to get an overview of it. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Well, Paul's an apostle. He's an unusual apostle. He did not walk with Jesus during Jesus' earthly ministry. He did not see Jesus rise from the dead with the other disciples and the other apostles. However, on his way to persecute the church, you can read about this in Acts 9 later today if you want. On his way to go persecute the church of Jesus Christ, Christ appears to him. He saves him. Then he calls him to be an apostle, to be his witness to all nations. He was a man who hated Jesus and his church, and then Jesus saved him and made him an apostle. So we see here the authority is a man who has seen Jesus and called to be a proclaimer of him. Then look at the second part of the first verse. To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Now to the saints, this can be a little confusing. Is he writing to only these super holy people in Ephesus? No, to be a saint and to be faithful are the same thing. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ this morning, you're a saint. You don't require a halo over your head during picture time to be a saint. What it means to be a saint. To be a saint means you have been separated out. We were all in the darkness of death. God called us out and placed us in life. That's what it means to be a saint, to believe in Jesus Christ. He writes to Ephesus, this is modern day Turkey, Asia Minor. Paul spent almost three years there. This is in his third missionary journey. We can see how he called the elders in Acts 20. Pay attention to yourselves and to the flock, the church that Christ purchased with his own blood. He knew and he loved this church. The greeting. There's a Jewish aspect to it and a Greek aspect to it because he's speaking to both kinds of people in the one church of Jesus Christ. Grace and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. Now as we look into the letter and we've heard the first chapter, this is one of Paul's more gentle letters. You flip over to Galatians and he's just scolding. There's no nice greeting. How dare you forsake the gospel right out of the bat? He's correcting something in the Church of Galatia. Or you go to 1st Corinthians and 2nd Corinthians, he's walking through and just picking topic after topic that's concerning to Paul, telling them and correcting them over and over again about all the different problems. Ephesians is not like that. He doesn't seem to be really trying to address a specific problem. He's giving this church the most basic truths they need to believe and giving them the most basic commands they need to obey. Again, there's a real simple order. Ephesians 1 to 3 is what we believe he has done. It's God's great calling. We call this section the doctrine section. Chapters 1 to 3. And then look over to chapter 4. Notice this key transition. There's one half. It's what God has done, the great calling. And then chapter 4, verse 1, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of that calling, to which you've been called. There's the calling, that's verses, that's chapters one to three, and then there's the walking according to that calling. And I would say the main purpose of Ephesians, it looks like, is that Paul would see that church in Ephesus that Christ purchased with his own blood, growing up into maturity in Christ. If you look at the end of each chapter, He brings it back to the church, chapter 1, verse 22. And he put all things under his feet and gave him the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Chapter 2, again, references the church, that temple being built up together as a dwelling place for God. And then chapter 3, verse 20, now to him who's able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. And the first command when it comes to walking in a manner worthy of the calling is to grow, to gather up into maturity, the measure being Christ, the head of the church. Paul wants to see a healthy church. I hope, gathered here today, we wanna see a healthy church. And to realize it, it means we've gotta believe doctrine, and then we have to obey. To be a healthy Christian, to be a healthy church, we've got doctrines to believe and then we've got duties, commands to obey. We need both of these. So let's begin. Our first point as we look at this first section of Ephesians, we'll be looking at this morning, verse three. They're heading, in Christ we are blessed. In Christ we are blessed. The key word here is blessed. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now, we talk about blessing a lot. We oftentimes, I hear people referencing blessed, right? I got free tickets to the game, I'm so blessed. I hit every green light, I'm so greatly blessed. I got an extra pumpkin spice in my latte this morning, greatly blessed. Now, there's nothing wrong in seeing those things as blessings, it's actually really healthy. Every good gift comes down from God above. To always be thanking God and having just a posture of gratitude for everything and saying, God, thank you for all the blessings, that's a good posture. But if you're primarily always thanking God for these kind of material blessings, I think you're overlooking the greater blessings. You're overlooking what Paul is talking about here, spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. The blessings we're gonna get this morning, and everything we're talking about this morning is a blessing. It was when you realize something that's obvious. God blesses us to benefit us. He just pours out himself to us and for us so that we're benefited. And the blessings we're looking at, they're not temporal, they're not earthly. Therefore, all Christians in all places at all times for the praise of God. They're spiritual blessings, they change our position, they change our identity, they change our relationships. So if we look through this passage, we're gonna see the blessings. You're forgiven, you're redeemed, you're adopted, you're chosen, you're loved. These are all the blessings that God gives us and so many more. These are the blessings that we need to realize are most important, the ones that we should value the most. As we look at this passage, I want us to see there's two basic parts to this first point. In Christ we are blessed. First, God the Father blesses us. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has blessed us in Christ. God the Father is not distant. He's not passive. God the Father is proactively seeing you, loving you, and blessing you. He is the one who's pouring himself out and has sent his Son for you. He is the good Father who gives good gifts for us. He's very active in participating in our salvation. There's something else I want us to see about God the Father and his blessing. He does not partially bless any one of his children. If you are His child, He gives you the full portion of blessing that He gives to everyone else. But this kind of leads to a question. Why are some Christians happier than others? Right? To be blessed means to be happy. If you are blessed by God, he's done that so that you were happy and joyful and condemned him. And if God has given the same blessing to all believers, all these blessings are the same for everyone. There's no such thing as a partial blessing of salvation. Why are some Christians happier than others? Well, we all receive the same blessing of identity change, of position in Christ, of new relation with God. But some people just obey him so they enjoy it more. You do actually have to believe that blessing, and obey the commandment to enjoy and be happy in the Father's blessing. The second thing I want us to see, God the Father blesses, and He blesses specifically in Christ. It is only in Christ that we have this blessing. It's very important that we understand this. Apart from Christ, we continue in our sin, in our curse, in our death. Apart from Christ, we are in our sin, in the curse, in death. In Christ, you have life. You have love. You have freedom. In Christ, we have all of these blessings. In Christ, you're chosen, adopted, redeemed. You have an inheritance. You're sealed. And I want to—there's a theological phrase that's important for us to remember. Union with Christ. It's a simple phrase. Union with Christ. When you are united with Christ, you receive every blessing. You're united with Christ by believing in Him, and once you believe in Him, you receive all these blessings. And I wanna challenge you, especially if you're a new Christian, if you're a Christian who's saying, I really wanna grow, this is a great starting point. Union with Christ. Because when you start with who I am in Christ, everything else feeds out from that. In Christ, I'm forgiven. In Christ, I'm loved. In Christ, I am free from the power of sin. In Christ, I know that He's the head of the church and I know how to relate to other people. In Christ, I know I have a Father who loves me. In Christ, I know I have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of me. And He helps me fight sin. He helps me be a victor over sin. So it's this in Christ, it's kind of where we're mapping out, it's the center, and everything else that we could possibly know, everything else we could possibly do to worship God, it comes out of the union we have with Christ. This is God's great plan of salvation. It gives us a new identity, it gives us a new relationship, and it should give us new priorities. I really want us to grasp what this means because it changes everything. this new identity we have, how we think about ourselves. If you think about yourselves in Christ and not in this world, you're going to live differently. If you think about who you are and how you're supposed to relate to others because of in Christ, you'll live differently. Let me give a few examples. First, when we truly grasp what it means to believe in Christ and be united with him, it helps fight the lies of this world. So this world wants to tell you what? Your worth is in your wealth, your appearance, and or your accomplishments. That's the message of the world. That's the best it can give you. I see some heads nodding. I see some people saying, yeah, it's not so great. The world wants to tell you your value, your worth, is in how much money you have. You're going to die and leave that alone to somebody else. Your appearance, you're gonna grow old and that's gonna go away. Your accomplishments, your trophies. That's what the world's gonna tell you your value's in. But God's gonna say, your value is in this. I am God and I have put my affection upon you. I have shown you my favor. You are mine and you can come and you can see real glory. Just give up the trophy. You can have real wealth and real love, but you've gotta quit putting your heart and your affections on other things in this world. This is what a glorious invitation, to not get bogged down in all the lies this world's telling you is so valuable and truly see what is really valuable is God, the one who created you to know you and to love you and to be loved by you. Let me go a little more practical maybe. If you're a woman, this world is always lying to you about what beauty is. Just look at the billboards or the magazine covers. It's always lying to you about what beauty is, but God's word says, no, your beauty is in your heart. Do you love God and submit to him? That's how the Bible defines a beauty for a woman. It's not your appearance. It's how you posture yourselves towards God. Men, it also corrects your idea of what a beautiful woman is. Does she love God? That's the most attractive thing about her. Men, it corrects us. Being a man doesn't mean you're some masculine knucklehead. It doesn't mean you're tough and strong. It means you serve. It means you look at others and take responsibility for their well-being. That's what it means to be a man. Not to be served, but to serve. If you think about the union of Christ, it not only helps you battle these lies of the world because you realize who you really are when God declares you, it helps you have proper commitments. It helps us prioritize what's really important in life. It helps us resist temptation. You're redeemed. You've been taken out of the slavery of sin. You're set free. You don't have to sin anymore. You can say no. It's a glorious blessing that we have. So the overarching heading here, in Christ we are blessed, and now we're just gonna walk through the different blessings. If you're in Christ, if you believed in Him and His death, His resurrection, and it's coming again, you're blessed, and these are the blessings. Verse four, even as He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. So that union of Christ, you are blessed in Christ, and here, He, the Father, chose us in Him. In Christ, we're chosen. In Christ, we are chosen. Now, this is one of those difficult mysteries. God's Word says God chose us in Christ Before the foundation of the world Okay, so we can flip over the first book of the Bible Genesis 1 It declares in the beginning God created the heavens of the earth Okay, what we're reading about now precedes Genesis 1 But before there was matter before God spoke things into the existence He already knew who we were going to be And he chose us What we're meditating upon right now is before Genesis 1. That's pretty incredible. We're getting into the mind of the counsel of God right now, because God led us in. Before anything was ever spoken into existence, He chose us. Now, it also means before He created, He chose us. Before we sinned, He chose us. That means he knew that that creation he created as good was gonna get turned upside down because we were gonna ruin it. He knew beforehand that we were going to sin, and he created us anyway, let us sin, and chose us anyway. Now, the human instinct is, why would God do that? Is it fair that God would choose us knowing that we would do that? Why would God even create a world where He knew sin would happen? Now these are good questions, but let's get to the real focus of the question. God is great. We can ask Him all kinds of questions, but we got to make sure we're not questioning Him. He is good. What we're actually being told here is that despite every sin, God would know we would ever Ever do. Even up to this point right now, you can think, how much have I sinned and God still chose me? God knows our full work. He sees the full resume. He sees what we do from birth to death. All the thoughts, all the desires, all the actions, all the words. And he still looks and he says, I'm gonna choose you. It's not fair. Fair would be for us to be judged for all those things. But God, showing His perfect sovereignty in love and salvation, chose us before we existed. Before we sinned. Knowing how much we would sin, He chose us anyway. This helps us just reinforce our salvation is of no effort and no goodness of our own. It's a pure act of God and his love towards us. Now notice what else it says here. Even as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless. Now that's not saying he chose us because he knew we'd be holy and blameless. No, the exact opposite. We're unholy and completely guilty. Now He chose us so that whenever we appear before God at that final judgment, we would be declared holy. We would not have guilt. We'd be declared blameless. This is the great truth we'll be studying in just a few weeks with Reformation Sunday. We are simultaneously sinners. We are completely guilty, but yet we're saints. We're declared not guilty. Apart from Christ, we need to have no place to stand before God, other than just corrupt and guilty. But in Christ, we have an assurance before the throne. The second blessing we see. In Christ, we are blessed. The first blessing, in Christ, we are chosen. Secondly, in Christ, we are adopted. In Christ, we are adopted. In love, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will. to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us and the beloved." Now here we have a second word that's sometimes challenging. He chose us. He predestined us. And this word gives a lot of folks a lot of concern. Does this mean we're merely robots? Would this mean that God is predestining us? Most religions have some concept of predestination. You know, usually it's a God who already knows everything, and just because He knows it, it means it has to happen. You're predestined from a distant knowledge, God. Or that you're wound up already as a physical body, or because of your society, and you necessarily are doing these things because of who you already are. I wanted to see the center of the Christian doctrine of predestination is a very important word. Love. that the key word surrounding this doctrine of predestination is love. In love he predestined us. And look at the end of the verse. With which he has blessed us in the beloved, speaking of Jesus Christ. In love he predestined us. Now let's think about what love is. Love is not something you fall into. Love is not something that accidentally happens. We oftentimes think of it this way, and again, this is the way we need to be reshaped by the scripture rather than by the world. Love is a promise. Think about wedding vows. Good wedding vows don't start by saying, I love this about you, I'm committed to this about you, I'm committed to this about you, I'm committed to this about you. No, it's, I'm going to love you in sickness I'm making promises that have nothing to do with you. I'm making promises to you. Love doesn't draw us to someone because of them. Love is something that comes from within us and we put on someone. Love is a commitment. It's a promise. In love, he predestined us. In love, He looked upon us and He committed His entire being to us to the point that the Father sent His Son to die on the cross for our sin. No greater love does man have than this that he laid down his life for his friends. The predestination here is wrapped in a love where God says, I'm going to put my affection on you. I want to be with you. I want you to be with me. So I'm going to resolve all the problems you've caused to make that happen. As we think about love, I want to challenge us here. When a spouse asks, why do you love me? What does that spouse want to hear? I like your hair, your eyes, your smile, your personality. We all want to be loved because of something about us, right? But the greatest love is, there's nothing about you that makes me love you. I'm just going to commit to loving you. That is the greatest love. There actually isn't anything about you that makes me love you. I'm just gonna say, I love you because I'm going to promise no matter what happens, your hair can fall out. I'm gonna love you anyway. No matter what happens, I'm going to set my affection on you. That love is hard for us, isn't it? It's hard to love the unlovely. God loves the unlovely. God loves us as the unlovely. Now it's a very special kind of love. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. Again, union of Christ is central. We're not getting some generic sonship here. No, we're getting Eternal Sonship. We're getting Jesus Christ on Sonship. We're getting access to the Father as the Son Himself has eternally had that access. To know Him and His love. So here we see this beautiful way in which God has given us to think about His love. It's adoption. The Father calls us to Himself. He says, I am giving you all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of a son. He's welcoming us into his presence. Stavros appreciate this. I asked a friend for language from when they adopted their child. This is what our courts say. The child from and after today shall be deemed the child of the petitioners. And it shall be considered for the purposes of inheritance and succession and for all other legal considerations, the natural, legitimate child and heir at law of the petitioners, the same as if born of their body, with all of the obligations, rights, and privileges of a natural child and heir. The parental control of the child is hereby granted to the petitioners. And the said petitioner shall hereafter be under the same responsibility to the child and be entitled to the same rights and privileges as if the child were their natural child. This is a final judgment. When I think about that, I'm immediately drawn to Christ's words on the cross. It's finished. That's the final word Christ gives. It's finished. Father, you sent me to bring in new children to our home. I have lived the perfect life that they could not live. I have been crushed for their iniquity. It is finished. They're ours. I purchased them with my own blood. There's nothing that can reverse that love. That welcome, that predestinedness that you're the one we're going to bring home and give all the rights and privileges to. And obligations. When God brings us home to be father, he has the right to be father. He gives us instruction, he trains us up, he gives us love. He also gives us commands. So what's the real significance? How can we help understand this? So, we've all been in someone else's house before. Imagine yourself going into someone's house for the first time. What do you do? Well, what I do is I walk straight to the kitchen and I make myself a sandwich. And then I find whatever room is coziest and I make myself a bed. You know, take a nap. No, of course not. No matter how hospitable somebody is, that's awkward. No matter how awkward someone might be, nobody does that. Because it's a new home. You don't actually belong there. You're a visitor, right? Well, whenever we had some friends over, some guests from Africa, I could tell it was this young man's first time trip in America. He was kind of looking around and felt really uncomfortable, so I decided to be more awkward. I made him go open the refrigerator and get something out. And my purpose there was to say, you're home. Like the sacred refrigerator, right? That's a sacred place in the home. You go in there and you get whatever you want. You have the rights and privileges as somebody who belongs in this home to do whatever you want in this home. I was trying to send him a message to make sure he could be as comfortable as possible. When God the Father says, you're my child, he's saying you have all the rights and privileges in the most sacred place. It's my presence. It's my glory. Come, come to me. It literally is commanded in scripture, in Hebrews, the whole message of Hebrews. Enter boldly into the presence of God. You don't need a priest anymore. You need Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who's gonna help you ascend up into the presence of Almighty God and see him in his glory. You have full access to know to love, to be loved by God the Father. This is the great blessing of being predestined in love. You are welcomed into His presence in His home to enjoy it. No fear. Freedom. No guilt. There's forgiveness. Well, why did God do this? In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. According to the purpose of his will, this is what he desired to do for us to the praise of his glorious grace. To the praise of his glorious grace. This is where we see what true glory is. Not our trophies. It's God. It's what he does for us. He gives us grace so that we will realize all the things that we're seeking glory in this world are are meaningless. He gives us grace so that we can come into His glory and praise Him. The next blessing, we've been chosen in Christ, we've been adopted in Christ. In Christ, we are redeemed. And again, I hope you heard it when Patty was reading, I hope you see it now. In Him, repeated over and over again. That's union with Christ. In Him, we have redemption. Now, redemption language is Old Testament language. If you're not familiar with the Exodus story, Israel was taken into a foreign country, Egypt. Over time, the Egyptian kings became brutal, and they enslaved them, and the people cried out, help us, God, and through a lot of difficulties and trials because of the people, God took them out. He destroyed the mightiest nation in the world new to deliver his people out of slavery, to take them into the promised land. That's redemption language. And only here in the New Testament we know that redemption is so much better. It's not a physical nation. We're redeemed out of the domain of darkness. We're delivered into the kingdom of his beloved Son. Redemption is the forgiveness of our trespasses. where we're actually redeemed from our own self-enslavement into sin. We're redeemed from the own destruction we deserve because of our own sin. We have to realize we do need redeemed. We need delivered. We are helpless. How did Christ redeem us? How did Christ redeem us? In Him we have redemption through His blood. We deserve death. Christ destroys the power of death with his own death. So it's by bleeding for us, by being put on the cross, on the nails, by being punctured, by suffocating to death under the wrath of God, that we've been delivered out of death. We've been delivered out of sin to new life. Why did he redeem us? The forgiveness of trespasses. He delivered us. by the riches of his grace. Look at this. I love how Paul can't contain himself. We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Why? According to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us. Which he lavished upon us. Paul's pointing out here, God's rich in grace. It's more than sufficient. And that rich grace is being poured out for you. He lavishes. He pours Himself out to free us. Believer this morning, be encouraged. You're redeemed. You are not a slave to your passions anymore. You're not a slave to the lives of this world anymore. You have been redeemed to be a son of God who has given you the Holy Spirit so that you can have new desires that actually love and glorify God. You've been given a new truth so that you can see the lies, resist them, and live according to God's way. This is good news. It's not that exciting when we really love the world though, is it? We actually have to want to stop sinning to really enjoy and appreciate this promise that you can say no to sin. It's very clear. You can say no now. You've been set free. You are forgiven. When tempted, say no. Fully embracing what Christ has accomplished for you Seek him in the grace you need to say no. The next blessing, in Christ we're heirs. In Christ we are heirs. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. Again, union with Christ, we've been predestined. And this is very similar to the point of adoption. You've been predestined in love to be adopted. You've been predestined to be an heir. All of the inheritance, the eternal life of the Son, the indestructible life of the Son, the loving relationship with the Father, that's your inheritance. That's what you've been given. That's what God saw as the greatest blessing for you to enjoy forever. How often do you think about heaven? And what do you think about when you think of heaven? This will be a fun conversation. What do you normally think about when you think of heaven? I was listening to a celebrity talk recently, and he was sure his father was in heaven, and he was convinced that he was doing a few things. He was eating lemon meringue pie, watching NASCAR, drinking a 12-pack of Miller Lite, and dancing. Okay, to be able to do all four of those things is pretty heavenly, right? All four of those things at the same time, that's incredible. That would be remarkable and supernatural to be able to do all four of those things at the same time. But I'm not sure any of those four things exist in heaven. See, this is the problem. We wanna take what we love the most here and just make sure God likes it too and that he'll give it to us forever. It's brutally honest. What do you think heaven's gonna be like? Is it just more of the same here, or is it better? I think we can do now what we're going to do forever in heaven, and it was actually what we were doing earlier in the service. It was singing praise. It was seeking His face. It was knowing the glory of God, but it was without sin. That's what's so great about heaven. We get to do all the things we're called to do in scripture, but sin doesn't hinder us. That's your inheritance. To live a life without sin, enjoying and glorifying God forever. That is our inheritance. The final blessing we want to consider, as Paul has given to us this morning, in Christ we are sealed. So in Christ, we're blessed. In Him, we're chosen. In Him, we're adopted. In Him, we're redeemed. In Him, we're heirs. In Him, we are sealed. And this one's a little thicker. So when you think about this, in Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory. Now here we finally see all three persons of the Trinity. Father, Son, Spirit. The Father blesses us in Christ, the Father and the Son seal us in the Holy Spirit. It's important for us to really consider what's happening here. The Father has said, I'm going to choose you to predestine you. I am going to set my love upon you. And in order to accomplish what that love has set out to do, I'm going to send my son. He is going to do everything I tell him to do. He's going to die so that all my blessings are yours in him. Salvation is accomplished in Jesus Christ. And then when the son dies, he rises again, he ascends back to the father, what does he do? He sends the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit takes everything the son accomplished, all those spiritual blessings, and he seals them inside of you. He applies what the son has accomplished. All of God, the Father, the Son, the Spirit, have given you all the blessings, accomplishing what God has desired, and applying what God has committed to. It's encouraging. You can't lose it. The Father has declared it. The Son has accomplished it. The Spirit has applied it. All of God is all for us. And now the Holy Spirit is in us according to Paul in Galatians. Crying out, Abba Father, sealing that inheritance for us. Now we are waiting. We have not fully acquired all possession of it because we're still in this world, we're still in sin, we're still waiting. But we're waiting with great hope. So, so far we've discussed everything God has done in this passage. He's blessed you, chosen you, adopted you, redeemed you, given you an inheritance, He's sealed you. So what do you do? What is it in this passage that tells you what to do? We're still in verse 13. When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, you believed in it. You gain all of these blessings. If you're a believer, you have gained all these blessings. Not by being good enough. Not by cleaning yourself up. Not by being more attractive than the person next to you. Because God chose you. You believed in Him. It is by faith alone that we are saved. And notice what we believe. The word of truth. The gospel of our salvation. That's where we started. This is the word of God. This is the word of truth. This is where we know what the gospel of salvation is. We simply submit ourselves and receive what God has to say for us. So now we end with a command. Believe in Christ. If you're not a Christian here this morning, believe in Christ. You have to acknowledge that you are a sinner, that you have sinned. You have spoken ill of your fellow neighbor. Most of all, you've not honored God. You've not given him thanks. That's why Christ said to come down. You're gonna die in your place. And he rose again so that you could have new life. You must believe in him or you will die in your sin and be under judgment forever. The good news this morning is that you can believe in Jesus and you can be a son of God enjoying the love of God forever. Christian, the commandment is the same for you. Believe and keep believing. Believe and keep believing. Don't be satisfied that you said some prayer at some point, some time in the past. I do believe that when God gives you all the blessings, they're all yours, but God's called you to enjoy those blessings, which means that faith continues to work itself out. Faith continues to be worked out with obedience so that our faith grows stronger, so that we know God more purely, so that our love is purified apart from sin. Believe these promises. This is what your self-reflection should be upon. You know when our mind goes to screensaver mode? What do you think about? That usually reflects what you love the most. Where your mind's gonna naturally just fall to. I challenge you, this week, when you kinda go into what am I gonna think about? I got some free time, screensaver mode, what am I gonna go to? Just start thinking and praising God for the blessings he's given you here in this passage. Let this be the way you think about yourself. Let this be the way you think about God. Let this be the way that it changes the way you prioritize your life and your relationships. This is the foundation of the faith. This is why Paul starts here in Ephesians. Knowing who you have been declared to be by the blessing of God. It changes who you think you are. It changes how you relate to God. It changes how you relate to your fellow neighbor. It changes everything. As we conclude, it takes real practice to improve upon this faith, to improve our faith so that we trust God more. It means we have to seek His Word, trust it, try to understand it more and more by faith, so that we repent of lies, we repent of sin, and grow to embrace His grace and know His love. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for this word that you've given to us from above. We thank you for all the spiritual blessings you've given us that are heavenly. Help us to, help us to long for that. Help us now to pursue you because of your love for us, to know your love, to enjoy it, to love you. We thank you that in Christ, we're your children. We're redeemed, we're forgiven, we're free from the power of sin. We're thankful that we can call you Father now. Help us, Lord, to reflect upon these things, to believe them, and to glorify you with our obedience. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.