Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Good evening.
[00:00:07] You know, I was.
[00:00:09] I was going to begin with a prayer and still may do that, but I honestly feel as though we have just started sung and have already bathed so much in prayer.
[00:00:25] I just want to pause for a minute and say that I am grateful for the elders here at East Rock.
[00:00:35] You know, the scriptures teach us that those who rule well are worth double honor, and especially those who labor and teach God's word. And, you know, I definitely, you know, my wife, my family and I, we attend, you know, quite regularly. And I would just say that for me and our family, you know, Tim, Brett, Casey, Steve, they are worth double honor.
[00:01:04] It is obvious to me, having prepared for this, that there's just so much goes into this that I sort of arrive at this moment feeling very cared for, feeling very prayed for. Let me give you serious and maybe humorous examples.
[00:01:26] I'm not a good outline guy.
[00:01:30] And Tim said, brother, you are going to do an outline.
[00:01:37] I'm not good at PowerPoints.
[00:01:39] To which Tim said, katie will help you.
[00:01:45] To which I submitted last night, to which I got an email this morning.
[00:01:50] I made a few corrections. Jason, praying for you, Tim.
[00:01:56] I don't want to labor on that. I just simply want to say I feel that when we come here, we are part of a healthy congregation.
[00:02:09] I thank you for that.
[00:02:11] I sort of feel a little emotional saying that I do want to pray. And so let's pray and then we'll jump into the text. Father, we have already worshiped, we have prayed, and I stand here as a vessel that feels very unworthy, but coming before a God who our confidence can be in.
[00:02:36] So, Lord, in your confidence and because we are confident of you, I pray that you do wonderful things through me as I preach this sermon. But, Lord, we also rest that your word is not going to return void. And so we pray that that, Lord, as it goes forth this evening, that your spirit of God will open our hearts and enlighten us to this truth. Lord, I confess I feel very unworthy to preach such a glorious text about you. But, Lord, we need, and I'm aware that we need your spirit to work in us to bring about God what you desire. At the very core of who we are, we pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:03:22] Ephesians, chapter one. I'm going to be reading verses three through 14. I may say this. I want to say it now. One sentence in the Greek text, 202 words, one sentence, one sentence. Because as I thought about it, you might hear me.
[00:03:43] It's just hard to Communicate the glory that God has bestowed upon his people.
[00:03:54] How do you put that in words?
[00:03:58] The only analogy that comes to my mind is like you came back from a vacation to wherever.
[00:04:08] Tahoe, Switzerland, Iceland.
[00:04:12] And you say.
[00:04:14] We ask, how was your vacation?
[00:04:17] You say, it's great. We say, can we see pictures? You say, they don't do it justice.
[00:04:24] Sort of how I feel.
[00:04:28] Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.
[00:04:52] He predestined us for adoption 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 in the Beloved.
[00:05:08] In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
[00:05:36] 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 were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory in Him. You also, when you heard the word of Truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him which we're sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guaranteed of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
[00:06:13] My mom conceived me when she was in the 11th grade.
[00:06:21] To be clear, I'm thankful for both of my parents.
[00:06:29] I'm not saying what I just said to dishonor them in any way.
[00:06:35] It's just the truth.
[00:06:40] My conception, in a general way, was an unplanned pregnancy.
[00:06:52] My conception between two people, my mom and my dad, was not between two people seeking an agape type love.
[00:07:05] An agape type love is the kind of love that seeks the highest good.
[00:07:12] In another, it is to be contrasted with Araal love, where we get the word erotic, which is an impulsive act.
[00:07:26] I've thought about this. I'm okay, as Tim would say, I'm okay with my past, right? But I'm just sort of making a point here that I want to like, hone in here in a moment.
[00:07:37] But you know, my.
[00:07:40] The conception. My conception when I was conceived that was more out of an arao impulsive act than it was where like two young people, they met one another, they had the highest good for one another, so that they would wait for intimacy after marriage and that they would plan a family and they would give birth to these, you know, kids. I'm the oldest of six, you know, so like agape love is unselfish. Arao love is selfish and done out of a bondage of impulse, seeking fulfillment in an object, right? You following? Following this.
[00:08:25] And so in 1971, the year that I was born, my parents married one another at the age of 17.
[00:08:35] Then they did this because like at that point in time, I'm not getting into all the theologists telling my story, right? Telling the story of my birth, my origin. And you know, my parents, they married at 17 years old and I entered into a world of very young parents, right. By the time I'm five, they're 21 and have other kids.
[00:09:03] And my childhood was fine, no problems with it. But my mom and dad fought.
[00:09:13] My mom and dad actually divorced one another when I was, I don't remember the age 6ish.
[00:09:20] They remarried one another when I was like 8.
[00:09:24] I sarcastically remind them that I was at both weddings.
[00:09:36] My, you know, in my young mind, in my young mind, all of my parents problems were my fault.
[00:09:51] I as a young child, right? I thought if I'd not been born, they might not have these problems.
[00:10:02] I grew up feeling like, hey, I'm a mistake, right? I grew up, if I were being honest, I grew up with insecurity.
[00:10:14] I grew up with a lack of confidence. I grew up not feeling safe. I grew up not feeling comfort. I'm not feeling the kind of comfort that someone might, might experience if, you know, the marriage was healthier or more well planned.
[00:10:34] And my friends, that is not Ephesians 1, 3, 14.
[00:10:44] That's not it.
[00:10:46] That is not how God has planned the origin, the conception of, of our faith.
[00:10:58] In case I say it too much or in case I forget to say it. This passage is full of truth. To make you confident, to make you have a hope that is certain, to make you feel safe, to make you know that God's plan was, was not done out of impulse. It was not an impulsive act. It was an agape love. It was planned before the foundation of the world. It was done in the counsel of his will. This is a beautiful, beautiful, glorious thing that he has done.
[00:11:47] You could divide this text in a number of ways.
[00:11:52] I'm dividing it in three, focusing on our response to this glorious grace that he has bestowed upon us.
[00:12:04] So let's begin.
[00:12:07] Praise God for every spiritual blessing planned for us before the foundation of the world.
[00:12:16] I'm going to probably read some of these verses over again. Right, let's go. Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now, I've already said this is one long sentence, but I believe this is if you know, you going to grammar school, this is the topic sentence that everything else in verses 4, 4 through 13. Did I say it right? 4 through 14 are built on. This is it.
[00:12:46] This one passage covers it all. Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. The whole thing is a eulogy.
[00:13:00] Just like, go through there and just start circling the words that you see again and again. Like, blessed, blessed be God, who's blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. I've just tried to, like, come up with my own way to say, like, how do you articulate this? How do you get at the heart of what God is trying to say to us? I mean, say a good word about God because He has done a good thing for you in Christ and He has given you every good thing and it's in the heavens.
[00:13:33] It's a eulogy, it's a praise.
[00:13:36] It's like, it's difficult to praise someone if you don't know why you're praising them.
[00:13:46] God is telling us why, why he is worthy of our praise.
[00:13:56] I obviously cannot forgive. Focus on every little thing that is in this one sentence.
[00:14:03] It would just like, if they think there could be six months on this passage.
[00:14:10] Right? Six months on this passage. We just can't take the time. We're not taking the time to do all of that. But I want you to know before we move on, where all these spiritual blessings reside.
[00:14:22] They reside in the heavenly places. Now that's going to become sort of a theme. We're going to touch on this as we go through the book of Ephesians. These things are in the heavenly places.
[00:14:34] God's goodness towards us is in the heavenly places. Safe, secure, untouchable. Right?
[00:14:44] Right. So like if we already read it, Ephesians 1:21, like, when Christ ascended into heaven, the Bible says he is seated and at the Father's right hand in the heavenly places.
[00:14:56] Like, go on, like, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. Like, this is untouchable place.
[00:15:07] This is the position of power.
[00:15:11] This is the exalted place. There's nothing, absolute nothing, nothing, nothing can get to this place. And that is where every spiritual blessing given to us originates from where it's kept, the ultimate place of power.
[00:15:26] Christ is seated far above all rule and all authority. And we will, in Ephesians, get to a place where we will know there are evil hosts in the heavenly places. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly places.
[00:15:43] The heavenly places are at war. That war is being acted out on earth in. And like, those are the reasons we feel like threats.
[00:15:55] The evil one is after us. But listen, far above all those things is our spiritual blessings safer than Fort Knox.
[00:16:19] Here's a question.
[00:16:21] What are these spiritual blessings? What are they?
[00:16:25] Well, I don't know that it would, like, maybe instantly be obvious to us, but I think one of the obvious spiritual blessings is the Godhead, the Trinity, the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit are all in this passage and all these blessings that we have flow from them. So I just want to say, right, like, set the record straight. Like, I believe that, like, every spiritual blessing is, you got God, we have God. It's like, go back into Genesis when Abraham has, like, that encounter with the Lord, and at the end of the encounter, God says to him, I am your reward.
[00:17:11] I'm it. I'm enough.
[00:17:13] So, you know, we're going to list other spiritual blessings, but let's just say we have began with enough.
[00:17:21] It is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Spiritual blessings. We have God.
[00:17:29] All right, but let me read again verses three through six. And this time I want to, like, I kind of want to help us understand what the hymn is referencing, because to be candid with you, as I read through this a couple times, who's that referencing? So I've done my best to, like, where's the hymn? So let's just read this again. Your Bibles. Maybe, maybe what you might want to do is, you know, if your Bible, you mark it like him, if it's the Father, maybe underline it if it's the Son. Don't. I don't know how you want to do it, but I think it's helpful. Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who has. Who. Who is it like? God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He, God the Father, even as God the Father chose us in him, in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. Who's that? Him, God in love.
[00:18:21] He the Father predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his, like the Father, according to the Father's will, to the praise of his, the Father's glorious grace, which he, the Father, has blessed upon us, blessed us in the beloved.
[00:18:42] What are these blessings?
[00:18:45] Chosen before the foundation of the world.
[00:18:51] I like kind of what Tim says. Sometimes I can't go there because if I go there, like I gotta go there, right? I love that phrase.
[00:18:58] Or like I would have the tendency to. To maybe nerd out on some things. I can't nerd out on every little thing. But I do want you to know that election and predestination, they are glorious gifts, right? Like, they may be fun, they're fun to contemplate as long as we're contemplating them correctly. They're fun to think about.
[00:19:20] Sometimes they make people squirm. But Paul is not tiptoeing around these truths.
[00:19:26] He's setting them forth.
[00:19:28] And just so I can get this out of the way, debate them if you wish. But in this particular passage, election and predestination are all done out of a glorious grace. We are to receive them as good, even if we don't understand the nuances of them all.
[00:19:52] But I do want to nerd out a little bit on the word foundation.
[00:19:57] God chose us in him before the foundation of the world.
[00:20:01] That word foundation has its a compound word meaning, like to throw down.
[00:20:09] Not the kind of throw down Tim did prior to Christ, but the kind of throw down that a farmer might do in. In throwing out seed to throw down.
[00:20:21] The word foundation in the Greek can also refer to conception.
[00:20:30] And so before the conception of the world, God had a glorious plan that included every believer from the beginning to the end of time.
[00:20:51] What do you do with that?
[00:20:55] You find a security that is far deeper than anything you can muster up yourself.
[00:21:05] You find a confidence in the Lord that can come from no one else or nowhere else.
[00:21:12] God has done a beautiful thing. It is mind blowing. The origin of every spiritual blessing. Our adoption, our redemption, our forgiveness, our inheritance, the fact that we are his possession and he is our possession. All of it conceived in a perfect plan of God.
[00:21:38] God's plan is perfect and is accomplished exactly as he purposed.
[00:21:49] What's the goal?
[00:21:51] What's the goal of this plan? The goal of the plan is our holiness and blamelessness before him, in love. Now, I don't know that this matters. I just may be fun to talk about a little bit for Me, maybe not you. But you will notice I didn't put in love with in love he predestined us. Although I think the essence of that is fine in love. God did predestined us, but I think the in love actually modifies like, like us. Like we're like we are going to be before him, holy and blameless in love.
[00:22:26] So just think about that. Like, we stand before him, we're holy, we're blameless, and all of that's done in love, right? And I don't know, kind of how it's a little tricky how to take the Greek where it goes, does it go with he predestined us, like in love he predestined us, or is it like in love, like this love that we have for one another, we will see, like in other passages of Scripture, like, we are to abound in love for one another. So it's a beautiful thing. But we. God's goal. God's goal. The goal of God's plan is our holiness and blamelessness before him in love.
[00:23:00] Now, I have for about two years now been doing pulpit supply for a church in our county.
[00:23:14] And Tim asked me, because he's like a good elder thinking about his congregation a while ago to do this sermon because of my personality, I thought, ugh, or really need to get on this. And I know my personality. If I don't do this, I'm going to come into this thing hot and late and nervous about not having all the pieces together.
[00:23:36] So it's just the appropriate time. I needed a book to preach through at this other congregation. So I decided that I would also go through Ephesians. It would just be awesome. I'd be studying it, I'd be listening to our elders take us through this and it would be a great thing. So two weeks ago I preached this passage, not quite the way I'm preaching it now, but the Sunday morning that I showed up, the congregation like met at the door. And I don't want to like, say any names, but like, dear members, long term members, two of them passed away within 24 hours of my sermon.
[00:24:15] One on Saturday morning and one a few hours before I preached on Sunday morning.
[00:24:22] And you could just kind of like, death is sobering. You sort of feel the soberness of the congregation. And I got to this truth that God's goal for us is holiness and blamelessness before him became very personal.
[00:24:49] What a glorious truth.
[00:24:52] You just sort of thought about the weight of like, you're going to be before God one day.
[00:25:04] And if you're self reflective and think about even my. I don't have to think about you, I just think about myself. I think who. Whoo.
[00:25:12] There's a lot of unholiness in my life.
[00:25:18] There's a lot of like, blemishes.
[00:25:23] There's a lot of sins we struggle with.
[00:25:30] How can this be?
[00:25:33] This is God's gift to you. This is God's gift to the believer that positionally and legally you are holy. Like you are blameless without a blemish in love.
[00:25:50] This is us. This is our gift, this is our hope. This is our certain hope. I mean, where do you go with that except just thank you Jesus?
[00:26:02] Thank you, Father.
[00:26:04] So like, next point, God's plan is for our adoption into a secure family.
[00:26:13] I've told you, trying to contrast this. I was born into a great family, but I did not feel secure.
[00:26:19] Like, this is Jason Evans, like, let's just pretend the Lord is speaking. Jason, I know in my sovereignty it is what it is. I know you had some struggles, but I want you to transition your heart and your mind. I want you to focus on me through in Christ you are adopted as one of my sons into my family.
[00:26:45] All this is done through Christ and it's done so that how you feel as an insecure person.
[00:26:55] You can let me transform that by the renewing of your mind and, and you can be very confident of what I've done in you and for you just changes everything.
[00:27:08] It is a glorious, glorious truth.
[00:27:14] So what's our response?
[00:27:16] Our response to that is praise like, praise like God for his glorious grace.
[00:27:23] God has never been without the plan.
[00:27:29] God has never been without the plan.
[00:27:34] Secondly, we will see. Praise God for the sacrificial work of Christ.
[00:27:40] So God's got a perfect plan.
[00:27:42] How's the plan accomplished? How was it administered? How's it carried out?
[00:27:48] So like, we'll see this like real quick. Redemption through Christ's blood. This is familiar doctrine and theology and truth for you, right? Redemption through Christ's blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, right? Christ's work on the cross set those who believe in Christ free from bondage.
[00:28:09] Bondage of sin, right? Christ, sacrificial life paid the ransom.
[00:28:16] You know this, right? You know that, that it is like with. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. You know how God accomplished this, right? All humanity, myself included. We make false steps, we make mistakes, we make errors, we have sin, we have the wrong kind of thinking. We do treacherous things to one another. We do treacherous things to Ourselves, like we like the list goes on.
[00:28:46] And let's just be honest, God does have to give an account to all this. There is a reckoning that needs to be done. There is a responsibility that our transgressions require. And God is just and he is holy. And those sins need to be punished. And they had to be legally accounted for. And no human could do this. No human could pay the penalty and pay the debt or cancel the offense to God. And so Christ, Christ is his sacrifice is accomplished to the riches of his grace.
[00:29:21] The riches of his grace. I don't even know what to do with that. Well, I do.
[00:29:26] It might be a bad illustration, but I'm going with it on a secular level, on a completely worldly level. There are some very wealthy people in this world.
[00:29:41] I'll not name names, but one of them built a 250 million dollar yacht.
[00:29:48] On top of the multimillion dollar personal plane, on top of the multiple, multiple million dollar homes, extravagant wealth, if it's even possible, go far beyond that and focus on the riches of his grace.
[00:30:17] It's not just like grace is such a common word.
[00:30:22] It really is. I mean, it's rich, but it's common. And sometimes things that are common, you miss the richness of it.
[00:30:33] And Paul is saying here, God's done all of this according to the riches of his grace. Like he's lavished upon us.
[00:30:42] Another word, just like, how do you even say so much in theology? It's like God just gives and gives and gives and gives and lavishes and lavishes upon us grace after grace. And he also like in all wisdom and insight. And I believe the wisdom he's lav. I believe we are the recipients of this wisdom and insight. Matter of fact, whoever's preaching the next passage is going to pray the spirit of wisdom and revelation, right? That we would have that. I think this lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. We already know God is all wise.
[00:31:19] We already know that this is what God is doing in us. He's not only giving us his rich grace, he's lavishing upon us, lavishing upon us and all wisdom and insight.
[00:31:35] He's pouring this out. What is this?
[00:31:38] It's the wisdom and insight to understand this text.
[00:31:45] It's the wisdom and insight to know I'm a sinner in need of a savior. It's the wisdom and insight that I keep going down this road that's not a good road. It's a wisdom and insight that you and I need to, to live in this world. God is lavishly giving us off. I do this all the time. Sometimes I regret it, sometimes I go for it. I'm going for it.
[00:32:10] We live in a society right now not being very wise.
[00:32:15] They're not functioning with any type of insight.
[00:32:21] Is that sufficient?
[00:32:24] You know where I'm going with that without me saying that.
[00:32:31] The ability to know that what local states, local governments, local schools are allowing that they perceive as wise.
[00:32:44] And the church says, no, that's not wise.
[00:32:51] God gives us like those kind of wise things and that kind of insight so that we know, we know these lavishing thanks be to God. Like, thanks be to God that you're even here.
[00:33:07] Just the wisdom and the insight to know you need to be under the word of God, with the people of God to pray for the word of God. Now, this morning, like, before I ever came here, like, two of your elders, like, this isn't against the other two, but two of the elders, like, send me a. I'm praying for you, Tim. Tim gave me the passage, he was praying for me.
[00:33:30] And then I walked in here and one of the people in the congregation, like the family said, we're praying for you.
[00:33:38] Like, my mind, I'm like, wow, Wisdom, insight. God's just given that to. To this body, to believers. It's a beautiful thing. I've taken far too long on that.
[00:34:00] God's made known a mystery to us.
[00:34:04] He's revealed this, right?
[00:34:07] Just let me read Ephesians 3, 4, 5.
[00:34:10] God's grace that was given to me for you on how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, which was not made known to the Son of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles and fellow heirs and members of the same body are partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Be God's revolution revealing to us this mystery, this mystery of his will that the crucified Christ has brought believers, both Jews and Gentiles, together united in one, a beautiful body. And the mystery of his will that was hidden in the past is now made known to believers, to the church. And God's made it known according to the good pleasure of his will.
[00:35:02] What's the goal? Verse 10.
[00:35:05] It's stated, it's a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
[00:35:12] It's the goal there.
[00:35:14] The Father's administering a plan to bring things together.
[00:35:20] He's administering a plan. Christ is the head Right. This beautiful plan that the world has gone into utter chaos. But God is bringing this beautiful plan together to unite, like all of it, back together. In this beautiful picture we see the same thing in Colossians 1:20.
[00:35:44] And through him to reconcile Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
[00:35:51] What a beautiful thing.
[00:35:53] So believers are in the possession of God. Look at with me verse 11.
[00:35:57] 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.
[00:36:07] Now, where did this plan originate? You already know. I've already said it jumped ahead, right? This plan, like before the conception of the world. But it's interesting, this plan has also been deliberate. It's been done according to the counsel of his will and council sort of carries the idea of that place where decisions are made, that core, that nucleus, if you will. So God has done all of this.
[00:36:38] It's all been within Himself, his own counsel.
[00:36:42] It's like I have this sarcastic side of me. It's like we didn't get the chance to speak into this.
[00:36:49] He didn't ask us.
[00:36:54] We need counsel.
[00:36:57] He does not.
[00:36:59] It's within Himself.
[00:37:08] Again, so what's the goal? Verse 12. So that we who were the first to hope. And I just want to say certain hope. It's a certain hope.
[00:37:18] Not I hope the stock market is up tomorrow, because it may be down.
[00:37:24] This is a certain hope. We are the first to hope in Christ, and it might be to the praise of his glory. So again, that's the second response. The second response is to the praise of his glory. So we're praising the Father for His election, we're praising the Father for the sacrifice of the Son. And we will thirdly, see here, we're also to praise. Like our response is the praise of God, his glory, but the praise of God for the sealing of the Holy Spirit in Him.
[00:37:54] You also, when you heard the Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of. Of his glory. Now, let me. Let's just think about a couple things here real quick.
[00:38:15] The Word of Truth.
[00:38:16] It's reliable.
[00:38:21] The Word of Truth, something we can place complete confidence in.
[00:38:27] The Word of Truth, not a lie.
[00:38:31] The Word of truth, the content of Scripture, the Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
[00:38:44] And then the Word of Truth is believed. So theology is being worked out here specifically, I Want to read Romans 10, 14, 17. How then will they call on him in whom they've not believed? How are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard? How are they to hear without someone preaching? How are they to preach unless they are sent?
[00:39:05] So faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
[00:39:09] This I mean the older I, I started preaching when I was 30. 30 year old preaching Jason is far different than 53 year old preaching Jason.
[00:39:19] Theology of 30 year old Jason is far different than theology of even though the theology is the same.
[00:39:27] God's worked this in us, right?
[00:39:31] And he's worked this beautiful thing in this. Like you hear, you got to hear.
[00:39:38] And God graciously like when we hear, he causes you to believe, not only does he cause you to believe, he seals you with his spirit. And again, I want to do this the best that I can, sort of from memory that seal that he does this guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. It's like the analogy that comes to my mind may is like buying a home.
[00:40:07] So you say I want that home. And the owner says, well how serious are you? Like I want it. They say, well give me some earnest money.
[00:40:16] I want $10,000 from you that if you back out on purchasing this home, I get that $10,000. If you buy the home, the $10,000 goes towards the purchase, right? The Spirit of God is our guarantee.
[00:40:37] This is going to get richer in weeks to come.
[00:40:41] But God has sealed you with the Holy Spirit. It's the guarantee.
[00:40:48] It's the guarantee that everything he has promised for you in Christ is yours.
[00:40:54] You're not only indwelled by the Spirit, you're sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit to say this deal is settled, this is done. This is as good as accomplished. It's accomplished.
[00:41:10] So you heard the word of truth, you believed in him, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit.
[00:41:15] Well, how long's the duration? What's the duration of this?
[00:41:20] The guarantee is till we acquire possession of it to be completed like we're on the other side.
[00:41:37] What's our response to this?
[00:41:40] To the praise of his glory.
[00:41:43] So every spiritual blessing, God the Father who elected us, God the Son who sacrificed us, God's Spirit who we're sealed with.
[00:41:53] Election, predestination, adoption, glorious grace, redemption, forgiveness, wisdom, insight, knowledge into the mystery, sealing with the Holy Spirit. You know what all that means?
[00:42:09] Every spiritual blessing is kept safe in the heavenly places.
[00:42:15] This is our certain hope.
[00:42:21] We have been given to us a glorious grace to counsel of his will.
[00:42:30] All God's glorious grace is done for us in Christ.
[00:42:35] God's immeasurable goodness to us is for his glory and our good.
[00:42:41] Every single thing in this sentence is God's best for you and for I.
[00:42:51] It's for our confidence.
[00:42:54] It's for our security.
[00:42:57] If I might be direct, it's what gets you through difficult times. It gets you through pain and suffering. It gets you through cancer. It gets you through anxieties. It gets you through the struggles of this world. It gets you beyond the battle of the evil one. It's all the way far above the heavens.
[00:43:23] Dear believer in Christ.
[00:43:29] In Christ alone, you and I have everything.
[00:43:36] Let's pray.
[00:43:38] Father, in the name of Jesus, we do come before you, Lord, and just Lord, just pray that you take this truth, Lord, as we will learn and see in the weeks to come.
[00:43:52] That Lord, Paul has prayed and will pray and Cayce's read and we have sung that, Lord, we desire, Lord, for you to open the eyes of our heart that, Lord, we might see these wonderful things. Give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation to go through these things, Lord, as elders and others preach through this text, Lord, we pray that they may boldly proclaim your truths, Lord, that Lord, you are the faithful one. May our hearts anchor to this truth so that it shapes our identity in Christ.
[00:44:27] So, Lord, when we get to chapters four, five and six, we know why, Lord. The apostle Paul urges the church to walk worthy of the calling to which they've been called. Lord, we have been gifted and called to this glorious thing. May we live it out in a way that honors you. And Lord, may your people tonight, Lord, just simply respond, praise to you, we love you, we thank you. We pray these things in Christ's name.
