Ephesians, 1:12-14
Randy Peterman · Feb 1, 2009
Ephesians (2009), No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926123174417

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

This morning I wanted to just start off. I've got some questions on the board here. PowerPoint isn't my thing. As much as I like technology and I use it for a living, PowerPoint isn't my thing. So I've got them up on the board. The first one is just a phrase, generational responsibility, which we will get into.

The second one is how do you share the gospel? By how do you share the gospel, I mean how do you share the gospel. When was the last time you caused God's glory to be praised? Are you a good listener? What are the impacts of being sealed by the Holy Spirit? And how is a heavenly inheritance different from an earthly inheritance? We're going to get into all of those but I just wanted to kind of introduce those questions to you first so that as we go through the lesson hopefully you'll be able to Keep an eye out and keep your brain thinking about some of those things.

I was assigned this morning to teach through Ephesians 1, 12 through 14. Twelve is the middle of a sentence. There's nothing quite as exciting as starting in the middle of a sentence when you're teaching because you basically have to do a little recap of the sentence before. As Brad emphasized last week and I think Jeremy as well and all of us as teachers have emphasized, this is one long sentence so we really can't get out of the flow here without it feeling slightly awkward and breaking at any point. Verse 11 is where I'm going to start and then we'll read through 12-14. So follow along with me if you've got your Bibles. This happens to be the New King James.

In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory." Alright, looking at this, we kind of got stuck in the middle of the sentence there, but he starts out in verse 12 with, We who were the first to hope in Christ, when I first got this verse it actually made me scratch my head a little bit because it was how do we deal with the problem of we who were the first to hope in Christ and then he goes on to talk about the body in Ephesus how do you deal with hey God he's describing blessings from God but then he's saying well this is really this part is described to us we who believe first and then, oh and then there's you guys. At first that was my look, I'm looking at this thing, how do I deal with this?

As a teacher, here I'm gonna tell you, hey, these blessings are for him. But that's not what Paul's saying. In fact, as we continue through this verse, or this passage, we're gonna see that he says, hey, this was true of us who were first believers, but then 13 and 14 he's gonna say, but it's true of you as well. So we don't have to worry about it being just for them.

But one of the things that this brought up for me was this concept of generational responsibility. And I want to be careful in saying this because I don't want it to come across legalistically because that's certainly not why we're here and that's not the life of Christ.

But is there, I guess I'll phrase it in a question, is there a responsibility for one generation to be agents for equipping the next generation? Do the older folks in this room have a responsibility for equipping the younger folks in this room? Now, let me rephrase the question just a little bit differently. Is it a responsibility of those who are older in the Lord to be teaching those who are younger in the Lord?

Because it's not about your age, it's about the knowledge that you have. There is a generational responsibility that lies in the fact that, hey, I knew the Lord first, and so let me now share with you what the Lord has taught me. But then, beyond that, there is also another concept in the body, and that is that we edify one another. What are the fruits of the Spirit for? Edification.

If you are abiding in the Spirit, and I'm abiding in the Spirit, we are bound at some point in time to edify one another. Whether you've been a believer for five seconds, five years, or five months, or five decades, the Holy Spirit working in you is going to bring edification. So that means that even if I've been a believer, and in my own life it's been something roughly about 25 years, I don't come to you and look at my calendar and compare it with your calendar and say, well, I've been a believer longer, I probably can't learn anything from you. Or I may not come to you and say, well you've been a believer for 50 years and I've only been for 25 so I must not know anything compared to you so I'm just going to not open my mouth and say anything. But there's a responsibility here. Paul says, hey, we hope first. And then, what did the first generation of the church do?

They shared. God dispersed the gospel. If you think about the timing of the gospel, or the timing of Christ, was Rome not one of the most perfect vehicles for sharing the gospel? Here's the civilization that was, by every measure, they had dominated the known civilized world and were able to quickly disseminate information. Roads and transportation were available. A very precise language that could communicate the gospel was available. God's timing was flawless.

So the first who believed were then able to take the message of the gospel and go out with great ease. The simplicity of salvation when Noah came off the ark How many people had to believe in God and His promised redemption through the coming Messiah? Off the arc, eight. And then after they became fruitful and multiplied, the message of salvation and relationship with God dissipated and people Stopped sharing and stopped caring and so we have this you know a point where only eight people for a hundred percent of the earth's population Needed to believe and it got lost so God waited to a time that was perfect to send his son and and dissipate the gospel through through the Roman Empire far far reaching If it's a study not for now, but there's pretty awesome evidence of People being prepared for the gospel all over the globe even in their secular religions There are illustrations that tie in and make them receptive of the gospel So it's a bit of a rabbit trail off of we who first Were the first to hope in Christ, but I want to encourage you if you know other believers who are younger in the Lord and Consider a more intimate relationship with them to share the things that the Lord has taught you.

You have a responsibility in grace. You have a responsibility by the direction of the Holy Spirit to share those things. Don't let it die off with you. Don't let it stop. Wayne, you look like you're thinking something. I was just thinking then after the death of Christ, he placed the Holy Spirit here to continue that process. Absolutely. And if we're abiding, those things are going to take place naturally. But be aware of it. Be aware of the opportunities that are going to exist. I don't want this generational responsibility to be legalism. But I want to encourage you to be aware that there is an existence of the next generation. I've been in contact with some teenagers in Texas for the last a couple months who are very very hungry and they go to church and they're not getting fed more than baby food quite regularly.

How many of you were believers for nine months or less before hearing the identification truths? Okay, awesome. Marilyn was blessed in a unique situation where that happened. I didn't learn about the identification truths until I was 24. So I had roughly 20 years. It's not been until the last five years that I understood the identification truths.

All I got fed was Daniel in the Lion's Den and you should be good. Grow with that. How do you grow? It's not food. But if you've been blessed with the theological understanding, share it. Okay, so that's a rabbit trail, and I apologize, but it's something that I think bears saying from this.

Because Paul is talking about, hey, we were the first to hope in Christ. And that hope that they had in Christ would be to the praise of God's glory. Now, to the praise of God's glory, The response of the gospel, or to the gospel of believers brings praise to God's glory.

What is God's glory? Anybody remember the definition of God's glory? Or a definition? His essence. The radiant essence of God's being. Now, when you believe, why is the radiant essence of God's being praised? Any guesses or strong, confident answers? When you believe, why is God's radiant essence praised? Why is God's glory praised?

Exactly. Because he's sharing it with us. God's glory cannot be made more. Infinity can't be infinity plus one. Infinity by its very nature doesn't have this limit that we perceive in our own lives, in our earthly existence. But it's praised. We can praise Him for sharing it. When you believe the gospel, what is poured out? His grace. Every time His grace is poured out, what happens in heaven? Celebration.

The principle for that is shared in Luke 15.10.

If you've got your Bibles, would somebody please flip there and read out loud Luke 15.10. Alright, now, that is a truth that's shared in an Old Testament context.

It's before the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension and seeding of Christ. But there's a principle there that shows when God's grace is poured out, and God's grace was poured out even in an Old Testament context, the angels rejoice. So every time God's grace is poured out, which most definitely happens when salvation takes place, the angels rejoice. Now the question I have on the board here is, when was the last time you caused God's glory to be praised? There should be a D here. Seriously, when was the last time that you caused God's glory to be praised? Was it just at salvation? Or does it happen even still after that? It's ongoing. We live in grace. We operate in grace.

That means that, and I was sharing this with Jeremy, and I believe he brought this up when he was teaching in his lesson, it means I can stop worrying about, hey, am I glorifying God with my life? Because even if I blow it, if I'm walking in the flesh, which unfortunately happens more often than I'd like, but as I learn to live the lifestyle that is Christ living in me, His Holy Spirit empowering me. It happens a whole lot less, so I can praise the Lord for that. But when I walk in the flesh, God's glorified.

Not because I sinned. The sin doesn't glorify God, but it's His grace poured out every time I sin that causes Him to be glorified. When you come from a legalistic... Oh, go ahead. But it's poured out even when you don't sin. It's poured out... Yeah, well, but... He's glorified when we abide in the Spirit because He enabled us to live a righteous life.

He enabled us to do the righteous act as we look at Ephesians 2.10 later on. It's poured out no matter what. And that's the thing. It's because of grace that it's poured out no matter what.

When you live in legalism, and maybe some of you can testify to this as well, for me, I used to beat myself up all the time every time I would realize, hell, I've been walking in sin. Because I'd think, shoot, Here's 5, 10, 15, 20 days, minutes, doesn't matter how long it was, that God wasn't glorified. Because I wasn't walking in the Spirit. And I'd beat myself up, which of course was walking in the flesh and not walking in the Spirit.

But when you recognize, hey, to the praise of the glory of His grace, or to the praise of His glory in here, because grace is poured out, I can stop worrying about that and I can focus on what? What should I be focusing on? on the Sun Colossians 3 set your mind on things above where Christ is seated in the heavenlies not on things of the earth that's a rough recollection of that go ahead oh You know, I don't really have a solid answer for that.

I'm not going to make up something. She says, Paul writes about buffeting his body. When I say beat myself up, I'm saying emotionally, in the flesh, causing guilt. That's what I'm referring to. But was he doing it physically? I don't have a good answer for that, and so I'm not sure what to tell you on that. Well, wasn't that... I think the first book is Nine Races, I Bring My Body's Suggestion. So I don't... I think it's... It's a different context. Let's see here. It seems like it's in the... Go ahead. I can't remember the context, but I just...

He's running a race. He's talking about running the race, and I think it's about discipline and context is... Like he talks about Romans 6, of yielding to the control of the spirit. He's bringing his body, he's not allowing his lust and his flesh to control him. He's yielding over to the spirit. So I think it's, I'd say it's like a race. Like somebody that is training for that. And keeping themselves under the control of the spirit. I'm just wondering, you know, are these similars?

Because you're talking when you're not walking, when you're walking out. Well, the principle remains that if we take every thought captive, that we're not letting the flesh reign. And I think that's the core thing, is that we need to walk in the lifestyle that is Christ moving and living through us. Bill? In reference to what you said earlier, that if you're walking after the flesh, you're not in the flesh anymore, but you're walking after the flesh. In reference to what Paul said, how would that jive?

If you're glorifying God in your body, why would those commands be given to glorify in all that you do to glorify God? So that if I sin, I'm glorifying God because of grace. I think he attacks that concept because in Romans 6, he says, what should we say? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound? It almost sounds like Sin glorifies God.

Well no, I explicitly said not that. Well yeah, and that's where we... I'm not encouraging us to walk in sin. What I'm saying is that in legalism you keep a tally sheet. In legalism you do that. In grace, because of the operating system of grace, there is no tally sheet.

God has already marked the tally sheet complete as we looked at earlier in Ephesians 3 where he says we've been declared holy and blameless. I'm sorry, that's 3 is every spiritual blessing. 6 is, oops not 6 either, or is it 4? Yes, 4 where we're declared holy and blameless. And in that, it's because the grace was poured out.

I'm absolutely not suggesting anybody would walk in sin. I'm just talking about the concept of license where people, because of grace, they can live the way they want. Yeah, I'm not encouraging license whatsoever. I'm saying that I'm countering the error of legalism, which looks back at past sins and says this is void of any use in saying that God, because of His character, can still use that to his glory. It still brings praise to his glory because of the nature of grace. I'm not suggesting a license.

So that means we shouldn't... I'm agreeing with Romans 6, absolutely. Because grace is so good, we just keep on sinning. That's what they were doing. Yeah, and I'm not suggesting that at all. I just want to make sure that was clear. Oh, absolutely, yeah. If that came across, I apologize and I would like to retract any statement that indicated that.

It's one of those things where, from a legalistic standpoint, I used to beat myself up. It was like, okay, it's time for the morning prayer time and self-flagellation, because I've blown it again. So I must need to do this and feel guilty, because if I feel guilty long enough, then maybe it'll make up for the crumminess. It was all in legalism, all in the flesh, instead of resting in what God already achieved and did. And legalism causes you to go back and dredge up all those old sins. Is that guilt? I can't do. Or it's wrong. It's horrendous.

Is there any way that we can diminish the glory of God? Is that possible for us to do? I have to say no because God's glory is independent from ourselves. Is there a difference between us being aware of God's glory and, you know, is it like our perception different from kind of the universal perception? I guess what I'm trying to say is, you know, Ephesians 5 talks about that, you know, if Christ died for righteousness, you know, how hard was that? But he died for us while we were ungodly, while we were totally unworthy.

And it seems to me that if we are not so much sinning But if we're, through legalistic perception, trying to please God by our own efforts, trying to work it out on ourselves, when God has said in His Word, all you have to do is walk by faith in Me. It's not your effort. Your words are still dirty rags. Well, if we're living in that legalistic mind frame, at least maybe in our perception or from our viewpoint, aren't we somewhat taken away from the glory of God when He is most glorified by His grace and by us simply realizing we can't do it, it's His grace that's everything in our lives? We're not bringing glory through the manner which he has gifted us, through the Holy Spirit, directing our lives. And that is in relationship. Why did God present salvation? It was in relationship. He wanted the relationship.

So if we're doing it any other way, then we've missed the mark. We're still missing it. Does that answer your question indirectly or directly? Wouldn't you say we can diminish the fellowship we have with him, but it's not because of him, it's because of us. We choose, we make that choice, not the fellowship that we're... Yeah, it impacts that. We're on a bit of a rabbit trail.

I didn't mean to stir the water so badly. I don't want to encourage license. I don't want to encourage legalism. What I'm trying to say is that only God, only the God of the universe, only the God that is described in the Bible could create a system of his love pouring out so richly that we can't screw it up. Can I simplify it like that?

I talked to a young man over the internet, we have a Skype study I call it, where we do Bible study over the Skype internet platform. And I talked to a young man who basically believes, and he rejected any suggestion otherwise, that he has out sinned God. He has figured out how to out sin God and so he's lost his salvation and he doesn't want to hear anything otherwise because he can't re-obtain it. and I said, you can't re-obtain it because you're going to lose it. He rejected that all together.

But we want to not try to come up with a man-made operating system, a man-made system that takes God's and then augments it and tries to make it, well, I've got to figure it out. I've got to figure it out and so we're going to do it my way, God, because I know better than you. We're not going that way. Let's keep going because there's some more meat in this and time is already about halfway through. If there are more questions, we can discuss it after class. I don't want to present heresy, not even hint at it.

Continuing on with the next verse, he says, you also, or in him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, This is where he ties in, hey these things were true of me in verse 11 and in verse 12, hey these things are also true of you. You also, and I want to pause and take a moment to look at the second half of this and just give you the opportunity to do some self-reflection and we can discuss this. He says, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, the word listening really stood out to me. As a communicator, and obviously we just experienced this moments ago, as a communicator I can run my mouth all day long. That doesn't mean that you're listening. That doesn't mean you're learning.

I can say things, and honestly I've had some pretty stellar conversations with believers here who are specialists in their field. Bob Eccle, I remember when Hal was in the hospital with the cancer. Bob Eccle, they said, Bob, will you come up to the front of the church and share with us, medically, what's going on? And he got up and he introduced himself, kind of explained why it was reasonable for him as a doctor to explain the situation to us. And then my brain shut off because, and Bob you're listening to this, I know you're listening to MP3 and I apologize.

Because he was so technical, it was beyond what I really could fathom. And so as As we look at the gospel, do we present the gospel in a way so that those who are listening get it? Abbey is six. She believes in the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding of Jesus Christ and that she has been identified with him. We've talked with her about it. At six years old she can understand that because the gospel isn't complex.

We don't have to add things to it. It doesn't have to be described in robust and sometimes funky or technical ways. We don't have to get into the, what is it, ordo salvo, the order of salvation and what takes place in this timeline. We present Christ died, was buried, and was rose again or resurrected, just as scripture foretold, as 1 Corinthians 15 tells us. That's the simplicity of the gospel.

But how do you share the gospel? This is something, it's a personal question, and I'm not going to try to say there's one method that is better than another method. But honestly, how do you approach other people who are lost with the gospel? You probably have to get their knock hold and understand from their current level of understanding where they're at, what needs to be brought forward, one easy point at a time. The gospel can be presented in a short amount of time. If you're on a short commuter flight and you've got 45 minutes on a plane, you've got a captive audience unless they jump out the window. But you can present the gospel and share the gospel in a short amount of time. But it does help, I have found, to get to know the person so that you can communicate in words and language that they understand.

I had a manager, I'll get, you got a question. I had a manager at the company I worked for in Texas who came, he was brand new to the company, they joined him on and he came in and he came in with more acronyms than I knew. And listen, I work in technology, I know a lot of acronyms, and the guy was just right over my head with the acronyms. As soon as I indicated to him that I had no idea what SNMP is, he quickly switched gears and began to communicate with me at a level he knew that I would understand.

When we share the gospel, it's good to know that my Christian-ese is over this person's head. Because they need to be able to listen for them to respond. Jeremy, what were you going to say? I was going to say along with that, as a teacher I've learned and I'm learning one of the key aspects of communication is as a communicator you have to be able to listen too and know who you're talking to and like you said to have that intimacy. As a teacher I can get up there talk about my subject all day, but I have to have that connection with my students. I teach several different classes, and I can teach the same subject to a different class, but the dynamic will be different. And as a communicator, I have to understand that and be able to listen to know, are they understanding this? And how can I reach them from what they're familiar with and at their level? I think that's one of the problems with these, it can be a problem with these evangelism programs, is you tend to stereotype the program and say, okay, this is how you present the gospel. Well, it's not about following your list.

It's about knowing the gospel, first of all, and about knowing that person. allowing the Spirit through that to help you communicate and share that with the person. That brings us to the question of how do we have a 100% clarity rate of sharing the Gospel? we wouldn't need the Holy Spirit. Yeah, it's got to be through the Holy Spirit. I don't want to encourage you to say, oh, Randy's thinking of let's have some psychology and figure out the kind of personality type they have and learn their vocabulary. No. Abide in the Holy Spirit and he'll make it clear, hey, now's the time to share the gospel. But be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's direction so that you're not sharing the gospel through some robotic methodology you've figured out.

It's not about that. It's about abiding as you share. Being sensitive so that the listener is receiving the message. Because, as the verse continues on, it's a message of truth. It's the message of truth, the gospel, the good news is a message of truth. Last night, in the middle of my wrapping up my preparation for this I was meditating on this and I stopped my preparation and I went over to my blog, I've got a website, and I wrote up an article for my website sharing the gospel with my readers. I have a primarily Christian audience on my website but I have some friends that I know that read that website who have rejected Christianity for one reason or another and I stopped and I wrote the gospel out clearly in simple terms and explained grace Because I was convicted by the Holy Spirit right then that I I needed to do that So I went to bed 20 minutes later than I could have but that's alright It's the message of truth, it's not the message of feel-goodness, it's not the message of You know, this is going to make the society better. It's not the social gospel.

It's the message of truth. How does truth impact you? It impacted them. I'm assuming that my knowledge and relationship with all of you indicates it impacted you as well. It's the message of truth. The gospel of your salvation. Now the result of them responding to the gospel, and I'm on page 2 if you've got your hand out there. The result, or you flip it over. The result was that they were sealed with him, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. The Holy Spirit of promise.

This is one of those things that as a charismatic drove, I skipped over this verse. We would read Ephesians very selectively because this was a problematic verse. Because in some charismatic circles the Holy Spirit comes and goes, especially if you sing Psalm 51 regularly, in which David says, you know, take not the Holy Spirit from me. We didn't understand dispensational theology or hermeneutics. But the believers were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Now, what does a seal represent in this context? Because we're not talking about a mammal. You know, an aquatic mammal. What does sealed with the Holy Spirit mean? It was to honor God's promises to us.

It's permanent. Ownership. It's permanent. Finished transcript. The king or the author would use their seal to authenticate it. Often it was a ring, that's why I did that. I'm like, hey, I'm just knocking on wood. That doesn't help. The seal would be put on there to authenticate the authorship of the document or the authority of the document from whom it came. Now, what does that mean for you? If you and I have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, who's doing the sealing? God. So who's got authority over our lives?

It's valid. The authority, the validity, the authorship, the authenticity of it is all part of that seal. That means I can't worry about losing my salvation because I've been sealed. In our culture it's almost like a signature. Yeah, it's the notarized signature of, you know, like the documentation if you've seen any of the photographs of various presidents signing bills. You know, it's like, okay, this is it. That signing means it's real. It's now a law. It's now been enacted. But the seal in this context was often irrevocable. In our case, this is absolutely irrevocable. The authority of God has been operating and putting this into place. What does it mean to have the Holy Spirit be the seal in the life of the believer for our daily walk? What does it mean to have that daily attachment of the Holy Spirit is indwelling in your life? You're always enabled. You're always enabled.

I used to pray crazy prayers, which now that I understand good theology are crazy, but then I thought that was normal because everybody else I knew was praying them that way. It'd be like, Lord, please send your Holy Spirit so that I could do something awesome. I don't know what it was, I just wanted something really cool to happen, you know, like tingly feelings or 5,000 people come to know the Lord or something that I could, basically it would build up my ego. Let's be honest, that's what I was after. And not understanding the sealing of the Holy Spirit is, and God is indwelling me all the time through his Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2.18 tells us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, as does 1 Corinthians 2. We have the indwelling of a part of the Trinity. That's pretty awesome. It's not like, hey, God made you a new creation. God did this new thing here, but then he's done. Then he's separate from us. Instead, we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That's why we can boldly access the throne of God, like Hebrews tells us.

I never thought I could boldly access the throne of God at all. Why would I be able to do that? I'm scummy. I haven't been made holy or blameless. I'm not indwelled by the Holy Spirit regularly. That's what I thought because I had bad theology. Instead I'm sealed. It allows me to boldly go before the throne of God.

And the Holy Spirit, and this is definitely an emphasis you're going to see in Ephesians as we go through Ephesians over time, that the Holy Spirit is the source of power for our daily living. The Holy Spirit enables us. It's not just us in Christ, it's Christ in us. It's not just us in the Holy Spirit, it's the Holy Spirit in us. Enabling us, empowering us to do righteous things.

The next section of the passage here is who is given as a pledge of our inheritance. A pledge of our inheritance. This is one of those things where I think of when When we bought our house, we got one of those really crummy loans that you should have not gotten that was us and so we didn't put a down payment down on our house because we worked out in this awesome loan deal we got and That was sarcasm We didn't have a pledge for our house It was just all you know, hey, I'll just sign this piece of paper and you give me the keys awesome. We got it But this is not the way God is operating He's given the Holy Spirit as a pledge of our inheritance. Now this got me to thinking, because the second half of it is, with the view to the redemption of God's own possession, how cool and really unearthly in its conception is it that we have been given a pledge of our inheritance? God says, part of the Trinity that is a seal, that is actively part of your life, that is a pledge of your inheritance, but that pledge is in view of the redemption of God's own possession.

I'm going to give you this inheritance. This inheritance is your possession. But this inheritance that is your possession has got a pledge that I'm going to then come and collect, which is we're God's own possession. Hey, here's this. I'm giving it to you so that I can collect you. But that thing that I'm giving you to collect is also something so that you can collect on what I promised you.

This inheritance. It doesn't make any earthly sense. It would be like going to the grocery store and they give you a stalk of celery just to make sure you come back to the check stand so that they can pay for your groceries. What? Why would you do that? Well, we just want to make sure that you know we like you as a customer. Why wouldn't I be a customer? You're paying for the groceries.

It doesn't make sense from an earthly standpoint. It's not a transaction that we deal with in an earthly sense. Not even in our marriages is it that completely one-sided. Although, frankly, sometimes in my marriage it seems like it's pretty lopsided because Jessica does a whole lot of stuff around the house while I just sit typing on a keyboard.

The nature of this is we've been given a pledge, a down payment for a full payment to be made later. When is the full payment going to be made later? Any guesses? At the death or the rapture. We're going to receive the return of Christ. We're going to receive the full payment.

And this is a really awesome thing. One of the things I love about position and condition is this. Right now, my position and my condition are two separate things for my experience. My experience right now, conditionally, is that I've got this human flesh body and I've got this Candida yeast overgrowth in my gastrointestinal tract, which basically gives me a skin rash on my left arm.

Strangely enough, that's it. It's a conditional problem. It's not affecting my position. It's also why I wear a long sleeve. But the thing is that it's a conditional problem and it's temporal. Because it's conditional. Except for that our condition doesn't stop. When we get to heaven, our condition and our position will be one.

And that's pretty awesome. The problem sometimes when I think about condition and position is I think of it in a short term sense. Not in an eternal long term sense. hey, that inheritance that I have is going to be, in part, that my condition and my position will be unified. They will be one. And that's really exciting and awesome.

Continuing on with the rest of his statement here with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, what does it mean to be possessed by God? Or what does it not mean, maybe? He has us and he's not going to let us go. He has us. He's not going to let us go. It means that we've not been rejected by God and we will not be rejected by God. You were not your own, you were bought with a price. You were taken.

It has to do with the eternal covenant with his son. Yeah, the eternal covenant with his son. This is where I love the richness of that covenant. It's like, wow, we could do a whole class on that easily. But much of it is part of, you know, we talked about the riches of God's grace, the divine riches, the 34 things. This is really an awesome thing.

When we think about being God's possession, does it give us rest? It should. We think of possessions in a cheap and small way, often. What possession do you have that lasts forever? So it's often when we take possession, we go, oh, possession, well I got one of those. My laptop's a possession and in two years it's going to be a paperweight. It's going to be a $2,000 paperweight. Awesome. You know, it's not, we're not possessions like that. We're eternal possessions.

But here, get this, you're a possession that when we look at Ephesians 2.7 and since, if you've got your Bible open, flip there and read along with me.

Ephesians 2.7 says that in the ages to come he might show his exceeding riches, or the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Forever, and I don't mean to exposit some future lesson, apologies to other teachers, forever he is going to be revealing the riches of his grace, the awesomeness of who he is to us. Do you do that to your possessions? Do you share your awesomeness with them?

No. It's hard for us to think of being a possession from an earthly context and fully grasp what it means to be the possession of God. I'd like to leave with everybody and encourage everybody to consider meditating on this sentence and some of these details, and think of it from God's perspective. Don't let yourself take the easy way out and just say, yeah, I understand what that word means.

I understand possession. I've got possessions. And move on. I understand pledges and seals. Yeah. But meditate on it. And let that impact your relationship with the Lord. I know that sounds a little emotional. Our relationship with the Lord is not just one that is technical. It is intimate. It is relational, this redemption that we have, this being a possession.

Paul closes this sentence. We've run a long, long sentence from verse 3 to verse 14. He closes the whole sentence with, "...to the praise of His glory." three times the praise of God's glory comes up in that sentence. Do you think he meant it? Repetition there being an important detail. Paul wraps it up, even continuing on, hey, he said in verse 11 that the first believers were to the praise of God's glory, but then he says, hey, you, you too, you're to the praise of God's glory.

Any questions or thoughts? That's the end of the lesson. Any questions or thoughts? Any clarifications I can make or that you would like to make? Go ahead. My thought, my understanding is that it's not most important that I'm his possession, as you're comparing our possessions, except that it's permanent, but it's that I'm his adopted child. Yes. that cannot be undone. Yeah. And I got it all without meriting any of it. Absolutely. It was His decision and He doesn't go back on it. Absolutely.

Well, and the thing is, again with the comparison of possessions, as part of the salvation, what are we in Christ? Well, that's a loaded question. There's about 34 answers to that. As part of this possession, what are we in Christ? We are a new creation. So it's not a possession of like an earthly kind of possession. It's a new creation. Who's the first of that new creation? Christ. We're of that type. There's a fantastic programming illustration of that, but I'm so not going there. We'll talk about it after the bell rings, because it does not need to be recorded.

But we are made a new creation, and that's the kind of possession that we are. It's not like, hey, look, we have preserved the awesomeness of this human creation. It's not that way. We have been regenerated and reborn into the new creation. And that's what makes us being a possession not be just a possession. It's that adoption. He's adopted us and turned us into this new creation.

It's that relationship. The knowledge that God desires the relationship and has done everything to get the distractions out of the relationship is what allows us to walk in liberty and to walk in relationship and know that we can boldly go before the throne of God and boldly pray His will and boldly act out the life of Christ, empowered by Him. We don't have to have any hesitancy. That's the thing for me.

In my youth, hesitancy was it. Are you hesitant? The Holy Spirit gives me hesitancy sometimes. Usually it's what's going to come out of my mouth. Really, is that me? I'm going to not say that. But he takes away hesitancy as he empowers us and our mind is renewed and we think the thoughts after God's own thoughts. Let's close in prayer and then I'll share my programming illustration for those of you who want to have to either have glassed over eyes or already understand programming. Heavenly Father we ask that you would just Bring pause in our lives this week so that we can meditate on your word and consider the richness of the glory of your grace, the richness of being sealed by your Holy Spirit of promise, the richness of the Holy Spirit being a pledge of our inheritance, and the richness of being your possession, of being a new creation. We thank you for your love and work in our lives, and the richness and the truth of the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.