Praise to the Spirt for His work in the believer
Ephesians 1:13-14 · Randy Peterman · Feb 18, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926198392130

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

So this morning we're going to finish the run-on sentence that Paul started in verse 3 from Ephesians. I think we kind of have been in the habit of actually reading all the way from 3 to 14 and there's no reason not to do that again today just so that we maintain context for that. So Ephesians, I'll start in one verse three.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will. to the praise of the glory of His grace which He freely bestowed on us and the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the time, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined, according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will. to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you are sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of His glory. Alright, so Paul's long run-on sentence, which we have turned into a paragraph, concludes with these last two verses here. In him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you are sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who has given us a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory.

So this morning we're actually going to hit on some really key doctrines related to salvation and security of salvation, as well as looking forward to what God has established for us in Christ.

So what arguments have some people proffered for the loss of salvation? I want to start with that because I think we need to hit on that up front. When people have said to you that you can lose your salvation, what are their arguments for that that you might have heard? We're sinful. We're sinful, and so when we sin we lose our salvation? That's what they think. What else? Too much for God to handle. God couldn't handle all of our sin, it was too much. You've heard people maybe they'll quote Hebrews 6. which I think in context doesn't lead us to the loss of salvation idea.

The idea of falling away from the sin. Or maybe the unforgivable sin, you've heard of that one. Now that has the context of being during the time of Christ's ministry on earth and the Jewish leadership had rejected Christ outright and rejected the word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit and therefore they did not believe. And so that is the specific context for the unforgivable sin. It is not a New Testament doctrine we wrestle with. Although, if we don't believe, I guess we're not saved and therefore it's not a lost salvation.

We should just articulate it that way. So what we're going to find here with Ephesians 1, 13 and 14 is that we actually have this very rich set of relationships between ourselves and the Godhead that secures our salvation and gives us comfort even when we sin. So let's start here. It says, In Him, and the antecedent for Him, the pronoun Him, is Jesus Christ. So in Christ, you also.

The thing I think is worth calling out here is that in Christ is something that we're going to see repeated throughout Ephesians, and it's worth calling out that theologians for centuries have overlooked this detail. Lots of theologians have studied God's Word and not understood in Him. So as lay people, sometimes maybe in your own walk, you were unaware of the principles of being in Christ. At Holly Hills we teach it so often that I think maybe if you grew up around this it would seem crazy, but growing up for me, my background, I had no idea what it meant to be in Christ. And so we should ask the question, what does being in Christ mean and how do we know we're in Christ?

Paul says we're in Christ, so we could just stop there, right? Paul says we're in Christ, we're done. And we should take his word at face value, so I'm not trying to question Paul's reasoning. But I think Paul explains it in further detail. If we were to turn, for example, to Romans 6, being one of the classic verses that we often visit. Romans 6. verses 1-4 I think are probably a good place and if you get there go ahead and somebody just please read it out loud. What shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Knowing not that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Alright, and obviously I think we know that if we kept reading we would find there is even more stuff in verses 5 through the rest of the chapter. For the sake of a short amount of time, we'll stop there. But what we see there is that we're in Christ through this identification with him in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Paul links throughout the New Testament to multiple key doctrines related to our being in Christ. This list that you see here, which unfortunately due to some printing snafus, is on page two for you. It's on page one for me. You guys have a big blank space at the bottom of page one because the printers are slightly different. What you see in that list is that in Christ, we're sanctified. In Christ, we know God's wisdom.

In Christ, we've been made spiritually alive. In Christ, we've been made a new creation. In Christ, we've been given liberty. In Christ, we're justified. In Christ, we have salvation by faith. In Christ, faith is producing love. In Christ, good works were created for us to do. And in Christ, we have been forgiven of all sins. And I think it's really, really important in light of salvation that we remember that we've been forgiven of all sins.

And in Christ, we've been given peace. And this is an incomplete list, a slightly more complete list, but not the exhaustive list that's being used upstairs in the Unfathomable Riches class, which is Obviously, it's a class we've taught before at Holly Hills, and I think the value is obvious and evident.

So as Paul teaches about who we are in Christ, we find that these are the truths that we grow in spiritually. When we look for spiritual growth, and we try to identify spiritual growth outside of these truths of who we are in Christ, what does it produce? Does it produce spiritual growth? What are things you've heard that are related to spiritual growth in your walk with the Lord that are not things that are in Christ?

Read your Bible, pray, be a good witness, go to church regularly. Those kind of sound like works-related things, don't they? Right? And I grew up with the general understanding of that's what we should be doing as believers. But you know what? Those things are not wrong. There's nothing wrong with reading your Bible. There's that we're told we should be praying. Pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5 17. Right? We should be sharing the gospel. And in fact, what we're going to look at this morning demands that we understand something about sharing the gospel.

But we also find that that's not spiritual growth. that might be a manifestation of that growth in our lives, but it is not actually a way that we grow spiritually by itself. So we grow spiritually when we recognize what is already true of us in Christ. That's a really key principle for us to understand. Our understanding of these doctrines of being in Christ impacts our body, our soul, and our spirit. The three parts of us that make us up is as beings made in God's image, our bodies will be replaced in Christ as new creations.

Right? We're going to be made new creations. And these bodies... mind continues to fail me in new and exciting ways. I think we all have experienced that in different capacities, right? I remember being a teenager and feeling invincible. And my dad said, when you get older, you'll discover the harm you've caused yourself. And I thought, nah. I was so wrong.

But we will get new bodies that don't have the frailties of this body. And our souls have been joined with Christ on the cross. So in Christ, we are joined with him. And our souls are reflective of his new federal headship. And our spirits have been made alive in Christ. Remember, we've talked in the past in different classes the consequence of the fall, the death, was separation from God. Because we're in Christ, we're spiritually made alive and we're in Him.

So our notion of time and space is also impacted by these things because we start to begin to understand that everything is held together in Christ and God has ordained all of these things. So our personal lives our relationship lives, and even our perspective of the time-space continuum changes on account of understanding in him. So I know this is probably a little thorough and maybe more than is necessary to a certain degree, but I think when we look at in him and we're going to see this pattern over and over throughout Ephesians, we need to recognize that it's a pretty substantial statement despite it being two small words. So Paul continues, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. So Paul says listening. There's a very interesting opposing event that takes place for you to listen.

Can you listen alone? This is like the Zen Buddhist, what is the sound of one hand clapping, right? You can't listen alone. Someone has to be communicating, right? Someone has to have presented the message of truth, the gospel, for you to have listened to it.

Tom? But the interesting thing is, if you're a believer in Christ, you're never alone to realize it. Right. This is talking about pre-Christ. You were listening before you were saved. You listened and you responded to the gospel, right? And then you're never alone. But, he says, listening, it is worth noting that the gospel unheard maintains spiritual death and separation. Okay? That's a bummer.

When we think about those who are lost, when I've heard people talk about why we should share the gospel in various conversations and I've been to various conferences and whatnot. People talk about sharing the gospel. Often one of the things that they say is, don't you care about these people going to hell? Is that motive enough to share the gospel?

Now the problem is that that can be used legalistically, right? So we don't want to attach ourselves to legalism in this. But instead, what is the spirit-led version of preaching the gospel so that we know we should do it instead of legalism? Does God want people to be saved? Does he want us to walk in fellowship with him and live out his life?

Yes. Has he planned good works for you? Could preaching the gospel be one of those good works? I believe so. So if we're abiding, the Holy Spirit will bring opportunities for us to share the gospel, even if we're not evangelists. I'm not an evangelist. I still sometimes get anxious when I preach the gospel to people because I'm like, oh man, what if they don't like me after this? I want to be liked. Maybe you recognize that experience. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't care if people like you. I'm awfully weak in that account. I want people to like me.

But these people heard the gospel and Complementary to that is the idea that we as believers are abiding so that we can approach the presentation of the gospel. The question as I have it here is, as believers who may not be evangelists, how do we approach the presentation of the gospel? And the answer to that is by abiding and waiting on the Lord to direct our conversations there. But also maybe even praying for chances to preach the gospel.

Not that we want to be evangelists if we're not gifted that way, but because we know that the Holy Spirit is willing people and we want to be his vessel. So not legalism, although it is awfully attractive for some within Christendom to just say, you gotta do it. Instead, you gotta abide. And he'll do it through us.

That's an important principle. So after listening to the message of truth, what's the message of truth? So 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4, that's the terse version of the gospel as Paul wrote it. The thing that's important here is that the message of truth, when we use the word truth, does our culture love truth? Not especially. Not especially, right?

Because what does truth come with? Responsibility. It comes with responsibility, accountability. The truth is like the sun shining a bright light on lies. And lies make us uncomfortable because we might like them. Right? We might like lies. They might be attractive to us. How many of you have heard people say, God is love, therefore we shouldn't hate anybody? As a principle, that's kind of a nice platitude, but that doesn't mean that in loving them we ignore sin. God didn't ignore sin. What did he do to deal with sin? He sent his sons. Is there a more visual and visible and permanent way of dealing with sin than sending his son? I can't think of one.

So when we talk about the message of truth, what we have here is we have the gospel linked to truth, which gets its definition in God. Truth doesn't get its definition in man. Just because man put together a dictionary doesn't mean that the definition came from man.

When God created Adam and breathed life and personality into Adam, He gave Adam vocabulary. And part of that was presenting truth to Adam, so that Adam, in his time of conscience, in his innocence, knew truth. He didn't understand lies and sin, right? He didn't know the difference between good and evil. But he knew what was true because God spoke truth. And Adam understood it.

And we have a sense of awe as beings made in God's image that carries on even to this day. But we have over time listened to the lies like the serpent, who says, did God really say that? And so we question truth. And our morality has shifted as a culture and as a people, right?

And so Paul, when he says the message of truth, he was speaking to an audience of Gentiles that thought the same way. The Gentiles loved truth in a hypothetical way. The Greeks were famous for studying philosophy and coming up with ideas and then never testing out if they were true or not. They believed that there was a probability of their truth and that was adequate.

So, the message of truth, the idea of truth is an anchoring reality, and Paul in Colossians 2.8 warns the Colossians, do not be suckered away.

That's my translation, he doesn't use the word suckered away. But he says, do not be suckered away by the philosophies of this world. Philosophy is a nice buttered up way to convince people of truth that is not true. It's to convince them of lies, but present it as truth.

So God has given us truth. He's given us that message of truth. The word there in the Greek is logos. It's rooted in the idea of the word or the idea, not just like message, like angelos, where we get messengers for angels. It's the word of truth. Now he says the gospel of your salvation. The gospel was traditionally used outside of the New Testament to describe the reward for delivering the good news. When we hear the good news, the gospel is the good news, it was used secularly as a word to describe the reward for bringing the good news. How many of you can think of a famous bringer of good news in history?

There's several, but you can pick one. How many of you have ever run 26 miles? My hands down. I don't run that far. All together. Collectively, if you sum it up, 26 miles. Remember the marathon was 26 miles because they had won and he had come as a messenger.

He would have been greeted with a reward, but instead, as the tradition of that history goes, the oral tradition is that he arrived and delivered the news and died. So he didn't get the reward. But the thing is, when we look in the Old Testament, remember David hears that Saul's descendant has been killed and the messenger comes and brings the bad news that the messenger is killed by David. You came here proudly sharing this bad news, right?

So being a messenger was a little sketchy with the royalty. But when we run into the gospel, the actual word was used to describe the reward, and Paul re-appropriates it. And I think it's important for us to recognize when Paul does that, because he comes with apostolic authority to do so. He re-appropriates this word to mean the good news of the gospel.

Okay? So he says the gospel of your salvation. What is salvation? I know this probably seems rudimentary. We've been adults for so long in this room, except for Abby. She's getting there. What is salvation? The idea of being delivered from something. To be delivered from something. is being delivered from whatever state we were in before, right? So what was our state that we're being delivered from? Death, separation, slaves to sin, right? So those who are in the state of impending consequences of sin have been delivered from that state and are now given a new position in Christ in a new federal head. Christ.

So this is a really important doctrinal truth, the idea that we have salvation. We think of salvation and it's a fundamental part of our Christian walk, but the reality is that sometimes we have to revisit those words. Paul uses them, and when we do, we're reminded of the richness of God's grace.

So Paul says, as a consequence of hearing the message of truth, the gospel, what did they do? They believed. I believe, not to use that word in a different light, but I believe that everybody in this room also believed, right? So belief or having faith, okay, it means to be persuaded that something is true. So we heard the truth of the gospel and we were persuaded that it was true. We believed it. We responded to what was presented to us in that light. When you were presented the gospel, did you understand everything that was true of you in Christ?

No. And I think it's important for us to recognize, have you ever run into the John MacArthur folks who tend to get extra rigid on this idea of lordship salvation is what they call it? And the problem with the Lordship salvation is that you need to not just believe what Tom so kindly recited for us from 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4, but they add to that that you need to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. And if He's Lord, you better make sure that He's Lord of your life in all of your actions, because if He is not, then maybe you're not saved. That's a real big problem, because that's adding to the gospel and it's putting a burden on people they can't bear. And it happens to conflict directly with what we're going to talk about in the rest of this passage. So what does it mean to believe? It means that we are persuaded of it. But what's the difference between mental assent and belief? Let's just cover this quickly. What is mental assent? To know something is a fact.

I have mentally assented that the moon goes around the earth and the earth goes around the sun, and I can kind of sort of observe how that pattern works, but I haven't gone outside of the earth in a rocket ship and tracked it with technology to confirm it. I have mentally assented to it. I also happen to believe it. I can believe that Jesus Christ came on the earth.

I can even believe He was sent by God, but then not believe that He is my Savior. and that is mental ascent. Belief is to go beyond just recognizing it is true, but believing it and making it personally your relationship with Jesus Christ. So John MacArthur wants to avoid mental ascent and have belief, which I think is good, but he does so by adding and if you live a righteous life, you're saved. And if you don't live a righteous life, you're not saved.

Ta-da! That made everything better. Not, right? Instead, we heap burdens on people with that. So I want to contrast mental assent versus belief for our understanding, but not because we're trying to burden people with more legalism. And we want to avoid that. So, Paul continues on, he says, sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit of promise. So, how were seals used historically, and do we have seals now? And I'm not talking about animals. How are seals used?

Authenticated document. They authenticated a document, and you'd have a hot wax, you'd put that on the cover, you know, like with a scroll when it's rolled over, you take the edge of it, it wraps over, and you put wax on there, and the wax acts sort of like a gluing mechanism, and it holds the scroll closed, and then you would maybe take a signet ring, which is a sealing ring, or you might have something that you wore on a cord around your neck, and you'd put it in the hot wax, and it would be your mark Today we sign checks or if you've ever gone through the home loan process you sign for like six years. It seems like you're in there forever signing your name. That's your seal. That's how we authenticate it today.

There's actually sealing processes for emails but not one of you probably has ever looked at it but it's there. It's called DKIM and that's as much murdery as I will bring out this morning. The idea with seals though is very important because there's a sealer and then who can unseal it?

No one. Well, you shouldn't. Legally, it was no one was to except for the recipient. Right? Now, let's ask this very important question. Who was the sealer? In this context. We believe God seals us. Right, but who was the one that sealed us with the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the seal. Who was the sealer? Christ. And who is the one who is the recipient? God. The Father is. So we have all three parts of the Trinity actively involved in our salvation. And who sealed us? Jesus. With whom? The Holy Spirit. To God. Who can lose their salvation if those three are involved?

When I recognized this, because I'd heard off and on growing up, that you lose your salvation, and I was like, I don't know. Some people say you could, some people say you couldn't, and I didn't really understand. And I read Ephesians, and I... a little too much information, I was in the bathroom.

I was reading my Bible, and I remember such excitement when I read this verse. Because suddenly I I was all by myself, and I was like, I've got to talk to somebody about this. As soon as I was done, I had to go out and talk to my parents, because I was a teenager. I was like, this is an important truth. People had said I could lose my salvation, and then suddenly I had come to a place where there was no possibility of me losing my salvation. And it was clear. So we're sealed in Christ. And he continues on, he says, the promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance.

Now, what's a promise? How do we use promise today? When you get a loan, for example, is that a promise? You're promising I'm going to pay it back. I'll borrow the money and I promise I'll pay it back. Usually plus some more money, right? Sometimes that's frightening. How much money did I pay? I paid that much? To borrow that much? What? Credit cards are dangerous, right?

But building on the principle of the seal, the Holy Spirit is given as a pledge of our inheritance. We are going to receive an inheritance. We see inheritance three times in the first chapter of Ephesians, and then once in chapter 5. So four times total. Each time, We are told we are going to receive an inheritance. And that's a rich truth.

And remember when we said in verse 5 that we were adopted as sons? And adopted meant that we were preeminent to receive an inheritance? We were guaranteed an inheritance? Paul is just building on that. You have an inheritance coming. It's substantial.

So who is promising what to whom? Christ, Holy Spirit, God, and we already know there's three parties. Who's promising what to whom? The Holy Spirit is a sign of the promise, so we know it's not the Holy Spirit. or the Father is promising one to the other. Who's promising what? How can we derive this?

You were sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit of promise. So we were sealed in Christ with the promise to the Father, to be delivered to the Father. We were redeemed to Him. And we're going to see that more in verse 14, so we'll keep going. He says in 14, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession. Redemption. We said our state was changed. We were in a bad state and we've been redeemed to a better state. Redemption here is to pay the ransom for something. So the actual payment that caused the salvation is the redemption. So we have some really good infant Christian vocabulary that we're getting to go. And when I say infant, I don't mean that it's baby talk. I mean that this is how we become new believers. We get these principles here.

So Christ paid the ransom for our sins. being slaves in the market of sin. And remember being a slave was rooted in debt. In America we have a really confused view of slavery because of what's happened in the last 200 years or 240 whatever years of our nation. But what we actually have here is a historical system of debt. That's what slavery represented. And so slavery was debt and Christ paid the debt. And he redeemed and paid out any outstanding debt.

As believers we've been redeemed from the slave market of sin and God has paid out for our enslavement so that we may no longer be slaves but that has been directly linked to God's So, a view to redemption of God's own possession. And when I was studying this, I really, really loved this word, possession. First of all, if we're God's possession, what does that mean? Who gets to steal God's possessions from Him?

Alright, are you saved? Are you saved? Yes. Are you redeemed? Yes. Are you redeemed to be in God's possession? Yes. How do you lose your salvation? When you say that someone can lose their salvation, what are you saying about God? Let's ask that question. What do you say about God if you say you can lose? He's not faithful. He's not strong enough. He's a liar.

What's really, really cool about this word possession is that it actually comes with it built in the idea of the preservation of God's possession. Not only does he possess us, but he preserves us as a possession. The God of the universe, as we've gone through this passage here, starting in verse 3, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.

What kind of fool God would it be who would bless us with every spiritual blessing and then lose us? That's nonsense. Losing your salvation comes with consequences that describe a God that I don't want to believe in. It's a God that is not described in the scriptures. Instead, the God described in the scriptures has redeemed me and us together, and sealed us together, and ensured our preservation together. to an inheritance that we will receive when we are joined with His Son in eternity.

I don't know about you, but I feel like I could be done and meditate on that the rest of the day, but we still have the second hour, which will be also exciting, right? But there's a rich truth here because of the sealing of the Holy Spirit and all three parts of the Godhead are involved. So we have been made a possession of God's.

And then, as Roger pointed out the first time we ran into this principle here, to the praise of His glory. This is the third time we see it. So the first time we saw it, it was linked to the pouring out of His grace. When was the second time we saw it? I was going to say, should be last week, right? I wasn't here, but I listened to the lesson online.

To the end, that we who are the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. So, when His grace is shown, He's glorified. When we believe, He's glorified. And here, He has sealed us to His glory. So we have three in Christ's, or we have more than three in Christ's, but we have three to the praise of his glories, and they're linked directly to the work of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So let me ask you this question. What does God do that doesn't bring glory to himself? This is a trick question. Nothing. The right answer is nothing. Nothing God does make sure now that I said nothing that I word this correctly. Nothing that God does is mundane. Nothing that God does is just simply sufficient.

What God does brings glory to his name and you bring glory to his name by being in Christ. And that's a really powerful place to rest, right? When we talk about resting in Christ at Holly Hills, why do we rest? Because we're in Christ. And when we rest, God is glorified.

And when He uses us as vessels with the good works, as Ephesians 2.10 talks about, God is glorified. Not because we did it of our own strength and of our own accord, but because He planned it and we just said, I'm willing. And He was glorified. And when we sin, His grace is poured out and He's glorified. The sin doesn't glorify Him, but the grace does, right?

So, this is a pretty rich two verses, concluding a very rich, longer passage. I've got a few conclusory thoughts here. A tremendous amount of identification truth is delivered in this larger passage that we've studied for the last month. And there's more to come. This is just Paul's intro. It's a long intro, but it's a good one. He's just setting us up. This is the context.

In filmmaking, there's a thing called an establishing shot. And now that I've called it out, I better describe it, because maybe you don't know what that means. In filmmaking, there's a thing called an establishing shot. Classic example that comes to my mind, for whatever reason, is in the movie Karate Kid, which I don't know why, but it's what I remember. There's a scene where they show, was it Ralph Macchio was the guy? He's on a pillar on the beach, and there's the sunset, and he's up there doing some kicky thing that I can't do at 40 years old. And it's a wide angle shot.

And then they move in. It's an establishing shot. We've established the context. We're here. And now we're going to move in. And so our establishing shot is all of eternity and everything in Christ. And now Paul's going to move in. So next week we'll pick up. I think I'm on the schedule to teach next week. We'll pick up. We've got the establishing shot. We know the context. and now we're going to dig in as we continue on.

When we recognize God's sovereign plan for us, his provision for us on the earth, his provision for the eternal, we begin to be overwhelmed by the expression of his love as a blessing of our simply believing. When you think about being sealed by the Holy Spirit as an expression of God's love, that's pretty awesome. When you think that I can't screw it up, that's amazing. How do you respond to that? Thanks, right? You cannot help but to be overwhelmed and to be thankful.

And lastly here, faith alone as a doctrinal idea is a world-changing truth. We don't have to pay God back. Jessica and I have a friend from high school who left Protestantism to go to Catholicism. Every time I see her post stuff on Facebook about the Catholicism, I'm just heartbroken. Because she went from faith alone to now I've got to jam in my works. Got to make God happy.

Got to keep him off my back. You're sealed. You're locked in. Well, maybe. No, that's nonsense. Faith alone. So, the last The last question, how can we encourage one another with these truths? The answer is more complicated than a one sentence answer, right? If we're abiding though, the Holy Spirit will present many opportunities to do that.

Are you hurt? Are you hopeless? Are you discouraged? Are you uncertain about what the short-term future holds? What does the long-term future hold? You've got a seal. The world is always telling us about the next five seconds, the next five minutes, the next five years, right? And what are you going to do to have more in the next five seconds, five minutes, or five years?

If we have an eternal perspective, Because we're sealed and we have a promise. We know where we're going. We know who's going to open the letter. We know who sent it and we're in it. So we have an eternal perspective and that leads us to encouraging one another.

There's a lot of garbage going on in the world right now. I find myself often discouraged when I read the news. I go, How am I going to raise my daughters in this world? Well, the same way that we've been raising Christians for 2,000 years. Set your mind on things above. Remember you're sealed in Him. There's an eternal perspective that brings hope. Any other thoughts or questions? We're done with my lesson, but there may be more worth discussing. All right. Well, let's close in prayer and then we'll be done a few moments early.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the truth of your word. Thank you that we are in Christ, that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and that you have a view of preserving and possessing us, preserving us as your possession. Thank you for the praise that you receive and the glory you receive on account of what you have done. We thank you for who we are in you, in Jesus name. Amen.