Naeane Church Sunday Message — The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost The Sealing of the Spirit Is a Belonging That Cannot Be Shaken
Sunday Message — The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
The Sealing of the Spirit Is a Belonging That Cannot Be Shaken
Subtitle: God Has Put Down a Deposit on My Heart
Text: Ephesians 1:11–14
Opening
This is the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, and I want to preach on this: the sealing of the Spirit is a belonging that cannot be shaken. The subtitle is: God has put down a deposit on my heart.
The faith we hold is not a matter of believing when we feel like it and not believing when we don't. It rests on something firm — a sound account of how things actually are. And it is not something dreamed up inside a human head. It is what God gave, set down in an orderly way for our descendants and for many people.
Where We Have Been These Eight Weeks
Before we get to the main text, let me lay out, in broad strokes, the road we have traveled over nearly nine weeks now.
Week one settled that Pentecost is the most complete evidence that Jesus is the Christ. When the Spirit came upon the disciples in Acts 2, and when He came inside you and me, it was the Father's own testimony that Jesus is the Christ and that He is seated at the Father's right hand. That is why the Spirit came in the name of Jesus.
Week two settled where that Spirit is. Not in the sky, not in the ground, not in anything else — He comes inside the body of the one who believes that Jesus is the Christ.
Week three settled why He had to come inside at all. Because every one of our problems happens in here.
Weeks four and five settled what He does once He is inside. He does not come in and lie there sleeping. He is active — He moves, He speaks. He keeps telling you that you are a child of God, He brings God's Word to mind, and He keeps testifying to the Jesus of the Gospels as the Christ.
Weeks six and seven settled our standing as children and the Spirit of adoption.
And last week, week eight, we took up being filled with the Spirit. The Spirit is inside and He is at work, and we already hold the standing of children — so why does none of it seem to show up in my home, my life, the particular things that happen to me? What it takes for that to show up is being filled with the Spirit.
Being Filled Is Not a Matter of Belonging — It Is a Matter of Enjoying
Let me fill in a little more from last week. How do we, at this church, come to be filled with the Spirit? By seeking and calling out that Jesus is the Christ, and planting it deep in the heart. So being filled is not a matter of belonging — it is a matter of enjoying.
Picture a footballer. Whether he is in a good mood or a bad one, once he is signed to a club, that membership does not change. But whether his performance on the pitch is sharp or flat depends on his condition and his form, day by day, moment by moment.
Being filled with the Spirit is that performance. The membership does not waver, but the form rises and falls, swings high and low. Just as Son Heung-min goes scoreless and then suddenly, over in LA, puts one away — the form comes and goes. And this, being filled with the Spirit, is the most important thing in our lives.
Confess it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. I am a child of God. Every problem is finished. Satan, go. Filled with the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit.
Being filled is not some separate, special thing. That Jesus is the Christ, that the Spirit of Christ is inside me, that He keeps testifying that I am a child of God, that the words of Christ keep coming to mind — how much all of that shows itself in the events of my life, that is what being filled means. And at this church we do not leave being filled as a vague word. We define it as calling out that Jesus is the Christ more deeply, and enjoying it more fully.
Today's New Words: Sealing and Deposit
Today a new word shows up in connection with the Spirit: sealing. In our text, Ephesians 1, the words appear — you were sealed, given as a deposit. In the day Ephesians was written, and in the day Second Corinthians was written, this word sealing was a thoroughly familiar one.
In a sense it is a legal word, a commercial word, a transactional word. What does it mean? That a seal was stamped down hard. Put it in today's terms and it means an identity was verified.
This is the theme of today's message. Why we need this word today, I will come to later.
As always, five questions.
One. This Week, How Did I Fight the Spiritual Battle Over Being Filled?
I am at it all the time. Jesus is the Christ, Jesus is the Christ. And as I keep calling it, I press further, telling myself I have to know the Christ more deeply.
I Had to Call It When Things Were Good, Too
There is one thing that has confused me my whole life, and it surfaced again this week as I fought. When a problem comes, the mind starts shaking. It shakes, and I get confused. And I grab hold — I am a child of God — but the thought will not stay put.
All along, whenever something bad happened, whenever something upset me, whenever I saw it coming, I called out that Jesus is the Christ. But this week I discovered something new. I have to call it when things are good, too.
The stock market here went through wild swings this week. I have some money in the market myself. And one day it shot up so fast that a sidecar was triggered. What is a sidecar? It is a brake that kicks in when the market rises or falls too suddenly. So the fact that it was triggered means the market was climbing at a frightening pace. The moment I saw it, my mood shot straight up. There it is — I'm going to make a killing. It feels good.
A person's thinking does not spiral only over bad things. It spirals just the same over good ones. Look closely and a good turn and a bad turn are strikingly alike in their effect.
The market climbs enough to trip a sidecar, and it feels good. But it does not stop there. Wow, is this about to spike? Then I'll suddenly be rich. Then I'll be this, I'll be that. The whole scenario just unspools.
And what settles into the heart? The urge to keep hold of that feeling. Man, today's a good day — and the mood bleeds into everything else.
In the old days, because my life had so many bad turns in it, I would seize on a good one and blow it up as big as I could, by force if I had to. But this time I watched myself carefully. The money went up a little — that's where it ends. And yet: my life is going to change, I'm going to be rich, I'm an extraordinary man, I'm a great man — the thought just keeps spiraling.
When Things Go Well, We Betray God
You know how it's often said that the man who suddenly comes into money, the man who suddenly gets rich, the man who suddenly rises to a high position, stops living a life of faith. Why is that? It is not something else. When things break your way, in the end it comes to this: I am something. I might even be a kind of god. You inflate your own worth into something enormous, and right there, you betray God all over again.
So this week I found it out. I had only called out that Jesus is the Christ when things went badly — but when things go well, the mind runs off into fantasy just the same. Once I saw that, I started fighting the battle again.
Confess it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.
Looking at my life, there has been so much that is negative that when something positive came along, I would blow it up, by force if need be. But lately, with more good things coming, that very good is pulling me away from God, distorting my faith, setting me up to worship myself as a god.
I was supposed to stop at seeing it plainly, but it runs off into imagination. So I found that this, too, is a spiritual battle, a spiritual problem — and I started to fight it. This will very likely apply to your life as well as mine.
Two. This Week, How Much Did I Experience Genesis 3:15?
The most important thing in all of Scripture is Genesis 3:15.
The Whole of Faith Starts From "Jesus Is the Christ"
When we live the life of faith, the most basic thing is to know first who Jesus is, and to confess it first. From Acts 2 onward, when the disciples brought people in, the crucial thing was John 1:12 — receive Him into your heart, drawing on the name, that Jesus is the Christ.
The whole of faith starts from the fact that Jesus is the Christ. Does not Jesus ask, in Matthew 16:16 — hey, who do you say I am? Not what anyone else says — who is the one inside your own heart? Confess that, and the life of faith that hands over the keys of heaven begins. So the fact that Jesus is the Christ is the starting point of our faith, its center, and its final destination.
Why That Name Was Needed
Why does it matter, in Genesis 3:15, that Jesus is the Christ? Because, just as in Genesis 3:1–5, the satan that had been outside, the sin that had been outside, the death that had been outside, the fear of wanting to leave God that had been outside — all of it has come inside. That is the problem.
And here is something more important still. Running underneath Genesis 1 through 2 is the being who introduces all of this. Who is it? The satan. So it is on account of the satan that the human being has the problem of Genesis 3:1–5 placed inside him.
And from that point it keeps operating inside. Sit still and something is forever whispering in there. And you cannot imagine how alluring, how attractive, how fine and lovely that whisper is. Just as the serpent whispers in Genesis 3:1–5, the satan keeps whispering inside me. He says it beautifully.
Hey, wouldn't this be nice? Hey, isn't that rather good? He comes at us in the quietest way. And without my even knowing it, my own self answers back. That is how every human problem began.
But God had already given that human being a promise. Confess it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.
In Genesis 3:15 the LORD God gave the name — Jesus is the Christ — and the one who, drawing on that name, believes the promise it carries and takes it into his heart is already living as a child of God. So the Bible is not a record of tragedy. From 3:15 on, the solution was given in advance.
So in the Old Testament people were saved simply believing the promise of the Christ, and in the New Testament He came. His name is Jesus, and His dying, rising, ascending, and sending the Spirit is laid out all the way to Acts 2. And so it is proven and established that He is indeed the Christ.
And now that Jesus is inside me, as the Christ no eye can see — that is, as the Spirit — He is in you and in me alike, working out this very hour the same history you read in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Three. Explaining Today's Text on the Foundation of Genesis 3:15
Today's text is Ephesians 1:11–14, a letter Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus.
The Spirit came in Acts 2, and the central figure from Acts 13 through 28 is Paul. Paul wrote most of the epistles — which tells you how important he is. From Acts 13 he went through Asia Minor and Europe, preaching the gospel the whole way.
Ephesus, the City That Burned Its Silver
One of the churches raised up along the way was the church at Ephesus. In other places he was driven out, forced to flee — but in Ephesus he taught for three whole years. And not only in a home; he set up the school of Tyrannus and began teaching in earnest.
Ephesus was a thoroughly prosperous commercial city. The very currency they traded in was silver, and their ornaments were all made of silver too. And why were they made of silver? To serve the idols there, to offer wealth to the idols — every ornament fashioned in silver was for that.
But when the gospel came in, the many people who owned those silver ornaments brought them all out and burned them. That is how complete the work of the gospel was. And then Paul left.
Ten Years On, Word Came Back
Then eight, ten years passed. And what was the word that came back? That it was not what it had been. That the people of the Ephesian church were caught in ongoing conflict and confusion, both within and without.
So the letter he wrote was Ephesians, and it runs from chapter 1 to chapter 6. Last week we dealt with Ephesians 5, and the part you would know as common knowledge is the armor of God in Ephesians 6. But today we are in the front half of Ephesians — chapter 1.
Ephesians is built like this. Chapters 1 through 3 tell them who they are: not unbelievers — you are people already chosen in the Spirit, already sealed, already established as those given a deposit.
Then chapters 4 through 6 tell them how, therefore, to live — and within that come the calls to be filled with the Spirit and to put on the whole armor of God.
And that is why, here in chapter 1 today, the words deposit and sealing appear.
Four. The Part I Most Want to Draw Out of Today's Text
First, Let Us Fix Our Position
Before we reach the words the sealing of the Spirit and the guarantee of the Spirit, there is something we must first settle as a premise.
Confess it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. I am a child of God. I am a child of God. Every problem is finished. Every problem is finished. Satan, go.
Just as Paul first told the Ephesian church who they were, we too must first know the position we are in. You and I, in Genesis 3:1–5, were seized by the devil and bound for eternal ruin in sin and unbelief and death — and by believing that Jesus is the Christ, we became children of God.
So the very ground you and I are standing on right now is the standing of a child of God. Where I stand at this moment truly matters.
Therapy, Too, First Asks Where You Are Now
Let me explain a little further. Do you know the first thing they look at in psychoanalysis or psychotherapy? Where are you right now — that is what matters most.
Wounded people are all lodged in the past. They look at the present and all they see is the past. What is actually here in the present does not even register. They see the present only through the past circling in their minds. They don't even know what is going on right now. Whether a war has broken out, whether they ought to be eating, what their own child is doing right now — none of it is visible. Because the past sits so heavily inside.
So the most important thing as we live the life of faith is where I am positioned right now and what my standing is.
Confess it with me. I am a child of God. I am a child of God. I am a child of God. My standing right now is a child of God.
And being a child of God is not where it ends. To a child, a standing and an authority are given. Everyone here, you and I, we are all somebody's child, are we not? A child did not become a child because he wanted to — and once he is a child, food and sleep and clothing, all of it is simply given. Who gives it? The parent.
So if I have become a child of God, then God takes me as His child, answers my prayers, protects me through His angels, and my citizenship in heaven is a matter of course — and, as today's theme has it, the Spirit who is at God's right hand has come inside me and is here now.
Today's Heart: Sealing and Deposit
And what matters today is the sealing and the deposit.
The word sealing was a thoroughly familiar one in old Ephesus and Corinth. So was the word deposit. Paul, wondering how to explain the Spirit to the Ephesian and Corinthian churches, and the Spirit being invisible, reached for words everyone of that day knew — and those were sealing and deposit. But for you and me today, these words are vague, and they don't land easily.
The Sealing Is an Identity Verification
Let me put it this way. To be sealed — strip away all the old vocabulary and say it in today's language — means your identity has been verified.
But I am not the one who verified myself. God sent the Spirit inside me, and what does that Spirit do? He was sent as the proof of an identity-verification carried out by God.
And this is a verification that can never be undone. This Spirit inside me is never cancelled.
The Deposit Is Earnest Money
The word deposit, put into today's terms, is earnest money. I heard about someone recently who put down a deposit when buying a house. A deposit is usually around ten percent. It could be eight, it could be five, but in any case you put down a deposit. And on a large transaction, even ten percent is a large sum.
Why do you put down a deposit? So that neither the one selling nor the one buying can back out on a whim, to bind the thing down legally — is that not why the deposit is put down?
So why did Paul reach for the language of earnest money? Because Almighty God, in the sense that from now until we reach heaven — and after death, all the way to the soul — guarantees us, expressed the Spirit in the form of a deposit.
So the Spirit within me, since God verified His identity and remains inside and will absolutely never leave, and since He came in the form of earnest money, carries a legal binding force. I cannot cancel it, and neither will God cancel it — and in that binding force He carries me on.
Five. How Will I Apply Today's Message to My Life?
Put it this way. To be sealed speaks, in the present dimension, of the fact that the Spirit is inside me right now. And to be given as a guarantee speaks of God's holding a legal, contractual binding force that reaches into the future.
But what is it today? The Spirit has sealed you. The Spirit has made you His deposit.
Feel the difference between the language of the past eight weeks and the language of today. The Spirit testifies that I am a child; the Spirit brings the Word to mind — these are warm, gentle expressions. But in the moment your heart caves in, that gentle word doesn't take hold. Hey, are you really a child? — it just shakes you instead.
So Paul deliberately reaches for a different kind of word. A word that emotion cannot shake — the word of contract and law and commerce. Ephesus and Corinth were commercial cities, and to those people, a seal was stamped, a deposit was put down was the surest language they lived by, day in and day out.
First, to be sealed means a seal was stamped. In today's terms, an identity verification. Once a seal is stamped on a document and the verification is complete, whether I am in a good mood or a bad one, the fact does not change. God's sending the Spirit inside me is exactly that seal. I did not verify myself — God, as proof that He personally certified this one is mine, placed the Spirit within me. So the fact that I feel low today does not erase that seal.
Second, to be made a guarantee means a deposit was put down. When you buy a house, you pay a deposit. Why is a deposit put down? So that neither seller nor buyer can break the contract on the mood of the day — to bind it down by law. The instant the deposit is put down, the transaction leaves the two parties' feelings and passes into the domain of law.
God has put down the Spirit inside me as earnest money. It is His legal mark that from now until I reach heaven — and after death, all the way to my soul — He will most certainly complete this transaction. So now my salvation does not hang on my mood. Whether I believe today and doubt tomorrow, whether I run hot today and cold tomorrow — regardless, the God who put down the deposit takes responsibility to the end and completes it.
To sum up: the sealing is the seal that confirms me in this very moment, and the guarantee is the deposit that holds me to the final day. Either one alone would be unshakable — and God stamped the seal and put down the deposit. A belonging I cannot lose, that no one can take, that God Himself will not revoke — a belonging that cannot be shaken.
Let me apply this to my own life.
The Day I Had a Debt to Pay
I've told you that the thing we hold most important at this church is thought. When something good happens the thought balloons, and when something bad happens the thought runs on endlessly in the negative. So in the end, before even a second passes, before ten seconds pass, some event happens and I am gone. I become a wretch fit to die, a ruined man, a child of the satan.
Let me give an example. This week a situation came up where I had a debt to pay. The sum was a bit large. As soon as I thought, how am I going to pay that off, it came flooding in. Hey, you've got no money. You were always a poor wretch. What's going to become of you? You'll be begging your whole life — how do you even plan to live? My head just runs on like that.
I can never get control of it. All my "control" amounts to is shaking my head. And then another thought comes: aren't you a child of God? And then another follows right behind: you've been calling out that Jesus is the Christ for three years — so what exactly has it fixed?
About ten seconds of that and my head goes blank. From there it is anxiety, dread, irritation, a suffocating pressure — the present becomes invisible, my dealings with the people around me suddenly turn testy, and because there is fear inside, something that wants to explode settles right in. I can't concentrate on anything else.
Applying Today's Message Right at That Spot
This is a chronic problem I have carried since I was a child. I have kept dealing with it through Jesus is the Christ — and yet the situation keeps coming. The bad situations, and the good ones too, keep coming.
So how do we apply today's message at that moment? Over these eight weeks past, we said the Spirit testifies to you as a child, the Spirit brings the Word to mind. But in a way, that is a little low in intensity. What is it today, though? The Spirit has sealed you. The Spirit has made you His deposit. Paul took the word contract — common currency in Ephesus and Corinth — took the legal terms, took the commercial terms, and is telling us that within us the Spirit has, with contractual, legal, commercial binding force, sealed us and made us His deposit.
This week too, countless situations will arise for you and me. Countless encounters, countless events. But we go one step beyond merely the Spirit is inside me, He testifies I am a child. Legally, He has stamped the seal.
The Spirit inside me stands there as God's own identity-verification — so He will absolutely not slip away or leave, and I cannot take Him from myself, and no one else can take Him either. More than that, because He has paid the deposit, from now until the day I die, whatever situation arises, He is One who will absolutely never leave.
So this week, when situations come, may you apply and enjoy, in ever finer detail, the truth: ah, the Spirit is inside me, confirmed even legally — and in that, may you walk in victory through the week.
Closing Prayer
Let us pray together.
Father, thank You. Over these past eight weeks You made known who the Spirit is and what He does inside us, and today You have made known that this same Spirit is within us as a sealing and a guarantee.
We believe that the Spirit sent by the Christ at Your right hand is within us as Your own identity-verification and will never leave, and that in the form of a deposit He holds us — legally, to the day we die, all the way to our souls.
This week, whether good things come or bad, when the mind races off into fantasy or caves in toward the negative, let us take hold of the Spirit sealed within us, and walk in victory inside a belonging that cannot be shaken.
In the name of Jesus, who is the Christ, we pray. Amen.
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