2Co 1:21-22; Rom 8:23; Eph 1:13-14; Eph 4:30, Rom 5:5.
Class Outline:
Lighthouse Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher John Farley
Sunday,
June 5, 2011
Spiritual Gifts Part 127: The Holy Spirit’s “heart-work” is a foretaste of eternal blessing
F. The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit,
; ; .
The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit is our assurance from God of our eternal security, our secure future.
Sealing with the Spirit means that God the Holy Spirit, by virtue of the fact that He indwells us permanently, is the seal placed by God the Father upon every believer, …
… marking us with His ownership, approval, protection, and signature guarantee of our eternal security.
Whenever you think of the sealing ministry of God the Holy Spirit, think “eternal security”.
σΦραγίζω
zw sphragizo; to stamp (with a signet or private mark) for security or preservation (literally or figuratively)
Authenticity
Privacy
Security
Safekeeping
Authority
Identity
ἀρραβών
arrhabon a pledge, i.e. part of the purchase-money or property given in advance as security for the rest:
earnest-money deposited by the purchaser and forfeited if the purchase was not completed.
In the NT it is used only of that which is assured by God to believers; it is said of the Holy Spirit as the divine "pledge" of all their future blessedness, 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; in , particularly of their eternal inheritance.
In modern Greek, arrabona is an "engagement ring."
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
God the Father is the agent who sealed us.
We have been sealed… IN Christ BY the Father WITH the Holy Spirit!
God the Father sealed us by giving us the Spirit as a pledge or as the first fruits of things to come.
The Holy Spirit and His work inside us make up what is probably the most “tangible” evidence we have of our so-great salvation, and indeed of the entire plan of God for our lives.
Christ lives His life through me as I allow the Spirit to perform all that God the Father intended Him to perform when He sent Him to dwell inside me.
This sealing with the Spirit is a guarantee of His ministry of efficacious grace, of eternal life, of eternal security, of our invisible assets, and of a resurrection body.
We are first placed into Christ, and then in that position sealed permanently with a seal that is God’s mark …
… God’s mark of ownership, authenticity, privacy, security, safekeeping, inviolability, and identity.
That seal is the Holy Spirit Himself!
The Holy Spirit is our guarantee that we will receive our inheritance. He is God’s pledge that He will complete the work of redemption.
The believer is eternally secure because he is sealed with the Holy Spirit.
His presence in the Christian indicates a finished transaction, divine ownership, and eternal security.
God has established you in Christ. (Baptism by the Spirit) God has anointed you. (Indwelling of the Spirit) God sealed you. God gave you the Spirit as a pledge. (Sealing with the Spirit)
speaks of the Spirit in our hearts. The refers to the Spirit abiding in and influencing the right lobe of our soul where the real you does your thinking.
However, the work of the Holy Spirit on your soul and human spirit does present its effects from time to time in the experiential realm.
The manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s heart is a foretaste and a guarantee of the over-abundant blessings yet to be enjoyed in time and in eternity.
The Lord's Supper
Pastor John Farley
Sunday, June 5, 2011
“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
No pain, no weakness, could silence His prayers to His Father.
Jesus Christ prayed for their forgiveness before He was judged for their sins.
He opened His public ministry with prayer, according to Luke 3:21, and He closed His public ministry with prayer.
Jesus could no longer minister to the poor and needy or to the sick and lame and blind, for He was now confined to a Cross.
Our Lord could not come down from the Cross and at the same time provide for our salvation.
One of the greatest avenues of service and opportunity any believer could ever have is through the avenue of prayer.
Our Lord's prayer to His Father was not for Himself.
"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.
in order that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
do not merely be regarding your own personal interests, but also the personal interests of others.
"Keep on thinking this [doctrine] within yourselves which was also resident in Christ Jesus,"
The prayer wasn't just for others, but it was for His cruelest enemies.
Our Lord’s first words are words of graciousness. He was praying for undeserving individuals who had conspired to put Him to death.
He knows our precise condition at this moment, and the exact state of our heart with regard to the suffering and the temptation that we may be facing.
Our Lord's prayer also brings out another very important factor - the blindness of the human heart (mind): "They know not what they do."
Our Lord Jesus Christ was "not willing that any should perish," and He prayed for them, but the human "heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," .
Man's greatest need is the need for forgiveness and cleansing of sin.
The Gospel is intended even for those who persecute it.
Forgiveness means to give up resentment, to excuse a guilty party, to release from payment, to forget an offense, never bringing it up again and not even discussing it.
- 8a 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.
bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
