Leto – Opening
1. Good morning to all. It’s good to be here. Today, we’ll begin by reading from the Word of God. Psalm 138:1-4, “I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise.
I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your unfailing love and your faithfulness, for you have so exalted your solemn decree that it surpasses your fame.
When I called, you answered me; you greatly emboldened me. May all the kings of the earth praise you, Lord, when they hear what you have decreed…”
2. Welcome to the House of the Lord. It is our joy to be here, it’s our joy to have you here and above all, it’s my joy that we are here, invited into the House of the Lord and may the Holy Spirit surround us. Let us praise the Lord.
Anton Beukes – Main Message
1. Good morning, everybody. It is good to be together as the people of God. We continue with our series on the Holy Spirit. Before we do that, let us pray together. Father, we thank You for being here, through Your Holy Spirit. Your Spirit dwells within us. Your Spirit opens our eyes and our hearts, so that we can read and listen to Your Word, and we pray Father, that we will understand Your Word, that You will give us the wisdom and the understanding, not only to hear the Word, but to also understand the Word, and to make it part of our lives, and live out this life and that we will live out this new life that You have given us. We pray Father, that You will open our eyes, open our ears, open our hearts. We are here for You. And in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
2. If you have your Bibles with you, turn with me to Ephesians 1: 3-14, and instead of reading the whole passage once over before we speak, we’ll take a few verses at a time and speak on those. As we speak about the Holy Spirit, we talk about who the Spirit is and what the Spirit does, the person and the work of the Holy Spirit.
3. But when we read the New Testament, we realize we can never separate the Holy Spirit from the other two persons of the Holy Trinity. Just like, when we talk about Jesus Christ, we cannot separate His works from the works of the Father. Because, Jesus came to do only the works His father has sent Him to do, and so, with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit only continues what Jesus started. And therefore, instead of just reading verses 13 & 14, in this passage, that focus on the work of the Holy Spirit, I want us to read the whole passage, to see where the work of the Holy Spirit fits in.
4. So, let’s start from Ephesians 1: 3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Paul starts off by introducing this passage, by focusing on the Father, “Praise be to the Father, because He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ”.
5. As we read through the rest of this passage, I want you to focus on two words, the last two words in the English, “In Christ”. Because God blessed us, through and in Christ. So, let’s continue with Ephesians 1:4-6, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”
6. Paul starts off focusing on God the Father; it starts with the Father. And what Paul says here is that God did two things: He chose us and He predestined us. I don’t want to go into the theology of election of predestination, that is for a later discussion, but what is important, is that God did choose us, and He did predestined us.
7. A lot of people will say, did God predestine me to be a believer and not you? Or, how did He did He elect some people and not some other people? I think this text does not talk about that. This text does not talk about individuals, it talks about the collective. It talks about the church. That God chose the church before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. And He predestined the church, to be His children, in Christ.
8. It’s important, that he says that God chose us and He predestined us, not before Christ arrived on earth, but it shows He predestined us before the creation of this world. Even before God created, His plan was for us, His church, to be blameless and without sin. Before He created this earth, He planned for us to be His children. And His plan from the beginning, was to do that through His Son, Jesus Christ.
9. And then we find these beautiful Words, “In accordance with His pleasure and will.” Remember these words as well, “In accordance with,” because Paul will repeat that in the rest of the passage.
10. Sometimes, we have an image of God the Father, as an angry God, as an angry God because His children turned their back on Him. Or sometimes we think that God is far away, that He doesn’t want to have to do a lot with us, His people. Or sometimes we think that God is a very stoic God, that everything needs to be perfect, without emotion, without beauty.
11. But Paul says that God chose us, and He predestined us, before the creation of the world, in Christ according to His pleasure and His will. God was not pressured to choose us, He wanted to choose us, because it gave Him pleasure. Have you ever thought, that your existence, that you being a child of God, brings pleasure to God.
12. Sometimes, when I look at my own life, I’m so ashamed of who I am and what I do, that I sometimes cannot imagine that God even loves me. But we are reminded here, that He doesn’t only love us, but He finds pleasure in us. He finds pleasure in His relationship with us. And he finishes this little section with the words, “to the pleasure of His glorious grace which He has freely given us in the One He loves.”
13. We have been given a new status, that of sons and daughters, children of God. When God calls us His children, it’s not just an endearing term, it’s not just a term of a good relationship. But he uses a legal term here, that we have been adopted as children. We are now legally God’s children, and nothing can take that away from us. Nobody can tell you that you are not a child of God. Once you have put your faith in Christ, you have become a child of God, and God accepts us as His children, because He finds pleasure in it and He gives it freely to us.
14. Not because we are good, but because of Christ. He gives us in Christ, in the One whom He loves. Because God the Father loves the Son, and because the Son lay down His life for us, we are accepted as God’s children, and became children of God, to the praise of His glorious grace. This phrase can be determined in one of two ways. We can understand it in one of two ways. We can either understand it, that now that we have become children of God, we give Him praise and glory. Or we can understand, that we as His children, we become the praise of His glory, that we are now the praise of God’s glory.
15. When we think of worship, we don’t only think that we have a worship team leading us on Sundays, but worship, is what we do every day, as we walk with the Holy Spirit. We become the worship towards God. And so, when the world and the creation look at us, they do not see only a human being, but they see the incarnation of God’s worship. We have become the worship to God.
16. Paul says, ‘We are blameless and holy, we have become the children of God, and we have become that, so that we can become the worship to God.’
17. Ephesians 1: 7-10. In the next few verses, we are going to focus on Jesus Christ, and there are three smaller parts in this passage. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment —to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”
18. Everything that God does towards us His children, He does through Jesus Christ. Look again at the first words, “In Him”, “In Christ”, in Christ we have redemption through His blood. I ancient times, they believed that a person’s life was in his blood, and that when you have done something wrong, you have to pay by giving up a life, and that’s why we find the sacrifices in the Old Testament. Blood had to flow; life had to be given in order for redemption to be received. And our redemption was given through the blood of Jesus. We have been paid for by the blood of Jesus. He forgave our sins and again we see the words, “In accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavishes upon us.”
19. Redemption is not just a religious term. Redemption means to buy back what was yours, in exchange for money or something of value. God bought us back, through the blood of Christ. The God of this universe who created us, who lost us to this world and to the evil forces, because of our sins, He paid the price, the life, the blood of His Son Jesus, to buy us back. And He bought us back, because His riches, His grace, are so rich, he used this word, “That He lavished on us”.
20. He did not just give it sparingly; He lavished it on us. Because God finds pleasure in us, He lavished His grace upon us. God is not a stingy God; He does not keep His grace close to His heart. He wants to overflow it on us. He wants to lavish it on us. Paul says that, “In Christ we have redemption”, because of the riches of God’s grace.
21. Then the second thing he talks about, starts in the second part of v.8, “With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will…” God has all wisdom and all understanding. He knows from the beginning to after the end. He knows us even better than we know ourselves. He knows the mysteries of this world and He knows what’s going to happen after this world.
22. And now Paul says, “God made some of those mysteries known to us.” Why? “According to His good pleasure.” Not that He was pressured to do that, or we paid Him enough so that He should do that. But He did that, because He finds pleasure in that. He finds good pleasure in giving us the mysteries of what is to come. And what is that mystery, that in Christ, at the right time, God will bring all things, not just the things in one small country, or things on this earth or people on this earth, but everything in heaven and on earth, God will bring that under Christ.
23. The biggest mystery in this world, of who is Lord, has been made known to us; that Christ is Lord. And it doesn’t matter what the media tell us, but at the end of time, it doesn’t matter who wins the election or who wins the war, at the end of time, Christ will be Lord of everything in heaven and on earth. And that brings pleasure to God.
24. The third thing Christ has done, we will read in the next few verses. Ephesians 1:11-12, “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”
25. In Christ we have received redemption. In Christ, we have been given the mysteries of God. And it is in Christ, that we have been chosen and predestined. And Paul says, “According to God’s plan; according to God’s will.” And God works everything out in conformity, in working together, because that’s how His will works, that’s how God works, so that we can become the praise of His glory.
26. We have been redeemed, we have been given the mysteries, and we have become God’s glory. Now, Paul uses the term here, “In order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ…” You’ll see that from the beginning of this text, Paul talks in the first-person plural, he talks about, ‘we, us’, and he’s talking about the church, the chosen people of God. But I think with this term we need to understand something a little bit different. He says that, “In order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ…”, he could either be referring to the Jews, or the first ones who became believers. And it’s important to make this little distinction. Because in the next few verses there is a change in direction.
27. But Paul here is saying, ‘those who put their trust in God; those who put their hope in Christ, we have been chosen as the church, to become the praise of His glory’. In the first part we see that we have become the praise of His glory to the Father, and now in Christ, we have become that praise of His glory.
28. So, let’s look at the last two verses, and there is a change, where he is moving from ‘we’ to ‘you’. It is not as easy to determine the English as it is in the Greek, that the ‘you’ is not the singular, but the plural. Paul says that, “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”
29. Paul says to the church in Ephesus, “you also were included in Christ”. It’s not only the Jews or the first ones who believed. It’s not only those who walked with Christ, His disciples who saw and heard His teachings. You, people of Ephesus, you are also included in Christ. You, church in Glyfada; you, church in Athens; you, church in Greece; we are also included in Christ. We were included when we heard the Gospel of truth of salvation.
30. We cannot be included in Christ from who we are from birth. It’s not because of our ethnicity or our culture, or our tradition, that we are included in Christ. But it’s only when we hear the message of truth, the Gospel, that we are included in Christ. We cannot stop preaching and proclaiming the Gospel, because if we stop preaching the Gospel, the message of truth, the message that we are all in need of salvation, if we stop preaching that, people will not be included in Christ.
31. But it not just important to hear the Gospel, Paul says, “When you believe.” It’s one thing to hear the Gospel, it’s a beautiful story, and sometimes a shocking story; it makes one uncomfortable, especially when it says that we are all sinners. I don’t want to know and I know Stavros doesn’t want to know, how rotten we are, how deprived we are of any honor, how broken we are; how far we are from God, because that’s the beginning of the Gospel.
32. Because Christ came because of our brokenness. So, it’s not always an easy story to listen to. But it’s an important story to listen to. Because, if we know how rotten we are, how broken we are, then we know how much we need a Savior. And it’s also good to listen to the need for a Savior, and many people acknowledge that.
33. Just the same way when they read a comic book, and they see an emergency, and they see Superman flying in, who saves the people. It’s a nice story to read. We feel good when the good guys save the people. But the difference is, Superman may save people, so that they can continue to live and do their thing, but Christ came to save each one of us, not so that we can continue with our daily life, but that we should become the children of God.
34. And that’s why it’s not only good to listen to the story, but also to believe the story. Faith is important. Without faith in Christ, we cannot become God’s children. And it’s not faith in what He has done, or faith in His goodness; it is faith ‘in’ Christ. Do you believe that Christ died and rose again for you and for me. Do you believe that Christ is the only way to the Father. If we don’t believe that, then it’s just a good story.
35. But Paul says that, “When we believe, we were marked in Christ with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, until the redemption of those who are God’s possession.”
36. And now we ask the question, ‘Who is the Holy Spirit, and what is His work?’ If God chose us and predestined us to become His children, and He did that through Christ who gave us redemption, what is the work of the Holy Spirit? Paul says that, ‘We were marked in Christ, with the Holy Spirit.’ So, when we come to faith, we have been given the Holy Spirit.
37. Paul says three things about the Holy Spirit’s work here. He says that the Holy Spirit is a ‘seal’. That He has been promised, as a deposit, guaranteeing something. And so, let’s look at these three things.
38. We have been marked with a seal. A seal can be a sign of securing something. That this is the truth, and I know that in Greece, people like seals, stamps, right? To say this is the truth. If you go to a place to verify your documents, how many seals, stamps, do they put on there? So, the seal is the truth – making it secure. But a seal can also be a sign of ownership. If we receive the Holy Spirit because we believe in Christ, we receive the mark of God’s ownership.
39. If somebody asks you, how do you know that you are saved, or how do you know that you will be with God for all eternity, then we can say with certainty, I bear the mark of God’s ownership, because I have the Holy Spirit in me. The Holy Spirit makes us God’s children, and He secures our sonship. We can be sure that we are God’s children. Bear the mark of Christ, His Spirit, on you. If you believe in Christ, then you bear that mark. Then the Holy Spirit dwell within you.
40. We don’t always allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, because it’s very difficult to hand over everything to Him, but once you have been marked by the Holy Spirit, you can be sure that that’s an eternal mark.
41. And the second thing that Paul says, is that the Holy Spirit was promised to us. Jesus said that when He dies, He will give us His Spirit. Paul calls Him the Paraclete, the advocate. It wasn’t just an afterthought. God didn’t just think about sending the Spirit after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, just as we were chosen and predestined to be God’s children, His church, to be His church in Christ, so, He planned for the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, even before creation, He had this in mind. And just as the promise of salvation through Christ was given to God’s children, as the fulfillment of that promise, so the Holy Spirit was promised to us and be given to everyone that believes.
42. But the Holy Spirit is also a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. A deposit is like a first payment, saying, I want to buy this, so I’ll give you a deposit, so I’ll put a first installment. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive the first installment of an eternal life with God. We are promised an inheritance, and the Spirit within us, guarantees that inheritance for us.
43. You think it is amazing living with the Spirit within you now, just think how wonderful it will be to live in eternity, with the God who finds pleasure in us and lavishes us with His grace. The Holy Spirit is now our guarantee, that we will receive that inheritance. When will we receive it? Until the redemption of those who are God’s possession. When the fulness of believers, have been redeemed, then we will receive the inheritance.
44. When Christ returns and makes everything new, we will receive that inheritance. It is wonderful when Paul starts that passage, where he said, that we were chosen before the creation of this world, and we will receive the inheritance at the end of this world.
45. God’s plan is not sporadic. God’s plan has been throughout the ages. He even knew us before He created the world, and He created this world with a purpose, that we who believe, who have been redeemed by Christ, who know the mystery in Christ, who have received His Spirit as a mark of His love, that we will receive an inheritance in Him, at the end of the age.
46. And Paul ends this passage, like he finished the other two, by saying, we who will receive this inheritance, with all who will receive the inheritance, we are and will be the praise of His glory. God chose us and He predestined us, to be His church, to be His children, to be forgiven of our sins, because of what Christ has done and in Christ we have received the Holy Spirit, as a guarantee that we are God’s children, because He was promised from the beginning. But the promise that we were given, will come to fruition, at the end of the age.
47. God loved us so much, that He sent His Son, but He also sent His Spirit. We are here only because of what Christ has done and the Spirit was given to us, that we will forever be in Christ, children of God. That is our guarantee and that is our hope.
48. So, the question for us this morning, is when we walk out of this building, how do we take this with us? If this message hasn’t changed us, then it was just a good message. How will we walk out of here, knowing that God has chosen us, not only to be His children, but also the praise of His glory. How will we walk out of here, trusting in the Holy Spirit, as our security, as our deposit, as our seal, as our stamp, that we are children of God, knowing that there’s a world outside, who have not heard or have not believed and have not received what God wanted all people to have. What will we do with that?
49. Let me pray for us. Father we thank You for Your love and Your grace and Your mercy. We thank You, for Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, since we can only be Your children because of Him. But we also thank You for Your Holy Spirit, that You promised to us, that You gave to us, as a seal and a deposit. Thank You Lord that we can hold on to You because of His work. We thank You Lord that You want to do more with us, in living out Your praise and glory to worship You in everything that we and what we are, and also as we go out of here, blessing people wherever we go, proclaiming Your Word and proclaiming the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be with us Lord. Change us, Lord. Help us to put our hope in You and Your Spirit, and thank You Lord Jesus that we can pray this in Your name. You alone are worthy. Amen.
50. I just want thank everyone who stepped up this morning. A lot of our leaders are not here this weekend, and everybody that stepped in thank you so much. Let’s worship the Lord.