Remain standing and turn with me to the back to page 857. I've chosen a couple of things from our creeds, not only from the Belgian confession, but also from what we call the creeds that are shared by all the denominations around the world. I want to read first of all article 8 on page 857 regarding the Trinity. In keeping with this truth and word of God, we believe in one God who is one single essence, in whom there are three persons, really, truly, and eternally distinct, according to their incommunicable properties, namely Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is the cause, origin, and source of all things, visible as well as invisible. The Son is the word, the wisdom, and the image of the Father. The Holy Spirit is the eternal power and might, proceeding from the Father and the Son. Nevertheless, this distinction does not divide God into three, since scripture teaches us that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each has his own subsistence, distinguished by characteristics, yet in such a way that these three persons are only one God. It is evident, then, that the Father is not the Son, and that the Son is not the Father, and that likewise the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. Nevertheless, these persons, thus distinct, are neither divided nor fused or mixed together, for the Father did not take on flesh, nor did the spirit, but only the son. The father was never without his son. nor without His Holy Spirit. Since all these are equal from eternity in one and the same essence, there is neither a first nor a last, for all three are one in truth and power, in goodness and mercy." And then turn back a couple of pages to 853. the Nicene Creed, and I'll explain this a bit more in the message after a while, just looking at the last or the third paragraph. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come, amen. And then, the next page, you have the Athanasian Creed, which is much more complex, much more detailed, and I want to just look at parts of this, starting at paragraph 23, about 2 3rds the way down. The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten. He proceeds from the Father and the Son. Accordingly, there is one Father, not three Fathers. There is one Son, not three Sons. There is one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. None in this Trinity is before or after. None is greater or smaller. In their entirety, the three persons are co-eternal and co-equal with each other. So in everything, as was said earlier, the unity in Trinity and the Trinity in unity is to be worshipped. Anyone then who desires to be saved should think thus about the Trinity. You may be seated. Turn with me now in the scriptures to Ephesians chapter one. This will be the fourth message from this first part of the chapter. Just remember that the first message was a greeting about Paul and his relationship. And then the second message was about the Father electing us before he created anything else. And the third message was about redemption through Jesus Christ, his son. And now we have The fourth message, the Holy Spirit guarantees delivery. I want to read through the chapter up to verse 14 again as a reminder. Ephesians 1, starting at verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in 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 upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. and then follows the text for today. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Thus far, the reading of God's holy word. Let's go to God. Prayer. Dear God and Father, We ask that you would guide us as we go through this passage. Help us to understand clearly the concept of the Trinity. Help us to understand the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives. And help us to realize afresh that tremendous guarantee of our salvation promised here in this text. In Jesus' name, amen. Three persons in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is probably more confusion about the Holy Spirit than there is about the Father or the Son. There are denominations which focus all of their worship on the work of the spirit and they engage in some kinds of activities that might be a little bit amusing, might even be offensive to us. The work of the Holy Spirit is real. But how do we understand it? There are a lot of people, even within Reformed circles, who take Christ's words when he says, I will send the Comforter, I will send the Holy Spirit to you, assuming from that, that that's the first time the Holy Spirit shows up. That's when we start to study and start to understand the work of the Holy Spirit. And they add to that, look what happened at Pentecost. All those apostles and disciples were gathered there in that room and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit comes along and an amazing burst of power and incredible activity. All of the apostles suddenly begin to speak strange languages that they never heard before. Oh man, what we can do with Pentecost. My observation is that if you focus there, if you put too much attention there, you're missing out really on the true work of the Holy Spirit that goes on in our lives today. And we're also missing out on what the Holy Spirit or how the Holy Spirit is portrayed in the Old Testament. I've asked you to listen as we reflected on the Dysine Creed and then parts of the Athanasian Creed and you say, okay, what does that have to do with the Holy Spirit? Well, both of them zero in. They target the Holy Spirit and say, this is what we have to understand. And I wanna go back and give you some background so you understand about these creeds and where they come from and why they're here. They didn't just happen. This is part of God's unfolding plan of salvation. And surprise, to go back and see it clearly, you need to really go back to Daniel. Daniel chapter two. And hopefully I'm gonna build some bridges here and you'll say, okay, I understand how this is all playing out. In Daniel chapter two, God puts a dream in Nebuchadnezzar's head. It causes him great confusion. And then God says to Daniel, I will give you the insight so you can tell the king exactly what he dreamed and what it means. And then you have that interesting picture coming out, and I'm reading from Daniel two, starting at verse 12. Excuse me, verse 32. Daniel two, starting at verse 32. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand and it struck the image on its feet of iron. and clay and broke them in pieces and then dropped down like the chaff of the summer threshing floors and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them could be found but the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Let me just try to put that together. The vision that God puts in Nebuchadnezzar's head is about four kingdoms, four empires that are going to be following each other. The first of those is the Babylonian Empire. Daniel and his friends are included in that. The second empire is that of the Persians where we find Esther and Mordecai. The third empire is that of the Greeks, which conquer the Persians in about 330 under Alexander the Great. And then the fourth one is the empire of Rome. And this stone cut out of the mountain is Jesus Christ. This is a picture of the pre-incarnate Christ who's coming and who will literally destroy each of these four kingdoms. So that at a point in history, even the Roman Empire crumbles into nothing. It's like chaff that blows away in the wind. And you say, did that ever occur? You read through the Book of Acts and all you hear is persecution. You read about martyrs, you read about imprisonment. And you read through some of the early church fathers and you say, wait, evil is dominant. Persecution is rampant. God doesn't seem to be, but wait a minute. By the time you hit 300 AD, 300 years from the time that Christ is born, the situation is totally different. By 300 A.D., the gospel has gone out throughout that whole Roman Empire so that it becomes the dominant religion. Emperor Constantine, in 318 A.D., issues an edict, a proclamation, saying that henceforth, no more persecution is gonna be tolerated in the empire. And from now on, Christianity is going to be the dominant religion throughout the whole Roman Empire. Jesus Christ, at that point, has literally wiped away that old evil part and now is dominant. But there's tremendous conflict. If you think about this, you say, wait a minute, how can that be? That whole vast Roman Empire that extends all the way from India to Britain, way up into Germany, way out, that whole empire is entangled in a theological debate. And it was. Arius is one of the high priests, one of the leading thinkers, and Arius has been going around preaching that Jesus Christ, the one who died on the cross, is really a mere man. He is not divine. Is anybody gonna stand up to him and challenge him? Yes. There's this tremendously gifted man from Egypt, from Alexandria, Egypt, by the name of Athanasius. And Athanasius says, wait a minute, Arius is wrong. Jesus Christ is both God and man. He is the son of God at the same time that he became fully human. Sorry, Athanasius, you're creating trouble. You're causing so much confusion out. Throw him out of the empire. At one time, they sent him way into northern Gaul. Athanasius, go live up there where you can't create trouble. Athanasius comes back. And a bit later, he's making the same case. God's word, all of which the whole New Testament is written by that time, God's word is very explicit. Jesus Christ is God. He is divine. And he's human. Would you get out? Five times, the Roman emperor threw Athanasius out of the empire and said, get out one time into the deserts of Egypt. Go live in the desert where nobody can hear you. Athanasius comes back. Finally, Emperor Constantine and also the emperor of the Eastern Orthodox churches get together and say, you know, this is creating tremendous confusion in the empires. We have to call a synod. a conference. We have to invite all of the bishops from all over the empire to come together. Let's use Nicaea, that's a good location. You can fly in there from India, excuse me, you can travel in there. You can get to Nicaea and there were literally hundreds of bishops called to resolve this one issue. Thankfully, by the grace of God, they issued the proclamation called the Nicene Creed. All the churches in Christendom, the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Reformed, Baptist, all of them accept this as the solution to that debate. But, that's not the end of the matter. the controversy keeps popping up. One of the things that I want to do is simply focus in now on the understanding of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit in that Trinity. One of the things that both the Nicene, the Athanasian Creed, the Belgic, the Westminster said, all emphasize that the Holy Spirit is co-eternal with the Father. He just doesn't come in the New Testament. He doesn't just show up at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is there from the very beginning, from the account of creation. The Holy Spirit is involved in a tremendous dynamic way, and I would ask you to turn with me back to Exodus chapter 31. Exodus chapter 31, first couple of verses. The Lord said to Moses, see, I have called by name, Basil, the son of Uri, the son of her, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the spirit of God. With ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting and in carving wood, to work in every craft. and drop down there, I have appointed with him Aholiab, the son of Ahizamak, of the tribe of Dan, and I have given to all able men ability that they may make all that I have commanded you. And jump ahead to 35. Exodus 35, starting at verse 30. You're gonna pick up that same line of reasoning. Then Moses said to the people of Israel, see, the Lord is called by name, Bezalel, the son of Ur, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs. to work in gold and silver and bronze, et cetera. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Aholia. And then you jump ahead into the New Testament, and you get into 1 Corinthians chapter six, and Paul tells the Corinthians, this Holy Spirit lives in each one of you. And you say, God, the Holy Spirit, lives in me? Hmm. Oprah Winfrey says, yep, that's right. I am God. God, the Holy Spirit, lives in me, so therefore I am God. I am a proponent of the New Age religion. And if you've ever studied or run into New Age religion, it is a horrible, horrible distortion of it. God, the Holy Spirit, lives in us. To what end? I'm gonna focus in on just two aspects. The first is to give us knowledge. You may have concluded erroneously that you by your powers learn to read and learn to write and learn to understand history and learn to decipher between truth and falsehood all by yourself. That's what public schools teach across the board. That's not what God's word teaches. If you want an understanding of epistemological how we come to learn, you have to come to the fact that God, the Holy Spirit, lives in me and he helps me. In fact, he's the one who makes it possible for me to read, to write, to understand, to speak, all of those things. Those are gifts from God. Why is it that you and I accept the truth? and countless other people rejected as falsehood because of the work of the Holy Spirit. I would go so far as to say that the Holy Spirit lives not just in Christians, but he lives in every person that God has created. I said that once in our church back home and one of the men got after me so bad for a couple of weeks he wouldn't let me go. You know, you can't ever assume that the Holy Spirit lives in pagan people. How do they come to learn? If I learn by virtue of the Holy Spirit in me, helping me to understand, how do you explain the pagan who is also learning to read and write and speak? The only thing you can conclude is that I recognize the source. I recognize that it is God who is giving me these gifts of knowledge and insight and wisdom. And the pagan says, no, God doesn't even exist. I did it. And they put themselves up on the throne. That's one of the things that I think the Old Testament teaches and helps us to understand. That God living in me is the way in which God works in my life. He's real. He's powerful. But in the passage from Ephesians, there's another truth. The Holy Spirit is the one who guarantees our salvation. The Holy Spirit is the one who in our lives gives us the assurance that we belong to Jesus Christ. And if you know that you belong to Jesus Christ, then you have to honor Jesus' statements so profoundly. He says, I will never lose one of you. You are mine from before creation. You belong to me and I will not ever let anybody take you away. Those statements come through so beautifully in John chapter 10. Let me put it another way. I often reflect on my college years because those were significant times in my life and understanding. In order to pay my way through Kelvin College, I had to work. I worked night shifts unloading semis of beef that came out of Midwestern packing houses and come into Grand Rapids where we could, and every one of those semis and every train car that came in had a big metal seal on the door. When that car or that train was packed back in Waterloo, Iowa or in Sioux City or anywhere else, when they finished packing it up, they had a bill of lading that said, here are all the things in there and here is a seal. That's supposed to go to Grand Rapids, Michigan. And when that comes to Grand Rapids, Michigan, that seal better not be broken. That seal is the guarantee that everything that went in there will be there when it comes. That picture has helped me to understand my salvation. It's like the Holy Spirit puts a seal on our lives from the day we belong to Jesus Christ. And we have that confidence then that when we are delivered, Unbroken. You can use other illustrations. You can look at anything that comes from the grocery store. There's a seal that has to be broken before you drink a bottle of milk, before you drink a can of Coke. That seal is a guarantee that what went into it at the outset has to be there when it is delivered. That's the assurance we have. from the Holy Spirit. God, the Holy Spirit, gives us that assurance, and that gives us tremendous peace and joy. Let's pray. Dear God and Father, we thank you so much for giving us your word, for giving us insights. We marvel, Lord, at the statement that you give yourself that your Holy Spirit lives in each one of us. That is so profound, we can't get our thoughts around it. And yet, Lord, because it comes from you, from your word, we know it is true, because your Holy Spirit has convinced us of your truth. We thank you for it, and we praise you for it, in Jesus' name. Let's turn now in our hymnals one.