Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter 1, as we will be concluding Paul's hymn of praise to God in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. Once again, I would like us to read verses 3 through 14 together. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. In him also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In him also, after that you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory." Let's pray. Father, you are worthy of praise, for the glory of your grace, which you have shed on us richly and abundantly through and in our Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you, Lord, for revealing to us the wealth, the abundance that we have, and the hope that we have in Christ. And I pray, Lord, that we would live in this reality, that it would shape the way that we see the world and it would shape the mission of our lives and that we would be willing to mimic your grace to others and your love. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So this morning I wanna talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You know, we live in a day in which a person's identity has come to be defined completely in terms of one's own desires. And this has become so important in our culture that we're told that it's reprehensible to object to whatever a person defines him or herself or whatever self to be. And in the current manifestation, this appears in the gender confusion that's washed over our culture and our country and the West in general. And who would have ever thought that we would get where we're at so fast? But you know, this is just a logical endpoint of the new definition of freedom that our culture has adopted. To be free is to be whatever you want to be. You know, but this kind of freedom, as the Bible makes very clear, it always comes at a terrible cost. You know, by uncoupling the ties that bind our personal identity to objective reality, what we've done is that we have erased any real definition of meaning. To say that I can identify myself to be whatever I want myself to be is just to say that I have no identity at all. My identity is as formless and shapeless as the sea of desires in which it supposedly rests. Now, of course, one of the reasons why we find ourselves in this confusion lies in our culture's rejection of external authority. And we want to be free in the sense that we don't want to be accountable to anyone but ourselves. And of course, this is incompatible with being under the authority of God and his word. And so our culture, over a period of time, more and more, has rejected the authority of God, and we've replaced it with our own desires. And the irony is, though, that as we have abolished God's sovereignty over us, that we have, in the process, sped up the abolition of man. We've rejected the identity that God has given us, and we've ended up with an illusion in the place of any real identity. Now, you may be asking, what does this have to do with Ephesians 1, 13 and 14? Well, here's the connection. Christians find their identity as sons and daughters of the Most High. They identify themselves as God's children and as citizens of heaven. They are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. That's who they are. That's how they identify themselves. And this is what the Apostle Paul has been saying all along in Ephesians 1, 3 through 14. But the question is, could it be that this identity is something that we've given to ourselves? And if that were the case, we would be no different from our secular counterparts. But the text says differently. The identity of the Christian is not based upon our own desires, but rather it's based upon God's identification of them as His children mediated through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now in the text that we read this morning, especially in verses 13 and 14, the Apostle Paul calls this the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit, which he further describes in verse 14 as the earnest of our inheritance. So that's what we want to look at this morning. We want to look at the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. And of course, this is very important. Christianity is a Trinitarian religion. If you don't believe in the Trinity, you're not a Christian, whatever you may say about Jesus. But that means that we not only worship God the Father, we not only worship God the Son, but we also worship God the Holy Spirit. And we should be careful that we don't neglect the role that the Holy Spirit plays in the lives of believers. Of course, there's extremes that we can go in both directions, right? There's the whole charismatic extreme where the focus is solely upon the work of the Holy Spirit. And then there's other extremes where the focus is solely on the person of Christ, whereas Paul's and the biblical point of view is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And so we need to be aware of the work of the Holy Spirit. We need to worship Him as He's revealed to us in the Bible. And as we consider what God is doing in the lives of His people through the work of the Holy Spirit, I believe this can greatly encourage us. And that's what I want to happen this morning. Now, before we do this, though, we dive into the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, which is elucidated in our text, there's a few technical details which I think we need to deal with first. Now in the King James Version, it reads in verse 13, in whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Now you'll notice, if you have a King James Version, that the word trusted there is in italics, and that means that it was supplied by the translators, it's not in the Greek text. The text literally reads, in whom you also, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Now, It's the word also that gives translators the problem here. When Paul said, in whom you also, who was Paul comparing the Ephesian believers to? Or what is he comparing here? Now, clearly the King James translators supplied the word trusted from the previous verse, in verse 12, that we should be the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom you also trusted. So they understood, Paul, to mean that the Ephesians trusted Christ just as their Jewish brethren had previously done. And that certainly is one way to deal with the problem. Others believe, and this is Charles Hodges' position in his commentary, is that what needs to be supplied in verse 13 is not trusted from verse 12, but obtained an inheritance from verse 11. And in that case, Paul would be saying, we have obtained an inheritance, verse 11, and then in verse 13, you also have obtained an inheritance. And that's certainly possible and may very well be how Paul intended his audience to read this. However, I mean, in terms of the text, That phrase, we've obtained an inheritance, is so far removed, relatively, from verse 13 that one wonders why Paul wouldn't actually include those words if that's how he intended it to be read. And so this is why still others believe that nothing needs to be supplied and that everything in verse 13 is related to the verb, the main verb, were sealed. So this is the way, for example, that the English Standard Version, the New American Standard, and the NIV and others translate it, the ESV goes this way, in whom you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the Holy Spirit, with the promised Holy Spirit. Now this seems, this is of course purely a technical thing, but it seems to me to be the best way to translate the text that way. And of course, many modern commentators and translators agree with the English standard version in this translation. And so the main point here is that believers were sealed by the spirit and this took place when they heard the gospel and believed it. Now at the end of the day, it doesn't matter really which translational route you choose. It's certain that the Ephesians trusted in Christ just as their Jewish brethren had done. And it's also certain that they had obtained an inheritance along with their Jewish brethren. And in any case, the work of the Holy Spirit that is highlighted here in this text is his ministry in sealing the saints and giving them an earnest of their inheritance. So that's what we wanna consider now. So the first thing we want to consider together is how the ministry of the Holy Spirit is described in these two verses. So in verse 13, the Apostle Paul says the Holy Spirit seals us. And then in verse 14, the Apostle Paul says the Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance. And in some way, in some sense, these are both just twin aspects of the same thing. Paul's describing in two different ways what the Holy Spirit is doing in us. So let's think about what the Apostle Paul is saying here. What does he mean when he says that we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise? There were at least three ways in which seals were used in the ancient world. They were used to identify something as authentic. They were used to identify ownership or they were to render something secure. So, for example, they seal the tomb of Christ. The seven seals in Revelation chapter 7 and 8. Jesus says that those who believe on him have set to, they're set to seal that God is true. And you can basically boil all these three categories down to two categories, which is identity. and security. Seals were meant to identify something they were meant to secure or they were meant to secure something. So what is the Apostle Paul referring to here when he says, when he talks about the sealing ministry of the Spirit in verse 13? Well, I think he means all of these categories. The Holy Spirit identifies us as God's children. He identifies us as authentically the children of God and he secures us forever. So the work of the Holy Spirit encompasses each of these three purposes. So first of all, the Holy Spirit authenticates a believer as genuinely belonging to God. You know, the Apostle John tells us in 1 John chapter five and verse 10 that the believer has a witness in himself. That is the work of God in the believer testifying to the truth that they are, that they belong to God, the assurance of salvation. And I believe that's what the Apostle Paul essentially is talking about here. The Holy Spirit seals believers by giving them the assurance of salvation. So Paul explains it this way to the Romans in Romans chapter 8 and verse 16. The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. See that's the witness in ourselves. The spirit in us beareth witness with our spirit that we are God's children. Now this is not the believer talking to himself or herself. This is God Communicating to the believer that they belong to them, that they belong to him by giving them the assurance of their salvation. So this is not something we do to ourselves. It's something God does to us and for us and in us. And so he seals us in this way by giving us the assurance of salvation. You know, it's interesting to me as you study the history of theology that in ancient times down to the present time there are always people who have a problem with the Christians having the assurance of salvation. And one of the arguments that is generally put forward as a reason that Christians should not have the assurance of salvation is that it is thought that such assurance undermines the urgency of holiness. That if you believe, if you know you're going to heaven, that won't that make you just live any way that you want to live? What's going to keep you from living however you want? Well, the short answer to that is nothing. But the thing is that when God really gives the saint assurance of salvation, they are not going to want to live in an ungodly way. Yes, we can live however we want, but your wants are not going to be towards sin, they're going to be toward godliness. So the assurance of salvation brings with it. not just the overwhelming conviction that we belong to God, but a corresponding detestation of sin. And throughout history, as you read biographies of holy men and women of God, when people have especially been blessed with a special sense of assurance, it doesn't make them become lackadaisical and careless in godly things. It makes them more holy. It makes them more zealous. It makes them more productive in God's kingdom. I read a biography not too long ago, a few weeks ago, of Blaise Pascal, who was a French mathematician and a philosopher. who was also a Jansenist, who were Roman Catholic Augustinians. So he was often accused of being a Crypto-Calvinist, which he, being a good Catholic, rejected. But there are a lot of things that Pascal had in common with Reformed thought. He was a godly man. But one day, he had a turning point in his life, and no one realized that this had happened to him until after he had died. He had described an experience that he had where he rode on a piece of cloth or something and sewed it in his jacket. And it wasn't until after he died that they discovered this, and he called it the night of fire. And this is what he wrote. This is Blaise Pascal's experience. This day of grace, 1654, from about half past 10 at night to about half after midnight, fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the wise. Security, security, feeling, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ, thy God shall be my God. Forgetfulness of the world and of all save God. He can be found only in the ways taught in the gospel. greatness of the human soul. O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. I have separated myself from Him. My God, why hast Thou forsaken me, that I may not be separated from Thee eternally? This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. I've separated myself from him. I have fled, renounced, crucified him. May I never be separated from him. He maintains himself in me only in the ways taught in the gospel, renunciation, total, and sweet." That's assurance. And that did not lead to Pascal's leading a totally alive neglectful of the ways of the gospel. It made him more earnest. It made him more persevering. in the midst of the security. And you could amplify this with testimony after testimony. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the Welsh preacher, experienced something very similar to this. And he would mark back to the beginning of real power in his ministry to this time where God gave him an overwhelming sense of the love of God for him. Now, I believe this is not something that just certain Christians have. The Apostle Paul is saying this to all the saints at Ephesus. This is something that belongs to all the saints. They are all sealed with the Holy Spirit. This is not something that belongs to just a rare category of Christian, but this is something, though, that we can grow in. And there are experiences, there are heights of joy that perhaps many of us have not experienced. So what I'm claiming here is that this argument that assurance undermines holiness is totally bogus because it doesn't understand the biblical nature of assurance. I mean, after all, we must not forget that this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The assurance of salvation that the Spirit gives and brings must be in accordance with His nature as holy. And it, therefore, be incongruous for Him to communicate an assurance that became the foundation for an unholy life. So, therefore, true assurance must be inconsistent with sin. In the same way, true assurance is the best motivator for a holy life. Listen, you want to grow in grace, you want to be more holy, you're not going to get there by be living in constant fear of losing heaven. You're going to get there because you want more of heaven that you've already experienced through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And this is certainly how the Apostle John understood it. Listen to what he says in 1 John chapter 3, verses 2 to 3. Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Now Not someday, now we're the sons of God. And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. I want you to hear the note of assurance there. It's not we may be like him, we shall be like him. John is confident that he is a son of God now, he's gonna be a son of God when Christ returns. But what does he say in verse three as a result of this? And every man that has this hope in himself purified himself even as he is pure. In other words, you have this assurance, you're gonna live a purified and holy life. Every man does this, every believer does this. So he didn't think that this gave him a license to sin. On the contrary, every man that had this hope in him purified himself even as he is pure. Now I think perhaps the reason why people think that assurance gives a license to sin is because they think of assurance only in terms of going to heaven when they die. But that's not biblical assurance. The object of the saint's hope is not heaven. It's Christ. What did Paul say? For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. I am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. He didn't say I have a desire to depart and go walk the golden streets. No, it's I want to be with Christ. to Paul that said, that was certainly John's hope to see Christ as he is. And if you have that kind of hope, that's certainly incompatible with living in sin that would alienate you from the Christ that you desire. So assurance is it is something that God gives us in Christ to every believer through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now we can have lesser or more degrees of assurance. We can grieve the Holy Spirit of God and I believe that. God on purpose takes away the sense of assurance when we stray into sin to bring us back. Thank God for the work of the Holy Spirit in doing that. Thank God that He doesn't wash God's love over us and give us a false sense of security when we're living in sin, but sounds the trumpet in our ears, so to speak, and calls us back to Him. But he does, he gives us assurance. And Paul goes on to say in verse 14, that the Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance. Now that word earnest, it's like earnest money, right? It means the initial installment. This was a word, arabon, that was a Hebrew word that passed into the Greek language unchanged. In modern Greek, the word arabon refers to an engagement ring, which is really not far off from Paul's meaning here. What Paul is saying is that the Spirit's work in the hearts of believers is not just a promise of heaven. It's part of heaven. The believer's experience of God, as Charles Hodge put it, is the same in kind, though immeasurably less in degree, with our experience of God in heaven. And I like that we sing a hymn every now and then by Charles Wesley, where he has a line in there where he talks about, when he shall more of heaven bestow. That's what the Apostle Paul is talking about here. God bestowing more of heaven by giving God, when we go to heaven, that's God giving us more heaven than we already have. He's given us an earnest of it through the Holy Spirit. Now Paul says essentially the same thing in Romans chapter 8 and verse 23 where he writes, and not only they, there's not only the creation, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves have grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to with the redemption of our body. So he talks about the spirit as being first fruits. And a harvest first fruits is not just a promise of the harvest, it's part of the harvest itself. And so the apostle Paul is saying the Holy Spirit is part of our future inheritance. He gives us that right now in his ministry. It's a foretaste of future blessedness. Now, I do think we have to balance this, and I love the way the Apostle Paul puts it in Romans chapter eight and other places. We need to recognize that this earnest does not remove our present sorrows and griefs, right? And we taste of heaven, but we're not in heaven yet. As Paul puts it in the Romans passage, we're still groaning. even as we have the first fruits, or as he puts it in his letter to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5, verses 4 and 5, for we that are in this tabernacle do groan. He's talking about our physical bodies. While we're here in our physical bodies that are plagued by sin, we groan, being burdened, not that for that we would be unclothed, that is, we don't want to be disembodied spirits, that's not our ultimate desire, but clothed upon, that mortality might be sought up in life. Paul longed for a body that would be resurrected and free from all the vestiges of sin and unburdened. And then he goes on to say, now he that has wrought for us a self, same thing as God, who has also given unto us an earnest of the spirit. So we groan, we're burdened, but we have this earnest of the spirit at the same time. In fact, we groan for the blessedness of heaven. That itself is the fruit of the earnest of the spirit. We groan precisely because we've tasted of heaven and its happiness and it causes us to want more. And so it's artificial and it's superficial for some people to paint a picture of the saint's journey to heaven as if he or she were just passing through a field of dandelions and roses. The saint's life is not so easy and I agree with John Stott who once remarked that some Christians grin too much and groan too little. And their grinning is a mark of superficiality, not of spirituality. And it shows that they know very little of what the Apostle Paul is talking about here. We're on a battlefield as we journey to heaven. We know we have the victory. D-Day has happened. But V-Day is still to come. We're in the middle between the two. There are a lot of battles to fight before we get there. And so we groan even as we have the earnest of our inheritance. And yeah, the groaning is not a groaning of despair, but a groaning of hope. And the hope that a Christian has is not just wishful desire, like, I wish I could go to heaven, but it's confident expectation. The Bible teaches that what God has begun in us, he will perform until the day of Jesus Christ, Philippians 1.6. And so therefore Paul ends verse 14 by saying that the ministry of the Holy Spirit lasts, this ministry of the Holy Spirit, giving us this earnest, sealing us, this lasts until, he says, the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory. Now Christ accomplished redemption once and for all on the cross. But redemption is being applied over a long period of time. And the final act of redemption is gonna happen when Christ returns the second time without sin into salvation. Remember what Jesus told his disciples. When you see all these things happen, the signs of the end, look up, lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh. So the Apostle Paul here is talking about the final act of redemption when death itself will be defeated and this present world will give way to a new heavens and a new earth. It'll take place at the final advent of our Lord when he comes to judge the earth. And this is what the Spirit is the earnest of. This is that for which we wait and hope and long for. So that's the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now, the second question I want to ask of this text is, how is this ministry of the Spirit begun in us? How is it continued? And Paul makes it very clear in verse 13 that this happens when we hear the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, and believe it. Listen to what he says, "...and whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And again, I believe that hearing the word of truth, the gospel, believing these are both tied to being sealed with the Holy Spirit. That happens when we hear the word of truth and believe it. So it happens by faith. And Paul put it this way to the Galatians, Galatians chapter three, verses 13 to 14, where the apostle Paul says that Christ has redeemed us, that, verse 14, the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit, how? Through faith. We might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Now, I recognize that there is a work of the Holy Spirit that is prior to faith. Those who believe in God are those who've been born of God, John 1, 12 to 13. Faith itself is the gift of God, not simply a product of our own will. God begets faith in us. However, neither does the work of the Spirit of God proceed apart from faith. The work of God in the believer through the Spirit grows as we live by faith in Christ. And I want to remind you that it's not just any faith that sanctifies, it's not just any faith that seals, it's faith in Christ. Know how Paul links faith to the gospel. You heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Of course, the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come down to earth, into this world, and died for our sins. Believing that, We are sealed with the Holy Spirit. It is only those who come to Christ, recognizing their helplessness to save themselves from their guilt of sins and from the power of sin over them, who look to Him. It is only these who are saved and sanctified and sealed. You're not saved and you're not sealed and you're not sanctified by having confidence in yourself. You don't make progress in the life of godliness through self-actualization. You do it by clinging to Christ, by looking to Him as He's revealed to us in the Gospel, in the Word of God. And so that's important for us to see that. It's not just any Christ that will save. It's not just any faith that will save. It's faith in Christ. It's not just any Christ who will save. It is the Christ who's revealed in the Word of God. You can't say that you have faith in Christ and then redefine Him to be whatever you want Him to be. You will not find Christ in your heart. You will find him in the pages of scripture, the word of truth. It's here that we must seek him. So a life of faith is inseparable from a commitment to applying the truth of the Bible to our lives, which is why I think the apostle Paul describes the ministry of the spirit in Ephesians 6, 17 as the sword of the spirit. The word of God is the sword of the spirit. And so I really want to take this moment to encourage everyone here All of you, young to old, to be consistently reading your Bibles, applying it to your life, you cannot expect to flourish as a Christian and live apart from your Bible. Again, that goes for all of us, young or old. boy or girl, man or woman, whether you're an officer in the church or not, you need to be reading the Bible. You need to be understanding the Bible. You need to be believing the Bible. You need to be applying the Bible. You need to be falling in love with the Bible. The Christian who prospers is a Christian who knows and believes and practices the truth of God's word. Listen to what Psalm 1 says. I'll remind you of this. Psalm 1, verses two to three. The blessed man, his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper." A week or so ago when I was at the conference, the Society for Classical Learning, listened to David Kinnaman, the president of Barnard Group, he said something that really hit me. He said that one of the things that's changing our culture is that our screens are colonizing our minds. Think iPhone, computer, tablet, TV. Our screens are colonizing our minds, that's true. But it's also unsettling because as you go anywhere, people are looking at a screen. It's kind of eerily reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451. I hope I got the number right. So I want to ask, how is your mind being colonized? What sort of things are you looking at? What sort of seeds are you planting in the garden of your heart and mind? What truths have a hold of your affections? Do the truths of scripture have the upper hand in your heart or has our godless culture with its values planted its flag on your soul? That's going to happen. If you not only know the word of God, but love the word of God, we desperately need to read it, to believe it, to love it, to apply it, the truth, the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. All the preaching I will do to you will be absolutely worthless if you're not doing that. I tell my students, I can lecture, I can give a very good lecture. But if you don't go home and do the homework, you're not going to learn math. And if you don't go home and you're not in your Bibles, you're not going to learn the way of Christ. But thank God for the Word of God. Thank God inspired by the Spirit of God. And thank God for the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We should be encouraged by his ministry in us and for us. So I wanna end on that note. Be encouraged through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You know what that means? It means that you are not alone. You're not on your own. God is not only for you, he is with you if you belong to Christ. You know, when Jesus promised his church in Matthew 28, I will be with you to the end of the age, that was a promise of the Holy Spirit. when he told his disciples, I will not leave you orphans. That was a promise of the Holy Spirit. And that's why it's in the sense that he has promised. It's promised in the sense that Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit once he was risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit today is to mediate the presence of the risen Christ. And in his absence, the Holy Spirit testifies of Christ and advances his kingdom in this world. So let me give you an illustration of what I mean here. In 1587, an Englishman by the name of John White tried to start a colony with about 100 people in what is now North Carolina. But he had to go back to England for more supplies. But because of a war that then existed between England and Spain, he couldn't make it back for almost three years. When he came back, there was no sign of the colony. There was just a word written on a post that said Croatoan, which was the name of a nearby island. But they never found the settlers. And to this day, no one knows what happens. They're called the Lost Colony for that reason. There are several hypotheses. Some say that they were assimilated into the nearby Indian tribes. Some say that they were killed by Indians. Some say they were killed by the Spanish, who were then in Florida. But we don't know. You see, the problem was that they had no enduring connection between them and civilization. When their leaders sailed back across the ocean to bring back more supplies, they were on their own. And as a result of this lack of connection, the calling was lost, whether through assimilation or through death. And in the same way, if we were really on our own, we would be lost. We would either end up assimilating with a godless culture, or give in to the pressures of temptation, or we would end up spiritually dead. But the reality is, and what our text tells us, is that we are not in that situation. We are not on our own. We have a real and permanent connection to our risen Lord. Yes, He is physically absent, but He is also spiritually present. And our Lord told His disciples that this is to our advantage that He go away. It's not to our disadvantage. I think one of the great proofs of this is to consider the disciples before and after the ascension of our Lord. I mean, think about Peter before Christ ascended to heaven. He was not a great specimen of Christian leadership and preaching. But afterwards, when Christ ascended to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit, he became a powerhouse that sowed the seeds for the dynamic explosion of Christianity to all the earth and nations. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, if it is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. So the risen Christ is presently with us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And so we will never be lost because all the power of heaven is on our side. Yes, we have enemies. But as John put it, we are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. So do you ever feel alone? Listen, if we're in Christ, if you are in Christ, you are not alone. You will never be alone. And though your circumstances may at times look very dark, and at times we may be groaning very loudly, That does not take away the reality that you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and guaranteed an entrance into God's eternal kingdom. And so therefore, let us live lives on the note of the end of verse 14, unto the praise of his glory. God's glory and grace have come to us through Jesus Christ, and nothing can change that. Praise God. Let's pray. Father, again, we want to give thanks to you for the blessing of the Holy Spirit and the connection that exists, that the presence of our Lord and our Savior is with us to this day and to the very end. May we cling to that, believe it, hold to it. We pray this in his name, amen.