The blessing from Ephesians, the spiritual blessing we have received is outlined in these verses.

                    I want to set up the spiritual blessing by asking you a couple of questions.

                    First, are you going to heaven?

                    Second, how do you know?

                    Third, what will stop you from going?

                    First, are you going to heaven?  Will you be with God for eternity?  There are only two answers for this, yes or no. 

                    Which leads to the second question, “How do you know that you will or will not go to heaven?”  There are only a few answers in the world around us that fit.

                    First, some say, “I will not go to heaven because the grave is the end.”  To those people I ask, “Then how come we have this idea of eternity in our hearts?  Evolution does not give a reason for us thinking of life before life or life after death.  Rocks don’t think about these things.  Plants don’t think about these things. And from what we know, neither do animals.  Why do we?  The Bible answer is that God has placed eternity in our hearts.

                    Second, some will say, “Everyone is going to heaven.  God is a God of love and he is going to let everyone in.  It is cruel of God to punish people, so he will not do that.”

                    To which I ask, “When is it ever cruel to punish someone?  Should we let murders, rapists and thugs go free?  Do you think that people who line up innocent civilians and blow them to pieces with home-made bombs are going to get off scott-free?  We wouldn’t do that, why do we think God would.  Would you not agree with me that there are some people who are so evil that it would be an injustice for God to let them go unpunished?  I don’t know how many times I have heard someone say that one objection they had to the death penalty was that the person who did the murder was done with suffering, while the family of the victim had to go on with the after effects of the crime.  And if God doesn’t make a person pay what they deserve, then God is injust.

                    And then I would go a step further and ask this question, “Who has a better feel for the horridness of any crime, us or God?  Who determines and sees the whole picture of the true effect of any sin a person may do?  Could it be that God’s ways might not be our ways nor his thoughts our thoughts?”

                    Will everyone go to heaven?  The Bible says no!  It tells us that we are either under God’s wrath for our sin, or we are in Christ and saved from his wrath.

                    A third answer that many give is that good people will go to heaven. 

                    Let me vent a little at the lies we are being told by the world around us.  The world around us tells us that no one is bad.  That no one is evil.  We do bad things, but we are not bad people.

                    So I would ask you to do a reality check.   Who is a tall person?  Is it not true that there are really no tall people, just some with extra height?  Or would you agree that there are no short people, just people do never grew up to the average?  Or how about this?  There are no liars.  There are just people who are not liars who tell lies.  Or, there are no adulterers, just people who commit adultery.  Or there are no murders, just people who happen to commit murder. 

                    I tell you that by the normal definition of a person, a bad person is someone who does bad things.  A good person is someone who does good things.  Any other definition does injustice to the English language.

                    But you say, I have seen people who do both good and bad.  Are they good people or bad people? 

                    Good question!  Let me ask this question which I think will answer this for you.  If I have a glass of clear, spring water and I add one small drop of antifreeze into the water, is the water good to drink or bad?

                    Now let’s reverse it.  If I have a glass of green antifreeze and I put a drop of good water into it, is the antifreeze good to drink or bad?

                    Sin does the same thing.  A drop of sin in our lives makes us a sinner.  We all fall under this category.  And knowing this helps us deal with sin.  Most of us have more than just a few drops of sin in our lives.  So we cannot claim that we have just a few charges against us.  Most of us have lied,                     gossiped, been guilty of gluttontry or some other sin.  And we have done so many times.

                    So if we identify ourselves as sinful people because we sin, then we look for the remedy for our problem.

                    That is what the Bible gives.  The remedy for our sin problem is to throw ourselves on Jesus and plead for mercy.  We say that we, like sheep have gone astray and we plead for mercy.  We acknowledge that God is just in giving us what we deserve, but we plead for grace.

                    And grace and mercy are given us in Jesus Christ.  Our faith in him opens the door to the benefits we have studied over the past few weeks.  We are considered holy and blameless, adopted into his family, we are redeemed and our sins forgiven, we are given the privilege of knowing the will of God.  All of this takes place when we are in Christ, when we believe in him.

                    When do the blessings stop?  When does God no longer look at us as holy?  When does he take back his forgiveness, throw us out of his family, stop revealing his will to us?  When does this take place?

                    Does it take place when we commit a big sin?  If we were convicted of murder or some other sin, would the blessings stop?  Would we no longer have eternal life?

                    Does it take place when we lose faith?  Do we falter when in a crisis, a person becomes angry and bitter to God and renounces the faith?

                    The answer to that question  reveals the wonder of the blessings God gives us. 

                    “13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession--to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:13, 14, NIV.

                    From verse 3 to verse 12, Paul is talking directly about the apostles, those who first trusted in Christ.  In verse 13 he tells us that these spiritual blessings are not for the apostles only, but also for those who have heard the word of truth, the good news of our salvation and believed.  Is that you?

                    If so, when you believed you received the promised Holy Spirit.  When did you receive the promised Holy Spirit? The moment you received the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.

                    I have been giving you a picture of the blessings that come when we trust Jesus.  The instant we trust Jesus, we have a large group of blessings that come at that moment.  One of the blessings is that he gives every Christian the Holy Spirit.   We don’t need to pray for it, beg for it, plead for it, tarry for it, he gives it out of the abundance of his grace to every true believer.  That is what Paul is telling us here.  When we believed the gospel, we received the Holy Spirit.

                    When we receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit automatically does several things for us at the moment he enters our hearts.  One professor of mine said that we receive our spiritual ribs.  We are regenerated, indwelt, baptized and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

                    The blessing that Paul has is two fold.

                    First, the presence of the Holy Spirit seals us.

                    People couldn’t write well in the first century, so they often used a seal.  The seal was used in many ways.  It would be used as a signature on a will.  The seal would indicate that it was really your will.  It would be used to identify your property.  It was almost like a packing label.  And it was used to keep prying eyes out of a document.  The book of revelation speaks about a scroll that had many seals on it.

                    The Holy Spirit is God’s seal in your life that you are His.  We cannot see the presence of the Holy Spirit in someone else, but God can.  For God, the Holy Spirit is almost like a GPS unit under our skin.  He can immediately identify everyone who is truly a Christian.  For every true Christian has the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit is the identifying seal to God the Father that we are his.

                    2 Timothy 2:19 speaks about two seals that are on every believer. “19 Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”” 2 Timothy 2:19, NIV.

                    How does the Lord know those who are his?  By the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of every Christian.

                    How do we know that a person is a Christian?  By their repentance and willingness to turn away from wickedness.  What will a Holy Spirit do in the life of a wicked person?  Light always dispels darkness.  His presence will start to produce change from the inside out!

                    But there is a second effect that the Holy Spirit has in the life of the believe the moment that a person believes and the Holy Spirit comes in.

                    The Holy Spirit in our lives is “a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession…”

                    The King James uses the word “earnest” which has the same idea.

                    When I buy a house, I put down a down payment on the house.  That down payment is used for two things.

                    First, the down payment is to secure the house for me.  No one else can buy the house while I have the down payment.  This was also true in the first century.

                    Second, the down payment is applied to the price of the house and is the first installment of a series of payments until I own the house.

                    When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, he guarantees that we are God’s possession, that we have all of these blessings in Christ Jesus.

                    Why would the Holy Spirit do that?  Because we might doubt. 

                    We are still waiting the redemption of the body.  The price has been paid, but until death or the rapture, we still live in these bodies.  And though they help us, they also make us wonder if we are God’s possession.

                    Have you heard what comes out of our mouths?  What have our ears heard? Where have our eyes been roving?  What have our hands done and where have our feet taken us?  If we think about these things, it can make us wonder, “Are we God’s possession?”

                    The Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives does not excuse sin, does not permit sin, does not condone sin.  But the Holy Spirit in our lives serves as a down payment guaranteeing our inheritance, guaranteeing our eternal life, and guaranteeing our union with Christ.

                    So what can break this?  Will the Holy Spirit look at us and take back the down payment?

                    The scripture here says, “No!”  He guarantees our inheritance until the body is redeemed.  That is Paul talk to say, “Until we go to be with God.”  This is by death or the rapture. 

                    Salvation is by faith alone, not based on any works that we do.  But our security is not based on faith or works, our security is found in the love of God and the tenacity of the Holy Spirit to never let us go.  It is the presence of the Holy Spirit that guarantees our eternal security, it is not of us.

                    Why?  Why did God give us this promise?  Why did he say that the Holy Spirit guarantees the we will receive our inheritance?  Why did he put his mark of ownership on us?  Why are we sealed in this way?

                    The answer is, “…to the praise of His glory.”  Paul wants us to recognize the unseen work of the Holy Spirit in our lives so we can praise God for being so good to us.

                    If you ask my why I have remained a Christian for about 50 years, my answer would have to be, because I have been kept in God’s family by the Holy Spirit.

                    I have gone through times of crisis when I have wondered if God existed, if Jesus was really the way to God.  I have doubted or questioned many of the issues of the faith that are expressed in the Bible.  I have seen the attractiveness of sin and have been tempted to pursue it.  But why hasn’t this happened to me?  Because the Holy Spirit has sealed me, lives in me, and is keeping me until the day of redemption.

                    If that is your testimony, then it should cause you to give God the glory, to give Him the praise, to give Him the credit.

                    This is why I encourage any of you to trust Jesus.  If you are not trusting Jesus, have not been born again, then you do not have the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.  But when you truly put your faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit, the second person of the trinity, comes into your life with power and keeps you and starts to change you from the inside out.

                    Praise God from whom all blessings flow!