Ephesians 1:13-14

In Him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory.

In the last post we started looking at these verses, today we will continue.

The sealing of the Holy Spirit is also part of the filling of the Holy Spirit. God gives us His Holy Spirit that we might be able to live the life we are called to live. As children of God, we are not left alone to figure this out. We are not left orphans but as Jesus promised another is here.

The sealing of the Holy Spirit empowers us and gives us the way to move forward as we follow God.

2 Peter 1:3 says,

His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

The sealing of the Holy Spirit gives us the power to continue to follow after God. God marks us as His own and then gives us what we need to follow Him. We have power as God’s children. We have authority as His marked ones. We have access to everything we need because of the sealing of the Holy Spirit.

This marking gives us security, marks us as authentically Gods, and gives us what we need to follow after God. This in total gives us identity. Our identity is found in our markedness. When we are marked by God, sealed by the Holy Spirit, labeled as God’s chosen ones we have an identity that is unchangeable. Just like in a museum we see things that belonged to people and look at them in awe, wonder, or amazement because they belonged to a specific person, we have value because we are sealed, marked, and chosen by God. It is not in our own strength, power, or wisdom but because we are marked by God.

Our identity is in our belonging to God. This means you do not have to strive, vie, or insist on value it belongs to you because you belong to God. You belong to the King. You are a son or daughter of the Most High!

All people have value as image-bearers of God but as sealed ones, we have an unchangeable identity.

Next, what does it mean to mean that the Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance? Because we are owned and marked by the Creator we have more coming to us. God sets His seal upon us because of Christ’s work on the cross and rising from the grave. There is more coming.

As amazing as it is to be sealed by the Holy Spirit and to be empowered to live the life God calls us to it is only a shadow of what is to come. We have an unchangeable identity and destiny. In this world, we have trouble and tribulation. We have sickness. We have issues, to say the least, but the Holy Spirit is a promise that more and better is to come. Paul writes here and says that the Holy Spirit is a down payment. The sealing is not the full measure of what is to come but a promise that greater is coming.

When we think about the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, the signs the wonders, the healings, the power that is displayed we should see a picture of what is to come. On this side of eternity, we have pain, but the gifts are in part meant to show what is to come. What is to come is perfection, completion, total restoration. We should seek the gifts but we seek them to build up the church! (! Cor 14:12

We have the gifts now because we live in a world that requires gifts. When Christ comes back, we do not need those things because everything will be made new. We need the right view of eschatology. That is a fancy theology word for the end times. Sometimes people think that the end will come, and God will destroy everything, but it is more of a restoration, a reconciliation, a recreation. God will make heaven on earth. It will all be new, and the sealing of the Holy Spirit is a promise that we are included in that.

I mentioned this earlier, but I want to close with this reminder:

The sealing of the Holy Spirit gives us the power to continue to follow after God. God marks us as His own and then gives us what we need to follow Him. We have power as God’s children. We have authority as His marked ones. We have access to everything we need because of the sealing of the Holy Spirit. And we have a promise of what is to come.

If you are here and you have never trusted in Christ and received the Gospel. If you have not repented, believed, and received then I beg you know do that. We will have some people upfront and if you need to do this come forward. If you need to have someone pray with you so you can walk in the sealing, you have come forward. If you need prayer for anything else, come forward now.

  [1] African Bible Commentary, 1428

Just a thought,

Mike