Discovering Our Riches

You know, some people unexpectedly find out that they are the heir to great fortune and treasure. Such was the case with Eduardo Sierra in 1996. Eduardo Sierra was a Spanish businessman, 35-year-old businessman, lived in Spain. He was making a trip to Stockholm, Sweden. And while he was in Stockholm, he decided to find a church where he could just kind of get a loan and spend some time in prayer. The only church he could find open was an old Catholic church in town. So he went inside the church and he was going to sit down, but he noticed that the front there was a casket. And he thought it was kind of strange. He knows that casket there. There's someone in the casket, but there's nobody else around. So he walked up to the front and he saw there was a guest registered off to the side of the casket. He walked over to that and it had a note there for anyone that came to sign their name and give their address. So he paused for a few moments and prayed for whatever family this man may have had. And then he signed his name and gave his address. He stayed for a few more moments, sat down and prayed about some things that were on his heart and then he went back and eventually went back home to Spain. A couple of weeks later, he received word from government officials in Stockholm that he was now a wealthy man. He was a millionaire. And he said, what are you talking about? And they explained, the man in the casket was a 73 year old real estate broker from Stockholm by the name of Yen Spinson. He had died without any remaining family, no close friends, and in his will he stipulated. Anyone who comes to the church at my visitation and signs the register, how many ever people that may be, they will inherit my estate. And so one guy who signed that register inherited the entire estate. Can you imagine that? That's a true story. Which the moral of that story is, always sign the book. You just never know. You never know how you're going to get in someone's will, so always sign the book. No. Some people just unexpectedly fall into great treasured, don't even realize they have. I'm convinced that there are many people like that here this morning talking about another treasure, obviously. We have great treasure and riches, eternal riches in Christ. If you know Jesus as your Savior, you inherit tremendous riches. But most of us live like we don't have those. Or we're unaware that we have those. And that's the reason why the book of Ephesians is written to us. To help us understand our great salvation and all the inheritance and riches that we have in Christ. So I would invite your attention again to Ephesians, chapter 1. We began a series of messages on Ephesians a couple of weeks ago. And in that series we saw that after a brief introduction, Paul in verses 3 through 14, really gives one long sentence, Paul's familiar and well known for doing that. But one long sentence in Greek, it may not appear that way in your English translations. But in the original, it's one long sentence and it's just word after word and phrase after phrase, just blessing upon blessing, piling on top of each other, explaining all of the blessings that we have in Christ, the inheritance that we have in Him. That's the purpose of these verses. Now last time we saw that there are past blessings, there are present blessings, there are future blessings. And we saw that some of those blessings are given by God, some of them by Christ, some of them by the Spirit. Last time we looked at three blessings that are given us by God the Father, the blessing of election, the blessing of adoption, the blessing of grace. Today we're going to quickly look at three blessings that Christ gives us and two that the Holy Spirit gives us. So let's dive in. Verse 7, the first blessing we have is one that Christ gives us, the Bible says here, it's the blessing of redemption. Verse 7, in Him speaking about Christ, back in the last couple of verses, in Him we have redemption through His blood. Now to understand the value and the riches of this blessing we've got to understand the meaning of redemption. What are we talking about here? What is the meaning of redemption? Well the word redemption comes from a word that was a marketplace term. It was a term that was used in the marketplace of the first century world and it basically meant to purchase or buy back something that otherwise would be lost or it would be gone. The old familiar story serves us well here of the little boy who lived in a town along one of the great lakes and he loved sailing his little model sailboats. He loved it so much that one day he said to his dad, he said, Dad, let's make us a real sailboat. A bigger one, a nice one, a model one, but a real big nice sailboat and so they did, they worked on it for weeks. And every day he would go down to the edge of the lake and he would sail that sailboat. He just had a great time with it but one day a strong wind came along and blew it out of his reach beyond where he could swim to get it and he watched it as it disappeared over the horizon. He was devastated, this little guy. That was his favorite sailboat and he just loved that sailboat. Every day he would walk down to the edge of the lake hoping maybe the wind had blown it back in but no he couldn't find it. One day as he's walking down to the lake he's walking down the street that leads to the lake and he looked in a store window and there there was his sailboat. He knew it, he'd made it, he knew what it was, he knew it was his and he walked in and he said to the proprietor of that business he said, that is my sailboat in the window. I've come to get it. And the manager of the store said, I'm sorry son but I bought that sailboat from a fisherman. I paid a good price for that and he found that out in the lake and if you want that sailboat you're going to have to pay the price for it. So the little boy went back home told his dad and his dad gave him jobs to do every day. He'd work and do this and that around the house and the yard and all that and he saved up his money and finally one day he went back to that store and he purchased his sailboat. And as he walked out of the store he said, you are twice mine. I made you and then I bought you. That's exactly what redemption is. If you are saved, if you know Jesus as your savior you are twice his. He made you, he created you and then he bought you, paid a purchase price for you. But you say, well why did he have to buy me? If he created me, why did, what's this deal about buying me? Why did he have to pay and buy me? Well it's all found in the word that's used for redemption here. You see in the New Testament there are three words for redemption. One of them simply means to lay down a price, to pay a price, agarazzo. One of them means to pay the price and purchase out of ex-Agarazzo. The third one, Lutra O means to set free and that's the word that's used here. And that word really encompasses all the others. It has this idea. You go into the marketplace, you pay the price, you purchase something and take it out of the marketplace and then you set it free. And these words were used in the first century basically of the slave trade. The Roman Empire had six million slaves. And so slaves were sold every day in every marketplace, in every major city in the Roman Empire. You could buy any kind of household servant, slave you wanted to buy. And these words were used in that context. Somebody go in and lay down the purchase price, take that slave out of the marketplace, and sometimes would even eventually give that slave his or her freedom. Now that's exactly what redemption is. Jesus walked into the marketplace and bought us out of slavery. You see the Bible teaches that every one of us is born into slavery to sin. We are born into bondage to a sin nature that separates us from God. Jesus said it this way in John chapter 8 and verse 34, Jesus replied, I tell you the truth. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. That includes everyone in this room, every person who's ever lived. All of us have sinned, right? So if we've sinned, according to what Jesus said, we're a slave to sin. And we're born into bondage to sin. And you know what the price is to buy us out of that marketplace? The purchase price is death. Roman 623 says it this way, for the wages of sin is death. The result, what we earn, what we deserve, the cost of sin is death. But then the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So what Jesus did when he died on the cross is he laid down the purchase price for you and for me. He paid the price of our sin death in our place, substituting his life for our life, buying our death for us so that we could be purchased out of that slave market of sin and set free from the bondage to sin and death so that we might serve him. That is what redemption is. What a blessing it is to know that you are redeemed, that you've been bought out of that slave market of sin. But if you'll notice, that verse not only tells us about redemption and by the very word gives us the meaning, it also tells us the means of redemption. How did it take place? Verse 7 says, in him we have redemption through his blood. Over and over again, the Scriptures make it clear that it is through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the means of redemption. That's the way it's accomplished through the blood of Christ. Just look at these verses real quickly. First Peter, chapter 1, verses 18 and 19. Before you know that it was not with perishable things, Peter says such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers. But with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect, Hebrews 9-12 says he did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves. But he entered the most holy place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. Romans 5-9. He says, since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? Colossians 1-20. And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Ephesians 2-13. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. And we could go on and on. There are all kinds of verses in the New Testament that talk about the fact our redemption, our salvation is through the blood of Jesus Christ. Now when the Bible talks about the blood of Christ being shed for our salvation, it's a reference to his death. But it carries with it all the Old Testament pictures of innocent animals whose blood was slain and life drained away through their blood so that people's sins in the Old Testament might be covered for a year at a time. And these verses tell us that Jesus, when He shed His blood, when He gave His life, when He died, only needed to die once for all. It was finished when He died. Sufficient payment was made for all of us to come to Christ. The redeemed through His blood, it's through His death on the cross that we are saved and redeemed. My friend, that is such a powerful and wonderful blessing. The blessing of redemption to know that you've been bought by the blood of Christ. It is such a wonderful blessing. It will be the theme of our song in eternity. Forever and ever we will sing about that. Revelation chapter 5, verse 9 tells us this. It says, and they sang a new song to Jesus who is on the throne. And this is what we sing to Him. You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, talking about the title deed to the earth because you were slain and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people in nation. We will sing that song forever about the blood of Jesus who was shed, which was shed for our sins. The Savior who died for us, we are redeemed through His blood, bought out of the slave market of sin, made His own possession and then set free from the bondage to sin to serve Him. Redeemed, the blessing of redemption, but then there's the blessing of forgiveness as well. Look at what verse 7 says. 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. We are forgiven, not only redeemed, we are also forgiven, we have the blessing of forgiveness. In His commentary on Ephesians John, MacArthur says, this is the dearest blessing to those who have experienced it. And it really is, if you've experienced forgiveness, you know that this is the dearest blessing of all. What does it mean to be forgiven? The Bible says here we have the forgiveness of sins. The word for forgiveness is a word which literally means to send away or to put away. So when our sins are forgiven, it's meant that they are sent away and put away. How beautifully that was pictured in the Old Testament sacrifice on the day of atonement. One day every year on the day of atonement, Yom Kapoor which is coming up, I think the end of this week in the Jewish calendar, day of atonement. One day a year the high priest would take two goats. The first goat, he would drain its blood by slitting its throat. The blood would be gathered and taken into the most holy place and sprinkled on the mercy seat which contained the law of God that condemned men for their sin. And that blood on the covering over the mercy seat, over the altar there, that blood demonstrated the fact that the people's sins were forgiven for a year. It was only done through the blood of the sacrifice, but that was the first goat. The second goat, the high priest would then go out, put his hands on the head of that goat and he would symbolically confess the sins of the nation and through that symbol transfer their sins to that living goat. And that second living goat that symbolically had all the sins of Israel that have just been covered by blood, symbolically had all those sins on its head, that goat would be taken far out into the wilderness. So far away it could never find its way back to where the Israelites were camped around the Tabernacle. And their sins were sent away, put away where they would never come back to condemn them. That's what forgiveness means my friend. It means that when you receive Jesus as your Savior no matter what you've done in your past, no matter what kind of lifestyle you've lived, no matter what sin you've committed, it's taken care of by the blood of Christ and by Jesus' death it is also sent away, put away where it will never come back to condemn you again. That's what forgiveness really is. Chuck Colson in one of his books tells the gripping story about Albert Spear. Albert Spear was one of the henchmen of Adolf Hitler. The guy who actually ran his factories and kept the German war machine going. Spear was the only one of the 24 defendants at the trials of Nuremberg who actually admitted his guilt. And he spent 20 years in a spandale prison for his war crimes. But Colson was watching ABC News, Morning News, Good Morning America that morning. And the interviewer was interviewing Spear. Spear had just written a book about his experiences and really trying to gain forgiveness really was what he was doing. Colson said he watched the interviewer as she asked him these questions. She said you have said the guilt can never be forgiven or shouldn't be. Do you still feel that way? And Colson said I will never forget the look on Spear's face when he answered. He said I served a sentence of 20 years. And I could say I'm a free man. My conscience has been cleared by serving the whole time of punishment. But I can't get rid of it. This new book, the book they were talking about on the show that morning, this new book is part of my atoning, my clearing, my conscience. The interviewer kept pressing the question. You don't really think you'll be able to clear it totally and Spear dropped his eyes and shook his head and he said these words. I don't think it will be possible. You know there may be someone in this room living that way today thinking because of something in your past, some way that you've lived that maybe others don't know about or some sin you've committed, it can never be made right. It can never be forgiven. I'm here to tell you this morning, my friend, that God is willing to forgive you. He is willing to cover, take away your sins and put them so far away they will never come back to condemn you. That's the blessing of forgiveness. But I want you to see, there's more to it than that in verses 7 and 8. The measure of forgiveness is described for us here. Not only the fact is forgiveness, the meaning of it, but the measure of it. It says the forgiveness of sins into verse 7 in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. In other words, God's forgiveness, Christ's blood taking away our sins and taking it so far away from us, putting it so far we can never come back to condemn us. That is given to us in accordance with His grace that He is lavishes on us. He spreads it on thick. Now there's a difference in doing something in accordance with grace and doing something out of grace. For instance, if you went to a millionaire and you asked that person to contribute to a worthy cause and that millionaire wrote you out a check of $25, they would be giving out of their wealth. If, however, that millionaire were to write you a check for $50,000, he would be giving in accordance with his wealth. Now Jesus does not forgive us out of His grace. He forgives us in accordance with His grace. His forgiveness is measured only by His grace, which means it is unlimited. The Bible says here, He lavishes it on us. He's over generous with us, if you will. He is not stingy with His grace and His forgiveness. He's not in decisive, trying to figure out, I don't know if I should forgive them or not. Oh, He lavishes on us the grace of forgiveness. I read about a young 18-year-old boy by the name of Scott Terrell. We got drunk one night, hit a young lady with his automobile and killed her. And in the trial, the family sued Scott Terrell for $1.1 million in damages. And certainly that would be an awful, awful thing to have happen in your family. But when the penalty phase of the trial came and they were going to establish the damages, the family said we want to drop the $1.1 million. Our honor, we would like to ask you to impose a fine of $936, $1 for every week that their daughter had lived. And this is what we'd like to ask you to do. And this is what the judge decided to do. The judge said, to this young man, Scott, he said, you will each week for the next 18 years mail $1 to this family. For 18 years, every week, hand address the envelope, make it out to the young lady's name, care of her parents, send $1 every week to that family. Over the next few years, there were three times where Scott did not write that check and did not send it each time he was put in prison for a few days. And when he was asked why, he didn't just send it. He said, I can't stand this. Every time I write her name, every time I write that check, send that $1. Her face is in my mind. I can't stand this anymore. Aren't you glad God doesn't forgive that way? Aren't you glad that when God forgives us, He lavishes His unlimited grace on us. And He says, you don't owe me. I'm not requiring anything. I'm not going to make you grieve in this or be reminded of it every day. It is gone. It is wiped off the record books. It is so far away it will never condemn you again. You are completely fully, finally forgiven. There is no greater blessing than that. The blessing of forgiveness. But there's more in these spiritual riches versus 9 through 11. Tell us of the blessing of understanding. The blessing of understanding. Look at what he says there in verse 9. Verse 8, he's finished up by talking about God's wisdom and understanding. And that leads him right into, to say this in verse 9. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ. So God has made known to us the mystery of his will. Maybe we know the will of God. I thought that's what we were supposed to pray for. And that's a little different here. This is not seeking the will of God for your personal life. We know He has made known to us His will. And the sense of the mystery of his will. Now the mystery here is not some, you know, Agatha, Christie, Thriller, some TV program. He can't figure out what's happening till the very end. It's not something eerie. Mystery is something that could never be discovered by human reason only by revelation from God. Only as God reveals it in His word would we ever know this. And you know what? Because we're in His family, we've been redeemed, we've been forgiven. There are some things we know that the world doesn't know. And Paul lists three of them. Let's look at them real quickly. Verse nine, the first one is that we know the future. We have an understanding of the future. He says we know the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Christ. Verse 10, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. Now this phrase, the fulfillment of times in the New Testament refers to when Christ returns to set things straight. Man's times are fulfilled and Christ sets up His kingdom. Let's talk about the second coming of Christ. So whatever this mystery, this future is, it's all going to come into effect when Christ comes back and sets up His kingdom. Well what is this future mystery plan that we know about in the verse 10? Here it is. To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. It's an interesting verb to bring all things together as one word in the original language which means to add a column of figures. That's the way it was used in New Testament times. It's an accounting term. To add a column of figures. What He's saying is that when Jesus comes back, everything's going to add up right. Everything's going to be made right. All the chaos that we see in our world today, it's all going to be straightened out. It's all going to add up just right. So you know what? That ought to do something for you when you watch the evening news. The world watches the evening news and they're ringing their hands in despair. How in the world is this Middle East thing ever going to come out? This just looks like it'll never, never be straightened out. What's going to happen in Iraq? Are we ever going to be able to get out of there? What's going to happen with terrorism? Will we ever feel safe in our country again? And on and on, the bad news goes. And people look at that and if you're not careful, we can do the same thing. You can get all bent out of shape about that and all in despair about the chaos in our world. But wait a second. We know how it ends. We know the end of the story and we know that someday Jesus is coming back and the Bible tells us things are going to get worse and worse until that time because the stage is just being set for the Antichrist to come. And chaos on planet earth will be like never before then. It's all getting set up for that. But we know how it ends. We have some knowledge the world doesn't have. We know the mystery of His will that when Jesus comes back, all the figures are going to add up just right. It's all going to be just right. And that ought to be able to, that ought to help you to lay your head down at night on your pillow and not worry about what's happening in this world. So we have knowledge of the future. Secondly, we have a knowledge of His sovereignty, verse 11. Sovereignity simply means God is still in control, is still ruling, He's in charge of everything. Verse 11, 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. Now He mentions us being chosen and predestined again, talked about that last week. But this time in verse 11, it's in a bigger context of the overall plan of God. And so really the thrust of verse 11 is this overall plan of God who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will. Now basically what that's saying is human history is moving exactly according to His timetable toward the plan He has for finishing it up. So you don't need to worry about that. Human history is in God's hands. History is not being run by the plans of men. History is not being run by the devious plans of Satan. It is being run by the plan of Him who works all things, everything after the counsel of His own will. That's the one who has control of everything. Now sometimes we look at a little slice of history we're living in and we can't see it. But think back at the chaos that was on this earth 200 years ago or 500 years ago or pick any slice of history and you'll find things in chaos. But it's all moving, it's all moving exactly according to God's plan for the fulfillment of man's time on earth which will bring utter chaos and then Jesus will come back and sit everything straight. God's in control. He's sovereign over everything. So again, let your head and your pillow at night sleep because God's in control. We know something the world doesn't know. We know the sovereignty of God. Third thing we know is we know our purpose. And all the world doesn't know this. The world is searching for purpose. But we know our purpose, verse 12. Here it is, in order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory. The whole purpose for your life and mine is that we might glorify God. And say, okay, we hear that a lot. What does that mean? Glorify God. It simply means that through our life people would be able to see and God would make known how great and majestic and powerful and wonderful and gracious and kind and tender everything God looks like. Might be exhibited in us. And God, since He has saved us, has set us on a chart of growth so that we're becoming more like Him and someday when we get to heaven and we're perfected in all our warrants and rough edges are knocked off, then we will be like Him. And we will be to the praise of His glory. Then it will be seen what God intended man to be. That's our purpose in life. The world doesn't know that. The world thinks making money, getting nice stuff, getting all you can get, climbing over anybody you need to get there. That's the purpose in life. That's not it. That's not it. The purpose is to show this world what God is like, to glorify Him. So we know that. The world doesn't. The blessing of some understanding and knowledge that we have of the future of God's sovereignty of His purpose and our purpose in Him. But that's not all either. Verse 13 tells us another blessing we have. And it's the blessing of sealing. I'm not talking about your driveway here. You can talk about a different kind of sealing. Look what He says in verse 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. Now the person of the seal is very clearly revealed to us in verse 13. The person who does the sealing here or is the seal is the Holy Spirit. Now here's what happens, friend. When you get saved, when you trust the Lord Jesus as your Savior and you come into the family of God at that moment, the Holy Spirit comes to indowell you, to live within you, to maintain and abiding presence with you forever. Bible talks about that very clearly. First Corinthians, chapter 6, and verse 19 says, what, no you not or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God. You're not your own. The Bible speaks of this indwelling of the Spirit so strong that it says in Romans chapter 8 and verse 9, you have or are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit if the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. So that leads us to believe and understand if you know Christ, you have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is indwelling you. Now the moment He comes to indowell you, He also becomes a seal, a seal. It's the person with the seal. The purpose of the seal is really found in the symbol itself. You see in Bible times, government officials would seal documents, letters, contracts, official documents that would be scrolled, you know, rolled up. They would seal the edge of that with hot wax that would be allowed to drive. But before it was allowed to drive, they would put the insignia of their ring, impress it in that hot wax, then it would harden with the seal of the Roman governor or emperor king, wherever it was. That was a seal. Now that seal is the kind of thing He's talking about here. The Holy Spirit is God's seal on us. Now in Bible times, an official seal of a document did several things. First of all, it showed the transaction was finished. Whatever is being dealt with in this document is finished. Nothing can be added to it. It's rolled up, it's sealed, it's done. And you know what? God is saying, when He gives you the Holy Spirit at the moment you trust Christ, your salvation is sealed. It is a finished transaction. Nothing else can be added to it. Nothing can be taken away from it. It is done. You are just as good as already in heaven. That's what Paul means when he says in Romans 8, you're already justified, you're already glorified. I mean, you're already there. As good as there. It's done. Friend, when will we ever learn? We cannot do anything to add to our salvation. You can't keep your salvation, you can't earn it, you can't do anything to make it better, you can't do anything by taking communion or some active obedience or sacrifice that will make your salvation any more certain. Your salvation was a finished transaction the moment you trusted Jesus as your Savior. And the seal, the Holy Spirit coming in was God's seal that the transaction was finished. The seal showed ownership. That insignia of that ring showed who that document belonged to, who it came from, showed ownership. And when God saves you, when the Holy Spirit comes to live within you, he is God's mark on you. God has marked you with this spirit as being His. Remember that verse that we just read? Holy Spirit who is in you and you are not your own. You've been bought with a price. See, you belong to God now. And you know, God marking us with His Holy Spirit. We understand that because now, when you sin after you've trusted Jesus as your Savior, you don't feel the same way you did before you got saved. You feel some conviction, some sorrow, that's the work of the Holy Spirit. That's the mark that you belong to God now. So finished transactions, some mark of ownership, thirdly a seal and Bible times was a mark of security. You couldn't tamper with that document without breaking the seal. And if the seal was broken, everybody knew the document possibly had been tampered with. Be an interesting study for you sometime, just to study this whole concept of the seal throughout the Bible. Documents were not the only thing that were sealed to keep them secure. When Daniel was thrown into a lion's den, the cover was sealed, the Bible says, so that nobody could tamper with it through the night. It would remain secure. He would be in there when Jesus was placed in the tomb after His death. The Bible says the Roman soldiers sealed the stone. Stone that rolled over the door, the opening, they put some hot wax on that stone, hot wax on the face of the rock and tied it together with a rope, we know from customs of the day. And anyone who moved that stone would break that seal, anyone could tell the grave had been tampered with. You know, the idea of a seal throughout the Bible is a very interesting concept. And what God is telling us, the Holy Spirit is our seal in the sense that you are secure. Nobody can tamper with your salvation, nobody can do anything to it, not even the devil himself can take away your salvation. You are secure in Christ because you have a seal, the Holy Spirit. So the blessing of sealing is a wonderful blessing, but that's not all. Quickly, just look at the blessing of inheritance in verse 14. The blessing of the Holy Spirit says in verse 14, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of His glory? Now He says three things in that verse about this inheritance. First of all, He talks about the inheritance. He says we have an inheritance, our inheritance. Now the inheritance, what we've inherited is talking about these spiritual blessings and everything else God gives us. We have peace, we have love, grace, wisdom, eternal life, joy, strength, victory, fellowship with God, honor, honor, honor, we go. Redemption, all the things we've seen today. All of that is a part of our inheritance. Now we receive that now, but we don't receive the fullness of that inheritance until we get to heaven. That's where the inheritance is given in full, according to 2 Peter chapter 1 and verses 3 and 4, 1 Peter chapter 1. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and His great mercy. He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you. The fullness of that inheritance comes when we get to heaven. But God says, I want to give you a little down payment of that inheritance. I want to give you a deposit. The deposit is the Holy Spirit, according to verse 14. He's a deposit of our inheritance. Now a deposit in Bible times is the same thing it is today. You go by a house, they're going to ask you to put down a down payment, right? And so you put down a down payment and the down payment is the promise that there's more to come, a lot more to come. That's the promise, the down payment. Did you know that's exactly what God's saying here? The presence of the Holy Spirit in your life is His down payment, just a deposit, just giving us a little glimpse, a little foretaste of what's to come when we get the full inheritance in heaven. And the fulfillment of this inheritance is when we get to heaven. I want you to think about this. I want you to think about this for just a moment. God has given us this wonderful inheritance. We won't receive it fully, understand it, enjoy it fully till we get to heaven because we're so messed up here. We still got the sin nature and all. And sometimes we don't really understand all God's giving us. But when we get there, we'll know it fully. The Holy Spirit is just a little down payment of that. So I want you to think for a moment about the most blessed and refreshing times you've ever had where you sense that the Holy Spirit was working in your life. Remember the time when you fully understood for the first time you were forgiven by God's grace? Bible says the Holy Spirit was witnessing with your spirit that you were a child of God. That's only a little foretaste of what it's going to be like in heaven. That's just a down payment of the full inheritance we'll receive in heaven. There have been some times in your life where you've been worshiping God. And during that time of worship, you were so overcome with awe and wonder at the greatness of God and His holiness and His mercy and grace and saving you that you just choked up and you couldn't sing anymore. That's just a little foretaste of what it's going to be like in heaven. You have you had some times in your life when your sense that the Holy Spirit was actually using you, you could sense that His power was actually working through you to do something in some ministry to someone else for someone else. You ever sense that? That's only a little glimpse of what it will be like in heaven to serve Him fully without restraint. If you ever had times in your life when you just caught a little glimpse of the fact that you know really the fruit of the Spirit is beginning to take over some areas of my life where I used to respond fleshly. I find myself being a little more patient now, a little more loving, a little more joyful. That's just a little glimpse, a little down payment of what it's going to be like in heaven. And when we get there, we get the full inheritance. All of that blessing and the full understanding and sense of it will be ours in heaven. We've just got a little down payment right now. And the most blessed experiences spiritually you will ever have on planet earth is just a minuscule promise of what it will be like there. Think of your first five minutes of understanding all of that in heaven. And then think of your first hour in the first week, in the first month, in the first year and the first thousand years. And it will never end of enjoying and experiencing the inheritance that is ours. We just have a little down payment of it right now. And you know, I don't think it's any mistake that four times in these verses beginning in verse three, four times Paul says to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory. My friend of seeing these blessings doesn't make you want to praise God. I wonder if you're even saved, wonder if you even know him because the only way to respond to all of these blessings is to simply say, oh God, to the praise of your glory, praise you. You are so good. You are so good to me in prayer. Father like the old gospel song says many times, the day seems long, our trials seem hard to bear. We're tempted to complain to murmur and despair, but Christ will soon appear to catch his bride away. All tears forever over in God's eternal day. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Thank you, Father. And even though we can relish these blessings here, we cannot fully understand them till we get there. What we experience now is just a glimpse. We praise you. And Father, we ask you if there's anyone here that does not know Jesus that today would be the day when they're willing to trust Christ as their Savior, be delivered from the bondage to sin and come to know Christ. It's in his name we pray. Amen.