#15: The Spirit as Down Payment on Our Inheritance

I. Introduction A. In this sermon we will talk about what is perhaps the most wonderful thing of all about the Holy Spirit’s (HS) ministry. This truth has the potential of rearranging your whole world. B. People in this world have a sense that we’re not home. This is why man is incurably religious. 1. We can imagine a place which would truly be home. 2. And we try to make this world our home. (Though every utopian attempt has failed.) 3. But we all know this place is broken & needs fixing. And that mankind is broken & needs fixing. 4. The garden of Eden was not even home for Adam and Eve. That became clear as soon as God said, “Only from this tree do not eat or you will die.” a. If there is danger around, if there is the possibility of death, if there is uncertainty, if there is a conditional relationship with your Father, you are not at home. b. God made us to live in His Shalom: rest, peace, wholeness, well-being, prosperity, security. C. And yet, the message of this generation screams: There is no beyond! There is no one up there! There is no eternal hope! All we have is now and each other. 1. This is why Christianity looks increasingly irrelevant and out-of-touch in today’s world, and why those who emphasize this-worldly interests in the name of Christ are so popular today (e.g. the Prosperity Gospel). 2. This generation sees Christian talk about “a better life to come” as a way people fantasize in order to lift their own spirits, as a refusal to look at real life in the eye and deal with it, instead of just imagining something else in the future. They see it as a cop-out, a false hope. They see it as waiting for a happy future which will never come, instead of doing your best to be happy in the now. II. But God’s people do not put their faith in what others think. We trust in the word of our God, which has a very different message. A. It tells us that the Son of God came to this earth in human flesh and bore the punishment of our sin upon Himself on the cross. It tells us that He was raised from the dead and now sits at the right hand of our Father in heaven, from where He poured out His HS upon His church. B. It promises that a great day is coming when Christ will return and renew all things. There will be a new heavens and a new earth. We will receive new bodies in that great resurrection. And that will be our true and eternal home. Here is how Revelation 21:1-5 describes it: 1. “I saw a new heaven & a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away... And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.’ And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” (Cf. Rev.22:3-5) C. On that day we will have no more sin, no more pain, no more loss, no more confusion. The hope of Christianity is not in this world, but in that world to come. The message of Christianity is that there truly is a God, and He has promised to remake this world in glory, and that we must endure this world in the joy that there is this far greater world coming. D. This glorious home is our inheritance. Christ is preparing it (John 14:2-3) and when it is time, we will inherit it. This is the hope that fuels our lives every day: 1. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1Peter 1:3-5; Cf. Col.1:12; 3:24) E. But there are indications in the NT that this state is not just something future that we wait for but also something we taste even in our lives here on earth (Eph.2:1-7; Rom.6:3-11; Col.3:3). III. The Holy Spirit as down-payment on our inheritance A. This advance-showing of the glories of heaven, this taste-before-it’s-time, this glimpse of heaven before its great cosmic unveiling is the final, and in a sense the ultimate, ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers today. B. The Bible teaches us that through the Spirit’s work, we have already begun to participate in the reality of heaven. Just as a father might choose to give a piece of the inheritance to his child beforehand, so our heavenly Father has chosen to give us a portion of our inheritance before the great day of the consummation of our hope. C. The Bible tells us that this great work of God to create all things new begins not at the sound of the trumpet on the last day, but actually began at Pentecost when, by the power of His Holy Spirit, God created a new humanity, a new race of men, a new Israel, a new Jerusalem. D. And now at conversion, for each of us, this great work of creating all things new, this great transition into the state of final glory, begins. And the Spirit’s presence and work in our lives is God’s signal that this work of recreation has begun in the here and now, and also God’s guarantee that the rest of our inheritance is on its way. E. There are three main ways that the NT expresses this reality: 1. the Holy Spirit as guarantee, 2. the Holy Spirit as first fruits, and 3. the Holy Spirit as seal. IV. The Holy Spirit as guarantee A. Here are three verses which speak of the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of the things to come: 1. 2Cor. 5:5b “God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” 2. 2Cor. 1:22 “[God] who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” 3. Ephesians 1:13–14 “The promised Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.” B. The language being used in these verses is the language of the marketplace. A guarantee refers to a down payment, a pledge, a portion of the purchase price given in pledge that the rest of the payment is coming, it is your guarantee that the transaction will be completed. C. That’s part of who the HS is for us. His work in our lives, His joy in our hearts, His peace that passes understanding, His love compelling us, all the fruits of the Spirit, and all the effects of the Spirit’s ministry in our lives, though incomplete and imperfect are God’s guarantee that the rest of His promised inheritance is coming. V. The Holy Spirit as first fruits A. This the language of the farmer’s field. First fruits refers to the beginning of the harvest, the first harvested part of the crop. 1. In this image the last day is the great day of harvest (e.g. Matt.3:12; 13:36-43; Mark 4:29; Rev.14:14-19). 2. But we receive a little bit of the harvest now – ahead of time – to help us look forward to the full harvest at the end, when our bodies themselves will be redeemed: 3. “we ... who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:23) B. Today we groan within ourselves because we have only the beginning of the harvest, and we long for the rest as well. Even this groaning is the Spirit’s ministry in us – whereby He moves us to groan longingly for our full redemption on the last day. God has given His Spirit to us in order that He might produce in us a longing for the rest of our inheritance. Once we taste of the heavenly gift, we crave more of it. C. The present possession of the HS makes us certain we shall one day reap the fullness of the harvest. D. (By the way, Pentecost was the OT festival of first fruits, when the worshipers would offer the first fruits of their harvest to God. Now it has become the day of God offering His first fruits to us.) VI. The Holy Spirit as seal A. This is the language of designating ownership. In the first century when te NT was written, people who had significant possessions possessed a seal, by which an owner would put his mark of ownership upon his possessions, in much the same way as cattle are branded. 1. “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.” (2Cor.1:21-22) 2. “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph.1:13) 3. “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Eph.4:30; cf. Rev. 9:4) B. What does it means to be sealed? It means that this person has been set aside by God with His special seal to show that this one belongs to Him, and that He will return to get him. It is the equivalent of God’s name being put on something to designate that it is His. It is a mark of ownership. When God gives us His HS, when His Spirit begins to do His work in us (as we’ve been talking about), it is God’s mark upon His people, His signature, His sign that “this one is Mine, and no one can snatch him out of My hand.” VII. Conclusion A. You see, the Holy Spirit is more than just our Helper while we walk through this difficult life. The Holy Spirit is God’s sign of a much better life to come. 1. The Spirit’s work in us – a. giving us an appetite for the things of Christ, b. moving us to look to God as our daddy, c. transforming us into the image of Christ, d. creating in us a distaste for the things of the flesh, e. filling us with love for our brothers and sisters in Christ f. – this work is a precursor, a harbinger, a foretaste of a glorious existence that far outshines anything we could ever even imagine in this world. 2. Or, to put it another way, the work that will be done in us on that great day of the Lord — a. whereby we are made perfect and pure and completely joyful and perfectly loving, b. when all of our earthly imperfections fall away and we are transformed into a glorious bride prepared for Christ, clean and fully sanctified, holy and blameless, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing c. — this work has already begun! It’s already begun! 3. The work of God making all things new has already begun! We have already been partially resurrected! The new birth is the resurrection of our souls by the Holy Spirit’s power. And the process is continuing — by the Spirit’s work in us. And all this is a sign that the rest of the job will also be completed. B. That’s why “Christ in you” is “the hope of glory.” (Col.1:27) 1. We have already seen in our study of the Holy Spirit that Christ in us is synonymous with the Holy Spirit in us. So saying “Christ in you, the hope of glory” is the same as saying “the Holy Spirit in you, the hope of glory.” And glory here is a way of referring to heaven. So... the Holy Spirit in us is our hope of heaven! 2. It is the first taste of heaven! Having the Holy Spirit is the first step toward heaven, the first step toward that state of bliss and glory that God moves His people to long for with groanings deep within, the first step toward that state we were created to exist in, which is our fulfillment and our true home. C. There is a glorious home which awaits those who put their hope in Christ. And the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is the first little taste of that which is to come. There is a time coming when our whole lives will be lived in the Spirit, when we will be “of the Spirit” body and soul. And we anxiously await that day. But to help us await that day, God has given us a little taste of it now, so we might have hope and so we might long for the rest of it. D. The new age has already been initiated in the coming of God the Son and His Holy Spirit. The Christian life today is a life of anticipation. The state we live in is a short-term state. The new has begun, but hasn’t been completed. 1. The old is about to pass away but has not passed away yet. 2. The age to come is the age of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. 3. But that age has already begun in small measure. E. In a sense the future has broken in upon the present. The power of the future age (the Holy Spirit) has been introduced before the great day when the age to come comes. But even now some of the powers and blessings and privileges of that age have come upon us in the ministry of the HS. 1. When a person receives the Holy Spirit he becomes a participant in a new mode of existence, a mode of existence that really belongs to the future, and not to this present age. We have become partakers of “the powers of the age to come.” (Heb.6:5) 2. But what the Spirit gives to us now is only a foretaste of the far greater blessings which are to come. We live on the earth, but it’s as if we already have one foot in heaven. F. No longer can we treat this world as if it is our home. Our time left here is so short. And a whole new mode of existence is just around the corner. In fact, the first rumblings of it can already be felt, in the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. G. Has the HS been at work in your life? Has He regenerated you and given you new life? Has he been Your Helper? Has He led you to grasp how deep & high & wide & long is Christ’s love for you? Does He move you to cry out “Abba Father” to God? Has He given you a love for God’s word? 1. Then that is His seal on you that you are His. It is His guarantee that the rest of His riches are coming. It is a foretaste of the glories to come.