Ephesians: Finding our Identity in Christ
Ephesians 1:11-14 (Part 4)
Putting it All Together
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
2-22–2026
I hope you have enjoyed watching the Olympics these past weeks. We have seen multiple born-again Christians give glory to God, whether they won gold medals or not.
The women’s Olympic hockey team won the gold in their overtime victory over Canada.
One of their young stars is named Joy Dunne. After the game, this is what she said to reporters:
“At the end of the day, I’m just a girl that loves Jesus and happens to play hockey. My identity is in Him, not in the game.”
Can you say that as well? That your identity is in Jesus, not your bank account, or accomplishments, or family, or relationships?
Counting our Blessings
Over these past few weeks, we have been counting our blessings that are found in Ephesians 1.
So far, we have learned that in Christ, we have been
blessed with every spiritual blessing
Chosen before the foundation of the world
Predestined to adoption as children and heirs of God
Loved extravagantly and unconditionally
Redeemed by his blood
Forgiven of our sins
Lavished with amazing grace
Given wisdom and insight to understand God’s plans
An inheritance that will never perish
The ability to understand and respond to the Gospel
Professor and pastor Jason DeRoucie puts it this way:
“One evidence that you are redeemed is that you have personally experienced God’s curse-overcoming, universe-reconciling work in Jesus. You’ve seen that Christ is King; you’ve embraced that he is the only Savior; you’ve repented of your sins, have surrendered to him as Lord, and have joyfully affirmed that you are now part of his mission of reconciling the world to God.”
Is this you? Do you understand that you were hopeless, helpless and hell bound but God, in His amazing grace, saved you, rescued you, chose you, adopted you, and redeemed you?
I picture the pastor at the Ephesus reading this letter to the congregation. Can you imagine the tears? The loud amens?
Maybe he even had to stop reading to wipe tears away. Or maybe they just broke into spontaneous praises and worship for what God had done for them?
This morning, we are going to finish this section with the greatest blessing of them all:
The promised Holy Spirit as a seal and guarantee of our inheritance
Please turn with me to Ephesians 1.
Who the Holy Spirit Isn’t!
I want to take some time this morning and really try to help you understand who the Holy Spirit is. Oftentimes, especially in more conservative churches, He does get enough press and that’s why Francis Chan calls Him the “Forgotten God.”
Let’s start with what the Holy Spirit isn’t.
The Holy Spirit is not an “it.” The Holy Spirit is always portrayed as a “Person” in Scripture and is assigned a masculine personal pronoun, “He.”
The Holy Spirit is not a ghost. When the King James Version was written, the words “ghost” and “spirit” were interchangeable. In our day of ghost hunters and ghost movies that even scare adults, using the word “ghost” is not the best term to use, especially with children. The Holy Spirit is not Casper.
Also, my generation and the generations after me, have been affected, consciously or otherwise, by the teachings of a little green Jedi knight named Yoda.
The Holy Spirit is not a “force.” Actually, this is very close to what Jehovah’s Witnesses teach. The Holy Spirit is not something to be controlled (“use the force, Luke) and He does not have a “dark side.”
If the Holy Spirit is not an “it,” a “ghost,” or a “force,” just who is He?
Who is that Masked Man?
He is God
The Bible clearly teaches that the Holy Spirit is God, the third Person of the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equally God in power and authority. The Holy Spirit is God’s presence on earth.
We see this in Peter’s quest to Ananias:
“Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” (Acts 5:3-4)
2. He is holy and eternal.
Paul writes in Romans that Jesus, through the “Spirit of Holiness,” was “declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead.” (Romans 1:4)
The writer of Hebrews tell us that the Holy Spirit is eternal:
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9:14)
3. He has the “omnis”
Omnipotent (All powerful):
“This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” (Zechariah 4:6)
Omnipresent (Everywhere Present):
“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” (Psalm 139:7-10)
Omniscient (All Knowing):
“The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” (I Corinthians 2:10)
4. He is a Personal Being
The Holy Spirit is a Personal being. How do we know that? Because He has:
His own mind and prays for us
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)
Emotions
The Holy Spirit can be obeyed and resisted.
In Ephesians, Paul challenged the believers:
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30)
The word “grieve” means “great sorrow.” You can only truly grieve someone who cares deeply for you.
How can we grieve the Holy Spirit? By willful disobedience, apathy toward His Word and ways, lust, bitterness, anger, lying, disunity, gossip, and other sins.
What do these all have in common? They are sins. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit. What happens when we grieve the Holy Spirit? We lose our joy, confidence and peace. The Holy Spirit stops His work and waits for us to repent.
Notice the Spirit is not angry but grieved.
It’s been said that if we truly cared about grieving the Holy Spirit, there would be significantly less church splits and disunity.
There is one more word we need to look at before we move on:
“Do not quench the Holy Spirit: do not treat prophesies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.” (I Thes 5:19)
The Holy Spirit is compared to fire. You can throw water on the fire of the Spirit and limit His power within our lives.
Again, sin is the agent by which we quench the Spirit and repentance is the way we reignite His power in our lives.
Job Description
Let’s look at the Spirit’s job description:
Slams us with the frying pan of conviction
“When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.” (John 16:8-11)
Maxine calls this “frying pan theology.” We see three jobs of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of guilt in regards to “sin, righteousness and judgment.”
The word convict means to “bring to light or expose.” The Holy Spirit is Christ’s prosecuting advocate on earth.
It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict people of their sinfulness. There is absolutely no sense in trying to argue someone into the kingdom of God. Without the Holy Spirit moving in them, they are not going to understand their need for salvation.
Remember Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:
“But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)
A.W. Tozer writes: “the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to restore the lost soul to intimate fellowship with God.”
The Holy Spirit provides with the antennae to hear the Gospel and respond to it:
“…he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior…” (Titus 3:5-6)
There is no conversion without conviction. That’s why there are so many people out there who think they are Christians simply because they prayed someone else’s prayer, or walked an aisle or got baptized.
Until you understand that you haven’t just broken God’s rules, but that you have broken God’s heart, you will not confess and repent of your sins.
2. The Holy Spirit is also said to convince us of righteousness.
Our response to righteousness is obedience to His Words and ways, what Paul calls “walking in the Spirit” in Galatians 5. When we get off the path, the Holy Spirit will start to whisper in our ears. If we don’t listen, He will get louder. If we ignore Him still, He will bring out the frying pan and whack us upside the head.
It’s always interesting to me when people say that “I looked right at them the whole time I was preaching.” I intentionally do no stare at anyone while preaching, except for my beautiful wife. Many times, that’s a sign that the Holy Spirit was speaking through the message.
3. The Holy Spirit is also said to help us understand judgment. There is a heaven and a hell and it is the Holy Spirit that helps us to understand that everyone will live forever in one place or another.
Provides Comfort
Jesus called the Holy Spirit the “counselor.” The word doesn’t translate well into English but it’s basic meaning is to “come alongside of.” He is the advisor, the encourager, the coach, the teacher.
“But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you have everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26)
That’s what the Holy Spirit is for us. We have a counselor who is ready, willing and able to listen to us at any time. He will remind you of Jesus’s words and teach you what you need to know.
I’ve mentioned before that Maxine and I lost a student from our youth group in Mississippi to a car wreck. She was 16 years old.
When I was at Leeane’s visitation, one of her good friends completely broke down. He just totally lost it. Several students and I surrounded him and prayed for him.
Something happened during that prayer that I still don’t understand. Several students said that they felt the same thing but also had trouble describing it. It is if the Holy Spirit surrounded us and wrap us in a bubble of peace. His presence was so real that we were all deeply moved. To this day, I’ve never experienced anything like it.
When we do not even know what to say to God, what our heart are crushed, the Spirit prays for us:
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” (Romans 8:26)
In the midst of our sorrow and pain, God is not on vacation. He its “close to the broken-hearted and to those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)
Illuminates Us
Without the Holy Spirit it is impossible to really understand the Bible:
“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (I Corinthians 2:14)
When I lived in North Carolina, I worked at a Christian school. One of my fellow coworkers was not a Christian, and was into a lot of weird things like smoking peyote.
I tried to share the Gospel with her but she said something that I’ve never forgotten:
“Jeff, you could read out of that book for a thousand years, all I hear is Charlie Brown’s teacher.”
Without the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds, there is no understanding.
This does not mean that I would discourage a non-christian from reading the Bible because it is the power of God. I love the Eugene Petersen paraphrases Isaiah 55:11:
“So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They will do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I give them.” (Isaiah 55:11)
We need to be praying that the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the ones who hears the Scriptures.
Refills Us
Once, during the Rose Bowl parade, a float sputtered to a stop holding up the parade for some time. The problem? It had run out of gas. And what company sponsored that float? The Standard Oil Company!
In our Christian walk, we are going to need some refilling from time to time.
When you are born again, you are baptized with the Holy Spirit. This is the very Spirit of God coming to live inside of a believer.
It is a onetime accordance, an universal gift to all believers.
There has been so much confusion about the Holy Spirit. In churches like ours, I fear that we may be afraid of the Spirit’s work.
What if something extraordinary happened today? What if the Spirit moved a group of you to come forward and get on your knees and cry out to God? What if we just kept worshipping and people kept coming, confessing their sins and praising God? What if was noon, then 1:00 pm, then 2:00 pm?
Would you be irritated? Would you leave in a huff?
I’ve actually experienced church services in which the Spirit moved in extraordinary ways. It was amazing.
The confusion is also sad because Paul makes it clear that the baptism of the Spirit leads to unity in the Body of Christ:
“For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” (I Corinthians 12:13)
R.C. Sproul writes that this filling refers to “being equipped or empowered by God’s Spirit to carry out the task that Jesus has given the church.”
A word picture might help. Imagine a beautiful stream bubbling down a mountain side. Now imagine that stream full of rocks that are stopping up the flow. How do you solve that problem? You’ve got to take the rocks out to let the water flow freely again.
We do that by repenting and confessing our sins - the “rocks” which dams up the Spirit’s power.
I’ve had people tell me that I need more of the Holy Spirit. That’s not what Scripture teaches. The Holy Spirit needs more of me.
Putting it all Together
When Goose comes to our house, we want to limit the time in front of screens. Maxine and Danette have built a craft table with everything a creative little girl could want to make cards and art.
We also do a puzzle together. This month’s puzzle is crazy hard and it’s taken a while to get it put together. If you like puzzles, you know the feeling of finding a piece that fits another and then another and then connecting it to another section.
The Sealing of the Spirit
That brings us to the last verse of the section we have been studying.
“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, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”
The Sealing of the Spirit.
Paul tells is that when we believed, when we put our faith and trust in Jesus’s death on the cross, in our place, to pay for our sins, we are marked in Him with a seal.
In that culture, a seal was used to show authenticity and ownership. The seals were used on cattle and even slaves to protect from theft.
Also, a king would use a signet ring to seal a document. And once the document was sealed with the ring’s image in clay, it could not be undone.
Of course, all of these examples are outward. The sealing of the Spirit is in the hearts of believers.
This is amazing in several ways.
Once you are sealed with the Holy Spirit, once the Holy Spirit invades your heart and life, our lives begin to change.
This is the caterpillar to butterfly effect. We are made creations by the Holy Spirit.
Once God has placed His seal on your heart, He will not take it away. The Holy Spirit takes up permeant residence in your life. You cannot lose your salvation. God has sealed you and that seal cannot be undone.
When people tell me they used to be a Christian, I always respond the same way - then you were never a Christian in the first place.
A butterfly cannot decide to revert back to a caterpillar. Once you are born again, your name is written in the Book of Life and God’s pencil doesn’t have an eraser.
The Promise of the Spirit.
In the Old Testament, we see the Holy Spirit come upon people to help them do what God wanted them to do. It was a temporary empowering.
But the prophets told of a day the Spirit would be sent permanently to reside in our heart.
Ezekiel wrote:
“God said: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
Joel, speaking of the Spirit, writes:
“And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.” (Joel 2:28-29)
Jesus promised the Spirit to His followers:
“But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:17)
This happened on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. Peter says:
“God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” (Acts 2:32-33)
What has been promised is now here. God is faithful to His promises.
The Guarantee of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our final inheritance. It is the down payment provided for the glory to come.
Paul writes in chapter 4 of Ephesians:
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30)
We live in the already / not yet. God has given us the Holy Spirit to guarantee that our future is so bight we need to wear shades.
There will be a day with faith turns to sight and we will be redeemed from this earthly body and become truly who we were always meant to be.
Praise Him!
Let’s end by looking at something repeated three times in these verses:
Verse 6: “…to the praise of His glorious grace”
Verse 12: “…for the praise of His glory.”
Verse 14: “…to the praise of His glory.”
If you understand everything that God has done for us, it leads to only one response - worship!
Tony Merida writes:
“God the Father has chosen us, God the Son has redeemed us, and God the Holy Spirit has assured us. Let us worship the Triune God. We were made for praise, and our hearts will only be satisfied when we give God the glory!”
