Beacon Sunday Service: November 3rd, 2024

I'm gonna just have us open with a reading of God's word, Titus chapter one, verses uh one to three. This should be a very familiar passage for you at this point. Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the full knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which the God who cannot lie promised from all eternity. But at the proper time manifested his word in preaching, with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior. Please remain standing as I ask the Lord's blessing and favor through prayer. Father, we ask that you would minister to us and in turn minister in and through us. And God remind us today of what a beautiful and amazing Savior that we serve.

Help us to long to be united with you and whatever affairs of this world, whatever entanglements that are causing us to dread your second coming. I pray that you would give us hearts that are eager and humble to turn away and to repent and to really cleave ourselves to Christ. Protect our time and feed our souls, awaken our minds, transform them and conform them so that we would think the way you would have us think. We pray for your blessing over just our fellowship together. We pray this in Jesus' name. Alright, go ahead and get seated. Oop, can I? Oop, sorry. So more than half of us in this room, I believe are married and presumably have once been engaged. And uh for even those of you guys who have never been engaged, I'm sure it's not too difficult to imagine that the engagement period can be a strange and a challenging time.

There's a degree of struggle and tension built into every engagement. The two fiancees are together, but they're not together. The two fiancees still need to function as two separate individuals while they busily prepare for a life of oneness. The two future life partners are growing in a knowledge of each other, but they're not yet technically or legally or spiritually partners. And so that knowledge of each other has to remain purposefully incomplete and separate. So the two individuals they desire so strongly and fully to be together, and that's actually a very good desire, but for all intents and purposes, there is still much need to do things separately. So, needless to say, the engagement period can be rough, and it's not always an easy course to navigate.

So, for those of you who are not married, who want to be engaged, expect it not to be simple. The engagement period is not easy, but it's important. It's very necessary. There are things to be planned for and prepared during the engagement. There's a lot of work to be done. A wedding ceremony and a party need to be planned. And if you skip the engagement, no guests are coming to your wedding. That is, if you're gonna even have a wedding at all. And as I mentioned in a previous sermon, one thing that all engaged couples have in common is this. Every engaged couple wants the engagement to end, they want it to be done, they don't want to plan a wedding anymore, they just want to be married. They sometimes even joke that they should just shortcut the process, go to Vegas, and elope.

I've heard that many times. Usually they're not serious. But they want the engagement to end, and this is even more so the case if the relationship is very healthy. If the relationship is strong and the engagement is good, the longing for the union is actually stronger. There isn't fear. Now, of course, the couple is gonna joyfully steward the engagement period, but they are so eager for it to just be finished. They're not scared of the end, and that desire for the engagement to end is not a morbid desire. It's actually a very good desire. It's an expected desire. It's an ideal desire. And the Christian life on this side of eternity is very similar to an engagement. A pledge has been made, but it hasn't yet been actualized or consummated.

The church now belongs to the Lord, but you're we're not quite yet with the Lord. The church has access to the bridegroom and her members are called to grow in the knowledge of him. But for now, that knowledge just is in part. It's incomplete and it's not yet in full. So just as much there is an already but not yet tension in an engagement period, the same is true of the Christian life. And I see many guiding principles in the book of Titus that parallel a premarital engagement. So the central figure in the book of Titus is the bridegroom Christ Jesus. His bride, the church, looks forward to the appearance and the return of the bridegroom. And the church, the bride of Christ, faithfully stewards this engagement period in which he finds herself.

And she purifies herself. She beautifies herself. She prepares her flasks of oil and her lamps, as it says in Matthew chapter 25. And that's the heartbeat of the book of Titus. Titus is a guidebook for the future bride of Christ, navigating her way through the present. It's a detailed guidebook giving detailed instructions on how she is to conduct herself while she waits. And you're gonna see this right smack in the middle of the letter in Titus chapter 2, verses 11 to 13. It reads, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, the future bride, that denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present engagement period, age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, our bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

And there's a bunch of stuff we can just glean from this passage. A pledge has been made in verse 11. You guys see that? Instructions for the engagement period have been given. Instructing us.

Blessing and glory, and literally a happily ever after, have been promised. It's been pledged. God's promised this, and God always makes good on his promises. So the epistle to Titus, it's an instructional letter on how a church is to be run. And the chapters to this epistle to Titus can be broken up into three different sections, like chapters out of an instructional manual. So there are three chapters of bridal instructions and bridal expectations of the church and of her members. Chapter one, the expected conduct of the church leaders. Chapter 2, the expected conduct of the church members. In whatever sphere of life you're in, whether you're an older man or an older woman, a younger man, a slave, whatever sphere, there's an expected conduct if you call yourself a Christian.

Chapter three, the expected conduct of the church with outsiders. Osiders ought to look at the church and say, wow, what a beautiful bride. Glory to the bridegroom. She is a spectacular trophy wife to be.

Her good works, chapter one, two, and three, are to be reflections of her good bridegroom to whom she has pledged to be married. So we just looked at the at the slide before this, Titus chapter 2, verses 11 to 13. But I'm gonna walk us through a verse that just comes right before that. It reads, urge slaves to be subject to their own masters in everything to be pleasing, not contradicting, not pilfering, but demonstrating all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior in everything. So this was the instruction given to Christian slaves. And there's a so that in there.

And every Hinna clause in the Greek is actually very, very important. It comes right after faith. You see it? So that so that the Hinnah clauses in the New Testament are usually very significant. So why ought slaves demonstrate all good faith in the side of their earthly masters? So that they may adorn cosmeto, the doctrine of God in everything. Now, the word for adorn in the Greek is the word cosmeto, and that's where we get the word cosmetics. Cosmetics are enhanced or are designed to enhance.

Okay? Good cosmetics enhance the beauty of the already beautiful, right? Disguises and masks cover and deceive. But cosmetics enhance. Masks conceal, but cosmetics highlight and they attract. So a beautiful woman, even without makeup is still very beautiful. But if you enhance her already existing beauty with cosmetics, she becomes glorious. You never see a bride on her wedding day without makeup, right? No matter how pretty or less pretty she may be. You never see that without the makeup. So it becomes glorious. And so she turns heads. So the gospel of God, the doctrine of God, in and of itself is a beautiful, perfect thing, but the elect of God, those who are the church of God, can make heads turn by the beauty of how they live their lives.

It's been said that Christians read Bibles to learn about God, and you guys have heard this, right? Non-Christians read Christians to learn about God. The things that are supposed to draw people to the church are not programs that appeal to the pleasures that appeal to the senses. It's not supposed to be the cutting-edge ideas that draw people into the church. It's not supposed to be a bait, like and uh just you're trying to lure them into the church by some kind of deception or a pretty website. That's not what's supposed to draw people to a church. What's supposed to draw people to the church are the lives and the speech of its people. We don't mask or pretend. We beautify and attract. So here's an important question that we're gonna be re-asking in future chapters, but it's appropriate to ask here.

In each of the spheres of your life, family relationships, work relationships, whatever it is, does your life, does your attitude, does your behavior, does your speech, cosmeto, the doctrine of God. The church is supposed to enhance the doctrine of God by her application. Hope you guys are tracking along with that. The elect of God are to faithfully sewer this engagement period well, and cosmeto, the already beautiful doctrine of our coming bridegroom. The bride is the glory and is the gift. It's the prize that the Father actually has prepared for the Son. We're gonna learn in a little bit.

Now at weddings today, all the attention is supposed to be on whom? The bride. Right? The centerpiece of every wedding today is the bride. And that song starts with, here comes the what? Bride. So that's the focus. The bride is at the center, but in the culture of the ancient Near East, everything was actually groom centered. So when you're looking through the scriptures, you have to understand, whenever we're talking about a marriage, we're not focused on the church. We're focused on the bridegroom. Okay? So the bride was presented as a gift to the groom or as a reward for the groom or a transactionary purchase for the groom in this areas where they have dowry and stuff. So if you're following that line of thought, the church exists for Jesus.

We've been created for God. We have been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God and not the other way around. And I've said that I think every week. But part of it is because it's to undo the subconscious thought that we have is that God exists to please me, not the case. We spent the entire month of October in verse 1 of Titus chapter 1. It's November now, and I figure it's a good time to go to the next verse. Alright. So we're finally at verse 2. And in verse 2, we'll be looking at the expectant hope of the bride of Christ. And then the glorious promises made by the bridegroom that will guarantee a truly happily ever after. At the end of verse 2. So and in verse 2, we're going to be looking at the expectant hope of the bride of Christ and the glorious promises made by the bridegroom.

Okay. And you're going to be like, why are we talking about engagement and wedding so much? Well, here we go. Just verse 2 reads, in the hope of eternal life, which the God who cannot lie promised from all eternity. So in verse 2, we have the mention of an engagement that's supposed to come to an end. Hope, by definition, ends when it is consummated or actualized. Right? Hope is supposed to end. And then we have a mention of a promise guaranteeing that the engagement will end, ushering in an eterness with the bridegroom, Jesus Christ. So here's a sermon outline for today of chapter one, verse 2. So in this verse, we're going to be touching on the subject of eternity and a life lived in this eternity.

So we don't talk about eternity much, but we're going to be doing that today because it's in the verse. Verse 2 is actually bookended by the words eternity. So it's important to start with eternity and then work backwards toward the application. So first, it's going to be helpful to define what eternity is. Second, because the only constant in this eternity is God, we're going to be looking at the God of this eternity. Third, we're going to be looking at this forever marriage, the life of the elect in this eternity with the eternal bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Fourthly, we're going to look at the pledge, the promise that has been made, and it's very significant. So we're going to be looking at that at the end, we're going to examine what all of this means for the period of hope that we live in right now as we wait that eternity, the engagement period.

Okay? So eternity, eternal God, eternal life, eternal promise, and a non-eternal temporary living hope.

The word for eternity is ionios. Okay, and it appears twice in this verse. So it comes out in what we call the genitive case. The genitive case is a possessive case. So for a proper noun, you'll find it translated and written with an apostrophe, like the friend of Peter, the son of Howard. So it's a it's a genitive case. But with improper nouns, it relates to a relationship or an association. So it almost feels like an adjective. So the word for eternity here appears twice next to both the words life and ages. Paul describes both a life eternal and an ages, plural eternal. A Zoe, eternal, promise before an ages, a kranos, a kranon, eternal. And the LSB translators just combine the words age is eternal into the word eternity.

Since age is eternal, it's a little redundant, it's like a redundant, it pretty much means the same thing. Okay? So first, what is eternity? According to the Thayer's Greek lexicon, the word ionios has the following meaning. Without beginning or end, that which has always been and always will be. You understand the definition? Okay? You probably don't. Okay? We understand the English, but the definition is like. So the word ionias does not mean future. Though from our limited vantage points, our finite vantage points, it feels like it's all future. The word ionias is synonymous to words like everlasting and forever. Okay. So it's nearly impossible for the human mind to fully grasp and conceptualize the word eternity.

Raise your hand if you can't fully grasp eternity. We actually, you don't need to raise your hand, but you all should raise your hand in your heads, right? It's like, yeah, it's hard to really imagine that. Because everything has to have a beginning or an end. So it's actually such a difficult word for us to grasp. It's rarely used as a noun in the Bible. So in the Bible, in the New Testament, there are 71 occurrences of the word ionias, but only four of those times, it's in the singular, pure like noun form. The word eternity in the New Testament is usually connected to other words. Okay, it's uh in the descriptive genitive form. So in Titus 1, 2, he says a life eternal and an age is eternal.

But here are some others. The Bible speaks of an eternal fire, an eternal punishment, an eternal sin, eternal dwellings, and eternal comfort, an eternal redemption, and an eternal weight of glory. Now, all of the things I just said are actually very difficult to imagine, difficult to conceptualize, and difficult to not think of something as future. Because remember, eternity means there's no beginning. So an eternal fire, what is that? It's a fire that has no beginning. Okay? You can't imagine it, but you understand what I'm trying to say, right? An eternal fire has no beginning. An eternal redemption. For those of us who have been eternally redeemed, you can't imagine it, but that's what it says.

No beginning, no end. So as you can see, in and of itself, the word eternity is very difficult to describe. And one of the only times the word ionios is used by itself is to basically say the opposite of not temporal, or it basically say not temporal. It's just not constrained to time, eternity. That's the only time it's used like that. 2 Corinthians 4.18, it's one of my favorite passages of the scriptures. I'll read it for you. Therefore, we do not lose heart. But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. I can kind of follow.

I can still follow. An eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. Okay, now I'm lost. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Now my mind is spinning. Can you guys uh conceptualize a decaying outer man? You can, right? How about a momentary affliction? Can you conceptualize that? I'm sure you can. I can visualize, obviously, seeing things and temporary things. But I can't conceptualize an eternal weight of glory, especially one that's far beyond all comparison. So there is no anchor point for my brain to fix on to. So the concept of eternity, it's supposed to be ungraspable and unfathomable.

Because this concept is difficult to grasp and fathom, there's never gonna be a longing for it in the natural man. Not wanting to die is natural. A desire to survive and be preserved is natural. But to long for and to be zealous for by an eternity by itself is not found in the natural man. It's like wanting to be married so that I don't have to be single anymore. That's a natural desire. But it's a desire for someone who has no spouse specifically in mind. I want to just be married. But when you have a target of your love, then there's a specific longing for that individual. Okay, hopefully you guys are tracking. You can't separate the concept of God from eternity, because the only constant in this thought of eternity is God.

Okay? The only anchor point for the word of for eternity is God. And so remember, by definition, eternity is without a beginning or without an end. It always has been, it always will be. God has no beginning. Amen. Well, you don't know what you're talking about, or you don't know what you're amending to, but we're remaining anyway. God has no beginning. Amen. God has no end. God, the great I am, he simply is. So that brings us to our second point. So who is God eternal? Who is this eternal God? Multiple times in the book of Revelation, we see God introducing himself in the following way. He read or he says, The one who is and who was and who is to come. Verse 8. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who was, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

What does that mean? He was and he will be.

But I'm gonna get to that later. Okay. He is not like us. God is holy, holy, holy. He is extremely other, other. So in the book of Exodus, we see God similarly introducing himself to and through Moses. It reads, then Moses said to God, Behold, I'm about to come to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they will say to me, What's his name? What shall I say to them? So basically, Moses is saying, How am I supposed to introduce you? They can't even see you.

And he said, Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you. You guys have all seen this before. God is the great I am. He is God eternal. He is creator, and one of the things that he has created is time. Time is a created thing. God created it. He exists outside of it. And that's why it says in passages like 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 8, with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years. I'm 46. I'm far from a thousand. I mean, any of you guys close to a thousand? No. I think you're all younger than me. Like I'm far from a thousand, but with the Lord, it's like a day. God is eternal, impossible for us to fully grasp and conceptualize. But you know what's really awesome? Our inability to grasp and our inability to conceptualize this is temporary.

One day we will be able to grasp and conceptualize, because the inability to understand eternity is going to end.

Now this sounds like very philosophical, but it's that's what it says in the Bible.

Whoa. John 3 1 to 3. Man, see how great a love the Father has pledged to us that we would be called children of God, and we are.

Moses asked to see God. God said what? Yes or no? No. Remember, Moses was a beloved friend of God. Moses spoke to God face to face. I don't know what that looked like at the time, but Moses spoke to God face to face. Actually, in the Hebrew, it says mouth to mouth. God says, with Moses, I speak mouth to mouth. It's a weird image. So I'm like, face to face is better. Okay. But Moses speaks to God, mouth to mouth, like an intimate friend. And that's Numbers chapter 12, verse 8. But even this intimate friend, can I see you? God said, no. Okay? Exodus 33, 18. Then Moses said, I pray you show me your glory. And he said, I myself will make all my goodness pass before you.

And I will proclaim the name of Yahweh, which is a very interesting construction. I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you, and I will be gracious to whom I'll be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion. But he said, You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live. So what God did was he took Moses, he hid him in a cleft of a rock. God allowed Moses to catch the backside of the passing glory. And even then, God had to cover that cleft of the rock with his hand. It says in verse 22. Okay, a couple verses later. All so that Moses won't die. So Moses, he's the humblest man on the face of the earth. And the funny thing is he wrote that about himself. Moses was the humblest man on the face of the earth.

But that's who he was. He can't even see the passing backside of the glory of God without the protective hand of God. So in mortal flesh, the elect of God cannot see him and live. But the mystery of mysteries is this, and this is what the scriptures say the elect will live eternally in the presence of this eternal God, eternally seeing him, eternally beholding him. Not just the passing backside, but we will fully behold his face.

We will see him as he is. We will see face to face. That causes me to be scared, and yet be so curious. I don't, I can't imagine what that is like, but that's what the scriptures say. First Corinthians 13, 12. For now we see in a mirror dimly, and back then mirrors weren't clean, they had no index. It was just like a reflection off of a spoon. Okay. Now we see in a mirror dimly. But then face to face. Now I know just in part, but then I will know fully, just as I've also been fully known. We will see God face to face. This too is a future indicative, meaning this too will also be fact. We will know this God fully and intimately.

Whoa.

We will know him as a lifelong best friend. Where we can almost predict what he's going to order at the restaurant. You know what he's gonna act like when the Dodgers won the world series. You feel I had to throw that in there because it just happened. I'm very excited. Okay. You will know God as a best friend. We will know him as a perfect father, and there is no fear or insecurity or like immaturity that blocks that knowledge. It's like an old man who's in his 70s, really loving and appreciating his good 90-year-old dead. You guys, you guys follow that? We will know him as a perfect father. We will know him intimately as a perfectly beloved and trusted spouse. Sometimes for us in our marriages, when we argue, we distance ourselves.

But this will be happily ever after, forever.

And that's the third point. Okay. John 17, 3. So some of us have a very silly image of eternal life. That it's just gonna be like, oh, like we just escape hell in a nice cold air-conditioned room on a hot summer day. It's like just streets of gold. I mean, the the writers or John in Revelation had to describe something with words, but I think it's like a he couldn't fully articulate what he saw. But John 17 3 says, eternal life is this, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent, and that's an intimate knowledge. So internal life, not internal life, eternal life is intimately knowing God and sharing in the glory of Jesus Christ. I will say this again. Eternal life is intimately knowing God and sharing in the glory of Jesus Christ.

So if you are of the left, you will fully know God. You will fully know Jesus Christ. You will fully share in the glory of Jesus Christ. You, a mortal creature, a sin corrupted and diseased human being, selfish as they come, foolish as they come. Yes, I'm pointing to all of you, foolish, silly, self-centered, wicked, deceitful, mortal flesh, will share in his glory. We've been made lower than the angels, but we will judge them, 1 Corinthians 6 3. We will be seated with Jesus. We're not just on the outside celebrating at his gates. We're actually sitting there with him. It's like the parades that just happen. It's not just you're on the sides clapping like an excited fan, you're there on the bus.

That is unfathomable. And this is pledged from before all eternity. So continuing on in Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17, I'm gonna skip down to verse 22. And this you kind of have to pay attention, okay? Because this is mind blowing if you really think about how this all works. The glory which you the Father have given me, the Son, I have given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one, I in them, you in me, that they may be perfect in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them, even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory, see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

So from the foundation of the world, the elect of God were prepared by God the Father as an eternal gift for God the Son and as a glorious bride. So Jesus here is praying that we would be united in oneness and to share in this perfect Trinitarian unity through him and with him. That's something to meditate on. That's a mystery.

And the more you think about it, the sillier it sounds.

And he raised us up with him and seated. Again, this is past tense. It's a completed action. Whoa. Okay. He seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Hina, so that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. God saved us to elevate to the level of sonship so that with Jesus He could pour out eternal blessings. For by grace you've been saved through faith. And this verse, modern church has minimized it to just escape hell. God has a wonderful plan for this life. Wow, what a joke. What we what the Bible says God has prepared for us is far greater than a lot of what churches are saying. Why people should believe in Jesus?

For by grace you've been saved through faith, and this isn't yourself, no work. It's a gift of God, not of work, so that no one may boast. So we will be seated with Jesus. We were seated with Christ, past completed action. Okay? Do you see that? That's a deliberate translation. It's a literal translation. And what awaits us beyond anything that I or anyone else or anyone has ever existed could even begin to create creatively imagine. Okay, pay attention to the words of the following verse. But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery. The wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages to what? Our glory. So is predestination a thing? Yes. It's hard to explain. It's a little offensive, but it's there.

Which none of the rulers of this age or the philosophers, nobody has understood it. Because if they had understood it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. But just as it is written, things which I has not seen, and ear has never once heard, and which have never entered the thought or the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him. There's a song, right? No eye has seen, no ear has it, no mind has ever conceived. You guys know that song.

If you're having a difficulty tracking, join the club. I am speaking about stuff that I cannot conceptualize. I has not seen it, ear has not heard it, no thought has ever entered into any single mind, any imaginative creative mind. What God has prepared in glory to our glory, when we're seated with the Lord of glory, it is not something that we can even think about. That's what God has prepared. And I believe that Paul got a glimpse of that. That's why he says in Philippians 1 23, to be with Christ, for me to live, or to die for me to live is just Jesus. And to die is gain. For me to depart and be with Jesus is very much far better in the original language. It's better by far.

That's what the NIV says. To be with Christ is very much far better. So Paul's excited.

And hopefully encourage us. But what we're gonna read is very, it's a small glimpse of what actually will happen. So here we go. Revelation 21, 3 to 6. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men. Whoa, he will dwell among men. Whoa! And they shall be his people. And God Himself, Emmanuel, will be among them, and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will no longer be any death. And that's the extreme, right? So obviously, no sadness, no corruption. There will no longer be any death. No longer be any mourning or crying or pain, embarrassment, shame, guilt. All of that has passed away. And he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.

And he says to John, write, for these words are faithful and true. And then he said to John, they are done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. So here's that I am, the great I am again, okay? I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. The elect of God. All will supernaturally thirst for this. Remember, the non-elect, natural man will never desire an eternity. They might want to escape hell. They might want to escape death. They might want to escape consequence. They will never desire to be with God. But if there is a desire, like, oh yeah, that sounds too good to be true, but I'm taking it as truth. I want that. That's evidence that God is hitting your heart to open your natural mind and eyes to make them supernatural to long for him.

I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without what cost. You don't have to earn this. It's a G word, right? Gift. Grace. Faith comes from hearing and believing the word of God. Amen. By faith, I'm gonna trust fully that everything that I just talked about today is gonna happen. I can't draw it out, I can't make it into a movie, but it's gonna happen. By faith, I'm gonna trust that I will be made like God. Not in the Satan deceiving Eve way, you will know knowledge, you'll be like God. Not like that, but I will share in his very character and his nature. By faith, I'm gonna trust that he has chosen me before the foundation of the world, that he has saved me, and that he will glorify me.

Remember the Orda Salutis? After death comes what? Glorification. And the mind boggling thing is that before he created time, he pledged that all of this would come to pass. So eternal God has made an eternal promise that the elect would inherit eternity with God. And he signed this unbreakable contract with the seal of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians chapter 1. In him, we also have been made an inheritance as a present for the bridegroom. You guys follow? Having been what? Predestined before the according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, with the result to the end that we Jews who have first hoped in Christ would be for the praise of his glory. In him, you also, non-Jews, after listening to the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance.

It's the unremovable rock. Okay? It's a sign, it's a chop. That's the pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory. When I read verse 14 alone, I think of my inheritance. Ooh, I get to get heaven. But when I actually read this in the context, who's the inheritance for? We are presented as a gift. So God has pledged. God has promised, he has proposed, if you will, from eternity past. Romans chapter 1, verse 2 says that it's promised and written down in the Holy Scriptures, okay, that He's gonna redeem a people for Himself. So God promised, and the evidence of this promise is the Holy Spirit tangibly working in the lives of the elect. The fact that I have chosen to be a pastor, something God has done.

The fact that you're here on your valuable Sunday morning time to give him worship is something that he has done, supernatural stuff. The Holy Spirit, who is fully God, the third person of the Trinity, remains with us and in us. And that presence of the Holy Spirit in you is a signature, it's an eternal signature on your heart. But it's not just a signature, it's a living signature that prays for you. That guides you into all truth, that covers you, and changes your DNA. Remember from last week? You start looking, feeling, sounding, and smelling like Jesus, and this cannot be stopped. We learned last week. The elect of God cannot look and feel and sound like Jesus.

And that was a promise that God said. And promises are never broken with God. Amen. You don't have to try to be Christ like.

Now, if you're like, cool, now I don't have to try anything. Oh, that's not a good sign. My salvation is in his hands. My sanctification is in his hands. And who is this God? He's a God who can't lie. The elect of God have received an eternal promise. We serve an eternal God who has promised us eternal life. We serve a God who cannot, does not lie. It's impossible for God to lie. Okay? So we see this as a description of God in Numbers 23, 19, 1 Samuel 15, 29, Hebrews 6, 19. God cannot, does not, will not lie. Okay. He does not lie. Paul wrote as a description in Titus chapter 1, verse 1 and 2. In the hope of eternal life, which the God who cannot lie promised from all eternity. That's what was chapter 1 verse 2.

In contrast to the Cretans, who are always liars. Almost like Californians are always liars. Americans are always liars. Pastors are often liars. In contrast to human liars, God can't lie. The devil always lies, John 8 44. God has never lied. Every word that comes out of the mouth of God is truth. It's eternal truth. God cannot lie. He does not lie. It's impossible for God to lie because He is holy, holy, holy, He is the way, the truth, and the life. And the God who always and eternally speaks truth, He initiated our relationship with Him and made a promise. Now, 2006, what is that? 18 years ago. I wrote a song called Could This Be the Day? And I proposed to Becky in that song. Super cringe.

Now if I look at it, I've never looked at it like really since until this week, and I was like, oh my goodness, right? So one of the lines in that proposal song, super duper cheesy, but this is what I wrote. I'll make all.

I'll cook, clean, do the dishes and diapers too. And I printed it out, gave it to her, and I sang it. Oh my sweating. Okay. So yes, I totally set myself up for failure. When you when guys go down on a knee and do their little speech thing before the proposal, we say all kinds of stuff. Fortunately, girls don't remember a lot of times.

Yes, but they don't remember the content, which is good. But I wrote it down. Okay. So we say all kinds of stuff. When we men propose, we say all kinds of fluffy things. We make all kinds of lofty promises. We lie. We lie through our smiling teeth. And you ladies, in that moment, enjoy being lied to. You want to be romantically lied to. True or false. Yeah, it's pretty true. So the men, when we propose, we try our best to be sincere, but some of the stuff we say doesn't quite work out. Human promises are all too often broken, even if they're made with the best of intentions. Human engagements do break up. Right? But when God makes a pledge or a promise, he speaks something into certainty and absolute truth.

He makes good on what he says.

God will never call off an engagement. Think about this. He will never call off an engagement. No matter how dirty and filthy you look, he will never call off an engagement. He will never break up with you, so to speak and abandon you. A genuinely born again child of God can never lose his salvation. Amen.

A genuine born-again child of God who has the indwelling Holy Spirit within him as a pledge, as a promise, can never lose his salvation. The only way this engagement ends is with a marriage. And that's the hope. In the hope of eternal life, which the God who cannot lie, verse 2 promised from all eternity. So fifth and finally, we're gonna bring all of this together and then look at this temporary living hope that we have. Okay? By definition, the word hope implies temporary. You guys follow? Hope ends once the thing that is hoped for is actualized. I hope today that when we go to KTP, I will eat katsu. I hope for that with all my heart. When does my hope end? When I'm eating it, right?

Hope becomes enjoyment. You follow. Hope ends, enjoyment begins. Hope ends, benefits are reaped. I hope to pass this test. I hope to get this job. I hope to marry this person. Well, once you pass the test, once you get that job, once you marry that person, hope ends, and hopefully, enjoyment begins. So, in the hope of eternal life, what is that? One day that hope is gonna end when this already but not yet engagement ends. In fact, even faith is temporary. Think about that. Faith. Permanent or temporary. It's temporary. It's very similar to hope. Faith ends when it becomes certainty.

The faith of God's elect will one day become certainty. Amen. So now, the Bible, one thing I want to make clear, it doesn't explicitly say that hope is only temporary or that it disappears altogether. So I can't actually say that it completely ceases. 1 Corinthians 13 makes it seem like these things remain faith, hope, and love. The greatest of it is love, right? But it never says in the Bible that hope and faith end. Okay. The Bible suggests that hope and faith remain and continue on forever because a Christian hope is a living hope. You guys have heard of the word living hope before? In 1 Peter 1 3, it calls our hope a living hope. The Christian faith is a living faith. It's a living engagement.

It ends, but it also continues. I'd like to understand it similarly to an end of an engagement. Okay? The engagement ends, but it will continue in a different form. So let me give you an example. If I were to call Becky my girlfriend, cringe. Right? Gene, if Stephen called you his girlfriend, would you be a little bit weirded out? Absolutely. Okay. So if I call Becky my girlfriend, that'd be a little weird. Would it be incorrect for me to say that Becky's my ex-girlfriend? Think about it. Before you judge me. Would it be strange for me to say that Becky is my ex-girlfriend? Or incorrect, would that be incorrect? Yes and no. She stopped being my girlfriend when she became my fiancee. Then my ex fiance stopped being my fiancee.

What happened? Oh, right. We got married. So she's no longer my girlfriend. She's no longer my fiance. Our dating period ended. Our engagement period has ended. Those periods, though they've ended, they continue on. And have transitioned into something completely different, something way better. So I'm gonna say that hope is temporary and it ends though it continues. It's a living hope. So while we're still in this period of living hope, while we continue in this already but not yet tension, we hustle while we wait. We purify ourselves as we wait. 1 John 1 3 3. We deny ungodly ways and unrighteous deeds as we wait. First or Titus chapter 2, verse 12. And these are passages that pass by you today.

We honor our current and future bridegroom while we wait. We continue to access him, grow in our knowledge of our bridegroom while we wait. And we invite anybody and everybody and even every nobody to the party while we wait. You guys follow. We extend the invitations to join this family while we wait. That's what we do. The engagement period, though it can suck, though it can be rough, though we can't wait for it to end is important. So I'm going to close with this.

Oops. 4, 7 to 11. The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be of sound thinking and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. What is that? Eternal life has already started, and we have access to the knowledge of God. It doesn't start when we physically perish. It's already started. So above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling, as each one has received a gift. Employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold manifold grace of God. So if you speak, speak as one speaking the oracles of God. If you serve whoever serves as one serving by the strength which God supplies, not because you're forced to, not because someone asked you, not because Howard threatened you.

You serve because God is strengthening you. So that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen.

But I'm hoping that it causes us actually to like dive in. And our knowledge is always going to be incomplete on this side. But I have tasted and I've seen that the Lord is good. And I want to continue to taste and see that the Lord is good. And I want others to do the same. And eternal life has already started. And I can't wait for the day where you hear the eternal wedding bells. Amen? Let's pray together. Father, thank you for a little glimpse of what our future looks like. Sometimes we need so badly to be reminded of how infinitely a gentleman you are. How perfect a bridegroom you are to the church. How sacrificial and loving and ever patient you are.

So that many people will come and see that you indeed are good. So as we wait, help us to hustle hard. Help us not to be entangled, and help us to be like the faithful virgins who are prepared for your arrival. We thank you, Lord, to you be the glory. We pray this in Jesus' name.