Guest Speaker: Pastor Joe Sugrue
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Sealing means the authorization of a contract. By contract with the Father the Son agreed to become a man and submit to the will of the Father throughout the first Advent and the Father agreed and thus set His seal upon the Lord.
God the Father has guaranteed by contract that His Son would provide eternal life to all those who believed. To provide this, or to fulfill the contract, the Son would have to go to the Cross and die for the sins of the world.
COL 2:14
having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
They want to do something to work the works of God and they have missed the point of grace immediately.
But what fails their distorted view of themselves is that they are nothing even remotely close to God and therefore if such a thing as eternal life is possible then it must be a grace gift from God.
Is eternal life an earthly work or a heavenly gift? Should our lives be earthly grounded or heavenly set? Are you a citizen of earth or a citizen of heaven?
Christ was not on the earth when He paid that awful price nor was He in heaven. Rather, He was in betwixt as the Mediator, the alone One, paying for every sinner in the middle of it all.
The plan of God the Father through His sealing of Jesus Christ is grace. Grace is God doing the work, and man simply receives in a non-meritorious manner what God has provided.
They had asked Jesus how they might do the works [plural] of God. Jesus had an answer, “This is the work [singular] of God.”
“believe” [pisteuo] is a present active subjunctive. This is thinking, thinking a non-meritorious decision.
Active voice: each person must believe for himself.
If God could work a miracle that would cause members of the human race to believe then He would do it. Salvation and the spiritual life begin for every person at the Cross.
The principle is that we have to come to God’s plan, God doesn’t come to our plan. God’s plan begins at the cross and we have to come to the cross.
Even when they quote the Scripture they look at it from human viewpoint. They mistakenly think that Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat for 40 years.
He keeps on giving eternal life to anyone in this world who will believe, and He will do so right up to the end of human history.
2 Cor 11:27
I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
Matt 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Matt 6:33
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.
Once you are in the plan of God, God will provide everything you will ever need; there will never be a problem in your life too great for the plan of God.
Once you accept Jesus Christ as Savior and enter into the plan of God, from the point of salvation all the way to eternity, there never will be a time that there is anything that is too great for the plan of God.
Grace Bible Church
Basic Training in Doctrine
Jesus told these people, “Labor not in such earthly things which are finite and have nothing to do with your real problem which is eternal.”
“the food which perishes” — refers to the details of life. These people are more interested in the details of life but they are not interested in Christ. They want to use Him to get what they want.
The food which endures to everlasting life is Christ. He is the bread of life.
How can you work for something that is going to be given to you?
And the answer is going to be – God did the work so that all you have to do now is believe in the Son.
At a point of time in eternity past God the Father sealed the Son who would come into the fullness of time [the Roman empire] and present Himself and go to the cross and die for the sins of the world.