Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nyberg. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. This is Jacob speaking to Joseph
shortly before he dies. And he says to Joseph in Genesis
chapter 48, verse 3, and Jacob said unto Joseph, God all mighty. appeared unto me at Luz in the
land of Canaan, and blessed me, and said unto me, Behold, I will
make thee fruitful and multiply thee, and I will make of thee
a multitude of people, and will give this land to thy seed after
thee for an everlasting possession. Now, I love the way Jacob identifies
the Lord as God Almighty. That is the same way the Lord
appeared to Abraham. When he appeared to him, I am
the Lord Almighty. Walk before me and be thou perfect. El Shaddai. God Almighty. God Almighty appeared to me. Now we will not see Him We will
remain in spiritual darkness and ignorance unless He appears
to us. We are totally dependent upon
Him revealing Himself to us. Canst thou by searching find
out God? The answer is no. The only way
I will know him is if he reveals himself to me. Do you remember
when The Lord said, whom do men say that I am? And the disciples
gave some good answers that were all wrong. And then he said,
whom say ye that I am? And Peter said, thou art the
Christ, the son of the living God. And the Lord said unto him,
blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood hath not revealed
this to thee, but my Father, which is in heaven. Now, the
only way you and I will know the Lord is if He appears to
us. Now, when He does appear to us,
He will appear to us in this fashion, God Almighty, God Omnipotent. If I haven't seen God in that
light, I might not even be familiar with that term, but if I haven't
seen God in that light, I haven't seen Him at all. God Almighty. Now, man's view of Jesus Christ
will correspond with his views of God. Exactly. If my concept of God is not the
God of the Bible, my concept of God is a false God. And if
my concept of Jesus Christ is like that false concept I have
of a false God, I will have a false Jesus Christ, a non-existent
Jesus Christ. A God that's not the God of the
Bible is a man-made God, and a Christ that is not the Christ
of the Bible is a man-made Christ, a Christ that cannot say. Now, God appeared to Jacob as
God Almighty. Now, all we can really know of
God is what He has revealed to us in His Word. The Bible is
the inspired word of God. The scripture says all scripture.
From Genesis 1.1 to Revelation 22.21, and everything in between,
all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Now, if I don't have
that, all I've got's my opinion, all I've got's your opinion,
which are both relatively worthless. Thank God for the Bible, and
God makes his character known in his word. The God of the Bible
is holy. What's that mean? He's other. He's altogether different from
me and from you. He's not like me. He's not like
you. There is nothing in this created
universe that you could look at and say, God's like that.
No, he's not. God's not like anything. He said, there's none like unto
me. And any attempt that I would
make in taking some created object and saying, God is like that
would only be bringing him down. And it would be nothing less
than idolatry. Now, idolatry is an attempt to
humanize God. That's man's attempt to fit God
in the box they want him to fit in. And they make a God of their
own imagination. That's what idolatry is. I think of what The Lord said
in Psalm 50, thou thoughtest, I was altogether such a one as
thyself. And that's what men do. They
think, well, God's like this. Here's what I think. And they
make their man-made God. Now, idolatry, according to the
second commandment, has as its root hatred of God. We don't like God as he is. Therefore,
we make him as we think we want him to be. That is idolatry. Now, like I said, God reveals
to us His character in His Word. His character is His attributes.
I've already talked about He's holy. He's other. He is sovereign. That means that He controls everything
and whatever takes place is His will being done. And God is all
powerful. Now the only way He can be sovereign
is if He is God Almighty and He has the power to always make
His will come to pass. God is omnipresent. You can't
be anywhere where he's not. I've heard people say, well,
God's not in hell. Yeah, he is. Yeah, he is. It's his justice
that's fueling the fires of hell. He's everywhere. You can't go
anywhere where he is not. He's not bound by space or time. He's omnipresent. He's omniscient. He knows everything. He's never
learned anything. He's independent. He has no needs. Everything that he wants is in
himself. He is immutable. He cannot change. And all of
these attributes I've been talking about are dependent upon him
being almighty. All of his attributes would not
be real if it were not for the fact that he was almighty. And listen to this. Any concept
of Jesus Christ that a man may have that does not have all the
attributes of God in their fullness is a false concept of Christ. Colossians chapter 2 verse 9
says, For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead in
a body. Every attribute of God finds
its fullness in the person of Jesus Christ. And if my Christ
doesn't have all the attributes of God, he's not the Christ of
the Bible. Now, God Almighty is the power
of God, the omnipotence of God Almighty. Now, his omnipotence,
God Almighty, is essential to His existence. A God that is
not omnipotent is no God at all. Now, we have, as human beings,
a very erroneous view of power. I think
that we're all, to some extent, like Pilate. When Pilate said
to the Lord, don't you know that I have power to crucify you and
I have power to release you? You're not speaking to me. Don't
you know that I've got power over you? And I love the Lord's
reply. He said, thou canst have no power at all over me, except
it be given thee from above. No man has any power. They think they do. I've heard
of powerful men and powerful women. There are no powerful
men and powerful women. Power belongeth unto the Lord. He has all power. And Christ
said, all power is given to me. Every man and woman is just a
pawn in his hands, as far as that goes. No man has any power
in and of themselves, but his power has no limitations. When it was announced to Sarah
after she was 90 years old and had already gone through menopause,
you're going to have a baby this time next year, she laughed. And the Lord said, why'd you
laugh? Is anything too hard for the
Lord? Is there anything beyond his
power? Now God's omnipotence is his
ability to do anything he wills, his ability to bring it to pass. He doeth according to his will. This is God's omnipotence. He
doeth, he doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth. Everything that happens
is His will taking place because He's all-powerful. He's able
to make sure whatever it is He wills always comes to place. He's in control of everything.
He doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and there's none that can stay
his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? David said, our God
is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. His will cannot be thwarted because
he is omnipotent. That's how he appeared to Jacob,
God Almighty. appeared to me." That's how He
appeared to Abraham. The Lord Almighty appeared to
him. And if God appears to me or you,
by His grace, we'll know He is God Almighty. We might not know
all the terms, but we know the person behind the terms. He is
God Almighty. Now to say God is omnipotent
does not mean he has the ability to act contrary to his nature.
He cannot lie. You know, that's not possible
for God to lie. It's not possible for God to
sin. It's against his nature. It's not possible for God to
be anything but that which he is. When we say God can do anything,
we don't mean He could act contrary to His nature, because He can't.
He's the faithful God. He'll always be who He is. He can't stop being sovereign. Now, I heard a local preacher
Um, make this statement. The only time God relinquished
his sovereignty is when his son went to the cross and then he
quit being sovereign and let men do exactly what they wanted
to do. Now, does the scripture support
that kind of thinking? Listen to this scripture from
Acts chapter four, verses 27 and 28. For the truth against
thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed most Herod and
Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were
gathered together to do whatsoever thy hand and counsel determined
before to be. done. Now when those men were
nailing Christ to the cross, it's true what they were doing
was wicked, and they were doing what they wanted to do, but they
were doing nothing less than what His hand and counsel determined
before to be done. Now without the attribute of
omnipotence, the other attributes could not be. He could not be
sovereign were He not omnipotent. He could not be independent having
no needs outside of himself, were he not omnipotent, all powerful? He could not be eternal, were
he not omnipotent? He could not be immutable, were
he not omnipotent? He could not be omnipresent,
were he not omnipotent? All of his non-communicable attributes,
that means things that only he has. You and I will never have
these things. These belong to God. They could not be without
His omnipotence. His decrees would be meaningless
because He'd have no power to bring them to pass were He not
omnipotent. His mercy and grace would be
mere wishes because He can't bring them to pass were He not
omnipotent. God Almighty. Now, let me give
you three areas where God's omnipotence is most clearly seen. Oh, I love
to preach the omnipotent God, because when I'm preaching the
omnipotent God, I'm preaching the omnipotent Christ. I'm preaching
the omnipotent Spirit of God. This is who He is. And His omnipotence,
first of all, is seen in creation. when he spaked the world into
existence. Now, I find it amazing that there
are people who say they believe somehow through some kind of
primordial stew, non-organic matter met together and all of
a sudden there was life and life evolved from that and all the
different animals and the creation evolved from that. That takes
a lot more blind faith to believe that than it does to believe
that God created the universe, just as the Bible says. God,
as an act of his own will, with no help, brought the universe
into existence. Light be, light was. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth, and only omnipotence could do that. God's omnipotence, secondly,
is seen in all the affairs of providence. Now, providence is
everything that takes place in time. Everything. Everything
that takes place in time was determined by God before in eternity. And nothing happens except His
will being done. The Lord said there should not
a sparrow fall to the ground without your heavenly Father. That's the most insignificant
thing we can think of. A sparrow dying, maybe on the
other side of the planet. That happened according to God's
will. Everything happens according
to God's will. Somebody says the bad stuff,
the bad stuff. He is in control of everything.
He brings good out of evil. He controls everything. And you
show me one thing that he's not in control of, I'll be scared
to death. If he's not in control of it, who is? But thank God,
He is the Lord of Providence. And most especially, His sovereignty
or His omnipotence is seen in salvation. The same power that's
attributed to the Lord who upholds all things is attributed to God
in salvation. For instance, if I'm saved, it
begins with God choosing me to be saved before time began. That's
an act of His power. God justifying me, making it
to where I've never sinned, what an act of His power. God redeeming
me and put away my sins, what an act of power. Christ dying
in the first place, what an act of power. Him living a perfect
life, what an act of omnipotence. Every aspect of salvation is
according to the power of God. And there are two things that
are said to be impossible. The destruction of matter to
where it no longer is, or the creation of new matter. According to physics, those things
are not possible. What is matter? Well, matter
is any substance that has mass and takes up space, having volume. That's matter, the matter that's
in the universe. Air's matter, water's matter,
anything that has material existence. The thought is that there cannot
be new matter brought into existence, and you can't destroy matter
that's already there and make it not to be. When you set a
log on fire, it turns into ashes. The energy goes somewhere else,
but there's not the non-existence of matter. Now, when God saves
a man, First of all, he makes something that is not to be,
not to be there anymore. When he died for my sins, he
made those sins to no longer be in the universe. They're gone. That which was is not. When he by himself purged our
sins, he made my sins to not be. He made me to be a perfect
man in Christ Jesus. He made that which is to not
be, and He made that which was not to be. I wasn't born into
this world holy. I wasn't born into this world
loving God. When He gave me the new birth,
He put a heart in me, a new man in me that was not there before,
called a new creation in Christ Jesus, an absolutely new creation,
a new heart also will I give you. Now, this is what is done
by the Lord. This is His power. This is what
men say cannot be done. You can't make matter lose its
existence, and you can't create new matter. Well, the Lord made
my sins to lose their existence, and He made me something I was
not before as a new creature, a new creation in Christ Jesus. Now, if God Almighty has appeared
to me, Anything less is a false God. Now, is this the God that's
appeared to you? God almighty, God omnipotent,
and oh, what power this God has to bless. Now, look what Jacob
says to Joseph. And Jacob said unto Joseph, God
almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan and
blessed. Oh, His power to bless. Now,
I want to be a blessing to you, but I can't bless you. Only God
can. You can be a blessing to me,
but you can't bless me. Only God can. And with His omnipotence, what
power He has to bless. Paul said in Ephesians 1 through
3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. God's blessing is seen in what
He makes us and what He gives us. Now this is God's blessing,
what he makes us and what he gives us. Jacob said, and he
said, behold, I will make thee fruitful and multiply thee. I will make of thee a multitude
of people and will give thee this land. to thy seed after
thee for an inheritance forever. I will make thee. Listen to this scripture from
1 Corinthians 1.30. This is to every believer. If you're a believer,
this is you. This is yours. Take it for yourself.
Of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Now this is what
Christ has made to every believer because God is almighty and he's
blessed them with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in
Christ. He's made into me wisdom. He's my wisdom before God so
that God can have fellowship with me. He is my righteousness. He is my sanctification. He is
my holiness. He is my redemption. He's my
full deliverance. That's what he's made into me.
And I remember God can do this. He's almighty. Listen to this
scripture, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 21, for he hath made him,
the Lord Jesus Christ, to be sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now that's what every believer
is made, the very righteousness of God. How can this be? because
God's omnipotent. He can do this. Me or you can't
do it. But He certainly can. I love that scripture in Revelation
21 verse 5 where He said, Behold, I make all things new. Do you know God gives every believer
a brand new history? A history where there's no guilt,
where there's no sin, where there's no shame. They're perfect in
Christ Jesus. This is what God makes. He says, I will make thee a multitude
of people, and then he says, I will give this land to thy
seed after thee for an everlasting eternal possession. Now, because
of his omnipotence, he's God Almighty, he's got the power
to give. I think of Revelation 19, 8,
speaking of the church, unto her was granted. unto her was
given fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteousness
of the saints. Now notice he says, I'm going
to give this to you as an everlasting possession. This is going to
be yours. It's not going to belong to somebody else. It's going
to belong to you. This fine linen, clean and white is the righteousness
of the saints. He doesn't say the righteousness
of Christ imputed to the saints, although it is, but he said this
is the righteousness of the saints. He gives his personal righteousness. Somebody says, how could he do
that? Because he's God. He's God almighty. Hallelujah,
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. You know, what do you have that
you didn't receive? Now, if you received it, it's
because He gave it to you. If you have it, it's because
He gave it to you. The Lord God Almighty, the Lord
God Omnipotent, whatever He wills, He has the power to bring to
pass. You see, He's not wringing his
hands in frustration because men won't let him have their
way. He rules in absolute splendor as the Lord God omnipotent. And he has power to save you.
Do you believe he's able? He is. Call upon his name. Ask for mercy, and he will save
you. Now, we have this message on
DVD and CD. If you call the church or write
or look at our website, you can get a copy. This is Todd Nyberg,
praying that God will be pleased to make himself known to you.
That's our prayer, amen. To receive a copy of the sermon
you have just heard, send a request to todd.nyberg at gmail.com,
or you may write or call the church at the information provided
on the screen. Hmm