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 Nyberg. I want to look at Genesis chapter
12 this morning, and I've entitled this message, The Experience
of Grace. The Experience of Grace, and
we're going to look at this from the life of Abraham. We read
beginning in verse seven of Genesis chapter 12. And the Lord appeared
unto Abraham and said, unto thy seed will I give this land. And there he builded an altar
unto the Lord who appeared unto him And he removed from thence
unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent. This is where he settled down
temporarily, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east. And there he builded an altar
unto the Lord. Now this is something Abraham
was always doing. He was building Altars. What's an altar for? One purpose. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. And there he built an altar unto
the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. the experience of grace. Now God's grace to Abraham preceded
Abraham's experience of grace God's grace was grace that had
been given to Abraham before the foundation of the world. Now, all of God's grace is purpose
grace given to every recipient of grace, the elect, before time
began. Listen to this scripture, 2 Timothy
1.9. He saved us. He called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works. but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. Now there will be no experience
of grace unless there is first purposed grace. Purpose by God
himself. God doesn't save by accident.
He saves on purpose. Now, in Abraham's experience,
He was not born knowing God. He was born an idolater. He was born serving other gods. That's what Joshua tells us in
Joshua chapter 24 verses 1 and 2. Abraham wasn't always a believer. He wasn't always the father of
the faithful. He was born, like every other
man is, lost. and an idolater. And God says
with regard to Abraham in Isaiah 51, one and two, I called him
alone. Now, evidently during Abraham's
days, the earth had totally corrupted himself itself, just like the
days of Noah. And there weren't any believers
on the earth at this time. And God says, I called Noah. I mean, I called Abraham alone. Now, if God calls you, God calls
me, he's going to call us the same way he called Abraham. It's a singular call. It's an
effectual call. It's a saving call. Abraham heard from God. Now, in his experience of this
grace, I want us to look at the first part of chapter 12. Now the Lord had said unto Abraham,
don't miss that word had. The Lord had said to Abraham
previously, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred
and from thy father's house into a land that I will show thee
and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee
and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing. and I will
bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee,
and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. You
know, Paul quotes this in Galatians chapter three, verse eight, when
he says, for the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying,
in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed. And that's
because of Abraham's seed, speaking of the coming Lord Jesus Christ. He came through the loins of
Abraham. Now, notice it says the Lord
had said to Abraham. Remember, we're talking about
Abraham's experience. In verse 31 of chapter 11, we read in
Terah, that's Abraham's father, took Abraham, his son, and Lot,
the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarah, his daughter-in-law,
his son Abram's wife, and they went forth from Ur of the Chaldees
to go into the land of Canaan. And they came there unto Haran
and dwelt there. Now God said, leave your family,
leave your kindred, go into a land I'll show you, the land of Canaan. Abraham left, but he took Terah,
his father, and Lot, his nephew. And he didn't get all the way
into the land of Canaan. He stopped in a place called
Haran. And we read in Acts chapter 7
when Stephen is opening up his great message before his martyrdom.
He says in verse two of Acts chapter seven, men, brethren
and fathers hearken, the God of glory appeared unto our father
Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Koran or Haran,
that place that he temporarily stopped and said unto him, get
thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and come into the
land which I will show thee Then came he into the land of the
Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran. And from thence, when his father
was dead, he removed him, God removed him, into this land wherein
you now dwell." Now, note the picture. God said to Abraham,
get out of your country, leave all your relatives, and you go
to the land, I'll show you, the land of Canaan. Abraham had inconsistencies,
contradictions and holes in his obedience. He took his relatives,
his father and his nephew, and he didn't make it all the way
into Canaan. He stopped halfway there in the land of Iran, and
he stayed there until his father died. and that wasn't in obedience
to what God said, but then Stephen tells us the Lord brought him
out and put him into the promised land. Now, why make this point? Well, the scripture points out
this, and this lets us know that in our obedience and our experience,
there's always holes, there's always inconsistencies, there's
always contradictions. That was true of Abraham, that
was true of me, that is true of you. We're not able to trust
anything that has our fingerprints on it. Let me repeat that. We're not able to trust anything
that has our fingerprints on it. I don't trust my faith. I trust Christ, but I don't trust
my faith. My faith is filled with such unbelief. I don't trust
my repentance. I don't trust my sincerity. I
don't trust my love. There's so many things lacking
in all those things. The only hope I have is that
Christ is all in my salvation. I don't have anything else. And
I guarantee that's what Abraham thought. He realized that. He
had nothing but Christ. There were so many contradictions
in this man's life. Now somebody says, are you speaking
harshly of Abraham? No. Abraham's the father of the
faithful. Abraham's a special man, singled
out by God's grace. But remember this, Abraham, like
every believer, is still a sinner. a sinner saved by grace. We have a tendency to make hero
worship of these Old Testament figures. I admire Abraham, most
significant man in scripture as far as men go, but he had
holes in his obedience and his only hope was Christ. Now, we
read in verse seven, and the Lord appeared unto Abraham. This
is another appearance. You know, we need to have the
Lord appear to us over and over and over and preach the gospel
to us. It's not enough to hear once.
As long as I'm still a sinner, I need to hear the glorious message
of his grace to sinners over and over and over again. And the Lord appeared unto Abram
and said, unto thy seed will I give this land. Now notice
the absence of the word if. He didn't say, I'll give it to
you if you know. He said, I will give this land. That's the message of grace. It's not an offer. I will give
this land. I will, you shall. And what did
Abraham do in response to this glorious message? Well, we read
where Abraham builded an altar. Now, why an altar? There's one
reason for an altar. Sacrifice. The sacrifice of the
substitute. Now, I don't want to be harsh,
but Places that call themselves churches have altars down in
the front of the church. You go down and go to the altar. They have what are called altar
calls, and who knows how many verses of Just I Am or something
like that is preached, and it's called the altar call, calling
upon people to come down front and receive salvation, receive
the Lord Jesus Christ. We have songs like, we can never know or we can never
prove the delights of his love until all on the altar we lay. That's the hymn, Trust and Obey,
and it really is a horrible hymn as far as the words of it. Trust and obey. You need to have
faith and works is basically what that's saying. And let me
say this with regard to God's altar. It's not for you to put something
on. It's for the sacrifice of Christ. And if I lay my sacrilegious
works on them and my self-righteous efforts and deeds on the altar,
I defile the altar. The altar's for one purpose,
the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now more on that in a
moment. Verse eight. He moved from thence unto a mountain. Remember, this is Abraham's experience
of grace. God appeared to him, told him
what he was gonna give him freely. And the first thing he did was
build an altar. He knew the only reason he would get anything
from God is because of the coming sacrifice of Christ. He's acknowledging
that when he builds that altar, he's looking to Christ only.
Verse eight, he removed from thence unto a mountain on the
east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west
and Hai on the east. And there he built an altar unto
the Lord. Now he pitched his tent in this
place temporarily between Bethel and Hai. Now the names of these
cities are very important as to what the meaning means. Bethel
means the house of God. Hai means the house of ruin and
destruction. Now here is Abraham's experience
of grace. His tent is pitched between these
two places, the house of God and the house of ruin. Now, what this is speaking of
in Abraham's experience is what every believer experiences, two
natures. Now, please listen carefully.
You can't understand this if you only have one nature, I realize
that. But you have the nature that you're born with, And if
you're born again, you have the nature you were born again with. The old nature is nothing but
sin, and the new nature is holy. Every believer has two separate
natures. Now, that doesn't mean you can
look at yourself and say, well, I see that part's holy and that
part's sinful. These two separate natures come
through one consciousness. And you can't really divide that. That's why everything you see
that you do It's sin, and it's the new nature actually that
sees that. But it's like hot water and cold water coming out
of the same fountain. Every believer has two separate
natures, an old nature, the house of ruin, the house of destruction,
the new nature, the house of God. And it's only the holy nature
that sees the corruption of the old man. Listen to these words
by Paul. Paul said in Romans 7, for I delight in the law of
God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members.
I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my
mind. bringing me into captivity to
the law of sin, which is in my members. Oh, wretched man that
I am. Very important. He didn't say,
oh, wretched man that I used to be before I was saved. You
know, he didn't know anything about any of this before he was
saved. It's only after the Lord has saved him that he can say
this, oh, wretched man that I am. Before the Lord saved me, I didn't
have any understanding of sin. I looked at it as things you
did and didn't do. I didn't understand the nature
of sin, but when God saved me, when he gave me a new nature,
that's the nature that sees the old nature. Oh, wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Now in Abraham's experience,
his tent is pitched between these two places, the house of God,
the new man, the house of ruin, the old man. What does Abraham
do? Well, we read in verse eight, And there he builded an altar
unto the Lord. Now the person that has his tent
pitched between these two places, the house of God and the house
of ruin, that's the man who has been saved by the grace of God.
And he now has two natures. Before he only had one nature,
now he has two. And what is foremost in Abraham's
mind? An altar. He once again built
an altar. Now, if the Lord has saved you,
your chief concern is the altar. Now, please listen carefully
for the next several minutes while I talk about this scriptural
concept of an altar. In Hebrews 13, verse 10, the
writer to the Hebrews said, we have an altar. Now, when I say there's no altar
at the front of the church, it doesn't mean we do not have an
altar. We have an altar, the writer to the Hebrews said, which
they that serve of the temple have no right to eat. All those
ones under the Levitical priesthood, they have no right to this altar. Now, what is this altar that
every believer possesses? Jesus Christ is our altar. Now, first of all, Jesus Christ
is our priest. He's that priest after the order
of Melchizedek. What does a priest do? He offers
a sacrifice. Jesus Christ is our sacrifice. He, as the great high priest,
offered the sacrifice of himself. Now, when you offer a sacrifice,
there has to be an altar. His humanity is the altar upon
which the sacrifice was offered. He is our altar. He is the place of our sacrifice,
Christ Himself. Now, when Noah left the ark,
what's the first thing he did? He built an altar. He built an
altar. He'd been on that ark for a year.
First thing he does when he gets off that ark is he builds an
altar for sacrifice. And there were a lot of sacrifices
at that time. In Exodus chapter 17, when the
children of Israel are fighting their first battle after they
entered the promised land and left Egypt, they're fighting
their first battle in the wilderness against the Amalekites. and the
Lord gives him victory. And there Moses built an altar
after that first victory. He knew the only victory is what
was accomplished on that altar, and he named that altar Jehovah
Nisi, the Lord Our Banner. Now what that tells us is that
our message is what the message of the altar is. It's another
way of saying we preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's our message, the message
of the altar, the sacrifice of Christ, what He accomplished
by that sacrifice, who sent Him, why He sent Him, what He did,
Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord, our banner. Now, in Exodus chapter
20, We're given the Ten Commandments, and I love God's law. I love
the Ten Commandments. I shall have no other God before
me. That commandment with regard to idolatry, don't make any kind
of image of God. Any image we make of God is only
bringing him down to our level. He's other. He's not to be made
images of. To make an image is to hate him,
he said. The commandment regarding remembering is don't taking his
name in vain. His name is reverend and holy
is his name. The commandment with regard to
the Sabbath, resting. The commandment with regard to
honoring your mother and father in all authority, the commandment
regarding don't murder anybody, don't commit sexual sin, don't
steal, don't lie, don't covet. Oh, I love God's law. And if
you have any understanding of God's law, you'll know you haven't
kept one commandment one time. Not in spirit, you haven't. Now,
what's the next thing God does after he gives the 10 commandments?
He says, build an altar. You see, God knew they wouldn't
keep those commandments. He knew that they would break
them. And he said, build an altar. And there was two requirements
to that altar. Number one, If you put a tool on it, if you
try to form it, you've defiled it. It's got to be of unhewn
stone. If your works are involved in
this, it's polluted. And the second thing he said
with regard to that altar, there can't be steps to that altar. Now listen real carefully. They're
not steps to Christ. There's not, you need to do this,
this, this, and this, and stop doing that, that, that, and that
before you can come to Christ. There are no steps to Christ.
If you make steps to Christ, you make salvation by works.
If there's something you need to do before you can be saved,
you've made steps to Christ. God forbids that. There are no
steps to Christ. Now in this thing of an altar,
when they made that altar that was to be transported in the
tabernacle, Through the wilderness, it was perfectly square, 7 1/2
by 7 1/2, made out of brass and chitim wood. Perfect square refers
to the stability of that sacrifice or the stability of the sacrifice
of Christ. It was made sturdy so it could
hold the weight of the sacrifice. It was covered by brass so it
could take the fire of the wrath on. And this lets us know something
about the sacrifice of Christ. Oh, so utterly stable. He can bear the weight in Him.
Christ, in His sacrifice, He bore the weight of all the sins
of all of His people. He bore our sins in His own body,
on the tree, all the sins of all God's elect. The ones they
know about, the ones they don't know about, became His. He bore them in His own body
on the tree. What strength! And listen to
this. If Christ bore your sins, sin
can't be two places at once. If He bore your sins, you're
not bearing them. They're not yours. They're gone.
And the brass was to be able to withstand the fire, which
represents God's wrath, Oh, the fire. He consumed the wrath of
God. The wrath of God came down upon
him and couldn't consume him. He consumed the wrath. He put
it away. What a glorious altar this is. And according to Exodus 29 verse
57, anybody that touched the altar was most holy. Most holy. Anybody that Christ died for
on this altar is most holy. In Isaiah 6, when Isaiah had
cried, Woe is me, I'm done, undone, then a seraphim came with a coal
of fire from off the altar and touched his lips. and announced
to him that his iniquity was taken away and his sin was purged. That's what the sacrifice of
Christ does. It takes away the iniquity. It's
no longer there. The sin is purged, canceled,
put away. I think of Nadab and Abihu. You can read about this in Leviticus
chapter 10. Scripture says they offered strange
fire to the Lord. They took the incense and they
set it on fire, but it wasn't fire from off the altar. It was
strange fire. And the fire of God came down
from heaven and consumed them. Why? Well, they thought any fire
will do as long as we Like the incense and what they were doing,
they were bypassing the sacrifice of Christ. The only way God can
be approached at all times is through the sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, the first thing Abraham did
was he built an altar and look what it says next. He called
upon the name of the Lord. Now listen to this. God's attributes
are made known through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. God
is not known apart from the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
every attribute of God, His holiness, His sovereignty, His justice,
His wisdom is displayed in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and Abraham spent his life calling upon the name of the Lord." It
wasn't a one-time act. It's something he was always
doing. This represents faith in Christ, calling upon the name
of the Lord. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Now this was Abraham's experience
of grace. He had two natures, a holy nature,
a sinful nature. It caused him to look to the
sacrifice only, and it caused him to call upon the name of
the Lord. That's his experience of grace. Now we have this message on DVD
or CD. Call the church, write, email,
we'll send you 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 your request to todd.neibert at gmail.com,
or you may write or call the church at the information provided
on the screen.