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. In the sixth chapter of Ephesians,
Paul gives the six pieces of armor that the Christian is to
wear. And I believe it to be the same
thing as the putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this armor
is for all believers. All believers have this armor
or they are not saved. And we're called upon to put
this armor on every day that we might be enabled to stand. I've heard preachers say, you
need to put this on that you might live the victorious Christian
life. And when I hear things like that,
I become a little bit offended. Every believer is victorious
in Christ. The scripture says we're more
than conquerors through him that loved us. And this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith. So when preachers
use language like that, they're really taking all the focus off
of him who is the victory and putting it upon you and how you're
living, and that's gonna be nothing but a discouragement. That's
not what this armor is all about. Now, the first piece of armor
is having your loins girt with truth. You gotta begin with the
truth or you haven't put anything on. And then the breastplate
of righteousness, And I heard one preacher say that righteousness
is your own personal purity and practical righteousness. Well,
I sure don't want that to be my breastplate. The righteousness
he is speaking of is the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to every
believer. And then the third piece of armor
is our footwear. Have your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace. What is it that makes
me prepared as I walk through this life? Ready? The gospel
of peace. Christ is my peace before God.
And then we read of the shield of faith. And that was not just
a small shield, but a big shield that you would get behind the
size of a door when the arrows were coming at you. That's what
the word signifies. And that's talking about the
faith, the faith of God's elect. It's what believers believe.
And then in verse 17, we read, take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And
I would like to confine our thoughts this morning to the helmet of
salvation. The helmet of salvation. Now a helmet is to protect the
head. Now we need armor. The reason
we need this armor is we are still in a state of war. We're not in heaven yet, and
we're in enemy territory. The world, the flesh, and the
devil. And we need this armor for our
protection. And a helmet is for the head,
the protection of the head, the brain. The brain is what gives
the rest of the body commands. All five senses are in the head. The sense of smelling, the sense
of seeing, the sense of tasting, the sense of hearing, the sense
of touch, it's all in the head. You can't say that about any
other part of the body, but all five senses are in the head. And it's called the helmet of
salvation. And let me say this with regard
to salvation. I'm going to say the same thing
Jonah said in Jonah chapter two, verse nine, salvation is of the
Lord. Now, what does that mean? The whole of salvation from a
sinner being dead in sins and to the time he stands among the
redeemed, perfectly conformed to the image of Christ. The whole
of salvation, taking a man from that depth to that height, the
whole of salvation from the beginning to the end is of the Lord. He himself is salvation. Now, anything in your brain that
runs contrary to what I just said, anything in my brain or
my thoughts, that runs contrary to what I just said, salvation
being of the Lord, is error. In what we hear, if it runs contrary
to salvation of the Lord, what we're hearing is wrong. If anything
we see runs contrary to salvation of the Lord, we're seeing things. We're not seeing the truth. We're
seeing something else. Anything we smell, that doesn't
smell like salvation is of the Lord. It's a noxious odor. It's no good. It's odious. Anything
we taste that doesn't taste like grace, taste and see that the
Lord is gracious, which is what salvation of the Lord means.
Salvation is by grace, same thing. If it doesn't taste like grace,
we are eating poison. Now, here's the helmet that we
wear The whole of salvation, from the beginning to the end,
is of the Lord. Now in this thing of salvation,
insofar as our experience goes, And if I'm saved, I have an experience. I experience something. Let me say this. I hear people
say, I got saved, or you need to get saved. We ought not use
language like that with regard to God's salvation. If I'm saved,
it's because God has saved me. He did it. It's His salvation. And so I don't want us to speak
of salvation as something we got or we get. It's what the Lord does for us
if we're saved. Now, in our experience of salvation,
there is a past, there is a present, and there is a future. In Acts
chapter 15, verse 11, the apostle Peter said, we believe. And this
is what every believer believes. We believe that through the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they. And he's talking about the Gentiles
that didn't have the law. He doesn't say they'll be saved
like we Jews. We Jews will be saved like those
Gentiles. The only way they can be saved
is by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the Lord in his infinite
wisdom uses the Greek language to communicate the gospel in
what is known as the New Testament. Now we have translations, many
that claim to be translations, I fear are not translations,
but interpretations. Man's interpretation of what's
being said, rather than just giving us what God says. The
Bible is the inspired Word of God. All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God. And the job of the translator
is to translate what God says, not give his interpretation of
what he thinks he means. And I have no doubt that the
King James Version is the best translation of the scripture.
Somebody says the language is too archaic. Try reading it.
Try reading it. You'll see it's so much better
than so many of these other so-called translations that give their
slant of the meaning rather than what God says. But God in his
wisdom, communicated the gospel in the New Testament in the Greek
language. Now, the Greek language has something
that the English language and many other languages do not have. The Greek language has what's
called the Aorist tense. Now, you don't need to know Greek
to read the Bible. And if somebody tries to make
that claim, I can't stand it when people are always the Greek
this and the Greek that. I like what one preacher says.
I know a little Greek. He lives over on Seventh Avenue.
That's a better way to deal with something like that. But still,
the Bible does use the Greek. And in this Aorist tense, that
is what is used when Peter says, we believe that by the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they. In the Aorist tense, you can
use that as the past, the present, and the future, and it's all
true. You could just as truly translate that, we believe that
by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been saved. That
would be an accurate translation. Or we could say we believe that
by the Lord Jesus Christ, we're being saved. And that's true. Or we could say we believe that
through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved.
And that's true. Past. Present and future are
all comprehended in that tense, and that's the tense in which
this statement is made. We believe that by the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved. There's salvation. Insofar as our experience goes,
salvation has a past, salvation has a present, and salvation
has a future tense. Now let me try to talk about
that for a few moments. In Matthew chapter one, verse 21, Thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save. There's the word. He shall
save his people from their sins. Now that is precisely what I
need to be saved from. I need to be saved from my sins. If I didn't have any sins, there
wouldn't be any problem. I need to be saved from my sins. Now let's think of that in terms
of the past. When Christ died, my sin was
put away. I was saved from my sin and sins
before I was born. In that sense, if I'm a believer,
listen to this, 2 Timothy 1.9 says, he saved us and he called
us. Which came first, the saving
or the calling? He saved us and he called us. He saved us first. As a matter
of fact, that salvation didn't simply take place at the cross,
although it did, it took place before the foundation of the
world. Christ is called the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. The elect were chosen in Him before the foundation
of the world. Let me finish that scripture. He saved us and 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, everything that the believer
has was given to him in Christ Jesus before the world began. Now, listen to this scripture.
This shows the completeness of this salvation from the past. For whom he did foreknow, knew
beforehand, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them He also called. And whom He called, them He also
justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. Now from foreknowledge to glorification
and everything in between, the believer already possesses. But there's something very important
in that passage of scripture. Calling is mentioned before justification. Now somebody says, why is that?
Because you don't have the right and I don't have the right to
even suspect that we're justified until we believe the gospel.
And when you believe the gospel, you can believe that you have
been justified. But before you believe the gospel
called to believe, you have no right to believe that you are
saved. Now that's the past. I've also got a past in the sense
there was a time when I was dead in sins. I didn't believe, but
the Lord did something about the past. He gave me life, and
that's when salvation turns into the present, when God gives me
life and I believe the gospel. I can now do, believing the gospel,
I can now do what I could not do before. Now, in the past,
I was saved from the penalty of sin. It was all wiped out.
I was just before God. In the present, I'm saved from
the power and the dominion of sin. Now, what does that mean?
Well, there was a time when I could not believe because I was dead
in sins. I had no interest in the things
of God. Oh, I may have been religious, but I didn't have any interest
in the true and living God, finding out who He is. I was completely
ignorant of my own personal sinfulness. I thought I was just as good
as anybody else, maybe better than a lot of other people. But
when God reveals himself to you, you're no longer under the dominion
of sin. You see, you're under the dominion
of sin when you don't know you're under the dominion of sin. That's
when you're under its complete control. When you're so duped
as to think there are certain things you can do, you can believe
whenever you decide to. You can repent whenever you decide
to. You can become a Christian whenever you decide to become
a Christian. That kind of thinking betrays the fact that you're
under the complete dominion of sin. You're blind to your own
self. But when God saves you, you're delivered from the dominion
of sin. You're now able to do what you
couldn't do. You can now believe on Christ.
You can now come to Christ. You can now love God. You've
been delivered from the dominion of sin. That's salvation in the
present. Now, when you're delivered from the dominion of sin, you
still have the old nature. And it doesn't get any better.
When people talk about, oh, I'm becoming better and better, well,
you just don't have any spiritual life, or you wouldn't say anything
like that, because if you had spiritual life, you'd know you
have an old sinful nature that never gets better. It cannot
believe, it cannot repent, it cannot not sin, but here is the
blessing of this present salvation. You've been given a new heart.
and a new nature, a nature that believes, a nature that cannot
not be holy, a nature that cannot not believe, a nature that cannot
not love. It's a holy nature and it's greater
because greater is He that's in you than He that's in the
world. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now that's deliverance
or salvation from the power of sin. Remember, he should save
his people from their sins. He saved his people from the
penalty of sin on Calvary's tree and in God's mind and purpose
before time began. He saves men from the power of
sin when he gives them a new heart and a new life. And then
there's salvation from the presence of sin. That's the future. Now, if you still sin, you haven't
been plumb saved yet. You're completely saved when
you no longer sin, and you are perfectly conformed to the image
of Christ that is in the future. That will not take place until
heaven, but thank God it will take place. Now, this is a complete
salvation. Now, this thing of salvation, how
do I know I'm saved? You know, I've heard people make
these statements. I never doubt my salvation. I'm
assured for heaven as if I'm already there. Now, as soon as
I make a statement like that, some kind of doubt's gonna come
into my mind. When somebody makes a statement like that, I don't
even believe them. It's just religious talk, that's all it
is, religious talk. People trying to impress you
with their religiosity and their piety. Assurance of salvation comes
only by looking to Christ. It's not by seeing how good you
are, or how good you've become, or how gracious you are, or how
much, all the way you're living. Salvation, now don't get me wrong,
I want to live in a way that honors Christ, but my assurance
doesn't come from my living. My assurance comes from His living.
My assurance comes from looking to Him. Now when I first looked
to Christ, I didn't have anything else to look to. Him only. You know what? It's no different
right now. I don't have anything to look
to, but Him only. I don't have anyone to look to,
certainly not myself. Him only. And the day I enter
heaven, the second before I enter there, it will still be Him only. I don't have anything but Christ. But the only way you're going
to get into heaven is if you have nothing but Christ. If you
have anything else, you will not be there. This thing of salvation,
the only assurance of salvation, is that you look to Christ only. Faith is the evidence of things
not seen. Now this salvation, the helmet
of salvation, the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. Salvation belongeth unto the
Lord. When Jonah cried from the belly
of the fish, that had swallowed him, salvation is of the Lord,
that's when that fish spit him out. Now let me close by making
these five statements regarding salvation. This is the salvation,
the helmet that every believer wears. First of all, salvation
is of the Lord in its purpose. Now, I purposely did not use
the word plan. How many times have you heard
somebody say plan for your life? And it's almost like it'll be
a shame if that plan is not realized by you messing it up and you
not doing what God wants you to do. God's plan doesn't come
to pass. You know a word that's not in
the Bible? Plan. Men make plans. I make plans,
but who knows if they're gonna come to pass. God's in control
of that. Man proposes, God disposes. Our plans are, well, they're
that. They're what men make, and they
may or may not come to pass, dependent upon the sovereign
will of God. But God purposes salvation. God purposes salvation. And if he purposes salvation,
salvation must be. He said, I have purposed it,
I will also do it. Him being delivered by the determinant
counsel and for knowledge of God. That's all God's purpose. You've taken and with wicked
hands of crucified and slain, that doesn't get you off the
hook, but it's still all according to God's purpose. I'm so thankful
it's that way. I'm so thankful everything is
according to the Lord's purpose. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
call according to his purpose. I don't know how many times I've
heard people say, well, everything's gonna work out. I think there's
a reason for everything. Well, there is. His purpose. And salvation is according to
the purpose of God. God purposed salvation before
time began. Now, if God would have said to
the angels before the fall, if he said, I'm going to create
man, man's going to sin, man's going to fall. And yet I'm going
to make a way to be just and still save me. And even though
I'm going to punish all sin, how do you think I'm going to
do it? If he would have done that, the angels would still
be scratching their head because they would have never known.
They couldn't have come up with this purpose. But God has purposed
a way to be just and to justify the ungodly. Not simply to forgive
the ungodly. Not simply to pardon the ungodly,
but to justify the ungodly. That is God's eternal purpose. This is what gives him such glory. This is why the cross is such
a glorious thing. How it glorifies and exalts God. Salvation is of the Lord in its
purpose. Now I love to think of the Lord
standing as my surety before time began. He took full responsibility
for my personal salvation. And at that time, His Father
looked to Him for everything He required of me. Now that's
salvation by God's purpose. Secondly, salvation is of the
Lord in its execution. Before When Christ agreed to
be surety, he accomplished salvation, he took complete responsibility
for me. I've already said that, but in
time, he came. In time, he came for me. I love
it when he said to John the Baptist, thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness. Now, the us that he's speaking
of is everybody he represented. He came as a representative for
His elect. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. And in time,
He came and He kept the law for me. And He died for me, taking
my sins and making them His very own and put them away. And He
was raised from the dead for me. He did all this by Himself
with no help or contribution for me. He accomplished salvation. He by Himself purged our sins. Salvation is of the Lord and
it's execution. He did it all. We made no help,
no contribution to this. He did it all. And thirdly, salvation
is of the Lord in its application. He, by His Spirit, gives life
to the dead. The hour is coming, and now is
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
they that hear shall live. Listen to this scripture. To
as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become sons
of God, even to them which believe on his name, which were born,
which were birthed. Not of blood. You're not a believer
because your mom and dad are. Not of the will of man. Not because
a bunch of men got together and decided we'll pray through until
you're saved. Not of the will of the flesh. Not as an act of
your will. but of God. Everything in the new birth is
of God completely. And then the sustaining of salvation,
this thing of daily grace given, the final perseverance of the
saints all the way to the end is of God. The scripture says
we are kept by the power of God. through faith unto salvation. Now unto him that's able to keep
you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence
of his glory. Oh, we're preserved. The reason we continue to believe,
the reason we persevere to the end is of the Lord. It's not because of any goodness
in our part now. We Persevere. We seek to persevere,
but it's because we're preserved by Him. And the final glorification
of His people from the resurrection of their bodies. Now, how much
do you help in resurrection? Not at all. You didn't help in
your spiritual resurrection. You won't help in your physical
resurrection. This is of the Lord. And I'm going to be perfectly
conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. I'm not even going to
remember what it's like to be a sinner. I'm going to be perfectly
holy without sin, without spot, without anything. I'm going to
be just like Christ. And beloved, that is of the Lord. That is His work and His work
alone. Salvation, the helmet of salvation. Now that's the only thing that
will protect us. The helmet of His salvation,
not Something we contributed to, but something he did alone. Now, may the Lord give us grace
to put on this helmet every day. We have this message on DVD and
CD. If you call the church, write
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