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 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 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. I've entitled the message for
this morning, The Chosen Name Bearer. We read in Acts chapter
9, beginning in verse 10, and this was after Saul of Tarsus
had been knocked off his horse and the Lord Jesus had revealed
himself to him. And there was a certain disciple
at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a
vision, Ananias. And he said, behold, I'm here,
Lord. And the Lord said unto him, arise and go into the street,
which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas
for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he prayeth." He never
has before. He went through the motions many
times, but now he prayeth. And hath seen in a vision a man
named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him that he might
receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord,
I've heard by many of this man how much evil he hath done to
thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from
the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. But the
Lord said unto him, go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto
me to bear my name. before the Gentiles and kings
and the children of Israel, for I will show him how great things
he must suffer for my name's sake." The chosen name-bearer. Now, the Lord had spoken to Ananias
of going to Saul, and Ananias says, Lord, he was giving an
objection, actually. Lord, I've heard of the great
evil he's done to thy saints in Jerusalem, as if the Lord
didn't know that. And now, even here, he has authority
to bind them to call upon thy name. If you have asked the early
church, who was the last person you would have believed that
the Lord would save. You would have said, Saul of
Tarsus. He had a greater hatred of Jesus
Christ than any man living. But here's the Lord's reply to
Ananias in verse 15. But the Lord said unto him, Go
thy way, For he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name." Now,
two things that are very evident from reading this passage of
Scripture. Extreme wickedness does not prevent
the Lord from saving anybody. I'm so thankful for that. There
was never a more wicked man to ever live than Saul of Tarsus.
Oh, how he hated Jesus Christ. Yes, he was religious, considered
himself to be a moral man, but he was an evil, godless man,
a wicked man, and that did not prevent the Lord in his grace
from saving him. Paul, by his own testimony, was
the chief of sinners. But Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom Paul said, I am the chief. Extreme wickedness does not prevent
the Lord from saving anybody that He is pleased to save. Now,
here's the second thing I glean from that passage of Scripture.
The reason for salvation is God's choice. He is a chosen an elected
vessel unto me." Now, please hear me very carefully. Most
of what goes on under the name of Christianity make salvation
dependent upon, contingent upon, conditioned upon man's choice,
man's decision to accept or reject to receive or not to receive
what Christ has done for him. This is the message that is preached
in our day. God loves everybody. Christ died
for everybody. God wants to save everybody.
Christ wants everyone to be saved. But as to whether or not you're
saved, it's up to whether or not you decide to receive what
He did. Now, you can receive it and be
saved, or you can decide to not receive it, and you will not
be saved. Now, that puts salvation ultimately conditioned upon man's
choice. Now, my dear friends, there's
no gospel in that message. That's a message of salvation
by works. No one is saved or will be saved
believing that message. Salvation does not begin with
man's will, man's decision, man's reception, but salvation is according
to the sovereign will of God. Now let me say Some things regarding
election. Now, when we're speaking of election,
we're speaking of God. God is the God of election. A God who is not a God of election
is a non-existent God. God is God. That means He's the
first cause of all things. And if you're saved, He saved
you. That's all election says. If
you're saved, He is the cause of your salvation, not some choice
you make or some decision you make. He, His will, is the cause. Listen to this scripture. Romans
9 and 11 talking about Jacob and Esau for the children being
not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. Now that's election. Election
is a declaration of the true character of man. Man is so evil.
I'm talking about me and I'm talking about you. Man is so
evil that man will never choose God. God must first choose them. The Lord said in John 15, 16,
you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. Every believer says,
amen. I know that that is so. You can't
understand what Christ was doing on the cross apart from the doctrine
of election. Who is He dying for? His people. This is said in the very opening
chapter of the New Testament, Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. Now, if I think
He's simply trying to save everybody, but salvation's dependent upon
my acceptance of Him, all I'm saying is that He didn't save
anybody. Man is the Savior. But listen to me, everybody that
Jesus Christ died for must be saved. he said this is the will
of him that sent me that of all which he hath given me i should
lose nothing but raise it up again at the last day oh how
i love his successful redemption in laying down his life for his
sheep You can't really understand the work of the Holy Spirit apart
from election. God the Holy Spirit comes to
everybody Christ died for, everybody God elected, and gives them life
through the Word. It's His invincible, irresistible
grace toward those that God elected and Christ died for. You see,
election is a declaration that salvation is by grace. Now, hear me. You cannot believe
grace and not believe and rejoice in and glory in the truth of
God's electing grace. I love what Paul said in 2 Thessalonians
2.13, but we're bound to thank God. Election's a doctrine of
divine praise and thanksgiving. We're bound to thank God always
for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. because God hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation." Now, Ananias says to Paul, he's
been in darkness for three days. He comes to him because God told
him, he is a chosen vessel unto me. But not only was Paul elected
to salvation, Paul was elected to be a divine name-bearer. Notice what it says, "'Go thy
way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name.' Before
the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel." Now that
word, bear, is the same word that is used with reference to
the Lord bearing His own cross. It carries with it the idea of
bearing a burden. And the Old Testament prophets
did speak of the burden of the Word of the Lord. And I, no doubt
to a lesser degree, know something of the burden of the Word of
the Lord in the sense that I fear misrepresenting the Lord. I fear
giving my own thoughts and not what God says in His Word. But it's also true that every
believer is a bearer of his name. I love Jeremiah 23 and Jeremiah
33. One says, this is the name wherewith
he shall be called, Jehovah Tzidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. And
the other says, this is the name wherewith she shall be called,
speaking of the church, Jehovah Tsidkenu, the same name, the
Lord our righteousness. And what a special privilege
of grace to be chosen to be a name bearer. And look what he goes
on to say. He says in verse 16, for I will
show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. Paul said, it's given to you,
not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for His name's
sake." Philippians 1.27. Now, the name of the Lord. The
name of the Lord is who He is, the person behind the name. It's not just knowing what audible
name to articulate, it's knowing the person behind the name. Those
who know me, when they hear the word Todd Nybert, they think
of a particular person with particular attributes. Everybody thinks
of you, not just as a name, but the person behind the name, and
Christ Jesus is The person behind the name, when the Lord says,
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,
it's calling on the person behind the name. It's calling on His
attributes. It's calling on His sovereignty,
His holiness, His justice, His love, His mercy, His grace, His
power to save me. I'm calling upon all who He is
to save me. Now, there's a passage of Scripture.
I love this passage of Scripture. In Exodus chapter 3, verse 13,
Moses is speaking to God, and Moses said unto God, Behold,
when I am coming to the children of Israel, and shall say unto
them, The God of your fathers has sent me unto you, and they
shall say to me, What's his name? What shall I say unto them? It's
a good question, isn't it? Now, what led Moses to make this
statement? We read in Exodus 3, verse 1,
Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, and the priest
of Midian. And he led the flock to the back side of the desert,
and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel
of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the
midst of a bush. And he looked, and behold, the
bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." Now,
how long did Moses look at this bush? I don't know. Perhaps the
bush had been struck with lightning and caught on fire, and Moses
noticed it and probably waited for the fire to go out, but it
never went out. It kept burning, perhaps hours. it kept burning. Verse 3, and
Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why
the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he
turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of
the bush and said, Moses, Moses, And he said, here am I. Now this
bush did not need the energy of the wood to continue to burn. This speaks of the independence
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has no needs. He has life in himself. He doesn't need me or you to
fulfill some perceived need in him. He is the independent one,
that which can only be spoken of God. You think of how dependent
you and I are, even of our next breath. But he is the independent
one. And this bush could not be consumed
by the fire. Christ could not be consumed
by the wrath of God. He consumed the wrath on Calvary's
tree to where there's no more wrath. What a beautiful expression
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, during this time, God makes
himself known further to Moses, and that's—and tells him he's
to go to the children of Israel. And that's when Moses asks, whose
name am I going to say? What's your name? They're going
to say, what's his name? What's your name? And listen
to God's name, verse 14, And God said unto Moses, I am that
I am, And he saith, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
Israel, I am, as sent me to you, the self-existent one. I am that I am. Not I was, should
be, could be, want to be, will be. I am that I am. I'm not subject to anything.
Nothing's over me. I am an absolute. I am absolute. I am that I am. Tell them that
I am has sent thee. His name is called Elohim. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. He's the creator. His name is
called in scriptures El Olam. the everlasting God who dwells
in eternity, who's not bound by space or time the way we are. He's called the Lord of Sabaoth,
or the Lord of Hosts, or the Lord of Armies. His armies can't
be defeated. He's called El Shaddai, Lord
God Almighty. He's omnipotent. Whatever He
wills, He has the power to make it come to pass. He doeth according
to His will. in the armies of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or
say unto him, What doest thou? The Lord hath done whatsoever
he hath pleased." Elyon, these are all from the Hebrew Bible,
the Old Testament, the Most High God, one of David's favorite
names, the Most High. We can't speak of Him in high
enough or majestic enough terms. He's called Adonai, Lord of creation. That's Lord. He's the Lord of
creation. He's the Lord of providence.
That means He controls everything that takes place in time. He's
the Lord of salvation. That means my salvation and your salvation
is up to Him. He's my Lord, He's your Lord.
Somebody says, He's not my Lord. Yeah, He is. Scripture says He's
Lord of dead and the living. And if you don't know Him, He's
still your Lord and He's in control of everything about you. He is
the Lord. He's called Cana, which means
jealous. Thou shalt worship no other God,
for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. He will not
tolerate that which is not Him. He is Jehovah. Now every time
you see Lord in the Old Testament in all caps, it is Jehovah. The proper name of the one true
and living God, the existing one, the one who saves. Now he's called, let me give
you these eight names of Jehovah. I hope this will be a blessing
to you. He's called Jehovah Jireh. That means the Lord will provide. And this is taken from Genesis
chapter 22 when Abraham and Isaac are going up the mountain. And
Abraham knows, Isaac doesn't know this yet, but Abraham knows
he's going to slay his son as a sacrifice in obedience to God's
command. And while they're going up the
mountain, Isaac said, Father, here's the wood, here's the fire. He knew that you had to have
that for sacrifice, but he said, but where's the lamb for a burnt
offering? And you know, with regard to
what he said, I want to say that with regard to most of the preaching,
I hear, where's the lamb? You got the wood, you got the
structure, you got the fire, the heat, the emotion, where's
the lamb? There's no gospel without the
lamb. And Abraham replied, my son, God shall provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering. You see, in salvation, there's
nothing you provide. God does all the providing. And
He provides for Himself. For God to do something for me
or you, He had to first do something for Himself. And that's why Christ
died. He died so that God could be
just and justify the ungodly. He had to do something for God
before God could do anything for us. My son, God shall provide
himself as the lamb for the burnt offering. And then we read of
Jehovah Sidkenu, Jeremiah 23, 6, Jeremiah 33, the Lord, our
righteousness. You see, Jesus Christ's righteousness,
that righteousness he worked out, is the personal righteousness
of every believer. That's why I don't fear judgment
day. My righteousness is nothing less
than the righteousness of Christ, and it's my personal righteousness.
That's why Paul said, oh, that I may win Christ and be found
in him. Not having my own righteousness, I don't want to have anything
to do with that, but that which is through the faithfulness of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, every believer
has as their own personal righteousness the very righteousness of Jesus
Christ. Just as truly as he was made
sin, my sin became his, he was made sin, and his righteousness
becomes mine. And he's called Jehovah Shalom,
the Lord our peace. Now, if the Lord provides, and
he does, and if the Lord is our righteousness, and he is, then
I have peace. I'm not afraid of judgment day. I'm not afraid of my sin being
brought up because I don't have any sin. He provided for me a
perfect righteousness, and He is the Lord my righteousness,
therefore I have peace." Ephesians 2.14 says, He is our peace. I don't have peace from anything
about me. but I have complete peace from
Him." He Himself is our peace before God. And then there's
Jehovah Rapha, I am the Lord that healeth thee. He healed
them that had need of healing. And my dear friends, this is
not talking so much about physical healing. Everybody gets sick
and they want physical healing. Well, the Lord may heal you. I hope he does. If you're healed,
it's because he healed you, but something's going to get you
and you're going to die of something. You can just write that down. There's
some kind of disease that's not going to be healed. But by his
stripes, You were healed. Here's the healing that I want,
the healing from being a sinner, the healing that makes me just
like Christ. That's who he is and what he
does. By his stripes, we're healed. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
son, cleanses us from all sin. Jehovah-ra-ha, the Lord is my
shepherd. Jehovah-ra-ha, the Lord is my
shepherd. I love what David said, the Lord
is my shepherd. I shall not want, I shall not
lack, I shall not be in need, all that I need He requires. I know my sheep, and have known
of mine." Listen to this scripture. In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete, nothing lacking
in him because the Lord is your shepherd. And then there's the
Jehovah Shama, the Lord is present. Why? Well, he's omnipresent,
but that's really not what that's talking about. It's talking about
his promised presence to every believer when he says, I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee. That's his promise. You
have his presence. Jehovah Kadesh, I am the Lord
that sanctifyeth thee. Both he that sanctifyeth and
they who are sanctified are all of one, for the which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren. He is my sanctification. And
then there's Jehovah Nisi, the Lord our banner. He is our message. We're not trying to make this
world a better place. We're not trying to teach men
how to live better lives. We're declaring His name. This
is the record that God hath given us eternal life, and this life
is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life.
And he that hath not the Son hath not life, but the wrath
of God abides on him. Now all of these names are found
in the name Jesus. Listen to this. Philippians chapter
two, verse nine, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him. Because he humbled himself and
became a man, because he became obedient to death, even the death
of the cross, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and
given him a name which is above every name, that at the name
of Jesus Every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things
in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father. Now, everybody's gonna make this
confession. You're gonna make this confession. I'm gonna make
this confession. Some unwillingly, some willingly and joyfully. But everybody is going to make
this confession. Now, if we preach his name, as
the Lord said to Ananias concerning Paul, I'll show him how great
things he must suffer. for my name's sake. The natural
man has no love for this name. Everywhere Paul went, he knew
he would suffer persecution. He said, the Holy Ghost witnesses
that in every city bonds and afflictions abide me. He knew
what was going to happen for preaching his name, the true
character of the living God and how he saved sinners by himself.
But what a blessing of grace. I repeat what Paul said to the
Philippians. It's given to you in the behalf
of Christ, not only to believe. but to suffer for his name's
sake. What a privilege of grace. Now we have this message on DVD
and CD. If you call the church, write
or 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 a request to todd.nyberg at gmail.com. or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.