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, He Is Our Peace. Ephesians chapter 2, beginning
in verse 14, for He is our peace, who hath made both Speaking of
Jew and Gentile, He's made both one, and hath broken down the
middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh
the enmity. Even the law of commandments
contain in ordinances. for to make in himself of twain
one new man, so making peace, that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. He is our peace. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, the
God-man, the Lamb of God, the Savior, the Good Shepherd, that
Great Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, the Son of God, the Son of Mary,
the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth, God's only begotten Son, the
Creator of the universe, the second person of the Trinity. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, is
our peace. Our peace is a person. I repeat, our peace is a person. He is our peace. Not he may be our peace, or he
could be our peace, or he will be our peace if we do this or
that. No, he is our peace. Always has been, always will
be our peace. He is our peace. He is our peace. Now, who is the our? You can't
say that he's everybody's peace because not everybody knows him,
not everybody loves him, not everybody believes the gospel.
There are people who are utterly ignorant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's certainly not their peace. So who is the hour when he says
he is our peace? The hour is everyone, without
exception, that can find peace nowhere else. They can't find
peace in themselves, in their works, in their intentions. The only place they can find
peace is in Him. These things have I spoken unto
you that in me you might have peace. Now this is all of the
elect of God. This is all for whom Christ died.
This is all that God the Holy Spirit has given life to, this
hour, and they all have this in common. They can find peace
nowhere but in Christ himself. For he is our peace. He is our
peace. He is our peace with God. Now, God has absolute perfect
peace with his Son. He has absolute satisfaction
in what he did. When he was raised from the dead,
God said, I'm completely satisfied with him and everybody in him.
And the reason God is at peace with the believer is because
his reason for anger has been removed. Every believer stands
just before God and Christ Himself is their peace. The peace we
have within comes from seeing that He Himself is our peace.
The only thing that gives me peace is knowing that He is my
peace with God. And that's where my peace from
within comes from. I know I'm not lacking anything. I'm complete in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is my peace within. And He is our peace with one
another. You see, we're not competing with one another. Christ is all
in all. You have all in Christ. I have
all in Christ. There is nothing you have in
His fullness that I do not have as well, if we both have Christ.
And therefore, we're not competing with one another. We're one in
Christ Jesus, not coveting what we don't have, because we have
all in Christ. And He is our peace with one
another. In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead in a body, and you are complete in Him. He is our peace. Now, let's go on reading in this
passage of Scripture. It says in verse 14, for he is
our peace who hath made both one. Now, what he's talking about
when he says he's made both one is Jew and Gentile. He's made
both one. That distinction is gone. He has made both one. Now, what is the difference between
the Jew and the Gentile? Well, God gave the law to the
Jew, and He did not give the law to the Gentile. There is
always for Until the time of Christ, there was such a barrier
between Jew and Gentiles, but what did the Lord do? He is our
peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle
wall of partition between us. Having abolished in His flesh
the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances." Now
the difference between the Jew and the Gentile is that God gave
the law to the Jews. He did not do that for the Gentiles. And in their mind there was this
clear difference, but what Christ has done in dying on Calvary's
tree, He's taken away that partition, that difference between the Jew
and the Gentile. He did it by satisfying the law
and causing it to no longer be. Now, how can that be? How can
he satisfy the law and how can he cause it to no longer be? How did he abolish the law? Look
what it says. Having abolished, having abolished
in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments, the
commandments of God, the 10 commandments, contained in ordinances. Now, he brought Jew and Gentile
together by abolishing the difference between them, the law. Now, how
did he do that? How did he abolish the law? You know, Paul said, Sin shall
not have dominion over you because you're not under law, but under
grace. They that are led of the Spirit
are not under law. Now, what is this thing of him
abolishing the law? What he did, he didn't just set
it aside. He kept the law perfectly. He answered all of the demands
of God's justice against the lawbreaker on Calvary's tree. All the sins that every one of
his people committed, he paid for. He put them away. He kept the law. He fulfilled
the law. He satisfied the law. And now
the law has been done away with. Now what does that mean? What
am I talking about? Well, Romans chapter 10 verse
4 says, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believeth. Now this is how Christ has done
away with the law. He's the end of the law. Now
remember, the law is what God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. It has the Ten Commandments.
It has the sacrifices. It has the feast days, the holy
days. There is the civil law. You can't
really divide it. God's law, not only do you have
the Ten Commandments, but in God's law, if you were caught
in adultery, you were to be stoned. If you had disobedient children,
you were to be stoned. You can't pick out one part of
the law and say, well, that's still in effect, and then take
another part and say, well, that's not in effect anymore. God's
law is one. Christ completely honored it. He fulfilled it. He demonstrated
He is the answer to every type, every picture in the Old Testament,
and He has done away with the law. He's the end of the law
in the sense that He's the—first of all, He is the purpose of
the law. Now let's take the Ten Commandments.
Let's just take that by itself, the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt
put no other god before me. Every time you sin, you put something
before him. The commandment regarding idolatry. How many times have me and you
humanized God and brought him down to our level so we can justify
what we're doing? The commandment regarding taking
His name in vain. His name is so holy that to not
use the proper reverence is a sin worthy of hell. When have you
and I ever had the proper reverence for God's name? Remember the
Sabbath to keep it holy. I think it's interesting how
people put up copies of the Ten Commandments even in the church
buildings and so on, and then they don't pay any attention
to what the Sabbath says. And to break the Sabbath, you
are to be stoned according to the law, put to death, stoned.
And everybody, I guess they just say, well, that doesn't count.
That's no longer in effect. Honor your father and mother
in all authority. Thou shalt not kill. That's not
just talking about murder. You can murder somebody's character
by slander and innuendo if you've been guilty there. All sexual
sin is forbidden. Thou shalt not commit adultery,
any sexual sin. Thou shalt not steal. That's more than shoplifting,
giving credit where credit's not due to yourself. Thou shalt
not bear false witness. You're not to lie. You're not
to covet. Now, you know what those Ten
Commandments tell me? I'm nothing but guilty. I'm a
lawbreaker. I haven't kept one of them perfectly
one time. Now, in Christ, I've kept them. Because when He kept them, I
kept them. But of myself, when I see what
the law does, all it does is condemn me. The purpose of the
law is to show me my need of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ
is the end of the law, and Christ is the fulfillment of the law.
HE KEPT GOD'S LAW PERFECTLY. AND I CAN SAY I HAVE KEPT THE
LAW. I DON'T TRY TO KEEP THE LAW.
I'VE KEPT IT IN CHRIST. HE FULFILLED GOD'S LAW PERFECTLY,
AND HE FULFILLED EVERY TYPE PERFECTLY, EVERY SHADOW PERFECTLY. ALL THESE
THINGS HE FITS. HE FULFILLED THE LAW IN THAT
SENSE, AND HE'S THE TERMINATION OF THE LAW. I love what Paul
said, you are not under the law. Well, somebody says, shouldn't
the law be my guide to life? Well, Paul said in 1 Timothy
1, the law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and
disobedient. If I think I need to be under law, all it does
is prove that I am evil, nothing more. A good man does not need
to be under law. Now you say, what are you talking
about a good man? Every believer is given a new nature, a nature
that loves God. And they do not need laws. It's contrary to love. What if
I said to my wife, here are the commandments you better keep
or I'm going to get rid of you? That wouldn't work, wouldn't
it? It's not love. A believer is not under law. Christ is the termination of
the law. He put it away. And as far as
that goes, the Scripture says the strength of sin is the law.
All I've got to do is tell you not to think about something,
and that's what you're going to think about. All the thou shouts and the shouts
not, all it does is stir up sin. It stirs up corruption. Christ
is the termination of the Old Testament law. Now you've either
got to keep it perfectly, Don't say, well, it's my God to like,
because all it does is expose your sin. All it does is show
you, and this is a good thing, it shows you your need of Christ,
but Christ is the end of the law. And now that difference
between Jew and Gentile has been taken away. Now, he says he broke
down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh,
that's talking about his death, the enmity, the law of commandments
contained in ordinances. He abolished that, and he made
in himself of the two one new man, so making peace. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things have become new. The believer is one new man. He's something that he was not
before. The new heart is a heart God
gives. The new man is speaking of the
new birth where a new nature is given. You're made to be something
that you were not before. And this is the creative work
of God. He made one new man. This is his work. And I love
this thought of being new. I've got a new history and it's
all good. It's whatever Christ's history
is, that's my history. It's called justification. I've
got a new heart that I didn't formerly have. Now my old man's
still there, that's why I still sin. I still have an old man
that's completely corrupt, but I've got a new man that loves
God, that believes the gospel. Jew and Gentile has been abolished,
and this new man is the man that understands he is our peace. Now look what he said in verse
16. He did this that He might reconcile
both, Jew and Gentile. He went to the cross that He
might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having
slain the enmity thereby. Now this verse tells us how He
made this peace for us. He is our peace. And he's taken
away the difference between the Jew and the Gentile, because
as long as that difference is, people are going to think, well,
one's more pleasing to God than the other. They've been abolished.
There is no Jew or Gentile. There's no male nor female. There's
no bond or free. You're all one in Christ Jesus.
He's taken away that law that creates this barrier and this
division. And he's made reconciliation
by his work on Calvary Street. And I love to think about this.
Reconciliation. Now, reconciliation has taken
place when two people who were once friends and something happened
that brought them a division and made them at odds. They're
no longer friends. Reconciliation takes place when
these two parties are brought back together in fellowship.
How many times have you seen people who seem to love one another,
a man and woman, get married, and they become enemies, and
they divorce, and they splinter their families, they splinter
the relationship with their children, and oh, what trouble comes out
of that. How many times have you seen
people who used to be friends Oh, they seem to walk together
and enjoy one another, but they become enemies. They are now
suspicious and wary of one another, and they're afraid to say anything
around one another because of how it might be taken, but how
sweet it is if they're brought back together, and they can work
out their differences. How sweet it is, even in a marriage,
when you have a fight with your spouse, and you're mad at each
other, but you're brought back together, you're reconciled.
Reconciliation is a beautiful, glorious thing. Now, man was
on good terms with God in the garden. Something happened. Man rebelled. Adam ate of the
fruit. Man rebelled against God, and
he became at enmity with God. What did he do after he ate the
fruit? He ran and hid from God's presence. He no longer wanted to be in
God's presence. He no longer loved God. You see,
his spiritual nature died at that time. That's what, in the
day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. His spiritual nature
died, and he was left with nothing but enmity with God. He didn't
ask for forgiveness. He didn't seek God's mercy. He
didn't think, oh, what have I done, and come back and beg for mercy.
No. ran and hid from God's presence
and even blamed God for what took place. He said, the woman
that you gave me, she gave me of the fruit and I did eat. If
you wouldn't have given me this woman, this would have never
happened. They're no longer friends. They're separated. The Scripture
says God is angry with the wicked every day. The Lord has a reason
to be mad at man because of man's rebellion and man's sin. Now, in this reconciliation,
it's totally one-sided. This is not Men and God getting
together and ironing out their differences. No, this is God
doing everything. He reconciled us to God. We did not seek reconciliation. He removed all of God's reason
for anger by His work on the cross. That is what reconciliation
is. Now, in Romans 5, verse 10, it
says, if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of His Son. When were we reconciled? When
we were enemies. Now, this demonstrates God's
reconciliation. It's not us asking Him to be
reconciled to us. It's Him reconciling us unto
Himself. And let me show you how complete
this reconciliation is. We read in Colossians 1, verse
20, and having made peace through the blood of His cross by Him
to reconcile all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether
they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were
sometimes alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in His sight. Now that's how much He reconciled
everybody He reconciled, everybody He has saved. He's made every
one of those people holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in His sight. What a reconciliation that is.
Now, I'd like to read a passage of Scripture from 2 Corinthians
5 that speaks of this reconciliation, beginning in verse 17 of 2 Corinthians
5. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
that's where I want to be. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us
the ministry of reconciliation. That's what the gospel ministry
is. It's the ministry of reconciliation. Now, what's that mean? Well,
Paul goes on to tell us, to wit, namely, here's what it is, that
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. Now, this is how God reconciled. by not imputing trespasses. Now, the fact of the matter is,
you and I are guilty of many, many trespasses, more than we
have any idea of. The next time somebody says something
bad about you, and they will, and you've had it happen, understand
this, if you made it worse than they said, it would be closer
to the truth. Every one of us, sinful, evil. Now, my hope is
that God has not charged me and imputed my sin to me. He took
my sin and He charged it to His Son, and His Son became guilty
of the sins that I've committed. Look in verse 21 of this same
chapter, for he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no
sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Now here's the gospel. Here's the ministry of reconciliation.
He took my sin and he didn't charge me with it. He took my
sin and gave it to his son and his son took it willingly in
order to reconcile me. He took my sin. He became guilty
of my sin. He was punished for my sin. He was made sin. Listen to the
strength of that. For He hath made Him to be sin. For us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Every believer
is the very righteousness of God. Everybody for whom Christ
died, everybody that Christ reconciled, they're the very righteousness
of God. They have His righteousness as
their personal righteousness before God. Now here is the ministry
of reconciliation with that God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. And
He hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. This
is what gospel preaching is. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ. Every believer, the preacher
of the gospel, they come as his ambassador, bringing his message. Not their own message, not a
man-made message, but his message. The ambassador of the United
States doesn't come bringing his own thoughts. He represents
the United States government. Now, the president, we are ambassadors
of Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you, in Christ's
stead, you'd be reconciled to God. Now, to everybody that the
Lord has saved, He's reconciled to you. He's not mad at you. He's perfectly satisfied with
you in Christ. Now, you'd be reconciled to God.
Don't be angry with God. Bow down before Him and trust
His Son. Don't find fault with His ways.
Believe His ways and rejoice in the way of salvation. He said,
I know the thoughts I have of you, thoughts of peace and not
of evil, to bring you to an expected end. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you
in Christ's head, be ye reconciled to God And here's why. Four, he, I read this verse and I'm just
amazed. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no
sin. He never sinned in his person.
Even when he was made sin, he never personally committed a
sin. But he became guilty of the sins of God's elect. For
He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He is our peace. We have this message on DVD and
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