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 Nibbert. My subject for this morning is
the forgiveness of sins. And that ought to interest every
one of us, the forgiveness of sins. Now, I'm going to be preaching
to you as a sinner to other sinners, telling you how my sins were
forgiven and how your sins can be forgiven. The forgiveness
of sin. Somebody once said preaching
is one beggar telling another beggar where he got bread. Well,
that's what I want to be doing. A sinner telling other sinners,
declaring to other sinners of the forgiveness of sins. A text is found in Ephesians
chapter 1 verse 7. Paul says, in whom we have redemption
through his blood. the forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of His grace, the forgiveness of sins, actual sins. I'm not talking about generic
sins. I'm talking about actual sins, wicked sins, willful sins,
sins that are crimes before God. the forgiveness of sins. Thank God there is such a thing
as the forgiveness of sins. David said in Psalm 130, if thou,
Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who should stand? But
there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. And when God forgives sins, He
forgives in such a way as they are not remembered. Their sins
and their iniquities will I remember no more." Now, I believe it's
possible to forgive someone, but I don't know that it's possible
to forget about the sins they may have committed against you.
It'd be nice if you could forget them all, and maybe you can.
I don't know, but I know this. When God forgives sins, He doesn't
look at you and say, I remember what you did. No, their sins
and iniquities, he says, I will remember no more. There's nothing
there to remember. They've been put away through
the blood of Christ, and literally, there's nothing there for him
to remember. He was manifested, 1 John 3,
5 says, to take away our sins. And in him is no sin. That means that if I'm in Him,
I have no sin. Now, in this verse of Scripture,
I see three things regarding the forgiveness of sins. First,
in whom? Oh, that's so important. In whom
we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of
sins. In whom? In Christ. That's where
all of God's blessing is, that's where all of God's salvation
is, that's where all of forgiveness is, that's where all God's love
is, that's where all God's acceptance is, in Christ. In whom we have
redemption through His blood. Forgiveness of sins comes because
of the redemption through His blood, His bloody sacrifice on
Calvary Street. That's where forgiveness comes
from. In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of sins, and here's the third thing I see about the forgiveness
of sins, according to the riches of His grace. Now may the Lord
enable us to enter in to this thing of the forgiveness of sins. That's what I need more than
anything else, my sins forgiven. And there's nothing I can do
to procure this. It's up to the Lord to forgive
me. So how I ask that I might have the forgiveness of all my
sins. Now, the first point, in whom
we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of
sins. Now, this is a great mystery that we believe, but we don't
understand being one with Christ in whom. Now, what illustrates
in whom is baptism. When a believer is baptized,
there's no saving efficacy in baptism. No one is saved because
they go under the water. No one is born again because
they go under the water. But here is what we're saying
in baptism. When he lived, I lived. When he kept the law, I kept
the law because I was in him. When he died, I died because
I was in him. When he was raised from the dead,
I was raised from the dead because I was in him, united to him. Both he that sanctifieth and
they who are sanctified are all of one, for the which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren. When John the Baptist came to
be, the Lord came to be baptized by John the Baptist, John the
Baptist said, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest
thou to me? And he said, suffer it to be
so now, for thus it becometh us. to fulfill all righteousness. Now, when Jesus Christ fulfilled
all righteousness and kept the law perfectly, He did it as an
us. It was Him and those the Father
gave Him, all those who are united to Him. It's only in Him that
we have the forgiveness of sins. Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven
you. Now, I don't care who you are.
You can have your sin forgiven by God for Christ's sake if He's
pleased to forgive you. Now, it's in His hands. This
is not an entitlement. This is not something you can
earn or deserve or manipulate your way into getting. It's up
to God to give you this. But He does forgive sins. And let me say this. Everybody
who sees themselves to be a sinner, He forgives. Now, think of this,
in whom we have forgiveness through his blood. Not everybody is forgiven.
There are some who die in their sins. Remember when the Lord
said to the Pharisees, if you believe not that I am he, you'll
die in your sins. And to die in your sins means
you're going to have to suffer the judgment of God against sin. You see, God's just. He must
punish sin. Now, think of this. He's the Son of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's God's Son. What if someone
murdered your son? What if someone murdered your
child? Is there anything that they could
pay you that you could say, well, I'm satisfied, we're even? No,
no, you could never be satisfied by anything they did because
of the murder of your son. The reason hell is eternal is
because God can never be satisfied with the payment for the murder
of His Son. It's not—hell is eternal because
God can never say, okay, I'm satisfied, we're even. It doesn't
work like that. No, there is a place called hell
where some people are not forgiven of their sins. So who is the
we? The we is defined by the context. It's everybody. Look, if you
look in verse 4, according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, the we is the elect. that we
should be holy and without blame before Him, that we are the ones
He has justified and sanctified, in love having predestinated
us, that we are the ones He predestinated in love, to the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ Himself according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made
us accepted in the Beloved, the people He has made accepted in
the Beloved, in whom we have," that's the we, in whom we, every
believer, all of God's elect, in whom we have, redemption through
His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Now, let me tell you
something that all of these people have in common that are defined
in the context of the passage of Scripture I just read. These
people all believe themselves to be sinners, needing the forgiveness
of sins, and knowing that forgiveness is totally in God's hands. Now, what's a sinner? A sinner
is somebody who believes that all they do is sin. They cannot
not sin, and their sin is all their fault. They're not victims
in this. Their sin is all their fault. They can't look down and
judge anybody. and they have no claims on God.
That's what a sinner is, and that's the person who needs the
forgiveness of sins. I think of when the Lord came,
was preaching in that home, and it was so crowded, and some four
men brought their buddy to to be healed is what they wanted.
They wanted the Lord to heal him, and they believed the Lord
could heal him. And they couldn't get in, and they climbed up on the
top of the roof because the house was so crowded, and they broke
up the tiles of the roof and lowered him down through the
ceiling. I can imagine the people looking at this. What an eerie
sight this must have been. And they set him down before
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord said, Son, be of good cheer.
Thy sins are forgiven thee. Now, they came to be healed,
but he said, your sins are forgiven. And the Pharisee said, who is
this that speaketh blasphemies? There's none that can forgive
sins but God only. They were right about that. They
didn't know the one before them was the ancient of days, the
second person of the blessed Trinity who had the authority
to forgive sins. Now, in whom we have redemption
through His blood. Now, I need to understand this,
or I'm not going to understand anything about the forgiveness
of sins. Forgiveness of sins come only through His redeeming
blood. Now, what would you think of
a human judge who would arbitrarily let criminals off the hook and
say, well, I'm going to forgive you, and put them back out into
society where they could be a menace to society. What would you think
of a judge like that? Well, you'd think he ought to
be thrown in jail. He doesn't have the right to act that way. Well, I think it's interesting
how the standards we'd hold a human judge to, we don't even think
of the Lord being that way. But the Lord is just. He must
punish sin or He could not be the judge of the earth. He wouldn't
be right. He's God. Whatever He does must be right
and He must punish all sin or cease to be God. Now, God will
only forgive sins in a way that honors His justice. Listen carefully. This is very
important. You see, God has found a way
to be just and yet justify the ungodly. That's where the forgiveness
of sins comes from. God will only forgive sins in
a way that honors His justice. Now, when the Lord gave us the
Lord's Supper, He said concerning the wine, this is my blood of
the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of
sins. You see, because of His blood,
sins were actually remitted. They were actually put away. They were actually paid for. The debt was paid. All God's law demanded, death
to the sinner. He paid that death. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins. Blood means death. The soul that
sinneth shall surely die." And when Christ died, it's because
my personal sins were made His sins. Now, He never committed
sins on His own. You and I know that. He knew
no sin. But He took my sins and my sorrows. And He made them His very own,
so that when He died on Calvary's tree, He died because He was
guilty of the commission of those sins. Yes, they were my sins,
but they became His sins. God didn't look at Him as innocent.
God looked at Him as guilty. That's why God forsook Him. Because
he was guilty, my sin became his sin. II Corinthians 5.21
says, For he hath made him to be sin. Who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him? Now, just as truly as my sin
became his sin, his very righteousness becomes my righteousness and
I stand before God without guilt. Now when Christ took the place
of Brabus, you know the story. When Christ took the place of
Brabus, the guilty was set free and the innocent was condemned. But when Christ died, The guilty
was condemned, and the innocent was set free. Now, that's a great
mystery, but that's the mystery of the gospel. Somebody says,
how could that be right? Well, God did it. That makes
it right. God did it. And Christ did this
voluntarily. He voluntarily took my sin upon
Himself. And He voluntarily gave me His
righteousness. You see, Christ loves His bride,
and He's going to pay her debts. And this illustrates salvation.
We were lost in another. When Adam fell, we fell and were
saved in another. When Christ died, our sins were
paid for. Listen to these scriptures. Being
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. Being now justified by His blood. Having made peace through the
blood of His cross. By His own blood He entered once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. for us. Hebrews 1.3 says, when he by
himself, that means no help from me or you, when he by himself
purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty
on high. Revelation 1.5, unto him that
loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and made
us kings and priests to God, the redeeming blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, demands the complete forgiveness of everybody he died
for. Now I realize that most preaching,
most that goes under the name of preaching, preaches that Jesus
Christ shed his blood for every individual making salvation possible
for everybody if you'll just accept what he did for you. Now
my dear friends, that's not the gospel. That's salvation by works. That's putting salvation ultimately
dependent upon what you do. And there's no gospel in that
message. To think that Christ could shed
his blood for you and then you wind up in hell anyway because
you didn't do your part? There's no gospel in that message.
Listen, my only hope is that Christ died for me and that all
my salvation is completed by what he did for me. Any other message is not the
gospel. Now, the forgiveness of sins
is according to the riches of His grace. How infinitely exhaustless
is the riches of His grace. You know, grace is an attribute
of God. It's who He is. I will be gracious, he said. That's because that's his nature.
The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering
and abundant in goodness and truth. This is who he is. He
delights in grace. Now his grace is sovereign grace.
He gives his grace to whom he will, and he can pass somebody
by if that's his will. And if somebody bristles at that,
well, that's self-righteousness on your part. That's all it is.
Because you know that he's just in passing you by if you really
believe you're a sinner. But thank God he said, I will
be gracious. It's omnipotent grace. It has
no limitations of power for it to act. It's eternal grace. That means there's no condition
you must first meet before it can take place. It's source is
eternal love whom He did foreknow or forelove. He also did predestinate. It's measure is The measure of His grace is His
grace, not our idea of His grace, but His grace itself. And it's
not limited by any amount of human sinfulness. You can't be
too sinful for Him to give you The riches of His grace. And
it's not hindered by the weakness of a man's faith or the lack
thereof. By grace you are saved. Through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It's the gift of God, that faith. You don't have
to come up with the faith. Yes, you believe. You must believe.
But the reason you believe is He gave you that faith. By grace,
and you say through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. And his grace is utterly and
completely free. And there's a royal ease to it. It's not difficult. He's not
in danger of running out of grace. And this grace excludes human
merit and human works. Grace of God does not end in
the forgiveness of sins. You don't do this, this, and
this, and then you're given forgiveness. The grace of God begins with
the full, free, complete forgiveness of sins. Listen to this scripture
from Romans 5, 20 and 21. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, would
that be you? Where sin abounded, it overflowed. Grace did much more abound, that
as sin hath reigned unto death." What's that mean? How much choice
do you have in this thing of death? Can you say, well, I'm
not going to die? Yeah, you are. You don't have any choice. You
can't stop death. There's nothing you can do to
prevent it. that hath reigned unto death, even so in the same
manner might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord." What glory there is in His grace. Now, the forgiveness of sins
is according to the riches of His grace. Now, through this redeeming work
of Christ, we have every believer And the evidence, as you look
to Christ only, is everything in your salvation. Every believer
has the forgiveness of sins. Now this forgiveness of sins,
let me close by saying a few things about the forgiveness
of sins. We have the forgiveness of sins in Christ. In whom? We
have the forgiveness of sins because of His redeeming blood. That's the only way sins can
be forgiven, not because you do anything, but because Christ
made payment for them. The forgiveness of sins is all
according to the riches of His grace. But let me say something
about the forgiveness of sins. The way he forgives sins is worthy
of the glory and the excellency of his character. It's not like
that difficult, half-hearted, with strings attached forgiveness
among men. It's full. It's free. It's boundless. It's bottomless. It's absolute. That's the way
He forgives sins. You know, so many religious people,
they think that there's going to be a judgment of believers
on Judgment Day where they'll be rewarded according to their
works and they'll gain higher rewards and higher positions
in glory based upon their personal obedience here upon the earth.
That's just works going under the name of grace and gospel,
but that's, there's no, where's the forgiveness there? If you're
going to be judged, no. If you're forgiven, that means
you have nothing to be judged for. You're perfect in Christ
Jesus. You're justified. Now, His forgiveness
is free. There are no conditions you must
fulfill before He will forgive you. And let me repeat that.
I want you to hear it. His forgiveness is free, absolutely
free. There are no conditions you must
fulfill before He can forgive you. What conditions did Paul
fulfill? Well, he was on the road to murder
Christians and God forgave him. He forgave him completely and
freely. Paul didn't meet any conditions
first that enabled God to forgive him. Romans 5.10 says, if when
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
When we were reconciled? When we were enemies. When we
were enemies. God's forgiveness is full. Each
sin. Every sin. All sin. The songwriter said, there's
pardon for transgressions past. It matters not how black they're
cast. And oh, my soul, with wonder
of you, for sins to come, here's pardon to the blood of Jesus
Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. Now, forgiveness
is not given because of the worthiness of the sinner. Nor is it withheld
because of the unworthiness of the sinner. Forgiveness is the
gift of His free grace. Each sin, be it ever so evil,
and all sins, be they ever so numerous, are forgiven freely. And forgiveness is eternal. Do
you know that when you're forgiven, you find out you've always been
forgiven? Because Christ is the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. He saved us, He called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which were given us. in Christ Jesus
before the world began. The grace, the justification,
the forgiveness was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. As far as the East is from the
West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Now, you see this eternal nature
of forgiveness gives us some idea of the eternal value of
the blood of Christ and the the unshakable faithfulness of God
in Christ and forgiving us of our sins, if we confess our sins. And that doesn't mean you know
how to confess every one of them, but what that means is you take
sides with God against yourself. If we confess our sins, if we
agree with what God says about our sins, He is faithful and
just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, right now, by the grace
of God, confess your sin. Don't try to hide it. Don't try
to make it out to be less than it is. It's really a lot worse
than you think. But what we're called upon to do is to take
sides with God against ourselves. Agree with God. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just, not merely merciful and
gracious, but faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And while we're on this thing
of the forgiveness of sins, you know what the most God-like thing
a man can do? Forgive somebody. That's the
most God-like thing you can do. And you know, he that's been
forgiven much, I'm one of those people, he that's been forgiven
much, loveth much. Now thank God for the full, free,
complete, absolute forgiveness of sins through the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look to him only, As everything
in your salvation, you're gonna find you've been forgiven. 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 Kniper praying God
will be pleased to make himself known to you. That's our prayer,
amen. To request a copy of the sermon you have just heard, send
your request to messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.