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'm speaking this morning from
1 John, and in this epistle, six times, John makes the statement,
if we say. Let me read them to you. In 1
John 1, 6, he says, if we say that we have fellowship with
him. In verse 8, he says, if we say we have no sin. In verse 10, he says, if we say,
we've not sinned. In chapter 2, verse 4, he that
saith, I know him. Verse 9 of chapter 2, he that
saith, he's in the light. And then in chapter 4, verse
20, if a man say, I love God. Six times we read, if we say. Now, the fact of the matter is
that every true believer can say all six of those things,
and it'd be real. And it is also true that a man
can say all six of those things and it's not real. It's a lie. It's phony. But I would like
to consider first how a believer can say all six of those things
and to be real. Chapter one, verse six, if we
say that we have fellowship with him, And that is something every
believer has, fellowship with the living God, the God of glory,
the creator, the absolute sovereign of the universe, the one who
the heavens cannot contain, the omnipresent, the omnipotent,
the omniscient God. A believer can say, I have fellowship. I have communion with him. I
speak to him. He hears me. He knows my name. He speaks to me from his word,
and we actually have fellowship and communion. Now, that is an
amazing thing, but it's true. Every believer truly has fellowship
with him. We have something in common.
And I say this carefully, but the Father, The eternal Spirit
knows that Jesus Christ is all, and He loves that. And every
believer knows that Christ is all. He's all in our salvation.
He's all to God. He's all to me. And there is
fellowship in the gospel around that. Now, John says in 1 John
1, verse 8, if we say we have no sin, We deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. But did you know that a believer
can say truthfully, I have no sin? Are you saying you've never
committed a sin? Of course I'm not saying that,
but I am saying this. I have no sin. Right now, present tense. Now how can you say that, somebody
says? Well, I John 3, verse 5 says, He was manifested to take away
our sins. That's what Christ did on Calvary's
tree. The sins of God's elect became
His sins. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree, and He did that to take them away. You see, he was punished by the
very wrath of God in the room and place of his people, and
he satisfied God's justice. He satisfied God's wrath. That
sin was paid for. That sin was removed. It was
taken away. Now, here is the blessing. He was manifested to take away
our sins. In him is no sin. That means
that if I'm in Him, I have no sin. What a glorious thought. In Him I am justified. I have no sin. That's what justification
means. I've heard people say, Justification
means just as if you never sin. No, it's better than that. If
I'm justified, I never sinned. Christ put them away, and every
believer stands without guilt before God. And then in verse
10, he says, if we say we've not sinned, Now, in verse 8,
it was a noun, a nature, a sinful nature. We always have that,
but our sins have been taken away, if we're believers. But
here the word is a verb. If we say we've not sinned, we
make him a liar, and his word is not in us. Now, a believer
can say, I have not sinned. How can you say that? Well, let
me show you in 1 John 3, verse 6. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth
not. Now, in Christ, abiding in Him,
I have not sinned. Now, somebody says, well, that
means they don't practice sin. If you're a believer, you don't
practice sin. The language will not admit that. This is talking
about the new nature, the new man, the inner man in Christ
Jesus, that which is born of God. It does not sin. You see, every believer has two
natures. Before you're saved, you only
have one nature, an evil nature, the nature you were born with,
the nature you came into this world with. But when you're born
of God, you're given a new nature, born of the Spirit, born of God. It's what Peter called the inner
man of the heart, which is not corruptible. It's what Paul calls
the hidden man, the new man in Christ Jesus. Now, think with
me. Think with me. Can something that God begets,
that comes from Him, can that sin? Obviously not. It's impossible. Look what verse 9 of the same
chapter says. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. Once again, people say that means
he doesn't practice sin. The language won't even allow
that. But as far as that goes, do you
know anybody that doesn't practice sin? I don't know anybody that
doesn't practice sin. Somebody says, well, a believer
doesn't practice sin. Well, you're not being honest. But it's the
new man, the hidden man of the heart, which is not corruptible,
the inner man, that delights in the law of God after the inward
man that Paul spoke of. This one does not sin. For his
seed, the seed of God, remaineth in him. He cannot sin. He lacks the ability to sin because
he's born of God. Now, this is what a true believer
can say, and the Scripture verifies this. I wouldn't dare say this
if the Bible didn't say it, but he that's born of God doth not
commit sin. And then in chapter 2, verse
4, he that saith, I know him, he
that saith, I know him, Do you know every believer can say,
I know him? I know the living God. I'm not
dropping names. He knows me too. He knows my
name. I know the living God. And this is not presumption.
I understand this. The only reason I know him is
because he was pleased to make himself known to me. Just as
it says, we love him because he first loved us. We know Him
because He first knew us. Now, every believer actually
knows the living God personally, not just simply knowing things
about Him, not just having some doctrines we can spout out and
think that they're true. But every believer actually knows
the Living God. I know Him as my Father. I know
Him as my God. I know Him as my Savior. I know
Him as my Husband. I know Him as my Lord. I know
Him as my Friend. The Lord spake to Moses face
to face, as a man speaketh with his friend. And that is the privilege
of every child of God. We're friends of God. Abraham
was called the friend of God. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. And you know what? When I hear
preaching that's not him, I know it because I know him. When I
hear men describe God or the gospel or Christ in a way that
I know is wrong because I know him. I know His gospel. Every
believer truly knows the living God. Oh, what an amazing blessing. And then in verse 9 of chapter
2, it says, He that saith, he's in the light. Now, I'm saying,
I'm in the light. I know what the light is. Now,
when the Scripture speaks of light, the The scripture that
comes to my mind is when the Lord said, I am the light of
the world. Now, he said that right after
this event. A woman had been taken in adultery in the very
act, caught red-handed. You can read about it in John
chapter 8. I guess she was set up. The Pharisees evidently were
looking for this, watching. I don't know if they were peeping
toms or whatever, but they brought her before the Lord. caught in
the very act. And they said to the Lord Moses,
and the law said, such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? And they thought they had the
Lord entrapped. If he says, stoner, we could say, I thought you were
merciful. I thought you were the friend of sinners. If he
says, let her go, they could say, where's your respect for
the law? Where's your respect for Moses?
Moses said, stoner. They thought they had him in
an unwinnable position. And he sat down. and wrote in
the sand as though he didn't hear. And what was he writing? Well, we don't know, but there
are two times in the Old Testament that God was said to write. The
first is the law. Thou shalt not commit adultery. And the second time was when
he said to the Babylonian king, thou art weighed in the balances
and found wanting. And I have no doubt that he was
saying, you have committed this sin. If they didn't do it literally,
they'd done it in their hearts. And then he raises up and says,
He that's without sin among you, let him throw the first stone.
And they all, being convicted by their own consciences, left. And the Lord looked at that woman
and said, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned
thee? She said, No man, Lord. He said,
Neither do I. Go and sin no more." Now, the
reason he could say, I do not condemn you, is because there
was nothing to condemn her for. He knew that his cross, his work
on the Calvary tree, would put away her sin. He was going to
bear that woman's sins in his own body. All of her vile, filthy
sins, he was made to be. and he knew he would put them
away. And he could say to that woman, I do not condemn you.
And then he says, I am the light as to how that can be. And then in chapter four, verse
20, if a man say, I love God, I can say, I love God. I don't love him like I should. I don't love him like I would.
I don't love him like I will one day. But I love him. I can
say with Peter, Lord, you know all things. You know how weak
I am. You know how sinful I am. You
know how contradictory I am. You know me much better than
I know myself. You know all things. And you
know he could appeal to the very omniscience of Christ. You know
that I love you. I love your holiness. Now, it's
one thing to say you love God. It's another thing to love him
for who he is, and that's what a believer does. I love his sovereignty. I love his justice. I love his
omnipotence, his power. I love his omnipresence, that
you can't go anywhere where he's not. I love his immutability,
how he never changes. I love him as he's revealed in
the Word. Now, it won't do you any good to say you love him
if you don't love him as he reveals himself. A believer loves every
part of him. And wouldn't, not that he's in
parts, that's just so to speak. We love all of him, all of who
he is. Every believer can say these
things. I have fellowship with him. I
have no sin. I'm not sinned. I know him. I'm in the light and I love him. We can say all those things and
it'd be most real. But you can also say these things
and it'd be completely phony, unreal, a lie. And look what
he says in verse six. If we say that we have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. Now, does that mean someone who
claims to have fellowship with God and yet practices sin in
the dark that nobody else knows about, he has secret sins, and
yet he claims fellowship with God, that man is a liar? Well,
if that is what it means, me and you are liars. Me and you
will not be saved, if that's what it means, because there's
no man that does not have secret sins. That doesn't make them
okay. There's no excuse for them. I wouldn't in any-these things
write unto you that you sin not. There's not a reason for them.
It's all our fault if we do. But there's no man that doesn't
have-every believer knows the sin that just beats them black
and blue, and they pray for deliverance from. That's not what he's talking
about. What he's talking about is walking
in the darkness of salvation by works. I say I'm in the light
and I believe in some form of salvation by works. I'm a liar. I don't have fellowship with
him. I may claim it, oh, I have fellowship with God. I speak
to him and he speaks to me, but it's all lie. It's not true if
I walk in the darkness of salvation dependent upon something that
I do. It is not real. And then he says in verse 8, if we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Now, there is not
any time in which I can say in and of myself that I do not have
sin. If I make that claim, it is a
lie. At all times, I'm aware of a
sinful nature. David said, my sin is ever before
me. Let me read a passage from John
chapter 9. This was after the Lord had healed
that blind man. We read in verse 39, and Jesus
said, for judgment I am coming to this world, that they which
see not might see, and they which see might be made blind. Now, you know as well as I know
that he's not talking about physical sight and physical blindness
right now. Let's go on reading, and we'll see what he means.
Verse 40. And some of the Pharisees, which were with him, heard these
words and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto
them, If you were blind, you should have no sin. But now you say, We see. Therefore
your sin remaineth. If someone can say, I do not
see why God would ever extend His mercy toward me. There's
not one reason in me that could draw out His love and His favor. I can't see anything in me. I'm
so sinful. You know what? The Lord says,
you have no sin. That person who can't see why
God would save him, that's the person God saves, and he takes
away their sin. But that person who says, I can
see why God would save me. I did this. I stopped doing that. I started doing this. I've changed
my life. I'm changed. I can see why God
would save me. The Lord says to that person,
you are yet in your sins. Now, it is only the person who
has this holy nature, really, that sees the sinfulness of the
old nature. And he is the one, though, who
has no sin, but that one who claims in himself, I have no
sin. That man's a liar, and he has deceived himself. The truth is not in him. And
then in verse 10. if we say we've not sinned. And
that's a verb. We make him a liar, and his word
is not in us. Now, everybody knows that lying
is a sin. Everybody knows murder is a sin.
Everybody knows adultery is a sin. Everybody knows stealing is a
sin. Lost man knows this, but do you
know that everything you do is sin? The things that you think
are good, the things that you think are bad, they're all sin. Everything you do is the commission
of a sin because of who you are. Now, if someone says, well, in
that instance, I didn't sin. Listen to God's testimony. And
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. Now, how can you say I've not
sinned in light of that? If you say we've not sinned,
we make him a liar, because he says we have, and we say he's
lying, it's not true, and his word is not in us. Now for a
man to say, I've not sinned, all he proves by that is he's
ignorant of the character of the living God, ignorant of his
own sinful nature, ignorant of how God saves sinners by grace.
That's all a man says when he makes a claim like that. Chapter
2, verse 4, he that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments,
is a liar. and the truth is not in him."
Now, is that speaking of keeping the Ten Commandments? He that
saith, I know him, and doesn't keep the Ten Commandments, he's
a liar, and the truth's not in him. Well, I got a couple of
ways to answer that. Number one, I have kept the Ten
Commandments. Because if Christ kept them,
I kept them. I was in him when he obeyed the
law, I obeyed the law. The Lord said to John the Baptist,
thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. When he fulfilled
all righteousness, he did it for us. He did it for his people.
But if I think about in myself, I haven't kept one commandment
one time, nor have you. You mean to say that everything
I've ever said is a lie? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Even if
you told the truth, there was a lie in it because of our sinful
natures. If we don't see this, it's just
because we don't understand who God is. I kind of said that on
the last point. But the commandments he's talking about are the commandments
of the gospel. Look in 1 John 3, verse 23, and
this is his commandment. that we should believe on the
name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave
commandment. Now, I keep this commandment. I do believe on the name of His
Son, Jesus Christ. I believe that salvation is holy
for His namesake. I am relying on Him only to bring
me into glory. I don't plead anything else but
Him. His name is His attributes, His
justice, His holiness, His sovereign will, His mercy, His grace. I'm depending on all of His attributes
to save me in a way that gives Him all the glory and all the
honor. Yes, I do. believe on his name. And I do love my brother. He that loveth him that begat
loveth him also that's begotten of him." Everybody that God loves,
everybody that loves Christ, I love them. That's the way every
believer is. Should we love all men? Yeah,
you ought to love all men, but this is speaking specifically
of the brethren. And every believer loves those
who love Christ. So this is a commandment every
believer keeps. And then in 1 John 2, verse 9,
he did say, if he is in the light, I'm in the light. I understand
the gospel. I understand the doctrine of
grace. I understand how sinners are
saved. I believe the doctrine of Christ. I'm in the light,
the light of how he saves sinners. He that saith he's in the light
and hates his brother. is in darkness even until now. His claim of being in the light
is a lie. He doesn't really understand
what it is to be in the light, or he would love his brother.
He certainly would not hate him. What is it to do? How do you
hate your brother? Just fail to love him. That's
all you got to do. And that person is in darkness
even until now. And then in chapter 4, verse
20, If a man say, I love God, well, a lot of people make that
claim. I love God, I really do. He knows I love him. If a man
say, I love God, and hates his brother, fails to love his brother,
he's a liar. Do you remember when the Lord
said to the group of sheep, inasmuch as you've done it to the least
of these, my brethren, you've done unto me. And he said to
the goats, inasmuch as you did it not to the least of these,
my brethren, you did it not unto me. So wherever someone is loving
God, they are loving his people. And if you do not love his people,
you do not love God. So here are the six, if we say. If we say we have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, we're not telling the truth.
If we say we have no sin, it's a lie. God says we do. We've lost all credibility. If
we say we've not sinned, we make him a liar because he says we
have. If we say, I know him and do
not believe the gospel, do not keep his commandments, not admire
them, but keep them, actually believe the gospel. If we make
this claim of knowing him and we do not believe the gospel,
that's the keeping of his commandment. If we fail to love our brother,
we're not keeping his commandments. It's not real. If we say we're
in the light, oh, I'm in the light. My doctrine's right. I
believe the Bible. But fail to love our brother,
we're in darkness even until now. And if we make the claim
of loving God and don't love our brother, it is all phony. So we see that there is a phoniness
to these claims, but it's still true. Every believer, everyone
without exception, can say, and it'd be real, I have fellowship
with the living God. I have no sin. Christ took it
away. I have not sinned. The new man
hasn't. The new nature hasn't. The old nature does. But the
new nature doesn't. Somebody says, I don't understand
that. Well, if you don't have two natures, you can't understand
it. But if you have two natures, you know exactly what I'm talking
about. Every believer knows this. We know God. We really do. We're in the light of how He
saves sinners by His grace, and we love Him. That is the state of every single
believer. Now, we have this message on
DVD and CD. If you call the church, write,
email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Kniper praying that
God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's our prayer.
Amen. To request a copy of the sermon
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