Tis not that I did choose thee,
Lord. Tis not that I did choose thee,
Lord. 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 want to speak upon this subject,
a prince and a savior. That's who Jesus Christ is. He's
the prince, the potentate, the almighty ruling one. And he is the savior. You never have one without the
other. If He's not Prince, He cannot be Savior. And if He's
not the Savior, He's no Prince. A Prince and a Savior. What a description of the glorious
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we read, beginning in verse
27 of Acts chapter 5, and when they brought them, they set them
before the council. And the high priest asked them,
saying, Did not we straightly command you that you should not
teach in this name? And indeed they had. And behold,
you filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring
this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles
answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. I know you made that commandment,
We ought to be God, not you. Verse 30, the God of our fathers
raised up Jesus, whom you slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath
God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior. for to give repentance to Israel
and the forgiveness of sins. Not to offer Israel repentance,
but to give Israel repentance, to cause Israel to repent. Not all men, but Israel. Israel
represents the elect of God. The nation of Israel is given
to typify and picture all of God's people everywhere. When
Paul said in Romans 11, 26, all Israel shall be saved, if he's
talking about national Israel, that means he's wrong. And that
means the Bible has error in it. But he wasn't talking about
national Israel. He was talking about spiritual Israel, the true
Jew, all those whom God saves. He is exalted with God's right
hand to give to Israel, not to offer, but to give repentance. and to give to Israel, not to
offer, but to give the forgiveness of sins. Now, in this thing of
preaching the gospel, we must begin where Peter did, the God
of our fathers. And he's talking about the God
of the Old Testament, the God of Isaiah, the God of Jeremiah,
the God of David, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the
God of Jacob, the covenant God, the God of the Old Testament
Scriptures. I think it's interesting how
quite often preachers try to present the Old Testament as
outdated and God's not like that anymore and all we care about
is what's in the New Testament. Now, you can't understand the
New Testament without the Old Testament, and you can't understand
the Old Testament without the New Testament. But God is the
God of our fathers, the God of the Old Testament Scriptures. They reveal who He is. Now, the God of our fathers hath
raised up Jesus, whom you slew and hanged on a tree, and He's
speaking to the people who cried out, His blood be upon us and
upon our children, the people who called out for the crucifixion
of Christ, who wanted Him dead. He said, you slew Him, you hanged
Him on a tree, but God raised Him up. We preach the resurrected
Christ, the living Christ. And look what verse 31 says,
Him hath God exalted with His right hand. to be Prince and
Savior. Now, in preaching the gospel,
we preach Him whom God has exalted, the Exalted One. God 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. We preach Him who has been exalted. God hath highly exalted Him."
And notice it says God's exalted Him with His right hand. Now
that signifies the place of favor and the place of power. And we
have so many scriptures in the New Testament about Christ being
exalted with the right hand of God, His favor. I love the hymn,
All hail the power of Jesus' name, let angels' prostate fall. What power, what favor. Listen to these scriptures. sit thou at my right hand, until
I make thy foes thy footstool." Matthew 26, 64, Hereafter you
shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power. Now
I think it's interesting, sometimes we read sitting, What that refers
to is the completeness of His work, it being finished. And
sometimes we read of Him standing, and that's His activity as Lord
in complete control over everybody and everything. And the right
hand of God represents the place of favor, the place of power. Mark 16, 14, He was received
up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. Acts 2.33,
therefore, being by the right hand of God, exalted. Stephen's
vision before he was stoned, Acts 7.55, I see the glory of
God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Romans 8.34,
who is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea, rather
that's risen again who is even at the right hand of God. In Colossians chapter 3, verse
1, Paul said, if you be risen with Christ, seek those things
which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God. Hebrews 8, 1, now the things
which we have spoken, this is the sum. What a statement. This summarizes everything. We
have such an high priest who is sat down on the right hand
of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. Hebrews 12, 2,
looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of God. I want to read this passage of
scripture from Hebrews chapter 10, beginning in verse 11. And
every priest, and he's talking about the Levitical priesthood,
the priests of the Old Testament, and every priest standeth, they
don't have a place to sit down. Why? Because their work is never
finished. There were no chairs in the old
tabernacle because the work was never done. And every priest
standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same
sacrifices, which can never take away sins. All the blood of bulls
and goats and all those Old Testament sacrifices could never take away
sins. It is what they represented,
the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, the coming one who would
take away sins. But this man, the Lord Jesus
Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
sat down on the right hand of God. His work being completed,
from henceforth expecting, simply waiting till His enemies be made
His footstool, for by one offering He hath perfected forever." Do
you hear that? By His death, that one offering,
that sacrifice on Calvary's tree, He hath perfected. made perfect forever. There's no way this is going
to go wrong. It's perfectly completed, never to be repeated. Them that
are sanctified. Now that's what he has accomplished. The place of exaltation, the
place of honor, the place of power, and the place of a finished
work, sitting and standing. at the right hand of the throne
of God." Now, notice these two words that are used to describe
our Lord Jesus Christ. Him hath God exalted with His
right hand to be a prince and a Savior. A prince and a Savior. Here are two things that can
never be separated First, a prince and a savior. Now, he is called in Acts 3.15,
the prince of life. That means if you're going to
have life, it's up to him to give it to you. He said in John
5.21, the son quickens, the son gives life to whom he wills. Life is in His hands, and if
you're going to have life before God, spiritual life, He's going
to have to give it to you. He is called, in Hebrews 2, verse
10, the Captain of our salvation. That word, Captain, is the word
that is generally translated, Prince, same word, the Captain
of our salvation. You know what that means? That
means salvation is of the Lord. And if you're going to be saved,
it's up to him to save you. You can't save yourself. You
can't be saved by your works. Your salvation is utterly and
entirely in his hand. Salvation's of the Lord. You
know, the leper understood this. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. But if you're to be saved, if
I'm to be saved, he's going to have to save us. And you know
what that makes me do? Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Don't leave me to myself. Lord,
save me." And then he is called in Hebrews 12 to the author and
the finisher of our faith. Now that word author is the word
that is translated prince. Same word. He's the author of
our faith. You know what that means? If
you have faith, he's going to have to give it to you. He's
the author of faith. You can't believe in and of yourself. You
can't repent in and of yourself. If he leaves you and I to ourselves,
we'll go to hell. If I'm going to have true saving
faith, of which he is the author, he must give it to me. He's the prince. He's the captain. He is the author. Now, what that means is he's
the king of kings, and he is the lord of lords. He is the
despot. He is the potentate. He's sovereign. Now, what does that mean? Most
people will say, yeah, I believe He's sovereign. Well, what does
that mean? That means He has a will. He has the power to make His
will come to pass. He has the right to make his
will come to pass. He said, can I not do what I
will with my own? and He always does make His will
to come to pass. Everything that happens is His
will. 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?
Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He. Our God is in the
heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath
pleased. Now, when we speak of Him being
the Prince, we speak of Him as the absolute sovereign of the
universe whose will is always done. And if I don't worship
Him in that character, I've never worshiped Him at all. You'll
only worship an absolute sovereign, one who is in absolute control
of everything. Did someone say, I don't believe
that? I know. He's in control of that. It could be that he's hardened
your heart. I don't know. But he's in control of that.
You know, He is so sovereign. He's in absolute control of the
free and the uncoerced thoughts and actions of men. Now, we do
what we want to do, and when we sin against Him, it's all
our fault. We can't blame Him and say, well, in His sovereignty,
He could have kept it from happening, and He didn't. Therefore, it's
His fault. Oh, no. My sin is all my fault, but He controls
everything." Somebody says, we'll not have this man reign over
us. Oh, He is reigning over you. Whether you know it or not, He
is in absolute control of you, and He can save you to the glory
of His grace, or He can pass you by and let you go to hell
to the praise of the glory of His justice. But He's Lord. He
is the Prince. But thank God, not only is He
the Prince, He's the Savior. Jesus is the New Testament Greek
translation of the Old Testament name, Joshua. Joshua means Savior. Jehovah is salvation. Now, when the children of Israel
were getting ready to go into the promised land, Moses was
not allowed to go. Moses represented the law, and
the law's not going to bring anybody in. Joshua, the Savior,
is the one who brought them into the promised land. Now, not only
is he prince, he is Savior. Now, let me ask you a very simple
question. Do you need to be saved? Now, I didn't ask you if you
are saved. I asked you, do you need to be saved? Now, if you need to be saved,
He is the Savior. Now, somebody may be thinking,
saved from what? Well, first of all, saved from
God. He's your biggest problem. You've sinned against Him. His
holiness, His righteousness is offended. You know, priests like
to tell people who are not saved, God loves you. You know, not
one time did the apostles or did the Lord look at an unsaved
group and say, God loves you. God's love is in Christ. I'm
not saying that God doesn't love. God's love is in Christ and his
love is for those who are in him. But to tell somebody that
God loves them, know what you need to hear is you become God's
enemy from your sin and you're in trouble. You need to be safe
from God. He's your big problem. He's holy. He's righteous. He's not going
to let sin go unpunished. You've sinned against Him. He
is who you need to be safe from. Not only do you need to be safe
from Him, you need to be safe from yourself. You know I have
my biggest problem? I have no question about that.
I am my biggest problem. If God leaves me to myself, I'll
never come to Christ. I'll never believe the gospel.
I'll run away. That's my problem. I need to
be safe from myself. And oh, how I need to be safe
from my sins. There's nothing I can do about
my sins, but we have this promise, thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. That's what
I need. Now, do you need to be saved? Listen to this scripture, 1 Timothy
chapter 1 verse 15, this is a faithful saying, and it's worthy of all
acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
of whom Paul says, I am the chief. Now, do you need to be saved?
Well, did you hear that scripture? Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. And I'm so thankful there's not
an adjective before that word sinners. It doesn't say he came
to save believing sinners, or repentant sinners, or sorry sinners,
or sensible sinners. Just sinners. Just sinners. Now
here's my second question. Are you a sinner? The first question
Do you need to be saved? The second question, are you
a sinner? Somebody says, well, I commit
sins, I make mistakes. Now hold on, hold on. What is
a sinner in the biblical sense? A sinner is somebody who commits
the sin. God doesn't put sins into hell,
God puts sinners into hell. I've heard people say, God loves
the sinner and he hates his sin. No, don't, that's ridiculous.
You don't find anything like that in the Bible. The sinner
is the one who commits the sin. The sinner is somebody who all
they do is sin. They don't have anything to recommend
them to God. A sinner is someone who cannot
not sin. A sinner is someone who, because
of his sinfulness, all he does is sin and he cannot not sin.
He can't sit in judgment on anybody concerning anything. Whatever
he's judging somebody for, he realizes deep down that he's
worse and has done the same things. A sinner is someone who cannot
sit in judgment on anybody, and a sinner is somebody who has
no claims on God. What do I mean by that? It means if God sent me to hell
and didn't save me, All of creation would praise Him for His glorious
justice. I have no claims on God. I can't
do something to obligate God to save me. That's what a sinner
is. Now here is the gospel. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Now back in our text, it says
in verse 30, the God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you slew
and hanged on a tree. Well, why did they slay him?
Well, because they hated him. That's true, but let's take it
back a little farther. They slew him because it was God's determinate
counsel, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. They slew him because it was
predestinated by God. Both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and people of Israel, were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before,
predestinated to be done. Christ is the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world, and this was His purpose. He
came to save His people from their sins, and that's exactly
what He did when He died. He saved His people from their
sins. He made the payment for their sins. God's justice demands
death. Christ died, and He put away
those sins. And now, as Prince and Savior,
He can give repentance to Israel. He can give the forgiveness of
sins. Repentance. Now, most preachers,
when they talk about repentance, they say, well, here's what you
need to do. You need to be real sorry about your sin. You need
to repent of that sin and not commit it anymore, and then Jesus
Christ will give you the forgiveness of sins. Now, let me tell you
real clearly. If that's what you believe, you've
never believed the gospel. That's just another form of salvation
by works. Forgiveness being rewarded to
you because of your repentance. How sorry do you have to be?
When sorry enough? And as far as that goes, are
there not sins you still commit that you say you've repented
of, but you're still committing them? If you're honest, you'd
say, yes, there are. So if that's what repentance
is, you won't be saved. Repentance is a change of mind
that Christ gives. He gives you a new heart, a new
mind. You have a change of mind about
God. You look at Him in a completely different view than you once
did. Instead of disliking the way He is, you now love the way
He is. You love His sovereignty. You
love His way of saving. You've been given a change of
mind. You've got a change of mind about yourself. You used
to think if the circumstances were right, you could be good,
but you don't think that anymore. You know better than that. You
have a change of mind about salvation. You see that salvation is utterly
and entirely in Christ. And this thing of repentance,
it's his gift. It's not something you work up.
You will not repent unless he gives you this repentance, just
like faith. You won't believe unless he gives
you faith. By grace, you save through faith. Isn't that not
of yourselves? It's the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man
should boast. Well, it's the same with repentance.
But He is exalted as Prince and Savior to give repentance. He can cause you to repent and
grant you true repentance. I can remember as a young man
thinking, what does it mean to repent? I asked myself, I would
repent if I knew what it meant. But I didn't understand it. And
then God granted me repentance, a change of mind. And what else has He exalted
at God's right hand as a Prince and Savior to give? He gives
repentance, this change of mind to Israel, and the forgiveness
of sins. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ does
not offer someone forgiveness. Most preachers act like he's
just throwing it out there and it's up to you to accept or reject. Now, that's foolishness. That's
not the way forgiveness works in the first place. If you hit
me in the face and say, I'm going to accept your forgiveness, I
don't know that it works that way. And yet, people attribute
that to God. Now, forgiveness is Him giving
you, granting you forgiveness. And understand this, salvation
doesn't end with the forgiveness of sins. It begins. It begins
with the full, free, frank, complete forgiveness of sins. Allow God to forgive you? I don't
think so. But He has the power and the
authority and the ability and the willingness to forgive you
of all your sins. And he does, in fact, forgive
everybody that he represents. Everybody that he represents
as Savior, their sins are forgiven. And Peter says, We are witnesses
of these things. We're speaking as a witness.
You may not believe it, but that doesn't change the truthfulness
of the testimony. We are witnesses, His witnesses
of these things, and so also is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath
given to them that obey Him." And when they heard that, they
were cut to heart. They didn't like this message.
They didn't like the fact that God exalted Christ as a Prince
and Savior, and He was ruling and reigning, and them getting
forgiveness or repentance was up to Him. He's God's Prince,
He's God's Savior, and they would not have repentance or the forgiveness
of sins unless He was pleased to give it to them. When they
heard that, they were cut to the heart, and they took counsel
to slay them. They wanted to murder these men
over this message. And they perhaps spent the rest
of their life having men want to murder them over this message,
but that doesn't take away from the glory of this message. Him
have God exalted with His right hand to be Prince and Savior
for to give to Israel repentance, the remission of sins. This is
Todd Nyberg, amen. To request a copy of the sermon
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