Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nivert. 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 Nivert. I want to attempt to speak to
you upon this subject, the stripping of Christ. Now when you see those
crucifixes with the one supposedly being Jesus of Nazareth nailed
to a cross, they usually have loincloths on him. And for one
thing, those crucifixes are idols. They shouldn't be. And for another
thing, our Lord was stripped naked before this crowd, this
jeering crowd. It's painful to think about.
It's painful to talk about. But it's a very important part
of us understanding what the Lord was going through on Calvary's
tree and how he saved sinners by his grace. Now, I'm going
to read beginning in John chapter 19, verse 23. Then the soldiers,
when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four
parts to every soldier a part and also his coat, which was
his inner tunic. Now the coat was without seam,
woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves,
let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be. that the scripture might be fulfilled,
which saith, they parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture
they did cast lots. That's Psalm 22, 18, 1,000 years
before this took place, it was prophesied it would. And then
John ends with this comment. These things therefore the soldiers
did. It was prophesied that they would
do this, therefore this is what they did. Before Christ was nailed
to the cross, he was stripped of his garments. That's what
the Roman soldiers would do before they crucified someone. They
would take their clothing, and they would either keep it for
themselves or use it to sell, to make some money. It was their
right to do this as Roman soldiers, and the Lord Jesus Christ was
stripped naked, and after he was stripped naked, he was nailed
to the cross. It was dropped in the sand, and
the soldiers at that point, at the very foot of the cross, while
our Lord was hanging their suffering, they began to part His garments,
to rip them into four different parts, but the inner tunic was
a seamless robe of great value, and they said, We don't want
to rip that up. It'll diminish the value. Let's roll the dice. Let's catch lots to see who will
get it to sell or to keep this valuable piece of clothing. Now, all this was going on while
the Lord was suffering. Now, the first statement I would
like to make with regard to this is we need to begin where we
should begin. This was God's will being done. This was the Scripture being
fulfilled. Now, in Psalm 22, and that's
the great psalm of the cross, it begins with the words of Christ,
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And every verse
in there is a reference to what our Lord experienced on Calvary
Street. This is where it says, they pierced
my hands and feet. That's said in this very psalm.
And then we read in verse 18, they part my garments among them
and cast lots upon my vesture. Now, what the soldiers did was
prophesied that this is what they would do. Now, I've said
this before, but it's almost like everything that happened
around the cross, they looked up in the Scriptures what they
were supposed to do, and then they did it, although we know
that's not the case. These men were doing what they
wanted to do. They were hardened, callous men who didn't care anything
about Christ, and they were doing exactly what they wanted to do,
but they were doing exactly what God determined for them to do. Everything they did, they did
that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. Paul said in Acts
chapter 13, verse 29, when they had fulfilled all that was written
of him, they took him down and laid him in a sepulcher. And
even the grave they laid him in was prophesied in Scripture
in Isaiah chapter 53. Everything that happened to Christ
happened that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, which is
another way of saying that God's will might be fulfilled. Let me give you a couple of other
Scriptures. Acts 2.23, Peter's opening statement on the day
of Pentecost. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and with
wicked hands have crucified and slain. We read in Acts 4, verse
27, of the truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast
anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and
the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever
thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. When they
stripped him naked and nailed him to a cross, and then gambled
for his clothing, they were doing what God's hand and what God's
counsel determined before to be done. Now listen to this statement
real carefully. God is completely sovereign over
the free and uncoerced actions of men. Men do what they want
to do. There's not some kind of the
devil made me do it or God made me do it. Men do what they want
to do, and God is completely sovereign over every action of
man. The lot is cast into the lap,
but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Now, these men,
while they acted freely, they did what God appointed and decreed
for them to do. Now, somebody may think, Should
men be held responsible for what God decreed for them to do? How
could they be held responsible if God decreed for them to do
this? Well, men are not held responsible. They are responsible. You see,
you can be held responsible for something you didn't do. But
what these men did, they did willfully and wickedly. That's
what Peter points out. He said, Him being delivered
by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you with
wicked hands have crucified and slain. This is what you did.
Yes, men are responsible for their actions that God is completely
sovereign over. Now to say God is sovereign is
to say God is God. He controls everything. And to say men are responsible
is because they are responsible. They do what they want to do. Now, if I say men should not
be held responsible for what they do, what I'm saying is men
are victims of God, and God is treating them unfairly. And I
love the way Paul handled that objection in Romans 9, when someone
said, Why does he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will?
How can he, if he decrees everything, if he hardened Pharaoh's heart,
and if he raised up Pharaoh just for the purpose of showing his
power in him, why does he yet find fault? How could he find
fault with Pharaoh if he raised him for that? I love the way
Paul answered, Nay, but, O man, who are you? to reply against
God. You can't sit in judgment on
God. You're saying you're His moral
superior. You're saying you're His judge.
You're saying you're better than Him when you make a statement
like that. If we really believe we're sinners, we won't have
a sense of entitlement, and we'll believe that God would be just
if He passed us by, and we'll be so thankful for His sovereign
mercy that He can save whom He will save. Now, I see in these
clothes God's being stripped from Christ. I see God's will
being done. Secondly, I see the wickedness
and the callousness of men. I want to read a passage of Scripture
from Isaiah chapter 52. It says, beginning in verse 2,
for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. This is talking
about the Lord Jesus in his incarnation. And as a root out of dry ground,
he hath no form. nor comeliness. And when we shall
see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and accounted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not." Now, that's our assessment of the Lord Jesus Christ by nature. We see no beauty in him. We don't
desire Him, we despise Him, and we esteem Him not. Now, somebody says, I don't feel
that way about Christ. Well, you don't feel that way
about the Christ that's not the Christ of the Bible. Now, a lot
of people have a Jesus they love, but He's not the Jesus of the
Bible. He's more of a genie that they pull out and get their wishes
from him. They ought to call him genie
instead of Jesus. But the Jesus that is preached from most pulpits,
there's nothing in him to despise. There's nothing in him to fear.
But I'm talking about the Christ of the Bible, the Christ in whose
hands you are, and your eternal destiny is up to him. He can save you. or He can pass
you by, and whatever He does is right. Now, while I'm saying
that, I also want to say there's never, ever, ever been a sinner
come to Him for mercy that He said no. Everybody that comes
for mercy receives mercy. I want to say that, and I want
that to be clear, but it's still true. Your salvation is in His
hands. You have no control in it. It's
not up to you as to whether or not you'll be saved. It's up
to Him. Now, that Jesus people despise. They say, we will not have this
man reign over us. That's the Jesus that men do
not esteem. They don't esteem the altogether
lovely one. That's the Jesus they reject
and see no beauty in. Now these men at the very foot
of the cross didn't esteem the Lord Jesus Christ. They despised
him. They saw no beauty in him. And that's what sin is. Sin is
seen in what we think of Christ. Sin, you think, well, sin is
stealing something or getting drunk or committing sexual sin. That is indeed sin. That's wrong. But the reality of sin is seen
in someone's attitude toward the Christ of the Bible. And these men, in their callousness
and hardness, cast lots. gambled for his garments, with
no care regarding the Savior. Now, I know, as I said, in those
crucifixes that have the figure of the one supposedly who is
Jesus on them-you see them in many churches-there will always
be a loincloth on him. Now, he was stripped naked. He was stripped naked, completely
naked in front of that wicked mob. Now what was the first thing
Adam and Eve found out after the fall? They saw they were
naked. Now before the fall, they were
naked, but it wasn't an issue because they had innocent natures. They didn't have sinful natures
yet. So they were naked and not ashamed. But after the fall, when they
were made sinners because of the sin they committed and became
evil, all of a sudden they felt the shame of their nakedness. And what did they do? They went
to try to cover their nakedness and cover their shame with fig
leaves, which represents man's attempt at covering his sin with
his own works. Christ was stripped of his clothing
to let us know something about the shame he experienced on the
cross. You see, The sins of his people
became his, so that he became guilty of those sins before God. And oh, the shame that he experienced,
much more acutely than you or I could ever experience, because
we're used to sin. We were born sinful, and we're
used to sin, and it doesn't shock us the way it did the Lord Jesus
Christ, but oh, the shame He felt before His Father of the
sins that became His sins. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree, and He said from the cross, I am a worm and no
man. That is the shame he experienced
in being stripped. He was stripped of his righteousness. He no longer had that perfect
righteousness that it was stripped off of him. That's what that
robe represents. He felt all the shame and all
the guilt and all the horror of sin. That's hard to think
about, isn't it? Think of the excellency and the
dignity of the Son of God, yet He's stripped naked to the jeers
of this crowd, making fun of Him, stripped of His righteousness,
being made a curse for us. Now, when I see the soldiers
at the foot of the cross dividing the garments, it reminds me that
the world wants a divided Christ. Not a whole Christ, but a divided
Christ. They like to pick out which part
they'll accept and which part they'll reject. This is seen
in denominations. You know, within what they call
Christianity, you have Baptists, and Methodists, and Catholics,
and Pentecostals, and Presbyterians, and Church of Christ, and all
these different denominations dividing Christ. Denominations
aren't in the Bible. There's not a word about anything
like that in the Bible. Men want to go in that direction,
and they think, well, my brand of Christianity is a little bit
better than these other denominations, and it's foolishness is what
it is. There's nothing in the Bible
about anything like that, and you think of the truth. Here's
an example. Whom he foreknew, he also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
He did predestinate, them He also called. And whom He called,
them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified." Now, there are the five links of salvation. Foreknowledge, predestination,
calling, justification, and glorification. Now, which part is it okay to
leave out? Which part is it okay to admit? None of it. The truth
is one whole. This is illustrated so clearly
when we're given a picture of the wisdom of Solomon in 1 Kings
chapter 3. I don't know if you're familiar
with the story, but there were two prostitutes, both who had infants and they
were both in bed together and during the night one of these
prostitutes laid over on her infant and smothered the infant
and when she woke up she saw her baby was dead. So she took
her dead baby and put it beside that other woman she was in bed
with and took her living baby and brought it to herself. Now
in the morning When the woman woke up and she saw the dead
baby, she said, this baby is not mine. And the prostitute
who had stolen her said, yes, that's yours. This one's mine.
So they went to Solomon to determine whose child, who the mother of
the living child was. So Solomon said, here's what
we're going to do. Bring me a sword. And they brought
him a sword and he said, we're going to cut the baby in two
and give each a half and that way everybody will be happy.
Now what the mother who really wasn't, whose child was already
dead and that wasn't really her child, what did she say? Okay,
I'll agree to that. What did the mother whose child
she really was, what did she say? Give it to her. Give it
to her. I don't want the living child
divided. I don't want the living child
killed. Now, here's the point. Who would not be willing to let
the child be divided? The one who loved that child.
If you love Christ, if you love His gospel, you are unwilling
for any of His truth to be divided. And when it is, you no longer
have life. You have a dead child. And that's
what these soldiers represent as they cast lots for the garment
and then try to part them into different sections. Now Christ's
inner garment was his tunic, and this was quite valuable because
it was a tunic without seam. There was no seam in it whatsoever. Now what this represents, and
throughout the Scripture, righteousness is represented as a garment. Isaiah 61.10, we read of the
robe of righteousness that the believer is clothed with. We read in Revelation 19.8 of
the fine linen, clean and white, that the bride wears. This is the righteousness of
the saints, which is the righteousness of Christ. The righteousness
of Christ is the righteousness of the saints. What about the
wedding garment we read of in Matthew 22, and we have that
parable of the king who came in to view the guests at the
wedding feast for his son, and he saw one who didn't have a
wedding garment. And he said, bind him hand and
foot and cast him into outer darkness where there'll be weeping
and gnashing of teeth. He didn't have the wedding garment
on, and that wedding garment represents the righteousness
and the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I have no doubt
that it was the hem of this garment that people touched and were
made whole. Do you remember the woman with
the issue of blood who crawled in behind him and touched the
hem of his garment, and immediately her disease, she was cured of
and made whole? I know it was that garment because
of what that garment represents, his righteousness. Now, there
wasn't any saving efficacy in that garment. It was made out
of material. There was nothing holy about
it, but it's what it represented. Just like if we had the cross
today, what would be the best thing we could do with it? If
we had the literal cross that Christ was crucified on, the
best thing to do would be throw it away, hide it, because men
would make an idol of it. Now, this tunic This seamless
robe represents the seamless righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. His righteousness is perfect,
and that's the righteousness that covers the believer. There
are no seams, there are no weak parts, and this is the righteousness
of the saints. He was stripped of this garment
that we might be clothed by this garment. My dear friends, that's
the gospel. even as David describeth the
blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without
works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,
whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord will not impute sin." Now, here is what took place
on Calvary's tree. Christ was stripped of His robe. He was made to bear my sins,
and that perfect righteousness that He worked out clothes me. Now, His covering is unlike my
covering. Here's my sleeve. Underneath
my sleeve, there are age spots. There may be scabs. There are
imperfections. I'm getting older. That's what
happens to your skin. Looks like crepe paper. Everybody
knows what that means that has that. But you know, you can't
see it because it's covered. But if you remove the cover,
all those imperfections are still there. But here's the thing about
Christ covering. When He covers your sin, it is
removed so that you don't have it anymore. The songwriter said,
Oh, my sin, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not
in part, but the whole has been nailed to the cross and I bear
it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Oh, my soul. The King's daughter is all glorious
within. You see, the covering of Christ
makes it to where you do not have any sin. Somebody says,
but I still sin. I know you do, but you still
don't have any sin if you're in Christ. And one of these days,
you'll see the reality of that in the glorious truth of justification,
when I'm made to be sinless. But I believe I'm sinless right
now, even though I commit sins every day. I believe before God
I'm sinless because of the glorious garment of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when Bartimaeus came to
Christ, you know what he did? He got rid of his garment. when
he came to Christ, that old dirty garment. And if you come to Christ,
you're going to come stripped. And the only way you're going
to be clothed is if you're stripped. Now, I'd like to read a passage
of Scripture from Luke chapter 15. It's a very familiar story,
the story of the prodigal coming home. Verse 11, he said, A certain
man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father,
give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. He had a
sense of entitlement. And he divided unto them his
living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all
together and took his journey into a far country, and there
wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent
all, there arose a mighty famine in the land, and he began to
be in want. And he went and joined himself
to a citizen of that country. He joined a church, man's religion,
and he sent him into the fields to work, to feed swine. That's
what religion does. It sends you to work. And he
would fain have filled his belly with the husk that the swine
did eat, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself,
What a blessed time when the Lord revealed to him what condition
he was in. He said, how many hired servants
of my father's have bread enough and despair, and I perish with
hunger. I will arise and go to my father,
and I'll say unto him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and
before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. That sense
of entitlement that he had has now vanished, and he knows I'm
not worthy of the least of his mercies. He says, make me as
one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his
father. But when he was yet a great way
off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on
his neck and kissed him. His father was looking for him
to return. And when he returns, look at
his reception from his father. And the son said unto him, Father,
I've sinned against heaven, and in thy sight am no more worthy
to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants,
Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him. Don't hand it
to him, put it on him. And a ring for his hand the token
of my eternal love and eternal covenant, and shoes for his feet,
grace to walk in the gospel. He was given the best robe. Now, if you come as a naked sinner
with no covering at all, miserable in your sin, and you come to
him not expecting anything but the crumbs of his mercy, you
are going to find that he's going to robe you with the best robe,
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect obedience
of Christ. The Lord said, their righteousness
is of me. And this stripping of Christ's
garments, him being stripped of his righteousness, that I
might be clothed with it, covered with it, and made perfect in
God's sight. 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. 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
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