Tis not that I did choose thee Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Niber. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. I want to read a verse of Scripture
from the book of James, chapter 5, verse 12. James says, But
above all things, my brethren, Now, James is saying at this
time, up to this point, this is the most important thing I've
said. Everything is below this, above
all things. Now, when James makes that statement,
what would you guess that he would say? Let's go on reading,
and I bet it's not something you would have guessed. In James
5, verse 12, But above all things, my brethren, swear not. This is the most important thing
that I've said. Above all things, swear not. Neither by heaven, neither by
the earth, neither by any other oath, but let your yea be yea
and your nay be nay, lest you fall into condemnation. Now, James did a lot of very
important things in the book of James, but he says, this is
what is most important. Let your yay be yay and your
nay be nay. Do not swear. Now, when he tells us not to
swear, he's not talking about cursing. We ought not curse. There's no doubt about that.
We ought not use bad language or filthy language or off-color
language. I'm aware of that, but that's
not what James is talking about. What James is saying is, don't
say, I swear I'll do this. Don't say, I promise I'll do
this. Don't say, I will fill in the
blank. This is for sure. Don't make
promises like that. Do not invoke anything in heaven
or upon the earth to help you. Don't say, I swear to God, that's
blasphemy. Don't say, I swear on my mother's
grave. That's horrible. Don't make any promises at all. Let your yay be yay. and you're
nay be nay, but don't make promises. Now, why is this the most important
thing James says I'm saying? Now, this is something that we
need to understand. This is so important. James says,
do not make any promises. And he goes on to say, lest we
fall into condemnation, the word is actually hypocrisy. Anytime
I say I promise, I have fallen into hypocrisy. Now, what is
the issue here? Does that mean, for instance,
if you're going through a wedding and the one who's officiating
the wedding says, do you promise to be faithful? And you say,
no, I can't make that promise. Is that what that means? No,
no. Does that mean that if you're
getting ready to buy something, and you're going to buy a car
and they give you a contract and you're supposed to sign something
saying I promise I'll pay so-and-so a month back till it's all fulfilled
and you're completely paid back and they gave you the contract
and if you say I can't make any promises like that I'm not supposed
to make promises what are they going to say they're not going
to give you the loan What if you're in a court of law and
they say, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth? And you say, no, I can't make
that promise. Well, you're going to be guilty of perjury. So this
is not saying something like that. I realize people have made
it that way, but that's not really what is being addressed. Now,
most people, when they Talk about this verse of Scripture, they
talk about the importance of truthfulness. Just be true. Don't
have to say, I promise. Just be true. Let your yes be
yes, and let your no be no. Now, why is this a statement
of such importance? read Matthew chapter five, that's
going to throw some light on this. Remember, James was the
Lord's brother. And I don't have any doubt that
James heard the Lord when he made this statement, verse 33. And again, you've heard that
it's been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear
thyself, but thou shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath. If
you make a promise to the Lord, you better keep that promise.
But look what the Lord said, but I say unto you, swear not
at all. Don't be trying to make promises
that you can't keep in the first place. You don't know what's
going to happen to you tomorrow. James said as much when he said,
go to now, ye that say today or tomorrow, we're going to go
into a city and live there a year and buy and sell and trade. James
says, You don't say anything like that. What is your life?
It's a vapor that appears for a little while and passes away.
You ought to say, if the Lord will, we'll do such and such.
Now, the Lord Jesus Christ says, swear not at all. Don't be making
any promises. Don't make any promises to God. Let me ask you a question. How
many promises have you ever made to the Lord that you kept? Wouldn't
you be far better off saying, claiming no past, present, or
future merit, being like the leper, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. Anything that begins with an
I will, I promise, I'll do this, I'll do that, it's bad. The Lord
says, swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it's God's throne,
neither by the earth, for it's his footstool, neither by Jerusalem,
for it's the city of the great king. Neither shalt thou swear
by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
You don't have the ability to see through on anything. But
let your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay. For whatsoever is more than these
cometh of evil. And that's what the Lord has
to say. Let your yes be yes. Let your
yea be yea. and let your nay be nay." Now,
these two words are strong, strong, powerful words. The word yea
is found 34 times in the New Testament, and it's a statement
of strong affirmation. Even so, yea, truth, yes, You
may be responding to something you hear and you say, yes, yay,
I believe that. That's the truth. For instance, when the Lord said to those two
blind men, believe ye that I am able to do this, they said, yay,
Lord. They believed with all their
heart and soul and strength in the ability of the Lord Jesus
Christ to do whatever it was He willed to do. I think of what
the Lord said, and this is the one time we read of Him rejoicing.
At that time, Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank Thee,
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You've hid these
things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes
Even so, that's the same word, yea, yea, even so, yea, for so
it seemed good in thy sight. Now this is our response to whatever
the Lord does. If it's good in his sight, we
say yea, it's good. I think of the Lord speaking
to the Syro-Phoenician woman and he said, it's not right,
it's not meet to take the children's bread and throw it out to the
dogs. And she said, yea, Lord, Truth, Lord, if I've ever heard
the truth, that's it. There's the strong affirmation
of yea. And is there a more powerful
word than no? Even a dog understands it. When
you say no, they stop. They stop. It's an absolute negative. Let me give you a few examples
in the scripture of the way this word nay is used. Paul said,
I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Oh, how strongly, no good thing. There is none that doeth righteous. No, not one. That's the saying
of scripture. There's none that doeth righteous.
Me and you included. No, not one. To as many as received him, to
them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them
which believe on his name, which were born, not of the flesh,
not of blood, not of the will of man. A strong negation. If you're born of God, it has
nothing to do with your mommy and daddy being a believer. It doesn't have anything to do
with a bunch of men getting together and praying for your salvation.
It has nothing to do with some kind of supposed act of your
free will. If you're born again, you were birthed of God, not
any of these other things. When people came to John the
Baptist and said, are you that prophet? He said, no. No. What a powerful answer. Yea, strong affirmation. Let your yea be yea. No, a strong
negation. Let your no be no. Now let me
read you another scripture that I think will throw so much light
upon why James said, this is more important than anything
else. Now, remember, the only way to
interpret scripture is look at it in the light of other scriptures.
The Bible interprets itself. You don't have to go outside
of the Bible to find the meaning of the scripture or the meaning
of what's being said. So read here with me in 2 Corinthians
1. If you could get your Bible and
follow along, it would be helpful. If you don't have access to a
Bible, just listen real carefully. Verse 15 of 2 Corinthians chapter
1, in this confidence I was minded to come to you before that you
might have a second benefit. That was my intention. I wanted
to come to you that you might benefit from my visit. That was
my serious desire and intention. But how many times have you intended
to do something and you weren't able to do it? Something in providence
made it to where you couldn't do it. circumstances that were
beyond your control. You said you were going to do
something, but you had to change your plans. You couldn't do it. Well,
that's what happened to Paul. Verse 16, he said, I plan to
pass by you into Macedonia and come again out of Macedonia into
you and have you bring me on my way toward Judea. When I therefore
was thus minded to do this, Did I use lightness? Was I frivolous
and fickle about this? Did I not mean to keep my word?
Or the things that I purpose. Do I purpose according to the
flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay? There's
those two words. Yes and no to the same thing.
Yea, yea, and nay, nay. Now, what Paul's opponents were
doing, they were trying to accuse him of fickleness so they could
cast a bad light on his preaching. He says yes and no to the same
thing. You can't really pay any attention to what he's saying,
but look what he says in verse 18. But as God is true, our word
toward you was not yea and nay. Now I would describe most preaching
that I hear as yay, nay preaching. And remember, James said, above
all things, let your yes be yes and your no be no. And Paul warns
us here that his preaching was not yay and nay. His yes did not mean no, and
his no did not mean yes. You couldn't answer the question
with a yes and a no. Everything in my preaching was
yay yay or nay nay. Let me give you several examples
of what I'm talking about, and I hope you listen carefully.
Most people, I suppose, that profess to be Christians would
say, well, the Bible's the Word of God. We get our beliefs from
the Bible. The Bible is our only rule of
faith and practice. Yes, we believe the Bible is
the Word of God, but we also have confessions and we have
creeds that will let us know what the Bible teaches. Yes,
we believe the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice, but
no, we look to other sources to find out what to believe.
We look to the confessions and the creeds to explain to us what
the Bible means. Is salvation all of grace? There's
a question that should be answered with either a yes or no. Here's
the answer of most professing Christianity. Yes, salvation
is all of grace, but it's up to you to accept that grace offered
or you will not be saved. Now, that's yes and no to the
same question. Is salvation all of grace? Yes,
but if you make somehow Its saving depended upon your reception
of it. You're not really believing that salvation is all of grace.
You're saying yes and no to the same question. Is God sovereign? I've never heard a religious
person say no. Why, yes, God is sovereign. We
believe in the sovereignty of God. Yes, God is sovereign. And
God in His sovereignty has decided to let man have a free will.
Now, those two things can't be true. You can't say, yes, he's
sovereign, but no, man does have a free will. If God is sovereign,
there's no such thing as free will. God is in absolute control
over the free actions of men. Now, it's true we do what we
want to do, but God is in absolute control of everything and everybody. Even the thoughts that are going
through your mind right now, even if you're objecting to what
you're hearing, he's in control of that. You see, God is absolutely
sovereign. He really is God. We can't say
yes and no to the sovereignty of God. Is God immutable? That word means, is He incapable
of change? Why, yes, God is immutable, as
long as He doesn't change. But if you don't let Him do what
He wants to do, He'll put His wrath on you, and you'll no longer
be an object of His love, but an object of His wrath, and He'll
send you to hell. In that sense, God changes. No, you're saying
yes and no to the same thing. You can't say, yes, God is immutable,
but no, He does change under certain circumstances. No, He's
always the same. That's who He is. Did the death
of Christ actually put away sins? Yes, Christ died for everybody
and put away their sins, but you might have to pay for them
if you don't accept him as your personal Savior. Yes, he died
for your sins, but you still may wind up in hell if you don't
accept him. There's something you need to
do with what he did to make it work. You see, that's saying
yes and no to the same thing. Was the intention of Christ to
save everybody? Well, yes, it was. Now listen. His intention was to save everybody
and not everybody's saved. You know what that means? That
means he failed. He failed. There's an appropriate, a right
answer to a question. Did Christ intend to save everybody?
No, he didn't. If he did, everybody would be
saved. Is salvation by faith alone? Well, yes, it is. We believe
salvation is by faith alone. But if you don't have a bunch
of works and evidences in your life to prove that your faith
is real, it's no good. Yes, salvation is by faith alone.
But if you don't have works that prove it, well, I don't believe
it's faith. It's your works that prove the
reality of your faith. I know nothing of trusting Christ
alone. Are we under the law? No. Salvation
is not by law, but by grace. But yes, we are under the law,
and the law being our guide of life and our standard of measurement,
we judge our salvation and the state of our soul upon how we
look before that law. That's a yes and no to the same
question. Now, these same questions should
be answered with a yes or a no. Is the Bible our only rule of
faith and practice? We're not looking to any man-made
document. The Bible is our only rule of
faith and practice, given by inspiration of God. All scripture
is given by inspiration of God. And somebody may argue, but the
Bible's a big book, and you can narrow things down into these
confessions, and they can be helpful. The Bible is a big book,
but it's only got one message. Salvation is of the Lord. And
anything that's contrary to that, We don't want it. And if you
look in any of these man-made confessions, there will be portion
of those things that deny that. Is salvation really all of grace?
all of grace, from election to glorification and everything
in between, salvations by grace, unmerited favor, demerited favor. Not only can we not merit God's
favor, our actions have demerited God's favor, but He has favor
anyway for Christ's sake. He freely, by His grace, elected
a people. Christ redeemed those people,
and that was an act of grace. God the Holy Spirit gives them
new lives so they can believe and repent. That's an act of
grace. They're preserved all the way
to the end. That's an act of grace. Truly,
salvation is all by grace. Is God sovereign? Yes, absolutely. He's sovereign over everything
and everybody and every event. He is in absolute control. He is the cause. That's who He
is. Anything less than that is a
false god. Yes, God is absolutely sovereign. Let your yes be yes and your
no be no. Did the blood of Christ put away
sin? Yes. Everybody He died for Their
sin is no more. He justified them. Their sin
was put away, and now they all stand before God without sin. Yes, the blood of Christ actually
put away sin. Well, does God love all men without
exception? No. No. Now, somebody says, why
do you want to make a statement like that? Because the Bible
does. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Esau hath I hated. But here's the point. God's love
is saving love. He doesn't love somebody and
they wind up in hell. Why, there wouldn't be anything
to His love if that was the case, but His love is saving love.
Everybody He loves, He saves. Do you believe in faith alone? Yes. This is the work of God,
that you believe on Him whom He hath sent. Nothing else. I don't look to my works to see
if my faith is real. And you say, well, what about
those scriptures about faith without works is dead being alone?
Well, those scriptures are just as true. What was the one evidence
that Abraham really believed God? What he did, what he did
in this sense, I think of this, God told Abraham, take your son
and offering him up as a burnt offering to me in a mountain
that I'll tell you of. Now what did Abraham do? If he
would not have believed God, he would say, I can't do that
because then God's promise won't take place. He promised the Messiah
to come through this boy, so if I kill him, God's promise
won't take place, so I can't do that. Now all he'd be saying
by that is, I don't believe God. What demonstrated that Abraham
believed God. He raised up that knife to kill
his son, believing that God would raise him from the dead. That's
what the scripture says. You know, when he stopped at
Mount Moriah, he said, I and the lad will go yonder and worship
and we'll return again to you. He believed that he'd kill him
and God would raise him from the dead right then because he
believed God. So, faith alone. He believed God. And obviously that's going to
have a great effect on everything he does, but salvation comes
from faith. And if you've got to look at your works to prove
to yourself you have faith, if you've got to say, well, I must
have faith because I read the Bible a lot, because I've stopped
committing this sin and become more holy and started doing things
and started witnessing more and praying more, that's not faith. That's faith in yourself, but
it's not faith in Christ. You see, faith in Christ is faith
alone. That's the way faith works, alone. Do you believe that grace is
enough to motivate people? Most people would say, yes, I
do, but just in case it doesn't work, we'll motivate them with
hopes for reward or threats of loss. No, grace motivates all
who experience the grace of God. Now, our word toward you was
not yea and nay. Now look what he says next in
verse 19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached
among you by us, and He is our message. The uncreated Son of
God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. For the Son
of God, the One who cannot fail. The Son of God, the One who created
the universe. The Son of God, the One who,
if He died for your sins, they're gone. You must be saved. He cannot
fail. The scripture says, He cannot
fail nor be discouraged. Isaiah chapter 42. The Son of
God who was preached among you. He's our message. You see, what
we believe is determined by who we believe. If we believe Him,
we're not going to have a yay-nay message. For the Son of God,
who was preached among us, you by us, even by me and Silvavius
and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. Not he'll do this if you do that,
but if you don't do that, he won't be able to do this. That's
yes and no preaching. That's wishy-washy. It's not
real. For all the promises of God in
him are yea and amen. to the glory of God by us. Now, all the promises of God,
where are they? They're in Christ. They're all
in Christ. All of God's blessing, all of
God's mercy, all of God's grace, all of God's favor is in Christ. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. Anything you have is given to
you for Christ's sake. All of the promises of God in
him are yea and amen. Now I'd like to read a passage
of scripture found in Galatians chapter 3, the 18th verse. For if the inheritance, salvation,
heaven, likeness to Christ, for if the inheritance be of the
law, If it's dependent upon me doing something, then it's no
more promise. But God gave it to Abraham by
promise. You see, Abraham didn't earn
anything. It was all given to him. And
this promise was made before the world began. You see, Christ
promised to be a surety for everybody the Father gave Him, and He took
full responsibility for their salvation. So my salvation is
by God's promise. God promised to Christ, if you
save Him, He'll be your bride. He'll be your child. He'll be
your little brother. He'll be conformed to your image.
All the promises of God in him are yea, because he cannot fail. David put it this way on his
dying bed in second Samuel chapter 23 verse five, that chapter begins
with these be the last words of David. He made this statement,
although my house be not so with God, His family was a mess, and
I think he was talking about his own flesh as well, his own
house. Although my house be not so with God, yet hath he made
with me an everlasting covenant, one that was before time began
and one that'll never be ended. It's everlasting, the everlasting
promise of God, the everlasting covenant of God. And David said
regarding this covenant, it's ordered in all things and sure. And this is all my salvation
and all my desire, though we make it not to grow. All the
promises of God in Him are yea and amen. To Todd and I, we pray
that God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. Amen. To request a copy of the sermon
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