Did you? 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. In Romans chapter 4, verse 5,
Paul makes this magnificent, incredible statement. To him
that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. I have entitled this message,
God Justifies the Ungodly. Now this is something that only
God can do. An ungodly man can't justify
himself. Job said, if I justify myself,
my own mouth would condemn me. This is something that only God
would do. No man would do this, and this
is something that he has actually done. God justifies the ungodly. Now, to him that worketh not. Will you please not think about
what you have done or what you are going to do? Do not make
any resolves about what you're going to do and how everything's
going to be okay between you and God because you're going
to fill in the blank. You're going to become a new
man. You're going to start reading the Bible. You're going to start
praying. You're going to start living a better life. You're
going to start believing. Don't think about what you have
done. Just scratch that from your thoughts. May God give me and you both
the grace to do that. to be someone who works not. To him that worketh not, but
believes on him that justifies the ungodly. The Lord makes it,
if He justifies you, He makes it to where your sin never was. There is absolutely no barrier,
no impediment, No roadblock between you and God. Justification means
you never sinned. You have no guilt before God. You have nothing to feel guilty
about. What an incredible thought that
God Almighty, the sovereign, holy, Just God, the God of the
Bible, actually justifies sinners. Like that sinner in the temple,
God be merciful to me, the sinner. And Christ said regarding to
that man, he went down to his house, justified, not merely
forgiven, but justified. You know, justification, I want
to say this carefully, but justification is better than forgiveness. Now,
if you're justified, you're also forgiven, no doubt. But if all
I was is forgiven, that forgiveness can be taken away. You can forgive
somebody and yet repeatedly sin and they might not forgive you
anymore. But if you're justified, it's irreversible. You are without
guilt before God. Justification is better than
forgiveness. Now, how can this be? Well, Paul goes on to quote David
in Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2, but let me read what Paul says. He talks about this one who works
not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly. He then
goes on to say, even as David also describeth the blessedness
of the man. Now here is blessedness. Even
as David also 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 to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Now, we read of these horrible
words, sin, sins, iniquity, transgressions. We lie. We cheat. We steal. We murder, we lust,
we covet, we fail to love God with all of our heart. We take
his holy name in vain without showing the proper reverence. We've been guilty of idolatry,
false, making gods of something other than the living God of
the Bible. We never rest. Now that's what iniquity and
transgression and sin is, and that's us. Paul said, I find
in a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. Now, how do you feel about what
I just said? Let me read. Paul quoted David
in Psalm 32, but I want to read the first two verses of Psalm
32 for you, where Paul quoted this to show how God justifies
the ungodly. David said, blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven. Not the man who says, I have
no transgression, but the man whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered, covered by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ so that it's no more. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. Doesn't say he didn't commit
iniquity, but God didn't charge him with it. Oh, how blessed
is that man. But David says something else.
He says, and in whose spirit, There is no guile, no deceit. Now, that's talking about the
spirit given in the new birth, that spirit that is the result
of God giving you life, becoming a partaker of the divine nature,
being given a holy nature. In that spirit there is no guile. Now that's the spirit that owns
the sins of the old man. You know, you never truly confess
your sin unless you have this new man, this new spirit that's
honest enough to confess sin. It has no guile. By nature, you and I are very
deceitful. We're liars by nature. It comes
natural to us to lie. Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9 says,
for the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? That is God's
description of my heart and your heart. Genesis chapter 5 verse
6, 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 that's my heart, that's my
natural heart. And that's your natural heart. That's the way
we're born into this world. As a result of the fall of our
first parents, they fell and they became dead in sins. Their
spirit died. Their spiritual nature died.
They were left with a body and a soul. But that which had communion
with God was no more. But when God saves someone, he
gives them a new spirit. in which there is no guile. Now, we play mind games, me and
you, we both do. We refuse to consider what we
are or what we've done. We're very partial in our judgments
with regard to ourselves, greatly exaggerating what we consider
good and lovely and commendable things about ourselves and minimizing
greatly and underestimating our sins and our faults. We excuse
them. We use a false weight and a deceitful
balance with regard to ourselves. We put our hope in something
that's frivolous and it always begins with an I. We flatter
ourselves that tomorrow we will be different. And somehow we're
going to make things right. Let me give you two refuges,
false refuges that a deceitful sinner makes. The false refuges are yesterday
and tomorrow. I look to some kind of experience
that happened yesterday to try to find comfort for today, or
I think about something I'm going to do tomorrow to make things
better. Yesterday and tomorrow are false
refuges. Oh, would to God that we could
stand before God as we are, guilty sinners, and cry with the public,
and God be merciful to me, the sinner. Now, what a blessing.
When God gives us that spirit with no guile, and there's an
honest and open confession of sin before him. John said in
1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sin. What's that mean? It means to take sides with God
against ourselves. It means to agree with what God
says about us. Now, in verse 8, he said, if
we say we have no sin, and there, the word is a noun. He's not
talking about something we do. It's talking about what we are.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us. We've lost all credibility. There's
no time when I can say I have no sin. I've got a sinful nature
all the time, and I won't be rid of it until I die. And then
in verse 10 of 1 John 1 says, if we say we've not sinned, We
make him a liar. Regarding anything I do, I sinned. If I did it, there's sin in it.
There's deceit in it if I did it. What about that good gift
you gave? Well, there was a bad motive
in there. Or what about that merciful act toward that person
where you helped them out? I did it. It's sin. I can't say
with regard to anything, even this sermon I'm preaching, I
can't say there's no sin in it. No way. But if we confess our
sin, if we take sides with God against ourselves, He is faithful
and just to forgive our sins. and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, do I have anyone listening
who is ungodly, guilty of lawlessness, transgression, and sin? Well, we read of God justifying
the ungodly without them doing anything to get it. Does that
sound attractive to you? Look what he says in verse 6,
even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto
whom God imputeth righteousness without their works. How can
that be? What I'm talking about Oh, would
to God that I would be enabled every time I preach to preach
this message. Oh, I want to deal with everything
in the scriptures. Don't don't get me wrong. There's no part
of the scriptures I don't want to deal with. But this is the
very foundation of which every blessing comes. God justifying
the ungodly. Now, how in the world can that
be? How can God impute righteousness
to me when I'm sinful? How can I be justified before
God when I'm unjust before when I'm unjust in myself? How can
God look at me and say he's a just man? He's a righteous man. He's
a holy man. Jesus Christ. Is the son of God. Jesus Christ. The one who controlled the weather.
who could see a raging storm and waves and command the weather,
peace, be still. And there was a great calm. The
one who raised the dead. The one who brought matter into
existence that was not there before. The one who could read
men's minds. The one, listen to this, Jesus
Christ is not like God. He's not like God at all. He
is God. That's who we're speaking of.
Jesus Christ, the creator, Jesus Christ, the one who keeps the
universe going, who upholds all things by the word of his power,
and by him, all things consist. The one who reigns, he's God. The one, this one who is God
is also the one who sat on the well in Samaria, wearied by his
journey. He is man. God became flesh. God was manifest in the flesh. Jesus Christ, the son of God. He lived 33 years upon this earth.
and he never sinned. He didn't even have the ability
to sin because of who he was and who he is. The devil came
to tempt him. After he'd gone 40 days fasting,
the devil tempted him with the lust of the flesh, command these
stones that they may bread. He tempted him with the lust
of the eyes, jump off the temple and prove to us that you're the
Son of God. He tempted him with the pride
of life, all these things, the glory of these kingdoms, I'll
give you. He tempted the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus
Christ did not sin. If Satan was left loose on me
or you, he could turn us inside out so easy. There's no sin that
we wouldn't commit. But when he tried that with the
Lord Jesus Christ, he never sinned. He worked out a perfect righteousness
before God. He kept God's law perfectly when
he was made under the law. He worked out what can be called,
because of who did it, the very righteousness of God. Now that's
what he did in his 33 years here upon this planet. Yet, he is
betrayed by his friend. He's arrested unjustly. He's
condemned to die. All of his disciples forsaken. He's nailed to a cross, the sun
quit shining, and in that darkness, we hear this cry, my God, my
God, why has thou forsaken me? Now I can give you the answer
to that question, because my sin, became his sin. God imputed my sin to him. All my guilt, all the hellishness
that's in my heart, all of my sin, my past sins, my present
sins, my future sins, sins of omission, sins of commission,
sins I fall into repeatedly. familiar sins, sins of imagination,
sins of word, sins of deed, all of the sins of which I'm ignorant
of, and most of the sins I've committed, I don't even know
anything about. I don't even know that they're sins because
of the ignorance of my flesh. My sin became his sin. He bore all my sins in his own
body on the tree and God is just. God will not let sin go unpunished. He became guilty before God. All my iniquity and transgressions
and sins were imputed to him. He took them all and the justice
of God executed him. He got what he had coming. You
ever said that about somebody? They're getting what they deserve.
They're getting what they had coming. On the cross, and I say
this with fear and trembling, the Lord got what I had coming,
but he got what he had coming because what I had coming came
to him and became his. He bore my sins. That's what
was going on on the cross. That's why he died. He died because
of sin, but just as truly And literally, as my sin became his
sin, he died for it. Just as truly as my sin became
his sin, his very righteousness becomes my personal righteousness
before God. My sin became his, his righteousness
becomes mine. And you see, when he was on the
cross bearing my sins, there's something he did that I could
never do. He put away my sin. The moment he died, everybody
he died for was justified. That's why his body never went
through the process of decay. He made full satisfaction for
sin. He put it away. Let me read you a passage of
scripture. In Hebrews chapter nine, it says, neither by the
blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered
in once into the holy place, the very presence of God in heaven,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. And that's what the Lord
did. He by himself, I love that scripture
in Hebrews 1, 3. It says he by himself purged
our sins. He had no help from us. He had
no help from any creature. He by himself actually purged
and put away our sins so that I stand before God without guilt. Now this is his work. The very
opening pages of the New Testament give us this, thou shalt call
his name Jesus for he shall, not he'll make an attempt, he
shall save his people from their sins. And what were his last
words from the cross? It's finished. He did it. He didn't do a half job. He did
the whole job. He put away the sins of his people. He justified them. He sanctified
them. He glorified them. That is exactly
what he did. To him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, His faith is counted
for righteousness. Now, I would like to say a few
things once again about justification. Did you notice what I read in
that passage in Hebrews 9? By his own blood, he obtained
eternal redemption for us. He entered once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Let's think
about that word eternal for just a moment. Eternal means no beginning
and no end. So if I'm justified, I'm justified
eternally in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now in all my life, I've felt
the guilt and the weight and the burden of sin. But if I'm
in Christ, I've always been in Christ. He's called the Lamb
slain for the foundation of the world. Before there was ever
a sinner, there was a Savior. This thing of justification,
it's the work of God, it is eternal. And it's instantaneous. I don't
know how something could, eternity is instantaneous, but it was.
Let's put it this way, the minute, the second, and I know it's not
a second time it's happened in eternity, and I'm speaking the
best way I know how to do it, but there was somehow Christ
agreed to be my surety, and all God required of me, He looked
to the Son for an eternity. Christ is my surety, the surety
of a better government. I was justified instantly the
moment he died. He was deliberate for our offenses
and raised a gift for our justification. And I'm justified when I believe
the gospel. And not a second before then,
I'm not saying, did God really say, well, how can all those
three of those things be so? I don't know, but they are. I
was justified in eternity. I was justified by what Christ
did on Calvary Street. And I was justified in believing
the gospel. That is justification. And it's
God's declaration. It's something that God does.
That's why it's irreversible. Who shall make anything in the
charge of God's elect, it's God that justified them. And with
justification comes every other blessing. If you have justification,
you have every promise of the new covenant. Doesn't matter
what it is, you have everything. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Scripture says, blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who have blessed us with
all spiritual blessings and heavenly blessings in Christ Jesus. We have every blessing. And need I say that there's nothing
we can do to earn or purchase it. It's without money and it's
without price. God is completely satisfied with
the work of his son. He's not looking for anything
else. The Lord Jesus Christ is completely satisfied with his
own work. He said, I have glorified thee
on the earth. I have finished the work thou
hast given me to do. The Spirit is completely satisfied
with the work of the Son. This is the work he testifies
of to us. Now, are you? completely satisfied
with the work of Christ, to where you look nowhere else. The only thing that is relevant
to you being justified is what Christ did and how God his Father
responds to it. That's all that is relevant.
Not what you do, but what is. To request a copy of the sermon
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