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
Neiberg. 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.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Niver. In 2 Peter chapter 1, Peter says,
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them,
this is who he's writing to, to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us. All faith is the same in this
sense. It has the same giver. If you
have faith, God gave it, and it has the same object. We look
to Christ only. To them that have obtained like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you, through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, according
as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain
to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that called
us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great
and precious promises." Oh, the precious promises of the Scripture
that by these these promises of God, you might be made partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's
in the world through lust. Now, here Peter calls the believer
a partaker of the divine nature. Now, the divine nature is God
Himself. the nature of God, and every
believer is said to be a partaker of the divine nature. Now, that
would be impossible to believe if we didn't have it here in
the Word of God. Every believer is a partaker
of the divine nature. You see, when God saves somebody,
they are born of God. That which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. born of God. In John chapter
1 verses 12 and 13 we read, 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, which were birthed, not
of blood, not of the will of man, not of the will of the flesh,
but of God, partakers of the divine nature. It's called in
the scriptures a new creation. It's called the hidden man of
the heart, which is not corruptible. It's called the inward man. It's
called the mind of Christ. It's called Christ in you, the
hope of glory. Every believer being born of
God, born of the Spirit, is a partaker of the divine nature. Now, this
is not the old nature that we're born with, changed, or improved,
or even influenced, but it's a new divine nature that God
has placed there that was not there before. Peter said, being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Now, when
someone is born again, born from above and given this new nature,
this holy nature that cannot sin, the old nature that they
were born with, the sinful nature, the evil nature is still there. It has not been eradicated. It
doesn't become better. The Lord said that which is born
of the flesh is flesh and it can never rise above that and
it cannot be good. It's evil. But thank God, the
new nature is stronger than the old nature. The Lord said, greater
is he that's in you than he that's in the world. He said, sin shall
not have dominion over you, for you're not under law, but under
grace. Now here's my question. How can
I know if I possess this new nature. It's one thing to say
I have it because I fear the consequences of not having it,
and I'm afraid to say I don't, but it's another thing to see
what the Scripture says concerning this new nature that a believer
has, this divine nature, and see whether or not I truly possess
it from what I see the Scripture says about it. Now, if the Lord
blesses this message to our hearts, we can know whether or not we
are indeed partakers of the divine nature. Now, this is a great
mystery. It's mysterious. It's not something so much understood
as believed. Great mystery of the gospel. Now, I'd like to read a passage
of scripture from Hebrews 8 that will help us, I believe, a great
deal in understanding this. Hebrews 8, beginning in verse
7. The writer to the Hebrews says, For if the first covenant,
talking about the law, had been faultless, then should no place
have been sought for the second. Now the fault wasn't with the
law, the fault was with the sinner. I'm the problem, not the law.
I can't keep the law. For finding fault with them,
this first covenant, because it could not save, He saith,
God saith, Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I'll make
a new covenant. This is the New Testament, a
new covenant, not salvation by works, but salvation by grace.
The days will come when I'll make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according
to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when
I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt."
Now notice God says He took them by the hand. It doesn't say anything
about their heart. The hand. Now, if I take a two-year-old
by the hand, I can get that two-year-old to go where I want that two-year-old
to go. I'm stronger than him. If I have
a wild animal that I can overcome, I can get that animal to go where
I want him to go. But if I let him go, what's going
to happen? He's going to run away because
he's a wild animal. That's his nature. Now I can
get him by the hand, get him by the paw, get him to do what
I want him to do, but that would not change the nature. Now the
Lord says in this first covenant, I took them by the hand and I
led them in the way that I wanted them to go. But he says, after
that, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers
in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of
the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant,
and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. Now if the Lord lets
me go, if He has me by the hand, and if He lets me go, I will
fall, just like the children of Israel did. If you can fall,
you will fall. If you can fall away, you will
fall away. And if God simply has me by the
hand, it hadn't done anything for my heart. If He just lets
go of my hand, I'll fall from Him. For this is the covenant
that I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their
minds. and write them in their hearts. I'm not just going to hold them
by the hand. I'm going to put my laws in their
mind, and I'm going to write them in their hearts. God puts something there that
was not there before. He puts His laws in the heart. He writes them in the mind and
they have a new disposition. They have a new DNA as it were. A new spiritual DNA that was
not there before. Now what we're like is determined
by our DNA. I know you can't take that in
every direction but it's still true. Somebody that acts like
their father, the reason they do it is because they have their
father's DNA in them. They might walk like him, they carry themselves
like him, they have the same likes, same dislikes. This was
determined because of their nature. They had their father's DNA put
in them. And when God saves somebody,
He gives them a new nature. Partakers of the divine nature,
and they have a nature that was not there before. Now, when God
says, I'll put my laws in their mind and write them in their
hearts, is He talking about The moral law? Is he talking about
the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments? Well, the answer to that question
is no, because that's already written in the heart of everybody
that's ever born into the world. When we're born into this world,
according to the Scriptures, in Romans chapter 2, verses 14
and 15, we're born with God's law written in our hearts. Whether
we've ever seen it, if we haven't even seen a copy of the law or
have never heard it, we're still born knowing it's wrong to steal.
It's wrong to commit murder. It's wrong to commit adultery.
We know these things by nature. We're born knowing the difference
between good and evil. Now, it could be that our conscience
becomes seared and it doesn't work as well. I realize that,
but still, everyone is born knowing the difference between right
and wrong. It's God's law written in their
heart. It's written in their conscience.
We have a conscience that tells us what we're doing is wrong.
That's from God. Somebody says, we need to be
taught how to live. You already know how to live. You don't need
to be taught how to live. You need to be taught how to
die. You need to be taught how to be accepted by God through
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody knows how they ought
to live. So when God says, I'll write
my laws in their mind and heart, he's not talking about the moral
law. As far as that goes, The word law or laws in the New
Testament does not always refer to the written word of God. For
instance, we read in Romans 8 of the law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus, which has made me free from the law of sin and
death. We read in Romans 3.27, by what law of works? Nay, but
by the law of faith. The law is a principle of nature. A law of nature which must be
obeyed. Now, the way you act is according
to the nature you have. It's the nature of a tiger to
eat meat. I guess if he wanted to eat grass,
he could, but he won't because it's against his nature. It's
the nature of a cow to eat grass. A cow is not going to eat meat.
It's the nature of a cat to want to be clean. It's the nature
of a pig to wallow in the mire. They're following their nature. And you don't choose to obey
or disobey your nature. If you fall from a skyscraper,
you don't say, well, I'm going to choose for the law of gravity
to not be in effect right now. No, it's going to be in effect
and you're going to hit the ground. You don't choose to obey or disobey
laws. They come naturally. There's no choice in this thing
of obeying your nature. Now somebody might be thinking, where's will involved? Where's choice involved? That
doesn't sound right. You know, that is the argument
that Satan used with Eve in the Garden of Eden. He said, right
now, There's no moral virtue to your obedience. You're simply
obeying your nature. The reason you're obeying God
right now is because it's your nature to obey God. And there's
really no moral virtue in your obedience. But if you eat this
fruit, your eyes will be opened, and you'll know the difference
between good and evil, and you'll choose the good over the evil,
and that's what'll make you like God. You won't be obeying your
nature anymore. You'll be making choices, and
that's what'll make you like God. And evidently, that made
sense to Eve, so she ate the fruit, gave it to her husband
Adam to eat, and our race was plunged into death and sin because
of that. Now, once again, there's something
very significant when God says, I'll place my laws into their
heart, and I'll write them in their minds, the heart being
the will, the understanding, and the affections. God gives
a new nature, and there's a new will. There's a new affection
or affections, and there's a new understanding that was not there
before because he's written these laws in the heart. Now, sometimes the law in the
scripture means the Mosaic law or the Pentateuch. But here the
word refers to the laws, plural, of the new nature. Now God said
regarding every believer that they are partakers of the divine
nature and every believer has a new nature a divine nature
that obeys certain laws, the laws of the new nature. And in the Scriptures, in the
New Testament, we have six laws that comprise the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. First of all, we have the Law
of Righteousness, Romans 9, 13, 31. Secondly, we have the Law
of Sin, found in Romans 7. And then we have the Law of Faith,
in Romans 3. And then we have the Law of Liberty,
in James 2. And we have the law of love in
James 1, and we have the law of Christ in Galatians chapter
6. And these are laws that are in
the believer's nature, being made a partaker of the divine
nature, that they obey. They don't choose to obey these
laws. They obey these laws because
it's their nature to obey these laws. First of all, the law of
righteousness. The law of righteousness. Every believer has in his nature
to where they can't be satisfied with anything short of a perfect
standing before God's holy law. They can't be satisfied, they
can't rest in anything but perfect righteousness. I have to be perfectly
righteous before God. I cannot bear standing before
God on my own in any way. I have to be perfectly righteous. Now, this is what is known as
the great doctrine of justification. This is what Christ did on Calvary's
tree in behalf of his people, and this is the only thing a
believer can rest in. When He walked upon this earth,
He perfectly obeyed God's holy law. And yet he was nailed to
a cross, suffered and bled and died. Now the wages of sin is
death. The only reason for death is
sin. And the only reason Christ died
was because of sin. You see the sins of God's elect
were placed upon him so that he actually became guilty of
those sins. Second Corinthians 5.21 says,
for he hath made him to be sin, for us who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He made Him to be sin. My sin
became His sin. He became guilty of it, and He
suffered under God's wrath as the sin-bearing substitute. He
was guilty. That's why He died. My sin became
His sin. but his righteousness, his perfect
righteousness becomes my personal righteousness before God. I'm
justified. I'm not guilty. I've heard people
And I've been guilty of it before, calling justification. Well,
that means just as if I'd never sinned. No, if it's just as if
I never sinned, that means I still sinned. No, if I'm justified,
I never sinned. However righteous Jesus Christ
is, that's how righteous I am. We have the very righteousness
of God, and we can't be satisfied with anything short of that.
Perfect righteousness. Now, we also read in the scriptures,
we read of the law of righteousness, but we also read in the scriptures
in Romans 7 of the law of sin. Now, if I'm a partaker of the
divine nature, first, I can't be satisfied with anything but
perfect righteousness before the law of God, which the believer
possesses in the Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul also says in Romans
7, verse 23, but I see another law in my members. There's that
word, a principle. I see another law in my members
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. Now, if I have this
new nature, I also have an old nature, the sinful nature. the law of sin which is in my
members." Now, it takes two natures to be able to see two natures.
If I only have one nature, that's all I see. But if I have two
natures, if I have a holy nature, it's that holy nature that perceives
and sees the law of sin which is in my members. At no time
can a believer say in his experience, although he knows in Christ,
I am perfectly righteous. I stand perfect and without spot
or blemish before the holy law of God. I'm not guilty. I have
no sin. We know that by faith, believing
the gospel, but in our experience, All we see is sin. Paul said,
I find in a law that when I would do good, evil is present with
me. Look what he says in Romans 7.
He says, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,
sold under sin, the flesh. He says, For that which I do,
I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would
not, I consent unto the law, it's good. Now then is no more
I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth in me, that old nature.
For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing. For to will is present with me,
that's the new man. He would be perfectly sinless. He would be perfectly without
spot. To will is present with me, I would never sin again.
But how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the
good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not,
that I do. Now if I do that which I would
not, it's no more I that doeth, but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with
me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man. Oh, I love God's law. I love
holiness. But I see another law in my members
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh, wretched man
that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God,
but with the flesh, the law of sin. Now, in my experience, all
I do is sin when I'm preaching to you. I sin. When I'm praying,
I sin because I always have this old man with me that does nothing
but sin. You know, it's the new man that
sees this. It's the new man who owns the
sins of the old man and confesses the sins of the old man. But
the scripture says in Proverbs 24, 16, a just man falleth seven
times. Now, seven means all the time. It's the number of perfection
and completion. All a just man does in his flesh
is fall, but he riseth, but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
If we say we have no sin, John said, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us. There's a law of sin. And thirdly, we read in Romans
3.27 of the law of faith. Where is boasting then? It's
excluded by what law works, nay, but by the law of faith. It's
the nature of a believer to believe. A believer cannot not believe. Now his flesh never believes.
Do you remember that man in Mark chapter 9 who cried, Lord, I
believe? Help thou mine unbelief. The
new man believes. The old man does not believe.
And there's never a time, while we're still in the flesh, when
we don't have to cry, Lord, I believe. We do. Help thou my unbelief. Believer, try not to believe
the Bible is the Word of God. You can't. You know it is. You know it's the revelation
of God. He wrote it. Try to not believe
in Christ's ability to save you. Try it. You know he's able. You can't not believe that his
righteousness is enough to make you righteous before God. You
can't not trust his precious blood. It is impossible for a
believer to not believe. That leper understood this. He
said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. He didn't
have any doubt about the Lord's ability. A believer believes
Christ. We really believe that Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. We don't choose to believe. I
remember for many years I tried to believe and I couldn't. I
didn't even know what it meant. Then one day I found myself believing.
I found myself trusting because God gave me a new heart. And
it's the nature of the new heart to believe. And then we read
in James 2.8 of the royal law of love. John said, everyone
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Now, obviously,
he's not talking about the love between a man and woman, because
you can have a love between a man and woman and not know God, not
be born of God. He's not even talking about the
love between parents and children. It's talking about that love
that is given the fruit of God, the Holy Spirit. The fruit of
the Spirit is love, the royal law of love. It's our nature
to love God. just as He is. We love all of
His attributes. We love His Son. We love His Spirit. We love His
Gospel. We love His Word. We love His
worship. We love holiness. We love His
law. We love His people. We love men. We want them to hear the Gospel. It's the nature of a believer
to love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. This is the part of being partaker
of the divine nature. And then we read in James 1.25
and James 2.12 of the law of liberty, freedom. A believer
can't be under bondage. He must be free. I can't owe
anything. Christ, the only way I can get
any comfort is if I owe nothing and Christ paid all my debt and
I'm doing what I want to do. I don't want to serve under bondage
out of fear because of what will happen to me if I don't. I want
to do what I want to do. Thy people shall be willing,
the psalmist said, in the day of thy power. Psalm 10, 1, 3.
The law of liberty. We must have liberty. We must
have freedom. And finally, in Galatians chapter
6, we read of the law of Christ. Paul said in Galatians chapter
6, Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, and you sure can't
understand how that can happen if you have a new nature. You
know how weak and sinful the old nature is. If a man be overtaken
in a fall, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit
of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. You
know, I'll fall if I'm presented the same way. I'm as weak as
they are, weaker. He says, bear ye one another's
burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Bear ye one another's
burdens, put up with one another. You see, my sin is a burden to
me. The sin of my brother is a burden
to him. Do I judge him and kick him out
and act harshly toward him? No, bear one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ for if a man thinks himself to
be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. Now, this
is the law of Christ, to bear one another's burdens. Now, every
believer is a partaker of the divine nature and their laws
of nature. He has the law of righteousness.
He can't be satisfied with anything short of perfect righteousness.
There's the law of sin. At all times, I'm a sinner in
my experience. There's the law of faith. I must
believe. There's the law of love. It's
my nature to love. There's the law of liberty. I
must have liberty. Give me liberty or give me death.
And there is the law of Christ. These are the laws. of the new
nature that God puts in the heart and writes in the mind. Now we
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