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 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 Nyberg. I hope you'll give me a hearing
this morning and listen to carefully what is said. I believe this
to be a very important message. I've entitled this message, What
is the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus? My text is found
in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 3. Paul says to the church at Corinth,
but I fear. This was a very real fear of
the apostle. I fear, lest by any means, as
the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. his deception,
so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ Jesus." This was Paul's great fear for the church at
Corinth, that their minds would be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ Jesus. And that word simplicity is the
singleness, the onlyness that is in Christ Jesus. I don't know
of anything much more complicated than religion. You have the seven great religions
of the world, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianism,
Taoism, and you have hundreds of branches in those religions. Within Christianity, you have
East and West, Protestant and Catholic. How can you know what's
right? In all these different religions,
are they all different ways to God? How can you know? It's so confusing. Oh, the confusion
that's within religion. How many religious denominations
are there? I don't know, but there are a
lot. Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians,
Christian, Church of Christ, on and on. Catholicism, you have
charismatic and non-charismatic. I think within the Baptist denomination
that I grew up in, how many different kind of Baptists are there? There
are hundreds. There are Reformed Baptists,
Free Will Baptists, Southern Baptists, American Baptists,
Northern Baptists, Fundamentalists, Missionary Baptists, United Baptists.
I mean, we could go on and on and on. Landmark Baptists. You
know, Paul asked this question in 1 Corinthians 1, is Christ
divided? Are there different denominations
and divisions within the body of Christ? No. Christ is not divided. You know, even under the banner
of reformed or sovereign grace, there's so many different kinds. And churches even advertise different
ways of worship. We have traditional worship.
We have contemporary worship. Take your pick. What one suits
you best? Sometimes churches will have
both. They'll have a contemporary service and a traditional service. We have high church, we have
low church. We have formal, we have informal. We have liturgical.
We have preachers and reverends and right reverends. We have
clergymen and men of the cloth. We have bishops and cardinals
and popes and priests and parsons and pastors. Religious words
are used. We call a bench a pew. We call
an auditorium a sanctuary. We call a bowl of water a font. It's so confusing. All these
different words regarding religion. We have cathedrals, we have steeples,
we have spires. Where is the simplicity that
is in Christ? Now you can see how confusing
religion is. And what about the hodgepodge
of doctrines that are taught? While contradicting each other,
they all claim to be true. And it's in reality a variation
of the same thing, a mixture of grace and works. That's one
or the other. It can't be both, but religious
claims it to both to be true. And it's so contradictory and
complex and compound. Where is the simplicity that's
in Christ? With regard to baptism, we have
different modes. Some people sprinkle. Some people
sprinkle infants. Some people baptize by immersion. Some only baptize believers.
Different views. Take your pick. Look at the emphasis
in religion on political activism and one's Active towards social
and just causes. Somebody else is just into growing
and big and how many? Generally, the first question
somebody asks you about church is not what do you believe there,
but how many go there? How many go there? Records and
numbers and so on. You know, it seems to me if the
Lord is present, we wouldn't even care about numbers, would
we? All the confusion that abounds in religion. Where is the simplicity
that's in Christ. Regarding the question, how does
God save sinners? How is a man made right and just
before God? How can God be just and yet justify
somebody who is sinful and unjust? Regarding that question, how
many different answers will you get? How many different answers
will you get to what salvation by grace really means? It only
means one thing, but there are a thousand different answers
that religion gives. What did Christ actually accomplish on
the cross? People have different views of
that. Religion never gives a single answer. It always gives a complex,
compound answer. Even reform doctrine. People talk about reform doctrine,
and my thought is reform from what? If you're reformed, that
means you started bad. Where are you now? Oh, the confusion
abounding in the doctrine of man's religion. Now Paul feared
for the church of Corinth corruption from the simplicity, the simplicity,
the singleness, the onlyness that is in Christ Jesus. Do you know God is simple? Somebody
says, how could you say that? I didn't say God was shallow,
not by any means, but God is simple. He's not made of parts,
the sum of which makes the whole. God is one God. Hear, O Israel,
the Lord thy God is one God. He's one God revealed in three
distinct persons. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit. Do I understand that? No, I don't
understand it, but I believe it. This is the truth regarding
the simplicity of God. Now, when Paul said, I fear that
your minds will be corrupted, from the simplicity that is in
Christ Jesus, how is something corrupted? Well, if I have a
glass of pure water, pure water, nothing but pure H2O, and I put
a drop of gasoline in it, or a drop of ink in it, or a drop
of arsenic in it, or a drop of anything else, it is no longer
simple. It's become compound, it's become
complex, it has become corrupted. Being corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ Jesus is seen in adding something to Him, and
we no longer have the simplicity that's in Christ Jesus. You know,
I think of the evolutionary theory, and notice I called it a theory.
It is not founded on verifiable fact, but it has things becoming
more complex and more compound. And what evolution says is, look
how far we've come. But the truth regarding creation
says, look how far we've fallen. Corruption is found in the introduction
of the word and. Scriptures and our traditions. Scripture and our customs. Scripture and our creeds. Scripture and our constitutions. No scripture alone. The Bible alone. Not man's ideas, not man's thoughts
and opinions, There's one source of truth, God's holy word. This is his revelation of himself. Not scriptures and, but scriptures
alone. Christ and your works. This is the message of the world.
Christ and your decision. Christ and your acceptance of
him. Christ and your will. No, Christ alone. Men speak of grace, grace and
your works, grace and your free will, grace and your decision,
grace and, no, grace alone. The introduction of the word
and in grace makes it corrupted, nothing more than a work, grace
alone. Faith and is a denial of faith,
it's faith only, faith alone, looking to Christ alone. There's
only one motive, God's glory alone, not God's glory and. The
and corrupts it. God's glory alone. Now in verse 4 of this same passage
of scripture I just read in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul warned us of
another Jesus who was preached, another spirit, and another gospel. And when the simplicity of Christ
is corrupted, that's what we have, another Jesus. Not the
Jesus of the Bible, not the true Christ, but another Jesus. And we have another spirit. Not
the Holy Spirit, but another spirit, an evil spirit. And we
have another gospel. Not the true gospel that saves,
but another gospel. That's what takes place when
one is corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ Jesus. Now let
me read you a passage of scripture from Ephesians chapter 4 where
Paul said there is one body. one body, not two, not different
denominations. There's one body. That's the
church of the living God, all of God's elect, the church that
Christ died for and gave himself for. There's one body and there's
one spirit. If God the Holy Spirit who teaches
all believers the same thing. You see, believers believe the
same thing. If they believe different things, they've had different
teachers. But every believer has one spirit, God the Holy
Spirit, and He teaches them the same thing. He gives them the
same birth, they have the same nature. Born of the Spirit, the
same nature, there's one spirit. even as you're called in one
hope of your calling. There's one hope. There's not
two, there's one. What's my hope? My hope is that
Christ died for me. That's my hope. The reason that
I believe that I'll stand before God accepted on Judgment Day
It's not because of the fact that I'm a preacher or because
of some good work I perform or intend to do. It's not because
I became religious. My only hope is that Christ died
for me and put away my sins. Now, this religious world, I
realize, the message is that Christ died for everybody. He
died for everybody and made salvation possible for everybody. I don't
believe that for a second. The Bible doesn't teach it. There's
no gospel in that message. If he can die for somebody and
they wind up in hell, that's taking away my only hope. I have
one hope. There's one hope. One Lord. The God of the Bible. The Lord
Jesus Christ. The absolute sovereign of the
universe. There's one Lord. There's one
faith. Believers don't believe differently.
It's called the faith of God's elect in Titus 1.1, the acknowledging
of the truth, which is after godliness. There's one faith.
There's not two. There's one faith. There's one
baptism. Baptism by immersion of believers. One baptism. There's not different
modes of baptism. You know the word baptize means
to immerse. to immerse, to submerge, and
to emerge. You go all the way under, you
come all the way up. Why is this so important? Because
of what it typifies, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
one baptism, there's one God, Father of all, not talking about
all men without exception, talking about the Father of all believers,
who is above all, and through all, and in you all. One. Now, I couldn't help but
thinking of Paul when he was in Athens and he beheld all the
devotions of that city, all the religious idols, all the religious
buildings, all the religious gatherings. And the scripture
says his spirit was stirred up within him because he saw the
city wholly given to idolatry. And he said, you men of Athens,
I perceive that in all things you are too religious. Too superstitious, too religious. Where is the simplicity that
is in Christ Jesus? Everything's so compound and
complex. You can't get a definite answer
to anything. Where is the simplicity that's in Christ Jesus? Now here's the most important
part of this message. What is meant by the simplicity? the singleness, the onlyness
that is in Christ Jesus. What do you mean by that? What
did Paul mean by that? Simple, only. First of all, we
have a very simple message. That means we have only one message. And it really is very simple.
Very simple. You know, truth is always simple. When you hear the truth, you
know it's the truth. You just know it. If it sounds
complex and convoluted and you can't tell what's being said,
it wasn't true. Truth is always simple, and we
have a very simple message. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2,
verse 2, not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Nothing else is important. Nothing
else even matters. All that matters is the preaching
of the gospel. Christ and Him crucified. And Paul said, I'm determined
not to know anything else. I don't care what your view on
politics are. Just set that stuff aside. There's only one message.
Christ Jesus and Him crucified. Who He is and what He did. The
person and work of Christ. Who is He? He's God. He's man. He's God's Christ, God's anointed.
He's the prophet. He's the priest. He's the king. He's Jesus, Savior. He's the
God-man. That's who He is, incapable of
failure. Because He's God, the creator
of the universe. Who is He? He's the God-man.
What did He do? He was crucified. Well, I know
that, but what did He accomplish by that crucifixion? When He
said, It is finished. The salvation of everybody he
died for was finished. We have one message, a very simple
message. And Paul put it that way. I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. There
was one time a young preacher, after he had finished his message,
he felt very impressed with the message. And he was walking back
home. This was in last century England. He was walking with
an old pastor who had gone with him. And he said, what did you
think of my message? And I suppose he expected, well,
it was great, glorious. The man answered what was a very
poor message. The fellow was shocked. He thought
it was great. He felt good about it. He said,
well, what was wrong with it? Was there error in it? He said,
no. He said, were the illustrations
poor? He said, no, they were good.
He said, was the speech poor? Did I speak in a, no, your speech
was excellent. He said, well, what was wrong
with the message then? And the old man looked at him and said,
you didn't preach Christ. And the fellow said, well, Christ
wasn't in the text, which betrayed a complete ignorance of the message
of the Bible in the first place. But the old man looked at this
young preacher and said, there's a saying that every road leads
to London. And every text leads to Christ. And the job of the preacher is
to get to Christ. And if you don't see the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ in a text, it's because you have no understanding
of the text. All scripture speaks of Him. We have a simple message. We
have a very simple doctrine. called in 2 John 9, the doctrine
of Christ. Now the Bible, no doubt, has
many doctrines, all of which make up the one doctrine of Christ. And if you leave any of them
out, you no longer have the doctrine of Christ. If you add something
to them, you no longer have the one doctrine of Christ. But Christ
is the sum and substance of all doctrine, of all teaching, of
everything taught in the scriptures. Here's an example. Election. The Bible teaches that God elected
a people before time began. Those are the people Christ died
for. Those are the people that Christ saved. Ephesians 1 verse
says, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. The emphasis of election is not
some arbitrary choice on God's part. It's the fact that believers
were chosen in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, election is a truth
that glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. When we talk about redemption,
being redeemed, having our sins paid for. Well, we were redeemed
by His blood. The Bible uses the word justification. What an important word this is.
Being justified before God. Now, if you're justified, that
does not mean it's just as if you've never sinned. It means
you've never sinned. It means you stand before God
without guilt. Now, how in the world can that
be? Because Christ's righteousness, His perfect obedience, His guiltlessness,
His perfection before the law of God becomes mine. It's imputed
to me. God took my sin and placed it
upon His Son. He punished His Son in my room
and in my stead, but His Son was guilty. That's why He punished
His Son. My sin became His. He became guilty. His righteousness
is mine. I am now just before God. If we're called, we're the called
of Christ Jesus. And the called see Christ as
the power of God and Christ as the wisdom of God. If we're sanctified,
we're sanctified in Him. As a matter of fact, He is our
sanctification. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification
and redemption. We're accepted, and that acceptance
is in the Beloved. I don't know of anything that,
for lack of a better word, aggravates me any more than hearing people
say, won't you accept Jesus? That's degrading to Him. The
issue is not, will you accept Jesus? The issue is, will He
accept you? Ephesians 1.6 says, He hath made
us accepted in the Beloved. I think of the second coming
and all the different doctrines regarding the second coming of
Christ. Well, here's the emphasis, not when, but who's coming. Who's coming? All Christian doctrine. Christ is all. Now, I have a
simple ground of forgiveness. There's one reason God forgives
me. I have the forgiveness of sins. Oh, how important that
is. And there's one reason God forgives me. Ephesians chapter
4 verse 32 says, Be ye kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. I have a simple reason for not
being condemned. When I stand before God in judgment,
I won't be condemned, and here's why. Who is he that condemneth
is Christ that died. That's the only answer I need.
I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough
that Jesus died and that he died for me. Nothing else is needed. I have a simple reason for all
that God gives me. Now, every blessing I have, the
blessings of salvation, material blessing, blessings that he gives
me in withholding something from me that would prove to my ruin,
all the spiritual blessings we have in Christ Jesus, there's
a simple reason why God gives me these blessings. It says,
he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him freely give us all things. You see there's nothing to prevent
him from freely giving me all things because he's already given
me everything and giving me a son. He delivered him up for us all.
Somebody says, does this all mean without exception? No. Paul
said if God be for us, who can be against us in the previous
verse? That's talking about God's elect, those he foreknew, those
he predestinated, those he called, those he justified, those he
glorified. Nothing can withhold, nothing can prevent God from
giving them all spiritual blessings. I have a simple cause of salvation. By grace are you saved. Not grace
and anything. The free grace of God in Christ
Jesus. Saving grace. I have a simple
ground of assurance. I have assurance that I'm saved. I have assurance that God's done
something for me. Well, what's your ground of it?
Give me a scriptural reason. Well, the scripture says he came
into the world to save sinners. That's what scripture says. 1
Timothy 1.15, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Paul said, of whom I am chief. Well, I'm a sinner. I am that. Therefore, I can conclude that
He came to save me. And beloved, if He came to save
me, that means He saved me. He didn't come to attempt to
save me. He saved me, and I'm resting in Him. I have a simple
faith. I look to Christ only. Not Christ
and anything else. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of our faith. I have a simple motive for service. His glory. I have a simple motive
for obedience. His glory. Not to be saved. Not
to earn His favor. His glory. I have a simple desire. I've got one desire, and here
it is. Same thing Paul had when he said,
oh, that I may win Christ and be found in him. Not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. When God comes looking for me,
I want to simply be found in the Lord Jesus Christ so that
all God sees is Christ. I have a simple objective. I
want to see his face and awaken his likeness, just like David
said in Psalm 1715. Now, one time somebody asked
a preacher, if all I have is Christ, is that enough for me
to be saved? And the preacher answered, it
is if he's all you got. Now, if He's all you got, yes,
you have all you need. Oh, where is the simplicity that's
in Christ? It's where it's always been. To request a copy of the sermon
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