It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for, Lord, that could not be. 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 Nybert. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse
13, Paul the Apostle makes this statement, We having the same
spirit of faith, according as it's written, I believed and
therefore have I spoken, we also believe and therefore speak,
declare publicly. I have entitled this message,
The Spirit of Faith. Paul says we have the same spirit
of faith. Now when we think of the spirit
of a man, we think of his mental disposition. We know strong spirited
people. We know weak spirited people,
people who are timid. The word spirit is used to describe
the mental disposition of the child of God. For instance, we
read of those who are poor in spirit and fervent or white hot
in spirit. We read of serving the Lord in
newness of spirit. And Paul said to Timothy, God
has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love
and of a sound mind. Now, our text speaks of the spirit
of faith, and it's a quotation from Psalm 116, verse 10, when
David, the man after God's own heart, said, I believe, therefore,
have I spoken. Now, what this tells me, right
off the bat, is the spirit of faith is not something that we
just define in the way we want to define it. The spirit of faith
comes from the Scripture. He says, according as it's written,
I have believed and therefore have I spoken. It's written. This is what Paul means by the
spirit of faith. We have the spirit of faith as
it's written, I believed, Therefore, have I spoken now, let's talk
for a moment about this thing of it being written. It is. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
tempted by Satan, those 40 days in the wilderness when he was
fasting and had gone 40 days without food and water and Satan
came to him and tempted him. The Son of God answered Satan
with regard to all these temptations with this answer, it is written. It is written. Now, the Bible is the divine,
inspired, inerrant Word of God. That's what it claims for itself.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. All scripture. Now, I
realize that fallible men wrote the Bible, simple men, men just
like you and I. That being said, they were divinely
inspired. God worked through their personalities,
but they were divinely inspired and God controlled everything
they wrote down. Peter says no prophecy of scriptures
in any private interpretation. It didn't come by the will of
man. But holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost." Now, that's what the Bible claims for itself. Divine authority. And this is not unbelievable. Somebody says, well, how can
I believe that? Well, do you believe God created the universe? Somebody
says, no, I don't believe that either. Well, what you believe
is really unbelievable if you don't believe God created the
universe. I mean, how do you account for things? How do you
account for life? That's much more unbelievable
than believing that the Bible is the Word of God. But if God
is able to create the universe, He is able to preserve His Word
through the centuries without it being changed by men. Now, the only reason somebody
chooses not to believe the Bible is the Word of God is because
they dislike what it says. And let me repeat that. I want
you to think about it. The reason someone chooses to not believe
that the Bible is the Word of God. It claims divine inspiration.
The only reason someone chooses to not believe that it's the
divinely inspired Word of God is they dislike the message of
the Scripture. Now, I know people will say,
well, there's so many contradictions and so on in the Scripture. You
haven't studied the Scripture if you think that. If you really
think that there's a bunch of contradictions in the scripture
and it proves it's nothing more than the word of man, you're
speaking in ignorance. If you would study the Bible
and see what it said and look at those things honestly, you
would see that's just man-made. Now, if we do not have an it
is written, all we have is my opinion and all we have is your
opinion. If we have no divine authority,
if the Bible is not authoritative, If all we have is my opinion
and your opinion, what do we have? Nothing. Now, the Bible is the Word of
God. When Paul speaks of the spirit
of faith, he says, we have the same spirit of faith as it is
written. And notice, Paul uses the word
same. We have the same spirit of faith. We have the same spirit of faith
that David did when he wrote in Psalm 116. You see, the spirit
of faith is the same in all who possess it. If we believe, we
believe the same thing. If we truly believe, we believe
the same thing. We believe the Bible is the Word
of God. We believe that God is as the
Bible presents Him to be. Everything the Bible says regarding
the character of the true and living God, we believe. He's
God. He's sovereign. He's holy. He's
just. He is who the Bible says He is. We believe that man is, who the
Bible says He is. We believe that man is a fallen
creature, a sinful creature, and sin is all his fault. We
believe that salvation is, as the Bible describes it, completely
a work of grace. Salvation is of the Lord. Here's
our theology. This is what we all believe.
When we believe, we believe salvation is of the Lord. If you're saved,
it's because God saved you and He did it all. We have the same
spirit of faith. There is true agreement. How
can two walk together except they be agreed? Well, they can't. We have the same spirit of faith,
Paul says, that David had. And notice he says, we having
the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, we believe. And therefore, we speak. We believe
the gospel. Not simply give assent to some
things that we see the Bible says and say, well, I see that's
what it says, but we're relying on what the Bible says. We're
relying upon the Gospel. We're relying on the fact that
the Bible is the Word of God. We're relying on Christ alone
as our only ground of salvation. We're relying on the freeness
of God's grace. If it's not utterly free, we
have no hope. We're relying on faith alone. We're relying on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Let me give you an illustration
teaches us something about what it means to rely. There was a
man who stretched a tightrope across the Niagara River, and
he did this in front of an audience. And he walked on that tightrope
across the Niagara River, and then he walked back backwards,
and everybody was oohing and aahing. And then he took a wheelbarrow. And he filled it up with dirt
and he took the groove of the wheel and he put it on the tightrope
and he went all the way across with that wheelbarrow of dirt
and walked backwards and got back to the other side and looked
at the crowd all oohing and awing and said, how many of you believe,
how many of you really believe that I can get a man in that
wheelbarrow and take him across? And everybody said, oh, we all
believe. Then he said, do I have any volunteers? Is anyone willing
to commit themselves to trusting me to do this? And this is what
faith is. You commit the salvation of your soul to Him. You trust
Him. You trust Him to get you into
heaven. You know there's nothing you
can do, but you're completely relying on Him. Paul said in
2 Timothy 1.12, I know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded that
He is able to keep that which I have committed, which I've
entrusted to Him against that day. We believe, we rely upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. I believed, therefore have I
spoken. Now, in the spirit of faith,
You confess. You speak. You declare publicly. You don't hide what you believe.
You're not ashamed of what you believe. You're not afraid of
the results that will come as far as persecution for stating
what you believe. You believe, therefore you speak. Paul put it this way in Acts
chapter 24 verse 14 when he's speaking before Felix, he says,
Now, all the things that they have accused me of, they can't
accuse me of or they can't convince. There's no convincing that it
actually happened. I did not do those things, but
I will make this confession today. I confess, I plead guilty after
the way which they called heresy. So worship I, the God of my fathers,
believing all things which were written in the law and in the
prophets. Now, one who does not publicly
confess what he believes does not really believe. You know,
when I hear a preacher, and I can tell he's not really telling
what he really believes because he's afraid of what it will cost
him. He's afraid, for instance, he'll lose church members, or
he's afraid that it will offend people. Therefore, he kind of
guards what he says and doesn't really tell what he really believes. I lose all respect for that man.
Let me show you how the scripture describes this man. John chapter
12, verse 42, it says, nevertheless, among the chief rulers, also
many believed on him. They believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ, these religious fellows, the chief rulers, but because
of the Pharisees, they did not confess him. They would not publicly
confess what they privately believed. They were afraid to do that.
lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved
the praise of men more than the praise of God." Now, that's not
saving faith. That's giving assent to some
things. But if you won't confess what it is you believe, if you
hide it and cover it, it's because you do not really believe. The word confess means to speak
the same thing. We confess. We all have the same
confession concerning what we believe. If we believe and we
speak it publicly, and I repeat, I know of nothing more disgusting
to me than for somebody to say they believe something, but yet
they won't state it publicly out of fear out of what it will
cost them. That's not real faith. That's not the spirit of faith.
The spirit of faith works like this. I believed, therefore have
I Spoken. Now, let's go on reading in verse
14. He says, knowing, let me read
verses 13 and 14 together. We having the same spirit of
faith, according as it is written, I have believed, therefore, have
I spoken. We also believe and therefore speak knowing, knowing
we're not speaking in ignorance. We're speaking what we know.
The Lord said we testify what we know and what we've seen.
This is not just my own opinion about something. It's something
I know. You see, if you know the Lord,
you know what you believe. And you know, when we speak,
when we speak concerning what we believe, we speak regarding
what we know. Now, there are a whole lot of
things in the Bible that we can say we know. For instance, Romans
8, 28 says, and we know. We're not just speculating. This
is not an educated guess. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are called
according to his purpose. We know that. Paul said regarding
himself, I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. I know that. We speak what we
know. And in the context of this passage
of Scripture, he's speaking of what he knows concerning the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, knowing that he which
raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus and
shall present us with you. Now, what he's speaking of knowing
is he knows about the success of the Lord Jesus Christ. that
He will be raised up and that we will be presented, every believer,
holy and unblameable and unapprovable because of the resurrection of
Christ. We know this. Now, the thief
even understood this. A thief on the cross who He didn't
spend very long as a believer, did he? Just the last few hours
of his life he spent as a believer. So he didn't know much as far
as what we would consider a vast amount of knowledge, but he knew
who the Lord was and he knew he must be successful. He looked
at that one hanging on a cross where everybody else was jeering
and making fun of him and mocking him. And he looked at him, seemingly
so weakless and helpless, nailed to a cross without a friend in
the world. He heard him cry, My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? He heard everything the Lord
said from the cross. And he looked at him and he said, Lord, you're
the dictator. You're in absolute control. Remember
me when you come in your kingdom. He knew that whatever the Lord
did, it must be successful. He said, you're not going to
remain dead. You're going to come back as a ruling reigning
king. And my prayer is that you will
remember me. If you just remember me, everything
is well with my soul. The thief understood this and
so does every other believer. Christ Jesus lived. He worked out a perfect righteousness.
Christ Jesus died. When they nailed him to a cross,
the Son of God died. Now, why? There's only one reason
for death. Sin. The wages of sin is death. The sins of God's elect were
placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ and they became His. He became guilty of those sins
and the justice and wrath of God came down upon Him. His justice
against sin and the sinner. All my sins became His sins so
that He actually became the one who is guilty and that's why
He died. He satisfied the justice of God
God raised him from the dead. I think it's interesting to note
the scripture points out that he never saw corruption. His
dead body never went through the process of decay. Now, why
is that? Because when he died, full satisfaction
was made. There was a complete payment
for sin, and everybody he died for is now justified. And because of that, he says,
knowing that he was raised up, the Lord Jesus shall raise up
us also by Jesus. Paul's talking about the certainty
of his salvation. And it wasn't because he had
a high view of himself, but because he had a high view of the Lord
Jesus Christ. When Christ was raised from the
dead, I was saved. And I must be saved because He
lived for me, because He died for me, and because He was raised
for me. And I will be presented on that great day of presentation
when the Lord presents The children of God, holy, unblameable, and
unreprovable in His sight. We believe that whatever He did
must be successful. We know that. We know that. Now,
He says we have this same spirit of faith according as it's written.
We believe. Therefore, we speak knowing that
He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus
and shall present us with you. 4, verse 15. He says 4. All things are for your sakes
that the abundant grace, and that could just as easily be
translated that grace may superabound. That word abundant is not an
adjective describing grace. It's actually a verb. It tells
us what grace does. And this is what we know. For
all things are for your sakes that the abundant grace or that
grace may superabound. And through that, the thanksgiving
of many may redound to the glory of God. Grace superabounds. And this is what we know, and
this is what we speak, and this is what we publicly declare.
I think of that scripture in Romans 5, 20 and 21, where Paul
said, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as
sin hath reigned unto death, Now, what's that mean? Sin reigned
unto death. How much ability do you have
to prevent death? I don't care how well you take
care of yourself. I don't care how careful you
are. You're going to die. I'm going to die. That's our
end. We're going to die. And there's
nothing we can do to stop it. Now, just as sin reigned to death,
where there's nothing you can do to stop that death, in the
same manner, grace reigns. That means nothing you can do
to stop grace. If God has grace on you, He's
going to save you. You see, grace isn't just thrown
out there and offered to you, and it's up to you to accept
it or reject it. No, God's grace reigns and abounds and saves. It's saving grace. It's not grace
that makes you potentially saved. It's saving grace. I think of
every aspect of grace and the superabundant character of it.
Oh, how grace reigned in my election when God chose me, sovereignly
chose me before time began to be saved as an act of His grace. How grace reigns in my redemption
when Christ paid for my sins. How His grace superabounds in
my justification. I couldn't justify myself. I'm
a sinful man in and of myself. But grace reigned in my justification. God declared me to be just. by
what Christ did for me. How grace reigns in my regeneration. I'm dead in sins. I can't give
myself life. I can't give myself birth. But
the grace of God gave me life and gave me a new heart that
I did not have before. How grace reigns in my preservation. The fact that I continue this
far is because of the grace of God. Grace reigns in the salvation
of every believer. It super abounds, and that's
what causes thanksgiving, and that's what gives God all the
glory. And the spirit of faith believes
superabounding grace, grace that saves. I tell you, this grace
that many religious people believe that just makes salvation available
or potential, that grace won't do me any good. I need grace
that actually saves. By grace are you saved, said
Paul, through faith. And that not of yourselves, even
in the faith. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man
should boast. Verse 16, for the witch cause,
We think not. We do not lose heart. You know, salvation is by grace.
No matter what happens, we do not lose heart. But though our
outward man perish, and Paul went through so many difficult
things. He was beaten. He was stoned everywhere he went.
There was a riot. He was run out of town continually.
But look what he says. Though our outward man perish,
yet the inward man, is renewed day by day for our light affliction."
That's what Paul calls it. Our light affliction, which is
but for a moment, it's only temporary, works for us a far more exceeding,
eternal weight of glory while we look. Now, here's what the
Spirit of Faith does. While we look, this is what the Spirit
of Faith looks at. While we look, not at the things
which are seen, the stuff going on around us, The circumstances,
the trials, the good things, the bad things, whatever they
be, that's not what we're looking at. We look not at the things
which are seen, but the things which are not seen. But the things
which are seen are temporal. Temporary. They won't last. But the things that are not seen
are eternal. Now, we look not at things which
we're seeing. We don't assess something by
the circumstances we see. Here's an example. Lazarus is
laying at the rich man's gate, sick, sores all over his body,
dogs coming up and licking his sores. He sits in misery and
poverty and sickness. And then we read of the rich
man who wore purple and linen and fared sumptuously every day.
And everybody would have thought he had it made. He had it, oh
how blessed he was. Which one was blessed? Now by
appearance you would say the rich man was blessed and Lazarus
wasn't. You can't go by appearance. Lazarus was the one who was blessed
of God. He's the one who's brought into
heaven. And the rich man went to hell. Which one was blessed? Now, by what you'd see, you'd
say the rich man, but that's not the way it is. Lazarus was
one that was blessed. Now, we look and consider, Paul
said, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the
things which are not seen. Now, I cannot see the first cause
behind everything, everything that takes place. I can't see
the first cause, but I know the first cause. God is in control
of everything. All things, the scripture says
in 2 Corinthians 5, 18, are of God. He is the cause of causes. Now, I can't physically see my
justification. I can't look at myself and say,
yeah, you're without guilt. You're perfect. You stand righteous
before God with no sin whatsoever. I can't look at myself and see
that. But I believe I am. Remember,
faith is the evidence of things not seen. I believe because of
what Christ did for me. I stand justified before God.
I'm not looking at what I see. I'm looking at what I don't see.
Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father as my representative.
I don't see Christ as my advocate. I've never seen Him in the flesh.
I don't see Him interceding for me. But I know He is. I'm looking
at the things which are not seen. You see, all that we see physically
is temporary. Circumstances that will not last. We don't look at things which
are seen, but things that are not seen. And look what He says
here. For the things which are seen are temporal. Temporary. But the things which are not
seen are eternal. They never had a beginning. And
they'll never have an end. God is eternal. With God there's
no yesterday, there's no tomorrow, all things are in the eternal
now. And my union with the Lord Jesus
Christ is eternal. There was never a time when it
began to be. Do I understand this? Of course
not. But I believe it. I've always been in the Lamb,
slain from the foundation of the world. Before there was ever
a sinner, there was a Savior. And every believer has always
been in the Lord Jesus Christ. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification
and redemption. I can't see my future likeness
to Christ. But I know, as He is, so am I
in this world right now. The things which are not seen
are eternal. They never had a beginning. Now,
this is what the spirit of faith is all about. The spirit of faith
says, I believed, therefore have I spoken. We believe and also
speak, and it's because of what we know. We know of the certainty
of the success of Christ. We know of the superabandoning
of His grace. We don't look at things which
are seen, but the things that are not seen. That is the spirit
of faith. Now, we have this message on
CD and DVD. If you call the church, write an email and send your
copies. This is Todd Kniper praying God will be pleased to make Himself
known to you. Amen. 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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