This series covers our study through the book of Romans. These sermons with careful and slow exegetical expository coverage move through each chapter and verse following the theme and thesis of the book that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. These sermons were primarily preached by Pastor Duane Smets from April 2005 to November 2008 at The Resolved Church, San Diego, CA in its first three years of existence. Audio from the first year is unavailable.

   Audio & Manuscripts Below

The Gospel Thesis
 Listen     Read    1:1-7 |  An Introduction To Romans
 Listen     Read    1:2-6 |  The Validity, Content & Effect of The Gospel
 Listen     Read    1:7-15 |  Romans Is For God
 Listen     Read    1:14-15 |  Romans Is For Us
 Listen     Read    1:16-17 |  The Gospel Is The Power Of God Unto Salvation
 Listen     Read    1:16-17 |  Thank God For Jews
 Listen     Read    1:16-17 |  Justification By Faith
 Listen     Read    1:16-17 |  Justification & Habbakuk
 Listen     Read    1:16-17 |  We Are Beggars. This Is True

The Problem Of Sin
 Listen     Read    1:18 |  The Wrath of God
 Listen     Read    1:18-21 |  What Is Plain About God
 Listen     Read    1:18-32 |  The Suppression of Truth and Consequences
 Listen     Read    2:1-11 |  Seek Glory (Part I)
 Listen     Read    2:5-11 |  Seek Glory (Part II)
 Listen     Read    2:11-16 |  The Impartial God
 Listen     Read    2:17-19 |  Circumcision of the Heart
 Listen     Read    3:1-18 |  Moribund No More
 Listen     Read    3:19-20 |  Put Your Hand Over Your Mouth
 Listen     Read    3:21 |  Righteousness From Without
 Listen     Read    3:21-23 |  No Distinction

The Promised Savior
 Listen     Read    3:24-25 |  Propitiation
 Listen     Read    3:25-26 |  Righteousness Demonstrated
 Listen     Read    3:27-30 |  One God & One Salvation
 Listen     Read    3:31 |  The Law Upheld
 Listen     Read    4:1-12 |  The Imputation of Righteouness
 Listen     Read    4:13-17 |  The Promise Secured
 Listen     Read    4:18-22 |  The Heritage of Hope (Part I)
 Listen     Read    4:18-22 |  The Heritage of Hope (Part II)
 Listen     Read    4:22-24 |  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
 Listen     Read    4:25 |  Who Killed Jesus?
 Listen     Read    5:1 |  Peace With God
 Listen     Read    5:2 |  In The Throne Room
 Listen     Read    5:2 |  Rejoice In The Hope Of The Glory of God
 Listen     Read    5:3-5 |  Rejoicing and Suffering
 Listen     Read    5:6-8 |  Love and Some Verses
 Listen     Read    5:8-10 |  Salvation In Jesus Christ
 Listen     Read    5:11 |  Joy In God
 Listen     Read    5:12-14 |  We Are From Adam
 Listen     Read    5:15-17 |  Jesus Is Better Than Adam
 Listen     Read    5:18-19 |  The Guilt & The Gift
 Listen     Read    5:20-21 |  It’s All About Grace

New Life In Christ
 Listen     Read    6:1-4 |  Baptism: The Life of the Buried Dead
 Listen     Read    6:5-7 |  Sin & Union With Christ (Part I)
 Listen     Read    6:8-11 |  Sin & Union With Christ (Part II)
 Listen     Read    6:12-14 |  God Reigning In You
 Listen     Read    6:15-18 |  Master Jesus (Part I)
 Listen     Read    6:19-23 |  Master Jesus (Part II)

Bearing Fruit For God
 Listen     Read    7:4-6   |   Part I
 Listen     Read    7:4-6   |   Part II
 Listen     Read    7:4-6   |   Part III

Law & Gospel
 Listen     Read    7:7-12  |  Part 1
 Listen     Read    7:7-12  |  Part 2
 Listen     Read    7:7-12  |  Part 3
 Listen     Read    7:7-12  |  Part 4

Inner Confliction & The Gospel
 Listen     Read    7:13-25  |  Part 1
 Listen     Read    7:13-25  |  Part 2
 Listen     Read    7:13-25  |  Part 3

No Condemnation In Christ
  Listen    Read    8:1-4  |  Part 1
  Listen    Read    8:1-4  |  Part 2
  Listen    Read    8:1-4  |  Part 3
  Listen    Read    8:1-4  |  Part 4
  Listen    Read    8:1-4  |  Part 5

Walking According To The Spirit
  Listen    Read    8:5-9  |  Part 1
  Listen    Read    8:5-9  |  Part 2
  Listen    Read    8:5-9  |  Part 3
  Listen    Read    8:9-13  |  Part 4
  Listen    Read    8:9-13  |  Part 5

The Jesus Family
  Listen    Read    8:12-13  |  Jesus Family Does Not Lose the Battles Which Count
  Listen    Read    8:14-15  |  Jesus Family Welcomes Members and Leads Them
  Listen    Read    8:14  |  The Family of Old
  Listen    Read    8:15-16  |  Adopted Forever
  Listen    Read    8:15  |  The Great Father We Call Abba
  Listen    Read    8:17  |  The Future of the Family

Suffering And The Glory Of God
 Listen     Read    8:18-25  |  Natural Evil & Moral Evil
 Listen     Read    8:18-25  |  The Groaning of God’s Spirit
 Listen     Read    8:26-27  |  Prayer & Suffering
 Listen     Read    8:28  |  How God Works it For Good
 Listen     Read    8:29  |  The Image of Christ
 Listen     Read    8:28-30  |  Predestination
 Listen     Read    8:31-39  |  Evil & The Existence of God
 Listen     Read    8:31-39  |  Barriers for the Believer

The God(ness) of God
  Listen    Read    9:1-29  |  The God of Glory (Part I)
  Listen    Read    9:1-29  |  The God of Glory (Part II)
  Listen    Read    9:1-29  |  The God of Glory (Part III)
  Listen    Read    9:1-29  |  The God of Glory (Part IV)
  Listen    Read    9:30-10:21  |  The God of Gospel (Part I)
  Listen    Read    9:30-10:21  |  The God of Gospel (Part II)
  Listen    Read    9:30-10:21  |  The God of Gospel (Part III)
  Listen    Read    9:30-10:21  |  The God of Gospel (Part IV)
  Listen    Read    9:30-10:21  |  The God of Gospel (Part V)
  Listen    Read    11:1-36  |  The God of Future (Part I)
  Listen    Read    11:1-36  |  The God of Future (Part II)
  Listen    Read    11:1-36  |  The God of Future (Part III)
  Listen    Read    11:1-36  |  The God of Future (Part IV)

Viva La Vida Christus: Living The Life Of Christ
  Listen    Read    12:1-2  |  All of Life is Worship
  Listen    Read    12:3-8  |  Humility, our Gifts, and Real Life
  Listen    Read    12:9-21  |  The Life of Genuine Love
  Listen    Read    13:1-7  |  Life Under Temporal Law
  Listen    Read    13:8-10  |  Life Under Eternal Law
  Listen    Read    13:11-14  |  Living in Light of the Day
  Listen    Read    14:1-2  |  The Principle of Preference (Part I)
  Listen    Read    14:13-15:3  |  The Principle of Preference (Part II)
  Listen    Read    15:4-13  |  The Principle of Preference (Part III)
  Listen    Read    15:14-33  |  Fulfilling the Mission
  Listen    Read    16:1-27  |  Entrusted to God

Listen to this sermon…       

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Sunday, May 11th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets

Series: The God(ness) of God | Romans 9-11
I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
III. The God of Future 11:1-36

The God of Glory
Week 4 – Romans 9:19-29
I. The Creator vs. the Creature (19-21)
II. The Glorious Purpose of God (22-23)
III. The Family from the Gospel (24-29)

Introduction

Good morning. Well, first of all Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s here. We love our moms and are a church who cherishes being part of Jesus’ family and because of that we cherish our natural families. Our moms are a great blessing from the Lord, so thank you moms for being our moms and loving us and our children.

Well we are in the middle of our sermon series titled “The God(ness) of God” from Romans 9-11. We took a break from it last week for a special time of extended singing and hearing stories from 4 different people. It was a blessing to hear from each one of them about how the gospel is working itself out in the center of each of these person’s lives. So thanks again to those of you who shared, we’ll do another one of those Sundays in another couple months.

Alright, so let me refresh us for a second of where we are in our study and then we’ll read and pray over today’s portion of Scripture that we’re going to look at. The book of Romans is a book of the Bible about how God is great and glorious, and how is shown to be so through sending his son Jesus into the world. That is good news to us creatures who haven’t loved or known God as we ought, and the message of Jesus is that if we put our faith in his person and work on the cross to take care of the consequence of hell for not loving our maker, Jesus will save us and change us and we will know his great love and forgiveness. Romans 8 ended by telling us that when such a thing truly happens in your soul, nothing can happen in this life to separate you from God. His love in your heart is secure…not sickness, demons, or even death can come between you and the love of God in Jesus.

So the first 8 chapters of Romans were spent working out all the details and implications of that. Now when Paul, the human author of Romans came to chapter nine, he had an issue to deal with. He was writing to two main groups of people, Jews and Gentiles. Gentiles are anyone is not a Jew, I’m a Gentile by birth, a Jew by Jesus, but that’s for later. Here’s the issue, God, in the first half of the Bible made a bunch of promises to the Jews, now Jesus comes along and says he is the fulfillment of all those promises and now everyone needs to believe in him and a lot of the Jews are like what?! Are God’s old promises not good anymore and if not then how can we even believe in this new promise? You guys get it? So Paul’s got to talk about why we can trust the gospel offer of God changing and saving everyone who puts faith in Jesus.

Here’s what he has said so far. First, it’s grace not race that counts. Paul’s uses the Jewish Bible, the Jewish Scriptures to show that it was never race, it was never their bloodline, the color of their skin, the name of their nation, or their family heritage that made God even offer his promises to them…it’s was purely his grace. He told two stories to show that was true. The story of Abraham and the story of Abraham’s grandkids. In both cases God determined to come to them and save them prior to any response on their part, and in the case of Abraham’s grandkids the Bible says, God decided that before they were even born!

We spent a whole week on that and those stories. But that brings up some questions then, if God decides who he is going to love and save before they are even born, then isn’t that not fair? Paul was smart, he was a lawyer, he knew we’d be thinking that. See, look at verse 14, “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part?”

To answer that question, Paul first flat out denies the charge by saying “By no means!” And then he condescends and tells two more stories to illustrate, the story of Moses and the story of Pharaoh. In the story of Moses God has mercy and compassion on him and in the story of Pharaoh he didn’t. In the story of Moses we learned two things. One, that God is a gracious and compassion God, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness, that is who he is as God. Two, we learned that justice is about a consistency and consistency is found in God’s passion to do everything for his own name and glory.

In the second story, about Pharaoh, we get to see a practical example where God does something for his glory. The Bible says God raised up, that’s from a baby to adulthood and emperor status, God raised up Pharaoh for the very purpose that God’s power and name might be made known throughout all the earth, in how he destroyed Pharaoh and the supposed gods and his kingdom and part of that process was God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. So verse 18 ends by saying, “So then he (God) has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”

That brings us to today, beginning with verse 19, where Paul anticipates our response and then answers. So let’s read our text and pray over it.

Lord God thank you for putting difficult passages in the Bible, passages which really make us think and challenge our faith to the core. God I pray that today, through these words of yours, you would open our eyes up to see the greatness of your wisdom and your glory. Would the glorious nature of the gospel shine forth so that we might be able to trust in Jesus and be saved. Help us, humble us, hear us, remove all hindrances today. In the name of your Son Jesus, Amen.

Well, I won’t lie to you, this is probably the most difficult passage I have ever preached on. It is not difficult because it’s hard to decipher what the text is saying. There are other passages in the Bible which are like that. But not this one. One of the best tools of interpretation that you can use in learning how to read the Bible right, is what a text seems to be saying is usually what it is saying. The plain and simplest meaning of a text is usually right.

What makes many passages difficult is not the words themselves or that the author has said something confusing, but it is us. We bring baggage to the Bible which often makes it hard for us to understand and accept it because it doesn’t fit our framework or way of thinking and so we try to force it into our worldview and it just doesn’t work.

And this passage of Scripture is particularly difficult in that regard, because it drives deep into the recesses of our sinfulness as human beings, who in our core have this problem with God and have this tendency to rise up and either challenge, ignore or dismiss God.

Since this passage evokes such sharp reactions from the human heart, the result is there are just tons and tons of opinions about it. Too many for us to deal with, I’m sorry. We’ve developed a reputation for going slow in our study of the Bible, I mean we’ve spent three years now in Romans so far, just getting to this point. Knowing this about us, one of dads of a dude in our church whose a pastor, said I was cheating you guys by only spending a month in Romans 9. So sorry if you feel cheated. We could seriously spend the next year going down all the rabbit trails people have created from not accepting the plain meaning of this passage of Scripture.

The good thing, is if we accept this passage of the Bible for what it is and actually consider what it is saying, it actually answers, with phenomenal brilliancy, some of the deepest and most perplexing philosophical dilemmas that exist. So here’s the plan, I’m not going to spend a ton of time following all the rabbit trails today justifying every minuet turn of interpretation, we’re just going to deal with the plain meaning of the text under three headings, “The Creator versus the Creature,” “The Glorious Purpose of God,” and “The Family from the Gospel” as they come up in this text.

The Creator versus the Creature

Let’s look at the first section here, “The Creator versus the Creature.” Paul’s first response to the question that comes up in our minds from our hearts is to put us in our place. Now I admit there is probably a soft version, that’s a little more gentle less defiant and emotively explosive and then there’s the harsh angry reactionary version. I think that the version I most identify with, so I’ll read it that way. Well, if God hardens whoever he wants, has mercy on whoever he wants to, and decides that before we’re born, then why does he still get pissed at us for sin! He’s planned it that way! I don’t know about you but that how it sounds to me. But maybe you hear the soft version, that’s okay, both are legit.

Now Paul’s first response comes back almost just as intense. It’s mother’s day and reading his response kind of reminds me of the times when I was disrespectful to my mother and my dad would says, “How dare you to talk to God like that! Go to your room right now!” It kind of sounds like that to me…”Who are you, O man, to answer back to God.”

But to be honest I really don’t think Paul has an angry tone here. Paul isn’t writing out of anger or out of a state in his life where he is fighting against God and God’s will for his life, he gave up fighting, he was humbled, and then God began to use him to reach people and start churches and write books of the Bible all to bring glory to God through the gospel.

Paul is writing as a pastor who cares for his people and wants them to understand and to love God. So he gives an illustration. “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?”

Clay and pottery, were not only illustrations used in Scripture by the prophets, both Jeremiah and Isaiah, but it was a very common and picturesque cultural illustration. It probably doesn’t work so well for us because we don’t see clay and potters and pottery wheels very often these days in San Diego unless you happen to have gone to a rich high school that had a pottery class you could take as an elective. I took that class, we all made bongs and ash trays. It was great fun. J But in the first century, when this was written, clay and pots were big business and that was a good trade to be in. If you went to the mission valley mall you would most likely see a potter working with a piece of clay on a wheel.

So Paul takes this picture and says look, does the piece of clay tell the potter, how to shape it, what sort of thing to make it into? The obvious answer is no. It’s a piece of clay, in the potter’s hands, to do whatever the potter wants to do with it. What Paul is getting at here is a Creator vs. Creature distinction. We are creatures. We can create things but only because we are made in the image of a great Creator who designed and created everything. It is a major class distinction.

The same issue comes up in the book of Job. The oldest book written in the Bible. If you’ve never heard the story of Job, he’s this dude who loves God but then all this bad stuff happens to him. He loses his house, a few of his kids die in a tragic accident, he gets a bad disease, his wife leaves him, and all the while his closest friends, rather than being friends and comforting and supporting him, they just berate him and tell him he must have really done something wrong to piss God off, so why doesn’t he just repent and then everything will get better. This goes on for like 30 some chapters, back and forth.

Finally, Job cant’ take it anymore and he starts questioning God. Literally suing him and calling him into a courtroom, he wants to put God on the stand because he thinks God has wrong him. All along Job is demanding God to answer him, but God has been silent. Then finally at the end of the book God shows up and answers him. Listen to some of God’s words to Job.

This is Job chapter 38. “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements, surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, 9 when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, 11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? (Job 38:2-11)”

God continues on like this for four chapters!

“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are (Job 38:34-35)?’ Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? (Job 39:1,19, 26-27) Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor (Job 40:9-10).

Pretty humbling eh? Kind of sounds like Romans 9, “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God.” After God finished, it says Job repented in sackcloth and ash. He said, I uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know (Job 42:3).” That’s how we need to be.

The fact that these kind of questions, like “that’s not fair” and “what about free will” …the fact that they rise up in us shows us the defiance that is deeply seated in our hearts. That we would dare question and challenge God, shows our depravity. Humanity is so prideful, to think that we know better than God. Never. It’s the very thing that we need to be saved from, the consequence from turning away and defying the true and living God.

The Glorious Purpose of God

Let’s move on and talk about “The Glorious Purpose of God.” The next two verses are clearly not needed after what Paul has already said. We could end the sermon there and it would be enough. But Paul, wants to make things as clear as possible for us so that you might confidently put your faith in Jesus and trust him for his mercy and the promise of glory.

Verse 22 and 23, “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.”

Now don’t get sidetracked by the, “what if” here. Paul is not just postulating and throwing out some potential theory that may or may not be true. It’s not that kind of what if. It’s the kind of what if, which emphasizes the freedom of God to do as he chooses. You see God is the only one who has a truly free will, unconstrained in any way. God can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to or for whoever he wants, for any reason he wants, and whatever he does is good, because he always acts for his own glory.

Now I know that is a little hard for us to wrap our heads around. So I’m going to appeal to Jonathan Edwards first for some help here. I’m going to paraphrase him because he wore a wig and I think when dudes used to wear wigs it must have made them talk funny for some reason. So this is some wig talk from a book Jonathan Edwards wrote called, “Concerning the Divine Decrees.”

In it he says, it is right and good that glory should shine forth and be full, so every beauty and greatness of God ought to be manifested. It would be wrong for one aspect of his glory to shine and not another. So it is necessary that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice and holiness should be made known and that couldn’t be unless he determined that there would be sin so that it might be punished and shown to be truly horrible and evil. So evil is necessary, so that creatures who come to know the true happiness of God’s love, know how great that love is.

Now that is my sort of introduction to these two verses and the dreaded and often paralyzing question of how God can be a good and loving God if he creates people that he knows and determines will one day go to hell. I mean these verses simply cannot be clearer. “Vessels” that’s carrying clay and potter analogy, “Vessels of wrath, prepared beforehand for destruction.”

Wrath is an unending pouring out of justice against sin and evil in an experience of forever being destroyed. That’s hell. That’s bad. You don’t want that. I don’t want that. But this text is clear. People will experience that and God planned that. These are what some theologians call “the reprobate” and this is clear teaching of double-predestination and supralapsarianism. This is supreme theodicy, the Bible at its best. Smashing philosophy books left and right. And if all those big words don’t mean anything to you then don’t worry about it. That’s okay.

But what I do want you to worry about, what I want you to get is why God does this. Paul could have interjected another knee jerk reaction from us here, where we might say, well, does that mean then that God is evil? The answer is no. One, because he is not the direct actor of evil. God is holy and perfect and cannot be in the presence of sin or evil. He is separate from it. He hates it. What’s verse 22 say, he endures it with much patience and wills to happen that which he hates. He does not do evil but ordains it to be.

God ordered his creation in such a way that evil would necessarily come forth. He put the tree in the garden of Eden. He put the snake there. He set the whole thing up. Vessels of wrath prepared beforehand for destruction. And in the greatest display of God causing or willing evil to be is in the death of his Son Jesus. God set the whole thing up. He planned the murder of his son Jesus on the cross. Isaiah 53 says it was the will of the LORD to crush him. Why?

The answer is simple and earth shattering. For love. That many might know the true greatness and goodness of his glory in being saved through his love poured out on the cross. Let’s get it from the text. Look at it. What is God’s purpose with hell and evil, verse 23 “in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.”

The riches of his glory for vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for glory! Listen, God’s goal is mercy for some who will be in his good glory forever! Mercy, is not getting what you deserve. It is never a right but a privilege. Everyone deserves hell. We all suck and are all messed up deep inside. We’re all fist shakers and head turners against and away from God. We all want to be him and be the masters of our own fate, our own destiny, our own will. But God planned beforehand to have mercy on some and receive them into his glory. That is amazing!

I’ll give you two hopefully helpful examples and then we’ll move to our last point for today. The first example is one from my life, other than the love of God, the deepest love I know. The love of my wife. So here’s the example, would my wife Amy, feel loved and feel special and cherished by me if I slept with a bunch of other girls all the time. You know girls from work, church, the bar, the neighbors, wherever? No. Part of Amy knowing my love is that I do not love other women in the way I love her. I am hers in a special way.

Now, a second example. We live in a beautiful city. San Diego. It may not be the North Shore of Oahu, but it’s pretty great. The beaches, the bays, the parks, the people… Now if every city was the exact same as San Diego and everyone lived here, would it be that special? No. Part of us knowing how great San Diego is, is that it’s not Kansas.

In similar ways, not exactly, but similar. Part of the joy of the vessels of mercy is in seeing what they are saved from. It’s part of what magnifies and demonstrates the great love of God. That we, undeserving creatures, get to partake in the riches of his glory. Wow. Why did God choose who he did to be vessels for mercy and others vessels for wrath. I don’t know. That is a mystery the Bible does not tell us. It’s certainly nothing in any of us. We are all undeserving. And that is what makes mercy mercy.

The Family from the Gospel

That takes us into our last point for today, “The Family from the Gospel.” The family who is made from mercy. Let’s read the last portion of verses for today, “Even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, ‘Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.” And as Isaiah predicted, ‘If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.’”

In these last verses, we return to the specific application of the gospel, why went into all these deep theological questions in the first place…because the concern is whether or not people can be saved by Jesus. Whether the offer is true and real and can be trusted by each of us individually.

The people not my people thing, is a quote from the book of Hosea. Here’s the story of Hosea. God told the prophet Hosea to go marry a whore named Gomer. God told him she was a whore and that she would cheat on him, several times. And God said he wanted Hosea to marry her anyway and on top of that take her back each time. Why? Because God said that is a picture of his grace and love.

All of us in a sense are like whores. We belong to God, he is our creator, we are creature. But we have not loved him as served him and honored him as we ought…we haven’t been his people. We’ve denied him and turned away from him and prostituted ourselves out and away from his love. But through the grace of the gospel we can be welcomed into his family and seated in places of honor in his glory as sons and daughters of the living God!

Jew, Gentile, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you have come from, or how bad of things you have done. God can have mercy on you and bring you into his family through the salvation his son Jesus.

And that is what we need salvation. See where it says “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as a sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved.” That means there is a lot of people who will lay claim to God and say they are okay. The Jews may claim it through birthright. Others may claim it through merely thinking they are a good person or that they are spiritual. But none of those things deals with the consequence of sin that we must be saved from.

Verse 28 tells us there is a coming sentence from the Lord that will be carried out and it is not going to be good. It will be something like Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah were two cites where God handed down judgment. How did he do it? Genesis 19:24 says the Lord rained down sulfur and fire from out of heaven. That’s pretty gnarly. The good news is that through Jesus we can escape that sentence and be in the special family of heaven. And that has effects for us not only in the future but here and now!

Conclusion

And this whole sermon has been pretty gnarly, so let’s conclude. How do you take everything we’ve said and looked at today and apply it to your life? I’ll give you three things, one for each of the main points.

First, from the “Creator Versus the Creature”: be humble before God. Remember you are creature. You are not the Creator. You are creature, so be humble. I’m reading through the book of Isaiah in my personal morning Bible reading. Every Christian ought to read their Bible every morning, so I do that. Here is a verse that stuck out to me. Isaiah 8:13 “The LORD of hosts, him you shall regard as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” Be humble before God and fear him above all the worries and cares of this life. Whether it is money, or your job, or a potential mate, or a test, or whether things will work out for you or if it is what somebody might think about you. Don’t fear any of those things. Fear God and he will take care of you.

Second, from “The Glorious Purpose of God”: seize the glory of God. Maybe you’ve were sitting there wondering, or maybe hoping, “Man, I sure hope I’m not a vessel of wrath, that would sure suck.” There a good way not to be. Make all of your life not about you, make it about God, pursue his glory with all your might. Mercy comes through Jesus. If you want to be a vessel of mercy, really put your faith and trust in Jesus and live for him. He suffered on the cross so you don’t have to suffer eternally and can’t just receive mercy. So embrace Jesus. Draw close to him and the glory of God will begin to shine in your life in all kinds of ways. Allow the gospel of Jesus to change you and really take hold of your life.

Third and last, from “The Family From the Gospel”: become a part of God’s family. If you’re not a Christian yet, become one. We take communion together here each week as a family. It’s a piece of bread dipped in some wine, the grace of Jesus’ body, his perfect life, and the grace of Jesus’ death, his perfect blood given for us. It doesn’t make us Christians but rather each week we confess our sin and thank Jesus for the forgiveness of his cross. That’s the first step. Then there’s the second step, where out of that faith you start getting to know the other sons and daughters of God in this church. Get hooked up in a community group and start sharing some gospel life together in this city. It’s a wonderful thing, we really love each other and we’ll love you.

Okay, let’s pray. God, once again thank you for this hard text. I pray that we would be less quick to speak out against you as your people. May we have humble and submissive hearts not ones full of rebellion and defiance. Thank you God for sending Jesus so that we might have mercy. I thank you that you are a merciful God and have determined to show your glory to vessels of mercy. Thank you God for opening up your holy family to us, that we might truly be your sons and daughters, not just creatures but family members. Thank you for your church Jesus and how your love and beauty is so powerfully at work in it. Minister to your people now head pastor Jesus, Amen.

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April 27th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets

Series: The God(ness) of God | Romans 9-11
I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
III. The God of Future 11:1-36

I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
    Week 3 – Romans 9:14-19
        Review: Romans 9:6-13
        The Justice of God
        The Moses Story
        The Pharaoh Story
        The Theology of the Two Stories

Introduction

Good morning. Let’s read the text and pray.

God, God, God, you alone are God. Today I find myself, a mere man, in the midst of a city in the middle of a room with a small band of people, who live in a place and a culture and a mindset which makes it very difficult to hear such words. I pray, I pray, I pray for great humility of heart among us today. Would we let you speak and give your Word our ear and follow it where it leads. Would you help me as we seek not to take the Bible and make it say what we think it ought to say, but rather allow it to speak for itself. Would the truths that are presented here in this text shine forth not as an embarrassment to the Christian faith but rather emerge as the steel filled cement which under girds the great gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit of God descend upon minds today and would a great passion for the proclamation of your name to resound in all the earth consume us. For your glory I pray, Amen.

Our text is striking enough to be its own attention getter this morning. And if not that perhaps my prayer, wherein you may gather that I am somewhat scared to preach what I have to preach today. There was a time in my younger days when I would have jumped at an opportunity to preach on such a passage, mostly because I liked to get into fights…today, many years later, I have learned the hard truth that you can’t make people love God by yelling at them and by winning an argument. So now my heart beats with compassion and sympathy in a great desire for as many people as possible to come to see greatness of our God and the wonder of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My fear is that some of you may not quite be ready for words like these and that such a sermon would be stifling to the health and growth of this young church plant. But I have a greater fear than that still and it one greater than a fear of your potential reactions and that is the fear of dishonoring the God I serve and the book he has given us.

So before I begin, I start with a plea because I know the words of this text instantly raise tons of questions for many of you. The plea is necessary because we ended last week by exacerbating the whole problem and not really even getting into answering any major questions. We ended by clearly seeing that God hates people. Verse 13, quotes Malachi and Genesis where the Bible says, “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated.” We looked at Malachi and saw this hating really is hating and Paul the author of Romans here says this loving and hating of God occurred in God’s self-election long before Jacob and Esau were ever born.

So here is some of the big questions, at least the ones that come to my mind: How can God hate, isn’t he supposed to be a God of love? If God hates someone before they are even born, but enables them to be born anyway, then isn’t God somehow sick and wrong? If God is really that loving why doesn’t he just save everyone? Is God some sort of control freak or self-centered wacko? Does he really do everything in order to display his power and his name? What deficiency does he have that he feels he must do such a thing? Why does God want his name proclaimed in all the earth?

Big, big questions. I hope to answer a few today. So here is my plea to you as we work through some of this: Let us not be rash and quick to cast judgment upon God. We must be careful here, lest we plunge ourselves into the sea by concocting mad schemes in our heads to either try and get God off the hook or us supposing that we will sentence God and cast him into the lot of condemnation. Those are the two dangers, that we will have such a distaste for these words that we will force them by a great feat of textual gymnastics into saying something they never meant to say or that we will accept their words and conclude them false and turn away from their God and going our own way.

Review: Romans 9:6-13

So just withhold judgment about what you think about all this until where done today. Give the text a chance to say what it seems most naturally be saying and let me walk us through it. Here’s how we’re going to do it. We’re going to follow the two stories in this text and then we’ll talk about the theology that gets brought out by them here in Romans after each story. There’s two stories here like last week, stories that come from his two quotes out of the Jewish Bible.

Like I said last week, these stories from these quotes are important. The Jewish Bible is the first two-thirds of our Bible and is in our Bible because Jesus says those first two-thirds are all about him. It’s important for him to quote it because the words of God, from the Jewish Bible are what’s at stake, whether God’s word stands or falls.

The Jewish people during Paul’s day had in large primarily rejected Jesus, not all of them but most of them, which made for a big theological problem because God made promises to Jewish people in the Jewish Bible. Now in the book of Romans, Paul is saying God offers a promise to us, that if any person puts their faith in the person and work of Jesus for their sin, they will be changed and saved from their sin and it’s consequences of hell. But how do you know that is true, because if God’s promise to the Jews didn’t hold up what’s going to make this one? That’s the issue of this series, whether the gospel from God that the first 8 chapters of Romans presents, can really be true…God’s Godness is on the line.

Last week we dealt with Paul’s first two answers. First, he said sperm doesn’t count. I said sperm because the Greek word behind the English word “offspring” in our Bibles is sperma. I just didn’t mean to say it like I did and I’ve been kicking myself all week about it, so sorry once again if you had some inappropriate images in your head during church. But the theological point stands. It was not sperm that saved, it was not racial ethnicity or bloodline that ever caused God to have favor on the Jews in the first place. He came to Abraham first, who was just a regular old ancient Mesopotamian pagan guy who didn’t have anything and promised to make him into a great nation through him and his 90 year old, wrinkly, infertile wife.

Then to make things even clearer, that God’s favor was not based on race, Paul made his second point with Abraham’s grandkids, Jacob and Esau. God only loved one of them and he determined who that was going to be before they were even born. Not the good one Esau, but the lying deceitful schemer, Jacob.

Now Paul knows here that he opened up a can of worms. But he did it intentionally because he wants you and he wants me to really believe and trust in Jesus for our salvation and that real and true offer from God. So the smart lawyer that he is he anticipates the negative response.

The Justice of God

Verse 14, “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part?” By no means!” God being unjust is not an option. If there is a God at all there is one thing he surely is and that is that he is good. Like Psalm 145:17 says, “The Lord is righteous in all his ways.” Last week I told the story of Isaiah 6 and the angels calling out “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord.” God is wholly holy and perfect in all that he is and does, it flows out of his very being.

A defense for God is not even necessary, to think that our little human minds could understand an infinite mind and then in our blindness call him on justice! You don’t want to try and put God on trial. Yet, we get an answer here. It’s not necessary…he could have stopped after, “By no means!” But he doesn’t, God in his grace has enabled mankind to be capable of apprehending standards which are greater than human. So Paul goes to work with some presuppositional evidentialism appealing to our reason with Scripture. He wants to shows us that God is good and right in all that he does.

So he says this…look at it, “We’ll guys God can’t make us love him and didn’t want us to be robots so he gave us free will and God has mercy and saves whoever chooses him and that way he’s still just.” No, it doesn’t say that at all. If there was ever a place to say something like that it would be here. But Paul doesn’t go anywhere near saying anything of the sort. Here is what the text actually says, we read it earlier:
“For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”
Now, how is that an answer justifying the justice of God? Let’s get the stories in our heads and then we’ll tackle it.

The Moses Story

Okay, there’s two stories here. The first one. Where there’s this quote of God’s to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Those words come from Exodus 33. Here is what was going on.

God first showed himself to Moses by audibly speaking out of a burning bush out near where he was tending sheep out in the wilderness. He tells Moses that he is going to use him to deliver the group of people of Israel (God’s chosen loved people) out of Egypt after being there for 430 years. We’ll talk about what happened when they left in a minute with the next story Romans references. But let’s skip it for right now. Moses really doesn’t want to lead these people at first but ends up doing it anyway. So he leads over a million people out of Egypt and they go out into the desert and start camping out. They do that for forty years.

Then they end up at Mount Sinai, and God tells Moses to go up onto the mountain. The mountain gets enveloped with smoke and fire, while Moses is in the middle of it. He’s up there for 40 days and while he is up there God gives him the ten commandments. Two tablets of stone, with the universal moral law of man written on them by the finger of God. The first one says, “Thou shall have no other gods before me.” Moses comes down the mountain after 40 days and what had the people done that he left at the base of the mountain? They had taken all their jewelry and gold and made a big golden calf and said here is our god that we will worship. Moses gets pissed and throws down the stone tablets, breaking them, and goes outside the camp by some rocks to pray.

And here we come to this recorded conversation between Moses and God, that Romans references. So I’m going to read the whole thing, you can follow with me if you want. This is Exodus, the second book of the Bible, chapter 33, verse 13-23.

Alright, now there is a ton here, we’re just scratching the surface today because otherwise it would take us until Christmas to just get through chapter 9 of Romans. But now at least you got some background and context to the phrase that ends up in Romans. So we’re not going to spend time working through all the stuff from the Exodus passage but rather go back to Romans and work with the phrase it picks up from Exodus, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

There is this statement and then we get the reason why this whole story gets brought up in verse 16. Explanation, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” There’s two components to this answer. One negative and one positive. The negative, it’s not you. God’s determination to love or save particular individuals does not consider a human person’s will, desire, efforts, are attempts to run toward him.

He is completely free to dispense mercy to whomever who wants. And it’s mercy. It’s mercy twice. Once because God is the creator and he has rights over his creation, we did nothing to get created in the first place. And second once we were created every human since Adam has turn away and our will, desire, efforts and running have been toward ourselves, not God. It is mercy, not getting what we really deserve.

To say God is unjust for not loving or saving some assumes salvation is something he ought to do in the first place. This first story points at God’s freedom as God to do what he wants. So you say, well how is that an answer justifying the justice of God? Here it is, listen, because if there is some higher standard than God that he must answer two and abide by, then whoever or whatever that is, is God. And we are stuck with the same question.

So that idea will not help. God’s justice must be preserved by his freedom to be God, and his justice is right and true because it isn’t outside of him but come from within him, it’s out of his character, his very being. So in everything he does, he is perfect and pure.

In fact the more amazing thing about this is that God has compassion and mercy. That’s actually a harder problem for the justice of God. How can he save anyone at all, which is why we need Jesus to die in our place to satisfy the justice we owe. This passage highlights that God is one of a merciful and compassionate character, just not at the expense of his justice or freedom to be God. God is a God of mercy. That what this is all about, pointing to who God is, what his name represents.

In Exodus Moses asked to see God’s glory, his answer was “I will make my goodness pass before you and will proclaim my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I show mercy.” So the point is that God’s glory, who his name represents, is where God’s justice resides. Justice comes from consistency and God is consistent in doing everything for his glory…and in that, amazingly he is one who has a great propensity to mercy in his passion for his glory!

Now, one last thing about this story and we’ll move on to the other one. The last thing I want to say about this story comes from something an old preacher named Augustine of Hippo said. Augustine said if there is a “mutual co-operation (then) there ought to be a reciprocal commendation.” What that means is this…when this text says it depends not on the will or running of man, but on God…there is no co-operation there.

It is not man coming half-way and God doing the rest. It is all God. And that is important, you want that. Because if you did any of it, if you can take any credit at all, even in the smallest particle, then you rightly deserve praise for it. And if we rightly deserve praise and claim it for our own, we are essentially saying we are gods ourselves and that God, God, the real God is not that great. If we rightly deserve praise then we ought to just sing to ourselves about how great we are. But we know that’s not true and that we’re not that great.

The Pharaoh Story

The world is not about us, it’s about God and his glory. Our mission in San Diego is to show the city that. That as beautiful as San Diego is, it is broken when it’s life is cut off from the true and living God. So we get a second story to help us see that understand that, the story of Pharaoh. Here in Romans we read, “The Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’”

Let me fill you in on the story of Pharaoh. There were lots of Pharaohs in Egypt, the Pharaoh being referred to is the one who reigned sometime around 1400 BC and had the cities of Pithom and Raamses built. God’s chosen people Israel, ended up there because of man named Joseph, who’s brothers hated him and sold him into slavery, but the Bible tells us that God took that situation and turned it for good by granting Joseph favor with the Pharaoh of his time. Joseph becomes that Pharaoh’s right hand man, and so all his family, Israel move to Egypt to live with him. But Joseph dies and after a few hundred years there is a new Pharaoh who doesn’t care about any of that and decides to turn all these Jews into slaves.

So God comes to Moses like we read earlier and tells him he has a plan and is going to use Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. Now Egypt was much like San Diego, where you got a lot of different gods, a lot of different religions. A sort of melting pot of religion. And each person was just sort of free to pick which God and religion you like and worship them.

But if there really is a God and you really are the one true God and you have all these hijackers of your name claiming to be you, you’d rightfully be a little perturbed. So when God delivers Israel out of Egypt it’s slow. There is this constant going back and forth between Moses and Pharaoh, where Moses says let God’s people God, Pharaoh says okay but then he changes his mind each time because the Bible says there is this hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and another plague. And in each plague God attacks all the gods of Egypt.
1. The goddess of the Nile was Hapi, so in the first plague God, turns her river blood red. 2. In the second plague God, goes after the god of the crops, a statue they worshipped named Heqt who had the head of a frog, so God sends a swarm of frogs into the land to kill all the crops.
3-4. In the third and fourth plagues God goes after the god named Kheper, a beetle who was supposed to be the insect god of the life and creation, so God sends gnats and flies all over the land covering it like dust.
5. Apis, was the god of the cattle, so in the fifth plague God kills all the livestock.
6. Imhotep, was the god of medicine, so in the sixth plague, God sends incurable boils to break out on man and beast.
7. The god, Nut, was to control the weather in order to protect the crops, so God sends this gnarly hail storm to ruin all the fields in the seventh plague.
8. The god, Seth was the god of the harvest, so in the eighth plague God sends in locusts to eat up any remaining food not yet damaged.
9. In the ninth plague, God goes after the god of the sun, Ra, and causes an unheard of visible and internal darkness to cover the land.
10. And in the tenth and final plague God goes after Pharaoh himself, who was considered to be the people’s divine ruler, and God strikes down his family.

That brings us to this passage Romans quotes from. Here it is in Exodus 9:13-16, you can check it out with me if you want, “13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 14 For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”

There’s our phrase Romans quotes. The purpose clause in the middle of the whole plagues of Egypt Pharaoh story. Why did God let all that happen and do all those things? Answer, so that God’s power and name might be proclaimed in all the earth. How does Paul use that and interpret that in Romans? Verse 18, “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”

The first part we already talked about, the mercy part. That was the first story, with Moses in the cleft of the rock and God proclaiming his glorious name in being free to bestow mercy. Now we have the other side. The negative side, those whom do not receive mercy. He calls it hardening here, God “hardens whomever he wills.”

Paul uses this word, “harden” because it is used 19 times in the Exodus story with Pharaoh. The very first reference is in Exodus 4:21 when God comes to Moses and tells him that he is going to lead the people out of Egypt and he says he is going to do through Pharaoh in this way, “I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.” And then God can bring on a ton of plagues, taking down all their gods, and showing that he alone is God in all the earth, the only one worthy of worship and praise.

Now, this hardening is connected with the phrase right before that “For this very purpose, I have raised you up.” Pharaoh was raised up from birth as a child for the appointed day when God would harden his heart in order to make a great display of his glory in letting the people go.

So any commentary or person or preacher you hear saying God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in response to him hardening his own heart…they’re simply wrong. God told Moses he planned to do it from the start, that’s why he raised him up. The Bible is clear on this, Proverbs 19:21 affirms it, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

Okay, that’s the story. Now some theology. We’ll save some of this for next time because Paul expands on this purpose clause and on the issue of God determining before people are even born who is going to be hated or hardened and who will be loved and shown mercy.

The Theology of the Two Stories

We’ve got two stories, one about Moses and one about Pharaoh. In one story, God has mercy and compassion. In the other story God raises up and hardens. In both stories God’s name, God’s Godness is the concern. He is just in powerful freedom to always act for his own glory. These stories were brought up to answer the question of whether or not God is unjust for hating one person and loving another before they are even born and have done anything good or bad.

How does it add up? Paul’s concerned about the truth and promise of the gospel, whether God can be trusted. His first argument was that it isn’t ethnic race, but God’s gracious election. Now his second argument is mainly that God is free to elect whoever he wants because that is what makes him God, he is not obligated to anyone and when he does elect, it’s mercy. If there is someone or something that he is obligated to then that is God and that is what we ought to be worshipping!

Now how many of you after hearing everything we’ve worked through this morning, it still is just hard for you? I mean this morning is intense. Somehow last week I was able to be funny and I’m never funny…and I wanted so bad to be funny again because this stuff is gnarly.

Well if you are still like what the heck? I can’t believe this stuff is in the Bible. If all this is really true how can God still find fault with us if it is just whatever he decides? Right? You’re not alone. Paul knew we might be thinking that. Look at verse 19, “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’”

Well, we’re going to leave those questions for next time and we’ll get fully into God’s eternal purposes and eternal goal of his glory and talk about doube-predestination, the reprobate and why there is evil in the world. But what I want to do conclude today is talk about our heart issue, why this teaching of the Bible is so hard for us, why we don’t like it and naturally buck against it.

I mean am I right? Don’t most avoid this? I grew up in a Bible believing home, we read the Bible, a lot, but we never read this chapter. I’m sure of it. But it is here and the teaching is pretty clear. You got to be pretty clever to try and do away with it. You either say it doesn’t belong in the Bible and it’s wrong, or it’s not talking about anything relevant to us, just Jews or group identities, or you do some other gymnastics with it. What you end up with is a “you” instead of the Bible, where whatever “you” like and decide is right is right, instead of letting the Bible speak for itself.

I think if we let the Bible speak for itself, what is here is pretty plain. But that doesn’t change the fact that many of us have a hard time with it. I’ve been thinking about that. My first move was to ask you in the beginning to just suspend judgment and hear out the sermon. Now we are at the end and I suspect there are a still a number of you who either just don’t know what to think or you don’t like anything I said today at all and you think either I’m crazy or the Bible is crazy.

So let me throw you two ropes. One is a practical one and the other is a spiritual one. Here’s the practical one to consider. We started out talking about God’s justice. And if you don’t like what is here, your affection is somehow wrapped up in that you think this isn’t fair or just of God, right?

Okay, in America, especially in San Diego probably the most common idea when it comes to God is that he is a relative truth depending on if that is something a person is into. Nobody usually has any problem with a God of love who supports us no matter what we do. When it becomes a problem is when we think of a God who punishes people for their beliefs because the people were “sincere.” It doesn’t matter if they are mistaken or not as long as they are genuine in their belief.

Now consider a different perspective. You may like some things in the Bible about forgiving your enemies and turning the other cheek but this idea of God being totally free to have mercy on some and not on others appalling. For other middle-eastern cultures, it’s not the idea of God’s justice they have a problem with, but with the turning the cheek and forgiving your enemies, that’s appalling to them because it violates their sense of the good and the right being vindicated.

So who’s culture is right? It’s my contention that culture changes and varies depending on the place and the time, but God’s God(ness) is transcultural and if so it’s going to rub up against our cultural ideas and make us uncomfortable from time to time. So my first rope is to say, who’s idea of justice are you operating on? We come to the Bible with all kinds of baggage, so I ask you what are you bringing to the table that is informing your senses right now.

I think as you begin to search those out, you will find any answer comes back to God and he alone as having the right to be God and if there is any hope for us it must be in his elective mercy to give us Jesus. So that’s my first rope, before you call God on justice consider your own justice.

Here’s my second rope. Yes, this text unashamedly speaks of God electing particular individuals to salvation and others to damnation. But note this, God is compassionate and merciful. So rather than gravitate toward God’s raising up to harden purposes gravitate to his mercy and compassion. It is probably not wise to stake your claim on the latter, so instead call God on his compassion. The text clearly says God in his freedom has mercy and is compassionate, so ask God to be compassionate on you.

This second rope is God’s Word. Like Moses we can call God on his passion for his own glory and say, “God, how else will people know that you are a good and glorious and compassionate God unless you have favor on a people. Have favor on me Lord! Have compassion on me!”

Conclusion

Okay, let’s conclude. This whole series is implicitly tied to the gospel of Jesus Christ itself of whether or not it is true or can work. I’ve said that several times. However, if you noticed the text doesn’t mention Jesus a whole lot here. That’s because we are sort of doing this, it’s like we are stepping backward a little bit and looking at the big picture of God and how he works. It’s almost as if we had a magnifying glass on the gospel in the first eight chapters of the Bible and now we’ve pulled back and are looking at how far back God’s gospel goes.

So I’ll conclude this way today. Ephesians 1:3-4 says this, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”

So hear this today, our passage lays the foundation for the gospel to be true. There cannot be a free offer of the gospel to wholly save us if we have any claim to our good deeds, or good wills, then it is not good news but is bad news that we have to work really hard and there is no hope that we will reach it.

Since God has determined to love and save us from so long ago, we can know that the gospel has a sure foundation, one that goes back to long before we were born. So if you put your faith in Jesus today, and that is really true of your heart, it will not fail you, it is surer than your birth itself because it is secured in God’s free determination to make his glory shine. He will have mercy.

Let’s pray.

Listen to this sermon…       

The Resolved Church | www.theresolved.com
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All Rights Reserved © The Resolved Church

Permissions: you are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material provided you not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.

April 20th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets

Series: The God(ness) of God | Romans 9-11
I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
III. The God of Future 11:1-36

I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
Week 2 – Romans 9:6-14
A. God’s word stands v.6a
B. The Israel of Israel v.6b
C. Sperm doesn’t save v.7-9
D. Before and after birth v.10-13
E. God is holy v.14

Introduction

Good morning everyone. Today we continue in the second week of our new series, “The God(ness) of God. The word “God” today is thrown around in so many different ways with very few ever actually saying what they mean by the word “God.” What do you mean when you say the word “God?” What are you talking about? Who is this person? What are his traits? What is he about?

The politicians have to be very careful when they talk about God, to try and make sure they don’t offend too many people. So the strategy is to say as little as possible about what you actually mean by that word and then hopefully everything will be okay. Our strategy is the opposite. Not to intentionally offend people, though that happens a lot, but to say as much as possible about our God in hopes that many might catch a glimpse and a passion for his greatness and for devoting their lives into his love and service.

The three chapters of the Bible this series devotes itself to is a penetrating look into some of the things which make God God, his God(ness). The majority of the first chapter we’re addressing deals with his glory as God. We’ll see that increasingly as we move through the chapter.

Last week we looked at the first 6 verses of Romans 9, which are foundational for the entire series, all three chapters: 9, 10, 11 are dependent upon those verses for in them God and his God(ness) is put on the stand. The first six verses of chapter 9 present the thesis or the problem which the next three chapters spend answering. And in addition, the verses we looked at last week are what connect these three chapters to the rest of the book. The entire book so far has been written to say that if sinners like us put our faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, that we can be forgiven and declared right before God and be saved from his just judgment and nothing, nothing at all will be able to separate us from his love.

But there is a problem, because God said some things to some people once before in human history, offering them salvation and love and blessing, so what became of that? Are they not going to be saved anymore and if not does that means that God’s word failed? If the things God has said in the past apparently didn’t work, then what gives us any reason to think anything that he says or offers now in the gospel of Jesus Christ can be true for any of us? How can we trust him? Romans 9-11 answers those questions and are really written to defend everything that has been said in the book so far. They are not just irrelevant chapters to Christians as some might have you think. They are crucially important to the gospel itself.

Well, let’s read our verses for this week and pray.

Oh my God, I believe that you are real and that you alone, the maker of heaven and earth, you alone are God and that this is your book. We are a difficult people God. Slow and hard to bend and bow our knee in worship toward your great name. And yet you are so wise and patient with us to endure our questions and our doubts. You have given us Jesus who’s goodness toward us causes us to want to forever bow and live and sing for you. Help us today as we deal with the words of your book . Bolster confidence in us toward you that you are God and that your word is true and that your gospel can and does save. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

A. God’s word stands v.6a

I ended last week by reading the first part of verse six as the conclusion to the first 5 verses where Paul, the human author of Romans, expresses his personal pain for his race, the Jews, because the majority of them have thought Jesus is not the savior and not necessary. After almost literally crying, he dashes in and sets up the theological problem, how can this be, they are Israel, the people of God, adopted in, shown glory, given covenants, the law, worship, promises, a rich history Godly men, and are the chosen race for the God-man messiah to come from? How can this be?

He moves from pain to praise of Jesus because once he mentions the Jewish prophecies of a messiah to come from their race, he probably remembers that day when he was on a trip to go to a city to kill a group of Christians who said this Jesus was that messiah and Jesus himself appears to him coming down in a massive light out of heaven, and stands before Paul. He says, “who are you?” And the Lord answers, “I am Jesus!” From that point on Paul was a changed man, who believed in Jesus and fell in love with him. So in verse 5, once he mentions Jesus he says, “who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.”

Then he has to get back to business. Verse 6, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.” The word here for failed is quite literally “fallen.” That would be an acceptable translation. It is not as though the word of God has fallen. No, it stands. As we read from Isaiah 40:8 last week, “the word of the Lord stands forever.”

Paul’s mission is to convince us that God’s word is trustable. Yes, God’s word as the gospel offer itself, and probably more generally, the reliability of a promise God himself, that he will do that which he says. His word is trustable. You can trust this book and you can trust the gospel which says “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” That is his mission. But if that is true, he’s got some tough things to answer about promises God made to Paul’s ethnic kin, the Jews.

B. The Israel of Israel v.6b

Let’s look at the second part of verse 6, the Israel of Israel. Here’s his first answer, “not all who are descended from Israel.” Who’s Israel? If you were here last week, I pointed out that it is significant that Paul called his ethnic brothers “Israel” instead of where other places in his book he calls them Jews. Jew is the national, political, ethnic name that comes from the land, the land of Judea. It’s over there in the middle east, the people who come from there. Israel, is the spiritual name, it was the name given by God to Jacob, the third generation from Abraham. God appears to Abraham and says he will bless him and make him into a great nation. Abraham has a son named Isaac, who God says he will fulfill that promise through. Isaac has a son named Jacob. God appears to Jacob, like he did to his grandpa Abraham.

Here’s the story, Genesis 35:9-12 “9 God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. 10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. 11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.”

So the name “Israel” is a name change, given by God for those who would be his people. Name changes are important. Paul himself was one who had his name changed. Before he was called Paul he was Saul, and when he became a Christian he started going by Paul. A lot of people have had their names changed, either because of some bad past experience or to mark some new course of their life.

A lot famous people have had their names changed. Bob Dylan’s real name is Robert Zimmerman. Bono’s real name is Paul Hewson. Dr. Dre is Andre Young. Snoop Dogg is Calvin Broadus. Bill Clinton’s real name is William Blythe. And Prince is Rogers Nelson, though since then he has changed his name on record 743 times, most recent to a symbol and now is currently in the process of changing it to “Bob.” I used to want my name changed because I got tired of everyone calling me Dwayne Wayne and telling me that stupid bathtub joke.

Here in the Bible, this name change is important, because Paul makes a theological point here with it. Let me try and make it even clearer for you by translating it this strict literal way, “all the ones from Israel, these are not Israel.” So here is the question, who is Israel? Who is the Israel of Israel? It has to do with the name change. Israel is the people of God.

We ought not start reaching for any kind of replacement theology here because we still have to deal with chapter 11. But the point is clear. What makes you Israel is not your blood. It’s a spiritual thing of whether or not you are one of God’s people. And now Paul, the lawyer that he is, is going to offer some supporting proofs or evidences. Let’s look at them.

C. Sperm doesn’t save v.7-9

I’ve called the first one, “Sperm doesn’t save.” I called it that because of this word “offspring” in verse seven and eight is the Greek word sperma, where we get the word sperm. I thought I might get your attention from that because it is one of those unwritten rules that you are not supposed to talk about sex in church right? But this is a sexy passage! He’s talking about sperm here and then in verse 10 he’s going to start talking about conceiving. So I think I can get away with it without having you guys stone me today.

Let’s read verses 7-9. “…not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring (sperm), but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: ‘About this time next year I will return and Sarah will have a son.’”

Now a couple things first. If you’re a new Christian or you’re not one yet and all these people and names and stories that are mentioned are just totally unfamiliar, don’t feel bad or lost. That’s okay. The people who this book was originally written to was a mix of people who knew these old stories about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and a mix of people who didn’t.

Paul here quotes twice from the Jewish Bible, which is the first two-thirds of our Bible. It’s in our Bible because Jesus says those first two-thirds are all about him. And it’s important for him to quote it because the words of God, from the Jewish Bible are what’s at stake, whether God’s word stands or falls. So for those of you that these names and stories are unfamiliar, I’ll do my best to fill you in…just know his point. If those stories don’t support what he is saying, then the first 8 chapters of the book start to fall apart and the gospel salvation by faith alone is Jesus is lost.

Let’s look at each of these verses in parts. Verse 7, “Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.” We naturally think, of course, any one that you father is your child whether or not you run out on your wife and kid, or just made some poor decisions when you were younger, or whatever the case…you are still the biological dad of the children your sperm gives life to.

Yes, of course. Paul isn’t disagreeing with us here. He is defining children in a particular way remember. Israel, children of God. So his point is just because you have kids doesn’t guarantee that because they are your kids they are children of God. That means you parents need to pray your children will put their faith in Jesus and teach them to do so, it will not happen automatically.

So he quotes Jewish Scripture to prove his point, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” Notice the word, “named.” The name change, Jacob to Israel, the promise of blessing as God’s people, it happens by God’s naming.

Here is how Paul explains it. Verse 8, “This means.” See he is interpreting it for us. “This means it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” Flesh is bloodline, and God’s naming is a promise that occurs from him and when that happens you are counted as offspring.

Counted is a bank bookkeeping word. You might remember it from back in Romans 4. A counting is a reckoning, making the books balance. It’s like someone goes and puts $100,000 in your bank account. So God names, promises, and counts and when that happens you are transferred over into the status of being his, a child of God.

To add extra weight, Paul quotes a second passage from the story in verse 9, “For this is what the promise said: ‘About this time next year I will return and Sarah will have a son.” Now let me just kind of retell the story for those of you who it might be new to. Here is what happened.

The story says the Lord God appeared to Abraham by the oak trees of Mamre, Abraham starts acting really nervous and starts scrambling and running around trying to get food together because he doesn’t know what to do when God shows up. The Lord says to him, where’s your wife? Abraham tells him his wife is in the tent and God tell him this phrase, the word of God, “About this time next year I will return and Sarah will have a son.”

Sarah is inside the tent and overhears God say this and she laughs, almost in disbelief and in mocking because she’s old. How old? Old, the text says she was 90, old and white haired. The whole story is meant to highlight the fact that it is God who gives spiritual life, it is his naming and his promise and his counting which makes you his child. So the physical components of Sarah being old, and God coming 1 year before, stress that it was God who enabled Sarah to get pregnant 3 months from that day. So if God is the one who determines physical life to be, how much more spiritual life?

Do you guys see why I’ve called this series, “The God(ness) of God?” This is huge. We are saying that our God, the God of the Bible, is the one who determines both physical life and spiritual life. None of you would ever have been born if God did not cause it to be. And none of you will love God and be his child unless in the same way he extends his promise and blessing to you. Dare you not claim race. It is not race that counts but God’s grace. Just because you may have grown up in a Christian home that means nothing for you, that doesn’t make you a Christian. All of us have been born out of the water of the womb, but we must be born of the Spirit, born again if we are to be God’s (Jn 3:5). At least that is what Jesus said.

Paul is calling out his Jewish brothers saying, look guys, our Jewish ethnicity guarantees us nothing. So what our bloodline comes from Abraham, that is never what made Abraham or Isaac God’s in the first place so what makes you think it does now? God’s word has never failed if the gospel is true, it stands.

D. Before and after birth v.10-13

So that’s Paul’s first point, sperm doesn’t save you. Here’s his second point, it is the same thing, God’s word, that matters before and after birth. Let’s read it, verse 10-13, “And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call – she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Here is what is going on. Neither Abraham nor Sarah believed the word of God. Sarah laughed out loud, Abraham figured he’s just try and make it happen. He thought, hmm, okay God, you’re going to give me a son huh? Well, Sarah is old and wrinkled and has never been able to give me a kid in the entire 70+ years we’ve been together, so maybe I’m supposed to sleep with the maid who cleans our house and she’ll give me a son. So that’s what he does, he has sex with the maid and sure enough she gets pregnant. God shows up again and is like no, my word stands, I meant what I said. And Sarah gets pregnant and gives birth to Isaac.

Now, Paul’s smart and just in case his reader might think, well Paul you see, the reason God had favor on Isaac is because he was legit, from both Abraham and Sarah. Abraham’s other bastard child didn’t have God’s favor because what Abraham did with the maid was wrong.

So Paul says okay, let’s talk about Isaac’s kids, Abraham’s grandkids. Verse 10, when Isaac and his wife Rebecca had sex, my paraphrase, she got pregnant. And if you know the story she ends up having twins, Jacob and Esau. So Paul offers us this, look here, you got two dudes from the same parents, twins, and verse 11, “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call – she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

Three things are added with this second story. One, what we already said, that it doesn’t matter who you get pregnant with, it is God who determines who his children will be, that is who Israel is. Then he adds a second thing. Not only does it not matter who or what the parents do, but even before the kids are born and ever even have a chance to do anything wrong, even that doesn’t matter.

So this idea of God looking into the future and then choosing to bestow favor on the good ones falls to the ground hard with this verse. It cannot stand up. If everybody already had faith, or if God was looking to see which of the two would be good, it would say so here and on top of it, Esau was a better man than Jacob in many ways. Jacob was a lying deceiving schemer.

The natural question is why? Why would God have chosen Jacob over Esau. The answer in the text is this, “in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call.” What is that? God’s purpose of election. That doesn’t really tell us anything. He’ll tell us more about this purpose in upcoming weeks, but right here, that answers nothing, it just tells us that God elected.

We are in the midst of these primary elections, soon to be presidential elections. But here in the Bible, election isn’t a democratic thing. It is God himself selecting or choosing or electing within himself whichever he wants, and all this passage tells is that there is a purpose to it. And whatever that purpose is, it has nothing to do with considering our works, the good or bad things we do.

So if you are going to get God on your side by doing things for him, you are wrong. We hope you do get into God and fall in love with worshipping and adoring and serving him through his son, but all of that always and forever is out of our thanks for undeserved favor. We always worship in response to his grace. We love him because he first loved us. Why did he first love us? I don’t know. That’s mystery to me, I’m not too lovable.

We love because of a “call” Paul calls it here. Earlier he said it was a promise that involved naming and a counting and here he says it is a calling. We addressed this idea of calling in depth when we depth in our last sermon series when we dealt with Romans 8:28-30, where it says “All things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.” And where it says, …those whom he predestined he also called.” You can read or listen to those sermons online to get a full treatment of what God’s “call” means generally and effectually.

I’ll just say this for today, “call” is God’s determination to set his grace upon you and that determination is completely independent of anything such as racial ethnicity or however good you think you might be. I call out to all of you now and say put your faith in Jesus and I pray that God effectually works something in your heart, maybe even in this very moment to say, “Oh yes, give me Jesus, he is all I want and all I need, I give up all my strivings and surrender to God’s mighty hand.”

May it be that God would extend his promise and name children as his own and count many righteous today because of Christ. I dare say some here may never have understood the gospel until this point. The point at which in your heart you bow your knee with appreciation toward to God for undeserved love and follow him whatever the cost.

E. God is holy v.14

Well, let’s start wrapping things up for today and talk about how God is holy. To do that there are a couple loose ends here we need to tie up. One is obvious, the other is less obvious. Let’s hit the obvious one first. How many people here when we read, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” get uncomfortable? You don’t like that? Me too. That’s what I thought. A lot of us. What are our thoughts? God is love right? How can he hate, isn’t that wrong, unjust?

Saint Paul who wrote this anticipated our response, which is why he raises the question of verse 14, look at it. “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!” Now you’ll have to wait for next week to get the full answer on that. For today I just want to address the two loose ends and then conclude by talking about the rightness, or justness or perhaps best, the holiness of God.

The first obvious thing is that we are uncomfortable with this idea here that God hates someone, Esau, and others whom he does not call to be his children. We don’t like that. So a lot of people try to soften this in one of two ways and they are the loose ends I’m referring to.

The first way is to say, Paul couldn’t have really meant “hate” here, he must of just meant “loved less.” That idea will not do. Because this phrase is exactly quoted in the Bible in another place, the book of Malachi. Here is how the book of Malachi describes God’s determination toward Esau beyond just saying he hated him. In Malachi 1:2-4 right after quoting Genesis where God first said “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I hated,” God says Esau’s inheritance is a wasteland and if Esau builds he will tear down his buildings, he says he will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and God says Esau is someone “with whom the Lord is angry forever.” I don’t know about you but that pretty much sounds to me like God hates him. And I just made things worse and more uncomfortable didn’t I? I’m just going to let you sit on that for a minute. Maybe it will scare you in a good way so that you start praying that God doesn’t hate you. That’s a good idea.

The second way people, especially guys known as “New Perspectivists,” the way they try to soften this is to say this whole idea here of Israel, and Abraham, and offspring, and Jacob and Esau is about corporate national group identities and is not referring to God’s salvation of particular individuals.

That idea will not do. Because the whole reason Paul is even writing these chapters is so that he can defend the thesis of the book that God will save individuals who put faith in Jesus. There is also just too much language here referring to specific individual people. And on top of it all that makes no sense because groups are always composed of individuals. And it still doesn’t get around the problem of God hating and predetermining whom he will love.

So those are the loose ends. If anything at this point, this sermon feels not good. By the end of a sermon you are supposed to have resolution and comfort and all those good things and I have just exacerbated the problem for us all big time. So here is what I want to do. Rather than to try and make you feel less uncomfortable, I’m just going to let us feel that, I think some uncomfortableness is good and healthy, that’s how you grow, when you know you’re being stretched and challenged.

But now I want to turn your attention to the holiness of God and that is how we’ll conclude. The seemingly automatic charge that arises in our heads against God is to call him on his justice and say that’s not fair and it’s wrong. We’ll get into that next week and deal with our uncomfortableness. Today, I simply want to call your minds to think of God’s holiness. It’s what that little phrase calls me to in verse 14, “By no means!”

In Isaiah 6, the prophet has a vision of God. The heavens are opened up and he’s sees God seated upon his throne and the train of his robe fills the temple, about a football field’s worth. So this vision is big. Around the throne of God there are angels flying around the throne. They each have six wings, with two they are covering their face, with two they are covering their feet, and with two they are flying and they are calling out in loud voices, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” They called out so loud that there was an earthquake and the house where Isaiah was filled with smoke.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD. In the whole of all that he is and all that he does he is holy. There is not a single drop of evil in the whole ocean of his existence. He is perfectly right and just and true. The angels, beautiful, sinless and powerful angels still have to cover their face and their feet when confronted with his pure goodness. My friends, our God is a holy God.

Conclusion

Here is our conclusion for the day. Our God is just and righteous and holy, it flows out of his very being, it is who he is, he cannot but be holy. He does not owe us existence. There is no constraint on him to create life and love. That we breathe air right now is a pure act of his grace. If we call him on justice we done with, I am ashes.

In Jesus, God poured out the full measure of his justice so that we might become his children, children of the promise, called by his name out darkness and into his light. In our place on the cross Jesus suffered a physical and human punishment as well as eternal divine one that we deserve and he offers that provision freely to all who cling to him and to him alone. Not our supposedly good works, not our supposedly good family name, not anything but him alone.

Jesus Christ is the true seed of Abraham and is true Israel himself, he fulfilled all Israel is called and meant to be. The word of God stands. Now every person, whether they are blood Israel or not, anyone who puts there faith in him becomes Israel, a child a of God. All the promises of God’s word now hold true in his son for us. God’s word does not nor cannot fail, you can trust him.

Jesus is holy God, sinless, the one seated on the throne who came to earth so that many who were not blood Israel might be Israel. He lived the life try so hard at and fail so miserably at time and time again and he died the death we deserve in our place. He determined to do this from long ago, long before everyone in this room was born. So embrace him today and know the invincible love of God that nothing will be able to separate you from.

Let’s pray.

Listen to this sermon…       

The Resolved Church | www.theresolved.com
(619) 393-1990 | contact@theresolved.com
All Rights Reserved © The Resolved Church

Permissions: you are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material provided you not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.

April 13th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets

Series: The God(ness) of God | Romans 9-11
I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
III. The God of Future 11:1-36

I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
Week 1 – Romans 9:1-6a
A. Our Place in the Book of Romans
B. Paul’s Pain for his Race
C. The Privileges of the Israelites
D. God’s Powerful Word

Introduction

Good morning to you Jesus’ church. Well today we begin a new sermon series. The series is called “The God(ness) of God” and it is a unique series. It is unique in several ways but it is especially unique to us as a church since we started doing our sermons in series form, because it covers three whole chapters. Usually our series just cover several verses. It’s been a month since we finished our last series “Suffering and the Glory of God.” That series took us about a month and a half. This series will probably take around 3 plus months or so and take us into the summer.

There is just no way around it because Romans 9, 10 and 11 unquestionably all go together. So much so that some have thought they are almost like a whole other self-contained book, or afterthought, or add on to what Paul has already written in the first eight chapters. I’ll try and show you today how they really are connected and an important and necessary part of the book and we’ll get into the first five verses and part of verse 6 today.

This is an exciting series for several reasons. One, because of the questions it raises and answers. Things like how can you trust God’s word? Is God unfair or unjust if he only saves some and not others? Does God even do such a thing and if so why? What really is the gospel and how do you really become a believer in it? And what the heck is the deal with Israel? The Bible talks a ton about the Jews and Israel, why are they important and does Israel fit at all into the picture of what God has planned ahead in the future? Does God know or even determine the future? Those are good questions which deserve good answers.

All of these questions and the answers of Romans cause the reader and the author of Romans to say as the conclusion of these three chapters does, “Oh the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unreachable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways…For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! (Rom 11:33,36). God is God and his God(ness) is truly put out on display in these chapters.

So it’s going to be a good time. And the other cool thing about this series is that after we’re done with it, there’s only a few chapters of Romans left and then we’ll finish the book! We’ve been at it for three years. That’s how we do it here at The Resolved Church and I’ll say the same thing I do at the beginning of every new series we start about why.

One, because of the cultural distance, time distance, and language difference between us and the books of the Bible you just can’t not do it that way if you are going to try and let the text really speak for itself and not just read into it whatever you feel like. Some preachers like to do that, they read a text and then just sort of use it as a springboard to jump to the moon and talk about whatever they want to talk about. Not here. You have the right to throw things at me if I anyone else up here ever does that! We love the Bible to much to disgrace it in that way.

So that’s the first thing, if you really want to study the Bible as a church you got to do it books at a time. The second thing which comes out of that is our view of church. The reason we can study whole books of the Bible and take a few years on it is because we do not see church as an event, or a temporary thing, or as just one compartment of your life. We see church as family, a permanent thing, that is our lives, long term. Now some of you are in college or the military and will only be here for a limited time. We love you and are glad to have you. But our goal is to actually impact the city of San Diego long term. So we expect that if you are really part of this church you’ll be here three years later and be here every Sunday that you’re not away on vacation or sick. We’re in this together, for the glory of God’s name in San Diego.

Okay, enough of my little plea for you guys to be regular in your Sunday attendance and not to move away. Let’s read the text and pray.

Lord God, today we begin the climb up a massive mountain. These next three chapters of your book are gnarly. And yet they unveil your greatness with astounding clarity. May we see that greatness, your God(ness) and be struck with awe and worship and moved to love your son Jesus. Help us today as we start this series, through these first few words would you break us so that we might truly be truthful with ourselves, would you really grant us a passion for people like Paul, the human author of this book, and may we find great joy in all the privileges we have in Jesus. Amen.

A. Our Place in the Book of Romans

The first order of business is to show how our verses for today and really the whole of Romans 9-11 fit within the overall design and thesis of the book. For those of you who have not been with us for very long, the book of Romans is a book about God and how he is glorious in saving all kinds of people through faith alone in Jesus Christ (Rom 1:16). That is the gospel, the good news that no matter who you are or how bad you are, and everyone is bad, there is salvation in Jesus Christ through faith in his person and his work on the cross.

Our last series ended looking at the last few verses of chapter eight that with a triumphant shout proclaim that nothing in this life can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. God has promised it in his word that neither “…tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword…neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35,38-39).

No natural circumstance, no human power (including our own), and no spiritual power can come between the promise of God’s word that he loves and will love us forever with eternal blessings because put our faith in Jesus who died in our place, suffering the punishment that we deserve.

That was the grand conclusion of chapter 8. Then we come to chapter 9 which begins still in a tone of passion and great emotion and forceful sincerity, but the emotion changes from a tone of exuberant joy to a agonizing sadness…”I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish.” There are those, his kinsmen family heritage, who have not believed Jesus really is the savior and that they need him. That realization is devastating to Paul and not only that it creates a huge theological problem.

The problem becomes crystal clear in verse 6, look at it. “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.” We’ll talk about Paul’s ethnic heritage in a few minutes, but first hear the problem so that you can see why Romans 9-11 is written and connected to chapter 8 and the rest of the book and why it is all about God…But here is the issue…with Paul’s ethnic family, God made promises to them by his word, but now there is Jesus and most of his family has rejected him as savior, so does that mean God’s word failed? Can God’s promises change? If his word didn’t hold true for Paul’s family what makes you think this new promise of faith in Jesus will hold true?

That is the issue at hand here. Romans 9-11 is written to defend God’s God(ness)! Many have falsely thought oh, Romans 9-11 is just about the Jews, about Israel, so it really doesn’t apply to Christians. In fact, even where I when to Bible college, get this. I took a class on the “Book of Romans,” that is what it says in the college catalogue. But guess what. That class ended after Romans chapter 8. I asked the teacher why? He said, well chapters 9-11 don’t really apply to us as Christian because they are about the Jews, not us.

No, no, no, no. That’s wrong. Romans 9-11 is about God and whether or not he is really God and is glorious and can do what he wants and says he can do! And besides, he mentions Gentiles, that’s us, 6 times in these three chapters. It will not do to cut these chapters out of the Bible. If you’re going to cut these out then you don’t have a Bible, what you have is a “you.” Where “you” are the Bible, where “you” are God and where “you” decide what his word and where “you” determine what is true and right and what isn’t.

So that is why I have called this series “The God(ness) of God” series because these chapters are about the justification of God, they are not a side note or an excursus, they have to do with very matter of the gospel itself.

B. Paul’s Pain for his Race

Alright. I feel better now. I got that off my back. I’ve been angry about it for about 7 years now since I took Romans in college. The lesson is don’t ever take scissors to your Bible because your scissors will just break and there’s hell to pay for it.

Okay, let’s talk about Paul’s pain for his race. He starts out saying this, let’s look at verses 1. speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit.”

This is an interesting phrase. He basically swears four different times that he is telling the truth. “I am speaking the truth, in Christ.” Christ is leading him to say these things. “I am not lying.” An attempt to avert any charge of insincerity. And then he mentions a sanctified conscience. There is conscience, the inner sense of right and wrong and ought that is woven within the fabric of the human race…specifically in this case, that lying is wrong. But sometimes, our conscience can be conflicted and so he adds that the Holy Spirit is his witness. You ask well, how can you know that. The idea is that anyone else who has God’s Spirit would be able to discern the Spirit that was at work in his words.

Now granted we as sinful human beings can be pretty deceptive in attempting to gain someone else’s trust and love when we are really not being honest. I remember when I was in high school I got caught smoking on school grounds by the security guard and I was sent home and my parents were called and I was suspended. I swore to my parents I wasn’t smoking but that a friend who I was talking to was and when the security guard came he asked me to hold his cigarette for a second and I was the one who got caught. I swore up and down I was telling the truth and said things like, “Do you think I’d lie to you? I’m your son, I’m telling the truth!”

Well, I was smoking. I had a whole pack of Marlboro Reds in my car. I didn’t know about American Spirits or the fine art of smoking pipe tobacco while reading good theology back in those days. Back then it was just sex, drugs and rock and roll.

So maybe that is what Paul is doing here or maybe he is just seriously misguided. But I don’t think so. He’s not a young punk trying to get away with something and he’s not some crazy polygamous child raping cult leader in Texas. Paul is the real deal. There are a lot of imposters out there but there are only imposters when there is something real out there to copy and impost (is that a word)? So I think Paul is telling the truth here. In fact, it’s verses like this that help convince me that the Bible really is inspired by God and is his book.

Let’s go on, verse 2-3, they add even more to his testimony. “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

This is intense emotion, “great sorrow” “unceasing anguish.” Sometimes “heart” in the Bible means what you think or what your motives and actions are. Not here. Paul’s heart is broken for his people because they have rejected Christ. His longing for them to know Jesus is so deep that he makes this hypothetical wish, saying if it were possible…it’s not possible because a sinful person cannot save another sinful person, which is why we need Jesus in the first place.

But Paul says here, if it were possible he would it give up, the greatest joy and security of his life, Christ himself, in order that his brothers would know him and believe in him. “Cursed” and “cut off” from Christ just so that others could know him. What love from a guy who started out the most successful part of his career by having Christians stoned to death. The gospel had changed Paul, so that when sees his race rejecting Christ, he doesn’t get angry…instead his heart breaks.

Now notice something. I’ve been calling the people who Paul’s heart is broken for “his family.” That’s because he says here “my brothers, my kinsmen.” He’s talking about his heritage, his ethnic roots, his race, his nationality, his kinsmen. But notice something with me, look at the verse again. It says, “my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” That phrase according to the flesh signals back to the earlier part of Romans chapter 8 where Paul taught us that once you become a Christian you become part of Jesus’ family, a new spiritual family. It doesn’t mean you don’t still have a physical, blood family, the one according to the flesh, but as a Christian you become part of the family of Christ.

And these verses teach us how the family of Christ is to feel about people who are not Christians. For far too long many Christians have prided themselves for being Christians, thinking they are better than everybody else. That’s the wrong attitude. Here is the right attitude, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” Our hearts ought to break so that people would really come to know the blessing of being in Jesus’ family. Does your heart break for people? Or is it just too clouded up with desires and pursuits of things that don’t really matter?

C. The Privileges of the Israelites

May God give us a pain like Paul’s for people. Well let’s talk about the privileges of the Israelites. This is where the theological problem starts, where according to these things it starts to look like maybe God’s word failed and is untrustable. Let’s read it, verse 4, “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.”

A few things. First, that he calls them Israelites is a big deal. Usually he calls them “Jews.” Jews is the national, political, ethnic name which comes from the name of the land, the territory of Judea. But Israelites, that is the name of spiritual heritage, it is the name God gave them through Jacob, it is the name which marks the status of favored or loved by God…the Israelites…the people of God. And then there is this list, 8 things which had marked them as Israelites, they “belong” to them.

We’re not going to get heavy into each of these things, but we’ll try to survey them, they all kind of go together like a poem or a song, you can’t see it in English but the Greek words rhyme, having the same endings. Which means they are all probably meant generally and we shouldn’t be too specific about any one of them. But I’ll still try to briefly survey them.

Adoption, where a child who is not a child by birth becomes your child in the full sense of the word. Israel was chosen to be adopted by God from among all the peoples of the earth (Duet 14:2).

The glory, times when God chose to show himself to Israel in mighty and powerful ways. The cloud in the form of a pillar that led Israel through the desert. The consuming fire that glowed on top of Mt. Sinai when God gave the ten commandments. The smoke that came down out of heaven and filled the temple. Instances where God peeled back the normal functions of physics to accompany his mighty voice in glory.

The covenants, the legal agreements God made to bless Israel forever. The giving of the law, the rules and guidelines of how Israel would show their love and devotion to God.

The worship, most likely meaning the temple sacrificial system. The word “temple” is not in the Greek if you have an NIV translation, that’s just it adding words to the Bible, which is why I don’t like the NIV. Even though Israel worship probably infers the temple worship here, you can’t just add words to the text, were supposed to interpret the Bible not add to it.

The promises, God made all kinds of promises to Israel, promises to bless them, increase them, secure them and save them. The whole thing got started with Abraham when God promised to make him into a great nation.

The patriarchs are the key men who God chose to reveal himself to when he gave all these promises. Men like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And then there is the greatest promise of all that God would send a messiah, a savior, a Christ into the world. This Christ would be a God-man. He would be God himself and yet fully human at the same time and his human side would come from the blood line, that phrase “according to the flesh,” from the Israelites.

What privileges! To be adopted, shown glory, have a covenant from God, a way of worship, hope-filled promises, a rich history of holy ancestors, and most of all to have God himself come to save and fulfill all these things once and for all and for him to come from your family! What blessing!

The tone here is of unbelief. With all these things how can this be? How can so many of my brothers reject Jesus and thus seem doomed to hell? If anyone should believe in Jesus, it’s them and if they’ve rejected him what does that say about God and his promises and covenants and adoption and future glory? This is where the next few weeks will take us. The answers to these questions. For now we’ll just finish up today by briefly looking at verse 6 and talking about Jesus.

D. God’s Powerful Word

Verse 6 is the beginning of Paul’s response. “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.” So he summarizes all 8 of the things he just mentioned as “the word of God” which is one of the reasons why I’ve included the first part of verse 6 today.

Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” I couldn’t help but think of that verse from Isaiah when looking at the connection between the way verse 5 of Romans 9 ends talking about God’s forever blessing and the way verse 6 picks things up talking about the word of the Lord.

Verse 5 ends with Paul bringing up Jesus as the grand apex and fulfillment of all the privileges, it seems really like he digresses in personal worship. He’s saying, “man, my brothers got the law, the temple, the patriarchs, and the messiah comes from our line.” But when he mentions the messiah, “the Christ” he can’t help himself and he sidesteps to praise. Look at it. “Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.”

Now there is some controversy about how to grammatically construct this phrase and whether or not it is really calling Jesus God here. I think it is but I’m not going to get into it because we don’t need this passage to say so to establish to say so, plenty of other passages do. I just wanted to let you know it’s there.

So here is the point and here is how I want to wrap things up. Everything is about Jesus. It is an oversimplification in regards to the extent Paul will go to explain this. But God’s word did not fail and cannot fail because it makes it’s mark in Jesus who is for all. He is the Christ, the promised fulfillment “who is God over all” as verse 5 states.

What that means for you and for me is that we ought to give the whole of our lives to Jesus because everything is about him. I mean we’ve been talking about history, the patriarchs and God choosing them out of all the families of the earth! All of history and all the families of the earth are a pretty wide scope, the span of our life here on earth is a pretty narrow scope. If all of history and all of the world is about Jesus then how much more should all of our lives be about him?

Conclusion

Let’s conclude today by seeing how Jesus fulfills all these privileges for us. In Jesus we get adopted into God’s family. In Jesus we get connected to the glory of God. In Jesus we receive a new covenant in his blood, a covenant of forgiveness. In Jesus we have the one who fulfills the law perfectly for us where we have failed. In Jesus we have one worthy of our worship and he is not confined to a temple in the middle east, we can worship him anywhere in Spirit and in truth. In Jesus all the promises of God are yes to us through him. In Jesus the patriarchs become our spiritual fathers and examples to follow. In Jesus all our longings are met. The long awaited messiah of our hearts is found in Jesus who is the Christ.

So I say to all of us today, put your faith in Jesus, trust in no other savior. Any and every need you have is met in him. Let’s be humble before him and may our hearts break for others to know him and his goodness.

Let’s pray.