Rest Found At The Cross

What if the rest you crave isn’t another day off, but a person? We open the Word to show why Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath, ends the exhausting project of self-justification and invites us into a life anchored by mercy, not merit. From there, we follow Paul through Romans 9–10 to face the hard questions head-on: God’s sovereignty, human responsibility, and how grace pursues people who don’t deserve it and can’t earn it.

We revisit Pharaoh’s story to see both God’s patience and the danger of a hardened heart. We explore the potter-and-clay image without collapsing into fatalism, drawing a crucial line between God’s rightful rule and our real choices. The message is blunt and hopeful: all start as vessels of dishonor, but by faith in Christ we are washed, sanctified, and justified. The cross doesn’t just tweak our trajectory; it gives us a new identity and a clean start. And that identity reshapes daily life—denying the flesh, walking by the Spirit, and resting in what Jesus finished.

We also trace the widening circle of God’s family. Hosea’s prophecy rings true as those once “not a people” are called beloved, and the remnant hope for Israel remains alive. Gentiles who never chased the law find righteousness by faith, while many who pursued the law stumbled over the very stone meant to save them. The takeaway is clear: trust the cornerstone, not your record. Let the cross be the lens for your choices, the foundation of your peace, and the reason your shame no longer has the last word.

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Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com.

Chapters

• 26:00 Marker 01

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02: 0:20

The Lord of the Sabbath, who is who? Jesus. He declares himself the Lord of the Sabbath. In him we find our rest. In him we find our peace. In him we find our acceptance, right? We no longer have to work to try to please God because he's done it for us. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. And he is the seed of the woman that would have the victory over the serpent. And he did it on the cross. Bringing it back to the cross, it's always about the cross. And we we get caught up in all this other minutiae, but it's about the cross.

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

Everything is about the cross. The Sabbath is about the cross. Our lives should be about the cross. Our every choice should be based on the cross and how that one day, or rather three days, changes everything. In today's message, Pastor Carl will encourage you to remember what Jesus did for you on the cross and then live your life in reflection of the freedom you are now given. Jesus changed everything for you, for me, and for all who bow to his name and his wondrous ways. And now here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28

We are hated by God too. We are hated. And yet his love for us is so great that he became one of us, died on the cross in our place, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us so that we could be loved by him in relationship once again. Are you catching some of this? This is heavy stuff. The Lord hates us, but he loves us. Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. Why did he love Esau? I mean, why did he love Jacob? Why did he love me? Because I'm just as evil as the next guy. We'll chew on that as we get into our study. That's just the setup. Chapter 9, verse 14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? I mean, picking one over another? Because we're all sinners, aren't we? So he's picking one that's sinful over the other that's not sinful. Is that the deal? Is he not righteous? Certainly not. He is the epitome of righteousness. He's the definition of righteousness. And it's his righteousness that he imputes to us that makes us right with God. But just for the sake of argument, this is God. Verse 15. He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whoever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whoever I'll have compassion. It's not about, you know, that person deserves it, that person doesn't. God in his grace is God, and he can do what he chooses to do. And yet, in his love and his grace and his mercy towards us, he's revealed his heart to us through his word. And he shows us that he desires to have mercy on compassion and compassion on everyone. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Are you following? So then it's not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. It goes back to what he's been saying the whole time. Look, it's not about you wanting to please God and doing some great things, running hard, working hard to get God's attention, so he'll say, Oh, I really want to choose him because he's done all these great things. It isn't. It doesn't matter what we do, it doesn't please God except for believing him. And it's because of God's mercy. It's of God who shows mercy. The only reason we have any possibility of entering into his presence is because of his mercy towards us. You know, they talk about the difference between mercy and grace. Grace is getting what we don't deserve, and mercy is not getting what we do deserve. What do we deserve? Eternal punishment. That is what we deserve. And yet, God, in his mercy, will give us life, will give us health, will give us healing for eternity. And to make some examples here, he brings up Pharaoh from the Old Testament. Verse 17, for the scriptures say to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I have raised you up that I might show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the world, in all the earth. He chose at the specific time this Pharaoh to be Pharaoh at the time in order to free the Israelites from the slavery in Egypt, to be a picture of what Jesus would do for us, to free us from the slavery of this world called Egypt, and to bring us into the promised land. And he would use the Pharaoh to do it. And the Pharaoh thought himself to be God, and all these curses that came went against all the other gods that the Egyptians would worship. And God gave this Pharaoh an opportunity to recognize hey, there's a God that's more powerful than all the gods of Egypt. There's a God more powerful than I am. I need to repent and turn to this God. And there were a couple of times where he seemed to be heading that way, but then he hardened his heart. And hardened his heart again, and hardened his heart again. And then, verse 18, therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and on whom he wills, he hardens. Pharaoh was one that he showed both to. God showed mercy to Pharaoh, gave him opportunity after opportunity to repent and turn and to find real life and real freedom in the Lord. And yet, time after time after time, the Pharaoh would harden his heart, and eventually the Lord would finish the job and harden Pharaoh's heart. The gospel is given as a message to all the world, to whosoever will accept it. The problem is much of the world is going to reject it. And when we reject the gospel, then there's no hope for us. The fact that God would even give us this opportunity is beyond understanding because of the sin nature that we have. We deserve death. But he's offering us life. And if we don't accept the life that he offers us, then we have what? Death. Because that's what we started with, and that's where we'll remain. And and Pharaoh was a picture of that. Verse 19. You'll say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will? This is God, and he's working in in all of creation. And there's this idea that, you know, if he's going to pick and choose who's going to be hardened and who's going to be, you know, accepted. And that's what they were starting to think with what he was saying, but that's not what he was saying. Who has resisted his will? The truth is, we've all resisted his will. Haven't we? We've pushed against him. We say, no, I don't believe. I'm going to do my own thing. Even as Christians, not today, Lord. I want to do what I want to do. That's why we keep needing to come back to this truth that you know you need to be walking in the spirit and not in your flesh. Deny your flesh. Pick up your cross, follow after him. Trust in the gospel. The first day that you came to faith, and every day that you continue to walk in faith. God didn't make robots, he made living souls, persons, with hearts, with desires, with ability to say yes or no. So it's it's why does he still find fault? It's not like God is there picking out on people. You're doing good today, you're doing bad, you're doing bad. He finds fault. Another way to put it is, he reveals our sin to us because that's for our good. If we don't know our sin, then we don't know the precarious position that we're in. It's his grace that he reveals our sin to us and gives us the ability to respond to his gospel. Verse 20. But indeed, O man, why who who are who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me like this? Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? And again, there are a lot of smarter people that can break this up and apply this in ways, but I'm going to just share with you what I'm seeing here. Who are we to question God? I mean, he's given us free wills, but God is God, and in his grace, he's revealing himself to us so we can understand. We're to pray to have the mind of Christ, understand things from his perspective. Our perspective is tainted. Our perspective is tainted by the fall. It's tainted by our own flesh. It's tainted by the things of the world. It's tainted by doctrines of demons. But the Lord wants us to have his heart, so he calls us later on in Romans 12 to renew our minds by the washing of the water of the Word, right? So we can say, why do you make me like this? Why have you made me fallen? It doesn't matter why I made you fallen, because I didn't make you fallen, you made you fallen because of Adam and Eve, you're born into fallen, and I'm here to point out your fallenness and to give you a solution to your fallenness. Quit trying to get answers to that and find the answers in me. And then, you know, the Lord is going to use us the way he wants to use us, but at the same time, he's also made us to have this freedom. The end of this verse kind of sounds like some people he's made to be honorable and some people he's made just to be condemned. I mean, there are some that teach that there are people that are made specifically to keep the fires of hell burning for eternity. That's your purpose. I don't see that in anything that we've studied so far. I see that God loved the world and he's created us, but we've been created and we've been born into this world of sin. And all of us, if we understand that gospel story from the beginning, we were born into sin. That means we are vessels of dishonor to start out with. But with God's grace, he will take those who believe and that come to him in faith and make us vessels of honor. There's no reason for God to be glorified through me except for his grace and his mercy. Because I know in my heart, from putting myself in the Word, which is like a mirror to my soul, that I'm a wretched creation. I'm a wretched individual. But God, in his grace, is changing me from the inside out and using me for honor. There's a verse that's similar to this that I want you to chew on. This is when he was talking to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, beginning of verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, the unrighteous? Do not be deceived, that neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous drunkards, or revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is the next line I want you to focus on. And such were some of you. Because we were all born into it. We were all born sinners. We were all born separated from God. But you, the believers in Jesus Christ at the church in Colossae, you, the believers in Jesus Christ here in Waynesville, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, if you put your confidence in the shed blood of Jesus on the cross, if you believe the gospel, this is what has happened to you. You have been changed, and you are now have been made a vessel of honor. All right, are you following? Back to our study, verse 22. What if God, now this is a what if, just to get you thinking, what if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured which with much long suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also for the Gentiles. He's called us out of this world, and he's made us vessels of honor from the Jews and the Gentiles. And remember what the subject is at the beginning of this in the next chapter is his heart for the rest of the Jewish nation to be saved. They were chosen to represent God and to bring the law and to bring the Messiah onto the scene. And yet, as some commentators would say, they were really destined for destruction. Look, before you came to faith in Jesus Christ, you were on the road to destruction. And maybe God used your life as an example to other people of, I don't want to go that way. God might have used you to bring somebody else to faith, and you weren't even trying. You're just trying to, you were just living your life and being an example of what it is to be a sinner and seeing some of the things that you do and saying, I don't want any of that, and cause people to run to Jesus. And that's some of what Paul is saying here. He's saying that the Jews have not come to faith yet. And that it's not necessarily God's will, because it's God's will that all would be saved. But God has used that hiccup along the road in order to bring the Gentiles in and to bring a lot of Jews in. The church was born with Jewish believers. And then when the Gentiles started coming in, they didn't know what to do with it until they started to understand the bigger picture of grace and the gospel and how God is working in and through it. Verse 26. As he also said in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people, and her beloved who is not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people. There shall be called sons of the living God. You know, we had this idea that the Jews were God's chosen people, and the rest of the world were just condemned. They were made to fan the flames of hell. That's what the Jewish people believed. That's what the leadership believed. And yet, that's not the heart of God, is it? And because of that, God had made a way where there was no way. For those that weren't part of God's chosen, now they are part of God's chosen. Are you following? Hosea is the story of a man who was told to marry a prostitute as a symbol to Israel about their relationship with God. You know, you're the wife of God, and yet you're running off to all these other idols and false gods and all these other things, and you're ignoring me? You're making an idol out of the law that you can't even fulfill. When it's God's heart to have a bride that loves him, that is devoted to him, that is cleansed by him and prepared by him. And that bride is made up of Gentiles and Jews. Like I said, there's so much here. I can't hit it all, but I'm just trying to get this idea. He has a heart for the Jews, the Jewish nation, that they would come to faith in the Lord. Verse 27. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, though as the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. For he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work on the earth. This prophecy was given by Isaiah before the northern kingdom would be taken over by Assyria. And they would be taken over by Assyria because God would use them to joy to judge Israel, because Israel had been playing the harlot and going their own way. And when that judgment came, it came swiftly. And the same sort of thing here. Because the Jews have rejected God, judgment would come swiftly. And in 70 AD, the Jews would be scattered to the ends of the earth. And some would believe that that would be forever. He has rejected Israel completely. And yet I don't see that in the Word. I see that the Lord brings Israel back together and he will save Israel. And Paul talks about that as well. In 1948, something amazing happened. Israel was made a nation again. A tiny group of people that should have no evidence of ever existing because they've been dispersed to the ends of the world for 2,000 years, have all of a sudden come back together again. And yet, even though that happened, today Israel is not a Christian nation. Israel has not come to faith in the Lord. In fact, they're a very secular group of folks, which would cause some to say, well, this is just a phenomenon, that's not really anything biblical, that's just this group of people that came together again that's called Israel. No, it's because God is still working and Israel will come to faith. Are you following with me? And even though it might be a remnant, individuals of Israel have come to faith. They started the church again. Remember? Are you following this? Lots of thoughts that that Paul gives us here. But this verse here, he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth. That's an idea of the judgment comes quickly. And yes, judgment came upon Israel when Assyria took over. Judgment came upon Israel in 70 AD. But judgment came upon the world in the person of Jesus Christ when he came and he died on the cross. And Daniel talks about Messiah being cut off. The same sort of deal. The Lord came to minister to us, and he was only here for a short time. He was here for 33 years. His ministry was just three years. It only took three years. And then he completed the work of righteousness on the cross. His work, his ministry was seems to be cut short, but it was perfect. It was perfect timing. To bring all these things together. This is what it's all about. And Isaiah said before: unless the Lord of the Sabbath had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah. We were destined for judgment from God. But the Lord of the Sabbath, who is who? Jesus. He declares himself the Lord of the Sabbath. In him we find our rest. In him we find our peace. In him we find our acceptance, right? We no longer have to work to try to please God because he's done it for us. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. And he is the seed of the woman that would have the victory over the serpent. He did it on the cross. Bringing it back to the cross, it's always about the cross. And we we get caught up in all this other minutiae. But it's about the cross. It's about us that have accepted the gospel, to grow in the gospel, and to accept our call to declare the gospel, that others might come and be changed by it as well. 30. What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith? But Israel pursuing the law of righteousness has not attained to the law of righteousness? And there's not a question mark after that. It's a period. It's a statement. This is what we should say. The Gentiles didn't have the law. They weren't pursuing the law. They weren't trying to be good enough. But they realized they have fallen short of the glory of God. They realized that they were sinners and they realized that they needed a Savior. They realized who Jesus was, they accepted Jesus, and they were changed. The Jews were given the law that reflects the righteousness of God. They understood how important that was. They honored the name of God and they honored the things of God, and yet they drifted off and worshipped other gods and went their own ways and never fulfilled the law and never really knew the Lord. Yes, it's true. Why? Verse 32. Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. Again, they were trying to please God in their own strength, in their own doing, but they fell short. They never grasped hold of God by faith, accepting the acceptance that He has for us, because He's made a way. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. They tripped up over Jesus. They wanted to kill him instead of accept him. Which was part of the plan, anyway. He needed to be sacrificed for our sins. As it is written also in Isaiah, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Our sin is shameful, it separates us from God. But when we believe in that stumbling stone, instead of stumbling over it and getting crushed, we're changed by the stone. And when we accept him, there is no shame. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who believe in Christ Jesus and walk according to the Spirit. And that brings us to chapter 10. Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Let's put aside all these things about law and this and that. They need Jesus just like we need Jesus.

SPEAKER_00: 24:07

Thanks for listening to today's edition of Come On Up. Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross has been taking us through a study in the book of Romans. Did you know that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to those who lived in Rome and who had begun a church there? He was encouraging them to keep the faith, not compromising with the culture around them. The practices that were going on at that time were ungodly and against the morals that God established. Roman gods were worshipped, these false idols that had no power or authority. Sexuality was subjective and was going in all kinds of directions that go opposite to what God created between man and woman. As you listen to some of the corruption that was going on in that society, it may not sound very far off from what's going on today. When people stay rooted and grounded in God's Word, it leads them to the truth and the pure understanding of everything God created and why. But when you lean into popular opinion for the sake of not offending, it quickly leads you astray from what God created in the first place. You can find all of the messages in this series on our website. It's themountaincross.com and look for Bible studies. The Mountain Cross is a group of believers in Jesus who seek to grow in faith by simply teaching the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter. We meet on Sundays at the Smoky Mountains Cinema in Waynesville, beginning at 10 a.m. If you'd like to learn more about us, go to themountaincross.com. Come on up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.