Rooted In Grace

Grace changes everything, and Romans 11 shows us how. We open with Jesus’ image of the grain of wheat that dies to bring life, then follow Paul’s clear line: if it’s grace, it cannot be earned. From there we unpack the olive tree and vine metaphors to reveal why holiness flows from the Root—Christ himself—and how real fruit only grows when we abide. Along the way, we confront spiritual stupor, the danger of pride, and the subtle drift that leaves us busy yet brittle.

We also explore a tension many skip: Israel’s stumble and the Gentiles’ salvation. Rather than fuel boasting, Paul says this story should humble us. Gentile believers are grafted into promises first entrusted to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and our rescue is meant to spark a holy jealousy that draws Israel back to their Messiah. That perspective reframes church identity, encourages deeper engagement with the whole Bible, and pushes back against the myth that we support the root of our faith. The root supports us.

If you’re tired of striving, this conversation offers a way back to life. We talk through practical habits for abiding—staying near the Word, seeking God in prayer, repenting quickly, and encouraging one another when we drift. We hold together the goodness and severity of God, the hope of future restoration for Israel, and the daily hope of life from the dead for anyone who clings to Jesus. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs grace today, and leave a review to help others find the show. What part challenged you most, and where do you sense God inviting you to abide?

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

For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. Of course, Jesus is the first fruits of those that have been born again. And he is holy, and we're made holy through him. And so, through him, if we're in Christ, the church is made holy. Are you following? And if the root is holy, so are the branches.

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

One of my favorite metaphors for our relationship with Christ is of the vine and the branches. God so creatively made these plants and so creatively made a way for them to grow that represents how we must be constantly attached to the Lord to survive. In today's message, Pastor Carl will share this analogy of God being the roots and the vine, and we are all branches dependent on Him. Without the roots or the branches, or without the Father and the Son, we couldn't survive, let alone thrive. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37

It reminds me of what Jesus said in John chapter 12, beginning in verse 24. He said, Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. Of course, Jesus was talking about himself. He was that seed that needed to die. And because it died, it would come to life and bring life to many others. He would be the first fruits of many that would come and to find life and forgiveness in him because of the cross. Then he goes on to say, He who loves his life will lose it, but he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. This is part of applying that seed, being that part of the remnant. It's not about me building my kingdom here on this world. It's about me allowing the Lord to change me from the inside out. So I might even suffer a little in this world, but it's worth it for eternity. He put it another way in Mark chapter 8, verse 36. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? What had happened to the nation of Israel? They have gotten so used to the things of this world, right? And even the gods of this world. And they benefited from going astray. We benefit in a strange way by going in the ways of the world a lot of times. But it'll cost my soul. And the Jewish nation, at this point, Paul is burdened because uh he sees them uh heading down this path that's eternal, and he's desiring them to come back. And yet it's the remnant that will help that to take place. It's ultimately the seed of Jesus that would cause that to take place. Are you following? Even so, then, at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. There have been members of the Jewish nation that have come to faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, the the book of Romans was written to the Jewish believers in Rome, the church that was primarily uh Jewish, but it was also Gentile. And Paul will be addressing the Gentiles in just a minute. And if by grace it's no longer of works, unless grace is no longer grace, if it's a gift, it can't be something that you earn. It's not about following the law, it's about accepting the forgiveness that he gives you and the life that he gives you. But if it's of works, it's no longer grace. Otherwise, work is no longer work. Let's not confuse this thing. If you're trying to earn your way into heaven, it's not grace. And the only way you can get to heaven is by grace. So if you're working your way to heaven, by definition, you are not entering in because you're not entering in by grace. The only way by which man can be saved. Are you following that? I just love Paul. If it ain't grace, it ain't grace. If it's grace, it's grace. If it's works, it's works. Works is not grace, and grace is not works. You got it? What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks, but the elect have attained it, and the rest were blinded. And this is not even a question, this was a statement. Israel has not attained what it seeks. What is it seeking? Israel is seeking God's approval through works, through the following of the law. And yet, we go through the last few chapters of Romans. Paul is play is spelling out the fact that, you know, you could try to follow the law, but you know, if you break one part of the law, you've broken the whole thing. So why do you keep trying to follow the law when you've already broken it? And you've got condemnation coming upon you. The Jews continue to try to live by works. They try to live by their own idea of how life should be in this world. But the elect have attained it. Those that have have believed the gospel and have been changed, they believe it. They see the truth. Their eyes have been opened, but the rest were blinded. Why is it so important for us to be in the Word? Because this is the revelation of God to us. It shows us how far we are from the righteousness of God. It shows us the answer through the gospel of Jesus Christ. It shows us how to grow in the faith of Christ and to renew our minds, to conform ourselves to the mind of Christ. And if we don't saturate ourselves with the word of the Lord, what we do is we start hearing the other messages that come from the world, that come from the enemy, come from our own flesh that say, no, this is true, this is true. And we start believing a lie, and we're blinded to the truth. Just as it is written, God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day. Kind of an allusion back to the example of Pharaoh, where Pharaoh hardened his heart again and again and again. God was showing his power to Pharaoh. God was giving Pharaoh an opportunity to repent and turn and accept the true and living God. But Pharaoh continuously hardened his heart, hardened his heart, and at the end, the Lord actually hardened his heart. Here the same way, if you don't want to listen to the truth, okay, go ahead. I'll give you that spirit of stupor, like you're sleeping, like you have no idea what's going on, and you're walking through the light, through the night, thinking that you're in the light when you're in the darkness. But the thing is, they have the ability still to turn, to recognize that they're blind and they're deaf. And we too have that. When we drift aside and we we begin to realize that maybe we're not seeing the Lord the way that we used to see him, the way that he revealed himself to us. We could come to the Lord and say, Lord, forgive me. I have drifted, I've lost sight of who you are, I'm not hearing your voice anymore. Would you open my eyes and open my ears to hear you? And your will be done, not mine, your will be done. David says, Let their table become like a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them, their eyes darkened so that they do not see and bow down their back always. This was a psalm that David was writing as he was, you know, glorifying God with his life. He was serving the Lord, he was praising the Lord, and everything that he did was focused on giving glory to God. But the people didn't like that. People that are stuck in their sin do not like to see people that are glorifying God with a whole heart because they feel judged. Who do you think you are? And they need to stomp out that light. And they were coming against David, and David saying, Go against them. This was people from his own nation. They were trying to trap them, and he's saying, Trap, you trap them, Lord, in their blindness, in their desire to live for the world and not for you. And so there's this example that there is this idea that if we drift away from the Lord, the Lord will give us what we want. But people like Paul, people like you and me, we pray for the blind so that they would see. We pray for the deaf so that they would hear spiritually. And we pray for ourselves that that we're not getting caught up, that the Lord would reveal the blindness in our own eyes and the deafness in our own hearts. That we come together as a body and encourage one another and say, Boy, I've really dropped the ball this week. And you say, It's okay, the Lord still loves you. Let's pray. We can do this. In the power of the Lord's Spirit, we can do this. I say then, verse 11, have they stumbled that they should fall? I mean, have they messed up so much that God has just said, forget it. I am done with Israel. I'm destroying Israel from the face of the earth so that we would never know that they ever existed. But he says, certainly not. But through their fall to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Here, Paul brings this idea again that the chosen nation was to be an example to the world, and yet they turned out to be a negative example of what happens when they turn away from the truth of the Lord. And yet, in that the Gentiles were open to receiving the truth of God's word, the truth of the gospel. The gospel went to the Gentiles because the nation of Israel as a whole rejected it. And that was part of the reason is that the Jewish nation would become jealous that you're actually working in the midst of the Gentiles. You're actually bringing salvation to the Gentiles. We thought the Gentiles were the cursed people, that they were made just to burn the fires of hell. And yet you have shown them favor. You have brought them to salvation. And we're out here in the dark. And it's the Lord's heart that at that point they would turn and say, you know, we have really dropped the ball. We missed it. Lord, forgive us and restore us and save us. And that's the heart of the Lord to save them. Verse 12. Now, if their fall is riches to the world and their failure riches to the Gentiles, how much more their fullness? Look, the Lord is not going to destroy Israel just because they messed up. The fact is, we've all messed up. This is the gospel. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. But God in his grace and his mercy became one of us, took our place on the cross to take the sin of the world upon himself. He rose again to new life that whoever would believe would not perish but have everlasting life, would be in relationship with God forever, because we were unable to make ourselves right with God. Right? And so, in their jealousy, their eyes are opened to the truth of the gospel, and then Israel comes to faith in the Lord, how much more glorious will it be that the Jews and the Gentiles have come to faith in Jesus Christ? They don't need to be failures in order for the Gentiles to come into the fold. And then he says, For I speak to you Gentiles. I have been talking a lot to the Jews, the Jewish believers in the Church of Rome, but now I'm talking to you Gentile believers that have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are of my flesh and save some of them. You need to understand my heart. I'm glad and I'm called to proclaim the gospel to you, Gentiles, that you would come to faith in the Lord. But you ought to also understand that there's a motive behind what I'm doing as well, because I want to bring my brothers, the Jews, to faith in the Lord as well. And you guys can help me do it. I want you to be saved. I want my Jewish brethren to be saved. Verse 15. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be? But life from the dead. The Lord uses the decisions that we make to accomplish his purposes. And even though the Jewish nation as a whole rejected the Messiah, how much greater, how much more exciting will it be when they come to faith in their Messiah? And it blesses the whole world. It brings life from the dead. Verse 16 for if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy. And if the root is holy, so are the branches. Of course, Jesus is the first fruits of those that have been born again. And he is holy. And we're made holy through him. And so, through him, if we're in Christ, the church is made holy. Are you following? And if the root is holy, so are the branches. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fathers of the nation of Israel and the fathers of the faith. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. He was made holy because of what he believed, not because of what he did. And that the whole nation of Israel, God's whole plan, was built on that. And if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, in a sense, Israel was broken off from the shoot, the vine. And you being a wild olive tree, you are living in the world, you are just fallen and natural in this fallen world, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree. Do not boast against the branches. Look, you Gentiles, you have come to faith in Jesus Christ, and you didn't have to try to follow the law to do it. You just realized that you had salvation in Jesus and you came to Jesus, and we celebrate that. But do you realize that there's a lot of background, backstory to get you to this place? If it wasn't for the Jewish nation that came to show the world the need for a savior and to come to bring the Savior through their line, you would have no salvation. So don't brag about being better than the Jews. If you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. There is so much backstory in the gospel. That's why it's important for us to read the whole word, not just the New Testament. How did we get to the New Testament? You got to understand the Old Testament. You got to understand creation. You got to understand the fall. You got to understand the prophecy of the woman's seed. The seed of the woman would be Jesus Christ the Messiah who would save the world from their sin. You need to understand all this. You need to understand the call of Abraham, the call of Isaac, the call of Jacob. You need to understand what Israel was brought through and how powerful God was in the midst. This all builds up to the gospel. This all builds up to Jesus, our Lord, on the cross, dying and taking on the sin of the world upon himself. Jesus said, I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. Without me you can do nothing. Ultimately, it all points to Jesus. The whole story of the Old Testament points to Jesus. And he is that vine. He is the one that brings life. He is the root through which we are nourished and given life. And when we're in him, we have life. When we're not, we don't. And it's not necessarily a matter of salvation because it is. If you're not saved, you're obviously not in Christ and you're obviously walking in death. But even as believers, we can often, you know, drift away from the Lord just as Israel did and go our own way and find that we're not living the life that the Lord intended us to live. We're walking in death once again. And we have to remind ourselves that the old man is dead, the flesh is dead, and I'm alive to Christ. I've been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ who lives within me, somewhere along the line, I have allowed my old self to come back and rule the life again. We need to abide in Christ. We need to trust in Christ. We need to cling to Christ. We need to remain in the vine. Because without Him we can do nothing, but with Him we can do everything that He calls us to do. Verse 19. You'll say then, uh Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in? And Paul says, well said, because of unbelief, they were broken off, and you stand by faith. They didn't believe, you believed. And you believed, and you were grafted in. But don't be haughty. Fear God. This is the work of God in our lives. This is part of that mystery of how can God work with a fallen people and restore them, uh, bring them to himself. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you either. Look, he he removed them from the vine just as easily as you can remove you from the vine. It's not about you. This is again the message that Paul is bringing out. It's not about you, it's not about your works, it's not about your intentions, it's all about the Lord working in your life. And you Allowing him, you believing him, you trusting him, you desperately clinging to him, because he is our only hope. Therefore, verse 22 consider the goodness and the severity of God. On those who fail, severity, but to you, goodness. If you continue in his goodness, otherwise you will also be cut off. The Lord is great. The Lord is kind. And we can connect with him in his greatness, in his kindness, in his mercy, in his grace. But we can also say, hey, I'm going to go my way today. So much better to walk in his way. And it's so much better not to point out and say, see the Jews, they've missed it all. And then you have four fingers pointing back, saying, Well, you have two, because I'm going off my own way. I've been saved by Jesus, so I can do whatever I want. No. You've been saved in Jesus so that you can walk in him. Verse 23. And they also, they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. We can walk in faith, or we can walk in unbelief. You know, there's the ultimate time where you've ended your walk of your whole life of walking in unbelief and believing the lies, and you come to the truth of the faith in Jesus Christ and what He's done for you on the cross, you believe it. He changes you, and you're filled with the Holy Spirit, and that's a down payment for your salvation that you'll receive fully in heaven someday. But as we walk with the Lord, and and Paul talked about this early in Romans as well, we have a tendency to drift, to go our own way, just like Israel has. Can we go so far adrift in our walk with the Lord that he'll never take us back, that we're totally severed? No. The Lord in his grace and his mercy has a hold of us. And he has that same hold on Israel. And someday Israel will come back in belief. They will stop walking in unbelief. It's just amazing that there is a nation of Israel today that came back to life in 1948. They should have been destroyed. There's so many other nations that were larger than Israel that have no evidence of ever existing anymore on this earth. There's nobody that's still alive that's of the seed of these nations. And yet Israel is alive and well and a physical land. And yet they still walk in unbelief. They've abandoned their God. And yet they will be brought back. This is the heart and the desire of God. Verse 24, for if you were cut out of the olive tree, which was wild by nature and grafted contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, you were the wild living in the world, living in the fallen world olive tree that was just grown up naturally in this state of sin? If you can be taken out of that natural fallen world and placed into the holy vine of Jesus Christ, how much more can they be grafted in? How much more will these who are natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

SPEAKER_00: 24:07

You've been listening to Pastor Carl here on Come On Up as he covered another interesting passage in Romans. The book of Romans has many meaningful verses that are good to keep in mind. For example, Romans 6.23 states, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Never forget that God's generous gift of salvation through faith allows you to be saved by grace. May you walk in that truth today. Come on up comes to you from the Mountain Cross, 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 Sundays at the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville, North Carolina, beginning at 10 a.m. To learn more about us, visit our website, themountaincross.com. You can also make plans to join us for the next Faith Film Night. We show faith-based films on the first Monday of each month. Our February film is the 10th anniversary presentation of Risen, which follows a Roman soldier who was given the task of finding Jesus' body after the resurrection. Mark your calendar for Risen back on the big screen, Monday, February 2nd at 6.30 p.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. To learn more, go to themountaincross.com. You can also search for Faith Film Night on Facebook. That's all we have for today. But come on up to the mountain with us again tomorrow as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.