SPEAKER_00: The first time you read Romans 11, it raises a whole bunch of questions in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe today's the first time you've ever heard Romans 11 read.
SPEAKER_00: And Tammy blitzed through, and you're like, boy, there's just a lot of questions.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what to do with all that.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of a time when I visited my brother while he was in college.
SPEAKER_00: He studied chemical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.
SPEAKER_00: And I would go and visit and ask him about his classes, and he'd start to roll through some of the classes.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I got calculus, and I'm not gonna ask you about that.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he said, Well, I got organic chemistry.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm not gonna ask you about that.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I've got physical chemistry.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, that sounds simple enough.
SPEAKER_00: I'll ask you about that.
SPEAKER_00: The chemist in the room know that was one of his hardest classes, and he's like, Yeah, that was that was a mistake to ask me about this.
SPEAKER_00: So he tries to explain it to me.
SPEAKER_00: And he gets through about four sentences of explanation.
SPEAKER_00: I am totally lost.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, uh, okay, Justin, let me try this.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just read, like, from the syllabus the little abstract, like three or four sentence overview.
SPEAKER_00: He reads that.
SPEAKER_00: Not much help.
SPEAKER_00: Still don't really know what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, it's kind of like this.
SPEAKER_00: And he tells me, gives me this analogy, which was reasonably helpful.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, I got at least an idea.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, actually, this thing we're working on, your iPhone wouldn't work without this thing happening the way it does.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, now I'm more intrigued than I was before.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes on, and I wouldn't say I totally wrap my mind around it, but I did grow to appreciate his intellect, that he could get it, and I grew in appreciation that it really mattered in the real world, and that I could understand some of it, even if not all of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of Romans 11.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to grow an appreciation for God's intellect, he's higher than your ways, it really matters in the real world, and you really can grasp much of what's going on here, even if you can't get 100% of all of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the basic idea.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh in 2 Peter 3, Peter wrote and said, Our brother Paul is hard to understand sometimes in his writings.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm pretty sure he was reading Romans 11 when he wrote that.
SPEAKER_00: Um so if you're new with us this morning and you're uh just kind of getting jumped into the book of Romans, here we are in the middle of this book where Paul wrote to the church at Rome, and it's a church of both Jews and Gentiles, and it's a politically and a culturally and a religiously kind of charged atmosphere, and they're asking, how do we relate to each other?
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes Christians read Romans 11 and they're looking forward at like a future tense, what's God's plan for Israel?
SPEAKER_00: And that's very much a part of this, but for the first audience, this was a church unity question.
SPEAKER_00: How do we relate to each other as Jews and Gentiles in the same church?
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul's been saying throughout the book of Romans is many things, but one of them is that through the gospel you receive the righteousness of God, so that your primary identity is no longer an ethnic identity, but have you received the gospel, the righteousness of Christ, or have you not?
SPEAKER_00: He says that through the gospel, you are now secure in Christ, and you are no longer defined by your sin or by your suffering or by your circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: That's great news if you're in Christ, if you've received his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: There's a new identity that is received, not achieved, is what we might say.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul's saying is if you're in Christ, you've been liberated from the rat race that the rest of the world is chasing, trying to achieve their identity and find a definition of themselves through their achievements or through their suffering or through some part of their circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: He says, No, you've got a footing in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's far more secure than anything this world offers.
SPEAKER_00: But then the question comes, well, what about Israel on the whole?
SPEAKER_00: If you're saying we have this secure identity in Christ, because all throughout the Old Testament, God's people, the Jews, the Israelites, they seemed really secure, but a lot of them rejected as well.
SPEAKER_00: And if they weren't secure, then maybe we're not secure.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've got your copy of the Bible open, that's a good thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: If it's not open, please reopen to where we were, I think it said page 890, somewhere around there, Romans 11.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the last verse of chapter 10 is helpful to look at as we come to 11, just finding our bearings here.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it reads: this is Romans 10, 21.
SPEAKER_00: But of Israel, he says, all day long I've held out my hand to a disobedient and contrary people.
SPEAKER_00: This is okay, Israel has rejected God.
SPEAKER_00: The natural question, if Israel's rejected God, has God therefore rejected Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11 or chapter 11 and verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: I ask then, has God rejected his people?
SPEAKER_00: By no means.
SPEAKER_00: Emphatic no.
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
SPEAKER_00: And what he's told us is that God's people are a spiritual people, not an ethnic people.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, ethnic or political Israel is not the same as spiritual Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And yet at the same time, God is not done with ethnic Israel either.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how that fits together is a mystery, and they're going to explain some of it, and we'll get into that.
SPEAKER_00: But what I want to do is give you the main idea of Romans 11, and you might even say the whole of Romans 9, 10, and 11 could be go together in this one sentence.
SPEAKER_00: Here is the main idea of Romans 9, 10, and 11.
SPEAKER_00: The whole history, the whole trajectory of human history is the magnification of the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: The whole trajectory of all of human history is the magnification of the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan in accomplishing this is remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: It is complex.
SPEAKER_00: It must drive us to worship as we get to at the very, very end.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wraps up the whole thing, and he ends in a song of praise.
SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of our service there, we're going to sing the doxology because that's how you're supposed to end when you get to the end of Romans 11.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of explaining along the way.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what I want to do is I actually want to start with the application this morning before I do any explanation from the passage.
SPEAKER_00: What is the purpose of this in your life?
SPEAKER_00: It helped me when my brother said, This part of physical chemistry helps your iPhone work.
SPEAKER_00: That helped me get the dots connected.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do a similar kind of thing with you.
SPEAKER_00: Four words of application that we're supposed to take away from Romans chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, zeal.
SPEAKER_00: Zeal specifically for evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: That God has a mind-blowing plan to save both Jews and Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: That they would see his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: It would be magnified through it being proclaimed.
SPEAKER_00: And so to align your heart with God's heart is that you too would have a zeal for people to hear about Jesus who don't yet know about Jesus, that God's mercy would be magnified through your life.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, hope.
SPEAKER_00: Hope is one of the major applications of this passage, that God is working where you can't see it, when you don't know about it, and in ways that you cannot understand.
SPEAKER_00: And we often suffer from what I might think of as like a spiritual blurry vision.
SPEAKER_00: And through the scriptures in Romans 11, God gives us glasses to put on and to see, oh, I really am working, with the promise one day of a full LASIK surgery, where you've got 2020 vision again, and you can see everything that God was doing throughout history, even while we suffer from some blurry vision on this side.
SPEAKER_00: It gives you hope to keep going, trusting in the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Third application word: humility, zeal for evangelism, hope, but humility that we see in Romans 11 that God is bigger and more powerful and wiser and just far beyond our comprehension than even we can comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's kind of a mind-blowing thing to say, he is more beyond your comprehension than you can comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: Good luck figuring it out.
SPEAKER_00: I'll let you chew on that over a lunch today.
SPEAKER_00: But humility, let me just remind you of this, and C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis is helpful here.
SPEAKER_00: Humility is not thinking less of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a constant self-deprecating kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: He said humility is just thinking of yourself less.
SPEAKER_00: That your eyes, your mind, your heart is just drawn to something different, and you see that God's mercy has been magnified throughout the whole trajectory of human history, and that captures your heart, and that captures your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And I just have less energy to be focused on myself.
SPEAKER_00: That's what humility is.
SPEAKER_00: When God's mercy is magnified in your heart, that produces humility because you see that most.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth and finally, worship.
SPEAKER_00: Zeal, hope, humility, worship.
SPEAKER_00: When you see that the whole trajectory of human history is the magnification of the mercy of God, brothers and sisters, it drives us to a sense of awe and wonder and gratitude and falling down.
SPEAKER_00: You might even say bowing down.
SPEAKER_00: They're bowing down in a proverbial kind of way, saying, I don't know what just happened.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you did that.
SPEAKER_00: I know I certainly can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: We'll probably never see a shot like that again.
SPEAKER_00: And it is worthy of worship.
SPEAKER_00: You see what God's doing and magnifying his mercy throughout all human history.
SPEAKER_00: The point is to say, God, I don't know how you did that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know everything you did.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'll ever get to see anything else like that act in my life, but it is worthy of laying all of my life down.
SPEAKER_00: Some 75 years ago, there was a preaching debate in some seminaries over in the UK.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the two schools of thought, one school, the preacher said, the job of the preacher is to fill the mind of the people with doctrinal knowledge so they can know who God is.
SPEAKER_00: And the other school said, no, the point of the preacher is to fill people with practical application so they can know how to live for God.
SPEAKER_00: And there was one preacher, Martin Louie Jones was his name, and he came in, he said, You're both right and you're both wrong.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the main goal is not to give information, nor is it to give application points.
SPEAKER_00: The main goal of a Christian sermon is that it would lead to worship.
SPEAKER_00: Because a lecture gives notes to be taken down, a motivational speech inspires you to get going, but a Christian sermon by the power of the Spirit changes your heart to say, I will fall down in worship, and I will not just in a proverbial sense bow down to a golfer, but with all of my life I will lay it on the altar.
SPEAKER_00: That is why Romans 12, 1 starts.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, brothers, in view of the mercies of God, present your bodies, all yourself, as a living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's supposed to lead to.
SPEAKER_00: Zeal, hope, humility, worship.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's get into explaining a little bit so you can start to see how it's supposed to produce those things in you.
SPEAKER_00: The key question of Romans 11, we already read, it's in verse 1, is has God rejected his people?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they rejected you, 1021, but have you rejected them?
SPEAKER_00: 11.1.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see in four points how God answers that question.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing he says is that God still has a remnant chosen by grace.
SPEAKER_00: God has a remnant chosen by grace.
SPEAKER_00: This is basically the first 10 verses.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, nope, we know God hasn't rejected his people, and he gives a few kinds of evidence.
SPEAKER_00: He says right out of the gate, he gives a personal example.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: So God hasn't rejected all Israel because I'm an Israelite and I'm following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Personally, you can see this.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives a theological kind of example in the beginning of verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He says, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
SPEAKER_00: Here we are back to the doctrine of election.
SPEAKER_00: To foreknow means not merely to know what someone would choose, but rather to love beforehand, to set his love on them.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says, God hasn't rejected his people.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in my own life, you see, theologically, we know that God has set his love on them and his promises will never break.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, let me give you another example from the history of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: This is at the end of verse 2, and really through verse 4, he starts talking about this guy named Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: He's referring to 1 Kings 18.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not super familiar with that section of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the basic idea.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah shows up on the scene and he's a pretty wild dude.
SPEAKER_00: Like you imagine a guy with a duck dynasty beard, a guy with this, you know, kind of like a vest coat that's made out of like camel hair.
SPEAKER_00: He's got this giant like leather belt on.
SPEAKER_00: If it was like, you know, the 1980s in a movie, you would have him eating raw eggs out of a blender for breakfast, and you'd call him Rocky.
SPEAKER_00: Like he's just showing up doing wild stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He's raising people from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: He's working these incredible miracles.
SPEAKER_00: There are these false prophets from a false religion, and they're demanding child sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And so he takes them up on a mountain.
SPEAKER_00: They have this epic throwdown where God calls down fire and Elijah kills on the spot 450 of these false prophets who are demanding child sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's an incredible moment.
SPEAKER_00: And then the queen gets wind of it, and she's not happy at all.
SPEAKER_00: She's a wicked queen.
SPEAKER_00: She starts trying to kill Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: He runs for his life after the greatest spiritual mountaintop experience he ever could have hoped for.
SPEAKER_00: He's totally discouraged, totally distraught.
SPEAKER_00: He even prays, God, would you please kill me?
SPEAKER_00: It would be better that I would die than keep going.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just pause here for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you feel that way regularly, or perhaps today, or you did recently.
SPEAKER_00: Notice God intervenes in Elijah's life and he comes to him.
SPEAKER_00: And he's not mad at him for feeling bad.
SPEAKER_00: He says, No, let me come and show myself to you.
SPEAKER_00: And what God tells Elijah is remarkably simple in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, Elijah, here's the first thing, buddy.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you just slow down and take a nap?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's the most spiritual thing you can do.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did that.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second thing is he bakes him a cake.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Here, have a cake to eat.
SPEAKER_00: And then he reveals himself and he speaks to him and he promises Elijah is going to come and he invites Elijah to receive his grace.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Elijah, I'm still working.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, Elijah, you feel like you're the only one, and the king is going to kill you, and you're totally on an island, and God's done with you, and God's done with the world.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Actually, Elijah, there are 7,000 of my own prophets who have not compromised at all.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing a work far greater than anything you could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_00: I have a remnant, Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still at work.
SPEAKER_00: I know you can't see it.
SPEAKER_00: I know you're totally discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: You wish that your life would end.
SPEAKER_00: I'm working, Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Don't lose sight of it.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul cites that, and you look at verse five, and here's how he continues on.
SPEAKER_00: He says this so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we forget there's a remnant chosen by grace.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you get yourself in a difficult situation where living for Jesus is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you feel all alone at a public school and there aren't other Christians around you.
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do I follow Jesus here?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have a hostile work environment.
SPEAKER_00: It's difficult to follow Jesus here.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've just under been under all kinds of spiritual attack and you feel isolated and alone.
SPEAKER_00: What does God say?
SPEAKER_00: He says, So too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace, and I'm still at work.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep reading.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: But if it's by grace, it's no longer on the basis of works.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, one of the things Paul wants us to see over and over is that grace is one of the most beautiful things you could ever see in all the world.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Would it capture our hearts?
SPEAKER_00: He says God's salvation is not on the basis of ethnicity.
SPEAKER_00: It's not on the basis of you being good enough for God, working hard enough for God, not on you being smart enough to figure it out among all the world religions and go choose God.
SPEAKER_00: It is sheer grace.
SPEAKER_00: Like we just sang, undesired, undeserved, unsought.
SPEAKER_00: God shows up in grace.
SPEAKER_00: And he always has a remnant.
SPEAKER_00: This is how God works.
SPEAKER_00: He's always doing something behind the scenes that we don't see about, always working in ways that we don't see.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, even in ethnic Israel, there's a remnant, a spiritual remnant, that I'm doing something in.
SPEAKER_00: Let's continue in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What then?
SPEAKER_00: What do we make of all this?
SPEAKER_00: Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking.
SPEAKER_00: The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.
SPEAKER_00: Now he doesn't answer the question fully here, but why were some hardened?
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 9, verse 32, what we're told is that the ones who were hardened pursued the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness of God, pursued a right standing with God according to works, not according to grace.
SPEAKER_00: So what this means for us today is that as Christians, there's absolutely no room for a sense of superiority in any way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_00: You're no better than anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: There's no sense in trying to keep up the appearances, putting on the Sunday best, the Sunday smiles, the Sunday any of that.
SPEAKER_00: Just be who you are and say, I am just one blind beggar who stumbled in some bread and I'm handing off that bread to somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Park said, for us to be a church that is saved by grace and shaped by grace means many things, but one of them is we can be quick to confess our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Not in a general sense, like, yeah, I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, we're all sinners.
SPEAKER_00: But you show that you've been saved by grace and shaped by grace by confessing specific sins, specific ways I've fallen short today and this week to one or two that are close to me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm reminded of the famous preacher, Charles Spurgeon, in London, who said, Hey, Christians, when somebody says something bad about you, when they believe terrible things about you, don't worry at all.
SPEAKER_00: You're a lot worse than they think you are.
SPEAKER_00: So don't sweat it if they think lowly of you.
SPEAKER_00: Christian, somebody else thinks lowly of you, you think lowly of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Don't sweat it.
SPEAKER_00: You're worse than they think you are.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is a beautiful thing because your identity isn't shaped by what you do or what you don't anymore.
SPEAKER_00: It's by what Christ has done and what you can receive.
SPEAKER_00: This pushes us to a difficult question of what to do with our guilt, though, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because everybody in the world faces some degree of guilt, some more than others.
SPEAKER_00: Our consciences are wired in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: How do we deal with our guilt?
SPEAKER_00: Some try just to minimize it and push it away, say it's not that bad.
SPEAKER_00: Others try to numb it, perhaps through pleasure, perhaps through some form of drug usage or uh scrolling.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's the new drug, right?
SPEAKER_00: You just scroll it away.
SPEAKER_00: Others try and deal with their guilt through various forms of uh adopting their body image so that when I look in the mirror, the physical person I see, I can at least like what I see if I don't like what's on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of ways we try to address our guilt.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is saying is here, the only way to really speak to your guilt is through grace.
SPEAKER_00: Sheer unmerited favor from Christ that you receive what you didn't deserve, and he gives to you.
SPEAKER_00: And God still has a remnant chosen by grace.
SPEAKER_00: And that's really good.
SPEAKER_00: He's not rejected as people.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the second thing he says not only does he have a remnant chosen by grace, he's working through Israel's rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, God is working through Israel's rejection.
SPEAKER_00: The remarkable, remarkable part of God's plan is that even their rejection is part of his plan.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 11, let's continue.
SPEAKER_00: He says, So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall?
SPEAKER_00: By no means.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean?
SPEAKER_00: So track the logic here.
SPEAKER_00: Israel disobeyed, so God brought salvation to the Gentiles, even though they didn't deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: And this made Israel jealous.
SPEAKER_00: Not bad jealous, like uh, what's that song, like Winning Jesse's girl?
SPEAKER_00: Like, not that kind of jealousy, like good jealousy, like I'm supposed to have that thing.
SPEAKER_00: So the the principle, you might you might think of it this way: imagine you're on a family road trip and one of the kids in the back has the Nintendo Switch and starts yelling at the other kid, and they're being a jerk to them, and the parents realize that there's kind of look, kids, trust me on this.
SPEAKER_00: We always know there was always two people who were wrong.
SPEAKER_00: It was never just your sibling.
SPEAKER_00: Like we we know that as parents.
SPEAKER_00: But the parents look back at the kid who was wrong at the moment with the switch, and they take it away and they give it to the other kid.
SPEAKER_00: Which we also know was in the wrong and undeserving.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the first kid doing?
SPEAKER_00: That's not fair.
SPEAKER_00: And then they realize whether it's fair or not, I really want that thing back.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna start doing what I'm supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the idea for Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, we want that salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Let's be jealous of that, is what God says.
SPEAKER_00: And by giving salvation to the Gentiles, it makes them jealous.
SPEAKER_00: It drives them to belief so that they would then receive the blessing that they wanted to motivate disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Israelites' unbelief led to Gentile salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Gentile salvation led to Israelite belief, which leads to a greater blessing for the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a complex plan.
SPEAKER_00: I think God's playing checkers and I'm stuck playing chess sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: But the idea of being made jealous actually has a purpose here.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to think about this for what it means for our lives today for just a second.
SPEAKER_00: Christian, can I ask you this?
SPEAKER_00: Do you delight in Jesus so much that it makes others in your life jealous?
SPEAKER_00: Like I want to have the kind of joy that that person has.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have the kind of contentment that that person has.
SPEAKER_00: I want to live with an open generosity of time, talent, and treasure that that person has.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what I think happens.
SPEAKER_00: As the public square becomes more secular, then there becomes a pressure on us as Christians to not express our delight in Christ as aggressively or as uh openly.
SPEAKER_00: Like here's what this looks like, even you know, tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, what'd you do this weekend?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody says, Well, we went and did such and such fun thing.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I tell you what, I had the opportunity to go to church and I was so encouraged by what God is doing through the people at Parkside.
SPEAKER_00: I just left it Sunday afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: Our God is so merciful, it was amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not the normal conversation, I don't think, but we're pressured to talk about the other things that are actually delightful, actually joyful, actually, actually life-giving.
SPEAKER_00: My mind goes to Paul and Silas in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They're in prison, it's not a good situation, middle of the night.
SPEAKER_00: You still up, buddy?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm up, you still up?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm still up.
SPEAKER_00: What do you want to do?
SPEAKER_00: I want to go to sleep.
SPEAKER_00: All right, I've been trying that for a couple hours.
SPEAKER_00: What do you want to?
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's sing a song.
SPEAKER_00: Silas says to Paul, Paul, which song you want to sing?
SPEAKER_00: Let's sing by grace alone.
SPEAKER_00: And he starts quoting from Ephesians 2.
SPEAKER_00: And Silas's like, buddy, you just wrote that one.
SPEAKER_00: You're quoting yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he's like, it's still a good one.
SPEAKER_00: And they start singing in the middle of the night with people around.
SPEAKER_00: And what's the Philippian jailer come to them and say?
SPEAKER_00: Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: How do you have joy like that in these circumstances?
SPEAKER_00: Christian, do you delight in Jesus so much that it makes others jealous and they want to know about this Jesus who has shown such mercy to you?
SPEAKER_00: See, the goal that Paul's driving at here is as you receive God's mercy, you'd put it on display, and others would want to know about the mercy.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a danger along the way in freely giving this mercy as well, that the the kid in the backseat with the Nintendo Switch, he looks over to his sibling and goes, sticks his tongue out.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I've got the switch now.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That happens.
SPEAKER_00: Parents, that happens.
SPEAKER_00: Kids, we know.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17, let's keep reading.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be proud, that's the point.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be arrogant.
SPEAKER_00: If some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot were grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, don't be arrogant towards the branches.
SPEAKER_00: If you are, remember, it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul goes to this horticultural example.
SPEAKER_00: I'm no horticulturalist nor am I master gardener.
SPEAKER_00: But apparently, what can happen with these olive branches is you can cut off one of the branches and then take a wild branch that doesn't go on the olive tree, graft it in, and the wild branch grows, and it actually causes the root tree to start growing even more.
SPEAKER_00: This really happens with olive trees in the Middle East.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's not a make-believe thing, it really happens over there, which is still kind of crazy to think about.
SPEAKER_00: So the olive tree is the overall people of God, and the natural branch is ethnic Israel, and the wild olive shoot that's grafted in is Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And God's explaining how He's working through Israel's rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Now, theologically, we need to pause here because there's a couple of really key things I'm not gonna linger on, but we need to at least make comment about.
SPEAKER_00: This section of the Bible clearly shows us that the church doesn't replace Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They're grafted into one tree, one people of God.
SPEAKER_00: It also shows us that the church is not this like parentheses within God's larger plan that God's gonna move on from.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So that kind of way of thinking, that the parentheses thing, if you've seen the left behind movies or read any of the books, that's kind of the idea that undergirds those.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not exactly accurate either, because what we clearly see is there's one tree, one people of God, and God miraculously grafts in the Gentiles into it.
SPEAKER_00: The application point that's being driven here is humility.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be arrogant, like the kid with the video game.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, Paul continues pushing this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through your faith.
SPEAKER_00: For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
SPEAKER_00: Note then the kindness and severity of God, severity towards those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the questions that emerges in Romans 11, especially from this section, is saying this Does this mean, Justin, does this mean, Apostle Paul, that you can lose your salvation?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is no, it doesn't mean that, because the natural branches that were cut off never had faith in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: And the rest of the scripture helps us to understand this.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians chapter 1 and verse 6, Paul says, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If he started it, he's gonna finish it.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 10, verse 28, Jesus says, I give eternal life, I will never let it be lost, I am holding my kids in my hand, my sheep in my hand, and they can never be taken out of my hand.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 8, Paul says, There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're in creation, then you can't separate yourself from the love of Christ either.
SPEAKER_00: But the question still comes up: well, what do we do with people who make a profession of faith?
SPEAKER_00: They look like they're in the faith, they look like they're following Jesus, and then they walk away.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like they were cut off.
SPEAKER_00: And 1 John 2.19 is a helpful passage here.
SPEAKER_00: What uh this is precisely the question that's being answered in 1 John 2 and verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: And what John says when he writes that, he says, they went out from us in order to prove they were not of us.
SPEAKER_00: So they may have looked the part for a while, but they never truly had faith.
SPEAKER_00: What we're talking about here is the doctrine of eternal security.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you've heard it described as once saved, always saved.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a false statement, but it's not the most helpful statement.
SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to capture the whole of what the Bible says, including Romans 11, we would say once saved, always following.
SPEAKER_00: If you're truly saved, you will always be following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a kind of get out of jail free card where you can go live however you want.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of your life reveals whether there's truly a root of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And some will say, yes, Justin, but I prayed a prayer when I was a kid, and I got baptized when I was nine years old.
SPEAKER_00: I would simply say, friend, the proof of saving faith is not sincerity at the start, but endurance over time.
SPEAKER_00: God is not saying you must be perfect and never sin, it's direction of your life, not perfection of your life.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So you got to get both of those.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit tells you what's in the root, and it's direction over perfection.
SPEAKER_00: You come all the way around and you're still wondering, perhaps, can I lose my salvation?
SPEAKER_00: It feels open-ended to me.
SPEAKER_00: Why does God give these direct warning passages?
SPEAKER_00: The book of Hebrews has them all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: And I think here's why we have many of the warning passages, including this one.
SPEAKER_00: If you are secure in Christ, his love for you can never be lost, your salvation can never be lost.
SPEAKER_00: Now that is theologically true.
SPEAKER_00: And if it is true, then what's one of the ditches we're gonna have to look out for?
SPEAKER_00: Passive Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I don't have to work at this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to be urgent and vigorous in putting sin to death in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I can be kind of laissez-faire.
SPEAKER_00: I can be really focused on getting my March madness bracket filled out tonight, and I don't have to be really focused on putting to death jealousy, anger, pride, selfishness, and lust.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, No, no, no, you gotta be urgent in that.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta be urgent in evangelism and telling people who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I should be urgent in giving generously to invest in God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And that ditch of passive Christianity is why the warnings are given to say, no, no, no, don't think that this is like, you know, just a free coupon for you.
SPEAKER_00: It demands your all.
SPEAKER_00: I praise God for that, but I didn't know a lot of drug dealers in high school.
SPEAKER_00: I say my only drug problem was getting drugged to church three times a week.
SPEAKER_00: Like the point is not that you avoid the major sins.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that true belief in Jesus Christ means full lordship over your entire life.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you can avoid the major sins and adopt a version of Jesus that's more like Prozac.
SPEAKER_00: I feel a little stressed, I just need a little hit of Jesus here.
SPEAKER_00: I can avoid the major sins.
SPEAKER_00: Something comes up, I don't know what to do about big decision.
SPEAKER_00: Give me a hit of Jesus here.
SPEAKER_00: Or you go with the builder bear version of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I like this part of Jesus, this part of Jesus, I'll leave that on the shelf.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take this part of Jesus, this part of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have Jesus like a builder-bear bear.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how it works.
SPEAKER_00: He gave all, so that you must also give all in following of him.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul's been saying here is that God has used the rejection of Israel in ways that go beyond anything you could imagine.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: More than just using it in remarkable ways, he's actually using it to save Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That brings to our third point.
SPEAKER_00: God is working for Israel's salvation.
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, in a general and in a magnificent sense, he's working through their rejection, but he's actually actively working for Israel's salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers.
SPEAKER_00: A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
SPEAKER_00: And in this way all Israel will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul has this remarkable thing.
SPEAKER_00: He does.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I want to explain a mystery.
SPEAKER_00: And then he explains it.
SPEAKER_00: And it still feels pretty mysterious to me.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen there?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Um what's the mystery?
SPEAKER_00: He says there's basically three parts.
SPEAKER_00: One, it's a mystery that the Jews would become hardened.
SPEAKER_00: And second, it's a mystery that the Gentiles would precede the Jews in salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And third, it's a mystery that how all Israel could be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is it important that we think about this?
SPEAKER_00: Paul actually comes back to the same pride thing.
SPEAKER_00: Because what did he lead verse 25 with?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Lest you be wise in your own sight.
SPEAKER_00: Or as my dad used to say, lest you get too big for your own britches.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Pride is always near.
SPEAKER_00: You need to be on the lookout.
SPEAKER_00: Park said, I said this a few minutes ago, and I'm going to say it again.
SPEAKER_00: We must fight sin and fight pride with regular, specific confession by bringing it out into the light, because in the darkness, sin flourishes, it hides, it grows, and it destroys.
SPEAKER_00: If you try and fight against pride without the power of the gospel, bringing it out into the light, you will lose.
SPEAKER_00: You try and fight Satan by yourself in a dark room, you're gonna get your butt kicked.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: And we bring it into the light by confessing it to God and to others.
SPEAKER_00: And James 5 says, in the confession of sin, there's healing.
SPEAKER_00: So who is this all Israel that's going to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: That's part of this mystery here.
SPEAKER_00: Context tells us it's ethnic, not only spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: And in much of Jewish literature, this idea of all Israel means a very large number, but not every single Jew without exception.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, so many that it feels like the whole nation is coming.
SPEAKER_00: And at several points in the Old Testament, this phrase all Israel is used in the same way, where it does not mean every single Israelite without exception, but so many that it seems like all of them.
SPEAKER_00: So one example is from 2 Samuel 16.
SPEAKER_00: I'll show this on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: It says, So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and Absalom went into his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel.
SPEAKER_00: It's not every single Israelite observing, but there was a bunch that could see, and it was not good.
SPEAKER_00: All right, now here's a Jewish scholar.
SPEAKER_00: Next slide, please, F.
SPEAKER_00: F.
SPEAKER_00: Bruce helping to see what this all Israel means.
SPEAKER_00: All Israel, he says, is a recurring expression in Jewish literature where it need not mean every Jew without a single exception, but Israel as a whole.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this significant amount of Jews that are being saved in a surprising and a shocking way.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's like a mass conversion kind of all in one spot.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's over a longer period of time.
SPEAKER_00: We don't exactly get the details.
SPEAKER_00: But God is using all of this in a mysterious, magnificent way to magnify his mercy so that in ethnic Israel, many, many, many will come to saving faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if the all Israel thing's a little confusing to you, you're like, Justin, I'm not totally sure I got what was going on there.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Let me zoom back out and just say it this way: God's working to save lots of Jews somewhere in the future.
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes on to say how important this is to him because he quotes from Isaiah 59 right after that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This deliverer will come from Zion.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God is so committed to this and so passionate to it that God himself will come down.
SPEAKER_00: The grand storyteller will write himself into the play.
SPEAKER_00: I'll go this far to save my people and to remove their sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's how committed I am to this mission.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Pick up in verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient, in order that by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy.
SPEAKER_00: But what does this mean for us?
SPEAKER_00: He's magnifying the mercy of God, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00: But two things that it must mean for us.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, if God has a plan for ethnic Israel, it means we must reject every form of anti-Semitism.
SPEAKER_00: There's no room for hatred of God's people, or any ethnic people for that matter, within the biblical storyline.
SPEAKER_00: For Bible-believing, gospel-believing Christians, that's 100% out of bounds.
SPEAKER_00: And you keep seeing that come back in various ways almost in every generation, and we must say, no, that is not in accordance with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Reject that.
SPEAKER_00: But also, brothers and sisters, we must reject any apathy towards evangelism of Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Reject apathy towards evangelism because God intends to save.
SPEAKER_00: So let's get after it together.
SPEAKER_00: The broader point is Paul is trying to magnify the mercy of God so that you will see the whole trajectory of human history is the magnification of the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: And it's been a little abstract talking about Jews and Gentiles and what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Can we make it more personal for us right here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll put it in the terms of my life, and I want you to put this in the terms of your life.
SPEAKER_00: If God's mercy can break through to a self-righteous pastor's kid named Justin, if God's mercy can break through to an immature, quick-witted guy named Justin who likes to make others feel small with his words, then his mercy can break through in your life too.
SPEAKER_00: And his mercy can break through in the life of your narcissist boss.
SPEAKER_00: And his mercy can break through in the life of your lesbian neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And his mercy can break through in the life of your lazy nephew.
SPEAKER_00: And his mercy can break through in every single person's life.
SPEAKER_00: So don't lose sight of it.
SPEAKER_00: And don't stop proclaiming it.
SPEAKER_00: And see the whole trajectory here.
SPEAKER_00: Which leads us to the fourth and final point.
SPEAKER_00: God will get all the glory.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wraps up some of those complex chapters in the Bible, Romans 9, 10, 11.
SPEAKER_00: He gets to the end and he bursts into spontaneous praise.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: How unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable are his ways, for who has known the mind of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Or who has been his counselor?
SPEAKER_00: Or who has given to him a gift that he should be repaid?
SPEAKER_00: For from him and through him and to him are all things.
SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, all Bible study, all theology is meant to lead you to worship.
SPEAKER_00: This is the song we'll be singing in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: We can't wait to get there.
SPEAKER_00: It shows us that this worship flows from a posture of humility, recognizing I have limited perspective, limited wisdom, limited everything.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of verses 34 and 35.
SPEAKER_00: Who's known the mind of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: You think you're pretty smart, huh?
SPEAKER_00: Who's been his counselor?
SPEAKER_00: You think you're pretty wise.
SPEAKER_00: Who's given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
SPEAKER_00: You think you've got a lot to give.
SPEAKER_00: God owns it all.
SPEAKER_00: He knows it all.
SPEAKER_00: He guides it all.
SPEAKER_00: And it leads you to worship.
SPEAKER_00: And most of the complaints in life, whether doctrinal, how can this be true, or life-wise, how could this happen, come from you losing that perspective of humility before the Lord and his worth, his might, his knowledge, his wisdom, his wealth, his everything.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to put myself on his level and say it doesn't make sense to me.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, of course it doesn't make sense to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're not the creator.
SPEAKER_00: You're not infinite.
SPEAKER_00: You're not omnipotent.
SPEAKER_00: You're not omniscient.
SPEAKER_00: You're not omnipresent.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one who is.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what this means for our worship, how we respond.
SPEAKER_00: Pure worship flows from who God is, not my perception of what God's doing.
SPEAKER_00: You catch that, verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I don't even understand what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh, the depths and the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: How unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable are his ways.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, the complex guy who tries to explain everything, and it seems like it makes sense in his mind, and we're still confused reading him.
SPEAKER_00: You know what he says?
SPEAKER_00: I don't get it all either.
SPEAKER_00: And I praise God.
SPEAKER_00: I respond in worship because I see who he is, and I'm not governed by my perception of how things are going.
SPEAKER_00: I heard a story one time about uh a woman named Florence Chadwick.
SPEAKER_00: Florence was trying to swim from Catalina Island to the coast of California.
SPEAKER_00: It's about 26 miles.
SPEAKER_00: That was a long way to swim.
SPEAKER_00: Recommend it for most of us.
SPEAKER_00: But she takes off on this swim, and she's more than 15 hours into the swim.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a little boat next to her.
SPEAKER_00: Her mom's in the boat, keeping watch over so she doesn't die.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Mom, I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: I can't go any further.
SPEAKER_00: And mom says, No, no, it's it's foggy.
SPEAKER_00: You're close to the shore.
SPEAKER_00: You can keep going.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: No, keep I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: She gets out.
SPEAKER_00: She gets in the boat and learns she's less than half a mile from the shore.
SPEAKER_00: Less than half a mile.
SPEAKER_00: And they got to the coast and they said, Why'd you give up?
SPEAKER_00: She said it was so foggy I couldn't see the shoreline.
SPEAKER_00: If only I could have seen it, I would have kept going.
SPEAKER_00: So she got out, she rested.
SPEAKER_00: Two months later, she tries the exact same swim.
SPEAKER_00: She gets started, she's going strong.
SPEAKER_00: She makes it this time.
SPEAKER_00: Not only does she make it, she sets a new world record for the amount of time to get there.
SPEAKER_00: Not only does she set a new world record, she beats the previous world record by two and a half hours.
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, she could see the shoreline that day, right?
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_00: Second day was much foggier than the first day.
SPEAKER_00: She got to the shore and they asked her, How'd you do it?
SPEAKER_00: It was so foggy.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I remembered the picture of the shoreline when I was on my way in on the boat, and every time I wanted to quit, I remembered what that picture in my mind, when I gave up last time, showed me of the shoreline.
SPEAKER_00: And I kept going.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, why does Romans 9 through 11 exist in your Bible?
SPEAKER_00: To give you a picture of the shoreline that the whole history of the whole trajectory of human history is the magnification of the mercy of God and his promises will never fail.
SPEAKER_00: And some days life's gonna be really foggy, and some days it won't be so foggy, but it gives you a picture so that you can keep on going.
SPEAKER_00: The power of the gospel doesn't only get you in the water, the power and promises of the gospel will carry you all the way home.
SPEAKER_00: So that whether you can see clearly or you can't, whether you're confused or you're not, whether you're strong or you're weak, or you're old or you're young, or you get it or you don't, you can come together and say, For from him and through him and to him are all things.
SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory forever and ever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: God, we come before you in praise.
SPEAKER_00: We say, You are before all things.
SPEAKER_00: You created all things, in you all things hold together.
SPEAKER_00: They are from you, through you, to you, for you, to you be the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, would you give us a vision of your mercy that is larger than we could ever think?
SPEAKER_00: It'll never stop.
SPEAKER_00: It can never be thwarted.
SPEAKER_00: You use the most gifted humans and the most hard hearted humans in ways that we don't understand, but your mercy will never stop.
SPEAKER_00: And we give you glory and we give you praise for that.
SPEAKER_00: We prayed in Jesus' name, amen.