SPEAKER_01: Uh, today's passage is Romans nine, uh, one through twenty-nine.
SPEAKER_01: Um I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying.
SPEAKER_01: My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
SPEAKER_01: To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever, amen.
SPEAKER_01: But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring.
SPEAKER_01: But through Isaac, though Isaac shall be through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
SPEAKER_01: This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
SPEAKER_01: For this is what the promise said.
SPEAKER_01: About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.
SPEAKER_01: And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had not done, and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.
SPEAKER_01: She was told, the older will serve the younger.
SPEAKER_01: As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
SPEAKER_01: What shall we say then?
SPEAKER_01: Is there injustice on God's part?
SPEAKER_01: By no means.
SPEAKER_01: For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.
SPEAKER_01: So this, so then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.
SPEAKER_01: For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show you my power, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
SPEAKER_01: For you will say to me then, Why does he still find fault?
SPEAKER_01: For who can resist his will?
SPEAKER_01: But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?
SPEAKER_01: Will then what will what is molded say to the moulder, Why have you made me like this?
SPEAKER_01: Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and one for dishonorable use?
SPEAKER_01: What is God desiring to show his wrath?
SPEAKER_01: What if God, desiring to show his wrath and make known his promise, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: As indeed he says in Hosea, Those who were not my people I will call my people, and her who is not beloved, I will call beloved.
SPEAKER_01: And in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, through the number, though the number of sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.
SPEAKER_01: And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would be we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.
SPEAKER_01: So reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome uh to you if you joined us while we're singing.
SPEAKER_02: My name's Mark.
SPEAKER_02: I'm one of the leaders here uh at City.
SPEAKER_02: And uh you are here uh this morning if you're visiting, as we resume a series that we uh left off uh at the start of the summer.
SPEAKER_02: And uh that series was in uh the first uh eight chapters of the the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_02: And uh normally what happens is that uh people do the first eight chapters of the book of Romans because that's there's lots of great stuff in there.
SPEAKER_02: It's essentially, by way of summary, uh, about how it is that a uh a sinful people, people who are estranged from God, how God makes them righteous.
SPEAKER_02: To be righteous is not just to be innocent, it's to be considered morally perfect.
SPEAKER_02: And how does God do that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he does that in sending Jesus to take the judgment that we deserve in order that we might receive his perfect life, his righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: And then from chapters 12 through to the end of the book in chapter 16, uh they're really about well, how does a righteous people live righteously now in the world?
SPEAKER_02: And then we get these three chapters in the middle: Romans 9, 10, 11.
SPEAKER_02: And lots of preachers will simply skip over Romans 9, 10, 11 because they're hard and uh they are controversial, but not so with us at City Church.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we are going to continue on through and look and see that actually these chapters are amazingly relevant and wonderfully true.
SPEAKER_02: Let me let me give you two ways in which they might be relevant to you this morning.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever thought to yourself can I actually trust God with my life?
SPEAKER_02: Can I take him at his word?
SPEAKER_02: If in your mind you've answered yes to that question, then Romans 9, 10, 11 is for you.
SPEAKER_02: Or, secondly, have you ever looked at the world and questioned whether or not God is actually just?
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever considered or wrestled with questions of justice and the justice of God?
SPEAKER_02: Again, if you have answered yes to those questions, then Romans 9, 10, and 11 are for you.
SPEAKER_02: The immediate context, uh, in fact, Mariana alluded to it in her prayers, is Paul kind of coscendos in Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_02: It's a great high point of the book where he's saying, you know, what shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus shall shall nakedness and famine and sword, no, and all of these things we are more than conquerors.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
SPEAKER_02: That is, if God has adopted you into his family, he will keep you to the end through whatever suffering and trial you go through.
SPEAKER_02: What a great truth that is.
SPEAKER_02: And yet Paul knows as soon as he writes it that he has a bit of a problem.
SPEAKER_02: He is a pastoral problem in the church in Rome, perhaps slightly more so than we have here in our makeup here in City Church.
SPEAKER_02: And that problem is this.
SPEAKER_02: That is, that the church in Rome is made up of a mixture of Jews who have recognized that Jesus is the Messiah and come to follow him, and Gentiles who have come from a non-Jewish background, and that outside of the church there are a whole bunch of other uh Jewish people who have rejected the Messiah, who have rejected God's provision, God's salvation.
SPEAKER_02: They hate the Christians, they hate Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And so the question then is: well, what about those guys?
SPEAKER_02: You know, they they've come, they're genetically descended from Abraham.
SPEAKER_02: And it seems that they have fallen away.
SPEAKER_02: So what about God's promises to them?
SPEAKER_02: Has God just changed his mind about Israel?
SPEAKER_02: Has God just decided, no, don't really didn't really like uh the Jews, I'm starting again.
SPEAKER_02: And if he has, well, does that mean that he'll change his mind again?
SPEAKER_02: Does God's word fail?
SPEAKER_02: Does he make promises and then go back on them?
SPEAKER_02: Paul recognizes that as soon as he says all of these grand things about God persevering with you to the end, then the question is, well, what about the Jews who hated Jesus and hate the Christians in the ancient world?
SPEAKER_02: What's going on with them?
SPEAKER_02: Has God gone back on his word?
SPEAKER_02: Can God actually be trusted?
SPEAKER_02: Now, there's something in this passage right at the start that I want you to see.
SPEAKER_02: And it is really going to be helpful for you if you have it open in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: Either you've come here with the Bible or it's on your phone.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't have a Bible app on your phone, just Google search Romans 9 ESV.
SPEAKER_02: That's the English Standard Version.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're looking through today.
SPEAKER_02: And then you can follow along because, as you'll have seen from the reading, there's a number of complexities here, and it is worth being able to see it in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: But the first thing that I want you to note is Paul's heart, Paul's emotional life here.
SPEAKER_02: Look at uh verses uh one to three.
SPEAKER_02: I am speaking the truth in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: I am not lying, my conscience bears witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
SPEAKER_02: For I wish that I myself were accursed, cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's gutted.
SPEAKER_02: Paul is gutted that his fellow Jews, his brothers and sisters, have not recognized that Jesus is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_02: He has great anguish at what he is about to write.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying I would I would switch places with them in a second.
SPEAKER_02: This word, I'd rather that I myself were accursed, cut off from Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Do you hear what he's saying there?
SPEAKER_02: He's like, if God gave me a choice and said, Paul, you have to spend eternity cut off from me in hell, and I will rescue all of your brothers and sisters who are descendants of Abraham.
SPEAKER_02: Paul would say, Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, do that, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: I bring that up because I suspect that some of you here this morning, you've probably begun to note that what Paul's beginning to talk about here are some of the issues to do with election and predestination, things like that.
SPEAKER_02: And I bring up Paul's heart as he lays it out here in these opening verses, is because one of the things that we can sometimes assume is that the Christian truths about election and predestination basically point to a God who doesn't care, who just plays kind of duck duck damn with humanity.
SPEAKER_02: You might have had that experience as a as a student.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you've been around kind of Christian unions and things like that, and you're sitting there with some theology graduate who loves to win arguments and is much less bothered about winning people.
SPEAKER_02: And he, because it's always a guy, is beating people over the head with the truth about predestination.
SPEAKER_02: Have you met those people?
SPEAKER_02: I am a recovering uh theology student.
SPEAKER_02: We call those people cage stage Calvinists, because they take a little bit of time to work out that there's some heart behind the doctrine of election.
SPEAKER_02: And that actually these truths about God's predestinating and electing people, they should they should in some sense be communicated with with tears, with brokenness, with a longing for people that they would turn and find salvation and life in the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I say that because I am just acutely aware that some of you here, you might find today hard.
SPEAKER_02: You might find Romans 9, 10, 11 hard.
SPEAKER_02: And we can talk at length about all of these things about predestination and what it all actually means.
SPEAKER_02: But let's agree on one thing right at the start, hey?
SPEAKER_02: Here it is.
SPEAKER_02: We could all do with having more of a broken heart about the lost.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever, wherever you come down on this, we could all do with being a little bit more emotionally brokenhearted at the thought of friends, colleagues, family members being outside of Christ and have more of a longing, a longing that Paul describes here, that actually they would come to recognize that Jesus is who he says he is.
SPEAKER_02: We could learn from Paul's heart here before we learn from Paul's mind.
SPEAKER_02: But learn from his mind we must.
SPEAKER_02: So what's going on here?
SPEAKER_02: Has God's word failed?
SPEAKER_02: Does he make promises and fail to keep them?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he gives us the answer in in verse 6.
SPEAKER_02: Have a look down with me at it.
SPEAKER_02: But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the reason why, and then I'll explain it, okay?
SPEAKER_02: For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.
SPEAKER_02: Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you what that means.
SPEAKER_02: It means that not everyone who enjoys the privileges of a religious background enjoys the salvation that that religion points to.
SPEAKER_02: Or put it another way, not everyone who enjoys the benefits of being part of the community of God, the community of God's people, it doesn't mean that they are all actually God's people.
SPEAKER_02: Paul lists out the benefits in verses uh uh four and five.
SPEAKER_02: He says, To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
SPEAKER_02: To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, God's anointed king, sent into the world, who's above all.
SPEAKER_02: They have so many privileges, but the privileges don't make you one of God's people.
SPEAKER_02: You can think about it this way: imagine uh that you're at City Church, which you are, so don't have to stretch the imagination too much right now.
SPEAKER_02: But imagine that you make City Church your home and you're like, I love the community.
SPEAKER_02: I love uh getting to know these new friends that I have made.
SPEAKER_02: The people are great.
SPEAKER_02: You find being here a personal encouragement to you.
SPEAKER_02: You like the coffee outside, the donuts are decent, uh, the community groups help you to feel less alone in the city, you feel cared for and a sense of belonging.
SPEAKER_02: But you're not a Christian, and you know that you're not a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: You're maybe still working it out, but you know actually that, yeah, I feel I feel at home here.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm not sure that actually I believe all of the things that they that they say or that Mark talks about from the from the front.
SPEAKER_02: You share in the community, but you don't share in the belief.
SPEAKER_02: What Paul is saying is that being part of the community and participating in the features of that community are not what makes you a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: You're not a Christian simply because you were baptized or confirmed, or because you had Christian parents, or because you come to church on Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: Those things do not, cannot make you a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_02: He says, not all of Israel were true Israel.
SPEAKER_02: Not all those who were descended from Israel were Israel, that not all who were part of the community actually were saved by God, part of his people.
SPEAKER_02: Why does he point this out?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he points it out in order to say that being part of God's people is not about our genetics, it's not about our religious pedigree, it's not about who we're descended from.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, it is about faith.
SPEAKER_02: And he uses the example of Isaac and Ishmael.
SPEAKER_02: So have a look with me at verse 7.
SPEAKER_02: Not all who are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring, but then he quotes Genesis, through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
SPEAKER_02: That is Paul saying, or that is God saying in Genesis, I am going to continue my line of promise, not through Ishmael the older, but through Isaac, the son of promise.
SPEAKER_02: They were both descended from Abraham, and they both received the sign of being part of God's people, which in the Old Testament was circumcision.
SPEAKER_02: They were both descended from Abraham, both received the sign of being part of God's people.
SPEAKER_02: But here, Paul is pointing out that actually only one of them was part of God's people.
SPEAKER_02: Only one of them was, to use our modern language, a Christian, saved by God, through whom God would carry on his promises to the world.
SPEAKER_02: Again, this is to show us that actually being a Christian is not about something in us or our descent.
SPEAKER_02: Now you might say, but surely there must have been something morally or spiritually preferable about Isaac or his or his background.
SPEAKER_02: Something either in his favor or against Ishmael that meant that God chose Isaac and not his older brother Ishmael.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul says, No, that's not how salvation works.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Okay, I'm gonna illustrate that for you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go down a generation.
SPEAKER_02: So we've had Abraham, he has two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, right?
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna move down another generation to Isaac's kids.
SPEAKER_02: So Isaac and Rebekah have twins.
SPEAKER_02: Follow along with me.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_02: Uh sorry, actually, verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: And not only so, but when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done neither good nor bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told, the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob, I loved Esau, I hated.
SPEAKER_02: So do you see what Paul's doing?
SPEAKER_02: Paul's exploding this notion that no, that there must have been there must have been something morally or spiritually preferable about Isaac that means that God chose him.
SPEAKER_02: He says, no, well, actually, keep on reading in the book of Genesis, and what you'll see is there's twins.
SPEAKER_02: One act of conception, right?
SPEAKER_02: So completely equal, neither of them born yet.
SPEAKER_02: They hadn't done anything yet.
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, what does God do?
SPEAKER_02: God says the younger will serve the older.
SPEAKER_02: He chooses Jacob over Esau before they could do anything.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Why does God do that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, let me tell you why.
SPEAKER_02: In order to reinforce to us here this morning that salvation is not by works.
SPEAKER_02: He chose Jacob before Jacob did anything.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: In order to show us here this morning that we do not become a member of God's family by our moral performance, by our religious good deeds.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, it depends not on us, but on God.
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps you sit here and say, no, look, hold on.
SPEAKER_02: That's surely it was something like God looked down the corridor of time, and he saw that Jacob, that Jacob would be better than his brother.
SPEAKER_02: That Jacob would choose God.
SPEAKER_02: And so God picks him beforehand.
SPEAKER_02: The problem with that though is that if you read the story of Jacob, Jacob is, to use a theological term, a jerk.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: He has nothing morally commendable about him.
SPEAKER_02: He does nothing good.
SPEAKER_02: He's a trickster.
SPEAKER_02: He's a manipulator.
SPEAKER_02: He's a deceiver.
SPEAKER_02: He cheats his brother.
SPEAKER_02: He cheats his brother out of his out of his birthright.
SPEAKER_02: He is a manipulative guy.
SPEAKER_02: He does not deserve or merit God's salvation.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the point.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't deserve it.
SPEAKER_02: If you're thinking in terms of merit, deserve, entitled, none of Romans 9 will make sense to you.
SPEAKER_02: It is only because salvation is not deserved, that it must then depend not on us, but on God and His choosing.
SPEAKER_02: Salvation is not dependent on our works or our moral goodness or on our spiritual vitality.
SPEAKER_02: It is dependent solely on God and on his gracious choice.
SPEAKER_02: I know that I'm currently leaving some questions unanswered.
SPEAKER_02: We're going to get to them.
SPEAKER_02: We are not done.
SPEAKER_02: So has God's word failed?
SPEAKER_02: That's the question that we're dealing with.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: God's word has not failed, but what Paul is saying is God doesn't choose everyone.
SPEAKER_02: See, I'm setting up the questions, right?
SPEAKER_02: God does not choose everyone.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't choose Ishmael and He didn't choose Esau.
SPEAKER_02: But all that He does choose, He saves.
SPEAKER_02: And He saves you not because of your works.
SPEAKER_02: And that's wonderful news because that means that He will never disinherit you.
SPEAKER_02: That means that His Word will never fail towards you.
SPEAKER_02: You cannot annoy Him so much that He decides to rescind his salvation of you, his adoption of you.
SPEAKER_02: His word does not fail.
SPEAKER_02: He does not fail to save all that He has chosen, but He does not choose to save everyone.
SPEAKER_02: Does this mean that salvation is arbitrary?
SPEAKER_02: That God just kind of covers His eyes and goes, you, you, not you.
SPEAKER_02: And no, definitely not you.
SPEAKER_02: Is that is that what we're what we're talking about here?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: No, of course not.
SPEAKER_02: But what it does mean is that whatever his reasons are for saving, that they're not located in me.
SPEAKER_02: And they're not located in you.
SPEAKER_02: So they must be located in him.
SPEAKER_02: Let me just kind of if you're bristling already, let me let me make you bristle just a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02: Let me just push you slightly.
SPEAKER_02: Hopefully this will get slightly better before it gets worse, but hey ho.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome if you're new.
SPEAKER_02: Um so you ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_02: You say, Mark, I I I hate this.
SPEAKER_02: Uh this does not sound like good news to me.
SPEAKER_02: Do I do I have to believe this?
SPEAKER_02: Do I have to believe in election and God's predestinating of people?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I actually think that you do.
SPEAKER_02: Now let me tell you why.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of because of what I just said.
SPEAKER_02: It's because the opposite creates so many other problems than it solves.
SPEAKER_02: If God's saving of people is not simply based upon his gracious, unmerited choice of some, then the reason for his choosing must be located in me.
SPEAKER_02: That I must contribute something.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's my choosing, but what is there, is there something more spiritually awakened about me that means that I that I chose?
SPEAKER_02: And once you locate the defining reason for salvation, not wholly and exclusively in God, then you have begun to undermine the truth that salvation is entirely by grace alone, that there's nothing in you that deserves it, that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, not just sick and in need of a little bit of medicine, but dead and in need of resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: I am not saying that we cannot wrestle with the doctrine of election.
SPEAKER_02: With these words that Paul is speaking here.
SPEAKER_02: But what I am saying is that to throw it out and go, nah, I've don't like that.
SPEAKER_02: Do Benjamin Franklin and just kind of snip out the bits of the Bible that you don't like creates more problems than it solves.
SPEAKER_02: Let's keep going.
SPEAKER_02: So then you ask, well, how is any of this fair?
SPEAKER_02: It seems so unfair, so unjust that God would choose some and reject others.
SPEAKER_02: How can that possibly be good news, Mark?
SPEAKER_02: That's the next question that Paul anticipates.
SPEAKER_02: He got there before we did.
SPEAKER_02: Have a look at verse 14.
SPEAKER_02: What should we say then?
SPEAKER_02: Is there injustice on God's part?
SPEAKER_02: By no means.
SPEAKER_02: For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion upon whom I'll have compassion.
SPEAKER_02: All good?
SPEAKER_02: Questions answered?
SPEAKER_02: Shall we pray?
SPEAKER_02: No, we should probably say a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02: But this is an interesting answer with Paul's, or of Paul's.
SPEAKER_02: Someone might say something like, Well, if God really was just, he would save everyone equally.
SPEAKER_02: And because he doesn't, he must be unjust.
SPEAKER_02: But in Paul's answer, quoting now from the book of Exodus, I will have mercy upon whom I'll have mercy, and I'll have compassion upon him whom I have compassion, he's encouraging us not to confuse justice with mercy.
SPEAKER_02: God is always just, he always acts justly.
SPEAKER_02: But in order for God to be just, he does not have to show mercy.
SPEAKER_02: All of us can say, I demand justice.
SPEAKER_02: But none of us can say, I demand mercy.
SPEAKER_02: It actually makes no sense if you think about it.
SPEAKER_02: Mercy by its very nature is something that we don't deserve.
SPEAKER_02: It's something that we plead rather than something that we are entitled to.
SPEAKER_02: We're not deserving of it in the same way that we are of justice.
SPEAKER_02: To plead for mercy is to acknowledge that we don't deserve it.
SPEAKER_02: And so it must be graciously given.
SPEAKER_02: It cannot be claimed.
SPEAKER_02: And this is where I think Paul's quote matters.
SPEAKER_02: Because Paul's quote is from the book of Exodus, like I said, and it's from a chapter called chapter 32, right?
SPEAKER_02: Let me just give you a little brief bit of context because I think it will help us hear.
SPEAKER_02: What's going on in Exodus around about chapter 32?
SPEAKER_02: Moses has gone up the mountain in order to receive the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_02: Even if you're not a Christian or being around church, you know what the big 10 are, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, or at least have some awareness that they're a thing.
SPEAKER_02: And while Moses is up the mountain, the people start to get a little bit antsy.
SPEAKER_02: They think that Moses has probably died up there.
SPEAKER_02: And uh they go to his brother Aaron and they say, uh, look, Moses has gone an awful long time.
SPEAKER_02: He's probably dead.
SPEAKER_02: Um, could you uh why don't you, Aaron, uh, make a god for us uh to bow down and worship?
SPEAKER_02: And Aaron goes, okay.
SPEAKER_02: Um why don't you give me all of your gold jewelry?
SPEAKER_02: So take off all of your chains and your watches and your earrings and everything.
SPEAKER_02: Give me all your gold, and I'm gonna melt it down.
SPEAKER_02: So he melts it down and he makes this golden calf, this idol, this false god.
SPEAKER_02: And they all throw a big orgeastic party and they bow down to the golden calf.
SPEAKER_02: Moses is up the mountain, and he hears a little bit of a ruckus down at the down at the foot of the mountain.
SPEAKER_02: He comes down and he realizes that actually what the people have done is they've begun to worship this false god just days after the true and living God had rescued them from slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: They have just seen the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea, great dramatic acts of salvation from the one true God.
SPEAKER_02: And Moses is gone five minutes, and they're already bowing down to a false God.
SPEAKER_02: And in Moses' rage, he slams the tablets down and he breaks them.
SPEAKER_02: And he goes back up the mountain, he's completely dejected and broken himself.
SPEAKER_02: And he says to God, God, um show me your glory.
SPEAKER_02: Let me see something of you.
SPEAKER_02: And God responds and he says, I'm gonna, you can't see my glory and live.
SPEAKER_02: It'll obliterate you, right?
SPEAKER_02: You'll be toast.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm gonna cause all of my goodness to pass over you.
SPEAKER_02: And he hides Moses behind a rock.
SPEAKER_02: And Moses glimpses the tail end of the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_02: And as God is passing over, he says, The Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
SPEAKER_02: I will have mercy upon whom I have mercy, I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion.
SPEAKER_02: That's what Paul's quoting.
SPEAKER_02: Why does any of that matter?
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you.
SPEAKER_02: No one deserves mercy.
SPEAKER_02: The folks down the mountain have broken faith with God so quickly.
SPEAKER_02: God is saying, look, they they can't demand mercy from me.
SPEAKER_02: They can demand justice.
SPEAKER_02: But I will be merciful on those whom I will be merciful.
SPEAKER_02: He gives it graciously to whomever he will.
SPEAKER_02: Many of us struggle with the notion of election because we think, how can God be so harsh?
SPEAKER_02: But Romans 9 is saying, Don't forget the darkness of sin.
SPEAKER_02: Don't forget the seriousness of sin.
SPEAKER_02: None of us deserves mercy.
SPEAKER_02: We all deserve justice.
SPEAKER_02: Instead, rather, we should ask, how could God be so wonderfully gracious to show mercy to someone like me?
SPEAKER_02: I will have mercy upon him and I will have mercy.
SPEAKER_02: None of us can demand it.
SPEAKER_02: And yet, what a thing that God graciously gives it to those whom he will.
SPEAKER_02: And why is it that some people hear the good news about Jesus and their hearts seem to melt with love for him?
SPEAKER_02: And yet others hear it.
SPEAKER_02: And they harden.
SPEAKER_02: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_02: Probably somebody that is known to you, somebody that you love, and you talk to them about Jesus, and you can just see the shutters go.
SPEAKER_02: You see them hardening.
SPEAKER_02: Why is it that that happens?
SPEAKER_02: Paul moves in this chapter from talking about Moses to talking about Moses' great enemy, Pharaoh, the great enemy of God's people in the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_02: That if God has mercy on some and softens their hearts, does he also harden the hearts of others?
SPEAKER_02: And Paul, not wanting to make the job of any preacher easier for the next 2,000 years, says, yes, he does.
SPEAKER_02: He not only softens hearts, but he hardens them also.
SPEAKER_02: God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
SPEAKER_02: And indeed, that is what is said in the Exodus narrative.
SPEAKER_02: Let's just have a look at it here briefly.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, so from verse 17, for the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
SPEAKER_02: So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
SPEAKER_02: Now, again, it's maybe a little bit of a little bit of difficulty here.
SPEAKER_02: But before we struggle too much, again, we have to ask ourselves, so is is Pharaoh a kind of Pharaoh's a morally neutral character who's just like Egyptianing about the place, doing what pharaohs do, having a grand old time, and God comes along and smites him and goes harden.
SPEAKER_02: Is that what is that what happens?
SPEAKER_02: Well, no.
SPEAKER_02: You read the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_02: You really need to get through the first chapter of the book of Exodus, and what you read there is that Pharaoh is a slaver and that he is uh hellbent on murdering all of the Hebrew baby boys.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Moses ends up in the basket, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because Pharaoh wants to commit infanticide.
SPEAKER_02: And so it's not as though Pharaoh is morally neutral and God comes along and smites him.
SPEAKER_02: Indeed, in the whole Exodus narrative, those first 12 chapters leading up to their release from Egypt, it's kind of 50-50 in the narrative between it's saying, and God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and it's saying, and Pharaoh hardened his heart.
SPEAKER_02: Who hardened Pharaoh's heart?
SPEAKER_02: Was it God or was it Pharaoh?
SPEAKER_02: Answer, yes.
SPEAKER_02: So what's going on here?
SPEAKER_02: Here's how God hardens people's hearts.
SPEAKER_02: God's hardening of people happens when he lets them go the way that they want to go.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's already talked about this in Romans chapter one.
SPEAKER_02: Romans chapter one is talking about the human disposition to hate God.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, because we're not morally neutral either.
SPEAKER_02: We're not spiritually neutral.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're if you're here this morning, and uh, or maybe you know this friend who would say, um, I'm searching through all of the world religions, and I'm remaining objective, and I'm objectively assessing Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: Newsflash, no, you're not.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody's objective.
SPEAKER_02: We all have a particular bent and disposition, we all have a bias.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul is saying in Romans chapter 1 that our instinctive natural bias is against God.
SPEAKER_02: And that God, when he wants to show his judgment of people, he doesn't hurl down lightning bolts like Thor or Zeus.
SPEAKER_02: No, what he does is he says to those people, fine, do what you want.
SPEAKER_02: Have it your way.
SPEAKER_02: You don't you want you want me out of the picture?
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
SPEAKER_02: I'll step back.
SPEAKER_02: I'll withdraw my presence, I'll withdraw my goodness.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, that's what hell is.
SPEAKER_02: It's the withdrawing of God's presence to bless.
SPEAKER_02: God restrains evil.
SPEAKER_02: And when he lets his hand away, folks become hard and more wicked.
SPEAKER_02: That's what's going on.
SPEAKER_02: God hardens whom he wills, and all who harden want to be hardened.
SPEAKER_02: C.S.
SPEAKER_02: Lewis put it this way, provocatively, I think.
SPEAKER_02: But he said that the doors of hell are bolted from the inside.
SPEAKER_02: The doors of hell are bolted from the inside.
SPEAKER_02: There is no one there who does not want to be there.
SPEAKER_02: No one is lost who desired to be saved.
SPEAKER_02: But again, you come back to me and you go, Mark, you still haven't answered the question of why.
SPEAKER_02: Why is God doing this?
SPEAKER_02: Why is he softening some and hardening others?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 17 gives us, I think, the reason, if not one of the most important reasons.
SPEAKER_02: For this purpose I have raised you up that I might do what?
SPEAKER_02: That I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all of the earth.
SPEAKER_02: Why does God act this way?
SPEAKER_02: So that his power and his glory, his goodness, his mercy and his justice might be known to the whole earth, to the whole cosmos?
SPEAKER_02: Why does God withdraw his restraining hand and allow wicked men to harden their hearts?
SPEAKER_02: It is to show the world his glory in just judgment.
SPEAKER_02: Why does God mercifully save those who through no merit of their own, he decides to set his love upon them?
SPEAKER_02: Show his glory in salvation to the whole world.
SPEAKER_02: And still you might ask, but why?
SPEAKER_02: Why has God ordered his world this way?
SPEAKER_02: Why is he chosen to make his name great, like this?
SPEAKER_02: The Bible gives us a number of reasons which we could talk about, but you need to do business with what Paul says here in verse 19.
SPEAKER_02: You will say to me then, why does he still file fault?
SPEAKER_02: For who can resist his will?
SPEAKER_02: But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?
SPEAKER_02: Well, what is molded say to the moulder?
SPEAKER_02: Why have you made me like this?
SPEAKER_02: Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of one lump?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, the same lump, one vessel for honorable use, and another for dishonorable use?
SPEAKER_02: At the very base of all things, what we are compelled to recognize is that God is free to act how He will, and that we must let God be God.
SPEAKER_02: I had a friend, um, he's still a friend.
SPEAKER_02: Um even though we had these conversations, we remained friendly.
SPEAKER_02: But uh he uh he worked in a cafe in the city, and you know, if I was working there late and he was closing up, we inevitably started talking about uh about spiritual things.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that he kept on um saying to me kind of repeatedly was I don't obey any command of God if I can't understand why he gave it.
SPEAKER_02: I need to understand, God needs to explain to me why I ought to do this thing before I'll do it.
SPEAKER_02: My response was and is well, God is God and you're not.
SPEAKER_02: God actually doesn't owe you an explanation.
SPEAKER_02: God often graciously gives us explanations for why he asks us to do things in his word.
SPEAKER_02: But that is very different to thinking that he has an obligation to explain himself to us.
SPEAKER_02: And this pushes us quite hard, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Because fundamental to Christianity, fundamental to our understanding of God is first a recognition that he is God and I am not, that he is the creator, and that I am a creature.
SPEAKER_02: We are not peers, nor is God a butler whose job it is to serve us, nor is he a therapist whose job it is to make us feel better about ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: He is not a guru dispensing moral life advice.
SPEAKER_02: No, he is God.
SPEAKER_02: Holy and unsearchable are his ways, at his feet the angels fall, the mountains tremble, and devils flee.
SPEAKER_02: At his word, space and time erupt into being.
SPEAKER_02: At his will, you take your next breath.
SPEAKER_02: He is the potter, and we are the clay.
SPEAKER_02: We must not reduce God down to someone who has to explain himself to us.
SPEAKER_02: We are his creatures, and in humility we say that your ways are not our ways, O Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Your thoughts are not our thoughts.
SPEAKER_02: And in his infinite wisdom and goodness, he has chosen to glorify himself in both judgment and in gracious salvation.
SPEAKER_02: Let me go back to Paul's broken heart here for a second.
SPEAKER_02: Because I understand that these are hard things to accept.
SPEAKER_02: And it actually comes down, it comes down kind of to a question of well, actually, am I prepared to submit myself to the authority of God's word, even at the bits that I don't like?
SPEAKER_02: And I can say, I don't like this and I struggle with it, but I'm recognizing that God's wiser than I am and that his ways are more than I am.
SPEAKER_02: And and while I'm wrestling and struggling, I'm still going to kind of affirm what he affirms, and I'm gonna pray like the dad in Mark 9, who said to Jesus, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_02: Are you prepared to do that?
SPEAKER_02: Are you or are you just saying, No, this is no, I reject it all.
SPEAKER_02: So two very different heart dispositions.
SPEAKER_02: But let me let me also share personally that that these things do not have just theoretical impact on any of us, and not me either.
SPEAKER_02: I'm one of I'm the only believer, the only follower of Jesus in my family.
SPEAKER_02: And do you not think that actually saying these things hits a little home, a little close to home?
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm talking about people that I love who might actually in the end be objects of God's just judgment and condemnation.
SPEAKER_02: So how do I square that circle as a pastor?
SPEAKER_02: I tell you a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: I think about I think about that last day, and I think about the day when when the Lord returns and winds up all of history, and I stand on that eternal shore and hear the books read and and those who have rejected Jesus go to go to their just condemnation and marvel and wonder at those who are invited into the wedding feast of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_02: And I I think that in that moment what I won't say is yeah, but God, you could have gotten a little bit more glory if you'd saved my mum.
SPEAKER_02: Don't you see?
SPEAKER_02: You could have been a little bit more glorified if you'd rescued those people that I loved.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, in the end, I will stand and I will say, No, the Lord has done perfectly right.
SPEAKER_02: That the glory that he gets and the goodness that he shows will be maximal.
SPEAKER_02: There'll be no deficiency in it.
SPEAKER_02: I struggle with that now, but I trust that I'll see it in the end.
SPEAKER_02: I need to be done.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't put any of that in the script.
SPEAKER_02: We can talk, we can talk about that.
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you one last thought.
SPEAKER_02: Because your brains aren't baked enough as it is.
SPEAKER_02: Here's where all of this is wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: If God is God, then God is free to give his grace to whomever he will.
SPEAKER_02: And so it shouldn't surprise us that his grace shows up in surprising places.
SPEAKER_02: That's what I think Paul means by quoting uh first from Hosea and then from Isaiah, or Isaiah if you're American.
SPEAKER_02: That if salvation is not about shared heritage with Abraham, but shared faith, then it really is for everyone.
SPEAKER_02: And so it's true what Hosea says, that those who are not my people, I will call my people, and those who were not beloved, I will call beloved.
SPEAKER_02: If salvation is not about our works, then it is open to those who never knew the religious commands of the law.
SPEAKER_02: It means that salvation really is for everyone.
SPEAKER_02: So even though God rejected Ishmael, he extends grace to the sons and daughters of Ishmael all over the world.
SPEAKER_02: That even though he did not choose Esau, he extends his wise and self-glorifying grace to all of the sons and daughters of Esau all down the millennia.
SPEAKER_02: Do not stifle or reject God's freedom to save whom he will.
SPEAKER_02: It is because he is free to save that he saved you.
SPEAKER_02: Not descended from Abraham according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: But one of his offspring, not because you share his genetics, but because you share his faith.
SPEAKER_02: And our response to that must be humble, gracious worship, thanks, and praise.