Romans 11
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God is not Done with You Yet.
God is not Done with You Yet.
Good morning my friends, I hope you are well today.
I hope you enjoyed time with family and your friends during this Thanksgiving celebration.
Thanksgiving is one of two holiday celebrations that are so close together and while they are different, we can look at them with Spiritual eyes and see how one is a blessing to help prepare you for the other.
So I think salvation helps us change our mindset, it helps us focus on what we are truly thankful for and points us toward our greatest blessings Jesus.
Thanksgiving has passed, Black Friday is gone its way and I know there is so much happening in our lives as we prepare for Christmas. And I know Christmas kind of consumes us, takes all our energy in preparing for it/
But today I want to challenge you to purposefully change your focus and make every day about Jesus. We have more than enough, we are so blessed but the greatest gift ever given is here and ready to be given away.
Give Jesus to those around you. And I mean purposefully tell and invite others to know Jesus. He is the greatest gift, and He changes lives for all eternity!
So this morning I want to invite you to turn to Romans chapter 11.
Now remember, Paul has been talking about this people Israel. the key topic is salvation, Paul wants them to be saved, God is calling them just as He is calling the world to come and follow Him.
So Lets start with this thought today...
1. A Remnant Preserved...
Historically we know, Israel has lived poorly in front of God as a people. In the Old Testament there are more kings that led the people in idolatry than good kings who led them in the ways of God.
At times they were harsh in their treatment of God’s prophets and messengers, sin at the very heart of the those people.
And through all this back and forth, the people that returned from captivity fell into segmented groups that had a desire to please God. The Pharisees, the Saducees, the Essences… the Scribes, all trying to led in power, to be the leading group.
But all they taught a works based effort toward righteousness was pleasing to God, but it’s dead, because there is no faith action.
Look with me now at the first 6 verses of Romans 11 ,
1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? 3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” 4 But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
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Remember, Paul has been repeating this argument over and over again, has God rejected Israel? No, He has not and will not. They are His people, he choose them from the foundation of the world. He entered into an everlasting covenant with them.
Yes, he punished their sin, we can see those things in the Old Testament, but He loved them.
And so here, Paul repeats that argument, Has God rejected his people? By no means...
Paul said I know because I am a descendant of Abraham, I am a Israelite. In fact a member of Benjamin. Listen if God has rejected Abraham, then Paul wouldn’t have been able to be called of God nor saved.
But God loved Israel, they are His people by choice, and by the Covenant.
But Paul, He will go a step further, he takes them back to the prophet Elijah, Do you remember that after Elijah’s victory over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Jezebel’s threats against His life sent him fleeing and he was hiding in a cave, fearing for his life.
And when Elijah complained to God against Israel, how they killed the prophets and destroyed the altars of the Lord. Elijah said, I am the only one you have left God… so what are going to do???
God told him, Wait a minute big boy you are not the only one I have… Let me take you....
18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
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Paul says it’s no different today, by the grace of God himself, God as a remnant set aside for himself. Look back at verses 5-6
5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
Notice the key word here is grace… Grace is one account of the one who extends it, the person receiving grace has nothing to do with it. They couldn’t earn it, and so it is not by works.
These Jewish Christians did not exist because of works, they had been called of God by His unmerited favor.
Righteousness can never be established through personal merit, it is exclusively God’s work in redeeming His people, calling them and finally at the end of their days, they stand in His presence.
God as called for a remnant of Israel to be saved, and they will…
We can trust God that He will..... Paul will readdress this again at the end of the chapter, but for now, now lets move to a second thought my friends....
2. A Saved People....
My friends, remember without a doubt that our God is an awesome God.
Now you might say, Preacher you have established the obvious, and that is OK, for the more and more I know about God, the more I see the work of his hands, and I am in awe of that ....
Understand, God desires that all be saved, very person, from every tribe and tongue, God wishes no one to be lost. God never abandons man, on the other hand man abandons God.
And as we walk into our next portion of Scripture, we see this all the more, Look with me a verses Romans 11:11-12
11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 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!
Again, Paul asks the question, did Israel’s stumble, their failure to believe lead to their ruin… lead to their death...
Again the answer is no, They were not beyond recovery, they are beyond His reach.
But something marvelous did happen in light of their stumble, God used this time to bring the gospel to the Gentiles… This my friends is the work of God, His purposes being fulfilled.
Remember God desires all to be saved....
Now I want to remind you that twice, in His public ministry, Jesus himself carried the message of God’s love to the Gentiles.
29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
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And then secondly, Jesus finds the man in the land of Gadara, Remember this area was a Greek speaking area called the Decapolis, 10 cities there. And here on the coast line is an area where a large cemetery, and here was this possessed man, running naked among the tombs and Jesus encounters him.
And his life is changed
18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
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So twice here the gospel is carried into the non-Jewish world that people might hear and believe in Jesus Christ!
Remember to the theme verse of Romans again Romans 1:16
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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God desires for people, both covenant Israel and those who trust in Jesus to be saved.
And if Israel stumbled and at first rejected Jesus, and that rejection brought the Gospel to everyone, the God is Israel who “… in all things ....works for the good.” Rom 8:28, their rejection would soon be turned around, and the gospel coming to the gentiles would entice the Israelites to see Jesus for who He is, the Messiah, the Christ.
How great that reunion will be with Israel returns to God and receives Jesus my friends! What a victorious day that will be...
We are waiting for out loved ones to be saved, but this convicted me, am I praying for God’s people to be saved.
Oh God, save your people!
Now this brings us to just one last today my friends, here we go
3. A Grafted Branch....
As we look at the last section of this chapter, There is a couple things Paul will share, 1.) one is how the Gentiles would be brought into the family of God, how they would be established and 2.) The salvation of Israel.
So lets consider the First, How would the Gentiles be established.
Paul uses a term used by those who work with trees to bring about many kinds of fruit.
He says they were grafted onto the original tree, the Israelite tree...
Listen to how Paul explains it.... Romans 11:17-19
17 But 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, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. 19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
Now, understand Paul is speaking to the Gentiles, He says so in verse 13. And there was an Olive tree, the tree has grown and has weathered many storms but has had many branches broken off, they were removed by the Gardner… why were they removed, well they were removed because of unbelief, sin etc...
Think of what Jesus says in John 15:1-3
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
Dead branches are removed, they are gathered and burned up, but the Father take other small branches and grafts them onto the new shoots are are coming up.
Now the process of grafting is not one we often see anymore, but years ago, it was something we used to see all the time.
I remember my dad telling the stories of papaw, taking different fruit trees, take a branch from one and graft it onto the limb of the existing tree. It would take hold, have life and grow. And in due time it would produce a fruit different than the original fruit o the tree.
I remember my old pastor did this, he was making a tree like at the end of Revelation that has 12 different types of fruit.
We (those who have believed after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus) are the grafted branch. We have life, but we can never be arrogant about it, we are established on Israel who God reached out to first. They are the olive tree, we are joined to them.
The gospel came to them first and then passed to us, we are thankful for them, because through the nation of Israel, Jesus came and gave his life as a ransom for sin.
But we must be careful to live correctly in front of God, if he punished Israel, he will us as well if we are disobedient..
20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
But remember, God is not done with you, no matter the time of your rebirth, and no matter how old we get, God will seek to use you.
But remember what Paul has been telling us, God will call Israel back to him, a remnant will be saved…look at verse 23 Romans 11:23
23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
Now look at Romans 11:25-27
25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
27 “and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
And this is where the 2). second idea comes into play. The salvation of Israel.
Even though they are faithless, the grafting in of the believing Gentiles would arouse his country men Paul said, and lead them to salvation, so that all Israel will be saved.
Paul refers to a mystery, What is the mystery that Paul writes about? It is the saving work of God for Israel.
God has not gone back on His promise that he made long ago, The hardness of heart that Israel experienced would be limited in scope and time. Once the full number of the Gentiles had come to Christ, the hardness would be listed
And in doing so, Israel would be saved.
How can Paul write about this with such certainty, remember who has told Him these things, it is God himself. God is omniscient, all knowing. God knows the plans and ways of man as we walks along side of them.
God knew your day and He knows their day...
But remember, God is at work in the lives of all people, why? what the hope would be that all would be saved...
God has been and will continue to be at work in our lives, the call is for you to come and join Him and walk with him,
Our Salvation leads to our walk, and walk is where we are blessed knowing Him.
Are you walking well...