Romans 9 | how are we saved?

Intro

Hey y’all! Did you have a good break?

that’s good. y’all do something fun?

Awesome.

So question for you, and I want you to think about it pretty good.

What would you do if you knew there were people who were going to just catch on fire one day, you didn’t know who, but you knew a way to stop it?

What would you do?

What would you do if there were people who, no matter what, wouldn’t take the antidote?

What would you do?

You would, i think, and start telling people that you have this.

Right? So that is where are going to be in our Passage tonight.

This passage is a very technical passage where if we don’t think deeply, we will get bogged down.

This is what I’m talking about, if you’re ever in a bible study and you just want to nuke it, you know derail it, bring up one of two things, election or predestination.

Just bring them up, and watch the bible study start chasing rabbits.

This passage has both of these thing in it.

We are going to talk about it. But i don’t want to get bogged down, and if you want to talk about it more in depth, catch me after, it’s a good thing to really think through.

Context

SO let’s get in to it.

We are in Romans 9 tonight, we are going to be kinda all over it.

It’ll be good. So who needs a bible?

Throw up a hand.

So while you’re getting there, let’s set it up.

I know last time we met we were in Romans 8, that God is in control and the we are heirs with Christ. Sanctification was the process where we are made more like Christ.

So Romans 8 was kind of the why of salvation. Why were we saved? for His glory. He keeps his promises. We are brought in to the family. He loves us.

Romans 9 is more of the how are we saved.

How does it work. What role does God playin our salvation. and that is where the details can really make us think, which it should, and really bog us down if you get caught up in it. So we aren’t going to read the whole passage, but we are going to be all over it.

So our goal in this tonight is to hold the text up to the light and let it breath.

We want the text to speak to us, we want to read the text for what the text is saying.

So let’s read what is pretty much the crux of the chapter and then we are going to look at the whole thing.

but before we read it y’all pray with me for our time in the word.

pray with me

Okay let’s read this, Romans 9:9-18

Romans 9:9–18 ESV

9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11 though they were not yet born 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— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 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.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

okay strap in, i’m going to move quick for a second.

okay so first thing we see is a lot of allusions to the Old Testament. Talking about Abraham’s wife Sarah and Issac’s wife Rebekah.

A promise has been made by God.

A covenant has been handed down by God.

To Abraham the covent was to the father of many nations.

The promise to Rebekah and Issac it was made that the younger would serve the older. Jacob and Esau. Jacob was loved, while Esau was hated by God.

Then in 15-17 Paul brings in Moses and Pharaoh.

God will have mercy on who he wills and will harden who he wants to harden.

In the exodus story, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened by God.

God is Sovereign.

I know that was just a list of facts, but what is Paul trying to convey here?

God is Sovereign. That is what we want to see here in the text. God is sovereign.

So what does that mean?

We sing about this all the time, God is sovereign. Sovereign over us, Sovereign God. there are a bunch of songs we sing that deal with this.

We always say, God is in control.

What does it mean for God to be sovereign though? What is Paul saying here.

To be sovereign means that your will is ultimately always be done.

In this time period, Rome is in charge and the dude at the top is Caesar. this is during Imperial Rome, for a long time, Rome had a senate that was in charge, not anymore, Caesar is in charge.

Caesar in this society was sovereign. Caesars will is ultimately done. If Caesar wants you dead. You’re gonna die.

So God is Sovereign. God’s will is ultimately done.

Paul just gave a quick run through of the Old Testament Fathers showing how the covenants were carried out, and how God’s will is ultimately done for His glory.

All of us agree with this.

And yet this is where the first starts of rub happen in this passage. when you start to look at this, you want to pause and ask some qualifying questions.

What does it mean for God to have compassion on some and not others?

What does it mean for God to love Jacob but hate Esau?

What does it mean for God to harden Pharaoh’s heart?

These are the questions that this passage wants us to ask.

and Here is where the tension is. God is Sovereign, and yet we have Freewill. See what i’m saying?

If God is in complete control, how do we have freewill?

Imagine you are playing a video game and who is in control? You or the character you are playing?

You are. You decide what the game is going to do. You are the one controlling things.

The character doesn’t have a say. You do.

So, how do we have freewill?

Strap in. We are going to stick our toes in the philosophy water for a second, but just stay with me.

God is sovereign, BUT we also have freewill?

Now one of my friends in seminary, we got in to a long almost argument about this, because he actually believed that we had no freewill at all. I made him mad because basically He said God was keeping me from slapping him, I slapped him. Cause we have freewill. But he was still right that God is fully sovereign, but you all have the ability and volition to slap me after this is over, but just know that I also have that.

Don’t slap people.

But no there are people who believe we don’t have freewill, and I think this is off. I think we do have freewill that we can freely exercise.

So what we have to do is sort of hold these in tension. The Presbyterians have a great word for it called antinomy, which basically means, idk?

We don’t know how it’s going to work

but let’s think through it and i’ll show you how I think through this. I promise let’s get through this and then get in to why it matters.

So this is how I think about it.

God is sovereign. 100%. we have freewill given to us by God. God knows every true outcome. God knows everything that we are going to do in all possible situations.

If that doesn’t make sense, think of it like this.

If I put you in a room with only one door I know that you are going to at some point try and open the door. I know that you are not going to just sit there until you die. You’ll go turn the knob. I know this.

you are completely free to choose to not to, but I know that you won’t. Over a long enough time, you will turn the knob.

So this is the philosophical side of this. But it still doesn’t answer the question about all those other things. Like God hating Esau and hardening Pharaoh’s heart.

Who saves?

So let’s look at it in terms of salvation.

Look at verses 22-24 Romans 9:22-24

Romans 9:22–24 ESV

22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

Okay so, Paul is answering the question we are asking. How is God still just if he makes some people one way and others another way, why did he Harden Pharaoh’s heart?

This is what Paul is saying.

God since before time, had a plan to redeem and restore his people.

God created us with freewill. God also knows everything we would do in any given situation.

We also know from what we have read earlier in this book, that all of us deserve destruction yet we don’t receive it. Grace is extended.

honestly all of us should not be given grace that is why it’s called grace. But we are given grace.

For the glory of God. God does all things for His glory. He has extended grace to all for his glory and when people do not, his wrath shows his perfect justice.

God is not the one to be put on trail, we should have been, but Christ.

That is the beauty here in Romans 9.

We deserved to as Paul says here, vessels of wrath, but we aren’t we have the gift ad grace of salvation. Why? because he loves us.

So this is what Paul is telling us, that God is the author of our salvation.

Not us, we couldn’t save ourselves, but God has saved us. Why? Because he first chose us.

We had to talk about the philosophy of it for a moment because we need to understand who is in control.

But look at what Paul is saying.

The reason you are saved at all is because God has saved you. you were able to freely chose him, because he first chose you. He does the choosing. Look at verse 11 again Rom 9:11

Romans 9:11 ESV

11 though they were not yet born 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—

You were called.

Imagine you are drowning, you are in the middle of a storm, there is nothing you can do, and out of no where someone throws you a lifesaver, you grab it, they pull you in.

Who did the saving? Who ever threw you the lifesaver. they threw it to you and then you grabbed it. You didn’t have a real choice in the matter. you were drowning, you grabbed what was thrown to you.

That is how salvation works. You are drowning and only God and save you. Only the living lord can pull you out of the murk, only Christ can pull you from death to life.

Paul wants them to know that they are saved and that they are saved because God decided to save them. Nothing they could do, Christ has saved them.

What do we do?

So when we realize that God is control, He has saved us and that He is the one that saves. It does two things to us.

first thing it does, it takes the burden of missions and evangelism off us.

Not that we shouldn’t tell people about Jesus, not saying that at all, what I’m saying is that is takes the pressure of having to close every gospel conversation with a conversion.

When we think of that mindset, we all become sales me.

A lot of sales people have this mindset of always be closing, ABC. Always Be Closing. What they mean is always close the deal, always get the sale. Do everything you can do to get the sale.

Which for salesmen, great. Get that sale.

But church family, we are not salesmen and women. We don’t have that mindset.

We are messengers. Tasked with telling.

We are messengers of the King, tasked with going and telling. Proclaiming the gospel.

That is what you have to do.

This tales the weight of having to you yourself save everyone you have a gospel conversation with.

Imagine the weight that would be that if every person you didn’t convince to follow Jesus right there was going to Hell because you couldn’t answer a question or wasn’t clear enough in your message.

Should you learn more about how to answer questions sure, should you be clear in how you tell the gospel, absolutely.

But you aren’t sending people to hell because a Gospel conversation didn’t go your way.

Christ is the one who saves, not us. God is in control.

We are messengers. Heralds of the King.

So that is the first thing it does, it makes us messengers not sales folks.

The second thing it does is, it should give us a burden for the Lost.

Look at verse 1-5 with me

Romans 9:1–5 ESV

1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 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. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Paul is literally saying, I wish i could not be saved so that everyone else could be saved. That is the sort of compassion He had for those who were lost.

Knowing that God is in on control should give us a real burden for the Lost. that we are called to go and tell.

Remember the question I asked you at the beginning. What would you do. Go and tell.

We are the ones who have hope, and we are the ones who have the gospel message.

Go and tell.

P2Christ

So this is what I want you to take from this.

Who do you know that is lost? If you are a follower of Christ, who do you know that is lost? I know some names are popping up, go and tell them the good news. That Christ has died in your place, tell them what Christ has done in your life. He has saved you form sin.

Who do you know need the gospel? Congrats, you are the one tasked with telling them.

For those of you who are not followers of Christ, this text is telling you that Christ is the one who calls and is calling you. If you want to be saved, Christ is the one who can do that. IF you have questions about it come talk to me.

Know that if you seek you will find. Christ is calling, answer.

Pray with me.