Romans 9:14-29
Notes
Transcript
This morning is sort of a continuation from last week
Remember Chapter 9 is all about Gods sovereignty
Chapter 10 is all about what you do
And Chapter 11 puts it all together
Doyal often reminds me of this verse and I think it fitting
29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.
This verse is not a cop out for the sermon or sermons to come but rather a good reminder
As we look at Romans 9 this morning
So as we go through Chapter 9 it is all about Gods Sovereignty over the world
When you hear that left by itself we often fall victim to getting in the weeds about stuff
Church it boils down to this
God is Sovereign
We have Free Will
Those don’t sound like they go together but
They have to because God is Sovereign and we have free will
If we completely understood that there would be no need for God as we wouldn’t need to pray for wisdom and yet church we still must be praying for wisdom because we don’t know it all
This morning we continue on with Chapter 9
Remember last week we left off with
12 it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
When we read this sometimes it gives us some heartburn because we cannot understand exactly the mind of God
We sort of left like a cliff hanger remember
We talked about how as you read that instead of focusing on that statement focus on the power of God
The mercy and grace of God bestowed on Jacob when in all truth neither of them deserved it
And Yet God chose to use Jacob and His descendents to bring about salvation to an entire world
Praise the Lord for His Grace and Mercy
This morning we continue on
14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 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 does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
Paul starts off with
If God loves Jacob and Esau he hates is God not just
We know for a fact that is not true
We see Paul able to give the correct information right away
That salvation is not dependent on the man but rather God Himself
Paul clearly and rightly states I will have mercy on who I have and compassion on who I have compassion
It is no dependent on the man but rather God Himself
That is one of those truths that sometimes we struggle with because we don’t understand it
We like to think we need to understand everything about God
If you could it wouldn’t be God it would be another human
And lets be honest Guys do you understand everything about your wife
Or wives do you understand everything about your husbands
Or parents do you understand everything about your kids
Then understand you cannot understand everything about God
But to know there are absolute truths
Paul continues to illustrate this truth
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
Paul once again is sharing and driving the point home that Gods ways are just and he is merciful
Remember that you and I and everyone is a sinner and has missed the mark
No one has ever earned salvation
No one has ever earned the good favor of God base on what you have done
Church with that in mind
John Stott says this
Exalting Jesus in Romans Truth 2: God’s Ways Are Just and His Salvation Is Merciful (Romans 9:14–18)
The fact is, as Paul demonstrated in the early chapters of his letter, that all human beings are sinful and guilty in God’s sight (3:9, 19), so that nobody deserves to be saved. If therefore God hardens some, he is not being unjust, for that is what their sin deserves. If, on the other hand, he has compassion on some, he is not being unjust, for he is dealing with them in mercy. (Message, 269)
Remember it is our own sin that separates us from God
And salvation is only by the grace and mercy of God
It is His to give to whom ever He wants
Please don’t think that you and I get to decide who that is for one minute
We who have been adopted as children of God who have been saved
We then are called and commanded to go out into a lost world
Church we are called to Love Jesus with our entire being, to love people and we love people when we share Jesus with them
Last quote from John Stott
“The wonder is not that some are saved and others not, but that anybody is saved at all”
Paul continues on with driving home the point of Gods sovereignty this morning
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
Do the creation get to talk back to the creator??
I think not
That is what Paul getting the Jewish Believers in Rome to understand
That God is completely sovereign
We have heard this before about the clay right
The clay doesn’t get to look up at the potter and say no I don’t think I want to be that I want to be this
Church in today’s day and age we see this playing out
we currently live in a world where the clay ie the people are looking back up at God and saying no I am not a boy I am a girl
Or no I am not a girl I am a boy
It doesn’t work
Let me be clear, you can take all the medicine you want, and have all the surgeries to change from a boy to a girl or a girl to a boy and understand that the smallest part of your DNA you will still be what God has made you to be
The clay cannot and should not look at the potter and say I demand to be something else
Church I am learning that as a worrier and a perfectionist
I the clay don’t get to look at God and say God you need to change this or that
Rather than demanding God the creator of something
The appropriate action to understanding and living in the sovereignty of God is to worship Him!
Then towards the end of this section we also see the merciful God on display
When Paul says that endured with much patience
God is a patient God
I feel like that alone should drive us to our knees or to our feet and shouting praises to the Lord
Because you and I take a lot of that
24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. 25 As He says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’ ” 26 “And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.” 27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; 28 for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.” 29 And just as Isaiah foretold, “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity, We would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.”
God has so graciously and mercifully made salvation to everyone not just the Jews
God is so very sovereign that He chose to use the Jews to make salvation to the entire world
Paul continues to show the Jews that just because you are a Jew doesn’t mean you are saved
That gentiles can and will be graphed into the nation of Israel
Paul goes into a bit of History with them history they would have known and understood
God used a gentile nation to bring about punishment on the chosen people
But notice that while doing that God left a remnant and it was through that remanent the nation would be saved
What do we know about that remanent they are the ones who built the city wall, the temple, they are the ones who were there when the ones came back and heard the Word of God spoken
Paul is showing the Jewish Believers in Rome that in fact Gods word is very true
We can trust Gods word we have seen it play out in history
Then finally
Had God not left the promise Had God not left the remanent we would have been just like Sodom and Gomorrah
And church God would have been righteous and justified in His judgement on them and us
How amazing is Gods grace and mercy to us this morning
Gods Sovereignty this morning does not drive us crazy but rather to our knees in awing worship
This morning as we come to a close
The band will come up