Romans 9-11

Intro

We have been in Romans now for a number of weeks and today I have just a boatload of content to cover…

To sort of ease us into today I want to help us understand something about the structure of the book…Which I know is not super fun…But will help all of us especially with where we are going today

Romans is broken up into 4 big sections

Chapters 1-4 cover sin and redemption…And all the way though, Paul is concerned about his fellow ethnic Jews. He sort of goes back and forth between addressing Gentiles and addressing Jews

You have to remember the church is this great merging together of the people of the promise, The Jews, and this new welcoming of the whole rest of the world because of what Jesus had done…

Chapters 5-8: This section is about what happens after redemption. After we believe in Jesus we are made righteous though that belief! And what is God doing? He is making us over into his children, his image, so that we can reflect who Jesus is to the world.

The chapters we are getting into today Chapters 9-11 are probably the most difficult of the entire book…It asks the question ok…So if the Jews were God’s chosen people…and all of these gentiles are coming to faith in the messiah then what about the jews?

The whole book flows logically, it is one big train of thought…

So what I am going to try and do today is this:

I have decided that if I were to try and teach verser by verse through chapters 9-11 we are going to get a lot of repeated content for sermons.

We’d be at risk of getting so deep into the weeds that I’d lose people…So what I hope to do today is to show you the three movements that are in these sections and why they matter to us today…

I want to give us the 30,000ft view of this scripture.

All three of these chapters are about the salvation of the Jews…And Paul prolifically quotes the old testament though all three chapters.

These sections that is all he is doing…He is showing How Jesus fulfills so much old testament prophesy…

Paul wants so deeply for his own people to be saved that what he does is he looks back at this whole argument that he gave…

Jesus is the Jewish messiah

Righteousness comes though faith in the messiah…

You now have access to the personal presence of God, His spirt. So you can now live by God’s sprit rather than his flesh

and the nations now are considered children of God…

This is status that was just reserved for Israel…But now the rest of the world is coming to follow the Jewish messiah so Paul in these next three chapters writes what really is one of the most brilliant apologetics toward the jews that are out there

So today we have three chapters to cover…But remember…I am not going to cover every word of these chapters…

Let’s get into the first few verses of chapter 9 which will set the stage for three chapters

Burning desire for salvation

So lets get into chapter 9:

Romans 9:1–6 NIV

I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

So right off the bat here , Paul tells the Romans church, Look I am broken hearted about my own people the Jews! I want them to come to know the messiah. I want them to experience the forgiveness and redemption of Jesus.

Look they have all the building blocks, all the tradition, the covenants..The law…the temple…the patriarchs…and he even says look from the patriarchs the messiah was born!

Paul absolutely wants his own people to be saved but what he will do in these first few verses is show us two things…His heart and his logic .

Here is Paul’s heart:

Romans 9:1–3 NIV

I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race,

Paul desires his own people to be saved so much that he wishes he could trade places with them.

Now obviously you can’t say Lord, I would like to trade my salvation for theirs….it doesn’t work like that

Look Paul has a heart for a specific people! His own race of people…Now we know Paul is the apostle to the gentiles

I read this and think wow! God give me a heart for people who don’t know you like Paul has!

I was reflecting on this and I was thinking I want people to know Jesus but do I have like actual anguish that people are unsaved?

I read this and I was thinking maybe we need to pray for our own hearts to be broken over the lost in the same way that Paul’s heart is broken for his own people…

Paul’s anguish here is mirroring Moses anguish when Israel sinned with the golden calf

Exodus 32:32 NIV

But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”

Paul knows that he can not trade places with his own people but he wishes he could.

We started this year with a series that we simply called One Matters: We still have the cards up.

The question that we asked was that if that was Jesus’ mission…To leave the 99 sheep that were in the right place and to go after the 1 lost sheep…Then who is the one that we are praying for!? Who does your heart burn for?

Who in your family, friends, work colleagues are you praying for to come to know the salvific power and the transformational power of Jesus?

Who is the one that we desperately want to see come to faith in Jesus?

This is Paul’s heart too….He is hurting for his people that have the entire old testament that leads to Jesus and yet they are rejecting Jesus

But notice the first half of verse 6

Romans 9:6a NIV

It is not as though God’s word had failed.

God’s word never fails

Now this is a minor transitional sentence that Paul will use to launch into three chapters of old testament reference…

Because it is Paul’s contention that the entire Old testament is leading to Jesus

So it would appear like God’s word has failed because all of these Jews did not accept the messiah

Israel is God’s chosen people to cary the promises of God and yet they are now rejecting their own messiah!

So Paul is anticipating the argument from people….Well has God’s word failed then!?

If everything in the Bible is leading to Jesus and God’s own chosen people are not following Jesus then hasn’t God’s word failed?

And Paul will go on to make an argument that it isn’t that God’s word has failed…that God has been rejected…as he constantly had been…And the Bible even for tells that the Jesus will be this stumbling block….

So this is where it gets complex

Chapter 9 will be all about Israel’s past history

Chapter 10 will be about the current state of Israel

and Chapter 11 will be about the future of Israel

Israel’s Past

Romans 9:6–13 NIV

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.” Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Now here is what Paul is reminding the Jews of.

In that day if you were a Jew then Abraham was your father.

So what Paul is saying is look…The promise of God goes though a specific line in Abraham’s family…But you were really a Jew is you lived in covenant relationship with God…Not necessarly because of your blood line…

This verse that Paul quotes, “It is though Isaac that your offspring is reckoned” Think about this for a second…Did Abraham have other sons? Well yes…Remember when he and Sarah cracked a plan to have a child of the promise their own way? Abraham slept with Hagar and conceived Ishmael?

And then this is a little more random but after Sarah died, Abraham remarried and with Keturah, he had six more sons?

There is a reminder here that simply just because you are a descendent of Abraham doesn’t make you part of the promise of Abraham….The promise of Abraham follows specifically though the line of Isaac. This is a line that God chose to bless

The promise of God flows from Abraham, Isaac & Jacob…And eventually Jesus is in that same line

Now when people come into contact with this verse…>Jacob I loved, Esau I hated…they can understandably get sidetracked with thinking… Wow God hates? God really hated someone…

But that is not what is happening here. Paul is quoting Old Testamemt Text and in that text we find this phrase, Jacob I loved and Esau I hated…It is actually a Hebrew Idiom that can just as easily be read, Jacob I chose and Esau I rejected

So we have to remember the main point that Paul is trying to teach here

The word of God hasn’t failed

God has not broken his covenant with Israel…

But a covenant requires two to keep the covenant…

Right? Your marriage requires both of you to keep your vows for it to be a faithful marriage…

I know it’s a little hard to see here but Paul is saying, God has kept his word….

Paul is laying out another very essential argument here: He is telling the jews that You are not saved based on national identity!

There is nothing automatic about salvation. All the way though Romans and indeed at the end of this chapter Paul will declare that righteousness comes though faith.

That Just because God elected or to use other words that are less controversial…God selected Israel to represent him…Doesn’t automatically mean that they are saved

There is a theology out there that before the foundations of the world God preselected those who would be saved and those who would be damned to hell. and this is what God’s sovereignty looks like and there are many who claim that this chapter in Romans is the penultimate way of showing this.

But if you keep reading in this chapter, Paul actually defeats this kind of thinking outright:

Romans 9:30 NIV

What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;

In God’s sovereignty, he selected a nation and made a promise that the messiah will come from this nation but faith has always been required since the beginning of the promise…Now I did a podcast episode on this and not a sermon but this is the whole point of Romans 4. Paul is showing the church look at Abraham and all that happened in his life…The one thing that Abraham did right was have faith in God! That’s it…He made a lot of mistakes…But he had faith and that is where Abraham’s righteousness comes from

So one of the big things that Paul is doing here is to remind them that salvation does not come through national identity but through participation in the life of the messiah!

And this is true of us today! Salvation isn’t because grandma prayed for you or you are really good at attending church or because you tithe a bunch of money…Salvation comes through faith in Jesus as the messiah!

Romans 9:31–32 NIV

but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.

So Paul is reminding Israel again from their own history: You failed to attain a right standing with God because they pursued it on the basis of works (vv. 30–32).

The sovereignty of God does not set aside human responsibility.

Election is not salvation This is the mistake that many people read into the Bible. When you misdefine this word you might say, hey I believe in Jesus therefore I am elect therefore I am good, and your spiritual life could grow stagnant =

So Chapter 9 is all about this reminder to the Jews

Right standing with God has always come though faith and not works, you families faith history or even your national identity won’t save you.

And at the end of chapter 9…Paul lays down this quote:

Romans 9:33 NIV

As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

So if you are following the train of thought in chapter 9…The promise goes though Abraham Isaac and Jacob…We didn’t cover this but Paul says God saved a remnant and then God laid a stone in Zion that causes people to stumble

The idea is that God is preserving his promise through a line of people. and the ultimate expression of that is Jesus…Jesus is that stumbling stone

What Paul is doing here is he is combining two verses out of Isaiah…One verse (Isaiah 8) that said that God will one day lay a stone in Israel that will cause people to stumble and the other verse Isaiah 28 which says that God will lay a new stone that will be a cornerstone a firm foundation…What Paul is doing is combining these two verses to say Jesus is both our firm foundation but he is this stumbling block

He is a firm foundation when you trust him for salvation

But he is a stumbling block to the Jews because there are no amount of works you need to do to be saved, you can just trust in his grace…

Why do people stumble over Jesus?

Because he kept the Torah in the purist possible way!

He didn’t care about these made up human traditions that the Rabbis were following…And this caused the religious establishment to freak out

People stumble over Jesus because: of the offer of a free salvation

it deprives them of any proprietary involvement in their own salvation…Being saved by Jesus means there are no hero stories…You don’t get to say look at me! Look at what I did…

We stumble over Jesus because…its like…Thats it…All that is required is faith? Don’t I need to do some song or dance?

We stumble over Jesus because he is all good and we have shame and how can I unload my shame on Jesus?

We stumble over Jesus because in order to fully come to him it takes releasing all of our old baggage

The salvation of Jesus deprives us of all arrogance when it comes to being saved it makes us have to say. I am nothing, look at what Jesus did for me!

And this can make us stumble!

Jesus is a stumbling block because he says come to me but leave everything behind! Leave your old way of life, leave your baggage leave your sinful past and I will make you new…and we stumble over that offer because we like what we have and we dont even realize that its all trash!

Just as much as Jesus is the firm foundation, the one whom we can put our faith in forever and not be put to shame, coming to Him means we deny ourselves…He is both the cornerstone and the stumbling block…

He is a stumbling block to the Jews because look…The whole wolrd is coming to him and they don’t even know the Torah! All of these people we spent time hating gentiles have suddenly come to faith and claimed that they are in the same heritage as the Jews

This is Paul’s segway into the current state of Israel

And before we read some selections from chapter 10 here is what I want to show you

Before Jesus, The covenant with Israel was based on circumcision, family origin and keeping the law…In other words…Outward obedience….

But now the covenant with God is based on faith

And what Paul is showing through the old testament…

Scripture foresaw that Gentiles would come to believe

Romans 10:1–3 NIV

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

See what Paul is saying here? At one point his own people stopped seeking out God’s righteousness and his standard and instead they began following their own wisdom

They literally invented their own path for righteousness

Then look what Romans 10:4 says…In my opinion this is one of the best verses in Romans 10

Romans 10:4 NIV

Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

What Paul is telling his people is look at the teachings of Jesus…

Jesus’ sermon on the mount was a correction of all the the Rabbis had done to add to the torah…He was taking the teachings back to God’s original intention!

Paul is saying that Jesus is literally the living embodiment of the Torah.

Paul is just saying what Jesus said on the sermon on the mount:

Matthew 5:17–18 NIV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

The law is not set aside but it is actually made full in Jesus!

This whole section in Chapter 9 all the way up until this point is seeking to say

Stop trying to earn what can only be received as a free gift

Some of you are here today and you needed to hear that:

You try and try and try in your walk with God

You can never achieve salvation you can only receive it!

We talk about how great the grace of God is but really we are hostile toward grace in our lives many times. Our own pride doesn't allow us to receive grace from others.

Whenever someone tries to do a nice thing for me I am always like ok…that's not right I need to do something nice for them…

Think about it…We have a general hostility toward people giving us grace when we say…I should be doing something for them…I dont need that…I could have done it on my own…

This is the stumbling block of Jesus

He died on the cross for you to give you the free gift of his grace and you just need to receive it and not achieve it! because there is nothing you can do to achieve it…

Salvation is about receiving rather than achieving

So what Paul will do is to share with the Jews what they can do to receive it!

Romans 10:9–15 NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

Paul shows them what faith looks like

If you confess with your mouth…If you believe in your heart that jesus was actually raised from the dead…Then you will be saved!

You have to understand how revolutionary this is…

To us in 21st century America we are like…yeah this is every alter call

But to the Jews forgiveness and salvation are much different

Judaism teaches that people are capable of achieving forgiveness through repentance, prayer, and good deeds

Salvation in Judaism is closely tied to the concept of covenant and Israel's special relationship with God, there is an idea of the "merit of the fathers," particularly Abraham's righteousness, is believed to benefit all of Israel

In Judaism you have to keep Torah!

But remember what Paul said in Chapter 10. Jesus is the culmination of the law!

So now Paul just says

Its about believing inwardly and confessing outwardly…

By the way I have notice that over many years of ministry I have run into people who believe inwardly but they will never be public about believing in Jesus…

don’t profess it or people who profess they believe in Jesus but their life doesn’t honor God in any way….

Paul says it’s about both

So after this in Chapter 10, Paul gives us a cocktail of Old testament verses to show us that it was always God’s plan that the gentiles would come to believe!

The reason why Paul keeps quoting old testament verses in these three chapters is because of what he said earlier: It is not as though God’s word has failed!

Romans 10:16–21 (NIV) But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, “I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.” And Isaiah boldly says, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.” But concerning Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

I love this it is a statement that God will open the door to the Gentiles. That God will save the nations

And that is happening in Paul’s time

So the question comes up….Is God done with Israel?

And this is what Paul will cover in Chapter 11

And again, only covering the 30,000 ft view so as we begin to land this plane

Even though God elected his people…he chose them…Election doesn’t mean salvation. he chose them to reveal to the world what he is like! Some of them rejected God and some were faithful!

So now Paul will use this metaphor of an olive tree to show how gentiles are in the family of God…He talks about people groups as branches and says some are broken off and some are grafted back in…\

So for the future of ISrael here is what he says?

Romans 11:17–24 NIV

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

So Paul is saying, consider how the story of the Jews and the gentiles have come together…

Jesus is the tree

Some branches have been broken off..>Why? unbelief!

and some branches were grafted in…why? because of faith! and I just want to hi light what Paul says in verse 22

Romans 11:22 NIV

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.

What Paul is reminding us of here is that our salvation is a life….It grows and diminishes!

Salvation in Jesus is a life, it grows and diminishes

Paul is reminding us look you can choose jesus then not to persist in following him…

I have seen this happen so many times…People Choose Jesus in an emotional moment and then a few years later they have fallen away…

Jesus calls this abiding with him! or resting with him…

When you invest your life in Jesus your life with him grows exponentially…But when you focus your life on everything but Jesus your faith and life with God begins to fade!

But one of the things that I love about this text is this…He does’t lose hope for his people

Romans 11:23 NIV

And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

This just sort of seems to be the MO of Jesus…It doesn’t matter where you have been or what you have done…Come back to Jesus and you will be welcomed back!

Paul wants his fellow Jews to come to faith, just like he did…he knows that the Lord is able to graft them back in again

Paul has a deep anguish for his fellow Jews to be saved

All of scripture talks about Jesus coming, about the Jews rejecting him

But there is still a chance for salvation…Not all is lost!

Response:

-Prayer Team

If you’re here and you just need to pray about anything

Key Concepts in todays sermon:

A deep anguish for those who do not believe

Salvation in Jesus is a life it grows and diminishes

The word of God does not fail

We have a team…

Romans 10:9 NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.