Sermon Tone Analysis

I Am Not Ashamed: Anguish Over the Lost

Text: Romans 9:1-5

Theme: Do we experience the same anguish over lost people that the Apostle Paul did?

Date: 10/09/2016 File name: Romans_2016_27.wpd

ID Number:

As we arrive at Romans chapter nine, we come to the next big section of Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome.

Chapter’s nine through eleven are the deep end of the pool.

In these chapters the Apostle is going to give us some of his most intense, concentrated, and challenging argument about the nature of salvation, and in particular the salvation of the Jews.

He’s going to help us understand the “big picture” of God’s redemptive work in the world.

He’s going to begin by pouring out his heart over Israel’s lostness.

I. PAUL’S ACUTE PROBLEM WITH ISRAEL

“I speak the truth in Christ— I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— .”

(Romans 9:1, NIV84)

1. the Apostle begins this section of his letter with a serious and sobering affirmation

a. when Paul wants to assert the gravity of what he is about to say, he affirms it by an oath

b.

Jesus taught that no oath is ever to be taken lightly, and that men will be held accountable for the veracity and the consistency with which they handle vows and oaths

1) Eccl.

5:5 says that it is better not to vow, than to make one and not fulfill it

c.

so what Paul is about to say is of extreme importance

1) the Apostle is confessing to his readers, “I swear to you that I am a burdened man, that I walk around with great sorrow and with a constant sense of grief in my heart.

I’m not lying about this.”

2) this is the apostle who is always placing great stress on the importance of rejoicing in the Christian life

3) yet he is a man with constant pain and continual grief

2. and what he is about to say causes him great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart

A. ISRAEL HAS REJECTED HER MESSIAH

1. the apostle is dealing with one of the most significant theological challenges that faced the early church

a. it remains a great challenge even for us

b. why have the Jews,— God’s chosen people— rejected their Messiah?

1) how is it that the vast majority of Jews over the course of the last two millennia have rejected the One whom their Prophets pointed to?

2) how does any Jew read Isaiah 53 and not wonder “Who is this speaking of?”

a) and then, if they would read the Gospels, they would know exactly who it is speaking of!

3) how is it that Jesus would “come into his own and his own would receive him not?”

2. this is the Apostle’s acute problem as he writes this letter to the Christians at Rome

a. Israel has, by and large, rejected her Messiah

1) Paul has understood it, Peter, and Andrew and James and John have understood it, 3,000 on the day of Pentecost have understood it, thousands of other Jews have understood it ... why can’t the whole nation understand it?

b. they rejected an imputed righteousness for a works righteousness

“What then shall we say?

That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.

32 Why not?

Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works.

They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.”

33 As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” 1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.”

(Romans 9:30–10:1, NIV84)

1) Israel, the Apostle writes, was pursuing righteousness

a) everything in their Scriptures pointed to the holiness of God, and God’s desire for them to be a holy people

b) they are pursuing righteousness— they are focused on it like a laser beam, they are going after it with intense effort

c) Paul informs us, however, that they have not attained it ... and why not

2) because they pursued righteousness by works and not by faith

a) the spiritual leaders taught the people that they really could work their way into God’s good graces

B. ISRAEL HAS STUMBLED OVER THE DIVINITY OF THEIR MESSIAH

1. in explaining Israel’s rejection of her Messiah, the Apostle quotes from Isaiah 8:14

"See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall ... “

a. as Paul explicitly establishes earlier in this letter, Abraham, “the father of all who believe,” was saved by his faith, which God “reckoned as righteousness”—

1) God did this long before He required the rite of circumcision, and long before He gave His law through Moses (Rom.

4:1–11)

b. despite their being called as God’s chosen people and their having received His divine revelation through Moses, the psalmists, the prophets, and other inspired men of God, the Jews were no more naturally inclined to seek or to obey God than were most pagan Gentiles

II.

PAUL’S ANGUISH OVER ISRAEL

“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race,” (Romans 9:2–3, NIV84)

1. with striking intensity Paul reveals his burdened heart in vs. 2

a. even though Paul considered himself the apostle to the Gentiles, his own people were never far from his heart

1) wherever he traveled on his missionary journeys he always began by going to the local Jewish synagogues and telling them about Jesus

2) he often gained a handful of converts, but usually caused an uproar, and was cast out, and frequently attacked

“Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.

25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, ... ,” (2 Corinthians 11:24–25, NIV84)

b. five hundred years earlier Jeremiah— known as the weeping prophet— also lamented over Israel’s unbelief

“Hear and pay attention, do not be arrogant, for the LORD has spoken.

16 Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills.

You hope for light, but he will turn it to thick darkness and change it to deep gloom.

17 But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly, overflowing with tears, because the LORD’s flock will be taken captive.”

(Jeremiah 13:15–17, NIV84)

c. like Jeremiah, the Apostle Paul laments over Israel’s lostness— it’s breaking his heart

2. if the apostle has already come on strong, he goes over the edge in vs. 3

a. he is willing to experience the ultimate anathema— the final act of excommunication from God himself, for his brethren

b.

Paul is saying, “If I could suffer damnation instead of my kinsmen according to the flesh, I would do it.”

3. but of course, Paul could not be cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his people for the simply fact that he’s just told us in Romans 8:39 that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord

III.

PAUL’S ANALYSIS OF ISRAEL

1. in vs. 4- 5 Paul lists several nine advantages of the Jews as God's chosen nation that makes their rejection of the Messiah all the more tragic

A. THEY WERE ISRAELITES

1. here Paul identifies them with Jacob— as those who had been born into a promise

a. Jacob, if you remember, was the younger of twin boys born to Isaac

1) his name means Trickster, and is an apt description of his character

2) he spends much of his adult life, deceiving those around him in order to get what he wants

3) after tricking his brother Esau out of his birthright and deceiving his father to get his blessing he flees

b. upon his return to the land of Canaan many years later, he gets into a wrestling match with the Angle of the Lord, and loses, but God changes his name to Israel

2. his descendants become the nation of Israel and their name— Israelites— means the God ruled ones

3. their rejection of the Messiah all the more tragic because they are the God ruled ones

B. THEIRS IS THE ADOPTION AS SONS

1. God had sovereignly selected Israel to be his Chosen People

a. God commanded Moses to “say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Israel is My son, My firstborn” ’ ” (Ex.

4:22)

b. through Hosea, the Lord declared that “when Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son” (Hos.

11:1)

2. the Old Testament does not refer to God as the Father of individual Jews— in the way the New Testament does of God as Father of individual Christians— but as the Father of the nation

a. this is why the Jewish leaders were so incensed when Jesus referred to God as his Father in a personal way

3. their rejection of the Messiah all the more tragic because they have been sovereignly selected by God as sons

C. THEIRS IS THE DIVINE GLORY

1. literally theirs is the splendor of God’s divine presence