Oh, the Depth!
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For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
Romans
This is how we left things last week.
What an amazing revelation. Paul has just made the point that Jew and Gentile all in the same boat. Sin has captured us all. Bound us up. Shut us up.
If we listen to the world, we might get the impression that Paul ends the statement there.
Dan Brown - “our need to an external God who sits up there and judges us will get less and less” Replace with some sort of universal consciousness… So many don’t want a part in God because they don’t want to be judged. But, of course, that’s a heretical misunderstanding of God. God’s purpose is not Judgement but Mercy.
SWhy?
This verse tells us our value to God. It reminds us the SIN is made known in our lives in order that we will believe in Christ.
Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke 12
“Fear not; you are of more value...”
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah tells the exiles in Babylon that they were valuable to God. His plans were for a good end… there was a future for them. A hope.
And we know that the future they hoped for and the hope they kept wouldn’t be by their own power or effort. The promised future and hope is Jesus; for them 14 generations in the future.
What Paul wrote in , he also wrote to the Galatians:
But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke
14 generations.
But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Sin is revealed by the scripture, by the law; the disastrous effect of Sin made known. plainly says that through the law comes a knowledge of Sin.
Revealed Si
When God reveals himself, he reveals true North, His perfect nature. And we don’t measure up.
The Promise by faith is the promise of Life Everlasting in Christ. That is the future and the hope for those of us who have put all our eggs in the Christ basket. We’re all-in for Christ.
Disobedience to God - that is, SIN - truly is the great equalizer in all of history. No man can boast of anything before God. And so the Mercy of God that Paul speaks of in 11:32 is Christ. God himself come down to walk among us, live the life we have no hope of living, to die the death we deserved.
If a single sparrow is important to God, how much more so are we who he created in his own image?
For God so loved the world… Christ! That’s the answer.
And so
Faithful Obedience to God, found only in Christ, is the great Mercy of God for all mankind over all history.
And God accomplished it. From Adam to Christ, with perfect conformity to his nature and perfect conformity to his revelations of prophecy, God made his sovereign will of redemption a reality. Across 42 generations of mostly stubborn and arrogant and exceedingly disobedient people, God accomplished salvation in Christ.
This is what leads to Paul’s hymn of Praise.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Romans 11:33
Depth
God’s incomprehensibility is reflected in the word depth. It’s not that we cannot know God at all, but rather that we can never get to the bottom of who He is in His greatness.
Riches
Paul loved the thought of God’s riches:
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:12-13
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Unsearchable...
Do you rejoice in the depth of the riches of God’s grace toward you in Christ?
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
Do you rejoice in the fact that God has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ?
Do you rejoice in the fact that God has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ?
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Do you marvel that He chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world and that in love He predestined you to adoption as his child through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, freely bestowing His grace on you in the Beloved
Do you rejoice and marvel that He chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world and that in love He predestined you to adoption as his child through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed you in the Beloved?
Paul’s attitude toward God’s riches reflects that which Jesus taught:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Matthew
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls,
Matthew 13:47
We are to Lavish ourselves in the riches of God found in: Christ! [alone].
Bible is equally as clear that finding our joy and seeking fulfillment in riches according to the world will leave us empty and outside of his mercy and grace...
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Wisdom of God: Christ!
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Romans 11:33
How...
Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
We are not great section:
1 Cor 1:27-29
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
Worship!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.