Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

This morning our text is Romans 11:1-10 so you can go ahead and turn there in your Bible.

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For a couple chapters now Paul has been speaking on God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.

And he has been answering the same questions in different ways: What has happened to Israel?

By all outward appearances, Israel, the nation that God chose out of all the other nations—to be a people for Himself—has rejected the messiah that God has been pointing them to for centuries.

And Paul has been asking questions such as “Has God’s word failed?”

Or “Is God unjust” and this morning in our text we see that Paul asks, “Has God rejected His people?”

And the answers to these questions are, in Paul’s own words, “By no means!”

And he is asking these questions with two audiences in mind.

Unbelieving Israel and the rest of us.

Paul wants everyone to know that God’s word has not failed, that God is not unjust, and that He hasn’t rejected the Jewish people all together.

And to an extent Paul has already cleared up the misconception with Romans 9:6 “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,”

Even though the Jew in Jesus & Paul’s day would have said salvation belongs to the Jews by the very virtue of being Jewish this is not what the Bible has taught—they like in our day were subject to error and this is one that prevailed in their time.

But God is clear, not everyone who is called Israel is actually Israel.

It is the chosen people of God who have received grace in Jesus for salvation that are truly Israel in a salvific sense.

The main point of our text today is that God is saving Israel in the same manner by which he saves anyone else, by grace.

And towards this point Paul will give us I.

A Personal Example of Grace (1-2), II.

An Historical Example of Grace (3-4), III.

Theology of Grace (5-6), and IV.

The Opposite of Grace (7-10)

I.

A Personal Example of Grace (1-2a)

At the close of chapter 10 God says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

And Paul’s follow up to this statement is...

Romans 11:1-2a “I ask, then, has God rejected his people?

By no means!

For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew...”

Paul himself is proof that God has not wholesale rejected the people of Israel.

He reminds his readers—I myself am a Jew.

And he’s not just nominally Jewish, Paul reminds us elsewhere that He is very Jewish—zealous about his Jewishness.

About himself Paul writes in...

Philippians 3:5-6 “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

Paul’s point is that God is certainly still graciously saving the Jewish people—he is living proof.

On the road to Damascus, as Paul was going to persecute the church—Jesus saved the most Jewish guy in Israel.

And here we need to understand that just as Paul is an example to the Jews that God is extending grace to people just like them—you and I are a Paul to somebody.

There are people that you can relate to in a way that I cannot.

There are people that I can relate to in a way that you cannot.

Our stories are important.

Our stories of abuse—our stories of spiritual blindness—as well as our stories of familiarity with the church.

Our stories of poverty and our stories of a life of wealth are all important because the truth—is that people who are familiar with poverty are lost.

People who have never wanted for anything are lost.

People who have been abused—who have done the abusing—people from all walks of life are lost.

And just like Paul we can leverage our lives and our experiences with God to call other people to trust in Jesus because we are living examples that God saves people just like them.

Friends, understand that God has given you kingdom work to be doing.

Are you vocal about your faith?

Are you vocal about what God has done and is doing in your life?

And you might think that no one cares but if you are willing to proclaim the goodness of God to others He’ll bring people into your life that are interested to hear about it.

Our Mission statement at Covenant Life is that “we exist to see people radically transformed in Christ who leverage their lives for God’s glory.”

Like Paul, are you leveraging your life for God’s glory?

Are you willing to?

The great thing about gospel work is that everyone can do it!

From the youngest believer to the oldest among us—God will use you.

Do you want Him to?

In answering this question: Paul gives a personal example, himself, but he also gives...

II.

An Historical Example (2b-4)

Shifting away from himself, Paul points out.

“I’m not a special exemption either.

Look at the scriptures!”

Romans 11:2-4 “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

God has been saving his elect people in this same way all along throughout Israel’s history.

He continues

Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?

In 1 Kings, King Ahab marries Jezebel, a princess of Tyre.

And she leads Ahab away from worship of God and into the worship of a false God named Baal.

And Ahab leads Israel to follow in his sin.

Baal worship is rampant throughout Israel and Israel rejects God’s command to them given through Moses.

Exodus 20:1-3 “And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

There are temples and places of worship to Baal all over Israel and this causes Elijah great despair.

He says,

Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.”

But what is God’s reply to him?

“I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.””

Paul’s point here is that this is not the first time in Israel’s history that they have rejected God.

They’ve done it in the past.

And even though Paul cites 1 Kings here there are many places that he could have gone to make this point.

Because Israel, many times rejected their God.

The entire book of Judges is story after story of Israel, God’s people, rejecting Him and “doing what was right in their own eyes.”

But where people are unfaithful God is faithful…and this is the point that God makes to Elijah.

“I have kept for myself 7000 men who have not worshipped the false God Baal.”

You thought you were alone—you thought that My word has failed?

You thought that I had rejected my people?!

No I have kept a remnant of the people for myself.

Paul’s point is that just as God did in Elijah’s day—God has done in their day —and friends we can be certain that God is still doing it in this day.

God is keeping for himself a faithful people and this includes people from Israel.

But don’t miss the wording.

Notice what God didn’t say.

He didn’t say, “7000 have kept themselves.”

God says I have kept them.

I have called them and sustained them.

Paul is saying, “Nothing has really changed.”

What is the difference between the unbelieving person in Israel during Elijah’s time and the believing person now.