Romans

Scripture Texts: Romans 12:1-2

Let’s begin by dispensing with the pastor’s cliché, whenever you see a therefore in Scripture stop and ask what is it there for?  But actually this therefore is one of the biggest and most important in all of Scripture.  It deserves careful consideration.

Therefore means Paul is not coming out of nowhere to say what he is about to say.  Therefore means what Paul is about to say is rooted and grounded in something that was said before.

For 11 chapters Paul deep dived into the doctrines of divine grace, into the fountains of God’s wrath and God’s mercy.  He revealed to us the profound joy of forgiveness and justification by grace through faith in the blood of Jesus.  He lifted us up to the status of adopted sons sharing the inheritance of Jesus, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Paul brought to light the mysteries of God’s sovereignty over election and His purposes for Jews and Gentiles, making us to consider the severity of God and the kindness of God.  All of that led to a crescendo of praise and worship at the end of chapter eleven.

Now in chapter 12 Paul makes a great pivot, a change of direction, an entirely new emphasis.

We are not just saved from wrath on unrighteousness, from sin and Satan and death and hell.

We are not just justified and saved by grace through faith in righteousness of Christ.

We are also saved for something.  That something is the subject of Romans 12-15.

This is the practical application of all the theology and doctrine.  A common criticism of reformed type people, people baptized in the waters of reformed theology and doctrines of grace, is they have lots of head knowledge, but not enough heart response.  We are imbalanced.

Scripture Texts: Romans 11:33-36

Introduction.

I love big endings, grand finales, like the last big burst on Fourth of July.  I love crescendo moments.  Like a glorious sunset or the aurora borealis we have been having the past week.  Like the intensity of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.  Like graduation ceremonies.

Crescendos are crescendos because there is a gradual build-up of intensity and loudness, that culminates in a powerful and unforgettable climax.

Romans 11:33-36 is one of those crescendo moments in Scripture.  Paul has several in this letters.  They are even more powerful and profound when you consider how personal they are, deep expressions of Paul’s inner spiritual life.

Scripture Texts: Romans 11:24-32

Introduction.

This morning we come to the end of this challenging bridge section of Romans, chapters 9 to 11.  There is one more paragraph in chapter 11 but it is really the conclusion of the first 11 chapters of Romans.

Our text this morning is the conclusion of Paul’s wrestling with God’s ways with the Jews.

Remember at the beginning of chapter 9 Paul was in great sorrow and deep anguish in his soul for his brothers, his kinsman, the Jews.  He wished himself damned for the sake of their salvation.  They were heirs to all the promises and gifts of God but not all Israel is Israel.

Then in the beginning of chapter 10 he pours out his heart’s desire and prayer again that they be saved.  He laments that the Jews sought to establish a righteousness of their own, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God by faith.

Then in chapter 11 he raises questions, has God rejected His people, have they stumbled to the point of being utterly lost?  Are they cut off forever from their olive tree?  Have they been replaced by the Gentiles?

Now Paul brings this to a conclusion by revealing the mystery to God.

Scripture Texts: Romans 11:19-24

Introduction.

If you want to know how muddled people’s thinking about God is these days, just ask them who is God and what is He like?  How do they think about God?  It will stagger the imagination.  Everyone has their own pre-conceived ideas of what God is like.

Their ideas are shaped by individual experiences, personal struggles, cultural influences.  Satan works overtime to cloud our minds with lies about God.

Most of modern culture rejects any notion of God as a God of divine wrath and judgment.  Some imagine Him to be a great, wise old grandfatherly type figure.  Others go with a Charlton Heston type man.  I am sure you have noticed the modern God is a God of love, peace, tolerance and forgiveness.  He is completely benevolent and indulgent.  A celestial Santa Claus.

Santa Claus theology says sin is no big deal and atonement is unnecessary.  God’s kindness extends just as much to those who completely ignore Him and disregard His commands as to those who love and obey Him.

People will say, “The God I worship is a God of love, He would never send anyone to hell.  I believe in a God who is loving, merciful, forgiving.  I don’t like to think of God as Judge but more as a Father.”

Most of the time when someone starts talking about the kind of God they believe in or worship, they are at the same time denying something else the Bible says about God.  We are not free to think of God however we like or imagine.

At the very best these images or thoughts are only of a man, maybe the ideal man, but a man nevertheless.  God is not like any man.  We are made in His image, He is not made in our image.

It is the duty of everyone to know God, and to know God only as God has revealed Himself.  We can’t cherry pick attributes and characteristics of God.  It is pride, arrogance and presumptuous to say what we think God is like without turning to His Word.

Scripture Texts: Romans 11:11-24

Introduction.

It is interesting to consider God has ordained that we are thinking about Romans 11 and the relationship between Jews and Christians at this time in our history, at a time when there is a rise in anti-Semitism.  Keep that thought in the back of your mind as we work through our text.

I am sure you are aware Paul is being repetitiously repetitive in chapters 9-11.  Why do you think Paul is saying these things over and over again?  The first answer is the Holy Spirit inspired him to write these things over and over again.  OK, so why did the Spirit do that?

In chapter 11 of Romans Paul is wrestling with two great issues in the early church that were a big deal and a hard truth to grasp.

The scandal of the Jews absence from the church, the scandal of the Jews rejection of the Gospel, and God’s rejection of God’s people after two thousand years.

And the scandal of the presence of the Gentiles in the church.  The cutting off of the Jews and the grafting in of the Gentiles.

The great tension in the early church was racism.  The Church was divided, between Jews and Gentiles.  The first and biggest controversy facing the early church after Pentecost was what to do with the Gentiles.  The first big synod meeting of the early church was about what to do with Gentile converts to Christianity.  The early church had an immigration problem and it was racial.

The Jews hated Gentiles, they couldn’t stand them.  They were filthy, dirty, smelly, unclean.  They referred to them with a derogatory word, the uncircumcised.  They ate unclean food, their temples were filled with sexual immorality, they sacrifice their children (sort of first century abortion).  The early Jewish Christians said the only way a Gentile could become a Christian was to become circumcised and to follow Jewish laws and practices.

But as the church grew and spread, the next scandal was what to make of the absence of the Jews from the church, especially in the church in Rome.  The Gentiles were worshipping a Jewish Messiah, so where were the Jews?  Why weren’t they coming to church?  Paul has to explain this to the church in Rome.  The answer has two parts.

First, the Jews rejected Jesus.  They denied that Jesus was the Messiah and they killed Him.

One of the scariest verses in the Bible is when the Jews were demanding Pilate crucify Jesus, even though Pilate found Him innocent.  So Pilate called for a basin of water and

Matthew 27:24-25 He took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” 25 And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

His blood be on us and on our children!  They called down damnation on themselves and their children, on future generations.  Do we not tremble over those words?  They killed the Son of God, a shocking, earth shattering sin.

Scripture Texts: Romans 11:1-10

We are still dealing with the question raised by Paul at the beginning of chapter nine.  If nothing can separate us from the love of God and if God foreknew and predestined and called, then why isn’t Israel in the church, why aren’t God’s people receiving the Gospel?

The scandal of NT church was the absence of the Jews.  Why aren’t God’s people among God’s people?  Add to this scandal who is present, the filthy Gentiles.  That is how chapter 10 ended.

Romans 10:20-21 “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” 21 But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

At the beginning of chapter 11 Paul asks the question again, that is on the minds of early Christians, “Has God rejected His people?”  Has God failed to keep His promises to the Jews?

If the Jews rejected Jesus, how is this not a failure on God’s part?  And the next question is more personal and relevant, if God failed His own chosen people, then what is to say He might not or won’t fail us?  If God cannot be trusted to keep His promises, then the world is in deep trouble and so are we.

“Has God rejected His people?”  vss. 1-6.

By no means.  Paul gives three reasons why there can be unbelief among the people of God and God can still be faithful to His promises.

The Paul reason, vs. 1.

The Elijah reason, vss. 2-4.

The Grace reason, vss. 5-6.

Scripture Texts: Romans 10:8-13

Prayer: Holy Father, glorify your Son in our hearts and minds through the proclamation of your Holy Word.  Preach the truth of the Gospel to our hearts.  Grant us a fresh vision of your glory.  And merciful Father, grant to me now thought and expression that is worthy of the clarity and excellency of your Word.  In the name of Jesus our risen Savior and Lord.  Amen.

Introduction.

We all like stories of a good vindication, stories of good triumphing over evil, stories of great wrongs being righted, accusations of guilt proven false.  The triumph of truth and justice.

For a couple of months now we have been missing a set of keys for our van.  That is the vehicle Phama drives the most, and this has happened before.  So I had been gently encouraging her to search some more, check coat pockets, purses, wherever.  Last week I found the keys in the bottom of my computer bag.  She enjoyed a sweet vindication.  We love a good vindication.

History recounts some great vindications.  Sadly for Galileo, his vindication didn’t come until 350 years after his death.  In the 1600s the Catholic Church declared him a heretic for saying the sun was the center of the solar system, contradicting the earth-centric teachings of the church.  In 1992 the Catholic Church formally acknowledged its error and vindicated Galileo.

More recently Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned for 27 years for opposing apartheid in South Africa.  In 1990 he was released, and four years later became South Africa’s first Black president and received global acclaim as a peacemaker and unifying leader.

The Bible is full of great stories of vindication.  Joseph was vindicated before his brothers for those grand dreams he told them as a young boy.  He went from the status of the favored son to that of a slave, to that of prime minister of all Egypt, who would save his people.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were vindicated when God spared them in the fiery furnace.  Daniel was vindicated when God shut up the mouths of the lions.  His accusers were punished, and the king glorified God.

Of course all of these stories and every other example in human history pale in significance to the greatest vindication of all, the ultimate vindication when God raised Jesus from the dead.

Download Sermon Notes

Scripture Texts: Romans 10:13-21

We have been talking about the sovereignty of God and how He uses it to accomplish His purposes.  Don’t miss the takeaway in all of this.  God is using His sovereignty to save the world, to save sinners.  God sovereignly sent His Son into the world to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Don’t lose sight of this.

Without the sovereignty of God we would not believe, we would not come to faith, we would not endure and persevere to the end.  We would not be saved.  This is what God is sovereignly purposing to do in your life.

Our text speaks to how God is doing that.

Scripture Texts: Romans 10:5-13

Introduction.

In chapters nine and ten of Paul’s letter to the Christians in the church in Rome, he is talking about salvation.  He presents it as a coin with two sides.  One coin, two sides.

In chapter nine Paul focused on God’s sovereignty over our salvation.  God is God and God choses according to the pleasure of His own will.  Chapter nine can be summed up in verse 18: “He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”

In chapter ten Paul turns the coin over and focuses on man’s role in his salvation and his responsibility to believe in God.  Chapter ten can be summed up in verse 13: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Some try to say this is a contradiction.  But it is not, it is a paradox.  A paradox is something that on the surface appears to be a contradiction, but in reality it is not.  The reason it seems like a contradiction is because of our limited human understanding and perspective.

I can give you several examples of seemingly contradictory truths that we hold together as two sides of the same coin.

The nature of God as Trinity.  God is both one and three.  One God in three persons.  How?  That is the mystery, but we know both are true.  It is to be believed even if we can’t fully understand it.

The nature of Jesus.  Jesus is both fully God and fully man.  How?  Another mystery, but Scripture teaches both and holds both equally together as true.

The nature of the Bible.  The Bible is both fully divine and fully human.  God breathed through human authors.

The nature of salvation.  God is sovereign over all things, and we are free moral agents who are responsible for our choices and decisions.  Israel failed not because God failed, but because they failed to put their faith in Jesus.

Scripture Texts: Romans 9:30 – 10:4

Introduction.

Until now in Romans 9 the Apostle Paul has been addressing the Jew/Gentile issue from the perspective of heaven, from the divine point of view.  He has talked about God’s choosing, about God’s election from before the foundation of the world, about God’s plan and purposeful decision to choose Isaac and not Ishmael, Jacob and not Esau, the children of the promise and not the children of the flesh, vessels of mercy and not vessels of wrath.

Now Paul is going to end this chapter looking at these things from an earthly or human perspective.  We are turning from the initiative of God to the response of human beings, from the perspective of the sovereignty of God to that of the responsibility of man.  Both are true, both are taught in Scripture.

We are shifting from the sun at the center of the solar system exerting the powerful force of gravity, to the planets’ response to that gravity.

There are people who are seeking God and don’t find Him.

There are people who are not seeking God and do find Him.

Both these contrasting actions are considered from below, from the perspective of the attitudes and actions of men, the Jews rejecting Christ, and the Gentiles receiving Christ.

Scripture Texts: Romans 9:24-29

We have been working our way through this challenging chapter nine in Paul’s letter to the Christians in the church in Rome, a racially and ethnically mixed congregation of Jews and Gentiles.  If we could get ourselves into the minds of those Christians we would find this chapter a scandal to the Jews and a comfort to the Gentiles.

Vss. 24-26

First, Paul scandalized the Jews by saying not all Israel is Israel, not all the children of Abraham are true offspring.  Then, he doubled down and quoted God saying, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”  Then he said God has mercy on whom He choses to have mercy, on some but not others.

And now if all of that is not enough, what if God choosing to display His glory made vessels of mercy not out of the Jews but out of the Gentiles?  Say it ain’t so?  No way.  Impossible.

The Jews despised the Gentiles, that vast pagan horde, that uncircumcised, unclean, unbelieving, irreligious, law breaking, Sabbath breaking, idolatrous people.

In those days, if a Gentile became a God-fearer, a God-worshipper he was still a second class citizen and could only go into the court of the Gentiles.  He couldn’t get any closer to the Temple than that.

It is hard for us to enter into the scandal of God choosing to include Gentiles in the vessels of mercy.  And on top of that, there would only be a remnant of the Jews saved because the majority rejected their own Messiah, they denied Jesus.

To support this scandalous proclamation Paul turned to the OT prophets and quoted Hosea twice and Isaiah twice.  In other words, this should not have come as a surprise, it was right there in the Bible all along.  The glorious truth is the failure of the Jews and the inclusion of the Gentiles was always part of God’s plan to extend His salvation to the likes of Gentiles, to us.

Why did God harden so many of the Jews?  So that the Gospel would overflow to the Gentiles who would become objects of mercy and experience the riches of God’s glory and grace.  That the whole world would know the riches of the glory of God.

Download Sermon Notes

Scripture Texts: Romans 9:13-24

You can tell by the questions asked and objections raised these words were a stumbling block to the Christians in Rome.  And they have been for Christians all the way to today.  Frankly we are kind of embarrassed by these words.  They don’t seem helpful to us especially when we want to witness to unbelievers.  We like to skip over this chapter.

Have you ever asked why this chapter is in the Bible?  Is this really necessary?  Why do you think God put these hard truths in Scripture?  This is in Scripture because God thinks we need it.  He wants us to know this about Him.

God knows our tendency to want to make Him in our own image.  We want to create our own designer God, and the God we would design would not say things like this.  You have heard people say, “Well my God would never be angry or have wrath or be unfair.  My God would never say, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.  My God would save everyone.  That’s my God.”

God is not embarrassed about Himself, and He wants us to know Him as He truly is and to see the glory of His character and nature and ways.

We are in the middle of Romans 9, a chapter in which the Apostle Paul is explaining how in the world God could break His promise to His covenant children, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and turn his back on them and instead give the fulfillment of His promise to the unpromised, uncircumcised, uncovenanted dirty Gentiles.  This is scandalous, how could God break His Word?  But as it turns out Paul’s answer is even more scandalous.  Not all Israel is Israel.

Download Sermon Notes