We are back Roaming Through Romans.  This morning we are at Romans 9 - which is the first part of the next section of Romans - Romans 9 to 11.  In this next section of Romans Paul is going to focus on the sovereignty of God and what it means for us to live life with the God who is sovereign over everything - including... us.

Many of you know that one of the difficult ongoing concerns in my life for the last several years is my mom.  It wasn’t too long after my dad died in 2003 that we found out that mom has Alzheimer’s.  Mom is now at a stage where she really doesn’t know who I am.  Some days are better than others but she pretty much sits all day and isn’t really all there.  Which is really hard - really hard - to process.  Where is the sovereign God in that?

Like many of you we have ongoing difficult - sometimes painful - situations in our family that probably won’t be resolved.  We also have loved ones that don’t know the Lord and based on our understanding of what God says in His word they’ll probably spend eternity in Hell.  And with all that there are illnesses and just the hard stuff of life.  And we ask where is the sovereign God in all that?

This is true.  Isn’t it?  As we go through life there are questions that we have no answers to.  And yet in some sense we “get” that God is sovereign and we’re called to trust Him.  But that isn’t always easy for us. 

Paul is dealing with God’s sovereignty over what God is doing in human history.  Which touches the reality of God’s sovereignty in what’s going on around us and in our lives.

Coming to verses 1 to 5 - Paul shares with us his passion - Paul’s Passion for his people.

Read with me verses 1 to 5 and then we’ll go back and unpack.

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.  For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.  They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.  To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever.  Amen.

Paul begins with an oath.  With Jesus as my witness I’m not lying.  This is the true reality of what’s going on deep within me.  Heart level great sorrow.  Unceasing anguish.  That’s passion. 

People in the ancient world - as are many people today - people are living lives without purpose.  Living hopeless - fearful.  People bound by the weight of their own inadequacies.  People in the ancient world lived in fear of their god or gods.  They made horrendous sacrifices.  And still they lived in fear and uncertainty.  Not much changes.

Out of all the ancient peoples on the earth God chooses to call into being the people of Israel.  Forms them into a nation.  Chooses them to be His chosen instrument to tell mankind that He loves them.  That He cares about them. 

Here in verses 4 and 5 Paul lists some incredible unique privileges of the Jews because they’ve been chosen by God.  They’re adopted by God - chosen by God to be His people.  To them belongs the glory.  Meaning they’ve seen the visible splendor of God.  Think Mount Sinai and the glory of God entering the Tabernacle or the Temple.  They received the covenants - what God had promised to them through the Patriarchs.  There’s a unique relationship that God has chosen to have with His people.

They were given the law - instructions on how to live rightly in relationship with God.  Given worship - Temple service centered around the coming Lamb of God - Jesus.  Given the promises.  Promises unique to Israel and of the coming Messiah.  They’re given the great patriarchs who walked with God - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve sons - all Hebrew.

For two thousand years, or so, of Hebrew history, Israel had been God’s chosen instrument to declare to mankind that God loves us.  Through that chosen instrument - Israel - God enters into humanity.  A Jewish baby is born - Immanuel - God with us.  Jesus - the Israelite - lives among mankind and dies for us.  And lives - resurrected - giving us certain hope of our eternity with God.  God’s gracious answer to our deepest need that each of us has the opportunity to respond to by faith.

Paul - who is a Jew - one of God’s chosen Hebrew people - comes to a personal understanding of that reality - that good news.  Paul’s passionate desire is for others - Jews and Gentiles - to understand that good news and by faith to receive for themselves what God has done for them in Jesus.

Which is a huge part of why Paul is writing Romans.  Paul's passion that others - Jew and Gentile - understand that good news and by faith receive for themselves what God has done for them in Jesus.

In the first 2½ chapters of Romans, Paul has laid out the depravity and horror and grim reality of where mankind is apart from God.  We’re guilty.  Hopeless.  Lost in sin.  Living under the wrath of God.  Desperate to be made right with God.

Then Paul goes on to explain about Jesus’ coming into humanity - becoming the bearer of our sins.  Our sins being placed on Jesus on the cross.  His undeserved sacrifice on our behalf.  Jesus dealing with whatever needs to be dealt with in our relationship with God.

So that, when we come to believe and receive Jesus as the Savior - our Savior - God declares us “not guilty” - justified - just as if we’d never sinned.  God’s grace is applied to our lives.  God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.

Meaning that the power of sin over us has been broken so that we are set free.  Free from hopelessness and fear.  Death no longer has a grip on us.  We don’t need to worry about the guilt of the past.  We have a certain future with God forever.

Then in chapters 6 to 8 Paul focuses on God’s ongoing work in our lives.  The process that God takes us through as we respond to God’s grace in the daily choices we make.  As we choose to turn towards God, God patiently hangs in there with us - matures us in our relationship with Him - walks with us through the hard stuff of life. 

Paul’s passionate heart level desire is for his own Jewish people to also understand and respond favorably to that good news.  Traveling around the Roman world.  Traveling from synagogue to synagogue.  Sharing from God’s word - the Hebrew’s own God given Scriptures - about God’s love - God’s grace - their need to respond by faith.  What Paul has been step-by-step laying out for them - for us - here in this letter to the Roman church - and in all of his writings.  Our need.  God’s response.  Our choice.

With all that God has blessed His people with, the very people that God had chosen to reveal His good news to the world through - the Jews had rejected their Messiah.  The Jews responded to Paul with accusations - beatings - torture - hatred - rejection.

We’re seeing in these first few verses Paul’s heart for his people.  At the core of who he is - great sorrow - unceasing anguish.  And this statement:  “If I could I would endure Hell - being cut off forever from Jesus - eternal damnation and torment - if only my kinsman in the flesh - ethnic Israel - would come to faith in Messiah Jesus.”

That passion touches the same depth of passion that Jesus went to the cross with on our behalf.  The heart of God breaking for those who reject Him. 

Which is convicting.  Isn’t it?  Should be. 

We can care deeply about people we love.  To some degree we may have the same kind of pain and passion that Paul is writing about.  But that depth of love we just don’t have.

Anyone here able to go there?  Anyone here willing to go to Hell forever for someone else in this room?  Or someone who passionately hates you?  Has beaten you?  Deeply wounded you? 

That’s Paul passion.  Knowing the consequences of their rejection.  Paul’s heart breaking because his fellow Jews have rejected their Messiah. 

Then going on to verses 6 to 18 - Paul is going to deal with the question:  What About Israel? 

Israel rejects their Messiah.  What is heart-wrenchingly tragic because of the foreseen consequences.  So God - who is sovereign moves the Jews off the center stage of what He - God - is doing in world history.  God is raising up a new people - not ethnic Israel - not the nation of Israel - even Gentiles.  God raising up those who are - by faith - believers in the gospel - in Jesus.  These who testify of Him.

Which brings up a question:  So, what about Israel?

If God is sovereign how is that Israel has rejected her Messiah and God seemingly has gone along with that?  What about all those promises that God made Israel - His chosen people?  What about the covenants with the Patriarchs?  How can God just toss Israel aside?  Sorry guys.  Tough luck. 

Which might raise a few questions that Paul’s readers - and us - might have about God.  What in the universe God might be doing and why?  If nothing can separate us from the love of God - what Paul tells us in chapter 8 - then how is it we seemingly might be so easily tossed aside by God.  Is God really consistent and just and worthy of our trust?  What about Israel?  What about us? 

What about all the crud we go through in life?  Where the rubber meets the road - God’s sovereignty intersecting the unanswered questions of our lives.  What are we suppose to think when we question God about what goes on and what God is doing or not?  “Where is God in all this?”  “Is this really God’s will for me?”  “Why doesn’t God step in and do something about this?”  “Can I really trust God with this?”    

Read with me verses 6 to 13:  But it is not as though the word has failed.  For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”  This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.  For this is what the promise said:  “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”  And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of Him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”  As it is written, “Jacob I love, but Esau I hated.”

Question:  What about Israel?  What about us?  Paul’s point here is that God Makes Choices.  Let’s unpack that.

Paul is going back to something he touched on in chapter two that there have always been two Israels.

One Israel is the physical descendants of Abraham.  Those who are Jews outwardly - physically ethnically Israel - circumcised in the flesh.

Israel number two are those who are Abraham’s spiritual descendants.  Those who are Jews inwardly - spiritually - circumcised in the heart.

Here in in chapter 9 Paul gives us examples of what he means by that.

God chooses Abraham.  God calls Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and brings him into what today is the land of Israel.  God chooses to promise Abraham a son and that God was going to work through that son.  We’re together?

Abraham and Sarah get old.  Sarah is well passed the age of being able to bear children.  God chooses to reject Abraham’s efforts at having descendants - Eliezer of Damascus - Hagar and Ishmael.  God chooses to make it possible for Sarah to have children.  God chooses Isaac born of Sarah - not Eliezer - not Ishmael - but chooses Isaac to be the one that God will work through to bring His gospel to the nations.

What is all about how God choosing to work to fulfill His promise - not Abraham at work to accomplish all that through his own flesh and blood efforts.

Isaac marries Rebekah.  She gives birth to two boys.  Esau is the first born.  The inheritor apparent.  The inheritor of the privilege and promises.  But even before the boys are born - before they do anything of the flesh - good or bad - before they’re born God chooses Jacob - son #2.  God chooses to work through Jacob.  The older will serve the younger.

“Jacob I love, but Esau I hate” is a Hebrew idiom about preference not hatred.  Meaning that God’s love for Jacob - His choosing of Jacob over Esau is so unexpectedly odd - so non PC - that it appears that God actually hates Esau.  But the point is that God made a choice.   

What Paul is saying in these verses is that God makes choices.

God has chosen to make a promise to Abraham - chosen to make a promise to Israel - those who will be spiritually descended from Abraham.  Chooses to make promises to us.  That promise isn’t fulfilled because of the works of the flesh - what Abraham or ethnic Israel or we ourselves might do - physical circumcision and all that. 

But God has chosen to make a promise to those who are spiritually descended from Abraham - circumcision of the heart.  And it’s God’s choice as to how He will fulfill His promise.  Which God is doing - even messing with pregnancies and birth order.

Has God’s word failed?  Verse 6.  Has God failed to fulfill His promise because God has moved Israel off center stage and Gentiles are coming to Christ?  Nope.  God is doing what God said God would do.  He’s just choosing to do it the way He - God - chooses to do it.  Because God makes choices.

Coming to verses 14 to 18 - Paul goes on - his point is that God’s choices are about God.

Let’s read together starting at verse 14:  What shall we say then?  Is there injustice on God’s part?  By no means!  For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”  So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.  For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”  So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills.

Paul asks a great question.  God is making all these choices - God messing with people’s lives and destinies.  Or how we look physically or what we deal with physically or what family we’re born into or what country.  God messing with our lives.  Is God being cruel?  Arbitrary?  Unfair?  Is God unjust? 

What Paul is getting at here is that our question about justice misses the point.  God is doing what God is doing - God’s work of salvation isn’t about justice but about God’s compassion on us - His mercy.

Compassion and mercy don’t originate in our hearts - coming from our sense of self-centered justice.  Mercy and compassion don’t come from us.  They come from God.

Mercy is what?  Not getting what we deserve.  If we got justice - what we deserve - we’re toast - tormented and punished forever - separated from God forever.  But God’s promise - what God is working to accomplish - is about mercy.  God having compassion on us in the midst of our spiritual depravity.

God’s choices are about God - His will and purposes - His choosing to be compassionate and merciful - and not our sense of justice. 

Paul gives us the illustration of how God brought Israel out of Egypt.  An illustration that God uses over and over again in the Old Testament to illustrate His saving work on behalf of individuals who will trust Him.  Not because they - or we deserve it - but because God - who is compassionate - chooses to be merciful.

Paul illustrates all that by reminding us about two very different men - Moses and Pharaoh.  We know how this goes.  Right?

Moses comes in to Pharaoh.  “Thus says God, ‘Let My people go.’”  Pharaoh says “No.”  God sends a plague.  Pharaoh relents.  Then changes his mind.  God sends another plague.  Pharaoh relents - changes his mind - another plague - relents - reneges - plague - till we get to the mother of all judgments - or salvations depending on our perspective - the Passover.  What is a set-up for Jesus’ death on our behalf.

Then Israel - God’s people - leave Egypt with parting gifts.  An illustration of what God has done and will do for us.

Paul reminds us that God - in all that is messing with Pharaoh’s heart - God hardening the emotional arteries - so that each time Pharaoh hardens his heart and goes against God - God takes out another Egyptian God - humbles Egypt and Pharaoh - God choosing to display His sovereignty in judgment on Pharaoh and Egypt and His mercy on His - God’s - chosen people.  Which has nothing to do with what Pharaoh wills or works or Moses wills or works or even Israel wills or works but everything to do with what God chooses to do.

Are we together with Paul?  What about Israel?  Answer:  God’s choices are about what God chooses to do.

God has the right to show mercy on whomever He chooses to show mercy to - or not - to harden the heart of whomever He wills to harden the heart of.  To work His plan and purpose of redemption in human history - even bringing salvation to His people however He chooses to do that.

If God - in His sovereignty chooses to move Israel off center stage - however that all comes about - then God is still doing what God says He will do because God chooses to do whatever God wills to do which has nothing to do with what we think God should do or how we think God should do it but it has everything to do with God who will accomplish His purposes - His promises - without fail - regardless of whether we “get it” or understand whatever it is that God is doing.

Going on to verses 19 to 29.  Another question comes up.  Read verse 19 with me and let’s get the question clear in our mind:  You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault?  For who can resist His will?” 

Isn’t that a great question?  How can God find fault? 

If God created us and God is sovereign and making choices about how we respond to things - hardening hearts and all - meaning that no one can resist what God wills - meaning we don’t have choice in the matter - then how can it be just that come judgment day God sends some people to hell and others to heaven?  How can God find fault - judge and condemn people - that God has sovereignly irresistibly exerted His will upon?

Great question.  Isn’t it?

Some get saved and others don’t.  Jews get moved off of center stage.  Gentiles get moved on.  How can God condemn ethnic Israel when it’s God who’s making the choices?  What gives God the right to do that?  How can I believe in a God who sends people to Hell? 

Let’s read on - verse 20:  But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?  Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”  Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 

Let’s pause and unpack.

Notice that Paul never really answers the question.  Question:  What gives God the right to find fault with anyone - even us?

Answer:  Who are you?  Meaning that what is more crucial than answering the question - what is more helpful for us is to deal with the attitude behind the question. 

Paul isn’t trying to duck the question or silence people who sincerely have questions.  But there’s a more crucial underlying issue that we need to deal with.  Which is about the attitude of pride and arrogance which may be behind the question.  Which is why we need to gain some perspective of who God is and who we are. 

Paul’s illustration is about the choice that lies in the will of the potter.  What if the potter instead of taking some lump of clay and making some piece of fine china - what if the potter chooses to make a clay pot. 

What right does the clay pot have to question the choice of the potter?  “What right do you have make me into a clay pot?  I want to be fine china.”

Paul is saying that God is sovereign.  Meaning no one forces Him to do anything.  No one tells God what to do.  God isn’t asking us for advice.  God has the right to deal with sinful humanity according to both His mercy and His wrath.  The choice is His not ours.

One huge reason we get messed up with this is because we think that since God created us He owes us something.  Mercy.  Salvation.  A wonderful life.  Somehow we think that God is unjust if He doesn’t do what we think God should be doing.  If God doesn’t treat us the way we think God should treat us.  If God doesn't treat us the way we think God should treat us then God is unjust.

But God is the creator.  God speaks and creation happens.  God speaks and creation doesn’t happen no more.  God sees creation from the perspective of all of it - past - present - future - all at once - every detail and beyond - including His purposes for creating creation - even us.  We see it from this little teeny tiny speck of what we call our existence and expect God to make choices based on our perspective.

Well, that’s arrogant.  And we need to get off our little teeny tiny little pedestals of pride.  We’re clay.  Broken pots.  Life is about… God.  Not us.

Let’s go on.  Paul goes on to ask a hypothetical question - verse 22:  What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom He has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?    

David Roper - teaching on Romans - David Roper ask:  “What if in the near future God allowed a totalitarian atheistic government.  And they padlocked all the churches.  And they put all pastors in prison.  And they burned all the Bibles.  And they passed laws forbidding people from talking about God.  They went about expunging all mention of God from literature.  And we had a completely atheistic totalitarian regime.  Suppose that happens?  What do you think would be the result?” (1)

What do you think would be the result?  We have example after example in history.  The church grows under persecution.  Persecutors come to faith in Jesus.

Are we together on Paul’s not so hypothetical question?  Does God have the right to put up with evil so that His glory is displayed through it - evil - so that His glory is displayed through it in His people?  Does God allow evil men - even guys like Hitler - or Pharaoh - God working through all that in order to draw people to Himself?  Does God have the right to put up with evil so that both Jews and Gentiles may come into a saving relationship with Him?

Sure He does.  And that’s Paul’s point.

God - because He is God - God has the right to harden Israel - especially after they’ve repeatedly hardened their hearts to the gospel.  It isn’t like God hates the Jews.  But God has the right to make the choice to move them off center stage - to raise up the church - to raise up spiritual Israel - to send out missionaries like Paul and others through the centuries - to give opportunity to others so that both Jews and Gentiles can be brought to salvation.

Which is the point Paul backs up with quotes from two Old Testament prophets who predicted way back when exactly what God did.

Let me read these for us - starting at verse 25:  As indeed He says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’   and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”  “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

The quote is from Hosea which focuses on God’s purpose of extending His mercy to the Gentiles.  Meaning God’s has always purposed to bring salvation to the Gentiles.  Meaning God has always purposed to bring salvation to the Gentiles.  (Hosea 1:9,10; 2:23)

Next quote - verse 27:  And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:  “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out His sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”  And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”

The quote is from Isaiah which focuses on God chastening Israel and yet sparing a remnant through which God’s faithfulness and mercy can be seen.  Meaning God will fulfill what He has promised Israel.  Meaning God God will fulfill what He has promised Israel.  (Isaiah 1:9; 10:5,22)

Question:  With all that choosing going on how can God find fault with anyone?  Answer:  Who are you?  God is making choices to work out His plan and purposes in His history - His creation - choices that are totally consistent with everything God has chosen to reveal to you.

Which brings us to Paul’s final question.  What shall we say?

Read with me verses 30 to 33:  What shall we say, then?  That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.  Why?  Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.  They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.”

Great picture - Paul referring back to Isaiah.  God laying a stone of stumbling - a rock of offense.  God again telling us exactly what God is doing and why.  (Isaiah 8:14; 28:16; 1 Corinthians 1:23; 1 Peter 2:1-12)

A huge rock - immovable - at the center point of human history - sitting right there in the middle of the road of life.  The Jews - running along trying to pursue a relationship with God by their works - refusing to see Jesus as their Messiah - they stumble over that rock.  Gentiles and spiritual Israel - they see that rock and rest on it.  Rest on it by faith.  And they will not be put to shame.  God will save them.

Paul’s isn’t interested in getting lost in some theological debate over God’s sovereignty - what God chooses or elects to do - verses what we are able to freely choose on our own.  Paul’s point isn’t about what we think God should be doing or not.  Paul’s bottom line in all this is about our response to what God in His sovereignty is doing. 

Paul’s question - with all that God is choosing to do:  What shall we say?  Answer:  We either fall over Jesus or we take our stand on Him. 

Within the sovereignty of God is the free will of man - our God given choice.  Which is before everyone of us this morning.  In the areas of our lives when we question what God may be doing - in every circumstance and situation of our lives - will we trust Him?  That He is compassionate and merciful?  That He alone is sovereign and worthy of our trust?  Will we humble ourselves before Him and His choices for us?

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1. “How Odd of God to Eschew the Jew” - sermon by David Roper (Cole Community Church, Boise Idaho 04.17.1998) - quoted by Gary Vanderet “Let God Be God”, Romans 9:1-33, PBC, 08.13.2000

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®  (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.