WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.640 Okay, so we're going back to Romans chapter 9 this morning. I'm going to do something 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:16.359 that I've not done before in this church or in any church actually. I am going to ask 00:00:16.359 --> 00:00:23.760 you to put your hands up if you think that was probably the hardest chapter that you've 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:32.240 ever read in the Bible. Put your hands up if you think that. Well, you are truly free 00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:42.640 church. So either you're uncomfortable putting your hands up, you aren't listening to the 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:55.719 reading or you are the greatest minds in spiritual history of the church. I'll freely admit I 00:00:55.719 --> 00:01:04.159 find this probably, if not the, not one of the most, the most difficult chapter in the 00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:13.679 Bible. I simply don't believe you if you don't think it's hard because it is, it has to be 00:01:13.679 --> 00:01:19.200 hard for us to understand this chapter. Can I just give a little bit of introduction and 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:26.280 I'll say a little bit of what I'm not going to say and then I'll try and wallow around 00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:32.000 in the mud of my own incompetence but seeking the Spirit of God to bring some hope and light 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:38.079 and inspiration into this great and wonderful truth that we have before us. Can I just say 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:43.079 that we've finished, we've just, we've moved from, we had four, we did four sermons on 00:01:43.079 --> 00:01:47.200 chapter eight because I was kind of arguing that that was one of the best chapters in 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:52.960 the Bible. It's like the hub in a sense, like to the whole Bible is as we understand chapter 00:01:52.960 --> 00:01:57.439 eight and that we are not condemned, that we are adopted, we are children of God and how 00:01:57.439 --> 00:02:01.680 important that is and how significant, how that changes everything, our perspective and 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:07.440 everything we are and so we spent a long time on it and then we come to this which is probably 00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:14.120 the most difficult chapter but it comes as a parenthesis, okay. In other words, you could 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:22.560 go from the end of chapter eight to the beginning of chapter twelve and miss out eight, nine, 00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:28.439 ten and eleven and you would still get a really clear flow from the book of Romans. It's almost 00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:37.759 as if nine to eleven is added in as an extra parenthesis, as if Paul gets distracted, he's 00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:42.639 doing this marvelous chapter and then he, well, wait a minute and he thinks of something 00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:47.319 and he spends three chapters in this parenthesis speaking about it and really what he's speaking 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:53.680 about, he's been talking about God's promises and of course that's with an Old Testament 00:02:53.680 --> 00:03:01.040 background to the people of Israel and he says, wait a minute, Israel's rejected God, 00:03:01.040 --> 00:03:04.760 nearly all of Israel and the people of, the Jewish people have rejected God, therefore 00:03:04.760 --> 00:03:09.400 has God's promises failed to them and that comes up with something that he thinks is 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:15.640 really important and he can imagine his readers and the people in the church asking that question, 00:03:15.640 --> 00:03:21.080 well, is God really true or his promises right because, well, there's hardly any Jewish people 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:25.719 who have come to faith, what about all the promises to Abraham? What about all the promises 00:03:25.719 --> 00:03:30.160 of faith to this great people? And so he spends these three chapters really speaking about 00:03:30.160 --> 00:03:36.880 God, God's sovereignty and what it means for the people, what it means to be Israel and 00:03:36.880 --> 00:03:43.640 what it means to be descendants of Abraham and that actually includes us. But I'm not 00:03:43.640 --> 00:03:46.800 going to spend a lot of time on that argument today because I'm going to leave that for 00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:54.439 Thomas and because it goes on to the next two chapters, the whole promise, I will mention 00:03:54.439 --> 00:03:59.920 it briefly, I just want to do an overview this morning on what it means, what this chapter 00:03:59.920 --> 00:04:05.400 means as it explains the sovereignty of God in dealing with Israel and in dealing with 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:13.240 everyone and what the consequences are. You can read a chapter like that and think, this 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:22.840 is for me, this is incomprehensible. Now, you know, you can accept and believe its truth, 00:04:22.840 --> 00:04:30.400 but logically we wrestle with that, I certainly do. The facts of a chapter like this can leave 00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:35.560 people wanting to take it out of the Bible or wanting to change it so that fits into 00:04:35.560 --> 00:04:42.759 our thinking. The facts can leave potentially us confused and angry. What is God who chooses 00:04:42.759 --> 00:04:49.360 everything? We can't do anything about it all. It's all fixed beforehand. Everything 00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:56.800 is fixed. God who hates, God who hardens, God who makes and then breaks this divine potter 00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:03.439 who just does his own thing. Is that the kind of God that we have come to believe in and 00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:08.920 understand and know through Jesus Christ our Lord? Is this not speaking about the reality 00:05:08.920 --> 00:05:17.800 that therefore we are just puppets? It does appear at first reading fatalistic, deterministic 00:05:17.800 --> 00:05:24.280 theology that there's nothing we can do. It's all foreordained. Everything will come to pass. 00:05:24.280 --> 00:05:29.639 We have no freedom and no control. Can we just then sit back today and say, well, if 00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:37.680 I'm chosen, I'm chosen and I'll just wait for God to do His great work. And I'm damned 00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:43.000 otherwise and there's nothing I can do about it. How is it that Paul can speak in this 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:48.560 way about, we don't understand this kind of concept. I don't like it. How can I be guilty 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:55.680 if the decisions have been made beforehand about who is chosen and who is not? Worse 00:05:55.680 --> 00:06:00.439 than that. And it's often been used as a reason in our own denomination and our own, maybe 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:06.079 not, I shouldn't say that so pointedly, but maybe in our theological background, mission 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:12.519 is then a waste of time. Why bother with mission? Why bother with telling people about the gospel? 00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:15.639 Mission's a waste of time. God will choose whom He will choose. We'll just sit back, 00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:21.039 the doors are open, people can come in. And those whom God has chosen, He will bring. 00:06:21.039 --> 00:06:30.399 God will save who He will save. Okay. Please stay with me to the end, mentally and spiritually 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:37.199 and prayerfully. First thing I want to say is, you can't make this up. You can't make 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:44.359 this up. I'm speaking the truth in Christ, Paul says. I am not lying. My conscience bears 00:06:44.359 --> 00:06:52.959 me witness in the Holy Spirit. He is declaring truth as He has done and as the Word of God 00:06:52.959 --> 00:06:59.159 throughout does. It is the declarative word that He gives based on the foundation of the 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:03.840 apostles and the prophets which we've been looking at in the evening. We can't make it 00:07:03.840 --> 00:07:10.160 up, but it is not convenient truth. I'll give you that. It's not convenient truth, but 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:15.520 often the truth is not, is it, for His honesty and the honesty of God's Word often troubles 00:07:15.520 --> 00:07:21.440 us. We always look for and want the bits that we can cope with, the bits that we can accept, 00:07:21.440 --> 00:07:29.000 the bits we can see and share without a reaction. But yet here we have a recognition that the 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:37.480 Word of God is a package. It comes as a one. And it's not just Paul that taught about the 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:42.680 sovereignty of God. It is laced throughout the whole of Scripture. And Jesus Himself 00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:48.560 taught about election John chapter 13 and verse 18. I am not speaking of all of you. 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:54.600 I know whom I have chosen, but the Scripture will be fulfilled. He ate my bread, has lifted 00:07:54.600 --> 00:08:00.000 His heal against me. And then Mark chapter 13 verse 27. Jesus speaking about the end 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:05.280 of time and says, Then He will send out His angels and gather His elect from the four winds 00:08:05.280 --> 00:08:11.800 from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. Jesus spoke about this sovereign choice 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:19.240 of God. The danger for us, please follow me to the end, the danger can be that we conform 00:08:19.240 --> 00:08:28.319 the gospel and God until it becomes no gospel and no God, a God that we cannot worship. 00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:35.560 Because if the truth is outside of ourselves, which we believe, the truth is that Christ 00:08:35.560 --> 00:08:41.840 and God is reveling, I am the way, the truth and the life, the truth is outside of us. 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:49.160 It will always challenge our closed systems of thought. We will always be challenged if 00:08:49.160 --> 00:08:56.080 the truth is outside of us. And you would simply, you would simply in a closed system 00:08:56.080 --> 00:09:01.700 of thought, you would simply not make up a God like this. You would not make up a God 00:09:01.700 --> 00:09:07.519 who makes us so uncomfortable at this level and beyond our understanding. You say, But 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:16.639 I believe in freedom. I believe in making my own decisions. I want to think for myself. 00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:22.879 But that broader, wider question is always without truth, without a God. Are you really 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:30.480 free? Are you? Are you free to live your own life, your own way? Even if you could, would 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:35.439 there be purpose in it? Will you dream, dreams be fulfilled? Would you find meaning? Would 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:44.840 you overcome pain and loss and identity? Would you be able to live and not die? To what do 00:09:44.840 --> 00:09:53.640 you give your life? What is the core of the, what do you give your energy to in life? Does 00:09:53.640 --> 00:10:00.560 it give you freedom or does it enslave you? Will it die for you? Will it love you? Will 00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:08.000 it give you what you hope for? Which is to live in peace and forgiveness and hope? Freedom 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:13.559 is a very interesting concept. We don't have more time to look into that whole idea this 00:10:13.559 --> 00:10:19.719 morning. You can't make it up. And what we recognize from here also from lots of other 00:10:19.719 --> 00:10:23.719 parts of Scripture that we've sung about God being holy, that means He's set apart. 00:10:23.719 --> 00:10:27.879 That means He's different. So what we don't do is we don't take ourselves and we don't 00:10:27.879 --> 00:10:33.000 take ourselves and put ourselves on the table and then make a really fine image of ourselves, 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:37.320 the best kind of human we can be. Well, that's quite like God. That's what we want God's 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:45.279 like, just the best of all that we are. Because it's not that God is not like us. We recognize 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:49.960 there's mystery in the character and the person of God, verse 5 says, you know, that God who 00:10:49.960 --> 00:10:56.639 is overall, that throwaway comment, God is overall, there's mystery because He's overall. 00:10:56.639 --> 00:11:05.600 We simply can't understand all of God and you are unable to worship if you fully understand. 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:11.080 Is that right? There can be no transcendence, there can be no adoration, you can't fall 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:20.559 at your feet. If you have every nook and cranny of God revealed and seen and you know everything 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:25.039 about Him, then you become God. We become gods if we can know all there is to know about 00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:29.120 God and of course that is in the sense, He's eternal, He's transcendent, He's a spirit, 00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:35.959 He's infinite. He blows our minds. There are places that we need to recognize, we simply 00:11:35.959 --> 00:11:43.199 can't go because we can't go. It's not that the road is barred, we don't have the mental 00:11:43.199 --> 00:11:49.399 capacity to go there. We simply need to recognize that there is mystery in God and there is 00:11:49.399 --> 00:11:56.480 sovereignty in God, He does what He chooses. We find that so difficult, He does what He 00:11:56.480 --> 00:12:03.199 chooses because He is good and because He's sovereign and because He is all powerful, He 00:12:03.199 --> 00:12:08.840 does what He chooses. He is just, if He wasn't just and if He wasn't good then it would be 00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:14.879 hellish. We would be in a terrible place but because of who He is, He does what He chooses. 00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:19.960 I have sovereignty and I don't have time to go into all of it obviously but it's the 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:26.799 heart of the Gospel and Paul is really dealing with the Gospel here. In other words, it's 00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:33.879 about who He chooses to be Christians. That sounds terrible from that point of view, doesn't 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:39.440 it? That God chooses those who become Christians but it fits in with the picture of our condition 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:47.200 that we are spiritually dead. Dead people can't choose. We are spiritually dead. We 00:12:47.200 --> 00:12:53.240 can't make ourselves spiritually alive. He needs to do it. He needs to choose. He needs 00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:58.800 to bring life. That is why He gets the glory rather than, it's not shared, it's not that 00:12:58.800 --> 00:13:04.120 we sit down with God and say, okay God, you do 80%, I'll do 20% and we can share a little 00:13:04.120 --> 00:13:11.600 bit of the glory. It's not like that. He takes all the glory because He brings life to us. 00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:18.639 It's not shared. If we don't get that, we don't get it. We don't get the Gospel. The 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:26.600 glory is His. I think that's one of the reasons why the Bible or Jesus Himself chooses natural 00:13:26.600 --> 00:13:33.600 birth as an illustration of spiritual birth. He says, John 3.16, you must be born again. 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:39.600 He uses that spiritual illustration. Now it's not a perfect illustration for us but it is 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:48.320 at one level like our physical birth, isn't it? You'd no choice about your physical birth. 00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:55.560 You were born. You weren't involved in the decision. You didn't ask to be born. You're 00:13:55.560 --> 00:14:03.320 entirely passive. Your will did not come into your being born at any level whatsoever. An 00:14:03.320 --> 00:14:13.840 immediately on birth or even in utero, you were the object of unconditional love of your 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:23.200 parents. Before you'd done anything good or bad, you loved you. It was that unconditional 00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:31.320 love. Now I think it's imperfect but it is a helpful analogy. When we think of our relationship 00:14:31.320 --> 00:14:38.320 to God and Paul speaks about it in this chapter about his choices of Jacob and Esau and before 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:47.080 they'd done anything good or bad, that he had chosen. He had chosen because he is in 00:14:47.080 --> 00:14:54.840 control. How could he be God otherwise? Could we worship someone who could be surprised or 00:14:54.840 --> 00:15:04.560 defeated or who had no control over others? He's the potter. Verse 20 speaks about him 00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:12.320 being the potter. We are those who are made by him. Can we really come back to him and 00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:23.440 say, this isn't how it should be? I think our 21st century mindset in a post-Christian 00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:30.920 world where for the first time in history there's no concept of a higher being in the 00:15:30.920 --> 00:15:38.040 culture. You find that very difficult. First culture since the beginning of time, which 00:15:38.040 --> 00:15:44.800 has had no concept of a higher being, a higher power, however you define that power. We're 00:15:44.800 --> 00:15:50.160 growing up in that culture and so, well some of us have grown up physically anyway a long 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:55.480 time ago but it's there isn't it? That we struggle and many other cultures will not 00:15:55.480 --> 00:16:02.279 struggle that whole idea of divine power however it's revealed. It's a fatal blow to our pride 00:16:02.279 --> 00:16:07.839 and our wanted independence that there is this God. Now there are huge challenges in 00:16:07.839 --> 00:16:15.559 this chapter of course. Esau I have loved, he says, in verse 13, looking at the wrong 00:16:15.559 --> 00:16:20.919 one but as it is written Jacob I loved Esau I hated. That seems a strange thing for us 00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:28.519 to consider God making that choice with these kind of language but Jesus gives us an interpretive 00:16:28.519 --> 00:16:36.199 clue here because in Luke 14 verse 26, oh great they're on the same screen, well done. 00:16:36.199 --> 00:16:39.879 That's what I wanted. Jesus says, you know, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his 00:16:39.879 --> 00:16:43.679 own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes and even his 00:16:43.679 --> 00:16:52.159 own life he cannot be my disciple. What? Jesus is contradicting himself surely. He says love 00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:59.039 your parents and then in Matthew's Gospel he says whoever loves his father or mother 00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:03.479 more than me is not worthy of me and whoever loves son and daughter more than me is not 00:17:03.479 --> 00:17:09.639 worthy of me. So this Jacob, you know, I have hated, Jacob I loved Esau I hated. This is 00:17:09.640 --> 00:17:17.280 a Hebrew idiom basically for saying Jacob I loved Esau I loved less. It's an idiomatic 00:17:17.280 --> 00:17:22.400 phrase, it doesn't take away all the problems but nonetheless it helps us to understand 00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:27.560 a little bit. And the hardening of Pharaoh's heart in verse 18, very difficult for us, 00:17:27.560 --> 00:17:32.759 why God hardened Pharaoh's heart? Well if we look back to that passage we also see that 00:17:32.759 --> 00:17:40.000 Pharaoh hardened his own heart and that God comes in later and hardens his heart in a sense 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:46.779 of judgment upon him. So there's personal responsibility of Pharaoh, come back to that. 00:17:46.779 --> 00:17:51.359 So God's not like us, he's mysterious and there's mystery, there's sovereignty. There's 00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:57.440 also fulfilled promise in these three chapters. I'm not really going to spend much time on 00:17:57.440 --> 00:18:02.960 this but what he says in verse 6 helps to put it in context for not all who are descended 00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:08.720 from Israel belong to Israel and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring 00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:13.840 physically. So he's basically saying that the promises of the Old Testament made to 00:18:13.840 --> 00:18:22.320 Israel were made to, was a spiritual promise. It wasn't made necessarily or primarily to 00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:28.439 the physical descendants of Abraham although they had all the privileges and all the opportunities 00:18:28.439 --> 00:18:32.919 but that there is a sense in which, and Hebrews speaks about this in other parts of the New 00:18:32.919 --> 00:18:37.799 Testament, Romans speak about us being children of Abraham, every believer is a child of Abraham, 00:18:37.799 --> 00:18:45.399 a spiritual child of Abraham. So the promises are fulfilled in the spiritual seed of Israel 00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:52.840 or of Abraham, not necessarily the physical seed. Those who are God's people are not 00:18:52.840 --> 00:19:04.600 those who are God's people by physical generation, the people of Israel but they are those who, 00:19:04.600 --> 00:19:08.480 the Bible talks about being circumcised in their heart, you know, there's a spiritual 00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:15.640 circumcised, there's those who have changed in their hearts towards God. So he's not a 00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:21.559 liar, he has not failed, his promises that he gave to the people in the Old Testament 00:19:21.559 --> 00:19:28.319 are fulfilled in the New Testament with the broadening of the covenant to all who are 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:33.640 Abrams descendants by faith but there will be more about that in the future chapters. 00:19:33.640 --> 00:19:38.920 God's not like us and his mystery is sovereignty in his fulfilled promise but also in his, 00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:49.880 I've described this as mercy unplugged. In verse 14 he speaks, talking about Moses, so 00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:58.680 he is mercy on whomever he wills and he heartens whomever he wills. Paul is his imaginary question, 00:19:58.680 --> 00:20:07.000 you know, well, is God just in what he's doing? And he answers it, he defends God justice 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:13.279 by declaring his mercy and that's very important. There's nothing in ourselves that merits being 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:20.480 chosen, we all justly deserve his wrath, all of us deserve his wrath but despite that he 00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:28.799 chooses and he chooses a number that can't be counted, huge number of people, that's 00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:33.720 what he chooses, he chooses in his mercy. It's not a common word that's used for mercy 00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:40.680 here, it's not the normal word that you, the Hebrew word which is hesed, which is the covenant 00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:48.000 and mercy of God which we know about in the Old Testament, it's Rahamin, the word that 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:54.279 he uses and that is used very rarely and it's used almost exclusively of God and it's kind 00:20:54.279 --> 00:21:03.559 of emotional, deep-seated compassion moving to the bowels as it were, moving the innards 00:21:03.559 --> 00:21:10.279 compassionately. Its stem is the word Rahim which is the mother's womb, it's quite interesting 00:21:10.279 --> 00:21:16.799 really, that is the compassion of a mother giving birth, the compassion of a father for 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:27.200 his children, that is what he does, he pours out his mercy on those who are undeserving 00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:38.639 at great immeasurable cost. So it's not that he simply makes the choice and says you here, 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:47.000 you there, it's at great immeasurable cost, this is no distant potentate making a random 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:54.920 choice which is what we sometimes think. This is the sovereign, powerful, electing God of 00:21:54.920 --> 00:22:04.160 mystery which we recognise becoming flesh, emptying himself of his glory, walking on 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:14.880 dirt roads and being nailed to a tree in death in order that his sovereign choice can be fulfilled. 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:21.920 So whatever struggles we have with this, he is not dispassionate and he is not distant, 00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:30.000 his choice involved the unspeakable disruption of his character and personhood in the glorious 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:38.880 love and trinity of the unity being ripped apart beyond cost, his choice was immeasurable 00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:46.559 cost for us. I like to also say just to close in this point on this area, I believe that 00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:56.680 there is reason for his choice, I don't believe it's random but it's not revealed, it's not 00:22:56.680 --> 00:23:00.799 revealed and it's not based on merit, that's all we could say, certainly not based on our 00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:13.880 merit but nothing God can do is without reason, he is not an unreasonable illogical God, he 00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:20.200 has mercy on whom he has mercy but it's not revealed on what basis he made choices but 00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:28.200 it is not on our merit. So God is not like us, the third thing very briefly is it's not 00:23:28.200 --> 00:23:32.279 all the truth, okay, when we look at chapters like this we need to remember it's not the 00:23:32.279 --> 00:23:39.200 whole of the truth because clearly the Bible reveals our own responsibility, that we are 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:46.480 responsible before the sovereign God, okay, there's a thousand verses and teachings, there's 00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:51.120 examples throughout the Bible of our personal responsibility, we are moral beings, go on 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:57.400 to Romans chapter 14 and verse 12 in the same letter Paul says, look each of us will give 00:23:57.400 --> 00:24:01.720 account of himself to God, so you and I will give account of ourselves to God because we're 00:24:01.720 --> 00:24:08.079 morally responsible beings, we are people who have choices to make and we are responsible 00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:14.279 before God and we will stand before him and so what we come to is we can't deny either 00:24:14.279 --> 00:24:20.399 stand, both are taught, both are parallel, some people say it's like a railway lines, 00:24:20.399 --> 00:24:24.519 they're both there, they both run parallel, they never join together but they're both 00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:32.559 there and they enable the world to move forward because of these two things and there's two 00:24:32.559 --> 00:24:37.399 great examples of it in the Bible of the two coming together and unashamedly being presented 00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:44.200 together, first, second Peter chapter 1, therefore brothers be all the more diligent to make 00:24:44.200 --> 00:24:51.920 your calling, what a ridiculous verse is it not, be all the more diligent to make your 00:24:51.920 --> 00:24:55.840 calling and election sure for if you practice these qualities you will never fail, there 00:24:55.840 --> 00:25:02.360 we have sovereignty of God and election right beside our own responsibility as is Philippians 00:25:02.359 --> 00:25:08.159 2, 12 and 13, very well known verse therefore my beloved as you've always obeyed not now 00:25:08.159 --> 00:25:15.719 on the MacPraise but more perhaps since, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling 00:25:15.719 --> 00:25:20.839 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His only will, work out your 00:25:20.839 --> 00:25:28.879 own salvation, God is working in you, the two are unashamedly brought together and we simply 00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:37.400 are asked to recognize that it's an antonomy, an antonomy is a contradiction between two 00:25:37.400 --> 00:25:43.960 beliefs or conclusions that are themselves reasonable, a paradox which our present knowledge 00:25:43.960 --> 00:25:52.160 cannot solve, we cannot solve it but they are presented as a mystery before God so we 00:25:52.160 --> 00:25:58.800 either do one of two things as Paul speaks of at the end of this chapter in verses 32 00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:07.880 and 33, we either stumble on Jesus Christ, we stumble on the truth of God or we believe, 00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:11.240 you know they have stumbled over the stumbling block and that's the Jewish people, so it 00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:15.560 is written, behold I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence whoever 00:26:15.560 --> 00:26:20.440 believes in Him will not be put to shame, so there is belief and trust or stumbling 00:26:20.440 --> 00:26:26.559 as we see, that's the only two responses to the living God as we seek Him out, Jesus 00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:30.480 never turns away anyone who seeks after Him who comes to Him, if you pray to Him, if you 00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:38.640 cry out, if you ask, if you say why do I understand but I trust you, that's the response that 00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:45.200 He is looking for in us that we believe and put our trust in His sovereign person but 00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:51.640 also in His amazing, remarkable work for us. If you are not Christian this morning, can 00:26:51.640 --> 00:26:58.360 I just say that this is an extremely difficult passage to wrestle with but can I say that 00:26:58.360 --> 00:27:03.080 if you are waiting until you get all the answers before you become a Christian, whether it 00:27:03.080 --> 00:27:08.799 is a matter theological like this or whether it is practical and issues in the world or 00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:15.879 maybe in your own heart, then you will never come because trust requires, trust doesn't 00:27:15.879 --> 00:27:23.960 it? It requires that we put our faith in one who is reasonable in whom we can believe, 00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:29.759 even though we don't understand them. The alternative is to stick with what you've 00:27:29.759 --> 00:27:38.319 got but God says only He can offer life, joy, peace and it's possible for us to stick our 00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:44.240 head in the sand and just leave it forever and ever and maybe particularly if you've 00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:48.639 been coming to church for a long, long time and you come from a tradition which maybe 00:27:48.639 --> 00:27:53.319 focused on the sovereignty of God against all others and think well I don't know if 00:27:53.319 --> 00:27:57.319 I can ever come, I don't know if I can ever believe, I'll just need to wait until if I'm 00:27:57.319 --> 00:28:08.039 chosen I'm chosen. It's simply not a biblical reason, simply not a common sense reason for 00:28:08.039 --> 00:28:13.599 staying away because God makes clear that we are human responsibility to choose and 00:28:13.599 --> 00:28:17.439 that He is the God who also is the God of choice. 00:28:17.439 --> 00:28:23.720 So as we've just finished very briefly, I just want to look back at, you know, take 00:28:23.720 --> 00:28:31.799 a, come away from the chapter and think well Paul wrote it inspired by God, given this 00:28:31.799 --> 00:28:39.600 truth but Paul gets it. That's the great thing, Paul gets this truth about God and that's 00:28:39.600 --> 00:28:44.880 a challenge for us and he gets it because he had met with Christ, the risen Christ. 00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:49.319 You remember in the road to Damascus it changed everything, it changed his perspective, it 00:28:49.319 --> 00:28:55.119 changed his theology, it changed his faith, his trust, his joy, his love, his experience 00:28:55.119 --> 00:29:01.919 of forgiveness and hope and knowing Christ is what changed him. Knowing Christ is what 00:29:01.919 --> 00:29:08.879 helped him to see this and still live responsibly as a believer, it transformed him and as we 00:29:08.879 --> 00:29:14.359 learn about Christ through knowing him and entrusting ourselves to him, then we will 00:29:14.359 --> 00:29:20.279 find our response to a chapter like this changes. Because you would think if Paul who wrote 00:29:20.279 --> 00:29:24.359 this was talking about sovereignty and about God choosing and everything that he would 00:29:24.359 --> 00:29:29.199 just say, well my people have rejected, that's okay, that's God's choice, that's what happens. 00:29:29.199 --> 00:29:34.599 That's not how he responds, see the opening verses of the chapter, they're amazing. He 00:29:34.599 --> 00:29:39.639 says, I'm speaking the truth in Christ, he says, I wish that I myself were accursed and 00:29:39.640 --> 00:29:46.920 cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. He's begging 00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:54.200 as it were before God, he's no stoic. The sovereignty of God didn't make him an automaton 00:29:54.200 --> 00:30:01.680 when it came to his own people, he loved them, he wishes he could be their Savior, he wishes 00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:05.440 he could be damned in order that they could be saved because he loved them so much. He 00:30:05.440 --> 00:30:14.600 was no determinist theologically, he was not one of the frozen chosen, he had great passion 00:30:14.600 --> 00:30:20.120 and great love for his people and he wasn't lazy, he didn't sit back and say, well if 00:30:20.120 --> 00:30:27.240 that will be, the doors are open people might come in. He didn't say that. The promise of 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:33.600 the great commission drove him on passionately and it's easy for us and in our tradition 00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:39.439 it's easy for us to hide behind our sovereign theology. Theology of a sovereign God says 00:30:39.439 --> 00:30:49.079 I can't care less, don't care less about anyone because God is sovereign. We're to be people 00:30:49.079 --> 00:30:55.719 who recognize prayerfully, longingly that we are to reach out with people and we're to 00:30:55.719 --> 00:31:03.039 share the gospel and we have personal responsibility and privilege so to do so, so to do, we're 00:31:03.039 --> 00:31:09.319 not puppets. The truth of God's mercy drove him on to mission and to obedience and outstanding 00:31:09.319 --> 00:31:15.559 love to live for God who is worthy. He himself says he's the hardest working of the apostles. 00:31:15.559 --> 00:31:20.279 All these guys, all these super apostles, I've worked harder than all of them. This is 00:31:20.279 --> 00:31:25.680 someone who knows God's sovereignty and he worked for God's glory because God had transformed 00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:31.759 him from the heart out and the Holy Spirit enabled him to do great things and so we are 00:31:31.759 --> 00:31:38.440 we're under no condemnation. We are God's children and we are called to live like that, 00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:45.039 to live with passion for our brothers and sisters who are lost for Eden but a for Scotland, 00:31:45.039 --> 00:31:52.440 for whatever we are to reach out and to share and to tell them about this great God who 00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:57.839 died on the cross so that anyone who comes to him he will not cast out. He will save, 00:31:57.839 --> 00:32:06.039 he will redeem and that is the great personal input that we've seen in this chapter that 00:32:06.039 --> 00:32:15.599 Paul knows this great security of a good just God who chooses but that we have a passionate 00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:22.599 responsibility to serve him, to love him, to believe in him and to know that as we stand 00:32:22.599 --> 00:32:29.480 before him one day the only way to stand before him is covered in the righteousness of Jesus. 00:32:29.480 --> 00:32:30.480 Amen. 00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:36.740 Lord God we ask and pray that you would help us to understand this really deep truth and 00:32:36.740 --> 00:32:45.919 truth that takes us into places that we can't go in many ways but we do know that nobody 00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:53.279 making up a religion would ever make up that chapter and we know that ultimately it's 00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:59.440 marvelous comfort that God cannot be cheated, cannot be surprised, cannot be second guessed, 00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:10.320 cannot be in any way fully understood because he is God and there is no other and yet to 00:33:10.319 --> 00:33:18.879 think of this God nailed to a tree in Jerusalem seems quite remarkable. We thank you that 00:33:18.879 --> 00:33:24.599 you lived among us for 30 years that you walked in the streets and your poverty stricken and 00:33:24.599 --> 00:33:30.720 you had parents and you lost your parents, you lost your father and some of your brothers 00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:36.879 believed and some didn't and most people rejected you and you were threatened and abused and 00:33:36.880 --> 00:33:46.600 rejected and yet in all of that sovereign power you committed to the cross and you committed 00:33:46.600 --> 00:33:54.160 to saving a people who had no regard for you and no interest in you and because before 00:33:54.160 --> 00:34:00.600 the creation of the world you've in your mercy you have brought us this great hope. 00:34:00.600 --> 00:34:05.480 So may we live in it with all its mystery and may it transform our lives for Jesus' 00:34:05.480 --> 00:34:07.480 sake. Amen.