Riches, Wisdom and Knowledge

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Don Filcek; Romans 11:25-36 Riches, Wisdom and Knowledge

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to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek preaches from his series in the
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Book of Romans, A Righteousness from God. Let's listen in. Welcome, everybody.
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Welcome to Recast Church. As David said, I'm Don Filsek. I'm the lead pastor here. And I wanna start off just by expressing gratitude for all of us being able to gather together in this place.
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There's something that's glorious. I was thinking about it this week. The reality and the glory and the beauty of the fact that God is in this place.
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I am glad that he is faithful to meet with us as we gather together in this building. Even as Dave Bunt and I sit down and talk through songs, one of the things that we're kinda shooting for is there's a lot of praise and worship songs that ask for God to show up.
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How many of you ever know a few songs that ask for God to show up? Well, the reality is we believe he's already here. We actually skip past that because we are singing to the
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God who is present and we're singing to him as present and we don't feel the need to call him down into our presence.
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He is already here. But the reality that God is here in this place doesn't hold a candle to the reality that he walks with each and every one of us throughout every day of our lives, through every day of our week.
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He doesn't only offer to meet with us here in this place once a week, although it is important, it is valuable for us to gather together in the corporate gathering, together with others.
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That's valuable and God says don't forsake doing that, but also acknowledge he is present with you at all times.
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And my hope and prayer for all of us throughout each week is that we lift our eyes up to see the God who is always present with his people.
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And by the way, when I say that God is always present with his people, it's not just in some creepy, I know what you did last summer kinda way.
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But God is an ever -present comfort, an ever -present help, an ever -present strength for those who are his and belong to his family through faith in Jesus Christ.
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So this morning we're gonna be wrapping up a section in the book of Romans, a large section, the section that stretches from Romans chapter nine through chapter 11 that's really zeroed in on the concept of God's sovereignty, his being in charge of our salvation.
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This section is one of the most, potentially one of the most technical and confusing parts of scripture.
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There has been a lot of division in the church over just these three chapters, a lot of confusion, a lot of books written.
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I've spent a lot of time reading for us over the last several weeks as I've been going through this passage. And the fact that so much of it in this text deals with the way that God is bringing together the
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Jews and the Gentiles, Jews and non -Jews, together into one body in the church is part of the confusion, because we just don't see that as a contemporary issue.
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But woven throughout this discussion in chapters nine through 11 are some very contemporary issues that are expressed in the following questions.
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Is God faithful to keep his promises? That's a question I've tried to keep in front of us during this series and during the last several sermons going from chapter nine through chapter 11.
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Is God faithful to keep his promises? Another question that Paul is dealing with, why do more non -Jews believe in the
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Messiah than Jews? Does God save everyone in the same way is another question that he's addressing here.
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And maybe the most important question addressed in chapters nine through 11 as we wrap that up, what was our role in our salvation and what was
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God's role in our salvation? And you can go back, if you haven't been with us during this series or you've missed a few along the way, you can go back online on the website or if you podcast, you can sign up for Recast Church Podcast and you can go back in and fill in the blanks in chapter nine through 11 to see where we've gone.
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But very, very vital and important questions that interact with the way that we think of God and the way that we roll on our daily lives.
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And so the bulk of our text here this morning is gonna reiterate thoughts and concepts already mentioned in Paul's line of argument from chapter nine on.
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But by the end of our text, something unique, something different, something that he does for the first time in the book of Romans, Paul bursts into praise to the
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Almighty in our text. You see, by the end of chapter 11, our text concludes with powerful verses of praise to the
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God who has exerted his deep knowledge, his deep wisdom, his deep riches expressed in saving his people.
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For 11 chapters, Paul has been emphasizing the way that God has brought righteousness to ungodly and unrighteous people.
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The biggest problem is that God's wrath, it was expressed all the way back in chapter one of the book of Romans, that God's wrath is being poured out on all unrighteousness and ungodliness.
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And then he goes on to define that as us, all of us unrighteous, all of us ungodly.
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And so how is it going to be that his wrath isn't poured out on us? How are we gonna avoid that?
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How are we gonna come out from underneath that righteous and just wrath of the Almighty God against sinners like us?
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And it all has been spelled out in these past 11 chapters that God is providing us a righteousness that comes by faith in his son.
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A given righteousness, not an earned righteousness, not one that we can achieve on our own. And so it seems fitting that Paul concludes these 11 chapters with an outburst of unrestrained glory to the
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Almighty God who saves his people, to the Almighty God who gives righteousness to those who don't deserve it.
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And so let's open our Bibles if you're not already there. Romans chapter 11, verses 25 through 36.
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You can grab your device if you've got a phone that has a Bible app on it or whatever. Grab the Bible under the seat in front of you or the
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Bible you brought with you. If you don't have a Bible, then please take that one home with you that's under the seat in front of you. We want everybody to have a copy of God's word at home that they can read.
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But Romans chapter 11, verse 25 through the end of the chapter. And Enriquez, this is a privilege.
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If there's any time in your life that you have the opportunity to hear from God, it's when you're hearing his word. That's why we do this.
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That's why I read the text. We have the privilege of God speaking to us here through the pages of the word.
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Romans 11, 25 through 36. Lest you be wise in your own sight,
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I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the
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Gentiles has come in. And in this way, all Israel will be saved. As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion.
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He will banish ungodliness from Jacob. And this will be my covenant with them when
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I take away their sins. As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.
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But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
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For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy.
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For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
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How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the
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Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
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For from him and through him and to him are all things.
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To him be glory forever, amen. Let's pray as Dave and the band come to lead us in worship this morning.
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Father, I just think it is such a privilege to have your word and have access to your word and to see the way that the processing of the great truths that you revealed to the
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Apostle Paul just burst forth from him in worship and that as he is expounded on your salvation that is given to undeserving people, unlovable people like us, rebels against you and by your grace, you sent your son to redeem us.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would help us by expanding our horizons, expanding our minds, even this morning as we've had an opportunity to take in the text this morning that what great and immense knowledge you have expressed in our salvation, what unfathomable wisdom has been expressed in your saving us, what abundant, unending riches are ours through the salvation we have in Jesus Christ.
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And so, Father, I pray that praise would burst forth from all of us, everyone here who is named Christian, follower of Christ here in this gathering, that you would just light our hearts on fire with enthusiasm and joy, that we would worship you right now in spirit and in truth, that you would help us to magnify you, to lift you high and to exalt you as our
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Savior and our King. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, let me just encourage you to get comfortable, keep your
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Bibles open to Romans chapter 11, verses 25 through 36 if you weren't here when we read that earlier or you lost your place.
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Grab a hold of that. And then if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, you can take advantage of that back there.
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And then restrooms are out the double doors down the hallway on the left -hand side if you need that. But our goal is to keep our focus as much as possible on the text of Romans 11, here wrapping that section up.
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And I don't think it's a coincidence that one of the most contested passages in Scripture leads into one of the most glorious passages of worship, that one of the potentially most confusing and deep passages about God's role in salvation concludes with all worship and honor and glory going to Him.
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I believe that Paul exhausts here in this section of Scripture, really all the way from Romans chapter one all the way through Romans chapter 11, he exhausts his ability to write more on the subject of salvation and the big picture movement of God behind the scenes in salvation.
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I imagine by the time that Paul has written the broad sweeping glory of the gospel from chapters one through chapter 11, in his letter to the
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Romans, he is completely in awe of the God who has done it all for his people.
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You see, Paul hasn't so much been interested in giving us a manual about how to be saved. That would be pretty short.
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What do you need to do to be saved? Is that what the book of Romans is? Is that all that it is, is a manual about salvation? Oh, now
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I understand how it works. Now I understand how to program my VCR. Now I understand, is it just a manual? Is that all that it is?
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And I fear that many of us over the years have read the book of Romans like a how -to manual or like just the details of salvation.
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Here's the points that we need to get. But instead, I believe fully what Paul has been doing is he's been painting a picture for us, a majestic portrait of the
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God who saves, not just strictly interested in explaining salvation to us, although that's a worthwhile goal, but I believe his goal all the way along has been to demonstrate to us the very nature of our
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God. Who is this God who would save wretched sinners like us?
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Paul doesn't praise, in this text, Paul does not praise the plan of salvation. He praises the
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God who saves. And this has been fundamental to our understanding of Romans 9 through 11 and explaining the sovereignty of God in salvation.
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That big picture heading in the book of Romans, we've been kind of going through a big picture outline that was given to me by a professor at Bible College that starts with sin, salvation, sanctification, sovereignty, and then service.
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And we're wrapping up that section that's on the sovereignty of God regarding salvation in Romans 9 through 11, and that's what he's been explaining to us.
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And he hasn't been driving us toward more head knowledge of the way that salvation works. His goal hasn't been a reverse -engineered manual of salvation, but instead he's been interested in conveying the glory of the one who has invented redemption and has given us a means by which the righteous can receive, or the unrighteous, rather, can receive his righteousness.
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So with that goal in mind of worship, I'd like to take in the big picture of verses 25 through 32 here before we conclude with the last three verses that are really, really powerful and different and unique in the book of Romans.
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But there's so much controversy over even just this passage in verses 25 through 32 that a higher level teaching on them is more valuable.
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We could easily get so caught in the weeds that we never get out of the weeds into the glorious big picture of what
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God is trying to communicate to us, especially all throughout this text where there's controversies and there's differences.
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And just to give you one illustration, I don't wanna share with you everything that I had to read through and wade through this week, but just to give you one little taste of confusion in this text or difficulties in this text,
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I read four different commentaries. All of them believe the gospel. All of them would proclaim that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.
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All of them coming from a very good perspective in their theology. All four of them disagreeing about the definition of one single word in this text found in verse 26.
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All four of them disagreed on who Paul is referring to when he mentions the name
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Israel in verse 26. So four different commentaries, four different ideas, four different thoughts.
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I get the opportunity to look at the text and try to determine where I land after studying all of these different opinions and thoughts.
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And I just point that out as one thing. We'll kinda get there as we go through the text where I land on that.
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But I would understand if as I was even reading this, you got a little lost. I don't think it would be because you're slow or you're thick in the head if you didn't get it at first reading.
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As a matter of fact, I think that's the very nature of understanding God's word. How many of you have just read some passage and it just speaks to you directly?
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Like you read it and it's like boom, there. And you know what you're supposed to do with it. You know how you're supposed to live.
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Thou shalt not lie. Anybody got any ideas what that means? Like we probably don't need a whole lot of interpretation.
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Our flesh wants to reinterpret that one, right? Our flesh wants to make that one difficult, but we know what it means. But then you get into this whole who is the
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Israel that's being talked about? Thus all Israel will be saved. Who's gonna be saved? All of the Jews are saved.
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What is he talking about here? And it gets kinda confusing. And so sometimes you encounter a text and it's like takes work and time and energy and study.
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And that's rich and that's deep too. So many of us are going for the low -hanging fruit, but let me just encourage you to get out the ladder and climb a little bit and dig in and try to really wrestle with these things for yourself.
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And certainly if you come across something in your own personal reading, try to discern and figure out what it is that God is saying.
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But the fact is, I mean you read this section and it can be pretty complicated and it's that Paul has been tracing one very long and complex argument that we have a hard time keeping in our head over weeks of study.
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As a matter of fact, what often is the case is we just take a few verses here or there, grab them out of context and read them and misunderstand them.
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So we go, all Israel will be saved. What? Okay, so all the Jews are saved or all the Jews will be saved or one day all the Jews will be saved and we can just run with it without understanding his line of argument that began all the way back.
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A complex, detailed, logical argument that began all the way back in Romans chapter nine.
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We're in the end of chapter 11. And he began an argument in chapter nine verses one through six that that set the stage for all that we're talking about here this morning.
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He's really made that argument time and time again. He has talked it into the ground.
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He's tackled it from a bunch of different angles. He has taken some side tracks along the way but he keeps coming back to this one fundamental question and here it is.
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This is the interest of Paul in Romans nine through 11. If the Jews are now guilty of rejecting their
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Messiah, has God's promises to them failed? Have God's promises to the
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Jews failed? And to put it more directly so you understand why it matters to us because I mean you're going, well what's that got to do with me?
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And sure that's all Old Testament stuff done. It's God's promises to Israel and I'm living here in Matawan in 2019.
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What does this have to do with me? Let me ask the question a different way that lands it for us. Hopefully it makes it more pertinent to your daily life.
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Can God be trusted to truly save you? Can God be trusted to save you if he didn't even save Israel?
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That's the question we're looking at here. How many of you think that's an important question when it's worded that way? Like that's an important question.
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I want to know if God is able to save me. Is he faithful to save his people when he didn't even save all of Israel?
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As a matter of fact, the majority of the Jews during Paul's time didn't even follow their own Messiah. That's what
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Paul has been going on and on about in this text and here's Paul's line of reasoning in a nutshell. Let me catch you up to speed.
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Kind of starting at Romans nine and moving forward. I'm not going to reference it. You don't need to go back there. You can just listen in but here's
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Paul's line of reasoning in a nutshell. Not all of those who were born of Israelite descent, not all of those who have
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Jewish blood are actually true Israel. He said that back in nine verse six.
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Chapter nine verse six. You can write that one down if you're taking notes and that's part of the argument here. A very important part.
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Not all who are born to Jewish parents are actually in the faith.
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It's not by lineage. It's never been by blood. It's never been by who you were born to that has saved anyone.
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And here's why. Because he goes on to argue, true Israel has these two marks over their life.
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First, all throughout chapter nine he explained the determining factor for being a child of God, for being in true
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Israel, is the will and choice of God to express mercy to you. That's the first thing.
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The first thing is God's choice to choose you. The second thing is that the true
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Israel is demonstrated to be true Israel by faith and not by works. So how do you know you're in?
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How do you know that you're part of true Israel? Because you have faith in Jesus Christ. You have trust in his
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Messiah. How do you know you were chosen? That's the first thing you said, Don, well you know you were chosen because you have expressed faith in Jesus Christ.
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And since those are the two ways we can see and identify true Israel, God has fulfilled his promises to his
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Old Testament people by opening up salvation to any and all who would come to him based on faith in his
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Messiah. And so therefore, we have the opportunity to be a part of the true Israel that is being saved.
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As we saw a couple of weeks ago, God has one people, he used an illustration of an olive tree with branches grafted in it, and some of them broken off, but all of this big tree of faith, and there is only one olive tree, one tree of faith that started in the
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Old Testament and is now being fulfilled and completed in this new covenant with us.
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And so in verse 25, Paul is continuing this line of reasoning and he says in verse 25, we live in the season now, a season of the non -Jew.
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The era and the epoch that we live in in the big picture of what God is doing on the globe is the season of the
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Gentiles. The Jews are currently hardened to belief in the Messiah, but that hard -heartedness will only continue until the full number of the
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Gentiles come in, he says in verse 25. It's a bit eerie. That phrase, if you really think about what it means, until the fullness or until the full number of Gentiles comes in, a bit eerie, but also a bit comforting.
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It's comforting to me to consider that God has a magic number. It's eerie to me to think that God has a magic number.
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There is a finite number of non -Jews, Gentiles, like you and me, who are going to come into faith in Jesus Christ, and when that number is reached, then comes the end.
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That's the image, that's the picture of the flow of history that Paul is granting to us here in Romans chapter 11, verse 25.
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And that thought flows into verse 26 then. In this way, in this way that God is working among the
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Gentiles to bring their number to completion, in that way, all Israel will be saved. In the way that all true
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Israel, even among the Gentiles, will come in, in that way, all will be saved.
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The full numbers of the Gentiles coming in has something to do with Israel. I believe that Paul is using the word
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Israel here in verse 26 as a metaphor for the true Israel who's called Israel by faith.
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Way back in verse six, as I mentioned, of chapter nine, in his starting arguments, right here he's concluding, but in his starting arguments to this,
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Paul mentioned that not all who are born to the Jewish race are true Israel. And Paul spent all of chapter four arguing that anyone who has faith in Jesus, anyone who has faith in God through the
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Messiah that he has provided, prove themselves to be children of Abraham, who was the father of the
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Israelites. So when we were kids, when I was a kid in Sunday school class, we sang this song, Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had
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Father Abraham, and then we got to wiggle around and stuff and get all the wiggles out. Anybody ever sing that song? Do you know what I'm talking about, a handful of you?
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A really bizarre, funny song that I'm not going to sing for you. You're welcome.
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But it's that notion that we were singing back in Sunday school, that's a text that comes out of chapter four of the book of Romans and chapter 11 from the book of Romans.
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This idea that we are part of Israel in the sense that we are true people of faith who believe in the
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Messiah that they were promised. The hope given here in this passage is not, by the way, some generalized hope, that all the
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Jews at the end of time will somehow be mysteriously saved, as often taught, did any of you ever read the
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Left Behind series, popular craze at the end of the 90s, I think, end of the 90s, is that right? Early 2000s, somewhere in that range?
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Three books that got stretched into 12 or something like that, but you know how that works.
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Marketing and such, but anyways, many of you have a lot of those books on your shelf, but that whole idea, part of that series was precipitated on the notion that all the
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Jews at the end of time, by this verse, all the Jews will suddenly one day wake up and go,
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Messiah, oh, he's Jesus, and they're all gonna come into faith at one huge movement.
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Now, God could work in that way. It's possible that that could be the way that he works.
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But I believe that actually what this text is saying, I don't think you get that from this text, I think this text is stating the exact opposite, strongly expressing throughout this letter the opposite, that it's not some generalized way that the
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Jews in the future are going to be saved. I mean, this text is working hard to express that the only hope for any individual
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Jew right now is that they would come to faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the hope of the
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Jews, and he is the only hope for the Gentiles. So, verse 26 explains the way that those who are truly
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Israel, all those who are truly Israel are going to trust in the
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Messiah to be saved. And he quotes Isaiah 59, verses 20 through 21 to make his point.
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The Messiah and deliverer came from Zion, from Israel, to banish ungodliness.
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He came to deal with our sins. The hope for the Jews, and the hope for the
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Gentiles, and the hope for anyone can be found in the one who can take away sins.
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So where is your hope place today? Are you a member of the true Israel that trusts in the
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Messiah who came to put away your sins? That is the only hope. But many of the
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Jews, it says in verse 28, many of the Jews remain enemies of the gospel, but when it comes to God's choice, that will change if they come through faith like their forefathers.
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There is still hope for the Jews. There is still hope for any Jew who would acknowledge the
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Messiah, Jesus, and come under his protection. And here in verse 29 is the summary of the entire argument stated way back in chapter nine.
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Can God be trusted? Well, the text in verse 29 couldn't be more clear. You can bet on it.
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His gifts and his callings are irrevocable. They cannot be withdrawn.
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If there is anything you can take to the bank here this morning, it is his trustworthy promise -keeping.
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God is faithful always, eternally, to keep his promises. Now, he never promised to save every single person born to Jewish blood.
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You go back through the Old Testament, study it, research it, read it, you could dedicate your life to it. You are not gonna find a promise that indicates that he was gonna save every single
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Jew. As a matter of fact, he predicted right in the midst of the Old Testament law, the giving of the law in Deuteronomy, that many of them would reject him and turn to worthless idols.
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He predicted their lack of faith. But what he has promised, what he did promise to them, is to bring forth one who would be a blessing to all the descendants of Abraham, that he would be a descendant of Abraham.
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He would be a descendant of King David. And he promised that the one that he sent would take away all the sins of his elect.
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And to save anyone, anyone, anyone who puts their faith in his saving work.
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You see, Paul illustrates this in verses 30 through 32 by reiterating a point that he said many times in chapter 11.
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All people are bound under disobedience. The Gentiles have been brought into the family through the disobedience of the
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Jews. They rejected the Messiah, so he opened the gospel to us. And this is what he meant by saying back in verse 28, a kind of confusing statement that the
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Jews are enemies of the gospel for our sake. Well, how in the world could the Jews being an enemy of the gospel be for our sake?
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Well, their rejection of Jesus somehow opened the gospel to the Gentiles, and he's been very clear about that throughout chapter 10 and 11.
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But now, the Jews can indeed still receive mercy, and will receive mercy as the
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Messiah has made clear to them through the Gentiles. So only in as much as they accept the gospel and embrace Jesus is there hope for them.
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And again, a powerful summary statement here ends this entire section and launches Paul out into praise in verse 33.
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But we look at it in verse 32, where he says, "'For God has consigned all to disobedience, "'that he may have mercy on all.'"
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You see, all people groups are in the same boat. God has consigned all people to disobedience.
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And you see, the Jews thought that they were not consigned to disobedience. They thought they were the obedient ones. They thought they were the good big brother.
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They thought they were the ones who stayed close to Papa and did all the things that Daddy wanted them to do. And they thought, wow, look at me.
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I work for Dad, and here's this young slob of a son who's gone off and lived in his wild living like the prodigal son.
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And here I am doing all the work of Dad. I'm his right -hand man, and I'm just great.
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And here, what he's trying to get at in verse 32 is no, no, no, all peoples.
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All peoples are consigned to disobedience by the
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Almighty God. Even the Jews who thought they were better than everyone else because of their closeness with their
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Creator, even they were consigned under disobedience. "'So that God may be proved to have mercy "'on all kinds of people.'"
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You see, the all in verse 32 could mislead us into thoughts that every single person, every single person, all, right?
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It says all. So all will receive his mercy, which is a doctrinal error called universalism.
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You cannot read the book of Romans in honesty and integrity, taking it as a whole, or even take the whole
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Bible from Genesis to Revelation and come out with a reasonable thought that everyone will get to heaven.
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The book doesn't end that way. That's not how it ends. But the word all in verse 32 is all kinds, and Greek has a little bit of mush in it in the word all.
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We would add the word kinds to our language to get to not every single one, but all types.
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Not all fruit, but all kinds of fruit. You see how we can distinguish between that?
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But Greek doesn't do a good job with that, and so this word can easily and ought to be interpreted as all kinds of people.
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God has mercy on all kinds. In other words, all peoples,
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Jews and Gentiles, are disobedient, so that God's mercy must be applied to anyone who is saved.
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Nobody who is saved will be saved by anything other than the mercy of God. There is not a brand or type of person that will be saved because of their ethnicity, because of their nationality, because of their ancestry, because of who they were born to.
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It is only ever for all humanity mercy. Always has been, always will.
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Nobody was ever saved because they were born to Jewish parents. That's what he's trying to communicate. And what does that mean for us?
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Well, that means that you've gotta contemplate and consider that every single one of us in this room has their own walk with God.
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Every single one of us has, in essence, the need, the deep need to express our own faith in God.
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It is not enough that we can ride the coattails of our parents' faith, or even for those of you that are raising children, to really drive towards their understanding of the gospel, not towards them mimicking you.
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So much of parenting, at the end of the day, even among Christians, is trying to get our kids to do the right thing, to make us look good.
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And the gospel, the gospel, the gospel is that they need a Savior. They don't need conformity to good civil life.
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They need to understand their broken hearts and their need for healing that can only be found through the
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Savior, Jesus Christ. Nobody, nobody, nobody is gonna be saved because they're a certain brand of person, because they attended a certain type of church, because they sat for 30 years under the teaching of God's word.
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None of that except for faith expressed in Jesus Christ, and recognizing your brokenness, your need for a
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Savior, and asking him to save you, and to be your king. That is the only hope. And so Paul is satisfied.
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He ends satisfied with his argument. I can say he's satisfied because he concludes here at the end of chapter 11, a big picture of expression of the gospel that began back in chapter one, and now concludes in chapter 11.
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And God is apparently satisfied with what he has revealed through Paul regarding this righteousness that is available to sinful humans through faith in Jesus Christ.
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And so this ends a big chunk of the book of Romans. It ends the theological section of the book of Romans.
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From here on, from chapter 12 on, we're gonna turn towards the service side. So we've talked about sin, salvation, sanctification, and sovereignty.
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Four of the big outline parts of the book of Romans, all dealing with what you ought to believe.
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All dealing with right belief and right understanding of the gospel, so that then the 1 5th of the outline, only the last portion, verses 12 through 16, are gonna emphasize how we live.
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And so often we flip those, don't we? We talk in the church about how we ought to live or what we ought to do, and a lot of times even
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I fear that people will often come to church. I think probably in all honesty, and I'm not trying to be critical, but some of you are sitting here going, just give me five points that I need to live this week.
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Give me five changes I need to make. And I don't give that to you very often.
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What I seek to give you is the bulk of what scripture teaches us, and that is truth, truth, truth. Understand who
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God is. Understand how he rolls. Understand what he does. And let that then influence and change how you live.
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But what we all need fundamentally is a flipped understanding of who God is, a correction to our theology, a correction to our understanding of the gospel.
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So this ends the theology section of the book, and from here, like I said, it takes a turn. He's expressed the gospel in chapters one through 11, and Paul will begin to teach us how to live now that we have received the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.
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Now that we have the firm foundation of forgiveness and a righteousness from God, now we can launch out, because God forbid that anybody here in this room thinks that they have a righteousness of their own, and they're just living that out, going out and doing awesome stuff for God.
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He's gonna correct that even in his worship here in just a second. Verses 33 through 36, Paul concludes the entire large section of explaining the good news with an outburst of praise to God.
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I call it an outburst because of the words he uses in Greek are unique and different. Verse 33 begins with the exclamation, oh, oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
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Oh, it's a word intended to show surprise and awe and wonder and a connection to the heart.
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He's feeling something here. When we put together everything that Paul has said so far in Romans, we realize that everything he has been saying ought to run us into the arms of worshiping
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God. Awe and wonder at our great God ought to be the result of understanding that we were heading towards the righteous wrath, the righteous wrath and judgment of a holy
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God. We were lost and dead in our sins. We had no hope of fixing our predicament through our own efforts, but God in his great grace has brought us into his family.
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He sent his son to take in himself, to take on himself the punishment that we deserved.
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He chose to show mercy to his elect. Those he chose believed in him, and we have been brought into deep and rich history, the deep and rich history of God.
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He's faithful to keep his promises, and he will save those he has chosen as objects of his mercy and compassion.
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And Paul's interjection of praise shows that his understanding of the gospel, his getting it, informs his heart of worship.
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I fear that far too much of our worship is too generic. We're very generic in our worship.
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I think that's pretty much modern worship in a nutshell. You listen to the Christian radio, it can be very generic.
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We worship him because he's awesome. We worship him because he's big.
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And sometimes, to be honest, we just worship him because Dave got up and the band is here, and they're playing a song, so we might as well sing along so we don't look unspiritual.
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But hear me carefully. Your head and your heart are not in competition.
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Your head and your heart are not in competition. They go together. So often, we've just had this pop psychology stuff from up front that just looks like, oh no, no, you need to move from your head to your heart, or you need to move from your heart to your head, or, do you know what
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I'm talking about? That's bunk. Your head and your heart are not in competition.
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I've heard people say, I've heard people say things like this. I think it's a common thought in the church. The key to worship is get out of your head and get into your heart.
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Any of you ever heard that kind of concept? It's bunk. Let me encourage you to run in the opposite direction.
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Set your mind on things above. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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Draw near to the knowledge of God who reveals himself in written words that can be studied and read over and over and over again until you finally get it in your head.
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Who is he? How much has he loved you? It's all in here. He shows himself to be merciful to Gideon who says,
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I don't get it. He shows himself to be powerful to the Israelites who are backed up against the
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Red Sea. He shows himself to be patient to someone like Peter who's denied him three times.
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He shows himself to be kind to his people who time and time again reject him.
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He shows himself to be loving. To those who do not deserve it. He shows himself to be faithful to even those who have rejected him and through his prophets he keeps crying out and crying out and crying out.
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Draw near to him here. Draw near to him here. And this will follow.
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Draw near to him as he has shown himself. And I'm convinced that you will have a hard time remaining unmoved in here.
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Do you get it? What fuels our worship? One of the reasons,
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I don't know if you realize this, I'm a pretty intentional person. And when we first started Recast, we tried all different kinds of things and we did all kinds of stuff.
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But have you noticed, any of you noticed that I get up and I introduce the message before we sing? You guys, I'm sure you've noticed.
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Some of you are like, I don't even show up for that. I just get here partway through the worship or whatever. I know, because I see it.
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When I stand up here, it's about half full. You know, and then after I get up here. We do that intentionally.
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Because I am convicted, it's my strong conviction that when we hear from God's word, that prepares us for worship, not the other way around.
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You see, a lot of us have been raised to think, oh, we get together and we sing songs that kind of prime the pump and get me going so that then
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I can listen to God's word. But you see, we need to worship him in truth. That's why we read the word first.
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Because I'm convinced that the word shows us who he is so that then we can sing the songs with a knowledge, with an understanding of who he is, how much he's loved us, how much he's done for us, how little we deserve it.
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Does that make sense? So we listen to an introduction and we read the word so that we hear from God before we sing songs to him so that our hearts are ready and have encountered him already.
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Well, Paul's mind informs his heart and emotions about three specific things that cause an outburst of worship.
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And I want to point out just so important, it is what he knows that brings this worship out of him.
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The first thing is the depth of God's riches. Oh, the depth of the riches of God.
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All of this is in the context of salvation, by the way. That's what he's been talking about. That's what's moving him.
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That's what's drawing him in. So the depths of the riches of God expressed in salvation. He has abundant grace, abundant mercy, abundant compassion.
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There is nothing that God does not possess and he gives the best gifts to his children.
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Gifts like, if you study it and you get this in your head, gifts like forgiveness, gifts like hope, eternal life, one day resurrection, the power to endure adversity, the strength and presence of his spirit to overcome sin.
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His riches are applied to us in salvation. And that's just, I'm not scratching the surface of the things that the word testifies that he gives to his children.
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Dig in to know him and I'm convinced that your worship will just go through the charts.
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It'll just go off the chart. His riches are applied to us in salvation.
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Praise him, recast, praise him this week for the depth of his riches poured out on us.
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The second thing that Paul identifies is the depth of his wisdom. God has applied some pretty amazing problem -solving skills to the issue of human sin and fallenness.
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God has never given up on a project because of his lack of ability to figure it out. How many of you ever got into a project, had to take a break and set it aside and get back to it after you could
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Google a little bit? Maybe YouTube it? Do any of you know what I'm, I hear the laughter,
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I didn't see the hands, but I think you're with me. Or maybe you're just a little frustrated and needed to take a break, right?
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So I think we've all been there. He has no limit, God has no limit to his resources.
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He always gets it right and his ways are higher than our ways, which is always the greatest of understatements.
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Words don't convey how much higher his ways are than our ways. And then the last thing, the depth of his knowledge.
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So he's praising God for the depth of his riches expressed in salvation, for the depth of his wisdom expressed in salvation and the depth of his knowledge expressed in salvation.
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Now we know that wisdom and knowledge are certainly related but to think of the difference, just remember the person that's in your life who seems to have read all the books but doesn't know how to interact with people and then you're getting close to the difference between wisdom and knowledge, right?
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Because you can have a lot of information and not have a clue how to communicate it or how to interact with people about it.
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But God has both wisdom and all knowledge. Now we take for granted by definition,
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I mean really almost part and parcel of the definition is he who has all knowledge, like he's the God, he's the highest, so I think we take for granted,
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I don't think I have to convince you or teach you that God has all knowledge, but when his knowledge is applied to the realm of salvation, that's where it comes up against our trust, is
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God getting it right? Does he have the big picture? But doesn't he know that that person does almost all good?
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Doesn't he know that they're a pretty kind person? Doesn't he really know, and how many of you have ever put yourself in God's, basically taken over the throne of God and said, this is what you should do,
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God, because I have this insider information? Do you know what I'm talking about? Where you can have a tendency to know better than God and say, you should do this in this situation because, and then you can make your case.
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How many of you think that you've never informed God of anything? Like you've never been on the inside. You don't have the inside scoop on anything.
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As a matter of fact, I find more and more as I age, I don't even have the inside scoop on my own heart and I live in here.
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Do you know what, some of you are like, wait, not sure I trust you anymore, Don, but do you know what I'm saying? How many of you get what
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I'm saying when I say that? Like, I'm not sure my own motives. I can't even weigh those and I have to trust in God to reveal my own motives and correct me and convict me.
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Because I don't even get it right in here. He has all knowledge. He knows you better than you know yourself.
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And God knows all the right and he knows all the wrong. And he has taken the depth of his infinite knowledge and he is bringing forth a people who will worship him for eternity.
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Out of love, love for him and love for them.
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His infinite knowledge applied in the realm of salvation. This worship in verses 33 through 36 is thoughtfully artful, despite the fact that it's exclamatory, that it's oh and it's almost like it just bursts forth from him, but it's still thoughtful.
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Because Paul follows up each of these expressions with rhetorical questions that tie in with the words. It's like he's mentioned the depth of his wisdom, the depth of his knowledge, the depth of his riches and then he asks a question for each.
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It's like a poem that has structure to it. Oh, consider the wisdom of God.
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Goes on to ask how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
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If you're struggling this morning to worship him because you don't even have anything to wrap your mind around when you think about the wisdom of God, then ask that question.
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Maybe even as we come to communion, jot these down and then really meditate and mull over these as we come to the table this morning.
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How unsearchable are the judgments and how inscrutable are his ways? Just meditating on the answer to that question should lead us to worship him for his wisdom or consider his knowledge.
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Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has given advice to God?
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Or, oh, consider his riches. Who has given to him that he might be repaid?
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There's an assumed answer to all of these, isn't there? And here's where the praise is coming from.
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God's ways cannot be traced by us. He needs to tell us for us to even discern his wisdom and his path and the way that he rolls.
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That's why he put it down in writing. We have nothing we can add to God's knowledge.
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He needs no teacher. He never asks anyone for advice. And lastly, and closest to the gospel, he needs nothing.
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We cannot give a gift to God. Our worship isn't a gift. He can have it if he wants it.
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Our lives are not a gift. He can take them if he wants them. We can live all of our lives with a fundamental misunderstanding that Paul, I believe, is intentionally in worship trying to correct for us.
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And I hope it corrects it for us this morning. God needs nothing.
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He cannot be put in anyone's debt. This both feeds into and comes out of our understanding of salvation by grace alone that Paul has spent 11 chapters seeking to bring home to us.
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God doesn't give us salvation as payment for a life well lived. He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion so that when you think of your salvation, when you come to the tables to remember his body broken for you and his blood shed for you this morning, when you think of your salvation, thank him for giving you an unworked for grace.
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Thank him for giving you an unearned mercy. Thank him for giving you an undeserved love.
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And here in verse 36 is an excellent summary to the whole big picture of the sovereign
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God setting forth a plan to save a people out of all the nations of the earth through his son and his death.
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From him, coming from him. Think about the direction of the prepositions. From him, through him, and to him are all things.
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To him be glory forever, amen. What's he getting at here in this last verse?
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He is the source, the sustainer, and the goal of all things.
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All things have their origin in him. All things have their means through him. All things are headed toward him for their final end and judgment.
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The application to verses nine through 11 comes into focus in these three final verses. Praise him for his glorious wisdom.
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Praise him for his glorious knowledge. Praise him for his glorious riches.
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He is the source, he is the sustainer, he is the goal of all things.
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So as we come to communion and then from the tables seek to launch out into a new week, let's praise him, recast.
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Offer him thanks for the work he has done. That work was his grace and love lavished on us at the cross of his son.
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Jesus took the punishment we deserved in himself. Jesus, the wisdom of God.
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Jesus, the knowledge of God. Jesus, the riches of our God expressed to us.
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He willingly took on himself the sins of anyone who trusts him by faith and asks him to be their
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Lord and King. So if that describes you this morning, if Jesus Christ is your Savior and your King, then come to the tables to remember his riches, his wisdom, and his knowledge applied in saving you.
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And if you're struggling to feel any of this today, maybe you're not yet a follower of Jesus Christ and if that's you, then
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I encourage you to skip communion and then maybe take the bold step to come and talk with me about starting a new relationship with Jesus even today.
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But some of you honestly might just feel nothing because you've strayed away from knowing him. You haven't been in pursuit of knowledge of him.
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You're spending no time in his word. You don't have time to pray to him. You haven't felt anything in a while.
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Let me encourage you to draw near to him, to know him, and let his word begin again to fill you with wonder and awe of the way that God works among his people.
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There's very little, I don't know about you, but if I go it alone, I can tell I'm going it alone because here's what happens in my day.
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There's very little wonder and awe in a routine Don day. Is that reality for you guys too?
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Very little wonder and awe. As a matter of fact, things get pretty drab pretty quick. This time of the year, the weather, yeah, the leaves are gonna change, but they just fall too.
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You know what I'm saying? Everything can kind of turn more gray when it's a
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Don day, when it's a you day. Very little wonder and awe in our day -to -day schedules.
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But the more that I connect with God in each day, through his word and through prayer, the more my eyes are open to awe and wonder at the
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God who has applied his riches, his wisdom, and his knowledge in saving us.
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Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would restoke awe and wonder in us that leads us to praise.
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Father, that you would not allow us any room for this evangelical malarkey that checks the brain at the door and just comes in and just, oh,
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I'm just gonna get emotional. Father, I pray that you would help to reconnect our heads to our hearts and then connect our heads to your word and to the knowledge of you in truth.
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Help us to be those who wrestle with hard truths and come to the knowledge of who you are, and then praise you with our lives.
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Father, I pray that if there's anybody in this room who doesn't have that capacity yet for praise to you because they're not yet your child and so they're still back on this gospel -oriented thing of what really is my problem and what really are the issues,
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Father, I pray that today you would give them the boldness to come and talk with me. If none of this makes sense to anybody in this room,
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Father, I pray that you would just give them a boldness to say so and that we could talk about the things of eternal life.
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Father, for those of us who belong to you, I pray that you would reignite our hearts. Thank you for the cross of Jesus Christ as we take the cracker to remember his body broken for us, we take the juice to remember his blood shed for us, something we completely and utterly could never deserve, but your grace lavished on us.
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We thank you for your riches. We thank you for your wisdom. We thank you for your knowledge, infinitely expressed in your saving work in our lives.