WWUTT 1318 A Wild Tree By Nature (Romans 11:21-24)

You are saved not because you did anything great, but because God is great, because He is kind and merciful toward you.

And you must continue in His kindness until the day of glory, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of God that we may be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in Romans 11, where Paul is addressing the

Gentiles, and he gives them the picture of the cultivated olive tree to remind them not to rely on themselves or on their works for salvation, but to hold fast to the root, who is

Christ. Let's come back again to Romans 11 verses 17 -24. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not become arrogant toward the branches.

If you are, remember it is not you who supports the root, but the root that supports you.

Then you will say, Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. That is true.

They were broken off because of their unbelief. But you stand fast through faith, so do not become proud, but fear.

For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God, severity toward those who have fallen.

But God's kindness to you, provided you continue in His kindness, otherwise you too will be cut off.

And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree?

So we come back to verse 20 here, where we ended yesterday. Right before that,

Paul presupposes an argument that would be raised by the Gentiles, who would say, Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.

The branches are the Jews, they are cut off from the olive tree. The wild shoots are the

Gentiles, they are grafted into this olive tree. Now you understand what we mean by grafting, right?

I guess I didn't explain this yesterday, what a cultivated tree is, or what grafting is.

Cultivation is simply caring for plants. So it's more than just, you know, throwing a seed in the ground and then the plant grows up and then you harvest it.

But you're actually caring for the plant, you're nurturing it. And here in this particular case, God has given oracles,

He has given laws, He has established covenants and He is tending these things and making sure that which

He has promised will indeed be fulfilled. It's not like a covenant that He has made is going to just sit out there.

It's going to remain void. He makes covenants with people and a people are going to be delivered according to the covenant that God has made with them.

In this case, we're talking about salvation and the seal of the covenant is the blood of Christ.

So all who are in Christ who have faith in Jesus are under this covenant and God is caring for those who are growing up in the covenant that they may receive the harvest.

Jesus talking to His disciples and saying the fields are ripe for harvest. So He's telling them to go out and be harvesters in the field of souls, to bring in those who are going to be part of the kingdom by hearing the gospel, by believing, by faith.

We see these analogies come up a lot throughout the New Testament. For example, Paul talking with the

Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3, I'm going to start reading here in verse 5. What then is

Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the

Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

He who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor.

For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field.

So there you have that picture again of crops being cared for, being tended for.

That's cultivating. So here Paul gives the analogy of a cultivated olive tree, and he's talking about branches being grafted in.

What do we mean when we say grafted? Well, I don't know much about this. I've never done any grafting.

I don't even do a whole lot of cultivating, but just a layman's understanding of this. Here you go.

This is grafting in a nutshell. So it's taking a branch off another tree and it's grafting it into a different tree.

And some farmers, especially like fruit farmers, will do this with different kinds of fruits.

They might take a branch off of a plum tree and put it on an apricot tree. And so you still have from that branch will still produce plums, but it's being nourished by the apricot tree.

And then they'll do things like this too to mix fruits. The apples, the different kinds of apples that you can get at the store, like Granny Smith apples and red apples or Fuji apples or Gala apples.

All these different apples come from grafted trees. It's taking branches off of different trees until you come up with a different kind of fruit or a desired taste in your apples.

In this particular case, we're talking about different levels of sweetness. That's what you get in a different apple, sweet or sour.

So in this picture that Paul is giving of the cultivated olive tree, we have some wild shoots.

They're olive shoots, so we're still part of the same plant. We're still producing the same fruit, but it's a wild shoot from a different plant that's been cut off and it's been grafted into a growing and established tree.

And the root here, of course, as we have seen, is Christ. So everyone who is a part of this tree is rooted in Christ and growing up being nourished by Christ.

Hence why Paul is telling the Gentiles, do not rely on yourselves, thinking that it is you who has brought you into this salvation.

And it is you who has resulted in all of this growth. It has nothing to do with you.

It has to do with Christ, hence why he says, do not be arrogant toward the branches, those branches that had to be cut off, those that were in unbelief.

They were given the oracles, as it said back in Romans chapter three, to them were given the law and the prophets from them came the

Messiah. We read that in chapter nine, and yet they were cut off because they did not believe.

So it's not because you as Gentiles were better than the Jews. It's not because you're better because you didn't obey the law, but they transgressed the law.

Don't ever think that about yourself. It is because God is merciful. And so you need to rely on his kindness, not on your ability to save yourself or stay saved.

The same kind of warning, this very same warning was given to Israel when they were given the promised land.

God through Moses was telling Israel, do not think that you're inheriting this land because you're anybody great.

You're inheriting it because the people who are on the land are wicked and it's time for them to be judged.

Deuteronomy chapter nine, verse four, do not say in your heart after the Lord, your God has thrust them out before you.

It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess the land.

Whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you, not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart.

Are you going in to possess their land? But because of the wickedness of these nations, the

Lord, your God is driving them out from before you and that he may confirm the word that the

Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. And that's what's happening here.

The same sort of thing is being communicated to the Gentiles here. You're not being grafted into these promises because you're great.

The Jews were cut off because they dealt wickedly. As it says again in verse 20, they were broken off because of their unbelief.

But you stand fast through faith. And as we've said many times before, faith is not something that we do.

Faith is given to us by God. So we have admission into the covenant, into these promises, the promise of an eternal kingdom with God.

All of this comes by faith in Christ, who is the root. And we hold fast to the root.

So do not become proud, Paul says, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

Now, as I mentioned yesterday, this is not about losing your salvation. That's not what the argument is going on here.

Nor is this an argument of supersessionism. Do you know what I mean by supersessionism?

We also call this replacement theology. And the idea of replacement theology, in part, comes from Romans chapter 11.

And I would say it would be a misreading of Romans 11 because we have branches that are cut off and Gentiles are grafted in.

That's where sometimes this idea of supersessionism will flow out from. Replacement theology.

That the church has replaced Israel. But as I've said to you many, many times before, the church has not replaced

Israel. The church is the expansion of Israel. And so as we read parts even in Romans about the salvation of Israel, we who are the church are part of that salvation.

It's everybody who is in this tree, who is holding fast to the root, who is

Christ. Everyone who's a part of this tree will be saved. And some who were broken off will even be grafted in.

They were broken off because of their unbelief. But if they come to faith in Jesus Christ, if they realize it is not by their works and the law was never meant to save us anyway, but they put their trust in Christ, then they who were the natural branches who received the oracles in the first place, the law and the covenants from whom the

Messiah had come, how much more will they be grafted back into their own tree? That's verse 24.

I've kind of jumped ahead a little bit, but this is the argument. This is what's being laid out here. So we're not, we're not talking about supersessionism.

This is not replacement theology. But again, nor is this talking about losing one's own salvation.

As Paul is warning here, you are wild shoots that have been grafted in. But if you do not remain in the kindness of God, you are going to be cut off.

If it was easy for God to cut off the natural branches, then how much more will he cut off you? Who is a wild shoot that was grafted in?

If a person does not remain in the kindness of God, if they do not walk in grace, if they have a conversion experience, but they go right back into the sin and worldliness that they were in before they heard the gospel, then they demonstrate that they were never truly hearers of the gospel.

So being cut off means that they're going to be separated from the body of Christ. Having demonstrated that they're not truly part of that body anyway, they are rotten branches.

They're producing bad fruit. And we have other analogies throughout the scriptures that say that every bad branch is going to be cut off and thrown into the fire.

I read this yesterday from John 15. Here again is verse five. Jesus says, I am the vine.

You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.

Verse seven. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit. And so prove to be my disciples, prove to be disciples of Christ.

When we bear fruit, if we're not bearing fruit, the, as the analogy continues, then you're a bad branch and you're going to be cut off and thrown into the fire.

We have this also in Matthew chapter seven, back in the sermon on the Mount, verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles.

So every healthy tree bears good fruit. But the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

A healthy tree. In this case, we'd be talking about a branch. I don't want to mix metaphors here, but in the cultivated olive tree, we'd be talking about a bad branch doesn't bear good fruit.

Verse 18, a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. So take that concept and apply it to the cultivated olive tree.

Every branch that is not producing good fruit is going to be cut off and is going to be thrown away.

And as Paul is saying here, note that God did this to natural branches.

There are those who were of the children of Israel who did not believe God cut them off. You can read all about it throughout the entire

Old Testament. Everyone who did not believe, who dealt wickedly, God punished and they are cut off from the kingdom and from the promises forever.

Even in Deuteronomy, which by the way, the book of Deuteronomy is laid out like a treaty, like you would read an ancient treaty in the ancient world.

So God arranged a treaty with his people and there were certain conditions. If his people did not meet those conditions, then they were cut off from the covenant.

They would be cut off from the land. There's things that are said about that in Deuteronomy, that if you do not do this, you will be cut off from your people, from your clan, from your land.

And you, dear believer, should not automatically assume that just because you prayed a prayer one day that you're going to receive the kingdom of God.

There are conditions that we must follow as Christians. And as we read in Matthew 7, as I read to you from John 15, these things don't save you, but they affirm that you are truly saved, that you are truly in Christ.

If you're not producing fruit and what kind of produce are we talking about here?

Well, consider 2 Peter 1, verse 3, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplant your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self -control and self -control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ. So there's some basic instructions there on what kind of fruit that we should be producing from or according to the apostle

Peter. Of course, you might also go straight to thinking about, well, the fruit of the spirit, right? In Galatians chapter 5, verse 22, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control against such things.

There is no law. And Paul and Peter are really in agreement here in what they say is the fruit that we should be producing if we're holding fast to Christ, who is the root giving us our nourishment.

Never think too highly of yourself and don't look at Jews who have been cut off and think of yourself.

Well, I didn't do what they did, so I'm doing something better than they. They were the natural branches.

They were cut off for their unbelief. You've been grafted in because God has been kind to you.

He has been merciful and gracious to you. God showed his love for you and that while you were a sinner,

Christ died for you. That's Romans 5, 8. But as we read in Romans 2, 4, do not presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

So we come back again here to verse 22. Note then the kindness and the severity of God, severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness.

And we hear in here something similar to what was said in Romans 9, verse 22.

What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Even us whom he has called not from the Jews only, but also from the

Gentiles. That was Romans 9 beginning in verse 22. Now we're in Romans 11, 22.

Note then the kindness and the severity of God, severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.

Otherwise, you too will be cut off. And as I referenced yesterday from Matthew chapter 10, Jesus telling his disciples, those who endure to the end will be saved.

Verse 23, and even they, going back to talking about the

Jews again, even if the Jews, if they do not continue in their unbelief, they will be grafted in for God has the power to graft them in again.

So what is being argued here by Paul is that the Jews have not been completely cut off.

And remember that he is talking to a church that is made up of both Jews and Gentiles. There were some arguments that had been raised among the two different groups there in this church there in Rome, because the

Jews were saying certain things need to be done this way. And the Gentiles were saying, no, we need to do it this way.

And Paul is going to address some more of those Christian liberty issues, especially when we get to Romans chapter 14.

But in the meantime here, he is saying it's evident even among you, even in your midst, that God has not totally cut off the

Jews. They are grafted in if they believe in Christ.

They will be grafted in because God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, there's a picture here of you've been cut off from the world and united to Christ.

This is the power of God that has been demonstrated for you. That you are no longer walking in worldliness and in the sins and the passions of your flesh, but you desire

Christ. This is the power of God that is being shown in you. Paul said this to the

Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians 1 4, for we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the

Holy Spirit. And with full conviction, you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake and you became imitators of us and of the

Lord for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became an example to all the believers.

And this was all according to the power of God. So it was by God's power that you have been cut off from the world and united to Christ.

So how much more will these the natural branches referring to the Jews be grafted back into their own olive tree all of this by the grace and mercy of God salvation for Jews salvation for Gentiles.

It's all the work of God. We come back again to Romans 1 16 for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

Jew first and also to the Greek my friends hold fast to Christ again.

Do not rely on your works. Do not rely on your own strength to keep you saved. Hold fast to the root who is

Christ and those who endure to the end will enter his Heavenly Kingdom.

Let us pray Heavenly Father. Thank you for this good word today this reminder that our salvation did not come from ourselves.

It came from you and we endure not by our own strength, but by holding fast to the root who is

Christ who gives us our nourishment. He provides our growth. We are

God's field. And so may we show this love and kindness that you have shown to us.

May we show it to each other and grow in these things more and more. We understand what it means to mature in Christ to grow in the knowledge of God and and to demonstrate all the more

Christ likeness and godliness in these present days holding fast the word of life and holding out the word of life to others that they may hear the good news of the kingdom of God and come to faith in Jesus Christ and so live deliver us from this present age into your glorious kingdom.

We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Gabe will be going through a New Testament study then on Thursday. We look at an Old Testament book on Friday.

We take questions from the listeners and viewers tomorrow. We'll pick up on an Old Testament study when we understand the text.