Romans 9:1-5 (Is "America First" Biblical?, Pastor Jeff Kliewer)

Let's pray. Father, as many of our teenagers are away at camp, Lord, we pray that you bring them back safely to us, but also, Lord, that they come back filled with the fire from heaven, that their hearts would be ablaze for the glory of Jesus Christ, that you would fill them with your Holy Spirit and bring them back to us with the joy of the Lord.

And Father, we have the joy of the Lord this morning. We wanna give you thanks for what you did on Tuesday. Thank you, Father God, for bringing a great victory to the Christians of this country, for the good of this country.

Father, we thank you that the Reproductive Freedom Act would not be a part of this country, the death of that law. Lord, we thank you for the end of the Equality Act. We thank you for the end of the transing of America.

We thank you that this country will not become socialist. We thank you, Lord, that we will not be overrun with illegal immigration. We thank you, Lord, that Christianity will not be mocked and scorned in this country.

Lord, we thank you that you have done well in your own eyes. Lord, you did what was good. And we see it, Lord, and we are glad. We thank you so much for what you're doing in this country. And we wanna just pause to say that.

Praise you, Lord God. You are worthy of all of our praise. And now as we turn to the word, we pray that you would increase our understanding. Show us things, Lord, that we have never thought of before.

Strengthen our understanding from your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, in 1622, there was an incursion upon the Jamestown Colony. The colony was only 1 ,200 people at the time, but a number of Native Americans, Powhatans, came into the camp, acting as if they were friends to the colonists.

They came unarmed, but they were warriors, and war was in their heart. They acted like they were there to trade and to do business with the colonists. But at the signal of their leader, all of them at once grabbed whatever weapons they could find from the shop doors and walls and instruments from the kitchens, and they massacred 347 of the colonists.

This was a horrible massacre in 1622, which actually killed 1 3rd of the colony in one horrific day. But by 1632, in a great victory, the colonists won peace and freedom over those who had attacked them.

It was a great victory. God blessed the Christians of America with victory over the Powhatan Native Americans. About 100 years later, the wars were continuing, and then came the French and Indian War.

You're familiar with how George Washington led out as a general in that war. And it was almost as if he was impervious to bullets. Bullets would be flying in every direction. They would cut through his clothes, cut through his hat, hit his horse, but nothing could hit him.

God somehow protected him in that war. And the Christians of America were again victorious. God blessed America with victory in the French and Indian War, and all of the land to the Mississippi, much of it was ceded to the British colonists.

The historian Francis Parkman famously wrote, half the continent had changed hands at the scratch of a pen. On that one day, everything changed, and the English colonists had that land. And of course, you know the great year, 1776, where God blessed the Christians of America with a nation to call our own.

And by 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty of the United States of America, and the war was over. In 1865, God blessed the Christians of America with a victory over an enemy within. That enemy was slavery.

And the Lord brought deliverance to those who were enslaved. But it did come at the cost of much blood and much power given to the federal government over the states. In 1945, you know that year, God blessed the United States of America with victory over Hitler-occupied Europe, and over Japan in the same year.

Japan, who had attacked Pearl Harbor. On December 25th, 1991, some of you might remember the day, it was the last day that the hammer and sickle hung on the flag over the Kremlin in Moscow. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, the war against communism, the Cold War, was brought to an end.

Through the leadership of Ronald Reagan, when he said, tear down this wall, years before, communism eventually crumbled. And on that day, December 25th, 1991, God blessed the Christians of America with victory in the Cold War.

On November 5th, 2024, God blessed the Christians of America with victory over wokeness. Praise the Lord. Yeah, you can applaud for that. When bombs and bullets are flying in World War II, you know who the enemy is.

In the Cold War, it was more of an intellectual difference because there were no bombs and bullets, it was an ideological difference. You could see the result of communism in Russia and in Mao's China, where 100 million plus people died because of communism over the years that we fought it.

The enemy was obvious and the lines were clear. But when Marxism was losing in America from its introduction, especially gaining steam in the early part of the 1900s and into the 1960s, this country was rejecting Marxism.

And so, one of the Marxist socialist leaders, whose name was Rudi Dutschke, described their intended long march through the institutions. The long march through the institutions was not a war with bullets, but an intellectual battle for the hearts of Americans.

And the idea was to infect media and academia, corporations, and all the government bodies of the United States of America with Marxist ideology. It was cultural Marxism. What they recognized was that the economic Marxism with the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, remember this from history class?

The victim-oppressor division of the world, that all things can be described by power dynamics. One group is the oppressor, the other is the victim. That wasn't working in America because of the freedom and the American dream.

But what they noticed is that there were racial tensions in America, and they sought to exploit those. And every difference in America was exploited by this victim-oppressor construct. This is what wokeness is.

It is to teach people that they are a victim of others based on some identity marker. Whether it be the color of skin, some with less melanin would be the oppressor of those who have more. Or maybe it's a sexual identity.

Somebody who practices sexually aberrant practices would identify themselves as a victim of the majority. Or maybe it was men and women. They really exploited this, and especially with abortion. Did you notice that this was the centerpiece of the leftist movement that we fought against recently?

Reproductive freedom, as they call it, in the name of women's rights. All of this cultural Marxism can be described as wokeness. And listen, it came into America through the universities. Marxists infiltrated the learning centers of America intentionally.

So if you notice how the election map looks, pay attention to this. The nearer you are to the most educated population in America, the deeper blue. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, the three most educated, university-educated states in the country.

The three least university-educated states are West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. And they are at the polar opposite. You see, the universities, not just in the Northeast, but then teaching that and sending it to all the universities of this country have been introducing cultural Marxism since the 1960s.

It began to take root and then to take hold. And it seemed, it seemed that they owned everything. The media, the government, the corporations, sports, everything was infected by the woke mind virus. And it was very possible that America could be lost to that Marxist ideology.

It had happened before to countries all around the world. But just this last week, by the very grace of God, the people of the United States of America repudiated that wokeness, turned against it, and by and large, in mass, said we are not going in that direction.

Guys, this victory that we experienced this week was just as significant as the end of the Cold War. Just as significant. It was the same victory against Marxism, only it had come within the culture. We need to be celebrating and dancing.

My kids saw me dancing in the middle of the night and that was not a pretty sight. They said, dad, stop. We were still up watching. Listen, church, it is okay and even godly to say I love the United States of America.

You do not have to hate your country to be a Christian. Although even evangelical leaders have taught something similar to that. When I look at the country that I was raised in, I was born in Seattle.

Did you guys know that? Out in the Pacific Northwest. And when I would ride the Kingston Ferry from Edmonds and see Mount Rainier off in the distance, and you get off the ferry and there are just wild blackberries growing on the side of the road.

You can just pick them and eat them and they're delicious. Yes, my heart is attached to the United States of America from growing up here. My dad wasn't born in America. He was born in Germany. But in 1954, immigrated here as a four-year-old.

Now you know his age. But I've never been to Germany. I don't have proximity to Germany and I don't have any sense of attachment to Germany, especially because of what Hitler did and drove all of the Christians out to places like America.

But I grew up in Florida for most of my time. And I remember what it was like to play basketball in the hot sun and you're sweating in your T-shirt. And you go and pick a grapefruit from the tree that hangs next to the basketball courts.

You eat grapefruit with your friends and you play basketball all day in the freedom of this country. And I moved to Dallas to go to seminary and I know what Texas is like. All the big churches. I'm telling you, Prestonwood Church, Baptist Church, we would call it Preston World.

It was like a theme park, it was so big. And all the churches are like that there. It's a Christian culture. It's amazing. And then we moved up to Philadelphia and did inner city ministry. And there's some part of my heart on the streets of Philadelphia where I used to drink Day's Soda, pineapple soda, and talk to people.

And you could talk to a hundred people in an hour, just people flowing by all the time, the density of the population. And many of them are like sheep without a shepherd, willing to hear the gospel. And then I moved to New Jersey and I love it all the more where my lawn, I call my bocce field because I'm always challenging the kids to go out on the lawn to play bocce ball because I love bocce ball.

But I love the feel of the grass in New Jersey. Anybody love New Jersey grass? And we go and we baptize people in the shore and the feel of the waves crashing over you as people are being baptized, proclaiming their faith in Jesus Christ.

And the longer you've lived in America, this becomes your home, the 4th of July with fireworks and Neil Diamond singing, they're coming to America. It should stir your soul. Listen, patriotism, nationalism is not bad.

God has given us a gift to live in an exceptional nation and he has blessed this nation and how it was born, how it came about and what it has stood for over all these years. We're coming on the 250 anniversary in a couple of years.

And God has given us an extended season of the sun, an extended season of blessing and opportunity and freedom. You know, when the election finished, the Trump organization, it showed their headquarters.

Do you know what they did when they found out that they won? They burst out in song to the Lord Jesus Christ singing, how great thou art. The other side told some Christians who proclaim Jesus as Lord, oh, you're at the wrong rally.

And the truth was, it was God in his grace, in his power, who gave the Christians of the United States of America a new day of small beginnings, of big things to come. And we must give him praise for that.

Now, I didn't plan that Romans 9 verses 1 to 5 would have bearing on this subject. And I had never seen it before until I studied it this week. But I think Paul's heart for his own nation, his own brothers, his own kinsmen is very much the point of Romans 9, 1 to 3.

Turn with me as we study the text of God's word. There is in this text a subjective love for one's own people. And then there is an objective love for Israel as such. Now, do you know what I mean when I say subjective and objective?

Subjectively, meaning Paul himself, as the author of the book, is in a particular subjective position to have a deep love for Israel. He talks about that first. And then he talks objectively, outside of himself, not related to his own position, but as a reality that just is, objectively, eight reasons why Israel is a nation, an ethnic people that God has forever blessed in a unique relationship with him.

Church, we as the church did not replace Israel. God is not done with Israel. Notice that the woke mind virus that overtook the institutions resulted in a deep hatred for Israel. That is not a coincidence because in the spiritual war in which we are engaged, the truth that marches on obeys these words that we're about to read.

But the devil hates Christian ethics regarding sexuality, regarding reproduction, regarding Israel. And I want you to hear from God's own mouth, his view of the ethnic racial identity of his people, the Israelites.

Let's read Romans 9, one to five. I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

They are Israelites and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever, amen.

And all God's people said, amen. Paul's heart for Israel derives from Israel's objective place in God's decree, but also from Paul's subjective place, he himself being an ethnic Israelite. And this affinity for one's own kin is not bad.

When kept in its place. Now, how does Paul transition to this? If you recall, Romans chapters six through eight are about sanctification, progressive sanctification, becoming more like Christ. It's about the individual Christian in relationship to God.

So how do we transition from chapter eight, which ends on this glorious high note? Paul secure in the love of God in Christ Jesus, held by the golden chain of redemption. How do we get from there to Israel?

I think the key to understanding that is that Paul anticipates how people will object to him. He anticipates how people will receive his teaching and then he answers those objections. Now, what is the biggest objection to saying that God has elected and chosen these people and he's keeping them by this golden chain and it's secure and nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

The natural question that most people will raise is, what about Israel? Israel was the promised chosen ones, the elect people, the nation, and yet it seems they're not believing in the Messiah. Did God's word to them fail?

How can we trust you, Paul, regarding those who believe in Christ if the ethnic nation of Israel is not believing in the Christ? And I would say that some would even consider Paul to be an anti-Semite.

You say, wait a minute, Paul's a Jew. How could he be an anti-Semite? Well, the Jews had this ethnic partiality, this arrogance about them in this time where they would not associate with Gentiles. They were not allowed to go into Gentiles' homes.

They could not eat with them. In fact, what was the moniker they used to describe Gentiles? Dogs. And here's Paul crossing the ethnic boundaries, going to Jew and Gentile alike and preaching the Christ to anybody and everybody.

And they say, Paul, you're a sellout. You must be some plant. You must be someone who's turning the world against Israel, undermining our special place. So Paul has anticipated this, probably because he hears it all the time.

Everywhere he goes, the Jewish people persecute him. Sometimes they stone him, beat him up, whip him. He's been through it. He gets it. And so here he is answering what he's heard. Now notice, the first big idea I want you to see is that in verses one to three, Paul has an affinity for the Israelites, not just because of who they are objectively, but because of who he is and what he feels.

And what he does is he lays his own heart on the table and says, guys, look at this. I'm telling you the truth. You notice how he doubles down. I'm speaking the truth. And he says, I am not lying. He's showing his heart.

He says, my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit. And then he says something that has troubled me for years, because I've never been able to identify with Paul. He says, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers. And when I read those words, I think, I've never experienced that kind of love for the lost. My heart has never broken for them like Paul's is breaking here.

That word anguish, it means a real torturing of the soul. Now, what this tells us theologically is that Paul believes in a literal hell, eternal conscious punishment. He doesn't believe in universalism, that everybody's just gonna end up in heaven anyway.

He doesn't believe in annihilationism, that people will just be dissolved into nothingness at the judgment. He believes in what he calls here being accursed. It is to be under this condemnation that he referred to in the previous chapter that will never occur to Christians.

We can never, who is there to condemn? Christ is the one who has justified us. But here he is saying that those outside of Christ who do not believe in Christ will be accursed. And so that explains this kind of anguish.

You can't understand this anguish unless you understand this, that those who go to the grave without Jesus Christ will live in eternal conscious torment. The flames of hell are real. They're mocked in society as just a mythical middle-age invention, but they're not that.

And Paul knows it. Hell is a real place and he is afraid for his brethren. So the first thing to notice there is that hell is real. But secondly, notice that Paul's love for this particular people is on account of them being his brothers.

I could never love Israel like that. I am a huge supporter of Israel. You guys know that. Many of you are too. Hopefully all of us, big supporters of Israel. But I can't support Israel with that kind of heartfelt love that I would give my own salvation for that nation to come.

What I could do, I think, is if my daughter or my son or my wife or my brothers were standing on the precipice of that cliff about to be plunged headlong into eternal flame and I were offered the chance to exchange me for them, I think I could maybe do that.

I love them that much that let me burn for eternity and you be in glory. And you understand what I'm saying. There is a natural affection that comes from family, from association, from your people. And I want you to see that this is what is driving Paul's statement about the Jews.

It's subjective, it's not objective. Look at verse three. He calls them my brothers. That personal pronoun, my, makes it subjective to him. That word brothers, adelphoi in the Greek, from which we get Philadelphia, Adelphia.

The I-A is the city. Phileo is love. Adelphon is brothers. And so you have the city of brotherly love. What Paul is saying here, these are my adelphon. The ones I have this deep natural love for. My brother.

He even says my kin. Is it okay to have a deep connection with your own kin? It is. Now I've said, mine is not German-American because I've never been to Germany. It's just American-American. It's not regarding the color of skin.

It's my people, my nation, my kin. And it is according to the flesh. Look at the end of verse three. He's not talking about the elect. And so let me underscore this. Israel did not cease to be the apple of God's eye.

The church did not replace Israel. Here, Paul has been speaking to the church in the sanctificational chapters, but he's turned his attention now to the kinsmen according to the flesh. Ethnic Israel, the descendants from Abraham are still important to God.

He's not done with them. As we'll learn in chapter 11, there will be a day where he will bring the Jewish people as a nation together to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. They will look upon the one they pierced and they will mourn for him.

There's coming a day of ingathering where they will become provoked to jealousy by the Gentile nations coming to faith and they themselves will be saved. And so all Israel will be saved in the future.

Now, it says, my brothers. He's referring to ethnic Israel. Does God care about ethnic nations? Or is everything only individualism all the time? Do nations matter to God? And is it ever right to say, for example, America first?

Because that would imply that nations matter. Do nations matter? So much of evangelicalism today, infected by the gospel coalition, does not believe that nations matter. But nations are the invention of God, not man.

It happens in Genesis chapter 10 while he scatters the nations. And in Genesis 10, verse five, it says, peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans in their nations. God's invention, Genesis 10, five.

And we know that God judges nations as such. When you stand at the great white throne judgment, you do so without any help from your brothers. It's you and God, an individual judgment. But on earth, God does judge nations as such.

Read Isaiah chapters 13 to 23. God deals with the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the people of Tyre. All of the peoples of earth stand before God and are judged as such. God cares about them as nations.

Nations matter to God. Some people point to the story of the Good Samaritan as reason to reject ethnic and national identity. Because who is my neighbor? The Good Samaritan was the one who helped the man on the side of the road.

Whereas the ethnic priest and the Pharisee, they just walked right on by their own brother. But here's a Samaritan willing to help. Now notice, in that story, the Samaritan was not noticing the orphans that lived in Calcutta.

He was not giving attention to somebody in China who fell by the side of the road. And this is a very important principle. It actually says in Luke chapter 10, by chance these people came across them.

And then it says in Luke chapter 10, verse 33, a Samaritan as he journeyed came to where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion. Here's where I'm driving at. God expects you and I to have particular compassion and attention to those where he has made us resident.

It's called providential proximity. It is God in Acts 17 who determines the boundaries of your habitation. He determines the times and seasons and the places where you live. I didn't ask my parents to have me in Seattle and nobody here chose to be born and end up as an American.

It was God who put you there. He put the Samaritan in that place. And this idea of providence, God determining your proximity to others and where you are to give of yourself. If nationalism were not true, nobody should serve in the military.

But it's good to stand for your nation in the military. It's good to put your life on the line for the sake of your Adelphoi, your brothers. And this is Paul's idea in verse three. When he says my brothers, he's talking about proximity.

It's the people he grew up with, that he eats with and has known his whole life. They went to school together, sitting under the teaching of Gamaliel. The people that God has placed in your life should hold a special place in your heart.

It's not wrong for you to love your own family more than your next door neighbor's family. Did you know that? God has given you this assignment to steward this family well. In the same way, nationally, you are to fight for your country.

Do everything you can to bless this nation and say, thank you, Lord, and to love the country in which he has placed you. That's good and godly. And Paul models it for us right here. Did you ever see that before?

I never saw it before this week. And I thought, wow, this is his love for his brothers, his kinsmen, according to the flesh. Now, the second half of the sermon, it'll be quicker than the first, is verses four and five.

There's also an objective place for Israel, for ethnic, national Israel, that's unique in the history of the world. Did you know that, too? Here's eight reasons why. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption.

There's the first one, adoption. In Amos chapter three, verse two, it says, out of all the families of the earth, I chose you, and I will discipline you like it, it essentially says. Amos 3 .2 points out that God saw all the families of the earth, and here's Abraham living in Ur of the Chaldees.

The Egyptians were in their land. Native Americans were already in the Americas. China was heavily populated. The peoples of the earth had spread out all abroad, and God chose the Israelites amongst all the people of the earth to set his special affection on them.

To them belongs that adoption. They were adopted as his child, his beloved son or daughter. Secondly, in verse four, it says, the Israelites have what's called the glory. When Saul had been going awry as the king of Israel, Samuel came to him and spoke of the glory of Israel.

1 Samuel 15 .29, if you'll turn there with me, please. We mentioned Amos 3 .2 for the adoption. You see the glory in 1 Samuel 15 .29. God had chosen to replace Saul with a more righteous king who would represent him well.

Why? In verse 29, it says, and also the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret. In that verse, who is the glory of Israel? The glory is God himself, and he manifested himself to Israel in Shekinah glory.

When the tabernacle was dedicated to God, he filled that temple with glory, so much so that the priests couldn't do their work. All they could do is fall down and worship. Same thing, when David built a temple for God, the Shekinah glory came into the temple.

God's glory was with this people in a unique way. That didn't happen in the Americas. Regardless of what Joseph Smith says, it was the glory of Israel that made them unique, and God himself dwelt with them.

He led them in a pillar of fire by day, and a cloud, cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. Next, go back with me to Romans 9, verse four. We're looking at eight objective facts about Israel that you can't say about anybody else.

This particular nation, unique to God, chosen by him, objectively special. The third is the covenants. Do you know what he refers to with the covenants? Here, he would have in view three covenants, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, and the Davidic.

The covenant in Genesis 12, one to three. To Abraham, he promised a land. The land of Israel belongs to the descendants of Abraham, and to a seed from Abraham's own body, who would be a blessing. From that seed of Abraham, there would be so many Israelites, like the stars of the sky, or like the sand on the seashore.

All of these descendants coming from Abraham. But from one of the seed, singular, one of them would be the blessing to the entire world. And those who bless Israel would be blessed, and curse Israel would be cursed.

So this promise, listen, was that promise to Abraham ever revoked, or could it be revoked? No, it was unconditional. God himself initiated it by a covenant sign with the fiery torch passing between the pieces, showing that it was God unilaterally making this covenant.

It's not conditional. God made it, and God upholds it for all time. The Abrahamic covenant. The covenant with Moses, when he brought them out and gave them a covenant of blessing and cursing. Now, this one was conditional, regarding the blessing or the cursing.

When they obeyed, Deuteronomy 28 and 29, they would be blessed. When they disobeyed, they would be cursed. But that covenant arrangement is irrevocable. As we still see to this day. God's covenant with Moses.

And the third covenant was with David, that of the descendants of David, one would always sit on the throne. And so you have the line of David. Turn with me to Matthew chapter one, verse one. Where does the New Testament pick up?

On this very covenant promise, the big idea here, church, is what God has covenanted with his people is irrevocable. So when Matthew chapter one, verse one begins, how many of y 'all start yawning when you hear the word genealogy?

Maybe if you're trying to fall asleep at night, you listen to the list of names, right? But in Matthew chapter one, verse one, it says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, it is to show that he is the son of David, the son of Abraham.

So this is the idea in Romans nine, four. We're almost done. First, it is the adoption. Second, the glory. Third, the covenants. The fourth objective fact about Israel that makes them irrevocably the children of God is the giving of the law.

They have the 10 commandments. God did not go to the Moabite people or the Egyptians and give them the law. They had natural reasoning. They had the law written on their heart of conscience. But only Israel received the holiness code and all the 600 some laws about sexual ethics and righteousness, the dietary laws, the sacrificial system.

This was given to Israel and Christ fulfilled so much of it already. And the moral law stands forever. Israel was the guardian of this law. The one nation on earth entrusted with the oracles of God. How many books of the Bible were written by non-Jews?

Exactly zero. And this is God's giving of the law through Moses, descendant of Abraham, to teach the world right and wrong. It's right there in the 10 commandments. There's a church down in Collingswood that still has that posted right on their building wall.

And I love that. The 10 commandments. It was given to Israel and it's a light to the world. This sets them apart. Next, the worship. Romans 9, five says the worship. I think this probably refers to the festivals, Leviticus 23, the different festivals of Israel where they would go up to Jerusalem, walking the hill and singing the Psalms of ascent.

Church, when you come here on Sunday morning, you should sing whatever words are put in front of you with a heart filled with praise. It's worship. It comes from the heart. This is what Israel would do.

They would go up to Jerusalem singing and worshiping. And then they would have these festivals. In one case, they would go out to the well, Jacob's well, and draw water. Read Isaiah chapter 12. With joy, we draw water from the wells of salvation and come back and pour the water on the altar.

And all of this demonstrated God's washing and regeneration and his love. In the same way, now as the church, we have baptism, the washing, that pictures what's happened in our hearts. All this to say Israel was given these festivals, this worship, and they used that to glorify God.

They were entrusted with the worship. Next, it says the promises. I'd like you to read Zechariah at some point soon. In chapter eight, it talks about how God will bring back his people, the Jewish people, into their land.

And little children will be playing joyfully on the streets in peace and security. And God himself will be with them. And church, don't you know that in the millennium, Christ will be in Jerusalem, and the world will be inhabited, and the Jews will be back in their promised land.

Much more could be said about that, but these are the promises. This is what God has promised to Israel. Lastly, in verse five, to them belong the patriarchs. Did I just say a dirty word? It doesn't say matriarchs.

God has designed this patriarchal system where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and the brothers were given to Israel. And they are to delight in that ethnic heritage. Paul is to delight in the fact that his great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was Abraham.

Many greats in there. In the same way, it's not wrong to delight in the blessing of family, and to try to set down a legacy for your children and your children's children. Isaiah 54, 21, it drives us to leave a legacy that honors God.

And here, they're delighting in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the brothers. It's a good thing. Lastly, though, notice it rises to a crescendo. The first seven are all glorious, unspeakably glorious, but the last one is the climax.

Here, it is pointing us to where this all goes and what makes Israel special. Of all the nations of the earth, only Israel can say this, Jesus was a Jew. And Paul puts it this way. From their race. Now, we're talking about ethnicity and nationality, not just a kind of faith that makes someone an Israelite of the heart.

No, it's talking about from their race, according to the flesh, Paul underscores, is the Christ. You can't take that away. Israel gave the world the Christ, Jesus himself. And so they will always have that as an objective reason to delight.

And so finally, in verse five, it says, of the Christ, here who is the highlight and the end of the story, he is called God over all. He's not only the God of Jews, but the God of Gentiles like us too.

The Christ is God over all, it says. Which means he has torn down the wall of ethnic partiality. The dividing wall between Jew and Gentile has now been torn down according to Ephesians three. Now, when it says he is God of all, that means he's God.

Maybe somebody just needs that simple fact today. Jesus is God. Titus chapter two, verse 14, I think it is. I don't have it in my notes. Oh, 2 .13, I do have it. Our great God and savior. Jesus is God.

He said to the Jewish people in John 8 .58, before Abraham was born, I am. He's claiming to be God. He is God. But here the concept, why would Paul say God over all? He's making the point that he's not only the God of Israel, he's the God of this entire universe.

There's not a square inch in all the universe over which Jesus Christ does not claim mine. God over all, every ethnic people. So then, to application. To put one's own ethnic nationality first is not the sin of partiality.

God puts you where you are. And you ought, like Paul, to love your own nation. That's not partiality. Paul reveals, though, something very remarkable. The same man who says he would be willing to be cut off from Christ for the sake of his own brethren, his kinsmen by the flesh, the Israelites, the same man did not turn out to be a missionary to the Jews.

He was the apostle to the Gentiles. I like the story of Gladys Allworth, I think her name was. Very short little lady. But she always had a heart for the Chinese and the mission agencies wouldn't accept her and send her to China, so she found a way to get on that Trans-Siberian Railroad and cross all the way to China on her own, where she became a missionary to China.