Romans 9:1-29, What’s the Purpose?, Dr. John Carpenter

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Romans 9:1-29 What’s the Purpose?

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You're reading Romans chapter 9 verses 1 to 29 Hear the word of the Lord I'm speaking the truth in Christ.
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I'm not lying My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart
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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
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They are Israelites and to them belong the adoption that glory the covenants the giving of the law the worship and the promises
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To them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the
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Christ who is God over all blessed forever Amen But it is not as though the
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Word of God has failed For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel and not all are children of Abraham Because they are his offspring but through Isaac shall your offspring be named
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This means that it is not the children of the flesh You were the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring
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For this is what the promise said about this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son and not only so But also when
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Rebecca had conceived children by one man our forefather Isaac Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election
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Might continue not because of works but because of him who calls She was told the older will serve the younger as it is written
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Jacob. I loved but Esau I hated What should we say then?
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Is there injustice on God's part by no means for he says to Moses I will have mercy on whom
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I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion So then it depends not on human will or exertion
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But on God who has mercy for the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose I've raised you up that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth
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So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills
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You will say to me then why does he still find fault for who can resist his will?
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But who are you O man to answer back to God will what is molded say to its molder
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Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use
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What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience?
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Vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy
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Which he has prepared beforehand for glory even us whom he has called not from the
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Jews only but also from the Gentiles as Indeed, he says in Hosea those who are not my people
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I will call my people and her who was not beloved I will call beloved and in the very place where it was said to them
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You are not my people there. They will be called sons of the Living God and Isaiah cries out concerning Israel though the number of the sons of Israel be of the sand of the sea only a remnant of them will be saved for the
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Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay and As Isaiah predicted if the
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Lord of Hosts had not left us offspring We would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah May the
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Lord had his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word But it's
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Father's Day Happy Father's Day. Now some people wonder what what to do on Father's Day. What's that? What's the use of Father's Day?
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I mean, what's the purpose of a father? Anyway, as the Babylon be described
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Father's Day quote nation spends the day acknowledging the existence of completely unnecessary parent As they say reflecting the feeling of a lot of people quote it is unknown what purpose this seemingly vestigial parent provides
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What is the purpose of a father? Well, they say now that their toxic masculinity has been tamed that quote
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They're relatively harmless and can help with chores around the house though usually only under tight supervision as they're not very good at them and Can occasionally watch the children though this again can cause trouble as they often irritate the children with bad jokes
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Okay, is that the purpose of the father? Who do you think has the bigger impact? Whether the children of church attending
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Christians like you whether the children grow up Also to be church attending Christians the mother or the father don't mean to put mothers down I'm sure
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I gotta get away the answer didn't but which which has the bigger impact that the mother So essential to the daily lives of children or that vestigial parent that we're celebrating today only because face facts
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What's come on amidst the reality? We're celebrating today only because about a month ago. We had Mother's Day and now we just feel that we got to be fair That's what it's about.
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Really. It's the select. Okay, we got to do for him, too We don't really want to but we got to do it for him, too in 1994
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Swiss researchers conducted a study Comparing the impact of mothers to fathers on the successful transference of a parent's faith to the children
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I was that the children grow up also to be Christians Specifically they measured of course, how do you know so much
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Christian? Well, they're measured by church attendants that they grow up to be church attenders, too Well, they found that if only the mother took the children to church
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Only 2 % 2 % that's all of the children grew up to regularly attend church 37 % attended irregularly.
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I'm not sure how irregular if that's like once a month or is that only like Christmas and Easter? I'm not quite sure what that means, but something like that or and 61 %
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Not at all. If only the mother attends brings the kids and some people that's idea
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They can't kind of go up with that Well, they'll leave the religion the spirituality up to mom so that her take the kids to church and that'll be alright.
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I'll be enough 61 % when they grow up don't
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Go to church at all. Now, if only the father took the kids to church 38 % of the children grew up to regularly attend church 19 times higher than the mother 44 % attend irregularly and only 18 % did not attend at all
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So combining if you combine regular to irregular attendees comparing mothers to fathers 39 % for mothers 82 % for fathers over twice is more effective
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The father is as the mother Now is the father key to ensuring that the children carry on as believers when you take the father's out of the picture things fall apart 63 % of youth suicides are by kids who are raised without their father 63 % by 2018 of the seven deadliest mass shootings
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Six six out of seven were from fatherless homes The killer in Uvalde, Texas had an absent father unsurprising completely unsurprising
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It looks like fathers Serve a purpose after all What's the purpose of a father now for the family, right?
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Then the family is everything right? Everybody knows that for Mexican drug cartels that teach their kids raise them up.
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La familia is todo Family is everything From that to Mafia Godfathers insisting that you never take sides against your family
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To the heart of Chinese ancestor veneration where the family is not only everything here. It's everything for eternity
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We even have a sound evangelical ministry, which in some ways I would recommend to you some for some issues name focus on the family
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Many modern people many people now is to assume that the purpose of the church and the purpose of going to church the purpose of Christ purpose of God even what's he there for?
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Well, he's to help The family he's not gonna help me raise my kids. What good is he and There will be preachers today all over this country praising not
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God but fatherhood because after all family Is everything?
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Well here in Romans 9 we find four questions answered Each showing purpose for questions for purposes in four paragraphs first What about Israel?
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What's their purpose? Second has God promised that God's promise is failed
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God's purpose in election Third is God unjust his purpose for unbelievers and finally
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Why does God still blame? His purpose for his people The first question what about Israel?
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What's their purpose now? Israel thought that they were right with God because they inherited their status.
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Their purpose was to be God's people on earth That's what we exist there for on earth. We after all Our father is
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Abraham father's Abraham is their father. They thought and so they're part of the part of his family and Family is everything they thought but Paul says
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That it's it's those who have faith Who are children of Abraham?
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Family has nothing to do with it Having him literally as your father has nothing to do with it It's it's if that's the case then what about Israel in chapter 2?
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Paul had already said that no one is a Jew is merely one outwardly So being one of God's chosen people is a matter of your heart.
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You can't inherit it He then he tells them that they're they can't be saved by their religious rituals or by their law -keeping and So he has from the
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Jewish perspective Attacked the heart of what makes them special their purpose remember they thought their relationship with God depended on on ancestry on family and on rituals
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Legalism now some of the critics who heard him speak were probably scoffing at him and thinking well
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He just doesn't care about his people. That's his problem He hates his own extended family. He hates his ethnic group
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They said family is everything and this traitor hates his own national family. And so Paul begins.
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Well, what about Israel? Oh, I He says remember the Holy Spirit and Christ are interceding for him.
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And so he calls them to bear witness I am in great distress. I love my people is only someone who really belongs to them can they are my country and my people
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My Country and my people is a the title of a book by Lin Yu Tong is describing and sometimes criticizing his own nation and culture
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China in 1935 very well written book very insightful book and when
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China was suffering from Much from the Japanese he ate for his own people
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Even though he was sometimes severe in his criticisms of his own people But he just anguish for what they were enduring at that time during the
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Japanese war now I am sometimes it's severe in criticizing my own country and culture, but on September 11th 2001 so what's the
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Towers fall in New York and the Pentagon on fire. I thought my country in my people
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That's what Paul does here in those first five verses so so longing for his people He says, you know, if I could
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I would give my soul away to say theirs They are in verse 11 my kinsmen
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According to the flesh their family. He's saying that they are my family and family is
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Maybe not everything but it's so much that he'd exchange his soul for them if he could but he can't
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Because to God family natural family isn't everything
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They are Israelites And to them blog the adoption the glory the covenants the giving of the law the worship and the promises to them belong the patriarchs that means literally father rulers and From their race according to the flesh is the
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Christ In other words, they got all this glorious things in the Old Testament Even the natural family of Jesus and the
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Messiah who is he says at the end of verse 5 God over all blessed forever
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Amen So far from hating his own people. He says he would be condemned for them if he could
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His extended national family means that much to him after all look at all that they were given
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All the Old Testament manifestations of God and then finally the perfect manifestation of God when he came in human flesh
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What was the purpose of all that? That is he is asking.
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What about Israel? What's his purpose? Well, they said our purposes were were
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God's people God chose us. That's who we are on earth to be to be the people of God and to that Paul says yes
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God revealed himself to you reveal itself through you. He gave some of the greatest blessings to you
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I really wish all of you were God's true people and I'd exchange my status of God's people being one with you if I could but I can't and You're not
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Not all of you God's people Family is not everything Family is not salvation
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No one is part of God's family simply because they were born into the right Human family if that's true for the
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Jews with their their covenants and their patriarchs and their promises. It's certainly true for us Every one of us every one of our children has to believe
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Personally, that's why we don't baptize babies as much as we want them to be among God's people
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We can't guarantee that we cannot put someone in a covenant with God And kind of obligate
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God to have do something for them by by some ritual we do for them We can't make them right with God Just because they're born to us and we should desperately want them to be it should be one of our passionate prayers
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Some of you may have what Paul describes right here great sorrow and unceasing anguish Because members of your own family aren't truly believers yet You might even be willing to exchange your salvation for theirs if that's what it took
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But you can't nothing to separate you remember the end of chapter 8 nothing can separate you from the love of Christ especially
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Not an act of love on your part So then second question Did God's promises to Israel fail?
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No For the simple reason that the promises were never directly for them Not literally to that earthly family and in verse 6 the promises the covenants the patriarchs were first given to them to Israel but the
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Word of God did not fail because Like the promises all those things were given to them
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But they don't become believers in Christ. He's not most of them don't and yet God's promises don't fail because In verse 6 not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel literally it says
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Translated for a great for for not all who are from Israel Are of Israel some kind of odd isn't not all
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Israelites are from Israel That his family is not everything. There are people who are born to Israel, but they are not the chosen people
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They're not the people of God They are the same people we talked about in chapter 2
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No one is a Jew who is one? Outwardly merely outwardly that is those people who are physically descended from Abraham are
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Jewish by ethnicity But if they don't believe in Christ, they are not real children of Abraham.
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So the question is Did God's promises about Israel to Israel about them being blessed by God did those promises fail?
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Did they not achieve their purpose? Because after all the
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Israelites at least not all of them aren't believing And they aren't getting those all those blessings that Paul was describing at the end of chapter 8
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So the God's promises Fail they not achieve their purpose. No because the purpose of those promises was never for them
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They aren't Israel They were never intended by God on being the people who got those promises at the end of the this passage
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Verses 27 to 29. He concludes that this idea by telling us that the most of the natural descendants of Israel were destroyed
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Like Sodom and Gomorrah compares them to Sodom and Gomorrah not for a few a remnant being saved We would have totally been like them.
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Nothing would have been left Those promises weren't for them. It was never purposed those promises to be for literal physical
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Israel notice it in verse 6 God's Word did not fail That means then obviously
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It succeeded God's Word God promises They fulfilled their purpose
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God's promises of the Old Testament accomplished exactly God's purpose for them
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What were the covenants the promises of the Old Testament? What were they made for? Well, you can tell by what they achieved
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What was their purpose well saving God's people if some Jews then or even some confused Christians now think that the promises are about a literal
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Israel It's about who your literal father is then it's not that God's Word failed
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But that their understanding of it has they think Family is everything
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Well, the Jews claimed we have Abraham is our father What's the purpose of a father? Well, they thought is it's you inherit his
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His promises you inherit everything that's is here Paul says in verse 7 not all our children of Abraham because they are his offspring
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After all Abraham had a lot of children He had more than just Isaac right yet. He should be a bunch of others, but it says through Isaac That's what
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God said through Isaac. Show your offspring be named that is of all the sons of Abraham It was only
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Isaac who got the promise God chose Isaac and not Ishmael and the others and so he tells us in verse 8 this means what's the meaning of his choosing
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Isaac and not say all the children of Abraham it Means that is not the children of the flesh
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Not just everyone who has him as a father physically not the children of the flesh who are children of God Those born to Abraham naturally did not get the promises of God the
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Jews then And some confused Christians today think that God's promises are inherited just by ancestry just because of who your father is
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But Paul says that the family is not everything God's promises succeeded perfectly for the children of promise.
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They are counted as offspring people think that the promises of God failed
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But they don't understand the promises But when you understand that there is a people defined not by ethnicity or by race or by nationality
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Who their father is? But that they are in God's eyes children of the promise
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They inherit it They're what we've had in Psalm 16 God says his excellent ones and whom is all his delight when you understand that you understand that God's promises
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Achieve their purpose the purpose of God's promises all through the Old Testament was for them
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It's for us If we're one of the children of promise I'll bet someone will say okay
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No, then what would gray and the thing about it should be? Oh, yeah. Yeah, right, but but that means that Everyone who comes through Abraham and Isaac that we're in Our family is everything
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Abraham is our father, but so that Paul says got him Answering this objection
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Darrow in says in verse 10, you know when when Isaac and Rebekah had their children two boys at the same time twins were both
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Children of the promise. I mean according to you if you're through Isaac, you're a child of the promise. What about Esau? They both were from Abraham and Sarah Through Isaac.
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So aren't both inheritors of God's promises They had the right father didn't they?
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No, of course not Esau is out even though he's a son of Abraham and Isaac But someone say but that's only because Esau was bad
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That's why he lost the promise. He lost it because of his bad deeds because lack of faith
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He lost the birthright because of what he did Esau could have had it but he lost it by his works by his
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Believing really And what is verse 11 say? God's selection of Jacob as being the one who would be the child of promise.
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He says this was before They had done anything good or bad Before they were even born the
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Word of God came that Jacob the younger would be chosen over the older Esau And it's not good enough to say that God Well, God could look forward and he could see their lives and see before they were born what they would do and my faith
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They would have and so we chose Jacob on the basis of what he saw Beforehand, but Paul says at the end of verse 11 that God's choice was not because of works
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And afterwards of a foreseeing works. It just wasn't because it works Works had his behavior
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Jacob's behaviors. His life had nothing to do with it Now we think what he's gonna say next not because it works but because of faith
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God looked forward saw his faith Well now he doesn't say that Here says not because of works here says because of God's call
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God's choice Here the in Romans 9 the attention or is on what
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God is doing That is there was nothing about Jacob's actions or his character or his decisions that forced
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God To choose him That forced God's hand to be on him and choose him over Esau.
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It wasn't because of something in Jacob or something in Esau But something in God himself
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He tells us what that is what that something is in verse 13 Jacob I Loved But Esau I hated
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It was that there was a love in God for Jacob But not for Esau. That's a shocking verse quoting from Malachi here echoed
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Again for us inspired again by the Holy Spirit and no matter What we may want to say about God loving everyone and sure he got his kind and generous to everyone even later
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You'll talk about how God has been patient with all kinds of people here clearly God loves Jacob in a way that is different than Esau.
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Whatever you want to do with hate It still comes down to that God loves Jacob in a way this different than the however
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If you want to say you love Esau in some way certainly a difference between the two now why what's the purpose of that?
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And he tells us in verse 11 that It's a purpose. So the reason
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That God's purpose in election might continue that is
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God loved and so chose Jacob Not because of Jacob, you know,
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Jacob was kind of a jerk Not sharing his stew with his own brother who just come in from hunting.
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What is that? God loved him not because of something Jacob did for God But because God had had a purpose in electing in choosing
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God loves and chooses some people before a purpose His purpose is to show that He's electing
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Not us That's why the Word of God did not fail it was never intended just for the natural
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Israelites It was intended for all his children from every race and nation and you can be certain
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It will not fail in achieving that purpose Third That's so the third question is
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God unjust I mean, is it unjust? For God's it kind of arbitrarily choose.
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I'll take that one. Not that one like that Choose to love one and then not choose to another person
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Pick Jacob, but not Esau Well that he deals in verses 14 to 18 Well, we focused on last week more in depth on that and listen to listen again to that sermon
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Is there injustice on God's part here comes the emphatic by no means? Absolutely, not
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We say God is unjust if he doesn't have mercy on those we decide that he should have mercy on This is what some are trying to do when they baptize babies saying that God has to have mercy on this baby because he was born into a
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Christian family, but God will not be controlled It's not that he doesn't want to have mercy
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It's only that he refuses to allow his mercy to be turned on and off in our choices
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That if we come forward and we say the right prayer and in an invitation or we get baptized
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Well, then God has to have mercy on us It's like turning on a switch ring we control
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His mercy where it flows and then we then we complain Well, he's unjust if he won't play along with our attempt to control his mercy, but he's not unjust
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He is merciful. He's just not under our control in verse 15. I will Have mercy on whom
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I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion
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God's purpose is to choose and To choose to have mercy then verse 16 is a really monumental verse and this book is it's concluding
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What salvation is? Ultimately based on and this really just settles the debate in my opinion
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So then it begins a conclusion statement Because God is in control of the ones that he has mercy and compassion on it
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That is getting mercy and compassion being made by God one of the children of the promise what we often call shorthand way now
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We call salvation salvation depends on or literally it is not
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From human will or exertion Now if he had just said exertion, it doesn't pay on human exertion.
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Many would say well, ah Then all I have to do is choose to believe it's up to me.
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It's just a decision It's not anything that I have to exert myself to do. It's not a lot of work
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It's easy believism. I just make the choice and I get it and it's settled I believe and there's no exertion required.
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It's a free choice That's kind of what many people's opinion of salvation the gospel is now, but God says
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I will Get the free choice We think we get the free choice often
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God says no I do I get the free choice and verse 16 says not just exertion
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But it does not depend on human will So what does our getting mercy didn't depend on Not on family or exertion or even our will
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But on God Oh God who has mercy That's bewildering enough for those who get mercy.
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We often want to have a little something to congratulate ourselves for We're just a little something we did, right?
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We understand why we didn't we can't earn our way We can't please God with enough religion or enough works, but at least we think least
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I made the right decision But here God shows us that we made the right decision for him
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Because he first made the merciful decision for us But one of those he had decided not to show mercy on so we kind of offend people a little bit when you say you know your decision to be saved was because God first made a
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Decision for you that that offends kind of people's pride But when you tell them when God some people aren't saved because God did not choose that's really offensive to people
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What are those he decided not to show mercy on what's the purpose of him?
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Not having mercy for everyone not saving mercy. Anyway, not choosing them to be one of his people Do they show that there are some people that God can't say is that it he can't get through to them
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He can't convince them. He's not that particularly that great a salesman. He just doesn't he can't win them over.
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He's got a week Do they show that God has given every person free will?
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And he just lets them choose for themselves Well, he just said though that it salvation doesn't depend on human will
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So that can't be it. Can it? For everything and everyone there is a purpose. What's the purpose of the unsaved and he answers that in verse 17 for and again because Supporting what he just said in verse 16 scripture says to Pharaoh.
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I have raised you up That's the reason purpose I might show my power in you
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Pharaoh, I made you hard -hearted and made you resist me because I want to display how powerful
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I am And that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth
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That is the purpose is that God is glorified that he is seen to be powerful and proclaimed as great
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That's God's purpose in election in choosing to have mercy on some in verse 11 he is glorified as powerful and he's celebrated as compassionate and for the others
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That he doesn't have mercy on saving mercy God is glorified as powerful in the end
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All will glorify God Some proclaiming his power and his mercy in some
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Just as power now the question is God unjust well, no You know, but but what about Pharaoh?
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He's he's hardened. He's destroyed Because simply God wanted to display how powerful he is. Is that unjust?
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No, it could justly condemn everyone He doesn't have to have mercy on anyone.
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He doesn't owe Anyone mercy if he owes it to you, it's not really mercy, but he does show mercy
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He graciously chooses to save some have mercy on them, but not everyone what's the purpose in that?
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So that to achieve the purpose of glorifying God in verse 17 He has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills now think of a
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God like that Not someone who got our control Giving us what we've pushed his buttons like a divine vending machine
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To get from him, but someone who is absolutely free who is indescribably powerful
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He's perfectly holy and for no reason No reason having to do with us.
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No reason other than his own decision to love he chooses people to have compassion on those people whom is decided to save Aren't going to be able to then to congratulate themselves
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For their good works for their religion for their wise choice I made such a while heard the gospel and I was so wise
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I made the right decision. There's other people they were foolish It's their fault They would have had a good they would have the nobility enough
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You know a good thing when they hear it like I did they would have believed to like I did I Exercise my free will
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I made the right decision. No, they will only be able to say not to us Oh Lord, someone someone 15 we've sung today not to us.
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Oh Lord not to us But to your name be the glory Oh, we get so distracted from this revelation and we often people want to argue about it particularly this doctrine here
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They want to argue about it argue about the theology of it that it's it's not right If God can give some people he sovereignly chooses to harden others
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We get drawn in to debate theology and forget to see what this truth is
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To do to us What its purpose is? Not just to incite debates its purpose in our lives is to make us
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Fall down in worship Say not to us Oh Lord To see that we have received mercy is it's because God decided with no strings pulled by us
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He decided to save us So not to us Oh Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory.
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Our God is in heaven He does all that he pleases What's God's purpose in election
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Not to condemn anyone He can can he could have condemned every one of us simply by letting us be
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We're so easy to distracted by that because we forget that condemnation is the default setting of people
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He could have condemned us by leaving us alone God's purpose is in glorifying himself to make children of the promise or odd by his power
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Enjoying his compassion Worshipping him forever at his right hand where Christ sits our pleasures forevermore
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Fourth final question Well, why does God still blame Now if he can harden if people are hardened to him because he has art in them
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How can he accuse them of not believing like your Pharaoh God hardness art? Well, how can favor then be blamed for his hardness of art?
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Well that he concludes from verses 19 to 29, but we're also look at some next week. Oh if if you can't resist him
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Can't resist God if he always gets his way Then how can he say, you know that I am wrong?
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by resisting him If I resisted him it's because you didn't have mercy on me God, I have what how's it my fault
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That's why some people think that's it's a very natural question It occurs to us so obviously and here he tells us why with another question
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Who are you? Oh man To talk back to God. I say in other words, who do you think you are?
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That is we so naturally think that we can question God and we can put God on the witness stand
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He's on trial God's on trial. There's a whole discipline called theodicy which means the justification of God We're gonna just if we're gonna examine him put him on trial
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Ask him questions get witnesses for our against him and and then we in our sovereignty are going to decide if God is just or not
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I'm gonna make him answer our questions Well, we naturally forget that God is the judge and there were the weak little creature were the sinner
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There were the one who was on trial We naturally assume that it is to us to us, but at least some of the glory goes
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We are the clay. He says Paul says No, you got it all mixed up Paul says if you forget who you are and all this you're the clay
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You know, you're the you're the wet dirt He's the Potter and he can make us any way he wants if God like a
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Potter He wants to make a pot For the purpose of taking out the trash
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Make it a chamber pot. I maybe make one just just to break it He can do that Totally up to him.
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So what if verse 22 God wants to demonstrate his wrath? He wants to demonstrate his wrath
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Remember how big Paul began in Romans 1 8 verse 18 and the gospel the wrath of God is being revealed
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What if God wants to demonstrate his wrath and so is making some for that purpose to show off his power now first He has a right to do that you are judging him by your standards as if he's one of us and when you say that he can't and you're forgetting both who
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You are and who he is You're clay He's the Potter if he wants to make one pot for one thing and another for something else
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He has absolute right to do that second even pots that he's making for destruction in verse 22
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He is enduring with much patience He's showing much right now.
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He's showing much patience for these These pots made for wrath and for destruction over these people who deserve hell.
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He's being patient with him right now You know all is mercy this side of hell and third
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Why is he bearing patiently with these vessels of wrath? These pots to be smashed making pots to be so bad.
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Why is he being so patient with him? Why what are they made for he tells us the purpose in the beginning of verse 23 in order that This is the purpose.
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It's the reason to make known He's being again. He's being patient with these vessels of wrath right now.
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He's not pouring out his wrath on them yet But he's being patient with them for the purpose in order that to make known make it shown to manifest the riches of his glory
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For his riches of his glory is for the vessels of mercy vessels being to the other pots
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Containers, he's also not just making vessels of wrath to smash. He's also making vessels or containers you're making pots that he can pour mercy into and It's for those that's gonna pour mercy into That he made the vessels of wrath with two means being patient right now.
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So he's gonna make known to his people these containers of mercy the riches of his glory and He made these vessels of mercy.
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He prepared them beforehand and he prepared them for Glory, that is
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God doesn't have to save anyone But he does save some and even though he does he doesn't save Show how great his glory is the wrath on some reveals how amazing his love is for others
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The purpose of the universe of our lives is to glorify God Not just as though God's kind of selfish.
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He can be glorified at our expense Notice the purpose in verse 23 He's been glorified so that we will know the riches of his glory and that glory is not just for himself but it is for vessels of mercy for his children of promise for believers we get to know glory and We get to know it
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Richly, so we say not to us Oh Lord not to us and we give him glory
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But look what he does he gives us glory and he's prepared us
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Beforehand, you know in eternity past for glory Now honestly,
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I don't know exactly what all that means it's glorification resurrection is receiving mercy you know here where here's where I should insert a
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Vivid sermon illustration gives you a clear idea of what it means what precisely the glory is I don't really know how to vividly illustrate it for you
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So that you'll have a clear picture in your mind of what it looks like When God shares with you the riches of his glory,
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I'm not quite sure how to illustrate it But one thing you can be sure of It's very very good
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What's the prodders purpose he's the Potter what's his purpose we're making the different things he makes Well to make a people out of all kinds of people in verses 24 to 29
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He has prepared we vessels of mercy containers made to pour mercy into even us in verse 24
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So that we would have we would be a people a nation Gathered from all nations whom
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God would call my people He's referring here to Hosea Hosea where not my people his own child
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He named his Isaiah name is a child not my people and he's now called my people
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God's my country and my people And that country is that people is made up of people from all nations and ethnic groups
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His excellent ones and whom is all his delight Only a remnant of them come from the literal ethnic
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Israelites only a remnant a small portion of them Have Abraham as their father, but God adds to them offspring from other nations who before who earlier were not my people and together
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They make up the Potter's people for those he chose to give his mercy to to have glory
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So that final question, why does God still blame that just fades away?
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Inappropriate question that is it's a kind of a natural question to us. How could God blame us if I couldn't resist as well?
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What were we thinking though? When with all these good things The riches of glory everything that he's sharing with us, you know, that's what we thought to ask
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He's making us for glory We whom he calls from every nation We who were not
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His literal people who did not have Abraham as our father who were not beloved who didn't deserve to inherit his love
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He called us His sons and daughters. Oh God is mighty and awesome.
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It's awesome God who who could have wiped us all out like Sodom and Gomorrah But he has a people he has decided to know
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To call to call them his children a promise to have
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Compassion on To make into containers to which he is pouring his mercy to shape to be his children
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Like a father He can show them his glory The real question then not that accusatory question like he's on trial the real question
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Then when we see this glory his compassion, which we did not at all
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Deserve the real question really the exclamation at the end then is