Romans Chapter 9

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Romans Chapter 10

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Brother Andy's been here for me the last few weeks, so I had started a study of the book of Romans, and we had gotten to Romans chapter 8.
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Now looking around, I'm seeing a few faces that I'm unfamiliar with, so if you were not here for Romans chapter 1 to chapter 8, I'm going to do a very brief reminder of what we have talked about up to now, and then I want to begin today with Romans 9.
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Now whether we get all the way through Romans 9 or not, I'm not sure, but if you want to turn in your Bibles to Romans 9 and be ready, we're going to read that in just a moment.
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That being said, as I have mentioned in past weeks, and just by way of reminder, the book of Romans is considered by many to be the Apostle Paul's magnum opus.
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That simply means his greatest work.
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Romans is different than the other epistles in that in epistles like 1 Corinthians and Thessalonians and things like that, Paul is dealing with specific issues that seem to be facing those churches.
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In Corinthians, he's dealing with the favoritism of Paul and Apollos and those different things.
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And in Thessalonians, he's dealing with people who believe that the end has come and that Christ has already returned and there's issues of eschatology and things like that.
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And he has his personal letters like Timothy and Philemon and things that he's talking directly to individuals.
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But Romans, while it is directed to the church in Rome, it seems to be Paul's letter to the whole church in that he is expressing a theology for Christianity.
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It's the closest thing we get in the Bible to what would be called today a systematic theology.
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I don't know if you've ever read systematic theology.
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These are books that intend to try to explain the various doctrines of Scripture.
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If you open up a systematic theology, the first section you'll come to is theology proper, which is the nature of God.
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The next section you come to might be the Christology, the nature of Christ, and the pneumatology, the nature of the Spirit, and then soteriology, which is the nature of salvation.
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So systematic theology breaks down by the categories of doctrine.
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Now, Romans doesn't do that exactly, but Romans does have an overall setup or rather structure that helps us to see what Paul is doing.
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So in 1-3, Paul deals with the doctrine of sin.
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He talks about, in chapter 1, those who have been turned over to a debased mind.
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He talks about those who know God exists, but reject God's existence, that even though they know He's there, they replace the truth for a lie.
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The big word in chapter 1 is that word, the idea of replacing the truth for a lie, replacing good for evil, replacing these things, those who know it's wrong and they give approval to it.
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You know, that's what he talks about in chapter 1.
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Then in chapter 2, he talks about those who have the law, but don't do what the law requires.
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And in that, he's talking about the Jewish people who had the law, but they weren't obedient to the law.
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And then in chapter 3, he brings it all together by saying, all have sinned.
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You know, chapter 3-23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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It's not a Jewish problem.
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It's not a Gentile problem.
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It's a humanity problem.
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All people have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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At the end of chapter 3, moving into chapter 4, he begins to talk about how a sinful man may be made right with a holy God.
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And therefore, we would say chapters 4 and 5 deal with the doctrine of justification.
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Justification is how a sinful man is made right with a holy God.
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God must make him righteous, or rather, declare him to be righteous.
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Then in chapters 6, 7, and 8, we deal with the doctrine of sanctification.
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Sanctification is the doctrine of how we are conformed to the image of Christ.
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We go from being children of the flesh to being children of God or those who are dead in sin to being alive in Christ.
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And now, how should we live? And the first question of chapter 6 is what? Shall we continue in sin so that grace can abound? And what does he say? Absolutely not.
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Don't do that.
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Even though we've been saved by grace through faith, that doesn't give us a license to sin.
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And if you think that grace gives you a license to sin, then you don't understand grace.
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Because grace gives you a desire, a new desire, a desire to follow Christ, not a desire to follow the desires of the flesh.
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And then he brings us out to chapter 8.
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Of course, I'm being very broad with my strokes here.
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But in chapter 8, he gives us that great statement in verse 1.
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There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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And then in the end of the chapter, he says, there's no separation.
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What can separate us from the love of God? In height, nor depth, nor angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, and nothing at all creation can separate us from the love of God.
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So it begins with no condemnation, ends with no separation.
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So all of this, Paul has been dealing primarily with how we are in a relationship with God.
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And Paul has a mixed audience.
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And by mixed audience, I want to explain what I mean.
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In the mixed audience, he has both Jew and Gentile.
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He is speaking to both.
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Now, in our modern context, we don't make such a big distinction between Jews and Gentiles.
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I mean, you might have friends that are Jewish and don't even know it.
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Maybe their last name or maybe something that they practice.
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Maybe they go to Saturday Sabbath service or something.
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You know, something that might make them distinguish in their Jewish.
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Maybe they don't eat shellfish or something like that.
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But in general, we don't make a big deal.
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You know, whether somebody is a Jew or not.
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But in the first century, there was a huge distinction.
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And the Jewish people saw themselves, and I think rightfully so, they saw themselves as being distinct from the world because God had chosen their nation to be his vessel of work in history.
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He had chosen through Abraham.
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He had chosen through Isaac.
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He had chosen through Jacob.
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And the 12 sons of Jacob are known as what? 12 tribes.
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12 tribes of what? Israel.
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Israel, right? Because Jacob's other name is Israel.
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He was called Israel after he wrestled with the angel of the Lord.
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The word Israel means wrestles with God.
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And so he received that title of Israel.
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And his sons became known as the 12 tribes of Israel.
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And one of those tribes was Judah, out of which would come Jesus, right? And so there's this pattern of redemptive history beginning in Genesis, throughout the Pentateuch, which is Exodus through Deuteronomy, and then through the books of history, even into the books of poetry and prophecy, we have this pattern where God has a special relationship with Israel.
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In fact, he says in Amos chapter 3, You, Israel, have I known of all the nations of the world.
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Now the word know there doesn't simply mean knowledge like we think of knowing something.
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But when the Bible says God knows someone, it's in the redemptive sense.
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You have I chosen is another way of saying.
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You have I set apart, sanctified.
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You have I made my own.
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What does the Old Testament say about Israel? That is the apple of God's eye.
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He made a choice, right? So now we come to the new covenant and what made the new covenant better.
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And I have no problem saying the new covenant is better because the writer of Hebrews says the new covenant is better.
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He says the new covenant is based on better promises and a better sacrifice.
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Christ is a sacrifice.
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That's a better sacrifice.
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Better promises.
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Yeah, the promises of eternal life.
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And who is made part of this new covenant? Is it the Jews only or is it Jew and Gentile? And the answer, of course, is that it is made up of both.
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In fact, in Ephesians chapter 2, it tells us that the wall of separation has been torn down.
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So this wall between Jew and Gentile that once stood erect and separated the Jews from the rest of the world now has been broken down in Christ.
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And so now we are no longer, as the writer Paul in Galatians says, there is not in Christ Jew nor Greek.
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There is not in Christ slave nor free.
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There is not in Christ male or female, but we are all what? One.
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We are all one in Christ Jesus.
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So this particular theological principle is very important for the apostle Paul when he is writing his magnum opus, when he's writing the book of Romans.
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And so when we get to Romans chapter 9, this becomes his thrust for the next three chapters.
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So today, next week, and the week after, we're going to do 9, 10, and 11, and we're going to see his argument where he begins by saying, has God abandoned Israel? Because why would he even ask that question? Well, he's asking the question because Gentiles are being saved.
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In fact, more Gentiles are being saved than Jews.
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So the natural question is, well, did God abandon his people? If his people are not being saved, but people who are not his people are being saved, then has God, has his promise failed? You see how that works.
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God made a promise to Israel and Gentiles are being saved.
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Does that mean God failed? In fact, that's the very question he asks in verse 6.
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Has the word of God failed? So that's the question that we're going to deal with.
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I'm going to go ahead and erase here because I have some more things to write.
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But let's do this now.
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Let's read chapter 9 and then pray that we have a good lesson today.
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That was all the introduction.
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So Paul says in chapter 9, verse 1, I am speaking the truth in Christ.
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I am not lying.
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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 brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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They are Israelites and to them belong the adoption, the 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 Christ who is God over all, blessed forever.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
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For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.
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And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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But through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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This means it is not the children of the flesh who are 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.
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I'll return and Sarah will have a son.
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And not only so, but also Rebecca had conceived children by one man and our forefather Isaac.
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And though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good nor bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger.
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As it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I hated.
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What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means.
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For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.
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So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy for the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose.
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I raised you up that I may 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'll say to me then, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Well, what is molded? Say to the molder, 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 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.
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As indeed he says in Hosea, those who are not my people, I will call my people and her who was not beloved, I will call beloved.
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And in the very place where it is said to them, you are not my people, they will be called sons of the living God.
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And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel shall be as the sands of the sea, only a remnant will be saved.
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For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.
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And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.
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What shall we say then? That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it, that is a righteousness that is by faith, but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching the law.
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Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as it were by works, they've stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written, behold, I'm laying aside in Zion, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
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And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
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Let's pray.
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Father of mercy, I pray.
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Lord, that you would give us grace today to study your word.
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And Lord, that you would keep me from error.
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As you know, Lord, I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error.
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I pray that you would keep me from that.
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I pray for the hearts of the men in this room, for those who know you and know you as Savior.
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I pray that this would be edifying for them.
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Lord, for those who do not know you as Savior, Lord, that this would be a challenge to their soul.
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And Lord, that you might even through the preaching of your word, bring conversion, regeneration, faith and life that only you can do.
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Only you can take the heart of stone and replace it with the heart of flesh.
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So we ask you, Lord, to do that now by your mercy and grace.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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So beginning in verse 1 of chapter 9, Paul says, I'm speaking the truth in Christ.
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I'm not lying.
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Now, that seems like an odd statement in a way because Paul is seeming to be addressing an unknown objector.
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And we see this actually throughout chapter 9.
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Chapter 9 is somewhat of a controversial chapter because it deals with things like election and predestination and things like that.
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So it can be kind of controversial.
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But one of the things we mustn't forget is that Paul is assuming an objection.
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And we all do this.
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Whenever we know we're going to say something that is controversial or something that's powerful, we assume people are going to disagree with us.
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And we sort of build into our statements an automatic response.
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How would we respond to someone objecting? And so Paul's first statement is, understand this, everything I'm saying is the truth.
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And it's the truth in Christ.
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I'm not speaking for myself.
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Paul is not a Pauline.
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He is a Christian.
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Paul is not promoting his own religion or his own ideas or his own views.
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Paul is a servant of Christ.
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In fact, that's how he identifies himself in almost every letter that he writes.
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Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, chosen by the will of God, right? This is how he defines himself.
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And here he's saying, I'm not lying about what I'm about to say to you.
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Because what I'm about to say to you is hard.
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And he goes on to say, my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit.
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So he not only invokes the name of Christ, but he invokes the name of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
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And he says this in verse two, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
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What is he sorrowful about? Paul is sorrowful that his people, and by this, he is referring to the Jewish people because Paul is a Jew, though he was born and raised as a Roman citizen, he was reared as a Jewish man being taught Jewish law at the feet of one of the greatest Jewish teachers in history, a man named Gamaliel.
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And so Paul sees himself not as a Gentile, but as a Jew.
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And he says, I have unceasing anguish in my heart.
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For who? Well, he tells us in verse three, he says, I wish that I myself were anathema.
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That's the Greek word for accursed.
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I wish I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers.
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My kinsmen, according to the flesh, verse four tells us who they are.
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They are Israelites.
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That's who he's concerned about in this chapter.
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He's saying, I know that I have brothers in the faith, or rather, excuse me, brothers in the flesh who are not brothers in the faith.
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I have men and women who call themselves Israel, who are born as descendants of Abraham, who are not in the new covenant.
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They are not in Christ.
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And he says, and that breaks my heart.
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I want to just say this, and this is just a quick application of this to our own lives.
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Do you ever, does your heart ever break for your unsaved loved ones? I can tell you this, my wife and I, we have family worship every night.
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We gather our children around.
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We play the guitar and sing.
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We read the Bible.
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We do catechism with our kids, and we put them to bed.
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We pray and put them to bed.
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And every night when we pray, I pray for my son who's in Germany, because my son, he's in the Air Force.
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He's 22 years old, and he's not saved.
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I love my son.
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My son loves me.
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We talk all the time, and I'm proud of him as an airman.
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I'm proud of him as a crew chief.
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You know, in many ways, I'm proud of him.
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But my heart's desire for him is that he would know Christ, because if he does not know Christ, no matter how good a life he has, no matter how beautiful a wife, no matter how much he saves, no matter how much money he makes, no matter how many places he sees.
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He was telling me just the other day, Daddy, I'm going to Japan.
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I'm going to have real sushi.
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And he was excited to tell me.
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And that's great, son.
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I'm thankful because going to Japan was one of his dreams, and he's going to get to go.
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But if he doesn't know Christ, if he dies without Christ, he's going to be separated from God for eternity.
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And that just stirs my heart to pray for him all the time.
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You know what I mean? Every night, I pray, God save all my children.
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But him, my oldest daughter is 24.
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She's saved.
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She lives at home still.
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But you see what I'm saying? I can relate to Paul's anguish here.
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He's saying, I wish I could be sent to hell if that meant my family would be saved.
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And by him, he's saying the entire nation of Israel is his family.
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He said, if it meant me being anathema, anathema means to be separated from God and put under a curse.
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He said, if I could be put under a curse for the sake of my family, my kinsmen, I would do it.
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Now, here's the thing.
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Paul's not exaggerating here.
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I think he really believed this.
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I think Paul would have given himself to an eternity of separation if it meant the salvation of the Jewish people.
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But Paul's not the Savior, is he? Neither am I.
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There was a movie when I was a kid.
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Some of you guys are my age or older, so you might remember this.
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There was a movie called The Heavenly Kid.
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Anybody remember it? It was a movie about a guy who was doing a drag race and he went off the end of a cliff and died while he goes to heaven.
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And they said, your son is now in drag racing.
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You've got to go back and try to talk him out of drag racing or whatever.
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So he goes back and helps his son out.
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And at one point, his son's going to die.
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And he says, I'll go to hell if my son can go to heaven.
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And in the movie, that's how he redeems himself.
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And that's how he gets to go to heaven, by giving himself for his son.
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And as beautiful as that story is, as fun as that is to think about, that ain't how it works.
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Unfortunately, we can't give ourselves to save others in the sense of salvation.
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I mean, you can throw yourself on a hand grenade and save somebody in the sense of saving their life, step in front of a bullet or something.
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But we can't save someone else's soul.
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And Paul is saying here, I would if I could.
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I would give myself.
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I would take the curse if it meant the salvation of my kinsmen.
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And then he goes on to say this.
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He goes on to recount what they have is a blessing from God.
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This is something you have to understand.
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Israel was given a blessing from God and he lists what the blessings are.
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He says, one, to them belongs the adoption.
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God chose them out of the world as a nation.
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And the glory, God gave them the priesthood.
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He gave them the sacrifices.
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He gave them the feast.
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He gave him his presence in the ark of the covenant.
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His glory was with them.
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He gave them covenants.
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We have throughout the Old Testament, God made a covenant with Abraham.
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God made a covenant with Moses.
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God makes these covenants, these promises with the people of God.
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He gave them the law.
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He gave them worship.
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He gave them promises.
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He gave them patriarchs.
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And the greatest thing he gave them is he gave them Christ.
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And what's the one thing they rejected more than anything else? Christ.
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The greatest in that list.
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If you go down the list of blessings, the greatest one is the last one.
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And it's the one they rejected.
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And I want you to notice something.
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This reads differently in different Bibles.
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So I want to show you.
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It says, To them belong the patriarchs.
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This is verse 5.
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And from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ.
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Now in the ESV, it says, Who is God over all, blessed forever.
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Amen.
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Now some of yours stops and then say, God is blessed over all.
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And it distinguishes between Christ and God.
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But in this particular text in the Greek construction, Paul is actually identifying Christ as God over all.
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And we understand this from a Trinitarian perspective.
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Christ is the second person of the Trinity.
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Christ is God the Son.
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And so to identify Him as God over all is not a problem.
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We see in John chapter 1, all things were created by Him and through Him.
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In Colossians chapter 1, it says, Nothing was made that was not made by Him.
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So we know these things are true.
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And Paul is saying, When they rejected Christ, who were they really rejecting? God.
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They were rejecting Yahweh, the one God who gave them all these things, who gave them the adoption, who gave them the blessings, who gave them the promises, who gave them the Scriptures, who gave them the Christ.
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And when they saw the Christ, what did they do? Did they receive Him or did they reject Him? They rejected Him and they put Him on a Roman cross.
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And in doing so, they were not only rejecting Christ, they were rejecting...
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This is why Jesus told the Pharisees.
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He says, You're not just rejecting Me, you're rejecting the God who sent Me.
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You're rejecting Yahweh Himself.
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I and the Father are one, He says.
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And you're rejecting God when you reject Me.
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That's another important...
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Again, not to get off on another application point, but when somebody says, Oh, I love God, but I don't love Jesus.
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You don't get to have it your way.
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This ain't Burger King, right? You don't get to have Burger King theology.
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God makes the rules.
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God establishes the promises and the way about we ought to live.
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And He says, We come to Him one way.
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And that's what way? Through Christ.
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He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one cometh unto the Father except through Me.
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So, they have rejected these things.
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Paul is brokenhearted over this.
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That takes us to verse 6.
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He says, But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
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Now, remember, Paul is imagining an objector.
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He's imagining someone offering an objection.
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And the objection that he's imagining is someone saying, Well, hey, man, if Israel ain't saved, if Israel ain't blessed, if Israel ain't getting the promises, then God's word failed.
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Because God gave them the promises and all this.
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So, that's verse 6 is the key to the next three chapters.
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Verse 6 is the thesis statement that he's going to argue in chapter 9, 10, 11.
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Because he says, It's not as though the word of God has failed.
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For not all who descended from Israel belong to Israel.
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And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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Now, here, I'm going to show you.
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Do you guys know what a Venn diagram is? A Venn diagram, you've seen where it's got a circle and then another circle.
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And the circles kind of overlap.
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And the middle part is the part that usually makes the point.
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Anyway, I'm going to show you a couple of diagrams to help you.
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The first one is two circles.
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And this would be Israel and Gentiles.
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And the way that in the first century, most of Israel saw themselves as there was a separation.
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And we are God's people.
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And they are not God's people.
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Right? And that was pretty much it.
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In fact, the Israelites, if they left Israel and went to another nation and came back, they would take their shoes off and dust the dirt off.
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Because that's Gentile dirt.
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Right? We're coming back to the homeland.
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We're going to get rid of that Gentile dirt.
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So there was this hard separation.
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But Paul is making a different argument.
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Paul is saying this.
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Paul is...
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I'm going to make the circle bigger so I can draw inside of it.
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Paul is saying there is a circle which is Israel.
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And I'm going to write a word underneath.
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Israel of the flesh.
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Those are all the ones who were born of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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Right? That's Israel of the flesh.
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He says, but in this, there is another section.
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And this we will call true Israel, who are Israel of the spirit.
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Now, the Old Testament language, circumcised, circumcised of the heart.
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Remember that term where the Bible says, there are those of you who are circumcised in the flesh, but those who are circumcised in the heart, right, are the ones who are truly Yahweh's.
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They're the ones who are true Israel.
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There's another word for this, and it's the word remnant.
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You've probably heard that word remnant, right? The word remnant.
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That's the ones within Israel who are actually part of the...
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who are actually the people of God.
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So Paul is saying, not all who are of Israel, the flesh, are of true Israel.
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That is the spirit.
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Now, I want to show you one other thing.
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This isn't...
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Paul doesn't get into this yet, but I can't help but mention it now because I don't want to forget to come back to it later.
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This circle actually expands way out here to include the Gentiles who are in Christ because Christ is the true Israel.
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Paul tells us this earlier in Romans.
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He says, if you trust in Christ, you are the true sons and daughters of Israel, right? So this circle, this is where the Venn diagram comes in.
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This circle gets to be part as well.
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So true Israel is made up of Jew and Gentile.
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True Israel is not just Jewish.
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True Israel is not just Gentile.
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True Israel is made up of both.
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And that is why in the end of Galatians, Paul says, blessed be the Israel of God.
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The Israel of God is the true spiritual remnant made up of Jews and Gentiles in Christ, okay? Now, let's go back to the text and we'll see how this plays out because he says this.
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He says, not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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But through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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Let me ask this question.
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How many children did Abraham have? Actually, we don't know because it says after Sarah died, he had Ketorah, another wife, and through her, he had sons and daughters.
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So Abraham had, first he had Eleazar of Damascus, which was his adopted son.
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Then he had Ishmael, who was his son by the handmaiden, Hagar.
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And then he had Isaac, who was the promised son through Sarah.
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And then when Sarah died, he had Ketorah and all these other children that are unnamed, right? But which one was the one that God chose? Isaac.
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That's the key to the whole story is God didn't choose the adopted son, Eleazar.
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God didn't choose the son of the handmaiden, Ishmael.
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And God didn't choose the sons of Ketorah or the daughters of Ketorah, but he chose the son of Abraham and Sarah.
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They were the ones through whom the promised seed would come, and that was Isaac.
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So the point being made by Paul here is just because you were a son of Abraham doesn't mean you were a son of the promise.
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There was one son of the promise.
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And then Isaac had how many sons? I already said it, two.
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Isaac had two sons.
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What were their names? Jacob and Esau.
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And out of Jacob and Esau, God chose one.
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And that's what he goes on to say.
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Let's read this.
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He says, this means, verse eight, it is not the children of the flesh who were the children of God, but the children of promise are counted as offspring.
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For this is what the promise said, about this time next year, Sarah will have a son.
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And not only so, but also when 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 might continue, not because of works, but because of him who called.
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She was told the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated.
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So God made a choice between two children, between two people.
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The two people were Jacob and Esau.
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And according to this text, God made the choice before they were ever born.
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It says before they had done anything good or evil.
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And somebody might argue, well, God knew what they were gonna do.
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But if you take that, let me ask you a question.
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Between Jacob and Esau, which one was worse? They were both bad.
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Esau was willing to sell his birthright for a pot of porridge, but Jacob was willing to buy that birthright as a trickster.
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His name actually means one who grabs the heel or one who tries to trip someone up.
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It means trickster.
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That's what the word Jacob means.
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His whole attitude, remember what he did when his father was gonna give the birthright or the blessing to his brother? He dressed up as his brother.
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He put hair on his arms and he wore his brother's clothes and he snuck into his blind father's tent.
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And he says in his eye, Esau, he weren't a good man either.
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You have to understand God's choosing of Jacob over Esau was not because Jacob was better, because both of them were sinners.
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When God chooses someone, it's not based on them.
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It can't be because we are all equally wretched.
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But you might say, well, I'm not as bad as the guy next to me.
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Be careful.
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But we're all sinners.
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And I can stand next to the worst sinner in history.
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And I have more in common with him than I do with Jesus Christ.
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There's a big thing going on right now.
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There's a new film that just came out about Jeffrey Dahmer.
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Now, Jeffrey Dahmer was a monster.
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He would trick men to come into his house.
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He'd murder them and he'd eat them.
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I mean, he was a monstrous man.
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When he went to prison, some people believe he got saved.
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There was a pastor who met with him and prayed with him and preached to him.
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Now, I don't want to argue whether or not Jeffrey Dahmer got saved because I don't know.
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I don't know his heart.
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I don't know the situation.
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I can't prove one way or another.
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But I will say this.
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If you think you are better in the sense that you deserve to be saved and he didn't, then you don't understand grace.
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He was.
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He was.
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He was murdered in prison.
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So, my only point is to say this.
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When I look at somebody like Adolf Hitler or Genghis Khan or Mussolini, somebody who killed thousands of people, I can look at that person and say, yeah, from a moral perspective, I'm better.
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But when I look at them and I compare myself to Christ, I'm locked elbows with the worst because I sinned against God too.
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And how many sins does it take to be a rebel against the One who created me? Just one.
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When I sin against my Creator, I make myself worthy of hell.
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God is not obligated to give me anything except for justice.
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That's all I deserve.
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I deserve God's justice.
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So, if God chooses by His grace to give me mercy, that is completely and utterly His goodness, not mine.
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I cannot count anything that I have done good as the reason that God would give me mercy.
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I remember a guy came to the church one time.
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We were talking.
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He needed some food.
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I've told this story before, but he needed food.
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So I gave him some food and we're standing there talking.
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And I'm trying to share the Gospel with him.
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And I said, listen, here's what the Gospel is.
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We are all sinners.
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We all need a Savior.
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Jesus Christ is the only Savior.
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And if we would trust in Him, He will save us.
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And if we don't, we'll be lost.
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He's the only one that will save us.
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And this dude looked at me and he said, you can't think like that.
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I said, what do you mean? He said, pastor, you got to quit relying on other people.
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You got to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
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I said, first of all, you came here today because you broke and hungry.
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So there's a little irony in what you just said.
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I said, but the second thing is, when it comes to righteousness, I don't have any boots and I don't have any straps.
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I can't pull myself up.
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All I can do is trust in the one who is perfect in my place.
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I cannot claim my own righteousness because I don't have any.
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The Bible says all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.
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And Paul says we have a righteousness that comes not by keeping the law, but through faith in Christ.
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A righteousness that is dependent upon faith, not upon works.
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So if I stand before God and God says, why should I let you into my glorious kingdom? And I say to the Lord, you should let me in because I was a preacher.
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You should let me in because I gave a tithe.
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You should let me in because I was good to people or because I was a member of the church.
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God will look at me and say, that is not the answer.
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The only reason why he should let me into his kingdom is because of Christ and what Christ has done for me.
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Christ is the only righteous one who ever lived.
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And my righteousness is either his or it's empty.
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I either have his righteousness alone or I have none.
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So when someone says, well, God chose Jacob and he didn't choose Esau.
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God was unfair.
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I say, yeah, he was unfair because they both deserve to go to hell.
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So God wasn't unfair for giving Esau justice.
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It was in giving Jacob mercy.
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You should never be surprised when the Bible says God hates Esau.
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What should surprise you is when it says he loved Jacob.
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That's the hard part.
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Because we think we deserve something from God.
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The only thing we deserve is justice.
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And if God chooses to give mercy, that's his prerogative.
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Look here.
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Go on with me through the argument because notice what it says.
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Verse 14, what shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? You see, Paul is anticipating the objection and the objection is this.
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What shall we say? Is God unfair? Look what he says.
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By no means.
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For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion so that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.
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Notice what he says.
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I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.
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It's God's choice to give mercy to whom he wills.
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God is not obligated to give mercy to anyone.
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The only thing God is obligated to do is to give justice because he is justice.
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It's just like a judge who sits on a bench.
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Man stands before him.
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He's completely guilty.
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What is the judge bound to do? The law to give justice.
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That's what the judge does.
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He gives justice.
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God can choose to give mercy and he gives mercy to whom he chooses.
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That's that's and people say, well, wait a minute.
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Wait a minute.
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Where's my part in all this? This ain't about you.
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This is about God.
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This isn't about your response.
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This is about God's work.
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We can talk about how we respond in faith.
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We can talk about what God does to open our heart to believe and all that.
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That's a topic for another day.
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This is about God's choice.
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When we talk about election and predestination and things like that, you have to understand your salvation doesn't begin with you.
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Your salvation begins with God.
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Your salvation begins when he chooses to show mercy.
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And he will show mercy to whom he wills and to whom he wills.
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He hardens.
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Now, people don't like that second part.
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But understand this.
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If you are a rebel against God's law and God chooses to remove grace from your heart and harden your heart like removing water from clay causes it to harden.
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He didn't do you any wrong.
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He gave you exactly what you wanted.
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If you're rebelling against God and God removes the grace of restraint from your heart and allows you to go off into your own wicked desires, has he done you wrong or has he given you what you wanted? He's given you what you wanted.
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It's an important reality.
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Because people often ask, well, it says he hardened Pharaoh's heart.
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Does that mean that Pharaoh wanted to be a good man and God made him a bad man? No.
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Pharaoh had every desire to rebel against God.
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And in hardening his heart, he gave him the desires of his heart.
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We have to understand there is still responsibility in this.
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So I always say it like this.
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If you go to hell, that's on you.
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But if you go to heaven, that's because of God.
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God is the one who showed you mercy and you should be thankful.
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If you're saved today, I would say don't look at what you did and bless God for what you did.
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Bless God for what he did.
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Because he reached down into the muck and the mire of your sin.
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He picked you up and he cleaned you off in the blood of Christ and he seated you in heavenly places with his son.
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He did that on your behalf.
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Salvation is of the Lord.
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Didn't Jonah say that? Salvation is of the Lord.
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That's what this is about.
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So when we go back to the question of the Jews and the Gentiles, God has been gracious to allow Gentiles in.
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God has been gracious to expand the covenant to include those who formerly weren't in the covenant.
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He says this later in the chapter.
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He says, I call those people my people who formerly were not my people.
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They weren't my people, but now they are.
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Understand this.
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I don't think anybody in here is Jewish by nature, by flesh.
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Maybe you are.
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But I see a lot of us here that probably are Gentiles.
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And God was gracious to open up his kingdom.
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God was gracious to open up the promises and give them to us.
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And he didn't have to do that.
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Now, I'm going to end here because of time, but I do want to say the rest of the chapter does move on to the subject of reprobation.
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See, election is God giving mercy to those whom he chooses.
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Reprobation is God giving justice to those who reject him.
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And he talks about Pharaoh.
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He says, for this very reason, I raised you up so that my power would be shown in you.
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You have to understand, God has a purpose for everything, even wicked people.
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Sometimes his plan is to show his power in them, either in their destruction or in using them for his purposes.
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So this is a powerful chapter.
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Again, we're out of time, so I can't go into the rest of it.
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But I encourage you to read it.
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And if you have questions, we can start with those questions next week.
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All right, let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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I pray that this would be used by you to glorify yourself and to draw people, draw these men to yourself, especially, Lord, those any of those who may not know you.
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Use this as a tool of giving them your divine mercy, if it be within your will, Lord, in Jesus' name.
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Amen.