The Best Gospel Tract Ever Written (pt-3) - [Romans]

Secret is out. I like coffee. I have to have something good to drink.

It's 1989. I was reading the Bible, paragraph after paragraph after paragraph, with a big beer in one hand and the

Bible in another, and it just kind of seemed strange to me. The Bible doesn't condemn drinking. Certainly drunkenness is sinful.

But I just thought, this seems odd. And so, December 17, 1989, I said, Lord, I just don't want to drink ever again.

It's affected my life and my father and everything else. I just don't want to drink again. Cigarettes, they're no fun.

You get cancer, you die early, you have bad life insurance quotes. There's no sense smoking cigarettes.

My friend, growing up when we were about 13, his father was a cigarette salesman, and so he had free cigarettes.

What kind of friend is that? So you might as well do something, and I think drink coffee.

I was going to India this last May, and Haley and I were going, and I thought, well,

I like chai tea, I like India, I like everything about it, but I prefer coffee, and so I know what

I'll do. I'll go to Trader Joe's, and I'll get those little kind of coffee things, and they're small.

They contain about six ounces of coffee. I can pack them away, and so I can be in the middle of nowhere out in India, and I can just open up my briefcase and open one of those things up and just drink some coffee to my

American heart's pleasure. We traveled 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours.

I get up the next morning, finally after arriving in India, I go to my briefcase, I crack open one of these great little

Trader Joe's coffee, pop it open, drink it, and it tastes like tin. I love

Trader Joe's. What is going on? Can't I just enjoy a cup of coffee in India? The answer obviously was no.

Should have gone to Starbucks and got the real double shot things. I was let down.

Something that was advertised was less than it promoted to be. When I think about books in the

Bible, this book that we'll study this morning, it won't let you down because it fills its promises as it proclaims to take the power of God and turn a sinner into a saint.

And let's turn to the book of Romans, and we will have a true truth in advertising.

This is my desert island book, if you will. This is important. It is profound.

It is a New Testament book. The book of Romans, written by Paul, inspired of the

Holy Spirit. And this will fire you up, even like caffeine to the system, because it will remind you.

If you're not a Christian, it will remind you that you are a sinner, and it will press your face up against the mirror of God's Word.

And if God is working in your life, you won't like it. On the flip side, after it presses your face to the mirror of yourself, then it will show you the one in whom can only save you,

Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian, you look into this book. And isn't it true, saints, if you've been a

Christian 5, 10, 15, 20 years, the more you study this book, the better it is? I mean,

I read some books at home, and I just don't want to read them again. I've read the book. I'm done with it. I've rented it from the library in my

CW Mars card, and I've just been there, done that, and I never want to read it again. But something about the supernatural

Word of God, when you study it and you see the glory of God in His Son and in our salvation,

I want to keep studying and studying. I thought I could get through the entire book of Romans in one week, and that didn't work.

Then we thought we would do two weeks, now three weeks, and so we're just going to keep going until I finish. Why rush?

We'll get to the Sermon on the Mount fast enough. Pastorally speaking, the last three weeks we've had many, many visitors, and so I've just decided to slow down, to not rush through it as I show unbelievers their need of salvation in Scripture and then the necessity of Christ's death and resurrection for them in their place.

And then I also remind us as Christians, He's our all in all, as the song says.

This is the one in whom we have everything, and so why wouldn't we not want to hear about a God -centered salvation?

I get enough of me throughout the week. You get enough of me on Sunday. But I don't want to know about myself anymore.

I want to look to another. And as I studied this week, which one best fits us as a church?

Are we fans, consumers, or redeemed sinners? Are the leaders of this church directors,

CEOs, or elders? Is the purpose of this church fun, pragmatism, or reverential awe?

What are the demands of this church? Indulgence, competition, or discipline?

What is our authority here at this church? Feelings, results, or the

Word of God? What is our goal at this particular assembly? Attract an audience, satisfy the customer, or to be presented complete in Christ?

The first one was entertainment model, the second one was the business model, and the third one is the

New Testament model for the local church. We are God's redeemed people, given a heart that used to be stone and cold and hard, and now our heart is alive to the things of God, and we can't wait to hear the preaching of God's Word.

We want to hear preaching. I talked to someone yesterday, and they told me that as the pastor preached, at 20 -minute mark, the beepers on people's watches went off, so the pastor would know, okay, you get the hint, pal?

Preaching's over. And I think we should have a special...

First of all, it doesn't happen in our church, and I'm thankful for that. Second of all, I think we should have a special bucket offering, but we'll fill the bucket full of water, and we'll just pass it by, and you can just drop your watches in there if you have a propensity to do such a thing.

These are what the Bible calls words of life. We need these.

We need to know what God thinks about something. We've had the prognosticators all week tell us about how to look at sports and politics and everything else.

I want to hear from God, don't you? So let's look at the book of Romans that really distills down what

God does in His saving work as a triune

God, the Father, Son, and Spirit. And this is like a great cathedral. I took

Haley to Italy in this last year on the way home from India, and in Milan, there's a great cathedral.

And in the bottom of that cathedral, there's a little place where Ambrose supposedly baptized

Augustine. But on the upper side, we walk for blocks inside the cathedral.

It's enormous. It's amazing. It's magnificent. You should see the architecture. And when I describe the

Duomo in Milan, I'm really describing the book of Romans because it's the same thing except it's a book.

This may be the most theologically important and comprehensive book in all the

Bible, and that's part of its purpose. It was to commend Phoebe to the church at Rome.

It was to prepare Paul for his eventual coming, if he could get there to Rome. But most of all, it sets forth the summary of Christianity.

And it will demolish this particular statement that most people believe is in the Bible. God helps those who help themselves.

This is a book rather that tells us God helps those that are helpless. God rescues the ungodly.

God takes care of enemies who are against Him and can somehow make them friends. So I love preaching this book.

Matter of fact, I could do a whole sermon preaching about why I love this book. Romans chapter 1 verse 16 tells us really the theme for the entire book in the sense that Paul says,

I'm not only eager to preach it, I'm not only obliged to preach it, verses 14 and 15, but in chapter 1 of verse 16,

I'm not ashamed of the Gospel. I preach the Gospel. Matter of fact, why is that so strange now to go to churches and they don't preach the

Gospel? They don't preach the Word. Isn't that odd? I meet people all the time, and when I introduce myself, I no longer say,

Hi, I'm a pastor. By the way, that is a very interesting thing to say because then everybody kind of moves away.

I say this now, Hi, I'm a Bible teaching pastor. And if this

I'm a pastor gets a look, I'm a Bible teaching pastor gets a whole new look. And Paul, wherever he went, he was persecuted, yet he knew.

This is the favor of God. This is the delight of God. This is how God shows forth all

His attributes simultaneously at the cross, and then distributes those gifts freely to Jews and Gentiles.

And Paul says in verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God, the almighty, omnipotent, strong God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first, and also to the Greek. And he says, this Gospel that saves is not a

Gospel that you just know the facts. Janet got up here today, and she said, I knew there was a Trinity. I knew there was a death, burial, and resurrection.

I have all the facts down. But it's a belief that doesn't trust self, but it trusts another.

It's not self -reliant. It's completely dependent upon someone else. And that's this whole book, and frankly we need it, because the first section is all about sin.

From chapter 1, verse 18, all the way to 320. And if you'll go to 320, just to review the entire section, this is part 3 of the sermon series.

The conclusion here in Romans 320 is that we are under the power of sin, and we have fallen, and we can't get up.

Have you seen that commercial? Ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago. I've fallen, and I can't get up.

But the way Paul paints us is not someone who's laying there trying to yell help.

It's someone who's laying there and doesn't even know they need help, and they're spiritually dead anyway. They're like a corpse.

Something has to be done to them. They can't do it themselves. They can't rescue themselves. It can't be an auto -salvation.

Auto meaning self. Romans 320 says, because by the works of the law, being good, obeying the

Ten Commandments, golden rule, by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight.

For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. God gives us commands and laws to teach us that we need a

Savior. Not that we're good compared to the other person. Secondly, He shows us our sin.

Excuse me, our salvation after our sin. Chapter 3, verses 21 through chapter 5, we have the second outline point.

Sin is the first one. Salvation is the second. And do you see it in verse 21 of chapter 3?

But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. Being witnessed by the law and by the prophets.

Verse 22, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

There's no distinction. He's talking about Jews and Gentile distinctions. For all Jews and Gentiles have sin and they continually keep falling short of the glory of God.

There was a great man though, made great by God. He was not great and his name was

Abraham. And Abraham is the quintessential example or illustration of God being just, saving the unjust.

Do you see it in chapter 4, verse 5? But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned, are counted, are imputed as righteous.

This is the doctrine of faith alone. Sola Fide. We have no righteousness.

Jesus has righteousness. We can't get our own righteousness. Jesus has an infinite amount of righteousness to give.

We can't do anything to please God. Jesus perfectly pleased God in his whole life from when he was a baby till the day he was crucified.

Jesus pleases God because he is God and he also pleases the Father within the triune workings.

And so we have this great exchange called justification. Jesus gets our sins placed on his account.

We get his righteousness or his goodness placed to our account. And now God, the great

God of the universe who's just, he says, my sins, the believer says, my sins

I don't have to think about anymore because Jesus has paid for them. And God looks upon sinners as forgiven based on the work of Christ.

Well, there are benefits to this and this is all in review as well. Look at Romans chapter 5, verse 1.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and more than that, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.

And if you're saved and you're going to heaven, look what else happens. We exalt in hope of the glory of God. What did

Janet say today in these waters of baptism? I have hope now. I'm hoping.

Not only this, verse 3, but we also exalt in our tribulations. How can we exalt in our tribulations?

Because knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance. And these are some of the effects or results of justification.

Well, chapters 6 and 7 talk about how we grow in Christ. We'll call this third point sanctification.

Hey, we've been forgiven of past, present, and future sins. Does that mean we will now sin to take advantage of what

God has done? Hey, he's given us an inch, we'll take a mile. He's forgiven our future sins, so we might as well live it up.

Is it getting hot in here? Boy, it's dangerous up here.

People get electrocuted in the baptismal. You hear about that last week? Someone was electrocuted in a baptismal in front of 800 people.

This one has been replaced. That plug, we need to replace that one over there. But that's why Steve was baptizing this morning.

I've had my brush with death. We thought we'd tell you after the service,

Janet, wherever you are. Hey, do you want to be baptized enough that it might cost you your life?

You'd be no different than the martyrs of the 1st century, or 16th century.

God takes sinners, and based on Christ's work at Calvary, turns them into saints. Then these saints grow, and they become more and more like Christ.

They're already in Christ. God sees us as perfect because he sees us in Christ. He loves us as much as he loves

Christ. But he wants his children, like any parent wants their children to grow. And so chapter 6 and 7 talk about that growth.

But that growth does not contain determination to sin so God can then give grace.

If you look at chapter 6, verse 1, what should we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

Hey, if we like to sin and God likes to forgive, then let's let him show off his glory. But no.

Save people, born -again people, Christians, when they realize what their sin did to Jesus, do they want to do it anymore?

We still do, but we don't like what we do. And so therefore,

Paul says in Romans 6, may it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

Let me tell you what happened at Calvary. God looked at you as you died a death with Jesus at Calvary.

Did you feel it? It's not something that we feel. It's something God has told us. That I was dead at Calvary with Jesus.

Now, if my wife dies, I'm free from that law of marriage.

If I'm dead to an old law that said you're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, I'm no longer bound under that law that keeps pointing to me as a sinner.

I've died to the law. And that's what he's trying to say here in Romans 6, verses 2 and following.

Do you see it in verse 7? He who has died is free from sin. We're physically alive, but spiritually we died at Calvary with Jesus.

Who said? God did. Why does he want us to think about that? Because it's not something you can feel.

God said this is a truth that if you think about, you'll come to this conclusion. Why am I going around sinning when

I don't have to? I've already died to these laws. I'm already dead to all that.

I'm a new person. Before, I just always sinned. I always think about it as a one -lane road.

And here was my road. And everything I did on that road was sin. Whether I did the good thing or the bad thing. If I helped a lady across the street or if I stole from Target.

Both of those were sin. No matter what I did. Even with good motives in my mind, that was still sinful.

Then all of a sudden I get saved and I see this kind of bifurcation. This split in the road.

And this split says here's God's ways. Follow Him based on what He's done. And because you can. Or here's sin.

And I have a choice now to say either I'll obey or I'll disobey. Unbelievers just always disobey.

Whatever they do is sinful. And now God has saved us. We want to obey Him. Because we can obey

Him. We're dead to going this way. That's why Paul says in Romans 7, I just hate who I am. I don't want to do this anymore.

You see in verse 18 of chapter 7. He says, For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

For the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. Verse 19, For the good that I wish

I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. But if I'm doing the very thing I do not wish,

I no longer am the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. And to all that I say, at least there's the struggle for Paul to say,

I don't like what I used to do. And that's the sign of an immature or a mature Christian. A mature

Christian. I like what John Flavel, the old Puritan from England said, It's easier to cry against one thousand sins of others than to kill one of your own.

But it is the sign of a redeemed person. To know that he has those sins against a holy

God. And he thinks of Calvary and then he says, I don't want to do those anymore. She says, no, I want to forsake those.

I'm plagued though with sin. I'm plagued with afflictions. I'm plagued with trouble. Maybe God won't really take me to heaven.

Chapter 8. Look at the security we have in Christ Jesus in Romans chapter 8. Our new outline point for today.

Sin, salvation, sanctification, and now security. We are secure in Christ.

The guillotine or the Damocles sword that keeps going over you back and forth in an Edgar Allen Poe like fashion.

Thinking that if that thing just keeps coming closer and closer, I come to the end of my life and I die as a Christian. I've struggled.

I've sinned. I've done all kinds of things. What will happen? And he gives all of chapter 8 as an argument for why

God's love is unchanging. And if you have received God's love that is unmerited, you will continue to receive that love.

This is one of my greatest chapters of all time. I say that about every chapter I preach, but it just seems like it at a time.

This is my favorite book. It's my favorite chapter. Remember what happened to Jeremiah?

When I preach God in Jeremiah chapter 20, the people throw things at me. They despise me.

I'm not preaching anymore, God. Look what they do to your people. Boy, it's a fire burning in my bosom.

I've got to preach. What does this have to do with anything?

If you're a Christian, you will not be able to contain yourself when it comes to preaching the glories of Christ, including how you're no longer condemned.

This is wonderful news. We're free from the law, so how can you be condemned if you're free from the law?

What judge is going to say, you didn't do this, you didn't do that, you didn't do this, and you did that, and we said not to do it?

The law has been done. It's been taken care of. We have laws of Christ now to tell us what to do and how to do things, but they're not law that says, if you don't do this, you're going straight to hell.

This is supposed to be a comforting passage, and that's exactly what it is. Look at Romans 8 .1. In a word that's opposite of justification, a word that's only used in a judicial sense here in Romans, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

God has liberated us from sin and death, verses 2 and 3. He dwells within us so we can fulfill

God's new laws, verse 4. Verse 11, but if the

Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his

Holy Spirit, or his Spirit who indwells you. He's given us a new nature, and now that new nature says,

God, I want to obey you and please you. He hasn't just said, I hope you figure it all out, I've given you a new heart, go for it.

He said, I've not only given you a new heart and new affections, but I've given you the Spirit of God who dwells in you to help you to obey.

And Paul just does a pile on that you in New England call pig pile. He's just stacking them up, one on top of the other.

I know I'm in New England, and now at least my children are, because they don't say dog pile, they say pig pile. So, we're children of God now.

Verse 14 of Romans 8, for all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

And we cry out at the end of verse 15, Abba, Father. We can't do that without the work of God in our life, changing us from sinners to saints.

And as Janet was saying in the baptismal font earlier this morning, look what happens, that God does everything.

The Spirit of God, in verse 26, prays for us, and also the Spirit of God takes difficult circumstances and makes them for good.

Verse 28, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love

God, to those who are called according to His purpose. There can be sin, and God can cause that to work out good.

There can be Satan, and God can cause him to work out to be good. There can be suffering in your life, and God can cause that to turn out for what?

Good. And to round out the S's, how about stupidity? I can do stupid things too, and God still is sovereignly orchestrating everything.

And if He's sovereignly orchestrating everything, how could He let something come into your life, get somehow undue salvation?

No, it can't. And then He comes off with these five questions. I call these five defiant questions, for the person who says, yeah, you can lose your salvation.

Yeah, God might have loved you in the past, but He knows what you did. He knows what you did behind closed doors, in that closet, or in that place.

He knows all about that stuff, and here's five kind of defiant questions. Even though I work for Duracell, I still remember the

Energizer ad, where Robert Conrad had the alkaline battery on his shoulder.

He was famous in what was that serial? The Wild Wild West. He just put that up there, and he said,

I dare you to knock that off. These are five

I dare you questions, that increase our security, at least our view of it.

What then, verse 31, is the first question? Shall we say to these things? What are you going to say?

I dare you. Second question, if God is for us, who's against us? Answer?

These are rhetorical questions. Verse 32, the greater and the lesser argument.

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Not also with Him freely give us all things. If Jesus was the best gift God ever gave, you mean you won't give smaller gifts?

Of course. Fourth question, who will bring a charge against God's elect?

Who's going to say something? God, did you see what they did? No one. And then the final defiant question, verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Who? I think I could come up with a list, couldn't you? Here's a list of 17 things that can't.

17 things that prove God's steadfast love. And you see these in verses 35 to 39?

Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, jump down to verse 37, in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

The list goes on. I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things to come, nor things present, nor powers, good angels, bad angels, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our

Lord. If God has saved you, can you unsave yourself? Here's what

I hear all the time. I can jump. He goes through this list of 17.

And then someone says, yeah, but when I sin, some kind of mortal sin, or some kind of really bad sin, or some kind of Ten Commandments sin, when

I sin, then I'm jumping out of His hand. I just have only one question for you.

Looking at verse 39, are you a created thing? Because if you're a created thing, a created thing can't stop what

God has done. Let me ask you this question, not can I lose my salvation, but if God saved me, can

I undo what God has done at Calvary? And the answer is no. And for all of us, we should be thinking, how many times have

I sinned in the last week? How many times have I sinned since I got baptized? How many sins have I sinned since I woke up this morning?

How many sins have I committed since 1989 when I got saved? Will any of those be pushed to my account so much so that on judgment day,

God just goes, you are onerous. That is odious. Forget that.

Get out of my presence. How about if you live your whole life thinking that you pretty much obeyed, and then on judgment day, you think,

I forgot that one. God knew that one secret one, and I forgot all about it.

And here, Christians are given liberty because it's all been taken care of. The law has been fulfilled by Christ in person on earth.

That law can no longer be given to us because we're dead and we're not under that law. And we have

Christ's righteousness, so there's no condemnation for those in Christ. If you have an eternal security problem, your problem could be solved by studying this doctrine, the doctrine of justification.

How can a sinner be right in God's eyes? Well, I've got a question for you.

God has a chosen people. Where are the chosen people? To the

Jew first and then the Gentile? The Jews in chapter 3 have the oracles of God. Where are the

Jews in chapter 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8? Where are the Jews? The Jews lost their salvation, so then

I can lose my salvation too. Is that true? The Jews, obstinate, new plan now through the church,

Jews turned away, so how now can there be salvation? How can

God's righteousness be vindicated if Israel isn't even here? Where is

Israel? If God had

Abraham take the animals and split them into two in Genesis 15, and he walked down as God moved through the middle of those animals, these dead animals, had

Abraham what? Arm in arm with God, walking, just tiptoeing through the tulips, just going right down together, hand in hand, right?

God and Abraham. Is that what happened? What happened? God said, all right,

I'm going to make a promise and I'm going to promise myself that there's going to be a future for the land of Israel, a future for ethnic national

Israel. Abraham, your part is this. Go take a nap. Abraham, you're sleeping. Abraham's over here sleeping.

God, as he appeared, is this kind of fire, this hot oven goes through, and God says, I promise that there'll be a nation for Israel, and if I break my promise, what has happened to these animals, dead and split in half, should happen to me.

And he cut the covenant. If you are a

Jew and you're hearing Paul preach, you're saying, listen, this entire group of Jewish people are out to lunch.

The Jews have lost their salvation. I can lose my salvation. So what's Paul going to say? This is amazing.

God's purpose might be frustrated. Israel's history was frustrated. Does Israel's betrayal thwart the promises of God?

You say, this is some kind of obsequious, ethereal thought I don't even need to deal with.

This will be another section that I want you to deal with because it'll help your salvation assurance. Did God promise to save them or not?

You say, I get it, move on. Repetition is the mother of all learning, right?

So I want you to get it. Here's what we do. We open the book of Romans, and here's the church today. You got to pack in the numbers, and you're consumers, and you like to consume, and you don't like to consume things that take a lot of thoughts, and so we like to consume things that can kind of help us live our lives.

And so we take the book of Romans, and we immediately open to Romans chapter what? 12.

Because 12's kind of good. We don't open to chapter 13, because 13 says, smile and praise God as you put the stamp on your check

April 15th. Well, it doesn't say that exactly, but that's a good application. We go straight for the, we want to do stuff.

I like to do things, and Christianity is do things, but it's doing things after you what? Know things.

As you grow in Christ, it's good to know what you know when you don't know it.

And when you're a Christian, it's good to know why you do things. Yes, early on,

I expect my children to just obey me. I expect two words that come out of your mouth. Yes, Dad.

But as the children grow, they need to understand the whole rationale of decision making, and why, and background, because that is just God's plan for you to know.

Even Old Testament storytelling. How do they tell a story? They tell it once, and that's it. No, they tell it, and they tell it over, and they tell it over again, and then they sing about it, and then they write poetry about it.

It's this story about God's love for Israel, and that's what we see in Romans 9, versus all the verses in 10 and 11.

Quick note before we start. When you see the word Israel in 9, 10, and 11, it's used 11 times, and it's always used of ethnic national

Israel, and I think I can prove that as we go. Gentiles are going to be kind of added in later.

Does Paul love Israel? Yes. What does he say in verse 2 of chapter 9?

That I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. I wish that I could be damned to hell, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, the

Jews, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. You say that? Could you say that? What is he doing?

Who are Israelites? Clearly, ethnic national Israel, to whom belongs the adoption of sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the temple services, and the promises.

Those are Jews. Why is Paul even arguing

Romans chapter 9? Here's the argument. Don't miss it. Where are the Jews? God has determined in His sovereign elective plan to put the

Jews on the shelf for a while. That's why He chose Jacob and not

Esau. That's why He chose Isaac and not Ishmael. That's why He chose Moses and not Pharaoh, because God's in charge and He does whatever

He wants. He does as He pleases, and Paul establishes God's right to do whatever

He wants, including Israel being on the shelf for a while. He has a purpose, a sovereign purpose for dealing with Israel.

Now, verse 6. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. See the rationale?

If Israel lost their salvation, can I lose my salvation? It's not about the word of God failing. For they are not all

Israel who are descended from Israel. Now, some people think there are

Gentiles involved in this, and I don't see any of that. There is an elect within the nation of Israel, the

Isaacs and the Jacobs. And that's what He says in verse 7 and following.

Through Isaac your descendants will be named, not Ishmael. Verse 13. Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

God's in control. Verse 15. God gave mercy to Moses, but hardened

Pharaoh. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and compassion on whom I have compassion. Then he answers a few questions.

Boy, this seems weird of God to do that. He gives some reminders. Look at verse 19. Don't talk back to God.

Why does He still find fault? Who resists His will? Verse 20. Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?

We don't talk that way to God. We don't say, why did you make me like this? We just don't talk back that way.

God's in control. Probably the worst thing I ever did or said to my mother, I had my tonsils taken out when

I was 21. And I should have known better.

I'm surprised I didn't get a whipping or something from my father. And at 6 '4", 250, he could have probably given me one even though I was 21.

I got my tonsils taken out at 21. And you know how when you're older it just hurts more and it's harder and everything else?

I got it taken out December 24th. And I came home December 24th eve.

And I was coughing in the night. They tell you cough with your stomach, not cough up here. And I couldn't help it.

I was coughing in the night, Christmas morning now, at 2 in the morning. And I was coughing. And all of a sudden, all the blood just kind of starts coming up.

And there's just blood everywhere. I thought, I'm going to die. It's one of these re -bleed things. I'm just going to die. I got out the yellow pages to the emergency room phone number.

And I thought, I'm just going to die. This is it. It's over. And anyway,

I woke up Christmas morning with my head laying down on the yellow pages, still alive, obviously because I woke up. And I don't know if I was drinking that day or what

I was, but I made a comment to my mother that none of this would have happened.

I mean, I just am so ashamed to even say it now, but it will make a point. And that was then. This is now. I said, basically, you made me like this,

Mom, because it was your genetic structure, combined with my father's, that gave me tonsils like this and a throat like this.

I mean, what was I thinking to say something that stupid? God shelves

Israel. God, even in individual salvation, chooses one and passes over another.

And then to have somebody who is made say to God, you made me like this, so why do you hold me accountable, is 50 ,000 times worse than me saying something sinful and asinine to my mother.

We don't talk this way to God. Verse 21. Does not the potter have a right over the clay?

What's the answer? To make from the same lump one vessel for China and the other for the garbage?

He can do whatever he wants. God can be God, including the shelving temporarily of Israel.

That's the whole point. This chapter is not to teach the denial of the freedom of the will.

It's not to teach individual election primarily, although it does. It's to teach that God's in charge when he said,

Israel, you stay over here for a while. I'm not done with you. Second reason why

God turned from Israel. First one was because chapter 9, God's in charge, and it's part of the plan.

But the second reason is Israel was obstinate, stubborn, and sinful. Look at chapter 10.

Well, even down in chapter 9, verse 31. But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at the law.

Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.

Two times in this chapter 10, Israel's used clearly ethnic Israel. Chapter 10, verse 3.

For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

That was preached in chapters 3 and 4 and 5. Israel rejects the prophets, which is foretold in verses 18 and 21.

What are we going to do? Where is Israel? Is Israel done? God says, I've decided not to work through you now.

Israel is stubborn and obstinate. Where is Israel? And here in chapter 11, we have the answer.

It's a whole sermon in and of itself, but we'll just go as quickly as possible. Four times the word Israel is used.

Four times ethnic Israel. They are prideful. They have self -sufficiency. But God is still on the throne, and he will vindicate his promises to Abraham in chapters 12, 15, 17, 19, and 22 in Genesis.

Arnold Toynbee said, Israel is a fossil civilization. Do you believe that?

A fossil civilization. Did God set aside Israel with permanence, or was it temporary?

Well, it's not total. If you look at chapter 11, verses 1 to 10, let's just look at a few verses.

Verse 1, I say then, God has not rejected his people. Has he? May it never be. For I, too, am an

Israelite. Clearly, no Gentile there. A descendant of Abraham.

A tribe of Benjamin. Verse 5, in the same way, there also comes to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice.

Verse 7, what then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained. But those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened.

There's a remnant within real Israel. God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes not to see and ears not to hear, down to this very day.

Why did God set Israel to the side? Because he wanted people like me to be saved, and you, too, if you're a

Gentile. This is the purpose. Verse 11, I say then, they did not stumble as so to fall.

Did they? May it never be. But by their transgression, we're talking about the nation of Israel, salvation has come to the

Gentiles to make them, Israel, jealous. It's unthinkable that God would not obey his covenant word.

The Jewish postponement is going to be seen by later

Jews as the Gentiles come in and Israel is going to go, what's going on? Now Gentiles are getting saved?

That's exactly God's plan. Verse 22 of Romans 11, behold then the kindness and severity of God to those who fell severity, but to you

God's kindness. If you continue in his kindness, otherwise you'll be cut off. There's a warning for you Gentiles grafted in.

And here we come to the climax of it all. God is able to restore Israel.

Verse 25, I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the

Gentiles come in. Two separate groups. Israel is not spiritual

Israel with the church involved. Two separate groups, Israel and the Gentiles.

Verse 26, and thus all Israel will be saved just as it is written. The deliverer will come from Zion.

He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. And as John Piper says, quote, I think the term Israel in verse 25 and 26 most naturally refer to the same thing.

I don't think the meaning of Israel changes between verse 25 and 26. The hardened

Israel as a nation, as a whole, will be saved. Israel the nation as a whole, John Piper.

Verse 27, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.

Who's he talking about? The nation of Israel. Verse 28, and from the standpoint of the gospel, they,

Israel, are enemies for your sake. But from the standpoint of God's choice, they, Israel, the same one, are beloved for the sake of their fathers.

The salvation of Israel rests on the nature of God. Verse 29, for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

You say, well, what about the land? Wasn't Israel promised the land? Wasn't Israel given the land under David?

How can that be when even later, Amos says after that,

I will plant them also on their land. How about this?

If you were a Gentile walking around, well, let's do a different illustration. What was the

Bible of the day, by the way, back in those days? What was it?

It was the Old Testament. Some people say, in the New Testament, there's no more promises for Israel's land.

I think, as S. Lewis Johnson said, it would be perverse to think that the Jews somehow thought there would be no more future promises for the land of Israel because they weren't in the

New Testament when they're walking around, as it were, with the Bible, with the promises of God in the Old.

Listen to what he says. Quote, what about the land promises? They are not mentioned in the New Testament. Are they therefore canceled?

In my opinion, the apostles and early church would have regarded the question as singularly strange. To them, the scriptures were our

Old Testament, and they considered the scriptures to be living and valid as they wrote and transmitted the

New Testament literature. Israel is secure. And if Israel isn't secure, you're not secure either.

And what's the response to say, you are not condemned in Christ, Israel as a nation will come back, and what does then

Paul say we should do? He doesn't say we should do anything, but he does by example in verse 33 and following.

Israel is secure. Israel's restoration will result in praising, oh, the depths and riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. How about this for an assignment?

If you have a hard time with eternal security, can I lose my salvation?

How about studying the Abrahamic covenant? That's weird, but that's what

Paul would say. Man, it is hotter than anything in here.

See, the fans are going. Heidelberg Catechism, question one. No, it's not question one.

It's my question one. How many things are necessary to you to know that you in this comfort may live and die happily?

What do you need to know so you can live a life that you can put your head down on the pillow when you die one day and you just go, this is all

I needed to know. Mein Kampf, do you need to know that?

Do you know Confucius' sayings? Mahatma Gandhi, what he said? What your dad told you out in the woodshed, do you need to know that?

It was probably a good thing to remember. We don't have woodsheds anymore, do we? Where are the woodsheds?

That's a sermon. Where are the woodsheds? How many things are necessary for you to know that you might live and die happily?

Three, Heidelberg Catechism said, how great my sins and miseries are. Two, how

I am delivered from all my sins and misery. Three, how I am to be thankful to God for such deliverance.

That's the book of Romans. Great sin, greater Savior, praise to God.

How about this? Great guilt, greater grace, infinite amount of gratitude.

Sin, Savior, service. If God has saved us from great sin, doesn't that make you want to do something about it?

And that's what chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15 are. I've got to do something about it.

As the London Sunday Express quoted long ago, most people wish to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.

Romans 1 to 11 is the doctrine for the way we live. And we say, this is just a snore, Pastor, for a sermon.

This is boring. Well, I may be boring, but this passage isn't boring. This passage is all about our life.

Why would Paul put in Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11 if we didn't need to know them? And then because of all that, what does he say we should do?

Look at chapter 12, verse 1. I urge you, therefore. Therefore, what?

Therefore, close your eyes and think of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Think of all those things.

Just take a walk one day and think about chapters 1 through 11. Because of those things, what do you do?

By the mercies of God, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Because God has done all this, you are a sacrifice to God. God, here I am on the altar for you, as it were, if I was a

Jew. And that's why I do think it's true that sometimes instantaneous martyrdom physically is easier than the

Christian life. Our whole lives are lives that say, self, no,

God, yes. And is that a logical thing to do? Is it spiritual? What does the text say? Which is your logical, literally, service of worship.

It's right, it's proper, wholehearted commitment. And here's what I could say to end this morning.

If you do not have a commitment that's full bore, full throttle, as we used to say back in our motorcycle days, full throttle for God, then is it proper to ask yourself the question, did chapters 1 to 11 happen to me?

Or is it proper to ask this question, do I need to be reminded of what God has done for me?

Because anyone who has been the recipient of chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in the book of Romans should live a life that is

David Brainerd -esque, or Mary Schleser -esque. If we don't live like this, chapter 12 and following, then did 1 to 11 even happen?

And I think for many of us, including my own life, yes it did, but I just need a wake -up call again to say,

Mike, have you forgotten your great salvation? Have you forgotten what God has done? And I think about my ambitions in life.

What are you dying to do? What are you itching to do? What are you going to school for? What do you want to do in the next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?

And the answer should be, based on the mercies of God found in chapters 1 through 11, I want to burn out for God.

I want to burn out as a mom or a grandparent or a worker or this or that, but I'm living my life to serve

God because it's reasonable, it's proper, it's logical, and if you don't have those questions, there are two comments.

One, you need to get saved. Two, like me often, I just need to repent and think, why am

I living? What am I doing? I'm off to the next year of football and basketball and baseball and then this, that, and the other, and then retirement, and I can't wait to get in my big old

RV and just drive around, Kim and I, at 65. Maybe I'll take early retirement. 62 years old, driving around.

We wouldn't drive very far because gas prices are high, but we're driving. Kim's making her deluxe cakes and pies and stuff and high fructose corn syrup filled things.

I'm just driving along. This is my life. You know, it's that whole Piper thing with the shells. Retiring and then what?

I love it that I could be either a pastor or a preacher or a Christian where my retirement day is going to be, come up here.

That's my retirement, the day I die. And I don't want to be in what verse 2 says, conformed to this world.

Look at Romans 12 too. It conformed. Here's your mold and then you just are poured into this mold of the world and kind of cooled off like Jell -O in a refrigerator and it just takes the form of the world.

And the form of the world here isn't smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol and going to movies.

This kind of worldly conformity is the way they think. Individualism, materialism, hedonism, ritualism, religious kind of living without kind of relationship to Christ.

I don't want any of that. And therefore, I can say with Paul, I'm sick and tired of living this way.

I want to live for the grandeur and the greatness of God. I know there are some here that think what

I say is... Just let's finish the sermon.

But I want to implore you. You've seen it with your own eyes today, an example of a transformed life.

And I want to try to encourage you that on judgment day, you will not have anything to offer

God except your own sin. And today I beseech you and I beg you and I call upon you to say,

God, help me to forsake myself and help me to trust in the work of Jesus Christ at Calvary.

This gospel can save you. And I'm glad that Janet didn't say, you know, my life is all messed up and I have

Jesus and everything's fine because Jesus didn't come to solve your marriage problems and your financial problems and your health problems.

Matter of fact, He might rip all those away, but He came to solve this problem. You don't have any righteousness and neither did

I before I was saved. God has all the righteousness and God is pleased to give you His righteousness as you repent and trust in the

Son, Christ Jesus, who has been raised from the dead. This is the great gospel. I heard this week that 35 % of the people who sit in churches like ours aren't saved at all.

Are you? Can you imagine that judgment day where you think, like John Bunyan said, that at the gate of heaven there's a porthole to hell?

And my favorite book of all time, outside of Romans, to help me with my eternal security, is the book of Galatians because I know it's not my good works, it's not my daily devotionals, it's not my determination to obey

God, it's not my determination to try to do the right things and do pastoral things that has me saved.

I am betting my eternal life and my children's eternal lives on standing before God one day and say,

I am naked, I am undone, I have nothing, but I'm here to say Jesus Christ is

God and I've bowed my knee to His authority and His glory and you shouldn't save me, God, but now after you've poured out your justice on Jesus, you have to save me because if Jesus is a liar, then you are too.

I wouldn't say any of those things. I'd just be quiet. But this is a teaching moment.

You must be born again because you must have righteousness, perfect righteousness, because Jesus says every sin and only one sin could keep you out of heaven.

Any future sin can keep you out of heaven. And Paul just goes into the gospel in Romans and he just says there's nothing like it in this world that a

God would love us so much that He'd condescend and take on human flesh and die in our place.

And I love all my children, but to keep the analogy similar, I only have one son and do you think

I'd let my son die in the place of a murderer or rapist or child abuser or anyone else?

You've got to be kidding me. And every one of us with our thought life is worse than the things

I just made. And God gave His only son for us. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You to this day. Lord, I know Your gospel is powerful and Lord, we'll trust as a leadership team and even as a congregation that trumpeted through frail, fragile vessels that You do

Your saving work. I pray for the visitors today, Lord, that those who are born again would be encouraged and reminded of their faith.

For those that somehow come carrying their own infant baptism, their own confirmation, their own churchiosity, whatever they bring,

Lord, to You saying, this is what I deserve to go to heaven. I pray that You would just take that from them. And Lord, for us as a congregation, we have many children that need to be born again.

Lord, be pleased to save through the preaching of Your gospel. Lord, if You can save James, J .C. Ryle, when he hears

Ephesians read, You can save through preaching. And Lord, I would ask for the spouses, the unsaved spouses represented here, that You'd be mighty to save,

Lord. And Lord, that You would give us opportunities every month to see the glories of Your salvation even before our eyes in baptism.

Lord, lastly, we can't do things on our own. We can't live to serve You. We can't have a renewed mind.

We can't be protected against the world and its conforming ways without Your Spirit.

And so, Lord, be gracious to us today. Help us to rely on You. And may Your word do its work in our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.