Romans 11:11-24 Only One Olive Tree

To the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in the Book of Romans, A Righteousness from God. Let's listen in.

Unity in the Church and the Old Testament’s Ongoing Importance

Welcome to Recast, everybody. I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm just glad that we have a chance to get together and worship our great and awesome God together this morning, operating word together, that's a beautiful thing, and I just appreciate you guys braving the rain to get your second shower this morning together together.

So, this church has had amazing sense of unity from the very beginning, and I just consider that an immense and awesome blessing from God. It's really been from the beginning, and it's been a joy to see people together in unity, growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service over the years that God has blessed us to be a church.

And unity is a pretty big deal, isn't it? I mean, when you think about it, getting along with one another, how many of you have been in a season of life where it felt like you weren't getting along with anybody?

And those are tough seasons of life, so it's not just that unity in the church makes it pleasant for all of us, there's a little bit more going on than that. It's a big deal in that it is what God has planned for his church from the beginning.

As a matter of fact, before Jesus was crucified, he prayed for his disciples, and he prayed that they would be one, even as he and his father are one, and that's a pretty significant thing, that Jesus himself would ask his father, on behalf of the church, that we would be unified.

And so all along, it's been God's glorious and good plan to bring people together from different cultures, from different backgrounds, and even different religious upbringings and different religious histories, and bring them into a community that is united in the salvation that's available through his son, Jesus Christ.

And that's what we're celebrating as we gather together each Sunday, is that togetherness, that unity, that gathering of the people where we need one another and need to recognize the unity that he has given to us.

And that was God's plan all the way back in the Old Testament. He was always planning on blessing all the nations through the Jews, by bringing the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, out of that nation, out of that particularly selected group of people in the Old Testament.

And so there's a fundamental understanding that we as a church, how many of you still read in the Old Testament from time to time? Is the Old Testament in your Bible? The Old Testament's still in your Bible, so we still read that, but then there can be some mystery and some misunderstanding if you haven't thought at all about the way that the Old Testament and the New Testament connect.

It can forge all kinds of misunderstandings and confusion in us. It actually is important that we understand the way that the Old Testament connects with the New Testament, and that's part of what our text is gonna be addressing here in the Book of Romans this morning.

It's not something that you've likely given a ton of thought to. It's not like you probably stay awake at night thinking, I wonder how the Old Testament flows into the New Testament. I wonder how those connect.

You probably have more pressing issues on you, and yet it's vital and important in the big picture of understanding our faith. You see, a few years ago, I had the privilege of getting the opportunity to present at a pastor's conference, really help run a pastor's conference in Uganda.

Rob Knold was there, Dan DeVries was there, and the three of us had the chance to speak to a medium-sized, not large, a smaller group of pastors in Kampala, two different conferences in two different locations.

And it became clear through the Q &A we would preach, we would declare the word of God, we would try to encourage the pastors, and then we would have a Q &A at the end. And a couple of themes began to develop that identified to me some struggles and hurdles and problems in the African church, particularly in the Ugandan church.

And that is that the issue of the way that the Old Testament and the New Testament come together was ripping at the fabric of the unity of the church of Christ in Uganda. And here are some of the questions that impact our understanding of the way that the Old Testament connects with the New Testament.

If we don't get this right, then we're gonna really struggle to answer questions like this. Do the Old Testament laws about homosexuality matter today? Is the Old Testament God an angry God? Are Jehovah and Jesus playing good cop, bad cop?

Is that what we've got going on in Old Testament, bad cop, New Testament, good cop? Is that what's going on? And my personal favorite question pertaining to the Old Testament, can we eat bacon? Very, very vital and important question.

Or maybe a better question is, why do we eat bacon? But without a resolution to these issues, we saw at first hand, pastors in Uganda would preach the Old Testament law. When they were in an Old Testament passage, they would preach it as law to the people, as law to the church.

Thou shalt do this, no questions asked. And what they were basically doing is creating a Jewish contingent within the church. There are many in Africa who call themselves Christians that are following some form of Old Testament Judaism and trying to tack Jesus on there in some confusing kind of way.

Seeking a self-righteousness and obedience to laws is kind of what they were doing and they would believe that that would somehow bring down the promises of milk and honey in the here and now, as if those promises to Old Testament Israel apply directly to us right now where we stand.

And if we just obey enough, then we'll be blessed. And that's where the prosperity gospel is seeping into the church in Africa with devastating effects. And now the other side of that would be an extreme in the opposite direction that would say that we don't need any of that Old Testament mess anymore.

We just need Jesus and all of that Jewish Old Testament has been replaced by the New Testament and that's why I just read Jesus. I just read the red letters of the New Testament and you can take the extreme, the other direction and just say, we don't really need those prophets.

We don't really need those laws anymore. We don't need that Old Testament mess. All of those stories that are difficult to understand. Let's just give me John, just give me Matthew, just give me Mark.

And in our text this morning, Paul is going to disagree with both sides, both extremes. He's gonna show us the way that the Old Testament still matters even as Jesus and his church are the fulfillment of that Old Testament work.

God is forging for himself a unified people. There is only one way of salvation and all of the Old Testament was the runway that made a level pathway for the arrival of our king,.

Our Messiah, Jesus Christ.

So let's open our Bibles if you're not already there to Romans chapter 11, 11 through 24, a potentially confusing passage for us that hopefully will make more sense and more clarity in its application to us by the end of our time together this morning.

But Romans 11, 11 through verse 24 and God's very word to us. This has the power, even though it might not be a topic that we think about very often, by encountering God through his word, we have the opportunity to be changed and I pray for that for us this morning.

So listen in, Romans 11, 11 through 24. So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? That's speaking of the Jews. So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means, rather through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous.

Now if their trespass means riches for the world and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean? Now I'm speaking to you Gentiles and as much then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.

If you are, remember it is not you who support the root.

But the root supports you.

Then you will say, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. That is true, they were broken off because of their unbelief but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud but fear.

For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God. Severity towards those who have fallen but God's kindness to you provided you continue in his kindness.

Otherwise, you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature an olive tree, a wild olive tree, and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree?

Let's pray.

Father, I imagine that even in the reading of that,.

There's confusion.

There can be a lot of difficulty in understanding what the metaphors are and we are not a particularly Old Testament-oriented people and so, Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to the reality of what you wanna try to communicate to us this morning through this message, what it is that this text implies for our hearts and primarily for us, it's just a glorious thing that we have been grafted in.

We've been brought into the family of God, a rich history of Old Testament stories and your working in human history that was not ours and has become ours through Jesus Christ, through that process of coming into faith in him and all of those Old Testament promises to Abraham are realized in us because you have chosen us and you have placed us in your family.

And so, Father, I pray that as people who don't belong in this olive tree, wouldn't get here on our own, the history isn't ours, the blessings aren't ours and you brought us in by this unnatural practice.

Father, I pray that that radical grace, your radical selection of us would flow out into our worship, that our minds, our hearts, and even our tongues would be informed by this as we have an opportunity to sing songs of praise and worship to you.

You, the one who has rescued us. You, the one who has saved us. You, the one who has grafted us into your family.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Yeah, you can go ahead and be seated, but remember, if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donuts, while supply is last, take advantage of that. And just one more detail, restrooms are out the barn doors down the hallway.

On the left-hand side if you need to use those.

The Olive Tree, Grafting, and the Kindness and Severity of God

And then, if you'd do me a favor and just reopen your Bibles or your devices to Romans chapter 11, verses 11 through 24. Again, Romans 11, 11, easy to remember. And that's gonna be the text for the morning.

That's what we're gonna be diving into and walking through. But just to kind of clarify where we were at last week. Last week, Paul concluded the text with a pretty severe warning regarding the vast majority of Jews during his lifetime.

He's expressed a deep desire to see them embrace Jesus Christ as the Messiah that was predicted in their very Old Testament. But in verses eight through 10 of last week, Paul made it clear that the majority of the Jews during his time remained in a God-given spirit of stupor.

That is kind of a sleepy fog that remained over them spiritually. And they also do not have eyes that see, nor do they have ears that hear the call of God to embrace the Messiah. And this status puts them in line for the severe judgment of God.

And so, our outline for this text has just two main points regarding the future for the Jews. Lest he made his case too strong last week, he's gonna correct a couple of potential misunderstandings by saying, first of all, in verses 11 through 15, there is still hope for the Jews.

Lest you think that they've fallen so far and slidden so far that there is no more hope for them, he says, there is indeed still hope for the Jews. And in understanding that first point, you have to actually recognize what was going on in the early church.

At the foundation of this thing that we take for granted today as people who were raised in a culture that understands Christianity, was the very notion of what is this thing that we're doing? What is this?

Is this open to people from different faiths? Is this open to the rest of the world? Or is this a unique thing that is going on here that excludes? Is this the Christian? I mean, is this the Gentile thing that is the non-Jewish thing?

Is Judaism the thing for Jews and Christianity is for everybody else? Or is this a global thing that God is doing here? Is this a big picture worldwide thing? Or is this just for those other people and the Jews are okay just remaining in Judaism.

And that's fine?

So that's what's at stake here is understanding what is the church? What is this thing that we're doing? And so there is still hope for the Jews, verses 11 through 15. And then that hope is found in verses 16 through 24, that hope is found in a unified people of God.

A people of God that span all the way back through the centuries, all the way back to Abraham and God beginning and initiating a saving work through him. And so there's still hope for the Jews and that hope is found in a unified people of God.

So first, we need to understand that there's still hope for the Jews, our first point. And the conclusion from last week might again, I said, has been taken too far. Should the church even bother proclaiming the gospel to those of the Jewish faith?

And further, has their stumbling resulted in an irretrievable fall? So for the 10th time in the book of Romans, 10 times Paul has answered his own question, states a question and then emphatically says, no way, by no means.

Uh-uh, not, that's just not the way that it is. Their stumbling was not so that they would fall into complete disregard by God. God has not given up on any group of people on the planet. And at the end of verse 11, Paul gives an alternate understanding for the reason that the Jews stumbled.

Something that then ties it to where we live today that makes it a little bit more applicable because not many of you have sat around wondering, well, should I share my faith with my Jewish neighbor? Because you probably don't even have a Jewish neighbor, right, so it's kind of like a question that Paul's answering that you're going, wait, what's this got to do with me?

But here in this text, their trespass, which is the rejection, their sin, and the sin of the Jews during his time was one, it's a trespass, not multiple trespasses, there's one primary thing that they are held liable for, and that is the rejection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

That is what they're liable for.

And so that trespass, through that trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now some of you, the words Gentile and Jew don't make a whole lot of sense, and a Jew is somebody who's born of the race of Abraham that can connect their life to that lineage, but a Gentile is just someone who can't.

So all other people are under that embrace. So how many of you would raise your hand and say, I'm pretty much a Gentile?

Like, that's us.

And so the text is actually addressing us, and this, anytime that it mentions Gentile, it's talking about non-Jews, like that's primarily who we are. And salvation has come to us because the Jews rejected the Messiah, so then the doors were open for us to come in.

How many of you are glad for that? How many of you are glad that the doors were open for salvation, for you, and for your family, and for your offspring? And absolutely, I'm very glad for that. And even this focus of God away from the Jews to the Gentiles, Paul says, still, ultimately, he hopes has a blessing that rebounds back to the Jews.

The turn of focus is meant to provoke the Jews to a jealousy, he says multiple times in this text, a jealousy that results in some of them being saved. Yeah, jealousy there. This dynamic could be confusing in our minds.

In what way could God opening up salvation to the Gentiles provoke the Jews to jealousy? What is that all about? How would God opening that up make them jealous? And further, how would that result in some of them being saved?

How does jealousy result in a good thing, as Paul seems to say at the end of verse 14? And it's obvious that he has hope that some of the Jews would be saved as a result of the work that God is doing among the Gentiles.

And in verse 13, Paul is gonna help our understanding a bit. Remember that the Jews were recipients of those glorious Old Testament miracles. That's one of the benefits of being able to look at the Old Testament and read those stories is to see the way that God worked powerfully among his people there in the Old Testament.

They were recipients of the miracles like the parting of the Red Sea and the manna provided in the wilderness and the closeness to God found in the tabernacle and in the temple and God's holy presence and the pillar of fire by day, by night and the pillar of cloud by day.

The glories of God manifest physically, the miracles, the sight of these things, the holy storm cloud of God descending upon the mountain at the giving of the law. These things were theirs. The working of God among the Jews was unprecedented in human history until the rise of the apostles under the leadership of Jesus and the ministry of Jesus.

And all of a sudden, God is doing something unique and different because these miracles of God are being manifested outside of Judaism. These things are starting to happen outside and that would provoke the Jews to some kind of at least curiosity and maybe even a jealousy.

Those are supposed to be ours.

These miracles are supposed to belong to us. And now that Jesus has ascended and left his Holy Spirit to the Christians, those early Christians, the Christians become the focus of God's radical and even miraculous works and manifesting and declaring and verifying that this is indeed a work of God that's happening here on the globe.

It's not a small thing. It's not just some people spouting their opinions about God or their thoughts about God or their thoughts about Jesus crucified and resurrected and all that kind of stuff, but God validating his ministry through these miraculous works.

So when Paul says in verse 13, I'm speaking to you Gentiles, in other words, the Gentile church in Rome, that's who he's writing to, so I'm talking to you guys. And you could even just fill in recast there.

He's speaking to the church down through the ages, to the Gentile church, and he identifies that he has been called as an apostle to the Gentiles. Jesus said when he met him on the road to Damascus, I'm calling you out to be an apostle to the Gentiles, the non-Jews.

And further, Paul says, I magnify my ministry. In other words, I talk it up. I make my ministry known to everybody everywhere that I go to make the Jews jealous. That seems like a strange thing to do.

I would talk up all of the great and glorious things that God is doing among the Gentiles so that the Jews would be like, why don't we get that? How come that's not happening in our synagogues? How come that's happening when the Christians go out to the temple, and a guy's sitting there, and he's lame from birth, and the apostle Peter is the one who says, I don't have any silver and gold to give you, you panhandler, but get up and walk,.

And the guy gets up and walks,.

And the Jews are going, where's that for us? How come that's not happening in invalidating the Jewish faith? And so there's a jealousy that's provoked there. I'd like to read a part of the scripture that really clarifies this issue for us, that brings it home to us, because the concept of jealousy is really prevalent in this text, and I think it's worth reading a chunk of the book of Acts here.

It also happens to be one of the more humorous sections of the New Testament, but by the time that we get to Acts 19, this little section that I'm gonna read, by the time that we get to Acts 19, Paul is on his second missionary journey.

He's been sent out by the church in Antioch to go around the known world, planting churches, declaring the glory of God to the world, and he's gone out, he came back, reported to them, then they sent him out on a second missionary journey, and in that, he encounters this fairly large city called Ephesus, and while he's there, he actually spends two years there in ministry because the church is just hungry.

It's a primary Gentile church, primarily Gentile church. They were steeped in witchcraft and sorcery and all types of pagan religion, and he stays by to help the church grow, and so he's there for a couple of years, and we read this in the middle of that two-year stint in Ephesus, a crazy story about the miraculous power of God and the way that that intersected with the Jews of that time to help clarify, what is this jealousy made of?

Acts 19, 11 through 17 says this, and God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, this is in Ephesus, among the Gentiles, so that even the handkerchiefs or aprons that touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.

Like, they just had like a hanky and touched Paul's skin with it and then send it to somebody and they'd be healed. Like, that kind of, how many of you are just like, that's a kind of crazy power, right?

It's a little bit eerie, that's kind of creepy stuff. Awesome stuff, glorifying God kind of stuff. And then it says in verse 13, some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists, that's a weird thing, that's a weird phrase.

Itinerant Jewish exorcists, guys who were Jewish that traveled around casting demons out of people. Not a ministry you see in West Michigan very often, but itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus.

These are Jews who are practicing Old Testament Judaism, who are trying to heal people who are oppressed by demons, and they literally are saying, you know what, what we're doing's not working, but we're gonna invoke the name of the Lord Jesus.

So, going on to quote, they undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. Seven sons of the Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this, but the evil spirits answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?

And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them, overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. The power of God among the apostles is going pretty well.

The jealousy of, hey, maybe we can invoke the name of Jesus to get us to get some of the credit, say the Jews, and they get the tar beat out of them. And then verse 17 says this, in wrapping up that section, and this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

Can you imagine how the jealousy was working between Paul's ministry and the Jews during this time? A perfect story that illustrates the way that those two things interface. And that Paul saying, my hope is that as God is working among the Gentile churches, and doing great things in the midst of the church, that the other people would become jealous.

Now I'm not gonna suggest to you that the interface between that and our church is then that you go out and you begin an itinerant exorcism ministry. What I am gonna suggest is that you love in such a way that it invokes jealousy, that you do the things that are the power of the Spirit in your life that invoke jealousy.

That means confessing when you have wronged somebody. That means taking the hit when you are the one who has done wrong, that you actually are representing Christ to your workplace, to your neighborhood, to your community, and that people would look at you and be jealous for what you have in Christ.

Not making it up, but actually in the difficulties and in the hardships that you're facing. When your coworkers know that you're going through a hard time, they still say to you, how is it possible that you're enduring under so much pressure and strain right now?

How is it possible that you're, not the cheesy grin, but the real visceral slogging through difficult things. Not always chipper about it, but saying, you know what? God's grace is sufficient for me. Jealousy among the Jews during this time?

Yes.

Christian ministry was accompanied during this early church period by the power of the Holy Spirit. While Jews were getting poltergeisted, the Christians were demonstrating the power of God. And the failure of the Jews was making them look to Jesus for power.

Can you see the draw in the early church toward Christ? Do you see the potential draw in our community, in our faith community toward Christ? Paul was willing to magnify his ministry so as to increase that curious jealousy, curious jealousy that was growing within the Jews during this era of the early church.

And you see, Paul wants the Gentile church to keep hope alive for all people. It is never the plan, and it's never taught in Scripture that we are to take the sovereignty of God that we've been talking about from chapters nine through 11, that we take that sovereignty so far that we wipe our hands of our role for evangelism toward the lost, all of the lost.

Here in chapters nine through 11, he makes it clear that salvation is an act of God expressing his clear choice and his sovereign will to show mercy to whom he will have mercy and compassion to whom he will have compassion.

And yet, Paul himself still demonstrates action in seeking to reach the lost. At the end of verse 14, he states clearly that he magnifies his miraculous and God-blessed ministry among the Gentiles with the ultimate goal that through evangelisy, some of the Jews might be saved.

And it's interesting that he says some of the Jews. Paul did not have any kind of delusions of grandeur that he was gonna be the one who was gonna save all the Jews, that just by his ministry and his message, he calls himself an apostle to the Gentiles and then says, my hope is that even just some of them.

He would sow his life in shipwrecks and in stonings and abuse with what hope? With what hope?

That maybe some.

That's his hope. Like, I mean, he was abused and tortured and all kinds of bad things thrown in jail, whipped, beaten, so that some might come. He didn't think that by his suffering that everyone was gonna come in,.

Just that some.

Consider what that means for us in our daily lives regarding our reach to our community. What would you suffer? What would you suffer? What would you endure? What kind of ridicule would you face that some, a few, maybe a couple, maybe a handful would come to understand Christ?

And even further, Paul's hope for the Jews has a global implication. In verse 12 and 15, kind of related verses that are separated by some content, but verse 12 and 15 are highly connected because 15 finishes the thought of 12, but it says, if the failure of the Jews to receive their Messiah resulted in riches being lavished on the Gentile world, just imagine what it will mean when the full number of the Jews is brought into salvation.

Now, the phrase full inclusion in ESV at the end of verse 12, and a couple of different translations have different things there. Full inclusion kind of implies that all the Jews would be saved, but that's not the case.

It actually, the phrase there in Greek signifies a completed number. When the whole number, when the full number of Jews comes in is what he's talking about. And Paul clarifies in verse 15 what he means in verse 12 by saying that rejection of the Messiah,.

The Jews,.

Rejection of the Messiah means reconciliation of the world to the Messiah. That's where the door was opened for the rest of us to come in because the Jews rejected him. And so we're mentioned in this text.

You and I have benefited by the gospel being extended to the nations of the world. But when the full number of Jews accept the Messiah as what he's getting at in verse 15, when the full number of Jews come in, that will mean nothing less.

Than the arrival of the resurrection.

Next week, we're gonna look at the rest of this chapter, but in verse 25, or in a couple of weeks we are, but in verse 25, Paul will mention the full number of the Gentiles. So there's a full number of Jews, there's a full number of Gentiles.

And the picture we have here is that there's a finite number of Jews that will come to trust the Messiah. And there's a finite number of Gentiles that will come into faith in Jesus. And when that number is completed, then the resurrection will come.

Then Christ will return.

So the flow of this text on hope looks like this. Right now, where we stand, from Paul's era down to our time, right now the Jews are hardened and they are blind to their Messiah. This results in the Gentiles coming into the favor of God through Christ.

But there is a time coming when the full number of the Gentiles will come in, and then the Jews will also reach that final number,.

And then comes the end.

So there is still hope for the Jews. But since many of us don't know any Jews, or many Jews, we need to consider who we think of as outside of the plan of God and then adjust our thoughts according to this text.

What kind of people, what kind of group, what kind of religious background do you see as unreachable? The fact is, we all know someone who is in a spiritual stupor. We all know someone who presents as spiritually blind or spiritually deaf.

So the question is, are they beyond hope? And the answer is an emphatic, according to this text, by no means, no way. God is working His plan, a plan that includes using our witness to open blind eyes, using our voices to open deaf ears, and using our stories to clear the fog of spiritual stupor.

One Olive Tree, Not Two

But regarding hope, the second part of this text highlights for us what that hope looks like. There is indeed still hope for those who we might write off. There is still hope for those who we might consider to be unreachable.

But that hope is only ever found in a unified people of God. It is only in as much as they would connect to Christ.

That there is hope for them.

And there are two metaphors used in verse 16, but the first one kind of falls away throughout the text. He doesn't really emphasize it. And then Paul's gonna stick with the second metaphor, which is an olive tree, and carry that through the end of our text.

But verse 16 is open to so many various interpretations that it's tempting to skip it. It's kind of tempting to just overlook this and just move right on into the illustration of the olive tree, because what is he getting at, and what does each portion of this metaphor in verse 16 stand for?