The God(ness) of God: The God of Future - Week 1
July 6, 2008 1:56 pm Chapter 11, Romans
This sermon is week 1 of The God of Future section of our “The God(ness) of God” sermon series. It is an exegetical treatment of Romans 10:1-5, addressing the theme of God’s grace in always sparing a remnant for himself. This sermon was originally preached July 6th, 2008 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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July 6th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets
Series: The God(ness) of God | Romans 9-11
I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
III. The God of Future 11:1-36
Week 1 - Romans 11:1-5
Introduction
Good morning. It is the weekend of fourth of July, Independence Day here in the U.S. which means for most people in San Diego, California, an excuse to get completely obliterated and not feel bad about it. So I’m glad to see that several of you have got over your hangovers and made it worship Jesus with his church today.
The beginning of the second paragraph of “The Declaration of Independence” says this, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Now I quote that not because I’m going to get all political and try and tear apart what that means. I’m a Christian and a “Kingdom of God-anist” so I don’t get too hyped about worldly governments. I live for and in another world where Jesus is King over all and will one day return to earth and bring his throne from heaven with him and set it up here and all nations will bow before his good and divine supremacy.
I read that part of the Declaration of Independence because I believe the last three words, “the pursuit of happiness” has a lot to do with what this text is about today. For most today that usually means being free to work whatever job you want where you will hopefully make a lot of money and that if you do then you will be happy.
I don’t think this text teaches that but teaches something entirely and radically different. Namely that submission rather than freedom and grace rather than works is what makes one truly happy. Grace, being a people of grace, specially privileged and chosen by God to be recipients of his eternal love and kindness…that is what is joyful and satisfying. It’s my hope today that we will all leave today with an overwhelming sense that our God is an extremely gracious God and that the only happy life is living in his favored grace. Well, before we dive into it let’s read our text and pray.
The Question: Has God Rejected His People?
Well today we begin our last and final movement in our God(ness) of God sermon series. It’s been the longest series we have ever done here at The Resolved Church. It’s been long because these three chapters of Romans, 9, 10, and 11 all really go together as one unit and really have God, and his God-ness distinctly as their focus. So I’ve been doing my best to try and help us move through it but at the same time keep in mind the whole picture of the three chapters together in one theme.
If you’re a little bit tired of this series don’t feel bad about it. I feel a little bit like that too. But it is good for us as a people to learn to press on and press through and dig in and really grow even when we are tired.
So I won’t repeat all of what I’ve said before about how these three chapters go together, if you want to hear and see how and why that’s true you can go online and check out the first sermon of this series. The simple main thing to remember is that all of Romans 9-11 are written to support and undergird the conclusion of Romans 8 which said that nothing, not difficulty and disease, not danger or death, not even demons or time dimensions can separate Christians from the love of God extended to them in Jesus Christ. There may be times where you might feel like you are going to collapse and lose it or there may be times when it may seem like God has given up on you…but Romans 9-11 is written to say he hasn’t and you will make it.
The way the three chapters are structured are in three main movements. First, that God is a God who pursues his own glory and he does not change or give up on that. Everything first begins with him and not namely us. So if it begins with him and his pursuit of glorifying himself because he is God, then that is the most sure thing in the world we can count on. God will get his glory because God is a God of glory.
The second movement, was that God is a God of Gospel. He has not only determined and committed to bringing glory for himself bringing certain people unto himself, but he has also committed and determined the way that people will come to know and love the good news of Jesus Christ, and that is through us, his people. God pursues people and thus is a God of Gospel.
Now we round to the third movement, the God of Future. Paul, the human author of Romans is going to spend the bulk of chapter 11 talking about what God has planned in the future. But before he does that he’s going to first talk about the present, God’s promise, and the past.
So let’s get into it now and check out the first line, “I ask then (that’s in light of ch. 9 & 10…he’s starting a new train of thought, a new movement), has God rejected his people? By no means!”
He’s starting a new line of thinking, you can tell that because of this rhetorical way of questioning. Paul has done this before where he asks a question and then says, “No, that’s ridiculous.” The big picture is God, if God is a God who chooses people at one point and then rejects them later, then there can be no confidence or real hope in any of us putting our faith in Jesus Christ. So is God a God who chooses and then changes his mind and later rejects his people?
He’s going to say no three times and give three different supports or proofs to back up his “no’s.” We’ll start the first one in a second. But before we do let me ask you, “who is he talking about?” “Who are God’s people?”
He’s been using the word “Israel” or “Israelites” throughout these chapters. That word comes from God himself who renamed a guy named Jacob in the Bible God into a physical fight with Jesus, they wrestled MMA UFC style, Jesus kicked his butt and then Jesus changed his name to Israel and said that from him God would make a people for himself. So the name Israel has a particular connection to being specially chosen or favored by God as his people.
Now, today’s nation state “Israel” attributes it’s history to that. But something happened along the way. What started out being a people that God creates and chooses became a race or an ethnicity. It’s like if Christians somewhere, somehow down the line someday became their own ethnic race. When that happened Israelites, chosen people by God, started going by other names, like Jew and Hebrew. So I suspect that Paul is making a specific point even by just using the term Israel and Israelites throughout these chapters because he is trying to drive home the point that it is God who makes a people.
Okay, with that said maybe all of this will make a little more sense of why the question of whether or not God has rejected his people even matters. In chapter 11, Paul is mainly trying to deal with what’s going on with what has become this ethnic race called Israel, since now there are new people of God, namely Christians…what happened to the old people of God because the majority of them are not believing in Jesus and now only through believing in Jesus can anyone get connected with God and know him and be a recipient of his love and favor.
Do you get it now? Does that mean that God has rejected his old people? Which is a relevant question to us Christians because if God is a God who changes his mind and might later us for loving Jesus then maybe he is that great of a God and maybe I shouldn’t really live my life for him. So these verses are talking about you and I. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this only relevant or only applies to Jews. Everything God has done with the Jews is analogous to how his works with us. I’ll say more about that later but for now let’s move on with the question at hand… Has God has rejected his old people?
No. Support #1: The Present - Paul Himself was Accepted by God
Answer number one: No. Presently, at the time this was written Paul points to himself as an example of a Jew, an old Israel, people of God dude, as one who has not been rejected but accepted by God.
Look at it. Verse 1, “I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.” For I myself. That’s Paul. He is an old Israelite. You can tell he is talking about old Israel which became ethnic race Israel because he says he’s a descendant of Abraham. Abraham was the very first Israelite. He started out a pagan Mesopotamian. Then God came to him, changed his name too, and he became a people of God dude. And not just Abraham…because a lot of people point to Abraham as the father of their race…so do Muslims.
So just to be clear Paul adds one on top of it, he says I’m of the tribe of Benjamin. That shows how Jewish Paul was. He wasn’t just a Jew by birth and history. He was entrenched in the Jewish system. He belong to the 12th of the 12 tribes of Israel and Benjamin the head of the tribe was the only one actually born in the land of Israel. The tribe of Benjamin had the territory of Jerusalem, the holy city. And the very first King of Israel came from the tribe of Benjamin. So if you are Jew, that’s one thing. If you’re of the tribe of Benjamin that almost makes you super Jewish.
Okay, so let’s pull it together. Paul says look I myself am super Jewish, in the old Israel, ethnic race Israel way…but God has not rejected me! He sent Jesus to me when I was on my way to Damascus one year to kill Christians and Jesus appeared to me and had mercy and grace on me and now I love him and am telling you about him. I haven’t been rejected and so maybe there are others out from old Israel who will be a part of the new Israel people of God too.
No. Support #2: The Promise - God Foreknew His People
That’s answer number one. Answer number two, is God’s promise that he foreknows his people. Look at it, verse 2 “God has not rejected his people who he foreknew.” It’s the same thing he said back in chapter 8 of Romans when he said, “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the images of his Son (Rom 8:29).”
We learned back then that when the Bible says God foreknows something, it does not mean God is looking in the future and trying to see or figure out what is going to happen. For you smart ones out there, it does not mean God is considering all the potential counterfactuals and knows every possible world. That is philosophy, that is not Scripture, that is not what the word “foreknow” means.
For God to foreknow is for him to forelove. It means God knows his people before they are born, he has in mind a destiny and a purpose to bring them into a loving knowledge and relationship with him. Of Jeremiah he said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you (Jer. 1:5).” Of all God’s people, he says in Amos, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth (Amos 3:2).” To foreknow is to know someone, with a relationship focus, ahead of time. So what foreknow is getting at is God’s promise and determination to love a group of people.
So hear the text on this. “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.” If he had, that would be a contradiction. It would be like God making a square circle or walking forward and backward at the same time…which makes no sense. God has promised and said he knows his people even before they actually become his people in our time world…so God can’t know eternally and then all the sudden not know his people anymore. That’s dumb. And God isn’t dumb.
No. Support #3: The Past - The 7,000 of Elijah’s Time
Okay, so far Paul has said God has not rejected his people because he has accepted Paul and because God has revealed in Scripture that he knows and has determined to love his people long before they ever actually become his people…he foreloves them. Now his third and answer or proof comes directly from a Scriptural example and story. It’s a great story. So let me re-read the text in Romans and then I’ll go back and fill in the story for us all.
From verse 3 and 4. “Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’ But what is God’s reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’”
Okay so here is the story in full. It’s a story from 1 Kings 18-19 in the Old Testament. God’s people were living in Samaria where a dude named Ahab was king over Israel along with his wife Jezebel. Under their leadership, they taught and allowed for all kinds of different religion. There was a mixing of the God of the Bible along with other ancient gods and beliefs. Sort of like San Diego…it’s a melting pot of different ideas and different forms of worship and different beliefs. You got karma and reincarnation and nirvana meditation alongside worship of God and reading the Bible and living a holy life…it’s a big mixed mess and the administrative pastor King Ahab doesn’t care and more than that his wife Jezebel actually kind of really like and believes in this one god called Baal more than Yahweh, the God of the Bible.
Now God starts moving in one of his men, Elijah. The first thing Elijah does is to do what the Bible including Jesus himself says to do when you got a problem with someone and see that they are doing something wrong…you go to them and confront them in love alone one on one, man to man. Elijah does that. Ahab doesn’t respond very well and the result is a contest. This is great stuff…
All the prophets of Baal and another god Asherah, there’s 850 of them together are called to Mount Carmel for a spiritual contest between their gods Baal and Asherah, and God, Yahweh, the God of the Bible. It’s 850 pastors and scholars against 1, Elijah, the Bible guy. So Elijah says okay. I’ll prepare a bull to sacrifice and you prepare a bull. You put your bull on your altar and I’ll put my bull on the altar and we’ll both call upon our god and whoever’s god answers with fire down out of heaven to burn up the bull on the altar that will be a sign of whose God is real.
So the Baal pastors are stoked on this. They prepare their altar and pray and start asking Baal to send down fire. Elijah taunts them and says maybe he is off having sex either with someone else or by himself or maybe he’s on a trip or maybe he’s asleep. That makes the Baal pastors mad, so in addition to their prayers they start self-mutilating. They cut themselves with swords so that they bleed thinking that will please Baal and invoke him to answer. But nothing.
After a long time of that, Elijah finally says okay come here. He repairs the Yahweh’s altar. Which has been broken down and not used for years because everyone has been worshipping Baal. So he repairs it, puts the 12 stones back in place digs a moat around it and then ask them to start filling up huge jars with water and pouring it all over the wood and the bull. He has them do it three times so that everything is just soaked and the trench around the altar is filled with water. Then Elijah prays. He prays this, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O LORD, answer me that this people may know that you O LORD are God and that you have turned their hearts back (1 Ki 19:36-37).”
After he prays that, fire comes down out of heaven burns up the bull, the wood, and even the water. All the people then cry out, “The LORD (Yahweh) he is God; the LORD, he is God.” And Elijah says okay, if so, if you believe that then put these false prophets of Baal to the sword and they do killing all 850 of these lying deceiving pastors. The Bible says pastors will be judged more sharply (Js 3:1), that’s why it matters to me a lot that I take great care in what I teach you from the Bible. I don’t want God to have to have you to put me to the sword.
It is a shocking and powerful story. But here’s what happens afterward. Word gets back to Jezebel and she is mad as hell and wants Elijah dead. Elijah has just had a great day of ministry, seeing the power and work of the LORD. But quickly his faith diminishes and he gets scared and he runs for his life and goes and hides out in a cave for 40 days and nights for fear that he is going to be killed. He starts contemplating death, becomes depressed and suicidal, and then he starts getting mad at God.
You guys ever had that happen? Things are going well in your walk with Jesus, God really seems to be working in your life or working through you in a big way and then BAM! Something happens afterward and you get really down and out and you start to doubt everything. Ever had that happen? I have. It seems that the most challenging points in our growth and maturity are right afterward we have taken a significant step forward. Then the testing and temptation come.
So Elijah is down and this is what he says to God…”I have been very jealous for (you) LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed all your prophets with the sword and I, even I only, am left and they seek my life to take it away (1 Ki 19:14).” God answers Elijah and this is what he says, “(I have) seven thousand in Israel, all (whose) knees have not bowed to Baal and (whose) mouth(s) have not kissed him (1 Ki 19:18).”
That’s what Paul picks up and takes to Romans. God, back then, in past history, had 7,000 whom he kept for himself who were loved, foreknown, and accepted by God, even when it seemed like everyone had turned away.
So get the parallel and why it is an answer and a support for whether or not God is a God who rejects his people…This story teaches two things. One, it is not physical, ethnic, race Israel who are the people of God, it is the ones whom God has determined are his people for himself. Two, it teaches that even when most the whole or majority has rejected God, there is always a group within the group, a people within the people…whom God reserves and protects and loves and accepts.
So in Paul’s day, when the majority of ethnic, race, old Israel Jews had rejected Jesus, God’s Son, that does not mean that God had rejected his people for they never really were his people just on the basis of their bloodline. Those who are his people, are those whom he foreloves, and those whom he foreloves God keeps for himself and the way he does that on this side of Jesus’ coming into history is by enabling them to see and know and love his son Jesus.
The Answer: God’s People are a Remnant Chosen by God’s Grace
So there’s been three supports given to show that God is not a God who rejects his people. What Paul does in verses 5-10 is he takes all of those support and then draws some theological conclusions about what makes any of God’s people God’s people…whether or not they are historical Israel or not.
But we’re not going to take the time to get into all of that today. I’m going to leave the bulk of it for next week and give you some pastoral thoughts on election. So for today I’m just going to read verse 5. Make a few remarks and then we’ll conclude.
Verse 5 says, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.” God’s people are a remnant chosen by grace. A remnant. A remnant is something that is left or last. The Greek word could be used as a last musical notes in a composure, the left over goods that don’t sell at the marketplace, the final skirmishes in battle after the war is already won, the last embers of a fire, the remaining symptoms or scars at the end of a sickness, or the fragments of cloth or wood after a sewing or carpentry project. A remnant.
God says here in his book that his people are a remnant and that this remnant is chosen by his grace. What’s that mean? For Israel, ethnic, race, national Israel…at that time I think it meant that out of that whole of that Israel only a portion would be spared and proven to be truly God’s people. The remnant. What does that mean for us? I think it means this, out of all the people who show an interest in religion, who express a slight inkling towards Jesus, only a remnant of those will ever actually fall in love with him.
That is what Jesus himself taught. He said, “The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few (Matt 7:13-14).” Many, many people get interested in Jesus. He is an interesting dude. But few will stick with him because they truly love and believe in him.
In each of the gospels in the New Testament you see this progressive turning away from Jesus as he moves closer and closer towards the cross. At first everyone is all hyped up on him, Jesus is awesome. He is smart, funny, wise, can perform miraculous feats, is a spiritual sage guru, and a social revolutionary.
In John 6 Jesus says this, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father (Jn 6:64-65).” And then one of the saddest verses in the Bible… “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him (Jn 6:66).”
I think Jesus is saying the same thing there that Paul is saying in Romans. God’s people are a remnant and that remnant is chosen by grace. What is grace? We’ll dig deep into it next week. But for now, let’s use Jesus’ words, grace is “no one come(s)…unless it is granted to him by the Father.”
Conclusion
So let’s conclude. What the heck does that do for us?! If you’ve been listening carefully all the way along, that should be your response. All I’ve said all morning is God hasn’t rejected his people… One, because he grace on Paul. Two, because in determinate grace he foreloves. And three, because he had grace on 7,000 people who didn’t reject God because God kept from doing so. What the heck does that do for us?! There is no hope for us unless, God draws us as Jesus said, God must have grace for us like he did on Paul, like he does for his foreloved, and like he did for the 7,000.
Do you get what I am saying? Every sermon I try to end with application to tell you…okay here’s what we learned and here is how to respond in order to put this into practice in your life. But this whole sermon has been about God and his activity, his grace, his determined love as the only thing that can help us.
If we think there is anything we can do we are lost. We can’t draw ourselves. We can’t have grace on ourselves. We can’t preserve ourselves. So what do I tell you as your pastor?
Is the conclusion of this sermon, well I guess I just hope God has grace on me? No, it’s not. The conclusion to this sermon is you knowing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is found only in the grace of God extended to you. If I have convinced you of that, though I have not even addressed things like life and joy…but merely convinced you that unless God has grace on you you’re life is hopeless then I have done my job.
My goal has been this…to implant a desire and taste in you for the grace of God. By telling you it is your only hope my intent is that you would then want it and crave it and long for it and be jealous for it and pursue it and pray for it and love it and admire it and depend on it. What I am calling for is something beyond which words can describe. I am saying “hunger for God.” I am saying, “Call out to Jesus and say have grace on me.” I am saying, say to Jesus, “Jesus, I need you more than I have ever known.” I am saying, “Let your soul be caught up and entranced and asphyxiated with greater God-centeredness then you have ever known.” I am saying “Let yourself be weak and needy and poor and humble and lowly and let God pour out his love upon you.
Why I say all that is this…because if somehow in my saying that something is stirred in your being then I know that is my God working in you imparting his grace. I can’t make God give you grace and you can’t make him give it to you either. But I can expound on the glories of his grace and God delights in granting grace when we talk about how great it is.
I want to close with an old old hymn called “Sovereign Grace O’er Sin Abounding.” I encourage you just to close your eyes and allow it’s words to melt your soul.
Sovereign grace o’er sin abounding!
Ransomed souls, the tidings swell;
’Tis a deep that knows no sounding;
Who its breadth or length can tell?
On its glories, Let my soul for ever dwell.
What from Christ that soul can sever,
Bound by everlasting bands?
Once in Him, in Him for ever;
Thus the eternal covenant stands.
None shall take Thee From the Strength of Israel’s hands.
Heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus,
Long ere time its race begun;
To His name eternal praises;
O what wonders love has done!
One with Jesus, By eternal union one.
On such love, my soul, still ponder,
Love so great, so rich, so free;
Say, while lost in holy wonder,
Why, O Lord, such love to me?
Hallelujah! Grace shall reign
Hallelujah! Grace shall reign
Hallelujah! Grace shall reign eternally.