The God(ness) of God: The God of Future - Week 2
July 13, 2008 6:31 pm Chapter 11, Romans, Sermon-Texts
This sermon is week 2 of The God of Future section of our “The God(ness) of God” sermon series. It is an exegetical treatment of Romans 11:5-10, addressing what grace is in it’s core and how that relates to those who are hardened. The is sermon also contains eight pastoral concerns about the doctrine of election. This sermon was originally preached July 13th, 2008 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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July 13th, 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 2 - Romans 11:6-10
Introduction
Good morning everyone. I want to get right into it today, so let’s read the text, pray and go to work. This is the second week of the last movement, the God of Future, in our “The God(ness) of God” sermon series. (read text and pray)
Father God, you are the God of all grace, comfort, peace, hope, and joy. You have opened up all of that to us through your Son Jesus. Your Spirit has given us your word, this book, the Bible so that we might know and believe in him and have life and life abundantly through him. Would you condescend to us today and open our eyes, open our ears, and unbend our stiff backs so that we might revel in your grace and be saved by it. Overcome our obstinance so that we might let grace be grace for your sake and for the glory of Jesus. Amen.
Here’s what’s going on in the book of Romans where we are now. Paul, the human author is concerned that you and I might be able to have confidence in Jesus. That we might truly be able to trust him with out fear that he will one day reject us as his people, we are truly adopted into the family.
Here in chapter 11, he started a new thought which we began last week. The thought was that out of all the people who become interested in God at one point or another God always saves a remnant of people for himself and makes sure that they come to know the blessings of that love. We ended last week by saying that was something called “grace.” Both past, present, and future…God’s grace is what matters. And we will see increasingly in this chapter that God’s grace is also his plan for the future and includes the protecting of that plan to ensure it comes about.
My main goal today is to dig deep into this word grace. So my sermon today is a little bit intentionally lop-sided. I want to spend the bulk of our time on verse 6 talking about the nature of grace. We’ll move on after a little while and spend some time on verses 7-10 and how God protects the treasure of grace and then I’ll give you my promised pastoral words on election.
I want to spend so much time on grace today because I have a hunch that grace is a slippery word…one of those words that gets used often but that rarely have been thought much about. My prayer is that all of us would walk away with a deep understanding of grace today and not just an intellectual definition so that we could say what grace is but more than that. I want so bad for each of us to have a sense that God’s grace to us is so superb, so amazing, so generous, so undeserved, so kind, so needed, so overwhelming and at the heart of everything. I want us to be effected by grace today. So God, do it Lord I pray.
The Nature of Grace
So alright, verse 6 and the nature of grace. “But if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would not be grace.” What is grace? Really. Have you ever thought much more than a few seconds about it? When you hear the word, right now…what comes to mind?
Grace is such a common word in our world. Mariah Carey and Brittney Spears are both apparently pretty into grace. Mariah’s latest album has a song on it called “My Saving Grace” and Brittney used to sing a song called “State of Grace.” I’m guessing she doesn’t really sing that song much anymore since she went nuts but maybe. J
Jeff Buckley, long live the Buckley! His best album is called “Grace” and has a song on it called “Grace,” although we all know “Hallelujah” is the best song on that album. The Foo Fighters most recent album is titled, “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace.” Sarah McLaughlin sings that she is “Full of Grace.”
And we all know and love U2’s famous song “Grace” …”Grace, She carries a world on her hips. No champagne flute for her lips. No twirls or skips, between her fingertips…What once was hurt. What once was friction. What left a mark. No longer stings. Because grace makes beauty, Out of ugly things.”
A lot of famous people have been named “Grace.” Michael, our worship leader’s mom. Grace Coolridge, the wife of Calvin Coolridge, who used to be a US President. Grace Jones, the Jamaican Jazz singer and model. Grace Kelly, the famous actress and princess of Monaco. And most recently, Madonna adopted a little girl named, “Grace.”
There tons of movies with the word “grace” in them. Maybe you’ve seen “Maria Full of Grace”? Where a girl smuggles drugs across the border. “Grace is Gone” with John Cusak. “Grace of My Heart” about the music of the 50’s and 60’s. And most recently, “Savage Grace” about a dysfunctional mom. Then there’s a TV show called “Will and Grace” but who knows what that’s about???
With all this talk about grace in pop culture, you’d think we should know something about what it means. What do people mean when they use the word grace? Do they mean this…”if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace”? Or do they mean something else?
Grace. What does the Bible mean here when it talks about grace. I’ve given you this definition before in past sermons…I’ve said, “Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what getting what you don’t deserve.” Now that is good, but maybe that sounds tricky. I want to go deeper today to really dig out the difference of grace versus works that the Bible points out here.
Jerry Bridges, an author, theologian and pastor I like, tells a story of his mother. Where he grew up in Texas they would often have homeless people come up to the door begging and his mom would always cook up a plate of the food. She would always do it without ever asking the homeless person to do anything. No yard work, no cleaning, no chore to do in exchange for the food. She gave it to him freely. What that grace? Jerry Bridges says no.
Why? Well, suppose his mom recognized the homeless man because a few weeks earlier someone had broken into their house and robbed them and she had caught a good look at the guy and it was in fact this homeless man. But when he came to the door begging. Instead of calling the police, she gives him the plate of food asking for nothing in exchange and she doesn’t even say anything about the robbery. Is that grace? Jerry Bridges still say no, not quite yet.
Why? Well, if you have ever been robbed…you know that’s a pretty violating experience. I’ve been held up at gun point before, that’ll jar you. But when that happens it’s not just you that gets violated but the law gets broken, right? But his mom is not the law and isn’t the judge, with the power and authority to execute full justice right? She could call the police if she wanted and have them deal with it.
But suppose she not only recognized the homeless person as the person who robbed her, but there had been a streak of robberies in the neighborhood and he was the exact same person who she had seen rob her next door neighbors. Now she has a duty to her neighbors to call the police because if she doesn’t then she is subverting justice.
So what is grace here in this story? Here is the full measure of biblical grace… You and the homeless person. We are in need of food. Spiritual food, we are dying a slow internal death being separated from God. We come to him even though we’ve wronged him and we’ve stolen his blessings that are all around us. We don’t ask him and love and thank God for them….And not only that but we’ve hurt and stolen joy from other people. We come to God and the difference is we have not only personally wronged him but he too is also the judge and does have the power and just responsibility to execute justice and not subvert it.
So God sends his son to die for his justice in our place, so mercy is not just given at the expense of subverting justice. And then on top of it all, we’re not really even the homeless person in the story because we are not even seeking. We are not even coming to the door and knocking and asking for help. We’re still off robbing his creation and hurting ourselves and other people and God comes out and seeks us in order to give us the salvation we need. That is grace. All of mercy. All of Jesus. All of God’s action toward those he has determined to love and save.
That’s where I want to go next. What makes grace grace and what makes work work? If grace is not works then we must be very clear about what a work is. When the Bible talks about a work here what does it mean? Does it just mean some outward action that we perform?
I don’t think so. Here’s why. Besides all the stuff that’s in the Bible about the heart being what contaminates and motivates our efforts to try and earn favor with God…consider this, how we most often define grace has to do with obligation. Here is what I mean. When was the last time you said, or maybe just thought or wished a person would have some “grace” toward you? Why do you want them to have grace toward you? It is because you know that you in some way are guilty and really need and want them to overlook it or give you a second chance. So the way that we most often define grace and want to consider God’s grace is on the basis of our need.
But consider God. He has no need of grace. He is perfectly holy and right and just and true, he has never needed you or I or anyone to be gracious to him. So his grace is never defined by his need. His grace is always the extending of his power. So what grace and works really comes down to is what the decisive factor is between you and God. Who’s effort is it that counts. Yours? Or God’s? If you say, yours…like well God should or ought to be gracious to me because I’m trying. Or, because I meant to, I had good intentions. Or, because, we’ll I did all this stuff at least… Haven’t you moved to a place where then grace becomes an obligation you expect or demand from God? I mean think about this…
Have you ever got mad at a cop? You get pulled over and he is about to write you a ticket and you are like “Man, I’m sorry. Can you just have grace on me just this once and let me off with a warning?” And he doesn’t and what happens in you when you drive away. If you’re me, you’re like, “What a freak’n jerk!” I then am mad because he didn’t give me grace. I turned grace into an obligation.
If he didn’t give me the ticket, I would drive away feeling satisfied. Like good cop. That’s what he should have done. But then, it would not have been grace would it. If what he is always supposed to do is let me go, that would make grace no longer grace. What makes grace grace is that it is not obliged, earned, or deserved. It is purely God’s free effort despite any human deserving. And the reality is that we’re not just not deserving but actually are much worse. We’ve got warrants out for our arrest because we have been playing Grand Theft Auto with our own lives, it just looks a little prettier on the outside.
What makes grace grace is that it is purely, entirely, completely God’s effort and active power having nothing to do with us…our condition, our effort, our work, anything. What makes a work a work is our thinking that we have anything to do with it.
Let me press us all a little bit here and then we’ll move on with the rest of the text. If you say, God has loved me and given me grace because I chose him…Jesus will say to you, “You did not choose me but I chose you (John 15:16).” If you say, God has loved me and given me grace because out of my own free will I have decided to accept him…Jesus will say to you, “Your will is dead in it’s trespasses and it is only by grace that you can be saved (Eph 2:5).” If you say, God has loved me and given me grace because I am a good person…Jesus will say to you, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick, I have not come to call the righteous but sinners (Mark 2:17).”
For God’s sake, I say with all the sincerity and love I can muster…for God’s sake my friends, my family…LET GRACE BE GRACE! LET GRACE BE GRACE! Do not attempt to rob God of his glory and trample on his amazing extension toward you, by thinking that you yourself have anything to do with his love for you. You don’t…it is purely his grace! Why he loves us and gives us grace I don’t know. That is a mystery of the Bible for sure. What is not a mystery is that God is a God of grace. So in light of that, I beg you, lay down all your pride and claims to God, give up all your works, and seize grace in all it’s fullness and revel in it.
Protecting the Treasure of Heaven
Okay, that’s a healthy dose of grace. Now let’s look at verses 7-10, which I’m calling “Protecting the Treasure of Heaven.” Let’s re-read ‘em. “What then, Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.’ And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.’”
The first thing I want to do is paint a picture for you and then I’ll say a few things about some of these words which are pretty heavy. Here’s the picture. Think Lord of the Rings, or Narnia, or something like that…but call to mind a kingdom. You have to have or use a little imagination to be Christian. I know it’s easier for those of us who like fantasy books and movies…everyone else, just try with me for a minute. So follow me as I call to mind some of the pictures of God’s kingdom in the Bible.
God has this huge beautiful throne. There’s rays of light that come out from it everywhere. It’s covered in jewels. It’s in the middle of the city. The city is set on a plain on top of a mountain. Before it is a sea of glass. Out from underneath the throne flows water that turns into a river and goes out into the land. There are trees of life beside the river with every kind of fruit all around it. There are six-winged angels flying before the throne. There are people singing. People talking to the king. People bowing down in worship.
There is life and love and joy in the city all around. No pain, no tears, no trouble or hardship. It is life the way it should be and the way we long for it to be. And one of the biggest joys of living in this kingdom is that everyone who lives there knows that they don’t deserve to be there. Everyone has got there by a special invitation that was brought to them. God’s messengers came and the walked for a long ways through many secret passage ways and chambers and after days and days they finally got to God’s kingdom.
Once a person gets there, they can’t believe it. Everyone really belonged in jail, but the king went and served everyone’s sentence for them so that they could escape and come and live here instead. Everyone in the whole land constantly is reminded of and rejoices in grace. Everyone is there because of the pure grace of the king. Grace is one of the chief things that makes the place so great!
But suppose one day you are standing on wall on the edge of the city and you are looking down the mountain and you see a bunch of dark mean orcs scouring the mountain. The orcs heard of the great pleasures of this city and it’s righteousness and they have come and determined they are going to get in and enjoy all of it’s riches. They have been working hard and searching far and wide for the city and have come close to the base of the mountain and are scratching and clawing up it’s cliffs, all the way along complementing themselves on how smart they have been to find it and how well they have trained so that they have the strength to get up the mountain.
In a moment of panic, you and you’re friends wonder what will be if the orcs get in by their own efforts…what would be if the very nature of grace which flowed through the kingdom we’re disrupted by a new band of people who got there by their own efforts? In the that quiet panic, all of the sudden you see the king rise up from his throne. He’s taller than you ever thought. He has a bright white robe except for the ends which have been dipped in bright red blood. He’s got golden sash around his chest. His hair flies in the face of the wind as he walks forward. As he take a stride you see his naked thigh just for a brief second, and you see in bright black letters a tattoo which says “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
He gets to the edge of the cliff and looks down at the excited orcs who are getting closer and closer. Then out of his mouth comes a bright shining sword and with one swoosh he casts a spell and immediately the orcs become blind, pitch black covers their eyes. He casts another spell and immediately there is now a loud ringing in the orc’s ears so that they can hear nothing else. And then in one final blow, he casts a spell on all their backs so that they can no longer even stand upright but are in swore pain every time they work to take a step.
After the last spell, all God’s people let out a great cry, rejoicing! “The city of grace has been protected! All hail the King!” He has not only saved us by his grace but he has protected his grace, that it might never be stolen.
Now I made up that story to try and help us all place these words. I don’t mean to soften them, but to give them a context for your hearing because if you’re like me, when I read these verses, the language sounds pretty tough. There is the elect, there is a hardening which involves God giving a spirit of stupor, blinding people, making people deaf, and breaking their backs. That’s pretty gnarly. And maybe I could understand that these people were just totally God-haters, but their not…in some way they are in fact, as verse 7 says, seeking?
Well, let me just hit a few exegetical points from the words and then I’ll give you what I think is important pastorally concerning election. First, don’t get hung up on the use of “Israel” here. I’ll keep saying it so we get it, but the whole point with Israel is to teach us that God’s grace given to us in Jesus will not change because how he works with Israel is the picture of how he works with everyone. So don’t think this is just talking about the ethnic group “Israel” it is talking about us and besides just chucking all of this hard stuff to “Israel” doesn’t get you away from the fact that this is hard stuff…God still did electing, hardening, stuporing, blinding, deafing, and back breaking.
Second, this “seeking” is not the heartfelt seeking of truth and love. This seeking is the seeking Paul mentioned earlier in Romans 9:31 when he said, “Israel pursued a law that would lead to righteousness.” That is a seeking to establish righteousness by works, not grace. That is trying to force yourself into the city and steal God’s righteous holy goodness which has ever only come by grace.
Third, the “stupor.” I think everything that is mentioned about the eyes, ears, and backs is all characteristic of the stupor. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them.” That is stupor. Without God’s grace we get stupor. I heard a good example of stupor on the news the other day.
How are you all doing with the new hands free cell phone law while driving? Now, the city of San Diego Police are supposedly granting a “grace (interesting) period” for the month of July, so that if you get pulled over for using your cell phone while driving you can get off with a warning. The Highway Patrol isn’t doing that but the city of San Diego police are. So a guy gets pulled over the other day for using his cell phone while driving. The officer is talking to him about it and tell is about to tell him that he’ll let him go with a warning but then this happens…The guy’s phone buzzes, and while the cop is in mid-sentence the man says to him, “Hold on, I need to take this.” Stupor.
Spiritual stupor is to become so hard that you are blind and deaf to the spiritual things of the gospel. You don’t want that. So my encouragement to you, is not to throw away all of your questions and your doubts. Those can be good and can help you grow…if you do not make them barriers between you and God. You must be able to be soft and willing to lay them aside and allow yourself to worship God in all his wonder and glory and grace.
Pastoral Concerns with the Doctrine of Election
Grace is so huge. To be God’s people is to be a people touched by his grace. And because of that we must be gracious people. As recipients of grace, that means we should be the most grace filled people. But sadly, those who most often believe in and accept these parts of the Bible which talk about God choosing, electing, and hardening…are the least gracious people. And I think that is wrong. So here are my pastoral concerns about the doctrine of election, which we as The Resolved Church and as part of the Acts 29 Network believe in.
1. We ought to talk about election because the Bible does. Deuteronomy 29:29 says the secret things are unto the Lord, the revealed things are unto us. The Bible is the revealed things. That means that there are some things that are not for us, at least right now, on this side of heaven. There are secret things there is mystery, but we must let the line of mystery be drawn where the Bible does and the Bible does not draw the line of mystery before election but after it. God revealed it for a reason and we must trust him that it is good for us to know and think about.
2. Election is good for us because it really makes penetrate into the depths of who we are and what our faith is. It forces the question of what we are truly trusting in at the heart of everything…ourselves or God gracious power. It has the unique ability to draw out of us our idolatry and our attempts to reverse roles with God. I believe one of the chief experiences of a Christian is the realization that occurs when you say out of your soul, “You are God, I am not, you are the potter, I am the clay…do with me and with everyone else as you will and you bow your knee.”
3. The doctrine of election has at various times throughout the history of the church been a controversial doctrine. That does not mean it is not true. Just because something is controversial does not mean one position isn’t correct. If we only believed things there was no controversy over, there would be nothing left to believe in. I believe God designed and sovereignly intended the controversy over this issue because it has the effect of producing thoughtful, rigorous, Christian who really care about truth and really care about what the Bible says. Wrestling with Scripture is always, always, a good thing.
4. Understanding and believing in election has unique power to make us extremely humble because it cuts out any human contribution to salvation whatsoever. No one can ever lay claim to election because of themselves thus it ought to make us so humble. The problem is that many who have come to believe in election come to be proud about believing in it and looking down upon those that don’t as if they are just stupid. They may be, but that attitude is wrong. God has been extremely patient with us and our stupidity and so we ought to be toward others. If you believe you are elect you ought to have grace and mercy for those who have trouble with the doctrine and pray that God opens their eyes and that your humility and kindness toward them will be one of his key tools in helping them come to believe in it.
5. The doctrine of election is not for argumentation but exaltation, or to say it another way, it is not for debate but for doxology. Some of you guys get off on arguing. That is wrong. 1 Timothy 3:3 commands that God’s men not be “quarrelsome.” It doesn’t mean that you will never get into an argument or a debate about it, but if you do it, you must “speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15)” caring more the person and their soul than about whether you win the discussion. Because of this, I think it is a wise person to ask yourself if the person who wants to talk to you about election is truly seeking or whether there are just in a hard state trying to cause a fight. I won’t talk to people about election and predestination anymore who are just looking for a fight.
6. In our humility, we ought to be careful in our claims to election. What I mean is this. 2 Peter 1:10 says, “be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure.” If you believe in grace, don’t stop, continue to believe in grace and attempt to evidence Jesus in your life as much as possible. Don’t assume you’ve somehow arrived because you believe in election now and how you got it all together. Doubt it sometimes and “work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12).” Do not lapse into thinking, we’ll I guess God is going to save whoever he wants and it doesn’t matter what any of us do…so I guess I’ll just live however I want, nothing matters. That’s antinomianism, which means lawlessness. Paul, said this way earlier in Romans “shall we go on sinning that grace may abound? By no means! (Rom 6:1).”
7. I do not believe God reveals election and predestination to us so that you would be in constant fear of whether or not you are elect but rather the opposite, so that you can believe that God’s love and commitment to save you never began with you so it cannot end with you. If you are pursing Jesus, and trusting Jesus, and loving Jesus, and counting Jesus blood for your salvation…that is a really really good sign you are elect. Election gives us great confidence and security in our faith that God “who began a good work in us will continue to perform it (Phil 1:6).
8. Lastly, election gives us great assurance and confidence to take great risks for the gospel. They are human risks because they are scary and we don’t know the outcome. But God does and we know we are safe in his grace…so we can do and say things we wouldn’t normally. Because of that security we have a confidence that God has chosen many many people so when we do openly and honestly share about Jesus with people, not everyone will be hard and think we are stupid. Some will hear and be glad and become Christians because God has foreordained before the foundation of the world that they would! We have no idea who is elect and who is not on this side of heaven, that means it could be any person. Don’t ever assume a person is not elect no matter how bad their life looks. You should never call a person a reprobate because you don’t know that! We must look at every individual as someone whom God may have grace for and we must love them.
Those are my concerns as pastor. I want us to believe wholeheartedly in the doctrine of election because it truly is what enables the gospel to be a gospel of grace and not just another religion where you earn your way to heaven but I want us to be extraordinarily humble about it and also the most missional evangelistic people in the city.
Conclusion
Well let’s conclude for today by returning the beginning where we started. Election has as its foundation grace. What is grace? Grace undeserved commitment to love us and pursue us and save us, despite ourselves. Grace includes mercy but is greater than mercy because it goes above and beyond it. Grace if God’s undying favor toward his people.
1 John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he first loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins.” That activity of love is God’s grace which saves us.
Ephesians 2:5 “…when we were dead in our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ.” That making us alive is God’s grace which saves us.
I could say it over and over again in several ways… Grace is God working in us and for us and not in response to us. Grace is greater than all our sin. Grace is what separates the gospel from religion. Religion says, “I obey, therefore I am accepted.” The gospel of grace says, “I am accepted therefore I obey.” People who have been effected by grace live a life of love and thanks and appreciation toward God. People who are religious have a life where they work for God and his goodness toward them is always dependent upon how hard they work. Grace says everything is from God to God and for God. Religion says, everything depends on man and what he does. Grace is what Christians become dependent on for their every need to make it in this life. Religion is what the hardened people become dependent on in hopes that it will be just enough.
I’ll end this way, this is the last thing I’ll say. If anything you can take away from this sermon that grace is good and everything else is bad. So how to get grace and instead of stupor. Is there any protection to not getting hardened and blind and deaf and having your back broken?
The answer is no, for if there were you would turn grace on it’s head and it would not be grace anymore. So what is man’s response? It is simple. It is a prayer and a cry and plead, saying God have grace on me please. There is no reason you should but I plead the blood of Jesus.
You call God on his word. The Bible said just in the last chapter, “Whoever believes in (Jesus) will not be put to shame (Rom 10:11).” So you say, “God I have nothing in and of myself to lay claim to you…but you said in your word if I trust in Jesus I will be safe and his blood will cover all my sin…I plead Jesus!” I have nothing. Give me Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, save me.
I promise you…if you belt that out from your soul to God he will NEVER not respond to that cry. He does not go back on his word. Grace will pour out of heaven into you with a fierceness that you have never known. He will give you all the treasures of heaven and more. There is nothing he will not withhold from those who cling to his son.
Let’s pray.