Please listen now to the reading of God's
word.
I am speaking the truth in Christ.
I am not lying.
My conscience bears me witness in the Holy
Spirit.
That I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish
in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were
accursed and cut off from Christ for the
sake of my brothers,
my kinsmen according to the flesh.
They are Israelites,
and to them belong the adoption,
the glory,
the covenants,
the giving of the law,
the worship, and the promises.
To them belong the patriarchs,
and from their race according to the flesh
is the Christ who is god over all,
blessed forever.
Amen.
This is the word of the lord.
Thanks be to god. Please be seated.
When Toy Story 3 ended,
there was not a dry eye in the
theater.
Andy was about to leave for college,
and so he decided to give all his
childhood toys away to a girl named Bonnie.
So he drives to her house and as
he introduces each toy,
he tells tells her what the special
powers, the special characteristics of each of his
cherished toys are.
But at the end of introducing every toy,
Bonnie notices that there's another toy in the
box, and this surprises Andy because his cherished
toy, Woody, is there, and he's not supposed
to be there.
After a long pause and with the sad
piano music playing in the background tugging at
your heart,
Andy looks at Bonnie's eyes,
and he decides that he is going to
give Woody to her.
And he says, now, Woody, he's been my
my pal for as long as I can
remember.
He's brave like a cowboy should be,
and kind,
and smart,
but the thing that makes Woody special
is that he'll never give up on you,
ever.
He will be there for you no matter
what.
Andy then hands Woody to Bonnie and they
play together with all the toys one last
time.
After a while, when they're done, Andy gets
in his car,
and as he's leaving, he whispers,
thanks, guys.
And as he drives away, Woody says, so
long, partner.
It's a touching finale, seemingly the perfect ending
to this trilogy
of Toy Story.
But then, Disney and Pixar decided they need
to make more money, so they made Toy
Story 4,
and I'll never forgive them for it.
Similarly,
when we reach the end of Romans 8,
it feels like Paul has just given us
the perfect ending.
How powerfully
he declares
is
is God's love for us. He says that
nothing
can ever
separate us from God's love in Jesus Christ.
It's a triumphant,
glorious ending with lovely language, and we might
think
that Paul could have written a benediction,
signed his name to the letter, and giving
it to a courier to send it to
Rome,
but that's not what happens.
Paul continues for 8 more chapters
and it's not without purpose.
The 5 verses that we are considering today
are the introduction not just to Romans 9,
but to Romans 9, 10, and 11.
Chapters which address a critical question.
The question is this,
if God is sovereign in salvation,
as Paul has just taught us in Romans
8,
then why
are so many descendants of Abraham
not saved?
Did God's promises to Israel fail?
Paul needs to answer this question.
That is the reason why Romans 8 is
not the final chapter of this letter.
And today, as we explore verses 1 to
5 in Romans 9, we will see that
Paul will not back away
from the reality of God's sovereignty
in salvation. In fact, the main point that
I have for you this morning is this,
there is salvation in Christ
and nowhere else.
There is salvation in Christ
and nowhere else.
This is a weighty statement, and Paul certainly
feels
the burden of it. But as we will
see, it is also the foundation
of our hope.
So let's explore Romans 9 verses 1 to
5 under 3 headings.
1st,
Paul's profound pain.
2nd,
Israel's privileged position.
And 3rd,
Christ's preeminent power.
Paul's profound pain,
Israel's privileged position,
and Christ's preeminent power. So let's look at
the first of those headings, Paul's profound pain.
Let's look at verses 1 to 3 again.
I am speaking the truth in Christ.
I am not lying.
My conscience bears me witness in the Holy
Spirit.
That I have great sorrow and unceasing
anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were
accursed and cut off from Christ
for the sake of my brothers,
my kinsmen
according to the flesh.
Having just proclaimed the excellencies of God's love
and saving power at the end of chapter
8,
Paul now begins chapter 9 with a double
oath.
Positively,
he affirms,
I am speaking the truth,
and he reiterates this assertion by restating it
in the negative when he writes, I am
not lying.
This demonstrates that Paul knows that his claims
have grave or weighty implications.
So with this double edged oath, he is
stating in no uncertain terms that he stands
by his words.
In fact, Paul underscores the solemnity of his
oath by invoking 2 witnesses,
Christ,
in whom he speaks the truth,
and the Holy Spirit who does not permit
him to lie.
In legal matters,
the requirement for 2 or more witnesses is
explicitly stated in the Torah
where in Deuteronomy
1915,
for example,
it states that a matter must be established
by the testimony
of 2 or 3 witnesses.
This principle was crucial in establishing the credibility
of a legal claim,
particularly in cases where serious charges were being
adjudicated.
By invoking Christ
and the Holy Spirit,
Paul alerts his audience to the seriousness
of what he is about to claim.
And he begins this claim,
as we read in verse 2, in this
way,
that by saying that he has great sorrow
and unceasing
anguish in his heart.
Think about how quickly
the mood has changed in just a couple
of verses in Paul's letter to the Romans.
Paul goes from praising
the ineffable
glory of God's unchanging,
unrelenting, and unbreakable love for His people
to expressing the depth of His sorrow
in His hurting heart.
Why such a violent descent
into this emotional
abyss?
This he tells us in verse 3,
where Paul writes,
for I could wish
that I myself were accursed and cut off
from Christ
for the sake of my brothers,
my kinsmen
according to the flesh.
It now becomes clear
that the thing that is burdening Paul,
the reason why he is experiencing great sorrow
and unceasing
anguish,
is that so many of his kinsmen according
to the flesh,
that is
to say, so many Jews
have rejected the Messiah,
and are therefore accursed
and cut off from the blessing
of eternal life.
In other words, the reason for Paul's profound
pain
is that he is not by any means
indifferent
to the grave predicament
and wretched estate of his fellow Jews.
In the first eight chapters of Romans, Paul
has convincingly shown from scripture
that all human beings,
whether Jew or Gentile,
inherit a sinful nature from Adam,
a nature that separates us from God.
Furthermore, Paul has argued that in his mercy,
God has given his son as a propitiation
for sin,
so that Christ sacrifice
atones
for the sin of anyone who is united
to him by faith.
This of course is very good news indeed.
That is what the word gospel means after
all, good
news. Because God offers salvation
to sinful men and women
as a gift.
The problem of course, is that according to
this argument,
if you are outside of Christ,
then you are still in your sin and
cut off from communion
with God.
And even though almost all of the first
believers in Jesus and almost all the initial
recipients
of this amazing gift of eternal life in
Jesus Christ
were Jewish,
as the gospel began to expand,
more and more Gentiles
came to give their lives over to Christ,
and so
too, more and more Jews
began to refuse
to accept Jesus
as their long promised and long awaited Messiah.
This meant that many physical descendants of Abraham
were forsaking the promise
that the patriarch of their faith had received
from God himself.
The promise that all the families of the
earth would one day be blessed
through Abraham's offspring.
And Paul
is not indifferent
to the great
tragedy
that has therefore befallen his people.
His heart is heavy
because many of the people he knows,
people that he grew up with, people that
he broke bread with,
even family members were in great peril facing
the prospect of the eternal
curse
of hell.
Such is the burden
Paul feels that he makes a rather remarkable
statement.
He writes in verse 3, for I could
wish that I myself were accursed and cut
off from Christ.
Now sometimes,
Paul is misunderstood.
In fact, sometimes he's mistranslated
at this point. To me here that he
wants to trade his place
with his fellow unbelieving Jews, that he would
be willing to forsake
Christ so that his countrymen would be saved.
That is not what Paul means here.
He who earlier in the letter berated those
who would say, let's sin more so that
grace may abound,
is not now going to express his personal
desire to become sin himself, so that grace
may abound to others.
That's not what he means.
Paul does not write, I wish that I
myself were accursed and cut off from Christ
for your sake. He doesn't say that. He
says, I could wish
that I myself
were cursed and cut off from Christ.
Theologian Charles Hodge comments that the grammatical force
of the Greek verb that Paul uses here
implies the presence of a condition
that is known to be impossible.
In other words, Paul is saying,
I could wish that I myself were accursed
if it were possible to do so.
It is a Hebrew idiom
to indicate his profound pain for them.
It's like he's saying, believe me, such is
the extent of my sorrow for you, fellow
Israelites,
that if it were permissible
for me to desire
to be cut off from the Messiah
so that you instead would cling to him
for your salvation, surely, I would not shy
away even from desiring that.
But that, of course, is an impossibility.
He who genuinely loves Christ
would not ever
trade him for anything or for anyone,
and that is the catalyst
for the sadness that Paul feels regarding his
countrymen.
Paul has found the Messiah
and has answered the Messiah's loving call, and
it breaks his heart
that so many of his fellow Jews have
not.
There are 2 things that I want you
to learn from this.
The first is this,
the doctrine of election
is not merely an intellectual concept
or an academic exercise,
rather, it is the divine revelation that ought
to stir our hearts.
One does not get the impression
that when Paul wrote this section of Romans,
he did so,
with a glass of Scotch in his hand
and with a cigar on his lips, with
Alexa playing Beethoven in the background. That's not
at all the vibe that one gets from
the beginning of Romans 9.
Now, it's more like
it's more likely that if you were to
hold
the original copy of Paul's letter to the
Romans,
you could identify entire words that were distorted
and smeared
by the tears that accompanied their composition.
On the one hand, the biblical revelation of
God's sovereignty and salvation,
that he foreknows and foreloves those whom he
predestines
to save,
ought to move you to tears of joy,
especially when you consider at what cost
your redemption was secured.
Beloved Christian, when is the last time you
meditated on this amazing truth?
When is the last time that you ruminated
on the depths
and richness
of God's love for you?
A love that is undistracted,
unfailing,
undaunted,
unrelenting,
unstoppable,
unbreakable,
unending,
and perhaps most stunningly,
undeserved.
Ponder the matchless excellencies
and astounding grace of Him who loved you
first, and you will never forget
the love you had at first.
On the other
hand, the biblical revelation of God's sovereignty and
salvation
ought to not only produce in you tears
of joy,
but also
tears of sorrow
as you consider the wretched inheritance of those
who reject Christ.
What brings me to the second thing I
want you to learn from these verses,
that
like Paul's heart,
your heart
ought to break for the lost.
The Christian faith is not
a therapeutic
tool
to help you live your best life now.
It is the only cure that will save
you from the curse of hell
and enable you to live forever.
Dear Christian, the great physician has given you
this most precious
medicine.
You've tasted it, and it has healed you.
It has given you life.
And yet, everywhere you turn people are at
the point of perishing. They are this close
to sealing forever a dark future without joy
and without hope.
They're so close to do it, when a
drop
of this blessed elixir of life,
a drink from this fountain of paradise would
eradicate the curse that now condemns them,
and inject their spiritual veins
with the life giving blood of the one
who conquered death and lives forever.
By His wounds we are healed.
We must be a church that proclaims the
gospel of life giving grace through the priority
that we place on worship,
through the warmth of our hospitality,
through the transparency of our confession of sin,
through the sincerity of our repentance,
through our reliance in God's mercy,
through the persistence of our prayers for the
lost,
through the constancy
of our service in the community,
through our integrity in the workplace,
through our kindness in the neighborhood,
through our generosity with those in need,
through our compassion
for those who are hurting,
through our forgiveness for those who hurt us,
and through our unwavering commitment
to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus
Christ through the power
of the Holy Spirit. Listen, if we can
remain indifferent
to the hopeless condition of the lost,
if our hearts can continue unmoved
by the peril of those who are without
Jesus,
if we do not share the Apostle's
unceasing anguish for those who reject Christ,
then we may have no portion in the
one who wept for Jerusalem
as he was approaching it to give his
life.
For this church
to be a force of healing and restoration
in this community,
then our hearts must first be broken
for those who are wasting away without hope.
The Prince of Preachers, Charles
Spurgeon, puts it like this,
if sinners be damned,
at least let them leap to hell over
our dead bodies.
And if they perish,
let them perish
with our arms wrapped about their knees,
imploring them to stay.
If hell must be filled, let it be
filled in the teeth of our exertions, and
let no one go unwarned
and unprayed for.
There are so many blessings in this community.
We enjoy so many privileges
here.
Beautiful trees,
and lakes, and trails.
Plenty of opportunities to bike, and to swim,
and to golf, and to play basketball, and
tennis, and yes, for people like me, pickleball.
We have good schools, don't judge me.
We have good schools,
we have amazing restaurants,
We have great shopping. This community seems to
have it all.
But therein, consist the great tragedy
that is the precise source
of Paul's profound pain.
You may have all things,
but if you don't have Christ, you have
nothing.
None of the rich resources will redeem us.
None of these entitlements will endure.
Because on judgment day, none of these advantages
will avail.
And this brings us to our second heading,
Israel's privileged position.
In verse 4 we read,
they are Israelites.
To them belongs the adoption,
the glory, the covenants, the giving of the
law, the worship, and the promises.
In this verse and continuing into verse 5,
Paul enumerates many of the privileges of Israel.
He first refers to the Jews as Israelites.
This is actually the first privilege
that Paul lists since Israelite is the covenant
name of God's chosen people.
Hearkening back to Genesis 32
and to Genesis 35, where God changed Jacob's
name to Israel, one who strives with God,
and reiterates the promise there that he made
to Abraham
to be his God.
Paul then mentions
that to the Israelites belong the adoption.
In other words,
out of all the nations of the earth,
God chose to bless and favor the descendants
of Abraham,
committing himself to be their father, and to
receive them as his beloved children,
with all the special care and attention
that that entails.
Next, Paul mentions
that to the Israelites belongs the glory.
This refers to the fact that God blessed
Israel
with His intimate presence among them by dwelling
among them in a peculiar way especially in
the tabernacle
and in the temple.
The next privilege of Israel that Paul mentions
here is the covenants.
The infinite,
eternal,
omniscient,
omnipotent God freely chose to bind Himself to
Israel by way of covenant,
committing himself to be their god,
to love and protect them as his people,
to shepherd and care for them as the
shape of his pasture, and to eventually bless
all the nations
through the promised Messiah.
Next, Paul mentions the giving of the law.
This refers to Israel's great privilege of being
the recipients
of God's written law,
and therefore, having unique insights into God's holy
character.
Knowing
the way that
knowing therefore the way that leads to life.
Understanding the seriousness of sin,
and the penalties that it incurs,
and most importantly,
showing the people of Israel
their desperate need for a savior.
Next, Paul mentions the worship.
This refers to the entirety of the sacrificial
system, including its festivals,
its rituals,
and its pomp, which reminded the people of
Israel that their whole life
belongs to God and that He alone is
worthy of all of their devotion
and service and loyalty
and love.
Next, Paul mentions the promises.
This undoubtedly refers to the messianic promises,
which when fulfilled would bless all the nations,
but which were revealed to Israel alone,
and therefore gave them a unique
and abiding hope.
Finally, in verse 5, Paul mentions 2 more
privileges of Israel, that to them belong the
patriarchs
and that the Christ would be from their
race
according to the flesh.
That is to say, according to Paul,
such was the privilege
of the people of Israel
that their whole existence was encompassed and surrounded
by the entirety of God's promises,
that their ethnic makeup
and composition was marked at its boundaries by
Abraham and the patriarchs at the source,
and by the glorious Messiah
at its culmination.
Think about it. The promise of hope for
all mankind
is contained therein,
in that gap between Abraham
and Jesus. And it was the unthinkable privilege
of the Israelites
to be the physical purveyor of such hope.
Paul's pain
was so profound precisely
because Israel's privilege was so pronounced.
In the theater of God's redemptive work, Israel
had the best seats in the house.
But when the leading actor came,
they decried his performance
and abandoned their seats in utter contempt, looking
elsewhere for answers and hoping in vain for
satisfaction.
For you see, the drama of redemption
can be staged nowhere else.
For no one else has the creativity to
direct it,
and no one else has the ability to
perform it, and no one else has the
capacity to produce it.
That is the great tragedy
of Israel
that Paul so deeply laments.
That God gave them the best seats in
the theater, but they care not for the
drama.
And when they were invited to join the
lead actor on the stage of redemption,
they forsook his call and settled for the
amenities instead.
Listen, Israel alone
beheld the majesty of the golden chain of
salvation,
but she despised its value, choosing instead the
glitter of
the golden
calf.
Oh, may this never happen
to us.
For the church is also the recipient of
great privilege from God.
Their privilege was to be called Israelites,
but our privilege is to be called Christians.
We bear the Messiah's name.
They were adopted out of all the nations
of the earth, but we are adopted out
of Adam's cursed house.
They enjoyed the glory
of God in the temple, but we enjoyed
the glory of Immanuel,
God with us.
They beheld the future promises
of the covenant through signs, through symbols, and
through types, but we befold the fulfillment of
the covenant through the bread and the wine.
They were the recipients of the law,
but we are the recipients of grace.
They worshiped in the temple through the service
of the Levites, but we worship in spirit
and truth through the intercession of our High
Priest Jesus Christ.
Theirs were the promises of the Messiah,
but ours is the Messiah himself and his
finished work.
Theirs were the patriarchs by lineage,
but ours are the patriarchs by faith.
Christ was from them
according to the flesh, but Christ is for
us
according to the spirit.
These are all amazing privileges indeed. Privilege that
no one else has outside the church.
And yet, if Christ remains outside you,
then these privileges are of no enduring benefit
for you, and your future shall be marked
by bitter tears.
Make sure
that no privilege,
benefit or blessing is the anchor of your
hope.
You may possess all the privileges that the
church offers, but unless
you possess
Christ,
you are a poor beggar bereft of any
hope.
Only Christ saves
because only Christ can
save.
And this brings us to our final heading,
Christ's preeminent power.
As I've explained several times during this sermon
series on Paul's letter to the Romans, one
of the reasons that Paul writes this letter
is that Jewish and Gentile Christians were arguing
as to who was more worthy to be
the leaders
in the Christian church.
Jewish Christians argued that since they were given
the law and the sign of circumcision
and even the Messiah according to the flesh,
they were more worthy of being the leaders
in the church.
Gentile Christians on the other hand argued that
since most of the Jews had rejected Jesus,
and more and more Gentiles were coming to
Christ, in fact becoming the minority
of the church, despite not having the law,
despite not having circumcision,
they should be the ones leading the church.
The problem
with both the Jewish and the Gentile position
is that they were still dividing humanity along
ethnic lines
and trying to weigh which side was better
or more worthy.
Paul's answer
back in Romans chapter 2 and Romans chapter
3 is that neither side is worthy.
He writes, for all who have sinned without
the law will also perish without the law,
and all who have sinned under the law
will be judged by the law.
In other words,
all are equally unworthy
because all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God.
So if neither Jewishness
nor Greekness brought one closer to God, then
what did?
The answer of course is yes. Neither Jewishness,
nor Greekness,
but godliness.
Godliness.
Salvation will be found in neither the Jewish
man, nor in the Greek man, but in
the God man.
Look at verse 5.
To them belong the patriarchs,
and from their race according to the flesh
is the Christ who is God over all,
blessed forever.
Amen.
Paul writes
that the Christ,
the Messiah
is from the Israelites according to the flesh.
By implication,
this means that there is another non fleshly
aspect to the Messiah
which does not find its provenience in Abraham,
nor even in Adam himself.
Stunningly,
Paul writes here in no uncertain terms that
the Messiah is not merely from God,
but that He is God overall, blessed forever.
Some scholars have tried to walk Paul back
a little bit here. They've tried to change
the translation of this text, but neither the
Greek grammar, nor the Greek sentence structure, nor
the Greek manuscript evidence justify
any other reading except the one that we
have here. Christ is God over all.
Unapologetically,
stunningly,
Christ is God over all,
blessed forever.
In fact, Paul had already stated this much
at the beginning of this letter, in Romans
chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 where he
writes about the Son of God that He
was descended from David according to the flesh,
and was declared to be the Son of
God in power,
according to the spirit of holiness
by His resurrection from the dead.
So if you hear nothing else today,
hear this.
Whether you are Jew or Greek,
American or Mexican,
Arab or Indian,
German
or Asian, black or white, republican or democrat,
8 or 88.
There's only one way of salvation.
Jesus Christ,
the man who is God
overall.
Because He is the promised offspring of Abraham
according to the flesh, He is able to
save those who sin in the flesh.
And because He is the eternally preexisting
Son of God,
who is God over all things, over all
circumstances,
over all powers, over all peoples, His salvation
cannot fail.
You know, at the end of Toy Story
3, the reason Andy is surprised that Woody
is in the box, that he is of
the toys that he is giving away, is
because Woody is not supposed to be there.
Woody himself had climbed into
the box.
And the reason he did this was because
he wanted to ensure
that his friends would find a loving home,
even if it meant that he would leave
his own home.
Perhaps the reason Woody's selfless act in this
children's movie is so moving
is because it resonates with the most selfless
act
in the drama
of redemption.
The Son of God chose to get into
this dirty box,
into this fallen world in order to ensure
that we would find a loving home.
No one else would do it because no
one else could do it.
Jesus became a sinless man
to save his sinful people.
If you trust in Him, you can be
sure that He will never give up on
you ever.
That He will be there for you no
matter what, always.
Because He is
the only sinless man,
faith in Him alone
is absolutely necessary.
And because He is God overall,
faith in Him
is entirely sufficient.
Won't you turn to Him?
Bend the knee
and enjoy rest and peace forevermore.
Let's pray.