Remain standing now for the reading of God's
word. We're in Paul's letter to the Romans
in chapter 9,
and we're looking at
verses
6 to 9 this morning. Again, Romans 9
verses 6 to 9. Please
listen to the reading of God's word.
But it is not as though the word
of God has failed.
For not all who are descended from Israel
belong to Israel,
and not all are children of Abraham
because they are his offspring,
but through Isaac
shall your offspring be named.
This means that it is not the children
of the flesh
who are the children of God,
but the children of the promise are counted
as offspring.
For this is what the promise said,
about this time next year,
I will return
and Sarah shall have a son. This is
the word of the lord.
Thanks be to god. Please be seated.
Imagine the scene from Genesis 22.
Abraham,
having received
the unimaginable
command from God,
prepares to sacrifice his beloved son,
Isaac,
the very child
that God had promised him and Sarah.
During the 3 days journey to Mount Moriah,
the place that God had selected
for this terrible test,
one can scarcely dare to imagine
the anguish
in Abraham's mind,
the anguish
in Abraham's
heart
as he looked
at Isaac,
as he looked at his beloved son walking
next to him on this 3 days journey.
Isaac's
life appeared to hang in the balance as
they were ascending to the peak of Mount
Moriah.
On the way up, Isaac who's carrying the
wood for the sacrifice
asked his father
where the lamb is for the sacrifice that
they are to perform.
Every word of that question must have pierced
Abraham's heart, yet his answer to Isaac
revealed an unwavering
trust
in God's promise as he tells the boy,
God himself
will provide the lamb,
my son.
Once they reach the summit
with no lamb
for the sacrifice in sight,
Abraham builds an altar and then he proceeds
to bind his son
upon it.
With Isaac now aware of what is going
on and with tears of sorrow undoubtedly
flowing
liberally
from Abraham's eyes, the patriarch lifts his knife
trusting
his whole
heart
to God.
Yet as dramatic as the scene was,
Isaac's life was never truly
in danger.
Why?
Because Isaac was the child of promise,
the son through whom God's covenant to Abraham
would be fulfilled.
And Abraham knew
what you should know,
that God's promise
never
fails.
The story that is known as the binding
of Isaac is a powerful example of God's
faithfulness.
Even in what appeared to be the most
hopeless of circumstances,
God's promise to Abraham
was never at risk.
Even before he was conceived,
Isaac had been chosen by God
to carry the promise forward
and God's promise
is unbreakable.
In much the same way,
when we come to Romans chapter 9 verses
6 to 9, Paul assures us
that God's word to his people has not
failed.
In fact, the main point that I have
for you this morning is this,
God's promise
always prevails.
God's promise always prevails
despite significant
obstacles
brought about through human rebellion
or through human rejection of God,
God's love for his people
and his commitment to his word
remains
steadfast.
Many Christians today
have been taught that the church is some
kind of plan b
for God's purposes.
That because his first
plan failed,
God had to come up with a different
way.
Our text this morning
demonstrates that this is not so.
Rather, what we are going to see is
that the church is nothing less
than the natural outworking of God's promise to
Abraham.
So let's explore this fact,
this fact that God's promise
always prevails
under 3 headings.
1st,
God's sovereign word.
2nd,
God's sovereign will.
And third, God's sovereign work. God's sovereign word,
how God's promises are infallible
and certain.
God's sovereign will,
how God's election and choice
establishes people, not by human descent,
but by his divine purpose.
And 3rd, God's sovereign work, how God's power
ensures that his promise is fulfilled
according to his purpose.
So let's look at the first
heading,
God's sovereign word.
In verse 6 we read again,
but it is not as though the word
of God has failed
for not all who are descended from Israel
belong to Israel.
Last week, I said that Paul's assertions in
Romans chapter 8 regarding God's sovereignty
in salvation
raised an important question.
The question is this,
why are so many descendants of Abraham
not saved?
In other words,
did God's promise to Israel fail?
In Romans 9 to 11,
Paul sets to answer this very question.
In the first five verses of Romans 9,
which we looked at last week,
Paul begins to answer this question by showing
that the only way to God
is through Jesus Christ,
who is God overall.
Whether you are Jew or Greek,
from all eternity,
God's plan to redeem his his people,
a plan to redeem a people for himself,
was focused on the person and work
of Jesus Christ.
This Jesus
was the Son of God incarnate,
the eternally preexisting
God
who was from Abraham
according to the flesh. Paul tells us that.
From Abraham according
to the flesh. Already,
Paul was intimating that salvation through Christ
had been the plan
and therefore the promise all along.
In other words,
in every case,
salvation depends on God's promise, a promise
that never fails
but always prevails.
Therefore, Paul will argue
that the rejection of the Messiah
by so many Jews
was not an unexpected
wrinkle
in God's promise,
but was
in full accord
with God's
purpose,
in full accord
with God's promise, in full accord with God's
word.
That's why Paul begins by stating that it
is not as
though God's word
has failed.
Such a thing ought to be unthinkable
since it is outright impossible.
This is known as the infallibility
of God's word.
Paul can affirm that God's word has not
failed
because God's word
cannot
fail.
Now,
spouses
sometimes
fail to keep their promises.
Parents
sometimes
fail to keep their promises.
Politicians
some no. Politicians usually
fail to keep their promises,
even those who govern well.
That's why the 9th commandment exists.
God forbids lying not because we don't struggle
with lying, but because we do struggle with
lying.
All sorts of things get in our way.
But as numbers
23/19
states,
God is not a man
that he should lie or a son of
man that he should change his mind.
Has he said
and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken
and will he not fulfill it?
God does not lie.
He does what he says he will do.
He fulfills
his promise.
This makes sense
since Paul writes in 2nd Timothy 3 16
that all scripture is
breathed out by God.
This is known as the inspiration
of scripture. Meaning that scripture is God's word,
that he is
the author of of of scripture, that he
is the source
of scripture. It comes from him.
God really does use
the wisdom and insights of human authors for
scripture that nobody denies that.
Moses really did right. David really did right.
The prophets wrote. The apostles wrote.
But they are all led
by the Holy Spirit working in and through
them to write God's word.
This is what Peter means in 2nd Peter
chapter 1 verse 21,
where he writes that no prophecy was ever
produced by the will of man,
but men spoke from God as they were
carried along
by the Holy Spirit.
That word translated carried along
does not refer to God's
gentle wooing of them.
He's not putting on the charm, so to
speak,
and inviting them to agree with him, to
write what he would like them to write,
persuading them to write his will on God's
word.
Rather,
the force of the verb to carry
is to bring or even to drive along
as the ESV renders that very same verb
in acts 2715,
where a terrible storm in the Mediterranean
sea
shipwrecks
Paul, almost causing him and all others on
the ship to perish
after the ship is driven along
by the unstoppable
power of the violent winds.
The Bible
is very much God's word. It is inspired
by him and it bears his authority.
Therefore, it is infallible.
It cannot fail
because God cannot fail.
And in the context of Romans 9, this
fact
ought to give you confidence regarding 2 things.
1st,
if God wills to save you,
if God wills to save
your family member
that you've been praying for,
if God wills to save your friend that's
been in your heart or your neighbor,
there is no power in heaven
or on earth or under the earth that
will be able to thwart God's saving grace.
In Acts 13,
Paul and Barnabas preached the gospel to Gentiles
in Antioch and Pisidia.
And after the Gentiles hear the preaching of
God's word, in Acts 1348,
we read that the Gentiles began
rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord,
and as many as were appointed
to eternal life
believed.
Why?
Because God's word does not fail.
This ought to bring you great comfort regarding
regarding your assurance of salvation,
but also this ought to bring you great
hope
regarding God's power to save
even the hardest of sinners.
So keep praying for them.
2nd,
the reality of God's sovereign word ought to
put to rest any notion
that people will be unjustly condemned
on the last day.
Paul is addressing the objection
that the condemnation of the Jews was unjust
because they were the children of Abraham.
And had not God promised
that Israel would be saved?
Yet Paul is affirming
that redemptive history is unfolding in complete accordance
with God's promise.
This is why he states in the second
half of verse 6
that not all who are descend descended from
Israel
belong
to Israel.
In other words,
Paul is going to show
that the objection
does not highlight the failure of God's word.
Instead, it highlights a misunderstanding
of the promise
grounded on a wrong definition
of who
constitutes
Israel.
And this brings us to our second heading,
God's sovereign will.
Let's look again at verse 6.
But it is not as though the word
of God has failed,
for not all who are descendant from Israel
belong to Israel.
Notice that Paul makes a distinction
between those who are
descendant from Israel
and those who
belong to Israel.
It's 2 different groups.
The former clearly refers to
physical
or biological descent.
They are ethnic Israel
being
from Israel
by blood.
The latter on the other hand
belong to Israel,
but not physically,
not necessarily physically.
Therefore,
though not explicitly stated yet,
there must be a spiritual
or divine quality that causes this group
to belong to Israel
or to be reckoned
as belonging to Israel, as a part of
Israel, to be considered
as part of Israel.
Verse 7 begins to clarify what this distinguishing
feature is.
Again, we read in verse 7,
and not all are children of Abraham because
they are his offspring,
but through Isaac
shall your offspring be named.
Or more literally,
as the new King James version translates it,
In Isaac,
your seed shall be called.
In Isaac, your seed shall be called. That's
how it's in the Greek literally.
Paul emphasizes God's sovereign will
in divinely calling
or even appointing
those whom he chooses to be Israel.
He designates Israel by his call.
In verse 6, therefore, we learned that biology
does not determine Israel.
And in verse 7, the same idea
is restated,
but with a different focus. As Paul writes
that neither does biology determine
Abraham's seed.
What defines Israel?
The key feature that determines membership in God's
covenant people.
The determinant factor
that makes up the offspring of Abraham
that is to say the children of promise
is the divine
call
of God.
Through Isaac
shall your offspring be named.
In Isaac, your seed shall be called,
says the Lord.
God's covenant people
are constituted
by God's
sovereign will.
It's always been the case, Paul is saying.
You may recall that God had promised Abraham
and Isaac in their old age when Sarah
was well beyond
the age of childbearing,
that he would give them a son
and would make Abraham
the father of many nations through this son.
But as God delayed in fulfilling this promise,
and Abraham and Sarah were not getting any
younger,
they doubted him.
So Sarah gave her servant Hagar to Abraham,
that Abraham might become a father through
Hagar.
Hagar did indeed give Abraham a son
and he was given the name Ishmael.
God then rebuked Abraham and Sarah for their
unbelief,
and yet he graciously
reiterated his promise to give Abraham a son
through Sarah.
The name of that child, of course, is
Isaac.
Now physically,
biologically,
genetically,
Ishmael was just as much Abraham's son
as Isaac was.
And legally,
Ishmael had an even greater claim to Abraham's
inheritance
as the patriarch's
firstborn
son.
But God's sovereign will determined that Isaac
and not Ishmael
was the child of promise.
Some people are uncomfortable
with the personal nature of God's choice in
electing
some individuals
and not others.
They posit that in Romans 9, Paul is
not writing
about God choosing individuals,
but about God choosing to favor nations.
But the context does not permit
this interpretation.
God calls those whom he chooses
by name.
Through Isaac,
shall your offspring be named.
Not only this,
but at the moment of God's sovereign choice,
Ishmael and Isaac are not different nations.
Physically, they are equally
Abraham's seed.
So far as
so far so far are they
from being different nations
at the moment of
choice, that they are even members of the
very same household.
Yet, Ishmael's status is firstborn notwithstanding,
we learned that God's sovereign will
is the sole determinant
in how God freely distributes his favor,
choosing Isaac as he wills
and not
Ishmael
as he wills.
Is it not encouraging, dear Christian, to know
that God's sovereign choice in electing you
as the object of his love
is neither generic
nor impersonal,
but specific
and intimate.
He chooses you
because he loves you.
So God's promise to bless Abraham's offspring
is carried out in accordance
with God's sovereign will.
And in verse 8, Paul explains the practical
implications for the church,
writing,
this means that it is not
the children of the flesh who are the
children of God,
but the children of the promise are counted
as offspring.
There are a couple of things I want
you to note.
1st,
there is no fleshly
or even worldly quality
that automatically makes someone a child of God.
Paul, who is an Israelite,
a descendant of Abraham,
a member of the tribe of Benjamin as
Paul himself tells us in Romans 11,
here makes it clear that his Jewishness
does not make him or any other Jew
for that matter,
a child of God.
Remember that
Jews were complaining about Paul's teaching
that if they rejected Jesus,
they would in turn be rejected by God,
saying that such teaching by Paul
made God's promise
to Abraham
null and void.
But Paul answers by saying that
Jewishness
is not what made Israel
Israel.
Just because one is a child of the
flesh,
he says,
that does not make one a child of
God.
Paul demonstrates that it never has.
Even Ishmael
was a child of the flesh,
but he was not a child
of God,
not in a covenantal sense.
Isaac
was chosen by God and that is what
gave him the special status as a child
of promise.
And if it was God's call
that made one
that made one fleshly son of Abraham
and
not another
a child of promise,
so too it is God's call that can
make one Jew
a child of promise like Paul
and not another
like Judas,
for example.
In other words,
the rejection of the Messiah by many Jews
did not mean
that God's word
had failed.
Rather, it meant that those fleshly descendants of
Abraham
were no different
than the very first fleshly descendant of Abraham,
Ishmael.
A child of Abraham to be sure,
but not a child of promise according to
God's will, and therefore,
not a child of God.
The second thing I want you to note
from Romans 9:8
is that Paul says that the children of
promise are counted
as offspring.
The word counted
is the same word that Paul employs in
Romans 43
where he quotes
Genesis 15
verse 6 saying,
Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him
as righteousness.
Paul's point regarding Abraham
is the same point he is making here.
That Abraham's right standing with God
was not due to his own
inherent
righteousness.
It wasn't an inherent righteousness in Abraham
that made him righteous with God.
Instead, Abraham's belief in God's promise, that is
to say, his faith
was counted
or credited or considered
to him as righteousness.
In other words,
Abraham's righteousness before God
was not an inherent righteousness,
internal
righteousness.
It was an imputed
righteousness.
Abraham's right standing with God
did not depend or rely upon a fleshly
internal quality of his,
on some intrinsic
material reality about his purity that made him
automatically
righteous.
Abraham was
graciously
declared
righteousness
or righteous.
Abraham's favored status
did not rest on his pedigree,
but on God's purpose.
Abraham's blessed condition
did not rest on his work,
but on God's will.
And so it is with Abraham's true seed.
They were never defined by pedigree nor performance,
but by God's promise.
That is how Paul puts it in Galatians
3.
If we look at Galatians 3 verses 7
to 9, we read there,
know then that it is those of faith
who are the sons of Abraham,
And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify
the Gentiles by faith,
preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham
saying, in you shall all the nations be
blessed.
So
then, those who are of faith
are blessed along with Abraham,
the man
of faith. Notice the emphasis there has nothing
to do with genetics.
Abraham is the man
of faith.
It has always been through their faith and
not through their flesh
that God's people have demonstrated
that they are Abraham's offspring and therefore
the children of promise.
Let me ask you therefore,
are you trusting
in God's promise
to bless his people?
Or might you be putting
your faith
in a fleshly quality
to sustain your favorable
relationship with God?
In Paul's days, some Jews would say,
we don't have to repent.
We have Abraham
as our father.
You might not be relying on your Jewishness,
although some of you are in fact
descendants of Abraham according to the flesh.
But are you relying
on your on the faith of your parents,
for example,
or on your church attendance,
or on your participation
in our bible studies,
or on your faithful
tithing to this church
or on your good grades
or on your politeness
or on your performance at work?
Do you look to those things to say,
I'm a good person. God should receive me.
God should see me as righteous because look
what kind of person I am.
All of these things are very good things.
There are even significant blessings.
There are significant blessings even
as being
ethnically
of Israel
was a significant blessing before the Messiah arrived.
But according to Paul, none of these things
make you a child of God.
In other words, none of these things
puts God in your debt.
They may put you in God's debt
being the recipient of all these blessings,
but they don't put God in your debt.
God does not have to save you because
you're polite. God does not have to save
you because you go to church.
God does not have to save you because
you
get good grades.
To rely on these things
is to rely on the flesh.
And Jesus says in John 663,
it is the spirit who gives life,
the flesh
is no
help at all.
He's talking about
eternal life. The flesh is of no
help
at all.
If you are to be a child of
promise, then you then your trust must be
in God's promise.
Your trust must be in God's word.
Is that where your trust is? Be honest.
What if your preferred candidate loses the election?
I've heard that the world is supposed to
end if that happens.
Where would your trust be?
What if prices continue to rise
or we enter into a more
severe economic downturn?
Where would your trust be?
What if you or a loved one
receive an unwanted
medical
diagnosis?
Where
would your trust be?
What if your marriage encountered a significant challenge?
Where would your trust be?
To finish Jesus' quote from John 663, 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.
Life and hope are found in God's sovereign
word
and there
in God's word, in God's promise is where
your trust
must
abide.
Are you trusting in God's word or are
you trusting in the flesh? Because the flesh
is no help
at all.
Because God willed that salvation be found in
Christ alone,
to redeem his people, the word became flesh.
Our flesh is of no help,
but Christ is.
He
is spirit
and he is life and he becomes flesh
so that we can partake of him.
God has sent his son.
The promised offspring of Abraham,
who would bless all the families of the
earth has come in history.
And in John chapter 1
verses 12 and 13, the Apostle tells us
that when the incarnate word came
to all who did receive him,
who believed in his name,
God gave the right to become
children of God,
who are born not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man,
but of God.
It is God's sovereign will that made them
children of God.
Are you
a child of God?
Where is your trust?
Is it in yourself? Is it in your
flesh?
Or is it in God's promise?
It must be in God's promise
because God's promise
always
prevails.
Having considered God's sovereign word and God's sovereign
will, let's look at the final heading, God's
sovereign work.
In verse 9 we read, for this is
what the promise said,
about this time next year I will return
and Sarah
shall have a son.
Paul is referencing Genesis 18 where the Lord
visits Abraham and Sarah
and reiterates his promise
that Sarah should bear a son for Abraham
within a year.
Sarah who is well past childbearing age laughs
in disbelief
when she hears this promise,
but God does not shy away from his
promise.
He confronts Sarah about her laughter,
reassuring Abraham and Sarah that nothing is impossible
for him
even as he says, about this time next
year, I will return and Sarah shall have
a son.
Of course, God fulfilled his promise because God's
sovereign work is unstoppable.
His promise always prevails.
He is worthy of your trust for that
reason. Abraham named his son of promise Isaac,
whose name means laughter.
So imagine
Abraham's surprise,
his shock, his horror.
When in Genesis 22, god calls Abraham saying,
take your son,
your only son Isaac whom you love,
and go to the land of Moriah and
offer him there
as a burnt offering on one of the
mountains
that I shall tell you.
As I said at the beginning of the
sermon, Abraham did take Isaac and bound him.
And at the very moment when Abraham's darling,
when his promised heir,
when the hope of God's people is about
to be sacrificed, the angel of the Lord,
that is to say, God himself, cries out
from heaven
saying,
Abraham Abraham,
do not lay a hand on the boy.
Do not do anything to him. Now I
know
that you fear God
because you have not withheld from me your
son, your only son.
Though Abraham did not know it,
God never intended
for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. God intended to
taste it to test Abraham and Abraham, even
though he's a sinner,
passes the test.
Because he knows
that if necessary, God will raise his son
from the dead
in order to safeguard
his own promise.
After all, he has said that it was
through Isaac that his offspring would be
named. You see,
God's power guarantees
that his promise
always
prevails.
On that day,
God provided a ram whose horns were stuck
in a thicket to be sacrificed in the
place of Isaac.
But all of this was just a type
and shadow
of the one true sacrifice that was to
come.
The sacrifice that would atone for the sins
of the children of God.
21 centuries after Abraham sacrificed
a ram in the place of Isaac,
and 21 centuries ago,
God provided a lamb
to be offered in the place of many.
Abraham's son, Isaac,
had unknowingly
carried the wood up the mountain
that could have been
the wood for his own sacrifice.
God's son, Jesus,
carried the wood up another mountain in Jerusalem
for what he knew would be
his own sacrifice.
Abraham
had offered his son all the time knowing
that somehow
Isaac was coming to come down that mountain
alive because God keeps his word.
God the father
gave up his own son,
his innocent
son,
his beloved Jesus knowing that he would unleash
his wrath upon him on the cross
because he always keeps his word.
This time there would be no voice from
heaven to stop the sacrifice. This time there
would be no ram stuck in a thicket.
The father and the son knew
exactly what was going to happen at Calvary.
The father knew that he was offering his
son and the son knew that he was
the lamb that must be offered.
So Jesus really was pierced.
He really was offered up on a cross.
He was offered in the place of Abraham
and in the place of Isaac and in
the place of the children of promise.
He took your place.
The price
for the sin of God's people was paid
for by the blood of Jesus.
It was a price that we should have
paid, but a price that we could not
pay.
And just like Isaac's life was given back
to him,
when there seemed to be no hope,
Jesus Christ resurrected because death could not hold
him.
Dear Christian,
salvation is God's sovereign work.
He calls his people out of darkness
by his sovereign will.
So trust in God's sovereign word, knowing that
God's promise always prevails,
though the trials
of this world seem insurmountable.
God's promise to sustain you will prevail.
He promises it,
and he always keeps his word.
Let's pray.