Question of the Day: What is the most beautiful hike you have ever been on?
I am so sorry I can't be with you all this week. Thank you Mark for teaching!
Today we are going to tackle Romans chapter 9. This chapter is especially hard to look at as a stand alone chapter. It desperately needs chapter 8 and chapter 10 to help it all make sense.
Last week in class we didn't finish chapter 8. I know you were encouraged to read it on your own, and I hope you did. However we are going to start this lesson by reading the closing of chapter 8.
It is a beautiful summery of chapter 8 and a necessary introduction for chapter 9.
READ: Romans 8: 31-39
More Than Conquerors
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us,who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns?No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Do we really believe this passage?
Do we really believe that nothing can separate us or are we always putting a big fat but after this passage?
If we really believe this, own it, how does that change how we live?
When children or adults live without love in their lives they struggle. They struggle to survive. They struggle to thrive. They have a hard time giving to others, because they are so depleted of love. What does living look like when you are so filled with the greatest of loves. Not a love that takes, not a love that has anterior motives, not a love that forces, but a perfect pure love of God, how does that kind of love change how you live?
What passage do you love in this section?
Do we really believe that nothing can separate us or are we always putting a big fat but after this passage?
If we really believe this, own it, how does that change how we live?
When children or adults live without love in their lives they struggle. They struggle to survive. They struggle to thrive. They have a hard time giving to others, because they are so depleted of love. What does living look like when you are so filled with the greatest of loves. Not a love that takes, not a love that has anterior motives, not a love that forces, but a perfect pure love of God, how does that kind of love change how you live?
What passage do you love in this section?
This is a passage worth memorizing! Isn't it?
READ: Chapter 9
Paul’s Anguish Over Israel
9 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised![a]Amen.
Have you ever had anguish over your church?
Could you say what Paul says here? Would you be willing to give it all up for your church?
What about your family?
I was struck by the sacrificial love that Paul has for his people.
What is he so filled with sorrow about?
Let's keep reading... read all the way to the end of the chapter. Then we will unpack it.
God’s Sovereign Choice
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[b] 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”[c]
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”[d] 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[e]
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[g] 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[h] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25 As he says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”[i]
26 and,
“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”[j]
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”[j]
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”[k]
only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”[k]
29 It is just as Isaiah said previously:
“Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.”[l]
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.”[l]
Israel’s Unbelief
30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness,have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.33 As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
There are some very difficult parts in this chapter. This passage needs to be unpacked only when we get the big picture. We need chapter 8 and chapter 10 for us to fully understand. Paul is mourning for his people. He has just finished writing about God's love and how nothing can separate us from it and that brings him to a place of great sorrow as he remembers his people, the Israelites. The chosen people, who know show much and yet have missed it! Jesus is not only ignored or missed but the stumbling stone that is right in the middle of their path. They are so caught up in their own work that they miss him all together.
Ellen White writes in Thoughts from the Mount of Bessings page 101. "When we take into our hands the management of things with which we have to do, and depend upon our own wisdom for success, we are taking a burden which God has not given us, and are trying to bear it without His aid. We are taking upon ourselves the responsibility that belongs to God, and thus are really putting ourselves in His place. We may well have anxiety and anticipate danger and loss, for it is certain to befall us. But when we really believe that God loves us and means to do us good we shall cease to worry about the future. We shall trust God as a child trusts a loving parent. Then our troubles and torments will disappear, for our will is swallowed up in the will of God.
Christ has given us no promise of help in bearing today the burdens of tomorrow. He has said, "My grace is sufficient for thee" (2 Corinthians 12:9); but, like the manna given in the wilderness, His grace is bestowed daily, for the day's need. Like the hosts of Israel in their pilgrim life, we may find morning by morning the bread of heaven for the day's supply.
One day alone is ours, and during this day we are to live for God. For this one day we are to place in the hand of Christ, in solemn service, all our purposes and plans, casting all our care upon Him, for He careth for us. "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." "In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." Jeremiah 29:11; Isaiah 30:15.
If you will seek the Lord and be converted every day; if you will of your own spiritual choice be free and joyous in God; if with gladsome consent of heart to His gracious call you come wearing the yoke of Christ,--the yoke of obedience and service,--all your murmurings will be stilled, all your difficulties will be removed, all the perplexing problems that now confront you will be solved."
Verses, 6-24 are difficult to understand if our view of God is skewed. So who is he?
A God of love,
A God who has adopted us! No matter what our lineage is!
A God....
Paul is wanting salvation for his people! He is writing to the Romans who are not the descendants, who don't have the chromosomes, but have been adopted and who really get it! He is trying here in these easy to miss understand verses that God, our almighty loving wonderful God is everything! He is our creator, our designer, our Savior. He has chosen us and yet the Israelite's were so caught up in self that they missed Him completely!
Do you trust your loving God who has crafted you in all things?
I challenge you this week to spend time in your prayer time to ask God to reveal His character to you!
I challenge you this week to spend time in prayer asking God to show you how He sees you!
Continuing on:
I want us to spend a moment on verse 25... I will call them 'my people'.... in the message it is written this way..... "I will call nobodies and make them somebodies and i'll call the unloved and make them loved."
I can remember years where I was rejected. I remember labeling myself as a nobody. When I was in academy our family decided to take a family picture. We were all rushing around the house trying to get everything ironed, our hair done, and make up on. I remember stopping and watching the craziness going on, and what I saw was smart, handsome, accomplished brothers, a sister who was so incredibly beautiful, a mother who was slim and striking with a beautiful figure flattering dress on, and tanned skin, and a father that could be a movie star if that was the career he had wanted. I looked around and then glanced in the mirror and thought, "maybe I'm adopted, I certainly don't fit in this group of people."
I felt like a nobody! I didn't get good grades! My noes was too big for my face. My hair was out of control! My body wasn't shaped at all like my mothers! I wasn't athletic like my brothers! I didn't have the stunning good looks like my father and my brothers! I wasn't very obedient! I didn't have the musical talent of my brothers!
I tell you this not to get sympathy or for you to tell me my perception was wrong. I tell you this because I know the devil is doing his best to make sure all of us believe in one way or another, at one time or another that we are nobodies! He wants us to believe that we are worthless. He wants us to believe that we are hopeless! He wants us to be unloved or feel or believe that we are unloved!
Jesus, says to us all, "I will call nobodies and make them somebodies and I'll call the unloved and make them loved."
Do you really believe that this morning? You my dear friends, are... a child of God! You are adopted into His family! You are loved, and nothing can separate you from that love! You are....
I saw a meme this past week that I love love love!
This made me contemplate what I am?
What statement can I say I am....
I am depressed.... NO I may suffer with depression but I am NOT depressed!
I am fat.... NO, I have fat... maybe more than I should but I am NOT fat. FAT does not define me!
I am....
I am...
What I am, am I?
What I am statement does define me?!
I am...
I am...
I am a child of God! I am adopted into His family! I am loved! I am a somebody because He has called me!
What I am statements do you need to change?
What I am statements do you need to hold on to?
Once again Paul gives a nice conclusion to this chapter. In verse 30 it reads, "
"How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together: Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion, a stone you can’t get around. But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me, you’ll find me on the way, not in the way."
Is it possible that today we could be like the Isralites. Is it possible that we could miss Jesus right in the middle of our day? Or that we could miss Him right in the middle of our life? Is it possible that we could be so focused on rightness or our wickedness that we miss Him?
What in your life is keeping you from seeing Jesus?
Is it your distorted view of who you are?
Has the devil kept your focus on working so hard to do right that you miss Him?
Is it your view of who He is?
The entire chapter is simply about His people missing Him!
We need to acknowledge who He is. We need to keep our focus on Him! That is not only enough it is EVERYTHING! We need to get out of the business of doing His work!
In closing let's read the beginning verses of chapter 10.
"Believe me, friends, all I want for Israel is what’s best for Israel: salvation, nothing less. I want it with all my heart and pray to God for it all the time. I readily admit that the Jews are impressively energetic regarding God—but they are doing everything exactly backward. They don’t seem to realize that this comprehensive setting-things-right that is salvation is God’s business, and a most flourishing business it is. Right across the street they set up their own salvation shops and noisily hawk their wares. After all these years of refusing to really deal with God on his terms, insisting instead on making their own deals, they have nothing to show for it."
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