Romans 9:1-26 • A Seat at the Table

Listen to the audio version of this message with the player below.

Sermon Notes

Transcript

(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

Well, the hype and the buildup are done.



 It's now time for the main event.



 The opponents are lined up.



 The strategy is lined out. We're done with all the trash talk. It's now time for Romans 9.



 I'll ask that you look in your Bible at what the church knows to be. One of the more controversial passages of Scripture.



 And yet despite that reputation, if I have one goal for this day, I will say despite the centuries of debate, despite everything you've heard about Romans 9, the issue is not about exclusion and division, but inclusion and multiplication.



 Despite all the terms that line up people on different sides, I actually thought we might start the service by having the Arminian free will falcons line up on this side, you know, and the Calvinist absolute sovereignty armadillos on this side, and Pastor Greg could kick off, Pastor Kerry received.



 You know what Paul's really questioning?



 Who we're willing to have sit at this table?



 And making sure that our arms remain wide open and seats stay open for everybody at the table of God.



 That's his real purpose.



 And you'll see it, I think, even as we dive in to the hardest verses of this passage. I'll cover most of the chapter before we're done. But let's just put the hard stuff in front of us. You with me? And this line will start at verse 18.



 "So then he that is God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.



 You will say to me then, why does he still find fault, for who can resist his will?



 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?



 Well what is molded say to its molder? Why have you made me like this?



 Is the potter no right over the clay?



 To make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use. What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us



 whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. As indeed God says in Hosea, "Those who were not my people, I will call my people.



 And her who was not beloved, I will call beloved." Let's pray together. Father, where the Apostle is going in this passage is no mystery.



 He will ultimately conclude how vast are the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, his judgments inscrutable, his ways past finding out for from him and to him and through him are all things.



 To God be the glory.



 May it be what we utter as we leave this place this day, I pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.



 Once upon a time, there was a man who loved God and loved his plan to bless the nations with the message of salvation.



 And so the man built a meeting place for his family that not only in his time but in generations to follow, they could meet and worship God and strategize for how they would be a blessing to the nations.



 But despite that plan, after a while the meeting house became kind of a clubhouse.



 And the people who were there began to plot how they might amass more power and wealth and actually even take over the city in which they dwelt.



 The mayor got wind of it. And so he closed down the clubhouse and he arrested some of the plotters and others of them left town.



 As a consequence, the clubhouse was left open but not unused.



 Some of the people of the city began to discover, this is a pretty nice clubhouse, and they went in and they actually began to read some of the ancient documents that had been left by the original occupants.



 And as they read those documents, the new people began to say, "This is a great plan.



 Why don't we keep up the strategy? Why don't we see what we can do to bless the nations with the message of God's salvation?" And that's precisely what they began to do.



 But the mayor then died.



 And when the mayor died, the original people who had left began to come back to the city.



 And they came back to their clubhouse.



 And sounding a little bit like the three bears discovering Goldilocks, they began to say to one another, "Who's been living in our house?



 Who's been reading our books?



 Who is sitting at our table?"



 And so God sent a messenger and He said to them, "Remember the only reason you ever were in the clubhouse?



 It was because God chose to be merciful to you."



 And these new people, God chose to be merciful to them too.



 They have as much right as you to be here because God has shown mercy to you and God has shown mercy to them, receive them, bless them, rejoice that they like you can sit at the table of Jesus.



 Now that's the story.



 I thought I might need to run the screen credits so you could figure out the characters.



 In the story, God is God.



 The granddaddy who establishes the meeting house, that's Father Abraham.



 And the children who began to gather in the clubhouse, making it into a clubhouse, are the original Jewish nation. They spread across the world, but they have clubhouses in lots of places even like the city of Rome.



 And after a series of plots and rebellions, the mayor, who happens to be known as the emperor Claudius of Rome, drives out the Jews.



 All who is left to follow in the path of the covenant are the early Christians who are gathering in little houses of worship across Rome. At some point Claudius dies and the Jews begin to come back not real happy at the new people who were in the covenant relationship claim.



 And so Paul the apostle writes not just to the Gentiles, but to the Jews of his own heritage and say, "You know what? Just like God called us out of His mercy, He's calling the Gentiles out of His mercy. Receive them and rejoice that we can all sit together at the table of God." Now believe it or not, that is what Romans 9 is about.



 Paul is reminding the Jews that just as God called them, He called the new people. And they're supposed to love each other and love the fact that they can sit at the table together.



 Now the question you have to answer is, how is Paul going to do that? How is he going to get the long timers to welcome the newcomers? And the answer to this, he starts by telling those first to the table that they are still special to God.



 How are they special to God? Well, number one, Paul the messenger of God loves the Jews. How much does he love them? Verse 1, "I'm 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. I would give up my own soul for your soul. I would give up my salvation in Jesus Christ if I could reach you with the message of the God." That's how dear you are to me. I would give up my salvation for your soul.



 And he reminds them, they're not just precious to him. The Jews are precious to God too. How do we know that? Verse 4, "They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, the words just go by." We forget how important they were to the Jews.



 To you belong the adoption. Even in the Old Testament, God called Israel as a nation, my son, just like he would have referred to Jesus in the New Testament. That's how God referred to the nation of Israel as my very child.



 How willing do they have the adoption, the glory?



 In the Old Testament, God was present with his people by the Shekinah glory, pillar of fire at night, pillar of cloud at day. As God was saying, "I'm Emmanuel, God with you. You have my very presence in glory and the covenants. I will be your God, and you will be my people.



 And if I ever abandon you, I will destroy myself," says God, "because this covenant I initiated is actually your commission to take my glory to the nations."



 And not only do you have the covenants, you have the giving of the law so you can find out how to live in a way that's safe and honors me. And not only the law, but the worship. I will give you access to heaven itself, parting as it were the skies, so that when you offer to me worship and sacrifice that I provide, I will be with you and bless you. Even though you've been sinful, I will make a way for you to keep coming to me.



 And only do you have the worship. Ultimately, you have the promises.



 Not only will I be a God to you, I will bless the nations through you. How? Verse 5, "To them that is the Jews belong the patriarchs, and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever." Amen. "From you, Jews, from the patriarchal lineage that's in you, I will bring the Messiah, the anointed one, the Savior of the nations. You are precious to me. You are my child. You know my glory. You have my worship. You have my law. My promise that I will use you to bless all the nations of the world. That's how precious you are to me." It's the great affirmation that the Apostle Paul is making to the Jews because he knows deep down we will show the love that we have received.



 And so he keeps telling the Jews, "Here's how loved you are," because his motive is that ultimately they would share it with others.



 You know, the world went gaga a few months ago when Prince Harry of England announced that he was going to be engaged to Meghan Markle.



 She wasn't English, which was a problem. In her background, some of you know, she was divorced, mixed race, reality star.



 What in the world is a person like that doing, marrying into royalty?



 And the world wondered, will the royal family receive her? Will they still receive Prince Harry for becoming engaged to such a person? The answer came during the Christmas message of Queen Elizabeth.



 Interestingly enough, what she did was she sat in a chair to deliver the Christmas message, and like in a lot of our homes, lined up beside her on a table where the pictures of the royal family in different generations, the different couples, the different kids, the different grandkids, just like in your home.



 But among the pictures on the table was a new picture, the picture of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle together. It was the statement that there's room at the table for more people. And that's because Prince Harry is precious to me and whoever he loves, I will love as well. The motivation people saw displayed at the table, not many people I was aware of heard the Queen's reason for opening her arms wide to a new person in the royal family. At the end of her Christmas message, this is what she said, "Today we celebrate Christmas.



 We remember the birth of Jesus Christ, whose only sanctuary was a stable in Bethlehem.



 He knew rejection, hardship, persecution, and yet it was Jesus Christ's generous love and example that have inspired me."



 Isn't that interesting?



 It was Christ's love and example that has inspired me and there was now the new couple out on the table. There's room because I have known love because we have experienced the greatness of the love of Christ. We will show it to others. If you recognize that is Paul's motive to say we love as we have been loved. You recognize why he is saying to the Jews, "You are so precious to God."



 That's why you ought to receive these new people too because they are precious to God too.



 But people are people.



 So they struggle a little bit with this. The Jews who have thought of themselves as the chosen people for generations now begin to think, "Now wait a second.



 If more people are coming in the door, are we still precious?



 Is God's Word to us still valid and good?"



 Paul answers in verse 6, "But it's not as though the Word of God has failed, for not all who 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 blessed." Now the words are complicated but what Paul is doing is this. He's not reminding the Jews just that they are special, but why they are special.



 Why were they the chosen people? Was it because they were the nicest people?



 Was it because they were the biggest people? Was it because they were just kind of like, you know, the best nation on the earth God could find? No, what does the Bible actually tell us when Moses tells us why God chose the people of Israel? You are the most stiff-necked, honoree, dinkiest people in the world. If the world sees God save you, what will the world know? He can save anybody.



 And so Paul is saying, "Listen, you're not chosen by God because of your flesh." I mean that's not the point. Through Isaac shall you be named. Yes, you have the name of Israel upon you because of your lineage. But that's not why you're a true child of God. You're a child of God not based on your flesh. You're a child of God just like your original father was made a child of God, not by his flesh but by his faith.



 Verse 8, "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." Now you've got to go way back to the book of Genesis and know what Paul is talking about. The Jews all knew what he was talking about.



 "God made a promise to Abraham, I will make you a father of many nations." One little problem, Abraham is really old.



 How old is he when he has the very first son? Anybody remember?



 About a hundred.



 When he even says, you know, "My body's as good as dead. I can't possibly have children be a father of many nations." But God sends a messenger to Abraham and to Sarah and says, "What?



 Next year you're going to have a son."



 And after Abraham got up off the ground, he believed God. And what happened? It was credited, counted to him as righteousness. He's identified as a child of God, not because of what his body could provide, not because of what his flesh could provide, but the very first Jew is a Jew because of faith, the belief in what God would provide. And now Paul is saying to those who are Jews now gathering, "Listen, the reason God is bringing other people to the table and saying they're also part of the covenant that he made with Abraham is because the covenant is not established by flesh. The covenant is established by faith. Not all Israel, according to biology, is Israel according to the Spirit.



 Israel that is spiritual Israel are the people who believe, and that is people who will gather around this table with faith in Jesus Christ, not faith in their flesh, not in what they have done." Paul says it even more clearly in the book of Galatians where he's repeating these same arguments. But listen, Galatians 3, the Apostle Paul says this, "Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, know then that those of faith are the children of Abraham."



 Did you know that you're an adopted Jew?



 Did you know that? That if you are a child of God in the covenant of faith that was made with Abraham, that biblical God is saying the reason that you are a child of God is you are a spiritual child of Abraham. Now, you can have a lot of fun with this, I must tell you. I can remember when I was in college and I went to a school in Chicago that had a very large population of Jewish young people, and most of my friends were Jewish, and as a consequence they struggled with knowing that I was a believer in Jesus Christ, one of my friends. I can remember being in his door room one night and trying to begin to talk to him about Christ and him saying, "You can't care about me.



 Come on, you're a Christian, and you and I both know what you believe.



 You believe that we Jews crucified your Savior, so you don't really love me."



 Now, I must tell you, it was just kind of fun to say, "Actually, I believe I'm an adopted Jew, and I believe that my sins killed my Savior." Now, that blew his mind. He just, "What are you talking about?" And to say, "No, the covenant made with Abraham was not just a biological covenant, it was a spiritual covenant whereby God is saying, "I will embrace all those who call me as their Savior." Now, the example that he's given is a tough one, all right? So it's all those verses kind of following verse 10 where there's this long story of Jacob and Esau. Do you remember? Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated? We don't like that verse.



 But even before they were born, says Paul, God said the older will serve the younger.



 Ancient society, rule of primogenitor, who gets all the money, who gets all the power, older or younger?



 Older. And yet here, God is saying through Paul, "Remember Jews, who got the promise?" It wasn't the older, it was the younger. By the way, he wasn't just younger, he wasn't as strong. Remember Esau? One of our favorite verses in the Bible, "He was a hairy man." It wasn't just hairy, he was strong, outdoorsman, man's man, right? And here is Jacob, little mama's boy, right? Weak, frail, liar, his very name means conniver. So here you got, you know, it's tall, strapping, man's man, first out of the womb, older, stronger, better, all those kind of ways. And who does God pick to show mercy to?



 The younger, the weaker, the less good.



 What's the message there?



 Verse 16 will tell you the message.



 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. The message of grace has beaconed from the beginning. God is not saying, "You're welcome at the table as long as you've got a good background. You're welcome at the table as long as you've done enough good things, you've been baptized, you've done everything that needs to be done to qualify for God." No, what did your baptism signify?



 The blood of Christ washes away my sin. I'm not banking on my baptism. I'm not banking on my background. I'm not banking on my goodness. I'm not banking on the fact that I got a family line that was in this church. My only hope is that Jesus made a way for me. I believe in his death upon the cross, he paid the penalty for my sin and nothing I could do could make me right before God. And so I'm trusting Jesus. And God says, "That's a good thing."



 Because being a child of God is not resting on your ability, on your resolve, on your goodness, on your background, on anything in you.



 Being a child of God means you've trusted in the child of God named Jesus to make a way for you and you believe he is who makes you right with God.



 And I must tell you, while I can enjoy talking about this grace, there are questions that begin to come to us. And we should recognize them. They have to be for people hearing the Apostle talk. I mean, just start here. Who is loving this conversation so far? I mean, you're just in the situation, right?



 You got the new people in the church. You got the long-termers starting to come back into Rome and hear all the new people, you know. I'm loving the conversation it says, "The new people have as much right to the table as the long-timers." Who loves this conversation? The new people. The new people love this conversation. It doesn't matter if we were last to the table. It doesn't matter if we were the last in line. It doesn't matter if they picked everyone else for the volleyball team first.



 God says, "We can come and be counted as children of God.



 And we are as precious to Him as the people who have been in the church for generations."



 The first church I pastored where I actually met Kathy, that church had been established by her family and other German immigrants in the early 1800s. And that meant that those families had been in that church for many generations. They weren't the only families anymore.



 There was one other family that was in the church.



 They had arrived shortly after World War II, and everybody referred to them as the new people.



 Now it wasn't meant mean, but you tell me how it was heard.



 Well, we don't quite measure up. We're not quite in the guild. We're not quite in the family. We're not quite in the community. We don't measure up. And the Apostle Paul is saying to the new people, "You are precious to God. You are valued." It's something we need to remember as a church. We're in a year we're celebrating our 150th anniversary, and there are families who have been here for generations. And I know there's a certain sense of wonder and goodness in that, but you may not even know how other people feel, "Am I really worthy? Can I really get in the boat here? Are you really going to welcome me? Is it going to be okay?"



 And what we are going to do in a communion service is say to one another, "There is a place at the table for everybody, and everybody who claims the name of Jesus has an equal right. Everybody's got a seat at the table who has named the name of Jesus as your own. Who's not liking this conversation?"



 Yeah, the long-termers.



 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.



 If God's just going to let anybody in off the streets to be part of our clubhouse,



 how can that be right? Now, listen, if that's really your hard-hearted response, you are not going to like Paul's answer.



 His answer is verse 17.



 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, how popular was Pharaoh among the Jews?



 No, not popular. For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth, so then he has mercy on whomever he wills and hardens whomever he wills.



 Why did God harden the heart of the evil Pharaoh so that Moses had to keep performing miracles and signs and wonders until finally Pharaoh relented? What was the purpose of all that? He was ultimately so the people of God would say, "Salvation is of the Lord."



 I mean, it wasn't just because of Moses' great words. It wasn't because we were a great powerful people. Ultimately, what broke Pharaoh's hard heart was God's great work and God alone. Nobody gets the credit but God.



 And now, and now Paul is saying to those who don't want more people at the table, you know what you're kind of like Pharaoh whose hard heart did not want people to know the rescue of God?



 Well, as you might guess, people did not exactly like that comparison.



 And so you have to kind of read their next response with your lower lift out and pouting a little bit.



 Well, if God chooses, why does He judge?



 Well, that's exactly the question. Verse 19, "You will say to me then, why does He still find fault?



 For who can resist His will?"



 Now if you didn't like the answer about Pharaoh, you're really not going to like this answer.



 How can God find fault if He's the one who chooses?



 Verse 20, "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?



 Well, what is mold is say to the molder, why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" What is God desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power has endured with what is patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy which He has prepared beforehand for glory.



 Okay, whether you're a baker or a potter or a dozer maker, sometimes you make a test batch.



 You make a test batch because you know you are going to ultimately display all your knowledge and glory and intention in the final product.



 And Paul doesn't directly answer the question. We're always troubled by that. You know, he says, "Well, how can the one who chooses be the one who judges?" And Paul, he doesn't answer the question. Well, the clay can't answer back to the potter. And what if? I mean, just a possibility. If what God was doing is He was preparing the early batch so that His mercy would be displayed for the later batch that needs to know God's choosing and God's working is through people who don't deserve it at all.



 It ultimately is saying that God's purpose and the reason Paul is talking to these people is that His glory would spread, not that His glory would be limited, that God would be working in such a way that ultimately people would see and understand how good and glorious were His purposes. Now, do we struggle with this?



 Of course we do because we take the passage out of its mission purpose to get more people at the table and we start doing the logical connections of, "Isn't this exclusive? Isn't this choosing thing? Isn't this electing thing kind of arbitrary and cruel?"



 If you take the passage out of its purpose, then your question is, "Obviously, isn't all this election stuff going to make God cruel?"



 Paul was going in an entirely different direction. He said, "The reason I'm telling you about choosing is so that you'll let more people come, that you recognize they have as much right as you do, that this is so you'll know how broad and intentional was God's mercy." It's supposed to work in us that way, that when I have a conversation with a friend at work or a friend at school or a family member and I'm wondering, I wonder if I have a right to talk, I wonder if anything's happening here that you actually begin to believe that God is from time immemorial working in that person, working in your situation, working through the events so that this is a divine appointment. This isn't random. This isn't something that, "It's just you and it's just you alone is going to make this happen." God is at work. He's opening the opportunities. He's spreading his mercy. He's wanting his glory to be known. This is a divine appointment so that we will speak. Why should I speak? Because if all I do is talk about choosing, not only is God cruel, but people are robots.



 You know, there's quite, you know, they're just going to do whatever God chooses.



 No, that can't be the fact either. How do I know that? Because Paul is speaking persuasively. He's trying to get people to change their hearts and their attitudes and their openness to new people. If he was just saying, "Well, God, just, you know, pull that little lever and make them change," you know, they're just puppets on a string. It wouldn't make sense. It's this profound understanding that, yes, God's sovereignty is at work, and yet human agency is involved in ways that we don't quite understand. I mean, there's mystery here, and we have to understand that there is mystery here.



 Paul says, "What if God was doing this?" He doesn't actually declare what God is doing because he knows it's a struggle. He asks the hard questions. He's not just saying, "I'm not going to face them." He asks the very questions we're asking, but he's doing it to have us open our hearts.



 I know some of you have been in this church a long time, used to tell me that Dr. Dunn would say this. He'd say, you know, God's election and human free will are like two parallel tracks of a train.



 And when they meet the horizon, all of you think they meet heaven, they meet together in heaven. But until then, human knowledge isn't going to quite put it all together.



 There's a mystery in how human election and God's sovereign will are working to preserve God's justice. He has to be just. We know that. I mean, if we say, you know, God isn't sovereign, I mean, He doesn't control things, then you don't want to live in that creation.



 But if I say He controls people and then judges them for the very things they do, then you don't want to worship that Creator.



 And so we say there's a mystery here.



 Do you mind my saying to you, this is not the only mystery in the Bible?



 Wait, one God in three.



 Jesus was human and divine.



 For our sanctification, we are in Christ and He's in us. Explain that, would you? No, we're getting to the end of human understanding, but not the end of Paul's purpose. What did he say all this for? So that we would say, if God chose them and He chose me, then they've got as much right as I do to Jesus.



 That's the point. So that the mercy is received and accepted and spread and we make a seat for other people at the table. I don't think I've told you before, but before we came to this church, there were different churches that were courting Kathy and me. And one was a church in a major city and we were interested enough that we actually went and investigated a bit and we got there early for a church service and we sat in one of the jury boxes, like people in the jury boxes all sit so they can observe the rest of us.



 You notice that? Yeah? And that's what we did. We sat in a jury box so that we could, and we got there early so there weren't many people there yet. We went to see what was going on.



 And we sat there for a few minutes and a couple came up, stood on our shoulders and said to us, "Those are our seats."



 Now you just have to picture this. There are hundreds of seats available. There may be more than a thousand seats available. And they're saying, "Those are our seats."



 We didn't go to that church.



 Let me talk about another church. Few months ago it began an ESL program and on the very first day of opening that program I watched pastors and workers in tears as people of different colors and dress and languages came through our doors to be taught language so they would open a door to Jesus.



 And I watched you all applaud as we had the first children of those families begin to claim Jesus as their Lord. And I watched last week as all of you all lost your seats because of all the campus outreach people who are here. And as they began to talk about coming to faith in Jesus Christ, you stood up and you applauded that God was opening his arms to more people. And somehow I think that's what the Apostle Paul is after.



 He's saying, "As God has been good to you, make a seat for more people because just as God claimed you, he's claiming them."



 What a wide mercy that calls our hearts to name the name of Jesus, not because we're good enough, not because of our background, but because Jesus invited us to the table.



 Father, help us to be the church that invites more people to the table, that delights that newcomers, new people of shattered backgrounds, different colors, different pasts, different faith backgrounds, but are here because you've been working by your spirit and their hearts. Have as much right and privilege to the table as every single one of us.



 Father, teach us of the faith that you credited for righteousness. Not a single person here will say, "Jesus should love me because I'm good enough," or, "I was baptized in that place," or, "I have this family back." We would all just say, "God, you have to be merciful to me, a sinner.



 And thank you that you are, because I put my faith in Jesus and he makes me right with you."



 We praise you, we love you in Jesus' name. Amen.