Romans 9:19-29; The Potter and the Clay

If you have a copy of the Bible, please turn with me this morning, Romans chapter 9.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

You'll see there in the seat back in front of you, you should find a Black Pew Bible.

On the Pew Bible, you can find the passage on page 961.

I would encourage you to keep your Bible open.

We're in the middle of a chapter, and so the context is important.

We are studying the book of Romans.

We're continuing our study, I should say.

We took a break during the summer to look at various Psalms.

Now we're back in Romans, and we're in a very tough section of Romans, a very heavy section of Romans.

Romans 9, 10, and 11 are very difficult passages.

We're in the middle of Romans 9.

And last week in verses 1 through 18, the Apostle Paul has told us that none, none of it, not our standing bloodline effort is actually what saves us.

Only the mercy of God is what saves us.

And so let's look now in this passage and see where Paul takes us next.

This is the word of God, Romans 9, 19 through 29, this morning.

For who can resist his will?

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

Will what is molded say to its 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 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 he says in Hosea, those who were not my people, I will call my people, and her who was not beloved, I will call beloved.

And in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.

For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.

And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.

This is the word of God.

Let's pray.

Let's ask for the presence of the Holy Spirit to come and be at work in this place this morning.

Please bow with me.

Father, I ask just that.

Come, Holy Spirit, come.

I pray that you'd bring conviction.

I'm praying that you would give us a hunger for your word.

I've been praying this.

I pray that we would be on the edge of our seats, ready to receive.

We're your servants and we are listening.

And we want to encounter you this morning through your spirit and through this word, this difficult word that you have for us this morning.

Would you show us Jesus?

And would we place ourselves under this word?

Give us humility to receive what it is that you are saying.

And I pray that it would lead us to worship.

Do that in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, remember the context here.

Again, we're in the middle of Romans 9.

So the apostle Paul has been talking about predestination and election.

And he ends in verse 18 with this very difficult verse.

God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

And so that leads automatically to a question or an objection.

And the apostle Paul, true to form, he doesn't back down from the objection.

He gets nose to nose with us this morning.

Eyeball to eyeball.

And he doesn't soften it.

But true to form, the apostle Paul hits the objection head on.

And his answer, just I'll warn you on the front end, it is going to be hard for us to hear.

But if we hang in there, there is really good news for us in this passage this morning.

Three things.

The potter's right, number one, the potter's purpose, number two, the potter's plan, number three, the potter's right, purpose, and plan.

That's where we're headed.

Let's look at our first heading, the potter's right.

Look at verse 19.

Again, a natural objection to God's absolute sovereignty over our salvation is, well, if it's all up to God's will, and he's going to have mercy on whom he's going to have mercy and harden whom he's going to harden, how is that fair?

Or better yet, how can God still find anyone at fault?

How can God blame anyone if that is the case for not believing?

And notice here what kind of question this actually is.

It's not a help me to understand, Lord.

No, this is a case being built.

It is an accusation dressed up as a question.

And you see it in the way Paul responds in verses 20 and 21.

His strong answer makes this very clear.

He is not giving a defense.

He asks a very, very strong question back.

And he says, Who do you think you are?

Who do you think you are, oh man?

To talk back to God.

And he goes straight to this image underneath the entire passage, and it's this image of the potter and the clay.

And he says, the molded thing doesn't get to question the molder.

The potter has the right to shape what he shapes.

And notice here, Paul, what he does not do here, he doesn't explain why.

Again, remember the context.

He doesn't go into why he hardens Pharaoh and shows mercy to Moses or why he hardens some hearts and shows mercy to others.

He doesn't go there, he doesn't walk you through his reasoning.

Instead, he tells you that you're not owed a reasoning because you're clay.

And the clay doesn't get a seat at the table when the potter is explaining himself.

And it's not because the potter is cruel, but it's because the potter is the potter.

Let me say it another way.

It's because God is creator and we are the creature.

Every parent that has young children knows this moment.

Why is bedtime at this time and not that time?

Why can't I have dessert before dinner?

Why do I have to go to school today?

Those are fair questions, and good parents, they try to answer them, but there's a version of that conversation that always crosses a line where it actually stops being a fair question and starts to become a demand.

If you can't explain this to me in a way that I accept, then I'm not going to do it.

Or then you're wrong to make me do it.

In every parent, you recognize that shift, that posture.

And listen, the kid's not wrong to want to understand.

Where it becomes wrong is when they think they have to understand before their parents' authority actually counts.

Because you see, the parents, they have the years, they have the maturity and the judgment, and they have the whole picture, and love doesn't require them to hand him the reins, the child the reins, just because he's unsatisfied with the answer.

You see, that's the posture here.

Verse 20, that phrase there, word answer back, it's not the ordinary word like asking a question.

The word there is actually, it's better translated talking back, contradicting, arguing with.

And the one who's objecting here has already heard the answer earlier in Romans chapter nine.

They're not confused.

The objector here is just refusing to accept it until God actually explains himself on their terms.

Does this sound familiar?

We're Americans.

We're raised with the idea that we get a vote.

With every system that we trust, we trust it because we have a say in it.

And we bring that same instinct to God.

And we say again, we might not say this out loud, but we say, God, you gotta win my vote.

And if you win my vote, then I will submit to you.

That's not being strong-willed necessarily.

That's the air we breathe.

That's the world in which we live.

That's what our culture has trained us to be.

And the apostle Paul says, not here, not with God.

That God doesn't run his plans by you for approval.

God doesn't need our vote.

And it shows up not only in those places, but also not just his authority and how we handle it, but also shows up in how we handle God's character too.

We don't just insist that he explain himself.

Oftentimes, even again, without realizing it's so subtle.

We start to edit God.

You ever do this?

Well, I don't believe in a God who would do that.

That's not my God.

I don't believe in a God who would show mercy to some and not others.

That doesn't sound like the God that I know.

You hear it?

We keep these parts of God that we like, and we rewrite the parts that we don't like and create God in our image, and we call that edited product and finished product God.

You see what we're actually doing there?

What are we doing?

Well, we're putting ourselves back in the potter's seat again.

And we are setting the terms.

And so here's the question this morning application.

Think of one area in your life where you are stubborn, are being stubborn and insisting on writing your own terms.

Where have you demanded that God explain himself before you will trust him and trust his character?

Whatever that is, name it specifically, because that is the place where this text is actually aimed.

And please understand, this doesn't mean, this is not saying that we shouldn't bring our questions to God and come to God with our honest questions.

No, Job asked plenty of honest questions.

We just got out of the Psalms.

The psalmists, they ask plenty of honest questions.

We should be asking them too.

You see, the difference is not the questions, it's the posture.

Child bringing real pain to their father is not the same as a child standing over the father, demanding that he explain himself and answer before they obey.

And Paul says here that you don't have the standing for the second one.

We do not have the standing to stand over God demanding that he answer in a way that satisfies us because we're clay.

Secondly, the potter's purpose.

Look at verses 22 and 23.

This is, to me, these were really difficult verses to really make clear, and so I'm going to do my best to make them clear this morning by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit.

And to help make them clear, I want you to notice two things that I think are important for us to understand these verses.

First of all, notice how Paul frames the question in both of these verses.

What if?

So they're not flat out assertions.

He's not lecturing us again into submission.

He's just asking a question, asking that we consider a purpose that maybe we have not thought about yet.

The other thing, though, look at the verbs on each side.

The vessels of mercy.

God himself prepared beforehand for glory.

What do you notice about the vessels of wrath?

Do you see an agent there?

No agent, just simply prepared for destruction.

And I think that's really important and significant.

God isn't the one doing the preparing there.

People prepare themselves for the judgment that they for the for the judgment of God when they refuse Him over and over and over again.

And if you heard this vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and you felt your stomach drop this morning, and maybe you had the thought as, well, how do I know that I'm not that?

Maybe you're wondering and you're asking that question.

If you're asking that question, that's a really good sign because vessels of wrath do not ask that question.

Pharaoh didn't ask that question.

He hardened his own heart before God, long before God ever confirmed it.

God here, or Paul here is getting at a different question.

And the question he's getting at is, what is God's patience with these vessels of wrath actually for?

Let me say two things about this.

Paul gives us a clue back in Romans chapter 2, verse 4, when he says, Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and patience?

Romans 2:4

There's that word again, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead, and in patience is meant to what?

Lead you to repentance.

It's the same word, and I think that's really important.

God's patience is not neutral.

God's patience is never wasted.

It's opportunity.

It's real opportunity for people who do not know Jesus to come and turn to Jesus through repentance and faith.

But notice again, verse 22, what it says about this patience.

It says that it was also given to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy.

So the purpose of God's patience is also not only given opportunity, but it is to put on display the glory and the mercy of God.

And notice these vessels are what they're prepared for: glory, not just saved and spared from wrath, prepared in advance for glory.

And I love that.

Glory wasn't a bonus added on after you were rescued.

It's actually the destination of your life.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, it's been the destination the entire time.

Think about that just for a second.

Let that sit with you.

Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Again, you could say Romans 1 through 3, but Ephesians chapter 2 says that we were by nature children of wrath, just like everyone else.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

That's the way we came into the world.

And God doesn't just forgive and quietly move on.

He prepares you for glory.

Which means that your life now is supposed to show something if you know Jesus.

Not because you're impressive, but because you've been shown mercy.

Because you've been rescued.

Mercy that actually changes a person doesn't stay private.

It actually becomes visible.

It actually becomes proof to the world that you received mercy.

Think about traveling out west.

Perhaps some of you did that.

I know some of you did that this summer.

And maybe you went to the Grand Canyon.

Nobody looks at a photo of the Grand Canyon and compliments the camera.

The photo is stunning, and people look at that and they're like, wow, would you look at that?

Nobody says, Wow, great camera.

That's a camera actually doing its job.

And that's what it means to be prepared beforehand for glory.

God did not design us to be the point.

He designed you in advance to capture something so much bigger than yourself and to actually get out of the way long enough so that people can see it clearly.

Every time mercy actually changes something in you, every time there's patience in your life where there used to be rage and anger.

Every time there's sobriety where there used to be addiction.

Every time there's honesty where there used to be lying and hiding, that's not you becoming more impressive.

That's the camera doing exactly what it was built to do.

People are supposed to look at your life, and they're supposed to see God, they're supposed to see mercy and patience and power to actually change someone.

He's the point.

It is look at what God has done, not look at us and what we have done.

And here's what that means for us this morning.

We should be telling our stories.

We should be telling our stories of grace.

We should have vulnerability to sit across from someone and to get in our grace groups and tell our stories in a redemptive, God-centered way, in a way that makes God the point.

And there's a way to tell our story that makes us the point.

But to tell our story in a way that draws attention to his mercy and to look at someone and to say, everything that is right about me, God did.

Some have called the church the art gallery where God displays reflections of his glory.

That is this room.

We are trophies of God's mercy and grace.

We are not a gallery of impressive, perfect people.

We are a picture and a group of rescued people.

And let us never forget that.

When the world looks at our church, they're not supposed to say, like, man, those people are awesome.

Look at how put together those people are.

When the world looks at faith church, any church, they should look at that church and say, Mercy.

Dead people alive.

Only God can do something like that.

Praise and thanks be to him.

Lastly, the potter's plan.

Look at verse 24.

Shows us exactly who this mercy's for.

Even us, so know how personal Paul gets here.

Even us who have been called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles.

That's most of us.

We're the Gentiles that Paul is talking about.

We are the outsiders that God has let in.

I think that's really significant as well for our posture.

The posture of the church is always one of humility, it's always one of welcome because none of us deserve to be here.

We are outsiders that God, in his plan from the beginning of time, has let in.

And that's what this whole passage has been pointing to.

And Paul doesn't argue it, notice.

Look at verses 25 and 26.

He quotes Hosea 700 years earlier.

In that book of Hosea, he's not asked to just preach about God's mercy.

He's actually asked, if you know the book, to live it, Hosea marries Gomer, who betrays him over and over.

She ends up on the auction block, sold as a slave, and God says, I want you to go buy her back.

That's the marriage.

That marriage was the picture of Israel, insiders who had betrayed God, who had God and threw it away.

And the logic here, and the commentators point this out, the logic is if God went to that extreme to buy back a people that have broken his covenant who were already in, how much further is he going to go to rescue a people who were never in the covenant to begin with?

That's the Gentiles, that's us.

Look at verses 27 and 29.

He said Isaiah says the same thing from a different direction.

The remnant, the Israel, Israel, if without the remnant, would have been wiped completely out.

Remember the context.

The accusation underneath the question.

It's if if this was all up to God's will, how is this fair?

And Paul never answers that question on our terms, but what he does do is he says that same will that has to write to harden and show mercy is the same will that planned centuries in advance to bring a people into relationship with them who had no claim to him whatsoever.

We don't get an explanation.

We don't get all our questions, answers that we demand.

We get something better.

And that's what I want us to see.

We get mercy for us.

Mercy that was planned long before you and I even existed.

Long before we even asked for it.

And it didn't arrive by accident.

Again, we could go further than the prophets.

We could go back to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Remember Genesis 3?

The world was blown to bits through the fall of man, the fall of humankind.

And then right in the context of that, you know what God does?

He makes a promise, he makes a gospel promise, and he says, someone is coming.

Genesis 3, someone is coming.

And they're going to crush the serpent's head, and they're going to start to undo everything that is broken in the world.

And Galatians says, at just the right time, God sent his son born of a woman.

He sent Jesus.

And Paul says in Ephesians that Jesus himself is our peace who came and broke down the dividing wall of hostility.

And please know it's not just a metaphor.

It was not just a metaphor for the first century Gentile believers.

There was an actual wall in the temple.

And there was a warning sign to the Gentiles that said, if you cross this line, you get the death penalty.

Insiders on one side, outsiders on the other, under the threat for even getting close.

And Jesus comes into the world and he goes to a cross, not to lower the wall, but to completely destroy it and tear it down.

That's where not my people, you see, finally gets answered.

On the cross, Jesus took Hosea's worst line and he made it his own.

So that not my people could be spoken over him instead of you.

So that you and me would always get my beloved children, whom I love and whom I am well pleased.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Is Jesus standing on the wrong side of the wall in our place so that the wall would come down for good?

Are you here this morning?

And not my people is still true of you.

If that is true of you this morning, Jesus is saying, Come, come to me and receive mercy.

Come to me and let me save you, not because you've earned deceit, but because the table was set for outsiders from the very beginning.

And so if that's you, will you come and receive Jesus this morning?

Or maybe you're here and you still are wanting God to explain himself.

You're wanting good reasons and then better explanation before you will trust him.

Remember what Paul says in this passage.

We don't get to put God in the dock.

We don't get to put God on trial because we are the clay and he is the potter.

But here's what we do get.

We get a really big God with a really big heart.

We don't have to understand everything he does.

We don't have to understand all of his ways.

We don't have to get all of our question questions answered and know why he does what he does.

We don't have to understand those things.

We can still trust his heart in the midst of those things.

And we see God's heart on full display in this passage, and we see it on full display in the person of Jesus Christ.

This, friends, is a God who came to get you, who had a plan from the beginning to rescue you.

God who calls you his beloved, a God who tears down the wall and lets his son be forsaken, so that not my people would never be your name again, only beloved.

See, we'll never get the explanations completely to satisfy us, but we do get a God who bled and died for us.

And friends, that's enough.

This God is a God that you can trust.

And this God is way better than you think.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your mercy.

Thank you that you had us in mind way back at the beginning.

The rescue plan was not something you had to pivot on.

Lord, thank you for coming to get us.

Forgive us for demanding explanations instead of trusting your character.

And Holy Spirit, I pray that we give us the grace to trust your character.

If there's someone here that doesn't know you, I pray that you would give them eyes to see and ears to hear, that you would call them to yourself this morning.

We ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.