Sermon - Pastor Tim Johnson | Romans 9:19–29

Welcome to the Avenue Community Church's podcast. We are a family of Christ

followers seeking shalom in Memphis.

We pray that you are encouraged by today's message. As you listen,

may the word of God shape you to be more like him.

We are back in Romans and we are past the coffee cup scripture.

So this is like this is like the other side of the roller coaster.

You know what I'm saying? It was, you know, so cool going up and now you're

on the other side. And, you know, I ain't never seen Romans 9, 19 on any coffee cup.

You know, maybe it should get there because it's still good. Amen.

But in all seriousness and not just being trite, you know, we had this tremendous

crescendo, I think Keller would say, in Romans 8.

Man, it was so good and so sweet. And you ended with this big confidence,

like what can separate us from the love of God?

Nothing, right? You know, you get this, oh, that was a little weak.

What can separate us from the love of God?

Yeah, okay, okay, okay. And then you just get like this big nail pin in the balloon.

It kind of just seems like, it seems like it lets all of the air out.

Because Paul starts by grieving over the fact that his Jewish brothers and sisters,

by and large, most of them had forfeited the gospel blessings.

And so he begins to start defending himself because if the Jews are God's chosen

people and some of them disqualified themselves or they forfeited these blessings,

then I'm confused, Paul.

How is it that God chooses his people? I don't understand how he does his things.

I don't understand his decrees. I don't understand how he's working this thing.

Begin to ask questions of God's equity, his justice, right? This doesn't seem right.

It's all Paul begins to give his defense in those early verses that we talked about last week.

That first of all, he's like, yo, we got to reframe this thing.

God's purposes, his decrees are not influenced. Everybody say not influenced.

See Ishmael, right? God said, I'm going to use you, Abraham,

and you're going to have a child of promise, right?

And so Abraham started to fabricate and manufacture it his own way.

He's like, no, Jack, my purposes aren't influenced. I'm not hamstrung by how you do things.

If I promise to do something, I'm going to do it.

And so my purposes are uninfluenced. I didn't choose Ishmael, I chose Isaac.

He says, God's purposes supersede all events in human history.

Everything serves his purposes. He's uninfluenced. I don't wait till Jacob and Esau grow older.

I don't wait till they get some toys in the play house and they start one-on-line.

I don't wait on that. I choose before they even have an opportunity to influence

my decision by their lack of virtue or virtue.

My purposes supersede all things, and my purposes are just.

See, Pharaoh, I am just the standard setter and bearer for justice. I create the rules.

Everything I choose to do is right.

And what I do with that is that I allow people's hearts to get hardened.

I allow them not to choose me, and therefore I'm always vindicated because nobody

becomes an object of wrath because they didn't also choose to be that object of wrath.

We saw that interplay as you go back and you read through the Exodus narrative

that sometimes God hardens Pharaoh's heart.

And sometimes the scripture said Pharaoh's heart was hardened.

And you see, what you see is this compatibilism that good reform people and

biblical people always acknowledge.

Yes, we believe that God cannot learn anything. He can't be shocked.

We believe that at the end of time, he's not gonna be like, wow,

you made it? That won't happen. You know what I'm saying?

But we also hold in tension the fact that we have agency and volition and that

if we end up being, spending eternity separated from God, he did that somehow

without violating our will and our conscience.

Now, we might not be able to explain it all. We might not be able to square

it all, but we just know it's in the Bible and it's true.

When God says he's patient, it's not a faux patience, right?

Because like, yo, if God already knows what we're going to choose, why is he patient?

Because there really is something that he's trying to allow us the ability to work out.

He really is being patient with us, right?

And so maybe Romans 9 has opened up a whole bunch of can of worms for you.

And you're like, I got more questions than I got answers.

I just want you to hear me as your pastor saying, amen.

I got a bunch of them. I also...

Offer some humility. And just because we don't understand things,

it doesn't mean that they're not true.

And it doesn't mean that God somehow

needs to be controlled or somehow capitulate to what you got going on.

He's holding both those things tenderly, allowing you to wrestle with certain things.

I don't think some of y'all have had enough questions about what I preached about last week.

I don't. I think you are just, some of you in a little spiritual little haze

of just like, we just come here and worship God.

I unloaded some pretty heavy stuff.

And I think it should have jogged you a little bit like, huh.

And some of you all, I think you're in the other ditch of, yeah,

if I could just put every piece, baby, this is not one of them target puzzles

with a thousand and pieces that you're going to be able to say,

I think you're going to have to accept the fact that at some point,

especially when you get to heavy doctrine, you just can't square at all.

And God has a right to still be mysterious. He's got that right.

Which kind of just leads us to where we're going to land today.

Once again, Paul's anticipating that this is a quagmire for people.

And they're like, man, I don't know what to do with this.

So tell me, how is it that God chooses his people? Because I'm still confused, Paul.

And how is it that God is just and can rationally hold people accountable for

the fact that he hardens their heart?

If God's will, his decrees are unchangeable, how are we held responsible?

And so before we get into 19, or I mean, verse 20, because that's the question.

Verse 19, one of you will say to me, then why does God still blame us for who

is able to resist his will?

Let's go back to Romans 1. You remember Romans 1, right?

After we get this Romans 16, 17, this glorious, we're not ashamed of the gospels,

the power of God unto salvation, right?

We get this really high thesis statement of the gospel.

And then we get that latter part where we start talking about, yeah,

you know what, how everybody somehow through the created order in their conscience,

they look at the sun, they look at the moon, they look at the stars and they

know they can sense there is something out there bigger than me.

And God says at the end of Romans 1, so they will be without excuse,

just general revelation, just the way that God has ordained things by the fact

that but you go to sleep and you wake up and you don't know what happens for

them six to eight hours. You just know you woke back up.

Something in that screams that there is something transcendent.

And you won't be without excuse, friend.

So when you start talking about this hardening of hearts, I want you to go back

to Romans 1 and just remember that the first step is that the world fell into sin.

And from that state, we are all operating usually in a truth suppression mode.

We can sense things that we are trying to disregard or not to acknowledge.

So that's where we're beginning.

Pharaoh isn't beginning child of God and walks away. He's beginning like all of us begin.

We sense something we don't want to submit to. And so therefore,

when you think about the hardening concept,

I want you to start from and realize you are starting in a place where you're

already turned away from God and you are already,

you have the propensity and the proclivity to choose things that are not God honoring.

And so when God hardens you, he just lets you have what you want to have.

I don't want you to think necessarily about God reaching into you and giving

you dishonorable desires.

God's not doing that. Go read Judges. Go read Genesis 6.

God doesn't have to do that. When God hardens you, he just lets you continuously

keep having what you want, which is not him.

But when God, by his foreknowledge, elects you, when he chooses you,

some miracle happens by which God then does come in and heals your mind and

your will, sobers you to the point where you can realize, oh,

I'm going the wrong way. And you can turn.

So keep that in the backdrop. Let's read verse 20. But who are you? Everybody say who?

Yeah, that's good. That's good. That's good. 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?

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?

Yikes. You know, this is pretty much like, you know, you're kind of talking

with your mama. I don't want to. Mom, do I have to?

But that's not fair. And then your mama say, this conversation is over.

This is pretty much where we have landed. What we're about to get into is the

doctrine of creation, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of humanity,

which are so pivotal to your understanding of salvation.

Which just means for us that we got to get our Bible bigger.

That the Bible narrative is bigger than sinners needing salvation.

It's so much bigger than that. And who created us and where our final destiny

are the beginning chapters and the ending end chapters that really shape how

we understand what God is doing in his redemptive work.

And I think it first starts with this. let's just

do some quick doctrine of God stuff you know there's a time like I was really

kind of getting sad like Gina's memories are better than me I'm getting ready

to have a child who's getting ready to graduate high school but one point in

time that child was as small as Kezia,

as small as these other little ones in here crawling in between people's light

baby truth That big joker who forgets his deodorant and has whiskers growing out. I had to do it.

Stephen A's hit. Oh, it's the other one.

But, you know, as you can imagine, I got a bunch of parents in the room.

But, you know, we have these really special moments. And these babies,

they're so innocent and they're so sweet.

And my big boy, man, we used to sit places and he'd be crawling through my neck.

And he'd be wrestling me. And sometimes we just had moments and we'd be sitting out.

We'd throw rocks and skip rocks. And I could just imagine us sitting down.

It's kind of like the Mufasa moment where he's, you know, Mufasa got Simba.

And they're explaining how the world works.

And I can remember that little fella just sitting there with me,

hand on my neck, and he's looking at the fish.

He's like, Dad, how can the fish be in the water like that?

How is it that they could just swim? Like, we can't swim. We can't do that.

And then all of a sudden, Dad would have to just say, oh, son,

Noah, they're a different kind of thing than we are.

I think I had a moment literally this week in preparation where I feel like

for us to really understand Romans 9 and for us to wrap ourselves around God's

saving purposes and how he's doing it is I think we first have to realize you

and God are two different kind of things, man.

God is not an upgraded human.

He's not a better version of you, friend. He's an altogether different thing.

And unless you start there, His work and salvation will always confuse you.

You will misunderstand his justice and his kindness. His ways will baffle you

because you are still comparing apples to apples and you are not.

When he's holy, he's not the best of us. He's different than us.

God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being,

wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

He's limitless. He's outside of time, y'all.

He's unalterable. He's all-knowing. He's all-powerful. He is literally morally excellent.

And I think one of the things we have to wrap our mind around is,

listen, the difference between being made in his image and Colossians 1.15,

when they speak about Jesus, he is the image of God.

Brother, you got to understand what it means to be like something and not something.

You have things in common with God. We call them communicable attributes,

things that he does and he has that we demonstrate.

Kindness, gentleness, right? All these things.

There are some things we can share in common, but there's a whole boatload of things that we can't.

So let's talk about human beings. He says, but you are a human being.

You talk back to God, a completely different being.

This is funny. As I was swimming in Romans 9, George preached the Haggai scripture out of chapter 1.

And inevitably they got to that moment where somebody's having the back and

forth with God and George was like, yo, you talking to God like that?

And then Matt got up and preached that burning bush scenario,

Exodus 3 and 4 and Moses going back and forth with God and he's got all these

excuses, but God, what are they going to do? And God, I can't talk.

And then God eventually is like, but brother, who made your mouth?

I just saying, don't tell me what the mouth can do. I formed it.

All trillion versions of them.

Human beings are something altogether different. And I want you to listen to

this definition of sin. I want to reframe some things for you.

Yes, sin is missing the mark.

Yes, sin is a personal affront against God. But John Webster offers this. Listen to this.

Sin is most fundamentally rebellion against our createdness.

Sin is the absurd affair in which the

creature seeks to be creature in a

way other than which it is purposed by God let

me just read that one slow sin is the absurd affair in which the creature seeks

to be a creature in a way other than which it was purposed by God the creator

you want to know and friends and family, we love you.

Maybe if we hadn't come to known Jesus, we would do the same things you do.

But you want to know why our theology on sexuality and gender and racism and

all those things, it all comes out of the fact that we've been created and we don't have the right.

We actually don't have the right to say what we do with these things that we were given.

These bodies, this is not personal, have nothing to do with you.

Everything to do with the fact that when we were born again,

our eyes got open to the fact, oh, we ain't our own?

Oh, we didn't get created 42 years ago because Joe and Linda was,

oh, we better live for him? Okay, I got you.

Just reframes the whole thing, friends.

And here's the other thing you need to know about your humanity.

By God's grace and by his spirit, you can be rewired to live above your fallenness,

but you'll never be able to escape your humanity.

Never be able to fly. You'll never be all-knowing.

By God's grace, anybody touching agree, you could defeat porn. By God's grace.

By God's grace and his spirit, I can learn to live victorious.

I can learn how to bridle my tongue.

I can learn how to be more patient. I can learn how to be more kind.

I could release bitterness and unforgiveness. Those things, my friend,

oh yeah, we can do something with that.

But you're going to get tired. You will be hungry.

You will get frustrated. You will get anxious because you're a human being, friend.

And maybe the most important thing we have to keep in front of us is we don't

know what we should be doing.

You can graduate summa cum laude.

And you do have agency. Like, you do have the ability to make decisions.

This is not, God has made us this way where we're not, hey, man, I can tie my shoes.

God, do I need to tie my shoes? I don't have to do that.

Be the overall master of your ship, you are not qualified.

You are not qualified at any point in time. You were made to need his guidance.

But can we just be honest? That is the chief sin is we don't want that.

I don't want to need that. And it frustrates us.

And I think the people Paul is speaking to is just frustrating them.

But the reality is when you want to start talking about how we understand our

relationship to God, he offers the great metaphor and analogy.

It's more like the potter and clay.

And this motif comes up several times in scripture.

Jeremiah 18, I believe is what's being quoted here, but it comes up in Isaiah

29, 45, other places, which is like, yo, at some point, you have to realize

I'm the potter, you're the clay.

Now, the potter reserves the right to remain, to retain creative control.

I made you and I get the right to shape these destinies.

Now, famously, Job 38, Job decides to pipe up, Job 38 through 42.

And God says, okay, son, You sit down. Let me answer you. You got time?

Because I got time today.

Sit on down, brother. Where were you?

Maybe as just some good devotional material this week, you should read Job 38 through 42.

Yo, when I marked out the foundations of the galaxy, where were you, friend?

You know where Job ends up getting to? You know, I've seen this play out several times in my house.

My grandmom oh you got well let me

just tell you and then you know by the time they get started you just like you're

in a pool of tears you shame you said I didn't know you was doing all that just

you please stop and Job's please stop moment was in 42 he said listen surely

I spoke things I did not understand things too wonderful for me to know.

How God works his sovereignty, chooses his people, demonstrates his mercy without violating your will.

At some point, this is where you're going to end up, friend.

Maybe it's just a little too wonderful for me to know.

I came across a quote by a theologian.

And she says that we can only learn by submitting to something bigger than we are.

The faith I was building out of my prejudices and preconceptions could never be bigger than I was.

I was constructing a safe, tidy, unsurprising God who could never transform

me, but would only confirm my residence in that familiar bog I called home.

And she said, I had to have more than that.

I wonder if some of us have to come to grips as we read Romans 9,

that some of the frustrations and the tensions we have is that we got a little Exodus 32 going on.

We're trying to make a God and a faith that fits our minds instead of just allowing

him to do his thing and saying, all right, you still have the right to confound me.

You still have the right to be mysterious.

Maintains creative control because he made everything. And I think what we see

in the rest of this passage is just how important the Jewish narrative in biblical

history is important to our present understanding of salvation.

God doesn't change, right? That's God's immutable. He doesn't change.

And this is really cool. Every time you get to passages like this,

where Paul is explaining and unpacking a present salvific reality by using Old Testament Israel,

this is just an arrow in the quiver of those who do some apologetics just to

say, God ain't never changed.

He'd been working the same way.

When God starts talking about, yo, I had already chose Isaac over Ishmael.

I had already chose Jacob over Esau.

And I had heart of Pharaoh's heart. What is he saying?

He's saying, I didn't switch it up in 2023.

I've been doing the same things and I could explain it to you by using Old Testament references.

That's crazy to me. And so he goes on, 22, what if God, although choosing to

show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects

of wrath prepared for destruction?

What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of

his mercy. So you got two different objects. You got objects of wrath, objects of mercy.

He says, yo, I was patient with the objects of wrath and I did so,

so that that would be encouraging to the objects who would receive mercy.

23, what if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects

of mercy who he prepared in advance for glory?

24 says, even us, say, even us. Turn to your neighbor, say, even us.

Whom he also called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles.

And this is so sweet, so incredibly sweet.

Pertains to salvation, the way we need to see God primarily as the dispenser of mercy.

Mercy, Elias in the Greek, refers to this compassionate treatment of people

who should be receiving something else.

This compassionate treatment of people who are in distress, especially when

it's within one's power to punish or harm them.

God says, it's in my power.

It's within my right to punish and harm you because all of you,

Romans 3, 23, all of you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So all of you deserve the death.

So it's within my right to extend mercy to whomever I want.

Let's quickly just talk about a couple of things we learn about mercy.

Number one, God's mercy is the way that the vehicle God used to build his multi-ethnic family.

This is why xenophobia and

racism and all those other things are so

abhorrent in the body of faith is because

it's baked in the very foundation of

God's saving mission is that I'm going to show you how awesome my salvation

is by not just giving it to the people who thought they would get it by extending

it to everybody and and if you ever thought beautifully about revelation 7 and

nine and all those things,

then you've got to praise God for his mercy because that's the vehicle he used.

Oh, I'm going to get one from over there and over here and over here and over here.

And you have to become incredibly suspicious of yourself to understand that

sometimes the person who was walking this way, it rears up and you have a part of you,

every last one of you, You have

a part of you who doesn't want God's mercy to be true for that person.

You stop snickering your noses up. Stop acting like you're better than other

people because a part of human nature is the fact that we will look out for ourselves at all costs.

Stop playing yourself. Stop getting on these high and mighty crusades with other people.

And you can just tell the difference in their gospel because their gospel is

not, hey, treat these people better so that they can be with us.

He's like, treat these people better and keep those people away.

There's somebody who's always getting excluded.

If your gospel don't make room for everybody, you ain't preaching the gospel.

And you don't understand the

surprising nature of God's mercy that you get to be a part of his family.

Paul quotes Hosea 2 and 23. This is really cool.

Sam Husband, Josh and them, they could just tell you how cool this,

particular verses, Loamy, right?

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.

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. Oh, God, man.

Demonstrated this by the calling of Gentiles into salvation, right?

He's demonstrating here, I'm calling not only just the sinful people to me,

but I'm calling the people who were not my people.

And this is forever for you to understand that mercy in its very nature has to be undeserving.

Mercy cannot be calculated and formulated. It's always no.

If you get mercy and say, yes, man, I worked really hard.

Nobody ever receives mercy and comes away is like, yes, I deserve that.

The whole testimony of humanity is me.

I'm on a church pew in the church

that my dad pastors in 1999 and i am doing everything that i want to do and

i finally heard this song differently than i would have heard it before and

i just couldn't get over Me,

me, me,

you know, I'm staying. Thanks, your mom.

If there's anybody who deserves wrath, it should be me.

Because I have great parents, and they were faithful. They taught me God's word.

They sung it over me. They prayed over me. But I still was going that way.

I don't deserve this. If your grace makes sense, you ain't got it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Amen.

Just trying to say that the whole economy of mercy is based on surprises.

That's what it is.

Could you imagine how dumbfounded they were to hear we're in exile and you're

going to call the people who are not your people, your people? Wait a minute.

Yeah, I'm full of surprises because all I do is dispense blessing to people who don't deserve it.

And what that means is that you're always going to be like, wow.

Can I encourage some of you all who have been praying for people?

Can I encourage some of y'all who like, they seem so far away.

Stand up, man. Can I just encourage you? Where I at? Can I just encourage some

of y'all who just think people are just unreachable?

God just, he just do crazy stuff. He do God's stuff just because he can, Mitch.

Just because he can, because he's an altogether different being than we are.

And if you ever wanted to get your hands around how God does his thing,

just say, God's full of surprises.

That's what he do. and he's always working with a smaller group than you think he is.

This is what the next quote from Isaiah talks about.

It was prophesied to them that though the number of Israelites be like the sand

by the sea, it says only a remnant is going to be saved.

For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth's speed and with finality.

It is just as Isaiah said previously, Unless the Lord God Almighty had left

us descendants, we could have become like Sodom and we would have been like Gomorrah.

Pertains to salvation, what we are meant to feel, what Paul is trying to get

us to wrap our head around and feel viscerally, it's just a shock.

It's not that God saves everyone. It's that God saves anyone.

That's what we're supposed to feel. It's like, he don't have to do none of this.

The fact that he would choose anyone should blow our minds.

Music.

I think there's a tragedy. Is it Myanmar?

Is that right? It's a big natural disaster.

And I imagine, you know, Gina watches Chicago Fire or something.

Is that it? Is it right? Oh, she watches all the Chicago's.

And so there's you know every episode every episode somebody's in grave danger

and you know you got the people that coming in they try to do a thing can you

imagine something like me and mark these people got buildings collapse on and

whatever and there's there's hundreds of people,

who are in need of rescue and then all of a sudden the EMTs and rescue teams

they they come in there and they're trying, they're trying to grab people.

And then they come out and they grab five,

but 25 perish. Could you imagine someone saying to the EMTs, you're unjust?

To give you some metaphors some some imagery to try to understand what's happening in romans 9.

Everyone is going this direction and it's their choice,

the fact that god comes and grabs a couple of them and comes out he's not unjust.

James Kennedy put it like this,

he says there's a story about I heard about a robbery getting ready to take

place I pleaded with the friend don't go the friend went in anyway,

but if I heard it right some kind of way he found out he heard about it and

the protagonist grabbed his friend and that was the only one he had time to

get and the rest of them perished in the bank robbery,

is he unjust all of those individuals made their choices,

and they suffered the consequences of their choices the god who's rich in mercy He grabs some.

Learned today? If I didn't scare you away from following Jesus,

you just got to stay in your place.

I think that's what we learned today. You just got to stay actually in your place.

You know, sometimes you see these job postings, and I've been the leader of

a couple organizations.

You know, every once in a while, you kind of talk to people,

and they're like, hey, hey, hey, this, that, this, that, this, that, this, that.

I'm going to do this, that, this, that, and this, that. and it's like,

oh, that's interesting.

It's like, because that sounds like what I'm supposed to be doing.

And they're like, oh, no, no, no, no. I'm like, yeah. I don't mean no offense.

It just sounds a whole lot like my responsibilities.

Friends, there is no position opening for God. That one's closed.

That one's settled.

But i think you need to be more comfortable admitting that you really want that job,

it's not playing cute church with yourself oh i i just think oh i just got opinions

no you don't you want to be god it's okay it's just genesis 3 when eve heard

that it was a possibility,

She'd be like, yo,

devil was like, you could be like God. She'd be like, what?

Now we talking, Jack. I mean, go back and read it.

She said pretty much most of the right things. Yeah, no, God didn't say that.

He said this. He did it. You could be like God.

Now that sound pretty good.

Music.

Out of God.

And you could enjoy his blessings for eternity.

And guess what? To be that child, all you need to do is not be born to the right family.

You don't need to have some fancy church record of how many sins you don't do

and do do and how many small groups you in or don't in and what you watch and don't watch,

all you have to know is, yo, I'm living like I'm my own God. And I'm sorry.

I need you to be my God. And I believe in the one who was God,

who put on flesh. I believe in him.

And I want his mercy. And you can be his child. And you don't even know,

I have to figure out who's going to heaven or hell.

You could just be God's child,

you know what's so sad I think some people say I heard that clearly but I'd rather be God.