Sermon - Pastor Tim Johnson | Romans 9:6-18

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.

Hey, if you're joining us, we've been in Romans for more than a year.

We've kind of landed in Romans 9, which I think maybe one of the most debated

and the most intriguing chapters in the Bible comes off the heels of one of the richest.

Most lush chapters in the Bible, Romans 8.

Everybody loves Romans 8, even people who ain't Christians.

All things work together for the good of those, right? It's like,

but you're not even a Christian.

So it's like, so, you know, it's the coffee mug scriptures that I love to hate,

but it's actually, it's really good. So I can't even hate.

Give me more coffee mugs. But anyway, we're At Romans 9, we hear this illustrious

unpacking of the gospel, that there's no weapon for him, that we are more than

conquerors through Christ Jesus who loves us, right?

And nothing can separate us from this love.

And then Paul immediately at the beginning of Romans 9, which really sets the

context for how we should read Romans 9.

So we should not immediately read Romans 9 as some kind of apologetic father

or something that just gives us ammunition to just start taking it out on our

theological opponents.

But this is encased in Paul grieving the fact that his brothers,

his Jewish brothers, according to the promise, they have forfeited all the riches

of the gospel blessings.

He's grieving so much. He speaks in hyperbolic language.

He's like, yo, I wish if it were possible, I could trade places with y'all because that's.

How much I want God's blessings to attend my brothers and sisters according to my flesh, right?

Which just led us to, I love this. This ain't even it.

You don't see it clearly, but I think it still speaks to us in 21st century America.

What do we want most for our cultures according to the flesh? Amen, Lice and Walsh.

It is what it is. Do you want your culture to gain power that you wrongly had taken away from you?

Are you so nervous now because your culture is losing power?

What do you want most for your culture? Paula's life for my brothers and sisters according to the flesh.

I don't want them to miss out on the greatest blessing there ever will be.

And that is a place in God's kingdom to know that I am his child.

It's the greatest blessing any human could ever receive.

So here we are. Paul is grieving. They were chosen.

God picked his people out, but somehow they've missed out on these blessings.

So does that mean somehow that God's promises have failed?

And if God's promises to his chosen people fail, then how are we to trust any of his other promises?

So this is the backdrop, y'all. You want to get into, you know,

election in Calvinism and Arminianism, let's just stay with the scriptures first.

This is about God's faithfulness. If the people God originally promised to be

faithful to no matter what, if it fails, then what hope do we have?

Is our fate to be the same as Israel?

How does one obtain or hold on to the gospel blessings? These are the questions

that are in the backdrop.

Maybe to put it more simply, how is it that God chooses his children?

My opening illustration today is from kickball. I want to apologize because

PT and Gina, we have our own core fam.

And so we thought we may be a little light. So we invited some other people

to play in the kickball game. So I apologize.

I apologize. But we were playing kickball. And so one of the things I do,

you know, I know I'm just trying to have a good time.

I'm just trying to facilitate a good time. I'm trying to keep it light.

You know what I'm saying?

This ain't real competition. I would just encourage you, don't pick 12-year-olds to 17-year-olds.

They just have a different gear and a way that they approach social gatherings.

So I would encourage you, if you're playing catcher or second base, don't stand in that way.

They will run you over because they don't realize this is just for fun.

You know what I'm saying?

So anyway, so one thing I do, though, is just to give everybody a chance to

loosen up. And before we start picking teams, I'll just let everybody just take three kicks.

You know, take your three kicks and, you know, we get to see who actually can

kick, who can't. And, oh, hold on, you know, in my hamstring,

you know what I'm saying?

So all that kind of stuff. So anyway, I did that. And then all of a sudden it

was time to pick teams. And I had a little chance at Lily Grace.

I said, y'all pick the teams.

And so now I'm seeing, they done seen what I done seen.

They done seen people kick that ball all the way to the playground.

So I'm like, oh, surely they're going to pick this one first, this one first.

So Lily Grace proceeds to pick Caroline and James Boone as her first two picks.

Now, I don't want to—I don't want to—.

Make any kind of commentary on their performance one way or the other.

You know, you'll have to hear that from other people.

But when we got back and we're like, Lil, why'd you pick, you know,

you had London out there, Mossos, you know, kicking it all past people.

Why did you pick those two first?

She's like, Dad, those are my favorite people. I was like, okay.

Okay. So that might not be a good strategy for kickball.

And I guess before we get into some hard stuff, what we're trying to wrap our

mind, what was God's strategy?

What's his strategy? What's his methodology behind his children and who gets

to be a part of his family?

And what Paul is defending is the accusation, right?

You know, Paul is always writing these letters to people who exist,

who may have opposing views or questions about, man, what's going on?

And so essentially, he gets right to it.

Did God's word fail at the beginning of verse six?

In his selection, is this proving that God's word has failed?

Either was he unable to deliver on what he promised or was God unjust in who he chose?

This is the backdrop behind what we're getting into.

And his emphatic answer is no, right?

No, this is not because God's word have failed. And he's going to argue from

three particular points.

God's word didn't fail because first of all, not everyone who is a descendant

of Abraham is actually a part of true Israel.

This is the first part he's going to make, right?

I think if there was an easy way to put it, as an outsider, you know,

I come in, I've been in Memphis now almost 10 years, and you just hear all the

common jargon. If you love Memphis, Memphis will love you bad.

Don't go to this place. Go to that place. People overworked.

People not worried. You hear all this stuff, right?

And then sometimes you'll hear, well, you know, everybody from Memphis ain't really a Memphian.

Right? And I think insiders know exactly what that means. You know,

they ain't real Memphis.

You know what that mean? The best way I could tell you first,

first, Paul's first response and retort to it did God's promises fail is, yo.

Everybody who in Israel ain't real Israel.

Everybody who call themselves a child of God ain't really a child of God.

This is based on the premise that God has never determined the identity of his

people based through physical descent.

He's never done that, actually.

And so can I just hammer this home for all my friends who are struggling with

Hebrew Israelitism and all that whatever? get out of that game fast because it's not actually true.

And if you want to try to identify with the God of the universe based on your

literal DNA, you will suffer the same fate as those who try it.

He ain't never done it. He ain't never done it and won't ever do it.

So everybody who called themselves a child of God ain't really a child of God.

Go back to Romans 8, 16 and 17. Who are the real children of God?

We'll talk about it more.

But it's those in whom God has revealed himself through his spirit.

It's those people who've been adopted into his family, whether Jew or Gentile.

He goes on in verse seven to give an illustration.

He says, for not all who are descended from Israel, 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.

So now he pauses, gives us an illustration. Here's this vignette and we'll have three.

We're gonna see Abraham, Haggai, and Sarah.

We're going to see Jacob and Esau. And we're going to see Pharaoh and Moses.

Paul is going to illustrate God's choosing through these three vignettes.

If you don't know about Abraham and Sarah and Haggai, suffice to say,

Genesis 12, go home and read it.

This is the father of our faith, even as it carries on into the New Testament.

Father Abraham, come on, have many sons. Remix.

Come on, man. Where y'all at, man? Where y'all at? Come on, man.

But Abraham, in Genesis 12, God makes this promise to Abraham.

He says, hey, if you do what I say, I'll make your descendants as numerous as the stars.

I'm skipping a little bit. What we find out is Sarah is old.

I bought my wife some anti-aging cream on accident once. It was an accident.

That was a normal thing. It was an accident.

I didn't mean to That was a big mistake I learned the hard way.

Suffice to say this, this is not a 32-year-old woman receiving anti-aging cream. Sarah's really old.

And so Abraham got nervous. Sarah got nervous. What are we going to do? God made a promise.

We can't figure out how God going to accomplish his promise.

So let's figure something out. So Abraham goes into his maidservant,

Hagar, and she conceives.

She conceives a son, Ishmael. But what did God do?

Oh, maybe this is a word. Somebody catch it.

Even your mistakes can not thwart God's promises to you.

Because they manufactured a child, but God still promised, I'm going to have a child.

And so Paul now argues from this premise. He says, hey, man,

which one of those are the true children of God?

And what he says in verse 7, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.

That it's actually not through the child that you kind of manufactured in case

that God's plan didn't work, but that God still chose, God still chose.

Everybody say, God still.

He still chose to work his promises through Sarah, the one who he promised he would impregnate.

What are you trying to say, Pastor Tim? I got a, see, see, we got the,

with them some slides up.

Flip, flip to the next one, right there.

God's uninfluenced decision defines the identity of his people,

not their biological lineage to the right patriarch.

We'll get to more of this later, but God cannot be leaned upon.

If you watch mob movies and you watch the gangster coming to the pizzeria with

the older Italian lady serving the pizza. And he's like, yo,

I'm waiting on the envelope.

God can't be pressured. No, no, no, listen to me. He can't be pressured.

He's not at the kickball game. And you know how, you know, when you want to

get on the team, you'd be like, God doesn't have a conscience that can be leaned upon.

His decrees in eternity past and forever.

And his children are completely uninfluenced. His selection of his children

are completely uninfluenced.

In other words, verse 8, it is not the children by physical descent.

Once again, it's not biological. It's not DNA who are God's children,

but it's the children of promise.

It's Sarah's kids who are regarded as Abram's offspring. For this was how the

promise was stated. At the appointed time, a return and Sarah will have a son.

Children of promise are those who fulfill his promise to Abraham.

Essentially, it's Sarah's kids, not Hagar's, not the manufacturer line.

It's the one I promise to allow you to have a line through.

I promise that I will give you descendants through this woman, through this line.

And the children of promise are also the people who live by the means by which

I've established my relationship with you, Abraham.

It's not the physical. It's the people like you.

Abraham believed God and it was accredited to him as righteousness.

It's the people who live like that who are also my children.

It's the people who live like, oh, you promised a 99-year-old woman and a 99-year-old

man that you were going to give them a baby.

All right, we'll believe that it's the people who live like that who become his children.

Not biology, not DNA.

Second point, second defense. So Paul says, yo, God's just in that not everybody

who calls himself a child of God is a child of God. Not everyone who's a part

of Israel is true Israel.

And God is also just because everything serves God's purposes.

He says, not only that, but Rebecca's children were conceived at the same time by our father, Isaac.

Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad.

I'm going to read that one more time. Yet before the twins were born or had

done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose in election might stand.

Just pause.

Paul pulls into the frame another vignette.

So he's moved from Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah.

Now he's moved to their descendants. And now Jacob and Esau,

there might have been an objection.

Like, oh, you know what? Well, you know, Ishmael was not actually Abraham's

legitimate son by his wife, right?

So therefore, that argument, Paul, that doesn't work, right?

Paul says, okay, well, let me give you another illustration.

Twins, Jacob and Esau, same mama, same daddy.

Yet God already chose one of them to fulfill his promises before they were even born.

What? I say what? Remember, what we're trying to figure out is how does God select?

God says, yo, I don't select based on your biological lineage.

Means nothing to me who you were born to, right?

Because I've always chosen my people outside of that, uninfluenced.

Now God says, yo, I don't even choose people based on what they do.

I've chosen Jacob before Jacob and Esau were even born.

Trying to help learn you. Why? Yet before the twins were born or had done anything

good or bad in order, this is what we call a purpose clause. Why did you do that, God?

Why did you choose them before they were even born in order that God's purpose

in election might stand?

In Presbyterianism, we cause one of the great things that came out of the Reformation

was the conscious awareness of not binding someone's conscience. So you know what?

Praise God, we go to a church where people can get up here with a sweat of vest.

Thomas can come in here with duck hunting gear. Sean can come in here with a bow tie.

And you know, Martin coming with a hat backwards. And we got some of y'all with Crocs.

We got my son who's confused, a chain, a bubble vest and sandals.

Praise God, right? Praise God.

But we come to a church where some of you know, like it doesn't matter black

culture, white culture, Hispanic culture, right?

Every church has a culture. It's got a subculture. And

you walk in there and everybody started looking funny at you if you're not participating

in the subculture you know i'm saying but praise god that's

at least not one area we particularly struggle if i

get up here and i preach in a three-piece suit y'all be like oh that's just

pt if i got up here and preached with my hat back oh that's just pt right because

you're not binding my conscience you're not forcing me to do something if god

were to wait for jacob and esau to get out and start doing good things and bad things,

that would bind his conscience.

It would bind his freedom. So in order for my freedom to stand,

I got to choose them before they do anything.

I got to choose them before they even have a chance to do more good things or bad things.

How did you do that, God? Simply because of my sovereign purposes and will.

Like us. You'll get the theme pretty clearly today. He don't move like us, yo.

God's purposes are his goals that he's thought about in eternity past with careful

precision. This is God's purposes.

And sometimes in the theological community, we call these decrees, right?

That his purposeful plan that he formulates in eternity past.

And the three big external acts that God does are He creates the world,

he redeems the world, and he perfects his creatures before anything in history transpires.

Isaiah 14, 24, as I have planned, so shall it be, uninfluenced.

As I have purposed, so shall it stand, uninfluenced.

I turn to the Westminster Confession of Faith just to help illustrate some of

these points. This is CeCe Gota WCF 3.1.

Just read together. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel

of his own will. How'd he do it? How'd he do it?

Freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass.

We call this the doctrine of God's eternal decrees.

Before eternity, before any event in human history, he has already predetermined certain things.

And he predetermines those things outside of what Romans 9 is going to call works.

And Romans 9, when Romans 9 speaks to works, it's speaking to both the human

work of biology and descendants.

God says, I'm choosing outside of that. And I'm also choosing outside of moral

virtue. I'm choosing outside of both those things.

So sometimes when you look at Ephesians 2, We seem to, hey, not by works.

We immediately start thinking about, oh, not by how much Bible you read,

how much time you go to church, whatever, whatever. Works, legalism stuff, right?

Paul here is broadening it. It's the human works, both biology and both by moral virtue.

Those are not qualifications that affect God's choosing. He is not bound by those things.

Admission into the family of God originates in the mind of God.

Mission into the family of God originates in the mind of God.

Remember, go back to Romans 8 and 30.

Those he predestined, he called. And then he justifies and he glorifies.

Verse 12, God does all this in order that his purpose and election might stand,

not by works, but by him who calls.

And she was told, she was already told the older will serve the younger.

Just as it's written, Jacob I've loved, but Esau I hated.

What we see throughout the rest of redemptive history is that this is actually true.

That Israel's lineage plays out where God is faithful and committed to Jacob's

descendants and Esau and his descendants become Jacob's arch enemies.

You see it in Malachi. In chapter one, Malachi, he's just summed up the attitude

toward God of a decimated and beleaguered Israel.

And they come with a complaining question in Malachi. Israel,

they're frustrated. They say, how have you loved us?

And God inspires Malachi to write these words. Is not Esau Jacob's brother, declares the Lord.

Yet I have loved Jacob because Esau I've hated.

They knew this. God made a choice.

Both brothers born at the same time, yet God chose before they did one thing

who I was gonna love and that played itself out through all of history.

One of the cool things though, inside of this.

In that particular time, it was customary that the blessings would fall to the older children.

But in both cases, Isaac was born second to Ishmael.

Jacob was born second to Esau. And in both cases, God chose the younger rather than the older.

If you would have been back in this time, maybe first century Greco-Roman history,

you would be working from a backdrop of like, hey, it, just people would favor

the older to the younger.

It would almost be unjust to favor the younger versus the older.

So Paul kind of anticipates this question of, is God just? So it's kind of like that double entendre.

Did God's promises to Israel fail? And is he unjust in the way that he chose

to accumulate his children?

So Paul answers, what then shall we say, is God unjust?

Not at all. God's purposes are just. Why?

I think the easiest thing maybe to help us is that we have to admit that we

don't really have a category for God.

He transcends. When we try to understand God through our human lenses and paradigms,

we're going to always fall short.

What Paul is going to say in these next couple of verses is,

if you ask God if he's just, God is the standard bearer. He's the standard maker.

So it's kind of impossible for him to be unjust.

He makes the rules. He's like the annoying person you play spades with who always

wins. Because, bro, I thought you said deuce a while.

No, bro, I said, it's God's rules. It's God's way.

Therefore, he can't be unjust. And he starts to unpack this.

Day was little grace's first lacrosse game and talk

about a learning curve for parents and i just kept

i'm leaning over time it's like can they do that can they

do that can they do that and it's like shoot until you until you don't until

you know you're like man i got questions and maybe the way that god chooses

his team seems unfair until you learn that it's not and i think paul is trying

to tell you. He's going to learn these people a few things.

He says, here's the premise.

He revealed himself to Moses in verse 15. He says, I'll have mercy on whom I'll

have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion on.

Exodus, I believe that's 34, maybe even 19 after Sinai.

God says, I'm the Lord your God. I'm gracious.

I'm full of mercy and it abounds. It's just this elaborate picture of I'm a

God just with uncanny amounts of mercy and I delight in showing it.

Now, he's revealed himself to Moses in that way. But then in Exodus 33 and 34,

he utters these things, these words to Moses.

He says, yo, I'm the Lord your God and I will have mercy on whom I have mercy

and I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion.

And I think that's just a couple of things you just need to know about your God.

Man, he is the most merciful being in the whole entire universe.

But he has the right to dispense that mercy to whoever he chooses.

Moses, brother, I got more patience than all of human history.

I got more compassion than you and your nonprofit friends ever think y'all could.

But I also have the right to dispense that mercy and compassion where I see fit.

It does not therefore depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

Then we get to the last picture of Pharaoh.

Paul is saying that, hey, nothing that, from one commentator,

nothing that originates from the human side, whether desire or effort,

influences God's decision to show mercy to some and not others.

I'm going to read it slow. It's important.

Nothing that originates on the human side, whether desire or effort,

influences God's decision to show mercy to some and not others.

And then it goes into Pharaoh's story. For scripture says, Pharaoh,

I raised you up for this purpose, that I might display my power in you,

that my name might be proclaimed throughout the earth.

Paul says, yo, the only reason Pharaoh exists, the only reason why he was in

power is so somehow I could display my power.

And he says, verse 18, therefore, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy

and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

And here's where I just want to make my final points this morning.

Remember I told you, CC, let's go back to history.

We'll just deal with whatever's first. Yeah, that's perfect.

Stay right there. Go back. Yeah, that's perfect.

So we Presbyterians, when you become a member of this church,

we kind of unpack for you like, hey, we continue in the spirit of the Reformation,

which just one of the most important points is that if you consider yourself

reformed, you don't have to get a tattoo.

You don't have to offer any social security number. It's just a way you don't

have to introduce yourself as, yeah, I'm Tim Johnson.

I'm reformed. How about you? Don't save it. Don't do that.

It's just a way that we understand salvation to work, which emphasizes God's

sovereignty, his elective purpose. Like we can't read that out the Bible.

God does not want his freedom infringed upon. He is uninfluenced and he has desired that.

And as he has chosen people to be his, he is completely uninfluenced.

Therefore, God is sovereign in salvation and it emphasizes also God's grace.

Keep going, C. Keep moving.

We are going to see, though, in Pharaoh's story, we call that election.

God, in eternity past, elects, he chooses, just like he chose Jacob before they

were born, just like he chose Isaac over Ishmael, he chooses who he's going

to bring into his family.

Now, immediately, if you are new to this argument, if you've never heard the

name Jacob Arminius, if you've never heard about the remonstrance or any of

those things, it'll be fun readings for you.

I can't unpack it for you today. Like most people, once they hear this,

this is the moment everybody starts getting nervous.

It's like, what? God chooses?

I didn't have a say-so? God is unjust.

Praise God you're in the right sermon because that's exactly what these people are thinking.

Is God just? Because he chooses people before they are even born.

Did Pharaoh have a chance?

Right? Some people read the Exodus narrative and they're like,

could Pharaoh even have repented? dude, one of the things we see in the Exodus

narrative, it's really cool.

I'm just going to read pieces of this commentary from Tillman.

Before the plagues descended on the Egyptians, God told Moses twice that he

would harden Pharaoh's heart and that as a result, Pharaoh would not grant Moses's

request to let Israel go into the wilderness to sacrifice and worship God.

However, throughout the subsequent narrative, we read that either,

either that we read a couple things.

Either that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Who hardened his heart?

Pharaoh hardened his heart. We also read that Pharaoh's heart was hardened.

We also read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.

What's really cool is that God gives us this really complicated picture of how

his sovereignty works and his decree works and how that interacts with human agency.

Did Pharaoh have any choice? What was he doing?

Theologically, we call this compatibilism. It's just the theological position

that God's sovereignty and human responsibility are compatible.

Hopefully I push you at ease because some of y'all are like,

yo, does anything I do matter?

Absolutely. Absolutely. But does what I do somehow nullify God's decrees in

eternity past? Absolutely not.

I don't know how it works. I just know it does.

And you know what? I think it's so cool that I don't think many people paid attention to.

I think some of my great theologian heroes who wrote the Westminster Confession,

they already made provision for this.

Listen to some of the words they've already, they wrote for us. Keep going, C. C.

Angels and men thus predestined and foreordained are particularly and unchangeably

designed according to God's decrees and their numbers so certain and definite

that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

The confession says, hey, man, God already knows there's a number is set according

to his mind, his will, unalterable, and it's already predetermined.

Next, we said, those of mankind that are predestined unto life,

God, before the foundation of this world, was laid according to his eternal

and immutable purpose and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will has

chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory out of his mere free grace and love.

God chose out of love, unaltered. Go ahead.

Without any foresight of faith, this is an important caveat.

Some people are like, yeah, I believe in God's election because what God does

is he looks out and sees if we're going to choose him. And then he says, I elect him.

We refute that wholeheartedly.

God does. Remember Jacob and Esau. He's not waiting to see if you're going to

be good and then confirming that he elected you.

He elects before you do one thing.

Without any foresight of faith or good works or perseverance in either of them

or any of the other thing in the creature as conditions or causes,

moving him thereunto and all to the praise of his glorious grace.

Next, let's go back to the first one.

God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his will freely

and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass.

Yet so, looking at this, as thereby neither is God the author of sin.

Okay, even though he's declared everything that will come to pass,

he's not the author of sin.

I have to give you some theological proofs on that later. You can email me.

Nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures.

Are a good Presbyterian and truly reformed in your theology,

you have made room for human agency.

We are not determinists. We are not robots.

Somehow God's decrees that he has decided in eternity past has not imposed violence on our will.

So essentially, your will ultimately just confirms what God has decided,

which is why Pharaoh is culpable.

Because somehow, even though God chose Pharaoh, it was Pharaoh's decisions that were going against God.

And it was his volition, and it was his choice, which is why Pharaoh was culpable.

That's why he was held accountable. And what we do know about God is that somehow

in this compatibilism, the more you choose to walk away from him,

he allows you, therefore calcifying even more of your heart.

The more you say no to God, the nastier and harder your heart gets.

Let's just pause for a second.

Did God's promises to Israel fail? No, because not everybody from Israel was actually truly Israel.

Not every child of God was actually a real child of God.

Is God just somehow? Is he unjust? No.

God chooses freely from his sovereign, according to his good pleasure,

before we even have a chance to do good enough or bad enough works to make him want us or not want us.

And God is just because he sets the standard for justice.

And he's incredibly merciful, but he gets the right to dispense that mercy to whom he wants to.

For me, PT. Did God choose me? Let me just say something so emphatic and so clear.

There is no one who's ever lived, who has ever asked the question if God was

fair, who has known that either themselves or people they have known or anyone

who will come behind them was damned.

Ain't none of us in this room know who is chosen and who ain't.

It is a literal waste of time, honestly,

that has not been given to us you remember when Jesus in the beginning of Acts

they jammed Jesus up after the resurrection and they're like yo Jesus is now

the time when you're going to restore the kingdom Jesus is like yo it's not

been given to me to know that y'all worried about the wrong things,

you're worried about the wrong things and if your Christianity is based on a

literal mapping out of trying to figure out before glory who's in and who's out,

My friend, you're wasting your time.

I appreciate your curiosity, but I can just tell you the only answer is he's

not disclosing that to us.

He never has, or he did in Rebecca's case, but these modern believers,

that ain't what he doing.

Hey, you know, Douglas, he ain't really in. Really? Okay.

Sorry, Douglas. Now Douglas is like, oh my God, that's his name? I don't understand.

But why do we struggle with God's sovereignty I

think we realize that to really truly

be really Christian you have to realize that God is

the only autonomous being in the entire universe and we hate

it we actually hate it like every all

the rest of us our decisions are being influenced and

imposed upon and how is it that God he can do what he want that's literally

that's why you don't like your boss that's why you don't like your co-workers

that's why you don't like the people in your neighborhood that's why you don't

like the celebrity that your other friend like is because you hate the idea

somebody else can do whatever they want unencumbered and you can't,

and i'm just saying it's okay to

admit that today it's okay i absolutely unequivocally would love to be god,

I set this up exactly how I want it, do exactly what I wanted to do.

And when I hear things that make it seem like my Western 21st century freedom

is infringed upon, it makes me feel...

Music.

Being in control as long as our God is still in the mercy business.

We don't have no word, but it's good. You know what I'm saying?

Like it's almost like you coming and it's like we get to the store,

you know, we're going to go get something to eat in a minute.

And our kids never want to order what we have decided.

Y'all going to order off the $5 menu. Dad, let me get a filet mignon. I don't love it.

Nah, bruh. Get the kitty burger.

But it's like you're showing up at the restaurant with your parent and you're

like, yo, dad, I could pay for it. I could pay for it.

And you get there and you shout.

Music.

The guy's like, yo, it's okay. If you want to admit that you don't have it, I got it.

It's okay. It's okay.

But you got to admit friends in in relation to becoming my children,

not your biology and not your good works can't earn you nothing here jack,

and and for a for a civilization who is obsessed with culture and what it means

and the value you, that bothers us.

We would love for it to be us, not them. Be faithful to us.

Destroy them. God says, I ain't picking like that, bro.

How does it make you feel that the people you'll be standing next to in heaven

are from your enemy's camp?

Music.

That bother you. That bother you.

But it's true, friend. because somebody from your enemy's camp is going to sober

to the reality, I need mercy.

And I heard that the God from eternity past is handing something out, and I want in on it.

If you're worried today, if you're starting to ask yourself,

am I Pharaoh? Is my heart been hardened friend?

Number one, the fact that you're here today shows that you have responded to

some kind of inner call or working of the spirit.

And I would just say, live into that. Keep following that the spirit don't bother

people who don't care about him,

Spirit don't bother people that he's not at work in,

Hebrews would say today if you hear my voice don't harden your heart because I will also tell you.

Music.

Is it that I actually can sit through a long-winded sermon? I actually throw my hands up.

I hate stadium music, but I love my worship team. And I love when they sing about Jesus.

And I don't. I remember when I didn't.

How is that possible? That the same people I grew up with wouldn't drive on

a street next to a church and I serve in a church. Come on, man.

Come on man or has the miracle has the luster worn off on you have you convinced

yourself that somehow God God deserved you,

come on just stand to your feet real quick close your eyes.

Music.

But just an opportunity just to say thank you Jesus for your sovereign saving

electing purposes outside of my works, outside of my mama and grandmama.

Yes, thank God they prayed for me, but God, why I'm here is only because of

you, your eternal decrees, the finished work of Christ on that cross,

forgiving me from sins that...

Music.