Romans 9:30 – 10:21 – Romans

Let's read.

What shall we say then?

That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith.

But that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.

Why?

Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.

They have stumbled over the stumbling stone.

As it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.

But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.

But what does it say?

The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith that we proclaim.

Because if you confess to your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

For the scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

But they have not all obeyed the gospel.

For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?

So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

But I ask, have they not heard?

Indeed they have, for their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

But I ask, did Israel not understand?

First Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation.

With a foolish nation, I will make you angry.

Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who did not seek me.

I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.

But of Israel, he says, All day long I've held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.

And so reads God's word.

Welcome to you.

Let me add my welcome to Peters.

My name's Mark.

I'm one of the leaders uh here at uh at City Church.

You're very welcome if you're new or visiting.

It'd be good uh for you actually to have that passage that Lisa read open in front of us.

Uh you may have one of these uh openable Bibles, um, but if you don't, you all have a turn-onable one uh with your phone.

You can just Google, even if you don't have a Bible app, you can just Google uh Romans, uh Romans 10 uh ESV, and uh you'll get most of it there.

I know we're kind of picking up a little bit from uh from the end of Romans chapter nine, but you can follow along because these these passages are quite dense, and so it's good just to kind of keep our noses in the text so that we don't get too lost.

Uh as we begin though, I want you to to imagine uh a scene from uh from a nature documentary with me, uh, if you would.

So I grew up uh as I'm sure some of you did watching nature documentaries that were voiced over by uh uh by David Attenborough.

Here on the Serengeti Plane.

Right?

Uh so imagine you are there on the Serengeti Plane uh and what you see is a is a lioness.

And she's got three adorable little lion cubs, and you see those shoulders moving through the long grass.

And she, yeah, that's how they do it.

That's that look just like that.

I feel much more like the king in Hamilton than uh than than a lioness right now.

But you can you can imagine those shoulder blades going up as she's stalking, and you see the camera pans back, and and what's she what's she creeping up on?

She's creeping up on a young antelope, right?

And everything falls silent for a moment, it's kind of breathless, as you just see the ears and these two eyes.

She doesn't wear glasses because she can run faster than I can.

And then suddenly, wham! the chase is on, and the antelope hairs off, and the lioness is tearing after it.

And you think, is this are we having antelope steaks for dinner?

And they just they go and they go and they go, and it's breakneck speed, and then eventually the antelope just escapes.

And the voiceover comes back and says, The three young cubs will go hungry tonight.

The antelope lives to fight another day.

And so your your heart is aroused by the three young cubs that are gonna go hungry tonight, but you would be equally right to go, yeah, go antelope.

Good job, Mr.

Antelope.

You live to fight another day, you outrun the lioness.

That's uh that's a good day to be an antelope, that you're you're not ending up on the menu for dinner.

And so you have these these two perspectives of the one event.

You have the antelope who's like, go and tell his friends you never believe what happened to me today, and I outran her.

She had like, I just got the claw marks on my on my hip, right?

But I got out of the way.

Big up for Mr.

Antelope.

But then you've got the lioness, and you've got her three small cubs.

And what they're gonna say, and are they gonna survive the night?

You've got these two perspectives, and which one's right?

Well, both of you should be equally affirmed, shouldn't they?

It's sorry and it's sad for the lion cubs, and it's a great thing for the antelope.

One event took place, and you can see them from different perspectives.

In Romans chapter nine, Paul gives us the divine perspective on salvation, particularly on why it is that his kinsmen, his fellow Jews, have rejected Jesus.

And he says there, this is what we looked at last week, that God's promise hasn't failed.

And why hasn't it failed?

Well, it hasn't failed because, well, salvation isn't actually based on something within us.

It's not based on our religious pedigree.

Rather, it's based on God's free and sovereign choosing of whomever He will.

That nobody inherently deserves salvation.

We actually, if we're all demanding justice, we all deserve condemnation.

But God graciously chooses to save some.

That it's wholly a gift of his grace.

And then here this morning, as I would see the same event from a different perspective, where we saw the divine perspective in Romans chapter 9, Paul now gives us the human perspective.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

That the Jews, his kinsmen, they had pursued righteousness, that is, being made right with God, being in right relationship with God.

They had pursued it wrongly.

They had pursued it as though it was something that they could work up from within themselves, as though it was based upon their moral goodness and not on faith.

Simple trust in God's mercy and grace.

And yet what he says here is, well, well, what needs to happen is that a person needs to cast themselves on God and on his mercy and grace.

So which is right?

Well, they both should be equally affirmed, shouldn't they?

There's been lots of discussion this week in community groups about predestination and election and all these things.

And which is it?

Is it that we're predestined or that there is an obligation on human beings to uh to cast themselves upon the mercy of God in faith?

Which is it?

Well, Romans 9 and 10 affirms both, one chapter after the next.

I assume that Paul isn't some sort of schizophrenic, that actually there is some way of tying these arguments, that he hasn't written Romans chapter 9 and then immediately begins to contradict himself when he talks about the obligation that human beings have to respond to God and the necessity of telling others the gospel.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

I'm assuming that he isn't such a bad writer that he's just immediately contradicted himself.

And so surely we must affirm both.

Would that not be right?

You see, if we only affirm Romans chapter 9, so I'm speaking, uh I'm speaking to what shorthandedly might be called the Calvinists right now.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

So come and come and kind of chat to us.

I'm your guy, right?

If we only affirm Romans chapter 9, that can lead us into a kind of Christian fatalism, right?

Romans 9 · chapter mention

Where we kind of say, well, doesn't really matter, you know, God's gonna save, he's gonna save, so I'm just gonna, you know, let go and let God.

And uh and so we just sit back and wait for the uh the flaming road tar to come pouring out of heaven, right?

Kind of Christian fatalism.

If on the other hand you're the kind of person who focuses on the need for the human response, the human decision, I have decided to follow Jesus, right?

Though you if you're one of those people, if you don't have any Romans 9 in your theology, what that'll lead you to is a kind of a Christian activism, where actually the burden of someone's eternal destiny weighs heavy on your shoulders.

You think it's kind of up to me and up to the winsomeness of my persuasion.

And then I have to I have to get them to make a decision, to say the sinister prayer, or or you might be one of the people who uses Romans uh chapter 10.

You gotta you gotta confess with your mouth, okay?

Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart.

So you've gone to that youth group where you've been told, confess with your mouth, is Jesus Lord?

Yes, say it.

Jesus is Lord.

Okay.

Do you believe it in your heart?

Sure.

Great, tick, another one for the celestial city.

Which is right.

We affirm both.

Let me let me challenge you.

Don't leave, Nicole, it's okay.

Uh uh, let me challenge you, right?

So as you're sitting there, I think, which one am I less inclined to embrace?

Are you sitting there and you're thinking, oh, this kind of this sovereignty of God stuff, that just makes me feel really, well, I don't, I don't like that.

Okay?

This idea that God just chooses people because it brings him glory, that stuff that makes me really uncomfortable.

Or if you're the kind of person who is like, well, no, I'm a I'm a let go and let God kind of guy, and uh I and I'm much less comfortable with this kind of persuading people to uh to cast themselves upon the mercy and grace of God.

So which one are you?

Which one are you less inclined towards?

God's sovereignty or the the reality of human responsibility?

Because the Bible affirms both.

Whichever you have answered.

Can I encourage you to lean into that one more?

That if you're less comfortable with the idea of election, God's sovereign choosing his freedom to save whomever he will, that's the one that you need to lean into in order to have a more rounded theology for your life.

If you're on the other side and you feel uncomfortable with this idea of placing obligation and responsibility on human beings, you know, God's just gonna do it, then actually you need to lean into that in order to round out your theology a little bit.

Which one do you feel less inclined towards?

That's the one that you need to embrace a little bit more in your heart in order that we have a bit more of a three-dimensional view of God's word, because Paul affirms both here.

He holds both together in these two chapters where we got the divine perspective last week, and now we see things humanly speaking.

And the first thing that we see humanly speaking is that God's kingdom defies our expectations.

That's the first point.

Humanly speaking, God's kingdom defies expectations.

Verses 30 and 31.

What should we say then?

The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith, but that Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not receive, did not succeed in reaching that law?

Do you hear what Paul's saying there?

He's saying that Gentiles, non-Jews, people who, like you and me, mostly, I'm sure, who didn't grow up in a religious background.

They didn't grow up having the religious precepts of the law.

They didn't grow up reading the Bible at home, who were regarded by the religious people as morally questionable.

Do you have that story in your background that actually you lived a morally questionable life and the the religious moral people kind of looked down on you a little bit?

But the Gentiles who just lived however they wanted, that they have found that God has made them righteous.

That they have attained righteousness.

Whereas the religious person, in this context, the the Jew has the law and the promises of God, the moral good person has missed out.

Autopsy turvy.

That is not what you would expect, would it?

That's certainly not what you would expect if salvation was based on something within us, some sort of spiritual merit that we brought to God, because the Gentiles didn't have any.

How strange it is that the person who knew the least about God would actually come to know God.

Whereas the person who is the most educated, who has the most knowledge of God, failed to truly know him.

And yet this is what we see, isn't it?

This is what we see in the world, and this is what we see in the church.

You think of that person who bears all the hallmarks of religious fervor, moral observance and zeal.

And yet actually they have no personal relationship with Jesus.

Be very careful, City Church.

We're a church, we like to think.

We like to kind of play with ideas and discuss theology and and that's all right and good.

And I say yes, and I meant all of that, right?

But but there's a problem that that can lead us to, and the problem is this that that can lead us to knowing more about God rather than knowing more of God.

We must be very careful.

You contrast that with a person who has no religious background or heritage and have lived a morally dubious life, and they have much to regret as they look back upon their past, and yet they have come to know the mercy and grace of Jesus, and they've had their lives transformed, and they'd sit in a community group, and no, they could not uh explain to you the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.

They have no idea what uh what the Trinity means.

They're still thinking about shamrocks and eggs.

Uh they they have no clue, and yet despite a lack of knowledge, Jesus has done something in their heart, and you can see it and you can hear it.

And there's a hunger and there's a passion there to know more, but it arises out of a newly established relationship.

That contrast, that kind of way that God's kingdom defies expectations.

It's both a comfort and a warning, isn't it?

The topsy-turvy kingdom of Jesus reminds us this morning that there's nobody too far away from his grace.

That there's nobody here this morning who is really beyond Jesus' reach.

You might think that of yourself, that yeah, but if you knew what what had gone on or what is going on, Jesus wouldn't love me.

This passage says that's not true.

It's not about clearing up your act morally speaking.

It's by casting yourself upon the mercy of God and finding that you are drawn into relationship with him.

And then we'll teach you some stuff about him after that.

Because he's quite cool.

He's infinite, which means that there are infinite wonders to be discovered by him.

It's also a warning.

It's a warning that we don't enter his kingdom based on our religious observance, our spiritual pedigree, or our theological understanding.

And this can only be true if God is free to save whom he will.

Humanly speaking, this is what Paul has seen the Jews doing.

And this is what the mistake that he says that they're making.

That they're trying to establish a rel a righteousness of their own.

And this is the second point.

So if the first point was humanly speaking, God's kingdom defies expectations, the second point is this that humanly speaking, we would rather earn our salvation than humble ourselves.

So we pick it up in verse 32.

He says, why?

Because they did not uh they did not uh because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.

They did not pursue a relationship with God by faith, rather as something that they believed that they could earn.

Now, it is said of it is said of the Jews that the Jews are uh are like every other human being, only more so.

And I think that that's what's going on here, is that it's not that we're just we're picking on on our Jewish friends, but rather that what they are giving us is an example of how every human heart is hardwired.

We are hardwired towards self-righteousness.

We want to be able to point to something within us, who we are, what we have done, our comparative goodness to someone else.

This is why people say, I'm not a bad, I'm not a bad person.

I'm not like Hitler.

This is Hitler was really handy for that because it means that you know there's a benchmark that we can all compare ourselves to.

He did lots of other bad stuff.

It was handy for us all establishing our own self righteousness, because we all just bad as Hitler.

Yeah.

If that could we do could we do better than than that?

Or you say, well, I I try my best.

Because we're all about that comparative goodness, because we all love to establish our own.

Self-righteousness.

You gotta think of your righteousness like your like your CV, or if you're American, your resume, right?

Your righteousness is like your CV.

You want access to a new role in your company, or you want to move to another company.

And so you you put together the list of your achievements and experiences and education and your background and all those things.

You list it all out.

And you give it to the hiring committee in the hope that they will grant you access into the company in the hope that you will be accepted.

Humanly speaking, that's how the world works.

And if this way people kind of bulk up their CVs, oh no, no, okay, I need to do, I need to upskill in X, Y, and Z area.

I need to do more in order to be accepted at this in this position, at this company.

That's the way, humanly speaking, our world is wired.

That's what we're used to.

But that's not how God's kingdom works.

The religious person thinks that it is, though.

The religious person seeks to be zealously religious, fervent in their morality or in their spiritual piety and devotion.

But Paul says that that zeal is not enough.

Look at 10 verse 2.

For I bear them witness that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

It is not enough just to have zeal, fervency, passion.

Paul's saying here, that needs to be informed by the truth.

The truth of the way God works in the world, the truth of who God is.

Zeal is not enough.

You know, I can I could be sincere in my belief that drinking bleach will kill all the bacteria in me and lead to a long and happy life.

I could be zealous, passionate in my evangelism of the goodness of a quick glass of lemon-scented bleach first thing in the morning and encourage you all to participate.

I could be utterly convinced, zealous for that belief, that not only would my insides thank me, I would have lovely white teeth.

But my zeal and my sincerity of belief does not make that true.

People often say something like, I'm just a I'm just a you know, I'm a person of faith.

I'm a spiritual person.

And they might be zealously spiritually, but your zeal doesn't make it right.

Paul's saying actually it needs to be informed by by the truth.

And in fact, sometimes, like the bleach example, you can you can sincerely believe something that's actually dangerous to you and to others around you.

The religious person zealously believes, passionately believes, that they can establish their own righteousness by obeying God, by doing the works of the law.

And Paul's saying, no, that's that's ignorant zeal.

And he says, if you do that, do you know what will happen?

You'll trip over Jesus.

That's what he says.

He says they they stumbled over the stumbling stone, verse 32, as it is written, Behold, I am laying and laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

What does it mean to stumble over Jesus?

If you're seeking to, if you think, I'm not that bad, I'm comparatively good and I and I try my best, right?

I work hard, I'm faithful to my to my spouse, to my partner, I'm a decent person, right?

If you're trying to establish your moral CV, you'll trip over Jesus because you'll not understand the necessity of Christ to come into the world in order to live perfectly and to die for your sin.

Because you think, well, I don't really have all that much sin to die for.

It'll make no sense.

You'll think that you can continue to pursue your own righteousness.

This is what the Jews did.

They tripped over Jesus because they thought, well, if we just keep kosher and we circumcise our boys and we observe all of the religious holidays, then why do we need the whole casting myself on the mercy of God thing?

I'll do the sacrifices, I'll do all the things that God asks.

So they tripped over Jesus.

That foundation of unmerited grace, that salvation was by faith alone, in God alone.

And that the people in the Old Testament were supposed to, in a sense, kind of look at the law and look at the 613 commandments of the law and go, I can't do that.

I keep on failing.

And then from there cast themselves on God's mercy and go, have mercy on me, a sinner.

And yet what they did is they they read the 613 laws and went tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

And when they were struggling, they went, I just I just need to try harder.

Is your discipleship with Jesus based on trying harder?

You think of that habitual that sin.

You say, I just need to, oh, I just need to knuckle down.

Why does this keep getting me?

Well, if only I had more internal strength, you're gonna trip over Jesus.

God was laying this foundation in the Old Testament that would culminate in the coming of Jesus.

And it's as though the the Jews in the Old Testament they failed to ask, what's God what's God building here?

Who's this house for?

And how do you gain access to it?

Instead, they simply stubbed their toe and they said, Stupid rock.

They despised it.

You see, if you think you can work your way to God accepting you, you will always stub your toe on Jesus.

If you think that you're kind of all right, you will always stub your toe on Jesus.

The cross will make no sense to you because you think that your sin isn't all that bad.

And the thing above all else that the cross shows us is that our sin is really bad.

That the Prince of Heaven had to come and die in order to save you.

And if you think that you're kind of all right, you'll trip over Jesus.

If you think that you can deal with your own sin, you'll trip over Jesus.

It'll make no sense to you.

He will make no sense to you.

But the foundation that was laid in the Old Testament was a foundation not of works, but of faith that were made right by God when we cast ourselves upon Him, when we trust His word, His promise.

This, of course, requires humility on our part.

One of the reasons why we struggle to embrace the gospel, the good news of Jesus, and to stop pursuing our own righteousness is because what that requires you to say is my efforts aren't good enough.

I have to humble myself and say, Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

And lots of people don't want to do that.

When you don't want to do that, you're stumbling over Jesus.

This is why Paul says in 10 verse 4 that Christ is the end of the law.

In one sense, because Jesus is the goal and fulfillment and the culmination of everything that was being prepared in the Old Testament, but also because he is categorically brought to an end any attempt to attain righteousness by doing moral good works.

And so the Christian can say with the hymn writer, lay your deadly doing down, all down at Jesus' feet, stand in him and him alone, gloriously complete.

It's Christ who gives us his CV, his resume, of his righteousness that we cling on to by faith.

And it is on that basis that God welcomes us into that house that he was preparing.

And who is accepted?

Everyone who believes.

Everyone universally mark?

No.

Everyone who believes.

Everyone who believes, whether Jew or Gentile, cast your eye down to verse 13.

Paul says it there.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, or sorry, verse 12, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

All universally?

No, all without distinction.

Every type of person, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Everyone who's chosen or everyone who believes?

Yes.

That Venn diagram is a circle.

Again, I want to say something that I said last week because it's worth reiterating again, because I think that one of the things that I've been hearing throughout the week is a mistake that we were wrongly assuming that there's a third category of person, that there's a third category of person who earnestly desires to be saved and is casting themselves upon the mercy of Jesus and just longs for God to forgive them.

And God goes, No, you are not chosen.

That third category doesn't exist.

It doesn't exist.

All who earnestly desire to be saved will be saved.

All who earnestly desire to be saved have been chosen by God.

That Venn diagram is a circle.

I need to pick up some pace.

We've still got a little ways to go.

And Paul then moves us by ways and stages into the kind of hardest part of his argument by giving us these two Old Testament quotes.

So we're back in 10, verse 5.

He gives us these two Old Testament quotes, and the argument here is hard.

And I'm not sure that I've got it all down, full disclosure, but I here's what I think is going on.

Okay.

The first quote in verse 5, or allusion in verse 5, for Moses writes about righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.

This is a quote from Leviticus chapter 18.

Leviticus 18 · chapter mention

And it may well be that Paul's opponents are quoting Leviticus 18 back at him and going, look, Paul, it's there in black and white.

Anyone who does the works of the law will live.

That's how you gain eternal life.

Do the works of the law.

Moses said it himself.

To which Paul, I think, is replying, Yeah, I agree.

But if you read chapter two of my letter, where I kind of said, yeah, they had the law, but they didn't keep it, and nobody keeps it, uh, and so it's actually not possible to perfectly fulfill the law and enter into the life that's promised.

And then he quotes Deuteronomy.

Because, in a sense, Paul's saying, Well, how are you gonna perfectly obey the law?

What are you gonna do?

More willpower?

Well, you can't.

And verse and the quote from Deuteronomy assures us that not only can we not, that we do not need to.

So look at verse 6.

It says, But the righteousness based on faith says, Do you not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead?

But what does it say?

The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.

That is the word of faith that we proclaim.

What's he saying here?

Well he's saying is in order to gain access to all that God has promised, you don't need to climb up to heaven with extraordinary deeds of faith.

Nor do you need to descend down into the abyss to pay for your own sin.

No, the the word of faith, the word that brings life is it's near to you.

It's the gospel that we proclaim.

All you need to do is reach out and trust it, to rest in it, to rejoice in it.

It's come down, it's drawn close, it's it's taken on human flesh, it's died that he might redeem your humanity.

He's risen from the depths of the grave, as we sang about.

And he's Lord of all.

And he'll raise you up with him by faith.

It's so close.

And that when you when you embrace that by faith, when you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus was raised from the dead and that he's Lord, what happens?

You find actually that that you receive Christ's perfect CV.

You find actually that you have fulfilled the law, not in yourself, not in your own flesh, but in him.

And you live.

How do people come to know this great news of salvation?

This is our final point.

So, humanly speaking, God's kingdom defies expectations.

Humanly speaking, we would rather earn our own salvation than humble ourselves.

And then finally, humanly speaking, God uses human speaking.

Jesus has come into the world, and in his coming, he has brought near to the whole world the only message of forgiveness that our world has.

The only true and everlasting hope of forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

How do people come to hear that message?

We think, well, how did you come to hear that message?

How will your family, your classmates, your colleagues who don't know Jesus, how will they come to hear that message?

Well, somebody told you, and God has placed you in those places so that you might tell them.

God is sending us.

Paul's saying here that we need to tell the message.

We need to tell others about Jesus.

To which some would say, aha! See?

Told you this election stuff.

If election was true, then there would be no need to evangelize.

Why bother?

And Paul goes on saying, you know, how will they believe if they have not heard?

Well, surely the answer is that God's just gonna hoover them up into heaven if you really believe in the hell in election.

Why wouldn't he just zap people and make them Christians?

And so obviously, the election stuff isn't quite right.

But here, Paul says that we need to tell.

We need to tell everyone about what God has done.

But don't you see that everything that Paul has been saying in Romans chapter 9 about God's sovereign election, it's actually fuel in the tank for Romans chapter 10.

Romans 9 · chapter mention Romans 10 · chapter mention

One of the most terrible mistakes that we make is by thinking that any belief in predestination or election or God's choosing of people that it means that evangelism doesn't matter.

That's a terrible mistake.

Rather, the sovereignty of God and God's gracious election of people unto salvation is what energizes missions and fuels evangelism.

Let me tell you how.

It's the sovereign Lord reaching out his hand to you and saying, In this world, I use means.

I don't just zap people, I actually choose by my pleasure to use means to use people in order to bring about my kingdom purposes.

And I think that that's quite wonderful.

Because in a sense, the father is reaching out his hand to each of us and saying, come and join me in my work.

Come and have a front row seat to what I'm gonna do in the lives of the people around you.

Come and join me in that.

Why?

It brings the father pleasure.

And it brings you pleasure too.

It's a little bit like when uh when a child, you know, every now and again I have to um uh build IKEA furniture.

I take no joy in it, but it has to happen every now and again.

And when I when I'm there uh kind of grinding in those screws, who's at my side?

Well, Owen's at my side because he likes to build flatback furniture way more than I do.

Uh, but he likes it more because I'm there and I'm doing it.

And he likes to find the next piece that that I need.

And could I do it myself?

Well, yeah, I could, but actually I enjoy working with him.

It's a little bit like that.

That yes, God is sovereign, but he uses means and he invites you to participate with him.

There's more.

If God is sovereign, and he is, this wonderfully means that some spiritually dead people will hear the gospel and come back to life again.

You see, God's sovereignty guarantees that evangelism will work.

Because God raises the dead.

And when we're speaking the gospel to somebody who isn't a Christian, there, Paul says they're dead in their trespasses and says they have no capacity to decide for Jesus, to choose.

Have you ever seen a corpse?

They don't do much.

You cannot decide.

They cannot decide.

They must be made alive, but God's sovereign power guarantees that some people will hear the message of Jesus and they will come back to life again.

And so your evangelism will be successful.

And that's wonderful news.

It gets even better than that.

It means that when we tell people the message of the gospel, the good news of Jesus, all that is required of us is that we are faithful to that message.

You see, if God is not sovereign over salvation, then there's much more pressure on your ability.

There's much more pressure on your ability to convince someone to choose Christ.

So you need to know the answers.

You need to know how to explain the Trinity, you need to know how to explain justification by faith alone.

You need to not mess, don't mess up your witness.

Because people are watching your life, and their eternal future is on your shoulders.

If God is not sovereign.

You better not fluff your words.

You better be able to give an answer because their destiny is on you if God is not sovereign.

But if God is sovereign, and he is, then he can take your cotton-mouthed, stumbling, bumbling, marginally heretical attempt at sharing your faith and use that.

He'd use that to blow the prison doors of people's lives who are held captive by sin.

What a thing that he would use your stumbling.

Well, I don't really know, but here's what Jesus has done for me.

And you walk away from the conversation, you think, oh, I should have said that.

And I was such an I was such an idiot.

I can't believe that I said that.

And then they send you a tax letter and go, I've given my life to Jesus.

Like what do I do now?

And it's all glory to him.

Because of because at that point, you know, well, it wasn't because I was so winsome and persuasive that I argued them into the kingdom.

No, it's because God used my faulting witness to bring people back to life.

He uses our two fish and our five small loaves and he multiplies it.

Do you see?

Because he's sovereign and he's powerful and he's good.

And in the end, some will turn in repentance and faith, and some, like many Jews of Paul's day, will get angry and they'll turn away.

And if God is sovereign, then in those moments, our evangelism has not been a failure because our goal is not to argue people into the kingdom, but to declare to the whole earth the glory of God.

A glory that is seen both in God's just judgment of those who willfully turn aside from Him and in His gracious salvation of those who, through no merit of their own, He welcomes into His family.

Taking these two chapters together, we're left with two perspectives that we must affirm equally on the same event.

On the one hand, we have God's sovereign election, his freedom to save whom he will by his grace.

He is under no obligation to save anyone, and yet he has mercy on whom he will.

And yet, on the other hand, there is the human responsibility and obligation not to trust in ourselves, to establish our own righteousness, but to cast ourselves by faith on the mercy of Jesus, to lay down our pride and self-righteousness, and in humility to place our faith and trust in Him alone.

And from there, from that humble posture to speak to others, and to bid them to trust in Christ, in the certain trust that God will achieve his purposes through us for his glory and our joy.