The Justice of God's Mercy (Romans 9:14-33)

Okay, we're gonna be in Romans chapter 9 today.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

We're gonna do the second half of that chapter.

There's going to be some overlap between last week and this week that should comfort you.

If it was a complete right turn from the rest of the passage, you'd be probably like, I'm a little uncomfortable, and I'm gonna find a non-awward way to leave.

So with that, there is going to be a little bit of overlap, and that's normal.

So with that, we're gonna be in starting in verse 14 of Romans chapter 9.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

Okay, and if you are able, please stand for the reading of God's word.

What should we say then?

Is there injustice with God?

Absolutely not.

For he tells Moses, I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy, I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

So then it does not depend on human will or effort, but on God who shows mercy.

For the Scripture tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason, so that I may display my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in the whole earth.

So then he has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

You will say to me, therefore, why then does he still find fault?

For who can resist his will?

But who are you, a mere man to talk back to God?

Well, what is formed to say to the one who formed it, Why did you make me like this?

Or has the potter no right over the clay to make the same lump, from the same lump, one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?

And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?

And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory?

On us the ones he also called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles.

As it also says in Hosea, I will call not my people my people, and she who is unloved, beloved.

It will be in the place where they were told you are not my people.

There they will be called sons of the living God.

But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of Israel is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved, since the Lord will execute his sentence completely and decisively on the earth.

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

What should we say then?

Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness, namely the righteousness that comes from faith.

But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not achieved the righteousness of the law.

Why is that?

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

They stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, Look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over, and a rock to trip over, and the one who believes on him will not be put to shame.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for this morning, and I ask, Lord, that you would be glorified in everything that's said and done today, that you would fill me with your spirit to teach your word and fill the hearers with your spirit to rightly discern and divide.

And that you would be glorified in all things in your name.

Amen.

Have a seat?

Thank you.

Okay, so the Google effect is the weirdest way to start a sermon I could think of.

What on earth is the Google effect?

So here's the thing.

Um I'm picking on Google because it's like huge, but like the search engine thing.

When you put something in, you get something out, right?

And we like to think that when we are searching for things, we are doing research, right?

If we're doing it and we're doing it, we're typing it in, it's research because we're objective, right?

And we do things.

Here's the thing, and I'm hoping that this is not earth-shattering.

Google's goal, or whatever your search engine, their goal is not to provide you with the most true, with the most accurate or most widely received bit of information.

That's not even their business model.

Their goal is to provide you what you are looking for.

So what you type in is what you are going to get out.

Does that make sense?

So it's not a source of knowledge, it is a source of giving you what you're looking for.

We can take that even further because there is something floating out there called the algorithm.

I like to think of it as like a jellyfish.

I don't know why, but it's it's out there somewhere.

And so they are able to take all of the information that you put into there and all these different things, and quantify that into not only what you've already been looking for, but what they think you want to look for in order to arrive at a goal.

Right?

So that's why when you're searching for something, like on a you're searching on Amazon to buy something, suddenly ads for that very thing are popping up in social media.

It's because that's how that business works, right?

Now, does that happen because of some nefarious person like in a corner office stroking a cat thinking this is how I brainwash them?

No.

They have merely observed and then been able to monetize how our brains work.

We it's called confirmation bias.

We look for what we want to see, and we don't automatically see the things we either don't believe or don't want to see, and we discount those.

We our brain does a great job of filtering out that information.

And so, with that, one great way to see this happen, which I, if you want to have fun, I challenge you to do this way this for the next couple of weeks.

Whatever your social media thing is, if you do that, if not, you're a happier person.

Uh if you, you know, whatever those things are, just search for something, like turtles.

My youngest loves turtles.

Search for turtles every day for the next couple weeks and see how often suggested searches suddenly come up for different ways to care for turtles.

It is amazing.

So, why am I telling you this?

Because, like I said, that's how the human brain tends to work.

We look for what we're looking for, we discard what we're not looking for, and that's why Romans 9 is so weird.

Because if we have a bent towards election, we will find the ultimate proof text in this passage for that.

If we have a bent towards Armenianism, which is full free will, you might lose your salvation tomorrow, who knows?

We'll find that in this passage.

That doesn't mean that's what the passage is saying.

That means that we are able to find what we are already looking for.

And that is what we're trying to not do.

Because, believe it or not, when Paul wrote this to the Church of Rome, which is a mixture of Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome, he was not writing through this and going, you know, there's gonna be a point in time where there's this guy, Jacobus Arminus and John Calvin, and their followers are going to super concentrate their beliefs into a certain thing.

I gotta get ahead of this just to clear it up.

He doesn't care.

He's writing to people that he was like ministering to.

So that, but here we look back through history and we go, that must be what he's talking about, because this is the big topic on hand.

So, all that to say, if you come here today with this passage looking for the keys and the secrets of how election works and how free will works and all that, um you're gonna be disappointed.

But my goal is to as faithfully as possible uh exposit what it seems like Paul is trying to actually determine here.

And that is all based on verse 14.

Is there injustice with God?

Is the big question he is asking here.

Notice he did not ask, does God only save some?

He did not ask, does God create people doomed for destruction?

He does not ask, how does that work?

What's the mixture?

That's not what he's trying to talk about here necessarily.

It's is there injustice with God?

And when we look at this, once again, this is just a long letter that Paul is delivering to the church in Rome.

So everything that we've gone over so far is context for what we're reading right now.

So there is in Romans 1 through 3, we see that he is definitively stating that all human beings are guilty of sin and therefore subject to God's wrath.

The righteous God punishing sin as is his due.

However, God, because he is rich in mercy and abounding in love, has offered salvation and offered justification, which is the imputation of righteousness to us through faith in Jesus and nothing else.

Only through faith in Jesus.

That's the only way to have salvation and to be made right with God.

That's the context for the whole book of what's going on here.

He's also, as he's talking through here, having to navigate a mixed church of Jews and Gentiles, both having faith in Jesus, but the Jews struggling with the law, struggling with, whoa, you kind of need that, and the Gentiles struggling with just tending to struggle with just straight up sin and going, I don't need to stop that because I've been saved, so I'm good, right?

And that's the battle back and forth and back and forth.

And so you can imagine the uh just in continuation here, immediate passage is really talking about Israel, really talking about how they're processing this.

And so this question, is there injustice with God?

Didn't he just pull that out of the air?

You can see the Jewish believers being saying, How is this fair?

How is it fair that we have done all of these things?

We have followed the law, we have the birthright of Abraham, we have suffered and struggled in a way that the Gentile believers have no idea what that's like.

They haven't done any of this, and yet we received the same inheritance and the same salvation.

How is that fair?

What's the point in this?

Is there injustice with God?

That is the foundation of what we're talking about here.

Does that make sense so far?

Perfect.

So he says in 14, what should we say then?

Is there injustice with God?

Absolutely not.

So he just answered the question.

We can go home now.

Okay, there's more.

There's more to this.

Verse 15, he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.

I will show compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then it doesn't depend on human will or effort, but on God who shows mercy.

Here in verses 15 through 18, he's going to give two fours and two so then's.

So he's pulling from the Torah, from the law, two for, therefore, uh bits of information to support his statement there is not injustice with God.

And then so then, therefore, this is what we can think.

But we need a little bit of context here because once again, Paul is an elite Pharisee, was an elite Pharisee.

That means that he has the Torah memorized by a young age, which is crazy.

Absolutely crazy.

I can't even remember phone numbers anymore.

Once I was able to store them in my phone, that was all just gone.

So, with that, uh, he knows exactly what he is saying here.

And this passage, I will show mercy and whom I'll show mercy and have compassion, and whom I'll have compassion, comes from Exodus 33.

Do you know what the context of Exodus 33 is?

The golden calf.

So, what just happened is that Moses goes up to the mountain to receive the law.

He's with God 40 days and 40 nights receiving the law.

Meanwhile, the people of Israel who were just delivered miraculously from Egypt, they're waiting there and they're like, So it's kind of been a long time.

I don't know what happened to Moses.

Hey, Aaron, make us a God that we can see and worship.

And Aaron, being the great leader that he is, is like, okay.

And makes a golden calf.

And the people worship, and uh they are caught in this guilt as Moses comes down and sees this, completely falling into idolatry immediately after, soon after deliverance.

So there is a universal guilt being stated here in this passage.

And God and Moses are speaking at this point, and Moses says in Exodus 33, 15 through 19, if your presence does not go, Moses responds to him, Don't make us go up from here.

How will it be known that I and your people have found favor with you unless you go with us?

I and your people will be distinguished by this from all the other people on the face of the earth.

And the Lord answered Moses, I'll do this very thing that you have asked, for you have found favor with me, and I know you by name.

Then Moses said, Please let me see your glory.

And he, being the Lord, said, I'll cause all my goodness to pass in front of you.

I will proclaim the name the Lord before you.

I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

So the context of this passage is the Lord speaking to Moses in the midst of Israel's guilt, and Moses interceding for the people, and the Lord demonstrating that, okay, I will go with you because you have found favor in my sight.

Unmerited favor in my sight.

And Moses goes for it in the midst of this, and he's like, Hey, can I see your glory?

And God's like, haha, okay.

So I will cause my goodness to pass before you.

I'll proclaim the name of the Lord, I will be gracious to whom I be gracious and have compassion, and whom I'll have compassion.

In the midst of that, uh, you cannot see the full glory because you die.

So, the first so then as a result here in this passage 16, it doesn't depend on human will or effort.

Your passage may see him who may say him who runs or him who wills, human will or effort, but on God who shows mercy.

So, his mercy and his compassion is not earned, is the first point here.

We we this shouldn't be life-altering, right?

We've been through this in terms of like all of Romans at this point, that God's mercy and compassion is not earned, it's not based on human will or effort.

And in the context of this, that has a whole lot to do with the law.

Of them saying, look, we kind of we kind of have worked for this, therefore we should have this, and they shouldn't.

And Paul is pointing out here that God's favor is entirely up to him, not based on the law, and not based on birthright as a descendant of Abraham.

And then it continues, verse 17, the scripture tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason, so that I may display my power in you and my name may be proclaimed in the whole earth.

This comes from Exodus 9.

This is in the midst of the plagues, where Pharaoh is repeatedly and intentionally defying God as the Almighty is raining down plague and destruction upon him and his people.

And he is still defying him and saying, I will not let the people go.

And in Exodus 9, 13 through 17, the Lord says to Moses, get up early in the morning.

See, I already lost some of you with that statement, and present yourself to Pharaoh.

Tell him, This is what the Lord, the God of Hebrews, says, Let my people go so that they may worship me.

For this time I'm about to send all my plagues against you, your officials, and your people.

Then you will know there's no one like me on the whole earth.

By now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague, and you would have been obliterated from the earth.

However, I have let you live for this purpose, to show my power and to make my name known on the whole earth.

You are still acting arrogantly against my people by not letting them go.

So, Moses has the awesome job of getting up early in the morning and early in the morning telling one of the most powerful people on earth bad news.

So, they're with that.

Here's the thing in this context: what God is saying is to Pharaoh, I could have killed you at any moment.

I could have destroyed you and your whole kingdom anytime I wanted to, but I have let you live for this purpose to show you my power and to make my name known on the whole earth.

So he is delaying his wrath for the purpose of greater glory.

So much so that when the Israelites enter into the Promised Land, like decades later, by the way, because this whole generation dies off, and they enter in 40 years after they leave, the people in the Promised Land are terrified because they have heard what the Lord did in Egypt.

Decades later.

I mean, imagine at this point in time saying, I heard what the Lord did back in 1980, and I don't want that to happen now.

Did that hurt anybody that 1980 was 40 years ago, by the way?

Just saying.

So, with that, he delayed his wrath for greater glory that extended far beyond the circumstances.

And so here, when he tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason so that I may display my power in you, my name may be proclaimed to the whole earth, and he delayed his wrath upon Pharaoh.

We get the so then in verse 18.

He has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

And this is where we get start to get a little uncomfortable, right?

This is the verse where we're starting to be like, okay.

There we are.

Okay.

Important framing here that we saw hold through the book of Romans, that we have seen in Romans 9, and we have seen in this passage.

All human beings are guilty before God and unable to achieve righteousness on their own.

It is only through faith in Jesus that one can be given righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus, in the midst of that, right?

Because this is the point where for some reason we suddenly become very weird defense attorneys.

For Pharaoh, who, by the way, I know this is not news, is not a good guy.

He is literally willing to destroy his nation and his people and his family in order to defy and stand against the Almighty while God is raining down supernatural plagues upon him that cannot be explained any other way.

Think about that.

He actually cost his entire kingdom their firstborn sons by his stubbornness, by his pride, by his arrogance.

That's a good picture of us, by the way.

And that is the thing that we forget because in this moment we sit there and we go, well, what about it?

Seems like that seems unfair that God hardened Pharaoh.

And it was like, he's Pharaoh! What are you where did we get this?

And why are we suddenly questioning God in the midst of that?

And we tend to, in these moments, look at people like we are neutral.

And God is either elevating neutral people, or even people who have earned it through the law, through different things, through being good people, or he's taking neutral people and he's driving them down into the ground against their will.

I have no instance in all scripture where somebody is pardoned or judged contrary to where they are already determined to be.

There is no good person who is being driven into the ground in that way.

The most obvious, easy one, you look at Judas in that situation, pretty intense situation judgment with that, pretty intense death with that.

He was intent on this course of action.

So there's a C.S.

Lewis quote that I love in this.

He says, the doors of hell are locked from the inside.

And so what that means is that those who want to be apart from the presence of God have not only chosen that, but have ardently chosen that, determinantly chosen that.

And that is where we need to remember in these moments that we are all deserving of death.

We are all deserving of judgment, we are all deserving of hell.

And so it is not weird when that happens.

It's only amazing when it doesn't through faith in Jesus.

Does that make sense?

So when he says here in verse 18, he has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden, that doesn't say that he hardens people to damnation.

It doesn't say he doesn't.

It just doesn't say that.

That's not what this passage is teaching.

What it is showing is that God is amazing, and that God does what God is going to do.

So, thus far, that question is there injustice with God?

First of all, he's got uh Paul here is saying God's mercy and justice is based on him and not anything else.

He is the standard, he is right, and what he does is right, intrinsically.

And then secondly, what he does is right.

So he is righteous and what he does is good.

Those are the two arguments thus far.

So then he continues.

But before that, these are the moments where we really want to say, well, it seems like it says this, or it seems like it says that, because that's what we're what we want to already think.

Or that's what we've been taught, or those are our inclinations or suspicions, or even our wounds.

It's not that simple because so far, the result and the answer we've gotten so far is we have to trust him.

And that's a whole lot of scary.

Because we don't have it would be easy for Paul if he was if he somehow knew this to say, this is how God works and how God does this.

He didn't do that.

Because we have to point back to God and go, is God just?

Yes, and I need to trust him in that.

And the thought in that is that we want to find the easy answers, because that wouldn't require us to have faith in his character.

It means that we would know that it's like, okay, this is the process, we're good.

But now we have a little bit of a mystery and an uncertainty, and that requires us to submit to that's a dangerous word, submit to him and to trust in him and to follow him, even when we don't understand.

So he continues here in verse 19.

You will say to me, therefore, well, why does he still find fault?

For who can resist his will?

So, is there injustice with God?

No.

You haven't earned this, you haven't been born into this, it's only by the grace of God.

And then here, it's like, well, then if he does what he wants, how is this my fault?

How many of you have kids?

Okay, just checking.

No correlation, just checking.

It's not my fault.

I didn't know.

Who can resist his will?

How is it possible?

And his response in verse 20, who are you to talk back to God?

And so he doesn't really answer the question.

He just reminds it's not your place.

Now, that's really contrary to the world we live in right now.

Because the most true thing is what I experience and what I think and what I feel.

That is the most true thing, it is what people tend to believe these days.

That really grates against having to say, you don't get to question God in that way.

Because you lose people with by saying things like that automatically, by starting to say, well, you uh, well, you really have to try you just have to trust that he's good, and people are like, oh no, no, I'm sorry.

I can't do that because this, this, this, and this, this, this, or because, oh, that's so weird, and you've been brainwashed and all these different things.

So it's interesting that he's giving these statements of like, look, you can't talk back to God.

And he continues, well, what does form say in verse 20 to the one who formed it?

Why'd you make me like this?

Imagine a something that's been created coming up.

Even better.

Imagine a baby being born and going like, really?

Brown hair?

I specifically asked for blonde.

Why are my arms so bumpy?

What are you doing?

What's going on?

I can't even talk.

This is so frustrating.

All I can do is make the same noise for every possible response, and then you get to figure out for a really long time which one that is, only to find out it was none of them.

That's ludicrous for to think that an infant would be like, man, you're really bad at this, guys.

Come on.

More like, wow, I'm alive, and wow, you've provided me sustenance and shelter and care and love.

That's pretty amazing.

Uh although I haven't interviewed very many infants, to be fair, I have not, I can't imagine someone being like, man, I just really don't like my parents.

I like the like the ones like two doors down in the hospital.

They had the bigger mylar balloons.

So, yeah, it's it's ludicrous in that statement.

And so he continues with this picture in verse 21.

Or has the potter no right over the clay to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?

And again, that's one of those verses that makes us a little bit.

And uh, it's interesting because it shows our natural mentality.

Reading it again, has the potter no right over the clay?

Pause for a second.

You know what clay is?

Dirt and water.

The only other time we see this word in scripture is when Jesus spits on in the dirt, makes mud, and rubs it on a blind guy's eyes and tells him to go wash and he's healed.

So that's the material, the kind of material we're working with here.

Has he no right over the clay to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?

Just by a quick show of hands, and I may shoot myself in the foot here, how many of you in your um fine china have your fine china made out of made out of like raw natural pottery, out of clay?

Yes.

Okay.

If we look at 2 Timothy 2.20, he's making a different point in that passage, but he says, in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but those of wood and clay, some for honorable use and some for dishonorable use.

Culturally speaking, very clearly, and we can get the point today, honorable use vessels are gold and silver.

Dishonorable use or common use are wood and clay.

So you don't take, I'll say this delicately, but you don't you don't take your gold and silver vessels and use them as your restroom back in that day when there's no indoor plumbing, right?

Or you don't put your gold and silver vessels out when they can be, you know, um it can be broken.

You know, again, you don't hand that to an infant.

Clay ones are common, breakable, disposable in that way.

So, let's reframe this.

Has the potter no right over this clay to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?

Our brain should be going, how on earth can he make honorable pottery out of clay?

What an amazing craftsman! What a wonderful creator, what a gifted artisan, that he can take this common material and turn it into something amazing.

Random little side note with that, but that may just be one of those, like, wow, thank you for letting me know that information.

When people learn instruments, the temptation is what I need is a better instrument because it will make me better.

If I have, you know, like I have this starter guitar, what I really need is that$3,000 guitar, and that will make me sound better.

Okay.

I find it funny that if you take somebody who is a professional and give them the hundred dollar special that came from Costco, they still sound amazing because they are gifted artists.

It's not about the tool, it's about the artist.

And so here we should be praising him that he can make pottery for honor out of clay, whereas the common purpose, the default, would be dishonor.

You see the parallel there so far?

Because we are front-loading a lot of with the law, with the birthright, with the lineage to Abraham.

I've earned a seat at this table, guys, on the on the Jewish believer side, saying, like, look, I have a right to be here, and you don't know what I've been through, and the Gentiles have been through none of it.

And he's saying, look, we are all clay vessels, and the fact he has made clay vessels of honor out of clay, mind-blowing.

And so he continues in verse 22.

What if God wanting to display his wrath and make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?

So, God here, what does he do in verse 22?

He endures with patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction.

It's kind of like Pharaoh, right?

That situation where he's like, I could have destroyed you anytime, but I've left you alive for this purpose, for this greater glory.

And that's what he says here.

He wants to display his wrath and make his power known.

So he endures with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction.

But we somehow we don't automatically go back to that Moses passage in Exodus 33 and go, he's really bearing with those people who just literally turn to idolatry right after miraculously being delivered.

Continuing on, verse 23, what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory?

On objects of mercy, not objects of deservedness, not objects of justice.

Objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory.

And here is something to remember in this passage.

The way things were set up, especially at this point in time, objects of wrath prepared for destruction, the common mentality for the Jewish audience would be like those be Gentiles.

They don't have the law, they don't have this.

In order to be right with God, they would have to become Jewish, be circumcised, follow the law, but ultimately they're just objects of wrath prepared for destruction.

And Paul here flips this whole picture on his head because he talks about that.

And then he talks about objects of mercy prepared beforehand for glory, on us the ones he called, so the called ones, objects of mercy, not only in verse 24 from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles.

So this is a tough pill to swallow when he's saying that the objects of mercy, the honorable use ones, the ones prepared beforehand for glory, the ones he called, are not only Jews, but also Gentiles.

Got a lot of friction there where you're like, how can that be?

How can we be in the same playing field?

Of all we've of all we've worked for this, of the struggle, of the difficulty in these situations.

We have bad memories.

We have really good memories of things we did well.

And if you think that's not true, talk to somebody who played sports in high school.

It's like the fish stories that keep getting bigger and bigger.

So, or in college, too, same thing, to where it's just like, wow, okay, good, I'm glad.

What are you doing with your life now?

Um and so we have bad memories on things that we didn't do well because Israel went through a whole lot of horrible things.

Before this, 400 years of slavery, hard labor, bondage, and then deliverance, and then idolatry, and then forgiveness and the law, and then refusal to enter the land, 40 years of wandering, and then entering the promised land, and then the book of Judges, which is a train wreck from beginning to end.

On and on and on and on.

And so it's easy to go, we have suffered immensely.

And this is the church in Rome, by the way.

Uh, Rome being the oppressors who just who took over this area after they were passed back and forth between the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic empires, Egypt, Babylon, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

They were able to get in a bit of independence and have their own little dynasty for a little bit with kings, enter Rome, tore that down.

This is the church in Rome where the Jews were actually all expelled from Rome for a while.

So they come back and they're like, there's a whole lot of Gentiles in this church.

What happened?

So we tend to remember how we've been wronged, we tend to remember the struggle, we tend to remember the things we've done well, but we don't have that same clarity on the things we've done wrong.

And in those moments we go, God, what are you doing?

How is this fair?

And that is why we are we don't get to be the ones in the place of decision and judgment.

And that should comfort us.

Continuing forward, in verse 25, Paul's beginning to lay the foundation that this isn't just Paul talking, this was from the beginning, God's plan.

He says in Hosea in verse 25, which is Hosea 1, 9 through 10 and 223 stuck together, I will call not my people my people, and she who is unloved beloved, and will be in the place where they're told you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.

So in that passage, he's saying, look, this is back in the prophets, not my people will be called my people.

Unloved will be called beloved, and not my people will be called sons.

This is not new.

And then he says in Isaiah, verse 27, Isaiah 10, 22, though the number of Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved, since the Lord will execute his sentence completely and decisively on the earth.

Even in the midst of the Israelites, like the sand of the sea, only a remnant is going to be saved.

And he's saying, guys, you knew this.

You knew this information that it wasn't just being an Israelite that makes you right with God.

Because only a remnant's going to be saved through here.

And then in verse 29, quoting Isaiah 1:9, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom and would have been made like Gomorrah.

Isaiah 1:9

Key Bible point, you don't want to become like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Utterly destroyed in wrath.

And so he's saying here, quoting Isaiah, look, if God hadn't left us our offspring, a remnant, something, we would have been wiped off the map.

And that is the playing field of Israel's experience.

I love how earlier in this passage he quotes from the law.

Here he quotes from the prophets, and he's telling them, guys, you knew this, you should have seen this, or not even should have seen this, but this is not something that is new.

He's saying not only was it always God's plan to include Gentiles who have faith in Jesus, but it was also always the reality that only those of Israel who have faith in Jesus will be made right with God.

Apart from what they want to earn, apart from the law.

So, the next question, 30 through 32, what should we say then?

So, what's our conclusion?

The Gentiles who didn't pursue righteousness have obtained righteousness, the righteousness that comes from faith.

So Gentiles were not chasing after righteousness, but they have obtained.

They have taken hold of, might even say received that.

They weren't even looking for it, and it was given to them the righteousness that comes from faith.

But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not achieved, attained, earned the righteousness of the law, because they didn't pursue it by faith.

So he's saying, once again, what we've seen throughout the whole book of Romans, the key is faith.

Faith in Jesus specifically.

The Gentiles were not even pursuing righteousness, but the ones who have put their trust in Jesus did so through faith.

They just received what was given to them, because it's a gift, right?

Israel, chasing after the law of righteousness, they didn't achieve it.

They didn't arrive at that goal.

Why?

Because they didn't pursue it by faith, but as it were by works.

They stumbled over the stumbling stone.

So you can see someone running a race, having trained really hard, and running and going to achieve their own goal and falling.

Would they fall over?

The one thing they needed, being Jesus.

In 33, we have a mashup of Isaiah 8 and Isaiah 8:14, Isaiah 28, 16 through 17, with a little bit of context from Psalm 118 sprinkled in about the chief cornerstone.

Isaiah 8:14

He says, Look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over and a rock to trip over.

And the one who believes on him will not be put to shame.

And this passage is picked up by Peter in 1 Peter 2, 4 through 8, which, unless there's any uncertainty, he says, That be Jesus, by the way.

So, that stone, the chief cornerstone being Jesus.

However, when we pursue things by our own works, by our own effort, by the law, trip over that because that requires receiving something we didn't earn.

That requires obedience to something we can't control.

And once again, that comes back to that whole submission thing that we don't like, which is saying to God, I trust you when I don't understand.

In no part of this passage does Paul explain how this works, beyond how it works as it pertains to us, which is we are all deserving of guilt and God's wrath, and we are offered salvation through Jesus, through faith in Jesus and nothing else.

And those who have faith in Jesus, have access to God, have sonship, have inheritance, regardless of Jew or Gentile.

So all he did was explain all we need to know.

And that's the beauty of this passage.

That's what I love about it, is that there's a lot of things we want, may want to be like, well, what about this and what about this and what about this?

I don't know.

And I don't think it says it, and I don't think it's that clear either, except what is clear is it all centers on Jesus.

How do we know if we are objects of mercy if we have Jesus?

How do we know if he has had mercy on us if we have Jesus?

How do we know if we are his children?

If we have Jesus.

Yes, absolutely.

So back to the main question.

Uh, is there injustice with God?

No.

Thank you.

That was good.

But there's a little bit of work that we need to do in that because Israel's grappling with this for themselves, right?

They're grappling with how can this be, how can this be fair considering all these things.

If we are honest, these are things that we grapple with in our own walk with God for those who have their faith in Jesus repeatedly through the course of our life.

That's a reality.

We all in different times have to ask God, how is this fair?

What are you doing?

Why did this happen?

This happens in times of hurt.

This happens when we didn't get what we think we deserve.

This happens when we, when other people got what we think we deserve, as was in this passage.

This happens when we got hardships that we didn't think we deserve, even when we're promised them.

And how we processed that question, it's it's all the way back to the Google effect.

You get out of it what you put into it.

Whatever you type into that, you get the same result.

And so, if we are prone to go, is there injustice with God?

And then our propensity is like, he doesn't see, he doesn't know, he doesn't care, or he's not kind, or he's not good, or he's good to others, but not to me.

He doesn't know how important this was to me.

He doesn't know how much this hurts.

Those are the things that can cause hurt to become bitterness.

And here's the difference, big difference with that.

If we are hurt ideally, what we do is we take that and we go, God, this hurts.

What is going on?

I don't understand.

I don't know what's going on.

How is this fair?

That is something that we like the big theological term, normal.

That's normal.

To go, God, what is going on here?

It's amazing how many times we've been told you can't ask God things like that.

You can't be honest with him.

Spoiler alert, he already knows.

So, in those moments, in moments of hurt, pressing into him is good.

We may not ever find the answers we're looking for, but we find him and we find help and we find healing.

When we allow that to result in bitterness, what we do is we step back and we say, There's injustice with God.

I don't feel safe with him.

The only safety I have is with myself.

I can't go to him.

I need to protect myself and take care of myself because what I say is true, what I say is right, and I am the arbiter of what is good and bad.

That's what bitterness does, is it poisons us to think that we see objectively rather than seeing partially in those things.

And what that what bitterness does is it pushes us away from God and makes us less willing to go to Him.

And it's in times of difficulty and times of hardship that our faith is on display, where the things that are most important to us, when we have to give those over to him, those are the moments of truth.

And those are the moments also where we see just how good he is.

I can't think of a time in my life, just speaking anecdotally, where I have given something immensely important and put it in his hands, and he goes, oops! Not once.

Nor can I think of times where he goes, I will do whatever you say.

Thank you for handing me that.

That's how this transactional relationship works, and now I I now you can manipulate me.

But ultimately, we have to be able to ask, is there injustice with God?

And arrive at, I trust that there is not.

I believe he is good.

I know he loves me.

I know he is near.

I know that those things that I care about, he cares about more than I do.

He sees beyond what I do, and he is objective.

And there's peace to be had in that.

And we can, at that point in time, we have the freedom to rejoice.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your goodness.

I thank you for your faithfulness in all things.

I thank you for your mercy.

And I thank you that you are good.

And your mercies endure forever.

That we can rejoice that we did not earn our salvation.

That we did not earn our righteousness.

Because then we could blow it.

Rejoice that we are not the arbiters of truth because we're wrong on a daily basis.

I ask, Lord, that we would press into you in hard times, in good times, in times of uncertainty, that we would lean into you knowing that you are good, even when things don't feel that way, when they don't feel fair, when they don't feel right.

And that we can have confidence in that as we grapple with you.

I thank you that you are not a God who is threatened by our questions.

And Lord, we just testify that you are good and you are righteous and holy, and your mercies endure forever.

Amen.