Governed By God (Romans 9:1-13)

Romans 9, 1.

I speak the truth in Christ.

I am not lying.

My conscience testifies to me through the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the benefit of my brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood.

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises.

The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Christ, who is God over all.

Praise forever.

Amen.

Now it is not as though the word of God has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

Neither is it the case that all of Abraham's children are his descendants.

On the contrary, your offspring will be traced through Isaac.

That is, it is not the children by physical descent who are God's children, but the children of promise are considered to be offspring.

For this is the statement of the promise.

At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.

And not only that, but Rebecca conceived children through one man, our father Isaac.

For though her sons had not been born yet, or done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to election might stand.

Not from works, but from the one who calls.

She was told, the older will serve the younger.

As it is written, I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.

Let's pray.

Lord, as always, we're so grateful for your word that we get to hold it in our hands here this morning, that we get to pour over it.

Lord, these words that you have left specifically for us to read and to study and to understand.

And I pray that just that would happen here this morning.

That we would read and study and understand and not just become more knowledgeable, Lord, but that you would change our hearts.

That we would stand right before you, Lord, with our arms wide open, with soft hearts, with ears to hear and eyes to see.

Lord, I pray that you would convict us here this morning, but that you would also encourage us.

Do whatever it is that you need, and I pray that we'd be clay in your hands.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Oh, and one quick announcement I forgot.

We gained one member in our church yesterday.

Joel and Catherine had their baby.

So they have a baby girl.

Yeah, that's right.

Had a baby girl yesterday, still haven't gotten the name, but it everybody's healthy and just wanted to let everybody know.

I forgot to do that during announcements.

Anyway, so here in chapter 9, we're gonna see a shift in focus for Paul.

So Romans 1 through 8 has been convincing the church in Rome that both the Jews and the Gentiles have an equal need for a Savior.

Convincing them that we are all on the same playing field.

We're all down here and God's up here.

There's not this multi-level system of who needs salvation and how badly they need it.

God's up here, Jews and Gentiles, everybody else is down on the same playing field.

And it was only Jesus that could bridge the gap between those two.

He's telling them that regardless of their heritage, that we are all sinners, that we have all fallen short of the glory of God.

And really, that's Romans 1 through 8 in a nutshell, a very brief summation of it.

But now Paul's going to shift gears a little bit here.

And he's going to talk about Israel through the next three chapters.

So, chapters 9 through 11, he's really going to hone in on Israel.

He's going to confront head-on the unrest that the Jews have because they are rightly being told that the Gentiles now have the same access to God.

They now have the same access to salvation that the Jews have.

And we'll see this all come to a head once we get to chapter 11.

When Paul finally says, I ask then, has God rejected his people?

Referring to the Israelites?

That's the question that's developing all the way up into chapter 11.

But we'll see that Paul confronts this by reminding the Jews that salvation has always been by faith.

It's never been about their heritage, it's never been about their works.

You know, we've talked at length about how Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

For those that followed after Abraham, it was the same thing.

Those that believed God and placed their faith in him, it was also credited as righteousness for them as well.

And it had to be this way because the sacrificial system that God had put in place for the Israelites, and this is according to Hebrews 10, 4, it did not have the power to forgive sins.

But the whole sacrificial system pointed to the one that would have the power to forgive sins, and that's Jesus.

So these chapters are really going to come down to the difference between what is a cultural Israelite and what is an Israelite whose faith is placed in God.

So chapter 9 might, you know, when you read different commentaries and stuff like that, a lot of these scholars call chapter 9 one of the hardest chapters in the Bible to understand.

Because the problem is if you zoom in and you isolate any single scripture in this chapter and you try to use it out of context, you can start coming up with some really strange theology.

One of the biggest things that we need to pay attention to, we're going to take two weeks to get through chapter 9 here, but one of the biggest things that we need to pay attention to is that the context of chapter 9, all the way through verse 30, it's all about Israel.

It's all about God choosing Isaac and Jacob over their brothers.

If we keep it in that context, it makes it a lot easier to comprehend.

And I really don't think, as we're going through this, that we can base our doctrine of election or even double election, if you're familiar with that, on this chapter.

Because that's not the context of chapter 9.

So I think the route that we need to take in studying this chapter is that we need to ask the question from the get-go, and this is how we should always study the Bible.

What did Paul hope his original audience would get out of chapter 9?

In the context of the whole book of Romans.

And I think this is what Paul's trying to communicate.

This is what I'm observing, at least, that God considered a true Israelite as one who was governed by God.

Got that?

Because that's going to come up again.

God considered a true Israelite as one who was governed by God.

And in the same way, God considers a true Christian as one that is governed by God through the blood of Jesus Christ, of course.

And remember, the Jews are still wrestling with the fact that God is extending salvation to Gentiles.

This is a big deal in this Roman letter.

And these Jewish people are probably questioning, you know, what was the point of being Jewish if salvation is through Christ?

And that it's not of works and it's not about our heritage, and it's not about the whole Old Testament that we've been living in this whole time.

What's the point of being God's chosen people if it doesn't elevate them in some way?

And that's exactly what Paul's going to address in this chapter.

So that's how we're going to approach it.

But here is what I hope that we walk away with, what our application is today.

Understanding that it's not about works, it's not about who our parents are.

It's not about how long we've been following Jesus.

It's not about how long we've been going to church.

What matters is that our faith is in Christ and that we are governed by God.

That's what I hope we take home with us today.

So, if you remember, Pauline's chapter 8, talking about how no created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And he ends this chapter where you hear so much hope in his tone, and then he jumps into chapter 9.

And I want you to contrast the tone that we had last week with the tone that we have in chapter 9.

So let's start with verse 1.

I speak the truth in Christ.

I am not lying.

My conscience testifies to me through the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the benefit of my brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood.

You know, Paul goes from last week what we're talking about.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

All things work together for good for those that love Christ.

And God is for us.

If God's for us, who can be against us?

He's coming off of all those things.

And now he jumps into great sorrow and unceasing anguish.

So this is serious business.

Like that tone change tells us, okay, we really need to pay attention to what Paul's saying here.

And what he's saying is that before God, he would be willing to be cut off from Christ so that his fellow Jews that know Christ would know him.

Think on that for a second.

He'd be willing to sacrifice his right standing with God so that others could gain right standing with God.

And he's saying, Before God, I tell you that I'm telling the truth in this.

This is really how I feel on the inside.

And I'm going to be honest with you, I don't fully understand this.

And I feel bad that I don't fully understand this.

Paul has such a burden for those that don't know the love of Jesus that he's willing to place their eternal security before his own.

If that isn't a true demonstration of the love of Christ, then I don't know what it is.

Putting the needs of others before his own, just like Christ sacrificed himself for the church.

And Paul is willing to do this for his brothers and his sisters, his own flesh and blood, for the other Jews that he knows and doesn't know.

And he's going on to speak of these brothers and sisters in chapter, or in verse 4.

So look at verse 4 with me.

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service and the promises.

So all these things we see in the Old Testament, he's mentioning.

And they belong to Israel.

They're the people that God chose to reveal himself through.

Now, if you remember, Paul's been talking about this adoption that we have through Jesus into the family of God.

And Paul leads off verse 4 by saying, it first belonged to them, God's chosen people that placed their faith in him, just like Abraham put his faith in him.

And he goes on with more of what God has given them in verse 5.

The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, praised forever.

Amen.

God promised that Christ would come through Israel.

If you want to look that up, that's Genesis 12.3.

If God gave them nothing else, that is an honor that would be enough to set them apart for the rest of all time.

That the Christ came physically from their descent.

But God didn't stop there.

He gave them all of these other privileges that he lists out as well.

And as a side note, this statement here in verse 5 is one of the strongest statements of Christ's deity that we will find in Scripture.

The Christ who is God over all.

So if anybody ever argues that Jesus really isn't God, you can take them right to that verse because it couldn't get more plain than that.

Now the point of this passage is that God has given them every advantage.

He's given them every privilege over all the other nations of the world.

So if they are asking, you know, what's the point of our heritage if the Gentiles have the same access to God and salvation through Jesus?

What's the point?

What's the point of our heritage?

What's the point of our history?

And here's Paul pointing to those advantages that they had in their history.

And the advantages are, as E Lyssa, the glory.

God's glory fell on Mount Sinai.

It fell on the tabernacle.

It fell on the temple.

And then he mentions the covenants, the first covenant that was through Abraham, and now the new covenant that's through Christ.

And then the law.

The law was given to the Israelites through Moses.

God told them exactly, think about this, God told them exactly what he desired from them.

Something that no other nation had the privilege of knowing.

God gave them the temple, you know, the place where they could worship God, and the place where his glory would dwell in the holy of holies.

And he gave that to them.

I mean, Gentiles weren't even allowed into the inner courts of the temple.

It was a place that only Jewish people could go.

You know, I would call that a privilege.

I'd call that an advantage that they had over other nations.

And they also received the promises of God.

As you read through the Old Testament, there are promises to Israel everywhere.

God revealed himself to them.

That is an advantage and a privilege that no other nation had when God did that to Israel.

So they had every advantage.

And as we're going to see, the reason Paul is bringing this up is because so much of Israel didn't have the faith of Abraham.

And they actually rejected and killed the Messiah that God sent to them.

So Paul's going to point out that the real Israelites are not of the lineage of Abraham, but are of the faith of Abraham.

Look at verse 6 with me.

Now, it is not as though the word of God has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

Now, if you remember way back in Romans chapter 2, verse 28, Paul already addressed this.

Romans 2:28

And he described what we're talking about.

I'll just read it to you real quick.

So Romans chapter 2, verses 28 and 29.

Romans 2:28

He says, For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly.

And true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh.

On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly.

And circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not the letter.

So verse 6 in chapter 9 is Paul saying, just because so many of God's chosen people have failed, it doesn't mean that God or the word of God has failed.

God had chosen Israel, and many still rejected him.

His chosen people, with all the advantages that they had, still chose to reject him.

And it wasn't that God didn't hold up his end of the deal or wasn't faithful in his promises.

It was because so many depended on their lineage as Israelites instead of depending on their faith and putting their hope and their dependence upon God.

So Paul's simply pointing out that this is not God's fault.

And that not all of Israel is what God considers Israel.

Verse 7.

Neither is it the case that all of Abraham's children are his descendants.

So Abraham and Sarah, if you remember, tried to help God out, tried to speed God's promises up a little bit by having Abraham sleep with Sarah's slave Hagar.

And through that encounter, Ishmael was born, which is Abraham's oldest son.

And even though Ishmael was a blood descendant of Abraham, by the letter of the lot, in God's eyes and according to God's plan that he already had, Abraham and Sarah's son Isaac was the true descendant.

He was the true son of promise.

He was the true heir and the one that had the birthright of Abraham.

The true descendant came through the son that God chose.

And then the second half of verse 7 ends, on the contrary, your offspring will be traced, your translation might say called, but your offspring will be traced through Isaac.

So this is referring to Genesis 21, 12, where God was telling Abraham that his promise to him would come through the younger son Isaac.

And if you don't know, this was not normal in this culture at all.

In this culture, the oldest son got all the good stuff.

That was the place of privilege within the family.

But God had a different plan.

And so he tells Abraham his plan, and that his plan is through his son Isaac, his younger son Isaac.

Verse 8.

That is, it is not the children by physical descent who are God's children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring.

For this is the statement of the promise.

At this time I will come and Sarah will have a son.

God isn't concerned with our heritage.

He's not concerned with our pedigree.

He's not concerned with our tradition nearly as much as he's concerned with our faith and our trust being fully in him.

That's who he considered his offspring back then, and that's who he considers his offspring today.

Think about it.

He just wants us.

And he offers us adoption into his family.

And it's based on faith.

It's not based on our works, and it's not based on where we came from, and it's not based on who our parents are.

It's based on our faith in Jesus Christ.

And then Paul moves on to another couple where birth order didn't matter either for inheritance.

Abraham's son Isaac and his wife Rebekah.

Look at verse 10.

And not only that, but Rebekah conceived children through one man, our father Isaac.

Isaac and Rebekah had twin boys, Jacob and Esau.

But Jacob was chosen by God before they were born.

These brothers shared the womb together, and one was chosen to be Israel, and the other was chosen to not be Israel.

Verse 11.

For through her son, for though her sons had not been born yet, or done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to election might stand.

Not from works, but from the one who calls, she was told, the other will serve the younger.

As it is written, I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.

So before those boys could do anything to earn position within this family, or anything that we could say, oh, well, he won favor with God because of this, God already had it all lined up while they were in the womb.

God could have easily, think about this, God could have easily made Jacob the oldest and just had him come out first.

But he chose the younger.

It was in his plan.

Which I think actually makes sense when you read through scripture and you see how God operates.

Because throughout scripture we see God making sure that we don't ever turn our faith into a formula.

He doesn't want us to develop a five-step plan to get an end result as far as salvation or anything like that.

Because, and this is my opinion, because I think he wants us to remain dependent upon him for everything and not a formula.

You know, as we talked a lot about as we were going through the book of Mark as a church together, Jesus didn't have a formula that he followed for his miracles.

He changed it up every single time to make sure that a formula didn't get the credit for a miracle when all the credit belonged to God.

You know, if Jesus put mud made out of spit on every blind person's eyes, which he did once, could you imagine how many blind people would be walking around with dirt and saliva on their eyes right now?

Giving the credit to the mud as opposed to giving the credit to God.

God doesn't want our relationship with him to become formulaic.

And he doesn't want the work of the Spirit to become formulaic.

And he doesn't want formulas to take credit for his power and for the work of the Holy Spirit.

You know, I think right here in our passage, I think the birthright going to Jacob instead of Esau is God's way of saying, you know, you think you have lineage and heritage figured out, and what kid gets the birthright, and what kid gets the inheritance?

I think God's just saying, you know, I'm going to turn that on its head and make sure that you don't think it's who your father is that secures who you are.

But that it's your faith in who your true father that determines your right standing.

You know, I obviously don't know for sure, but I think that is what he's doing with having the older serve the younger here with Jacob and Esau.

But I think the most important thing that we see here, that we here at Abide take away, is that this all came from, as verse 12 says, the one who calls.

All of this came from the one who calls.

And who are we to argue with?

The one who calls?

Who are we to second guess the one who calls?

Who are we to think that we know better than him?

Or to challenge him.

David Guzik has a wonderful quote that I want to share with you.

He says, our greatest error in considering the choices of God is to think that God chooses for arbitrary reasons.

As if he chooses in an eny meeny miny mo kind of way.

We may not be able to fathom God's reasons for choosing, and they are reasons he alone knows and answers to.

But God's choices are not capricious.

He has a plan and a reason.

God called Jacob and not Esau.

God ordained for the older to serve the younger.

And then the last sentence of verse 13, it says, and this verse can really cause some issues.

And maybe some confusion or maybe just raise a lot of questions.

But verse 13 says, as it is written, I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.

You know, you read this and think, wow, that is really harsh, you know, for God to say something like that.

But the confusion with this verse is that this is not from Genesis.

This is not from God's communication with Isaac and Rebekah regarding their sons.

This quote is from Malachi 1, verses 2 through 5, the last book of the Old Testament.

Malachi 1:2–5

And this quote, if you go back and you read it in context of Malachi, it's referring to the two nations that came from those brothers.

Jacob being Israel and Esau being Edom.

So you can read it.

And God hated Edom because they rose up against Israel, and they were really just a thorn in their side.

They were pagan, they were against God, and they were against God's chosen people.

So God flat out calls them wicked in Malachi.

God didn't hate Esau before he was born.

We can't get that from this text.

But he hated the nation that came from Esau because of their rebellion against God.

So guess what?

God chose the correct brother.

Who would have thought, right?

The nation that he chose Israel, the nation that would imperfectly serve him, over the nation that would flat out reject him and rebel against him.

But you might still look at this verse and say, wow, God hated a nation, he hated Edom.

You know that word used for hate here?

It's the same word that Jesus used in Luke 14, 26.

When he said, If anyone comes to me and does not hate, same word, and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Now we know that Jesus taught to love and respect and honor your parents.

We know that Jesus taught to love your neighbor as yourself.

The idea of this passage in Jesus' words is that you love God so much that your love for everything else just completely pales in comparison.

And I think that's the same idea here with Jacob and Esau.

It's not that God hated Edom.

He sure hated their actions, I think.

But it wasn't that he hated them, it was that he loved Israel so much more that there was just no comparison between the two.

So, like I said, here's what I want us to walk away with here today, to walk out that door to be thinking about this week.

God is God and we are not.

He knows the beginning from the end.

I think the question is, are we okay with not knowing and not understanding everything?

Not understanding the why behind everything God does.

And can we not understand the why, but have so much faith in his goodness that we're okay with it?

And still believe that he not only knows what's best for us, but he wants what's best for us.

Do you believe that even when you disagree with him, that he is still right and it's still in your best interest to obey him?

Because most of the Israelites, and this is what Paul's addressing, were not okay with salvation being extended to the Gentiles equally.

They weren't okay with God making that call.

Which makes us have to ask ourselves: is our faith in God conditional upon how we think he's doing at being God?

You know, Abraham had incredible faith in God.

To the point that he was willing to sacrifice his only son, or his chosen son, I should say, because he trusted God that much.

And it was credited to Abraham for righteousness.

So back to what we said in the beginning.

Are we allowing him to govern our lives?

Because that's really what he desires.

And it's for our own good.

He does such a better job being God over our lives than we do.

So I think that's the question.

Do we trust him?

Is it conditional upon how we think he's doing?

Lord, we trust you.

We depend on you.

We realize that we do a horrible job of trying to do your job for you.

So, Lord, whatever we're holding on to, whatever we're not surrendering, whatever bitterness we have might have towards you because we think you messed up, because we think whatever it might be, Lord, fill in the blank.

Would you forgive us for holding on to those things?

Would you forgive us for not placing our full trust in you?

You've never given us a reason to not trust you.

So, Lord, I pray that from the bottom of our hearts, that we would surrender all to you here this morning.

Whatever we're holding on to, whatever we're not allowing you to be God over in our lives.

Lord, I pray that through the power of the Holy Spirit, that you would search our hearts right now.

Even if it's something we don't realize, Lord, would you bring that to the surface?

Would you bring that to our attention, to the forefront of our mind right now?

Would you point those things out that we need to surrender that we're holding on to too tightly?

Lord, I pray that you would see us here this morning with just open hands.

Just saying, Lord, we can't do this on our own.

We need you, we're dependent upon you, and we surrender all to you.

Pray these things in Jesus' name.