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Part 16 of 20
How To Get Right With God series
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We're diving into Romans chapter 9, which presents what could be the most information-dense sermon of this series. Paul makes a significant shift here—it's like he's yanking the emergency brake while you're cruising down the highway. After building a foundation about our sinful nature, Christ's perfect life, the cross, and our justification through His righteousness, Paul now pivots to address the Jewish community's deepest objections to the gospel.
This matters to us because the questions the Jewish people wrestled with in Paul's time are the same questions we wrestle with today. Understanding their concerns helps us understand our own faith journey.
Before Romans 9, Paul established that we all have "bad spiritual genetics"—we're all heading toward eternal separation from God. But Christ steps in. He lives a perfect life, lays it down as a ransom for us, and makes the great exchange: His life for ours, His righteousness credited to our account.
This is what justification means. We've been credited the righteousness of Christ. Our judgment day is behind us. Everything we do now is simply extra credit—not to earn God's salvation, which was accomplished on the cross.
Then comes Romans 8, which Paul calls triumphant and poetic: nothing can separate us from the love of God. We are more than conquerors. God works all things together for the good of those who trust Him. We live knowing God is for us, has our back, and honors His word.
And then—chapter 9.
Paul begins by expressing deep sorrow for his Jewish brothers and sisters. He says, "I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers." In other words: as a Jew, he would sacrifice his own salvation for theirs if it were possible.
Why? Because the Messiah—the promised one meant to come through Israel—has come. Christ has fulfilled the promise. Yet they cannot see it, and it's breaking his heart.
The Jewish people had incredible advantages:
Yet they're missing it. Their assumption at the surface level is that the gospel is a plan B—a deviation, a contradiction to Scripture that voids the Old Testament and the Torah. They think the gospel does away with their Jewish heritage and God's redemptive work through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Jewish community.
Paul doesn't run from hard conversations. He raises the very objections his Jewish audience is thinking. And he addresses four key questions, answering each one with an emphatic no.
Question 1: Has God failed to keep His promises?
No. This is a question you'll ask at some point in your life, and Paul's answer is decisive.
Question 2: Is God unfair in how He dispenses mercy?
No. This addresses the tension many feel about heaven and hell. Here's what must be understood: God doesn't send people to hell. We book our own ticket. We edge God out—ego literally means "edging God out." Hell is successfully edging God out completely in your life. That's bone-chilling.
Our God doesn't send people to hell; He saves people for heaven. None of us could earn or accomplish our own salvation. It's only by His goodness that He offers it as a gift. And because He's a gentleman, He offers an invitation rather than invasion. He doesn't pry into your life or work by force. He respects you. The doorknob to your heart is on the inside; you have to open it.
Question 3: Is God unjust in holding us accountable?
Absolutely not. He's holy and righteous. Something in us understands the need for justice, for right and wrong. A good God must be just. He can't cosign to evil and wickedness. At some point, He has to hold all brokenness accountable. That's Him being good.
Question 4: Is God's choice to save inconsistent with His goodness?
No. Paul wants us to know: God is not insincere. God is not unfair. God is not unjust. God is not inconsistent.
I recently heard that a swimming pool with both a shallow end and a deep end is safer than one with only one depth. A church works the same way. If we only stay shallow, never getting beneath the surface to meaningful dialogue, we all stay dwarfed in our development, never living out the potential Christ has in store for us. But if we only go deep, we lose people.
We come from different backgrounds—Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, holiness traditions, and everything in between. Our challenge is to put the Bible in front of everyone so that no matter where you are in your faith journey, you walk away with something.
If you're new to faith, know this: a journey with Christ will bring you to the end of yourself. It will be humbling as He grafts His character into your life. But it will be rewarding, edifying, and the wisest way to live. You'll bump into fundamental questions that you have to wrestle with. But hold this as a guardrail in your thinking: God is not insincere. God is not unfair. God is not unjust. God is not inconsistent.
Now Paul turns to Scripture itself. He writes: "It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel...In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring."
This is crucial. The Jewish community thinks Paul is dismissing their history, their Torah, their lineage. But as a trained Pharisee, Paul meticulously goes through Scripture and proves that the Jewish community is essential to the gospel and still has purpose—not as a deviation, but as a fulfillment.
Here's the redemptive arc:
Adam's fall brought sin into the world. God promises Eve that one will come to stomp on the serpent's head. God will make things right and redeem the world. But how? God must start with someone—a man who raises a family, who raises a tribe, who becomes a nation called Israel. These people are the Jews.
Abraham was married to Sarah. Late in their age, unable to have children, God promised them a son. Through that son would come a Messiah—a chosen one, a savior of the world who would bless the globe.
But Abraham and Sarah get into the wilderness, into the in-between stage, and God doesn't show up when they expected. He doesn't show up the way they wanted. Can you relate? Has there ever been a season when God didn't appear on your timeline, in your way, for your reasons?
The Jewish people remind us of our missed expectations regarding God's redemptive work. As they waited, they looked at their culture and neighbors who had multiple children through different arrangements. They thought, Why not do the same? Why not have a child with Hagar, our servant?
It was a bad approach to life. Just because something is culturally acceptable doesn't make it morally right. So Abraham had a child with Hagar named Ishmael—not the child of promise, but a child born from human effort and cultural compromise.
When Abraham and Sarah enter the wilderness—that in-between stage—God doesn't show up on their timeline or in the way they expected. Abraham sows "a blessed seed into foolish soil" by taking matters into his own hands and having a child with Hagar, their servant, named Ishmael.
Just because something is culturally acceptable doesn't make it morally right. Yet what's remarkable is that God remains endearing and attentive to both Hagar and Ishmael. He fulfills his promise to make them a great nation, even though they were born from human brokenness and compromise.
But God still must decide: which son will the promised Messiah come through? God had promised Abraham and Sarah a son together. Now, with two sons in the picture, God chooses Isaac—not because of merit, but because He made a specific promise to Sarah. God is "remarkably faithful" to His word, even when humans deviate from His plan.
Here's where the tension begins: How does God make His decisions? Why does He work in certain people's lives the way He does? Paul answers these questions by establishing fundamental truths about God.
God made selections because He is God and has the right to do it. God is sovereign and in full control. His reasons are logical and make sense. Not only is God sovereign, but there is also God's salvation—He chooses to step into our predicament to save anyone who would leverage their free will toward faith in Him.
When all is said and done, it is only a remnant who truly receive and place their faith in Jesus Christ. God pays for the sins of the world, yet tragically, even within the Jewish community—those who should have seen it coming—many do not receive Him. God provides grace for the world, but only a few accept it.
Love requires a choice. He gives you free will. You have to choose to be in this relationship with Christ. He works by invitation.
God is in the business of raising children, not making robots. He wants the world, but only a remnant truly want Him.
Isaac has two sons: Esau, the oldest, and Jacob. Esau traded his entire birthright—the promise of the blessing—for a bowl of beans. Jacob, a manipulator and trickster, deceived both Isaac and Esau to get God's blessing.
Scripture says, "Jacob I loved. Esau I hated." Some people hear harsh words in "hated," but Scripture uses contradicting negatives to help us appreciate the positive. We understand extremity better through negative light. The point is: God loved Jacob with such intensity.
Yet Jacob was squirrely, deceitful, and manipulative. God still honored His promise through Jacob. Still worked all things together for good. He made a promise to Abraham and Sarah, they broke it up, but He kept working through it. Then Jacob and Esau broke it up, but He kept working through it.
The takeaway is God's ability to work redemptively through all things. God is not insincere. He's not unfair. He's not unjust. He's not inconsistent.
As a believer, you can walk away understanding that this God has made significant promises and declared them over your life. There is astounding proof that this God never lies. The believer lives with the wind at their back: I have a God who is for me. He's not like the leadership we're accustomed to in humanity. He's for you, and He's working all things together for good. He'll never lie to you.
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It does not therefore depend on man's desire or effort but on God's mercy.
God raised Pharaoh up for a specific purpose: to display His power and have His name proclaimed in all the earth. Therefore, God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.
Some ask: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists His will?" Paul's response cuts to the heart:
But who are you, oh man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, why did you make me like this? Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some pottery for common use?
Imagine a lump of clay being formed into a vase and then looking at the master potter, suddenly able to speak, and saying, "I don't like how you formed me." That would be a strange interaction. Paul is saying that us talking back to this infinitely magnificent God is like clay talking back to a potter. He is God. He has the right.
What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the objects of His wrath prepared for destruction? What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory—even us whom He also called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles?
I will call them my people who are not my people. And I will call her my loved one who is not my loved one.
Though the number of Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah.
For any Jewish person saying "This is unfair," the answer is clear: From day one, you received mercy. Think of the Torah and the Ten Commandments. Moses comes down the mountain holding them. The top two: "Thou shalt not have no other god before me. Thou shalt not worship false idols." What does he find the people doing? Worshiping false gods and idols. On day one, they violated the law. On day one, He gave them mercy.
If God was opting for fairness, we'd all be in trouble. The good news is He opted for forgiveness.
There are three theological camps regarding Israel's role in God's redemptive plan: dispensationalism, covenant theology, and new covenant theology. These groups have different views on Israel's past role and its current and future redemptive significance, and whether there's a difference between physical Israel and spiritual Israel—those of us grafted into the family of God through faith in Christ.
Dispensationalism is anchored in institutions like Dallas Theological Seminary. Covenant theology is represented by theologians like J.R. Packer and institutions like Westminster. New covenant theology is represented by figures like D.A. Carson and organizations like The Gospel Coalition.
Here's what's crucial: All three of these camps will be in heaven together. They're all going to worship together. The church we'll spend eternity in has people from all these theological perspectives. Some of the brightest, most godly, well-intentioned people on the planet still end up in different places with some of this stuff.
As a believer, you need to understand that this will be a mystery, and you're going to have to hold some of these things loosely. You must proactively choose your response to mystery.
There will come times when you face a problem you can't solve, when you have a question you can't answer. In those moments of uncertainty, how do you respond to mystery?
The knee-jerk response for most people is frustration. But as a believer who lives with the wind at our back—knowing God is for you, working redemptively, bringing all things together for good—step into every situation and, despite the mystery, think: This is fascinating, not frustrating.
We're irritated with our ignorance. We've lost our joy in learning. We don't like the learning process. But Paul is saying: Dive into the goodness of God. There's mystery to it.
You have your die for beliefs—a fairly short list of core truths. You have your defend beliefs—important doctrines worth defending. And you have your discuss beliefs—matters worth exploring and conversation.
Tragically, many people treat Chapter 9 discussions as if they belong in the "die for" category. They belong in the defend and discuss categories. We need to be humble about this.
There's always going to be a mysterious element to faith. The moment you do away with mystery, you do away with Christianity. The moment you have God fully figured out, you do away with Christianity. The moment you have the Bible fully figured out, you do away with Christianity. You have settled for something less.
Paul himself is confessing this: "Who are you, oh man, to talk back to God?" Can the lump of clay say to the potter, "I don't like how you formed me"? That's the reality of our relationship with an infinitely magnificent God.
Paul is saying: It's not because of your lineage. It's because of God's sovereignty. Ishmael was a descendant of Abraham. Esau was a descendant of Abraham. But God works through the one to bring the son. Eventually, He brings the Messiah—the savior of the world.
Paul titles this message "Children of the Promise." The descendants of Isaac will be children of the promise. Then Jesus shows up, and He is the promised child.
This is why the gospel is so dignifying. We are not only grafted into the family of God where we identify as children of the promise. Our identity is anchored and rooted in the fulfilled promised child Himself—Jesus. That's a big deal. That's a significant deal.
Despite all the times we mess things up, He still gets it right. He doesn't lie to us. He's not insincere. He's not unfair. He's not unjust. He's not inconsistent. He doesn't send people to hell out of caprice. He just so graciously and so thoughtfully decided to meticulously and perfectly offer salvation to those who would place their faith in Jesus Christ.
For those of us who say yes to that amazing offer, you are grafted into this remnant with God. It's beautiful.
Despite all the times we mess things up, He still gets it right. He doesn't lie to us. He's not insincere. He's not unfair. He's not unjust. He's not inconsistent. He doesn't send people to hell out of caprice.
Instead, He so graciously and so thoughtfully decided to meticulously and perfectly offer salvation to those who would place their faith in Jesus Christ. For those of us who say yes to that amazing offer, you are grafted into this remnant with God. It's beautiful.
There's always going to be a tension about God's sovereignty and human responsibility. Where does free will come into play? If we're not robots and we're God's kids, how does that actually work?
Consider the analogy of an airplane. An airline decides well in advance what day they're going to fly, what route they're going to take, what time they're going to leave, what jet they're going to use, what crew is going to staff the flight, what meal they're going to serve, and what movies they're going to show. All those decisions were made before you ever thought, "Hey, we should go to Orlando." Before you ever booked a flight online, that flight was already set in motion.
But along the way, you get to make many decisions. You can choose whether to check a bag or just travel with carry-on. You can decide whether to fly first class or sit in the back by the toilet. You can bring an emotional support animal—a dog, a parrot, a rabbit, a ferret, a St. Bernard. You have many choices available to you.
You can watch movies. You can sleep. You can eat a meal. You make countless decisions along the way. But what you must understand is that the plane, that flight, was set into motion before it was even a thought in your brain. It is going to carry you to a destination that was already predetermined before you started engaging with your decisions.
God is sovereign, but we have free will, and it is upon us to choose Christ.
