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Part 17 of 20
The Transition from Restoration to Mission
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We've been studying Romans throughout this year, and today we arrive at chapter 9. Romans 3 through 8 presents God's rescue plan for all people—both Jews and Gentiles—designed to restore people to the way He made them in Genesis 1 and 2.
The book of Romans contains important bookends. At the beginning (chapter 1) and end (chapter 16), Paul writes to encourage people toward "the obedience of faith." Within the letter itself, Romans 8 offers its own bookends: "no condemnation" on one end and "no separation" on the other. Most people struggle to stay between these bookends—either doubting God's acceptance or believing they've destroyed His love through their actions.
But if you grasp what Paul teaches in Romans 8—that you are a new creature in Christ, that you're in God's family and cannot become "un-son"—then you carry a new responsibility. We've been given great salvation and sufficient grace. Now our job is to help rescue and restore others.
Think of expensive winter boots that broke. When I took them back to the manufacturer, they were out of warranty. I expected repair, but instead I received an entirely new pair. That's what Romans 8 does for us spiritually. You're not just repaired; you're given a new self, a new heart. God's work through Jesus on the cross was finished. Your sins are forgiven. You don't have to keep returning to the same failures over and over.
You're a new creature in Christ. You now function on a different basis with access to different resources. This restoration isn't just personal—it's meant to be shared.
When Paul enters Romans 9, he addresses Jews who have rejected Jesus as Messiah, Lord, Savior, and King. He's trying to call them back, reminding them of everything they've been given: adoption, divine glory, covenants, the law, temple worship, promises, the patriarchs, and even the human ancestry of Christ.
Yet despite all these resources, they cannot see it. The question becomes: How can you be so close yet so far?
This is where the "lullaby effect" comes in. We become lulled into thinking something is normal simply because we've heard it before. Growing up in the church, I heard about the talking snake in Genesis countless times without ever asking the obvious question: A snake that talks—what? That's the lullaby effect. We think we know, so we stop asking questions.
God wants us to ask questions. That's how we learn and grow. When someone comes to therapy willing to ask questions, we operate on a different level entirely. If you know your car's front end is falling off, you ask specific questions about cost and timeline. We need to ask those kinds of questions about our faith, but we don't.
The Jews aren't asking questions, and Paul is trying to awaken them. Don't be lulled into thinking that merely possessing these resources—being Abraham's descendants, having been chosen by God—is enough. You need to ask questions about where you are right now, in this moment.
Self-deception is significant here. It's a product of betraying ourselves—keeping ourselves from uncomfortable places. We avoid tension, but biblically, Paul writes in Corinthians: "Walk by faith, not by sight." The Hebrew word for faith means to create tension, like the tension in a tightrope walker's wire.
We think uncomfortable, tense, disturbing, chaotic, and unpredictable places should be avoided. We believe that truly living well means everything should be smooth. But that's not life. When we tell our stories, we rarely tell them based on the smooth parts—we tell them based on what we overcame, the crises we faced, the challenges we had to conquer.
Self-deception eliminates actual growth. It keeps us from seeing what's happening and who we truly are. Everyone else can see us, but we can't see ourselves because we won't listen. We don't listen because we self-betray—we shut down parts of ourselves, refusing to accept who we are.
Self-betrayal means I can lie to myself and believe my own story instead of listening to others. Many people won't even receive feedback. But without feedback, you can't keep your car on the road. Regardless of how well a car is built, you must keep steering to stay in your lane. The road might be off, or the car might be off—something's always slightly misaligned. You have to make constant adjustments. That's not self-betrayal; that's awareness and presence.
Religious people often find themselves on an endless treadmill—lots of activity, no progress. They're not seeing Christ as Messiah. They've been lulled into thinking that because of their resources, their heritage, their religious activity, that's good enough. But Paul is saying: Wake up. Look at what's actually happening. See yourself as you truly are.
Paul's heart breaks for the Jews with great sorrow and unceasing anguish. This is a marker of Jesus—what motivated Him was compassion. He was moved with compassion.
Paul is willing to sacrifice significantly for his fellow Jews. He essentially says, "I would go to hell for you." This anguish comes from their blindness, their nonchalance, their belief that they're in control, their lack of recognition that they're lost and need rescue.
Most religious people—good people doing the right things, working hard at their faith—are self-deceived and self-betrayed. They betray themselves simply because they think they already have it all.
But if you're a learner who wants to grow and understand the text, here's what it says: You are given life in chapters 3 through 8. You're given new life. You're being restored. You walk out of the store with new boots, so to speak, and God will animate that for you.
Then comes your responsibility: You have to give this away. You have to give this away to the whole world—not just the Jewish world. Paul starts with the Jewish world because that's where he lives and those are the people he knows are missing it through religion rather than relationship with the Father.
Throughout this Romans study, we've emphasized that the book answers the question: How to get right with God? And the heartbeat of Romans is constant: the world, the world, the world. Paul's gospel addresses Jews and Gentiles alike. His heart is broken for anyone who doesn't know Christ.
There's a concept worth considering: a second conversion. This doesn't mean a second salvation experience is necessary for heaven—that's not the point. Your first conversion is discovering God's love for you. That's salvation. You realize the Creator of heaven and earth loves you and wants a personal relationship with you.
The second conversion, more often a marker of spiritual maturity, is discovering God's love for the world. It's realizing He's not only passionate about you personally; He loves your neighbor and every person you encounter. He desires for you to love them as well.
Why don't most people arrive at Paul's place of discovering God's love for the world? There are several reasons.
First, we're not asked to develop or grow up. Growing up means taking more responsibility. We prefer to blame others, play the victim, give away responsibility, and avoid being held accountable. Yet the most satisfying experiences come through accountability—that's where we actually grow, develop, learn, and become stronger.
Second, we have a natural tendency to be insular. We spend all our energy on ourselves. We build our churches and invite Jesus to come, but He won't stay domesticated in our buildings. Jesus is interested in the entire world, every person.
John echoes this in Revelation: "For every tribe and nation." That's God's purpose. Our tendency to separate and isolate is really just a desire to be in control. Paul argues in Romans 9 that you have a responsibility to bring restoration to everybody, to the whole world. That's our job.
The greatest commandment is to love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and body—and love your neighbor as yourself. Your neighbor is anyone not in your house, anyone not physically present with you.
You have a job. Often we miss this because we're busy, important, and consumed with satisfying ourselves. We're standing in line at a store thinking only about getting our stuff. But maybe there's an opportunity to reach out to somebody.
Once at Costco, a woman stood in front of me with a huge pallet of items. I commented on it, and we talked. She eventually shared that her father had died and she was buying supplies because people were coming to town to mourn with her. It was a sad time. I asked, "Would you mind if I prayed with you?" Standing in a Costco line—that's not my style. I'm too introverted. But it was a delight to recognize: She's my neighbor. I don't know her name. I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her again. But this moment is where I move from chapters 3 through 8—what I've been given—into chapter 9 and say, 'You can have this, too.'
We can assume poorly of the Jews for struggling with "the world, the world, the world" and embracing the Gentiles. But often it's not rebellion or character flaw—it's preference. Jesus showed up and did something outside their expectations and preferences. They were almost willing to sacrifice His promises on the altar of their preferences when it should be the opposite.
The real question is: Which carries more weight—preferences or promises?
Many people gathering this weekend could be missing the very thing God is doing right in front of them because their preferences don't align with His promises.
Many people gathering this weekend could be missing the very thing God is doing right in front of them because it doesn't come packaged according to their preferences. The real question is: Which carries more weight—preferences or promises?
Jesus showed up and did something outside the Jews' expectations and preferences. They were almost willing to sacrifice His promises on the altar of their preferences when it should be the opposite. This is often not a matter of rebellion or character flaw—it's simply preference.
Paul uses this phrase: "I pray that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened." Every time the speaker goes to Costco now, he doesn't see the same thing he saw in that earlier moment. "A shame on me in a way," he admits. The opportunity is probably there, but he's not looking, not conscious, focused on his own hands, wanting to get on with his list. But life is an interruption, and we ought to embrace increasingly more of that.
Everybody has the same need—everybody needs to be restored and rescued, whether they know it or not. Many people are drowning in their own stuff because avoiding disturbance feels safer. But disturbance is core to the economy of the kingdom. That's how God made us; that's how we grow.
It's disturbing to leave kindergarten and go to first grade. We don't frame it that way, but many people struggle with constant changes. Change is constant, yet we try to diminish it or make it less significant. Our preferences are ways we anchor our thinking so we don't have to consider other options.
When an accident happens—when you thought you were going to get somewhere and now you're sitting in the middle of the intersection with your car all banged up—your day changes. Why? Because it was disturbed. We push against disturbance instead of embracing it. But in chapter nine, Paul says, "Come on, fellow Jews. You're given the same mercy"—and that's where he lands in chapter 11: "You're given the same mercy as everybody else."
One concern about a lengthy study like this is that we tend to separate discipleship and evangelism. But discipleship begins and ends with evangelism—they are the bookends of discipleship. We can get so excited about study, going deeper, and learning, which is wonderful, but we can completely miss the point that this is meant to instruct, empower, and equip us to live on mission with God.
Most people are bored and unfulfilled in their faith because they're not participating in missional work and evangelism. The more you witness, the more you witness. If you step outside your comfort zone—even as an introvert feeling uncomfortable—you might experience or witness God doing something in your life or someone else's life that you wouldn't have if you'd stayed within your comfort zone.
Developing an artificial harmony for the world is dangerous. It's easy to get up in a closed space within the four walls of the church and preach a passionate message about the lost, get amens and clapping, but then walk away without a truly burdened heart for people who don't know Christ.
Paul's statement—"I would literally go to hell for you"—means "I would be cut off if it meant you would be restored." How do we develop that kind of heart?
One friend observed a large church campus on 120 acres and said, "Satan will just drive by this church." When asked why, he replied: "Because they spend all their energy, money, time, and resources on themselves." It's a safe, comfortable place—instead of being a hospital and launching pad. We have a natural tendency to grab hold of comfort and try to go home again.
At a certain age, many in that demographic talk a lot about retirement. But that's not a biblical concept. People keep asking when the speaker will retire. His answer: "God hasn't released me into that world yet, and I'm not sure it's a biblical construct anyway."
Honestly, the older you get, the more is required of you, not less. God could trust you more; you have a longer relationship with Him; you have more to give. Many people in that age group are going the opposite direction—they're withering—because they're not alive. They're not using what they've been given. They're not delighting in the gifts God gives them. That's what grace is: a gift so we can live life fully and taste and see that He's good.
If your identity is so wrapped up in your career that the moment you walk out of that office for the last time you assume your value is completely gone and depleted—that's the real problem. But if anything, that chapter is legacy season. All your wisdom and skill set mean you might be just getting started in what God has in store for you in terms of your next assignment.
The speaker has a list of people who didn't start substantive life until they were in their 60s and 70s. They came back from a mission field and then started writing books—wrote ten books after age 70. The point is: don't stop. It's not that you shouldn't stop working at a business; the point is to increase the likelihood of living. And that's what's going to be attractive to the watching world—a church that is alive and compassionate.
Paul is showing great passion toward his Jewish brothers and compassion in the sense that he's angry they're missing it, but he's also identifying with them and saying, "I get that you're going in this direction. I've been there. Here's the alternative."
People need to know that Jesus is the alternative. Our culture tries to finesse that and say, "No, there's more than one way to God." But there's only one way to God, and it's through Jesus. That sounds exclusive, and it is—but it's exclusive on the basis of being viable. You can test it. It will withstand your questions.
Yet it's also inclusive because the heartbeat of the whole text is the world. This is for everybody. Jesus argues: "Here's all that's been given to you in Romans 3-8. Now, let's see if we can't share this with the whole world."
Timothy Keller writes that sin and evil are self-centeredness and pride that lead to oppression, but there are two forms. One is being very bad and breaking all the rules. The other is being very good and keeping all the rules and becoming self-righteous. There are two ways to become your own savior and lord.
Flannery O'Connor wrote about a character, Hazel Motes, who realized that the best way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin. If you're avoiding sin and living morally so God will have to bless and save you, then ironically you may be looking to Jesus as a teacher, model, and helper—but you're avoiding Him as Savior. You're trusting in your own goodness rather than in Jesus for your standing with God. You're trying to save yourself by following Jesus, which is a rejection of the gospel.
It's possible to avoid Jesus as Savior as much by keeping all the biblical rules as by breaking them. You need a complete transformation of the very motives of your heart. That transformation comes from grace—grace is the transforming motivator and the resource we're given.
We're so rich in the West. We have such abundance, all this technology coming at us super quickly. We have primitive, rudimentary emotions—we're out of control with dysfunctional emotional lives. We have medieval institutions and godlike technology. Now we're worshiping the technology thinking it's going to save us.
But Paul's argument is no, it can't. You need to be saved. You need to be rescued—but not by technology, power, money, or anything short of the grace of God. You need somebody to compensate for what we miss.
In the Prodigal Son parable, there is a man with two sons. The youngest son decides, "Hey, I want my inheritance now"—which is basically wishing his father dead, rejecting his father. The father gives it to him, and the son squanders everything, ending up at rock bottom.
Rock bottom is often where most of us need to land. When the younger brother comes home, the father runs out to meet him, throws his robe around him, puts a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and calls the entire community for a feast and celebration.
But the camera shifts to the older brother—who stayed put, followed all the rules, honored dad, and stayed within the home. While the party's going on, he's outside, mad and angry that his father is welcoming this reckless brother. There's an invitation for him to join the party, and the parable just ends—it's an absolute cliffhanger. You don't know if he's going to join.
Jesus tells it this way on purpose. The question for so many people—especially those in conservative contexts, raised in Christian homes with good values—is: Are you going to enter the party? Are you going to participate?
Here's the insight: The younger brother probably didn't enjoy the party very much because he'd squandered so much. But the elder brother—he didn't like the father any more than the younger brother. He thought he could earn his way to righteousness and get what was owed him. The father says, "All that I have has always been yours." Both sons basically rejected the father. Neither of them wanted to be there. Both of them need to be rescued.
That's exactly what Paul's trying to do. In chapters 9, 10, and 11, he talks about the Jews, but he also increases that number to the whole world by putting the Gentiles with them. He says, "Look, there's no separation. Ultimately you both need rescued equally."
The beauty is: probably neither of them enjoyed the party. But what God offers us is a truly robust, flourishing life—that's what restoration is about. Not bringing us back to prosperity; bringing us back to wholeness. And wholeness will serve you well, whether you have abundance or lack. You can be content both ways. That's what Paul says later: "I learned how to do that. I didn't always have it. I had to learn how to be content in any situation. It's not the situation that's the point. It's who you are. It's what's going on inside of you."
Every single week as we study and discuss these things, we encourage everyone to get into a life group. Grab a few friends and begin conversations just like this. Get your Bibles and journals out, and begin leaning into dialogue that may come with disagreement, curiosity, or further questioning. That's always productive and helpful.
The courageous question for all of us—especially those who have been around the faith and consider themselves Christians—is this: Have we grown numb to this grace? Have we grown numb to the good news of the gospel?
Are we functioning with the same heart that Paul has here—the heart that says, "I've got a great sorrow and an unceasing anguish for those who do not know Jesus"? My prayer is that we would enter the party, whether we're the younger son or the older son, and that we would find ourselves participating in God's redemptive work.
But recognize: it is for everybody. This week, consider what preferences you have that might be standing in the way of God's work. Maybe you can flip it and start sacrificing your preferences on the altar of God's promises rather than the reverse.
