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Part 15 of 20
Jesus: Sanctuary or Stumbling Stone?
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We are in the book of Romans, spending 38 weeks walking through the letter that Paul wrote to the church in Rome. For those new to Northview or new to faith entirely, I want to invite you into this conversation. Paul is writing a letter, and at this point in the text, he is endearing his audience to Jesus. He wants you to walk away thinking: How good is this God? How beautiful is that? How wonderful is he?
Romans 1 through 8 lays out the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Paul stands at the epicenter of the Roman Empire—a Greco-Roman world dominated by Stoic philosophers, maniacal evil, and wicked leaders like Nero. He says, "Okay, let's have the conversation." He goes meticulously through what he believes to be rock solid truth about the gospel and who Jesus is. We can do this responsibly and respectfully, reasoning well together about the most fundamental things in life.
By the end of Romans 8, Paul reaches a triumphant conclusion: God is glorious, all-loving, and the most powerful force in the entire universe. Unconditional, eternal, perfect love is being leveraged by the most powerful being in the entire universe—God himself. The message is: If God is for you, who can be against you? If the creator of the heavens and the earth is madly in love with you and daily devoted to working all things together for your good, you live with optimism, hope, and accurate courage.
Then Paul jumps into Romans 9, 10, and 11—chapters that often feel out of place to modern readers. Many say these chapters feel confusing or are "the boring chapters" of Romans. But here's my question: Which chapter do you think Paul wrote with tears in his eyes? Which chapter came with the heaviest heart? Which chapter did he write calling to mind personal experiences and his own testimony?
What is most boring to many of us as modern, non-Jewish individuals is, for Paul, the most gripping. He has addressed the philosophers, the rulers, the atheists, and the skeptics. He has meticulously debunked morality and religion. Now, in chapter 9, he turns to have the hardest conversations yet—not with the world or culture or empire, but with his own people. Paul enters into a very personal, honest, and vulnerable conversation with his tribe, his family, his relatives, his lineage.
The problem is this: We cannot pick up on the Jewish sentiment running deep and strong in this text. The Jewish people were trained and educated to take great pride in their heritage and history. Paul is about to turn to them and say: "This Jesus of ours is the very Son of God who was promised all throughout history, all throughout the prophets, from the very beginning. And you're not even seeing it."
Listen to what Paul says in Romans 9:30–33:
What then shall we say? That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it—a righteousness that is by faith. But Israel who pursued a law of righteousness has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written, "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."
Paul is addressing the Jews in the church who are offended and confused by his teaching. "Paul, are you starting a new religion? Is this a deviation from what we've been taught? Is this some cult?" Paul responds by saying: "Jesus didn't show up to start a new religion. The very thing God promised from the very beginning—from our patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—is being fulfilled right now in the person of Christ. The thing we've been hoping for, praying for, desiring and needing most has arrived, and we don't even see it."
Why? Because Jesus shows up in a way that doesn't fit their expectations. Jesus shows up in a way that doesn't conform to their preferences or timetables. How many of us miss God's work in our lives because he's not playing to our preferences? The question you have to ask at some point is this: Which carries more weight—my preferences or God's promises? God's promises ought to carry more weight.
It's like when you're looking for something right in front of you and you can't see it. The purse is on the seat, but you walked past it. The person you're looking for is standing right there, but your mind is elsewhere. Jesus is right in front of you—in your confusion about identity, in your anxiety about the future, in your search for truth to ground yourself in. It's right in front of you.
I think Paul would empathize deeply with his people here because he himself stumbled over Jesus. Think of Paul's story in Acts 8. Saul from Tarsus was a leader among the Pharisees—a superstar of his day, top of his class, earmarked as the next premier leader. When Stephen preached the gospel, the Pharisees decided to kill him. They took off their coats so they could throw rocks with all their strength. And do you know what their practice was? They laid their coats at the feet of their superiors. In Acts 8, Steven is stoned to death for preaching the gospel, and they lay their coats at the feet of Saul from Tarsus.
The guy writing this letter to us stood back pompous and proud, giving approval to a man preaching the gospel being stoned to death. If you hate Christianity, get to know Paul. His life mission was to stomp out Christianity. He had approval and permission from authorities to persecute the local church.
Then, on the road to Damascus, on his way to arrest Christians, he has an encounter with Christ. And he discovers: Oh my gosh, what's right in front of me? I'm literally trying to destroy the local church, and come to find out, you are truly the Son of God.
I think Paul would say to his people: "Guys, I missed it. I stumbled over Jesus. And I'm coming to you, and they're confused: 'Wait, this used to be our guy. Is he going off the rails?' Paul says, 'Guys, I stumbled, too.' "
When you go back into history, you see it all throughout. God's been promising, predicting, foretelling. Jesus shows up and somehow does the tightrope act, fulfilling all the promises and prophecies—everything we were told to look for and expect—and we still didn't see it. We stumbled over him.
Now, here's what's interesting. Paul quotes Isaiah 8 at the end of Romans 9. Paul is talking to people steeped in their history and legacy. The moment he quotes Isaiah, they'll recognize the text and look to see what else he said. Paul says:
As it is written, "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble, a rock that makes them fall. The one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."
Paul is saying: "Family, I'm not deviating. Go look at what Isaiah said centuries ago. This is that." If you go to Isaiah 8, you find God speaking to Isaiah during a time when the nation of Judah is about to be devoured and destroyed. Fear is setting in. Doom is setting in. And God says:
The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people. He said, "Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy. He is the one you are to fear. He is the one you are to dread. And he will be a sanctuary. But for both houses of Israel and Judah, he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem, he will be a trap and a snare."
Here's what's remarkable: The same stone is both a stumbling block and a sanctuary. For those who reject Jesus, he becomes a stumbling stone, a trap, a snare. But for those who trust in him, he becomes a sanctuary—a place of refuge, peace, and stability. The very same Christ.
Paul is showing his people that this prophecy was given centuries ago. There's coming a time when the Messiah will show up, and both sides will face a choice. You can stumble over him, or you can find sanctuary in him. God's faithfulness runs through all of history, and it reaches its fulfillment in Jesus. Despite all the brokenness of God's people, God somehow gets it right. That's what starts to endear you to Christ.
Isaiah's message to his people on the verge of destruction was countercultural: "Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it." Instead, he calls them to a radically different posture—one centered on God alone.
Most of us walk around governed by other people's opinions, trying to win favor and approval. We are so dominated by the fear of man and peer pressure that we go through life masquerading, trying to appease an audience. The remedy to fearing people is fearing the Lord. The moment you realize you're living for an audience of one—and his opinion carries infinitely more weight than anything else—everything changes.
Think about it this way: some of us would be embarrassed to be fully exposed in front of a few friends at a backyard barbecue. But we will all stand completely exposed in front of a holy, righteous, and wonderful God. That is what deserves our fear and reverence. Not the judgment of people around us, but the reality of standing before the Creator of the universe.
So why do some people resist fully opening their heart to Christ? Why does he remain a stumbling stone rather than a sanctuary for some? Paul reveals the heart of the matter: many people don't experience Christ as a sanctuary because they think that the moment they come to God, he's going to be mean to them.
They don't fully entrust their lives to God because they live with fear—fear that God will punish them, that he knows everything about them and will eventually give them what they deserve. They expect their encounter with their Maker to involve cruelty, judgment, and harshness. So they hold back. They stumble. They refuse to fully come to him.
But Paul testifies to something radically different. He had been actively trying to destroy Jesus and anyone who declared him. Paul was a persecutor—he even participated in the death of Stephen. By any measure of justice, he deserved destruction.
Yet when Christ met him on the road, God—who had every right and all the power to strike him down—instead said, "Paul, I love you. I'm for you. And if you trust me, I'll use you as an instrument for my glory."
Paul expected cruelty and discovered sanctuary. He thought he would get what he deserved, and instead he encountered a love that was willing to use even his brokenness for redemptive purposes. This is what changed him. This is what endeared him to Christ.
For those who trust in him, Isaiah promised that Christ "will be a sanctuary." Not just a safe place, but a refuge where you can experience what seems impossible in this broken world.
Even in the midst of chaos, noise, pain, inconvenience, trials, suffering, despair, hatred, and wickedness—even amidst a broken world—you can experience a sanctuary in God. You can experience a peace that surpasses understanding. You can experience a stability that comes without the anxiety of knowing that life is wobbly at times. You can find clarity around your identity and purpose.
Many in the church are living proof of this. You face cancer every day, yet you do it with joy, optimism, and courage. Your company is shutting down and everyone around you is overcome with anxiety, yet you have confidence that God knows and has a plan. When one door closes, another opens, and you trust your life into the tender care of your God.
People look at you and ask, "How do you do it?" The answer is simple: you live anchored to a sanctuary—to a person, a presence in your life. You experience daily what some are still stumbling over.
When you realize what Christ is—proof that God never lies, proof that God never gives up—you begin to see his character more clearly. Christ is proof that God is thoughtful and redemptive and intuitive, that he's patient, that he's forgiving, that he's merciful.
What Paul does in Romans 9 and 10 is endear you to Jesus by showing you everything God had to do to save us. And even after doing all that, we still resist. When you start to grasp that reality, you think, Man, he's so good.
On a Mother's Day weekend, this resonates deeply. Most of us have experienced a mother figure who stood in our corner through thick and thin—who was there during the bad days as well as the good days, who we always knew had our back and was for us.
For the believer, this is the case every single day. Jesus has your back and he's for you. He's dependable. He's thoughtful. He's gentle. He's merciful. He's resilient. He's patient. And you can take a deep breath knowing that.
When you look deeper at what God has done—his wildly faithful, incredibly thoughtful, redemptive work—you realize something fundamental: I can trust him. I can trust Jesus. He's good. He's reliable. He's faithful. He's thoughtful. He's for my good. He never lies.
It's hard to believe something that's only done once. We all need proof. But when you start looking deeper at the character of Christ, you start to realize just how good he has to be for all of this to be possible. Amen.
