GOD’S FAITHFULNESS TO MAN

Romans 9:1 - 11:32

Before I begin the sermon this morning, I’d like for everyone to stand and join me in the “Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag”.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America; and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.  You may be seated.

INTRODUCTION:

Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister, wrote the original Pledge in August of 1892.  He was a Christian Socialist who believed that the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality for all.  (Those beliefs cost him his ministry with his church because he became too politically involved on controversial subjects that had nothing to do with Christian ministry.)  In 1954, Congress, after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, “under God,” to the Pledge.

There are some people who believe that being a part of a country that proclaims itself to be “one nation under God” means that they, as individuals, are also “under God.”  Some people believe that the United States is a Christian country and that anyone who is a citizen of the United States must, therefore, be a Christian.

In Romans chapters 9 - 11, the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome to tell them that being a part of one nation under God did not save the Jews.  His warning reaches its peak with these words,

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited… (Romans 11:25).

The mystery that Paul wanted the Romans to grasp, and that I want us to understand, is that even though the Jewish nation, God’s chosen people, were not saved just by being descendents of Abraham, that doesn’t mean that God has broken His word.  God has shown Himself to be faithful to man even though men have been unfaithful to God

To grasp that truth, we need to look at:

I.          THE PRINCIPLE OF SOVEREIGNTY (Ro. 9)

Chapter 9 of Romans emphasizes the truth that God is supreme and His will is the law.  Paul uses a homey little illustration to make his point.  Paul says, in Romans 9:20-21,

But who are you, O 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 for common use?

It is kind of a silly and simple illustration, isn’t it?  In Paul’s parable, he pictures a lump of clay arguing with the potter because the clay doesn’t like what it has been fashioned to do.  Can you picture that?  A lump of clay on the potter’s wheel sassing the potter as if the potter doesn’t know what he is doing…but the clay does.

Paul wants us to understand that it is even more ludicrous for mere mortal men to talk back to God and criticize how He administers His creation.

But we do, don’t we?  We criticize God all the time.  We second-guess His ways; we critique His will; we disapprove of His decisions.  We act as if we believe we know better than God does, how He should do His job.  That is as ridiculous as for clay to sass the potter.

An extremely conceited man once prayed, "Dear God, make me less arrogant--and may I remind you that the Oxford English Dictionary defines 'arrogant' as follows....” Wouldn’t it be a bit arrogant to believe that you need to tell God what “arrogant” means? 

But then again, don’t we often try to tell God what He already knows better than we do?  We tell Him:

§         How He should act.

§         What He should give us.

§         What He should do for us.

§         What we have already decided we are going to do – so now, Lord, bless it. 

§         Sometimes we even tell Him what He has said in the Bible (just in case He has forgot).

Have you ever thought about why we talk back to God?  It doesn’t make much sense but we do it anyway.  I believe that some of it comes about because of our stubbornness.  And in Romans 10, Paul frames for us a portrait of stubbornness.

II.                  THE PORTRAIT OF STUBBORNNESS (Ro. 10)

In Romans 10, Paul uses the history of the Jewish people to paint a portrait of stubbornness.  The Israelites never seemed to grasp what God meant by the righteousness that would be pleasing to Him. 

·         They thought that God would be pleased with them just because they had Abraham’s DNA in their biology.

·         They thought that God would be pleased with them because they were the custodians of the Torah: God’s Law.

This elitist attitude of the Jews prevented them from grasping that each one of them had to come to God on the same terms as everyone else in the world: His terms.

I suspect that the experience of the Jewish people is so familiar that you already know it quite well.  So I’d like to share with you another illustration of stubbornness.

In his book, “The Applause of Heaven”, Max Lucado tells the sad story of a man he came to know through a friend. The man’s name was Anibal. Anibal was a tough man.  Max Lucado said that his tattooed anchor on his forearm symbolized his personality—cast-iron.  His broad chest stretched his shirt.  The slightest movement of his arm bulged his biceps.  This was no meek man.  This was a man who was tough in every sense of the word.  But he was also a man in a prison cell condemned for murder.

As Max spoke with Anibal, they began to talk about becoming a Christian.  They talked about guilt, and forgiveness.  Max wrote that, “The eyes of the murderer softened at the thought that the one who knows him best loves him most.  His heart was touched as we discussed heaven, a hope that no executioner could take from him.”

But as the conversation moved toward the conversion, Anibal’s face began to harden.  Anibal didn’t like the statement that the first step in coming to God is an admission of guilt.  He was uneasy with words like “I’ve been wrong” and “forgive me.”  Saying “I’m sorry” was out of character for him.  He had never backed down before any man, and he wasn’t about to do it now—even if the man were God.

In one final effort to pierce his pride (Lucado writes), I asked him, “Don’t you want to go to heaven?”  “Sure,” he grunted.  For a moment I thought his stony heart was cracking.  For a second, it appeared that burly Anibal would for the first time admit his failures.  But I was wrong.  The eyes that lifted to meet mine weren’t tear-filled; they were angry.  They weren’t the eyes of a repentant prodigal; they were the eyes of an angry prisoner.

“All right,” he shrugged.  “I’ll become one of your Christians.  But don’t expect me to change the way I live.”  The conditional answer left my mouth bitter.  “You don’t draw up the rules,”  I told him.  “It’s not a contract that you negotiate before you sign.  It’s a gift—an undeserved gift!  But to receive it, you have to admit that you need it.”

“OK.”  He ran his thick fingers through his hair and stood up.  “But don’t expect to see me at church on Sundays.”  As I watched Anibal pace back and forth in the tiny cell, I realized that his true prison was not made of bricks and mortar, but of pride.  He was twice imprisoned.  Once because of murder, and once because of stubbornness.  Once by his country, and once by himself.

The Bible is clear. Stubborn pride will keep you from God in this life and it will keep you from Him in the next.  Earlier in this same epistle, Paul wrote:

Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:5) 

But as stark and unappealing as is the portrait of stubbornness, God’s plan of salvation is warm and inviting.

III.                THE PLAN OF SALVATION (Ro. 11)

The stubbornness of the Jewish people had not nullified the plan of God, had not altered the method of God, had not defeated the design of God.  From the beginning, God’s scheme was to use the Jews to bring salvation to all people.

That is, God chose the Jews to be the nation through which the rest of the world would learn about God’s perfect standard.  Through the experience of the Jewish nation, the rest of the world would learn that sin is a failure to adhere to God’s perfect standard.  And through the Jews, the rest of the world would learn about God’s salvation through His only begotten son, Jesus Christ.

Paul describes this process as being very like grafting branches onto a cultivated tree.  Those of us who are not Jewish by descent, can be grafted into the family tree of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by placing our faith in Jesus as God’s anointed one and the savior of man.

But Paul wants us to know that God’s plan of salvation was not instituted as an afterthought because the Jews had messed up God’s original idea.  According to Paul, from the beginning it was God’s intention that all people would come to Him by placing their faith in Jesus.

The converse of that is that those who do not come to God through faith in Jesus, don’t come to God at all.

For any one of us, we must come to the Lord while we can.  And we never know what opportunity will be our last.  To delay the decision we know we ought to make is to play Russian roulette with your soul.  You never know which invitation you reject will be the last you will receive.

CONCLUSION:

On Wednesday, August 1^st at 6:05 p.m., not one of the motorists on the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis thought that within three minutes he would pass into eternity.  But thirteen did when the bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River.

When Kent Ezner and Kristy Seacrest went to bed in their Paris, MO mobile home on Friday evening this week, they had no way of knowing that they would be dead by 12:15 a.m., victims of a powerful autumn tornado that ripped through northeast Missouri.

None of us knows what today will bring our way, or tonight, or tomorrow.  The poet has said:

The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop at late or early hour.
To lose one’s wealth is sad indeed.
To lose one’s health is more.
To lose one’s soul is such a loss as no man can restore.

To help us grasp this truth, the Bible tells us about some who ran out of time to do the right thing.

In Luke 12, Jesus told a parable about a rich farmer whose ground produced such a bountiful crop that he didn’t know what to do with all the grain.  Eventually, he decided to tear down all of his barns and build bigger ones in which to store his grain and then he would kick back, take it easy and have a good time for the rest of his life.  But then God spoke to him and said, “You fool!  This very night your life will be demanded of you.  Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”  The foolish farmer thought he had enough wealth for a long and prosperous retirement.  But what he didn’t have was enough days for a long and prosperous retirement.  He was about out of time before he ever realized it. 

In Luke 16, Jesus tells the story of a rich man who lived large and a poor man named Lazarus who barely lived at all.  The rich man was well aware of Lazarus’ poverty and although he could have done something to help the pauper, he did not do it.  Then one day, the rich man died and was held accountable for what he had failed to do.  There is no mention of a prolonged illness or any warning.  One day, the rich man just died and in eternity he realized that he had already run out of time to do what he knew he should have done.

Time is so precious that God only gives it to us a second at a time.  Time is inflexible – a day, an hour, a minute are always the same length.  And time is irreversible.  Fortunes can be made, lost and made again.  But every minute, once it has passed, is irretrievably gone forever.

God’s Plan of Salvation is available to you now and you don’t know if it will ever be available to you again.

INVITATION:                        #16 – “The Love of God”

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