harvestoc.net blog, Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Romans 12:1 pt1 'Gospel, Urgent, Dependent, and Possible Obedience' (31-Jan-2010 Evening Sermon)
[click here to listen to the audio] (or right-click for more options)
- The only true kind of obedience is Gospel obedience. Doctrine matters, because the acceptability of our service corresponds partly to the theology that is in our hearts as we serve.
- No believer ever in this life grows out of the need for being urged on and pleaded with for this obedience.
- No believer ever in this life grows out of absolute dependence upon the pity of God. Every single day, we cannot obey except by the compassion of God.
- This kind of obedience is commanded to 'brothers', because it is only possible for those who have already been born again and justified. In fact, for them, it is not only possible but they are guaranteed to spend eternity doing this perfectly.
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 2:11 PM 0 Comments Links to this postharvestoc.net blog, Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Romans 11:33-36 pt5 'From Glory-Suppressors to Glory-Exulters' (24-Jan-2010 Evening Sermon)
[click here to listen to the audio] (or right-click for more options)
[click here to read Romans 11:33-36 online]
I. Introduction: What We Need to Know, to Exult
a. The last few weeks we have been considering characteristics of God: His riches, His wisdom, His knowledge
b. But the text moves on to give us a picture of ourselves by comparison: Uninformed, Foolish, Needy
c. What we owe, therefore, forms an inclusion, a matching bookend, with the beginning of the argument of the book in Rom 1:18-23
i. Knowledge: God put in us (v19) and in creation (v20) knowledge of who He is, and we suppressed that truth (v18) … evolution
ii. Wisdom: claiming to be wise, we cut ourselves off from God, and became fools (v22) … radical atheism
iii. Riches: and this came about precisely because we refuse to honor Him or give thanks to Him as we ought (v21) … anti-life an attack on God Himself (Gen 9)
iv. What is the knowledge of God as Creator? The knowledge that from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things.
1. From Him: knowledge. Everything exists first, and primarily, as an idea from eternity in the mind of God. All things are from Him.
2. Through Him: wisdom. With perfect power and skill He upholds all things at all times by the Word of His power. All things are through Him.
3. To Him: riches. Everything that exists, and everything that happens, is for the praise of God. All things are to Him.
4. Nowhere is this more true than in redemption—does your heart say, “I know nothing, I can do nothing, and I have nothing! Salvation is all from Him, and all through Him, and all to Him.”?
II. What We Used to Do with His Glory:
a. “To Him be the glory forever!” is exactly the glory that we have exchanged (v23)
b. By drawing us back to wrath, Paul turns up the volume on mercy (like taking a diamond off the glass countertop and setting it against black velvet … with the wrath that we deserve brought into the background, the glory of the mercy that we have received is shown much more intensely)
III. How This Makes Us Better Glory-Exulters Than We Had Failed to Be
a. God’s glory itself has been vindicated
i. He has transformed us into glory-exulters, 5:2, 5:11
ii. But He has shown more glory in redemption (the riches, and wisdom, and knowledge at which we have been gasping) than there ever was in creation … how very important it is for us, if we are to see this glory of redemption, to seeing these things we have been talking about:
1. What God is
2. What we are
3. What we therefore owe Him
4. That we have failed to give it
5. What we deserve for such failure
6. What He has given us instead, in Jesus
iii. And rather than rejoicing now with the joy of Adam, we actually rejoice with the joy of Jesus, in union with Jesus (8:17, 1Cor 2:16).
b. So God has shown Himself infinitely more glorious than ever in creation, and has made us to rejoice in His glory infinitely more than Adam ever could. And all of this for those who deserve to be given over to loath our miserable selves forever rather than enjoy His glorious self forever!
IV. Conclusion: Let Us Exult in His Glory NOW, Knowing That We Shall Do So FOREVER. O dear congregation, if thinking on these things has no effect upon you, I wonder if you have been made spiritually alive at all. As you consider the glories of God displayed in our redemption, does not your heart sing out with Paul, “To Him be glory forever!” Amen!
[click here to read Romans 11:33-36 online]
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 4:25 PM 0 Comments Links to this postharvestoc.net blog, Monday, January 18, 2010
Romans 11:33-36 pt4 'The Depth of the Knowledge of God' (17-Jan-2010 Evening Sermon)
[click here to listen to the audio] (or right-click for more options)
[click here to read Romans 11:33-36 online]
I. The difference between God’s knowledge and ours
a. We know b/c it has happened (all our knowledge is show and tell); He knows b/c He ordains it to happen
b. We know b/c we learn it either ourselves or from someone else; He knows b/c it is His nature to know
c. We know more and more; but He knows all at once, perfectly, completely. He does not learn … but the most important thing God knows is Himself
d. Our knowledge doesn’t change anything; His knowledge is joined to His riches and His wisdom—His knowing changes everything
II. God’s knowledge, written for us: Scripture
a. The necessity of Scripture; the only things that we know with absolute certainty are the ones in which God does the knowing and does the telling.
i. Perspecuity
ii. Self-interpreting
iii. Unity of the whole
iv. and yet the need for the ministry of the Spirit
b. The sufficiency of Scripture; we cannot add to the knowledge of God
c. The authority of Scripture; everything it says carries responsibility for us to believe and obey … our culture is wrong; perception is not everything; truth is everything
III. Acknowledging God’s knowledge: prayer
a. Not giving God information, but expressing to Him that what we know of our situation has exposed our need to us
b. Not telling God what to do, but expressing both our desires and our submission to His superior knowledge
IV. The specific knowledge of God in Romans so far
a. His wrath and His salvation (which He has made known) … He knows all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
b. Every elect person past, present, and future (8:29, whom He has foreknown)
c. The means by which He will save them (11:2)
V. Concluding Application: (illustration for Haiti) knowledge of the vast scope needed; knowledge of your individual plight needed; knowledge of the solution of your plight needed. God knows it all. And He applies His wisdom to it all. And He does it to lavish His riches. O the depth of the knowledge of God!
[click here to read Romans 11:33-36 online]
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 7:18 PM 0 Comments Links to this postharvestoc.net blog, Friday, January 15, 2010
Romans 11:33-36 pt3 'The Depths of the Wisdom of God'
[click here to listen to the audio] (or right-click for more information)
[click here] to read Romans 11:33-36 online
Introduction:
· So far we’ve treated “depth” and “riches.” Tonight, wisdom.
· Wisdom is know-how, not just knowledge, but know-how. Wisdom is skill in applying knowledge; it is the ability to bring about in the right way the end that you desire.
· On the Lord’s Day especially, the “wise” of the world fill up on their morning news/talk shows and their special weekly columns; weekend papers are full of extra counsel on gardening, cooking, fashion, finances, whatever. But to borrow an illustration from last week’s sermons on the riches—all of that is but the kiddie pool of the wisdom of man, 6 inches deep and most of it folly anyway. Here, in the Word of God, we have the depths! How merciful that God has hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them instead to us babies (Matt 11:25-27; 1Cor 1:22-26)!
· That’s what chapters 9-11, and indeed chapters 1-11 have been about. God desired to show His wrath, and God desired to show the riches of His glory in His mercy, and He has perfectly done both in exactly the right way.
The Wisdom of God in Showing His Wrath
· 9:22—desiring to show His wrath
· Puts on display the wickedness of wickedness by revealing wrath as a “giving up” (1:24, 26, 28)
· Puts on display the justice of His wrath by the effect of the Law w/o gospel in the Jews (2:3,5,18-23; 3:19; 7:7-8) … if you think “The Law has made me better,” He justly has wrath upon you! The law is good, but it cannot make you good.
· What perfect wisdom, what unfathomable wisdom, and yet there is deeper still…
The Wisdom of God in Showing His Mercy
· The wisdom of God in Jesus (esp. cf. ch5)
o Another perfect man wouldn’t do, couldn’t do. We had tried that once. Only the incarnation would do.
o Just an example or a leader wouldn’t do, couldn’t do. It had to be federal representation—established with Adam in order to be gloriously fulfilled in Christ. Only a life of perfect obedience in our place would do.
o “Mere” perfect obedience wouldn’t do, couldn’t do. Something had to be done about the sin. Only propitiation would do, only the wrath of God poured out on Jesus at the cross.
o The necessity of the resurrection and its power. The necessity of union with Christ. The necessity of the pouring out of the Spirit.
o All of these parts masterfully put together in one glorious Gospel of God.
o As we already heard from 1Cor 1, Christ the Wisdom of God
· The wisdom of God in the church—Eph 3:8-10; the very angels see and learn more about the wisdom of God by His arrangement of the church
o the three groups in the passage leading up to Rom 11.33
o the design to reveal the sons of God—Rom 8:19 touching on something that exceeds even Gen 1:26, b/c of union w/Christ; not just a bringing back to the level of the garden, but blowing it away!
· The wisdom of God in mercy—don’t forget that all of this has as its backdrop the wrath that we deserve (again, esp. cf. ch5)
Conclusion: The Wisdom of God in Salvation History (immediate context) translates directly into the wisdom of God in your story
· Perhaps you are in some great trial, and you need to remember to rest alone in the wisdom of God.
· Perhaps you are in some great prosperity, and you need to remember to credit alone the wisdom of God.
· Perhaps you are in neither, feeling as if you’ve been stuck in neutral. What purpose could that possibly serve? Leave it to the wisdom of God.
· Don’t fret over the past. Don’t be anxious over the future. Behold the wisdom of God in showing wrath, in showing mercy, in His design for salvation by Jesus, in His design for the church. The same God with the same wisdom has written the days of your life in His book, including today, and tomorrow, and the days of this week. And there is perhaps no better way for you to begin this week than to behold Jesus and His salvation and to gasp, “O the depths of the wisdom of God!”
· Three types of responses we all need to the depths: the canyon-jumper, the geologist, and the child (submission, humility, and joy)
[click here] to read Romans 11:33-36 online
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 9:36 AM 0 Comments Links to this postharvestoc.net blog, Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Romans 11:33-36 pt2 'The Riches of God' (3-Jan-10 Evening Sermon)
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Click [here] to read Romans 11:33-36 online
1. Introduction: three deep things in v33.
a. The exact same three in vv34-35.
b. A third three in v36.
c. But especially the importance of “riches”
i. In Paul generally (Eph 1:7, 1:18, 3:8, 14-19, the need of strength just to begin to sound the depths of God’s love).
ii. In Romans more specifically, and quite specifically in the section that is just now ending (cf. 2:4, 9:23, 10:12, 11:12). The whole of the book is about RICHES of mercy. This is the TRUE prosperity gospel.
2. How rich are we?
a. Paul knew mercy better than probably anyone
b. Paul had belonged to the perishing group
c. Paul was under the inspiration of the Spirit (1Cor 2:7-13 … not understandable at all w/o the Spirit; never fully comprehended, even with the Spirit)
d. And STILL Paul cries out, “O the depths!” … with what is God most “rich”? With Himself!
i. And that’s exactly what He gives us, 3:25a. The greatest treasure of heaven for despisers of heaven on earth!
ii. Every blessing on earth and heaven besides!
iii. If you do not come away from the gospel saying, “O the depths!” either you have not understood it, or you are still a despiser of the living God.
e. But there is also the danger that having at one time been amazed by the mercy of God, it’s gotten rather old hat to you. The more we learn about the mercy of God, the greater the danger of feeling as if we’ve got it all figured out. But for Paul it was exactly the opposite—the more he understood the more astounded he was at this mercy whose bigness is beyond our sizing up. If you think you’ve gotten to the bottom of God’s mercy, it’s likely that you are wading in the shallow pool of your own mercy, rather than treading water in the ocean of God’s unfathomable mercy in Jesus.
i. Ever-increasing wonder. The more we understand, the more amazed we should be.
ii. Ever-increasing gratitude. Have you sunk into a spiritual lull in which you sort of feel finished saying “thank-you” to God for His salvation?
3. Upon what are we to spend these riches?
i. The riches that cause worship. There is a worship that is too shallow, because it is merely an expression of what I feel—instead of a gathering in which God reveals Himself (as opposed to our presenting what is in us). But there is also a worship that is too shallow because it sees the things about God as just things about God—impressive as they are—rather than as RICHES, God Himself lavishing His RICHES (among which His mercy is central) upon us.
ii. The riches that sustain obedience. How are we ever going to obey the commands and live the life of Romans 12-15? From what great store, from what treasury will we draw the resources for total heart and life transformation? From the RICHES of God, specifically the riches of His mercy, 5:20!
Click [here] to read Romans 11:33-36 online
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 7:45 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Romans 11:33-36 pt1 'O the Depths!' (27-Dec-09 Evening Sermon)
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Click [here] to read Romans 11:33-36 online
Introduction: not just a flourish of praise. But a fitting conclusion to the entire first 11 chapters and a fitting introduction to the next 5 chapters.
Worship is the product of all true theology. Theology must end in worship; worship must rest upon theology.
Worship is the beginning of all true obedience. Worship must end in obedience; obedience must rest upon worship.
The nature of worship: “O the depth!” … Holy Gasping
· not that God cannot be known, but that He cannot be known fully; He cannot be known as He knows Himself … not “now I understand you fully” but “O how deeper than my ability to comprehend is what I now understand clearly!” … clear knowledge of God, not exhaustive … does our worship start with wonder (our praying—decree v.s. responding to us, our reading—inspiration etc., our singing—holy longings, holy affections, holy Spirit, Scripture-directed-emotion)
· Delight in the depth (Paul’s great mind)
o Not despair
o Not confusion
o Not even ambivalence
o Clarity of something about which you know the “that” but you don’t know the “how” brings delight about God
· The depth of the Gospel … nearly every significant doxology in the NT a response of the gospel of God’s free grace for sinners
o The righteousness of God
o For a people under the wrath of God
o To give them peace with God
o And dress them in the character of God
o Adopting them into the family of God
o According to the utterly free choice of God
o To the glory of God
o It’s all about God.
§ To put the value of the glory of God on display in the wrath required and the sacrifice required for despising it.
§ To put the value of the Son of God on display in His being acceptable for such redemption.
§ To put the vast generosity and goodness of God on display in all that He does for those whom He saves.
§ To put the riches of the glory of God on display in vessels prepared for mercy.
Click [here] to read Romans 11:33-36 online
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 6:51 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Romans 11:28-32 'Salvation Designed to Glorify God's Mercy' (20-Dec-09 Evening Sermon)
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Click [here] to read Romans 11:28-32 online
Introduction: Conclusion not just to chapter 11, but chapters 9-11, and indeed chapters 1-11. All whom He would save have been first shut up in disobedience (chs1.5-2.5) so that mercy might be shown to all (chs 2.5-8), and this all is the Israel that He has had in mind from the beginning, the Israel of all believers from all nations (chs9-11).
v28-29 is reminding them that some Jews are “pre-Christians.”
· “pre-christians” not a good term to use about all unbelievers, because we don’t know who the elect are. But pre-Christians do exist! And some of them are Jews. For “pre-Christian” Jews, it is absolutely impossible that they would die as unbelievers. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable!
· Even if they are enemies as relates to the Gospel now, for the sake of others to believe, they are already beloved with respect to election for the sake of the fathers.
· “election” and “for the sake of the fathers” can both be true at the same time—the covenant promises are real! “the fathers” takes us back to Rom 9:6-7 with Israel and Abraham. Who are Israel? Who are the children of Abraham? The elect! And yet their salvation is still truly a response by God to His love for Abraham and Jacob. This is still explaining the same thing as Romans 9:6-7!
God loves the elect while they are still enemies. God loves the children of believers while they are still enemies. They are enemies (Rom 5:10!!)
vv30-31 basically say that God saves sinners. And God saves ONLY sinners!
· MERCY is the main point—4 times in 3 verses—God desires to display the riches of His glory in vessels prepared for mercy!
· In the context, we need to go back to v25… God is keeping us from being wise in ourselves, and part of that is NOT presuming that someone else will not be saved but rather being like God in showing MERCY! We too must love sinners of all kinds and pray for them and tell them the good news.
· Who should have more hope for sinners than we sinners who have been freed from the prison of unbelief?!
v32 summarizes the entire letter so far as God’s plan to show great mercy.
· God takes everyone to whom He's going to show mercy, and first shuts them up in disobedience, so that His mercy will get great glory when He saves us.
· “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful!” (Ex 34:6), Rom 9:15-16, 23
· The “all” here is the same as the “all” of v26: The “part+part” of Israel and the “fullness” of the Gentiles=all
Click [here] to read Romans 11:28-32 online
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 2:21 PM 0 Comments Links to this postharvestoc.net blog, Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Romans 11:25-27 'God's Wisdom to God's Glory' (13-Dec-09 Evening Sermon)
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Click [here] to read Romans 11:25-27 online.
The danger of being wise in ourselves, of thinking that what I see is all there is to see, and what I think is all there is to be known.
What they saw was Israel being rejected. But they weren’t seeing history past, and they weren’t seeing history future, and they weren’t even seeing all of the present. They weren’t considering the faithful ones that had been true believers in Israel before, such as the seven thousand mentioned in v4. And they weren’t considering those cases of those Israelites who had been foreknown, not the least of which was every last apostle, and Paul Himself, as mentioned in v1. And they weren’t considering those Jews whom God would save through the conversion of Gentiles, such as Paul was hoping to participate in in v14.
All of that was hidden to them, but now in Paul’s writing, it has been revealed. And that’s the definition of the Bible word “mystery” in the New Testament: something otherwise hidden that God has revealed.
And don’t we need the reminder that the Word of God is a great protection against being wise in ourselves. God does see everything. God does know everything. This is why true wisdom must begin with the fear of the Lord. And that includes true wisdom about what is happening to Israel.
Now, the next phrase is the summary of what this chapter says about Israel’s hardening: “A hardness from a part of Israel has come, until which the fullness of the nations would come in.”
And we’ve seen all of these things in this chapter:
· Part of Israel has been hardened. Some of elect Israel have already believed, but some of them have been hardened.
· And God has used the hardening that has come on the majority of Israelites as part of His very plan to save a multitude of the Gentiles.
· But the part that are true Israel, that have for now been hardened, He then saves as death from life—using the very conversion of the Gentiles to bring them in!
Remember how we saw those three different groups in vv11-16:
1. Israelites who believe right off the bat
2. Gentiles who believe through Israel’s hardening
3. More Israelites whom God un-hardens through the Gentiles’ believing
And we know that this is three groups that have existed since at least Paul’s day, because in v14 Paul says that his own ministry was part of producing group 3. It may be that God is planning a mass conversion of the Jews at the end; but, He is not describing that in this chapter.
Rather, God is describing three different ways in which He has been saving three different groups of people, since the first century. And the result is that in groups 1 and 3 we have part of the Israelites saved in one and part of the Israelites saved in the other.
But sandwiched there in group 2, we don’t have just a part. What does our verse say? It says that group 2 is a fullness.
And what does the verse say that this fullness is doing? Coming in. So I wonder. “Coming in” where? This is very important for understanding the next verse, v26. The fullness from the nations is coming in. Coming into what?
Coming into the tree of believing Israel from v17. Coming into the tree of those Israelites who are nourished by the root of Jesus.
This is extremely important for understanding v26, because v25 is actually describing how the fullness of the Gentiles, the fullness of the nations, is becoming PART OF Israel. They are COMING IN.
So in groups 1 and 3 we have part of the Israelites plus the other part of the Israelites, making the fullness of the Israelites. And in group 2 we have the fullness of the Gentiles, the non-Israelites.
So to summarize what we have learned so far: v25 is saying, I don’t want you to be ignorant of this mystery and so become wise in yourself, because if you look at this situation from the wisdom of God, instead of saying, “horrors! The Israelites are being rejected,” with the wisdom of God you will say, “Glory! This is how both the fullness of the elect Israelites and the fullness of the elect Gentiles are being saved!”
And that’s exactly what v26 says: “and in this way all Israel will be saved.” In this three-step-way God will save all of Israel from Israel and all of Israel from the nations. This is how He has been doing it. This is how He plans to keep on doing it.
And the next question is: why?
And the answer is the same ultimate answer to all of the “why” questions about God. Colossians 1 is a wonderful chapter that shows what the ultimate answer always is to the “why” questions about what God does: to glorify Jesus (read Col 1:13-20, focusing on v18).
And that’s exactly what we see in Rom 11:26. God chose this particular way of saving all of His true Israel, from both Israel and the nations, in order to glorify the nations. Jesus is the glory of Zion. “The deliverer will come from Zion!”
But Zion is not the glory of itself. Being a Jew is glorious because Jesus is a Jew. But a Jew without Jesus has no glory at all. Jesus actually comes to turn godlessness away from Jacob. God’s covenant with Israel is not about patting them on the back for being Israel. It’s about taking away their sins.
And how much more for us who aren’t even Jews. We don’t even have the glorious bit about Jesus being from our nation. How much more should we see that Jesus Himself must be all our glory. How much more should we see that Jesus must deliver us by taking our Jacob-ish hearts and turning all the godliness out of them. How much more should we see that what we bring to the equation is sin. And what Jesus brings to the equation is the great subtracting of all our sin, and the great adding of all His righteousness.
In the end we come out infinitely righteous! But not by anything we have done. Only by what Jesus has done.
And what our passage says tonight is that God even chose these processes: the process by which He saves some elect Israelites, and the process by which He brings in the fullness of the elect of the nations, and the process by which He then saves the rest of the elect Israelites--
God chose to do it this way to show that none of the glory belongs to a single branch. All of the glory belongs to the nourishing root. All of the glory belongs to Jesus. All of the glory belongs to the deliverer who comes from Zion. All of the glory belongs to the deliverer who turns away our Jacob-ish godlessness. All of the glory belongs to the deliverer who takes away our sin.
And this exposes the greatest danger and tragedy of being wise in ourselves. Because if we miss the part of God’s plan that we do not see (and that’s just about everything!) and if we only get the part of God’s plan that we can think through (which isn’t very much) then we will be missing how marvelously God’s plan of salvation is designed to glorify Jesus.
So, dear congregation, let us not be wise in ourselves. Let us go by what God says in His Word. Let us go by these wonderful, otherwise hidden, things that God reveals on the pages of the Bible. Let us have the fear of the Lord as the beginning of our wisdom. And let us see God saving, and saving, and saving in such a way as to glorify Jesus.
Won’t you trust in this glorious Jesus who turns godlessness away, who takes away sin? And won’t you keep coming back to His word to delight more and more in how glorious He is?
Amen.
Click [here] to read Romans 11:25-27 online.
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 8:18 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Romans 11:17-24 'One Root, Three Kinds of Branches' (6-Dec-09 Evening Sermon)
Click [here] to listen (or right-click for more options)
17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,
The vine—Isaiah 5, Jer 2, Ezekiel 15—the visible church. The olive tree—Isaiah 17, Zech 4.
The point is the root. Membership in the tree is not the main thing. Membership in the root is the main thing. And the root is Jesus. John 15.
· identifying the true root—not the church in general but Jesus Himself
· Put confidence only in Christ, never in church membership … you can be part of a true visible church and go to Hell
· Give glory only to Jesus—never self, and never the church… humble yourself, and leave the exalting to God … don’t be proud of Harvest; be proud of Jesus; announce to everyone how good HE is! if someone is going to be put off by how wonderful you think something is, don’t let that thing be you, or even this church, but rather Christ!
18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
· an antidote for arrogance—if Jesus stops sustaining your life, you will die!
19 Then you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
· the lesson of the Jews’ failure—you don’t begin by faith and move on to something else; you need Jesus every single day as much as the day you first saw your sin and fled to His cross
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
· the warning of the Jews’ failure—visible church membership is NOT necessarily membership n Jesus Himself; are you in the church? Good! Look to Christ alone, or die.
22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
· two equally true truths about God—(1) God is severe. He is sharp, rigorous, unyieldingly committed to every letter of His law and every particle of His justice. All deserve to fall like this, and no one should deceive himself that he ever for a moment no longer needs Jesus (cf. 1 John). (2) God is kind. What is amazing is that for some the severity has fallen upon Jesus
23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
· a third and amazing truth—The kindness of God is not yet done. God has the power to give faith (their “not continuing in unbelief”). God has the power to graft them in.
Conclusion: the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. First to the Jew, then to the Greek. And still to any Jew or Greek who believes. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, look to Him alone as the giver of all of your life, and you shall be saved.
Labels: Messages, Romans, Sermons
¶ 5:16 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
