Skip to content

The River ChurchSermons

Romans 9-16

Israel's Past

Josh Combs · Sunday, 28 September 2025 · Romans 9:1-29 · 46:57 · 6,388 words

Romans S23 · 9:1-29 Goodrich

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Romans 9 has Paul’s sorrow and anguish for his people who rejected Jesus, and he would ask burden on you for lost family, friends and neighbors. The chapter points out God’s word and promises have not failed, though Israel’s privilege, they did not have Christ. He uses the potter and clay illustration, Paul makes that God is sovereign and merciful, calling Jews and Gentiles into his family. The sermon calls all who hear to call on Lord, trust in Christ’s death and resurrection, and experience forgiveness and eternal life.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

exodus 13 moses 20 calf 8 isaac 13 god 145 clay 10 golden 8 belong 15 quote 14 sinai 6 heritage 7 jacob 9

Topics

The Flesh 4 Salvation 3 Sin 3 Prayer 2 Hope 2 Faith 2 Israel 2 Abraham 2 Judgment 1 The Gospel 1 The Wrath of God 1

Scripture referenced 71

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 9 0:55 Romans 9 1:09 Romans 9 1:11 Romans 9 1:21 Romans 9 1:23 Romans 9 1:40 Romans 9 2:01 Romans 9 3:04 Romans 9 3:10 Romans 1 3:14 Romans 9 3:21 Romans 9 4:09 Exodus 32 5:45 Exodus 32 5:57 Romans 9:30 8:33 Exodus 32:30 8:36 Romans 9:3 9:46 Romans 10:1 10:16 Romans 10:4 11:27 Romans 10:4 13:16 Romans 10:4 13:21 Romans 9 18:16 Romans 9:6 18:32 Romans 9 19:05 Romans 9 19:37 Malachi 1:3 26:05 Luke 14 26:28 Romans 9:14 28:15 Romans 9:14 28:52 Romans 9:15 29:00 Romans 9 29:07 Exodus 32 29:11 Exodus 32 29:18 Exodus 32:28 29:33 Exodus 32:35 29:37 Romans 9:19 29:55 Romans 9:16 31:12 Romans 9 31:13 Exodus 8 33:27 Exodus 8 33:35 Romans 9 33:39 Romans 10 33:45 Romans 1 33:51 Romans 1 33:55 Romans 1 34:00 Romans 1:24-26 34:01 Romans 1:24 34:10 Romans 1:24 34:39 Romans 1:26 34:41 Romans 1:28 34:45 Romans 1:14 35:08 Romans 1:19 35:21 Romans 9 36:39 Romans 9:20 37:33 Romans 9:20 37:45 Romans 9:21 39:05 Romans 9:24 40:37 Romans 9:25 41:12 Romans 9:27 41:41 Isaiah 10 41:46 Romans 9:22 42:23 Romans 2 42:37 Romans 2 42:41 Romans 2:4 42:41 Exodus 34 43:18 Romans 2:6 43:47 Exodus 34:6 43:49 2 Peter 3:9 44:31 Romans 9 45:46 Romans 10 45:50 Romans 10:9 46:11

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 9 lines, 0:39. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Lorena and thanks for checking out this message today.

We are so glad that you're here and we want to connect with you and your family.

The easiest way to do that is to text RIVERCONNECT to 97000.

There we can answer your questions and even help pray for you.

You can also visit our website at theriverchurch.cc to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church.

And finally, if you want to support the work that we're doing here at the river financially,

please head to our website and click on the Give tab at the top of the page.

Or you can text the amount you want to give to 84321.

Thanks again for joining us and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

Open our Bibles. Yeah, I talked and ran for five minutes, okay?

Six minutes. That was hard.

You got a Bible, let's open them up to the book of Romans.

Romans chapter 9.

If you don't have a Bible, I want to encourage you to share with someone next to you.

Or you can take out your phone, you can download a Bible app or the River Church app.

I want to encourage you to follow along to see the scripture for yourself.

Romans chapter 9.

Romans chapter 9 is where we're going to pick up in just a moment.

If you're a guest, I want to welcome you. Thanks for being here.

Honored to have you here.

If you're watching online, I certainly want to welcome you as well.

Romans chapter 9.

I think the best way to describe Romans chapter 9 is the deep end of the pool, so to speak.

When you were a kid, maybe you took swimming lessons

and the deep end of the pool was a bit terrifying until you figured out how to swim.

So Romans 9 is a heavy chapter in the biblical.

In the biblical sense, it could be considered the meat of the word.

The Bible describes milk and meat.

So a baby digests well and can chew and handle milk.

As we grow as adults, we can handle more solid food.

Romans 9, where we are today, is a heavy, deep end meat kind of passage of the Bible.

I would say it is probably one of the most challenging chapters in all of the Bible.

This morning, I woke up around 3 a.m.

And any time that I wake up at 3 a.m., my prayer immediately is,

Lord, please let me fall back asleep.

It's only three.

And so I laid there and started contemplating my sermon.

And I began writing in my head and finishing up the intro of my sermon.

And I knew there was no going back to sleep.

So this morning at about 3.40, I was in my study and wrapping up things

and thinking through things and praying through this passage of Scripture

because it is a challenging sermon to preach.

So I hope that you'll hang in there.

I hope that you'll have a Bible open.

I hope that you'll have something that you can take notes with

so you can kind of digest what the Scripture is saying to you.

I also want to, as we jump into Romans 9, keep this in context.

What we mean by the context is to not just look at Romans 9

as the beginning of something separate than Romans 1-8.

So Romans 9 is a part of a letter.

It is the Apostle Paul writing a letter to the Christians in the city of Rome.

And that church was made up of both Jewish believers and Gentiles,

those who had grown up in the pagan idolatry of the Greco-Roman world

and had come to faith in Christ,

and then also those who had grown up in the traditional Jewish families

and Judaism and had heard about the prophets and so on and so forth.

And now they have come to faith.

They have come to faith in Christ.

That was what was going on in the church.

Well, there seems to be some conflict between those two groups.

They don't always seem to be getting along.

They don't always seem to agree on everything.

So chapter 9 begins this kind of new section in the book

where Paul is going to talk to the Gentile, non-Jewish Christians

about the Jews, about Israel.

Kind of follow from there.

So let's begin in verse number 1.

Paul says,

I'm speaking the truth in Christ.

I'm not lying.

My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit

that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ

for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

They are Israelites.

Paul says here he has this burden, this brokenness in his heart,

this unceasing anguish for his country, his nation, his people

because they have rejected Jesus.

He says this burden is so deep in my soul

that if it were possible, I would go to hell

if it meant they could go to heaven.

Think about that.

That is the burden that's in his heart.

That's the pain that he feels.

That's the hope that he has for their salvation.

Hold your spot.

In Romans, I want you to go back to the second book of the Bible, Exodus.

Turn to Exodus chapter 32.

For the rest of the sermon, we're going to bounce a little bit back and forth

between Exodus and Romans.

It'll be helpful for you to see that.

But Exodus chapter 32, this is the story of Moses, leader of God's people.

They have left Egypt.

God has set them free miraculously.

And now they are at the base of this mountain called Mount Sinai.

It's there at Mount Sinai that God descends from heaven to meet with Moses.

It was such an awe-inspiring sight.

The Bible says when God descended, the mountain shook.

There was lightning and thunder.

The people were told to stay away from the mountain.

And it seems that they were very willing to stay away from the mountain

because it was such an awe-inspiring sight for them to see.

Moses goes up into the mountain to meet with God.

God's glory again descending.

On Mount Sinai.

And Moses is gone for 40 days.

During that 40 days, the people got bored.

They were so bored, they thought Moses was gone forever.

Keep in mind, the mountain is on fire.

It's trembling.

God's glory is there.

And they decide God's not good enough.

They gather all the gold together and they make a golden calf.

And they begin parading this golden calf that they just made around the camp saying,

this golden calf is our God and this golden calf is responsible for us being freed from Egyptian captivity.

They just made the golden calf.

They just collected it.

Aaron, Moses' brother, made it.

The mountain's on fire.

And they're like, you know what we ought to worship?

Everyone agreed.

So they started singing, dancing.

Sexual morality ensued.

It was this wild defilement of the people while God's glory was.

Moses comes down.

He's just received the law of God.

And his servant Joshua was with him.

And Joshua says, it sounds like there's war down there.

And Moses is like, this doesn't sound like war.

This is something bad.

Comes down, sees the people partying, shatters the tablets because he's horrified at their sin.

Moses, the next day, verse 30.

So Exodus 32, 30.

The next day, Moses said to the people, you have sinned a great sin.

And now I will go.

Go up to the Lord.

Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

So Moses returned to the Lord and said, alas, this people has sinned a great sin.

They have made for themselves gods of gold.

But now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.

Moses says, God, yes, the people have sinned.

Please forgive them.

But if you won't forgive them, blot me out of your book.

Almost this exact prayer that Paul is saying, if were possible, I would pray.

He's saying, if possible, God, send me to hell.

Separate yourself from me.

Cut me off.

Make me, in the Greek word, in the New Testament, this is the word, anathema, and save your people.

Now hold your spot in Exodus because we'll come back there.

Let's go over to Romans again.

Romans chapter 9, verse 3.

If possible, if I could pray this prayer, I would because I am feeling great sorrow unceasing.

Anguish for my people.

Just ask you this.

Is there someone in your life that you feel that anguish for?

Later on, we see Paul in Romans chapter 10, verse 1, saying,

My heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

Paul's saying, I feel a burden for their salvation.

Pray for them.

And they keep rejecting the gospel, and it brings me deep grief in my soul.

This ought to be the heart of God's people for lost people.

People in our family.

People in our neighborhoods.

People that we work with.

That don't know Jesus.

That are far from God.

That are unsaved.

It ought to stir something in our heart.

Not a judgmental, rude, dismissive attitude, but a heart that longs to see them come to know Christ.

Paul says, I feel great sorrow and unceasing anguish for my people.

Look at verse 4.

He says, they are Israelites.

Provenance, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.

To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all.

Blessed forever.

Paul says, let's talk about the privileges that they have had.

They've had some incredible spiritual privileges.

He says, to them belong the adoption.

Meaning, God chose them as his nation.

To them belong the glories.

So, that glory of God that descended from heaven on that mountain then led them by day where to go.

And at night, it was this pillar of fire in the sky.

So, when that moved, the people knew to move.

When that stopped, the people knew where to stop.

That glory of God belonged to them.

It was part of their story, their national story.

To them belonged the covenants.

So, God's agreement with Abraham.

God's agreement with Moses.

God's agreement with David to make a great dynasty.

To them, continues.

Belonged the law, the mosaic law, the 600 plus laws.

To them, belonged the promises, the promises that God made.

To them, were the patriarchs.

So, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, these great men of faith.

And the Bible says, from their lineage, according to the flesh, from their race, came the Christ, came the savior of the world.

But I want you to see how Paul phrases this.

Look at verse 4.

He uses the same phrase twice.

He says in verse 4, to them belong.

They had some things.

What did they have?

They had this history of national adoption by God.

They had this glory.

They had the covenants.

They had the giving of the law.

They had the worships of the tabernacle and the temple, the place of worship.

They had the promises.

What else did they have?

They had the patriarchs.

To them belong.

There's that phrase repeated twice.

But look at how Paul phrases it when it comes to talk about Christ.

When it comes to talk about Jesus.

To them belong the patriarchs.

Here's the change.

And from their race, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.

Notice how Paul points this out.

They had these things, but what did they not have?

They did not have Christ.

From their lineage, from their heritage, from their genealogy, the Christ came.

But they didn't have him because they rejected him.

So all of the spiritual privilege they had did not lead.

They didn't lead them to a saving faith in Jesus.

Some of you have been blessed with a spiritual heritage.

That spiritual heritage can be complicated.

It can be complicated because your dad could be a pastor or a deacon.

Or there was trouble in the church you grew up in.

So that can be very difficult and painful sometimes.

But for some, the spiritual heritage was a great privilege.

You grew up hearing about the gospel.

You grew up understanding what the Bible stories were.

You were given.

You were given a spiritual heritage.

And no one can take that from you.

No one can take the blessedness you may have because you had a grandma who loved Jesus.

But here's what your grandma can't make you.

Your grandma can't make you a Christian.

She can share the gospel with you, but she can't make you receive the gospel.

She can talk to you about faith in Jesus, but she can't put your faith in Jesus.

So you may have privilege.

But in the same way that Israel had the privilege of all of those things,

they did not.

They did not belong to Christ, and Christ did not belong to them.

John says it this way.

He came to his own, Jesus came to his own, and his own did not receive him.

Romans says the gospel came first to the Jew and then also to the Greek.

They had privileges.

They had the first look at Christ.

They had, in some ways, the first right of refusal.

And they rejected Jesus.

Paul says they had all these advantages, a great head start.

They rejected Christ, and it was breaking his heart.

Now let's, in our minds,

rewind the clock.

You're a Christian in first century Rome.

What's that matter to you?

You get this letter, and Paul wants to talk about Jewish history.

Here's why.

Gentiles, Jews in the church seem to be at odds.

They seem to be struggling with each other.

Something else is happening.

Paul is preaching the gospel of a God who is faithful to his promises.

The Romans, Gentiles, are looking at Israel in their time and going,

wait, they're God's adopted.

They're God's adopted nation?

Because that seems distinct.

They're being taxed by Rome.

They're conquered.

They're weak.

They're persecuted.

So if that's God's people, like, wait, wait, did God mess up?

So the questions start to come.

Different things.

One writer says, how could Paul's gospel be true when the Israelites had rejected it?

Does it mean that God failed?

I mean, what about the Jews?

Warren Wiersbe says they were chosen by God, and yet now you tell us they are all set aside.

What if God was not faithful?

If God was faithful to the Jews, how do we know that he will be faithful to us?

Did God's promises fail?

Are we like the redo?

It's a question of what Romans 9 is going to try to answer.

This is what's happening to Israel in the present.

To a Roman, to a Gentile, they would go, well, it looks like God failed with them.

So the thesis of this passage comes in verse 6.

This is the main idea, the big idea of what Paul is going to try to say.

He says, but it is not as though the word of God has failed.

Paul says, God's word, God's promises, God's plan has not failed.

It's not like God was like, oh, man, it didn't work out with those guys.

Let's shift over here to plan B.

That's not what's happening at all.

So what is Romans 9, 10, and 11?

It is a defense of the character of God.

It's saying God is faithful, God is consistent, God is in complete control.

We would say he is sovereign and God is merciful.

And here's what I love about this passage.

Paul, to prove to the Romans that God is dependable, that God has not failed, uses the word of God.

So for Romans 9, 10, and 11, he's going to quote the Old Testament a ton.

He's going to quote just in the passages we're going to look at.

He's going to quote Moses.

He's going to quote the prophet Isaiah.

He's going to quote the Old Testament prophet Hosea.

He's going to use the word of God to show that God has been faithful, that God is reliable, that God is consistent,

that God is dependable.

So verse 6.

Look at the contrast here.

Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

We've seen this in the book of Romans.

To many Jews, they said, I'm a descendant of Abraham, therefore I am automatically into heaven.

And Paul says,

No, no, no.

You're not automatically into heaven.

It comes down to what are you going to do with Christ.

So look at the contrast.

Not all who are descended from the family tree of Israel belong to Israel.

We see a contrast there.

Not all are children because they are his offspring.

So there's a distinction here.

And the illustration from the Old Testament, from the books of Moses,

here we have a quotation.

This is an Old Testament story of Abraham.

He was an old man.

And God came to him and said, you're going to be great.

I'm going to bless you.

You're going to be, through you, the whole world will be blessed.

I'm going to make your name great.

And you're going to have so many kids, so many descendants, it's going to be crazy.

Well, year after year after year went by until he's an old man, no longer able to have children.

His wife, way past childbearing years.

And he just looks at God and he's like, didn't you say we were going to have a bunch of kids?

We have.

So they took it upon themselves.

Abraham took his wife's slave, his wife, Sarah, said, hey, here's my slave, Hagar.

Why don't you have a child with her?

That way we have a descendant.

That way we have an heir.

Well, that wasn't what God wanted.

It wasn't honorable to the Lord.

It wasn't honorable to his wife.

So he had a son named Ishmael.

God blessed Ishmael.

But Ishmael was not who the covenant promise was going to come through.

So God came to this older couple in their 90s.

And said, congratulations, in a year you're going to get pregnant.

God forbid that happens to any of you.

I just want to say that out loud.

Sarah laughs like this is crazy.

She's way beyond menopause.

But a miracle happens.

The promise is fulfilled.

She gets pregnant and they give birth, gives birth to a son named Isaac.

What does the scripture say here in verse 7?

Quoting Genesis.

Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

So what does God say?

Yes, is a son of Abraham.

But he is not, he does not belong to Israel.

He's not a child of Abraham.

My guy, God says, is Isaac.

Well, to a Jewish audience, that would make sense.

Well, sure.

Ishmael is out.

That was illegitimate because it was the slave.

So look at what the passage says.

This means that it is not the children of the flesh.

So not Abraham's effort to fulfill God's promise.

Who are children of God.

But the children.

The children of the promise are counted as offspring.

For this is what the promise said about this time next year.

Sarah shall have a son.

And not only so.

So one more generation.

But also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather, Isaac.

So here's Isaac.

Now Isaac's wife, Rebecca, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might be fulfilled.

So next generation.

Now we have Isaac.

Isaac has a wife, Rebecca.

Rebecca gets pregnant with twins.

Gives birth to twin boys.

The first boy born is Esau.

The second boy born is Jacob.

Traditionally, Esau would have been the heir.

Esau would have been the one to carry on the name, the promise, the covenant.

What does God do?

He says, nope.

Esau's not my guy.

Jacob's my guy.

Who made the choice?

Not societal norms.

Not Isaac.

God did.

And that's why the passage says there in verse number 11, in order that God's purpose of election might continue.

So God says, who's going to be my covenant nation?

Who's going to be the one to carry on the promise?

It's not going to be Ishmael.

It's going to be Isaac.

Isaac has two sons.

And God goes, Jacob.

And Jacob's my guy.

What's happening here in the passage?

God is being God.

And because God is God, God gets to do what God wants to do.

Because he's God.

And if you want me to repeat that, you'll have to just go watch it online and rewind.

Because I can't say that again.

But that's God's prerogative.

God gets to do that.

Verse 13, a little tricky.

It says, as it is written.

So whenever the Bible says, as it is written, you know it's something typically from the Old Testament.

So this is a quote from the book of Malachi.

The last book in the Old Testament.

The last prophet there in the Old Testament.

And it's from Malachi chapter 1, verse 3.

And it says, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.

So if you just read that without understanding a few things, you might go, okay.

Gosh, in the womb, God was like, hey, Jacob, I love you.

Hey, Esau, I hate you.

But this is an expression or what we would call an idiom.

Jesus uses the same idiom in Luke.

Luke 14.

Jesus said, if you're going to follow me, here's what you have to do.

You have to hate your own father and mother.

You have to hate your own father and mother.

And wife and children and brothers and sisters.

Yes, even your own life.

As Jesus saying, hey, if you're going to follow me, go tell your mom and dad, I hate you.

Go home and tell your wife, sorry, I can't love you anymore.

I hate you.

Go look at your kids.

Hey, good night, by the way.

Jesus told me that I have to hate you.

Now, if you do that, you're misunderstanding an idiom, an expression.

We use these all the time in our life.

In modern day, we have modern day expressions about things.

That's what's happening here.

What's the passage mean?

God loves the world.

God loved Jacob and God loved Esau.

But whom did God choose?

He chose for the covenant people to run through Jacob.

That's what God did.

So his choice, his favor, if you will, was upon Jacob, not in the same way on Esau.

Paul makes these points about God, purpose of election.

God has been faithful.

God has always been doing this.

God has always been consistent.

God hasn't changed.

So whenever you hear something like this,

you may have some questions.

Like, what about the following?

And that's what Paul anticipates in the rest of this chapter.

He anticipates the confusion.

He anticipates the questions.

Because these are deep, mysterious, almost paradoxes that the Bible lays out for us.

So look at verse 14.

Here's question one that Paul anticipates.

He says,

What shall we say then?

Is there injustice on God's part?

Simply translated,

Like, that's not fair, God.

That's not fair.

So Paul says,

Some of you might be tempted to say,

Is there injustice or accuse God of not being fair?

By no means.

God being, is there an injustice?

No.

For he says to Moses,

I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.

I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

Hold your spot in Romans 9 and go back to Exodus again.

Exodus chapter 32.

We'll think about this.

We'll think about this story again.

Because this is where that quote is coming from.

So Exodus 32 is the story of the golden calf.

A crazy rebellion against God while God's glory is right there.

Moses goes up to intercede, but there's still consequences for the sin.

So in verse 28,

3,000 men of the people die.

Then the Lord sent a plague on the people because they made the calf the one that Aaron made.

So judgment comes.

Did judgment come on all?

Did judgment come on all of them?

No.

Because God showed mercy.

Look over at chapter 33 in verse number 19, the second half of verse 19.

Here's where the quote comes from.

God says,

And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

So here's God demonstrating his holiness, his justice, but also mercy.

Here's what we have to come to grips with.

Everyone there at the base of Mount Sinai who decided to,

to ignore God and do what they wanted to do,

deserved to be condemned.

What does the Bible say now for all of us?

All have sinned.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So no one gets to boast.

No one gets to say,

Man, I should be ahead of that guy over there.

I'm not as bad as her.

Man, our family's way better than that family.

The Bible says all have sinned.

So any mercy that you and I receive,

any grace that you and I receive at any moment in our life

is a mercy.

It's a miraculous kindness from God.

Let's go back to Romans 9.

Paul says,

So then it depends not on human will or exertion,

but on God who has mercy.

Meaning we can't earn God's favor.

It's not our will or our trying.

That's what Paul has been,

one of the things Paul has been arguing throughout Romans.

You can't be good enough to earn God's favor.

Well, here it continues.

For the scripture says,

So how does Paul argue for God's dependability

and the dependability

He uses God's word.

The scripture says to Pharaoh,

For this very purpose I have raised you up,

that I might show my power in you

and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So prior to Mount Sinai,

the Jewish people, the Israelites,

are in Egypt.

They're slaves.

Moses comes.

You may have seen this movie,

an old one or an animated one,

or you may have grown up seeing this

or hearing this in Sunday school.

Moses says,

Let my people go.

No.

Well, the Bible says here,

one of the reasons God put Pharaoh in the position he was in

is so that God could show his power.

I love this line from an author.

He says,

It would appear in Pharaoh's case

that God placed this man in his position

of international visibility

so that when his own hard-heartedness

came into conflict with God's purpose,

he would become an international illustration

of the future of God.

Futility of arrogantly opposing the purposes of God.

So what does Pharaoh become?

He becomes an illustration of

that's what happens when you oppose God.

And that guy had tons of power,

tons of resources.

You don't want to oppose God.

That's what Pharaoh becomes.

The scripture says here in verse 18,

So then he, meaning God,

has mercy on whomever he wills

and he hardens whomever he wills.

So there's this idea of God hardening someone's,

someone's heart.

In Exodus chapter 8,

the Bible says first

that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

It says in chapter 8,

Pharaoh hardened his heart.

You know what happens in chapter 9?

God hardens Pharaoh's heart.

now three times it says

God hardens Pharaoh's heart.

What's happening?

Exactly what we see in Romans 1.

Hold your spot there.

You're all over the place now,

but go to Romans 1 real quick.

Romans chapter 1.

I want you to see verse 24, 26,

and 28.

Therefore God gave them up.

Humanity abandons the knowledge of God,

prefers to worship creation,

the golden calf, if you will,

trees and rocks and so forth.

And along with that comes sexual morality,

impurity, rebellion against God.

So bad theology leads to bad behavior.

What does God do in response?

God gave them up.

Look at verse 26.

For this reason,

God gave them up.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God,

God gave them up.

So a sinner who rebels against God,

what will God do?

God will give you exactly what you want.

Harden your heart to God.

He'll go, okay.

And he gives people up.

So question one in verse 14,

is there injustice on God's part?

Absolutely not.

God has been perfectly holy,

pure, consistent, and faithful.

Question two, verse 19.

So again, remember this is a letter.

Paul's anticipating some struggles,

some argument against what he's going to say.

You will say to me then,

why does he, meaning God, still find fault?

For who can resist his will?

It's a great question.

Paul says, okay, you're going to hear this,

that God is sovereign,

that God's in control,

and you're going to go,

so why am I in trouble?

I'm just doing what he made me to do.

I'm a robot.

Now, they didn't say that in Romans, obviously.

But sometimes people say this.

Okay, God's sovereign.

I'm sovereign and in complete control.

Then I just, I have no choice.

I'm just a puppet.

I love the way the New Living Translation

paraphrases verse 19 and 20.

It paraphrases it this way.

Well then, you might say,

why does God blame people for not responding?

Haven't they simply done what he makes them to do?

And the paraphrase here is,

no, don't say that.

So these, this is the depth of this paradox in the Bible.

And I think chapter 9 and 10,

if you love 9,

don't ignore 10.

And if you love 10,

don't ignore 9.

Because you have this paradox in the scripture

of two things that are clearly in the Bible.

God is in complete control,

and people have free will.

And you go, wait, what?

And it's this mystery.

It's this paradox that Paul is saying here.

God's sovereign.

God's in control.

God's purpose of election is being worked out.

And humanity is responsible.

And humanity has free will.

And humanity has free will.

And I love this quote from A.W. Tozer.

He says,

God sovereignly decreed

that man should be free to exercise moral choice.

And man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree

by making his choice between good and evil.

Look at verse 20.

So the question is,

okay, why can God hold me responsible

if I'm just doing what I was made to do,

what God makes me do?

But who are you, oh man,

to answer back to God?

Meaning, it's what Ecclesiastes,

Ecclesiastes says.

Remember when you pray

that we are here on earth

and he is in heaven.

That his ways, Isaiah says,

are higher than our ways.

Paul says, who are you, oh man,

to answer back to God?

Well, what is molded, say to its molder,

why have you made me like this?

So this is clay.

This is someone in pottery.

So here's the shaping of the clay.

And we have an illustration here

because we have talking clay.

That's what Paul is saying.

He's saying there's a lump of clay

and the clay is starting to be shaped

and now the clay is talking to the molder

saying, I didn't want to be made into that.

That's preposterous, right?

But with every illustration,

every illustration in the sermon

and every human illustration,

there's a breaking point.

You don't want to take it too far.

We're not just a lump of dirt.

God has taken us from the dirt

and he's breathed into us the breath of life

and he's made us a living soul.

He's likened to the potter

and we are compared to the clay.

Look at verse 21.

Has the potter no right

over the clay

to make out of the same lump

one vessel for honorable use

and another for dishonorable use?

Can't the potter do with the clay

what he wants to do

because he is potter.

He owns it.

He created it.

Then Paul uses a hypothetical.

He says, what if?

Let's just say, for example, what if?

What if God desiring to show his wrath

and to make known his power

has endured with much patience

vessels of wrath prepared for destruction

to make known the riches of his glory

for vessels of mercy,

which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

What do you see?

You see riches.

You see glory.

You see mercy.

You see wrath.

You see destruction.

You see these ideas

set in contrast against each other.

Kent Hughes, one of my favorite authors

and commentators,

says Paul poses a hypothetical example.

Sometimes we wonder

why God withholds judgment

on the ungodly.

It may be

that he does it

to better display his glory

to his beloved.

We must bow before God

realizing he has noble purposes

we cannot see.

So God is the potter.

We are the clay.

Even us, whom he has called,

not from the Jews only,

but also from the Gentiles.

So God did something crazy here.

God did something extraordinary.

He called Isaac

and then from Isaac he said,

Jacob, that's going to be my nation.

That's where the covenant

is going to come through these people.

I've chosen them.

God didn't just welcome them

into the family of God.

Hosea, the prophet,

verse 25 is quoted.

Those who were not my people,

I will call my people.

And her who was not beloved,

I will call beloved.

And in the very place

where it was said to them,

you are not my people,

they will be called

sons of the living God.

So the idea is Gentiles

were outside of this.

They were outside of the covenant.

And now in Christ,

we are able to be

welcomed into the family of God.

Well, what about Israel?

Have they been forgotten?

Are they abandoned?

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel.

So here's a quote from Isaiah,

Though the number of the sons of Israel

be as the sand of the sea,

only a remnant of them

For the Lord will carry out

his sentence upon the earth

fully and without delay.

As Isaiah predicted.

Here's another quote from Isaiah.

If the Lord of hosts

had not left us offspring,

we would have been like Sodom,

and become like Gomorrah.

We would have just been leveled

if God would have not had

any mercy upon us.

So God was going to rescue the Gentiles,

and God was going to have mercy

on a remnant of the Jews.

I love this word in verse 22.

The word endured.

He has endured with much patience.

Go back to Romans chapter 2.

Romans chapter 2 in verse 4.

Paul says,

Do you presume on the riches

of his kindness and forbearance?

Not knowing that God's kindness

is meant to lead you to repentance.

You can leave Romans.

Go all the way back to Exodus.

And I want to show you

one of my favorite verses

in all of the Bible.

Exodus chapter 34.

You got a pen.

I want you to underline this.

Star it.

Mark this passage of scripture

because this passage right here

gets quoted throughout

the rest of the Old Testament.

This is the original.

This is where it started.

Moses goes up to Mount Sinai.

He's going to meet with God.

And God,

once again,

introduces himself to Moses.

Exodus 34, 6.

The Lord passed before him

and proclaimed,

The Lord, the Lord,

a God merciful and gracious,

and abounding in steadfast love

and faithfulness,

keeping steadfast love

forgiving iniquity

and transgression and sin,

but who will by no means

clear the guilty,

visiting the iniquity

of the fathers on the children,

and the children's children

to the third and fourth generation.

What do we see there?

We see God in his holiness

and his righteous judgment,

but he introduces himself

as a God merciful and gracious.

Peter says in 2 Peter 3, 9

that God is patient towards you,

not wishing that any should perish,

but that all should reach repentance.

This is the mercy of God,

the grace of God,

that he extends the gospel message,

to you, to me.

Maybe we grew up with great privileges,

but then we abandoned Christ.

We abandoned that heritage.

Maybe for you,

you didn't grow up with that heritage,

but God has had to endure

your rebellion, your sin.

God extends to you.

This is the beauty of this.

God extends to you in Christ

the hope of the gospel,

that Jesus came and he died for our sin.

Jesus was buried

and Jesus rose from the dead

and he offers to every person

sitting here the forgiveness of your sins

and the hope of eternal life.

That's the power of the gospel.

You can leave here forgiven,

that you can leave here

with peace in your heart.

You can leave here

with the burden of sin that you carried

lifted and nailed to the cross,

as the Bible says.

Just a chapter after Romans 9,

in Romans 10,

Paul says,

whoever calls upon the name of the Lord

Meaning Jew, Gentile, privileged, or pagan.

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord

can be saved.

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord

can be saved.

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord

Romans 10, 9 says,

if you will confess with your mouth,

Believe in your heart

that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved.

If you've called out to the Lord,

if you've been saved,

you can celebrate the mercy of God

that you have received.

Not because we earned it,

but because he so freely,

kindly, and graciously gives it