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Romans 9-16

Israel's Past

Josh Yates · Sunday, 28 September 2025 · Romans 9:1-29 · 37:33 · 6,269 words

Romans S23 · 9:1-29 Lake Orion

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

The sermon looks at Romans 9, where Paul’s anguish for his Jewish brothers and sisters who reject Christ shows that God’s promises belong to those who trust Him by faith, not merely to a nation. It warns that apart from Christ there is condemnation, and urges listeners to move beyond tradition and attendance, building their lives on the rock of Jesus and sharing the gospel urgently. The speaker calls believers to examine the genuineness of their faith, love others as Paul did, and rest in God’s sovereign love.

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.

starbucks 7 born 16 sovereign 10 job 16 israel 16 isaac 9 built 8 lip 4 potter 5 esau 6 must've 3 choice 9

Topics

Faith 7 Israel 5 Prayer 3 The Law 2 Grace 2 Abraham 2 The Flesh 1 Adoption & Sonship 1 Love 1 Election & Predestination 1 The Wrath of God 1

Scripture referenced 16

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

Romans 8 1:44 Romans 8 1:53 Romans 8:30 1:59 Romans 12 2:35 Romans 9 3:48 Romans 9 4:12 Romans 9:1-5 4:12 Romans 9:3 4:40 Romans 9 9:17 Romans 9:6 12:24 Romans 9 13:19 Romans 9 16:23 Romans 9 25:16 Romans 10 25:19 Romans 7 30:39 Romans 7:21 30:40

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, 0:40. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

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Thanks again for joining us. We hope you're blessed by today's message.

Well, we've been through a lot. We have gone through a lot of the Book of Romans,

and it's been awesome to be able to see what God has done.

I hope we've all learned a lot and been able to go through and actually maybe do some studying on our own as well.

But before we get too into the message, there is a new attendee that we need to...

to say hello to, and her name is Amelia Grace.

She was born September 20th to Chris and Sarah Dousman back there, and there she is.

So, praise the Lord for that. It's just awesome.

Welcome, Amelia. So glad you're here. First Sunday.

And if you get to go say hi, her head of hair is awesome. It's just great.

Some of you guys in here are going to be like, man, I used to have that.

Maybe at some point. Your 1970s fro, whatever it was.

No, it's great. It's good stuff.

So, congratulations.

Congratulations, guys. So glad you're here with us today.

So, a few weeks ago, we went through Romans chapter 8.

And Paul brings this book kind of to the central point, his letter to the Romans,

the central point of Romans 8, and really the entire book,

that we can never be separated from the love of God.

And he says things like, ultimately, that neither not life, in verse 30,

life nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come,

nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It's this crescendo of Paul saying, you are loved, and nothing will ever separate you from that love.

Nothing. Nothing means nothing.

You are always loved. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you've done.

God loves every single person on the face of the earth.

But he kind of transitions here, and he then transitions again in Romans chapter 12,

which we'll see in a few weeks, that all of a sudden, he goes from this big, huge crescendo

of this beautiful picture of the love of God.

And he puts on the brakes.

It's like he shifts gears without a clutch.

And if you've ever done that, it's not fun, right?

And he puts on the brakes here, because, and this chapter in Romans is often skipped over.

It's not the easiest chapter to preach on, because it's all about the nation of Israel,

and we're not the nation of Israel.

And so we're like, what about this history? Why does this matter to us?

We're going to get to that by the end of our message this morning.

But he's talking to now the people of Israel.

But there's a ton of comparison to us.

I'm going to do some teaching at the beginning, because we've got to understand what Paul's saying,

and then we're going to get into how it applies to us, all right?

So, if you have your Bibles, get them out.

Get out your phones, whatever that looks like.

I still like a paper Bible from time to time, so if you have those, that's great,

but most of us have our phones.

If you don't have a Bible app on your phone, you can download the River Church app,

and it has the Bible, it has the ESV in our app as well.

But we're going to be in Romans chapter 9, and we're going to skip a little bit through it,

but we're going to focus on the first six verses for sure.

So, as I looked at this, I was like, what is most important to Paul?

And as we've seen, what is most important to Paul is the gospel,

and telling others about what Jesus has done, who Jesus is.

He's been talking about it for the first eight chapters.

But how does he go about it?

We're going to learn a little bit about the Apostle Paul here.

So, we're going to start verses 1 to 5 of chapter 9.

I am speaking the truth in Christ.

I am not lying.

My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit,

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

He just talked about how awesome the love of God is.

Then all of a sudden, I've got great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart.

Why?

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, and to them belong the adoption, the glory,

the covenants, 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.

You hear what Paul says.

He stops the momentum of all the love and all the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God.

And now he's speaking of great sorrow immediately after it.

He says he speaks the truth.

He doesn't lie.

He speaks as one united to Christ.

And in his conscience, it's being born by the Holy Spirit.

Great sorrow, great anguish.

What in the world is causing him so much anguish and pain?

His bottom line, most of his Jewish brothers and sisters do not know Jesus,

and they have completely missed him.

They don't know Jesus.

They had rejected him.

They don't want him.

They want what they've known forever.

They wanted the law.

Remember the book of Romans was written to Jewish Christians in Rome,

and they had totally missed it.

They missed who the law was truly speaking.

And the urgency in Paul's statement here,

think about his demeanor as he writes this.

You don't write this, and you're just like writing.

I can imagine the apostle Paul just sobbing,

if not weeping over his brothers and sisters that did not know Jesus.

He wanted so desperately that his nation, his people,

would know Jesus as Messiah,

because he knows that there's nothing more serious than being cut off from Christ.

Jesus can save, and apart from him, there is no hope.

And so everything that Paul said in the first eight chapters

is not true of those that don't know Jesus and his countrymen.

Think of it from this perspective.

There is no forgiveness.

There is condemnation for those that are without Christ.

There is judgment.

There is death.

They are not more than conquerors.

It's the opposite of everything that he said,

which means they're still slaves to sin.

They had not received the free gift of God, which is in Jesus Christ.

Only Jesus can save.

Only Jesus can save.

Which means his brothers and sisters would fall under God's wrath.

So Paul's desperation for his people, who have already rejected him,

because the Jews were already angry with him

for seeming to like the Gentiles more than the Jews,

he states that he would be willing to be cut off from Christ,

the ultimate relationship that Paul had,

if it meant that his brothers and sisters would come to know Jesus.

In fact, the Greek word that Paul uses here,

it is a huge statement.

He says,

He says he wishes that he could be anathema to Christ,

which means devoted to destruction by stern separation.

He is saying that he wishes he could be condemned to hell

if it meant that his brothers and sisters knew Jesus.

He's asking, he wished his name could be removed from the book of life.

He knows it can't happen,

but Paul is that distraught over people that don't know Jesus.

He grieves from them deeply

because he knows if they don't turn to Christ,

Jesus, his brothers and sisters are anathema.

So I asked you this morning, what's most important to you?

Do we believe that God's word is true?

Because if that's so, those who don't know Christ are anathema.

They won't, they are not more than a conqueror.

The wrath of God will fall because by nature,

we are all children of wrath.

We learned that in the first eight chapters of Romans,

but by the grace of God, the free gift of Jesus' death,

burial and resurrection, there is hope.

There is life.

There is love.

What is most important about us or about, but to you,

do we care about the gospel or are we more concerned

about the awkwardness it would be to tell others about Jesus?

Do we care about anyone that much?

Because Paul now seems to ask the question, he goes on

and we don't have time to read every single verse of chapter nine,

but he goes on in this specific section.

He's, he lists off these things that, that his people miss.

It's almost like Paul saying, how could my people have missed Jesus?

They have.

All these things.

What does he say that they have?

They're the chosen people of God.

At first he says that they have the adoption that God adopted the Israelite,

the Hebrew people as his children in the old Testament.

It's the overall adoption of all the people.

It's a corporate adoption.

That was, and that was the fulfillment of it.

They are the sons and the daughters of God.

They are, they were chosen to, to bear his name.

And we see that they didn't always choose God.

And to theirs is the glory because the people of Israel saw the pillar of fire.

By night and a cloud by day.

And when the temple was built and the tabernacle was built,

the Shekinah glory, the, the overwhelming glory of God fell in that place.

And the people saw it and his presence was known.

It was seen.

It was manifest all amongst them.

Jesus showed up all over the old Testament in theophanies.

When the angel of the Lord showed up in the old Testament,

that is pre-incarnate pre-birth Jesus Christ in the old Testament.

He showed up to the people of Israel.

Theirs was the covenants.

Paul's prophecy.

Probably talking about both the original covenant with Israel and the new covenant,

the promise of God.

Jesus came to the Jews.

You will be my people and I will be your God.

God gave them the law.

They had access to the very words of God,

the spoken and the written in the 10 commandments,

as well as the rest of the law given to Moses.

The worship belonged to them.

God gave Israel a way to commune with him

and to be in relationship with him throughout the old Testament.

The temple system of priesthood, sacrifices and festivals,

had a way to know God.

And Jesus came and fulfilled it all.

They had the promises,

all the promises made to Israel through the law and the prophets in the old Testament.

They had the patriarchs,

these men that God used to establish the faith within the nation of Israel.

They had God's commandments and passed them down generation to generation.

And even from the Jewish nation came Jesus himself.

It's not something that belongs to them.

He isn't, but he's something that came from them.

Jesus comes from the Israelites.

He's from the Israelites.

He is God,

not just of the Israelites,

but God overall.

He's a Jew by birth,

but he's God overall that we receive him by faith.

And Paul has stated in the previous eight chapters that Jesus fulfilled all of those things.

He's the focus of Israel's adoption.

He's the presence of God's glory.

He's the climax of the covenants and he fulfills them.

He's the goal of the law,

the fulfillment of the priesthood and the sacrifices,

confirmation of God's promises to Israel and their fathers.

And Paul says his brothers and sisters,

missed Jesus and his heart is broken.

And he continues to talk.

And so he goes on in verse six.

He says this,

but it is not as though the word of God has failed for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

So when the world is Paul saying,

see,

Paul was,

he was figuring that people would come up with this argument that,

well,

if God made all these promises in the old Testament and they don't now,

they now can't have a relationship with God.

If they miss Jesus,

then all of God's promises failed.

Because they didn't actually happen.

And so Paul states right off the bat to,

to kind of get ahead of these arguments.

He says,

look,

God's word has not failed for some may have thought that God didn't fulfill those promises.

Then that many wouldn't be saved.

So if you're saying this,

you're full of baloney.

That's really what he was anticipating.

And so he goes on and he uses these illustrations.

Again,

if we had time,

we'd read all of this,

but we don't.

So if you have time,

you want to read chapter nine,

please do so.

But he goes on as he,

and he uses some illustrations and some,

and,

and just some characters,

characterizations of,

of,

what God did in the old Testament to,

to prove his point.

He points first to Abraham and Isaac.

And Paul reminds the,

the Jewish reader that the child of the promise,

he came to be born of Sarah and Abraham,

this child of the flesh that his firstborn was born to Hagar Ishmael.

That wasn't the child of the promise because it wasn't the bloodline that God had chosen.

And so he chose Isaac and he was a choice of God.

He was born of a miracle when basically the Bible says that rebellion,

Sarah was way too old.

I'm going to say Rebecca,

that's Isaac's wife.

Sarah was way too old to be in childbirth.

she was in her nineties when she gave birth to Isaac.

Any ladies here want to wait till you're 90 to have your first child?

Anybody at all?

come on,

raise those hands.

I know you want to go there,

right?

No way.

And yet that's what God did.

He performed a miracle and Isaac was the child of the promise.

But then in Romans four,

16 to 17,

Paul says something really interesting.

I'm going to go back a few pages.

It'll be on the screen behind me.

16 to 17.

He says,

that's why it depends on faith in order to the promise may rest on grace and be

guaranteed to haul his offspring,

not only to the adherent of the law,

but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham,

who is the father of us all.

As it is written,

I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of God,

of the God in whom he believed,

who gives life to the dead and calls into existence,

the things that do not exist.

I love that verse.

He gives life to the dead and calls existence into things that did not exist.

He's talking specifically about,

he gave,

life to Sarah's womb in this,

but he calls into the things into existence that do not exist.

But this promise comes by what?

Not by a lineage,

but by faith.

It's not about being born into the right family or being born into church.

You cannot be born into being a Christian,

a follower of Christ.

You can only be reborn into the family of God by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

I'm going to say it again by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

It's the only way to God.

Then you are a descendant of Abraham.

And it's great because God has grafted us who are not Jews into the family of God as Gentiles.

God has sent Jesus,

the son of God to offer salvation to all who will call on his name because it wasn't just about birth.

God made a gracious intervention into Sarah's life.

So Isaac could be born.

And Paul makes that point with them.

But then he makes a point with Jacob and Esau because it's not just about the physical birth of Isaac and Ishmael,

because Jacob and Esau,

they were brothers from the same mother and the same father.

And he goes and he says that next in chapter nine.

In fact,

they were born at the same time,

though Esau was born seconds before Jacob,

before either of them had a chance to do anything right or wrong.

God made the choice to bless the younger Jacob over the older Esau,

though by seconds,

the chosen people of Israel would continue through Jacob's line and Esau's people,

the Edomites would not be God's chosen people.

And there's something that Paul is saying through this,

because in that day it was really,

really important who was born first because the firstborn got all of the inheritance.

And that wasn't what happened here.

Yeah.

Even by seconds,

Esau had the birthright.

Esau had the,

had the inheritance.

And yet because of Jacob's finagling,

God used it and brought his line through Jacob of the chosen people.

And as we look through the rest of Romans,

it's something that we have to understand as we're now,

we've now seen,

through eight chapters and Paul starts talking about this.

Now we have to understand something.

God chooses whom and what he wills.

God chose to go beyond the understanding of Isaac.

Isaac wanted his older son to have all the things he was supposed to have.

The older was supposed to be the heir,

but we have to understand that God is fully sovereign in his choice.

There is nothing that keeps him from making the choices that he sees fit.

He is fully good.

And every decision he makes is fully right,

just and good.

Paul would say in a few more verses here,

he would say that he's the pot.

God is the potter and we are the clay.

At the end of that passage,

he says,

look,

it's the potter doesn't have a right to go.

I don't like how you made me.

I don't like this shape of bowl or cup or whatever it is.

A clay doesn't do that.

And God is the potter and we are the clay.

He's free to do exactly what pleases.

Commentator says this.

So instead of talking back to God,

the appropriate thing for us to do,

is to bow down before God,

the sovereign potter.

Like Moses,

we should take off our sandals for we are on holy ground.

When we approach him like Job,

after receiving God's rebuke,

we put our hands over our mouths and we submit to the goodness of God.

I love the book of Job.

It's a tough read because Job's life just falls apart.

at the beginning of Job,

you see him,

he's got all the riches,

everything he could ever want.

He's got kids.

He's got,

he's got cattle.

He's got everything.

And then Satan goes to God and says,

look,

you know,

look at your servant,

you've given,

yeah,

he's a great dude.

And Satan goes,

yeah,

because you've given him everything.

If I take away everything he owns,

he'll curse you and die.

okay,

you can do whatever you want,

but you can't touch Job.

And so like three servants are sent and it's like,

your sons are dead.

Your cattle are gone and your house burned down and all you have is your wife.

And what are you going to do?

oh no,

you know,

and it's so terrible.

Here I am doing,

I'm doing the,

I guess I'm doing the VeggieTales edition here.

And his wife comes to him and just says,

curse God and die.

And Job says,

can I not just take good from the Lord?

I can't accept evil too.

And so then we had to go back to this scene in heaven and,

and Satan goes,

yeah,

I know.

And Satan and God are talking.

And God says,

if you see my servant Job,

and he goes,

yeah,

but you've granted him health.

He has all of his health.

If I took away his health,

he would curse you and die.

And God says,

okay,

you can do what you want with Job,

but don't kill him.

And Job is just obliterated with boils and sores.

And he is found under a tree wrapped in sackcloth and weeping before God,

wishing he had never,

never been born.

And he has three friends that come and grant him all kinds of encouragement,

right?

No,

they come and tell him,

you must have sinned.

You moron.

That's pretty much their message.

And he says,

I didn't do anything.

I stand before God.

why did you even let me be born?

And,

but the,

the whole book says that Job never sinned in his hurting.

For some of us,

we hurt a lot.

And then here comes God.

And he finally,

and God finally answers Job.

And he says,

with everything you've been saying,

I want to remind you of something.

With everything you've been saying,

you must've been there when I made the oceans,

right?

You must've been there when I breathed life into Adam and Eve.

You must've been there when I formed Leviathan,

which is the huge fish of the sea.

Could be a dinosaur.

We'll talk about that another time.

But there's,

you surely were there when I spoke all this into existence,

right?

Actually,

what I love the most is right when God's going to respond to Job,

he says,

okay,

get ready because I'm about to answer your questions.

Put your big boy pants on.

That's literally what God says in our vernacular.

Put your big boy pants on because I'm about to answer you.

And then after God responds,

Job bows his head and he says,

you know what?

You're right.

In all of my hurting,

I forgot who you are and I don't deserve anything.

We sing a song here all the time that God,

if you didn't do anything else,

it would have been enough.

But I want to mention this morning,

most of us in this room don't believe that because as soon as our lives take a

we get angry.

I'm not saying we should go,

give it to me again,

that's not what it's about,

right?

We don't really believe it because,

we don't hear what Paul's saying here.

God is completely sovereign in everything he does.

It's not always easy,

but we can trust his heart because we can look back to the old Testament too.

And while those things aren't necessarily ours because we're not Jews,

but we have seen the prophets.

We've seen an adoption.

We've seen his glory.

We've seen him work.

How can we,

how can we not trust the heart of God?

Well,

that's easy because when it hurts,

we can't see what he sees,

but we have to go back to truth.

We are the clay.

He is the potter.

And see,

God is,

it's proving that the choice is his and his alone.

That it is a free choice,

unconstrained by people's family,

or privilege that we do have a choice.

It's not by works though.

It's by faith.

And that the choice is put into effect by the sovereign life,

giving call of God.

We come to God as God calls us to him.

I could use the big theological word predestination and say,

God predestined us.

And I don't want to divulge into that,

but here,

and I've said it before a couple of good questions,

but again,

does God,

Do we choose him?

I say,

both happen.

There is a mystery when it comes to God.

In some way,

we do choose him,

but God,

it's again,

it's not like God's up there in heaven going,

I hope they choose me.

I'm not quite sure.

No,

he knows,

he knows.

And he calls.

I don't know how it works,

but I do know God is good and I can trust his heart.

I struggle with trusting his heart at times,

but he's always good.

And he's fully sovereign and he's fully in control.

It has been said that,

God does not choose us because we believe,

but in order that we may believe.

He doesn't choose us because we believe,

but in order that we may believe in him.

See,

God is sovereign.

He's just.

He's righteous.

You fill in the blank.

He is it all.

So what does this whole chapter mean to us?

Again,

I told you I was going to teach some.

We have to get the basis of this and the whole idea of God choosing the nation of Israel.

And what does that mean for us?

again,

it's easy to skip over this chapter.

We can start reading chapter nine and go up.

I'm not Jewish.

We're going to go to chapter 10.

you know,

that would have been easy to do,

but that's not what we're here for,

right?

I think it doesn't apply to us,

but I suppose that all comes down to whether or not we believe that every word in God's

word is there for a reason.

There's a line that I think we have to,

and this is my bottom line this morning.

When I think of Israel,

when I think of all these things,

just because you go doesn't mean,

you know,

just because you're here in church doesn't mean,

you know,

just because you go to do the right things and all that kind of stuff,

just because you go doesn't mean,

you know,

to the point that Paul is making here is that it doesn't matter.

If you think you were born into Judaism,

he's talking to his brothers and sisters.

You have to have faith in Jesus.

You accept him and God,

God differentiates between genetics and faith.

And for us,

it doesn't matter if you were born into a Christian family.

It doesn't matter if you've attended church all of your life.

It doesn't matter that you do the right thing.

It matters what you do with Jesus Christ.

It matters what you do with him and what you believe about him.

And whether that makes a difference in your life.

It matters if you belong to him.

It matters if you've given your life to him,

because whatever you determine is most important,

that's going to determine your destiny.

And we can give a lot of lip service saying that Jesus is most important,

but do our lives bear that out?

We talked about growth last week,

and we talked about the four chairs and the chair of the lost person and the

believer and the worker and the disciple maker and trying to determine where we

are.

And Paul's reminding us today that we don't just stay where we are.

When we come to Christ,

I do not believe that the Bible has any support for a fire insurance

And I never want to scare anyone.

I'm not a hellfire and brimstone preacher,

but the reality is this.

If you die without knowing Christ as savior,

you will spend eternity forever separated from God forever separated from

every other person,

you know,

in a very weird,

real place called hell.

And so many people give lip service to Jesus.

And they say that they prayed this mantra prayer one time and their life never

there is no,

I just want to get out of jail free.

There is none of that.

We're not playing monopoly.

this is real life and death,

heaven or hell issues.

We're talking about today,

just because you have a pedigree of faith and you grew up or your dad was

this,

your mom was that it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a faith that

that will save.

You can have moral status,

and you can point fingers at everybody else that gets it wrong,

especially on the other side of the aisle and never see Jesus.

We can think we belong and never do anything about it.

On a Tuesday afternoon in February,

2008,

Starbucks closed all of its us doors.

Every single one,

a note posted on 7,100 locked doors.

Explain the reason we're taking time to perfect our espresso.

Great espresso requires practice.

And that's why we're dedicating ourselves to honing our craft.

The decision was made by the chairman and chief executive.

Howard Schultz after taking back the reins of the company after it had lost a

bit of its lead edge and a little bit of its profit.

Couldn't believe that they shut down for three hours.

Many customers complained.

And yet in the end,

the move proved to steer Starbucks away from troubled water.

It focused on the important things for three hours.

Instead of selling products,

all 135,000 employees went through training on the Starbucks experience.

They focused on the basics,

like how to pull a good shot of espresso instead of selling for these three

the company focused on retraining just because the cup said Starbucks on it

didn't make a great coffee.

They had to go after it.

Now you may say they still don't make good coffee.

Well,

that's between you and Starbucks.

All right.

But the reality is they focused on it.

They had to go after it.

I want to read us a passage that many of us have read.

It's going to sound different though.

And it just,

it's so applies to us today.

And it's,

it's Matthew seven,

21 to 27.

When Jesus talks about the man who built his house on sand and the men who

built his house on the rock.

This is from the,

this is a message paraphrase.

So it's a paraphrase,

which means the author of this took God's word and then wrote it in his own

So it doesn't have the authority.

I believe that,

that a translations does,

but it is so effective sometimes at helping us understand because it's a

different perspective.

And if you've tuned out of everything else,

because as soon as I started teaching about Israel and covenants and all this

and you went,

that's fine.

I get it.

come back and check in.

If you got your cup of coffee,

that's great.

Go get it,

get it done.

Come back.

If you're online,

this is the crux.

All right.

Matthew chapter seven,

verses 21 to 27.

This is Jesus talking,

knowing the correct password saying master master,

isn't going to get you anywhere with me.

What is required is serious obedience,

doing what my father wills.

I can see it now at the final judgment,

thousands strutting up to me and saying,

we preach the message.

We bashed the demons.

Our God sponsored projects had everyone talking.

And do you know what I'm going to say?

You missed the boat.

All you did was use me to make yourselves important.

You don't impress me one bit.

You're out of here.

These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life.

Homeowner improvements to your standard of living.

They are foundational words,

words to build a life on.

If you work these words into your life,

you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock,

rain poured down,

the river flooded,

but nothing moved that house.

It was fixed to the rock.

But if you use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life,

you're like a stupid carpenter who built,

his house on the sandy beach.

When a storm rolled in and the waves came up,

it collapsed like a house of cards.

We just pay paying lip service to the Lord,

or are we built on the foundation of the rock of Jesus Christ?

And you know,

when you find out what your foundation is built on,

it's when the storms come,

it's not when it's good because sometimes the storms come and they look pretty

ugly and you get pretty beleaguered and beat up and bruised.

What's your foundation foundation have to move beyond lip service to life change.

So Paul's saying here to his people,

he wants them so much.

To know Christ again,

just because you go doesn't mean,

you know,

like Starbucks,

just because the cup says the name,

it doesn't mean the coffee's good.

Here's a question.

If Starbucks took time to perfect their espresso,

what are you and I doing to become a disciple of Christ?

See,

we here at the river,

we want so much to help you see Jesus.

It's why we preach the gospel as much as we do.

We want to lead you into relationship with him and,

and truly live your life through the Holy spirit,

but it's going to require you to prioritize your life around the really important

things.

Getting into the word prayer,

learning about the God you serve,

building relationships,

relationships with people that are going to help you grow in your walk with the

but it's got to change us.

It doesn't leave us where we are.

Another commentator said this because God is sovereign.

You don't have to freak out.

You can share the gospel with your friends,

live out your faith in the midst of opposition,

go to the nations with confidence and trust God with every detail of your life.

We really can because of how sovereign God is.

See a big God leads to big faith.

In Romans nine,

Paul lays all that out.

Big God leads to big faith.

And so this morning,

if you know,

if you don't let know him as your savior,

you can call on his name today.

You call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved.

You believe who he says he is,

that he's the son of God.

You believe that he did what he said he did,

that he died and he rose from the grave to forgive you of your sin.

You confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord and believe your heart.

God raised him from the dead.

You will be saved.

And if you call on his name today,

again,

he will forgive you of your sin.

But for those of us who still have been in the Barker lounger chair of chair two,

and just simply coasting along in our faith,

it is time.

It is time to take some steps toward Jesus.

It's time.

He's calling you to so much more.

We've seen him work just because you go.

Doesn't mean,

you know,

doesn't mean,

you know,

I don't say that to scare us.

I say that just so that we can,

I don't ever want to scare anybody into a relationship with God.

I want you to make that choice,

but I also want us to fully understand where we stand and what God says.

So what is it that you're,

that you need to give to him?

Fix our eyes on Jesus,

the author and finisher of our faith,

who for the joy,

sat before him,

scorn the cross,

endured its shame so that we could know him.

And let's care about others like Paul did.

I don't,

I don't know that I'd be willing to give up my salvation for anybody.

And yet Paul was willing to do that.

Let's care about people.

Let's love.

Well,

we can only do it because God first loved us.

He's sovereign.

Forget it this morning.

Let's pray.

Heavenly father.

We thank you so much for your love for us.

I thank you for all that you are and all that you've done.

And so,

I just pray God that you just continue to reveal yourself to us.

Help us to see you for who you are and help us to trust your heart that no

matter where you,

where we are,

or we can trust that you love us.

And we trust that all things work together for good to them that love God,

to them who are called according to his purpose.

But also Lord,

in those moments that we can't see your hand,

I pray that we would trust that you're sovereign.

you're going to do as you please.

And I pray that we might get to a point where we'd say,

if you don't want it,

You do want it.

I want the same thing.

There's anybody here that doesn't yet know you.

I pray that they'd call on your name.

Thank you for all.

you are. In Jesus' name we pray.