05-15-11 How God Responds To Rejection

Last week we left our study of Romans chapters 9-11

at the end of 10:15.

We are going to return to that study this morning,

and with our return

we are going to pick up the pace considerably.

Having taken five weeks to move us through the first half of this 3 chapter section of the book,

we are going to move through the reminder of it in a single morning.

If you have been involved in our Romans study in recent weeks

you already know why Paul wrote these three chapters.

Paul wrote his letter to the Christians at Rome

to provide them with a single unified statement of the Christian message.

Though it will take us many months to study our way through it,

it is not a complicated or confusing document.

In this letter Paul provides his readers

with the answers to 4 questions.

1. Why was Christ needed? (1:18-3:20)

2. What does it mean to be a Christian? (3:21-8:39)

3. What happens with the Nation of Israel in the light of God’s creation of the Church? (chapters 9-11)

4. What are the basic operating principles of the church, the Body of Christ? (chapters 12-16).

Our study up to this point

has brought us to Paul’s answer

to that third question.

And, as we have moved through chapters 9 and 10

we have seen Paul present that answer

by placing it within the context

of the sovereignty of God

and the free will He has given us.

And at the risk of oversimplifying

what we’ve seen so far in this section,

let me tell you what I have heard Paul saying to us.

As the Creator,

God has reserved for Himself

the absolute right to create the stage

and to determine the human drama

that will be played out on that stage.

The theme of that drama is not complicated -

it is all about His creating a world

in which we can come to understand

the depth of His love for us

by His redeeming us

and calling us to Himself

in the face of our rebellion against Him.

The stage is all His design.

The plot was established

from before the foundation of the world.

But then, within the context of that plot,

He grants to each of us

the right and the ability

to write our own lines.

We can stand off to one corner of the stage

and yell and scream at the top of our voice

that it is a stupid plot,

one we reject utterly,

and one in which we will play no part.

We can gather a group of people around us

and write our own alternative little script

and play out our tiny sub-drama

in our little corner of the stage,

and then pretend it is really the only play taking place.

It doesn’t change things, of course.

It certainly doesn’t alter the true drama in which we are involved,

but it is a choice we can make if we choose to.

And throughout it all,

as is only right,

God Himself takes the central role in the drama,

by placing Himself in human form

on center stage

in the person of Jesus Christ.

And then,

through the work of His Holy Spirit in each of our lives,

He seeks to call each of us to Himself,

offering us His love,

and His redemption,

and His healing,

and restoration to Himself.

JOH 12:32 "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself."

The sovereignty of God

is the great “given” of our existence -

He alone has established the purpose

and the parameters of our lives.

But then,

He gives to each of us

the freedom and the ability

to choose how we will respond

to that purpose

and to those parameters,

and to the God who established them.

Now, if I can risk squeezing this stage analogy a little farther,

what we have going on

here in Romans 9-11

is God’s explanation to us

of His interaction with some of the cast members

who were given a special part in the play.

He singled them out,

revealed Himself to them in unique ways,

and in so doing,

gave them a special role in the over-all development of His plot.

That special group, of course,

is the Nation of Israel.

And, as we move into this 11^th chapter of Romans,

we will see God revealing to us

His ultimate plan for this special group on His stage.

Now, we ended our study last time with Romans 10:14-15,

a passage in which Paul tells us

that, throughout this drama,

God has chosen to communicate the knowledge of Himself

to the people in this world

through other people who have already discovered the truth about Him.

Through all of the programs,

and movements,

and events,

and grand gatherings,

it has always been about people

telling people

who tell people...

ROM 10:14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

Now, from this point on in this section of Paul’s letter

he takes the truths he has been sharing

about God’s sovereignty

and man’s free will,

and God’s communication of Himself to the world through people

telling people,

and he applies these principles

directly to the Nation of Israel.

And to move through these remaining verses

as quickly as I want us to

I’m going to list for us

the progressive steps taken by Paul in this application,

and then offer just a verse or two from each step

to show how he does it.

OK, we need to keep in mind what he’s just done up to this point.

He began this letter by showing that every one of us,

both Jew and non-Jew,

stands justifiably guilty and condemned before God on the basis of our performance.

Then he explained how, through Christ,

God has made to each of us

the offer of forgiveness and reconciliation

solely on the basis of our faith in Christ.

Then, in the first part of Romans 10

he explains that God has given every one of us

the ability to choose

how we will respond to this offer.

And then, in the final verses of chapter 10

he takes all that he has been saying

and applies it to the Jews.

1. Now, in 10:16-21

Paul begins this application by telling us that,

as a Nation, Israel chose to reject God’s offer through Christ.

The last verse of that section

captures the heart of what Paul is saying.

It is a quotation from the book of Isaiah

in which God Himself says of Israel,

ROM 10:21... "All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people."

The imagery in that single statement is remarkable.

Do you see it?

This is God,

the all-powerful One,

the Creator of all that is,

presenting Himself

with His arms outstretched

to a group of people who stubbornly refuse

to hear His voice

or to respond to His love.

If ever you find yourself wondering

what all of this is about,

if ever you find your concept of God

moving toward a distant,

uncaring God of WRATH,

hold onto that mental image - "All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people."

It isn’t about us.

It isn’t about God trying to get us to be good.

It’s about who He is,

and about us discovering what He’s really like,

and in that discovery

finding also our purpose and meaning for life.

So, the first thing Paul tells us is that Israel rejects their God.

Then, the next thing Paul shares with us is God’s response to Israel’s rejection of Him.

Paul gives it to us in the first 2 verses of chapter 11.

ROM 11:1 I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! ...

And for this passage to accomplish

what God wants it to accomplish in our lives

we need to see how God responds

to Israel’s rejection of His offer of love.

You see, that is what this whole passage is all about.

This 11^th chapter

is a another glorious window

into the heart of our Creator.

That response is given to us in 5 steps.

1. Israel rejects their God.

2. 11:1-2 But God does not respond in kind. God does not reject Israel.

3. 11:3-6 Rather, God begins by preserving a remnant.

Within this nation

that would not accept their King,

the King found and claimed for Himself

a few Jews who would still hear and respond to His love.

ROM 11:5 In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice.

He found them in all sorts of places.

He found them on little fishing boats.

He found them caught in the act of adultery.

He found them in league with the Romans,

collecting taxes for the enemy of Israel.

He found them begging on the streets,

blind,

deformed,

outcasts,

covered with leprosy.

He even found one

blaspheming the name of Christ Himself,

hunting down and attacking

all those who called Jesus their Lord.

And with each one He found,

there was a common thread -

for, within each one there was a heart that,

when it finally saw the truth,

when it finally saw Jesus as the Christ,

cried out to Him, “Why me? Why would you choose me?

Why would you love me?

I have nothing to offer in return.”

And that was the point, of course.

For, only those who knew

they did not deserve

what their God was offering them

could ever hear and understand

the love of their God for them.

4. The 4^th step in God’s response to Israel’s rejection

is found in 11:7-10.

He hardens the hearts of those Jews who will not respond.

ROM 11:8 just as it is written, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, Eyes to see not and ears to hear not, Down to this very day."

And in so doing

He pried the redemptive work of Christ

free from the tight-knit Jewish world

and out into hungry hearts

scattered throughout the rest of the world.

And without getting into a huge side-track here,

let me just say that there are some things happening here

that those of us who look back over 2000 years of Christian history

will not easily see.

Christ came in order to communicate to the entire world, both Jew and non-Jew,

the truth about God’s heart love for each of us.

But, because He came as a Jew,

offering Himself to the Jews as their promised Messiah,

unless the nation of Israel would have rejected His offer,

access to Christ

would have forever remained inseparably linked to Judaism.

To share in this Jewish Messiah

a person would first have to become a Jewish proselyte.

But Israel’s first century rejection of Jesus

and their sometimes violent persecution

of all who received Christ

forever severed Christianity from Judaism.

And this was exactly what God intended.

It is why He hardened the hearts of the Jews who rejected Christ,

why He did not allow them to simply remain passive and indifferent.

God’s offer of salvation through Christ to the world

and the discovery of His love

that comes through Christ

had to be freed from the confines

of the Jewish nation

so that it could be easily accessible

to the entire world.

ROM 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery -- so that you will not be wise in your own estimation -- that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;

But this is not where God’s response

to Israel’s rejection of their Messiah ends.

There is one more remarkable step.

#5. In verses 11:25-29

in a fascinating prophetic passage

Paul tells us that, before Christ returns,

the Nation of Israel as a whole

will turn to Christ.

He says, “ -- that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, "The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob." "This is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins."

Now, I am certainly not going to pretend

that I understand all that those words mean,

but one thing is clear -

Paul’s comments are directed toward the future,

toward an event that will take place within the Nation of Israel

when “the fulness of the Gentiles has come in”.

I believe he is talking about

that point in the divine drama

when the mostly Gentile church

that now exists on this earth is removed,

and the eyes of Israel will be opened to Christ as never before

and they, as a nation, will turn to their one true Messiah.

When we were involved in our study of Revelation many years ago

the greatest personal prophetic discovery I made

as a result of that study

came through Christ’s comments to the Jews

that we have recorded for us in Matthew 24:9.

In His remarkable end-times talk with His disciples

Christ tells the Jewish people that, immediately before His return,

MAT 24:9 "... they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.”

The remarkable revelation for me in that statement

is not that the Jews will be hated,

but that they will be hated because of their identification with and allegiance to Jesus Christ.

In fact, in the 7^th chapter of the book of Revelation

we are told about 144,000 Jewish evangelists

who will apparently assume a significant role

in proclaiming the name of Christ

in the days just preceding the return of Christ.

From the very beginning

the Nation of Israel has been given by God

the responsibility of serving

as a special tool for God’s communication of Himself to the world.

And it is within this context

that Paul says, ROM 11:29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Now, I want to close our study this morning

by offering my two final observations

about what I see going on in this chapter.

The first concerns what I see God telling us

about what we can expect from Him

in His response to us personally

especially when our first responses to Him are wrong.

You see, what we see being modeled

in God’s relationship with Israel

is the same thing we can expect personally.

He didn’t give Israel what they deserved.

He didn’t respond to their rejection of Him

with His rejection of them.

Instead, He responded to their rejection of Him

with a redemptive plan

that began with just a shred,

a remnant of what He sought,

and will conclude ultimately

with the entire nation bathed in His love.

Have you been fighting your own personal war against your God?

Do you think your determination to exclude Him from your life

has caused Him to exclude you from His love?

You could not be more wrong.

Even now He is looking for that remnant of faith that still exists within you,

that place where you will still choose to trust Him.

If you will trust there,

it will become His entrance

into a redemptive work He seeks to do in you unlike anything you could ever have imagined.

He is not a “one chance” God.

MAT 18:21 Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?"

MAT 18:22 Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

Jesus wasn’t talking just about our response to one another,

He was talking about God’s response to us.

LAM 3:21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.

LAM 3:22 The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.

LAM 3:23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

And then, finally,

I want to conclude this chapter

with the words Paul himself uses

to draw it all together.

Throughout these 3 chapters

Paul has been talking with us

about some of the most difficult topics in human experience -

the sovereignty of God in human affairs,

the free will He has given each of us,

and the role of Israel in God’s plan of the ages.

After walking us through all of this

Paul concludes with these words:

ROM 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

ROM 11:34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?

ROM 11:35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?

ROM 11:36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

It isn’t about us, folks.

It’s for us,

but it isn’t about us.

It’s all about Him.

And we will know we have understood correctly

whatever it is we have heard Him say

when we find our spirits saying along with Paul,

“To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”