How Should Christians Respond to Unbelief? // Romans 9:1-13

Good morning, Two-City Church across all of our campuses. Guys, we have a theme for this year, okay? If we haven't been obvious, the theme is Centered and Sent, and we are serious about sending. In fact, we're making the rest of the month of August Multiply Month, and each week I'm gonna get up here and introduce you to one of our three church planters who's going out, and we started with Spencer and Olivia. Can we give them another round of applause? Guys, as you can see in that video, if you're new, you may not know this, we're only 10 years old as a church, and Spencer and Olivia have been with us all 10 years. They were on our launch team. I did their premarital counseling. Guys, losing Spencer is going to be like losing my left arm, okay? He's up here, he's one of our teaching pastors. He started and oversaw our college ministry, also currently oversees our missions, and so here's what I want you to know. We are serious about sending, and that means that we send our best, and here's what we're gonna do. This is kind of crazy. If you grew up in church, you may have never been to a church like this before, because most churches, here's what happens. The pastor gets up and says, please stay. I'll do anything if you'll just come back

for one more Sunday, and if there's something you don't like about this church, we'll change it so you can stay. And we're kind of a strange church, because I'm gonna get up here from now until May and basically say, okay, we're gonna change it. And basically say, will you please leave our church? Like, you know, and here's the problem. The best people always leave. Some of you, we've been trying to get to leave for a long time, okay? You just won't leave! But our best people, so here's the thing. Guys, we're gonna be saying a lot of gospel goodbyes. It's when you say goodbye because of the good news, it's when people move from mission. Now, here's the thing. Spencer already has five community group leaders and their wives and their families committed to go. And that means, that's great too, yeah, yeah, okay. But here's what this means. You gotta understand this, okay? Like, normal people like you do this, okay? They leave, they move to Charlotte. And you have to understand that what happens is that means husbands and wives talk to each other, and then that means that they sit around the kitchen table with their kids, and they say, mom and dad have a big decision that we just made, and it means that you're gonna be going

to a different school and you're gonna be growing up in a different city, and it's really, and I believe God's gonna bless a lot. But here's the thing. We can't do that and then have the rest of us do nothing while we stay here. So here's your two options. Go with one of our church plans, or I hope you feel recalled here. And you just gotta go, what am I doing at Novant Hospital or Atrium, or what am I doing at Reynolds? If people are gonna go move their lives for the sake of mission, I better start living more missionally here. Guys, that's our hope. Listen, if you're at all interested, or maybe you're gonna wanna give this text code to somebody else, but if you know somebody maybe who lives in Charlotte, text CLT. That's, yes, that is the airport code as well. Okay, CLT. And some of you, you would like to live closer to an airport where you could have a direct flight anywhere you wanted to. You could do this, okay? Text CLT to 39808, and then September 20th, which will be here before we know it, we're gonna have interest meetings for all three church planters and their plants

after the 11 o'clock service on September 20th, three separate gatherings at the same time here. So if you're interested, you'll wanna text CLT and show up to those meetings. With that said, let's pray, and we're gonna dive into Romans chapter nine. Lord, we are just grateful. We need people who go out for the sake of your name. And the Bible says honor such people, and that's what we're trying to do. And we pray for individuals and young couples and families and empty nesters, maybe even people who find themselves for some reason single again, that they might feel called. Lord, and I am so grateful as we talk about the Oaks Church, I am so grateful for the 30 people that moved here. And we just pray you would build a strong launch team for the Oaks Church. We pray a blessing on them as they go. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, you can turn to Romans nine. We are in a brand new series within a series. It's called Sovereign, and that might be a big scary word for you guys. But this is gonna be, here's what we're doing, okay? Just get ready. We are going into the deep end of the theological pool, right? So it's pool season for a couple more weeks.

And every pool you've ever been to has a rope, right? And that rope is where you tell all the little kids, don't go past that rope, right? Because if you're on one side of the rope, you can splash and stand and it's three feet tall. And as soon as you go under the rope, it's six feet, eight feet, 10 feet, 12 feet. diving board, okay, people are playing sharks and minnows. It's just, it's a dangerous place, okay? Here's what we're doing today. We are, as a church, okay, we're all gonna do this together across all of our campuses. We're gonna go under the rope together, okay? And I'm gonna be your tour guide and lifeguard. I'm gonna have to save some of you guys, okay? Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. Romans 9 through 11 is the most avoided part of Romans. Most people don't preach through the book of Romans. If they preach through Romans, they don't normally go through 9 and 10 and 11, okay? And if they do, they normally kind of do one sermon as an overview. Guys, we are gonna be in Romans 9 through 11 if you celebrate it until Halloween, okay? That's how long we're gonna be in this. We're gonna be in here for a while as we dive in. Now, think about it this way. It's all, it's about Israel. It's about God's sovereignty, man's responsibility.

Think of it this way. Romans 9 is Israel's past. If you write in your Bible, you can write that. Romans 10 is Israel's present. Romans 11 is Israel's future. Romans 9 and Romans 11 are probably the two most famous chapters, at least in the New Testament, on God's sovereignty. Romans 10 is probably the most famous chapter in the New Testament on man's responsibility. So what's going to happen here is we're gonna have a conversation, and it is gonna be, well, you're gonna sit there, but I'm gonna talk. But it's gonna kind of be like a conversation, okay? We're gonna have a conversation about this for a couple months together about man's responsibility, God's sovereignty. Now, in the 10 years that I've been doing this, week in, week out, we have had people get upset with me because they think that I have emphasized God's sovereignty too much. And we have had people that have gotten upset because I was preaching through John. This is a true story. They didn't think when I was preaching through John's gospel, this was a long time ago. This was two buildings ago. They thought when I was preaching through John's gospel, I didn't emphasize the sovereignty of God enough.

But I'm just like the Apostle Paul. I'm just dealing with both, okay? That's what I'm trying to do here. Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna read you guys Romans 9, 1 through 13, and we're gonna begin a conversation today. And you're going to wrestle, and it's gonna be a good thing. Well, we're all gonna wrestle, okay? We're gonna begin a, now, here's how important Romans 9 is. Some of you have heard of John Piper, okay? He was probably the most famous pastor in America, one of them, for a good decade or two. And before he was a pastor, that's how most of us know him, or conference speaker or author, he was a seminary professor. It's a true story. I'm gonna tell a story. And it was teaching his seminary students Romans 9. And dealing with all the debates and the discussions and the dialogue and the division, all that over it, and then he'd go home at night and he'd pray and he'd read Romans 9, and he felt God speak to his heart. The God of Romans 9 will not just be pondered, he will be praised and proclaimed. He will not just be analyzed, he will be adored. And he went in the next day and handed in his resignation

and put his name in to be a pastor, because he wanted to see, could he, by the grace of God, build a church with a vision of God that comes out of Romans 9? With that said, that's a lot, I know, but we're gonna introduce these things. Let me read you Romans 9, one through 13. You're gonna see in verse 11, the word election. It's the first time that word comes up. I'm gonna begin to talk to us about that at the end today. He's gonna make a whole argument about this. And then next week will probably be the most difficult theological sermon that I have preached to date, because Paul will deal with all of the questions people have. What's gonna happen is I'm gonna introduce some things to you today, and you're gonna have a lot of questions, listen. And if you have questions, I want you to email me directly at David at twocitieschurch.net. And thank you in advance to our community group leaders, they're gonna have a fun time. Okay, here we go. All right, so here it is. 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.

For I could wish that I myself were cursed 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, look what he says about Christ, is the Christ who is God. Over all, blessed forever, amen. This is what Paul's gonna begin to deal with today. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. We can all feel that at some point. God has said things and I don't see them. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Yes, we're going to talk about Israel a lot, and it's also in your newsfeed a lot. All are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son, and not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, here's the key sentence Paul's been building toward, though they were not yet born

and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue, or the word is stand, same thing. Not because, so not because they were born, not because they did anything good or bad, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older, which was surprising, because that would be Esau, will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I love, but Esau I hated. Okay, what we're gonna talk about today in the next few weeks is not hard to understand, but it is hard to accept. But Romans 9 is the foundation for everything we just celebrated in Romans 8. See, what we're gonna do, starting today, really more even next week, is we're gonna have the theological, you didn't know this coming to church today, but we're having the theological birds and the bees talk together. See, what happened is my son, he's 10 now, but Elon, when he was nine years old, this was in the spring, he came home from playing with some kids in the neighborhood and with his older brother, William, and he came home and he was very excited and he said, dad, I was talking to the older kids in the neighborhood and they told me you need to have the birds and bees conversation with me. He said, I was talking to a couple of them,

he said, their dad had the birds and bees conversation with them and you need to have it with me. And he goes, but they did tell me once you have the birds and bees conversation with me, I'll never look at you and mom the same again. True story. Okay, the same thing happens with God. Once you have the theological birds and bees talk with somebody, which is what we're gonna begin to do, you never see God the same. See, here's the thing, most nine-year-olds, they say they wanna have the birds and bees talk, but they really don't want to know what happens in the bedroom in the hospital room. And when you have the birds and bees talk with somebody at that age, one of their responses is fear. And that can be a response as we begin to get into these things, okay? But it is certainly going to give you a different view of God and a different view of yourself if you've never studied this passage, okay? We're gonna begin to do that today, but over the next few weeks, I think that's gonna happen. But before we get into Paul's theology, I wanna look at Paul's heart. Before we think about how Paul thinks, I want you to see how Paul feels. Let's go back to verse one. I'm speaking the truth in Christ.

It's pretty intense, Paul. Could you just say speaking the truth? Speaking the truth in Christ, okay? That's pretty intense. I'm not lying. Okay, we get it, Paul. Why would you tell someone you're not lying? Only if they're thinking you're lying. Only, right, that's what you, when something really important happens, you go, I'm not lying. Listen, I really met him. He was at the, you know, whatever. Okay, my conscience bears me witness with the Holy Spirit. Now, look, Paul's taking an oath. This is pretty intense. Normally when Paul says, you know, in the presence of Christ Jesus the Lord, when he says that to Timothy, he goes, preach the word. We're expecting him to say something really intense. Why would Paul need to say, I swear? What is Paul about to tell us that we wouldn't believe? Here's what it is, that he loves Jewish people. Now, if you think about it for a couple of seconds, it makes sense why he would have to say, guys, I really do love Jewish people, because no one believed him, because he left being Jewish. I mean, he's gonna say they're his kinsmen,

but he's like, guys, he was a professional Jewish person. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He says another place, circumcised on the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin, you're right? And so, not only that, but what is he trying to do every time he talks to the Jewish people? He's trying to get them to convert to Christ. And then how do they respond? Well, they're really mad at him. So they beat him up, and we read that last week, and they hit him with, you know, rods, and they whip him, and they stone him, and they put him in prison. And so, by the way, Paul's saying, just because people reject Christ, I don't reject them. And that's good for us. Is there anybody in your life you would need to convince that you still love them, because they've rejected Christ? Like, we're all gonna have, it may be a soft rejection, right, and they think, your dad thinks that church is a crutch for you, that he's rejected Christ. Your sister, you know, the popular phrase, she's against orgies. organized religion. I guess she would like disorganized religion, I don't know, you know what I'm saying? You know, your friends at work, they think you're crazy because everybody only gets two days off, but you use one of your days off, half of it to be here. And if you serve, like half your day of,

you know what I'm saying? Well, Paul says he has a heart for people. So here's what I want, we need to have Paul's tears, not just Paul's theology. We need to have Paul's burdens. So let me read this to you. Look what Paul says in verse two, that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. Now, this is like, if you're reading this, come on, this is emotional whiplash. Because think about it, in the original, when the letter of Romans is written, right? There are no, you know this, there were no chapter, Paul's not right now, right? Verse seven, you know, he's not doing that. He just writes the letter. We don't get the chapters, I think, until the 1200s, we don't get the verses until the 1300s, and we're grateful because it makes it easy to find things. But normally, you would have just read Romans eight, and then you get to Romans nine, and it's kind of confusing because in Romans eight, Paul's like, we're more than conquerors, and everything's gonna work for our good, and nothing's going to separate us from the love of God, and God's gonna give us all things. He's Mount Everest, celebrating, super excited, and then all of a sudden, he says, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

Let me tell you, you've probably never been told this before because some people think, to be a Christian means I'm happy all the time. No, actually, to be a Christian means you're sad all the time. Did you know that? Paul says he's sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. You're sad all the time because if you're thinking about people that you love that don't know Christ, you'll be sad all the time. And most men don't know what to do with that, right? Most male depression is wrongly diagnosed as anger because men don't know what to do with negative emotion. Paul goes, I'm sad all the time. So Billy Bob Thornton, okay? Billy, but don't act like you don't know him. I know you've been watching Landman, okay? Billy Bob Thornton, okay? Yeah, he dated Angela Jolie, all that kind of stuff, okay? So he, I don't know, he's in his 50s or 60s. You can look it up. But when he was in his 30s, his brother died, and I saw an interview with him recently about it, and he said, since my brother died, he goes, I'm 50% sad every day of my life. He said, it never goes away, never goes away. Even when we're, and we all have that, right? You can imagine, some of you in here, right? Your daughter gets married and you're ecstatic, and it's, you're at the wedding ceremony or whatever,

you're at the wedding or something, and you're ecstatic, right, your daughter's married, you love your son-in-law, all that kind of stuff, and then you have this moment where you think, I wish my dad was here. And you realize your dad passed years ago and your dad didn't get to be it, and so you weirdly have this mingling of emotions. So here's what happens. When you're a Christian and you go home for Thanksgiving, and you sit down at Thanksgiving dinner, and you realize four of your family members don't believe, you're really sad. The problem with us is we don't let ourselves feel sad. Paul said he's sad because they're cut off, and they're cursed and they're cut off from Christ. Here's normally, let me tell you how we tend, we're very American, we're very modern people, even though we're Christians, and we think about the immediate, temporary benefits of being a Christian, and normally that's what we're sad people aren't experiencing, right? We look at someone, we're like, he's addicted. But if he came to Christ, God could help with that addiction and he wouldn't be destroying his life, and we think, man, she's a spender. And if she would just understand the biblical principles and give her life to Christ, and she would read Dave Ramsey, she would get everything organized,

and we think, their family is a mess. Their kids are crazy. But if they would just have a biblically ordered home, then their kids would be fine, and their marriage is a four out of 10, but if they would just read Ephesians five, and he would understand his Christ-like role. None of that's wrong. And people do come to Christ, and it does help their lives, and thank God for that, and a lot of the practical applications I'm giving you guys often is your marriage and all that. Paul goes, I believe in hell, and I believe that people who don't know and love Christ and repent of their sin go there, and I know a lot of those people. And it's not like an intellectual exercise for me, it's a very emotional thing. In fact, do you see what he says in verse three? He says, I could wish, you can see it in English, it's even more clear in the Greek, like Paul's like, it's not possible, but I could wish that I could be separated and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers. In other words, Paul goes, I love non-Christians so much that I actually wish I could go to hell, and I'd be willing to go to hell if I would go to hell, if they would go to heaven. Talking about substitution, which is the heart of the gospel, it's what Christ has done for us.

By the way, it's at the heart of love. You know, I know a guy who his son was diagnosed as a teenager with type 1 diabetes. Some of you have type 1 diabetes, others of you know, I mean, it's a chronic, lifelong, watch your blood sugar, you know, give yourself a shot. I mean, it's a lifelong thing, and this dad was looking at his 16-year-old son who had this, and I remember he said to me, if I could trade places with him, I would. I wouldn't even need to pray about it. I was just, here, I'll take it, but he couldn't. And Paul's saying that to the, Paul's like, guys, if I, that's how much I believe in hell, and how much I love lost people. I would trade places, but I can't. In fact, look at this. Paul says in a different place, I don't know if you ever put this together, in Romans 1, you know this verse, but Paul says, some of you know this verse, Paul says in Romans 1, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I'm hard pressed between the two. Look at this. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, that's to go to heaven.

For that is far better, look here, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. So here's Paul's theology of heaven and hell, and how it motivated him. Paul goes, I would go to hell for non-believers, and I will stay out of heaven to help believers. Most of us wanna, you know, we just wanna stay out, we wanna go to heaven, but we'd like to stay out of it for as long as possible, so we can enjoy our lives here. We wanna die at 85 years old with a Bible on our chest in our sleep, you know. Paul goes, the only reason that I don't wanna be in heaven right now is so that I can help the church on earth, that's why I'm here. Okay, so Paul, that's an emotional beginning, okay? Then Paul needs to talk about Israel, and this is Israel's past, but it's their present too, let me show you this. It says, they are Israelites, the people he loves, the Jewish people, and then he's gonna, listen, he's gonna say eight, you can count them here, eight advantages, eight privileges, eight benefits that the nation of Israel had that no other nation on earth had, here's what they are. They are Israelites, and to them, here comes the advantages, 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 overall, blessed forevermore, amen. Let's go through these advantages, okay, so that you understand. He's like, guys, because basically Paul is, Paul believes in the sovereignty of God, that's what we're talking about here, but Paul goes, I am just shocked. I'm just absolutely shocked that the Jewish people don't believe. He goes, first of all, they had adoption. In other words, he's not talking Romans 8 adoption, he's talking God chose Israel, said you're gonna be my firstborn, he uses that language with the Exodus, bringing them out of Egypt, and I'm gonna know you and reveal myself to you like I will do no other nation, and then on top of that, it says they had the glory and the worship. Here's what that means. They got to have spiritual experiences no other people and no other nation got to have. They had a visible GPS in the Old Testament, right, cloud by day, right, fire by night, they got to see the plagues, they have this unbelievable experience of the manifest presence of God, and on top of that, he says, they have all the promises and all the covenants.

They have like 300 prophecies about the coming of Christ. God said, I'll put something in the sky, the rainbow, I'll put something on the men's circumcision, I'll give you signs and symbols that you won't forget me because they're gonna be everywhere. And then it says, on top of all that, it says they were given the law. Now, this is interesting. Of the 66 books in your Bible, how many of them were written by Jewish people? 64 of them. There's only two books not written by Jewish people and they're written by the same guy. Luke wrote Luke and wrote Acts. Outside of that, every book in your Bible was written by Jewish people. And then Paul goes, and then you had the patriarchs. Yes, I mean, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, but basically Paul's like, you had all these godly examples, Ruth and Esther and David, you know, and Noah, and you had imperfect examples, but you had examples of faith. And so Paul goes, I can't believe it. Now, here's what we call these people today, religiously lost, which is a phrase that I started to use when I got to Winston. I didn't, I could have used it in Greensboro. I lived there for a while.

I could have used it in Durham, you know, but there was something, and it's probably more true in Lexington and even more true in Davy is like, there is religiously lost people. They are in church, but they're not in Christ. They've been baptized, but they don't really believe. They're kind of convinced intellectually, but they're not converted at the heart level. And so, and if you think about it, my fear is that in a church like this, and there's lots of good churches, but. Any good church, you can have a ton of spiritual experiences. You come to the Heights, you go to prayer and worship nights, you come experience our services here. You can have amazing patriarchs, great godly parents, great pastors, great mentors, great youth leaders. You can have the word of God in your language and your parents can give you a teen Bible in the New Living Translation for you to take journal notes, right? And it's like spiritual privilege is not the same as spiritual life. By the way, parents, it's a good thing to give your kids spiritual advantages, right? Everybody's worried about giving their kid every other type of advantage. You better play on the club team. So, if he plays on the club team and we spend $30,000 a year,

he might be able to play bad division three soccer. You know, it's like people do that all the time, right? And we need to get them the private tutor. And if they don't get into this school, then they can't go to, if they don't get into this school, then there's no chance they could ever get into Wake. So, we do that, okay? And if you're gonna do that, do that. But have spiritual advantages be more important to you than your academic and activity and sports advantages, okay? So, then Paul has to talk about Israel. So, verse six is where it gets, I think, gets very interesting. Here's what he says in verse six. He says this. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. Here it is. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. So, this may not make sense. Why is Paul talking about this? Because if you are a first-generation Jewish person, and say you're a Messianic Jew, so you now believe you're a Christian, and you're a Messianic Jew, and so you're reading this and you go, all these Romans 8 promises are so awesome, but I actually remember God made a lot of promises to Israel about all the things he was gonna do for Israel, and Israel's a mess. So, maybe God doesn't keep his word.

Because, by the way, the unbelief of Israel, which you probably don't think about much, the unbelief of the Jewish people is a massive deal. So, in America right now, of all the American Jewish people, less than 1% believe in Jesus. 2% of Americans are Jewish. When I was doing ministry at Duke University, I just looked this up, 12% of the student body at Duke is Jewish, so I was interacting with Jewish men all the time in the fraternities. It felt like 50% of the fraternities were Jewish men. And I just, I saw, we'll talk about this in a couple weeks, I saw the veil that's over them, when you talk about Christ. I saw the hardening. I went to Israel in 2022, and we connected through Munich, and you get on the plane from Munich to Tel Aviv, and you're like the only non-Jewish person on there, and it's a weird, there's kosher immediately, and everybody's reading Hebrew, and I'm not making fun, I'm saying you see the curls, you see the yarmulkes, you see the, and then you go to the wailing wall, and in the wailing wall, people are crying, and they're putting notes in the wall, and you're like, I asked my tour guide, who was a Messianic Jew, he's like, what are they doing? He's like, oh, they're praying for the Messiah. This is like the saddest thing I've ever seen.

Lot of religion, no Christ. So Paul goes, guys, what are we going to do with the massive amount of unbelief? And his answer is in verse six, I'll read it to you. I didn't read the second part. He says, but it is not as though the word of God has failed. This is what Paul's gonna defend for the next chapter or more. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. What does that mean? There's two Israels, okay, which is like, by the way, like Israel and ethnic Israel, and the land of Israel, and end times, and we'll get into all this kind of, meaning Christians can disagree on these things, but it's a huge conversation. And it's obviously, it's in our news feeds, and on X, and all this kind of stuff. Here's what I want you to, here's what Paul definitely is saying. There are two Israels. There is a physical Israel, and there is a spiritual Israel. Let me explain how the church fathers talked about it. When it comes to the church, there is a visible church and an invisible church. So right now, across all of our campuses, everybody in here is part of the visible church. It's the church we can see.

And there may be a few people in here, or more, that say, you know, I'm here, but I don't believe this at all. But I'm talking about, it's everybody who shows up and goes, I believe this. It's everyone that we have in a community group. It's like, okay, that's the visible church. The invisible church are all of the people in the visible church who are really Christians. Now, in a very healthy church, hopefully, there's a lot of overlap, and the invisible church, which is the true church, is taking up most of the visible church, and that happens, that's why we are very careful on who we baptize. That's why, if you're living in unrepentant sin, we confront you. Why? Well, because the Bible says you can't live in open unrepentant sin. and be a Christian. So if we're confronting you in that and you don't respond, and then you say you're not a Christian anymore, that clarifies what's going on here. Okay, so Paul goes, it's not as though the word of God is felt, now here's what he's gonna do. This is where it kind of gets, it starts to get deep. Paul is gonna now tell us two stories from the Old Testament. He's gonna do biblical theology and talk about the story of Abraham and Isaac and the story of Jacob and Esau.

Really, it's Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. And here's the problem with you, and here's the problem with me, we know Disney stories better than we know the biblical stories. So if I was in here and I said to you guys, guys, this is kind of, it's like in Frozen, you'd all be like, oh yeah, let's talk about it. You know, you would know all the details of it. But when we tell the biblical stories, oftentimes, we don't know enough about it. So here's what Paul's doing. Paul goes, guys, I'm teaching you something that you think is going to be new, but it's very old. And I'm not doing revisionist history where I'm making up something in the past to line up with what's in the future now. And he said, I want to show you from these two stories. So I'm going to try to do the same thing. And this will begin our conversation on election. So Paul's basically going to say there's two Israels, there's a spiritual Israel and a physical Israel. And he's going to get into this idea that God chooses, and you'll see this. All right, so let's go to verse seven. And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, just because they came from him physically. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that not, sorry, this means that it is not the children of the flesh. So now he's using different words for Israel.

The children of the flesh, ethnic Israel, who are the children of God, but the children of promise, spiritual Israel, are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return and Sarah will have a son. So I'll tell the story really quickly because he gives more time to the story of Jacob and Esau. Abraham and Sarah were really old. God picked Abraham, right? He chose him. I mean, how else do you read that story? Abraham wasn't looking for God, God was looking for Abraham. God wasn't lost, Abraham was lost. Abraham was worshiping pagans. Abraham's dad was worshiping pagans, all that stuff. So he chose, by the way, it seems like none of us have a problem with God choosing Abraham. But anyway, so he chose Abraham. And then he says, hey, Abraham, Sarah, you guys are really old, but you're going to have a kid. And this is important. You're going to have a kid by my power and my promise. And Abraham and Sarah are like, ah, we're almost in diapers. I'm not sure that we're ready to take care of somebody in diapers, you know, kind of thing. That's kind of what they were saying. And God's like, we're going to do it. But then it's not working in their mind, okay? And so basically then, you know, you can't believe this, but it's like a Netflix show.

And then Sarah says, hey, I got this young, good looking, you know, fertile maid servant. She's an Egyptian, her name's Hagar. Why don't you just sleep with her one time? And then she'll give us a kid. And so he does that and that's how we get Ishmael. And then he basically goes to God and he's like, look what I did. You know, we're going to do this together. This is awesome. And God's like, that's not what I'm doing. I told you that I was going to do this by my power and by my presence and by my promise. And so they have Isaac. Now here's the interesting thing. He uses an example. He goes, look, God chose Isaac and he didn't choose Ishmael. Now people who read the story go, well, I know why he didn't choose Ishmael. It's because Ishmael's part Egyptian and it's not a pure Jewish line. And Ishmael's kind of a jerk and he mocks Isaac and Isaac's born right as Ishmael becomes a teenager. And so God did it because of all that. God didn't just pick Isaac for no reason. He picked him because he was better. He goes, I knew you were going to say that. So now I'm going to tell you the story of Jacob and Esau. Here, I'll show you this.

By the way, these are like ancient, ancient stories, like beginning of Genesis stories. And not only so, but also Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather, Isaac. So he's following the line, Abraham, Isaac, okay? This is the key verse, okay? Then this is what you're just going to have to wrestle with. We'll wrestle with it together. You may come to a different conclusion, okay? We're going to wrestle with it together. Though they were not yet born. So one wasn't born before the other, and then God chose because one was better. And had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue. And then Paul wants to clarify it even more. Not because of works, but because of him who calls. She was told the older will serve the younger. Okay, so he's like, all right, let me just give you the most extreme. This is what Paul's doing. He's like, I'm going to give you the most extreme example to show this is true. So he says, do you remember how Isaac and Rebekah, Rebekah finds herself pregnant with twins, right? And it says they're even fighting in the womb, right? And you've got Jacob and you've got Esau, remember? And Jacob is. more of a mama's boy, right? He's cooking with her in the kitchen, drives a Prius.

You know what I'm talking about? I'm seeing if you're paying attention. Okay. And then there's Esau. Esau is real close with his dad. His name means red and hairy. So he comes out looking like Elmo. Okay, this is kind of what we have here. So yeah, we need to laugh because it's about to get serious. So, okay, so they're in the womb and then Esau comes out first, so he's older. And it says that God chose Jacob, not Esau. Now, it can't be because of the mom and it can't be because of the dad, because it's the same. It can't be because of something that happened in the womb because they were both in the womb. It can't be the birth order because God reversed it. It can't even be who was a better person because they were both terrible people. Just keep reading. Because people are like, ah, Esau, yeah, he was the idiot that like, you know, gave up his birthright for a bowl of soup. It's like, yeah, and his brother took advantage of him in his greatest time of need. And Jacob's a liar. He lies to his dad while he's old and blind, right? He lies to his father-in-law. You know, he's, when they finally reconcile

toward the end of their life, it appears that Esau is the better guy. He's more eager to forgive even though he'd been more greatly sinned against. So what does this mean? What does verse 13 mean? So this is kind of, Paul is gonna write this verse and then, just because I don't have two hours, I can't go into the next section, but everything that I just said in verses 11 through 13, Paul is going to answer all of the questions that we have in light of it. So let me just read it though. As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Now, people struggle with this. Now this verse, just for the record, is not in Genesis. This verse is in Malachi. Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament. Malachi is the last book. And this is once, by the way, Jacob and Esau, I believe this is about individuals. Everything in Romans is individual and personal. But Jacob and Esau, they become nations, just like your kids will. I mean, you know, if you think long enough, it's like your kids are gonna live lives and have families and have kids and grandkids and great, all that, okay? And so what does it mean, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated? Well, think about it. Jesus actually also uses the exact same Greek word for hate

in what he's teaching. I'll show you this. This is, I think it's on the screen, Luke 14. Now, great crowds accompanied Jesus, and he turned and he said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, we're like, wait a second, I thought we're supposed to honor our father and mother. And then he says, and wife. You're like, could you imagine going home? I was doing my Bible study and Jesus said I was supposed to hate you. She's like, keep reading. You're not reading in context, okay? Because we know Ephesians five and other places, okay? And children, it's like, okay, well, Jesus says that we're supposed to love our children and raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. And to such children came to him, he loves children. So he doesn't mean that. And brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Obviously, he's not saying you're supposed to hate your parents. He's saying you are supposed to prefer him over them. It's the same idea. Jacob, I loved, Esau, I have rejected. So all of this is kind of intense and it makes us go back to verse 11. Let me read it one more time

and try to unpack this as we close and as really as we wrestle with it together. Here's verse 11, okay? And you just tell me what you think it means. I, you know, here's what's interesting. I didn't say this in the first service, but basically every once in a while, I'll teach a doctrine and people come up to me afterwards and they'll say, I love everything about this church except this one thing you teach. And I say, the reason you love everything about this church is the hermeneutic, that's how I study the scriptures. I said, that's what you love. You actually love the commitment to try to just say what the text is saying. I think it's, you can try over the next few weeks with your, you can try to do, good luck trying to do relational gymnastics so that somehow it ends up that election means you pick God. We'll see how that works. But I just, it takes so much work, in my opinion, to try to make Romans nine say the opposite of what it's saying. I'm just gonna put it out there and we're all gonna kind of wrestle with it together, okay? So here's what it says. Though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue,

not because of works, but because of him who calls. So God has a purpose in choosing people, but it has nothing to do with what's inside of them. God does not do eenie, meenie, miney, heaven. There's a reason the word purpose, I mean, God doesn't do anything like with no purpose. What he's saying is the reason that you're a Christian has nothing to do. do with your descent, who you came from. It has nothing to do with your decision, ultimately, though you made a decision after God made a decision. And it has nothing to do with you deserving it. Now, here's what's interesting. Do we have the Karl Barth quote we can put up here? Karl Barth studied Romans deeper than almost anybody, and when he got to Romans 9, this is what he said. Let's put it up there if we have it. The more a man finds these texts to be harsh, the more he is wedded to his own righteousness. Basically, it's like, I didn't bring anything to my salvation except the sin that made it necessary. But this is hard, and here's why this is hard. This is hard, and we're going to unpack, like, so one question is like, wait, isn't it unjust for God to do this? Well, that's literally the next verse. Paul's going to go, is God unjust? And then he's going to unpack all this. So we'll look at it all together. You may come to some different conclusions. I'll show you all this next week.

But here's the problem. We live in a man-centered world. God lives in a God-centered world. So normally, when we talk about these things, here's what people think. Let me try to articulate what you feel. No, no, no, no, I have to be free enough to choose. My freedom, God must respect my freedom. And at the end of the day, I am free enough to choose God or not choose God, and it ends with me. And if you ever thought about this, you're putting your freedom above God's freedom. And some people say, no, no, it has to be about my decision ultimately. It's my decision. I remember I was in high school, and I even have the shirt. I decided to follow Jesus. I sang the song. I have decided to follow Jesus. Well, is your decision more important than God's decision? Rights, is your rights more important than God's rights? Listen, there's a way to read this to go, you know what? You know, actually, God chose Christ and he foresaw faith. It's like Paul doesn't need to write the rest of Romans 9 if this isn't shocking and we don't have a lot of questions. If you don't have a lot of questions, you're not thinking about this rightly. But basically, Paul has used this. This doctrine is supposed to be a great comfort to us. This doctrine is actually, you'll see, I think this will make sense in a few weeks. This doctrine is actually supposed to be a huge encouragement for evangelism because basically, it says anybody could believe, anybody.

And actually, when we get to the very end of Romans 11, Paul ends with praise and worship and wonder. He says, who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he should be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever, amen. That's where we're headed in a few weeks or a few months. So here's how I want to end. I want to end not just with Paul's theology but with Paul's tears, not just with our minds but with our hearts. I want us to have Paul's burden. So here's what I want you to know. If you found yourself here today, and maybe you came here and you're not a Christian, by the way, the Bible says, I believe both things. I believe what God ultimately chooses, but I believe that God works on people's hearts and draws people to themselves and you need to make a decision. And I want to tell you, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, you're here because somebody in your life was brokenhearted over you, just like Paul was brokenhearted over Israel. Some of you are sitting here, you're a teenager or whatever, you came with your parents and you don't even know. You do know but you don't know. You don't know that they've been praying for your salvation since the day that you were born. You don't know that every once in a while and, you know, they're praying at night in bed, it's actually sometimes hard to pray for you because they do get emotional when they pray for you. Some of you may be here today and you're here because someone actually invited you and they don't even live in the city and they told you, you need to go to church and you showed up by yourself. It's like, listen, someone was brokenhearted over you.

If in all of this talk about election and things, if we lose our brokenheartedness over people, then I've taught this wrong or you've received this wrong. In fact, what I want us to do in a minute is as we sing, we're going to sing together, I want you to come forward and say, God, would you break my heart for what breaks yours? Would you let it be okay that I'm going to be sad a lot if I'm going to really think about people's spiritual condition, but God, you're going to use that. You're going to use that in my life, you're going to use that in other people's lives. And then I just want to encourage you guys, this is what we do. I mean, this is not in the normal playbook to do for megachurches. Teach through Romans 9 through 11 in the fall on God's sovereignty. That's not like what you should...no playbook says that. I'm doing that because we want to be the type of church that can wrestle deeply with God. And to me, there's a couple of different conclusions you might... come to in the weeks and months to come. We may, this is a secondary issue, I'll talk more about that next week. But I'm more excited and more hopeful of the process of wrestling with God and His word. Because we've said from day one here, our job is not to edit the Bible when the Bible confronts what we currently believe. Our job is to repent, to change our minds, and to change our hearts. Let's do that together. Lord, across all of our campuses, you are a big God. You are a sovereign God.

And I know, here's what happens, I know this. This is, when we think about the idea that, if we're thinking rightly about the idea that, God, you chose us from the foundation of the world, it actually doesn't lead to pride, it leads to humility because there's nothing in us. It's humbling to think that we were Jacob instead of Esau. But I know why this is a particularly difficult passage for people because they think about people they know and love. And the Apostle Paul never, when he's crying over people, thinks, are they chosen or are they not chosen? He's just brokenhearted for them, wants them to believe and believes God can save anybody and wants to be faithful to share the gospel, Lord. So would you give us a theology of tears? Would you give us not just a bigger mind or bigger brain, would you give us bigger hearts? We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Please stand, please respond.