You Don’t Have to Understand Everything About God // Romans 11:25-36

and to highlight it. For example, we are planting three churches this year. We had We had 165 people show up. Isn't that exciting? Maybe you're one of our campuses and you don't even know that we were planting churches and you're interested in staying here in Winston to be part of that church plant with Seth or going to Charlotte or going to Greenville if you're interested at all you have any questions text plants to three nine eight oh eight okay. But we're not just planting churches we're launching campuses because we want to reach one more person and one more generation. So last week and we just hold interest meetings for our church plants. We launched the Davey campus at Davey High. Woo. All right. Very exciting. About 450 people showed up for opening weekend. We baptized five people and then down at Lexington they were baptized again. Another five people including a man in a wheelchair. I got a picture of this. I love it talking about Mac carriers. There were several men involved getting him to the baptismal tank. Guys, guys, guys, listen. The reason we do campuses, okay? I told you it's four. It's not because our church is trying to get bigger, but our church is trying to get closer to the people we love and the people that they love. You know this it is hard to commute to community. So we want to be the church in our community. By the way, speaking of campuses we're going to bring together all of the men from all of our campuses. I hope you're going to make this on Friday October 9th, okay? It's going to be like we're going to get it's a special. We get the men together. This will be the first time ever in the history of our church centering because I've gone and preached men's nights other places, but I've never just had a men's night and spoken to all the men in our church at the same time. So we're going to do that and think locker room. That's what it's going to be like. Okay guys. So I don't know seriously. I don't know that we're putting it online. So if you can't make it, I hate to break it to you. You're going to miss out. And I'm having something specially and specifically made. For each man in our church, I'm going to give them that night. It's not another hat. It's not another card. It's not another shirt, but you got to show up and see it. So with that said, Oh, by the way, ladies, okay, you've got a women's night at women's encounter coming up as well. But and I'll say this to the men later, but ladies, your job is to free up the men in your life to be there. Okay. Your boyfriend, your fiance, your husband, your brother, your son, I want you to free them up. Okay. Men need two things. They need a Bible and they need brothers. There are some men. They've got a Bible, no brothers, other men. They have brothers, no Bible. We're bringing them together at our men's night. Let's pray. Lord, we are about to dive into the deepest, the end of the deepest section of Romans, maybe the deepest section of the New Testament that ends in worship. I pray that you would get our minds and our hearts ready to worship. Everything that we do is worship. All that we are always doing is worshiping, but that we would rightly respond to your word in that there would be a sense of awe and wonder and worship at the mystery you reveal to us today. Amen. All right. Well, in 1987, this show came out and it was super popular, super famous. It ran for 10 seasons. Have you ever seen the show? Unsolved mysteries. Raise your hand if you've seen that show. Some of you, yeah. Like, remember the guy, he was always like, it was always dark, right? He was always wearing a trench coat. And he was always like, maybe you could help us solve this mystery. Well, they were, the show went for 10 seasons. There were 260 episodes. There were over a thousand stories of unsolved mysteries. It went into the late 90s and then, you know, Netflix, they can't come up with anything original. So look what they did. They came up with unsolved mysteries part two. It's been running for five seasons. So here's what, here's what I know is we're going to talk about mysteries today. You can type two, turn two, Romans 11. I'll meet you in verse 25. Paul's going to introduce us to a mystery, but we all love mysteries. Actually, we have a love hate relationship with mysteries. That's why that show has been on for 15 seasons because we are both fascinated and frustrated by mysteries. Okay. Partly because we live in the information age. And so the fact that there's a mystery means that you're not in control and you don't know the answer. Because for the first time in human history, we carry in our pockets a device that we don't ever have to wonder about anything. We don't wonder. We just look it up. How many of you have gone to the grocery store and you still put it in the maps because you just want to know if it takes eight minutes or 10 minutes today, right? Did you know this?

Okay, don't worry, it's not an inappropriate website, okay? And this website is so, it started out because people were anxious, does the dog die in the film? Okay, and so you could go to the website and find out there's a dog die in this film. Now you can basically find out does anything bad or surprising happen in any film or any show that you've ever watched, okay? 'Cause we just don't like the idea of not knowing and not being in control. But here's what I want you to learn. Here's what I want you to embrace today. If you lose, this what Paul says, if you lose mystery, you lose part of what God uses in our hearts to create wonder and worship. So today here's what Paul's gonna do. He's gonna tell us a mystery. There's lots of mysteries in the Bible, but I'm gonna read you Romans 11, 25 to 36. So this whole passage, and I want you to see that the mystery and the wonder is supposed to lead us into worship. So if you take notes, okay? The big idea is God is not a subject to be studied, but a person to be worshiped. And as we've been in the deepest sections of Romans and we're about to get out of it and go into all the practicals, the whole idea is not to figure out everything perfectly, but for in a lot of ways for you to go,

I understand in part, and I know in part, and I'm thankful for what I know, and I trust God with the rest, and it leads me to worship and wonder. In fact, Paul, as I'm gonna show you in a minute, ends this section with a bunch of more questions that he doesn't have the answer to. - I'll show you. Romans 11 says this, lest you be wise in your own sight, that's not a good thing, by the way. We wanna be wise, just not wise in our own sight, wise in our own sight is prideful. Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware or ignorant. Of this mystery, okay, Paul, what is the mystery? A partial hardening has come upon Israel. Wow, he's already said that, but he's a mystery, guys, until, so not forever, but until the fullness of the Gentiles. So that's, unless we have some Messianic Jews in here, okay, we're all Gentiles in here, has come in. And in this way, all Israel will be saved, as it is written in Paul quotes the Old Testament. The deliverer will come from Zion, and he will banish on godliness from Jacob. And this will be my covenant with them and I take away their sins. As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election, they are beloved

for the sake of their forefathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable, for just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy because of their disobedience. So they too have now become disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you, they may also now receive mercy. And then here's how Paul ends this section. For God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all. And then Paul, I don't think Paul planned this. I don't think Paul said it, 11 chapters in, I'm just gonna, it's gonna be a little awkward, but I'm gonna start worshiping in the middle of this letter, but Paul can't help himself. And I hope by the end of this service, you can't help yourself. Here's what he says. Oh, the depth and the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God. And then a bunch of questions. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable are his ways? For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever, amen. Five things about mysteries today. Okay, first of all, mysteries are there to humble us.

Mysteries are there to humble us. In fact, part of what keeps Christians and the church humble hopefully in the culture, right? And with each other for 2,000 years is we don't know everything. I'm gonna show you this in a minute. But it's like even the mysteries that God has revealed to us, we only know in parts. And there's a lot of questions that we don't have answers to. And part of the problem is the worldviews Christians often is we're the people who have all the answers. It's like, we have the answers God's given us, but we still have a lot of questions. So the first thing Paul says is, mysteries are given to humble us. He says it in verse 25. Look here, lest you be wise in your own sight. I told you that's prideful. It's good to be wise, but listen, the wise person knows that there's a lot that they don't know. Okay? He says, lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery brothers. So here's what Paul says. Ignorance, okay, if we don't know that we're ignorant, like if we're unaware of our ignorance, that ignorance will lead to arrogance. Have you noticed this that the further you are from something, the simpler the solution seems to be?

Have you noticed that everybody on both political is really good at running the country from their couch? Have you noticed that every time you know somehow they're able to understand what to do better than the Division 1 quarterback. And they can see-- forget the professional refs. They know how it should have been called. This is what happens. This is the-- online is the epitome of this. The reason that there's so much fighting online is because everything has simplified down to 140 characters on X or Twitter or whatever you call it. And nobody knows anybody that they're calling out. And so the further you are from something, the simpler it is. This is why everybody, before they have kids, they think they're going to be a great parent. Everyone's like, you know, they go in your car and here's what they think on their mind. They're like, oh, you know what? When we have kids, our kids will never eat in the car. That's because you don't-- that's because you don't have kids. Everybody's kids eat in the car. By the time they're 18, you're throwing Cheerios behind you. Here's the thing. So I'll give you a story in my own life where just ignorance led to arrogance, OK? This is about five years ago. And I was with a group of older pastors.

And it had just happened recently that several pastors in their fifties had left ministry, not moral failure, but they were in their fifties and they left ministry and they went into conference speaking here, right? And I thought, oh, that would be-- wouldn't that be great? Just give 10 talks. Because I know what it's like when you go somewhere. Everybody's excited to see you and you give a talk you've already given and no one's heard it there and everyone hosts you really well and they give you an honorarium. And I thought, all these pastors in their fifties are leaving their churches to do conference speaking, consulting, coaching, and book writing. So I'm with these older pastors. And I said, what's wrong with these guys? I said, they still got 15 years left to ministry. They're leaving their churches right in the middle of it. And one of my friends will call him Jason. That's his name, OK? He's a pastor and he's in his fifties. And he said to me, he said, how long have you been pastoring? And I was like five years, 60 months. You know, I was trying to make it sound long ago. I was like, he already got me with that. And he goes-- he actually was very kind and godly to me. He goes, it's really hard. A lot of these guys have been pastoring for 20, 25 years. And they're just tired.

And they've been doing the same thing since they were 30 years old. And there's a lot of pressure. And they have to preach to the same people every seven days who've heard everything they have to say. He took me to the woodshed. And I needed it, OK? Air against often flows from ignorance. If you want to be humble, by the way, just so you know, the job of the church, the job of Christians is not to humble one another. You know, there's not one command in the Bible for you to humble. Sometimes people are like, I need to humble him. No, you don't. Devil's probably doing that. His boss is probably doing that. His conscience is probably doing that. You need to encourage him. But there's lots of-- or her. There's lots of commands in the Bible to humble yourself. Now, how do you humble yourself? Well, here's one thing. You always realize that what you don't know might be more important than what you know. You're like, you know what? What I don't know about this might actually be more important than what I know. And actually, in every area of life, if I'm really honest, there's more that I don't know than I know, so I should be humble.

Before I judge that person, what I don't know about them or their situation might be even more important than what I do know. So the first thing Paul says is mystery is there to humble us. The second thing Paul says is mysteries are revealed to us by God. Let me show you this. So in verse 25, we'll read the same verse again, but let me explain this. "Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers." And listen, Paul tells them something they couldn't know if God didn't tell them. So here's what we think of. When we think of mystery, you think of Scooby-Doo. Like, all right, I got to figure all this out, and then we've got to take the mask off, and I got it. You know, in the Bible, mystery is something that you could never figure out if God didn't tell you. Here's an interesting way. Mysteries are something, here's a definition of a biblical mystery. It's something we didn't know in the past, and we now only know in part. Let me say that again. A mystery of the Bible is something we didn't know in the past, it's like if you just had the Old Testament, you wouldn't know it. Read the Old Testament, you wouldn't know the mystery today, which is that there's going to be a partial hardening

on Israel for thousands of years. It's like it's just, you don't know it. God reveals it, okay, so we didn't know it in the past, and now we only know it in part. By the way, you know what's interesting? All of the things that Paul says don't be ignorant of, are all the things Christians are ignorant of today. What is God doing in Israel? That's one. You know the other three things Paul says, I don't want you to be ignorant of? Spiritual gifts, the purposes of suffering, and the second coming of Christ. How weak is the church today? 'Cause we don't understand spiritual gifts. We don't understand the purpose of suffering, and we're not thinking actively about the second coming. So here's the thing, we know a mystery in part. Here's what I mean. You can know something truly, but not know it fully. For example, the incarnation, which by the way Paul calls it the mystery of godliness. It's another mystery. And then he talks about Jesus Christ becoming man. Okay, you can know if you're a Christian here, you know that Jesus is truly God and truly man. But how was that possible? How was God as I go? And how was he holding, upholding the universe by the word of his power while he was an infant?

It's like, you can, I don't know. And that's okay. By the way, it's okay to say, I don't know. How is the word of God, which we believe fully written by God, divinely inspired, perfect and inerrant, yet written by man through their personalities, each man is sinner. I mean, what have we been looking at for three, four, five weeks? How can God be completely sovereign, right? And at the same time, you are completely responsible. There are just, and part of what I wanna do is like, it's not that we shouldn't study these things. Here's what John Piper says. He says, when you study these mysteries, he said, you start to read the Bible and you start to find this verse and that verse and you think, okay, now I understand how God sovereignty and man's responsibility work together. He said, all you normally do is climb the first mountain, you get to the top and you look out and you realize there's peaks way ahead of you. So we're never gonna get to the end of these mysteries. But Paul says, the mystery is revealed to God. Okay, now listen, the mystery is about God's mission is the third point. The mystery is about God's mission. Let me show you. He said, here's the mystery. Look, we're finally getting to it, okay?

It's in verse 25. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Paul is telling us, and we talked about this already, but let me just bring it back, okay, that the Jewish people have a partial hardening on them. And this would be totally surprising because when you're reading the book of Acts, you know, if you go to Pentecost, that's in Acts chapter two and you have 3000 people become believers in one day. Mega church is created in one day. And what's interesting is all of them were Jewish. And we don't even have the first Gentile convert until Peter leads Cornelius to Christ. Acts chapter 10. And so, and Jesus spent his entire earthly ministry with 12 Jewish men. And Jesus is Jewish by ethnicity. And so, it's unbelievable. We talked about this already, but it's unbelievably surprising that the vast amount of Jewish people in the world don't believe in Jesus. And Paul goes, there's a hardening on them. Well, why? Look here, a partial hardening has come upon Israel. And I don't understand all this, but it's what God says, until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.

So basically, here's what God says, there's a hardening on Israel until we reach all of the Gentiles for Jesus. So every once in a while, right? I remember when I keep telling stories about going overseas, but I remember when I went to China for the first time and I was talking to somebody, this guy's not a believer, but he's familiar with the church. And he's like, why are you going to China? Aren't there enough non-Christians here? And that's a typologic to that. Why would you, are there enough in your neighborhood in your school to whatever you live? Why would you get on a plane and spend money or send missionaries to somebody way over there? It's like, it's actually because God would like to reach as many people as possible, but God also likes to reach all different types of people. In fact, what we see in the book of Revelation is it says that at the end of time, every tribe, tongue, nation, and people are gathered around the throne. Here's what this means. Every time, this is why we launch campuses and plant churches and send missionaries or talk to you about, do you have your one more and who's that one person who's far from God close to you? It's because every time that we have a baptism here, every time you lead someone to Christ,

we're one person closer to the end of the story. And what he says is when all of the Gentiles Look what it says. It says this. Verse 26, "And in this way all Israel will be saved." Now that is one of the most, I'll give you the three views. That is one of the most debated verses, certainly in Romans chapter 11. Like if you wanted to start a food fight at a seminary lunch table, you just walk by and say, "All Israel will be saved." And then you leave. And have them fight about it. Okay, let me just give you the three views. There's the view that John Calvin had. And basically John Calvin goes, "Oh, this is really, he wasn't not smart. He's a smart guy. He institutes the Christian religion." He basically said, "Here's what all Israel will be saved means. Israel is the church." And basically it's all Jewish believers in Jesus and all Gentile believers in Jesus. And this is why in Galatians Paul says the church is the true offspring of Abraham and why Paul ends Galatians calling the church the Israel of God. And it's simple. When he's saying, "All Israel will be saved." He's just talking about every person, Jew or Gentile who will ever believe. But it's like, is that really the mystery? Because I don't know if you need to say that after you're already told us about the remnant. The second view is probably the least popular view. And it says, "Oh, when it says all Israel will be saved, that's just the remnant across time." So basically what Paul is saying is there's going to be a little bit of Jewish people saved for a long time. And so that'll be a lot of Jewish people in the end. And that'll be all Israel and all types of Jewish people will get saved through the remnant. That's the second view. The third view, okay? Which is the view that John Piper holds and Tim Keller holds, okay? And I hold and Jesus held and John the Baptist held. Just kidding. Ah, is that this speaks to ethnic Israel? Here's why, because Paul mentions Israel 11 times. I think it's 10 or 11 times in Romans 9 through 11. And every time he's talking about ethnic Israel. Here's what I think this means. I think this means that when the last Gentile is saved, when the fullness of the Gentile comes in, there is going to be a mass turning of the Jewish people to Jesus, because the hardening on them will be removed. Think about this. If you were, and that is what's going to usher in the Second Coming of Christ. Like if you were to go, I don't know, and watch his TV. So if you were to be on X or social media of some sort, and you saw that there were thousands and thousands and thousands of Jewish people in Israel professing Jesus as Lord in getting baptized, you'd probably think it was AI. Paul goes, it's going to be such a dramatic moment that's going to honor the reality of Jesus Christ. It's the last symbol that's hit before Christ returns. Now he says this. Yes, the mystery humbles us. The mystery is revealed to us. The mystery requires us to be on mission. Okay. But the mystery is also a miracle. Let me show you this. So he says this. As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion and will banish ungodliness from Jacob, and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. The reason I called this section the mystery is a miracle. The whole idea that the Jewish people still exist is, I think, a miracle of God. Do you know, I mean, I don't want to do a whole history lesson. You can ask chat GPT. How many groups of people have tried to wipe out the Jewish people? And it's not a short list.

And then when you realize that during the Holocaust, that hideous horrible evil event, during the Holocaust, a third of Jewish people on earth were killed. I think just now the population has regained to what it was before the Nazis. Did you know this? Did you know that Hebrew is the only language in all of human history to be extinct? No one spoke it, and then to be resurrected as the native tongue of the Jewish people. That's never a statue of BT, though, if you don't believe it. Yes, it's like God is somehow. Think about this. Think about how long the Jewish people have been around, right? None of their neighbors are around ones last time. You didn't move into your neighborhood back. There's a couple of hit-tights here, you know. The Philistines, they seem nice. They live right down the street. But God has been preserving a Jewish people for 2,000 years, because it says, even though they are enemies of God, he says, he still loves them. And that's the gospel that God loves even his enemies. But look at this. This is what's really interesting, verse 30. For just as you, Paul keeps telling us, Paul keeps doing this. It's like, okay, yeah, we can talk about the mysteries of the Jewish people and what God's doing among the nations, but we never fully know. And then he says this, forget that for a second. He says, let's focus on you for just as you, we're at one time disobedience to God, but now have received mercy because of their disobedience so that they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy.

Okay, it's really confusing, right? Mercy, disobedience, they got it, you got it, now they're gonna get it 'cause you got it. What does it mean? Here's what Paul's trying to say. You are more like unbelievers Christian than you think. Because whatever, the Christian posture toward the non-Christian, you know, honestly sometimes, is it's easy to get angry at the non-Christian for what they're doing or what they're believing or how they're living. It's easy to get apathetic. It's easy to get afraid of them or annoyed by them. And Paul goes, guys, you were in the same place as they were. Everybody starts out lost, rebellious, foolish, disobedient, you know, God hating, whatever it is. Here's what he's saying. It reminds me, let me put it in this picture. So, you know, I don't talk about this a lot up here, but I'm in, you can make fun of me for it. I'm into all the bio-hacking goofy stuff. Sawing on a cold plunge, I've got my weighted vest now. I know it's silly. But, whatever, but so because I do all that stuff, I get all, I know you look at me, you go, you don't look like you're doing that. Well, imagine what I'd look like if I didn't do this, okay? (audience laughing) You don't look like you do any of that.

Well, okay. Because of that, I get all this stuff on my social media, you know, about exercise and eating and blah, blah, blah. And I realized, I just this week realized, as I was thinking about this, I was like, you know what makes every eating and every exercising program attractive. It's the before photo. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, have you ever seen something and they're like, you know, and it's this picture of this guy and he's like super fit and he's got abs. And you're like, ah, he just hit the genetic lottery. I bet he's always looked like that. And he's like, well, let me show you. This is what I look like six months ago. You're like, there's hope for me, you know? You're like, he's heavier than I was. Listen, here's the problem with Christians. We have forgotten our before photo. And especially if you grew up in a good Christian home and you can't, and this is the testimony I want for all my kids. And you came to Christ at a young age and you never knew a time when you didn't know and love Jesus and know and love the church. I'm telling you, we have to realize. Well, here's a question. Can you reach the type of person you used to be? Like, you know, I'm the most guilty of this

because I find myself, you know, no, I never would have thought I was going to be a pastor, obviously, you know, grew up as a casual Catholic in Pittsburgh. This was not on my bingo card for my life, okay? But now I spend almost all of my time with Christians. And I mean, my job, according to Ephesians 4, is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And so I'm spending, I mean, I go to work and everybody I work with is a Christian. I think so, you know. We hope so, they're on our staff, okay? And then, you know, and then I spend a lot of time with you guys and I spend a lot of time with our elders. And see what happens is, Tim Keller said this. He said, the most effective two years for a person's evangelistic effectiveness is the first two years they're a believer because everybody in their immediate relational circle saw them come to faith in Christ and they still have strong relationships with a bunch of non-Christians. The longer you're a Christian, you're like, well, you know, we really want our kids to be around other Christian families. And it's a good thing. And we go to community group and our church means a lot and we send our kids to a Christian homeschool co-op or a Christian school. And you wake up one day and you're like, I don't know that I know any other non-Christian by name,

except maybe the guy who does my taxes. And then we start living in these Christian bubbles and we start saying things to the world, it would make no sense to the world if you were talking about a hedge of protection or traveling mercies or walking in the word. I mean, some of you use your Christian lingo the club sandwich. Okay. Um, we, we literally guys, we can't forget that we are just like them. In fact, what does he say that he said, the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is, and he uses one word, mercy. Now, mercy is a word that we don't, I was trying to think where in culture do we use the word mercy? Like if your third grader is getting really bad in baseball, and it's, there's a 10 run rule, which is called the mercy rule, right? If you know, usually today, if someone says, Lord have mercy, it's because they're shocked and surprised. Okay. So the last time someone said, Lord have mercy to you, it was your grandmother, when you showed her your tattoo, what about mercy? Right? Um, we name, this is interesting. We name hospitals. It's actually a very common name. There's a hospital in Charlotte, Mercy. Uh, in fact, do you remember when president Trump, when COVID was at its height, end of March, he said, felt like we were in a scary movie. He said, uh, we're sending two ships, two naval medical ships. One is called comfort. It'll be heading to New York City Harbor. And the other is called mercy. That's exactly what people needed. And it'll be heading to LA. Mercy is the opposite of judgment. Judgment is, you can think of this way. Judgment is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Mercy is the twin sister of grace. Okay. But they're, they look a little different. Okay. They're twins, but they look a little different. Mercy is you don't get what you deserve. In other words, you don't get because Christ got it instead. If you're a Christian, you don't get the judgment of God and the wrath of God and every consequence for every sin you've ever done immediately. That's all mercy. We live by mercy. Grace is, grace in some sense comes after mercy. Mercy is, I will not give you what you deserve. All the bad things. Grace is on top of that. I will give you all of the good things you don't deserve. A purpose and mission in this life adoption into my family, the forgiveness of sins, eternal life

and on and on and on. And Paul says, look, he actually sums up everything he said in verse 32. He says this, for God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all. Now, you can't read that verse and just go, Oh, good. That means we don't have to do any evangelism. We don't have to share our faith, plant churches, launch campuses, send missionaries. I don't have to have a one more because it doesn't matter because God has consigned all to disobedience and he's just going to have mercy on all this. This doesn't teach universalism. Paul doesn't have a lobotomy and forget everything he wrote for 11 chapters. Here's what Paul means. When Paul says have mercy on all, here's what he means. All without distinction, not all without exception. So when Paul says he will have mercy on all, all without distinction, all types of people, not every person, not all without exception. The only people that get the mercy of God are the people who know they need it and that's for it. That's why Jesus says, you know, I didn't come for the healthy. I came for the sick. Is he saying that there are people who aren't spiritual sick? He said, no, but there are people who think they're not spiritually sick. By the way, if you realize that God has been so merciful to you, doesn't this like if you really realize it, doesn't that make you want to be so merciful to the people in your life? Like it doesn't when you realize that, like, can that change your parenting? Can that revive a marriage? Because I've had in a room like this, all of you have had a moment in your life where somebody was really merciful to you and it made a big difference. It might have been a boss. It might have been a parent in the past. It might have been a coach. It might have been a spouse. And it was actually the mercy of God in your life. And you're not getting what you deserve knowing it though that you deserved it. That puts you on a new path. Well, here's how Paul ends. This is where we're going to end. Okay. And I'm just warning you in about 10 minutes, I'm going to call you forward to worship because all of this God's mercy toward us and all of the mysteries of God. This is the final thing is that mystery should lead to worship. Wonder should lead to worship. I'm going to read you this section one more time. I want you to feel what the Apostle Paul is saying. Oh, the depths of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from

does not end good. Okay, guys, in light of all of this, this is how you worship. Let me give you four instructions on how to worship. Paul goes, let me just model it for you. And don't we know this, we need an explanation, but more than an explanation what some of us need is an example. And the most important things in life, I think we know this too, most of the most important things in life are not taught they are caught. So Paul goes, let me just model this for you. Let us look at Paul's worship and let it lead us to worship. The first thing I want you to know about Paul is Paul can worship with his questions. I want you to know that Paul can worship with his questions. Some people, you might think this and I just want to pastorally, just one of your pastors for a second, you don't need to have all your questions answered to worship. You may have questions theologically, you may have questions about suffering in your past, you may have questions about terrible things that have happened to you. And I just want to encourage you, Paul takes all of his questions and he worships God with his questions. Notice the first word Paul says, he says, oh, okay, let me translate that for you. Wow, okay, because we don't really say, oh, anymore, let me just tell you this, I promise you, you need more wow in your life. The reason that you're obsessed with like, I need to go on a vacation, you're looking for wow, like your look, the role, why do people get on roller coaster rides, they're looking for a wow, okay, why do other new restaurants in town, wow, everybody's looking for a wow, he goes, that's great, but all of those wows are little echoes of the big wow, Jesus Christ. And here's what's really interesting, starting next week. So if you guys come back next week and hope you will, okay, we're going to get start getting into the second or the last quarter, I should say, of Romans. And it, listen, Romans 12 through 16 is all how. So just get ready over the next couple months, we're going to get unbelievably practical. Paul's going to talk about practical Christian living and how to relate to the government and how to love one another and all of these really, really practical things. But here's what I want you to know, before you can have a how or before you should have a how, you need to have a while. And Paul goes, okay, so, so by the way, this is why we sing. So just in, you know, I've read the whole Bible, okay, and nowhere in the Bible does it say when we're shipping look board. But I, but I look at you, especially some of you men, I'm like, why? I don't know, some of you men, I love you. Okay. I'm like, where is your on switch? Maybe it comes out with the Carolina Panthers game, but I'm like, where is your on switch guys? We sing together. Singing, by the way,

is not so you can show up late. The parking team asked me to say that, okay? No, but it's not. So you can, oh, this is, yeah, we'll just come in, you know, you know, five minutes late because they do that thing at the beginning where they sing. Singing is not the warm up. I mean, singing and we, and that's what we do. We do it in some sense to prepare our hearts to hear the word of God, but then afterwards to respond to God's word. Here's another thing, doctrine, Paul teaches us this, doctrine is supposed to lead to doxology, okay? Doctrine is Bible teaching, doxology is worship and praise, okay? So theology, think about this theology, which is what we study is words about God, doxology are words to God. So when you read words about God, God's designed you so that when you read words about God, you should say words to God. So Martin Lloyd Jones, okay? One of my heroes, he preached the book. If you think we've been in Romans for a long time, if you're like, I can't believe it. Pastor Kyle's been in Rome. Well, a whole year in one book, Martin Lloyd Jones preached through the book of Romans on Friday night. Are you ready for this? For 13 years. So if we would have started in 2013, you know, it'd still be three years before we planted this church, that's how long he was in the book of Romans. And here's what he said, he said, I spend half of my time telling my people to study doctrine. He goes, and then I spend the other half of my time telling people doctrine isn't enough. And then he said this, this is this, I think it's a great litmus test. He said, if you want to know if you've understood a doctrine, here's the question you ask yourself, has it caused me to sing? You haven't understood mercy till it's like, can we please sing a song about this? You haven't understood the cross and forgiveness until you're like, can we please sing a song about this? You haven't understood what God did in creation till you say, can we sing a song about this? See, here's what's interesting. R.T. Kendall, he's an older saint, 91 years old. Actually, interestingly enough, he took over for Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones at that church when, when, R.T. Kendall said, "Here's what's happened in America." He said, "The American church is divorced." He said, "And what happens in every divorce is some kids go with mom and some kids go with dad." He said, "In the American church, what's happened is the church got divorced and there are word churches." He said, "And there are spirit churches.

And we need to bring the two back together." He said, "Because when mom and dad fall in love again, the kids flourish and revival happens." Doctrine should lead to doxology. How about this? Knowing God's works should lead to deeper worship in our heart. Like when you see God moving, when we baptize over 40 people last weekend, but it doesn't have to be something you see here, when you see God restore a marriage, when you see God reconcile a family, when you see God break an addiction or you just read, some of us should probably read more Christian church history. Because when you see all the great things God has done, it puts steel in your spine and worship in your heart. But here's another thing about worship. Worship is not transactional. Let me show you this. It's a short verse, but worship is not transactional. Look what it says here. "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" Because you might go, "Well, why are we doing in worship?" Because even talk sometimes, give. Give, save, live, give, give, give, give, give, be generous. But here's the honest truth. You can't give God anything. It's already his. What are you going to give to God that he hasn't already given to you? You're going to sing. He gave you a voice and a heart and you have money.

He gave you the ability to make money. And God doesn't just own a cattle on a thousand hills. He owns the hills and the cattle and everything else, okay? And so here's what worship is. Worship is returning. If you want the best synonym for worship, it's returning. I need to go back. I need to go back and do what I was meant to do. I need to take everything that God's given me and everything that God's made. And I need to make it for that purpose. Because what's the last thing Paul says, "For from him and through him and to him are all things." Do you know that everything, everything in creation was ultimately made by God? Yes, but do you know this? It was ultimately made for God. Like guys, you know that with all of our technology, with all our AI, okay, with all the things that we can do, with science and everything, do you know that we still have not mapped three-fourths of the ocean's surface? Or the depths of it, the bottom of the oceans? There's still three-fourths to the bottom of the ocean. We don't even know what's down there. And here's what I think. It's because it wasn't for us. All those creatures are forgotten. You know, it's interesting, you know, Elon Musk and everybody else wants to go to Mars. I don't think Mars is for us. All the galaxies, all the solar systems, God created a bunch of stuff just for himself. And God ultimately created you for himself. And so here's what we're going to do.

We're going to end with the phrase that Paul ends with. He says, "To God be the glory forever, amen." Now, why does he say amen? Now, here's something interesting. When you pray by yourself, you know, if you're in your room by yourself and you pray, it's okay when you're done, you probably do to say, you know, in Jesus' name, amen. But the reason that you say amen, it's meant to be said with other people. It's a term of agreement. Amen, I agree with that. Amen. Yes, let's pray together. Let's all three pray for the same day, amen. Well, guess what? When we sing together, what we're doing is agreeing together. So just in a moment, I want you to sing. We're going to stand. And some of you, you might lift your hands for the first time and go, man, God, help me. Help me, help cause me to sing because I understand the great truths of Scripture. And by the way, I want you to sing, some of you are going through something, by the way, and I want you to sing to God and over your circumstances. Some of you, by the way, you may say, you know what? This is, I know we're talking about worship right now, but I don't really feel it. Because the something that's going on in my life or something that happened to me, or let me tell you this, the deepest worship often happens when you don't feel it. But in a moment, what we're going to do is we're going to sing and we're going to respond. And by the way, you may want to come forward like Paul does. You may want to come forward in worship with some of your questions. You may want to come forward with somebody in your life who feels like there's a partial hardening on them, a partial hardening. It says until until the fullness of Gentiles, we don't know the until in the person's life in your

life. So with every head bowed and all the eyes closed, let me just pray for us, Lord, would you make us a worshiping community? Part of our witness to the world is worship and part of our encouragement to one another is worship. So Lord, we're going to stand and we're going to sing over our circle. And Lord, we just say, we embrace the mystery. Lord, we want to be humbled. It feels good to be humbled. It actually feels good to admit. We don't know it all. It feels good to say our job is to trust obey and worship. Who has been God's counselor and who has given a gift to him that he could be repaid? Lord, would you deepen our worship and in doing so, deepen our mission? We pray this in Jesus name. Please stand and please come forward. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]