Romans Chapter 11 Verses 7 – 10

• Seems harsh…I mean Paul says clearly that it was God that gave them over to staggering, to blindness and to deafness as he loosely quotes from Isaiah 29, Deuteronomy 29 and Isaiah 6…but look at what Paul said to begin to this thought, “Israel has not obtained what it seeks…”
• Well what does Israel seek?  To make themselves righteous before God!  To establish their own sufficiency, man!  Even today, the Jew is seeking a righteous standing before God all based on works, centered on self.  Yom Kippur is no longer a day of sacrifice by the high priest where sin is recognized in responsibility, repented of in humility and covered by the loss of an unblemished lamb…now it’s a day of reflection where the Jews weigh their good deeds against their bad deeds.
• This has crept also into the church.  Groups, movements, denominations that are busy, lots of activity, lots of people but is the gospel being preached?  Are people being saved?  Are lives being set free, man?  Is salvation by grace through faith in Jesus being proclaimed and is humility growing?  These are major questions, indictments even that Jesus brings against the different churches in Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation…
• And so notice, get enlightened this morning, this action of God isn’t harsh, it’s actually helpful, even necessary (not to mention totally in alignment with all that God has promised – because He is the Never Ending Story of faithfulness). 
• You see it’s simply a truth of God’s Word and a compassionate component of God’s character as a good Father!  That if you continually ask for another chain with which to imprison yourself that much more, God will intervene, man.  The Jews, these folks, even us…we so often seek selfishly…and I know there are some here this morning that won’t personalize this, won’t take responsibility for this…His word promises that right here in this verse set…
• But I know what’s coming, man.  Stupor.  Why?  Because He so loves you.  Enough to even cause you to hit the dead end that you are so pursuing so that you might do as the prodigal son did and come to your senses.  Stumble just enough to realize that the ground you’re standing on is not solid but notice what Paul does not say.  He does not say that God makes them, us, you or I to fall…not His MO.  (Modus Operendi)
• God’s way is to correct, teach, rebuke and encourage…to chasten us…to call us back to Himself…to chase us right into liberty and strength and power and purpose…and so when you see someone stumbling man come alongside them, encourage them and tell them of God’s goodness, His faithfulness, His love for them…and when you see someone who has fallen, sin is rampant…their family consumed or even gone…and they’re flat on their face fallen, then have compassion on them because that is not the work of the Father…that is the work of the fallen one, the consequence of the flesh…so you go and you restore them.
• Just like them, just like the Jew, just like you, God loves you enough to move you off the path of wasted time man but the enemy hates you enough to use God given tribulation to deliver flesh eating temptation to cause these folks, the Jews even you and I to fall…
• Think of it this way.  Most every time I go into my teenager’s bedroom, his dresser drawers are open.  Why?  Well two things really.  First, he’s smart.  He knows that he needs clothes at night and clothes in the morning and so why close the drawers, just going to have to open them again.  But the second reason is not so noble because it drives his mom and I crazy and it reflects a deeper attitude, an under-current, a developing habit…of laziness with a pinch of selfishness.
• That’s where the danger of the flesh resides man…the opportunity opening of the enemy to bring in offense.  When you park 10% in front of your neighbor’s yard.  When you get into the habit of just hanging the phone up when the conversation is over rather than saying goodbye.  When you sign emails with only your name and no pleasantry.  When you leave your sweater on the side of the couch every night just because it’s more convenient for you, and hey…not hurting anybody…the problem…NOT SERVING anybody!
• How is it that we have arrived at this false fleshly mentality that as long as it seemingly doesn’t hurt anyone else then it’s ok!  Man that is the very essence of evil creeping in!  The truth is that if it’s not serving someone else and ultimately serving the Lord, guess what!?  Its sin man, and one more thing that I pray you reject in your life, a “means to an end” thinking.  That oh well I have to do this now to bring about a higher service to others, a more better service to God…man serve Him NOW!   The two great commandments, love God and love others, being violated and all the while rationalized?  Wrong. 
• Plain and simple sin man and that sin is opening the door wide open to the enemy to wreak havoc with your life, with your day, with your understanding even!  You wake up one day and your situation is such a mess and guess what you are…confused!  “How did it get this way?”  False, fleshly, mentality…laziness with a pinch of selfishness…and I will protect my children against that, how much more My good Father in heaven?
• And so what do I do?  Drawers left open again.  I run in there with a sledge hammer and bash the dresser to pieces and give him a few good whacks for learnin’ sake!  NO!  I tell him what I just told you and then I offer him a choice.  Fix it and be free or continue in it with consequences.  Why?  Because I love him.  I don’t want his adult life and his young adult life for that matter to be filled with opened drawers and unfinished work.  That will harm him.  So I step in and place in his path a stumbling block, a consequence, so that he might turn and learn wisdom…not that he should fall and fail…that would be to do nothing, to not correct, teach, rebuke and encourage…

Romans Chapter 11 Verse 11

• (Note:  Word for fall here is pipto which is literally to be thrust down and condemned.)  And so notice the truth Paul is sharing with us!  God is strategic!  God is good!  He is wisdom!  Not only to turn the Jew back to Himself but to also reach out to the gentile.  Man God is strategic.  Do you know what that means?  That means He is center stage, on the scene at work…but He is also behind the scenes working it out!  That’s how He do! 
• Do you know what’s NOT in the Bible?  “God works in mysterious ways.”  Not in there.  Why.  Because if you have ears to hear me this morning then know this…if you seek Him, you’ll see Him.  If you look for Him, He will be found and if you desire wisdom, He’ll deliver it.  It’s like my flash drive.  I get ready for work in the bathroom and then once I’m finished I gather my things off the dresser in the bedroom.  The bathroom is bright, the bedroom is dark.  Hard to see.  And my flash drive is black…and so each morning I have to take a chill pill.  Stop for a minute…and stare at the dresser…let my eyes adjust until I see the outline of the black flash drive…then I grab it.  Man God is just like that…if you stop, chill, look, seek…you’ll find Him…once your vision adjusts just a little bit to that dark situation you’re in…that takes courage my friends… 
• Why is God so concerned with His children following His word rather than their own rationale, even intelligent (leave the drawers open) logic?  Because logic don’t see in the dark man…there is much more going on then just what we see center stage!  When you love your wife as Christ loved the church, not loving to get something in return but loving to love…even loving to be taken advantage of!  I mean the Bible said that Jesus loved the shame of the cross for the sake of the salvation of the world!  When you obey God’s word and just love her guys then spiritual strategy occurs!  This is wisdom!  This is why marriages fail because folks have no sense for strategy!
• When you simply love her right where she’s at, a mess and a flawed wife and a flawed person (just like all of us are) then you free her to respect you man.  When she no longer has to worry about how you’re going to treat her, because she knows it will be filled with love, grace and affection…then the chains fall off of her and she’s free to be WITH you, just like YOU desire her to be.  Not against you.  Not undermining you.  Not questioning you…but WITH you…
• When you put God first and others second…making yourself to be a distant third, supposing each and every person better than yourself just like the Bible says…check Philippians 2:3, then check this, you surge with eternal perspective and ethereal power!  You bring heaven right down to your habits man and spiritual strategy strengthens…but oh man we are so wrapped up in front and center, show me, give me, please me, feed me…when the riches of God are always to be found in a behind the scenes type of faith and reliance upon Him…I wonder if you have the courage to try it out…to just trust Him and to do as He says…that’s where you learn…that’s where you grow…
• If my kid doesn’t push in his dresser drawers consistently, faithfully, habitually and in accordance with his father’s word…then he’ll never learn why I ever wanted him to in the first place…he’ll just feel as if he’s being commanded…know what I’m saying?

Romans Chapter 11 Verse 12

• (Note:  Fall here is paraptoma which means lapse)  Obviously God is not through with the Jewish people, right?!  I mean right here, “how much more will the world see when their fullness comes in?”  Speaking of the future…
• What future?  The kingdom age man.  The millennial reign when Jesus returns to the planet as we know it, before the new heaven and the new earth, and He reigns for a thousand years.  The Jew, at that time, as one will stand in belief and submission to Jesus Christ and the whole world will be blessed…

Romans Chapter 11 Verses 13 – 15

• Paul’s so clever!  He basically just showed his hand here.  He says to the gentiles, “look, I’m not only trying to explain the gospel to you, I’m also trying to exploit the gospel through you!  And not only to the Jew but for the reconciling of the entire world!!”

Romans Chapter 11 Verse 16

• So I dig this verse entirely.  And yes Paul is talking about the Jew and using the Jew and the Jewish state and the Jewish condition to reach the world but I see such power in this principle. 
• Now a lot of teachings and commentaries and very sound students of God’s Word will apply this to giving…to tithing because where this idea of firstfruits is introduced in the Bible, literally God is talking about money and increase however listen there is so much more to this than money…money just happens to be a primary application because it is something tangible, something that we can all measure…and oh by the way…it’s the hardest thing to physically let go of…it’s much easier to give time and effort and sweat equity and prayer equity then it is to part with my cash…
• And in my own life, I know that I readily give what folks can see but I faithfully give what folks cannot see and in that I find where I truly am in terms of my life being submitted to God…but there’s so much more in this verse than just money…this is everything!!
• If the first is holy, the rest is holy.  Apply that to your marriage.  If you first desire to serve your husband as you would serve the Lord…boom, your love for him will be affected in a most holy way!  Heaven man!  (Heaven isn’t too far away!  Great song!)  If you first focus on cherishing your wife as Jesus cherishes His church and gave Himself for her…then boom, your heart will fill with heavenly holy hotness for her man!  If you first seek to honor God with how you parent…He’ll take care of the rest.
• If you seek first God…almost even refusing anything else but to honor God, to serve Him, to glorify Him, to worship Him and to accomplish His will for YOUR life…then man, the whole lump, all the branches of your life…will be as they ought to be…
• But this is more than money.  This is more than mornings, this is more than the first ten minutes of a hundred minute project, this is everything…this is the secret to a fruitful, purposeful, powerfully valuable life…a loving and lasting marriage…a lucrative and delightful job…an involved and mighty ministry in the church or to the church….
• Now turn it around.  Make the Lord a component, a piece…albeit an important piece but just that, a piece in the puzzle of you…and not the primary, not the first and foremost, not the everything and you will have this truth applied just as powerfully…the lump will wilt, the branches will wither…and I want you to know oh child of God…God loves you too much to allow your branches to fail forever…He will bring about trial and storm and difficulty and testing time and time again to bring you to ultimate freedom…because He loves you and is so at work behind the scenes!
• Time for some firstfruit faith y’all.  Especially as we see this world deteriorate…as we watch folks fall…time to get after what’s eternal and set your eyes on the life to come so that even now, what God has willed for your life…what you even desire deep down…the BEST for you…will begin to come about…
• Stare a little longer…consider the love of God in the cross of Christ intently…see the frame of the flash drive…step back from the busy preparations for the day…and seek the Lord…place Him first, unlock the secrets of His truth in your life…