Romans Chapter 9 Verses 9 – 13

• Continuing his thought from before about being the children of promise rather than children of the flesh…as last week we looked at the two sons of Abraham and how Isaac was promised yet as Abraham and Sarah waited on God, and God tarried, their faith failed and in their flesh they decided to “help God out” and the result was Ishmael…Paul now launches into one of the most difficult scripture sets in all of Romans…if you haven’t been hanging out with Paul…
• You see, by now, we know him…Paul that is…and we also know whats up with the heart of God…how?  Because Paul is hanging out with the Lord and we are hanging out with him!  And so not only have we learned Paul’s heart over the last eight chapters but we’ve also learned the heart of God.
• You see with what we’re about to get into, some have concluded misunderstandings.  Have you ever had one of those?  Someone says something, sees something and then concludes something…tells someone else and that someone else calls you up and says, “so and so told me that they saw you stealing a car, is that true?”  “Oh no,” you reply, “there’s been a…misunderstanding…”  There was a lady stuck in the car and she appeared unconscious and so I broke the window out to get to her…you know what, I thought I saw old so and so driving by!” 
• April did that once.  Recently actually.  There was an accident over here on Hampden and the lady couldn’t get out so she hopped out of her car and busted out the window!  She’s like super-woman!  I would have been the one with my eyes stuck to my windshield watching!  But I’m sure even then many folks, onlookers, observers, drove away with a pssshhh in their heart…an heir of disapproval in their minds…a misunderstanding…
• But you see I know her, and you know her…right?   And so we know together already what her heart is, you see and so the actions we see, the words we hear about her, you see they are already good and super-womanish…because we know her personally.
• Same here.  And really to learn to trust God.  To learn to follow Him in faith…takes getting to know Him.  Spending time with Him.  Learning Him.  And then when things happen that seemingly are not good, not comfortable, not the way you’d have it go precisely, you see you rest…because not only do you KNOW Him…and you KNOW that all that He does is good…that in all things He has never left you, never even left you out there to dry, hanging, ya know…He’s never been anything but good and faithful and loving and merciful…and so you rest and wait upon Him you see…and the kicker, the entire time…you actually can talk to Him…ask Him what’s going on and He always answers!  He’s not like me.  Call me, my phone might take you right to voicemail…God doesn’t even have voicemail…He inhabits the praises and the prayers of His people Psalm 22 tells us…
• And so we’ve spent time studying God, studying His heart seen so clearly through the Person and the Sacrifice of Jesus, the grace that poured forth…we’ve studied even Paul and so now we are equipped that we might not be spiritually confused as we enter into a bit of white water here…
• And let’s start by looking at something that is often missed.  Often missed because so many are so quick to doubt God.  Paul reminds us here of Isaac’s son’s, Jacob and Esau…and Paul quotes the Old Testament scripture which says, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” And then the world gasps as God is doubted…
• Before I go into explaining and exposing spiritually what is going on here, let me just say, I am not so much impressed with the statement that God hated…I am so much impressed with the statement that God loved.  Are you? 
• Most folks have a real problem here.  “How can God choose to love one and reject the other before they were even born.”  The answer is simple.  God is soverign.  And that doesn’t mean that he does whatever He wants without reason or absolute goodness…I’ll get into that more as we progress…but Esau being rejected is not the real mystery here…Jacob being loved is the mystery.  And pull that string further.  The real mystery in my life is not what God is doing with my tomorrow…it’s that He loves me today.
• I’m a wreck.  A mess.  I’m a sinful man…all together unlike God.  All together unworthy of His presence and attention…and yet He walks with me.  He reminds me everyday that I am wanted.  That I am important and that He is my Father.  His Spirit within me continually encouraging me and strengthening me as my flesh fails and my worry does not cease.  Yet He cleanses me.  Yet He doesn’t leave me and has promised that He never will…and all I did and do…is choose Him…all I ever did was choose Him…He has done the rest.  All I ever do, minute to minute…even in the toughest of times…I simply choose Him by faith and in that I am set free…
• THAT is the mystery to me…not that God would have perfect knowledge…that is a way to view sovereignty…to the point that He could walk Esau’s life out before Esau was even born and see that Esau would be a carnal man…a man that would utterly reject God and all that is right…and so no, I have no problem whatsoever with God choosing correctly…do you? 
• Jacob was a busted mess, a momma’s boy, a trickster…but guess what?  He chose God and God worked on him from the inside out and his name was changed wasn’t it…God changed his name to Israel…same with us…we’re all tricksters…but if we choose God…even in the minute that you do, He will work in you a great mystery of glory as the God of all eternity draws near to His creation…minute to win it…ya know…
• Have you seen that show?  The folks have one minute to complete the task…and if they do, cash money man…well think of that the next time you doubt God, the next time temptation enters, the next time you find yourself fleshing out…minute to win it man…simply choose God, believe Him, call upon Him…and your heart…trickster to spiritual…minute to minute…win to win.
• Oh but many will doubt God, especially in a verse set such as this…

Romans Chapter 9 Verses 14 – 21

• Wow, that sounds like God is something of a puppeteer…like God just uses us man…pardon me, but are you in doubt yourself…do you know God?  It’s amazing how many times I hear this question, get this inquiry…and what’s really being asked is…is God good?  Or is He playing me? 
• Now read this without a relationship and you could get all twisted.  Many have and truly what Paul writes is striking…”Does not the Potter have the power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?”  So does God make some people to be dirt bags?  Not quite homes…do you know Him?  You see in the Greek, in that passage the word for “for,” as in “one vessel FOR honor,” is eis which also means “among.”  Which also means “to come to” something…
• And his examples given…first Moses…when God made the statement, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy.”  When did God say that?  When He pardoned an entire nation man.  After the Jews had made the golden calf and worshipped it in the wilderness…and God saw them and forgave them…Now, who is the whom ever in that statement as God says, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy?”  According to several other scriptures…that’s anybody man…John 3:16, “that whosoever believes on Him,” right?  And so is God’s mercy shown to some and withheld from others?  As some suggest.  The answer, yes!
• Of course His mercy is withheld…from anyone who will not accept it!  2 Peter 3:9, “the Lord suffers forever with men, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”  1 Timothy 2:4, “God our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  And so what’s the problem man…why aren’t all men saved?  Why do so many reject the truth and come to be dishonorable vessels?  Choice man.  Free will man.  Not God’s will.  Do you know Him?
• Look at Paul’s second example.  Pharaoh.  Search the story man.  Read the scriptures.  Learn what happened.  So many over the years, “oh but God hardened the heart of Pharaoh…see He is a controlling, mean…what?”  You blaspheme the name of the Holy One who died for you…where’s my sling?   I need only one rock for this!  J
• Pharaoh hardened his own heart time after time until finally God confirmed it man.  That’s God’s word.  Romans Chapter 1.  Your free will allows you to seek and acquire whatever you want.  Truth, salvation, joy, peace, eternal life…done.  Through Jesus Christ.  Hard heartedness, bitterness, selfishness, hell…done…your choice!  Twenty times, Pharaoh hardened his heart against God and notice even that vessel of dishonor, in the end showed forth God’s power and declared His name.
• That’s the thing too.  Folks out there that persecute you, come on man…don’t hate them…Jesus didn’t…they simply prove God.  Don’t you see.  If there was no God then why hate?  Why be so worked up then?  Even Pharaoh ultimately showed many the power and the might of the One True God but the sad part is that he was lost in the process.  God’s heart is for you and I and all to be saved and freed in the process.
• But Paul says we ultimately will arrive at the place of screaming against God in our own demise…”why have You made me like this.”  What a ridiculous notion.  A sinful synopsis and it all boils down to you don’t want to take responsibility for precisely where you are at…Check this out…even in the church!
• Turn over to 2 Timothy 2:  20-21.  Ah Paul, the clarifier, the practioner!  If anyone cleanses himself – vessel for honor.  Guess what Greek word that is?  You got it, “eis.”  How, though?  2 Timothy 2:  22 – 26.
• Folks heed the entire counsel of God’s word.  One can get so confused reading a verse on its own and firmly planting their doctrinal stake on that one verse…learn the Bible man…not just a verse.  The Bible is one message, one thought, one letter from God to you and on every page…”I love you.  I gave and will always give everything for you…come away with Me.”  But so many don’t.  So many reject Him and in that they choose their tumultuous, restless, peaceless lives…just like Pharaoh, but even they show forth the reality of a Most High God…

Romans Chapter 9 Verses 22 – 33

• Ah righteousness apart from faith is pride man.  Religion.  Jesus said in Matthew 5, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, your doomed.  They were righteous in the eyes of the law…yet doomed still.  Why?  Because man can only be made well One way and that Way, that Truth and that Life identified Himself to us and then proved who He is by raising from the dead. 
• And little by little we are either becoming vessels of honor or vessels of dishonor.  Brick by brick we build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ in our own lives…God taught me this during my trip this week…something crazy happened to me. 
• I was in the gym, doing my thing and my phones were stolen.  My church phone and my work phone.  All I did was take my eyes off of them for a moment…and my walk is just like that.  My spiritual strength is just like that.  I am either building this ministry, this marriage, this career, this life of bringing glory to God brick by brick (on the foundation of Christ) OR I am stalling it...brick by brick.  My trust and reliance upon Jesus manifested in my diligence and obedience shows which I am doing.  There is no union, no break, no shifts, all the time...brick by brick.
• Now that also means that the house is not built in a day.  Significant effort may not even lead to any perceived progress really...but again, brick by brick...here a little, there a little...(Is 28)...even on business travel, each breath...a brick...a brick that will lead to joy and peace and powerful ministry being heavenly minded and eternally focused OR...just business travel and a brick taken...such a profound reminder for me.
• My life reminds me of a stream.  A stream that is set in a beautiful forest however I begin to notice trash in it...and then once I notice one piece I begin to see many pieces...and then I wonder how I ever missed all that trash.  So I begin to clean.  And I clean all day and at the end of the day it looks nice and I exhale and go home...happy.  Then the next day I come back and there is more trash today than there was the day before...and I clean again...day after day I spend my days cleaning just to come back to more trash the next day....
• Until one day I become angry and frustrated and lose the will to clean anymore.  And I lift my eyes and see up stream, a trash company...dumping trash every day...and so I go to the company and stop that junk. 
• That is the very condition of my heart.  I clean my life up with works and efforts and strivings, just like Saul of Tarsus did…to meet expectations and make others happy when all the while the issue is my own heart...the trash company. 
• Address the issue…idolatry man…in  your heart.  Ask God to renew a closeness and a pure love again in your heart with Him.  Mess up.  Be chaotic.  Be a fool.  Be for real but man stomp your feet with excitement as you please the Lord! 
• Jesus has made a way for all to be vessels of honor…for all to find righteousness by faith…just as He has done with me and man I'm finished cleaning the stream...I now protest at the door of the trash company DEMANDING that they stop dumping into the stream!  And Jesus is there with me because His will is for me to know Him in the inner man...and then the chaos means less, me being accepted and liked by people means less, service to myself and for myself means less and life becomes…it just becomes man…honoring to Jesus.  The fear and the sorrow dull as that trash is just coke cans in the stream man...and perspective is cleared.
• Ultimately, brick by brick I build a home for Him in my heart or I tear it down.  I'm not willing to watch myself tear down my family.  Tear down my church, tear down my ability and drive to bring honor to the King of kings.
• I repent.  And I come back to the heart of worship daily.  I will spend time with Him.  I will look up and remember that heaven is coming for me.  I will trust in Him and I will be a mess.  And He will be pleased…and I will be free.  Jesus calls today, “you come too.”