Life from the Dead!
Romans 11:13-24
Intro: One of the main reasons Paul is writing to the church or ekklesia at Rome (the called out ones who are assembled together for a specific purpose) is to help them resolve some of the tension between the Jews and Gentiles. Earlier in Romans Paul addressed the Jewish people, reminding them that they are sinners saved by grace, just like the Gentile believers who had come out of an ungodly heathen culture. Now Paul addresses the Gentiles and tells them not to think that their right standing with God makes them any better than the Jews. Maybe he could have told both groups, “Get over yourselves! Don’t think that it always has to be about you!” I read something this week that really stuck with me: "You matter more than you think you do, and it's less about you than you think it is." (Steven Furtick, 2012 C3 Conference). God has set His favor on you and loves you, but it is not all about you or me! It is about God calling people out of dead living and into a whole new life that is all about Him and His awesome plan for all of us!
-So Paul is trying to help both the Jews and the Gentiles see one another the way God sees them. There is no room for arrogance on either side! Ours is to simply respond to who God is and let Him change us into who He wants us to be. That is what honors Him! It’s all about Him, not me! It’s all about life, not death!
-With this in mind, let’s take a look at some highlights of Paul’s words to the called out Gentiles in Rome.
I. All who accept the Lord receive life in place of death!
Romans 11:13-14 13 I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry 14 in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.
-We read in Romans 10 that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Nothing else can save a person – only a faith that confesses Jesus as Lord and believes that God raised Him from the dead. If we believe that God raised Jesus from physical death, then we also believe that God can raise us from spiritual death – from a life that is cut off from Him. And this was all provided for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus! It is God’s gift of grace to all who trust in Him! And there is a change in our identity when we receive God’s free gift of grace.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Colossians 3:8-10 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
-The new self is the forgiven self. The new self is not the old spiritually dead self! If we have put our faith in Jesus, we have tasted of the life of God and we will never be the same!
-Probably the best known words to express this thought comes from the writings of John. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” All who accept Jesus as their forgiver and leader receive life in place of death!
-And this is what Paul hopes will spur his own people, the Jews, into action. When they see the Gentiles receiving the life of God, they will become jealous. Why would they become jealous? Because the blessings of God’s favor that we are experiencing as people who have been called out from the dead life should have been theirs! They were the people to whom God chose to reveal Himself. Deuteronomy 4:7 “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” Paul wants to provoke his fellow Jews to pursue God for who He is so they might receive His grace and all the blessings that come to those who are made right with God!
II. Israel’s acceptance of Jesus will bring life to many!
Romans 11:15-16 15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? 16 If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
-Those Jews who were dead and cut off from Christ will become a great source of life to their own people and I believe to the whole world! They will be the light to the Gentiles that God originally intended them to be. Isaiah 42:6 “I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles.” Isaiah 49:6 tells us that God’s people were to proclaim God’s message to all peoples: “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
-I certainly don’t understand all that God will do with and through Israel in these last days. However, I believe that they will be at the heart of His plan, and that God will use them to demonstrate His life and glory to the whole world. Many will not receive it, but many will!
III. Hindrances to experiencing God’s life
1. Unholiness (16) [by implication] Holiness is required to see God (Heb. 12:14)
2. Broken Fellowship (17)
17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not boast over those branches.
-This may be more of a consequence or result of sin, but it also leads further into sin. Jesus stressed the need to stay connected to the Vine in John 15.
3. Arrogance (18-21)
18 do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." 20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
4. Unbelief (20)
20 … they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith.
IV. The Requirement for experiencing God’s life
22 Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. 23 And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
Faith – More than an intellectual agreement with truth, faith implies continuance- that’s where the word “faithful” comes from – one who has faith to stay committed to a person or cause. We don’t whip this up on our own, but there is an element of human responsibility involved. Paul says, “God’s kindness is given to you, provided that you continue in it. If you don’t, you will be cut off.”
-So what about those who don’t continue in God’s kindness and “persist in unbelief?” All I can say is that it doesn’t look too good for them. If we are not connected to Jesus, the Root, then we won’t have life. But if we believe on Him and do life with Him, then we will have His life in us!
Conclusion: I’d like to leave you with a few takeaways to think and pray about, and then take action on.
1. Pray for Jewish People. We as believers owe our heritage to them and are called to love them. As Gentiles we should seek to understand the Jewish context of Christianity in order to better understand Scripture and our own salvation. If not for Judaism, there would be no Christianity. Without understanding the Old Testament, the New Testament won’t make much sense.
2. Be thankful that salvation was extended to you.
3. Believe and receive so you can be saved. If you’re not sure or you know you’re not, it’s time to believe and receive so that you can be saved. John 1:11-12 states that Jesus came to the Jews first but then He made the offer to all: “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
4. Live in such a way that those who don’t know Jesus will be jealous when they watch your life. Does your life make others jealous for Jesus? Our lives ought to create a genuine thirst in others. Ray Stedman writes: “Christians ought to be so alive, so vital in our Christianity, so excited and so full of joy and love toward one another that every Jew we contact will say to himself, ‘How come they have it and we don’t?’” We have not always the best examples for Christ. It’s time to change that by God’s grace!
5. Get back in the game. Have you been on the sidelines just watching? Some of you burned pretty bright a few years ago but now you’re spiritually stalled. God is not through with the Jew…and He’s not through with you!
6. Trust in God’s purposes. God’s plan has always been to extend salvation to the Gentiles but he did it by sending the Israelites to the bench. Sometimes things don’t make much sense to us but it’s in those times that we need to trust. Claim the truth of Genesis 50:20: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
[Conclusion adapted from Brian Bill, sermoncentral.com.]
