Grafted In
Romans Series
CCCAG September 13,2020
Scripture- Romans 11
As most of you know this last week I was over in Marshfield doing nursing clinicals. This is the first time then I got to take care of patients as a nurse instead of being a paramedic.
After sorting through a lot of computer issues they had with us we finally hit the floor and got our patient. We went through our assessment, saw to his needs, then went back and charted everything.
During the regular nursing shift change I helped to give the handoff report to the next nurse then helped him help the patient do some surgical preparation for the next day. 9:00 PM rolled around, and it was time for us to go to our post clinical conference where we present our patients and explain what we did for them.
My partner asked me to give the verbal summary since I'm not afraid to talk in front of people and I gave a brief and thorough report on what we had done and accomplish for the day.
My nursing instructor congratulated us on a great first day and then ask me a question, “What was your nursing diagnosis and treatment plan for this patient?”
My brain totally went blank. I said “I never even thought about it. I just managed his medical condition and even helped notice that the necessary labs for him to receive surgery in the next day were not ordered so is regular nurse got that arranged” My instructor said, “and that was a great catch, but you are not here to be a medic. What is a good nursing diagnosis for your patient that will guide his care to complete healing after the doctors are finished fixing his problem?”
She saw that blank look on my face, and said, “Think it over, and tell me after the next group gives me their report.”
I'm not sure if I was blushing but I probably should have been. I’ve been in school for over two years now and missed the central point of being a floor nurse- nursing care plans. I stayed in a completely medical physician type mindset that treats the disease in order to fix the person, which is how paramedics are trained, and missed the developing the nursing mindset that starts with treating the person in order to defeat the disease.
I bring this up today to illustrate what Paul is talking about in Romans 11.
Paul continues to build on the idea of God’s sovereignty that we talked about last week. Paul speaks about the Jews being The Chosen of God, but despite thousands of years of interaction with the Father, they missed the entire point of what God wanted for them, and instead clung to a form of religion that had no power. Not only did it have no power, but it led them right into the devils trap of instilling pride in performance instead of what God was looking for- thankfulness and grace through faith.
That’s a synopsis of Romans 11:1-10. God assuring us that Israel has not fallen permanently away from His grace.
In fact, Paul mentions the reason for their falling away in verse 12-
12 But if their (Jewish) transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!
There is still a future for the Jewish people in God’s plans. Most of it will occur during the tribulation period after the church is raptured into heaven. The spiritual stupor that has blinded them for thousands of years will be removed, and they will rise up as the leaders of the tribulation church until they welcome their Messiah when Jesus returns and sets up His kingdom on earth.
Until then, Paul uses the rest of chapter 11 to explain the gentiles coming into faith in Christ by using the illustration of an Olive tree.
Before we read the central scripture for today, what does the Olive tree in this example represent?
The answer is found earlier in the book of Romans-
Romans 4:16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring--not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.
So the olive tree is referring back to Abraham, but not just to the man, but to his defining characteristic. We see that described in Genesis
Gen 15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Abraham became the Father of all who would believe because he believed God. The trunk of the Olive Tree here in Romans 11 represents Abraham and more importantly- the spiritual characteristic that made him pleasing to God-
Faith.
Now with this in mind, lets read Romans 11:13-24
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. 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.
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. 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.
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!
Prayer
I. Sternness of God/broken off
In verse 22 Paul tells us to consider both the kindness and the sternness of God.
Paul makes a point of saying that even though we as gentiles are now grafted into the olive tree of Abraham’s faith, we should also consider that the Jewish people were broken off because of their stubborn unbelief.
Paul isn't saying that just to fill some space in his letter to the Romans . He is warning us as gentile believers that God judged Israel in the same way he will judge us- according to our faith.
No one who actually reads the Bible for what it says can actually accuse God of being unfair. He uses the same criteria regardless of the particular historical period or dispensation that people are in to judge all people.
It's always been about faith.
faith is just simply believing that God's word is true.
Faith is what satan attacked in the Garden of Eden- calling into question God's character by asking Eve “Did God really say”
It's the same exact tactic he uses with you and I today.
“Did God really say?”
Did God really not to covet?
Did God really say not to put anything before him?
Did God really say don't commit adultery and Did Jesus really expand on that and say don’t even look at a person or think of a person with lustfull intent?
Did God really say do not steal? Does that count standing around for 10 minutes by the time Clock waiting to punch out and not working?
What the worst thing- substituting external religious observances and ritual for a relationship?
These were some of the things that the Jews were fastidious about being obedient towards. But what happened is the focused so much on the individual trees that they missed the forest.
Because they turned what was supposed to be a close intimate relationship of the Holy Spirit indwelling them and being upon them and traded it in for a dead religion, so God broke them off.
It might sound harsh but think about it. It would be like forcing a person who wanted nothing to do with God here on this earth to spending eternity with him in heaven.
It would be more torturous to those people that reject God to try to force them into being grafted into a Vine that is offensive to them than just to let them exist apart from the Vine and be subjected to all the attacks of Satan in the hope that they will return to the Vine and allowed themselves to be grafted back in.
That brings us to our next point-
II. The meaning of Grafted in
Christianity is grafted into the faith of Abraham.
How many people here have a tree in their yard that dropped some type of seed every fall?
Winter comes and covers up the seed and the snow pushes that seed into the ground before it freezes. Then March and April come and the snow begins to melt away. Now it's main and we're starting to pull out the lawn mowers again and as we're mowing our lawn we see several small seedlings of trees starting to sprout up out of the ground.
My Grandfather worked for the DNR for several decades. He explained to me part of what he did as a forestry technician.
He would go out and he would plant some of these managed forests you see up North. What happened is a logging company would come in and clear cut every tree out of an area. Before the logging company would come in my Gran father and his team would go out around the trees and carefully dig up any seedlings they could find.
The logging company would then come in to harvest the trees and clean up the area, so it wasn't a huge fire hazard particularly with the pine trees. Then my Gran father and his team would go back out with the seedlings an replant them so that in 10 to 20 years that forest would return to its former condition, except the trees were in neat lines which helped prevent fires and would make it easier for the logging companies to harvest them.
He also taught me some things about grafting. Ssometimes an insect would get into a particular branch of a tree and begin to cause that branch to die. The forestry technicians would go out and trim up the trees to get this sick branches off before it affected the entire tree. oftentimes they would then take one of the seedlings that was growing up around the tree and grafted into that branch so that the tree remained balanced and was less likely to be blown over in a windstorm.
God has taken us, these wild offshoots from our original tree and grafted us back into the healthy tree.
God does this through grace by faith, but Paul also gives us a warning- don't let your head get too big About God choosing you a gentile over Israel during this time. God had spent over 4000 years with the Jewish people trying to get them to walk right before him for more than a generation, and yet he still broke them off the tree to make room for you.
Don't think for a moment that he won't do the same to any one of us.
In fact, the entire tribulation God's focus will flip from grafting the gentiles into the faith of Abraham two focusing again on the Jews to graft then back in to saving faith.
That brings us to our last point of the day-
III. Grace through Faith is the glue that holds you to the vine.
As I said previously, God hasn't changed at all in what he expects from each and every human who has ever lived.
He expects us to have faith that his word is true. Not just the blessings he promises to the faithful but the judgment he ensures us awaits all those who rebel against him.
Paul says this in another book of the Bible
Eph 2:4-9
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
God grafting you back into the Vine is an act of grace on God's part.
Your part is to exercise faith so that grace can do it’s job of keeping you knit into the vine.
it's been said that grace is an acronym that stands for-
God's riches at Christ’s expense
It's all about Jesus. Grace is the ultimate gift that God has given all humanity- to receive forgiveness of sin to repent of our wild and wicked ways, and to come and be grafted back into Gods family of faith.
I’ll say this again- It’s all about Jesus.
If you're trusting in anything else especially your own good behavior or own good deeds to win you God's favor-you are doomed
Jesus plus anything equals hell.
That's why grace is the glue that holds us to the Vine.
It's Jesus that brought us there,
faith through the empowerment of his Holy Spirit holds us there,
and the father's love lets us flourish and begin to drop our own seeds that will bring life to other people.
I can’t think of a time in my lifetime where that is more important than right now.
I want to end this morning with a prayer focus.
earlier in Chapter 11 Paul refers to those who persist in being hard hearted toward God by saying this
Rom 11:7-8
The others were hardened, 8 as it is written:
"God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day."
I know we think that this refers only to the Jews. But it also applies to us here in the 21st century.
Does anyone watch the news and ask themselves, “How do these people believe in something that is so obviously a lie?
The answer comes from Chapter 1 of Romans, now again in Chapter 11 of Romans, and in 2nd Thessalonians. I believe Paul was given a vision of 2020 America when he wrote these words-
2 Thess 2:10-12 They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
Most of us have noticed that you can’t reason with many of these people- they can’t see it because they are under the delusion.
The only way to break that is through God’s Mercy as we commit ourselves to pray and seek HIS face.
Altar Call- the need to actually take time and pray
