Human Responsibility and Israel: The Other Side of the Coin
(Romans 9:30-10:13)
1. I love British English, particularly their figures of speech.
2. Some friend of ours leant us some DVD’s of "Jeeves and Wooster." We love that show.
3. Anyhow, in one episode, they referred to marriage as "both eating from the same bucket." We loved it.
4. But here is my imaginery discussion with Mr. Nerdington about Romans:
Mr. Nerdington: Vasicek, old bean, when you talk about Sovereign Grace, you usually bring up the idea that God’s Sovereignty co-exists with man’s responsibility. But I don¡¦t see Paul doing that?
Pastor Ed: Well, Mr. Nerdington, old thing, that is because you have to read on! Romans was written to be read at one sitting. We are looking at paragraphs at a time. We’ll get there.
Mr. Nerdington: That’s fine and well, but when shall we actually see this so-called "human responsibility" surface? I must confess a certain level of skepticism.
Pastor Ed: Relax my friend and be chipper. We shall see it today!
MAIN IDEA: Although God’s Sovereign Grace is a sure thing, it is also true that we are responsible for all of our decisions. We can look at the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah by most of the Jews as a choice they made, even though this was in the plan of God.
TS---------------„³ We can look at two behaviors that arose from their attitudes.
I. Displacement of the Messiah by the Pursuit of Works Righteousness (9:30-10:7)
A. Like reading a book while walking around, it was an accident ready to happen
1. picture a devout Jewish man or woman walking around, reading a Torah scroll and then tripping over a rock
2. that rock was the Messiah; discarded by the work crew, but the foundation stone of God’s planned building
3. this imagery originates from Isaiah but is found in several places in the New Testament:, including Luke¡¦s Gospel:
Luke 20: 17, "Jesus looked directly at them and asked, ’Then what is the meaning of that which is written: " ’The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone...’"
3. The bottom line is that Christ was rejected. But He knew that this would happen, yet it did not keep Him from doing the Father’s will!
4. Rejection can take the winds out of our sails; but being rejected does not mean that God’s plans for us are failing...
In 1858 the Illinois legislature--using an obscure statute--sent Stephen A. Douglas to the U.S. Senate instead of Abraham Lincoln, although Lincoln had won the popular vote. When a sympathetic friend asked Lincoln how he felt, he said, "Like the boy who stubbed his toe: I am too big to cry and too badly hurt to laugh."
Max Lucado, God Came Near, Multnomah Press, 1987, p. 57.
5. To those of us who believe, Christ is the precious cornerstone! So the rejections in your life need not be the end!
B. Paradigm Blindness (1-4)
"What is paradigm blindness? A paradigm is a blueprint or a map in your mind, a form into which everything else is made to fit. It is a system or model. Paradigm blindness occurs when we can not see something or understand because it is out of our paradigm. We need to ¡§think outside the box."
"A paradigm serves to concentrate the attention of researchers on "sensible" (by the paradigm’s logic) problem areas and to prevent her from wasting time on what might be unimportant. On the other hand, by explicitly and implicitly defining some lines of research as "trivial" or "nonsensical," a paradigm acts like a set of blinders."
--"Everything that can be invented has been invented"- Charles Duell, U.S. Office of Patents 1890
--"640K ought to be enough [hard drive memory] for anyone"- Bill Gates, 1981
1. instead of receiving a gift, they worked for a wage they could not earn
2. like Martha and Mary
People have it in their minds that to be saved, we must create our own righteousness; so they do not see the legal righteousness that can be given to us in Christ: the righteousness of Christ that covers and removes our sin from God’s sight.
3. Christ fulfills the Law; the sting of it is gone
„h To fulfill means that He is its goal, its purpose. The Law was meant to prepare the way to bring the Jews to Christ. He also met its requirements for us.
C. But salvation must be carried out by God, not us (5-7)
1. we cannot keep the Law (5)
2. we can do nothing but believe (6-7)
(1) could not make the incarnation happen (6)
(2) could not make the resurrection happen (7)
(3) God had to do that! And that is what our salvation required!
D. Many people are lost today not because they are not religious, but because their assumptions, their paradigms, prevent them from comprehending the proposition that one is saved and forgiven by turning from sin and to Christ by faith. We are saved by God¡¦s grace alone through faith alone.
„h We’d like to say, "Shut up and listen," but even if we did, the message could not get through unless God opens their hearts
„h During World War II, there was a famous band leader named Charlie Spivak. I have an 87 year old friend who pronounces his name the same way. During the War, he served in the Navy. They finally returned to New York from the Pacific and had some leave. Everyone wanted to call home, but long distance lines were sparse. When Charlie tried to get through to call home, the operator connected him because the band leader, Charlie Spivak, happened to be in town. She thought that’s who he was.
„h God has to get the message through. We can make people repeat the words, but we usually cannot make them understand them and we certainly cannot make them believe the content of the Gospel, that Christ paid our penalty and we all have to do is to accept His sacrifice by faith. People want to throw in baptism, communion, charity, and good works. That, friends, should be the result of our salvation, not its cause.
E. The same is true about maturity. There are many people who are saved but believe they can lose their salvation, or that their works keep them saved, or that communion or baptism help them stay saved.
This mentality breed immaturity. It is better to be focused upon glorifying God and growing in Him than "holding on." Christians who believe they are holding on rather than having a God who is holding us are not free to pursue the deep things of God.
„h A solid Christian should never say, "I hope I’m good enough to get into heaven," or, "All I want is to hang on and make it to heaven." The deep Christian is aiming for that "well done, good and faithful servant."
„h Do me a favor. If you ever move away and begin attending a church in your new location, and you hear the folks at the church saying, "I hope I’m good enough to get into heaven," or, "All I want is to hang on and make it to heaven" will you promise me you’ll find another church?
Although God’s Sovereign Grace is a sure thing, it is also true that we are responsible for all of our decisions.
II. Refusing the Simple & Gravitating Toward the Complex (10:8-13)
III.
A. Salvation is near at hand (8)
„h Here, the nearness is tied to ascending to heaven to bring Christ down or into the earth to bring Him back from the dead...
„h But the main idea is that salvation is NOT hard work
B. Confess and believe
1. Confess with your mouth
a. agree to certain content (say the same thing)
b. "Jesus as Lord" = deity and status as your master
c. agreeing to that means a willingness to repent (a Lord is to be obeyed)
2. Believe in your heart
a. resurrection: an absurd claim to many; the heart of our faith
b. a literal, physical resurrection following His sacrificial death
c. in the heart = our innermost being
d. not just "agree to" but to embrace
„h In college I was asked to prepare a lesson to teach my speech class. We were to be graded on our creativity and ability to drive home a point in a memorable way. The title of my talk was, "The Law of the Pendulum." I spent 20 minutes carefully teaching the physical principle that governs a swinging pendulum. The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released. Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns, it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc, until finally it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium, where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal.
„h I attached a 3-foot string to a child’s toy top and secured it to the top of the blackboard with a thumbtack. I pulled the top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard where I let it go. Each time it swung back I made a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When I finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard proved my thesis.
„h I then asked how many people in the room BELIEVED the law of the pendulum was true. All of my classmates raised their hands, so did the teacher. He started to walk to the front of the room thinking the class was over. In reality it had just begun. Hanging from the steel ceiling beams in the middle of the room was a large, crude but functional pendulum (250 pounds of metal weights tied to four strands of 500-pound test parachute cord.). I invited the instructor to climb up on a table and sit in a chair with the back of his head against a cement wall. Then I brought the 250 pounds of metal up to his nose. Holding the huge pendulum just a fraction of an inch from his face, I once again explained the law of the pendulum he had applauded only moments before, "If the law of the pendulum is true, then when I release this mass of metal, it will swing across the room and return short of the release point. Your nose will be in no danger."
„h After that final restatement of this law, I looked him in the eye and asked, "Sir, do you believe this law is true?" There was a long pause. Huge beads of sweat formed on his upper lip and then weakly he nodded and whispered, "Yes." I released the pendulum. It made a swishing sound as it arced across the room. At the far end of its swing, it paused momentarily and started back. I never saw a man move so fast in my life. He literally dived from the table. Deftly stepping around the still-swinging pendulum, I asked the class, "Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?" The students unanimously answered, "NO!"
Ken Davis, How To Speak To Youth, pp 104-106.
„h Saving faith may thus be defined as a voluntary turning from all hope and grounds based on self merit, and assuming an attitude of expectancy toward God, trusting Him to do a perfect saving work based only on the merit of Christ.
L.S. Chafer, True Evangelism, p. 55-6.
3. Confession of the mouth flows from belief in the heart; the kind of faith that saves works itself outward
4. Paul quotes to OT to prove he is not just pulling this out of the air...(11-13)
5. Salvation IS simple. It may seem too good to be true, but consider how miraculous it is. We do not seek the true God (Rom. 3:10), our mind is hostile toward God (Romans 8:7), and the things of God seems foolish to us naturally (I Cor. 2:14); God has to work a miracle to bring us to spiritual life so we can seek the true God, see the hostility we have toward the true God removed, and open our minds up to understand the salvation message.
Although God’s Sovereign Grace is a sure thing, it is also true that we are responsible for all of our decisions.
CONCLUSION
1. The Bible represents the Counsel of God for every believer.
2. It is filled with truth both simple and complex.
3. But the way of salvation is so important to understand.
4. Do you understand it? Can you explain it to others?
5. And, more importantly, have you believed the message?
6. It is not about religion. It is about a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ by grace alone through faith alone.
