Sunday 03 • 11 • 18

Romans 9:14-26

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardened to him whomever he wills. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? What is molded say to its molder? Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory. Even us whom he is called not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles. As indeed he says in Hosea, those who are not my people, I will call my people and her who was not beloved, I will call beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.

Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Father, we pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts would be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. Lord, you're our rock and our fortress and our redeemer. Amen.

Many years ago, McDonald's had this really successful ad campaign which said, "You deserve a break today." You might remember that one? It started this domino effect in the advertising world of "you deserve," and this has become like one of the most successful phrases in advertising. You could find ads that advertise for the body you deserve. There are car companies that tell you that you can have the monster truck you deserve. There are all kinds of advertising within the real estate world—the house you deserve. You can even find advertising for online dating for the spouse you deserve.

Why does that work so well? I think it's because it plays to our desires and says, "Hey, you know, you have some inhibitions about following all your desires and your spending, but don't you deserve it?" It sort of entitles us to our desires. It says, "You're the kind of person—we know it. You're the kind of person who deserves it." So McDonald's and their egg McMuffin, they get me. They really get me.

So today we're going to look at this: What about the salvation we deserve? We're picking up Romans 9. We preached the first half of this last week, and in this, Paul introduces in verse 11 the word election. Maybe you're not familiar with that word. Maybe you're familiar with another Bible word—predestination—or the whole kind of system of doctrine that this is part of, named after John Calvin, the sixteenth century theologian. Calvinism. All part of the same thing.

But this is what's at stake in that kind of conversation: What's the basis for our salvation? Election says that God sees no foreseen action in us, or merit in us, or condition on our part that induces him to save us. Instead, it's all his sovereign decision. We looked last week at Paul pointing us to two case studies from the Old Testament: the life of Abraham, patriarch of the faith, and his kids, Ishmael and Isaac. God favors Isaac over Ishmael, and then goes down one generation from that and says, "Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated"—a picture of God's electing work in salvation.

Now, this is part two of that message. If you missed the first week, I apologize. You can go back and look at this. This is a really difficult passage. Maybe the hardest in the whole of the New Testament. If you have trouble hanging in with this, I get it.

Because at stake here is this question: Doesn't everybody deserve a shot at salvation? Shouldn't God give us the salvation we deserve? And it's really hard.

This passage is set up as question, response, objection, answer. Paul knows that these are the kinds of questions we have. Today, I'm not going to give you a fancy sermon outline with cute points that all rhyme or begin with the same letter. I'm just going to preach through the passage and point us to what God says here in his word.

I apologize—I have seven points. It's like daylight saving Sunday. You're tired and what am I doing? Poor planning. I know. I'm really sorry. So, six objections and one counter objection, and I promise I'll be quick. I'll be in and out, okay? But hang in with me, alright?

Objection #1: "This doctrine is heartless"

This whole idea of God choosing some and passing over other people in the doctrine of salvation—it sounds like a cruel, cold, and heartless doctrine. Does anybody feel that? Yes. And I want to say like, some of you have been taught this doctrine in ways that are cruel and cold and heartless. If you've ever heard teaching that sounds like God somehow delights in the damnation of people or in sending the non-elect to hell, on behalf of clergy everywhere, can I apologize to you? Because that is a misrepresentation of God's character. That's wrong. It does injustice to his word and violence to God's people.

I'm really careful with this doctrine. Can I show you how we talk about this biblically? There are bookends to this passage that teach us how we handle this. In verse 3 of this chapter, Paul starts off when he's about to talk about God's electing grace, and he says something rattling. He talks about his own people, the Jewish people, and says, "I wish that I could be damned to hell so that they could become Christians." He teaches this doctrine with tears in his eyes. It's not like, "Yeah, God, whatever." He is moved. This is an emotional passage where he's teaching this and he's grieved. That's the first bookend.

The second one we're going to look at next week in Romans 10. One of my favorite passages in the whole Bible is the rousing missionary call: "How will people become Christians if nobody goes and shares the gospel with them? How will anybody come to know faith unless God's people get up and go out the door and bring the gospel to them?"

So look, if you have heard this doctrine taught in such a way where you camp out on the doctrine of election and it's not taught with tears in the eyes or a missionary call, you've heard it wrong, and it's dangerous. It's actually destructive.

Objection #2: "That's just Paul"

I've heard this a lot. "That's just Paul." People give Paul such a bum rap because he says some really hard things, and there are a lot of modern readers of the New Testament who are like, "I'm going through this and I don't like this guy." In fact, if you've ever been confused reading Paul, you're in good company.

I love how in 2 Peter 3:16, Peter, who's a contemporary apostle like Paul, says:

Paul says some things that are hard to understand.

That is true. But one thing we can't say is that Paul's into this and Jesus is not. We can't say "bad Paul, good Jesus" because there are two reasons. One is because we believe all of this book comes from God. All of it is equally inspired. There's no difference for us between the red words and the black words—the red letter editions with the words of Jesus in red and the black words. They're all from God.

But the second reason is this: Jesus himself affirms this doctrine in lots of places. Let me just give you one example. In John chapter 6, Jesus says:

All the Father gives me will come to me. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all He has given me. — John 6:37-39

You hear that language of choice, of God selecting a fixed group? So we can't say "bad Paul, good Jesus." This is a uniform teaching of Scripture.

Objection #3: "That's not fair"

This is the one where everybody goes, "That's not fair. Right. Exactly." And that's what verse 14 starts with.

People often react when they hear this as if this teaching is arbitrary or capricious or unjust. But if you listen clearly to what Paul says, he's saying, "Look, this is the farthest thing from arbitrary. This is the farthest thing from capricious. This is the farthest thing from unjust."

Now, if Paul had just said something like this: "Look at these Old Testament passages—Jacob was a good guy and Esau was a bad guy." We would all be okay with it. Or, "Look at these Old Testament passages. Isaac made the right selection. Ishmael made the wrong selection." And nobody would say it's not fair. But when we hear this word about God setting his affections, his saving work on individuals according to his own foreknowledge, his own predestining, his own election—it's really upsetting to us. And so people say, that's not fair.

Now, I don't know about you, but I grew up in a household where my dad would say to me, "Fairs are for counties." So fair is not a helpful word. Let's use a more precise word, okay? And one that's used in this chapter: unjust.

Do we really think that God is unjust in election? If God chooses sovereignly to save some based on nothing in them—only on His grace—is there any violation of justice in that? Now listen to that question. I'm not asking, do you like it? Nobody's like, "Oh, I love this." But is there a violation of justice in that? Can we say God is unjust? Do those who do not receive the gift of salvation get something they don't deserve? So we can't say that.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Bill Gates announces this week that he's going to give a million dollars in grad school scholarships to current undergrads at NC State—a hundred undergrads at NC State. I'm going to give a million dollars to them in grad school scholarships. Now, would the headlines the next day say Bill Gates was unjust for not giving that to everybody in the graduating class? No. It would say, "Bill Gates incredibly generous to NC State students."

If a family adopts a baby, don't we have a party and celebrate and say, "Man, that's amazing. You adopted a baby"? We don't say, "How dare you not adopt all the babies?"

See, if God allows sinners to perish, is He treating them unjustly? Of course not. All sinners deserve justice. All sinners deserve condemnation. No one deserves grace. Fair is everybody gets hell. Grace is some get eternal life with Jesus, and nothing in us. It's not about fairness.

Objection Number Four

Doesn't everybody deserve a shot at salvation? And this comes from verses 15 and 16. Let's think about this. How many of you growing up ever saw the movie Sound of Music? There's this scene where the Captain and Maria finally express their love, and they sing a song to each other, stars in their eyes. They sing some lines that sound good. Let's think about some of the things that Maria says.

Maria sings, "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could." Sorry, Maria—bad theology. That's not true. The Bible over and over says something does come from nothing. The very creation story is God creating ex nihilo, from nothing. And the story of recreation in the lives of individuals is God continuing to create something out of nothing—somebodies out of nobodies.

That's why we just read at the end there, verses 25 and 26—the quotation from Hosea—that God makes the people who are not His people, His people. God creates eternal life in people who were dead. So wrong. Sorry, Maria.

The other thing she sings in that song is, "Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good"—like, she's saying, I deserve the Captain somehow. It's really sweet. Bad theology again. Because no, you didn't. That's the whole thing behind grace.

See, mercy from God—and I want you to be very clear on these terms—is that Jesus got what I deserve. Grace from God is that I got what Jesus deserves. Let me say that again. Mercy from God is that Jesus gets what I deserve—eternal death for my sin. He gets the cross, which I deserve. Grace from God is I get what Jesus deserves—eternal welcome of the Father, deep and lasting, unbelievable relationship, access forever to the throne of grace.

See, being in Christ means we get what we don't deserve. And in verse 15, Paul's saying, God is free—absolutely free—to give that to whomever He pleases. Yeah, at first that sounds like the words of an arbitrary bully, until you reflect.

See, mercy by its very definition is never an obligation. Otherwise, it's not mercy. No one is owed mercy. That's contrary to the idea. To say something is unfair means it's owed and it must happen. See, mercy is undeserved, and thus it's totally free. If grace is owed, it's not grace. The very essence of grace is its voluntary character.

See Paul's reasoning: Are you really saying that God owes anyone salvation? And we have to say, no, we can't say that. It's crazy sounding, right? This sounds crazy. Paul's way of defending God's mercy, defending God's justice, is to actually preach His mercy.

It sounds like a complete non sequitur, but it isn't. It indicates that the whole question of "does everybody deserve a fair shot at salvation" is itself off. It doesn't work because the basis on which God deals savingly with sinners is not justice, but mercy. Listen again to verse 16:

For salvation does not depend on God's desire or effort, that is anything we want or strive for, but on God's mercy alone. — Romans 9:16

Let me illustrate this. This is from D. James Kennedy. He says, let's pretend that you have five friends, and you find out that they've been plotting all along to rob a bank. They've got elaborate schemes, they've got the getaway car, they know the timing, everything is down. So you find out about this, and you go over to the house on the day of the robbery, and you plead with them: "Please don't do this. Something's gonna go wrong. I know something's gonna go wrong. Please don't do this." They're like, "We're doing it." And as they head out the door, you manage to tackle one of them and hold them to the ground. The other four are like, "We have to go. We can't wrestle you right now." And they just leave and rob the bank. Sure enough, while in the middle of the robbery, one of the security guards pulls his gun, one of your friends pulls a gun, kills a security guard, and all four of them are captured, put on trial, sentenced to death.

Now, your friend who didn't participate, but who meant to—they're walking around and can that person say, "Wow, you know, because my heart is so good, I'm free"? Or, "I made some good choices that day, didn't I?" No, no, no. You're like, "You're crazy. The only reason you're free is because I restrained you. I tackled you. Everything inclination in your heart was to go rob that bank. And the only reason you're alive today is because I held you back."

Now, here's the hard part, and I want you to listen closely. Those who go to hell have no one to blame but themselves. And those who are in heaven have no one to praise but Jesus Christ. That's a hard thing, and I don't say that lightly to you. See, salvation is of grace from beginning to end—all of it from Him.

Objection Number Five: What About Free Will?

Yes, I'm going there. What about free will? Paul then references the famous case of Pharaoh and Moses. This is from Exodus chapter nine. If you don't know the story, the Egyptian king Pharaoh had God's people imprisoned—really in slavery—for four hundred years. God raises up this man Moses: "Let my people go." There's a face off between Moses and Pharaoh over and over again. And over and over again in the book of Exodus, this is what we read: "Pharaoh hardens his heart." Five times we read that. And then the last time we read, "God hardens Pharaoh's heart." And this is referenced here again in this passage in verse 18:

Then he will have mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. — Romans 9:18

So here's the question: Does this mean that none of us have any free will? Are we just puppets and have no ability to make decisions for ourselves? If you've ever asked that question—and I think a lot of people have—that's where this leads us.

Here's the answer: It's not that simple. We want to put the Bible into binary categories that make sense and remove the question from scripture to think about it. But let's listen to this in the context of Romans. Because we've been walking through Romans, and this is what we said: Are you really free? Well, yeah, no. If by "free" you mean autonomous and have the ability to do whatever we want to, then no. We're not free because there's something wrong with what we want.

Here's an example of this. In 2001, Woody Allen did an interview with Time Magazine concerning his relationship with Soon Yi. The backstory of this is that Woody Allen had been having an affair with Mia Farrow for a while, and then simultaneously enters into an affair with her daughter—a woman named Soon Yi, who was 21 at the time. This was big news in 2000, 2001. People are grossed out about this, right? We so like reprehensible behavior. But there's this amazing interview in 2001 that Woody Allen did with Time Magazine, and the interviewer is asking him, "Why? What made you do this? This is the mom and the daughter. That's kind of gross." And this is what Woody Allen says, and it's great theology. He says this: "The heart wants what it wants. The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to these things. You meet someone, you fall in love, and that's that."

Man, that's gross, but man, that is honest. The heart wants what it wants. See, he's a good theologian here because we're not free to do whatever we want in this way. We have hearts that love to sin and love to hate God. We are not free to not sin in that way.

Theologians distinguish between what they call natural capability and moral inability. Let me explain what that means. We are capable of not sinning, but we choose to sin all the time. We have the capacities to make the right choices, but we always choose the wrong thing.

Let me use an illustration. Anybody like K and W? Any K and W fans? You can go to K and W, and on the food bar, there are two things. One of them you always choose, one of them you never choose. There's broccoli, which you hate—you never will pick broccoli. And there's soft serve ice cream with sprinkles. So you go through the food line every time at K and W, and you have the natural capability to pick broccoli every time. But do you pick broccoli? No, because there's ice cream with sprinkles. You have natural capability to pick the broccoli, but moral inability—you have a soft spot for ice cream with sprinkles on top.

See, this is how God doesn't violate Pharaoh's human will. Pharaoh always wanted the ice cream. He never wanted the broccoli. I know this is hard for us to hear, but we're not marionettes or robots. We have ability to make decisions, and yet the heart wants what it wants. The heart wants what it wants.

This is why in God passing over Pharaoh for salvation, and God passing over Ishmael, and God passing over Esau, it's not like God goes in and secretly rewires any of those men to do something against their nature. No, their nature is: I hate God. I don't want to do what he says.

Remember an earlier illustration I used in the series. If you have a kid and you want to grow cavities in your mouth, what's the game plan? What do you need to do? What are the steps involved? Nothing. Right? Nothing. You don't have to do anything, and you'll grow cavities. In fact, it's the inaction that makes the cavities grow. In the same way, God is not secretly going in and rewiring people. It's what we naturally want. The inclination of our heart is away from God, and naturally, unless there's some intervention on God's part in us, we will continue on that pathway away from Him.

So do we have free will? Yes. Are we autonomous? No. We're always going to choose the ice cream over the broccoli.

God Works Through Human Choice

God works though even through the sinful choices of people. This is why Peter on the day of Pentecost can get up in front of a crowd and say, "You killed Jesus. You nailed him to a cross. You guys did this," and yet it was according to the sovereign plan and foreknowledge of God. God's even behind us. Is He the author of sin? No way. But is He able to even work in this? Absolutely.

Look at what the Bible affirms, and every biblical Christian I know practices. We want to resolve this predestination free will thing and make it all work out outside of Scripture. But it doesn't work apart from God's word. Every biblical Christian I know does two things. We pray big prayers because we believe God's in charge. We pray for the salvation of people we love who are lost. We pray for God's work in our lives. And yet, yes, we have the natural capability to choose what we want. Otherwise, why would the Bible ever call us to repent? Why would it ever call lost people to faith? Why would the Bible call us to share the gospel? We hold on to both at the same time, and no, it doesn't make sense apart from God's word. This is where we come when we say we don't have absolute autonomy. Natural capability, but moral inability.

God's Sovereignty and Human Responsibility

Finally, objection number six. If God's in charge of all things, if God sovereignly elects who He will, how can He hold us responsible?

Why does He find fault? For who can resist His will? — Romans 9:19

Now Americans hate everything I've just told you. Don't we want to take this page, like Romans 9, just kind of rip that one out? A lot of pastors jump over this one because Romans 10 is awesome. Romans 8 to Romans 10—rather do that. We hate this.

There's a book by Nathan Hatch called The Democratization of American Christianity, and it traces how in the early years of this country, Americans in a free culture said, "I want anything but any news about a sovereign king who elects and chooses people with regard to salvation." You understand why that would be reprehensible to us? And yet what I find is, even though we still have that same spirit in us today, the longer you become a Christian, if you pay attention to your own heart and God's word, it begins to change the way you think about this. Most people I know who become Christians tend to think, "Man, I am so awesome. I made the right choice."

Like, Jesus is a great savior, and I will be a helpful part of His team. And that's called semi-Pelagianism, and it's named after a fourth century British monk who said, no, in fact, we do have free will to choose whatever we want. We are autonomous. We can go without sinning if we want to. And he had a big argument with Augustine who's I gave you all that stuff. But he basically said, yeah, you know, I'm pretty much responsible for my salvation. And most baby Christians who I know who I meet think that, like, I did something right.

But the longer you become a Christian, you shift. You go from there to be an Arminian. And Arminianism is named after Jacobus Arminius, a sixteenth century writer and thinker who basically said, Salvation is fifty-fifty. I reach up, God reaches down. I make the right choice, God saves me, you know. And what I find is a lot of maturing Christians go from that semi-Pelagianism, I did this, to like, well, you know, God and me together, we did this. But the longer you're a Christian, you go like, wow, I'm getting to know me a little better than I did before. And maybe before I thought it was like fifty-fifty, now I'm like, maybe it's 40% me and 60% God. And then you're like, no, maybe thirty, seventy. Okay, twenty, eighty, or 20% me, 80%. Okay, ten, ninety. And then the more you get to know yourself, you're like, there's nothing in me that would choose the broccoli. I always like ice cream. I will always do this.

See, this is Election by Grace. You remember my illustration from The Empire Strikes Back? Luke walks into the cave, he meets Darth Vader, pulls out his lightsaber, cuts off his head. The little mask rolls over for Vader's head, and whose face does he see in the mask? His own, right? And this is what happens as people, I think, the longer you listen to God's word and know yourself, you begin to realize, wow, I'm really a son of the devil. That's who my daddy really is. And everything in me chooses ice cream over broccoli. And the only thing that saves me from the lake of fire eternally is God's grace.

I know this is hard. I know that some of you are just choking, you know, like, but I just want to say this, you know, human nature, we love our God to be everything, all these qualities. Do we want our God to be incredibly loving? Yes. Do we want our God to be incredibly good? Yes. Do we want our God to be incredibly powerful? Yes. Do we want our God to be incredibly free? I want God to play by my rules. I want Him to do things the way I want Him to do it. And that's hard.

God's Justice and Mercy

See, this leads us to the last words here. Verses 20 through 26, probably the most jolting words in all the New Testament. And this is hard. I picture when Paul wrote these out, he didn't say them punching people. He said these with tears in his eyes. He says:

Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you to answer back to God? — Romans 9:19-20

When God elects some or not others, this is what he says, it shows forth God's justice, that he punishes sin. When God elects some and not others, it shows forth his mercy, that he gives some people sin to Jesus and Jesus gets what we deserve. When God elects some, he gives some people what they never deserve.

See, let me say this. Let's say that tonight, a group of outlaws, criminals break into a house in Raleigh, they kidnap a little boy out of his bed, and they take him. And over hours, they torture him, and they drink and gamble, and then they subject him to a violent, painful, prolonged death and enjoy it. These people are brought to trial. And at the trial, this crime is so reprehensible that it comes time for sentencing, and the judge is ready to say, death sentence for all. And the father of the little boy stands up and says, Your honor, I want to ask if you would give me one of the criminals. And I've lost my son. I think I'm going to take this criminal into my house, and I'm going treat him like my kid, and I'm going to let him sleep in my child's bed, and I'm going give him all access to our stuff, and I'm going to feed him and clothe him and treat him like my own.

Now imagine in that courtroom scene, the defense attorney standing up and saying, I object, your honor. How dare this father do this? He should take all the criminals into his home and do this. Well, the prosecutor would rise to say, I object to the objection, mister defense attorney. I mean, you've just defended these notorious, horrible criminals. How dare you demand that kind of mercy for everybody? This is incredible generosity.

Doesn't God the Father do the same with me and with you? See, if we listen to this rightly, it brings us to a place of absolute—I got nothing more to say. God is so incredibly generous. His grace is so profoundly undeserved. He's taken a criminal into his family. Not how dare I, but how could he? How could he?

I know when I've met Christians who get this in their system because it changes us in three ways. It changes us to be people who are so humble. And we don't look at anybody else and say, you know, I'm better, a little bit better, a little bit smarter, a little bit more moral. It changes us to look at the prospects we think of for the gospel. And you're totally optimistic because you look at people and say, man, if God can save someone like me. And it makes you approachable and quick to repent. Somebody shows you your stuff, somebody shows you the ways that they sin again, you're like, yep, you don't even know the half of it.

Brothers and sisters, if we get this in our bones, it'll rewire us. This is jet fuel. And I know it's hard. So can I pray for us to take this in in grace?

Father, we honor you and thank you for a grace so undeserved. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.