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“It Ends in Wonder” // Romans 11:30–36 // Romans

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“It Ends in Wonder” // Romans 11:30–36 // Romans ● So, if your neighbor doesn’t have something out to take notes “It Ends in Wonder” // Romans on, look at them right now and just judge them. You have my permission. 11:30–36 // Romans #23 ● No, I’m kidding: Everybody look at your neighbor right now and say, “You know, I prayed all week long that I’d get to sit next to you today.” (For some of you single guys sitting next to that girl, (Campus Pastors: Introducing/praying over 2020 that is literally true!) residents) ● LIsten, I’m pretty sure there is a special note-taking gate in heaven. It’s like the fast-pass line at Disneyworld. Can’t prove that--I think it says that in Deuteronomy (which is where pastors INTRODUCTION always quote from when they are making stuff up). One of our core values here at TSC is that we want to be committed to doing whatever it takes to reach all people: Today’s is a wonderful passage. Definitely memorization-worthy. ● In the Triangle, that looks like opening new campuses--like It’s a hymn--a song--that Paul wrote in reflection on all that he’s just our newest in a few weeks in Capital Hills, the new one in N explained. Durham that we are pulling together plans for ● It also means every year raising up and giving away some of Throughout Romans 9–11, you might recall, Paul has been our best leaders plant independent churches in cities all considering the question, “Has God failed to keep his promise to around the United States (like the ones you just prayed for). make Israel a blessing to the nations?” God had promised not only to ● So far: *1,152* bless Israel with salvation but to use them to bring that blessing to ● It also means continuing to challenge you in how you might the nations. leverage your career to take the gospel around the world. And some of you might sense God’s call to walk away from your career to do that. And now, they’ve turned away. So, has God failed? ● I thought this was encouraging: After our sermon on Romans 10 a couple of weeks ago, we had 145 new people Paul’s answer: Absolutely not. sign up to go on a short-term trip, and 5 who wanted to start ● After all, God built his church with Jews (All the Apostles were the discussion about going long-term! Jews). ● (Also, last weekend, nearly 200 people (193) stood to declare ● Furthermore, to this day he’s preserved a remnant of Jews who they were becoming fully fully-committed followers of Jesus.) ● So, God is moving and we rejoice. believe in Jesus ● And, finally, we know he’s got more in store for the Jewish people Romans 11, if you have your Bible // Journal p. 70 // if you don’t in the future.. Some day, Paul explains, God is going to bring the have a journal, I hope you’ll pull out something to take notes on. nation of Israel as a whole back to him, and when that happens, ● I’m pretty confident you’ll get more out of this study if you’ll Paul says, that is going to spawn the largest worldwide gospel write things down and think on them throughout the week movement in history. ● So, God is going to fulfill his promises to Israel. ● God didn’t save us despite the cross; he saved us through the cross. ● Which means the cross was simultaneously the moment of In the meantime, the irony is that even Jewish rejection of the gospel our ultimate rebellion and the moment of our salvation. has blessed the Gentiles by affording the Gentiles a unique ● The irony of the gospel is that we live through the death of the opportunity to hear the gospel. God we murdered ● Who but God would do that? So, Paul summarizes his thoughts in vs. 30: 30 (Just) as you (Gentiles) once disobeyed God but now have received mercy through their And so Paul exclaims: 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or disobedience (IOW, because Israel has disobeyed, you Gentiles got a who has been his counselor? unique opportunity to experience mercy), 31 so they too have now disobeyed, resulting in mercy to you, so that they also may now Would any of us have conceived such a plan? receive mercy. (God’s mercy toward you is going to lead them to “Who has been his counselor?” mercy, because it is going to make them jealous for what they lost ● Do we realize how much better and loftier and wiser God is 32 and they are going to come back to God!) For God has imprisoned than us? all in disobedience so that he may have mercy on all.1 ● How dumb is it to think that we know better than God; that we, the created ones, can lecture the Creator on justice, mercy and And then, Paul’s emotions just seem to get the best of him. compassion. Where did we learn those things from? Didn’t they originate with him? 33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! 35 And who has ever given to God, that he should be repaid? How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways! This whole salvation thing: Is it God giving us what we deserve? No, thank God. I mean, who saw this coming? Israel’s rejection of God led to blessing? If God repaid us for anything, it could only be with judgment. Instead, ● What kind of God is so gracious that he turns even our he gave us what we didn’t deserve: grace. disobedience into blessing? ● What kind of God takes our rejection of him and uses it to So many times when we complain to God, our complaints are built produce salvation? on the premise: “God, you owe me good things, so it’s unfair that ● The even clearer illustration of this, of course, is the cross: you’ve let me experience these bad things.” ● Wasn’t the cross the ultimate act of human rebellion? Yes. Yet wasn’t it also THE instrument of divine salvation. Paul says, “Not if the gospel is true. If the gospel is true, what God owes us is condemnation. Anything beyond that is grace.” 1 Vs. 31 in ESV worship today, I don’t mean merely the 20 minutes of singing we do Listen: I’m not saying there’s never a place to question why God in here each weekend; I mean the whole way we think about God and allows certain things happen, or even to lament loudly about some and respond to him. situation we can’t understand. I mean, about ⅓ of the Psalms are like ● How eagerly you obey him, what kind of devotion you think he is that. worthy of. ● I’m just saying that at the base of every question you ask God ● Which is where we get the word WORSHIP, btw (worth-ship). should be the recognition that we are, at our core, part of a race What you think God is worth. that rejected God who deserve condemnation. The fact that we ● Sure, that’s reflected in the singing that we do (I mean, lethargic got up and took a breath this morning is grace. singing surely makes observers conclude: “Well, if they are this ● The question, if you understand the gospel, is not “God, why bored, the God they are singing about must not be that are you letting bad things happen to us good people?” The gospel awesome.). flips the script on that, and says the real question is, “Why ● But our worship is even better reflected in the treasured place he have you given such good things to all of us bad people?” occupies in our hearts; how eagerly we obey. 36 For from him and through him So, here’s the first of 4 principles of worship: and to him are all things. 1. All of God’s works are designed to lead to wonder and worship All things came from God; he is the source of life in them, and he is ● The way Paul ends this shows us that in the end, everything that purpose for which they exist. God has done in pursuit of our salvation is designed to lead us to amazement and wonder. That means the way God pursued the salvation process was to put ● Remember what he said in chapter 9? “And what if he did (all) his power and glory on display. this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy ● God conceived the salvation process such that at the end of that he prepared beforehand for glory?” (9:23) it, none of us will be able to raise our hands and say, “Look at o What if the primary purpose of how God pursued salvation what I’ve accomplished” or even “look at what I’ve become!” was to make us stand amazed at the glory of his grace, but “Only God, who else compares to him? Amazing grace, how o and what if that vision was so compelling and beautiful that it sweet the sound… and when we’ve been there... was worth any price to get there? ● I don’t know how much you think about heaven (you probably So, should think about it more. People have these skewed ideas of heaven of the colorless, bodiless existence--or they think of To him be the glory (in all of this) forever.
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