Charlie Dates | Staley Chapel Series | Romans 11:1-6 | 11/1/2017

let me rush to express my sincere appreciation to Tim Blackman and to all who are responsible for my coming today I do want to say this I am a black preacher I enjoy being black there's a lot of good about being black and any black people hear that all right that so there's something that we need to get straight before we get started and and that is that in the african-american preaching tradition preaching is dialogical which means that there is a shared experience between pulpit and pew so it's okay to say a man if if you agree with the truth that don't throw the preacher off of the person next to you off but it's all right to be responsive all right it's my joy and my privilege to be with you these three days let me pray and we'll get started father in our God we do thank you and praise you for Jesus Christ our Savior but the help and the hope that is ours in his name I do pray now that you grant me clarity of mind concision of speech and conviction of heart that I may tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth for your glory and our good we do pray in Jesus name Amen Paul's argument is clear human rebellion does not frustrate divine sovereignty we Christians are interesting people with savory conversion stories such as the case of John Wesley that 18th century Methodists evangelists who was officially ordained in 1728 but by his own admission was not converted until 10 years later in 1738 who would have thought that such would be the case with Wesley preaching 10 years on both sides of the Atlantic with witnessing a growing ministry but Wesley the preacher was not saved himself it wasn't until 1738 that Wesley got converted scholars suggests to us that he entered st. Paul's Cathedral in London heard the intro of Luther's commentary on Romans in Psalm 130 sung and chorus and then got saved but there are other stories perhaps even more penetrating than Wesley's like the preacher who got saved listening to his own sermon his name is William hasslin he was assigned a new church plant in corn well by the Church of England when one parishioner a brother Billy Bray suspected that their new pastor had not been converted Paul did such an accusation that a member of the church would tell the pastor that they didn't think he was saved Reverend Haslam avoided brother Bray every week one Sunday in November of 1834 Haslam stood to preach his text it was Matthew 22 verse 42 he titled the sermon what think ye of Christ whose son is he and as he kept repeating the verse what do you think of Christ what do you think of Christ what do you think of Christ he felt himself trusting Christ as Savior and his heart strangely warmed and got converted while preaching his own sermon it's as if God saves the preacher and the very act of preaching as evidence of his ongoing faithfulness to his rebellious people that's how Romans 11 opens it's a kind of philosophical and theological exposition of Paul's own conversion somewhat of an ode to God's endurance in the face of human rebellion and an assurance that our rebellion Falls exhausted at the feet of God's grace and though I don't know the circumstances of your conversion you may be a preacher or you may not be I can safely say to you that your conversion is an illustration of God's undeserved and relentless pursuit of you more than it is your pursuit of him and that's the language of Romans chapter 9 through 11 when we exit the verses of Romans 10 the sadness of Israel's rejection of God and their failure to embrace their own Messiah is met with the compelling picture of a God whose arms are open wide to a people who had turned him down in chapter 10 we learned that God had given Israel so much in chapter 9 he chose them he prepared them he adopted them he dressed them he adorned them he gave them everything that they could ask for but when he came to present the crown Jesus Christ they rejected him and wanted nothing to do with Jesus chapter 11 captures now the very serious tension of chapters 9 and 10 will Israel's sin and stubbornness defeat the purposes of God what will God's response be to those whom he picked but did not pick him back it asks the question will God desert those who have deserted him and that friends is the question of the ages one that beckons an answer will God eventually decide that enough is enough and terminate his relationship with them or will God find a way to deal with Israel with their situation so as to safeguard his purpose in context Romans 11 I think is a snapshot of God's devotion in view of the absurdity of humanity's rejection it is at once a holy conundrum and the sinner's relief I want to suggest to you that this is it my friends just a picture of how good god has been to Israel but it's a picture of why God is still putting up with you and me in Romans 1 three we learned that the world is jacked up and it's our fault that the human condition is the product of human rebellion in Romans four through seven we learned that while we have an appetite for holiness we still have the ability to sin that's a great place for an a man right there yep in Romans eight we understand that because it was all our fault that got us in this circumstance it's got to be all God to get us out that where humanity fails God succeeds and in Romans 9 through 11 we learned that God chooses the gospel invites and grace sustains all who belong to him and that's where I want to enter in here this text that we read this morning says something about the magnificence of the grace of God it says to us this this text is tailored to teach you and I that God's grace anticipates our rebellion and ensures our salvation it says that you need grace not only to keep you from unbelief but you need God's grace to keep you believing the question I want to ask an answer from this text and we'll be on our way to class in just a few moments is this how has greatests conspired to work for all those who believe you're such an astute student body you've already asked the best question that's the question I came ready to answer today here it is the fact that you're alive listening to this gospel presentation is proof that grace still works when the curtain raises on our text Paul argues that the grace of God is so severe toward those who trust Christ that God's determination against our rebellion is actually his determination to keep us in our rebellion verse one is both the theological and existential probe for the Aged apostle the tension here is a more basic theological problem it's not just whether God is faithful to the historical Jew but under similar circumstances will God be faithful to the rebellious Christian and at the writing of our text Paul is one of the few people who could answer that question as both a Jew and a Christian the first question of Romans 11 as God rejected his people is a kind of terrifying question an uncomfortable proposition does God reject his people I want you to sit with that for a moment because a lot of people have answered that question the wrong way what people the people who were not a people as hosea told us who went whoring after other gods even after God had redeemed them does God reject them an insignificant obscure population bereft of security and languishing under the oppressive regime of Egyptian pharaohs and Babylonian princes until God rescued them will God reject that people and often irrelevant and irreverent people relegated to the margins and societies nobody until as jeremiah said God put his name on them that people will God reject them Paul's answer to this query is both an invitation to expect inspect his ethnicity and his personal ministry the implication I think is both encouraging for us and insightful using the most indignant and negative affirmation available to him in the Greek language Paul simply says that ain't never gonna happen it's almost as if Paul is risking modesty and taking literary pain if not r-rated language when he describes who he is ethnically he says I'm part of the bona fide lineage of Abraham when Abraham had snow on the rooftop but no fire in the fireplace and God put his super on Abraham's natural and and when Sarah was asking the question shall I have pleasure in my old age and God blessed Abraham to do for Sarah what he hadn't been able to do for a long time Paul says that when Abraham fired off the seed that Sarah caught I was in it if you were to go to my family reunion in Tarsus and sit at the table and look at my dad my grandfather my great-grandfather and trace my lineage all the way back some 40 preceding generations when you got to the end you'd be standing at the very feet of Abraham it is at this moment that Paul immediately suggests that he comes not only from the seed of Abraham but from the tribe of Israel's first nobility King Saul and that his existence in the family of God his ministry as an ambassador for Christ is not tethered to his national or ethnic lineage but to the grace of God alone in pointing to himself Paul argues that his ministry is both proof that God does not reject rebellious people and an assurance that God will not throw away rebellious Christians here's the question if God would let Paul preach the one who persecuted the church who attempted to murder the church and then turn around and draft him as an early pick to be one of the original apostles of the church we need no further proof this morning that God sends the very subjects of rebellion as evidences that grace is undefeated this is the subliminal message of the gospel it may be that when God could have thrown you away he chose instead to preserve you and to keep you so that one day you would be a picture of his sovereignty and of his goodness and this friends is proof that God doesn't need to choose the elite to demonstrate his grace God often picks cracked pots to demonstrate how good he is when I was a boy growing up in Chicago I used to spend time with my grandmother in her garden and we loved my grandmother brother Tim she had the wonderful culinary skills to fix stuff like greens and cornbread and candied yams she she was a sight she had the loudest shout in church when she went to praise God people dug it was absolutely wonderful and when church was over she cussed like a sailor we absolutely adored her she went home this year to be with the Lord I thought about some of those times I used to spend with my grandmother she would let me water the garden with her when I would come over and every now and then she would what she did that she would give me a bucket that was broke and busted she would take a nice pristine clean bucket and she filled my bucket up and filled hers up hold my hand and say let's walk on through the garden together here I walked through but after several times of doing this I didn't want to do it anymore because my bucket never made it to the end of the garden with water in it I remember that one time when she asked me to come go with her to walk through the garden and I sternly told her no which she replied in language that I cannot use at this place right here and basically made me go with her she said well why don't you want to go I said because I never make it to the end of the garden with water in my bucket she said oh how little you know she said come take a walk with me and she walked me through she said do you see what's on your side of the guard and I said yes ma'am I pointed out flowers and vegetation and greens and things that are grown she said do you see anything on my side I said oh man she said I knew all along about the cracks in your bucket she said I gave it to you because I wanted to take advantage of the holes in your bucket she said and because I knew there were holes in yours I let you walk on the side where seeds had to grow she said it wasn't that you had a problem so much as it was I took advantage of the problem in the bucket friends this is all I'm trying to tell y'all God has more sense than my grandmother he knows how to use cracked vessels that the very thing that is wrong with you might actually be the thing that God wants to use for his glory it does not disqualify you it does not throw you out but it is evidence of the world that God doesn't need perfect people to make perfect masterpieces God can use crack buckets friends this text urges us at the very fact that you're sitting here listening to this message and that you are live is proof that God's grace works but then it gets better than that sex argues that grace is God's keeper God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew Paul says in verse 2 do you not know what the scripture says in the passage about Elijah how God plead how Elijah pleads with God against Israel Lord they have killed your prophets they have torn down your altars and I alone am left and they're seeking to take my life what does God's response to him I have kept for myself by seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to bail in the same way there's also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious election listen friends at verse one is proof that God hasn't rejected his people then verses 2 through 5 has proof that uncounted of God's people have not rejected him and it boils down to this one word found in verse 2 and verse 5 it is the word for knowledge it is this the Bible makes the bold claim that God in eternity past picked you long before you picked him and that the conscientious Christian does not go around claiming that they found God as if God were lost no friends God found us and when we read this we should not be surprised by this language of foreknowledge it strikes at the idea that our salvation was somehow a haphazard recovery or a secondary scheme no friends this suggests that God knew all along that he was after you because God has a history of making prior selection God picked Moses before the slave trade became industry in Egypt he picked Joshua and the children of Israel long before the ten spies walked off the job in Canaan he picked Noah before Noah got a hold of Hennessy and Courvoisier and got drunk on the eve of reconstruction he selected David long before David had an inappropriate relationship with Bathsheba he selected Rahab well in advance of her night shift in Jericho and he picked Jeremiah before his birth and set him aside as a prophet in his mother's womb even though he knew that Jeremiah was both a flight risk and a slight schizophrenic this is what I'm saying to you God picked you well before you picked him this is good news this is good news because it runs up against our notion of needing a lot of people on our side to achieve God's great work in the world at a time when our nation and pundits and politicians are like looking for the moral majority let me suggest to y'all that they don't exist they probably never existed we don't need a moral majority churches on the 4th of July singing make America great again songs in Texas we don't need that what we've always needed is a righteous minority and here is a word of encouragement we don't have to have the world on our side to see God what God wants to do it only takes a few of us walking with God to see God do what needs to be done and listen to Elijah's complaint God I've seen what they've done to your prophets look at what Jezebel has done they've killed your prophets they've torn down your altars and I'm the only one left friends let me say before we discount what Elijah has to say let me say I can empathize with Elijah there will be times in your life when you feel like you the only one left I serve in a city with little boys and little girls are shot down by guns that get illegally in our city and I wonder sometimes am I the only one left who feels like in Chicago the kids need more books not more bullets when you look at the craziness the resurgence of the Confederacy if you will in our nation and you listen to the silence of the church I like the way Lecrae put it he said people take a need folk riot people take a bullet people quiet and I wonder to myself am I the only one left who feel like those of us who have the language of righteousness need to be marching and protesting for the sake of justice am I the only one left who feels like the Southern Baptist Convention cannot condone something as righteous that is not just for the least of these and I'm the only one left who feels like Christian preaching ought to be about the centrality of Jesus Christ and not to pick the TV audience am I the only one left and here to anyone who's ever felt alone standing for being faithful to God listen to God's reply to Elijah it says if Elijah has everything going well for himself he's he's viewing the landscape of the faithful of God he said look god I'm the only one and then God says hold on now Eli before you buy into the Gallup poll or the Barna Group before you look at CNN or watch the word Network let me tell you something I got 7,000 people who have not bowed the need to bail you not by yourself in other words what God is saying to Elijah is this don't confuse your opinion with my sovereignty I got more power than what you see we not came the day to encourage y'all y'all ain't the only ones who believe in Jesus and for those of you who hear you don't believe in Jesus yet you ain't the only ones who don't believe in Jesus yet whose knees are gonna bow and whose tongues are gonna confess that Jesus Christ is Lord things are actually better than they look and you asked me well how is that and I'm glad you asked I got three minutes I'm gonna give it to you it's because grace is great that's the best I could come up with I tried as hard as I could Paul says but if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace is no longer grace grace is the keeping power of God grace is God not leaving you up to your own mechanisms grace is God being the supply of his own demand that what God seeks for after you God himself supplies for you this is the picture that if you get what you get by works don't call it grace there is no justification without grace no sanctification without grace no reconciliation without grace no redemption without grace no perseverance without grace there is no you without grace I'll leave you with this what's the clearest picture of grace that I could give you my friend Derek Hughes pastors the First Baptist Church of piety Grove in Lauderdale Lakes it's right there where the on-ramp of hurricane alley hits one Sunday they were in church worshiping God and a bad storm hit the city stop transportation pull the power out in a number of places but the church kept on going they didn't even know what had hit their city church was over one of his deacons came to him and in his officers head pastor the cross did his job he said what are you talking about he said the cross we put on this church did his job during church a bad storm came and there's a lightning rod in the cross a metal conductor that goes down to a grounded wire and it invites the magnetism of lightning and when lightning struck the church it actually struck the cross and the church is still standing I wish I had my church back home right here this is all I'm trying to say to y'all when lightning struck it hit the cross and the cross took what the church oughta got alright let me see if I come another way on a hill far away stood an old rugged cross the emblem of suffering and shame and when you should have been there when I should have been there to paid the penalty for our own sin here's the good news the cross did its job y'all can go in peace [Applause]

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Length: 25min 10sec (1510 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2017