Romans #24 - Vintage Faith: The Present Remnant

[Music] well howdy we are in a great book of the bible called romans if you're new it's in the new testament we're in romans chapter 11 and up until this point paul who is the author of the book has been telling us how do you enter into a relationship with god and over and over and over he's told us we turn from sin and we trust in jesus christ the question then is well what if someone does believe in jesus and or their family for many generations does believe in the god of the bible has a relationship with them and lives under god's blessing and god's provision and god's investment and involvement in their life what can sometimes happen is the people start to take god for granted that they're no longer appreciative of his presence his provision in their life and his case study in all of romans chapter 11 is the jewish people who had lived under god's blessing for so many generations that they grew a little bored with god's goodness they had a sense of entitlement toward god's provision and the reason that this is so incredibly important is because there's something in us that always has that same proclivity or gravity that we need to fight against and this is even more pronounced in our day let me explain something big concept and then we'll get into romans chapter 11. the predominant thought in our culture today across all academic disciplines is something called critical theory critical theory is the opposite of what is known as traditional theory traditional theory is how you build something build a faith relationship with god build a family build a marriage build an economy build a nation build a community build a business critical theory is how you dismantle how you disregard how you destroyed that which has been built it would be the demolition crew as opposed to the construction crew this is now the greatest threat to the gospel of jesus christ it is something that has overtaken pretty much all of the academic disciplines so if you're in college uh you've seen this in every single class in gender studies it leads to transgenderism in civics it leads to defund the police in economics it leads to socialism any discipline that you study there is a critique of everyone and everything that has gone before and ultimately the reason it is so powerful and prevalent is that work behind it is demonic forces satan is called in revelation 12 10 the accuser of the children of god that original greek word can also mean the critic critical theory is just criticism and let me say this it's a lot easier to criticize people who are doing things than to do things it's a lot easier to criticize what has been built than to tear it down and build something better and the result is that what this leads to in the culture is just a wholesale attitude of criticism judgment entitlement and self-righteousness from people who have opinions about everything but pretty much are doing nothing we call them americans in addition what this leads to in the church is a great apostasy that is underway which is one of the great themes of romans chapter 11 and that is that some people who would profess to be christians are now starting to criticize the bible they're now starting to criticize god and what god says and what god has done throughout history and so the way that we keep ourselves from this spirit of apostasy which is being with god's people but not being one of god's people or starting in relationship with god but not finishing in relationship with god is first and foremost to cultivate an attitude of gratitude to say what would life be like if god wasn't involved what if god never said or did anything in the history of the world would my life be better would my circumstances be better would our world be better and the answer is no and this is the big driving concept in romans 11 where over the course of three sermons this is number two we're looking at the ancient jewish people and the nation of israel how god worked in and through them in the past he is in the future and has planned for them in what is to come in the future now here's where we find ourselves uh in romans chapter 11 verses 11 through 21 and and primarily you're gonna have to fight a little bit of boredom i'm gonna try and help you but many of us are gentiles we're not jewish so if you're gentile not jewish raise your hand right we're we're the gentiles romans 11 is about the jewish people this is why this is the chapter of romans that most of the gentiles just skipped they're like uh jewish people i'm not jewish next page because it's like going to a family reunion with someone else's family you're like i don't know these people and i'm not related to them and they don't matter to me now you need to know that by faith this is our family that we worship the god of abraham isaac and jacob that we are followers of the same god that the people in the old testament the jewish the hebrew people we're anticipating the coming of and his name is jesus christ so let's look at what god has done for and through his old testament people the jews winston churchill says this on february 8 1920 and i know i know when you got this morning like i hope we're talking about jewish people and i hope he quotes winston churchill and i just let you know i got you i'm here for you you're welcome okay just like you want it he says the jews are the most remarkable race now let me say this americans are not okay we're not now i love america i think america is a great country i'm glad to be here america is so great that even people who hate it don't leave that's how great it is right there right now right now we're trying to figure out how to secure the border but only in one direction right it's not it's not like all the americans are fleeing even people who hate this country still stay here and complain about it so america is a great country and i'm grateful that i was born here and i'm grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy but in the history of the world god was at work in and through the jewish people long before we came into existence and so he goes on to say some people like the jews and some do not but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and most remarkable race that has ever appeared in the world these are the people who are the physical descendants of abraham in the old testament we who worship his god are also his spiritual descendants through faith in jesus christ and the promise was given to abraham that god saved him and said i'm going to bless you your barren wife is going to have a baby that baby is going to lead forth to a nation that nation will bring us the prophets the priests the kings our old testament is written in hebrew which is the jewish language it was preserved by the jewish people it's written by jewish people for the most part it's about jewish people with a few other additional people thrown in and the whole point of which is to get us to the savior who is jewish his name is jesus okay so the contribution of god it was god's work but it was god's work through the jewish people is really incredible and what makes it even more the remarkable is that they have been opposed throughout their entire history they're a small people group a small nation that historically their boundaries were set by god and surrounding them were enemies who were opposed to them in their god who sought to destroy them and so over and over and over there's generation after generation from and i've got a short list of just a few uh this would include the egyptians this would include the amorites the syrians the babylonians the persians and more recently the germans all trying to eradicate to destroy genocide against the jewish people i've been to the nation of israel a few times and when i was there i saw a few jewish people wearing these t-shirts that has a list of all the nations that have invaded them and are now destroyed and no longer exist and it was a succession of some of the most powerful empires in all of human history and so their story is sort of the david and goliath story everybody's trying to take them down but they're still standing tall this is one of the evidences that god has a kindness and affection a blessing toward the jewish people uh many about 300 years ago there was a french philosopher named blaise pascal one of my personal favorites he was a christian and king louis the 14th of france asked him how can you possibly believe in miracles go ahead and prove to me any miracle that your god has ever done and here's what the philosopher bless pascal said he said why the jews your majesty the jews he's like just look at the jewish people they still exist and everyone's tried to destroy them in addition god told abraham that he would bless him and make his people a blessing to the nations of the earth ultimately that blessing was fulfilled in the coming of jesus christ a descendant of abraham who is jewish but there are many blessings that have also come to the nations through the jewish people let me read this to you at least 208 jews and people who are at least a half or three-quarter jewish in their ancestry have been awarded the nobel prize accounting for 22 percent of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2020 and constituting 36 percent of all u s recipients during the same period in the scientific research fields of chemistry economics physics physiology medicine and corresponding world and us percentages are 26 and 38 percent respectively among women laureates in the four research fields the jewish percentages world and u.s are 29 and 43 percent respectively of organizations awarded the nobel peace prize 20 were founded principally by jews or by people of jewish descent since the turn of the century from the year 2000 to the present jews have been awarded 25 percent of all nobel prizes and 27 percent of those in the scientific research field goes on to tell us that jews currently make up and this will blow your mind 0.2 percent of the world's population and right around 2 percent of u.s population what that means is a very small number of people have made a very large contribution to all of the academic fields that bless and are a benefit to everyone who lives on planet earth that's that's incredible i'm irish we're the gentiles okay just think about your people what have your people contributed okay not much amen not much my people were irish what have we contributed potatoes beer and a horrible form of dancing that's all we've contributed have you seen the river dance that's a it's a that's how you know we don't have the spirit of god we got potatoes beer and we're doing the river dance that's our only contribution to human history if you eradicated the irish you'd be like we didn't even notice the difference we didn't make a big contribution meanwhile you just think about the jewish people their contributions are a blessing to the nations and it is god blessing through these people not that they all know god but god sometimes is gracious and kind to a group of people now so just think of it for a moment imagine if we remove the jewish people from human history the difference our planet would be experiencing presently in addition to all of the advancements in research and the sciences the jewish people are the ones who largely preserve the concept of monotheism that there's only one god in the ancient world every group of people had their own god and their god liked them and he didn't like the other people well god told abraham i'm going to work through you to bring forth one god who blesses and loves all the nations of the earth monotheism not multiple gods just one who's over all peoples in addition it was the jewish people who largely preserve for us an understanding that no king or political leader should be worshipped as divinity or god in the ancient world the king was considered god it was a counterfeit of the kingdom of god and it was the jewish people who said we don't worship the king this is why in egypt they got in trouble they weren't going to worship the pharaoh's god this is why when we looked at the book of daniel about a year ago the jewish people got in trouble because they weren't going to worship the babylonian king they wouldn't worship the persian king when it came to the days of the new testament and the time of the writing of romans they're living in the roman empire and they had something called emperor worship and so if you were a citizen you were also to worship the emperor is god and you would say caesar is lord and god's people said no he's not there's the lord over that lord that's the lord of lords there's a king over that king he's the king of kings and ultimately we know his name is jesus christ and we still see this in some modern day countries like north korea where the whole state is a cult and it's run by a demonic leader who pretends to be god and people worship him it was the jewish people who preserved that a lot of what we're born into are decisions that were made generations before us and we have no appreciation of them because we don't stop to consider what our world would look like even geopolitically if god hadn't spoken and acted previous to our coming number three the jewish people preserve the rule of law this is because the god of the bible he rules through laws he says certain things are right and wrong and god doesn't change what he has said because god got it right the first time every generation comes along and says we believe god you've made some mistakes and he's like no actually i've not i'm not going to change my laws you need to change your behavior it's called repentance and that ultimately god rules through laws and this is the only way you can get justice see in most ancient cultures as well as in most modern countries might makes right survival of the fittest if you are the one who has the bigger gun or you're the one that has the bigger bank account or the better attorney you get to do whatever you want to do but under the rule of law there is the hope there is the aspiration for justice because ultimately the law rules over everyone this includes the ten commandments which is the heart of the law in the old testament things like don't murder anybody don't steal anything and don't testify in court and lie giving false witness our entire system of justice is built on this assumption this presumption that there are fixed unchanging laws that come from a law giver who is the highest and unchanging authority in addition the reason that we have science is because we don't believe in pantheism and panentheism that all of what we see as the physical world is just sort of haphazard and it is disorganized and it is chaotic the belief of the bible is that there is a creator and he is an orderly god and he is a god who is consistent and as a result we can have scientific experimentation because there is consistency and order to the world that god made all of these are gifts that come from god through the jewish people and it is one of the reasons when they adhere to the values and convictions of the scriptures even if they don't know the god who wrote them there's still an ability for them to succeed because they're operating within the paradigm that god intended in addition this includes humanity and equality see if you believe in evolution that we're part human part animal you come to the assumption that there are some people who are more evolved than others and this is where we get racism those people are saying we need justice and we need equality my question is why if you don't believe there are laws why are you so concerned about justice and if you don't believe that we're made the image and likeness of god why do you believe there should be equality between people see what we have is we have the christian ethic but we don't have the christian convictions that ultimately we've walked away from the bible and we've simply borrowed and stolen and robbed a few concepts that we think benefit us while we reject and edit those that we do not want to adhere to or abide by but ultimately the reason that we believe in equality and this goes all the way back to the jewish people is because god made us in his image and likeness and we're not part human and part animal there are animals and there are people and god clearly delineates between the two and he saves people from all races tribes cultures languages and people groups he's a global god and lastly this also includes marriage and family marriage was created by god it was carried forth by the jewish people most of the surrounding nations were largely throughout their history polygamous lots of adultery no one raising their children men not taking responsibility thinking about a good time and not a good legacy now i'm going to blow your mind especially if you're under 25 hold your seat i'm going to say a few things okay first of all god made marriage not the state that's why the state has no right to re-architect marriage because it didn't create it it's only supposed to enforce it number two marriage is for one man one woman here's what's crazy there's men and women crazy okay now i know some of you are in college and you're like i heard about spectrum yes spectrum is a demon who writes curriculum for universities but god says true story but god says that gender is binary male and female that ultimately marriage is for one man and one woman and that they will bring forth children and they are to stay faithful to one another and raise those children and ultimately when we operate within god's design decree there is blessing for generations when we walk away from that all of our culture begins to collapse as a result there is broken family broken marriages broken homes and there are broken legacies and then we think that the government can take god's place and fix the problems that we've made but eventually they run out of other people's money and the problem continues the result ultimately is if you remove the jewish people every single aspect of our current life from our economics to marriage to the rule of law to science and experimentation is forever altered things are much different and nothing is much better and then it removed from history if you remove and eradicate the influence of god through the jewish people faith you remove abraham you remove the entire old testament you remove everything that was written pointing to the coming of jesus christ you remove jesus coming into human history as the fulfillment of jewish prophecy you then lose christianity and the church which is the biggest most global multicultural bilingual movement of any sort or kind in the history of the world and the early christians were largely jewish and they saw jesus as the fulfillment of judaism paul who is writing this is himself jewish he sees jesus as the fulfillment of judaism the first believers in jesus were considered a sect of judaism acts 2 46 says that they worshipped in the temple court so they they saw themselves as still jewish both ethnically and also spiritually and then by the end of the first century there were some jews who really did love jesus and there was a number of them who hated despised him had no regard for him whatsoever and the question is well god has loved your people for a long time how come your people don't love him your people were waiting for jesus he finally showed up and many of you don't seem to care the old testament is written in hebrew and you're the hebrew people how come you're not excited that that your people got chosen to be the blessing of the nations of the earth through jesus how many of you have ever thought about it for a moment that so much of what we believe is built on the foundation of jewish belief and many jewish people don't love jesus it's really weird it's like hey we're reading about your family and we're translating from your language and uh we're studying your books and we're worshiping your guy how come you guys aren't as excited as we are so he begins with this question that's my introduction okay if you're new that's an introduction okay it's an introduction romans 11 11-15 why don't jews love jesus what happened so i asked did they stumble in order that they might fall so jewish people tripped over jesus the question is will they stay down forever will they eventually get up again he says by no means rather through their trespass their sin their ignorance salvation has come to the gentiles that's us those of us who are not jewish were the gentiles so is much to make israel jealous now if their trespass means riches for the world and if their failure means riches for the gentiles how much more will their full inclusion mean now i'm speaking to you gentiles so the apostle paul who is jewish is talking to those of us who are gentiles he's the apostle to the gentiles peter is the apostle to the jews peter stays in jerusalem ministers largely to jewish people paul hits the road and goes preaching to us gentiles he says i magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow jews jealous and thus save some of them for if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead here's what he's saying jesus came as the fulfillment of hebrew jewish old testament prophecy and many jewish people stumbled tripped over him part of this is they were offended by him let me explain to you why many jewish people when jesus came into this day they have no regard for jesus because of religion and tradition jesus comes and they choose their religion and their religious traditions over their god what can happen is over time from generation to generation so i got saved at the age of 19. so i didn't grow up knowing and loving jesus but now my kids know and love jesus and lord willing my grandkids will know and love jesus and and by god's grace this will continue for generations until jesus comes back would be my hope the people with my last name love jesus until he comes back now that being said imagine if every generation just added their own tradition added their own bit of religion added a few rules and legalisms and preferences and control mechanisms to what the bible says imagine that this went on for a few thousand years by the time jesus arrived this is what happened to the jewish people there was faith but then every generation would plant around that seed of faith religion tradition legalisms rules and control mechanisms preferences and prejudices the result is eventually there's so many weeds that it chokes out the fruitfulness of the plant in the center of the garden and that's what happens and some of you you need to know that much of what you believe may not be connected to god or from the word of god it may be religion and tradition that was given to you either from your family your church family from domineering religious people legalistic folk people who are high control and performance oriented they tend to add a lot of things to what god says and they tend to command a lot of things that god does not command the result is that eventually when people encounter the real god they're offended by him because he doesn't he doesn't operate the way that they do let me say this it's not just enough to repent of sin you all need to also repent of religion and tradition and this is one of the great faults and failures of bible teaching we say you need to repent of your sin repent of your sin repent of your sin and we don't tell the religious people and the traditional people that they need to repent of their religious and traditional sins there's a story in the bible i didn't put this in the other sermons but it comes to mind there's a story of the prodigal son there are two brothers which one is a sinner they both are one acts like a gentile he's just drunk and crazy and then the other he acts more religious and traditional and when the father pours out grace he's very offended by grace because the brother didn't behave right he's very judgmental you and i need to make sure that we don't just repent of our sin but we repent of our religion and tradition if not we will trip over jesus we will be offended by jesus it was the religious leaders who conspired with the roman leaders to murder jesus because they chose their traditions over their god they chose their religion over their god they chose their legalisms over their god what paul says is when this happened the jewish people had very little interest in jesus now there were some jews who loved jesus but by the end of the first century the majority of believers in jesus worshipers of jesus were gentiles the gentiles got super excited about jesus they're like oh we love that jewish guy let's plant a church for him let's write books about him some guy get a guitar play songs we'll sing the girls will cry we're all in we're going to get tattoos with bible verses about that jewish guy we're gonna start kids schools and colleges for that jewish guy we're gonna have conferences for that jewish guy we love that too i want that jewish guy to live in my heart i'm all into that jewish guy and it was kind of unexpected right because before this the gentiles weren't really agreed on much of anything and what they were excited about was pretty much just varying degrees of naughtiness and then and now there are in israel about seven million jews the majority of them are not believers in jesus christ they actually have one of the highest concentrations of atheism on planet earth meanwhile the gentiles are all in on jesus billions of people across the earth in all kinds of nations and languages all love and worship jesus christ the jewish savior and messiah we read the old testament we're like i love abraham i want to get to know the whole crazy family i wish i knew hebrew oh look at that there's prophecy i wonder what the temple was for and the jews were like well you care less and the gentiles are like that's amazing it is awkward right not just me but the point all right it is awkward the point is this sometimes god's people are so excited about things that people who don't know god could care less about now the question is what is going to happen and what he says is that god's plan is to have the gentiles get really excited so that the jews eventually become really jealous okay let me ask you this is jealousy good or bad see okay see all the single girls are like bad i dated him it's terrible that was a bad jealousy the guy in the back said both the truth is it's both it all depends on what you're jealous for or how you're jealous of so the bible says that god is a jealous god so jealousy can't be bad but there can be bad jealousy jealousy simply means that someone is in my place and it bothers me okay so i love my wife grace with all my heart but if if it was date night and some guy pulled up and she jumped in the car and drove away i would be murderous okay i would be jealous because date night is that's my place and it's only my place okay and if grace is like what are you jealous yes yes i'm very jealous very jealous because that's my place and what happens is that um god gets jealous when someone takes his place so let's say there's a young woman and she belongs to jesus and then she meets a boy who doesn't belong to jesus and she has to choose is her first priority going to be a relationship with jesus or the boy who doesn't know jesus and she chooses the boy then what jesus feels is jealous and he would say i love you but i'm supposed to be the relational priority and you have traded places with this boy and i'm supposed to be the love of your life and the first priority jealousy is when someone is in your place what he's saying is this that the gentiles will get so excited about jesus and the old testament and the god of abraham that eventually the jewish people are going to get jealous and this will compel them to come to christ i'll give you an illustration imagine there is a dad and he's a great dad he loves his kids he plays with him he blesses them he provides for him he forgives him he puts a swimsuit on him he takes him to the trendy church he goes down the water slide with them he gives them one popsicle for each hand he gives them the knuckles he gives he kisses them on the head this dad's awesome he's awesome and his kids could care less okay let's see okay i'm gonna pray for inner healing in the back and dad just that we just hit a soft spot with dad okay but the point is that the dad has been so consistent that the kids have become indifferent that the dad has been so gracious that the kids no longer see it as grace they sense it as entitlement and there's no longer an attitude of gratitude or an appreciation so then the dad continues because of his character he continues to treat his kids incredibly well and then eventually he goes into foster care or adoption he grabs a few other kids and he brings them home and he says hey kids we got some more kids for the family now these new kids we'll call them the gentiles they're some wild crazy kids but now they got a dad they've never had a dead they're like it's awesome we got a dad dad's like i'll pay the bills they're like that's awesome there's food in the fridge and food in the pantry and you can eat whatever awesome dad here's a bed i never had a bed here's some toys here's your swimsuit here's your popsicle i'm going to pray for you here's your bible here's your bike you want to go for a hike i love you you messed up i forgive you they're like we love our dad we've never had a dad or dad as an awesome dad they start singing songs to dad oh they love dad they write poems about dad they put pictures of dad on the fridge when they go to school and the teacher's like write a story about your hero they're like dad we love that the seven-year-old gets a tattoo of dad on his chest he's all in he's all in they love their dad every day is father's day every cup says best dad ever eventually the first kids are like hey that's our dad and then they get a little jealous and they're like well well you can't just hang out with our dad we're gonna hang out with our dad too you can't just sing those songs we need to sing songs to our dad what god says here is that he does have a future plan for the jewish people romans 11 we'll get into it more next week the big debate is is god done with the jewish people no what he says is and this is what we covered last week there's always a remnant the many go apostate they're surrounded by faith but they're not filled with faith they're among god's people but they're not one of god's people but there is always a remnant there's some people who really do know and love god and are filled with the spirit and are faithful to him today in israel there's still a remnant there are jewish people who really do love jesus i met him when i went to israel i'm on an apostolic council with some national leaders some international leaders we meet a couple times a year one of them is a jewish leader who oversees a lot of church planting in israel and around america and he loves jesus and there are people who are jewish and love jesus and what he's saying is that as the gentiles grow in number eventually the heart of the jewish people will turn and i'm hoping and praying that there will be some sort of revival in the future where the jewish people come back to the jewish savior the lord jesus christ so there's hope for the jewish people and we need to be praying for the jewish people we need to be praying for all people but the way it looks is simply this that ultimately god did not fail but his people failed to respond to his love and his affection now that being said uh next slide please here's the question okay if that's what is happening with the jewish people what is happening with those of us who are gentile okay how did god graft us into israel okay romans 11 16 through 20. if the doe offered and he's quoting here from numbers 15 which was the doe offering and if in our offering you bring a different kind of dough but it's the same big idea okay if the dough offered as first fruits is holy so is the whole lump and if the root is holy so were the branches cause effect first and second but if some of the branches were broken off and you although a wild olive shoots so those of us who are gentiles were the wild olive shoot we're grafted in among the others those are jewish believers and now sharon the nourishing root of the olive tree do not be arrogant toward the branches what happened with the jewish people they're like god chose us we're his people he always takes care of us and they became arrogant now that the gentiles are grafted in we need to make sure that we don't have the same sense of arrogance that we don't presume upon god's grace if you are remember that it is not you who support the root but the root that supports you then you will say branches were broken off so that i might be grafted in that is true they were broken off because of their unbelief the way you get cut off is unbelief but if you stand fast but you stand fast through faith so do not become proud but fear he's going to talk about two ways to keep from apostasy the big overarching ideas in romans 11 are apostasy and a remnant apostasy is those who are with god's people but they're not one of god's people that they grow up in an environment of believing in the nation of israel this would be you're born into a believing home that would be today you're born into a christian family they went to a religious school this would be the equivalent today of going to a christian school or being homeschooled in a christian home they were educated in a christian college this would be like going to a christian college they're surrounded with faith but they're not filled with faith they walk away from the faith even though they know what the truth is they don't love it that's apostasy but there is some who are a remnant and what he's speaking to is the remnant the minority the few who still hold true and what he's saying is how do you guard your heart from apostasy and if you're a believer this is really important because as the jewish people don't care you could not care as their children stop caring your children could stop caring and what he says first and foremost it begins with first fruits now this is a strange concept for us but first fruits in the bible means first and best and he's talking here about the dough offering in the first fruit so there were many offerings in the old testament but pretty much whatever your vocation was you would give your first and best from it to the lord so if you're a rancher you give a percentage of your flocks if you're a farmer you give a percentage of your crops apparently this person is a baker and they give a percentage of their dough and to give the first and the best is to worship god with your first and your best okay and in the old testament this was a tie the tide literally means the ten percent somebody came here like can you tithe four percent it means ten percent okay so guess what it is it's ten percent okay and for believers we see it as a floor not a ceiling and that ultimately the reason that we give first is we give our first and best to god because here's the big idea god can do more with ninety percent that is consecrated to him than a hundred percent that is not if you believe that god is involved in your business and your life and your finances you want to give to him and invite him to use that for his purposes and to bless the rest of and to multiply what you have and so ultimately within this it's an act of worship because jesus says where your treasure is your heart is that your your heart follows your money this is why our wealth says in god we trust it should say in this god we trust that most americans feel far more confidence in their portfolio than they do in the lord who is over their portfolio and so what we see here is if you give to the lord your heart then follows the lord i'll tell you this people who stop giving eventually stop caring about the lord because your treasure follows your heart and so by giving first you're committing and consecrating your heart and all of your life to the lord to the lord and let me say this some of you will struggle with this i talked to a guy not too long ago he came to me he's a newer christian he says uh how how much do i need to give to god and i looked at him i said you need to give a hundred percent he looked at me like once no okay so i said then i said this i said of your sin and he smiled he's like oh great no problem with 100 sin tithe all in for how many of you you're like jesus is like i'll take your sin like okay you want 10 percent he's like i got 100 like oh you can have it okay so before we give god our best we give god our worst and what god gives us is 100 of his best we give him 100 of our worst our sin he gives us 100 of his best the lord jesus christ god so loved the world that he gave us his only son that we get jesus in exchange for sin this is the mystery of the christian faith we give god our worst he gives us his best we give him our sin he gives us his son okay and then the rest of what we give him is 10 of what is already his see some people say why do i need to give my wealth to god my question is it's really great that god shares his wealth with me i don't look at it that i give 10 of my money to god i look at it that god lets me keep 90 of his money he could have went the other way and said we're going to do a 90 10 split i'm taking 90. i'd have been like well it's all yours 10 still pretty good but the 1090 split in my favor i'm super excited about that and the problem that we have in our day is that we tend to think of worship as just songs we sing and not sacrifices we make he's going to get into this in romans 12 to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable unto the lord this is your spiritual act of worship and so in the bible when people come to worship they never come empty-handed they never come in to handle they always bring something as a sacrifice you can't worship god unless you come with something in your hand now the problem in our culture is the government has leapfrog god and taken the place of first fruits how many of you you don't get paid your full amount the government was in the waterfall upstream and cut in before god and took what was first fruits see god wants us to give freely the government isn't so gracious i i realized this when i was 16 years of age i had my first job i didn't make a lot an hour and then i totaled up my hours and i thought i had a number for my first paycheck and i was really excited and i got it and the number was less it was less i was like i have what the heck and so i looked and the government took god's place and i looked and the first money taken was someone named fica and i was like that's a brand new four letter f word i did not know who is fica and what the fica are they doing taking my money see i'm a wild gentile okay so what he says is first fruits give first and best to the lord and then secondly he he uses this analogy from all of branches olive trees and olive presses that in the ancient world the olive tree was very important for the sustenance of your business and your life and your family you would use the olive oil for cooking for medicinal purposes to light your lamp it was a multi-function agrarian staple the result is if you have a good olive tree you're really blessed because a good olive tree could last for three to four hundred years and bless generations of your family and you can read a lot in the bible about olive trees and olive oil and olive presses and even where jesus was on the night that he was betrayed in the garden of gethsemane was literally an olive grove he was surrounded by olive trees and olive trees are pressed for their oil in the same way that jesus was pressed until literally blood flowed out of his body as a sacrifice for our sin that being said there are three kinds of olive trees according to what i've studied and i'll be honest with you i don't know a lot about gardening okay here's what i know it's outside that's all i know okay but i did do a little bit of research there are three kinds of olive trees and olive branches number one there are those that are wild the wild branches and trees they're worthless they don't bear fruit they're not very profitable they're useless and worthless that is what he calls unbelieving gentiles that's where we start some of you like i'm really great compared to the other worthless olive trees congratulations you're a fantastic worthless olive tree okay and we all start there we all start there wild so those are how many of you before you met the lord you started pretty wild pretty wild i could tell neck tattoo i could tell i could tell right i could tell clear heels i could tell i could tell hungover i could tell and there are people are like stop talking about my family okay i could tell that's where we start we start as the wild olive branches the the second category that he speaks of are the cultivated of branches and olive trees to cultivate would mean you would need to have a gardener who paid careful attention and was really devoted and what that means is that a cultivated olive tree could be fruitful for three to four hundred years but it would require cultivation and pruning oh that's a sucker branch that's a sucker branch that's a sucker branch that's a sucker branch that's an infection that's a dangerous bug that's a rodent you're going to need to tend to it to be a believer in jesus christ is to be grafted in and to be willing to be cultivated and pruned this is where a lot of christians they like being grafted but they don't like being cultivated they don't want to be pruned some of you right now you have painful things going on in your life it's not punishment it's pruning it's not because god hates you but because he loves you and what he knows is that there are parts of you that are still a bit wild and he needs to prune those this is what the bible means by repentance i changed my mind and changed my behavior by the power of the holy spirit some things that were in my life need to get cut out some relationships some beliefs some attitudes some responses some convictions some expenditures they need to get cut out they literally need to get pruned away so that i could be more fruitful so they would have cultivated olive branches and trees and then there were those who were cult they were grafted in and so what he's saying is that god started with the first fruits of abraham and the jewish people in the hebrew old testament and then those of us who are the wild gentiles we were the wild branches we were grafted in what that means is that the jewish people were there first and we're their second that we're reading their old testament we're learning from literally their physical and spiritual descendants and forefathers and mothers that were worshiping their jesus that were trusting in their prophecies that god gave to and through them they were grafted in they were grafted in so i wrote it down but our faith is like a seed planted with god's promise to abraham it's rooted in the patriarchs it sprouted into the nation of israel it brought forth the fruit of scripture in the lord jesus christ but today the majority of believers are not jewish they're gentiles billions of us across planet earth and the point is simply this that ultimately god can work anywhere with anyone and he can graft anyone anywhere in to the faith of abraham and the family of abraham by faith okay just think about us right here we are we're all from different nations we all started in different places but here we are in the church because we've been grafted in to the life of jesus christ and the key to being fruitful is abiding in that relationship jesus says if you abide in me and i abide in you will bear much fruit but if you don't abide in me and i don't invite you you can't accomplish anything that ultimately the key is to stay grafted into jesus and pruned by jesus now i've got a little bit of a photo that kind of illustrates the big idea at the bottom is the root or the trunk to use the language of romans 11. at fourth season it was fruitful but then new branches grew up and or were grafted in and now these new branches are the fruitful ones so in paul's mind that the jewish people are kind of like the trunk and then the church of jesus christ across the gentile nations are like the wild branches so there's the africans there's the brazilians there's the chinese i don't know if there's any christians in canada but if so they're right there grafted into the room okay they would be offended but they haven't got the internet yet so they don't know what i'm talking about so that being said do you see the analogy so there needs to be a great appreciation for us for the spiritual heritage that preceded us lastly here's his big idea at the end what is our warning from israel if god really used them for generations and then they stop caring and now god is using the gentiles we need to make sure that we don't fall into that same pattern of dishonor disregard disrespect presumption assumption and entitlement here's how he says it in romans 11 21-24 for if god did not spare the natural branches those are the physical descendants of abraham neither will he spare you note then the kindness and the severity of god those are the two relationships with people and god it's either kindness or severity it's either heaven or hell it's either forgiveness or punishment he goes on severity toward those who have fallen but god's kindness to you provided you continue in his kindness that's the perseverance of the saints the true believers don't walk away eventually if they do they come back the apostasy is when you walk away and never return those who are faithful they abide they continue and if they do wander or stray they return otherwise you too will be cut off and even they if they do not continue in their own belief will be grafted in for god has the power to graft them in again for if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted god's saying i took dead branches off the ground and i supernaturally grafted them in god did a miracle to make us believers contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree how much more will these the natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree here's what he's saying number one god is obligated to no one see we live in a day when we assume that everyone should be forgiven that everyone should go to heaven that everyone should be loved god is obligated to no one and anyone who receives anything it is the grace of god not the obligation of god that provides that for them this allows us to maintain an attitude of gratitude that what i have is a gift nothing that i have earned it is a gift from god this includes salvation the forgiveness of sins eternal life and being grafted into the lord jesus christ god is obligated to know one but he is good toward many in addition what he's saying here is this that god doesn't have to work through you your people your nation your culture your language god is very creative and he can just take a dead branch anywhere grafted in and now there's a whole new fruitful part of the church of jesus christ and we've seen this as the light of faith dimmed a bit in europe it started to burn brighter in places like china and africa today we're seeing it burn a bit brighter in places like brazil and so as some nations go more apostate they have benefited from their faith heritage or from the biblical principles that guided them there are other places that are getting really excited about jesus in the bible and for you and i we need to understand that what he's talking about in romans 11 is not just what happened but what always happened not just what happened in the nation of israel but happens in any nation that is living under some measure of god's provision and blessing that not all jewish people were believers but there was a blessing that came over them from god in the same way i don't believe that america was or is a christian nation i believe that in addition to many who were the remnant that helped found and have helped to preserve and lead this nation there was also widespread apostasy there were those who were unitarians and deists that are part of our history thomas jefferson sat down at the white house with a pair of scissors and cut all the parts of the new testament out that he disagreed with including the miracles resulting in what he called the philosophy of jesus christ and he took jesus from a savior and a lord to a philosopher and an idealist so we just can't say that any nation or people group is pure but there's been a remnant within the nation of israel within our nation and other nations that did carry forth some biblical principles that the rest of us have been benefited and blessed by and the point is we need to ask ourselves am i going to be part of the remnant or will i be part of the apostate am i going to continue to love and serve god or will i just take god's blessings and benefits and reject the relationship that i would be grafted into him that i would abide in him that i would allow him to cultivate and prune me to change me or am i going to love my sin and my rebellion so much that i'm going to cut myself off that's what he says and so what he's ultimately saying is this you can be born into a christian family but you need to be grafted into jesus christ you could be born into a christian church but you need to be grafted into jesus christ you can attend a christian school but you need to be grafted in to jesus christ you could be baptized but you need to be grafted into jesus christ you could speak in tongues but you need to be grafted in to jesus christ you can read books about jesus but you need to be grafted into jesus christ you can study the bible but you need to be grafted in to jesus christ you can sing the worship songs but you need to be grafted into jesus christ that it's about this life-giving holy spirit empowered relationship through faith in and relationship with jesus christ and so in the end there are only two categories of people and this is where paul summarizes and concludes number one those who are grafted into jesus christ and being cultivated and it's saying jesus you have the right to tell me what to think and what to do jesus you have the right to change my conduct and my character jesus you have the right to rebuke me and to say that some things that i'm believing are ways that i'm behaving are just wrong and you're right and they need to change and by your grace they can you're either grafted in and cultivated and let me say this friend lots of people want to be grafted in but they don't want to be cultivated i want jesus to forgive me but not change me i want him to be savior but not lord i want him to have a relationship with me but not a relationship that changes me to be grafted in requires you must be cultivated and if you refuse to be grafted in and or cultivated what he says is you will cut yourself off this is what happens with apostasy i don't like what god says well but that's what he says therefore i cut myself off i want to do what god forbids me to do no if you do that you're cutting yourself off how many of us know people who have gone apostate they've literally cut themselves off and it's either because they don't want to be grafted in or they know if they're grafted in they're going to be pruned and cultivated and they would choose their sin instead of their savior i love you with all my heart i'm your pastor i want you to be grafted in do you know jesus do you love jesus do you follow jesus i want you to be cultivated are you growing and being pruned changing in your relationship with jesus christ i don't want you to go apostate and be cut off because those branches ultimately are just thrown into a fire and they burn forever and i want better for you so what we're going to do in a moment i want you to just consider whether you're grafted in and what areas of your life god is cultivating or just sense in the spirit right now some of you are asking okay am i am i grafted in do i belong to jesus and some of you are asking am i willing to be cultivated are there areas of my life that i'm willing to have pruned and as you answer those questions in your own heart and prepare yourself to worship jesus we're going to share a testimony with you of one of our volunteer worship leaders we film this on a wednesday night at real men and i want you to see that there is sometimes this demonic hatred toward jewish people but that ultimately the jewish jesus can save anyone anywhere forgive anything graft anyone in and cultivate and prune anyone of anything and actually not only are we grafted in we're grafted in together so the people who are previously enemy then become family and it's a great testimony the difference between testimony biography biography is we tell the story of our life and i'm the hero the testimony is here's story of my life god's the hero yes and you lead worship here at the church which is kind of unexpected provided some of your backgrounds so they're all wondering who you are and what you've done maybe introduce yourself where you're from and then start your story and i'll just i'll help navigate along the way yes i will well first of all thank you for giving me the opportunity my name is johannes i grew up in germany i moved here six years ago with my wife and two kids at the time and um a little bit of of my the way i got saved so i grew up in a very uh christian legalistic uh a lot of rules not a lot of relationships and i hated my picture of christ i was like i want nothing to do with that guy because giant kill killjoy in the sky you know i don't want to associate with him where were you at in germany um we were close to frankfurt about 45 minutes more on the countryside and at the time when when i was about 14 15 years old there was a very strong alt-right movement going on in that area we were there outside of frankfurt and the lower ryan grace and i were a lot of immigration of devout muslim families and they hang together and they stick together and they are a unified front and force exactly and you know germany after world war ii you know our identity is still really damaged so i didn't grow up with any identity in anything then there was this movement that all of a sudden interestingly enough through music and the devil used to be a worship leader and music is still his thing through very strong very i think demonic music they brought us into that fold of that white supremacist almost like a counterfeit abortion yes exactly and i can tell you the emotions you feel i mean it wasn't well produced those were like basement recordings people didn't really know what they were doing with their instruments but the spirit in it was just electrifying for us and so it united us it gave us all of a sudden identity he gave us unity anthems you know um it was powerful were you a musician at that time were you involved i was just i was just getting to play the guitar so i always loved music i just found a recording of me leading at a birthday party a bunch of neo-nazis in old ss hymns and now i'm leading worship old nazi germany hymns yes which you know you you don't sing them here for sure yes there it is okay look at that so that's you with the guitar that's me with the guitar how old are you there i am about uh 20 years old okay yeah so i was still pretty young and you're full into nazi propaganda white supremacy yes and here's the thing and you taught that so well on on pharaoh and how his heart got hardened you know i had a conscience obviously and i had concerned teachers i had praying parents they didn't know what to do but they were praying they were they were reaching out to me but i chose to harden my heart every time i knew like this isn't right i shouldn't celebrate this kind of a world view and i would duck i would dig deeper i would find my own science about anthropology and why there is white supremacy and why evolution and we're more advanced exactly certain people are more primitive and exactly yes you build your own alternative reality and it brought me deeper and deeper and deeper into this stuff and you know i was so lost we were so isolated so were you into violence crime drugs yes how it starts with music it starts with the drinking and the party but as you dig deeper you're not a skinhead anymore drinking beer you're becoming an activist so we were planning uh attacks you know some of our friends friends went to prison we uh we weren't marches we would we would go out and reach out to young kids um you know a handful including a big counterfeit of evangelism exactly exactly so is that an event you were at yes that was actually one of the um the events where where i where god really touched my heart so this is this is actually 2007. i think i got saved in 2006 but i didn't have that 180 degree and there it was a pastor who just started a small calvary chapel in germany of all places good bible teaching movement good bible teaching and he started a series on the devil in the demonic and i my eyes were just like what it struck such a nerve because you know he didn't start with jesus he started with the devil and i was very familiar with that stuff unknowingly all of a sudden i understood so much of that hate that that that just demonic destruction that i was wearing cultic parts to that yes so there are strong ties to the to the to the very like um pagan germanic worship a lot of black metal and satanic kind of blending in so i saw some crazy things and i heard some crazy things so i knew all of a sudden in that church i felt like okay this is the real deal i'm on the wrong side but you know it took me longer to come out of the grave i think he called me right there and i i you know we sing i ran out of that grave it took me a year kind of stumbled out yeah our pastor reached out to me and said like hey because he was the one only one i was kind of open to i was still very skeptical of the church christians and he reached out and said you should come to this conference there's a worship there was actually a leadership conference from the calvary chapel movements there and i said yes i need to be there i kind of don't want to but i really know i need to be there i went there i can tell you it was all of a sudden i was out of the grave you know the worship i was weeping i was telling these guys about my story they were laying hands on me they were praying for the holy spirit to do work in me and that just set off a a complete new life and i was very alone at first because i said bye-bye to my friends um and they said bye-bye to me um because when you leave these kind of movements it's not like yeah see you later it's like you're done you know you can be glad if you're not you know if we're not find you somewhere alone and something happens you know and so i was just for a few months um i didn't have internet i didn't have a tv at home i was just reading the bible i was often on my face crying it was so clear to me all of a sudden but i celebrated and justified and glorified the most crazy hatred against god's people i was glorifying the craziest genocide ever happening it was so clear to me like i deserve nothing but hell i am the worst sinner of all and i can identify when paul says it about himself i just really felt that and god saving me and calling me out of that grave that was 100 him zero percent me and that is my testimony amen that's awesome so did you start working for a jewish ministry then uh no so that story is i i i it's it's interesting so we were part of a small church plant in dusseldorf and we were doing outreach one day and we had somebody from the jews of jesus come over which is a messianic uh you know jesus believing so you're on their team now um i'm not working for them but i did evangelism with them and the guy didn't know it so you're out doing jews for jesus evangelism in germany yes that's jesus right that is crazy you were chosen brother i told him later like told him my story and he we hugged we cried and he said he said the same thing to all the people in the room saying that is the miracle from god that we see here and then how about ministry marriage what's it been like since then well i met my beautiful wife who's actually snuck in the back i think somewhere to hear this um and she my wife leia we met in 2007 later and then we um yes there's a family right there and we got married in 2009 and yeah we've been in ministry ever since i mean you guys lead worship together we lead worship together we started the worship ministry at the church plant and um you know it's it's just but that grace of god and now being able to lead his people in worship versus what i used to do with my guitar before is still you know just an absolute miracle to me it is it is it is well we love you we thank you and your family for serving last thing i would ask if somebody's hearing this and they're like i've done some stuff that i'm not sure can be forgiven i know that jesus can forgive and there's grace for some but some of the things i've done i'm not sure there's grace for me just in closing what would you tell that person um you know if there's grace for me there's grace for you because the bible jesus says if you only hate your brothers as if you killed him so i am literally a mass murderer i am responsible in the in the eyes of the lord for genocide that is my heart and that's how god saw me so that's how lost i was so whatever you did whatever you believed whatever you've done there is hope for you and please don't keep pardoning your heart he's giving you chances he gave me many many chances and please don't harden your heart because it's going to drive you deeper and deeper and deeper into whatever you're into or away from the lord and don't wait come to him running now if there's hope for me there's hope for you amen love you thanks for leading worship you

Channel: Real Faith by Mark Driscoll

Views: 3,677

Rating: 4.9101124 out of 5

Keywords: Mark, Driscoll, ministry, thetrinitychurch, scottsdale, arizona, bible, teaching, gospel, theology, jesus, biblestudy, faith, bibleverse, hope, hug, help, love, christianity, christian

Id: RyeUzfQZGVg

Length: 62min 34sec (3754 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 25 2021