Romans 11:25-32 Ours To Do: Be in God's Kindness
The Text
Romans 11:25-32 (CSB)
25 I don’t want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you will not be conceited: A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, The Deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27 And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.
28 Regarding the gospel, they are enemies for your advantage, but regarding election, they are loved because of the patriarchs,
29 since God’s gracious gifts and calling are irrevocable.
30 As you once disobeyed God but now have received mercy through their disobedience,
31 so they too have now disobeyed, resulting in mercy to you, so that they also may now receive mercy.
32 For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may have mercy on all.
The Introduction
25 I don’t want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you will not be conceited: A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Be in God's Kindness! We truly know God
As John Calvin once said, "The finite mind cannot comprehend an infinite being." What does this mean? Can we not know God?
Not unless the Father of lights opens our eyes to see him. We know that God must make us a new creation in order for us to see the kingdom. So we are not ignorant to the mysteries of God. We do see clearly that the Gentiles will make up most of the church of Christ. The Jews will make up a small part. Some in part because they are a small nation. But also, another mystery is revealed: their hearts are partial hardening. Some translations: a partial blindness.
How can one be partially blind and half-harden heart? For the case of the Jews, they had the Law. More correctly stated, they have the Old Testament.
Romans 3:1-2 (CSB) So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the very words of God.
They have the very words do God. Let it be known the same Christ whom they've hardened their hearts towards is the same Christ who knew their own Scriptures better than them. And how? All Scripture is inspired by him and all the Scriptures are about him. Ever but of it.
Israel has the Scriptures and yet refuse to see it.
John 5:39-40 (CSB) You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me. But you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.
This is where we Gentiles do not get to boast because we do the same thing. We can fall into the trap of knowing a lot of Scripture thinking that makes me holy unto God. Maybe compared to other people but not to God.
Our God
26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, The Deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
Be in God's Kindness! He is kind and patient towards us
Romans 2:4 (CSB) Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
2 Peter 3:9 (CSB) The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.
Breath in. Breath out. That is the air and life that God has provided.
We, the children of God, have taken full advantage of his wonderful salvation and mercies. We have accepted his kindness because we have received his Son, his heart, his mind, and his Spirit.
We have not wasted a moment of his patience. But you say, "What about those times when I didn't know him? I have wasted so much of my life."
But what does the Bible say? We were once all foolish and led astray. We were all dead in our trespasses and sins. But look at God! Sending his only Son. And the Son appeared in our lives like he did for Paul, and the Ethiopian Eunuch and Lydia and the Philippian Jailer and for you and for me! He saved us and washed us clean and renewed us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Gospel
Because of what God has done, look at what God continues to do:
27 And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.
Be in God's Kindness! He forgives our sins
1 John 1:9 (CSB) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Psalm 103 (CSB)
1 My soul, bless the LORD, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
2 My soul, bless the LORD, and do not forget all his benefits.
3 He forgives all your iniquity; he heals all your diseases.
4 He redeems your life from the Pit; he crowns you with faithful love and compassion.
5 He satisfies you with good things; your youth is renewed like the eagle.
6 The LORD executes acts of righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
7 He revealed his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel.
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.
9 He will not always accuse us or be angry forever.
10 He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.
14 For he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field;
16 when the wind passes over it, it vanishes, and its place is no longer known.
17 But from eternity to eternity the LORD’s faithful love is toward those who fear him, and his righteousness toward the grandchildren
18 of those who keep his covenant, who remember to observe his precepts.
19 The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless the LORD, all his angels of great strength, who do his word, obedient to his command.
21 Bless the LORD, all his armies, his servants who do his will.
22 Bless the LORD, all his works in all the places where he rules. My soul, bless the LORD!
Who is like the Lord? Who can compare to Him? He is full of grace, merciful everyday, and steadfast in loving-kindness. He is the fairest of all time. There is no one who can match his power, awe, beauty, honor, majesty, and glory.
He alone is God forever.
28-29 Regarding the gospel, they are enemies for your advantage, but regarding election, they are loved because of the patriarchs, since God’s gracious gifts and calling are irrevocable.
Be in God's Kindness! He has forever saved us
Those whom God has saved he will forever save. For:
Ephesians 1:3–5 (CSB) Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
And
Romans 8:30 (CSB) And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.
You might ask, "How can that be? What if God changes his mind? What if I sinned too much? What if I out-sin the grace of God?"
You are going to out-sin someone else's grace and mercy. People are limited. People are feeble. People are affected by the world around them. People are pressed in on every side. Even and especially Christians. They can be taken to their limits and broken. They may get dried up.
And by they, and I mean, we and my we I mean me.
I am extremely limited. You are extremely limited. And God commands us to do things that are way beyond on capability. "Love the Lord our God with everything we got?". "Love my neighbor as myself?" which is like the first law? We cannot do this. We are made from dust!
For everything we share with our Maker since we are imagebearers of God, that is where the similarities begin and end: we are weak but he is infinitely strong.
God is unlimited and he alone gives eternal life. God is steadfast and he gives endurance to run this race. God is not affected by the world but he has forever changed the world by sending his only begotten Son. God is not pressed by the world nor by hell but yet, his Son has built his church to press through the world and press against the gates of hell. God is not limited. God is not broken. God does not suffer. God does not change his mind. God does not change his heart.
2 Timothy 2:13 (CSB) if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
Lamentations 3:22–23 (CSB) Because of the LORD’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God's love and mercy and grace and patience and kindness towards his people is the same yesterday (see the Bible), today (see the Church), and tomorrow (see God)!
Our Response
The same Triune God dwells in us. Glorify him today!
30-32 As you once disobeyed God but now have received mercy through their disobedience, so they too have now disobeyed, resulting in mercy to you, so that they also may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may have mercy on all.
Be in God's Kindness! He is merciful, loving and gracious towards us
Song of Songs 2:4 (ESV) He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
Song of Songs 2:16a (ESV) My beloved is mine, and I am his;
John 3:16 (CSB) For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
For here is love, God proclaims the good news that He will make all things right:
>Genesis 3:15 (CSB) I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.
And here is love, God is faithful:
>Psalm 103:15–18 (CSB) As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field; when the wind passes over it, it vanishes, and its place is no longer known. But from eternity to eternity the LORD’s faithful love is toward those who fear him, and his righteousness toward the grandchildren of those who keep his covenant, who remember to observe his precepts.
And here is love, God's faithful love and mercies will never come to an end:
>Lamentations 3:22–23 (CSB) Because of the LORD’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!
And here is love, God does everything for you to be with Him:
>Ezekiel 36:25–28 (CSB) I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
And here is love, God saves us from our sins:
>Matthew 1:21 (CSB) She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
And here is love:
>John 1:16–18 (CSB) Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.
And here is love, God sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ:
>John 3:16 (CSB) For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
And here is love, God adopts us into his family:
>Romans 9:25–26 (CSB) As it also says in Hosea, I will call Not my People, My People, and she who is Unloved, Beloved. And it will be in the place where they were told, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.
And here is love, Christ loved me and lived and died for me:
>Galatians 2:20 (CSB) I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
And here is love, we have no condemnation and no separate from God:
>Romans 8:1; 38-39 (CSB) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus... and nothing will every separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Simply put:
1 John 4:7-10 (ESV) Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Exodus 34:6–7 (CSB) The LORD passed in front of him and proclaimed: The LORD—the LORD is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.
Romans 9:15–16 (CSB) For he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy.
Luke 23:34a (CSB) Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.”
Romans 3:23–26 (CSB) For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
Who is like our God? Who can compare to him? He alone is worthy to be praised and adored.
Worship him today!