Romans 11:33-36 Ours To Do: Praise God

The Text

Romans 11:33–36 (CSB)
³³ Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways!

³⁴ For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?

³⁵ And who has ever given to God, that he should be repaid?

³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

Our God

Stop here! Go back right now and re-read Romans starting at chapter 1 verse 1 all the way to right now.

Don't get bog down in the technicalities. I want you to see the glory of God.

Look at his splendor! Look at his might!

Look at his everlasting grace! Look at his mercy!

Look at how he loves us!

Look at what he won't do to bring his lost people back to him!

Look at what he won't do to bring his orphaned children back to him!

Look at wht he won't do shelter and bring in the despaired widow.

We are that widow! We are those orphans! We are the lost!

Romans 1-11 is the systematic exposition of the Old Testament--the law will crush us but cannot save us.

Roman 1-11 is the systematic exposition of the Gospels--but where law increased our sins by truly exposing who we really are, Christ Jesus gave even more grace than you can sin.

Take all of it--most heinous, most evil, most depraved, most dark, most denied--take the weight of that cancerous tumor and that diseased flesh and that rotten corpse and I dare you to place them on the flesh of Christ.

What will Christ do? Will his arms of mercy, that have been stretched out since the creation of Adam and Eve just go limp right in front your eyes?

John 6:35–40 (CSB)
³⁵ “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.

³⁶ But as I told you, you’ve seen me, and yet you do not believe.

³⁷ Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.

³⁸ For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

³⁹ This is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me but should raise them up on the last day.

⁴⁰ For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Oh, okay. So you are Christian now. But then the Father is like your dad here on earth who has forgotten you and stopped paying attention you?

John 10:27-30 (CSB) My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Okay, then what if I place my sins on Christ. Isn't he just going to put more laws on me. Isn't that what the Bible is all about? Just more laws for me to break and not do?

Matthew 11:25–30 (CSB)
²⁵ At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants.

²⁶ Yes, Father, because this was your good pleasure.

²⁷ All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him.

²⁸ “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

²⁹ Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

This is all too good to be true. Can God be this good? Can God be this loving and kind? Can the Almighty God be this merciful?

John 3:14–17 (CSB)
¹⁴ “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,

¹⁵ so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

How can I receive this God?

Luke 11:13 (CSB)
¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

And

Acts 2:21 (CSB) Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

When can I call upon the Lord to be saved? Do I have to wait until I get right and clean myself up?

2 Corinthians 6:2 (CSB) For he says: At an acceptable time I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. See, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!

The best day is today. The best time is right now.

I have no guarantees in life but this: call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved.

Blessed be his glorious name forever.