The Mystery of Salvation

Romans 9:1-29

My roommate in my first year of university was and is a very nice guy. He has a strong moral sense. I remember, in that first year, getting on the trolley in Boston and slipping by the conductor without paying. I was celebrating this and my friend, George, looked at me strangely and asked why I had not paid. I was enjoying having cheated the system but George would never have thought of cheating.

In many ways George was a better person than I was. At the time I was stealing books from stores and even stole money from the church collection plate. George would never have done those things.

And yet I am the one who turned to Jesus and received salvation. Why did God choose me and not George?

Ted Bundy was a serial killer in the US who between 1974 and 1978 murdered at least 35 young women, most of them teenagers or in their early twenties, two of them just 12 and 13 years old. Thirty-five plus young women were stolen from their families and friends and subjected to a cruel, terrifying and painful death. While in prison awaiting his execution, Ted Bundy made his peace with God and died as a follower of Jesus.

My father died this past September. He never intentionally hurt anyone. He was a good man, liked by everyone. He had a positive affect on many people through his work in Boy Scouts and 4-H and many others he met. But he died indifferent to the existence of God. He simply wasn’t interested.

Why did God break through into Ted Bundy’s life and yet did not break through into my father’s life?

If I was in charge, I would have picked my father before Ted Bundy and my friend George before me.

Salvation is a mystery – which is the underlying message in Romans 9.

Remember that Paul started Romans 9 after finishing eight glorious chapters of theology, explaining the depth and wonder of God’s pursuit of us, rescuing us when we had no escape. And then he sat down after celebrating this wondrous theology with the firework extravaganza that finishes chapter eight and asked the question that weighed on his mind. “What about my fellow Jews?”

The Jews were God’s chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, whom God chose from among all the people of the world. Why were so few of them responding to Paul’s message that Jesus was the Messiah Israel had been waiting for?

This is the background for today’s text.

Let me walk you through the text and then I will come back and make some observations. It will help if you follow with me in your Bible.

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. ⁷ Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” ⁸ In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. ⁹ For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”

The Jews were God’s chosen people, the descendants of Abraham. But Paul makes the point that not all of Abraham’s descendants were chosen. Abraham had a son, Ishmael, before he had Isaac and yet only the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac were the children of the promise of God to Abraham.

Paul goes on to remind his readers of a second example from Israel’s history.

Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. ¹¹ Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: ¹² not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” ¹³ Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

The oldest child was supposed to receive the inheritance and yet Jacob, the second born, received God’s blessing.

Was this fair? Jacob cheated his brother Esau out of his inheritance and stole from his father Isaac the blessing meant for Esau.

Was it fair that only the descendants of Isaac received the promise of God and not the descendants of Ishmael? What did Ishmael ever do to deserve this rejection?

Paul writes:

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ¹⁵ For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

“Is God unjust?” Paul asked and I would say yes. If you were to bring the case to me, I would say, “Yes, God was unjust.” Why should Ishmael have been shut out of the inheritance? It was not his fault that Abraham took Sarah’s maid – with the permission and blessing of Sarah – to finally have an heir. Ishmael was born and Abraham was satisfied. He had a son. He had an heir. But God was not satisfied and continued to promise Abraham that through Sarah he would have a son who would be the heir to the promise. What was Ishmael? Yesterday’s newspaper?

Why should Esau have been shut out of the inheritance because of the deceit and manipulation of his brother Jacob and his mother Rebekah? Esau had only his father as an advocate which was not much against the wiles of his mother, Rebekah, and his twin, Jacob.

Ask me to judge and I will find in favor of Ishmael and Esau.

Paul goes on to make the case even harder.

It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. ¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

I have read the account of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt many times and each time I have been bothered by this. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so why is it Pharaoh’s fault? Why did God judge Pharaoh when it was God who hardened his heart to refuse to allow Moses to leave with the people of Israel?

All these examples seem terribly unfair to me. But the lesson Paul took from all this was:

It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

Ok, but why does God’s mercy have to seem to be so unfair?

Paul goes on.

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” ²⁰ But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” ²¹ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? That is Paul’s response to my questions.

Who am I to talk back to God? It is time to take stock. Who is God and who am I?

God is all powerful. He existed before there was anything. He created time and space. In what is called the Big Bang, in a small part of a second, the universe went from something so small you would have needed a microscope to observe it to the vastness of our universe we see today. God is the creator of all we observe. God speaks and the mountains melt, the Psalmist reminds us. God is all powerful.

God is all knowing. Before anything existed, God knew what would happen. God is never surprised. You cannot sneak up on God. You can’t hide from God. You cannot deceive God or manipulate God. Nothing happens anywhere in the world that God is unaware of and he knows what will happen next week, next year, next century up to the point when he will call an end to time.

God is all loving. If God were only all powerful and all knowing, he could be terrifying. His knowledge and power could work against us to make our lives absolutely miserable. But God is all loving and he bends toward us to lead us into green pastures and still waters. In the image of the parable Jesus told of the prodigal son, he humbles himself by lifting his robes and running toward us to bless us when we turn to him.

God has all power. God knows what will happen before it happens. And God loves me, really loves me. Loves me so much he wants me to spend eternity with him. Loves me so much he sent Jesus to die for me so I could spend eternity with him.

So let’s compare. God pre-existed creation. I will be lucky to live to be 80 or 90 or maybe even 100 years old.

God is all-powerful. I am increasingly less powerful. By the time I am 90 or 100 I will be considered to do well if I can walk.

God is all-knowing. I not only cannot tell what is going to happen this afternoon, I don’t even know what is happening right now in front of the church.

God is all-loving. I am easily irritated by people and have difficulty loving the people closest to me more than I love myself.

So back to the question: But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?

Uh, Mr. God sir, why is it Pharaoh’s fault when you are the one who hardened his … oh, never mind. My knee is bowing and my tongue confessing.

A clay pot has no right to challenge the potter for making it tall or short or pink or purple or breaking one pot and making another. When we challenge God with questions of fairness and justice, we do so out of our abundant wealth of ignorance.

God has purposes we can barely grasp at. It takes incredible arrogance to suppose we could know the mind of God about anything.

²² What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? ²³ What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— ²⁴ even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵ As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;

and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

²⁶ and,

“It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,

‘You are not my people,’

they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

In each generation God is at work to take those who are not his people and make them his sons and daughters. He transforms lives and families and communities, building his kingdom. In this strange interaction between our will and his intervention we get lost in the hows and whys of salvation. These are mysteries about which we know so little.

Paul wrote in I Corinthians 13:

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

The less we know of God, the more we challenge him. The more we know of God, the better we are able to submit to his love for us and for those we love.

As we grow in our relationship with God, we deepen in our understanding of how much we are loved and how much God has done for us.

It doesn’t mean we understand why he saves who he saves. This remains a mystery. But we celebrate our part in this mystery and we pray with hope for those who have not yet accepted this mystery.

Paul did not understand why more Jews were not accepting Jesus as their Messiah but rested in his knowledge that God was a loving God and had purposes we do not and cannot fully understand.

This is his argument in Romans 9. Let me make some observations.

The first observation is a repeat of what Tracy said last week. Only God can convert someone.

This is such an important point it bears repeating. I can use my intellect and money and charisma and debating skills to get someone to switch from one religion or no religion to join a Christian church, but what then have I done? Nothing of any real value has taken place. The only thing that matters is whether or not our names are written in the book of life that is mentioned in John’s Revelation. And we do not have the pen that can write in that book. Only God can do that.

Any conversion that has any spiritual value is the work of God, not the work of man.

I get emails from time to time saying the person feels called to convert Muslims to Christianity and can they come to our church to do that. I email back telling them we do not do that over here. Only God converts. This is not our task. This is not our responsibility.

It is like organizing a picnic and telling one person to bring the food, another to arrange transportation and another to organize the games and then telling one person to make sure there is sunny weather for the picnic. Which of these tasks is impossible? We cannot control the weather – and we cannot convert.

What we are called to do is to love people as Jesus loved people. Jesus fed the poor, healed the sick, cast out demons from the possessed and taught of the coming of the kingdom of God. We are to do what Jesus did and what God does with what we do is up to him. It is not our responsibility.

Many Christians carry the burden of conversion on their shoulders but this is not our burden to carry. We are simply to love people in the name of Jesus and share how it is we understand that we can enter into the kingdom of God Jesus talked about.

The second observation is that to declare definitively about the salvation of any person is to step beyond our bounds.

We can say how to find Jesus. We can explain the teaching of Jesus and Paul about how to open ourselves to the gift of salvation, but we cannot say definitively who will and who will not be saved.

The people who knew the thief on the cross next to Jesus would have been certain he would never enter into the kingdom of God. His life was a life of thievery and who knows what else and he deserved his punishment. But he talked with Jesus as they both hung on their cross and Jesus assured him (Luke 23:43)

I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.

When Christians speak about sinners of one stripe or another and say that person will be damned to hell, they speak out of total and complete ignorance.

There is no one who cannot be saved. God’s power and love are so strong salvation is possible for all of us.

Salvation is a mystery.

Jim Elliot, who was martyred in Ecuador in 1956, wrote in his journal:

Eternity shall be at once a great eye-opener and a great mouth-shutter.

We will be surprised in heaven to see who is there and we will be surprised to discover who is not there.

We cannot convert. We dare not judge anyone as to whether or not they will be saved. So what can we do?

The third observation is that we should rejoice, with humility, in the mercy and compassion of God that has brought us into a relationship with Jesus.

The adult Sunday School class is looking at some of the parables of Jesus and the one for this morning is the parable of the Great Banquet.

In this parable the host sent out invitations to his banquet but when the invited guests did not arrive, he sent out his servants to invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.

These people came to the banquet, not thinking they deserved to be there but in wonder and awe they had been invited.

We too have been invited to the wedding banquet in heaven. We do not deserve the mercy and compassion of God but we are so fortunate to be the recipients of his mercy and compassion.

Unfortunately church members have often been self-righteous and arrogant, priding themselves on being such good moral people and disdaining the terrible sinners outside of the church.

But there is no room for arrogance or pride in the church. We are not better than anyone else. We do not have an exclusive hold on membership in heaven. We don’t know who will be saved. We hope that all people will be saved. And we are grateful that we are among those who have hope of salvation.

You may remember in November I talked about William Wilberforce. He was born in England in 1759. At the age of 26 he was converted to Evangelical Christianity. He was elected to parliament and he spent his life and his family fortune fighting for the abolition of slavery and the reform of manners. He championed causes such as British missionary work in India, the creation of a free colony in Sierra Leone, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the foundation of the Church Mission Society and many others. He was generous with his estate and welcomed many who needed help to his home. He shared his faith with many. He had a deep devotional life.

This great Christian man, on his deathbed, said to his son Henry, “I am in a very distressed state.” “Yes,” Henry said, “but you have your feet on the Rock.” This great Christian who changed his world for Christ spoke his last words, “I do not venture to speak so positively. But I hope I have.”

It seems to me that this is the way to die, with great hope but no arrogant presumption. When we die, we are not going to dance into heaven and give Jesus a slap on the back and say, “Jesus, my man, good to see you.” We will approach with fear and humility, hoping to hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

We move through life with confidence that we can approach God without fear but we do this only because we know how desperately we are clinging on to Jesus.

How might these observations apply to us?

Paul wrote about some of those who were members in the church in Corinth. Listen to some of the kinds of people you will find with you in heaven.

I Corinthians 6

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰ nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

If you are offended by the kind of people in that list of church membership, then you need to begin to pray and ask God to change your heart and to earnestly desire that people will turn from their sin and follow Jesus.

If you have friends engaged in some of the behaviors in that list, do not give up but continue praying for them and hoping they will turn to Jesus and desperately cling to him for salvation. There is hope of salvation for every person.

If your confidence that you will go to heaven when you die is based on how good and decent and respectable a person you are, you need to pray and ask God to help you see your sin and how desperately you are in need of the help of Jesus for your salvation.

You and the town drunk are desperately in need of help.

If you are anxious and worried about the salvation of those you love, release that anxiety and grow in your trust of God who loved and pursued you and who loves and will pursue those you love. This is not your burden to carry. This is not your judgment to make. Love your family and trust God to pursue them and work in their lives.

And finally, I want to speak to those who have never been able to trust in Jesus and submit to him.

Salvation is a mystery, but it is offered to you. In Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, there were two sons: one who wasted his father’s inheritance in wild and reckless spending and a second who worked obediently for his father. But both were in need of their father’s love and acceptance.

You may be someone who has always done the right thing. You may be someone with a strong moral sense and live a respectable life. Or you may be someone who has sinned with abandon. In either case, Jesus stands ready to accept you into his kingdom and in either case, you desperately need his help.

Your goodness will not be enough to save you. Your sin will not prevent you from being saved.

We are all in the same position. We all are drowning in the water and we all need a life buoy thrown to us so we can be pulled to safety. Many of us have grabbed on to that life buoy and are clinging to Jesus. You can join us and be pulled to safety.

Grab on to Jesus this morning and ask for his help in your life.

As we sing this next hymn, I want to offer you the chance to come forward and pray with one of the pastors. Tracy, Zak and I will be here to pray with you. If you prefer not to come forward, that is OK. I remember sitting in a church in Chicago and telling God, “OK, I will give my life to you, but not here in front of all these people.”

It is OK if you don’t want to come forward. God will not judge you for that. But let us know so we can pray with you. Write on one of the pew cards and let us know you made a decision to follow Jesus this morning. If there is not a pew card, then get one in the back after the service and fill it out and give it to us. Or simply talk to one of us after the service.

If you want to let us know about your decision by email, our email addresses are printed on the back page of the bulletin.

The point is to let us know so we can pray with you and encourage you in your decision to follow Jesus.

God has mercy on whom he has mercy and he will have compassion on whom he has compassion.

Open yourself to Jesus this morning, ask him for help and cling to him and experience his mercy and compassion.