Sermon Tone Analysis

I Am Not Ashamed: The Potter’s Freedom

Text: Romans 9:19-33

Theme: Is God being unfair because He is being too generous to some and not all?

Paul says, “no”.

Date: 10/23/2016 File name: Romans_2016_29.wpd

ID Number: 226

I miss Calvin and Hobbes.

It was, for many years, a daily syndicated cartoon written by Bill Watterson.

Calvin was a precocious, mischievous, and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his witty stuffed tiger.

Calvin sees the world through the eyes of a six-year-old and in this panel, he complains that the world is “unfair.”

Calvin wishes it would be more “unfair” in his favor.

The central issue of our text this morning is this: Is God being unfair because He chooses to elect some to salvation and not others?

Yes.

But I would maintain, that if you understand the Scripture, and if you understand what Paul is saying to the Church at Rome, that in a backward kind of way, it’s the saved that God is being unfair to.

I. THE FALLACY OF HUMAN EFFORT IN SALVATION

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

(Romans 9:16, NIV84)

1. in the history of the world virtually every religion past or present has been based on the appeasement of the gods

a. men and women had to do something to appease their deity or deities in order to merit a place of blessing in the afterworld, or to curry the favor of the gods in this world

b.

only Christianity says that eternal life is about receiving a righteousness from God based on His grace instead earning a righteousness from God based on our own good behavior

“And [Abraham] being fully persuaded that, what he [God] had promised, he [God] was able also to perform.

22 And therefore it was imputed to him [Abraham] for righteousness.

23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

(Romans 4:21–25, KJV)

1) what we receive from God is the imputed righteousness of Christ that comes by faith through grace because of the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross

2. in this chapter, the apostle is clear, there is nothing anyone can do to merit salvation

a. according to the apostle every man has sinned and because every man has sinned that person falls short of the glory of God (Rom.

3:2), and are by nature the children of wrath (Eph.

1:3) prepared for damnation

b. as we discovered last week in the various Old Testament illustrations that the apostle Paul uses to defend the doctrine of election God says “ I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

(Romans 9:15, NIV84)

A. NO ONE CAN MERIT THE UNMERITED FAVOR OF GOD

1. Satan’s greatest lie may be that good works, or right behavior, or religious rituals can help sinners escape the punishment of hell and merit the joy of heaven

“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” (Romans 3:20, NIV84)

“know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.”

(Galatians 2:16, NIV84)

a. what is the Apostle saying in these and similar verses?

1) regardless off how really, really good you try to be, your personal goodness will never be good enough to make it into Heaven

2) BUT, if you put you faith in the one who was the perfect, spotless Lamb of God, then Heaven will be your home

2. God grants unmerited favor to many, but not all

a. just because God limits His mercy doesn’t mean He is stingy with His mercy

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.

They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”

(Revelation 7:9, NIV84)

ILLUS.

Christianity is openly mocked in all media: television, movies, print.

Nightly News portrays a world seemingly in despair with no hope.

The U.S., Canada, and Europe continue their downward slide away from God in their rejection of anything having to do with Christ and the Bible.

Even common sense and tenets of basic human morality are regularly attacked and vilified.

Yet the truth is that, in our time, worldwide—particularly in Africa, Asia, and South America, God is doing exceedingly abundantly above what we can imagine.

The Holy Spirit is greatly moving in what was once called "the Third World".

Around the world millions are coming to Christ every year.

"Look at the nations and watch - and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told."

(Habakkuk 1:5, NIV)

3. the Apostle clearly tells us that God “ ... will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion” (Romans 9:15)

a. God saves multitudes, but God saves a particular multitude that He has singled out from before the foundation of the world

4. no one can merit it, but He graciously gives it

B. GOD’S UNMERITED FAVOR COMES BY GRACE

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”

(Ephesians 2:8–9, NIV84)

1. since grace, the unmerited favor of God, is the only means by which God saves sinners, anyone attempting to merit eternal life by their own good behavior, or religious ritual has instead earned death

a.

only by God’s grace do we get what we don’t deserve—heaven, and ...

b.

only by His mercy do we avoid getting what we do deserve—hell

2. the apostle Paul quotes to his readers from Exodus 33:19, “God will mercy whom he chooses to show mercy on and God will compassion whom he chooses to show compassion on”

a. God makes the choice, and the sinner can either choose to receive it, or choose to reject it

1) in vv.

22-23 Paul says that those who receive His grace are objects of mercy, while those who reject His grace are objects of wrath

3. mercy and compassion, are by nature, not obligatory

ILLUS.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that your spouse is killed by a drunk driver.

As is sadly the case, the drunk driver walks away unscathed, but the person he hits is killed.

During the trial, you confront the killer of your spouse face to face, and he says to you "I demand mercy.

You owe it to me." Do you?

Do you owe that person mercy?

What that person is owed, is condemnation and a lengthy prison term.

You may, in the end, decide to give it, but mercy is something that is not owed.

The moment is ti, it is no longer mercy.

5.

The Apostle Paul Teaches Us of the Fallacy of Human Effort in Salvation

II.

THE FREEDOM OF THE POTTER IN OUR SALVATION

“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?

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?”

(Romans 9:19–24, NIV84)

1. when the apostle writes that God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and will have compassion on whom He will show compassion, that His election is not dependent on a man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy the apostle anticipates what his readers are going to say next … "One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us?

For who resists his will?" (vs.

19)

A. GOD IS NOT THE PRISONER OF OUR EXPECTATIONS

1. God does what He wills, when He wills, with whom He wills, and for the purpose He wills, and what He will is always right, and always for His glory, and always for the believer’s ultimate benefit

a. does this mean that humans are merely pieces in God’s game of cosmic chess?

b. does the Apostle Paul mean to imply that Pharaoh and rebellious Israel are not accountable for their disobedience?

c. if Pharaoh, and Israel, and lost men, are just playing the role God has intended for them to play in the outworking of his strategy in human history, why should God judge any of them for resisting his will?

1) obviously these are not unimportant questions

2. again, the apostle rejects the premise, and claims that every person is indeed responsible for his or her own response to God even though God is able to use both our obedience and our disobedience to fulfill his purposes

a. Paul is just kinda blunt here—“Who do you think you are talking back to God?”