Expound: Romans 8:28-9:6 - Part C

So God used Israel to reveal Himself, to reveal His plan, because Jesus is predicted, world history is predicted in the Old Testament, and to reveal His Son. So Himself, His plan, and Jesus Christ's Son, all revealed through the Jewish nation. God's chosen people largely rejected their Messiah, Jesus Christ. But God wasn't done with His people.

Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Skip helps you see how the nation of Israel still fits into God's plan. Now, we want to tell you about a resource that will help you grow stronger in your faith. Joy in the midst of hardship is a hallmark of the Christian life.

But is it really possible? Here's Lenya Heitzig. Sometimes what starts out as a happy trail turns into a really daunting road, and we have to figure out how to navigate. A lot of times, God's purpose in allowing trials is to give us opportunities to grow to the point where we genuinely experience joy in the midst of trials. Learn how to face trials with courage, wisdom, and yes, joy with Lenya's booklet, Happy Trials. And when you give $20 or more today to help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, we'll send you a special bundle of three booklets by Lenya. Happy Trials, Don't Tempt Me, and Speak No Evil. Get your bundle of three booklets for a gift of $20 or more by calling 800-922-1888. Or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer.

That's connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we're in Romans chapter nine as Skip Heitzig starts today's study. Have you ever been encouraged when somebody has walked up to you and said, I've been praying for you lately? Or, the Lord laid you on my heart this morning in my quiet time, I lifted you up in prayer. Does that make you feel good? Does that encourage you? I get awfully encouraged when somebody says that. Imagine Jesus saying, I've been thinking about you lately, and I've been talking to the Father about you.

How does that make you feel? Well, honestly, better than anybody else saying they've been praying for me. Jesus Christ died, has risen from the dead, ascended to heaven, knows my every need, is willing to meet my every need, and talks to the Father on my behalf. He intercedes for me.

He prays for me. I can't tell you what a, well, it's a monumental truth. He makes intercession.

So here's the summary paragraph. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And he lists several experiences that could make a person feel separated from the love of God.

Seven, to be exact, painful experiences. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Well, certainly, if these things happen, somebody pulls out a sword to kill me, or I'm in deep distress, because he mentions distress here, or I get persecuted, or I don't have enough food to eat, famine, or no clothes to wear, or peril. Any of those experiences in life will cause you to pause and question, God, do you really love me? Because if you love me, wouldn't you take better care of me?

Now, God just said he didn't spare a son. He's going to give you everything else you need. So with that in mind, what can separate us from his love? Well, yeah, but why would he allow me to experience hunger?

Why would he allow me to experience distress? Again, all things work together for good. See, we're always thinking about our comfort, our need, our well-being right now.

But God's got something in the future. Think of an artist, an artist that has a canvas who's painting a picture, has something in his mind, the finished product in mind. If you're an onlooker, you're not the artist, you don't know what he has planned, even though he tells you in advance, he starts laying stuff out on the canvas, putting outlines, penciling, or she, and then adds color and forms. At first, it just looks like a blob or several blobs converging.

And if the artist was painting a portrait of you and looked at it right in the middle of the portrait, you would probably say, thanks a lot. This is what you think of me? I'm a blob? I'm a convergence of several colored blobs? And the artist would be a little crestfallen at your reaction because the artist knows what it's going to be in the end.

Just get out of here. Go back there and get in the light again and let me finish up here because it's going to be beautiful. So God is working on your life. He is sketching out what's perfect. And he knows the end from the beginning. That's part of omniscience. And he's working it all out together.

But this blob and that blob, yeah, but the synergism is going to work out. And he knows what it's going to be like in the end. So what will separate us from the love of God?

All of these things might hurt temporarily, but they're working eventually for something much better. As it is written, and it's quoting Psalm 44, one of the sons of Korah's psalms. As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long.

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. I love the faith-filled words of the Apostle Paul. Paul the Apostle writing from experience. He's gone through nakedness, famine, distress, peril, sword. Went through it a lot.

That was his normal experience, kind of Paul's daily life. Asked the question, what will separate us? Then in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Let me explain that. The word more than conquerors, we have to have three words in English to translate a single word in Greek. The Greek word is hupernikomen or hupernikau. That's the one word.

One is the actual form, the other is the lexical form. Forget that. So one word, hupernikau, hyperconquerors. So huper, hyper, or super, or more than.

And then nikau. So some of you are Nike shoes. It's from the Greek god Nike. That's the Greek word conquer. So hupernikau, hyper, super conquerors.

That's what Paul says. We aren't just conquerors. We're more than conquerors. We're hyper conquerors.

We're super conquerors. Okay, so that's what it means. But what does it really mean now?

Translate it. What's the idea of this? Well, you can have an automobile for an example. You have four cylinders in that car. Not a lot of power. It's a small engine, small four cylinders. It'll get you around town. It'll get you up to speed on the freeway. It'll give you great gas mileage. But there's not a lot of power to spare in that thing. So you can't really tow much with it. If you try to tow anything and you go up a hill, like La Bajada Hill, good luck.

You'll take it down from 65 down to about 35, floored. But if your car has a fuel injected turbocharged V8, you have power to spare. Now you're a hoopernicomen. You're a hyper conqueror. You can not just go places.

You can go places, you can tow things, and you've got extra power just in case you want to do 120, which you shouldn't, but you could. So if you're a conqueror, you rejoice when you win the battle. If you're a hyper conqueror, more than a conqueror, you rejoice in the midst of the battle.

See the difference? You're fighting the battle. There's distresses and nakedness and famine and sword, and you rejoice because I know how this battle's going to end. I know the outcome.

I'm OK. That's more than a conqueror. So I just love his spirit-filled thinking. For I am persuaded. So he said in Romans 8, 28, I know. We know.

This is what we know. Now he goes, I am persuaded. Now that's Paul writing. Paul is persuaded. I don't know that you are.

Only you can answer that. Now it becomes personal. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, probably referring to demon angelic forms, nor powers, same idea, but different ranking, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thank you, Lord. Now that concludes the eighth chapter of Romans. Chapter 9 begins a third part. Remember we divided the book of Romans up into four parts. We've said them every week.

You know them now by heart. So he talks about the number one wrath of God, followed by the grace of God, followed by now the plan of God, followed by the will of God. So we are beginning the third section of Romans, and the third section is Romans 9, 10, and 11. It has the same subject matter, and that is God's plan, especially regarding the Jewish nation, the nation of Israel. Jew and Gentile, but especially the Jewish nation of Israel. Now Paul is writing to the Roman church. In the Roman church, there was a mixture of both Jew and Gentile.

There were different ethnicities. But something was happening with the church. The church began all Jewish in Jerusalem. Everybody was Jewish. Everybody believed in a Jewish prophecy.

Everybody believed in the fulfillment of Jewish promises and Jewish scripture. It was all Jewish. But now there are more Gentiles in the church than there are Jews. By far, it has become in the last 2,000 years a non-Jewish or a Gentile movement. And an Orthodox Jew will point this out. Look, I'm not going to become a Christian. I'm Jewish.

Remind that Orthodox Jew. The early church was exclusively all Jewish because they followed a Jewish Messiah, believed in Jewish promises and prophecies, etc. But that mixture of Jew and Gentile and the fact that more Gentiles are now believing in a Jewish Messiah and the Jews have largely rejected Jesus as their Messiah has brought up a number of issues. What's God's plan? How does the Jewish nation fit into God's plan when they have rejected their Messiah?

Is God then done with Israel? So that question, that issue that was paramount in the church and is still asked today and should be answered today is answered in chapters 9, 10, and 11. So chapter 9, verse 1.

Now let me just give you a quick outline of 9, 10, and 11. Chapter 9 is Israel's past. Chapter 10 is Israel's present.

Chapter 11, you're going to guess this, is Israel's future. That's how Paul approaches it. I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit. That I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, for my kinsmen, according to the flesh who are Israelites.

To whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God and the promises of whom are the fathers and from whom according to the flesh Christ came who is overall the eternally blessed God. Amen. Now please just notice that before I kind of unwrap this little section of verses.

Paul here unmistakably refers to Jesus Christ not only as God but as the eternally blessed God. And just so his readers get the point, he adds the amen to it. So he's not going to even wait for them to say amen.

He's going to say it. Amen. This is right.

This is true. So Jesus Christ came who is overall the eternally blessed God. Amen. What is he saying in these verses?

Simple. God made a choice, a sovereign choice, to form a nation, the Jewish nation, and through that nation to reveal himself. God revealed himself through the Old Testament prophecies, the Old Testament scriptures.

Before the New Testament was written, that was the Bible. So God used Israel to reveal himself, to reveal his plan because Jesus is predicted, world history is predicted in the Old Testament, and to reveal his son. So himself, his plan, and Jesus Christ, all revealed through the Jewish nation. So that's why the believer, the Christian believer, the modern church person, has a huge debt to the Jew. Because scriptures come from it, God's plan comes from it, our Savior comes from Israel. Jesus said to the woman at the well of Samaria when she said, Well, you know, we worship in this mountain.

We kind of do our own thing up here on Mount Gerizim in Samaria, and you Jews worship in Jerusalem. Interesting how Jesus answered it. He said, You don't even know what you're worshiping here. We know what we worship.

Listen to what he said. For salvation is of the Jews. Now Paul would say to that, Amen, salvation is of the Jews. Jews gave us our scriptures, Jews gave us God's plan, and the Jews gave us our Savior. In verse 5 he mentions the fathers. Of whom are the fathers? Those are the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

Jacob had 12 sons, 12 tribes, the 12 tribes of Israel. And they were selected by God. God promised them a land. They were taken down to Egypt for 400 years. They were slaves. God delivered them through Moses, brought them across the Red Sea into the land that we call today Israel. They again occupy that land. But it all came through the fathers.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 tribes of Israel. It's worth going to Israel if you can make it. You're going to make it in the millennial kingdom, but it's kind of nice to have a before and after picture. I always say that because it's going to look vastly different then than it does now.

I mean vastly different. So if you kind of want to get a biblical history, a New Testament history where Jesus walked, where the road to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob walked on, it's great to see that. It's also good to see modern Israel because it's the only functioning democracy in the Middle East. It's one of the strongest economies in the world. Today in Israel there are 9 million people thereabouts. That's the population of Israel, 9 million people. 6.7 million of them are Jewish. There's about 15 million Jews in the world at large. 6.7 million of them live in that land of Israel. Israel today has a $300 billion per year gross national, gross domestic product, GDP.

They are the fourth leading export of citrus in the world, the third leading exporter of flowers in the world. So when God said to Abraham, one of the fathers, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make your name great.

He wasn't kidding. The sons and daughters of Abraham have been blessed and are being blessed today in the land. Of whom are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is overall the eternally blessed God.

Amen. But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel. So the contention might be, well, so many Jewish people have rejected Jesus Christ as their Messiah. Maybe that means God's promise has failed. God's promises to the Jewish nation has failed. He says, it's not that the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel. So just because you're Jewish and the majority of those who are Jewish have rejected the Messiah, the most point is, not all of them have. Yes, it's a minority, but here's the point. The rejection of God's promise by the majority does not negate God's promise to the minority.

Do you understand that? Just because most people reject something doesn't mean, well, they've got to be right because that's what most people think. I hope you've gotten over that if you think, well, you know, most people think this. So, I don't care what most people think.

I care what's right and what's wrong. And I care what God thinks. And if what most people think isn't what God thinks, I don't give a hooey what most people think. Because at the end of 1 John it says, we know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. So John says, the whole world's wrong when it comes to spiritual truth.

So Paul's point is a strong point. The rejection of God's promises by the majority does not negate God's promises to the minority. We're still a remnant of Jewish people, were and are to this day, who believe in the Messiah. And by the way, that's going to happen all the way to the end. In the very end, a very small amount of the Jewish people who live on, if there's 15 million Jews in the world, and yet the book of Revelation says, how many people are going to be sealed by God who are Jewish?

144,000. That's a very small remnant. But once again, their disbelief, their unbelief, doesn't negate God's promise to the minority. Nor are they all children, because they are of the seed of Abraham. But in Isaac, your seed will be called. That is, those who are the children of the flesh. That is, those who are the children of the flesh.

These are not the children of God, but the children of promise are counted as seed. I'm going to have to let this dangle till next time, because we're getting into some deep waters once again with Paul. You know, it's funny, because people say, I love the book of Romans, and I always say, have you ever really read it? What do you like about it?

What do you love about it? I mean, there's certain verses, that's really what they mean. There's a few verses in it that I really love, like that 828 thing, that's awesome. But Peter, remember, did say there were some things Paul wrote that are hard to understand. Now, it's not that it's hard to understand, it's that the way the language is, and if you're not familiar with the Old Testament, it kind of makes you go, huh, what? But here's what he's going to say.

I'll give you a preview. God makes a choice, because God knows everything. He's omniscient, he knows everything, so because he knows everything, he makes his sovereign choice, chooses a nation, chooses people out of that nation, makes a choice as to a family lineage. So you've got Abraham, Abraham had a couple sons, God picked one of them to fulfill his promise. Isaac and Rebekah had two sons, God chose one of them, and it wasn't the oldest one in either case, it was the younger. That's God's sovereign choice. And so I'm going to unravel that next time, I just wanted to give you a little bit of a preview of it, didn't want to extend my time, but next time we're going to swim in the depths of election, predestination, and choice, human volition, okay?

That's Skip Hyten with a message from the series Expound Romans. Now, we want to tell you about an opportunity you have to take your knowledge of God's Word to a deeper level. Personal or small group Bible study is a great way to learn God's Word.

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Take the evening classes on campus or anytime classes online. An education from Calvary College will impact your spiritual life for the rest of your life. Apply now at calvarychurchcollege.com. The Bible is full of God's promises to you.

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Thank you. Come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares why God's plans for Israel are so significant for you today. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.