back to index2017-03-12 Banking on God's Promises
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If you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 9, and I'm going to again, for review, 00:00:13.120 |
As Elder Joe read that, I want to read that one more time. 00:00:18.880 |
"But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from 00:00:27.440 |
Not all are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring. 00:00:30.640 |
But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 00:00:33.440 |
This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but 00:00:37.000 |
the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 00:00:39.760 |
For this is what the promise said, 'About this time next year I will return, and Sarah 00:00:45.680 |
And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather 00:00:51.520 |
Though they were not yet born, and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that 00:00:55.200 |
God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who 00:01:00.960 |
She was told, 'The older will serve the younger,' as it is written, 'Jacob I love, but Esau 00:01:07.160 |
Gracious and loving Father, we thank you for this morning, and as we search your Word and 00:01:17.040 |
take time, Lord God, for communion, I pray that you would enlighten and ready our hearts. 00:01:22.560 |
Help us Lord God, with all the distractions in our lives, to fixate our eyes upon Christ, 00:01:31.320 |
We thank you for your patience, we thank you for election, and we pray Father God that 00:01:37.200 |
as we wrestle with this text, help us to understand and glean your meaning, not just through our 00:01:42.480 |
mind, but our very wills and our lives will be changed the more and more we are exposed 00:01:48.840 |
And so we pray for your Holy Spirit to guide us, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. 00:01:51.920 |
Let me ask you a quick question, how many of you know the name Ryrie, Dr. Ryrie? 00:02:02.320 |
Dr. Ryrie, he was a pretty prominent theologian when I was younger, when I was going through 00:02:07.880 |
a Bible major undergrad in seminary, Dr. Ryrie was the key theologian behind the dispensation 00:02:14.400 |
Again, so I'm not going to go into details of what that is, but you know that in modern 00:02:18.640 |
era you have the ESV study Bible, before that there was a Reformation study Bible, the MacArthur 00:02:23.080 |
study Bible, the NIV study Bible, so in different eras there are different study Bibles that 00:02:29.560 |
Well, prior to the NIV study Bible, Dr. Ryrie's study Bible was probably the most popular 00:02:36.920 |
And so his name, even to this day, if you read a lot of commentaries, his name will 00:02:41.480 |
come up when dispensational theology, the traditional dispensational theology comes 00:02:46.920 |
So when I was undergrad, I was able to take a class that was taught by his daughter. 00:02:53.440 |
And so I was really excited because I was a Bible major and I was studying about dispensational 00:02:58.700 |
theology, so when I heard that his daughter was teaching a class, it wasn't a theology 00:03:05.740 |
And so we were in there and I remember like man, getting the opportunity to talk to her 00:03:09.480 |
and talk to her about her dad and I just remember that as soon as her dad's name came up, the 00:03:14.400 |
first thing that she said is, "I know nothing of the theology, so don't ask me." 00:03:19.160 |
So it seemed like she was almost annoyed that everybody would come in thinking that she 00:03:23.080 |
at least gleaned some of the theology off of her father, but that's the first thing 00:03:27.280 |
that she told us, she's like, "I know nothing about dispensationalism, so don't ask me." 00:03:33.640 |
And I remember some of us who were Bible majors were so disappointed because we were, we thought 00:03:38.080 |
like oh, we get front row seats and maybe we can ask her about this man. 00:03:43.520 |
But again, we were disappointed because we thought she had the opportunity, I mean she 00:03:48.160 |
was raised in a home where theology was rich, her father's name is being quoted in all the 00:03:53.000 |
theological books and commentaries and yet she gained nothing from it. 00:03:58.320 |
Every once in a while you'll hear about sports stars, that they had millions of dollars and 00:04:03.800 |
they gained tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, and then after they finished 00:04:08.200 |
their sports and career, you find them just in bankruptcy and it makes you wonder what 00:04:20.480 |
How come they were so blessed financially and to be that far away from financial security? 00:04:27.640 |
Well Apostle Paul described the nation of Israel as being as blessed as you can possibly 00:04:35.060 |
In Romans 9, 4-5, Paul says of the nation of Israel, "They are Israelites, to them belong 00:04:41.480 |
the adoption, they have the glory, the covenant, the giving of the law, the worship, and the 00:04:48.720 |
To them belong the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ 00:04:56.480 |
The reason why Paul said that in Romans 9, 4-5 is because they were, to nullify the message 00:05:02.640 |
of the cross, some people were saying, Apostle Paul must have hated his own people. 00:05:08.640 |
That maybe he has something against the Jews, maybe something went wrong and that's why 00:05:12.320 |
he's preaching a gospel that seems so offensive to the Jews. 00:05:15.400 |
And in defense he says, "No, that is not it at all. 00:05:18.200 |
If I was able to, I would rather be accursed than my countrymen." 00:05:23.320 |
In fact, he says of the nation of Israel, "We are so blessed. 00:05:28.120 |
God gave us the covenant, they had front row seats to all of his miracles. 00:05:33.480 |
They were the first recipients of special revelation of God's law. 00:05:38.320 |
Their temple worship, every single day that they went, revealed an aspect about Christ. 00:05:44.160 |
Their sacrificial system was to prepare for the coming of the sacrifice of Christ. 00:05:49.400 |
No other nation had the front row seat to the glory of God than the nation of Israel. 00:05:56.320 |
And yet, when Christ, the Messiah that they've been waiting for, for hundreds of years, standing 00:06:03.400 |
before them, after performing miracles, after miracles, walking on water, calming storms, 00:06:09.880 |
and even raising people from the dead, they were so completely blind to who he is, and 00:06:19.040 |
In John chapter 1, 9-11, it says, "The true light which enlightens everyone was coming 00:06:24.960 |
He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 00:06:29.460 |
He came to his own and his own people did not receive him." 00:06:34.280 |
Now, we're removed from what happened 2,000 years ago, and we can easily look at that 00:06:39.680 |
and say, you know, these Jewish people, how could they have been so blind? 00:06:43.440 |
If Jesus performed miracles in front of my eyes, I don't think I would have been so blind. 00:06:48.360 |
If I had the law and I had the glory, I was able to see the glory and the covenant and 00:06:52.160 |
all the patriarchs came from my own people, maybe I wouldn't have been so blind. 00:06:58.880 |
But the truth of the matter is, the statistics even today, you and I live in a post-Christian 00:07:04.400 |
culture, meaning Christianity is saturated in our money, it's in our constitution, it's 00:07:09.240 |
in our education, and I know that we have an element in our generation that's trying 00:07:13.640 |
to weed a lot of this stuff out, and there's a resistance against that, but this nation 00:07:19.920 |
is a post-Christian culture where many Christians that went before us have embedded the gospel 00:07:26.400 |
message and the presence of God in so much of what we're doing. 00:07:31.460 |
It's in the judiciary system, it's in the money, it's in the education, but because 00:07:38.400 |
we live in a post-Christian culture, there's a tendency for us to become numb to the truth. 00:07:45.360 |
You know, if you never heard the gospel message, and imagine, I know a lot of you guys, you 00:07:51.880 |
heard the message since you were a little kid, so when we talk about Christ crucified, 00:07:56.840 |
I mean you've probably heard that, I don't know, tens of thousands of times. 00:08:01.120 |
This message, what you're doing this morning, you've done this for maybe decades, some of 00:08:07.640 |
And so as a result of that, you become numb, it's become very predictable. 00:08:14.600 |
You're always kind of looking for a new edge, something different. 00:08:19.800 |
But we become, for the most part, numb to the things that we sing, numb to the things 00:08:26.600 |
I think it's extremely important that every once in a while we take a seat and take some 00:08:33.080 |
If you are a non-Christian, never heard the gospel message, and you heard the gospel message 00:08:38.000 |
for the first time, some of you may remember that. 00:08:41.720 |
If you became a Christian later in life, and somebody brought the gospel to you, some of 00:08:45.680 |
you may remember what it was like when you first heard the gospel, and what your response 00:08:51.080 |
Whether good or bad, whether you were angry or not angry, confused, you may remember all 00:08:56.920 |
And I know there's a lot of you don't remember any of it because you were raised in a Christian 00:09:01.880 |
You don't remember a single time in your life where the gospel was not in your family in 00:09:08.520 |
In any other case, as time passes by, there's always a danger of becoming numb to the truth, 00:09:15.440 |
and when we become numb to the truth, we become blind. 00:09:23.040 |
Just all of a sudden one day decided, you know what, I'm going to walk away from God. 00:09:30.520 |
Years and years of neglect, drifting, pursuing things that had nothing to do with God. 00:09:36.600 |
Eventually, spiritually, they became blind, so blind that a man who walked on water, who 00:09:43.600 |
fed them miraculous food, who raises Lazarus from the dead, standing before them, and they 00:09:52.080 |
The danger that you and I live in, in a post-Christian culture, one, if you're raising children in 00:09:59.520 |
a home where you're teaching them BBS, you're diligent in bringing them to Sunday school, 00:10:05.360 |
you know, Os Guinness wrote a book about the different generations of Christianity. 00:10:10.800 |
It said first generation usually that receives revival or receives Christ, second generation 00:10:18.320 |
Again, this is not 100%, but typical thing that you see in society. 00:10:23.360 |
Second generation becomes nominal, and then third generation is apostate. 00:10:29.880 |
The predominant experience in Christianity is children who are raised in Christian homes 00:10:41.080 |
I know every single one of us, if you're the first generation Christian in your home, you're 00:10:44.920 |
doing everything in your power that your children is exposed to the gospel, they're going to 00:10:50.840 |
But again, I'm just telling you statistically, predominantly children who are raised in Christian 00:11:00.800 |
And I think part of the reason is, has to do with us. 00:11:08.200 |
And the reason why is because after we've been a Christian for a while, we've learned 00:11:18.800 |
But our children see something very disingenuous. 00:11:24.400 |
They see the words that we speak, they see the things that we do, but our faith is not 00:11:29.720 |
And so we may pretend that church, but when we go at home, they see what's behind the 00:11:35.760 |
And so what we inadvertently do is raise children who are nominal Christians. 00:11:41.000 |
They know how to play the game, but they never had a personal relationship with God. 00:11:50.920 |
So by the time Christ came, they were so numb spiritually that they could not see their 00:12:00.140 |
The context in which this passage is written, Paul's been talking about God's sovereignty, 00:12:04.160 |
how Israel is not going to be saved because of their works. 00:12:09.240 |
It's by faith when they repent of their sins, just like the rest of the world. 00:12:13.640 |
So the natural question that's going to come up, if God is sovereign and he made a covenant 00:12:17.920 |
with the nation of Israel and he made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he's a 00:12:25.160 |
sovereign God and he was a sovereign God who keeps his promises, at least that's what we 00:12:30.080 |
Then the natural question is, if Israel has failed and they don't recognize their Messiah, 00:12:40.520 |
That's the question that Paul is trying to answer in verse six. 00:12:42.920 |
It is not as though the word of God has failed. 00:12:47.040 |
It is not as though the word of God has failed. 00:12:51.360 |
Hebrews chapter six, four through eight, you don't need to turn your Bibles there. 00:12:55.200 |
The author of Hebrews is answering that same question. 00:12:57.720 |
Here's a group of people, maybe third generation Christians, who are beginning to drift back 00:13:04.960 |
And so the author is writing to them, warning them that there's only salvation in the name 00:13:10.280 |
If you drift back into your old way of life, there is no salvation. 00:13:15.360 |
Again, some of you guys may be very familiar with this text and when you read it, you may 00:13:19.200 |
be confused, but let me read this text to you and again, try to explain it where you 00:13:27.520 |
For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who 00:13:32.920 |
have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness 00:13:37.200 |
of the word of God and the powers of the age to come. 00:13:41.020 |
If they then fall away, since they are crucifying once again, the son of God to their own heart, 00:13:45.320 |
I'm holding him to holding him up to contempt. 00:13:51.080 |
He describes an individual who has tasted the goodness of God, who shared in the Holy 00:13:59.640 |
And on the surface, it sounds like a Christian because he's tasted the Holy Spirit. 00:14:07.040 |
But he says if he fails, if he fails to repent, it is it is impossible to restore him to repentance. 00:14:14.060 |
So some people have taken that text and say, well, it sounds like if you fail that you, 00:14:22.760 |
Obviously, that contradicts everything else that we see in scripture. 00:14:26.560 |
Clearly that is not what he is saying in Hebrews six. 00:14:28.520 |
So I want you to continue reading with me in verse seven. 00:14:32.400 |
He says, for the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop 00:14:37.720 |
useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 00:14:42.800 |
If it bears thorns and thistles, it's worthless and near to be cursed and its end is to be 00:14:49.000 |
So you notice the illustration that he gives between somebody who has received the goodness 00:14:57.440 |
Like so all have have received this rain, this grace of God, and some of them received 00:15:02.400 |
it and bore fruit and some of them received it and they rejected it, had for no fruit 00:15:08.000 |
and they are worthless according to the scriptures and they will be judged. 00:15:13.100 |
So what he is saying here in this text is all had the opportunity to hear God's word. 00:15:21.200 |
He's talking about people who are in the church, who are around the preaching, participate 00:15:26.240 |
in communion, maybe even Sunday school teachers, maybe even pastors. 00:15:31.780 |
That the word of God, they had every opportunity to repent and come to Christ, but they never 00:15:38.700 |
And so these people that Paul or the author is specifically talking to are talking about 00:15:43.040 |
people who who've experienced it, who have observed it. 00:15:46.200 |
They can even tell you about what they've observed. 00:15:49.160 |
And at one point they may have, they may have even seemed like Christians, but they're returning 00:15:58.040 |
Let me, let me show you another passage in second Timothy two, 11 to 13. 00:16:03.040 |
You don't need to turn your Bibles there, but here's a passage that is often quoted 00:16:07.840 |
Verse 13, if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, comforting, right? 00:16:17.720 |
How many times have we found ourselves to be faithless, to be caught in sin, to drift 00:16:23.160 |
away and to be reminded that no matter how faithless you are, God will always remain 00:16:34.640 |
But when you take that verse out of context and you begin to create this theology of who 00:16:40.420 |
God is and who Christ is outside of the context of which Paul is saying this, you can have 00:16:47.000 |
a lopsided view of the, of the doctrine of grace. 00:16:51.220 |
I want you, I want you to read the whole context of this in second Timothy two, 11, 13 says 00:16:55.800 |
the saying is trustworthy for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. 00:17:14.460 |
You have to read verse 13 along with verse 12. 00:17:19.260 |
If you only choose to read verse 13 is you, and this is part of the reason why we've created 00:17:24.000 |
a culture in our generation of church goers who are living in sin and absolute assurance 00:17:32.860 |
And you ask them why it's because they were raised in a Christian home. 00:17:35.900 |
They went down on altar, they went to harvest crusade or, or they have some reason, but 00:17:46.920 |
He says, if we deny him, we don't believe him. 00:17:51.460 |
We know we have no intention of following him. 00:17:55.100 |
And the end result is you will find that you have been denied by Christ. 00:18:02.260 |
If we are faithless, he will remain faithful. 00:18:05.700 |
No matter how faithless we become, no matter how unreliable our promises become, God remains 00:18:18.020 |
When God says that he will deliver us from our sins, he will keep that promise. 00:18:24.540 |
But when he also says that there will be condemnation for everyone who rejects, he will also keep 00:18:31.660 |
That God's promises are a hundred percent reliable one way or the other. 00:18:39.300 |
That he will be faithful to himself through and through throughout generation to generation. 00:18:44.620 |
He's that verse 13 is not saying that no matter what you do, no matter how rebellious you 00:18:49.500 |
are, you have no intention of following Christ and continue to live in disobedience. 00:18:53.840 |
It doesn't matter because God will remain faithful to you. 00:18:56.460 |
God will forgive you whether you repent or not. 00:19:07.380 |
It's important because basically that's what Paul is trying to say in this text. 00:19:14.080 |
If God made a promise to the nation of Israel, and now you're saying they're under condemnation, 00:19:18.420 |
even though God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then is God changing his 00:19:34.120 |
And then he gives two illustrations of Isaac and Ishmael and Jacob and Esau to prove his 00:19:40.920 |
point that God's intent always was salvation by faith and by his promise. 00:19:46.560 |
So in verse six and seven, this is what he says in answer to that God has not failed 00:19:51.380 |
He's not breaking his covenant with the nation of Israel. 00:19:54.840 |
Verse six, for not all who are descendants from Israel belong to Israel. 00:19:59.480 |
Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. 00:20:03.740 |
So let me interpret that in the context of what Paul is saying. 00:20:08.620 |
He's not moving on to plan B. His covenant and his promises that he made to the nation 00:20:16.240 |
The problem is you think that the promise is for you because you were born into a particular 00:20:23.200 |
nation, because you went to the temple, because you have these outward appearance of being 00:20:33.560 |
Imagine how mind-blowing this is to a Jew that for decades and for centuries, no matter 00:20:39.460 |
how hard life got, they reminded each other, at least we're Israelites. 00:20:44.840 |
God said that he's going to be faithful to us. 00:20:52.340 |
So when the pagan nations took over and the Romans and the Greeks and the Persians and 00:20:57.240 |
the Babylonians and the Assyrians came in and oppressed them, the encouragement that 00:21:02.640 |
they gave to each other, we are God's people. 00:21:09.980 |
Maybe if we did a better job of keeping the Sabbath. 00:21:14.720 |
And all of a sudden, the apostle Paul says, you're completely mistaken. 00:21:20.120 |
Not all of you are recipients of God's promise. 00:21:23.320 |
When God made this covenant, you may not be a recipient of that promise. 00:21:34.360 |
Paul's been saying this in Romans chapter 228, for no one is a Jew who is merely one 00:21:39.360 |
Nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision 00:21:45.040 |
In other words, the physical circumcision has nothing to do with your salvation. 00:21:55.240 |
In fact, this idea, this false security that these Jews were holding onto was the primary 00:22:06.960 |
Until he broke into their false security, they would never come to Christ and cling 00:22:14.520 |
As long as their security is external righteousness, they would never come to Christ in desperation. 00:22:22.080 |
So in order to bring the gospel to them, he needed to break that confidence. 00:22:27.000 |
That's why it says in Matthew 3, 9-10, it says, "And do not presume to say to yourselves, 00:22:32.080 |
we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise 00:22:38.680 |
Your confidence in your heritage is unwarranted. 00:22:43.320 |
God is not obligated to you or to us because of our heritage, because of our parents, because 00:22:50.120 |
of what we've done in the past, or even what we're doing now. 00:22:54.880 |
Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the tree. 00:22:57.440 |
Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the 00:23:02.520 |
As some of you guys know, I'm a third generation pastor in my family. 00:23:07.400 |
My grandfather was a pastor, my father was a pastor, I'm a third generation pastor. 00:23:11.640 |
So typically people think, "Oh, no wonder you became a pastor." 00:23:15.520 |
And then so now, who's going to be the pastor in my family, since we are the family of Levites? 00:23:23.520 |
Well, I mean, as I've mentioned to you many times, even though I grew up in a Christian 00:23:29.920 |
home, you could have asked me before I became a Christian, "Am I going to go to heaven?" 00:23:35.000 |
I would have told you yes, because I grew up at church. 00:23:39.520 |
I heard Sunday school, I memorized scripture, went to the VBSs. 00:23:44.200 |
I can't remember a single Sunday that I missed church. 00:23:46.720 |
No matter how sick I was, my dad was, "You have to go to church. 00:23:51.080 |
Even if you're coughing up blood, just sit in the front row, and then we'll just leave 00:24:03.840 |
I really don't know what that meant, but I would have told you yes. 00:24:08.880 |
If you asked me to recite the gospel, I wouldn't be able to tell you the details of the gospel, 00:24:12.760 |
but I would have been able to tell you a Sunday school version of it. 00:24:16.400 |
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. 00:24:22.320 |
I could have told you that, because I was taught that since I was a little kid. 00:24:31.400 |
If I remained in that state, if I died, I would have met a God who was going to judge 00:24:41.280 |
It was just something that was passed down to me. 00:24:43.720 |
Just like certain phrases, just like certain cultural things. 00:24:50.120 |
The danger of being a Christian for a long time, or raised in a Christian home, and again, 00:24:56.240 |
I have nothing against being raised in a Christian home. 00:24:58.520 |
I'm not saying practice paganism at home for the sake of your children. 00:25:03.480 |
I think rightfully we should do our best to preach the gospel to our children and be a 00:25:11.280 |
But the danger, the flip side of that, if we're not careful, we can inoculate our children 00:25:25.360 |
And the reason why inoculation happens is because we become inoculated. 00:25:33.800 |
We know how to copy what is right without ever having genuine faith. 00:25:40.040 |
We know how to teach the importance of not missing church. 00:25:42.360 |
We can do all of that and have nothing to do with genuine worship. 00:25:47.880 |
And it numbs our hearts, it numbs our churches, and it causes our children to regurgitate 00:25:52.800 |
what we are doing, yet never having genuine faith and never being truly transformed. 00:26:00.800 |
That's the danger of being in the same place for a long period of time. 00:26:03.720 |
And then typically we think, once that happens, we think, "Oh, it must be the other people. 00:26:11.640 |
And so we change churches, change groups, change friends, thinking that maybe it's 00:26:21.380 |
And that's why if you study the Old Testament or the New Testament, the word "remember" 00:26:28.360 |
When we are rebuked in the book of Revelation of being lukewarm, he doesn't say, "Go look 00:26:34.160 |
He says, "Remember the height from which you had fallen." 00:26:42.280 |
Remember your desperateness before Christ, before you became numb to all these things. 00:26:48.680 |
One of the most scariest passages in the Bible, in the gospel of John chapter 8. 00:26:52.480 |
In fact, if you can do me a favor, turn your Bible to John chapter 8. 00:26:56.320 |
This is a passage that I've been to many times, but again, I think it helps us to see. 00:27:10.760 |
In verse 31, it says, "So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him." 00:27:18.000 |
He's talking to this verse, Jews who profess to believe. 00:27:27.200 |
But the conversation he has, Jesus says, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 00:27:31.920 |
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." 00:27:35.760 |
We know that passage very well, and we quote it all the time. 00:27:38.880 |
In fact, even the non-Christians quote this passage. 00:27:48.360 |
They're offended because Jesus basically said, "You need to be set free." 00:28:01.400 |
How can you possibly say, "We need to be set free," like a common criminal or a common 00:28:11.160 |
And they're so offended, they go back and forth. 00:28:13.560 |
And then I want you to go all the way down to verse 39. 00:28:17.640 |
And the conclusion of this discussion in verse 39, "They answered him, 'Abraham is our father.' 00:28:22.560 |
Jesus said to them, 'If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham 00:28:28.680 |
But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. 00:28:36.520 |
They said to him, 'We were not born of sexual immorality. 00:28:41.380 |
Jesus said to them, 'If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God and 00:28:52.080 |
It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.'" 00:29:03.680 |
But in verse 44, "You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's 00:29:10.200 |
He is a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth because there 00:29:14.820 |
When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he's a liar and the father of lies. 00:29:21.900 |
He was talking to a group of people who were saying they believed him. 00:29:26.960 |
And the end result of this discussion was, he says, "God is not your father. 00:29:38.120 |
Did they start out as a believer and ended as a non-believer somewhere in this discussion? 00:29:43.440 |
See, their profession of belief was superficial, just like the thousands of people who followed 00:29:49.640 |
Christ up to the hills and ate the miraculous food. 00:29:54.920 |
And when Jesus said, "I am the bread of life," they turned away. 00:30:13.280 |
True Israelites are the ones who have true faith. 00:30:19.720 |
The earliest part of Israel's history, you have this example of Isaac and Ishmael. 00:30:25.120 |
So if you read starting from the second part of verse 7, it says, "Through Isaac shall 00:30:31.680 |
This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God. 00:30:34.920 |
So when he's talking about children of the flesh, if you know the story of Isaac, Abraham 00:30:40.240 |
is promised that he's going to be the father of multitudes. 00:30:45.040 |
So he comes, packs up his bags with his family, he enters out into the desert. 00:30:52.040 |
Sarah is unable to have a child and she's getting old, so she decides that she's going 00:30:59.120 |
So at that particular time in history, the wife could have taken the maidservant because 00:31:08.300 |
So legally, she can have her slave maidservant have the child with her husband. 00:31:14.740 |
And when that child comes, if she receives the child, that child will be considered the 00:31:25.040 |
Since I can't have a child of my own, I'll have Abraham sleep with my servant, Hagar, 00:31:30.640 |
and then when she has a child, that will become my own. 00:31:34.040 |
And this is how we're going to fulfill God's promise. 00:31:39.760 |
So he has every legal right to be the heir, rightful heir of the promise of Abraham. 00:31:47.640 |
He says, "This promise that I made, this covenant that I made with you is not going to be carried 00:31:56.240 |
So at a later age, more than 15 years later, when they're even older, God gives them a 00:32:01.600 |
child, Isaac, and his name means laughter because it was unbelievable what God did. 00:32:06.480 |
And so that's what Abraham is saying, that from the very get-go, that God's promise was 00:32:11.280 |
not dependent upon the flesh, but his promise. 00:32:16.060 |
God is the one who is sovereign over salvation. 00:32:21.440 |
The reason why he gives a second illustration, some of you guys may have already been thinking, 00:32:25.400 |
well maybe Ishmael was disqualified because he wasn't the original mother. 00:32:33.680 |
Well in order to answer that question, he goes to the second illustration, the next 00:32:45.260 |
So now you can't disqualify it because they have different moms. 00:32:49.280 |
They have the same mom, and you have these twins that are born, Jacob and Esau, and this 00:32:57.760 |
Though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that 00:33:02.400 |
God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of his call. 00:33:11.440 |
Esau, by his flesh, should have been the rightful heir of God's promise. 00:33:18.080 |
But in order to demonstrate that it's not by the flesh, but by God's promise, he deliberately 00:33:22.680 |
chooses the second child, just like he chose Isaac. 00:33:26.960 |
So from the very beginning of Israel's history, God embedded into their history that it was 00:33:33.040 |
not going to be by your flesh, but by his promise, by faith. 00:33:38.520 |
And he was illustrating this, that this is nothing new, that God actually had this from 00:33:44.320 |
And then he goes further, the older will serve the younger, and then he comes to this conclusion, 00:33:53.000 |
I know a lot of people wrestle with this, right? 00:33:55.640 |
I can understand God loving Jacob, but Esau, he hated? 00:34:00.960 |
Again, let's understand that within the context of the scripture and how the word hate is 00:34:06.680 |
I think the best illustration is found in Luke chapter 14, 26, when Jesus says, "Whoever 00:34:12.160 |
comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, 00:34:18.120 |
yet and even life itself cannot be my disciple." 00:34:22.320 |
I think all of us are sophisticated to know that Jesus is not saying, "Go hate your mom." 00:34:30.160 |
Don't go home today and say, "You know the church that I went to today, this Baptist 00:34:34.720 |
church, they told me, Jesus said, 'I need to hate you. 00:34:46.120 |
Jesus himself said, "To honor your father and mother." 00:34:54.480 |
You have to understand again, in the context of what Paul is saying, in the context of 00:34:58.080 |
what Jesus is saying, he's saying that God's sovereign choice, God's sovereign choice of 00:35:05.800 |
Jacob over Esau, demonstrates that the author of life is God and God alone. 00:35:13.520 |
Now, what does that mean to us as Christians? 00:35:18.920 |
One, our flesh doesn't play a part in our salvation. 00:35:25.240 |
Our flesh, our heritage, your past experiences, past works, whatever it is that you bring 00:35:30.680 |
to the table has nothing to do with our salvation. 00:35:34.120 |
God did not sovereignly choose us because he saw something precious in us and he needed 00:35:41.600 |
That's not how salvation is initiated or continued or finished. 00:35:50.080 |
The reason why they had Isaac is because God was trying to demonstrate that he's going 00:35:56.000 |
to keep his promise so that Abraham and Isaac would understand that the promise wasn't because, 00:36:08.120 |
Just in case that Abraham might have forgotten what he did at the end of Abraham's life, 00:36:19.240 |
From Abraham's point of view, I mean, you took us through this once already. 00:36:23.880 |
We weren't able to have children and you miraculously gave us Isaac and now we have a hope and then 00:36:27.760 |
now we've invested all of this time, energy, and money on this child thinking now the road 00:36:32.640 |
seems clear and all of a sudden he comes out, boom, and he blocks the road. 00:36:40.720 |
Because he's trying to teach again to Abraham and to all of us, the father of faith. 00:37:00.800 |
But people, circumstance, their experiences, whatever it is that we bring to the table 00:37:09.360 |
First and foremost, the same lesson that Paul is trying to tell the nation of Israel is 00:37:17.880 |
The moment any kind of pride enters into our hearts in coming to the communion table, into 00:37:25.640 |
the fellowship, into our pursuit of Christ, that very thing that you think is causing 00:37:30.720 |
you to draw closer to God causes you to have the greatest hindrance. 00:37:36.280 |
Every single one of us, every time we come to God, comes as spiritual beggars. 00:37:42.760 |
That's the point that Paul was trying to make. 00:37:45.040 |
The second lesson is mentioned in Hebrews 6.17. 00:37:49.780 |
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable 00:37:54.080 |
character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable 00:37:59.360 |
things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have 00:38:04.480 |
strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 00:38:09.800 |
That even when we are faithless, he is faithful. 00:38:15.680 |
So our hope that we have in Christ is absolutely immutable. 00:38:24.040 |
But the same faith that we started with is the same faith that causes us to persevere 00:38:28.280 |
and is the same faith that will cause us to finish. 00:38:32.160 |
And that's why at the end of Hebrews chapter 12 it says, fix your eyes upon Christ. 00:38:38.920 |
He's the author, he's the perfecter of our faith. 00:38:43.280 |
That he who began a good work in you, he will carry it on to completion until the day of 00:38:49.140 |
So the application in the context, Paul may be trying to explain the gospel to the Jews. 00:38:56.220 |
The application is so important for every single one of us. 00:39:00.380 |
Until we are humble and desperate before God, you will never fully appreciate and understand. 00:39:06.780 |
And your heart will become numb and inoculated. 00:39:11.100 |
We can sing the gospel, we can tell the gospel, we can repeat the gospel, we can recite the 00:39:15.540 |
gospel, memorize the gospel, and yet does nothing to your heart. 00:39:27.180 |
Myself, and every elder, every deacon, every servant, every small group leader, every Sunday 00:39:39.500 |
That's what this communion table is ultimately about. 00:39:43.260 |
Some of you guys may think twice about coming to the communion table because you struggle 00:39:51.860 |
Maybe next time when I feel better, maybe when I did a better job as a Christian, maybe 00:40:00.860 |
He promised that if you confess your faith, confess your sins, he is faithful and just 00:40:08.100 |
The only requirement is to confess and repent. 00:40:15.900 |
So I ask all of you, as you guys are contemplating and taking some time to pray, if you have 00:40:21.220 |
unconfessed sins, take some time to pray and genuinely confess. 00:40:24.820 |
Not superficially, just, "Oh, forgive me," and then just come on. 00:40:28.840 |
Really come before the Lord in genuine repentance and renewal. 00:40:33.440 |
And if Satan puts thoughts in your head, "You are undeserving," how can you possibly come 00:40:45.580 |
Remind whatever is coming into your head that it was never of your flesh to begin with. 00:40:54.460 |
The only requirement that God makes is to pray and ask for forgiveness. 00:40:59.380 |
So I pray that as we open up the communion table, that one by one, as you are ready to 00:41:03.900 |
come up and let me, since this is a new place, we're going to have to give you some instruction. 00:41:10.680 |
So what I'm going to ask is everybody, you guys choose from this side, this way. 00:41:15.720 |
So if you're coming from this side, grab the elements and then go back out down this aisle. 00:41:22.820 |
You guys come this way, go back out this aisle. 00:41:23.820 |
If you start crisscrossing here, it's going to cause chaos. 00:41:26.860 |
So again, if you're coming this way, grab your stuff and go back out that way. 00:41:30.780 |
And again, I ask when we open up the communion table, communion table is meant for baptized 00:41:36.220 |
And if you are a confessing believer and your sins have been forgiven, then again, we ask 00:41:41.800 |
This is to commemorate and to celebrate what Christ has done. 00:41:44.760 |
If you have never confessed Christ and never been forgiven, never been baptized, we ask 00:41:48.920 |
that you would remain in your seat and that you would just be there and just watchful 00:41:53.880 |
But again, let me open up the communion table for us in first Corinthians 11 and then I'm 00:41:58.240 |
going to pray and ask the praise team to come up. 00:42:01.300 |
And then when you're ready, one by one, please come up and participate. 00:42:04.200 |
First Corinthians 11 23, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that 00:42:10.120 |
the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed to bread. 00:42:13.640 |
And when he had given things, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. 00:42:17.000 |
Do this in remembrance of me in the same way. 00:42:19.960 |
Also he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. 00:42:24.520 |
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. 00:42:28.240 |
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until 00:42:37.840 |
We thank you for what this communion table represents. 00:42:42.200 |
We do this in remembrance of Christ that we may proclaim his love and sacrifice, the blood 00:42:51.280 |
You knew no sin, but become sin for our sake. 00:42:57.280 |
Help us Lord God to revisit our salvation, to rethink and remember Lord God, our desperate 00:43:07.980 |
Help us Lord to be revived and renewed and reconciled. 00:43:14.080 |
We pray Lord God that you would bring it to remembrance. 00:43:17.760 |
Help us to be reconciled before we come to the table. 00:43:20.280 |
We pray that by your grace that we would receive your grace in Jesus name.