We're going to be mainly focused on 11 and 12, but I want to read the context because it's been a couple of weeks since we've been here. Romans chapter 11 verses 1 and I'm going to read all 12 verses this morning. Romans chapter 11 verses 1 through 12. I asked then has God rejected his people?

By no means for I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel. Lord, they have killed your prophets.

They have demolished your altars and I alone am left and they seek my life. But what is God's reply to him? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.

Otherwise grace would no longer be grace. But then Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. They elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened as it is written. God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear down to this very day.

And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend their backs forever. So I ask, did they stumble in order that they may not fall? By no means.

But through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles. So as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion meet? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we entrust this time to you.

We ask that your word would judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart. Help us, Lord God, to glean from it what you have ordained through your word, that it would go forth, it would produce fruits before it returns. We ask, Lord God, that you would be with us.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You know, as we've been studying through the book of Romans in the last nine, ten, and elevens talking about Israel, and I know when we're talking about Israel, we can easily kind of check out and say, well, that doesn't seem a practical relevance to us other than, you know, it's interesting to know that God is still faithful to the nation of Israel, so what practical application does it have for us?

Well Paul says in the book of Corinthians, he's writing to a church where all kinds of chaos is being allowed. They're divided, sexual immorality, their communion table is corrupt, and so he warns them and he uses the nation of Israel as an example, and he says in 1 Corinthians 10, I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and he's talking about the nation of Israel, and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses and he's saying basically all of them experienced the same grace of God and yet, in verse 5, nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things took place as an example for us. Everything that God did with the nation of Israel, we are to look at it because it has ramifications on us. That we might not desire evil as they did, do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written, that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

You know what's interesting here, one, first he says that everything that happened with the nation of Israel is relevant to us because they are an example of how God deals with his people, how God deals with sin. You know, but the thing that I want to highlight for you is that when God was bringing judgment upon the nation of Israel, the way God describes Israel is that they were just sitting down, eating and drinking and rose up to play.

So their life was just mundane. Even though God was telling them that judgment was coming, their response was simply they were eating, drinking, and as if life was going to go on like the rest of the world. In fact, Jesus describes the judgment of Noah, the flood coming, and this is how he describes it, in Matthew 24, 36, "But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." We've been studying the end times in the book of Revelation, and the scripture constantly reminds us that the end times should not take us and surprise us like a thief coming to break into the house.

He says the rest of the world is not going to be aware of it because they're not thinking about his coming. They're going to live as if this life is it. Even though Christian or non-Christian, we know that there's an end to life. Whether you live 100 years or whether you live 30 years or 40 years or even younger than that, it's a fact that death is imminent for everybody.

But the scripture tells the church that we ought not to be overtaken by the second coming like the rest of the world. But again, Jesus describes that in the end before the coming of judgment, people are just going to be living like every other day. They're going to be eating, drinking, marrying, and it's like life is going to go on forever.

There isn't this stirring of something's going to happen. You know what's interesting is I know that you guys know I was out in Asia for about a week and a half and I'm basically preaching with 10 hours of sleep this week. So I'm still sleep deprived. So if I say something weird, it's because I haven't been sleeping.

But I was out in China and then I was out in Korea and last Sunday here at your time, but Saturday while I was in Korea, the nuclear bomb that they tested, the hydrogen bomb in North Korea, and I didn't feel the effects of it. I just heard about it because I turned on the news and it was on the news 24/7 about what was going on.

And so that happened on Saturday and I walked out in the afternoon to go to the market to get something and it was one of those areas where it's just thousands of people, whether they're foreigners or locals out shopping, and they were filming one of those K-dramas out on the street.

And I could tell because there was cameras everywhere and these are like a tall, good looking young man and fair skinned young Korean lady was having a conversation and I was like, "What's going on? Why this crowd?" And you could tell the directors were yelling at the whole crowd.

And this was happening in the middle of hundreds of people just walking right in the middle. They set it up. And so we, and I ended up becoming an extra on the K-drama. Look for me, okay? So the director was yelling at all of us and he said, "Hey, stop looking at the camera.

Keep walking." And obviously nobody did that. We were all just staring and said, "What is going on here?" So I might be on K-drama. I don't know. They're probably going to cut me out. But through the whole process, I was thinking, "Wow, you know, the news is going crazy about this hydrogen bomb." And for years, people have been concerned that if North Korea ever gets a hand on nuclear bomb that I don't think there's ever been a question that this regime is crazy enough to actually use it.

So that's not a debate. No one is debating that. Would they be crazy enough to use this? I think that's not even a debate. They're crazy enough. If you look at the pattern of what they've been doing and how that country is and just getting rid of family members that threaten this regime, I don't think they're desperate enough where if they had it and they were provoked that they would actually use this bomb.

And they've actually gone to the place where it's, I mean, clear proof that they have it. So now they're freaking out. You know, obviously they should be freaking out. We don't know exactly how this is going to be resolved, but it is a dangerous time. But as I was just walking down the street and as they were, you know, filming this thing and hundreds of thousands of people just walking around, just, just another threat.

You know, Seoul, South Korea has been living under this threat for so many years. It's just kind of like, you know, they just do that. They're just rattling the cage again. Except this time is very different. Before it was a threat. It was just words. But now that they actually have the bomb, like kind of interesting to see what, how this is going to unfold.

As crazy as that is, South Korea has become so numb to this threat. It's just whatever, you know, I mean, if this ever happens, if there's, if this conflict actually escalates to the next level, and I don't know what the next level might be, but other than the actual war itself, but if it actually escalates to the next level, South Korea, North Korea will be completely wiped out.

I mean, forget the K-drama, the shopping, you know, all the, all the wealth that they've been working so hard to accumulate. I mean, I'm sure it's going to have effects even in the United States, but South Korea in particular, they're only miles away from the border. Instantly millions of people can be wiped out instantly.

And this is not some fantasy. This is the reality that they're living under. But here's the reality as Christians that we need to remember, that whether the nuclear bomb goes off or doesn't go off, God has not lost control. That we are not to be rattled in our cages because a crazy man has gotten his hand on a hydrogen bomb.

According to what we see in scripture, if God is a sovereign God, and if the hydrogen bomb does go off and millions of people are killed, our God is still sovereign. That nothing that's going to happen in human history is going to be outside of his will, where God's going to be shocked, "Oh my gosh, look what happened because he didn't pay attention for a few minutes." But what we do need to pay attention to are what is written in scripture.

The man or the being who is absolutely in control of this judgment, whether he uses the means of a nuclear bomb or disaster or famine or hurricane, whatever it may be, that God says that there will be penalty for sin. And that the only resolution for this penalty is the blood of Christ.

And that we are not to be caught off guard and to be rattled like the rest of the world. That we are no longer safe today or a year ago when they didn't have the hydrogen bomb. We are no longer more threatened today than when they did have the hydrogen bomb.

Because we believe in a power much greater than the things that you and I can see. So we need to pay attention to what the scripture says. What does it say? And again, that we do not get caught off guard like those people in the time of Noah and like the Israelites, just eating and drinking and living as if everything is just going to go on forever.

The nation of Israel, God is not done with the nation of Israel. And we've been talking about that in the text. That God, he says, has God rejected his people and he says, "By no means." Paul himself says he's an Israelite. He said, "God whom he foreknew, he ordained to love, he didn't all of a sudden quit on them.

Though they experienced partially for a time being a hardening of their heart." Verse 11, "Have they stumbled to the point where they fell." Meaning that, are they done? If they are hardened now, is this permanent? And the answer to that again in verse 11 is, "By no means." Further, he says there's a clear purpose for that.

That even in their hardening, even in their rejection of their Messiah, he says God has a purpose for that. He says, "Rather through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous." So even in their rejection, it says God is sovereign. God has deliberately ordained that the gospel would go to the Gentiles and bring it to us through the hardening of the heart with the nation of Israel.

I want to try to answer or at least deal with these two questions that come up in this text. One is, why does the failure of Israel lead to salvation of Gentiles? Why does God use this means to bring salvation to us, to the rest of the world? Why does Israel have to fail for the gospel to come to us?

That's the first question. The second question that we ought to be asking and try to answer this morning, why does he provoke jealousy in the nation of Israel to bring them back to repentance? So it seems like his end goal is clear, but the means that he uses to get us there is a mystery.

Like why does he use this mean? You would think that if God's intention was to bring salvation to the Gentiles, that he would just open the door. But why did he wait until Israel failed? And he said their failure meant that now the gospel is open to the Gentiles.

And if his goal is to bring Israel back to repentance, why does he use this means of provoking them to jealousy to bring them back to repentance? So we're going to try to answer these two questions this morning. One, why does he use this mean? Why does he wait until Israel fails before he brings them to salvation?

Clearly salvation to the Gentile is not plan B. He wasn't trying to be glorified to the nation of Israel and because they rejected, now he's going to go and go to the highways and byways and now he's going to bring the Gentiles on. That's not how it's explained in the scripture.

From the very get go, his intention was to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. Genesis chapter 12, 3, as he makes a covenant with Abraham, he makes it very clear from the very beginning, his intention was that through Abraham, that all the nations will be able to hear the gospel.

Genesis 12, 3, "I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So very inception of the nation of Israel, God's intent was to use them to get the gospel out to them.

Psalm 22, 27, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations shall worship before you." Again in Zechariah 2, 11, "And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day and shall be my people and I will dwell in your midst and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you." I could have chosen dozens and dozens of passages that I could have added to this that could have clearly states, that clearly states that the salvation to the Gentile was not plan B.

It's not because Israel failed, now he's giving up on them, now he's going to go to the world. He says from the very beginning, his intent was through them that he was going to be glorified. If that was the case, why does he use the means of a failure of one nation to bring the salvation to the other?

In Galatians 4, 4 and Ephesians 1, 10, Paul says that Christ came at the fullness of time, meaning at God's ordained time, that it was the perfect time, that God was waiting for that time to happen. So typically when we think about the fullness of time for the gospel to come, we think of human means.

He didn't wait until Alexander the Great had to grow up and he needed to conquer the nations, that he needed to unify the culture and the Greek language, and then they needed to wait until Rome came into power and then overthrew them and then united all the kingdoms so that the roads would be connected to each other, there would be cultural unity, they would be able to understand each other.

So all of these things were necessary so when the gospel came that they could go to these places and preach the gospel. Now a lot of times we think about that maybe that's what God was waiting for, but there's no mention of any of that. All of that is just human conjecture when it says fullness of time, that all the cultural language and all of these things have to take place.

Again, that's all just human rationale. Bible mentions none of that. I'm not saying that all of that stuff didn't contribute to the gospel being spread, but what the scripture clearly states what the fullness of time was, he said that the law was given so that sin would become utterly sinful.

He was waiting for the sin of Israel to have its full effect, and that's clearly stated in scripture. He was waiting for the hardening of the nation of Israel to have its full effect, that they would be hardened, not just partially, but to the point where even the Messiah that they've been talking about and waiting for for hundreds and hundreds of years, that even as he stood before them performing miracles, they would be so blind and so hardened that they wouldn't even be able to recognize him.

Not only did they not recognize him, they were so deep into their hypocrisy. They were so deep into their own sins and hardening of their own heart, they ended up crucifying the very Messiah that they were telling each other every single day. Messiah's going to come. Messiah's going to come.

So all of these external things obviously can be superficially, it could be helpful, but the scripture clearly states that God allowed sin to run its course. He allowed sin to run its course so that those who are hardened would continue to be hardened. Those who are rebellious would take the rebellion to its full effect because until sin becomes utterly sinful, his grace doesn't become utterly gracious.

That's true with every single one of us. You know, the people who, like Jesus said, those who have been forgiven most, those are the ones who love most, sometimes God will allow a hardening of our heart to take its full effect because God doesn't want partial worship. If you're going to give partial worship, God's going to allow you to just kind of keep going down that path until we are hardened to the point where you feel nothing.

The Word of God doesn't penetrate into your heart anymore because until we've gotten to the point where it's become so dark, we don't recognize the light even when the light comes. Even when the Word of God is preached, we don't recognize it as God. We can't, we don't discern if it is from God or not.

So God deliberately allows darkness to get utterly dark. That's why when Jesus came, it was ordained. He volunteered. He says, "Nobody takes my life. I lay it down and I take it back up." And yet, the whole purpose of why even Scripture was written, you know that the seed of the man, seed of the woman would come and crush the head of the serpent to bring salvation.

So the whole Israel's history and their genealogy was for Jesus to come. And how many times does Jesus say in his ministry, "It is to fulfill all prophecy." He was born in Bethlehem. He was born of a virgin. He was baptized. He's riding in on a donkey. He quotes Isaiah to say, "Today this is going to be fulfilled in you." He clearly states he's the Messiah and everything that he does, he said, "It's to fulfill prophecy." So it was God ordained that he was going to come and give his life for the sins of many.

And yet, he also says he's going to die in the hands of the leaders of Israel. And even his disciples betraying him was prophesied. Even Judas was not a mistake. His failure and his betrayal of his master was also prophesied. Why does God use these human failures even as this was ordained and volunteered?

See God allows darkness to take its full effect. He allows sin to become utterly sinful. In Romans 5.20, Paul explained earlier, he said, "Now the law came into increase to trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." Part of the reason why the scripture says why it is difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven is because a rich man is not desperate.

That's a deception of where you and I live. And again, every single one of us, I'm filthy rich. I'm filthy rich. And you're filthy rich. In comparison to the rest of the world. We don't, we're not desperate. Let's be honest, we're not desperate. And so the deception of where you and I live with all the blessings that we have is that we have to constantly remind ourselves how desperate we are.

Because the scripture tells us that a man living in a mansion versus a man living in a hut is no more safer and no better off in the presence of God. That he is just as poor and wretched in the eyes of God than the worst of sinners. But that's the deception of being rich, of being moral, of going to church, is because we are deceived to think that we're better off.

God allows sin to become utterly sinful because until we recognize sin as sin in the presence of a holy God, and until he allows sin to have its full effect, our religion just becomes something to do. It becomes maybe even superstitious. I have to go to church or else God's not going to bless my business or my family or, you know, it's part of sociology or psychology.

This is why we do what we do. But how much of it is because God saved wretched sinners? I mean, we all know how to say that. But is that why you're worshiping this morning? Is that what caused you to when you see the words up on the screen, "Bless the Lord, O my soul"?

Are those words that you repeated, do you just like the rhythm? Or is that a sinner in a wretched state that has been saved and as a result of that you can't help but to cry out, "Bless the Lord, O my soul"? God allowed sin to take its full effect in the nation of Israel.

The greatest hindrance to salvation is almost always pride. Because the first thing that the gospel says is that we are needy. We're wretched sinners in need of forgiveness. That's the first thing that it says, that everything that you were thinking was wrong. What you've been pursuing was wrong. What made you happy was wrong.

How you evaluated the value of people was wrong. How you invested your money was wrong. What entertained you was wrong. What preoccupied your mornings and night, it was wrong. We were outside of the will of God, living our own lives, seeking our own glory. And when we first hear the gospel, it says, "No, we were wrong." It brings us to repentance.

It causes a beat on our chest like that tax collector, "I am worthy to even look up to you." God allows sin to become utterly sinful because until we get to that point of darkness, our worship will always be superficial. Be something that is good to have, but not a necessity.

See, God uses the failure of Israel to display His glory. We know that God chose a nation of Israel that they would display His glory, but if you look at the history of Israel, it wasn't at the peak of their success where God was glorified. Right? It wasn't. Because they were constantly failing.

There are few periods in Israel's history where you can look at them and say, "Wow." Look at what God is doing. Look how much they are worshiping God. In fact, the majority of the time, God's glory was displayed in the midst of their failure while God was bringing judgment.

He promises restoration. When you first read the Old Testament, your first response is, "Man, God is vengeful. He says He's going to bring judgment, and He actually brings judgment over and over and over when you read it superficially." But when you take your time to read through what is happening behind the scenes, not just the judgment, but what caused this judgment, you can't help but to think, "Why are you so merciful with this nation?

Why do you forgive them over and over and over and over?" They just won't learn, even as they are being taken into captivity. He says, "Enough!" Even in that context, He says, "Yet I am not done with you." There's going to come a time when He's going to make a new covenant, and He's going to place His Word and His Spirit inside of you, so no one has to teach you, even in the context of judgment.

So if you look at the nation of Israel, God clearly was glorified through the nation of Israel, but it wasn't when they were righteous. It was when they were desperate. They had no hope. And even as we are reading it through the eyes of the outsiders, you almost demand, "God, be just and move on." Yet He is merciful, and He is gracious.

That's where you and I come in, that all of this is evidence of His grace to us. Even as the nation of Israel experienced the hardening of their heart partially, He says in verse 12, "Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean?" In other words, if His grace has gone to us, even as they failed, how much more of His grace will you experience when they actually are restored?

See, if this is the case, if grace abounds in our failure, the natural response in Romans 3, 5, 6 is, "But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?" Paul says, "By no means." Again, in Romans 6, 1-2, "What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" He says, "By no means." You know, there's two ways to wrongly respond to the gospel message and its grace. One is, and obviously we're always trying to earn, we're always like, "What should I do?" And you're always doing the right things, thinking that somehow when you're doing good, you walk around stiff-necked, like, "Nobody's like me.

How come nobody's righteous like me?" That's probably one of the, you know, it's the ugliest people to be around are self-righteous people, right? Nobody's like me. Nobody memorized scripture like me. Nobody serves like I do. Nobody, they're the ugliest group to be around, right? You know what I'm talking about.

And don't say, "Yeah, those people, those people." We're all guilty of that. We are all guilty of, you know, when we're usually good at something. If you happen to be good at serving, you know, those people who don't serve. If you happen to be good at praying, those people don't pray.

If you happen to be good at missions and sharing the gospel, oh, you know, those people don't share the gospel. Hey, there's self-righteousness in all of us. The other end of it is that we become so flippant with grace. Well, if, you know, sin, grace abounds more if there's more sin, then let us sin that grace may abound.

Paul responds to that in Romans 6, 1-5. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

That grace wasn't just grace and just panned out candy. He said, no, we have been crucified with Christ. In other words, our old self died when Christ died. And then verse 4, we were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in a newness of life.

For we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. If you respond to the grace of God saying, let us sin that grace may abound, you miss the whole point of salvation. The whole point of salvation is to deliver us from an empty way of life that we could not deliver ourselves from.

Someone who is dead in his trespasses all of a sudden does not make a decision saying, I'm not going to be dead today. The whole point of salvation is to take us from death and sin and to give us an opportunity to live a new life. So it completely contradicts the gospel for us to say, let us sin that grace may abound.

And that's basically what the argument Paul is making. If you've truly been saved, we would understand that our salvation means a newness of life. So one, the first question, He saves us, but first He allows sin to become utterly sinful. And He uses that to demonstrate His grace. The second question is, why does God arouse jealousy to bring about repentance of His people?

Jealousy, typically when we think about it in our culture, is not a good thing. If somebody says, wow, Pastor Peter is really jealous, you say, wow, that's a good qualification of an elder. So he's jealous about everything. I'm jealous of your shoes, of your car, your relationship. Everybody thinks of the way we use the term jealous as a good thing.

The Bible, the word jealous basically means passion, to have zeal. So the Greek word for jealous here is para-zealous. And the word para basically means to provoke. So some of your translations actually says that God is using the failure of Israel and gospel to the Gentiles to provoke jealousy among His people.

Passion. The word in and of itself is neutral. It can be used positive or negative. So Galatians 5, 19-20 uses negatively and it says, "Now the works of the flesh are evidence sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, and fits of anger." So here clearly, when you're coveting something that doesn't belong to you, it's negative.

God doesn't want you to have it. It's actually detrimental to you and it's not yours. So if you're jealous or coveting something that doesn't belong to you, obviously it is negative. You're talking about something that is not yours. So if we're jealous and coveting the world, it's negative. The scripture says, "Thou shalt not covet." Because it's not yours.

It doesn't belong to you. God never gave it to you. So when we covet the things that God never intended to give to us and does not belong to us, then it becomes negative. But coveting and jealousy in the context of God's will is actually righteousness. Let me tell you what I mean by that.

God forbid, but if my wife that I've been married to for over 25 years found out, again this is God forbid, so don't wake up now and just hear this part, okay? God forbid if my wife, I found out for the last 20 years has been involved in a secret chat room with this guy and all the time that she's been telling me that she was at Target was hanging out with this guy, right?

And spending all our time sharing all our secrets and spending all our money to connect with this guy. And then I found out about it and then you come and ask, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened." And you come and ask, "So how do you feel?" And I tell you, "Whatever." How many of you would look at that response and say, "Wow, he's really a righteous man.

It doesn't bother him at all." Is that a good quality to have? No. Immediately you would think, "What's wrong with your marriage? Why would that not bother you? How come that doesn't make you jealous? Aren't you angered by that?" Because you would expect if the marriage was what it should be that you're supposed to be jealous.

So if I'm not jealous, if I see that my wife is doing something, is connecting with somebody that she shouldn't be connecting with, that belongs to me, and she gives herself to somebody else, I should be jealous. Jealousy means I care. Because I love her, I covet her. So when the Scripture describes God's love for His people, He uses the strongest term that He can use to say that He cares for His nation.

In Exodus 25, it says, "You should not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God." When you understand in the context of what God is saying, that there is a covenant relationship. God made a unilateral covenant to love the nation of Israel unconditionally.

He says, "You belong to me. I have chosen you, not because you are numerous, not because you are more righteous than any other nation, but I have just simply chosen to love you." And that's why He describes His love for them as jealousy. Zechariah 1.14, "I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion." Remember when Jesus was turning tables over at the temple?

The disciples remember later on a prophecy in the Scripture that the Messiah, the zeal for the Lord's house, would consume Him. Passion, jealousy, coveting, what belongs to Him. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11.2, "I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." Jealousy or coveting, something that doesn't belong to us, that God didn't give to us, is sinful.

But coveting and jealousy is expected. In fact, it would be strange not to have that. That's why in Deuteronomy 32.21, God says, "They have made me jealous with what is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols, so I will make them jealous with those who are no people, and I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." Now, the point of all of this, obviously, one, it describes His love for His people.

But the reason why He's trying to provoke jealousy among the nation of Israel is because God does not simply want Israel to stop doing bad things and do good things. The reason why He describes Israel's repentance as provoking to jealousy is because He is jealous for them. So He wants them to be jealous for Him.

He wants that love that He gave to His people to return to Him in love. He doesn't want people just to come in, check in, and check out. That's why He says He doesn't care whether you worship here or there. He's looking for people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

What is He saying? He wants people to be jealous for Him. What is the greatest commandment? Which commandment should we do? What are we doing wrong? Because we've been carefully trying to obey all the commandments, so they come to Jesus like, "What more? What do we lack? What is the greatest commandment?" Jesus says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and everything else." The second is just like it.

In other words, He only gave them one answer, and that one answer is love the Lord. To be jealous for Him. Again in Hosea chapter 6, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice." The knowledge of God rather than burnt offering. Who commanded the sacrifices? God did. Who commanded the burnt offerings?

God did. But Israel completely missed the point. They just thought that if they did the right thing that God would be pleased. But over and over again, God calls out their superficial fake worship, their lip service, singing of songs that they don't really care about, serving without a devotion of worship.

Anything that we do to appease other people, to simply a check off list, eventually will burn us. I've been a pastorate long enough to know and see and experience that people who are the most dedicated at one point in the church are the ones who end up hating the church most in the later part.

And I'm not saying, "So therefore don't serve the church." That's my point. "Don't serve the church." Stop it. That's not my point. Obviously that's not my point. But I've seen so much devotion to the things of God that is not motivated for the love for God that eventually turns into bitterness toward God.

It starts out with, "I'm going to serve the church," and then you get disappointed and then you become neutral. I tolerate the church. And then when things don't get resolved, the tolerance of the church becomes hatred toward the church. That's exactly what it says in Psalm chapter one. "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers." You see the progression of their sin?

Walk in a council, stand with sinners, and then sit with mockers. It's the same sinner. When we give ourselves simply to appease and we are not compelled by the love of Christ, church becomes ugly. Our Christian life becomes a burden. We cannot bear, as Paul described in the previous passage.

His provoking of the nation of Israel reveals to us exactly what God desires of His people. He doesn't simply want us to do the right thing. He doesn't simply want us to change our behavior from one behavior to another. Don't get me wrong. God wants holiness. He demands holiness.

But He wants holiness to be inspired and compelled by the love of Christ. So you can come to church and serve, give, lead, go to missions, do all of that thing, make all the sacrifices, and completely miss the point. Because what God desires more than anything else is for us to be just as jealous for Him.

To covet His love more than His gift. To covet Him. That our salvation isn't just deliverance from hell. That's a ramification of our salvation. But the real gift of salvation is Christ. Not what Christ can do. Not the prayers that He can answer. The real gift of salvation is that the barrier between us and God was taken away now that I can have this relationship with Him.

The author of life I can call my Abba Father. So all the blessings come as a result of knowing Him. But the point is to know Him. The point is to love Him, to worship Him. I want to end with a video. This video is pretty long. It's a 10-minute video.

And some of you guys may have seen it before because I think I put it up years ago. But I think it makes the point that I want to make. That God's love for the nation of Israel. And I want to read this verse. And then after we watch this video, I'm going to ask the praise team to just come up and lead us in a time of worship.

In verse 12 it says, "Now, if their," meaning the nation of Israel, "if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean?" In other words, when God finally brings the Gentiles into His fold and then He provokes them to jealousy and they begin to come to Christ, the nation of Israel begins to get reestablished, how much more the blessing, how much more the rejoicing?

Let's take a few minutes to watch this video and then we'll ask the praise team to come up and lead us. Thanks for listening.