Written by: Dave Barker – What4
Romans 9 v 14-18
So what should we say about this? Is God unfair? In no way. God said to Moses,
“I will show kindness to anyone to whom I want to show kindness, and I will
show mercy to anyone to whom I want to show mercy.” So God will choose the
one to whom he decides to show mercy; his choice does not depend on what people
want or try to do. The Scripture says to the king of Egypt: “I made you king
for this reason: to show my power in you so that my name will be talked about
in all the earth.” So God shows mercy where he wants to show mercy, and he
makes stubborn the people he wants to make stubborn.
Notes
Is God unfair? You and I have probably heard this said before, from friends
or people we know. You might even have said it yourself! But we forget that
God is God; God is the great “I AM” as found in Exodus 3 v 14: “Then God
said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. When you go to the people of Israel, tell
them, ‘I AM sent me to you.’” We forget that God is all knowing and that
we can trust him.
Let's look more closely at these verses. Is God unjust? For a start, God’s promises have not failed but have been fulfilled in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and in their spiritual linkage. Paul would say that God is just, for he goes on to say that the question itself is misconceived because the basis on which God deals with sinners is not justice but mercy; salvation does not depend on our efforts but on God’s mercy. This is good news for us humans. Humans are created by God and he has always wanted a relationship with us.
Neither in these verses nor anywhere else in scripture does it say that God hardened anyone who had not first hardened themselves. If you are worried about whether you have hardened your heart towards God, this is a sign that you have NOT hardened your heart – if you had, you wouldn’t be worried about it! Take comfort – God wants to have mercy on you today.
Prayer
Dear God, thank you that you are a God of mercy as well as justice. Please
forgive me for any wrong things I have done, and in turn help me to show
mercy to others. Amen
Romans 9 v 19-21
So one of you will ask me: “Then why does God blame us for our sins? Who can
fight his will?” You are only human, and human beings have no right to question
God. An object should not ask the person who made it, “Why did you make me
like this?” The potter can make anything he wants to make. He can use the
same clay to make one thing for special use and another thing for daily use.
Notes
In today’s verses from Romans, Paul explains that it is silly to quarrel with
God who is our creator. God has the right to form our character and ways.
Yes, genuine questions about God will help us to understand him, but rebellion
against God will always lead to you being the loser. Remember, as it says
in Romans 8 v 31, God is for us, not against us: “So what should we say about
this? If God is with us, no one can defeat us.”
Paul’s emphasis in these verses is that just as a potter has the right to shape clay into vessels for different purposes, God has the right to deal with fallen humanity according to both his wrath and mercy – that’s because he is God! Have a think for a moment – what sort of things can a potter make with clay (a flower pot, a coffee mug, a vase?). Now think what God can make of your life. What is his purpose for you?
Nowhere does Paul suggest in Romans that God has the right to create sinful beings in order to punish them; rather, God has the right to deal with sinful beings according to his good pleasure, either to pardon or to punish them.
Prayer
Dear God, just like a potter working with clay, will you shape my life so that
I can be more like you and more effective in working for your kingdom? Amen
Romans 9 v 22-24
It is the same way with God. He wanted to show his anger and to let people
see his power. But he patiently stayed with those people he was angry with—people
who were due to be destroyed. He waited with patience so that he could make
known his rich glory to the people who receive his mercy. He has prepared
these people to have his glory, and we are those people whom God called.
He called us not from the Jews only but also from those who are not Jews.
Notes
God is always waiting for us to be in relationship with him and to grow in
relationship with him. God is very patient – well, he is with me at any rate!
I have seen God being patient with others too.
Have a look at Nehemiah 9 v 6-37, as it mentions who God is and what he is capable of doing. In Nehemiah 9 v 17 we read that God is forgiving and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. The New Century Version of the Bible puts it like this: “But you are a forgiving God. You are kind and full of mercy. You do not become angry quickly and you have great love.”
Later on in that chapter, we see something of God’s patience that Paul wrote about in Romans. In Nehemiah 9 v 21, we see how God kept his people in the desert for forty years, and they lacked nothing: “You took care of them for 40 years in the desert; they needed nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.”
Take heart - God did it then and he can do it now. God will take care of you through desert places – whether they be physical deserts, tough emotional times, or times of material need.
Prayer
Thank you, God, that you don’t change. Thank you for your patience with me,
and thank you that just as you took care of the needs of your people in the
wilderness, you will also be with me during any times of wilderness that
I might experience. Amen
Romans 9 v 25-29
As the Scripture says in Hosea:
“I will say, ‘You are my people’ to those I had called ‘not my people’.
And I will show my love to those people I did not love.”
“They were called, ‘You are not my people’, but later they will be called ‘children
of the living God’.”
And Isaiah cries out about Israel:
“Israel, your people are many, like the grains of sand by the sea.
But only a few of them will be left alive to return to the Lord. God has announced
that he will destroy the land completely and fairly.”
It is as Isaiah said:
“The Lord All-Powerful allowed a few of our people to live.
Otherwise we would have been completely destroyed like the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah.”
Notes
The way that God deals with us is clearly told in the Old Testament, and today
we see Paul, the writer of the New Testament book of Romans, quoting from
the book of Hosea to explain God's amazing love for all people, not just
the Jews. Then Paul uses verses from the book of Isaiah to show that God
will not put up with the sin in our life – again, not just in the lives of
the Jewish people but sin in the lives of all of us.
Following on from the Old Testament, Paul shows us in Ephesians (another of his books in the New Testament) that God's promise has a further, “gospel” fulfillment in the inclusion of the Gentiles: “Remember that in the past you were without Christ. You were not citizens of Israel, and you had no part in the agreements with the promise that God made to his people. You had no hope, and you did not know God. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away from God are brought near through the blood of Christ’s death” (Ephesians 2 v 12-13).
As you can see, those who once were far away have been brought near through the cross. Consequently, they are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's family (see Ephesians 2 v 17-19). The outsiders have been welcomed inside – and that includes you!
Prayer
Dear God, thank you that you have included me – not excluded me – from your
family, and that you have done this through the death of your son on the
cross. Help me to communicate to others that they, too, can be part of your
family. Amen
Romans 9 v 30-33
So what does all this mean? Those who are not Jews were not trying to make
themselves right with God, but they were made right with God because of their
faith. The people of Israel tried to follow a law to make themselves right
with God. But they did not succeed, because they tried to make themselves
right by the things they did instead of trusting in God to make them right.
They stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble. As it is written
in the Scripture:
“I will put in Jerusalem a stone that causes people to stumble, a rock that
makes them fall.
Anyone who trusts in him will never be disappointed.”
Notes
Paul, living in the first century, was faced with the unbelief of the majority
of people around him; only a minority of people in Paul’s time believed in
Jesus.
One question to ask is: why are people unbelievers? Maybe they are people for whom something else has got in the way, such as not pursuing right living, being self-centred, going their own way, being lovers of themselves, of money and pleasure, rather than lovers of God, and more (see Paul’s words to Timothy about this in 2 Timothy 3 v 1-6).
But Paul saw, in the first century, that when some people heard the gospel of “faith in Jesus”, the Holy Spirit worked in them so powerfully that they laid hold of it by faith. Millions of people have responded to that gospel message over the past 2,000 years, and the gospel of “faith in Jesus” is still powerful and working today.
There is one thing that everyone in this world has in common: everyone has to decide how they relate to Jesus and the things that he did. That means you too – in the words of Paul in today’s verses from Romans, you too can be “made right with God because of (your) faith”.
Prayer
Dear God, thank you that the message Paul was communicating 2,000 years ago
is just as powerful for me today. I cannot be made right with you through
what I do, but through faith in Jesus and what he did on the cross. Help
me let others know how they too can be made right with you. Amen
Romans 10 v 1-4
Brothers and sisters, the thing I want most is for all the Jews to be saved.
That is my prayer to God. I can say this about them: they really try to follow
God, but they do not know the right way. Because they did not know the way
that God makes people right with him, they tried to make themselves right
in their own way. So they did not accept God’s way of making people right.
Christ ended the law so that everyone who believes in him may be right with
God.
Notes
The way to follow God is so simple, yet we make it so hard! The only way to
be in relationship with God is through faith in Jesus, believing in what
he did for us on the cross and believing that he came out of the grave.
God has always wanted a relationship with us, and God had to move into our neighbourhood, as it were, so that he could identify with us. Jesus was God in the flesh: 100% flesh, and 100% God. No Old Testament sacrifice would be long-term enough; only God could come and sort out the sin of the world through his sacrifice.
Jesus destroyed the works of sin and the devil once and for all, and John’s words in 1 John 3 v 8-10 make it clear how we can be made right with God again: “If we say we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins, because we can trust God to do what is right. He will cleanse us from all the wrongs we have done. If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and we do not accept God’s teaching.”
Prayer
Dear God, thank you for moving into my neighbourhood by coming to earth as
your son Jesus in human flesh, even though it cost you. Thank you that through
his sacrifice, and then rising from the dead, I can follow you. Amen
Romans 10 v 5-8
Moses describes how to be made right by following the law. He says, “A person
who obeys these things will live because of them.” But this is what the Scripture
says about being made right through faith: “Don’t say to yourself, ‘Who will
go up into heaven?’” (That means, “Who will go up to heaven and bring Christ
down to earth?”) “And do not say, ‘Who will go down into the world below?’”
(That means, “Who will go down and bring Christ up from the dead?”) This
is what the Scripture says: “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and
in your heart.” That is the teaching of faith that we are telling.
Notes
It is important for you and me to understand that only God is judge (no one
else) when it comes to heaven and hell. Good works will not be enough to
get us to heaven; it is by faith, then working out this faith in our everyday
lives, until God calls us home or Jesus returns.
The weakness of the law is our own weakness, because we disobeyed it. Instead of the law bringing us life, it brings us under a curse. That would still be our position if Jesus had not sorted this out - if he had not set us free from the law’s curse. In a way, Jesus is the end of the law, and right living is only to be found in Jesus. And this is all by faith.
Jesus brings us salvation, not the law. Unlike the law, Jesus is not unattainable but readily accessible. If you believe this, then confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and “if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead … you shall be saved” (Romans 10 v 9).
Prayer
Dear God, thank you for your promise that if I confess with mouth that you
are Lord and if I believe in Jesus rising from the dead, I can become a member
of your family. Please help me to let others know that they too can become
Christians and be part of your family. Amen
word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes