Missions Paul

Today all over the world everyone and anyone will be calling on Jesus and they will be finding forgiveness and cleansing; life transformation, purpose, hope and a future. Everyone!

As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10 v 11-13)

Remember this quotation from Joel in Peter’s Pentecost sermon? Set in the context of a salvation message, strange phenomena and the end of the world, Peter says, ‘everyone …’

Paul uses it in the context of salvation as well in the way of saying there is no difference, whomsoever, Jew or Gentile, ‘everyone …’ Every one and any one, whoever calls on the name of Jesus.

Wherever we are, whatever situation we are in and whoever we have become, call on Jesus who is the forgiver and you will be forgiven.
That is our message. No strings attached. No hoops to jump through. No rules to keep. Nothing of ourselves. All of Him.
Everyone.
Isn’t that amazing!
Every one.
All the people in your family, at your work place, in your town.
100%.
The world is a tough place. Many wake with terrible things to journey through today. But it is okay because every person can be rescued from this terror. Whatever they go through, disease, pain, death, they can be found, they will be saved. Some need saving from circumstances today that are brutal. Some need saving from others and some from themselves.
All of us need the Saviour for heaven but we also need the Saviour from earth.
Every person is included.
At any time, any place all they need to do is call.
“Jesus!”

Everyone

We over complicate most things.

Before we read the next verses, a reminder: God’s righteousness is the act by which God declares sinners righteous in His sight.

“Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: if you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (Romans 10 v 5-10)

It is simple. Gloriously simple!

It isn’t the righteousness of the Law of Moses where you have to do and achieve things.

It isn’t like you have to anywhere, a pilgrimage to the scene of the incarnation or that of the ascension.

It is so much simpler.

In fact it is ‘incredibly generous’ (Message of v12)

God’s righteousness comes as we call out to Him and trust Him.

This morning I can declare Jesus Lord of my life, I can believe in the power of His resurrection, I can do that.

This morning I can declare that though I don’t understand the bends and turns of life, Jesus does, because He is Lord. I can speak the Lordship of Jesus over every area of my life. No other master, no other controlling powers, I am free within His masterful, powerful presence, He is Lord of my life. This morning I can believe that there is nothing He cannot do in my life. He holds the power of resurrection. Not only for my life at my last breath but in the breath that I breathe today! If you wake with clouds of disappointment over you; if you wake with searing pain in your heart and you don’t know how you will get through this one day; pull back the curtains, He is here, Jesus, the power to live, who has found you, saved you, is saving you and will save you, He will never lose you, reject you, turn away from you, it is indeed incredible generosity from a God who loves us!

It is simple.

If ‘God’s righteousness’ is the act by which He declares sinners righteous in His sight then what is ‘our righteousness’?

Yesterday I was moved hearing a Pastor tell me what he said to a same-sex couple with a child who have started attending his church. After telling them that as a church they hold and promote a different standard to what they are practising he said, “However, if anyone in this church condemns you, then tell me first, because whoever does will be out of the door, not you.” In what is an explosive subject for many I thought this was the heart of a shepherd. But it reflected a Pastor’s desire to keep God’s righteousness at the centre of the church and without compromise making sure ‘our righteousness’ doesn’t impede the benefits of that.

We all have a righteousness of our own. Paul looks at his own family, the Jews, he longs for their salvation but he knows their righteousness is preventing them.

“Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Romans 10 v 1-4)

This is what ‘our righteousness’ does:

• It says the benefits of being good/righteous in God’s sight is just for us, within the ‘club’ or the ‘tribe’, it cannot be shared outside of this.
• It blinds us to the fact that God works in places and with people we cannot believe He would and neither would we want Him to if He did.
• It pushes against Christ being at the end of every sentence and sentencing. Every standard – Christ; every commandment – Christ; every consequence – Christ; every judgment – Christ; it seeks to remove the finished work of Christ.
• It is overly concerned with work, practice, demonstrations, effort and showmanship.
• It is the battle with the old v the new. It can be found in both camps because it is the battle itself. The old hangs onto the law/standards and gives guarantees on those performances and the new says it is a better day now and looks disparagingly on the old. But Paul shows us how to hold both not in tension but harmony. For example, his use of Old Testament Scripture throughout the letter reveals that he hasn’t torn it up at all. How would we understand sin without Genesis? Or redemption without the wrath of Exodus? Or the cross without the Atonement of Leviticus? Or the covenant without Deuteronomy? We need both!

The church and ourselves must keep God’s righteousness central to everything and not let ours creep in.

Here it is. Here is where Paul has been leading to. Some of the Jews who were more focused on their own efforts of achieving righteousness (the law) have missed the blessings of the Messiah whereas the Gentiles who had no place to stand before God after hearing the gospel message responded to the offer of righteousness.

There is a key place in all our lives. Some say the capstone, the place above the door. Some say the cornerstone, the first stone in a building. Whatever it is, it is of huge importance.

“What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.” (Romans 9 v 30-33)

Again Paul quotes from Isaiah, in 2 places:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic” (Isaiah 28:16)

“He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah he will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.” (Isaiah 8:14)

Perhaps only 15 years after Paul wrote this letter the Romans entered the city of Jerusalem, flattened it and then led the religious leaders bound in chains into foreign nations. They came under God’s judgment. The stone had fallen on them just as Paul had said, and Jesus also (Matthew 21:42).

It is far better to make Jesus the cornerstone of your life.

What Isaiah says poses such a challenging question to our churches and the people within them! Is Jesus occupying the place of huge importance? Is he in the decision making part? If he is not Lord then you may stumble over him and worst still you may be crushed by Him. Churches have closed because they rejected the Living Stone.

If the Bible is simply one message, one love story told in many different ways and at many different time lines to many different types of people then how should we read it?

In the following verses we are going to reading quotations Paul uses from the 2 prophets, Hosea and Isaiah. Why does he use them? It seems they are taken out of context. Unless Paul is using them to align within what he sees is the important Abrahamic promise not just for the Jew but for the Gentile, for those who are not necessarily generationally linked but of the faith. Throughout this letter he is referring continually back to Abraham. This salvation story is important for Paul and in these verses we see the Abrahamic story coming through. That could be why Paul uses these 2 prophets because he sees in them the message from Abraham. I have emboldened the words that point back to the Abrahamic promise.

“— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” (Hosea 2:23)and, “In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.” (Hosea 1:10)  Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” (Isaiah 10: 22, 23) It is just as Isaiah said previously: “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.” (Isaiah 1:9)  (Romans 9 v 24-29)

If this is true that Paul uses prophecies related to other things but sees the salvation story within them and appropriates them to his teaching on the promises found in God’s redemption: then what about us?

How do we read the Bible?

Do we jump into stories randomly or do we read them through the filter of the greatest story ever told: the salvation of God through Jesus Christ?

Perhaps we could try at least to do that?

Every story; every proverb; every song; every letter/book of the Bible used to point people to the love of God found in the Messiah who has come and will come again.

That’s the power of the Bible for changed lives. God’s love letter to the world for many generations!

What if our response, “God isn’t like that” is based on what we don’t want Him to be?

“What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory” (Romans 9 v 22-23)

What if our understanding of what is fair pales into insignificance with the justice of God?

What if God chooses to save and chooses not to save?

What if God determines the outcome of every event?

What if God saves and in no way do we deserve it and what if God sentences because we all have deserved it?

What if God needs to display His anger and His goodness?

What if God creates, “a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans?” (Message)

If this is God, would we still want Him? 

At some point we all limit God to the size we want Him to be.

Our understanding is small.

Our gifting and abilities are small.

Our reasoning is small.

Our many questions are small.

Our vision is small.

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9 v 19-21)

We are small.

God is not.

God choosing whoever He wants to use for His glory and plan, whether that be a Pharaoh or a Preacher makes Him look unfair doesn’t it?

It’s like wanting to have the major starring role in the school play but always being chosen for the props person. Not many Oscars are won for being in charge of the props. But what about the villain? More to the point what about the villains in real life who appear to be used of God but who do damage to their position and to people? Why does God use manipulative, narcissistic, arrogant characters?

“What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” (Romans 9 v 14-18)

Paul uses the story of Pharaoh (Exodus 9) to show that even Putin’s and Pharaohs are used in the story of God.

Pharaoh’s hardened heart in not releasing God’s people moved Moses into a miraculous season of a demonstration of God’s power from the signs to the parting of the Sea.

Does this apply to salvations so that we can say God determines who will be saved and who will not be? Some would say yes and many argue endlessly all their lives.

I don’t know. I’m not sure it makes a whole lot of difference to me.

But what I do focus on is God’s justice and fairness on the roles people play in history and the role I play is determined by His perfect just character. It is hard in the middle of the storm to see the finger of God working through the Pharaoh who harmed you. But later you will see Him, you will see the good that has come from the bad, you will see His glory and others will see His glory displayed in your suffering.

Ever not been chosen?

I am sure you have had that experience. For a job? A lover? To be on someone’s team for a simple game? Depending on your investment determines how you feel when you are left standing there.

It seems so unfair doesn’t it? Someone else was chosen but not you.

“Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”(Romans 9 v 10-13)

If our filter of life is what is fair to us then we are going to focus on who is not picked, who seems like they are rejected or condemned.

But if our filter in life is on the roles we play in the ever-revealing plan of God then our focus is on His glory and pleasure. So if I am not picked for a job it doesn’t mean I decide never to work. If I am not picked to be a lover doesn’t mean I will never love. If I am not picked for someone’s team doesn’t mean I will never ever play games again.

So if you get picked realise it is for a role not because you are better than the rest (something Paul will say next). If you do not get picked then you don’t walk away or abandon faith, you accept the glory of God and His purpose which is higher than the other person that was picked, in fact, it was nothing to do with them, it was all about Him. You don’t do what Ishmael, Esau and Edom (Malachi 1) did by opposing God and the people He chose. But even if you do as they did it will still ultimately bring glory to God.

It does seem to be the in-word right now. Hybrid cars are increasingly being marketed but there are some weirdly funny hybrid animals out there too.

I’m not sure but sometimes I feel hybrid simply means muddy and unclear.

When it comes to our faith, our walk with God and the story of the Bible I can see that we are more akin to something playing out that is hybrid whereas God remains true to a singular focus, promise and pathway.

I am the hybrid in many ways but God steps into my mud and offers me His pure way.

Let’s read some verses …

“It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.” (Romans 9 v 6-9)

And this is why I was reluctant to journey through Romans!

Many have written their views on these next few chapters proving that the truth is to be found in Calvinism and God’s election of who will be saved v Arminianism and God seeing who will choose to be saved (my very crude interpretation!).

To be honest: I have always found the arguments too heavy, laborious and leaving me still none the wiser!

So leaving that behind Paul seems to be reminding us that life is not about us but about God. It is His glory, His promise, what He has done and is going to do, His decisions and selections of the roles people play in this life, it isn’t about us, we are not Him. We are hybrid He is pure.

Whatever religion I put on my identification papers doesn’t mean anything.

If I am a Jew and I claim my ancestor is Abraham, there is no benefit unless I can claim to walk in the spiritual blessing of Abraham. There is a spiritual Israel within the physical Israel which we are going to discover.

Neither can I manipulate or manufacture my way through to the benefits of God by using an Ishmael. It becomes a hybrid.

I have to stay within the promise of God. I have to submit to His plan. That’s the offer to me. God remains singularly focused, His promise is pure and clear; He has stooped low and through the cross has raised me to be His child of promise.