Romans 11

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0:00 For the rest of us this morning, we're going to continue with the text that the electionary assigned. So last week was Pentecost and we looked at the story of Pentecost, the kind of dispatching or releasing of the Holy Spirit. And we had Red Banners. Brother Rosefarb, Brian was asking why do we have these white banners up? We have white banners because it's Trinity Sunday, which is kind of fun. And Trinity Sunday is white. It's a celebratory Sunday. It's a festival

0:33 Sunday. So you put the white banners up for Trinity Sunday and they give you readings that align with the idea of the Trinity. And the one that I picked for us that, you know, remember they give us an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, which Terry read for us, a gospel reading and a New Testament or epistle. I picked the epistle. It's in Romans chapter 11 if you want to look there with me. The end of Romans chapter 11 starting at verse 33.

1:08 It says, Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid. For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever. Amen. I have to confess that that little phrase is

1:45 why I picked this one for this morning. It's so pretty, isn't it? For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever. Amen. I was trying, I did a little bit of research because there are places in Paul's letters where he quotes hymns or poems. Remember the context of who Paul is, what we're dealing with in Paul. Paul's like a Jew of Jews. He learned from the

2:16 greatest rabbi and then then captured by Jesus, the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus. He builds a whole theological system in concert with the spirit and the believers in Antioch and then uniquely or maybe firstly realizes that Jesus now is Messiah not just for the Jewish people but for all the world. And so he goes on the church in Jerusalem sends him out on these like walking tours of Asia and most of the known world. He skirts going all

2:49 the way into Asia but he goes to the Middle East and then over to the Greek world and the Roman world and he does several tours right and he would go places and he would speak at synagogues and at marketplaces. He would talk with the philosophers. Paul must have been some sort of genius. Lots of logical arguments over and over again to get people to believe he would start churches be there for a year and then leave and then they would write him letters when they had questions about how did they apply the gospel to their

3:21 life and he would write them letters back and this is half of our New Testament Paul addressing questions at the churches that he had started. And the reason I tell you all that is because I can understand logical syllogism from Paul but this is almost too much. He made this up. I looked it's not a quote from another poem. It's not a hymn. Paul is like a logical rhetoricitian. He's like good at making arguments and he's a poet which is like

3:51 not even all the way fair right. For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever. Amen. So let's get to why Paul erupts in this poetry. He says this thing oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How insertible are his judgments and how inscrutable are his

4:22 ways. The first thing to remind you here and what Paul is getting to is like we talk about this fairly often that in the story of scripture God reveals who God is in kind of a progressive way right. In the very beginning with the first ones and through Noah God is our God is the God of creation and life. The God of

4:54 creation and life. That there is a specificity to who our God is. There are other things people might worship in the world. Their own capacity or ability the power that they muster a God of particular God of fertility or rain but there is specificity for the people of God even before Abraham Isaac and Jacob come on the scene. Our God is the God of creation and life and then God realizes

5:24 that God needs more specificity so he demonstrates his character to Abram by rescuing him though Abram did nothing and giving him everything that he might need though Abram earned none of it. He believed and it was credited to him his righteousness so then God becomes the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob right. And then when Abraham Isaac and Jacob begin to confuse and muddy and the descendants of Israel God comes in the person of Jesus and now we know the

5:55 fullest picture of who our God is is the God of Christ and the cross. Powering and then the church. And Paul has just explained something kind of confusing and difficult in Romans chapter 11 and so he kind of exclaims here poetically at the end how oh the depth and riches and wisdom and knowledge of God how insertible are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. If we would be

6:30 people of faith in the tradition of the God of creation and life the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God of Christ in the church we must always believe that God knows more than you. That there is a God it is not you and the God knows what the God is doing. The God has perspective you do not have. The God

7:06 has history you cannot find. The God knows futures you cannot see. How insertible are his ways the riches and depth of his knowledge that we cannot plumb the God of creation and life the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God of Christ in the church our God is a real and smarter than us. Knows what's

7:37 happening and the way things ought to go. The first thing is just to remind you here if we would be Christians in the tradition of the people of God the first thing we must cling to is there is a God it's not us and the God knows of the God is doing. Then he goes on here and these are like two quotes but like in my copy I don't know if you're looking at a copy of the scriptures but in mind

8:09 these are set off like they're indented they're treated like little quotes and we just said remember that Paul was a Jew of Jews he learned from this famous Rabbi Gamaliel he was like pretty brilliant and most people think in the first century if you were training to be a Rabbi you would have like the whole Old Testament memorized and you could just call it to your brain it was an oral culture you know so they memorized a lot more so he might pull these quotes out and and you know through Romans he's quoting a lot and and if you have a

8:42 Bible with cross references they'll cross reference where it's coming from because you don't have the whole Bible memorized and neither do I but we can look it up right well this doesn't have cross references on it which kind of killed me I had to do some digging to find where he's quoting from here because it's not clean quotes and so he's pulling these out of his memory but they're not exactly a lifted quote from any place in the Old Testament they're rough the first one for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his

9:18 counselor the closest that it is is Isaiah chapter 40 I'm going to skim through it if you want to follow along you can. Isaiah chapter 40 is right after remember we told the story a couple weeks ago about King Hezekiah and God gives him he's gets sick and he says you're gonna die and then Hezekiah says please let me not die and then he doesn't die it's right after that and he's made a mistake the Babylonians who were going to conquer him have come down to

9:50 congratulate him on not dying and he shows them all the wealth that he has they like come down as an emissary they're like hezekiah congratulations on night dying he takes them through all his store rooms he takes him through all the temples and shows him every shows them everything that he has this enemy nation who's so powerful Isaiah comes in quickly afterwards it was like hey he's a guy who's that he's like oh those are the guys from Babylon they were happy that I wasn't dying he's like dude what did they see he's like oh man

10:20 they saw everything I showed them everything and he's like dude not for you but for your sons they will come and plunder and Israel will be desolated sorry but that was a mistake has a guy's like well at least I'll have peace in my lifetime right and so Isaiah starts selling Israel again you're going to be conquered and then in chapter 40 he has this fame these famous phrases I'm going to skim through them real quick chapter 40 verse 1 after he said Israel will be conquered then God tells him hey comfort comfort my people says you're

10:53 God speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended that she has received from the Lord's hand double for her sins a voice cries in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord and then verse 9 get up to a high mountain Ozai and herald of good news lift up your voice with strength though Jerusalem herald of good news lift up and fear not for say to the cities of Judah behold your God behold the Lord comes with might verse 12 and then who

11:23 has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and who has marked off the heavens with a span and closed the dust of the earth within a measure and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills in a balance who has measured the spirit of the Lord or who shows a man him his counsel that's the quote Paul pulled out who measured the spirit of the Lord or what man shows him his counsel whom did he consult and who made him understand who taught him the path of justice this

11:57 is asking who taught God what justice was and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding behold the nations are like a drop in from a bucket and are accounted as dust from the scales behold the he takes up the coastlands like find us Lebanon Paul is quoting this who gives counsel to the Lord and then the next who taught the Lord justice what justice was and who showed him mercy and what he's getting to here is if we would be in the tradition of the

12:32 people of God the first thing we must know is that there is a God it's not us and the God knows what the God is doing and has perspective that we don't have and then he quotes this example remember when this is the southern kingdom of Judah so the northern ten tribes of Israel had already been conquered and destroyed let off by fish hooks and remember when God said I'm gonna destroy Judah too when there are dangers legitimate real dangers from

13:06 without coming against you when there are enemies lined up who will successfully hurt and harm you when life gets to such a point where it is factually not good Paul says who are you to say God has lost control in that situation Paul says who are you to suggest that what happens to you is

13:45 unjust as though there were not a God who defines justice who can teach God the council when when real enemies align against you and cause actual harm Paul says even then yet you do not know God says Judah will be destroyed but yet

14:17 comfort will come right comfort comfort my people Israel the nations God says are like a drop in the bucket for me their harm for you will be legitimate but not the end of the story and who are you right that's Paul's first kind of poll quote there Isaiah chapter 40 his second one comes from Job chapter 41

14:48 Beverly and I have talked about this little run in Job before it's pretty amazing it wraps up in Job chapter 41 but it it kicks off in in Job chapter 38 I'm gonna skim through a couple of it for you remember the story of Job Job like has everything going well in his life it's making money he's got he's

15:18 got a good family wife and kids he's got a good crew of friends and then all the sudden like from Job's perspective without explanation or clarity everything falls apart he loses all his money he loses all his family his friends turn out to be jerks everything goes wrong for Job and Job finally looks to God

15:50 and it's like hey man what is up like this is not fair everything's going wrong in my life and what did I do to deserve it you ought to fix this he starts telling God what to do all right and then this is God's response it's long so we're not going to read it all you'll have to take my word for it if you want to read it all you can start at Job 38 and go through 41 but I'm gonna skim it just best way to skim is read the first sentence of

16:22 every paragraph I learned that in graduate school then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said who is this that darkens council by words without knowledge where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth tell me if you have understanding or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb where when I made the clouds its garment have you commanded

16:53 the morning since your days began and caused the dawn to know its place have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep where is the way to the dwelling of light and where is the place of darkness that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the past its home have you entered the store houses of snow have you seen the store houses of hail who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and the way for the

17:26 thunderbolt to bring rain on the land has the rain of father or who has begotten the drops of dew can you lift up your voice to the clouds that a flood of waters may cover you can you hunt the prey for the lion or satisfy the appetite of the young lions when they crouch in their dens do you know the mountain goats where when the mountain goats give birth and do you observe the calving of the doughs who has let the wild donkey go free and who has loosed the

17:57 bonds of the wild donkey is the wild ox willing to serve you will he spend the night at your manger the wings of the ostrich were proud wave proudly but are they the pinions and plumage of love do you give the horse its might do you clothe his neck with his mane is it by your understanding that the hawk sore and spreads the wings with to the south then Job answered yeah he tried and then God

18:31 goes down in verse chapter 41 can you draw out the Leviathan with the fish hook he starts talking about this Leviathan be and then he gets to 41 verse 11 that Paul quotes who has first given to me that I should repay him and whatever is undone the whole heaven is mine Paul is saying saying a hard thing to the Christians in Rome and then says if you would be in keeping with the people of

19:04 faith you would remember all the depth and the riches and the wisdom of the knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable is ways and he calls our mind to a time when everything went wrong for Israel and yet God knew what he's doing and then he calls our memory to a time where everything went wrong for Job a whole nation everything went wrong and yet God was in control though we wouldn't know it and for one little individual everything went wrong in his life and yet who is Job to counsel the God who

19:42 walks in the store houses of snow who knows where light is kept and darkness is set at bay not Job you may have legitimate hard seasons of life you may you probably will have seasons where your money doesn't work out the way that you feel like it should where your family doesn't line up the way quite

20:14 that they ought where your friends don't respond just as you hoped that they would but do not be fooled or despair our people from the beginning of time has said that there is a God who knows the store houses of snow knows the resting place of light and is attuned to us the God knows more than we do and is

20:48 not caught off guard does not need to be taught justice right just before this Paul just before a little passage Paul says for God has consigned all to disobedience that they may have that he may have mercy on all he's saying he has allowed all of our abilities competencies to find natural failure in

21:35 order that we might rely on his mercy not on our competency he's saying in his great grace the God of creation in life the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God of Christ in the church has allowed you in small ways and sometimes unfortunately in large ones to fail to experience hardship and pain in order

22:07 that you might remember that his mercy is better than your competency his mercy is more powerful than your money his understanding of future is better than your dreams or visions of what it might be Paul is trying to awaken the

22:41 hearers in Rome and us today that our God is the beginning and end of all things from him and through him and to him are all things out of him with him and back to him are all things from him through him to him are all things in

23:11 order that all glory might go back to him it's better his mercy his justice his generosity is better than our competency our capabilities our envisioning of the future and the invitation for you today on this Trinity Sunday is to rest in God's mercy over and against your competency let me pray that we might do that hey Lord

23:43 thank you for the testimony of your work for the wisdom of Paul for the church that you give us remind us today that whatever hardships may come that you are in charge not us and your mercy is a good place to rest in Jesus name we pray amen