Romans 9:17–18Scripture
Everybody open your Bibles to Romans chapter 9. Today we're going to look at verse 17 and 18. It says this: "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you,'" let let's just go back. I want to draw out a couple of key words that are going to become foundational for this message today. There are words when we read Scripture that should pop off the page at us, which we should circle or underline or make note of. And so let's go through here. "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh." That was the word there you could circle, is "Scripture." That's an interesting word there, because I thought Moses spoke to pharaoh. All right, you with me? So you got to do something with these words, they're in there for a reason, right? So don't ignore them. "For the Scripture says to pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up.'" Who did it? God did it. I, that's who we're speaking about there, "that I might show my power," what is the word there? Somebody said it, say it louder, "in you." That's an interesting word. It's not through you, it's not to you, it's in you.
All right, so speaking of something specific there, "and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." So then "he has mercy on whomever he
Introduction
Wills, and he hardens whomever he wills." I love that. I love that. Now you remember in our analysis of this passage that the apostle, chapter 9 specifically, leading all the way up to where we're at now, the apostle divides up this matter in this kind of way. There are two main difficulties that the reader or the listener, probably more the listener, or the listener now, the reader might be able to have, two objections, two main difficulties or objections, which can be extrapolated from the teaching last week and then this week. Okay, last week we dealt with one of them, this week we're going to deal with the second of them. All right, the two objections are this: it seems unjust or unrighteous of God to show his mercy to some and then not to others. That's one objection. Now simply stating that, simply stating the objection, which we know the objection is clear, it seems unjust. Is God unjust? We learned last week that the word also could be interpreted "unrighteous." We talked about how we have confused justness, and so it affects how we then interpret or read the Scripture. And our objection is, it seems unjust or unrighteous for God to show his mercy to some and not to others, and particularly that he does so even before they were born. That's when he does it, regardless of any action on their part. So then to take what Paul is saying and to make it, to deal with this objection in a way that says, well, it's based on what people do, totally contradicts what the Scripture is saying.
Paul is speaking very clearly that it is God who chooses before we were born, regardless of anything we do or do not do.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:34
So it is not based on what you will do, what you will choose, how you live, it's based on God's will and his will alone. He chooses whom he pleases to show mercy, and he chooses whom he pleases to make a vessel of destruction. That's the key. You don't have to like it. Not sure that I like it. That's why there's an objection, that's why this is an objection. In other words, the people that are listening, Paul understands that they know this to be true, but the objection springs out of what they know to be true. And you know what they know to be true? That God decides it in spite of you. So the objection isn't, "Well, you know what, Paul, I think he got it wrong. Really what God did was he looked ahead in time and he looked at what you were going to do," which is a total contradiction of what Paul is saying here, "and then he determined based on what you're going to do." That's not the objection. Really the matter has been settled regarding God's sovereignty. What the objection is about is, if this is true that God does this, is he just? Because this seems unfair. Now many of us today, if you are alive and you have a heartbeat today, you would have the same objection. The objection is not new, though. The objection was still there in the second-century church. The second objection: it seems equally unjust and unrighteous of God for God to love Jacob and hate Esau. It just seems unfair, it seems unjust. So then in verse 14 he begins to deal with the difficulties of this objection. In verses 14 through 16 he deals with the first by talking about the aspect of the case, the aspect of mercy. That's the first one, that's the first part of this, that God shows mercy on whom he shows mercy. And then he begins to deal with the second, our subsidiary point or the case, is by talking about the hardening, which is what we're going to talk about today. So last week we talked about God showing mercy on whom he pleases, and then today we're going to talk about the second part of the argument by talking about who he hardens. We find him summing up by saying this: "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." So I love that, verse 16. Turn your Bibles there, I'll turn with you, let's look at it, I think it's important for you to hear it. All right, some of you are like, "Shawn, why are we belaboring predestination?" We're not, the Bible is. "I don't have a horse in the race, Shawn. Can we just move on and talk about something else?" No, we're not. No, we're still in Romans 9. Paul is laying a case, and he's spending a lot of time on it because he knows we have a problem with God being in control. He has to spend time on it. I know you want us to move on, I hear rumblings of it, sorry for you. Paul is trying to get something
Point 1Your worship is shaped by his sovereignty
Through to us.
Listen, your worship is affected by your view of his sovereignty or lack thereof.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:36
Can you put the lyrics to the second song we sang, just put them up there. I just want to, I didn't prepare this, but I think it's interesting. So let's look at a couple of things. "When I look at the heavens and the moon and the stars you set in motion." Oh God, keep going. "I sing glory and honor." Notice it's saying that glory and honor is given to God because of his being all-powerful. "When I look at the heavens and moons and stars." And then move on to the next one, move on to the next one. "What is man that you're mindful of him,"
That's a great question, "the son of man that you would care for him." Keep going. "We sing all glory." Keep going. "Oh Lord, our Lord, how awesome are your ways." Are his ways always awesome? When they would be your ways? How many of you can testify to the fact that your ways get you in trouble a lot? Amen. All right, so how can we give honor to his name and glory to his name? Because his ways are higher than our ways, meaning then, when we come, leave it there, leave it there, when we come to chapter 9 and we hear that God is sovereign over those who he shows mercies and those who he don't, you need to know his ways are higher than your ways, and we can hope and glory in him because he knows better than you. All right, so some of you are singing worship, trying to offer up honor and glory, but you value your ways more than his ways, so then you can't worship him properly. Are you with me today? It affects your worship. Let's move on. "How majestic is your name." So we can ascribe majesty to his name in all the earth because his ways are higher than our ways. Keep going. "Oh Lord, our Lord, may we see your kingdom come, Father, may your will be done in all the earth."
Whose will? Whose will? His will. His will. He saves who he saves and he makes a vessel of destruction who he makes a vessel of destruction. It's his will. Keep going. I think there's another verse in there that I was liking, maybe not. Is that the next one? "To your children, are you crowned them of God." Keep going. What was the other one that before that, did I miss one?
"So we'll sing your name, live our lives for your glory." Oh God, I'm trying to think if there's any others. "The earth is full of the glory of God. Come make much of the name above all names. Creation cries out and every knee bows." Every knee. Do you notice there that every knee bows? Not every knee who chooses him. Every knee bows. "Jesus, we crown you. Oh Lord, our Lord." That's good. I love it. I love it. You know how we can be, it affects our worship. At the end of the day, you have to deal with the fact that Paul is speaking very clearly. It is not confusing, and it is not based on anything you do, and it is not based on anything you choose, and it's not based on anything you will. It's based on him and him choosing alone. And as much as you might wrestle with that and think that is unjust, Paul is going, "I know. Me simply saying what I'm saying is going to make you think God is unjust, but he's not. Who are you to question him?" That's it. That's the end of the day. Conversation over. Verse 16: "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." Now in verse 17 we come to the end of the second case. All right, the second subsidiary case, or the second aspect of the general main case, the charge of unrighteousness in God in light of this type of teaching. People hate this teaching today. I have difficulty with this teaching today, I do. He starts out by saying "for." Now we might want to attach the "for" here to the direct teaching in verses 15 and 16, right? But I think we'd be amiss if we did that. Here's what, 15, "For he says to Moses." This "for" here lets me know that the "for" that he's talking about in verse 16, the 17 actually doesn't bump up to verse 15, but bumps up before that, because 15 and 17 are attached to another statement. All right, you might attach "for" here to the direct teaching in 15 and 16, but the word "for" goes back to what is said in 14 and 15, and verse 13 puts the general position like this. All right, let's go to 13, as it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Then the objection is there righteousness with God? Paul's response to that is, because he says, "I love one and I hated another," and it is not based on anything they do, it is based on my will. And so then he says, then the objection is this unjust? And then Paul responds, "God forbid that you ever call God unjust." And then in verses 15 and 16 shows that there is no unrighteousness in loving Jacob. That's the first part, that's the first part of his defense, is that there's no unrighteousness in him showing mercy to whom he shows mercy. That's what we dealt with last week. Then he moves on to our text today by dealing with what is probably one of the most difficult texts for us to embrace in the entire Bible. Congratulations, we're going to deal with it today. He moves to this text and he begins to wrestle with it. It's quite easy for us to embrace the idea that it is a shocking thing for any of us to receive mercy at all. How many of you agree? You think, "I probably shouldn't deserve mercy at all." All right, Romans 1–9 has helped us see the reality and the gravity of our sin to such a degree that if we receive mercy in any fashion, it is the blessing of all blessings, it is the miracle of all miracles. It is not according to our merit that any man should boast, and we do not deserve it, but God is gracious and he shows mercy, and he does not do so because of what I've done, but he does so because of his goodness. Amen. And so he talks about God doing this, and it's not dependent on your goodness, because we learned in Romans 1 none of us are good. That's important. That's essential to his argument. We are, in other words, entirely in God's hands, and he has the right to show mercy to whom he will. Is God to be in a position where he's not able to show mercy to whoever he pleases? If he is in a position of complete freedom, isn't it amazing to me,
It's amazing to me that we will fight for us to have complete and total free will but we will deny God of it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:01
Oh, come on. I'm just gonna, I'm going to meddle a little bit today, because you need to begin to think about what you're fighting for, and oftentimes people's argument can reveal that they would prefer to be sovereign and God not be. Ladies and gentlemen,
Either God is sovereign or you are, and I came to tell you're not.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:42
And you can fight for yourself to be sovereign, but at the end of the day, God is God all by himself, and there ain't a bunch of little gods running around. That's the facts. God does what he pleases, and God is the only being in the entire universe and beyond that has total and complete freedom in his will.
Oh, you have a will, it just ain't free.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:10
The Bible says you are either one or the other, you're a slave to Christ or a slave to righteousness, but you are not free. Oh, you have a will, oh, you can make choices, but you're not free like God is free. If you have a sum of money, so we admit that we kind of like the idea that God shows mercy on us, and we don't really have a problem. Not many arguments came from God showing mercy to us. The issue begins to spring up in our groups and discussion and in our personal hearts when we begin to talk about God having a hardening purpose in our lives. We don't like that, we feel that is unjust. But no one had a problem when he showed mercy to some and not the others. No one really had a problem with that. Listen to this: is there something wrong with choosing one person to give a gift to and not another, when neither of them have done anything deserving of it at all? When you buy gifts at Christmas, do you buy gifts for everyone in the church and Pleasant Hill and Kansas City and the world? Well, how dare you take money from your paycheck and decide to bless someone and not bless everyone. We don't think like that. We are grateful that somebody is giving. We do not devalue their giving because their giving is not universal. Come on now, I'm trying. And Paul then goes through painstaking measures to help you understand that to the same degree that we should not have a problem with God bestowing mercy on whom he bestows mercy, we should then therefore not have a problem with him hardening who he hardens. He draws a strong parallel between the two of these. This is a thing that is constantly done in life, and nobody with any sense complains about people giving a gift to somebody because they want to. No one complains about that in the slightest. Of course there are some difficult people who believe they should have all things always, but although we recognize them, we don't pay much attention to what they have to say. It is not a difficult thing to embrace God as showing mercy on whom he pleases. However, the issue of hardening is much more difficult for people to embrace. Amen, and it is hard. Let me put it this way:
There is nothing in the whole range of scriptural teaching that causes more offense to the natural man than this Scripture.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:06
And many, uninstructed Christians, undiscipled Christians, uneducated Christians, then this statement of God hardening whom he pleases blows their mind and almost cripples their faith. Why is that? I'm going to read it again: "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.' So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills." I take it that you showing up today is evidence that you don't mind wrestling with difficult subjects, that surface-level Christianity is, although beneficial, you don't have a problem going deeper, that you're not one to shy off like a frightening horse and because you don't like it be too fearful to look at the Scripture, nor are you someone who prefers to keep the Scripture you like and rip out the rest because you don't like it, ignoring it, becoming fatalistic in your pursuit of God. One thing, I want to talk about three
Point 2When Scripture speaks, God is speaking
Things actually. First thing, the Scripture says unto Pharaoh. I want to talk about the Scripture part, because I think partly what we're wrestling with is what the Scripture says. How many of you have ever been at a table and someone says something and then somebody else pipes in and says, "What they really mean to say is..." The Bible says it just good enough. We don't need you to say what God really meant to say. God meant to say what he said. He used the apostles and he inspired them through the Holy Spirit to say it. Guess how this way. And so the question then that you're faced with is, do you trust what Scripture says? I think this is an interesting statement, because if you go back to Exodus 9:16, and you could turn there real quick, you will see that it is God who spoke to Pharaoh through Moses. It doesn't say "Scripture," which tells us something important about the Scripture. The Scripture, in other words, is God speaking. Quite specifically, the terms used in the New Testament are quite often used interchangeably. Here they are, this New Testament will say "God said," or this will be used interchangeably, "the Spirit said," or "the Scripture said," or this is going back to my Southern roots, "the Holy Ghost said." In other words, we're not dealing here with the opinions of the apostle Paul. This is important, listen to me, if any wrestling ensues, it is us wrestling with the words of God Almighty himself. Listen to me, in our modern context people tend to, in America people tend to cast away truths that they don't like, saying, "Well, those commands must have come from Paul in his culture in his day, and he was kind of a chauvinist, and he was kind of, you know, and he was kind of religious and legal, and he and so you can't really take his words to mean what it says. You really have to filter all of Paul's teaching through the lens of our current culture and then extrapolate whatever truth makes you feel good." And we have this happening today everywhere. I'll give you two examples. His teaching about women in the church, "Oh, that was only the apostle Paul who said that, he was a little chauvinistic, didn't really like women being in leadership, and so we just need to rip that out of the Bible." Here's another one that, because maybe that one was too personal and there's too much conversation happening around that in our culture and dissension and Twitter about who should be a pastor and who shouldn't, and maybe that's, Shawn, that's more debatable, but you know, Paul said it, and Paul spoke for God, and we either believe his word was holy, inspired through Paul, or you can just rip it all out, whatever you don't like. Are you with me today? You don't have to like it. Are you with me today? Then here's another one that maybe more of you will get on board with, Paul's teaching on homosexuality. "Oh, well, that was Paul who believed that." To hold this position is to undermine and to belittle the inspired, inherent Word of God. You do not get to debate. Listen, this is not Paul speaking here, this is God speaking here.
When God spoke, it's his word. When Moses spoke, it's his word. When the Holy Spirit spoke, it's his word. When the Scripture speaks, it's his word.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:27
Are you with me today? You see, it was Moses who actually spoke to Pharaoh, but here in this text it says the Scripture said, or God said. In other words, if the Scripture says something, that's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. You have to accept it. As Christians we're people who submit ourselves to this Book, not conjecture.
We are not philosophers, we are not seekers and searchers of the truth. God has given us his truth by his Word.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:15
You're not a philosopher. The Bible says you're a child who is trained up by his truth through the Spirit. We need to be enlightened by this truth, we need to be taught, and we believe that the Word of God is revelation. To that end, if God said it is right and it is true, end of conversation. However, you don't like the aspect of God's rejection quite as certainly as you appreciate God's showing mercy, and all of us wrestle with that. That's why Paul is talking about it. Paul starts with "because God said" and then, to our benefit, expands on the matter a bit
Point 3God raised Pharaoh up for his purpose
Longer. Number two, I want to focus on this. He says, "For this purpose I have raised Pharaoh up." So what does Paul mean when he says "raised Pharaoh up"? What is he saying? I did a little bit of word study here, I looked at the original language, I examined it a little bit, I consulted some commentators, and the general consensus is this, that a better translation here might be "I have caused Pharaoh to stand." That's interesting, right? Here's another example: the meaning conveyed here is to bring someone forward by a stage of events for God's purposes. Another person interpreted this way: "I have raised Pharaoh up and set him on the stage of action." In other words, it is God who raised him up, it's God who put him on the stage, and it's God who brings the person to an action. Charles Hodge states it like this: "For this purpose have I raised up Pharaoh, placed him where I desire, caused him to do what I desire, instead of cutting him off at once. I chose to use him for my purposes."
I like that, and this is the general consensus of opinion considering the matter. He is saying, "I brought Pharaoh up for a particular purpose at a particular time
Point 4God hardens, and the word is active
For God's particular will." Number three, God hardens. I want to look at that phrase, "God hardens whomever he wills." If God's will is dependent on our will, then it's not his will, it's your will.
If God's will is dependent on your will usurps his will and he no longer has a will.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 31:47
I don't want to live in a world like that, because if God is not in control, we're in trouble.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:01
We can't worship and praise him for overcoming, because there's no hope of overcoming if I have to trust in your will or my will.
God hardens whomever he wills. This hardening process is a difficult statement, let's just be honest about it. It literally means to render, here's the actual translation of the word, it's it's present active indicative, meaning that it's not a passive word, "hardens."
It's not passive, meaning it isn't that God allows it passively. Why is that important? Well, because at one part in Exodus we see Pharaoh hardening his heart, so then we begin to interpret this in Romans 9 as if it's dependent on what man does, so God hardens because man hardened first. But this word here is not passive, it's active. It's present active indicative, meaning that God does it.
God doesn't allow it, God does it. God doesn't permit it, God does it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:36
It literally means this, to render for someone to render another obstinate or stubborn. This is rendered ten times in the book of Exodus, this type of interpretation, so not just in Romans but also in Exodus, the very same way, that there may be no question about who is doing the hardening. Here is why the difficulty, or here's where the difficulty comes in. The book of Exodus says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, but it also says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Where does it say that? Glad you asked, Exodus 8:15 is one of them, and then if you look at Exodus 8:32 we see it again. Let's just read that real quick. Okay, what was it? Exodus 8:15. Now I just want to go ahead and say that this happened after the second plague, but there's a promise way before this when God, talking to Moses, that he would harden his heart, and so even in plague one God had already hardened his heart, so it took till the third plague for Pharaoh to harden his own heart. That's important. I don't know if that's lost on you, but that's important, because it didn't start before the first plague, Pharaoh hardened his heart and then all the rest of the plagues God hardened his heart. No, it started with God hardening his heart, then later on by the third plague pharaoh hardened. Anyway, you get what I'm saying. So it's 8:15 says, "But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said." 8:32, moving all the way to the seventh plague, and it says this, "But the wheat and the emmer were not struck down, for..." No, that's not it. Well, I think I got the wrong verse. Okay, 8:32, yes, thank you, thank you. 8:32, so that would be the fourth plague: "But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go." The rest of the plagues God's doing it. So what do we do with this? What do we do with this? Because referring to Pharaoh, to God hardening Pharaoh's heart, and he's saying God did it by his will, but then we see Pharaoh hardened his own heart. So you see it's not God simply allowing Pharaoh to do whatever he pleases. Or well, actually, if you go to Exodus 4, let's go back all the way before he even gets to Pharaoh, predetermined, predestination, before we even get to Pharaoh, let's see what God said, let's see what God's plan is. Exodus 4:21: "And the Lord said to Moses, 'When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.'" So we see here that God is predetermined to harden his heart regardless of what Pharaoh does. So what are we to do with what seems to be a conflicting statement here? I would say both are true. God hardened pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh hardened his own heart as well. This speaks to man's will but not man's free will. It also reveals that man will never usurp God's ultimate will. The point is that God ordained or predestined or predetermined that Pharaoh should be raised up at that particular point and juncture, that in him God might make known his power. Why does it say that in Pharaoh? Why does it say that he shows his power in Pharaoh and not through Pharaoh? Here's my opinion, it is an opinion, it is an opinion, this is an opinion. I believe it says in Pharaoh because the sign of God's power is seen in his hardening of the heart. We tend to think of the sign of God's power as him opening the Red Sea, but God decided to show his power through hardening. Where did he show his power in Pharaoh? Where's your heart? It's in you. And so it is in the hardening, and if that doesn't already have your mind completely blown and you're not completely disturbed, what does he do to Pharaoh and his entire army? He destroys them. Next week we hear that out of the same lump of clay, not a better lump is made for worthy use and then a better lump of clay is made for destruction, but out of the same lump, meaning that it's not based on the lump, it's not based on the type of clay. Out of the same lump he picks and sets aside a vessel and creates a vessel for mercy and a vessel for destruction, which was Pharaoh, a vessel for destruction. For facing difficulty, we don't get to ignore difficulty, we have to face difficulty, otherwise you might as well be a person in here on Sunday morning that anytime you get to a Scripture you don't like, just rip that out, throw it away in the trash can and never read it again. It's the same thing. Some of us discard it that way in our minds and our hearts, you might as well do it in the room. C. H. Dodd says the next step, listen, this is the kind of attitude we have. I'm not trying to be critical of this commentator, but I think it's important for us to note something. C. H. Dodd says, "The next step, however, that Paul takes," to me, that's where you look, be careful with the "to me" thing, "for me, this is my truth," I don't like that, "for me, Paul takes a false step."
Whoo, really? Are you questioning God's elected? What gives us the right to judge God's anointed? What gives us the right to judge an apostle picked by Christ to write his word? It's nuts.
"It was not necessary, he continues, for his argument that God creates bad dispositions and those not to be saved. Why must he labor such that he may not only have mercy on whom he pleases but also make anyone stubborn just as he pleases?" At least he does the word study on that, he does like it, he says that he feels that Paul makes a mistake here. He argues that the following argument for God's sovereignty, sovereign mercy was fine, sovereign hardening was unnecessary, "but a religious man knows that any good within him is there solely by the grace of God." Paul was clever, he knew he was dealing with Jews who knew the Scripture. Therefore when he quotes the Scripture to them, they get quiet immediately. The Hebrew mind in that day tended to hold on to the idea of determinism. God determines what he pleases, believing God is the ultimate authority, the first cause, and all other circumstances are second causes, not determined by God but rather by men. This idea was further strengthened in the rabbinic period to war against dualism, which I feel we struggle with today. I don't have time to go into all those words, go do research. I'm out of time, I want to talk about all this but I'm out of time. It's important to talk about this, go do some personal study, determinism, dualism. When you begin to question Paul, you need to understand you have no authority at all except what you think yourself, and we learn in Romans you can't trust you. Who are we to think that we can sit in judgment of the apostles? Are we the authority to God's plenary, inherent nature of Scripture? You come to a place in Scripture that makes you uncomfortable and many people say to themselves, "That's not truly what I feel, so it must not be true," thereby making yourself the ultimate authority and no longer his Word. God has not asked you to sit in judgment on the Word of God. God's Word is good enough all by itself. I'll close with this: God did it. It's God who did it.
This world wants to say to you, "Just do it." The Bible says to you, God did it. From a snippet into the life of the church, our mentality and our belief system has been shaped more by the world than by the word, and for many of us, Nike ads of "Just do it," we have listened more to Nike ads than we have ever opened his word, and you wonder why you trust more in the things of the world than in God. But let's go to the Word and let's see how "just do it" plays out in the Word, meaning that it is you or it is man that I am in jeopardy of. Genesis 45, turn there real quick, let's look at something that I think is fantastic, and then you can go do some word study on your own and you can find the Bible replete with suggestive elements of God's sovereignty in the entire Word. 45:8–10 says this: "So it was not you who sent me here," this is speaking of Joseph. How many of you know the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors? For those of you who don't know, since two people raised their hand, that's fine, for those of you who don't know, I will say Joseph was favored by his father, how ungodly, he gave him a coat of many colors. His brothers got mad about this, mainly not just because of the coat that the father gave but also because he was kind of a snotty little kid who went and told about a dream he had where all the brothers were going to bow down to him, right? And he tells this elaborate dream, the brothers get mad at him, they decide that they are going to kill him, one of them begins to speak reason as they go to kill him, and they decide to throw him into a pit and sell him into slavery, and therefore we know the story, he goes from one place to another, he ends up in prison, he ends up being pursued by Potiphar's wife, he interprets a dream, he tells a dream, he interprets a dream in prison, comes out, he's put in charge of everything, so that now we know the story. Genesis 45:8–10 says this. Now the brothers are standing before him because he's ruled all the land, he has set aside food for the famine that's coming, and his family and his father is going to die of starvation, and they come before Joseph not knowing it was Joseph, and then they realized that it is him and they begin to be distressed over it, and then we are here in verse 8. So he tells to his brothers, "So it was not you who sent me
Point 5God's purpose is why we can worship
Here." This is why we can worship, because God has a purpose.
This is why we can worship when people are against us, because God has a purpose. This is why we can worship when all hell is breaking loose in our life, because God has a purpose.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 47:36
This is why we can worship, because
God is in control, and not your boss and not your wife and not your husband and not your pastor and not anybody else.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 47:48
God is in control, and it is not everybody else who's done all these things to you, but it was God who did it. "So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me, do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have.'" God sent me here. It's God who did it. God decides whom he'll show mercy and God hardens whom he pleases, and as Scripture says, it has nothing to do with you. And just go ahead to kind of end it, some of you are going, why? And I'll close it with this: you don't always get to know the why, and the danger of theological landslide is you putting your focus on the why and not the what. We know the what, God does it, but why? Well, Paul answers that, so let's look. We'll jump ahead, we'll jump ahead. "You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?'" Let's see here, let me go on down, and then he goes on, verse, and he talks about the potter and the clay, and then verse 22: "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, 'Those who were not my people I will call "my people,"
And her who was not beloved I will call "beloved."'" See, where does he say this here? This, "You will say to me then," verse 19, "Why does he still find fault?" In us if he chooses. Notice the questions birthed out of settling the issue of God choosing. We're still wrestling, many of us are still wrestling over whether God chose. The first-century church is not wrestling over that. They're wrestling with, is he just because he chooses? Are you with me today? So their argument is different than our argument. We're trying to reconcile God's injustice by saying it's dependent on us.
The first church did not have that argument. That argument was settled: God decides. And because that argument was settled, that God decides, then their concern is he just because he decides? All right, so then here it is, verse 19: "You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?'" Well, many of us think we can. We're trying to form an argument that it is our will, dependent on ours. And then verse 20, he says, "But who are you," so why? So he presents the question that's birthed out of the settling of the argument that God chooses, and then he answers the why, because they're going, why does God do this? Why does he still find fault in us?
Why? And then in verse 20, "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?" There's your why, because I said so.
That's the why. Who are you to question me?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 52:33
We don't like that. You know why? Because we live in a democracy, we want to vote, but
God is King. He is not president, and he will do what he pleases,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 52:47
and the why is who are you to ask me, the king, what I'm doing?
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