Romans 9:6–9Scripture
It is true, Pastor Shawn is not with us this morning, and we are going to be looking at our text of the morning, Romans 9, verses 6 through 9. I was especially nervous about this message this morning because I'm going to be saying some things that will make me nervous, but I also believe that they dig deep into the context of our Scripture. But the title of my message this morning is "Regenerated According to the Promise and Will of God."
Romans 9 has a little bit of a summary this morning. It begins with Paul describing his heartache for Israel because they rejected Christ.
After explaining all the promises and privileges God has given to the Jewish people as a nation, he insists that God will keep those promises.
However, God reserves the right to show mercy to whomever he chooses, which means that not every person born in Israel was automatically a recipient of those promises. God is like a potter who creates some vessels for destruction and others for glory. As he stated later in this chapter, God has called out his people from both the Gentiles and the Jews to faith in Christ, a stumbling block, or stumbling stone, for the Jews but the cornerstone for all that place their trust in Christ. Now, our Scripture this morning, beginning in verse 6, says these words: "But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but 'Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.' This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: 'About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.'" Now, there's a little bit of an introduction this morning. I want to start off by taking a look at a word.
I just realized I'm walking off to the side and I tend to do that. I'm sorry, Curtis, he's back on the camera and I didn't want him to have to chase me all
Point 1Regeneration is the new birth God gives
Over the stage, and so I'm trying to refocus here. The word "regeneration." You're going to hear this word a lot over the next 30 minutes.
Many Bible translations only show the word "regeneration" twice, but the Bible talks about regeneration in different ways. The Apostle John describes it as the new birth in John 3:3. It says Jesus says, "Truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Here's a couple more ways. 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul describes it this way: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
Again, Paul in Ephesians 2:5 says, "God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses.
It is by grace you have been saved." So if you are in Christ today, this has happened to you. God has made you alive.
God has given you new life from the dead. God has regenerated you. Remember the title here: "Regenerated According to the Promise and will of God." This is going to be really important here, because in the Old Testament we find two promises concerning regeneration. In Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 25, where God says, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean." I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. And as I was looking over this morning, I had this image forming in my brain, and I was thinking, he doesn't say anything about soap being necessary.
He doesn't say whether it's hot water, because the Bible refers to, you know, God is fire, and he's talking about clean water, so in my brain I began to have these thoughts of horror, of those times I stuck my hands in my wife's dishwater and they came back clean, seared.
Anyway, just some of those things that my nightmares are made of. But this is a reference to forgiveness or justification.
Forgive me for a second, my eyes are watering because I have allergies and I forgot to take my pill this morning. Ezekiel 36:26 says, "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Now that's the new birth, or regeneration, which is a major biblical doctrine. I know this because I have a book at home that lists all the doctrines in the Bible, and this is one of them: the doctrine of regeneration. And understanding regeneration is fundamental to living the Christian life. We need to understand this.
So let's start with the verse 6. As we begin to break down these verses this morning, it says, "But it is not as though the word of God has failed." You see, beloved, chapters 9 through 11, which we're going to be getting into over the next few weeks or few months, however long it takes us, shows that our salvation is based on the principle of grace and faith. Let's look at Romans 11:6. It says these words: "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace." Okay, with that said, our text today is partly a defense of God's character. It shows that God is righteous in dealing with the nation of Israel and that only those with the same faith Abraham had can realize his promises. With that said, i'm going to go on to say God is not being unfair to Israel. Just because many of the Israelites rejected the Messiah did not mean the word of God had failed. According to the words of promise, salvation was made available through the seed of Abraham. Jesus was a direct descendant of Abraham through his son Isaac. This was the lineage, well recorded. Nowhere has God revoked his word.
Nowhere has God ever failed in a promise. God's word is true and sure. He never fails to do what he promised.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 8:34
Paul showed that God's promise had not failed by listing a series of quotations from the Old Testament right here in chapter 9. I don't know if you've caught this, but here are the verses in which Paul is literally just quoting Old Testament verses: verses 7, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20, and 25–29. So primarily chapter 9 is a list of quotes from the Old Testament, and what he was doing is he was showing that God is always faithful, first to his character and then to everyone else. See,
God is always going to be true to his
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 9:30
own character. God is not a liar.
God is not unfaithful. Most Jews believed that having Abraham as their father guaranteed them a spot in the inheritance, but Paul distinguished between what you would call the ethnic Israelites, the ethnic Jews, and the believing Jews, or Israel.
Not every Israelite is a regenerated Israelite, a regenerated Jew.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 10:07
There are
Point 2Not every Israelite is a regenerate Israelite
Three different Israelites that it talks about. Number one is the ethnic, the physical Israelite, the one who was born into the nation, the one who was born into a Jewish family, ethnic. Then there's number two, the religious Israelite who believed in the Old Testament but not Jesus as Savior, in other words, they don't believe in the New Testament. Then there is the regenerate, those that believe that Jesus is the Christ and Messiah.
I personally believe that we could call those people, actually, I kind of think it would be good to not even use the word "Christian" to describe us, because the word "Christian"
Means Christlike. So in our process of being made alive and becoming Christlike, perhaps we should take on the word "regenerate."
This is not the same as being a degenerate, okay? Let's not get this confused, because being a degenerate means an immoral person or immoral behavior. I had trouble reading my writing there. So what if we were just to start calling ourselves "regenerates"?
What do you think would happen? Just wondering. There is a regenerate and an unregenerate. If we understand verse 6, we will comprehend verses 7 through 14. Paul deals with national heritage here, which differs from spiritual standing. Now I'm really hammering this home because there is a difference between being born into a national heritage and becoming reborn into a spiritual standing, a good spiritual standing.
Most Israelites that Paul is talking to here were physically born Jews. Well, what does that mean?
Because what if they weren't born in Israel? You're going to begin to see here that no matter where they were born, they were born into a Jewish family with jewish beliefs and systems in place. Others were religious but not regenerated, born again. They were not born again, were not a new creation or had this new life that we're talking about. God places no priority on race, nationalism, ethnicity, or south or north for salvation.
God did not reject Israel as a nation. He simply saved those who believed in Jesus by faith. There is a true regenerate Israel.
National Israel, the ethnic, the national Israel, exists because of God's sovereignty in choosing or adopting Abraham, Isaac, and jacob. Through this process of election, which we're going to be getting into as time goes on, he selected and chose this nation to fulfill a particular purpose.
The issue in this section concerns whether the promises made to the nation apply to all Israel. Now, perhaps you're thinking this morning, "what's that got to do with me?" I am getting there. Paul argues that God separates spiritual Israel from ethnic Israel because he always operates justly. This will make more sense here in just a bit. Not everyone in Israel believed the promise. God's word has not failed because there are two Israels, as I just described. So why did they believe that the word of God had failed at this time in history, to these people that Paul was writing to? Most Jewish people believed that they, as a whole, were saved, especially in contrast to the gentiles that they saw. They saw themselves as God's children, God's elect, and there's truth in that. They were God's chosen, they were God's elect, but Israel's salvation, and Israel's salvation began with God choosing Abraham, whose children, grandchildren, and those after that grew into a nation. So all of this is true. However, a large proportion of the Hebrew race had missed the purpose of the privileges they were entitled to, because they regarded them as intended for their own personal comfort and enrichment, like so many today who see Christianity mainly for their own personal comfort and enrichment. That's where we make the jump from them to us.
Really, human nature has not changed. We still see life, we still see others, we still see God, for the most part, many of us, as there to serve us.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 16:02
That was their attitude. Paul dealt with this mindset back in chapter 3 of Romans, verses 3 through 4: "What if some were unfaithful? Does their unfaithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God?" He said, "By no means!" Just because they're acting like a bunch of idiots doesn't mean God's going to change. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God, the Messiah, the law. But verses 9 through 12 of chapter 3 are where the problems began for many of these Jewish readers. I'm going to read that, verses 9 through 12. "What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.'" You see, the problem here is that the Israelites, the Jews, did not like being reduced to the level of the worthless Gentiles. In their way of thinking, Gentiles were outside the mercy of God. They were created to be fuel for the fires of hell. That's how they saw them. They were not among the elect. This idea appears in Ephesians 2, verses 11–12. Paul is dealing with this attitude. The word "Gentile" usually means someone who is not a Jew. The Old Testament often describes gentiles as tribes who worship other gods. This is where this mentality, this mindset, comes from for the Jewish nation, because in their, in the Old testament, in their time, that was what a Gentile was, somebody who worshiped other gods and therefore was outside of the mercy of God and readily and needed to be judged. For example, in Luke 18, Jesus tells the story of two men. They're in prayer before God.
One is a self-righteous Jew who is thanking God that he is not like that Gentile sinner beside him who is crying out to God for mercy upon his soul. But the Jewish man is thinking, "God, he's not like me, because I'm one of the elect."
Just as a reminder, none of us deserve what God did in sacrificing his Son for us. None of us deserve that. We all deserve hell. Why? See, and I'm going to leave that question with you. But the point here is that God's fairness is not what's on trial here, and yet, don't we tend to do that sometimes? "Well, God's not being fair." We think life is not fair. Our friends are, oh, you know what, our parents definitely are not being fair.
But God's fairness is not on trial here.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 20:12
Verses, sorry, chapter 9, verses 23–24, listen to these words: "In order to make known the riches of his glory for 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." You see, the Jews had trouble accepting the fact that God was going to have mercy upon these Gentiles and that through them came the Son, the seed through Abraham, through Isaac. This promise for salvation for all people, they had trouble with this, because that totally destroyed the mindset of being God's only chosen people, the idea that God was going to save the Gentiles and that they were going to be like Israel and they were going to begin to participate in some of the privileges.
They could not accept that, and therefore many of them, some would say most of them, rejected that promise in the form in which it was coming, and they rejected Christ. God's grace and mercy are what's in the forefront here, and that mercy and grace is toward both the unregenerate and the regenerate. They were proud to be part of the nation called out from all other nations and given exclusive benefits, but the majority of them rejected Jesus, their Messiah. And why? Because they expected, also, this is another reason why they didn't, well, they didn't like that, but their expectations of a Messiah was different than what the Old Testament was prophesying, the one that was going to come as a lamb.
They were looking at some other Scriptures that talk about Christ coming being as a lion, and they said, "Well, that's the Messiah we want." And when that did not happen, when Jesus showed up and went to the cross, they said, "Well, that's not the Savior we're looking for. We're looking for one that's going to set us free from the Roman rule that has been established over our lives." They were looking for a lion to deliver them from Roman rule, even though they benefited from that rule.
Now, bear with me for just about 60 seconds here, because I am going to go into a rant, okay, with that last statement.
Before I do that, I'm going to read Romans 9:27. I'm going to just, "And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: 'though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.'" At that time there was an estimated 7 million Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire. Okay, now I'm going to actually defend the Roman Empire for just a moment this morning. Yes, they had rule, they had conquered, they had established their government, but they had also established commerce, wealth, roads by which people could travel, especially their military. So the Jews were not only in Jerusalem or in the land of Canaan, they were scattered out among all the Roman provinces and enjoying the peace and the wealth that came with that rule. Now, here's where my rant begins. When we are born, our rejection, our rebellion begins against authority, against rule, people ruling over us. Because we are born, what is the first thing a baby does besides cry? They want something: feed me, change my diaper, take care of me. The problem is, because of our human nature, which some would refer to as a fallen human nature, it doesn't change a lot as we grow: toddlers, preteens, teens, young adults, you get older, become parents, grandparents, and then those golden years.
As we lay in our nursing home bed and others have to begin to change, feed us, and change us again.
But all through that process, we want to reject any kind of rule over our lives, but we want to gain the benefits of being under that rule.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 25:34
That's my point here. The Jews didn't want the Roman government telling them how to live their lives, but at the same time they were enjoying the wealth and the security that came with that rule.
"Don't tell me how to live, don't tell me what to do, I will do what I want, and by God you better continue to feed me, put a roof over my head, and take care of me. You better keep those checks coming." This is human nature.
So where did this exclusive mindset come from? My rant is over, that wasn't too bad. Genesis 17:5–8: "No longer shall your name be called abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God." Abraham was the father of a multitude of nations, but it was only through his son Isaac
Point 3Being born in America doesn't make us Christian
That the promise of salvation came. So how does this apply to us this morning? Many believe that the nation of America was established as a Christian nation, but not so. We were established as a nation free of government-ruled religion, free to exercise our personal religious beliefs. Many have taken great pride in stating that we are a Christian nation, as a nation therefore blessed by God, believing that being born into this nation we have certain inherited rights and benefits. The Jews had the same mindset in Paul's day.
After being attacked on 9/11, we rose in pride and anger, and many of our young willingly went to fight and defend our honor as a nation. Songs were written about our great nation. So we can understand Israel's pride as a nation chosen and formed by God. We take great pride in our nation.
We take great pride and believe in that God has blessed this nation. But are we turning away from the principles and beliefs that this nation was founded on?
Are we turning away from God in the exercise of our religious freedom? Churches are closing at a faster rate than new ones are starting, according to an outfit called LifeWay. LifeWay Research: churches are closing faster than new ones are beginning in the United States. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, 4,500 Protestant churches closed while only 3,000 opened.
That's a 1,500 loss. Experts believe the rate of church closures may have accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet this morning thousands sit in their churches believing that they are the recipients of God's blessings simply because they are following in the footsteps of their great-grandparents, their parents, and their parents' religious affiliations.
"Well, I was born in this religious affiliation, therefore that's what I am for the rest of my life."
But being born in America does not make us Christian any more than being born an Israelite makes the Jew a child of the promises of God.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 29:57
Paul knew that things were not what they seemed.
He distinguished between the outward appearance and the reality. The children of the promise are counted for the seed, children fashioned according to God's ideas and plans, not ours. So the question I have, three: Are we children of the promise? Are we living the higher life? Are we seeking and serving Christlike aims and purposes? So what's my point? And capital letters right there, the point: God's promise always operates justly. He is not unfair. God's word did not fail, because salvation is not a physical but a spiritual issue. People must come to God by faith, not works. Our salvation is not the product, it is not a product that we or our heritage have earned for us. Simply being born in America doesn't give us automatic benefits to God or from God, and yet somehow in our mindset many people today believe that.
Romans 4, going back a few chapters, Romans 4:16, it says these words: "Therefore it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all."
That's why he is referred to as the father of faith. Secondly, my second point, or portion, or whatever, verse 7 of our text describes the promise for the church, where it says, "and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but 'Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.'" From verses 7 through 9, Paul quotes a portion of Genesis 21:12 and distinguishes the regenerate from the unbelieving Israel. God never promised that all ethnic Jews would be saved. Something more than physical descent from Abraham is required to become a true believer. The Greek word, now this is going to blow your mind, it did mine, the Greek word for "children"
Is "born ones." See, children, "born ones." Well, anyway, blew my mind. Oh, I lost my place there. There it is. "Children" here in verse 7 carries the idea of regeneration, something new, something born, something given life. Yeah, I did all that without my glasses on. So where's my point to this one? What's my point? That God is just in all his ways. God is just in all of his ways. He is not unfair.
People were and are saved by the principle of justification, the process, get this, the process by which sinners are declared righteous in the sight of God. This process starts with the principle that God must first deal with himself. He is perfect righteousness, and he must deal justly with himself. I said, "Well, that don't make sense." Well, if he compromised his character, he would not be just.
That is why Abraham was able to believe and trust God, because he understood this principle, which God counted to him for righteousness. Abraham understood that God can be trusted because his character never changes. Part of the defense of the character of God that Paul is dealing with here is the fact is the just way he, okay, let me start this over. Part of the defense of the character of God is the just way he deals with himself and others. His character is as solid as an unmovable rock. That'll make sense here in just a few. Unmovable.
Thirdly, don't get too excited, I also have a fourth point. Thirdly, verse 8 of our text.
I just looked up at the clock, I better hurry. Thirdly, verse 8 of our text. This means, and it says these words: "This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring." So did they just simply miss the part about God counting Abraham as righteous or morally right because of his faith? Did they just miss that? Because it seems their allegiance was to Abraham, Moses, and the Mosaic law, and their pride was in their God-given privileges. So did they just miss the faith part? Do we commit more, bringing it to us right now, do we commit more to the nation, family, or religion we are born into than to Christ through whom our salvation comes? Or do we associate ourselves more closely with some philosophical ideas about self-determination and ascension to be gained through a few good deeds or self-improvement? In other words, earning our heavenly wings.
Let's look at the term "national psychology," which refers to the distinctive psychological makeup of a nation, ethnic group, or people. National psychology assumes that different ethnic groups or people living in a national territory are characterized by a distinctive mix of human attitudes, values, emotions, motivation, and ability. Israel had their national psychology in Paul's day, where several religious beliefs catered to several personal attitudes, values, emotions, motivations, and abilities. Oh, and as a reminder, as a nation they rejected Jesus, the promised Messiah, and Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. Just as a side thought, the Jews were scattered throughout other countries when this happened, where many other Jews were already acclimated to Roman values and lifestyles, to which Paul was now writing. He's writing into Rome, to the Jews in Rome.
The psychology of Israel was built upon a foundation of shifting sand, not a solid rock. Jesus said he was the rock, the foundation that doesn't move. The church was established and built on the foundation of Christ and the teachings of the apostles, prayer, and fellowship of the believers. I'm going to run through that last one again just in case you didn't catch every word. The church was established and built on the foundation of Christ and the teachings of the apostles, prayer, and fellowship of the believers. Although the argument of the section that we're studying this morning deals with the nation Israel, we can apply the principle to the church.
There are cultural Christians and there are true Christians.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 39:20
The United States may be culturally Christian, although even that seems to be changing fast. Cultural Christians are those who grow up in a Christian family and maybe even a Christian church but may not be true believers. We need to understand that Christianity is based on regeneration, which happens when God brings a person to new life, when they are born again from a previous state of separation from God and subjection to the decay of death.
Point 4Born again needs regeneration, not reformation
FYI, Ephesians 2:5, the word "dead" means corpse. Just thought I'd throw that in there.
Born again requires regeneration, not reformation.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 40:15
Reformation means to amend or improve something by introducing a better method or course of action, in other words, self-improvement. If you've ever done that in your life, just tried to make self-improvements, "I'll be a better person tomorrow, I'll do better if, you know, if I do this or if I do that, I'll be a better person, I'll buy some self-help books and by golly I'm going to read them and I'm going to improve myself and things will just be great."
Christianity isn't about reformation. It is not about taking our sinful life and adding to it some Christianity.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 41:04
Regeneration.
I thought I was going to use that word a lot.
Regeneration is God's answer to the problems of man, not church, not even Christianity, not self-improvement, and definitely not our government, which we look to so much.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 41:31
Reformation is the answer, being reformed by God, by his grace and by his mercy, changed into a new creature, creation. Creation is better than creature. And verse 7, verses 7 through 9, we have the case of Isaac and Ishmael, two sons of Abraham. The premise of these verses rests on the foundation of regeneration, not physical birth. That means it's not the physical descendants who are the called ones. Genesis 21 shows that only those of the promise, such as Isaac, are saved.
Regeneration determines the true Israelite. That is why God's promise did not fail in verse 6. God's promise to Abraham would never be realized by each ethnic Israelite but only to those who would believe and put their trust in Jesus for their salvation. That was those that would receive the promise or had received the promise. Romans 2:28–29, going back a few chapters: "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God."
The called are those who have put their faith in Christ the Messiah. You can find a reference to this in chapter 9, verses 25–26. So the argument of Romans is the righteousness of God and that the righteous shall live by faith. I'm trying to decide what to do here because I just ran out of time.
Romans 1:16–17: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" i'm going to push on because I am close. God is righteous by declaring righteous those who believe his promise, but sadly that does not involve everyone.
This is why Paul was so brokenhearted, because not all of Israel accepted the promised Messiah. My point: salvation is only through God's reckoning. The word "reckoning" means the action or process of God. God's children are his by reckoning, through this process, action of God, not by words.
God's people are the children of promise. Spiritual birth is not due to anything in ourselves but rather it rests entirely upon God's promise.
We are not born, not of blood, I'm going to go ahead and read the entire thing, John 1:11–13: "He came to his own, and his own people," talk about Israel, "did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will," remember that, "of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Not of the desire, he's talking about, not, we're not born of the desire or wishes of the flesh, nor the desire of which is of man. Our moral rightness has to do with God's righteousness and his desires, his will. God is right and just in all that he does. Genesis 18:25: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Number four, which is short, and last, part, verse 9: "for this is what the promise said: 'About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.'" Verse 9 literally gives us the scriptural proof of verses 7 and 8. This establishes that genuine believers are so because of God's promise and not their lineage or where they were born or what families we're born into. Having said that, the Word of God does not fail, as what Paul dealt with in verse 6. Paul shows that the promise of God did not fail. God is always faithful to his promise, and we receive the privilege of salvation from God by promise, not by human privilege or physical inheritance.
Salvation is always from God's initiative.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 46:47
The point: God's promises cannot fail because they rest on his call, which is guaranteed. You see, beloved, we can trust God in his promises because his promises are unshakable, because they rest on his Son, who came through Sarah. The birth of Isaac was the work of God in fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant, or the contract, Abrahamic. Again, God is just in all the work he does, which makes everything he does fair.
And concerning the work of God, listen to what Jesus had to say about this. In John 4:34, Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." John 6:29, Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." Perhaps you're asking, perhaps we're asking the wrong questions concerning the fairness of God and in his relationship with us and our loved ones.
Perhaps we should be asking how we can submit to his will rather than trying to get him to submit to ours.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 48:08
Point 5God's will is to believe, be discipled, and pray
So what is the will of God that we need to submit to? To believe in the Son of God and become his disciple. This is where I begin to close this out. This is very important. How do we know this? Matthew 28:19–20: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." So which voice will we listen to? When facing death, Jesus said, "Not my will be done, but yours." Jesus was determined to fulfill God's purpose. Whose purpose are we determined to fulfill? Whose purpose are we determined to fulfill? Ours? Somebody else, some other person's purpose for our lives? The government's purpose for our lives? Or God's purpose for our lives?
Part of David's prayer, and this is the closing right here, a short story, 1 Chronicles chapter 29, is a story of King David wanting to build God a temple, and God tells him that he cannot build it but his son Solomon will. So David goes about and begins to collect all the material needed to build this temple, all the material, the gold, the silver, the wood, everything, so his son Solomon can construct this temple.
And after they've gathered everything, they begin to look at all of it, how much it is, how much that they've got brought, because the people have freely given tons of stuff. And part of David's prayer after gathering all the materials was, "O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you." So what is God's purpose for us? That we keep him, and his will for us, that we keep him in our hearts, forefront in our minds, that we look to him and to his promises for our lives, because he will not fail us, where everything else will.
You see, part of what David was saying that I did not quote here was that part of that prayer was, "God, everything belongs to you.
Everything that comes to us belongs to you." But another portion of Scripture talks about how everything that God created goes back to him, returns to him.
That's you and I included. So whose purpose are we going to serve? God's.
Well, how do we understand that? We believe in Christ, we gather as his people, being discipled, learning to obey what Christ commanded, and we pray, and we fellowship. That's the part I like best.
Who's the fellowship, and not just because there's food, that may be part of it, but fellowship, believing in Christ and learning. That's what a disciple is, a student learning his word, learning his purposes, which for us is very simple: be discipled by Christ. All of that to say that all of this, everything that we're talking about this morning, is just to say that
God's purpose for us, God's will for us, is to believe in Jesus, be discipled, and pray.
Pastor Bruce Boydston · 53:11
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