Jealousy as an Invitation

Transcript

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[0:00] we'll go straight to the sermon now. And our sermon text is this, the last part of Romans 11, 25 through 36. I'm going to skip the introduction this morning. I'm going to go straight to the reading of the text. Let's read together Romans 11, 25. The apostle Paul writes this, so that, and we're talking about boasting again with the Gentiles, so that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery. A hardening has come upon part of Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved. As it is written, out of Zion will come the deliverer. He will banish ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. As regard the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their ancestors. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God, but now have now received mercy because of their disobedience. So they have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has, imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

[1:30] 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 to receive a gift in return? For from him, and through him, and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus name. Amen. Well, I'm going to be honest with you. And as Wendy said last week or two weeks ago, this is a difficult, this is the difficult part of Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11, because Paul is really has, it's like a constellation of planets all side by side. And he's going to be talking about the circling the sun. And there's this idea in the center that the Jews and the Gentiles in Rome need to come together to become this beloved community. And Paul's really hoping for this. And Paul has all these things spinning around this idea. And today he's developing this idea that something has happened to the Jewish people on purpose so that they may be enticed or motivated to become Christians. And, and that the Gentiles, though, then on there because, because of the situation they're in are not to be boastful that

[3:02] they were let in because the Jews were, some of them were excluded, but that they should come to that with full humility. And that's the kind of, I think Paul is speaking about that humility that he wants the Gentiles to have because he cares about the community that he wants to see the Roman church become. So, but what I would say today is that this is a difficult text because it raises some theological questions. And I think that's a difficult text because it raises some theological questions. And I think that's a difficult text because it raises some theological issues over which like us, an ocean of ink has been spelled spilled out and I'm going to explain why later. And so what I was going to say really about this is the sermon isn't necessarily the place to pick apart all the details of a text like this. We could do that in a Bible study and I think everybody in this room would totally get it. It's just not going to happen in 25 minutes. It's not going to happen. So what I'm going to do instead is I'm going to highlight the parts that I think are really important for us to pay attention to today. You can read this on your own, or you can come talk to me later about it. And I would be lying if I said I understood it perfectly,

[4:03] because this is challenging stuff. The brightest minds in Christendom have spent years on this, and they don't even agree with each other on it. So it's just a challenge. So what I'm saying is that this is a very challenging text, but we're going to go to the parts that I think are really relevant to us and really important for us to pay attention to. And so I'm going to ask Steve to just show the first slide again, verses 25 and 26. And I want to read that again, just verses 25 and 26. This is what Paul writes. Or I'll read verse 25. So that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, this is against this idea of being arrogant or proud or boastful, I want you to understand this mystery. And that's that a hardening has come upon part of Israel, pay attention to that word part, until the fourth verse, which is the whole number of the Gentiles has come in. So we know that Paul is working out how Jews and Gentiles should get along. He warns the Gentiles not to be too proud. There was this agricultural metaphor, which if anyone knows anything about agriculture, it's all messed up. But Paul never claimed to be a farmer. He was more like a tent maker. So this idea that you would graft a wild branch into a cultivated olive tree, almost nobody

[5:20] would do this. Think about it. You would actually graft a cultivated olive branch into a wild olive tree because you want the good olives that that branch would produce. So he's got it a little bit reversed, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen that way. And if you get stuck in saying, well, he's a bad farmer, then you missed the whole metaphor. So just stick with the metaphor. The metaphor is that here's this root and this tree, and the Jews were not doing their part, and so they were cut off, and the Gentiles were put in their place. And Paul says that happened. Yes, granted. But you could lose your place there, and they could be put back in. So don't be too proud of yourself. And it's not a zero sum game either, right? It's not either one or the other. We have to remember that.

[6:06] So a hardening, now we go to the part where it says this. A hardening has come on part of Israel. Not all, just a part, but the ones who are stuck in the old identity. And this was from last week. We talked about this idea of identity.

[6:25] Now, actually, I'm going to get to that in a second. I want to talk about this, what it says. This is only for a time. It doesn't say how long, but only for a time, until enough Gentiles respond to the gospel. You could say this is how you would say, until the full number of Gentiles have come in, until enough Gentiles respond to the gospel. Now, the question is, how many? And here's where scholars would maybe differ on this. Some would say, all the Gentiles, right? The full number. But the full number, really the full number Paul means is there's some number until that number is fully reached, is probably the more accurate way of doing it. We don't know how many it is. But Paul says what the goal is. The goal is to make the Jews jealous that the Gentiles receive salvation and adoption into God's family, not by works of the law, but by faith. So this jealous is a bad word, but I think it's useful in this sense that somebody is jealous. Somebody does something a normal way, and it takes a lot of energy and effort, and then somebody else comes along, and they get it for a lot less. So you think about the Jews, they think they receive salvation by keeping the works of the law. It's a lot of work, a lot of memorization,

[7:37] a lot of daily routine. And here the Gentiles come, and they receive that same salvation, actually better in a way, only by responding to the gospel with faith. And so they're jealous. Now, a great example for this, and it's amazing, how many of you are jealous?

[8:02] Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? now. Put a ring on his finger, put a robe on his shoulders, bring him in, let's kill the fatted calf. So this idea of that jealousy, you could almost say it's like the jealousy of the older brother towards the younger brother. I've been working all my life for this, and you're going to give it to him for just showing up? So that's what's going on here. So Paul's saying, we want Gentiles to come to faith, and we want Jews to see them coming to faith so that they go, oh, it was that easy? Oh, I could have just done that. That was so much easier. But here's the problem, right? The problem is identity. If my identity is so much that I know who I am because I do these things, my identity is bound up in thinking that my work gets me my salvation, then it's harder. Because to change to that other way, I have to kind of dismantle my own identity and reassemble it around something that actually is what God wants me to do. And this is another topic for another time, but someday we want to talk about how open we need to be to your own identity being dismantled and then reassembled around God. That's a very painful process, but I think it's a very necessary process because it really

[9:38] orients us to becoming the people God wants us to be. And our identity, we could make it based on all sorts of things, you know, how much we earn, what kind of work we do, how faithful we are to keep the law, all sorts of, I would say, peripheral things about who we truly are. But when you find your identity as a child of God who's been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and having faith in the gospel word that brings it and that call in your life, then that radically changes your life. But it's painful because you have to cut away the things that you've built to build yourself up. Okay, so now really the interesting part, okay, verse 26. So for a season, a certain number of Gentiles are going to become Christians, and it's going to make the Jews jealous. And when that time is done, and then he says, all Israel will be saved. Verse 26. Now, you can look at it in your bulletin. You can look at it up here on the screen here, verse 26. Right there. And so all Israel will be saved. Now here's where another ocean of ink has been spilled. Because what does he mean by all Israel will be saved? Is this some magical thing, right? Right? Here's a few choices. And actually scholars differ on this. Here's one choice.

[11:05] That when it says here that all Israel will be saved, some scholars think it means that all Jerusalem will be saved. Right? Jews from all times, regardless of what they believe about Jesus, will be saved because they're God's chosen people. Do you get what I'm saying? Just all the Jews will be saved. They don't have to believe in Jesus or not, okay? That's because they have a special status. Now, that's not, I don't think that's a faithful reading of Paul, because the other option here is that the Israel that Paul is talking about here in verse 26 is the new Israel, which is made up of people which are both Jewish and Gentiles, and they're not defined by the law, but by faith in the faithfulness of God in Jesus. So, Paul redefines Israel, and you could say that Jesus redefines Israel with himself as the Messiah. He amplifies the law in the Sermon on the Mount to make you despise the law, and he amplifies the law in the Sermon on the Mount to make you despise the law, and he amplifies the law in the Sermon on the Mount to make you despise the law, and he says, you have to come to me to find life. So, Jesus redefines what Israel actually is, and Paul continues this work in Romans. Israel is not the descendants of Abraham ethnically,

[12:26] and it's not people who keep the law thinking that will give them their salvation. Israel is people who have faith in Jesus Christ, and so that means who's in Israel? You are. You are Israel. Did you know that? I mean, it sounds funny to say, right? We don't talk this way. We are all Israel, if we define it that way. So, then when Paul says all Israel will be saved, he's talking about what we all understand. All people who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, who have responded to the gospel with faith, will be saved. Now, when will this happen, right? So, that's the other thing that when will this happen? What happens when it happens? And there's several choices here, but when we, we're going to compare it with verse 25 above, verse 26 to 25, about the full number of Gentiles, because we don't know what that means. One option is that Paul means it in the current time. It's about to happen. Many Jews, and maybe just in Rome he's talking about, many Jews will see the faith of Gentiles, and some of them apart will come to faith. That's one choice. Or it will happen in the distant future. It'll happen sometime in a future that Paul can't quite see yet, maybe 2023 or beyond.

[13:38] Or it will happen at the end times. And the saving of what he calls all Israel will be a sign of the end. I mean this, and there's more. I mean, you could have five more things on this list, but I'm going to highlight sort of the major three that we want to be paying attention to. Now, somehow, somewhere along the way, all this kind of got wrapped up in the end times stuff, because like, oh, the full number of the Gentiles and all the Jews have to be saved. That means all the Jews, have to come back. And so there's passages such as Jeremiah 15, which talks about God going into all the nations and bringing all the Jews back into the physical land where Israel is. And that some Christians think none of this can happen until all those people are gathered back there, right? So there's a lot of Christians in our culture, especially the ones that love prophecy, and they're looking for signs. They're saying, we need to get all the Jews to, you know, we're going to do this, I don't know, jumbo jet, forced deportation, I don't know. We have to get all the Jews to somehow move back to Israel. And once they're all there, then the Lord will come, you know, and it's just going to happen. Now, the problem, of course,

[14:53] is that who's in control there? Is it all the people on earth gathering some people in one? So then we're pulling the puppet strings and God's, you know, dancing around. It's not, that's not how it works. God has his own time. I'll return like a thief in the night. You're not going to know. Stop trying to figure out when this is going to happen and stop trying to prepare the conditions for it to actually happen. God has his own timing. So this is a lost cause, trying to get everybody to come to Israel and, or everybody in the world to become a Christian, which we should definitely do, but like that Jesus would come back only then, right? So there's a lot of, like I said, a lot of ink has been spilled on this one. So some Christians see this as necessary, step in the rapture.

[15:38] And this is the part where I want us to pay a little attention to, because it has to do with racial justice and it has to do with sort of current events is that's why many Christians are very pro-Israel, not all Christians, but many Christians are pro-Israel and they want Israel to be powerful. So it can be a place where Jews can regather to God and, and kick off the Palestinian Arabs out. So that is this pure nation of Jewish people. There's some Christians who think this way that way. God can get on with the business. God can get on with the business. God can get on with the business of returning and judging the world, which is like a really, you know, cheerful thing, right? Now it's important also to distinguish between what Paul means by Israel and what is now the modern country of Israel that you can get on an airplane and fly to. They are not the same thing. Okay. People, but they, we use the same word for us. This is the challenge, right? Israel, the country that was started in 1947, 1948, it's not Israel of the old Testament. It's not the old Testament. It's definitely not the Israel that Paul is talking about. Israel is an Israel of faith. It's an Israel of response to the Messiah, to Jesus Christ. Israel of the old Testament is

[16:50] the people of God, 12 tribes in Israel, in the land going through all sorts of phases of faithfulness and unfaithfulness and judgment and return and all sorts of things like that. Modern Israel, it's a wonderful place to visit. You can go, we've been there. We've met people there. The problem is, there are Palestinian Arabs there. Many of them are Muslim. Many of them are Christians. Did you know that? If you've been to Israel with us, you met them. You met these wonderful people who are Christian Palestinian Arabs. They have churches. We ate in their house, you know, and they're a bit put off by the way some American Christians act because they're so pro-Israel and they're, and they're not actually sticking up for their brothers and sisters in Christ. It's very interesting.

[17:39] So all this gets lost. So here's where I would come down and you can disagree because we're in the covenant church. You could disagree. You can, you can think that all this means that that is tied up with the end times, but here's what I think it means. I think what these two challenging verses means is that somewhere Paul has a number in his head, or he thinks God has a number in his head, that a certain number of Gentiles, enough to make somebody notice, a certain number of Gentiles will become Christians. And we'll be so at peace and in so much joy at this great gift that they've received that the Jewish people who live in Rome will go, they get all that and they didn't do much for it. I'm kind of jealous. Also a little curious. I mean, maybe I don't need to do all these other things. Maybe I can let go of that part of who I am and find out who Jesus is. And then some, a part of, of them will become Christians. And that's how this ends. Now it's very important to remember a little verse that we had back in chapter nine, verse six, where Paul says, not everyone who is an Israelite is of Israel. I'm not going to put it on the screen. We don't have it on the screen, but you can go back to that one. Find it. Not everyone who's an

[18:58] Israelite is of Israel. Israel has been redefined. It's not this other thing. So, and I want you to, I just want us to remember the parable of the vineyard. Remember the parable of the vineyard? I preached on it, I guess, I don't know when it was. It was a while back, but last fall, I think after my sabbatical. And to me, it's like this old penny that keeps showing up on our countertop, but it's actually this priceless coin. Paul has been telling us all along that Jesus redefines what Israel is. And it's no longer an ethnic identifier. It's no longer about keeping the law. It's not even about, you know, it's not about, you know, it's not about, you know, it's not about physical ancestry traced to Abraham. Instead, it's open to all ethnicities. And it's marked by good works in alignment with the law that the Spirit empowers. You see all these subtle differences, right? Or blatant differences. And it's about a spiritual ancestry traced to Abraham. The one who had faith in God's promises, and that was credited to him as righteousness. So, you have these two tracks that are really, side by side. The old way is, it's about keeping the law. It's physical ancestry of Abraham. It's an ethnic identifier. And the new Israel is, you keep the law because the Spirit empowers you to,

[20:20] yes, right? It's spiritual ancestry of Abraham because he had faith. And it's not one ethnicity. It's all ethnicities. For Paul, it was Jews and Gentiles. Jews is one ethnicity. Gentiles is like the whole rest of the world. So, it's kind of a weird way of doing it. We would make the list much longer. All the ethnicities that we can imagine are welcome. Now, you think about the parable of the vineyard. The tenants are not turning over to the landlord, the produce of the vineyard. And so, Jesus says, what's going to happen? He's going to give the vineyard to somebody else who will do what is required. That's not replacing Jews with Gentiles. That's a very important thing to think about in that parable. It's replacing people who are faithful, who are unfaithful, with people who are faithful. Now, here's the interesting thing about that parable that we don't think about much. It's possible that some of the previous tenants who failed to turn over the produce, once the landlord came back and said, I'm going to give this to people who are going to be faithful, maybe some of the previous tenants said, well, I want to be one of them then. I'm not going to, you know what I'm saying? Like, they're not all kicked out.

[21:37] But some of them have a change of heart and they stay in the vineyard. And they say, well, okay, then we'll work. We'll work in the vineyard and we'll give the produce to the landlord because it's his. The vineyard is his and we're just hired people here. And we don't own the place. And so, the gates of the vineyard are open to any workers in the town, anyone who will come in and work are welcome and they're part of the new family. And even people who used to be tenants that weren't producing are welcome. And so, they're not going to be able to come in and work. They're going to be able to maybe leave and come back through that gate. And there they are. They're in the vineyard. So, then we get to the question, and we're almost done here, I promise. Will all Israel be saved? And the answer is yes. Everyone who hears the gospel and responds with faith, that's the new Israel. That's the beloved community. It's multi-ethnic. It's Jew and Gentile. And for us, a much longer list. It's led by the Spirit and it lives in shalom.

[22:37] And so, this is a challenging chapter. We've just taken two verses of it and spent some time on it, looking at kind of some current events that actually surround this or some current thinking in Christian theology. And if you have a different opinion, that's good. And I want to talk to you. And it's okay. We can differ on these. But I think this understanding is faithful to what Paul was saying all along. Now, here are just a few takeaways that we want to take with us. And maybe I'll pose it as a question.

[23:07] This is the question to you. Does what you have in Jesus make other people jealous? Isn't that an interesting idea? Not jealous in a bad way, but jealous in a good way. Do other people look at what you have in Jesus and go, ah, I could get some of that, right?

[23:27] And this happens not often to me, but it happened once. We had a neighbor, they were from China. And I think it always happens when you're not paying attention, or you're not really noticing yourself, which is a good thing. He just said, why is it that you guys are at such peace? You seem to be so much at peace. And I was like, have you met my family? And he had, but it still seemed like peace to him. And I said, well, you know, honestly it's what I believe. It's my faith in Jesus and my faith. And they moved away. So that relationship, we visited them once at their house, but that relationship has kind of, has just didn't continue because of proximity, but it's good to be connected to your neighbors, right?

[24:16] Does what you have in Jesus make other people jealous? Paul wants the Jews to become jealous of what the Gentiles have so that they can let go of their historical Jewish identity and take on what it really means to be the new and redefined Israel around Jesus Christ. This is what we want for our neighbors too. One other thing is we want to be careful about being too pro-Israel at the expense of Palestinian Arabs, both Muslim and Christians. It's a bad look for Christians in the United States.

[24:50] And let's see, let's, that's, although I would say it's complicated. It's a complicated issue and we need to be informed before you choose sides. And you know what's better than choosing a side? Walking alongside.

[25:04] Walking alongside. So if you have a chance, walk alongside a Palestinian family. We have actually, one of Kaya's friends is from Palestine and they've had a few play dates and things like that in the family, so we can kind of walk with them and that's an opportunity that we have in this very multi-ethnic valley that we live in here. There's all sorts of opportunities. And walk alongside your Jewish friends. You don't have to choose sides. You can walk alongside. And just seek to learn and understand and support.

[25:38] Okay? Just good advice. This is good. That's not the gospel. That's just advice. Okay? There's a difference. And I'm not saying I do it perfectly. Finally this. Paul's ready to conclude this section. And I'm going to ask Steve to show the last slide now. And this is like this beautiful hymn that almost that Paul composes at the end. Paul's ready to conclude this section about the Jews and Israel as he redefines it. And for him it's a time of celebration partly because he's capping off three of the most difficult things. And he's talking about the most difficult chapters he's probably ever written like theologically. And so he's like okay let's take a breather and let's praise God and let's celebrate. And so we celebrate. I want us to be in a mood of celebration. This is the other takeaway is let's celebrate. Right? Let's celebrate because we've been grafted into the tree. Because we've been welcomed into the vineyard to do meaningful work. Because there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. And because the law and the accuser cannot bring a charge against us.

[26:33] And that is all from Romans. Right? Jesus is our savior and the spirit is our guide. And so we end with Paul's word of praise. Verse 36. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. And with that I'll say amen. The sermon's over. Let's pray. Father thank you for your word again. And help us to live as people that make other people jealous in a good way. Help us to live and redefine ourselves. Help us to work in your vineyard. Help us to create that beloved community.