David Heath-Whyte
NB: This is what I intended to say, for the genuine article, listen to the audio version
Intro
Why...?
I want to start this morning with a question that bothers some of you, and others just ignore. For some people this question leads to sleepless nights; it leads others to believe wrong things about God, so that they can shrug off the question completely.
I wonder if it's something you think about? I wonder how you feel about it?
Here's the question: Why don't my friends believe in Jesus?
Why don't my friends believe in Jesus?
It's incomprehensible, isn't it? Very difficult.
Perhaps you're here "just looking" this morning: let me tell you two reasons why this is such a difficult issue for people who trust in Jesus.
He's great.
First: Our Lord Jesus Christ is fantastic:
We want our friends and our family and our colleagues to know what we have discovered about Jesus:
that he is the Son of God - God has come to earth as a man;
that Jesus has died on the cross to free us from the condemnation that our selfish, God-repelling lives deserve;
that Jesus is alive, having been raised from death, alive forever, as the King of a Kingdom that we can be members of, a Kingdom that one day we will live in, free from sin, sickness, and suffering forever.And the amazing thing is that God says we can have all of that, and we can know that we are his today, by Faith alone - we don't have to earn it, we just have to believe who he is and what he's done, and commit our lives to him.
We don't have to become perfect, which is great because we couldn't.
And we can leave behind us forever that "I hope that maybe I'll be good enough for God" thing: because Jesus (and Jesus alone, by his death) makes us good enough in God's sight;It's brilliant: It makes the world a different place. It doesn't make us wealthy, it doesn't make us immune to disease, tragedies still happen to us - but all the time, we know that we belong to God, and that Jesus has done everything we need to be his forever, rescued from death and hell - saved from what we really still deserve.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is fantastic! How can someone hear about him, and not accept him? We don't get it!
It's hell without him.
Why don't our friends believe in Jesus? here's another reason that's tricky:
The consistent message of the Bible is that without Jesus, there is no escape, no rescue, from what we deserve from God.
People have rejected God, they don't want him to rule their lives. The human consequences alone are disastrous - greed bringing poverty to billions, selfishness bringing death to hundreds of thousands of babies every year, pleasure-seeking bringing the breakdown of relationships and civilisation. Human society is in a mess not because we have put our children in buggies that face forwards - it's because we have rejected God.
And God cares, and he has said that death is his just punishment for this rebellion: separation from God forever - which Jesus calls Hell - God's rubbish tip.
Amazingly, God has given us a way out - in his only Son Jesus, who had to die bearing his own judgement against us, to achieve it. Jesus is our rescue.
And so it's terrible to know that someone you love has rejected Jesus....
Why don't my friends believe in Jesus? He's great, and without him they're heading to hell.
It's a difficult question - the book of Romans is going to help us.
Romans 9-11
We're looking at chapters 9-11 this month, and they're all about this question - why don't people believe in Jesus? Specifically - why don't Jewish people believe in Jesus? We might have Jewish friends - and Gentile friends (non-Jewish) - these chapters will help us to cope with this big question.
And chapter nine encourages us to weep, to rejoice and to persevere.
Weep, when people reject Jesus.
First of all, we are encouraged to weep: v.1-5: Weep, when people reject Jesus.
Feelings
Paul
It is a tragedy when people reject Jesus. Perhaps you know this already - perhaps you have sleepless nights, perhaps your feelings are something like Paul's.
Have a look at v.1 "I speak the truth in Christ -- I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit -- 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel." He doesn't say why straight away, but it becomes very clear as he goes on.
They're God's people - with all these privileges (v.4-5), but they're rejected Jesus.
He feels so strongly ("great sorrow and unceasing anguish") that v.3, he would even give up his own salvation if it would mean they would be saved!
the letter
Paul himself, who wrote this book, was a Jew, and he had come to salvation in Jesus in an incredible way: he had been persecuting Christians- but Jesus himself stopped Paul in his tracks, brought him to faith, and sent him out to the Roman Empire around the Meditteranean sea to tell others the Gospel (the good news about Jesus), and to plant churches in towns and cities as he went.
Paul would always start in a town's synagogues, telling Jews about Jesus - but they would eventually kick him out, and he would tell Gentiles (non-Jews). So the churches he planted usually had both Jews and Gentiles in them.
Now Paul hadn't started the church in Rome, but in around AD57, he planned to visit them, on the way to Spain (this is mentioned in Romans 15). This letter went before him, laying out very clearly the Gospel message Paul wanted to take to Spain.
Chapters 1-8 tell us the Gospel: we are lost in sin (our rebellion against God), but we can be justified (declared right with God) by Jesus' death, it was the atoning sacrifice for our sins: he took on himself God's anger at my sin and yours - so that if we believe who he is and what he's done, we can be free and forgiven.
It's brilliant: but no wonder Paul is in such anguish over his people. No wonder he wrote chapters 9-11: if Jesus is so great, fulfilling the OT, and bringing us to God - how come your own people, by and large, turn him down?
Think of those real-life tragedy shows on channel 5, where they have live video footage of something like a hotel on fire - and there's a helicopter winching people to safety, but then the camera zooms in on one balcony where a couple are desperately trying to reach the rope as smoke pours out of their room. But they can't reach, and there's nothing that can be done.
It's desperate, isn't it? And it's desperate when people reject Jesus.
us
Perhaps you have sleepless nights thinking about your family sometimes.
Maybe you've brought someone you love to one of our special services or events, and you've heard the message of Jesus explained really well, and you've sat there and prayed: "Oh Lord, this is so good for him or her to hear, please help them to turn to you" - and there's been nothing. "What did you think?" you ask - "Oh, I liked the mince pies..."
How do you feel?
Paul wept - he had "great sorrow and unceasing anguish in [his] heart". He had spent hours with people - going over the OT scriptures, explaining how Jesus fulfilled them, how he was just what they were pointing towards, how the Messiah had arrived. And: "Oh, nice mince pies" was the reaction - or more often, a beating at the hands of thugs.
Paul wept.
Jesus
And Jesus wept as well. (Matthew 23:37) "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate"
So: weep, when people reject Jesus; and if you do, you're not a fool, you're not over reacting. It is a tragedy.
Weep, when people reject Jesus.
Rejoice, by God's mercy you have been saved.
Then, v.6-23: Rejoice: by God's mercy you have been saved.
God's word failed?
Paul is deeply distressed that his people don't all trust in Jesus. But does that mean that God has messed things up? Didn't God promise Abraham and his descendants blessing upon blessing? So has God's word, God's promise failed?
v.6: Paul says: no: "It is not as though God's word had failed"
And Paul spends three chapters explaining why - ch.9 because God is sovereign over who is saved. chapter 10 people are responsible for rejecting Jesus; chapter 11 there is still hope.
History of Israel
So here: has God's word failed? No - v.6-23 explain that God is in control over who is saved.
You don't get to be forgiven just by being a physical descendant of Abraham: no: you get to be forgiven by God's mercy: God chooses who he's going to save.
Paul uses the history of God's people to show us God's sovereignty-over-who-is-saved.
Abraham v.7-9, had two sons, but only one was God's chosen line of descent, Isaac, not Ishmael.
Isaac, v.10-13 had twin sons, but God chose Jacob, not Esau.
It's by God's choice - not human descent.
So, v.14 "is God unjust?" It's a big question: how can he make a choice, isn't that unjust?
"not at all" - say's Paul, it's mercy: we must trust in the character of God. Don't panic: God is just. In v.15 Paul quotes what Moses learnt from God about God - God said: "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
Pharoah at the Exodus v.17-18 is a negative example: God chose to harden Pharoah's heart - to stop him trusting God.
Sovereignty
Paul is saying what the Bible continually shows: that God is Sovereign, he's in control, even over the hearts of men. God chooses to bring people to faith, or not.
[Now] One of you will say to me (v.19) "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"
The answer is, v.20, that God is the creator, it's the way he has designed it.
It's up to God: v.22: what if the whole history of Israel was planned out by God so that you, who believe in Jesus, can see how glorious and wonderful God is? What if that is God's purpose?
God is in control.
v.16 is a good summary: "It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy."
Who will trust in Jesus? It's up to God.
Friends?
But how does that help me with my friends?
It means we can be confident in God.
God is not a liar, and God is not powerless, and the Gospel is not a fake.
If any of those things were true, then we really could complain to God about our friends not believing.
On the contrary:
God is just (he does what is right)
God is faithful (he tells the truth and keeps his promises)
God is sovereign (he is in control, and nothing can prevent his purposes for you)
God is merciful (he does have mercy on people - amazingly!)
God is loving (his means of having mercy was that God the son should become human and die for us)In our concern for our friends, we can be confident in God.
And we can rejoice in what he's done for us: Are you someone who is saved by Jesus? Do you believe and trust in the Living Lord Jesus Christ? Is he, to you, "my Lord and my Saviour?"
No-one deserves that - Mother Theresa, Bob Geldof, the nice man on the corner who mows his lawn every week - you and me - we all deserve God's condemnation - because we've all gone our way, and not God's.
So when God chooses to save you, who really deserves his condemnation, (and when he does that by God the Son, Jesus, dying on the cross in your place) then he is being amazingly merciful - let's Rejoice that we've been saved!
Rejoice: by God's mercy you have been saved.
Persevere, people (Gentiles and Jews) are saved by faith in Jesus.
But don't just weep over your friends, and rejoice in God's mercy: Persevere, because people (Gentiles and Jews) are saved by faith in Jesus.
Persevere: keep going: keep praying for people, start praying for people! keep bringing them to events to hear about Jesus - start bringing them!
People can be saved
God's sovereignty and God's mercy don't mean that people won't be saved - they mean that people can be saved - and in vv.24-33 here Paul tells us who will be saved and how.
who?
Who will be saved? God's sovereign, electing, choosing purpose is to have mercy on people and to call people - v.24: "not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles"
He quotes two OT prophets - first Hosea in v.25-26, to show that the Real Israel (the Real people of God) will include Gentiles; and secondly from Isaiah in v.27-29 to show that some of the physical Israel, the Jews, will be saved - even if it is only a remnant, God will have mercy on them.
Who will be saved? God's sovereign mercy means that people will be saved, both Jews and Gentiles.
how?
How will they be saved? v.30-33 really belong to next week, but they tell us - God's sovereignty and mercy mean that the way people are saved is by hearing the Gospel, and believing in Jesus - it is by faith, not by works - and we'll find out more about that next week in chapter 10.
Friends?
What about my friends who don't believe in Jesus?
We might think that God being in control means it's completely out of our hands - but no: God uses the message of Jesus to bring people to faith - and we can be the messengers.
We don't know who God will have mercy on, but we do know that people are going to be saved by faith in Jesus, by hearing the Gospel - so we carry on praying for people, and finding ways for people to hear about Jesus and so put their trust in him.
Imagine a fire engine, zooming towards a fire to put it out and rescue people: well it's as if God is driving the fire engine, but he's let us be part of his crew - he's in control, but he wants us to join in.
God calls us to be involved in his sovereign purposes.
HT strategy
What about my friends? Persevere: Pray that God will have mercy on them, ask for his help to say something useful about Jesus to them, beg him to give you success in inviting them to a service or an event here at Holy Trinity.
The way we shape our services and events here at Holy Trinity is supposed to help you with that.
We try to make the services approachable to newcomers, as well as old-hands.
We try to make sure we have a mixture of events: at some we'll have a talk where the Good News of Jesus is explained, and people will be invited to think about turning to Christ. At others, we won't have a major talk - but maybe just a few words, just to welcome people and to point out that we are Christians and we believe in Jesus.
The idea is that you can bring a friend to an event like that - like the Barbecue Barn Dance in a couple of weeks - it's easy to bring someone, they'll enjoy it, and they'll see that Christians haven't got two heads. Then you can invite them to church, to see what it's like. Then you can have them to lunch afterwards and talk to them about the sermon, the bible readings, the songs, the prayers, whatever. You can invite them to eXplore - you can say you'll come with them to eXplore.
We know that God is in control. We pray that he will use these services and these events to have mercy on people, and that as they hear about Jesus, they will come to faith in him, and Rejoice with us.
What about my friends? You have a part to play - and surely nothing is more important?
Persevere, people are saved by faith in Jesus.
Why?
Why don't my friends believe in Jesus?
It's a tough question.
What God tells us here encourages us to Weep, to Rejoice and to Persevere.
I suspect that we don't do any of these to the extent that we should. But, knowing the Glorious Gospel of Jesus, and knowing God's sovereign mercy, we're encouraged here
to Weep: it's a tragedy when people reject Jesus
to Rejoice: by God's mercy you have been saved.
and to Persevere: people are saved by faith in Jesus.