So the kids are starting “bring-your-change-to-church” to support migrant families.  That’s great.  In years gone by, lots of churches had “bring-something-to-church” days. “Bring-your-bible-to-church-day” to highlight the need to be in scripture. Or the most common, “bring-a-friend-to-church” as a kind of evangelism outreach.  This week, the New York Times ran a story about another such day.

Ken Pagano is the pastor of New Bethel Church in Louisville, Kentucky.  He is a firm believer in firearms, a regular participant at the firing range, a card-carrying member of the NRA.  The picture in the paper shows him at the range, trying out a submachine gun. Two weeks ago his sermon was called “God, Guns, Gospel and Geometry.”  Pagano says things like “God and guns were part of the foundation of this country, I don’t see any contradiction in this.”  So, his congregation is hosting “bring-your-gun-to-church day” to celebrate American freedom.

Imagine 150 members plus some guests, all carrying firearms into the sanctuary to celebrate their rights as Americans.  Some will be visible and Sheriff’s deputies will check to make sure those are unloaded.  But they won’t be checking the concealed weapons…because as Rev. Pagano says, “That’s the whole point of concealed.” 

The church gathering will include a $1 raffle contest for a free  handgun. Now, get this. For some reason, New Bethel Church’s insurance company has cancelled the church’s insurance for that day! So, for insurance reasons…we will not be hosting bring-your-gun-to-church day. 

Now, on the one hand this is just utterly ridiculous.  On the other hand, it highlights how steeped our culture is in individualism.  My rights, my desires, my opinions.  We are obsessed with the individual.  And we often bring that to how we read scripture.  We can’t read it without saying “this is specifically about me.”

But if we’re going to get anything out of Paul’s letter to the Romans, we’re going to have to try to think bigger, especially this morning in chapter 9.  When Paul writes “God, God, God,”  we can’t read “me, me, me.”  Because chapter 9 is about God.  The theological word for that is sovereignty.  That somehow, someway, God is ultimately in control.

I’m going to read just the first 6 verses of Romans 9 this morning, and summarize other parts of the chapter as we go. 

Reading: Romans 9:1-6

Well, here we go- I’m asking you to work hard with me this morning.  “Purpose & Passion.”   80% Purpose, 20% Passion.  I asked you, in our very first sermon in Romans, to imagine that we are gathered in a house church in first century Rome.  Not big, perhaps 20 people.  A letter has been received from the Apostle Paul. 

Since letters, and the ability to read them are both rare, it makes the occasion very special.  The people in our little church are predominately not from Jewish backgrounds.  “Gentiles,” they are often called.  That’s us. There’s just a handful of Jewish Christians. 

You’ve been listening to Paul’s letter for some time.  You have gone up and down several theological hills and valleys.  You even fell asleep at one point.  You wouldn’t be the first, if you remember the story of Eutychus from Acts 20, who fell asleep during a lengthy talk of Paul’s and fell out of a 3^rd story window.  So you in the balcony…beware.

Eight chapters of now famous verses. Eight chapters of Paul circling back around to the fact that the way people can stand in right relationship with God…is by God’s receiving his gift of grace.  Eight chapters of Paul parsing out that true identification as God’s people is a matter of the heart. 

Eight chapters of underscoring that all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Eight chapters of explaining how the Jews had long thought themselves the sole beneficiaries of God’s mercy, but now the door is open, the Gentiles have been brought in, and the promise of God to Abraham has been extended to the whole world.  All of this culminated last week in chapter 8, a pinnacle, where Paul shows God’s love to be without limits- “nothing- nothing-nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul could have ended right there at the pinnacle, but instead dives directly into a question that has been on some people’s minds the whole time.  What about the Jews?  What about the “chosen” of God?   What about Paul’s own people?  What about the very people whose history includes seeing the shekinah glory of God, the receiving of the covenants, the receiving the law, the generations of worshipping God, the people with the patriarchs as their ancestors, the people who received God’s promise that he would create a special people for himself, and through that people touch the entire earth? What about this Israel from whose midst God raised up the long awaited Messiah- what happens now that almost all of Israel has rejected their own Messiah?

The Jewish Christians in the room aren’t sleeping now, they are leaning forward.  In the light of the rejection of God’s Son by almost all of Israel, does the promise of God end?  Will they be cut off from God, disappear as a people?

But everyone else is leaning forward in the room as well.  What is Paul’s answer?  Because IF the Jews’ rejection of God’s Messiah means that God pulls out, that the promise has been withdrawn…then the same thing could happen to everyone else. If it can all crumble for some who mess up, then it can for everyone.  So what Paul says about the Jews really applies to everyone.  What will he say?  Does the promise hold, even in rejection? YES. The promise is not provisional.  

"It is not as though the word of God has failed."

What Paul means here is this:  that God’s purposes will not be frustrated.  God will have a special people.  They will impact the whole world, for grace and redemption.  The decision of many to reject God and his Son will not thwart God’s plan.  Maybe we human beings don’t have nearly the autonomy or impact we think we do?

“It is not as though the word of God has failed.”  

Paul then explains how God’s purpose will be fulfilled in several ways.  I’m going to skim two of them, and talk more about the third. I hope you have been reading through Romans with us.  If not, then I’ll encourage you to go home today and read through all of Romans 9. 

But let me just say- this is where we have to look at a bigger picture than just ourselves.  Paul is dealing with nations, peoples, movements.  If you hear every sentence or point here as only having to do with you as an individual, you are going to mis-read scripture.

God’s purpose will be fulfilled in Israel. 

But who is Israel?  If we are thinking just the political nation of Israel established in 1948, we need to think again. If we are thinking those born as ethnic Jewish people, we need to think again. 

Verse 6-7 says “Not all Israelites truly belong to Israel…not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants.”  Paul has already said (2:29) “being part of God’s people is an inward state, and true circumcision (marker) is a matter of the heart- it’s spiritual.”

Paul is not the only one who says this.  Remember John the Baptist talking to the crowds at the river?:  “Do not…say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor,” for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham (Luke 3).” 

Yes, many will reject.  But being God’s chosen is not an ethnic, nationalistic, fleshly thing.  God will have a people, they will impact the whole world.  That’s His purpose.

God’s purpose may not be fulfilled the way people expect. 

God has made a career out of choosing the unexpected. He chose Isaac, not Ishmael the first-born son of Abraham. He chose Jacob, the younger of the twins born to Issac and Rebekah, not Esau.  From a human tradition point of view, it’s the older who should have lead. Did God broke precedent because of a particular reason or simply because God can do what He wants?  Hard to say.  But human tradition or will or exertion will not defeat God- he will have a people, they will impact the world.

The fulfillment of God’s purpose has some mystery. 

We won’t have every answer.  From verse 14 on, Paul uses an example that is troubling to many people.  It’s from the story of the Exodus, when Moses was negotiating with Pharaoh for Israel’s release from slavery.  God told Pharaoh that the very reason Pharaoh had been allowed to rise to political power was to show the power and name of God to the earth. Probably disappointing to Pharaoh, who thought he had gotten there on his own.

But then it says several times that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.  That bothers us, doesn’t it?  And other words on the periphery here make us shiver, like “election” (verse 11) or “predestination (end of chpt. 8).”  Or “double predestination,” a phrase which is not in the Bible.  But the echoes of fire and brimstone sermons ring in our ears, and we start to wonder if life really doesn’t matter, if God has already picked who is in and who is out.  If people are predestined to heaven or not, what’s the point?

I’m going to tell you…I think predestination is badly misunderstood, and badly applied.  Remember that Paul is talking about a people here, not an individual person.  He is talking about the purposes of a merciful and compassionate God. This isn’t the story of who goes to heaven, it is the story of how God will accomplish his purposes, purposes which even rejection cannot sidetrack.  To read this and say “nothing we do matters, it’s all been decided” is to badly mis-read scripture.

Now, misreading scripture is not unusual.  If you have followed the story of the South Carolina governor, you know this.  The governor, it turns out, had an extramarital affair going in Argentina. After repeated lies, betrayals and who knows what else, he returned from Argentina to apologize to his cabinet publicly. Someone asked him if he would resign, and he said “Absolutely not.”  And to make his point, he brought up the Biblical story of King David’s affair with Bathsheba, and then the murder of her husband.  “David,” the governor said, “fell mightily. But then picked up the pieces and continued.” 

It was one of the saddest mis-uses of scripture I’ve ever seen.  The governor seems to have forgotten that David ruined any number of lives, isolated his family, had his kingship fade into turmoil and sullied his family legacy with innumerable scars.  But I digress.

Back to Paul and Pharaohs hard heart.  I have people pull this story out all the time, saying “If God is like this, if he hardens us and then holds us accountable, he’s unjust and I can’t deal with that.” 

I’m going to be honest.  While I think there is unresolved tension here…I also think many people use it as an excuse. The massively overwhelming story of scripture and of Romans, is that God is exactly what Paul claims- the God who is bent towards mercy and compassion.  There are 31, 173 verses in the Bible.  31, 173 (I didn’t count them, but we can trust this).  Out of that, there are approximately ten that mention God hardening hearts, and nearly all of them have to do with this one story from Exodus. 

And, embedded in that exact same story are an equal number of verses which say that Pharaoh chose to harden his own heart.  So there’s some real ambiguity, isn’t there?  Which is it?  Or both?  Is there some way in which Pharaoh freely chose what God ordained? 

And the story actually isn’t about Pharaoh the individual, but about the power of Egypt. At some point we will have to choose-  do a few verses out of tens of thousands, does one story which in itself is unclear, mean I will not follow God? Or will I trust that somewhere in the ambiguity, God knows.

What most people think of as “predestination” is actually something different called determinism or pre-determinism. Pre-determinism means everything, every decision, every breath, everything has been set and decided ahead of time. We’re robots.

This is not what Paul is talking about. Predestination has to do with knowing the destination. One scholar looks at predestination like a car trip.  You know where you are going, but you don’t totally know what happens or sometimes exactly how you will get there. Predestination says God knows the final outcome.  The path to getting there is filled with time, ambiguity, human choices, brokenness…but it will get there. 

I’ve been doing a bunch of reading on Martin Luther King Jr lately, and he had a favorite quotation he often used in speeches and sermons:  “The moral arc of the universe is long…but it’s bent towards justice.”  Same idea.  We know where this is going because we know God’s purpose will not fail.  We don’t necessarily know the details or timing.

Paul is not the only one to talk about predestination.  We like to say “I don’t really like Paul” because he says things like this that are uncomfortable. Well, listen to these sentences:  “You did not choose me, I chose you.  (John 15:16).”  Or “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone the Son chooses to reveal him to (Matt.11:27ff).” You recognize that voice, right?  Jesus.  So if you are going to avoid Paul because he’s uncomfortable, then you’ll have to avoid Jesus as well.

Paul is using all these things: the identity of God’s people, the surprise of God’s choosing, the mystery of predestination to underscore one thing:  The rejection of God’s Messiah by so many does not mean God folds up his tent and goes home. God brings those who were outside… inside. Those who were not my people I will call my people.  He will have a people for himself.  They will impact the world.    

The last year we had kids in elementary school, they had a concert where the choir was singing.  They were singing “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”  But because we of course cannot sing about God in public school, they had to change the words.  And what those adorable little kids ended up singing was:  “WE’VE got the whole world in our hands.”  Nothing could be scarier.  Not because of the kids, but because it’s us.  We think we are in control.  Paul says God is. Predestination, read rightly, should be a comforting thought.  It’s in His hands.

Now- I’ve been talking all morning about God’s chosen people, in the larger sense, impacting the world.  And for just a minute I’d like to bring it back down to us, and here and now, because God has given us a chance, in Christ, to be part of the people he is using to impact the world.  And my question is:  Are we?  Are we impacting our world?

I want you to listen for the passion in Paul’s voice from the beginning of this chapter.  “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.  For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ…for the sake of my own people.”    This is quite a statement from someone whose entire life shifted when he met Christ.  Paul is the one who has risked his own life many times and will eventually be martyred in the name of Christ.  Paul is the one whose every letter to young Christians includes the emphasis on being “in Christ.”  70 times, “in Christ, in Christ.”  It is absolutely everything for Paul. Yet here…his heart breaks, and he even goes as far as to say- I would give up my own salvation, my own being in Christ, if only my brothers and sisters could find Christ.

Do we have any of that passion?  If we are among God’s special people, then we are those who will impact the world.  Are we?  Are we caring for the people God cares for, showing the love of Christ?  Are we telling people about Jesus?

My perception is that many of us, including folks in full-time ministry,  are living very comfortable lives.  We’re living morally, and with integrity. We’re striving for balance. We’re caring for those close to us.  But where is your passion?  Your excitement?  What drives you?  What can you not keep yourself from talking about with people?  The thing that makes you stay up late, or give beyond your means or limits to?  What is it?   Job?  Baseball?  A new house or car?  Getting your child into school?  Fishing?  The latest movie?  What are you passionate about?

I want to give us one assignment this morning just to try and fan our passion a little.  It’s very small.  I want to challenge us this week to have one conversation with a person who is not a Christian.  One conversation with one person in these seven days where you bring up Jesus Christ.  Not religion. Not faith.  Not spirituality.  Not church.  But Jesus.  Talk with one person about who Jesus is for you, how your life is different because of him, how your life changed when you met him, anything at all.

Then send me an email.  I get emails on everything else!  Just a sentence, a paragraph, anything about your conversation.  Next Sunday I’ll bring them with me. 

Paul’s passion, the longing of his heart is that his brothers and sisters who do not know Christ…will.  Paul’s message is that the purpose of God will not fail.  He will have a people.  They will impact the world. And the amazing thing is: we are invited to be involved in it.