NEED FOR MERCY

Background Passage: ROMANS 9:1-29

Lesson Passage:ROMANS 9:1-6,14-24

BIBLICAL TRUTH: CHRISTIANS ARE TO RECOGNIZE GOD'S MERCY AND PATIENCE IN DEALING WITH UNBELIEVERS.

KEY BIBLE VERSE: ROMANS 9:16

Sam Jones was a brilliant lawyer at the end of the 19th century who seemed to have it all until alcoholism ruined his life. His addiction took him from the courtroom, arguing prestigious cases, to the streets, doing manual labor. Jones' father summoned him to his deathbed. His son's wayward and wasteful living had caused his father painful sorrow, and the dying elder Jones pleaded with his son to trust Christ. The grieving son promised, but found himself later in a bar begging for a drink.

Looking at himself in the mirror behind the bar, Jones studied his matted hair, filthy clothes, and swollen lips. At that moment he smashed the glass of alcohol on the floor and became a follower of Jesus Christ. His life changed dramatically. In the years to follow, Sam Jones became the most famous evangelist of the 19th century with the exception of Dwight L. Moody. An estimated 500,000 persons became followers of Jesus as a result of his evangelistic crusades across America.

No one is beyond the love of God, even someone like Sam Jones. Yet to show God's patience and mercy, as Jones' father did, is not easy. Is there someone who needs to feel God's patience and mercy right now through you? What will you do today to reach that person for Christ?

BACKGROUND PASSAGE OVERVIEW

Paul wrote with agonizing passion as he considered his fellow Jews who rejected the good news. He showed the depth of his love by his willingness to be separated from God if his doing so would help Jews find salvation in Jesus, the Messiah.

The rejection of Jesus Christ by most Jews did not mean that God's purpose failed. To the contrary, God's purpose was fulfilled, but through spiritual kinship rather than ethnic kinship. That so many Jews seemed to be excluded from God's plan by their unbelief did not mean that God was no longer just. It is God's sovereign prerogative to determine the pathway to salvation and to show mercy in the process.

God's sovereignty does not mean that God arbitrarily exercises His power in favor of one and against another. All deserve punishment for sin, but all are also recipients of God's patience. For us to question God's sovereign plan is like the clay questioning the actions of the potter.

STUDY QUESTIONS 1.About whose salvation was Paul so deeply concerned? (9:1)
2.Who are Abraham's children of promise? (9:8)
3.What metaphor did Paul use to illustrate God's sovereignty? (9:21)
4. How does God respond to those who resist His mercy? (9:22)

REFLECT GOD'S CONCERN (ROMANS 9:1-5)

Romans 9 1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

VERSES 1-2 ~ Paul approached the question of the unbelieving Jew more with his heart than his head. He could have led with a strong doctrine-based defense or used his own powerful conversion experience as a Jew. Paul, however, started with a deep love and concern for his fellow Jews. As he poured out his heart, we sense that Paul was expressing more than just a sentimental feeling. His concern was an intense sorrow (as someone in deep grief) and continual anguish (or unceasing torment). Paul's emotional intensity and sincerity are clear. Moreover, Paul's conscience gave witness within him that what he wrote was affirmed by God's Spirit.

Like yours, Paul's conscience was an inner awareness of the spiritual, moral, and ethical choices he made every day. Since a conscience is neutral, it can be shaped by different world views; it is not automatically informed by God's Spirit. Daily feeding on God's Word renews the mind and shapes the conscience. Without a spiritual feeding, the mind and conscience default to what is received through the surrounding culture.

VERSE 3 ~ So great was Paul's burden that he could almost wish to be cursed by God if that would somehow help his countrymen. Paul's statement shows he knew such a thing was not possible, but nonetheless he felt that strongly about the situation. Cut off does not mean excommunication from the fellowship of a church but eternal separation from God.

VERSES 4-5 ~ Paul listed seven historic events to show how Israel remains special in God's eyes: the adoption (the privileges of son ship), the glory (the divine splendor or shekinah glory of God joined them on their journey through the wilderness), the covenants (God established covenants with them), the giving of the law (the law of Moses), the temple service (regulations on how to worship in the temple where entrusted to them), and the promises (God's promises filled the Old Testament). The Messiah, who is God, affirms the Deity of Jesus Christ—that Jesus was God in human flesh.

REMEMBER GOD'S MERCY (ROMANS 9:6, 14-18)

6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:

14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. .

VERSE 6 ~ Paul's grief must not be misinterpreted. He is deeply concerned about his beloved Jews, but He does not imply that the Word of God has lost power. The perception that God's Word failed was based on a misunderstanding of how one becomes a child of God. Even for the Israelites, being related to God does not come through physical lineage but through spiritual lineage. The modern-day version of Paul's statement is that children born of Christian parents are not automatically Christians, but must be reborn spiritually.

VERSES 14-15 ~ Paul addressed still another objection: Is God unjust because He determines that salvation comes through spiritual rebirth and not through keeping the law? Is He unjust to decree that a person receives eternal life through a relationship with Jesus Christ rather than through religious practice? The text indicates that Paul expected a negative answer to his rhetorical question. God's gift of grace is His to extend according to His sovereign purpose.

I will show mercy means that God has the right to show mercy to anyone He chooses, Jew or Gentile. Paul's quotation of Exodus 33:19 shows that God's decision to extend favor is His alone and is not determined by those outside of Him.

VERSE 16 ~ Some Jews may desire (human will) for God to extend favor to them on the basis of their ethnic heritage or their faithfulness to the Mosaic law (effort), but God is not swayed. If He chooses to show mercy to some Jews (through Jesus Christ) and not others (who refuse Jesus Christ), is that not the prerogative of His sovereignty? Either way, however, whether believing or rejecting, no one deserves God's mercy.

VERSES 17-18 ~ How God dealt with Pharaoh is an example of sovereignty. Pharaoh was an enemy of God, but God still used him for His glory. God can fulfill His purposes in any way He chooses, even by using His enemies for His glory.

That God may harden someone's heart (like Pharaoh) does not mean that God arbitrarily and forcibly imposes a heart of stubborn resistance on a person. It is against God's nature to draw anyone into evil or sin (Jas. 1:13). The wrong comes out of a person's depraved nature. Pharaoh's rebellion was caused by the evil in his own heart, not God. His hardness was strengthened, however, as God confronted Pharaoh again and again through Moses.

The teaching here about God's sovereignty should be balanced by Paul's teaching in later verses about human free will. Understood together, Paul did not imply that Gods sovereignty violates human free will. Unbelievers are free to accept or reject God's mercy.

Some commentators see in these verses a doctrine of predestination (the elect are those God has chosen for salvation) or double predestination (God chooses who will be saved and who will be lost). Others believe the elect are those who respond positively to God's call to salvation. In summary, Paul taught both divine sovereignty and human freedom. Divine election is consistent with the free agency of human beings.

RECOGNIZE GOD'S PATIENCE (ROMANS 9:19-24)

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

VERSE 19 ~ The final objection Paul addressed in this passage is: How can God hold anyone at fault if that person is not chosen according to God's will? Shouldn't that person be blameless? After all, critics might say, God's will is irresistible.

VERSES 20-21 ~ Paul rebuked those who consider God answerable to humans. Using the metaphor of the potter and clay (Isa. 29:16;45:9), Paul taught how absurd it is for clay to question the potter. Only through God's mercy is a common piece of pottery made into one of honor (usefulness for God's purposes).

In light of the verses that follow, do not conclude that God arbitrarily makes one lump of clay honorable and another one dishonorable. Those who resist God's mercy do so by choice. Like Paul's critics, I may be tempted to question God's way of salvation when I think of specific persons and situations. I must, however, trust the Potter.

VERSE 22 ~ Though God's holiness leads Him to display His wrath ultimately, God's mercy postpones this inevitable judgment. Ready for destruction carries the idea of ripeness. Those who finally receive judgment do so after willfully making sin deposits over a period of time. Destruction comes at the completion of a process lengthened by God's patience. The phrase objects of wrath refers to the final outcome.

VERSES 23-24~ This period of divine patience allows those who are destined for judgment to see the riches of His glory. Though they may ultimately reject God, they see nonetheless how god extends mercy to the recipients of His grace .

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

When was the last time you considered how much God's mercy means to you personally? If you stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, you might be able to jump a bit closer to the far rim than the next person. Yet your bit of edge is nothing when looking at an impossible ten-mile jump. Similarly, the chasm between God and us is a spiritual Grand Canyon, impossible to jump. Only God's mercy gets any of us across.

What is your attitude when you remember God's mercy?.

You are less likely to be proud of your life, realizing that anything good about you is due to God's mercy.

You are more likely to be thankful that God would choose to love you, save you, and use you.

You are less likely to judge others and be “righteously” impatient with persons who live far from the kingdom; your need for mercy is no less than theirs.

Are you a person who shows mercy more quickly than judgment? If not, revisit your encounter with God's mercy.