Is God Really Large and in Charge?

Yesterday, we looked at a section of a letter in the Bible called the book of Romans, where Paul was sharing his heart regarding the Jewish people. In spite of all of the privileges that the Jewish people had received from God, it was apparent that most of the Jewish people, according to the words that Paul had just written, were not called and rescued by God. And this grieved Paul’s heart.

And this also provokes a huge question. And that question is this: Is God really sovereign? If God is sovereign, then why are the Jewish people, who He gave all these privileges to, rejecting Him? And why have they rejected Him throughout history. I mean if God is large and in charge, then how could this happen? And the response of many people, including the readers of this letter was “God does not seem to be too sovereign, in light of the history of the Jewish people, now does He?” And as the Apostle Paul continues in this section of this letter, we see him address this question head-on, beginning in Romans 9:6:

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;

Paul responds to those who were questioning God’s sovereignty head on “it is not as though the word of God has failed”. If this letter was written in the language we use in our culture today, this phrase would sound something like this: “it is not as though God’s list of His chosen people is inaccurate or inadequate. It is not as though God made a mistake in His computation or addition when it came to those who He was going to rescue. God’s math here is not fuzzy”.

Paul then backs up his response with a second statement: “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;”. But what does that mean? “All Israel” here refers to those Jewish people who responded to God’s activity throughout history by placing their confident trust in God and the promises of God. The phrase descended from Israel refers to the Jewish people that descended from Jacob and his twelve sons to form the Jewish nation. Paul’s point here is that not every person who is Jewish ethnically or physically was in a right relationship with God spiritually.

Now as you might imagine, this statement by Paul would have been greatly offensive to the Jewish religious people of the day. This statement would be like someone saying, not everyone who attends church is going to be in Heaven. And this morning, not everyone who attends church is going to be in Heaven. Because church attendance makes you a Christian about as much as sleeping in the garage makes you a car. Just because you show up in church and say well “I’m a Christian because I go to this church and was born in a Christian nation and into a Christian family” that does not make you a Christian. And that was exactly what the Apostle Paul was saying to the Jewish people of his day. And to further his point Paul makes a second strong statement that he backs up with a story from the history of the Jewish people, beginning in verse 7:

nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: "THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED." That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: "AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON."

Now to understand what Paul is communicating here, we first need to understand a word and a story. When Paul uses the word children here, this word refers to those who have the same characteristics of another. Paul’s point in verse seven is that not every ethnic Jewish person had been chosen by God to be rescued and adopted by God as His children. Paul then points the members of the church at Rome, and us here this morning to a story that is recorded for us in the very first letter of the Bible, called the Book of Genesis.

To understand this story, however, we first need to understand the context in which the story takes place. Abraham, who was considered the father of the Jewish people, was married to Sarah. As we discovered in the previous sermon series, Abraham and Sarah were both old and Sarah was on the other side of menopause, so children seemed impossible for the couple. However, God came to Abraham and Sarah and promised them that they would in fact have a child.

However, after ten years went by and God’ promise remained unfulfilled, Sarah became impatient. And in Sarah’s impatience, she gave one of her maidservants, named Hagar, to Abraham, so that Abraham could have sex with the maidservant, who would function like a surrogate mother for Sarah. See who says the Bible is boring. You should really read it sometime. The result of this arrangement was the birth of Ishmael. Fourteen years later, in Genesis chapter 21, we read that God fulfills His promise to Abraham and Sarah through the birth of Isaac. Now while Abraham and Sarah were overjoyed with the birth of Isaac, Ishmael did not share their enthusiasm.

Ishmael did not share their enthusiasm because Ishmael knew that he had just lost out on the inheritance and the privileges had previously been coming to him. And Ishmael responded to this situation and to his loss by mistreating and attempting to abuse Isaac. And like any mom, Sarah responds to the mistreatment and abuse of her son by Ishmael, by demanding that Hagar and Ishmael be kicked out of the house.
Now Abraham has a dilemma. Both Ishmael and Isaac are his children. And while Ishmael was conceived as a result of Abraham and Sarah efforts apart from God’s promise and plan, Ishmael was still his son. And in his dilemma Abraham cries out to God. And we see God’s response recorded for us in Genesis 21:11-13:

The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son. But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. "And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant."

In verse 8, Paul then unpacks this old testament story for the members of the church at Rome and us here today by explaining that it is not those who are born of the flesh, or by natural descent and effort, that are chosen and adopted by God as His children. Instead, just as it was for Isaac, the timeless reality is that those who become adopted as children of God come about as the result of God’s activity as He fulfills His promise. As one famous theologian wrote “What counts is grace, not race”. Paul then reminds the members of the church at Rome and followers of Jesus throughout history of the promise that God made to Abraham and Sarah, which is recorded for us in Genesis 18:10.

But Abraham and Sarah were not the only example from the history of the Jewish people that revealed that not every person who is Jewish ethnically or physically was in a right relationship with God spiritually. Paul then points the readers of this letter to a second story, which we will look at tomorrow.