Scroll down to see and play Audio.
Good morning friends who on the “Walking with Jesus” journey together. Today we are reading chapter 11 of Romans.
You’ll recall this is a chronological journey together, as we attempt to understand the spread of the Gospel, after Jesus’ resurrection and return to heaven. He had instructed His disciples to make disciples of others, where-ever their life journey’s took them. As we read in the first 9 chapters of Acts, that was done exclusively among Jewish people, for the disciples were all Jews, and they took the message of Jesus as Messiah, only to their fellow Jews.
But in Acts 10 God interrupted this strategy and shocked Peter by instructing him to go to Roman soldier Cornelius’ home, and present the story of Jesus… to Gentiles! He did, and the Holy Spirit saved them, as He had saved Jews in Jerusalem, at Pentecost, and everything changed!
Since Acts 11, we have been chronologically following Paul’s journeys and reading the letters he wrote to the churches he started, as he and his missionary companions took the Gospel of Jesus north and west to Asia and on toward Europe.
Here in Romans 11 Paul deals head on with the big question of God’s reaching to humanity as divided into two distinct types of people… Jews and Gentiles. In every part of the Roman empire their lifestyles were very different, but they co-existed in towns and cities. If you’ve ever lived in a place where there are Amish people or Orthodox Jewish people or committed Muslim people, or several other distinct cultures, you have seen the contrasts. How they dress, the foods they eat or don’t eat, their holidays, how their families function, but especially their religious practices, segregate them from the everyone else living near them.
Beginning in Genesis 12, the Bible is essentially the story of God working in our world through the Jewish people who, by God’s miraculous plan, descended from Abraham and Sarah, through their son Isaac, and his son Jacob and his twelve sons. Jesus was born into a Jewish family, a descendant of King David, but amazingly the Jewish people, led by their religious leaders, for the most part, refused Jesus.
The disciple John wrote it like this: “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… through Him all things were made… In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness (our world), but the darkness has not understood it.
He (Jesus) was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own (humanity, especially Jews), but His own did not receive Him. Yet, to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of of natural descent… but born of God. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-14)
John had not yet written this, when Paul was writing to Roman Christians. Many Jews across the empire, but especially in Israel were really struggling with the vast number of Gentiles who were trusting in the Gospel Paul and others were proclaiming, and as they trusted Jesus to be their Savior, they were becoming followers of Jesus, not followers of Jewish religious traditions. Many of these Gentile Christians were frustrated that Jewish Christians still held on to many of their Jewish traditions… and so a great divide was developing as the Jesus movement spread through the first century and both west to Europe and south to Africa. Because Rome was the capital of the Empire, Paul address this issue as he writes to both Gentile & Jewish Christians in Rome.
I invite you to begin reading in Romans 10:20 as Paul quotes Isaiah the prophet, who wrote 600 years before Jesus was born, about God’s reach to both Jews & Gentiles, through Jesus. Do you see how vs. 20 speaks of Gentiles and 21 speaks of Jews?
In chapter 11:1-7 Paul explains God has not rejected the Jews, it was the Jews who rejected Jesus. But not all, for Paul refers to a ‘remnant’, a small percentage of the Jews, who accepted Jesus for who He claimed to be, and trusted in Him as their Messiah and Savior and they are now taking the Gospel both to their fellow Jews and to the Gentile world. Paul writes: “At the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works… what Israel sought so earnestly (God’s righteousness through their laws and works) it did not obtain, but the elect did.” (11:5-7) Do you see Paul contrasting those who worked so hard to keep all the laws and earn God’s favor, with those who trusted in Jesus and God’s gracious offer of salvation, by faith in Christ?
Then in vs. 8-10 Paul describes an important natural process of hardening of the heart. It’s happening all around us today my friends. As people refuse God’s Word, refuse to consider Jesus and His Gospel, their hearts become spiritually hard. The more they refuse, the harder their hearts become, and normally the more vocal and even violent they become in opposing God, God’s Word, God’s values, God’s people and of course Jesus. We see it all around us today don’t we?
In Romans 11:11-16 Paul makes a very important point. As the Jews refused Jesus and their hearts become more and more hard, the interest of the Gentiles in Jesus grew. As the Jewish disciples who had been with Jesus told their stories and others, both Jews and Gentiles, experienced the change Jesus brought into their lives, the Jesus movement spread across the Empire, primarily among Gentiles. Not to the exclusion of Jews, but the resistance of the Jews actually served to stimulate Gentiles to consider Jesus.
In 11:17-24 Paul uses a horticultural example, as he compares Gentiles being ‘grafted in’ to the growing tree of God’s people. When we read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we see this beautiful picture developed much more clearly. It’s a very important concept. As Gentiles become Christians, they are not becoming Jews. As Jews become Christians, they are not becoming Gentiles. Both are joined together in something new… Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, God’s global people, from every nation and language of the world. A true united nations family, all purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, and adopted individually, into God’s family, as His sons and daughters.
Finally take great joy in Paul’s closing paragraph where he writes “…Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved… For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all…” (11:25-32) Yes, all humanity is born into disobedience, sinful rebellion against God, and yes, many of the Jewish people, through the centuries, have resisted and even rejected Jesus and His Gospel, but, a huge number of Gentiles, from all around the world, have been hearing the Gospel and responding to Jesus.
But, do not despair, God has not given up on Israel, and there will yet be a great response among the Jews, of embracing Jesus as their Messiah. Even today there is a significant Messianic movement… Jews trusting Jesus as their Messiah and becoming fellow Christians with us Gentile Christians, as the global family of God grows rapidly. Did you know more than 100,000 people are trusting Jesus every day in the 21st century? Here’s a web site I’ve mentioned to you before, to actually see, in real time, some of what God is doing around the world: GreatCommission2020
In closing today, I urge you to read, out-loud, in great worship, Paul’s closing doxology of Romans 11, with your mind imagining what this scene will be like, as John saw a future vision of heaven and wrote Rev. 7:9 “…I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb…”
And now together, let’s read Paul’s Romans 11 doxology… “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?… For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).
Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.