Romans 3:1-08
God
Makes One’s Election Sure
I
had rather never offer a sermon title for just this reason: as sermon is never
finished until it has been preached. So, disregard the title and hear this:
In
1989 an 8.2 earthquake killed over 30,000 people in
This story illustrates, although inadequately, what
faithfulness can look like. The message to the Romans and to you and me is
this: “God confirms our election.”
And God does so by: giving God’s children purpose, remaining faithful
to God’s children and disciplining God’s children.
First,
God gives his children purpose: Verse 1: “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there
in circumcision?” In
other words, “What advantage is there to
being the God’s child?”
Bryan
Wilkerson says, “We have a sterling
silver tea set at home that a family member gave us as a reminder of her love
for us. It's quite old and beautifully made, and it sits on a stand in our
dining room. There's only one problem: we can't use it. Before she gave it to
us, she had it chemically coated so that it wouldn't tarnish. Hot water will
ruin the finish.”[2] To
have been blessed with the miracle of faith is not the end, but the beginning
of our journey. As God’s children, we are not rendered useless. Rather, if you
belong to God in Christ, God has a purpose for having made you God’s child.
And that purpose is twofold: to preserve and to share
the Word of God. First, God’s children are directed in Exodus 25 to protect
God’s word by building the Ark of the Covenant and later by concealment in the
Secondly, God’s children are called to share the Word
of God. God called the Israelites to be missionaries, to share his word with
the world. They did a great job protecting the word, but an awful job sharing
the word. Jonah is an example of an Israelite who didn’t want to share the word
with gentiles. The Israelites were unfaithful to their God-given purpose.
Are you faithful to the purpose for which God made you
his child? There is an advantage to belonging to God. But, the advantage does
not exempt us from the call to total obedience – total faithfulness to God. So,
how can we be sure that we belong to God since we all fall short from time to
time?
Our hope
exists in the second point, which is this: God remains faithful to God’s
children: Verse 3: “What if some did not have faith? Will their
lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?” They asked, “Does
God’s faithfulness depend upon the faithfulness of God’s children?” And the
answer is a resounding “NO”.
God keeps God’s promises even when you and I do not
please God. And that’s good news! Your belonging to God was not based on your
performance. And your remaining in God will not depend upon our performance. It
is good news to know that God’s faithfulness is not dependent upon our
character but upon the character of God! Now, to understand this fully, we need
to know that scripture contains two kinds of promises from God: conditional and unconditional promises.
The conditional promise contains a premise and a
promise and sounds something like this: “Whoever
calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” The premise: “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord.”
And the promise: “shall be saved.”
In this passage, however, Paul is speaking of
unconditional promises. An unconditional promise takes this form: God promised unconditionally that he would
send a Messiah to
The Scriptures teach very clearly that Jesus Christ
will come again. That is an unconditional promise. It will happen and there is
nothing you or I or the church can do or fail to do to prevent it.
Some of those to whom this letter was addressed were
probably thinking that they had blown it on such a scale that they could forget
about God keeping any promises he had made to them. Psalm 89:30-34: “If his sons forsake my law and do not follow
my statute, if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands, I will
punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging; but I will not
take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness. I will not
violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered.”
God says that regardless of what the Israelites or you
or I do God will stay faithful to his promises. And God’s promises are
dependent upon one thing: God’s character, not our performance. To confirm our
election, God gives us purpose and
God remains faithful to God’s
children.
Thirdly,
God disciplines God’s children: Verses 5 and 7: But
if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall
we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? … 7 Someone
might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his
glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?”
Listen to verse 5 from the The Living Bible paraphrase: “Our
breaking faith with God is good, our sins serve a good purpose, for people will
see how good God is when they see how bad we are. Is it fair, then, for him to
punish us when our sins are helping him?” There were and are some who
believe that unfaithfulness to God gives God a chance to demonstrate how
patient and loving God really is and so to sin is okay.
Here is how this belief plays itself out: Let’s say
that I go to a doctor with strep throat. The doctor looks at my throat and says
that it is not a bad case and he has just the medication I need to fix it up.
But, I say, “Wait a minute doctor. Why
don’t we wait a few days and see if I can develop a real good case of strep
throat, then I can take the medication and prove just how good that drug really
is?” That is what this passage is, in part, dealing with.
Have you heard this statement? “It doesn’t matter what you do
as long as you believe the right
things.” To live like that is to live in stark contrast to the faith we
claim. God calls God’s children to live faithfully in the deeds that flow from
faith.
And when we don’t, we need to know that, contrary to
popular opinion, God is not a benevolent grandfather to whom parents bring the
grandchildren and leave them. The grandchildren are destroying the house and
granddad just sits in his chair and smiles. And so, the kids think, “He approves!” And they complete their
destruction of the house. God is not a benevolent grandfather who allows us to
get away with anything. When we do sin God ensures that all who are connected
to his Son through faith experience God’s discipline.
In
his book titled Doubting, author Alister McGrath shared the following
story: He says, “An elderly aunt of mine
died some time ago. She had never married. During the course of clearing out
her possessions, we came across a battered old photograph of a young man. My
aunt had, it turned out, fallen hopelessly in love as a young girl. It had
ended tragically. She never loved anyone else and kept a photograph of the man
she had loved for the remainder of her life. Why? Partly to remind herself that
she had once been loved by someone. As she had grown old, she knew that she
would have difficulty believing that, at one point in her life, she really had
meant something to someone—that someone had once cared for her and regarded her
as his everything. It could all have seemed a dream, an illusion, something she
had invented in her old age to console her - except that the photograph revealed
the lie in that. It reminded her that it had not been invented; she really
loved someone once and was loved in return. The photograph was her sole link to
a world in which she had been valued.” [3]
Likewise,
God’s discipline is sometimes the only tangible link we have to the reality that
we belong to God. God’s discipline goes against the grain of what society seems
to believe when discipline is discussed. But, in reality discipline is a sign
of God’s ownership of you. It is an expression of God’s love.
Hebrews 12: 6For the Lord disciplines the one he loves... 8 If you are left without discipline... then you are
illegitimate children and not sons... he [God] disciplines us for our good,
that we may share his holiness.[4]
The author of Hebrews says that God “disciplines us ... that
we may share his holiness.” To fail to heed God’s discipline; to sin and to
continue to sin is to refuse to share in God’s holiness. To do so assumes that
grace is a license to sin. Detrick Bonhouffer called such grace cheap grace because it undermines the
price God paid through the death of his Son.
God confirms one’s election by giving us purpose, by
remaining faithful to his children and also by disciplining his children.
Be encouraged that even when you haven’t quite figured
out God’s purpose for your belonging to God. Even when you know that you are
not fulfilling your God-given purpose, God remains faithful to God’s children.
Be encouraged that even when you do not perform in ways that please God, God
does not turn away from you permanently. Be encouraged that God’s discipline of
your sin is evidence of your election. It is evidence that you are a legitimate
child of God.
[1] Adapted from Mark V. Hansen, "Are You Going to
Help Me?" in Chicken Soup for the Soul (Deerfield Beach, Fla.:
Health Communications, 1993), pp. 273, 274.
[2] Adapted from an article by Bryan Wilkerson titled "Unbreakable?" at
PreachingToday.com
[3]Alister McGrath, Doubting: Growing Through the
Uncertainties of Faith (IVP, 2006); submitted by Van Morris,
[4]The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (