WWW Be Right (16)

In one paragraph

This message came from a guest teacher filling in for Deborah while she and Becca were traveling. She walked First Baptist Jackson's women's study group through Romans 9, one of the hardest chapters in the Bible, which takes up the question of God's sovereign election and what it means for Israel, the Gentiles, and every individual who hears the gospel. The teacher opened by placing Romans 9 in...

Read together

1. James 3:1 teachers will incur a stricter judgment
2. Romans 5:1-2 justified by faith, we have peace with God and access into grace
3. Ephesians 2:8 faith in Christ is a gift, salvation by grace not works
4. Ephesians 1:13 believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit forever
5. Galatians 2:20 crucified with Christ, Christ now lives in the believer
6. Romans 8:37-39 we overwhelmingly conquer and nothing can separate us from the love of God
7. Ephesians 1:5-6 believers are elected and adopted as God's children
8. Hebrews 7:22-27 a new and better covenant in Christ's blood, Christ as our high priest
9. Galatians 3:29 believers are spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham
10. Romans 2:15 God's law is now written on the tablets of our heart
11. Romans 9:1-5 Paul's great sorrow for Israel and their many privileges as God's chosen people
12. Isaiah 46:9-11 God declares His sovereignty, His purpose will be established
13. Romans 9:6-13 God's word has not failed; election illustrated through Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau
14. John 3:16 salvation through Christ is sufficient for all who believe
15. 1 Peter 3:9 God is patient, not wishing any to perish but all to come to repentance
16. Matthew 28:19-20 the command to go and make disciples of all nations
17. Exodus 33:19 God declares He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy
18. Exodus 5:1 God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people go
19. Exodus 7:3 God tells Moses He will harden Pharaoh's heart to multiply signs and wonders
20. Exodus 7:13 Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he did not listen
21. Romans 9:22-23 contrast between vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and vessels of mercy prepared for glory
22. Romans 8:1 there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus
23. Ephesians 1:5 God chose vessels of mercy according to His good pleasure
24. Romans 9:25-29 God's election confirmed by Hosea and Isaiah, including the promise of a saved remnant
25. Romans 1:19 what is known about God is evident within people through conscience
26. Genesis 18:32 Abraham asks God to spare Sodom if even ten righteous people are found there
27. John 4:35 Jesus says to lift up your eyes, the fields are white for harvest
28. Romans 10:1 Paul's heart's desire and prayer for Israel is their salvation

Talk about it

1. Paul describes his grief over his Jewish kinsmen who had rejected Christ as so intense that he could wish himself cut off from Christ for their sake. Have you ever felt that kind of burden for someone who does not know Jesus? What did that feel like, and what did you do with it?
2. The sermon described the tension between God's sovereign election and human responsibility, and quoted Robertson McQuilkin saying it is easier to go to a consistent logical extreme than to stay in the center of biblical tension. Where do you find yourself pulled in that tension, and how do you hold both truths together in your own thinking?
3. The teacher used the image of the same sun that melts wax also hardening clay to describe how God's mercy and God's judgment can both be at work. What does it look like in your own experience when the same circumstance or truth produces very different responses in different people?
4. The sermon contrasted a vessel of wrath that fits itself for destruction through persistent sin, and a vessel of mercy that God prepares for glory through divine orchestration of circumstances and the work of the Holy Spirit. How have you seen God use circumstances in your own life to draw you closer to Him?
5. Near the end, the teacher quoted E. V. Hill that God has called us to be fishers of men but most of us just want to be keepers of the aquarium, and she challenged everyone to pray for Paul's passion and then go share the gospel. What is one specific person in your life right now who needs to hear about Jesus, and what is keeping you from saying something?