By Faith not by works-Romans 9:24-33

Quotable Friday will be tomorrow.

This week we have been reading through and studying Romans 9. We have come to realize that salvation is a privilege, but not by privilege but by the love and choice of God. We learned that Esau and Jacob were both in trouble because of sin, but God chose Jacob so He loved Him for salvation and a relationship. Yesterday we looked at the compounding fact that we can not saying anything back to God about His choices, salvation, and love because He is God and God is God and there is nothing we, His creation, will ever say about God. Today we end Romans 9 in the place that Paul began, which is about the relationship with God and how a person, Jew or Gentile, can obtain or receive salvation and love from God.

Romans 9:24-33

²⁴ even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵ As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
    and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

²⁶ and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,
    ‘You are not my people,’
    there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

²⁷ Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
    only the remnant will be saved.
²⁸ For the Lord will carry out
    his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”

²⁹ It is just as Isaiah said previously:

“Unless the Lord Almighty
    had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
    we would have been like Gomorrah.”

³⁰ What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; ³¹ but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. ³² Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. ³³ As it is written:

“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall,
    and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.” 

Paul in his defense of salvation and the love of God in these verses quotes from many different place in the Old Testament. Paul uses the Prophet Hosea 2 different times and the Prophets Isaiah 3 different times in his defense. Paul is showing us that both Gentile and Jew can and will be saved. But Paul wants us to understand that we are saved by faith not by works. Paul wants to make it clear with use of the Old Testament that the Jews did not understand how faith worked and that the whole nation would not be saved through faith, only a remnant. For Paul's Jewish readers it would have been hard to swallow, the fact that Paul is telling them, just because you are God's "chosen" people does not mean that you will be saved. Paul wants them to understand that salvation comes by faith now and they will not be saved by doing the works of the law. That is why Paul is using the quotes from the prophets. Paul is making a clear distinction for us in this text and the entire chapter that salvation is by faith, alone, and works, nationality, birth, privilege, and name will not get a person saved; only faith.

3 Application truths with questions we need to ask ourselves everyday
#1- We can never earn our salvation and love from God. This is a hard truth for us, as Jesus lovers to understand because we love Jesus so much sometimes we try and do things at Him. We can never do anything that will earn the love of God. We can never do good works or good deeds to earn the love of God. God and His love for us is free and a choice from Him that He gives us. We are to do good works in  the new relationship with Jesus, motivated by the love of Jesus, but never motivated for the love of Jesus. So we need to ask ourselves ever morning, why am I doing what I am doing for Jesus?
#2- Salvation is not exclusive. This again sometimes is hard for lovers of Jesus to understand. We feel we are good people or maybe even, sadly, we are American so that is why salvation is given to us. God made salvation available for all, Gentile, Jew, African, American, black, white, and everything in between. That means we have an obligation to tell everyone and anyone about the free gift of the love of God. So again, when was the last time you told someone outside your comfort zone about Jesus?
#3- Salvation comes from God alone. This is a simple truth but it is the big idea from Paul in Romans 9. Jew, Gentile, Jacob, Esau, Pastor Jeff, or Adolf Hitler; God, His love and salvation, made available, by the plan and purpose of God, chose who He would love and who He would save. That means that God lets the others, those He has not chosen, to stay in their sinful state and reap the consequnces of that sinful state; HELL. When was the last time you thanked God for choosing you?

I pray this week in Romans 9, God has encouraged you and helped you to appreciate the love and salvation of Him in your life and also challenged you to rethink what you know about Him and His gift of salvation.