Glorifying God both Jew and Gentile

Well, good morning. We're going to continue on and finish up 8 through 12 today, and then Mike's going to get to do 13, which is something called the benediction, kind of the doctrinal part of Romans proper. So today is an interesting section. So there's a lot of praising and rejoicing. And it's interesting that it talks about both Jew and Gentile are praising and rejoicing basically because God has given them favor. He has come down and delivered them. They have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is like a worship service, these last verses. And he references a lot of the Old Testament in doing this.

So let's kind of get into it here. And I'm going to go back to verse 7 again, 15.7. I think Mike's going to start with 15.7 next week too. And it actually starts the paragraph in most Bibles. And it's really a cool verse. And I like to do it in the sort of semi diagram, form, hopefully this is helpful to you. It is to me. It helps me to teach it better, I think.

So it starts off, this is Paul's conclusion of this section down to before. So Paul's conclusion is, you, speaking to the strong or the weak believer, remember this is talking about not whether they have physical strength, right? This is spiritual strength. And it's not even whether they're the sharpest tack on the block. necessarily. It's whether they understand and believe what God has said about them and walk in light of that. That's kind of the difference between the strong and the weak.

And there's obligations. Paul's been teaching us there's obligations. So it says you, strong or weak, are to accept, as present tense, continually accept. We just don't do it occasionally when we feel like it. We're to continue to accept one another. And we're going to see in this section, you know, one another as we've been taught so far is basically one another in terms of we think of the body in the church age, the body of Christ.

Well then he's going to kind of move in, he's going to move in to talk about Jew and Gentile. Jew and Gentile believers, how they're to accept one another. And actually he's going to finish off with the Millennial Kingdom, talking about that. So it's interesting, he's going to cover a lot of ground here. But the one another is going to kind of change meaning as we kind of walk through here.

So right now we've been teaching that one another is your, like today, be your brother or sister in Christ. Okay, just as, so the example is our Savior just as He accepted us. And to the glory of God, and I really like you know if you if you've been in Holly Hills for a long time You know over over five years a long time is over five years I'll say and actually some people came back, so they they get to count their previous term of service Anyway, there are brother.

How shared about the glory of God and you know God does everything for his glory, and it's not a It's not that he is selfish, that is just he is a glorious God and he deserves every bit of praise we give him. So we're going to see a lot of what's being said today to glorify God, to thank him, to show his marvelous mercy and grace toward both Jew and Gentile. But in this context in verse 7, it looks back, it said back in 14.1, many weeks ago, it said, you're to accept the strong is to accept the weak. It's a weak in the faith and the understanding of scripture, but not for the purpose of passing judgment.

But then we learned, we have been learning, now as we've grown and understood this, either one of us, either the strong or the weak, or accept one another. So hopefully we've learned through this process of these verses. So let's go on from here. So some observations from that. So back to 14.1, as I mentioned, it's the same verb. In fact, this verb is going to be used twice in 7. It's used once concerning one another.

And then what's concerning Christ and believers, pros lumbano, to take to oneself, it's a very warm word, present tense, so it means continuous action, and it's God's will imperative, and it's for your benefit. The Greek has all these cool features, all packed into this, it's for your benefit to accept your brother or sister in the Lord Jesus. So Vine says, signifying a special interest in the part of the receiver. It's a welcoming, Hal kind of shared, it's a warm and tender welcome for one another, either strong or weak, wherever you're at. As I mentioned before, I believe that it seems like in looking at this, at any given time, you might be a strong or weak believer. You may see something different than your brother or sister, and we're to accept one another in light of that.

Merriman has mutually receiving one another in fellowship. A couple more points. Now here's the same verb again, but now it's going to be speaking of Christ and us. Just as, or in like manner, Christ also accepted us, the believers, Same word, pros lumbano, but the verb tense changes.

And now it looks, how did Christ accept us? It looks more toward our salvation, what's in focus is our salvation, not our day-to-day aspect. And the idea, and then what Thayer says here, God and Christ have received us. We are formerly dead in trespasses and sins, and we put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. He accepted us through the estranged. We're reunited to God and the blessings of the gospel.

So that last part looks to what happened to every believer. So it's a point in time, that's why the heiress is there, I believe. It's a point in time we trusted Christ as our Savior. And that was to the glory of God. It brings glory to God as men and women come to trust Him as their Savior.

Okay, now we're gonna see, he's gonna move on from verse seven, he's gonna move on and start talking about the Jew first and then about the Gentile. He's gonna go through and show how God was gracious to first the Jew and then the Gentile. And we're gonna see this pattern. You know, if you're a good student of the Bible, you're gonna notice that if you jump into Matthew, in fact it's interesting, we watch this ministry to the nation of Israel, I'll call one for Israel. And the Jewish people, whoever, they try to have them read Matthew. They say, start reading Matthew. They say, well, this sounds like it's about the Jew. They say, yeah, yeah, duh.

Christ came to the nation of Israel. He came to the Jew first. And so that's what we find. So the thanksgiving to God starts with the Jew first. So today's verse is kind of three parts. The first section, we're going to talk about the Jew first, and then there's the and and nine. So it's to the Jew first, so circumcise.

Then it's going to move to the Gentile, are going to praise him. Then we have a series of praises and rejoicings. The Gentiles are going to rejoice, and then again they're going to rejoice some more. And then we're going to get to the Millennial Kingdom, and there's going to be more rejoicing, and there's going to be realization that God is saving people even in the Millennial Kingdom. Gentiles are coming to Him in the Millennial Kingdom. So it spans the whole ministry, if you will, of God's work among mankind, if you will. He starts with the Jew, then to the Gentile now, and then the Gentile looking forward in the Millennial Kingdom. So we're covering a lot of ground today. Okay, so let's start off with the verse 9, and a little bit of this last week could be peaked at, last week a little bit. So 15, starting with verse 8.

So, what did God do? God did. I, Paul, say Christ has become, that's that cool word, ginome, come into a new state of being. Christ has come into a new state of being. So what is this new state of being? Once again, if you're a good student of scripture, this won't surprise you.

Christ is a servant. He came to serve. He said, and we're going to see the verse that quotes this, as a minister, he's ministering to the Jew first and then to the Gentile. That's Christ. He came to do that. That was what God the Father sent him to do.

On behalf of the truth of God, we'll quote some scriptures here we're going to see, to the circumcised, to the nation of Israel, So as, now last week, we stopped right here last week, that's where verse 8 stops. If you look at 8 through 9, that's one sentence in the original, or one sentence in your Bible too. So 8 flows into 9, so it stops right there in 8 it says, to confirm the promises to the fathers. So we know from the Old Testament and New Testament quotes many times, promises were made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob about what would happen, that the Messiah would come. And so that's he first came to them so as and the Gentiles to glorify God for his mercy and we're going to see the picture is when Christ came you know and we read part of the verse of Sunday school is kind of neat you know this this Phoenician the Phoenician woman or is he the forgotten what nationality she wasn't she was non-jewish is the is the maybe it's I made a note about it.

Terrible. Canaanite, Canaanite woman. She came to Jesus and her son was demon possessed and she implored the Lord to heal him. And he said no. He actually didn't say a word to her. And his disciples said You're not talking to this lady, and he makes this statement, which we're going to see shortly. So I'm going to get a little bit of that. So let's carry on here. Okay, let's go to verse, the first part of 9. So first part of 9 feeds into the last part of 8.

The Gentiles are to glorify God for His mercy. And so then he quotes a verse to quantify that. therefore among the Gentiles I will give praise praise to you God and I will sing praises to your name and just kind of struck me I'm sitting there thinking well we could have just stopped I will give praise but he asked we will sing I said hmm I guess we should be singing too right here we have a verse that justifies singing, right? We have many verses that does that. But it just kind of struck me. Just giving praise to God, singing His praises is what He's about too. We give praises both verbally and in song. I thought it was pretty cool. So a couple observations. The Gentiles should glorify God for Jesus Christ in that through him they have obtained mercy. It was by his mercy that they are saved.

He didn't, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he made a covenant with them. He promised them, right? With us as Gentiles, he didn't make a covenant with us, right? It's only by his mercy. He said, well, because the Gentiles, because the Jews rejected him, he put them aside. I'm going to go to the Gentiles.

So we, by his mercy we are saved. Actually, by his grace we are saved. We'll see that shortly. and they partook of some of the promises made to the Jews. So some of the promises the church age has access to. Not all the promises, I'm not going to go there, but there are some promises that we do. This is from our brother Hal Malloy. Okay, so let's go on. So let's kind of dig deeper a little bit.

First statement, for I say Christ has become a servant So once again, this is a continuous action, I'm continually saying and what's in focus here, some translations have it, the Messiah is in focus here because it's to the Jew, has become, come into a new state of being, perfect tense, so Christ is now in that state, he's in that state as a servant. This deaconess, a minister, a servant, one who serves. So in the construction of the Greek, Deaconess identifies who Christ is, it labels him, that's who he is. Now here's a verse that kind of quotes that.

But just as the Son of Man did not come to serve, so he did not come to serve, right, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. That's why he came. He didn't come to rule over us, he came to service by giving his life. as of the circumcision, so we says it's descriptive genitive, our Lord has become one who served the circumcised people, namely the Jew. Okay, then it goes on, and he says, on behalf of, on behalf of the truthfulness, this is interlinear, of God so as, or the purpose at, to confirm the promises, plural, given to the fathers.

Okay, so he not only accepted the Jewish believers. but he served the Jewish people as the Old Testament predicted. So here's some verses in just a second here. He's confirming the promises that were made to the patriarchs. So here's one of many, and this is the one I was talking about. So this is the context when he talks to that woman. He says to her, he doesn't initially do anything for her, but he does eventually.

If you look at 15 and 24 and following, But he answered, and it's her in the context, and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And there's another, so that was, and then eventually he does grant her her wish, he heals her son. But then there's another one, to the disciples he says, this is back earlier in Matthew, he says, do not go in the way of the Gentiles, do not enter the city of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So I think it's key to our Bible understanding, as we come into the Gospels, we look at that, Christ comes to the Jew first. That's who he comes to. And actually there's a lot more than that. He presents the kingdom and they reject him. There's a whole bunch of stuff in that. But he comes to the Jew first and then to the Gentile.

So consequently, so this may be out of place in my presentation, but so I was trying to understand the strong and the weak. And here's a case, Constable says, this is an example, typically the strong Gentile believer should not despair of the sometimes weak Jewish believer. It almost seems like the Jew could be pretty proud, well he came to me first, but he shouldn't be proud of the fact that he rejected him, so that's not too good. Anyway, all right, let's go on. So now, and, so here's the other part of it. The Jew first, and the Gentiles to glorify the God for His mercy. So this is part two of the reason Christ came as a servant. So now we're going to talk about mercy.

Compassion, it's translated compassion sometimes, it's pity. I really like Chafer, Lewisbury Chafer's definition in one of his volumes. So here's just pieces of it. It's a long little section. So the first piece, mercy is that in God which duly provides the need of a sinful man. So mercy is providing what sinful man needs. It's kind of what mercy is about.

The sinner are not actually saved by mercy, right? But by grace. And we know the verse, by grace we are saved through faith. He doesn't say by mercy we are saved, it's by grace we are saved. But mercy is a key part of that. Mercy provides a savior and draws a sinner to him. So mercy is key. God's mercy is key.

He sees a need in man. First the Jew he talks and then the Gentile. He sees a need in man and he meets that by his grace. as it is written, and these are the references to what is going to be quoted next So, and this is interesting, it took me a while to kind of get this in my head. So he quotes, this is what he's quoting, the last half of 9.

And it's actually referencing, there's two references, one's in the Psalms, one's in Samuel. The one in Psalms, according to Kostel, pictures, you know, in the context, in the Old Testament, pictures David rejoicing for his victories among the people. They were victorious because of God's mercy. And he says, therefore I will give praises to you among the Gentiles and will sing praises to your name. So if you compare that with the Old Testament version, you're going to see that Paul's expanded it. Nothing new for Paul, right? He'll take an Old Testament truth, then he'll reapply it, and he'll put in something to make his point.

And what he's going to show us now is Amazingly, this is going to be the Lord Jesus glorifying the Father. He's talking about the Father among the Gentiles. Just amazing. So this is, Denny says, Christ is assumed to be the speaker. He's the I in that word. Therefore I, Christ, will give praises to you, God the Father, among the Gentiles. And I, Christ, will sing praises to you, God the Father's name. So it's kind of hard to grasp that. So we may say, he gives thanks to God among the Gentiles when the Gentiles give thanks to God through him.

And there's a similar passage to Hebrews 2.12, kind of helps with that, a very similar idea. It says, he, the son, says, I will declare the Father's name to my brethren. In the midst of the worshipers, the congregation, I will sing hymns of praise. So this is not unusual in scripture. The Son is glorifying the Father among the Gentiles. And the Son is doing that. So it's interesting, we have this interchange between the Father and the Son.

Okay, so let's go on. So now we've got the worship service, here I call it. Lots of praising and shouting, here we go. And he says continually, Gentiles rejoice, here is passive, I'll come back to it in a second. Gentiles rejoice with the people of him. So he has the Gentiles rejoicing with the people of him and in context that's a Jew. So Jew and Gentiles are rejoicing. That's part one. And all Gentiles are praising continually the Lord and thirdly, all the people or praise Him. So Jew and Gentile are rejoicing, praising, and praising again.

And the verb tense changes a little bit. To tell you the truth, I still haven't totally sorted this out. You know, the Aorist, just to not make it complicated, the Aorist talks about events Typically present tense talks about continuous action. So they have an event talking about rejoicing. It's an event two times. One's passive, one's active.

So if you guys have some thoughts, I'm welcome to your thoughts. And I'm not quite there in the Greek. So bear with me. Maybe another time I'll explain a little bit better. And we'll kind of see when we get in the deep dive here, we'll see a little bit more.

But interesting, three statements, rejoicing, praising, and praising again. And it's the Gentiles with the Jew, they're praising together. It's a worship service, right? Amazing, okay. So now, look at a few more details here. And again he says, rejoice Gentiles with his people, the Jews.

So rejoice here is passive, and I kind of think it's passive because we're rejoicing because what has been done, we have received God's blessings so we rejoice as a result of that. Here's a similar verse, therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue exalted, same kind of verb tense, same parallel verse, meta, in the midst of, implying among, together, you could say literally together with, we're rejoicing together with His people, Israel. And here's a verse that kind of speaks, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited us and accomplished his redemption for his people. You know, I found, I did a little word search on his people, and it shows up again and again and again where God is blessing his people, the nation of Israel, over and over and over again. He's doing that in the New Testament, and especially the Gospels are attesting to that. pretty amazing.

Okay, then it goes on, 11 has all the Gentiles, none excluded, all is this word pas, none excluded, praise, perfect tense, they're praising, they continue to praise, they're continually praising. Luke has and it's a so parallel verse would be when at the birth of Christ the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all that he had heard just as he had been told to them all the people implying Jew and Gentile so praise again is to bestow applaud commend So now here's a comment. Now I praise you because you remember me and everything and I hold firmly to the traditions just that I delivered to you. Okay, so that's 10 and 11. So now the last verse is interesting. It kind of goes into a different time period, it seems like.

And, so we have Isaiah speaking now. He's quoting the Old Testament, Isaiah. Paul's quoting Isaiah. Says, the root of Jesse And you know, hopefully, if you're, once again, if you spend a little time in scripture, the root of Jesse ought to ring some bells. We'll see how that connects up in a second here. It's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, but you say, well, root of Jesse, how does that fit? We'll see the verses that talk about that. Isaiah says, the root of Jesse, there will be even the one rising up to rule Gentiles and the Gentiles will hope on him. So this Ruta Jesse, the Lord Jesus Christ, he is risen from the dead, if you will, he's risen up.

He will continually rule the Gentiles and Gentiles, that will be the Gentiles' hope. So one of the questions is when is he, what time period is he talking about? And most people think, and I kind of agree, this is talking about the Millennial Kingdom, a lot of this, when there will be a They'll be the Jew and Gentile. The church is taken out at the rapture. You have Jew and Gentile on the earth. They'll be unsaved Gentiles. Many verses talk about the fact that these unsaved Gentiles, they'll flow to the house of Israel, they'll flow there, and they will meet the Lord.

So in a sense, the Gentiles will be ruled by this root of Jesse, which comes out of the line of David. We're going to see that shortly here. Okay, and again Isaiah says there will be a root of Jesse. It's a root or a sprout, just like what sprouted the ground, something you plant. So here's one of the verses that talk to that in Acts. It says, concerning whom he who also testifies and said, I have found David the son of Jesse. So we see a link.

Jesse is David's father, and David, we see Christ is in the line of David, so it goes Jesse through David to Christ, so he's called the seed of Jesse, or the sprout of Jesse. A man after my own heart to do my will, then in Isaiah it says, and this is a verse that's quoting, Then in that day, and that's kind of a little red flag, when you see the phrase the day or that day, you know it's talking about usually the end times, that day, using the Millennial Kingdom, that day nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who will stand as a signal for the people, and his resting place will be glorious. even the one rising to rule the Gentiles, the idea of rising is to rise up, speaking of the, I think it's speaking of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. He rose up, the seed of Jesse rose up.

And the very last part, in him shall the Gentiles hope, So I didn't have a lot to say about this. A couple of quotes I'd like to just pass along. Newell had this to say, the Gentiles, thank God, and I think we're speaking now in the Millennial Kingdom, thank God may now freely hope and look to Him, Christ, who will rule on the earth during the Millennial Kingdom. All nations then will be directly dependent upon the Lord, enthroned in the Millennial Temple in Jerusalem. And then Pentecost had an interesting thing to say. There will be a residue of men that will seek the Lord, all the Gentiles will be brought to a knowledge of the Lord after the kingdom is established.

You know it's interesting, God, we start out, you know if you look through scripture, I was going to present a chart that our brother Hal did many times. He shows three people groups going through the scripture You know, you start off with the nation, you start with the Jew, the Jewish nation starts off, you know, it started at a certain point in time, and it's going to continue on, right, into eternity. Then we have the Gentiles, they've been around for a long time, they're going to continue on. And then the church, the three people groups. So here we get to the Millennial Kingdom, and we're talking about the churches with Christ. So we're talking about the Gentiles and the Jews.

So this verse seems to talk about the Gentile believers. Hopefully that wasn't too confusing. And one final thought. So Paul here, he's contrasting these verses we've been talking about. He's contrasting these two groups of people, the Jew and the Gentile. And he showed us how God was merciful, merciful to the Gentiles, and faithful to his promise to the Jew. The connection line between this and the preceding text We're talking about the mature believer and the immature believer, or the one who is strong and weak. So it seems like he's extending that to the Jew and Gentile interaction.

It's brought out by Denny that Gentiles must not be contemptuous of the traditions, especially arising out of any association with the Old Covenant. And we talk about it many times, you know, the Jewish believers many times unfortunately hold on to their traditions and they've, and Paul Paul was pretty severe in Galatians to talk about that. It wasn't traditions. They were relying on going back to the law. So it can be very serious.

So the end goal is that they know Christ and leave the law behind. Okay. Nor should the Jew be critical of the Gentile's liberty, which is a vindication of his free grace of God. Okay, that kind of wraps up this section. So let me just read, this will be next week. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read the last verse again.

So verse 13, this is a benediction of this section of Romans. It says, Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's read it one more time. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

You know, what a wonderful, and Mike's gonna spend a lot of time talking about that, lots to say about that, and that will kind of close out this one section of Romans. Then we get into a really interesting section to follow. So let's just close in prayer then.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You so much, Lord. We thank You that You're a faithful God. You're a God that keeps His promises, and You tell us about that, and You reiterate that in these passages, that You are faithful to the seed of Abraham, the covenant You made with him. And you're also faithful to the Gentiles. And we thank you for that, Lord. And we just thank you that you're a God who cares about us and died for us. We ask it in your name. Amen.