BREAKING NEWS FOR THIS HOLY SEASON
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Introduction
Introduction
-I wanted to take a pause from our study in John as we approach what is most commonly referred to as Holy Week. Next Sunday is referred to as Palm Sunday, the day that is recognized and celebrated as the day in which Jesus triumphantly entered into Jerusalem for His final week of pre-resurrection ministry on earth. This triumphal entry eventually led to His death and resurrection marked on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
-For His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus rode in on a donkey which actually was a kingly symbol since past Israeli kings had done the same—when Jesus entered this way into Jerusalem He was met by a crowd with much fanfare, for these people held certain hopes and expectations for Jesus’ work
-Then all through that week Jesus performed miracles and gave great teaching discourses that challenged the people’s view of themselves and God, and that pointed to Himself and what He was about to accomplish.
-I can only imagine that if they had news services back then like we have today, all of them would have stopped their normal news coverage to report on all the happenings going on in Jerusalem—the news seems to thrive on scandal, and Jesus was creating quite a scandal
-I think there would have been breaking news broadcasting on all stations that Jesus came and something special was happening in the big city, and what was going on was very important for all the people
-They would have talked about all the possibilities of what these actions and teachings of Jesus meant, and would have analyzed and given commentary about what people thought—and we know at that time they thought Jesus was coming to set up an earthly reign, driving the Romans out—however, that was not the type of Messiah that Jesus was during His first coming
-Here we are today, about 2000 years later, and although we may not have anything new to say or any new developments about what Jesus said and did back then, the Word of God has some breaking news about the hope and expectations that come with what it is we are celebrating this upcoming Holy Season of the Year
-In his epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul recognized the importance that Jesus’ coming had for the Jews, and yet even while writing several years after the events of Holy Week, only a small handful actually believed. Although the Jews received the news, they did not personalize the news, and instead ignored God’s work in their midst through the Messiah.
-So Paul reiterates the good news, and with the news that Paul gives I see a word of encouragement and also what I consider a word of caution—maybe some breaking news that you have not yet considered
-My prayer is that this breaking news which comes from the good news of old will lift you up but also challenge you to seek a vibrant, living relationship with Jesus Christ
1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?
3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.”
4 But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened,
8 as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.”
9 And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them;
10 let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.”
-first, the word of encouragement
I) God Has Not Rejected You (vv. 1-6)
I) God Has Not Rejected You (vv. 1-6)
-in the previous chapters Paul had been dealing with the fact that Jesus came through the Jews and to the Jews, and yet the vast majority of Jews did not believe in Him—which is the pattern throughout history as the vast majority of people on earth today do not believe on him either, and a good portion of people who claim to believe have not placed full trust in Him.
-But the fact of the rampant unbelief caused Paul to ask the question, does this mean that God has rejected the Jews? He quickly answers there is absolutely no way God has done that, and he offers himself as proof that Jews can still be saved through Jesus Christ
-What Paul is driving at is that when God has made a promise and a covenant with someone, He does not then forsake the ones with whom He made the promise and covenant----God is a promise-keeper and He is a covenant-keeper
-God is slow to anger and rich in mercy so that He doesn’t toss someone aside because of what they have done, what they have said, what they have thought, or the attitude they hold
-God isn’t looking at His covenant people ready to rid Himself of them at any given moment of failure—God does not reject His people
-And this is the word of encouragement to Christians today—although sometimes it may seem that God has forsaken you, He hasn’t—if you get anything out of the events we celebrate the next few weeks, know this: that Jesus died for you, and He rose for you, and when you believe in Him, He will never let you go—you are completely secure in Him.
-so with this let me give you two quick words:
A) You Are Not Abandoned
A) You Are Not Abandoned
-The word for “rejected” that we find in our text means to be pushed to the side and then left—I guess to put into modern day wording, it means to be kicked to the curb
-A lot of people feel like that—your circumstances and experiences in life make it feel like God has pushed you off to the side and left you there to fend for yourself—you are going through struggles that seem overwhelming—you have family issues, work issues, you have relationship issues, you have school issues, you have marriage issues, you have financial issues, and you think that God abandoned you and has forgotten about you
-But if you are a child of God through Jesus Christ, God has given you His promise and has made His covenant with you, and based on that you can know that God will never leave you nor forsake you
-God might allow you to go through some things because you need growth, other times it is your sin that brings about God’s silence—but just know that if you have trusted in Jesus Christ, God has not rejected you, God has not kicked you to the curb, you have not been abandoned, God is with you, and always will be, and what we celebrate during this season is a testament to that----and this also means:
B) You Are Not Alone
B) You Are Not Alone
-Paul refers to the prophet Elijah—Elijah literally had a mountaintop experience as God proved that He was the only true God, shutting down the false god Baal and his followers
-But after this powerful experience, Elijah found out that Jezebel was looking to kill him, so he ran away, and Elijah felt as if he was the only person on the earth that truly followed God—as Paul quotes, Elijah referred to the people of Israel, led by a wicked king and queen, all of whom still followed idols, and said: LOOK LORD, THEY’VE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, DEMOLISHED YOUR ALTARS, AND I’M THE ONLY ONE THAT IS LEFT TO ACTUALLY SERVE YOU AND DO YOUR WORK, AND NOW THEY’RE SEEKING TO KILL ME
-Elijah felt all alone, and maybe you feel that way too=like you’re the only one who cares at all about God and the ways of God, and the only one who cares about people and what happens to them, but your faith is giving out and you feel discouraged because you feel you’re the only one left
-But God told Elijah that He had a remnant, a group of people still faithful to Him—and when you feel all alone, you need to know too that there are other faithful people of God who will serve alongside you, come alongside you to lift you up and encourage you, who also are faithful to God----MY GOODNESS, ISN’T THAT WHAT THE CHURCH IS SUPPOSED TO BE ALL ABOUT?
-You may look at all the troubles in the world and think nobody else but you cares about Jesus and the gospel and the worth of people, but God says that He has for Himself a remnant of people to keep and proclaim His name in this world, and He always will up to the day Jesus returns
-So the encouragement for you this Easter season is that God has not rejected you just as He never rejected His people Israel—that means that He has not abandoned you and you are not alone—God is always with you and His people are always there to join you in the work of the Lord
-But the breaking news for this season also comes with a word of caution, a warning which ought to cause some personal reflection…
II) God Has Not Exempted You (vv. 7-10)
II) God Has Not Exempted You (vv. 7-10)
-God still has His expectations—just because the Jews were His covenant people did not mean that they were exempt from His standards and from taking the time to build into their relationship with Him—in fact, whereas there was an election of the nation as a whole to be His special people, within the nation there was another election which separated believers (the remnant) and unbelievers
-Paul makes it quite clear in this chapter in Romans that not all Israel was of Israel----that is, not everyone who was a physical descendant of Israel actually was part of the covenant people—but even those who were part of the covenant people were still expected to come to God based on His standards and not their own
-And so today we may have a mixed group of people sitting in the pews: there may be some true born-again believers in Christ, there may be some who claim Christianity but are not truly of the covenant people, or there are some who know they are not Christian----we may have a diversity here and yet the caution is the same for all of us—God has not exempted any of us! From what?
A) …from approaching Him on His terms
A) …from approaching Him on His terms
-Paul says in v. 7 that Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking—but what was it seeking?----in earlier chapter He makes it clear that they were seeking to create their own righteousness rather than accept God’s righteousness by grace
-In vv. 5&6 Paul makes it clear that true believers are those to whom God shows grace, it is never of works—and to whom is God’s grace shown=to whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ
-It does not matter your family lineage, your spiritual background, your religious activity, how often you come to church=God is only approached by grace through faith in Jesus Christ
-But even believers forget that sometimes, thinking that God is pleased w/ them because of what they can do and what they can offer—this causes them to be puffed up in pride and arrogance, and that needs to leave the heart of a believer immediately, because we cannot approach God w/ pride in our hearts====the only way to approach God is by humility by grace through faith...
B) …from having open hearts to the work of His Spirit
B) …from having open hearts to the work of His Spirit
-Paul quotes several OT verses that speak of people who have blinded spiritual eyes and deafened spiritual ears so as not to see and hear from God
-This is true for unbelievers who constantly refuse to believe in Jesus—but it is also true of believers who close their hearts to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives
-These are believers who are so entrapped in their religious traditions and rituals that they leave no room for the Holy Spirit to bring something fresh (yet biblical) into their lives
-There are believers who disobey God because they refuse to see and hear God spiritually in their hearts as He tries to direct them in the path He would have them to go
-Paul even says that God gives such people a spirit of stupor or bewilderment—what this really means is that God turns people over to their own hard hearts—this is true of believer and unbeliever alike
-if you don’t hear from God or recognize God’s work in and around you, it may be because you have closed your heart, blinded your eyes, deafened your ears, and closed your spirits to His work—and you end up working against God rather than with Him, and you end up frustrated and discouraged
-Are your eyes darkened, and is your back bent under the burden of not having a living, vibrant walk with the Lord Jesus Christ?
-The breaking news is it doesn’t have to be that way—God wants His Spirit within you to enliven you, refresh you, guide you, and use you----the question is: are you going to let Him in, or are you going to push Him out so that you can life your own selfish life.
Conclusion
Conclusion
-When I prepared this sermon last week, the breaking news at the time surrounded the death of physicist Stephen Hawking. Hawking was one of the most brilliant minds on this earth. His grasp of physics was mind-blowing.
~Yet, as smart as he was, he completely and utterly missed the boat when it came to what was true and important in life. Hawking was a hard-nosed atheist that thought that for some reason religion and science could not coexist.
~Hawking said that “God was not necessary to explain the origin of the universe as the laws of physics offer enough of an explanation”—even though science cannot explain how something came out of nothing.
~He also said: "We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special."
~And he said: "My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all….I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either."
-Unfortunately, Hawking learned too late how wrong he was. The news of the gospel went forth, and he did not heed it. If the news were to accurate, it would report that STEPHEN HAWKING GAMBLED AGAINST THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND LOST HIS BET. That is some bad news indeed.
-Yet for all of you here today there is some really good news, and that is that God has not rejected you if you are His child through Jesus Christ= He will never toss us to the side or leave us alone; we have Christ, we have the Holy Spirit, and we have the church
-but be warned, it also means that He hasn’t exempted you from what is needed to have a living relationship with Him; we must approach God through Jesus Christ alone, not our own self-righteousness; and we must not blind our eyes, deafen our ears, or dull our spirits to His work in our lives
-During the invitation, come down the aisle to receive the good news that Jesus died for you and rose for you—this is the message of what we will be celebrating in a few short weeks—receive the gift of life that He offers.
-Christian, if your world revolves around yourself, you have a very small world indeed. Come to the altar today to expand your horizons—come find encouragement and love and peace and hope in the arms of your Savior…
-Or come to pray for someone who needs to hear the good news and respond to the good news…