LET GOD BE GOD!

"Just as it is written, [Malachi 1:2-3] "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated...What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion...But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?" (Romans 9:12,14,20-24)

The book of Romans is a precious, important, yet difficult book to understand. To glean from it demands much thought, reflection, and humble prayerfulness. Romans Chapters 9-11 especially, are chapters that are difficult, tedious, and demand much thought and prayer. They are full of difficult statements that challenge our understanding of God.

It is easy for us to misread God’s actions. There are times when God is going to act in ways that we don’t understand and are contrary to the ways we think He should act. This is one of the problems we face in dealing with God. When confronted with the truth of Romans 9, we realize that God is beyond us. The human heart is a deceitful but very resourceful thing, and one way it expresses these characteristics is by dismissing God, on the one hand, and/or blaming him on the other.

“Why is God doing this to me?” is one of the most common questions I have faced as a pastor and in my own experience. Even if we don’t ask it aloud, it is a question that many of us ask in our private thoughts. When we ask that question what we are really doing is asking why God is unfair. This is the kind of thinking Paul deals with in Romans 9. There is a big difference between life being unfair and God being unfair. Romans 9 is one of those chapters that are often avoided in today’s pulpit because it is not light, easy, have to think a little bit, and is God centered rather than man centered. Just what the devil hates! I call it “Let God be God!” because it focuses upon how God works out His plans and purposes for salvation among fallen men. Phillip Yancey writes in his book The Jesus I Never Knew:“What we think and believe about God matters-really matters-as much as anything in life matters.”

We must be very careful in our reading of scriptures such as Romans 9. Be careful that you do not play God and tell him how he should save. Be careful you do not stand above Scripture and demand that it be one way and not another. Be careful that you let scripture stand-to let it teach you what it will and not to tell it what it cannot say. Be careful that you allow things to stand in scripture even when you do not understand it. Be careful that you do not assume that your heart is good enough to judge the goodness of God. Or wise enough to judge the wisdom of God.

There are a thousand reasons why God does what he does which we cannot yet comprehend. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God" (Deuteronomy 29:29). "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Oh how we must humbly read, study, reflect upon , and pray Romans 9! But along with that, this is how our posture should be in all that Paul teaches us at the very end of Romans 11:

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen". (Romans 11:33-36)

Standing in awe of God's being God,
Pastor Bill