Romans 11_16-18： The Design of Israel and the Church with Dale Partridge
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Summary
God's hardening of the Jews is not final, but temporary and purposeful. God's plan for the Gentiles is to make them jealous so that they will receive the fullness of His grace. They will be tempted to covet the fruits of the tree, but they will be hardened by the hardening. God has a plan for them to receive His grace through the redemptive work of the Redeeming of the nations.
Transcript
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This morning I'll be reading the sermon text for us today so if you would stand
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with me for the reading of God's Word and open up your Bibles to Romans chapter
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11. Dale's gonna be preaching verses 16 through 18. I'm gonna go back just a few
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verses and start in verse 13 to add some more context. I'll be reading out of the
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Inasmuch, then, as I am an apostle to the Gentiles,
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in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous,
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For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world,
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what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
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If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump.
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and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,
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If you are, remember, it is not you who support the root, but the root who supports you.
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And what a wonderful chapter Romans 11 is proving to be.
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it's a delicate chapter that is communicating the relationship between Christians and Jews.
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This is not something that is ethereal and has no application,
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but we need to see how God has interconnected or made almost interdependent
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the relationship of Jew and Gentile in his plan of redemption.
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Now if you remember, the chapter has been broken down into three sections, okay? So
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chapter verses 1 through 10 tell us of Israel's rejection is not total, but God
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actually saves a remnant. 11 through 32 tell us that Israel's rejection is not
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them, is temporary and purposeful. In the last section, which is 33 through 36, it's
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Paul's doxology of praise for this beautiful design of Gentile Jew interconnected plan of
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redemption. Now, over the past few weeks, we learned that the Jews stumbling over Christ was
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a covenant judgment. They were judged for their unfaithfulness, stumbling over Christ,
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but it was also this divinely appointed means to redeem the elect Gentiles.
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11.11, if you guys want to follow along, I'm going to go through some verses.
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Through their trespasses, salvation has come to the Gentiles.
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We also learned that the redemption of the Gentiles or the nations,
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We know that word Gentile in Greek means nations.
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Okay, we know that the redemption of the nations
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was designed to provoke the Jews to jealousy.
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in order to somehow make my fellow countrymen jealous.
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Okay, so we learned that the nations, the Gentiles,
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will succeed in the provocation, the provoking of the Jews by how?
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Well, it's by demonstrating the substance of the covenant promises made to them in us.
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Show the substance of the covenant blessings that were to them in us.
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By this jealousy, Paul says, there will be a Jewish revival.
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it says, now if their trespasses meant riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for
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the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion be? For if their rejection means
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the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
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Okay. What does that mean? We talked about this last week. It means
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if bad brought about good, then good is going to bring about great.
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If their rejection did this much, imagine what their acceptance will be.
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It's also informed us about the broad sequence of events eschatologically,
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talking about the end times it tells us in verse 25 a partial hardening has come
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upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in gives you a little
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bit of a sequence here so if the revival of the Jews is to be provoked by the
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fullness of the gentiles coming in implying that all the gentiles are to come in then life from
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the dead can't mean more gentiles coming from dead to life because all the gentiles that are
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going to be saved already came in it has to be speaking to the general resurrection at the end
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of time life from the dead the return of christ let me give you an example the redemptive history
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If we want to put it on a timeline, it would look something like this.
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Their hardening toward Christ sparks a worldwide Gentile revival
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When that commission is fulfilled or completed,
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that is the gospel has gone out to all the nations and the fullness has come in
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it'll provoke a revival by jealousy in the Jews
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and when that revival occurs I don't know how long it'll be the end of time will come Christ
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will return the resurrection of the dead that's my general interpretation and many
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historic theologians interpretation of this passage of scripture. Ultimately, when God calls
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the nation of Israel to revival, it's going to be close to the end. I'm not talking weeks.
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I'm talking maybe in a century. Who knows? But that's going to be a wonderful thing
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to see the Jews in mass come to Christ. Now, the overall theme of this chapter is to understand
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In fact, in my next sermon, you're going to see Paul offering a pastoral warning
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about becoming arrogant or conceited toward the Jews.
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As I've mentioned for several weeks now, this does not mean that we become Jewish sympathizers
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in the sense of, we do hate and abhor Talmudic Judaism,
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However, this should not harbor any special animosity,
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We should have a special pity for the Jews.
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In America, it's easy to think that Christianity is kind of like this westernized, originated faith.
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We need to understand Old Testament religiosity and how it connects with Christianity.
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It's the fulfillment of an old religion that we were not part of.
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Now today, we're going to see Paul inform the Gentile believers of their station in the New Covenant.
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In other words, we're going to see that while we have equality in the covenant, we do not have exactness in the covenant.
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But while we have equality in the covenant, we don't have exactness in terms of station in the covenant.
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The Jews do hold a unique position in the covenant.
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and that should prevent Gentile arrogance.
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that they have any greater eternal significance
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There is neither Jew nor Greek nor slave nor free
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You can misread or misinterpret what I'm saying.
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I hope that as I'm preaching, it'll become more clear.
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If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also.
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There are really two camps of interpretation on this.
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One says these are two analogies for two related but distinct different interpretations.
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The other is that there are two analogies that are synonymous.
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And they both mean the exact same thing said a different way.
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I'm going to stand on the second one because I believe that's the most accurate.
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I think scripture, Hebrew poetry back up that interpretation.
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Now, as a general theme, it means that one part, if one part is holy,
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the whole from that which it came from is also holy.
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It also is kind of communicated in 1 Corinthians 7,
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you're going to see how this connects in a minute
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it says for the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his
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wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her
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believing husband for otherwise your children
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The phrase, if the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also.
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From the first of your dough, you shall give to the Lord an offering throughout your generations.
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God commands Israel to perform what's called a heave offering.
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You know, heave offering means to pick something up and hold it before the Lord.
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Similar to a wave offering where you're waving something before the Lord.
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and he commands Israel to perform a heave offering
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to lift up a cake from the first of their dough
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and the offering represents the sanctification of the whole harvest
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if this is accepted by the Lord the whole lump is as well
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it's basically the logic that's being used here
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by dedicating the first part, they acknowledge that the entire crop came from God. It's all
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God's, not just this cake, all of it. If the cake is the Lord's, then the harvest is the Lord's.
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Essentially, again, if the first belong to God, the rest belong to God. Now, the key question is,
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what does this first piece, and does the root mean in this metaphor?
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Now, I stand with Robert Haldane, Martin Lloyd-Jones, Calvin, many others,
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who believe that they represent the patriarchs, specifically Abraham.
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just as the first portion of the dough is offered
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Just as the cake sanctifies the whole batch,
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When God accepts the part, he sanctifies the whole.
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The apostle is using these metaphors to defend the claim
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This truth really intersects with the basic tenets
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of federal headship, representation, patriarchy,
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Now, again, this doesn't mean that every Jew
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in which we should expect salvation as the normative outcome.
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That's why we should expect our kids to be saved, normatively.
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What this tells us is that the entire plan of redemption
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You cannot be going through Romans 8, 9, 10, and 11
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There is no room for man's uninhibited decisions
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for from him and through him and to him are all things.
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He's also preparing the Gentile mind to understand their station.
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The Jews have a unique station in the covenant.
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They are Israelites, and to them belong adoption.
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The glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
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And from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all.
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end quote. The elect Gentiles are now in the covenant, but Ephesians 2 says we were strangers
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to the covenant. We were alienated from the love of God, but the Jews were not.
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That's the difference. That's the point the apostle is trying to get in verses 17 and 18.
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that the remnant came about by God cutting off natural branches,
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which was first designed to nurture a Jew.
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Because you're inheriting the promises made to the Jews.
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Your covenant health is derived from Jewish descent.
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This should produce, at some degree, some sort of Gentile humility.
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It should, again, have some sort of spiritual ancestral honor.
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I'm just saying it should spawn off some sort of humility.
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he means both Jewish believers that are connected to the vine
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being pardoned at the expense of another death row inmate
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than boasting in the freedom while mocking the one who lost it.
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The Jews were in covenant as a nation with Abraham as their covenant father,
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but by their unbelief, God cut off certain branches
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and then graciously grafted in Gentiles into those places.
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We now have Abraham as a father, not genetically, but by faith.
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My expectation is that maybe Gentile pride had already began setting in to the early church
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And the apostle, by the power of the Holy Spirit, wrote this to remind the foreign nations
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Robert Haldane, Presbyterian minister, wrote this in the 1800s.
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He says, the Jews received no advantage from the Gentiles, but rather the Gentiles have
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received much from the Jews from whom the gospel came forth.
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are in virtue of the relationship with him, a Jew.
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I believe this is kind of a lesson that's adjacent to the fifth commandment.
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As a general principle, it's crucial that we don't forget who we came from.
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even if they don't have a distinct relationship with us.
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We are standing upon the shoulders of theological giants
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who are standing on the shoulders of theological giants.
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while embracing the beautiful freedom that we have as a nation.
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We have to honor our Christian forefathers, our Christian foremothers.
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We don't want to get into a place where we just kind of start tearing down things
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Is it wise for us to go and just pave our own ways?
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We have to recognize that we're not some isolated
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but that God has made us a part of a heritage web,
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is like a leaf that doesn't realize he's part of a tree.
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First, again, I want to say that we don't want to have a special animosity toward the Jews, but a special pity.
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We should have an urgent hope for their revival.
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Second, an unconverted Jew is never going to understand why we care about their future.
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For that reason, we should have some degree of interest
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And for those who die in it will be judged eternally.
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But also the promises of scripture are dependent upon them surviving.
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And it's for the good of the Gentiles, for the world, life from the dead.
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Instead, there's this balance of understanding the hatred for the blasphemy and apostasy
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And also realizing that we're connected to that root.
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And you get to balance out those realities in time.
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God has intertwined not just your current redemption, but your descendants' redemption
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as Gentiles into this Jewish tree, olive tree.
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But what God is saying is that there's going to also be natural branches on that tree.
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You're going to see that over the next couple of weeks.
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There's going to be, we've only seen a cake and we've seen the fruit of the remnant,
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but there's going to actually be a massive tree with branches, with grafted in Gentiles,
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There's some degree of honor that the Gentile nations
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have to look and go, hey, the gospel came from you.
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How do you deal with the tension that Jews hate Christians?
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How do you deal with the tension that Jews are incredibly influential
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they're an incredible people in the sense of their ability to produce
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some of the biggest pornography companies in the world
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you have lots of wickedness that comes out of
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this heritage. How do you balance it? Paul is constantly trying to give us this balance.
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Pray for the revival and hope for Israeli restoration. At the same time, defend.
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and be an apologist against the wickedness of Talmudic Judaism.
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I'm simply saying that essentially God, again, has intertwined
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and made us interdependent in some beautiful redemptive plan.
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In fact, I think he does this, that he might see us more sanctified in it.
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But the church becoming one in Christ requires filing and shaving and cutting off much of our sinful nature, our pride.
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Unifying in the name of Jesus is what God is doing in this grand redemptive plan between the Gentiles and the Jews.
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for the beautiful, mysterious plan of redemption,
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the interplay between Abraham and the covenants
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But Father, as far as the heavens are above the earth,
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Lord, we ask that you would give us a spirit of humility,
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while also desiring the revival to come to Christ.
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that realizes that we have been given a gracious gift