Dale Partridge - Romans 11_19-22 There is No Room For Pride in Salvation

00:00:00.000 Amen. Well, it's good to be back with you. And I'll tell you what, we were on the road

00:00:09.720 for 17 days in a trailer with four children, including a baby. And that was a lot. And

00:00:15.440 we had a blast. We got a chance to visit a few different churches on the road. And I'll

00:00:21.120 tell you, you know, I've said this before, America has been so content on candy Christianity, 0.80

00:00:33.180 where it's bright and bubbly, and, you know, again, as I said, coffee shop and rock band,

00:00:40.860 and light TED Talk style preaching, and we visited a church that was like that.

00:00:47.580 not even kidding the the the pastor put incredibly immodest photos for one of his

00:00:56.020 examples up on the screen for everybody to see it was very strange and I really do believe that 0.72

00:01:04.640 America American Christianity needs to come back to a more reverent holy God-exalting model

00:01:15.940 for the church biblical christianity and it's not going to always feel as exciting as candy does

00:01:25.100 but it's meat it'll actually carry you through hard times you know what won't carry you through

00:01:32.820 hard times is light christianity

00:01:36.280 when your wife dies

00:01:40.340 or you miscarry

00:01:42.320 or you get diagnosed

00:01:44.600 or your business

00:01:46.400 fails

00:01:46.880 weak 0.99

00:01:50.280 Christianity doesn't carry you through that 0.88

00:01:51.940 that's when you really 1.00

00:01:54.360 want

00:01:54.880 the pastor and the church

00:01:58.240 and the fellowship with other believers

00:01:59.980 that can

00:02:01.540 carry you through with

00:02:03.460 robust promises

00:02:06.160 of God. And today, I believe, really gets into this understanding of where the church is at

00:02:16.720 in America. Now, we're in Romans 11, and what an incredible book this is. This chapter

00:02:24.980 is much harder to exposit than I expected. It's focusing on the interconnected relationship

00:02:33.000 between the Jews and the Gentiles in kind of God's plan of greater redemption. That's what

00:02:38.840 it's teaching. That's what Romans 11 is about. How should Jews and Gentiles relate with one another

00:02:45.420 in God's plan of redemption? Now, if you remember, this book has, or this chapter has three sections.

00:02:53.620 Verses 1-10 is ethnic Israel's rejection of Christ is not total, but there was a remnant left in Israel by God's mercy through election.

00:03:08.720 The second section is 11-32, and that tells us that ethnic Israel's rejection of Christ was not final.

00:03:17.540 So first it was not total, now it's not final.

00:03:20.800 But that partial hardening of Israel, leaving only a remnant, would be temporary. 0.98

00:03:30.380 In fact, that hardening, as we saw, became the means which brought the Gentiles in. 0.97

00:03:39.320 So it talked about the hardening of the Jews was the means that God used to actually send 0.99

00:03:44.560 the gospel out to the Gentiles. 0.89

00:03:46.940 and the Gentiles will actually be the means to provoke the Jews to jealousy to bring back

00:03:54.520 a mass revival of ethnic Jews at some point in the future. That's kind of the flow that we saw 0.99

00:04:02.460 through Romans 11. And verses 33-36 is section 3, which is Paul's doxology of praise at the end of

00:04:11.180 the chapter talking about how wonderful God's plan of redemption is. Now we're in section two

00:04:18.160 and Paul is focusing on helping Gentiles, which is us. We know that the word Gentiles is actually

00:04:29.060 the Greek word for nations. So if you're the Gentiles, it just means the nations, the non-Jews. 0.99

00:04:35.120 paul is helping us understand our station in the covenant where do we stand as it relates

00:04:46.060 to the jews specifically paul is dealing with gentile pride gentile pride and this animosity

00:04:56.800 that can easily happen as we've seen through church history toward the jews verse 18

00:05:04.420 and verse 20 actually command the Gentiles to not be arrogant toward the Jews and to not become

00:05:11.280 proud in their salvation as if they were more worthy recipients of salvation. Because truthfully,

00:05:20.180 we are not. We're not more worthy. In fact, I would even say we're less worthy according to a

00:05:26.080 historic theological reality. Now, I say that because Ephesians 2.12, why don't you turn there

00:05:33.040 to your Bibles, Ephesians 2.12. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. That's

00:05:39.200 you got to remember, right? Your Bible geography, turn to Ephesians 2.12.

00:05:52.460 I'm reading the ESV here. It says, remember

00:05:55.640 that you were at that time

00:06:00.120 separated from Christ.

00:06:05.280 Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel

00:06:07.260 and strangers to the covenants of promise

00:06:10.440 and having no hope

00:06:12.540 and without God in the world.

00:06:16.800 You want to know your spiritual biography?

00:06:20.240 That's it.

00:06:22.780 That's who we were.

00:06:24.020 We didn't have the covenants.

00:06:25.200 We didn't have the fathers and the priesthood.

00:06:27.080 We didn't have the temple.

00:06:28.440 We didn't have the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant, the promises, the mercies of God.

00:06:34.260 We didn't have that.

00:06:36.000 This is our biography.

00:06:38.380 Now, as I've mentioned for several weeks now, this does not mean, as Christians, we are to become Jewish sympathizers.

00:06:46.960 That's a big thing that's going on.

00:06:49.700 I hate this phrase, Judeo-Christian.

00:06:52.900 We are not a Judeo-Christian country.

00:06:55.200 that's not what we're built on. We are a Christian country, a Protestant country.

00:07:00.360 If you understand anything about the history of America, we are not Judeo-Christian. Jewish people

00:07:06.320 hate Christ. You need to know that. As Christians, we are to hate the Jewish rejection of Christ. 1.00

00:07:15.460 that's okay we are to abhor talmudic judaism it's wicked it's idolatry 0.97

00:07:25.320 in fact just yesterday i watched a news interview online 0.86

00:07:31.460 with solomon friedman solomon friedman is a talmudic jew he attended rabbinical school at

00:07:41.300 the age of 18. He was ordained as a rabbi and now owns the largest pornography website 0.65

00:07:48.480 in the world. Okay? These people are as lost as any other pagan. Last week, Veronica showed 0.97

00:08:01.480 me a video of an Orthodox Jewish woman who claimed that all religions lead to heaven. 0.99

00:08:09.700 It was so shocking. Honestly, we watched her and watched another video with her this morning with a Jewish rabbi in the background talking about our job is to make this place holier than heaven. 0.96

00:08:24.340 Okay, strange. 0.74

00:08:26.140 but we should not harbor any special animosity toward the jews but instead we should harbor a

00:08:37.560 special pity for the jews now why um because we've inherited as christians the blessings

00:08:48.560 that were promised to them.

00:08:52.020 We should pity them.

00:08:56.180 And we should use those blessings,

00:08:57.920 according to scripture,

00:08:58.740 to provoke them to jealousy

00:09:00.680 that we have their Messiah.

00:09:05.380 That is scripture.

00:09:08.900 This is what Paul did.

00:09:10.200 I make much of my ministry

00:09:11.320 so that I might provoke some of my kinsmen

00:09:13.680 to come to Christ.

00:09:14.440 in my last sermon we learned that while the gentiles have equality in the covenant we do

00:09:21.560 not have exactness in the covenant we have equality in the covenant we do not have exactness

00:09:28.420 in the covenant that is that jews are foundational they're chronological

00:09:34.440 their position receives

00:09:38.400 some degree of honor

00:09:41.280 they were primary

00:09:44.600 they were the source

00:09:49.420 by which the gospel came to us

00:09:51.060 our covenant existence is only happening 0.91

00:09:56.220 because of the pre-existence of the Jewish covenant existence 0.92

00:09:59.000 there's a spiritual

00:10:01.760 ancestral honor that is at least due, at the very least.

00:10:07.300 How that plays out, I'm not talking about today.

00:10:11.760 We looked at the two metaphors in verse 16 and 17 a few weeks ago.

00:10:18.360 The dough and the lump, and the root and the branches.

00:10:25.220 and we found out that the branches

00:10:29.280 or sorry, the root

00:10:30.920 and the piece of dough

00:10:34.220 in that metaphor was speaking to the patriarchs

00:10:37.320 of Israel, Abraham, Isaac

00:10:40.000 and Jacob. That is just as the first portion

00:10:43.460 of dough is offered in a heave offering before the Lord

00:10:46.480 that sanctifies the whole crop of wheat

00:10:49.840 the holiness of the patriarchs

00:10:54.280 sanctifies the whole people of Israel, of ethnic Israel.

00:11:02.480 In other words, Paul is speaking to this concept of federal holiness or covenantal holiness.

00:11:11.240 Related to this to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, where it says,

00:11:17.780 the believing spouse makes the unbelieving spouse holy. 0.78

00:11:21.800 The believing parent makes the unbelieving child holy. 0.94

00:11:26.660 It doesn't make them saved.

00:11:28.820 It makes them holy.

00:11:30.520 They're in the covenant.

00:11:34.920 If you go to Spain and you become a citizen as a parent,

00:11:39.760 what happens to your kids?

00:11:41.660 They are nationalized with you.

00:11:44.920 They are holy, set aside for citizenship,

00:11:48.660 because the parent is covenant.

00:11:51.000 fundamentals. Basically, what was granted to the patriarchs extends to the descendants.

00:11:59.220 If Abraham was holy, it follows that the portion of ethnic Israel that was not cut off,

00:12:05.020 the portion that actually has faith, is truly holy. So Paul is getting that here,

00:12:12.120 and you'll see in a second. Now, does that mean that every Jew is a legitimate 1.00

00:12:17.400 descendant of Abraham that we're going to see in heaven? No. 0.98

00:12:25.020 Romans 9, flip back just a few pages. Romans 9, 6 through 7.

00:12:34.160 It says, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

00:12:39.840 And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.

00:12:44.100 Just because you were born of Abraham does not mean that you're a child of Abraham.

00:12:51.420 As we know, the true offspring of Abraham are those who have faith.

00:12:54.960 Galatians 3, 7 says,

00:12:57.260 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

00:13:04.000 When Abraham counted the stars,

00:13:06.680 when Abraham was told the promise of

00:13:11.460 as much as the sand is on the seashores

00:13:15.160 he was counting all of us

00:13:19.960 he was counting

00:13:23.060 Jewish Christians, Gentile Christians

00:13:27.960 who were all the true children of Abraham

00:13:31.040 by faith

00:13:33.380 the passage is that we're going through today is not teaching that all Jews will be saved

00:13:41.700 but it does indicate that the branches which were cut off that left a remnant there was a remnant

00:13:51.360 left Paul was part of that remnant will one day be grafted in look down at verse 24 in chapter 11

00:13:59.620 one day they'll be grafted in and that all of true israel will be saved look at verse 26

00:14:09.100 look at verse 26 at one point all of true israel will be saved

00:14:18.300 in my last sermon i ended with verse 18

00:14:22.120 which says do not be arrogant toward the branches speaking of the jews that were

00:14:28.580 attached and the Jews that were cut off. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root,

00:14:36.660 but the root supports you. That is, your covenant health is derived from Jewish descent.

00:14:46.560 It's basically what Paul is saying. This should produce, again, some degree of Gentile humility.

00:14:51.580 some degree

00:14:53.320 and some degree

00:14:56.740 of spiritual ancestral honor

00:14:58.300 while also still hating 0.91

00:15:00.480 Talmudic Judaism

00:15:01.420 there's a balance

00:15:03.420 today's passage serves as a warning 0.98

00:15:06.800 to Gentiles 0.96

00:15:08.780 against the sin of presumption 0.87

00:15:10.820 and the sin of pride

00:15:12.860 it reminds us that being

00:15:16.620 in the covenant

00:15:17.520 does not mean that you're of the covenant

00:15:20.700 that is just because you came to church doesn't mean you came to christ in fact america is filled

00:15:30.340 with people who went to church and never came to christ moralists religious people 0.99

00:15:38.960 who are dead as wood and will burn it's 0.60

00:15:44.000 it's sad because we have preachers who won't preach

00:15:48.480 we have pastors who won't call out sin

00:15:51.680 and it leaves the flock

00:15:54.880 in a state of spiritual miscarriages

00:16:00.600 people come and

00:16:03.500 lands on rocky soil and it sprouts up

00:16:07.480 and is choked out

00:16:09.220 But the only foundation for covenantal certainty is faith, genuine, saving faith.

00:16:23.500 So, that was my introduction.

00:16:27.420 Verse 19, let's read with me.

00:16:31.580 Then you will say, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.

00:16:37.140 That is true.

00:16:39.220 They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through your faith.

00:16:45.500 So do not become proud, but fear. 0.93

00:16:49.720 So yes, it's true that God cut off Jews, that Gentiles might be grafted in, but that did 0.91

00:16:56.140 not happen because of merit. 0.84

00:16:58.060 It happened because of mercy.

00:16:59.480 it's easy to look to Jews like Solomon Friedman

00:17:05.960 and believe that we deserve salvation more than that man

00:17:10.680 we don't it's easy to feel superior because of pride

00:17:17.840 1st Corinthians 6 9 through 11 says or do you not know that the unrighteous

00:17:23.620 will not inherit the kingdom of God do not be deceived 0.87

00:17:27.900 Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 0.96

00:17:34.560 nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 0.99

00:17:42.440 And such were some of you. 0.94

00:17:49.400 Think about your old life for a minute.

00:17:54.720 Think about what you loved.

00:17:57.900 just the wickedness that you took pleasure in.

00:18:02.300 Such were some of you.

00:18:04.600 It's easy to look out on the world and be like, 0.99

00:18:06.680 man, you're gross. 0.97

00:18:10.320 Without remembering, man, I used to be gross. 0.99

00:18:14.700 Pride.

00:18:16.240 Pride. 0.98

00:18:19.940 To look down upon any pagan with pride 1.00

00:18:22.260 is to forget that the only reason 1.00

00:18:24.440 you're not as wicked as them

00:18:25.860 is because the gracious election and mercy of God on your life.

00:18:33.520 You have no meritorious works to boast about.

00:18:36.660 You weren't chosen because you were smarter

00:18:38.460 or because you made a good decision to follow Jesus.

00:18:43.240 What does Jesus say?

00:18:47.860 Sorry, my son's spilling back there.

00:18:53.040 Tim, you want to help him out real quick?

00:18:55.860 According to scripture, we know that faith is a gift of God.

00:19:08.720 Faith is a gift of God.

00:19:10.100 Romans 3.27 says, where then is it boasting?

00:19:13.620 It is excluded.

00:19:15.880 By what kind of law?

00:19:17.200 Of works?

00:19:18.820 No, but by a law of faith.

00:19:22.040 Pay attention with me for a second.

00:19:24.380 Boasting is excluded by a law of faith because faith is not a work.

00:19:28.520 It's a gift.

00:19:29.540 You want to know why you have faith?

00:19:30.620 It's not because you had an intellectual persuasion.

00:19:34.280 You have faith because it's a gift of God.

00:19:36.240 God gave you faith.

00:19:37.520 He gave you repentance.

00:19:40.200 At the end of this chapter, Romans 11, it says,

00:19:42.300 For from him and through him and to him are all things.

00:19:47.800 To him be the glory forever and ever.

00:19:49.240 Amen.

00:19:49.760 All things include your faith.

00:19:51.260 your faith is a gift

00:19:53.460 you need

00:19:57.480 to realize that you don't even believe

00:20:00.720 if God doesn't grant you the ability to believe

00:20:02.900 because if you do

00:20:08.680 this is your problem

00:20:09.420 put a hypothetical reality

00:20:11.920 you get to heaven

00:20:12.520 God says

00:20:13.520 why are you here

00:20:15.220 because I had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

00:20:18.660 who died for my sins

00:20:20.200 and imputed his righteousness to me.

00:20:24.240 The Father says, Amen.

00:20:27.340 Why are you here and your sister, Jessica, is not?

00:20:34.500 Well, because I believed and she didn't.

00:20:38.200 Why did she believe and you did?

00:20:43.060 Why did you believe and she didn't?

00:20:46.880 You quickly realize that no matter what you say,

00:20:50.200 you get yourself into a boast.

00:20:52.260 Because I was smarter, and she wasn't.

00:20:55.080 Because I had more wisdom, and she didn't.

00:20:58.420 Because I was more spiritually sensitive, and she wasn't.

00:21:01.500 I, I, I.

00:21:04.280 The real answer, the real answer,

00:21:07.180 when you get to heaven and you get to talk to the Lord,

00:21:11.280 and if he asked you this hypothetical question,

00:21:14.040 why are you here?

00:21:15.860 You would say, because it pleased you to save me.

00:21:20.200 because you wanted me here.

00:21:22.760 I had no interest in becoming a Christian.

00:21:25.420 I had no interest in being here. 0.51

00:21:26.780 In fact, I wanted to not be here.

00:21:31.040 But you saved me.

00:21:34.580 Do you know what Ephesians 2 says about you?

00:21:36.820 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins

00:21:38.540 at once you once walked,

00:21:39.760 walking according to the course of this world,

00:21:41.740 according to the path of wickedness,

00:21:43.680 according to the power of the prince,

00:21:44.760 the power of the air,

00:21:45.660 according to all these things,

00:21:46.760 the desires of the flesh.

00:21:47.860 You loved these things.

00:21:48.900 That was you.

00:21:50.200 I don't care if you were 2 or 20.

00:21:55.460 That's who you used to be.

00:22:02.340 When you think that you saved yourself, you really diminish the love for the Savior.

00:22:08.940 But when you realize that you had no interest in being saved,

00:22:12.000 and that God came in and saved you, spiritually resurrected you,

00:22:17.560 opened your eyes he who has ears to hear let him hear and here who has eyes to see let him see and

00:22:24.320 that God comes in and opens your eyes and opens your ears and resurrects your soul

00:22:30.140 and that he does that work

00:22:33.540 again which is the pictures of the miracles what does Jesus's miracles do

00:22:38.300 he walks in you can't see unless I intervene touches them you can't hear unless I intervene

00:22:46.400 You can't live unless I intervene.

00:22:52.240 That's the whole purpose of the, yes, it validates the messiahship,

00:22:58.700 but it also validates the reality is that without Christ, you are blind, deaf, and dead.

00:23:07.640 So where's the boasting?

00:23:09.820 There is no boasting.

00:23:12.040 There is no pride.

00:23:16.400 It's by a law of faith.

00:23:24.640 Faith is given to you when you're regenerated.

00:23:30.080 It's part of the package deal.

00:23:32.780 There's actually a prayer, I believe it's 1 Peter,

00:23:36.840 saying, if the Lord grants them repentance.

00:23:40.100 we pray for people to be saved we don't pray for them to make a righteous decision

00:23:49.420 oh lord save that person save my father or save my friend or save my brother

00:23:54.780 we pray for god to intervene jesus says you did not choose me but i chose you

00:24:01.460 i say this often but we think that salvation works like this i'm intellectually persuaded

00:24:13.040 i repent i believe that jesus exists and i born myself again

00:24:22.120 essentially you become the catalyst to ignite your own birth spiritual birth now how much

00:24:29.560 involvement did you have in your first birth, your natural birth? None. None. So, it's not a strange

00:24:38.440 idea to think that you have no involvement in your spiritual birth. In fact, it would be very

00:24:47.760 strange to say, Jesus uses the metaphor of birth to relate to spiritual birth, and I had no

00:24:55.680 involvement in my natural birth. It was all God's

00:24:59.900 sovereign will that I am born physically.

00:25:04.860 But to think that your spiritual birth is

00:25:07.780 not sovereign, but it's all you?

00:25:11.180 It's antithetical to the metaphor. It doesn't make any sense.

00:25:17.820 No, what gets in the way is

00:25:19.460 pride. The idea that

00:25:23.700 America worships free will.

00:25:28.080 Again, you have a will.

00:25:29.660 It's never free.

00:25:31.580 It's either enslaved to sin and the flesh, or it's enslaved to Christ and righteousness.

00:25:37.640 You never have this neutral will.

00:25:41.780 I talk about free will a lot, and I think it's important because we live in a generation

00:25:44.960 that worships it, but I'm going to talk about it again.

00:25:47.540 What free will means, or I should say what the Bible talks about will, is what I would call free agency.

00:25:55.300 Free agency is the idea that you're free to operate within the nature that you are in.

00:26:01.840 So if you're a sinner, you're free to sin. 0.64

00:26:05.760 If you're a Christian, you're free to obey. 0.67

00:26:09.080 What you're not free to do is change your nature.

00:26:13.360 You can't go from dead to life without Christ.

00:26:17.340 You can't go from blind to seen without intervention.

00:26:20.840 You can't go from death to hearing or hatred of God to loving of God

00:26:25.160 without the Lord's will sovereignly transferring you.

00:26:29.240 We call that being born again or a spiritual resurrection.

00:26:33.120 So you have a will.

00:26:34.520 It's always enslaved to something.

00:26:36.020 We're either slaves of Christ or slaves of the devil.

00:26:38.660 But there is no neutral ground.

00:26:40.580 you have free agency in your will to do all of these things you know what sinners do they sin

00:26:46.920 you know what christians do we obey yes we still have a flesh and we still sin

00:26:56.340 but you have a will it's never free so when when god saves you he gives you this is really what

00:27:07.900 happens. Remember, we talked about the backwards idea is that I repent, I believe, and then I'm

00:27:12.440 born again. That's how it's always taught. There's literally a book by Billy Graham called

00:27:16.480 How to Be Born Again. I really think that's just a bad exegetical conclusion. The reality is

00:27:24.760 you're born again, and when you're made alive by God's mercy, you see and hear and feel,

00:27:35.080 and your affections change in a way

00:27:37.440 that all of a sudden you repent and have faith

00:27:41.080 and you have repentant faith

00:27:42.380 because God granted you repentance and gifted you faith.

00:27:45.820 So it's the exact opposite

00:27:47.340 is that God comes in

00:27:49.480 and someone's preaching the gospel

00:27:51.460 or you're reading the Bible

00:27:52.840 and the spirit of God is like the wind

00:27:56.500 that you cannot control

00:27:57.440 and he's going through

00:27:58.540 and all of a sudden, boom!

00:28:00.740 you are new

00:28:05.660 and all of a sudden

00:28:08.220 whatever that guy was saying

00:28:10.080 or whatever that word was saying

00:28:11.320 you actually believe it

00:28:12.660 you don't know what happened

00:28:15.460 but all of a sudden you believe it

00:28:18.460 you trust it

00:28:21.660 and you repent

00:28:24.460 you turn

00:28:24.980 you realize that you're a sinner 1.00

00:28:26.140 many of you might have come in tears 0.99

00:28:28.840 and then we sadly assign it all to ourselves

00:28:34.460 when in reality it was all a merciful, sovereign work of God

00:28:40.220 that before the foundation of the world, God chose you to save you.

00:28:45.540 It says that Christians' names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life

00:28:49.660 before the foundation of the world.

00:28:53.720 It's amazing.

00:28:55.760 It's amazing.

00:28:56.740 now in a culture of individualism and moral chaos spiritual humility is

00:29:08.680 a vital trait to cultivate we want to cultivate spiritual humility

00:29:12.880 it's pretty easy to be hardened looking at the world and going you know what you deserve hell

00:29:17.560 that's wicked

00:29:21.000 and yes, we need to condemn wickedness

00:29:24.960 but there's a way to do it

00:29:27.000 now, just because we're saved by grace

00:29:32.500 we should not feel superior

00:29:34.760 it's so hard 0.99

00:29:37.260 it's so hard to look at a child rapist 0.99

00:29:41.560 and not feel superior 0.98

00:29:42.480 it's hard to look at some of the evilness in the world

00:29:46.020 and not feel superior

00:29:47.660 but it doesn't mean again that we cannot or should not condemn evil we have to condemn evil

00:29:56.540 it simply means that we do so in a way that preaches God's wrath not our disgust that's the

00:30:03.400 difference I'm just here to tell you that I was a sinner like you and that you're under God's wrath

00:30:10.120 you've broken his law he is your creator you're a created being he has a right to tell you how

00:30:16.340 you ought to live. And he has in the Ten Commandments. And you have broken the Ten

00:30:20.120 Commandments. And because of that, he's a good judge and has uphold his own justice. And you

00:30:24.560 will be judged for the sins you've sinned against him. Repent. Turn. You're under his wrath like I

00:30:29.760 was. Come. That's the way we do it. It's not preaching or condemning in a way of, man, you're

00:30:38.900 gross. And trust me, I fall to that sin all the time. I can get so hyped up about the evil and 0.91

00:30:45.860 wickedness in the world. It means that we preach repentance and faith with a hope for conversion,

00:30:55.420 not just morality for morality's sake, be better. No, it's be new. It's a totally different shift.

00:31:06.160 And right now in America, sadly, it's like an army where only the generals are operating.

00:31:11.400 only the pastors are saying something because the vast majority of the church is theologically 0.91

00:31:18.460 illiterate biblically illiterate and filled with spiritual amateurism because the church 0.99

00:31:26.200 is just watered down everywhere and christians that are 10 20 years in can't even answer basic 0.87

00:31:32.760 questions about the faith. It is so sad. You go back 120 years. I read books from the 1800s all

00:31:41.920 the time. It's astonishing how far we have fallen. If you've been in the church for 10 years,

00:31:50.200 you should be, name something that you do for 10 years where you're not actually pretty good at it.

00:31:57.680 Man, if you played tennis for 10 years and you still didn't know the parts of the racket,

00:32:02.080 I'd be like, what is wrong with you?

00:32:05.860 No, the truth is, is that we need to be jumping out of the milk,

00:32:11.040 as Paul or whoever wrote Hebrews,

00:32:14.020 and jumping in to the meat.

00:32:19.740 Drop the candy and pick up a steak.

00:32:23.320 Okay, we have to actually start dealing with the deeper things of Scripture.

00:32:26.980 Catechize your kids.

00:32:28.460 Read deep theology books.

00:32:32.080 bad theology hurts people. It actually hurts you. It hurts your kids. It hurts your grandkids.

00:32:39.620 Bad theology is dangerous. You want to know why we're here in America right now?

00:32:44.220 It's because of bad theology. It's really sad.

00:32:51.740 Ultimately, what Paul is saying to the Gentiles is never feel superior to the Jews, but stand in

00:32:59.780 awe that they were cut off for the lack of their faith while God sovereignly 0.59

00:33:03.740 elected you and gave you what he didn't

00:33:07.780 give them, allowing you to receive what you don't deserve

00:33:11.460 and what was originally promised to them. It's an amazing

00:33:15.620 thing. You go, wait, I received

00:33:19.840 what they were promised and I don't deserve

00:33:23.820 and now I'm going to go mock them

00:33:26.980 as if I'm superior.

00:33:31.800 It's just Paul's warning against that.

00:33:37.800 Verse 21,

00:33:39.340 for if God did not spare the natural branches,

00:33:41.520 he will not spare you either.

00:33:43.840 Okay, now you might be thinking,

00:33:46.340 does this verse mean that you can lose your salvation?

00:33:49.020 Of course you can't.

00:33:49.980 You cannot lose your salvation.

00:33:51.280 Why?

00:33:52.020 Because John chapter 10,

00:33:54.320 verses 24 through 26,

00:33:56.080 Jesus says, the Jews come up to him, hey, tell us if you're the Christ. And he says, I told you, 0.71

00:34:02.180 but you don't believe. You don't believe because you're not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice

00:34:06.540 and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they will never perish.

00:34:14.100 You can't lose your salvation if you're actually saved. So what's it talking about here?

00:34:19.420 it means that if you're in the covenant by sacrament but you don't have faith

00:34:29.080 kids some of you kids have been baptized you're in the covenant you're here

00:34:37.600 doesn't mean you're saved the only thing that means that you're saved is if you have a trust

00:34:46.400 and faith in Christ.

00:34:50.540 Not the believing that he exists,

00:34:52.800 but the believing that you're a sinner

00:34:54.500 and that you need the righteousness of Jesus

00:34:57.600 imputed to you by faith.

00:35:00.020 That is key.

00:35:07.460 It also means that if you're in the covenant by sacrament

00:35:10.360 and do not have faith, 1.00

00:35:11.400 you, like the unbelieving Jews, would be cut off. 1.00

00:35:16.400 Cut off. I want to look at the text a little closer. It's important to note that Paul is 1.00

00:35:20.240 speaking to groups. Look down, pay attention here. Paul is speaking to groups of people in this

00:35:23.960 section, the Jews and the Gentiles. He's not speaking to individuals. He's speaking to groups

00:35:28.180 of people right here. When it says God did not spare the natural branches, we need to realize

00:35:32.540 that he did spare some of the natural branches because there was a remnant.

00:35:38.480 Paul was there.

00:35:40.540 The disciples of Jesus were there.

00:35:42.340 okay when he says he will not spare you he's not speaking to individuals but of the gentiles as a

00:35:51.040 group will he cut off portions of the gentiles like he cut off portions of the jews yes yes he

00:35:57.620 will if god cut off a significant portion of the jews who had a greater claim to god's mercy 0.94

00:36:04.000 for their unbelief then the gentiles who had no claim on god's mercy

00:36:09.840 should not assume that he is unwilling to do the same

00:36:13.800 if they have unbelief.

00:36:16.040 Do you want to know what happened in America?

00:36:19.880 We had a generation,

00:36:23.660 a few generations actually,

00:36:27.620 that have been cut off.

00:36:33.880 Doesn't it feel like a remnant in America?

00:36:36.060 I mean, man, I study stuff from the 1700s, 1800s. 0.85

00:36:41.840 America was robustly Christian. 1.00

00:36:46.120 Not anymore.

00:36:47.980 We have been judged.

00:36:51.860 Covenantally judged.

00:36:55.760 Again, we're dealing with the sin of presumption.

00:37:01.040 Just because you're in the covenant community of the church,

00:37:03.960 just because you've been baptized, just because you pray, just because you sing the songs,

00:37:08.660 it doesn't mean you're saved. In fact, I was in the church, I think, for about 10 years before

00:37:12.760 I was saved. You know why? Because I grew up in Southern California. Mega-churchianity.

00:37:17.820 Never talked about sin. Didn't understand the gospel. It was always some moral tale.

00:37:26.160 It was spectator Christianity where I just watched things go by. I was leading Bible studies.

00:37:33.960 Martin Luther, you know how long Martin Luther was a Christian before he was saved?

00:37:40.060 He had a doctorate in theology before he was saved.

00:37:45.520 John Wesley, graduated from Oxford, became a deacon in the Anglican Church,

00:37:51.560 went across the Atlantic, served as a missionary in the Americas,

00:37:55.900 got saved on the way back from the Moravians.

00:37:58.400 is that nuts

00:38:04.280 presumption

00:38:08.160 that just because you're here

00:38:10.360 means you're safe

00:38:11.540 no

00:38:12.120 examine yourselves

00:38:14.480 to see if you're in the faith 0.73

00:38:15.540 do you see how wicked you are 1.00

00:38:18.120 as a sinner 1.00

00:38:18.520 and you just love 0.83

00:38:20.520 and run to the cross

00:38:21.820 do you think that you're good

00:38:26.040 at all

00:38:26.620 Paul says there is nothing good in me

00:38:30.720 can you say that

00:38:32.760 nothing good in me

00:38:36.440 the only thing that's good in me is Christ in me

00:38:38.700 I know it can be scary

00:38:44.180 to think

00:38:46.260 am I really saved

00:38:49.440 I would rather you examine yourself

00:38:52.180 than

00:38:53.640 be in a situation

00:38:55.660 where your whole life nobody told you to examine yourself

00:38:58.700 and you think you're saved and you're not.

00:39:02.980 Examine yourself.

00:39:04.260 Is Christ a priority in your life

00:39:06.020 or is it secondary or tertiary?

00:39:11.560 Like, really?

00:39:14.160 What's the thing that you worship with your time

00:39:16.940 and your money and your affections?

00:39:20.540 Is it friends?

00:39:21.700 Is it sports?

00:39:22.480 Is it travel?

00:39:23.280 What is it?

00:39:25.660 Christ will not compete with any of your idols.

00:39:29.340 He will not.

00:39:30.520 If Christ is not king, at the very least, if you're saved, he will discipline you.

00:39:37.440 Because he disciplines those he loves.

00:39:38.980 You know what he disciplines us with?

00:39:40.720 Well, primarily with conviction, but with trials.

00:39:45.980 I'll tell you what, I don't need a trial right now.

00:39:50.420 As a pastor, I've had a lot of trials.

00:39:55.660 it's better just to have faith and obey.

00:40:03.940 Without faith, you'll be cut off.

00:40:06.960 Parents, you need to teach your kids that

00:40:08.740 just because they know the catechism,

00:40:11.800 just because you homeschool them in old church history

00:40:14.600 and you sing the hymns in the morning,

00:40:17.080 it doesn't make them saved.

00:40:20.740 If he did it to the Jews

00:40:22.160 who raised their kids memorizing the Torah, 0.76

00:40:25.660 who had a greater claim on the mercies of God,

00:40:30.800 he can certainly do it to any of us.

00:40:37.420 Teach Christ.

00:40:39.080 Teach the gospel to your kids.

00:40:40.700 You can't teach what you don't know.

00:40:42.780 Fathers, you're the patriarchs of your home.

00:40:46.600 Your family will never go beyond your maturity.

00:40:49.760 And if they do, it's a shame and a judgment upon your household.

00:40:53.160 prioritize the leadership of your family yes i'm the pastor of the men yes i'm the pastor

00:41:03.420 of the kids yes i'm the pastor of the women but i'm not your wife's sole

00:41:10.160 source of instruction in fact i would say i'm not the primary source you are

00:41:17.320 And you must lead your wives and children so that when I come in and bring truth, it's just affirming what has already been taught at home.

00:41:34.500 Preach Christ, obey the Lord, pray the Lord gives your children saving faith, and trust that he will.

00:41:40.560 Trust that he will.

00:41:41.360 verse 22 behold then the kindness and the severity of god

00:41:48.320 to those who fell severity but to you god's kindness if you continue in his kindness

00:41:57.080 otherwise you will also be cut off okay paul is saying observe just for a second take in

00:42:05.960 the mercy and the justice of God.

00:42:09.160 We live in a generation that does what?

00:42:11.140 God is love.

00:42:14.340 That's it.

00:42:15.780 We only talk about God as love.

00:42:20.140 Yes, God is love.

00:42:22.420 But God is also justice.

00:42:27.360 It would be a great study

00:42:29.580 to see the hundreds of passages

00:42:32.860 of justice.

00:42:35.960 In the Bible.

00:42:37.280 You know who talks about hell more than anybody else in the Bible?

00:42:40.120 Jesus.

00:42:42.340 Jesus talks about justice.

00:42:46.300 But we live in a generation that's all about God's love.

00:42:51.140 Great.

00:42:54.160 If you love me, obey my commandments, Jesus says.

00:42:57.220 and so the mercy is seen in his kindness to give to you by faith what you were not promised

00:43:08.800 the justice is seen in his severity taking away because of unbelief what they were promised

00:43:16.700 God is just if God will cut off portions of his own covenant people for not having faith

00:43:24.180 he will certainly cut off portions of nations who were grafted in for not having faith.

00:43:30.980 This is going to help you understand why America is in such extreme turmoil right now.

00:43:38.100 This text intersects with this concept of covenant judgments.

00:43:42.300 If you've read the book of Revelation, you understand the first two or three chapters

00:43:46.040 talks about seven churches, and it's giving down covenant judgments on these churches.

00:43:52.480 This is after Jesus is resurrected. 0.98

00:43:56.240 To be so naive to think that, well, God doesn't give covenant judges to America is just absolutely ridiculous.

00:44:09.520 I believe we are living through the aftermath of a real pruning, a real pruning.

00:44:15.320 For the past 60 years, I did a bunch of research for this. 0.98

00:44:18.500 we have actually seen a overwhelming reduction of Christians in America.

00:44:27.900 Now, not in South America, in Cuba, in China, in India.

00:44:33.000 In fact, there's actually Christians growing by the millions in the Middle East.

00:44:38.360 But in America, we spent so many years sending out missionaries to help other nations

00:44:43.760 that we forgot our own people.

00:44:46.200 Now these nations are sending missionaries to us.

00:44:54.800 Multi-generational faithfulness has declined.

00:44:58.680 The whole Billy Graham world, great. 0.98

00:45:01.200 Saw the big revival, you know what I didn't see?

00:45:02.980 Is their grandkids still believing in Christ?

00:45:06.980 That's where we're at.

00:45:08.700 We're the grandkids, I'm the grandkids,

00:45:11.020 of the people that came to faith under Billy Graham's teaching.

00:45:15.300 I'm not condemning Billy Graham.

00:45:19.400 I'm just saying is that there was a lack of multi-generational faithfulness.

00:45:24.280 The metric that we should be measuring is, did father pass faith down to son, pass faith down to grandson, to great-grandson?

00:45:32.580 Is that something that we're seeing?

00:45:33.880 That is covenant faithfulness.

00:45:35.720 That is the blessing of the Lord for faithful parents who are raising their kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

00:45:44.700 Or have we seen God cut off generations? 0.92

00:45:50.820 In fact, we have seen more apostate children in the last 60 years than probably any time in America's history. 1.00

00:45:58.560 Kids that are just falling away. 1.00

00:46:06.340 God wants us to see that when we fail to be faithful, we curse our generations and our nation.

00:46:13.720 people ask me all the time,

00:46:16.780 Dale, why are you so bold

00:46:17.680 or why are you so saying

00:46:18.900 all these hard things?

00:46:19.660 I go, because 60 years

00:46:20.820 of pastors haven't.

00:46:24.060 I have to say all these things

00:46:25.480 or preach all these truths

00:46:26.540 because we have 0.73

00:46:30.380 the boomer generation in back

00:46:32.480 bought into soft pageantry Christianity, 0.85

00:46:37.700 invented the seeker-sensitive model, 0.75

00:46:41.240 rock bands and campuses

00:46:43.120 and the fruit is not good.

00:46:47.080 It's not good.

00:46:49.540 It's not good.

00:46:50.520 In fact, if you look at some of the churches

00:46:51.760 even in our own town,

00:46:53.340 they're just not producing fruit.

00:46:56.940 They have numbers.

00:47:00.880 But we need to pray that the harvest

00:47:03.700 is brought forth in this town,

00:47:06.140 that people would come

00:47:06.960 and actually hear a real gospel

00:47:08.840 and that the Lord would save them.

00:47:10.480 that the Lord would save them.

00:47:17.960 There's a growing call, however, I would say.

00:47:20.020 I really do believe this,

00:47:21.100 and I don't think I'm being an optimist

00:47:22.280 for the optimist's sake.

00:47:23.360 I actually believe that we have kind of hit

00:47:27.180 the death throes of American society

00:47:31.160 where liberalism has become so absurd 1.00

00:47:33.900 that even liberals are like, this is stupid. 1.00

00:47:36.920 This is stupid, right? 1.00

00:47:38.360 You start to go, that doesn't work. 1.00

00:47:43.100 That structure doesn't work.

00:47:44.460 Look at the damage. 1.00

00:47:47.780 Two dads and two moms or, you know, the divorce rates among homosexuals is crazy high. 1.00

00:47:56.360 One, because they were never married. 0.99

00:47:57.820 But two, because it's the reality is that it doesn't function.

00:48:04.240 We've killed millions upon millions of babies. 0.97

00:48:06.960 women everywhere 1.00

00:48:09.280 dealing with the guilt of that sin 1.00

00:48:11.300 we have

00:48:17.000 so many young men

00:48:19.560 who are so addicted to pornography

00:48:21.840 that they will never even find a wife

00:48:23.800 because they don't need one 0.99

00:48:24.700 we have

00:48:27.400 kids that are so depressed

00:48:29.640 it's just

00:48:33.200 so bad

00:48:35.620 that by God's grace, I finally believe

00:48:38.440 that there are a handful of pastors

00:48:40.580 that are the very beginning of the remnant speaking up

00:48:44.600 about cultural repentance,

00:48:48.480 true preaching of the word of God,

00:48:51.900 a return to Christian faithfulness,

00:48:53.500 a renewed reality of discipling your children.

00:48:56.700 Homeschooling is booming through the roof right now.

00:49:02.280 And there's Christians that are getting involved in politics. 0.80

00:49:04.660 We've stopped this quiet Christianity where we sit back and let everybody be loud but us. 0.67

00:49:10.760 And we check out of art and media and politics and economics and education.

00:49:15.520 And we just kind of handed it all over the world.

00:49:19.720 You know that Christians used to be known for the best art, the best music, the best architecture, the best.

00:49:28.860 Do you know that Harvard and Princeton and Yale and Oxford are Christian institutions?

00:49:34.660 The best scientists in the world, Bach for music, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo.

00:49:47.380 I mean, we've lost so much.

00:49:52.720 We've lost so much. 1.00

00:49:55.480 Christians are known now for terrible movies and ugly t-shirt companies, okay? 1.00

00:49:59.600 We really need to turn this around. 0.98

00:50:05.620 We're the ones that have truth.

00:50:07.940 The liberals are literally borrowing the truth of the Bible

00:50:11.760 and creating perverted versions of it.

00:50:15.160 And that's why we have no TV shows for our children.

00:50:17.740 You know why?

00:50:18.320 What do all of our kids watch?

00:50:19.620 Stuff from the 1960s and the 1970s.

00:50:22.900 Because you can't let your kids watch anything from Netflix or Hulu

00:50:26.180 because we've handed all the media over to the world.

00:50:33.200 We've kind of just said, hey, you know what? 0.99

00:50:34.560 going to hell in a handbasket. We might as well just check out. It's the exact opposite of what 0.93

00:50:39.100 the historic church has done. Jesus says, go get the nations. Disciple them. Teach them to obey 0.87

00:50:45.260 all that I have commanded. Christianize this place. 1.00

00:50:51.520 It starts in your house. It starts in your house. If you can't disciple your own kids, 0.99

00:50:59.960 you're not going to be able to change anything in this town.

00:51:04.560 If you can't take care of your own soul, you can't get into the Word in the morning?

00:51:11.900 You're 50 years old and you can't get into the Word?

00:51:17.700 You've been in the church since you were 8 and now you're 26 and you still can't find time to pray and get into the Word in the morning?

00:51:28.380 Do you understand what you're doing to your own generations?

00:51:32.100 You're cursing your kids and your grandkids.

00:51:34.560 may we never forget the cost of unfaithfulness and how many of our people in this country 0.95

00:51:44.420 perished because of nominal christianity

00:51:48.080 i'm going to close with this

00:51:53.320 this passage that we're going through today makes me think of numbers 14 18 that says

00:52:00.380 The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression,

00:52:05.340 but he will by no means clear the guilty,

00:52:09.720 visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations.

00:52:18.220 God is a God of mercy and justice.

00:52:21.620 If you want the blessings of believing children and grandchildren,

00:52:24.940 I think it was Charles Spurgeon that said

00:52:29.180 talking about teaching your kids

00:52:31.420 and disciplining your kids in the Lord

00:52:33.540 he says if you avoid the headaches now

00:52:36.980 you will embrace the heartaches later

00:52:39.420 I know it's a headache

00:52:42.600 to train children in the way of the Lord

00:52:44.940 but if you skip the headaches now

00:52:47.940 you'll have grown children

00:52:49.820 and you'll have the heartaches in your old age

00:52:51.440 we either get to be faithful

00:52:57.960 or we get to curse 0.61

00:53:01.480 our generations

00:53:02.780 with the consequences

00:53:04.400 of a cut off people

00:53:05.340 those are your only options

00:53:07.200 so be faithful

00:53:10.040 every one of you

00:53:12.840 you have no guarantee

00:53:17.420 that you live until

00:53:18.420 Thursday this week

00:53:19.540 you don't

00:53:21.120 the internet has done a lot of terrible things but one thing it does is it reminds you how many

00:53:28.600 people die unexpectedly

00:53:30.640 turbo cancers and kids dying and people having accidents and car accidents and strokes and

00:53:42.000 heart attacks. Be faithful. Lean into Christ. Praise God for the gospel. 0.99

00:53:54.380 And learn how to revel in the mercy that you've been saved. Amen? Let's pray.

00:54:02.400 Father, we thank you, Lord, for the blessing,

00:54:05.500 for the blessing of the gospel.

00:54:13.540 Lord, we ask that you would continue to build your church,

00:54:16.620 not with numbers, but with souls.

00:54:21.980 Lord, that you would bring more and more people

00:54:24.740 to hear the word of the Lord

00:54:26.060 and that over the next century, Lord,

00:54:30.040 this place would be a place of righteousness.

00:54:35.500 that our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren

00:54:40.500 would be following the Lord and ordered families and joy, peace.

00:54:46.940 Lord, that we would see the wickedness of the world and reject it

00:54:49.820 and be bold enough to say something about it

00:54:51.500 so we don't have the consequences that our forefathers have reaped.

00:54:56.280 Lord, we ask that you would bless us with wisdom.

00:54:59.720 Bring conviction on us, Lord,

00:55:01.660 that we might be a holy church in this town.

00:55:05.500 In Jesus' name, amen.

Dale Partridge - November 22, 2024

Romans 11_19-22 There is No Room For Pride in Salvation

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