God’s Faithful Word

Introduction

We will be making your way to Romans chapter 9. We’re going to read part of that chapter in just a few moments. Some of you already have been asking how our week went at camp. Xander and I being there. And it was great. We had a lot of fun. But wasn’t all unicorns and roses while we were there. We walked into our private room immediately. It was too cold. And Xander was complaining that we need to turn the air down. And then after we swam each day, we got home, and it also was just too cold in that room, and he would take this endless shower with hot water that never stopped. And I had to make him get out and get in bed. It was just really difficult, not like the comforts of home at all.

And then when we finally got home, it was so nice to be back to everything being normal again. And Katie had even found time to clean out all the refrigerators and freezers. So it was just a great week. But it’s good to be home with all of you. I appreciate so much those who did so much for others during this difficulty during this week. And we just have such a good family here of people who care and want to be around each other. And I appreciate the Metcalfs taking in Katie and family and my mom. And there were others who offered as well. And I know some of those same things happened for many of you as well. Let’s begin reading on Romans chapter 9 and verse 1.

Romans 9 and verse 1. He says, I’m speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs. And from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all children of Abraham, because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said. About this time next year I’ll return, and Sarah shall have a son. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told, The older will serve the younger. As it is written, 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. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, This for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its moulder, Why have you made me like this?

Has the potter no right over the clay to make out the same lump, one make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable 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. As indeed he says in Hosea, those who were not my people I will call my people, and her who is not beloved, I will call beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay. And Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah. We gotta do a little introductory work here in this section because we are starting a new section on in Romans, chapters nine through eleven, and it’s a little different, maybe, than what has often been perceived, I think, and what’s happening here. I’ve tried to kind of introduce this all throughout the book of Romans, but Paul has concluded his argument about justification being by faith, by faith in Jesus Christ, and he has kind of dealt with this Jew and Gentile issue throughout the first eight chapters, and came to this big conclusion at the end, that now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and he argues this point.

This point in his argument, though, is now from a rhetorical standpoint, what is called refutation. Right? He is he has argued for his proposition that the gospel is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes the Jew and equally to the Gentile, and also by it that the righteousness or the justice of God is revealed. Right? So these two ideas have been argued thoroughly in the first eight chapters, but now he’s going to begin dealing with some of the questions that would arise. Particularly the idea of if salvation is by grace through faith and it’s in Christ, then what about the promises to Israel? And if the law cannot do what Christ does, did God just abandon his chosen people Israel? Did he just abandon the initial plan?

Did those promises fail, and now he just decided to do something different? And so Paul is kind of anticipating these ideas and these questions, particularly about the nation of Israel and how God has interacted with them, and he’s going to begin dealing with those. And he’s going to do that for three chapters. And so this morning we aren’t going to fully deal with all of it. I’m going to kind of deal with a certain section and a few ideas here. And so don’t feel like we’ll cover it all this morning because there’s no way we can do that. But one thing, there’s a few things actually I want us to really make sure we understand. There’s three key ideas, and I’ll probably bring these back up in the future, that I think are important for chapters nine through eleven.

The first of those is that Paul is discussing how God works through nations, not individuals. This is not a section that has really anything to do with individual salvation or eternal destiny of an individual. And so huge mistakes are made in interpretation when people begin to think that’s the idea of what’s going on in 9 through 11, and that predestination and foreknowledge and all of this has to do with specific people like me and you, and God already knew what was going to happen with that specific person. Now there’s some caveats to this that I’ll get into in just a minute, but the basic idea here is how God works with nations. And we’ll see this, and that God has not rejected Israel. In fact, that his plan, he has fulfilled his promises to Israel.

And this is the point Paul is going to make throughout this. Now, next to that, there is the reality and has always been the idea of special selection of specific individuals for carrying out God’s purposes in the world. And this really doesn’t actually relate to eternal destiny or the individual salvation of people. We can see a few examples. He gives positive and negative in the text, actually. But there are others as well. I think of like Jehu, right? God calls Jehu does his work. He goes in and he takes care of the house of Ahab, but then Jehu turns evil. And so he was selected specifically for a purpose, but that selection or election, that choice by God did not determine Jehu’s eternal salvation or condemnation.

And as we’re going to see in this text, actually, quite the opposite is being argued by Paul, particularly when we get to the example of the potter and the clay, about how God can reshape and reform people and nations according to his will to accomplish his will. On a recent road trip, our older teenage children were watching a movie that they had seen, I don’t even know how many times.

Now I think it might have been cars, but they had seen it probably over and over again, mostly on road trips, because that’s where we had a DVD player. And I we were surprised. Katie and I were sitting up front, and we were surprised to hear them enjoying the movie so much and laughing. And we were just thinking, haven’t you seen this movie like 20 times? You know, nothing has changed in the movie. And as we discussed it, of course, it was because they were realizing how many of the jokes and the parts of humor in that movie they didn’t understand when they were little. Right? And so new things had opened up in their eyes as they have grown and gotten older and have more experience.

And I think Paul’s doing a little bit of that here in Romans 9 through 11. The general answer to the question you know, has God rejected Israel? Is God faithful to his word? Is God actually keeping the promises that he made? The general answer to this is kind of the idea that the story is being told again and again in slightly different ways. And they just needed to listen to that story maybe in a more careful way and from a new perspective to actually see what God was doing in the world. God has been faithful to Israel even when Israel wasn’t faithful to God. He worked his plan to restore his people to himself just as he said he would do. And he was going to do this through the Christ, even if it didn’t look the way that most Jews thought it was going to look.

And so Paul’s trying to help them see that they need to kind of re see this story in a way that helps them understand what God is actually doing. Now I say all of that because you may be surprised to hear that this section in Romans 9 through 11 is the heaviest content in Paul’s writing of citing Old Testament scripture. And so when I say he’s trying to help them re-see the story, he is definitely doing that. He is citing and alluding to scripture after scripture after scripture, all the way back talking about the promises to Abraham and how all of this is working out in God’s plan. And he’s quoting Malachi and Hosea. He’s going all through scripture to doing the best he can to help them understand what God’s sovereign will looks like.

And part of what he’s doing here is saying, this is not new. This is not a new movie you’re watching. It’s the same movie. You’re just seeing it in a little bit different way than you’ve seen it before. And so he wants them to understand that this is this is the plan God had from the very beginning. And so the first of these that I talked about is God is working, talking about, and Paul’s talking about God’s work through nations. The second is special selection, that certain people like Abraham or even Elijah or Moses are chosen to specifically carry out God’s purposes in the world for Israel, for nations, right? To carry that out. But that doesn’t mean that they were eternally saved because they were chosen for this.

There were other factors involved in that. And the third is the concept of the righteous remnant. That not all who are descended from Israel are of Israel. Not everyone who is a descendant of Abraham is a son of promise. Right? And so Paul’s having to make these arguments to help them understand just because you were a Jew doesn’t mean that’s how God’s always going to work. Right? He’s had this plan from the very beginning, this plan through Jesus Christ, but understand that it has never simply been that because you were a descendant of Abraham, you were part of the elect. It has always been about the promise. So I’ll come back and kind of cycle through this a few more times this morning as we work through it.

1. Has God's Word Failed? Is God Unfair?

But I want to point out some structural things that are, I think, vital here and understanding what’s going on. Paul, being the good writer he is, has already actually brought all of this up in short form. And so Romans chapter 3, a long time ago now, when we talked about that text, these same questions were asked. What advantage has the Jew? Right? They’re asked in slightly different ways, but now Paul’s going to bring them up again and go deeper into explaining these questions. Or has God’s word failed? Right? Because we’re not doing this the way that we thought it was supposed to happen, does that mean God hasn’t kept his promises? And of course, this is where he quotes David and says, let God be true and every man a liar.

No, God is faithful, even when some of the Israelites were faithless. And then there is this question, well, if that’s the case, well, when why does God condemn us as sinners? Right? If this was just part of his will and part of his plan, right? Is God unfair? And this has sort of been the discussion all through the book, right? Because this is about the revealing of God’s justice or his righteousness. So the same word in Greek. All right. So the gospel reveals or it makes known that God is just.

Right? He said he was going to do these things for Israel. Did he do that? And is this unfair? That now it’s changing, at least in their minds, to something different. And then, and why is he finding fault? You know, if this is all according to his plan, then why not continue in sin that grace may abound? Right, which of course Paul repudiates as something that he does not teach. And he’s going to use this potter’s house and his vessels to explain sort of somehow this is going to work. So, this is how this breaks down, of course. If we look at the structure of the text, these are the sorts of ideas that are being pointed out. Has God failed? Has his word failed?

No. His plan hasn’t changed at all. That’s what Paul’s saying. Is God unfair? Of course not. God forbid, he is not unfair. God is just. Actually, he is patient and merciful even to the vessels of wrath. The vessels who have actually made themselves ripe for wrath, if we understand kind of what’s going on here in the text. And then why does he find fault? You know, if all this is happening according to his will, which of course in God’s sovereignty, he can work and shape all of these things to be according to his purposes and his will. But Paul just says here that as men, we are in no place to question God. He’s the potter, we are the vessels. Who are we to say why should we be made this way?

Right? That’s that’s not really our place. We cannot fully understand or grasp the depth of God’s wisdom and what he is trying to accomplish in the world. As an example, we can point out all of those scripture citations that I just read through that Paul was throwing out there, and which of those, because this is the main point of what he’s getting at, which of those would they have ever thought had something to do with Gentiles being part of God’s people? But that was the plan from the very beginning. Right? So the depths of God’s knowledge are beyond human comprehension. We don’t understand the fullness of what God is trying to accomplish. We only see what’s happening in the moment. And a lot of what Paul’s talking about here in Romans 9 is about how God works in the temporary, in the moment, including even that final example illustration of the potter.

Okay, so let me work back through this and kind of and I want to do it in this way because I know even as I read, many of us have been conditioned to think with modern theology, and what I mean is Calvinism. So we struggle with this idea of, well, it says things about predestination or about God’s choice, and so we immediately connect that to the idea of people being saved and those sorts of things, even if we disagree with that system of thought. We’re wondering, is that what this teaches? And so I very much want us to understand that is not at all what it teaches. It’s not the point of what Paul’s doing. Actually, it’s very modern questions. Paul is, and the people he’s the diatribe here, the back and forth, the anticipated questions, don’t have to do with whether or not an individual is predestined for eternal salvation or condemnation.

2. Election Has Always Come Through Promise, Not Flesh

That’s not what he’s dealing with. It’s just those terms that we hear start kind of triggering thoughts and ideas that have been pulled into this kind of perfect system created by men to teach something that’s incorrect. And misusing a text that is actually for something completely different. And so I want us to see what this text is actually for. And so what we see in the very beginning here, and the point that Paul is making, because he’s dealing with the kind of the Jewish and Gentile issue here, and how does this make sense? If the gospel really is this, that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ, how does this make sense with God choosing Israel? And so he just very simply says that election has always come through promise and not flesh.

And he makes a couple of arguments here as he’s working through this, talking about the promises to Abraham, and that, you know, it’s not Ishmael, he doesn’t even talk about Ishmael, but he says it’s through Isaac, right? Isaac is the one that’s chosen, and so Abraham he has other descendants, he has other offspring that are from his seed, but they’re not part of the promise. They’re not part of God’s people. This has always been the case. This is the point Paul’s making here, but it’s through Isaac that your offspring shall be named. But we can go even a little bit further, right? We have Hagar and we have Sarah, and so that’s a bit complicated. Let’s just talk about a woman that has twins. And these twins, we’ll come back to some deeper thoughts about some of this.

They haven’t even been born yet. And they’re coming from the same womb, from the same woman and from the same man. And God says, one of them I’ve chosen and the other I haven’t. He’s going to work through Jacob and he’s going to accomplish his plans for the world through Jacob, and Esau, he’s not.

And how God’s going to carry out his purposes. So what he’s doing is he’s pulling out these stories, these well-known stories that Jews and Gentiles would have been very familiar with, and saying, this is the way election works. Right? It’s according to God’s plan. It’s the way that God wants this to happen. It’s he who calls. He is the planner. He is the wisdom behind this. It’s not what you would imagine or what you would think. This is kind of breaking down what he would be saying to the Jews who are present here who are reading this. It’s not about your fleshly descent. Your fleshly descent matters in the sense of according to the flesh, the Christ came. Right? So he makes this point in the very beginning.

All the advantages of being a Jew, they have the law and worship and promises, the patriarchs, and it’s no mistake that he concludes this whole list with the fact that according to the flesh came the Christ. So the flesh matters in that sense.

The promises didn’t matter. God’s fulfilling the promises, but God had always said he was going to do something new that was going to bring blessing to the whole world. He was going to do it through Abraham’s seed. And through Abraham’s seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. This is nothing new. No new information here. But election has never been strictly flesh. It has always involved the promise. Right? And so he’s working this here to talk about ultimately the promise is through Jesus Christ. And there’s some slight alterations with how election is going to work, and we’re going to talk about that here in a few moments. But the first idea, the first argument there is that it’s not always been strictly according to the flesh.

3. Election Is About How God Chooses to Work

The second is that election is about how God chooses to work in the world. It’s not about morality or individual salvation. God did not choose Israel, and the law makes this very clear. God did not choose Israel because they were so strong and mighty and moral and had such good character and integrity and had done so many things right.

And of course, God wants all humanity to be moral and to live right and do. So that’s that’s kind of aside from the point here, but he’s not choosing them because they are that way.

4. God's Plan Is About Showing Mercy, Not Finding Fault

And some of these are positive and some of these are negative stories, but they’re chosen for various purposes with the ultimate goal of glorifying God for who he is. And so this is this is not something that’s about morality. It’s not about your destiny of being condemned or being saved. In fact, there’s really nothing about election that connects to any of that. And I have a completely different sermon that talks about that, but it’s a solid point from what he’s doing here in Romans chapter 9. Whether it is in the Old Testament or the New, election is not directly connected to this idea of eternal salvation. And then there is this other point here that God’s plan really is about showing mercy and not finding fault.

Now I want to work through some of these ideas, kind of quickly gave you these three points, but I want to do some work in some other places to kind of make this make sense. Because a lot of what Paul’s doing here is founded on previous knowledge of scripture. So particularly this illustration with the potter is based on the illustration that already exists in the prophecy of Jeremiah. So I want to go back and read that. There’s a section of this in Jeremiah 18 I want us to read to kind of get a sense of these points I’ve made about election and what God is doing and how he’s working through people for various purposes to accomplish his will. And see that one of the ideas here is that as the potter, he can shape and mold as he sees fit.

This is not a finished process. And so nothing going on in this text. If you’ve ever done any pottery work, I’ve done very little. I think I was like in kindergarten or something, and we did a little bit of pottery, and remember you did that, and it never went the way you wanted. It’s kind of the point. But then, you know, eventually you throw it in the kiln, right? And then it becomes hardened and it can’t be changed. Just understand that nothing in any of this is that point of the illustration. What Paul’s doing here is always the first step of pottery. It’s what Jeremiah is doing in Jeremiah 18. So let’s go look there. It’s things are being shaped and formed, and the potter’s looking at it, and as you know, if you’ve done any of this, sometimes the clay is kind of obstinate, it doesn’t do what you really want it to do.

Sometimes it’s fine, but other times you’re trying to do something, and it doesn’t quite work. So maybe you set it aside and you’re gonna think about something else you’re gonna do for it. Or maybe you plan it for something that you hadn’t initially planned it for, right? Because it wasn’t it wasn’t working the way you wanted it to. Right? And this is how Jeremiah and then ultimately Paul are explaining God’s interaction with nations of the world. That sometimes they don’t work the gate the way God wants them to. But what actually he’s saying here is that God has enduring patience with the vessels of wrath. He’s extremely patient and merciful and careful with them, trying to reshape them and reform them. And in Israel is a prime example of that very thing.

How many years did it take before Israel finally went into exile? And then exile itself is actually a reshaping process. It’s not the final step. Right? And so God, he’s not seeking to find fault. He’s not out looking for ways to destroy people and nations. Actually, he’s trying to reshape them and get them to change, to work according to his purposes. Okay, Jeremiah 18. Read this with me. And I think as we read through this and you see what he says here, it then will make what Paul’s doing in Romans 9 make a lot more sense. And it’ll kind of unravel some of the confusion because most of the sorts of systems of thought that I think are erroneous don’t pay attention at all to the Old Testament, which is a huge mistake.

So let’s just read this in Jeremiah chapter 18. This is the echo of what Paul’s doing in Romans 9. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, arise, go down to the potter’s house, and there I’ll let you hear my words. So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel, and the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done, declares the Lord? Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it. And if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I intended to do to it. Now therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you, and devising a plan against you. Return every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.

But they say, That is in vain. We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart. I hope that you hear in that reading of Jeremiah 18, that it has nothing to do with the idea that God has already chosen what people’s destiny is going to be.

The entire point of the potter and his vessel in that illustration is that God is actually trying in that case to get Israel to get his people to return, to amend their ways, to change, to be different, to work according to his purpose, which they were not doing at the moment. And so when Paul is saying this very same thing, he’s talking about this reality of what God does and how God works. And when people resist and when people are obstinate, God can still use that vessel for his purposes, and he does so, for example, with Pharaoh. And even though Pharaoh was obstinate and rebellious, still God uses him for his glory. But actually, the passage says nothing about Pharaoh’s eternal destiny. We don’t know. We assume, we make a lot of assumptions, but we actually don’t know at all what happened to Pharaoh.

There’s a lot of people in the Old Testament that God used or worked through that we don’t know. We don’t know exactly what Samson. What about Samson? How’d he end up? Part of the point, though, is that with God’s working and God’s purposes in the story itself, that actually wasn’t significant. What was significant was that God’s plans and God’s purposes were being carried out the way God wanted them to be. That God was going to be glorified in the things that happened either way.

Over and over again, he tried to convince Pharaoh to submit to him as ruler of all the earth, and Pharaoh is obstinate and rebellious and would not do so. And in the end, God was glorified. But if Pharaoh had submitted to the will of God would have also been glorified. Either way. And this is the sort of point that Paul is making here in explaining how God can work his plan according to his purpose, and it doesn’t always make sense to us. But what’s happening here is that Jew and Gentile are being brought together as children of promise. And though the Jews were struggling with this idea, it was all part of God’s plan. And in all of this, what God is doing is he is seeking mercy for those who are willing.

The word mercy is used 12 times in the book of Romans. Seven of those twelve times are in chapters 9 through 11. And so while we might think of these sections as being kind of a section on judgment, and certainly there is some judgment here, as we’ve seen even in the book of Isaiah, whenever there is redemption or deliverance, there’s almost always judgment paired with it. God and his justice, when he delivers the oppressed, must deal with the oppressor. There’s no two ways about it. But the reality of what’s happening here is that God over and over again is seeking mercy.

And in a miraculous turn of events, in a way that doesn’t seem to make sense at all, even the hardening of the Jews to the story and to the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul says was part of God’s plan to then ultimately bring in the Gentiles. And once the Gentiles were included, then some of the Jews would come back and be saved. Who would have thought of that? Also notice that people are changing. They are not firm. They’re not in the kiln. It has not already been decided or destined. But they’re making choices based on what they’re seeing and what they’re learning and how they’re growing.

Paul said, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. He has a plan for those who are his to be in Christ. And being in Christ, he has a plan for us to be workers in his kingdom in a certain way.

It’s not in Romans 9. But he wants to work along with us to accomplish his purposes. And as Paul emphasizes repeatedly in Ephesians chapter 1, it is to the praise of his glory. And so we are very interested in our eternal destiny, and I think rightfully so. But I think it’s healthy for us to think about what’s happening here in Romans chapter 9 and the point that Paul is making, which is that God is working according to the purpose of his plan. And are we going to work with him or are we going to work against him? Either way, he’s going to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. But it’s up to us if we want to be obstinate and difficult and rebellious, and then he’ll have to reshape us or reform us or do different things, or if we want to work along with him and seek his glory.

5. Only a Remnant of Israel Will Be Saved

Only a remnant of Israel is going to be saved. This is where he concludes. So again, nothing new. He quotes Isaiah, a text we’ve already looked at in our study, Isaiah chapter 10. There’s lots of sons of Israel. As many as the sand of the sea, but only a remnant’s going to be saved. Is it really that surprising, Paul is saying, that so many of you Jews are rejecting Jesus Christ? Isn’t this what we’ve seen over and over again? Isn’t this how the movie has played out repeatedly throughout your history? That as God has a plan and he’s going to bring deliverance, you reject him just like you rejected Isaiah, and just like you rejected Jeremiah, and just like you rejected Zachariah. Just like you rejected all of these people who tried to come and give a message of hope and deliverance and redemption, and yet over and over again, even that text we read in Jeremiah 18, he says, turn, amend your ways.

And they say, No, we’re going to live the way we want to live. Right? This is your history. That’s what Paul’s telling them. It’s his history. He is a Jew, he’s a kinsman. This is the way we live. So this is nothing new. It’s nothing different. But there will be a remnant, a righteous remnant. And here’s where it all pulls back to where we’ve started. The just shall live by faith. This is where he’s going. Whether it’s Jew or Gentile, there’s going to be a righteous remnant that is all unified in Jesus Christ as those who live by faith. And we are in no place to judge the way that God works in the world. We are just here to live by faith and to follow his plan.

Conclusion

That’s my experience, at least. As I learn and I grow and I dig and I seek more understanding from what’s in Scripture, all the time I’m seeing things I’ve never seen before. I’ve read stories or I’ve read texts, and yet, years and years down the line, as I read it, I see something that I didn’t notice five years ago or ten years ago. That’s just the way that things work. And so what God was doing with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob all those years ago, it all connects ultimately to what he did through Jesus Christ.

And what he’s now actually doing through us, through his people today, who are trying to accomplish his will in the world. And so the invitation this morning, while it does include the idea that if you are not in Christ, you need to be in Christ. It is more so the idea, are we going to work with God and live in a way that brings glory to him, that is trying to accomplish his purposes in the world? Or are we going to stay on a path that is seeking our own will and the things that we want to do? That forces God to have to take action to reshape and to reform, to do his very best to bring us back into conformity with him and to use this as a vessel of honor.

Why make it so hard for the potter? Why not just submit to his will and say, Lord, I trust you and I’m going to live by faith according to your plan? We can help you do that this morning. Come now as we stand and we sing.