(# 338) Romans 9 - What if They Won’t Love You Back

Class Outline:

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Welcome To

BARAH MINISTRIES

a Christian Church

Rory Clark

Pastor-Teacher

 

Good Morning!

 

Welcome to Barah Ministries…a Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ…my name is Pastor Rory Clark.  At Barah Ministries we worship the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We call Him Lord because He is 100% God.  We call Him Jesus Christ because He is 100% true humanity just like you and me.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

What if They Won’t Love You Back?

 

I have just completed my ninth year as an ordained Pastor, and as I am prone to do at this time of the year, I reflect.  The job of a Pastor is a job of constant heartbreak.  Because the job involves people, it is one of the most disheartening jobs of all.  So often, a little voice inside has told me to just walk away.  That would be the less painful thing to do. I refuse to listen to the voice.  Instead, and in spite of the heartbreak, I press on to the mark of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Because I know that no matter how disheartened I get…no matter how disappointed I feel while doing this job…the Lord will see me through, giving me the strength to get to the other side.

 

When I am hurting, which is often, I remember the words from a poem by D. H. Lawrence, a twentieth century novelist and poet…

 

WILD THING

D. H. Lawrence

 

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself…a small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

 

…and I press on.  Perhaps the most disheartening part of being a Pastor, perhaps even the most disheartening thing about being a person, is when you love people and they refuse to love you back.  So it is with the nation of Israel and The Jewish race in the matter of our all-loving God.  So it is for each of us in some of the key the relationships in our lives.  In this lesson,

we continue our study of Romans, Chapter 9, the study of a nation and a people who rejected the love of their Messiah.

 

MUSIC AND REFLECTION

Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ

Enjoy the Singing of His Praises

 

THY WILL BE DONE

Hillary Scott

 

As we open our hearts and our ears to the voice of our all-powerful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, let’s listen to Hillary Scott tell the absolute truth about God, as she sings THY WILL BE DONE.

 

OPENING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

We’re grateful, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…

 

Father, we know You have all the power and all the ability to soothe the aches and pains we feel when we go through trials and tribulations in the matter of love…and we are grateful to You Father, that You have healing hands and a soothing touch when we hurt…thank you for making our pain bearable.

 

It helps us to realize that all the things we go through are things You have been through as well…things that You have selected and things that you allow for us…and we ask that You give us the divine perspective on handling life when we would much rather be human and discard the things and the people that hurt us…give us discernment so that we know when to move on and when to stay put…

 

We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s name...

Amen.

 

We begin with few announcements…

BARAH MINISTRIES ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

The Next Lord’s Supper Celebration

February 12, 2017

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Deanna Perkosky

January 2, 2017

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Owen James Perkosky

January 10, 2017

 

PRAYERS

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Join me in prayer directed at all the intercessions and all the petitions of the

people visiting the Barah Ministries Prayer Request Group.  Please take time to pray for each other.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

What if They Won’t Love You Back?

 

In Luke, Chapter 13, Verses 34 and 35, the Lord says to His people Israel…the Jewish Race…the nation and the people He loves…

 

LUKE 13:34

“O Jerusalem…Jerusalem…the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!”

 

LUKE 13:35

“Behold, your house is left to you desolate…and I say to you, you will not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

 

Have you ever loved someone and they won’t love you back?  Have you ever wanted to be intimate with someone and they won’t have it?  If so, then you know how the Lord feels about Israel and The Jewish race.  The

unregenerate Jews wouldn’t love their God back.  What was He to do about this?  If he was like us as humans, He’d throw them away!  But the Lord will NEVER abandon Israel and The Jewish Race.

 

We are studying Romans Chapter 9…we are half way through the chapter… and we have learned much about the nation of Israel and The Jewish Race.

I’m not sure you care about The Jewish Race and the nation of Israel…I do.  I’m guessing you care more about yourselves and how what we are studying relates to you and your life…well have you ever loved someone and they won’t love you back?  Of course you have!  Listen to the sound of someone who is disillusioned and disheartened and disappointed…the apostle Paul…one who loves and is not loved in return…Romans, Chapter 1, Verses 1 to 5…

 

ROMANS, CHAPTER 9 - PASSAGE 1

 

ROMANS 9:1

I (Paul) am telling you the truth…I am in union with Christ on this…I am not lying to you…my conscience testifies along with me…I am filled with God the Holy Spirit and His enabling power as I speak on this matter…

 

ROMANS 9:2

…and I tell you that I keep on having great and sorrow and an incessant, haunting grief in my heart (I am heartbroken).

 

ROMANS 9:3a

For if I (Paul) could (and I know it is not possible), I would wish that I myself were accursed (made an anathema by God…sent to the Lake of Fire as a substitute)…

 

ROMANS 9:3b

…and (that I would be) separated (by God) from (my union with) the Christ (the Messiah) for the sake of my brethren (the Jews who are unbelievers), who are my “kinsmen according to the flesh…”

 

ROMANS 9:4a

…my kinsmen who are Israelites (people of the nation of Israel), to whom belongs (a status easily identifiable by these gifts)…the adoption as sons (as a nation)…and to whom belongs the glory (God’s presence among the Jewish people)…and to whom belongs the covenants (a series of promises made only to and about Israel and the Jews)…

 

ROMANS 9:4b

…and to whom belongs the giving of the Mosaic Law (a nation placed in charge of the oracles of God)…and to whom belongs the temple service (He made the Jews a kingdom of priests)…and to whom belongs the promises (five promises made to the Jewish race, especially the promise concerning real estate)…

 

ROMANS 9:5a

…my kinsmen who are of the lineage of the fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)…and my kinsmen from whose lineage comes the (greatest gift of all, the) Christ (a Jew who came to the nation of Israel), the One who became flesh (and tabernacled among us)…

 

ROMANS 9:5b

…the Messiah…the One who is Sovereign over all, THE God (100% deity and 100% true humanity in one person forever)…the blessed One…who EXISTS forever (the Lord Jesus Christ). Amen.

 

Even though he is disheartened, Paul could relate to His Jewish brethren… for there was a time when Paul himself hated the God who loves him unconditionally…Christ…and there was a time when he hated Christians… those to whom he was now spreading the gospel.  Paul was a Pharisee of the strictest sect, then married to advancing spiritually by keeping the Mosaic Law…trying to impress God by doing the works of the Law.  As of this writing of Romans, Paul has seen the light, and he looks back at his former life of antagonism toward God with regret.  Yet he sees most of his friends still caught in the lie of that lifestyle.  Paul learned that God’s love for him is unconditional…a love that has nothing to do with Paul’s worthiness to receive that love.  God loved Paul because God IS unconditional love. 

 

When Paul turned to the other side, he was hated by those who had formerly claimed to love him because they shared an ideology…antagonism to Christ. 

Now, he was a lone and persecuted.  Yet he still loved them.

 

I can relate well to Paul’s emotional state…heartbreak…a feeling of being disheartened.  A Pastor’s life is filled with people we love, who won’t love us back.  Take my children for instance.  I don’t have a relationship with my children, and this proves that relationships don’t automatically occur simply because two people have the same blood running through their veins.  Romans, Chapter 9, Verses 6 to 13…

 

CHAPTER 9 - PASSAGE 2

 

ROMANS 9:6

But it is not as though the word of God has failed (simply because unbelieving Jews rejected their Messiah). For they are not all (spiritual) Israel…(Jews in the eyes of God)…who are descended from Israel (as racial Jews)…

 

It’s not the blood running through your veins that makes you a spiritual Jew…

 

ROMANS 9:7

…nor are they all children of God (in His eyes) simply because they are Abraham’s (blood) descendants…but the Lord says, “Through Isaac (a believer in Christ) your descendants will be named.”

 

ROMANS 9:8a

That is, it is not the children…(not the born ones) of the flesh…(not Ishmael’s seed…the Ishmaelites, the Midianites, the Edomites) who are children of God…

 

ROMANS 9:8b

…but it is the children (the born ones) of the promise (Abraham’s seed…the born again ones of God that) are regarded (by God) as descendants (of Abraham).

 

ROMANS 9:9

For this is the word of promise made by God to Abram and Sari, “At this time next year I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.”

 

ROMANS 9:10

And not only this, but there was (barren) Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac…

 

ROMANS 9:11

…for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His sovereign choice would stand, not because of works but because of God the Father who calls (by sovereign right)…

 

ROMANS 9:12

…it was said to Rebekah, “The older will serve the younger.”

 

ROMANS 9:13

Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

 

What if God loves the Jews (and of course He does) and they won’t love him back?  Fortunately for us, our work does not cause God to look on us either with favor or disdain.  Our work is simply not impressive to God, it doesn’t influence God, and it does not change God in any way.  Before any of us were created, God decided, as is His privilege, exactly what His plan for all of us would be.  His plan is not based on what we do or don’t do.  Instead, it is based on who God is and on what He is willing to do for us.  Each of us can participate freely in God’s plan if we want.  If we don’t want, we can stand on the sidelines and criticize God and His plan because He refuses to be guided by our whim and our ideas of what life ought to be like.

 

God loves you unconditionally.  If you don’t love Him back, He loves you more.  I am in no way as good as God.  If I love you, and you don’t love me back, I want to rip your eyes out.  Of course I jest.  Alas…we learn from loving and not being loved back that we don’t control others.  God has been gracious in sending me many people to love, and of course most of them have not loved me back.  Thank you, Lord!  By enduring these trials, I have learned what the Lord goes through for us.

 

Let’s take a music break as we listen to Casting Crowns…ALREADY THERE.

 

 

MUSIC BREAK

ALREADY THERE

Casting Crowns

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

What if They Won’t Love You Back?

 

Welcome back!  There is nothing more confounding or confusing than when you love someone and they won’t love you back.  Romans, Chapter 9, Verses 14 to 18…

 

PASSAGE 3

 

ROMANS 9:14

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? (In other words, God isn’t unfair is he?)  May it never be!

 

ROMANS 9:15

For the Lord says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

 

ROMANS 9:16a

So then…(the election of a nation and a people)…does not depend on the man who wills (the one who is trying by choice to earn God’s favor)…

 

ROMANS 9:16b

…nor does it depend on the man who runs (the one who is by effort working to deserve God’s favor), but (the election of a nation and a people depends) on God who has mercy.

 

ROMANS 9:17

For (as an example) the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate that My power (works) in (spite of) you (and your choices), and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”

 

ROMANS 9:18

So then the Lord has mercy on whom He desires, and He (allows the hardening) of whom He desires.

After letting the Jews out of their captivity in Egypt, Pharaoh changed his mind…he wanted them back…and he sent for them.  As Hillary Scott told us in song…THY WILL BE DONE.  Pharaoh’s hard heart, which entertained the thought that he was more powerful than God, learned this valuable lesson….he is not more powerful than God…God’s will was done.

 

I have loved many who did not love me back.  I call them the one-sided people…those who expect love, but don’t give it.  I have had too many of these experiences to count over the years.  I have learned not to let myself feel bad about these things…simply to accept them.  I have learned not to think, “They’ll see.  They’ll get theirs one day and they’ll see.”  Because more times than I can count, they have gotten theirs, and it had no effect on them at all.  Nor was I happy like I thought I would be.  It all just ends up being a giant waste of time and energy.

 

With more than six decades of both observing and participating in life, it seems to me that the spiritual life is a journey.  The journey occurs on a path. 

The path, when we live it well, takes us from a state of sin, to a state of salvation (if we want it), to a state of sanctification, before we move on to the glory of being face-to-face with the Lord Jesus Christ forever.  Of course some get stuck in the sin phase and never progress out of it.  They reject God’s salvation offer.  They choose a path that wallows in the sin phase of the spiritual life, and by choice they never extricate themselves from this hell on earth.  As a result they end up in hell for all eternity by their own choice.  Of course extricating yourself from the sin phase simply involves spending a gift from God…faith…and placing that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.  After you are saved, you spend the same gift…faith…and place that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to provide everything else.

 

In reflecting on the first half of Romans, Chapter 9 we learn many things from the nation of Israel and from The Jewish Race.  We learn that no matter how much we love, it will not always be reciprocated.  But the great thing about unconditional love is that it requires nothing of others.  No one owes us love.  Others have a choice whether they love us or not.  And just as with God in relation to Israel and The Jewish Race, their rejection of His love doesn’t stop Him from loving them.  When others reject your love, it doesn’t have to stop you from loving them anyway.  God is always ready with another experience of this so we don’t forget.

 

WILD THING

D. H. Lawrence

 

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself…a small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

 

Join me in not feeling sorry for yourself when love doesn’t go your way.

 

GOD WANTS YOU!

Make the Most Important Decision of Your Life

 

ACTS 16:30

“…the jailer asked (Paul and Silas), “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

 

ACTS 16:31

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and everyone in your household who also believes.”

 

ROMANS 10:10

…for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

 

SECOND PETER 3:9

The Lord is not slow about His promise of salvation, as some accuse Him of, but instead He is patient toward you unbelievers, not wishing for any to perish (in the Lake of Fire) but for all to come to repentance (a change of mind about having a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ).

 

LUKE 19:10

“For the Son of Man (the Lord Jesus Christ) has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

 

CLOSING SONG

FEAR NOT

June Murphy

 

CLOSING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

Thanks for coming!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for listening!

 

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