Knowing God
Romans 11 is another hard reading. It
is about the greatness and glory of God. You may wonder what the glory of God
has to do with your practical issues, such as the pressure of work, paying
bills, health problems, the loss of the loved ones, or social problems today.
You may think why don’t we just directly get to the practical stuff in Romans
12. My prayer is that we will come to know
God better and praise him more as we see the beauty and glory of God in
this text.
One time Pastor John Piper preached
on God’s greatness as revealed in Isaiah 6, the passage where Isaiah saw
the Lord on His throne, high and lifted up. Normally Piper says that he would
have tried to apply the text, but on that particular Sunday, he simply tried to
lift up and display the majesty and glory of God, without a word of
application. He did not realize that one of the young families in his church
had just discovered that their child was being sexually abused by a close
relative. They were there that Sunday and heard his message. Piper says that
many advisors to us pastors would have said, “Pastor Piper, can’t you see that
your people are hurting? Can’t you come down out of the heavens and get
practical? Don’t you realize what kind of people sit in front of you on
Sunday?” Some weeks later he learned the story. The husband took him aside
after a service and said, “John, these have been the hardest months of our
lives. Do you know what has gotten me through? The vision of the greatness of God’s holiness that you gave me the
first week in January. It has been the rock we could stand on.” Piper
concludes, “The greatness and glory of God are relevant. It does not matter if surveys turn up a list of perceived
needs that does not include the supreme greatness of the sovereign God of
grace. That is the deepest need. Our
people are starving for God.”[1]
Encounter (11:1-10)
God’s
grace leads us to an encounter with the living God and his glory. By his
grace God calls us into the frightening, the stressful, and the unknown,
so that we may not rely on ourselves, but come to realization that we need a
Savior. John Wesley called this “prevenient grace,” the grace that leads us to
salvation. Have you ever felt like God didn’t seem to care about you? That was
Paul’s first question in Romans 11. He says, “I ask, then, has God rejected his
people? By no means!” (v. 1) Then, he uses himself as an example, saying, “Look
at me! I was a very blasphemous and hardened person. How can we say that God has
given up on his people when he didn’t give up on me? He even took me and is
using me mightily in his work.” Here Paul is saying, “If God can save a
hardhearted, rebellious, hopeless man like me, he can save anyone! He can save you! He can save your spouse! He can save your
children! Hope in God for He is able!”
Then, Paul gives us another example,
the case of Elijah. After his great spiritual triumph on Mount Carmel, Elijah experienced
great spiritual depression. At that time he expected that since God removed the
prophets of Baal, now He would establish new God-fearing leadership or at least
bring repentance from the current leaders. But nothing happened. Instead, he had
to flee for his life. Elijah must have felt like God didn’t seem to care about
him. He must have felt alone, frustrated and hopeless. He was even suicidal. He
asked God, “Enough! Lord! Take me life!” But God used this life’s challenge for
Elijah to come to know Him better. God opened his eyes to see the glory of God.
And Elijah became a different person. He came down Mt Horeb with new hope, new
strength, and new joy. Today, you may feel alone and discouraged. The good news
is that you’re not alone. Be encouraged. You are on the way to Mt Horeb. By his
grace God will open your eyes to see his glory, and he will open your ears to
hear his gentle voice in the midst of all your life challenges. Don’t give up. Hope
in God. Remain in Christ. And you will be filled with new hope and new
strength!
Humility (11:11-32)
If depression and discouragement
are one side of our life challenge, the other side would be pride. Pride is the worst and the subtlest
enemy of Christians. At first glance pride seems like a small thing, but like a
small weed, if left alone it will take over the field. When we allow our pride,
we begin to think, “I am humble. I am better than others. Both God and I are
good. I deserve to be blessed…” Dr. R. A. Torrey once got the note from a man
in Australia. It said, “Dear Dr. Torrey, I am in great perplexity. I have been
praying for a long time for something that I am confident is according to God’s
will, but I do not get it. I have been a member of the Presbyterian Church for
thirty years, and have tried to be a consistent one all that time. I have been
Superintendent in the Sunday School for twenty-five years, and an elder in the
church for twenty years; and yet God does not answer my prayer and I cannot
understand it. Can you explain it to me?” Torrey read the note from the pulpit
and replied, “It is very easy to explain it. This man thinks that because he
has been a consistent church member for thirty years, a faithful Sunday School
Superintendent for twenty-five years, and an elder in the church for twenty
years, that God is under obligation to
answer his prayer. He is really praying in his own name, and God will not
hear our prayers when we approach him in that way.” Later a man came up to
Torrey and said, “You have hit the nail square on the head. I see my mistake.”[2]
Pride is our greatest enemy, but God’s grace keeps us humble. Then, how
does God deliver us from our pride? By showing
us his glory. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wisely said, “The best corrective against
pride … is to know God, His character and the truth about Him.”[3]
When our eyes are truly opened to God’s glory, his character, his power, his
greatness, we become humble. In today’s passage Paul says, “You [are] a wild olive shoot grafted in and share in
the nourishing root of the olive tree… So do not become proud, but fear” (vv. 17-20).
Apart from Christ we can do nothing! John Wesley always considered himself “a
brand plucked from the burning.” When he was 5 years old, his parsonage was
burned down. For some reason he was not able to escape. He was left alone in
his 2nd floor room. Just as the roof fell into his room, he was rescued
by his neighbors – one stood on the other’s shoulders and pulled John through
the window. 45 years later, Wesley got seriously sick and was lying in bed
sick with consumption. He wrote an epitaph for himself to be used if he didn’t
recover. It said, “Here lies the body of John Wesley, a brand plucked out of
the burning” (Wesley lived another 37 years and this epitaph was not used.) He could
have talked about the famous Oxford Holy Club, or the class
meetings he had organized across England. He might have mentioned his dramatic
conversion experience on Aldersgate Street or his missionary
work in the United States. But instead, he summed up his remarkable life
with this phrase: “A brand plucked out of the burning.” Why? Because his eyes
saw the glory of God, the God on His throne, high and lifted up. When we see the glory of God, we become
humble.
Doxology (11:33-36)
Paul finishes his argument in verse
32, but it is not the end of the chapter. All of sudden, in verses 33-36, we
find Paul breaking into spontaneous worship! So what makes him give praise to
God? As Paul meditates on the Scriptures and closely studies the doctrine of
how God will save Israel, his people, and the Gentiles, he just bursts into
tears of joy and song of praises from the heart: “O how deep are God’s riches,
and wisdom, and knowledge!” God’s truth, Christ-exalting
doctrine always reveals the glory of God, that leads us to the greatest joy and
praise.
What does it look like for us to see the glory of God in the midst of all our life challenges?
I think Dr. King’s personal experience can be a good example. After he took the
leadership of the Montgomery bus protest, he began to receive threatening phone
calls and letters. They increased day after day. He reached the point that he
felt himself faltering and growing in fear. One night he got another very threatening
phone call. He couldn’t sleep. He was ready to give up. He prayed, “God, I am
afraid. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the
point where I can’t face it alone.” At that moment he experienced the presence
of God and heard the gentle inner voice, saying, “Stand up for righteousness, stand
up for the truth. God will be at your side forever.” Almost at once his fears
began to pass from him. His uncertainty disappeared. He was ready to face
anything. The external situation remained the same. But strangely enough, he
became calm and joyful. How come he became so different? The answer is because he did see the glory of God.
I still remember what one of my
colleagues shared several years ago. After he planted a new church in Korea, he
experienced spiritual depression. People didn’t come, and the church didn’t
grow. It was so painful for him to watch empty pews every Sunday. One Sunday
morning as he was praying and worshiping with just a handful of people, God
opened his eyes, and then the pastor saw that all the pews were filled with the
angels who were singing praise to God. That changed everything. Since then, he
became a different person. Today we need the prayer of Elisha for his servant who
was afraid when they were all surrounded by the enemy in Dothan: “O Lord, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the LORD
opened the young man's eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside
around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire (2Kg 6:17). Are you
afraid? Are you discouraged? Are you frustrated by the troubling news? Let us
pray the prayer of Elisha, “O Lord, open my
eyes that I may see.” Then God will
open our eyes to see his glory, his truth, his wisdom, his greatness. And we
will be filled with new hope and great joy. We will praise our God and join
Paul in singing: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him
be glory forever. Amen.”
No comments:
Post a Comment