Can You Believe What God’s Grace Does?

13th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/3/17
Romans 11:13-15, 28-32


Can You Believe What God’s Grace Does?
I. It turns envy into salvation.
II. It turns rejection into reconciliation.
III. It turns disobedience into mercy for all.


I don’t have this category ranked, but among the things that annoy me are pushy salespeople, especially if they want to demonstrate their product for me. Do you know what I’m talking about? I’m one of those types that spends as little time inside stores as I can. I find what I want, grab it, pay for it, and head out. The last thing I want is for some sales person to invade my space and manipulate my time. To be honest, I don’t care if they can cut diamonds with their kitchen knives. I don’t care if their space-aged cloth can absorb a gallon of water. I don’t care if their cleaning spray will remove road tar from my vehicle. I don’t care if their eye-glass cleaner will vastly improve my vision. Even if their demonstrations back-up their claims, I don’t care. And one of the reasons I don’t care is that I’m skeptical. I really don’t believe what they’re saying. If their product was so great, word of mouth from satisfied customers would make it difficult to keep such products stocked in sufficient supply. And when they tell me that I must act now to get three for the price of two, I’m gone. I’m not convinced I need one; why would I want three? Are you with me on this one?

Now let’s imagine the one making this unbelievable offer is none other than our God. Would you be more likely to listen to his claims? And if what he’s offering to us is free, would you believe it?

Well, by God’s grace we do. We believe that God offers us amazing blessings freely. But since so many of us have been “satisfied Christian customers” for decades, we tend to forget and even despise how wonderful God’s grace is. For instance, did you literally jump out of bed this morning and shout, “I get to praise God for his grace for an hour in worship this morning!”? Not likely. You see what I mean?

Then it’s a good thing God gives us the opportunity today to remind ourselves just how wonderful his grace is. In fact, it has done and still does amazing things. Paul reminds us of it as he compares the reactions of Jews and Gentiles to that grace. In both cases, it’s not what we would expect. In fact, when we consider what God does in his grace for us, we marvel that he even attempts to do anything good for us at all. But that makes us all the more amazed.

Can you believe what God’s grace does? Let’s put that amazing question to ourselves this morning and review just what it’s done for us and what God wants it to do for all people.

Part I.

Allow me for a moment to ask you to recall a bit of classic literature. Do you remember reading the chapter about Tom Sawyer and his painting of the picket fence? The tedious work of painting that fence was the last thing he wanted to do. For a young boy like himself, it seemed like a life sentence to hard labor. So what did he do? When his friends came along and chided him for being tasked with such an unwanted chore, he turned the tables on them. Through a piece of masterful persuasion, he caused them to feel left out on the privilege he had of painting that fence. In short order, he succeeded in getting them to paint the fence for him. A little bit of reverse psychology.

Paul doesn’t employ reverse psychology here in Romans 11, but he does state how God used it to share his amazing grace. Recall what happened when Paul began sharing the gospel with all people. Review the last two-thirds of the Book of Acts. It describes Paul’s experiences on his missionary journeys. Most often, he began his work in each city at the local synagogue, sharing with Jews the news that Jesus is the promised Savior. But almost without fail, the gospel he proclaimed met with stern Jewish opposition, even physical violence.

So Paul went to the Gentiles with the gospel. And recall what happened. The Holy Spirit used the gospel of Jesus to work faith in the hearts of the Gentiles. He also poured out on these Gentiles many amazing outward gifts, such as the ability to speak in tongues and to perform miracles. The Gentiles were amazed, but they weren’t alone.

So were the Jews. In fact, they became envious. They realized they didn’t have such amazing gifts. Those gifts and the love and joy so evident among the Gentile Christians caused the Jews to listen once again to the good news about Jesus. Paul says it like this, “I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.” An amazing turn of events! But that’s what the grace of God does. God had every reason to take his gospel away from these people for their rejection of it. But what does his grace do? It uses envy to bring salvation to them.

Can you believe what God’s grace does? It turns envy into salvation.

What’s your reaction when you’re trying your best to do something wonderful for someone or to give them something wonderful and they won’t pay attention to you, they won’t give you a moment of their time, or they simply walk away, as if you’re nothing but a waste of their time? You just about blow a gasket, right? Anger so fills you that you can’t think straight. These are people you love and you begin to think terrible thoughts about them. They’re acting like spoiled, ungrateful, self-centered brats. How dare they?

How dare we? Really? You and me? People who are sitting in the pews of God’s house on a holiday weekend when we could be doing all sorts of other things? Indeed—you and me. It happens whenever we consider spending time with our God to be a burden. It happens whenever we think we’re better children of God than the next Christian because of how we devote ourselves to God’s word and our worship of him. The lesson for us here is that, even in spite of terrible reactions to God’s grace, he still shared it with ungrateful people. He even used envy to do so. Our God is so loving and gracious that he’ll stop at nothing to share his grace with us. That grace centers in our Savior whom God sacrificed for us. That grace made us his children by faith in Jesus—you and me, people who don’t deserve it. But that’s God’s grace. Can you believe what it does?

Part II.

I know it’s risky to try to imagine what might have happened in history if certain events hadn’t actually occurred. After all, with God nothing is impossible.

But imagine, for a moment, if Paul’s ministry as God’s great apostle had been vastly different. Imagine, for a moment, that in every city Paul’s fellow Jews had received him with open arms. Imagine Paul spending every waking moment and all of his energy sharing the gospel with Jewish people who simply couldn’t get enough of it. Imagine crowds of these Jewish people filling every room where Paul was, begging him to share with them how Jesus fulfilled every Old Testament promise of the Savior.

I know that Jesus called Paul to be his special apostle to the Gentiles, but Paul was a sinful human being just as we are. And I know what I would have done. I would have tried to ignore what God called me to do and would have spent my time with people who are clamoring for it and are appreciating me.

But then the events of Acts might not have happened, at least from our human perspective. Then it would not have been the case that the majority of the Christian church on earth would have been comprised of Gentiles. In fact, the growth of the church on earth might have been vastly hindered.

But look what happened. With lightning speed—as far as church growth is concerned—the church spread throughout the known world. Paul took the gospel as far west as he could and, according to tradition, others took it as far east they could. Paul says it like this, “For if their [the Jews’] rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” God’s grace used the rejection of the gospel by the Jews to spread that gospel throughout the world.

Can you believe what God’s grace does? It turns rejection into reconciliation.

I suppose Paul could have spent a good deal of his ministry bemoaning the fact that the gospel didn’t take root as he had wished among the Jews. Instead, he rejoiced over what the gospel accomplished in the Gentiles. Likewise, I suppose we could spend our time this morning bemoaning the sad state of affairs of the Christian church on earth, especially here in the USA. Or, we can trust the awesome power of the grace of God. Look what that grace has accomplished in you! It has grabbed hold of us—unworthy sinners that we are—and made us God’s children by faith in Jesus. If you enjoy no other blessing in your life from God than that one, it really doesn’t matter. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus are your eternal assurance that you have eternal life with God. So rejoice over the grace of God! Can you believe what God’s grace does?

Part III.

Just as incredible—can you believe to whom God shows it? Paul spends the closing verses of our text reminding us that every single person on earth needs the grace of God. None of us can say that we deserve anything good from God. Why is that? Because every single person has the word “disobedient” tattooed on their heart. Paul states, “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” God’s mercy is the flip side of his grace. God showed that mercy towards every sinner when he punished Jesus for the sins of the world. And if he showed it to the world, that means he showed it to me, to you. Disobedient, cursed, damned, unworthy. That’s what we are. But can you believe what God’s grace does? Look at the cross of Jesus and by the power of God the Holy Spirit working through the good news of Jesus believe it! Believe the power of God’s grace in your life! Live to share it with others because God’s salvation is for all people! Amen.