Transcribed by Beluga AI.
Good morning, everybody. It’s good to see everybody here. Please turn with me to Romans 9.
Last night we had a gathering of young people here as a kind of a pre-launch and just to gauge the interest level of this post-grad ministry. And how many people were there yesterday? Eight people. And that’s just, others said they wanted to come, but they couldn’t come. Oliver joined from Nevada, and he was telling his friends. Other people joined online as well.
I think God is doing a new thing, and I think there’s some homework for me in my heart to get ready for what is to come. But please keep praying.
I think the name of this fellowship is going to be Encounter Jesus. I’ve held onto that domain name for 10 plus years. I thought it was for this place, this church, but I think I should release it to whatever God is doing to bless God’s universal church and the young people of this generation.
So keep praying for that and Romans 9:1.
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ I am not lying; my conscience bears witness in the Holy Spirit2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 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. (Romans 9:1-3, ESV)
That is a remarkable set of verses that Paul is able to, with a clear conscience, declare and preach to the Roman church.
And I was asking myself, could I say that for the sake of my kids, would I forsake heaven? For the sake of Korean Americans in America, could I forsake heaven? For the sake of my fellow American citizens, could I forsake heaven?
Paul is saying, if it were my choice, I would do this. It’s really remarkable how much a person can be changed by the Gospel and the message of Jesus. And he can be so close to Jesus that with a clear conscience he could say, if I could exchange places, I would. And I would suffer eternally separated from God. Just a remarkable, remarkable thing. If it were possible, if God would accept such an exchange, I think hell would be filled with a handful of mothers and heaven will be filled with selfish fathers like myself and a bunch of children.
It says in 1 Timothy 2 that God wants all people to be saved. It is his heart that all people be saved. And Paul is just expressing the heart of God by this set of verses. If I could exchange myself, I would do it.
And of course Jesus did this. He took our place on the cross. He bore the sin that we deserved. We deserved hell. He went there on our behalf. He paid for the wages of sin. He ransomed with his life. And so the heart of God is displayed in the person of Jesus.
And as you look at the heart of God and you see the transformative power of the gospel in the life of Apostle Paul, how do you go through your Christian journey? You probably have family members who are so lost spiritually. But do we express, as Paul did, this unceasing anguish and this great sorrow in his heart for our family members who are lost? Or do we ignore them? Are we annoyed by them?
Do we give these prayers of anguish over the Spiritual state and the destiny that is waiting them if they don’t repent and turn to Jesus? Before we can talk about saving the world and going on missions and pouring into this young, this next generation, just people just directly related to us, our own kids who are rebellious, and we’re annoyed at them, and we say, okay, that’s on you. You just, you figure it out. If you don’t want to listen, you figure out. And our heart just closes toward even our own flesh and blood.
And then parents and uncles and aunts and cousins, how many of them are lost in our side of the family or our spouse’s side of the family? And do we express this kind of anguish because God is anguishing over the lostness of our family members? Paul is anguishing over the entire nation of Israel that are, for the most part, lost. And are we going through our day just minding our own business, not really caring, having lofty sentiment that I pray for the world, but people who are actually connected to us? We don’t express much anguish. We don’t have much sorrow in our hearts. We don’t grieve over the Spiritual condition of their hearts.
Even as we talk to other Christians, we feel the judgment, don’t we, that everybody thinks they’re right. I think I’m right about God. Other people think they’re right about God. You have conversations and theological conversations, doctrinal conversations, and we say, “Okay, I think you’re lost, but that’s your problem.” Do we anguish as we hear instead of being annoyed that they keep pushing back and keep saying, “Oh, I think you’re wrong about this. Let me, let me, let me show. Let me show you how much I know doctrinally.” And do we feel this defensiveness? Do we feel this annoyance? Do we say, this person doesn’t know. “Okay, if that’s your thing, good luck.” Or do we anguish?
I was once lost like this. I went to church and I was lost. I even served in church. And I was lost. I studied theology and still I was lost. And this person is in the exact place I was 20, 30 years ago. But do I forget the journey that the Lord took me on? And I just get annoyed that we’re having this debate, and I’m trying to steer them in the right direction, but they just don’t want to hear it. They think they’ve already figured it out.
And there’s many people, even the body of Christ, who are lost. And as you read the rest of this chapter, it is Paul expressing God’s heart over the entirety of human history and especially the nation of Israel, that they were so favored, they were so loved. God chose them among all the nations, and yet only a remnant in every generation was saved. For the vast majority of the nation of Israel has been lost from the beginning. And God’s heart must be so grieved. Paul is grieving. If I could take the place of my fellow kinsmen, I would. He’s not annoyed with them. He’s not saying, “Okay, that’s your problem.” He’s not indifferent.
I had a conversation with Pastor Brian and he was saying the opposite of love is not hatred, but it’s an indifference. And as I looked in my heart as I studied the book of Jonah, which God keeps bringing me back to that book. Because Jonah, he just didn’t care. He just didn’t care. He’d rather be drowned in the depths of Sheol than go to preach to the Ninevites. He’d rather do anything but go. And then he goes, and he just, with a half heart, half-heartedly preaches. They come to repentance. He’s so upset. It is as if the Ninevites are already dead to him. He just doesn’t care.
And as I search my heart, there are a list of people that I just simply don’t care because they hurt me, because they, you know, various, various reasons. And my heart just closes off to them.
And if I am a preacher of the gospel and if God wants to use me and us to save others, this heart issue needs to change.
We are surrounded by people who don’t know Jesus every day, and they treat us rudely. They cut us off on the freeway, and they are just inches away from our bumper because they think we’re driving too slow. Just this annoyance rises up.
Do we pray for them? Because obviously, through their actions, they don’t know the Lord. They wouldn’t speak to you that way; they wouldn’t act this way. But just crowds of people who are like sheep without a shepherd, even in God’s church. They know theology, but they don’t know Jesus. And we, we interact with them all the time. But does our heart grieve over the condition of their heart and their lostness, and the fact that if they died today, likely they would not end up in heaven?
This is the heart of God. He wants every man, woman, and child on earth to be saved. He wants to use us to be his hands and feet and to declare through our mouth the saving message of Jesus Christ, so that if anyone who has ears to hear, they may turn and repent and come to know Jesus for the first time.
But do we have indifference? Do we care? Do we grieve, or do we shut off our heart? Do we get annoyed? Do we judge and say, that’s not my problem?
These Reformed people who think expositional preaching is the only kind of preaching that is valid, you’ll never be invited to their church to preach. Do you get annoyed by that lack of friendliness and unity in the body of Christ because you don’t do church the way they do? Or do you just grieve for them? That that’s all they know. Scripture and theology is all they know.
And some of them obviously are saved. I’m not saying they’re all not saved. But if you look at what Paul is preaching, just because you’re a descendant of Abraham does not make you a child of God. Just because you attend church and you know theology backwards and forward, even Satan knows theology. It is no guarantee.
And we, and we hear so many things. They’re just not in Scripture. But some smart person explained away their lack of experience of God and they put it in theological terms. That sounds very impressive. And I cannot find a verse. I don’t know why they’re so confident when there is no verse that says these things are no longer possible. When I read Scripture, every verse is possible because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, forever.
But do we get, do we judge them and say, “You’re lost, but that’s your problem, brother? You don’t want to invite me, but that’s okay. That’s your loss. And I don’t even pray for you.”
If Jesus were living today, wouldn’t he visit many, many churches? As he interacted with many Pharisees and teachers of the law, and he visited synagogues and he ate in these people’s homes, he would be visiting churches and trying to awaken people and trying to get eyes to open and ears to open. Wouldn’t he be engaging people instead of saying, “Okay, you’re different, you don’t want to listen, just going to do my thing in this little corner, and I’m not going to care about you?”
Jesus must have grieved all the time because the vast majority of people that He met just simply had no eyes to see, no ears to hear.
In John 8 I was covering this a little bit yesterday John 8, it says in verse 31 and 32:
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. 38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are doing the works your father did.” (John 8:31-41a, ESV)
I just want to point out Jesus is speaking verse 31 to the Jews who had believed him. Just because you say you believe, just because you say you have faith, just because you entrust yourself to Jesus doesn’t mean Jesus entrusts himself to you. In fact, many times, crowds of people, after He fed them, would be chasing after Jesus. And Jesus runs away. He says he doesn’t trust many people because He sees their heart. They are not interested in Him. They’re just interested in the blessings and the benefits of being around Jesus.
And these Jews who say they believe, who say they’re descendants of Abraham, Jesus says, “Your father is the devil because you are a slave to sin. If you knew me, you would be free of sin.”
But how many people hide behind their titles of deacon, elder, pastor? How many people hide behind ministry? How many people hide behind doctrinal understanding? And yet they are still a slave of sin?
Jesus says, “I don’t know you. Your father is the devil. If you knew me, the truth would set you free. You would be a slave of righteousness. You would live differently.”
So my invitation today is just sharing the heart of God. He is not indifferent toward you. He’s not indifferent toward this lost world. He is loving. He is grieving. He is pursuing. And as followers of Jesus, shouldn’t we have the heart of God? Not judging, not closing off of our heart. Not annoyance, not indifference, but “God, let me grieve with you. Thank you for being patient with me all these years. Finally, I’m starting to understand your heart toward me and toward this world. May I follow you and share your heart as you send me out into this world. That is the harvest field, that is ripe. And there’s so few workers because so few people have the heart of God.”
Let’s ask God for His heart this morning. Okay? Let’s pray.
Father, we’re so challenged by Paul. Somebody who had so much hatred in his heart and murder in his heart could become such a loving person. Who said, “I would go to hell gladly if it meant heaven for my people?” Who would do that? Jesus, you did that for us.
You exchanged hell and took our place in hell for us. You gave us heaven because heaven would not be the same without us. That is your heart for this world, God. You want every man, woman and child to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And as we search our own heart, we see such indifference, such annoyance, such hardness. And yet we claim to follow Jesus.
Oftentimes aren’t we more like Jonah? We just simply don’t care about people’s eternal destiny. We don’t care that most people in this world are lost. And if they die today, they would be under judgment, and they would suffer an eternal separation for all of eternity.
Even in our own family, there are countless people who are lost. And we don’t grieve for them. We don’t care. It’s their problem. They hurt us, they annoy us. As we drive on LA traffic, we just get annoyed. We get bothered. As we encounter rude people, as we encounter people who are unsanctified, who are lost in their doctrine, in their church service, who don’t really know you, we just judge them.
We say, “That’s too bad for you.” You had such patience with us. You pursued us all these years. And by your grace, slowly we’re coming around. We thank you for that, Lord.
We repent of all the things in our heart that are so different from your heart. We want to have more love for the lost people in your church. We want to have more of your heart for the lost people in our family. We want to have more of your heart for the lost people in this world.
Change us, Lord. Give us your heart, Lord.
We repent. And we ask that you would change us as we fellowship with Jesus, who has such a pure heart, who is so patient, so loving, so gentle, that you would die for an enemy, a sinner like us.
We deserve hell. And yet you gave us heaven. Lord, change us, Lord, as we partake in the Lord’s Supper. Thank you for your body that was broken and your blood that was shed. Unite us under the headship of Christ as we partake in the Lord’s Supper.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.