Slices
Prepare
Try to think of a time when things didn’t go your way but subsequently turned out for good. Thank God that he is a redemptive God and apply that thinking to your present circumstances.
Bible passage
Paul’s anguish over Israel
9 I speak the truth in Christ – I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit – 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, for ever praised! Amen.
God’s sovereign choice
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: ‘At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.’
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad – in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls – she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ 13 Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
Explore
We often find it hard to understand what God is doing in the world and in our own lives. In today’s passage, speaking to both Jewish and Gentile Christians, Paul looks back over Jewish history with the question of the fairness of God’s choice. Paul is speaking in the light of all Christ has done (v 1). He honours the Jews’ special place in God’s plan (vs 4,5), but explains that all their history leads to the coming of God’s Messiah, Jesus (v 5).
It was difficult for some Jewish Christians to accept that God was now welcoming Gentiles into his family. Paul gives a history lesson using Isaac (Genesis 21:12), Jacob and Esau (v 13) showing how it is God’s sovereign choice that is in control – not our judgements. God’s loving us does not depend on what we want or on our efforts, but ‘on God’s mercy’ (vs 15,16).
In our own times, could it be that there are those who we exclude from God’s mercy and compassion (v 15)? For example, my non-Christian neighbours, or the noisy, partying household down the road? But God wants everyone to know about his love and mercy (vs 17,18). It’s his choice, not ours.
Respond
Who do you know who God might want to speak to through you? Ask him to help you stay alert to his voice.
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: 1 Chronicles 24–27; Galatians 3
Pray for Scripture Union
Last month, the North team ran schools work training evenings across the region. Pray that people will want to take this further (with online coaching in schools work or the Introduction to Schools Ministry course), resulting in schools ministry reaching into more schools.
