2026 08 02 - God's Sacrificial Love is for Everyone - Hoffman

Last week we concluded with the end of chapter eight, a great summeration passage, if you will, about God's grace and his love, his victory and his guarantee for us.

As we continue our readings in Romans this morning we start Romans 9. Next three chapters 9, 10, and 11. Paul devotes his time and his focus on on his own people, the Jewish people or the remnant, the true remnant of Israel. And as he does this, it would seem as if, and Paul has been accused of this, that he is against his own people. But the reality is he is not.

Especially this first section makes it very clear that God is still the God of Israel, the God of His chosen people, and the God who has eternally loved them, as now he loves all people.

I draw your attention to the text of so Dan just read it a few moments ago from the English Standard Version. Normally, I know I stand up here and I use a new living translation, but I'm going to change that this morning, partly because I found it more challenging to read this translation. It is the complete Jewish Bible and it's available online. You can get that translation wherever you want at any of those online sites. I checked it out, but it reads like this.

You're going to hear some words that you may or may not understand. I did this deliberately. Why? Because they help us focus on God's grace and God's love and God's mercy for his people and for you and me. So this is how read.

You're welcome to follow along in the ESV as I read this as well. I am speaking the truth as one who belongs to the Messiah. I do not lie. And also bearing witness is my conscience, governed by the Ruach Hakodash. My grief is so great, the pain in my heart, that I could wish myself actually under God's curse and separated from the Messiah if it would help my brothers, my own flesh and blood, the people of Israel, they were made God's children.

The Shekinah has been with them. The covenants are theirs. Likewise the giving of the Torah, the Temple service had a promise. The patriarchs are theirs. And from them, as far as his physical descent is concerned, came the Messiah who is over all.

Praise be Adonai forever. Amen. Now, I don't expect you to have picked up on all of that, but you may have figured out something and that becomes important in understanding God's Word. To see morning we pray. Loving God, you chose the Israelites as your own people without their involvement.

You have loved them with an everlasting covenant and even now love them as you do all people, through your son, Jesus Christ. The sacrificial life that he showed and the love that he gave to. To share on. The.

First thing I want you to notice is how Paul feels about his own people. To put it plainly, he is brokenhearted. The language that he uses is very interesting. His grief is so great that he can hardly stand it. And he is bitter with sorrow.

And there is so much pain that he feels for the people, his own people, the people of Israel. And he says this not because he is trying to espouse himself, but he says it out of his own heart, out of the power and the might of the Holy Spirit.

Ruach Hagadash.

That spirit, by the way, that same word, that spirit that hovered over the deep beginning of creation, that spirit that God breathed into Adam, that spirit that came into our Lord Jesus Christ in his dad, and that same spirit that is in each of us.

Paul is so torn apart by this that he goes through this incredible step. He recognizes Jesus sacrifice on the cross. And did you hear what he's doing here? Did you hear it? Did you see it?

He hurts so much that. What does he say? I would be willing to be forever cursed, cut off from Christ if that would save that.

How many of us would say that to bring the gospel to somebody, that there is salvation, to bring the love of God, that they know him as their Lord and Savior and master. How far would we go?

Paul was willing to give it all up, every last bit of it, for those people who were his own, he said, alone. Moses said the same thing in the wilderness. You remember when he went up to Mount Sinai and God spent all that time and gave him the Ten Commandments and he came down. What did he find? The golden calf.

Was he happy about it? Was God happy about it? But do you remember what Moses said?

Here's what he said.

So Moses returned to the Lord and said, oh, what a terrible sin these people have been. They have made gods of gold for themselves. But now, if you will only forgive their sin. But if not, erase my name from the record. You have written.

Moses, too, was willing to walk with Paul. Really? Probably the other way around, right?

And walk away from the promise, the eternal promise of God's love and grace and forgiveness so that someone else could hear and come to know God's love.

And Paul affirms this in this next section and this incredible list of ways in which God's love always prevailed with the people of Israel and still does, even to this day.

What does he say? Well, they rejected the disciples, that is Jesus, they rejected him because they didn't believe that God would come to them and be among them. The same thing they had turned away from God, but not all. There were some there who continued to believe. There were some there who continued to trust.

They were the remnant. They were the ones that God continued to faithfully serve and love. He tells us this. I'm not going to focus on all of them, but I want to focus on those ones that you heard, those strange words for as we go through this. And he says this, the people of Israel, they were made God's children.

Now God made them his children. Did Abram, when he was called by God, know who God was?

He did not. He was a haven worshipper. But God chose him to become his own people, whom he loved and still loves eternally. And as he did that, he made them his own. And he has done that to us too, has he not?

Hasn't he called each of us by name? Doesn't he know who you are? Hasn't he counted the hair, or should I say maybe lack of hair on our heads?

He.

He calls us by name.

He adopted us as stars and sons and his children dearly loved eternally by his grace in Jesus. And he goes on. It's not just that he says this. The Shekinah has been with them. Now, I know that's a strange word to some of you.

The Shekinah refers to, if you read the translation, I think the ESC also has it that it refers to the glory of God. The Shekon Elah is the very presence of God himself. And how did we see that? Well, we saw that in the Old Testament, especially as they traveled through the wilderness, not only in the pillar of fire at night, but by the pillar of cloud during the day. And then when the tabernacle was built and finally the temple was built, that shek at all that presence was in that holy of holy.

And God reminds us that now that is open to all people. When Jesus died, what happened to that curtain that separated the rest of the temple from the holy of holies? It was torn into so that now it's God, His Shekinah, his spirit. His presence would be in each of us. And this is Paul's prayer really for his own people.

But he doesn't stop there. And he goes on and he says, and then you got the covenants. Oh, my gosh, the covenants in God's word, especially in the Old Testament, especially in the Hebrew, as you go through it and you read those, those covenants are the foundation of God's love, and those covenants are the foundation of his continuing to draw his people together.

Yes, there are several, but always God chooses, always God's love bringing people back together. So it doesn't matter what, whether it's the covenant with Abraham or the covenant with Jacob, or the covenant with Noah at the very beginning, or the covenant with David, or the covenant. And you can keep going on. And finally, even the covenant that God gives us today, as we are about to celebrate his body and blood, the covenant of Christ himself, Paul reminds us clearly that his people are still his people.

He also goes on and he says, likewise, the giving of the Torah or the law. Now, you probably are not aware of this, but most of the time in the Old Testament, especially in the first five books of the Old Testament, when we translate that word into law, the Hebrew, there is Torah, which is the whole word of God. And so what we hear is not just law, but we hear the very word of God that He gives to his people. And he continues to give that word to us now in a way, way, the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us. And that word that, that we have seen in, in the glory of the Son, Jesus Christ.

And that kind of leads Paul towards the end where he says, hey guys, remember this, that Jesus the Messiah was a true Israelite. He was born, his human nature was Jewish, and I have loved him even as I have loved you. And so we're reminded in this perhaps difficult passage that God's love and his grace is for energy, especially for those who remain part of the true people of Israel, the remnant, the scandal, the stump of Jesse, people like Nicodemus or Joseph or Pharaoh, they were a part of Israel, the true believer, the true followers. And God continues even to this day to be the God of the true remnant Israel.

So the kind of raise is back in the beginning in a sense. Paul is willing to give all this up. Moses is willing to give all this up.

God did give all of this in the person of Jesus Christ in the love that was sacrificed on that cross that defeated them, that rose that ascended, that even now sits at the right hand of God. And it is that Messiah who has the power, who has the authority, who is the one who rules over everything.

He's the one that is worth praise and glory and honor forever and ever. Amen. The peace of our God beyond our understanding keep us and guard us to life everlasting. Amen. I want you to rise with me now as together we can confess our faith in the common words of the apostles.

Cre I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.