A Remnant Chosen By Grace

[0:00] Let's pray.

[0:21] Let's pray. through verse 10. We finished chapter 10 last week with a passage that I felt like as we read through it seemed on the surface at first reading to be pretty straightforward and simple, but the more that you began to dig into it, the more treasures there were to find, but you had to search for them and it took some work, it took some thought and some thinking for us to understand the passage. And I feel like the opposite is true this week. As we read through these first 10 verses, you may find some language in there that may be a little confusing to you, but at the end of the day, the message of this opening section of Romans chapter 11 is a very simple, very straightforward message that I think the Lord is going to use to speak to us this morning. So I want you guys to stand as we begin to read chapter 11 of Romans. Paul begins with a question. I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means, for I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

[1:24] God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know that the scripture says of Elijah how he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left and they seek my life. But what is God's replied to him? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened. As it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day. And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend their backs forever. Father, I thank you for the words here in Romans 11 and

[2:31] I pray that you would help us not only to understand, but help us to treasure what we see this morning. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. You guys take a seat.

[2:44] Have you ever wondered how strange it must appear to outsiders, to non-Christians, to people who have very little exposure to Christianity and what we're all about and what we do on a regular basis? Have you ever thought how strange it might appear to them if they were to come into a worship service like this this morning and they were to watch us and see what we do?

[3:07] They may not be all that surprised by the songs that we sing because if you look at the religions of the world, there's always a musical element in there. We're just made in such a way that we respond to the things that we most value and cherish most of the time with music. And so they may not be surprised by that. They probably wouldn't be surprised by our prayers because all religions have some form of prayer. Yet it would probably seem strange to them that we devote more than half of our time when we get together to opening up a book, reading from the book, and you sit and listen to me talk about the book for anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. Occasionally a little bit longer than that. But you just sit and you listen.

[3:48] Our focus for so much of our time is upon this book and what it has to say. And that, I think, would probably strike many people outside of Christianity, especially those who have very little exposure to what we're about and who we are, it would probably strike them as a strange and awkward thing to do. Why would we gather together for this purpose? Why wouldn't we just sing longer or pray more or have some sort of other ritualistic things that we do?

[4:19] Why is such a focus on this book? And of course, our answer to that is that this is not just some book. That we believe that this is actually God's Word, not just words on a page. We believe that these words are actually breathed out by God. And so the Apostle Paul says that because they're breathed out by God, we know that they're useful, they're profitable, they're good for us.

[4:44] They challenge us when we need to be challenged. They teach us when we need to be taught. They correct us when we need to be corrected. They encourage us when we need to be encouraged.

[4:55] And they tell us about who God is, what He's like, what He requires of us, so that this is no mere book. This book is full of life and help for us. We know what this book is all about.

[5:08] But even still, sometimes I think a lot of times, even believers are oftentimes tempted to think or wish quietly to themselves, I wish God would just show Himself to me in some other way.

[5:21] Sometimes we're tempted to think, God, if you would just, if you would come to me and just speak to me in an audible way, or if you would give me some sort of obvious sign in the things that I see around you so that I would know your will and what you want me to do, we wish for those things.

[5:35] Sometimes we might even wish so much that God, instead of speaking to us through a printed word, that He would speak to us maybe through dreams and visions in ways that might at least seem to us at the time to be more direct communication from Him. And yet, in this day and age under the new covenant, those are not the means by which He has chosen to speak to us. He speaks to us through this book and through these very words. And when you consider the content of this book, it becomes even more strange that this would be the means by which He would communicate Himself to us.

[6:11] Because roughly two-thirds of your Bible is composed of history. That's what it's mostly made up of. It's not primarily wisdom sayings like we find in the book of Proverbs, where you can just grab one out of there and you can read it and you can understand, oh, here's some practical advice for my life today.

[6:30] It's not primarily composed of that, nor is it primarily composed of the kinds of beautiful poetry that we find in the book of Psalms and scattered here and there throughout the Bible. We find those things and we like to cling to those things. That's why there are so many little Bibles that you find published that will contain the New Testament, because it's got a lot of letters in it that you can read. And then it's got what? The Psalms and the Proverbs. But the vast majority of this book is made up of historical narrative, stories about people and events that took place in the past.

[7:03] And it's strange oftentimes to us that God would choose to communicate Himself through history and through the telling of the story of a history of a particular people. It's odd that He would do it that way.

[7:18] Because as you begin to read the story, we only get about 11 chapters at the beginning of Genesis of what we might call world history, worldwide history, the rest of the Old Testament, and even most of the narrative of the New Testament in the Gospels and the beginning of Acts.

[7:36] It's all centered upon one little tiny nation in a small region that we call the Middle East of the world. And that's where the history is told. That's where all the stories come from.

[7:48] And through that history, God speaks to us. And as we begin here in Romans chapter 11, we're going to see the Apostle Paul appeal to a particular part of that history.

[8:02] And we see Paul doing, on sort of a small scale, what the entire Old Testament does for us. Because the Old Testament is not just a collection of stories of historical people and events.

[8:17] Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that these things were written down. These stories were recorded as an example for us. And who's the us? He tells us, those of us upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

[8:33] So the people like you and I who live between the first and the second coming of Christ. We don't set aside the Old Testament. We have the Old Testament preserved for us in written form.

[8:45] Because Paul says these things were written so that we would have an example. So that we would be shown what to do and what not to do. Oh, sure, the entire Scriptures, the Old Testament included, primarily is intended to communicate truth to us about God and about what He's like.

[9:03] But we can't miss the additional truth that through these stories we see real life examples of how the people of God have turned the wrong way and messed up.

[9:16] How they've turned back the right way and made corrections. We see real world examples of God actually at work in the midst of His people. And Paul says, know those examples.

[9:28] They are a warning for you. Don't go that way because it didn't work out well for the people of Israel. They stand as a warning to us. They stand as an encouragement to us.

[9:38] They reveal God, but they also reveal to us, if we understand them rightly, they reveal to us how we should live and how we should conduct ourselves so much of the time.

[9:50] And so as we open Romans 11, Paul has that whole history in his mind. We know that. I've told you this, I don't know, probably ten different times, that Romans 9-11 is addressing the question, dealing with the issue of what about the people of Israel in this new covenant age?

[10:10] What do we do? What do we say about the fact that this nation that God chose out of all the peoples of the earth, this nation that God formed and fashioned for Himself from the descendants of Abraham, now they stand outside the blessings of God.

[10:25] Now they stand, in Paul's own words, accursed and cut off from Christ. What do we say about that? What do we do with all of that history that we know about them?

[10:37] Paul's going to address that directly in this passage this morning, but he's going to address it in a way that I think is extremely relevant for us. Not only just how we think about Israel, but how we view our own salvation and our own place in a world that is sometimes full of frustration and chaos, it seems to us.

[11:01] So let's jump in at verse 1 and see where Paul brings up the obvious question yet again here in this section of Romans. He says, I ask then, has God rejected His people?

[11:12] And his straightforward answer is, first of all, by no means. In other words, he's not going to even entertain the idea, though he brings up the question. He wants us to know from the outset, whatever else he might have to say in this chapter, whatever else he might have said in chapters 9 and 10, and even in this entire letter, whatever else he might have said, his answer to this question, has God, at the end of the day, rejected them?

[11:35] His answer is, no, He has not rejected them. But then he gives an interesting proof of that. He says, take a look at me. I'm a follower of Christ and I'm an Israelite.

[11:48] He says, I'm a descendant of David. I'm from the tribe of Benjamin. So God has therefore not rejected His people whom He foreknew. That seems an odd argument to make.

[12:01] God's not rejected Israel, even though it appears that way because the Jews keep rejecting the Messiah because, ha, I'm here and I'm an Israelite and I believe in Him. Which you might scratch your head and say, well, that's fine, Paul, but you're one out of how many?

[12:16] Millions, I suppose, scattered around the empire. Certainly millions today. You're one Jew. If you throw together all the other apostles and the other Jewish believers, you might have several hundred or even a couple of thousand believers.

[12:30] But that's out of how many people, Paul? How can you look to yourself as an example to prove that God has not rejected His people by and large? And so He's going to prove His case by appealing to the history of Israel.

[12:45] And He's going to go back to what is a section of the Old Testament where you find some great, powerful stories of God at work. He's going to appeal to the story of the prophet Elijah.

[12:58] I obviously like the prophet Elijah because I named one of my kids after him. I find the story of Elijah to be a fascinating story. I mean, there are very few people in the Old Testament that you can turn to and look and see as obvious a display of God's power through that individual.

[13:17] You've got guys like Moses. God does great miracles through Moses. But next to Moses, who would you pick in terms of visual, massive displays of the power? Who would you set next to him?

[13:28] Probably Elijah. That's probably who you'd put next to him. And yet Paul does not appeal to, in explaining this from Old Testament history, he doesn't point us back to the great displays of power in the life of Elijah.

[13:44] In fact, he picks up with the story right after probably the greatest display of God's power through the ministry of Elijah. Right after Elijah has faced off with the hundreds of prophets of Baal.

[13:56] Not long after Elijah's great triumph. As he sort of faced off against these hundreds of prophets, 400 prophets of the false god Baal. As they did all that they could do to try to get their false gods to act.

[14:11] And nothing took place. And Elijah could merely utter a prayer. And God sent down fire from heaven, revealing himself to be the true God. And Elijah there proven to be his great prophet.

[14:23] Elijah stands in that moment as a conduit of God's power. He stands as a great witness to God's power against God's enemies.

[14:34] And yet, right after that, he runs and hides. From an army? No, not from an army.

[14:45] From another gathering of prophets? No. He runs and hides from the queen. He's just defeated all of the queen's prophets.

[14:57] And yet, he runs and hides from the queen. And in Elijah's despair in that moment, where Elijah is in the wilderness, hiding, distraught, Paul picks up the story as an illustration to show why God has not abandoned his people in the present time.

[15:15] Look what he says. He says in the middle of verse 2, Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah? How he appeals to God against Israel.

[15:27] Lord, they've killed your prophets. They've demolished your altars. And I alone have left and they seek my life. Now that is already ironic because Elijah just destroyed their altars and killed their prophets.

[15:40] But Lord, they've killed all your prophets. They've ruined all your altars. I'm the only one left is what Elijah says. So this is the connection between Paul and Elijah. Paul's going to cite himself as proof that God has not abandoned the people of Israel.

[15:55] So he goes back to Old Testament history to find an example of the lone individual. But this individual feels as if God has abandoned his people. This individual feels as if he is all alone.

[16:06] And there is no proof at all that God is still among his people and working with his people. And God comes in and says, You're not alone, Elijah.

[16:20] Even though it appears on the surface as if I've rejected all of my people, because the people of Israel are wayward and idolatrous, that is not the case. Notice what God says.

[16:31] Verse 4, But what is God's reply to him? Elijah, you feel alone right now.

[16:44] You're in the wilderness. You're isolated. And yes, there are a great many enemies out there. But what you need to know, Elijah, is that you are not alone. I have kept for myself 7,000 people from among the people of Israel.

[17:00] And they have not bowed down to Baal. They have not given in to the temptation to go the way of idolatry. They have not given in to the pressure of the queen and the king. They have not gone that way.

[17:11] I've got 7,000 other people, Elijah, and they are loyal to me and faithful to me because I've kept them and I have reserved them for myself.

[17:23] And so Paul applies that to the present situation. He says, So too at the present time, there is a remnant. There's a remnant, people.

[17:34] There's a remnant church. There's a remnant among the Jews. There's a remnant among you. If they are an example for you, then even when we grow discouraged, even when we begin to think that we are perhaps alone, that we alone are the faithful ones left or we alone amongst this group of people.

[17:56] We are the only ones. And that happens oftentimes. I think I look at the political climate today and how caustic it is and how divided people are.

[18:07] And what I'm seeing oftentimes as a response to that, a lot of times Christians are saying, well, it's almost over for us now. If so and so, you know, just insert whoever you dislike the most out of all the candidates.

[18:20] If this guy wins the election, if this lady wins the election, if they win, then it's all over with for Christianity in America. We're doomed. It's done. They're just going to take away all of our freedoms. We're not going to be able to preach the gospel anymore.

[18:32] We're not going to be able to stand up for what we believe. We're in trouble. And there becomes this feeling that we are just isolated and alone and there's a kind of hopelessness that can sometimes begin to sink in down upon us.

[18:50] A hopelessness, I think, that's not all that unlike what Elijah must have felt. Not all that unlike what the believing Jews of Paul's day must have at times felt.

[19:00] We're all alone here. There aren't enough of us. There are more of them than there are of us. And yet, Paul speaks and wants us to know that there is always, according to the word of God, there is always a remnant.

[19:22] There are always those whom God has kept for himself and reserved for himself. Even when we feel as if there is not. Even when we feel as if we and our small little cluster of friends, we are the only ones left, there is always a remnant.

[19:43] In Elijah's day, God held back 7,000 men. And now Paul says he's doing something similar today. Even among the Jewish people today, Paul says, for whom it would have seemed that they really and truly were a small, small little group.

[20:00] And that they were, if you were a Jewish believer in any particular location, you might feel as if there aren't any more anywhere else. And Paul says, that's not the case. That's not the case.

[20:10] There is always, always a remnant. And how does he know? How can Paul be so sure that what was true in Elijah's day was true in his own day regarding the people, the Jewish people?

[20:23] And how can we be sure when we feel isolated that it is true of us as well today? How can Paul have that kind of certainty? And how can we have that kind of certainty?

[20:36] I think it's found in the way that he describes the remnant and what he says immediately afterward, which I think is the main point of this passage this morning. He says, so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

[20:51] In other words, there is a remnant because I say there is a remnant. There is a remnant because I have marked certain people out. There is a remnant because I have chosen them and made them my own.

[21:06] So now we are back to much of the language of Romans chapter 9. Paul is saying, do not fret because the presence and the existence of the people of God does not depend upon your ability to either see them or to make them multiply.

[21:22] God says, they are there because I ensure that they are there. So that when Paul himself, filled with some trepidation about preaching the gospel in a particular city, when Paul himself needs to be encouraged in the book of Acts, what does God tell him?

[21:40] Go and preach the gospel there because I have many people in that city. What does he mean by that? The gospel hasn't yet been preached there.

[21:52] There are no Christians there yet. What does he mean when he says, go, I have many people in that city. He's telling Paul, I've got people marked out, chosen by grace. You just need to go in and faithfully preach the gospel and I'll do what I do and the remnant will be called out and they will believe and then you'll see that I was right all along.

[22:11] You go into that city and you will not be alone. I will call forth my people chosen by grace. That's exactly what he will do. That's what Jesus encourages his disciples with toward the end of the gospel of John.

[22:25] He tells them that they are going to have to go out, but he also tells them that I have other sheep. In other words, non-Jewish sheep. They're not of this fold and I must bring them also.

[22:36] These sheep, Jesus says, they'll hear my voice and they'll respond. How does he know that? Because they're among his people, chosen by grace.

[22:49] Does it ever strike you as strange that just before Jesus gave to his disciples the great commission to go into all nations and preach the gospel, that what he tells them right before that is, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me?

[23:01] Why would he tell them that? Because they need to be certain that the success of the mission and the spread of the gospel does not depend upon their persuasive powers. It doesn't depend upon their ability to convince people or do this or that.

[23:14] They just have to be faithful to preach the gospel. And Jesus has all authority. And as he says earlier in Matthew, he will build his church. Not even the gates of hell can prevent him from building his church.

[23:27] He's going to do it. And so all of that, I think, comes into play. All of that, I think, we can see in this little phrase, a remnant chosen by grace.

[23:40] Elijah could be certain that he was not alone because God told him, I have 7,000. The Jews of Paul's day, believing Jews of Paul's day, can be certain that they're not alone because God tells them, I have a remnant chosen by grace.

[23:53] And when we feel isolated and alone, we can be certain that we are not because God says, I have a people chosen by grace. If he sends you somewhere, go.

[24:05] You will not ultimately be left alone because he has a people that he's calling out for himself, chosen by grace. He has, he always has, a remnant.

[24:16] And then he's going to highlight this term grace so that we don't fall into the trap of misunderstanding. So that we don't fall into the trap of making grace mean whatever we want grace to mean.

[24:30] And then we no longer have grace. He says very clearly, as a remnant chosen by grace in verse 6, but if it is by grace, I take that to be if, if the choosing of the remnant is by grace, if that happens because of God's grace, if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.

[24:51] Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. It's a powerful word about the nature of God's grace, about what it is, about what we should expect from God's grace.

[25:04] He's really echoing here what he's just said two chapters earlier in chapter 9, where he speaks of Jacob and Esau, and he says that God chose them before they were born, before either of them had done anything good or bad.

[25:17] And then he tells us why. In order that God's purpose of election might continue. And then he says, not because of works, but because of him who calls. Paul wants to exclude the idea of works from salvation, from election, and earlier in Romans, from getting right with God, justification.

[25:35] He wants to make sure that we never in any way mix in our own efforts and our own good works into what God himself is going to do.

[25:46] God's grace will not tolerate the addition of your confidence in your own goodness or your good deeds. It will not tolerate it.

[25:58] The grace of God cannot coexist with our confidence in our own goodness. It cannot and it will not. Paul says that God has chosen this remnant by His grace, and that grace can never be mixed with works.

[26:17] Otherwise, it's not grace anymore. I think oftentimes we get things twisted up and confused when it comes to relationship between faith and grace and works.

[26:30] It's something, it's really that, the relationship between those three things is really the central theme of the book of Romans, helping us to understand how these relate to one another.

[26:40] But even with a book like Romans, even with others like Galatians that help us and spell out the relationship between these three things, we still oftentimes are very easily confused about how exactly grace and faith and good works are related to one another.

[26:57] Because we will hear, you will hear me sometimes tell people that if you don't have a life full of good works, if you're not producing good works in your life, if you're living a sinful lifestyle, then you should not have any hope of eternity within you.

[27:13] You shouldn't be confident that you're going to heaven if you're living a life that is full of sin. You'll hear me say things like that. And so then you begin to think, so then our good works are necessary for us to be saved and have eternal life.

[27:29] And then on the other hand, you'll hear me or other preachers preach about grace and we'll say things like Paul says here, there can't be any mixture of works into grace or it's not grace. Or you'll hear Paul saying throughout the early chapters of Romans that justification is by faith apart from the works of the law.

[27:45] He won't allow the works, even works done in obedience to God's word, to enter into the equation of deciding who is right with God, who gets the eternal life held out for God's people.

[27:59] So then what is the precise nature of the relationship? How can we insist on the presence of works in a Christian's life while not mixing works up with grace?

[28:13] I don't think it's as difficult to keep those things in their proper categories as sometimes we think. The reality is, is that ultimately salvation is by grace, solely alone by grace.

[28:27] And that begins all the way back with the doctrine of election. God chooses, He calls out a people for Himself, not based on anything that we do. Before Jacob and Esau were born, He chose Jacob over Esau.

[28:40] It has nothing to do with anything that we could possibly contribute. And so from the very beginning, it is all of grace. And that grace ultimately produces faith in all those who belong to the remnant.

[28:53] And that faith is the means by which God justifies people. So that we can say very clearly, obviously we're chosen by grace as Paul says here.

[29:03] We can say that we also get right with God. We are justified because of God's grace, not because of any works, but we simply trust in Jesus and God declares us to be righteous.

[29:16] None of our works enter into the picture. It's faith and faith alone. But when that happens, the Spirit of God comes to live and dwell within us.

[29:27] He begins to produce good works. He begins to change our hearts so that we actually perform good deeds.

[29:41] But notice the chain of events. Grace produces faith. And then that faith brings the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. And the Holy Spirit begins to produce good works in our lives.

[29:55] At no point, at no point can it be said that we by ourselves produce works that contribute anything to our salvation.

[30:07] No. The works that are produced by the Spirit in us proves that our faith is real and genuine in the first place. And therefore that we have indeed been saved by God's grace.

[30:21] If at any moment you begin to mix works earlier into the equation, if you say, I believe that I'm saved by faith but I also need to do these things in order to be justified, then you've placed works at the wrong part of the equation.

[30:42] If at any point you begin to say, God chooses the remnant on the basis of, and you list something that we do that makes us distinct from others, then you've brought works in at the wrong part of the equation.

[31:00] Works comes as a result of what God has done to save us and justify us already. And if we try to insert works into grace, then grace no longer exists.

[31:14] Because grace is free. Grace is God's free gift. That's what it is. And so you cannot pay for that which is free.

[31:25] It is no longer free. So if you try to earn in any way the grace of God, you turn the grace of God into something it isn't. If I buy you a gift and I say, here's a gift just for you for no reason.

[31:39] I just decided to give this to you. Here's a gift. And the next day you swing by my house because you've gone online and you've looked it up to see how much it costs and you swing by my house and you saw it cost $22.32 and you drop it in my mailbox anonymously so that I don't know that you're trying to ruin my gift, right?

[31:59] You drop it off in my mailbox and I find that later it's no longer a gift. You bought it. You paid for it. It's not a gift anymore. If you try in any way to earn God's favor then grace is no longer grace.

[32:15] Election is by grace. Justification is by grace. And because of those great works in us and for us the Spirit of God will produce good works so that it's true that we can look at people who say I'm a Christian and yet they live sinful lifestyles.

[32:33] It is true that we can look at them and say you shouldn't be so confident because judging by your life it's not present. We don't look at them and say you shouldn't be so confident because a person like that a person like that can't earn salvation.

[32:55] No. We look and we say a person like that hasn't been saved and indwelt by the Spirit of God. So that understanding how works fits into the equation of the Christian life is crucial.

[33:12] If you put it in the wrong place it spoils grace and grace can no longer be grace. And Paul would have all that we understand about God's work in us he would have all of it built upon the foundation of the grace of God.

[33:29] So that the ultimate difference between the remnant and those outside of the remnant the ultimate difference is not our good works the ultimate difference is the grace of God.

[33:41] Which is why in verses 7, 8, 9, and 10 he's able to very easily just turn the corner to help us see the other side of things.

[33:54] That where grace is not present where grace is not to be found there can be no salvation found. He's again going to quote from the Old Testament to build his case but his point is very, very easy to understand.

[34:10] If grace is not present there is no salvation whatsoever. Notice verse 7 What then? In other words there is a remnant it's chosen by grace what do we say now?

[34:23] What do we say? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking Israel was reaching and trying and doing their good works but they failed?

[34:34] Is that what we say? And then he says well the elect obtained it. The chosen by grace remnant they obtained it. Why? Not because they earned anything but because they received the free gift of God's grace.

[34:51] As it is written God gave them a spirit of stupor eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear down to this very day. What is the cause of the failure of those who are not included in the remnant or the elect?

[35:04] What is the cause? They can't see. They can't hear the truth. God has not given them the eyes that see the truth the ears that hear the truth. They can't see they can't hear he says down to this very day.

[35:17] He quotes David let their table become a snare and a trap a stumbling block and a retribution for them and here is the eye talking and the seeing let their eyes be darkened so they cannot see and bend their backs forever.

[35:29] In other words this lack of spiritual sight this lack of vision which is natural to us all it's how we come into this world we are born spiritually blind and if God doesn't give us spiritual sight this is where we're found.

[35:46] Darkened eyes we cannot see we cannot hear and that lasts forever unless the grace of God God intervenes so that where grace is present and grace remains grace and we don't try to spoil it by mixing anything into it where grace is present there salvation is to be found and where grace is absent there cannot be any lasting hope for any human being.

[36:18] be they a descendant of Abraham or just some Gentile from one of the nations there can be no hope for any single one of us if our hope remains in ourselves and what we can do.

[36:34] Over and over and over you will hear people say when you begin to ask them about where are you going to go when you die or what's going to happen to you over and over and over we hear people say things like well I feel pretty good about it I mean I think I'm going to go to heaven why?

[36:51] Because I mean I'm a pretty good person I've lived a pretty good life I haven't done X, Y, and Z I think I'm okay I'm a good person I believe in God I'm doing the things that I need to do at which point the apostle Paul would say grace cannot be grace grace cannot coexist with that thought process and where there is no grace there is no salvation to be had the only hope for sinners is Christ crucified in our place bearing the penalty for our sins winning a righteousness for us and all of that is of grace and Paul wants to magnify grace even in the face of what for him must have been a great sorrow the loss of so many of his kinsmen the absence of grace in so many of their lives and yet even in the face of that Paul would magnify the grace of God and say but there's always a remnant chosen by grace and where there is grace there is salvation even in the midst of that situation

[38:02] Paul magnifies the grace of God and so when we when we find ourselves in situations in which it's tempting to add to grace or it's tempting to feel as if there is no grace anywhere to be had what should our response be it can on the one hand be despair we could despair and say well I don't know what God is doing and I don't know where God is but it looks like he's not around here and there's no hope for us we could respond with despair or we could respond by saying he is sovereign and he is doing his work and he is calling his people and he is sending out grace and grace is doing what grace does it's creating a people for God's own name grace is doing its work whether we can see it or not and in the midst of hopelessness basing your hope not upon what you can do to turn the situation around but in your confidence in the sovereign power of God and his grace it's all you need to make it through that day or that season of life or when we see others that surround us then they are tempted to add in their own accomplishments as a source and a foundation for their own hope we need to look them in the eye and say if you do that you cannot have grace and if you don't have grace you have no hope whatsoever let's pray if you don't if you don't pray if you don't pray if you don't if you don't pray