Romans - Week 16: Romans 9:1-29

This week Pastor Aaron Holt preached Romans 9. If you have been following along with us in the book of Romans, you know that Romans 8 ends with one of the most powerful declarations in all of Scripture. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. And then you turn the page to chapter 9 and the mood shifts completely. Paul is in anguish. He is grieving. Because the question he is sitting with is: if God's promises are so good and nothing can separate us from his love, then why have most of the Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah? Have God's promises failed? That question is the engine that drives all of Romans 9, 10, and 11. And Pastor Aaron gives you the interpretive keys you need to read these chapters well -- chapter 9 is about Israel's past, chapter 10 is about Israel's present, and chapter 11 is about Israel's future. He works through the whole chapter and surfaces three major promises. God's grace is greater than your failures. God's mercy is greater than your understanding. And God's purposes are greater than your circumstances. Each one is unpacked carefully, and he does not shy away from the hard parts -- election, predestination, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the potter and the clay. He handles all of it with clarity.