In the sermon 'The Sovereign God of Mercy and Compassion' by Jason Dohm, the speaker explores the theme of divine sovereignty and mercy as articulated in Romans 9:1-16. Dohm emphasizes that God, as the King of Kings, is characterized by His mercy and compassion, despite human tendencies to question His choices. The sermon discusses the distinction between God's promises to Israel and the spiritual Israel, highlighting the examples of Ishmael and Esau to illustrate God's justice and the concept of election. Through these examples, Dohm underscores that God’s mercy is not something owed or demanded but is given at His discretion. The sermon urges believers to adopt a God-centered perspective, recognizing that salvation is not based on human will or effort but is entirely a result of God's mercy. Dohm concludes by encouraging believers to rest in the knowledge of God's perfect justice and goodness, even when His ways are beyond human comprehension.

Beautiful words delivered from heaven. Romans chapter 9 verses 1 through 16. I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have a great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, your Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises of whom are the fathers and from whom according to the flesh Christ came, who is over all the eternally blessed God.

Amen. But it is not that the Word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham. But in Isaac your seed shall be called. That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is the word of promise.

At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son." And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac, for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls. It was said to her, the older shall serve the younger, As it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not.

For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. So then, it is not of him who wills, Nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is The Sovereign God of Mercy and compassion. Paul sets forth God as a great king.

The king of kings and the Lord of lords. But he is a king who is characterized by mercy and compassion. So the Bible really is good news. God hasn't left us to just do what we would do. What is that?

We would plunge ourselves into destruction. Well, God hasn't been content to let that be the end of the story. But he is a great king, and he is a great king who is characterized by mercy and compassion. With this title, The Sovereign God of Mercy and Compassion, I'm attempting to shift us to a God-centered perspective. There is something to marvel at in this text.

And it is that God has mercy on so many of His enemies. Friends, heaven will be filled with a multitude beyond numbering. You won't be able to count them. The multitude of the saved, the redeemed, the rescued that will be around the throne for eternity. And every single one of those souls will have been wholeheartedly engaged in self-destruction.

Thus the title. There is a sovereign God, He is a great King, He is the King of all Kings, He is the Lord of all Lords, and He is characterized by mercy and compassion. And so heaven won't be empty, heaven will be filled with a multitude that cannot be numbered worshipping Him. And every one of those souls will have been the same when God entered into their lives, when he intervened. They will have been plunging themselves into destruction when he rescued all of us who have trusted in his son.

It's easy to come to this text and say, Why doesn't God save everyone? And you miss the beauty of the text, which is, God has mercy. God has compassion. Please don't skip past a God who has mercy and a God who has compassion in order to rush to getting every curiosity satisfied. I just want to beg you to park your impulse to have every curiosity about these things satisfied while you skip past the glory of scripture that God is a God of mercy and God is a God of compassion.

I want to wrestle with you to get you to that God-centered spot. The man-centered spot says, why doesn't God have mercy on every single person. Why doesn't God have compassion on every single person? And you skip past the beauty of what is said here. God has mercy, God has compassion.

Praise the Lord. Let's ask for help. God, thank you for this text. Oh God, this is one of those texts where when we come to it, we feel the force of man centeredness. Do we ever.

And instead of praising you for being a great king, above all kings, who is characterized by mercy and compassion. We want to know everything, even things that you are pleased not to reveal to us. God help us. Help us. To see the glory in the text, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, we only have three verses. We'll just take them one by one, so hopefully your Bibles are still open to Romans chapter 9. Let me start by rereading verse 14. We'll look at that by itself. Paul continues in his flow of thought.

Romans 9, 14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not. Here in verse 14, Paul recoils at the notion that this means God is unjust.

So if you're taking notes on the handout, filling in blanks, unjust fills in the blank. Paul recoils at the notion, he draws back from the notion that the things that he's been teaching mean that God is unjust. We've actually seen, in Romans we've seen this multiple times already, Paul knows a wrong conclusion that is easily drawn from what he's been teaching. So he's teaching, he's teaching, he's establishing truths, He gets to a point where he suspects that from what he's been teaching, you'll draw the wrong conclusion. So he'll stop and he'll just ask a question centered around the wrong conclusion that you might very well have drawn, and then he recoils from it in horror.

That you would think that the things that he's been teaching are rightly understood that he's teaching that because he isn't teaching that. So we've seen Paul do it a couple times already in Romans. He's doing it again today. So he asks this question and then he answers, certainly not, or God forbid, or may it never be, depending on how you want to translate it. But he's recoiling from the notion of the question.

In this instance, the question is this, what should we say as a result of what Paul has been teaching on this matter? Is there unrighteousness with God? The NASB and the ESV translated injustice instead of unrighteousness. Both are perfectly good at translations. The point is this, The point of the question is this, has God been unrighteous or unjust in his dealings with Ishmael and Esau?

So where did I get Ishmael and Esau? I'm backing up to last week's text, just taking us back into last week's text. Remember from last week's text, God made promises to the descendants of Abraham, but it wasn't all the descendants of Abraham. Ishmael was Abraham's firstborn, but he was only a child of the flesh. So he was of the bloodline of Abraham, but it was Isaac, Abraham's second born, who was the child of God's promise, and therefore became a child of God.

Ishmael was not and did not, Ishmael was not the child of God's promise and did not become a child of God. Esau and Jacob had exactly the same father and exactly the same mother and were developing in their mother's womb at exactly the same time. Time. They were twins, but God loved Jacob and God hated Esau and that was settled before either one of them had done one single thing, good evil. That is what Paul taught.

Now, was it unrighteous of God to deal with Ishmael and Esau in that way? What was it unjust of God to deal with Ishmael and Esau in that way? Paul recoils from that conclusion. You can't bear the thought that you would think that that is the true implication of what he's been teaching. Paul, if we take the track of what you've been teaching, and we just take that train right down the track, at the end of that track you end up with a God who is unrighteous.

At the end of that track you end up with a God who is unjust. Paul says, no, that's not true. That's not what I've been teaching. That's not what I ever meant to be teaching. And that is not true.

When you take my teaching down the track, that's not the end that you end up at that God is unrighteous or God is unjust. Why can't Paul bear the thought of you drawing that conclusion. Well, it's because it's completely contrary to all of scripture. Let me give you just three places in scripture that contradict that conclusion. And so we have to render the conclusion a bad conclusion, a false conclusion from the evidence.

Let me give you three. Number one, Deuteronomy 32 verse 4. Deuteronomy 32 is the song of Moses. God wanted Moses to teach the people this song, and it really is, very much of it is a self-revelation of God. It is God revealing Himself to people and teaching them a song to sing about what He is like.

Listen to Deuteronomy 32, 4. He, God, is the rock. His work is perfect for all his ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice, righteous and upright as he. So the language of Deuteronomy 32 verse 4 is about as comprehensive as it gets. It really leaves you no wiggle room.

As God describes himself, he describes himself as being the rock. His work is perfect. All his ways are justice. So, all means all. All of his ways are justice.

He is a God of truth and without injustice. So everything that he does is a reflection of justice. Nothing that he does is a reflection of injustice. He's perfect justice and there's no injustice with Him. Righteous and upright is He.

Number two, here is the second verse. It says much of the same thing but in a different way. Number two is Psalm 7 verse 9. In Psalm 7 verse 9 the psalmist says this, Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just. For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.

Let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just. This is a cry of the psalmist for God to oppose the wicked and uphold the just for because the righteous God tests the hearts and minds. So God is righteous. Who is God? He is the righteous God.

Everything about Him is righteous. And He does the judging. This is the key points of Psalm 7-9. God is righteous and He tests the hearts and minds. He does the judging.

Mankind gives an account to God, not God to mankind. Now all of us in our saner moments would concede that point. We answer to Him, He doesn't answer to us. Who are we that God would answer to us? He made us out of dust and breathed life into us.

So when we think about who we really are, we're dust with the breath of God giving us life. We in our saner moments would say, yes, God doesn't owe me an explanation of these things, I actually am the one who gives an account to God, not God to me. Number three, 1 John 1.5. You know I like quoting 1 John 1.5. You'll recognize it instantly.

First John 1-5 says, This is the message which we have heard from him, and declare to you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. So, light and dark is figurative speech used throughout the New Testament for truth and good. Light equals truth and good in the New Testament. So, God is all light. God is light.

He's all truth, all good. In Him is no darkness at all, or the opposite of truth and good. So falsehood and wickedness. God is 0% falsehood and wickedness, 100% truth and good. So these three scriptures and a hundred like them, maybe a thousand like them that says that God is only good all the time, is the the framework for the believer.

Believer means believer in Jesus, but also a believer in what God has revealed to be truth. God only has one story about himself from Genesis to Revelation, and that is that he is perfectly good. So when we come to a data set, a group of established facts, A group of established facts. Whatever you conclude from the data set, whatever conclusion you draw from any one fact, any one circumstance, any mixture of facts and circumstances, the conclusion cannot be that God is unrighteous, that God is unjust. Because that is a complete contradiction of who God has revealed Himself to be in all of scripture.

Paul's teaching about God's purposes and promises might be difficult for us to understand or difficult for us to accept, but the wrong conclusion is this, God is unrighteous. God is unjust. Whatever conclusion you draw, it's illegal, according to the Bible, to draw the conclusion that God is unjust or God is unrighteous. Are the things we're studying difficult for us to understand? All God's people said, Amen.

They really are difficult to understand. I'm happy to concede that point. Are they difficult for us to accept? All God's people said, Amen. I know they're difficult for us to accept.

I've felt it. I've felt it very deeply. All of us have wrestled for these things, but we just have to come to things that are hard to understand, and then even when you understand them hard to accept, you just have to know that according to scripture, you cannot conclude, it is the wrong conclusion, that there is any unrighteousness with God. There isn't. He is perfectly righteous.

That there is any injustice with God. There is not at all. He is perfectly just. Verse 15. Verse 15 Paul continues, for he, God, says to Moses I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy.

And I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. This is a quote of Exodus 33, 19, and it means this, God will have mercy and does have mercy, but it is at his soul discretion. No one will pick the recipients of his mercy for him. God will have compassion and does have compassion, but it is at his soul discretion. No one will pick the recipients of his compassion for him.

Friends, that's what mercy is. That's what mercy is. Listen to this textbook definition. I got this from the Google yesterday. Listen to this textbook definition of mercy.

Forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish. Forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish." Forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish. So you have the complete right authority, ability to punish, and you don't exercise your right authority, ability to punish. Instead, you forgive. The mercy of God, by definition, is never owed.

This is so important. But this is the basic nature of mercy. Mercy can't be anything else by definition. That's what it means to have mercy. The mercy of God is never owed.

The mercy of God is never a debt paid. God doesn't owe anyone. God doesn't have any debts to pay. And so when God has mercy, you can be sure He's not paying off a debt, because He doesn't have any debts to pay off. Now, the context of the scripture Paul quotes helps us.

So let's turn back to Exodus 32. Paul's quote is from Exodus 33, but the context helps. So let's start in Exodus 32. If you're on the handout for verse 15, the blank is scripture. Paul explains himself from scripture.

By the way, that's always a good idea. When you're trying to explain yourself, explain yourself from scripture. You plant your feet on a rock. That's what Paul is doing. He's planting his feet on a rock.

Exodus 32. In Exodus 32, Moses is up on Mount Sinai with God, receiving the law from God. God is writing his law with his own finger on tablets of stone. While Moses is with God, the people compel Aaron to make a golden calf, and they're going to say of this golden calf, this is the God who brought us out of Egypt. So they don't want to discard God, but they want an image for this God.

So they make the golden calf, and they attribute their being brought out of slavery to the image. This is the God that brought us out. And Aaron is willing to be compelled by the people to do this. And then God and Moses are somewhere else while this is happening. They're up on Mount Sinai.

God is giving the law to Moses. And God of course knows this is happening. Off the mountain, at the bottom of the mountain. And So God speaks this to Moses in chapter 32, 9 and 10. Look at Exodus 32, 9 and 10.

And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and indeed it is a stiff necked people. Now therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation." So God proposes something. So God proposes something. The people are already engaged in idolatry and they're such a stubborn people. God knows exactly how the history of Israel is going to play out, and how many times they are going to backslide and be unfaithful to Him.

And God proposes to Moses that He just wipe them all out and start new, just with Moses. God made Abraham into a nation, God can make Moses into a nation. Let me take this stiff-neck people and wipe them off the face of the earth. The earth will be the better for it and will start again new with you. I'll give you descendants.

We'll start a new nation with you. Leave me alone, Moses, so that I'll do it." God knows that Moses will intercede for them. God is bringing about his own purposes, even through this dialogue with Moses. Here's my question. Would God have been within his rights to carry out what he proposed to Moses.

Would God have been within his rights to wipe all of this nation, this family off the face of the earth except for Moses and to restart with Moses? Have we already seen that? We already saw that. It was at the flood. God wiped all of the sinners off the face of the earth except Noah.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. It was grace. Noah was righteous and the rest of the people were sinners. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That's what the text says in Genesis.

He wiped out all the sinners except for this one family that found grace and he started over. So was God within his rights to do that? Was God acting within his rights when the flood happened? There's a psalm that says, God sat enthroned at the flood. God's sitting on his throne and he sends the rain and the flood.

Would justice have been harmed in any way if God had carried out what he proposed. If he wipes out this family and nation and starts again with Moses, would justice have been harmed in any way? If you of justice would have been harmed, you're going back and have to repeat first grade Romans. Because we're in Romans 9. And chapter upon chapter of Romans leading up to Romans 9 has been spent trying to convince you that we were born enemies of God.

Chapters. This isn't Romans 1, first grade Romans, this is Romans 9, we're in the middle grades now. From all that he's taught in Romans, if you believe that Romans 1 through 8 is true, then you can't say God wasn't acting within his rights had he carried out what he proposed to Moses. The cause of justice wouldn't have been harmed at all if God had done that. If you believe 1-8, you have to say God would have been completely acting within his rights, and justice would have been served by God carrying out what he did.

According to Paul, according to the early chapters of Romans, we were born enemies of God. Our life history is just the evidence for it. It's not telling a story of you becoming an enemy of God. It's just proving that you were born an enemy of God. As Gary likes to say, I was born on death row.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that you were born on death row? If you don't believe that, you don't believe the early chapters of Romans. You were born bent against God. You were born a God-hater.

No, no, no, I'm a good person. That's not what Romans says about you. Romans says you're a God hater. So is Paul right about you or is God through Paul right about you or are you right about you? You have to decide that.

You want to keep hold of your pride, your self-image that there's really nothing that wrong with you, then you need another book and another church. Romans won't do and I hope here won't do. Do you believe you were born on death row? Paul says you were. God says you were.

God knows. Now in Exodus 32, so that's the context. That's the context. The people immediately, after just having been rescued out of slavery, immediately falling into idolatry, and God proposing to Moses, why don't I wipe them all out, we'll start fresh with you. And Moses saying, oh God, please don't.

Now, in chapter 33, Moses asks God to show him his glory. God show me your glory. That's 33, 18. And then God responds to Moses' request that God would show Moses' glory. He responds to it in verse 19.

Look at 33, 19. Then he, God, said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. This is the self-revelation of God in response to Moses' request that God would reveal His glory. God says, I'll let all my goodness pass before you.

And then He describes Himself. I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I'll have compassion on whomever I have compassion. This is what Paul quotes. The message is this, God shows mercy, but God doesn't owe mercy.

He does show mercy. Is He a God of mercy? Yes. Is He a God of compassion? Yes.

Does He owe mercy? No. Does He owe compassion? No. He doesn't ever owe mercy or compassion.

It is His glory to be merciful, but it is His glory to maintain complete and utter sovereignty over the exercise of his mercy. So both of these things are in this statement of God, his self-revelation of his glory. He does reveal himself of a God who is gracious, who is merciful, who is compassionate. But the other thing that he shows, which is also his glory, is that he maintains complete and utter sovereignty over the exercise of his mercy. No one will tell him how he has to exercise his mercy.

No one may tell him how he will exercise his compassion. Now, before we move on, I want to acknowledge a human instinct. When confronted with this truth, my reflex is to pass over a most glorious truth about God because I'm obsessed with my questions and my dissatisfaction with the answer. In other words, the answer just raises 10 other questions. I thought we were answering a question, but the answer raises more questions than the answer that I got.

And I'm really not satisfied with the answer. So, because I'm obsessed with the ten other questions that the answer raises, and because I'm not satisfied with the answer itself, I miss this most glorious truth about God. Let's be honest. If anyone else gave us this answer, we would never accept it. Would you accept this answer from one of your kids?

I will take out the trash when I will take out the trash. I will clean up my room when I clean up my room. That's the recipe for the whooping of a lifetime. If anyone else gave us this answer, I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy.

We would say something like this, enough with the non-answers, answer my question. Doesn't that seem like a non-answer to you? I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy." That's no answer to the question. I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. We would say to that person, if it were anyone else, we would say, explain to me why you have mercy and compassion on some but not others, and tell me the criteria you use to choose.

Wouldn't that be our follow-up questions if it was anyone else? Explain to me why. You're having mercy on some, you're bypassing others. Tell me why. What's the criteria?

Tell me the criteria. Why do you want to know those things? Why do I want to know those things? So I can render a judgment on your reasons and your criteria. You give me your reasons, why you have mercy on this one, not on that one, compassion on this one, not on that one.

I'll decide if I'm satisfied about your reasons. You have criteria on which you decided to exercise your mercy, your compassion. I'll sit in judgment on your criteria and I'll let you know if I'm satisfied with your criteria or whether I expect changes. But it isn't anyone else. It is God.

He made me from dust. He will not explain himself to me on this topic. This is the dissatisfying answer that we get from God. You're dust. I do not owe you an explanation.

And I won't give you one. I will not tell you why I have compassion on some and not others. Mercy on some and not on others. I will not tell you the criteria. It is all within myself and I will not explain it to you.

Listen to Deuteronomy 29, 29. Deuteronomy 29, 29. Martin's nodding. He knows where I'm headed. This is a good one to memorize too, by the way.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God. But those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law. Let me read it again. Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God.

They are His possession. But those things which are revealed, God, belong to us and to our children forever. He wanted us to have the revealed things, so He gave us the revelation. That we may do all the words of this law. He is willing to tell me what I need to know to walk with him and obey him.

Hello? He is willing to tell me what I need to know to walk with him. Is that a good thing? Yes. He's told you, you can walk with me.

Here's what you need to know. He is willing to tell me what I need to know to obey him. Is that good? Yes. He's my maker.

He is not willing to tell me everything I want to know. Things I need to walk with him, check. Things I need to know to obey him, Check. Everything I want to know, you're out of luck. He is God.

In our text we find God unwilling to apologize for being God. Friends, don't be mad about that. Don't be mad that God won't apologize for being God. We're dust. We exist because he took dust and he breathed life into us and he doesn't owe us an explanation and he isn't offering us an explanation.

Well why not? Well the text doesn't say. My guess is it wouldn't help us that much. My guess is our minds are so finite that when he explained it to us we would say, I don't get it. All we need to know is this, he gets it.

An infinite mind understands it. That's what you need to know. A perfectly good, perfectly wise, infinite mind understands it. It's completely consistent with righteousness, completely consistent with justice, and he doesn't need to explain it to you. And he doesn't owe you an explanation.

Again, anyone else? You bust them for giving a non-answer, but not with God. Because God is maintaining His kingship. He's the King of Kings. I'm not even a king.

He's the King of Kings. I'll never be a king. He's the Lord of Lords. I'll never be a Lord. He's the King of everything.

Verse 16. Paul ends this thought this way. So then, it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. In this verse Paul says it is all and only of God who shows mercy. So if you're filling in blanks, all and only fill in the blanks.

Paul says It is all and only of God who shows mercy. The verse begins, so then, Paul is concluding this thought by making clear what all this means. He's summing it up for us. The basis of who God is merciful and compassionate towards is not rooted in the willing or working of people. That might be worth saying again.

I'll risk it. You won't doze off from the repetition. The basis of who God is merciful and compassionate towards is not rooted in the willing and working of people. That's not where it comes from. It doesn't proceed from people willing, people working.

It proceeds from something else. God. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs. It is not a person's will that is on display when you see a sinner saved. It's God's will.

Are you tracking with me? It's not a person's will that is on display when a sinner is saved. It's God's will that's on display when a sinner is saved. It's not a person's working or exertion on display when you see a sinner saved. It is God working and exerting when you see a sinner saved.

How is God working? The Father has chosen who will receive his mercy and compassion. And he has sent his Son Jesus to take on flesh and to pay for their sins. Jesus has come and been their substitute and done the saving work. The Holy Spirit comes and breaks into these sinners lives while they are on the road to destruction and draws them into Jesus's saving work.

The Holy Spirit brings them to have faith in Jesus. So God has chosen who will have mercy and compassion on and sent Jesus. Jesus has come and done that saving work and then the Holy Spirit comes and he draws these sinners into Jesus' saving work. Now let's think this through. We need some thinking.

Are you ready for some thinking? Say, I didn't come to church to think. You just preach and I doze. No. Let's think this through.

When a person is being saved, does that person will to be saved? Yes, that person comes to a place where they see their desperate condition and they desperately want to be saved. Do you remember desperately wanting to be saved? I do. Then is there something they do?

Yes, they repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You cannot be saved unless you repent and believe the gospel of Jesus. So they do will to be saved, they desperately want to be saved by the time they are saved. They do something, You have to repent and believe in Jesus or you'll be lost. Then how do we square that with what Paul is teaching in our text?

In this way. The Bible teaches that sinners wanting to be saved and acting to be saved by trusting in Jesus. They're willing and working. I want to be saved. I'm repenting and believing.

Is the effect not the cause? What is the cause? God showing mercy. For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast." Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

Paul is saying the same thing in our text in a different way, kind of coming at it from a different angle. When you see a person coming to saving faith in Jesus, you are actually witnessing the will of God and the work of God. You are witnessing God showing mercy. What you see is God giving a great gift. How do you know God is giving a great gift?

Because A dead person is coming alive and trusting in Jesus. That's how you know God is willing and working. Because you're watching in real time as a person dead, spiritually dead, with no appetite for spiritual things, with no ability to comprehend or act on spiritual things in the next moment coming alive and trusting Christ. You're seeing the evidence, not the cause. You're seeing the effects, not the cause.

Turn to John 1. John 1 and then a couple of applications. Turn to John chapter 1. This is the Apostle John framing the whole Gospel in John chapter 1. He says this in John 1 verses 12 and 13, but as many as received Him, Jesus, as many as received Jesus, to them He gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." If you are a child of God, it isn't bloodline.

Not of blood. It's not because of who your parents are, or your grandparents were. If you are a child of God, it isn't a decision that arose from your inborn nature. You were born in Adam with Adam's nature, with all those corruptions and warping. Not of the will of the flesh.

If you are a child of God, it isn't the pronouncement of any priest or religious practitioner. None of them can pronounce forgiveness of sins on you, not of the will of man, not bloodline, not a decision that arose from your inborn nature, not the pronouncement of any priest or religious practitioner. If you are a child of God, you have been born of God. God willed it. God worked it.

It was His will. And the actions that He took, His choice to show you mercy is at the root of it all. He made you alive. Applications, I give you three. Number one, God is perfectly good, perfectly right, perfectly just.

Sometimes it helps me to fast forward to the end. In my mind's eye, I put myself in heaven. Is that legal? Can we do that? Faster, like where's all this headed?

It's headed to, because I've trusted in Jesus, it's headed to me being in heaven. In heaven, do I have any of these remaining corruptions that make my thinking very suspect? No. In heaven, I don't have any of that. In heaven, will I know more than I know now, or less than I know now?

I presume I'll know 1, 000 times more than I know now. In heaven, will I be more satisfied with God's justice and righteousness, or less satisfied? Oh, in heaven. Surely I'll be more satisfied. Wait, when I get rid of the corruptions and I know a thousand times more then than I know now, I'll be satisfied with God's righteousness and justice.

Even though now, when I see God's dealings with men, it leads me with questions. The end point, where we're headed, is those questions are going to be wiped away, not by ignorance, no no no, by more knowledge and no corruption. It's the lack of knowledge and the presence of corruption that makes all these things difficult to understand and then difficult to accept once we do understand it. Fast forward to the end. In heaven we're going to see God as he is and be perfectly satisfied that he did it all right.

That none of his dealings with men reflected injustice in any way. Listen to what Rob Ventura says. Rob Ventura says this, Since God is the supreme king over all, What could be wrong with him allowing some sinners who deserve nothing but his judgment to experience his mercy, and yet others who do not deserve his mercy to experience his justice? The answer is nothing at all. Since none deserve God's mercy, surely if he decides to pity a number of those hell-deserving sinners, then this is Nothing but pure grace, amazing grace.

Amen to that. We have to view the pool that God is dealing with rightly. The pool is a people, and we were in the pool, of nothing but hell-deserving sinners, all richly having deserved eternal punishment for our crimes against this God. Number two. So that's number one.

God is perfectly right, good, right and just. Number two. Consider this all glorious God. Consider the God that Paul sets before us in this text. When we're in scripture, we encounter statements like, I am that I am.

Again, anyone else says that to us? We say that's a non-answer, that's a non-statement. That's not even meaningful. I am that I am. But with God, He's communicating to us that He is self-existent.

He doesn't depend on anything outside of himself. Think of all the things outside of yourself that you need to live another week. There's nothing like that for God. He's self-existing in the sense that he needs nothing outside of himself from eternity past through eternity future to exist and be king and create with the power of his word. It all just exists within himself and never diminishes with use.

He is that He is and therefore He becomes the root of all reality. Things exist because God exists, but He exists because it's all within Himself. It stretches our brains to even hear something like that, even say something like that. Or, I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy. I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion.

The point is this, God is big. God is glorious. God, there's no one to compare Him with. Paul is setting forward a supreme king who is the root of all reality and who is Always good, perfectly good, and who never owes a debt. Never owes a debt.

He could never owe his mercy, he could never owe an explanation to me. One of these weeks, Jim, I promise, one of these weeks we'll read Job. We'll read out of Job. Where the questioning of God has gone on for about 40 chapters and God shows up and has his own set of questions. One of these weeks we'll get to those.

He is an all-glorious God. He exists only within Himself, needing nothing from outside of Himself. He owes no man an explanation. He owes no man mercy, compassion, but he has revealed himself to be merciful and compassionate. Don't skip over the statements that are wonderful in this text.

God will have mercy, does have mercy. God will have compassion does have compassion number three Be glad be glad Be glad that These that salvation isn't rooted in the willing and working of people. Because what the Bible teaches is If he left it up to the willing of people, no one would be saved. We're born bent against God. You would not will unless God intervened to make you willing to believe.

One of these Sundays I'm also going to bring up the R.C. Sproul book, Willing to Believe, which is really helpful. If you need a good read on all of these things, it's a hard read. I had to read it twice because I felt like I was learning a new language. It's one of those books, but man is it good.

And it traces the free will sovereignty of God debate through millennia. Thousands of this. We're not the first one to have these questions and to wrestle with them and to come up with answers. It's good to read both sides of that debate as it's traced through the centuries and that's what R.C. Sproul does in willing to believe.

If you can get your hands on it, you should. It's a good read. The truth is if God just left humanity alone to pursue whatever we wanted to pursue, we would prove what we were like, and that we were bent on destruction. We were bent on God-hating. There are sophisticated, respectable ways to do that.

And there are flagrant outward, biker drug user ways to do that. And in the end, they're the same. Here's what we should do. We should look at the cross and be glad. If you want to know what God is like, look at the cross.

If you want to know, is God rich in mercy or stingy with mercy, look at the cross and consider the multitude that can't be counted that will be around the throne in heaven. If you want to know if God is rich in compassion or stingy with compassion, look at the cross and think what it has cost God to reconcile one sinner to himself. God, thank you for Revealing yourself to us in scripture. Thank you for not explaining everything to us. Thank you for not satisfying every point of curiosity.

If you satisfied those, we've come up with another set. It's good to just rest in the fact that you are the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and we can trust you. You are perfectly good. Teach us to trust you God. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.