The Dreadful Regrets of Israel for Not Accepting the Gospel – 9:1-11:36
Lesson 20: God’s Sovereign Choice – 9:1-29
 1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—
2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,
7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”
8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”
10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—
12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!
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 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.


17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
18 So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist His will?”
20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
22 What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
23 in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory—
24 even us whom He has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
25 As indeed He says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘My people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
28 for the Lord will carry out His sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
29 And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”

One of the hardest things for us to understand as humans is how God can be both sovereign and still hold us accountable for our choices. In our Scripture today, we read several things God chose – such as the nation of Israel above all the other nations of the earth to be His people, or choosing Jacob over Esau even before they were born.


In verse 14 Paul asks if God is unjust. Absolutely not! God had a plan in mind when He created all that exists. Isaiah 46:9-10 says, I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is none like Me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose.’

Even though God had a master-plan, He also decided to give us some choices. He said we could choose to:
* worship Him or other gods
* make idols for ourselves or not
* use His name in vain or not
* keep one day holy for Him or not
* honor our parents or not
* murder or not
* commit adultery or not
* steal or not
* lie or not
* covet what others have or not
* accept Jesus as our Savior or not.

There are choices we do not have, choices which God made for us and we cannot change. These choices determine many of the most important circumstances of our life:
* who our parents are
* where we were born
* who our siblings are
* the time in history we live.

God holds us responsible for every choice He gives us; but He does not hold us accountable for any decision He makes for us – He only holds us accountable for what we DO with those things. For example, He does not hold us accountable for being poor, but He holds us accountable for what we do with the things we have (are we being selfish or wasteful or stingy or coveting what others have?). He does not hold us accountable for things done to us, but He holds us accountable for how we react to those things.

Learning to be content with whatever we have is our path to greater trust in Jesus. Such contentment is the way to being able to rejoice always, as we read in Philippians 4:4 and other Scriptures. Thankfulness (Ephesians 5:20 and 1 Thessalonians 5:18) opens the door to greater Godliness than we find anywhere else on earth.

*Read these verses, and write what they say about contentment:
Psalm 37:16
Proverbs 15:16
Proverbs 16:8
Philippians 4:11
Hebrews 13:5