Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I want to go and invite you to turn your Bibles to Romans, chapter 11.
[00:00:04] We're going to be in Romans 11.
[00:00:06] So over the past three weeks, we've been learning who we are together in Christ, in His body we belong. We've learned that. That we belong. And there we have purpose in that belonging. And as a result, what we Learned from Ephesians 4 last week is that we grow together into Christ and more like Christ. And so today we're asked a bigger question. Underneath all of it, who does this body and everything in it actually belong to?
[00:00:35] Abraham Kuyper, almost 150 years ago, made this statement.
[00:00:41] He says there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign overall, does not cry mine.
[00:00:54] He said this at the opening commencement of a school year.
[00:00:58] But the truest use of this word in the entire universe doesn't belong to any of us. It belongs to the Lord.
[00:01:05] Every square inch. Not just Sunday mornings, not just what we put in the offering, but your Monday commute, your singleness, your marriage, your bank statement, your search history, your retirement account, your grief, your ambition. All of it is Christ. It's his.
[00:01:26] So what does it look like to live this way, where there is no distinction between secular and sacred in your life, like many of us draw that dividing line. There is no split between church life and everyday work because you are in Christ all the time. It's who you are. It's your identity, where everything you do matters to God, where nothing you do is neutral.
[00:01:52] For some of you, you're the accountant. The way you do this is you're one who reconciles a ledger honestly when no one would notice a discrepancy is not doing secular work while waiting to get the real ministry.
[00:02:06] That honesty you do in that job is worship. It's an act of integrity done before the Lord even when no one else is around. The mechanic who repairs a car with genuine care and fair pricing rather than cutting corners because the customer, they won't know that person is exercising stewardship over every inch, including their garage bay.
[00:02:28] The parent changing a diaper at 3am isn't on pause from spiritual life until their next Bible study.
[00:02:36] That is an exhausting, unseen act of service, but still reflects worship.
[00:02:44] The coach who handles a loss with composure and honesty, without blame shifting towards officials or players.
[00:02:52] This coach is teaching a theology of God's sovereignty over all things. The athlete playing with full effort even in a game that seems to be meaningless.
[00:03:01] The teacher grading their favorite student and their least favorite student, the same honestly, that is justice done in every square inch, even when no one else is watching. If I were to ask you to take a ledger to make a list of everything that you would say is yours, your house, your car, your calendar, your talent, your next breath, how long would that list be?
[00:03:27] Would we have the time to fill it out?
[00:03:30] And then the follow up question would be, how much of it would still matter five minutes after your heart stopped beating?
[00:03:38] I will say, for many of us, we've had the hard duty, like responsibility to go and clean up a loved one's place after they've passed away. Anybody done that besides me?
[00:03:51] And you're like, why did they keep all this stuff?
[00:03:57] And then you think about your life. You go home and you got stuff everywhere and every nook and cranny and you're like, why do I have all this stuff?
[00:04:06] And what we're not really paying attention to is there's a lot of things that we have in our life where we're not stewarding what God has done.
[00:04:14] And unfortunately, sometimes it takes the loss of someone else and looking through their stuff before you recognize it.
[00:04:20] So what's awesome, I want to dial you Into Romans, chapter 11. Paul has spent 11 chapters unpacking the deepest theology in the New Testament, the righteous of God revealed in Christ, and salvation by faith apart from works. Then he gets to chapters nine through 11 where he begins to wrestle with the hardest question of all. What is God doing with Israel?
[00:04:42] And how does his plan hold together when it seems to have come apart?
[00:04:46] And when Paul reaches the end of that argument, when he finally gets to this part where you think this is it, he doesn't offer a tidy conclusion.
[00:04:56] He doesn't give a bullet point, summary, or even an application point. He doesn't hand out a neat explanation with a PowerPoint. He doesn't resolve every tension. What he does is he responds in worship.
[00:05:09] So if you have your Bibles, look at this with me in Romans 11, starting in verse 33, and this is for some of you, there's some church terms that we throw around and use sometimes, and I want to make sure you learn them too.
[00:05:23] It's this word doxology. It's a combination of two words. A word of praise, a word of glory about God. And this is one of them. In Scripture, verse 33 says this.
[00:05:34] Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
[00:05:39] Now all he's doing is his dead level best with vocabulary to explain how wild and how crazy and expansive the wisdom and knowledge of God is. And then he says, no, can't do it. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. Inscrutable? The thing you guys were talking about this morning before you came to church, things being inscrutable, like this sense of incomprehensible are the things of God. Isaiah 55, 8, 9 talks about his ways and his thoughts are higher than our ways and our thoughts, right? It's incomprehensible. It's this category which we don't have anything for it's categorically beyond anything. Imagine if there were some miracle way where we could take all the greatest thoughts that everybody in this room could ever think and pile them into one day database.
[00:06:32] Even that database would not scratch the surface for how indescribable, inscrutable the things of God are toward us.
[00:06:41] That's how amazing.
[00:06:43] What Paul is pointing out is Job.
[00:06:47] He discovered the same thing at the end of his suffering.
[00:06:50] After chapters of demanding an explanation from God, God finally responds to him. He speaks up not with an explanation, but with a question. After a question about creation that job cannot answer.
[00:07:06] Job 38, 4 and 5, God says to Job, says, hey, real quick, hey, Job, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
[00:07:18] Same response, crickets tell me, if you have understanding who determined its measurements, surely you know, or who stretched the line upon it in asking these questions. And then finally in chapter 42, verse 3, Job restates the question and then responds. He says, who is that that hides counsel without knowledge, like I was asking? This is, therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. Job says things too wonderful for me, which I did.
[00:07:51] In other words, I had no clue what I was asking.
[00:07:56] And I know many of us, we've sat in that same seat, asked similar questions like God, what gives?
[00:08:04] And God is doing something greater than we know, inscrutable, unsearchable beyond what we know or understand.
[00:08:11] And here's a couple of distinctions that you and I have from time to time. We have ownership language that assumes that we know best, or we have stewardship language that admits that we don't and we trust the one who does.
[00:08:24] Think about how much anxiety, stress and worry that you experience that would dissolve if you had stewardship language, right? The pressure to have it all figured out. Anybody know what that's like?
[00:08:41] To control every outcome.
[00:08:44] All of that pressure comes from functioning as an owner, as one who feels like they have to marionette control, manufacture your outcomes rather than steward what God has trusted you with.
[00:08:57] Owners feel like they have to know everything stewards get to trust because they know that it all belongs to the Lord. And then verse 34, who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?
[00:09:11] Like, think about it, God set it all in motion by his word. He's the source, the agent, the goal of everything that exists through him. It's all sustained and directed by him.
[00:09:23] And then Isaiah 40, 12, 15 says this, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, and closed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills in a balance? And that's how amazing Isaiah the prophet is saying, God is who has measured the Spirit of the Lord? Or what man shows him his counsel? Like which one says, hey, God, can we do coffee?
[00:09:55] Can we sit by the breakfast nook? I got some things to ask you. I want to let you know the way you've been doing this one thing I don't know. I don't know God. Like, who has given God counsel?
[00:10:08] Who has thrown him a bone that he's like, oh, never thought of that.
[00:10:12] That's what Isaiah is bringing about. Whom did he consult, and whom made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations. Listen to this humbling.
[00:10:30] Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust of the scales. Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
[00:10:43] Then we get to verse 35 of Romans 11, or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
[00:10:51] Like Paul is echoing here from Job 41, verse 11, where God asks Job the same question after walking him through the wonders of creation. He says, who has first given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven, God says is mine.
[00:11:10] No one has leverage over God. We didn't loan him our talent in weight for interest.
[00:11:18] We didn't advance him our time and expect it back with dividends.
[00:11:23] Every good thing you've ever had, your mind, your health, your family, your next opportunity all originated with him.
[00:11:31] You didn't bargain your way into existing.
[00:11:35] You didn't ask to be born in that family, at this place, in that decade. And you know with this like, no, this is the Lord.
[00:11:43] Deuteronomy 8, this sobering reality. And this is just two chapters after the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, where he says, don't forget, when God has done and delivered all these things that you didn't dig and things that you didn't build. When he's done that, take care, lest you forget that he's the one that did it. Here two chapters later, in a similar way, beware, lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers. As it is to say, it is the providence and kindness of the Lord that you have anything that begins to reorder our posture completely to gratitude, not entitlement.
[00:12:31] We have this sense. It seems like every generation looks down some way, their noses at another generation behind them. They're so entitled.
[00:12:41] I think we all are to some degree.
[00:12:43] I know I am.
[00:12:45] And that's what the people ahead of me said and the people below me. I say about them.
[00:12:51] We're all entitled. We all have this sense.
[00:12:53] And here's the thing.
[00:12:55] What if you understood that you didn't generate or sustain anything, but it's God and His grace that does. Entitlement says, I've earned this. I deserve this. This is mine by right.
[00:13:08] Gratitude says, I was given this undeserved and I get to enjoy it as a gift.
[00:13:17] The difference between those two postures determines almost everything about how you handle your talent, your treasure and your time.
[00:13:25] It also handles too, like when you go through hard things, when you're dealing with suffering and setback. And if you understand that there's a God who is good and sovereign, who is overall, you can go to him for help as opposed to going to something else that many of us do.
[00:13:40] That's the framework that we have, a new framework in this gift.
[00:13:44] And that's where gratitude takes its place. Verse 36 for from him and through him, and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. These three prepositions here. Notice these three claims on everything you have from Him.
[00:14:02] He's the source.
[00:14:05] Nothing you have originated with you.
[00:14:10] Not your intelligence, not your work ethic, not your family name, not the country or decade you were born into. How about those 70s babies?
[00:14:21] I wouldn't go older because you may not be able to respond anyways.
[00:14:26] I had to joke.
[00:14:29] And those who are younger you can just put it on social media. Okay, here we go.
[00:14:34] Even your capacity to work hard is itself a gift.
[00:14:40] That work ethic, that approach to life from the Lord. James 1:17 says as every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow or due to change the next preposition through Him.
[00:15:00] He is the sustainer. Your heartbeat right now, your next paycheck, your next breath, none of it is running by your own power. It's being sustained moment by moment by Him. Paul says this in a similar way in Colossians 1, speaking of Jesus in His preeminence. In verse 16, it says, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for Him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
[00:15:35] Like, imagine that description of Christ for a second.
[00:15:41] There is not an ounce of existence that is outside of his control.
[00:15:47] His mercy.
[00:15:51] I don't know about for you, but for my easy ability approach towards stress and worry, when I'm reminded of how good and gracious and in control God is, like, I feel like I don't know about you, but it's like, why am I so dumb? Why am I wasting time stressing when I've got a God who is so good and gracious and sovereign? And I'm over here worried.
[00:16:20] I don't know about you, but there are times where what I know to be true theologically doesn't intersect with what I'm actually practicing pragmatically. Anybody besides me, where they're not intersecting.
[00:16:36] And this is the invitation that if we understood this, if we understood that it's God's in control, it's all about him. And he, by his grace provides for us, that could change everything and how you live. And then finally, to him, he's the goal. Everything that exists, it exists ultimately for his glory. Not your comfort, not your applause, not your portfolio. It exists for him.
[00:17:06] Psalm 24:1 2 says this. The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. There's not a corner in existence where his ownership, his claim is not valid. And here's what's great about this.
[00:17:29] This truth is just a theological floor under which the rest that we're going to be talking about will be applied.
[00:17:38] When you think about your talent, your gifts, your spiritual gifts that we talked about over the past few weeks, any of those things, your time, your treasure, any of those things, without exception, are from him, through him and to Him.
[00:17:56] Now, here's what's crazy about it. You're like, okay, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. So, but here's the reality that doesn't erase your responsibility to manage it well.
[00:18:07] In fact, it emphasizes, redefines what responsive responsibility actually is. Not ownership, but stewardship.
[00:18:16] Generosity doesn't ultimately flow from how much a person has, but from how much they believe they actually own.
[00:18:23] If you think it's yours, you'll grip it. If you know it's his, you're open to give it.
[00:18:29] Christ already owns it. You and I get to manage it well for Him.
[00:18:35] So let me read this doxology one more time.
[00:18:38] Look at this with me.
[00:18:42] Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
[00:18:47] How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
[00:18:52] For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him, and to him are all things. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
[00:19:11] And yet, the next verses that follow this, you have heard them before in Romans 12, right?
[00:19:23] Therefore, in view of God's mercies, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, because this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And that by testing, you will know what the will of the Lord is. That which is good, holy and pleasing.
[00:19:40] That's what follows this doxology.
[00:19:44] And here's what I want you to know.
[00:19:48] From him, and to him, and through him are all things. And yet the God who owns every square inch of existence, who owes nothing to anyone, still gave His Son for you.
[00:20:10] The God that limited the expanse of the oceans, who needs nothing from us, chose to love us not because we're honorable, but because that's who he is.
[00:20:21] He is love.
[00:20:27] The God that created all things, who's over all things. And yet, yes, he owns all things. But he didn't just keep his abundance for Himself. He gave from his abundance. He gave his very self.
[00:20:47] So what's amazing about all this, the holiness, how dependable and trustworthy God is, He still chose to love us.
[00:21:02] That's the part. It's indescribable.
[00:21:06] That's inscrutable. That's that he would so love us, despite what we bring to the table, which is nothing.
[00:21:18] That's grace upon grace.
[00:21:21] That's from faith for faith. As Paul starts off Romans.
[00:21:26] So here's the crazy question.
[00:21:29] How does this text actually change your Monday morning?
[00:21:36] How does this reality of God's ability change tomorrow?
[00:21:44] For those of you who would say that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ.
[00:21:49] If you are, maybe this week, do this. Take inventory.
[00:21:54] Pay attention to your own mind language, your calendar, your bank account, your kids, your singleness. Not to manufacture guilt, that's not the aim. But to trade the anxiety and the stress and worry that you feel of ownership from the security of stewardship, begin to take account for all that God has trusted you with and ask the question, how in the world, based on God being the giver of this, am I so stressed out over these things?
[00:22:27] It doesn't make sense.
[00:22:31] And then for those of you who are still wrestling with faith, I want you to know I'm glad you're here. If you are, it's about a completely different way of relating to your whole life, what we're talking about here. This ownership, things that you're holding tightly tends to produce anxiety and stress, like I said, and worry.
[00:22:50] You're always one bad turn away from the worst day ever.
[00:22:55] And if that ever happens to you, are you prepared?
[00:23:05] One of the things that God in his grace helps us see through the gospel is that this existence that we're having right now is limited, but what we have in him is eternal.
[00:23:21] One bad turn shakes it all up. Then what, what I want to do is invite you to have this stewardship mindset that you can have, knowing that the God of the universe has made you and shaped you for himself, and he's inviting you in.
[00:23:39] So if you would, if you would just take a moment and let's pray together as brothers and sisters, framing for ourselves what it looks like to trust this God who so loves us, this much that we can depend on, rely on for all things.
[00:23:59] Father, in Jesus name, we thank you for this moment that we get to approach you, knowing that you are self sufficient.
[00:24:12] Lord God, your ways are beyond us.
[00:24:17] Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit, your power and presence would take this understanding of who you are and help us respond in humility, not just to you, but to others, No longer with entitlement, but with gratitude.
[00:24:41] Lord, frame for us what it looks like to trust you.
[00:24:45] Help us rightly see what's before us because of Christ.
[00:24:51] That and yet, Lord, how much of a gift it is to know that's all true of you and yet you still choose to give us life through your son.
[00:25:02] So, Father, we thank you for this. We place our trust in you. We pray these things in the mighty name of Jesus.
[00:25:08] Amen. If you would stand as we sing.
