Grafted In: The Story of Gentiles in the Church (Romans 11:11-24)
I love to travel.
Wherever we go, I want to find out the history of the people who lived there and experience life from their eyes. I've been lucky enough to get to spend time in Italy, Japan, Sierra Leone, France, and elsewhere that has enlarged my perspective on the world.
But when my family went to Sweden a couple of years ago, it was different. It was the first time I went to the homeland of my grandparents. These weren't other people's stories, food, and land; these were our stories, food, and land.
Well, most of us in the family, anyways. Becca was enthusiastic, but she's only a Swede by marriage. She has no memory of her grandmother serving pepparkaka or dressing up as Santa Lucia.
But now, these stories become hers because she has been brought into a people. (And vice versa - I enjoy learning about her family's participation in the Revolutionary War and eating Stack Cake, too).
This week at Grace, we're covering Romans 11:11-24. In this passage Paul explains why Gentiles can participate in the blessings of Israel - why their stories can be our stories, too. Additionally, Paul describes the blessings and warnings that both Gentiles and Israelites can be for one another.
By studying this passage together, I hope that it will help us better understand how to live in community together, and to delight in the faithfulness of God.
Look forward to seeing you Sunday at Grace!
In Christ,
Pastor Bob
11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusionmean!
13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. 15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? 16 If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. 23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
Romans 11:11-24