Connect Which of the three ‘gifts’ from Romans 8 is helping you most right now to live with patient hope?
Warm-Up
- If God’s promises could fail, what would that mean for our confidence in him today?
Read Romans 9:1-5 (Truth through Tears)
- How does Paul’s sorrowful heart towards his people move or challenge you?
- Who are one or two persons whose salvation you long to pray for? (May pray with group together).
- What are had God given Israel? Why were these privileges not the same as saving faith?
Read Romans 9:6-13 (God’s Promise Has Not Failed)
- What promises have God made to Abraham and his offspring? (cf. Gen. 12:3; 22:18; Gal. 3:16).
- What strikes you when Paul says, “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel”?
- What does God want us to understand about his purpose in election? What does it depend on, and what does it not depend on? (cf. Rom. 9:11-12)
- If salvation has always depended upon God’s call. How should this humble or encourage us?
Read Romans 9:14-23 (God’s Sovereign Mercy is Not Unjust)
- Why do you think people may object that “God is unjust”? (Rom. 9:14) What logic are they drawing?
- What do God’s dealings with Moses and Pharaoh teach us about his mercy, judgement, sovereignty?
- How does the ‘potter-clay’ picture humble us while still allowing us to ask genuine questions to God?
- What do verses 22-23 show us about God’s riches of his glory toward the object of his object? How does this change the way we think about God’s mercy toward us?
Read Romans 9:24-33 (God Calls All to Trust in Christ)
- While not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, who is God calling to be his people?
- Why did Gentiles obtain righteousness while many in Israel did not? What is the crucial difference between faith and works?
- Jesus is the stone over which some stumble, yet the one who trusts in him “will never be put to shame.” What two responses to Jesus does Paul place before us?
Apply Romans 9 ends not simply with a puzzle to solve, but a person to trust. Where are you tempted to rely on your heritage, morality, church involvement, or your own effort rather than Christ, and what would it mean for you to trust Christ instead?
