Just like Israel, we sometimes think it is our righteousness that saves us.  Only the righteousness of Christ, attained through faith, can do that work.

The question is, how can God blame us, when it He is the One who made us and no one can resist His will?  The answer feels like a hard slap – Who do you think you are to question God.  He’s the Potter and you’re just a pot!  The reality is we do resist His will, and we do it to our own harm.

We enter into the difficult area of God’s sovereign election, and how wrong it sometimes looks from the human perspective.  But God’s Word has not failed, and His gift is gracious.

We see Paul’s deep desire to see his people come to Christ.  We should desire that drive for ourselves.

The next 3 chapters stand apart and deal with the question of how the Jews fit into God’s plan with the Church.  We will go through these chapters the same way we’ve gone through the rest of Romans, but this message will be an introductory overview.

Robert McDowall Mission Report and Sermon

God loves us deeply.  Deep faith recognizes this is true.

It’s not that we don’t have an enemy.  It’s that the enemy doesn’t measure up to the heroes watching out for us.

This passage is a paragraph about the confidence we have in God’s blessings.  We know that all things work together for good to us, because He has already glorified us.

Some of our most important, most urgent prayers are beyond our ability to express.  The Holy Spirit does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.