Is There Unrighteousness with God? May It Never Be!

This passage deals with the apostle Paul praying earnestly for the salvation of his fellow Jews, and with the tension between God's choosing and human responsibility. Paul grieves that the people of Israel rejected the Messiah despite receiving remarkable privileges such as adoption, the glory and the covenants, and he pleads for their salvation, for which he would trade even his own life. Going beyond mere love for his own people, this raises an important question about how God's plan and human response intersect.

The sermon clearly distinguishes the relationship between God's absolute sovereignty, human nature and grace. Through the examples of Esau and Jacob, it shows that God's choosing rests on his will rather than on human deeds, and it explains the power of God's grace to lead people to repentance even though all humans are evil by nature. It also points out that even an evil instrument like Pharaoh is used to display God's power and proclaim his name, and it sheds light on how human hardness of heart should be understood within the context of God's patience and judgment.

Finally, through the idea of the 'remnant,' the sermon leads believers to reflect on where they stand now. It stresses the reality that even among the many people inside the church, some survive with true faith and some do not. Reminding us that God patiently kept a seed to the end for salvation, not for judgment, it leads the reader to think deeply about whether they are truly surviving faithfully as a 'remnant' who has received God's mercy, and how that choice shapes their daily life and life of faith.