Man, I don't know if Hannah was reading my notes when she prayed that. She might have been. So I want to start by showing you guys a picture of a beautiful woman in my life. Her name is Lily. This is Lily. It's my daughter right there, my only girl. How many of you have daughters, just out of curiosity, alright? Keep your hand raised if you're a man and you have a daughter, okay? There is something about being a dad with a daughter that's just it can simultaneously just melt you. Little moments just melt you. And then at the same time, there's like this protective anger that you feel. Where, like I've always made the joke that the difference between being a dad of boys and a girl is I would die for my boys in a heartbeat, but I would kill for my daughter. Alright? And so just know this. We had an opportunity together. I took this picture, I'll always remember this night. She tagged along with me as I dropped my oldest off at a basketball practice, and I said, Hey, let's go get ice cream together. Let's have like a father-daughter time together. So we went uh to racetrack, because that's where she wanted to go. She said, Can we go to racetrack? And I'm like, I like the price tag on your date night idea. And so we went to racetrack and she made her own, she made her own little ice cream thing. And what that is, oh if you guys put that back up for a second, because I want to focus on the ice cream for just a moment, I apologize. Um the ice cream she picked was uh peanut butter chocolate swirl. It's a good choice, right? Reese's pieces on top of that, gummy bears, nerds, covered in chocolate syrup. And I was like, interesting, okay. And she took the first bite and then she made this face, and I was like, probably gonna have to go buy another one because of that combination, and she went, delicious, you know? It was good. So we sit down to talk, and within about 30 seconds, she just looks at me, and she's seven years old, she's in the first grade, she says, Dad, what do I do if I think a boy has a crush on me? And I was like, I don't want to have this conversation at all. This is not something I I want to talk about. And I said, Why? Explain. What's going on? You're first grader. She's like, Well, there's a boy, and I think he has a crush on me at school. And I was like, Well, how do you know? And she's like, Well, he blew a kiss at me. I'm like, what's his name? Let's have this name. What's his name? Who are his parents? She's like, What do I do? And I and now I actually said this like half-joking. I was like, oh, next time that happens, he blows the kiss. This is what you do. You should grab it. I want you to look him in the eyes. I want you to throw it on the ground. Stumble. Walk away. And you're like, oh, that poor boy, I don't care about that boy. He's not gonna marry my he's in first grade. He'll get over it. Blowing kisses to my daughter. But there was something inside of me that really, like, I don't like this. I don't want to have this conversation. Sometimes in life, when you least expect it, you find yourself having a conversation that you don't really want to have. Right? It's like I don't, I would rather talk about anything other than this. And that's kind of where we're at right now in the Bible, which is exciting. If you're new, we've been going through uh the book of Romans. And if you're if you know anything about the book of Romans, it's a letter in the New Testament written by a man named Paul. It is probably the most comprehensive, um, some would say complicated, even explanation of who Jesus is and what he does for us and what it means for us to have him in our lives, what that changes, how we live in response to that. It's it's intense stuff. And we've been going through it bit by bit, and every once in a while we kind of I liken it to scuba diving. We've got to come up for air every once in a while, talk about something else, then we dive back into Romans. And we find ourselves right now in Romans chapters 9 through 11, which is just filled with things that I don't want to talk about. I don't, these are not the things that I would choose as the topics, because they're they're really, they're kind of like landmines. In fact, the title of the series that we're in right now as we explore this is called Wait What? Like, like you might say to yourself, you read it and go, wait, what? Like that's I don't like that. I wish that wasn't in there. And it's hard because we just got done with Romans chapter 8, like a little over a month ago, and Romans chapter 8 is amazing. There's so many, there's so many scriptures in Romans 8 that people literally get like tattoos of those verses on their body. Things like Romans chapter 8, verse 18. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that He will reveal to us later. That's a great verse. That's awesome. I like talking about things like that. No matter what you're going through right now, no matter how much suffering you're experiencing, it is nothing compared to what God has for you. That's good. That's a tattoo verse. Romans 8 28. We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. I know that there are people in the room that is your favorite verse. It's a tattoo verse. You get it? I'm not saying that all of us go get tattoos, although that would be an interesting Sunday. Um got a tattoo artist in the lobby, and pick your favorite verse. It's gonna but commit, you know, it's it's it's happening today. But that's one of those verses. That's a verse. Romans 8 38. I'm convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. That's a tattoo verse. No tattoo verses in Romans chapter 9, 10. Maybe 1 at the most. It's just it's filled with a lot of like, what? For example, last week, we were in Romans 9.13, just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. And you're like, wait, what? What happened to the whole? Let's go back to Romans chapter 8. That's what this section is. And so there's part of me, just as a human being, that's like, I'd rather not talk about this stuff. This is this is hard stuff to talk about, but I'm excited that we are, I really am. And even going back to that conversation with Lily, all jokes aside, I'm so glad that my daughter wanted to talk with me about that. Because that's an important conversation. Hey dad, what do I do if I think a boy has a crush on me? I'm glad she came to me. Sometimes there's conversations that guys we need to have as Jesus followers because they're the conversations that grow up our faith. They're the conversations that help us overcome the questions that we might have, the questions that sort of linger in the back of our minds, the questions that we deal with either externally by a culture that values very different things than our faith values, or those questions that we just wrestle with as individuals. Questions like, is God really good? Is God really fair and just? Can I really trust him? Does he really have my best interest at heart? Those are questions that we wrestle with, and those are the kind of questions that give us the opportunity for our faith to grow and mature. And listen, in this room we have a ton of different people in a ton of different places in life. Watching at home right now, a lot of different people in a lot of different places in life. Some of you have been following Jesus for decades. And I'm sure that even if that's you, you still have some questions that you wrestle with. Your faith can still grow, it can still mature. If you want more of God, there is always more. Always. And some of us, maybe we were just brand new to this whole Jesus thing, or you're still figuring out whether or not this is for you. Doesn't matter where you're at. I've never met a person who said, you know, I'm thinking about being a Jesus follower, but I just want to be like one of those real shallow ones. You know? Like I want to I want to have a relationship with God, but not a very deep one. Um, I'd really like to give my life to Jesus, but just a little bit of it. Like I've never heard someone say that. I think that deep down inside, whether you've been doing this for years or you're brand new to this whole following Jesus thing, there's a desire in our hearts to say, I want to go deep. I want to know God. I I want to have a mature, strong faith that can hold up to anything. And the questions that we wrestle with because of the things talked about in Romans 9 through 11, they do that for us. So with that said, let's wrestle. Romans chapter 9, verses 13 through 24. Starting with what we ended on last week, if you weren't here last week, I encourage you to listen to it. Just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and have compassion on whom I have compassion. And some of us are like, I don't like the answer to that question. He keeps going. It does not therefore depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh, I raised you up for this very purpose. That I might display my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. Therefore, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me, Well, then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will? But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, Why did you make me like this? Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory, even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles? Again, I won't have this conversation, but I'm excited to. There's a lot of, can we just be honest for a second? There's a lot of stuff in there that kind of makes you pause. No, no one clapped, no one said woo, one time as I read that. Because it's intense. So what do we make of this? Now, last week we we looked at three things that we use, three filters that help us deal with difficult scriptures. And if you weren't here, I can sum this up for really fast. Anytime we're we're opening up our Bibles and we read something and we're like, ah, wait, what? I don't like any of that. What do we do? Well, we we look at three filters: the context of the scripture, the whole of scripture. You can't just take one thing from one spot and something else from another and develop an idea about who God really is. You've got to look at the whole of it. And then you look at the person of Jesus. Jesus is where everything becomes really clear. In fact, Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3 says that the Son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God. Jesus is the clearest picture of God we can ever have. He was not God in a good mood. He wasn't God on his best behavior for a few years. Jesus is the perfect representation of God. So if we want to know what God the Father is like, we look at Jesus. And when we encounter Scripture and ideas in Scripture that are really hard, like, ah, what is this about? We have to look at the context, the whole, and the person Jesus. So today as we discuss this, we're going to look at all of it, but I do want to remind us of the context, because most people who read this immediately start thinking about heaven and hell. They start thinking about, you know, objects of destruction, and can't God just do what he pleases and use something for this purpose and something else for another purpose? And we're like, whoa, this is talking about God choosing some people to go to heaven, to know him, to have a relationship with him, and he's choosing other people to send to hell. And that's the way a lot of people over the years have interpreted this, but but understand the context that this is talking about. We went through this a little bit last week. It's not talking at all about personal salvation. And if you're familiar with that phrase, salvation, that term, that's a phrase that in our faith means someone who has committed their life to Jesus, they've submitted their life to him, accepted the sacrifice that Jesus made for them, and in doing so, there's confidence that our sins and our shortcomings, those are all forgiven and covered by the sacrifice of Jesus, and we've been saved from any consequence of that whatsoever when it comes to our relationship with God. Most people, yeah, we can clap for that. That's that's clap, yeah, clap for salvation. All right. It's always that side of the room. You know? But this is not talking about salvation. The context here is really simple. Paul has been talking about the Jewish people as a whole. Because what's happening right now in the history of our faith, this is kind of an interesting moment to look back on in the history of our faith. Here we are 2,000 years later, billions of people worship Jesus, but at the time that Paul is writing this, it's it's early on. And for the first time ever, people are putting their faith in Jesus, but they're not they're not Jewish. In fact, at this point in history, the movement of Jesus is growing for the first time ever faster in non-Jewish communities than it was growing in Jewish communities, and this is a very odd occurrence. Because up to this point in history, anyone who had worshiped the God that Jesus told us to worship, the God that Jesus is, would have been Jewish. Almost almost exclusively, for centuries and centuries, this had been an ethnic faith. And so Jesus was the Jewish Messiah talking about the Jewish God. And if you were alive in Jesus' time and you were not Jewish, chances are you would have barely even heard about the Jewish faith. And so now for the first time, this is no longer a Jewish faith. This is it's expanding, it's going to everyone, and there's a lot of questions about that. And so the question Paul begins answering at the beginning of Romans 9, it has nothing to do with personal salvation, whether or not you know Jesus individually. He's answering this question about, well, what about the Jewish people? Does this mean that God has abandoned them? Because this faith is now spreading and expanding outside of Jerusalem, does this mean that God is leaving those people behind? Can we not trust God to keep his promises? And this takes us all the way back to Genesis chapter 12, when God called Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, to follow him. What he said, verses 1 through 3 is the Lord said to Abraham, Leave your native country, your relatives, your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make you famous, and you'll be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the families on the earth will be blessed through you. That initial promise to Abraham was not just for one group of people, it was for everybody. And so, Paul, he's he's addressing this. And he's talking about the fact that the Jewish people up to this point in history had played this incredible role. That they got to be the ones that God revealed himself to, and he used this nation, he grew this nation ultimately to show the world who he was, to show his power, but also to show his love and his grace and his mercy, and ultimately to bring Jesus into the world to bless all the families of the earth. But but for some, this would have been a real issue because it just didn't seem right to them. It didn't seem right that all these people who had never put their faith in God for generation upon generation upon generation, many of whom had actually been like the enemies of the Jewish people, now of a sudden salvation and following Jesus is open to them too. Is this is this this doesn't seem fair. And so Paul begins to address this. He begins to talk about it. And in doing so, he just happens to write down this particular phrase that people who have followed Jesus for 2,000 plus years have struggled with mightily. He references this idea of God hardening hearts. That God hardens the hearts of some, he says. And people go, ah, I don't like I don't like that. What is that all about? That's the question that I want us to ultimately answer today. Understanding again that this is not specifically talking about salvation. This is talking about God's purposes and history, the way God is doing things on the earth, what God is up to. But it says it, it's really clear that He He hardens the heart. So I want us to leave today. The hope is that we can all have peace and understand what that means? Does God harden the hearts of people? Is that some random thing that he does? As you go like iny meeny miny harden. Uh is that how this works? Is he gonna harden my heart? What does that mean? And all of this helps us speak to the character of our God. It's vital that we understand as best as we can the God whom we follow. We need to know what he's like, what he values, who is he? And these are really important things and ideas to tackle to help us with that. So here's where I want to start. I want to kind of work backwards because Paul uses this example early on of, or right after he mentions the whole hardening art, of a potter and clay. How many of you here are experienced in pottery making? I would love to just see this. Maybe we can start a class, pottery making. Fred, I know Fred raised his hand. Fred, you're all by yourself. You're the only potter in the room. There's another. Oh, hey, you guys. Potter, pottery group, his hands pottery. His hands, oh, it works! His his hand his handmade pottery, I don't know. Um when he says this, he's referencing uh a scripture that the Jewish people of his time would have been very familiar with. It's Jeremiah chapter 18. Verses 1 through 4. It says, The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, Arise and go down to the potter's house. And there I will announce my words to you. So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter, so he remade it into another vessel as it pleased the potter to make. That phrase at the end, as it pleased the potter to make. This idea of God hardening hearts and God having a purpose and a plan for the world, and actually what Paul's referencing is this thing that throughout history God has sort of raised up certain people, even certain nations, to accomplish his purposes, and at other times he has used other nations, other groups of people as like an obstacle, and like, okay, if you're gonna be an obstacle, here's how that's gonna go. And Paul's basically making this really strong statement that does not God have the right to do that? It's vital for us, we're gonna move from God's rights to God's nature. But it's really important if we're gonna be people who follow God that we understand who he is and what he has the right to do. This is an idea called sovereignty. God is sovereign, God has total authority, total rulership. In other words, God can do what God wants to do. He has that right. We live in a nation of rights, and we as people are often very comfortable talking about our rights. Like, that's that's not okay because I have a right to do that. But it's not very often that we think about God's rights. Like, what does God have the right to do? Because I have four children, I spent a lot of time at home with them and engaged in very interesting situations that ultimately don't amount to much but but are big deals at the time. You know, like injustices happen all around me at home. Yesterday, one of my children had the audacity to play a video game that one of my other children had been playing, and that child got to another level in the video game. And when the other child found out that they had gotten to the other level, they lost their minds because they wanted to get to the other level. And an injustice had been done, a grave injustice that I had to reconcile by shutting off the game for everybody. Like, we're not gonna fight about video games. So I have these moments where something silly will happen in my home, but God will use it to go, oh, that helped that helped me make sense of something in my faith. Deep theological ideas connected to silly moments with my children. So, about a year ago, my third child Judah was building a Lego tower in our living room. And he was, you could tell he was proud of it. Like it was getting really tall, and he's building it up, and I'm I'm sitting on the couch and I'm watching, and he's like, Dad, you see this? And I'm like, dude, that's awesome. And then my youngest, Eli, came in the room and just destroyed it totally on purpose. He just walks up and is like, Whoa, bam! And it's gone, and Judah's losing his mind, and I'm like, Eli, you can't do that. Judah was building that Lego tower and you destroyed it. And no, don't do that. And Judah, it's okay, why don't you rebuild it? And Judah's like, I don't want to rebuild it. And I'm like, you do whatever you want, but I'm sorry this happened. Let's just let's move on. So Judah finally settles down, he starts to rebuild the Lego Tower, and he gets it right back to where it was. And he's like, Dad, cool, huh? I'm like, oh Judah, you've done it. I'm so proud of you, you built it back. He's like, I know. And then he destroyed it on purpose. But you know what's interesting is when he destroyed it, it was fine. Why? Because he built it. It was his Lego tower. He had the right to destroy the Lego tower that he built. Eli did not have that right because Eli didn't build it. Even though the same result happened, the destruction of the tower. When Judah did it, it was totally fine because that was his. When Eli did it, it was not. It's an issue of authority, of sovereignty. We have to understand that God is over all. The whole world is his Lego tower. You might say that. The entire earth, everything on it, every person, every nation, it is, it is all God's. There is nothing that he does not have the right to do. And Paul is not saying that God is a three-year-old who destroys Lego towers for the heck of it. He is not saying that God is a five-year-old who builds Lego towers just to watch them fall. But he is, he's trying to get us to understand something vital. And it's something that many Jesus followers just don't like to think about or aren't at peace with, but we have to be that God has the right to do whatever he wants to do. So if God were, this is what Paul's. Saying. He actually uses the phrase, what if? And it's important to understand that that's a question. Like, hey, what if God just decided, hey, you know what? I'm going to raise this one up so I can tear it down and display my glory. Would that be wrong? And from our perspective, maybe, but no. Because God is God. And he has the right to do whatever he wants to do. Now, at some level, at some level, and look, if you're new to his hands, like this is kind of intense. I don't know a church that talks as much about the love of God and the forgiveness of God and the grace of God as much as our church. That is our focus. That is who God is. In fact, 1 John 4.8 says, God is love. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. Paul is not saying that God is tyrannical, that he loves to destroy things. What Paul is helping us understand is we have to accept at a base level that God is over all and he can do whatever he wants to do. Amen. So then the question becomes, well then what does he want to do? If God has the right to do anything, if God can do whatever he wants, just as it says with that potter and clay, whatever pleases the potter, if God can do whatever he wants, because he's over all, then it would be very important for us as his followers to have some type of understanding of, well, then what does he want to do? If he can do whatever he wants, what does he want? Well, thankfully we see so often in scripture his heart, what he desires, what he wants. 2 Peter 3:9. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. He wants everyone to know him. He wants everyone to experience his love and his grace and his mercy. That's his desire. Ephesians 1, 4 through 5, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do. And it gave him great pleasure. When Eli destroyed his older brother's Lego Tower, it gave him great pleasure. He enjoyed it. I watched it. He was evil. It was very evil. He needs Jesus. That's why we bring him every Sunday. It's going to take. It gave him pleasure. What does it say here? What does God get pleasure from? Destruction? No. Salvation. Forgiveness. Before he even made the world, God decided I'm going to do something spectacular to display my love for people. That's what he wants to do. Now, he's God, he's sovereign, he's the potter. He can do whatever he wants, and we've got to be okay with that. But we also have to be familiar with what he actually wants. And what he wants is for every person to know him and to experience the love that he has. Now, working backwards, we go, well, then what about Pharaoh? Like, if that's the case, what about this whole thing he hardened Pharaoh's heart so that his purpose is, like, I help, let's figure this out. This is very nuanced. Okay, what this is doing is taking us back to a story in the Old Testament. Many of you are familiar with this story. It's the story of Moses and the people of Israel, and they escaped slavery in Egypt. It's a classic Bible story. And there's a character in the story, Pharaoh, who's the king of the Egyptian people. And the way the story goes is God raises up Moses and says, Hey, Moses, go to Pharaoh, tell them to let my people go. And then a bunch of stuff happens, and things are falling from the sky, and there's like frogs and blood rivers, and it's crazy and it's insane. And then finally Pharaoh relents and lets the people go, and they go into the water, you know, the sea splits. You guys know the story? The Red Sea splits. By the way, one of my favorite stories, I had someone make fun of me not that long ago because I don't like swimming in the ocean. And I made sure that they understood that nothing good ever happens in the ocean. And in the Bible, no one swims. Ever. Not really. Moses is put on a basket, God parts the Red Sea, Jesus walks on top of the water because nothing good happens in water. So that story helps me with that. Okay? Just important to remember. And so the people of Israel, they escape, right? And in Egypt at the time, Egypt is the most powerful nation in the world. And they're slaves, empowered by a miracle-working God, just like we sang this morning, a God who does miracles. They escape and God is glorified, and everyone takes notice that wow, those people have a God that subdued the Egyptians. And that's the story that it's referencing. And when we first get into this story, Exodus chapter 3, verse 19. This is God speaking to Moses, telling Moses, you're going to go talk to Pharaoh, but listen to what he says. He says, But I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go except under compulsion. He says, I know that when you say, Let my people go, he's not going to go for it. That's the first moment we have of God talking about Pharaoh. Now you've got to understand a little bit of backstory. The kings of ancient cultures were not good people. If you want to study the most atrocious things ever done in the history of the world, just study the behaviors of ancient kings. And even modern-day people who have the power of kings doesn't tend to go well. The pharaohs of Egypt were horrific. Number one, they would have been raised to believe that they were themselves God. They demanded to be worshipped. Moses, in his own generation, Moses is a unique person in his culture because he's a survivor of a genocide that took place, where Pharaoh, and either it was this Pharaoh, but many scholars would say it was the Pharaoh that preceded this particular Pharaoh, realized that the Israelites were just growing too big in number. And if they kept growing at the rate they were growing, they were maybe going to be a threat to the people of Egypt. So he ordered that all of the Israelite boys under a certain age be thrown into the Nile River and killed. And an entire generation was wiped out. Moses was rescued by his mother from that fate. That's who the pharaohs are. Ancient kings were not good people. And if you read the Old Testament, what you find is that God often has a very interesting relationship with the kings of old, with these horrific people who do horrific things. And it might surprise you. Because he's unusually tolerant of them. For example, there's a king of Israel named Ahab, and Ahab is he's the worst. He's terrible. He has many of the most passionate followers of God, prophets, slaughtered and killed. He marries a woman named Jezebel, and Jezebel really has a lot of influence over Ahab and gets Ahab to start worshiping false gods, foreign gods from her culture, it just becomes a big mess. Ahab does unspeakable things, but then there's a moment where Ahab actually repents. We see this in 1 Kings chapter 21. It says, when Ahab heard these words, these are words of judgment. It says he tore his clothes and he put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about absolutely dejected. Okay, this is an expression that they had in their culture when you were really, really torn up. You would display it. You would let people know. Sometimes they put ashes on their head and do things like this to be like, I'm in torment. Okay, so this is what he does. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he's humbled himself before me, I will not bring disaster in his days. But in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house. In other words, what God is doing here is he's saying, I'm, you know, I'm gonna delay this pronouncement of judgment I've given against Ahab because he's repented. Because he's softened his heart toward me. I'm gonna hold back. And if you know the story of Ahab, you'd read that being like, no, no, no, that's not right. Take him down. There's a city, and of a city-state called Nineveh in ancient times, a really horrible place. And God calls a man named Jonah, a prophet, to go to Nineveh and deliver a pronouncement of judgment. Like, hey, y'all, what you do is bad. It's really bad. God doesn't like it, and he's about to bring it all down. And Jonah hates the people of Nineveh, so he's like, I don't want to go. And so he gets on a boat and he gets thrown in the ocean. Again, nothing good ever happens in the water in the Bible. The second he's in the ocean, swallowed by fish, it's terrible. I'm not getting in there. So he ends up going, and finally, under compulsion, he delivers the news to the king of Nineveh. Hey, things are about to go down. Jonah chapter 3, verse 6. When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, and again, understand, this is a wicked, wicked person who does terrible things. When he heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and he took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. And then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city. No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps yet even God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us. And God completely relents. And Nineveh is spared. And Jonah is ticked off about it. He was like, No, God, I was looking forward to you destroying them. I didn't want them to repent. That's the heart of a person, but the heart of God is I'm so excited that they soften their hearts. Because my heart for them is not destruction. Again, this king would have been just a horrific person. If you study the ancient scriptures, the Old Testament, I mean, you'll find time and time again there are these kings. The story of Nebuchadnezzar comes to mind. All these ancient kings who did horrible things, fought against God, and yet in just brief moments of repentance, brief moments of humility, God just goes, Oh, okay, we're good. That's his nature. So let's go again to Pharaoh. Because it doesn't seem like Pharaoh gets the same chance. Now that that phrase harden the heart, that doesn't show up in Exodus chapter 3, the first time God talks to Moses about Pharaoh. It shows up for the first time actually in Exodus chapter 7, verse 3. He says, I will harden Pharaoh's heart so that I may multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But if you read on in Romans chapter 8, for example, it says, When Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not listen to them just as the Lord had said. In fact, it's interesting, there's multiple times in the story of Exodus where it talks about Pharaoh's heart being hardened. Every bit as often as it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. So which is it? And there's an idea, and this is a really fun theological term, called judicial hardening. And here's the idea behind it is that when something hardens, all that happens is it solidifies in the position that it's in. Think about that for a second. Think about something like concrete. When concrete hardens, it just solidifies in the position that it's already in. And so this idea of judicial hardening, it's not that God takes someone who's like, I love you, Lord, and I just want to do good for people. And he's like, Yeah, it'd be better for me if you were a bad guy. So I'm gonna harden you, and I'm just gonna destroy you, because that's gonna make me look great. Alright? It's not like there's someone who's walking around who has a soft heart to God and is humble and is willing to admit that they have mistakes, and God's like, mmm, hardened. It's just the way it worked out. Sorry, luck of the draw. No, no, when something hardens, it solidifies in the position that it's in. And we see from Pharaoh's behavior that he he multiple times hardened his own heart to God. He's prideful. He views himself as equal to God. And so, what does God do? This idea of judicial hardening, in other words, it's fair, it's just, is God simply allows that heart to solidify in the position that it's in, that it's decided to be in. Pharaoh hardened his heart toward God every bit as much as God hardened his heart. We see an example of this in Romans chapter 1. We actually read this several months ago. Paul's writing about people who abandoned God. He says, yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused, claiming to be wise. They instead became utter fools, and instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. Some translations say God abandoned them to their sin. Here's the idea, same thing. These people had made decisions, choices, time and time and time again, and often with many, many warnings from God. Please turn from your ways, please don't do this, please stop. And they say, no, we've set in our hearts that we are going to do this, we are going to defy you. And there comes a point where what it basically says is God says, find men. And he allows that position to solidify. He was not a soft-hearted man who sought after the Lord, and God just said, ah, you know what, arbitrarily, I don't like you anymore. Hardened. He was a man who time and time again had hardened his own heart to God. Had decided, I will oppose you. I will stand in the way of your people. And there came a point where God said, Okay then. And he allowed that position in Pharaoh's heart to solidify. So what do we do with that? Okay, because again, this is heavy stuff, and I'm talking about this because it's in there. And we're going through this. And I make you guys this promise. If this is your church, we're gonna open up God's word, we're gonna grow, we're gonna understand it as best as we can. We're not gonna skip the hard stuff. What does this mean to us as individuals? And there's a few big takeaways. Number one, it is a serious, serious thing to allow your heart to harden. And this can be in any sphere of life. Our hearts can harden toward other people, toward other groups of people. In fact, one of the biggest phenomenons happening in our country right now is that in terms of politics, people are becoming more and more convinced that the people who think differently than them are not just wrong, but are pure evil. And it applies to both sides. That's what you see happening, is a hardening of hearts toward other people who disagree. And if you disagree with me, it means that you're the enemy. And maybe that's true, but it's no way to move forward. It's not going to lead to peace, that's for sure. It's a hardening that takes place. And there's many who benefit and profit off that hardening. So we have to be really careful there. Think about your own relationships. All of us, I'm sure, have an example in our own lives of someone who has harmed us, caused us grief, frustrated us, and at some point in time we just allowed our hearts to harden toward them. We became bitter, we shut off, we became cold. Now, maybe it was maybe it was a really big trauma that they caused. Maybe in many ways it was justified. But the question that we should ask ourselves is was that good for us? Was it of benefit for us to become hardened? And almost without fail, we we find that no. No, because when you when you become hardened, you have a tendency to stay that way. In fact, it's it's very difficult to find someone who's like a selectively hardened person. Like they're really hard-hearted in this one area of life, but in every area of life, apart from that, they're really soft-hearted and joyful and loving. When you allow your heart to become hard, it affects every part of your life. And it's vital for us as people that when it comes to the relationships that we have in our lives, that we do not allow our hearts to grow hard. Jesus actually, in Matthew chapter 24, he's talking about a uh, it's kind of oftentimes connected with the idea of the end times, but it's it's pretty complicated. Matthew 24, he says, of this time period he's describing, sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. When your love grows cold, your heart grows hard. And so I would encourage you this morning, on a really, really practical personal level, to spend a moment and ask yourself the question: Is there anyone that I know whom I've allowed my heart to grow cold toward, to grow hard, because my love has grown cold? Is there anyone who has wronged me, harmed me, offended me, upset me, or made my life difficult? And I'm all that can be true. Think about the people that made Jesus' life really difficult. Luke chapter 23, verse 34. Jesus, hanging on the cross, said, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. Church, if we could be people who pray that about the people in our lives on a daily basis, the joy that we would feel from a soft heart, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. Jesus said that of people who nailed him to a cross. He didn't let his love grow cold. It's vital for us as people, for our own benefit, to not allow our hearts to become hardened and our love to grow cold toward the people in our lives. And so right now, if there's one person that comes to your mind and you can say, you know what, yeah, I'm I'm cold. I'm hard. This person, what they've done, it's it's messed my life up in so many ways that I'm hardened toward them. That might be true, but your heart can't be hard because that will affect every other area of your life. You're not meant to live that way. So what do you do with that? Does it mean you have to go completely and totally restore them in a relationship with you and be their best friend? No. But you have to forgive. You have to forgive. For your own benefit, for your own good. Forgive them. For they don't know what they're doing. Not really. If Jesus could pray that, of those people, surely we can pray that of the people who have affected us in our lives. So on a personal level, we can't become hard-hearted people and let our love grow cold for others. It's a serious business. It's really serious business when it comes to God, and this is where it gets really real. Because it is very possible for us as people to have a heart that becomes hard toward God. Why? Because sometimes God disappoints us. Sometimes doesn't do what we ask Him to. Sometimes we've prayed for things, we've asked God to do things, and it didn't happen. Or something tragic, traumatic has happened to us, and we think to ourselves, God, why did you allow that to happen? Why did you let that happen? Those are normal questions. Those are normal questions. But but we have to be very careful. Because one of the things we we see from Scripture, Paul mentions it here, that we're the clay, he's the potter. We don't know. We don't know. It gets complicated and messy in life. You know, I I love my family very much. I'm uh love my my mom, my dad, and my brothers, my sister. I I love everybody in my family. My family is an interesting family. You know, my dad was married once before he was married to my mom. And they went through a a divorce. And then he met my mom and they got married, and then I was born. And so, like, I don't think it was a good thing that my dad got divorced from his first wife, and I know my older brother and sister would say that that's not what they wanted to happen when they were young children. And yet at the same time, I wouldn't even exist if that didn't happen. It's complicated, right? We have to understand that we live in a world where we often think we know what's best, and we think we know what the right thing to do would be, and we think we we have it all figured out. We we often advise God. How many of us have prayed, saying, God, I have your plan. I know what you should do. Lord, just listen to me and put my plan into action, and everything will work out. And very often we might find God going, like, hey, I hear you, I get your plan. It's not the best plan. And we don't like that. So God, hear me, God does not wrong us. He's God. If God decides to do something, it's the right thing to do. And sometimes we just have to have that humility as people to go, He's God, I'm not, his ways are greater than my ways, his thoughts are greater than my thoughts, and I have to step back and trust him. But God can disappoint us because sometimes our expectations of God might be misplaced. In really understandable ways. And so, what happens when we experience things and we have a tendency sometimes to be like, God, you really let me down on that one? Over time, that can that can harden, that can solidify. Very often I find that people will be angry with God for something that a person did to them. You know, someone harms you in a in a way and and you're mad at God about it. I I get that. Sometimes God's like the punching bag. Like everyone else does that. He's like, I haven't done anything. I didn't do anything to you. I love you, I created you. You're mad at me. But he's so patient with us that he doesn't respond that way. I think sometimes this really happens in the context of church. Like all of us, we're family, we're united. By Jesus and his love for us. We're also people. And I promise that if you I would if you're new and you decide this is my church, you will meet some amazing, incredible people. And none of them are perfect. So one day someone who's a part of your church family they might just hold on for a second. They might post something on social media that you don't like that might happen. And sometimes whenever we experience pain in the context of church, it can harden us really bad. Because we'll associate all of that with God. Oh well then I I can't become a part of that anymore. Don't let that happen. Don't let your heart become hardened toward God because of something that another human being who flawed just like you are has done. Don't let that happen. Sometimes what hardens our heart toward God is just pure disobedience. Sometimes we we walk in and live in ways that aren't good, that aren't what God wants, but we do it for so long, we do it intentionally and eventually it just sort of solidifies, and we're kind of living in constant disobedience to God in some part of our life and we know it. But we don't change and that can that can become a hard heart situation with God, and that's not good. What the scripture should teach us is that it is a very serious thing to allow your heart to become hard for God. You're for a soft heart. Psalm 139, 23 through 24. I don't I don't care if you're in your seventies, eighties, some of you guys in your teens, early twenties. This becomes a prayer that you pray on a regular basis. You just watch what God's gonna do in your life. This is the prayer that David prayed. Psalm 139. He said, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life. You can sum this up by saying, God, soften my heart. Soften my heart, God, know my heart, test me, know my anxious thoughts, point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life. If that's something you pray and desire is a soft heart, Lord, humble me. Lord, soften my heart so that I can respond to you. Oh guys, the things that God will do. Can you imagine how God the Father would just light up when someone prays that? Like basically, hey God, I'm yours. Use me however you'd like to, lead me however you'd like to. I will soften my heart toward you, God. He will show you things, he will do things in your life if that is the status of your heart that you can't imagine. Because he is the potter and you are the clay, and he has a dream for who you're meant to be, and he wants to shape you into the person that you were intended to be from the very beginning, so just don't fight him. Don't fight him. The question does God harden hearts? The answer has to be sometimes. At the very least, yes. But it's not it's not arbitrary, he doesn't harden the hearts of those who who haven't hardened their hearts towards him. And even then, and guys, this is where it gets really good, even then, while he may be a God who allows a hard heart to stay hard, who he is ultimately is the God who softens hearts. And this is where it comes full circle as we wrap up. I mentioned earlier that there are certain verses that are like tattoo verses. Um people just love them so much that they're willing to put it on their body, and Romans chapter 8 has a bunch of those. Not many people have Romans 9. You know, oh what's what's that on your arm? Oh, God uh hardened the heart of Pharaoh. You know, if you got that one, it should be on your heart. But actually, no, don't do that. That'd be never mind. Point is, there's those verses that are like tattoo verses. Now, I would be weird if I like unveiled a tattoo right now. I'm not going so I don't have any tattoos. I am not cool enough to have a tattoo. It is, it is just, it is true. There was a season in my life where maybe in that season, had I got one, you could have been like, yeah, Justin can pull that off. That that time has passed. That is over with, it is gone. I don't have any tattoos. But for a brief, brief period, in my early 20s, I almost got one. Now, thank goodness in many ways for my wife Megan. Because when I was in my maybe I'll get a tattoo stage, um, she made me make her a promise. She said, You can get a tattoo. The rule is you have to sit on it for a year. If you decide to get a tattoo, wait a year. Because I have to look at it for my whole life. And so you're not gonna get one until you've thought about it for a year, right? So that just now I never had one that a year later. I was like, I don't want that. And the season passed. But in that time, okay, I had a uh a friend of mine, actually Megan's sister Brittany, draw one for me. She's an incredible artist, and it came from a scripture. And this is the this is the picture of the tattoo that I thought about getting for a minute, okay? It was gonna be my whole back. No, I'm just joking. It could have been like a chest tattoo, but if you get a chest tattoo as a guy, you gotta like lift weights pretty intensely to pull that off, and I just wasn't committed enough to that. But this picture is it's from a scripture that I read in my early 20s and it leapt off the page. And if you've ever had like a life verse, this is the the verse that God would just like speak to you through. In fact, Doug, Doug Benell, you were talking, we were talking about life verses a few weeks ago, and this was the one that I picked because this is the one. It's Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 26 and 27. Listen to God, this is God's heart. We said earlier he can do whatever he wants to do because he's God, he's the potter, we're the clay, he can do what he wants, but what does he want to do? This is what he wants to do. I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart, and I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. Go back to this image. So I uh I had her draw this up, and I told her, it's garbage. Start over. This is terrible. No, it's beautiful. Very often in scripture, the Holy Spirit is uh, well, the story of Jesus when he's baptized, the Holy Spirit's depicted as a dove, and so she chose uh to use that. And there's a little bit of fire above the head of the bird, and that comes from another story when the spirit of of God came upon the early followers of Jesus and they began to speak to all the people of different languages. There was fire in that story. But you can see that that spirit is breathing onto this hard, stony heart. And where that breath is touching the stone, it's breaking away, and what's what's left is a very tender, responsive heart that can receive from God. When I read this verse, because of disobedience in my life toward God, I felt that my heart had become hard in some areas. And I felt like a failure. And when I read that, I was reminded that my God has promised that he will soften my heart, that he will take out my stony, stubborn heart and give me a tender, responsive heart. That's a promise that he makes all of us. And so when we read scriptures like Romans 9, it says, Oh, God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Oh, is God gonna do that to me? Well, don't give him a reason to. I would say that. He's God. Don't don't like, don't test him. But what is his heart for you? Is it to harden you so that you become some instrument of destruction? No. What is his heart for you? His heart is so clear. He wants to give you a soft, tender heart that can receive everything that he speaks to you, that he can pour into, and you can just you can take all of it in, everything he has for you, every single word, every single promise, every single desire that he has for your life. He wants to give you a heart that can receive all of that. He actually wants to put his spirit inside of you so that you can actually be the person that you're meant to be, so that you're equipped to do the things that he's called you to do. That is his desire for you. Is he the God who hardens hearts? Sometimes, maybe when it's justified, but more than that, he is the God who softens hearts. He is the God who replaces stony, stubborn hearts with tender, responsive hearts. He is the God who puts his spirit inside of us, who breathes into us, who gives us all that we need to live the life that he's called us to live. That's who he is. He can do whatever he wants because he's God, but what he wants to do is soften your heart and give you his spirit. That is who he is. That's who that's what he wants to do. So the question is, will we be people who let him do what he wants to do? Go back to that story of Pharaoh for a moment. What do you think pleased God more? Having to destroy Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn't listen to it. Or the king of Nineveh going, I repent. You think God wouldn't have been delighted for Pharaoh to say, Oh, I repent. God, I'm sorry for what I've done here. Absolutely, but God knows us, and he just knew. He told, he told, you know, he told Moses, He's just not gonna do that. Pharaoh's not gonna do that. Why? Pharaoh's hardened his heart against me, he's not gonna go for it. So this is how it's gonna have to go down. Now, the cool thing is none of you in this room are Pharaoh. But even if you were, God promises that he can soften your heart, that he can replace it. Are we going to be people committed to having soft hearts? Are we gonna be people committed to making sure that our love never grows cold, that we don't allow ourselves to be hardened toward God or hardened toward anyone else? That is a tough commitment to make, but it's vital. And I'm gonna say this and we're gonna take the Lord's Supper together and wrap up. A hard heart can be a tough thing to work through. And it's not something that we just flip a switch and go, oh, I came into church hard and I left soft. That's not how it works. That's not how it goes. Like we don't just go, oh, yeah, totally, it's it's all fixed. It's it's something that requires prayer. It's something you have to work through. It's sometimes it can be kind of a painful process. Guys, it's one of the reasons we have a prayer team. It's one of the reasons every Sunday, if you want, you can stick around as long as you need, and someone will come alongside you, pray with you, pray over you, that God will do whatever you need done in your life. And if today you know that your heart has hardened, even in one area toward one person, stay here. Stay in this room and pray if you want. In fact, worship team, if you guys can just play for a little while, that gives people some time to do that. Or go to the prayer room. Better yet, come alongside one and say, Hey, you know what? My heart has hardened toward my spouse, toward my parents, toward a child of mine, toward God. And I want it to change. And I'm telling you that if you pray, if you pray, God soften my heart. God, give me that tender, responsive heart that you promise. God, search my heart and point out anything that offends you and lead me. If you pray that, the Lord is not going to turn his back on you. He's not gonna say, I'm sorry, I just I like you better with a hard heart. It serves my purpose. It's not his, that's not who he is. So some of us today, we need to stick around and do some business with the Lord. So that we leave this place with a heart that is tender, that is receptive, and responsive. So, with that in mind, we're gonna take Lord's Supper. Because, guys, all of this, all of this happens in and through Jesus. You want to talk about a person who could have allowed his heart to heart toward humanity? Look no further than Jesus. All he did was serve people, all he did was love people. And yet, time and time again, he was rejected, he was demonized, lied about, betrayed. You want to talk about someone who could have allowed his heart to grow hard, even toward God the Father. After all that Jesus did, after being perfectly obedient to God, his life ends nailed to a cross, suffering. How easy would it have been for Jesus in that moment to say, God, I I turned my back on you? Jesus didn't do that. He never let his love grow cold. When we have this little meal together, we spend time connected to him, reminded of what he's done for us. And it also reminds us of what we can do, of who we can be. Because, you know, the same night that he broke bread and did this with the disciples is the same night that he washed the disciples' feet. And he said, Do what I have done, follow my example. When we take this in, we're reminded that a relationship with Jesus should be something that ever softens our hearts, that when we spend time connected to him, that it keeps us from allowing our love to grow cold and our hearts to grow hard. So pray with this bread. Father, thank you for what you've done for us. Jesus, thank you for the love that you've given us. Thank you that you're a God who doesn't allow your heart to grow hard toward us, you don't let your love to grow cold toward us, even though we give you good reason. You love us unendingly, passionately, such that you gave everything for us, and that's what this bread represents. You gave your body, you let it be broken for our behalf. So as we take this in, Lord, we humble ourselves, we soften our hearts, and we ask that you would use everything that you do for us, everything you've spoken to us through your word to make us people with hearts ready to respond and receive from you. Let's take the bread. Pray for the juice. Lord, this juice represents your blood that was spilled for us on the cross. God, we know that that was painful for you, but it was necessary for us. Father, we know that forgiveness, which your blood represents, grace, letting things go, letting hurts, sins, offenses, letting all of those things go is hard for us. It's painful, just like it was painful for you to shed your blood. But God give us the strength to endure the pain that it takes to forgive and to let go, so that our hearts do not grow hard, so that we're tender and responsive. That can only happen through what you give us, Lord. So as we take this in, we're reminded of that, and we love you and appreciate you. Let's take the juice.