CCC Livestream - It's All About The Gospel - Romans 11:11-24
Live Worship Gathering: 10/4/2025
Preaching: Jason Purdy
Did They Stumble In Order That They Might Fall?
Jason Purdy
It’s All About The Gospel / Romans 11:11–24
I invite you to take your copy of God’s word and open to Romans 11.
Children, I hope you picked up an activity sheet to help you follow along as well.
As someone who is whole heartedly committed to preaching the whole counsel of God through books of the Bible, I sometimes wonder if there is anyone listening who is tempted to think, “Well, what is this going to have to do with me and my life?”
And that is a legitimate question, because we all come in on a Sunday morning with concerns for our families, our finances, our health, our spiritual lives, and on and on we can go.
And some pastors have decided to lean into that by grabbing a verse here and a verse there and packaging them under messages like four ways to have a happy family, or three ways to have confidence in your finances, and in all honesty, I want you to have happy families and confidence in your finances.
But here’s the thing: God created you and knows infinitely more about you and what you need than I do.
And God said that His word is living and active and sharper than a two edged sword.
And God said that His word is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, which we can then apply to our families and finances and every other area of life.
So, when I am getting ready to preach to you another sermon about how many Jews rejected the gospel and many more Gentiles received the gospel and what the future for Israel is:
I’m not doing it because I’m just a history nerd and I want you to be able to win political debates about Israel.
I’m doing it because I believe that your Creator God speaks to you right in the middle of your situation through His word, and He leads you by His word to worship him in all things, and it is the worship of God in all things that leads us to a life path of humble and confident strength and wisdom in every area of life including parenting, finances, and every other area.
Since the beginning of Romans 9, Paul has been answering the main challenge to the gospel the early Roman church was facing: if the gospel of Jesus Christ is true, why are the vast majority of ethnic Israel - the Jews - God’s chosen people - rejecting the message? And why is it the pagan background Gentiles are more readily accepting the gospel?
So, Paul has explained in chapter 9 how his plan was always to save a remnant from Israel, not every single Israelite.
And he went on to show in chapter 10 how though the gospel had been preached to the Jews, most have rejected it because of their disobedient and contrary hearts.
Then, in chapter 11:1-10, Paul answered the question, “Has God rejected His people?” Meaning his chosen people - the Jews.
And the answer is: By no means!
For the writer, Paul, the remnant of believing Jews, and even the rest of the Jewish people who refuse to believe are all evidence that God has not rejected his people, because they are doing exactly what God said in the Old Testament that they would do.
But, now we come to the question of why?
Why would God sovereignly plan for the majority of Jews to be hardened and to stumble over the rock that is Christ?
That’s the natural question I am asking.
Is God’s desire for his chosen Old Testament people to ultimately fall? By no means!
Would you follow along as I read God’s word?
Romans 11:11–24 ESV
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 inclusion mean!
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.
1. Jewish Stumbling Leads To Gentile Salvation Which Leads To Jewish Salvation
We must always remember the promises made to the Jewish people:
Through Abraham, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
The people of Israel will finally dwell secure in the promised land with no more enemies to fight.
Through King David, God would establish a throne that would endure forever.
So, if Israel and the Jewish people as a whole ultimately fall, fail, and are destroyed, God would not have carried out in full the promises He made to them.
And if God does not make good in all of his promises to them, how could we ever be confident that God will make good on all of his promises to us?
So, Paul says here, they have not stumbled so that they will ultimately fall.
Then why? What could possibly be the purpose of so much Jewish rejection?
Verse 11 - Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.
Consider God’s wisdom in providentially leading a sinful humanity toward redemption.
In every new city that Paul went, he would first take the gospel to the Jews, and when the vast majority of Jews rejected the message, he then went and took the gospel to the Gentiles, where it received a greater reception.
Imagine if the vast majority of Jews in that first century of the church had readily accepted the gospel, imagine just how easy it would have been for the Jews to be prideful toward the unbelieving Gentiles.
And we read throughout the New Testament, it was hard enough for Jew and Gentile to live in unity within the church because of the regulations Jews desired to put on the Gentiles, if the Jews were the vast majority in the early church, it would have been all the more difficult to promote the true gospel without distortion and legalism.
Instead, the majority Jewish rejection led to salvation coming to the Gentiles, in order to make the Jews jealous.
Remember, Paul said in the beginning of chapter 9 how much anguish he experiences over Jewish rejection and lostness, and in chapter 10 how it is his heart’s desire and prayer for Jews is to be saved.
So, God’s heart is still to save many many Jews, but the plan is to positively make the Jews jealous by Gentile salvation.
Now, what does that look like? We’ve talked about it for the past many weeks.
The Jews who are enslaved to trying to keep a law in order to earn a right standing with God would see Gentiles earn a right standing with God through God’s grace through faith without ever having to earn it through the law.
And the joy, freedom, and godly lives that believing the gospel leads the Gentiles to have will finally make many Jews jealous in a good way, and make them want what Gentiles have found in the gospel.
That is a great prayer for us by the way: may we pray that God would give us such joy, freedom, and godly lives through trusting the gospel that others are jealous and desire what we have so that they may come to trust Jesus as well.
Even in something like our Fall Festival, we give others the opportunity to come and see people living in community and welcoming them into that community.
Verse 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 inclusion mean!
So, Jewish resistance led to the gospel going to the Gentiles, and the gospel being the greatest treasure in the world mean the riches of the gospel went to the world of the Gentiles when the Jews rejected it.
Look at the end of verse 12 - How much more will their full inclusion mean!
Some believers disagree here, but I believe the Bible clearly teaches that God has a future plan for his ethnic people Israel.
And that plan is to bring about the fullness of the Jews into His millennial kingdom upon His return.
And what I mean by the fullness of the Jews is all Jews who will trust in Christ for salvation throughout all of history.
Throughout the Old Testament, God’s redemptive plan worked through the Jewish people, and more Jews and less Gentiles expressed true faith.
In the time of Jesus Christ, the Jews by and large rejected Christ, had him killed, and after the resurrection, though the gospel went to the Jew first in the early church, it was more of the Gentiles who have responded with true saving faith and less Jews as most of them have rejected,
And I believe the Bible teaches in Revelation 7, their will be a great revival among the Jews in the end times through the tribulation period where the 144,000 will be sealed, which is 12,000 from every one of the twelve tribes of Israel, which symbolizes the fullness of the Jews who will trust Christ coming to salvation, then the final resurrection of believers will occur.
So, because God has not fully rejected his chosen people of the Old Testament, and because they have not stumbled in order to completely fall, God’s purpose for many of the Jews both now and certainly in the future is that they be saved!
Verse 13 - Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.
God is all for the salvation of more Jews.
Even Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles has an eye for getting Gentiles saved in order that some Jews would see it and be saved.
In no way is he going to let his Old Covenant people finally and utterly fall.
He is going to do everything he can to grow the gospel in the Gentile world that it may come back and impact the Jews in a positive way as well.
This is why we do missions, because we believe what God is doing through the gospel here, he wants us to take to others that they might believe as well.
Verse 15 - For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
Once again, God purposed majority Jewish rejection in order for the gospel to go to the Gentile world.
And while we may be tempted to think, surely God could have done this another way, but of course, one, He is God and we are not God, and two, crossing ethnic and religious boundaries is something that happens in our modern world much more readily than it did in the first century.
Ethnic diversity, globalization, travel, and technology has made crossing these kinds of boundaries feel more accessible to us today, but then, it was a profoundly difficult and rare thing.
So, it took something dramatic like Jewish rejection in order for the gospel to cross those boundaries.
So, Jewish rejection led to the reconciliation of the world by getting the gospel to the Gentiles.
Remember, Gentile simply means every other people in the world who is not Jewish.
So the vast spread of the gospel leading to reconciliation to all who believed began as God’s chosen Old Testament people by and large rejected the gospel.
So, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
This is leading us once again to that future reality of a Jewish revival of faith in the end which will culminate in the resurrection our bodies as believers.
Down in verse 25, we read
Romans 11:25 ESV
25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Now, once the fulness of the Gentiles comes in meaning all the Gentiles Christ will save are saved, Christ will call his believers up to be with him, then the tribulation when a Jewish revival will occur certainly in part due to the rapture of the church, and when the fulness of the Jews comes in, the resurrection of the just will occur for what will Israel’s full acceptance mean but life from the dead?
All of God’s people resurrected to life under the millennial reign of Christ.
We have an exciting future, church.
Jewish stumbling leads to Gentile salvation which leads to Jewish salvation.
2. Do Not Be Arrogant Toward Those Who Do Not Believe
Verse 16 - If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Now, some believe that God has two separate people and two separate plans of salvation for those two separate people.
He has the Jews over here, and he has the church over here, and he deals with the Jews and the church in separate ways when it comes to salvation.
But, while I believe God has a future plan for the Jews, I do not believe he has two separate people whom he saves in two separate ways.
Instead, what we see in verse 16 is one lump of dough that is holy just like the firstfruits was holy.
In the Scripture, the firstfruits are those who are representative of the whole.
What I mean is Abraham received the promise of God and believed and was counted righteous which was true of ever believer who came after him.
The promise made to Abraham became the promise applied to every believer after.
Jesus Christ is a firstfruits as he was the first to be raised from the dead, and all believers will follow along in that power and promise when we are raised to resurrection bodies.
So, we have these firstfruits gathering us into one holy lump, and one holy root making one holy tree.
For the tree metaphor, Christ and the promises of God are the root, and the branches are the people who spring up from those promises.
So first, you have the corporate Jewish people as a whole made holy by the promises of God in the Old Testament. But then:
Verse 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,
So, it is clear that though the promises of God to separate the Jewish people as holy is the root, many of the branches, which are individual Jews have been broken off due to their unbelief and rejection of the gospel.
Yet, Gentiles, described as a wild olive shoot, are grafted into the tree in order to share in the nourishing root who is God and His promises in the gospel.
So, you don’t have two separate peoples of God.
What you have is Gentiles who believe being grafted into the people of God along with all the Jews who believe.
So, it is still one people of God, but made up of both Jew and Gentile.
And now, all Gentiles who believe are part of the true spiritual Israel and inherit all the promises of Israel along with those of ethnic Israel who believe the gospel.
Verse 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.
In other words, the Gentiles were tempted to be arrogant toward the Jews who had been given so much but most were by and large hostile to the gospel.
You think we have ethnic tensions now, consider the first century when there was no way to learn of another culture until you are face to face with it.
Is it any wonder God would plan redemption in a way that would bring humility to both Jew and Gentile?
Humility to the Jew, for the vast majority rejected.
Humility for the Gentile, for they are being grafted into a legacy of faith and promises that they have done nothing to earn.
Yet, Paul commands the Gentiles to honor the Jewish people for from them came the root, the promises, and Jesus Christ who fulfills all the promises.
Consider how Paul develops this idea in:
Ephesians 2:11–16 ESV
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Verse 19 - Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
Notice, all who were broken off, were broken off because of unbelief.
All who were grafted in have been grafted in by grace alone through faith alone so that no one can boast.
Do not be proud but fear.
What is there to fear?
Verse 21 - For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
All believers who persevere in belief until the end will be saved.
A genuine saving faith is a staying faith that will remain until the end.
Now, we must consider that Paul has in mind the corporate Jewish people, and the corporate Gentile church as well.
Even though a remnant of Israel is always part of God’s true people through faith, a great many ethnic Jews are broken off of God’s people because of their unbelief.
Even though the corporate Gentile church has now been grafted in by faith, the church must conduct itself with reverence and continue in the kindness of God, or it will also be cut off.
That doesn’t mean there will not be a faithful remnant of God’s church left, but it does mean that by and large the corporate church will experience a great apostasy of many just before the end.
You need to understand that Paul is talking about the church in the last days when he writes:
2 Timothy 3:1–5 ESV
1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
Verse 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.
How does one keep from being arrogant or boasting in their position with God?
By remembering always both the kindness and the severity of God.
We have the corporate church of Christ making up all who profess faith in Christ, and those who continue in his kindness until the end are those who actually had genuine saving faith.
Yet, there are many within the corporate church of Jesus and confess faith, but have not truly repented and believed from the heart.
They turn away from God’s kindness and will ultimately experience the severity of being cut off from God.
As Jesus said:
Matthew 7:21–23 ESV
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
You only become a part of the people of God through faith, and you only continue as a part of the people of God by faith.
When someone asks you if you are saved, you should not point to past evidence of walking on aisle, praying a prayer, or being baptized.
You should not point to spiritual works, service, or acts you have done.
Instead, you should point to the fact that you are presently at this moment trusting in Jesus as Lord and that God raised him from the dead for your salvation.
Verse 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.
Although corporately Jews by vast majority have been broken off from God’s people because of unbelief, God has all the power needed to graft them back in again, both now for all Jews who repent and believe, and also when they experience a mass revival and repent and believe at the end of the age.
Verse 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.
It must have seemed impossible in the current situation that Jews in mass would end up repenting and believing the gospel.
The Jews were the primary persecutors of the early church and hated the gospel of Jesus.
But what is impossible with man is possible with God, and if God had the power to graft Gentiles from every tribe, nation, and language who came from very pagan backgrounds into the people of God, He certainly has the power to graft in many who are ethnically connected to the root who is Christ Jesus, when they repent and believe.
As a few takeaways, God’s plans are always purposeful and good even when we don’t see or understand.
Salvation is always by grace through faith so if there is anyone here who has not repented of sin and trusted Christ for salvation His arm is not shortened that he cannot save.
Cry out to him from your heart and be grafted into His family both now and forever.
There is absolutely no place for arrogance or boasting in the Christian life.
For all that we have is by God’s grace alone.
Oh the great plan of God for sinners like us!
Let’s pray.