By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
August 16, 2026
Click here to join our Meeting for Worship
Romans 11:1–2a, 29–32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
Since I have been pastor here at Willow Creek we have been using the lectionary. I have given my reasons, one reason is because it is a three-year cycle of scripture readings that give a decent overview of the entire bible. There some limits though. If we stay with the lectionary readings we will not read much of the minor prophets, and it is possible that it will start feeling like I just repeat myself. I do repeat myself. I will largely speak out of the Gospels because I think the words that the apostles remember Jesus saying are very important. Then there was a year when I used only the Old Testament readings. I did this because I felt that there was some background information missing from many of the contemporary teachings I was seeing online and hearing on the radio. The problem with the Old Testament readings, is there is so much history and context that we just do not fully understand. I would spend hours and days reading and studying. I would follow rabbit trails through various word studies and commentaries, and then I would realize that our meeting for Worship was in eight hours and I had not written anything yet.
The main reason I started using the lectionary is that I know who I am. I know my weaknesses and I know that I am easily distracted. I do not have sermon series planned out for the next year like some pastors. I often wish I was like those types of pastors. It would make things so much easier if I only knew what I was going to do. But that is not me. My leadership style is almost like an amoeba. I just flow around and if I like something it becomes the next best thing, but if I do not like it I put up my defenses.
You might be surprised to know that this little Meeting is frequently marveled about at the Yearly Meeting office. I have been asked on multiple occasions what I have been doing over the past sixteen years. Because when I started many in the Yearly Meeting were sure that this meeting would have closed, yet we did not. Instead, we began to grow little by little. Our outlook began to change little by little. Instead of being one of the Meetings they worried about they began asking what we would do. The problem is I do not have a clue.
What have we done? We adapt. We listen to what the needs are, and we make honest attempts at meeting the needs. Do we get it wrong. Absolutely, but we do it together. We flow and adapt to what is going on around us. And we become what we need to be at that moment.
Back to the lectionary. I began using this list of passages sixteen years ago, because we have multiple people picking music. At times some of them want to know in advance what passage I am going to use. So the question came up, and I simply said, I will use the lectionary and if I do not tell you specifically, we will default to the Gospel reading.
It has worked well. For sixteen years those picking music can look through the lectionary, and they will know a general idea of what scripture I will be using, and they can pick songs accordingly. The interesting thing about this, I have always thought the lectionary readings have been the right verses for that Sunday. In sixteen years, I have spoken on some pretty hard topics, and yet they have been what needed.
Which brings us to today’s passage. Last Sunday I said that we would be gifted with what was necessary at that moment. This is a very Quakerly perspective on the spiritual life. When we began as the religious society of Friends, our spiritual ancestors would meet together wherever they were on any day of the week. They believed that every day was given to us by the Lord, and that each day should be lived to honor God. They did not always meet on First days, they did not necessarily meet on the 7th day either. Those early Friends would travel around the countryside, make an announcement, and people would come. They would meet in silence, waiting on the Spirit of Christ to move them to speak, and they would respond accordingly. They did not prepare a message, like I do. They just spoke.
I have often thought about that. I have been pretty harsh to myself for not having that level of faith. I would love to just come in and speak. I have done that during midweek services. I do that with the students during bible study. Sometimes we do not even get to the study I intended on doing because the questions that they have asked were too important, so we discuss them. But on Sunday, I am compelled to write everything down. It was only after our Congolese Friends started attending that I realized why this was happening. Our Friends came, and we as a meeting had to figure our how to respond. It was suggested that we provide some form of translation so that they could participate more fully. I did not want to put extra pressure on them, so I thought about different options.
In the writing software there is a translation tool where we can translate a document with a click of a button. I did not know anything about it at first. I did not even know it existed, because just a few years ago it did not exist. But not long after they started attending that feature was added to my document program. I wrote everything down because God knew sixteen years ago that we would need to translate everything today. It was not failure. It was preparation and being obedient even when understanding was not there.
Paul in today’s passage speaks of something similar. All through this letter to the Romans, Paul struggles with some fairly deep thoughts. He speaks of Israel, justification by faith, predestination, living by faith, and pretty much any other theological concept you can think of. But the past couple of weeks he has tackled the disparity between Israel and the faith of the Gentiles.
Is Israel saved because of their heritage? Do we need to become like Israel? Are Gentiles really saved? Is it necessary for all people to come to God through Jesus, or is there another way?
I want us to think about these things for a moment. Israel is important, but we need to keep the context. Israel has never, even in their golden age under King David, been a global superpower. They have always been this seemingly tiny nation at the crossroads of empires. This seemingly insignificant nation ends up at the center of many things. If we think about the great empires of the Ancient world, nearly all of them dealt with this tiny nation. And they had to, Israel was at the center of the available trade routes accessible to those empires.
I am someone that like to watch and keep track of various archeological findings. I actually subscribe to the Biblical Archaeological Review. And my dream vacation is to go on a dig somewhere in the lands mentioned within scriptures. The problem there are those types of trips are few and far between, and no one I know thinks that working in the arid sun all day digging in the dirt sounds like a vacation.
The thing is as these archeologists have conducted their various digs, they are finding things they did not expect. In Egypt, they are finding things from as far away as China. In India, they are finding things from Greece. They are evening finding bronze that contains tin sourced in Wales, that is found in the land that should have been ancient Persia. These things are changing our understanding of the world. We once thought that every culture was isolated, now we realize that there was ancient global trade. Some scholars have even gone so far as to suggest that the ancient world might have had trade routes to the Americas, because of the plants and seeds they have found. We have these global trade routes, but right in the middle of all the empires is Israel. A small inconsequential nation every culture must pass through to trade with the other empires.
Even before Israel existed, God chose them. God created this people from one couple who were unable to bear children. He called out to them while they lived in Ur, which we are finding out was a major city in the first great empire, Sumer. This empire is spoken of in the book of Job, the friends of Job come from all the major centers within this empire. And eventually those great cities form their own nations and cultures. But God selected for himself, not Egypt, not India, not Assyria, not even Sumer. He chose Abraham, a single man and his wife Sara. He called out to them to leave their family and their nation and to go out to a land he would give to them. They went. They trusted God. He said to them that they would be the parents of many nations, and that their descendants would be the light to all nations. Yet Sara was nearing ninety years old, and a child was not yet born. God promised Abraham, and Sarah laughed. And their small nation eventually did sit at the center of empires.
God made a promise, and God kept that promise. They did not understand at the time, yet God was working all things out according to his purposes.
In today’s passage Paul says, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” I sat with this passage this week and I struggled. Last week I said that we will be gifted with the things necessary at that time, and at other times those gifts may not be necessary. And then I read this, and I was thinking I had misspoken.
I began to look deeper. I looked at this word, “Irrevokable” and suddenly theological positions of many traditions came crashing in at once. Can Israel be saved apart from Christ? Is it absolutely necessary for Israel as a nation to exist? These are arguments that are thrown around in our current era. There are some that believe that the current war between Iran, Israel, and the United States is a divinely sanctioned conflict that must occur, and if we say otherwise we are rejecting God. And many of these arguments are made because of this word used in this verse, “Irrevocable.”
I looked in the various translations I have, and I consistently saw the word irrevocable. Nearly every modern translation gave the same reading. I looked at this word, and the first thing I saw was that normally this word is not translated as Irrevocable, instead it is translated to mean something like without remorse or regret. The ones that did not translate it that way was the New Jerusalem Bible, which is a Catholic translation, and the King James Version. In the New Jerusalem Bible it says, “There is no change of mind on God’s part about the gifts he has made or of his choice.” And the King James says, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”
To me the New Jerusalem Bible and the King James are more accurate in this case. But it bothered me to see that nearly every translation I looked at said irrevocable. I began looking even deeper. This word is used twice in the New Testament, once it is translated as irrevocable and the other time it is translated as without remorse. That did not help. So I opened the theological dictionary of the New Testament. This is a book where people write their entire doctoral thesis on one word, and they follow nearly every use of the world in known writings. Even here it seemed as if the vast majority of the usage of this word focused on without regret. But there was one usage in a decree during the early church era, where irrevocable was the proper translation. The leader of a city was calling for the end of violence, saying that anyone that would continue the violence against this certain group of people would face swift and harsh punishment. This punishment was irrevocable, because peace within the city was required.
I sat with these things in my mind. I looked at the notes scholars gave for their translation choice and I understood. The point is that God did not revoke his promises. He made the promise to Israel. And that promise will continue. It does not matter if they believe or not. God will stand by his word. But I still struggle with the translation. It suggests on the surface that Israel is saved because they are God’s chosen people. No matter what they do, God will forgive them. This is problematic because Israel is not perfect. Scripture is filled with examples of their kings honoring God as well as their leaders participating in idolatry. They were even judged and sent into exile. Does this mean that God was denying his own promise? And if we look at contemporary things, can we speak out against actions perpetuated by the nation of Israel, or is that being anti-sematic?
This does not mean that Israel is saved apart from Jesus. It only means that God will not remove the promise given, he will not change his mind. He is without remorse. Even though Israel often failed to live up to their end of the covenant, God will continue to preserve them as a people. And we see this throughout history. Israel remains. This seemingly insignificant nation has survived countless exiles, genocides, persecutions, and they still remain. They remain, not because they are perfect. No they remain because God is merciful and just.
Israel exists not because they are perfect, not because they deserve it, they exist and remain in existence because they are the people through whom God fulfills his promise to the entire world. They were chosen and God does not have regret for making that choice. He does not remove that promise because they failed. They are chosen because they were unlikely. God made them a people, he established them as a nation. He placed them in the land that sat on the crossroads of the entire world, and through them, he revealed his teachings, and his son.
But what does their gift, and the promise made to them reveal to us?
“For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.”
This is an enigmatic passage. It almost feels as if Paul is double speaking but once we wrestle with it once we are able to understand the conflict within it opens up to us.
God does not revoke his promise to Israel. He has preserved them in spite of themselves. Over the past few weeks I have had people send me messages saying to me that I should be careful with my words in this area, and I understand where they are coming from. When I say that Israel is not saved apart from Christ, it does sound as if I am being anti-sematic like so many religieuse leaders in the past have been. But I do not have any ill will to them as a people. I thank them for their history, and for the steadfast presence and faithfulness throughout history. But that does not mean that they are always right.
I love a great many people that I do not agree with. I believe in the sanctity of life. I believe that every person is created in the image of God. I hold my position, and I respect the position of others that do not share my belief. Some do not understand how or why I do this, but it is easy. I respect them because they have their own mind. I cannot convince them to change their mind without giving them a reason to. My pro-life position does not stop at birth, I am pro-life which means that I believe that every human being is an image bearer and because of that they have dignity and should be respected. It does not matter their social standing, religious background, nation of origin or any other definition we place to divide people. Every human being is an image bearer and has dignity because God loves them. And because they have dignity and are loved by my God, they should be treated with the same dignity that is given to each of us. Every baby has a right to be live, every child has a right to live, every immigrant, every enemy, every theoretical extraterrestrial has a right to life. Guess what everyone has some opposition to my beliefs.
Why even bring this up? Paul spent the past few chapters speaking about the promises to his own people, and where we as Gentiles find our place in that history. We do not replace Israel, nor does Israel have salvation in any other way except through the full revelation of God in Jesus. Each of us are held accountable to the knowledge we have. Paul says, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”
“Prone to wander Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love,” the hymn writer once wrote. We are each prone to disobedience. Everyone everywhere is shut out, and separated from God. But wait Paul said that nothing could separate us from the love of God. This is true. God loves, that is his nature. God provided for each person a way to return to him. That way is irrevocable. It comes through the promise of God to Israel, and ultimately through Jesus. We can either reject the love God has for us or we can accept it on his terms. God does not regret the choices he made, nor does he repent of it. That is the way, the only way. Anyone who calls upon the name of Jesus will receive mercy.
Yet we still wander. Every single day we go back and forth. Every day we struggle. Trying to decide if we trust God or not. God has not changed, his teachings remain the same, we struggle not because God’s methods are so difficult. No we struggle because we are selfish. We want our way. Throughout the Psalms David laments that he followed God, yet his enemies seemed to gain power and influence. We lament because those making decisions in our society are unaffected by the choices they make as well. We lament and cry out for justice and mercy. Jesus said that the poor will always be with us. There will always be those that have and those that do not have power and influence. This is not the injustice of God, instead it is his mercy. Mercy? When Peter drew the sword on the guards when they came to arrest Jesus, Jesus told him to put the sword away. And he said one simple statement. “Those that live by the sword die by the sword.” He also told us, that in the manner we judge others will be the manner in which we will be judged.
Life is a cycle. We are born we live and we die. We learn and we forget. Systems therapists will take detailed family histories, and as they explore those histories they will be able to find issues and events that brought about responses that we struggle with today. It might be three generations back, but once we start on a path we tend to stay on that path, we teach that path to the people around us. We give to our children and grandchildren the fear and shame we experience. We pass on the hate and the selfishness. But what if we change the cycle. What if we confess and turn a different direction? We break that cycle.
God has promised, God has gifted. He does not remove, repent of, nor does he regret the promise he made. He will honor what he said even though we are disobedient. And he provides a way to change the cycles through Jesus. Jesus left the throne in Heaven to live among humanity. He was born within a family, and lived within a community. He worked alongside his relatives. He experienced the full human life, and yet he did not sin. He taught, and he provided and example. He became true Israel. And through him everyone can return to God. God stands knocking on the door of our life, will we respond? Will we turn toward him and enter into his life and lifestyle, or will we continue to live in our selfishness? Will we be the one that will change the cycle?
We might not understand what God is doing at this moment. We might not even sense that He is near. But we can know and trust. We can take on his life and lifestyle. We can look at history and see that empires rise and fall, but the group of people that God made a promise to remain. Through hardships, through persecutions. They remain. A small insignificant nation at the crossroads of empires. A people scattered and exiled through the world. They remain. They remain because God does not revoke his promises. His promise to us is just as irrevocable. Will we trust that he has us within his hands?
Previous Messages:
The Rhythm of Christ
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church August 08, 2026 Click Here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Last week we spoke about how from the beginning God counted humanity as the elect over creation. This might have caused some of you to think I had…
For the Sake of My Brothers
Matthew 6:31–34 (ESV) 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and…
Spiritual Family
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church July 19, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 8:12–25 (ESV) So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you…
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