Perhaps you know folks who grew up in a Christian home but then turned away from the gospel. They know all the important facts about Jesus, and yet they have rejected Christ, choosing instead to live according to what feels good or what makes sense to them.

What’s your reaction to such people? Well, instead of feeling good about ourselves, proud that we have stuck with Christ when others have not, Paul warns us against such arrogance. After all, as verse 30 reminds us, everyone starts out in life as a disobedient sinner, but God had mercy on all those who have turned from their sins and trusted in Christ. That was certainly true of the Gentile Christians to whom Paul was writing – they had grown up practicing the worst sort of idolatry, but God had blessed them with salvation.

Just so, Paul was confident that God in His mercy would eventually remove the hardness from the hearts of the Jewish people who resisted the claims of Jesus to be their Messiah. And our God continues to be merciful, even to those who should know better, even to those who have turned away from their faith in Christ.

No, we don’t know exactly when God will give such wandering souls the grace to turn back to Him – as Paul says in verses 33 and 34, no one can understand the mind of God, and certainly no one is in a position to give Him advice! But we know that God will do everything necessary for the good of His people and for the advancement of His glory. So, let’s pray for our wandering loved ones that God would indeed glorify Himself through their salvation.

Romans 11: 25-36 (NASB)

25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in;
26 and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”
27 “And this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.”
28 From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers;
29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
30 For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience,
31 so these also now have been disobedient, in order that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy.
32 For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?
35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.