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 (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.
26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
27 “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.
29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience,
31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.
32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.