Location and TimesThis lesson was taught in our High School Student Bible Fellowship on January the 11th. This summary is provided to help you as you talk through the lessons your students are learning as they are in a study in the book of Romans.
Don’t Waste Your Advantage!
Text: Romans 9:1-3
You had the advantage and you wasted it! That is Paul’s message to Israel in Romans 9:1-3. He is grieved to the point where he offers to trade his salvation for the salvation of the Israelites. Though that wasn’t possible, it demonstrated the measure of his grief over the fact that his people had blown the greatest advantage ever given to a nation. They were the nation chosen by God to take the Gospel to the world. Because of that, they had all the advantages of the covenant, the law, the tabernacle the lead in all the worship and above all, they were the nation through which God sent us Jesus. They had all the things that pictured Christ, but when Christ came they rejected Him. They totally wasted their advantage.
God has given the church the advantage today. Though just for this time, it is still the greatest advantage a body can have. We have the truth of the Bible, the fellowship of the body of Christ and most of all the blessings on the work of the great commission. God is for us which means that nothing that is against us measures up. God is using His church in this age to do His work. Anyone that has been made His child and become a part of His church has the advantage of His blessings while they live out their new life in Christ. To live any other way is to squander the advantage that we have and not to learn from the lessons of men like Esau (Romans 9:11-13) who traded his birth right advantage for one meal. He was sorry afterwards, but it was too late. Don’t be sorry, take advantage of your advantage.