Meadowbrooke Church

The King Longed For

The first Avengers movie (2012) has a special place in my heart for many reasons; the primary reason for why I love this movie is because I kept Nathan from school half the day on a Friday morning on opening day to surprise him by seeing it in Imax. The second reason why I love the first Avengers movie is because it is one of the all-time great movies with great storytelling building up to one of the greatest superhero films on screen. A third reason why I love this movie is because of the theological and redemptive overtones throughout the film.
There is a scene in the film when Loki, the primary antagonist in the film, makes his first public appearance in Stuttgart, Germany before a crowd of hundreds where he delivers one of the great lines in cinema on human freedom before he is confronted by the iconic comic book hero symbolizing what we believe about freedom in Captain America. Just before Loki is confronted, he said something that resonated with me: It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity.You were made to be ruled.In the end, you will always kneel.
There is truth in Lokis words and the scene in the movie, in my opinion, captures what we believe about freedom with the villains words: You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel. It is as if to say that any powerful person or being that demands the bowing and kneeling of anyone is immoral. Yet, it is from the very words of holy Scripture that say of Jesus: For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:911).
So, what do we do with the tension we feel over Lokis words, what history seemingly has taught us, and what we read in the Bible? I believe 1 Samuel 8:1-9 and Isaiah 44:8-10 helps resolve that tension for us, and it is to 1 Samuel we now turn our attention.
The King Israel Wanted
Samuels story is a fascinating one that we cannot explore today, but there are some things that you need to know to make sense of 1 Samuel 8. His mother, Hannah, could not get pregnant and begged God for a son; in a prayer Hannah offered up to God, she made the following vow: Lord of armies, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your bond-servant, but will give Your bond-servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head (1 Sam: 1:11).
When Hannah made that vow, she lived in a time in Israels history when Eli the Priest interpreted her pleading with God for being drunk which sheds some light upon the kind of passionless and empty prayers he was used to experiencing. While Hannah begged for a son that she could give back to the service of the Lord, Elis two sons hung out outside the place where people would come to worship God at the tabernacle where they disrespected the worship of God while they slept with the women who served at the doorway of the tabernacle, and they did this all while Eli, as a priest over Israel, knew about it (see 1 Sam. 2:12ff.). The spiritual climate of Hannahs day was, in the words of the final verse in the book of Judges: In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Jud. 21:25).
So, Samuel was born to Hannah, and just as she vowed, she dedicated her son to the service of God. Samuel loved God and served Him as His appointed judge, as well as a priest and prophet before all of Israel. Samuel would serve as Israels final judge before Israel demanded a king to rule over them. Which brings us to 1 Samuel 8:1-9.
Samuel was a man of God who stands out as being uncompromising in his devotion to God. It would be easy to read 1 Samuel 8 and miss the three paradoxes that surround Israels demand for a king; the paradoxes include the names and location of Samuels two sons, the hypocrisy of everyone surrounding Samuel, and who the people really wanted to rule over them.
Paradox #1: Samuels sons were a walking paradox that served as a living parable of Israels relationship with God.
Samuels sons were named Joel and Abijah; Joel means Yahweh is God and Abijah means My father is Yahweh. Yet, both of Samuels sons who were commissioned as judges over Israel, were not known for living as though they really believed Yahweh was their God or that they identified as belonging to Him in the same way a son belongs to his father. We are told that they, turned aside after dishonest gain, and they took bribes and perverted justice (v. 3). The elders who represented Israel asked as though they were disgusted by Joel and Abijahs behavior.
Israel as a nation may not have been characterized by dishonest gain, receiving bribes from other nations, or perverting justice, but do not miss the indictment upon Israel as a nation given by the same God Samuels sons rejected: Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this dayin that they have abandoned Me and served other gods (v. 8).
The takeaways from the first paradox: First, just because you think someone elses sin is ugly does not mean that your sin is no more repulsive in the eyes of God. What matters is not whether your sin looks better than the sins of others, but what God thinks about your heart.
Secondly, we do not know what kind of father Samuel was, but you can be the godliest parent on planet earth and even that may not be enough for your child to want to walk in the ways of God. It is important to note that unlike Elis two sons whose sins were before their fathers eyes, Samuels sons lived over fifty miles away and Samuels ways were very different than the wicked ways of his two sons.
Paradox #2: Samuels two sons did not live up to their name in the same way that Israel did not live up her name.
Remember that Jacobs name means, heel-grabber and that he was known for the ways he manipulated his father and older brother Esau into receiving a birthright that was not his to take. It wasnt until he wrestled with God and was then renamed only after he yielded his life to God, that his name was Israel, and its meaning is simple: He who strives with God. Yet, Israel as a nation was not known for striving with God but walking away from God to the gods of the nations. Many years later following Israels demand for a king, the prophet Jeremiah would declare on behalf of God: Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living waters, to carve out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that do not hold water (Jer. 2:12-13).
The takeaway from the second paradox: Israel thought their greatest need was what the world had to offer while ignoring the only source that was able satisfy their deepest longings and remedy their greatest problem, which had to do with the human heart. Sin-begotten kings cannot solve the problems of sin-begotten people.
Paradox #3: Israels demand for a king like the other nations was a vote of no-confidence in God as King over their lives.
This could not be more obvious. The irony in Israels demand for a king was not the desire for a king, but the kind of king they believed would solve the problem of the heart. We know that the desire for a king was not the issue because in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, God gave Israel the prescription for the kind of king they would one day need; there are seven characteristics listed in Deuteronomy 17 that the king needed to have to qualify to rule over Israel as king.
The king would be a person like them who Yahweh would appoint over them.
The king would be a person from among their own people.
The king would be a person who truly loved Yahweh.
The king would be a person whose security and strength rested in Yahweh.
The king would be a person who loved the Law and the Word of Yahweh.
The king would be a person who would obey the Law and Word of Yahweh.
The king would be a person who would seek to serve his people for their good and the glory of Yahweh.
Because Israel wanted a king like the nations, they would not get the kind of king described in Deuteronomy 17. The kind of king Israel would get is described in 1 Samuel 8:10-20. The irony is that Israel did not ultimately reject Samuel as a judge, but God as their King.
The takeaway from the third paradox: The One Israel needed most is who they seemed to want least. Israel wanted what the nations had and refused the good that God had for them. Israel believed that their rejection of God would give them freedom, but it would ultimately result in a greater bondage and burden that would lead to greater sorrows.
The King Israel Rejected
It wasnt Israels desire to have a king that was so bad, but the kind of king they wanted. The king that they wanted was one like what the other nations had. They wanted a king they could chose, a king whose splendor and glory came from the strength of his army, a king whose glory rested in his gold and silver, and a king who was attractive just like the kings the other godless nations had. What they ultimately wanted was the same thing Adam and Eve wanted that the serpent offered: they wanted autonomy from the God of Samuel. This is the kind of thing we are warned about in Holy Scripture: Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world (1 John 2:15-16).
When Adam and Even looked at the forbidden fruit as they were tempted by the Serpent of old, we are told: When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate (Gen. 3:6). Under the surface of Israels demand for a king like the other nations was the foolish belief in the same old lie, but only with different dressing. After Adam and Eve bit into the fruit what they got was shame and death. According to 1 Samuel 8:10-20, with the king Israel wanted and demanded, he would take from them what they have and give them a greater burden they were never meant to bear.
What was Samuel to do with the demand of the people? He brought it before the Lord in prayer. Samuel had faithfully served Yahweh and the people all of his life; it is understandable that he took the demand for a king personally. However, it was not Samuel, as the Lords servant, that they were rejecting: And the Lord said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people regarding all that they say to you, because they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being King over them (v. 8). What kind of King is Yahweh? Oh, we are told of the kind of King He is in Isaiah 44:6-8,
This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies: I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; And, let him confront Me Beginning with My establishing of the ancient nation. Then let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place. Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, or is there any other Rock? I know of none.
The One Israel so eagerly rejected was Yahweh as King of Israel. The God who overwhelmed Pharaoh with 10 plagues, parted the sea, and delivered Israel through the wilderness is the One Israel was willing to trade in for someone like pharaoh. Israel demanded a sin-begotten task master in place of the Redeemer. The people demanded something the godless nations produced in place of the One true God whose Israels very existence was owing to Him. Oh, the crazy rational of sin and how it is seen in Israels desire of a man from the dirt in place of the God who is the Rock! So, God gave Israel the desire of their hearts by giving them a man by the name of Saul and boy was he a train-wreck spiritually!
If Israel had only waited! If they had only trusted in the One who establishes nations and removes them, who declares things that are coming and events that are going to take place, and had they stood on the promises of the true King of Israel as their Rock rather than on the sifting sand of worldly hopes! Gods intention for Israel always included a King, for hundreds of years before Samuel was born, an ancient promise to one of the tribes of Israel was given:
As for you, Judah, your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your fathers sons shall bow down to you. Judah is a lions cub; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares to stir him up? The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the rulers staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Gen. 49:810)
If Israel had waited, they would have gotten a king. Not the king of Genesis 49:8-10, but one like him an imperfect prototype, but a king who was a man after Gods own heart. Instead, Israel got 40 years of Saul, just as their forefathers got 40 years in the wilderness for their sin. Eventually Israel got David who seemed to check all the boxes, the kind of king God prescribed in Deuteronomy 17, but he was only an imperfect foreshadowing of a greater King that would come from his descendants.
The King We Need
The story of humanity is one of broken cisterns that can hold no water, a story of rejecting a Greater Glory for lesser glories, a story about mans desire for the kings of the earth, and every time we end up with shame, 40 years in the wilderness, or worsewe end of with a Saul when we could have had a David.
What are you settling for? What wilderness have you found yourself in because you have settled for lesser glories in place of the Greater Glory who is the God you were born to know? What Saul have you settled for when you could have had a David?
Can I leave you with something that ought to encourage you? What God had for Israel was greater than even David! King David was part of the plan, but he was not the end-goal of that plan. What Israel could not see was that God was moving time, space, and kingdoms to introduce to the world a greater King. A King who would reign on Davids throne forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16), a King whose light would light up the darkness of sins dark cloud (Isa. 9:2), a King who would come as the ultimate Lamb for the purpose of reigning as the rightful Lion of Judah, and on the first Christmas His voice would be heard in the form of a newborn infants cries: For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). He would be sent by Yahweh. He would be a descendant of David as fully human (and fully God). He would be the Son of God with a love for Him unparalleled by any other. He would humble with an absolute dependance upon God as His Father. He would live in perfect dependance upon the Law of God with an absolute love for the Word of God. He would be born not to be served, but to serve, to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).
Oh, dear brothers and sisters that One born on the first Christmas and laid in that manger for lowly shepherds to see and wandering Magi to seek was the One, born King of the Jews (Matt. 2:2); born on Christmas was the Redeemer, the Lord, the One who is the First and the Last the Living One. We were indeed meant to be ruled, but ruled by a Good King. Amen.

Working Faith

If you dont know who I am, my name is John Olive. I gave a message on False Conversion back in September during which I described my background in criminal justice. Im not a professional theologian, but I am a passionate one, and Ive been involved in a lot of ministry work over the past 20 years.
Today I want to discuss the interaction between faith and works, which I have found to be an area of great confusion, especially among newer Christians. It is also one of the traps I fell into as a young Christian. Truthfully, much of what I preach about are related to my mistakes or character defects that God has allowed me to overcome.
As a young man, I heard several sermons in Baptist churches that were centered around Ephesians 2:8-9, so lets start there.
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
This is pretty clear, isnt it? And it is really, just that clear. Works dont save us; faith saves us.
In all the sermons I recall on this passage, I dont remember anyone continuing on to verse 10:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Before I discuss anything further, I want to draw your attention to the Greek word for workmanship. It is poiema. You and I are Gods poem to a lost world. Isnt that exciting? From our brokenness God recreates us as a skillfully woven story of redemption and restoration. I just love what that says about how God looks at us and what our mission is.
Anyway, think about what Paul is saying. We are saved by grace through faith, so that we can do good works in this world that God prepared for us to do before we were even born. Saved, to do good works. Thats the Gospel message. Saved, to do. Not because doing saves us, but because real salvation produces action.
Of course, any discussion of this topic must also address what James Chapter 2 has to say.
James 2:14-26 What use is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and be filled, yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that[e] God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to acknowledge, you foolish person, that faith without works is useless? Was our father Abraham not justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was[g] perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was Rahab the prostitute not justified by works also when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
James is not telling us that works replace faith; rather, works complement faith. They flow from faith. We can see that Abraham believed God because he was willing to act upon the promise of God that he would have offspring through Isaac, and concluded that even if he sacrificed Isaac, God would raise him from the dead to fulfill the promise. Thats real faith! We know this is what Abraham was thinking because the writer of Hebrews tells us so in Hebrews 11:17-19.
Good works is a popular subject in New Testament letters. They show up in Ephesians, I Timothy, and II Timothy, among Pauls letters. They are also referenced in Hebrews, James, and I Peter Perhaps nowhere do we see such enthusiasm for good works as in Titus. First, we have Titus 2:11-15:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and in a godly manner in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, eager for good deeds. These things speak and[d] exhort, and rebuke with all authority. No one is to disregard you.
To be zealous means to be devoted to, passionate about, a zealot. We want to be constantly thinking about how we can serve people with needs.
Next, look at Titus 3:4-8:
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He richly poured out upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This statement is trustworthy; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and beneficial for people.
If we are New Testament Christians, we are to be devoted to performing good works, even though those good works dont save us.
So, what are good works?
The words in Greek are kalos ergon, meaning morally good action. This would include anything from healing the sick, raising the dead, or sharing the gospel with someone; to helping a child cross a street, assisting an older person to change a light bulb, or going grocery shopping for someone who is sick. We are serving humanity, and not just in spiritual ministry but also in practical aid.
Now, lets look at one of Pauls letters addressed to believers who became confused about faith and works.
In Galatians, we see congregations that were becoming confused by Judaizers. These were Jewish converts to Christianity, primarily in Jerusalem, who taught that indeed Jesus was the Messiah, and it was vital to believe in His work on the cross to be saved, but that was not sufficient. In addition, to be right with God, one had to adhere to Mosaic Covenant commands of obeying the Sabbath, honoring the dietary laws, and being circumcised. These Greek believers in the region of Galatia had begun their relationship with God by faith but were beginning to compromise the message of salvation by faith.
As a young believer, I fell into a similar snare when I was 20 years old. For maybe six months, I was confused, thinking that while I started my salvation experience by faith, I was required to maintain it through obedience. Its true that obedience is a byproduct of faith, and a complete absence of obedience is inconsistent with salvation, but our obedience does not improve our righteousness with God. Our right standing with God is imputed or credited to us through our faith in the blood of Christ.
I was a miserable human being. I constantly experienced a gnawing dread, because, after all, one can always study the Bible a little more, pray more, minister more. So, when is it enough? Its a treadmill without end and I was exhausted. One day as I was reading in Galatians in the Amplified Bible, I ran across these verses:
Galatians 3:19-20
What then was the purpose of the Law? It was added, later on after the promise, to disclose and expose to men their guilt because of transgressions and to make men more conscious of the sinfulness of sin; and it was intended to be in effect until the Seed should come, to and concerning Whom the promise had been made. And it (the Law) was arranged and ordained and appointed through the instrumentality of angels (and was given) by the hand (in the person) of a go-between an intermediary person (Moses) between God and man. Now a go-between (intermediary) has to do with and implies more than one party there can be no mediator with just one person. Yet God is only one person and He was the sole party in giving that promise to Abraham. But the Law was a contract between two, God and Israel: its validity was dependent on both.
In that moment, God clearly revealed to me my error. I had fallen into the trap of becoming a party to a contract, rather than a recipient of a unilateral promise. The relief I experienced was overwhelming and I wept in gratitude.
Why is works-based salvation so appealing? Salvation by grace alone through faith alone is very hard on the ego. Most of us struggle accepting free gifts that we cannot reciprocate. We dont feel right if we dont do something to earn it. But God wont allow that. Remember Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Those poor in spirit are essentially beggars. They accept that they are dependent upon the assistance of others. Grace is like that. We have a need that we cant meet and have to depend totally on God. That hurts our pride.
But Judaizers of old, and modern-day Judaizers such as Jehovahs Witness, LDS and Seventh-Day Adventists appeal to the fleshly nature to blend grace and works so we can feel good about ourselves and dupe us into believing we are at least partly saving ourselves.
Paul makes it abundantly clear that if we attempt to mix grace and works, we have abandoned salvation by grace and become debtors to the Law:
Galatians 5:2-4
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
Now, I personally am circumcised, and most males born in western societies are also for health reasons. What Paul is talking about is being circumcised in order to fulfill a requirement of the Mosaic Law so these Greeks would be right with God. But Paul tells them that if they get circumcised and proclaim that the shed blood of Christ is not sufficient, then they cant stop there but must fulfill every requirement of the Law, which, of course, is impossible. They have left grace behind, and have been severed, or cut off, from Christ. So, we see this is an extremely serious matter. We cannot blend faith and works to be right with God. It must be faith alone.
But maybe you think you are so well versed in Christian doctrine as to be immune from any hint of achieving righteousness by works. Perhaps you are, but consider this: Have you ever hesitated in praying to God because you have had a bad day or a bad week, thinking that God is not likely to hear your prayer because you have been out of His will? Even though you confess your sin and repent, you still feel unworthy to ask God for something. If so, you have unwittingly fallen into a works-based approach to Gods presence, thinking that your ability to come to the throne of grace is somehow dependent upon your obedience. That is a subtle form of righteousness by works and must be recognized and rejected. We come to God boldly, based on Christs shed blood, and never by our obedience or lack of it. The more we grow, the more subtle become the attacks of Satan. Lets not kid ourselves into thinking we cant be deceived if we let our guard down.

Glory Days

I love the way the Bible begins in Genesis: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters (1:1-2). On the sixth day of creation, God made mankind, in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (v. 27). The three commands given to the first couple were simple: 1) Have lots of children and fill the earth with people who worship me, 2) manage creation and subdue it, and 3) do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because, on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die (2:16-17).
Eden was the very first temple that Adam and Eve, as the people of God, were able to worship and enjoy God both as His children and as His royal priesthood. This is why Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden after they sinned against God. This is why the very last verse of the infamous third chapter in Genesis ends with these words: So He drove the man out; and at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life (v. 24). But before they were expelled from the Garden, God made this promise to the first couple and the serpent who deceived Eve: And I will make enemies of you and the woman, and of your offspring and her Descendant; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel (3:15).
Israel Enjoyed an Ancient Glory
There is nearly 2,500 years separating Adam from Moses, and all that history is crammed in between Genesis 4 and Exodus 2. Within those 2,500 years, God honored His promise to Abraham to multiply his descendants into a nation of people who would experience 400 years of slavery in Egypt, only to be miraculously liberated as His people. As a freed people, God spoke through Moses to all of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel (Exod. 19:46).
God gave Israel the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law; He also instituted a sacrificial system to address their sins, religious feasts to remind His people of His faithfulness to them, and the plans for a Tabernacle that would eventually be used to build a Temple. Its design would serve to remind them of the Garden and what Adam and Eve enjoyed, and it would serve as the place where the presence of God would be known, experienced, and seen, so God told Moses: Have them construct a sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them. According to all that I am going to show you as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, so you shall construct it (Exod. 25:89).
The Tabernacle, and eventually the Temple, would serve as the center of worship for Israel as a people. In the wilderness as pilgrims journeying to the promised land, God would lead them by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. When the presence of God moved, Israel moved; when the presence of God rested, Israel rested. At the center of the Temple was the Ark of the Covenant where it would sit in the place known as the Holy of Holies. The Ark of the Covenant is the container where the broken tablets of the 10 commandments were placed among a few other things, it is also symbolic of the presence of God.
Nearly 500 years after Moses died and Israel finally entered the land God promised Abraham, David was anointed as King over Israel. Even though most of the psalms that are in the Bible were written by David, because he was a man of war, he was not permitted to build a Temple modeled after the Tabernacle. However, God did allow Solomon (a son of David) to build the temple in Jerusalem where the presence of God would be known, experienced, and seen. The Temple would forever be known as Solomons Temple not because it was dedicated to Solomon, but because of the great care that Solomon invested into the building of it. When it was finally completed and dedicated before the people of Israel, God spoke to Solomon:
if you turn away and abandon My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot you from My land which I have given you, and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight; and I will make it a proverb and an object of scorn among all peoples. As for this house, which was exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, Why has the Lord done these things to this land and to this house? And they will say, Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods, and worshiped and served them; therefore He has brought all this adversity on them. (2 Chron. 7:1922)
Solomon started off so well, but his life ended so tragically. Solomons life did not end well, for he loved many foreign women (1 Kings 11:1). Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines he was the Hugh Heffner of his day. The thing is, Solomon knew his Bible well, he knew what Exodus 34:16 said, You shall not enter into marriage with foreign women, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomons heart turned away from God and participated in the worship of other gods that included child sacrifice, rampant sexual immorality, and set the entire nation on track to do the same.
So, the thing that God warned Solomon and Israel would happen if they turned from Him, happened. After the death of Solomon, all of Israel would eventually become known not for the nation that worshiped Yahweh, but the nation that worshiped the gods of the other nations. God judged the nation of Israel and eventually they were handed over to a foreign nation.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were driven from the presence of God, but in the wake of Solomons idolatry, the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and left the place He promised Israel (Ezek. 10:18). Not long after the glory of God departed the temple and Israel, Solomons Temple was destroyed by Babylon.
Israel Pursued a New Glory
After hundreds of years in exile and the desperate prayers of those who truly loved and worshiped Yahweh, God allowed a small remnant of Hebrew men and women back into Jerusalem. The two things that were in ruins were the temple and the walls of Jerusalem; Ezra would eventually oversee the building of the temple, while Nehemiah would manage the building of the walls of Jerusalem. The first six chapters of Ezra give us the back story for Ezras role in overseeing the construction of the temple. The first three chapters tell us about the very initial planning for a new temple; I only want to focus on the first three chapters and the very last verse in the book of Ezra.
The only thing that happens in Ezra 3 is the exiles set up the altar where the sacrifices could be made, then the people began to celebrate the different festivals that were designed to remind them of Gods faithfulness, then hired masons and carpenters, and then laid the foundation of the temple. It would take another 20 years before the new temple would be completed. The best illustration I can come up with the kind of frustration the exiles in Jerusalem must have experienced, is to think of I-25 from Fort Collins to Denver.
Just so you know, it was not because the workers were part of the Union or that they worked for the federal government that it took so long to build the temple. There were legitimate obstacles the people faced by real adversaries. God stirred and moved King Cyrus to make a proclamation that bore the authority of any of the laws of Persia. The very first sentence in Ezra begins: Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia (Ezra 1:1). So, the king proclaimed that the Hebrew exiles could return and rebuild their temple (vv. 2-4).
King Cyrus would not live to see the day when his proclamation was finally fulfilled. Just after the foundation of the temple was laid, a group of people in Jerusalem who did not want the temple built, frightened them from building, and bribed advisers against them, to frustrate their advice all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia (v. 5). For ten years the building of the temple was put on hold. In Ezra 3, with the laying of the foundation of the temple, the people celebrated, but before they could begin, Ezra 4 happened! In chapter 5, the work began in the second year of a new king (Darius) and four years later, it was finally completed (Ezra 6:15ff). When it was finally finished, the people rightfully celebrated:
And the sons of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. They offered for the dedication of this temple of God a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel twelve male goats, corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel. Then they appointed the priests to their divisions and the Levites in their sections for the service of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the Book of Moses. (vv. 16-18).
What I find most startling about the book of Ezra is that the people seemed to have been in a really good place spiritually in their lives. As soon as they entered the land, they set up the altar before anything else so that they could worship God. They celebrated the feast of booths, which was also known as the Feast of Tabernacles as a way to celebrate the ways God preserved Israel in the wilderness and how his presence dwelled among them. They also celebrated all the other important days such as the Day of Atonement, and so much more. And, just after the new temple was dedicated, they celebrated Passover together!
Everything was going so well until we come to Ezra 9 and learn that the people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites did the same thing Solomon did that led to great evils in Israel they married the same type of women Solomon married who turned his heart away from God, and so the very last verse in Ezra serves as the epitaph of a story that began so good but ended so badly: All of these men had married foreign wives, and some of them had wives by whom they had children (10:44).
Israel Missed a Better Glory
I believe we are given a clue as to why Ezras book ends tragically. Notice how the people respond to the new temple in Ezra 3:10-13,
And they sang, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, saying, For He is good, for His favor is upon Israel forever. And all the people shouted with a great shout of joy when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people, because the people were shouting with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far away.
This is so easy to miss if you are not paying attention! Out of joy the people sang, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, saying, For He is good, for His favor is upon Israel forever (see also 2 Chron. 7:3). The people sang the same thing the people in Solomons day sang when the first temple was completed; this is how I know they were expecting the glory of God to return:
Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lords house. All the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to the Lord, saying, Certainly He is good, certainly His faithfulness is everlasting.
Everything the people practiced in Ezra 3 was good. But the reason why the old men wept was because they could not get past the beauty of Solomons temple and failed to appreciate the point and purpose of the temple in the first place. I also believe the younger men missed the point of the new temple for the same reasons the old men wept. The point was not a building for Gods glory to dwell in, but to know and worship the God whose plan has always been to dwell with His people face to face! The reason why the men turned to foreign women is the same reason Solomon turned to foreign women who worshiped other godsthey failed to appreciate that there was a greater glory than the lie Adam and Eve believed, the wisdom and women of Solomon, and the illusion of the past that what is gone was better than what God is doing today.
Conclusion
Now, there was no way for Israel to understand all that God was doing in the world, but what He was doing was more beautiful than Eden, greater than Solomons temple, and more permeant than the blood of bulls and goats (see Hebrews 10:4). The greater glory they missed was the promise of a deliverer who would remedy their sin. The greater glory they missed was the One the Passover and all the feasts pointed too. The greater glory was not the history of the Davidic kingdom or Solomons Temple, but a better and greater Son of David whose kingdom will know no end and will endure forever (2 Sam. 7:14). He is the greater glory who lights up the darkness (Isa. 9:2-7). We have the benefit of being able to look back to Ezra with New Testament eyes and see that the greater glory Israel missed was the glory that would come in the form a person who was fully God and fully man.
The glory eventually returned to Israel, but not in the way Israel ever saw coming. The glory came and it was heard in the sounds of an infants cry; see if you can hear the overtones of what we explored through scripture in the words of the Gospel of John concerning Jesus:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled] among us; and we saw His glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-5, 14).
Here are some of the things we learn from the first three chapters of Ezra and the promise of the greater glory, who is Jesus Christ:
God is faithful on His terms, in His ways, and according to His character.
While Israel was experiencing the just and severe discipline of God, it was God who promised that the discipline was for a season and not the end of their story. In Jeremiah 29:10, God made the following promise: For this is what the Lordsays: When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope (Jer. 29:1011).
Unbeknownst to those in exile and those in Jerusalem, overwhelmed by the ashes of what once was, God was working and moving in one of the more powerful men in the world: Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia (Ezra 1:1).
Just because you cannot see or understand what God is doing, does not mean that He is not working out His purposes for His glory and your good.
The best way to fight fear, is through faith in the God who is bigger than your problems.
I believe this is the reason why Israel built and installed the alter and worshiped God even though they were terrified of the people who surrounded them. Remembering the ways God delivered their forefathers from the great and tyrannical power of Egypt enabled them to fight against the terror they experienced. The people fought their fear by remembering who God was, the problem is that they were nearsighted and failed to see a greater glory existed for their good.
The safest place to be is in the will of God.
The story of Gods people is a lesson on this principle. The reason why there was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night that guided His people was so that they moved only when He moved and that they stayed only when God remained. Anytime the people of God moved when God was not moving or stayed when God was moving, they found themselves in trouble.
If you are a Christian, the glory we follow is Jesus, and we are to go where He goes and stay where He stays. If you are not a Christian because you have not surrendered your life to Jesus as the one who died for your sins and conquered the grave by raising from the dead, then you need to run to Him who stood in your place to bear the wrath of a holy God that you deserved.

A Tale of Two Trees

Primary reading (Slide 1 Reading for the Day):
8And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen 2:8,9 ESV)
(Slide 2 Reading for the Day):
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Rev 22:1-4 ESV)
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Meadowbrooke. I am so happy you have joined us today. For those who dont know me, my name is Ben McKay, and I am filling in today for our lead pastor, Keith. He and the staff were at a conference this week, so I am stepping in to help amidst their travel and activities. I am one of the elders here at Meadowbrooke and have served in that capacity for a couple of years. As I shared last time I gave a sermon, I count it as one of the most distinct privileges God has blessed me with to join these men who are completely sold out for Christ. My wife, Michaela, works as the office administrator here, and we have two boys, Brayden and Grayson. Michaela and I also host a life group and serve in other ministries here.
All that being said, I am not a pastor by occupation. So please remember that and be kind as we work through todays message. After all, we are in church and told to be charitable toward one another. Professionally, I work in software development and AI applications. Part of what drew me to this line of work is my love of data and how software makes it easier to show us how things relate to each other and how those relationships behave.
Now, you may be asking, what does this have to do with Genesis and Revelation? Well, that is a fantastic question. One of the key takeaways that I hope to leave you with today is that the Bible, a compilation of 66 books, is, in fact, a complete and cohesive narrative of Gods plan of salvation. This fact is astonishing because the Bible was written over approximately 1,500 years. This started with Moses somewhere around 1,400 BC[1][2][3] when the first five books of the Bible were written and ended with John writing Revelation somewhere around 95 AD[4]. During this time, over 40 individuals contributed to writing the various books of the Bible. Some wrote just one, like Isaiah the prophet; some wrote many, like Moses and Paul; and some books had multiple people contribute, like the books of Psalms[5] and Proverbs[6].
Let that sink in for a minute. At least 40 people, who were separated by centuries, came from very different backgrounds (some were kings and others were fishermen) and whose cultures had undergone drastic change (consider how different life looked for people living under King David when compared with those living in exile in Babylon) wrote accounts of God and his plan for salvation that were not only internally consistent individually but also consistent with each other. Thats incredible! Ive been to movies that cant stay internally consistent for an hour and a half! Many social media posts cant even stay internally consistent across two sentences.
I want to move our hearts from being merely impressed by this fact to seeing the intricacies and internal consistency of the Word of God in awe and wonder. This is one of my favorite data visualizations of all time[7]. It shows the biblical cross-references that the creator of this image had identified. Each arc shows a verse referencing another verse. The Bible is quite literally in conversation with itself. We can see concepts come up repeatedly, prophecies being made and then fulfilled. God tells us something about Himself and then elaborates on it further. Throughout it all, we see the fulfillment of Gods eternal plan to redeem His creation back to Himself. This has led people like Jordan Petersen, the renowned psychologist, who is not an avowed Christian by the way, to say, This is the first hyperlinked book[8]. He means you can navigate through the Bible like web pages on the Internet. Instead of following hyperlinks, though, we follow cross-references. This is one of the reasons that lifetimes wouldnt be enough to get everything out of this book that it has to offer; another is that these are the words of God, and well, hes a lot smarter than us.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa 55:8,9)
What were going to do today is to pull on one of those threads, click through the hyperlinks if you will, and we will get to stand in awe at how the gospel, the good news of God, radiates from the pages of scripture. You probably have seen the thread Im alluding to from our readings, the Tree of Life. This tree makes its first appearance in the second chapter of the Bible and appears again in the very last chapter. I bet thats just a coincidence.
We will go back to Genesis, the story's beginning. In Chapter 2, we read,
7 Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen 2:7-9 ESV)
Here, we see Adam being placed into an idyllic garden (Adam was created outside of the garden and then brought into it), filled with life, sustenance, and beauty. Trees seem to abound. But the author immediately draws our attention to two. The first, we are told, is in the midst of the garden. This phrase has significance throughout the Bible, especially in the first five books. Moses would have written these books during the 40 years of Israels wandering in the desert. This was when God had the nation of Israel, his earthly representatives to the nations, build the Tabernacle. This was where Gods presence was most vividly and intensely seen. Check this out.
45 I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. 46 And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God. (Ex 29:45,46)
Its not easy to see in the English translation, but where we see dwell among them, the Hebrew word that gets translated among is the same word that gets translated in the midst of. Throughout the Tabernacle's description, we see that Gods plan is to be literally in the middle of his people; the word Tabernacle even means dwelling place. God goes so far as to have the Tabernacle placed in the very center of the camp. He didnt just want to be the God of the people. He wanted to be God dwelling with His people. The people of this time and this place would have literally seen Gods glory settle over the Tabernacle in the middle of their camp.
Therefore, they would have seen the deep imagery intended within this passage. The garden was where God intended to dwell with His people; we see Him literally walking in the garden in Chapter 3. And as the Tabernacle was placed in the middle of their camp, so too was something in the middle of the garden, the Tree of Life. Now, we dont know much about this tree except that it could have permitted the man and the woman to live forever. God intends that his image bearers will have life. He is, after all, the living God. So, God placed life, which only He can give, in the middle of the garden where it could be seen and easily accessed. Jesus reinforced this idea that God wants his image bearers to have life when he said, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (Jn 10:10b). But more on that in a moment.
The only other tree mentioned by name is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I want to pause here because this name has been misunderstood and misused. This is not the tree of knowledge. Knowledge is not the thing that hurts humanity. Read Proverbs. Knowledge is a good thing when it begins with the fear of the Lord, Proverbs 1:7. It is the knowledge of something very specific here that causes a problem, namely good and evil. This tree represents our choice to have moral experience, put ourselves in the place of God not through fear but through disobedience, and define good and evil for ourselves. Lets look at the narrative.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? 2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.4 But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Gen 3:1-6)
There it is, right there. The temptation was, You will be like God. Open a newspaper, and you will see the consequences of believing this lie. This is the underlying heart condition that has plagued humanity since this moment. Want to know how people like Putin come to be? Want to know how people can commit genocide and call it justified? Want to know how people can murder children and call it righteous? Want to know how people can enslave each other? Its all right there in that one fragment of a sentence. You will be like God. God doesnt get to tell me right from wrong; I get to. He is not the center of and reason for all creation; I am.
Eve reached out to grasp the forbidden fruit. We also reach out to grab what only God can define: good and evil. They ate the fruit because they believed the lie that God was holding something back from them. Their belief led them to eat from a false tree of life. This should be seen as a representation of what was to come. We reach out to things that cannot offer life, yet we pretend they do. We do this, brothers and sisters; I do this. We believe we know better. We buy into the lie that Gods law is meant to enslave us rather than free us from bondage.
Moreover, they were image-bearers of God and believed the lie that they werent. Look at this.
26 Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26,27)
They were already image bearers of the God whose power was awesome enough to speak the universe into existence. They had access to the Tree of Life. Notice that God did not issue a prohibition against eating from the Tree of Life. He wants us to have life and have it abundantly. However, humanity chose rebellion, and death came into the world with rebellion.
Now, the question may arise: Why couldnt Adam and Eve then eat of the tree of life? Why did God take that away from them? They still could have lived forever. Embedded in this question is, I think, a profound misunderstanding about God in the modern age. He is both perfectly holy and the exact definition of perfect love. He is both things at the same time. Because of our separation that was caused by sin, this would have resulted in eternal separation from God. Sin and Gods holiness cannot exist together. And, as we saw from Exodus, God is not content to leave us as we are and, therefore, remain separated from Him for eternity. So, we were banished from the garden, and we became subjected to death.
Here, we see a split in the underlying symbology of trees in the biblical texts. To the ancient Hebrew mind, trees represent something inherently linked to life and vitality. Look with me at the first Psalm.
1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away. (Ps 1:1-4)
The tree, in this case, is said not to wither. In opposition, we see chaff, which is fleeting and blown to and fro. The tree is planted. This is in opposition to the chaff, which is driven away. Now, turn to Psalm 92.
12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
14 They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green,
15 to declare that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. (Ps 92:12-15)
Notice here that the same attributes we see in Psalm 1 are also found in Psalm 92. Trees are used as a representation, an image, of flourishing, strength, yielding fruit, and maintaining that vitality for a long time. This makes sense since trees can live for hundreds or even thousands of years. They make excellent metaphors for abundant life. But, notice something important here. It is not just anybody that is like a tree. It is the person who is what? Psalm 1 says they delight in the law of the Lord. Psalm 92 says they are planted in the house of the Lord and declare that the Lord is upright. Their roots are solidly well rooted in the only source of eternal life.
Now, lets look at the opposite imagery of trees. Trees are used to represent darkness and evil. It ties back to the trees in the garden, where we exchanged the truth for a lie, life for death. There was a warning that Moses left the Israelites with as they were about to enter the land of Canaan. Nested within commandments about how Gods people were to act is this.
21 You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God that you shall make. 22 And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates. (De 16:21-22)
This command was given because the surrounding cultures built idols to worship pagan gods. One of the most prominent among these was the fertility goddess Asherah. One of the ways to worship Asherah was to plant a tree or make a pole on a hill; the Bible often calls these high places. Now, if you read your whole Bible, which I strongly encourage you to do, you will notice this tendency. People will take a piece of Gods creation and then worship the created thing instead of the Creator. We exchange a true thing for a false thing. Doesnt that sound reminiscent of what we are told happened in Genesis? Paul put it like this in Romans after describing how we can understand some of Gods attributes, namely his power and divine nature, because of the grandeur of creation. However, he then talks about people who disregard God and worship created things instead.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Rom 1:22-25)
But it gets worse. A lot worse. Instead of heeding the warning of Moses, Israel participated in and went beyond the worship they were prohibited from. In 2 Chronicles, we see what Gods people chose instead of worshipping the one true, living God.
1 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done, 2 but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made metal images for the Baals, 3 and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. 4 And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree. (2 Ch 28:1-4)
A lot is packed into these four verses, and I could spend an entire sermon unpacking just this. But I want you to see a couple of things. First, just like we saw from Pauls letter to the Romans, who we worship has real consequences beyond just the worship itself. Paul talks about God handing people over to the lusts of their hearts, resulting in them dishonoring their bodies because of their worship. Similarly, Ahaz murdered his own sons because of whom he worshiped.
Second, we see a direct tie between Moses's warning and the sins the nation of Israel committed. Some are very quick to talk about Gods judgment of the Canaanites when the people of Israel drove them out. What is missed is that God judged them because of practices like these. People also leave out that God judged his promised people the same way. He held them accountable in the same way. If you read on to the end of 2 Chronicles, you will see that God used the nations to judge Judah in the same way. Their rejection of God and subsequent sin led directly to exile in Babylon.
I know this probably seems like a bleak story so far. But this is a foundational truth that we have to understand to grasp the gospel. We are fallen. It is not just Adam, Eve, Ahaz, Israel, or the Pharisees. It is all of us. This is my story. This is your story. But, it is not the end of the story.
We see the promise of this story even as God puts a curse on the earth and removes humans from the garden. There will be one who comes who the snake, the evil one, will wound. But it will be the snake who is crushed. God promises Abraham that all of the world's nations will be blessed through his family. He then reiterates that promise to his son and grandson. King David was told that one of his descendants would be the promised Messiah, whose throne would be established forever. We can read the promises from the prophets in detail. I want to focus on one of these, but there are hundreds more examples.
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turnedevery oneto his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. (Is 53:1-10)
Sound like anybody you know? The miraculous thing is that this was written over 700 years before Jesus lived[9]. It accurately renders the same scripture Jesus read while undertaking his ministry. We know that this is true because we have the archeological evidence. This is the Great Isaiah Scroll. It was found in the caves of Qumran in a collection commonly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. It contains the entire text of the same book we read today. And youll never guess what. When the archaeologists carbon-dated it, they found that it predated the birth of Jesus by 100 years. Let that sink in. We have archaeological proof that this prophecy and the entire book of Isaiah predated the events. And this is not unique to Isaiah. Modern translations use this and other ancient manuscripts. You are reading the exact words that Jesus read about himself.
And what we see in prophecy is precisely the suffering servant that we encounter in the person of Jesus. He was pierced by the nails that held him to the cross. He was ridiculed and mocked, deemed smitten by God. Like a sheep, he was led to slaughter. He was buried in the tomb of a rich man. And in so doing, he took on the iniquity of us all. As Luke, the author of Acts, put it,
30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. (Acts 5:30-32)
And there it is again, the tree. We were allowed to eat from the tree of life. Instead, we chose a false tree, where we attempted to put ourselves in the place of God. We were told to be rooted in the word and knowledge of God and thus be like trees planted by a stream. Instead, we chose idols and rejected the Creator, the giver of life. We were given the Son, the second person of the Trinity, who said, I am the way and the truth and the life. Instead of accepting him, we rejected him and killed him on a tree. Do you see the pattern? There is a choice here. And we dont seem to choose very well.
Why does Luke mention a tree? Wouldnt it have been enough just to say you killed him? And this is where the biblical narrative, imagery, and deep interconnectedness get so incredibly good. Please turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 21.
22 And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. (De 21:22,23)
This section of scripture is Moses giving his final commands to the nation of Israel as they are about to enter the promised land. Notice here the language. A hanged man is cursed by God. This is in reference specifically to a man hanged on a what? A man hanged on a tree. If you happen to be using a study Bible right now, you almost certainly have this cross-reference. Please turn with me to Galatians 3:13.
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for usfor it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Gal 3:13,14)
If this doesnt stop you dead in your mental tracks, I dont know what will. When I say that the Bible is in conversation with itself, this is precisely what I mean. Trees are used repeatedly in the Bible to represent images of life. But humans used them not only to replace the worship of the one, true creator God for the worship of created idols but also as a means of torture and death. Exodus was written 1,400 years before Jesus lived and well before crucifixion was invented as a method of execution, yet it perfectly fits within the biblical narrative. Jesus knew he was to die at the cross well before the events and that this verse was pointing not just to how he would be killed but to the underlying reason why. He was to take on the curse even though he didnt sin to take away the consequences from us who did sin. This is grace, unmerited favor.
Ive covered a lot of ground just now, so I want to recap just a bit before moving on.
Humanity was given the Tree of Life in the garden. Instead, we chose disobedience, ate from the forbidden tree, and through sin, we received death.
We were to worship the one true God, the creator of the universe. Instead, we chose to worship what was created, including trees.
We were told to be like trees, rooted in Gods word. Instead, we chopped trees down and made them idols and tools of death.
We were given the Son of God, who was and is the way, the truth, and the life. Instead, we nailed him to a tree.
Looks pretty bleak, right? Thank God it doesnt end here. As Paul Harvey would have said, And now its time for the rest of the story. God uses the imagery of trees to take us to the good news, the gospel of God. We see it foretold in the Old Testament.
1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. (Isa 11:1,2)
This will sound like a ridiculous question, but what is a stump? What is left over after a tree has been cut down, right? Isaiah prophesied that the kings of Israel would cease. That happened, and it was because of Israels sin. There was no royal family when Jesus was alive, and there is no royal family in Israel now. But Isaiah promised something else. A branch will come from that stump, which was supposed to be dead. And it will bear fruit. We see this also in Jeremiah.
14 Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. (Jer 33:14,15)
Out of the spiritual death that was a consequence of sin and disobedience, God brought life. That branch, Jesus, was righteous and bore fruit. He would execute not only justice but also righteousness in the land. That branch would come out of a stump, which was supposed to be dead. But, like the stump, Jesus didnt stay dead, did he?
And if you are still on the fence about all of this, if Jesus is not your savior yet, this is the most important point I will make today. The cross is empty. As was commanded in Deuteronomy, Jesus was taken down from the tree that day and, as prophesied by Isaiah, was buried in a rich mans tomb. The cross could not hold him. And guess what? The grave couldnt either. The empty cross and the empty grave are some of the best-attested facts of the ancient world. This is so much the case that critics and skeptics have resorted to developing all sorts of implausible theories. An example is that Jesus just fainted on the cross, and the cool air of the tomb brought him to. Another is that Jesus had a twin, and nobody noticed the difference. These hypotheses are put forward without any evidence or historical justification.
Instead, the truth is that Jesus lived the life that you and I cannot, died the death that we deserve, and then rose from the grave to new life, something you and I cannot do ourselves. And because of the work of Gods divine grace, our debt has been paid in full by the Son of God. Paul puts it extremely succinctly in Romans.
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:3,4)
You may have guessed this already, but the Bible also has a tree metaphor for this. In this same letter to Rome, Paul wrote the following as he compared Gods chosen people, Israel, to the Gentiles.
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. (Rom 11:17-24)
In this metaphor that Paul uses to describe how we achieve new life, Jesus is the root that we are grafted into and receive life through Him. I was shocked to learn that this is a thing. You can take a branch from a tree, cut it completely off, and then graft it into another tree, and it will grow. Im really curious how humans first learned to do this. But to be honest, Im not sure I want to meet the person who first figured it out. I cant help but picture that they looked something like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein[10].
All joking aside, this is a crucial and pivotal point that I dont want us to miss. We receive life because we have been supernaturally grafted to Jesus. As Paul said in Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20) There is now no distinction between Jew and Greek (thats you and me). We are all able to receive life through Jesus. It is not our life but His that we live by.
If you have been saved by faith through Jesus, you will experience this by the Spirit of God dwelling inside you. And the life you experience will be ever more witnessed by the fruit from that life. Lets return to the chart that I showed before. The bad news we discussed was all driven by our decisions to disobey the one true God and instead live by our own standards and desires. If not for the grace and love of God, that is where we would have been left. But, praise God, that is not where He left us. Well look at this in reverse order.
We were given the Son of God, who was and is the way, the truth, and the life. Instead, we nailed him to a tree. But he rose again to new life, conquering the grave.
We were told to be like trees, rooted in Gods word. Instead, we chopped trees down and made them idols and tools of death. We, as believers, are now grafted into Jesus, the root, and receive His life.
We were to worship the one true God, the creator of the universe. Instead, we chose to worship what was created, including trees. We now worship the one true God in spirit and truth because the Holy Spirit dwells within us.
That leaves us with one obvious stepthe Tree of Life. And we saw its return in our opening readings this morning. Please turn with me again to Revelation 22.
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Rev 22:1-4 ESV)
Chapter 22 of Revelation is the very end of the biblical narrative. The apostle John was being shown a glimpse into eternity. This is after death has been destroyed, the enemy has been defeated, and the servants of God are eternally with Him. We will get to see His face. There will be no more night. Life flows directly from the Lamb and the throne of God. And on either side of the river, we see the Tree of Life, healing the nations. Because of Jesuss sacrifice, the host of heaven sings. We get a picture of it when John writes the following in Revelation.
11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice,
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!
13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever! (Rev 5:11-13)
We will ultimately see restoration. As sure as I am that Jesus lived, died, and rose again, I am sure that believers will see this. If you have placed your trust and hope in Jesus, you will have eternal life; you will experience complete healing, and you will see the face of God. This brings us to the last theological point that I want to make.
Humanity was given the Tree of Life in the garden. Instead, we chose disobedience, and through sin, we received death. Because of the work of Jesus, we will again gain access to the tree of life and will be in the presence of God for eternity.
Despite the incredible theological implications of what we have covered today, there is a considerable risk. And that is that we all walk out the doors of this building and live like the rest of the world. If we are genuinely grafted into the life of Jesus, we should bear fruit. Now, that does not mean that we are perfect, not by any means. But we should all seek the sanctification that the Bible promises we will see in increased measure. And I think this scriptural journey weve been on today can guide us.
Tree of Life: We should start with a reverent fear of God. As Proverbs tells us, the fear of the LORD is the beginning of both knowledge and wisdom. Unlike Adam and Eve, we need to rest in the trust and faith that God is not holding anything back from us. His laws are good, His intentions are kind, and He wants us to have abundant life.
Get rid of idols in our lives: We all can have idols in our lives. They are as real as the Asherah poles that the Israelites and the nations surrounding them stood up. It can be sports, it can be wealth, it can be our spouse or kids, it can even be our very selves. Remember, who we worship has implications beyond just the worship itself. You will become like what you worship, and only the worship of God will result in a life that bears fruit and eternal salvation.
We should root ourselves in the Word of God: If we turn back to Psalm 1, we see what it means to be rooted. We are to meditate on the law of God day and night. We are to delight in His law. We should get rid of whatever we need to get rid of to make this possible. If you have to get up before kids, do it. If youre not in a LIFE group, join one. If you need to listen to Bible readings instead of the radio on your way to work, do it. Get into scripture, memorize it, meditate on it, and your life will bear fruit as the Holy Spirit works on your heart.
Have confidence in the truth of the Gospel: Jesus really did come and live the life you and I could never live. He really did die the death that you and I deserve. And he really did rise from the dead, walk out of the tomb, and conquer death. He then offered that same life to anybody who would believe in and follow him. Root yourself in this, the rock of our salvation. It doesnt matter what happens to you if you are rooted in this; you will not be moved because of who you are rooted in.
Benediction
I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family[c] in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faiththat you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Eph 3:17-21)
[1] Introduction to Genesis, ESV Study Bible, pp 39
[2] Introduction to Deuteronomy, ESV Study Bible, pp 325
[3] Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Moses, pp 973
[4] Introduction to Revelation, ESV Study Bible, pp 2453
[5] Introduction to the Psalms, ESV Study Bible, pp 936
[6] Introduction to Proverbs, ESV Study Bible, pp 1129
[7] https://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/visualizations/BibleViz
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2wt=4280s
[9] Introduction to Isaiah, ESV Study Bible, pp 1233
[10] https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7d0e87853917613964998c/1586365377311-5U14I8VN4HY3NVLWV2FM/f2e1ab082e83ac27c667ae2d6102a3fe.jpg

The Three F-Words of the Christian Life

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the first sermon I preached as the Lead Pastor of Meadowbrooke Church, which was on November 4, 2018. The passage I preached on that day was Isaiah 6:1-8, and the only two sermon points I had on that day was: 1) God Calls Us to Know Him, and 2) God Calls Us to Send Us. There were seven truths I wanted Meadowbrooke to know on November 4, 2018, about God from Isaiah 6; those seven truths were and still remain the thing I want you to know today:
God is alive.
God is sovereign.
God is great.
God is majestic.
God is God.
God is holy.
God is missional (He is on mission).
The irony for me is that here we are, five years later, and we have just finished up a series in Malachi title Worth-ship with the hope that I can, on a very practical level, help you understand what it means to be the kind of person described for us in Malachi 3:16-18,
Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened attentively and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and esteem His name. And they will be Mine, says the Lord of armies, on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will have compassion for them just as a man has compassion for his own son who serves him. So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.
I sat in front of my Bible for several hours earlier this week staring at it helpless and not knowing what text from the Bible for us to dive into. My mind was finally drawn to Hebrews 11:1-12:3 and as I meditated upon those verses, I realized that the author of Hebrews wrote his epistle (which is really a sermon) with the same motivation that I have for you today. My hearts desire for our time together this morning is that you leave here with a better understanding of what it means to be a Christian. As I meditate upon this passage in Hebrews and the time we spent in Malachi, there were three words that came to mind. The title of my sermon today is simply this: The Three F-Words of the Christian Life.
So, what are the three words I believe are characteristic of anyone who belongs to God? The words are fear, faith, and fellowship and are true of anyone who has been reconciled to God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and redemption of all whose faith and trust is in Him. These are not the only characteristics, but they are the primary ones that come to mind; it is also important to note that these words are not sequential but overlap each other.
Fear (yārēʾ): A reverent fear that compels the Christian to lean into God.
Last week I explained that there were three types of Hebrew words for fear related to how one responds to God in the Old Testament. There is a fear where the response is dread; there is a fear where the response of the person is terror, and then there is the kind of fear that was characteristic of those described in Malachi 3:16 and every other person who pressed into God through worship rather than recoiling from Him, and that fear is a reverent and respectful fear.
If you recall, I showed you that it is the fear described in Proverbs 9:10, Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. You can see it here: There is a fear that causes those who belong to God to recoil from evil for the purpose of pursuing and pressing into God. It is the kind of fear that inspired Abel to offer a better sacrifice to God (Heb. 11:4). It is the kind of fear that compelled Abraham to obey God by leaving the city of Ur to go to a place God would eventually show him even though Abraham did not know where he was going (v. 8-10). It is the kind of fear that compelled Moses to endure ill-treatment rather than the temporary pleasures of sin (v. 25). It is the type of fear that compels the Christian to, run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking only to Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith (12:1-2).
What compels a man, woman, or even a child to worship God even if to do so is costly? These are the kinds of people described in Hebrews 11:37-38, They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (people of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts, on mountains, and sheltering in caves and holes in the ground (Heb. 11:3738).
The kind of fear that results in the kind of reverence for God that the people described in Hebrews 11 had comes out of an understanding of who He is. Under some of the most severe seasons of suffering and persecution, what has been proven time and time again is the truth of Daniel 11:32, but the people who know their God will be strong and take action. To a people who were about to experience the terror of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian empire, the prophet Jeremiah wrote these words: Let no wise man boast of his wisdom, nor let the mighty man boast of his might, nor a rich man boast of his riches; but let the one who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises mercy, justice, and righteousness on the earth; for I delight in these things, declares the Lord (Jer. 9:23-24).
If you ever hope to revere God in the same way those described in Hebrews 11 did, you better seek to know Him! The way to know Him is to seek Him and to do so in the way that He has revealed Himself. How has He revealed Himself? He has done so by showing He exists by things seen, and more specifically through His Son, Jesus Christ and through His written Word!
Faith: A trust in God that deepens as the Christians knows Him more.
What is faith? We are told what it is in the very first verse: Now faith is the certainty of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen. This faith begins with a confidence (NIV), an assurance (ESV), a certainty in a God, who, as the opening sentence in Hebrews states, has revealed Himself, to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son (Heb. 1:1-2).
It is a faith that begins with a rational and intelligent presupposition that God exists. It is a faith that is rational and intelligent because it makes a lot more sense than the alternative. We are not an accident, there is design in the universe, and you and I bear His image: By faith we understand that the world has been created by the word of God so that what is seen has not been made out of things that are visible (11:3). It is the kind of faith that came about in Noahs life because God revealed Himself to him in a very real and tangible way. Out of his understanding of who God was, Noah believed Him when he was told by God Almighty that it was going to rain. It was faith that compelled Noah to build a boat to escape the judgment of God.
It was out of a growing knowledge of who God was that Abraham was not simply looking for a land promised to him by God. It was through faith in a good and holy God that Abraham looked, for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (v. 10). It was through faith that Abraham responded in obedience to a sovereign and loving God that he, offered up Isaac because he considered that God was able to raise people even from the dead (vv. 17-19). It was out of a growing understanding of who God was that the men and women of old, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies (vv. 33-34). It is the type of faith that emboldens the Christian to, run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfector of the faith knowing with certainty that there is a great joy waiting for us on the other side of eternity.
As the Christian grows in his/her understanding of God, so will a reverence for God and faith in Him deepen. This cannot happen unless your reverence of Him moves you to know Him more, for the better that you know Him, the easier it will be trust Him.
Fellowship: A union in God that overflows into community with His people.
The forgiveness of your sins is not conditioned on anything that you do. If you are a Christian, it is all because of Jesus! What about the saints of Old before the birth of Jesus? It was their faith in the promise of God. The promise is not a what but a who. The who is Jesus, and the saints of old longed for His appearing: These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect (Heb. 11:39-40).
The point of Hebrews is that Jesus is sufficient to save us from our sins and reconcile us to a Holy God we have sinned against. It is all of Him and none of me! Throughout the book of Hebrews, Jesus is shown to be better than everything that has come before. This is why in the very first paragraph of Hebrews, we read:
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:1-3)
After Jesus lived the life we could never live, died the death we all deserved under the wrath of His Father for our sin, was buried, then rose three days later He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. What He accomplished was complete and there is not a thing or deed we can add to what He already accomplished. If that were not enough, the author of Hebrews added in 10:11-14, Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies are made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
We have the promise the saints of old look to and longed for! Therefore, it is out of a reverent infused fear that serves as the fuel of a faith that turns our eyes away from everything else and sets our hearts on Jesus and only Jesus as the originator and perfector of the faith.
Notice that it is Jesus we are running to, the One who is our Promise! There is a favorite phrase used by the apostle Paul, couched in three different ways that describes the kind of fellowship that is first and foremost rooted in Jesus, and that phrase is in Christ, in the Lord, and in Him. That phrase in its various forms is used about 164 times by the apostle Paul alone! It is the kind of fellowship Jesus described in John 15:1-5,
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
To abide in Jesus is to take up residence in Him; it is a union with Him as you walk with Him. It is the sort of thing Paul describes in Philippians 3:7-11,
But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss because of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them mere rubbish, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
How does one abide in Jesus? You need to not only hear His words, but you must listen to them. Do not stop at listening to His words though, you must take them into your mind and heart and obey them. As you obey Him, you must follow Him and go where He goes to learn from Him. This is the very thing the Savior invites us to do, for He has said:
The one who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and the one who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And the one who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. The one who has found his life will lose it, and the one who has lost his life on My account will find it. (Matt. 10:34-36)
Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is comfortable, and My burden is light. (Matt. 11:28-30)
From Adam and Eve all to those described in Malachi 3:16-18, and the faithful followers of Jesus who endure to the end all the way up to the end of the age (Matt. 24:13), the three F words that are characteristic of those who belong to God are fear, faith, and fellowship. We do not do this alone but do it within the community of His people before a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1).
I have been with you for five years Meadowbrooke. I am not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I do anticipate, with a heavy heart, that in the next five years, we may see and experience great global sorrows. Therefore, I leave you with Hebrews 10:19-25 as what I believe to be the most appropriate way to conclude this sermon on the fifth anniversary of what I consider to be a great honor to serve our great Savior as your incompetent and flawed pastor:
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, lets approach God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Lets hold firmly to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and lets consider how to encourage one another in love and good deeds, not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Amen.

A Tale of Two Types of People

Through a reading of the Bible and an understanding of human history, you will discover that there exists a major fault line that divides those who are a part of Gods true family and those who are not. The fault line divides those who honor God and those who do not honor Him, the righteous and the wicked, and those have been reconciled to Him and those who remain alienated from Him.
From the beginning we are introduced to Cain and Abel. We are told that both men participated in the worship of Yahweh, but it was Abels worship that was accepted by God and because Cain was jealous of Abel relationship with God, Cain murdered his brother. Noah had three sons who experienced the miraculous salvation of their family by God through the Ark, yet it was Noahs youngest son, Ham, who did not walk in the ways of his father (Gen. 9:18-29). Isaac and Rebekah had twins who grew up in the same household under the same roof, yet it was Jacob who became the son of promise and Esau who followed the appetites of his own flesh and was rejected by God.
The thing that set Abel apart from Cain, Noahs sons Shem and Japheth from Ham, and Jacob from Esau was fear. There are three types of fear used throughout the Old Testament. There is the kind of fear (pḥd) which means to dread (e.g. Isa. 33:14). A second type of fear used in the Old Testament is the kind of fear (mrāʾ) where one experiences terror (e.g. Isa. 8:12). The third type of fear (yareʾ) is a type of fear that includes reverence and respect; it is the kind of fear the people of God are called to in Proverbs 3:7, Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. The same Hebrew word for fear is used for the word fear in Proverbs 9:10, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
Everything we have read in Malachi regarding the people has been negative so far. What have we learned of the Priests and the people to whom the book of Malachi is addressed?
They questioned the love of God (1:2)
They gave the poorest and cheapest of offerings to God (1:6-2:9)
They were covenant breakers with their spouses, neighbors, and with God (2:10-16).
They were stingy in their giving (3:8-9)
They questioned Gods character (3:13-15)
Finally, we learn of another group of people in verse 16 that look very different than the unfaithful priests and people addressed previously. We see the same fault line that exists between those who truly belong to Yahweh and those who do not especially when you see verse 16 in contrast to verses 13-15. Notice the stark difference between these two groups of people:
Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, How have we spoken against you? You have said, It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape. (Malachi 3:1315)
Now, notice the contrast between the above verses with verse 16,
Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.(Malachi 3:16)
What I find interesting about those described in Malachi 3:13-15 is that they assumed they belonged to God while questioning the value in serving God, obeying the Word of God, or what reward there was in walking as in mourning before the Lord (denying the pleasures of the world and sin). Their conclusion about life and the worship of God was very different than those who are described in Malachi 3:16.
Those Who Feared the Lord Belong to the Lord
Those who feared God, spoke with one another. Out of a reverent awe of God, these people spoke with one another about God do not miss this point! We are not told what they said to one another, but what we can assume is that their language was shaped by a genuine love of who God is. My guess is that those who feared the Lord, most likely testified about the goodness of God, believed that His infinite goodness was enough to stand on when things were difficult, and understood that He was not only worthy to be treasured but sufficient to be trusted.
Unlike those words that have been hard against God (v. 13), those who feared the Lord did not look at their relationship with God in the same way Cain or Enoch did before them. Those whose words were hard against God, viewed their religion as a transaction, and if you could put their attitude into a phrase, it would go something like this: You scratch my back, and I will scratch your back. One commentator describes those who had hard words against God as religious people who viewed their worship as something God needed from them: They gave something to Godsacrifices, offerings, and a variety of religious activitiesand they expected a return on their investment: the blessings of prosperity and welfare. As a result, if their religious efforts didnt materially benefit them in measurable ways, it meant that the Lord had not kept his end of the bargain. God owed them something in return for their obedience.[1]
Those described in verse 16 understood their worship of God as relational. They not only feared God, but they honored Him as their heavenly Father, and they trusted Him as being totally sovereign over their lives even when things did not go the way that they had hoped. They understood themselves to be children of the God Almighty instead of his customers.Because those who feared God, had a relationship with Him, we learn that Yahweh, paid attention and heard them. Those who fear Yahweh experience Him very differently than those described in Malachi 2:13 who, cover the Lords altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from their hand.
There are two things that need to be noted here: The first thing I have already stated, and that is that those who truly fear God love to talk to others about God. The second thing to be noted is that those who fear God live for God. This is why there is a book of remembrance written of those who, feared the Lord and esteemed his name. As one commentator wrote: The fear of God affects both their attitude toward Him and their actions before Him.[2]
The book of remembrance is different than the Book of Life that lists all those who have been reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus as the Lamb of God (see Rev. 13:8), it is also unlike the Book of the Lord that records the judgment of God against the nations (Isa. 34:16), nor is the book of remembrance the same as the books that will be opened on the Day of judgment (Rev. 20:12). The book of remembrance is only for those who fear (yareʾ) God because they truly belong to Him; it is a book that records the righteous words, motives, and deeds of those who are treasured by God because they belong to Him as a son or daughter belongs to a father.
For those who do not fear Yahweh in verses 13-15, they see no value in serving God, no point in rejecting worldly pleasures in light of eternity, or the benefit in obeying the Word of Yahweh because they do not think He is able to see. However, those who fear Yahweh, know better! God sees, they know it, and they sing it: Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there (Ps. 139:78, NASB). God sees you Christian! He sees when you turn from sin out of a desire to please Him. In his commentary on Malachi, Robby Gallaty makes the following observation:
Every time a woman respects her body and rejects intimacy with another man before marriage, God sees and honors that decision. Every time a husband refuses to engage in immoral talk at work or to be seduced into looking at pornography, God recognizes it. Every time you avert gossip, every time you bear the burden of an injustice and refuse to lash out, God sees that. Every time a family opens their home to be a Christian witness to the world, God sees that. Every time you share the gospel with a lost family member or friend, God sees that, whether or not anyone else does.[3]
Not only does our God see, but for those who fear Him, this is what He says about such people: They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him (v. 17). Those who belong to God are not only seen by God, but are treasured by Him! Why are they treasured by Him? Not because of their deeds, but because of Him who spares out of mercy (v. 17b).
Dont forget what was already promised in Malachi 3:1-4. A messenger would come to prepare the way for Yahweh, and He will come to His temple as a refiners fire to purify the sons of Levi by suffering the fire of Gods justice for our sins. The same mercy that will purify Levi, is the same mercy spoken of in verse 17. Jesus, as the Fathers refiners fire, will purify a people, and if you are a Christian, you are that people!
We learn from 1 Peter 2:9-10 that all those whose have been reconciled to God through His Son belong to God as His treasured possession: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are Gods people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Pet. 2:910). This is what sets the righteous apart from the wicked, look at the next verse in Malachi: Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him (v. 18).
Those Who Belong to the Lord Will Enjoy the Salvation of the Lord
In Malachi 2:17, those who did not fear the Lord said of Him: Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in those who does evil. This is why the same people claimed that it was, pointless to serve God. Their view of God and lack of reverence for Him is the reason why they could have the audacity to show up for worship while asking: what benefit is it for us that we have done what He required? (v. 14).
Gods answer to the ridiculous accusations of those who claimed to worship Yahweh is found in Malachi 4:1, For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. You wonder where is the justice of God? Do you think that because you have not seen His justice yet that you can live the way you want to live? Do not mistake His mercy for indifference! Consider what the apostle Paul wrote to those who had similar questions related to sin and the justice of God: Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and restraint and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom. 2:45, NASB 2020).
Gods kindness, restraint, and patience is meant to lead you to repentance! But, if you take for granted His kindness, restraint, and patience so that you can continue in your sin, then the refiners fire will fall upon you and you will be consumed by it, but in the way the prophet Isaiah and Jesus described: For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh (Isa. 66:24b).
There is good news though! It is good news for those who fear the Lord and it is good news for those who do not presently fear the Lord: But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall (4:2). This is good news because the sun of righteousness is the Lord our Righteousness and the righteous Branch of David (Jer. 23:5-6). This is good news because the sun of righteousness is the Son of God who is also the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).This is good news because the sun of righteousness is the resurrection and the life who is making all things new (John 11:25; Rev. 21:5). This is good news because the sun of righteousness is the One who, loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father (Rev. 1:5-6). I am not sure who wrote this, but what this person wrote in light of Malachi 4:2 is too good not to share with you:
As the rays of the sun spread light and warmth over the earth for the growth and maturity of the plants and living creatures, so will the sun of righteousness bring the healing of all hurts and wounds which the power of darkness has inflicted upon the righteous. Then they will go forth from the holes and caves, into which they had withdrawn during the night of suffering and where they had kept themselves concealed, and skip like stalled calves which are driven from the stall to the pasture.
Malachi 4:2 is good news for those of us who have placed our faith and trust in Jesus out of a right fear for God. When the sun of righteousness appears, we will experience the promise of Revelation 21:4, He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Rev. 21:4). Listen, for the one who does not yet fear God because you do not know Him, this promise is available to you through the same Jesus who experienced the wrath of God for sinners like you. You only need to come to Him in faith to receive the forgiveness of your sins.
So, of the two groups of people described in Malachi, who are you? Are you religious in words and empty deeds? Is your relationship with God merely commercial in that worship of God is no more than a transaction to you? When it comes to your worship, do you despise Gods name with your actions? Can you hear the Spirit of God ask you this question: A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? (1:6)?
Oh, wont you come to the sun of righteousness who invites all sinners to lay down their sin and pride to find their rest in Him: Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28, NASB 2020).
If you are the person described in Malachi 3:16, then you belong to God. With the cry, It is finished! from our Savior upon the cross, can be heard through the echo: They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him (Mal. 3:17).
Amen.
[1] Duguid, I. M., Harmon, M. P. (2018). Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, D. M. Doriani, Eds.; p. 176). PR Publishing.
[2] Fries, M., Rummage, S., Gallaty, R. (2015). Exalting jesus in zephaniah, haggai, zechariah, and malachi (D. Platt, D. L. Akin, T. Merida, Eds.; p. 264). Holman Reference.
[3] Ibid.

The Way Back to a Generous God

Last week I said that this passage was not about money. What this passage is about is the spiritual health of those who say they worship God. When we read through Malachi, what we discover is that between the relationship that God and Israel shared with each other, there was one in the party who was consistently faithless. Israel demonstrated time and time again that as a people and nation that she was guilty of breaking her covenant with God.
After God demonstrated his power over Pharaoh and the Egyptian gods, which not even Pharaoh could ignore, Israel complained when they saw Pharaoh and his army pursue Israel one last time: Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt (Exod. 14:11)? For forty years Israel would be known for her complaining over Gods ways verses their own ways; it did not matter how much manna came down from heaven, how much water came out of a rock in the desert, the way God stopped time one day to deliver the Amorites into the hands of Joshua and the Hebrew army and the many other ways He protected Israel in the wilderness. Israel still complained against her leaders and her God.
After Israel crossed through the Red Sea and saw the great power of God deliver them from Pharaoh and his army, on the other side of the sea, God promised: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel (Exod. 19:4-6). What was Israels verbal response? It was this: All that the Lord has spoken we will do (v. 8). Yet, because the people thought Moses was taking too long up on Mount Sinai to receive the covenant Israel agreed to honor and obey they decided to make the Golden Calf, to worship it in place of Yahweh.
When Israel finally came to the threshold of Canaan, the land God promised to Israel and heard the report that there were giants in the land (Numbers 13-14), they believed that the giants in Canaan were bigger than God. They believed that the One of whom Scripture testifies: sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; whom brings princes to nothing, and makes the ruler of the earth as emptiness (Isa. 40:22-23) was too weak to honor His own Word! In response, God said of the Hebrews: How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them (Num. 14:11)?
When we read Israels story, it is not that hard to see our own story in theirs is it? We have something better than 10 plagues, manna from heaven, water from a rock, and a land flowing with milk and honey. We have the Christ who came as the Lamb of God to atone for our sin and liberate us from a greater tyrant than Pharoah and Egypt (John 1:29)! We have the Christ who is the Bread of Life who satisfies a deeper hunger (John 6:35). We have Jesus, who is the living water, who alone is able to satisfy the thirsty soul (John 4:14; 7:37-39). We have Jesus Christ, who not only died for our sins, but after being dead for three days, He conquered death by rising from the grave (John 19:38-20:29).Concerning Jesus and His power to redeem lost sinners, we have this promise: Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you (Eph. 5:14).
How many times have you chosen to sin knowing that it would only lead to shame and disappointment? How many times have you sinned only to promise God that you will not do it again? Is your experience really all that different than Israels? What does set us apart from Malachis contemporaries is that they looked to the promise of the refiners fire who would purify Levi (Mal. 3:1-4), but we are able to look to Jesus as the fulfillment of that promise. If you are a Christian, you have the refiners fire who is Jesus! What was true of those in Malachis day is true for our own day: We have a God who is faithful: For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed (3:6).
Against the backdrop of Israels unfaithfulness and the heaviness and shame you may be feeling over your sin right now, I want you to see that the news of Malachi 3:1-6 is good news for you.
Return to God and He will Return to You (vv. 6-7)
The history of the Hebrews, according to verse 7, is a turning aside from Gods commandments. Because Yahweh does not change, those who have sinned against Him, can turn to Him. How does one return to Yahweh? The answer to verse 7 is in verse 8-10, Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, How have we robbed you? In your tithes and contributions. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
The story of Israel is mankinds story. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve trusted the lie of the serpent over the goodness of a God who wanted life and thriving for the first couple. They were free to choose the lie of the deceiver over the truth of the Life-giver, and the lie is what they chose. To sin is to choose to act upon the lie that the thing God forbids is the thing that will ultimately satisfy; this is what is at the heart of idolatry. Listen, idols make promises that they not only are unable to keep, but they will rob you of the life God intends for you.
Think about what it was that the people were guilty of doing. They doubted the love of God, but at the same time did not pursue Him (1:2-5). Their worship was not accepted by God because they really had no interest in attributing worth to Him (vv. 6-14). They did not value the covenant of marriage because they did not enjoy the covenant with God as the people of God (2:13-16). Everything that we have learned from Malachi so far is that the disconnect between the people and God was due to a heart problem the people had. The Hebrew contemporaries of Malachi had religion but what was missing was a genuine relationship with the God of their forefathers.
Why do you think the people offered cheap sacrifices instead of the best that they had? Why were the men divorcing the wives of their youth so that they could have the pagan women from other nations? The answer to these questions is the same answer for why they doubted the love of God and questioned His character as a just and holy God. Their problem was that they had the religion of their forefathers, but they did not have a relationship with Yahweh who was a Father to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, David, and every other man and woman who walked with God.
The problem of Malachis contemporaries was the same as the rich man who asked Jesus the following question: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? The way Jesus answered the mans question is brilliant and will help you see that Malachi 3:6-15 is addressing something much more significant than giving ten percent of your income to church! Turn to Luke 18:18-30; Here is what we read of Jesus conversation with the rich man:
And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother. And he said, All these I have kept from my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. (Luke 18:1925)
There are two questions you need to answer from Jesus dialogue with the rich ruler: First, why did Jesus initially respond to the mans question with the question, Why do you call me good when no one is good except God alone? The second question you need to answer is why did the man walk away sad? The answer to the first question is that Jesus is no mere man, for He is God in the flesh! Since He is God in the flesh, Jesus is good! The reason why the man walked away sad was because he loved his wealth more than he loved God, but that is not all. The man walked away because although he was very religious, he never experienced God as a Good Father! Knowing this makes sense for what we read in the verses that follow:
Those who heard it said, Then who can be saved? But he said, What is impossible with man is possible with God. And Peter said, See, we have left our homes and followed you. And he said to them, Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come, eternal life. (Luke 18:2630)
Do you see how Jesus interaction with the rich religious man helps us understand the point of Malachi 3:6-15? You can really see it in Peters response: See, we have left our homes and followed you. You are correct Peter, and the reason why you have chosen to do so is because I am the treasure you seek, therefore as the One who is truly good: I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come, eternal life.
The same thing that was missing in the rich mans life was the same thing missing in the religious Hebrew men and women of Malachis day! What was missing was their hearts; what was missing was joy because they did not have love!In Malachis day, the people had a temple and they had religious programs, but they did not treasure God; they did not know the treasure Jesus spoke of: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field (Matt. 13:44).
Give God Your Heart and He will Give you Infinitely More
Lets turn our attention back to Malachi. Remember what Gods response was to the way the Priests and the people treated God in their worship: Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand (1:10). The point in Gods command was to offer the best of what you have, not that He needed it.
You may be familiar with Psalm 50:10-11, which states: For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. However, consider the point Psalm 50 is making about God:
The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.
If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. (Psalm 50:1, 715)
Another passage to consider is one we already looked at during this series in Malachi:
Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isaiah 66:12)
The answer God provides for Israels question, How shall we return to God? is given in verse 10, Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. The point is not that God needs anything, but that we were made for Him! He is the treasure worth having, not the best of your flock that you think belongs to you. The great danger we face as humans is that we make the good things God has given us into ultimate things. We take good things and make them ultimate in our lives and put them in the place of the God who is ultimate. We have the propensity of worshiping the gift over the Giver. The only thing that will satisfy is a Person, and He is the Giver of life!
The way back to God is to surrender the things you have made ultimate in your life, to Him. The way back to God is to find in Him your greatest treasure, and the only way you can do that is to trust Him to be that treasure that is worth having above all other things! This is what the priests and people of Malachis day failed to do. They thought by being religious, by having the best of their crops and flocks, by using their time to gain more stuff, or by pursuing another person to experience a better joy or more pleasure would ultimately satisfy, but all that they found were idols of the heart that could not give them what they needed.
The reason why the tithe is singled out in verse 10 is because the way we treat money and stuff is an indicator of what we really value. Gods promise in these verses is that the people test Him by trusting Him. How do you test God by trusting God? If you really believe that He is infinitely good, then let go of the idols of your heart by surrendering or giving them to Him. How do you do that?
If your idol is money, then begin by deciding a certain percent of your gross income that you will give back to Him regardless of your circumstances.
If it something or someone you are holding onto that you know God has told you to let go of, then trust Him as wanting what is good for you by giving whatever it is back to Him.
If you are afraid to step out in faith and trust God for knowing what is best for you, decide to finally step out in faith and obey Him.
The point of Malachi 3:6-15 is not that God needs anything from you, but it is really about what He wants for you. The way to receive what it is that He wants for you is to give Him your heart. What God wants for you is a treasure worth having more than anything else in this world, because only God is good! What God wants for you is the only relationship that will satisfy; it is the relationship Jesus promised:
All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:2730)
Oh, dear friend, find the rest you were made for. Find your treasure and rest through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Behold the Refiner’s Fire

Seven times, God makes a critical statement about Israel in the book of Malachi, and each time Israel responds with a challenge to that statement. Here are those statements and Gods answer to Israels objection.
God: I have loved you. (1:2)
Israel: How have you loved us? (v. 2)
Answer: I have chosen Jacob over Esau, remained faithful to Jacob, and will bless the nations through Jacob even though Israel has shown herself to be faithless. (v. 5)
God: You despise my name. (1:6)
Israel: How have we despised your name? (v. 6b)
Answer: Your worship of me is lackadaisical at best. (vv. 7-14)
God: You have offered polluted food on my altar because honoring me with your whole life is a weariness. (1:7)
Israel: How have we polluted you? (v. 7b)
Answer: You offer what is cheap and sick because you do not regard my Name as holy. (vv. 9-14)
God: You cover the Lords altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. (2:13)
Israel: Why does he not? (v. 14)
Answer: You have been faithless to the wife of your youth. (vv. 14-16)
God: You have wearied the Lord with your words. (2:17)
Israel: How have we wearied Him? (v. 17b)
Answer: You have said, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them. Or by asking, Where is the God of justice? (v. 17c)
God: You are robbing me. (3:8)
Israel: How have we robbed you? (v. 8b)
Answer: In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. (vv. 8c-9)
God: Your words have been hard against me. (3:13)
Israel: How have we spoken against you? (v. 13b)
Answer: You have said it is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping His charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape. (vv. 14-15)
It is Gods response to Israels fifth objection that we now turn our attention, and it could not be more timely!
On October 7, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and murdered babies and children, abducted and raped women before killing them, and gunned down as many Israelis as they were able. Israel is at war, and the death toll of human causalities will continue to rise. China and Russia seem to be moving closer to a formal alliance, and it is not beyond reason that Iran and North Korea may join them. Based on what I read in my Bible, I am not surprised that this is happening, and it would not surprise me if Russia and Iran got involved in what is happening between Israel and Hamas.
Now, if you consider what is happening between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict with Israel and Hamas and possibly Iran, and Chinas plans to have its military ready by 2027 to annex Taiwan, what we have is the recipe for a cataclysmic global war. If that were not enough to worry about, represented in this room is a sea of worries (some legitimate and some illegitimate). If you are anxious, if you are bothered, if you are feeling hopeless, if you are tired, or if you are discouraged Malachi 3:1-6 is for you.
The problem of Israel and our problem can be traced all the way back to Adam and Eves great sin, there was a type of darkness. After Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God drove them out of the beauty of Eden into the despair of the wilderness. Before God forced Adam and Eve outside the place of life and into the place of the curse, He promised them a deliverer who would destroy all that is an enemy of life (Gen. 3:15).
Outside the Garden is the place of the curse the wilderness. It is the place of pain, distrust, frustration, thorns and thistles, weariness, sweat, burdens, and death. The Bible says, sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come (Rom. 5:12, 14). In being cast out of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were driven away from the face of God.
Gods Justice is Not Deficient (2:17)
The people have wearied the Lord. The Message Bible, which is a paraphrase of the Bible, interprets Malachi 2:17 this way: You make God tired with all your talk. I think this is a terrible translation of Malachi 2:17! God does not get tired, he does not need a break, and He does not get frustrated because things do not go His way. Based on the Hebrew word that is used for wearied, for God to be wearied is for Him to be troubled or irritated. Have you ever had to deal with a person whose hypocrisy is so blatant that it is aggravating? Think about what God accused Israel and her priests of in chapter two. They were guilty of breaking their covenant by marrying people who worshiped terrible gods, such as Molech, whose worship included child sacrifice. The men were divorcing the wives of their youth to marry younger women who also worshiped other gods. If anyone was guilty of injustice, it was Israel.
Israel has been on the receiving end of nations and people groups who wanted nothing but their destruction. Do you think what is happening today is new? No, what is happening between Israel and Hamas is nothing new, for throughout her history, her story is about a God who rescues and delivers. God liberated Israel from the tyranny of Pharaoh, He saved Israel from Goliath and the Philistines, He delivered His people from the Amorites, He sustained and preserved rebellious Israel through the exiles of Assyria and Babylon. Now, here they are in Jerusalem with a temple and walls by the grace and mercy of God, having demonstrated that they had no real desire to serve and worship Him, and now they have the audacity to question His moral character.
Now, this question that Israel asks in 2:17 is different than the kind of lamenting those who love God demonstrate, such as the one we are introduced to in Habakkuk 1:2-3, How long, Lord, have I called for help, And You do not hear? I cry out to You, Violence! Yet You do not save. Why do You make me see disaster, And make me look at destitution? Yes, devastation and violence are before me; Strife exists and contention arises (NASB). Wow, Habakkuks question could not be more relevant for what we are seeing in our world today! His question is very different than the one Israel asked in Malachi, and it is very different than some of the questions you have been asked, questions like: How can you believe in a good God when there is so much suffering in the world? Or How can God be in control, when the world is so out of control?
We tend to measure the justice of God against our own sense of justice. The problem with that is that our sense of justice is only as pure as we are good human beings. The crazy thing is that most Americans (80%) rightly believe that most of the suffering in our world is caused by humans. The bad news is that we have tried all kinds of things to fix ourselves, but only seem to make our situation worse. There are more slaves today than ever before. An increase of over 100 million people faced hunger in 2022, with a total of 783 million people who continue to go hungry in our world today even though there are more than enough food producers to meet the needs of the hungry. With all of our talk about peace, we humans are still the most dangerous species on planet earth. Our problem is as old as the Garden when Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Or, as the prophet Jeremiah put it: The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it (Jer. 17:9; NASB)?
I have preached whole sermons on the topic of Gods goodness alone, but I do not have the time to do that here. What I will say is that God is good (Nah. 1:7) because He is Holy (Isa. 6:3). Because God is God, for Him to be good, He must be infinitely good. What does it mean for God to be infinitely good? What it means is that there is absolutely no room or any need for improvement for God. Therefore, if God is infinitely good, then He is equally just! This is why the Psalmist says of our great God: Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you (Ps. 89:14).
Gods Plan is Redemptive
Gods answer to Israels question regarding the justice of God is Malachi 3:1-6. Where is the God of Justice? Oh, He has never left! He has always been with His people. He has been with His people because He is also a God of mercy. When Moses asked to see the face of God, he was permitted to see Him pass by while not being permitted to see His face; when God passed by, this is what Moses heard Him say:
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the childrens children, to the third and the fourth generation. (Exod. 34:6-7)
Gods justice was coming, and the people who deserved to experience it first were all of Israel, beginning with her priests who did not regard Gods name as holy. However, the way that He would do it would be in a way where His infinite justice and his infinite mercy will intersect with His infinite holiness and His infinite love. How would He do it? The answer is in the first verse: Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
The One that Israel calls Father (2:10), is the One who will send His messenger. Who is the messenger that will be sent? It was John the Baptist, who is a type of Elijah, who went before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17). Who is the Lord that would, come to his temple? He is someone greater than Elijah or John the Baptist. The Lord whom John was sent to prepare the way for is the One who owns the temple. He is the One spoken of in Jeremiah 23:5-6, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: The Lord is our righteousness.
The first word in Malachi 3:1 is Behold and it literally means: Here am I. Israel asks: Where is the God of Justice? Gods answers: Here I am! I am sending my messenger before me who will prepare the way for Me to come to my Temple that you have polluted, for when I come, you will call Me: The Lord is our righteousness. Who is this Lord our righteousness? He is the righteous Branch of David! If Israel and the Priests had the sense to ask, they would have asked God: How can Yahweh come as the human descendant of David? This is the question the apostle John answers over 400 years later:
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Fathers side, he has made him known. (John 1:618)
Jesus is, The Lord our righteousness who came, but the priests and much of Israel did not receive Him. What was the purpose of his coming? Well, Malachi tells us in verses 2-3, But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiners fire and like fullers soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.
Gods Love is Restorative
The story of humanity is one where we cannot help ourselves, for there is no remedy we can create to fix our sin problem. Our story is also Israels story, and the promise of Malachi 3:3 is that God would not and does not abandon impure people like us not because we deserve salvation, but because He is committed to his promise to bless the nations through Israel and the way that he would do it is through the righteous branch of David, namely Jesus the Christ.
Through Jesus, a day will come when Israel says, Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel (Mal. 1:5)! Through Jesus, a day is coming when the nations will worship Yahweh: From the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations says the Lord (1:11)! How will he do it? Through Jesus, the righteous branch of David, He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring the offerings in righteousness to the Lord (3:3), and when he does, the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord (v. 4).
The question begs for an answer; how will he do it? How can He refine out of mercy without the fire of his perfect justice? He would do it and He did do it by entering into our wilderness. Jesus lived the life Israel failed to live and by doing so was the perfect Jew (Heb. 1-2), the sinless and better Priest then Levi (Heb. 3, 5-7), and better than Moses because the covenant He mediates is better than the old (Heb. 8-10). Jesus entered into our wilderness for the purpose of suffering the fire of the Fathers perfect justice on our behalf; the fire fell upon Jesus instead of us. This is why the messenger said of Jesus when he saw him: Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)! The Lamb was crucified and on that cross the wrath of God the Father was satisfied while His perfect justice, mercy, love, grace, and holiness intersected without contradiction.
After Jesus died for our sins and was buried, he rose three days later! The refiners fire has come to us for the purpose of redeeming lost sinners. His work continues as His fire continues to remove the dross from our lives! As the author of Hebrews exhorts the Christian, we set our eyes on Him to, run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:1-2).
As for the rest of the wilderness and those who refuse to turn to the One who suffered the fire of Gods justice for sin, a judgment awaits and will come: Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. The Lamb of God is coming to bring the fire of Gods justice as the Lion of Judah! Jesus will come as the King of kings and Lord of lords; we are told that when He comes, all of the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him (Rev. 1:7).
You may be tempted to ask: Where is the God of justice? His answer is simply, Here I am, I never left. In the same way God answered Israels question in Malachi 3, He does the same for us in the last book of the Bible:
Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. (Rev. 22:1215)
Amen.

Broken Relationships and the Worship of a Faithful God

Jesus was asked what he believed the greatest of Gods commandments was, and his answer was simple: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 22:3740). Jesus answer can be reduced to seven words: Love God and also love your neighbor. How you love God will affect the way you treat the people in your life, and the way you treat the people in your life can serve as a barometer for the spiritual climate of your heart and relationship with God.
What does this have to do with Malachi 2:10-17? The way the people were treating one another and the way the men were treating their wives, was symptomatic of their relationship with God. Because the men did not think highly of the promise made to their wives, God did not regard or accept their worship. We will unpack verse 13 but consider the shocking tone of this verse to set the tone for the whole passage: You cover the Lords altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
I am reading a book titled, The Great Dechurching; what got my attention before I purchased the book is what it said in the back: We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. This shift is greater than the First and Second Great Awakenings combined (when America experienced the largest religious shift in the Church towards growth) but in the opposite direction. In the opening pages of the book, Jim Davis and Michael Graham glean from the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America: About 40 million adults in America today used to go to church but no longer do, which accounts for around 16 percent of our adult population. For the first time in the eight decades that the Gallup has tracked American religious membership, more adults in the United States do not attend church than attend church. This is not a gradual shift; it is a jolting one.[1] What this means in the words of Davis and Graham: More people have left the church in the last twenty-five years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, and Billy Graham crusades combined.[2]
Here are some of the takeaways so far from my reading of The Great Dechurching:
Dechurching is happening on every income level, regardless of educational status, and area of the country people live, which means that people all over the country are, deciding to forgo their in-person worship for other activities on Sunday morning.[3] And they are doing so for a variety of reasons.[4]
The children of the dechurched will inevitably become unchurched, which in the words of the authors of their book will change, the nature of spirituality in America significantly.[5]
One of the most alarming findings that I have read in The Great Dechurching so far is what the authors state at the beginning of their book: We learned in our research that 68 percent of dechurched evangelicals said their parents played a role in the decision to leave the Church.[6] There was something about the culture of the home these evangelical dechurched Christians experienced that turned them away from the church. I believe Malachi 2:10-17 speaks into the phenomena of the great dechurching.
Know God as Your Father
Tozer said it well when he wrote, What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and mans spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.[7] I have used this quote so many times in sermons, Bible studies, and classes I have taught; it still has not lost its punch because it is so true!
So, who is this God we identify as our Father? Or as Malachi states in the form of a question: Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? (v. 10). If you are a Christian, then our Father is the creator God who spoke the galaxies into existence with only the word of his mouth in only six days (Gen. 1:1; Exod. 20:11; Heb. 11:3). Our Father is El Elyon, which means, The Most High God. There is no God like him and there is not god above him (Gen. 14:18-20; Ps. 57:2; Isa. 46:8-10). Our Father is El Roi, which means, The God Who Sees. Nothing goes unnoticed by him. He sees our circumstances, he sees the secret places, he sees when no one else notices, he sees all things (Gen. 16:13-14; Prov. 24:12). Our Father is El Shaddai, which means, The All-Sufficient One. He lacks absolutely nothing, he cannot be outdone, and he is able to do what he says he will do. Our Father is Yahweh who is the covenant keeping God; He does not break his promises and He is faithful even when we are faithless (Exod. 3:13-14). Dear brothers and sisters, what comes to mind when you think of the God that you call, Father?
As Yahweh, our Father provides (Yahweh-Jireh) for his children (Gen. 22:11-14). In Exodus 15:26, we discover that our Father heals his children (Yahweh-Rapha). In Exodus 17:15, our Father is a banner for his people in Whom we find our true identity and purpose (Yahweh-Nissi). In Exodus 31:13, we discover that our Father loves his children too much to leave them as they are, for He is the one who sanctifies His people (Yahweh-Mekoddishkem). In Judges 6:24, our Father is the only One who is able to bring peace (shalom) to His children (Yahweh-Shalom). In Psalm 46:7, our Father is a refuge and fortress for his children even when you find yourself standing on the ashes of what once was (Yahweh-Sabaoth). In Psalm 23, our Father is our Good Shepherd (Yahweh-Raah). But wait, there is one other name I want you to see that describes what our heavenly Father will do for His children in Jeremiah 23:5-6,
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: The Lord is our righteousness.
Now skip down to Malachi 3:1; the Messenger Malachi prophesied would come to prepare the way for the Lord, is the One Jeremiah described as, The Lord is our righteousness. The messenger would be John the Baptist: Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
Malachi 3:1 is a part of next weeks sermon, but before we look at the rest of Malachi 2, I want you to hear two things:
The Righteous Branch from David is Jesus, the righteousness of all whose faith rests in Him, for in Jesus we discover a Father who is our righteousness who sent His Son to be our righteousness: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Because of what Jesus accomplished for you, Christian, we read in five verses earlier in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. Richard Gaffin wrote something that amplifies the significance of what it means to have God as your Father in the following statement: At the core of their being, in the deepest recesses of what they arein other words, in the inner selfbelievers will never be more resurrected than they already are. God has done a work in each believer, a work of nothing less than resurrection proportions that will not be undone. Such languageis not just a metaphor.[8]
If you can truly call God, Father because you have reconciled to Him by faith through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you, will never be more resurrected at the core of your inner self than you already are. Before we can go any further, I want you to let that truth settle upon your heart for a moment.
Recognize the Bond You Share with Gods People
If you are a Christian, then God has done a work in your life that has changed the DNA of your inner self is such a way that what was once spiritually dead is now alive! That work will and can never be undone (if you doubt that, just read Ephesians 1:3-14 and Romans 8). So, if you are tempted to believe the lie that you cannot change, you need to preach to your own heart that the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the grave, is the same power that has made you spiritually alive and empowers change in you. The power at work in your life is a power those addressed in Malachi 2 did not know.
The evidence that a person can truly call God, Father is seen by that persons loving response to God and those who bear His image. So, for those in Malachis day who claimed to know God as Father, but were faithless to one another received the following rebuke:
Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts! (Malachi 2:1012)
What was the covenant of the fathers that was being profaned? It was the covenant that included certain prohibitions, and one such prohibition was not to marry individuals from certain people groups who did not love or worship Yahweh because they worshiped other gods. Specifically, God instructed His people: You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods (Deut. 7:34). Generations before Malachi, Solomon married women from other people groups who worshiped other gods and they turned his heart away from God and the consequences where catastrophic for the nation of Israel. Solomons disregard of Deuteronomy 7 was the soil that resulted in nation-wide idolatry and the eventual discipline of God that exiled the Hebrew people, yet the men of Malachis day ignored all of that and went and married women who worshiped other gods anyway.
If God is a Father to you and you know Him to be all that He has identified Himself to be, then why on Gods green earth would you enter into the one covenantal relationship that was instituted by God with a person who does not love or worship that same God as you do? If God is God and He is a Father to you, then why would you risk entering into a relationship with someone who will at best make the worship of Him burdensome and at worst turn your heart against Him? If the God who instituted marriage where is to be enjoyed and the procreation of children to be shared for the purpose of raising them up to know the One True God, why would you willingly enter into a relationship where your child/children will inevitably be torn between whatever god is worshiped by one parent verses the true God worshiped by the other?
Listen, Malachi 2:10-12 is not just for Malachis contemporaries, these verses are for the Church too! What is in Malachi 2:10-12 is not an Old Testament principle to be ignored by New Testament saints in the name of grace or missionary dating, for we are told in the New Testament: Do not be mismatched with unbelievers; for what do righteousness and lawlessness share together, or what does light have in common with darkness? Or what harmony does Christ have with Belial, or what does a believer share with an unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:1415, NASB20)? Listen carefully, the point being made in these verses is that the only reason you would want to marry someone who does not love or know the true God is because you love the unbelieving man or woman more than you love God.
To profane the covenant of marriage in verse 11, is to treat the covenant of marriage as common and nothing more than simple romance that can be disregarded when the feelings fade, or the intimacy is gone. If what I just said seems harsh to you, then how else do you explain verse 13, which states: And this second thing you do. You cover the Lords altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. This is exactly what Esau did after he found out that by trading his birthright for a bowl of stew and after the blessing was given to his younger brother, he wept (see Gen. 28:30-38); Hebrews 12:17 describes Esaus response this way: For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears (Heb. 12:17). Sin is simply the trading your birthright in for a bowl of stew that will not satisfy your soul.
Faithfully Nurture the Covenant You Have Entered
The other thing the men in Malachis day were doing, was that they were divorcing their Hebrew wives to marry women who worshiped other gods. The way the men were treating their wives was evidence that they really had little regard for the covenant of marriage. There were some who desired marriage with foreign women who worshiped another god, and then there were men who married a Hebrew wife who did worship Yahweh but divorced them to marry women who worshiped other gods. To these men, Malachi addresses in verse 15, Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth (Mal. 2:15).
We read in Genesis 1 something that Malachi and his contemporaries would have been familiar with: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen. 1:27). God then commanded the man and woman to create and fill the earth with people like themselves and to manage creation. Furthermore, we are told in Genesis 1:28 that God told Adam and his wife, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Genesis 1:28). This is the covenant of marriage, and in Genesis 2:24-25 we are told of the sacredness of marriage and the place that had within that covenantal relationship: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (Genesis 2:2425).
By profaning the covenant of their fathers (Mal. 2:10), the people (mostly the men) treated everything about marriage as common. Their primary reason for doing so had more to do with than anything else. The way Malachis contemporaries were treating marriage and was not all that dissimilar to the way marriage and is treated by our own culture where marriage and is treated as common instead of sacred. Malachis day and our own treats marriage as something to be experimented with or to be experienced with few barriers, if any. As it is treated in our day, so it was in Malachis day: Marriage was not viewed as a sacred covenant by those who claimed to know God, nor as a covenant instituted by God. The reason why this was, is the same reason for our own day: They did not stand in awe of Gods name. Gods response and feelings toward the way the people treated the covenant of marriage in Malachis day is still the same for our own day, and we see that response in verse 16. There are two legitimate ways Malachi 2:16 can be translated; both ways are seen in the way the ESV and the NASB translates this verse:
For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.(Mal. 2:16; ESV)
For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and him who covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of armies. So be careful about your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously. (Mal. 2:16; NASB20)
What is the point? God hates divorce because of what it does to the institution He has called sacred. Why is it sacred, well besides the obvious, marriage is also a portrait of something much greater than the love two people have for one another. Here is what the apostle Paul said of marriage: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband (Eph. 5:3133).
Not only were the men and women of Malachis day faithless to those within their community of faith as worshipers of One true God, but they were faithless to God because they desired the women of foreign gods over the women who loved Yahweh. This was evil in the sight of God, but what was even more detestable was the way the Hebrew men treated their Hebrew wives by divorcing them because they desired to be with the women of a foreign god more than they wanted to be with their own wives because they did not really know, love, or stand in awe of the God they offered sacrifices too.
Conclusion
Remember Jesus answer to the question regarding the greatest of the commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 22:3740). I will reiterate again that the way you love others is symptomatic of the kind of love you have for God. The apostle John picked up on this in his epistle by writing: Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:911).
Did you know that there are at least 59 one another verses in the New Testament? At least 12 of those 59 one another statements include: Love one another. Do you know why that is? Because if you are a genuine Christian, you are able to love God in such a way that it will affect the way you treat others. What is different about you is that you, will never be more resurrected at the core of your inner self than you already are because of what Jesus has done for you and in you. Now that you know God and are loved by Him, you are able to love others in a way unlike the rest of the world.
I am going to say something that might shock you into wanting to leave frustrated or angry, but it really needs to be said. So here it is: the point being made in Malachi 2:10-16 is that the reason you treat people, , and the institution of marriage as common is because you love the act of and or the person you are with more than you love God. The good news is that this does not have to be the legacy of your life.
In the words of Richard Gaffin, if you are a Christian, then At the core of your being, in the deepest recesses of what you arein other words, in your inner selfyou will never be more resurrected than you already are. God has done a work in you, and that work cannot be undone if you really are a Christian and not only religious. What this means is that it is not too late for you! I asked you last week: What threshold were you hesitant to cross to go all in to follow Jesus? What are you holding onto that Jesus is asking you to surrender to Him? What act of obedience have you not taken because you are more afraid of what others might think than you are of what God thinks?
God wants life for you. He is not against your joy He is for your joy! The same appeal that was always before Israel is before you today:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. (Deut. 30:19-20)
That relationship you participated in that included outside of marriage does not need to define you. That marriage you entered into with your unbelieving spouse is worth investing in and your spouse is not beyond the reach of grace of God. That divorce you initiated or pursued and now you are in your second or third marriage your present marriage can thrive! If you are single, married, divorced, or remarried if you are a Christian, Gods will for your life cannot be any clearer that what is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, For this is the will of God, your sanctification. For the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is doing the impossible in your life too! In closing I leave you the hope of Romans 8:11 to combat the lie of the enemy that would convince you that your old self is who you are: If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Amen.
[1] Jim Davis, Michael Graham; The Great Dechurching (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan; 2023), p. 3.
[2] Ibid; p. 5.
[3] Ibid, p. 24.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid, p. 33.
[6] Ibid, p. 9.
[7] A.W. Tozer. The Knowledge of the Holy (San Francisco, CO: HarperSanFrancisco; 1961), p. 1.
[8] Paul Miller; A Praying Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway; 2023), p. 73.

The Danger and Delight of Spiritual Leadership

Francis Schaeffers book, How Should We Then Live, was published in 1975. Francis Schaeffer was a theologian, philosopher, and a highly respected evangelical thinker in his day. In his book, Schaeffer shows how the decline of a society from the fall of Rome up through the twentieth century begins when that society shifts from Gods design for humans, and the rest of creation. Towards the end of his book, Schaeffer lists five attributes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire that is true of any culture in decline; according to Schaeffer these are five signs of a society that is about to break down:
A mounting love for affluence.
A widening gap between the very rich and very poor with little to no middle class.
An obsession with .
Freakishness in the arts.
An increased desire to live off the state.
Out of our love for affluence, we as a nation are now 48.9 trillion dollars in debt with the average household debt owing to $14,241 in credit card debt, $58,112 in student loan debt, $31,142 in automobile loans, and $202,454 in mortgage debt. The middle class in America is shrinking, for it used to be that 61% of Americans made up the middle class, but that percentage has shrunk to 50% and looks as though it will continue to shrink.
When it comes to an obsession with , very little needs to be said with the ever-increasing list of types of sexualities a person can identify with, the oversexualization of our youth, and gender reassignment. Now, in the arts, anything deviant can be passed off as art to the point where you can have Sam Smith dress up as Satan with his dancers performing promiscuous acts as part of an intentional satanic chorographic ritual for a song titled, Unholy. Sam Smiths performance was not the only deviant performance either.
So, what does all of this have to do with Malachi 2:1-9? Without a right and proper fear of God, the heart becomes an idol factor that does not lead to life, but death. This is the human condition that has been our problem since Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit. The root cause for Adam and Eves rebellion was the same for the Priests Malachi addresses in 2:1-9, and it is the same for us today: The root cause for mankinds rebellion is the absence of a right and proper fear of God.
The Fear of the Lord
Remember how Malachi 1:6 begins: A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. The priests did not honor or fear God, and the evidence for their lack of honor and fear for God was seen in how they worshiped Him. To fully grasp just how serious the lack of fear and honor the priests had for God was, we need to understand the type of fear and honor the priests lacked.
The kind of fear for God that is expected from His people is not a fear that is contrary or at odds with genuine love. A biblical fear of God is not at odds with a love for God. We do not love God in the same way you love a sunset, nor is it the same kind of love that you have for your dog. To fear God is to love and enjoy God for all that He is. It is a love that truly appreciates and honors God as infinitely perfect and overwhelmingly beautiful in his holiness, righteousness, graciousness, justice, mercy, love, and majesty. In the words of Michael Reeves: In a sense, then, the trembling fear of God is a way of speaking about the intensity of the saints love for and enjoyment of all that God is.[1] Reeves points out in his book, Rejoice Tremble, that the fear of God, is not at all what we, with our cultures allergic reaction to the very concept of fear, might expect. Instead, we can say with Spurgeon that this is the sort of fear which has in it the very essence of love, and without which there would be no joy even in the presence of God.[2] Of the fear of God, Charles Spurgeon said, It is not because we are afraid of him, but because we delight in him, that we fear before him.[3]
So that you can see what I just said from the Bible, consider the following scripture passages on the fear of the Lord:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Prov. 9:10)
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul (Deut. 10:12)
Then you have this promise from the prophet Jeremiah concerning a New Covenant when God would address the problem with mans heart:
And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jer. 32:38-40)
What is it that would encourage the Priests to offer sacrifices before the Lord that he said he would never delight in? How on earth could they ever consider service to Yahweh as a burden? Why would they not listen to Gods word or give honor to His name? It is because they did not fear Him.
What it Means to Delight in the Lord
The presence of a right fear of God and a genuine love for God is to delight in God. This is what the priests of Malachis day did not do, and it is the absence of such delight in the true God for why cultures, nations, kingdoms, and empires crumble. It is a system failure in that the One, we live and move and exist (Acts. 17:28), is not delighted in because He is ignored. In ignoring Him, we live in a society that is drinking from the broken cisterns of affluence, , and self-assigned identity, be it sexual or national.
Because our world is fallen, it is understandable that those who do not yet know God, do not delight in Him. But it is a great evil to know who God is and chose something or someone else to take His place. Of the people that should have known the joy of what it means to delight in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it was the priests. The purpose of the priests was that they served to mediate between the people and God just as Aaron did as he walked alongside Moses. In contrast to Malachis contemporaries, God said of Levi: My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name (v. 5).
Who was Levi? Levi is the ancestor of Levites from whom all the priests came. You could not serve as a priest unless you belonged to the tribe of Levi. From Levi is a history of godly men who feared God more than they feared people and were known for speaking on behalf of God to the people. Concerning those who served God out of fear and love, God said, True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity (v. 6). The priests were known for guarding knowledge and the people at one point in time knew that they could seek the priests for guidance because it was clear that the priest was a messenger of God almighty (v. 7). Why? Because the legacy of Levi was that he delighted in the Lord! The relationship Levi had with Yahweh was one where he rightly feared and loved God while he stood in awe of His name. He stood in awe of the name of God!
What does it mean to stand in awe of the name of almighty God? It is a type of fear that includes reverence, pleasure, joy, and a filial fear. Filial fear is the kind of fear experienced by a son for his father as they enjoy a healthy relationship with one another without the son confusing who it is that is in authority. In many ways, I had that kind of relationship with my father; I understood that although we were very close and that I could trust him, I also understood that I could not talk back or disrespect him. The line between father and son was always clear.
God is all-powerful. God is all-knowing. God is all-present. God is just, He is wise, He is love, He is so much more, and He is holy. He is the One from whom heaven and earth recoil at His presence (Rev. 20:11), and before whom the prophet Isaiah heard the angels proclaim: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! and in response to the majesty of the Almighty, Isaiah responded: Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts (Isa. 6:3-5). Isaiahs response is what it looks like to stand in awe of God. To stand in awe of God is to understand who you are in light of who He is:
Tremble before him, all the earth;
yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,
and let them say among the nations, The Lord reigns!
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever! (1 Chron. 16:30-34)
This is what the priests in Malachis day lacked, but of all the people in Jerusalem, the priests should have known better.What was true of Levis legacy was the antithesis of priests addressed here, for they were living in disobedience of the Lord. Instead of guiding the people of Israel, they were causing them to sin against the Lord. Instead of embracing the promises of God, they openly and defiantly violated the covenant of Levi. Instead of deciding cases with godly wisdom and impartiality, they showed favoritism and were unjust.
Gods response to the priests disregard for His name is staggering: If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it (Malachi 2:23). The curse that God warned would come upon the priests are the curses God warned would come upon His people if they turned from Him in disobedience (see Deut. 28).
The dung of the sacrifice was to be burned outside the camp of Gods people. With the threat of God to spread dung on the faces of the priests, was to say that their behavior was so repulsive to God, that they would remain ceremonially unclean and indefinitely unqualified to serve as priests. To spread dung on their faces was to cover the priests in their own shame for all to see, so God concludes: But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts, and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction (Malachi 2:89).
What God wanted was the hearts of His priests, he did not need their worship. This is why His response to their lackadaisical and half-hearted worship in Malachi 1:10, Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand (Malachi 1:10). What the priests lacked was the kind of awe we read about in Isaiah 66:1-2, Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
Conclusion
So, what does any of this have to do with you Christian? We have a better Priest than Levi! Levi mediated the Old Covenant, but Jesus is not just any PriestHe is the High Priest of a better covenant:
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Heb. 9:1114)
If you have placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the One whom God, made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21; NASB), you are a Christian. If you are a Christian, then what is written in 1 Peter 2:9-10 is true of you: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are Gods people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:910).
Jesus is our High Priest, but He is so much more! He is the Almighty and the Alpha and Omega (Rev. 1:8; 22:12-13). He is the Author of Life (Acts 3:15). Jesus is the Bread from Heaven (John 6:32), the Bread of Life (John 6:35), and the Bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16). He is the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4), He is the Christ (Col. 3:15), and He is the Deliverer (Rom. 11:26). He is the Good Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm (John 10:11). He is the rightful Heir of All Things (Heb. 1:1-2). Jesus is the Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3:14), the Horn of Salvation (Luke 1:69), and the Great I Am (John 8:58-59). He is the Light of the World (John 8:12), the Gate for the Sheep (John 10:7), the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25), the True Vine (John 15:1), the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)!
Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5), He is the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8), and He is the Pioneer and Perfecter of our Faith (Heb. 12:1-2). Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:1), He is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, He is the Savior (Luke 2:11), and He is the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16). If Jesus is who He says He is, and you say that He is the sum of all that He is to you, then how are you living in light of His Lordship over your life?
In this very moment, can you hear the Savior ask the following question directed at your heart? Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not what I tell you (Luke 6:46)? You, who are a priest before Jesus, are you listening to His words? Are you taking His life to heart? Do you stand before the Father and the Son with awe? Is your life motivated by a right fear and genuine love for the One who ransomed your soul and made you a son or a daughter? As His priests, we should be known as men and women whose lips, guard knowledge? Are you in a place in your relationship with Jesus that people are able to seek instruction from your mouth? Of those who know you, can it be said that you are a messenger of the Lord of hosts? In conclusion I leave you with two appeals from the Bible, the one is from Jesus and the other is about Jesus:
From Jesus: 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. 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? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. (Matthew 7:2123)
From the Psalmist: Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (Psalm 2:1112)
Amen.
Discussion Questions:
Read Malachi 2:1-9 and Deuteronomy 28 as a group. In what ways is Deuteronomy 28 similar to Malachi 2:1-9?
What does it mean to delight in the Lord?
Pastor Keith said in his sermon on Sunday: To fear God is to love and enjoy God for all that He is. It is a love that truly appreciates and honors God as infinitely perfect and overwhelmingly beautiful in his holiness, righteousness, graciousness, justice, mercy, love, and majesty. How is this kind of fear different than the kind fear one might experience when facing their abuser?
Based on what you know so far about the priests Malachi 2:1-9 addresses, do you think the above fear was missing in their worship?
God said of Levi, that he feared me. He stood in awe of my name (v. 5). What does it mean to stand in awe of Gods name (hint: Read 1 Chron. 16:30-34)?
In what ways can our worship reveal how highly or lowly we esteem Gods name?
According to 1 Peter 2:9-10, the Christian is a priest as representative of Jesus Christ; in what ways does Malachi 2:1-9 challenge you in light of what you read in 1 Peter 2:9-10?
How does Jesus as our High Priest (Heb. 9:11-14) encourage you as you strive to follow Him?
Pastor Keith listed the following names and titles of Jesus (read them to the group):
Jesus is our High Priest, but He is so much more! He is the Almighty and the Alpha and Omega (Rev. 1:8; 22:12-13). He is the Author of Life (Acts 3:15). Jesus is the Bread from Heaven (John 6:32), the Bread of Life (John 6:35), and the Bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16). He is the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4), He is the Christ (Col. 3:15), and He is the Deliverer (Rom. 11:26). He is the Good Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm (John 10:11). He is the rightful Heir of All Things (Heb. 1:1-2). Jesus is the Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3:14), the Horn of Salvation (Luke 1:69), and the Great I Am (John 8:58-59). He is the Light of the World (John 8:12), the Gate for the Sheep (John 10:7), the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25), the True Vine (John 15:1), the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)!
Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5), He is the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8), and He is the Pioneer and Perfecter of our Faith (Heb. 12:1-2). Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:1), He is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, He is the Savior (Luke 2:11), and He is the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16).
In light of the above, read Luke 6:46-49. In what ways do you find Jesus words in Luke 6 challenging, frightening, or encouraging?
In what ways do you believe God is challenging you so far in this Malachi series?
Conclude with a time of prayer with your LIFE Group.
[1] Michael Reeves, Rejoice Tremble (Wheaton, IL: Crossway; 2021); p. 52.
[2] Ibid, p. 50.
[3] Ibid.