Where our treasure is, our heart is. God called His people to bring their full tithe to Him, not because He needed money, but because He longed for the whole heart of His people. Our hearts are easily distracted and we place our attention on lesser things. God is lifting our heads from temporary pleasures and fixing our eyes on Him and His eternal kingdom.
It’s good to be back; I missed you. I’ve been out for a couple of weeks and wish the calendar hadn’t landed like it did because we had to take a two-week break from Malachi. Now I’m going to come back and finish the book today, and then we’ll gear up for an additional service and a new series in the weeks to come. I still don’t know the right words to explain my personal experience studying Malachi and then sharing it with you. It has disrupted my own soul; it’s a heavy book. You don’t just snatch one of the Minor Prophets from the Old Testament to grow the church. That’s not how the Minor Prophet works. Yet, I believe this book lays across 2023 in a unique way because, during the time it was written, the government was completely corrupt and incompetent, unable to be trusted by their people. I think that probably mirrors our situation right now, and we’ll talk more about that next fall. I might also address Daniel then so we can have an honest conversation about living in a place where those meant to govern and protect you are interested only in themselves. That was the situation in Malachi, so you can check that box. The people and the institutions, including the church, were polluted and not fulfilling God’s good design. We can look around at our institutions and agree—we need reform almost everywhere. Additionally, the people of God were half-hearted at best, driven just as much by their appetites as by anything else. One of the reasons I have loved preaching Malachi is because it bears weight on us. One thing I want us to remember as a community of faith is that judgment begins in the household of God. Before we can speak prophetically—something we all like to do—to a culture that is circling the drain, we must first repent and renew our own relationship with God, ensuring we are walking according to His law so that our lives can back up the prophetic words coming out of our mouths. That’s the weight Malachi has been placing on us. I still can’t believe you’re here; I thought after week two we would stop having space issues. I certainly thought by week three we wouldn’t need the overflow anymore, but apparently, there are some kind of masochistic followers of Christ who like a beating because that’s what Malachi has been; it just hasn’t stopped. Today is no different. To recap, because it’s been a couple of weeks, week one started the way God always begins—with an indicative: «I have loved you,» declares the Lord. This indicates a present, past, ongoing action. God always leads with His love; He doesn’t deliver His people out of Egypt by giving them the law and then saving them once they obey it. He saves, delivers, and then orders—that’s the rhythm of God. He never begins with the imperative, «Do this»; He always begins with the indicative, and that indicative is almost always «I have loved you.» In week two, we began to see the disputes between God and His people. What we observed is that the people of God were bringing sacrifices to Him that were diseased, wounded, or deformed, while God’s command was, «Bring your first and best,» because I have given you my first and my best. Instead of giving their first and best, they gave secondary offerings—things they didn’t really need or want, essentially the leftovers. God accused them of despising and polluting His name, pointing to that one-eyed sheep they were trying to offer Him. While that’s not in the text, it’s how I imagine it. He does accuse them of offering sickly animals and, indeed, rebukes them for that, saying, «You are polluting my name.» The next dispute involves men and women constantly bickering and fighting among themselves. They were intermarrying with those who lived in the land and were not followers of God. We discussed that this had nothing to do with race but rather with hearts partnering together for the glory of God and the life He’s given us to share. Then he went hard on divorce; I thought I would shrink the church by 600 people that weekend—I was so anxious about that. But it’s in the text, and I fear God more than I fear your attention. So, we leaned into that, and He said, «You are divorcing the wife of your youth for these foreign women.» You’ve broken covenant; you’re driven by your desires, not by any faithfulness to the covenant. Do you see what I’m saying? It’s just week after week.
