Matt Chandler - Justice Promised

In the fourth dispute, God’s people question His justice. They accuse God of delighting in those who do evil. God responds with the promise of His messenger, John the Baptist, and His Messiah, Jesus Christ—the truest proof of His justice. His people will be refined by fire, and justice will be served. It is hard news, but it is good news.

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If you have your Bibles, I would encourage you to grab them. If you can, turn to Malachi; if not, at the front of your Bible there is a table of contents, and you can find it that way. Let me say this as we dive in this morning: I know it’s chaotic right now, and we’re packed. We’re trying to get to Saturday night as quickly as we can. If you’re in the service and are still trying to save a seat for your friend, I think your friend has done you a disservice; they are now 30 minutes late. We have people still waiting to come in, even though our overflow is full. So, I need you to text your friend now and let them know you’ll see them at lunch so that we can have that seat. I understand saving it for a few minutes, but 30 is unreasonable on our end. Sorry, I know we’re slammed, and we’re doing everything we can to get to Saturday night, which should create about a thousand seats. I’m excited about that!

Even if you lived the most charmed life imaginable, where the external view was of a brother or sister who always succeeded — someone who seemed to have a golden touch on their life, where everything they pursued was successful — even if that’s been your story, it is a human experience to endure a certain level of disappointment, loss, and sorrow. This is true anywhere on Earth. We all experience aspects of the broken world in ways that hurt, disorient, or discombobulate us.

When that happens, there are a couple of ways we tend to respond. The first reason is that Christians understand the world is broken. We should never be surprised by the brokenness and sorrow in the world because the Bible informs us that yes, it exists, and here’s why. We have a solid theological framework: God created it, and it was good, but then sin entered the cosmos and fractured the Shalom of God. That’s our understanding. Sometimes the disappointments, losses, and hurts happen just because the world is broken. It’s not your fault or someone else’s; it’s simply that the world is flawed, and we can feel it in our guts.

But that’s not the only reason some disappointments and sorrows occur. Sometimes they happen because of other people. In a broken world, broken people often break things. You can be betrayed, manipulated, or abused, which means that some of those losses and sufferings are tied to someone who has sinned against you.

The third category that we rarely acknowledge is that sometimes, though not always, our disappointments, losses, loneliness, and sufferings occur because we make poor choices and rebel against God’s clear design, creating a mess for ourselves. In my experience—both as a human and a pastor—it’s evident that we have 20/20 vision for noticing when someone does us wrong, yet we are often cross-eyed and fail to see our own faults. We are quick to recognize that our lives are difficult because of others, and in a trauma-centric age where it always goes back to family of origin, I’m not trying to discredit that—there are certainly family origin issues that can impact us. However, when we don’t take ownership of our own brokenness, which is, by the way, the predominant worldview right now, the church has to be careful to navigate the line between addressing legitimate trauma and attributing all blame to others.

I don’t know how you’ve been taking in Malachi; this book has been a challenge for me over the last six months. You’ve only had to endure a few weeks of my preaching; I’ve had to steep in this for six months. I mean, I’ve been receiving a lot from the Holy Spirit, and I’m ready for this one to be over. Usually, I’m like, «Let’s stretch this out another week!» but this has been a mirror I have not enjoyed looking into. What we see happening today in the text is that the people of God are making an accusation against God, claiming He is not just and not good.

So what has happened is Judah—the people of God—are reflecting their own situation. Hear me, judgment always begins in the household of God. How many of you know that? Judgment always begins in the household of God; it never starts outside. Evangelicals could really benefit from understanding that. In this passage, the people of Judah, the people of God, are looking around, and it’s a disaster. If you weren’t here for week one, go back and listen; it’s sociologically a disaster.