Matt Chandler - Questioning God's Love

Hey guys, it’s good to see you! It’s been a bit—uh, always good to be back. Before we dive into this passage, which I’m assuming is one of your favorite passages, I wanted to highlight something. We always want to celebrate good things. He wasn’t in this service; he was in the last service, but Danny Spencer, who has been a member of this church for 20 years, celebrated 24 years sober on Friday night. When Danny first came to this church, not long after that, his life fell apart due to a divorce. Think about the ravages of addiction: Danny limped in here with his whole world in ashes. For 20 years, he has served faithfully as a picture of the victory of Jesus over the brokenness of human hearts, sin, and death. So if you know Danny—and I know a lot of you do—when you see him, congratulate him! We’re one year away from that 25th anniversary, and we’ll celebrate big when it gets here. If you see Danny and know him, tell him congratulations. That’s a huge deal! If you’ve been around addiction, you know how significant it is to overcome it, and then to have everything come back together is a rare, beautiful grace of God. I just wanted to highlight that.

A couple of months ago—well, not even a couple of months ago; it was about a month ago—a good friend of mine, one of my closest friends, actually a family member by marriage, came to my house. It was evident that he was experiencing a kind of renewal in his relationship with the Lord. What I mean by that is, during a season where he has known the love of God and has faithfully followed Jesus for a long time, he found himself in a season where the switch had been turned up. The Bible was coming easy to him, and in prayer, he felt the nearness of Jesus. He was sharing this with me just before dinner. He said he had been reading the Psalms, and every morning he would read them and find his heart captivated by the beauty of Jesus. Then he got into Proverbs and found such wisdom there, and when he reached Isaiah, he was like, «What?» Then he got to Jeremiah and thought, «Huh?» When he reached the Minor Prophets, it felt like he was seeing God having a bad day. He felt as if he were seeing God at His worst. He was describing it as if in the Psalms, it was all about, «Great and worthy are you,» and then he got to Isaiah and Jeremiah, where God says, «I’m going to burn this thing to the ground; I’m killing all of you!» And he was like, «Whoa!"—it took him aback.

You might be thinking, «Why in the world are we going through Malachi? With all that’s going on in the world, why a minor prophet?» Aren’t those guys a bit upset? Even in the five verses you’ve read, Pastor, I’m not interested, or I don’t even know what denim of jackals he’s burning to the ground, but this is the stuff I’m trying to get away from. I’m trying to nestle into a warm, friendly, cuddly Jesus—not the one who burns territories to the ground forever! I think the reason those books don’t land the way they do is that somehow, along the way, we have forgotten—or haven’t been taught—that the 66 books of the Bible are telling a singular story, not 66 different stories.

Because we’re a proof-texting generation—proof-texting means I’m going to take this verse out of its context and make it say what I want it to say. For example, take Jeremiah 29:11: «I know the plans I have for you,» declares the Lord, «plans to prosper you.» Give me that one; I’ll throw it on a coffee cup! But you don’t want to go two chapters to the right or two chapters to the left. Just give me that one verse. How about Philippians 4:13? «I can do all things through Jesus Christ who gives me strength.» Let’s put that on a T-shirt with a football player—it’s just nonsense! He’s actually talking about having been rich and poor, saying he can handle whatever comes his way. But we tend to be proof-texty and lean toward bumper sticker theology—quick little quips.

What ends up happening is that books like Malachi, or certain passages in Scripture, can be extremely confusing if we look at them in isolation, outside their context. The Bible tells one story and continually references back to itself. In fact, let me show you the cross-references in the Bible. Look at that! Isn’t that unbelievable? That’s the Bible reminding you.