Don’t shoot the messenger!
malachi
Main Idea: God loves us and calls us to trust his promises and worship him with all of life.
I. Remember God’s Love (Malachi 1:2-5)
Mal. 1:2–5: “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord.
Rom. 8:35, 38–39: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?...For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
II. Honoring God’s Name (Malachi 1:6-3:18)
Mal. 1:6: 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. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’
1. Honor God in Worship (1:6-2:6)
Your sacrifices are blemished (1:7-11)
Your attitude is apathetic (1:12-13)
You have fallen short of your glorious purpose (1:14)
You approach God with irreverence (2:1-4)
You have been unfaithful in your teaching (2:5-9)
We become what we worship.
2. Honor God in Relationships (2:10-16)
Mal. 2:10–16: Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? 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…You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
We worship in our relationships.
3. Honor God with Your Wealth (3:6-12)
Mal. 3:6–12: “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.
We worship with our wallet.
III. Trust God’s Promises (Malachi 4:1-6)
Mal. 4:1-6: 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. 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. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.
The prophets cry out from the wilderness, and Jesus Christ answers.
